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Equality and other comparisons
In the last chapter, we used the equals sign to define variables and functions in Haskell as in the following code:
r = 5
That means that the evaluation of the program replaces all occurrences of
5 (within the scope of the definition). Similarly, evaluating the code
f x = x + 3
replaces all occurrences of
f followed by a number (
f's argument) with that number plus three.
Mathematics also uses the equals sign in an important and subtly different way. For instance, consider this simple problem:
Example: Solve the following equation:
Our interest here isn't about representing the value as , or vice-versa. Instead, we read the equation as a proposition that some number gives 5 as result when added to 3. Solving the equation means finding which, if any, values of make that proposition true. In this example, elementary algebra tells us that (i.e. 2 is the number that will make the equation true, giving ).
Comparing values to see if they are equal is also useful in programming. In Haskell, such tests look just like an equation. Since the equals sign is already used for defining things, Haskell uses a double equals sign,
== instead. Enter our proposition above in GHCi:
Prelude> 2 + 3 == 5 True
GHCi returns "True" because is equal to 5. What if we use an equation that is not true?
Prelude> 7 + 3 == 5 False
Nice and coherent. Next, we will use our own functions in these tests. Let's try the function
f we mentioned at the start of the chapter:
Prelude> let f x = x + 3 Prelude> f 2 == 5 True
This works as expected because
f 2 evaluates to
2 + 3.
We can also compare two numerical values to see which one is larger. Haskell provides a number of tests including:
< (less than),
> (greater than),
<= (less than or equal to) and
>= (greater than or equal to). These tests work comparably to
== (equal to). For example, we could use
< alongside the
area function from the previous module to see whether a circle of a certain radius would have an area smaller than some value.
Prelude> let area r = pi * r ^ 2 Prelude> area 5 < 50 False
What is actually going on when GHCi determines whether these arithmetical propositions are true or false? Consider a different but related issue. If we enter an arithmetical expression in GHCi the expression gets evaluated, and the resulting numerical value is displayed on the screen:
Prelude> 2 + 2 4
If we replace the arithmetical expression with an equality comparison, something similar seems to happen:
Prelude> 2 == 2 True
Whereas the "4" returned earlier is a number which represents some kind of count, quantity, etc., "True" is a value that stands for the truth of a proposition. Such values are called truth values, or boolean values. Naturally, only two possible boolean values exist:
Introduction to types
False are real values, not just an analogy. Boolean values have the same status as numerical values in Haskell, and you can manipulate them in similar ways. One trivial example:
Prelude> True == True True Prelude> True == False False
True is indeed equal to
True is not equal to
False. Now: can you answer whether
2 is equal to
Prelude> 2 == True <interactive>:1:0: No instance for (Num Bool) arising from the literal ‘2’ at <interactive>:1:0 Possible fix: add an instance declaration for (Num Bool) In the first argument of ‘(==)’, namely ‘2’ In the expression: 2 == True In an equation for ‘it’: it = 2 == True
Error! The question just does not make sense. We cannot compare a number with a non-number or a boolean with a non-boolean. Haskell incorporates that notion, and the ugly error message complains about this. Ignoring much of the clutter, the message says that there was a number (
Num) on the left side of the
==, and so some kind of number was expected on the right side; however, a boolean value (
Bool) is not a number, and so the equality test failed.
So, values have types, and these types define limits to what we can or cannot do with the values.
False are values of type
2 is complicated because there are many different types of numbers, so we will defer that explanation until later. Overall, types provide great power because they regulate the behavior of values with rules that make sense, making it easier to write programs that work correctly. We will come back to the topic of types many times as they are very important to Haskell.
An equality test like
2 == 2 is an expression just like
2 + 2; it evaluates to a value in pretty much the same way. The ugly error message we got on the previous example even says so:
In the expression: 2 == True
When we type
2 == 2 in the prompt and GHCi "answers"
True, it is simply evaluating an expression. In fact,
== is itself a function which takes two arguments (which are the left side and the right side of the equality test), but the syntax is notable: Haskell allows two-argument functions to be written as infix operators placed between their arguments. When the function name uses only non-alphanumeric characters, this infix approach is the common use case. If you wish to use such a function in the "standard" way (writing the function name before the arguments, as a prefix operator) the function name must be enclosed in parentheses. So the following expressions are completely equivalent:
Prelude> 4 + 9 == 13 True Prelude> (==) (4 + 9) 13 True
Thus, we see how
(==) works as a function similarly to
areaRect from the previous module. The same considerations apply to the other relational operators we mentioned (
>=) and to the arithmetical operators (
*, etc.) – all are functions that take two arguments and are normally written as infix operators.
In general, we can say that tangible things in Haskell are either values or functions.
Haskell provides three basic functions for further manipulation of truth values as in logic propositions:
(&&)performs the and operation. Given two boolean values, it evaluates to
Trueif both the first and the second are
True, and to
Prelude> (3 < 8) && (False == False) True Prelude> (&&) (6 <= 5) (1 == 1) False
(||)performs the or operation. Given two boolean values, it evaluates to
Trueif either the first or the second are
True(or if both are true), and to
Prelude> (2 + 2 == 5) || (2 > 0) True Prelude> (||) (18 == 17) (9 >= 11) False
notperforms the negation of a boolean value; that is, it converts
Prelude> not (5 * 2 == 10) False
Haskell libraries already include the relational operator function
(/=) for not equal to, but we could easily implement it ourselves as:
x /= y = not (x == y)
Note that we can write operators infix even when defining them. Completely new operators can also be created out of ASCII symbols (which means mostly the common symbols used on a keyboard).
Haskell programs often use boolean operators in convenient and abbreviated syntax. When the same logic is written in alternative styles, we call this syntactic sugar because it sweetens the code from the human perspective. We'll start with guards, a feature that relies on boolean values and allows us to write simple but powerful functions.
Let's implement the absolute value function. The absolute value of a real number is the number with its sign discarded; so if the number is negative (that is, smaller than zero) the sign is inverted; otherwise it remains unchanged. We could write the definition as:
Here, the actual expression to be used for calculating depends on a set of propositions made about . If is true, then we use the first expression, but if is the case, then we use the second expression instead. To express this decision process in Haskell using guards, the implementation could look like this:
Example: The absolute value function.
absolute x | x < 0 = 0 - x | otherwise = x
Remarkably, the above code is about as readable as the corresponding mathematical definition. Let us dissect the components of the definition:
- We start just like a normal function definition, providing a name for the function,
absolute, and saying it will take a single argument, which we will name
- Instead of just following with the
=and the right-hand side of the definition, we enter the two alternatives placed below on separate lines. These alternatives are the guards proper. Note that the whitespace (the indentation of the second and third lines) is not just for aesthetic reasons; it is necessary for the code to be parsed correctly.
- Each of the guards begins with a pipe character,
|. After the pipe, we put an expression which evaluates to a boolean (also called a boolean condition or a predicate), which is followed by the rest of the definition. The function only uses the equals sign and the right-hand side from a line if the predicate evaluates to
otherwisecase is used when none of the preceding predicates evaluate to
True. In this case, if
xis not smaller than zero, it must be greater than or equal to zero, so the final predicate could have just as easily been
x >= 0; but
otherwiseworks just as well.
where and Guards
where clauses work well along with guards. For instance, consider a function which computes the number of (real) solutions for a quadratic equation, :
numOfRealSolutions a b c | disc > 0 = 2 | disc == 0 = 1 | otherwise = 0 where disc = b^2 - 4*a*c
where definition is within the scope of all of the guards, sparing us from repeating the expression for
- The term is a tribute to the mathematician and philosopher George Boole.
- This function is already provided by Haskell with the name
abs, so in a real-world situation you don't need to provide an implementation yourself.
- We could have joined the lines and written everything in a single line, but it would be less readable. | <urn:uuid:f6e6470a-f8d8-46c7-87d9-a405bf19420c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Haskell/Truth_values | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394987.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00172-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.875528 | 2,264 | 5.34375 | 5 |
As a private pilot I had to learn the basics of aerodynamics – Bernoulli’s principle being one of them where a liquid speeds up in a constricted zone to create areas of high pressure and low pressure, this same principle is what creates aerodynamic lift on an airplane’s specially curved wing.
Another major item we have to pay attention to is Air Density. Air Density affects aircraft performance. An aircraft uses up more runway to take off or land at altitude or on hot days at sea level where the air is less dense and where there is a decrease in aerodynamic resistance.
A combination of high altitude and high temperature could spell disaster for an uninformed pilot. The combination of high attitude and high temperature produces a situation that drastically reduces the aerodynamic performance of an airplane. But on the other hand this is a good thing for cyclists since cyclists will go faster under these conditions.
Air Density is the mass per unit volume of Earth’s atmosphere. Atmospheric pressure (Barometric Pressure) is the amount of downward force exerted by the weight of the air above us and is measured in inches of mercury using a Barometer.
Air density decreases with an increase in altitude, it also decreases with increasing temperature or humidity. Warm air is less dense than cold air because there are fewer air molecules in a given volume of warm air than in the same volume of cooler air. Why am I mentioning Air Density? It is because Air Density is a factor in aerodynamic drag.
As you go up in elevation, the Air Density lessens and the resistance to movement is reduced. It therefore takes less energy to overcome drag at altitude than at sea level. However at altitude oxygen pressure becomes limited so aerobic performance will suffer unless you become acclimated. (In a carburated aircraft engine there is a mixuture control knob to adjust the fuel to air mixture to compensate for this.) On the other hand in cycling events which are short and anaerobic such as 200m match sprint, kilometer and 500m time trials, the times at elevation will be faster than at sea level due to the reduction in Air Density.
Kissena track is an outdoor bumpy track at sea level, so one cannot expect super fast times there. Expect times to be considerably slower during opening weekend in late April when the temperatures are still cool and the air more dense than during the state championships in August when the temperatures are hot and the air less dense.
One might think the times are slower on opening weekend because the racers haven’t been training, but many of the racers who will be at Kissena Track have already started racing road races starting the last week of February. So they are coming to opening weekend with a high level of fitness, but it will be the increased air density of the cool air which will result in slower times for the timed events.
To summarize - a cyclist will perform better in hot weather and high altitudes in timed events since there is less aerodynamic drag. An aircraft will not perform well in hot weather and high altitudes since there are not enough air molecules and a decrease in aerodynamic resistance to help create lift within given operating parameters.
Hope you are not thoroughly confused by my explanation, but next time you check the weather, make a note of the Barometric Pressure.
Below is some more information from Analytical Cycling
The air resistance acting on a rider is directly related to the density of the air, the greater the density, the greater the force.
Under standard conditions, the air's density at altitude is less than at sea level. The following table shows typical values:
Elevation......... Air Density............. Units
Sea Level........ 1.226 .......................kg/m3
1500 m ...........1.056....................... kg/m3
3000 m.......... 0.905....................... kg/m3
Although the above values are typical, on any given day the air's density may be much different from values given in the above table.
Was it a bad day, or was it Air Density? As an example, Denver, Colorado, at an elevation of 1500 meters with temperature of 24°C and barometric pressure of 29.01 inches of Hg could have an air density of 0.960 kg/m3 (lower than standard pressure). At the same time Wilmington, DE, at sea level with a temperature of 12°C and a barometric pressure of 30.29 inches of Hg could have an air density of 1.253 kg/m3 (higher than standard). Due to differences in Air Density it would require 28% more power to ride the same pursuit time in Wilmington as in Denver, even though 15% is more or less the nominal difference.
Air density depends on temperature, barometric pressure and altitude and to some extent on water vapor (humidity). Air density is calculated here as a function of temperature, barometric pressure, and altitude, neglecting the effect of water vapor which is small.
Current and historical daily temperature and barometric pressure for most places in the world can be found at Weather Underground, Inc..
An explanation of the relationship between Air Density and barometric pressure can be found at the USA Today Weather Page | <urn:uuid:4a5cda78-7dfe-4d36-8d2a-449404b740de> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://kissenatrackracing.blogspot.com/2009/03/air-density.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00190-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917695 | 1,074 | 3.25 | 3 |
As the Herald Tribune notes, even BP-funded scientists are finding that dispersant made things worse:
BP succeeded in sinking the oil from its blown well out of sight — and keeping much of it away from beaches and marshes last year — by dousing the crude with nearly 2 million gallons of toxic chemicals. But the impact on the ecosystem as a whole may have been more damaging than the oil alone.
The combination of oil and Corexit, the chemical BP used to dissolve the slick, is more toxic to tiny plants and animals than the oil in most cases, according to preliminary research by several Florida scientists. And the chemicals may not have broken down the oil as well as expected.
Scientists reported some of their early findings last week at a Florida Institute of Oceanography conference at the University of Central Florida. The researchers were funded a year ago through a $10 million BP grant.
In related news:
- The Sarasota Herald Tribune notes:
A mixture of oil and dead organic particles may still be falling to the deep bottom of the northern Gulf of Mexico, potentially harming the base of a food web that supports all kinds of sea life, from giant whales and blue-fin tuna to grouper and snapper.
In water thousands of feet deep, scientists have discovered a “dirty blizzard” that deposited more than three inches oil mixed with decayed plant and animal material near the site of the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout last year.
A quarter to half of the oil that spewed from the blown wellhead – between 186 million to 227 million gallons – is still unaccounted for and thought to be lingering in the deep sea, said Benjamin Flower, a geological oceanographer with the University of South Florida.
Traces of oil were found in the top layer of the sediments, as well as single-celled plants and animals, some of which were deformed.
Oily sediments were also found near the Desoto Canyon, a prime fishing area. Near the same area, on the West Florida Slope, other toxic effects on the bottom of the food web have been observed.
Damage to the small plants and animals that make up the bottom of the food web can ripple through the ecosystem because it removes important food sources for larger fish.
Among some of the other observations made by scientists so far:
• In lab research on conch, shrimp and oysters, the combination of crude and Corexit – the toxic chemical BP used to dissolve the oil – is more toxic than oil alone.
• Oil remains buried in the sand of Panhandle beaches, disrupting microscopic life in the sand and also posing a threat to shorebirds and the offspring of sea turtles.
• Pregnant dolphins in the northern Gulf may have been unable to find sufficient food following the oil spill, a potential factor in the unusual die-off of infant and neonatal dolphins earlier this year.
• Cancer-causing chemicals from the crude, such as benzene and toluene, may still be lingering in the ecosystem because they do not degrade easily.
- And even the reports of large numbers of sick fish in Gulf are so widespread that even NOAA is talking about it. As the Pensacola News Journal reports:
For the first time [NOAA is] warning anglers that some fish are sick and may pose health problems if handled or eaten raw.The agency is telling anglers to toss fish that have lesions, fin rot or discolored skin back into the Gulf and to be careful about handling them. This warning comes just one week before the June 1 opening of recreational red snapper season.
NOAA … acknowledged that fishermen and scientists have recently reported and documented lesions on fish they are catching in federal waters off Alabama.
The reports of sick fish correlate with areas most impacted by the BP oil spill, said Jim Cowan Jr., the Louisiana State University Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences scientist who is at the center of the sick fish studies off the Alabama coast.
“I’m very worried because I’ve talked to both commercial and recreational fishermen who have been in the business 30 to 40 years and no one has seen anything like this,” he said.
Commercial fisherman Donnie Waters has been fishing the Gulf since 1974. He was shocked to learn that the sick fish he’s been catching and sending to scientists for study are infected with the dangerous bacteria.”I’m seeing things I’ve never seen before,” he said. “I’m deeply concerned about the long-term impact of the fishery of the eastern Gulf.”
Of course, BP isn’t accepting blame for any of the damage. As Plaintiff’s attorney Stuart Smith notes:
The BP-government spin machine belched back into gear last week – and the intent, as it has been since Day One, is to dupe the world into believing that a 200-million-gallon oil spill has minimal impact on the delicate ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico. That’s what the spin masters would have us believe. So when record numbers of dead and “stranded” sea turtles started washing ashore across the Gulf Coast, the BP-government PR team went looking for someone or something to deflect attention from the 200 million gallons of crude and 2 million gallons of toxic dispersant that was pumped into the water over nearly 3 months.
So now we are being subjected to the same sort of attempt at damage control that we saw when all the dead dolphins came ashore not long ago. Is anybody else starting to see a pattern here? The spill has broken the back of the Gulf ecosystem, and now we’re dealing with the fallout.
In the case of the turtles as it was with the dolphins, the BP-government objective is to divert attention away from last year’s massive oil spill. So who or what to blame? What killed or stranded the 600 sea turtles – six times the annual average – that washed ashore in 2010 during the height of the BP spill? How do the damage-control wizards explain why, already this year, 563 sea turtles have been stranded in just four Gulf states?
Well, here’s what the spin maestros – backed by NOAA scientists – came up with: The shrimpers did it.
That’s what they’d have us believe. The shrimpers killed hundreds and hundreds of sea turtles – most of them endangered Kemp’s ripleys – with their big nets (and their devastated lives). It wasn’t the 200 million gallons of oil, it was the shrimpers.
Despite the far-fetched nature of the accusation, the BP-government spinners came out firing – implying that the sharp spike in turtle deaths is due entirely to the fact that shrimpers aren’t using their regulation-mandated “turtle excluder devices.” TEDs, as they’re called, are designed to keep sea turtles like Kemp’s ripleys out of shrimpers’ gear and nets.
“This is a serious problem,” said Barbara Schroeder, NOAA’s national sea turtle coordinator. But Grand Isle Mayor David Camardelle, who’s also a shrimper, disagrees: “The only turtles that are being destroyed are the turtles in the oil spill.”
Did I mention that the official shrimp season just opened last week? And I should mention it opened to reports of small catches, and the shrimp that are being caught are much smaller than usual.
Click here to see photos. | <urn:uuid:4385a70a-d87f-4d0e-9b40-77915cc84527> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/06/even-bp-funded-scientists-find-that-the-use-of-corexit-dispersant-in-the-gulf-made-things-worse-but-bp-still-tries-to-blame-others-for-destruction.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397744.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00152-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95543 | 1,569 | 3.203125 | 3 |
When advanced placement courses can mean the difference between college and university, the 'Rise of the AP' infograph is an important tool for American students. Although, as the graph indicates, whether or not the AP is important isn't in question, it's how students are faring from it.
Since 2001, the number of AP scorers recieving over a three (on a scale of one to five) in AP classes has dropped nearly 10%. The scale of who takes the exams is also disproportionate, with 66% of female takers in comparison to only 34% males. The ethnic divide is also taken into account. With Asian-Americans and White Graduates receiving the bulk of the highest marks, the system is facing some challenges to overcome.
Overall, however, more students are taking AP classes, which bodes well for their academic future and long-term successes.
Educational Excelling Charts
More Stats +/-
One-for-One Education Companies
Educational Magnifying Glasses
Technologically-Savvy Youth Infographics
Republican-Mocking Mobile Apps | <urn:uuid:f815bade-94b7-49b1-9ecc-99ee394a95b3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/rise-of-the-ap | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397636.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00041-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956135 | 221 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Last updated: September 23, 2011
UW Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine
UW Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine
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On which we try to provide the best and most current information on shoulder arthritis.
If you have questions regarding the ream and run procedure, feel free to email Frederick A. Matsen III M.D. at email@example.com. If you have questions regarding hip and knee arthritis, feel free to email Seth S. Leopold M.D. at firstname.lastname@example.org.
Part of a treatment program
Bicycling can be great recreational exercise
Exercise is good for almost everyone!
For many years it was thought that people with arthritis should not exercise because it would damage their joints. Now doctors know that when the arthritis is under control, people with arthritis can improve their health and fitness through exercise without hurting their joints.
Exercising for fitness is as important for people with arthritis as for anyone else. It can give you more energy, help you sleep better, control your weight, make your heart stronger, make your bones and muscles stronger, decrease depression, decrease fatigue, improve your self-esteem and sense of well-being, and give you time to socialize with friends.
If you have arthritis, you have more reasons to exercise:
- to keep your joints from becoming too stiff
- to keep the muscles around your joints strong
- to keep bone and cartilage tissue strong and healthy
- to improve your overall fitness
Along with medicines, rest and other parts of your treatment program, regular exercise can help keep your joints in working order so you can continue your daily activities. It may also help prevent further joint damage.
What happens without exercise?
If your joints hurt, you may not feel like exercising. But without exercise, your joints can become even more stiff and painful. This happens because exercise actually keeps your bones muscles and joints healthy.
Because you have arthritis, it is important to keep your muscles as strong as possible. The stronger the muscles and tissues are around your joints, the better they will be able to support and protect those joints--even those that are weak and damaged from arthritis. If you don't exercise, your muscles become smaller and weaker and your bones can become more brittle.
Many people with arthritis keep their joints in a bent position because it's more comfortable. If the joints stay in one position for too long (without movement), they can become stuck in that position. If this happens, you may even lose the use of those joints. Exercise moves these joints and helps keep them as flexible as possible.
Exercise also lifts your spirits. If you're in pain, you may feel depressed. If you feel depressed, you may not feel like exercising. And without exercise, you feel more pain and depression.
Without exercise, you can get caught in a cycle of pain depression and inactivity.
On the other hand, there are some kinds of exercise that are not ideal for patients with certain patterns of arthritis. This article will cover some general recommendations on how patients with arthritis might be able to exercise comfortably and safely.
Types of exercises
There are three main types of exercise that can be included in your exercise program: range-of-motion (flexibility), strengthening and fitness.
- Range-of-motion exercises help reduce stiffness and keep your joints flexible.
- Strengthening exercises help maintain or increase muscle strength.
- Fitness exercises help increase your endurance.
These types of exercises are discussed in detail later in this article.
Health care professionals
Along with your doctor, there are two other types of health professionals who can help you plan a total fitness program. They can work with you to design a program that meets your specific needs.
Physical and occupational therapists
Physical therapists can show you special exercises to help keep your bones and muscles strong.
Occupational therapists can show you how to do certain activities in ways that will not place extra stress on your joints. They can also provide you with splints or special aids if you need them. Contact your local hospital, county medical clinic or Arthritis Foundation office for more information on how to contact these professionals.
Always check with your doctor, physical therapist or occupational therapist before starting a new exercise program or before changing your current one. They can help you determine the best exercises that meet your needs. If you have had joint replacement surgery also talk with your surgeon.
Therapeutic and recreational exercise
People with arthritis often follow a therapeutic exercise program and also take part in active leisure or recreational exercise. Therapeutic exercise is exercise recommended by your doctor physical therapist or occupational therapist. It includes specific exercises designed to meet your individual needs and achieve specific goals. Recreational exercise is done for fun and general fitness. It includes activities you can enjoy by yourself or with family and friends such as walking, bicycling, swimming and exercise classes. It is not designed specifically for you by your doctor but it is a good idea to discuss your recreational exercise plans with your doctor or therapists.
Don't work too hard
The most common risk to exercise is working your joints or muscles too much. This can happen if you exercise too long or too hard--especially when you're first beginning your exercise program.
Remember: exercise is only one part of your treatment program. Other parts of your program should include:
- proper diagnosis by a doctor
- using your joints wisely
- education about arthritis
- conserving your energy
- proper diet
- splints (for some people)
- using heat and cold treatments
For more information about arthritis of particular joints, see our articles on hip arthritis, knee arthritis and shoulder arthritis. For more information about joint replacements for arthritic joints, see our articles about hip replacement, minimally-invasive knee replacement and shoulder replacement.
About these exercises
These exercises reduce stiffness and help keep your joints flexible. The "range-of-motion" is the normal amount your joints can be moved in certain directions. If your joints are very painful and swollen, move them gently through their range of motion.
These exercises can help keep your joints moving. Follow these tips to get the most benefit.
- Do these once or twice per day.
- Do each exercise 3 to 10 times.
- Move slowly. Do not bounce.
- Breathe while you exercise. Count out loud.
- Begin exercises slowly doing each exercise a few times only and gradually build up to more.
- Try to achieve full range of motion by moving until you feel a slight stretch, but don't force a movement.
- Don't try to help others do their exercises by moving their arms or legs.
- STOP exercising if you have severe pain. Deep joint pain and sharp pain in particular should be avoided. Some muscle fatigue or tiredness are expected with an exercise program particularly at first.
If you have arthritis, you should try to move your joints through their full range of motion every day. Daily activities such as housework, climbing stairs, dressing, bathing, cooking, lifting or bending DO NOT usually move your joints through their full range of motion. They should NOT replace the therapeutic exercises your therapist recommends for you.
Instructions for viewing movies
Below are some range-of-motion exercises for people with arthritis. Although these exercises were selected for their safety and effectiveness, the UW Department of Ortheopedics is not responsible for any injuries resulting from these exercises.
Some of these exercises are illustrated with movies.
Range of motion exercises
Breathe with the movements, breathing out when your head moves down, breathing in when it moves up. Don't let your shoulders or torso (upper body) sway to the side. Don't do movements that your doctors or therapists have advised against.
- Turn your head slowly to the right then to the left. Repeat two to four times.
- Tilt your head toward one shoulder then toward the other shoulder. Repeat two to four times.
- Sit upright arms supported on your lap palms upward. Bend your fingers inward towards your palm then unbend.
- Next as your fingers bend inward flex your wrist. Keep fingers relaxed. Do not clench fist.
- Bend your arm at the elbow bringing fingertips towards shoulder. Keep fingers relaxed. Do not clench fist.
- Maintaining this position bring elbow up and then draw imaginary circles in space with your elbow.
- Now unfold your arm at the elbow and reach towards the ceiling.
- Slowly fold your arm down to rest your hand in your lap as in the initial position. Repeat two times unfolding to shoulder reaching to ceiling returning to lap.
- Massage each hand one at a time. Take your time; go in between each finger. Enjoy this one!
- Open and close fingers slowly.
Chest and torso
- Sit in a chair. With hands on your waist tilt to the right, return to center, then tilt to the left and return to center. Exhale as the movement goes down; inhale as the movement comes up. Don't allow your torso (upper body) to tilt forward. Don't try to hold your head up; instead let it relax to the side.
- Rock and roll: Sit straight in your chair with your hands on your hips. Gently rock your hips from side to side.
- Note that the hip joint in particular seems sensitive to flare-ups when pushing too far into a painful range of motion so don’t push past the point of pain.
About these exercises
These exercises help maintain or increase muscle strength. Strong muscles help keep your joints stable and more comfortable.
Two common strengthening exercises for people with arthritis are:
- Isometric: In these exercises you tighten your muscles but don't move your joints (see figure 1). This helps build your muscles without moving painful joints.
- Isotonic: In these exercises you strengthen muscles by moving your joints (see figure 2). For example, when you press your knee toward the floor, you are doing an isotonic exercise to strengthen your thigh muscle.
Do these exercises daily or every other day. On days when you have more joint pain and swelling, you can adapt your program by leaving out or decreasing the strengthening exercises. Ask your therapist or doctor about ways to do this.
Specific strengthening exercises can be done for different joints. These should ONLY be done if they are comfortable. If you have questions about whether you should be doing these exercises, contact your physician.
Instructions for viewing movies
Below are some strengthening exercises for people with arthritis. Although these exercises were selected for their safety and effectiveness, the UW Department of Orthopaedics is not responsible for any injuries resulting from these exercises.
Some of these exercises are illustrated with movies.
- Pelvic tilt (see figure 3)
- Back erector (see figure 4)
- Angry cat stretch (see figure 5)
- Double knee pull (see figure 6)
- Half sit-up (see figure 7)
- Hip kicker (see figure 8)
Chest and torso
- To strengthen the muscles of the chest: Place your hands in front of your chest palms together elbows at sides. Press your palms together holding for a count of five. Keep breathing.
- To tone the abdominal muscles: Place one hand over your stomach. Inhale then exhale tightening your abdominal muscles while pressing your lower back against a chair. Hold for up to a count of five. Inhale or breathe normally relaxing your abdominal muscles. (The hand is there to feel the movement.)
- Knee lift: Sit in a chair. Slowly lift one knee at a time keeping the knee bent. Alternate left/right. Let your hands rest by your sides; "hold" with the abdominal muscles rather than with your hands on the chair. Don't let your knees roll inward.
- Leg extension: Sit in a chair. Slowly extend or straighten each leg then bring it back to resting. Alternate left and right legs.
- Thigh firmer: Sit on the edge of a chair with your legs stretched out in front and heels resting on the floor. Tighten the muscle that runs across the front of the knee by lifting your toes toward your head. Push the back of the knee down towards the floor so you also feel a stretch at the back of your ankle.
Calf and Ankle
About these exercises
Fitness exercise is endurance exercise. This means it helps make your heart and lungs stronger and gives you more stamina. It also helps keep your joints flexible and your muscles strong. Fitness exercise also helps you get more quality sleep, control your weight and feel better overall both mentally and physically.
Fitness exercises for arthritis
Some of the best fitness exercises for people with arthritis are walking, water exercise and bicycling.
Walking is better than running for people with arthritis because it doesn't put as much stress on your joints. It doesn't require any special skill and it doesn't cost a lot. You can walk almost any time and anywhere. If you have severe hip, knee, ankle or foot problems, talk to your doctor: walking may not be for you...but even in that case there are other choices - see water exercise and bicycling below.
Swimming and exercise in water are especially good for stiff sore joints. Warm water helps relax your muscles and decrease pain. The water should be between 83 and 90 degrees. Water helps support your body while you move your joints through their full range of motion. With the water holding you up, there is less stress on your hips, knees and spine. You can do warm-water exercises while standing in shoulder-height water or while sitting in shallow water. In deeper water, use an inflatable tube life vest or ski belt to keep you afloat while you move your arms and legs. Many public pools (as well as private fitness clubs) conduct water exercise and/or water aerobics programs for arthritis patients.
Exercise in the water – whether swimming, water aerobics, water walking or water jogging – is particularly handy for patients with arthritis of the legs (hips, knees, ankles, feet) for whom a walking program is painful.
Bicycling, especially on an indoor stationary bicycle, is a good way to improve your fitness without putting too much stress on your hips knees and feet. Adjust the seat height so your knee is as straight as possible when the pedal is at the lowest point. The recommended cadence (number of pedal strokes per minute you can count each time your right foot reaches the lowest point as "one") is about 60 per minute. Add resistance only after you have warmed up for five minutes. Don't add so much resistance that you have trouble pedaling.
Gradually build up your fitness exercises to 20 to 30 minutes per day at least three times per week. Fitness exercises should be only one part of your total exercise program. DO NOT substitute fitness exercises for the therapeutic exercises your health professionals recommend.
Communicate with your doctor
Talk with your doctor or therapist to decide what types of exercises are best for you. Your decision will be based on what type of arthritis you have, which joints are affected, what you like to do where you live and other factors.
If you find a program on your own and you have serious joint problems, show a copy of the exercises to your doctor or therapist. They may suggest ways to modify the exercises to protect your joints or may suggest other exercises to add to the program.
When to exercise
In general it is best to exercise:
- at a specific time and place
- when you have the least pain and stiffness
- when you are not tired
- when your arthritis medication is having the most effect
Here are a few more tips about exercise times:
- Try exercising at different times of day until you decide what is best for you.
- Exercise on a regular basis: try to do range of motion exercises daily and your other exercises every other day. If you miss several days, you may need to start again at a lower level. If you must miss a day, just pick up again where you left off.
- Don't do strenuous exercises just after you eat or just before you go to bed. Wait at least two hours after a meal. Do gentle range-of-motion exercises in the evening. This helps reduce morning stiffness for some people.
Massage the stiff or sore areas or apply heat and/or cold treatments to the area. Heat relaxes your joints and muscles and helps relieve pain. Cold also reduces pain for some people. Here are some ways you can apply heat or cold:
- Take a warm (not hot) shower before you exercise.
- Apply a heating pad or hot pack to the sore area.
- Sit in a warm whirlpool.
- Wrap a bag of ice or frozen vegetables in a towel and place it on the sore area.
In general use warmth before exercise and ice afterwards.
Be sure to apply the heat correctly! Mild heat will give you results. It should feel soothing and comfortable, not hot. Apply it for about 20 minutes at a time. Use cold for 10 to 15 minutes at a time.
Warm up first. Do gentle range-of-motion and strengthening exercises at least 10 to 15 minutes before more vigorous exercise. Begin your activity at a slow pace and gradually work to a faster pace. This helps avoid injuries.
Wear comfortable clothes and shoes. Your clothes should be loose and in layers so you can adapt to changes in temperature and activity. Your shoes should provide good support and the soles should be made from non-slip, shock-absorbent material. Shock-absorbent insoles can also make your shoes more comfortable.
Don't hurry. Exercise at a comfortable steady pace and give your muscles time to relax between each repetition. For range-of-motion and flexibility, it is better to do each exercise slowly and completely rather than to do many repetitions at a fast pace. You can gradually increase the number of repetitions as you get into shape.
Breathe while you exercise. Don't hold your breath. Counting out loud during the exercise will help you breathe deeply and regularly.
Move swollen, painful joints gently. Ask your doctor or therapist how to adapt your regular exercises on days when your joints are more painful and swollen than usual.
Cool down for five to 10 minutes after exercising. This helps you cool off, lets your heart beat slow down and helps your muscles relax. To cool down, simply do your exercise activity at a slower pace, such as walking slowly. Also try gentle stretching to avoid stiff or sore muscles the next day.
At first it may be hard to start moving your stiff sore joints. Keeping your goals and the benefits of exercise in mind will help you during this time. Try to gently move your joints by yourself. If you need help, ask a therapist who is trained to help people with arthritis. The therapist can also train your friends or family members to help you.
If you're having a flare
Exercises that seem easy one day may be too much on days when your joints are more painful and swollen. When this happens cut back on the number of exercises or take a day off. Gradually add more when you can. If you notice a big change in what you are able to do, talk to your doctor or therapist about it.
Do not attempt fitness exercises when your joints are swollen and painful. If just one or two joints are swollen or painful, you can adapt your exercises to put less stress on those joints. For example if your knee flares up, switch to exercises in water instead of walking.
Know when to stop
Stop exercising right away if:
- you have chest tightness or pain or severe shortness of breath
- if you feel dizzy, faint or sick to your stomach
If these symptoms continue contact your doctor.
Stop exercising if you have muscle pain or a cramp. Gently rub and stretch the muscle. When the pain is gone, continue exercising with slow easy movements.
Know your body's signals. During the first few weeks, you may notice that your heart beats faster, you breathe faster and your muscles feel tense when you exercise. You may feel more tired at night but awake feeling refreshed in the morning. These are normal reactions to exercise that mean your body is adapting and getting into shape.
Don't do too much: you'll know you have done too much if you have joint or muscle pain that continues for two hours after exercising or if your pain or fatigue is worse the next day. Next time, decrease the number of times you do each exercise or do them more gently. If this doesn't help, ask your therapist about changing the exercise. A good general rule to remember is to stop exercising if you start having sharp pain or more pain than usual. Pain is your warning signal.
Keeping up with your program
It's important to keep a positive attitude about arthritis and your exercise program.
It will help to remember that exercise can help reduce the pain and enable you to keep up with most of your daily activities. But also remember there will be days when you won't feel like doing as much. On these days do a little less exercise.
The keys to keeping up with your program are:
- make exercise a regular part of your day
- listen to your body's signals--know when to cut back or stop your exercise
Overcoming excuses to avoid exercise
Yet we all can find many reasons not to exercise. Here are some problems and ways to overcome them.
"I don't have enough time." Exercise at the same time every day or follow an exercise schedule. Several short periods are just as good as one long period. Think of your exercise time as special time for yourself. Use this time to think about other creative goals for yourself.
"It's boring." Do exercises you enjoy. Listen to your favorite music while exercising. Exercise with friends or family. If you walk or bicycle, go to the park or another pleasant area.
"The weather's bad." If you usually exercise with a group and can't get to your class, do your exercises at home. If you swim or walk, have a "back-up" plan for indoor exercises when the weather is bad. For example walk around a shopping mall if it's too cold or hot to walk outside.
"My arthritis is acting up." If you are having a flare, don't skip your exercises entirely. Just cut back on the number of times you do each exercise. There will be days when you can't do as much, but don't give up. You can get back to your regular program when the flare dies down.
"I don't like to exercise alone." Ask friends or family to exercise with you. Or join an exercise class or club.
"I'm out of shape. It will take too long to see results." Set short-term realistic goals for yourself every three to four weeks. For example, if you want to walk one mile, start by walking one block. Or if you want to do ten repetitions of an exercise, start with three. Keep a record of your exercise or report your progress to a friend or family member. Think of rewards you can give yourself when you reach your goal.
"I lose interest and forget about it." If you're having trouble sticking to your program think about the things that can affect your attitude. Why did you want to start the program? Are these reasons still important? Keep a record of what you do. List what you plan to do each week. Post the list where you'll see it often. At the end of each day check off the exercises you did.
"It's too much work." Maybe you're being too serious about your exercise program. Maybe you're trying to do too much. Relax! Enjoy the good feelings while you exercise and afterward. Join an exercise group. Exercising for fun is the best way to keep it up.
Exercise and arthritis
Exercise keeps you fit and healthy.
If you have arthritis, exercise helps keep your joints and muscles strong, your bones and joint tissues healthy and gives you more energy to keep up with daily activities.
Your doctor or other health professionals can help you design a fitness program that meets your individual needs.
To get the most benefit from your program, remember these tips:
- Make exercise a part of your daily routine.
- Do all types of exercises (range-of-motion strengthening and fitness)
- Know when to stop or cut back on your exercises.
- Have fun!
Some of this material may also be available in an Arthritis Foundation brochure.
Adapted from the pamphlet originally prepared for the Arthritis Foundation by Victoria Gall PT, MEd and Marian Minor PT, Ph.D. This material is protected by copyright. | <urn:uuid:004c6d74-545a-4233-b608-e6e08558c18f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.orthop.washington.edu/?q=patient-care/articles/arthritis/exercise-and-arthritis.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395548.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00119-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946325 | 5,118 | 2.640625 | 3 |
In Search of Coronado’s Trail
Launched in August of 2004, the Coronado Project was an outreach and public education project that sought to determine the route of Francisco Vázquez de Coronado’s infamous expedition of 1540 from northern Mexico to the Pueblo of Zuni. Archaeology Southwest anticipated that once local residents in Arizona and New Mexico became aware of key Coronado-era artifact types, they might be able to help solve the mystery of Coronado’s route. These rare artifacts include copper crossbow boltheads (arrow tips), crossbow parts and accessories, short copper or brass aglets (lace tips), Nueva Cadiz glass beads, sheet brass Clarksdale bells, obsidian-edged swords and lances, and caret-head nails (horseshoe nails).
Archaeology Southwest sponsored a series of public lectures throughout southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico, mailed hundreds of information packets and videos directly to local residents, and held “Coronado Roadshows” in Willcox, Lordsburg, Springerville, and Reserve. Inspired by PBS’s “The Antiques Roadshow,” these roadshows invited residents to bring in artifacts that they thought might be related to the Coronado expedition.
Although no definitive Coronado-era artifacts were brought to the roadshows, an incredible array of important historical artifacts was brought to these events by animated crowds. Some of the more significant finds include a flint-lock rifle—almost completely intact—dating from 1750–1800. There are only a few examples of this kind of firearm in collections today. Also turned in was an unbroken spur dating to the late 1700s; it was found in an area known to have been used as an 18th-century Spanish trail between Tucson and Zuni. Scholars took notes on these artifacts and returned them, to be kept in the stewardship of their owners.
Project scholar Shirley Cushing Flint, although disappointed no Coronado artifacts surfaced, deemed the venture a great success. “The project is sure to have lasting ripple effects as information spreads from people who were in the audiences to others in their communities,” she said. Dr. Richard Flint, Shirley’s husband and a project scholar, fully agreed. “The project permitted introduction of the possibility of regional research on the Coronado expedition in a non-threatening way,” he said. “And it allowed the scholars to share information with local people and they with us. In that way, it fully met our hopes and expectations.”
For images of other artifacts possibly associated with the Coronado expedition, click here.
Click here to view a 10-minute video on the search for the Coronado expedition’s route.
For further readings and links to more information on Coronado’s expedition, click here.
Major support for “In Search of the Coronado Trail” was generously provided by:
Southwestern Foundation for Education and Historical Preservation
New Mexico Humanities Council
KUAT-TV, Tucson, Arizona
Shirley Cushing Flint
William K. Hartmann
Additional thanks to:
Arizona State Museum, Arizona Historical Society, Piney Hollow Bead & Jewelry Store, and Proline Graphics
Don Collier, Gayle Hartmann, Don Burgess, Linda Pierce, William H. Doelle, Dan Duncan, Fran Sherlock, Hector Gonzalez, Martin Rubio, Tom Kleespie, Twanya Kaber, Stacy Green, Laurel Turner, Barbara Gerres, Debra Smith, and Kathy Klump
For more information or to report a possible Coronado-era artifact, contact Archaeology Southwest by email or call 520-882-6946. | <urn:uuid:6d0ec398-c133-47cb-b6a4-66931662c81c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/what-we-do/investigations/coronado/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396100.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00037-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929742 | 780 | 3.28125 | 3 |
Climate change is going to turn the Earth into a planet of hungry kids
Talk of climate change-induced disasters probably brings to mind Pacific islands disappearing into the ocean, powerful storm surges, overwhelming floods, and raging wildfires. But some of the impacts — stemming in part from some of these same phenomena — will be more prosaic, but just as deadly.
Take food. A report released Monday evening by Oxfam America, an anti-poverty organization, finds that, “food prices could double by 2030, with half of this rise driven by climate change.” The result? “There could be 25 million more malnourished children under the age of 5 in 2050, compared with a world without climate change.”
We’re not talking about kids in the backseat whining that they want their chicken McNuggets posthaste. This is about already impoverished families in the world’s poorest countries that will be pushed to starvation by rising prices for their dietary staples.
Growing food is highly dependent on a delicate balance of natural conditions. Even slight shifts in average temperature or precipitation can make a now-plentiful crop unable to survive. Warmer or wetter weather can unleash crop-eating plagues such as locusts. And floods or fires can, of course, wipe out a season’s yield entirely.
Lower supplies of food means higher prices. And for the more than 3 billion people living on less than $2.50 per day, even small increases in food prices can be a matter of life and death.
We’re seeing these effects already. Oxfam writes:
Extreme floods in Pakistan in 2010 destroyed an estimated two million hectares of crops, killed 40 percent of the livestock in affected areas, and delayed the planting of winter crops, causing the price of basic foods such as rice and wheat to rocket. As a consequence, an estimated eight million people reported eating less food and less nutritious food over an extended period of time…
Already this year there have been a number of record-breaking weather events around the globe which have badly affected agriculture and the availability and affordability of food.
Other examples abound. Typhoon Haiyan decimated the Philippines’ fishing and farming industries. “In Brazil, the worst drought in a decade has ruined crops in the country’s breadbasket region,” Oxfam notes — “including the valuable coffee harvest, causing the price of coffee to shoot up by 50 percent.” (And you thought the $4 latte at your neighborhood coffee bar was already expensive.)
But it is not just extreme weather events that are causing problems. Even minor changes in rainfall or temperature can render land infertile. “Millions of poor people across Central America are facing hunger and destitution as a result of shifting patterns of rainfall and rising temperatures,” notes Oxfam. “In Guatemala, the total amount of rainfall is increasing, but there is significantly less rain during critical times in the crop cycle, and this is taking a heavy toll on harvests. In the last two years, small-scale producers have lost 80 percent of their maize crops because of drought.”
Oxfam is not the only organization to predict potentially catastrophic food scarcity and rising food prices. A new report in the journal Environmental Research Letters finds that increases in heat extremes at sensitive times for crops could lead to major decreases in yields of staple crops such as spring wheat, maize, and soybeans. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is going to anticipate likely food price increases in its forthcoming report, according to leaked copies.
Oxfam has a few suggestions for how national governments can prepare themselves to reduce the risk of mass starvation in the inevitable event of some climate disruption. Among the group’s suggestions: Enshrine the right to food in the law, expand safety-net programs like school lunches, and assist small-scale farmers by investing in irrigation and other supports.
But adaptation has its limits, warn the report’s authors. The best thing we can do to minimize the human suffering from global warming is to minimize our greenhouse gas emissions. Otherwise, you’ll have a lot of hungry people, a lot of desperately poor fishermen and farmers, and a lot of cranky people sick of overpaying for coffee. | <urn:uuid:40560dac-f025-4d4a-b25c-463a0475eb4b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://grist.org/climate-energy/climate-change-is-going-to-turn-the-earth-into-a-planet-of-hungry-kids/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393518.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00008-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945574 | 884 | 3.140625 | 3 |
Jeffrey Kidd, a 2011 Early Independence awardee, cataloged human endogenous retrovirus group K (HERV-K), which are highly diverse amongst human populations, are nearly intact, and whose expression may be associated with cancers and autoimmune diseases. Human endogenous retroviruses occur during a retrovirus infection when a DNA copy of the viral RNA genome is permanently integrated into the nuclear DNA of the host cell and is passed on. Endogenous retroviruses have contributed to more than 8% of the human genome, and while most are non-functional due to mutations and deletions, some were recently active and remain intact. Analyzing over 2,500 sequenced genomes, 36 HERV-K were found, including 19 new loci, with insertion frequencies that varied between human populations. These findings provide a basis for future research on HERV evolution and their implication in disease.
- Discovery of Unfixed Endogenous Retrovirus Insertions in Diverse Human Populations. Wildschutte JH, Williams ZH, Montesion M, Subramanian RP, Kidd JM, Coffin JM. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2016 Apr 19;113(16):E2326-34.
Joseph Bondy-Denomy, a 2015 Early Independence awardee, published a paper examining the benefits of host diversity on the spread of disease using experiments on bacteria and viruses. Bacteria defend themselves against viruses using the CRISPR-Cas immune system, which captures random DNA fragments from the virus and uses that “memory” to protect itself from future infections. CRISPR-Cas generates lots of diversity because each bacterial cell can capture a different piece of viral DNA. When isolated individual bacteria grew up in a monoculture, the virus spread rapidly and killed the bacteria. When bacteria grew up in diverse populations, the virus went extinct rapidly. Viruses overpowered bacteria monocultures by rapidly evolving to overcome the CRISPR-Cas immunity, while in diverse bacterial populations, the virus was unable to overcome the large amount of genetic diversity and went extinct. These results demonstrate that mixed populations can increase the immunity level of the entire population.
- The Diversity-Generating Benefits of a Prokaryotic Adaptive Immune System. van Houte S et al. Nature. 2016 Apr 21;532(7599):385-8.
Mitchell Guttman, a 2012 Early Independence awardee, published a paper detailing enhancements made to a method used to identify binding sites of RNA-binding proteins by UV crosslinking and immunoprecipitation (CLIP). The new method (termed eCLIP) decreases the amount of material needed and increases clarity while maintaining single-nucleotide binding resolution. eCLIP will save sequencing costs and improve reproducibility for identifying binding sites of RNA-binding proteins.
- Robust transcriptome-wide discovery of RNA-binding protein binding sites with enhanced CLIP (eCLIP). Van Nostrand EL et al. Nat Methods. 2016 Mar 28. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.3810.
Gregory Sonnenberg, 2012 Early Independence awardee, published a paper revealing a unique host-bacteria interaction where selective subsets of commensal bacteria interact with host dendritic cells to facilitate tissue-specific responses that are mutually beneficial for the host and the microbe. It is currently thought that physical separation of the mammalian immune system and commensal bacteria is necessary to limit chronic inflammation. However, some species of bacteria can reside within intestinal lymphoid tissues of healthy mammals. Using mice, Sonnenberg demonstrates lymphoid-tissue-resident commensal bacteria colonized mice dendritic cells and modulated their cytokine production to protect mice from lethal intestinal damage, showing the host immune system and commensal bacteria can interact in ways that benefit both.
- Lymphoid-Tissue-Resident Commensal Bacteria Promote Members of the IL-10 Cytokine Family to Establish Mutualism. Fung TC et al. Immunity. 2016 Mar 15;44(3):634-46.
Gabriel Victora, a 2012 Early Independence awardee, used multicolor tags on individual B cells and their progeny to assess antibody diversity in germinal centers of lymphoid organs and to track the level of diversity over time. Victora found that germinal centers initially have a high rate of diversity which decreases at varying rates over time due to competition between the antibody clones. The decline in diversity happens even in the absence of an infection, which selects for the most efficient pathogen-fighting antibodies. These findings have implications for how to generate vaccines with broadly protective antibodies for highly variable pathogens such as influenza and HIV.
- Visualizing Antibody Affinity Maturation in Germinal Centers. Tas JM et al. Science. 2016 Mar 4;351(6277):1048-54.
John Hanna, a 2014 Early Independence awardee, recently published a paper showing that a reduction in ribosome abundance is a rapid, effective, and reversible stress response against misfolded proteins. Cells have adaptive responses to identify and mitigate potentially dangerous threats to stress, such as misfolded proteins. Using tandem mass tag-based mass spectrometry, Hanna found trivalent arsenic causes widespread reorganization of the cell and protein degradation. Ribosomes were down-regulated at the protein level, and suggests the major source of toxicity of trivalent arsenic derives from misfolding of newly synthesized proteins and identifies ribosome reduction as a rapid and effective proteotoxic stress response.
- Proteomic Analysis Identifies Ribosome Reduction as an Effective Proteotoxic Stress Response. Guerra-Moreno A et al. J Biol Chem. 2015 December 11;290(50):29695-706.
Nicole Basta, a 2011 Early Independence awardee, was featured in The Economist for her work on the meningitis A vaccine MenAfriVac. Since the vaccine’s introduction to Africa in 2010, cases of meningitis A have plummeted to zero in 16 countries that used MenAfriVac in mass vaccination campaigns. Basta showed the MenAfriVac, which uses tetanus toxoid as the immunity-generating antigen, also boosts tetanus immunity and increased the number of people in Mali with long-term tetanus immunity from 20% to 59%, making the meningitis A vaccine an effective tetanus booster as well.
- Population-Level Persistence of Immunity 2 Years After the PsA-TT Mass-Vaccination Campaign in Mali. Basta NE et al. Clin Infect Dis. 2015 November 15; 61 Suppl 5:S547-53.
- Higher Tetanus Toxoid Immunity 2 Years After PsA-TT Introduction in Mali. Basta NE et al. Clin Infect Dis. 2015 November 15; 61 Suppl 5:S578-85.
- In the News: Preventing Meningitis: Knockout Jab
Rodney Samaco, a 2011 Early Independence awardee, tested deep brain stimulation in a Rett syndrome mouse model. Rett syndrome is a leading cause of intellectual disability in human females, and the mouse model reproduce the broad phenotype of the disorder, including impairment in cognitive, motor, social skills, and neurological disorders. Deep brain stimulation in the Rett syndrome mice corrected contextual fear memory, spatial learning, and memory and may be a useful tool in mitigating cognitive dysfunction in Rett syndrome.
- Forniceal Deep Brain Stimulation Rescues Hippocampal Memory in Rett Syndrome Mice. Hao S et al. Nature. 2015 October 15; 526(7573):430-4.
Jeffrey Kidd, a 2011 Early Independence awardee, and Pardis Sabeti, a 2009 New Innovator, are part of the 1000 Genomes Project Consortium which released the findings from their project to whole-genome sequence a diverse set of individuals from multiple populations. In all, they sequenced the genomes of 2,604 individuals from 26 populations, discovering 88 million variants. Their resource includes >99% of SNP variants with a >1% frequency for a variety of ancestries. They discuss the distribution of genetic variation across the globe and discuss implications for common disease studies.
- A Global Reference for Human Genetic Variation. 1000 Genomes Project Consortium et al. Nature. 2015 October 1; 526(7571):68-74.
The tyrosine kinase AXL receptor plays an important role in blood clotting and immune regulation and is implicated in the drug resistance and spread of tumors. Despite the significant role of the AXL receptor, it is unknown how its ligand and other factors influence AXL activation. Meyer, a 2014 awardee, and colleagues sought to understand how the receptor senses interaction of its ligand, Gas6, with the lipid phosphatidylserine. Using quantitative experiments and mathematical modeling, Meyer and others show that AXL does not respond solely to concentrations of Gas6 but also to the spatial presentation of Gas6. This insight helps resolve AXL receptor function and will aid the design of future therapies to a wide range of cancers.
The AXL Receptor Is a Sensor of Ligand Spatial Heterogeneity. Meyer AS et al. Cell Systems. 2015 July 29; doi: 10.1016/j.cels.2015.06.002.
In addition to protein coding genes, the human genome also encodes thousands of functional long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) genes. How these lncRNAs control gene regulation is unknown, largely because of technical limitations in defining lncRNAs complexes in the cell. Scientists at Caltech developed a new approach allowing them to look at lncRNA complexes in cells. Using this approach, the researchers studied Xist, an lncRNA that is required for silencing an entire X chromosome during normal female development. They were able to identify the proteins that directly interact with the Xist RNA and, ultimately, are necessary to silence transcription of the X-chromosome. One of these interacting proteins, called SHARP, is required for excluding RNA Polymerase from genes across the X chromosome. The protein does this by recruiting a key chromatin regulatory protein called HDAC3, which acts to modify the structure of chromatin to silence transcription. These results provide the first detailed view of how a lncRNA controls gene regulation.
The Xist lncRNA interacts directly with SHARP to silence transcription through HDAC3. McHugh CA et al. Nature. 2015 April 27; doi:10.1038/nature14443.
There is an increasing appreciation that mammals have co-evolved with trillions of microorganisms, collectively called the “microbiota,” which regulate a variety of biological processes, including the development and function of the nervous system. New research explores fundamental interactions between gut microbiota and the mammalian host in regulating levels of neurotransmitters. In a study from the laboratory of 2013 Early Independence Awardee Elaine Y. Hsiao at the California Institute of Technology, they find a striking ~60% of peripheral serotonin is regulated by microbiota and identify bacteria from mice and humans that can regulate host serotonin production in the gut. When microbe-free mice are colonized with serotonin-promoting microbes, serotonin levels rise and can correct enteric and hemostatic abnormalities related to low levels of serotonin. The researchers further reveal particular microbial metabolites involved in serotonin regulation. These findings reveal a fundamental host-microbial interaction and raise the question of whether microbe-based treatments for symptoms and diseases caused by low levels of serotonin are possible.
Indigenous bacteria from the gut microbiota regulate host serotonin biosynthesis. Yano JM et al. Cell. 2015 April 9; 161:264-276.
2013 Early Independence Awardee Demonstrates Neurological Dysfunction in Mouse Model of Kabuki Syndrome is Potentially Reversible and Linked to Adult Neurogenesis
Dr. Hans Tomas Bjornsson, MD, PhD, an assistant professor at the McKusick Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine and the department of pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, has published a paper in the journal Science Translational Medicine, describing that a deficiency of dentate gyrus neurogenesis may underlie some of the neurological dysfunction seen in a mouse model of Kabuki syndrome, a rare Mendelian cause of intellectual disability. Using a drug known to target the epigenetic machinery, Bjornsson and his team demonstrated recovery of the neurogenesis defect in association with normalization of hippocampal memory defects in the treated mice. These findings suggest that Kabuki syndrome may be a treatable cause of intellectual disability even in postnatal life and raises the possibility whether deficiency of neurogenesis may underlie additional causes of intellectual disability.
Dr. Alan Anticevic, Ph.D., was selected as one of the Young Investigator Awardees at the 14th International Congress on Schizophrenia Research (ICOSR). The ISCOR meeting is held biennially and is intended to encourage the gathering and exchange of data, techniques, and ideas from the schizophrenia research community. The Young Investigator Awards are given to bright young scientists producing high quality research related to the field of schizophrenia. Dr. Anticevic is a 2012 NIH Director’s Early Independence Awardee (EIA) whose EIA funded research is focused on understanding the underlying mechanisms of cognitive and affective disturbances in neuropsychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia, though an approach which combines neuroimaging, pharmacology, and computational modeling. The ultimate goal of his research is to be able to facilitate rationally-guided cognitive treatments for this devastating illness.
The NIH Director's Early Independence Award is a relatively new funding mechanism that provides an opportunity for exceptional junior scientists to "skip the post-doc," and start an independent research career at a supportive Institution directly following the completion of their graduate degree or clinical residency. For the second year in a row, Forbes Magazine has selected several NIH Director’s Early Independence Awardees for the honor of "30 under 30" in Science and Healthcare for 2012.
Forbes Magazine Names 5 NIH Director's EIA Awardees
among Top Science and Innovation "30 under 30" for 2011
The NIH Director's Early Independence Award is a new funding mechanism that provides an opportunity for exceptional junior scientists to "skip the post-doc," and start an independent research career at a supportive Institution directly following the completion of their graduate degree or clinical residency. Five of the top honored "30 under 30" in Science and Innovation by Forbes Magazine are NIH Early Independence Awardees for 2011. | <urn:uuid:1bac126b-bc26-4cc0-8148-f36d49d46dfc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://commonfund.nih.gov/earlyindependence/programhighlights | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396875.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00148-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.894912 | 3,009 | 3.59375 | 4 |
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|Institution||Australian Human Rights Commission|
|Date||22 January 2010|
This report, released annually by the Australian Human Rights Commission (previously the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, HREOC) through the Office of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, considers the impact of government activity on the exercise and enjoyment of Indigenous people's human rights and provides recommendations to improve the lives of Indigenous Australians.
This year's report concentrates on: justice reinvestment to reduce the over-representation of Indigenous people in the criminal justice system; protection of Indigenous languages; and sustaining Indigenous homeland communities. The report includes 12 recommendations, four recommendations on justice reinvestment, seven recommendations on how to protect Indigenous language and one recommendation on sustaining Indigenous homeland communities.
Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet abstract | <urn:uuid:aa0ba319-9e49-4f8a-8719-22b86dc94f41> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au/key-resources/bibliography?lid=17509 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00144-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.849829 | 167 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Welcome to Allergic Reactions Guide
Allergic Reactions To Jalapenos Article
Possible Allergic Reactions to Jalapenosfrom:
Jalapenos belong to the nightshade family, and are a type of hot pepper used commonly in traditional South American cuisine. It is also famous worldwide for adding spice to a dish. The small green peppers are more readily available than the mild red variety in most grocery stores.
Jalapenos are spicy because of the capsaicin found in it. This is a crystalline structure that can irritate the skin and mucous membranes to affect a feeling of heat. This is one of the most common allergic reactions to jalapenos. This is why it is better to wear gloves when cutting and deseeding jalapenos to prevent irritation to the skin and small wounds getting worse with the capsaicin.
The other allergic reactions to jalapenos include nausea, dizziness, stiffness in joints, inflammation, migraines, diarrhea and weakness. Usually jalapenos induce allergic reactions only when they are eaten raw; however there are rare instances of people experiencing allergic reactions after eating cooked jalapenos too.
It is not possible to consider allergic reactions to jalapenos and intolerance to jalapenos to be one and the same. This is because an allergic reaction is usually life-long where small amounts of jalapenos are sufficient to induce an allergy. In the case of intolerance to jalapenos, the gradual elimination of jalapenos from your diet or the reduction of the amount of jalapenos that is consumed is sufficient to cure intolerance to jalapenos.
When you suffer from allergic reactions to jalapenos, your immune system tends to overact to the otherwise harmless substance, jalapenos. Jalapenos or antigens enter the body to trigger an allergic reaction. This antigen is then considered to be an allergen that triggers an allergic reaction in the overreaction of the immune system.
This is how symptoms like coughing, wheezing, sore throat, sinus congestion, headache, skin rashes, scratchy nose and throat and facial swelling occur as allergic reactions to jalapenos. Sometimes, in severe attacks, rashes, hives, asthma attacks, difficulty in breathing, lowering of blood pressure and even death may occur as allergic reactions to jalapenos.
If you experience symptoms of difficulty in breathing and wheezing, it is important to visit a doctor immediately as these symptoms could indicate an asthma attack too. Anaphylaxis is a life threatening allergic reaction to jalapenos which often starts with itching of the eyes or face. In a matter of minutes, it can progress to severe swelling where you find it difficult to breathe and swallow too. This can be accompanied by vomiting, abdominal pain and diarrhea and is considered a medical emergency that requires immediate treatment.
The best treatment for allergic reactions to jalapenos is based on allergy tests, medical history and the severity of your symptoms. It is always better to not neglect allergies but to treat them to prevent adverse allergic reactions to jalapenos in the long run. | <urn:uuid:7db26ab4-8c1e-448b-9cb5-dc21c8d86c15> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://firstaid.ehealthport.com/allergic/permalink.php?article=Allergic+Reactions+to+Jalapenos.txt | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395548.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00020-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919603 | 654 | 2.75 | 3 |
The Turbo button was a button found on earlier (386 and 486) PC computers that would increase or decrease the performance of the computer. This button was needed for backwards compatibility in older programs and games that were written for a specific speed of computer. When faster computers were released, because the programs were written for a slower speed of computer, it would cause the program to run extremely fast, often making them unusable. Using the turbo button, the user could slow the computer down allowing them to use these programs. The picture shows an example of the Turbo button.
Also see: Button | <urn:uuid:39284c1a-dded-41d6-9942-8c4390a186bf> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/t/turbo.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00055-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978265 | 118 | 3.46875 | 3 |
by Ansley Herring Wegner, Research Historian, NC Office of Archives and History, 2008.
Reprinted with permission from Tar Heel Junior Historian Fall 2008.
Tar Heel Junior Historian Association, NC Museum of History
Originally titled "Historical Hound."
The Plott Hound was officially adopted as the State Dog on August 12, 1989. (Session Laws, 1989, c. 773).
Back in the mid- to late 1800s, people from as far away as Georgia traveled regularly to Haywood County to get puppies from the Plott family. They would arrive with sacks on the backs of their mules or horses to carry home the prized dogs. The Plotts raised hardworking, tenacious, and loyal dogs that would hunt bear and wild boar with boundless courage. The dogs—once black, brown, or brindle—are now usually brindle (which is a mix of black, browns, and tans). They stand twenty to twenty-five inches at the shoulder, weigh about forty-five to fifty-five pounds, and are strong and fast. The Plott hound, as this kind of dog is known today, has a unique high-pitched bark that alerts hunters as it tracks and corners prey. What’s the rest of the story behind North Carolina’s state dog?
The Plott hound is the only officially recognized breed of dog developed in North Carolina. (It is one of only four dog breeds native to the United States.) The foundation stock (or ancestors) for the dogs that became Plott hounds came to America with Johannes Plott in 1750. These five dogs had been a gift from Plott’s father, Elias, a gamekeeper near Heidelberg, Germany. Elias Plott bred canines to be multipurpose workers—they needed to be exceptional big-game hunters, as well as farm and herding dogs. He probably started with the Hanoverian hound in developing his dogs. In the North Carolina Mountains, the Plott family further refined the breed into the tracking and hunting Plott hound that we know today.
Little is known of the first nine years of Johannes Plott’s life in America. After his ship’s record of his travel, he does not appear in public records again until 1759, when he bought land in Bute (now Warren) County. He had changed his name to the Anglicized, or translated to English, name of George Plott. Within a year, Plott moved to Cabarrus County, where he lived until moving to Lincoln County in 1784, raising a family and breeding dogs. His dogs likely had much work to do in the forests and small farms of the Tar Heel backcountry.
George Plott’s son Henry kept improving the Plott hound. He moved to Buncombe (now Haywood) County about 1800. Within a few years the area was known as Plott Valley; the mountain, Plott Balsam; and the waterway, Plott Creek. The region is still home to many Plott descendants. Here the family’s dogs learned to hunt bear in the wilderness, much as their ancestors had hunted in Germany’s Black Forest.
The Plott family did not keep written records about its dogs, but it was skilled in raising them. By the time Montraville Plott was born in 1850, Plott hounds were well established and highly prized in western North Carolina. He continued to improve the breed’s temperament and performance. Word spread about their superior working and hunting talents, courage, and tenacity. Montraville Plott was dedicated to his dogs, passing along that devotion to his children and many friends. Two of his sons, John A. Plott and Henry Vaughn “Von” Plott, along with a few other hunters, captured the interest of hunters nationwide in the 1930s and 1940s with the dogs.
In 1998 the American Kennel Club (AKC) recognized the Plott hound as a distinctive breed. The Plott has been North Carolina’s state dog since 1989, but having been bred for hunting and tracking, it is not often seen walking on a leash around a suburban neighborhood. People who love Plott hounds describe the dogs as gentle with people and loyal to their owners. But if you were walking a Plott hound on a trail, and the dog caught the scent of a wild animal, it likely would want to take off on a hunt. Bold and energetic, Plotts want to work, no doubt about it.
References and additional resources:
"Plott Hound." American Kennel Club. http://www.akc.org/breeds/plott/index.cfm
Resources in Worldcat
Styers, Tom. "Lucky." 2008. Staying on Track with Lucky's Plott.
Slideshow from the North Carolina State Archives Flickr feed.
Additional Plott Hound images available from Haywood County Public Library through DigitalNC.
1 June 2007 | Wegner, Ansley Herring | <urn:uuid:9566f627-3f54-4b76-9553-115e1d87f9ac> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ncpedia.org/comment/1719 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00092-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972863 | 1,060 | 3.1875 | 3 |
I have written a lot about the theory of evolution and in the process have quoted short excerpts from various authors, Charles Darwin included. (Please see here for previous posts in this series.)
But in going back and reading the first edition of On the Origin of Species (1859), I am struck by how prescient Darwin was in anticipating the objections that would be raised against his theory and why. He could well have been talking about the situation today, except that then the people who were skeptical and who he was trying to persuade were his scientific colleagues. Nowadays scientists are almost all converts to natural selection (as he predicted might happen) and it is religious lay people who make the same objections he addressed long ago.
To get the full flavor of Darwin’s thinking and his style of writing, here is a somewhat long passage from his conclusions, where he summarizes his case (p. 480-484). The sections in boldface are my own emphasis. (Darwin’s complete works are now available online.)
I have now recapitulated the chief facts and considerations which have thoroughly convinced me that species have changed, and are still slowly changing by the preservation and accumulation of successive slight favourable variations. Why, it may be asked, have all the most eminent living naturalists and geologists rejected this view of the mutability of species? It cannot be asserted that organic beings in a state of nature are subject to no variation; it cannot be proved that the amount of variation in the course of long ages is a limited quantity; no clear distinction has been, or can be, drawn between species and well-marked varieties. It cannot be maintained that species when intercrossed are invariably sterile, and varieties invariably fertile; or that sterility is a special endowment and sign of creation. The belief that species were immutable productions was almost unavoidable as long as the history of the world was thought to be of short duration; and now that we have acquired some idea of the lapse of time, we are too apt to assume, without proof, that the geological record is so perfect that it would have afforded us plain evidence of the mutation of species, if they had undergone mutation.
But the chief cause of our natural unwillingness to admit that one species has given birth to other and distinct species, is that we are always slow in admitting any great change of which we do not see the intermediate steps. The difficulty is the same as that felt by so many geologists, when Lyell first insisted that long lines of inland cliffs had been formed, and great valleys excavated, by the slow action of the coast-waves. The mind cannot possibly grasp the full meaning of the term of a hundred million years; it cannot add up and perceive the full effects of many slight variations, accumulated during an almost infinite number of generations.
Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume under the form of an abstract, I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine. It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as the “plan of creation,” “unity of design,” &c., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact. Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject my theory. A few naturalists, endowed with much flexibility of mind, and who have already begun to doubt on the immutability of species, may be influenced by this volume; but I look with confidence to the future, to young and rising naturalists, who will be able to view both sides of the question with impartiality. Whoever is led to believe that species are mutable will do good service by conscientiously expressing his conviction; for only thus can the load of prejudice by which this subject is overwhelmed be removed.
Several eminent naturalists have of late published their belief that a multitude of reputed species in each genus are not real species; but that other species are real, that is, have been independently created. This seems to me a strange conclusion to arrive at. They admit that a multitude of forms, which till lately they themselves thought were special creations, and which are still thus looked at by the majority of naturalists, and which consequently have every external characteristic feature of true species,—they admit that these have been produced by variation, but they refuse to extend the same view to other and very slightly different forms. Nevertheless they do not pretend that they can define, or even conjecture, which are the created forms of life, and which are those produced by secondary laws. They admit variation as a vera causa in one case, they arbitrarily reject it in another, without assigning any distinction in the two cases. The day will come when this will be given as a curious illustration of the blindness of preconceived opinion. These authors seem no more startled at a miraculous act of creation than at an ordinary birth. But do they really believe that at innumerable periods in the earth’s history certain elemental atoms have been commanded suddenly to flash into living tissues? Do they believe that at each supposed act of creation one individual or many were produced? Were all the infinitely numerous kinds of animals and plants created as eggs or seed, or as full grown? and in the case of mammals, were they created bearing the false marks of nourishment from the mother’s womb? Although naturalists very properly demand a full explanation of every difficulty from those who believe in the mutability of species, on their own side they ignore the whole subject of the first appearance of species in what they consider reverent silence.
It may be asked how far I extend the doctrine of the modification of species. The question is difficult to answer, because the more distinct the forms are which we may consider, by so much the arguments fall away in force. But some arguments of the greatest weight extend very far. . . I believe that animals have descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number.
Analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief that all animals and plants have descended from some one prototype. But analogy may be a deceitful guide. Nevertheless all living things have much in common, in their chemical composition, their germinal vesicles, their cellular structure, and their laws of growth and reproduction. We see this even in so trifling a circumstance as that the same poison often similarly affects plants and animals; or that the poison secreted by the gall-fly produces monstrous growths on the wild rose or oak-tree. Therefore I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed.
And then the very last, almost poetic, words in the book (p. 490):
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
Darwin’s achievements are truly magnificent, putting him in the same class as Einstein and Newton, among the greatest scientists of all time.
POST SCRIPT: The Larry Craig incident
Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho) has taken some strong “family values” and anti-gay stands in the past, despite long standing rumors that he himself was gay. The recent news report that he had pleaded guilty to “lewd” conduct in a public restroom has caused speculation that his career is now over.
It is despicable to harass gays with anti-gay rhetoric and legislation, becoming even worse if those doing so are secretly gay themselves. But Talking Points Memo expresses well my unease with what happened to Craig in the most recent episode. It is not clear from published reports that he did anything that really warranted his arrest and that he was, as Josh Marshall says, essentially caught in a Catch-22 caused by his own risky behavior.
Glenn Greenwald documents the brazen contradictions that right-wingers are indulging in the way they respond to the recent Craig revelation, the reports that surfaced back in 2006 that he was gay, and the recent case of Senator David Vitter (R-Louisiana), another “family values” champion who was found to be a customer of prostitutes. | <urn:uuid:61655969-cc4a-4ea0-a19b-8b932981982e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2007/08/30/charles-darwin-in-his-own-words/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00075-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978112 | 1,762 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Background on the Farm Bill and Wildlife Connection
What is the Farm Bill?
The Farm Bill is one of the most important federal policies affecting US agricultural conservation. The Farm Bill has existed in different forms for many years and comes up for reauthorization approximately every five years. Congress recently passed the latest farm bill, The Agricultural Act of 2014 (the 2014 Farm Bill).
Most of the Farm Bill funds are spent on nutrition, but commodity programs, crop insurance, energy, and conservation programs are also part of the Farm Bill. Learn more about how the Farm Bill is funded.
How does the Farm Bill help wildlife?
Some of the nation’s most successful voluntary conservation programs are funded by the Farm Bill. Across the country, farmers are protecting wildlife habitat, controlling soil erosion and reducing polluted runoff with assistance from Farm Bill programs. Yet these popular programs are woefully under-funded. Many landowners who would like to do more for fish and wildlife are turned away for a lack of funds. It is very important to the future of wildlife on private lands that the Farm Bill continues to provide sufficient funding to address conservation needs. Visit this page to learn more about how Farm Bill conservation helps wildlife.
Learn about Farm Bill Conservation Programs
Several different Farm Bill conservation programs have helped improve wildlife habitat in the US. Learn about the unique functions of each program in the page below. The Agricultural Act of 2014 consolidates some of these programs into a new Agricultural Conservation Easement Program and authorized a new Regional Conservation Partnership Program. Read more in our full analysis of the 2014 Farm Bill.
Conservation Reserve Program
The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) pays farmers annual rental payments under 10-15 year contracts, to set aside marginal land. The program also pays up to half the cost of establishing conservation practices that address soil erosion, water quality, wetland and forest enhancement, and wildlife management. Examples of these practices include establishing vegetative cover or trees on erodible cropland, planting native grasses, thinning or conducting controlled burning of pine forests, and placing filterstrips along stream banks to stem polluted runoff and provide habitat for wildlife. The Agricultural Act of 2014 reduced the amount of acreage allowed in the CRP gradually each year, down to 24 million acres allowed by 2018.
David Davis is proud to be a part of the solution for declining sage grouse populations, which once flourished in western Washington, but have since declined by about 75 percent. Davis and his fellow farmers in Douglas County, Washington have turned nearly 186,000 acres of wheat into sage grouse habitat since CRP was created in 1985. “The birds were disappearing until CRP got going,” Davis says. “This summer, I saw 10 or 12 young sage grouse cross the road just before harvest. I’ve never seen that before.” Davis’s success is being repeated in Oregon, Idaho and Montana, where greater sage grouse also are using CRP habitat.
Grassland Reserve Program
The Grassland Reserve Program (GRP) is a voluntary program that enables landowners to restore or protect native grasslands on portions of their property. Grasslands are valuable wildlife habitat currently in decline. Due to limited funding, there is a backlog of over 800,000 applications from farmers to participate in the GRP.
Jeff Basford owns a farm in Dodge County, MN. According to NRCS, Mr. Basford was able to create valuable wildlife habitat through the Grassland Reserve Program while working to achieve his land management goals. A wide range of wildlife, including many bird species, have benefited from the planting of native grasses on the farm. “You know that old saying: If you make it they will come. Well, they did,” said Basford. The native warm season grasses have provided valuable habitat in both the summer and winter seasons for pheasant populations, according to NRCS.
Wetland Reserve Program
The Wetland Reserve Program (WRP) allows interested farmers the opportunity to restore, maintain and protect wetlands on their property. Most lands restored under WRP are marginal, high risk, flood-prone lands that wouldn't be suitable for growing crops. The WRP enables landowners to take these lands out of production and restore them to beneficial use as wetland wildlife habitat.
One of the first WRP projects in Michigan, the Portage River Restoration, has become a perfect example of what can happen when a farmer is willing to take marginal cropland out of production and put it towards a higher use. According to NRCS, this 180 acre wetland restoration located in Jackson County, restored 80 acres of marsh and 100 acres of grassy wetlands and uplands – perfect fall migratory staging and breeding habitat for Sandhill cranes and other migratory waterfowl. This part of Michigan has one of the highest nesting densities of Sandhill cranes in all of North America thanks in part to wetland restorations projects such as this one. The land remains in private ownership, with a permanent easement to protect it into the future.
Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program
The Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program (WHIP) is a voluntary program that pays up to 75 percent of the cost to private land owners of enhancing wildlife habitat on their land. The program is not limited to agricultural lands, but is open to any private landowners who would like to create wildlife-friendly habitat enhancements to a portion of their land, such as restoring native prairie grasses, performing forest management practices, or improving aquatic areas.
WHIP was combined into EQIP in the Agricultural Act of 2014. A minimum of 5% of EQIP funding will go to wildlife practices as the 2014 Farm Bill is implemented.
In Moore County, NC, the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program is helping a local community partner with an equestrian facility with the overall goal of restoring longleaf pine savanna that, according to NRCS will be beneficial to local wildlife. The hope is that the new habitat will be beneficial to the endangered Red cockaded-woodpeckers as well as other types of wildlife, including amphibians, reptiles and grass and shrub- breeding birds. Winter fires are being used to clear the forest floor, allowing for increased sunlight and improved habitat conditions.
Conservation Stewardship Program
Unlike programs that pay farmers to set aside certain lands, the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) rewards agricultural producers for environmentally-friendly measures they are willing to undertake on the lands that they keep in production. CSP offers payments to producers who maintain a high level of conservation on their land and who agree to adopt higher levels of stewardship. Eligible lands include cropland, pastureland, rangeland and non-industrial forestland. The 2008 Farm Bill funded the CSP at $17 million per year; the 2014 Farm Bill contains $40 million in mandatory funding over 5 years.
Environmental Quality Incentives Program
Similar to CSP, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) provides technical and financial assistance to farmers and ranchers to implement conservation practices on their lands. Practices are based on a set of national priorities that are adapted to each state. These priorities include: reduction of point- and non-point source pollution to watersheds and groundwater; water conservation; reduction of soil erosion; and promotion of wildlife habitat for at-risk-species. | <urn:uuid:2c36c5b1-0fdb-4b02-9039-89f7b4f19385> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nwf.org/What-We-Do/Protect-Habitat/Healthy-Forests-and-Farms/Farm-Bill/Farm-Bill-Background.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00145-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947041 | 1,517 | 3.5 | 4 |
The “Hippie” Monkeys
In patches of forests along the Atlantic coastline of Brazil, there live
an amazing species of monkeys known as the muriqui. They are amongst the rarest species of monkey in the world,
with a small habitat that is still decreasing.
They are the largest species of monkey found in Brazil and all of South
America. In Shannon Brownlee’s
article “These Are Real Swinging Primates”, Brownlee presents research done
by herself and Beloit College professor Karen Strier.
The hypothesis that Strier formulated and Brownlee presents is a simple
one: the muriqui have evolved in the ways they have due to their “need to
avoid falling out of trees” (Brownlee, p 72).
The muriqui evolved over time into the creatures they are today because
the environment forced biological changes on them. These changes influence the way the muriqui behave.
Strier gets most of her data from field observations. When she started studying the muriqui in 1981, she first had to acclimate the muriquis to her presence, which she found difficult, as the muriqui do not take kindly to being followed. She still finds it difficult to observe them in the field because the muriquis move so much in a day. It is also difficult because the muriqui are arboreal creatures, and the underbrush of their habitat tends to be thick. She discovered that the muriqui are an extremely peaceful species who only defend favored food sources and do not fight over mates. In fact, many males will patiently wait in line to attempt to impregnate one female of the species. These creatures do live in social groups, mixed with both males and females. It is interesting to note that both the male and the female of the species are almost the same size. (Brownlee, pg 72-76)
Based on this data, Strier made the several conclusions concerning the muriqui. Among these were the reasons that the male and the female of the muriqui species are the same size. One of these reasons is this: in order to be able to swing quickly from branch to branch in the rainforest, a creature must be of a certain size, and the muriqui could not get larger without losing this ability. This causes a very large limitation on the size of the muriqui. Another fascinating conclusion was the reason behind the peaceful nature of the species. The muriqui really cannot afford to fight for two major reasons, the first that falling out of trees is never a good thing, and the second being that spending the amount of energy that it would take to fight is just not feasible in their situation as food is often at a premium. Because the males do not fight over mates, their size remains small. The fact that males of the species do not fight over mates has a very large part to do with how they evolved large testicles. Females of the species will mate with more than one male, and the larger the testicles, the more sperm a male can produce. By producing more and better sperm, a male increases his chances of impregnating a female and thus passing on his genetic traits to the next generation. These conclusions link the socioecological and sociobiological approaches to primate behavior. These creatures have evolved due to their environment, and both the environment and their biology is affecting their behavior as a species. Strier’s original hypothesis was indeed at least partially correct. (Brownlee, p 72-76)
I found this article hard to follow sometimes, and there was information that perhaps was unnecessary to understand the article. The first time I read it, I found it quite hard to pick up on what the article was actually focusing on. Upon further study, it began to become clear to me what the article was really discussing. I find Strier’s research fascinating and I wonder if the muriqui are the only species that have evolved in this way. I also wonder if they are the only species to illustrate the links between socioecology and sociobiology in relation to primate behavior. I liked Brownlee’s approach to presenting Strier’s research; as Brownlee traveled to Brazil to actually observe the muriqui before writing the article; the firsthand experience seems to add something to the article.
Brownlee, S (2000) These Are Real Swinging Primates. In, Angeloni E (ed) Annual Edition: Physical Anthropology: 72-76. Dushkin Pub. Group. Inc: Guilford, CA. | <urn:uuid:e4abf2be-a1b7-451b-ab5c-1470ecead99a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www2.gvsu.edu/klitzkee/efforts/schoolwork/hippie_monkeys.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396027.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00113-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966088 | 953 | 2.984375 | 3 |
Reading Aloud to Teens Gains Favor Among Teachers
Mention teachers’ practice of reading aloud to their students and a typical image comes to mind: In a cozy corner of an elementary classroom, youngsters are gathered on a rug, listening intently to Charlotte’s Web.
But, in fact, many teachers across the country are reading to students in middle and high schools, too, and some education researchers say more teachers of adolescents ought to be using the same strategy.
English teachers are reading aloud to teenagers classics ranging from the Odyssey to Of Mice and Men. History and social studies teachers are voicing the words of the Declaration of Independence and letters home from U.S. soldiers in the Vietnam War. Even some math and science teachers are reading to adolescents in class.
The technique is getting attention amid a bigger push for improvement in adolescent literacy, as educators emphasize that literacy is not just a concern for the elementary grades.
Many teachers made reading aloud a regular practice after attending sessions at education conferences by Jim Trelease, a journalist and the author of the Read-Aloud Handbook, published by Penguin in 1982. Now retired, Mr. Trelease has been a longtime crusader for getting parents and teachers to read to students of all ages.
“If the only thing a teacher shares is from a textbook, how are you going to get students excited about reading?” he said in a recent interview.
Other teachers found by trial and error that reading aloud worked for adding interesting content or making literature come alive for students. And some educators say they read to their classes to model good reading, such as by asking comprehension questions as they go along, or simply because students love it.
Some of those ideas might have come from Read It Aloud!, a book published in 2000 by the International Reading Association based on a column advocating reading-aloud techniques for secondary-level students.
Still, some educators and even those who are fans of reading aloud say the approach should not be overused. They say a teacher’s reading aloud shouldn’t become a crutch for students who don’t want to read anything on their own.
Most research about reading aloud has been conducted on elementary school students; findings on how the strategy affects adolescents are limited. But a few researchers have studied how teachers use read-alouds at the middle school level, and the topic is often on the agenda at education conferences.
About 300 teachers responded to a reporter’s inquiry posted on listservs run by the English Companion Ning social networking site and the National Council for the Social Studies seeking comments on why and what they read aloud to their middle and high school students. Read excerpts from the responses.
Lettie K. Albright, an associate professor in literacy at Texas Woman’s University, for example, presented findings from a study of an 8th grade teacher’s experience with structured read-alouds at the annual meeting of the Oak Creek, Wis.-based Literacy Research Association, formerly called the National Reading Conference, last month. Ms. Albright has specialized in studying the impact of reading aloud to middle school students.
In 2006, she co-wrote an article published in the journal Reading Research and Instruction that reported on a survey of middle school teachers who used reading-aloud approaches. In that article, she summarized research showing that the practice builds middle school students’ knowledge in content areas, helps them have positive attitudes toward reading, and helps increase their reading fluency.
Overall, 344 of 476 survey respondents said they read aloud to their students. Female teachers were more likely than their male colleagues to read aloud; teachers of English/language arts or reading were more likely to do so than teachers of other subjects. The most common reason for reading aloud, according to survey respondents, was to promote a love of literature or reading. Other top reasons were to build interest in a topic or introduce a topic, model fluent reading, and expose students to texts they might not read otherwise.
Ms. Albright teaches a course in teaching literacy across the academic-content areas. She has an interest in helping teacher-candidates envision how they might use read-alouds of picture books effectively with adolescents. A lot of picture books, particularly biographies, she says, are sophisticated and appropriate for adolescents.
“The teacher needs to think about why he or she is using the book and connect it to the curriculum, to have purpose, to think about how you will introduce it to the students,” Ms. Albright said. “You don’t want to just pick up a book, read it, and then close it and move on.”
Debra Schneider, a history teacher at Merrill West High School in Tracy, Calif., said she uses picture books to supplement the U.S. history curriculum for her 11th graders because such books communicate a lot of basic information in a concise way.
She said she builds her lessons around themes and finds that picture books help her to bring extra content into the classroom, since the school library doesn’t have enough books to enable all of her 105 U.S. history students to check out a book on the same theme. She’s read to them, for example, a picture book about Japanese internment during World War II.
Ms. Schneider also read excerpts from the 1987 book Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam to her students, and “you could have heard a pin drop,” she said.
The students, she said, told her it was much better than having to read about the Vietnam War from a textbook.
‘Enhance the Lesson’
At West Babylon Junior High School in New York, educators have found a way to create a library of picture books for read-alouds. They applied for and received local and state grants to buy the books.
Julie A. Powers, a 6th grade math teacher at the school in the Long Island town of West Babylon, said she has always read to her students, even when she taught math to 7th and 8th graders. She appreciates that the school now has a picture-book collection that includes math books, so she doesn’t have to buy them on her own, as she did previously.
“Math tends to be abstract, so I’m looking for concrete ways to help [students],” Ms. Powers said. “If the students aren’t getting something, I’ll look for something that can enhance the lesson.”
To introduce fractions, for instance, she’s read the Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bar Fractions Book, by Jerry Pallotta.
Some history teachers say they read primary sources to their students that may be written in language that is hard to grasp.
When Joe Ritzo, a social studies teacher at Stowe High School in Vermont, teaches students about the Declaration of Independence, he reads the beginning of the document to his students. “The language is well over 200 years old,” he said. “It’s very flowery and the kids just don’t take to it.”
Every few lines, he summarizes what the document is saying. “They need to know what its meaning is in 2009,” Mr. Ritzo said.
Other teachers say they read aloud for special populations of students, such as English-language learners or students with disabilities, who may have trouble understanding a text.
For example, Betsy Green, a special education teacher at James Wood High School in Winchester, Va., said she and her students read aloud a majority of text used in her classes, often pausing for interpretation or discussion.
“The text of much of the incorporated literature is just too difficult for students with comprehension or decoding issues to read to themselves,” she said in an e-mail.
Some educators, however, say they are concerned that reading aloud could be overused.
“If you read to students, it can be OK to motivate them and get them started,” said Angelia C. Greiner, who sometimes reads aloud over the Internet as a distance-learning English and speech teacher for the Arkansas School of Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts, in Hot Springs, Ark. “But they’ve got to learn to read on their own, what we call close reading,” she said. Teachers who read practically everything aloud to their students do them a “grave injustice,” she said.
Robert Pondiscio, the communications director for the Core Knowledge Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Charlottesville, Va., that promotes a curriculum based on core academic content, said he has reservations about teachers’ reading aloud to adolescents.
“The need to do this at all seems to be a way of glossing over poor reading skills and poor content knowledge that should have been addressed in elementary school,” he said.
But Paul W. Hankins, who teaches 11th grade English at Silver Creek High School in Sellersburg, Ind., sees reading aloud as an equalizer for students who will read an assigned book and those who won’t.
He recently finished reading John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men to his students; he said he’s read it aloud to classes 36 times in six years of teaching.
Mr. Hankins said he often faked having read an assigned book when he was in school, and as long as he is reading aloud to his students, they won’t have a chance to do the same. That’s one reason why he reads Of Mice and Men and other literature out loud.
“I’m going to put myself out there with all my voices,” he said, “and let you hear the dramatic part of this novella.”
Vol. 29, Issue 16, Pages 1,12-13 | <urn:uuid:16a96f4d-51a1-45e8-aee0-74e869ed3103> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/01/06/16read_ep.h29.html?tkn=RPRC1fRnxF29S1jnQlXBTSkKcn2oUGhJEFiL | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00101-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966758 | 2,062 | 3.40625 | 3 |
New Exhibit Showcases Asian Saddle Rugs
September 20th, 2012
The exhibit focuses on the geographic area defined by the Silk Road, a trade and communications network that extended on land from China to Constantinople (now Istanbul) beginning in the first century BCE. Using materials obtained from their flocks and plants, women in cultures along the Silk Road have traditionally woven beautiful saddle rugs, first on portable looms in tents, later on larger looms in village houses, and finally in city workshops and factories.
Saddle covers make sitting on saddles for long periods more comfortable for equestrians. Horse covers help to keep the animals warm and protect their backs from the saddles. The exhibit explores these and other surprising ways saddle rugs function, including in ceremonies and sports.
Ella Douglas, a senior anthropology major at Wake Forest University, worked with museum director Stephen Whittington last spring to plan “Weaving along the Silk Road.” She researched saddle rugs and the cultures that have used them, located photographs of saddle rugs in use, wrote drafts of text and labels, and helped to develop the exhibit’s layout.
The exhibit features weavings and saddles from Turkmen tribal groups in Turkey and Afghanistan, Persian villages and cities, Tibet, and China, all drawn from Nicolas Salgo’s collection of saddle rugs, amassed from the 1940s through the end of the 20th century. The Salgo Trust for Education donated the rugs to the Museum of Anthropology in 2011. The late Nicolas Salgo was U.S. Ambassador to Hungary and Ambassador-at-Large during the 1980s. | <urn:uuid:ffa57865-9a39-4d8d-ba60-05ca8aa0f7c6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://moa.wfu.edu/2012/09/new-exhibit-showcases-asian-saddle-rugs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00194-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953436 | 334 | 2.796875 | 3 |
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According to Education Trends: What to Expect in 2013 and Five Trends in Education for 2013, E-Moderation Station, this past year was expected to be the year of:
- The rise of social networks for learning
- Mobile learning apps
- Flipped classrooms
- The growth of MOOCs (massive, open online courses)
- Bring Your Own Device
- App-based solutions
- Common Core
- Augmented reality
- 10. Digital literacies.
But, what really happened in 2013?
Top Ed-Tech Trends of 2013: "Zombie Ideas" (Ed-Tech Ideas That Refuse to Die Even Though We Know They're Monstrous) by Audrey Waters highlights some of the education initiatives of 2013:
You’ve heard about education portals before: sites that aggregated other sites or apps and allowed you to “join” for a fee. The new education portals are free and much more fluid. Graphite is a learning portal that connects you to reviewed sites such as Read, Write, Think, Edublog, and Zeega (a multimedia tool).
Learning Management Systems– programs or online-based programs that were supposed to customize the education curriculum while creating a safe space and closed system for learning by providing software for administration, documentation, tracking, reporting and delivery of e-learning education courses or training programs came with very high price tags. So now we have MOOCs.
MOOC, or massive open online course, is a model for delivering learning content online with unlimited attendance in an open, online forum, to any person who wants to take a course. Content consists of traditional learning tools (course materials, videos, readings) as well as interactive learning forums. Educause provides an exhaustive list of resources describing the benefits and challenges of using MOOCs.
Teachers are being held even more accountable for what happens in the classroom. The recent spate of viral videos and classroom rants highlight the importance of the public face of education.
The Common Core mission statement on the Iinitiative website states that the “standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers.”
How early predictions fared
Addressing the list of “predicted” trends, social networks are ubiquitous. The good news is that educators have discovered ways to use social media for good – for communication, collaborative learning, networking, and engaging your community.
Mobile apps are settling in as useful educational tools. Poll Everywhere and i-Clicker are great tools for conducting classroom surveys. Whether you use MAC or Android operating systems, “there’s an app for that,” and Not Another History Teacher lists their top 10 picks for 2013.
Flipped Classrooms got a lot of play in educational literature. While there have been a lot of myths about how the practice actually works, the "Flipped Classroom" Approach in NJ School Sees Success by news Channel 4 reported that in New Milford High School, using the flipped classroom approach has contributed to increased test scores. A multi-year study provided to The Atlantic also credits the use of flipped classroom with a 5 percent increase in scores.
BYOD – We reported on Bring Your Own Device gained popularity in 2013 in the December Toolbox and we see the trend growing even stronger in the 2013-14 school year.
While gaming has been on many of the top 10 lists for education trends over the past few years, there is little evidence that it has broad classroom application. The prediction is that game-based learning, or Serious Games as they are known in the market, will continue to grow. Simulation games continue to grow in popularity. Keep your eye on the trend toward Gamification, defined as “the use of game design elements in non-game contexts.” A Gamification infographic shows you the potential of gaming in the classroom.
Second Life. Google Glass. The technology of augmented reality (AR) is very exciting. The reality is that AR isn’t quite ready for prime time in most classrooms just yet. We’ll be exploring the potential educational uses of AR in a future Toolbox column.
Student literacy will always be in fashion. The PEW Internet and American Life Project has been steadfast in reporting statistics highlighting student learning. In its study, The Impact of Digital Tools on Student Writing and How Writing is Taught in Schools, teachers reported digital tools such as the Internet, social media, and cell phones “encourage student creativity and personal expression” and:
- 96 percent agree digital technologies “allow students to share their work with a wider and more varied audience.”
- 79 percent agree that these tools “encourage greater collaboration among students.”
So…what are the predictions for the 2013-14 school year?
Nowhere did anyone predict a move toward 3D printing and makerspaces. Already, New Jersey libraries have leaped ahead and are integrating or planning for ways to use this printing of the future. 3D printing allows users to create a solid object from a model. Makerspaces are defined as places where people gather together to create using available tools, projects, mentors and expertise.
Educational Technology and Mobile Learning describes the Importance of 3D Printing in Education:
- It provides teachers with three-dimensional visual aids that they can use in their classroom.
- 3D printers make it easy for teachers to seize the interest of their students compared to just showing the pictorial representations of objects.
- It enhances hands-on learning and learning by doing.
- It provides more room for interactive class activities. In biology, for instance, teachers can create a 3D model of the human heart, head, skeleton, etc. to teach students about the human body.
Cloud-based applications are increasing in popularity. Virtually every new computer or laptop comes with an app to store documents in the cloud. The benefits of cloud-based learning are cost savings, convenience, accessibility, ease of use, and, especially for project based learning – collaboration. You can find cloud-based applications everywhere – from Google Doc and other products to cloud-based services on your smart phone and read more about their educational uses in the December 2012 Toolbox.
Look for other Trends in Education for the 2013-14 School Year, including:
- More on augmented reality
- Genius hour (students pursue topics that interest them)
- Coding (programming)
- Online learning (MOOCs).
- Online Portfolios
Have you spotted an educational trend or innovative educational practice? Let us know at email@example.com.
Patricia Bruder, president of Linchpin Solutions LLC, consults for the Educational Information and Resource Center (EIRC) located at the South Jersey Tech Park at Rowan University, Mullica Hill. EIRC is a public agency specializing in education-related programs and services for teachers, parents, schools, communities, and non-profit organizations throughout New Jersey. Learn more about EIRC at www.eirc.org or call 856-582-7000. Contact Patricia Bruder at firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:56397627-9617-42de-92dd-abdfd877c8f2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://njea.org/news-and-publications/njea-review/january-2014/time-capsule-2013 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396887.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00191-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934299 | 1,488 | 2.84375 | 3 |
I’ve been having thought exercises around the impact of hard disk drives that have ethernet interfaces. The basic concept of connecting a a multi-terabye HDD directly to an Ethernet switch is powerful since it provides options to those very expensive arrays in the data centre. There is obvious value in this idea.
- Switch silicon is fast, lossless and reliable.
- Ethernet fabric chips make for high speed bus backplanes inside some vendor arrays already.
- Disk drives are using I/O standards that hopelessly out of date like FibreChannel or SATA.
- magnetic disk drives are moving to low cost, low value solutions while SSDs will take over critical loads.
Possible use cases.
- disk spindle could be used for near line backup or long term storage.
- house Ethernet drives in low cost cases
- consider a Backblaze approach.
Replace the Array with A Ethernet Switch
At a basic level, a storage array is simply a network bus between the disk drives and controller motherboard with a CPU. The controller runs software that presents the disks to other software – like servers as LUNs, or data stream for Dedpulication, or blocks for tape drives.
So, connect HDD to a switch, allocate some x86 servers as a controller. Since we are using off the shelf hard are, the hardest work is mostly done. The relatively “easy” part, of course, is the software that turns this into something useful.
The controller needs to deliver a few key functions.
- stripe data across disks for redundancy,
- monitor status/integrity
- determine the fastest or best access for read/write
- value add functions like deduplications.
Comparing with Distributed Storage
Distributed storage is the current direction for low end storage using software CEPH, Lustre or GFS. A X86 server acts as an “Ethernet – SATA” bridge for the disk drives. Enhancements like SSD caching are done locally since it simplifies the software. Storage startups are only capable of limited amount in the few years they have to prove viability and producing a complex SSD caching for this type of system is possibly beyond them.
Switch Inside a x 86 Server
As Ethernet silicon becomes more available, it’s possible that we could see an Ethernet switch inside an x86 server. The Intel FM7000 has excellent networking features and Intel could conceivably provide motherboard that has a switch onboard. The server metalwork could hold a bunch of drives connected over an Ethernet bus.
Could be interesting.
From a networking point of view, this changes the network design. Most storage arrays are barnacles on the network architecture with a couple of “fat Ethernet” connections and large amounts of traffic that creates congestion points. An improved network design would have the load more equally distributed over many interfaces. Current storage technology creates “elephant” flows that cause all kinds of nasty hacks to be implemented.
Having a directly connected Ethernet switch allows for many new ways to smooth the network architecture.
The EtherealMind View
The idea of Ethernet connected hard drives seems to be a recurrent theme but the storage folks are notoriously resistant to new ideas so I don’t expect this to happen. That said, its interesting to consider this ideas and wonder how networking could be different. Thanks for following along. | <urn:uuid:f0ff4236-7107-44dd-8687-288f8b6dc3b9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://etherealmind.com/musing-ethernet-connected-hard-drives-network-designs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00142-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910376 | 695 | 2.515625 | 3 |
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It is generally thought that science and engineering should never cross certain ethical lines. The idea connects ethics to science and engineering, but it frames the relationship in a misleading way. Moral notions and practices inevitably influence and are influenced by science and engineering. The important question is how such interactions should take place. Anticipatory ethics is a new approach that integrates ethics into technological development.
Department of Science, Technology, and Society, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904.
This article was published in the following journal.
Name: Trends in biotechnology
EU Regulation 536/2014 stipulates that when assessing applications for authorisation to conduct clinical trials, Member States should formulate a 'single decision'. This raises the problem of identify...
Although ethics is an essential component of undergraduate medical education, research suggests that current medical ethics curricula face considerable challenges in improving students' ethical reason...
The primary aim of the study is to demonstrate the value of a preemptive approach to ethics consultation in an ICU. The investigators hope to answer the question: Will proactive ethics in...
The aim of this study is to perform the bone tissue engineering to reconstruct the alveolar bone defect in cleft lip and palate patients using mesenchymal stem cells from deciduous dental ...
This study is to try to maintain cultured dermal papilla cells in spherical structure in vitro before transplanting into dermis in vivo. Also, this study is aimed in clarifying actual mech...
This is an open-label, non-randomized, prospective, multi-site, parallel group (segment), hypothesis-generating study designed to collect data that will aid in future scientific and engine...
The MIDAS Project (Models of Implementation and Dissemination of Environmental Health and Science Across Subjects) Assessment Objectives: - Determine whether students are aware of the ...
Application of principles and practices of engineering science to biomedical research and health care.
Committees established by professional societies, health facilities, or other institutions to consider decisions that have bioethical implications. The role of these committees may include consultation, education, mediation, and/or review of policies and practices. Committees that consider the ethical dimensions of patient care are ETHICS COMMITTEES, CLINICAL; committees established to protect the welfare of research subjects are ETHICS COMMITTEES, RESEARCH.
The science of designing, building or equipping mechanical devices or artificial environments to the anthropometric, physiological, or psychological requirements of the people who will use them.
Hospital or other institutional ethics committees established to consider the ethical dimensions of patient care. Distinguish from ETHICS COMMITTEES, RESEARCH, which are established to monitor the welfare of patients or healthy volunteers participating in research studies.
An interdisciplinary field in materials science, ENGINEERING, and BIOLOGY, studying the use of biological principles for synthesis or fabrication of BIOMIMETIC MATERIALS.
Alternative Medicine Cleft Palate Complementary & Alternative Medicine Congenital Diseases Dentistry Ear Nose & Throat Food Safety Geriatrics Healthcare Hearing Medical Devices MRSA Muscular Dyst...
Bioethics is the study of controversial ethics brought about by advances in biology and medicine. Bioethicists are concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, and philo... | <urn:uuid:78f0f409-fdab-493a-be66-d5f571b54e02> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bioportfolio.com/resources/pmarticle/83595/The-Role-Of-Ethics-In-Science-And-Engineering.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397795.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00078-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.876812 | 703 | 2.6875 | 3 |
The second Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1915 by William J. Simmons, an ex-minister and promoter of fraternal orders; its first meeting was held on Stone Mt., Ga. The new Klan had a wider program than its forerunner, for it added to "white supremacy" an intense nativism and anti-Catholicism (it was also anti-Semitic) closely related to that of the Know-Nothing movement of the middle 19th cent. Consequently its appeal was not sectional, and, aided after 1920 by the activities of professional promoters Elizabeth Tyler and Edward Y. Clarke, it spread rapidly throughout the North as well as the South. It furnished an outlet for the militant patriotism aroused by World War I, and it stressed fundamentalism in religion.
Professing itself nonpolitical, the Klan nevertheless controlled politics in many communities and in 1922, 1924, and 1926 elected many state officials and a number of Congressmen. Texas, Oklahoma, Indiana, Oregon, and Maine were particularly under its influence. Its power in the Midwest was broken during the late 1920s when David C. Stephenson, a major Klan leader there, was convicted of second-degree murder, and evidence of corruption came out that led to the indictment of the governor of Indiana and the mayor of Indianapolis, both supporters of the Klan. The Klan frequently took extralegal measures, especially against those whom it considered its enemies. As was the case with the earlier Klan, some of these measures, whether authorized by the central organization or not, were extreme.
At its peak in the mid-1920s its membership was estimated at 4 million to 5 million. Although the actual figures were probably much smaller, the Klan nevertheless declined with amazing rapidity to an estimated 30,000 by 1930. The Klan spirit, however, was a factor in breaking the Democratic hold on the South in 1928, when Alfred E. Smith, a Roman Catholic, was that party's presidential candidate. Its collapse thereafter was largely due to state laws that forbade masks and eliminated the secret element, to the bad publicity the organization received through its thugs and swindlers, and apparently from the declining interest of the members. With the depression of the 1930s, dues-paying membership of the Klan shrank to almost nothing. Meanwhile, many of its leaders had done extremely well financially from the dues and the sale of Klan paraphernalia.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:26f866c1-5ab1-4087-a123-087a2a34c472> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.factmonster.com/encyclopedia/history/ku-klux-klan-the-second-ku-klux-klan.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00053-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979199 | 501 | 3.515625 | 4 |
In 1994 Lifestar introduced the worlds first live plant-cell grown vitamin C complex.
Human bodies cannot manufacture vitamin C as most animals do. We are dependent upon getting it in our diet. Vitamin C plays a vast and significant role in our health. It enhances immunity, protects against the harmful effects of pollution, maintains collagen in the formation of connective tissue in skin, ligaments and bones, and it effects arterial walls, capillaries, and the healing of wounds. It is a powerful antioxidant, active in the formation of red blood cells and the production of interferon and anti-stress hormones, effecting the body’s ability to withstand stress, resist infections, and support the body's natural defenses. It also reduces the effects of some allergy-producing substances, and plays a significant role in adrenal gland function and healthy gums. Vitamin C is also involved in the body’s absorption, assimilation, and metabolism of other vitamins and nutrients. Stress, alcohol, smoking, analgesics, oral contraceptives, antidepressants, and steroids may all deplete the body’s levels of vitamin C in a short time.
Until recently, the only raw material available for the production of vitamin C supplements was USP-grade ascorbic acid synthesized from inexpensive sources of glucose, such as corn oil or sago palm with free-form vitamin molecules and no food attachments. Lifestar Vitamin C-500 is in in the form of an exceptional plant-cell-grown complex maximizing absorption into the blood and for the identification and effective utilization of nutrients at the appropriate receptor sites on the surface of the target cells in the body. What this means is that your body gets more of what you take.
Vitamin C-500 is an especially valuable resource for those who are living stressful lives or who are utilizing substances with a depleting effect. It is particularly valuable as additional protection during those months of the year when you are around people with colds and the flu. Vitamin C is necessary for maximum health, and Vitamin C-500 is a powerful ally in anyone’s body who is not consuming sufficient quantities of vitamin-C rich fruits and vegetables on a regular basis.
At Lifestar we believe that nature’s inherent wisdom in the way it creates nutrients in the food chain cannot be surpassed by man’s best efforts to engineer something superior. Up until recently, human beings have been evolving on food and not man-made chemicals. In spite of the best efforts of the health food community, most supplements on the market including the best selling vitamin in the world, vitamin C (ascorbic acid), are isolated free-form chemicals and unlike anything found in the food chain.
In 1994 we introduced the world’s first plant-cell-grown vitamin and mineral supplements, life-like supplements that were created consistent with nature’s wise design following principles dictated by nature. And in their naturalness, they reveal their effectiveness.
As an example; in 1997 a study done by one of the world’s leading authorities on antioxidant phenols revealed some of the distinct advantages of the plant-cell-grown nutrient material used in Lifestar’s Vitamin C. The study was based on phenol analysis. Phenols, or as they are more commonly called “polyphenols”, are a group of chemical substances found in all plants, citrus fruits and trees. Found in polyphenols are a class of biologically active compounds called flavonoids which in turn have small compounds called “oligomeric proanthocyanidins”, usually referred to more simply as OPC’s. They have been shown to be some of the strongest antioxidants found to date and have powerful anticancer properties as well.
The study compared four products for total phenols and, with the exception of ascorbic acid, were measured after hydrolysis with methanolic hydrochloric acid. The products were a pine bark extract, The "X" company (name deleted on damand from the company) vitamin C, ascorbic acid and the plant-cell-grown nutrient material used in Lifestar® Vitamin C. The X Company form of vitamin C is used in three brand name products and one well known multilevel company. The IC50 test is a concentration of antioxidant phenols in the products or a concentration of ascorbic acid to inhibit the oxidation of low density lipoproteins with cupric ion for 6 hours. 1/IC50 was calculated to allow for comparison; the higher the 1/IC50 the more powerful the antioxidant. Thus, the Lifestar Vitamin C nutrient material contained 11.1 times stronger antioxidants than ascorbic acid alone, 7.6 times stronger than The X Company’s vitamin C, and 4.3 times stronger than an expensive well known pine tree bark extract from France.
"...During the 5 years that I owned my health food store, customers continued to come back for the Lifestar supplements because they felt better overall and their digestive system tolerated them better than well known brands. They noticed that they were also healthier than their friends and the people they worked with."
J.C. San Francisco, CA
The information on this site is subject to change without notice. Copyright 1997-2014 Lifestar®. All rights reserved | <urn:uuid:518c113d-27ad-48de-a78a-a8914dddb670> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.lifestar.com/Pages/vitaminc.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00153-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941585 | 1,098 | 2.625 | 3 |
Sesame is a unique food. The consumption of whole and ground seeds as well as its oil dates back to ancient times. The cultivation of sesame is as old as that of rice, and is estimated to have begun over 6000 years ago. Sesame started being cultivated in Palestine and Syria at around 3000 BC. Findings in Egypt suggest that the ancient Egyptians were familiar with sesame cultivation, and they considered it to be a high source of energy for human nutrition.
Inscriptions stored at the British Museum mention that the Assyrian gods would drink sesame wine before storming into battle. Sesame was so precious that the ancient Assyrians would negotiate their loans in silver or sesame seeds. Herodotus mentions that the Babylonians were also familiar with the cultivation of sesame (1750 BC), as well as with pasteli. Sesame has been found in Tutankhamen's tomb (14 th century BC) and in the cape of Thera (destroyed by an earthquake in 1628 BC). Marko Polo also mentions that in 1298 AD, the Persians would use sesame and its products for food, massage, in remedies, as lighting oil and in cosmetics.
In ancient Greece, sesame w as used as food and in the production of medicine. Hippocrates praised its high nutritional value and Galene used it as medicine against the disruption of milk in breastfeeding women, against uterus exulceration and leucorrhoea. Also, sesame oil was used on the face to reduce freckles (Hippophantes). As a food, sesame was very popular in the ancient Greek cuisine. Athineos, mentions in "Deipnosofistes" that he considers sesame as one of the main foods of ancient Greeks. In “Irini", Aristophanes mentions one of the uses of sesame, known to our days: “The chicken is baked. The sesame pasteli is kneaded”. In "Vatrahomiomahies" “sousamotiro” is mentioned, which was obviously a mixture of cheese and tahini. Sisamis, a mixture of sesame and honey (a kind of halva) was offered in weddings, and knikon was made of floury milk and garnished with honey and sesame. | <urn:uuid:ddd6fe71-8c39-4e19-9a68-262b23d8c575> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sesame.gr/en/istorika.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00175-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979871 | 482 | 3.3125 | 3 |
First of all, olives, Olea europa, are a FRUIT! Think of a plum, or an avocado, or any other drupe (a fruit with a pit). Olives may not be sweet, but in the botanical scheme of things, they are fruits. They are in the family Oleaceae, a large and varied family which includes all lilacs, forsythia, true ash as well as the noble olive. In fact most words for "oil" worldwide seem to be derived from or related to the genus name Olea.
Olives have long been a sign of peace. In ancient Mediterranean warfare, to take out your enemy's infrastructure, you just burned all their olive trees. In one bold move you deprived the village of oil to burn for light and for cooking, olives to eat, olive wood to burn, and the village was at your mercy. But in a few years their olive trees grew back, because of their deep wide roots, and this time they burned your olive trees down. Offering an olive branch became a sign of peace. Read more at this link.
In the time of the Biblical story of the Flood, Noah sent a dove (another symbol of peace) that returned with an olive branch, indicating the reappearance of dry land. Later on, in Deuteronomy, it was explained that the olive and its oil were one of seven foods necessary for the survival of the Hebrew people. Olive oil was sacred to the ancient Hebrews, who used it not just to cook with and for light (which was sacred as well) but for annointing the dead. The beautiful, hard and long-lasting wood of the olive tree was used in constructing altars and temples.
There are stories from almost every Mediterranean culture about which god (actually, it was usually a goddess) was responsible for the cultivation of olive trees, which provided so many useful items for the people living around the Mediterranean basin. Greece has Athena as the responsible deity; Egypt gives the credit to Isis. Romans thanked Hercules for bringing the olive tree from Africa but Minerva (the analog to Athena) for teaching them how to cultivate it. The richness of stories about the tree shows how important it was to the region. In the 6th century BC, Athens had laws protecting olive trees. Olives feature prominantly in the works of ancient writers such as Homer, Pliny, and Aristotle. Greeks used olives for all the previously mentioned uses; they also liked to rub it on the bodies of their athletes. In the Olympic Games of Ancient Greece, winners were crowned with a laurel wreath but they were awarded an olive branch as well. And back to the Bible, olives and olive oil are mentioned between 30-100 times, depending on whom you ask. (I didn't count, myself.)
Fossilized leaves of Olea have been found in northern Africa that are 37,000 years old, indicatimg that Olea is an old genus indeed. Whether O. europa was hybridized by early humans or evolved to suit their needs so perfectly is unknown. Maybe it really was Hercules. However they got started, there are now thousands of cultivars of olives, one to suit every taste and then some.
The olive tree is usually kept pruned for easier picking but can grow over 40 feet tall and quite wide, and live for over a thousand years. It is known to flourish in soil that resembles that of coastal areas. Olives are usually harvested by hand.
Olives start off green, some cultivars turning purple or black as they ripen and some remaining green. They are extremely high in oleuropein, an anti-oxidant that is actually toxic at the levels present in unprocessed olives. Since ancient times, olives have been processed one of several ways:
Maybe with lye: Lye (alkaline) was used in ancient days to make soap and tan leather. It also removes the bitter toxins from olives. Of course they undergo a lengthy rinsing process afterwards! Secondly, with salt: Either dry-packed in salt or soaked in brine, salt-curing leaches the liquid portion of the olive out along with the bitter anti-oxidants; storing them in olive oil plumps them back up again. Olives can also be cured with fresh water (sounds safer): these olives are soaked in water baths which are changed daily, until the bitterness has been washed out.
Lastly, green olives are preserved by fermentation. Somehow a natural lactic acid (like yogurt) converts the bitter oleuropein into a pungent flavor which many enjoy. These are often sold pitted and stuffed with a pimento, or with something else small and savory (an almond, blue cheese, capers, anchovy paste). The fermentation method produces firmer, dryer olives, which are usually sold in a brine solution. This is the typical martini olive with pimento (not my drink so please don't ask for more details).
On a drive from San Francisco north to southern Oregon one summer, my husband and I stopped at The Olive Pit in Corning, CA, where it turns out half of all olives in California are processed! I didn't know that then, and besides, we were hurrying through. But this store called The Olive Pit has stuffed olives of every description, green olives stuffed with blue cheese, ripe olives stuffed with feta cheese, Kalamata olives stuffed with pimentos, plus all those combinations in different permutations, with jalapeño peppers, with chili peppers, ad infimitum. They also sold marinated olives, tapenades, ah, if only my husband liked olives nearly as much as I did!
Spain actually has a glut of olive oil this year; too many olives producing too much olive oil for the market. Spain, Italy, Greece, and Turkey are the world leaders in olive production (with 2009 statistics), and the relative newcomers of California and Australia don't even place! However, it takes at least four years for an olive tree to start producing a crop. Tunisia had 2,300,000 hectares planted with olives and Spain had only 200,000 more: 2,500,000 hectares. Yet in the figures given, Spain produced 6,402,700 tons and Tunisia only 750,000 tons. What do those numbers look like four years later now that Tunisia's trees have had a chance to start really producing?
All those yummy little phytochemicals that make cranberries and blueberries so healthy are also present in olives, and lots of research is being done about exactly how olives and oleupeurine can be used to maximize our health. For more information, check out this link. Nutritional information--exactly how many calories, how much salt, etc., can be found at World's Healthiest Foods but don't let the numbers scare you; few people consume olives one cup at a time!
Most of us would benefit from including more olives in our diet. Try one, and if you don't like it, try another kind. Olives can be chopped up and kneaded, with nuts, into bread dough, buzzed with tarragon, garlic and thyme and spread on a cracker, or just eaten straight out of the can. (Store it in the juice but in a different container in the fridge.) My favorite are California ripe olives, which are the Mission variety; I'll eat Kalamata or Greek olives if they're leftover on your plate or in a Greek salad but I wouldn't eat a green olive unless I were feeling adventurous. Well, I haven't yet at least. Which is your favorite olive?
pictures: thumbnail image: dish of black olives, by Gabriel Stiritz. available under Creative Commons License; Köhler's Medicinal Plants of 1897 illustration, public domain; green olives with pimentos by ronnieb of morguefile; olives at farmer's market at Toulons, France, by David Monniaux, available under Creative Commons License. | <urn:uuid:dd4c22ff-e597-424a-8e91-04d96d6fa71f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/3603/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00144-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970931 | 1,685 | 3.359375 | 3 |
Ancient Jewish prayers still recited today include special mention of dew in the summer and rain in the winter. Survival of Israelites back then, and of the Israelis in modern times, rests largely on how much water is available for agriculture. While Israel has answers to drought such as desalinating water, researchers in Israel's Negev Desert look for more sustainable solutions that have been in use on the land since time immemorial.
Based on techniques used by the ancient Nabateans, Prof. Pedro Berliner, director of Israel's Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research at Ben-Gurion University in the Negev, is reviving effective and natural desert farming methods from 2,000 years ago.
The Nabateans settled the lands of present-day Israel, Jordan (where they built the glorious pink city of Petra), Saudi Arabia and Syria. Berliner believes that their system for making the most of rare desert rain, when put into a modern framework, could save people in developing countries from desertification, drought and famine. His updated technique is already in use worldwide.
Altering the ecosystem
The Nabatean approach altered the ecosystem of the land by collecting and channeling floodwaters through desert canals to provide food, firewood and fodder for animals.
"They developed their system and it was copied westward during the Byzantine Empire," Berliner told me. "In the end a very large part of North Africa was being cultivated using this technique, which is still seen today in Tunisia."
Berliner's contemporary version, the runoff agroforestry system, involves planting rows of trees with crops in between the rows that help prevent floodwater from evaporating. Adding legume plants provides composted leaves that are an excellent fertilizer for the crops in between the trees.
People under threat of desertification can use this sustainable method to ensure they can produce grain, fodder from the leaves of the trees for grazing animals, and firewood using the branches.
An entire community can be built around winter rain runoff, as Berliner explains when he travels around the world showing researchers and farmers in countries such as Kenya, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, India and Mexico how they can fight against desertification looking to Mother Nature, the way the Nabateans did.
"It's difficult to assess where this is being used today because it is a technique that can be used by any farmer," he says. "It's one of the techniques to combat dry lands in developing countries. They don't need to build a pipeline for the water."
Sustainable, simple, low energy solution
In Israel, the runoff agroforestry system is currently being used by Bedouins to farm olive groves and in Wadi Mashash, the desert research farm maintained by Ben Gurion University, where Berliner does his field work.
Desertification -- the encroachment of non-arable land into areas once suitable for farming and grazing -- is expected to get worse as the effects of global warming intensify. As the planet's population increases, so does the need for wood for fuel and land for grazing, two more factors that greatly increase desertification.
Winter flood runoff techniques helped the Nabateans survive and protect their trade routes -- they specialized in transporting perfumes and spices from Saudi Arabia via camel caravans through to the Gaza port -- until they were conquered by the more powerful Romans. But their legacy in water on the land of Israel lives on. | <urn:uuid:12f994ac-8a0b-4220-ac9a-d2fb06f24d37> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karin-kloosterman/how-ancient-wisdom-pushes_b_1608377.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398516.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00039-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94763 | 708 | 3.90625 | 4 |
Next: SEEINGPOSITIONING, AND ATMOSPHERIC LOSSES
Previous: FIBER SPECTRAL TRANSMISSION
Up: INSTRUMENT PERFORMANCE
Fiber to fiber throughput variations do exist. The top half of Figure 8 shows a typical cross section of a flat field obtained for the red fiber cable.
Figure 8: Cross section plot of spatial profiles. UPDATED FIGURE NOT YET AVAILABLE
A similar cross section is shown in the bottom half of Figure 8 for the blue cable. These fiber-to-fiber differences are most likely due to the quality of the prism attached to the input end of the fiber and inherent stresses in each fiber. Spectrograph vignetting across the spatial dimension is apparent in both figures. | <urn:uuid:288aac87-a02e-4977-b2ce-3b9ee594f077> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.noao.edu/kpno/manuals/hydraman/node33.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00015-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.827623 | 162 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Impulsive Adolescents More Likely to Drink Heavily
Jim LiebeltJim Liebelt's Blog
- 2013 Jul 04
Scientists at the University of Liverpool have shown that young people who show impulsive tendencies are more prone to drinking heavily at an early age.
The research team used computer tests that measured inhibitory control, the ability to delay gratification, and risk-taking. More than 280 young people who were aged 12 or 13 at the beginning of the study took part in the study. The participants repeated the computer tests every six months over the two years of the study.
Results showed that those participants who were more impulsive in the tests went on to drink more heavily or have problems with alcohol at a later time.
The study did not, however, show that alcohol consumption led to increased impulsive behaviour on the computer tests. This suggests that there is a link between impulsivity and adolescent drinking, but that alcohol may not necessarily lead to increased impulsive behaviour in the short-term. | <urn:uuid:77106460-9aa4-4e88-ab0c-88b446cb13c2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.crosswalk.com/blogs/liebelt/impulsive-adolescents-more-likely-to-drink-heavily.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397567.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00043-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960373 | 203 | 2.859375 | 3 |
CINCINNATI (AP) — With the survival of a species on the line, Cincinnati Zoo scientists are hoping to mate their lone female Sumatran rhino with her little brother.
The desperation breeding effort with the rhino siblings follows a recent crisis summit in Singapore where conservationists concluded as few as 100 of the two-horned, hairy rhinos might remain in their native southeast Asia. The species numbers have fallen by up to 90 percent since the mid-1980s as development takes away habitat space and poachers hunt them for their prized horns.
Rhinos overall are dwindling globally, and the Sumatran species descended from Ice Age woolly rhinos is one of the most critically endangered.
The Cincinnati Zoo has been a pioneer in captive breeding of the rhino species, producing the first three born in captivity in modern times. Its conservationists this month brought back the youngest, 6-year-old Harapan, from the Los Angeles Zoo and soon will try to have him mate with the zoo’s female — his biological sister — 8-year-old Suci.
“We absolutely need more calves for the population as a whole; we have to produce as many as we can as quickly as we can,” said Terri Roth, who heads the zoo’s Center for Research of Endangered Wildlife. “The population is in sharp decline and there’s a lot of urgency around getting her pregnant.”
Critics of captive breeding programs say they often do more harm than good and can create animals less likely to survive in the wild. Inbreeding increases the possibility of bad genetic combinations for offspring.
“We don’t like to do it, and long term, we really don’t like to do it,” Roth said, adding that the siblings’ parents were genetically diverse, which is a positive for the plan. “When your species is almost gone, you just need animals and that matters more than genes right now — these are two of the youngest, healthiest animals in the population.”
The parents of the three rhinos born in Cincinnati have died, but their eldest offspring, 11-year-old Andalas, was moved to a sanctuary in Indonesia where he last year became a father after mating with a wild-born rhino there.
The first coordinated effort at captive breeding began in the 1980s, and about half the initial 40 breeding rhinos died without a successful pregnancy. Roth, who began working on the rhino project in 1996, said it took years just to understand their eating habits and needs and decades more to understand their mating patterns. The animals tend not to be interested in companionship, let alone romance.
“They’re definitely difficult to breed because they’re so solitary,” Roth said. “You can’t just house them together. So the only time you can get a successful breeding is if you just put them together when the female is going to be receptive.”
Mating between such close rhino relatives might happen in the wild, Roth said, but it’s difficult to know because the animals are so rare. If the offspring of such a mating then bred with an unrelated rhino, the genetic diversity would resume in the next generation, she said.
Harapan, who weighs about 1,650 pounds, will be kept separate from his sister, who is a little smaller. On a recent morning at the zoo here, he slathered himself in a mud hole, then ambled over to settle down in a pool of water.
When the time is right to reintroduce the rhinos, the zoo team won’t dim the lights or play mood music. Instead, they will use a system of gates to bring the pair together. If they begin to fight or show other behavior indicating things aren’t going well, the team will try to separate them, using bananas for distraction.
Before then, Roth and the other scientists will have measured Harapan’s testosterone levels while using ultrasound and other monitoring to know when Suci is ovulating.
“You should use the science to guide you,” Roth said. “We have really relied on the science.”
If the breeding is successful, the zoo will be celebrating a fourth Sumatran rhino birth about 16 months later. If not, other efforts will continue.
Indonesian conservationists have been trying to mate Andalas, the oldest brother, with two other females there after last year’s success. His semen has also been banked, but there have been no reported successful artificial inseminations yet.
At the Singapore summit, Indonesian and Malaysian authorities pledged to work together more closely on species survival efforts. Conservationists say special rhino protection patrols have thwarted poachers who kill rhinos to take horns that can be worth tens of thousands of dollars on the black market. The horns are sought for medicinal and other uses — by legend, rhino horns are said to have aphrodisiac powers.
While the Sumatran rhino isn’t a particularly popular or even recognizable animal to the public at large, Roth said, the species contributes to the global need for healthy forests with its role in the ecosystem clearing small saplings and brush, and helping spread seeds and make trails smaller animals use. Also, the rhinos don’t threaten humans nor damage their crops.
“There’s no human-rhino conflict,” Roth said. “Are we going to put enough value in wildlife to share the earth with this ancient, peaceful, noninvasive species? If we let the Sumatran rhino die, what are we going to save?”
Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden: http://cincinnatzoo.org
Contact the reporter at http://www.twitter.com/dansewell | <urn:uuid:86f95656-fac4-4b1b-a86b-a67f0422cfe1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ksn.com/2013/07/21/apnewsbreak-ohio-zoo-tries-to-mate-rhino-siblings/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00146-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953155 | 1,220 | 3.21875 | 3 |
KUNASHIR, SOUTHERN KURILES — RESIDENTS of this remote island gathered on Sept. 3 under leaden skies to mark the anniversary of the Soviet ``liberation'' of the Southern Kuriles from Japan in the closing days of World War II. Medal-laden veterans and schoolchildren carrying flowers stood in front of a red stone monument as officials eulogized fallen Soviet soldiers.
For years, the Soviet authorities had sealed off these islands. Dispute over their sovereignty remains the single reason Japan and the Soviet Union have not signed a peace treaty in the 44 years since the end of the war and the major obstacle to the warming of what remain relatively chilly relations.
While observing their annual ritual, island officials are also eagerly seeking a return of the Japanese - and the vast trade and investment they could bring to this isolated area. The Soviets have recently opened the islands to foreign visitors, including to this tour by a group of Tokyo-based Western reporters.
``We want our islands to be developed,'' local official Leonid Stashkevich explains to the guests.
The rich lands of Japan are tantalizingly visible across the narrow channel which separates this island from the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. Island residents avidly follow sumo wrestling and late-night ``sexy television'' on the six channels of Japanese television they receive.
The Japanese government, however, remains determined that its citizens not walk through the newly opened Soviet door. Japan claims the islands - Kunashir, Iturup, Shikotan, and the Habomai group - are historically its territory and were seized without justification in 1945.
The Japanese government insists that return of the islands is the price Moscow must pay for the Japanese investment it seeks to develop the vast resources of the Soviet Far East.
``What we are saying to Japanese business and even sometimes to Soviets,'' a Japanese government official says, ``is you can't have the economic side moving ahead and leaving the territorial question behind.''
Government pressure blocked a Hokkaido native's plan for a joint fishing venture and last week halted the visit of a Cabinet minister who planned to accompany Japanese visiting the graves of their relatives. According to the editor of a major Japanese daily, the government's heavy hand even blocked Japanese newsmen from joining the recent tour.
For Tokyo such contacts would be tantamount to recognizing Soviet sovereignty over the islands, which Japan refers to as its ``Northern Territories.''
The government only approves the visits of former Japanese residents to the graves of their relatives, which since last year, after a 19-year gap, the Soviets permit to take place without visas or passports.
Japanese government propaganda depicts the ``Northern Territories'' as an armed camp on its shores, emphasizing the presence of Soviet military forces on the islands. According to Japanese defense officials, about a division of Army troops are on the islands, along with 40 Soviet MIG-23 jets based on Iturup.
In allowing visitors onto these fog-shrouded isles, Moscow is clearly eager to dispel that image. The Soviets want visitors to see islands populated by hardy fishermen, now into a fourth generation of islanders, who are here in the Southern Kuriles to stay.
The Tokyo-based group arrived in a 48-seat propeller aircraft from nearby Sakhalin, the large island which is the capital of the entire region. After one failed attempt to penetrate the low clouds, the plane landed at an airport on a runway surfaced with corrugated metal sheets, surrounded by military radar sites.
A packed-earth road curves through forested hills down to a black sand shoreline and a gray sea. It leads into Yuzhno-Kurilsk (South Kuriles), a dreary town of 7,000, mostly fishermen and their families. The town acts as the main port and administrative center for Kunashir, Shikotan, and the uninhabited Habomai group.
The military is everpresent. Young troops wearing the badges of a tank unit sit in trucks by a wooden pier, waiting to be ferried to a freighter for transfer back to Sakhalin.
There are units on these islands, says local government chief executive Yevgeny Soldatenko, ``but no bases.'' More importantly, local officials say they have ambitious plans to develop these islands for the sake of the residents. They submitted a 10-year, 200 million ruble ($320 million) plan which has received approval in Moscow. Concrete buildings, including a new school, department store, and cultural center, are going up on a hillside above the port. The weather-beaten two-story wooden barracks, many of them protected from the harsh weather by tar paper, are to be replaced with more substantial housing, they hope.
With more local autonomy promised, says local Communist Party chief Vyascheslov Gudakov, the islands hope to keep more of the money from their fish exports.
``We won't give all the money to Moscow - we'll spend it here,'' Mr. Gudakov says.
It is the marine resources that are, by all appearances, South Kurile islands' main value to the Soviet Union. The waters around these islands, where cold and warm currents converge, are said to be among the three richest fishing grounds in the world. About 6,800 people live on Shikotan, most of them working in what officials say is the largest fish processing factory in the Soviet Far East. Another cannery is on Kunashir, where a fleet of fishing boats operates from the port.
The waters are filled with crab, salmon, seaweed, and other marine life, abundant enough to attract Japanese and Taiwanese fishing boats to violate routinely Soviet waters and negotiated fishing rights, Soviet officials charge. High-speed Japanese boats, operating out of nearby Japanese port of Nemuro, zip close offshore with nets to poach crab in their spawning grounds, complains fishing company official Sergei Avramenko.
The local government says it hopes these riches will be enough to entice more legal forms of foreign business involvement. Residents talk optimistically about creating a ``special economic zone'' on the island, offering tax and other enticements to foreign firms to develop tourism, the local industry, and trade with Japan and other countries.
The islanders are carrying out their own ``peace offensive'' with Moscow's blessing. A local historical group, the Frigate Society, has been formed with the dual aim of pressing Moscow's historic claim to the islands and trying to open links to Japan. Fedor Pyzhyanov, the energetic schoolteacher who heads the society, offers ``people- to-people'' diplomacy, including exchanges with the Japanese society for the return of the islands and even suggesting Japanese residents could return to live there.
On July 2 the Frigate Society staged a reenactment of the first Russian ``discovery'' of the islands, 250 years before. The first Western newsmen to go to the Southern Kuriles were invited to witness this assertion of the legitimacy of Soviet authority.
During peace-treaty negotiations in 1956, the Soviets offered to return Shikotan and the Habomais, a deal which many analysts say the Soviets may still accept, although Tokyo refuses anything but return of all the islands. Japanese government officials say they have seen no sign of shift in the Soviet official stance that the post-World War II borders are permanent. A Western intelligence official in Tokyo speculates that the upsurge of nationalist sentiments in the Baltic republics, which came under Soviet control during World War II, would make Moscow even more reluctant to consider redrawing boundaries.
The islanders react angrily to the idea that anyone - including Moscow - might trade their home for Japanese money. ``Now in the period of perestroika (restructuring), our government should take into account the opinion of ordinary people,'' society chairman Pyzhyanov says angrily, ``especially when the decision concerns the fate of these people.''
``Our desire is that this land should belong to the Russian people who live there,'' says Pavil Kuznechenko, editor of the local paper, On the Frontier.
If the Japanese insist on their political demands as a precondition for economic ties, Mr. Kuznechenko threatens, they will go to others. Only two weeks ago, he recounts, a nine-man South Korean delegation headed by a ruling party parliamentarian spent three days on the island looking at possibilities of developing fishing and seaweed extract resources.
The prospect ahead, a Japanese official in Tokyo says somewhat wearily, is only for a ``long discussion.'' | <urn:uuid:ddf27bfa-3c30-41ba-864c-c41b5ba323da> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.csmonitor.com/1989/0912/okuril.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00040-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952941 | 1,770 | 2.59375 | 3 |
The Tanzanian spray toad is a rare amphibian that has been living almost entirely in captivity for the past decade. The New York Times recently reported that the animal now has nowhere to live in the wild. Less than three quarters of an inch long, the toad used to flourish in a waterfall off the Tanzania's Kihansi River. But the river was in dammed in 2000, reducing the river to 10 percent of its former flow and virtually destroying the toad’s natural habitat.
This is bad news for the remaining 4,000 toads, all of whom of live in the Bronx Zoo and the Wildlife Conversation Society in Toledo, Ohio. The spray toad, known as Nectophrynoides asperginis, only exists today because scientists rescued them from Tanzania when the dam first opened. The toads have been preserved in the United States while living in misty tanks.
Discovered in 1998, as many as 20,000 of the species lived in the misty waterfall tract on the Kihansi. When the dam went into operation in 2000, the moisture-dependent plants disappeared, taking most of the toads with them. The tiny amphibians were also attacked by pandemic of chytrid fungus, which has wiped out at least 120 species worldwide.
And so, scientists sprung into action, collecting 499 spray toads into coolers for a plane ride back to the Bronx Zoo. Jim Breheny, the director of the Bronx Zoo, puts it bluntly, “It was get on the plane, collect them, get back.” Through trial and error, caretakers managed to keep the toads alive at the Bronx and Toledo zoos.
But the entire effort has called into question the logistics of preserving a species that has no place left to live. It is estimated that millions of dollars have been spent to save the tiny toads, and even more research has gone into attempts to develop a safe environment for them in the wild. As Breheny points out to the NY Times, “given the small number of spray toads, their minuscule range and their extreme vulnerability to environmental disturbance,” it may one day be determined that returning them to the wild will be impossible. And then, the entire effort would have to be re-evaluated.
One would expect the preservationists to argue that the dam should have never been built. But scientists are quick to point out that Tanzania is a poor country that needs an electricity source. And so, the issue remains a complex one.
The NY Times reports that, this month, the Bronx Zoo will display the tiny toads in a small exhibit in its Reptile House.
For further reading: Saving tiny toads without a home | <urn:uuid:c3f4f8f4-5c96-4565-962c-05d294bdeda8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/endangered-tiny-toads-in-captivity-are-homeless-in-wild | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00139-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96292 | 563 | 3.65625 | 4 |
- Objects – Packaging data and functionality together into units within a running computer program; objects are the basis of modularity and structure in an object-oriented computer program.
- Abstraction – The ability for a program to ignore some aspects of the information that it is manipulating, i.e. the ability to focus on the essential.
- Encapsulation – Ensures that users of an object cannot change the internal state of the object in unexpected ways; only the object's own internal methods are allowed to access its state. Each object exposes an interface that specifies how other objects may interact with it.
- Polymorphism via message sending. Instead of subroutine calls, object-oriented languages can make message sends; the specific method which responds to a message send depends on what specific object the message is sent to. This gains polymorphism, because a single variable in the program text can hold different kinds of objects as the program runs, and thus the same program text can invoke different methods at different times in the same execution. To contrast, functional languages gain polymorphism through the use of first-class functions.
- Inheritance- Organizes and facilitates polymorphism and encapsulation by permitting objects to be defined and created that are specialized types of already-existing objects – these can share (and extend) their behavior without having to reimplement that behavior. (Object-based languages do not always have inheritance.)
The idea behind object-oriented programming is that a computer program is composed of a collection of individual units, or objects, as opposed to a traditional view in which a program is little more than a list of instructions to the computer. Each object is capable of receiving messages, processing data, and sending messages to other objects. In this way, messages can be handled, as appropriate, by one chunk of code or by many in a seamless way. Thus, it is claimed that this gives more flexibility, easing making changes to the program.
Furthermore, proponents of OOP claim that OOP is more intuitive and that it is easier to learn, for those new to computer programming, than previous approaches. In OOP, objects are simple, self contained and easily identifiable. This modularity allows the program parts to correspond to real aspects of the problem and thereby to model the real world. Object-oriented programming often begins from a written statement of the problem situation. Then by a process of inserting objects or variables for nouns, methods for verbs and attributes for adjectives, a good start is made on a framework for a program that models, and deals with, that situation.
Today, there is general recognition that the OOP approach is often simpler to develop and to maintain, lending itself to more intuitive analysis, coding, and understanding of complex situations and procedures than other programming methods.
Abstraction: Each object in the system serves as a model of an abstract "actor" that can perform work, report on and change its state, and "communicate" with other objects in the system, without revealing how these features are implemented. Processes, functions or methods may also be so abstracted, and when they are, a variety of techniques are required to extend an abstraction:
Polymorphism: A Greek prefix poly means multi or many and a suffix -morphism a specified form. In OOP, polymorphism denotes a situation in which an object can be seen in more than one form. This form may mean a datatype in a typed language, but may mean something else in an untyped language. For example, if a bird receives the message "move fast", it will flap its wings and fly. If a lion receives the same message, it will move its legs and run. Both answer the same request, but in ways appropriate to each creature.
OOP as a new paradigm, point of view or marketing term
Like many other buzzwords, OOP has been subject to much contention as to its precise definition or its principal ideas.
OOP is essentially a marketing term, that has been used to cover several completely different code decomposition paradigms.
In the most general terms, OOP is the practice of writing program text decomposed in modules that encapsulate the representation of one data type per module, instead of collections of functions that call each other, or clauses that trigger each other.
They have been brought together, with associated terminology, to create a programming framework. Together the ideas behind OO are said to be so powerful they create a paradigm shift in programming.
OOP arose independently out of research into simulation system oriented languages, with SIMULA 67, and out of research into highly secure system architectures, with capability based OS and CPU architectures.
Some experts say that the original definition of Object-oriented came from the object in grammar. The requirements for the software is always subject-oriented and since the requirements for the subject is often complicated, monolithic complicated programs were created.
Some of the researchers at that time started thinking in an object-oriented way, which was a paradigm shift from the usual subject-oriented thinking.
According to the object-oriented principles, the verb is attached to the object and logic associated to the requirement is handled in the object. The following are some examples of the ways by which a subject oriented requirement is translated into object oriented thinking:
- Subject oriented: The Sales Application saves the Transaction
- Object oriented: The Transaction saves itself upon receiving a message from the Sales Application
- Subject oriented: The Sales Application prints the Receipt
- Object oriented: The Receipt prints itself upon receiving a message from the Sales Application
Objects' data is generally required to satisfy programmer-defined constraints (i.e. class invariants). A datatype restricted with such constraint is a subtype of the same datatype without the constraint. These constraints are then both relied on and preserved by the actions (methods) defined for the data. These constraints may either be explicitly declared or implicitly assumed by the programmer. Object-oriented languages provide mechanisms for ensuring that such assumptions are local to one part of the program. They are usually part of documentation of object-oriented programs.
OOP itself has been used to market many products and services and the actual definitions and benefits attributed to OOP have often been colored by commercial marketing goals. Similarly, many programming languages have a specific view to OOP that is less general in certain aspects from the more general definition.
Widely-used terminology distinguishes object-oriented programming from object-based. The former is held to include inheritance (described below), while the latter does not.
The exact definitions of these have some variation depending on point of view. In particular, languages with static typing often have slightly different view of OO than languages with dynamic typing, caused by focus on compile-time vs. run-time properties of the programs.
Notes: Abstraction is important to but not unique to OOP. Reusability is a benefit often attributed to OOP.
OOP is often called a paradigm rather than a style or type of programming to emphasize the point that OOP can change the way software is developed, by changing the way that programmers and software engineers think about software.
The paradigm of OOP is essentially not that of programming but one of design. A system is designed by defining the objects that will exist in that system, the code which actually does the work is irrelevant to the object, or the people using the object, due to encapsulation. The challenge in OOP therefore is of designing a sane object system.
It should be noted that there are distinct parallels between the object-oriented paradigm and Systems theory. OOP focuses on objects as units in a system, whereas systems theory focuses on the system itself. And in-between, one may find software design patterns or other techniques that use classes and objects as building blocks for larger components. Such components can be seen as a necessary step from the object-oriented paradigm towards the more "real-life oriented" models of systems theory.
OOP is a decomposition paradigm for program code, not a model for computation.
OOP is often confused with the Actor model of computation by Hewitt, in which as the overall computation happens, each actor is capable of receiving messages, processing data, and sending messages to other actors.
In fact, almost all OOP languages and systems, including all the major ones such as SIMULA, Smalltalk-80, C++, Java, C#, are based on the imperative model of computation, a few on the functional and logical models, and extremely few on the Actor model.
In OOP the emphasis is not on how computation is organized, but on how program text is decomposed into modules, because it is this decomposition that matters as to the program text's comprehensibility and maintainability.
OOP is based on the assumption that the program text's comprehensibility and maintainability is improved by decompositing it into modules, and that the best way to decompose it into modules is to minimize dependencies among modules and the cohesion of functions inside the module, and that this is best achieved by encapsulating the representation of a data type in each module.
However, it is recognized that OOP does not necessarily mean lack of complexity. Meta class programming (see Meta class) for example is a demanding skill, and OOP programs can have a complex web of shared or distinct responsibilities, attributes and methods. It can be challenging to distribute responsibility over objects, or classes—one of many popular implementation schemes.
Objective verification of such benefits beyond narrow niches is elusive. It is often heavily debated whether the benefits of OOP are based on universal truths or based on a fit to human psychology. "Would aliens prefer OOP?" is sometimes used as a thought-provoking question. Consider that the difficulties in managing inter-object responsibilities and cooperation are strikingly similar to those in how we struggle with inter-personal communication. It is quite reasonable to a assume that the model may be very appropriate for humans at our current state of social development (all else we leave to discussions on social archetypes). However, it must be noted that thinking patterns can vary widely per individual. Universal statements about how people in general think or should think should be taken with a grain of salt.
OOP with procedural languages:
In procedural languages, OOP often appears as a form where data types are extended to behave like a type of an object in OOP, very similar to an abstract data type with an extension such as inheritance. Each method is actually a subprogram which is syntactically bound to a class.
See Class-based OOP.
The classification approach is so predominant in OOP that many people would define objects as encapsulations that share data by classification and inheritance. However, the more generic term "behavior sharing" acknowledges alternate techniques such as prototyping.
Object-based programming is centered around the creation of objects and their interactions, but may not have some of the key features of the class-based object-oriented paradigm such as inheritance. Some people regard OBP as not OOP.
In this model, the "receiver" argument to a message is not given special status in message dispatch. Instead, the runtime values of all arguments to message are consulted to determine which method should be executed at runtime. This is related to double or multimethod dispatch.
Note that some feel that set theory or predicate logic is better suited to tackle this kind of complexity.
Hierarchical taxonomies often do not match the real world and real-world changes according to some critics, and should be avoided. However, many OOP proponents also suggest avoiding hierarchies, instead using OO techniques such as "composition". A simple way of avoiding over-specification of hierarchies when modelling the real world is to consider the most specific types of objects and model relationships between those.
While OOP is popular for managing access to lower-level or external services, it has proven more difficult and inconsistent for "business modeling". Also, many feel that OOP runs counter to the philosophy of relational modeling and relational databases, returning to the navigational database arrangements of the 1960s. It is not clear that this is the fault of OOP, since database modelling is based fundamentally on different premises than object-oriented modelling. In any case, relational database tables map to associations in object-oriented models, and the differences seem to be purely due to differences in focus. There is a history of misinterpretation of the relationship between object-oriented and relational modelling, which may muddy this issue. Also, there are variances in opinions about the roles and definitions of each. For example, some feel that OOP unnecessarily will copy noun relationship information from the database, when "once and only once" (no duplication) mantra dictates that such is bad practice. Others, in contrast, feel that OOP does not require this duplication, even though some existing OOP-to-relational database products mistakenly take this view, confusing object's data with relationship data. These people would also argue that strict distinctions should be made between data associated with the modelled objects, data associated with the roles and data associated with associations; in particular, object's data should not be (directly) stored in databases by this view, because databases are not a suitable storage for objects, the object already has some mechanism for storing its private information, and storage in database would require unnecessary replication between the object's image in its own storage and the database. The impedance mismatch between databases and OOP is caused by difference of scale between operations performed by objects and databases; database transactions, the smallest unit of work performed by databases, are much larger than any operations provided by OOP objects. Instead, by this view, databases are good for storing relationships between objects and the references to objects that are associated with roles that those relationships are built on; objects' data could only be stored in databases after collecting and summarising data from groups of objects. Object's private representation details have no place in databases.
Needless to say, the "proper" relationship between OOP and databases is a complex and contentious topic which currently has no consensus solution.
While it is claimed that OOP is better for "large applications", others feel that large applications should instead be reduced to many small applications, such as event-driven procedures that "feed" off of a database and declarative programming-based user interface frameworks.
The bottom line of the conflict seems to be that OOP is mostly a behaviorist view of software design which conflicts with the data-centric, declarative view. In the first, the "interfaces" are primarily behaviors, and data is grouped into objects. In the second the interfaces are primarily data (declarations) and behaviours are grouped into functions, such as "tasks", or "events". The tradeoffs of each approach are complex and often delve deep into human psychology theories. Sometimes both are used, such that OOP is used to build platform facilities and functional or declarative method is used to build applications for the platform.
Some feel that past criticisms leveled against procedural techniques are based upon poor languages, poor coding practices, or lack of knowledge about how to properly use databases instead of code to manage state and "noun models".
There have been several attempts on formalizing the concepts used in object-oriented programming. The following concepts and constructs have been used as interpretations of OOP concepts:
- coalgebraic datatypes
- existential quantification and modules
- records and record extensions
- F-bounded polymorphism
Attempts to find a consensus definition or theory behind objects have not proven very successful, and often diverge widely. For example, some definitions focus on mental activities, and some on mere program structuring. One of the simpler definitions is that OOP is the act of using "map" data structures or arrays that can contain functions and pointers to other maps, all with some syntactic and scoping sugar on top. Inheritance can be performed by cloning the maps (sometimes called "prototyping").
Scripting and OOP
See also: dynamic language
The concept of objects and instances in computing had its first major breakthrough with the PDP-1 system at MIT which was probably the earliest example of capability based architecture. Another early indication was Sketchpad made by Ivan Sutherland in 1963, however this was an application and not a programming paradigm.
The first object-oriented programming language was Simula 67, a language designed for making simulations, created by Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard of the Norwegian Computing Centre in Oslo. (Reportedly, the story is that they were working on ship simulations, and were confounded by the combinatorial explosion of how the different attributes from different ships could affect one another. The idea occurred to group the different types of ships into different classes of objects, each class of objects being responsible for defining its own data and behavior.)
The ideas in that language were then used in many other languages, from derivatives of Lisp and Pascal to the Smalltalk family of languages, which was developed at Xerox PARC, but was designed to be a fully dynamic system in which objects could be created and modified "on the fly" rather than having a system based on static programs.
Object-oriented programming developed as the dominant programming methodology during the mid-1980s, largely due to the influence of C++, an extension of the C programming language. Its dominance was further cemented by the rising popularity of Graphical user interfaces, for which object-oriented programming is allegedly well-suited. An example of a closely related dynamic GUI library and OOP language can be found in the Cocoa frameworks on Mac OS X, written in Objective C, an object-oriented, dynamic messaging extension to C based on Smalltalk. OOP toolkits also enhanced the popularity of "event-driven programming" (although this concept is not limited to OOP).
At ETH Zurich, Niklaus Wirth and his colleagues had also been investigating such topics as data abstraction and modular programming. Modula-2 included both, and their succeeding design, Oberon included a distinctive approach to object orientation, classes, and such. The approach is unlike Smalltalk, and very unlike C++.
Object-oriented features have been added to many existing languages during that time, including Ada, BASIC, Lisp, Fortran, Pascal, and others. Adding these features to languages that were not initially designed for them often led to problems with compatibility and maintainability of code. "Pure" object-oriented languages, on the other hand, lacked features that many programmers had come to depend upon. To bridge this gap, many attempts have been made to create new languages based on object-oriented methods but allowing some procedural features in "safe" ways. Bertrand Meyer's Eiffel was an early and moderately successful language with those goals.
In the past decade Java has emerged in wide use partially because of its similarity to C and to C++, but perhaps more importantly because of its implementation using a virtual machine that is intended to run code unchanged on many different platforms. This last feature has made it very attractive to larger development shops with heterogeneous environments. Microsoft's .NET initiative has a similar objective and includes/supports several new languages, or variants of older ones.
More recently, a number of languages have emerged that are primarily object-oriented yet compatible with procedural methodology, such as Python and Ruby. Besides Java, probably the most commercially important recent object-oriented languages are Visual Basic .NET and C# designed for Microsoft's .NET platform.
Just as procedural programming led to refinements of techniques such as structured programming, modern object-oriented software design methods include refinements such as the use of design patterns, design by contract, and modelling languages (such as UML).
Main article: Object-oriented programming language
- C #
- Object Pascal
- Common Lisp Object System
- Fortran 2003
- Perl – later versions
- PHP – later versions
Category:Object-oriented programming languages provides an extensive list.
- Grady Booch: Object-Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0805353402
- Alan Kay: The Early History of Smalltalk
- Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, John Vlissides: Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object Oriented Software, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0201633612
- Bertrand Meyer: Object-Oriented Software Construction, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0136291554
- James Rumbaugh, Michael Blaha, William Premerlani, Frederick Eddy, William Lorensen: Object-Oriented Modeling and Design, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0136298419
- Ivar Jacobsen: Object-Oriented Software Engineering: A Use Case-Driven Approach, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0201544350
- Harold Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman, Julie Sussman: Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, The MIT Press, ISBN 0262011530
- Martin Abadi, Luca Cardelli: A Theory of Objects, Springer-Verlag, ISBN 0–387–94775–2
- Paul Harmon, William Morrissey: The Object Technology Casebook – Lessons from Award-Winning Business Applications, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0–471–14717–6
- David A. Taylor: Object-Oriented Information Systems – Planning and Implementation, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0–471–54364–0
- Peter Eeles, Oliver Sims: Building Business Objects, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0–471–19176–0
- Programming paradigms
- Software componentry
- Interface description language
- Object-oriented programming language
- Distributed programming
- List of object-oriented programming terms
- Design pattern (computer science)
- Object-oriented programming FAQ
- Example of the subtyping problem
- What are OOP's Jargons and Complexities
- Object Oriented Design Principles
- The report "Object Orientation Redefined" outlines how OO has been considered a thinking tool, i.e. "we view the world in objects", and how such an approach may further our understanding of object-oriented formalisation. | <urn:uuid:b1e6c783-0096-4bd5-ad9f-4a936cba94ed> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://enc.slider.com/Enc/Object_orientation | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398075.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00073-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936523 | 4,591 | 4.03125 | 4 |
To help enhance literacy in social studies, Persell Middle School's seventh-grade team, Jayme Genco, Jason Kathman, Jeff Kresge and Allyson Smith, are working with professors Dr. Kathleen Magiera, of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, and Dr. Jennifer Ro, of the Department of Language, Learning and Leadership of the College of Education at SUNY Fredonia, and Dr. Mary Kay Szwejbka of the Human Services and Education Department at Jamestown Community College, through a SUNY 4E grant.
As the pilot teachers for the grant, the Persell team is not only learning research-based practices to increase literacy in social studies, but are also the subjects of a study by the SUNY researchers to see how the literacy strategies work in a real-life classroom. The results of the study will be shared with other social studies teachers in the area to help students improve their academic writing, especially argumentative writing, and critical thinking skills.
"The new Common Core Learning Standards are asking all content areas to teach literacy as part of their curriculum," said the Persell team. "However, as we are social studies experts, we recognize that we need help and more information on how to infuse literacy into our curriculum. With Dr. Magiera and Dr. Ro's guidance, we are learning the best research-based strategies that will work with our school population, which will hopefully equate to stronger students both in literacy and in social studies."
SUNY Fredonia professors, Dr. Kathleen Magiera and Dr. Jennifer Ro, observe Persell Middle School teacher Jayme Genco as he teaches his social studies class as part of a SUNY 4E grant to help infuse literacy into content area classrooms.
The collaboration began in September with the SUNY professors visiting Persell once a week but also communicating with teachers on a regular basis. The project targets middle school students' research-based learning and writing by focusing on their community and how they can write about it. Academic writing has historically been a challenge for middle school students and teachers. The SUNY team's expertise in teaching inquiry-based writing skills to deepen content area learning of middle school students is expected to help prepare students for college and career readiness.
"Sometimes content area teachers are reluctant to use literacy strategies but we are so lucky to work with such an excellent team of teachers who really are content experts but also equally passionate about learning how to better infuse into their curriculum both critical thinking and literacy, which will be important for their students' future success," said Magiera and Ro. "As researchers, we could not have asked for a better group to study and use those results to help other social studies teachers."
Along with the academic collaboration of deepening students' literacy skills, the teams hope that the connection between public schools and colleges is deepened. The cooperation between pre-and post high school graduation has been limited at very best. By working together, educators from Persell and SUNY Fredonia are hoping to address not only a desire on behalf of the middle school teachers to become better literacy teachers, but to have their students see that there is a world outside of the school walls that is paying attention to them and their work.
"We are hoping that Jamestown students benefit from face-to-face interactions with Drs. Magiera and Ro," said the Persell team. "Likewise, we are hopeful that Drs. Ro and Magiera can take their experiences back to their campus to improve the quality of education to their pre-service teachers." | <urn:uuid:b62a4511-2fab-4558-9694-2466134290a9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://post-journal.com/page/content.detail/id/637395/Persell-Social-Studies-Teachers-Team-Up-With-SUNY-Fredonia.html?nav=5209 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399425.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00031-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966409 | 727 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Description - The tomatillo (toe-ma-tea-o) is of Mexican origin and has been introduced into the United States. It now grows everywhere in the Western Hemisphere and is common in Texas gardens. The husk tomato plant produces an edible fruit enclosed in a thick husk. The husk is brown and the fruit yellowish when it is ripe. The plants will grow to a height of three to four feet.
Culture - The husk tomato has the same cultural requirements as the tomato: fertile soil, ample soil moisture and a long, warm growing season. Plant after all danger of frost in full sunlight. Space plants about 18 inches apart in rows three feet apart. Mature fruit are produced in about 120 days.
Availability - Husk tomatoes are generally available from May through November in most areas of Texas. Some commercial production occurs in the Lower Rio Grande Valley and in the San Antonio area.
Selection - The condition of the "husk" is a good indication of the freshness of the fruit. The husk should be light brown and fresh looking, not shriveled and dried. Fruit should be firm and free of defects.
Storage - Fresh ripe husk tomatoes will keep in the refrigerator for about two weeks. If longer storage is desired, remove husks and place ripe fruit in sealed plastic bags and place in refrigerator. They may also be frozen whole or sliced.
Nutrition Information - Tomatillos are a good source of vitamin C.
Preparation - Remove husks and wash tomatillos. Remove skins if desired. Cook tomatillos either whole or cut in small pieces. Either way, steam them in a small amount of water in a covered saucepan for just about five to seven minutes. The result will be almost a sauce consistency, with the tiny seeds and bits of skin giving texture. Either add to other dishes or season with salt and pepper and hot chiles to taste and serve as a relish side dish.
| Vegetable Page | PLANTanswers Home | Aggie Horticulture | | <urn:uuid:f6062144-29bd-4db4-b723-fc5ba1800cd0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/plantanswers/vegetables/TOMATILL.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396887.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00114-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920241 | 422 | 2.828125 | 3 |
December 09, 2012
How Muslims Celebrated 'Islamophobia Awareness Month'
November was "Islamophobia Awareness Month." For those who don't know, the month was designated as such to help expose unreasonable and irrational fears about the religion of peace™. Robert Spencer explores some of the ways Muslims around the world celebrated the month and raised awareness about Islamophobia.
“Islamophobic prejudice is worryingly prevalent in the mainstream; on display in political life, in the the [sic] media and in the attitudes of the police and the courts.” So said a poster for Islamophobia Awareness Month, which Muslims in Britain and Europe marked with a series of events throughout November. The inaugural event in London on November 2 featured talks from human rights lawyer Imran Khan; Peter Oborne, the chief political commentator for The Daily Telegraph; Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn; Lindsey German of the Stop the War Coalition; and many others. But other Muslims worldwide had their own creative ways to mark the special month:
- In Florida, two Muslim brothers, Raees Alam Qazi and Sheheryar Alam Qazi, were charged with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction in the cause of jihad to commit mass murder of Americans.
- In Tehran, Muslims brutally murdered and dismembered a Jewish woman, in the crowning episode of an ongoing attempt to seize her property for use by an adjoining mosque.
- In Moscow, a Muslim, Ilyas Saidov, received a fifteen-year prison sentence for his role in plotting jihad-martyrdom suicide bombing attacks.
- In Baghdad, Sunni Muslims used three car bombs to murder 23 Shi’ite Muslims who were participating in processions for Ashura, the Shi’ite mourning festival marking the death of the Shi’ite leader Husayn bin Ali in the battle of Karbala against the Sunnis in the year 680.
- In Norway, a Muslim politician, Khalid Haji Ahmed, wrote on Facebook: “Damn Jew whores, wish Hitler could come back and shower you some more.”
- A Florida imam, Abu Taubah (a.k.a. Marcus Robertson), was exposed as having ties to the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel Rahman, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center jihad bombing.
- Hamas’s official al-Aqsa TV station ran a music video containing the words: “Killing Jews is worship that draws us close to Allah.”
- In India, a young Muslim who had appeared on a television show speaking about his fear of being honor-killed for marrying without his parents’ consent was indeed murdered.
- In Libya, a jihadist group claiming to operate under authority of the Ministry of the Interior kidnapped twelve men it accused of homosexual activity, and threatened them with mutilation and execution.
- In Austria, Muslims protesting against Israel’s defensive action in Gaza chanted “Death to the Jews” while their leftist fellow protesters looked on in silence.
- On Facebook, a Muslim posted an admiring photo of Adolf Hitler, with the caption: “I could have killed all the Jews, but I left some of them to let you know why I was killing them.” Many other Muslims chimed in with “likes” and favorable comments.
- In Mali, Muslim officials arrested three Catholics for the crime of declining to listen to an Islamic sermon.
- In Nigeria, Muslims bombed a church and ambushed churchgoers, murdering fourteen Christians.
- And a Muslim wrote a comment at my website, saying: “Whenever I see Robert Spenser’s [sic] face I feel like having my palms around his neck, its a good thing we never meet eye to eye because he would be licking my boots if we ever did. I’m actually a very reserved and polite gent but when I hear that guy’s voice or see his face I feel like shutting him up permanently.”
That list doesn’t actually take us through the whole of “Islamophobia Awareness Month.” All that happened in just the past two weeks.
Meanwhile, a Malaysian politician urged his government to take “stern action” against those who “tarnish the image of Islam.” But by this he didn’t mean any of the Islamic jihadists listed above, or any others like them; rather, he wants to silence those who dare to point out how such jihadists use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify their violence.
Read more. Links to the incidents listed are included there.
TROP also is keeping track of Islamic contributions to world peace and "Islamophobia awareness." You can find a list HERE. | <urn:uuid:7ea5a0cf-a928-4ba8-9edd-88a5a1b1e643> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/214474.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00127-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95503 | 968 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Showing 1-16 of 16 items found in History
Grosse Point Lighthouse
Built on the shores of Lake Michigan by the United States Government in 1873 after several shipwrecks demonstrated its need, this was the lead lighthouse marking the approach to Chicago. In 1999, Grosse Point Lighthouse was designated a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service; the first lighthouse on the Great Lakes to carry that status. The Garden Club on Evanston maintains wildflower and butterfly gardens on its property.
Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center
This new center is a 65,000 square-foot building designed by renowned architect Stanley Tigerman. The Museum is dedicated to preserving the legacy of the Holocaust by honoring the memories of those who were lost and by teaching the universal lessons that combat hatred, prejudice and indifference. The museum features an authentic early 20th century German rail car, an inspiring Hall of Remembrance for contemplation and reflection, a permanent exhibition chronicling life before, during and after the Holocaust, a youth exhibit for 9-11 year olds highlighting lessons of the Holocaust and a 225 seat auditorium.
Northwestern University Walking Tours
Founded in 1851, Northwestern University is a renowned educational institution rich in history and architecture. More than 150 historically significant and interesting sites on campus are featured in various 30-minute walking tours.
Block Museum of Art
Northwestern University's Mary & Leigh Block Museum of Art is one of the largest fine art museums in the Chicagoland area.
Frances Willard House
Frances Willard was one of the most prominent social reformers in the 19th century America. Willard rallied support for temperance as well as many important reform movements including woman’s suffrage, women’s economic and religious rights, prison reforms, education reforms and labor reforms. The Frances Willard Historical Association operates the Frances Willard House, Willard’s home from its construction in 1865 until her death in 1898.
Devonshire Cultural Center
Home of the Skokie Art Guild and Devonshire Playhouse, the Cultural Center offers children's and adult theater, as well as visual and performing arts.
Evanston Arts Depot
This cultural center is a restored train station in the heart of Evanston. Home of the Piccolo Theatre and Custer’s Last Stand Festival which takes place each June.
Levere Memorial Temple
Home of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity headquarters, this beautiful Gothic building features stained glass windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany.
Charles Gates Dawes House Museum
The Dawes House, a magnificent Chateauesque Mansion overlooking Lake Michigan, was the home of the former United States vice president under Calvin Coolidge and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Charles Gates Dawes.
A Big Ten school and one of the leading universities in the U.S. Its Evanston campus is on the shores of beautiful Lake Michigan. Founded in 1851, this renowned educational institution is rich in stunning architecture. More than 150 historically significant and interesting sites on campus are featured in various walking tours, each taking approximately 30 minutes to complete. Highlights include the Arch, University Hall and the Arts Circle.
Skokie Public Library
A leading institution of the Village of Skokie and a staple of downtown Skokie, the library is truly a center for the community with more than 450,000 items available for check-out, three community meeting rooms and hundreds of events and classes offered each month. The library offers the latest in cutting edge technology with library resources available 24 hours a day via their website, plenty of computers available for internet access and research and a wireless network on the 2nd floor.
Wilmette Historical Museum
Learn about the history of Wilmette, the North Shore area and Gross Point. Housed in the former Gross Point Village Hall, the museum also offers a research library.
Evanston History Center
Housed in the gracious historic mansion of former U.S. Vice President Charles Gates Dawes, this stunning chateau overlooks Lake Michigan. Visitors and history buffs explore this National Historic Landmark appreciating its original furnishings and artwork. The home features exhibits focusing on the history of Evanston.
Morton Grove Historical Museum Haupt-Yehl House
Located in Harrer Park, this 1888 Victorian farmhouse features period furnishings and a museum on its lower level with rotating displays.
Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity & Foundation
This 80-year-old Indiana limestone building was constructed as a memorial to the members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon who fought and died in our nation's wars, and contains some of the last stained-glass works of Louis C. Tiffany.
American Toby Jug Museum
The American Toby Jug Museum is home to more than 8,000 Toby and Character jugs, and related derivatives from around the globe. The collection spans the Centuries and features characters representing the times in which they were made, from the oldest dating back to the 1760’s to the most recent ones still in production. It is the largest collection in the world, and is on display and open to the public | <urn:uuid:faf0764d-7929-4b7d-9c8f-bc0a52dfbe97> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.enjoyillinois.com/thingstodo/2?CityId=318&CityRadius=5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00079-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931083 | 1,048 | 2.984375 | 3 |
When Darwin was stumped for an answer why certain species were the way they were, the advice given to him was - “you should ask Wallace”. A 45 minute performance which focuses on the aspects of Alfred Russel Wallace's inspirational character that led him to the Theory of Evolution by natural selection.
The play tells the story of Alfred Russel Wallace (1823 -1913), a Victorian naturalist, who was born in Wales, and who discovered the theory of evolution, and then shared the idea with Charles Darwin... and as they say the rest is history. This often overlooked Welsh Victorian scientist, who’s curiosity as to why there are so many different varieties of species, was ignited during his formative years in Usk and Neath, and would later find the answer to the ‘mystery of all mysteries’. His great findings would compel Darwin to publish his seminal work on the origin of species. The play takes us through his life as a young boy growing up in Wales to embarking on epic adventures to the Amazon and Malay Archipelago where he discovers the theory of evolution. | <urn:uuid:e6f126c3-8872-4b89-85ff-bdd10be1c8a0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.theatr-nanog.co.uk/you-should-ask-wallace | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403823.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00172-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983168 | 228 | 3.234375 | 3 |
E. Cobham Brewer 18101897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Clarendon, Earl of,
Edward Hyde (b. Dinton, Wilts, February 18th, 1608; d. Rouen, December 9th, 1674). Brief View and Survey of the Dangerous and Pernicious Errors to Church and State in Hobbes Leviathan (1676); The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, to which is added an Historical View of the Affairs in Ireland (1702); The History of the Rebellion and Civil War in Ireland (1720); The Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon, Lord High Chancellor of the University of Oxford, being a Continuation of the History of the Grand Rebellion, from the Restoration to his Banishment in 1667, written by Himself (1759); Essay on an Active and Contemplative Life, and Dialogue on Education and the Respect Due to Age (176495); Religion and Policy, and the Countenance and Assistance Each should Give to the Other (1811); Essays, Moral and Entertaining, on the Various Faculties and Passions of the Human Mind (1815); The Natural History of the Passions. For Biography, see Woods Athenæ Oxonienses; An Historical Inquiry respecting the Character of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, by the Hon. Agar Ellis (1827); and the Life of Clarendon, by T. H. Lister; Hallams Literary History, Macaulays History; Campbells Lord Chancellors, and the Dictionary of National Biography. The Clarendon Press edition of The Rebellion in England, with Warburtons Notes (1849); State Papers (1767, 1773, 1786). | <urn:uuid:3b7789bc-067e-49df-b0f1-7002a4fa5d6b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://bartleby.com/81/17943.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00023-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.86584 | 369 | 2.5625 | 3 |
A journey into the tumultuous energy history of the West
By Thomas Andrews, PhD
Look at present-day Colorado and it is almost impossible not to note some of the far-reaching impacts of fossil-fuel production and consumption on our state. Automobiles, highways, gas stations, the refineries of Commerce City—all attest to petroleum’s centrality in our daily lives. Flip a light switch, watch coal trains haul their dusty black cargo from mine to power plant, boot up your computer and behold our dependence upon the coal seams buried underneath the Rockies’ flanks. Coloradans may once have enjoyed the luxury of overlooking the manifold ways in which fossil fuels shape our world. But our complacence has been eroded in recent decades by urban air pollution, periodic energy crises and a host of other environmental and economic troubles.
When I began my PhD dissertation in the late 1990s, I was surprised to learn that U.S. historians had paid only scant attention to the nation’s energy history. This was especially true of western historians. What literature did exist on energy in our region concentrated either on the Old West—on the opportunities and constraints confronted by various native peoples, for instance—or on the New West—on urban sprawl in the post-World War II Sunbelt and the nuclear boom on the Colorado Plateau.
And so I embarked on almost a decade-long exploration of the energy history of what I call the Middle West—not the geographic region, but instead the crucial time period spanning roughly from 1890 to 1940. Because of my intense interest in my native Colorado, I started with the utopian visions of industrialist William Jackson Palmer, the Quaker general who founded the Denver and Rio Grande Railway, the Colorado Coal and Iron Company, the city of Colorado Springs and many other Colorado industries and towns. I concluded my project with the infamous Ludlow Massacre and coalfield war of 1913-1914.
The end result: I recently published Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War (Harvard University Press, 2008), an accessible account of coal’s role in shaping economic growth, environmental change and social conflict in late-19th and early-20th-century Colorado.
Who consumed coal? By the 1890s, pretty much everyone. Locomotive smoke in the sky announced the arrival of a mineral-based economy powered by stores of energy excavated from below the earth. Starting around 1870, enormous quantities of power began coursing through a world long restricted by low precipitation and limited biological productivity. This created a spiral of radical, uneven transformations. With startling speed, the combined might of railroads and coal mines first eroded, and then destroyed, the isolation and economic stagnation that had so vexed inhabitants of frontier Colorado.
In gold and silver districts, coal and coke made daily life more comfortable and spared mountain forests from total devastation. Coal-burning steam engines, compressors, drills and other machinery facilitated deep extraction, while coke-burning smelters made it possible for precious metals to be mined for cents instead of dollars.
But there was a dark side, too. Coal-powered machines deskilled hardrock miners and exacerbated chronic hazards underground. Labor wars at Leadville, Cripple Creek, Telluride and elsewhere joined a political economy dominated by financiers and industrialists as harbingers that beneath the glitter of gold and silver lay the grime of coal.
Coal proved particularly crucial to the development of Denver and Pueblo. Smoke-belching smelters, mills and factories enabled these cities to grow outward and upward with astonishing speed; in the process, some parts were healthy and pleasant, others sickly and squalid. As coal-burning industries pushed well-heeled Coloradans away from the polluted, congested manufacturing districts, coal-powered transit technologies, such as electric streetcars, pulled the well-to-do and their middle-class emulators toward healthier, more spacious suburban abodes.
In city and country alike, Coloradans used fossil fuels to break the bounds that had long constrained natural ecologies and human economies in the region. Coal gave people newfound power—to transcend bodily limitations, transform matter and haul unprecedented quantities of goods, information and people farther, faster and more cheaply than ever before.
Every ton of coal provided clear economic gain and a store of additional power that people could use to change their world. With every passing year, Westerners demanded more heat, light, food, gold, steel and electricity—and hence more coal. By the early 20th century, fossil fuel was in enormous demand for industry and homes alike. Less conspicuously, coal was the crucial component that produced and delivered the foods Westerners ate, the goods they bought and the tools they used. It helped determine the work they performed and the places they called home; it was present in the very air they breathed.
Economic growth in frontier Colorado had generally been slow, hard-won and ephemeral. In contrast, the mineral-intensive industrial economy that took root after 1870 grew in a manner that one historian likens to the suddenness, scale and unpredictability of mutation. A defining characteristic of mutation is its irrevocability, and by the early 20th century, life without coal seemed unimaginable. Per capita annual coal consumption in Colorado approached 12 tons in 1910—a remarkable figure since coal consumption for Britons was fewer than four tons per capita when the industrial revolution matured in the 1850s and in today’s United States, per capita coal consumption is 3.5 tons. The Denver Chamber of Commerce summed up the region’s fossil-fuel dependency when it declared of coal: “We cannot exist without it.”
Coal miners attempted to use this dependence as a weapon by launching a massive strike in the late summer of 1913. This sparked a chain of events that culminated in the massacre of 19 men, women and children and a workers’ uprising, the Ten Days’ War, which left more than 30 strikebreakers, mine guards and state militiamen dead.
Today the violent consequences of our ongoing dependence on fossil fuels are most evident in the Middle East, the Niger Delta and other distant locales. My hope is that Killing for Coal can help draw the attention of Coloradans, historians and other readers to the complex and troubling relationships between energy, prosperity and conflict.
Editor’s note: Thomas Andrews, PhD, assistant professor of history in the UC Denver College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, shares firsthand his current research. Andrews’ book, Killing for Coal, was awarded the 2009 Bancroft Prize by Columbia University, one of the most coveted honors in the field of history. Andrews’ work has also been recently featured in The New York Times and the Denver Post. | <urn:uuid:9c1d89ae-c0be-4818-9ba1-7022931bd1a6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ucdenver.edu/about/newsroom/voices/Pages/UCDenverThomasAndrewsKillingforCoal.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00201-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942634 | 1,391 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Top US cellular operators have begun offering SMS capabilities for contacting 911 dispatch centers. It's the first step in accommodating new data formats, but it's fraught with problems.
On May 15, AT&T Mobility, Sprint, T-Mobile USA, and Verizon Wireless began allowing anyone with a cellular phone capable of sending SMS to transmit emergency messages to E911 centers, which are officially termed PSAPs (Public Safety Answering Points). However, in many areas of the country, none of the relevant parties -- dispatchers, emergency service organizations, and residents -- will have an easy time dealing with the feature.
On the surface, it seems rather simple. A person who needs to contact the police, fire, or ambulance services may text a message for help instead of making a voice call. In some situations, this could be a godsend.
For example, anyone who has a physical disability that makes it difficult or impossible to make a voice call, such as someone who is deaf or unable to speak, could send an SMS for assistance. Also, there are emergency situations where speaking would be inadvisable, such as hiding from an intruder in one's house or being in a bank when it is robbed. In these types of situations, silence is golden.
In addition, many people know that if cellular voice service is down or congested during emergencies (e.g., hurricanes, tornadoes, or terrorist attacks), text messages will sometimes get through the system.
Unfortunately, there could be lots of problems trying to transmit an SMS. Cellular operators never guarantee that a text message will arrive quickly or that it will arrive at all. Although SMS is often very reliable, it was designed as a "best effort" service, not for time-critical communications.
In fact, the cellular operators have been quick to point that out, which could be a major point of contention as consumers begin using "text-to-911," as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is calling the capability.
Also, it might take more time for emergency dispatchers to obtain all the proper information from SMS versus a voice conversation. For example, when a person collapses in an office building, a dispatcher will need to know the person's exact location, gender, approximate age, extent of injuries (as much as possible), reason for the problem (if known), any relevant medical information, possibility of foul play, and anything else that might help the first responders.
If E911 is contacted because of a criminal activity, more or different information is needed. Also, dispatchers can help with people who aren't native English speakers.
People who contact E911 are sometimes distraught, confused or in serious distress if they, for example, are having a heart attack, fell down the stairs, or were the victim of a beating or shooting. Dispatchers are trained to help keep the caller calm and, where appropriate, take specific actions, such as simple medical procedures.
But there's an even worse problem for using SMS: Many PSAPs are technically unable to accept them. PSAP computer and software requirements can be complicated. The centers are located in large and small cities. They must deal with different emergency services and sometimes dispatch first responders to areas that don't have their own local police, fire departments, hospitals, or ambulances.
If PSAPs cannot accept text messages, a message will be transmitted back to the sender asking him or her make a voice call. But how many people will know whether the PSAP can accept SMS? This can take time, which could possibly cause problems in life-threatening situations.
For years the FCC and the US Department of Transportation have been working on Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1) to allow PSAPs to accept other data communications, including photos and videos. This would introduce even more problems, such as delays in receiving the data, incompatible formats, and the possibility of fake photos and videos.
It seems logical and inevitable that eventually PSAPs would be able to receive different formats. After all, photos and videos could show details that a voice caller wouldn't or couldn't provide.
For the foreseeable future, though, cities will have enough problems dealing with text-to-911, and they had better have a sufficient number of experts and trainers who can deal with the new capability.
Re: emergency bandwidth? I keep an old landline phone handy in case at the home if I need to call 911. Even with no service connected you can always diall 911 with any phone. Fortunately, I've never had to call for an emergancy, but it's there just in case.
You brought up a few issues here. The first is that some people, especially seniors don't use or care about SMS. Frankly, most people -- including seniors -- should call the emergency number because it has advantages over texting, with real people at the other end.
I see SMS as a nice option, but probably not the preferred one, as I discuss in my article.
The problem, of sorts, might occur in the future when 911 (999?) systems can accept photos and videos. That could provide valuable supplementary information. But I assume that a greater proportion of seniors might not want to be "bothered" to send this information. That's especially where education is valuable.
However, it's important for seniors (and others, too) to realize that trying to take photos or videos of dangerous situations isn't advisable. Granted, that isn't available yet.
Another issue is free phones for seniors. There are some programs in the U.S. that offer feature phones and minutes to seniors.
Vulnerable Users Yes, this is a key point. How do we keep older citizens in the loop with such important technologies. Can we delegate a number that the elderly use on the landline, after they preregister their details over the phone. Do we go as far as giving all elderly people a mobile phone in a drive to get citizens up to speed on vital services??
911 should be free. No charge whatsoever. No hidden charges. There are plenty of public interest groups and if any cellular operator tries to slip in a fee, it will be caught and there will be a huge howl.
Re: emergency bandwidth? @Alan, I'm saying its going to be one of those hidden fees no one will notice. For example. you will see your phone bill go up by $0.05/month, most people will never notice something like that. They do it now.
But it should be free especially since its emergency services, but i feel the cell providers will always find a way to charge us and they will get away with it since its not called an Emergency services Fee...its just tacked on to your bill as a hidden fee
That sounds like a great 911 app. However, as you note, many people are not comfortable with the government obtaining their information. Still, many people might find it useful. It's wouldn't be used very often in any case.
Re: Treats! Another carrier surcharge! @Alan, the cell providers will find a way to add a new fee...they do it all the time or they will just raise the price of service a few dollars a year. They will find a way. like Cable TV bills, they go up for no reason at all and when you look at the bill its just extra cash on the normal cable tv bill not a fee...Whats up with that?
Smart City Money Makers companies and solutions that are most prominent, and destined to be most profitable, in the smart city revolution.
How to Make Your City Smarter Cities all over the world need to become smarter and more sustainable. But where to start? Download this guide to learn the first, proven steps toward making your city smarter.
Site Moderators Future Cities is looking for engaged readers to moderate the message boards on this site. Engage in high-IQ conversations; earn kudos and perks. Interested? E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.org
Designed to provide the people with access to green building products all year round | <urn:uuid:a2b05ea2-1013-4d75-8171-4ce3a3ecc209> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ubmfuturecities.com/author.asp?section_id=378&doc_id=526735&f_src=ubmfuturecities_sitedefault | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402516.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00176-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960044 | 1,668 | 2.53125 | 3 |
After the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and resulting tsunami in Japan on March 11, 2011, the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant was severely compromised and radioactive material was found in the water in many of the surrounding areas, but the extent of this contamination remained unknown. In a study published today in the online journal PLoS ONE, researchers report that the reactor accident fallout extended as far as the San Francisco Bay area, resulting in elevated levels of radioactive material that were nonetheless very low and posed no health risk to the public.
The researchers collected rainwater samples in Berkeley, Oakland, and Albany, California from March 16th to March 26th and examined them for the presence of above-normal amounts of radioactivity, measuring levels of radioactive isotopes of cesium, iodine, and tellurium. The first sample that showed elevated radioactivity was collected on March 18th, and levels peaked on March 24th before returning to normal.
Citation: Norman EB, Angell CT, Chodash PA (2011) Observations of Fallout from the Fukushima Reactor Accident in San Francisco Bay Area Rainwater. PLoS ONE 6(9): e24330. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0024330
Funding: This work was supported by the United States Department of Homeland Security (www.dhs.gov), and by the United States Department of Energy (www.doe.gov). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
PLEASE LINK TO THE SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE IN ONLINE VERSIONS OF YOUR REPORT (URL goes live after the embargo ends): | <urn:uuid:5b9d942f-087b-46a9-a98c-d873ddd8d55e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-09/plos-oof091911.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00137-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93045 | 356 | 2.921875 | 3 |
NEW YORK, NY (February 3, 2014) — Nearly half a million women die each year of heart disease and stroke, yet women continue to lag behind in their understanding of this disease and how it affects them. In fact, over the past decade younger women ages 35–44 have experienced the greatest increase in deaths caused by heart disease.
Dr. Holly Andersen, director of education and outreach at the Ronald O. Perelman Heart Institute at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, and Dr. Jennifer Haythe, a cardiologist at the Center for Advanced Cardiac Care at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, offer women seven simple steps to reduce their risk of developing heart disease.
1. Take a break. Stress is a leading contributor to heart disease and stroke. Take a deep breath, laugh, stretch, or meditate at least twice a day to relieve stress. Remember, people who focus on the part of the glass that is half-full live longer, with less disease.
2. Get up and move. Walking for 20–30 minutes a day can be a lifesaver. Just getting your heart rate up for this period of time can reduce your risk of premature death by 50 percent or more.
3. Put down the cigarette. The single best thing you can do for your health is to stop smoking. Even smoking just a few cigarettes a day more than doubles your risk of heart disease. Your risk begins to fall within a few months after you quit and returns to the level of nonsmokers within 3–5 years regardless of the amount smoked.
4. Just say NO to fast foods. Most people think of ice cream, French fries and donuts as comfort foods, but they are actually working against you. These processed foods are loaded with salt and ingredients such as high-fructose corn syrup that drain you of energy and speed up the aging process. Consuming less salt overall is a good idea to decrease your risk of heart disease.
5. Get on the Mediterranean diet. This means eating primarily fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes and nuts; replacing butter with a healthy fat such as olive oil; using herbs and spices instead of salt to flavor your food; eating red meat a few times a month; and eating fish and poultry at least twice a week. You may also drink red wine in moderation if you like.
6. Get a good night’s sleep. You should try to sleep an average of 7–8 hours every night. Lack of sleep increases your blood pressure, induces stress, increases your appetite, and slows down your metabolism
7. Listen to your body. A 2010 American Heart Association survey found that just over half of American women would call 911 if they believed they were having a heart attack. Put yourself first and call 911 if you think you are having a heart attack. .
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, based in New York City, is one of the nation’s largest and most comprehensive hospitals, with some 2,600 beds. In 2012, the Hospital had nearly 2 million inpatient and outpatient visits, including 12,758 deliveries and 275,592 visits to its emergency departments. NewYork-Presbyterian’s 6,144 affiliated physicians and 20,154 staff provide state-of-the-art inpatient, ambulatory and preventive care in all areas of medicine at six major centers: NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian/Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian/The Allen Hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Westchester Division and NewYork-Presbyterian/Lower Manhattan Hospital. One of the most comprehensive health care institutions in the world, the Hospital is committed to excellence in patient care, research, education and community service. NewYork-Presbyterian is the #1 hospital in the New York metropolitan area and is consistently ranked among the best academic medical institutions in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report. The Hospital has academic affiliations with two of the nation’s leading medical colleges: Weill Cornell Medical College and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. For more information, visit www.nyp.org. | <urn:uuid:f273b0af-6b78-45de-9de6-f037d615f148> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://newsroom.cumc.columbia.edu/blog/2014/02/04/seven-lifestyle-changes-can-save-women-heart-disease/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00045-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937507 | 894 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Individual differences |
Methods | Statistics | Clinical | Educational | Industrial | Professional items | World psychology |
Eye Movement Desensitisation for the Treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Fact and Fiction Edit
Introduction – PTSD and EMDEdit
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), recognised since 1980 when it was in included as a distinct diagnostic category in the DSM-III (APA, 1980), is a condition that follows an unusually threatening event which, in most instances, is sudden and catastrophic in proportion. It is characterised by;
“… the reexperiencing of an extremely traumatic event accompanied by symptoms of increased arousal and by avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma” (DSM-IV, APA, 1995; p.403)
Diagnosis of the condition requires a number of factors to be present in each of the following six symptom categories (as outlined in DSM-IV, 1995);
A. The person has been the victim of, or has been exposed to a traumatic event which involved threatened death or serious injury, or the death of others. The person’s response involved intense fear, helplessness or horror.
C. The person persistently avoids stimuli associated with the trauma (e.g. avoidance of places or people that arouse recollections of the trauma) and experiences numbing of general responsiveness (e.g. restricted range of affect, feelings of detachment or estrangement from others).
D. The person experiences persistent symptoms hyperarousal (e.g. difficulty falling or staying asleep, increased irritability, exaggerated startle response).
E. The duration of the disturbance is more than one month.
F. The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning.
Considerable research into effective treatments for PTSD has been carried out since its inclusion in DSM-III in 1980. Exposure techniques, which are based on the assumption that individuals habituate to the anxiety provoking memory with a consequent reduction in anxiety, have been frequently used. However some authors have expressed concern about the use of a technique that generates prolonged high levels of anxiety (Fairbank & Brown, 1987) and requires several sessions to achieve a therapeutic effect (Keane, Fairbank & Cadell, 1989). Further, the failure of exposure to have an effect on some patients has been inadequately explained (Wolpe, 1982; Keane et al., 1989). Further, even when exposure techniques seem to have been effective in dealing with some of the symptoms of PTSD, residual difficulties such as nightmares, social isolation and generalised anxiety often remain after treatment (Vaughan & Tarrier, 1992).
Relatively recently, a new approach to the treatment of PTSD has emerged for which dramatic claims have been made. The technique, Eye Movement Desensitisation (EMD) was apparently developed by chance when Shapiro (1989a, b) noticed in herself that recurring disturbing thoughts disappeared when she simultaneously engaged in automatic ‘multi-saccadic’ eye movements. Rosen (1995) suggests that saccadic eye movements are involuntary and cannot be detected by people even when they are specifically instructed to look for them. Therefore, he argues that the term ‘saccadic’ is inaccurate. However, this assertion has been disputed by Welch (1996) who suggests that Rosen’s understanding of saccadic eye movements is flawed. Regardless of the specific type of eye movement that Shapiro observed, this debate does not detract from Shapiro’s serendipitous discovery that lead her to consider whether the induction of bilateral eye-movements might reduce the intrusion phenomena commonly associated with PTSD.
The essential feature of EMD in the treatment of PTSD is that the patient is required to generate an anxiety-inducing image, associated with the traumatic event, and isolate a thought about that scene. For example, Shapiro (1989b) cites examples including, “I am helpless” or “I have no control”. While the patient repeats the phrase to himself, bilateral eye movements are induced by tracking the therapist’s finger which is held between 9 and 12 inches in front of the patient and moved back and forth across the patient’s visual field at a rate of 1-1 seconds (Shapiro, 1989a). Each complete bilateral eye movement cycle is termed a ‘scad’. Next, the patient is required to revisualise the scene in terms that are more acceptable or preferred and generates a counter anxiety-inducing phrase, e.g. “I am safe now”. Eye movements are then induced again with the new image and phrase. The procedure is repeated with all anxiety-provoking memories until no further anxiety is reported. Shapiro (1989a) claims that EMD will be successful in 60-70% of patients in a single 50-minute session.
Shapiro (1989a) suggests that the traumatic memory is weakened or eradicated when the patient maintains awareness of one or more of the following; (1) an image of the memory, (2) the negative self-statement or assessment of the trauma, (3) the physical anxiety response. She suggests that the optimum response to EMD occurs when the patient is aware of all three but that desensitisation can occur when only one is present.
It should be noted that, in her later work, Shapiro changed the name of the technique “Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing” to connote the “accelerated information processing” that she assumed to be of major importance in the efficacy of the approach. However, the mechanisms by which the technique works have not been conclusively identified and, as Lohr, Kleinknecht, Tolin & Barrett (1995) point out;
"... there is no empirical evidence of the effects of treatment that justifies the use of the term reprocessing” (p.286)
Lohr et al (1995) chose to adhere to the popular name for the treatment protocol, EMDR, because it is now the most commonly used term. However, it is suggested that incorrect labelling of the technique perpetuates a myth which implies the establishment of a mechanism for the phenomenon. Consequently the original name, eye movement desensitisation (EMD) is used in this review.
This review will restrict itself to a consideration of the efficacy of EMD in the treatment of PTSD. The review begins with a discussion of early single-case design and uncontrolled studies of applying EMD to the treatment of PTSD. The review then considers both therapeutically successful and unsuccessful controlled outcome studies prior to concluding with a summary that draws the available literature together. Readers wishing to consider how EMD has been applied to other disorders should consult Lohr et al. (1995).
Investigating the Efficacy of EMD Edit
Single-Case and Uncontrolled Studies Edit
Early studies of EMD were typically single-case or uncontrolled studies. The studies by Puk (1991), Marquis (1991), Lipke and Botkin (1992), McCann (1992), Spector and Huthwaite (1993) and Spates and Burnette (1995) all seemed to indicate the efficacy of EMD. However, few of these studies used standardised psychological tests and established diagnostic tools and hence caution should be exercised in interpreting the reported outcomes.
Wolpe and Abrams (1991) utilised the Fear Survey (Wolpe & Lang, 1969) which offers a global rating of overall fear level in their treatment of an individual rape victim. They demonstrated significant improvements in subjective distress and collateral reductions in overall fearfulness and social dysfunction at follow-up. However, the 15-session intervention used a modified EMD procedure including systematic desensitisation and relaxation training which precludes conclusions about EMD being drawn (Renfrey & Spates, 1994). Further, the patient had received psychodynamic therapy and rape counselling prior to receiving EMD. Thus, the fact that several other treatment techniques besides EMD makes it difficult to draw conclusions about the efficacy of EMD per se.
Renfrey & Spates (1994) suggest that the most thorough single case replication of Shapiro’s work was a report concerning the treatment of a 40-year-old counselling psychologist who was the victim of a shooting (Kleinknecht and Morgan, 1992). During the EMD treatment, two further traumatic memories were elicited. The first of these was the memory of a fatal car crash in which the patient (who had been the driver) lost his wife and unborn child. The application of EMD to this trauma elicited a further anxiety provoking memory from the patient’s late teens when he had worried about the effect of imprisonment (for being a conscientious objector to the Vietnam war) on his claustrophobia.
Formal psychological assessments, including the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI: Derogatis & Spencer, 1982), the State-Trait Anxiety Scale (STAI-Trait Form Y: Spielberger, Gorusch, Luschene, Vagg & Jacobs, 1983) and the Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D: Weismann, Sholomkas, Pottenger, Prusoff & Locke, 1977) were administered pre-treatment and at 4 and 8 month follow up. The patient received two sessions comprising history-taking, relaxation and anxiety management prior to administration of the EMD procedure.
The authors report reductions on all clinical dimensions of the BSI as well as significant improvements on the STAI and CES-D. The patient also made a post-treatment statement in which he claims that previously disturbing visual images were diffuse and no longer emotionally charged. Further, he reported substantial reductions in hypervigilance as well as collateral improvements socially in terms of his self-image and confidence.
Although the study does appear to demonstrate overall clinical improvements, the measures used failed to cover the full range of PTSD symptomatology. There was no assessment of the extent of the patient’s PTSD using a standardised instrument, e.g. the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS: Blake, Weathers, Nagy, Kaloupek, Klauminzer, Charney & Keane, 1990). Further, no objective data were available to verify the collateral improvements claimed. Finally, the patient studied was unusual. He had received psychological training that may have offered him an advantage in maximising any help offered. Further, there is no suggestion that he had received previous treatments that had failed. Thus, other treatments may have proved to be equally effective, for example.
While the collection of single-case studies provide a useful indication that EMD maybe a promising treatment for aspects of PTSD that is worthy of further consideration, they offer only limited evidence in evaluating its efficacy. This is because generally, single-case designs are limited in their capacity to validate cause-effect relationships (Kazdin, 1992). Single case designs lack a comparative control and are, therefore, susceptible to ‘false-positive’ results (Type I Error).
Controlled Outcome StudiesEdit
There have been a number of controlled outcome studies of varying quality. Shapiro (1989b) carried out the first systematic investigation of the efficacy of her new treatment method with a patient group of 22 rape and molestation victims, and Vietnam Veterans. She used anxiety levels, the validity of positive self-statements and self-assessments (VoC: Validity of Cognitions ) and presenting complaints as dependent variables. The group varied considerably in the length of time they had experienced the symptoms prior to treatment and the number of years of previous treatment.
Shapiro claimed that a single session of EMD was sufficient to reduce the mean value of the Subjective Units of Disturbance (SUD) for the cohort from 7.45 to 0.13 compared with no appreciable change in the control group. The effect was maintained at 3-month follow-up when additional behavioural change resulting in collateral symptom alleviation had also occurred. However, treatment was terminated when patients reported a SUD reduction to 0 or 1. Thus, demand characteristics, alone, could explain the impressive improvement. For example, patients may have reported a reduction in SUD scores merely because they knew that this was expected and wished to comply with the therapist’s demands. Further, if patients experienced the revisualisation of their trauma as aversive, they might have been motivated to end the session as quickly as possible by reporting a substantial decrease in their SUD score. Herbert and Mueser (1992) note that the study was further confounded because the requirement for patients to report a SUD score of 0 or 1, in order to terminate the session, was only placed on the experimental group and not upon the control group.
Sanderson and Carpenter (1992) employed a two-treatment crossover design to compare EMD with Image Confrontation (IC). The IC technique was identical to EMD except that these patients were instructed to keep their eyes closed and stationary. Both techniques were applied to patients with a variety of phobic disorders. The authors reported significant and equivalent reductions in the SUD scores associated with both treatments. The 8 patients with trauma symptoms did best. However, standardised psychological tests were not employed and the crossover design precluded the analysis of the unique effects of EMD and IC. Although Shapiro’s (1989b) control group was almost identical in nature to the IC group in Sanderson and Carpenter’s study, she noted a significant difference between the experimental and control group, whilst no such difference between the EMD and IC groups was observed. This may provide further evidence that the extent of the success in the Shapiro study was exaggerated owing to the effects of the demand characteristics already discussed.
Boudewyns, Stwertka, Hyer, Albrecht, & Sperr (1993) used psychological, physiological and standardised diagnostic measures in a controlled study of EMD to treat combat related PTSD in Veterans hospital patients. Prior to treatment, all patients recorded their traumatic experiences on audiotape. Patients were then randomly divided into three groups. One group was treated with EMD, one group received an exposure control procedure and the last group received a milieu control procedure. They noted a significantly greater reduction in SUD scores for the EMD and exposure control groups (with the greatest reductions achieved in the EMD group) than displayed by the milieu control group. When the audiotape was played back to patients following treatment, there was no significant difference in physiological reactivity between the groups. Indeed, none of the treatments appeared to affect physiological reactivity. Further, there were no pre- and post treatment differences for any of the conditions on the CAPS (Blake et al., 1990), Impact of Events Scale (IES: Horowitz, Wilner & Alvarez, 1979) and the Mississippi PTSD Scale (Keane, Cadell & Taylor, 1986).
In evaluating the effectiveness of EMD in the treatment of PTSD, it is imperative that outcome measures have adequate construct validity. For example, Puk (1991) reported that the patient was able to reduce the vividness of his visualisations. However, vividness of the image only relates to one dimension of the PTSD syndrome. Similarly, Richards and Rose (1991) used an exposure approach in their treatment of PTSD. They utilised measures of depression, phobic anxiety and social adjustment as outcome measures. However, if any treatment for PTSD is being evaluated, then its effect on the whole range of PTSD symptoms must be considered. This point has been observed by other authors (Baggaley, 1991; Vaughan, Wiese, Gold, & Tarrier, 1994a).
This issue was addressed by Forbes, Creamer and Rycroft (1994) in a study of eight patients. They used a variety of instruments including a structured interview (SI-PTSD: Davidson, Smith & Kudler, 1989), the SCL-90-R (Derogatis, 1977), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI: Beck, Rush, Shaw & Emery, 1979) and the Impact of Events Scale (IES: Horowitz, Wilner & Alvarez, 1979). Comorbidity was assessed using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R (SCID-NP: Spitzer, Williams, & Gibbon, M, 1987)). The possibility that the EMD protocol has features reminiscent of hypnosis was investigated using the Stanford Hypnotic Clinical Scale (SHCS: Morgan & Hilgard, 1975). The authors reasoned that the dramatic results of EMD might be attributable to suggestibility. Finally, electromyography (EMG) was used to measure possible physiological changes resulting from EMD.
In comparisons between pre- and post treatment scores, the authors found significant decreases in intrusion, avoidance and hyper-arousal on the SI-PTSD and decreases in intrusion and avoidance on the IES. They also observed significant decreases on the BDI and on the Global Severity Index of the SCL-90-R. These improvements were maintained at 3-month follow-up. Although significant improvements were observed in 6 of the 8 patients, 50% continued to meet the criteria for PTSD post-treatment and at follow-up.
EMG results indicated a decrease in physiological reactivity with progressive EMD treatments although these results did not correlate significantly with SI-PTSD data. The authors found a modest positive correlation between overall symptom reduction (i.e. the total SI-PTSD score) and suggestibility as measured by the Stanford Hypnotic Clinical Scale (SHCS: Morgan & Hilgard, 1975). The authors submit that suggestibility is a measure of the degree to which patients can generate images. Consequently, treatment success may depend of the ability of patients to visualise traumatic scenes. Finally a negative relationship between chronicity and longer term response to treatment was observed, supporting the view that chronic forms of PTSD are more resistant to treatment (Peterson, Prout and Schwartz, 1991). Although the study offers support for the efficacy of EMD, the small sample size used in the study and the absence of any form of control group are reasons to be cautious about over-interpretation.
In a study of 10 patients, Vaughan, Wiese, Gold, & Tarrier (1994a) found EMD effective for the re-experiencing, hyper-arousal and avoidance categories of the DSM-III-R. A significant reduction in depression was also seen although this and the hyper-arousal results were not maintained at follow-up.
Vaughan, Armstrong, Gold, O’Connor, Jenneke, & Tarrier (1994b) compared EMD with image habituation training (IHT) and applied muscle relaxation (AMR) in 36 randomly assigned PTSD patients. In IHT, patients were required to listen to continuous audiotaped loops of descriptions of their trauma. They then recorded cognitions and anxiety levels on a homework sheet. The treatment took approximately 60 minutes per day. It has been reported as being effective in PTSD by Vaughan and Tarrier (1992). Patients in the AMR group were taught to recognise their own symptoms of anxiety so that they could apply Ost’s (1987) progressive relaxation technique. The relaxation was practised for two 20-minute sessions each day.
Patients in all three groups were initially assessed using the SI-PTSD (Davidson, Smith & Kudler, 1989), the STAI (Spielberger, 1983), the BDI (Beck, 1978) and the IES (Horowitz, Wilner & Alvarez, 1979). Comorbidity was also assessed using the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule (ADIS-R: Di Nardo & Barlow, 1988) and the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD: Hamilton, 1960). Seventeen of the patients were initially assigned to a waiting list after assessment and then reassessed two to three weeks later prior to undergoing treatment. The groups were balanced with respect to number of treatment sessions, demographic and trauma-related variables.
Significant reductions in hyper-arousal and avoidance symptoms between waiting list and post-treatment assessment occurred for all three groups. However, at post-treatment, 47% of patients still met the criteria for PTSD. At 3-month follow-up this had fallen further to 30%. Significant reductions in total PTSD symptoms for all three groups were observed. Further, reductions in hyperarousal were seen in the EMD and IHT groups. Although improvements were seen across all three groups with regard to re-experiencing and intrusive symptoms, only EMD produced significant improvements in ‘flashbacks’, nightmares and avoidance symptoms. Patients perceived therapists in the EMD group to show more ‘warmth’ than in the other two conditions although they did not report differences in genuineness or empathy. EMD may rely on greater patient-therapist interaction than does IHT or AMR. If so, this could account for the difference in perceived warmth.
The absence of a true placebo condition is a flaw in the methodology given that placebo treatments have been shown to be superior to waiting lists (McConaghy, 1990). Additionally, although all patients had symptoms identified in the DSM-III criteria, 22% failed to meet all the criteria required for a diagnosis of PTSD. Small numbers in each group in the study make it difficult to draw clear conclusions about the relative effectiveness of one treatment over another. However, given that EMD was superior with respect to nightmares and flashbacks and that it does not require the homework commitment associated with IHT and AMR, it may be that EMD is at least as effective as these alternatives and in less treatment time, too.
Wilson, Becker and Tinker (1995) assigned 80 patients to either an immediate treatment, or delayed treatment, group. Only 37 of the patients met the criteria for a diagnosis of PTSD. The key criterion for inclusion in the study was that patients had to have experienced some traumatic memory that interfered with their lives. Both groups of patients received 3 EMD sessions. The SUDS, VoC, IES, STAI and SCL-90-R were used as process or outcome measures. Patients assigned to each of the groups were matched demographically and for length of trauma. The demand characteristics issue was addressed by using an independent assessor. They found a decrease in SUDS and concomitant increase in VoC, which were maintained at 90-day follow-up. However, as has been the case with many studies, comorbidity was inadequately assessed. The authors suggest that whilst EMD may be effective for the treatment of specific intrusive and avoidant aspects of PTSD, the impact of the technique on more general psychological functioning (as measured by the SCL-90-R, for example) is less clear.
Unsuccessful treatments using EMDEdit
A number of studies are reported in the literature that describe unsuccessful treatments using EMD. However, without exception, these are fraught with methodological flaws that do not support the notion that EMD may be a non-efficacious treatment for PTSD.
The study by Oswalt, Anderson, Hagstrom & Berkowitz (1993) on the EMD treatment of 8 patients provides an early attempt to replicate the findings of Shapiro. Only 3 patients were judged to have been successfully treated and they were regarded by the authors to have the least pathology. However, the study can be considered methodologically unsound for the following reasons: The patients were recruited via an advert in a campus newspaper. Of the eight who responded, 5 were hospital inpatients who had been diagnosed as having PTSD. However, no independent assessment of the cohort's PTSD status was made. Further, no account was taken of the patient’s mental health status in general and whether they were suffering from any form of psychiatric disorder that would have precluded them from a well designed study (e.g. personality disorder, psychosis etc.). In fact, the only criterion for inclusion in the study was a report of intrusive traumatic memories. Although Oswalt et al. (1993) claim to have followed Shapiro’s method exactly, this was not the case. In addition to therapist and patient being present in the room, a researcher and psychology student were also present to make observations. The study failed to use standardised psychological tests to assess treatment effect (using only the SUD scale and patient post-treatment reports about whether the memories were still ‘bothersome’). Additionally, there was no indication that the Validity of Cognitions scale (VoC) was used as in the original Shapiro method. Finally, in contrast to Shapiro’s (1989b) study, the authors failed to include a control group in their study. In view of the shortcomings of this study, it fails to qualify as a reasonable replication of Shapiro’s work and tells us nothing about the efficacy of EMD. It does suggest that a degree of caution must be adopted in the selection of patients who might benefit from the approach.
In a laboratory experiment to test whether EMD reduces the aversiveness of visual imagery, Merckelbach, Hogervorst, Kampman and de Jongh (1994) found no significant reduction in heart rate, ability to visualise an aversive stimulus or the perceived aversiveness of the stimulus after EMD. Further, there was no difference between the experimental group and a finger-tapping control group. However, it could be argued that the experimental situation differs markedly from a ‘real life’ traumatic situation in that PTSD victims have to contend with considerably more than a simple aversive visual stimulus. For example, some authors have argued that in PTSD a classically conditioned association is produced between the emotional response to the situation and the entire contents of the memory buffer that occurs during the trauma (Pearce, 1987; Dyck, 1993). Further, recent evidence from a study of PTSD (using Positron Emission Tomography (PET scan) and script-driven imagery) suggests that the emotions associated with PTSD are mediated within the limbic and paralimbic systems within the right hemisphere (Rauch, van der Kolk, Fisler, Alpert, Orr, Savage, Fischman, Jenike & Pitman, 1996). One implication from this study is that information processing in PTSD may not comprise a verbal component. Thus, it is possible that information processing, in the case of highly personalised trauma, is different to that involved in dealing with a non-personal aversive stimulus. It is unlikely that the aversive stimulus evoked personal cognitive statements (e.g. “I am helpless” or “I am going to die”) as is the case with PTSD. This precluded an essential aspect of EMD treatment (Shapiro, 1991) which is the ‘reprocessing’ of these cognitions.
Jensen (1994) examined 25 Vietnam veterans who met the criteria for PTSD. All patients received a pre-treatment structured interview prior to random assignment to the treatment or control group. The SUD scale was utilised as was the VoC scale. Post-treatment measures included the Mississippi PTSD Scale (Keane, Cadell & Taylor, 1986) and Goal Attainment Scaling (Kiresuk & Sherman, 1968). The control group comprised a group of veterans who simply accessed Veteran Administration services ad libitum. The experimental group received two treatment sessions of EMD within a 10-day period. Jensen reports no significant differences on the post-treatment measures between the groups although there was a significant reduction in SUD scores in the treatment group when compared with the control group. However, Lohr et al. (1995) suggest that the Mississippi PTSD Scale is based on historical information and may not be a sensitive measure of symptom change. Further, a number of authors have noted a negative correlation between chronicity of PTSD and successful treatment outcome (Peterson, Prout and Schwartz, 1991; Forbes, Creamer & Rycroft, 1994). Finally, EMD requires that the procedure be repeated for each traumatic image. Whilst is possible that some of the patients may have only required one or two sessions, it is likely that many would have required several sessions if there was to be any reasonable chance of the EMD being effective. Nevertheless, the study does suggest that Shapiro’s claim that 60-70% of patients will improve after a single session cannot be generalised to all PTSD populations. Furthermore, the efficacy of EMD with combat veterans suffering from chronic PTSD has yet to be established.
Summary and ConclusionsEdit
Of the seventeen studies considered in this review, 13 (7 single-case design and 6 controlled outcome studies) found evidence to suggest that EMD may be a useful technique in the treatment of PTSD.
Three studies found no evidence to support the use of EMD in the treatment of PTSD. The first of these (Oswalt et al., 1993) was severely methodologically flawed. The researchers used a small highly selected group (respondents to an advertisement) of which 5 patients were hospitalised psychiatric patients. No account of comorbidity was taken. Furthermore, the authors failed to independently assess the subjects’ PTSD status using a standardised assessment. The only measure used was the SUD scale. Finally, the procedure used failed to include central aspects of the EMD treatment (i.e. use of the VoC scale) and the patients were required to undergo the treatment with an audience of at least three people, two of whom were unknown to them.
It is true that the laboratory study by Merckelbach et al. (1994) which failed to find reductions in heart rate or the ability to visualise an aversive stimulus following EMD did not specifically set out to evaluate EMD as a treatment for PTSD.
Nevertheless, it does serve as a warning about the limitations of analogue studies. PTSD is a highly personal syndrome in which the patient was confronted by a situation involving actual or threatened death or severe injury. All of the symptoms of PTSD are based upon this fundamental aspect of the disorder. Thus, it is possible that information from an aversive stimulus that is not considered personal will be processed in a different way to intensely personal traumatic information. Consequently, this study neither supports nor refutes the claimed efficacy of EMD as a procedure for treating PTSD.
The study by Jensen (1994) suggests that Shapiro’s claim that EMD is effective 60-70% of patients after the first session is excessive, at least when war veterans with chronic PTSD are considered. It also lends further weight to the assertion of other authors that there is a negative correlation between chronicity and successful outcome when EMD is applied to PTSD (Peterson, Prout and Schwartz, 1991; Forbes, Creamer & Rycroft, 1994).
Owing to the variability in research designs employed by the various authors reviewed, it is difficult to fully evaluate the efficacy of EMD in the treatment of PTSD. Even so, a number of observations can be drawn from the literature. To begin with, none of the studies provided conclusive evidence that EMD is a comprehensive treatment for all aspects of PTSD. Indeed, evidence from some studies suggests that as many as 50% of patients continued to meet the criteria for PTSD post-treatment (e.g. Forbes, Creamer & Rycroft, 1994; Vaughan et al., 1994b). Additionally, the effect of EMD on general psychological functioning remains unclear. Whilst some authors report reductions in depression and anxiety (e.g. Renfrey & Spates, 1994; Forbes, Creamer & Rycroft, 1994) others suggest that their results were less clear (e.g. Boudewyns et al., 1993; Wilson, Becker & Tinker, 1995). There is also clear evidence that alternative approaches to EMD are effective in reducing some of the symptoms associated with PTSD (Sanderson & Carpenter, 1992; Boudewyns et al., 1993; Vaughan et al., 1994b). Finally, as has been stated, it may transpire that EMD is of limited utility in patients with long-term PTSD.
There are a number of positive indications that emerge from the literature. Thus, several authors agree that EMD seems to be particularly effective in reducing intrusion and avoidance symptoms in PTSD (e.g. Shapiro, 1989; Puk, 1991; Renfrey & Spates, 1994; Sanderson & Carpenter, 1992; Forbes, Creamer & Rycroft, 1994; Vaughan et al., 1994; Wilson, Becker & Tinker, 1995). Further, whilst other treatments were shown to be effective in reducing these symptoms (Sanderson & Carpenter, 1992, Boudewyns et al., 1993; Vaughan et al., 1994b), EMD appears to have been more effective than these alternatives. Finally, when effective, EMD seems to require less treatment time than any of the alternatives examined (e.g. Vaughan et al., 1994b).
There are practical advantages to a technique that requires relatively few sessions (thus preventing prolonged high levels of anxiety) and does not require the (unreliable) compliance associated with homework. The fact that EMD appears to be an effective treatment for some aspects of PTSD and not others, may be evidence for the multi-factorial structure of the PTSD syndrome. It is suggested that there is sufficient evidence to warrant continuing research into the application of EMD for treating PTSD. Future research should address itself to the deconstruction of the EMD procedure to establish exactly how the technique produces its effects. The development of a clear theoretical basis for the technique may result in it being better targeted and, consequently, more effective.
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Puk, G. (1991). Treating traumatic memories: a case report on the eye movement desensitisation procedure. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 22, 149-151.
Rauch, S. L., van der Kolk, B. A., Fisler, R. E., Alpert, N. M., Orr, S. P., Savage, C. R., Fischman, A. J., Jenike, M. A. & Pitman, R. K. (1996). A symptom provocation study of posttraumatic stress disorder using positron emission tomography and script-driven imagery. Archives of General Psychiatry. 53, 380-387.
Renfrey, G. & Spates, C.R. (1994). Eye Movement Desensitization: A Partial Dismantling Study. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 25, 231-239.
Richards, D. A. & Rose, J. S. (1991). Exposure therapy for post-traumatic Stress Disorder. Four case studies. British Journal of Psychiatry, 158, 836-840. Rosen, G. M. (1995). On the origin of eye movement desensitization. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 26, 121-122.
Sanderson, A. & Carpenter, R. (1992). Eye movement desensitization versus image confrontation: a single session crossover study of 58 phobic subjects. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 23, 269-275.
Shapiro, F. (1989a). Eye movement desensitisation: a new treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 20, 211-217. Shapiro, F. (1989b). Efficacy of the eye movement desensitisation procedure in the treatment of traumatic memories. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 2, 199-223.
Shapiro, F. (1991). Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing: from EMD to EMD/R - a new treatment model for anxiety and related traumata. The Behavior Therapist, 14, 133-135.
Spates, C. R. & Burnette, M. M. (1995). Eye movement desensitization: three unusual cases. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 26, 51-55.
Spector, J. & Huthwaite, M. (1993). Eye movement desensitisation to overcome post-traumatic stress disorder. British Journal of Psychiatry, 163, 106-108.
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Spitzer, R. L., Williams, J. B., & Gibbon, M. (1987). Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R (SCID). New York: Biometrics Research Department, New York State Psychiatric Institute.
Vaughan, K. & Tarrier, N. (1992). The use of image habituation training with post-traumatic stress disorders. British Journal of Psychiatry, 161, 658-664.
Vaughan. K., Wiese, M., Gold, R. & Tarrier, N. (1994a). Eye-Movement Desensitisation: Symptom Change in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. British Journal of Psychiatry. 164, 533-541.
Vaughan, K., Armstrong, M. S., Gold, R., O’Connor, Jenneke, W., & Tarrier, N. (1994b). A trial of eye movement desensitisation compared to image habituation training and applied muscle relaxation in post-traumatic stress disorder. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 25, 283-291.
Welch, R. B. (1996). On the origin of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing: A response to Rosen. Journal of Behaviour Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry. 27, 175-179.
Weismann, M., Sholomkas, D., Pottenger, M., Prusoff, B. & Locke, B. (1977). Assessing depressive symptoms in five psychiatric populations: A validation study. American Journal of Epidemiology, 106, 203-214.
Wilson, S. A., Becker, L. A. & Tinker, R. H. (1995). Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) treatment for psychologically traumatized individuals. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 6, 928-937.
Wolpe, J. (1982). The Practice of Behavior Therapy. New York: Pergamon.
Wolpe, J. & Abrams, J. (1991). Post-traumatic stress disorder overcome by eye-movement desensitisation: a case report. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 22, 39-43.
Wolpe, J. & Lang, P. J. (1969). Fear Survey Schedule, San Diego, CA: Educational and Industrial Testing Service. | <urn:uuid:9e122653-b995-4e2f-8517-1d0661758d79> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/EMDR_and_the_treatment_of_PTSD | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00149-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925822 | 9,565 | 2.859375 | 3 |
A Thai schoolgirl receives Sanofi's vaccine as part of the dengue trial
Sanofi remains on track to bring the first vaccine against dengue fever through development after encouraging data in a phase IIb study, although there are some unanswered questions about its efficacy.
At present there is no vaccine or pharmacologic treatment other than supportive care for dengue fever, which is the most widespread tropical disease after malaria, and an effective vaccine could have a huge impact on public health worldwide as well as blockbuster sales potential.
Sanofi started a large-scale study of its CYD-TDV vaccine in 2009, administering the vaccine to more than 4,000 children aged four to 11 in Thailand in three separate doses equally spaced over 18 months.
Data published in The Lancet today indicate that the vaccine was around 30 per cent effective, depending on the serotype of the virus causing the disease, but was unable to stimulate a response against one of the most prevalent strains in the study cohort.
The efficacy rate was lower than expected by the investigators, but nevertheless is the first-ever demonstration that a safe and effective vaccine against dengue fever is feasible.
"In the context of World Health Organization goals to reduce dengue mortality by at least 50 per cent and the morbidity rate by at least 25 per cent by 2020, this study represents a major milestone," write the authors of the study.
Meanwhile, a higher rate of dengue fever than forecast allowed them to look at specific virus serotypes and draw some interesting conclusions.
CYD-TDV appeared to be effective against three serotypes - DENV1, 3 and 4 - but a lack of efficacy against the most common DENV2 serotype, despite stimulation of an immune response, pegged back the overall efficacy rate of the vaccine.
That has prompted speculation that the serotype used in the vaccine was different to the one that was circulating in Thailand at the time the study was conducted.
An editorial accompanying the study by Dr Scott Halstead of the International Vaccine Institute in Seoul, South Korea, notes that the efficacy rate means that "celebration will be muted". He said however that Sanofi has administered the vaccine to 30,000 adults and children in a much-larger study that will provide greater insight into efficacy rates by serotype.
While generally self-limiting, dengue fever has a mortality rate of up to 5 per cent without supportive care such as fluid replacement. Carried by mosquitoes, the viral disease is a threat to almost half of the world's population.
There are estimated to be 50-100 million infected individuals at any one time, mostly distributed in South and Central America, sub-Saharan Africa, India and Southeast Asia. | <urn:uuid:834c7248-fb73-4b49-aaf6-2e820e670ddb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.pmlive.com/pharma_news/sanofis_dengue_vaccine_shows_signs_of_efficacy_424412 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00058-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959771 | 558 | 2.6875 | 3 |
In today’s food and health conscious society we’re all well aware of what we should be eating – vegetables, fruits, whole grains, lean meats, salads, dairy… the list goes on and on. That’s an awful lot to remember day to day! Here is a list of the top unhealthy foods to avoid, making healthy eating easier to navigate. You might be surprised.
10. Microwave Popcorn
There is nothing like an instant bag of microwave popcorn with a side of Perfluorooctanoic acid for a mid-day snack right? Recent studies have shown that microwave popcorn packaging that contains this long-winded chemical is associated with a host of reproductive disorders and increased cancer risk. This is just one chemical that is transferred into those tasty kernels when microwaved making them delicious bites of potential testicular, pancreatic, and liver tumors.
Suggestion: Use an air-popcorn machine and make your next popcorn experience an adventure to the movie theater, even if you are just staying at home.
9. Grain-Fed Beef
Grain and corn fed beef is a norm for the typical American meal today. While grain and corn are whole wheat options that can pack a powerful punch for your system, they increase the level of growth hormones in cattle. With an increase in growth hormones we see early maturity but a large decrease in essential nutrients such as vitamin E, potassium and calcium.
Suggestion: Ask your local grocer if they provide grass-fed beef, if they don’t ask them if they would be willing to begin.
8. Non-Organic Potatoes
Potatoes are a delicious root vegetable. However, those starchy little bulbs could be holding pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides that farmers use on them and other crops that they absorbed through the soil. Keep in mind, anything ending in “-icide” means it’s meant to kill, so don’t eat it!
Suggestion: Look for organic potatoes at your local grocery or search for local organic farmers to buy fresh! Yum!
7. Hormone Induced Milk
In order to produce enough milk to meet demand, dairy cattle today are often treated with hormones. Since use of these hormones began there has been an increase in milk related infections and colon, prostate, and breast cancer cases.
Suggestion: Read your milk labels, search for the one that clearly states there are no hormones added.
1 serving of a frozen cheesecake = 29 grams of saturated fats. Yikes! And seriously, who really stops at just one serving?
Suggestion: Mix natural yogurt with fresh fruits to pile into a crust for a delicious fruit tart!
Share this post | <urn:uuid:96f1de36-d404-4b3e-acdc-b60d2c6ef7c4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.gizmocrazed.com/2013/02/top-10-unhealthy-foods-you-should-avoid/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396959.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00092-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928812 | 560 | 3 | 3 |
This blog post is for the graphic novel novice. If you’ve ever wondered what all the graphic novel fuss is about read on and you might find your child’s (or maybe your own!) new favorite book.
What is a graphic novel?
The heading “graphic novel” (GN) refers to printed works which are presented in a comic book format. Like any format, GNs cover a wide range of topics from humorous talking animals to first hand historical accounts and everything in-between.
Here’s a peek into 3 graphic novels with widely varying topics and styles.
March: Book One, by John Lewis, Nate Powell, and Andrew Aydin.
Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke
Stinky by Eleanor Davis
What ages are GN’s appropriate for?
There are GN’s written for just about every age, covering a huge range of subject matter. At the Lawrence Public Library, we have three GN sections based on age (J GN for juvenile, YA GN for young adult, and GN for adults).
If you are unsure about finding an age appropriate GN don’t hesitate to ask an LPL children’s librarian. Or better yet, let your child be the guide! Even if they choose something above their level they will enjoy the experience of picking their own books.
Aren’t GN’s somehow inferior to “real” books?
The opinion that the comic strip format is not a legitimate form of literature has been around since the comic-book itself. The idea has lost steam in the last twenty years with the rapid acceptance of GN’s in libraries and schools around the world.
While not all GNs are created equal, some of the most interesting, emotionally challenging, and creative books to be published in recent years have been in the GN format.
Here’s a link to some great GN titles for kids. http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/5038.Best_Graphic_Novels_for_Children
Can GNs help kids become better readers?
“The simplest way to make sure that we raise literate children is to teach them to read, and to show them that reading is a pleasurable activity. And that means, at its simplest, finding books that they enjoy, giving them access to those books, and letting them read them.”
One of the great things graphic novels offer young readers is high-interest subject matter. Star Wars, Marvel Super Heroes, Pokémon, and a host of other kid-favorite titles are available in graphic novel format. Struggling readers often have difficulty becoming “immersed” in the story they are trying to read. Familiar characters and eye-catching art work can help young readers feel a part of the story and begin to understand the loveliness of getting “lost” in a book. Remember, any positive experience with a book is a step towards becoming a lifelong reader.
Alright, you are all set to read your first graphic novel! Don’t hesitate to ask for a recommendation from one of our friendly reference librarians.
Good luck and good reading! | <urn:uuid:01f4d926-4e32-43e8-bc74-0007980b8e30> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.lawrence.lib.ks.us/2013/11/whats-the-deal-with-graphic-novels/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00050-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948678 | 666 | 3.1875 | 3 |
The United States is today one of the more religious countries in the world. Even recent surveys that show a diminution of religious sentiment do not diminish the religious fervor in this country as compared to other countries, such as those in Europe. Americans have a strong belief in God and a belief that religion should play a major role in their individual lives. But what is the proper positive role for religion in public life? In an interview with America, Vice President Joe Biden makes a strong case for how his Catholic faith informs his own life in politics.
Biden believes in the goodness of people. He feels if they are given real opportunities, they will want to take responsibility for themselves. He believes government needs to promote policies that will enable those in need to have a real chance to succeed. He does not see government's role as one of prohibiting and punishing certain behaviors, but of promoting the general welfare so all citizens can be free to live in accordance with their own consciences.
The vice president references his Catholic family and his Catholic education as what has formed him into the person he is. President John F. Kennedy inspired him to enter politics, which he saw as a noble profession. Living through the civil rights struggle and following Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. convinced him that through politics, he could change the world for the better.
Catholics of our era did not see the world as an evil and dangerous place to be avoided by the Christian. Instead, someone like Joe Biden believed his vocation was to get involved in the world. He saw an obligation to speak out against injustice. Catholics had a strong sense of idealism and faith in themselves and the future. If as Catholics we thought about sexual issues, it was to worry about our own sins and failings. It was not to think about condemning our neighbor.
Those who seek to return the church to a pre-Vatican II era know little about what the church of the 1950s.was like. We grew up in a very pastoral church. While the rules were clear, they were not rigid, and they were implemented in a common-sense fashion. We were also conscious of growing up in a multicultural society. We understood that we needed to respect the beliefs of others and acknowledge and value individual differences.
There can be no doubt that our religion impacts who we are and what we do. As an elected official, the vice president performs his duties from the perspective of a practicing Catholic. That does not mean he will pursue policies to ensure that all Americans adopt uniform Catholic beliefs. Growing up, we learned we were to lead and teach others through our example. As scripture reminds us, "You will know they are Christians by their love." That represents quite a challenge for all of us. As Biden suggested in his debate with Paul Ryan, imposing one's values on other free people is not part of how religion should impact the public policy forum. | <urn:uuid:b4913bba-dc67-413a-9ad9-4a56746571f3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/proper-role-religion-life-our-country | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00126-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983085 | 586 | 2.625 | 3 |
Ghost towns and abandoned cities are strange and fascinating places, often reflecting some great upheaval that led to their demise. Asia is no stranger to urban abandonments, from antiquated to modern, deserted due to natural disaster, economic decline and so on. In abandonment, their buildings take on a different physical form to the bustling communities they once were, and often become a focus of urban exploration.
This hillside in southwestern Turkey offers an impressive sight, dotted with roughly 500 ruined houses that once made up the 2,000 strong Greek Christian settlement of Kayakoy. Abandoned in 1923, the ghost town is so intact that the houses could be waiting for new owners to fix their roofs, splash some paint around and get on with life as normal. In fact several houses have been reoccupied, and with two surviving Greek Orthodox churches, Kayakoy is a major tourist attraction protected by the Turkish government, although roadside vendors have a habit of scavenging objects from the town to sell as souvenirs.
Ravaged by the Sichuan earthquake of 2008, the tragic city of Beichuan has become one of Asia’s modern day ghost towns. Like some of the great cities of classical times, much of Beichuan was destroyed when the quake shook this peaceful landscape, its remaining buildings standing – just about – amid a scene of sheer destruction. To put the tragedy into perspective, in a town with a population of 20,000, over 1,000 students lost their lives at Beichuan high school alone when two buildings collapsed on the campus. Survivors were relocated after the town was deemed too vulnerable to rebuild. It is set to become a memorial park.
Hashima Island (Gunkanjima), Japan
Popularly known as Gunkanjima (Battleship Island) due to its shape and high seawall formation, Hashima Island is one of Japan’s most talked about places in the annals of urban exploration. Occupied from 1887 to 1974 and plagued by rumours of forced labour, Gunkanjima was bought by Mitsubishi in 1890 to mine deep sea coal. It went on to play a key role in the industrialisation of Japan.
Petroleum replaced coal in Japan during the 1960s and the island’s output declined. Mitsubish closed the mine in 1974 and the 835 people per hectare population abandoned Hashima Island. Ownership has since been turned over to the city of Nagasaki (15km away) and the island survives as a tourist attraction, although access is limited due to the dangerous condition of the abandoned buildings, some of which have tumbled down.
Sanzhi UFO Houses, Taiwan
The uniquely inspired Sanzhi Pod City, aka UFO houses or the ruins of the future, was built in 1978 as a failed holiday resort for U.S. service personnel posted to East Asia. The resort in Taiwan was never finished – abandoned two years after work commenced. It remained abandoned for 28 years, a bizarre collection of saucer-shaped buildings on the otherwise ordinary landscape. Lack of investment on top of mounting debt saw Sanzhi finally demolished in 2008, the ultimate failed holiday resort, and probably one of the most unique too. Read our full article here.
Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong
The web is buzzing with information about Kowloon Walled City, but the shanty is/was simply too fascinating to pass up. A largely ungoverned settlement with 33,000 residents crammed into a 6.5 acre (0.01 square miles) plot supposedly controlled by the Triads, it’s little wonder that Kowloon Walled City ultimately became a den of iniquity.
Originally built as a Chinese Fort, the densely populated citadel became a self-contained enclave when the British took control of the New Territories. More and more storeys were added to the already ramshackle slum, and the hands-off approach of the Hong Kong government meant organised crime syndicates reigned largely supreme and gambling, drugs and prostitution were commonplace.
Still, most residents were not involved in crime and made the most of the little they had, finding ways to raise and educate their children amid the vice in the endless labrynth of alleys. Kowloon Walled City was finally demolished by 1994. Remains can be seen in the Kowloon Walled City Park that replaced the city, its gentle tranquility where architecture meets nature a notable contrast to its previous incarnation.
Mandu, located near Indore in Madhya Pradesh state was founded as a fortress retreat in the 10th century. After being captured by the Mughals in 1401, Afghan Dilawar Khan established his own kingdom with Mandu at the centre. Known at one point as the “city of joy”, Mandu’s golden age had officially begun.
Mandu supposedly celebrates in stone the love between Baz Bahadur (a poet-prince ) and his consort, Rani Roopmati, an important component of local folklore to this day. The city has been abandoned for four centuries and is an important example of Afghan architecture. Its enigmatic palaces, frozen in time on their hilltop plateau, even inspired the design of the Taj Mahal. | <urn:uuid:516fa2d1-1214-4e29-9dd7-dc6c2d75112a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.urbanghostsmedia.com/2010/07/6-abandoned-towns-and-cities-of-asia/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400572.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00191-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973426 | 1,078 | 3.28125 | 3 |
Details about The Consequences of Chromosome Imbalance:
This book considers in detail the mechanisms of a major human problem. Chromosome imbalance affects all stages of life in ways ranging from spontaneous abortion and retardation to behavioural problems and malignancy. Charles J. Epstein concerns himself with how and why a particular chromosome imbalance produces a specific phenotype. His fundamental goal is to connect chromosome aberrations with functional abnormalities in terms of gene expression, developmental and cell biology, and metabolism. Through his examination of this relationship, we learn more about normal development and function. The book begins with an exploration of several human autosomal aneuploid phenotypes, with particular emphasis on the relationship between genotype and phenotype. In the next part, broad theoretical considerations of the mechanisms which generate these phenotypes are examined with reference to studies on man and other organisms such as bacteria and mice. Experimental approaches to study the effects of aneuploidy are presented next with special attention paid to the development of model systems for studying human aneuploidy.
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Rent The Consequences of Chromosome Imbalance 1st edition today, or search our site for other textbooks by Charles J. Epstein. Every textbook comes with a 21-day "Any Reason" guarantee. Published by Cambridge University Press.
Need help ASAP? We have you covered with 24/7 instant online tutoring. Connect with one of our tutors now. | <urn:uuid:dd3d1ca2-2270-44bd-91b8-6924e8abe995> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.chegg.com/textbooks/the-consequences-of-chromosome-imbalance-1st-edition-9780521254649-0521254647?ii=8&trackid=79e77999&omre_ir=1&omre_sp= | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398075.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00184-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927093 | 294 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Joanne Whalen, Extension IPM Specialist; email@example.com
Each year I get questions about Hessian fly in small grains and we do see an occasional field with an economic problem. Most of the new information regarding the management of this insect pest has been developed by entomologists in states to our south where Hessian fly is a perennial problem. A new regional publication, Biology and Management of Hessian Fly in the Southeast, ANR 1069, was released in January and the authors have done an excellent job of covering the biology, monitoring and management of this pest in small grains. You can access this publication at https://store.aces.edu/ItemDetail.aspx?ProductID=13507 (it provides different download formats) or www.aces.edu/HessianFly direct link to a supporting website.
With all of the new BT traits available to producers and different refuge requirements, it is helpful to have a quick reference to the most up to date information. My colleagues from the Midwest have done an excellent job of summarizing the latest information in one simple fact sheet call the “Handy Bt Trait Table.” Their fact sheet provides a quick reference to currently available Bt traits, spectrum of insects controlled, and refuge requirements. They update it frequently so you will want to book mark their site for the latest information. http://labs.russell.wisc.edu/cullenlab/files/2012/10/Handy_Bt_Trait_Table.pdf. | <urn:uuid:8a6c3de2-0d53-496f-b03b-a84e46cb00a5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://extension.udel.edu/weeklycropupdate/?p=5206 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00193-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.892557 | 320 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Animal ID System Needed to Thwart Mad Cow, Says Report
CSPI Says Profits, Not Public Health, Drives Effort to Keep Canadian Border Closed
March 21, 2005
Despite the discovery of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, in four older Canadian cattle, including one discovered in Washington state, there is no public health basis for preventing young Canadian animals from entering the United States, according to a new report from the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). The report says that since Canada has an effective mandatory cattle identification system, it would be much easier to track a Canadian cow from the slaughterhouse back to its farm of origin than it would be to track an American animal. That safeguard is essential, says CSPI, if public health authorities are to prevent cattle contaminated with BSE, E. Coli, or other hazards from entering the food or animal feed supply.
"Instead of trying to keep out competition from Canada, the American cattle industry should support a mandatory national animal identification and tracking system in this country," said CSPI food-safety director Caroline Smith DeWaal. "Shipping beef overseas would be easier, plus American consumers would have greater confidence that meat from any future mad cow doesn’t end up in supermarkets and restaurants. The animal ID system also would be enormously helpful in pinning down causes of food-borne illnesses caused by bacteria, which routinely kill thousands of people annually."
CSPI’s report comes two weeks after a federal judge issued a temporary order blocking the reopening of the border to Canadian cattle. The ban on importing Canadian animals was scheduled to end on March 8, but a group of American cattle producers sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), citing concerns about food safety. And, on March 3, the United States Senate passed a resolution calling for keeping the border closed. However, a recent USDA audit indicates that the three BSE-positive animals were all more than six years old and probably consumed feed produced before the ban on animal protein in ruminant feed went into full effect. And the Japanese government has indicated that Congressional action barring imports of Canadian cattle could actually further delay the resumption of U.S. exports to Japan.
"American ranchers’ alleged health concern about young Canadian cows exposing American consumers to BSE is all sizzle and no steak—-it has nothing to do with human health and everything to do with protecting their profits," DeWaal said.
Major industry players are divided over reopening the Canadian border, with many cattle producers opposed, and import-reliant processors, represented by the American Meat Institute (AMI), in favor. But the report notes that apart from the border issue, many beef stakeholders, notably AMI, the McDonald’s restaurant chain, and some individual ranchers, have voiced support for a mandatory system for cattle identification and tracking. The European Union and many other countries, including Australia (the world’s largest beef exporter), New Zealand, Japan, Brazil, and Argentina already have mandatory ID or traceability systems.
CSPI’s report, Name That Cow, recommends that the U.S. should move quickly to implement a mandatory national system requiring all cattle to bear ear tags or other visible identification indicating the farm of origin and year of birth.
The report also recommends that all high-risk cattle parts—including brains and small intestines—should be banned from animal feed and pet food, regardless of the age of the animal. Furthermore, says CSPI, spinal columns and neck bones from cattle of all should not be used in machines that separate meat from bones, and spinal cord should be banned from human food. CSPI also urges that the U.S. finalize, and Canada implement, a ban on downer cattle from entering the food supply.
"The question is how much longer USDA will delay implementing mandatory national cattle identification and other common sense reforms," DeWaal said. "That kind of food-dragging is isolating our cattle industry from the rest of the world." | <urn:uuid:c9d1d428-8413-4c7a-8d61-4aa239fd5361> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cspinet.org/new/200503211.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00163-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950468 | 844 | 2.953125 | 3 |
First up, we’ll run through a short history of the bikini (no sniggering at the back, please) and see how we arrive at the micro bikini.
The two-piece swimsuit we know today as the bikini has only been marketed and sold as such for 60 years. But archaeologists have discovered Minoan wall paintings from 1600 B.C. and Roman mosaics from 300 A.D. that show the bikini, so the ancients were livin’ it up! Still, it is the debut of the modern bikini in 1946 and its later modifications that truly define the swimsuit.
The bikini was invented and launched by two French designers: Jacques Heim and Louis Reard. Heim was a swimsuit designer who had created a two-piece suit to be sold in his beach shop in Cannes. He marketed the swimsuit as the “atome,” (named for its small size and meant to be compared with the atom, the smallest particle of matter known). No doubt, it was an outrageously tiny swimsuit.
The same year, Reard was creating his own similar, two-piece swimsuit. He named and marketed his swimsuit as the bikini, claiming that it was “smaller than the smallest bathing suit in the world”. Reard christened his swimsuit the bikini in honor of experimental atomic bombs being detonated in the South Pacific, near the Bikini Reef.
So Reard’s name stuck, though by today’s standards, the bikinis of the 1940s and ’50s were positively modest in their coverage. Bottoms were cut above the navel, and tops fully covered the breasts.
Getting smaller by the year
The bikini went through several changes as time passed. Designers experimented with many varieties for the swimsuit, including a bikini top with attached propellers (!), a suit made entirely of red hair, and even a version made of porcupine quills.
As early as the 1950s, the bikini was already so small that it could be packed into a matchbook, but even more drastic shrinkage lay in store. In the 1970s, the sexual revolution in the United States caused designers to make the bikini even more revealing.
So we had string bikinis, which exposed the navel by fitting the bottoms on the hips. The top, too, provided only bra-style coverage. In the 1980s, the popular thong bikini arrived on the scene. Designers claimed the thong bikini originated from the clothing of Amazonian tribal groups in Brazil. As we know, the thong bikini leaves the bottom virtually uncovered and the back of the suit disappears into the buttocks.
In the 1990s and 2000s, designers have continued to revamp the bikini and innovated new styles. While the thong and string bikinis retain their popularity, the micro bikini has recently been added to the growing selection.
Essentially, micro bikinis are bikinis combining a micro bikini top and a thong bikini bottom. Needless to add, it is scantier and more revealing than traditional bikinis and hence its name.
Buying micro bikinis
· A word of warning: you need to be careful that you don’t opt for a string bikini when you mean to buy a micro bikini. There are enough illustrated examples online to show you the difference.
· Numerous sites offer essential advice like how to shave your bikini line (hairy exposures will NOT do). Make sure your pubic area in particular is well shorn.
· Choose the fabric well. Test your skin for itches and allergic rashes, particularly since you will be spending a lot of time in the sun wearing your bikini
· Have plenty of sunscreen handy. You need to use liberal doses all over your body since you obviously will not have much on in terms of protection from the sun’s rays! | <urn:uuid:81096f50-a838-4f3b-a3e9-70bb6ecc18ac> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://bikinismagic.com/micro-bikini/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395621.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00145-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974947 | 807 | 2.796875 | 3 |
According to Raechelle Cline, a spokeswoman with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, half of the more than two dozen herds of dairy cows struck by the heat stress deaths are in Wisconsin, though the exact number of deaths in the state has not been determined.
A news release from the agency, issued on July 20, stated:
“We suspect that these calves have succumbed to the heat because young calves fewer than 10 days old tend to drink very little water,” says Donald Sockett, DVM, an epidemiologist/microbiologist with the WDVL (Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory). Many of the dead calves were also housed in calf hutches that were not properly configured for summer ventilation, he added.
Officials at the WDVL indicate that calves are dying in one of two ways. They are either weakened by heat stress and die from a bacterial infection or they become dehydrated and die from heat stroke.”
As Free From Harm points out, the mothers are probably indoors having their mammary glands pumped for profit, while their newborn babies are taken away and penned outside in the hot summer sun, where they are dying in record levels.
Most of these calf deaths were completely preventable. The news release from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection gives several suggestions on how to proceed. These include hosing down baby calves with cool water in the late afternoon, providing water or electrolytes for the calves at all times, and monitoring the temperature inside the occupied hutches.
That all makes sense to me; in fact, these are all obvious suggestions for any creature trying to survive in record high temperatures. So why were they not implemented? While 100 degrees is hot for cattle, with a little water and shade, very few cows will ever perish from the heat. If that was the case, cattle wouldn’t be raised in droves in Texas, Oklahoma, and California.
If you believe that the treatment of these animals is cruel and unnecessary, please sign our petition demanding that Wisconsin farmers do not allow any more baby calves to die in this extreme heat.
And thank you.
Photo Credit: Zealandia photography | <urn:uuid:b96f6f67-ea7a-4768-88da-b15f57f3b497> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.care2.com/causes/1000-dairy-calves-left-to-die-in-midwest-heat-wave.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404382.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00195-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964738 | 444 | 2.671875 | 3 |
1870 – Humewood, Kiltegan, Co. Wicklow
Humewood Castle was built between 1867 and 1870 to the design of an extraordinary architect, William White. The original concept was for “an occasional resort in the summer or the shooting season”. However the project grew and developed until White had over-run his budget by more than one million Euro in today’s currency. His refusal to pay the builder, Albert Kimberley, led to one of the most celebrated law cases in architectural history: Kimberley v White & Dick. The case, won by the builder, became a landmark in architectural case law. White’s career suffered, and he never received another important commission. But, as historian Mark Girouard, author of The Victorian Country House, observes, the loss was really architecture’s, “for this odd, original, gifted, cranky, over-sanguine and unconventional architect had designed one of the most remarkable of Victorian country houses.”
“Mr. White’s name has hitherto been mentioned only in connection with church architecture, and it is with this department of design that it has become most generally associated. But he has also been engaged in the design and erection of many Gothic buildings of a domestic character, among which that of ‘Humewood’ in Ireland is one of the most notable. It was begun in 1867 for Mr. W. Fitzwilliam Dick, M.P. for Wicklow, and represents for special reasons a combination of Scotch and Irish characteristics in its design. It is built of granite, a material obviously involving a plain massive treatment, in which the lintel must supersede the arch, and delicate mouldings become impossible. To compensate for this deficiency in refinement of detail, the mansion has been most picturesquely grouped with projecting bays, angle turrets, stepped gables, and high pitched roofs, rising above which a square tower, surmounted by a battlemented parapet, gives great dignity to the composition. Though much given to antiquarian re- search, and especially orthodox in the internal arrangement of his churches, Mr. White has not allowed his acquaintance with Mediaeval architecture to affect the character of his plan, which is studied with great attention to modern convenience and requirements, nor has less care been bestowed on the details and fittings whether of a constructional or ornamental character. They exhibit, in many features of the house, evidence of that artistic design by which alone we can hope to revive in these degenerate days thr true spirit if ancient handiwork.” A History of the Gothic Revival by Charles Eastlake, 1872. | <urn:uuid:dd477000-aad5-4192-877e-4bda3161fde9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://archiseek.com/2010/1870-humewood-kiltegan-co-wicklow/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396459.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00036-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976762 | 547 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Unless you're channeling Tippi Hedren in an Alfred Hitchcock movie, you are probably like most people in believing life would be for the proverbial birds without our feathered friends flying about.
That's why folks like Jeff Walk, a regional science director for The Nature Conservancy, teach classes on how to attract birds to our yards. And why David N. Bonter, assistant director of Citizen Science at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., works with the birding community across the nation to track and assess how various bird species are faring.
Yet the ironic thing is this: We may say we love birds, but many of us unthinkingly go about our daily routines in such a way that we literally force birds to fly the coop, whether that be a country home, suburban townhouse or city apartment.
Ask Walk for a list of avian no-nos and his answer is stark: "How dark are you willing to go?"
And, honestly, such a list can get pretty grim because the things we all get wrong are pretty fundamental, from the sort of windows we install to the trees we plant to whether the cat gets to go outside.
Here are things to do to draw birds, as identified by Walk and Bonter.
"Lawn is evil," said Bonter, noting birds will fly elsewhere if more than 25 to 30 percent of your property is lawn. "A perfectly manicured lawn is a desert for birds," he added, because lawn lacks a diversity of food resources and cover options. "The more shrubs you have and the more grasses you let grow up, the better you are going to be in attracting them." Even trees and shrubs that look sickly can provide needed habitat for birds. Leave them standing, Bonter said, unless they pose a safety risk.
On the other extreme, more pavement on a property means even fewer trees and shrubs to provide shelter or food, he said.
"Cats kill millions of birds in North America every year," Bonter said. Walk agreed, noting cats can pose a particular threat to migrating species that might not be as cat-smart as the street-wise birds in your neighborhood.
Don't use chemicals
Pesticides and insecticides kill weeds and insects, both important food sources. While Walk concedes most people don't like either, he encourages property owners to "tolerate" a bit "of rambunctious wildness" in their yards for the birds' sakes. Millions of birds are also killed through accidental poisoning from chemicals and other spills, he added.
Watch those windows
"Plate glass is the most effective device devised by humanity to kill birds," Walk said. "Birds collide with the windows because they see the reflection and think it is open space." As many as 1 billion birds are killed by window strikes each year. What to do? Put up something in the window, like reflective tape, that will send a visual cue to the bird that the space ahead isn't clear for flying. Small windows can also pose a problem if they offer a view from one side of the house to the other. Again, hang something in front of the window to break up the view.
Place feeders correctly
Bonter said those situated next to big bay windows are hazardous because birds can fly into the glass and die or be injured. Placing them in areas with large cat populations and no cover also poses a risk. "People may be trying to attract birds, but they're literally setting up a trap," Walk said.
Birdbaths kept consistently clean and filled with fresh water are avian magnets.
Support native plants
Native plants offer the type of shelter and food local bird species need year-round.
- A hero's farewell: Lifeguards gather in Huntington Beach to say goodbye to one of their o
- 2 found shot multiple times in Santa Ana, suspect at large
- With more to sell, Lakers' free agency approach will be less Hollywood, more basketball
- Flames roar through central California homes; thousands flee
- Brexit could push mortgage rates to historic lows | <urn:uuid:af9f588f-fbae-49d7-b3f9-f3919c582fbd> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ocregister.com/articles/birds-362715-walk-bonter.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00042-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951135 | 850 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Autonomous Rendezvous and Docking
The retrieval of satellites in orbit is a capability that is greatly sought after but difficult to achieve. Such technology could be used to safely guide old broken satellites into the ocean or be used to boost satellites with little fuel into a higher orbit to increase their mission life. At present, the only way to retrieve a satellite is to send a manned shuttle mission at immense cost and extreme risk to the shuttle astronauts. It would be desirable to accomplish this task with robots so there is no risk to people. Communication system time delays and human-machine interaction problems make the use of tele-operation unfeasible for this task, so it appears as though making the operation autonomous would be a practical answer. Unfortunately, it is relatively unknown how an autonomous control system for a satellite retrieval robot would react after capturing a satellite. The affect of various relative sensor packages on the control system performance is also a current research challenge.
The Supplemental Camera And Maneuvering Platform (SCAMP) will be used to simulate autonomous rendezvous, docking, and maneuvering. SCAMP will be programmed to catch and retrieve an object floating in the Space System Laboratory's pool. The vehicle will be equipped with several different control systems as well as several different sensor suites to compare and contrast the relative benefits and costs of each technology. We hope to better understand how the sensing and control systems interact with one another under the extreme conditions of autonomous rendezvous and docking tasks.
Project advisor, Dr. Rob Sanner
Lead Graduate Student, Joseph Gland
The Autonomous Rendezvous and Docking project is under development at the University of Maryland Space Systems Laboratory, part of the Aerospace Engineering Department and the A. James Clark School of Engineering. Funding is provided by a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship. | <urn:uuid:080d0cfe-9b31-4f55-b5ef-d16a23ab39a6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ssl.umd.edu/html/autonomous_rendezvous_and_dock.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399428.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00032-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920453 | 361 | 3.40625 | 3 |
The Atonement: Its Meaning and Significance
Why is the cross the crux of Christianity? What are the meaning and significance of the atonement? The Bible uses a host of terms to illuminate the answers to these questions: covenant, sacrifice, the Day of Atonement, Passover, redemption, reconciliation, propitiation, justification. In plain English Leon Morris explains each of these words, thus opening up for students, pastors, and teachers the fuller biblical dimension of God's great salvation.
Jesus Christ Atonement
Quantity On Hand: | <urn:uuid:a44a0bab-cf98-47a3-b4c7-edeb0ac8d27d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.equipresources.org/site/apps/ka/ec/Product.asp?c=muI1LaMNJrE&b=8048487&ProductID=430490 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396538.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00151-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.797277 | 114 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
How To Build Up Your Child's Confidence ?
Published Under Checklists Children Confidence Exam Prepare Fears Goal Setting Habits House How To Manners Motivation Parentingtips Parents Tips Physical Ability Preschoolers Reading Single Parenting Solving Problems
In these days of intense competition, it is increasingly important to build your child's level of self-confidence to enable her to compete in tomorrow's cut-throat world.
Listen to her
When your child tries to tell you about the day she had at school, how often do you really pay attention? Are you listening to her, or is your mind otherwise occupied? Very often parents tune out when their children are talking. Pay close attention to what your child is saying, and repeat it now and again so she knows you are listening.
Don't trivialize things
Something that seems trivial to you, may be very important to your child. If your child is upset that she missed the birthday party of a friend, don't laugh it off and say that there will be many others. Understand that while something like this has minimal importance in your world, it has great importance in your child's world. So treat the 'crisis' accordingly.
Don't criticize your child
When your child does something wrong, don't critisize her. Instead, criticize the behaviour. If she doesn't study when she's supposed to, instead of calling her lazy, tell her that she needs to work harder, and what she did was wrong. Instead of calling her an arrogant and rude person when she talks back to you, say, "What you said was rude." Or, "Please don't use that arrogant tone."
Question your child
Instead of losing your temper when your child says something rude to you, question her and ask her why she spoke in such a manner. Every time your child is rude to you, there is a reason behind it. Remember, your child is the one who is supposed to constantly abide by what you say and play by your rules. If she answers back, you shout at her. Perhaps she has a genuine point. Do try and find out what it is by questioning her about her feelings.
Praise your child as often as possible. Naturally, praise is different from flattery. Many parents don't praise their children too much as they are worried the praise may go to their child's head. But if you praise your child for a job well done, your child will certainly benefit to a great degree.
Encourage your child to think
Don't constantly force her to do things against her will. Although sometimes this may be necessary, very often, it is not. Still, parents command immediate obedience all the time. Although there was a generation where this was acceptable, such a generation is gone. And such obedience which obstructs thinking is no longer considered acceptable or desirable. Earlier on, children were not required to be independent, but things have changed. If you want to your child to do or not to do something, be prepared to back it up with a reason, better than, "Because I say so."
Focus on her strengths
If your child does badly in Math but well in dance, many of us parents will gloss over the good performance, especially if it not academic in nature, and focus on her poor performance. It is but natural that you would want your child to do well in everything, but if your child's performance is acceptable, don't push her to do better and better every time, especially if she shows promise in something else. So if she shows promise in dance, enroll her in dance classes instead of Math classes.
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Hi! I am Sam and the author of Cuteparents.net Which is your Parenting Resource for Parenting Ideas.Find Parenting Tips,Advice, Information for Today Parents.. Read More | <urn:uuid:e8bdb8ab-adaa-4166-a342-4bc5d02917dd> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cuteparents.net/2012/03/how-to-build-up-your-childs-confidence.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398216.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00145-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973628 | 804 | 3.03125 | 3 |
The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. has just released its 2010 food price index. Compared to 2002-2004, commodity food prices sharply increased, especially those of sugars and fats.
The new index is higher than in 2008 when people throughout the world rioted in protest. It is also at the highest level recorded since the index began in 1990.
What’s going on? In 2008, FAO explained the crisis as the result of the combined effects of:
- Competition for cropland from the growth in biofuels
- Low cereal stocks
- High oil prices
- Speculation in food markets
- Extreme weather events
I’ve discussed other possible explanations I’ve collected in previous posts.
High food prices are a disaster for the poor and are also a ticket to social disorder. World leaders: get to work!
Added clarifications: It turns out that the FAO food price index is not inflation-adjusted. Oops. This means that the prices are not necessarily higher than they were in 2008. Nevertheless, food riots are already happening. Ben Grossman-Cohen of Oxfam sends this report of such disturbances in Algeria, for example. | <urn:uuid:878dc724-b852-4df4-8260-19d665d4f66f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.foodpolitics.com/tag/price-of-food/page/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399425.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00068-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957376 | 248 | 2.765625 | 3 |
The three main UK political parties – the ruling Labour party, the opposition Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats – are now all on the campaign trail as Britain gears up for the general election on May 6th.
Britons are set to head to the polls on May 6, electing a Member of Parliament (MP) who will represent their constituency in the UK’s lower house, the House of Commons. After voting has finished, the party that has the majority of MPs goes on to form the government, which includes selecting the Prime Minister and forming a Cabinet. The UK local elections are set to take place on the same day.
Date created : 2010-04-06 | <urn:uuid:50fe6e0d-8274-448f-b6c4-7ca2462ba413> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.france24.com/en/20100406-three-main-parties-vy-support-ahead-march-vote | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398075.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00017-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973826 | 135 | 2.71875 | 3 |
44 Related Verses Tool (RVT)
The Related Verses Tool (RVT) enables you to find the verses that most closely match the content of a search verse based on the number of words in common between the search verse and other verses in the remainder of the Bible. It can be accessed by selecting Tools/Analyzing the text/Related Verses Tool from the main menu, or by selecting Find Related Verses (RVT) from the Command Line Tools options button menu.
The Related Verses Tool (RVT) Overview
The Related Verses Tool (RVT) searches using the words of your choosing in a specified verse to determine the verses in the remainder of the Bible that most closely match the search verse.
You can choose the particular words that you want to be used to find related verses. By default common words such as prepositions, articles, conjunctions, and pronouns are unchecked in Greek and Hebrew morphology versions, as these words will probably not be significant words for identifying verses that contain similar concepts.
You can double-click on a word to give it extra weight in the search. This enables you to indicate that a particular word is more important for identifying related verses. For searches performed using a Greek or Hebrew morphology version, you can also modify the morphological codes used in the search, or even search on only the codes and not the lemma.
You can also add words to the search that are not in the search verse. You can even include the words from a wordlist. For searches performed using a Greek morphology version you can also insert words from a semantic domain.
The related verses display allows you to view the search results in the version of your choice. The search results can be displayed according to the number of hits or according to book order.
Using the Related Verses Tool
To use the Related Verses Tool to find similar verses, follow these steps:
Step 1 - Select the base verse used to build the search
Enter the verse reference you wish to search in this text box. When you open the RVT the current Browse Window verse is entered by default.
Use this dropdown box to select your preferred search version.
Step 2 - Specify the words for which to search
With the input focus on the verse reference text box, press the RETURN key. This will cause the words in the verse to be loaded into the "search words" list box below. Each word in the verse will appear only once in the display list box, even if the word appears more than once in the verse. Pressing RETURN will also initiate the search with all words checked. You can then examine the results and modify (by unchecking) the words used in the search.
By default common words such as prepositions, articles, conjunctions, and pronouns will be unchecked for Greek and Hebrew morphology versions. In English Bible versions common words (such as “the”, “is”, “of”, etc.) are unchecked. The list of common English words that are unchecked can be edited in the Word List Manager. The appropriate file is named “common-eng.iel” and is located in the BibleWorks 9\init folder. Double-clicking on a word turns the background blue. The blue background indicates that this word will be given greater weight in the search than simply the number of times it appears in the text. The word will be weighted as if it occurred three times in the verse.
Adding a word - you can also add a new word to the list by entering the word in the text box next to the "Add word" label and pressing the RETURN key. The word does not need to be in the search verse.
Editing a word - you can change a word already in the word list by selecting the word and clicking on the "Edit Word" button.
Deleting a Word - to delete a word from the list, select the word, and right click on the word list box. Then choose "Delete selected word" from the context menu.
Adding a Semantic Domain or wordlist
To add a semantic domain wordlist or a word list stored in a file, click on the "Add sem. domain or wordlist" button. This will open a menu with three options.
Convert selected word to LN semantic domain
When you choose this option the word currently selected in the RVT word list will be looked up in the Louw-Nida Sematic Domain dictionary. The corresponding L-N word list will be displayed. You can then add the entire list or select particular words to add.
Add LN semantic domain
This option functions the same way as the first option, except that you do not have to first select a word in the display window. You must navigate the domain list to find the words that you want to add.
The third option, Add wordlist, opens the WLM. You can use the WLM to open or create a word list. Click Close to close the WLM and add the new words in the RVT display window. Be sure to check the check box next to the new word. See the chapter on the Word List Manager (WLM) for help with using the WLM.
Changing morphology display options - if the RVT word list contains a list of words from a morphologically tagged version, you can specify how you want the morphological tags to be used to perform the search. You can specify the full morphological code information be included, or that only the first word of morphological codes be used in the search. You can also choose to search on lemmas only (i.e. exclude morphological codes) or on codes only. To select which of these options you want to choose, right click on the word list and choose the appropriate option.
Step 3 - Find related verses
After loading the words, and adding or modifying words in the search word list, click on the "Find verses" button to run the search. Pressing the RETURN key with the input focus set to the verse reference entry textbox will also initiate the search.
Step 4 - View related verses
By default the search results are listed according to the number of hits per verse. The number of hits is listed in the header above the list of verses. Next to each hit is a check box, followed by the number of hits in brackets.
There are a number of options that can be changed to determine how the results of the RVT search are displayed.
If your searches are resulting in too many hits, the Display threshold dropdown box enables you to trim the search results list to a more manageable size. The default threshold changes depending upon the number of checked words in the display window. The default threshold is 1/3 or less of the checked words in the display window.
The dropdown list box next to the "Display" label enables you to change the search results display version. This enables you to search in one version while displaying the text of the search results in a different version.
Verse List Context Menu
If you right click on the RVT results verse list, a context menu will be displayed. It permits you to set more display configuration options, and also allows you to copy the RVT verse list to the clipboard and to the Main Search Results list box outside the RVT. The options are as follows:
Sort by book order
This option enables you to view the search results in book order. This setting is useful if you wish to find similar verses in a specific book or section of the Bible.
Cross verse boundaries
This option enables the search engine to look for hits across consecutive Bible verses. When this box is checked, the search results will show the number of hits in the first verse, a comma, then the number of hits in the second verse. The search results are listed according to the first of the two consecutive verses.
Select all verses
The first option selects all the verses in the RVT verse list box. It is used with the copy options described below.
Unselect all verses
The second option unchecks all the check boxes in the search results list box. It is used with the copy options described below.
Copy selected verses to Search Window
The option copies the selected verses to the main Search Window where they can be processed or examined by other BibleWorks tools.
Copy selected verses to the Clipboard
This option copies the selected verses to the clipboard. Copying the verses to the clipboard also retains all the headings containing the number of hits in a single verse, plus the number of hits in the verses being copied, and the verse reference. The verses appear in the Bible version specified in the Display text using dropdown box.
If you want to view a particular verse in the related verse list in the main Browse Window, just double click on the verse text (outside the check box).
The Options Button
The Options button opens a menu with additional PMT configuration options.
Search all versions in same language
If this option is selected, the RVT searches all Bible versions sharing the language of the base version. For instance, if the base version is the NAS and this option is checked, all English versions will be searched. If the base version is the BGT and this option is checked, all Greek versions will be searched.
Search all Display versions in same language
If this option is selected, the RVT searches all Bible versions displayed in the main window's Browse Window that share the language of the base version. For instance, if the base version is the NAS and this option is checked, all English versions Displayed in the main window's Browse Window will be searched. If the base version is the BGT and this option is checked, all Greek versions displayed in the main window's Browse Window will be searched. To limit a search to a specific collection of versions, set those versions as Display versions in the main window and check this option.
Cross verse boundaries - this is the same option as provided in the verse list context menu (see above).
Use search limits from main window
If this option is selected, when the RVT searches for verses, the results will be limited by the Search Limits set in the main window.
On startup set search to main Search Window version
If this option is selected, when the RVT opens, both the RVT search and display versions will be set to the current main window search version.
On startup set search auto set to BGM or WTM
If this option is selected, when the RVT opens, the search version will be set to BGM for New Testament and WTM for Old Testament. | <urn:uuid:841f2820-dfae-4f74-8db2-897b6629ca39> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bibleworks.com/bw9help/bwh50_RelatedVersesTool.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00115-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.841225 | 2,193 | 2.515625 | 3 |
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[ The PC Guide | Systems and Components Reference Guide | Hard Disk Drives | Hard Disk Performance, Quality and Reliability | Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) | RAID Concepts and Issues | RAID Performance Issues ]
Degraded Operation and Rebuilding
All of the discussions concerning RAID performance--both here and elsewhere--are based on the assumption that the array is operating normally, with all drives functioning. Redundancy-enabled RAID solutions provide the ability for the system to continue even one of the drives in the array has failed. However, when this occurs, performance is negatively affected; the array is said to be operating in a degraded state when this happens (some manufacturers may call this a critical state or use another synonym). The impact on performance depends on the type of RAID used by the array, and also how the RAID controller reacts to the drive failure.
When an array enters a degraded state, performance is reduced for two main reasons. The first is that one of the drives is no longer available, and the array must compensate for this loss of hardware. In a two-drive mirrored array, you are left with an "array of one drive", and therefore, performance becomes the same as it would be for a single drive. In a striped array with parity, performance is degraded due to the loss of a drive and the need to regenerate its lost information from the parity data, on the fly, as data is read back from the array.
The second reason for degraded operation after a drive failure is that after the toasted drive is replaced, the data that was removed from the array with its departure must be regenerated on the new disk. This process is called rebuilding. A mirrored array must copy the contents of the good drive over to the replacement drive. A striped array with parity must have the entire contents of the replacement drive replaced by determining new parity information (and/or replacement data calculated from parity information) for all the data on the good drives. Clearly, these procedures are going to be time-consuming and also relatively slow--they can take several hours. During this time, the array will function properly, but its performance will be greatly diminished. The impact on performance of rebuilding depends entirely on the RAID level and the nature of the controller, but it usually affects it significantly. Hardware RAID will generally do a faster job of rebuilding than software RAID. Fortunately, rebuilding doesn't happen often (or at least, it shouldn't!)
Many RAID systems give the administrator control over whether the system does automatic or manual rebuilds. In an automatic configuration, the array will detect the replacement of the dead drive and begin rebuilding automatically on the new one--or it may start the rebuild as soon as the bad drive fails if the array is equipped with hot spares. In manual mode, the administrator must tell the system when to do the rebuild. Manual is not necessarily "worse" than automatic, because if the system is not one that runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the administrator will often prefer to wait until after hours to rebuild the array, thereby avoiding the performance hit associated with the rebuild. However, take the following warning into account as well...
Warning: Most regular
RAID arrays using mirroring or striping with parity are in a vulnerable state when they
are running in degraded mode. Until the offending drive is replaced and rebuilt, they
provide no data protection. Do not excessively procrastinate rebuilding a
degraded array; even if you are just waiting for the end of the day, recognize that you
are taking risks in doing so.
Note: None of this
section applies when you are doing striping without parity (RAID 0). When a drive in a
RAID 0 array fails, performance doesn't degrade, it comes to a screeching halt. :^) The
reason is that RAID 0 includes no redundancy information, so the failure of any drive in
the array means all the data in the array is lost, short of heroics.
See here for more details.
Next: RAID Reliability Issues | <urn:uuid:11efa8bd-a108-4e73-bcf7-bf5c7deacdf8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/concepts/perfDegraded-c.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00063-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93142 | 925 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Diets rich in lentils could lower high blood pressure and reverse damage to blood vessels without drugs.
New research conducted by University of Manitoba researchers Carla Taylor and Peter Zahradka has shown that eating lentils can help prevent the increases in blood pressure that come with age and correct changes occurring in blood vessels due to high blood pressure.
Julianne Curran, director of nutrition, scientific and regulatory affairs for Pulse Canada, said Canada is the world’s largest producer and exporter of red and green lentils.
“It’s exciting because it’s a nutritional intervention than can potentially have this effect and it’s a homegrown one as well,” she said.
The study, which used rats as subjects at the Canadian Centre for Agri-Food Research in Health and Medicine in Winnipeg, will require further testing in animals before research begins in humans.
Health Canada recommends consuming three-quarters of a cup of lentils and pulses as meat alternatives per day, while U.S. guidelines suggest half a cup per day or three cups per week.
Curran said lentils are a lower fat option rich in fibre and vitamins, which can help lower cholesterol levels.
“It does seems that eating one-half cup per day is associated with positive health and nutritional effects,” she said.
The latest study builds on previous research, which indicated eating legumes such as beans and lentils can improve blood flow to the legs of people with peripheral artery disease.
Another study showed lentils were effective in preventing high blood pressure. | <urn:uuid:738114f7-5b1d-47ef-b6b6-b43fe3d26f79> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.producer.com/2014/01/lentils-lower-cholesterol-blood-pressure-study/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00104-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942507 | 323 | 3.296875 | 3 |
Kentucky Employees Learn Spanish for their Jobs
Voluntary Spanish classes are a way for employees to provide better service to a growing Hispanic population.
Kentucky's Hispanic population has grown rapidly. Though the size of the state's total Hispanic population ranks 39th in the nation, Kentucky consistently ranks in the top ten of all states for Hispanic population growth. Between 1990 and 2000, this population grew 173 percent. Much of the increase was driven by migrant farm workers.
Kentucky needed to find a way to provide services to its Spanish-speaking population. Some social service organizations in the state are required by federal law to have Spanish-speaking staff members. The law does not apply, however, to the customer service departments in the state, meaning that some state residents could have trouble receiving essential services or information. Without having these needs met, government suspicion and distrust can quickly develop.
In 2008, Tim Anderson, formerly the consulting services manager with Kentucky's Governmental Services Center (GSC), implemented Bienvenido mis amigos!, a program offering employees two basic courses in the Spanish language and Hispanic culture. Additionally, the state has developed a website with resources employees can use as they develop their Spanish-speaking skills.
I spoke with Anderson, now working with Kentucky's Transportation Cabinet, in a recent phone interview to learn more about the language program he implemented. An edited transcript follows.
How did you start GSC's Basic Spanish Customer Service Course?
I was the e-learning coordinator for a police academy [in Kentucky], and one of the initiatives that came out was teaching law enforcement to communicate with Spanish-speaking Americans. One of the guys that worked with me there came to work for me when I moved to the Personnel Cabinet. We discussed using the [Spanish] customer service class for state employees.
We thought that because the [number of] Spanish-speaking people in Kentucky increased so much over the last Census, it would be great if we gave people a resource to use at work -- even if it was nothing more than to [help them] communicate enough until they could get someone there to translate.
Were there similar programs being offered in different departments?
At that time, we didn't even have (in most of our state offices) translators. Some offices were different, like those offering social services programs. There was a federal requirement for them to have some Spanish speaking skills. We decided we should look into this for the rest of the state.
What information is covered in the basic class?
The basic class mainly just covers the alphabet, some basic words, some basic greetings, basic customer service terminology. For example, if someone asked you where the bathroom was, you could tell them.
What additional resources are available for students on the program's website?
The website actually has PDFs -- you can click on the word or phrase and it gives you the pronunciation. Not only [can] you see it written out phonetically, you [can] hear it being spoken correctly. There are some other hyperlinks to some other websites. Those PDFs [are] downloadable to keep on your desktop, hard drive or to print out, so you [don't] have to be on the website at all times.
How did you let employees know about the Spanish language program?
We had a couple of different avenues to tell people. On the website, we have a catalogue with all of our classes and it was listed there. We also sent out an e-mail. We have training liaisons at each agency that help manage the training under their cabinet or agency. We sent out an announcement to all of those agencies concerning this course, what the course would entail, who it would benefit, how they could apply for the class....
Additionally, on our check stubs, we can publish information. When you get your check stub, you can look and there is information on the portion that you throw away. The class was advertised quite often.
What was the initial response?
We had a huge response to the face-to-face class. That's one of the reasons we decided to take it online: We couldn't keep up with the demand and going online gave employees a longer period of time to take the class. We also made it available for an entire year after you take the class for your review or as a refresher. Of all our classes, it was one of our most popular.
The good thing about this class was it was very popular and it was one of the classes that people took on their own. They signed up because they wanted to, but it wasn't a mandatory class like the sexual harassment class. You can just volunteer for this class, and we still had a huge response.
How are the courses and website resources funded?
The Governmental Services Center -- it's coming out of their budget, but they receive funds based on a stipend from each employee. Basically, the Governmental Services Center is an entity funded by all of the other cabinets to be able to build these classes.
How do you deal with those who think English should be the only language spoken in the U.S.?
You do hear that, but it's usually from people who don't work with the public. If you work with the public, to function and do your job, you have to be able to communicate regardless of what the language is. So these comments were few and far between. I think, honestly, that that mentality is starting to subside some, so we really didn't hear that too much. I think what helped was [the program] was based on customer service. To be a good customer service provider, you have to be able to communicate.
Join the Discussion
After you comment, click Post. You can enter an anonymous Display Name or connect to a social profile. | <urn:uuid:cd21025a-9640-43a5-9c07-902a11c6809b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.governing.com/topics/public-workforce/Kentucky-Employees-Learn-Spanish-for-their-Jobs.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00200-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976236 | 1,186 | 2.8125 | 3 |
What kinds of Rocks or
Minerals is this bike made of?
The following lists the
elements that contribute to the different parts of the bike. Those denoted with*
and ** are rocks. A mineral is a naturally occurring element or
chemical compound that is crystalline. A rock is
generally considered to be an
aggregate of minerals.
parts of bike: pedals, frame,
pedal cranks, chain, etc.
and plastic parts: seat, tires,
brake pads, helmet, etc.
(derived from crude oil)
Clay (either a mineral group or rock type)
Glass parts: mirror,
Silica or Quartz sand
Sodium carbonate minerals
Clay (mineral group and/or rock type)
Significant amounts of
the following elements and minerals are also obtained through recycling:
Aluminum, Chromium (as stainless steal), Iron and Iron steel, Lead, Magnesium,
Nickel (as stainless steel), Silver, Titanium, Tungsten, Zinc and Silica (from
The U.S. Geological Survey publishes mineral commodity
reports. This and other information is also accessed from the webpage
Kids Zone Home Page | <urn:uuid:f082970a-0c2d-48ea-900f-fbdc15314ed4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.conservation.ca.gov/cgs/information/kids_geozone/Pages/answers.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396029.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00145-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.761479 | 253 | 3.4375 | 3 |
Few films make me as upset as The Sea Inside. It has been years since the first time I saw the 2004
Alejandro Amenábar vehicle, which stars Javier Bardem, as a real-life disabled man named Ramón Sampedro, a Spanish man who believed it was better to be dead than disabled. Rather than portraying disability in a way that would open up dialogue about why disabled people feel that way, and addressing the greater issue of how society views disability, the film is a testament as to why non-disabled people should pity the disabled community, especially those who are as disabled as Ramón Sampedro, and support his decision to end his life, even if his disability was not fatal, which it was not.
We look to film and television for how to treat others, how to understand others, and to learn about stories about people we don’t actually know. The majority of non-disabled people do not know someone with a disability. This is in spite of disability be the world’s largest minority community with numbers between 1 billion worldwide. A lot of this is because disabled people have been kept away, out of public essentially sequestered to the back bedroom, until the early to mid-20th century, when disabled activists started fighting for their rights to go to school, find employment, and anything else non-disabled counterparts were doing. If not stuck in the back bedroom, others were performing in freak shows, the objects of pity and awe…never of understanding or relatability.
Around a century has passed, and society still doesn’t know how to deal with disabled people. Hollywood doesn’t know how to tell disabled stories, so it falls back upon tired tropes that often involve pity or awe. This trope is so common, many activists look out for it in any new forms of media that includes disability. Even as the world becomes more tolerant of other differences, the pity narrative for disabled characters continues. The Sea Inside came out over a decade ago, and yet we still have not evolved enough beyond the harmful message embedded in this film.
Even as disabled activists fight to prove that our lives are worth living, assisted suicide has been discussed, and even approved, in states like California. Such legislation puts disabled lives at risk, under the guise of letting terminally ill people die with dignity. Such films continue to uphold the narrative that disabled people deserve to be able to kill themselves, because being disabled is so awful. It doesn’t matter if the disabled person is dying. Suicide is still seen as a viable option, because people believe being disabled is a fate worse than death.
The latest film to take on the narrative that it is be better to be dead rather than disabled is a very disappointing film called Me Before You. It stars British television stars, Emilia Clarke and Jenna Coleman. Even more disappointing is the casting of The Hunger Games actor Sam Clafin, as a physically disabled man. The trailer is filled with ableism, and many harmful disability stereotypes. Additionally, not only is the non-disabled actor cast as a cripple, he’s the worst kind of crip. He is pathetic, pity-inducing, and absolutely inaccurate to most disabled people’s reality. He makes you want to pity him and support him dying, “because it’s the right thing to do.”
The film is based on a romance novel by British romance writer, Jojo Moyes. If it is anything like her novel, then *******SPOILERS AHEAD******* we are looking at a film that sees a man with a disability who in spite of finding love, still kills himself, because life is not worth living if you have to live it in a wheelchair. Of course, his disability is also a plot device for the true lead character, who actually benefits from the death. His disability and subsequent death because of it, allow her to go on living. She is able-bodied compared to him, so she is able to benefit because he leaves her the money she needs to have a successful life. His death benefits her, and solves all her problems, so even if she loved him, it is better for her that he died.
You can see the trailer below:
The disability community is sick of seeing films where disabled people are misrepresented. Part of this is because we are not included, anywhere. We were not consulted for the script. A wheelchair user did not write the script. Even the main actor is an able-bodied actor, which prevents him from knowing how accurate his acting, how harmful his portrayal, and how inauthentic the script really are. Without including the disabled voice, non-disabled Hollywood continues to make life harder for us, because this is all people see, and they assume it’s true.
I believe that if Hollywood showed more disabled actors, particularly wheelchair users, who we never see, and the stories were more reflective of the disabled experience, then people would believe disabled lives were worth living. There is a huge difference between a debilitating illness, such as brain cancer, in the end stages, and a person with a disability who is not dying. You can find success, love, fulfillment even if you happen to use a wheelchair. It is not the end of the world, and these films need to stop scaring people into thinking it is. We cannot change the narrative about disability when these kinds of films continued to be made.
We cannot make better, accurate, disabled-inclusive films, so long as Hollywood is able to continue shutting us out. Often, performances in these kinds of movies are awarded by the institution, and disabled actors continue to struggle to find any type of meaningful work. If we are not even allowed to play disabled roles, who are we allowed to play? I only wish disabled perspectives were even considered, because until they are we will keep seeing films that continue to harm one of the most oppressed groups in the world. The disability community deserves better. | <urn:uuid:882f6422-d460-4706-87f5-259fa6dde88a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.dominickevans.com/2016/02/hollywood-promotes-the-idea-it-is-better-to-be-dead-than-disabled/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399428.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00166-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979071 | 1,221 | 2.53125 | 3 |
My daughter has been over 4 years and with no concept of number except one. Hence, we try to design an Apple App to teach her nu
My daughter has been over 4 years and with no concept of number except one. Hence, we try to design an Apple App to teach her number in games. In the game, the items in daily life (such as apples) are displayed to demonstrate the number meaning.
The game is suggested to play on Ipad where the screen is more bigger than Iphone, which leads to better user experience in displaying the exquisite and kid-loved animation. Such as butterflies or bees are flying around, or the sound of water takes kids into magnificent nature.
You can get the game “Kid Maths” from:
https:// itunes. apple. com /us /app /kid-maths /id898265525?l =zh&ls =1&mt =8}
My daughter self-learn numbers in 3 strategies in the game.
1st, learn the meaning of numbers.
2nd, count by herself to check if she get the concept of number.
3rd, promote her numerical recognition by sort numbers from Min to Max.
The 1st game “Learn Numbers” has 4 levels: 1~10, 11~20, 21~50, 51~100
My daughter is only 4 years, and no concept of numbers, therefore, the 1st level is proper for her to start and only ten numbers easy for her to accept.
The 10 numbers are displayed one by one with beautiful, red apples on left to tell her what the number means. In addition, the numbers are played around between 0 and 10. My daughter gets to know these numbers little by little. Moreover, except self-teach through Ipad, we also ask her to count real items in life to promote her recognition of numbers where (in 2nd game) imitate the scene.
In the 2nd game, it can enhance and check the knowledge of number my daughter adopted. Insects or insect-groups are showed to be counted and 3 options which including only one right answer is ready for choosing. Moreover, once click on any option, Ipad will pronounce which make my daughter feel interesting during the game.
The numbers is also divided into 4 levels, my daughter first plays the 1st level (0~10), we let our daughter replay the 1st level to enhance her knowledge of single-digit number.
There’re 15 exercises for my daughter to play counting. Hence, I will let her break after 10 or 15minutes.
After some days, my daughter comes to count by herself though the numbers >5 are difficult for her to count at first.
Later, I found my daughter is not clear about numerical order, such as 3 and 5, which is bigger, which is smaller. Then we developed the 3rd game “Sort Numbers” for her to enhance her recognition of numerical order.
In the game, the height of stairs, similar to victory stand, stands for the numerical value. We ask our daughter to order the numbers displayed and pull to right stair. And the app will help my daughter to judge if she do it right or not. If not, my daughter can try again to pull potential righter number.
After several-days experiences, my daughter can play it by herself and get to know which is min, which is max.
Be careful, once your kids play over one of three-games, make him/her have a rest and if still interested, try again.
In total, the app does well in help my daughter learn numbers. Though, we parents also make practice with them in life to enhance her competence of counting items around daily life.
It’s my pleasure to share my teaching experience with you, wish it’s helpful for you kid education. | <urn:uuid:d5bb4e0a-c8ee-414e-a95a-f45ac8e6297c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://forums.familyeducation.com/discuss/hot-topics/my-daughter-has-been-over-4-years-and-no-concept-number-except-one-hence-we-try-d | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397797.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00195-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967545 | 804 | 2.828125 | 3 |
We’ve been planning a response to the housing crisis left in the wake of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that destroyed many towns in Tohoku. The challenge to formulating a design for rehousing the homeless is the uncertainty that pervades the rebuilding effort. As the government unsuccessfully struggles to meet its targets for temporary housing and clears mountains of refuse, it may be years before we see much progress on the ground in terms of rebuilding permanent communities.
Although the government has announced plans to build new eco-cities and has set aside funds for his purpose it is unlikely that Japan’s beleaguered government can undertake such an enormous task alone. Japan’s massive homebuilding corporations are salivating at the unprecedented business opportunity the disaster has presented them. But left in their hands, the results will undoubtedly be disappointing.
It seems unrealistic that all of the residents of coastal town along Tohoku’s coast will simply move to new areas inland (no matter how attractive and green these new developments prove to be). Many of the displaced are the elderly whose lives – like those of preceding generations – were linked to the ocean. Will they simply give-up ancestral ties to land that they own? Can ports for fishing and trade be rebuilt without the communities that served them? We think it unlikely.
The alternative is to build on higher land, but this will entail obvious complications in a country in which 74% of the land is mountainous. Is it be feasible given the additional cost of acquiring land, retaining soil, providing access and securing buildings on sloped land?
The other option, of course, is to rebuild the destroyed communities. Is it possible to build housing that is flood (or tsunami) proof? While evacuation plans are doubtlessly crucial to saving lives in these disaster-prone areas, an alternative design solution might at least minimize property loss and stop entire livelihoods from being washed away.
For better or worse, Japan has tended to attempt to engineer away its threats (both physical and economic). Massive unattractive sea walls built in the 1960′s were often derided as wasteful follies, but some served their purpose in the recent tsunami, saving small towns like Fudai. Civil engineering (with its strong ties to government) has been all but exhausted as a means of stimulating Japan’s endless economic recession. Whereas the US spends 2% of GDP to build and maintain civil engineering projects, Japan spends more than double this figure. However, faith in this approach was shattered when the Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant (supposedly protected behind its own seawall) was inundated with catastrophic results.
The cynical view is to predict that the government can’t or won’t change and that it will simply attempt to build these walls higher and stronger than before. Will this be enough to reassure coastal inhabitants to rebuild their homes? After all, stone monuments on the hillsides explicitly warn that deadly tsunamis have struck here before. But after time, the popular consciousness seems to forget or ignore and rebuild. Global media and the internet may make it harder to forget the images of complete devastation this time.
1. Rebuild on higher land at higher cost in a new location?
2. Rebuild flood-proof buildings on existing plots?
3. Rebuild as before and put faith in higher sea walls?
Facing uncertainty a flexible approach is required. We think it is possible to design a house for all outcomes. | <urn:uuid:e96427c3-4909-4069-8eb1-cec37491b6de> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bakoko.jp/102179/journal | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404382.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00080-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965932 | 703 | 3.171875 | 3 |
Carter Godwin Woodson, credited as "The Father of Black History Month," was born in New Canton, Virginia, on Dec. 19, 1875.
The son of freed slaves, Woodson would go on to become one of the first African-Americans to receive a doctorate from Harvard University and one of the first Blacks to earn a Ph.D. in the United States. A scholar and advocate for the study of Black history in schools, Woodson co-founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life in 1915 and established the scholarly publication The Journal of Negro History, the following year.
Woodson used his influence to rally schools and other organizations to incorporate Black history into their programs. His efforts eventually led to the establishment of Negro History Week in Washington in 1926 and the publishing of the first issue of the Negro History Bulletin in 1937. In 1976, President Gerald R. Ford issued the first Message of Observance of Black History Month. Ten years later, Congress designated February "National Black (Afro-American) History Month."
Woodson died on April 3, 1950, at the age of 74.
BET National News - Keep up to date with breaking news stories from around the nation, including headlines from the hip hop and entertainment world. Click here to subscribe to our newsletter. | <urn:uuid:78174a62-e9b4-4cfe-901e-61f65a435d87> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bet.com/news/national/2012/12/19/this-day-in-black-history-dec-19-1875.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404405.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00078-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955267 | 265 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Also known as the Solvay Process.
An industrial method of making sodium carbonate from ammonium carbonate and sodium chloride. When carbon dioxide is passed into a nearly saturated solution of common salt containing ammonia, ammonium carbonate is formed and this tends to pass into ammonium hydrogencarbonate, which reacts with sodium chloride to form sodium hydrogencarbonate and ammonium chloride. Sodium hydrogencarbonate is sparingly soluble in a solution of sodium chloride or ammonium chloride, and mostly separates out as a solid which may be filtered off.
2NH3 + H2O + CO2 ==> (NH4)2CO3
(NH4)2CO3 + H2O + CO2 ==> 2NH4HCO3
NaCl + NH4HCO3 <==> NaHCO3 + NH4CL
Sodium hydrogencarbonate is then heated to give sodium carbonate and carbon dioxide.
2NaHCO3 ==> Na2CO3 + CO2 + H2O
The ammonium chloride is heated with calcium oxide to regenerate the ammonia.
In 1881 Ernest Solvay was the first to successfully use this process. 1872 was the first time that is was used on a large scale. | <urn:uuid:24c648bd-651e-436c-8b96-4cdbe8438260> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ucc.ie/academic/chem/dolchem/html/comp/na2co3.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396945.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00060-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920668 | 256 | 3.59375 | 4 |
Tipster Danny Korem shares a tip on working with blocks that need annotations by using AutoCAD groups in conjunction.
“Usually when I’m conducting a training course, I instruct the students to create geometry-only blocks. This means no dimensions or annotations. Sometimes users err when creating blocks for editing manipulations such as mirror, rotate, etc.
“The group functionality has been unknown to many users for years, but it has made a comeback. In the case of mirroring, you should create a geometry-only block and group it with annotations. In this way, you can manipulate the group. Then if the block needs editing at some stage, turn the group selection off, select the block, right-click for block editor, and that’s it.”
Notes from Cadalyst tip reviewer Brian Benton: There are two ways to link objects in AutoCAD: blocks and groups. Blocks lock together all the linework, text, dimensions, or whatever is there. When you make any change to the block, all its objects are affected. Groups are a bit different. You can relax the items so that you can easily manipulate specific members of the group. This can make editing the individual bits of geometry easier than having to go to the block editor to make a change. | <urn:uuid:39a448e6-a4e9-48e4-8bdf-329774e0a331> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://cadtips.cadalyst.com/blocks-general/geometric-manipulations-using-blocks-or-groups | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396538.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00153-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919381 | 268 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Why is Tiktaalik called the "fishapod"?
Tiktaalik shares anatomical features with both primitive fish and the first tetrapods. At first glance, it has features we readily associate with fish: fins, scales, and gills. But it also has a number of key features that differentiate it from its fishy contemporaries and make it very interesting to scientists.
Tiktaalik has a flat head and a neck like tetrapods but fins and scales like fish
Tiktaalik's head and body are flat with eyes on the top of its skull, more like a crocodile than most fish. Its shoulders are not connected to its skull, giving it a functional neck, a feature which fish lack. And it has ribs like some of the earliest tetrapods which were used to support the body and aid in living and breathing on land. These features in Tiktaalik show that many of the body features we associate with the earliest tetrapods actually evolved in fish first. | <urn:uuid:152966a1-7f9c-4fcd-a539-7b2297586811> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://tiktaalik.uchicago.edu/meetTik2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00175-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971903 | 209 | 3.234375 | 3 |
Looters threaten Texas cultural resources.
By Rusty Middleton
At about 2 in the morning, near the end of his shift, Texas park police officer Kerr Wardlaw spotted a light glowing on the side of a ridge at Devils River State Natural Area. At Devils River, that is a real attention-getter. There are very few campsites in this remote park and certainly none on the side of a steep cliff face. No one is supposed to camp outside of a designated campground and definitely not in an area of known archaeological sites.
Wardlaw hiked in the dark to the base of the cliff just below a large cave. “I yelled at whoever was up there and told them to come down,” says Wardlaw. He confronted two brothers who both appeared intoxicated. He gave them citations and ordered them to leave the area.
The next morning Wardlaw went back and found evidence of digging in the cave and a backpack that had been ditched in the brush containing a pistol and some whiskey.
Eventually, the men were fined $2,000 by a justice of the peace for several offenses, including damage to a cultural resource.
“We estimated that they actually did about $30,000 in damage,” says Texas Parks and Wildlife Department cultural resources coordinator Todd McMakin. The matter may still be pursued in civil court.
Elsewhere in the same natural area, looters dug pits in another cave and caused extensive damage to its archaeological resources. No one was caught in that incident.
Archaeologists labored to restore the cave to something close to its original condition, but it had been heavily damaged. The historical evidence of the people who once occupied the place was disturbed so much that archaeologists will find it hard to answer questions about how the cave was used by its prehistoric inhabitants. Any artifacts that might be recovered eventually from the looters have virtually no scientific value because the exact location from which they were retrieved cannot be ascertained.
Just in the last year, there have been six other examples of looting in state parks around the state. Devils River SNA has been hit the hardest, with three incidents, while Mother Neff State Park has experienced two. There have been incidents at Lake Whitney and Lake Somerville state parks and Lost Maples State Natural Area. To try to stop such destruction, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s State Parks Division has created an anti-looting initiative.
The initiative has several goals. One is to educate law enforcement about the maze of sometimes-obscure cultural resource and archaeological protection laws. For example, some parks and recreational areas have joint federal and state administration or ownership. In that case, much more extensive federal laws, such as the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, can apply to looting incidents.
There is also a need to bring greater standardization to the process. In the past, citations were the end of the incident. Now there will be a statewide system of reporting and follow-up so trends can be identified.
Now, it is McMakin’s job to personally go to the site of any significant incidents of looting and help with the investigation. He also closely monitors the Internet, searching for artifacts for sale that can be traced back or somehow associated with known incidents of looting or vandalism.
“Another issue we have with cultural resource protection is that sometimes judges and district attorneys are just not that well-informed about this area of the law. Some JPs might not even recognize looting as a crime. We need to get them up to speed on this,” says McMakin. “It’s vital to protect what we have left of these remaining sites. This is a nonrenewable resource that belongs to all Texans.”
McMakin says the issue is just as important on private lands.
“There are almost no laws to protect cultural resources on private lands,” McMakin says, and about 95 percent of land in Texas is privately owned. “That makes the sites we have left on public lands all the more precious. We need to save this irreplaceable heritage for future generations.” | <urn:uuid:4dc4853a-cb9b-4cfe-9850-4b97145989dd> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.tpwmagazine.com/archive/2010/oct/scout6/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393146.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00199-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97378 | 842 | 2.765625 | 3 |
In a dusty cave in Israel, archaeologists have unearthed a 12,000-year-old grave that they say may be the resting spot of one of the earliest known shamans. The grave contains the artfully arranged bones of a roughly 45-year-old woman as well as a collection of animal and human body parts, including a complete human foot, 50 tortoise shells, and bones from a wild boar, an eagle, and a leopard.
“What was unusual here was there were so many different parts of different animals that were unusual, that were clearly put there on purpose,” said researcher Natalie Munro…. This care along with the animal parts point to the grave belonging to both an important member of the society and possibly a healer called a shaman…. Such healers mediate between the human and spirit worlds, often summoning the help of animal spirits along their quests, according to the researchers [LiveScience].
In the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [subscription required], researchers describe the cemetery of a prehistoric Natufian settlement. The Natufian culture, which lasted from roughly 15,000 to 11,500 years ago, played a central role in the transition from foraging to farming and was the first known society to live in year-round settlements. Burials of the dead increased dramatically in number among the Natufians, indicating that these people assigned much symbolic importance to treatment of the dead [Science News].
The woman’s skeleton was separated from the other 26 burial sites found in the cave, and her grave was the only one lined with slabs of limestone. Ten large stones had been placed on her head, arms, and pelvis, perhaps to hold her body in a particular position, or because the community was trying to keep the shaman and her spirit inside the grave, [study coauthor Leore] Grosman said. It is likely that the 50 tortoises were brought live to the site and were eaten as part of a feast surrounding the burial, according to the researchers [Bloomberg].
80beats: Stone Age Graveyard in the Sahara Recalls an Era of Lakes and Wetlands
Image: P. Groszman | <urn:uuid:b0f46403-3369-488e-87bc-4a6eeeedda2f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2008/11/04/in-a-12000-year-old-grave-a-shaman-shares-her-tomb-with-animal-totems/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403823.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00058-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977607 | 449 | 3.34375 | 3 |
By Marsha Lewis, Inside Science
From the classrooms to research facilities a cell phone could morph into a portable science lab.
"If we could use a cellphone as a microscope that would be a very cheap and cost effective way to solve a number of our problems," said Thomas Larson, a mechanical engineering graduate of the University of Washington in Seattle and inventor of the Micro Phone Lens.
The idea came to Larson while he was working in the lab at the University of Washington.
"We’re using microscopes a lot!" said Larson.
Large, high-powered microscopes can see anywhere from 50- to 400-times magnification, but typically an "entire microscope system costs about two and a half thousand dollars," said Larson.
A magnified image is displayed on an iPad screen. Credit: Thomas Larson, University of Washington
Larson developed a tiny lens that costs just one cent to make creating a handheld smartphone microscope.
"I just go into camera mode – nothing fancy – stick the lens on and it’s on there," explained Larson.
The microphone lens is centered in a soft plastic that sticks right to a smartphone, smart tablet, computer and web camera without any glue.
"There are three rubber feet around the lens, so by simply pressing the lens against the microscope slide you can bring it in and out of focus," said Larson.
This lens can magnify up to 150 times. Larson is already working with doctors to detect cancers, and it could be used in developing nations where ready access to a lab is hard to come by.
"You could have a volunteer with the cellphone screen for parasites, screen for blood diseases…" said Larson.
A simple, small microscope that could change the way we see the world.
Larson is already selling a less powerful lens at fifteen times the magnification. For $15 a lens, Larson’s hope is to get students engaged in science, using their phones for more than texting and talking. A 150-times magnification lens for about $30 will be available to consumers in September 2014.
Reprinted with permission from Inside Science, an editorially independent news product of the American Institute of Physics, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing, promoting and serving the physical sciences.
Marsha Lewis is a freelance producer based in California. She has won 11 National Telly Awards and nine Regional Emmy Awards for her work in local and national syndicated news. | <urn:uuid:23bcb855-306a-4d98-a9eb-e2b39675e078> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.science20.com/inside_science/cell_phone_morphs_into_a_portable_science_lab-142974 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402479.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00065-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946326 | 496 | 3.703125 | 4 |
Humans return favors, we also extract revenge, and we certainly keep score. We are fascinated by keeping
account of helpful and hurtful actions; including our own and those of others. We
constantly appraise the balance in each account as they accumulate the value of
our social exchanges with acquaintances. We are keenly attuned to recognize
symmetry. Fair exchange
is an important human principle; it holds a community together and forms the basis of
broader morality. Both sympathy and cruelty require imagining how your behavior
affects the other.
- Mutual exchange,
- Fair exchange,
- Symmetrical actions.
Many phrases refer to our various concepts of reciprocity and
symmetry. These include:
returning favors, cooperation, social obligation, squaring accounts, payback, settling the score,
fairness, fair is fair, tit for tat, quid pro quo, you'll get what you deserve, what goes
around come around, and we reap what we sow.
In a Word
When asked, “Is there one word that can serve as a principle of conduct for
life?” Confucius replied, “It is the word 'shu' — reciprocity. Do not impose on
others what you yourself do not desire.” This, of course, is the basis for
golden rule and many moral codes. It is also the basis for
There are two main reasons why people help each other. The first is that
helping kin helps to increase the number of your own genes that survive in
the gene pool. The second reason is that you can often help yourself by
helping others. Generosity pays. Mutual cooperation is the basis of many
beneficial coalitions and social groups. Humans are vulnerable and very
often depend on each other. People value fairness because it avoids
conflict. The emotions of Guilt and
shame are internal mechanisms that promote fair
Exchanges can be helpful or hurtful, constructive or destructive, positive or
negative. Helpful exchanges result from gratitude
and lead to altruism. Hurtful exchanges result from anger
revenge. Many social activities involving mutual
exchange, such as participating in a car pool or joining a bridge club, provide
similar benefit to all participants.
Balance and Symmetry
Exchanges can be balanced or unbalanced, symmetrical or asymmetrical,
proportionate or disproportionate. Balanced exchanges sustain peer
relationships, unbalanced exchanges establish
Equality—often manifest as fair exchange—is the fundamental basis for peace.
Whatever you want for yourself you should also be willing to give to the other
party. Applying this principle sooner rather than later avoids the inevitable
conflict that the inequality will eventually cause.
Exchanges may be completed rapidly, immediately returning one favor for
another, or the exchange may be one-sided for a prolonged period of time. Accounts accumulate
over time, and a debt continues to grow. Some people feel indebted, others
may pay in advance, but in any case it's pay me now or pay me later.
Resources and Emotions
We need food to survive, and sex to procreate. Filling
these needs requires sharing resources. Many emotions originate from the fundamental need to
share and conserve resources to
The vindictive passions—intense feelings of resentment, anger,
hatred, and the desire for revenge
against those who wrong us—are an integral part of
human nature. They originate from the need for self-defense, for preserving
our self-respect, and for maintaining moral order—our clear understanding of
acceptable and unacceptable ways to treat humans. It is at the root of fairness
Cheating is a selfish attempt to break the rules, ride for free, and reap the
benefits of group life without charging anything to the account. Cheating attempts to avoid the payback
required by reciprocity. It is asymmetrical and anti-social. Social
organizations typical arrange to punish cheaters. This may be within the rule of
law, for example arresting people who steal. Or it may be informal, for example
no longer involving people who do not reciprocate favors.
Trust is the expectation of fair exchange and the absence of cheating.
We reciprocate based on our assessment of the value of what we receive and
our assessment of the value of what we contribute. Our estimates are based on
our first-person viewpoint and are often
substantially different from what others might appraise. One dangerous example
of this is the magnitude gap—where a injured person assesses their
hurt as being much more serious than the appraisal of the person causing the
harm. If proportionate revenge is sought, then the actual response is too great.
This leads rapidly to dangerous escalation of a revenge cycle.
Currencies of Exchange
While we often think of money as the medium of exchange in transactions, the
currency can be anything valuable and can take any of several forms. According to a
system developed in 1974 by Uriel and Edna Foa, the six basic types of exchange
- Money—cash, checks, promissory notes, and other forms of legal tender.
- Tangible goods—useful, decorative, rare, or sentimentally valuable physical
- Intangible services—medical care, legal advice, expert assistance, or
any other valuable service.
- Positive regard—Friendship, love, attention, empathy or caring that
demonstrates you are sincerely valued by another
- Prestige—respectful titles, deference, status symbols, recognition, and
other ways to acknowledge stature.
- Sexual gratification—ranging from attention and flirting to full and
enthusiastic sexual access, this currency is most available to the beautiful
Beware that all of these can be counterfeit.
Reputation is estimated from the accessible history of behavior in past
exchanges. People who consistently make generous and timely positive
contributions, often without obligation, and who take
responsibility for their choices establish the very best reputations for
themselves. Reputations are tarnished by failing to fully reciprocate, perhaps
by incurring substantial debt, returning lower value, delay in reciprocation,
failing to reciprocate, extracting some cost or concession for reciprocating,
avoiding responsibility, or
cheating in some other way. Trust is earned from a long history of reliable
exchanges—dependable reciprocity. Unreliable exchanges quickly tarnish a
reputation. We often describe people we distrust as being
unreliable. Reciprocity establishes reputation, however we often rely on
indirect information and surrogates to help estimate a person's reputation. This may include
the opinions of others, image, or often a variety of symbols used as proxies for
reputation, such as appearance, associates, status,
brands, and longevity.
A community is a social group where each individual has a significant
relationship with every other individual. Reciprocity works well within a
community because it is easy to keep score. Reputations are earned and well known. It is readily apparent who
contributes fully, who is slacking off, who is selfish and fails to share, who
is disingenuous, who avoids responsibility, and who cheats. Members of the community reciprocate, either
positively or negatively, to quickly and consistently reward or punish community
members according to their contribution. Keeping score on the exchange of
favors over time requires considerable skill, however. It requires the ability to
recognize individuals, remember past events, and evaluate contributions. Human
communities of about 150 or fewer people work well, because we have the ability
to remember the specific individual contributions of as many as 150 people
Dunbar's number). This is the
typical maximum size of a military squadron, many small to mid-sized companies,
and elementary schools. When organizations get bigger than this they often
require a formal bureaucratic structure, such as a personnel department, to take
the place of this community intelligence.
Reciprocity requires community. Hit-and-run artists sacrifice community ties
to avoid the obligations of reciprocity.
Buddhists use a variety of intricate knot images, like the one shown here, to
illustrate the importance of our many interconnections. You breath in the air
that I breath out; you drink the water I have washed with. We depend on the farmer to
eat, the factory worker for manufactured goods, the doctor to heal, the teacher to learn, the soldier to protect, the boss
for a job, the neighbor to converse, and the janitor to clean. We depended on
our parents to raise us, and when they grow old, our parents often depend on us
to care for them. Infectious diseases spread from person to person. Someone I asked years ago to help me find a job is now out of
work and asked me to help him find a job.
During communist rule, Bulgarian workers commented: “we pretend to work and
they pretend to pay us.” The transaction is fair—very little work is performed in
exchange for very little pay—but the equity of the transaction is low.
In this sense, equity refers to the overall value of the transaction; what each
party has at stake. Higher equity transactions are typically more satisfying. We
do our best, we demonstrate our
competence, we know we worked hard and
it was worth it. But low equity transactions can be tempting. Spending the
evening watching TV is easier than reading a book, performing community service,
or exercising. It is easier to attend and graduate from a lower rated college
than a top rated college or university. In return, the degree is often less
valuable. Low equity transactions are often based on the agreement to do
less than your best. Perhaps that is what “wink, wink” means.
The commercial concept of grade of service describes the equity in a
transaction. The same type of service is available in basic low-cost forms, or
in more complete or luxurious higher-cost forms. Here are some examples,
arranged roughly in order of increasing grades of service:
- Transportation: walk, ride a bike, drive yourself, take
a taxi cab, hire a private limousine, fly coach, fly first class, hire a
private jet, buy a private jet.
- See a live performance: High school production,
community theatre, off-Broadway, Broadway show, the Metropolitan Opera.
- Watch a sporting event: sand-lot baseball, little
league, high school sports teams, college sports teams, semi-professional or
minor league teams, professional sports teams, the world series or super
- Get hair cut: let it grow, do it yourself, barber, hair stylist,
premium hair stylist.
We participate in thousands of interpersonal transactions. It is helpful to
notice the equity we dedicate to these transactions. Examples of low equity, interpersonal transactions are:
- staying in an unsatisfying job to avoid having to learn new skills or
take on more responsibility,
- settling for an unsatisfactory marriage to avoid the hard work of
confronting issues, resolving problems, and establishing a satisfying
- underachievement in many forms, such as underemployment, lack of
participation, disengagement, lack of effort, and choosing to do less than
your best. This is often the result of settling for a “little ventured,
little lost” path of short-term convenience,
- tolerating an abusive relationship to avoid the hard work and
uncertainty of becoming
independent and self-sufficient,
- going along to get along, for example doing dangerous, cruel, or
wasteful things with a group of friends in an attempt to gain their positive
- approaching activities mindlessly rather than mindfully,
- deciding not to vote as your protest for unsatisfactory political
- auditing a college course rather than taking it for credit to avoid the
hard work of studying, writing papers, and mastering the material.
Pay attention to the choices you make regarding high- or low-equity
transactions. Choose the high-equity options where it matters most in your life.
If you truly need a break, then you may choose to settle for the comfortable
complacency of some low-equity
options until you regain the initiative and strength to again
do your best. It's OK to goof off
sometimes as long as you do your best when it matters most.
- “Shouldn't have took more than you gave. Wouldn't be in this mess today.” ~
- “Pay me now or pay me later.” ~
- “You reap what you sow.” ~
Our Inner Ape,
by Frans De Waal
The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation,
by Matt Ridley
Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty, by Roy F. Baumeister, Aaron Beck
Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics, and
Marriage, Paul Ekman
Transcend and Transform: An Introduction to Conflict Work,
by Johan Galtung
Power: The Infinite Game,
by Michael F. Broom and Donald Klein
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community,
Robert D. Putnam
The Music Man, In this Meredith Willson musical, Professor
Harold Hill comes to town expecting to cheat the people of Iowa City
and instead provides the community a very fair exchange. | <urn:uuid:cb4978ed-47b3-47ae-90af-70ea547ce4ed> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.emotionalcompetency.com/reciprocity.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00201-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93204 | 2,871 | 3.6875 | 4 |
Wouldn't you want to know when you're only six weeks pregnant whether you're going to get preeclampsia? A new blood test that looks for a specific biomarker can determine your risk just six weeks into pregnancy. University of Iowa researchers have discovered a biomarker that could give expecting mothers and their doctors the first simple blood test to reliably predict that a pregnant woman may develop preeclampsia, at least as early as six weeks into the pregnancy. You can check out the study's abstract, "Vasopressin in Preeclampsia: A Novel Very-Early Human Pregnancy Biomarker and Clinically-Relevant Mouse Model," published online July 9, 2014 in the American Heart Association’s journal, Hypertension. It will be published in print in October, 2014.
A team of University of Iowa (UI) researchers find an early predictor for preeclampsia. That biomarker can be detected by a blood test as early as 6 weeks into pregnancy. University of Iowa (UI) researchers have discovered a biomarker that could give expecting mothers and their doctors the first simple blood test to reliably predict that a pregnant woman may develop preeclampsia, at least as early as 6 weeks into the pregnancy. Researchers have noticed a specific hormone that's elevated well ahead of the disorder, and have demonstrated that this hormone can cause the symptoms. You may be familiar with a reality TV mom's experience with preeclampsia several years ago: "Michelle Duggar delivers prematurely due to preeclampsia."
Preeclampsia is a cardiovascular disorder generally occurring late in pregnancy and often resulting in an early delivery, creating immediate and potentially lifelong risks to both mother and baby
The disorder causes high blood pressure and protein in the urine, and is typically diagnosed in the late second or third trimester of pregnancy. Between 5 and 7 percent of all pregnancies in the United States are affected with preeclampsia, equating to roughly 4,000 pregnancies in Iowa or around 500,000 in the United States per year. More than 100,000 women worldwide die from the disease each year.
In their paper, "Vasopressin in Preeclampsia: A Novel Very-Early Human Pregnancy Biomarker and Clinically-Relevant Mouse Model," study authors Mark Santillan, M.D., assistant professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and a Maternal Fetal Medicine specialist, Justin Grobe, Ph.D., assistant professor of Pharmacology and a Fellow of the American Heart Association (FAHA), and Donna Santillan, Ph.D., research assistant professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, demonstrate that elevated secretion of arginine vasopressin (AVP) can be a very early biomarker of a preeclamptic pregnancy.
Preeclampsia: The hypertensive disorder that affects some pregnant moms
"Preeclampsia is a horrible hypertensive disorder of pregnancy that can be very dangerous to both the mother and the baby," Mark Santillan says, according to the July 8, 2014 news release, UI researchers find early predictor for preeclampsia. "Preeclampsia can cause liver failure, kidney failure, seizures, and death. Preeclamptic mothers and babies born to these preeclamptic moms are also at increased lifetime risk for heart attacks, stroke, and diabetes. Unfortunately, we have no reliable way to predict and prevent preeclampsia.
"The only thing you can do to protect a baby and a mother from some of the negative effects of preeclampsia is to deliver the baby, and most of the time that results in a preterm birth." The researchers believe this discovery will impact obstetric care in a major way in rural and underserved communities.
Determining very early that a pregnancy is going to be preeclamptic is significant, the researchers say, so doctors can help expecting mothers by heightening their awareness of significant symptoms of preeclampsia or if need be, transfer them to hospitals able to provide the appropriate, higher level of medical care
"Sometimes symptoms of normal pregnancy such as headaches, occasional blurry vision, abdominal pain, and swelling are really symptoms of preeclampsia and not something that should just be dismissed without testing by healthcare providers." Donna Santillan says, according to the news release. "Being able to determine that a pregnancy is affected by preeclampsia early will help women pay careful attention to their symptoms and to get medical care before the effects of preeclampsia becoming severe for both the mother and baby. The women who have participated in this study by donating their blood samples have made a great contribution to advancing the health of women."
What the researchers found was that maternal plasma copeptin – an inert, stable biomarker of vasopressin secretion with a substantially longer half-life in the blood than vasopressin – is a clinically useful biomarker that predicts preeclampsia. Using samples from the Maternal Fetal Tissue bank, a major part of the University of Iowa Women's Health Tissue Repository, copeptin levels were measured throughout pregnancy in maternal plasma from preeclamptic and control women. Copeptin levels were significantly higher throughout the preeclamptic pregnancies than in the control pregnancies.
The group is currently working to determine whether the copeptin biomarker is also elevated in urine, and could therefore be used in a simple home test kit
While there are currently no treatments for preeclampsia other than premature delivery of the baby, the researchers are also investigating new drug targets. The group has demonstrated that infusion of vasopressin into pregnant mice causes all of the major symptoms of preeclampsia. Until this discovery, there was no effective animal model of the early-pregnancy events that precipitate preeclampsia.
"We've broken the circle of 'no test, no model, no cure' which has plagued the preeclampsia field for centuries," notes Grobe, according to the news release. "Suddenly we have identified a hormone that is elevated well ahead of the disorder, and have demonstrated that this hormone can cause the symptoms. It is only a matter of time before we can therapeutically target this system as a preventative or curative intervention."
Study authors also included Sabrina Scroggins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, UI Carver College of Medicine; James Min, M.D. student, University of Iowa; Jeremy Sandgren, MSTP (M.D./Ph.D.) student, UI Carver College of Medicine; Nicole Pearson, M.P.H., Research Assistant, UI Carver College of Medicine; Kimberly Leslie, M.D., Chair and DEO of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology; Stephen Hunter, M.D., Ph.D., Professor, Obstetrics and Gynecology; Gideon Zamba, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Biostatistics, UI College of Public Health; and Katherine Gibson-Corley, D.V.M., Ph.D., Director, Histology Research Laboratory and Assistant Professor of Pathology.
Funding for the research came through grants from the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust to Mark Santillan and Justin Grobe; the American Heart Association to Mark Santillan and Justin Grobe (14IRG18710013); the NIH to Mark Santillan (HD000849, RR024980) and Justin Grobe (HL098276, HL0842070); from the American Diabetes Association to Grobe (1-14-BS-079); and the NIH Immunology Postdoctoral Training Grant to Sabrina Scroggins (5T32AI007260-27).
Other funding sources include the University of Iowa Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development to Grobe; Preeclampsia Foundation to Santillan; University of Iowa Medical Student Research Program to Min; the University of Iowa Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology; and the University of Iowa Department of Pharmacology. | <urn:uuid:5172557c-d056-4a2c-bb47-fa8315d35d60> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.examiner.com/article/new-test-predicts-risk-of-preeclampsia-as-early-as-the-6th-week-of-pregnancy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00055-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935387 | 1,668 | 2.71875 | 3 |
(12/05/11) - Safe Kids Pee Dee/Coastal reminds families to take caution during Home Safety Month (December) as well as year-round. Everyday activities in the home can cause accidents that can result in unintentional injuries to children. Safe Kids Pee Dee/Coastal will offer weekly safety tips through December to educate families on home safety.
Tip # 1: Fire Safety
Cooking fires are the number one cause of home fires in the United States. One in eight homes will experience a cooking fire. Safe Kids Pee Dee/Coastal reminds families to stay in the kitchen while frying, broiling, or grilling, or using hot plates or toasters, and to never hold your child while cooking.
Based on data from the U.S. Fire Administration and the National Fire Protection Association, there are an estimated 250 home fires involving Christmas trees, 170 home fires involving holiday lights, and many other home fires involving decorative lighting each year. Together, these fires result in 20 deaths and 45 injuries annually.
Safe Kids Pee Dee/Coastal reminds families to not overload extension cords or outlets, and to not run electrical cords under rugs. Also, never burn Christmas tree branches, treated wood or wrapping paper in home fireplaces.
For more information, on preventing injuries in children, visit the Safe Kids website at www.safekids.org.
Safe Kids Pee Dee/Coastal works to prevent unintentional childhood injury, the leading cause of death and disability to children ages 0 to 14. Its members include Florence County Sheriff's Department, City of Florence Police Department, South Carolina Highway Patrol, and the City of Florence Fire Department. Safe Kids Pee Dee/Coastal is a member of Safe Kids Worldwide, a global network of organizations dedicated to preventing unintentional injury. Safe Kids Pee Dee/Coastal was founded in 1995 and is led by McLeod Health, and funded in part by the McLeod Health Foundation. | <urn:uuid:03ed5dd8-ff90-42d7-a96d-b156adad74ba> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mcleodhealth.org/latest-news/safe-kids/safe-kids-pee-dee-coastal-provides-weekly-safety-tips-for-home-safety-month.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394605.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925517 | 406 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Samoan (Gagana fa'a Sāmoa)
Samoan is a Polynesian language spoken mainly in Western
Samoa and American Samoa by about 420,000 people. There are also
speakers of Samoan in Fiji, Tonga, Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia
and the USA. Samoan is closely related to the other languages of
Polynesia, particularly to Tongan.
- Vowels can be long or short. Long vowels are marked with a macron (ā).
- The letters K [k], H [h] and R [l] are also used, but only in foreign loanwords.
- Syllables consist of a vowel or a consonant plus a vowel. Consonants never
appear together or in syllable final position.
- L is pronounced [ɾ] following the back vowels a, o and u
and preceding i.
- In colloquial speech N is sometimes pronounced [ŋ]
and T is sometimes pronounced [k].
- U is pronounced [w] when followed by a vowel.
Sample text in Samoan
O tagata soifua uma ua saoloto lo latou fananau mai, ma e tutusa o
latou tulaga aloaia faapea a latou aia tatau. Ua faaeeina atu i a latou
le mafaufau lelei ma le loto fuatiaifo ma e tatau ona faatino le agaga
faauso i le va o le tasi i le isi.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They
are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another
in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
Information about Samoan |
Tower of Babel |
Information about the Samoan language
A Grammar and Dictionary of the Samoan Language, with English and Samoan vocabulary
Other languages written with the Latin alphabet | <urn:uuid:1295543f-808f-4b41-8de0-037825dd9391> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.omniglot.com/writing/samoan.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395621.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00054-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.720817 | 438 | 3.59375 | 4 |
To the inquiry, Does fatigue in the experiments mean tiring by the exhaustion of nerve energy, or is the lengthening in reaction time which would naturally be attributed to tiring due to the fact that experience has shown quick reaction to be unnecessary? we shall have to reply that there is evidence in favor of both as factors. There can be little doubt that in case of the strong stimuli there is genuine fatigue which makes quick reaction impossible; but at the same time it is certain that the 40 to 50 per cent. increase of the second half of sets in series 1 over the first half can not be due to fatigue, for the strain is here evidently much less than for series 3. Rather, it would seem that habituation instead of exhaustion is the all-important cause of the difference in series 1 and 2. It becomes clear from these considerations that the repetition of a stimulus can never mean the repetition of an effect.
VII. TACTUAL REACTION TIME.
In the following work on the reactions to tactual stimulation the subject was placed in a large reaction box with a thread attached to one of its legs and passing to a reaction key, as in the experiments already described. The box in which the subject was confined was surrounded by movable cloth curtains to prevent the animal’s escape and at the same time permit the experimenter to work without being seen by the frog.
Tactual stimulation was given by means of a hand key similar to that used for electrical stimulation which is represented in Fig. 6. The touch key ended in a hard-rubber knob which could be brought in contact with the skin of the subject. This key was fixed to a handle of sufficient length to enable the operator to reach the animal wherever it chanced to be sitting in the reaction box. Stimulation was given by allowing the rubber point of the touch key to come in contact with the skin in the middle region of the subject’s back. As soon as the point touched the animal the chronoscope circuit was broken by the raising of the upper arm of the key.
This apparatus was essentially
the same as Scripture’s
device for the giving of tactual stimulation.
As a precaution against reactions to visual stimuli, which it might well be supposed would appear since the subject could not in every case be prevented from seeing the approaching apparatus, the frog was always placed with its head away from the experimenter so that the eyes could not readily be directed toward the touch apparatus. Notwithstanding care in this matter, a reaction occasionally appeared which was evidently due to some disturbance preceding the tactual stimulus which served as a warning or preparation for the latter. All such responses were at once marked as questionable visual reactions and were not included in the series of touch reactions proper. | <urn:uuid:93cb5050-aa89-4c4d-a1e9-7e8e97f602da> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/16266/447.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396224.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00000-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977677 | 557 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Sovereignty over the Spratly Islands
By Joe Hung, Special to The China Post
June 22, 2009, 11:11 am TWN
The Republic of China in Taiwan claims the South China Sea is under its jurisdiction. Taipei insists any type of activity conducted in that vast sea area requires its approval. But the fact is that the government has done little to defend its sovereign rights over the area where there are four groups of coral reef archipelagoes.
The four groups are Tungsha (East Sand), Hsisha (West Sand), Chungsha (Middle Sand), and Nansha (South Sand). The first two are known worldwide as the Pratas and Paracel Islands. Middle Sand is called the Macclesfield Bank, while the last is named the Spratly Islands. According to the Constitution, all four are part of the territory of the Republic of China. However, Taipei is almost powerless to protect its interests in the area under whose waters are found an estimated 7.7 billion barrels of oil, comparable to the reserves in the Arabian Gulf.
Taipei's sovereignty over the four small archipelagoes is challenged by the People's Republic of China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei. Their claim of sovereignty, except Beijing's, is untenable at best.
The only one of the island groups Taiwan still can assert total sovereignty is Tungsha (Pratas Islands), which Chinese started developing during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Qing China made the islets part of its territory in 1730. Of course, no countries in the world contested its sovereignty. In 1909, Tsai Kang, governor of Guangdong, had a stone marker erected on Tungsha Island, the largest of the Pratas group, to claim Chinese sovereignty again. The Pratas Islands were occupied by the Japanese in 1939, during the undeclared Sino-Japanese war. The Japanese made them part of the territory of Taiwan under their colonial rule. Named Shinnan-gunto (New South Islands), the Pratas group was placed under the jurisdiction of Takao-shu (Kaohsiung Prefecture). It was restored to the Republic of China as part of the province of Guangdong at the end of the Second World War in 1945.
After the Chinese civil war, however, the government of the Republic of China which was moved to Taipei placed the Pratas group under the jurisdiction of the special municipality of Kaohsiung in 1979. A national monument and a corridor were set up on the main island on June 30, 1989 and May 19, 1992 respectively, to assert sovereignty over the entire archipelago. A hospital, power station, and runway have been established, too. A service center was also opened to provide help for fishermen operating in the South China Sea. There are three jetties and an onshore service center which gives directions to fishing boats.
Incidentally, the special municipality of Kaohsiung extends its jurisdiction over the Spratly Islands as well.
Chinese discovered the Spratlys much earlier, as early as during the Later Han Dynasty (25-220). The History of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty (1206-1368) records naval patrols of the waters off Nansha (Spratly Islands). In the official maps of the Ming Dynasty, the Spratlys are marked as part of Chinese territory. They are so marked repeatedly in official maps published from 1724 to 1817. | <urn:uuid:592d8163-e571-40db-90dd-ca515131cb39> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.chinapost.com.tw/commentary/the-china-post/joe-hung/2009/06/22/213223/Sovereignty-over.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397842.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00028-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948919 | 721 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Originally Posted by Tuscan Chef
If you don't eat bacon or ham, then your nitrates is 60% coming from vegetables. If you eat meat with nitrates, then your total nitrates raises and normal background from plants is reduced to a small percentage.
The problem with nitratees on meat is not nitrate, as that is hard to believe is unhealthy as part of many biochemical reactions. The problem is nitrites. That is a much powerful preservative and commonly added with nitrates as preservative for meat.
Here in europe the label always tells you which preservative is used. If I see nitrites I don't buy it.
Nitrates in water are a sign that the water does not have a long filter. Nitrate is blocked in the filtering part of a spring and good waters contain no nitrates.
Hi Tuscan Chef,
Please bear with me here....
Every study that I've read (including European studies) mention that a persons normal diet would get nitrate levels either 70% coming from vegetables, 20% from water and 6% from cured meats or 90% from vegetables and other sources then 10% from cured meats...or somewhere in between thos two.
From the reading that I've done any form of nitrate can be converted to nitrite by a few different means, such as certain microorganisms in the food (which can be promoted by improper storage of vegetables) and also the gastrointestinal tract can also convert the nitrates. Although the acidic enviroment of the adult stomach is said to reduce the chance of nitrates converting into nitrites.
The problem with cured meats doesn't seem to be nitrates or nitrites as much as nitrosamines (or when nitrosamines form). Nitrosamines have been linked to causing cancer in some lab animals (but not of yet linked to causing cancer in adults). Not all cured meats contain nitrosamines, and when they do it's in very minute amounts. Plus there seems to be other ingredients that have been being used to greatly reduce the chance of nitrites converting to nitrosamines, such as adding ascorbic acid (vitamin C) or eyrthorbic acid. These are said to be used for more than the last 20 years.
It's also mentioned that the chances formation of nitrosamines start and increase when cooking at temperatures > 350f.
The nitrosamine also increased when bacon was cooked to a well done or burnt. The bacon drippings from well done and burnt bacon also contained more nitrosamines than the bacon itself.
Nitrosamines are supposed to occur very rarely in cured meats, except in well done or burnt bacon.
The thesis also shows that the bacteria in the oral cavity are very important to the process of nitrates in food protecting the stomach's mucous membrane. This has been examined in that rats have been given nitrate-rich feed, whereby some of them have also simultaneously received an antibacterial oral spray. When these rats were then given anti inflammatory drugs, damage to the mucous membrane only occurred in the ones that had received the oral spray. In the latter the nitrates no longer had a protective effect on the mucous membrane, as the oral spray had killed the important bacteria that normally convert nitrates into nitrites. | <urn:uuid:f7233fd6-59db-4738-aed4-ed8811a2763b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cheftalk.com/t/59592/id-like-to-hear-your-views-about-nitrates-that-we-consume | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398873.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00006-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971384 | 674 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Last modified 09/19/2006
by Tim Stone
Project Leader: Dr. John C. Brissette
Mission: Provide the scientific foundation for sustainable management of northern forests through research and technology transfer
Research Work Areas...
1. To understand the current condition and past development of northern forests and to manage these forests in a sustainable manner, we must improve our knowledge of short- and long-term ecosystem responses to silvicultural treatments.
2. To predict the effects of silvicultural treatments on wildlife habitat, we must understand relationships between composition and structure of forest vegetation, and the needs of wildlife throughout their life cycles.
3. To predict the effects of management on northeastern forest ecosystems, we must understand the complex interactions among forest dynamics, nutrient cycling, and disturbance processes, particularly from destructive invasive species.
4. To address emerging issues in forest ecosystem sustainability, we will integrate remote sensing and process modeling with field studies in order to develop indices of ecosystem function and health that will be applicable across landscapes.
In addition to these Research Work Unit associated problems, NRS 4155 has a mission problem that spans multiple Research Work Unit Descriptions: Long-term manipulative research and monitoring will be maintained at Bartlett, Massabesic, and Penobscot Experimental Forests as sources of knowledge discovery and development, and as demonstration and education sites . The mission problem provides for continued management of our three experimental forests and the ongoing long-term studies located on them.
Ecology and Management of Northern Forests
USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station
Louis C Wyman Forest Sciences Laboratory
271 Mast Rd.
Durham, NH 03824-0640
Tel: (603) 868-7632
Fax: (603) 868-7604 | <urn:uuid:ef020341-d8de-4ac8-b416-e19159d9b364> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.fs.fed.us/ne/durham/4155/projsum.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396875.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00066-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.897429 | 361 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Insulin resistance, whereby insufficient insulin is released to produce a normal glucose response from fat, muscle and liver cells, was significantly lower in people with metabolic syndrome with the highest average intakes of magnesium, according to findings published in Nutrients .
The study, by scientists from Yangzhou University in China and the University of Massachusetts Medical School, found that, of the 234 people included in the study, fewer than 30% of participants actually met the magnesium RDA, a statistic that corresponds with other data.
With between 70 and 80% of the US population not meeting their recommended intakes of magnesium, consumers – and the health care professionals who advise them - are waking up to the importance of the mineral.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) lists magnesium as being necessary for more than 300 biochemical reactions in the body, from helping maintain normal muscle (with potential for sports nutrition) and nerve function, to keeping heart rhythm steady, supporting a healthy immune system, and keeping bones strong. The mineral is also needed for blood sugar management, and healthy blood pressure.
Far-reaching clinical implications
The new study involved non-diabetic people with metabolic syndrome (MetS), which is characterized by central obesity, hypertension, and disturbed glucose and insulin metabolism. The syndrome has been linked to increased risks of both type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that some 75 million Americans suffer from metabolic syndrome.
“This study observed a low percentage of participants who actually met the magnesium RDA, suggesting that increasing dietary magnesium to meet the RDA is associated with improving insulin resistance among non-diabetic individuals with MetS,” wrote the researchers.
“Since this population has a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and type-2 diabetes, dietary behaviors that have the ability to impact insulin resistance can have far-reaching clinical implications.”
The researchers assessed dietary magnesium intake for 234 people with MetS using 24-hour dietary recalls at the start of the study, and again after six and 12 months. Blood samples were taken and insulin resistance was estimated using the homeostasis model (HOMA-IR).
Results showed that dietary magnesium intake was inversely and statistically significantly associated with metabolic biomarkers of insulin resistance.
In addition, for people who met the RDA for magnesium, the risk of having elevated HOMA-IR results over time was decreased by 63%.
“Although previous studies have evaluated the protective effect of magnesium, satisfying the RDA is a simple message that can have important clinical meaning,” they wrote. “Our findings offer a unique contribution that meeting the RDA for magnesium may demonstrate a protective effect on insulin resistance.”
Magnesium in Europe
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has issued positive opinions on magnesium and the maintenance of normal bone, teeth, and protein synthesis; the reduction of tiredness and fatigue; electrolyte balance; normal energy-yielding metabolism; neurotransmission, and muscle contraction.
The agency was not convinced by claims about magnesium and blood glucose, blood pressure, stress relief, protection of DNA, proteins and lipids from oxidative damage, the immune system and fat metabolism.
Despite negative opinions from EFSA, a number of meta-analysis and high-profile studies have been published in recent years supporting the mineral's benefits for metabolic pathways , blood pressure , reducing the risk of stroke , and reducing the risk of colon cancer .
2013, Volume 5, Number 10, Pages 3910-3919; doi:10.3390/nu5103910
“Dietary Magnesium Intake Improves Insulin Resistance among Non-Diabetic Individuals with Metabolic Syndrome Participating in a Dietary Trial”
Authors: J. Wang, G. Persuitte, et al. | <urn:uuid:1ef41f9a-234f-4750-b70a-7e952b1595ee> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.foodnavigator-asia.com/Nutrition/Magnesium-shows-insulin-benefits-in-non-diabetics-Study | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397797.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00075-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922051 | 775 | 3.03125 | 3 |
In order to achieve the maximum coherence time, to allow for multiple, complex quantum operations, the dissipation induced by the environment has to be minimized. Our research has therefore focused in part on minimizing environment-induced decoherence, and we have recently achieved a significant and important breakthrough, due to the realization that losses in the dielectrics, both in the Josephson junction itself and in associated circuitry, dominate the overall loss and limit the coherence time. Our demonstration of high visibility, long decoherence time qubits has been achieved by carefully redesigning and engineering our qubit circuit and the materials employed. Recent experiments have demonstrated qubit state preparation, manipulation and probing with a measurement fidelity of 95%. Rabi oscillations with a relaxation time T1 of 500 ns have been observed. Ramsey fringe as well as spin echo measurements yield decoherence times of T2 = 2 T1 and T2*= 150 ns. We have also begun to develop full quantum tomography of the qubit state. This experimental technique allows the reconstruction of the density matrix from a complete set of observables measured on an ensemble of identically prepared copies of the system.
The detailed understanding of a single qubit enables us to start focusing on coupled qubit systems. We are working on two coupled qubits to demonstrate the implementation of a CNOT gate. This is an essential milestone for quantum information processing, because the 2-qubit CNOT gate together with arbitrary 1-qubit rotations on the Bloch sphere form a universal set of gates with which all other unitary transformations can be performed. Furthermore, entanglement between the two qubits can be established and detected via the violation of Bell's inequality. By coupling a qubit to a harmonic oscillator such as an LC or a nanomechanical resonator, quantum information can be transferred and stored tuning the qubit in and out of resonance. This might ultimately be employed as a high fidelity bus in a more complex qubit architecturs.
Collaboration with Robert Blick.
Collaboration with Axel Lorke. | <urn:uuid:02ebb4d6-9248-4402-abc9-d7268b65cee8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nano.physik.uni-muenchen.de/nanomech/eva_interest.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403508.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00166-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929794 | 422 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Nintendo's newly announced 3DS handheld promises 3D imagery without the need for goggles. How is this possible? If it does indeed use Sharp's "parallax barrier" technology, this is how it works.
Though not confirmed by Nintendo, it has been suggested by a number of sources that the 3D display used in the upcoming Nintendo 3DS is to be based on the parallax barrier LCD from Sharp. But how does it work?
Up until recently, to view 3D graphics it has been necessary to wear polarizing (or red and blue) glasses to separate the images and fool the brain into perceiving the image as having depth. Sharp's 3D LCD uses what the company calls a "parallax barrier" system which is implemented by using both a conventional TFT LCD display and a specially developed "switching liquid crystal."
According to information distributed by Sharp, "The distance between the human eyes is about 65 mm, and the images seen by the right and left eyes are always slightly different (binocular parallax.) The human brain processes the slightly different images from the two eyes to create a sense of depth. The directions in which light leaves the display are controlled so that the left and right eyes see different images. This makes it possible for the image on the screen to appear in three dimensions without the user having to wear special goggles."
Still flummoxed? The diagram above is designed to illustrate how the system works for both 2D and 3D images. | <urn:uuid:c9f5c7b1-53d0-4dd7-a225-3f2b828a2c76> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.goodgearguide.com.au/article/340652/how_nintendo_3ds_3d_works/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396887.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00155-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944149 | 305 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Acronym for Intelligent Character Recognition. ICR is the computer translation of hand printed and written characters. Data is entered from hand-printed forms through a scanner, and the image of the captured data is then analyzed and translated by sophisticated ICR software. ICR is similar to optical character recognition (OCR) but is a more difficult process since OCR is from printed text, as opposed to handwritten characters.
The biggest drawback of using ICR for data capture is the level of accuracy achieved, due to the changeable quality of handwriting on the forms and documents being processed. It can be difficult for ICR systems to accurately convert handwriting into text, particularly where names are being interpreted.
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Webopedia's student apps roundup will help you to better organize your class schedule and stay on top of assignments and homework. Read More »List of Free Shorten URL Services
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Java is a high-level programming language. This guide describes the basics of Java, providing an overview of syntax, variables, data types and... Read More »Java Basics, Part 2
This second Study Guide describes the basics of Java, providing an overview of operators, modifiers and control Structures. Read More »The 7 Layers of the OSI Model
The Open System Interconnection (OSI) model defines a networking framework to implement protocols in seven layers. Use this handy guide to compare... Read More » | <urn:uuid:6faa384e-b057-41b2-af85-affc5cba6255> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/I/ICR.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398216.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00080-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.8765 | 354 | 3.703125 | 4 |
The impact of diet and nutrition on human health is not new. Eating right healing (nutrient-rich)foods in a right way can virtually help is every medical condition.
Nutrition-healing is simply giving yourself the best possible intake of nutrients to allow your body to be as healthy as possible and to work as well as it can.
Good Nutrition is a foundation of Good Health .
What is Diet?
Diet is a food consumed by organism and group. In simple Language Diet is something what a person eats or drinks during the course of the day
“This is what my mom used to make”, “My grandma would always make this”. . These statements are often heard. .As per our culture our eating habits are established by tradition and the principles of nutrition are assumed rather then discussed. The family meal once was a sacred institution and is being gradually eroded.
In the early part of the 20Th century Dr Weston Price, who was dentist, became interested in the relationship between human nutrition and tooth decay. Dr Price also made some other observations besides tooth decayed, there were deformities in the facial bones which left those affected with malformed dental arches and crowding of the teeth.
Read More >>
a chronic respiratory disease characterized by attacks of difficulty breathing remains a significant public health problem in the United States.3 An Asthma attack is distressing and potentially life-threatening experience. It affects 7% of the population of the United States
Food allergy is a potentially serious immune response to eating specific foods or food additives. Eight types of food account for over 90% of allergic reactions in affected individuals: milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, soy, and wheat
ADHD is one of the most common neurobehavioral disorders of childhood. It is usually first diagnosed in childhood and often lasts into adulthood. Children with ADHD have trouble paying attention, controlling impulsive behaviors (may act without thinking about what the result will be), and in some cases, are overly active.. Diagnosis of ADHD increased an average of 3% per year from 1997 to 2006
Autism is a severe developmental disorder that begins at birth or within the first two-and-a-half years of life. Most autistic children are perfectly normal in appearance, but spend their time engaged in puzzling and disturbing behaviours which are markedly different from those of typical children. | <urn:uuid:d74dca11-4a35-42f8-9968-a9fa6ca42904> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://nutrition-healing.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00158-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965339 | 489 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Over a decade ago, a biotechnology company designed corn plants that poison certain pests in an effort to lower use of pesticide sprays.
It worked for a while, but cost-cutting farmers haven't heeded scientists' warnings about overusing the genetically modified plants.
Today, the bugs are back. And they're getting tougher.
“The western corn rootworm has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to adapt to pest management strategies,” reads a March 17 report from a team of scientists led by Aaron Gassmann, an entomologist at Iowa State University.
The report found a “significant correlation” between the number of years the modified corn was used, and the survival rate of the worms.
Continue Reading Below
“The evolution of resistance by the western corn rootworm could cut short the benefits of Bt maize,” the report reads.
Last year, revenues from U.S. corn crops topped $60 billion, according to the USDA. But a major chunk of that could be at risk, if this pest gets its way.
More than 40 million tons of corn never reach market because of these worms, according to Syngenta AG (NYSE: SYT) the biochemical company that created the new strain of bug-resistant corn.
The adult rootworms lay eggs on the surface of corn plants, which allows larvae to tunnel inside, eating as they go.
“Once corn borers enter the corn stalk to attack the plant from the inside, conventional treatments are not always effective, or even possible,” states a report from Syngenta.
After that, it’s only a matter of time before the hollow stalk is blown over by a gust of wind or a heavy rainstorm.
The company’s scientists infused ordinary corn plants with a gene called Cry1Ab. It makes the plant produce a protein called Bt through its leaves, stalks and ears, which is deadly for the insects.
The new plant was commercialized in 1996, and worked well for a while.
But the worm would not be easily defeated.
Scientists have been warning for more than a decade that the modified crops must be used sparingly. It’s important for farmers to keep non-modified sections of their land, to ensure the toxin-exposed bugs breed with the ordinary ones, to stop evolution of resistance.
Agricultural scientists suggested that farmers keep 50 percent of their crops unmodified. The Environmental Protection Agency has decreed that only 10 to 20 percent of a crop should be non-modified.
But even that hasn’t happened.
“Sometimes convincing growers to plant non-Bt maize refuges is a challenges because it requires careful planning of where to plant the refuge and could reduce yields,” reads a 2012 report from Nature Education.
Farmers loved the new, modified plants. By 2009, more than 45 percent of American maize crops were Bt corn, and more than 58 million hectares were planted worldwide by 2010.
But in 2011, damaged crops were reported in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota -- all separate cases in which the bugs evolved on their own.
A year later, 22 scientists wrote to the EPA, urging more oversight of Bt maize usage amid more and more reports of “greater than expected damage” to the protected corn.
“We are concerned that high commodity prices and other factors may have fueled an insurance-based approach to corn rootworm management,” the scientists wrote, adding that this “will only increase insect resistance development in the long term.”
And today, the problem is only getting worse and farmers may have to use older methods to protect themselves. “These recent cases suggest a need to develop more integrated management solutions for pests targeted by Bt crops,” states Monday’s report.
It’s suggested that farmers sill use older methods such as crop rotation, along with the genetically modified seeds, to stem the pest outbreak.
“Sole reliance on Bt crops for management of agriculture pests will likely hasten the evolution of resistance in some cases, thereby diminishing the benefits that these crops provide,” the writers add. | <urn:uuid:b3b46132-8048-434b-8e1b-2a9d125eb044> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ibtimes.com/corn-eating-worms-have-evolved-resist-plants-made-kill-them-heres-why-1562302 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399522.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00065-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9534 | 868 | 3.234375 | 3 |
Biology | Heredity, Evolution and Society
L369 | 0640 | Ruf, E
Course Format: Lecture: 9:30A-10:45A, TR, JH 239, during which
discussion and student participation will be encouraged.
Course Description: An understanding of important biological concepts
can be a powerful intellectual tool when applied to questions about
human origins and behavior. This course is designed to present
relevant concepts in an understandable way to students who are not
majoring in biology and may not have a science background. The course
touches on a wide range of biological levels of organization, from
molecules and basic cellular processes to genetics, evolution, human
behavior and hominid origins.
Required Text: TBA
Weekly Assignments: TBA | <urn:uuid:cfddc8e2-b42f-481f-8e5e-5b8e4860dae3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.indiana.edu/~deanfac/blfal03/biol/biol_l369_0640.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00121-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.833452 | 167 | 2.671875 | 3 |
1. She had got the habit of silence anyway—that was fixed.
This description of the old woman appears in Part II, as the narrator describes her life with Jake Grimes. He offers this “habit of silence” as a reason why the old woman doesn’t interfere with her husband’s and son’s violent arguments. The woman’s silence functions as a protective shield, keeping other people at bay—people who have proven to be nothing but abusive. The woman’s silence also prevents her from establishing any close relationships with other people. In this woman’s world, verbal communication—normally a source of comfort and intimacy—has become painful and harmful, and her choice to give it up is unfortunate but understandable. The quotation leaves the cause of the woman’s silence ambiguous. On one hand, it seems as if the harsh realities of her life have ground the words out of her, transforming her into just another mute beast of burden. On the other hand, her silence may also be an active decision that she makes to disengage herself from a life that has damaged her. The woman’s retreat into a purely internal state may represent an attempt to preserve an element of humanity in an otherwise animalistic existence.
2. Starve, eh? Well, things had to be fed. Men had to be fed, and the horses that weren’t any good but maybe could be traded off, and the poor thin cow that hadn’t given any milk for three months.
Horses, cows, pigs, dogs, men.
In these lines, which appear at the end of Part II, the old woman reacts with “a look of mild surprise in her eyes” to the butcher’s admonishment to keep the meat he has sold her from her husband and son. The passage represents the extent to which the woman has come to accept her position in life. She no longer questions or is surprised by her fate: she understands that, no matter how futile her attempts, she cannot stop feeding those who depend on her to do so. The final line of the passage emphasizes how, in the absence of any demonstrable love or affection from her husband and son, the two men have ceased to become fully human in her eyes: nothing separates them from the animals in her care.
The reference to the “horses that weren’t any good” and “the poor thin cow” with no milk also reminds us that the woman, like the farm animals, is a creature defined by her ability to perform work. Like these animals, the woman cannot (or perhaps chooses not to) look beyond her given role, and her resolute dedication to her responsibilities is both pathetic and admirable. The harsh nature of Mr. and Mrs. Grimes’s shared existence ends up dehumanizing each of them in turn.
3. A thing so complete has its own beauty.
This line appears near the end of the story, when the narrator claims that both he and his brother were too young to really get the point of the old woman’s death. It is unclear what exactly the word thing refers to in this sentence. On one hand, it suggests the woman’s life, which has now been “completed.” Although the woman’s existence was one of pain and suffering, death gives us perspective on her life. By taking a step back from the harshness of her day-to-day existence, we can better appreciate the woman’s essential humanity. Previously, her life was characterized by intense lack. As a complete entity, however, it achieves a wholeness and integrity that makes it both perfect and beautiful.
The word complete implies something that is closed off and, therefore, fixed and unchangeable. Death becomes a protective barrier for the woman, who finds peace when she is no longer subject to the abuse of others. The image of the woman’s corpse—the same image that has lodged in the narrator’s memory and that he has spent years trying to make sense of—can also be understood as a “complete,” sealed object that possesses “its own beauty.” The story’s central symbol remains mysterious and cryptic and therefore alluring to the narrator. The fact that the image seems to keep its own secrets lends it an air of beauty. | <urn:uuid:0d915828-2cc7-4951-bf7e-0a89a3f87f24> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sparknotes.com/short-stories/a-death-in-the-woods/quotes.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00023-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974686 | 907 | 3.25 | 3 |
"...In particular, she [Marguerite] contributed to building up that new country [Canada], realizing the determining role of women, and she diligently strove toward their formation in a deeply Christian spirit."
Pope John Paul II at the canonization Mass further noted that she watched over her students with affection and confidence "in order to prepare them to become wives and worthy mothers, Christians, cultured, hardworking, radiant mothers."
Marguerite Bourgeoys, born the sixth of 12 children in Troyes, France, at the age of 20 believed that she was called to religious life. Her applications to the Carmelites and Poor Clares were unsuccessful. A priest friend suggested that perhaps God had other plans for her.
In 1654, the governor of the French settlement in Canada visited his sister, an Augustinian canoness in Troyes. Marguerite belonged to a sodality connected to that convent. The governor invited her to come to Canada and start a school in Ville-Marie (now the city of Montreal). When she arrived, the colony numbered 200 people with a hospital and a Jesuit mission chapel.
Soon after starting a school, she realized her need for coworkers. Returning to Troyes, she recruited a friend, Catherine Crolo, and two other young women. In 1667 they added classes at their school for Indian children.
A second trip to France three years later resulted in six more young women and a letter from King Louis XIV, authorizing the school. The Congregation of Notre Dame was established in 1676 but its members did not make formal religious profession until 1698 when their Rule and constitutions were approved.
Marguerite established a school for Indian girls in Montreal. At the age of 69, she walked from Montreal to Quebec in response to the bishop’s request to establish a community of her sisters in that city. By the time she died, she was referred to as the “Mother of the Colony.”
Children from European as well as Native American backgrounds in seventeenth-century Canada benefited from her great zeal and unshakable trust in God’s providence. Marguerite was canonized in 1982.
* * * * * *
« Si la prière ne part pas du cœur, elle n’est qu’un songe qui ne produit rien, car la prière doit être dans la pensée, la parole et l’exécution. » – Sainte Marguerite Bourgeoys
* * * * * *
Bishops Young and Old
Today I will be in London, Ontario to take part in the episcopal ordination in St. Peter's Cathedral of William Terrence McGrattan as titular bishop of Furnos Minor and auxiliary bishop of Toronto.
Tomorrow, in Toronto's St. Michael's Cathedral there will be the historic ordination of the first Asian-born bishop in Canada, His Excellency Vincent Nguyen, titular bishop of Ammaedara and auxiliary bishop of Toronto.
At his ordination, Bishop Nguyen also will become Canada's youngest bishop at the age of 43.
Coincidentally, today Canada's oldest bishop (who celebrated 65 years of priestly ordination and 45 years of episcopal consecration in 2009), turns 95.
Mgr Joseph-Aurele Plourde (8th bishop and 7th archbishop of Ottawa [1967-1989], though frail, continues to delight in life and news of the church, plays bridge several times a week and otherwise keeps busy at the Jean-Paul II Residence in Ottawa.
To each of them I offer the traditional wish, ad multos et faustissimos annos! | <urn:uuid:3c55dce5-df6a-49c6-9b5f-6a9a154276e7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://archbishopterry.blogspot.com/2010/01/sainte-marguerite-bourgeoys-tale-of.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00192-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958588 | 769 | 3.046875 | 3 |
The pleasure of hiking with your dog in the Western United States comes with a very specific danger: rattlesnakes. The highest concentration of rattlesnakes is in the West and Southwest, but a few species can be found east of the Mississippi Rover. While I’ve personally yet to encounter a rattlesnake while out with my dogs, my neighbor found one on his porch and it took a visit from animal control to remove it. The point is you and your dog could find yourself confronted with a rattlesnake within your own home.
According to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, rattlesnake bites most often occur between the months of March and October, when snakes are most active. A rattlesnake bite can be fatal if not treated immediately. My dog Sasha, an Australian Shepherd and Border Collie mix, has a strong prey drive and is quite curious about any critters we come across on our walks. I shudder to think what would happen if she spotted a rattlesnake!
More from Dogster Magazine: Are Petco’s Dog Training Methods Outdated?
I heard about “rattlesnake aversion training,” a technique that teaches dogs to retreat from a snake when they encounter one. During the sessions, the dogs are introduced to young and adult rattlesnakes that have been either muzzled or are contained in a blind box to ensure the dogs’ safety. I was relieved to hear that the snakes are muzzled. When the dogs encounter the snake, the trainer corrects the dog using an electric collar (more on this in a minute). The dog is allowed to sniff and be curious about the snake and the correction is set to a low-level in order to build the dog’s aversion to the rattlesnake. Dogs typically smell or hear a rattler before they see one, so the training engages all of the dog’s senses. In addition to live snakes, the dogs are exposed to recently shed skin and to the snake’s rattle.
I’m not a fan of shock collars. But when I weigh the danger of a venomous snakebite against training using an electric collar, the collar wins. You can decide that for yourself. There isn’t a central database that records the number of dogs bitten by rattlesnakes each year, but between 7,000 and 8,000 humans are bitten annually in the U.S.
Dogs need to be at least six months old in order to participate in the training. The trainers recommend yearly follow-up sessions for three to four years in order to reinforce the behavior. There are several organizations that offer this specialized training, including: Natural Solutions, Singleton’s Rattlesnake Avoidance Training, and Southern California Rattlesnake Aversion Training.
More from Dogster Magazine: 5 Ways to Avoid Disaster During Your Dog’s Next Playdate
But the training isn’t offered everywhere in rattlesnake country — and it has nothing to do with shock collars. The training has recently been banned in San Diego County. Animal rights organizations are concerned that the training puts the rattlesnakes under too much stress, and some filed a complaint with San Diego County Animal Services. As a result, a county ordinance that prohibits the possession of venomous reptiles is being enforced by that agency, and training has been halted. If you are concerned about the treatment of snakes, Natural Solutions, one of the rattlesnake aversion training organizations, says on its website that the snakes’ wellbeing is also taken into account, and that all of the snakes are safely and humanely muzzled.
The Animal Poison Control Center offers these tips for keeping your dog safe from rattlesnakes:
1. Clear away undergrowth, rock piles, and other items on your property that would serve as a hiding place for snakes. During warmer months, snakes seek refuge in these cooler areas.
2. Keep your yard free of spilled food or birdseed that could attract rodents — which attract snakes.
3. Keep your dog on a leash when walking.
4. Stay on hiking trails and steer clear of grasses, bushes, and rocks.
5. Get familiar with the snakes that are common in your area. If your dog is bitten, take a picture of the snake if possible in order to help identify and aid in your dog’s treatment.
Have you taken your dog to rattlesnake aversion training? Would you? Why or why not? Tell me in comments.
Photo: Canebrake rattlesnake by Shutterstock | <urn:uuid:b85933e7-6dec-43b0-9337-b42d3b341eae> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.care2.com/greenliving/the-potential-benefits-of-shock-collars.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00050-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9558 | 961 | 2.96875 | 3 |
I18N::Collate(3p)Perl Programmers Reference GuidI18N::Collate(3p)
I18N::Collate - compare 8-bit scalar data according to the current locale
use I18N::Collate; setlocale(LC_COLLATE, 'locale-of-your-choice'); $s1 = new I18N::Collate "scalar_data_1"; $s2 = new I18N::Collate "scalar_data_2";
*** WARNING: starting from the Perl version 5.003_06 the I18N::Collate interface for comparing 8-bit scalar data according to the current locale HAS BEEN DEPRECATED That is, please do not use it anymore for any new applications and please migrate the old applications away from it because its functionality was integrated into the Perl core language in the release 5.003_06. See the perllocale manual page for further information. *** This module provides you with objects that will collate according to your national character set, provided that the POSIX setlocale() function is supported on your system. You can compare $s1 and $s2 above with $s1 le $s2 to extract the data itself, you'll need a dereference: $$s1 This module uses POSIX::setlocale(). The basic collation conversion is done by strxfrm() which terminates at NUL characters being a decent C routine. collate_xfrm() handles embedded NUL characters gracefully. The available locales depend on your operating system; try whether "locale -a" shows them or man pages for "locale" or "nlsinfo" or the direct approach "ls /usr/lib/nls/loc" or "ls /usr/lib/nls" or "ls /usr/lib/locale". Not all the locales that your vendor supports are necessarily installed: please consult your operating system's documentation and possibly your local system administration. The locale names are probably something like "xx_XX.(ISO)?8859-N" or "xx_XX.(ISO)?8859N", for example "fr_CH.ISO8859-1" is the perl v5.8.8 2005-02-05 1 I18N::Collate(3p)Perl Programmers Reference GuidI18N::Collate(3p) Swiss (CH) variant of French (fr), ISO Latin (8859) 1 (-1) which is the Western European character set. perl v5.8.8 2005-02-05 2
Generated on 2016-04-09 18:24:16 by $MirOS: src/scripts/roff2htm,v 1.83 2016/03/26 23:38:28 tg Exp $
These manual pages and other documentation are copyrighted by their respective writers;
their source is available at our CVSweb,
AnonCVS, and other mirrors. The rest is Copyright © 2002–2016 The MirOS Project, Germany.
This product includes material provided by mirabilos.
This manual page’s HTML representation is supposed to be valid XHTML/1.1; if not, please send a bug report – diffs preferred. | <urn:uuid:9953774e-a4ee-4594-a4c3-aaf489101603> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mirbsd.org/htman/sparc/man3p/I18N::Collate.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396459.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00024-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.808505 | 696 | 2.578125 | 3 |
The White House is celebrating federal, state and local initiatives intended to help young children learn more about science, technology, engineering, and math.
Recently in Advocacy and Early Childhood Category
April 21, 2016
April 15, 2016
The bipartisan caucus is intended to help lawmakers understand the benefits of early-childhood education, and to boost pre-K access nationwide.
April 15, 2016
A commission of heavy hitters in California education recommends a wholesale overhaul of the Golden State's early-care and education system for children under 5.
April 14, 2016
The strongest early-childhood research suggests that high-quality child care and home-visiting programs have stronger positive effects on children than prekindergarten for 4-year-olds, according to an analysis from the American Enterprise Institute.
March 29, 2016
The list released by the Council of Chief State School Officers is notable because the association's members have control over the direction of states' preschool programs.
March 25, 2016
The Bainum Family Foundation, based in suburban Washington, D.C., is working to support better programs for infants and toddlers in low-income city neighborhoods.
February 19, 2016
A report from the Center for Law and Social Policy finds that certain ethnic groups, such as Hispanics, have very low participation in early-childhood programs intended to help low-income families.
January 12, 2016
Using data and evidence-based practices wisely will help improve the 50-year-old preschool program for low-income children, says a coalition of Head Start advocates and good governance groups.
November 19, 2015
The Southern Regional Education Board, a coalition of 16 states, released a guide for legislators in supporting early-education initiatives in their states.
November 11, 2015
The federal budget bills currently under consideration would cut funding to the grant program, which is meant to help states start or expand prekindergarten. | <urn:uuid:22823a10-14e5-44bb-9710-e23f72876ca3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/early_years/advocacy/?tagID=0&blogID=85&categoryID=811 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393518.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00156-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942452 | 393 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Amazon Simple Storage Service - Amazon S3
Amazon's Simple Storage Service, or Amazon S3 for short, is a personal cloud storage service from Amazon's Web Services (Amazon AWS). Amazon S3 debuted in 2006 as a cost-effective Web services solution for developers to store and retrieve data at any point in time from anywhere Web access is available.
Amazon S3 customers receive up to 5 GB of online data storage for free, with commercial tiered plans available for those with additional storage or more intensive data transfer needs. In addition to its use for personal cloud storage, Amazon S3 has also become increasingly utilized by commercial services for cloud services, with companies like Dropbox, Ubuntu One and SmugMug relying on Amazon S3 for cloud storage and transfer.
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Network Topology refers to layout of a network. How different nodes in a network are connected to each other and how they communicate is... Read More » | <urn:uuid:863bbea2-4d8a-4053-97e7-d9dd8dbde5d0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/A/amazon_s3.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395166.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00201-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.864119 | 365 | 2.796875 | 3 |
The U.S Fish and Wildlife Service announced a new proposal that would protect thousands of chimps currently held in captivity.
Right now, there is a distinction in the government between chimpanzees in the wild and chimps held in captivity. Under the Endangered Species Act, wild chimps are protected and considered endangered but the same cannot be said for captive chimps. Because of this, captive chimps are often unprotected and some are exploited in commercials and movies or kept as pets. Not to mention the hundreds chimpanzees who are languishing away in labs around the country.
If passed, this proposal could save thousands of chimps from testing and torture.
Dr. Jane Goodall, Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and UN Peace Messenger, joins Jane to discuss this very important proposal.
For more information and steps on how to get involved visit janegoodall.org.
For more on this story, watch Jane Velez-Mitchell weeknights at 7 p.m. ET on HLN. | <urn:uuid:c7691d01-9929-4896-a76f-04a332d4f778> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.hlntv.com/video/2013/06/14/jane-goodall-proposal-save-chimps | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00043-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942834 | 205 | 3.109375 | 3 |
What would you do if you had a spacecraft pushing toward the edge of the Solar System with nothing much to do? The answer is to assign it an extended mission, as we found out with the two Voyagers and their continuing data return that is helping us understand the boundaries of the heliosphere. In the case of New Horizons, NASA’s probe to Pluto/Charon, two extended missions may be involved after Pluto, the first being a flyby of one or more Kuiper Belt targets, the second being a further look at what is actually going on where the solar wind meets the interstellar medium.
Alan Stern, principal investigator for New Horizons, comments on the possibility in his latest report on the mission, noting that a second extended mission isn’t out of the question, and adding that New Horizons won’t make it as far as the Voyagers before it runs out of power. But 90 to 100 AU seems a possibility, which would provide a useful supplement to Voyager data. Remember that New Horizons carries two instruments ideal for this part of the system. The first is the Solar Wind Around Pluto (SWAP) plasma instrument, the second the Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation (PEPSSI). All this is in addition to what the spacecraft’s dust counter, its two imagers and its ultraviolet spectrometer may tell us.
Stern’s report on New Horizons comes at the same time we have word, from a new paper in Science, that the assumed ‘bow shock’ at the outer edge of the heliosphere may not actually exist. The bow shock is at the boundary between the solar wind pushing out from the Sun and the interstellar medium, an area of presumed turbulence that has been observed around other stars. The new paper from David McComas (SwRI) and colleagues presents findings from the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) that show the Sun is moving more slowly in relation to the interstellar medium than previously thought, slow enough to prevent a bow shock from forming.
Image: IBEX has caught the interstellar wind that surrounds and compresses our heliosphere and has found that it travels more slowly and in a different direction than previously thought. This new understanding has important implications for the size and shape of the heliosphere and may inform the history and future of the solar system. Credit: SwRI.
Maybe New Horizons can help us clarify the situation with studies of the outer heliosphere, but we still lack a mission that could get us out as far as the bow shock region itself (the Voyagers have entered the heliosheath, but their signals will surely be lost before getting to the needed 200 AU or more from the Sun). All of this ties in with recent Cassini results suggesting that the heliosphere is more spherical than comet-shaped, so perhaps the interactions at system’s edge aren’t quite as fierce as has been thought. We need Innovative Interstellar Explorer to learn more, or a comparable mission specifically designed to penetrate into true interstellar space.
New Horizons in the Kuiper Belt
Meanwhile, our Pluto/Charon mission is, says Stern, doing just fine, having exited a period of hibernation on April 30 to begin a series of extensive systems checkouts. The spacecraft’s Pluto encounter occurs in the summer of 2015, but it should take a year to get all the encounter data back to Earth due to the slow data transmission rates at that distance. It’s after that that the first extended mission, subject to approval by NASA, would study objects in the Kuiper Belt. The spacecraft should have about 40 percent of its fuel still available, so a choice of KBOs should be possible, assuming the ongoing hunt for likely candidates turns up workable targets.
The New Horizons team has been using Earth-based telescopes to hunt for KBOs, but so far none has been identified that would be within range of New Horizons. It’s a tricky search, and one Stern assumes will succeed, but his recent report explains some of the problems:
First, the only KBOs within our reach are likely to be small, roughly 50 kilometers in diameter. Because they are small and far away, they will be faint as seen from Earth. In fact, calculations show that the KBOs we need to find are going to be about 25,000 times fainter than Pluto, which is itself about 10,000 times fainter than the eye can see. This means we have to search for objects with the largest telescopes and most sensitive astronomical cameras on Earth.
The second factor making the search tough is that our trajectory is pointed at the heart of the Milky Way’s densest star fields — those of the galactic center in the constellation Sagittarius. So our search is kind of a “needle in a haystack” hunt for very faint objects slowly moving against regions of the sky thick with stars!
All I could think of when I read that was an image of Clyde Tombaugh working the blink comparator at Lowell Observatory in 1930. I wonder what he would have thought then of the chances for tracking a target 25,000 times fainter than the dim planet (well, dwarf planet) he eventually found. The New Horizons effort should have at least one target defined by 2015, at which time an engine burn in the fall of that year would change the spacecraft’s trajectory to reach the first KBO, a journey that — if the team’s calculations are accurate — should last three or four years and perhaps longer. That could place the first KBO flyby as early as 2018 or as late as 2021.
What’s exciting about Stern’s report this time around is his statement that any target KBO will be approached at distances perhaps as close as the Pluto/Charon flyby, which means we should get images from the KBOs that are as detailed as those from Pluto. The down side: With no other Kuiper Belt mission in the works, we’ll need every bit of New Horizons’ observations on KBO surface composition and features, temperatures, moon or rings system and anything else the brief encounter can deliver, for as Stern puts it, “New Horizons is very likely to be the only spacecraft that will explore KBOs in the lifetime of most people alive today.”
Or maybe not. Let’s assume that first extended mission into the Kuiper Belt will be approved, which will yield not only close-up KBO images but also more distant observations of KBO satellites as well as dust particle distribution data. And while we get behind missions like Innovative Interstellar Explorer and push to see them implemented, let’s also cross our fingers for that second extended mission that would keep New Horizons active until it goes silent somewhere out around 100 AU. As the latest IBEX findings remind us, we know all too little about the boundary between our Solar System and the interstellar gulf beyond.
The new IBEX findings are in McComas et al., “The Heliosphere’s Interstellar Interaction: No Bow Shock,” published online in Science 10 May 2012 (abstract). | <urn:uuid:640f1abc-0099-40ad-a089-5bad0096264d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=22863 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398209.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00194-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951401 | 1,482 | 3.5625 | 4 |
Nicolaus Copernicus (portrait from Toruń - beginning of the 16th century)
Mikołaj Kopernik (February 19, 1473–May 24, 1543), more commonly known by the Latin form Nicolaus Copernicus, was a Polish astrologer, astronomer, mathematician and economist, mainly remembered for developing a scientifically useful heliocentric (Sun-centered) theory of the solar system. His main occupations and services rendered were in Royal Prussia, as church canon, governor and administrator, economist, jurist, physician, astrologer and military leader (conducting defense against the Teutonic Order). Amid all his responsibilities, he treated astronomy as a hobby. His theory about the Sun as the center of the Universe, opposed to the traditional geocentric theory that placed Earth at the center, is considered one of the most important discoveries ever, and is the fundamental starting point of modern astronomy and modern science itself (it inaugurated a scientific revolution). His theory affected many aspects of human life, opening the door for young astronomers, scientists and scholars to take a skeptical attitude toward established dogma.
Copernicus was born in 1473 at Toruń (Thorn) in Polish Royal Prussia. Copernicus was ten when his father, a wealthy businessman and copper trader, died. Copernicus' maternal uncle, Lucas Watzenrode, a church canon and later Prince-Bishop governor of Warmia, reared him and his three siblings after the death of Copernicus' father. In 1491 Copernicus enrolled at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, and here for the first time encountered astronomy, thanks to his teacher Albert Brudzewski. This science soon fascinated him, as shown by his books (later carried off as war booty by the Swedes during The Deluge, and now at the Uppsala University Library). After four years at Kraków, followed by a brief stay at Toruń, he went to Italy, where he studied law and medicine at the universities of Bologna and Padua. His bishop-uncle financed his education and wished for him to become a bishop as well. However, while studying canon and civil law at Ferrara, Copernicus met the famous astronomer, Domenico Maria Novara da Ferrara. Copernicus attended his lectures and became his disciple and assistant. The first observations that Copernicus made in 1497, together with Novara, are recorded in Copernicus' epochal book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium.
In 1514 he made his Commentariolus — a short handwritten text describing his ideas about the heliocentric hypothesis — available to friends. Thereafter he continued gathering evidence for a more detailed work. In 1533 Albert Widmanstadt delivered a series of lectures in Rome outlining Copernicus' theory. By 1536 Copernicus' work was already in definitive form, and some rumors about his theory had reached scientists all over Europe. From many parts of the continent, Copernicus received invitations to publish, but he feared persecution for his revolutionary work by the establishment. Cardinal Nicola Schoenberg of Capua wrote, asking him to communicate his ideas more widely and requesting a copy for himself; "Therefore, learned man, without wishing to be inopportune, I beg you most emphatically to communicate your discovery to the learned world, and to send me as soon as possible your theories about the Universe, together with the tables and whatever else you have pertaining to the subject." Some have suggested that this note may have made Copernicus leery of publication, while others have suggested that the Church wanted to ensure that his ideas were published..
"Astronomer Copernicus: Conversation with God" painted by Jan Matejko (1872).
Copernicus' major theory was published in the book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) in the year of his death, 1543, though he had arrived at his theory several decades earlier.
The book marks the beginning of the shift away from a geocentric (and anthropocentric) universe with the Earth at its center. Copernicus held that the Earth is another planet revolving around the fixed sun once a year, and turning on its axis once a day. He arrived at the correct order of the known planets and explained the precession of the equinoxes correctly by a slow change in the position of the Earth's rotational axis. He also gave a clear account of the cause of the seasons: that the Earth's axis is not perpendicular to the plane of its orbit. He added another motion to the Earth, by which the axis is kept pointed throughout the year at the same place in the heavens; since Galileo Galilei, it has been recognized that for the Earth not to point to the same place would have been a motion.
Copernicus also replaced Ptolemy's equant circles with more epicycles. This is the main source of the statement that Copernicus' system had even more epicycles than Ptolemy's. With this change, Copernicus' system showed only uniform circular motions, correcting what he saw as the chief inelegance in Ptolemy's system. But while Copernicus put the Sun at the center of the celestial spheres, he did not put it at the exact center of the universe, but near it.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Copernicus". | <urn:uuid:937c4b1e-1245-4d58-baf4-6dd8fa7c8fa9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/globeweb/factfile/Unique-facts-Globe5.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398209.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00004-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969826 | 1,159 | 3.65625 | 4 |
The Central American Free Trade Agreement is an expansion of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to include Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. It was signed in May, 2004 and soon will be up for a vote in Congress.
CAFTA will have a negative impact on the environment of Central America and, indirectly, on us as well. Central America includes only one percent of the world’s land area but has 8% of all the planet’s biodiversity. Three out of four migratory bird routes in the Western Hemisphere pass through CAFTA countries. Even US Trade negotiators admitted that CAFTA could contribute to the loss of migratory bird habitat through investments in the agricultural sector.
NAFTA restructured the agricultural sector of Mexico, and the subsequent dumping of subsidized corn from the US drove 1.5 million small farmers off their land. These people either migrated to the US or were forced to clear trees for fuel. Since the implementation of NAFTA the rate of deforestation in Mexico has almost doubled.
CAFTA provides for fines if countries do not enforce their laws, but only after a vague, cumbersome, process. Some CAFTA countries essentially have no laws to enforce anyway, nor the resources to do so. The Bush administration, in February, announced an “Environmental Cooperation Agreement” in a transparent attempt to cool the opposition. The Clinton Administration did exactly the same thing with “environmental side accords” to help pass NAFTA. One need only assess the poor record of NAFTA to understand that this new accord is also just window dressing.
In any event, CAFTA includes “investor rights” rules, like NAFTA’s infamous Chapter 11, which allow corporations to sue countries for cash damages for any perceived loss of profits from any law or measure that interferes with their operations. Since Central American countries are small and poor, it’s unlikely that US laws will be threatened by CAFTA. Rather US corporations will move into Central America to extract minerals, cut forests and develop the pristine coastlines in the region.
Please Ask Your Congressional Reps To Vote No On Cafta
The Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) is expected to come up for a vote as soon as the Republican leadership in Congress thinks they have the votes. So it’s important for you to contact your congressional representatives now and ask them to oppose CAFTA. A sample letter is provided below. To read the Club’s CAFTA Fact Sheets, log on to the national Sierra Club website at www.Sierraclub.org/trade. Email: email@example.com
Washington, D. C. 20515
Subject: Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA)
I am opposed to the U.S.- Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). CAFTA is based on the failed NAFTA model and is a step in the wrong direction. CAFTA’s rules would undermine U.S. and Central American environmental standards by allowing foreign investors to challenge environmental and public health laws before international tribunals, bypassing domestic courts. For developing Central American countries, the simple threat of costly investor challenges could freeze adoption of environmental standards.
Central America faces daunting environmental challenges that jeopardize the region’s capacity for sustainable development. CAFTA’s rules do not ensure that environmental protection in Central America will be improved or even maintained in a meaningful way. These flaws are particularly critical for a region with such a bright future for eco-tourism. Many Americans have enjoyed the phenomenal biodiversity and beauty of the region’s parks, preserves and coast line.
Trade agreements should support, not undermine environmental protection, human rights and labor standards. Regrettably CAFTA, and the recently announced “Environmental Cooperation Agreement,” fail this test. I urge you to oppose this agreement when it comes to a vote.
Craig Volland, Trade Chair | <urn:uuid:4defbe61-9034-4f47-91a1-53069409ca6e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://kansas.sierraclub.org/cafta-fails-the-test-on-environment/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00092-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926376 | 830 | 3.296875 | 3 |
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