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Molds are ubiquitous in soil, water, and decaying vegetation and can cause devastating infections that are difficult to treat. This review summarizes the epidemiologic profiles, clinical characteristics, and treatment of mold infections of the central nervous system.
Molds are ubiquitous organisms found in soil, water, and decaying vegetation. All have septate, angular, branching hyphae in tissue, with the exception of those in the order Mucorales, which have broad, ribbonlike, nonseptate or hyposeptate hyphae.
• What is the typical mechanism by which fungal infections reach the CNS?
The respiratory tract is usually the portal of entry, with subsequent hematogenous dissemination to the CNS. However, direct inoculation of CNS or paraspinal tissue as a result of surgery, trauma, intravenous drug use, or contaminated medical supplies may also occur in immunocompetent persons. Organisms may also spread to the CNS from adjacent structures, including the sinuses, mastoid, and orbit. Infection of the ethmoid sinuses may lead to cavernous sinus thrombosis as a result of invasion of the emissary veins that drain the sinuses. Hyphae can invade from the ethmoid sinuses through the lamina papyracea and into the periorbital space, thus threatening the eye, extraocular muscles, and posterior apical structures, including the optic nerve. Angioinvasion is common in immunocompromised patients and accounts for the hematogenous dissemination from the lungs that causes focal neurologic deficits.
• What are the characteristics of CNS aspergillosis?
The risk factors for CNS aspergillosis include neutropenia, systemic glucocorticoid treatment, mastoidectomy, spinal anesthesia, and paraspinal glucocorticoid injections. Focal neurologic deficits and seizures caused by stroke or mass effect are the most common clinical manifestations of CNS aspergillosis. Meningeal signs are uncommon, and their presence is indicative of a subarachnoid hemorrhage. CNS aspergillosis should be high on the list of disorders in the differential diagnosis for patients with immunosuppression and focal brain lesions, especially those with characteristic pulmonary infiltrates in whom focal neurologic deficits or focal seizures develop. Recovery of aspergillus from pulmonary lesions with the use of bronchoalveolar lavage or fine-needle aspiration should be pursued when possible. An enzyme immunoassay for detection of galactomannan in serum or bronchoalveolar lavage fluid should be performed when feasible. Galactomannan and 1,3-(beta)-d-glucan may be found in the serum or CSF of patients with CNS aspergillosis. Voriconazole is the first-line treatment for CNS aspergillosis.
Morning Report Questions
Q: What are typical features of cerebral mucormycosis?
A: Cerebral mucormycosis, which is perhaps the most aggressive mold infection of the CNS, constitutes a medical emergency. Diabetes mellitus and iron-overload conditions are distinctive risk factors for the development of mucormycosis. In patients with neutropenia or patients receiving glucocorticoid therapy, mold infections of the CNS develop as sino-orbital infections or through hematogenous dissemination of pulmonary mucormycosis. In contrast, patients with diabetes mellitus usually present with sino-orbital mucormycosis and seldom present with pulmonary or disseminated infection. Among intravenous drug users, CNS mucormycosis is a relatively common cause of intracerebral fungal abscesses. Perhaps more than any other infection, mucormycosis of the ethmoid sinuses may involve all structures along its invasive path, including the orbit and eye, bone, and brain tissue. Because venous drainage of the ethmoid sinuses extends into the cavernous sinuses, ethmoidal mucormycosis carries a high risk of cavernous sinus thrombosis. Successful management of rhinocerebral mucormycosis depends not only on early diagnosis but also on primary antifungal therapy with amphotericin B, reversal of host impairments and timely surgical intervention, when indicated.
Q: What are the features of CNS infection with fusarium species?
A: CNS fusariosis develops predominantly in patients with prolonged neutropenia. These organisms are highly angioinvasive and cause hemorrhagic infarction with strokelike events. Portals of entry include the lungs, sinuses, vascular catheters, and distinctively, periungual lesions (paronychia in patients with neutropenia). Fusarium species are also most frequently associated with fungemia, multiple erythematous nodular cutaneous lesions, and septic arthritis. A definitive mycologic diagnosis can be rapidly established by biopsy and culture of cutaneous lesions. As compared with other mold infections of the CNS, disseminated fusariosis is more commonly associated with bilateral endophthalmitis, which may lead to blindness. Fusarium species vary in their susceptibility to antifungal agents. Voriconazole is licensed for second-line therapy; however, amphotericin B also has been used successfully. | <urn:uuid:3a29ad34-b05e-4729-a777-cd4a09514e36> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blogs.nejm.org/now/index.php/cns-fungal-infections/2014/07/11/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397636.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00028-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906839 | 1,115 | 3.578125 | 4 |
Devils Island, French Guiana
Before they were a notorious penal colony, the Iles de Salut (Islands of Salvation) provided French colonists with a welcome escape from the fever-ridden jungles of the Guiana mainland. Lying ten miles off the coastline, and swept by treacherous ocean currents, the trio of small islands provided a perfect isolated location for incarcerating criminals without danger or expense, since the shark-infested sea and the trackless jungles ashore precluded any possibility of escape. All three islands, popularly known as Devil's Island, were used as a prison from 1852 to 1953. Your day is free to explore the prison ruins or search for signs of the surprisingly abundant wildlife. | <urn:uuid:b80e8170-c047-444c-b995-c0660700c815> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.seabourn.com/luxury-cruise-destinations/PortDetail.action?portCode=DI1&displayPortSelector=true | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399425.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00114-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924817 | 145 | 2.78125 | 3 |
The Curiosity rover has now drilled its second hole in a flat piece of Martian bedrock and obtained a sample for analysis by its on-board laboratory. This is the first time ever that such a drilling has been done on Mars.
A few days ago, Curiosity drilled its first hole as a “mini-drill test” but did not collect any sample material that time. This second hole is deeper than the first, about 6.4 centimetres (2.5 inches), but about the same width as the first one, at 1.6 centimetres (0.63 inches) across.
As John Grunsfeld, NASA associate administrator for the NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, explains, “The most advanced planetary robot ever designed is now a fully operating analytical laboratory on Mars. This is the biggest milestone accomplishment for the Curiosity team since the sky-crane landing last August, another proud day for America.”
Before the sample can be analyzed, some of the material will be used to “scrub” the internal areas of the drill bit assembly, to make sure it is clean and free of any contaminants which may still be there from when Curiosity was still on Earth.
The rest of the sample will then be deposited into the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) and Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instruments. For the first time, a sample from inside Martian sedimentary bedrock will be analyzed by the most advanced laboratory to ever be sent to another planet.
It will be interesting to see the results; Curiosity has already found evidence that this area inside Gale crater was once soaking wet with water and even had a stream running through it a very long time ago. The rover’s main objective is to see whether the environment here could have supported life, at least microbial. These first detailed studies of the ancient bedrock should be another big step toward answering that question. | <urn:uuid:e99df5f0-2f0d-445d-b9bf-32948118128f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://planetaria.ca/2013/02/curiosity-uses-drill-to-collect-first-sample-from-inside-martian-bedrock/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398216.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00139-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953025 | 389 | 3.59375 | 4 |
- Historic Sites
This Is The Place
Retracing the Pioneer Trail in Mormon Utah
April 1993 | Volume 44, Issue 2
When the pioneers died, they were buried in cemeteries just outside town—on bluffs, in pine groves or grassy meadows. Today these plots, fenced off and well tended, are also fixtures of the Mormon landscape. The gravestones often contain evidence of plural marriages (a husband buried together with a number of wives), high infant mortality, and death from violence as well as scraps of Mormon theology. In Spring City, where the cemetery boundaries form an outline of Utah, the inscription on the gravestone of James Meek, who was killed by Indians in 1866, reflects the Mormon belief in a celestial afterlife: “Dear is the Spot Where Father Sleeps/ His memory lives for evermore/Why should we in anguish weep/He is not dead but gone before.”
As I waited in the entry of the 1854 Beehive House, Brigham . Young’s principal residence in Salt Lake City, for the tour to start, a woman in our group raised her hand and asked our guide how many wives the Mormon leader had.
The guide answered correctly: twenty-seven. We know that now, but in his own time the question was the source of endless speculation. Young himself was exasperatingly vague on the subject, so visitors often resorted to counting doors and windows in his houses and extrapolating from there. The humorist Artemus Ward wrote, “I undertook to count the long stockings, on the clothes-line, in his back yard one day, and I used up the multiplication table in less than half an hour.”
With its widow’s walk, cupola, and porches, the Beehive House would not look out of place on a New England common, and, in fact, one of Brigham Young’s visitors, Sir Richard Burton, compared its arrangement to that of a New England household on a large scale. The house is furnished comfortably and tastefully but without ostentation, and a family store in the northeast corner, where a pamphlet about the house explains that “the storekeeper dispensed with fairness the foods and materials for each of the families of Brigham Young,” is one indication that this is not an ordinary home. A photograph, taken about 1873, shows Young, old now, gripping a cane, his dark suit baggy and ill-fitting. Still, behind a fringe of white beard there is the resolute square jaw and the look of a visionary in his eyes.
Although it is Joseph Smith who is immortalized in sphinx form in Gilgal Garden, it was Young who brought the pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley, and the city is unique in America as being one man’s creation. Even Fort Douglas (now partly a military museum), the U.S. Army post on the hills above the city, was established in 1862 as a direct challenge to the power Brigham Young wielded in Zion.
The historical as well as the spiritual center of the faith is Temple Square in Salt Lake City. Young marked the spot only a few days after the Saints had arrived in the valley by striking the ground with his cane and decreeing that the city “be laid out perfectly square, north and south, east and west.”
Today Temple Square, surrounded by fifteen-foot walls, is a refuge in a busy city and one of the great public gardens in the country. (Its flower beds bloom so profusely and continuously that visitors often assume, incorrectly, that they are heated by underground pipes.) All three important buildings in Temple Square were built at Brigham Young’s behest: the great Salt Lake City Temple, completed forty years to the day after ground was broken in 1853; the Tabernacle, with its world-famous acoustics; and Assembly Hall, a Gothic jewel on the south side that Young ordered built three weeks before he died in 1877.
Young was vague on the number of his wives, so visitors counted doors and windows in his houses and guessed.
Just outside the walls of Temple Square, in the middle of the intersection of Main and South Temple streets, a twenty-five-foot-tall bronze statue of Brigham Young surveys the scene. It is the work of the Paris-trained Mormon sculptor Cyrus E. Dallin, commissioned for the Utah Jubilee in 1897. Brigham Young’s pose—his back to the temple, his hand toward a bank—delighted those enemies who were critical of the fortune that the Profit, as they called him, had amassed in Utah.
Brigham Young’s compound included the Lion House, a thick-walled adobe structure (still standing and used for church functions) that he built in 1856 to house various wives and children, as well as a gristmill, granaries, a schoolhouse, and other buildings. A small cemetery, once part of the compound, is now the separate Pioneer Memorial Park, where Brigham Young was buried, according to his wishes, on September 3, 1877: ”… there let my earthly house or tabernacle rest in peace.” | <urn:uuid:7f1a13fd-dc66-4dc7-8558-c0d04d79c8c5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.americanheritage.com/content/place?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00085-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972199 | 1,079 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Aix sponsa Photo Fiona Sunquist ©
Wood ducks are the most abundant resident wild ducks in Florida. Males are brightly colored, while females are a muted gray brown.
Wood ducks prefer wooded wetlands, streams or swampy areas; they feed on floating mast, fruit and seeds of water tupelo, oaks and cypress. They are unusual among ducks in that they are hole nesters. A shortage of nest cavities limits their nesting, but fortunately these ducks readily use nest boxes.
The recovery of wood duck populations is one of North America’s conservation success stories. In the early 1900s the species was almost extinct. Destruction of bottomland hardwood swamps and hunting had decimated wood duck populations across the eastern USA. The recovery began with the passage of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in 1918, which prohibited the hunting of wood ducks nationwide. The wide-scale use of artificial nest boxes also contributed to the wood duck’s recovery and populations rebounded; hunting seasons reopened in 1941.
top of page | back to birds | <urn:uuid:4349099f-26a5-4dee-8dd0-c6c3a195bd5e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wildflorida.com/wildlife/birds/Wood_Duck.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397842.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00022-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939411 | 217 | 3.34375 | 3 |
CPD 16: Quality management systems
The latest in our series of CPD modules focuses on the processes that companies need to implement to maintain quality - and therefore sustainability - throughout their operations. This module is sponsored by the Chartered Quality Institute
How to take this module
To take this module read the technical article below and click through to a multiple-choice questionnaire, once taken you will receive your results and if you successfully pass you will be issued automatically with a certificate to print for your records
What is quality management?
Quality management is vital to the success of an organisation. It enables it to deliver products and services that meet both customers’ requirements and regulations, protecting its reputation while reducing costs and driving improvement. It also helps an organisation to ensure it is operating in the most sustainable way.
Quality management is a combination of activities:
- Quality planning This ensures that quality requirements are addressed throughout the product and service lifecycle
- Quality control This focuses on process outputs to ensure that standards are actually met
- Quality assurance This gives confidence that standards and requirements are being met
- Quality improvement This process is informed by all of the above activities and the requirements of the business.
This CPD will consider the many activities that contribute to effective quality management.
What is a QMS?
A Quality Management System (QMS) is an organisation-wide approach to directing, controlling and coordinating quality. Quality management takes a preventative approach, and an effective QMS will identify the risks to an organisation and provide ways to mitigate them. Risks include:
- Failure in the quality of your product or service
- Failure to deliver the product or service on time
- Failure to deliver the product or service to cost
- Failure to identify trends in customer needs
- Failure to meet legal or regulatory requirements
- Failure of partners and suppliers
- Loss of customer data or property.
In identifying and managing these risks, a QMS provides the following competitive advantages:
- Superior customer satisfaction and loyalty
- Identification and elimination of waste
- Better performance from suppliers
- Employees committed to quality and improvement.
The QMS approaches the organisation as a system of processes which interact to deliver product and service. For each process within the system, a methodology known as Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) can be applied:
- Plan: Establish the objectives and processes necessary to deliver results in line with customer service requirements and company policies
- Do: Implement the process
- Check: Monitor and measure processes necessary to deliver the results
- Act: Take action and continually improve performance.
The QMS helps an organisation to plan for success, and measures and reviews the effectiveness and efficiency of processes to inform improvement. A major misconception is that adopting a QMS demands a large amount of paperwork. Although certain documents are required, the modern QMS can be lean and agile, and should be developed to suit your business in terms of size, complexity and risk.
The international standard
The ISO 9000 series of standards is the main set of international standards applying to the management of quality systems. It includes ISO 9001, the standard against which organisations can achieve third-party certification for a QMS.
To achieve ISO 9001 certification, a company must fulfil a large number of requirements, including:
- Quality leadership A statement demonstrating that an organisation’s quality policy is driven by senior management. This may cover: identification of the customer’s needs; support and standards of performance for subcontractors and suppliers; a focus on prevention rather than dectection; measurement of satisfaction among customers and the supply chain; performance measurement, review and improvement. Leadership also requires senior management commitment to ensuring that the QMS delivers intended outcomes through aspects such as communication of the policy, allocation of responsibilities, and providing adequate training and resources.
- Quality planning Taking into account the commercial context and customer requirements, the QMS will establish “who, what, how and when” the organisation will address risks and opportunities, avoid undesirable effects and achieve desired outcomes.
- Support Establishing the resources required to deliver on the quality policy and objectives throughout the organisation and supply chain, including communicating the different roles of people within the organisation in delivering to the requirements of the QMS.
- Operational planning and control Planning, implementing and controlling internal and outsourced processes to design and deliver product and service.
- Performance evaluation Setting out how work is to be monitored, measured, analysed and evaluated, to establish that the QMS is suitable, adequate and effective. Inputs may include audits, metrics, schedules, non-conformities, complaints, monitoring and measurement results.
- Improvement Dealing with instances of undesirable results and identifying ways to prevent future occurrence. This also includes considering changes in the internal and external environment and how these future risks and opportunities are to be addressed.
Benefits of ISO 9001 certification
In addition to the benefits of effective quality management outlined above, achieving ISO 9001 certification offers a number of further advantages for an organisation:
- Certification can open new markets where it is a customer requirement, as it is among many public and private sector organisations.
- Certification reduces the number, and therefore the cost, of supplier audits. Instead of multiple audits, it involves a single audit, and provides a certificate that is universally recognised by customers (depending on their own policies).
- Certification provides an organisation with an independent view of its QMS performance and its capability to consistently meet customer and regulatory requirements and to continue to improve.
- Certification can provide a level of confidence in the capability of an organisation’s own supply chain to consistently meet its requirements, as well as reducing the cost of the oversight audit that is required.
The Chartered Quality Institute promotes “accredited certification”, which means that the third-party certification operates under the oversight of the United Kingdom Accreditation Service, in the UK, or a similar national accreditation body in other territories. Achieving non-accredited certification may mean that an organisation’s certified status is not recognised by some customers and may not necessarily comply with international standards.
How to take this module
To take this module read the technical article below and click through to a multiple-choice questionnaire, once taken you will receive your results and if you successfully pass you will be issued automatically with a certificate to print for your records.
Deadline: 21 December 2012
About the Chartered Quality Institute
The Chartered Quality Institute (CQI) is the chartered professional body for quality management professionals, representing more than 10,000 professionals working in the field.
CQI supports members’ career development, knowledge and competence through training and qualifications, offering networking opportunities at a branch and regional level, as well as supplying relevant and up-to-date industry knowledge through its bite-sized learning tools.
Membership is open to those working within the construction industry focusing on business improvement, management systems or quality management. CQI has also established a Construction Special Interest Group. The group aims to raise the profile of quality within the construction sector, providing a forum for quality professionals to share experience and knowledge with peers, clients and the supply chain. | <urn:uuid:fb2dd87b-d2b7-446d-9abe-b27db06141c6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bdonline.co.uk/sustainability/ecobuild/cpd-16-quality-management-systems/5045162.article | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397695.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00130-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933225 | 1,469 | 3.109375 | 3 |
But there is good reason to think that this winter's outbreak is different and the season could wind up being remembered as one of the worse ones in modern times.
No, certainly not as bad as the 1918 "Spanish Flu" pandemic that, spread by global demobilization at the end of World War I, killed between 40 and 50 million people worldwide — more deaths than the war itself had caused. But that bit of history is a somber reminder that the flu cannot be taken lightly, especially where it concerns small children, the elderly or those with compromised immune systems. Even in a typical year, flu causes some 35,000 deaths in the U.S. alone.
The flu flare-up this year is not your run-of-the-mill outbreak, even if you discount the warnings as hype.
MAP: Flu is spiking in New York City
In New York State, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has declared a state of emergency, citing a number of cases of influenza statewide fast approaching 20,000 — five times the peak last year — and nearly 3,000 hospitalizations. Two children have died in the state so far and there have been 10 adult deaths in New York City. (Adult flu deaths are not tracked across the state.)
The declaration allows pharmacists to vaccinate patients between six months and 18 years old, and temporarily suspends a state law that restricts pharmacy vaccinations to those 18 years and older.
The governor's declaration and the attention the flu is getting this winter have caused a belated run on the vaccine and consequent shortages are being reported at some venues as those who resisted calls to get vaccinated early on have had a change of heart.
But there's no shortage. There are more doses in production and supplies should be replenished in a matter of days, if not hours. If you or your family members still haven't gotten your flu shots, you'd do well to make arrangements to do so soon.
Unlike what has been seen in other years, this year's dose is said to be have an unusual degree of effectiveness, and getting it can even ease symptoms in those who actually do get the flu.
It was only four years ago that medical authorities were warning of a major worldwide outbreak of a dangerous new strain of swine flu.
The World Health Organization's director general went so far as to say, "It's really all of humanity that's under threat" and other experts made similarly ominous pronouncements. In the United States, a national health emergency was declared.
Then, the number of new cases stabilized and fell off and the authorities scaled back their warnings drastically.
That could happen this year, too, according to some reports. Apparently, health experts were alarmed by the early appearance of the flu bug this season, which caused them to expect a worse-than-usual year. But now, there are signs that the flu may have already peaked in some states, although health officials are reluctant to say so definitively at this early stage.
But whatever the big picture, it doesn't change the reality that you can get the flu. It is all around us, as you can tell from all those people coughing at your job, on the bus or in the supermarket. All it takes is one exposure — even from a flu-contaminated door handle or elevator button or telephone — to become infected.
So get your flu shot if you haven't already, wash your hands thoroughly after coming in contact with anything that other people touch. And hope for the best.
You just may escape the season unscathed, after all.
Follow @siadvance on Twitter | <urn:uuid:f8e5b32a-c6f6-4a3e-bfea-af2dd3ff5a22> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.silive.com/opinion/editorials/index.ssf/2013/01/staten_islanders_would_do_well.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393533.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00171-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974177 | 736 | 2.8125 | 3 |
There are many varieties of eggplant which range from dark purple to pale mauve, and from yellow to white. Varieties of eggplant include Chinese purple, globular, Japanese and Italian Rosa Bianco. The longer purple variety is the most commonly eaten. It is one of the more popular vegetables in the world, and it is a staple of Italian cooking throughout Italy. For hundreds of years, it was grown only in Sicily and southern Italy.
Researchers at the US Agricultural Service in Beltsville, Maryland, have found that eggplants are rich sources of phenolic compounds that function as antioxidants. Plants form such compounds to protect themselves from infection by bacteria and fungi.
Eggplant is available all year, but is best in August and September.
For centuries after its introduction into Europe, eggplant was used more as a decorative garden plant than as a food.
Did you know that at one time, women in the Orient used a black dye made form eggplant to stain their teeth a gun metal gray? The dye probably came from the same dark purple eggplant we see in the marketplace today.
The eggplant is a member of the potato family, and it is known worldwide as aubergine, eggplant, brinjal, melanzana, garden egg, and patlican.
Egg Plant Facts
- Eggplants, named after the fact that the vegetable is shaped like a purple egg, were once thought to be poisonous.
- An eggplant can grow almost to the size of a football.
- Neon is a variety of eggplant with a hot pink hue.
- Ghostbuster is a variety of eggplant that bears oval fruit with white skin.
- Ichiban is a variety of eggplant that bears thin, foot long fruit with deep purple skin.
- The Slim Jim variety of eggplant grows clusters of lavender fruit the size of peanuts.
- The Easter Egg variety of eggplant bears ivory-colored fruit about two inches long that looks exactly like a chicken's eggs.
- In Asian cuisine, the small Chinese eggplant is usually cooked with tofu.
- In West Africa the eggplant is known as the "field egg".
- When preparing eggplant, it is best to avoid frying.
- 1 average-sized eggplant will serve 3 people.
- 1 medium eggplant equals 1 pound
- One pound of eggplant equals 3 to 4 cups chopped eggplant.
One of the oldest references to eggplant occurred in China in the 5th century, when it was recorded on a scroll that Chinese ladies of fashion made a black dye from eggplant to stain their teeth which, after polishing, shone like silver.
Folklore: As a result of the overly bitter taste of the early varieties, people felt that eggplant held the undeserved and inauspicious reputation of being able to cause insanity, leprosy and cancer.
Share This Page | <urn:uuid:de829598-c33b-4792-b861-b52d0b9df24f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bellybytes.com/foodfacts/eggplant_facts.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403502.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00174-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958167 | 603 | 2.734375 | 3 |
This book contains fourteen chapters. Chapter one describes about design, construction and grading system. Chapter two describes about marker making method. Chapter three describes consumption of shirt and pant. Chapter four explains about stitch classes. Chapter five describes about seam and its properties. Chapter six contains fabric spreading process. Chapter seven describes about fabric cutting process. A brief description on feed mechanism described in chapter eight. Chapter nine describes various types of sewing machine and its components. Various types of sewing problem describes in chapter ten. Chapter eleven describes about interlining. Lining described in chapter twelve. Chapter thirteen describes about various types of joining process and finally various types of sewing threads are described in chapter fourteen. Author tries his best to complete this book. If there is any faults are found, please take it as minority basis.
|Book:||Introduction To Apparel Manufacturing|
|Publisher:||VDM Verlag Dr. Müller|
|Number of Pages:||160|
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BookAdda (www.bookadda.com) is a premier online book store in selling books online across India at the most competitive prices. BookAdda sells fiction, business, non fiction, literature, AIEEE, medical, engineering, computer book, etc. The books are delivered across India FREE of cost. | <urn:uuid:8320910a-6fe3-4d16-983c-f225c6790163> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bookadda.com/books/introduction-apparel-manufacturing-md-mahfuzur-3639330544-9783639330540 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398516.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00084-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.877302 | 328 | 2.984375 | 3 |
DistributionRead full entry
Elf owls are often found in the upland deserts of Arizona and Sonora, Mexico, their range also spreads into parts of California, New Mexico and Texas. Most are members of three populations that breed in the area of the United States-Mexico border and spend the winter in southern Mexico. Three other distinct populations exist in southern Baja California and Puebla, Mexico; these populations are nonmigratory.
Biogeographic Regions: nearctic (Native ) | <urn:uuid:86207bd5-73e4-416c-a031-f194f269368f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://eol.org/pages/1046661/overview/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393463.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00156-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945098 | 101 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Paraíba or Paraíba do Sul (dŏ sōl) [key], river, c.650 mi (1,050 km) long, rising as the Paraitinga in the Serra do Mar, São Paulo state, SE Brazil. It flows southwesterly to a point NE of São Paulo city where it makes a hairpin turn and continues in a northeasterly direction through the state of Rio de Janeiro to the Atlantic Ocean near Campos. Below Três Rios it flows through a gorge on the Rio de Janeiro–Minas Gerais border. Its beautiful valley forms a rich agricultural region (site of Brazil's first commercial coffee plantation) as well as a major industrial center of Brazil. The river is used for irrigation, transport, and power generation.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:67f85748-fec4-44b6-8cb5-4379a43dc1f9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.factmonster.com/encyclopedia/world/paraiba-river-brazil.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398516.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00107-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.878451 | 191 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Winter Solstice, one of the 24 Solar Terms, is a traditional Chinese festival that usually falls on December 21st, 22nd or 23rd. On that day, the northern hemisphere has the shortest daytime and longest nighttime. After that, areas in this hemisphere have longer days and shorter nights.
Dumplings are the food of choice during Winter Solstice, especially in northern China. According to legend Zhang Zhongjing, a renowned medical scientist at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25 ñ 220 AD), found his fellow townsmen suffering of hunger in the cold when he returned from his position as prefecture chief in winter. Many of them had terrible chilblains in their ears. On the Winter Festival, he cooked food called Jiao Er with a stuffing of medicine and other ingredients to help fend off the cold for his neighbors and they soon recovered. Later, people learned to recreate the dumplings. Lending some truth to the popular saying that one’s ears will freeze if they don’t have dumplings on Winter Solstice. | <urn:uuid:3bc87b56-f1a8-4051-9582-163ff13252c2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cnto.org/festivals-celebrations/winter-solstice/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00172-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972385 | 218 | 3.453125 | 3 |
The hard disk drive (also known as HDD) of your computer is a device within your computer that stores data that has been created on your system. As you use your computer, data is stored and retrieved from the hard drive making the drive crucial to the function of your computer. Most simply explained, the hard drive functions physically almost like a record player where an arm pivots on an actuator axis and lowers onto an incredibly sensitive disk. The head of the actuator arm reads the information contained on the disk and also writes information as it is created by your computer. This disk is known as a platter and for the hard drive to function properly the read/write head on the end of the arm must be able to read the platter, or System Area. When the head is unable to read the SA the arm begins to move back and forth above the platter and strikes the interior of the hard drive, emitting a clicking or ticking noise. This noise signals that the hard drive is damaged in some way, is dead or is dying and there is limited time to access any important data contained on the hard drive.
In many cases, people who hear this clicking noise attempt to open their hard drive and repair the issue themselves by replacing parts. By repairing the hard drive in this way, there is a chance that it could function for long enough to access data stored on the drive, however this is risky and advised against by computer engineers. The goal of accessing the damaged hard drive is simply to gain enough time to transfer data from the hard drive to an alternate storage system. The data can be transferred to another hard drive or any external hard drive or USB device but the original hard drive will no longer be functional. This is highly discouraged by computer technicians as exposing the hard drive to any urban environment can cause irreparable damage to the sensitive platter. Repairs must be conducted in a cleanroom where the air contains far fewer particles than a normal room to ensure no further damage is caused to the hard drive.
Cleanroom repairs are particularly necessary with RAID Recovery, whether 1, 5 or 10.
The best and safest option is to simply turn off your hard drive immediately after hearing any clicking, ticking or buzzing noises. The hard drive is no longer functional and repeated use of the damaged hard drive Read the rest… | <urn:uuid:f375c4b8-1198-4bef-8fd7-1cdcd1e191c5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.solidarite-palestine.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396538.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00061-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953384 | 466 | 3.421875 | 3 |
For an allergy sufferer, having your lawn or garden invaded by ragweed can be near torture. The ragweed plant (Ambrosia artemisiifolia) is a common weed in yards and is one of the worst for pollen production. Controlling ragweed will not only help to keep your garden looking nice, it will also help alleviate the allergy symptoms for people in and around your garden.
What Does Ragweed Look Like?
Ragweed identification is easy due to the distinct leaves and flowers on the plant. Ragweed is an upright growing plant that has leaves that look almost fern-like, feathery and green. You will also notice that ragweed leaves look hairy.
The flowers on the plant are also useful for ragweed identification. The flowers on ragweed are yellow and long, like streamers. There will normally be several clustered flowers at the top of the plant, which look like a fountain, and also several flowers closer to the bottom. The flowers at the top are the male flowers (which produce the pollen) and the flowers closer to the bottom are the female flowers.
How to Control Ragweed
Ragweed plants like to grow in heavy, untilled soil and are frequently found in soil that is uncrowded and has poor fertility. They also do not tolerate being mowed very well. Because of this, one of the best ways to control ragweed in your lawn and flower beds is to make sure that lawns are mowed regularly and open beds are cultivated or hoed on a regular basis.
Also, improving soil by adding compost and other organic materials will not only keep the soil from getting heavy, but will also add nutrients to keep the soil healthy. Both of these benefits will help to keep ragweed from establishing in your garden.
If ragweed plants have already started growing in your yard, you have several methods for getting rid of them.
Herbicides are a common way how to kill ragweed. Ragweed is considered a broadleaf weed, so you can use broadleaf weed killers on it to help get rid of it. Glyphosate, commonly known as Round-up, is an all spectrum herbicide which will normally kill any plant it comes in contact with. But, in recent years, some varieties of ragweed have started to build up a resistance to these common weed killers, so using herbicides may not be 100% effective.
If you decided to use either one of the kinds of herbicides to kill ragweed, the best time to apply them is mid-spring to early summer. Controlling ragweed at this time will make sure that you are applying the herbicide when the leaves of the plant are still rather immature and tender and, therefore, more susceptible to herbicides.
Hand pulling can be used as an organic way to control ragweed. In a home garden setting, this is the easiest way for controlling ragweed, as the plants are easy to pull and easy to spot. Make sure to pull these weeds out of your garden before they flower. A ragweed plant can produce more than 60,000 seeds if allowed to fully mature. | <urn:uuid:ac59f8d2-910b-400d-8c96-208c47b679e1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/plant-problems/weeds/ragweed-control.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00180-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96609 | 638 | 3.09375 | 3 |
There is no cure for the common cold, or so we've been told. But a recent study led by Sheldon Cohen of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg suggests that if you can't cure it, then find a method of preventing it.
The study, which appeared in the January 12, 2009, issue of Archives of Internal medicine, shows that, of the 153 volunteers, those who slept fewer than eight hours a night were more likely to contract a cold. For two weeks, the volunteers were interviewed daily about the quality and length of their sleep. Then the researchers administered nasal drops containing rhinovirus, which causes the common cold. The study revealed that those who slept the least were more likely to develop a cold. Lack of sleep has long been known to weaken the immune system, but it appears even minor sleep deprivation can allow a person to be attacked by cold viruses.
Ever since the first caveman came down with a sore throat and sniffles, man has searched for a cure for this annoying disorder, with little or no success. The FDA reviewed thousands of nonprescription drugs and, although some of them will ease the symptoms and shorten the length of your suffering, none could be called a cure. Also, be aware of serious side effects, some worse than your cold.
It's not much use seeing your doctor, either. There is no cure for the cold virus. Neither antibiotics nor antihistamines seem to help.
Some of the home remedies may be just as good as prescription or nonprescription drug. First, drink lots of water or fruit juice to loosen congestion. For years, people have sworn by chicken soup to help relieve cold and flu symptoms. Now scientists have discovered that it does have effects that work well in combating the misery. For that dry, hacking cough, try a little honey in lemon and water.
I can remember my public school days. In winter, especially if there seemed to be many kids with colds, she would tie a cheesecloth bag of camphor around my neck to ward off cold germs. It may not have scared away the germs, but it did a good job of scaring away my schoolmates.
The final word: When it's cold season, be sure you get at least eight hours sleep a night. It may not cure a cold, but it is a good preventive.
Published On: January 15, 2009 | <urn:uuid:e63cb9e6-1c24-492e-be16-fca44330f36b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.healthcentral.com/sleep-disorders/c/5954/55671/sleeping | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396872.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00153-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974842 | 486 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Scientists have been getting strange photos of Saturn from the Cassini Spacecraft. The photos show a hexagon in the atmosphere at Saturn's North Pole, which hasn't changed much since Voyager I spotted it 26 years ago, and an eye, resembling a hurricane, at its south pole.
Atmospheric experts at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, are baffled and will continue to study Saturn. Updated information will be forthcoming.
Implications - It is amazing how we can see images and videos from outer space with so much new technology. The featured video is super quick, but gives you a glimpse of "Saturn's eye" and what the scientists are currently trying to figure out. Saturn is a very mysterious planet where much of it is still unknown.
Outer Space Oddities
More Stats +/-
Hot Air Balloon Beds
Solar Car-Sharing Projects
Culinary Inspiration Algorithms | <urn:uuid:673bf070-157a-4304-90da-179be9cb3a27> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/bizzare-eye-upstages-rings-on-saturn | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396887.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00086-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920185 | 188 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Barton, Elizabeth, 1506?–1534, English prophet, called the Maid of Kent or the Nun of Kent. She was a domestic servant who, after a period of illness, began (c.1525) to go into trances and to utter prophecies, which were claimed to be of divine origin. She entered a convent in Canterbury, and, under the influence of Edward Bocking, her prophecies became increasingly dangerous politically. She foretold dire consequences to King Henry VIII should he divorce Katharine of Aragón and marry Anne Boleyn. Bocking probably hoped to stir an uprising against the king, but his protégée was arrested (1533) and brought to confess herself an impostor. She and her accomplices were put to death.
See biography by A. Neame (1971); study by E. J. Devereux (1966).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:ed2b94c4-9cf3-4d38-8ace-83d965cf236a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.factmonster.com/encyclopedia/people/barton-elizabeth.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391766.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00157-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970679 | 205 | 3.171875 | 3 |
No, not the terror of the schoolyard, but the Wedge-tailed Shearwater, Puffinus pacificus. The species ranges widely across the Pacific, as its scientific name suggests, from the Revillagigedo Islands off Mexico to the Japanese Bonin Islands to New South Wales in Australia. But it also occurs in the Indian Ocean, from Aldabra near Madagascar to Western Australia. The species breeds on an extraordinary number of islands, and has a worldwide population of perhaps over five million birds, and this is in spite of declines due to hunting, persecution and introduced species. I first encountered the Wedgie while working on Tern island in French Frigate Shoals, an amazing location to get a whole armful of seabirds (albeit not much else birdwise). They are described as usually nocturnal in Brooke’s Albatrosses and Petrels of the World, but on Tern Island they can easily be seen lounging the day away on the surface. So easily in fact that when planes come to land they, along with the other birds, must be flushed up and away lest they do themselves and the planes an injury.
Coming to join the general loafing on the runway
A close up of a pair. Pairs would often sing, and an ungodly sound it was too! Wedge-tailed_Shearwater07_audio by Tom Tarrant
This guy was puzzled but generally unconcerned when I lay down to take a few shots.
In the air you can see the wedged tail that gives the species its name.
Wedge-tailed Shearwaters generally occur as one of two morphs, a pale morph (like the one pictured above) and a darker morph. At Tern Island the darker morph was much rarer, indeed the paler morph is by far the most common morph in te Pacfic, except in Mexico where the ration is two to one pale to dark. Birds in the southern Pacific and Indian Oceans are predominately dark, however.
Pale and dark morph side-by side.
Intermediate birds can also occur, like this one.
Not another dark morph, but the related Christmas Shearwater (Puffinus nativitatis). This shares the island with the Wedge-tailed Shearwater but can be separated by its smaller overall size and dark chocolate brown plumage. Another difference is that the Christmas Shearwater is a surface breeder whereas the Wedgie breeds in burrows. I’ll do a post on this special little shearwater later on.
Shearwaters are not as accomplished on land as albatrosses and giant petrels, but they can walk.
Wedge-tailed Shearwaters nest in holes dug into the sandy soil. Here a bunch of them are investigating one such burrow.
Because they are burrow-nesters we didn’t often see the chicks, but this nest was under the house where we could take a photo. Just a few days old!
If you liked this post and want to see more great images of birds make sure to check out 10,000 Clicks, our big (and growing) page of galleries here at 10,000 Birds. | <urn:uuid:fd69c4e7-d8c0-43e6-a518-3704222f5076> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://10000birds.com/wonderful-wedgies.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394414.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00068-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954149 | 671 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women are the second leading causes of cancer deaths in the United States. (Only lung cancer is more deadly.) The life-saving potential of early detection has been well established for years, and improved cancer screening methods have helped to reduce the threat.
The researchers have demonstrated that their method is a million times more sensitive than conventional methods, a feature that promises to change dramatically the way proteomics (the study and analysis of protein structure and function) and medical diagnostics are done. The results will be published in the Sept. 26 issue of the journal Science.
"The polymerase chain reaction, which duplicates DNA so it can be analyzed, revolutionized forensics, medicine and biotechnology," said Chad A. Mirkin, director of Northwestern's Institute for Nanotechnology, who led the research team, "but we haven't had anything of comparable sensitivity for proteins. Now we do. This technology will change the way we do cancer diagnostics and treatment."
Biomarkers, like PSA, are known for hundreds of diseases. Using these protein targets, the new method could detect diseases at earlier stages than is possible now. For example, if disease should return in a prostate cancer patient after surgery, Mirkin's method could detect the rise in PSA early on. Also, PSA is found in extremely low concentrations in breast cancer patients, requiring an ultrasensitive screening test for effective detection.
Because proteins, unlike DNA, cannot be chemically duplicated yet, the Northwestern researchers had to develop a method of signaling the presence of a protein. They chose to use DNA as their signal because it can be amplified and read using a number of methods.
Using commercially available materials, the team outfitted a magnetic microparticle and a gold nanoparticle each with the antibody of the protein target, PSA. When in solution, the antibodies "recognize" and bind to PSA, sandwiching the protein between the two particles.
The key is that attached to each tiny gold nanoparticle (just 30 nanometers in diameter) are hundreds to thousands of identical strands of DNA. Mirkin calls this "bar-code DNA" because they have designed it as a label specific to the protein target. After the "particle-protein-particle" sandwich is removed magnetically from solution, the DNA is removed from the sandwich and read using standard DNA detection methodologies.
In the experiments conducted by Mirkin's team, the amount of PSA present was calculated based on the amount of bar-code DNA. The researchers detected approximately 20 PSA molecules in a 10-microliter sample, an illustration of the method's extraordinary sensitivity.
"For each molecule of captured PSA, thousands of DNA strands are released, which is our way of amplifying the signal for a protein target of interest," said Mirkin, also George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry. "There is power in its simplicity. Instead of detecting PSA our method detects the DNA, which gives us a substantial increase in the signal."
Using the new method, a test could be developed for any protein target with a known antibody. A unique "bar-code DNA" label can be created for each target. The technology could be commercially available in two years.
In addition to Mirkin, other authors on the Science paper are Jwa-Min Nam and C. Shad Thaxton, from Northwestern University. The research was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the National Science Foundation. | <urn:uuid:fa0362e6-363d-4603-bd80-b0a08e896e25> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-09/nu-nmc092203.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00064-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947501 | 721 | 3.453125 | 3 |
The Case for World Language Education
In order to create a new program, promote an existing program, or improve a program, or promote world language learning in general, you must be informed! Here we have created a space for a collection of scholarly research, news stories, and language organizations relevant to world language education that you can utilize for support.
Academic articles and reports about language advocacy:
- "Americans Assert Importance of International Education." NAFSA: Association of International Educators. 13 January 2011. http://www.nafsa.org
- Policy Brief: Advancing Public Policies that Support International Education and Exchange. Survey Results Indicate Americans view foreign languages and global knowledge as important to future careers.
- Kristof, Nicholas D. "Opinion: Learning Spanish is a practical life skill." The New York Times, 29 Dec 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/opinion/30kristof.html?src=twrhp
- A movement to have children in the U.S. learn Chinese is overlooking the more pressing need for them to learn Spanish, writes New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. While the "cool factor" of Chinese is pushing schools to add it to their curriculum, Spanish should not be forgotten as an integral part of life in the U.S. "Spanish is a practical add-on to your daily life, meshing with whatever career you choose," writes Kristof, who also speaks Chinese.
- Marmolejo, Francisco. "Deficiency in Foreign Language Competency: What is Wrong with the U.S. Educational System?" The Chronicle of Higher Education, 9 Nov 2010. http://chronicle.com/blogs/worldwise/deficiency-in-foreign-language-competency-what-is-wrong-with-the-u-s-educational-system/27558
- If U.S. colleges and universities are serious about globalization, they need to do more to help their students learn a second language, says Francisco Marmolejo.
- Feal, Rosemary G. "The World Beyond Reach." The Chronicle of Higher Education, 7 Nov 2010. http://chronicle.com/article/The-World-Beyond-Reach-Why/125267/
- "The World Within Reach" is the slogan of the State University of New York at Albany, but its plan to eliminate language programs belies that.
- "The Benefits of Foreign Language Study." Regarding World Language Education. NEA Research, December 2007. http://www.umaine.edu/Flame/BenefitsofSecondLanguage.pdf
- The University of Maine has compiled a collection of research findings and their citations in order to illustrate and defend the benefits of learning a world language
- Frantz, Alan. "Seventeen Values of Foreign Language Study." ADFL Bulletin 28: 1, 44-49. Association of Departments of Foreign Languages, 1996. http://web2.adfl.org/adfl/bulletin/v28n1/281044.htm
- Frantz surveyed college level world language instructors and asked them to rank the importance of seventeen commonly mentioned values of learning world languages, as well as to add any others they believed were missing, and the time they believed would be necessary to accomplish those values.
- Marcos, Kathleen M. and Peyton, Joy Kreeft. "Promoting a Language Proficient Society: What You Can Do." CAL Digest. ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics, April 2000. http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/0001promoting.html
- CAL provides ideas as well as further articles for parents, teachers, administrators, policymakers, and the community in order to promote world language study.
- "A Rationale For Foreign Language Education." The National Council of State Supervisors
of Foreign Languages, 2010. http://www.ncssfl.org/papers/index.php?rationale
- The NCSSFL provides a position statement on the importance of world language education and its subsequent benefits.
- Rhodes, Nancy C. and Pufahl, Ingrid. "Foreign Language Teaching in US Schools: Results of a National Survey." Center for Applied Linguistics. Foreign Language Teaching in US Schools, November 2009. http://www.cal.org/projects/Exec%20Summary_111009.pdf
- The online Executive Summary provided here explains the results of CAL's national survey which documented the numbers and types of world language programs, which languages were being taught, curriculum types, and classroom scheduled time for world language instruction.
News articles about world languages and world language education:
- Abruscato, Lurdes. "The foreign language dilemma: Sí or oui?" The Washington Post 9 June 2011. Web. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-foreign-language-dilemma-si-or-oui/2011/06/08/AGIBecMH_blog.html
- Anderson, Nick. "Obama: Revise No Child Left Behind Law." The Washington Post 14 March 2010. Web. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/13/AR2010031301137.html
- Balderrama, Anthony. "Eight industries needing bilingual workers." CNN 10 Sept 2008. Web. http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/worklife/09/10/cb.industries.bilingual/index.html
- Baig, Edward C. "Bringing up Baby- Bilingually." BusinessWeek 25 Aug 1997. Web. http://www.businessweek.com/1997/34/b3541220.htm
- Berger, Joseph. "Building a Nation of Polyglots, Starting With the Very Young." The New York Times 14 Nov. 2007: 1-2. Web. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/education/14education.html?_r=2&ex=1195707600&en=841e2350028627d8&ei=5070&emc=eta1
- Budig, Gene A. "Foreign language study vital to U.S. Students." LJ World 8 May 2010. http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2010/may/08/foreign-language-study-vital-us-students/
- Chetwynd, Catherine. "Why a second language is crucial in business." Executive Magazine 10 Jul 2010. Web. http://www.execdigital.com/business/strategy/why-second-language-crucial-business
- Dreifus, Claudia. "The Bilingual Advantage" New York Times 30 May 2011. Web. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/science/31conversation.html?_r=2
- Duncan, Arne. "US Secretary of Education on Global Learning, Languages." Asia Society 26 May 2010. http://asiasociety.org/education-learning/policy-initiatives/national-initiatives/us-secretary-education-global-learning-la
- Gangat, Sharmeen. "Learning another language." Gotham Gazette April 2009. Web. http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/education/20090410/6/2879
- Geraghty, Jim. "Avoiding an Unneeded Flap over FLAP." National Review Online 14 June 2011. Web. http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/269355/avoiding-unneeded-flap-over-flap-jim-geraghty
- Landers, Jim. "In business, English necessary but not always sufficient." Dallas News 18 Dec 2008. Web. http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/columnists/jlanders/stories/DN-landers_16bus.ART.State.Edition1.4a5514f.html
- Livaccari, Chris. "Your Brain on Languages." Asia Society October 2010. Web. http://asiasociety.org/education-learning/world-languages/-american-schools/your-brain-languages
- Met, Myriam. "Improving Student's Capacity in Foreign Languages." Asia Society 13 Sept 2008. Web. http://asiasociety.org/education-learning/world-languages/in-american-schools/improving-students%e2%80%99-capacity-foreign-language
- Peckham, Robert D. "Foreign Languages: An Essential Core Experience." no date. Web. http://www.utm.edu/staff/bobp/french/flsat.html
- Peckham, Robert D. "$$World Languages = Career Opportunities$$." no date. Web. http://www.utm.edu/staff/bobp/french/forlang=$.html
- "Sen. Barack Obama on learning foreign languages." Youtube 8 Jul 2008. Web. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdxP85ouT9c
Advocacy pages for educational, cultural, and language organizations: | <urn:uuid:b2ec0ac1-4085-44f0-9981-6638e389378b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.aatsp.org/?page=adv_beinformed | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396027.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00121-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.808934 | 1,980 | 2.546875 | 3 |
FAMOUS RUSSIAN SPACE DOGS BELKA and STRELKA on STAMPS
|On August 19th, 1960, Belka and Stelka were blasted into
orbit and later returned safely to Earth in a prototype of
the Vostok capsule which was being developed for
manned flights. Given a sporting chance, Laika's canine
comrades successfully tested two critical systems, the
re-entry capsule and its parachute system.
|Because of the successful return to Earth and the
on-orbit TV images, Belka and Strelka received a lot of
Press coverage and are well known space dogs, second
only to Laika. After their deaths, the bodies of Belka and
Strelka were preserved.-(see above) They are located at
the Memorial Museum of Astronautics in Moscow. Strelka
is often sent out as a traveling exhibit by the museum.
|Canine Comrades (left to right) Belka, Strelka and Laika are
the most famous Russian Space Dogs.
body of Strelka | <urn:uuid:38686adf-2f40-49bd-b25a-98ee9718d4a6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cold-war-sputnik-soviet-space-dog-laika.com/Belka_and_Strelka_stamps.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00024-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946564 | 230 | 2.765625 | 3 |
is rich in ocean and desert life. Nature and culture present interest
points for those inclined or one may discover blank landscapes
which are reminiscent of the moon surface.
relics, rum and rhythm drip down Havana's streets nonstop like
the rhythm of the dripping faucets in the antiquated still-standing
Land and water movement create mountains, valleys, coastlines,
bays and deltas. Theoretically, tetonic plates or land masses
push and slide against each other to, well, create California. | <urn:uuid:f89390b1-d9cb-431d-b616-51a0b161c607> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ooto.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397696.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00021-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.819586 | 110 | 2.515625 | 3 |
This fine white flour is made from maize and is known as cornstarch in America. Its main use is as a thickening agent and due to its fine texture it is less likely to form in lumps than ordinary flour. Another advantage that cornflour has over plain flour as a thickening agent is that it is flavourless so can be used to thicken delicately flavoured dishes. When cornflour is added to a liquid it will take on a cloudy appearance - so it is best not to use cornflour to thicken clear sauces or soups. Arrowroot can be used to thicken clear liquids where a translucent finish is required.
Uses: To thicken stews, casseroles, soups and sweet and savoury sauces.
To prepare: Cornflour should be blended with a little cold water before adding to any liquid. Blend 1 tsp cornflour with 2 tbsp of water to a smooth paste, and add to the dish off the heat. Return to the heat, stirring all the time until it thickens. Add more cornflour paste until the required thickness is reached.
To store: Keep in a cool, dry, dark place for up to 1 year. | <urn:uuid:fc331824-1d39-4c83-a352-ef38b9887c21> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.waitrose.com/content/waitrose/en/home/recipes/food_glossary/cornflour.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00080-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942303 | 249 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Egyptians Remain Optimistic, Embrace Democracy and Religion in Political Life
Chapter 1. National Conditions and Views About the Future
The Egyptian national mood improved dramatically following the February 2011 resignation of Hosni Mubarak, and today Egyptians remain generally positive about their country’s path and its future prospects. Still, less than half say things have actually gotten better for Egyptians since Mubarak left office, and few describe the current economic situation as good. Moreover, lower-income Egyptians are decidedly less upbeat about current conditions in the country, as well as its future direction.
The survey finds little consensus regarding what the future may hold for women and religious minorities under a government led by the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP). A 40%-plurality says women will have more rights, while a similar percentage say religious minorities will have fewer rights.
National Mood Still Mostly Positive
On balance, Egyptians believe the country is currently headed in the right direction, with 53% saying they are satisfied with the way things are going in the country, down from 65% in 2011, but still considerably higher than in the final years of the Mubarak era.
Low-income Egyptians are more downbeat about the state of the nation. Only 42% of those with a low household income are satisfied with the country’s direction, compared with 64% of those in the high- income category and 60% of middle-income respondents.2 Last year, low-, middle-, and high-income Egyptians were about equally satisfied with the way things were going in the country.
Views about the country’s direction are also related to education. Roughly two-thirds of college graduates (66%) are satisfied with the way things are going, compared with 53% of those with a secondary education and 46% of Egyptians with a primary education or
Egyptians, on balance, remain hopeful about the future: 52% say they are optimistic, just 18% are pessimistic, and 28% volunteer they are neither pessimists nor optimists. This is very similar to last year, when 57% were optimistic, 16% pessimistic, and 26% said neither.
Optimism is especially common among wealthier Egyptians. Nearly two-thirds (65%) of those with high incomes are positive about the future, compared with 51% of middle- and 49% of low-income respondents.
Economy Seen as Weak, But Most Remain Optimistic
Views about Egypt’s economy are largely negative. Only 27% describe the national economic situation as good, down from 34% last year.
However, while few believe the nation’s current economic situation is good, half of Egyptians expect it to improve over the next 12 months, down slightly from 2011 when 56% believed the country’s economy would improve in the coming year. Currently, just 20% think the Egyptian economy will worsen in the next 12 months, while 28% expect it to stay about the same.
Poor Egyptians are less optimistic. While 57% of both high- and middle-income Egyptians expect the economy to improve, just 42% of low-income respondents share this view.
Mixed Assessments of the Post-Mubarak Era
Less than half of Egyptians say things have improved in the country since Mubarak was forced from office. Just over four-in-ten (44%) say Egypt is better off now that Mubarak is not in power, 26% believe the country is worse off, and another 26% say things are neither better nor worse.
Opinions on this question are closely linked to how people assess the national economy. Fully 76% of those who say the economy is in good shape believe things are better since Mubarak was deposed. In contrast, only 32% of those describing the economy as bad believe the country is better off now that Mubarak is out of power.
The Future for Women and Religious Minorities
Opinions are mixed about what the future will be like for women and religious minorities in a political environment dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and its political party, the FJP. A 40%-plurality thinks women will have more rights under a FJP-led government than they have had in the past; 27% say they will have fewer rights; and 31% say they will have about the same rights. Men and women generally share the same views on this question.
Meanwhile, 40% of Egyptians think religious minorities will have fewer rights under an FJP government. Only 22% believe religious minorities will have more rights and 35% believe they will have about the same rights as they do now.
- For income, respondents are grouped into three categories of low, middle and high. Low-income respondents are those with a reported monthly household income of 1,000 Egyptian pounds or less, middle-income respondents fall between the range of 1,001 to 2,500 Egyptian pounds per month, and those in the high-income category earn 2,501 Egyptian pounds or more per month. ↩ | <urn:uuid:48327b9f-5fe1-4286-a2a7-8b3333b568df> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/05/08/chapter-1-national-conditions-and-views-about-the-future/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00078-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965744 | 1,018 | 2.8125 | 3 |
- Year Published: 1883
- Language: English
- Country of Origin: England
- Source: Stevenson, R. L. (1883). Treasure Island. London, England: Cassell and Co.
- Flesch–Kincaid Level: 7.0
- Word Count: 2,008
Stevenson, R. (1883). Part Three: My Shore Adventure, Chapter 14: The First Blow. Treasure Island (Lit2Go Edition). Retrieved June 30, 2016, from
Stevenson, Robert Louis. "Part Three: My Shore Adventure, Chapter 14: The First Blow." Treasure Island. Lit2Go Edition. 1883. Web. <>. June 30, 2016.
Robert Louis Stevenson, "Part Three: My Shore Adventure, Chapter 14: The First Blow," Treasure Island, Lit2Go Edition, (1883), accessed June 30, 2016,.
I was so pleased at having given the slip to Long John that I began to enjoy myself and look around me with some interest on the strange land that I was in.
I had crossed a marshy tract full of willows, bulrushes, and odd, outlandish, swampy trees; and I had now come out upon the skirts of an open piece of undulating, sandy country, about a mile long, dotted with a few pines and a great number of contorted trees, not unlike the oak in growth, but pale in the foliage, like willows. On the far side of the open stood one of the hills, with two quaint, craggy peaks shining vividly in the sun.
I now felt for the first time the joy of exploration. The isle was uninhabited; my shipmates I had left behind, and nothing lived in front of me but dumb brutes and fowls. I turned hither and thither among the trees. Here and there were flowering plants, to me; here and there I saw snakes, and one raised his head from a ledge of rock and hissed at me with a noise not unlike the spinning of a top. Little did I suppose that he was a deadly enemy and that the noise was the famous rattle.
Then I came to a long thicket of these oaklike trees—live, or evergreen, oaks, I heard afterwards they should be called—which grew low along the sand like brambles, the boughs curiously twisted, the foliage compact, like thatch. The thicket stretched down from the top of one of the sandy knolls, spreading and growing taller as it went, until it reached the margin of the broad, reedy fen, through which the nearest of the little rivers soaked its way into the anchorage. The marsh was steaming in the strong sun, and the outline of the Spy-glass trembled through the haze.
All at once there began to go a sort of bustle among the bulrushes; a wild duck flew up with a quack, another followed, and soon over the whole surface of the marsh a great cloud of birds hung screaming and circling in the air. I judged at once that some of my shipmates must be drawing near along the borders of the fen. Nor was I deceived, for soon I heard the very distant and low tones of a human voice, which, as I continued to give ear, grew steadily louder and nearer.
This put me in a great fear, and I crawled under cover of the nearest live-oak and squatted there, hearkening, as silent as a mouse.
Another voice answered, and then the first voice, which I now recognized to be Silver’s, once more took up the story and ran on for a long while in a stream, only now and again interrupted by the other. By the sound they must have been talking earnestly, and almost fiercely; but no distinct word came to my hearing.
At last the speakers seemed to have paused and perhaps to have sat down, for not only did they cease to draw any nearer, but the birds themselves began to grow more quiet and to settle again to their places in the swamp.
And now I began to feel that I was neglecting my business, that since I had been so foolhardy as to come ashore with these desperadoes, the least I could do was to overhear them at their councils, and that my plain and obvious duty was to draw as close as I could manage, under the favourable ambush of the crouching trees.
I could tell the direction of the speakers pretty exactly, not only by the sound of their voices but by the behaviour of the few birds that still hung in alarm above the heads of the intruders.
Crawling on all fours, I made steadily but slowly towards them, till at last, raising my head to an aperture among the leaves, I could see clear down into a little green dell beside the marsh, and closely set about with trees, where Long John Silver and another of the crew stood face to face in conversation.
The sun beat full upon them. Silver had thrown his hat beside him on the ground, and his great, smooth, blond face, all shining with heat, was lifted to the other man’s in a kind of appeal.
“Mate,” he was saying, “it’s because I thinks gold dust of you—gold dust, and you may lay to that! If I hadn’t took to you like pitch, do you think I’d have been here a-warning of you? All’s up—you can’t make nor mend; it’s to save your neck that I’m a-speaking, and if one of the wild uns knew it, where’d I be, Tom—now, tell me, where’d I be?”
“Silver,” said the other man—and I observed he was not only red in the face, but spoke as hoarse as a crow, and his voice shook too, like a taut rope—”Silver,” says he, “you’re old, and you’re honest, or has the name for it; and you’ve money too, which lots of poor sailors hasn’t; and you’re brave, or I’m mistook. And will you tell me you’ll let yourself be led away with that kind of a mess of swabs? Not you! As sure as God sees me, I’d sooner lose my hand. If I turn agin my dooty—”
And then all of a sudden he was interrupted by a noise. I had found one of the honest hands—well, here, at that same moment, came news of another. Far away out in the marsh there arose, all of a sudden, a sound like the cry of anger, then another on the back of it; and then one horrid, long-drawn scream. The rocks of the Spy-glass re-echoed it a score of times; the whole troop of marsh-birds rose again, darkening heaven, with a simultaneous whirr; and long after that death yell was still ringing in my brain, silence had re-established its empire, and only the rustle of the redescending birds and the boom of the distant surges disturbed the languor of the afternoon.
Tom had leaped at the sound, like a horse at the spur, but Silver had not winked an eye. He stood where he was, resting lightly on his crutch, watching his companion like a snake about to spring.
“John!” said the sailor, stretching out his hand.
“Hands off!” cried Silver, leaping back a yard, as it seemed to me, with the speed and security of a trained gymnast.
“Hands off, if you like, John Silver,” said the other. “It’s a black conscience that can make you feared of me. But in heaven’s name, tell me, what was that?”
“That?” returned Silver, smiling away, but warier than ever, his eye a mere pin-point in his big face, but gleaming like a crumb of glass. “That? Oh, I reckon that’ll be Alan.”
And at this point Tom flashed out like a hero.
“Alan!” he cried. “Then rest his soul for a true seaman! And as for you, John Silver, long you’ve been a mate of mine, but you’re mate of mine no more. If I die like a dog, I’ll die in my dooty. You’ve killed Alan, have you? Kill me too, if you can. But I defies you.”
And with that, this brave fellow turned his back directly on the cook and set off walking for the beach. But he was not destined to go far. With a cry John seized the branch of a tree, whipped the crutch out of his armpit, and sent that uncouth missile hurtling through the air. It struck poor Tom, point foremost, and with stunning violence, right between the shoulders in the middle of his back. His hands flew up, he gave a sort of gasp, and fell.
Whether he were injured much or little, none could ever tell. Like enough, to judge from the sound, his back was broken on the spot. But he had no time given him to recover. Silver, agile as a monkey even without leg or crutch, was on the top of him next moment and had twice buried his knife up to the hilt in that defenseless body. From my place of ambush, I could hear him pant aloud as he struck the blows.
I do not know what it rightly is to faint, but I do know that for the next little while the whole world swam away from before me in a whirling mist; Silver and the birds, and the tall Spy-glass hilltop, going round and round and topsy-turvy before my eyes, and all manner of bells ringing and distant voices shouting in my ear.
When I came again to myself the monster had pulled himself together, his crutch under his arm, his hat upon his head. Just before him Tom lay motionless upon the sward; but the murderer minded him not a whit, cleansing his blood-stained knife the while upon a wisp of grass. Everything else was unchanged, the sun still shining mercilessly on the steaming marsh and the tall pinnacle of the mountain, and I could scarce persuade myself that murder had been actually done and a human life cruelly cut short a moment since before my eyes.
But now John put his hand into his pocket, brought out a whistle, and blew upon it several modulated blasts that rang far across the heated air. I could not tell, of course, the meaning of the signal, but it instantly awoke my fears. More men would be coming. I might be discovered. They had already slain two of the honest people; after Tom and Alan, might not I come next?
Instantly I began to extricate myself and crawl back again, with what speed and silence I could manage, to the more open portion of the wood. As I did so, I could hear hails coming and going between the old buccaneer and his comrades, and this sound of danger lent me wings. As soon as I was clear of the thicket, I ran as I never ran before, scarce minding the direction of my flight, so long as it led me from the murderers; and as I ran, fear grew and grew upon me until it turned into a kind of frenzy.
Indeed, could anyone be more entirely lost than I? When the gun fired, how should I dare to go down to the boats among those fiends, still smoking from their crime? Would not the first of them who saw me wring my neck like a snipe’s? Would not my absence itself be an evidence to them of my alarm, and therefore of my fatal knowledge? It was all over, I thought. Good-bye to the Hispaniola; good-bye to the squire, the doctor, and the captain! There was nothing left for me but death by starvation or death by the hands of the mutineers.
All this while, as I say, I was still running, and without taking any notice, I had drawn near to the foot of the little hill with the two peaks and had got into a part of the island where the live-oaks grew more widely apart and seemed more like forest trees in their bearing and dimensions. Mingled with these were a few scattered pines, some fifty, some nearer seventy, feet high. The air too smelt more freshly than down beside the marsh.
And here a fresh alarm brought me to a standstill with a thumping heart. | <urn:uuid:3aa63b2e-c93a-4c87-97f4-b05203648a97> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/81/treasure-island/5502/part-three-my-shore-adventure-chapter-14-the-first-blow/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398516.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00066-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980317 | 2,711 | 2.671875 | 3 |
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The Clean Air Act requires the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) to set National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for pollutants that cause or contribute to air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health and welfare. The U.S. EPA has set NAAQS for the six criteria pollutants (carbon monoxide, particulate matter, lead, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, and sulfur dioxide).
Nonattainment areas are regions within the country where measured concentrations of one or more criteria pollutants exceeds the NAAQS or contribute significant amounts of pollutants to an area that measures air quality that exceeds the standard. If a state has nonattainment areas within its borders, the state must submit a State Implementation Plan (SIP) to U.S. EPA detailing steps necessary to achieve the standard. Nonattainment areas which are later designated to attainment are considered maintenance areas. Specific nonattainment history for each of the criteria pollutants for the State of Indiana is provided below. | <urn:uuid:b395cd8a-ee74-49d5-b291-b04e8c892e4d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://in.gov/idem/airquality/2339.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00183-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.882262 | 242 | 3.140625 | 3 |
Wreath Laid to Commemorate Confederate Memorial Day
June third is Confederate Memorial Day in Tennessee, a "special day of observance" as declared in the Tennessee Code Annotated and as proclaimed by Gov. Bredesen. To honor the patriotic troops who served the Confederacy with honor and distinction, the Savage-Goodner Camp, Sons of Confederate Veterans in DeKalb County has placed wreaths to mark the occasion at the Confederate monument on the south side of the DeKalb County Courthouse, the grave of the Unknown Confederate Soldier in the Smithville Town Cemetery, and at the John Hunt Morgan Confederate Monument on the public square in Alexandria.
The designation of June third as Confederate Memorial Day stems from that date being the birthday of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America. This year holds special significance as it marks the 200th anniversary of the distinguished statesman's birth. Events are being held all over the South in recognition of one of the truly great political servants of his generation.
Most people do not know about the greatness of the man who would ascend to the Confederacy's highest office. For example, American history books do not tell of Jim Limber, a young mulatto slave boy whom Davis' wife, Varina, rescued from an abusive slave owner. The Davises informally adopted young Jim, who took the Davis family name. He resided with the family until the end of the War between the States when Union soldiers forcibly took Jim away. The Davises spent much of the rest of their lives trying to locate their adopted son, but what happened to him remains a mystery. Such is the "true" history of the South that is almost always left out of the history books. | <urn:uuid:41ef1d20-bd3d-4a75-8876-0e88ef3839a4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wjle.com/news/2008/wreath-laid-commemorate-confederate-memorial-day | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00014-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959747 | 349 | 2.703125 | 3 |
May 10, 2014
Mars Panorama Selfie — Curiosity Rover — Martian Solar Day 613 (April 27, 2014)
From Andrew Bodrov:
Curiosity Rover's Self Portrait at "Windjana" Drilling Site
Everybody's doing selfies: Curiosity's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) took frames on Sol 613 (April 27, 2014).
Windjana is a possible target for drilling on a sandstone outcrop at Mount Remarkable.
The rover's robotic arm is not visible in the mosaic. MAHLI, which took the component images for this mosaic, is mounted on a turret at the end of the arm. Wrist motions and turret rotations on the arm allowed MAHLI to acquire the mosaic's component images. The arm was positioned out of the shot in the images or portions of images used in the mosaic. Please check video explanation by NASA.
The images for full panorama obtained by the rover's 34-millimeter Mast Camera. The mosaic, which stretches about 30,000 pixels width, includes 138 images taken on Sol 610.
[Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech MSSS]
May 10, 2014 at 04:01 AM | Permalink
The comments to this entry are closed. | <urn:uuid:60cde8b2-e464-4d6e-a38c-79718e7b2c7c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bookofjoe.com/2014/05/mars-panorama-selfie-curiosity-rover-martian-solar-day-613-april-27-2014.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397111.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00116-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.840657 | 263 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Now we can get specific. This is a low-tech, simple and traditional way of dealing with a common equine lameness problem: namely, a hoof abscess.
Because horses are built the way they are, with big bodies balanced on relatively spindly legs and rigid, keratinous hooves, any injury or infection in the leg or even the body has only one direction to go: downward. But the bottom of the structure is closed, protected by a quarter-inch or so of mutated toenail.
This means that a pocket of infection ends up in a locked box–and the sensitive tissues inside are full of nerve endings that scream under pressure. Result: sudden, acute, leg in the air, ai-ai-ai lameness. If the horse is lucky, his caretakers diagnose the abscess right away (having excluded other possibilities such as stone bruise, tendon damage, trauma, etc.), and will move in with the hoof knife and the sharp-pointed hoof pick and dig until they find a soft or rotten-feeling spot in the sole. The horse will assist by jerking back strongly when the tester finds the spot.
It’s the pitted spot just above the curved indentation (which in this case is a truncated frog–point of V cut out by farrier as part of process of removing thumbtack-like tiny stone embedded underneath–a puncture wound and the proximate cause of the infection).
Here’s a closer look:
That reddish bit is the sensitive tissue of the hoof, through which the abscess is draining.
The one good thing about an abscess is, once it blows, the relief from pain is immediate. There may be lingering soreness but the acute agony disappears. The horse is usually walking sound in very short order.
The exercise at the time of the photo session was to determine if there was drainage. Horse by then was moving sound and showing no signs of pain. The choices for the treatment were: poultice to draw the rest of the abscess, or spray with iodine (seven-percent solution!) and cover to help toughen the sole and heal the abscess. Puffy ankle and enlarged abscess since previous day indicated poultice.
Options for a drawing poultice are numerous. Some vets swear by “sugardine”: a paste of sugar and povidone iodine. Epsom salts are popular, too–either a simple paste with water, or this stuff, which is a combination of epsom salts and methyl salicylate. For the record, it smells like wintergreen and has the texture of overworked taffy. (Pardon my blur, I had horse “helping” by headbutting me for treats.)
This got smeared on the well-cleaned, brushed and dry hoof, and then padded with gauze (cotton also works but tends to get stuck and rather messy at removal).
Horse was very patient.
Next, the wrap. It needs to breathe and flex, so while one could use a leather or vinyl boot, cloth is much better. This was half a dishtowel folded in half for a size 0 foot. Cheery gingham because we’ve been doing this for two weeks and are [a] running out of shop towels and [b] getting punchy.
Taped the front together so it wouldn’t all fly off. Doing it blindly–from my angle, I could see his sole but not his front.
Duct tape: the fabric of the universe.
It’s important to reinforce the toe because that’s what hits the ground first. Wrap can wear off and fly apart there and come off. We don’t want that with debrided sole and open abscess.
And then wrap the top. With more towel it’s one wrap around the top, but with a smaller one like this, it’s a couple of angles to secure the whole thing.
That’s not exactly elegant, but it’s not going anywhere.
With bandage scissors, cut a couple of gussets up top in front, so the part above the hoof can move and breathe, and that’s good for two days. To remove, simply cut down the front with the trusty bandage scissors, peel off, and discard.
See slight puffiness in ankle? Still working on that abscess. He had the stone in his foot for two weeks, the first set of diagnostics having failed to find it (it was very small and very well hidden), so it’s taken a while for everything to clear. He had his sole removed around the abscess two weeks ago here, and that has grown back nicely. Another few days and he can get out of the wrap and start getting back to work.
As a writer of course, I like to extrapolate. In a culture that has no duct tape, one might fashion a boot out of cloth, measure it to the foot, then remove and stitch the front where the first piece of tape went. Stitch the toe as well, for strength. Pull back onto hoof and secure around the pastern with strip of bandage. Tie or clip. Voila.
As for the poultice, any drawing herb or potion will do. Pad with more bandage, gauze, cotton or tree fluff, whatever is handy. Check in two to three days. Redo if still draining. It smells about like what you would expect drainage from an infection to smell like. When it stops smelling like that, the hole should close fairly rapidly and the horse should be healed within a week or two.
In the meantime, horse might get some form of medication. Antibiotics if the technological level allows it. Homeopathic treatment, perhaps: silicea is the nostrum recommended for abscesses in horses. Massage of the leg and ankle to help move the drainage downward.
And of course, rewards for the horse who stands so patiently through it all. They do appreciate relief of pain, and many seem to understand what all the pushing and pulling (and fumbling and cussing) is for. | <urn:uuid:1971913d-b864-4789-ab95-7ed73d978380> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://bookviewcafe.com/blog/2012/10/29/the-horse-doctor-is-in/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397795.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00012-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950796 | 1,306 | 2.515625 | 3 |
An Electric Eel Lights Up The Living Planet Aquarium’s Christmas Tree
Well now, this is cool! The Living Planet Aquarium located just outside of Salt Lake City has done something quite unique for the holidays. They have shocked their visitors with their latest Christmas display which uses an electric eel to flash the lights on the tree!
Parents, if you have any plans of going to Salt Lake City, now is the time!
The holiday display located in the “Journey To South America” gallery is blinking by using the energy generated by an electric eel in a nearby tank. Every time the eel moves, the 4 strands of lights on the 5ft tall tree flash.
“We took the voltage produced by the eel via stainless steel electrodes and used it to power a sequencer,” said Terry Smith, Project Manager at Cache Valley Electric. “The sequencer takes the voltage the eel produces and operates circuitry that flashes the lights, fast or slow, based on the level of voltage he puts out,” said Smith.
Electric eels contain electric organs with about 6,000 specialized cells called electrocytes that store power like tiny batteries. When threatened or attacking prey, these cells will discharge simultaneously, emitting a burst of at least 600 volts, five times the power of a standard U.S. wall socket.
The electric eel Christmas display will be available to visitors through December 31, 2011, however the eel itself will remain in the South American exhibit long after. | <urn:uuid:5865111b-8aa3-49d7-8bea-f135a7b6f0aa> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.childmode.com/2011/12/21/an-electric-eel-lights-up-the-living-planet-aquariums-christmas-tree/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00081-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929578 | 313 | 2.578125 | 3 |
RHODES Island Greece
History of Rhodos
By Teo Boyianos
histoty of Rhodes and the Rhodians,mist over the Centauries.
The Rodians ,Greeks in origin and in creative spirit,exalted their
civilization to it's zenith,talking about other peoples, long long before
A thousand years Before Christ ,the Greeks
of Ionia and all Asia Minor ,founded the createst civilization in
the undoubtebly Greek Aegean sea and the Miditerranean sea.
Behold in a few simple words ,precisely
dated ,the innsuperable history of Rhodos
and it's Greek Rhodian inhabitants,from 1500
B.C. until today
1500 B.C. The Mycenanean Greeks conquer the island ,starting from
Argos ,Peleponese,crable of purely Greek people.
1100 B.C. The Rhodians Greeks under the mythical ancestor
Tlepolemos,Settled in Rhodes.They established three malor cities-states:
IALYSSOS, LINDOS, and KAMIROS. Those three states over our
the island ,have been constantly revealing, yesterday and today,trought
three thousand years,and Greek creation over our blessed island
700 B.C.Those three commercial and maritime,both Greek and
civilized cities, founded the Doric Exapolis,which was the first E.E.C.
withn Europian boundaries.
650 B.C. In Lindos.,Cleovoulos,one of the Seven Wise Men of
ancient Greece ,is born
600 B.C. The Lindians creted colonies in the Mediterranean sea
and the Aegean, illuminating it with the Greek light and the Greek
Thinking and Creation.
491 B.C. The Percians conquered the island of Rhodes but not
Lindos and her well know Acropolis.protected by Lindian Athena
480 B.C. Rhodian soldiers participated with 40 ships in the
Batlle of Salamina.Greece is saved again from it's enemies thus
contimuing it;s God-pleasing civilizing work.
479 B.C. The Rhodians accede to the Athenian alliance,in this way
all the Greeks united the miracle of the so-called classical Greece and
the triumph of Greek Art ,Philosophy,Satuary Sculpture and pottery
464 B.C.The Ialyssian athlete Diagoras, wins a glorious victory
and Pindar,the poet,dedicates a poem to his honour, inscribed with
golden letters and placed inside the temple of Lindian Athena.
408 B.C.The people of Ialyssos,Camiros and Lindos founded one
single city:RHODES,where all administration was established.
305 B.C.Demetrius besieged Rhodes and Failed.
293 B.C.The Collossus of Rhodes is being erected,one of the 7
Wonders of the Word
227 B.C.A terrible earthquake destroyed the city of Rodos and the
42 B.C. The Roman Casius destroyed the island and the city
Year one : Christ
was born while Rhodes was under Roman sovereignty.
807 A.D. The Selttzouks, a nomadic and warlike people,invaded
against the inhabitants of Rhodes.New suffererings, battles,flights for
Greeks and Hellenism.
1191 A.D. Ritcard Lionheart, King of England, invaded
Rhodes,snatched goods, animals and money and recruted Rhodian sailors.
1204 A.D. That was the time of the 4th crusade. The
crusadors,besieged and took the island by force.New lamentations,new
battles,for the land to remain Greek and for the people to remain
defandor of Peace and Hellinism.
1161 A.D. Rhodes was typically re-established under the
jurisdiction of the Byzantium
1309 A.D. The land owner of our city and our island Viniolo
Viinioli ,sold Rhodes and the Rhodians to the Knights of Saint John of
1522 A.D. The Knights left. Rhodes and the Agarene Muslims
settled on the island, in the city and the houses of the Greek orthodox
1912 A.D. The Agarenes left and the Italians came until
1943 A.D. The Italians lost power over the Dodecanese and the
Germans ruled over the people and the land
1945 A.D. The Grmans gave the Dodecanese, over the Allies.
1947 A.D. Rhodes and the Dodecanese were freed and the people
celebrated the victory of Greece and the Hellenic Civilization.
1948 A.D. Rhodes and the Dodecanese ,constitute the zewel of
Europe and the cornerstone of European and WORRLD CIVILIZATION.
Aegean,Rhodes and Dodecanese: Greece 3000 years.
EVENTS OF RHODES Anno Domini
has spoken and the historians have recarded many people and events of
Rhodes and our peopleand events of Rhodes and our people for 3000m
continuous years in the space of Aegean and the Mediteranean.
us see briefly, in precise dates ,who are the people and which are the
events tha have affected the people and our land during the last two
YEAR OF LORD 155 A Terrible
earthquake levelled to the ground the city of the Rhodians,whch was the
big and strong ,beautiful and poweful,with thousands of buildings,
temples ,naval stations,markets,a rectorship,statiums and theatres.
270 A.D. The Goths, a nomadic
and sanguinary people ,invades the land against the Rhodians with the
Roman Province of the Islands.
515 A.D. New enemies,the Percians, with
Horsoe, invaded the island of the Greeks and looted Whatever they found
during their passage.
653 A.D. The Araps, conquered Rhodes
and plundred the colossus of Rhodes, melted it and turned it into
arms for the sodiers | <urn:uuid:70d35007-7c28-495a-b973-4779ba569894> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.faliraki-info.com/historirhodes.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396538.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00004-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.880003 | 1,370 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Imagine wine, only better for you and without the hangover the next day. Researchers from the University of Illinois are working to make this a reality with their recent study, which used genetically engineered yeast to make healthier versions of wine and other alcoholic beverages.
The new wine would be possible due to a "jail breaking" process, known as a "genome knife," researchers believe can greatly reduce the toxins created by wine that cause a hangover, The Independent reported. Previously, changing the genomes of yeast was a very difficult task.
"Fermented foods — such as beer, wine, and bread — are made with polyploid strains of yeast, which means they contain multiple copies of genes in the genome," Yong-Su Jin, a researcher involved in the study explained in a recent press release. "Until now, it's been very difficult to do genetic engineering in polyploid strains, because if you altered a gene in one copy of the genome, an unaltered copy would correct the one that had been changed."
The genome knife helps to avoid this auto correction and has allowed scientists for the first time to genetically alter yeast — a feat that can lead to many possibilities.
Scientists could improve on the health qualities of wine, adding more resveratrol, the healthy component in red wine. Resveratrol helps to prevent damage to blood vessels, reduces cholesterol, and prevents blood clots. One study has even linked resveratrol to a longer lifespan. They could also introduce healthy compounds found in other foods into wine, enhancing its health factor.
On top of increasing the levels of resveratrol, the genome knife would also allow scientists to reduce the amount of toxic byproducts that can cause hangovers.
Hangovers are caused by a number of factors, so reducing toxins won’t be 100 percent effective at completely preventing hangovers, but it will surely help reduce the discomfort. This may prove especially useful, since research has shown that wine drinkers tend to underestimate how much they pour into their glasses and end up with surprise hangovers.
It’s not just wine that could benefit from the genome knife, though.
"We could put resveratrol-producing pathways into yeast strains used for beer, kefir, cheese, kimchee, or pickles — any food that uses yeast fermentation in its production," Jin said.
Don’t expect the new and improved wine to be on shelves just yet, however. The process is still yet to be perfected. Scientists still have to create function-specific mutations.
“Say we have a yeast that produces a wine with great flavor and we want to know why. We delete one gene, then another, until the distinctive flavor is gone, and we know we've isolated the gene responsible for that characteristic," Jin added.
Source: Zhang GC, Kong II, Kim K, Liu JJ, Cate JH, Jin YS. Construction of a quadruple auxotrophic mutant of an industrial polyploid saccharomyces cerevisiae strain by using RNA-guided Cas9 nuclease. Applied Environmental Microbiology. 2014. | <urn:uuid:ea5f8ca6-0736-40df-a46f-0550c5a6e74f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.medicaldaily.com/no-hangover-red-wine-genetic-engineering-increases-resveratrol-decreases-toxic-326070 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397842.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00155-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961629 | 644 | 2.953125 | 3 |
A traditional XP is written in Assembly. This is because CC3 and its predecessors were written in Assembly. But, for the last decade or more there has been a library file that allows XP development in C/C++.
An XP source code file is made up of three distinct parts.
Part 1: XP Command declarations. Here is where we place all the prototypes of the entrypoint functions of each XP command. We also add the names of each command into lists that CC3 loads. In other words, this is where CC3 looks to map a command same, like PATH, with a function to call when the user types in that command.
Part 2: This is the meat of the XP dll. This is where all the actual coding magic works.
Part 3: This is where the DllMain for the dll is declared. This boilerplate code hooks up the dll into CC3. | <urn:uuid:d1503027-219a-4218-a43e-0931c75e6817> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://cc3-developer.blogspot.com/2010/07/anatomy-of-basic-campaign-cartographer.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397864.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00054-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953841 | 187 | 2.53125 | 3 |
This resource is used to specify which color table files are to be used in the program. The graphics program allocates (locks in) all the colors listed in the file. Each graphics program has color resources to specify and change colors of various components of the plot. Color table files are ASCII files which list a color name along with its RGB (red, green, blue) color fractions (0-1).
By default, WXP uses the following color table:
[ind] name red green blue
Black 0.0 0.0 0.0 White 1.0 1.0 1.0 Red 0.7 0.0 0.0 Green 0.0 0.7 0.0 Blue 0.0 0.0 0.7 Yellow 1.0 1.0 0.3 Cyan 0.0 0.7 0.7 Magenta 0.7 0.0 0.7 DGray 0.3 0.3 0.3 LGray 0.7 0.7 0.7 LRed 1.0 0.3 0.3 LGreen 0.3 1.0 0.3 LBlue 0.3 0.3 1.0 Brown 0.7 0.7 0.0 LCyan 0.3 1.0 1.0 LMagenta 1.0 0.3 1.0
Even though only 16 colors are specified, a total of 256 colors can be allocated. If the index is not specified, the indices start with 0 and increment by one for each line in the file. To change the color table, the color_table can be specified with a new color table filename that is formatted the same as the above list. More than one color table can be listed separated by commas. The programs use color names based on the default color table so it is useful to have these colors in any color table that is used.
Several color table files are provided with WXP:
|wxp.clr||Default color table (16 colors)|
|sat.clr||Satellite color table with 50 gray shades|
|rainbow.clr||A rainbow scheme with 23 colors|
|rainbow2.clr||A rainbow scheme with 46 colors|
|rainbow4.clr||A rainbow scheme with 92 colors|
|radar.clr||Radar image color table|
|gray25.clr||25 gray shades|
|gray100.clr||100 gray shades|
|gray200.clr||200 gray shades|
If more colors are needed, more than one color table can be specified:
The color index of the second color table is offset by the maximum index in the first file to prevent overlap.
For further information about WXP, email email@example.com
Last updated by Dan Vietor on July 30, 1998 | <urn:uuid:63f57f77-24f8-4ef6-a43d-8a1e49f89f31> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.weather.unisys.com/wxp/wxp5/Resources/color_table.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397864.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00139-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.69896 | 592 | 3.078125 | 3 |
In the days leading up to Canada Day, The Globe is teaming up with Facebook for an unscientific survey of Canadians about what our true national symbols should be. We've also asked a few Canadians to share their picks. Today, David Suzuki makes his pitch.
The best thing about the wild blueberry is our social relationship with it.
Canadians from Newfoundland to the Yukon harvest the fruit of this ethnobotanical icon, in berry-picking parties in the bush, with parents, cousins, aunts and uncles - eating as they go. Turning those pails of fruit into jam, wine or pancakes is another opportunity to socialize and celebrate; it's a ritual of late summer and early fall, when the berries are ripe and full of flavour.
Is the wild blueberry really Canada's national plant?
The blueberry links us in other ways. It is indelibly identified with the boreal forest, that vast belt of green that is our country's heart and lungs, pumping out clean air, absorbing carbon dioxide and providing an immense haven for wildlife. There are several species of blueberry. They are of the genus Vaccinium. Common Canadian ones include Vaccinium myrtilloides (velvet leaf blueberry) and Vaccinium angustifolium (low bush blueberry). They are native to Canada. As far as anyone can tell, they've been growing here forever.
Wild blueberries are a major food source for another national icon, bears. For example, researchers have found that the reproductive success of female black bears is dependent on the availability and abundance of berries. The bears gorge themselves on the fruit late in the summer when the berries are ripe. According to Jeff Gailus, author of The Grizzly Manifesto: "A single grizzly bear can eat as many as 20,000 berries in a single day, its nimble lips capable of picking each berry without so much as disturbing a leaf."
Perhaps for this alone, the wild blueberry deserves to be our national plant.
We asked Canadians to send us their Facebook photos of their favourite places in Canada. Here are our editors' picks, from Tofino to Twillingate
Nutritionally, this native plant is unmatched. It contains vitamins A, C and E, calcium, potassium and magnesium and is rich in antioxidants. It's been a key part of the traditional diet of First Nations and Métis for generations - eaten fresh, boiled to make tea or mashed into cakes. It's also been used for treatment of diabetes and headaches.
As a commercial crop, blueberries occupy more than half of all Canadian fruit acreage. And we aren't the only ones who value our blue bounty. Some Canadian species of blueberry are shipped as far away as South America and Australia.
But its overseas admirers never get to experience what so many Canadians can still enjoy -- the power of the wild.
The Globe is teaming up with Facebook to ask Canadians about what symbolizes Canada
In fact there is nothing quite like taking a walk through fragrant woods and finding a sunlit patch laden with lovely dark fruit that the bears have left for us.
Harvesting wild foods like berries and fish reminds us that the things that keep us alive and healthy come directly from nature and not artificial human systems, and that we need to protect wild places in order to keep receiving these gifts.
Canada wouldn't be the same without the blueberry.
The Vancouver-based David Suzuki Foundation marks its 20th anniversary in September.
Agree? Disagree? Vote online and have your say at facebook.com/facebookcanadaReport Typo/Error
Follow us on Twitter: | <urn:uuid:9a3b441e-06b2-4d2c-b688-a9cb467644a7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/my-national-plant-the-wild-blueberry/article1621322/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00069-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951497 | 759 | 2.6875 | 3 |
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A simple chart illustrating the ionising radiation dose a person can receive from various different sources.
Definition and units of absorbed dose and the biological effectiveness of radiation.
Drinking beer makes you pee, which is useful if you've exposed to a certain type of radiation.
The Planck radiation formula is an example of the distribution of energy according to Bose-Einstein statistics.
NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer satellite was launched to explore the cosmic microwave background radiation. It has discovered fluctuations in that radiation which are important to big bang ...
Charles Glover Barkla (1877 - 1944) received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1917 for his comprehensive research into the nature of radiation, in particular secondary radiation.
A brief description of how Nuclear Medicine works. The pages address broad areas of medical use of radiation: PET, MRI scanners, SPECT, cardiovascular and bone scanning, treatment, radiation therapy.
A clarifying article explaining the difference between radiation and radioactivity.
A revision guide for heat transfer covering convection, cooling and radiation suitable for children 14-16
Revision website about ionising radiation and the properties of alpha, beta and gamma
Showing 31 - 40 of 87 | <urn:uuid:9cc83cef-2cfb-4f74-89e4-072112f687cc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.physics.org/explore-results-all.asp?currentpage=4&Linktype=0&age=0&knowledge=0&q=radiation+belt | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00085-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.898544 | 335 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Bermuda. Famous for its sun. Sand. Surf. Shorts. Triangles. Lizards.
Okay, maybe not the lizards. Not yet.
Islands and lakes hold a special place in the heart of evolutionary biologists (here’s a few examples from this blog: sticklebacks, crickets). As Jerry Coyne likes to say, island biogeography provides evidence for evolution so strong that most creationists simply ignore it.
View Larger Map
Bermuda formed about two million years ago. It’s small and a long way from the mainland, and has almost certainly never been connected to any other landmass. That Bermuda appeared very recently (in geologic terms) and that it is so far away from potentially invasive populations means that anything that lives only in Bermuda has probably evolved pretty darn fast.
Plestiodon longirostris is a skink that is found on Bermuda and nowhere else on earth. There aren’t many animal species living on this island at all, which is not surprising, given how remote it is. There are, however, other members of the genus, many of which live on the mainland of North America.
We’ve gotten fairly good at using DNA to generate hypotheses about relationships between species, and, to a lesser degree, the time of divergence. Using that, Brandley and company found that Plestiodon longirostris split from its closest relatives...
How old would you expect the Bermuda skink lineage to be? “Well, the island’s only two million years old, so it's got to be younger than that.”
That's a perfectly sensible answer. But wrong.
Brandley and company estimate that this lizard split from its relatives about 16 million years ago. This means that the line leading to this particular skink diverged way, way before Bermuda formed.
These data don’t, alas, give many clues to when the skink’s ancestors got to the island, or how. Nor do we know how its relatives on the mainland went extinct. But what it does say is that islands are not only important centers for evolutionary experimentation, they can also act as centers for preservation. Or, as the authors put it, islands can be a “life raft” for species that make it to their shores.
Brandley, M., Wang, Y., Guo, X., Nieto Montes de Oca, A., Fería Ortíz, M., Hikida, T., & Ota, H. (2010). Bermuda as an evolutionary life raft for an ancient lineage of endangered Lizards PLoS ONE, 5 (6) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0011375
Lizard picture from here.
Additional: Another take at Natural Selections. | <urn:uuid:92685be6-b68c-4a40-974e-1c2a9988b8c6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://neurodojo.blogspot.com/2010/07/island-getaway-or-lizard-in-life-boat.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396538.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00090-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936866 | 585 | 3.953125 | 4 |
DR EMILY BALDWIN
Posted: 7 April
Thanks to the development of a high resolution infrared spectrograph at ESO's Very Large Telescope, astronomers have performed new analysis of the atmosphere of Neptune's largest moon Triton, discovering carbon monoxide and making the first ground-based detection of methane.Artist’s impression of how Triton, Neptune’s largest moon, might look from high above its surface. The distant Sun appears at the upper-left and the blue crescent of Neptune right of centre. Image: ESO/L. Calçada.
Triton, at 2,700 kilometres in diameter, is the seventh largest moon in the Solar System. It is geologically active, spewing icy water and ammonia lavas that have carved complex valleys on its surface, which is clad in a mixture of ices including frozen nitrogen ice, water ice and carbon dioxide ice. Carbon monoxide was also already known to exist on the surface, but the new observations show that the moon's upper surface layers are enriched by a factor of ten compared to the deeper layers, and that this sublimates into gas during Triton's summer to supplement the nitrogen-dominant atmosphere.
"Climate and atmospheric models of Triton have to be revisited now, now that we have found carbon monoxide and re-measured the methane," says team member Catherine de Bergh.
Triton's average surface temperature is a frigid minus 235 degrees Celsius but this distant world clearly still feels the effect of the Sun on its 165 year orbit, with each season lasting for just over 40 years. ESO's new Cryogenic High-Resolution Infrared Echelle Spectrograph (CRIRES), which yielded the first infrared analysis of Triton's atmosphere, shows that summer is in full swing in the moon's southern hemisphere.
"We have found real evidence that the Sun still makes its presence felt on Triton, even from so far away," says Emmanuel Lellouch, the lead author of the paper reporting the results in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. "This icy moon actually has seasons just as we do on Earth, but they change far more slowly."
CRIRES also enabled the team to refine measurements of the moon's atmospheric pressure. It was once thought that its atmosphere was as thick as Mars', but Voyager 2 measurements in 1989 found it to be 14 microbars, 70,000 times less dense than Earth's atmosphere. Now, the ESO team find it to have risen by four times, to between 40 and 65 microbars, consistent with the idea that sublimating gases feed the atmosphere during summer.
"We needed the sensitivity and capability of CRIRES to take very detailed spectra to look at the very tenuous atmosphere," comments co-author Ulli Käufl.
The new equipment will also afford the astronomers the chance to study Pluto's atmosphere. Since both Triton and Pluto are thought to have been captured from the Kuiper Belt and thus share similar compositions the hunt is on for detecting carbon monoxide on the dwarf planet too. But the team's job is far from complete at Triton: "We can now start monitoring the atmosphere and learn a lot about the seasonal evolution of Triton over decades," adds Lellouch.
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© 2014 Pole Star Publications Ltd. | <urn:uuid:2e00259c-86de-4349-8559-04b62b9079f4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.astronomynow.com/news/n1004/07triton/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00022-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93745 | 727 | 3.578125 | 4 |
Among other things of interest, the Geoinformatics Laboratory is engaged in using the old maps and their potential for landscape studies. One of the first steps was the Project of Science and Research assigned by the Ministry of Environment (see also http://projekty.geolab.cz).
As a primary goal of this project the copies of the Ist and IInd Military Survey were obtained (from the Austrian State Archive/Military Archive in Vienna, where the originals are kept) and displayed in digital form on these pages.
After the agreement with the Historical Institute of the Czech Academy of Science, we created the online presentation of the Müller's Survey covering the area of Czechia and Moravia. Work on the Stabile Cadaster Online application is in progress, the first version see here.
The individual map sheets are viewed through the Zoomify application (www.zoomify.com) which gives a high-resolution digital picture. The application properties (e.g. the window size) can be customized at Menu - Settings.
This application is supported by the project GA ČR 205/04/0888 - Georeferencing and the Cartographical Analysis of the Historical Maps of Czechia, Moravia and Silesia
If you want to use one or more sections of military maps, or some part of it for your publication,
please make sure of adding the following citations:
© 1st (2nd ) Military Survey, Section No. xy, Austrian State Archive/Military Archive, Vienna
© Geoinformatics Laboratory, University of J.E.Purkyne - http://www.geolab.cz
© Ministry of Environment of Czech Republic - http://www.env.cz
In the case of Müller's Survey please cite:
© Historický ústav AV ČR - http://www.hiu.cas.cz | <urn:uuid:1181c287-9275-45f1-8eda-33adefd58d02> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://oldmaps.geolab.cz/?z_height=1100&s_width=900&z_width=1600&s_newwin=0&map_type=z&s_height=700&z_newwin=1&lang=en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00083-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.859774 | 395 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Phonemes don't just randomly combine to make a language. They have to be arranged according to certain rules. For example, if you take the phonemes out of "complexity" and rearrange these randomly, you don't get an English word:
/k@mplEksIti/ <complexity> /ksIlmp@kitE/ (approximately pronounced "kuh-silm-puck-eat-eh")
So what is phonotactics? Basically, it tells you what sounds can go where, and what sounds can't. In English, for example, a word can begin with spl- (split, splash), and spr- (spray, spread), but not slr- or srl-, or slp- or srp-. That's just how it works in English. On the other hand, words in Russian can begin with vstr- and dn-, which you wouldn't be seeing any time soon in English. Words in Japanese, on the other hand, can't begin with spr- or spl- or even sp-; it has to begin with a single consonant, or none at all. (When Japanese people pronounce "splash", they tend to say "suh-puh-la-shuh" /s@p@l&S@/ — For comparison, try pronouncing the Ukrainian city of "Dnipropetrovs'k".)
So how would you make these constraints up for your conlang? Well, the earlier section on syllables can help. Start by dividing your conlang's phonemes into different categories and then defining which categories can combine with others in what ways inside a syllable.
For instance, Toki Pona defines its allowed syllables as V or CV(n), where C is any consonant and V is any vowel; "n" represents itself /n/; and the parentheses mean "optional". So syllables like /sen/ and /jo/ are allowed in Toki Pona, but /stan/ and /pit/ are not. Konya allows C(S)V(N), where S is a semivowel (/j/ or /w/) and N is a nasal (/m/ or /n/). Vorlin allowed syllables of the form C1VC2, where C1 is any consonant in Vorlin except /N/ and C2 is any consonant in Vorlin except /h/.
English itself does not have simple phonotactics. It allows (C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C)(C). "Strengths" for example is one of the longest allowed syllables even though it doesn't fully use up the allowed coda. But there are still constraints on what consonant clusters are allowed in the onset and coda.
How would you create your own syllable structure? By selecting what sounds can occur in the onset, nucleus, and coda of a syllable (remember back to the section on syllables). You will notice that all the examples above have V (any vowel) as their nucleus and that it's never in brackets (and thus not optional).
Viable consonant clusters
Another way to specify phonotactics is to make a list of all consonant clusters that are allowed and then, by implication, you should know which consonant clusters can't appear in your language. For example, in the conlang Quenya, the consonant clusters /mb/, /nt/, and /lm/ are allowed, but the consonant clusters /pn/, /rl/, and /ln/ aren't.
Of course, these two ways to describe phonotactics are not mutually exclusive; one can perfectly state that, given the restrictions of syllabical structure, there are certain clusters that don't happen and other that do.
http://clas.mq.edu.au/speech/phonetics/phonology/syllable/syll_phonotactic.html A nice text about phonotactics. Could be used to improve this page. | <urn:uuid:2e3db62e-7e30-496a-b566-6efbe257d7db> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Conlang/Intermediate/Sounds/Phonotactics | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00104-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.896028 | 857 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Mental health awareness
Mental illness is not a normal part of ageing, but you may have a higher risk of some conditions as you get older. It’s important that you look after your mental health and wellbeing, just as you do your physical health.
Depression and anxiety
There are certain risk factors in late life that can increase your chance of developing depression, such as:
- health problems
- social isolation
- changes to living arrangements
- experiencing many losses.
Read about the symptoms that are common in people with depression, anxiety or related disorders. Early detection and treatment is important—talk to your GP about how you are feeling so you can get the treatment that’s right for you.
Keeping active—physically and mentally—is a good way to help prevent or manage mild to moderate depression and anxiety.
Read more on the beyondblue website or phone 1300 224 636.
Dementia describes a collection of symptoms caused by disorders affecting the brain. It is not one specific disease.
Age is the largest risk factor for developing dementia, and your genes may also affect your risk. While you can’t change these factors, you can reduce your risk of dementia by looking after your health.
To find out more about dementia, visit Alzheimer’s Australia or phone the National Dementia Helpline on 1800 100 500. | <urn:uuid:95505f6b-2661-4ac7-827a-a5bee02bc55f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.qld.gov.au/seniors/health/mental-health-awareness/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404405.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00092-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919217 | 283 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Lunar eclipse will occur on Sunday
Updated at 6.43pm:
Astronomy lovers in Hong Kong will be able to see a lunar eclipse on Sunday night.
A spokesman for the Hong Kong observatory said on Tuesday people could observe a penumbral eclipse between 6.46pm and 8pm on Sunday.
A penumbral eclipse occurs when the moon only passes through the penumbra (partial shadow) of the earth's shadow without entering the umbra (total shadow).
During the event, the moon will become slightly dimmer, experts say.
Star gazers in the territory witnessed a total lunar eclipse in May 2004. | <urn:uuid:2e34e68e-6731-4698-a039-d7da487d6cc6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.scmp.com/article/497117/lunar-eclipse-will-occur-sunday | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393463.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00115-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.889323 | 135 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Your lungs know a bitter sensation when they taste one.
Yes, taste. In a Nature Medicine study, Stephen B. Liggett and company found receptors on the smooth muscle in the lungs that respond to bitterness, similar to the bitter taste buds on the tongue. And, Liggett found, the receptors’ reaction to bitterness is to relax the muscles, and therefore to expand airways. That was totally unexpected, he says, and opens intriguing possibilities for pulmonary treatment—for example, asthmatic symptoms could be treated by exposing these receptors to bitter compounds.
Like tastebuds on the tongue, the receptors react to bitterness, but unlike tastebuds they do not send any signals to the brain. The researchers thought the taste receptors might have evolved as a protection against toxic plants [Boston Globe]
The researchers first thought that bitter compounds might trigger a constriction of the airways, to prevent toxins from further infiltrating the lungs. The fact that Liggett saw the opposite, airways opening up, suggests that this feature evolved to help us fight off infections like bronchitis or pneumonia, where it would be beneficial to relax the airway so a person could cough up noxious fluids from the lungs.
Liggett’s team had been looking for new means to relax and open up a person’s airway, beyond the standard beta 2 agonist inhalant for asthma patients, when they stumbled upon this. Previous research had found bitter receptors on cilia—hair-like structures—in the same area. But this team found them on smooth muscles and experimented to see if they could activate the receptors.
When the researchers tried bitter aerosols on constricted airways in mice or on sections of human airways freshly removed from cancer patients, they were surprised to discover the lung muscles quickly relaxed. In seconds, the airways expanded to 90% of their original volume — three times as much as they did with the beta 2 agonist inhalant. [Los Angeles Times]
The team’s discovery doesn’t point to a cure for asthma. But on the plus side, Liggett notes that there are lots of agents available that could produce the bitter sensation needed to trigger these receptors.
There are thousands of compounds known to have a bitter taste, such as quinine and many drugs, he said. Researchers can begin testing them to determine which have the best results, with few or no side effects. [AP]
DISCOVER: The Biology of Bitterness
80beats: Study: C-Section Babies Miss Out on a Dose of Beneficial Bacteria
80beats: Ulcer- and Cancer-Causing Bacteria Also Protects Against Asthma
80beats: How to Build a Working Rat Lung in a Lab
Discoblog: From the Case Files: The Peanut Butter Cookie and the Lungs of Doom | <urn:uuid:199179a6-380f-4cf9-8429-66d90325597b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/10/25/lungs-can-taste-weird-discovery-points-to-new-asthma-treatments/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00073-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933368 | 598 | 3.484375 | 3 |
Individual differences |
Methods | Statistics | Clinical | Educational | Industrial | Professional items | World psychology |
Adopted child syndrome is a controversial term that has been used to explain behaviors in adopted children that are claimed to be related to their adoptive status. Specifically, these include problems in bonding, attachment disorders, lying, stealing, defiance of authority, and acts of violence. The term has never achieved acceptance in the professional community. The term is not found in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 4th edition, TR. David Kirschner, who coined the term, says that most adoptees are not disturbed and that the syndrome only applies to "a small clinical subgroup". Researchers Brodizinsky, Brodzinsky, Schechter, & Henig find that in a review of the literature, generally children adopted before the age of six-months fare no differently than children raised with their biological parents. Later problems that develop among children adopted from the child welfare system at an older age are usually associated with the effects of chronic early maltreatment in the caregiving relationship; abuse and neglect.
Psychologist Betty Jean Lifton, herself an adopted person, has written extensively on psychopathology in adopted people, primarily in Lost and Found: The Adoption Experience, and Journey of the Adopted Self: A Quest for Wholeness and briefly discusses Adopted child syndrome.
There are many reasons for Adoption and the effects of adoption vary, depending on the age of the child at adoption, past history, number of placments, history of maltreatment, and various other issues.
- Main article: Child Welfare
- Main article: Adoption
- Main article: Child Abuse
See also Edit
- Attachment disorder
- Child abuse
- Child welfare
- Complex post-traumatic stress disorder
- Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy
- Reactive attachment disorder
- Adopted Child Syndrome page, including bibliography
- Adoption History: Psychopatholgy Studies
- Adoption: Uncharted Waters Official Book Web Site
- AICAN - Australian Intercountry Adoption Network
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Lifton, Betty Jean (1975). "Lost and Found: The Adoption Experience" ISBN 0-06-097132-0 (pp.274 - 275).
- ↑ Being Adopted: The Lifelong Search for Self by David M. Brodzinsky, Marshall D. Schecter, and Robin Marantz Henig, 1993
- Smith, Jerome. "The Adopted Child Syndrome: A Methodological Perspective" Families in Society 82 no5 491-7 S/O 2001 | <urn:uuid:8bdb3b96-4cda-4d68-90e8-ea0d75e6de16> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Adopted_child_syndrome | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00140-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.88243 | 542 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Here is a close-up of the two arteries and one vein of the umbilical cord. The vein is the bleeding vessel.
Students often struggle to remember which has two, the arteries or veins. For some, repeating it over and over again (two arteries, one vein) is enough. I had to play a game in my head that said two is "better" than 1 and A is closer to the beginning than V; the best of both wins. I know, it sounds ridiculous, but however you can remember, please do. It's pretty important.
We always check to see if there are three vessels There are times when the umbilical cord has one artery and one vein (called a two-vessel cord or Single Umbilical Artery [SUA]). This can point to defects in the baby, but, often enough, doesn't tell us one thing measurable. I send babies to the Pediatrician within a couple of days of birth with the information about the two-vessel cord, but most times, it isn't an issue at all for the baby.
"Anywhere from half to two-thirds of babies born with single artery umbilical cord are born healthy and with no chromosomal or congenital abnormalities. Of the remaining babies with SUA, some studies suggest that about 25 percent have birth defects, including chromosomal and/or other abnormalities. These can include trisomy 13 or trisomy 18. However, the most common pregnancy complications that occur in infants with SUA are heart defects, gastrointestinal tract abnormalities and problems with the central nervous system. The respiratory system, urinary tract, and musculoskeletal system may also be affected. One in five babies affected by SUA will be born with multiple malformations." | <urn:uuid:f466783d-c1e6-4275-9971-e324d9022337> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://navelgazingmidwife.squarespace.com/navelgazing-midwife-blog/2009/12/31/close-up-view-of-umbilical-vessels.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397428.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00176-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970339 | 363 | 3.359375 | 3 |
Well, it really depends on how much time you've got to prepare and how much work you want to put into it. I haven't used Wheelock's textbook so I'm not sure exactly how much material you're supposed to have mastered but if your teacher said you only need to revise Present, Imperfect and Future Tense, it shouldn't be too difficult for you to get to grips with that in a few days.
The way I went about learning how to conjugate verbs was: I made a list with all possible verb endings. Once these were sorted in a coherent way, according to Tense, Mood, Voice, Number and Person, I conjugated all verbs I came across until I was confident in recognising different verb forms at a glance. (It's important to remember in which conjugation a verb is.) I remember it taking me about half an hour to fully conjugate a verb in all its possible forms, but it should take you much less than that.
Next, vocabulary. I consider flash cards the best way to learn vocab. Write the nom. sing. and gen. sing. form of a noun + gender on one side and the translation on the other; for verbs it's crucial to know the four principal parts and whether a particular verb takes a particular case (for example verbs of condemning take the gen. to express the penalty).
Make sure you've read all texts you are supposed to and can translate them. And if you want to go the extra mile, translate the texts in writing and then try to write them back into Latin a couple of days later.
Hope this helps and good luck! | <urn:uuid:aa14e449-e664-4c13-8023-dc00e18ff279> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-forum/viewtopic.php?p=67104 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400572.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00023-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968046 | 337 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Web application security is quite popular among pen testers, so organizations, developers and pen testers treat web application as primary attack vector. And, as web services are relatively new as compared to web applications, it is considered a secondary attack vector. Due to a lack of concern or knowledge, it is generally found that the security measures implemented in a web service are worse than those that are implemented in web applications, which makes the web services a favorite attack vector and easy to penetrate from the attacker’s point of view.
Another reason for this article is that the use of web services has increased in the last couple of years in a major ratio and also the data which flows in web services are very sensitive. This makes web services again an important attack vector.
The use of web services increased suddenly because of mobile applications. As we all know, the growth in the use of mobile applications has increased very rapidly, and most mobile applications use some sort of web services, thus greatly increasing the use of web services. Web services are also mostly used by enterprise-level software that carries lots of sensitive data. Due to the lack of security implementations and few resources for web services testing, web services have become a possible attacking vector.
In this article we will focus on details of web services, its testing approach, tools used for testing, etc.
Before we try to penetrate a web service, we must know its basics. As a web service is an implementation of SOA, let’s start with SOA.
SOA stands for service oriented architecture. According to Wikipedia, “Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a software design and software architecture design pattern based on discrete pieces of software that provide application functionality as services, known as service-orientation. A service is a self-contained logical representation of a repeatable function or activity. Services can be combined by other software applications that together, provide the complete functionality of a large software application.”
In simple words it is quite similar to client server architecture, but here the client is a service consumer and the server is a service provider. Service is a well-defined activity that does not depend on the state of other services. Service consumer requests a particular service in the format used by service provider and service provider returns with a service response, as shown in Fig 1.
Fig 1: Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
What Is Web Service?
Web service is a standardized way of establishing communication between two web-based applications by using open standards over an Internet protocol backbone. Generally web applications work using HTTP and HTML, but web services work using HTTP and XML. Due to this, it has some advantages over web applications. HTTP is transfer-independent and XML is data-independent and the combination of both makes web services support a heterogeneous environment.
Why Use Web Service?
Web services have some added advantages over web applications. Some are listed below:
Language interoperability (programming language independent)
Platform independent (Hardware and OS independent)
Use of standardized protocols
Difference between Web Application and Web Services
A web application is an application that is accessed through a web browser running on a client’s machine whereas a web service is a system of software that allows different machines to interact with each other through a network. Most of the times, web services do not necessarily have a user interface since they are used as a component in an application, while a web application is a complete application with a GUI. Furthermore, web services take web application to the next level because they is used to communicate or transfer data between web applications running on different platforms, allowing it to support heterogeneous environment.
Components of Web Services
XML (extensible markup language)
SOAP (simple object access protocol)
WSDL (web services description language)
UDDI (universal description, discovery, and integration)
Service Consumer and Service Provider
Service consumer and service provider are generally applications can be written in any programming language. The work of both this components is already mentioned in SOA division.
Extensible Markup Language (XML)
XML is used to encode data and form the SOAP message.
Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)
SOAP is an XML-based protocol to let applications exchange information over HTTP. Web services use the SOAP format to send XML request. The SOAP client sends a SOAP message to the server for services and the server responds with another SOAP message along with the requested service. The entire SOAP message is packed in a SOAP envelope, as shown in Fig 2.
Fig 2: SOAP Message Structure
The actual data flows in the body block and the metadata usually carried by the header block.
A typical SOAP request looks like Fig 3.
POST /ws/ws.asmx HTTP/1.1 Host: www.example.com Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8 Content-Length: length SOAPAction: "http://www.example.com/ws/IsValidUser" <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"> <soap:Body> <IsValidUser xmlns="http://www.example.com/ws/"> <UserId>string</UserId> </IsValidUser> </soap:Body> </soap:Envelope>
Fig 3: SOAP Request
If the service consumer sends a proper SOAP request, then the service provider will send an appropriate SOAP response. A typical SOAP response looks like Fig 4.
HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8 Content-Length: length <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"> <soap:Body> <IsValidUserResponse xmlns="http://www.example.com/ws/"> <IsValidUserResult>boolean</IsValidUserResult> </IsValidUserResponse> </soap:Body> </soap:Envelope>
Fig 4: SOAP Response
Web Services Description Language (WSDL)
This is an XML formatted language used by UDDI. It describes the capabilities of web services as a collection of communication end points with the ability of exchanging messages. Or in simple words, “Web services description language is an XML-based language for describing web services and how to access them.”
As per pen testing web services concerns, understanding a WSDL file helps a lot in manual pen testing. We can divide WSDL file structure into two parts according to our definition. 1st part tells what the web service does (describing web service) and the 2nd parts tells how it does (how to access them). Let’s start with basic WSDL structure as shown in Fig 5.
Fig 5: Basic WSDL File Structure
The Fig 5 image only focuses on some of the important elements of the WSDL file. What the element exactly contains is defined in Table 1.
|Elements||What it contains|
|definitions||All the XML elements are packed under definition element. It is also called a root or parent element of the WSDL file.|
|types||All the schema types or data types are defined here.|
|message||This is a dependent element. Message is specified according to the data types defined in types element and used in side operation element later.|
|portType||Element collects all the operations within a web service.|
|operation||Collection of input, output, fault and other message as specified in message element.|
|input message||It’s nothing but the parameters of the method used in SOAP request.|
|output message||It’s nothing but the parameters of the method used in SOAP response.|
|binding||This element connects part 2 of WSDL file with part1 associating itself to the portType element and allows to define the protocol you want to use.|
|soap:binding||It formulates the SOAP message at runtime.|
|service||Contains name of all the services provided by the service provider.|
|port||It provides the physical path or location of web server so that service consumer can connect with service provider.|
Table 1: Defining Different Elements of WSDL File
Fig 6: A WSDL file
Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI)
This is a distributive directory on the web where every service provider who needs to issue web services registers itself using its WSDL. A service consumer will search for appropriate web services and UDDI will provide the list of service providers offering that particular service. The service consumer chooses one service provider and gets the WSDL.
A typical UDDI link looks like Fig 7.
Fig 7: UDDI Link
What Are Web Services?
Let’s redefine web services from all the things what we covered above. “Web services are a standardized way of establishing communication between two web-based applications by using XML, SOAP, WSDL, UDDI, and open standards over an Internet protocol backbone. Where XML is used to encode the data in the form of soap message, SOAP is used to exchange information over HTTP, WSDL is used to describe the capabilities of web services, and UDDI is used to provide the list of service provider details as shown in Fig 8. ”
Fig 8: Web Service Description
In a real-time scenario, if a service consumer wants to use some sort of web services then he/she must know the service provider. If a service provider validates a service consumer it will provide the WSDL file directly and then the service consumers create a XML message to request the required service in the form of a SOAP message and the service provider returns a service response.
On the other hand, if the service consumer is not aware of the service provider, he/she will visit UDDI and search for the required service. The UDDI returns the list of service providers offering that particular service. Then, by choosing one service provider, the service consumer again generates an XML message to request the required service in the form of a SOAP message, as specified in the WSDL file of that service provider and the service provider returns a service response. Generally, in web service testing, we assume the service consumer knows the service provider, so to start testing a web service we must ask for the WSDL file to start with.
How to Test Web Services?
The testing approach for web services is quite similar to the testing approach used in web applications. There are certain differences, but we will discuss those in a later part. Web services testing are also categorized in three types:
Black box Testing
Grey box Testing
White box Testing
In black box testing, a tester has to focus more on authentication because he/she will be provided only with WSDL file. I prefer grey box most, because it’s better to have some sample request and responses to analyze the web services better. It will help to understand the user roles, authentication mechanism and data validations etc.
Depending up on the scope and scenario, our testing methodology will change. We will focus on all these testing approaches but now we will start with black box testing.
Where to Start?
Let’s say that you want to test for web services associated with the web application http://www.example.com. It is a black box testing and you have no details of web service associated with it. (Generally, if a client wants to test their web services, they will provide you the WSDL file but for now we will assume that we don’t have the WSDL file)
Then you can start with web services fingerprinting. As we already covered that all the web services descriptions are present in WSDL, you can use Google to fingerprint the WSDL file of that particular web application, using special notations such as filetype shown in Fig 9.
Fig 9: Use of Google Dork to Find WSDL
Fig: 10 (Search Result)
As shown in Fig 10, Google will provide you the link to the WSDL file associated with that particular web application. You can use your own dorks and there are dorks available in Internet to search for different web services and you can apply them also.
Now you have the WSDL file. What to do next? As in any kind of penetration testing, we need some tools; here also we will use some tools to test for web services. And I will cover tools used in web services testing in the next part of the article.
The sudden increase in the use of web services makes it an important attack vector and the lack of importance given to it makes it more vulnerable. Organizations, developers, and testers need to give web services equivalent importance as web applications. | <urn:uuid:409557ba-4bf1-4049-912c-7814d4d92251> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://resources.infosecinstitute.com/web-services-penetration-testing-part-1-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395548.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00002-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.877283 | 2,843 | 3.0625 | 3 |
|1930 U.S. Census. Illinois, Will, Lockport. ED 99-65. Sheet 20A. William Schuler. National Archives. Washington, D. C. Ancestry.com. Accessed 15 April 2013|
Research technique: work backwards. In the 1940 U.S. population schedule census, Mildred, age 20, is enumerated as the daughter-in-law to William Kampe. According to the census, her residence in 1935 was Lockport, Illinois.
- First name only, Mildred
- Gender, female
- Race or nationality, white
- Birth location, Illinois
- Birth date, about 1920 plus or minus two years
- Lived in, Lockport, Will, Illinois
Research technique: connect to the right family. With the nine matches, each surname would need to be researched and eliminated.
Research technique: use collaborating documentation. This researcher has the marriage license for Henry J. Kampe and Mildred L. Schuler. Schuler is Mildred’s maiden name.
In 1930, the enumerator recorded data regarding the relationship of each person in the family unit to the head of the family, the married couple’s age of first marriage, and their place of abode.
Research technique: abstract the information thoroughly and correctly. The census citation would read as follows: 1930 U.S. Census, Will County, Illinois, population schedule, Lockport City, Lockport Township, enumeration district (ED) 99-65, sheet 20A, household 490, William Schuler; digital images, Ancestry.com (complete URL; downloaded 5 April 2012); National Archives, Washington, D.C
With the 1930 clues, the family was easily located in the 1920 U.S. population schedule census. The Schuler family was smaller; they lived on the same block in Lockport, Illinois. The census citation would read as follows: 1920 U.S. Census, Will County, Illinois, population schedule, Lockport City, Lockport Township, enumeration district (ED) 193, sheet 3A, household 63, William Schuler; digital images, Ancestry.com (complete URL; downloaded 5 April 2012); National Archives, Washington, D.C
Example, the first generation of the Schuler family is William and Nettie Schuler, the author’s maternal grandparents. The 1930 and 1920 U.S. population census enumerated the family as follows:
- William Schuler is the head of the family, married at age 37.
- Nettie is his wife, married at age 26.
- Eleanor is his daughter.
- Lloyd is his son.
- Mildred, author’s mother, is his daughter.
- Dorothy is his daughter.
- Family members’ occupations
- Family members’ birth place
- Family residence
- Marriage license
- Birth certificates
- City directories
For comments and questions, please contact Selma Blackmon, thank you. | <urn:uuid:c6b69f90-73ec-4528-9def-df45c458817c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://genealogicalhistoryresearch.blogspot.com/2013/04/census-research-family-relationships_16.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397797.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00062-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918421 | 621 | 2.75 | 3 |
THE BOMBARDIER BEETLE
Dr. Hermann Schildknecht, a German chemist, studied the bombardier beetle and learned the beetle makes his explosives by mixing two very dangerous chemicals (hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide).
This clever little beetle also adds another type of chemical known as an inhibitor. The inhibitor prevents the chemicals from blowing up and enables the beetle to store them indefinitely.
Whenever our little beetle friend is attacked (e.g. by a frog) he squirts the stored chemicals into the two combustion tubes, and at precisely the right moment he adds another chemical (an anti-inhibitor). This knocks out the inhibitor, and a small but violent explosion occurs right in the face of the poor attacker.*
How could this marvelous and complex mechanism have evolved piecemeal over millions of years? The evolutionist sheepishly responds "yes."
According to evolutionary "thinking" there must have been thousands of generations of beetles improperly mixing these hazardous chemicals in fatal evolutionary experiments, blowing themselves to pieces!!!!
Eventually we are assured, they arrived at the magic formula, but what about the development of the inhibitor??
There is no need to involve the inhibitor unless you already have the two chemicals you are trying to inhibit. On the other hand, if you have the two chemicals, without the inhibitor, it is already too late, for you have just blown yourself up!!!
Obviously, such an arrangement would never arise apart from intelligent foresight and planning. Nevertheless, let's assume that our little beetle friend somehow managed to simultaneously develop the two chemicals along with the all important inhibitor. This solution would be no benefit at all, for it would just sit there as a harmless concoction.
To be of any value to the beetle, the anti-inhibitor must be added to the solution. So, once again, for thousands of generations we are supposed to believe that these poor beetles mixed and stored these chemicals for no particular reason or advantage; until finally, the anti-inhibitor was perfected.
Now he is really getting somewhere!! With the anti-inhibitor developed he can now blow himself to pieces, frustrating the efforts of the hungry predator!!
Ah yes, he still needs to evolve the two combustion tubes, and a precision communication and timing network to control and adjust the critical direction and timing of the explosive.
So, here we go again; for thousands of generations these carefree little beetles went around celebrating the 4th of July by blowing themselves to pieces until finally the mastered their new found powers.
But what would be the motivation for such disastrous, trial and error, piecemeal evolution? Everything in evolution is supposed to make perfect sense and have a logical purpose, or else it would never develop. But such a process does not make any sense at all, and to propose that the entire system evolved all at once is astronomically improbable, if not impossible.
Yet, nature abounds with countless such examples of perfect coordination. We can only conclude that the surprising little bombardier beetle is a strong witness for special creation, for there is no other rational explanation for such a wonder.
* Rather than an inhibitor needing to be counteracted by an anti-inhibitor, it seems a peroxidase enzyme is needed to catalize the reaction. But the writer's point seems largely unaffected.
A fuller treatment of this subject may be found in Scott M. Huse, The Collapse of Evolution, Baker Book House, 1983.
Electronic Copyright © 1999 EWTN
Provided Courtesy of: | <urn:uuid:1327f539-a547-410f-813f-462a52997665> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ewtn.com/library/ISSUES/BMBTTL.HTM | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404382.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00095-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95952 | 726 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Definition of Ricardian equivalence This is the idea that increased government borrowing may have no impact on consumer spending because consumers predict tax cuts or higher spending will lead to future tax increases to pay back the debt.
If this theory is true, it would mean a tax cut financed by higher borrowing would have no impact on increasing aggregate demand because consumers would save the tax cut to pay the future tax increases.
This is related to two factors:
- Income Life cycle hypothesis
- Rational expectations on behalf of consumers.
It is argued that if the government borrows money to fund a tax cut, rational consumers realise in the future taxes will have to rise to finance the borrowing. Therefore, they save the extra income so that they can pay future tax rises.
Consumers wish to smooth their consumption over the course of their life. Thus if consumers anticipate a rise in taxes in the future they will save their current tax cuts to be able to pay future tax rises.
This has implications for fiscal policy. If true, it makes fiscal policy redundant. But, even Ricardo himself was suspicious of his findings.
There are various problems with this theory of Ricardian equivalence
1. Consumers are not rational. Many would not anticipate that tax cuts will lead to tax rises in the future.
2. The idea tax cuts are saved is misleading. In a recession, average propensity to consume may decline. But, this is different to the marginal propensity to consume. Evidence suggests that people do spend some of the tax cuts, even if there average propensity to save rises.
3. Tax Cuts can boost growth and diminish borrowing requirements. In a recession government borrowing rises sharply because of automatic stabilisers (lower tax revenue, higher spending on unemployment benefits). If tax cuts boost spending and economic growth, the increased growth will help improve tax revenues and reduce government borrowing. Therefore stimulus packages of say $800bn, do not necessarily mean taxes have to rise by $800bn. If growth is increased and the economy gets out of recession this will improve the governments fiscal position.
4. No Crowding out in a recession. In a recession, private sector saving rises because of lack of confidence. Expansionary fiscal policy is a way of causing the private sector saving to be utilised. It is argued higher government spending financed by borrowing causes lower private sector spending. But, this isn’t the case. The government is not preventing private sector spending but using private sector savings to increase aggregate demand.
5. Multiplier effect. The initial increase in government spending may cause a further rise in spending in the economy causing the final increase in GDP to be bigger than the initial injection into the economy.
Ricardian equivalence is also known as the Barro-Ricardo equivalence proposition because Barro extended the use of this idea in the twentieth century. | <urn:uuid:7cebd6da-54b4-486e-89ca-82bd5cdfa501> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/1393/economics/ricardian-equivalence/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397797.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00142-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942563 | 579 | 3.203125 | 3 |
The Lady and the Cocoon
From mulberry leaf and silkworm to bolts of chiffon and spools of thread, every piece of silk follows an incredible journey. In Threads no. 153, Maggie Backman, the owner of Things Japanese and a longtime importer of Japanese silk thread, shared her extensive knowledge of silk’s history. According to Maggie, silk fibers have been traced as far back as 22,500 B.C.
But nothing about silk is prosaic. While we were working on Maggie's story, "Silk Thread Demystified," Maggie shared with me the popular legend that attributes the discovery of silk's secrets to one Lady Xi Ling.
Lady Xi Ling (there are many spelling variations of her name, including Si Ling Chi, Lei-tzu and Hsi-ling-shi, but the essentials of the legend are the same) was the principle wife of Emperor Shin Huang-Ti (259-210 B.C.). As the story goes, the beautiful Lady Xi Ling was strolling through the palace gardens one day with her female courtiers. They stopped to make tea under a spreading mulberry bush. As the water heated over a small brazier, a silkworm cocoon fell from the tree into the bowl.
Carefully, Lady Xi Ling used a chop stick to remove the cocoon from the hot water. As she did so, she noticed a strand delicately reeling off of the silkworm cocoon. Lady Xi Ling marveled at the long, lustrous filament and wondered if it could be woven into a fabric for a special gown for herself.
Because of this popular legend, Lady Xi Ling was given the honored name "The Lady of the Silkworms" and credited with the discovery of silk.
Maggie enjoys sharing this legend of silk. She says that certainly, portions of this romantic narrative have a factual basis. The mulberry tree is the natural food for a variety of silkworms. Mulberry branches would have been the chosen place for cocoon production. And silk cocoons do require hot water to soften the fibers for future processing.
However, with the advent of recent historical research and archeological finds it has been scientifically proven that Chinese cocoon rearing (sericulture), cocoon reeling/processing, and silk weaving was in practice centuries before the rule of the Emperor Shin Huang-Ti. Though we’ll never know precisely who discovered silk (and how he or she did it), it’s fun to imagine the emperor’s astute and fashion-forward wife, Lady Xi Ling, and her tea-time discovery. | <urn:uuid:37feca4f-d92a-4a2f-9bb3-84cd69203eaf> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.threadsmagazine.com/item/17990/the-lady-and-the-cocoon | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396100.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00066-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949185 | 536 | 2.96875 | 3 |
The Petronas Towers (Malay: Menara Petronas, also known as the Petronas Twin Towers or Menara Berkembar Petronas in Malay) are skyscrapers and twin towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. According to the CTBUH's official definition and ranking, they were the tallest buildings in the world from 1998 to 2004 until surpassed by Taipei 101, but remain the tallest twin buildings in the world. The building is the landmark of Kuala Lumpur with nearby Kuala Lumpur Tower.
Designed by Argentine architect CÚsar Pelli and Filipino-Malaysian Engineer Deejay Cerico under the consultancy of J. C. Guinto, also known as the Golden Boy of Architecture, and Filipino Designer Dominic "Minick" Saibo, the Petronas Towers were completed in 1998 after seven years of construction and became the tallest buildings in the world. They were built on the site of Kuala Lumpur's race track. Because of the depth of the bedrock, the buildings were built on the world's deepest foundations. The 120-meter foundations were built within 12 months by Bachy Soletanche and required massive amounts of concrete. Its engineering designs on structural framework were contributed by Haitian engineer Domo Obiasse and colleagues Aris Battista and Princess D Battista.(wikipedia)
Nobody has marked this note useful | <urn:uuid:8bd1e6c9-9030-4323-b959-bc3003ce4697> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Asia/Malaysia/West/Kuala_Lumpur/Petronas_Towers/photo1074835.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00166-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965543 | 276 | 2.578125 | 3 |
With Geo-Wiki pictures you can photograph landscapes and share them with your friends and colleagues through Geo-Wiki.org, using the visualization capacity of Google Earth. Your photographs will be automatically geo-referenced and tagged with information such as compass direction and the angle of tilt. Geo-Wiki.org is a community of volunteers that are helping to validate global landcover maps derived from satellites. Global landcover maps are used to inform decisions in a number of important areas such as climate change, deforestation, and biodiversity. Your photographs can help us to improve the quality and the validity of these maps.
- Take photographs of landscapes while on holiday or while out with your friends, which automatically provides a geographic coordinate, the compass direction and the angle of tilt.
- Tag the photographs with any additional comments or text.
- Tag the photographs with a land cover type based on a simple to use drop down menu. These land cover types are used to help us validate global land cover maps.
- Upload these photos to Geo-Wiki.org, a site that allows you to visualize your photographs on Google Earth. The images can be uploaded via mobile connection or stored until you have Wi-Fi access.
Geo-Wiki pictures is currently available for Android 2.3.3+, iPhone / iPad, and Windows Phone:
Geo-Wiki pictures for Android
Geo-Wiki pictures for iPhone and iPad
Geo-Wiki pictures for Windows Phone | <urn:uuid:0003e812-bbc3-46bc-97e8-6d701d027899> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.geo-wiki.org/mobile-apps/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00107-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.820233 | 294 | 2.5625 | 3 |
On Wednesday, Barack Obama became the fourth U.S. president to deliver a speech near Berlin’s famed Brandenburg Gate, following in the steps of John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. The Brandenburg Gate, an 18th century triumphal arch that has become one of the most recognizable landmarks in Europe, has played witness to some of the most significant moments in modern history. From political speeches set against the backdrop of a divided city, to its role in the emotional reunification of a nation, here’s a look back at some key moments in the history of the Brandenburg Gate.
October 1806: Napoleon steals a statue
Built between 1788 and 1791 by Prussian King Frederick William II as a key entry point to the city of Berlin, Brandenburg Gate was topped off with a statue known as the “Quadriga,” which depicted a statue of the goddess of victory driving a chariot pulled by four horses. The statue remained in place for just over a decade, before falling into the clutches of Napoleon Bonaparte and his Grand Army. After occupying Berlin that fall and triumphantly marching beneath the arches of the Gate, Napoleon ordered the Quadriga dismantled and shipped back to Paris. The horse and goddess were hastily packed up in a series of crates and moved across the continent. Napoleon, perhaps preoccupied with the crumbling of his recently established empire, appears to have forgotten about the statue, and it languished in storage until 1814, when Paris itself was captured by Prussian soldiers following Napoleon’s defeat. The Quadriga was returned to Berlin and once again installed atop the Brandenburg Gate, this time with one change: As a symbol of Prussia’s military victory over France, an iron cross was added to the statue. The cross was later removed during the Communist era, and only permanently restored in 1990 during the unification of Germany.
January 1933: Hitler comes to power
After a meteoric rise to power at the head of his Nazi Party and a power struggle with German President Paul von Hindenburg, Adolf Hitler was appointed to the position of chancellor on January 30, 1933. That evening, the new chancellor was treated to a torchlight procession through Berlin, as thousands of brown shirted stormtroopers and SS members passed under the Brandenburg Gate to the presidential palace, where Hitler and high-ranking members of the Nazi Party were cheered. It was the first of many large-scale propaganda events held by the Nazis as they tightened their control over Germany in the years leading up to World War II. The end of the war destroyed much of Berlin, but the Brandenburg Gate survived, albeit with heavy damage. In one of the last cooperative measures before the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the East and West Berlin authorities worked together on its restoration. Once the wall went up, however, access to the Gate, located in what was now East Berlin, was cut off.
June 1963: “I am a Berliner”
Almost two years after the Berlin Wall was erected, John F. Kennedy delivered one of the most famous addresses of his presidency to a crowd of more than 120,000 gathered outside West Berlin’s city hall, just steps from the Brandenburg Gate. Like Ronald Reagan after him, Kennedy’s speech has been largely remembered for one particular phrase. In Kennedy’s case, it was in German—poorly spoken German, some believed. Kennedy had tried out a variation of the “I am a Berliner” line in an earlier speech, and worked on the German passages with his speechwriters and State Department translators to ensure the correct pronunciation, going so far as to spell the possibly tricky phrases phonetically. In the 50 years since Kennedy’s speech, German linguists have chimed in on the debate, insisting that the president’s grammar was essentially correct and that contrary to popular belief, he did not try to turn a Cold War moment into a culinary one by erroneously announcing to the crowd, “I am a jelly doughnut.”
June 1987: The line that almost didn’t happen
Ronald Reagan had visited Berlin once before in his presidency, in June 1982, when he addressed West German dignitaries and a crowd outside the city’s Charlottenburg Palace, affirming America’s support for the city of Berlin and its people. Five years (and three Soviet leaders later), Reagan prepared to return to West Berlin to celebrate the city’s 750th anniversary. The preceding years had seen an escalation in rhetoric on both sides (with Reagan famously referring to the USSR as an “Evil Empire”), but also the first noticeable “thaws” in the Cold War in nearly a decade, including the Reykjavik Summit in Iceland the year before and ongoing negotiations that would result in an arms treaty in late 1987. Although authorship of the 1987 Berlin speech’s most famous line remains in dispute, there is little doubt that Reagan’s advisors were almost as deeply divided about whether he should use the potentially inflammatory words, as the city of Berlin was itself. Some feared antagonizing Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, with whom Reagan had built a successful working relationship. Others on Reagan’s team, fearful of charges that the administration had gone “soft,” argued that the time had come for a full-throated challenge to the Communists. The back and forth over the text continued for almost a year, but in the end Reagan made the final decision to keep the line in, and on June 12, 1987, he addressed not just the crowd of more than 20,000 gathered at the Brandenburg Gate itself, but millions of listeners in the Unites States, the Soviet Union and around the world, thunderously calling for Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”
December 1989: Lenny takes Berlin
One of the most emotionally charged moments in the history of the Brandenburg Gate involved musicians, not politicians. Just weeks after the November 1989 opening of the Berlin Wall, American conductor Leonard Bernstein held a series of concerts in music halls on both sides of the famous divide. Leading an international orchestra comprised of musicians from the four countries that had occupied Berlin following the end of World War II (France, England, the United States and the Soviet Union, which would itself collapse just two years later), both concerts featured performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Bernstein, however, eager to honor the momentous historical change afoot, made a crucial change to the work’s famed final movement, known as the “Ode to Joy.” Tweaking the original 18th century text by poet Friedrich Schiller, Bernstein substituted the German word Freiheit for the word Freude, and led a group of singers from two leading East and West German choirs in an emotional rendition of what was now the “Ode to Freedom.” The first of the two concerts, held in West Berlin, ended at midnight on December 23, the same moment that the Berlin Wall became permanently and fully open; the second was held two days later, on Christmas morning, in East Berlin. Both concerts were broadcast to tens of thousands of spectators gathered at the Brandenburg Gate and throughout the two Berlins, and it was the first television events transmitted to both East and West Germany in more than 30 years. | <urn:uuid:4ff1b8b7-4003-4636-aabf-7e0d9aca969d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.history.com/news/brandenburg-gate-a-brief-history | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397636.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00004-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972384 | 1,523 | 3.859375 | 4 |
"My approach tends to be from experiments. I need the challenge. If I know how to do something well, there's no need to do it all the time because it becomes a little monotonous. So I like to find a challenge."
The following activity ideas can be used to engage audiences in a hands-on approach to processing the ideas presented in the artist's film segment. They were compiled from our Educators' Guides and Screening Toolkits. Activities include not only visual art strategies but writing, research, and other disciplinary methods. Additional resources and strategies for teaching with films and working with contemporary art can be found in Teach.
Animate a series of found or borrowed images, to create a critique or comment on a current social issue.
Photograph a reconstruction or reenactment of an important moment in your own personal or family history, using friends or classmates as models. Tell the story in a text that accompanies the work. How does reenacting the event change your understanding of that moment in your own history? How do personal histories or social histories affect the present?
Carrie Mae Weems states, when discussing the work, Constructing History: A Requiem to Mark the Moment: "What came out of these photographs is this idea of constructing history." Research a historical primary document that is important to you or your community—such as a speech from Harvey Milk, or a photograph from the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama—and create a visual response that reflects its legacy, or lack thereof, in the history of your community, city, state, or nation. | <urn:uuid:800fb00b-1116-484c-9fdf-8ec1a8033c68> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.art21.org/texts/carrie-mae-weems/activity-hands-on-carrie-mae-weems | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398869.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00092-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931954 | 323 | 3.625 | 4 |
Legal systems elaborate rights and responsibilities in a variety of ways. A general distinction can be made between civil law jurisdictions, which codify their laws, and common law systems, where judge made law is not consolidated. In some countries, religion informs the law. Law provides a rich source of scholarly inquiry, into legal history, philosophy, economic analysis or sociology. Law also raises important and complex issues concerning equality, fairness and justice. "In its majestic equality", said the author Anatole France in 1894, "the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread." In a typical democracy, the central institutions for interpreting and creating law are the three main branches of government, namely an impartial judiciary, a democratic legislature, and an accountable executive. To implement and enforce the law and provide services to the public, a government's bureaucracy, the military and police are vital. While all these organs of the state are creatures created and bound by law, an independent legal profession and a vibrant civil society inform and support their progress. | <urn:uuid:d740b663-af14-489f-8945-4dc9f9705ec0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://darkanimz.darkbb.com/t277-legal-systems-elaborate | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00091-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941334 | 215 | 3.859375 | 4 |
On November 20, 2014, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals a new invention that generally relates to using networked electronic devices like Apple iDevices and Macs as smoke detectors for your home. As part of a smart home system, Apple illustrates how future iDevices will act as smoke detectors and be able to automatically call 911 for emergency assistance. The system will be able to supply emergency services with information about how many occupants are currently in the home and in which rooms they're located in due to motion sensors embeded in Apple's mobile and stationary devices. Apple's HomeKit will be able to work with future third party dedicated forms of Fire Detectors as well so as to work in conjunction with Apple's new system. Interestingly Apple illustrates that the new system could actually be integrated into their upcoming Apple Watch or at least a future generation of it.
Apple's Patent Background
Fires are a serious threat to the occupants of residential and commercial buildings. Smoke detectors are widely used to combat the risks associated with fires. Smoke detectors are generally mounted at fixed locations within a building. A building occupant who is located in a portion of a building that is remote from fixed smoke detector locations may be out of range of smoke detector coverage and may have difficulty hearing audible alarms generated by the smoke detectors. Smoke detector alarms are typically limited in scope and do not include information of interest to first responders and neighbors such as information on current building occupants.
It would therefore be desirable to be able to provide systems with improved smoke detection and alert capabilities.
Apple Invents Wireless Device Networks with Smoke Detection Capabilities
Apple's invention generally relates to electronic devices, and more particularly, to using networked electronic devices to detect smoke associated with fires.
Apple states that in the future, an electronic device such as an iPhone, iPad, Mac computer or other electronic equipment may include a smoke detector. The electronic device may use the smoke detector to monitor for the presence of smoke. In response to detecting smoke with the smoke detector, the electronic device may issue an alert or take other suitable action.
For example, the electronic device may activate fire suppression equipment, may transmit a text or email message, may transmit alerts to other electronic devices, may generate audible alerts, etc.
Using wired and wireless communications circuitry, the electronic device may transmit alerts to nearby electronic devices and to remote electronic devices such as electronic devices at emergency services facilities. Alerts may contain maps and graphical representations of buildings in which smoke has been detected.
Motion detectors and other sensors and circuitry may be used in determining whether electronic devices are being used by users and may be used in determining where the electronic devices are located. Alerts may contain information on the location of detected smoke and building occupants.
Apple's patent FIG. 1 is a diagram of a system in which a network of electronic devices may be used to monitor for the presence of smoke in the surrounding environment and may be used to take actions such as issuing alerts or controlling fire suppression equipment.
In patent FIG. 10 noted above we're able to see is a cross-sectional side view of an illustrative electronic device of the type shown in FIG. 9 showing how a smoke detector may be mounted within a housing of the electronic device adjacent to a speaker grill in a speaker port.
Apple's patent FIG. 8 is a perspective view of an illustrative wearable electronic device such their future Apple Watch that may be provided with a smoke detector. Apple earlier noted that it could apply to other future iDevices like an iPhone, iPad or even a Mac.
Apple's patent FIG. 11 is a schematic diagram of an illustrative electronic device in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.
Interactive Alert Prompts
According to Apple, alerts can contain graphics, video, moving image content, text, photographic images, graphic (visual) representations of buildings, and other visual content. In the illustrative configuration of FIG. 15, alert #238 contains a graphic representation of the home in which the smoke has been detected (i.e., graphic home representation 240). The home representation may include rooms such as rooms (108) and room name labels such as room name labels (244). The home representation may also include information on the location at which the smoke has been detected by one of the iDevices or Macs.
In the example of FIG. 15, information #242 is being presented to inform the recipient of the alert of the location where smoke has been detected. Smoke location information may be visually presented on the graphic home representation in a location that represents the location of the room that contains smoke (i.e., in the upper left room 108 of FIG. 15) and/or may contain text or other information that labels the location of the detected smoke (e.g., "master bedroom").
The user's current location #248 may be displayed in alert #238 (e.g., using a "current location" label that is located at the position within the graphic representation that corresponds to the alert recipient's current location).
Labels such as occupant location labels may also be provided to identify the locations of other occupants of the building. Labels #246 may indicate the location of the occupants visually by virtue of the position of each label on the graphic home representation and/or with text. If desired, identification labels such as labels #246 may contain information on the name of the building occupants, as shown in the FIG. 15 example.
Alerts may be presented using output from input-output devices of Apple's iDevices or Macs. As an example, alerts may be presented in the form of an audible tone, a vibration, a voice recording, a synthesized text-to-voice message, a visible output such as light from a light-emitting diode or a flashing camera strobe or other light source, a visible output such as images on a display (e.g., text, graphics, video, interactive prompts, etc.), or other suitable types of alerts. The content of an alert may inform the recipient of the alert about the nature of the detected smoke incident (e.g., incident location, the identity of nearby people, etc.), whether emergency services personnel have been notified, etc.
Wireless Device Networks with Smoke Detection Capabilities
Apple's patent FIG. 12 noted below is a system diagram of a network of electronic devices with smoke detection capabilities and alert generation capabilities in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.
Apple's patent FIG. 13 noted above shows us an illustrative alert of the type that may be presented on an electronic device to alert emergency services personnel of the location and nature of an emergency in which smoke has been detected.
Apple's patent FIG. 14 shows us an illustrative alert of the type that may be presented on an electronic device to alert a homeowner or others about an emergency in which smoke has been detected in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.
Light Based Smoke Detector
Apple's patent FIG. 2 noted above is a diagram of an illustrative light-based smoke detector of the type that may be used in future iDevices and Macs. As shown in FIG. 2, the smoke detector #124 may include a light source such as light source #126 and a light detector such as light detector #128.
Baffle structure #130 may be used to block light #132 that is emitted from light source #126, so that light doesn't directly reach light detector #128. The baffle structures may have an opening such as opening #134 that allows particles of the smoke #122 to enter the interior of baffle structures in alignment with the output of light source. During operation, the light source emits light. In the absence of smoke, the light will exit opening #134 and won't be detected by the light detector.
In the presence of smoke, the light will illuminate the smoke particles. The light that is deflected by the illuminated smoke particles may pass through the interior of baffle structures to light detector. The output of the light detector on path #136 will be proportional to the amount of smoke that is present. When little or no smoke is present in the baffle, the light detector may produce a signal on an output indicating that smoke and therefore fire are absent from the building. When smoke is present, the light of more than a threshold amount will be reflected into the light detector. In response, the light detector may generate an output signal on output #136 that indicates that smoke and potentially fire have been detected.
Office or Apartment Buildings
Lastly, Apple's patent FIG. 16 shows an illustrative visual alert of the type that may be presented on an electronic device to visually inform a building occupant such as an apartment dweller or others about the nature of an emergency in which smoke has been detected and the location of known occupants of the building relative to the location of detected smoke and the alerted building occupant.
Apple's patent FIG. 17 shows an illustrative map-based alert of the type that may be presented on electronic devices to visually alert neighbors and other members of the public in the vicinity of a home in which smoke has been detected.
Apple credits Paul Puskarich as the sole inventor of patent application 20140340216 which was originally filed in Q2 2013. Considering that this is a patent application, the timing of such a product to market is unknown at this time.
Obviously the system would be coordinated so that an iDevice in a distant room detecting a fire would be able to alert all iDevices and Macs in the home and one in your bedroom so as to wake you up. This is where working with third party devices via HomeKit will be of assistance in tying all of this together.
A Note for Tech Sites covering our Report: We ask tech sites covering our report to kindly limit the use of our graphics to one image. Thanking you in advance for your cooperation.
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:5e0e731a-227f-4895-b829-0f26aeb01531> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2014/11/apple-aims-to-embed-a-fire-detector-into-future-idevices-macs.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398216.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00146-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941464 | 2,117 | 2.75 | 3 |
Stars cook up nearly all of the approximately 60 atomic elements in people’s bodies. But exactly how that works remains a mystery. Astrophysicists have developed cutting-edge computer simulations to grapple with an array of related puzzles:
• What were stars like when they first appeared in the universe over 13 billion years ago, starting the process of modern element production?
• What do we know about the nature of the death of massive stars — signaled by Type II supernovae — that fashion crucial elements such as calcium and oxygen?
• How might the burned-out stars called white dwarfs be brought to ruin by other stars in so-called Type Ia supernovae, inciting the fiery alchemy that yielded much of the iron in our blood and the potassium in our brains?
Scientists are still trying to figure out what triggers an individual Type Ia supernova and to determine the identity of the partner star to the exploding white dwarf. The Hubble Space Telescope’s recent discovery of the earliest known Type Ia supernova from more than 10 billion years ago, plus other results, favor a scenario in which two white dwarfs merge.
The results indicate that crucial elements in people formed later in the history of the universe than many had expected, says David Jones, the lead astronomer on the Hubble study. “It took (very roughly) about 750 million years longer to form the first 50 percent of the iron in the modern universe.”
Out of the primordial hydrogen and helium created in the Big Bang, clouds coalesced within 100 million years, eventually forming the first stars. This simulation shows light from an early star 100 million years after the Big Bang. When this fireball — millions of times brighter than the sun — dies in a titanic explosion called a supernova, it hurls out elements such as oxygen, carbon and magnesium.
About 500 million years after the Big Bang, one of the first galaxies in the universe formed, containing stars of about the same mass as the sun — which can live for 10 billion years — as well as lighter stars. The green and whitish regions depict elements such as carbon and oxygen.
This simulated image shows the first half-second of an explosion of a star 15 times more massive than the sun. Called a core collapse supernova explosion, one example of which is a Type II, these are a source of about a dozen major elements in people, including iron, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur and zinc. The sphere in the center is a newly born neutron star, the superdense corpse that remains of the former star. The scale from top to bottom is 1,000 kilometers, or 621 miles.
A star the size of the sun becomes a “red giant” toward the end of its 10-billion-year life span, a phase in which its outer atmosphere expands a great deal. The white region at the center is the dense, hot core where hydrogen and helium are still burning in two concentric shells. Between those two shells, carbon is combining with helium to form oxygen.
The four ingredients below are essential parts of the body’s protein, carbohydrate and fat architecture. (Expressed as percentage of body weight).
Oxygen — 65.0%
Critical to the conversion of food into energy.
Carbon — 18.5%
The so-called backbone of the building blocks of the body and a key part of other important compounds, such as testosterone and estrogen.
Hydrogen — 9.5%
Helps transport nutrients, remove wastes and regulate body temperature. Also plays an important role in energy production.
Nitrogen — 3.3%
Found in amino acids, the building blocks of proteins; an essential part of the nucleic acids that constitute DNA.
Calcium — 1.5%
Lends rigidity and strength to bones and teeth; also important for the functioning of nerves and muscles, and for blood clotting.
Phosphorus — 1.0%
Needed for building and maintaining bones and teeth; also found in the molecule ATP (adenosine triphosphate), which provides energy that drives chemical reactions in cells.
Potassium — 0.4%
Important for electrical signaling in nerves and maintaining the balance of water in the body.
Sulfur — 0.3%
Found in cartilage, insulin (the hormone that enables the body to use sugar), breast milk, proteins that play a role in the immune system, and keratin, a substance in skin, hair and nails.
Chlorine — 0.2%
Needed by nerves to function properly; also helps produce gastric juices.
Sodium — 0.2%
Plays a critical role in nerves’ electrical signaling; also helps regulate the amount of water in the body.
Magnesium — 0.1%
Plays an important role in the structure of the skeleton and muscles; also found in molecules that help enzymes use ATP to supply energy for chemical reactions in cells.
Iodine (trace amount)
Part of an essential hormone produced by the thyroid gland; regulates metabolism.
Iron (trace amount)
Part of hemoglobin, which carries oxygen in red blood cells.
Zinc (trace amount)
Forms part of some enzymes involved in digestion. | <urn:uuid:e4ee7f80-2aad-48b6-9431-566983ff405f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://discovermagazine.com/galleries/2013/august/cosmic-recipe-for-earthlings | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00167-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923098 | 1,091 | 4.125 | 4 |
Researchers have found a promising way to show the edges of brain tumors in MRI scans more clearly.
The study, which offers scientists the most complete picture of brain tumors yet, is the work of a team from the University of Oxford in the UK, and was presented on Monday at the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Cancer Conference 2015, in Liverpool, UK.
The edges of a tumor contain the most invasive cancer cells. For surgery or radiation therapy to succeed, doctors need good maps that show not only where the tumor sits in the brain, but also where its edges are - a clear delineation between cancerous and healthy tissue.
This is important not only in order to remove all the cancerous tissue, but also because the most invasive cells are at the edge of a tumor, as one of the researchers, Cancer Research UK scientist Nicola Sibson, a professor in the Institute for Radiation Oncology at Oxford, explains:
"If we can't map the edge of the tumor, surgery and radiotherapy often fail to remove aggressive tumor cells - and the brain tumor can grow back.
Currently, on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, you can see where the brain tumor is, but its edges are blurred. This is because the MRI spots leaky blood vessels inside the tumor. But on the edges of the tumor, the blood vessels are intact, so they do not show as clearly on the scans.
Highlights edges of both primary and secondary brain tumors
Now, for the first time, Prof. Sibson and her team have discovered a useful protein inside the blood vessels at the invasive edge of brain tumors.
In tests on rats, they showed it is possible to use the protein to define the edges of both primary and secondary tumors on MRI scans.
The protein - called VCAM-1 - is released as part of an inflammatory response caused by the brain tumor. The researchers developed a special dye that recognizes and sticks to the protein. The dye highlights the protein - and thus the edges of the tumor - on MRI scans.
An added advantage, note the researchers, is that the protein is on the inside of the vessels, so the dye can access it from the bloodstream.
Prof. Sibson concludes:
"This research shows that we can improve imaging of brain tumors, which could help both surgeons and radiotherapists with more effective treatment."
Every year, around 256,000 people worldwide are diagnosed with cancer in the brain or another part of the central nervous system. In the UK, where the study was conducted, this figure is around 9,700, or 27 people a day.
"Brain cancers continue to have very poor survival rates," says Harpal Kumar, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, which co-funded the study with the Medical Research Council. Kumar adds:"The holy grail would be to be able to completely remove brain tumors with the help of this new imaging technique - reducing recurrence of the disease and saving more lives."
In the following video, Prof. Sibson discusses the research and its significance.
Meanwhile, Medical News Today recently learned how a new clue about chemo-resistance in tumors could improve cancer treatments. The discovery, published in the journal Cancer Cell, surrounds the role of a molecular mechanism that allows cells with damaged DNA to repair their DNA but does not trigger cell death if the DNA damage is unrepairable. | <urn:uuid:47620360-a86e-4289-80cc-4539019ddc7e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/301909.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398216.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00185-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950751 | 694 | 3.1875 | 3 |
FND 194: Metamorphosis and "Monsters": Transforming Ourselves
Monster: A person or animal that is abnormally formed; One that is extraordinarily large and
powerful; A perversely bad, cruel, or wicked person. [Monster. (2003). In Roget's II The New
Thesaurus. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Retrieved October 31, 2008, from http://www.credoreference.
Use this link
to learn how to evaluate sources and distinguish among "scholarly," "general interest," "popular,"
and "sensationalist" materials.
- Folklore : An Encyclopedia of Beliefs, Customs, Tales, Music, and Art
- REF GR35 .F63 1997 vols. 1-2
- The Greenwood Encyclopedia of World Folklore and Folklife
- REF GR35 .G75 2005 vols. 1-4
- Storytelling Encyclopedia : Historical, Cultural, and Multiethnic Approaches to Oral Traditions Around the World
- REF GR72 .S76 1997
- Spirits, Fairies, Gnomes, and Goblins : an Encyclopedia of the Little People
- REF GR549 .R65 1996
- The Encyclopedia of Monsters
- REF P96.M6 R68 1989
- The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy : Themes, Works, and WondersREF PS374 .S35 G74 2005 vols. 1-3
- Credo Reference
- A digital reference library that places a world of factual information at your fingertips. Containing 100 high-quality reference books from the world's leading publishers: dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesauri, and books of quotations, not to mention a host of subject-specific titles covering everything from the arts and literature to technology.
- Gale's Literary Index
- Master index to the major literature products published by Gale. It combines and cross-references over 159,000 author names, including pseudonyms and variant names, and listings for over 210,000 titles into one source.
- Oxford Reference Online
- The largest, most up-to-date, authoritative, and accessible reference work in the world. This huge resource contains almost 2 million words and phrases from Oxford's English language and bilingual dictionaries. Individual Oxford titles may be found amongst our Electronic Resources - By Subject pages.
INDEXES & ARTICLE COLLECTIONS
This resource is the combination of Anthropology Index and Anthropological Literature. Provides extensive worldwide indexing of journal articles, reports, commentaries, edited works, and
obituaries in the fields of social, cultural, physical, biological, and linguistic anthropology, ethnology, archaeology, folklore, material culture, and interdisciplinary studies. Covers over 2500 journals,
19th century to the present. Updated quarterly.
Film and Television Literature Index
A comprehensive bibliographic database covering the entire spectrum of television and film writing. Subject coverage includes film & television theory, preservation & restoration,
writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, and reviews.
Humanities Full Text
Indexes over 300 English-language periodicals covering classical studies, history, literature, performing arts, philosophy,
and related fields. Covers 1984 to the present.
The Modern Language Association's index of articles, book chapters and essays in literature, languages, and folklore. Covers 1963 to the present.
Religion Index (ATLA)
Comprehensive database in religious and theological scholarship. Includes index citations, journal articles, essays in multi-author works, and book reviews from ATLA's print indexes: Religion Index One (RIO), Religion Index Two (RIT), and Index to Book Reviews in Religion
(IBRR). Covers from 1949 to the present.
Social Sciences Full Text
Indexes over 300 English-language periodicals covering anthropology, economics, political science, psychology, social work, sociology, and related fields. Includes both Abstracts
and Full Text Articles. Covers 1983 to the present.
Full version comprehensive database of over 1500 journals covering sociology, social work, and other social sciences. Covers 1963 to the present.
JOURNALS, MAGAZINES & NEWSPAPERS AND INTERLIBRARY LOAN (ILL)
To determine whether or not the F&M Library owns a journal, use the Journals feature on the Library's web site.
If the library does not have a journal you need, and you have at least 1 week - 10 days before your assignment is due, you can submit an Interlibrary Loan: request journal articles & books (ILL) request
to have the journal article acquired for you by the library. Allow 3-7 days for the article to arrive.
F&M LIBRARY CATALOG & E-Z BORROW: BOOKS
Search the catalog to find out what books, journals, newspapers, videos, maps, CDs, music, etc., the
NOTE: There are no journal articles in the catalog!
[Requires your F&M ID barcode number.]
A free book-exchange service among academic libraries in Pennsylvania. If F&M's copy of a book you want is unavailable, try E-Z Borrow to get the book quickly!
If you have any questions, concerns, etc., please contact:
Andy Gulati (firstname.lastname@example.org)
Last updated: 10/30/08 jb,rs | <urn:uuid:2152e3b1-e4ff-459a-bf18-a2581e1842ef> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://library.fandm.edu/guides/fnd194.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393093.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00039-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.805374 | 1,135 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Photoshop Elements 8 All-in-One For Dummies
US $39.99 Add to Cart
Book I: Introducing Elements.
Chapter 1: Examining the Elements Environment.
Chapter 2: Getting to Know the Tools.
Chapter 3: Viewing and Navigating Images.
Chapter 4: Setting Your Preferences.
Book II: Elements Fundamentals.
Chapter 1: Acquiring, Saving, and Exporting Images.
Chapter 2: Working in the Organizer.
Chapter 3: Working in Adobe Bridge.
Book III: Image Essentials.
Chapter 1: Specifying Resolution and Changing Image Sizing.
Chapter 2: Choosing Color Modes and File Formats.
Chapter 3: Working with Camera Raw.
Chapter 4: Using and Managing Color.
Chapter 5: Time Travel — Undoing in Elements.
Book IV: Selections.
Chapter 1: Making Selections.
Chapter 2: Modifying and Transforming Selections.
Book V: Painting, Drawing, and Typing.
Chapter 1: Painting and Drawing with Elements.
Chapter 2: Filling and Stroking.
Chapter 3: Working with Type.
Book VI: Working with Layers and Masks.
Chapter 1: Creating Layers.
Chapter 2: Managing Layers.
Chapter 3: Playing with Opacity and Blend Modes.
Chapter 4: Cutting, Extracting, and Masking.
Book VII: Filters, Effects, Styles, and Distortions.
Chapter 1: Making Corrections and Having Fun with Filters.
Chapter 2: Distorting with the Liquify Command.
Chapter 3: Adding Pizzazz with Styles and Effects.
Book VIII: Retouching and Enhancing.
Chapter 1: Quick Image Makeovers.
Chapter 2: Correcting Lighting, Color, and Clarity.
Chapter 3: Compositing with Photomerge.
Chapter 4: Getting Help in Guided Mode.
Book IX: Creating and Sharing with Elements.
Chapter 1: Creating Elements Projects.
Chapter 2: Getting It Printed.
Chapter 3: Getting It on the Web.
Chapter 4: Sharing Projects with Others. | <urn:uuid:e0f34903-be35-49e7-ac07-da6c21dae22a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.dummies.com/store/product/Photoshop-Elements-8-All-in-One-For-Dummies.productCd-0470543027,navId-322429,descCd-tableOfContents.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398516.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00052-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.66131 | 449 | 2.71875 | 3 |
has a somewhat marmot-like or guinea pig-like appearance. Long, soft, grey-brown fur covers the body, while the underside is paler. Hairs are lighter near their tips. The ears have a fringe of white hair. A dorsal gland is conspicuous in the middle of the back as it is ringed by creamy white hairs (total length 23-30 mm). lacks an obvious external tail.
These animals weigh about 2.27 kg on average, and have an average length of 520 mm. The BMR for this species is reported to be somewhat low for its size.
Four sub-species are recognized: D. arboreus stuhlmanni, D. arboreus crawshayi, D. arboreus ruwenzorii, and D. arboreus aldofi-friederici. Ranges overlap, although some habitat differentiation has been reported where the sub-species co-occur. (Jones, 1984; Kingdon, 1971; Milner and Harris, 1999a; Smithers, 1966)
Milner and Harris (1999b) reported that they were unable to determine the mating system of, but speculate that it may be facultative monogamy/polygyny, similar to some folivorous marsupial or primate species. Nonetheless, "it was quite apparent that their social system was very different from that of the colonial rock and bush hyrax." (Milner and Harris 1999b, p.292)
During an activity study of radio-collared animals, two male-female pairs had similar activity patterns and ranges, suggesting to the authors that either seasonal or longer-lasting bonds were indicated. (Milner and Harris, 1999b)
One account reported that offspring may eat solid food beginning their second or third day. (Gaylard and Kerley, 1997)
Hoeck reports the longevity for the genus Dendrohyrax as "10 years plus." A captive female, pregnant when brought into captivity, lived at least four additional years, though her lifespan after the study ended is not reported. (Hoeck, 2001; Rudnai, 1984a)
Although some report that southern tree hyraxes sometimes occupy rocks in Tanzania and Uganda, published studies are from South Africa and Rwanda where these animals reside in the trees. Their behavior in this habitat is more widely reported, and the following applies to these populations. (Hoeck, 2001; Smithers, 1966)
is relatively inactive. It it active only about 16% of the day (i.e. feeding, traveling, fighting, or vocalizing). It exhibits a somewhat bimodal pattern of activity, but males and females have different activity peaks. All have a peak of activity within 3 hours of sunset, females are also active during midday, whereas males have a separate activity peak in the pre-dawn hours. These times are when it is most likely to feed.
Home range size of (Milner and Harris, 1999b)may increase with age. In a study in Rwanda, total home ranges varied from 600 to 2,800 square meters, while core areas (where every tree is used at least 1% of the time) varied from 150 to 2,500 square meters.
Patches of forested areas most commonly occupied are at least 5 ha in size.
Throughout their range, southern tree hyraxes are particularly well known for their nighttime screaming. During the dry season, males will call in the early morning hours (between 2 an 4 AM). There appears to be a social communicative function to these calls. "Each animal builds up to a strained crescendo of screams and a calling animal appears to initiate responses from its neighbours so that on a suitable night there may be concert periods of croaking screams ringing out through the forest." (Kingdon 1971, p.328)
A clear interpretation of this behavior has not been made: there was no correlation between frequency, intensity, duration, initiation time of calls, or environmental variables. Breeding activities were not investigated in tandem with calling behavior. One interpretation is that calling follows intense feeding periods but is linked to territoriality and sexual function. (Kingdon, 1971; Milner and Harris, 1999a)
Some tactile communication undoubtedly occurs between mothers and their young, as well as between mates. Although these animals can see, it is not known whether they use any visual signals in their communication.
Verreaux eagles subsist almost entirely on hyraxes. Additionally, Martial and Tawny eagles, leopards, lions, jackals, spotted hyenas, and snakes prey upon hyraxes. In Rwanda, the most common predators are feral dogs. It has been speculated that the exceptionally limited amount of time (Hoeck, 2001; Milner and Harris, 1999b)spends on the ground at night may be a predator avoidance strategy to avoid the dogs. Humans are also known to eat .
Southern tree hyraxes disperse the seeds of fruits they eat. Their waste products contain high amounts of calcium carbonate, which eventually form "outcroppings" and may play a role in localized nutrient cycling. As hyraxes generally are the major prey of Verreaux eagles, (Hoeck, 2001; Lawes, et al., 2000)may have a significant impact on this species. Finally, as cavity-dwellers, they may provide structural components of forests.
Dendrohyrax spp. for food, and it is said that their large liver is a delicacy. Finally, the fur of this species may have some value, as the pelts of other members of the genus, such as , are used near Mt. Kilimanjaro. The fur of tree hyraxes is generally quite soft. (Hoeck, 2001; Kingdon, 1971)has economic importance to humans in a number of different ways. The crystallized excrement of this species has been used by both Europeans and South African tribes as a medicinal to treat epilepsy, hysteria, St. Vitus's dance, and general injuries. It has also been used as a vitamin supplement. Humans hunt
Nancy Shefferly (editor), Animal Diversity Web.
Anna Williams (author), University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, Phil Myers (editor, instructor), Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.
living in sub-Saharan Africa (south of 30 degrees north) and Madagascar.
uses sound to communicate
Referring to an animal that lives in trees; tree-climbing.
having body symmetry such that the animal can be divided in one plane into two mirror-image halves. Animals with bilateral symmetry have dorsal and ventral sides, as well as anterior and posterior ends. Synapomorphy of the Bilateria.
uses smells or other chemicals to communicate
to jointly display, usually with sounds, at the same time as two or more other individuals of the same or different species
active at dawn and dusk
a substance used for the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease
animals that use metabolically generated heat to regulate body temperature independently of ambient temperature. Endothermy is a synapomorphy of the Mammalia, although it may have arisen in a (now extinct) synapsid ancestor; the fossil record does not distinguish these possibilities. Convergent in birds.
parental care is carried out by females
an animal that mainly eats leaves.
A substance that provides both nutrients and energy to a living thing.
forest biomes are dominated by trees, otherwise forest biomes can vary widely in amount of precipitation and seasonality.
An animal that eats mainly plants or parts of plants.
offspring are produced in more than one group (litters, clutches, etc.) and across multiple seasons (or other periods hospitable to reproduction). Iteroparous animals must, by definition, survive over multiple seasons (or periodic condition changes).
Having one mate at a time.
having the capacity to move from one place to another.
This terrestrial biome includes summits of high mountains, either without vegetation or covered by low, tundra-like vegetation.
the area in which the animal is naturally found, the region in which it is endemic.
active during the night
having more than one female as a mate at one time
rainforests, both temperate and tropical, are dominated by trees often forming a closed canopy with little light reaching the ground. Epiphytes and climbing plants are also abundant. Precipitation is typically not limiting, but may be somewhat seasonal.
Referring to something living or located adjacent to a waterbody (usually, but not always, a river or stream).
communicates by producing scents from special gland(s) and placing them on a surface whether others can smell or taste them
scrub forests develop in areas that experience dry seasons.
remains in the same area
reproduction that includes combining the genetic contribution of two individuals, a male and a female
uses touch to communicate
that region of the Earth between 23.5 degrees North and 60 degrees North (between the Tropic of Cancer and the Arctic Circle) and between 23.5 degrees South and 60 degrees South (between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Antarctic Circle).
Living on the ground.
the region of the earth that surrounds the equator, from 23.5 degrees north to 23.5 degrees south.
A terrestrial biome. Savannas are grasslands with scattered individual trees that do not form a closed canopy. Extensive savannas are found in parts of subtropical and tropical Africa and South America, and in Australia.
A grassland with scattered trees or scattered clumps of trees, a type of community intermediate between grassland and forest. See also Tropical savanna and grassland biome.
A terrestrial biome found in temperate latitudes (>23.5° N or S latitude). Vegetation is made up mostly of grasses, the height and species diversity of which depend largely on the amount of moisture available. Fire and grazing are important in the long-term maintenance of grasslands.
uses sight to communicate
reproduction in which fertilization and development take place within the female body and the developing embryo derives nourishment from the female.
breeding takes place throughout the year
young are relatively well-developed when born
Gaylard, A., G. Kerley. 2001. Habitat assessment for a rare, arboreal forest mammal, the tree hyrax African Journal of Ecology, 39: 205-212..
Gaylard, A., G. Kerley. 1997. Diet of tree hyraxes Journal of Mammalogy, 78/1: 213-221.(Hyracoidea: Procaviidae) in the Eastern Cape, South Africa.
Hoeck, H. 2001. Hyraxes. Pp. 448-451 in D Macdonald, S Norris, eds. The New Encyclopedia of Mammals. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Jones, C. 1984. Tubulidentates, Proboscideans, and Hyracoideans. Pp. 523-535 in S Anderson, J Jones, Jr., eds. Orders and Families of Recent Mammals of the World. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc..
Kingdon, J. 1971. East African Mammals: An Atlas of Evolution in Africa, Volume I. London: Academic Press Inc..
Lawes, M., P. Mealin, S. Piper. 2000. Patch occupancy and potential metapopulation dynamics of three forest mammals in fragmented afromontane forest in South Africa. Conservation Biology, 14/4: 1088-1098.
Milner, J., S. Harris. 1999a. Activity patterns and feeding behaviour of the tree hyrax, African Journal of Ecology, 37: 267-280., in the Parc National des Volcans, Rwanda.
Milner, J., S. Harris. 1999b. Habitat use and ranging behaviour of tree hyrax, African Journal of Ecology, 37: 281-294., in the Virunga Volcanoes, Rwanda.
Rudnai, J. 1984b. Activity cycle and space utilization in captive South African Journal of Zoology, 19/2: 124-128..
Rudnai, J. 1984a. Suckling behaviour in captive South African Journal of Zoology, 19/2: 121-123.(Mammalia: Hyracoidea).
Smithers, R. 1966. The Mammals of Rhodesia, Zambia and Malawi. London: Collins Clear-Type Press. | <urn:uuid:5eab1a89-2160-4168-b7c0-fca6121f42db> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Dendrohyrax_arboreus/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398075.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00137-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920696 | 2,630 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Slight Baby Ear Shell, Sincum debile: The Slight Baby Ear Shell is white and stained with rusty yellow and beautifully sculptured with fine rays crossing the lines of growth. They are very flat and delicate. They have small spires and very large apertures. They vary in size from 1.5 cm (0.6 inches) to 2.8 cm (1.1 inches).
They are found in all Mexican waters of the Pacific on tidal flats at extreme low tide and offshore to depths of 150 feet.
The Slight Baby Ear Shell is a medium sized member of the Naticidae family, the moon shells which are predatory operculated sea snails. They are found intertidally over and within sand and mud bottoms plowing through substrate seeking prey.
When on the prowl, the body extends well outside its shell; when threatened it can quickly withdraw into its shell ridding its body of large amounts of water through its foot. However, they cannot stay in these confined quarters for long because they drown.
They feed mainly on bivalve mollusks by generating a large amount of mucus to confuse their prey and then drill a neat beveled hole in the shell with its radula and feed on the organisms soft flesh. The females deposit eggs, that number in the thousands, in a collar-shaped structure made of sand grains cemented together with mucus which is molded into shape and attached over the margin of the aperture. The have short spires and large body whorls.
There are 44 global members of the Sinum Genus, all of which have sculpture with fine spiral groves, they vary in color from brown to white, and the animals are too big to fit into the shells. | <urn:uuid:c69a53a5-ac8c-441e-9933-ff87ac452e43> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mexfish.com/fish/slightbaby/slightbaby.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398075.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00153-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968692 | 360 | 3.03125 | 3 |
During the week that followed that important Sunday, crowds of women, children, and old men; Spaniards, Cubans, and people of other nations, went out of Santiago. They hardly knew where to go. Men who saw that sight said it was pitiful. All the roads leading from Santiago were filled with people and wagons, toiling on to some place of safety. Most of these people had very little food, except the fruit then ripe on the mango-trees, and so had to be fed by our Army and by the Red Cross Society. Ever since General Shafter’s army had landed, it had been feeding the hungry Cubans in the country around Santiago—people who were nearly starved on account of their long war with Spain. Food was scarce in our Army, because there was trouble in landing the supplies sent by the United States, and more trouble in sending the supplies forward to the soldiers. Still, the hungry people from Santiago could not be neglected, and they were given a share of food daily.
And with all those crowds upon the narrow roads from Santiago were many of our wounded soldiers, trying to make their way back to the Red Cross tent at Siboney. There were not enough army wagons to take the wounded from Las Guasimas, El Caney, and San Juan, and they could not all be treated in the field tents. So the men limped and hobbled along as best they could—wounded, sick, feverish—to Siboney, eight miles away. To add to the suffering, this was the wet season in Cuba, and rain fell for hours every day.
During that week of truce, General Shafter arranged with the Spanish general in Santiago for the exchange of Lieutenant Hobson and his crew. Half way between the American camp and the city there was a beautiful ceiba-tree, or silk-cotton tree, so called from the large seed-pods, full of soft, cotton-like stuff. Under this tall, shady tree many important councils were held between the Spanish and American officers. And under this tree, one morning, our officers gave up eight Spanish prisoners in return for Lieutenant Hobson and his men. Our soldiers welcomed these brave fellows with shouts of praise and joy.
[Illustration: The Treaty Tree.]
On July 10th, the truce being ended, our Army and our Navy fired upon Santiago, and kept up the fire on the morning of the next day. Then a new truce was made, for the Spaniards wanted time to consult their Government. General Miles, the Commander-in-Chief of the whole United States Army, arrived and held councils with the Spanish officers. At last the Spaniards agreed to surrender the eastern part of Cuba, and at noon, on July 17th, our flag was hoisted on the governor’s palace in Santiago. Our soldiers took possession of the city, and the citizens, who had gone away in such sorrow, now returned in joy because the United States had taken charge. | <urn:uuid:789ed2be-ad8d-4816-a906-1287d03ec42f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/17993/57.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396224.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00087-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987438 | 618 | 3.46875 | 3 |
June 2014 has become the second consecutive record-setting month for heat, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Monday. The averge global temperature last month was 61.2°F (16.2°C), which is 0.2°F than 2010, the previously hottest June, and 1.3° degrees higher than the 20th century average. It is the 352nd hotter than average month in a row.
Derek Arndt, NOAA's climate monitoring chief, said unusually hot oceans — especially the Pacific and Indian oceans — were the driving force behind June's heat.
"We are living in the steroid era of the climate system," Arndt said.
Heat records were broken on every continent with the exception of Antarctica. New Zealand, northern South America, Greenland, Central Africa and Southern Asia were especially hot regions. However, it was only the 33rd hottest June in the U.S.
Global temperature records go back to 1880. To date, the year is third hottest on record — behind 2010 and 1998 — but it could become the hottest year on record if an El Niño weather pattern develops. | <urn:uuid:cd7f2b5c-03e0-406e-b56e-9c222f7f560e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://tvnewslies.org/tvnl/index.php/news/environment/33573-scientist-qwe-are-living-in-the-steroid-era-of-the-climate-systemq-.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399428.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00098-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969898 | 230 | 3.46875 | 3 |
Q. Dear Chicago, I’m in a debate with my 73-year-old publisher. I lost my AP Style book in a recent move and I can’t remember the rule for putting hyphens in a person’s age. My publisher says it is only used when the age is a modifier. I say it needs to be used when it is a noun as well, such as: “The healthy 18-year-old jumped in his car . . .” He claims it is only used in a sentence similar to this: “An 8-year-old boy.” Please let me know which is correct so I can end this debate and put this magazine to bed! Thank you, Missouri.
A. Dear Missouri: You are correct. In a phrase such as “a five-year-old,” the age modifies an implicit noun. See 7.85, section 1, under “age terms,” for more examples. | <urn:uuid:bd7b4ec2-5da5-4088-a7f0-ee2c433e7627> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/HyphensEnDashesEmDashes/faq0008.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00064-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963662 | 206 | 2.75 | 3 |
10 Ways to Entertain a Preschooler and an Older Child
Given the right guidance, preschoolers and grade schoolers often get along famously. Use these tips to help bridge the age gap.
Hover over each Learning Benefit below for a detailed explanation.
Given the right guidance, preschoolers and grade schoolers often get along famously. Both are able, and the older kids can help the younger ones when a challenge arises. Try these activities when little ones and slightly older ones play together:
- Working on the Railroad: Make a train out of empty boxes. Stores like Costco and Sam's Club have piles of them for the taking. Hand out bandanas and hats as costumes, and play a CD of train sounds or Woody Guthrie songs. Let the kids venture to destinations of their choice.
- Whatever Floats Your Boat: Make boats from Styrofoam blocks or meat trays, with a paper sail held in place with a stick, bamboo skewer, toothpick, or lollipop stick. Sail in a pond, a pan of water, the backyard pool, or the bathtub.
- The Wild Blue Yonder: Make tongue-depressor gliders, and glue them on blue paper with cotton-ball clouds. Each child can write her name and the name of her glider on the paper with white chalk.
- Stuffed Animal Scene: Ask the kids to gather all the stuffed animals in the house. They can set them in a "boat" (dresser drawer, cardboard box, or laundry basket), make up a story about where they are going, and give each animal a role to play: captain, first mate, sailor, deck swabber, cook.
- Roll ‘Em Up: Kids love rolling pins — or let them use a can or heavy plastic cup to flatten sandwich bread. Cut out shapes using cookie cutters. Spread with soft strawberry cream cheese and decorate with raisins or mini chocolate chips. Enjoy as a snack!
- Put Me in the Zoo: Hand out paper plates, glue sticks, bits of yarn, and other craft materials. Have the children make animal face masks.
- Green Thumbs: Plant lima beans in paper cups of soil. Water and put in a sunny window; sprouts should appear in less than a week. Or line an empty glass with a wet paper towel and tuck the beans between the glass and the towel. Keep the paper towel damp, and within a few days the seeds should sprout. Then plant them in soil so they can grow.
- Soapy Sculptures: Pass out cakes of soft white bath soap. The kids can carve them with craft sticks or plastic knives and score with forks, old toothbrushes, or their fingernails.
- Science Lab: Split a stalk of celery halfway up, and place each end in a separate cup of water dyed with a different shade of food coloring. In several hours, the veins and leaves will take on the colors.
- Leaf It to Me: Go outside to gather leaves of different sizes and shapes — and colors if the season allows. Make people using the collected leaves for hair, body, face, hats, and clothing (glue onto stiff paper). Add detail with crayons, paint, markers, and other art materials.
Recommended Products for Your Child Ages 3-8 | <urn:uuid:cbe963cf-eba3-4f23-8fd8-c38d5a185061> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.scholastic.com/parents/resources/article/craft-activities/10-ways-to-entertain-preschooler-and-older-child | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00063-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916761 | 691 | 3.265625 | 3 |
Research has shown that smoking cigarettes, as well as being exposed to secondhand smoke, raises risk for heart disease. But what is the difference in the effect of a little versus a lot of smoke? A new study published in the American Heart Association's medical journal, Circulation, found that even small amounts of smoke are linked to the steepest increases in risk for death from heart disease.
Researchers analyzed data on roughly 1.2 million adults that had been collected during 25 years as part of a study by the American Cancer Society. Volunteers were followed for about six years. More than 200,000 were smokers.
The study found that even low levels of smoke from cigarettes can substantially raise the risk for death from heart disease. The biggest increases in risk occurred at lower levels of exposure, with risk leveling off at higher levels.
Compared with people who had never smoked, those who smoked up to three cigarettes a day increased their risk of dying from heart disease by 65 percent. Doubling or tripling the amount of cigarettes per day increased risk to 79 percent.
Small but substantive risk was also linked to exposure to secondhand smoke. Compared with active smokers, passive smokers inhale just a fraction of the smoke particles from burning cigarettes. Yet they still were found to have a 20 to 30 percent higher risk for death from heart disease than those not exposed to secondhand smoke.
November 19 is the American Cancer Society's Great American Smokeout. Use this day as an opportunity to quit smoking for good. Follow these tips for a smoke-free future:
Go cold turkey. Don't try to quit by smoking fewer or milder cigarettes at first. If you do this, you will likely be smoking the original amount again soon. Likewise, smoking "low-tar, low-nicotine" cigarettes usually doesn't help. Because nicotine is addictive, switching to lower-nicotine brands usually causes smokers to puff harder, longer, and more often on each cigarette.
Write down why you want to quit smoking. A strong desire to quit is very important to succeed in quitting. Smokers who survive a heart attack are the most likely to quit for good because they are very motivated to improve their health.
Know that quitting takes effort. Most smokers have some nicotine withdrawal, such as bad moods and cravings, when they try to quit. Give yourself a month for this to pass and take quitting one day, hour, or minute at a time.
Believe that you can quit. Half of all adult smokers have quit-you can too. Millions of people like you have learned to live without cigarettes, and so can you.
Seek help if you need it. For support in quitting, including free quit coaching, a free quit plan, free educational materials, and referrals to local resources, contact 1-800-QUIT-NOW (1-800-784-8669); TTY 1-800-332-8615.
(Our Organization is not responsible for the content of Internet sites.)
Many people who have quit smoking didn't do it alone. Instead, they used stop-smoking products. These can ease nicotine withdrawal symptoms, such as cravings and irritability:
Ask your doctor which one may work for you. | <urn:uuid:3b8ff598-e277-4519-91d4-cac9e9689eee> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nyhq.org/diw/Content.asp?PageID=DIW009865&language=English | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00130-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967266 | 657 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Integrated schools follow the statutory Northern Ireland Curriculum. This means their students study the same subjects and topics as peers in non-integrated schools.
What makes Integrated Education different is the added focus schools place on delivering the curriculum in way that exposes students to different traditions and backgrounds.
Provision for History, Music and dancing which is reflective of both major traditions in Northern Ireland is promoted and additionally the selection of texts for English-language, literature and drama should illustrate the contributions of both of those writers born in Britain and those born in Ireland North and South. Arrangements for Irish games and language are usually provided on an optional basis and many schools have input from the Ulster Scots tradition. | <urn:uuid:ee92aeaa-d8bd-4e35-8250-98ba2deb1e70> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nicie.org/parents/why-integrated-education/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396872.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00157-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964536 | 140 | 3.140625 | 3 |
In this road test, we had an HHO generator attached in front of the radiator and the line then running up to the motor. With the generator lower than the motor, the chances of fluid getting sucked up into the air intake are a lot lower. The front placement in the open air in front of the radiator is good when you’re driving higher speeds, since it keeps the unit a little cooler. For all city driving, this wouldn’t be ideal. Overheating can be an issue, and each car design presents new issues for placement. By far the easiest ?vehicles are older models with tons of room under the hood. This sunfire didn’t have a lot of room in the engine compartment, so it was either in front, in the trunk or in the cab. And who wants the hydrogen producing unit in the cab? Not me!
For all of our tests, we fill the tank till it runs over with gas. Then we do our drive test, and record the distance. We fill the vehicle again, to determine the amount of gas used. This is in our minds, a real world test that gives the actual results of using our diy hho hydrogen generator on a real vehicle. | <urn:uuid:55c8cf9f-93af-4e03-9bbd-c526ebd77f4a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://redneckbarandgrill.com/2012/04/14/diy-hho-hydrogen-generator-test-1-on-97-sunfire/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00073-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927549 | 251 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Every few months we get to read the same misinformed story about “distracted walking” — how pedestrians are too busy looking at their phones to safely walk across the street. But Facebook updates aren’t the real problem here.
The latest story in the narrative that puts walkers at fault for getting killed by cars is an incredibly backwards-thinking piece in the Wall Street Journal. It claims that more pedestrians than ever are being hurt on streets and looks at some potential tech-based solutions to keep walkers focused on walking. Like sending a notification to your phone telling you to pay attention when you’re about to step off the footpath. Right — let’s put more animated graphics, beeps and buzzes on your phone exactly when you’re supposed to not be looking at it.
The story goes on to propose that smartphone manufacturers should be held responsible for creating a product that endangers people’s safety when they’re on foot. Not, you know, the companies that make cars that hit and kill the people. It sounds a lot like the invention of jaywalking in the early 1900s. (For the record: “Distracted walking” kills six pedestrians a year in the US. Cars kill about 4800 pedestrians.)
One problem with pinning the blame on walkers is that it’s very difficult to prove that the phone was actually a distraction. Most people have phones on them at all times, often carrying them in their hands. And unlike drivers, walkers are allowed to look at their phones while they walk — they aren’t endangering other lives. So deciding that a person on a phone is “at fault” when a car strikes that person is tough. (Compared to when a person is operating a car and shouldn’t be looking at a phone at all, ever.)
But what this most recent story completely overlooks — as well as other misguided solutions for walkers, like banning phone use on pedestrian crossings — is that we cannot blame phones for this increase in injuries. The US did not see a dramatic increase in phone ownership between 2014 and 2015. It’s not like apps suddenly became way more interesting.
Sadly, this data is simply part of an ongoing trend that shows an increase in pedestrian injuries when people drive more. Not only was 2015 a record-high year for US car sales, Americans drove more than they ever have in history. There’s no other way around it: The more vehicle kilometres that are travelled each year, the more people who will be injured or die in crashes.
After years of declining pedestrian fatalities, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that 2015 saw a troubling increase in deaths and injuries from crashes. Here’s a chart from a story in City Observatory that uses NHTSA and US Department of Transportation data to show the dramatic uptick in crash deaths — not just people on foot, but all Americans killed on streets — compared to miles driven.
Now compare that to the Wall Street Journal’s chart on “distracted pedestrian” injuries, which uses Consumer Product Safety Commission data to show how many people with smartphones ended up in the ER after being hurt on city streets (again — really hard to prove the phone was “at fault”). 2015 isn’t on this chart, but you can see a strong correlation with the other chart, especially from 2008 to 2014: As miles driven rise, so do pedestrian injuries.
In fact, looking at these two charts together, you can actually see very clearly that besides the past year, the most dramatic rise for ER visits, crash deaths, and vehicle miles driven occurred in 2009.
Hmmm, what else could have happened that year?
Yep, right now petrol is almost as insanely cheap as it was in 2009. And people are driving more kilometres than ever. Unless we take drastic measures to bolster alternatives to driving and keep cars off the road, we’re unfortunately quite certain to see even more crash deaths reported in 2016, as well as far more pedestrian injuries.
So stop blaming smartphones or “distracted walking” for the real problem: Cheap petrol is putting more drivers on the streets than ever, and cities aren’t doing enough to keep the people on those streets safe.
Below: A sign posted by the “Metropolitan Etiquette Authority” around New York City | <urn:uuid:1a48eee0-40cb-4175-b58a-dce7e22fcec4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2016/02/smartphones-arent-killing-pedestrians/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00054-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958952 | 906 | 2.5625 | 3 |
July 27, 2011 | Commentary on President Ronald Reagan
President Obama and others loath to rein in federal spending would have us believe that congressional Republicans have drifted far from their icon President Reagan and what he advocated regarding the national debt and how to deal with it.
The truth is that the Republican House's "Cut, Cap and Balance" legislation is a 2011 application of "Reaganomics."
Reaganomics, we must remember, was a multifaceted program that included spending control, deregulation, a stable monetary policy and tax cuts.
Reagan raised the debt ceiling some 18 times because he was confident that in the long run, his program would create jobs and substantially increase government revenues as they did, nearly doubling between 1980 and 1990.
Here is what President Reagan said in February 1981 in the middle of a serious recession: "We cannot delay in implementing an economic program aimed at both reducing tax rates to stimulate productivity and reducing the growth in government spending to reduce unemployment and inflation."
Reagan personally lobbied Congress, and the result was the passage of the Economic Tax Recovery Act with its 25% across-the-board reduction in personal income tax rates. The act produced 92 months of economic growth — the longest period of peacetime economic growth in the post-World War II period — and 17 million new jobs during the Reagan presidency.
At the same time, the Reagan administration in 1982 pushed hard for a Balanced Budget Amendment, which passed the Senate by 69-31 but failed to get the required two-thirds majority in the House.
Reagan never ignored the deficits — he just had other things on his mind, such as building up our military. While the national debt increased nearly threefold during his presidency, Reagan's "peace through strength" policy ended the Cold War at the bargaining table and not on the battlefield.
Here at home, by the end of the Reagan presidency, the federal deficit as a share of GDP had fallen from 6.3% in 1983 to 2.9% in 1989. Inflation was cut in half, the Dow Jones tripled and economic growth was averaging 4.6% annually.
Congressional Republicans are on the right Reagan track. To borrow a phrase from the 1980s, they need only stay the course and have faith in an economic plan that turned the worst U.S. economy since the Great Depression into one of the most prosperous periods in American history.
Lee Edwards, author of The Essential Ronald Reagan, is the distinguished fellow in conservative thought at the Heritage Foundation.
First appeared in USA Today | <urn:uuid:f73eb042-a276-4641-b53e-4abc77946ff5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2011/07/reagan-would-approve-of-todays-gop | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391766.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00137-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972527 | 515 | 2.546875 | 3 |
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|Title: ||Retreat of the East Antarctic ice sheet during the last glacial termination.|
|Authors: ||Mackintosh, A|
|Issue Date: ||Mar-2011|
|Publisher: ||Nature Publishing Group|
|Citation: ||Mackintosh, A., Golledge, N., Domack, E., Dunbar, R., Leventer, A., White, D., et al. (2011). Retreat of the East Antarctic ice sheet during the last glacial termination. Nature Geoscience, 4(3), 195-202.|
|Abstract: ||The retreat of the East Antarctic ice sheet at the end of the last glacial period has been attributed to both sea-level rise and warming of the ocean at the margin of the ice sheet, but it has been challenging to test these hypotheses. Given the lack of constraints on the timing of retreat, it has been difficult to evaluate whether the East Antarctic ice sheet contributed to meltwater pulse 1a, an abrupt sea-level rise of approximately 20 m that occurred about 14,700 years ago. Here we use terrestrial exposure ages and marine sedimentological analyses to show that ice retreat in Mac. Robertson Land, East Antarctica, initiated about 14,000 years ago, became widespread about 12,000 years ago, and was completed by about 7,000 years ago. We use two models of different complexities to assess the forcing of the retreat. Our simulations suggest that, although the initial stage of retreat may have been forced by sea-level rise, the majority of the ice loss resulted from ocean warming at the onset of the Holocene epoch. In light of our age model we conclude that the East Antarctic ice sheet is unlikely to have been the source of meltwater pulse 1a, and, on the basis of our simulations, suggest that Antarctic ice sheets made an insignificant contribution to eustatic sea-level rise at this time. © 2011, Nature Publishing Group.|
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Items in APO are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated. | <urn:uuid:d916317b-337d-4686-aa29-fa7351be965b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://apo.ansto.gov.au/dspace/handle/10238/3159 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395613.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00196-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.869501 | 476 | 2.75 | 3 |
Diet has an enormous impact on runners’ training and performance in competition. The right types of foods provide you with energy while helping your body recover and grow stronger. Too much food, even the right kinds, can cause weight gain which might impair performance, while eating too little can leave you feeling weak and potentially vulnerable to illness. Carbohydrates and protein make up the bulk of a runner’s daily calories; understanding how much you should eat and when can help you design meal plans that best serve your needs.
Carbohydrates are the body’s primary source of energy. Carbs are found in many foods but are most prevalent in cereals, grains, starchy vegetables, fruits and sugars. Your body breaks down carbohydrates and turns them into glucose, which it then stores in your muscles as glycogen for energy. The amount of carbohydrates a runner needs daily depends on training volume and body weight. The International Association of Athletics Federations says that if you participate in low-volume training, go for about 1.4 to 2.3 grams of carbohydrates per pound of body weight daily; for a moderate training load, opt for 2.3 to 3.2 grams per pound of body weight; and for heavy-endurance training, consume between 2.7 and 4.5 grams of carbs per day. If you are a 150-pound runner in the middle of training for an ultra-marathon, you might consume as much as 681 grams of carbs daily. Pre-competition carb-loading diets for marathoners or ultra racers usually require even more carbs – up to 5.5 grams per pound of body weight daily.
The International Society of Sports Nutrition recommends endurance athletes consume approximately 0.64 grams of protein per pound of body weight daily. For a 150-pound runner, this amounts to about 96 grams of protein. Protein does not offer a lot of immediate energy for runners, but it is essential in building and repairing worked muscles. You can generally consume enough protein through your regular diet -- even if you are a vegetarian. High-protein foods include eggs, meat, dairy and soy foods.
The carbs and protein you eat around the time of your run can have an effect on your performance. Prior to exercise, go for a meal that contains 70 to 80 percent carbohydrates and 10 to 12 percent protein, recommends endurance coach Chris Carmichael. Post exercise, you need about 0.5 to 0.75 grams of carbohydrates per pound of body weight to refill spent glycogen levels. Protein post-run is also essential in expediting muscle repair. While 10 grams of protein can help with this repair, you will see the greatest gains when you consume 20 to 25 grams. For a 150-pound runner, try a large baked potato with 2 1/2 ounces of lean chicken or a cup of Greek yogurt with a banana and a sports drink to fulfill these needs.
Carbohydrates should consist of foods that offer nutrition along with the carbohydrates. Skip junk food like soda, pastries and candy and go for whole grains – including brown rice, whole-wheat bread and oatmeal – starchy vegetables including potatoes and yams, and pure fruit juice. Immediately after exercise, simple carbohydrates such as white bagels, pretzels and sports drinks can refill your stores most expediently, notes Carmichael. When choosing protein, go for options low in saturated fat such as low-fat milk, skinless chicken, tofu, beans and nut butters.
- Goodshoot/Goodshoot/Getty Images | <urn:uuid:e45d3619-03f7-4722-940b-1519d29f1071> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://healthyliving.azcentral.com/much-protein-carbs-runners-need-1611.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00064-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938725 | 718 | 3.328125 | 3 |
A religious person praying.
- An example of religious is a church choir.
- An example of religious is a person who goes to church every Sunday and reads the Bible every day.
- characterized by adherence to religion or a religion; devout; pious; godly
- of, concerned with, appropriate to, or teaching religion: religious books
- belonging to a community of monks, nuns, etc.
- conscientiously exact; careful; scrupulous
Origin of religiousOld French ; from Classical Latin religiosus
- Having or showing belief in and reverence for God or a deity.
- Of, concerned with, or teaching religion: a religious text.
- Extremely scrupulous or conscientious: religious devotion to duty.
Origin of religiousMiddle English, from Old French, from Latin religi&omacron;sus, from religi&omacron;, religion; see religion.
(comparative more religious, superlative most religious)
- Concerning religion.
- It is the job of this court to rule on legal matters. We do not consider religious issues.
- Committed to the practice of religion.
- I was much more religious as a teenager than I am now.
- Highly dedicated, as one would be to a religion.
- I'm a religious fan of college basketball.
- A member of a religious order, i.e. a monk or nun. | <urn:uuid:5a39e7d6-9588-4bb5-a0ee-2953054501f9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.yourdictionary.com/religious | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403826.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00036-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926717 | 298 | 2.578125 | 3 |
The genus Veronica comprises a large group (about 250 species) of mostly blue-flowered perennials. In the wild, they grow a vast diversity of habitats from rocky, dry, alpine regions, to wet swamps, lightly shaded woodlands and meadows. Some species are aquatic growing along streams and rivers. Several are very tenacious weeds, growing happily in our lawns and cultivated gardens. Flowers are typically 4 or 5-petalled with two stamens. The upper petal often has distinct darker radiating veins which act as nectary guides for pollinating insects. They are either produced individually from the upper leaf axils or in dense terminal or axillary racemes. The common name speedwell probably refers to the medicinal qualities of the plant, used to treat a myriad of ailments. The term ‘speedwell' is also old English for ‘good-bye' and may allude to the fact that the petals fall rapidly once the flowers are picked.
As garden ornamentals, Veronica fall into two main categories; the tall, spiked types which make admirable additions to the mid or back of the border versus low, creeping types which make ideal subjects for the rock garden or front of the border. In part one, I will discuss the taller border types. There are relatively few tall species of Veronica. In our gardens, we are concerned with 5 main species: V. austriaca, V. gentianoides, V. incana, V. longifolia and especially V. spicata. All produce dense, racemes of blue-shaded flowers although white and pink do exist in some of these.
These border Veronica are sun-lovers and need an evenly moist soil to look their best. They will quickly wilt and become stunted if kept too dry (a notable exception is V. incana). Prompt removal of spent flowers may reward you with a secondary flush. Most are easily raised from seed but named cultivars may not come true. To keep plants at their best, divide them, in spring, every 3-5 years, retaining the more vigorous outer portions. All of these tall Veronica are attractive to butterflies.
The flowers of V. austriaca are produced in dense, but relatively short, axillary racemes. Plants have a mounded, almost shrub-like habit and reach 25 to 60 cm, depending on the cultivar. The leaves are somewhat oval in shape with rounded teeth. The flowers are the brightest blue of any of the border types and the earliest blooming, late spring to early summer. There are several named cultivars including ‘Crater Lake Blue' (25 cm), ‘Blue Fountain' (60 cm), ‘Royal Blue' (25 cm) and ‘Shirley Blue' (45 cm). This native of central Europe is rated for zone 5.
Two popular cultivars of V. austriaca are 'Crater Lake Blue' and 'Shirley Blue'
Veronica gentianoides produces evergreen, glossy, somewhat leathery, basal leaves in a mat-like habit. In early summer, stiffly erect stalks arise 30-80 cm. Flowers are commonly light blue with darker veins (reminiscent of fine porcelain); quite attractive and intricate when viewed a close distance. The individual flowers are the largest of the tall types but the raceme is not quite as dense as the others. Each bloom has 4 petals; three which are relatively large and rounded and a lower, narrowed petal. There are several named cultivars which include ‘Robusta' (60 cm, light blue), ‘Barbara Sherwood' (60 cm, light blue), ‘Pallida' (45 cm; nearly white), ‘Tissington White' (30 cm; ice-blue), ‘Lilacina' (30 cm lilac-blue), ‘Ramona' (aka ‘Blue Streak'; 45 cm; light blue) and ‘Variegata' (45 cm; light blue; thin white margin on the leaves). This native of SW Asia is rated hardy to zone 4.
Veronica gentianoides and the selections 'Variegata' and 'Ramona'
Silver-leaved or wooly speedwell, V. incana, sits on the fence as being useful for rock gardens or the perennial border. Some forms are low (20 cm) while others reach to 45 cm. Plants produce a basal rosette of evergreen leaves. The leaves are covered in dense, fine hairs and impart a distinctly silvery appearance. It is the most drought-tolerant of the ‘spiked' speedwells and indeed needs a well-drained site. The dense raceme of tiny flowers are deep blue, providing a wonderful contrast to the foliage. The smaller stature and interesting foliage of this species lends them a position near the front of the border. In the wild, this species ranges from eastern Europe across to Siberia and NW China. They are rated hardy to zone 4 and bloom in early summer.
Wooly speedwell, V. incana, has wonderful contrast between flowers and foliage
The tallest of the ‘spiked' speedwells is V. longifolia, a native of central Europe and naturalized in eastern North America. This robust species typically has fuzzy, dull green foliage and stiffly upright stems to nearly 120 cm. The dense raceme of tiny flowers are quite long and imposing, making an impressive mid-summer display. There are numerous hybrids in shades from white through blue, pink and magenta. Some named cultivars include ‘Lilac Fantasy' (60 cm; lilac-pink), ‘Lila Karina' (70 cm; dusky pink), ‘Sonja' (80 cm; fuchsia-pink), ‘Fairy Tale' (70 cm; pink) and ‘Blue Giant' (80 cm; deep blue). A lovely variegated selection is called ‘Joseph's Coat'. The early spring leaves are quite pink but change to cream. Unfortunately, plants are liable to revert back to plain green. This European native is rated hardy for zone 4.
Speedwells are generally attractive to butterflies, especially V. longifolia. Leftmost is the cultivar 'Lila Karina'
Perhaps the most popular and certainly, the most selected, is the true spiked speedwell, V. spicata. This European native is the hardiest, rated for zone 3. Plant height varies from 30-75 cm. Overall, this species looks like a smaller version of V. longifolia. Its more compact habit makes it well suited to the middle of the border or for use in containers. Like V. longifolia, flowers are available in a range of colours from white through shades of blue, pink to reddish-pink. Mid-summer is the main season of bloom but this species is the most likely to re-bloom after prompt deadheading. There are well over 30 named cultivars. Among the more popular are ‘Red Fox' (30-45 cm; reddish-pink), ‘Foxy Lady' (30-45 cm; lavender-purple with white margins), ‘Royal Candles' (30-45 cm; dark purple-blue), ‘Blue Charm' (60-75 cm ; lavender-blue), ‘Erika' (30-45 cm; pale lavender-pink), ‘Romiley Purple' (45-60 cm; dark purple-blue) and ‘Icicles' (60 cm; white). There are two notable dwarf cultivars that reach just 15-20 cm; ideal for rock gardens. These are ‘Blue Carpet' (deep blue) and ‘Giles van Hees' (bright pink).
Popular cultivars of V. spicata are 'Foxy Lady', 'Royal Candles', 'Red Fox' and 'White Icicles'
There are several speedwells of hybrid origin, most commonly between V. spicata and V. longifolia. These hybrids include the 1993 Plant of the Year, Veronica ‘Sunny Border Blue' with deep blue flowers on 60 cm plants that bloom all summer. Several other hybrid speedwells include ‘Blue Indigo' (45 cm; deep blue), ‘Pink Damask' (60 cm; pink) and ‘Eveline' (60 cm; magenta). White-flowered hybrids between V. longifolia and the closely related Veronicastrum virginicum include ‘White Jolanda' and ‘Inspiration', both which reach about 100 cm.
Often considered as hybrids are the cultivars 'Sunny Border Blue', 'Pink Damask' and 'Eveline'
The spiky flowers of Veronica provide a wonderful contrast in the flower border. With their long blooming-season and variable heights they come highly recommended for just about any part of a perennial border.
There are many people who must be thanked for the use of their pictures: DebinSC ('Sunny Border Blue'), hczone6 ('Red Fox'), Marilynbeth ('Pink Damask'), Lenka ('Eveline'), pixie62560 ('Crater Lake Blue'), DaylilySLP ('Royal Candles'), bootandall ('Lila Karina'), momcat ('White Icicles'), Christabelle ('Foxy Lady'), tbonewap ('Ramona'), growin ('Shirley Blue') and Poppysue (V. incana, V. gentianoides and V. longifolia) | <urn:uuid:7186cdcf-ee52-497a-b86f-69bda8bb0929> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/1865/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00152-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910763 | 2,007 | 3.09375 | 3 |
The study, "Long-Term Study of a Quadrivalent Human Papillomavirus Vaccine," appearing in the September 2014 issue of Pediatrics (published online Aug. 18), examined whether the HPV vaccine remains effective 8 years after initial vaccination.
Researchers followed boys and girls who were vaccinated with the HPV vaccine between the ages of 9 and 15. The results showed that these preadolescents and adolescents still showed vaccination-induced anti-HPV response 8 years later and that no new, significant adverse effects were reported. Among these preadolescents and adolescents who received the HPV vaccine at a mean age of 12, none developed disease related to the HPV types covered by the vaccine.
According to the CDC, each year HPV vaccination rates remain near the current level of 33 percent, an additional 4,400 women will be diagnosed annually with cervical cancer.
Study authors conclude that high uptake of the HPV vaccination is paramount in reducing HPV-related cancers and that results of this study should reinforce the national recommendations for HPV vaccination of all preadolescents and young adolescents.
Editor's Note: This issue also includes another article on HPV vaccination: "Missed Opportunities for HPV Vaccination in Adolescent Girls: A Qualitative Study." | <urn:uuid:1f051526-df6a-4eac-afb2-0231d724cc9f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.healthychildren.org/English/News/Pages/HPV-Remains-Effective-8-Years-Later.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397873.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00099-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946884 | 250 | 3.15625 | 3 |
The simpler and more pronounceable your name, the more it is
likely to win you friends and favour at the workplace, say
In the first study of its kind, researchers from Melbourne and New
York Universities analysed how the pronunciation of names can
influence image formation and decision-making.
They demonstrated "the name pronunciation effect," which occurs
when people with easy-to-pronounce names are evaluated more
positively than those with difficult-to-pronounce names, reported
the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, citing a Melbourne
"Research findings revealed that the effect is not due merely to
the length of a name or how foreign-sounding or unusual it is, but
rather how easy it is to pronounce," said Simon Laham from
Melbourne, who led the study.
The study revealed that people with more pronounceable names were
more likely to be favoured for political office and job
Political candidates with easy-to-pronounce names were more likely
to win a race than those without, based on a mock ballot study.
Attorneys with more pronounceable names rose more quickly to
superior positions in their firm hierarchies, based on a field
study of 500 first and last names of US lawyers.
Adam Alter, from New York University, who conducted the law firm
analysis, said this effect probably also exists in other
industries and in many everyday contexts.
"People simply aren't aware of the subtle impact that names can
have on their judgments," Alter said.
Laham said the results had important implications for the
management of bias and discrimination in society. | <urn:uuid:a73a0e62-71ef-45f3-ba84-25fe28d0c927> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ummid.com/news/2012/February/09.02.2012/names_at_work_place.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397111.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00063-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954739 | 333 | 3.203125 | 3 |
The History of Château de Noisy (Château Miranda)
Château de Noisy is a beautiful castle in the open lands of Belgium. The former ‘holiday camp’ is in a heavy state of disrepair and despite several offers, the owners refuse to sell it. It has suffered heavily from vandalism and the details from the interior have been removed to be used in another castle. Château de Noisy is one of the most beautiful locations we have seen. As of December, 2013 – the owners of Château de Noisy have formally applied for licence to demolish this heritage castle. Please see the end of this article for links to the formal petition against this action.
Current State (2013)
During the French revolution the Count Liedekerke-Beaufort and his family, who we very much involved in Belgian politics, fled their home, Château de Vêves, to a secluded farm in the forest on the outskirts of the village in 1792. Upon the ending of the revolution, the English architect Edward Milner, was commissioned in 1866 by the Liedekerke-Beaufort family to design and build a castle on the land.
Current State (2013)
Château de Noisy was to be built with many towers, conical roofs, and other Neo-Gothic details, with approximately 500 windows. Milner did not get to finish the castle as he died before the building was completed. The building was continued by the French architect Pelchner, extending the Château largely.
The clocktower was finished in 1903 and is 183 feet tall, and 1907 saw the completion of building activity. Initially Chateau Miranda, boasting beautifully landscaped gardens, served the family Liedekerke de Beaufort as a summer residence.
During the Ardennen offensive in World War II, the château was briefly occupied by German troops. During the Battle of the Bulge, there was also fighting on the property.
From 1950 the castle was taken over by the National Railway Company of Belgium (NMBS) as a ‘holiday camp’ for children who suffered from ill health. Around this time, the castle was named Home de Noisy or Château de Noisy. Equipped with 200 places the ‘holiday camp’ gave shelter to the children, providing fresh air, a fabulous playground and healthy food.
The regime at Home de Noisy was strict, it was run by female officials and the children dressed uniformly. In the square between the outbuildings a small football pitch was set up and the fountain in the garden was converted into a swimming pool. These were of various nationalities and language regions: French and Flemish children between 5 and 14 from Belgium and during the holiday season, children from Italy.
After 1970 it was used for outdoor activities and sport holidays for children, and became well known in Belgium.
Current State (2013)
In the 1990’s the owners began to search for investors, with the desire to transform the Château into a hotel. Due to the rising costs of maintenance and refurbishment, the plans failed and the Château was abandoned in 1991.
In 1995 a fire claimed part of the roof, and shortly after this the owner removed the hardwood floors, fireplaces and Italian blue marble to use in the neighbouring farm and another castle in Italy. In 2006 a violent storm, caused the stable roof to collapse.
Despite the municipality of Celles making an offer to take it over, the family has refused.
Summary & Current Situation
This beautiful building is unstable and in disrepair. Internally, the structures are failing. Despite this, the building still maintains it beauty. Its likely that Château de Noisy will fall and become ruins unless the owners invest or sell. With the history, this however seems unlikely.
Its interesting how far history still spreads. I recently had contact from Jon Hammond, Director of Serenity Custom Drums. They were enquiring about using images on a blog post and elaborated to the story. Through a series of events when Liedekerke-Beaufort was removing usable and valuable parts from Château de Noisy, Serenity Drums actually bought the wooden flooring and are now using it in their custom drums. If you want a piece of Noisy and also play the drums then you will be in luck. See the Serenity Drums blog here.
I am looking for original documentation on Noisy, postcards, press articles etc. If you have any, please contact me
It has been confirmed that from December, 2013, the owners have put forward a formal request for permit to demolish Château de Noisy. The heritage loss of this beautiful castle is significant and incomprehensible. A formal petition has been arranged, please take a few minutes to have a look and sign if you feel this place is worth saving. | <urn:uuid:4bf22525-b4d6-4361-adc5-fdd6c23ae755> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.davidbakerphotography.com/projects/residential/the-history-of-chateau-de-noisy-chateau-miranda-belgium | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00054-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964022 | 1,031 | 2.65625 | 3 |
The Curcurbitaceae family includes approximately 80 genera and 900 species. This family represents one of the most important plant groups, because it has many species that have been used as food or for other purposes for hundreds of years. Among the genera that are most important from this point of view, there are four of American origin: Cucurbita with five cultivated species (C. argyrosperma, C. moschata, C. ficifolia, C. maxima and C. pepo); Sechium with two cultivated species (S. edule, and S. tacaco); Sicana with one cultivated species (S. odorifera); and Cyclanthera, a large genus that includes three cultivated and/or semicultivated species, (v.gr. C. pedata).
Despite the importance of these genera, the systematic study of at least Sicana and Sechium had not been carried out, or at the most, as in Cyclanthera, only some details are already known. In contrast for the genus Cucurbita, a lot of information has been generated and published at different times and places, so that the summarization and analysis of it seems necessary. Additionally, there are no modern taxonomic treatments of these genera, including the genus Cucurbita, that could be used for an easy and correct identification and assessment of the situation of the taxa in the field. Also, it was not really known which of them were the most important ones and if they were really managed for their conservation, study and use as genetic resources.
Considering the above statements, in 1990 the International Board for Plant Genetic Resources (IBPGR) and the National Herbarium at the Institute of Biology of the National University of Mexico (MEXUIBUNAM) initiated a project of which the main objective was to summarize and/or enlarge the information concerning these topics.
The purpose of this paper is to present some of the most important results of this inter-institutional collaborative project, which include the rediscovery of a species formerly considered extinct, the discovery of a new one, and advances in the knowledge of the interspecific relationships and conservation needs of some of the four genera involved. These results were obtained through field work, collection studies, and the use of different biosystematic techniques, whose implementation would not be possible without the support of an institution such as MEXUIBUNAM which possesses important infrastructure, as for example, a herbarium (the most important collection of Mexican plants), a botanical garden, as well as laboratory and greenhouse facilities.
First of all I would like to thank the organizers of this meeting for giving me the opportunity of sharing with all of you the results of this inter-institutional project between the International Board for Plant Genetic Resources and the National Herbarium of Mexico, that deals mainly with the taxonomy and the ecogeographic distribution of economic Latin American Cucurbitaceae, as a basis for their future use and conservation.
The Cucurbitaceae family includes approximately 80 genera and 900 species. This family represents one of the most important plant groups, because of having many species that are used as food or for other purposes. Many of its species have been 'generated' by humanity using complex processes of domestication, and they have ben part of the human diet as vegetables and as oil and protein sources for thousands of years.
Among the genera that are most important from this point of view, there are four of American origin: Cucurbita with five cultivated species, Sechium with two cultivated species, Cyclanthera, a large genus that includes three cultivated and/or semi-cultivated species; and Sicana with one cultivated species.
Even given the great importance of these genera, the systematic study of at least Sicana and Sechium had not been carried out, or at the most, as in Cyclanthera, only some details were already known. In contrast, for the genus Cucurbita, a lot of information has been generated and published at different times and places, so that the summarization and analysis of it seems like a necessary work to do. Additionally, in any case, including the genus Cucurbita, there was not any modern taxonomic treatment of these genera that could be used for an easy and correct identification of the taxa. Also, it was not really known which of them were the most important ones and whether they were really managed for their conservation, study and use as genetic resources.
Considering the above statements, in 1990 the IBPGR and the National Herbarium at the National University of Mexico initiated a project of which the main purpose was to summarize, or enlarge, the information concerning the topics already mentioned.
The general objectives to be accomplished in this project were:
Methodology and Sources of Information
In order to carry out this work, many sources of information and methodologies have been used, including bibliographic revision, collection studies, field work (mainly in Mexico and Central America), as well as some laboratory work.
The outstanding results for each genus can be summarized as follows:
The first genus that I will be talking about is Cucurbita. As was mentioned before, it includes five cultivated species widely used as food The bibliographic revision revealed that the use of electrophoretic techniques (mainly for isozymes), as well as hybridization studies, have helped to obtain important advances in the taxonomic knowledge of this genus, especially with respect to the relationship between the five cultivated species and the closest wild ones. At the present it is recognized that Cucurbita has 10 to 12 species or groups of species, five of which represent the cultivated species and their wild ancestors.
The relationship between 'wild' and 'cultivated' is at the present clear for three of the five cultivated species. C. argyosperma, a very important traditiona1 crop cultivated from the southwestern United States to Central America, whose wild ancestor is C. sororia distributed from Mexico to Central America; C pepo may be the most important cultivated species of the genus, it is very closely related to C. fraterna and C. texana; and C. maxima, a South American native crop, but at the present cultivated all over the world, whose wild closest relative is C. andreana, an endemic species from Argentina and Uruguay. Meanwhile for the two other species, C. moschata and C. ficifolia, it has not been possible to define the closest wild species. C. ficifolia is a relatively homogeneous species that does not produce totally fertile hybrids with any other species of the genus; in contrast, C. moschata is a very variable crop that forms hybrids relatively easily with several other species of the genus.
Based on the fact that most of the information used in the definition of the relationships formerly mentioned has been obtained by studies of experimental hybridization, we realized the need to test for the existence of interspecific gene flow in natural conditions. As a first step this has been accomplished for C. fraterna, an endemic species of northern Mexico in the states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Léon and one of the closest wild relatives of C. pepo. This study has been carried out in a small area of Tamaulipas State, not too far from the Ocampo caves, one of the most important archeological sites for C. pepo.
So far, the results obtained have shown that C. fraterna is more common than was thought before from previous reports. It has also been interesting to find that this species is more common as a weed in cultivated fields, than in other kinds of habitats typically inhabited by many wild species of Curcurbita, such as roadsides or abandoned fields. An important finding is that the most common cultivated species in the studied area, and the ones that at the present are represented by primitive landraces, are C. moschata and C. argyrosperma, and not C pepo, whose cultivation is less common and is only represented by one commercial cultivar. Nevertheless, the finding of sweet fruits in some populations of C fraterna (which is not a common feature in wild species), the obtaining of some fruits due to in situ artificial crossings between C. fraterna and C. argyosperma and the ethnobotanical information from the native peasants of the area, indicating that sometimes the fruits of the cultivated species have a bitter flavour, are strong evidence suggesting the existence of gene flow between C. fraterna and the two more commonly cultivated species in Tamaulipas. The evaluation of hybrid progenies in greenhouses and through an isozyme study using electrophoretic techniques, have enhanced the detection of the genetic infiltration confirming the former assumptions.
Taking into consideration the fact that C fraterna and C. agyrosperma are not closely related, as has been demonstrated by biosystematic studies, this result is very important, because besides relatively changing the relationships scheme in Cucurbita, it also permits the opening of new perspectives in which we should attempt to evaluate C fraterna in detail to be used as a probable source for the improvement of at last three of the cultivated species. One of them is obviously C. pepo, which until now has not ben known to be resistant to many virus diseases, and the other two are C. argyrosperma and (probably) the closely related C. moschata.
The above information should be considered important in the context of the in situ conservation strategies of traditional agriculture systems, which, unfortunately in my opinion, until now have been a sort of myth for the agencies and foundations that support conservation activities. Traditionally, the Cucurbita germplasm has been protected in frozen banks, where only part of the genetic diversity can be conserved over a long term period, and where the natural evolution of wild taxa interacting with their cultivated relatives will hardly take place.
With respect to the germplasm collections of Cucurbita, according to the bibliographic information concerning this topic and the visit to institutions in Mexico and Costa Rica, we were able to observe that many collections of both wild and cultivated species have shown resistance to important diseases affecting the five cultivated ones. However, we found that most of the species of this genus, especially the wild ones, are very poorly represented in these collections.
On the other hand the revision of material, and mainly the intensive field work carried out, has given us better knowledge about the morphological variation, distribution and ethnobotanical aspects of the species of Cucurbita, mainly of the less known of them. As an example, let me point out that we have been able to collect material such as herbarium specimens, seeds, and even roots of Cucurbita pedatifolia, C. scabridifolia and C. radicans, all of them very poorly represented in the Latin American germoplasm banks, and rarely present in similar collections in other parts of the world. Finally, with respect to the laboratory work: on Cucurbita, we have been preparing an identification manual for seeds, both carbonised and intact ones, that will be used for the identification of archeological remains.
The second genus to be dealt with is Sicana; this genus includes only three species. The most important one is S. odorifera, which is cultivated all over Latin America. The other two are: S. sphaerica, a wild species only known from Jamaica, and S. trinitensis, a wild species from Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela and maybe Bolivia in South America. The bibliographic and specimens revision revealed a complete lack of knowledge about the genus, as well as about the importance and relationships of the cultivated species. Two instances of this are that many floras describe this genus as monospecific, and that all the ethnobotanical information we have about the cultivated species is that its mature fruits are used to prepare candies and, because its smell, are used as a sort of natural air cleaner, while the young ones are occasionally mentioned as being used as a vegetable.
In order to cover some deficiencies in our knowledge of the genus, and particularly about the cultivated species, a morphological study of the three species was carried out: field collections were done in Mexico and Central America that enhanced a better documentation of the cultivated species; for the first time chromosome counts were done for Sicana odorifera, and the first chemical analysis of its seeds was made.
The results of these studies showed that Sicana odorifera is a much more variable crop than we thought, that its diploid number is 2n=40, and that at least from the morphological point of view S. trinitensis might be its probable wild ancestor. However, the most important result was the finding that the big seeds of S.odorifera contain 39% of oil and more than 25% of protein, which along with the fact that each fruit can produce up to 900 seeds, suggests that this species might be a potential source of these important nutrients. Unfortunately the representation of Sicana in the germplasm banks is very poor. The wild species are not represented at all, while the cultivated species are represented by only 13 collections, including the ones collected by our project. Also it was found that the two wild species apparently have never been redocumented, not even by herbarium specimens, since they were originally described the first half of this century.
The next genus to be dealt with is Sechium, a genus that includes two cultivated species: S. edule is the most important species and at the present time is cultivated in many different parts of the world because of its edible fruits and roots, while S. tacaco is an endemic crop only cultivated in Costa Rica, where its small fruits are a very important and traditional table vegetable.
At the beginning of the project, it was found that there were two different and contrasting taxonomic conceptions of this genus. The first one proposed by Charles Jeffrey in 1978 included the two cultivated species and five wild ones, while the second approach, proposed by Linda Newstrom in l986, accepted only three species, the cultivated S. edule and two wild species.
With the purpose of obtaining information about this matter, collections of all the species involved in the problem were made and a lot of specimens, including all the types, were revised. Two of the most important results of this part of the work were: the re-discovery of S. hintonii, a wild species only know from the type collection collected in 1933-35, and that at the present we only know lives in the states of Mexico and Guerrero, and the discovery of a new species, S. chinantlense in the north of the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, whose stamens are quite different from those normally found in the rest of the species of Sechium. The importance of these findings is that the two species are closely related to Sechium edule. In addition to these interesting collections of wild species, an amazing morphological and phenological variation of the cultivated species S. edule could be documented in southern Mexico, especially in the states of Oaxaca and Chiapas, confirming that this area is a part of the most important centre of diversity for this crop.
With all the material collected, a palynological study of all the species of the genus, and some other species belonging to the same subtribe Sicyniae was carried out. The results showed homogeneous pollen for all the species recognised as Sechium, which confirmed the former assumptions, based on gross morphology, habitat, etc., that indicated a large number of species for the genus. Simultaneously, chromosome counts for most of the species were done. Some preliminary results indicated the existence of interspecific differences and mainly with respect to the reports of the species of other genera of the same subtribe.
Presently we are initiating some chemiotaxonomic and molecular studies, as well as some work dealing with the reproductive biology of the new wild species S. chinantlense, and its possible gene flow with the different types of wild and cultivated S. edule that grow in the north of the state of Oaxaca. The results obtained in this study are in contrast to those mentioned for C. fraterna, with respect to its relationships with the cultivated species. The ethnobotanical evidence concerning the gene flow between S. chinantlense and S. edule is not very consistent, and the biosystematic evidence that has been obtained is not definite, mainly because of the lack of features in the wild and cultivated plants that suggest any kind of genetic infiltration. In addition, only four fruits could be obtained after carrying out numerous crosses between S. chinantlense and cultivated and wild forms of S. edule. However, the grown plants were not normal and died some time after germination, confirming that, besides the morphogical differences between S. edule and S. chinantlense, the latter is clearly a genetically different species.
Considering all of these results, at the present time I think that Sechium includes 10 species, the 2 cultivated ones and 8 wild species naturally distributed within relatively small areas from central and southern Mexico to Panama. The very narrow distribution pattern of these species, the disturbance of their habitats, as well as the fact that only two of them thrive in protected areas, are strong arguments for considering all of these species as endangered. Regarding the ex situ conservation of the two cultivated species of Sechium, we found that only S. edule has been protected by this method. However during 1990 I personally verified the total loss of the most important gene bank of S. edule in the world in Costa Rica at the Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (CATIE), and recently I have heard that the Mexican collection located in Huatusco, Veracruz, might be lost very soon. In spite of these events, recently I have been informed that in Costa Rica a project, including private and official institutions, is taking place in order to reinstate a germplasm bank of Sechium.
Many management difficulties and the high costs due to the need to have plantations of these plants, are the main arguments used to justify the loss of the collections of Sechium, and consequently it is necessary to think of other forms of conservation. Considering the facility that these plants have for reproducing vegetatively, is possible to think that in vitro conservation or micropropagation could be the alternative. There are already some advances to this in respect with S. edule, and probably it can also be done with the wild species. However, I think that there is a serious risk of the genetic resources of Sechium (especially the wild ones) being lost while this happens.
The last genus that I will talk to you about is Cyclanthera. This genus has three useful species whose fruits are common table vegetables in several countries of Central and South America. The most important species is C. pedata, a cultivated species which at present is used in several countries of the world. The other two species are C. brachystachia and C. brachybotrys; these are semi-cultivated only in some regions of South America. In addition Cyclanthera includes numerous wild species, but the definition of their relationships deserves a modern taxonomic revision. However, Cyclanthera was too large to be worked on during this project, and consequently I have just summarised the information concerning the important species, as well as proposing some research activities for studying this interesting genus.
Publications, Talks and Monographs
Most of these results have already been published in several journals, or in some cases presented in conferences, and at the present the final details of the monograph are being decided. This monograph will be published as a part of the IBPGR's series called 'Systematic and Ecogeographic Studies on Crop Gene Pools'. Besides all the data about the importance of the species, it will include taxonomic treatments of the four genera, with information about the scientific and folk nomenclature, typification, descriptions, identification keys, distribution maps, and illustrations showing different aspects of the genetic diversity of the species. It is important to say that, in addition to the main results of the project, we have collated a bibliographic database with more than 3000 references about the four genera studied and several topics related to their importance as genetic resources, as well as a taxonomic and ecogeographic one that at present contains more than 2000 records of the species studied.
Perspectives of the Study
Even though some aspects have been solved in the last three years, it is also true that there is still a lot to be done. The search for the wild ancestors of the two cultivated species of Cucurbita that are still unknown, the complete study of Cyclanthera and the more in-depth study of the variation and intrageneric relationships of Sechium using molecular biology techniques, seem the work to be accomplished in the near future. In addition, in the long term, some other aspects have to be studied, mainly in order to continue the collection and evaluation of wild taxa as genetic resources for the improvement of the cultivated species, or for the utilization of both the wild and cultivated ones as sources for products such as, oil, proteins, fuel, etc. However to reach these goals, it will be necessary to have a multi-disciplinary project in which many different experts, such as agronomists, taxonomists, chemists, phytopathologists, etc, work in cooperation. I am sure that behind this diversity of forms and colours, an amazing genetic diversity is hidden, and that we still have the opportunity to discover, study, conserve and use it.
Preface | Contents List | Congress Report | Workshop Conclusions | List of Authors | <urn:uuid:f4432822-b718-4d46-81a6-25b5afd0b812> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bgci.org/congress/congress_rio_1992/saade.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394414.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00092-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962967 | 4,574 | 3.28125 | 3 |
(Image credit: Flickr user Gore Fiendus/Jerry Frausto)There are seven known species of sawsharks (Pristiophoriformes) that have long snouts with teeth, but they are not related to sawfish (although sawsharks are fish). They swim along the floor of the ocean and use their snouts exactly as you would imagine: they smack their prey sideways to disable them. Sawsharks eat squid, crustaceans, and small fish. They look much more dangerous than they are.
2. Basking Shark
The basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus) is the second-largest of all living shark species, with only the whale shark growing larger. They normally grow to 20-26 feet long, with the biggest confirmed specimen measuring over 40 feet long! They have mouths up to three feet wide, which they hold open while swimming. That's because they are filter feeders that scoop up plankton, crustaceans, and small fish as they swim.
(Image credit: Flickr user David Biesack)There are eight or nine different species of hammerhead sharks (Sphyrna), named for their unusual shape. The reason behind the peculiar shape of the shark's head was debated for many years. Scientists speculated that the distance between the shark's eye gave it some kind of advantage. Recent research confirms this. Hammerhead sharks can see a range of 360 degrees vertically. They can easy see behind them with a slight turn of the head, and most importantly, their two eyes have a huge overlap of field compared to other sharks, indicating they have excellent binocular vision. Hammerhead sharks are able to judge distances well by sight alone. They also differ from other sharks in that they tend to swim in schools and they can develop a tan when exposed to sunlight.
4. Megamouth Shark
Is there a more descriptive name for any animal than a megamouth shark? The megamouth (Megachasma pelagios) was first discovered in 1976. It is a filter feeder with very small teeth, but swims with its huge mouth open to scoop up jellyfish and plankton. The megamouth shark is a rare creature and is rarely seen. There have been only 41 confirmed sightings, including one last year in which a megamouth was caught and eaten by fishermen in the Philippines. See a video of a live megamouth at YouTube.
5. Thresher Shark
The thresher shark (Alopiidae) is most notable because of its long upper caudal (tail) fin which may account for half the shark's total length. The thresher shark eats small fish, and will sometimes tap the water with its tail to herd schools of fish into tight spots, making them easier to eat. They can also use their tails to stun their prey with a good smack. Thresher sharks are usually 10-15 feet long, and can grow up to 20 feet long -but remember, about half of that length is tail fin.
6. Frilled Shark
The frilled shark (Chlamydoselachus anguineus) comes very close to our image of a sea serpent from ancient lore. These sharks are not particularly large at about six feet long with a slender body, but they are very flexible and can move in a rather un-sharklike way. When the shark flares its neck frill, it can look quite menacing. However, they are rarely seen by humans as they prefer to hunt in deep ocean depths.
7. Cookie Cutter Shark
The cookie cutter shark (Isistius brasiliensis) got that strange name from its habit of biting chunks of flesh from its prey by wrenching its body around in a circular motion after sinking its teeth into a fish too big to eat whole. Ouch! The cookie cutter shark reaches only around twenty inches in length, but has been known to bite into whales, submarines, and people. It has a small bioluminescent patch that fools other creatures into thinking it is a much smaller fish than it really is while the rest of the cookie cutter fish waits in the dark.
8. Goblin Shark
The goblin shark (Mitsukurina owstoni) is a deep water species that is rarely seen by humans. It is believed to be an ancient species even by shark standards. It has an unusually long snout, which you'd think would make it hard for this shark to eat, except that the goblin shark has one strange feature to compensate. It has jaws that can protrude out of its face, like the alien in the movie Alien.
If you think that may give you nightmares, just keep telling yourself that goblin sharks live way too deep to be a threat to humans.
9. Whorl Shark
Shark fossils show that weird sharks are not just a modern development. Although we know little about it, the whorl shark (Helicoprion) is a truly strange fish that lived 280-225 million years ago. The whorl shark's distinction is a spiral of teeth it left behind. Modern sharks continue to grow teeth throughout their lives and shed old teeth. Ancient sharks grew new teeth, but kept the old teeth as well. In some species, old teeth migrated to the face to make room for teeth in the jaw. In the whorl shark, old teeth were just rotated around. But where in the shark were these teeth? Full fossils have not yet been found, so some scientists believe the spiral teeth were in the front of lower jaw as shown here. Others believe the spirals were in the shark's throat like an internal circular saw, as you can see in this recreation.
(Image credit: Flickr user Steve Flamingo)As far as we know, megalodon (Carcharocles megalodon) was the biggest shark that ever existed. It grew up to 60 feet long and consumed over a ton of food every day. The word megalodon means "big tooth", appropriate as the megalodon had a bite more powerful than a T. rex, which it used to eat whales. Megalodon lived 25 to one million years ago, although it survives today in film and in our nightmares.
These weird sharks are listed in no particular order. Which do you think is the weirdest? | <urn:uuid:6d270a6d-e323-49aa-9166-4ce9783bde5b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/04/the-ten-weirdest-sharks-ever/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394937.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00110-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969716 | 1,303 | 3.4375 | 3 |
Shelley Littin writes in Space Daily:
A simple atomic nucleus could reveal properties associated with the mysterious phenomenon known as time reversal and lead to an explanation for one of the greatest mysteries of physics: the imbalance of matter and antimatter in the universe.
The physics world was rocked recently by the news that a class of subatomic particles known as neutrinos may have broken the speed of light.
Adding to the rash of new ideas, University of Arizona theoretical physicist Bira van Kolck recently proposed that experiments with another small particle called a deuteron could lead to an explanation for one of the most daunting puzzles physicists face: the imbalance of matter and antimatter in the universe. A deuteron is a simple atomic nucleus, or the core of an atom. Its simplicity makes it one of the best objects for experiments in nuclear physics …
More on Space Daily | <urn:uuid:8dd7e371-e604-4383-a241-33c300040e58> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://disinfo.com/2011/10/time-reversal-a-simple-particle-could-reveal-new-physics/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393093.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00188-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931073 | 178 | 3.296875 | 3 |
Strategic Goal By 2015, the number of days when air quality conditions are unhealthy for sensitive groups will be reduced to 10 or fewer, a reduction of 9% from 2008.
Why this is Important:
Poor air quality has a profound impact on the health for all Maricopa County residents with the greatest affects on people with respiratory problems and young children. This goal is aimed at improving the air quality in Maricopa County. Air quality is an indicator of the environmental health of a community, which has a direct impact on quality of life.
How Maricopa County government influences this goal:
Maricopa County Air Quality Department tracks air quality levels at different sites throughout the County, monitoring levels of carbon monoxide, ozone, and particulates, and the number of days that levels exceed national air quality standards. Particulate matter—soot, dust, smoke, etc.—is small in size and is what causes the "brown cloud."
How progress is measured:
Back to Strategic Priority | <urn:uuid:5602e265-e8ba-4d1a-99ad-a4239f049968> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.maricopa.gov/StrategicPlan/goals/segoal6.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396029.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00125-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921002 | 204 | 3.25 | 3 |
The typical law school multiple choice question consists of a paragraph-long hypothetical followed by four or five possible answers. For some students, this can be the trickiest section of a law school exam.
Before the Test
- Practice! You can obtain multistate-type questions in the LRC reference room and the Academic Support Program office, or you can buy commercial sets of multiple choice questions and commercial flash cards. Build multiple choice practice into your study schedule.
- Take each practice multiple choice question as though it were a mini-essay. IRAC the question and explain why the answer is "A" and why it is NOT "B," "C," or "D."
- Write your own multiple choice questions. Have each member of your study group create a question for each topic you’ve covered in the class.
- Take practice tests under timed conditions. Score your test and carefully review the correct answers: did you miss because you didn't know the law, or because you didn't understand the question and fell into a trap? Perhaps you often select the "second best" answer, one that is right, but not as good as, the best answer. Work hard at diagnosing your problem. Re-take the test.
- Your professor’s questions may resemble commercial multiple-choice questions, or they may be quite idiosyncratic. In either case, review your class notes carefully to spot details and fine distinctions, because multiple choice exams usually test for this type of knowledge.
- Commercial materials may be misleading if your professor does not write the typical multiple choice question, so find out what her questions are like: ask your academic success fellows for advice.
During the Test
- Allocate time carefully before you start. Stick to your schedule. Make sure to leave plenty of time to fill in the scantron form at the end if you don’t do this as you go along.
- Work systematically. Answer questions in sequence, and answer all questions; put a mark in the margin next to question if you’re really not sure and you want to revisit the question–-just don’t get confused and put your answers in the wrong spaces!
- Read each question carefully. Try to answer the question before you look at the choices. Read each possible answer carefully. Don't rush to pick an answer.
- This type of question tests your grasp of details: one word can make a difference.
- Try diagramming complex fact patterns.
- Guess after eliminating answers that are obviously incorrect (unless the professor deducts for wrong answers).
- Beware of absolutes ("must," "always," "never").
- Experts advise that you stick with your original answer once you’ve made a careful choice.
- Often you can narrow the choice down to two possible answers, both of which are correct. Usually, you should pick the more specific answer as the "better" choice.
- Also, if one correct answer is phrased in terms of facts and the other in terms of the law, the answer that tracks the legal test is likely the "better" answer.
- In a question with five options like...
- Both a and b
- All of the above
- Reading questions hastily.
- Not attending to the call of the question.
- Not reading all the possible answers but picking the first one that sounds plausible.
- Leaping to conclusions based on what seems fair or what seems like common sense.
Please email Kiyana Kiel, call (619) 260-6876 or stop by Warren Hall, Room 206. | <urn:uuid:af0b3398-e4e1-44d3-8354-1f80596763d2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sandiego.edu/law/student-affairs/academic-success/materials/multiple-choice-exams.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396959.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00079-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941812 | 742 | 2.734375 | 3 |
1. (computer science) A computer that is running software that allows users to leave messages and access information of general interest.
4. A clique that seeks power usually through intrigue.
9. Informal terms for money.
13. Of flax, hemp, or jute, so as to promote loosening of the fibers form the woody tissue.
14. With the mouth wide open as in wonder or awe.
15. The content of cognition.
16. A particular geographical region of indefinite boundary (usually serving some special purpose or distinguished by its people or culture or geography).
18. The elementary stages of any subject (usually plural).
20. English writer (born in Scotland) of children's stories (1859-1932).
22. A mound of stones piled up as a memorial or to mark a boundary or path.
23. A member of an agricultural people in southeastern India.
27. Take in solid food.
30. The syllable naming the first (tonic) note of any major scale in solmization.
35. A white soft metallic element that tarnishes readily.
36. Any organic compound formed by adding alcohol molecules to aldehyde molecules.
39. Tall feather palm of northern Brazil with hard-shelled nuts yielding valuable oil and a kind of vegetable ivory.
41. Stem of the rattan palm used for making canes and umbrella handles.
43. An associate degree in nursing.
44. Verse in the meter used in Greek and Latin poetry consisting of strophes of 4 tetrametric lines.
45. A coffee cake flavored with orange rind and raisins and almonds.
49. A small pellet fired from an air rifle or BB gun.
51. A silvery ductile metallic element found primarily in bauxite.
52. Open to or abounding in fresh air.
53. The sense organ for hearing and equilibrium.
55. (Jungian psychology) The inner self (not the external persona) that is in touch with the unconscious.
59. A Chadic language spoken south of Lake Chad.
60. The 7th letter of the Greek alphabet.
61. Not established by conditioning or learning.
63. A conspicuous disparity or difference as between two figures.
64. An interest followed with exaggerated zeal.
65. Deficient in amount or quality or extent.
66. A loose sleeveless outer garment made from aba cloth.
1. Confederate general during the American Civil War who was defeated by Grant in the battle of Chattanooga (1817-1876).
2. United States baseball player (born 1925).
3. The function or position properly or customarily occupied or served by another.
4. A white metallic element that burns with a brilliant light.
5. Small terrestrial lizard of warm regions of the Old World.
6. A very young child (birth to 1 year) who has not yet begun to walk or talk.
7. A drug combination found in some over-the-counter headache remedies (Aspirin and Phenacetin and Caffeine).
8. A chronic inflammatory collagen disease affecting connective tissue (skin or joints).
9. Deciduous South African tree having large odd-pinnate leaves and profuse fragrant orange-yellow flowers.
10. Give advice to.
11. A facial expression of contempt or scorn.
12. Earn on some commercial or business transaction.
17. According to the Old Testament he was a pagan king of Israel and husband of Jezebel (9th century BC).
19. Any of a number of fishes of the family Carangidae.
21. The blood group whose red cells carry both the A and B antigens.
24. Someone who works (or provides workers) during a strike.
25. A genus of Mustelidae.
26. A public promotion of some product or service.
28. Thickening of tissue in the motor tracts of the lateral columns and anterior horns of the spinal cord.
29. The 19th letter of the Greek alphabet.
31. South American wood sorrel cultivated for its edible tubers.
32. Goddess of the dead and queen of the underworld.
33. Type genus of the Alcidae comprising solely the razorbill.
34. Large tropical butterfly with degenerate forelegs and an unpleasant taste.
37. The basic unit of money in Western Samoa.
38. Enthusiastic approval.
39. Small terrestrial lizard of warm regions of the Old World.
40. A small cake leavened with yeast.
42. An island in the Aegean Sea in the Saronic Gulf.
43. A small digital computer based on a microprocessor and designed to be used by one person at a time.
46. An ancient city in northern Portugal.
47. Cubes of meat marinated and cooked on a skewer usually with vegetables.
48. (Babylonian) A demigod or first man.
50. A Chadic language spoken south of Lake Chad.
51. A public promotion of some product or service.
54. A unit of absorbed ionizing radiation equal to 100 ergs per gram of irradiated material.
56. The compass point that is midway between north and northeast.
57. A periodic paperback publication.
58. Goddess of criminal rashness and its punishment.
62. A trivalent metallic element of the rare earth group. | <urn:uuid:761323ac-1a47-47a3-8c52-cf23961f2e39> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.crosswordpuzzlegames.com/puzzles/gs_465.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399428.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00038-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.897181 | 1,147 | 2.828125 | 3 |
AP Human Geography
iOS Universal Education
Aiming for a high score on your AP Human Geography exam? Look no further!
Dynamic Path's AP Human Geography Exam Prep app is the perfect tool to help you properly prepare for the multiple choice portion of this competitive college prep test.
The app contains 125 simulated exam questions cover nearly all topics on the AP Human Geography exam, including:
- Spatial data
- Patterns and processes in which humans settle around the world
- Specific world regions and areas
- General terminology
Each multiple-choice question is paired with a clear and thoughtful explanation and a detailed Key Takeaway summarizing the main learning point of the question, time period, or region discussed, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of the material. Whether you are taking the test for the first time or striving to improve your score, this app will help you succeed!
Our apps are designed with an exclusive intuitive UI. They provide a Study Mode, where questions are paired with clear explanations and the user can proceed at their own pace, as well as a Test Mode designed to simulate the exam experience, where the user can set question and time restraints and their results are presented to them upon completion in both an aggregate and a question-by-question format.
This app is neither affiliated with nor endorsed by College Board or the ETS.
Updated for iOS 9 | <urn:uuid:4c8a19fa-4046-4229-a8e4-c8966925b7d2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://appshopper.com/education/ap-human-geography | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00088-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930461 | 278 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Tuesday, June 19, 3:20 – 5:20 / McKinley Room
Using Scientific Findings From the Environmental Health Sciences to Avoid Endocrine Disruption in the Chemical Design Process
Pete Myers, Environmental Health Sciences
Karen Peabody O’Brien, Advancing Green Chemistry
A central goal of green chemistry is to avoid hazard in the design of new chemicals. This objective is best achieved when information about a chemical’s potential hazardous effects is obtained as early in the design process as feasible. Endocrine disruption is a hazard that to date has been inadequately addressed by both industrial and regulatory science. To aid green chemists in avoiding this hazard, we propose an endocrine disruption testing protocol for use by green chemists in the design of new materials.
Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals – Principles of Endocrinology for Chemical Design and Public Health Protection.
R. Thomas Zoeller, Department of Biology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Epidemiological and experimental studies continue to show adverse effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) from exposure levels far below what risk assessments indicate are safe. Because EDCs interfere with hormone action, it is essential to design experiments and interpret their results in terms of the very large literature that informs us about the role of endocrine systems in health and disease. Principles of endocrinology important to this field include hormone-receptor interactions, the spatial and temporal characteristics of hormone action in relation to development and adult health, and the regulatory circuits that control delivery of hormones to the proper targets at the proper time. These principles should inform basic research and regulatory science as well as to guide chemists in the design of safe chemical products.
The Relationships Between Exposures to Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals and Adverse Human Health Effects.
Laura N. Vandenberg,
Department of Biology and the Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology, Tufts University
A growing number of studies overwhelmingly suggest that environmentally relevant doses of EDCs influence human health and disease. Hundreds of human and animal studies challenge traditional concepts in toxicology, in particular the dogma that “the dose makes the poison”, because EDCs can have effects at low doses that are not predicted by effects at higher doses. Additionally, a large body of evidence indicates that hormones and EDCs produce non-monotonic dose responses (NMDRs), defined as non-linear relationships between dose and effect where the slope of the curve changes sign within the range of doses examined. These data indicate that the effects of low doses cannot be predicted by high dose studies. Thus, fundamental changes in how chemicals are tested are needed to protect human health. | <urn:uuid:0f0deef0-e5b3-422e-8e6b-bc190c785882> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://advancinggreenchemistry.org/agc-session-at-green-chemistry-engineering-conference-2012/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398628.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00003-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917099 | 544 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Meaning and Nature
Activity-centred curriculum is a modern approach in curriculum development. It is a reaction against the traditional curriculum which was subject-centred or teacher dominated. Child centred education and activity movement led to the concept of activity-centred curriculum.
Child-centred education requires active involvement of the child in the educative process. Modern educationists like Rousseau, Dewey, Gandhi, and Pestalozzi realised that education which does not influence child's conduct is useless. Some such views are described as under.
"Whatever has to be learnt must be learnt by doing."
"Instead of making the child stick to his books I keep him busy in the workshop, where his hands will work to the profit of his head."
"Verbal system of teaching neither suits neither the faculties of the child nor the circumstances of life."
The importance of 'learning by doing' has been stressed by all other educationists and psychologists like John Dewey, Piaget, Tagore, Gandhi, and Aurobindo and so on. The importance of activity principle led to the evolution of various modern methods of teaching like Project Method, Dalton Plan, and Problem-Solving Method.
1. Activity curriculum is reaction against traditional curriculum
2. The subject matter is presented through activities. Knowledge is the result of purposeful activities.
3. Continuous stream of child's activities-Dewey
Sublimation of instincts
1. Balanced development
- Development of social virtues
- Pupils develop initiative
- Preparation for life
In activity-centred curriculum, the subject-matter is presented through activities and knowledge is the result of the purposeful activities performed. Activity is the medium of imparting knowledge, teaching skills and developing attitudes. Some of the views about activity curriculum are expressed as under:
According to John Dewey
"Activity curriculum is a continuous stream of child's activities, unbroken by systematic subjects and springing from the interests and personality felt needs of the child."
According to framers of Ward ha Scheme of Education
"We have attempted to draft an activity curriculum which implies that our schools must be the places of work, experimentation and discovery, and not of passive absorption, imparted as second hand."
According to Secondary Education Commission
"The basis of teaching must be the organisation of the subject-matter into units of projects which would create opportunities for self activity on the part of the students. These should largely replace the formal lessons which lack proper motivation and therefore, fail to arouse real interest." | <urn:uuid:a5d2f61b-b7ea-4bd3-9791-9afd1cfe26f0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.preservearticles.com/2012010920282/activity-centred-curriculum-is-a-modern-approach-in-curriculum-development.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393146.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00043-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951035 | 521 | 3.625 | 4 |
A new space observatory that aims to investigate the edge of the solar system is poised to launch Sunday.
NASA's $169 million Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft is designed to measure particles bouncing back from the nether regions of the solar system, where the hot wind from the sun slams against the cold wall of interstellar space. The coffee table-sized observatory is set to launch Oct. 19 at 1:48 p.m. EDT (1748 GMT) aboard a Pegasus XL rocket from the Kwajalein Atoll, a part of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean.
"IBEX is really a mission of discovery," said Nathan Schwadron, IBEX co-investigator and chief of the spacecraft?s science operations center lead at Boston University, in a Friday teleconference. "We really have never seen the structures that surround and protect our entire solar system. We know very little about what we're going to see."
The sun unleashes a protective bubble of charged particles around the solar system called the heliosphere, which shields the planets from deadly cosmic rays. Over the past 15 years, the pressure from this solar wind has been diminishing, and is now at the lowest level measured since the beginning of the space age, said Dave McComas, IBEX principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Tex.
"We don?t know whether we're on the verge of a larger reduction or whether we're near the bottom," McComas said. "What's most likely is that there are natural variations in this solar wind pressure and that over time it will either stabilize or start going back up, but nobody really knows. So it's an interesting time to live in."
The scientists hope the new spacecraft will shed new light on this decline, as well as how changes in the heliosphere may affect Earth.
To study the dynamic interactions taking place between the heliosphere and the rest of the galaxy, IBEX is outfitted with two bucket-sized sensors that will capture neutral hydrogen atoms travelling back toward Earth from the edges of the solar system.
Luckily, to study the distant edge of the solar system, IBEX doesn't have to travel nearly that far. The spacecraft will rocket to an orbit 200,000 miles (322,000 km) above the Earth, high enough to escape contamination from our planet's magnetic field. The moon, for comparison, orbits about 240,000 miles (385,000 km) from Earth.
"Every six months we will make global sky maps of where these atoms come from and how fast they are traveling," said Herb Funsten of Los Alamos National Lab, which built IBEX's High Energy Neutral Atom Imager. "From this information, we will be able to discover what the edge of our bubble looks like and learn about the properties of the interstellar cloud that lies beyond the bubble."
- Video - IBEX: Interstellar Boundary Explorer
- Video - Solar Storm
- Images - Voyager's Photo Legacy | <urn:uuid:379a57e9-9580-43c0-9780-cf70312a74b2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.space.com/5994-observatory-set-scan-solar-systems-edge.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398075.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00145-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929362 | 613 | 3.546875 | 4 |
South Carolina has a dubious voting rights history.
So, too, do Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Virginia as well as parts of Florida, North Carolina and Texas.
Because of that history the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed to ensure the “one man, one vote” principle. And because of that history, 45 years later, South Carolina is still subject to the Voting Rights Act.
The act prohibits “retrogression,” or the elimination of black-majority election districts through reapportionment. Drawing new district lines is required every 10 years following the decennial census count.
Beaufort County’s population has grown about 30 percent, to about 155,000 people, since 2000. Each of the 11 council districts will expand accordingly, from about 11,000 people to about 14,000. Districts must be approximately equal in size; redistricting is based on population, not on registered voters.
Again because of the state’s history of racial disenfranchisement, the new districts must be approved by the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Civil Rights.
Reapportionment has been a decennial headache for the Beaufort County Council, even without malicious intent, because the white population has been growing steadily faster than the black population for more than 30 years.
“Policy retrogression is absolutely against the law. Natural retrogression is a change in population and should be avoided at all costs,” Council Chairman Weston Newton said at a weekend retreat. “We faced retrogression last time (in 2001) but not to the extent that we’re going to have to deal with it this year.”
It may not be possible to avoid natural retrogression, according to Bobby Bowers, director of the Office of Research & Statistics for the S.C. Budget and Control Board.
And that almost certainly would mean a lengthy review by the Office of Civil Rights that pushes final reapportionment into the 2012 primary season.
County Council probably will see the official census results by April 15. Then it will have some difficult work ahead in very little time. | <urn:uuid:6225ac64-bced-4f47-b51d-7c79309cec1e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.blufftontoday.com/bluffton-opinion/2011-03-06/county-remap-difficult-work | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399425.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00048-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946624 | 443 | 2.859375 | 3 |
This species is listed as Near Threatened because it has a small range, in which it faces the limited threats of habitat clearance and degradation owing primarily to agricultural encroachment and logging, but is not severely fragmented, and it is thought to have a moderately small and declining population. The terrain in the areas it occupies is likely to prevent serious damage to its habitat, but this requires close monitoring.
AOU. 1998. Check-list of North American birds. American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D.C.
Sibley, C. G.; Monroe, B. L. 1990. Distribution and taxonomy of birds of the world. Yale University Press, New Haven, USA.
Stotz, D. F.; Fitzpatrick, J. W.; Parker, T. A.; Moskovits, D. K. 1996. Neotropical birds: ecology and conservation. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Crossin, R. S. 1967. The breeding biology of the Tufted Jay. Proceedings of the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology I(5): 265-300.
Howell, S. N. G.; Webb, S. 1995. A guide to the birds of Mexico and northern Central America. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Lammertink, J. M.; Rojas-Tomé, J. A.; Casillas-Orona, F. M.; Otto, R. L. 1996. Status and conservation of old-growth forests and endemic birds in the pine-oak zone of the Sierra Madre Occidental, Mexico. Institute for Systematics and Population Biology, Amsterdam.
Madge, S.; Burn, H. 1993. Crows and jays: a guide to the crows, jays and magpies of the world. Helm Information, Robertsbridge, U.K.
Further web sources of information
Explore HBW Alive for further information on this species
Text account compilers
Isherwood, I., O'Brien, A., Taylor, J.
Cruz, J., Cruz-Nieto, M.Á., Escarcega-Bencomo, M., Gonzalez-Bernal, M., Lammertink, M., Torres, F., Torres, F., Vega-Picos, X., Vidal, R., Villar-Rodriguez, C.
BirdLife International (2016) Species factsheet: Cyanocorax dickeyi. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 01/07/2016. Recommended citation for factsheets for more than one species: BirdLife International (2016) IUCN Red List for birds. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 01/07/2016.
This information is based upon, and updates, the information published in BirdLife International (2000) Threatened birds of the world. Barcelona and Cambridge, UK: Lynx Edicions and BirdLife International, BirdLife International (2004) Threatened birds of the world 2004 CD-ROM and BirdLife International (2008) Threatened birds of the world 2008 CD-ROM. These sources provide the information for species accounts for the birds on the IUCN Red List.
To provide new information to update this factsheet or to correct any errors, please email BirdLife
To contribute to discussions on the evaluation of the IUCN Red List status of Globally Threatened Birds, please visit BirdLife's Globally Threatened Bird Forums.
Additional resources for this species
|Current IUCN Red List category||Near Threatened|
|Family||Corvidae (Crows and jays)|
|Species name author||Moore, 1935|
|Population size||10000-19999 mature individuals|
|Distribution size (breeding/resident)||13,400 km2|
|Links to further information|
|- Additional Information on this species| | <urn:uuid:6e6519c2-4c5b-4f61-9067-b77e079cbe82> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/speciesfactsheet.php?id=5713 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403823.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00133-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.659352 | 815 | 2.90625 | 3 |
The structural elements of the plant were “remarkably undamaged given the magnitude of ground motion experienced and the duration and size of this great earthquake,” the International Atomic Energy Agency said in an initial report.
Onagawa “experienced very high levels of ground shaking – among the strongest of any plant affected by the earthquake – and some flooding from the tsunami that followed, but was able to shut down safely,” the Vienna-based IAEA said.
The Fukushima plant, 120 kilometres to the south, was not so lucky, suffering multiple reactor meltdowns and releasing radioactivity into the environment in the world’s worst nuclear accident in 25 years.
The IAEA report followed a two-week trip by 19 international experts that will be followed by further visits at Onagawa and reviews of other Japanese nuclear plants.
Findings will be added to an IAEA database being compiled by its International Seismic Safety Centre (ISSC) that was part of the watchdog’s “action plan” on nuclear safety drawn up in the wake of the Fukushima disaster.
“The data we are collecting will make an important contribution to improving safety,” said mission head Sujit Samaddar.
“Information in the database will allow IAEA member states to measure the performance of their nuclear power plants in the face of external hazards.” | <urn:uuid:c44d633b-67b9-4a5b-9e90-af2db7afa13d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/world/2012/08/10/japans-onagawa-nuclear-plant-remarkably-undamaged/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00017-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947388 | 289 | 2.828125 | 3 |
School Choice vs. School Choice
Table of Contents
- America's Current School Choice System
- Are Bad Schools Really at Fault?
- Choice Outside the Housing Market: Types of Choice Programs
- Choice Outside the Housing Market: Effects on Student Performance
- Choice Outside the Housing Market: Effects on Public Schools
- Choice Outside the Housing Market: Effects on Racial Integration
- Choice Outside the Housing Market: Effects on Teacher Pay
America's Current School Choice System
The vast majority of parents are already participating in a system of school choice. For example, there are 79 school districts within a 50-mile radius of downtown Dallas. Assuming each district has at least two campuses at each grade level, a typical family has a choice of about 158 public schools - provided the parents can afford to buy a house in any neighborhood and are willing to drive a considerable distance to work.
"Dallasites can choose from 158 schools -- provided they can afford a house in any neighborhood."
How well does this system work? Better than you might think. A study by researchers at Southern Methodist University and the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank found that North Dallas houses near higher-ranking elementary schools sold for about 20 percent more than houses near lower-ranking schools.1 The authors conclude that the market for education works surprisingly well. Parents can discern quality and the market charges a premium for it.
This conclusion is supported by an informal survey conducted by Dallas attorney H. Martin Gibson of housing prices in Highland Park - a wealthy Dallas suburb. Although most Highland Park homes are inside the Highland Park Independent School District (HPISD), a few are in the Dallas Independent School District (DISD). Gibson found that, all else equal, homes on the HPISD side of the street sell for 24 percent more than those on the DISD side. This implies that many Highland Park homeowners are paying about $72,000 just for the right to send their children to Highland Park schools.2
If the system works well for those who have money, how does it work for those who don't? What happens to families who cannot afford to buy a house or don't even own a car? Unfortunately, they're out of luck. Since the current choice system in Dallas and across the country rations educational opportunity through the housing market, it's almost inevitable that the children of low-income families will end up in schools no one else wants to attend. These are the schools with the worst teachers, the worst principals and the lowest test scores.
A compounding factor is that parents who can afford more expensive homes are much more adept at dealing with public sector bureaucracies. If a bad teacher or principal is identified at a school in a wealthy neighborhood, parents typically will complain until that person is transferred to another school. Then the parents at the next school will likely complain. This transfer process will continue until the worst teachers and worst principals wind up at schools where either the parents don't complain or nothing happens if they do. These invariably are schools in low-income neighborhoods.
"When educational oppourtunity is rationed through the housing market, low-income children will end up in schools no one else wants to attend."
Of course, it is possible to turn a truly bad school into a good one through some Herculean effort.3 But if the effort was successful and perceived to be permanent, "gentrification" would occur. Middle-income families would move into the neighborhood and bid up housing prices. Low-income residents would be priced out of the market and would have to move somewhere else. It is no accident that the worst schools are consistently found in low-income neighborhoods which lie predominantly in urban areas.4 Indeed, it could not be otherwise. | <urn:uuid:8fa61e15-97da-4234-b8a5-e78d7925ba17> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ncpa.org/pub/bg155?pg=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398628.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00112-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962401 | 752 | 2.875 | 3 |
Linen yarn is spun from the long fibers found just behind the bark in the multi-layer stem of the flax plant (Linum usitatissimum). In order to retrieve the fibers from the plant, the woody stem and the inner pith (called pectin), which holds the fibers together in a clump, must be rotted away. The cellulose fiber from the stem is spinnable and is used in the production of linen thread, cordage, and twine. From linen thread or yarn, fine toweling and dress fabrics may be woven. Linen fabric is a popular choice for warm-weather clothing. It feels cool in the summer but appears crisp and fresh even in hot weather. Household linens truly made of linen become more supple and soft to the touch with use; thus, linen was once the bedsheet of choice.
While the flax plant is not difficult to grow, it flourishes best in cool, humid climates and within moist, well-plowed soil. The process for separating the flax fibers from the plant's woody stock is laborious and painstaking and must be done in an area where labor is plentiful and relatively inexpensive. It is remarkable that while there is some mechanization to parts of the fiber preparation, some fiber preparation is still done by hand as it has been for centuries. This may be due to the care that must be taken with the fragile flax fibers inside the woody stalk, which might be adversely affected by mechanized processing.
Flax remains under cultivation for linen fiber in a number of countries including Poland, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and the British Isles. However, the grade of fiber the plants yield in different parts of the world varies. Many believe that Belgium grows the finest-quality flax fibers in the world, with Scottish and Irish linen not far behind. There is no commercial production of linen fabric in any significant quantity in the United States except, perhaps, by individual hand spinners and hand weavers. Thus, the linen fabrics Americans use and wear are nearly all imported into the country from one of these flax-growing and weaving countries.
Flax has been cultivated for its remarkable fiber, linen, for at least five millennia. The spinning and weaving of linen is depicted on wall paintings of ancient Egypt. As early as 3,000 B.C. , the fiber was processed into fine white fabric (540 threads to the inch—finer than anything woven today) and wrapped around the mummies of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs. Mentioned several times in the Bible, it has been used as a cool, comfortable fiber in the Middle East for centuries as well. Ancient Greeks and Romans greatly valued it as a commodity. Finnish traders are believed to have introduced flax to Northern Europe where it has been under cultivation for centuries.
Both wool and linen were tremendously important fibers in the New World. Relatively easy to grow, American settlers were urged to plant a small plot of flax as early as the seventeenth century. While flax is easy to grow, settlers knew all too well the tedious chore of processing the woody stalks for its supple linen. Before the industrial revolution much sturdy, homemade clothing was woven from linen cultivated, processed, spun, dyed, woven, and sewn by hand. It may be argued that until the eighteenth century, linen was the most important textile in the world.
By the late eighteenth century, cotton became the fiber that was most easily and inexpensively processed and woven in the mechanized British and New England textile mills. By the 1850s, linen production had virtually been abandoned in the United States because it was so much cheaper to buy the factory-made cotton. Some New Englanders of Scot or Irish background continued to cultivate some flax for processing into linen used for fancy domestic linens such as bedsheets, toweling, and decorative tableclothes as their ancestors had for centuries. However, most Americans abandoned the cultivation of the plant in this country and instead chose cheap cotton that was carded, spun, woven, and roller-printed for just pennies a yard. Thereafter and until recently, a different variety of flax plant was raised in this country not for its linen fibers but for its seeds which exude a useful vegetable oil known as linseed oil when pressed.
All that is needed to turn flax fiber into linen, and then spin and weave the linen fibers into linen fabric is the cellulose flax fiber from the stem of the flax plant. The process for separating the fibers from the woody stalk can use either water or chemicals, but these are ultimately washed away and are not part of the finished material.
The manufacture of linen yarn requires no special design processes. All that has to be determined prior to manufacturing is the thickness of the yarn to be spun. That will depend on the grade of linen in production and the demands of the customer.
This is a European "flax wheel" used to spin flax into linen thread within the home. Folklore tells us that it was brought by Henry Ford's Irish grandmother to the New World; it was one of the few family keepsakes Ford had from his Irish ancestors. In fact, it was not unusual for the Scots or Irish to bring such wheels to this country. The British Isles have a long and proud linen tradition, and even decades after others abandoned linen production for cotton in the New World the Irish and Scots here tenaciously clung to their linen-making traditions.
Ford's grandmother placed unspun flax on the tall, vertical, turned distaff and then push the treadle with her foot to power the wheel. The bobbin and flyer mounted horizontally in the center of the wheel would spin the flax and wind it on the bobbin at the same time. The rather small wheel below the bobbin required the spinner to treadle rafher fast to keep it moving and because of the small wheel this spinning wheel was not a popular style. It is lovely to look at, though, as this flax wheel is rather fancy, with inlaid bone or ivory set within the wheel. Some refer to this type of European spinning wheel as a "castle" or "parlor" wheel because of its lovely inlays and turnings.
Nancy EV Bryk
Flax plants are poor competitors with weeds. Weeds reduce fiber yields and increase the difficulty in harvesting the plant. Tillage of the soil reduces weeds as do herbicides. When the flax plants are just a few inches high, the area must be carefully weeded so as not to disturb the delicate sprouts. In three months, the plants are straight, slender stalks that may be 2-4 ft (61-122 cm) in height with small blue or white fibers. (Flax plants with blue flowers yield the finest linen fibers.)
Retting may be accomplished in a variety of ways. In some parts of the world, linen is still retted by hand, using moisture to rot away the bark. The stalks are spread on dewy slopes, submerged in stagnant pools of water, or placed in running streams. Workers must wait for the water to begin rotting or fermenting the stem—sometimes more than a week or two. However, most manufacturers use chemicals for retting. The plants are placed in a solution either of alkali or oxalic acid, then pressurized and boiled. This method is easy to monitor and rather quick, although some believe that chemical retting adversely affects the color and strength of the fiber and hand retting produces the finest linen. Vat or mechanical retting requires that the stalks be submerged in vats of warm water, hastening the decomposition of the stem. The flax is then removed from the vats and passed between rollers to crush the bark as clean water flushes away the pectin and other impurities.
Of greatest concern are the chemicals used in retting. These chemicals must be neutralized before being released into water supplies. The stalks, leaves, seed pods, etc. are natural organic materials and are not hazardous unless impregnated with much of the chemicals left behind in the retting process. The only other concern with the processing of linen is the smell—it is said that hand-retted linen produces quite a stench and is most unpleasant to experience.
The Irish Linen Guild. Irish Linen: The Fabric of Elegance. NY: Elliott & Nelson, 1945.
Jerde, Judith. Encyclopedia of Textiles. NY: Facts on File Inc., 1992.
Koob, Katharine. Linen Making in New England. North Andover, MA: Merrimack Valley Textile Museum, 1978.
Calhoun, Wheeler and Lee Kirschner. "The Continuous Thread: From Flax Seed to Linen Cloth." Spin-Off Magazine (March 1983): 28-35.
— Nancy EVBryk | <urn:uuid:439c174a-b6b4-485c-97f1-23b6cffaf7a2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.madehow.com/Volume-4/Linen.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404382.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00180-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957975 | 1,842 | 3.8125 | 4 |
A thing which has the quality without a name never fit any image exactly. What is exact is its adaptation to the forces which are in it.
The fact is that the elements themselves are patterns of relationships.
Any thing which lives can only be achieved as the end product of a process, whose force takes over and replaces the willful act of creation.
The mastery of what is made does not lie in the depths of some impenetrable ego; it lies, instead, in the simple mastery of the steps in the process, and in the definition of those steps.
How does the pattern language, which exists behind this flux, steer it, and enter into it? It hinges on the close relationship between the process of creation and the process of repair.
As in the organism, there is no sharp difference between the process of construction and the process of repair. Each process of construction helps repair some larger whole, of which it is merely a part. No thing is whole unto itself.
Within this process, every individual act of building is a process in which space gets differentiated. It is not a process of addition, in which pre-formed parts are combined to create a whole: but a process of unfolding, like the evolution of an embryo, in which the whole precedes its parts, and actually gives birth to them, by splitting.
The form of the whole, and the parts, come into being simultaneously.
This can only happen if the design is represented in an utterly fluid medium; it cannot happen in any medium where there is even the slightest resistance to change.
No building is ever perfect. | <urn:uuid:af851d22-21e4-4855-9db8-764bc00c656e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://jonjagger.blogspot.com/2011_06_26_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00124-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966827 | 328 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Since the 1940s, antibiotics have played a critical role in protecting the public’s health, and are responsible for saving millions of human lives. Unfortunately, inappropriate use of antibiotics is threatening their efficacy. The use of low doses of antibiotics by the modern food animal industry is responsible for drug-resistant bacteria emerging on farms which reach the general population through human or animal carriers, and through the food consumers eat. Because of the public health risks associated with antibiotic resistance, there is a push to end the use of low doses of medically important antibiotics in order to slow the development of antibiotic resistant bacterial strains.
Bacteria are everywhere, including on the skin and in the digestive system of humans. While bacteria are critical to normal bodily functions, some types can cause illness. In humans, antibiotics are used to treat health conditions caused by bacteria, including ear and skin infections, food poisoning, pneumonia, and meningitis. Antibiotics belong to a category of drugs called "antimicrobials," and include penicillin, tetracycline, amoxicillin and many other formulations that can kill or inhibit the growth of bacteria without causing significant harm to patients.
In the 1940s Penicillin was put into clinical use, and was one of the first drugs to prove widely effective against formerly untreatable bacterial infections. However, Penicillin’s efficacy against some common bacterial infections was short lived. By 1955, 13% of common Staphylococcus aureus infections were resistant to penicillin, and by 1988 this percentage was up to 91%. 1 Today, penicillin is no longer recommended as the first line of treatment of Staphylococcus infections because it is effective in less than 10% of new cases, 2 and the growing problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has compromised the efficacy of many other important antibiotics.
Similar to how immunization helps the human body fight disease by exposing the immune system to small amounts of a virus or bacteria, when bacteria are continually exposed to small amounts of antibiotics they can develop immunity to them. It’s a case of "survival of the fittest," with the strongest bacteria, that are least susceptible to a specific antibiotic, surviving, adapting and multiplying. These are called "resistant bacteria" because they have adapted to the point where antibiotics are no longer an effective means of killing them. 3 As a result, some antibiotics have lost their effectiveness against specific infectious diseases. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that each year in the US almost 2 million people acquire bacterial infections in hospitals, 70 percent of which are resistant to at least one commonly used antibiotic. 4
An example of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is staphylococcus aureus, a bacterium that is the most common cause of staph infections, and can also cause pneumonia, meningitis, toxic shock, skin abscesses, heart valve infections and other serious and deadly medical conditions. 5 Many strains of s. aureus are now resistant to the antibiotics oxacillin, penicillin and amoxicillin, and strains of the disease have begun developing resistance to newer drugs like methicillin and vancomycin, powerful drugs once considered ‘last resort' antibiotics for only the most serious infections. 6 7 The threat of prolonged illness or death from an S. aureus infection has increased as it has become more resistant and fewer drugs are able to effectively control or eliminate it. According to a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, approximately 19,000 deaths per year in the United States can be attributed to infection with Invasive Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a number greater than annual U.S. deaths from AIDS. 8
The problem of antibiotic resistance has accelerated through overuse of antibiotics in humans and animals. Over-prescribing antibiotics for conditions caused by viruses like the flu or common cold, which antibiotics cannot treat, contributes to antibiotic resistance. Even when antibiotics are used for bacterial infections, studies have shown that antibiotic resistance can still arise from their use. 9 10 Failure to complete the prescribed antibiotic regimen for a bacterial infection is another common contributor to the development of antibiotic resistance. 11
Industrial farms have been adding antibiotics to livestock feed since 1946, when studies showed that antibiotics caused animals to grow faster and put on weight more efficiently, increasing meat producers' profits. 13 Between 1985 and 2001, the use of antibiotics in feed for industrial livestock production rose a startling 50%. 14 Today, antibiotics are routinely fed to livestock, poultry, and fish on industrial farms to promote faster growth and to compensate for the unsanitary conditions in which they are raised. 15 According to a new report by the FDA, approximately 80 percent of all antibiotics used in the United States are fed to farm animals. 16 This means that in the United States only 20 percent of antibiotics, which were originally developed to protect human health, are actually used to treat infections in people.
Modern industrial farms are ideal breeding grounds for germs and disease. Animals live in close confinement, often standing or laying in their own waste, and are under constant stress that inhibits their immune systems and makes them more prone to infection. 17 When drug-resistant bacteria develop in industrial livestock facilities, they can reach the human population through food, the environment (i.e., water, soil, and air), or by direct human- animal contact. 18
One major way in which antibiotics and antibiotic resistant bacteria enter the environment is via animal manure. Industrial livestock operations produce an enormous amount of concentrated animal waste—over one billion tons annually—often laden with antibiotics and their residues, as well as antibiotic-resistant bacteria. It is estimated that approximately 75 percent of all antibiotics given to animals are not fully digested and eventually pass through the body and enter the environment, 19 where they can encounter new bacteria and create additional resistant strains. 20 With huge quantities of manure routinely sprayed onto fields surrounding CAFOs, antibiotic resistant bacteria can leech into surface and ground water, contaminating drinking wells and endangering the health of people living close to large livestock facilities. 21 Bacteria can also be spread by insects that come in contact with animal waste. A study conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University examined flies near broiler poultry operations and found that many of the flies living near these operations carried antibiotic resistant enterococci and staphylococci. If these flies travel to nearby homes, they could transport these drug resistant bacteria from the farm to neighboring communities. 22
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are a growing public health crisis because infections from resistant bacteria are increasingly difficult and expensive to treat. The National Academy of Sciences calculates that increased health care costs associated with antibiotic-resistant bacteria exceed $4 billion each year in the United States alone—a figure that reflects the price of pharmaceuticals and longer hospital stays, but does not account for lost workdays, lost productivity or human suffering. 23
Dr. Margaret Chan, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, released a statement on World Health Day 2011 about the bleak future of treating bacterial infections if no steps are taken to slow the development of antibiotic resistant bacterial strains. She warned that “in the absence of urgent corrective and protective actions, the world is heading toward a post-antibiotic era, in which many common infections will no longer have a cure and, once again, kill unabated.” 24 Although everyone is at risk when antibiotics stop working, the threat is greatest for young children, the elderly, and people with weakened immune systems, including cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, organ transplant patients and, in general, people whose health is compromised in some way.
In 2011, an amendment to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act called the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical treatment, was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. The goal of the amendment is to create legislation that is focused on protecting the effectiveness of antibiotics used in treating human and animal diseases. 24 In early 2011, it was referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Subcommittee on Health, as well the House Committee on Rules. Following reports by these committees, the act will be sent back to the House for voting. 25 If the bill is passed, it will ban the use seven classes of antibiotics that are medically significant to humans for use by the food animal industry, as well as restrict the use of many other antibiotics in animal feed.
Ending the routine use of antibiotics in animal agriculture is not only critical, it is possible and economically feasible. According to a study conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, the increased selling price of chickens fed growth promoting antibiotics (or GPAs) did not offset the increased cost of the feed, resulting in a higher overall cost to the farmer. The study found that the use of GPAs resulted in an average loss in value per chicken of $0.0093, or about 0.45%. Along with expected decreases in health care costs that would stem from reducing the number of drug resistant infections, there is evidence to show that eliminating GPAs would be profitable for both farmers and the public as a whole. 26
Today, many animal farmers do not use antibiotics at all, in large part because they don’t have to compensate for unhealthy conditions associated with CAFO production systems. On these types of farms, animals are raised in clean environments with adequate space to reduce animal-stress and the likelihood of infections. 27 While these types of farms may use antibiotics, they only do so to treat acute infections in sick animals, just as they are used to treat infections in humans.
Federal standards prohibit antibiotic use in animals whose meat will be certified organic. In Eat Well Guide, farms where antibiotics are never given to animals carry the label "no antibiotic use," while those where antibiotics are only used to treat a sick animal carry the label "no routine antibiotic use." In these instances, a suitable amount of time must pass after an animal is treated and before its meat, milk or eggs can enter the food supply. | <urn:uuid:e786555c-9e5b-4c54-aeb8-396d5ffd70bc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://sustainabletable.org/print/257 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397795.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00089-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950088 | 2,031 | 3.6875 | 4 |
Revista Panamericana de Salud Pública
On-line version ISSN 1680-5348
Print version ISSN 1020-4989
MENA, Nelson; TROYO, Adriana; BONILLA-CARRION, Roger and CALDERON-ARGUEDAS, Ólger. Factors associated with incidence of dengue in Costa Rica. Rev Panam Salud Publica [online]. 2011, vol.29, n.4, pp.234-242. ISSN 1680-5348. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1020-49892011000400004.
OBJECTIVE: Determine the extent to which socioeconomic, demographic, geographic, and climate variables affected the incidence of dengue and dengue hemorrhagic fever (D/DH) in Costa Rica during the period 1999-2007. METHODS: A correlational epidemiologic study was conducted that analyzed the cumulative incidence of D/DH from 1999 to 2007 and its association with different variables in the country's 81 cantons. Information was obtained from secondary sources, and the independent variables used for the analysis were selected on the basis of their representativeness in terms of sociodemographic, environmental, and health coverage factors that affect the epidemiology of D/DH. These variables were divided into four groups of indicators: demographic, socioeconomic, housing, and climate and geographical. The data were analyzed by means of simple and multiple Poisson regressions. RESULTS: The Costa Rican cantons with a higher incidence of D/DH were located primarily near the coast, coinciding with some of the variables studied. Temperature, altitude, and the human poverty index were the most relevant variables in explaining the incidence of D/DH, while temperature was the most significant variable in the multiple analyses. CONCLUSIONS: The analyses made it possible to correlate a higher incidence of D/DH with lower-altitude cantons, higher temperature, and a high human poverty index ranking. This information is relevant as a first step toward prioritizing and optimizing actions for the prevention and control of this disease.
Keywords : Dengue; dengue hemorrhagic fever; arbovirus infections; incidence; socioeconomic factors; Costa Rica. | <urn:uuid:002eee3b-db4e-46bb-8f53-b54a6c93cc34> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.scielosp.org/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S1020-49892011000400004&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397636.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00097-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9104 | 475 | 2.546875 | 3 |
by Muslim Women's League
A source of significant controversy both inside and outside the Muslim community is the Islamic law of inheritance. This "law" is in fact a continuing process of interpretation of Quranic rules and principles to form the complex "laws" of inheritance under Islam. It is a dynamic process which, based on specific text in the Quran and traditions of the Prophet Muhammad, continues to be discussed in each Islamic age by Muslim scholars addressing changing issues and times.
Before delving into this complicated and controversial area, one must first realize that Islam revolutionized women's inheritance rights. Prior to the Quranic injunction -- and indeed in the west until only recently -- women could not inherit from their relatives, and in the case of Arabia at least, were themselves bequeathed as if they were property to be distributed at the death of a husband, father, or brother. Thus, Islam, by clearly stating in the Quran that women have the right to inherit for themselves, changed the status of women in an unprecedented fashion. The Quran states:
"Men shall have a share in what parents and kinsfolk leave behind, and women shall have a share in what parents and kinsfolk leave behind." (Quran 4:7).
Thus, whether women can inherit at all is not the controversy. Rather, the dispute centers around the "share" that is to be inherited.
The same chapter of the Quran goes on to state in detail the division of property based on the number of relatives and the level of kinship of the inheritor. (See Quran 4:11) The injunction that a male relative receives a share equal to that of two females applies only to the inheritance of children by their parents. Parents who inherit from a deceased child, for example, each inherit one-sixth of the property if the deceased child is survived by a child of his or her own. In that instance, the division is equal between the mother and the father of the deceased. The verse then states what the mother shall receive if the deceased left no children or if the deceased left siblings. Presumably, the father and the mother inherit equally in those situations. The rationale behind a brother receiving double his sister's share, on the other hand, is based on the Islamic legal presumption that he has an obligation to provide for her support. Bearing in mind that these verses were revealed in Arabia over 1400 years ago, when women had no financial security other than what was provided by men, these verses demonstrate the care and respect given to the family unit, and ensured that women's rights would continue to be protected. Hence, brothers with sisters were given larger shares than their sisters, together with the legal obligation to spend a portion of this wealth on those sisters.
Within the field of Islamic scholarship, there is much discussion on the topic of inheritance. There are scholars who argue that these rules apply only if no will was left by the deceased and that the division can be changed by a will. Presumably, the will would be analogous to a debt and would be paid prior to any other disbursement of property. (See Quran 4:11; Fathi Osman, Muslim Women in the Family and in the Society, at 24-25.) Furthermore, a tradition of the Prophet Muhammad states that a person can will up to one-third of his or her property in any manner, thus allowing equalization of gender-based default presumptions. (It should be noted that a majority of the Sunni schools of thought state that the one-third share cannot be bequeathed to natural heirs; however, others, including the Shiite school, disagree with this limitation.) Moreover, transfers of property can be made during the life of the testator.
The majority of schools argue that the verses provide guidance as to who should be provided for and at what level. Furthermore, there are scholars who maintain that these laws are applicable only in an Islamically-based legal system and government where a woman would have recourse against a relative who was obligated to provide for her but failed to do so. One may argue that in the absence of a complete application of Islamic law, where the rights of women will have no teeth, Muslims should turn to the spirit of that law, which is justice, and find ways to accomplish this goal. This is especially true where Muslims are a minority, as in the United States. Muslim scholars, legislators, and researchers must -- and are beginning to -- boldly address this issue to focus on these challenges. The Islamic laws of inheritance are, like all issues in Islamic law, a dynamic process that must respond to the many challenges and opportunities that world changes present. | <urn:uuid:bcdfe907-d240-491c-a87f-1d210abcd607> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mwlusa.org/topics/rights/inheritance.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408828.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00011-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971678 | 936 | 3.0625 | 3 |
On the 18th of May, of the year 1804, the plan that had been so long and carefully prepared was carried into execution. On the 18th of May, the Senate repaired to St. Cloud, to entreat Bonaparte, in the name of the people and army, to accept the imperial dignity, and exchange the Roman chair of a consul for the French throne of an emperor.
Cambaceres, the late second consul of the republic, stood at the head of the Senate, and upon him devolved the duty of imparting to Bonaparte the wishes of the French people. Cambaceres—who, as a member of the Convention, had voted for the condemnation of Louis XVI., in order that royalty should be forever banished from French soil—this same Cambaceres, was now the first to salute Bonaparte with “imperial majesty,” and with the little word, so full of significance, “sire.” He rewarded Cambaceres, for this by writing to him on the game day, and appointing him high constable of the empire, as the first act of his imperial rule. In this letter, the first document in which Bonaparte signed himself merely Napoleon, the emperor retained the republican style of writing. He addressed Cambaceres, as “citizen consul,” and followed the revolutionary method of reckoning time, his letter being dated “the 20th Floreal, of the year 12.”
The second act of the emperor, on the first day of his new dignity, was to invest the members of his family also with new dignities, and to confer upon them the rank of Princes of France, with the title “imperial highness.” Moreover, he made his brother Joseph prince elector, and his brother Louis connetable. On the same day it devolved upon Louis, in his new dignity, to present the generals and staff officers to the emperor, and then to conduct them to the empress—the Empress Josephine.
The prophecy of the negress of Martinique was now fulfilled. Josephine was “more than a queen.” But Josephine, in the midst of the splendor of her new dignity, could only think, with an anxious heart, of the prophecy of the clairvoyante of Paris, who had told her, “You will wear a crown, but only for a short time.” She felt that this wondrous fortune could not last long—that the new emperor would have to do as the kings or old had done, and sacrifice his dearest possession to Fate, in order to appease the hungry demons of vengeance and envy; and that he would, therefore, sacrifice her, in order to secure the perpetuity of his fortune and dynasty.
It was this that weighed down the heart of the new empress, and made her shrink in alarm from her new grandeur. It was, therefore, with a feeling of deep anxiety that she took possession of the new titles and honors that Fate had showered upon her, as from an inexhaustible horn of plenty. With a degree of alarm, and almost with shame, she heard herself addressed with the titles with which she had addressed the Queen of France years before, in these same halls, when she came to the Tuileries as Marquise de Beauharnais, to do homage to the beautiful Marie Antoinette. She had died on the scaffold and now Josephine was the “majesty” that sat enthroned in the Tuileries, her brilliant court assembled around her, while in a retired nook of England the legitimate King of France was leading a lonely and gloomy life. | <urn:uuid:c11d5e25-7816-496d-9108-365afb6bcc0a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/12019/52.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397795.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00176-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982291 | 769 | 2.84375 | 3 |
noun[mass noun] Zoology
The asexual process of spore formation in parasitic sporozoans.
- In at least two, widely divergent systems, electron-dense extracellular tubules have been observed surrounding developing spores during sporogony.
- The enveloped sporogony is endogenous in spore sacs of sporont origin, daughter cells are formed by vacuolation.
- Sporozoites, the product of sporogony, migrate to the salivary glands and are injected into the bloodstream when a mosquito bites a person.
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Line breaks: spor|ogony
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Comments that don't adhere to our Community Guidelines may be moderated or removed. | <urn:uuid:b99a7fe8-4ec8-448d-a44f-51eb0f71f25a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/sporogony | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400572.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00015-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.866042 | 170 | 2.96875 | 3 |
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