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It is often said that Buddhist groups in the West are not very welcoming of children, and miss chances to communicate basic teachings and practices to kids. In both Asian Buddhism and for other religions in the west (but, somehow, not so much for "Western Buddhism"), "religious holidays" can be a time for families to unite, to bond through customs and practices, and to bring children into the spirit of the time through the celebration. Holidays can be an important time to expose children to Buddhist teachings and values in ways that leave a lasting, positive impression for the future. Are there ways to make various Buddhist holidays more "kid friendly" while preserving the traditional message, values and customs of the original?
This is something that weighs heavily on many Buddhist parents at this time of year, when the other religions have their big celebrations. Buddhist children might feel left out, and we may be missing an opportunity to teach them important lessons while making them feel included in our Practices, transmitting a positive feeling about Buddhism as they grow up. Also (and most importantly), I am certain that we can do so BOTH while preserving the true message of the Buddhist holidays AND avoiding the crassness and commercialism that has come to represent this time of year.
Our Treeleaf Sangha has established a workshop to transform a couple of traditional Buddhist holidays to suit western needs a bit more, and especially the needs of families and the teaching of good lessons to children. Once we get things hammered out, we would like to encourage other Zen Sangha, and the wider Buddhist community in the west, to join with us.
WITHOUT the department stores (by emphasizing, for example, giving to charity, unselfish giving to others, the making of homemade gifts or giving of Buddhism related presents), WITHOUT the glitz and commercialism, we can turn Rohatsu (Buddha's Enlightenment Day in December), Vesak (Buddha's Birthday around April) and some other holidays into FAMILY FRIENDLY events WHILE PRESERVING THE TEACHINGS. The central messages of the holidays ... selflessness, generosity, non-attachment, peace, awakening, compassion, loving kindness ... can be both PRESERVED and PASSED ON to children through the vehicle of these holidays. The message on these holidays is now conveyed through chanting and ritual ... so why not through joyous songs and home rituals that the whole family can partake in? NOTHING of the meaning, traditions and authenticity of these holidays need be lost.
Todays Sit-A-Long video follows at this link. Remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells; a sitting time of 20 to 35 minutes is recommended.
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How can I walk safely in snow/ice conditions?
- Allow ample time to walk from your car to class. In slippery conditions, it is imperative that you take care to slow down and avoid walking in areas that have yet to be cleared or treated.
- Avoid areas that have been blocked off/barricaded by Grounds Services personnel. These barricades are placed to prohibit access to walkways, stairs, ramps, etc. that have not yet been treated, or are historically very difficult to keep free of snow and ice due to their locations (i.e. stairs/walks with a northern exposure are particularly challenging to maintain, as they receive very little direct sun during winter months.) The barricaded areas are intended to protect our campus community members; please do NOT move or walk over/around a barricade.
- Hold onto hand rails while going up and down outdoor stairways. Even though it is a priority for our Grounds Services personnel to
diligently clear and treat all stairways, frigid temperatures can limit
the effectiveness of salt, calcium, etc. Hence, areas that have been
recently treated can sometimes still have icy spots.
- Wearing dark colors can make it difficult for motorists to see you. Wear a brightly-colored scarf or hat or reflective gear, especially if you have to walk in the street.
- Walking on snow or ice is especially treacherous and wearing proper
footwear is essential. A pair of well insulated boots with good rubber
treads is a must for walking during or after a winter storm. Keeping a
pair of rubber over-shoes with good treads which fit over your street
shoes is a good idea during the winter months. Avoid wearing shoes with plastic or leather soles in slippery conditions.
- When walking on an icy or snow-covered walkway, take short steps and walk at a slower pace so you can react quickly to a change in traction. Bending your knees a little and taking slower steps can greatly reduce your chances of falling.
- Snow and ice may keep motorists from stopping at traffic signals or slowing down for pedestrians. Before you step off of the curb into the street, make sure that any approaching vehicles have come to a complete stop.
- During the daytime, wear sunglasses to help you see better and avoid hazards..
Driving safely in winter weather
- Clear your car completely of snow - all windows, the front and back windshields, the lights and the roof. Blocks of snow and sheets of ice can fall down while you drive, if you neglect to remove them. It can fall and cover your windshields, which makes it hard to see, or it can hit the car behind you. Be sure that your lights are unobstructed so that you can see everything, and so that others can see you. Keep a snow brush and/or ice scraper in your car, so you can do this wherever you're leaving from
- Decrease your speed and leave yourself plenty of room to stop. You should allow at least three times more space than usual between you and the car in front of you.
- Brake gently to avoid skidding. If your wheels start to lock up, ease off the brake.
- Turn on your lights to increase your visibility to other motorists, even during the daylight hours.
- Use low gears to keep traction, especially on hills.
- Don't use cruise control or overdrive on icy roads.
- Be especially careful on bridges, overpasses and infrequently traveled roads, which will freeze first. Even at temperatures above freezing, if the conditions are wet, you might encounter ice in shady areas or on exposed roadways like bridges.
- Don't pass snow plows and sanding trucks. The drivers have limited visibility, and you're likely to find the road in front of them worse than the road behind.
- Don't assume your vehicle can handle all conditions. Even four-wheel and front-wheel drive vehicles can encounter trouble on winter roads.
What safety precautions can I take if I must drive in a winter storm?
Winterize your car. Inspect the vehicle prior to winter weather travel to ensure the following systems are operating properly:
- Brakes: Brakes should provide even and balanced braking. Also check that brake fluid is at the proper level.
- Cooling System: Ensure a proper mixture of 50/50 antifreeze and water in the cooling system at the proper level.
- Electrical System: Check that battery is fully charged and that connections are clean. Check that the alternator belt is in good condition with proper tension.
- Engine: Inspect all engine systems.
- Exhaust System: Check exhaust for leaks and that all clamps and hangers are snug.
- Tires: Check for proper tread depth and no signs of damage or uneven wear. Check for proper tire inflation.
- Oil: Check that oil is at proper level.
- Visibility Systems: Inspect all exterior lights, defrosters (windshield and rear window), and wipers. Install winter windshield wipers
If you would like more information on MSU's Snow & Ice Removal strategies, please visit our website.
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Brown Marmorated Stink Bug
Welcome to the BioLogic Blog!
Chances are over the last few years your home has been invaded by the smelly, brown, shield shaped bugs pictured below:
This unwelcome guest, the brown marmorated stink bug (Halyomorpha halys), or “stink bug” as they’re commonly known, seem particularly adept at finding any and every entry into warm homes as the colder weather sets in. H. halys was introduced to North America from Asia in the late 1990’s. Without their natural predators, stink bug populations have exploded causing them to become both an agricultural and residential pest.
The life cycle of H. Halys lasts one year and is comprised of six stages in the Northern United States. However, up to five generations occur each year in their native Southern China, and the same is likely in the U.S. as they move further South to warmer climates. Stink bug eggs are laid in clusters of around 25 eggs on the underside of leaves. They then go through four instars before reaching maturity (the adult phase). Adults seek shelter from colder temperatures during winter, which is when they generally begin entering homes and other buildings.
Unfortunately, the brown marmorated stink bug is more than just a smelly nuisance. This invasive species is actually quite destructive, and can wreak havoc on a wide variety of crops and ornamentals. Fruit trees are particularly susceptible, but other affected plants include: butterfly-bush (Buddleia spp.), mulberry (Morus sp.), soybean (Glycine max) and flowers of hibiscus (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis). Stink bugs pose another vineyard specific problem, as they can easily be accidentally harvested along with clusters causing stink bug infused wine!
So what can be done to stop invasion of our homes and destruction of our food and drink? Stink bugs do have natural predators, including a scelionid wasp native to China, Trissolcus halyomorphae. These parasitic wasps are known to be effective in controlling H. halys populations and are currently being researched in the U.S. However, there are drawbacks to introducing yet another new species to tackle the invasive stink bugs. Negative side effects of introducing these non-native species could include harm to other, non-targeted insects and competition with native parasitic wasp species. Praying mantis, a native species, do eat stink bugs and are another option for natural, biological control. For additional information on the biological control praying mantis provide, as well as product and ordering information please click here. There are also chemical controls which can be useful in controlling this particular pest. Pyrethroids provide fairly effective, though short term, control of H. halys, but unfortunately bring their own set of secondary pest problems including mites (in orchards) and mealybugs (in vineyards). Some neonicotinoids such as clothianidin have shown to be effective in the short term, though control studies are still underway as H. halys is a relatively new pest. As with any species, the stink bug will eventually build a resistance to any chemical control. Lastly, mechanical exclusion is an effective method of controlling the amount of pests that make it into your home. Stink bugs generally enter dwellings through small holes or cracks in and around windows, so securing these areas with quality silicone or silicone latex caulk can significantly reduce populations indoors. Also be sure to repair or replace any damaged screens on doors or windows.
As we continue to learn more about the brown marmorated stink bug, it is likely additional controls will become available. Until then, BioLogic’s littlest dog Pogo is happy to hunt down and pounce upon any Halyomorpha halys that make it into our home!
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AAAS needs to take its own advice!
|February 20, 2012||Posted by News under Intelligent Design, Media, Popular culture, Science|
AAAS is pondering new ways to reach the public:
In “AAAS 2012 Annual Meeting News: Scientists Offer Passionate, Innovative Ways to Engage the Public on Climate Change” (February 19, 2012), Becky Ham tells us,
What’s the most effective way to communicate science?
The audience had a few favorite answers this time: Metaphor, humor, and going to the popular press. Hansen voted for social media, Rosling opted for humor, and Judson chose all of the above.
But whatever the method, some of the panelists concluded, effective science communication must change attitudes as well as correct misconceptions. “Ignorance is not really the problem,” Rosling said. “It’s the difficulty in handling the facts.”
Science, Judson suggested, is more of a stance toward the world than a mountain of data. “And what I would like to do try and change is not so much the way people understand the facts, but the way they look at the world and ask questions about it and engage their curiosity and their skepticism.”
The dominant topic was climate change, and the participants approached all questions from the perspective that they were right and the vast unbelieving public is wrong. Yet one speaker demonstrated that most participants didn’t realize that the birth rate has declined almost worldwide.
If the AAAS participants didn’t realize something as obvious as that the birth rate has declined almost worldwide, why are they so sure their answers are right about everything else?
“Ignorance is not really the problem,” Rosling said. “It’s the difficulty in handling the facts.”
could their problem with facts about the birth rate be this: They need a crisis that doesn’t exist? Why?
They should practice their communication ideas on themselves before reaching out to others.
Hat tip: Stephanie West Allan at Brains on Purpose
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I have 2 BP monitors and they almost always are very inconsistent with reading. I'll check at the same time too.
One is the OMRON HEM-711DLX arm cuff monitor. The other is a Timex wrist monitor.
The arm cuff monitor (Omron) will say something like 121/75, while at the very same time, the wrist monitor, on my other arm will say 132/95. If my actual BP is 132/95, I'd like to know, cause that means medication.
I am sitting down when I measure my BP and I have my arm, and wrist at heart level as per instructions.
You would think the Omron arm cuff monitor would be more accurate but for some reason I suspect the wrist monitor is close to my true value. I say this because every once in a while my arm cuff monitor will say something like 99/67. And I know my BP is never that low.
P.S. I get 2 TOTALLY different reading on the wrist monitor when I lie down flat on my back and have the monitor over my heart vs. sitting up and holding it up at heart (which is what the directions call for). I've read that lying down give you a MORE accurate reading though. Very confused.
In general, arm cuff monitors are more accurate than wrist monitors.
You need to remember this:
Blood pressure is affected by gravity. If you are standing and measuring your blood pressure at ankle level, you are going to see some amazing numbers (just try), probably 220/180 or so. The explaination is fairly simple:
1 mmHg (millimeter of mercury) is equivalent to approx. 0,75 cm of water (as the density of mercury is approx. 13 times as high as water). Blood has about the same density as water, so in other words, for each cm you keep your arm (wrist) below heart level, your blood pressure monitoring will increase with 0,75 mmHg systolic AND diastolic.
If your arm is hanging straight down when measuring, you will get a wrong monitoring with your arm cuff but a severely wrong monitoring with your wrist monitor.
If you are going to measure your blood pressure, here is how to do it:
Supine: Support your arm on a small pillow so it is leveled with your heart.
Sitting: Support your arm on a table or similar.
Make sure you do not bend your elbow so much, as this may also produce wrong numbers.
Copyright 1994-2016 MedHelp International. All rights reserved.
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Medical Definition of cervical nerve
: one of the spinal nerves of the cervical region of which there are eight on each side in most mammals including humans
Seen and Heard
What made you want to look up cervical nerve? Please tell us where you read or heard it (including the quote, if possible).
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The Cassini data presented in this view appear to confirm a region of warm atmospheric descent into the eye of a hurricane-like storm locked to Saturn's south pole. The view shows temperature data from the Cassini spacecraft composite infrared spectrometer overlaid onto an image from the imaging science subsystem wide-angle camera.
The composite infrared spectrometer data refer to a depth in Saturn's upper stratosphere where the pressure is 0.5 millibars (324 kilometers above the 1-bar level), a region higher than that imaged by the imaging camera and visual and infrared spectrometer during the same observation period. The composite infrared spectrometer data show a very small hot spot over the pole, similar in size to the "eye" of the storm seen in the imaging science subsystem images. See also PIA08332 and PIA08333 for related images.
The color scale at the bottom indicates the temperature in Kelvin corresponding to the colors of the temperature map. Numbers on the grid correspond to lines of latitude and longitude on the planet.
Infrared images taken through the Keck I telescope by ground-based observers had previously shown the south polar spot to be warm. Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer has confirmed this with higher resolution temperature maps of the area (like the map displayed here) and sees a temperature increase of about 2 Kelvin (4 degrees Fahrenheit) at the pole.
The temperatures are in the stratosphere and higher up than the clouds seen by the Cassini imaging and visual and infrared mapping spectrometer instruments, but they suggest that the atmosphere sinks over the south pole. Because the pressure increases with depth, the descending atmosphere compresses and heats up. The warmer temperatures over the south pole also indicate that the vortex winds are decaying with height in the stratosphere.
The descent implied by the temperatures nicely supports the lower cloud altitudes observed by the imaging camera and visual and infrared spectrometer instruments at the pole.
The image and atmospheric data were acquired on Oct. 11, 2006, when Cassini was approximately 340,000 kilometers (210,000 miles) from Saturn. The wide-angle camera image was taken using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 752 nanometers. The image has been contrast enhanced using digital image processing techniques. The unprocessed image shows an oblique view toward the pole, and was reprojected to show the planet from a perspective directly over the south pole. Scale in the original image was about 17 kilometers (11 miles) per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. The composite infrared spectrometer team is based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org. The composite infrared spectrometer team homepage is http://cirs.gsfc.nasa.gov/.
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However, the global analysis undertaken in these projects is clearly limited by issues of scale as well as by the availability and quality of data. For some hazards, there exist only 15- to 25-year global records with relatively crude spatial information. Data on historical disaster losses, and particularly on economic losses, are also limited. Nevertheless it is possible to assess in general terms the exposure and potential magnitude of losses to people and their assets in these areas. Such information, although not ideal, can still be very useful for informing a range of disaster prevention and preparedness measures, including prioritization of resources, targeting of more localized and detailed risk assessments, implementation of risk-based disaster management and emergency response strategies, and development of long-term plans for poverty reduction and economic development.
The challenge within international development institutions and organizations is to use the top-level momentum generated by these global studies to develop country- or region-appropriate programs in natural hazard risk reduction based on scientific evidence, technical capacity, and political will. Thus the global methodologies must be "downscaled," not only to achieve better spatial and temporal resolution, but also to customize particular approaches to risk-conscious economic development. A new effort by the United Nations Development Program and the ProVention Consortium, the Global Risk Identification Program, is now being designed which will provide the evidence base and standards-driven framework for national approaches to hazard mitigation in the context of sustainable development programs.
Presenter: Arthur Lerner-Lam, Director, Center for Hazards and Risk Research,
The Earth Institute at Columbia University
Track: International Challenges
Date: Sunday, February 19, 2006
Time: 3:30 to 5:00 p.m.
The Earth Institute at Columbia University is the world's leading academic center for the integrated study of the Earth, its environment and society. The Earth Institute builds upon excellence in the core disciplines--earth sciences, biological sciences, engineering sciences, social sciences and health sciences--and stresses cross-disciplinary approaches to complex problems. Through research, training and global partnerships, The Earth Institute mobilizes science and technology to advance sustainable development, while placing special emphasis on the needs of the world's poor. For more information, visit www.earth.columbia.edu.
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Structural Analysis Made NESSUSary
- Created: Saturday, 01 January 2005
Everywhere you look, chances are something that was designed and tested by a computer will be in plain view. Computers are now utilized to design and test just about everything imaginable, from automobiles and airplanes to bridges and boats, and elevators and escalators to streets and skyscrapers.
Computer-design engineering first emerged in the 1970s, in the automobile and aerospace industries. Since computers were in their infancy, however, architects and engineers during the time were limited to producing only designs similar to hand-drafted drawings. (At the end of 1970s, a typical computer-aided design system was a 16-bit minicomputer with a price tag of $125,000.)
Eventually, computers became more affordable and related software became more sophisticated, offering designers the bells and whistles to go beyond the limits of basic drafting and rendering, and venture into more skillful applications. One of the major advancements was the ability to test the objects being designed for the probability of failure.
This advancement was especially important for the aerospace industry, where complicated and expensive structures are designed. The ability to perform reliability and risk assessment without using extensive hardware testing is critical to design and certification.
In 1984, NASA initiated the Probabilistic Structural Analysis Methods (PSAM) project at Glenn Research Center to develop analysis methods and computer programs for the probabilistic structural analysis of select engine components for current Space Shuttle and future space propulsion systems. NASA envisioned that these methods and computational tools would play a critical role in establishing increased system performance and durability, and assist in structural system qualification and certification. Not only was the PSAM project beneficial to aerospace, it paved the way for a commercial risk- probability tool that is evaluating risks in diverse, down-to-Earth applications.
For example, the software examined a SSME fuel turbopump blade that was subjected to harsh conditions, which could ultimately affect its performance abilities. A finite element model of the turbopump blade was analyzed by NESSUS for the effects of high-temperature and high-cycle mechanical fatigue that could cause it to crack. The software computed a reliability value of 0.99978 for the SSME component. Furthermore, the probabilistic sensitivity factors revealed the variables for which tighter control would result in a more reliable blade design. (In this case, hot gas seal leakage clearly dominated other considerations.) Conversely, the sensitivity factors also exposed which variables are relatively unimportant in determining blade reliability information important in establishing design and manufacturing controls for maximum cost-effectiveness as well as structural reliability.
The 10-year PSAM project officially ended in February 1995. Version 6.2 of NESSUS regarded the final version for NASA's purposes at that time was delivered to NASA in September 1995, along with a final report. Though in 2002, SwRI was again contracted by NASA, through Glenn, to further enhance NESSUS for application with large-scale aero-propulsion systems. Additionally, another government contract issued through the Los Alamos National Laboratory led to the utilization of NESSUS for extremely large and complex weapon-reliability problems, in support of its Stockpile Stewardship program.
The conclusion of the NASA projects, along with the Los Alamos project, marked a new beginning for SwRI, as it went on to commercialize NESSUS program for non- aerospace applications.
NESSUS is a modular computer software system that integrates advanced reliability methods with finite element and boundary element methods and probabilistic algorithms in order to model uncertainties in loads, material properties, and geometries with random variables. Probabilistic performance models implemented in NESSUS include stress, strain, displacement, vibration, fatigue, fracture, and creep. NESSUS can perform reliability analyses for multiple components and failure modes, and identify critical random variables and failure modes to support structural design, certification, and risk assessment.
Version 8.2, the latest, was released to U.S. government organizations in December 2004 and to the public in 2005. While the software continues to serve the aerospace industry, it is also solving a diverse range of problems in a variety of other industries, including health and medicine, automotives, biomechanics, nuclear waste packaging, munitions (weapon systems), and offshore pipeline construction. To accomplish this, NESSUS has been interfaced with many well-known third-party and commercial deterministic analysis programs.
Recently, NESSUS provided the U.S. Naval Bio-dynamics Laboratory/U.S. Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division with a probabilistic methodology and computational tool for evaluating the risk of cervical spine injury.
To do this, the company says, the designer must have quantified knowledge of the probability of injury, due to different impact scenarios, and also know which model parameters contribute the most to the injury probability. Although complex numerical (e.g., finite element) models are becoming more widely used as a means of augmenting and extending laboratory testing, most are deterministic in that they do not quantify the effect of uncertainties on the computed model responses.
In developing a probabilistic methodology and computational tool for performing the spinal evaluation, calculations were generated using the NESSUS probabilistic analysis program in conjunction with the commercial finite element program, ABAQUS. The company intends to use the resulting models for additional applications, including the study of spinal behavior under normal and distressed conditions, the design of implants utilizing novel materials and/or configurations, analysis of novel instrumentation systems that may help avoid costly experimentation, and the design of anthropomorphic test devices or physical models that replicate human response such that injury under simulated dynamic conditions can be replicated.
In helping NASA return to flight, NESSUS 8.2 was recently used to solve a critical Space Shuttle problem for the Agency's Engineering Safety Center, which was created in the aftermath of the Columbia accident to serve as an independent technical resource for NASA managers and employees. This project involved developing probabilistic and deterministic fracture mechanics models to quantify the reliability of a flowliner in a SSME. In another Return to Flight project for Johnson Space Center, the software is being utilized on a regular basis to assess the probability of foam-impact damage to the Space Shuttle's reinforced carbon-carbon leading edge, if such were to happen upon ascent.
In July, SwRI won R&D Magazine's R&D 100 Award, with NESSUS Version 8.2 being crowned as one of the 100 most significant technological achievements of the past year. The company has won 29 R&D 100 Awards since 1971.
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A Brief History of Our Town and Area
History of Dorsey & Kiger Realtors
Brief History of Our Town
Points of Interest
It is difficult today to imagine the absolute wilderness
which confronted the first settlers in the region now
known as Morgantown and Monongalia County. Prior to
1763, the area was contested both among settlers and
native Indians, and by England and France.
The Treaty of Paris in 1763 in theory established England's
right to the area, but Indian fighting continued almost
to the beginning of the American Revolution. Invariably,
first settlements were forts, and several were located
within the area now labeled "Greater Morgantown."
Morgan, on the site of present downtown Morgantown,
was established in 1772. South of town, near Dorsey
Knob, Fort Coburn was established in 1770. Several miles
north on the Monongahela, Fort Martin was established
in 1773. Towards the Cheat River on the present W. Va.
Route 73, Fort Pierpont was established in 1769. Several
miles north on U. S. 19 at the present location of Stewartstown,
Fort Dinwiddie was established in 1772. Fort Burris
existed in the Suncrest area of Morgantown, and Fort
Kern in the Greenmont area of Morgantown, as did other
small forts throughout the region.
Just three months after the signing of the Declaration
of Independence, Monongalia County was established by
the State of Virginia under Governor Patrick Henry on
October 11, 1776. Originally, the county encompassed
a much larger area, leading to Monongalia being called
the "mother of counties." Thirteen counties,
including three in Pennsylvania, have been formed from
the original Monongalia. Indeed, the first county seat
was located near New Geneva, in Pennsylvania, and Virginia
courts met as far north as Pittsburgh. Extension of
the Mason-Dixon line westward in 1782 more firmly established
the county's northern boundary.
Zacquill Morgan first settled in the area in 1772 and in 1785 received
a charter from the Virginia Assembly for the establishment of a town to
be called Morganstown. The present city of Morgantown
is the direct result of that Virginia Charter.
Other historic milestones for the area include establishment
of the Forks of Cheat Baptist Church north of Stewartstown
in 1775. This house of worship, still in use today,
was the first church established west of the mountains
in Virginia. Further toward the Cheat River, a settlement
grew up around a ferry established and operated by Frederick
Ice in 1767. That same year, Frederick's son Adam was
the first white child to be born in the Monongahela
Valley. Ice's Ferry was the first authorized ferry in
western Virginia, and George Washington crossed there
in 1784. The present bridge over Cheat Lake on W. Va.
73 marks the location of Ice's Ferry.
In 1785, Albert Gallatin became a naturalized citizen
in Morgantown and a year later, purchased land which
he called "Friendship Hill" near the original
county seat near New Geneva, Pennsylvania. Gallatin
later became Secretary of the Treasury under Presidents
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
Iron was an important industry in this area in the
late 18th century. An important industrial area existed
at Ice's Ferry with a population of nearly 3,000 people.
Tramroads ran into the mountains to various furnaces
to bring out the iron. Ice's Ferry was a shipping point
and much of the iron also was processed there at a nail
factory, a rolling mill, a bar mill, a stove foundry,
a wagon shop, a blacksmith shop, and a grist mill. The
ore was smelted with charcoal made from wood cut and
burned in the mountains. Of the many furnaces built,
a few are still standing. Best preserved is the Henry
Clay Furnace, located in the Coopers Rock State Forest
on W. Va. 73, built prior to 1840. By the Civil War,
this industrial activity had largely disappeared because
of changing economic conditions and better transportation.
The first school in the region was the Monongalia Academy,
established in 1814 at Spruce and Willey Streets, the
present location of the VFW home. West Virginia University,
established in 1867, had its first facilities in the
older Woodburn Academy and those facilities now constitute
the historic Woodburn Circle on the downtown campus.
Francis H. Pierpont, governor of the "Restored
Government of Virginia" during the Civil War, was
born near Morgantown in 1814. He was a grandson of John
Pierpont, the builder of Fort Pierpont.
Notable early structures still standing in Morgantown
include the "Old Stone House," built before
1813. The present address is Chestnut Street, though
the street originally was called "Long Alley."
The handsome home built by John Rogers on Foundry Street
in 1840 also is kept today, now occupied by the Dering
As Morgantown enters its bicentennial era, a robust,
thriving community continues where numerous Indian forts
once stood. Abundant natural resources, a mighty river,
modern educational, industrial, and transportation facilities
and a healthy business community insure continued growth
of what once was merely an assembly of log structures
on the shores of the Monongahela called Morgans-Town.
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Analogies exist between hydraulic flow and electrical flow, and the molecules of fluid in a hydraulic circuit behave much like the electrons in an electrical circuit. Let’s examine analogies between pressure and voltage and between ground and the hydraulic reservoir.
Molecules and electrons
When a valve shifts to power a hydraulic motor, the motor does not react instantaneously, but shortly after the valve is shifted. This is because the molecules within the motor start moving with a time delay governed by the speed of sound and the physical dimensions of the circuit. On the other hand, an individual molecule of fluid inside the pump when the valve shifts may require seconds, or minutes, before it actually passes through the motor — well after the motor shaft started turning.
Similarly, it can take minutes, or even hours, before an individual electron inside a generator makes its way into a load, such as an electric motor. Yet, the electric motor reacts to the closing of a switch with a time delay that is governed by the speed of light. These concepts are useful because they lead to an understanding of why electronic and hydraulic devices do not always appear to react instantaneously.
Pressure and voltage
Pressure is what drives the movement of fluid molecules from a region of high pressure to a region of lower pressure. The hydraulic pump raises the energy content of the fluid in the form of elevated pressure, and the higher pressure at the pump sends energized fluid into the load to do useful work. The fluid particles experience ever-diminishing pressure as they make their way around the circuit and ultimately back to the reservoir. Voltage is analogous to pressure, and it is what drives the electrons to migrate from regions of high voltage to regions of low voltage.
Consider the simple electrical circuit diagram on the left side of Figure 1, which shows a battery, switch, motor, and connecting wiring that ties the components together and to ground. The purpose of this circuit is to be able to turn a motor on and off. The hydraulic complement of the simple motor circuit is shown on the right side of Figure 1.
The battery symbol is a series of alternately long and short parallel lines. The longer line denotes the positive terminal of the battery, and the shorter, the negative. The battery symbol gives no clue as to construction. It could be the lead-acid type used in cars, an alkaline type found in flashlights, or a lithium-ion type for a laptop computer. Likewise, the pump symbol used in hydraulics does not designate the type of construction — it could be a gear pump, vane pump, or piston pump.
Open or closed?
The switch symbol is generic, but it implies a moveable blade that engages two leaves that pinch the blade to make electrical contact. When the contact is made, we say the switch is closed, and here is one of the sources of confusion when coming from a world of hydraulics to the world of electronics. Closing a switch is analogous to opening a valve.
One of the most fundamental laws of electricity is that electrical current must always close on itself, thus, the current describes and follows a complete closed path. In our simple circuit, this means that for every electron leaving the negative terminal of the battery, one electron must enter the positive terminal. A complete loop must exist in order for current to flow.
Some of the imperfections in the analogies occur because the electrical circuit uses a constant voltage source (battery), whereas the hydraulic circuit uses a constant-flow source (positive displacement pump). When the hydraulic bypass valve is open (flowing), there will be a small pressure felt by the motor, and the motor shaft may even rotate if there is no load on it.
In the upper left circuit in Figure 1, the loop is open, so there can be no current. In the lower circuit, the loop is complete, so there is current; the motor is powered, so it turns. So when we “close the switch,” we really mean we close the circuit.
Getting well grounded
Ground is a term that can lead to confusion because of the way it is used, especially in electronic control systems. The term ground derives from the fact that mother Earth is used as a conductor by the electrical power industry. In the wiring of your house, for example, electrical codes require that part of your house wiring (the green wire) must be connected to mother Earth. That wire eventually leads to a stake driven into mother Earth or a physical connection to a water pipe that is buried underground. The term ground has evolved into one that means any common point in a circuit to which all circuits return, which may not necessarily be mother Earth.
Placement of the ground in the electrical circuit of Figure 1 is similar to how the reservoir is connected in the hydraulic circuit. Ground and reservoir are analogous terms. We could define the reservoir as that point in the circuit to which all fluid must return. However, designers of electronic circuits have more flexibility in defining ground than hydraulic systems designers have in defining where the reservoir is located.
The electrical circuit of Figure 2 has no ground at all; yet, the circuit will function perfectly well. In analogous fashion, the reservoir has been removed from the hydraulic circuit of Figure 2. This creates a potential for cavitation because no means has been provided to keep the lowest pressure above that which will result in cavitation. The reservoir in Figure 1 allows motor outflow to occur at ambient pressure, and the pump inlet is aided by atmospheric pressure as it fills.
An electrical circuit cannot cavitate. Voltages can go as far negative as is necessary to satisfy the laws of electricity, and there is no such thing as absolute zero voltage. However, there is an absolute zero pressure: a perfect vacuum. Even though a perfect vacuum cannot be achieved, if the pressure in a hydraulic system falls a small amount below atmospheric pressure, dissolved gasses come out of solution (outgassing), which leads to cavitation damage.
Ground location is different. In general terms, and with few well-defined exceptions, the circuit ground can be placed anywhere. For example, the circuit in Figure 3 has three different ground points. Each represents an optional choice for ground location. Only one can be chosen, but it makes no difference which one. Such is not the case in placing the reservoir of a hydraulic circuit. The reason? Pressure anywhere in the system cannot be allowed to fall below atmospheric, otherwise cavitation may occur.
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by Staff Writers
Beijing (UPI) Jul 25, 2013
The Chinese government has announced a $277 billion initiative to tackle air pollution.
The Airborne Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan aims to reduce emissions by 25 percent from 2012 levels by 2017 and specifically targets North China, especially Beijing and the provinces of Tianjin and Hebei, China Daily reported Wednesday.
"The Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province area is the most stringently targeted because airborne pollution is most serious in this area," the state-run newspaper quoted Wang Jinnan, vice president of the Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning as saying during the Eco-Forum Global Annual Conference Saturday in Guiyang, Guizhou province. Wang participated in drafting the new pollution plan.
"The central government is determined to curb emissions in energy-consuming and highly polluting industries," state-run news agency Xinhua quoted Environment Minister Zhou Shengxian as saying at the conference.
Zhao Hualin, head of the pollution prevention and control department of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, said the air pollution plan is just one of three plans that will be released in the next five years, China Daily reported. Other areas to be addressed include water pollution control and improvements to the rural environment.
Beijing and other northern Chinese cities have experienced severe levels of pollution particularly since January, when Beijing's air quality index regularly exceeded 500, the scale's maximum reading.
"The thick smog and haze that covered large areas of the country in January has focused public attention on this issue," Zhao said.
A study published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences said air pollution causes people in northern China to live an average of 5.5 years less than their southern counterparts.
An April report in The New York Times cited a study led by Washington University and the World Health Organization determining outdoor air pollution contributed to 1.2 million premature deaths in China in 2010, nearly 40 percent of the global total.
Last December, just a month before the onset of exceptional levels of smog in Beijing, the government announced an air pollution reduction plan for 13 major areas covering 117 cities aimed at cutting the level of particulates in the air at least 5 percent by 2015. That initiative was announced at the U.N. climate change talks in Doha.
The World Health Organization recommends particulate levels be kept to less than 25 micrograms per cubic meter. In January, Beijing air quality levels reached nearly 900 micrograms.
However, Chai Fahe, vice president of the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences told China Daily government leaders concluded after the plan had been released in December, a tougher approach against air pollution was needed, China Daily reported.
Our Polluted World and Cleaning It Up
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Varicose veins are dilated veins that have lost their valve effectiveness and become elongated, bulged and thickened. Veins carry blood from the capillaries to the heart. In the leg, this means the blood has to flow upward, against gravity. These veins have one-way valves to prevent the blood from flowing backwards. Over time these valves may fail to close tightly, a condition know as venous insufficiency. When a valve does not close tightly, the blood flows backward and pools, causing the veins to bulge and twist. Venous insufficiency of the saphenous vein is often the cause of varicose veins.
Common symptoms for varicose veins may include:
- Leg pain
In more severe cases, varicose veins can lead to skin changes resulting in:
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Scientists have overturned the conventional wisdom that cooperation is essential for the well-being of the whole population, finding proof that slackers can sometimes help the common good.
The researchers, from Imperial College London, the Universities of Bath and Oxford, University College London and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, studied populations of yeast and found that a mixture of ‘co-operators’ and ‘cheats’ grew faster than a more utopian one of only ‘co-operators’.
In the study, the ‘co-operator’ yeast produce a protein called invertase that breaks down sugar (sucrose) to give food (glucose) that is available to the rest of the population. The ‘cheats’ eat the broken down sugar but don’t make invertase themselves, and so save their energy.
The study, published in the journal Public Library of Science Biology, used both laboratory experiments and a mathematical model to understand why and how a little “selfishness” can benefit the whole population.
Professor Laurence Hurst, Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award Holder at the University of Bath, explained: “We found that yeast used sugar more efficiently when it was scarce, and so having ‘cheats’ in the population stopped the yeast from wasting their food.
“Secondly we found that because yeast cannot tell how much sucrose is available to be broken down, they waste energy making invertase even after there is no sugar left. This puts a brake on population growth. But if most of the population are ‘co-operators’ and the remainder are ‘cheats’, not all of the population is wasting their energy and limiting growth.
“For these effects to matter, we found that ‘co-operators’ needed to be next to other ‘co-operators’ so they get more of the glucose they produce. If any of these three conditions were changed, the ‘cheats’ no longer benefitted the population.”
Dr Ivana Gudelj, NERC Advanced Fellow and Lecturer in Applied Mathematics at Imperial College London added: “Our work illustrates that the commonly used language of ‘co-operators’ and ‘cheats’ could in fact obscure the reality.
“When the addition of more invertase producers reduces the fitness of all, it is hard to see invertase production as co-operation, even if it behaves in a more classical co-operative manner, benefitting all, when rare.”
The researchers suggest similar situations may exist in other species where ‘cheats’ help rather than hinder the population.
This study was funded by the Royal Society, the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and Conacyt.
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Is the fish dead?
If so, how did it die?
How can we use the microscope to check to see if the fish is dead?
Look at the battery. Look at the cables going into the water.
Is there another explanation?
Are the cables connected to the battery?
Put the fish on a slide, look at its tail through the microscope.
Notice that there is some gauze on the table. Discuss.
Copyright 2011 by Dr. Abraham S. Fischler.
Dr. Fischler tells how he got his teacher's certification in New York State. The exam requires the applicant to teach a 45-minute lesson to a group of students.
Fischler walked in the room before the kids entered the room, saw that the curriculum aimed to teach students to "suspend judgment" and used a fish in the classroom's aquarium to set up a false impression. He put battery cables into the water with the other end of the cables placed under a car battery (suggesting to the casual visitor that the cables were connected to the battery). He caught the fish, used a chemical to anesthetize the fish (so that the fish appeared to be dead) and returned the fish to the aquarium.
The students entered and one of them noticed the dead fish. "He killed our fish!"
"How can we test that assumption?" fischler asked, moving over to the classroom's microscope. He put the fish on a slide, positioned the tail uder the lens of the microscope and invited students to look at the blood flowing in the fish's tail. "Is the fish dead?"
After students thought about that point for a while, he shook the fish awake and put it back in the aquarium. It swam around.
The examiners were stunned. "What was the point of putting the children through such a shock?"
as told by Dr. A. S. Fischler in 2011.
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Serving Art Educators
and Students Since 1994
This page was started as a result of a Getty Teacher ArtExchange post searching for watercolor ideas. The challenge is now out to all art teachers to submit your middle school and high school lesson ideas. Users of this site are invited to vote for their favorite WOW lesson. Send your idea along with one digital image by clicking the Submit a Lesson link.
Paintings went on the Drying Rack. Next, paper was cut down to 4 ¼" x 6 inch (10,8 x 15.25 cm) cards (the size of postcards). Then on the back a line was drawn and a square to indicate a place for the stamp. Then the "bamboo painters" came in and painted bamboo or some flowers. We have a little round Oriental stamp to add the finishing touch.
Any subject can be used. Barbara chose to use flowers from life as well. Students draw directly with the glue - making flowing contour lines (no pencil lines). When the glue is dry - fill in with wet in wet watercolor. Optional - accent with fine point black markers. Outline both sides of glue and interior shapes made by watercolors.
Image is copyrighted - used here without
You could do it this lesson with White Glue outline on white Drawing Paper - or with white Crayons - or masking fluid. The lesson would involve taking pictures around the school yard/parking lot - a day with strong shadows is best. Use the digital pictures for the paintings - abstract - break up negative space as much as you want. This adult image is only here as a reference until a student made work arrives. I do not recall the name of the artist. Send in an example if you do this lesson. Sue Galos used Rubber Cement
Submitted by Connie Ferguson
Watercolors a la Dürer: (See lesson plan to on IAD). Students studied the print Rhinoceros by Albrecht Dürer (engraving that Dürer did from a description of a rhinoceros). Student drew an animal of their choice on Watercolor Paper - leaving a border to be stamp printed. Fanciful patterns were added to the animal and an eraser stamp was cut to compliment the patterns. Student stamped the border by coloring the stamp with watercolor markers. Shown is 8th grade sample.
Submitted by Ken Schwab
Figure Abstract - 1960's Peter Max - Students made several contour drawing figure studies then combined them into one composition. After studying the work of Peter Max and the Beatles Yellow Submarine, they added patterns and words to their compositions. Colors were chosen subjectively. This is a high school sample of work. Lesson is adaptable to middle school. (lesson plan)
Also use Oscar Martinez for inspiration
Endangered Species Montage Students research an endangered animal of their choice. After finding several views, they created a composition combining at least three views - including one focus down image for interest. Compositions were rendered in Crow Quill Pens and India ink and watercolor. This is a high school example - adaptable to middle school.
Submitted by Woody Duncan
Complete lesson plan on Woody's site. Students drew Adobe churches on quality water color paper. torn paper collage elements were added. Modeling Paste textures gave interest. After the collage was complete, student painted with watercolors. The modeling paste gave some nice results. This lesson was done with 8th grades and is adaptable to high school.
Submitted by Samantha Shelly "Leaving the White"
This is a project I call "Leaving the White" Students have previous knowledge of watercolor techniques Painting must include Students are to come up with design that overlaps shapes. (abstract, landscape, etc) Each individual shape uses a watercolor technique. Using visual balance, leave some shapes completely white try to stick with a color harmony. (sometimes you have to deviate) (See detail image)
Submitted by Holly Kincade
This is a watercolor project that I have done with my middle school students...
Masking areas of watercolor with tape to do a wash for the sky. Added texture and interest is achieved with salt to give a snowy effect. The salt also adds a little glimmer. Dry Brush techniques are discussed for texture on the trees. From Judy: Make connections to Grandma Moses and Currier and Yves.
Submitted by Linda Hoffett
Submitted by Carol O'Neil
First I ordered 200 lb. Watercolor Paper from Cheap Joes. I cut it down some on my Rotatrim. Volunteer students came after school and we wet the large sheets with water and squirted liquid watercolors on them and sometimes added salt for crystallizing.
Lesson Ideas posted by Getty TeacherArtExchange list members:
From Marian Coleman: We do 3 technique sheets (washes, special techniques and how to create whites) and then an 11 x 14 (28 x 35.5 cm) landscape watercolor. Students do a basic composition using photos on 11 x 14 (28 x 35.5 cm) white drawing paper. Then they transfer to good paper using the window. They must use their techniques in the landscape.
Watercolor collage is great too. Create different colors/textures on watercolor paper, cut or tear and create the subject. We've done natural subjects such as animals, fish, birds, flowers etc. Keep the subject simple for best results.
From Randy Menninghaus:
Out of focus water colors. You have to have access to a slide projector... and some images. I had slides I had taken of various subjects, a window with vegetation around it, a simple landscape, some of my irises in my garden. I imagine if you had any image it would do.
Students had to do three pieces of postcard sized water color paper brushes, water, watercolors, paper towel. Dim lights. Tell them to work fast.
1. Day one show image out of focus. Give them 8-10 per image. Do at least two images. first Instructions. Use wet on wet to capture the sense of the image. No black in trays!
2. Day two tighten focus a bit. Do the same ten minute per image. More than one image. Begin to loosely define the image.
3. Day three tight focus. They see image. Refine the details. Don't start over, just resolve what you have - ten minutes each - do all images.
Water color postcards: Create a list of water color techniques - sponging, salt, wet on wet, gradations, dry brush, saran wrap scrunched on wet wash, tissue lift off. Do sampler. Final image, cut up your samplers and create a small collage landscape using the bits of the now dry samplers. I had two examples pre-made.
Draw a face: Can be a self portrait. Using Tracing Paper repeat 3 times in a grid format - so you have a Warhol like image of four. Ink over with permanent ink. Apply water color washes. Go for four different moods.
Wet on wet images: Tape paper down. Dampen. Using soft puddles color do a wet on wet. Let dry. Look at them. Work into them using pen and ink. Any subject matter... Landscape doodle... still life, flowers.
From Ellen Sears: Several years ago we did some experimental watercolor - special effects, washes... two sheets of paper, then numbered and cut into strips and wove - also made baskets with lids (think rectangular prisms.)
This year my 7th graders did crayon rubbings on 18 x 24 (46 x 61 cm) paper - both sides - water color, salt, scrapings, more rubbings, stampings... tore the paper into 'pages' (9" x 6" / 23 x 15 cm) ) - piano hinged for the binding and added small origami books, scraps of sketches, lots of stuff to the pages - then searched for descriptive passages in text - retyped, cut apart and collaged in the books. We got in a lot of techniques, color theory, textures... and they were beautiful... so if everyone is tired - this may be a nice way to get some watercolor in.
From Wendy Free: The theme from my final project is machines - from simple (see-saw, wheelbarrow...) to complex (submarine or computer). Students will decide upon a subject by choosing a machine that is really important to them (shower) that they appreciate or use everyday OR one that is visually appealing to them (race car) OR one that they think is super-cool. They will procure photos from Google images or bring them from home. There are several choices for methods of representation which I have examples of (I got them from art.com by doing a search for bicycle. There are LOTS of different methods of representation shown) - from showing the machine in a scene, drawing a close-up of one or more parts, abstracting, distorting, embellishing design features... Students will be asked to incorporate design features into their composition which communicate characteristics of their machine. they will do a sketch and final enlarged copy in pencil. Color swatches come next with watercolors. Students will create a mixed color scheme that includes a full range of values. They will use those colors to paint their final composition and incorporate at least one watercolor technique we have learned this year (wax resist, blotting, etc.). Finally, we will use Ultra fine point Sharpies and colored pencil as needed for fine detail and emphasizing outlines. The kids say they think its a cool last project!
Michael Craig-Martin's artwork somehow inspired the machines project; I have his pencil sharpener print...
Some other cool machine image artworks: http://www.xs4all.nl/~aboiten/ad389.htm (toward the bottom)
One of my students suggested this Sci-Fi artist (he did ALIEN)
Some good info about machines: http://www.mos.org/sln/Leonardo/InventorsToolbox.html
From Vicki Ranck: Another idea is to take pictures of local landmarks for the students to work from. It makes the learning real. Not to mention if you got twelve good ones you could maybe get a calendar printed up.
From Judy Decker: Not an easy project for end of the year... "What's the Bigger Picture?" This will require students to do research on local history. Select a landmark - or an area of the city - and research what was there before - Find out some history of the community.
This idea has a picture within a picture. The smaller picture will be a focal point - rendered more carefully and maybe accented with Crow Quill Pens and India ink drawing techniques to refine. For my "Invisible Art" project, I will select a historical picture of Gregg's Department Store - the last downtown Lima department store to close its doors (1985 - after over 100 years of serving the community). I think I will use the bold colors of John Nieto for this. I may even weave it with a painting of the building the stands in its place (the Allen County Court of Appeals - that also houses the Allen County Education offices - little looks the same as the old store building inside or out). The larger second painting will be of rural fields - the old landscape pre-1960s of Elida Road with drawings of the Lima Mall woven in (built in the mid 1960s). The larger painting will have the story written about how the Lima Mall brought about the downfall of downtown Lima - which now hosts just a few office buildings, court house, a couple restaurants and empty buildings. The larger painting may use colors and distorted perspective of Wayne Theibaud (see his landscapes). The larger painting will not have as much detail - so the words will show up. Another artist for reference for this unit would be Pat Stier.
Pat Stier - interesting landscapes that could be done with watercolor collage.
The smaller painting could be raised up 3-D from the bigger painting if desired - with the larger painting forming a frame.
This will be a lesson about changes in the community and a reflection on the past. This idea actually brings together five separate ideas that were shared.
The mat to frame it might even be old Gregg's ads collaged. The Lima News (Archives) would be a good source for those. I could take my digital camera in and photograph them - print them out on a color that would accent the painting - or maybe "parchment" paper.
If anyone uses this idea - I would like to have a sample to show with the description - then YOU can be in the contest. I have no need to do my "invisible art" - I worked at Gregg's for 6 years in advertising. The closing of the store brought me back to education.
My definition of WOW for this one is Words on Watercolor.
Lesson Plans for Watercolor:
This lesson uses many experimental techniques.
Georgia O'Keeffe Watercolor Flowers See Ken Schwab's student work and Sue Galos'.
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The Meningococcal Vaccine
What You Need to Know
- What is meningococcal disease?
- The meningococcal vaccine
- Who should get the meningococcal vaccine and when?
- Some people should not get the meningococcal vaccine or should wait
- What are the risks from meningococcal vaccines?
- What if there is a moderate or severe reaction?
- What is the national vaccine injury compensation program?
- How can I learn more?
What is Meningococcal Disease?
Meningococcal disease is a serious bacterial illness. It is a leading cause of bacterial meningitis in children 2 through 18 years old in the United States. Meningitis is an infection of the fluid surrounding the brain and spinal cord. Meningococcal disease also causes blood infections.
About 1,000 - 2,600 people get meningococcal disease each year in the U.S. Even when they are treated with antibiotics, 10-15% of these people die. Of those who survive, another 11-19% lose their arms or legs, become deaf, have problems with their nervous systems, become mentally retarded, or suffer seizures or strokes.
Anyone can get meningococcal disease. But it is most common in infants less than one year of age and people with certain medical conditions, such as lack of a spleen. College freshmen who live in dormitories, and teenagers 15-19 have an increased risk of getting meningococcal disease.
Meningococcal infections can be treated with drugs such as penicillin. Still, about 1 out of every ten people who get the disease dies from it, and many others are affected for life. This is why preventing the disease through use of meningococcal vaccine is important for people at highest risk.
There are two kinds of meningococcal vaccine in the U.S.:
- Meningococcal conjugate vaccine (MCV4) was licensed in 2005. It is the preferred vaccine for people 2 through 55 years of age.
- Meningococcal polysaccharide vaccine (MPSV4) has been available since the 1970s. It may be used if MCV4 is not available, and is the only meningococcal vaccine licensed for people older than 55.
Both vaccines can prevent 4 types of meningococcal disease, including 2 of the 3 types most common in the United States and a type that causes epidemics in Africa. Meningococcal vaccines cannot prevent all types of the disease. But they do protect many people who might become sick if they didn't get the vaccine.
Both vaccines work well, and protect about 90% of people who get them. MCV4 is expected to give better longer-lasting protection.
MCV4 should also be better at preventing the disease from spreading from person to person.
Who Should Get the Meningococcal Vaccine and When?
Meningococcal vaccine is also recommended for other people at increased risk for meningococcal disease:
- College freshmen living in dormitories.
- Microbiologists who are routinely exposed to meningococcal bacteria.
- U.S. military recruits.
- Anyone traveling to, or living in, a part of the world where meningococcal disease is common, such as parts of Africa.
- Anyone who has a damaged spleen, or whose spleen has been removed.
- People who might have been exposed to meningitis during an outbreak.
- MCV4 is the preferred vaccine for people 2 through 55 years of age in these risk groups. MPSV4 can be used if MCV4 is not available and for adults over 55.
How Many Doses?
People 2 years of age and older should get 1 dose. Sometimes a second dose is recommended for people who remain at high risk. Ask your provider.
MPSV4 may be recommended for children 3 months to 2 years of age under special circumstances. These children should get 2 doses, 3 months apart.
Some People Should Not Get the Meningococcal Vaccine or Should Wait
- Anyone who has ever had a severe (life-threatening) allergic reaction to a previous dose of either meningococcal vaccine should not get another dose.
- Anyone who has a severe (life threatening) allergy to any vaccine component should not get the vaccine. Tell your provider if you have any severe allergies.
- Anyone who is moderately or severely ill at the time the shot is scheduled should probably wait until they recover. Ask your provider. People with a mild illness can usually get the vaccine.
- Anyone who has ever had Guillain-Barré Syndrome should talk with their provider before getting MCV4.
- Meningococcal vaccines may be given to pregnant women. However, MCV4 is a new vaccine and has not been studied in pregnant women as much as MPSV4 has. It should be used only if clearly needed.
- Meningococcal vaccines may be given at the same time as other vaccines.
What Are the Risks from Meningococcal Vaccines?
A vaccine, like any medicine, could possibly cause serious problems, such as severe allergic reactions. The risk of meningococcal vaccine causing serious harm, or death, is extremely small.
As many as half the people who get meningococcal vaccines have mild side effects, such as redness or pain where the shot was given.
If these problems occur, they usually last for 1 or 2 days.
They are more common after MCV4 than after MPSV4.
A small percentage of people who receive the vaccine develop a fever.
- Serious allergic reactions, within a few minutes to a few hours of the shot, are very rare.
- A serious nervous system disorder called Guillain-Barré Syndrome (or GBS) has been reported among some people who received MCV4. This happens so rarely that it is currently not possible to tell if the vaccine might be a factor. Even if it is, the risk is very small.
What if There is a Moderate or Severe Reaction?
What Should I Look For?
- Any unusual condition, such as a high fever, weakness, or behavior changes. Signs of a serious allergic reaction can include difficulty breathing, hoarseness or wheezing, hives, paleness, weakness, a fast heart beat or dizziness.
What Should I Do?
- Call a doctor, or get the person to a doctor right away.
- Tell the doctor what happened, the date and time it happened, and when the vaccination was given.
- Ask your provider to report the reaction by filing a Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) form. Or you can file this report through the VAERS website at www.vaers.hhs.gov, or by calling 1-800-822-7967.
What is the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program?
A federal program exists to help pay for the care of anyone who has a serious reaction to a vaccine.
For more information about the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, call
1-800-338-2382 or visit their website at www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation.
How Can I Learn More?
- Ask your provider. They can give you the vaccine package insert or suggest other sources of information.
- Call your local or state health department.
- Contact the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):
- Call 1-800-232-4636 (1-800-CDC-INFO) or
- Visit CDC's website at www.cdc.gov/vaccines.
Centers for Disease Control
Find out what women really need.
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Filtration plays a vital role in any aquatic or semi-aquatic habitat. Water filters clean the water via three main processes: mechanical, biological, and chemical filtration. Mechanical filtration physically removes particulate and debris from the water, while biological filtration utilizes beneficiall strains of bacteria that help break down organic waste. Chemical filtration, such as carbon pads, chemically binds with impurities and organic wastes, thus removing them from the system. Regardless of how much filtration is present, it is important to maintain a high level of water quality with frequent water changes. Filters also provide aeration and water circulation, lending to a healthier, and cleaner, environment for your pet reptiles and amphibians.
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December 16, 2013
- Small molecules may prevent malaria transmission
- Anthrax has nowhere to hide
- Polar solvents, oxygen groups increase coal-extraction yields
- Fluorescent nanodots illuminate a drug-delivery trajectory
- Converting an ester to an aldehyde can be difficult
- Take a closer look at the Haber–Bosch process
The Noteworthy Chemistry team welcomes new contributor Abigail Druck Shudofsky. Dr. Shudofsky’s degree is in cell and molecular biology. She is a postdoctoral fellow in the department of microbiology at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Baltimore.
Small molecules may prevent malaria transmission. Malaria is caused by Plasmodium parasites and transmitted to humans through bites of infected Anopheles mosquitoes. Efforts to eliminate malaria are complicated by the parasite’s life cycle, which includes asexual development in human hosts and sporogonic development in mosquito vectors. As a result, researchers are pursuing malaria transmission-blocking interventions.
For parasite cells to invade mosquitoes, Plasmodium must adhere to membrane-associated ligands on epithelial surfaces on the mosquito midgut. R. R. Dinglasan and coauthors at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (Baltimore), the University of Milan (Italy), Boston University School of Medicine, Ehime University (Japan), and Monash University (Clayton, Australia) used their knowledge of vital molecular interactions between the parasitic proteins and sulfated glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) on the apical surface of the mosquito midgut to design proof-of-concept small molecules that interfere with parasitic attachment.
The authors synthesized two short-chain, water-soluble polysulfonated polymers (VS1 and VS2-PVP) that were designed to interfere with protein–GAG interactions and prevent midgut invasion. VS1 is a polymer of vinylsulfonic acid; VS2-PVP is a copolymer of vinylsulfonic acid and 1-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone. These polymers mimic the charged structural elements involved in GAG ligand binding.
The authors found that the polymers bind parasitic proteins that typically bind to GAGs on the mosquito midgut surface. Their experiments demonstrate a strategy that dramatically reduces parasitic infection in mosquitoes that had ingested the polymers. (PLOS Pathogens 2013, 9, No. e1003757; Abigail Druck Shudofsky)
Anthrax has nowhere to hide. Frequently fatal anthrax poisoning is caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis. The bacterium’s spores are very stable and present imminent threats for bioterrorist attacks. The need for rapid, sensitive, field-stable assays for detecting anthrax has yet to be met.
S. Yang, J. R. Heath, and coauthors at Caltech (Pasadena, CA), Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (Korea), Indi Molecular (Culver City, CA), and the US Army Research Laboratory (Adelphi, MD) developed an electrochemical method that makes it possible to selectively detect anthrax protective antigen (APA) with excellent sensitivity.
The authors used iterative in situ click chemistry to screen peptide ligand candidates against a target protein. They identified and isolated an anti-APA biligand after three stages of screening (see figure) and then incorporated it into an electrochemical immunoassay with gold-black nanostructured electrodes that significantly amplify the electrochemical signal.
The powdered assay system has high thermal stability. It can detect very low levels of APA: 2.1 pM in a buffer solution and 2.2 pM in 1% human serum.
The APA detection platform has greater intrinsic sensitivity than optical methods. Its robustness makes practical devices for field use one step closer. Moreover, it provides a flexible prototype that can be modified to detect other pathogenic biomolecules. (ACS Nano 2013, 7, 9452–9460; Xin Su)
Polar solvents and oxygen functionalities increase coal-extraction yields. HyperCoal (HPC) is an ashless product made by the thermal solvent extraction of a natural coal. It is free of mineral matter and inert organic compounds; and it has good softening properties, which reduce the tendency to form clinkers. HPC is expected to be useful as a fuel for low-temperature catalytic gasification or as coking coal for steel production.
N. Sakimoto, K. Koyano, and T. Takanohashi* at the National Institute of Advanced Science and Technology (Tsukuba, Japan) investigated the influence of polar extraction solvents and oxygen functional groups in the coal on extraction yields. Hydrogen bonding in low-rank coals reduces the extraction yield, but these hydrogen bonds can be broken by the action of a polar solvent on the oxygen functional groups of the coal.
Previous studies showed that polar solvents increase extraction yields. As the solvent polarity increases, the extraction yield is influenced less by the oxygen content of the dry, ash-free coal (O% daf) than by the C/H atomic ratio, indicating a greater influence of aromaticity. This suggests that polar solvents could increase the extraction yield of coals rich in oxygen functional groups, such as hydroxyl and carboxyl, that contribute to hydrogen bonding.
When 1-methylnaphthalene is the extraction solvent, extraction yields decrease with increasing O% daf in the coal. Adding indole to 1-methylnaphthalene increases the polarity of the solvent and weakens the effect of oxygen content on extraction yield. Yields increase linearly with increasing indole content up to 20 mass% for all coals investigated.
One of the coal types had numerous metal carboxylate bonds. The ionic cross-links among these bonds could not be released by using 1-methylnaphthalene. When the ionic cross-links were removed by treating the coal with acid, the extraction yield increased from ≈30% to almost 50%.
Another coal type had a high C/H atomic ratio because of its high aromatic content, which increases π–π interactions between aromatic rings. In this coal, the extraction yield is less than half of the value that the correlation between oxygen content and extraction yield would predict.
For coals with up to 13% oxygen content, solvent effectiveness (ratio of extraction yield to indole content) increases almost linearly with increasing oxygen content. Above 13% oxygen, solvent effectiveness remains constant at ≈0.8. One reason for the increase in effectiveness may be the solvent's ability to break hydrogen bonds in the coal.
Previous studies showed that polar solvents work by releasing the hydrogen bonds formed by phenolic hydroxyl groups. In this study, the authors found an almost linear relationship between the phenolic content of the coal and the extraction efficiency, indicating that this is the dominant factor in extraction efficiency. (Energy Fuels, 2013, 27, 6594–6597; Nancy McGuire)
Fluorescent nanodots illuminate a drug-delivery trajectory. To achieve controlled drug delivery with enhanced therapeutic effects, it is important to know where the drugs are located and how they are released. G. Zou, X.-J. Liang, and collaborators at the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology (Beijing), Beijing University of Technology, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Lanzhou) prepared luminescent nanodots with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) characteristics. The dots can help visualize spatiotemporal drug-release pathways.
The authors prepared the AIE dots by mixing doxorubicin (1), an anticancer drug, with carboxylated tetraphenylethylene (TPE-CO2H, 2), an AIE fluorogen, in aqueous media. When they are incubated with cancer cells, the AIE dots transport the drug into the interiors of the cells. The AIE dots’ emission provides self-tracking of the drug’s delivery trajectory.
When the drug “escapes” from the AIE dots, the blue emission of TPE-CO2H increases and revitalizes the red emission of doxorubicin. This phenomenon allows practitioners to identify the site of action and monitor the drug-release process. (Adv. Mater. 2013, 25, Early View; Ben Zhong Tang)
Converting an ester to an aldehyde can be harder than you’d think. S. Yoshida and co-workers at Astellas Pharma (Tokyo and Ibaraki, Japan) developed a scalable route to a side chain of ASP9726, a potential successor to the antifungal drug micafungin. The final step was to convert a methyl cyclohexanecarboxylate to the corresponding aldehyde.
Direct reduction to the aldehyde with Red-Al [NaAlH2(OCH2CH2OMe)2] or DIBAL-H (i-Bu2AlH) was unsuccessful, so the authors adopted a two-step strategy. In contrast to the reduction to aldehyde, Red-Al worked well for reducing the carboxyl group to the alcohol.
The authors then evaluated the oxidation from the alcohol to the aldehyde with TEMPO–NaClO, but product purity was poor. [TEMPO is (2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidin-1-yl)oxy.] TEMPO–KHSO5-mediated oxidations gave no product at all. But the authors found that oxidation to the aldehyde with a pyridine–SO3 complex in DMSO produced 21.7 kg of aldehyde in 90.9% yield. (Org. Process Res. Dev. 2013, 17, 1252–1260; Will Watson)
Take a closer look at the Haber–Bosch process. The commercial synthesis of ammonia, developed 100 years ago by F. Haber and C. Bosch, is one of the most important industrial chemical processes; the fundamentals of modern ammonia synthesis are rooted in Haber and Bosch’s original work. Despite numerous efforts to explain this process, the dynamic changes in nitrogen-fixing catalysts under working conditions remain elusive.
The gap between mechanistic studies and industrial processes is the result of using simplified conditions and low operating pressures in the studies. M. Behrens, R. Schlögl, and colleagues at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society (Berlin) and the Technical University of Munich decided to monitor the structural changes in an iron catalyst under working conditions to determine the details of the Haber–Bosch process.
The authors synthesized ammonia with the BASF S6-10 catalyst at 425 ºC under 75 bar pressure in a continuous-flow cell that was coupled to a high-resolution thermal neutron diffractometer. The catalyst structure under these conditions, obtained from neutron diffraction data, was compared with reference iron and iron nitride samples.
After 88 h operating time, the authors observed no significant phase changes in the catalyst that would have resulted from nitridation induced by self-generated ammonia. They suggest that the microstructure complexity and defects in the catalyst are responsible for its phase stability that suppresses nitridation.
These results give a snapshot of the catalyst under working conditions and provide useful implications for interpreting the mechanism of ammonia synthesis. More importantly, the study establishes guidelines for designing and synthesizing new ammonia synthesis catalysts. (Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2013, 52, 12723–12726; Xin Su)
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By Anthony Gucciardi
Contributing Writer for Wake Up World
Animal testing is a controversial subject not only in the United States, but around the globe. Chimpanzees, among other animals, are used to test big pharma’s latest ‘miracle’ drug as well as experimental skincare products and vaccinations. Recently, the National Institutes of Health and the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine took a stand against biomedical research on chimpanzees.
In a landmark report, the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine determined chimpanzee testing to be “largely unnecessary” – a statement that challenges the testing process that costs taxpayers $30 million a year to maintain.
As a result, the United States has cut funding for the testing through the National Institutes of Health. In addition to the funding cut, the NIH has called a halt on new projects in a move that could usher in the end of a practice once common in the pharmaceuticals industry.
Funded by $30 million in taxpayer money
“Nearly 1,000 chimpanzees remain in six U.S. laboratories, with about 500 of them owned by the federal government,” the Humane Society notes. “The cost to federal taxpayers is $30 million a year to maintain these animals and use them in research, and the United States is the only industrialized nation to continue this practice.”
Over 1000 chimps are in captivity in American laboratories, with the biggest ape facility in Louisiana. Britain, on the other hand, banned medical tests on all large apes in 1998. Amazingly, large pharmaceutical corporations like GlaxoSmith-Kline and AstraZeneca managed to get around this attempt at preserving animal safety by using small animals instead like monkeys. More than 2500 monkeys are used in British laboratories every year.
As officials speak out against chimpanzee testing and halt funding for these tests, organizations around the nation – and even around the world – will begin to follow suit. Many of the pharmaceutical drugs that are tested on these apes are toxic cocktails that cause life-hindering side effects and even death. Even after the initial testing phases involving animals, these pharmaceuticals exhibit horrendous side effects, killing more consumers than traffic fatalities.
It may be time to ask if big pharma should even be testing their latest chemical concoction on any living creature, let alone labeling it safe for human consumption.
About the author:
Anthony Gucciardi is an accomplished investigative journalist with a passion for natural health. Anthony’s articles have been featured on top alternative news websites such as Infowars, NaturalNews, Rense, and many others. Anthony is the co-founder of Natural Society, a website dedicated to sharing life-saving natural health techniques. Stay in touch with Natural Society via the following sites Facebook – Twitter – Web
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Dan Arnold was crawling around a cave looking for ancient Indian carvings and drawings when he stumbled upon 1,100-year-old charcoal drawings that are being hailed as a major archaeological discovery.
He found the thin outlines as he shone his flashlight on the stone walls inside a southwestern Wisconsin cave.
The pictures depict bow hunters taking aim at game, pregnant does and thunderbirds.
“When I saw the drawings, I was blown away. I thought this is too much — they must be fake,” said Arnold, an amateur archaeologist and spelunker. “My first impression was they were drawn by stoned hippies, because there’s a lot of abstract art.”
Moccasin and Birch Bark Torches
Ernie Boszhardt, a regional archaeologist with the Mississippi Valley Archaeology Center, said he was also stunned to see the drawings when Arnold contacted him.
Aside from the more than 100 rare drawings and carvings, Boszhardt found remains of a moccasin and birch bark torches possibly used by the artists, who are believed to be ancestors of today’s Ho-Chunk Indian tribe.
Authorities determined through carbon dating that the paintings were made around 900 A.D. It is the first time Wisconsin cave art has been conclusively dated.
Boszhardt said the discovery will help archaeologists determine the age of other drawings by comparing them with the cave art.
The discovery doubles the known number of ancient Indian cave paintings and carvings in Wisconsin.
Arnold made the discovery in 1998 but kept the find secret until officials could map the cave, record the art in photographs and drawings and construct an iron gate to prevent thieves or vandals from getting into the cave. Authorities are not revealing the site.
State archaeologist Robert Birmingham said he believes the cave was a special place like a church where rituals were conducted.
“They’re not simply drawings left behind on the wall to sort of class up the place, but they were integrated into rituals,” Birmingham said.
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An amazing find in Israel has set the archaeological world on its ear. And once again we see the veracity of biblical history.
Five years ago, a team of archaeologists digging “at the foot of the southern part of the wall that surrounds Jerusalem’s Old City” came across a refuse dump dating to the eighth century before Christ.
As the New York Times told its readers, it’s “an area rich in relics from the period of the first of two ancient Jewish temples.” Among their findings were thirty-three clay imprints or seals, known as bullae. These seals were catalogued and stored.
It wasn’t until recently that these bullae were examined more closely, and what the closer examination revealed is rocking the archaeological world. One of the bullae bore the inscription “Belonging to Hezekiah (son of) Ahaz king of Judah.”
That would be the Hezekiah of which the Bible says, “He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him. For he held fast to the Lord. He did not depart from following him, but kept the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses” (2 Kings 18:5-6).
As Eliat Mazar of Hebrew University told the Times, “It’s always a question, what are the real facts behind the biblical stories . . . Here we have a chance to get as close as possible to the person himself, to the king himself.”
You’ll pardon me for saying, but how cool is that?!
Now, if you’re a regular BreakPoint listener, you know that this is only the most recent in a series of archaeological finds that are confirming the historical nature and veracity of the biblical narratives. A few years ago, I told you about the discovery of Shaarayim, one of the two cities of David mentioned in First Chronicles, as well as the remains of one of David’s palaces and royal storehouses.
I also told you about the discovery of a coin, dating from the 11th century before Christ, which depicted “a man with long hair fighting a large animal with a feline tail.” As if that didn’t ring your biblical bell enough, the coin was discovered “near the Sorek River, which was the border between the ancient Israelite and Philistine territories 3,100 years ago.”
Of course, the coin depicted Samson.
You’ve got to remember that it was not that long ago that many historians and scholars were convinced that the biblical narratives that described the time before the Babylonian exile were largely the creation of pious scribes whose goal was to justify their contemporary concerns by creating a usable past. In fact, it was widely doubted that people like David and Solomon ever even existed, and if they did, they were little more than glorified tribal chieftains.
Then in 1993, a stone slab or stele dating from the 9th century B.C. referring to the “House of David” was found in northern Israel. More recently, archaeologists have discovered ancient copper mines south of Jerusalem that dated from the time of Solomon. The mines included “an impressive collection of clothing, fabrics, and ropes made using advanced weaving technology; foods, like dates, grapes, and pistachios; ceramics; and various types of metallurgical installations.”
So much for myths and glorified tribal chieftains!
Now the evidence left by their descendants is coming to light. And that shouldn’t come as a surprise. As John Stonestreet has said, “Biblical faith is an historical faith. The accounts in the scripture do not take place in some mythical time-before-time like that of their pagan neighbors or the Bhagavad Gita in Hinduism.”
Thus, we should not be surprised when evidence of this history turns up, even in a refuse dump.
Hello, Hezekiah!: Archaeology and Biblical History
Click on the links below for details on recent archaeological discoveries that confirm the historical narratives of scripture. And for a deeper look at the Judean king Hezekiah, check out the biblical record in 2 Kings, chapters 18 and 19.
Evidence of Solomon's mines: Archaeologists dates mines in south of Israel to days of King Solomon
American Friends of Tel Aviv University | Sciencedaily.com | September 3, 2013
Rare Mark From Biblical King's Seal Found in Jerusalem
Reuters | New York Times | December 2, 2015
Coming Soon to Mapquest: A Palace of King David
Eric Metaxas | BreakPoint.org | July 30, 2013
Eric Metaxas | BreakPoint.org | January 14, 2015
The God Who Works in History: Archaeology Testifies in Stone
John Stonestreet | BreakPoint.org | August 17, 2015
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TV3 reporter Hamish Clark shares some of his first experiences as part of Antarctica New Zealand's media programme.
Some Kiwi scientists who are currently in Antarctica are studying the depth of sea ice as a way of measuring the effects of climate change. Others are going beneath the ice, researching how organisms that live there are being affected by a changing global climate and the impact these changes may have on the Antarctic marine ecosystems including apex species such as penguins.
A planned Air New Zealand flight to Antarctica today has been called off again today. It's the third time the proof of concept flight has been delayed this season.
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The premise: You already know that there are many positive biological effects of exercise, such as the release of endorphins and the stimulation of serotonin, which may have a positive effect on mood.
"In addition, many people report that engaging in exercise makes them feel better about themselves and, in the case of team sports, is a good way to increase their social contact," says researcher Dr. Samuel Harvey.
Harvey teamed up with colleagues at Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London and other researchers from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health and the University of Bergen in Norway to explore the relationship between exercise and mood. While they expected physical activity to have positive psychological benefits, the team was surprised to find that the context of the activity seemed to be vital in terms of predicting mood boosts.
The set-up: The researchers asked 40,401 Norwegian residents how often they engaged in both light and intense physical activity during their leisure time. Light activity was defined as anything that did not lead to being sweaty or out of breath, while intense activity was anything that resulted in either side effect. The subjects were also asked about their physical activity at work, underwent a physical examination and answered questions regarding symptoms of depression and anxiety.
"We had to rely on the participants' own estimate of how much time they spent engaging in leisure time physical activity each week," says Harvey. For more exact results, the team is currently at work on a new study where they'll record the precise amount of time spent exercising.
The results: As predicted, "Those who participated in leisure time physical activity were less likely to be suffering from symptoms of depression," begins Harvey. However, there was no such effect seen with activity that took place in the workplace, indicating that the activity is more beneficial when it's something that's done for recreation. People who were not active in their leisure time were almost twice as likely to have symptoms of depression compared to the most active individuals. And yet even the people who participated in very light exercise were still less likely to show symptoms of depression. "We were surprised, though, that the apparent benefits of exercise were limited to depression symptoms, with very little impact seen in regard to anxiety."
The takeaway: "Around 15 percent of men will suffer from depression at some point in their lives," warns Harvey. Although they don't fully understand the relationship between physical activity and depression, the researchers do know that the intensity of activity doesn't seem to matter too much. "What is most important is spending part of your leisure time doing something active, which you enjoy and that makes you feel good about yourself," suggests Harvey.
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The games children play can tell us a lot about ourselves as human beings, regardless of whether we attribute the inspiration behind them more to nature or nurture. In “Fiddlebacks” (New South), Kimberly King Parsons makes good use of the games played by three siblings, exploring what they reveal about the hidden fears and desires of the young.
Parsons introduces us immediately to a game in the first section of the story, invented by the older brother (middle child of three) of the young girl narrator. Each day, before going outside, all three children all tip over their boots to see what bugs have sought shelter inside.
We keep our boots set heel-to-heel in the mudroom, Mother’s orders. We do guesswork on socked walks down the stairs. It’s gotten to be a competition now. We all want to escape something spectacular, but it’s my brother who gets the best crawlers. By best I mean worst. I don’t scream anymore, but sometimes I still get the shivers.
Finding a Fiddleback—a nickname for the poisonous brown recluse spider—is the brother’s growing obsession. Meanwhile, he collects the various bugs he and his sisters do find and tacks them onto a foam board, “for science,” he claims. But Parsons makes it clear that though entomology plays a part in the boy’s interest, it’s not the only one.
He is tromping on our neighbor’s plants, dreaming out loud. When he gets a fiddleback he will name it Lucifer, Jr. or Mr. Kill. He will feed it lard with his fingers. He will fatten it up and when the time is right he will pick a stranger from the white pages. It’s the perfect crime, he says. Nobody my brother doesn’t know is safe.
Notice the boys killing of the plants coincided with his desire to use a spider to kill someone anonymously. Violence has a long history of being a rite of passage for boys wanting to become men—and that desire may be even greater for the brother, whose father’s absence from the story, though not mentioned, is certainly felt.
Parsons amplifies this reality by the budding relationship between the children’s mother and Stubbs, a man gruesomely disfigured by a car wreck (read: violence), who the brother is clearly threatened by. A bigger fan of Stubbs, however, is the narrator’s older sister—the oldest of the children—who’s working towards that difficult passage into adulthood with her own games. Notice these two short observations by the narrator while they are all out on a walk, looking for bugs.
Sis starts in with her cartwheels all in a row like magic, her yellow hair fanning out. I know less and less about what she’s thinking, why she still does some things the same as she always has and why she scrunches up her dumb face at others. She’s always telling jokes my brother and I don’t get—insults we can only reckon by the stupid lilt in her voice. Once we three took baths together, the water rust orange and flecked with our dirt, Sis the one in front who made sure nobody got scalded.
…and further along:
Sis is taking her sweet time, bending at the waist when the big rigs go by, priding herself on the horns that blow. Now she has her t-shirt bikinied, the bottom pulled up through its own neck hole.
As you can see, the narrator, a young girl herself, is keenly aware of the way her older sisters maturation process threatens their unity as a sibling group. While she can’t yet understand what these changes mean, it’s clear to readers. While the brother seems bent on violence as a path towards maturity, the older sister is more interested in the rites of passage that come with a blossoming sexuality.
In the final scene, Parsons brings these two threads to a head when the children go out at night during a storm under the guise of looking for fiddleback eggs, when in reality they’re searching for their mother, who is out late on a date with Stubbs.
It is my beam that catches Stubbs’s parked car, pulled off on the side of our house like that. For so long I have been looking for tiny things running—the car seems bigger than a car should be, and Mother and Stubbs seem bigger than two people inside of it.
“Here they are,” I say, like it is Mother and Stubbs who we have been looking for. At first there’s not much I can make out about what’s happening in the car. Then I can. I let my flashlight fall. The pelt dampens and nobody hears me.
The car is its own sort of boot, the entangled lovers inside, a fiddleback. And where before the narrator observed the small actions of her older siblings without understanding what they referenced, she now sees before her evidence of the maturity her brother and sister are playing at. Everything for her is now bigger. Let the games begin.
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By L.V. Anderson
Can a brownie be too rich? I suspect that many brownie-lovers would answer with an immediate — and perhaps slightly defensive — no.
Historical chauvinists might disagree. The exact origin of the brownie is hazy, but the first published recipes, from 1906 and 1907, contained less chocolate and fewer eggs than most contemporary recipes. The result was probably what today are euphemistically called "cakelike brownies," a term that covers all manner of dry, crumbly sins. Generally, as good chocolate and butter have become cheaper and more widely available, sensible home cooks have implicitly agreed that fudge-like brownies represent progress, not a perversion.
Let us then accept that the purpose of a brownie recipe is to maximize fudginess and minimize everything else. The chief impediment to this goal is flour. Brownies need flour, of course — without it, they'd be eggy chocolate soup — but too much flour makes them parched, stiff, and literally hard to swallow.
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for National Geographic News
In two new studies that highlight the curiosities of nature, scientists
report on distinctive organs of chameleons and male Argentine lake ducks
that give them an edge in very different functions: feeding and
Chameleons can reel in food from a distance as far away as more than two and a half times their body lengths. The action is possible because the reptiles' tongues have powerful "super-contracting" muscles that are unique among back-boned animals, a team of researchers explains in the Journal of Experimental Biology. Another study reports on the exaggerated anatomy of the male Argentine lake duck, whose penis is about the same length as its body. The case is especially intriguing because very few species of birds have penises.
Researchers from the University of Alaska discovered that the penis of Oxyura vittata, when fully extended, measures about 17 inches (0.5 meters) long. When not in use, the corkscrew-shaped penis retracts into the duck's abdomen.
The trait is one that bears further study, say the researchers. It opens some interesting questions about the dynamics of male competition and sperm competition at a pretty high level in birds resulting in the anatomy evolving in this way, said Kevin McCracken, the lead author of a report on the finding published last month in Nature.
The Argentine lake duck is small, weighing a little more than a pound (640 grams) and extending about 16 inches (41 centimeters) long from head to tail. Its penis, at about 17 inches, is the longest of any bird known so far, said McCracken.
"Measurements that we had taken before were all from dissected birds, and we thought [the penis] was about 20 centimeters [8 inches]," he said. "But in April we were in Argentina collecting birds for another genetic study, and we found this bird running around in its natural form, with its penis hanging out, which was something we'd never seen before."
The Argentine lake duck is a stiff-tail duck; its tail feathers spike upward and its legs are set far back on its body. The bird is extremely clumsy on land and spends most of its time in the water.
Many species in the stiff-tail duck family have relatively long penises, said McCracken, but more along the lines of 8 inches (20 centimeters).
The base of the Argentine lake duck's penis is covered with coarse spines, while the tip is soft and brush-like. The researchers think a drake may use the brush-like tip as a sort of cleansing instrument before ejaculation to remove sperm in the females oviduct that was deposited by another suitor, thus increasing the mating drake's chances of paternity.
Similar sperm-removal behavior has also been seen in some fish and insect species.
SOURCES AND RELATED WEB SITES
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Indian scientists are in the process of developing robots to replace human soldiers in the near future as part of the country’s unmanned warfare system.
A new research facility has been set up by the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) and BEML Ltd., the state-run heavy engineering and defense equipment major, in Avadi, a suburb of Chennai in south India, to make robot soldiers and cargo-transporting robots for the country’s army.
“Whatever a soldier will do in warfare, a robot soldier should be able to do. If the human is doing a search in warfare, the robot soldier will also do that. If a human is doing firefighting, the robot soldier will do that,” says V.K. Saraswat, DRDO’s director general and scientific adviser to India’s defense minister. “The DRDO is working on the project to have robot soldiers by 2020 or 2030,” he says.
The robot soldiers will be able to perform duties including carrying loads of ammunition and payloads for mine detection and surveillance. Saraswat says they can be controlled from remote locations, which would help the country’s armed forces by not having to deploy people in areas which are difficult to access.
“Such a robot needs a database and artificial intelligence to carry out its activities,” Saraswat says. “A lot of effort and coordination among various agencies in the defense sector [will be] needed to develop these robots.”
The new robot soldiers are likely to replace at least some of India’s 100,000 soldiers.
In a separate project, DRDO is planning to design robotic mules that can replace the animals used by Indian soldiers to carry heavy loads in mountainous terrain.
DRDO already has developed a remote-controlled robotic vehicle called Daksh that can identify and destroy dangerous objects such as bombs. It was approved by the Indian armed forces for induction, and the country’s military forces ordered 20 of the vehicles in 2010.
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http://aviationweek.com/print/awin/india-plans-robots-replace-soldiers-0
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Introducing Children to the Joy of Gardening.
by Betty Bose Editor, FreeKidsCrafts.com
by Betty Bose
Spring brings out the flowers, bees and birds. It is a time of discovery. I love the first Crocus that pop out while there is still snow on the ground and then one after the other all the wonderful bulbs burst out in a profusion of color that just can’t help but lift your spirits.
It’s a great time to introduce children to gardening. If waiting for Mother Nature’s timetable is making them anxious. you can jumpstart the process with a Seedling Pot or an Indoor Greenhouse. Just remember that if you start too early, you will have to be prepared to move these seedlings to larger containers until the ground is ready for planting in your area. You’ll find kids really love playing in the dirt. I find it can be very theraputic. My motto is: “Dirt is a Degree of Happiness in Children”.
Another fun project is to Grow a Grass Head Monster. It may not be edible in the long run, but it does show children how things grow with water, sunshine and a little TLC. There is nothing quite as satisfying as planting a seed and watching something materialize from your efforts.
I remember the look of amazement on the faces of a Kindergarten class when they realized food they were used to seeing in the grocery store didn’t originate there, but rather in a garden. We illustrated the Letter U with underground vegetables. We “planted” some full grown beets, onions, and carrots with the tops still on in a bucket of potting soil and let them “harvest” them by pulling them out of the soil.
Having been raised on a farm, these revelations are old news to me, but many of today’s children have never been exposed to where food really comes from. Whenever you have an opportunity to take your children to a farm, no matter what size, take the time to let them revel in the experience.
Kids costumes, Adult costumes and decorations.
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Many other democratic nations around the world routinely have far higher turnouts for elections than the U.S. does, Paulson said. Some nations even fine registered voters who fail to cast ballots in elections.
"Among advanced democracies in the world, the highest turnout in the U.S. is usually lower than the lowest turnout in these other countries," said Paulson.
Those sorts of statistics are the basis for activist groups like the American Civil Liberties Union to push for more relaxed voting rules in places like Connecticut.
"We should be making voting easier and simpler," said McLean, making the argument that the more people are involved in the democratic process, the better it is for everyone.
Those are exactly the reasons given by Connecticut Democrats for their desire to change the constitution. What they don't talk about is that relaxing those voting rules would most likely provide Democratic candidates with a slight additional edge.
Paulson said studies he's done on voter turnout in other states indicate that easier voting systems tend to bring in more poor and minority voters, and that tends to provide Democrats with something like an additional 2 percent advantage in election returns.
"It does help Democrats more than Republicans if you make it easier to vote," Paulson said. The change in voting patterns is relatively small, he added, "but it does make a difference in close elections."
"If the [Democratically controlled] state legislature has full control, you can understand why Republicans feel that would give Democrats the ability to expand their support," said Rose. "Inevitably, one has to conclude that this is a very conscious attempt to expand the Democratic electorate in Connecticut."
At a legislative committee meeting on the constitutional amendment last week, Republicans argued that relaxing Connecticut's standards on absentee ballots would only encourage more fraud.
Rep. David Labriola, R-Oxford, insisted there are already allegations of absentee ballot fraud in virtually every election. Making it easier to get absentee ballots would "open up the floodgates" to more abuse, he said.
Av Harris, a spokesman for the Secretary of the State, said cases of voters attempting to cast multiple ballots or to vote under someone else's name are "really, really rare" in Connecticut. Alleged absentee ballot fraud is more common, and cases in large cities such as New Haven and Bridgeport have resulted in ballots being disqualified in various elections over the past decade for different reasons.
A Democratic operative in New Haven was convicted of stealing absentee ballots in a 2002 town committee contest, but such convictions are rare, officials said. One ABC News study found that only 40 voters were indicted for fraud in federal elections conducted between 2002-05, and only 26 were actually convicted.
The Aug. 12 Democratic primary in Bridgeport did in fact result in a complaint to the state Elections Enforcement Commission about alleged absentee ballot fraud in the contest between Democratic Sen. Andres Ayala and challenger Scott Hughes. Ayala's campaign, which won the election, has denied any wrongdoing.
Several Connecticut political experts, while acknowledging that absentee ballot fraud does happen in this state, rejected the idea that it's widespread or a major threat to the process.
Concern About Dramatic Changes
Sen. Michael McLachlan, R-Danbury, has a different objection to this year's constitutional amendment. He said it's wrong and potentially dangerous to do away with constitutional restrictions and simply leave it up to a General Assembly controlled by one party to decide how voting should happen.
McLachlan said the change would enable Democrats "to make dramatic changes to our electoral system" because they have a majority in the legislature. He argues that, if Democrats want early voting or no-excuse absentee balloting, they should put those proposals in a constitutional amendment and let voters decide.
"I was accused of being obstructionist," McLachlan said, "but that's bizarre."
At the same time, McLachlan declined to say whether he would support an early voting system or one that allowed easier access to absentee ballots.
Not surprisingly, Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy is all in favor of the proposed amendment and of making it easier for people to vote. "While some states are working to suppress voter turnout, we are working to encourage greater turnout," Malloy said in May.
The Republican gubernatorial candidate, Tom Foley, said through a campaign spokesman that he supports no-excuse absentee voting and "supports measures to make voting easier."
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IV. HISTORICAL ERRORS OF THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD.
IV.1. Research methodology
It is not easy understanding why enigmatic paradigms of science are given, or why the scientific method has made such big mistakes, why it keeps making them, and how difficult it is to admit it and rectify it. Like I have already commented, Kuhn’ssociology of science explains many of the reasons pretty well.
With regard to the constructive criticism, an additional complication is that when one realizes that there are big flaws in the orthodox doctrine he/she begins to distrust even the most basic elements.
I am going to discuss the biggest errors that, in my opinion, with special reference to the research methodology of the scientific theory of evolution for being absolute absent and far far away, and the dynamic history of the research methodology of Modern Physics, that is, the Modern Physics of each stage of history.
Many of the problems are derived from the very same misunderstanding of evolution and the egocentric humanism, despite the initial contribution of Darwin in the sense of concluding that humans are evolved apes.
Before exposing the mistakes made in each particular science, let’s look at some of their general causes:
- Life aesthetics
How can it be understood that intelligence has not changed in the last 2000 years? This generally shared assertion is the only one that leads us to believe that intelligence has taken enormous leaps in early stages because it seems obvious that there are quite a few differences between our ape-cousins and us humans. In the page about Historic and human evolution in the book on the General Theory of the Conditional Evolution of Life, some of the consequences and more relevant facts of man’s biological evolution and its stages of research methodology are cited.
I imagine that, with elements so basic and erroneous, all of the research methodologies in history will be affected, given that equally mistaken arguments are derived from them. On the other hand, it will be necessary to look for other elements that make up for the mistakes from the structure produced, in order to coincide or to be compatible with the part of reality that is not open to loose interpretations.
The same argument can be used to preach about the language research methodology. It seems that all languages are similar in that they are found in the same stage of development and have the same number of words. At least there are not any clear statistics on the evolution of the number of words of each language throughout recent history of mankind. I think that there must be some relation between the number of words and the intellectual capacity of the individuals.
But it seems that it is more appealing to say that language is an innate characteristic in all humans, and that the variations among some other groups, current as well as historical, and among some other individuals is due to randomness. Each one has its aesthetics, but the scientific methodology is designed to search and reach the objective truth.
Furthermore, the aesthetics of reality, which if understood, are better than what is usually thought at first impression. I think that an appealing objective of life is to find the divine aesthetic of the essence of reality.
- Complexity of science
On the other hand, surely the success of certain scientific theories is related to the complexity of reality and the possibility of understanding and most conveniently explaining that complexity for the different acting groups of society, without visibly leaving the scientific methodology.
Suffice to say that this complexity of reality has been a constant in the evolution of science given that, for each stage, scientific research has always been found in the limits of the unknown.
I confess that the most difficult aspect of criticizing a theory is being able to understand it well enough. It is difficult for me to believe certain things and to convince myself that, indeed, the scientific community in general, and not a specific scientist, think of what I am going to argue against. It would be funny to make a criticism and they reply: “That’s figurative speaking, a metaphor, and no scientist believes it”. Well, doing it, they constantly do it and in every possible sense.
One day at university, I asked a graduate in physics about various topics related to time, and he told me that he couldn’t tell me because I didn’t know what time was and he didn’t have time to explain it to me because it was very complicated. The conversation ended quickly. I agreed with him in that we couldn’t discuss it, but our personal thoughts did not coincide on the objective reasons of the aforementioned impossibility.
Another big mistake is the case of the research methodology of learning and psychology. I think it has been the abandonment or excessive criticisms of certain proposals that were correct, but did not offer absolute certainty. Of course it is fine to not guarantee what cannot be guaranteed in complex systems, but that should not mean not recognizing that it could be true in the majority of the cases, and, therefore, with these limitations, maintain the opportune doctrinal positions and not go on to the contrary.
Ad hominem fallacy
A very extensive issue is the ad hominem fallacy or to argue against someone, for example, for the lack of an academic degree instead of arguing against the scientific reasons. When there is no argument…the fairy tale of The sly ones of the Inquisition.
The lack of humbleness in science
On various occasions, there is a tendency to say that certain topics are empirically tested when they aren’t. Perhaps it is more probable or verisimilar in one stage of the research, but it is not the same.
This hinders the constructive criticism of individuals that actually accept the supposed validation or the lack of support for other theories or alternative sciences.
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There are two main reasons mathematics has fascinated humanity for two thousand years. First, math gives us the tools we need to understand the universe and build things. Second, the study of mathematical objects themselves can be beautiful and intriguing, even if they have no apparent practical applications.
What's truly amazing is that sometimes a branch of math will start out as something completely abstract, with no immediate scientific or engineering applications, and then much later a practical use can be found.
"And," "Or," "Not"
Boolean algebra is the combination of logic and algebra, initially developed by George Boole, for whom the subject is named, in the 1840s and '50s, and later refined by other logicians through the rest of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Formal logic concerns itself with the truth or falseness of statements, or propositions. "Barack Obama is the President of the United States" is a proposition that is true. "Google manufactures the iPhone" is a proposition that is false.
Things get more interesting when we start combining simple propositions together. "Barack Obama is the President of the United States, and Joe Biden is the Vice President" is true, since the two simple propositions joined by the "and" in the middle are both true. "Either Texas has a population of 300, or television was invented by Issac Newton" is false, since the two simple propositions joined by the "or" in the middle are both false.
Boolean algebra, and other forms of abstract propositional logic, are based on dealing with compound propositions made up of simple propositions joined by logical connectors like "and", "or", and "not". All that matters for telling whether such a compound statement is true are the abstract truth values of the component propositions and formal rules based on which logical connectors we're using.
For example, if proposition X is true, and proposition Y is true, then the compound proposition "X and Y" is also true. If either X or Y is false, or both are false, then "X and Y" is also false.
Boole recognized that this kind of logic based on combining symbols for propositions using connectors like "and", "or", and "not" had a similar structure to normal algebra and arithmetic. In normal algebra, variables representing numbers get combined together into formulas and equations by using the arithmetic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
In Boole's logical algebra, variables representing logical propositions get combined into formulas and equations by using the logical operations of and, or, and not. The statement "X and Y is true" gets converted into the equation X × Y = 1. The statement "X or Y is false" becomes X + Y = 0.
Boolean algebra makes it possible to use the same kinds of algebraic techniques we use to solve normal equations involving numbers to establish logical relationships. By solving Boolean equations, logicians can more easily see when one combination of propositions logically leads to another.
A Hundred Years Later
If this seems extremely abstract, it is. Logic has always straddled the line between philosophy and mathematics, attempting to reason about the way we can reason, and getting at fundamental ideas about what truth is and how to be sure we know things. While fascinating, propositional logic and Boolean algebra initially belonged strictly to the realm of pure mathematics, with fewer applications than a branch of math like differential equations and calculus, which are at the foundation of our understanding of physics.
Remarkably, about a century after Boole's initial investigations, mathematicians and scientists discovered an extremely powerful set of applications for formal logic, and now this apparently abstract mathematical and logical tool is at the heart of the global economy.
Boolean algebra - taking true and false values, manipulating them according to logical rules, and coming up with appropriate true and false results - is the fundamental basis of the modern digital computer.
One of the first major applications of Boolean algebra came from the 1937 master's thesis of Claude Shannon, one of the most important mathematicians and engineers of the 20th century. Shannon realized that switches in relay networks, like in a telephone network, or an early proto-computer, could be easily described by viewing "on" switches has having a Boolean value of "true", "off" switches as having a Boolean value of "false", and with the different patterns in which switches are connected to each other corresponding to the Boolean operations of "and", "or", and "not".
Shannon's innovation made the design of switch networks vastly easier: rather than needing to actually play around with network connections themselves, the techniques developed by Boole and his successors provided a mathematical framework allowing for more efficient network layouts.
The connection between electrical switches and boolean algebra goes in the other direction as well. A computer's CPU is largely built out of logic gates: physical manifestations of Boolean operators. Logic gates take in one or more electrical Boolean values: a wire with a high voltage might represent "true", and a wire with a low voltage might represent "false". The output of the logic gate, calculated using the electronic properties of semiconductors, is the appropriate voltage from the desired Boolean operation.
An "and" gate, for example, takes in two inputs. If both inputs are high voltage (representing "true"), the "and" gate has a high voltage output of "true" as well, while if either or both inputs are low voltage, or false, the gate will have a low voltage output of false.
Putting these gates together in the right ways allows for the execution of computer programs. Being able to perform Boolean operations on various inputs essentially allows a CPU to decide how to handle those inputs.
Further, this Boolean algebra embedded in computers comes back around to normal math. The Boolean dichotomy of true vs. false lends itself nicely to the representation of binary numbers: true corresponds to 1, and false maps to 0. Under this interpretation, it's possible to assemble Boolean circuits that, simply by correctly combining two binary input numbers using and, or, and not operations, can add, subtract, multiply, or divide numbers.
Sometimes, developments in pure math can, decades or centuries later, turn out to have amazing applications.
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“Jazz can improve your life. The arts can improve your life. The arts exist to give a deeper understanding of what it means to be you in your time.” — Wynton Marsalis
Wednesday, June 1, jazz great Wynton Marsalis was interviewed on the PBS Newshour. His passion is jazz and the preservation of this uniquely American musical tradition. He sees music as a metaphor comparing the relationship of American music to American identity. He states, “Nowadays, the average black person has no idea, no understanding of the rich legacy of the Afro-American arts and doesn’t know that there is even something to know. Take the Afro-American out of it. The Afro-American is a culture inside of a culture — so a lack of interest — in our culture, period, in our nation. We would be so much better if we knew our own culture. It’s here for us. It’s been left by — you can take your pick. Start with Walt Whitman. We are not better because we don’t know who he — what he had to tell us. We are not better for not knowing Duke Ellington’s music.”
Marsalis was connecting music/art to the central core of our country regardless of race. He is an ambassador promoting music through excellence in education and performance and also upholds the mission to bring “elevation or uplift” to our collective souls. It was not lost to me that what he was saying about jazz was equally true for the art of tap dance. Besides the mostly urban choir of tappers, who understands that tap’s roots are a part of our cultural heritage and that it is indigenous to America? Do you know that tap dance is a melting pot of rhythms and moves, with influences from African (juba) dance and drumming rhythms, as well as European (jig) step dances, which were transferred to North America during the colonial era? Or that tap dance grew out of the variety of social dances of our early nation – some in the ballroom, others on plantations? Or as dance historian Sally Sommer states, that it would become the “the single most important form of American theatrical entertainment from 1840 to 1890”?
If you didn’t know then most likely you are not alone. And, I would venture to say that the average person has no idea of our rich cultural legacy of the American homegrown arts and “doesn’t know that there is even something to know.”
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Soil Moisture Monitoring
Here are the basic facts of water in vineyards. Water resides in the soil, the atmosphere, and the grapevines. The water in these vineyard elements is interconnected and forms a continuum. In California, after the last spring rain, water moves mostly from the soil to the atmosphere, either directly through evaporation or indirectly through the vines as they transpire.
The following is another fact. Efficient and low risk water management can only be achieved when all three components the vineyard moisture continuum are monitored and their conditions considered in scheduling decisions. Vine stress from either too little or too much water is usually due to failure of the vineyard manager to monitor one or more parts of the moisture continuum. Quite often, the neglected component is soil moisture. This is ironic because the soil serves as the moisture reservoir for grapevines and vineyard water management is largely an exercise in soil moisture management.
This article was originally published in the Mid Valley Agricultural Services’ February 2014 newsletter.
Our senses of feel and sight are the basis for the oldest technique for estimating soil moisture. Simply collect a handful of soil with a probe or shovel and tightly squeeze it. For most soils, the lack of staining or very light staining on the palm of your hand indicates a need for water. While this method works fairly well for characterizing topsoil moisture, difficulty collecting representative subsoil samples limits is usefulness for most vineyards.
Soil moisture sensors are the most reliable means for characterizing moisture throughout vineyard root zones. There are two basic sensor types. Those that measure soil moisture tension and those that measure soil moisture content. All types of sensors require close contact with the soil for making meaningful measurements.
Soil moisture tension is the force by which water adheres to soil particles. It is very low in fully wet soils and increases, slowly at first and then rapidly, as soils dry. Soil moisture tension is roughly proportionate to the energy required for water uptake by plants. Actually, it is a negative force measured in pressure units, commonly as centibars (cbars).
Moisture content sensors measure how much water is present relative to the amount of soil. They do not provide any information regarding the degree of water adherence to the soil matrix or ease of water extractability. Water content readings may be calibrated for soil moisture tension, but in practice this is seldom necessary because changes in soil water content are often more important than the actual values for scheduling irrigations.
Two types of instruments are available for measuring soil moisture tension. The first are tensiometers. They consist of a plastic tube with a vacuum gauge on one end and a porous ceramic tip on the other, which is inserted into the soil (Figure 1). The tube is filled with water, which through the porous tip, this water forms a continuum with the moisture in the soil. As the soil dries, moisture in the soil pulls on the column of water in the tube, creating a vacuum that registers on the gauge. The greater the reading, the drier the soil. Tensiometers are very accurate to about -85 cbars at sea level, making them suitable for well watered for vineyards. The main disadvantage of tensiometers is their periodic need for refilling.
For vineyards subjected to a greater degree of drying and water stress, resistance blocks are a better option. They have an operating range of 0 to -199 cbars, which corresponds to saturated and air dry soils, respectively. Resistance blocks consist of two electrodes embedded in a porous media, which equilibrates with soil moisture (Figure 2). The drier the soil and the sensor, the greater the resistance to electrical currents between the electrodes and the higher the reading recorded on a meter or data logger, which also provides the current for the sensor.
For measuring soil moisture content, two types of instruments are used. Neutron probes are the most accurate of all soil moisture sensors, principally because they measure a comparatively large soil volume (Figure 3). Neutron probe use, however, is mainly limited to researchers and irrigation consultants because they are expensive to purchase and operate. The high operational costs are associated with radioactivity (an americium 241/beryllium pellet) and the required training, handling, licensing, and inspections.
Dielectric sensors are low costs alternatives for soil moisture content measurements. These instruments sense a soils capacity for transmitting electric pulses, which is highly dependent on soil moisture. Capacitance sensors are the most commonly used type of dielectric sensor. They are available as small sensors designed to be installed at varying depths like resistance blocks or as probes for measuring moisture over specific depths (Figure 4).
While soil moisture information represents only one component of a vineyards moisture continuum, it may serve as the primary factor for irrigation decisions. In these cases, a threshold soil moisture tension or a specified percentage of soil moisture content depletion are the basis for scheduling irrigations. Soil moisture readings collected, transmitted, and charted at regular intervals facilitate this process. Such information is received and viewed on office computers and hand-held devices. These systems represent the state of the art, but often starting simple and inexpensive is the best option for those new to soil moisture monitoring.
- Goldhammer, DA; Snyder, RL. Irrigation scheduling: a guide for efficient on-farm water management. University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Publication 21454. 1989.
- Grant, S. Five-step irrigation schedule: promoting fruit quality and vine health. Practical Winery and Vineyard. 21(1): 46-52 and 75. May/June 2000.
- Hanson, B; Orloff, S; Sanden, B. Monitoring soil moisture for irrigation water management. University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources Publication 21635. 2007.
- Prichard, T; Storm, CP; Ohmart, CP. Chapter 5, Water Management. In: Lodi Winegrower’s Workbook, 2nd Ed. Ohmart, CP, Storm, CP, Matthiasson, SK (Eds.). Lodi Winegrape Commission. pp. 142-186. 2008.
Soil Moisture Sensor Manufactures
- AquaCheck. Brackenfell, Cape Town, South Africa.
- Decagon Devices, Inc. Pullman, Washington.
- Irrometer Company, Inc. Riverside, California.
- Soil Moisture Equipment Corporation. Goleta, California.
© Progressive Viticulture
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By Gokhan Gungor on May 03, 2012
Almost all enterprise java applications require a database resource which is a very expensive and limited resource. The simplest way of using this resource requires performing the following steps; loading JDBC driver, obtaining a connection from the database manager, performing database operation, closing the connection. This method is inefficient and obtaining a database connection that way is an expensive operation because of the overhead involved in the process. It is a better approach to create the pool of database connections and reuse them for each incoming request or method call. That way we retrieve a connection from the pool when necessary and return it back to make it available for other programs. In WebLogic Server we can use jdbc data sources to create database pools, connect databases and manage database access.
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Guest Author Blog by: Steve Siebold, Author, How Rich People Think
We’ve all dreamed about having enough money to do what we want when we want, but for most people this dream never becomes a reality. It’s not easy to become rich, but it’s also not as hard as people might think. If you want to become a millionaire you must first learn to think like one.
One of the biggest distinctions between the rich and the middle class is the differences in thinking about money.
The middle class operates from a fear based consciousness, always worrying about the uncertainty of the future and therefore trying to protect and hoard their money. Rich people, on the other hand, operate from a mindset of freedom and abundance. Saving and investing is important to them, but they direct their mental energy toward accumulating wealth through serving people and solving problems. They know that the secret to becoming a millionaire isn’t in the mechanics of the money, but in the level of thinking that generates it.
The beliefs and philosophies about money between the rich and the middle class aren’t just different, they’re extreme!
Here is just a few that really standout:
- Middle class focuses on saving. World class focuses on earning.
- Middle class believes hard work creates wealth. World class believes leverage creates wealth.
- Middle class believes money is earned through labor. World class believes money is earned through thought.
- Middle class worries about running out of money. World class thinks about how to make more money.
- Middle class sees money through the eyes of emotion. World class sees money through the eyes of logic.
- Middle class believes getting rich is outside their control. World class knows getting rich is an inside job.
- Middle class has a lottery mentality. World class has an action mentality
- Middle class is waiting to be rescued from financial mediocrity. World class knows no one is coming to the rescue.
- Middle class equates money with stress. World class equates money with peace of mind.
If you haven’t reached the goal of financial freedom yet, there’s good news. In the next five years, more self-made millionaires will emerge than in any other time in history. The economy is in such turmoil right now that it’s full of endless opportunities for those who are creative enough to find the solutions to the many problems that exist.
How to Get Rich
If you want to be rich, study how rich people think about money and follow their lead. Study how average people think so you can avoid falling into the same trap. Associate with the rich through books, audio programs, video programs, seminars, charity events, art auctions, country clubs, etc. Consciousness is contagious. Exposure to their level of thinking about money will permeate your consciousness.
Create a written vision for your life five years down the road. If you could do anything you wanted to do and live any way you wanted to live, what would that look like? What would it feel like? Start training yourself to dream big and ignore the naysayers who laugh at you and call you crazy.
Someday they’ll be asking you for a job.
Force yourself to grow up emotionally, get mentally tough and overcome any addiction you have to the approval of other people. When you’re broke and chasing what the masses see as a “pie in the sky,” many of them will discourage you and plead with you to be realistic. Keep in mind that the concept of “Realism” is subjective. One person’s idea of realism is earning $50,000 per year and another’s is earning $500,000.
Learn to let go of the middle-class thinking of the masses, while simultaneously learning to embrace how rich people think. In a matter of months your entire perspective will begin to shift, and you’ll begin seeing the world through the eyes of millionaires.
"In the next five years, more self-made millionaires will emerge than in any other time in history."
It’s not intelligence or education that holds back the average person from getting rich. It’s the middle-class beliefs about money that keeps them struggling to survive in a world of abundance.
Regardless of your IQ score or what the highest level of education you completed is, everyone has the potential to become rich.
If you’re rich, keep thinking the way you’re thinking. If not, maybe it’s time for a change.
Steve Siebold is author of the new book How Rich People Think, which compares 100 thoughts and beliefs about money between rich people and the middle class.
Siebold is one of the world’s most noted experts in the field of mental toughness training.
His mental toughness clientele includes world-class athletes, Fortune 500 companies, and entrepreneurs.
For more information and to download five free chapter of the book, visit http://www.howrichpeoplethinkbook.com/
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Every single country in the world that the people live in is important and each country has its own nature and significance. The United States of America is known as the most powerful country and many other countries support America. These countries become America’s alliances. The Philippines is one of its alliances. The Philippines have certain factors that make it known. Some of this is the so-called “wonders of the Philippines.” An example of which is the Banaue Rice Terreces that were created by the Ifugaos The presence of the Chocolate Hills is also a wonder in this country. The beaches are also famous in the Philippines. The Philippines have great beaches wherein foreigners tend to sit often. Even if there are many things that could be praised in the Philippines, it has also issues that are known to the world. Its corruption is one of those issues that is known bout the Philippines. Another issue is its population.
The population is an important factor in a certain country or place. Population could give a positive or a negative outcome depending on how it is utilized. Some countries make certain measures to make sure that the population would not be causing a problem On the other hand; others do not give much emphasis on it.
The Philippine population is around 82 million. These 82 million people continue to increase. The Philippine population in a way is not balanced because certain parts of the country have an enormous population while other parts are smaller geographically. Manila, for example, already has a big population because it is the center for business and industry. An important aspect of the population in the Philippines is its continuous increase. The increase of the population gives way to problems that the country is now facing. The increase gives effects to the Philippines both positive and negative.
This paper is about the continuous increase of the Philippine population and the effects that it gives...
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Delivery systems for food, liquids, medications and gases, such as oxygen, are important medical devices that patients and health professionals rely on every day. In order to deliver the product intended, these systems rely on the correct choice and use of connectors.
Historically, one type of connector was used for many different applications, but following a series of accidents in the 1990s, the medical community recommended that different connectors be used for different applications in order to reduce the risks, a recommendation subsequently endorsed by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This means that a different connector would be used for breathing systems, for example, than for intravascular or hypodermic tubes.
Now, that risk is reduced even further with a new series of standards in progress, and the first of those specific to an application – neuraxial applications, such as anaesthetics – has just been published. Developed in collaboration with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the ISO 80369 series, Small bore connectors for liquids and gases in healthcare applications, has a number of parts for specific small-bore connectors.
Scott Colburn, Convenor of the joint working group ISO/TC 210/JWG 4 that is developing these standards and Director of the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) Standards Program of the FDA, has played a key role in developing this series to respond to concerns about the risks of incorrect delivery and “wrong route” medication errors.
“This series aims to improve the safety of the delivery of liquid and gases in healthcare settings. It draws information and inspiration from a number of international and European standards in the field, but is the first International series of standards of its kind,” he said.
“Part 6 specifies the requirements for connectors used in neuraxial applications intended to administer medications to neuraxial sites, wound infiltration, anaesthesia delivery, other regional anaesthesia procedures and to monitor or remove cerebro-spinal fluid for therapeutic or diagnostic purposes. Use of the standard will thus reduce the risk of the wrong product being administered, potentially saving lives.”
The other standards in the series that are already published include Part 1, General requirements, which specifies the requirements for the designs and dimensions of small-bore connectors and Part 20, Common test methods, which supports the performance requirements.
Other upcoming standards in the ISO 80369 series include:
Part 2: Connectors for breathing systems and driving gases applications
Part 3: Connectors for enteral applications
Part 7: Connectors for intravascular or hypodermic applications
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Widely Used Insecticides Are Leaching Into Midwest Rivers
A class of insecticides called neonicotinoids, which are used on a lot of big corn and soybean fields, has been getting a pretty bad rap lately.
Researchers have implicated these chemicals, which are similar to nicotine, as a contributor to the alarming decline of bee colonies. That led the European Union to place a moratorium on their use, and environmentalists want the U.S. to do the same.
In a study published July 24, researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey found that these chemicals are also leaching into streams and rivers in the Midwest — including the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. And that may be bad news for aquatic life in the region, the scientists say.
"We did the study because the use of the neonicotinoids has been increasing dramatically, especially in the Midwest," says Kathryn Kuivila, an environmental organic chemist with the USGS.
And since these chemicals are highly water soluble, it made sense to investigate whether they were present in the region's streams and rivers, Kuivila tells The Salt.
These pesticides aren't sprayed on. Instead, they're used to coat the seeds of many agricultural crops. But they still end up in the soil and then in the water that runs off farms.
Runoff transports the chemicals from the field to streams and rivers, and since they don't break down easily in the environment, they can stick around in these bodies of water for long periods of time, the USGS study notes. And while they're not especially toxic to humans, they can harm a wide variety of insects. At certain concentrations, they can hurt other animals as well.
The USGS found three chemicals in particular to be especially prevalent throughout the region: clothianidin, thiamethoxam and imidacloprid. Clothianidin was found in three quarters of the 79 water samples that the researchers gathered in 2013 at nine different stream sites. The highest concentration they found was over 250 nanograms per liter. That's 250 parts per trillion; it doesn't sound like a whole lot, but Kuivila says it may be enough to affect wildlife.
Mike Leggett, a director of environmental policy at CropLife America, the trade group representing biotechnology companies including Bayer CropScience and Syngenta — both big manufacturers of these pesticides — released a statement pointing out that the concentrations USGS found were far below the Environmental Protection Agency's benchmarks.
"The highest levels detected were at least 40 times lower than benchmarks established by EPA to be protective of aquatic life, and most detections were up to 1,000 times below that level," he writes.
Indeed, by the EPA's benchmark, clothianidin is toxic to invertebrates who are chronically exposed to the chemical only at levels higher than 1,100 nanograms per liter.
But recent research suggests that lower levels of these chemicals could also be toxic to aquatic life — including aquatic insects. And a study published in Nature found a correlation between these insecticides and declining bird populations, perhaps because the chemicals are killing off insects that the birds eat, or because the birds are eating insecticide-coated seeds.
Researchers are also unsure of how exposure to multiple neonicotinoids may affect organisms, Kuivila notes. And they don't know to what extent a combination of these insecticides and other pesticides is hurting wildlife, she says.
And while a tiny amount of these chemicals may not kill certain animals, it can still harm them, says Christian Krupke, an entomologist at Purdue University who wasn't involved in the study. "An insect doesn't have to be dead to not be functioning," he says.
Neonicotinoids affect insects' nervous systems. An insect exposed to a small amount of one of these chemicals may get disoriented, and may not be able to find food or defend itself from predators.
"There's a lot we don't know," he says, despite the fact that neonicotinoids came out in the 1980s and '90s. "Something as basic as how much is in the water has just been found out now."
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Saoyú-ʔehdachoLast updated: November 2012
Saoyú (saw-you-eh) and ʔehdacho (aa-daa-cho) are two major peninsulas on the west side of Great Bear Lake totalling 5,550 km² in size. These peninsulas form the Saoyú-ʔehdacho National Historic Site of Canada.
- Factsheet on Saoyú-ʔehdacho including a map (full pdf | map jpg)
- Photo Gallery of Saoyú-ʔehdacho (viewer)
- Saoyú-ʔehdacho Celebration (page)
Importance of Saoyú-ʔehdacho
- Saoyú-ʔehdacho is deeply linked to the history of the Sahtugot’ine, the Dene of Great Bear Lake. To the Sahtugot’ine, the oral traditions and stories that are tied to the land help define who they are as a people. In recognition of the historical and cultural importance of these areas, Parks Canada designated these peninsulas as a national historic site in 1999.
- Saoyú-ʔehdacho has intact boreal forest, and is home to important wildlife species including woodland caribou, grizzly bears, wolverine and peregrine falcons.
- Established National Historic Site.
- The subsurface rights are withdrawn under the Territorial Lands Act (P.C. 2009-1588).
- Surface lands are owned by the Délįne Land Corporation (approximately 20%) and Parks Canada (approximately 80%).
- A Cooperative Management Board has been established to oversee
implementation of the Cooperative Management Agreement signed by
Parks Canada and Délįne for the protection and management of Saoyú-ʔehdacho NHS.
Co-Chairs Raymond Taniton and Tom Nesbitt, as well as four other
members, have been appointed by Parks Canada, the Délįne Renewable
Resources Council, and the Délįne Land Corporation.
- The community of Délįne entered Saoyú-ʔehdacho into the PAS process in 1999. National Historic Site designation was an important step in recognizing the importance of the peninsulas, but it did not protect the land from development. The community followed the direction of its elders to seek permanent protection.
- In 2002, an interim land withdrawal protected Saoyú-ʔehdacho while the PAS partners conducted assessments of the area's values to assist in decisions about future management.
- In March 2007, the Minister Responsible for Parks Canada announced funds for the initial development and annual ongoing operational costs for protecting and cooperatively managing Saoyú-ʔehdacho NHS of Canada.
- The Délįne First Nation, the Délįne Land Corporation, Délįne Renewable Resources Council and Parks Canada began work to negotiate an agreement for the co-operative management of the site. The negotiation was completed and the agreement signed in September 2008.
- The PAS Saoyú-ʔehdacho Working Group completed their Final Report in late 2007, which summarized the results of the cultural, ecological and economic assessments and consultations.
- In April 2009, the Minister Responsible for Parks Canada traveled to
Délįne to attend community celebrations and formally announce the
signing of the Saoyú-ʔehdacho NHS Cooperative Management Agreement and the
completion of the transfer of protected lands to Parks Canada.
The Shared Vision
Some elements of Délįne and Parks Canada's shared vision for Saoyú-ʔehdacho NHS include:
- cooperative management, with a central role for Délįne in day-to-day site management,
- respect for Sahtugot'ine harvesting rights, and
- a central focus on on-the-land cultural learning and healing programs, with elders playing a central role in passing Sahtugot'ine cultural on to youth.
- maintenance of commemorative integrity and opportunities for Canadians to learn about the site and about Sahtugot'ine culture
- 2006 - Saoyú-ʔehdacho | Socio-Economic Background Information and Preliminary Assessment (toc pdf | full text pdf)
- 2006 - Saoyú-ʔehdacho | Renewable Resource Assessment (summary pdf | full text pdf)
- 2005 - Saoyú-ʔehdacho | Reconnaissance of Flora and Fauna (summary pdf | full text pdf)
- 2005 - Saoyú-ʔehdacho | Non-Renewable Resource Assessment Phase 2 (summary pdf | full text link)
- 2004 - Saoyú-ʔehdacho | Cultural Values Report available from Délįne Special Projects Officer 867.589.8117
- 2004 - Saoyú-ʔehdacho | Commemorative Integrity Statement (summary pdf | full text pdf)
- 2002 - Saoyú-ʔehdacho | Non-Renewable Resource Assessment Phase 1 (link)
- 1996 - Grizzly Bear Mountain & Scented Grass Hills | Historic Sites and Monuments Board Agency Paper: Narrative and Landscape (pdf)
Working Group Reports
- 2007 - Saoyú-ʔehdacho | Working Group Final Report (pdf)
For more information on Saoyú-ʔehdacho, please contact Parks Canada
Phone: (867)777-8800 Fax: (867)777-8820
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Gravity is a concept without true explanation. It is a description of what happens, but there is no firm proof of a cause or a why. We know that two masses are attracted to each other in proportion to each mass and related to the distance. So we gave that phenomena a name: gravity.
We know lots more about gravity, like how quickly one mass can notice that another mass moved. The forces move at the speed of light. We also can predict that anti-gravity would use energy, because otherwise we could create a perpetual motion machine by turning on and off a free anti-gravity.
So in simple terms, a rocket or helicopter are antigravity machines. The machines are propelled one way by throwing mass the other way. The rocket brings the mass with it and throws that, while the helicopter just grabs the air around it and flings it down.
Imagine you are in a canoe on a lake. When you push on the water with the paddle, you propel the boat forward. This is the same method the helicopter uses. If you had several buckets of water in the canoe, and threw them one by one out the back, then you would coast forward. This is the basic mechanism of the rocket.
For fun, I have collected some classic and funny videos showing antigravity in action. The how to videos are also included.No matching videos
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Along with the introduction
, the conclusion paragraph tends to be a tough section for most writers, including students working on essays. You've spent all that time and energy developing a strong argument and meticulously detailing all the evidence in the body of your paper, so when it comes time to write the conclusion, many us of feel out of things to say. But despite this writing fatigue, a conclusion is still a necessary part of any good essay.
Why write a conclusion?
The human mind loves a story, and no story is complete without the ending. Think of how you'd feel if a crime show on TV ended before the murderer was revealed or if the last few pages of your favorite book were ripped out before you could read them. While an essay for English or history class might not seem as exciting as those examples, nevertheless it still needs an ending to feel complete. If you finish your paper without providing some sort of conclusion for the reader, then that reader is going to going to be left unsatisfied and confused (and if that reader is your teacher, you're likely to end up with a not-so-great grade).
What to include
There's no set format for the conclusion, which is one of the reasons that writers often find it so difficult. There are however a few strategies that will help you end your paper on a good note. In general, it's a good idea to include a summary as well as one or more of the following rhetorical tricks.
Predict. Discuss what you think will happen after the events discussed in your paper. This is an especially good strategy for essays in history, government, or ethics. For example, if you are examining the importance of particular law, you can discuss how you think that law will impact future events. Or if you're writing a persuasive paper, discuss what might happen if your argument prevails.
Ending your paper with a recommendation is another good strategy for persuasive papers. Tell the reader where they can get more information on your topic or suggest related actions they could take. For instance, if you're writing an essay
on drunk driving, your paper could end with a call to enact harsher penalties for those found guilty or direct readers towards websites where more information can be found.
If you've spent the length of your paper writing about a very specific topic
, then the conclusion is a good place to remind the reader why that topic is important. Generalize about how your particular subject effects other research areas or link your thesis to broader issues in your field of study. For instance, if you're writing about a single historical events, you can discuss how that event is tied to broader historical trends or to later events.
Restate. At least part of your conclusion should be spent restating the main argument in your paper. This doesn't mean that you should summarize word-for-word your thesis statement or your key pieces of evidence. Rather, you should synthesize your paper into a few important ideas and present them as succinctly as possible for the reader.
Question. Ending your paper with a question is a good rhetorical device that will leave the reader with something to think about once they're done with your work. For example, in a persuasive piece on school reform, you can ask the reader to imagine a world no one took standardized test, or you can end a historical essay by asking how if events had happened otherwise how the world would be different today.
Tips for writing the conclusion
Echo the introduction. Bring the essay full circle by paraphrasing or referring back to concepts, words, or anecdotes that were included in the introduction. If you opened with a story about an author, come back to that story in the conclusion, or if you included a statistic in your introduction, reference it again in your conclusion. The human mind likes a neat package, so wrapping your paper up back where it started will make it feel complete. Just make sure that you don't simply restate what you said in the introduction, but instead expand on that idea. The reader has now make their way through your entire paper: how does this new information impact the ideas that opened your paper?
Use topic sentences. While you should never just restate the ideas in your paper word-for-word, you do still need to recap for your reader. If you're having trouble summing your paper up in a few sentences, go back and look at the topic sentences you wrote for each paragraph. They should provide a general outline for your paper, and condensing them into a few words is a good way to remind the reader what you've said so far.
Don't just summarize. That being said, it's still important to remember that your paper shouldn't end with just a summary. Instead, try to find a new angle from which to approach the material that will stick in the reader's mind. You want the last thing the reader seems to be something exciting, not a rote, paragraph-by-paragraph recap of your paper.
Don't introduce new ideas. The closing sentences of your paper are not the time to stun the reader with new information. It can be tempting to save up a big reveal until the very end, particularly if you're trying to make a persuasive argument, but waiting until the last second to introduce your thesis statement or a key piece of evidence will only annoy and confuse the reader. In the reader's mind, a big reveal just undoes all the work they've put into reading your paper, and your teacher in particular doesn't want to have to reread your whole paper in light of a last-second surprise.
Don't go overboard. When you're trying to tie the arguments in your paper back to a larger topic, it's easy to go overboard with generalizations. But remember, even as you broaden the conversation in your conclusion, you still want the reader to stay focused on your topic. Overly general statements such as "this historical event will always be remembered" or "the author's work reveals a fundamental truth of human nature" will just distract the reader and don't say really say anything useful.
The first example uses several of the strategies listed above. It starts with a question that refocus the reader on the big picture, then summarizes the main points of the essay. It finishes with a reference to a hospital bill, which is from the anecdote that opened the introduction.
What then are we to make of our country's sprawling and expensive health care system? On one hand, the U.S. offers access to some of the most advanced technology in the world. If you need treatment for cancer or require the use of diagnostic tools like MRI machines, the U.S. is one of the best places to be. On the other hand, these high-tech hospital tools do little to help the under- and uninsured, who can't even go to the doctor for minor ailments and preventative care. As it stands now, the only people who truly benefit from health care in this country are those who provide it: the insurance companies and hospitals that, through their quest for profit, have created the system we are all forced to live with. For the status quo to change, Americans need to recognize that the only system that truly works is one that works for everybody. After all, no one should ever have to leave the hospital with a $435,000 bill.
The second example focuses on generalizing the argument in the paper (an examination of several popular biographies of Thomas Jefferson) to current day issues. Note that unlike the first example, which spent several lines summarizing the argument in the paper, the example below has little summary. Instead, it takes the reader past the evidence in the paper to examine the wider implications of a historical debate.
Ultimately, there may never be a definitive biography of Thomas Jefferson: his personality and his accomplishments, coupled with the momentous times in which he lived, make him a decidedly difficult man to understand. But this difficulty doesn't mean historians should stop debating this contentious figure. With every new book and article, the picture of Jefferson, and of the nation's history, becomes more complex and interesting. Wiencek's upending of the Jefferson story, combined with the critical lashing of his book, shed unprecedented light on the role slavery played in the founding of the United States and has important implications for the way people today view the men who created this new country. Particularly today, when the perceived objectives and ideologies of the founding fathers play such an important role in the way government is understood by common citizens, it's important that everyone be able to judge for themselves the complexities of Thomas Jefferson.
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The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer is viewed by many as the most successful international agreement to protect the environment. Signed in September 1987, the Montreal Protocol focused on targeting compounds that were linked to ozone depletion. It has been amended and adjusted since then to provide more restrictive timetables on the production phaseout of these substances, particularly as alternatives were introduced. Among the compounds, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were set on a phaseout schedule for year-end 1995 in developed countries and 2009 in developing countries. After two decades, the treaty has led to substantial reductions in the use and the emissions of the most ozone depleting substances. While its focus was elimination of ozone depleting substances, because of the global warming potential of the covered substances, the treaty has also had the additional impact of reducing greenhouse gas emissions five-fold over what the Kyoto Protocol would have accomplished had it been fully implemented by all countries.
DuPont Actions since the Montreal Protocol
In March 1988, the Ozone Trends Panel Report issued the first scientifically-backed global consensus linking CFCs to observed depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer. Within 10 days of the announcement, DuPont committed to cease CFC production for use through an orderly transition to alternatives, putting DuPont ahead of the then current timetable requiring only a 50% reduction in 10 years. We also identified key internal steps we needed to take concerning our own use of CFCs.
Elimination of CFC Production for Use Globally
DuPont played a pivotal role in creating the next generation of products that replaced CFCs, and helped usher in a new era of more environmentally beneficial products to meet critical societal needs, including refrigeration and air conditioning. DuPont led the industry in the phaseout of CFCs and transition to more environmentally acceptable alternatives. To accomplish this, the company invested more than $500 million to develop and commercialize CFC alternatives.
At the time, DuPont estimated that more than $135 billion of existing equipment in the U.S. alone depended on CFCs. In January 1991, DuPont was the first company to launch a family of refrigerant alternatives that met performance, safety and environmental criteria. These new refrigerants could be used in existing as well as new equipment, thus minimizing the transition cost to thousands of businesses and consumers around the world DuPont has launched 30 alternatives and has been awarded more than 565 patents worldwide to help meet the phaseout schedules of the Montreal Protocol.
DuPont exceeded the original commitment and ceased production of CFCs in developed countries in 1995, and closed its final production facility in a developing country, Brazil, in 1999.
In 2003, DuPont was awarded the U.S. National Medal of Technology for CFC Policy and Technology Leadership.
Internal Use of CFCs for Refrigeration
DuPont established and implemented a global policy for internal use of CFCs as refrigerants in 1991:
- New equipment containing CFC refrigerants could no longer be purchased;
- For existing facilities and acquisitions going forward, the policy required retrofitting with approved alternative refrigerants; replacing with equipment that used approved alternative refrigerants; or shutting down, evacuating, and retiring the equipment.
The corporation continues to monitor and track compliance with the policy.
Use of CFCs as Processing Agents, as Approved Under the Montreal Protocol
The Montreal Protocol allows for the ongoing use of CFCs for certain processing applications. Use of the CFCs and emissions from the process uses are reported to appropriate government agencies. DuPont originally had three approved uses and has eliminated two.
We still use a CFC as an approved processing aid to make one of our products ─ a synthetic, fiber sheeting used primarily in regulated healthcare and other applications. DuPont is working with the value chain and regulators to qualify an acceptable alternative processing aid.
We have made substantial progress not only for our company but allowing other companies to be compliant and end their reliance on CFCs. Dramatic engineering improvements in containment have led to a 99.98% recovery rate of all processing agent.
Given the success of the Montreal Protocol, DuPont is now engaged in advocacy work to add hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) to the Montreal Protocol. HFCs are non-ozone-depleting products that have served a critical role in replacing CFCs, but also are global warming gases. We believe that by developing a cap and reduction plan for HFCs, similar to what was done under the Montreal Protocol for CFCs and other ozone depleting materials, significant progress can be made in reducing the climate change impacts of HFCs and transitioning society to even better alternatives.
The Montreal Protocol clearly shows that international cooperation among all stakeholders, with flexible regulations designed to stimulate innovation, can lead to rapid progress toward protection of the global environment.
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A mouse or your child — which is more important? This is a question that opponents to animal testing must ask themselves. Without animal testing many cures, vaccinations, and treatments for life-threatening diseases would not be available. Everyday it provides scientists with critical research information to help humans. Animal testing has been a major contributor to the progress of medicine for hundreds of years.
In the mid-19th century, Louis Pasteur used animal testing to discover cures for both cholera and anthrax. He used both chickens and rabbits as test patients in his research. His findings also later resulted in a reduction of infection due to more sanitary means of sterilizing surgical instruments. Following Pasteur's work, other scientists have found causes of and vaccinations for many infectious diseases. These include rabies, tetanus, whooping cough, and several others. The investigation of these diseases relied very heavily upon animal experiments. Similar work continues to this day. Recently, a vaccine was developed for Hemophilus influenza, a cause of meningitis, which before caused death or severe brain damage (Botting 17).
Supporters of animal testing believe that using animals for research is a humane way to advance in the future of medicine. Animals are not treated inhumane as many people may think. They are not subjected to needless experiments or to any type of pain that can be avoided. In fact most never undergo experiments where pain is even a factor. "In 1994, the Department of Agriculture reported that 61% of research animals were not subjected to painful procedures, and another 31% received anesthesia or pain-relieving drugs. The remaining 8% did experience pain, often because the purpose of the experiment was involving the improvement of the understanding of chronic pain (Zak 321)." Animals used for testing are treated with a great respect by scientists and are not thought of as a endless resource. They are the reason for our huge advances in past medical studies.
Animal testing and research have not only been beneficial to humans, but also other animals. Results to many tests have rendered valuable solutions for common animal problems. "Vaccines against rabies, distemper, and parvo virus in dogs are a spin-off of animal research, as are immunization techniques against cholera in hogs, encephalitis in horses, and brucellosis in cattle. Drugs to combat heart-worms, intestinal parasites, and mastitis were developed in animals used for experimental purposes (Loeb 309)." Animals can also profit from experimental surgeries. These surgeries aid in future cases of illness in either human or animal. Developments like these have a very positive effect on the lives of animals.
Animal testing has provided innumerable benefits for humans. Scientists are able to use different animal breeds to get the best results that will compare to human bodies. Therefore cures, treatments, and even vaccinations are being developed everyday. " Several diseases that are curable or treatable today include diphtheria, scarlet fever, tuberculosis, diabetes, appendicitis and several types of cancer (Rowan 13)." Without at least some assistance from animal testing these invaluable advancements would have never been achieved.
Opponents to animal testing have presented some very good arguments. One of the strongest issues that they discuss is alternative methods. These methods suggested range from tissue cultures to bacteria. Although some studies may utilize these methods, they are not valid for all scientific research.
Ultimately, you can't prevent blindness in bacteria, which don't have eyes. You can't treat blood pressure in tissue cultures, which don't have a heart or blood vessels. You can't relieve arthritis in protozoa, which don't have bones or joints. To study such common and often devastating disorders, researchers have no choice but to work at least some of the time with animals that have relevant organs. Nor can surgery — such as organ transplants or re-attachment of severed limbs — be perfected without animal trials (Davis). Alternative methods should be used in situations relevant to a specific scientific study. However, scientists must use animals in circumstances that require bodily systems similar to that of a human.
Throughout history animal testing has been a major contributor to society. It provides valuable benefits for both people and animals. Many scientists believe that future studies involving testing will yield much more medical knowledge. However, all supporters agree that animal testing is a sacrifice that has to be made in order for all humans and animals to continue and improve life.
Botting, Jack H. "Animal Research Is Vital to Medicine." Psychology. 29th ed. Ed. Karen G. Duffy. Guilford, CT: Dushkin, 1999. 17-19.
Davis, Donald A. "Is There an Alternative?" Drug and Cosmetic Industry. July. 1983. Online. Infotrak. 11 Nov. 1999.
Loeb, Jerod M. "Human vs. Animal Rights: In Defense of Animal Research." Journal of the American Medical Association. Vol. 262. No. 19. 1989. Rpt. Taking Sides. 1st ed. Ed. Thomas A. Easton. Guilford, CT: Dushkin, 1995. 308-317.
Rowan, Andrew N. "The Benefits and Ethics of Animal Research." Scientific American. Feb. 1997. Rpt. Psychology. 29th ed. Ed. Karen G. Duffy. Guilford, CT: Dushkin, 1999. 13.
Zak, Steven. "Ethics and Animals." The Atlantic Monthly. March. 1989. Rpt. Taking Sides. 1st ed. Ed. Thomas A. Easton. Guilford, CT: Dushkin, 1995. 318-326.
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MathScore EduFighter is one of the best math games on the Internet today. You can start playing for free!
California Math Standards - 4th GradeMathScore aligns to the California Math Standards for 4th Grade. The standards appear below along with the MathScore topics that match. If you click on a topic name, you will see sample problems at varying degrees of difficulty that MathScore generated. When students use our program, the difficulty of the problems will automatically adapt based on individual performance, resulting in not only true differentiated instruction, but a challenging game-like experience.
Number Sense1.0 Students understand the place value of whole numbers and decimals to two decimal places and how whole numbers and decimals relate to simple fractions. Students use the concepts of negative numbers:
1.1 Read and write whole numbers in the millions.
1.2 Order and compare whole numbers and decimals to two decimal places. (Order Decimals , Compare Decimals )
1.3 Round whole numbers through the millions to the nearest ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand, or hundred thousand. (Rounding Large Numbers )
1.4 Decide when a rounded solution is called for and explain why such a solution may be appropriate.
1.5 Explain different interpretations of fractions, for example, parts of a whole, parts of a set, and division of whole numbers by whole numbers; explain equivalents of fractions (see Standard 4.0). (Fraction Simplification )
1.6 Write tenths and hundredths in decimal and fraction notations and know the fraction and decimal equivalents for halves and fourths (e.g., 1/2 = 0.5 or .50; 7/4 = 1 3/4 = 1.75). (Fractions to Decimals , Decimals To Fractions , Compare Mixed Values , Positive Number Line )
1.7 Write the fraction represented by a drawing of parts of a figure; represent a given fraction by using drawings; and relate a fraction to a simple decimal on a number line. (Fraction Pictures )
1.8 Use concepts of negative numbers (e.g., on a number line, in counting, in temperature, in "owing"). (Compare Integers , Line Segments )
1.9 Identify on a number line the relative position of positive fractions, positive mixed numbers, and positive decimals to two decimal places. (Compare Mixed Values , Positive Number Line , Fractions to Decimals , Decimals To Fractions )
2.0 Students extend their use and understanding of whole numbers to the addition and subtraction of simple decimals:
2.1 Estimate and compute the sum or difference of whole numbers and positive decimals to two places. (Estimated Addition , Estimated Subtraction , Money Addition , Money Subtraction )
2.2 Round two-place decimals to one decimal or the nearest whole number and judge the reasonableness of the rounded answer. (Decimal Rounding to .01 )
3.0 Students solve problems involving addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of whole numbers and understand the relationships among the operations:
3.1 Demonstrate an understanding of, and the ability to use, standard algorithms for the addition and subtraction of multidigit numbers. (Long Addition , Long Subtraction , Mental Addition and Subtraction to 100 , Mental Addition and Subtraction )
3.2 Demonstrate an understanding of, and the ability to use, standard algorithms for multiplying a multidigit number by a two-digit number and for dividing a multidigit number by a one-digit number; use relationships between them to simplify computations and to check results. (Long Multiplication , Long Division By One Digit )
3.3 Solve problems involving multiplication of multidigit numbers by two-digit numbers. (Long Multiplication )
3.4 Solve problems involving division of multidigit numbers by one-digit numbers. (Long Division By One Digit )
4.0 Students know how to factor small whole numbers:
4.1 Understand that many whole numbers break down in different ways (e.g., 12 = 4 x 3 = 2 x 6 = 2 x 2 x 3). (Factoring )
4.2 Know that numbers such as 2, 3, 5, 7, and 11 do not have any factors except 1 and themselves and that such numbers are called prime numbers. (Prime Numbers )
Algebra and Functions1.0 Students use and interpret variables, mathematical symbols, and properties to write and simplify expressions and sentences:
1.1 Use letters, boxes, or other symbols to stand for any number in simple expressions or equations (e.g., demonstrate an understanding and the use of the concept of a variable). (Variable Substitution )
1.2 Interpret and evaluate mathematical expressions that now use parentheses. (Using Parentheses )
1.3 Use parentheses to indicate which operation to perform first when writing expressions containing more than two terms and different operations. (Using Parentheses )
1.4 Use and interpret formulas (e.g., area = length x width or A = lw) to answer questions about quantities and their relationships. (Independent and Dependent Variables )
1.5 Understand that an equation such as y = 3 x + 5 is a prescription for determining a second number when a first number is given. (Linear Equations )
2.0 Students know how to manipulate equations:
2.1 Know and understand that equals added to equals are equal.
2.2 Know and understand that equals multiplied by equals are equal.
Measurement and Geometry1.0 Students understand perimeter and area:
1.1 Measure the area of rectangular shapes by using appropriate units, such as square centimeter (cm2), square meter (m2), square kilometer (km2), square inch (in2), square yard (yd2), or square mile (mi2). (Compare Rectangle Area and Perimeter )
1.2 Recognize that rectangles that have the same area can have different perimeters. (Compare Rectangle Area and Perimeter )
1.3 Understand that rectangles that have the same perimeter can have different areas.
1.4 Understand and use formulas to solve problems involving perimeters and areas of rectangles and squares. Use those formulas to find the areas of more complex figures by dividing the figures into basic shapes. (Perimeter and Area of Composite Figures )
2.0 Students use two-dimensional coordinate grids to represent points and graph lines and simple figures:
2.1 Draw the points corresponding to linear relationships on graph paper (e.g., draw 10 points on the graph of the equation y = 3x and connect them by using a straight line).
2.2 Understand that the length of a horizontal line segment equals the difference of the x- coordinates. (Line Segments )
2.3 Understand that the length of a vertical line segment equals the difference of the y- coordinates. (Line Segments )
3.0 Students demonstrate an understanding of plane and solid geometric objects and use this knowledge to show relationships and solve problems:
3.1 Identify lines that are parallel and perpendicular. (Parallel and Perpendicular Lines )
3.2 Identify the radius and diameter of a circle. (Circle Measurements )
3.3 Identify congruent figures.
3.4 Identify figures that have bilateral and rotational symmetry.
3.5 Know the definitions of a right angle, an acute angle, and an obtuse angle. Understand that 90º 180º 270º and 360º are associated, respectively, with 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, and full turns.
3.6 Visualize, describe, and make models of geometric solids (e.g., prisms, pyramids) in terms of the number and shape of faces, edges, and vertices; interpret two-dimensional representations of three-dimensional objects; and draw patterns (of faces) for a solid that, when cut and folded, will make a model of the solid.
3.7 Know the definitions of different triangles (e.g., equilateral, isosceles, scalene) and identify their attributes. (Triangle Types )
3.8 Know the definition of different quadrilaterals (e.g., rhombus, square, rectangle, parallelogram, trapezoid). (Quadrilateral Types )
Statistics, Data Analysis, and Probability1.0 Students organize, represent, and interpret numerical and categorical data and clearly communicate their findings:
1.1 Formulate survey questions; systematically collect and represent data on a number line; and coordinate graphs, tables, and charts.
1.2 Identify the mode(s) for sets of categorical data and the mode(s), median, and any apparent outliers for numerical data sets. (Mean, Median, Mode )
1.3 Interpret one-and two-variable data graphs to answer questions about a situation. (Bar Graphs , Line Graphs )
2.0 Students make predictions for simple probability situations:
2.1 Represent all possible outcomes for a simple probability situation in an organized way (e.g., tables, grids, tree diagrams).
2.2 Express outcomes of experimental probability situations verbally and numerically (e.g., 3 out of 4; 3 /4).
Mathematical Reasoning1.0 Students make decisions about how to approach problems:
1.1 Analyze problems by identifying relationships, distinguishing relevant from irrelevant information, sequencing and prioritizing information, and observing patterns. (Function Tables , Function Tables 2 )
1.2 Determine when and how to break a problem into simpler parts. (Perimeter and Area of Composite Figures )
2.0 Students use strategies, skills, and concepts in finding solutions:
2.1 Use estimation to verify the reasonableness of calculated results. (Estimated Addition , Estimated Subtraction , Money Addition , Money Subtraction )
2.2 Apply strategies and results from simpler problems to more complex problems. (Many topics align to this standard)
2.3 Use a variety of methods, such as words, numbers, symbols, charts, graphs, tables, diagrams, and models, to explain mathematical reasoning.
2.4 Express the solution clearly and logically by using the appropriate mathematical notation and terms and clear language; support solutions with evidence in both verbal and symbolic work.
2.5 Indicate the relative advantages of exact and approximate solutions to problems and give answers to a specified degree of accuracy.
2.6 Make precise calculations and check the validity of the results from the context of the problem.
3.0 Students move beyond a particular problem by generalizing to other situations:
3.1 Evaluate the reasonableness of the solution in the context of the original situation.
3.2 Note the method of deriving the solution and demonstrate a conceptual understanding of the derivation by solving similar problems.
3.3 Develop generalizations of the results obtained and apply them in other circumstances.
Learn more about our online math practice software.
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The following was published in "Our Ellis County Heritage 1885-1979"
Reprinted with permission of Jerry Denson and
The Ellis County Historical Society, November, 1999.
Photo Credit: Mandel Brown.
Photos overlooking the area of the Battle Of Little Robe Creek and the Antelope Hills.
THE BATTLE OF LITTLE ROBE CREEK, 1858
WRITTEN BY JERRY DENSON
Little Robe Creek is a peaceful, crystal clear stream, that flows into the South Canadian River in western Oklahoma. The tranquility of the area was broken early in the morning of May 12, 1858, by the sound of gunfire, horses galloping through water, and death. Determined to strike at the Comanche deep in their own territory to repay the great amounts of property damage the Comanches had done. Texans inflicted death and destruction as revenge at the Battle of Little Robe Creek.
The years 1858 and 1859 were bloody years on the Texas frontier due to Indian raids. The newly elected governor, Hardin R. Runnels, was determined to protect the Texas citizens living on the frontier from these attacks. The Comanches of Indian Territory were responsible for much of the depredations and had become so troublesome that the Texas legislature passed a law for the defense and protection of the settlers living on the Texas frontier.
On January 28,1858, Ranger John S. Ford, considered by state authorities the best man to command an expedition into Indian Territory, took command of all state forces with the title of Senior Captain. Authorized to call an additional one hundred men and instructed to establish headquarters at some suitable point on the frontier, Ford left Austin in February for the frontier.
Governor Runnels gave direct orders to Ford, "I impress upon you the necessity of action and energy. Follow any trail and all trails of hostile or suspected hostile Indians you may discover and if possible, overtake and chastise them if unfriendly." On March 19, 1858, Captain Ford went to the Brazos Reservation, near Present day Fort Worth where he planned to induce reservation Indians into his force. An Agent, Captain L. S. Ross, called the chief to council where he stirred their war spirit against their traditional enemies, the Comanches. Appoximately 100 warriors volunteered and spies were sent to locate Comanche camps north of the Red River. The allied Indians were under the command of Shapely P. Ross, son of the agent, and Chief Placido. A few of the tribes that were represented in this force leaving the reservation on April 20, were Caddoes, Wacos, Anadarkos, Tonkawas and a few others.
A cavalcade consisting of 102 men, two wagons, an ambulance, and 15 pack-mules left Camp Runnels, near the Brazos Reservation, on April 22. The force traveled north until they met the 113 braves from the reservation at a location known as Cottonwood Springs. Ford's subordinates on this expedition besides Ross were W.A.Pitts, J.H. Tankersly, and W.G. Preston. "Old Rip", as he was known to his men, recognized the eagerness in his men to fight to compensate for the huge amounts of property damage that the Comanches were causing on the frontier. The reservation Indians needed no encouragement to join the Rangers in the fight because they already hated the Comaches.
Traveling north from Cottonwood Springs, Captain Ford's force crossed the Red River on April 29 and traveled up the north bank making stops and sending out spies along the way hoping to locate the hostile camps. After traveling up the river more than a week without finding any signs of enemy forces, the expedition headed north for the Washita River on May 7. The Rangers followed the ninety-eighth parallel until they reached a branch of the Washita the following day.
The force had been marching for 21 days when they first encountered signs of Comanches in the area. Spies sent out by Captain Ford, found a crippled buffalo and killed it on May 10. Two Comanche arrowheads were extracted from the beast. The following day Captain Ford and a few of his men stood in the road from Fort Smith to Santa Fe just north of the Rio Negro or False Washita, and watched a few Comanches chasing buffalos in the valleys to the north. The direction that the meat ladden Camanche ponies took indicated the way to the camp. The Texas force was now very deep into Comanche territory and in order to keep from being discovered, Ford left the wagons and baggage behind, plus a few men to guard them. Late in the day, a Keeche Indian tracker, found the location of a small Comanche camp. The attack had to be postponed because of approaching darkness.
The Comanches in this small camp of five lodges were completely unaware of the approaching danger. Chief Palcido and his braves completely destroyed the camp before dawn on May 12. A few women and children were taken captives. Preferring death to capture, not one Comanche warrior was taken alive, nor did even one Comanche escape to warn other camps across the South Canadian River.
After sunrise, a much larger camp was sighted on the north side of the Canadian River, near the mouth of Little Robe Creek. This Village contained 70 lodges. Soon after they had spotted the camp, a lone Camanche was sighted riding south toward the stricken camp completely unaware of its fate. The Rangers tried to overtake him, but he turned and fled back across the river towards the main camp. He led his pursuers to a safe crossing on the almost impassable river.
The rider was able to give warning just before the rangers charged through the camp, the momentum of which carried the Rangers through the village and beyond. As Captain Ford was regrouping the Rangers for another charge, the Comanches trying to give the women and children time to escape, formed a line between the village and Rangers. Suddenly a lone rider appeared from the Comanche line. He rode an iron-gray colored horse and was carrying a lance with a white flag attached. The rider wore the horned headdress and a buffalo robe of the Koteoteka, or Buffalo-eater Comanche. This Comanche was the chief Pohebits Quasho or Iron Jacket, a title he obtained because of the Spanish coat of mail he wore.
As Iron Jacket bore down on the Rangers, he was followed by a few of his warriors. The white flag he carried was probably a trick because the Comanches had learned to use the flag of truce to get close to the whites and attack them easily. If that was the purpose it did not work this time, and the Rangers opened fire. The chief passed through this heavy fire without a scratch. Iron Jacket believed that because of magic breath he possessed, he could make bullets and arrows directed at him fall harmlessly at his feet. He shot a few arrows at the Rangers as he rode up and down the Ranger line. As the chief was turning his horse, he suddenly fell to the ground. His fatal mistake was leaning away from the gunfire from the Ranger line allowing a bullet, which was said to have been fired from the gun of Jim Pock- mark, an Anadarko chief in the Ranger force, to slip under one of the flaps of armor, killing the chief.
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In contrast to the Atlantic's relatively tranquil tropical cyclone season, cyclones brought devastating flooding to the western Pacific Basin during 2009. In Australia, drought and extreme heat combined to create ideal conditions for wildfires, and the country's deadliest fire outbreak in history took place on “Black Saturday.”
Winter Cold and Summer Sizzle
As in the United States, wintery weather left its mark in Europe early in the year. The United Kingdom experienced an early January cold snap and snowstorm, and the Amsterdam canals in Holland froze over for the first time in 12 years. In early February, the heaviest snowstorm in 18 years left up to 20 centimeters (eight inches) of snow on London, crippling transportation.
On January 24, an intense low pressure system made landfall in France, causing tremendous damage across southwest France and northern Spain. Wind gusts of 172 km/h (107 mph) and higher downed power lines, leaving 1.7 million homes without electricity in southwest France. Named “Klaus” by European meteorologists, the storm was said to be the most damaging since December 1999, as it left a trail of fallen trees, wrecked roofs, and crushed cars in its wake. The storm, blamed for 27 deaths, caused extensive property damage, resulting in insured losses of approximately US $3.3 billion and was the most expensive global weather event of the year, according to the insurance industry. The high winds damaged 715,000 structures.
Weatherwise Contributing Editor DOUGLAS LE COMTE is a meterologist at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center in Camp Springs, Maryland.
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Italian food, we were once told, is the most unhealthy of all ethnic food in the U.S.. Worse than Asian food, worse than Mexican food. Sadly, in America and other countries outside of Italy, it is true. Italian food has become synonymous with pasta, cheese, tomatoes and meat. When we think Italian, we think heavy meals of gigantic portions, and rich desserts.
At a recent party, the hostess, holding a plate full of catered Italian-American food and talking to us about Due Spaghetti, asked us how we manage eat Italian and yet stay so thin. We didn’t know how to answer her. “This isn’t Italian food.” would not have been polite, despite being true. We were actually eating Italian-American food. The difference is substantial. While Italian cuisine certainly includes some rich dishes, authentic Italian food, especially that originating from the southern Italian regions, is among the world’s healthiest.
The much-acclaimed Mediterranean diet was inspired by the culinary traditions of Southern Italy, Spain, Greece and Morocco, where olive oil, vegetables, fruit, legumes, and whole grains serve as the foundation of people’s diet. Fish and seafood is also a staple of the Mediterranean diet. Consumption of dairy products (mostly as cheese and yogurt), and wine is moderate, while meat and meat products are rare.
In Italy meals are balanced. A carb-based first course of pasta or rice is followed by a protein-based second course of fish, eggs, or lean meat. Consumption of red meat is infrequent, portions are small, vegetables are abundant, and dessert is a simple fresh fruit. Where that diet still prevails, people boast among the highest longevity and the lowest disease rates in the world. It is a far cry from the Italian-American fare that has become known around the globe as Italian cuisine.
In the warm summer months, meals are often light and simple in Italy. The piatto unico, or single course meal, is increasingly common for lunch and sometimes for dinner. One of our favorites is a refreshing summer salad made of lattuga (romaine), fresh corn, tuna, mozzarella and tomatoes. It is light, yet filling enough to make a meal of.
(quantities are all as desired)
Hearts of Romaine
Canned whole kernel corn
Tuna, in olive oil
Chop the romaine, tomatoes, and mozzarella into bite-sized pieces, and place into a salad bowl. Drain the olive oil off of a can or more of tuna, and add it to the salad. Add sea salt, ground black pepper and a few tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil if desired. Toss, and enjoy.
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Fossil millipede found to be oldest land creature
Unlike this larger modern-day specimen from New Mexico, the fossilized millipede was only half an inch long.
LONDON (Reuters) -- Scientists revealed that a fossilized millipede found in Britain is the remains of the oldest creature to have lived on land -- and named it after the bus driver who found it.
The tiny fossil was found on a harbor foreshore near Aberdeen, eastern Scotland, about three years ago and has since been studied by experts from the National Museums of Scotland and Yale University in the United States.
National Museums curator of invertebrate paleontology Lyall Anderson said it was not only the oldest fossilized millipede found anywhere -- at about 420 million years old -- but when scientists saw it under the microscope they could see it had holes allowing it to breath air, meaning it lived on land.
Aberdeen bus driver and fossil hunter Mike Newman, 36, told Reuters Monday he found the remains while he was out searching in the area and immediately thought: "Here we go."
"I knew this was quite well preserved, the legs were very clear, and although we had been able to infer before that they could have been able to breathe air, this was the first we were able to prove had," said Newman, who has a degree in geology.
"This was breathing air 420 million years ago."
He contacted National Museums of Scotland and an expert at Yale University, Heather Wilson, for them to study the fossil, which is about a half inch long and whose air holes cannot be seen with the naked eye.
The scientists, who reported their findings in the latest edition of the American Journal of Paleontology, have named the discovery after Newman -- Pneumodesmus newmani.
"They have named it after me, which is particularly exciting. This is one of the rarest creatures on earth. I was the first person to have seen it," he said.
Curator Anderson told Reuters: "When Mike told me about this, I was very excited because I believed it was the oldest example of this particular group, but when Heather Wilson got stuck in studying it, we realized just how important it would be."
He added: "If there was a millipede living on land at that time, then there must have been something for it to eat, there must have been plant life well developed at that time."
The piece has been donated to the National Museums of Scotland.
Copyright 2004 Reuters
. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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The Hubble Space Telescope has resumed science operations approximately a month after a technical problem shut down command of the science instruments and transmission of science data to Earth.
Both the Advanced Camera for Surveys' solar blind channel — the part of the instrument unaffected by a 2007 electrical short — and Wide Field Camera 2 have been restored, returning the capabilities the telescope had before the equipment failure. The Hubble team released a new image, captured by Wide Field Camera 2 after the repair, on Oct. 30.
Engineers will also attempt to restart the Near Infrared Camera and Multi–Object Spectrometer cryocooler in early November.
On Sept. 27, 2008, a malfunction occurred in Hubble's Control Unit/Science Data Formatter (CU/SDF), which both relays commands to the science instruments and formats their data for transmission.
Hubble was designed with two CU/SDFs — one active and one unpowered backup that can be activated in case of a malfunction. Engineers have switched to the backup system.
The switch means Hubble will function normally but no longer have a backup unit within the system to guard against a future failure.
Due to the importance of the system, NASA is unwilling to leave Hubble without a backup. The CU/SDF is part of an overall "command and data handling" system that helps operate the telescope. The most likely outcome is the installation of a complete replacement command and data handling system during Servicing Mission 4. The system was designed to be replaced during a servicing mission if necessary.
NASA has a backup system on the ground that has to be checked, tested and delivered to Kennedy Space Center, a process that will delay the mission — previously scheduled for October 2008 — until early 2009.
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Of of Canada’s first buildings to be certified under the International Living Future Institute’s Living Building Challenge and designed to exceed LEED Platinum status for a significant model of sustainability, the 1,765 square meter VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitor Centre in Vancouver, British Columbia, was designed by Perkins+Will in partnership with Sharp & Diamond Landscape Architecture and Cornelia Hahn Oberlander.
Achieving net-zero energy usage and carbon neutrality by utilizing renewable, on-site resources, the design incorporates 400 solar hot water tubes, a 75 square meter rooftop solar photovoltaic array, and 54 sixty-meter-deep geothermal boreholes.
The surrounding landscape, along with the prefabricated green roof, incorporates native plants and forms ecological zones that are connected by a land ramp which links the roof to the ground plane. A 300,000 liter cistern is built into the land ramp to capture and filter rainwater that is used as greywater. All blackwater is treated on-site with a bioreactor and then used on a percolation field and garden. A biomass boiler provides additional hot water that is created from reclaimed dry wood waste. Ultimately, the systems have achieved net-zero water use for the building and site.
Built primarily of wood that stores carbon dioxide along with concrete walls, the structure is naturally ventilated, in part by an automated solar chimney with an operable glazed oculus that supports a hung, perforated aluminum heat sink that captures solar rays.
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http://www.jetsongreen.com/2013/04/visitor-centre-at-vancouver-botanical-garden-features-undulating-green-roof.html
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| 0.906716
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Ocean Acidification: A Hidden Risk of Global Warming
I love swimming in the ocean, but I also know plenty of people who wouldn’t dream of it. There are too many unseen perils: the ominous tug of a current, razor-sharp oyster shells, sting rays buried in the sand and shadowy, slimy things brushing past. Even my fishermen friends, who depend on the ocean for their livelihoods, keep a respectful distance from the waves.
The ocean is awe-inspiring. We were born of it, and it gives us life by producing much of the oxygen we breathe and the water we drink. It is mysterious and vast. No wonder we speak of emptying oceans with teaspoons to describe impossible tasks.
Yet, unfathomably, we have accomplished the impossible. We have changed the basic chemistry of the oceans — drop by drop — in such a profound way that we may be destroying a web of life that we depend upon for our very existence. Those ocean creatures should be wary of us — not the other way around.
"Scientists are concerned that we are changing the ocean's chemistry so rapidly that we are outstripping the evolutionary pace of many organisms to adapt."
The change we've introduced is called ocean acidification.
The basic science is pretty straightforward: Since the industrial revolution, humans have been pumping ever increasing amounts of carbon dioxide into the air. Some of that CO2 is absorbed by the ocean, where it dissolves to form carbonic acid.
The ocean today absorbs nearly a third of the carbon dioxide we produce, probably mitigating the impact of climate change. But the ocean has absorbed so much CO2 that overall acidity levels are rising, and at a much faster rate than previously thought.
More acidic water makes it harder — and ultimately impossible — for some creatures like oysters, corals and mussels to form shells, which are made largely from the calcium carbonate, plain old chalk, that occurs naturally in seawater. That’s why acidification is sometimes referred to as "osteoporosis of the sea."
These tiny, lentil-sized pteropods are essential to the survival of creatures like the humpback whale. (Top photo: Limacina Helicina by Victoria Fabry.)
This process affects creatures up and down the food chain — from the tiny organisms that build the planet's coral reefs and the plankton drifting with the ocean currents, all the way to the whales that feed on the plankton.
Also affected are the lentil bean-sized pteropods, delicate, balletic creatures that nourish many of the fish we then consume. In other words, the ability of all ocean life to sustain itself is being compromised.
Scientists have been surprised at how sensitive plants and animals are to even small changes in CO2 levels. Some creatures have shown an ability to adapt to more acidic waters; lobsters, for instance, harden their shells in an initial response to acidity. But for many creatures, acid is deadly: Their shells disintegrate. And many scientists are concerned that we are changing the ocean's chemistry so rapidly that we are outstripping the capacity of many organisms to adapt.
Because the science is fairly new, we still do not fully understand the long-term effect of increasingly acidic oceans. The ocean is a complex, integrated, self-regulating system; how it will change is hard to predict.
As we conduct this uncontrolled experiment on two-thirds of the planet, scientists are racing to find ways to make the ocean more resilient. Doug Rader, EDF's chief ocean scientist, says: "Along with our partners from around the world — from Cuba to the EU, and beyond — EDF scientists are scrambling to understand why some reefs are more robust than others, why some fish populations bounce back, when others languish, and exactly what mix of strategies will suffice to maximize the resilience of the world's oceans.
"One thing is already clear," he adds. "Rebuilding ecosystem complexity, including restoring populations of large predators such as sharks, is central to the long-term survival of the seas."
The Obama administration signaled its commitment to acidification research when it appointed Jane Lubchenco to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Lubchenco, a widely respected marine ecologist and former EDF Board member, has made clear, in Congressional testimony and elsewhere, the seriousness of this threat to the seas.
There is no controversy surrounding the science underlying the acidification of the ocean. There is no question about where the CO2 is coming from. There is no question about how the chemistry works. And there is only one known way to stop acidification: to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide. The more we reduce now, the less severe, and costly, the future consequences.
What can you do? Become an advocate for the oceans. Take care to minimize your carbon footprint—but keep in mind one of my favorite phrases: living sustainably is necessary, but not sufficient. It's equally important to demand comprehensive legislation that cuts carbon emissions.
And go ahead, take a swim. Bathe in those natal waters, and give thanks for the life they support. The ocean has the capacity to heal itself much faster than one teaspoon at a time. We need to give it that chance. We would be doing ourselves a big favor — giving our grandchildren a chance to inhabit a livable planet.
Editor's note, 2/12: The list of animals that will experience difficulty in forming shells has been updated.
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Toxic algae such as Alexandrium and Azadinium have an important ecological impact and have originated several times independently within the dinophytes. Their closest relatives, however, are mostly unknown at present. A new dinophyte species, Amphidoma languida sp. nov., was isolated from Bantry Bay (Ireland) during a period of elevated azaspiracid toxicity in mussels. The new species was described in detail, and its phylogenetic position was analysed, by using a combination of light and electron microscopy, chemical detection methods, and sequence comparison of concatenated ribosomal RNA sequence data. Morphological similarities, such as cingular and hypothecal plates, the number and arrangement of sulcal plates, and the characteristic apical pore complex with a small X-plate centrally invading the first apical plate, indicated a close relationship between Amphidoma and Azadinium. However, no known azaspiracid analogues were detected in A. languida by liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass-spectrometry. In a molecular phylogeny, the Amphidomataceae including Amphidoma and Azadinium were an independent lineage among other monophyletic major groups of the dinophytes such as the Suessiales, Prorocentrales, Gonyaulacales, and Peridiniales. Thus, the taxonomic affiliation of Azadinium is clarified, and our data may prove helpful in the development of specific and reliable molecular detection methods of toxic Azadinium.
Helmholtz Research Programs > PACES I (2009-2013) > TOPIC 2: Coastal Change > WP 2.2: Integrating evolutionary Ecology into Coastal and Shelf Processes
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http://epic.awi.de/24525/
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Dark matter makes up the majority of mass in our universe. However, we cannot directly measure the stuff as it doesn't interact with electromagnetic radiation (i.e. it doesn't emit or reflect any light), but we can indirectly observe its presence. In the Hubble Space Telescope image above, the distribution of mostly dark matter has been calculated and mapped. Basically, the location and density of anything with mass has been plotted in a 3D representation of the cosmos.
The scientists concluded that on planets in dense "dark-matter" regions, it may be dark matter rather than light that creates the basic elements you need for organic life without a star"
Dark matter, the team believes, could keep the surfaces of such warm for trillions of years, outliving all regular stars and may ultimately prove to be the "dark" bastion of life in our universe.
"I imagine 10 trillion years in the future, when the universe has expanded beyond recognition and all the stars in our galaxy have long since burnt out, the only planets with any heat are these here, and I could imagine that any civilization that survived over this huge stretch of time would start moving to these dark-matter-fueled planets," Hooper said in an interview with space.com.
The Daily Galaxy via astrophysical journal
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http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2013/01/dark-matter-did-it-play-a-role-in-creating-life-in-the-universe-2012-most-popular.html
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news & tips
A collection of helpful articles on teachers and teaching
Sensory Kids in the Classroom: 6 Tips for Teachers
by Monica Fuglei
One child gnaws holes into the collar of his t-shirt while another covers her ears anytime the bell rings. Maybe you have these students yourself. These actions can be symptoms of Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) and can be a tricky to manage in the classroom. Because some children with SPD can be sensory craving, their behavior can be disruptive and can be mistaken for Attention Deficit Disorder.
Other hypersensitive children tend to withdraw, even hiding under their desks at times — making them difficult to teach as well. The Sensory Therapies and Research Center notes that between five and 16 percent of the population exhibits sensory symptoms. As such, it’s likely that the average classroom will contain one or more sensory kids. While many districts have support to help a teacher best teach SPD children, some in-classroom solutions can help.
Six ways to help sensory students in your classroom
Sensory Processing Disorder can be difficult to explain or diagnose. Simply put, the STAR Center refers to SPD as a neurological traffic jam that prevents the brain from understanding and responding to various sensations. SPD manifests in a variety of symptoms. Students with diagnosed SPD should follow a sensory diet treatment plan as outlined by their occupational therapist, but any child who is sensory seeking or avoiding can benefit from some of these suggestions.
1. Develop a crash/quiet corner
Sensory-seeking students should have a place to get out some energy, and a corner with a few pillows can be just the place. This allows them a place to seek more physical sensory input by falling or crashing on the pillows. For further sensory input, you could even provide a heavy blanket or weighted lap pad. This would allow a sensory-seeking student the physical sensation they crave. On the other hand, an overstimulated student can escape to the same quiet corner. Consider arming this corner with sunglasses or hearing protection for the sensory-avoiding student.
2. Consider heavy work
Sometimes sensory seeking students need a bit of “heavy work” to give them sensory input. It may be as simple as moving a desk or a stack of books — but it gives the sensory seeking body some big-muscle exercise and can result in a well-balanced sensory student. Consider teaming up with another teacher and having your sensory-craving student move books from one classroom to another, or have a sensory-seeking student help you put up chairs at the end of the day. Alternatively, remember that a sensory-avoiding student might need a break from large body movement.
A hypersensitive child might be overwhelmed at the sights, sounds, and even smells of the classroom. Don’t be afraid to give them space and time. If they are consistently overwhelmed by the closeness of their fellow students, giving them a special spot in the classroom that maximizes their personal space can help. Consider the hypersensitive child’s visual environment as well; while most children love a brightly-colored classroom, a particularly sensitive child might need a view that is a bit more barren.
Use recess to your best advantage. Encourage hypo-sensitive children to run and swing, making large-muscle movements that will help them balance their sensory needs for a calm body in the classroom. At the same time, allow hypersensitive children to withdraw from the noise and activity of their classmates and stay inside to read or relax.
Sensory seekers often have roaming hands. Keep those hands full or busy — arm sensory seekers with stress balls or provide a small strip of rough aplix attached to the bottom of their desk. Some sensory seekers enjoy wearing rubber-band bracelets or have special pencil holders that give them the input they crave.
6. Take a seat
Some solutions for sensory seekers can be implemented right where they sit. A large rubber band or exercise band around the legs of a desk can provide a sensory-seeker an opportunity to push, bounce, or pull at the band and decrease other movements that might disrupt the classroom. Some students respond well to the sensory input of bumpy seat cushions. Some teachers have even replaced all of the seats in their classroom with exercise balls, which allows all children to work out their wiggles during the day.
Whether seeking or avoiding, children learn best when their sensory systems are well-balanced. A few well-placed tricks can help with classroom management and also allow opportunities for enjoyment of education in students who might not otherwise learn well. These solutions can work not only for diagnosed sensory students, but for any student who might benefit from them.
Resources for information on Sensory Processing Disorder
Monica Fuglei is a graduate of the University of Nebraska in Omaha and a current adjunct faculty member of Arapahoe Community College in Colorado, where she teaches composition and creative writing.
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Vitamin C and Pregnancy
How much vitamin C in pregnancy is enough?
Like many other vitamins and minerals, the right amount of vitamin C is vital for a healthy pregnancy. Also known as ascorbic acid, this vitamin goes hand-in-hand with a strong immune system, helping your body to fight off infections and repair wounds. In pregnancy, vitamin C does even more for your health, and a deficiency can spell trouble for both you and your baby. Learn why vitamin C in pregnancy is so important, how much to take in and how to adjust your diet or lifestyle to ensure you're getting the right amount.
Vitamin C, Pregnancy and your Baby's Development
As your baby grows and your body adapts to pregnancy, you'll need to ensure your body can repair itself and protect the fetus against potentially damaging illness. Vitamin C is a powerful weapon when it comes to tissue repair, bone growth and cell protection: it acts like an antioxidant and will stimulate collagen production. It will also help boost your immunity, which is particularly important during pregnancy, when your immune system is naturally suppressed.
In addition to increasing immunity and healing ability, Vitamin C will help your body absorb iron, which will reduce your risk of contracting anemia during pregnancy. For some women, correcting a slight iron deficiency could be as simple as combining foods rich in vitamin C with iron-rich foods at each meal.
On the other hand, there is a connection between vitamin C and pregnancy problems. Too much of the vitamin can increase your risk of preterm labor and birth, scurvy in the baby after birth and stomach upset for you. So, how much vitamin C in pregnancy is too much? Well, experts recommend that expectant mothers take at least 85mg of vitamin C and no more than 2000mg every day.
Taking Vitamin C Supplements
Due to the fine balance between its benefits and side effects, Vitamin C in pregnancy should be monitored fairly closely. The best sources of vitamin C are fresh produce, mostly citrus fruits and dark green leafy veggies. Berries, bell peppers, cantaloupe, tomatoes and sweet potato are other good sources of ascorbic acid, so use a colorful selection of fresh ingredients in your cooking to keep meals interesting and nutritious. Luckily, it's easy to get your daily requirements of vitamin C through food, so most pregnant women will not need a separate supplement.
If you're used to taking vitamin C pills to fight off colds and flu, you may want to rethink your strategy. While a little more vitamin C in the form of a pill or supplement should be alright, it probably won't make a huge difference to your immunity, and if you're unwittingly getting vitamin C through fortified foods throughout the day plus your prenatal vitamin, you could exceed the recommended daily amount without realizing it. If you are worried about your vitamin C levels, start by modifying your diet instead of introducing synthetic supplements.
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An exhibition at the Library of Virginia | December 6, 2010 — October 29, 2011
What were Virginians thinking and discussing as the first Southern states withdrew from the United States following the election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860? Why was Virginia’s decision critical to America’s fate in 1861 and key to the ultimate course and outcome of the sectional crisis?
Virginia was central to American identity for its role in the founding of the United States and its political principles. Both the Confederacy and the Union wanted to claim Virginia’s historical legacy. Union or Secession explores what Virginians thought and debated as the crisis unfolded. Explore the choices Virginians faced as they decided their fate and the lasting consequences of their decisions for Virginia and the nation.
An exhibition at the Virginia State Capitol Visitor Center | December 13, 2010 — December 15, 2011 | Presented by the Library of Virginia
In the aftermath of the election of Abraham Lincoln as U.S. president in November and the beginning of the secession crisis in December of 1860, Virginia had a fateful choice to make: Would it remain in, or secede from, the United States of America? In January 1861 the Virginia General Assembly called for a state convention to act for Virginia during the crisis. Convening in February 1861, the 152 men elected to the Virginia Convention faced the terrible task of deciding the fate of Virginia, and perhaps the nation.
The Struggle to Decide examines the actions taken by convention delegates and the governor that had a profound effect on Richmond and the Virginia State Capitol.
Virginia State Capitol Visitor Center
1000 Bank Street | Richmond, Virginia 23219
804.698.1788 | www.virginiacapitol.gov
Union or Secession: Virginians Decide presents private letters, public debates, and other records that allow Virginians who experienced the crisis between the autumn of 1860 and the summer of 1861 to explain their thoughts, fears, and decisions in their own words.
See a schedule of related public programs and events, including dates when the ceremonial Ordinance of Secession signed by members of the convention will be on display at the Library of Virginia.
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An example of surreptitious behavior is sneaking cookies before dinner after you were told not to snack between meals.
- done, gotten, made, etc. in a secret, stealthy way; clandestine
- acting in a secret, stealthy way
Origin of surreptitiousMiddle English surrepticious ; from Classical Latin surrepticius ; from surreptus, past participle of surripere, to take away secretly ; from sub- (see sub-) + rapere, to seize (see rape)
Origin of surreptitiousMiddle English, from Latin surrept&imacron;cius, from surreptus, past participle of surripere, to take away secretly : sub-, secretly; see sub– + rapere, to seize; see rep- in Indo-European roots.
(comparative more surreptitious, superlative most surreptitious)
From Latin surrepticius (“stolen, furtive, clandestine"), from surreptus, past participle of surripere ("seize secretly, steal, pilfer"), from sub- ("under") + rapere ("to snatch").
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Biodegradable Plastics To Go Mainstream Soon? Look To Cars For The Answer
Every Earth Day, we're reminded that though common petroleum-based plastics are durable and cheap, many aren't biodegradable or recycled. This accounts for the 72 million tons of containers and packaging in the U.S. municipal solid waste stream (as of 2009) that will be around for a long time. The solution to the plastics problem is straightforward and fairly well known: we need to identify degradable bioplastics as replacements and adopt their use as soon as possible. Bioplastics are materials derived from plant sources and usually biodegrade on relatively short times scales.
Though a handful of companies are producing bioplastics that are seeing commercial use, such as in grocery bags, the materials just haven't gone mainstream...yet.
In the first week of November, the 7th Annual European Bioplastics Conference aptly titled "Bioplastics: From Niche To Mainstream" was held in Berlin to deal with this very issue by assessing trends, innovations, and applications for bioplastics. Additionally, the conference announced the winners of the 2012 Global Bioplastics Award, the Takata Corp and German-based Institute of Bioplastics and Biocomposites. Curiously, both companies were honored for their work in an industry seen as the golden path to mass adoption: the automotive industry. Takata has been working on using bioplastics in manufacturing steering wheels and airbags while the German Institute has experimented with composite materials of epoxy resin and flax fibers in car body parts, like tailgates.
A video highlighting the conference was recently made available:
Other companies are also making some significant moves to get bioplastics into cars.
Mitsubishi Chemical and French auto parts manufacturer Faurecia recently announced a partnership to develop bio-based plastics for use in car interiors. The plan includes a joint venture with a polybutylene succinate (PBS) production facility opening in Thailand with a goal to produce a range of automobile interior components beginning in 2015. Ultimately, the process will be refined to produce bioplastics completely derived from natural resources, or as close to complete as possible.
Even though the world is struggling through economic recovery, amazingly close to 60 million passenger vehicles were manufactured globally each year for the past three years, with 2012 breaking a record for the most produced, according to the International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers. So if automobile manufacturers can be convinced that bioplastic car parts are better -- whether because they are more durable, more degradable, cheaper, and/or highly desired by a more environmental-conscious public -- then adoption could be swift and broadly implemented.
In other words, bioplastics are poised to go mainstream just when we need them.
Take the situation that the love-hate relationship with plastics has created in the U.S. over the last 50 years. Americans do a poor job at recycling, with only about 6 percent of manufactured plastics being recycled in 2005. Furthermore, manufacturing of regular plastics siphons off 10 percent of U.S. petroleum available for consumption, which is like attaching a ball-and-chain to a nation seeking to overcome its foreign oil dependency and energy problems. And there's the growing awareness of how these plastics break down into small pieces and enter the food chain, make animals sick, and ultimately end up in some form or the other as part of our meals.
The problem goes global when we realize that many of the petroleum-based plastics float, so when trash enters river systems, it will find its way to the oceans where it has the potential to aggregate into structures like the fabled Great Pacific Garbage Patch. These floating trash heaps are likely not as large as reported, but certainly will only grow in size in the coming years.
Bioplastics have the potential to ease the pressure on landfills and surrounding ecosystems, degrade in a reasonable time frame, and reduce the siphoning of petroleum for plastics manufacturing. It appears that the best hope for turning the tide rests on getting car parts made our of bio-based materials.
But significant questions remain about whether current bioplastics are able to live up to the hype of being truly biodegradable. A few years ago, Mother Earth News commissioned a lab to test out a number of bioplastic bags that were commercially available to assess their degradation. The results showed that under typical compost conditions at 77 degrees, most of the materials degraded to a degree but none broke down completely even after 25 weeks.
Clearly, work needs to be done to ensure that "biodegradable" isn't just marketing hype, but these challenges can be overcome using the lessons learned from a half century of plastics manufacturing.
Considering the other innovations happening in and surrounding the automobile industry, it seems like the perfect time for bioplastics to gain widespread entry. For example, cars are continuously getting smarter with Bluetooth use, touch screens built-in, and the ability to plug in smartphones. Also, electric and alternative energy vehicles are gaining as technology improves and more alternative fueling stations are opening (not to mention how the premium electric Tesla Model S won "Car of the Year" by Automotive Magazine). Then there's Google's continuing efforts at creating self-driving vehicles that have already received the green light to operate in Nevada and California. Finally, a recent report about The Netherlands upgrading their road infrastructure to include glow-in-the-dark paints and battery charging electric-only lanes by 2015 means that their is still plenty of room for innovation in the transportation sector.
Taken altogether, automobiles are experiencing a new era of innovation with changes coming quicker than ever. Those in the bioplastics industry are wise to capitalize on this surge to get bio-based materials vaulted into mainstream manufacturing.
Hopefully in a few years from now, we'll be able to look back and see that this was the moment that turned the tide for bioplastics and started the ball rolling to reducing the massive amount of waste plastics hanging around until someone figures out how to get rid of them.
Latest posts by David J. Hill (see all)
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- Solar Energy Is Now as Cheap as Fossil Fuels - June 9, 2016
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U.S. Department of State Background Note
Sponsored LinksTravel reviews & great deals at TripAdvisor:
Unlike other people of the Arabian Peninsula who have historically been nomads or semi-nomads, Yemenis are almost entirely sedentary and live in small villages and towns scattered throughout the highlands and coastal regions.
Yemenis are divided into two principal Islamic religious groups: the Shia Zaidi sect, found in the north and northwest, and the Shafa'i school of Sunni Muslims, found in the south and southeast. Yemenis are mainly of Semitic origin, although African strains are present among inhabitants of the coastal region. Arabic is the official language, although English is increasingly understood in major cities. In the Mahra area (the extreme east), several non-Arabic languages are spoken. When the former states of north and south Yemen were established, most resident minority groups departed.
Ottoman control was largely confined to cities with the Imam's suzerainty over tribal areas formally recognized. Turkish forces withdrew in 1918, and Imam Yahya strengthened his control over north Yemen. Yemen became a member of the Arab league in 1945 and the United Nations in 1947.
Imam Yahya died during an unsuccessful coup attempt in 1948 and was succeeded by his son Ahmad, who ruled until his death in September 1962. Imam Ahmad's reign was marked by growing repression, renewed friction with the United Kingdom over the British presence in the south, and growing pressures to support the Arab nationalist objectives of Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser.
Shortly after assuming power in 1962, Ahmad's son, Badr, was deposed by revolutionary forces, which took control of Sanaa and created the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR). Egypt assisted the YAR with troops and supplies to combat forces loyal to the Imamate. Saudi Arabia and Jordan supported Badr's royalist forces to oppose the newly formed republic. Conflict continued periodically until 1967 when Egyptian troops were withdrawn. By 1968, following a final royalist siege of Sanaa, most of the opposing leaders reconciled; Saudi Arabia recognized the Republic in 1970.
Former South Yemen
In 1965, two rival nationalist groups--the Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (FLOSY) and the National Liberation Front (NLF)--turned to terrorism in their struggle to control the country. In 1967, in the face of uncontrollable violence, British troops began withdrawing, federation rule collapsed, and NLF elements took control after eliminating their FLOSY rivals. South Arabia, including Aden, was declared independent on November 30, 1967, and was renamed the People's Republic of South Yemen. In June 1969, a radical wing of the Marxist NLF gained power and changed the country's name on December 1, 1970, to the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY). In the PDRY, all political parties were amalgamated into the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP), which became the only legal party. The PDRY established close ties with the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and radical Palestinians.
Republic of Yemen
In May 1988, the YAR and PDRY governments came to an understanding that considerably reduced tensions including agreement to renew discussions concerning unification, to establish a joint oil exploration area along their undefined border, to demilitarize the border, and to allow Yemenis unrestricted border passage on the basis of only a national identification card.
In November 1989, the leaders of the YAR (Ali Abdullah Saleh) and the PDRY (Ali Salim Al-Bidh) agreed on a draft unity constitution originally drawn up in 1981. The Republic of Yemen (ROY) was declared on May 22, 1990. Ali Abdullah Saleh became President, and Ali Salim Al-Bidh became Vice President.
A 30-month transitional period for completing the unification of the two political and economic systems was set. A presidential council was jointly elected by the 26-member YAR advisory council and the 17-member PDRY presidium. The presidential council appointed a Prime Minister, who formed a Cabinet. There was also a 301-seat provisional unified Parliament, consisting of 159 members from the north, 111 members from the south, and 31 independent members appointed by the chairman of the council.
A unity constitution was agreed upon in May 1990 and ratified by the populace in May 1991. It affirmed Yemen's commitment to free elections, a multiparty political system, the right to own private property, equality under the law, and respect of basic human rights. Parliamentary elections were held on April 27, 1993. International groups assisted in the organization of the elections and observed actual balloting. The resulting Parliament included 143 GPC, 69 YSP, 63 Islah (Yemeni Grouping for Reform, a party composed of various tribal and religious groups). The head of Islah, Paramount Hashid Sheik Abdullah Bin Hussein Al-Ahmar, was elected speaker of Parliament, and continues in that capacity.
Islah was invited into the ruling coalition, and the presidential council was altered to include one Islah member. Conflicts within the coalition resulted in the self-imposed exile of Vice President Ali Salim Al-Bidh to Aden beginning in August 1993 and a deterioration in the general security situation as political rivals settled scores and tribal elements took advantage of the unsettled situation.
Haydar Abu Bakr Al-Attas (former southern Prime Minister) continued to serve as the ROY Prime Minister, but his government was ineffective due to political infighting. Continuous negotiations between northern and southern leaders resulted in the signing of the document of pledge and accord in Amman, Jordan on February 20, 1994. Despite this, clashes intensified until civil war broke out in early May 1994.
Almost all of the actual fighting in the 1994 civil war occurred in the southern part of the country despite air and missile attacks against cities and major installations in the north. Southerners sought support from neighboring states and received billions of dollars of equipment and financial assistance. The United States strongly supported Yemeni unity, but repeatedly called for a cease-fire and a return to the negotiating table. Various attempts, including by a UN special envoy, were unsuccessful in bringing about a cease-fire.
Southern leaders declared secession and the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Yemen (DRY) on May 21, 1994, but the DRY was not recognized by the international community. Ali Nasir Muhammad supporters greatly assisted military operations against the secessionists and Aden was captured on July 7, 1994. Other resistance quickly collapsed and thousands of southern leaders and military went into exile.
Early during the fighting, President Ali Abdullah Saleh announced a general amnesty, which applied to everyone except a list of 16 persons. Most southerners returned to Yemen after a short exile.
An armed opposition was announced from Saudi Arabia, but no significant incidents within Yemen materialized. The government prepared legal cases against four southern leaders--Ali Salim Al- Bidh, Haydar Abu Bakr Al-Attas, Abd Al-Rahman Ali Al-Jifri, and Salih Munassar Al-Siyali--for misappropriation of official funds. Abd Al-Rahman Ali Al-Rahman was allowed to return to Yemen in 2006. Others on the list of 16 were told informally they could return to take advantage of the amnesty, but most remained outside Yemen. Although many of Ali Nasir Muhammad's followers were appointed to senior governmental positions (including Vice President, Chief of Staff, and Governor of Aden), Ali Nasir Muhammad himself remained abroad in Syria.
In the aftermath of the civil war, YSP leaders within Yemen reorganized the party and elected a new politburo in July 1994. However, the party remained disheartened and without its former influence.
In 1994, amendments to the unity constitution eliminated the presidential council. President Ali Abdullah Saleh was elected by Parliament on October 1, 1994 to a 5-year term. In April 1997, Yemen held its second multiparty parliamentary elections. The country held its first direct presidential elections in September 1999, electing President Ali Abdullah Saleh to a 5-year term in what were generally considered free and fair elections.
Constitutional amendments adopted in the summer of 2000 extended the presidential term by 2 years, creating a seven-year presidential term. The constitution provides that henceforth the President will be elected by popular vote from at least two candidates selected by the legislature. The amendments also extended the parliamentary term of office to a 6-year term, with the next elections occurring in 2009. On February 20, 2001, a new constitutional amendment created a bicameral legislature consisting of a Shura Council (111 seats; members appointed by the president) and a House of Representatives (301 seats; members elected by popular vote). In April 2003, the third multiparty parliamentary elections were held with improvements in voter registration for both men and women and in a generally free and fair atmosphere. Two women were elected. In September 2006, citizens re-elected President Saleh to a second term in a generally open and competitive election, although there were multiple problems with the voting process and use of state resources on behalf of the ruling party.
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL CONDITIONS
Yemen is a republic with a bicameral legislature. Under the constitution, an elected president, an elected 301-seat House of Representatives, and an appointed 111-member Shura Council share power. The president is head of state, and the prime minister is head of government. The constitution provides that the president be elected by popular vote from at least two candidates endorsed by Parliament; the prime minister is appointed by the president. The presidential term of office is 7 years, and the parliamentary term of elected office is 6 years. Suffrage is universal over 18.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh was re-elected to a second term in 2006; the next presidential elections are scheduled for 2013. In the April 2003 parliamentary elections, the General People's Congress (GPC) maintained an absolute majority. International observers judged elections to be generally free and fair, and there was a marked decrease from previous years in election-related violence; however, there were some problems with underage voting, confiscation of ballot boxes, voter intimidation, and election-related violence. In the September 2006 local council elections, the GPC won a majority of seats on local and provincial councils. International observers judged the elections to be generally open and competitive, with another marked decrease in election-related violence.
The constitution calls for an independent judiciary. The former northern and southern legal codes have been unified. The legal system includes separate commercial courts and a Supreme Court based in Sanaa.
Principal Government Officials
The Republic of Yemen maintains an Embassy in the United States at 2319 Wyoming Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20008 (tel: 202-965-4760).
The geography and ruling Imams of north Yemen kept the country isolated from foreign influence before 1962. The country's relations with Saudi Arabia were defined by the Taif Agreement of 1934, which delineated the northernmost part of the border between the two kingdoms and set the framework for commercial and other intercourse. The Taif Agreement has been renewed periodically in 20-year increments, and its validity was reaffirmed in 1995. Relations with the British colonial authorities in Aden and the south were usually tense.
The Soviet and Chinese Aid Missions established in 1958 and 1959 were the first important non-Muslim presence in north Yemen. Following the September 1962 revolution, the Yemen Arab Republic became closely allied with and heavily dependent upon Egypt. Saudi Arabia aided the royalists in their attempt to defeat the Republicans and did not recognize the Yemen Arab Republic until 1970. Subsequently, Saudi Arabia provided Yemen substantial budgetary and project support. At the same time, Saudi Arabia maintained direct contact with Yemeni tribes, which sometimes strained its official relations with the Yemeni Government. Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis found employment in Saudi Arabia during the late 1970s and 1980s.
In February 1989, north Yemen joined Iraq, Jordan, and Egypt informing the Arab Cooperation Council (ACC), an organization created partly in response to the founding of the Gulf Cooperation Council, and intended to foster closer economic cooperation and integration among its members. After unification, the Republic of Yemen was accepted as a member of the ACC in place of its YAR predecessor. In the wake of the Gulf crisis, the ACC has remained inactive. Yemen is not a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
British authorities left southern Yemen in November 1967 in the wake of an intense terrorist campaign. The people's democratic Republic of Yemen, the successor to British colonial rule, had diplomatic relations with many nations, but its major links were with the Soviet Union and other Marxist countries. Relations between it and the conservative Arab states of the Arabian Peninsula were strained. There were military clashes with Saudi Arabia in 1969 and 1973, and the PDRY provided active support for the Dhofar rebellion against the Sultanate of Oman. The PDRY was the only Arab state to vote against admitting new Arab states from the Gulf area to the United Nations and the Arab League. The PDRY provided sanctuary and material support to various international terrorist groups.
Yemen is a member of the United Nations, the Arab League, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Yemen participates in the nonaligned movement. The Republic of Yemen accepted responsibility for all treaties and debts of its predecessors, the YAR and the PDRY. Yemen has acceded to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. The Gulf crisis dramatically affected Yemen's foreign relations. As a member of the UN Security Council (UNSC) in 1990-1991, Yemen abstained on a number of UNSC resolutions concerning Iraq and Kuwait, and voted against the "use of force resolution." Western and Gulf Arab states reacted by curtailing or canceling aid programs and diplomatic contacts. At least 850,000 Yemenis returned from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.
Subsequent to the liberation of Kuwait, Yemen continued to maintain high-level contacts with Iraq. This hampered its efforts to rejoin the Arab mainstream and to mend fences with its immediate neighbors. In 1993, Yemen launched an unsuccessful diplomatic offensive to restore relations with its Gulf neighbors. Some of its aggrieved neighbors actively aided the south during the 1994 civil war. Since the end of that conflict, tangible progress has been made on the diplomatic front in restoring normal relations with Yemen's neighbors. The Omani-Yemeni border has been officially demarcated. In the summer of 2000, Yemen and Saudi Arabia signed an International Border Treaty settling a 50-year-old dispute over the location of the border between the two countries. Yemen also settled its dispute with Eritrea over the Hanish Islands in 1998.
On December 7, 1967, the United States recognized the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen and elevated its Consulate General in Aden to embassy status. However, relations were strained. The PDRY was placed on the list of nations that support terrorism. On October 24, 1969, south Yemen formally broke diplomatic relations with the United States. The United States and the PDRY reestablished diplomatic relations on April 30, 1990, only 3 weeks before the announcement of unification. However, the embassy in Aden, which closed in 1969, was never reopened, and the PDRY as a political entity no longer exists.
During a 1979 border conflict between the Yemen Arab Republic and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, the United States cooperated with Saudi Arabia to greatly expand the security assistance program to the YAR by providing F-5 aircraft, tanks, vehicles and training. George Bush, while Vice President, visited in April 1986, and President Ali Abdullah Saleh visited the United States in January 1990. The United States had a $42 million USAID program in 1990. From 1973 to 1990, the United States provided the YAR with assistance in the agriculture, education, and health and water sectors. Many Yemenis were sent on U.S. Government scholarships to study in the region and in the United States. There was a Peace Corps program with about 50 volunteers. The U.S. Information Service operated an English-language institute in Sanaa.
In 1990, as a result of Yemen's actions in the Security Council following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the United States drastically reduced its presence in Yemen including canceling all military cooperation, non-humanitarian assistance, and the Peace Corps program. USAID levels dropped in FY 1991 to $2.9 million, but food assistance through the PL 480 and PL 416 (B) programs continued through 2006. In 2006, the U.S. Department of Agriculture provided 30,000 metric tons of soybean meal that were sold for approximately $7.5 million to finance programs in support of Yemen’s agricultural sector.
The United States was actively involved in and strongly supportive of parliamentary elections in 1993 as well as the 2006 presidential and local council elections, and continues working to strengthen Yemen's democratic institutions. The USAID program, focused in the health field, had slowly increased to $8.5 million in FY 1995, but ended in FY 2000. It was reinvigorated in 2003 and a USAID office has re-opened in Sanaa. Yemen has also received significant funding from the Middle East Partnership Initiative. Funds went, in large part, to support literacy projects, election monitoring, training for civil society, and the improvement of electoral procedures.
Defense relations between Yemen and the United States are improving rapidly, with the resumption of International Military Education and Training assistance and the transfer of military equipment and spare parts. Yemen received $1.9 million in Foreign Military Financing in FY 2003. U.S. Foreign Military Financing for FY 2006 reached $8.42 million, reflecting the improvement in U.S.-Yemeni security cooperation.
Currently, Yemen is an important partner in the global war on terrorism, providing assistance in the military, diplomatic, and financial arenas. President Ali Abdullah Saleh visited Washington, DC, in November 2001. Since that time, Yemen has stepped up its counter-terrorism cooperation efforts with the United States, achieving significant results and improving overall security in Yemen. President Saleh returned to Washington in June 2004 when he was invited to attend the G-8 Sea Island Summit. The Summit was an excellent forum for Yemen to share its democratic reform experiences, and it has agreed to participate in future activities detailed in the Sea Island charter. In November 2005, President Saleh again visited high-level officials in Washington, including President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Principal U.S. Officials
The address of the U.S. Embassy in Yemen is P.O. Box 22347, Sanaa, Republic of Yemen.
TRAVEL AND BUSINESS INFORMATION
For the latest security information, Americans living and traveling abroad should regularly monitor the Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs Internet web site at http://www.travel.state.gov, where the current Worldwide Caution, Public Announcements, and Travel Warnings can be found. Consular Affairs Publications, which contain information on obtaining passports and planning a safe trip abroad, are also available at http://www.travel.state.gov. For additional information on international travel, see http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/Travel/International.shtml.
The Department of State encourages all U.S citizens traveling or residing abroad to register via the State Department's travel registration website or at the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate abroad. Registration will make your presence and whereabouts known in case it is necessary to contact you in an emergency and will enable you to receive up-to-date information on security conditions.
Emergency information concerning Americans traveling abroad may be obtained by calling 1-888-407-4747 toll free in the U.S. and Canada or the regular toll line 1-202-501-4444 for callers outside the U.S. and Canada.
The National Passport Information Center (NPIC) is the U.S. Department of State's single, centralized public contact center for U.S. passport information. Telephone: 1-877-4USA-PPT (1-877-487-2778). Customer service representatives and operators for TDD/TTY are available Monday-Friday, 7:00 a.m. to 12:00 midnight, Eastern Time, excluding federal holidays.
Travelers can check the latest health information with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. A hotline at 877-FYI-TRIP (877-394-8747) and a web site at http://www.cdc.gov/travel/index.htm give the most recent health advisories, immunization recommendations or requirements, and advice on food and drinking water safety for regions and countries. A booklet entitled "Health Information for International Travel" (HHS publication number CDC-95-8280) is available from the U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402, tel. (202) 512-1800.
Further Electronic Information
Export.gov provides a portal to all export-related assistance and market information offered by the federal government and provides trade leads, free export counseling, help with the export process, and more.STAT-USA/Internet, a service of the U.S. Department of Commerce, provides authoritative economic, business, and international trade information from the Federal government. The site includes current and historical trade-related releases, international market research, trade opportunities, and country analysis and provides access to the National Trade Data Bank.
Revised: Feb. 2007
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For those trying to live a greener life, one of the biggest challenges in the kitchen is also one of its most necessary elements- the refrigerator. For most people, the refrigerator is probably the most power-hungry appliance in the house, so looking for ways to reduce that consumption is essential...
If you are in the market for a new fridge, top-freezer models are the most energy-efficient and repair-free, followed by bottom-freezer models. Though many people tout the convenience of side-by-side refrigerator/freezers, they are more likely to need repair and can use roughly 7 to 13 percent more energy than top-freezer models. Keep in mind as well that automatic icemakers increase energy use by 14 to 20 percent.
The Sun Frost RF-12 refrigerator pictured above was The National Georgraphic Green Guide's choice for greenest product: with an energy star rating of 51% and an annual operating cost of just $17.78, it is well worth the $2,279 asking price.
If a new fridge isn't in the cards, here are some usage tips from The Green Guide to help make your existing fridge a littlle more energy efficient:
- Don't keep your fridge too cold. Refrigerators should be kept between 37 and 40 degrees and freezers at 5 degrees. Colder temperatures waste energy. To test the temperature, leave an appliance thermometer in a glass of water in the middle shelf for 24 hours. In the freezer, place a thermometer among packs of frozen food.
- Clean the coils annually.
- Cover food and drink to avoid evaporation in the fridge, which can force the compressor to work harder.
- Keep your freezer filled. Frozen blocks of food keep freezer temperatures more stable.
- Don't clutter the fridge top; it can hamper the compressor's proper air circulation.
- Don't put your refrigerator in direct sunlight or next to an oven or dishwasher.
- Check the door seals. They should be able to hold a piece of paper in place.
- Defrost the freezer regularly and avoid frost build-ups of more than a quarter-inch.
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This is a ring-necked dove, being held.
The dove's habitat is a dry open nest. They are also raised in zoos and by breeding organizations. The dove's classroom habitat is in a silver cage with a bar, food, water dish, and a box to sleep in. The dove's geographic range started in Asia and has spread to Africa and Europe and then on to the New World. The food in the classroom is birdseed and water, the food in the wild includes worms, moths, crickets, earthworms, chopped vegetables and fruits, and birdseed. The predators of the dove are snakes and other bigger birds.
The dove lays up to three eggs. The eggs take three weeks to hatch. The dove can live up to twenty years old. The dove cares for its young by staying with the young until the doves are old enough to fly by themselves. Then the mother dove will leave the baby doves.
The dove I did my report on has a ring around its neck, it eats with its eyes closed. When you pet the dove's head the dove closes its eyes. When the dove coos, its head moves up and down. At Christmas time some people use two turtle doves to represent their love for each other.
The doves are also related to the pigeons.
This is the dove sitting on a swing.
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What is the charge of an up quark and the charge of a down quark? How many quarks make up a proton and a neutron?
Protons and neutrons are each composed of three quarks. Protons are made up of two 'up' quarks and one 'down' quark while neutrons are made up of two 'down' quarks and one 'up' quark.
Quarks carry fractional electrical charges. An 'up' quark has a charge of +2/3 and a 'down' quark has a charge of -1/3. Is this consistent with what we know about protons and neutrons? Remember that protons carry an electrical charge of +1 while neutrons carry no electrical charge. We said earlier that a proton has two 'up' quarks and one 'down' quark, so it has a total charge of (+2/3) + (+2/3) + (-1/3) = +1. We also said that a neutron has two 'down' quarks and one 'up' quark, so it has a total charge of (-1/3) + (-1/3) + (+ 2/3) = 0. Happily, both the proton and the neutron 'end up' with the charge they should have.
Steve Gagnon, Science Education Specialist (Other answers by Steve Gagnon)
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Bangalore: It was last seen in north India a full 10 years ago, at Ranthambore in Rajasthan.
Last month, it was sighted at Jaldapara National Park in north Bengal.
“It” is the Red Whistling Dog of the Deccan, popularized by Rudyard Kipling in one of his Jungle Book stories, as the ferocious red dog, packs of which cut through (and down) anything in their way.
At Nagarhole in Karnataka, this writer once ran into a pack of them, with their kill. Even tigers steer clear of the dogs—Kipling was right about their fierceness—which are shy of men.
Their reputation, though, had meant that the red, rust-coloured dhole (Cuon alpinus), which has a bushy black tail and stands around 50cm tall, has always been persecuted by men. Dholes don’t bark, but make a whistling sound.
“The term wild dog is a misnomer as dholes are genetically distinct from dogs; also they do not fit into any of the subfamilies like foxes or wolves and are classified in a genus of its own—Cuon,” says Bhaskar Acharya, conservation biologist with the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), and an expert on the species.
Dholes are one of the most remarkable, but least studied carnivores in the world with very few specific long-term scientific studies conducted on this species. The long history of its persecution—being trapped, shot and poisoned by humans—is well documented in India. “Systematic killings of dholes were promoted citing them as a nuisance to human sport (as they preyed on popular game such as deer). Prior to the 1970s, dholes were eliminated as vermin in India and bounties were paid for carcasses until 1972 when the Wildlife Protection Act was introduced,” adds Acharya.
In a paper presented in November 2013 at Yale University, titled Preserved Tiger, Protected Pangolin, and Disposable Dhole: The Animal Aspects of Wilderness in Princely India, historian Julie Huges discloses more such prejudices.
According to her research, a record dated 1893 in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society mentioned dhole as “red demons” and described them as producing “a kind of fiendish hysterical yapping”.
“In Dungarpur State (now in Rajasthan), during Maharawal Lakshman Singh’s reign (1918-1989), even though the dhole was not common, Lakshman Singh considered it unwelcome and offered a reward for its destruction. There was no doubt that wild dogs are excessively destructive to game and cannot even claim utility as scavengers unlike hyenas,” she wrote.
In peninsular India, sportsman and naturalist E.G. Phythian Adams (popularly known as Python Adams), representing the Nilgiri Game Association (NGA), called the dhole a “perfect swine” in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society of 1949. “Except for his handsome appearance, the wild dog has not a single redeeming feature, and no effort, fair or foul, should be spared to destroy these pests of the jungle,” wrote Adams.
“A virtual war was declared on this animal,” wrote naturalist E.R.C. Davidar in his book, Whispers from the Wild.
An entry in one of NGA’s annual reports read: “If wild dogs are to be kept under control, it is very necessary that members should make greater efforts to destroy them and their pups.” To encourage this thought, the bounty was raised to Rs.25 from Rs.10, an attractive sum in those days, according to Davidar.
Much of the fear of dholes comes from the way they kill their prey. They do not possess the strength of big cats, but dholes kill prey larger than themselves by biting off chunks of meat and tearing the animal apart. They hunt during the day, which means that several of their hunts have been witnessed by people who tagged the beasts as bloody and savage killers.
For long, the scientific community had to depend on anecdotal tales on dholes mainly from British officers in colonial India and many myths surrounded the species until A.J.T. Johnsingh’s path-breaking study of the species in Bandipur Tiger Reserve in Karnataka between 1976 and 1978.
The study disclosed that dholes are not bloodthirsty as portrayed; instead they are extremely social and cooperative, living in organized packs. When a pack is not hunting, the dholes are sleeping or at play, bonding socially, sharpening their hunting skills and establishing rank.
Among the many myths that were woven around the dhole was one that said it attacked people running away from it. In contrast, Johnsingh observed a pack of nine dholes emerging from the thicket in his direction in Bandipur. When the pack was 50m away, he decided to see their reaction and ran in full view towards a climbable tree. The dholes, instead of attacking him, turned back and ran into the bushes.
Another myth that he busted was that dholes hunt in relays; clearly, Kipling was exaggerating when he wrote that the red dogs run their prey to the ends of the earth. “During my study, I observed 48 chases and 44 of them ended within 500 metres; team work and speed enabled dholes to kill their prey within short distances,” says Johnsingh.
“Dholes are extremely shy of people and when I approached them, even when they were on a fresh kill, they growled and ran away. At the den site, even with the den-bound pups around, the mother dhole ran away with a growl,” adds Johnsingh.
The dholes inhabit the widest range of climates of the canid family, from freezing cold to tropical heat, from Siberia in the north to India in the west; Java in the south to China in the east. However, they do not exist in the islands of Japan, Sri Lanka and Borneo. They have either become extinct or are extremely rare in China and Siberia.
According to Acharya of ATREE, dholes resemble wolves, African wild dogs and the South American bush dog in their life history traits. Their numbers have declined sharply—due to fewer prey base, habitat destruction and the human threat. “Throughout the world, the major cause of mortality of wide-ranging large carnivores is conflict with humans on the edges of protected areas. Carnivores are killed through hunting, poisoning, collisions with vehicles and diseases from domestic animals,” adds Acharya.
Of the nine subspecies of the dhole, three exist in India—Cuon alpinus laniger in Kashmir and Ladakh; Cuon alpinus primaevus in Garhwal, Kumaon, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan; and Cuon alpinus dukhunensis south of the Ganges. “Only Cuon alpinus dukhunensis, distributed south of Ganges, is doing well and this can be attributed to the presence of large protected area landscapes in central, eastern and southern India,” says Johnsingh.
According to data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), fewer than 2,500 mature wild dogs remain in the wild across its entire range and there is no known dhole population above 250 anywhere and no known population fully secured within a conservation area.
In India, conservationists remain sceptical about these figures.
Johnsingh laments that in its association with man, the dhole has been the loser. “After 35 years of my study, there are still lingering questions—what prevents the dhole from staging a comeback in prey-rich areas like Corbett Tiger Reserve? What diseases periodically wipe out dhole from Kanha National Park and how are these diseases transmitted? What is the genetic status of different dhole populations?” he asks.
Today, the dhole remains an enigma.
Then, it has always been that.
As Davidar wrote in his book: “The wild dog is a bundle of contradictions; tribal hunter gatherers welcome them as providers; to the ignorant they are drones living off the fat of the land; to scientists they are predators, not parasites, and play an important role in the ecosystem and to dog lovers they remain a puzzle.”
This is the first part in a series in which Mint looks at species that are less talked about, and struggling for survival.
Mint’s wildlife writer Ananda Banerjee is the recipient of the fellowship from the Forum of Environmental Journalists of India and the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, to study these species.
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|Original||What a Dog Sees||Brightness Only|
No L (Red)
No M (Green)
No S (Blue)
|L (Red) Only||M (Green) Only||S (Blue) Only|
My color-blindness simulators are designed to simulate various sorts of human partial color vision, and also dog vision. They can also show the brightness information in normal color vision, and what each kind of cone "sees". They use linear filters that were fitted to the output of the Brettel-Vienot-Mollon simulation algorithm, which is used in the GIMP (an image editor) and in the Vischeck color-blindness simulator. After that fitting, they were tweaked to act more "proper", producing pure two-color output with grayscale mapping onto grayscale.
However, those and most other simulators cover only human color blindness, and do not attempt to simulate other species' vision, notably that of humanity's best animal friend, the dog. Dogs have red-green color blindness, seeing only long-wavelength (yellow) and short-wavelength (blue) color, and I model dog vision as an average of the two types of human red-green color blindness. Horses, another favorite species, also have red-green color blindness, though their vision is close to human no-red (protanopia) color blindness.
Dog vision and horse vision are typical of mammalian color vision; most mammalian vision is two-color (dichromacy), though some (pinnipeds and cetaceans) are completely color blind (monochromacy). Three-color vision (trichromacy) is present in only a few groups, notably the Old World simians (Old World monkeys, apes, and our species) and howler monkeys (Alouatta sp.). That capability emerged by the duplication of an opsin, a photoreceptor pigment; the human red- and green-sensitive opsins (visual pigments) still have close response curves. The genes for these opsins live on the X chromosome, which explains why red-green color blindness is much more common among men than among women; men have only one X chromosome and women two of them. However, the blue-sensitive one lives on chromosome 7, which both sexes have 2 copies of, and as a result, blue-yellow color blindness is much rarer and equally likely in both sexes.
Many birds and various other non-mammalian vertebrates do human vision one better, by being able to see in four colors (tetrachromacy); many birds can also see in the the near-ultraviolet. Looking even further afield, we find that honeybees and bumblebees can see yellow, blue, and near-ultraviolet, but not red. Bees and ants can even see light polarization, which they use for celestial navigation. Since most cameras are designed around human vision, they have color responses most convenient for human vision, they do not register ultraviolet as a separate color, and they do not pick up polarization, all of which makes it difficult to simulate bird and bee vision with available images.
I have created two color-blindness simulators:
The application was actually the first one that I'd created, because no commonly-used web browser had the necessary capabilities for the webpage until recently.
You will need at least Mozilla Firefox 3.5 or some equivalent to run it, because it works by using SVG filters on HTML objects.
Go to it here
For a page to simulate color blindness on, put its URL in the top text field, and then press "Go to URL". Be sure to enter the complete URL, or else the page will look for it on my site.
You can go to links in displayed pages as much as you want; the filters will automatically be applied to them. Though the page is displayed in an inlined frame (iframe), you may be able to step through the pages displayed there with your browser's forward and backward buttons
You can select which type of color blindness, how much partial color blindness, and what gamma correction factor to use. The type of color blindness should change immediately, but the others will not. Press "Go!" to make that happen.
This page was made possible by a feature of Firefox 3.5 described in Applying SVG effects to HTML content at Mozilla's developer center. SVG is Scalable Vector Graphics, an emerging vector-graphics standard for webpages.
You will need a recent version of Java installed to be able to use it.
Download the file here: CBSim.jar
To use is, issue this command in the directory that it resides in, with some appropriate modification if it resides elswhere:
java -jar CBSim.jar
You can specify image files on the command line, after the ".jar".
If this simulator starts running out of memory, you can start it with more memory by running it with something like
java -Xmx512M -jar CBSim.jar
where the "512M" means 512 megabytes (the default is 64 megabytes).
In MacOS X, you can also run it by double-clicking on it from the Finder, just like any other OSX program.
I have also included a source-code archive, complete with an OSX Xcode project file for it, so any programmers among you people can study how I did it.
When it is running, it will show either the command-line images or a demo image. Each window has menus
The ^ means command- (Macintosh) or ctrl- (Windows or Linux); ^V will also paste some text into the URL-request dialog box.
Each image window has a toolbar with a button for each View menu item from left to right. Left of each toolbar is a set of radio buttons for selecting colored or gray buttons. Unlike dog vision, there is no separate button or menu item for horse vision; use protanopia/no-red for that one.
If the image was created from a file or acquired from a URL, then the complete filename (file specification) or the complete URL will be shown above the buttons, and the window title will have only the filename proper, without the directory or site or protocol names.
The wait-time dialog box lets you set how long the program will wait before taking a screenshot; you can then bring to the front whatever you want to take a screenshot of. If you request that it wait more than 10 seconds, it will ask you if you really want to do that, just in case you accidentally set an absurdly large number.
To indicate what it is doing while it is hidden, it may beep as it waits and takes the screenshot. You can specify whether it is to beep as it waits, to beep only when it takes the screenshot, or not to beep at all.
The Extras dialog box lets you set two additional values:
For the benefit of users of image editors like Adobe Photoshop, the Gimp, and OSX Pixelmator, I have created some channel-mixer filters in formats appropriate for each one.
Download the file here: ImageEditorFilters.zip
It has directories for each editor's format of filter. Load them into the editor with:
I have also included two command-line tools: CBSim.java (Java) and CBSim.py (Python). You compile the Java one with "javac CBSim.java" and run it with "java CBSim <args>". The command-line args are, in order:
input file, filter number, output file, filter number, output file, ...
The filters are numbered 1 thru 8, and are in the order given elsewhere in this document. The Python one requires the Python Imaging Library, which you can install either directly or with a package manager. It takes the same format of args as the Java one.
The brightness filter uses the CCIR 601 standard for the luminance (brightness) channel, and using the color-blindness-simulation data, I have estimated how each kind of cone responds to each color channel.
|Channel||Brightness||L (Red)||M (Grn)||S (Blu)|
Photoreceptor Response Peaks (wavelength in nanometers)
Loren Petrich, petrich (at) panix (dot) com, and lpetrich at various online venues.
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Four miles south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), about 500 U.S. troops of the 1st Brigade, 5th Mechanized Division turn over Fire Base Charlie 2 to Saigon troops, completing the transfer of defense responsibilities for the border area. On the previous day, nearby Fire Base Alpha 4 had been turned over to the South Vietnamese. This was part of President Richard Nixon’s Vietnamization policy, which had been announced at a June 1969 conference at Midway Island. Under this program, the United States initiated a comprehensive effort to increase the combat capabilities of the South Vietnamese armed forces. As the South Vietnamese became more capable, responsibility for the fighting was gradually transferred from U.S. forces. Concurrent with this effort, there was a gradual withdrawal of U.S. forces.
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http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/united-states-turns-over-responsibility-for-the-dmz
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“Any resources or advice for non-native speakers teaching their kids while learning themselves at the same time? (or, is that a bad idea?)
I had some Spanish in high school and college and when my son turned one I decided to pick it back up and start teaching him. I have a tutor and my Spanish has improved tremendously over the last year, but now that he’s two I feel like I’ve hit a plateau and he is now soaking up everything! Also, I’m the only one who speaks it, so keeping it up is very hard since I can’t speak to other adults in Spanish.~Kate”
Hola Kate –
I love that you have chosen Spanish as the second language for your son – particularly since you have quite a nice personal history with the language yourself. (Not to mention that with the latest 2010 Census Stats being released, the second majority language in our United States remains Spanish and is hands-down the 2nd language your son will find himself using on an every day basis.)
You asked for two things – advice and resources.
Let’s go after advice first:
1. The experts are agreeing that it is just as easy for a child to learn two words for one item as it is to learn only one word. Weaving in your own knowledge of Spanish vocabulary words and phrases as you go through your day is wonderful for your son’s young brain. Saying both the English word, then the Spanish word as you encounter an object is highly recommended.
2. Even when you feel you hit a plateau, know that that is a temporary state. Adults and children go through various learning phases/stages on their second language journey. You have taken on the challenge of improving your personal language growth in Spanish while trying to jump-start your son’s! You are to be congratulated and celebrated (particularly since you have no one else helping your son with his Spanish).
3. Not knowing your take on allowing TV come into play, I would suggest a little preschool TV in Spanish (see resources below). The immersion in Spanish via a quality preschool program will be a nice addition to your personal interaction time with your son.
4. When using your Spanish tutor for your Spanish language development, try often to hold conversations and not simply focus on the grammar, etc of the language. For example, I used Skype to communicate weekly with my tutor from Costa Rica, and he would have pre-planned discussion themes around news items of the past week. Using topical discussions keeps the second language real and near to your life.
Now for resources amiga Kate:
1. I highly suggest reading the book The Bilingual Edge. This book is written by two moms who are Ph.D.s in linguistics plus they have children of their own who they are raising to be bilingual and trilingual! They live what they write about. The book gives hope to us non-native speakers that we CAN give the gift of a second language to our young children – using interaction as the key to our success.
2. OnLineFreeSpanish is a site that, as your son progresses to using a computer (again, I do not know your home situation and the use of media in your daily routine), will provide him many, many bilingual lessons, downloadable activity and coloring pages.
3. Use a Google search to find other bilingual resources that will bring together the English and Spanish language for your child in a fun way. At the age of two, it’s all about making the learning fun. Music tends to be a much sought after medium for instructing toddlers and preschool age children (retention tends to be longer when music is involved in the learning process). My own site, BocaBeth, has an abundance of free resources in our area titled Free Bilingual Resources.
My suggestion is to continue to combine your knowledge with the existing resources out there that will make the Spanish learning fun, relevant and practical for your every day routine. ¡Feliz educando! Happy Educating!
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The 2011 Census shows that more than two out of every five people aged 65 and over lives in a rural community. Surprisingly, relatively little is known about the situation of this important demographic group. The Rural Ageing Observatory at NUI Galway’s Irish Centre for Social Gerontology is seeking to fill some of the gaps in knowledge on rural ageing.
It recently launched the first two reports in a series that, in time, will provide vital information about the ageing population in rural Ireland. The first of the short reports focuses on key demographic trends and issues facing rural older people. The second report summarises evidence relating to income, poverty and deprivation of Ireland’s older rural population.
Launching the reports, Professor Thomas Scharf, Director of the Irish Centre for Social Gerontology at NUI Galway, said: “More than 200,000 people over the age of 65 live in rural communities across Ireland. In the autumn, the government will be launching its National Positive Ageing Strategy. It’s important that this is a strategy for older people wherever they live – in rural as well as in urban communities. Greater awareness of the circumstances of rural older people, in particular, is essential if the right policy measures are to be adopted.”
Both reports are available online at www.icsg.ie.
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Given the world's current financial situation — recession in Europe, sluggish recovery in the U.S., stagnation in Japan — many voices are saying that the problem is capitalism. Complaints range from "capitalism doesn't work anymore" to "capitalism only benefits the rich." Polls show that this view is particularly popular among young people; it was a driving force behind the Occupy Movement. The matter is worth discussing.
Let's begin with an instructive statistic. Starting in 1970, the percentage of people in the world who scrape by at subsistence level has declined 80 percent. This is an enormously beneficial development unmatched in human history, and the decades in which it was accomplished correspond to the decades when capitalism finally emerged as the dominant economic force in the world.
Richard Nixon made his historic trip to China in the early 1970s, triggering the process that brought the world's largest country into the modern post-war era. It had a centrally planned, communist government at the time. However, after Chairman Mao died, his successor, Deng Xiaoping, changed course and put China on a capitalistic economic path. The Chinese economy started growing at double digit rates, bringing hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty and laying the groundwork for the creation of a Chinese middle class.
Ronald Reagan was president of the United States and Margaret Thatcher was prime minister of Great Britain. Both were firm believers in capitalism, free markets and free trade. He began the negotiations that later became the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA); she sold off previously nationalized companies and successfully challenged the unions who had kept Britain a socialist state for decades. As they were doing these things, Mikhail Gorbachev became the head of the Soviet Union and recognized that something drastic had to be done to rescue its stumbling economy.
He tried, but, in the end, the rot of half a century of "central planning" proved to be too pervasive and the Soviet Union collapsed under its own weight (As Reagan had predicted that it would). Russia, along with other satellite countries that emerged from the communist wreckage, embraced free market capitalism.
India followed suit. Ever since it had won its independence from Great Britain, India had followed the Soviet model and achieved the same result — slow growth and continued poverty. A new Indian finance minister, appointed in exciting new times, convinced the government to switch from socialist policies to those embraced in other Western countries. The results were similar to those seen in China — more involvement in the world economy, a growing middle class and millions moving out of poverty. World gross domestic product reached dramatic new highs, year after year.
Those who benefited the most in terms of seeing their lives change dramatically were those at the bottom. Jobs at factories that were supplying the needs of the new, truly global economy were available to peasants whose families had been tied to the land in systems that were feudal in their impact. They began to earn far more than a dollar a day and many migrated up into middle class status. That's the process by which the number of humans living at barest subsistence level dropped by 80 percent.
"Capitalism" was coined by Karl Marx as a derogatory term, used to attack the views of Adam Smith. He predicted a revolution as he told the poor, "You have nothing to lose but your chains." Ironically, chains have indeed been cast aside but it was capitalism, not Marxism, that did it.
Our economic problems are real, but getting rid of capitalism is not the way to solve them.
Robert Bennett, former U.S. Senator from Utah, is a part-time teacher, researcher and lecturer at the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics.
- In our opinion: Brexit and the U.K.'s new...
- In our opinion: US v. Texas and immigration...
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- In our opinion: California considering bold...
- John Florez: If elephants can dance so can...
- Letter: Come together
- Letter: Reducing teacher load
- Charles Krauthammer: Hillaryism: Tired...
- Letter: Shooter's motives 36
- Letter: Carbon emissions fee 30
- In our opinion: California considering... 29
- In our opinion: US v. Texas and... 22
- My view: Taxpayers should call foul on... 19
- In our opinion: Brexit and the U.K.'s... 18
- Charles Krauthammer: Hillaryism: Tired... 17
- Letter: Panhandlers in Sandy 17
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The name of our robot is FIER and here is a video of it saying hello to the world.
In this instructable, I will try to show you the basic steps to making your own walking robot for the most bang for your buck.
You may be asking why did I use balsa wood as the body for the robot. The reason I did this was to make the robot as lite weight as possible. In order to make the robot as cheap as possible I had to use the cheapest servos I could find since there is so many needed and because the servos are so cheap they have a low torque and can't handle much weight and in turn, balsa wood. Plus balsa wood is really easy to work with.
Step 2: Equipment and Supplies
I have created a list of equipment and supplies you will need to build you own robot. I have attached an excel file that list all the items and website links for the supplies. The total cost for the basic robot is just a little over a $100, but this does not include shipping. Some things you may want to consider going to a store nearby that sells these products, like the balsa which can normally be found in a hobby store or craft store.
I also added some optional items. I suggest holding off, on getting the battery for they can be a little expensive and the one listed doesn't even come with a charger. I suggest just getting a 5 - 6 volt source and run a wire, because the robot won't be walking very far, very fast. Finally I would suggest getting the accelerometer to help the robot balance itself, but it may be a little hard for someone that doesn't have much experience in programming.
Step 3: Robot's Body
This video is just showing me cutting out the legs using a table saw.
Step 4: Schematic
When the schematic was originally designed there were many different features, but for simplicity I redesigned the schematic for the main goal of having a walking robot. I would recommend if you have enough money in your budget, to add the accelerometer. The accelerometer would be a very useful sensor to help the robot to balance itself.
As marked in the schematic there is a 5 - 6 volt source. This is the main source for all the servos and with so many servos they can pull quite a bit current. Make sure to only use a source that can handle 1A or more, like listed on the Equipment and Supplies list, a battery or a power supply. DO NOT use the 5v source on the Arduino to power the servo, only use the Arduino source to power the PWM driver.
To put all the components together I would suggest using a protoboard and solder them all together. Since we were doing this project for class, I had a PCB outsourced to Advanced Circuits. Advanced Circuits is a great company to get your boards made for a great price.
Step 5: Software
For an example code to try out your robot is the one seen in the first video. If everything works properly the robot should stand up, lift one leg, and wave to the world for all eternity. In order for the code to work you must install the TLC5940 drivers, which are available on this website.
One error you may run into, due to the poor instructions, would be that the legs move in the opposite ways. The easiest way to fix this would be to modify the code. In the code you will see multiple function that look like, tlc_setServo(4, 100). The first parameter is the motor you want to control and the second parameter is the angle of the servo. Just modify the second parameter until it reacts how you think it should.
Like I said previously, I would suggest that you use the accelerometer to help the robot balance itself, but I haven't had enough time to add that feature. There is example codes available online to test your accelerometer though.
Step 6: Conclusion
I wish everyone luck who attempts to build a robot like this and I would love to see what you create, so leave me a comment to show me what you created. Try adding IR range finder sensors, an adjustable camera, stronger servos, or wireless communication. There are so many possibilities.
Also leave a comment if you think there is something I need to improve on this instructable.
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On Aug. 30, 1984, the skies were clear and space shuttle Discovery launched for the first time. Its missions came to represent the resilience of the U.S. space program. But the first launch wasn't all smooth sailing -- its first blastoff was actually its fourth attempt.
Valerie Neal, Curator of the Space History Division at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, takes us back to Discovery's early drama which began on June 25, 1984. The first launch didn't go off due to error messages from the orbiter's backup general purpose computer at the routine T-20 minute check. The second launch attempt came the next day and it was enough to throw the astronauts for a ride they didn't expect.
"The main engines united and immediately shut down just 4 seconds before launch and a problem had been detected in one of the main engines so this had not happened before and the crew and everybody was on edge," explains Neal. The crew stayed in the vehicle until they received the all clear and they had to roll Discovery back and install a new engine. The third attempt came on Aug. 29 and it failed because of a flight software glitch.
When the maiden flight finally took off, at 8:41 a.m. on Aug. 30, Discovery blasted the American space program to new heights. It flew 39 times over the next 27 years - more than any other shuttle vehicle. Many space history firsts occurred on board this 6,870-pound vehicle: it took the first Senator to space in 1985, it took the first Latina to space in 1993 and it flew the oldest man into space, 77-year old John Glenn.
The Space Shuttle program, however, was not always marked with rosy achievements -- the Challenger disaster of 1986 left seven astronauts dead and America heartbroken. President Reagan assured the nation that the U.S. would go back to space.
"The future doesn't belong to the faint-hearted, it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew is pulling us into the future and we will continue to follow them," Reagan said to the nation from the Oval Office.
Just two years later, making its true mark on history and sending shock waves of exhilaration through the American public, Discovery became the return-to-space vehicle.
"America is going to space again and we are going there to stay," Reagan said at the Johnson Space Center outside Houston, on Sept. 22, 1988. "Because in the next century leadership on earth will come from the country that shows the most leadership in space."
Discovery, once a beacon of hope, landed its last mission at the Smithsonian National Air and Space museum's annex in Virginia -- ending for now the U.S. government's ability to send people into space.
"Nothing like a space shuttle has flown before and it is unlikely that anything will fly again that is large and as versatile as a space shuttle orbiter," Neal explains as she reflects on the productive years that this vehicle was in use.
Today U.S. astronauts can only go into space on the Russian Soyuz rocket. The next planned American space vehicles will designed and manufactured by private companies through NASA's Commercial Crew Program which plans to replace the shuttle with one of three commercially designed systems by late 2017.
"The important thing is to get out of that lull and to achieve our own independence again to fly our own astronauts when we wish on our own schedule to our own destinations," Neal says.
Neal is convinced that the U.S. will bounce back, explaining that it is not historically peculiar to have lulls in space exploration and referring to the years after the Apollo program ended in 1972 and before the Space Shuttle program began in 1981 as an example.
Neal says that having Discovery grounded in Virginia is bittersweet. 1.3 million people visit it every year but most of them will never know what the country felt like when it was time for liftoff.
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Standards & CodesAugust 04, 2011
The IMF and World Bank have endorsed internationally recognized standards and codes in 12 areas as important for their work and for which Reports on the Observance of Standards and Codes (ROSCs) are prepared. Standards in the areas of data, fiscal transparency, and monetary and financial policy transparency have been developed by the Fund while others have been developed by other standard setting bodies including the World Bank, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
ROSCs are prepared and published at the request of the member country by the IMF and/or World Bank in each of the 12 areas. ROSCs covering financial sector standards are usually prepared in the context of the Financial Sector Assessment Program. In some cases, detailed assessments of countries' observance of standards are also published.
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Many aren't aware that mining for metals, such as gold, causing the most toxic pollution of any industry in the US.
Today, over 80 jewelry retailers from around the world, including 8 of the top 10 US retailers, committed to cleaning up dirty metals by signing the No Dirty Gold campaign's "Golden Rules" for more responsible metals sourcing.
80% of the gold mined worldwide is turned into jewelry.
Tiffany & Co., Target, Sears/Kmart and JCPenney have all committed to taking steps to clean up irresponsible gold mining, such as studying their metals supply chains, revising their supplier sourcing criteria to include the Golden Rules, increasing recycled gold content, among others. Some have even signed the Bristol Bay pledge to refuse gold from the proposed Pebble mine in Alaska (which has been voted down in a referendum, but is still being pushed forward).
Who hasn't signed on? Macy's (which includes Bloomingdale's), the fifth largest retail, and Costco, the ninth largest.
The Golden Rules call on mining companies to meet a set of social, human rights, and environmental criteria for gold and other precious metals.
- Respect basic human rights outlined in international
conventions and law
- Obtain the free, prior, and informed consent of
- Respect workers' rights and labor standards, including
safe working conditions
- Ensure that operations are not located in areas of
armed or militarized conflict
- Ensure that projects do not force communities off their
- Ensure that projects are not located in protected
areas, fragile ecosystems, or other areas of high conservation or ecological
- Refrain from dumping mine wastes into the ocean,
rivers, lakes, or streams
- Ensure that projects do not contaminate water, soil, or
air with sulfuric acid drainage or other toxic chemicals
- Cover all costs of closing down and cleaning up mine
- Fully disclose information about social and
environmental effects of projects
- Allow independent verification of the
Here's a list of retailers that have signed on.
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August 6, 2014
Potential New Energy Storage Solution – Cigarette Butts
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online
One of the most annoying parts of being around smokers is finding cigarette butts ground out everywhere. You see them littering the streets, on sidewalks, and in the grass. Finally, however, there may be an exciting new use for these annoying byproducts.A new study from Seoul National University, published in Nanotechnology, demonstrates that used cigarette butts can be made into a high performing material capable of being integrated into computers, handheld devices, electrical vehicles and wind turbines to store energy.
The material has shown itself to be superior in performance when compared to commercially available carbon, graphene and carbon nanotubes. The researchers hope to ultimately coat the electrodes of supercapacitors, which are electrochemical components able to store enormous amounts of electrical energy.
Because there are an estimated 5.6 trillion (approximately 766,571 metric tons) of used cigarette butts dumped into the environment every year, the team hopes their discovery will help to create a solution for the negative environmental impact caused by this byproduct of smoking.
Professor Jongheop Yi, from Seoul National University, said, "Our study has shown that used cigarette filters can be transformed into a high-performing carbon-based material using a simple one step process, which simultaneously offers a green solution to meeting the energy demands of society."
"Numerous countries are developing strict regulations to avoid the trillions of toxic and non-biodegradable used-cigarette filters that are disposed of into the environment each year—our method is just one way of achieving this."
The majority of supercapacitors are made of carbon because of its low cost, high surface area, high electrical conductivity and long term stability. Globally, researchers are working to improve the characteristics of superconductors such as energy density, power density and cycle stability. Another major goal is to reduce the production costs of the conductors.
Cigarette butts are mainly comprised of cellulose acetate fibers, which the current study shows can be transformed into a carbon-based material using a simple, one-step burning technique called pyrolysis.
The material that is created by this process is carbon-based and contains a number of tiny pores which increases its performance as a supercapacitive material.
"A high-performing supercapacitor material should have a large surface area, which can be achieved by incorporating a large number of small pores into the material," continued Professor Yi.
"A combination of different pore sizes ensures that the material has high power densities, which is an essential property in a supercapacitor for the fast charging and discharging."
The team fabricated the material, then attached it to an electrode for testing. They assessed its ability to absorb electrolyte ions (charge) and then release electrolyte ions (discharge) in a three-electrode system.
The tests revealed that the material stored a higher amount of electrical energy than commercially available carbon. When compared to the results of previous studies, the new material also outperformed graphene and carbon nanotubes.
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can be used
KidZone Magic Tricks
© Contributed by
The magician tries to fit a loop of paper around his wrist (or around the magic puppet's neck) but it won't fit. The magician says, "Hmmm, I'll have to cut this loop bigger". The magician takes a pair of scissors and cuts the loop in half up the middle. Instead of two loops, the magician ends up with one larger loop that now fits around his wrist!
(Normally, you would expect a loop cut in half up the middle to turn into two loops, instead of one big loop).
OPTIONAL: Have an audience member cut a regular loop (one without a twist) in half up the center before you start your trick -- they will get two loops. Before cutting your loop, you can ask the audience to guess what you will get if you cut the loop in half up the center... As long as you don't have anyone in the audience who knows about Mobius Strips you should get lots of guesses like "you'll end up with two loops".
- Construction paper
Take a long, fairly wide strip of paper. Twist the paper once and tape it into a loop.
This type of loop is called a "Mobius Strip".
Snip the loop up the center.
Don't go too fast (snip, snip, snip) and keep as close to the exact center as you can.
You can babble some "magic words" as you go (Hocus Pocus, Luminous Mobius are the ones I like!)
When you're done cutting, you'll end up with one big loop with a couple of twists in it -- the natural assumption is that you'd end up with two loops.
HOW IT WORKS
A loop with a single twist in it is called a mobius strip. The "Mobius Strip" is an actual mathematical phenomenon. You aren't really doing magic, you're doing math!
The Mobius strip has several curious properties. A line drawn starting from the seam down the middle will meet back at the seam but at the "other side". If continued the line will meet the starting point and will be double the length of the original strip. This single continuous curve demonstrates that the Mobius strip has only one boundary. The example they always give in university is that if an ant walks along the edge of the strip, he'll travel twice as long as the loop before he gets back to his starting point.
Cutting a Mobius strip along the center line yields one long strip with two full twists in it, rather than two separate strips. This happens because the original strip only has one edge which is twice as long as the original strip.
If you're confused right now, don't worry -- I am too. Math was never my strong suit -- suffice it to say just like gravity, mobius magic works whether you understand it or not!
When you do the trick, you have to be careful to cut as close to the center as you can, because there's a second magical mathematical ability the Mobius Strip has. If the strip is cut about a third of the way in from the edge, it creates two strips: One is a thinner Mobius strip, the other is a longer but thin strip with two full twists in it. So keep your cut close to the center so you don't accidentally end up with this.
Grandma asked me... Yes, but now how do we explain this all to a five year old!? The answer is, you don't have to... You can just tell them it's magic!
As with all tricks, it's best if you practice this a few times before you do it for an audience!
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Unidad 2 Etapa 1 Un día de clases
In Un día de clases, you have learned how to talk about your life at schoolfrom school subjects, classroom activities, and how often you do each one. Think about the subjects you like to study. Which ones do you think are important for your future? The choices you make now will have an effect on your future, so read on, think, and decide!
Look at the following links to schools in Mexico to see what subjects schools teach, and how they are preparing students for the future. As you explore the links, think about the following questions. You might keep a notepad nearby to jot down ideas.
- What subjects seem to be core subjects? Where are they taught?
- Why are these subjects important? How are these subjects connected to the student's future?
- What have I learned in this Etapa that helps me interpret the information that I found?
- What advice would I give to a friend who is trying to choose one of these schools? How would I support my advice?
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New Orleans has served as inspiration — and home — to a wealth of notable writers over the years, from Tennessee Williams to Kate Chopin. Some, like William Faulkner and George Washington Cable, even took gigs writing for the local newspaper. But at least one of America’s most famous and revered writers might not have existed, at least as we know him, without The Times-Picayune.
Writer Samuel Clemens grew up in Hannibal, Mo., but as it turns out his pen name — Mark Twain — was born in the pages of the paper.
As Twain explained in his 1883 nonfiction book “Life on the Mississippi,” chronicling his time as a steamboat pilot, the name was originated by Capt. Isiah Sellers, whose decades of work plying the river earned him a respect bordering on reverence in certain quarters.
“The old gentleman was not of literary turn or capacity,” Twain wrote, “but he used to jot down brief paragraphs of plain practical information about the river, and sign them ‘MARK TWAIN,’ and give them to the New Orleans Picayune. They related to the stage and condition of the river, and were accurate and valuable.”
That pen name was also a pun name, as it was also a call used by riverboat crew members in measuring the distance between their vessel’s hull and the river bottom.
Clemens being Clemens, he couldn’t resist parodying Sellers in what would become his first newspaper article, published in the New Orleans True Delta.
“Captain Sellers did me the honor to profoundly detest me from that day forth,” Twain later wrote. “When I say he did me the honor, I am not using empty words. … It was distinction to be loved by such a man; but it was a much greater distinction to be hated by him, because he loved scores of people; but he didn’t sit up nights to hate anybody but me.
“He never printed another paragraph while he lived, and he never again signed ‘Mark Twain’ to anything. At the time that the telegraph brought the news of his death, I was on the Pacific coast. I was a fresh new journalist, and needed a nom de guerre; so I confiscated the ancient mariner’s discarded one, and have done my best to make it remain what it was in his hands — a sign and symbol and warrant that whatever is found in its company may be gambled on as being the petrified truth; how I have succeeded, it would not be modest in me to say.”
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Nothing can be more hopeless than to attempt to explain this similarity of pattern in members of the same class, by utility or by the doctrine of final causes. The hopelessness of the attempt has been expressly admitted by Owen in his most interesting work on the 'Nature of Limbs.' On the ordinary view of the independent creation of each being, we can only say that so it is;—that it has so pleased the Creator to construct each animal and plant.The wing of a bat is an amazing thing. It's not just a wing; it's clearly a modified mammalian limb. A bat looks like a lot like a rodent with really long, webbed fingers on elongated arms.
The explanation is manifest on the theory of the natural selection of successive slight modifications,—each modification being profitable in some way to the modified form, but often affecting by correlation of growth other parts of the organisation. In changes of this nature, there will be little or no tendency to modify the original pattern, or to transpose parts. The bones of a limb might be shortened and widened to any extent, and become gradually enveloped in thick membrane, so as to serve as a fin; or a webbed foot might have all its bones, or certain bones, lengthened to any extent, and the membrane connecting them increased to any extent, so as to serve as a wing: yet in all this great amount of modification there will be no tendency to alter the framework of bones or the relative connexion of the several parts.
– from On the Origin of Species, 1st Edition (1859), Charles Darwin
|Image from Animal Diversity Web at the University of Michigan.|
Recent genetic analyses have yielded a fairly solid outline of the evolutionary history of bats, which have left a somewhat poor fossil record in which the earliest fossil bats look pretty much like modern bats. It seems that bats arose relatively quickly during evolution, acquiring their distinctive feature – powered flight – in a few million years. No transitional forms have yet been found, which is a shame, because this particular evolutionary transition is the kind that is otherwise reasonably approachable for the detailed study of how changes in form come about.
The fossils can't yet show us how paws gave rise to wings, but that doesn't mean we can't test specific hypotheses regarding the paths that evolution could have taken. In fact, developmental biologists have enormous resources that can be brought to bear on the question, by virtue of decades of research on the development and genetics of the wingless terrestrial bat better known as the mouse. A few months ago, an interesting new report described one kind of genetic change that can lead to bat-like bodies, and the findings put some new wind in the sails of evo-devo.
Two of the more remarkable aspects of bat wing structure are the forelimbs and the forelimb digits, what humans would call the arms and the fingers. Both are dramatically elongated in the adult animal, despite getting off to a very typical start during early development. Check it out: in the picture below, bat and mouse limbs are compared with the image scaled so that body lengths are comparable.
|Image from Figure 1 of Cretekos et al., cited below.|
Developmental biologists have some pretty good ideas about how this might arise physiologically: certain growth factors (called bone morphogenetic proteins, or BMPs) are known to control limb growth, and some BMPs seem to be turned up in developing bat fingers. But the genetic mechanisms underlying these processes are unknown.
Enter Chris Cretekos and colleagues, then working in a group in Houston headed by Richard Behringer. They set out to examine the genetic underpinnings of the elongation of the forelimbs (arms) of bats, using the formidable tools of mouse developmental genetics. And, clearly, they also sought to directly test one of the central hypotheses of evo-devo: that changes in regulatory DNA sequences (as opposed to changes within the genes themselves) are a potent source of variation in evolution. Consider the beginning of their abstract:
Natural selection acts on variation within populations, resulting in modified organ morphology, physiology, and ultimately the formation of new species. Although variation in orthologous proteins can contribute to these modifications, differences in DNA sequences regulating gene expression may be a primary source of variation.Besides their expertise in mouse genetics, the authors brought two major assets to their study: 1) they had already carefully mapped the development of the short-tailed fruit bat (Carollia perspicillata, "our model Chiropteran"); and 2) they knew a lot about the genetic control of limb length in other mammals. In particular, they knew that the protein Prx1 is known to influence limb elongation, by controlling the expression of other genes. So they hypothesized that changes in the activity or level of Prx1 might underlie the difference in limb length between bats and mice, and they were well-equipped to do the experiments.
– From C.J. Cretekos et al., "Regulatory divergence modifies limb length between mammals, Genes & Development 22:141-151, 15 Jan. 2008
First, the authors examined the Prx1 gene in the two species, and found that the overall structure of the gene is very similar in both mice and bats, and that the actual coding sequences of the two genes are almost completely identical. (Aligning the coding sequences showed that more than 99% of the amino acids are the same in both species.) In other words, the part of the Prx1 gene that codes for protein is almost certainly not a source of variation between mice and bats. This could mean that Prx1 doesn't have anything to do with the difference between forelimb length in these two species, or it could mean the the difference is generated, at least in part, by variation in the regulation of the gene. Cretekos et al. postulated that altered Prx1 regulation might be involved, and designed a cool experiment to address this possibility.
They already knew that the Prx1 gene in mice contains known regulatory elements in particular locations within the gene. (Such elements are often located in the DNA sequences that precede the coding region.) When they looked at the bat gene, they found similar elements in the same location, but these elements showed some intriguing variation: when the two regions were aligned, they shared only 67% identity, meaning that a third of the DNA bases were different in mouse and bat. They did some nifty cell biology to show that this region did function as a regulator of the expression of Prx1, then did something that biologists could only dream about before the genomic era: they altered the mouse genome by replacing the mouse regulatory region with the corresponding region from the bat genome. In other words, they gave a mouse a piece of a bat's genome, without actually changing the coding sequence of any gene.
The result was dramatic, although it won't sound that way at first. The mice with the bat DNA displayed forelimbs that were 6% longer than normal. Why is this a dramatic result? Well, first of all, think about a 6% change in a major structural attribute. If adult males in a certain country average 5'10" in height, a 6% increase would mean an increase of more than 4 inches. But more importantly, the Prx1 gene is known to account for about 12% of forelimb length – mice that lack the gene altogether show a 12% reduction in forelimb length. That 6% change reflects a huge change in Prx1 activity, a change that was completely due to alterations in regulatory DNA sequences without any change in coding sequence.
If that's not impressive enough, the authors went on to examine the importance of this regulatory region in mice, by deleting it altogether. The result was very surprising, but very interesting: limb length in mice was completely unaffected by the loss of this chunk of regulatory DNA. (The region we're discussing is 1000 bases in length.) This means that the Prx1 gene of both bats and mice contains a regulatory region that is completely dispensable for normal development but that can be altered to generate significant changes in limb length, which points to significant evolutionary potential in genetic regions that seem unimportant. Here's how the authors say it:
Maintenance of redundant enhancers for essential developmental control genes would allow changes in expression pattern to arise from mutations that alter regulatory activity while preserving the required gene function.So, why is this significant? Here are two aspects of the story that are worth highlighting.
1. The results provide strong (and rare) experimental support for the ideas of the evo-devo school. The currently-heated debate over the merits of evo-devo is focused on the central evo-devo claim that morphological evolution (i.e., evolutionary changes in form) is driven to a large extent by changes in the regulation of gene expression, and less so by changes in the structures of the proteins that are encoded. To simplify, evo-devo postulates that significant evolutionary change – like that discussed here – is more likely a result of the varied use of a protein toolkit than a result of modification of the toolkit itself. Cretekos et al. have presented a case in point, and one that is considered outstanding in that it documents a morphological gain; many previous examples showed only losses.
2. The results provide a sharp picture of what Darwin's vision of "successive slight modifications" means in terms of developmental biology. In this case, the modifications (of a redundant regulatory region) can yield significant anatomical remodeling without altering protein structure at all.
The article was a notable advance for evo-devo and for evolutionary science, but soon there will surely be many others like it. Desperate or ignorant creationists will always find a way to avoid facing the explanatory power of common descent, but scientists are just plugging away, and for every blog post by a creationist ignoramus, there are 30 unheralded publications in the biological literature that advance our understanding of common descent and the mechanisms that generate biological novelty. And they're fun to read.
|Article(s) discussed in this post:|
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Open to the Public
More than 4,000 black-crowned night herons gave this swampy land its name — Heron Lake. Lindgren-Traeger Bird Sanctuary is a marsh that fringes the northern edge of this lake. It serves as a visual reminder of the vast 8,000-acre wetland that once was one of North America’s most productive marshes.
Over the years, much of this region was ditched and drained for farming, while dikes and dams held back waters. Without wetlands to filter and slow water from the watershed, silt began to cloud much of the lake’s water, taking its toll on the plants that grow there.
Lindgren-Traeger sanctuary, however, still is a place where avid birdwatchers can come to observe grassland birds with an open view of the vast lake basin.
Why the Conservancy Selected This Site
Precious wetlands are being lost in Minnesota. More than 10 million acres of wetlands — half of the state’s original total — have been drained in the past century and converted to cropland. Restoration of these lands is critical to preserving Minnesota’s natural wildlife heritage, as well as ensuring a supply of clean drinking water.
North Heron Lake’s rich ecological past combined with its functioning marsh system make it an ideal place for restoration and demonstration efforts.
What the Conservancy Has Done/Is Doing
The Conservancy’s work on this land is part of a larger effort to restore the health of the Heron Lake system. Private individuals and organizations have been working to protect this lake for nearly 100 years
The Conservancy believes more can be accomplished through cooperation. By working with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, the North Heron Lake Game Producers Association and private landowners, the Conservancy leverages its limited resources for the greater good of the lake.
The sanctuary is being managed through proven conservation strategies, including using prescribed burns to control harmful, non-native plants and by replanting the prairie. The Conservancy seeded native prairie grasses to reduce sediment runoff into the lake and replace critical nesting habitat. In addition, the Conservancy has responded to local interest in prescribed fire management and has helped organize the Heron Lake Fire Council, which brings together agency expertise and landowner experience in a cooperative atmosphere.
The vegetation currently is undergoing restoration efforts, and the Conservancy is working with partners around the lake to ensure sound future management.
What to See: Plants
When water levels are normal, marsh and low-grass habitat covers one-half of the preserve. Cattails — the most familiar of wetland plants — can be found swaying in the marshes. Reaching up to nine feet in height, the brown flower clusters cannot be missed.
Switchgrass, big bluestem and Indian grass are some of the more prominent grasses. In the fall, the golden-white flowers of the side oats gramma bloom spike to create a flag effect. Although not as plentiful as it once was, sago pondweed, a favorite food of the once-plentiful canvassback duck, still can be found in the lake basin.
What to See: Animals
Bird-lovers passing through this region should make the trek to Lindgren-Traeger Bird Sanctuary. This marsh attracts the American white pelican, Forster’s tern, black-crowned night herons, American bittern, Franklin’s gull, American avocet, several species of ducks and colonial shore birds.
Many of these birds have such distinctive markings they cannot be missed. For example, a black crown and red eye easily identify the long-beaked herons. These nocturnal feeders sound a deep, croaking call. By day, they roost together. The American avocet is a large, long-legged shorebird with an elaborate and noisy courtship display. A white belly and black-and-white wings offset its rust-colored head.
For more information on visiting this and other Minnesota preserves, check out our Preserve Visitation Guidelines.
From Heron Lake, drive northeast on State Highway 60 about one and one-third miles. Turn south on County Road 24. Travel first south and then east for two and one-half miles. Turn south on the second gravel road and drive one mile south until you come to an intersection. The sanctuary is on the southwest corner of the intersection and has a large wood sign. Turn right and park along the road. Do not park near the farm on the north side of the sanctuary.
Please note that the Conservancy asks visitors to observe from a distance, to not upset the lakeshore. Launching boats, therefore, is not allowed.
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Cascading Style Sheets
CSS is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics (the look and formatting) of a document written in a markup language. Its most common application is to style web pages written in HTML and XHTML, but the language can also be applied to any kind of XML document, including plain XML, SVG and XUL.
CSS is designed primarily to enable the separation of document content (written in HTML or a similar markup language) from document presentation, including elements such as the layout, colors, and fonts. This separation can improve content accessibility, provide more flexibility and control in the specification of presentation characteristics, enable multiple pages to share formatting, and reduce complexity and repetition in the structural content (such as by allowing for tableless web design). CSS can also allow the same markup page to be presented in different styles for different rendering methods, such as on-screen, in print, by voice (when read out by a speech-based browser or screen reader) and on Braille-based, tactile devices. While the author of a document typically links that document to a CSS style sheet, readers can use a different style sheet, perhaps one on their own computer, to override the one the author has specified.
CSS specifies a priority scheme to determine which style rules apply if more than one rule matches against a particular element. In this so-called cascade, priorities or weights are calculated and assigned to rules, so that the results are predictable.
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Anorexia Nervosa in Males
Anorexia nervosa is a severe, life-threatening disorder in which the individual refuses to maintain a minimally normal body weight, is intensely afraid of gaining weight, and exhibits a significant distortion in the perception of the shape or size of his body, as well as dissatisfaction with his body shape and size.
- Excessive dieting, fasting, restricted diet
- Food rituals
- Preoccupation with body building, weight lifting, or muscle toning
- Compulsive exercise
- Difficulty eating with others, lying about eating
- Frequently weighing self
- Preoccupation with food
- Focus on certain body parts; e.g., buttocks, thighs, stomach
- Disgust with body size or shape
- Distortion of body size; i.e., feels fat even though others tell him he is already very thin
Emotional and Mental Characteristics:
- Intense fear of becoming fat or gaining weight
- Social isolation
- Strong need to be in control
- Rigid, inflexible thinking, “all or nothing”
- Decreased interest in sex or fears around sex
- Possible conflict over gender identity or sexual orientation
- Low sense of self-worth—uses weight as a measure of worth
- Difficulty expressing feelings
- Perfectionistic -- strives to be the neatest, thinnest, smartest, etc.
- Difficulty thinking clearly or concentrating
- Irritability, denial -- believes others are overreacting to his low weight or caloric restriction
- Low body weight (15% or more below what is expected for age, height, activity level)
- Lack of energy, fatigue
- Muscular weakness
- Decreased balance, unsteady gait
- Lowered body temperature, blood pressure, pulse rate
- Tingling in hands and feet
- Thinning hair or hair loss
- Lanugo (downy growth of body hair)
- Heart arrhythmia
- Lowered testosterone levels
Anorexia Nervosa is a severe, life-threatening disorder in which the individual refuses to maintain a minimally normal body weight, is intensely afraid of gaining weight, and exhibits a significant distortion in the perception of the shape or size of his body, as well as dissatisfaction with his body shape and size. Learn more.
Prevalence figures for males with eating disorders (ED) are somewhat elusive. In the past, ED have been characterized as “women’s problems” and men have been stigmatized from coming forward or have been unaware that they could have an ED. Additional research is needed, but several studies provide insight into the male experience of eating disorders. Learn more.
Recognize that bodies come in all different shapes and sizes. There is no one "right" body size. Your body is not, and should not be, exactly like anyone else's. Try to see your body as a facet of your uniqueness and individuality. Learn more.
Eating disorders do not discriminate on the basis of gender. Men can and do develop eating disorders. Learn more.
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The H1N1 flu vaccine might actually worsen symptoms of the potentially deadly flu in animals exposed to it, a new study suggests.
Danuta Skowronski, an epidemiologist at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, lead a study showing that ferrets given the 2008–09 H1N1 vaccine became more sick than ferrets given a placebo vaccine after exposure to the H1N1 virus.
In Skowronski’s study, 32 ferrets were divided into two groups, one with the H1N1 influenza vaccine and the other given a placebo injection. The study showed ferrets given the real vaccine suffered more severe symptoms than the placebo group after all 32 ferrets were exposed to the H1N1 virus.
The two groups substantially differed in weight loss and lung virus.
Nahid Bhadelia, an assistant professor of medicine at the Boston University School of Medicine, said she found the study interesting but in need of more evidence in similar studies made on humans.
“I would be hesitant to make anything of the finding without further data in humans,” she said, “especially given the proven benefit of seasonal flu vaccine on the mortality related to this infection every year.”
Bhadelia said she found merit in the study because it should invoke conversations among the medical community.
“I think the study raises interesting questions regarding how prior exposure to influenza antigens impacts immune response to pandemic strains,” she said.
The study was presented in its abstract form Sept. 9 at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in San Francisco.
BU students said it would be good to see if more studies come out with more data before receiving the shot.
“I would definitely be interested to see data from other countries,” said Sarah Leonard, a junior in the School of Education.
Leonard said the H1N1 vaccine released in the 2008–09 flu season might not have been as carefully put together as the traditional flu vaccine.
“I think the general one that they update every year has been shown to be pretty effective,” she said. “I would probably still get the general one.”
College of Communication junior Katherine Bush fell victim to the H1N1 influenza in 2008 even after getting the shot.
She said she was unsurprised by the study’s findings, because the disease is in the vaccine.
“It’s kind of crazy that the FDA has allowed this for so long,” Bush said.
In the past, Bush said, she has gotten the vaccine but reluctantly.
Bush said she was hesitant about getting the vaccine this year after hearing about this study.
“I guess I’ll wait for more studies to come out,” Bush said.
COM freshman Corey Steinfast said he believed in the benefits of the flu shot.
Society dictates that everyone take the same precautions with health-related issues, he said.
“Definitely people will end up getting it compared to not getting it,” Steinfast said.
Steinfast said he has consistently gotten the vaccine and not gotten sick.
“[The study is] definitely something to think about when getting it,” he said.
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Although they are less well-known than tornadoes and hurricanes, thunderstorm downbursts are the source of the highest wind speeds experienced by buildings and other structures in many parts of the world . An understanding of them, and the forces they exert on structures, is therefore important if building design codes are to accurately reflect the conditions which buildings must withstand - inaccurate codes may lead to costly over-engineering or, worse, unsafe buildings.
Downbursts are extreme wind events which occur when rising, warm air
cools, becoming denser and falling under gravity to form a downward air
current. When this downdraft reaches the ground the downward velocity
is stalled, causing an increase in air pressure which forces the air
radially outwards, forming the horizontal, downburst wind. It is
estimated that this outward velocity can reach speeds of approximately
1.6 times the original downward velocity, leading to winds of level F3
on the scale developed by Fujita for tornadoes:
"F3 158-206mph [70-92ms-1], SEVERE DAMAGE
Roofs and some walls
torn off well-constructed houses; trains overturned; steel-framed
hanger-warehouse type structures torn; heavy cars lifted off ground and
thrown; most trees in forest uprooted, snapped, or levelled."
The outflow is a highly non-stationary event (i.e. it produces a short-term increase in wind speed). Due to the short duration, with downbursts typically lasting less than 5 minutes, and near impossibility of predicting where and when a downburst will occur, measuring the forces on a building due to an actual, full-scale downburst is impractical. Researchers have therefore turned to small-scale, physical, laboratory-based simulations and numerical simulations using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to measure their effects. The project described on these pages uses a combination of physical and numerical modelling to investigate what happens to buildings subject to a downburst event.
Chay MT, Letchford CW. Pressure distributions on a cube in a simulated thunderstorm downburst - Part A: stationary downburst observations. Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics. 2002;90:711-32.
Fujita TT. Tornadoes and downbursts in the context of generalized planetary scales. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences. 1981;38:1511-34.
Fujita TT. Proposed characterization of tornadoes and hurricaines by area and intensity. University of Chicago. 1971.
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"Mr. Vogel is a farmer. He raised twenty turkeys this year. He sold eighteen and kept two as pets. He charged sixteen dollars per turkey. What was the total selling price?" Five Thanksgiving-themed multiplication word problems.
A set of 36 illustrated Thanksgiving theme calendar days occurring in a repeating pattern to help students with sequence and pattern recognition. May be used with abcteach's matching Thanksgiving calendar header and bulletin board set.
"Mrs. Smith made pumpkin pies to sell at the church bake sale. She made six pumpkin pies, and sold them for $4.33 each. How much money did she make from the sale of the pies?" Five pages; four problems per page.
"Greg and his friends are making Thanksgiving decorations. Each child makes five. How many do four children make? How many do five make? How many do six make?" Five Thanksgiving-themed skip counting (by fives) word problems.
Book comprehension and vocabulary enhancement for this installment of Alyssa Satin Capucilli's popular "Biscuit" series. A mischievous puppy helps his little girl to prepare for Thanksgiving and count her blessings.
"Myron analyzed the caloric content of his Thanksgiving dinner for his science class. His serving of stuffing had 619 calories. His serving of pumpkin pie had 780 calories. His serving of turkey had 282 calories. How many calories were there in his stuffing and turkey combined?"
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http://www.abcteach.com/directory/holidays-months-and-seasons-holidays-thanksgiving-3654-8-5
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Diabetes is a serious long-term medical condition. Even though it can't be cured, you have the power to manage it by thoroughly understanding the condition, setting goals and planning how to achieve them.
What is Diabetes?
Diabetes means that your blood glucose (blood sugar) is too high. Most of the food you eat breaks down into glucose, the main source of energy for your body. Too much glucose is not good for your health.
Insulin is the hormone or chemical made by your pancreas (a gland organ behind the stomach) that helps your body use glucose for energy. When your body doesn't make enough insulin or if the insulin doesn't work properly, this can cause the glucose to stay in your blood creating high blood sugar and causing diabetes.
Type 1 Diabetes
Type 1 diabetes occurs when the pancreas makes little or no insulin. People with type 1 diabetes need daily insulin shots, along with a proper diet and exercise to stay healthy.
Type 2 Diabetes
Type 2 diabetes occurs when the pancreas makes some insulin, but either it is not enough or the cells do not use it properly. Some people with type 2 diabetes can control their blood sugar level with proper diet and exercise; others need diabetes pills and or/insulin as well.
Gestational diabetes develops in approximately five percent of pregnant women. Women who develop it have a higher lifetime risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
Causes of Diabetes
The causes of diabetes are currently unknown, but there are some factors that can place people at a higher risk to develop it, including:
- A family history of diabetes
- Being overweight
- Being over the age of 45
- Being of African, Asian, Hispanic, Native American or Pacific Islander heritage
- History of gestational diabetes or having delivered a baby weighing over nine pounds
Signs of Diabetes
Some of the signs of diabetes include:
- Feeling very tired and weak
- Frequent urination
- Increased thirst
- Losing weight without trying, even with an increased appetite
- Blurred vision
- Slow healing of wounds or infections
- Tingling or numbness in the hands, legs or feet
- Vomiting or stomach pain
- Sexual problems (impotence in men, decrease in vaginal fluids in women)
Treatment of Diabetes
Your doctor will likely recommend that you:
- Eat three meals and up to two snacks a day (don't skip meals)
- Exercise and keep active
- Monitor your blood sugar link to blood sugar levels - monitoring blood sugar regularly
- Take your medication or insulin as prescribed
To ensure that you are up to date on the latest information on diabetes, participate in an educational diabetes program. Check out our Covenant Diabetes Center to see how you can stay educated and treat your diabetes.
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With a survival rate of 30 per cent and symptoms that could easily be confused for something else, ovarian cancer has been dubbed “the disease that whispers.”
Walk of Hope
“We just want to do whatever we can to make everybody aware,” said Catherine Mazurkewich, on of the Saskatoon Walk of Hope chairs. “You would be surprised the number of, especially older women, that don’t even want to talk about it. You don’t talk about women’s private parts.
“We actually had people who would come by and we would ask, ‘Do you know anything about ovarian cancer?’ They would say, ‘I don’t want to know. That’s down there.’ It is quite interesting to see because it is a difficult subject to talk about.”
Some of the symptoms are confused with regular symptoms many women get during their menstrual cycle, such as bloating, abdominal cramping, constipation, fatigue, frequent urination, becoming full easily and increased abdominal girth.
“It is overlooked when you go to the doctor’s office because a lot of times they tell you it’s nothing, it’s common and it happens all the time,” Mazurkewich said. “That’s why ovarian cancer is the most overlooked and under diagnosed or misdiagnosed.
“It is usually diagnosed in the later stages and by that time, it becomes very difficult for treatment and women’s chance of survival is less than 30 per cent in five years. That it is why it is most important, first of all, that women become aware of this.”
The other problem with getting ovarian cancer diagnosed is there is no early detection test.
“It is kind of surprising how little women actually know about it and that they think a PAP test will diagnose them for ovarian cancer,” she said. “When we tell them no, it doesn’t, they are shocked.
“I think for most of us, the ultimate wish or the ultimate goal, is to first of all get that early detection or a screening test because there is nothing out there,” she added. “The only way you can go is (to) go for further investigation if your doctor suspects that.”
There is a blood test called the CA 125 that could be an indicator that there is something wrong, but the test also detects stomach problems such as ulcers.
If the blood test comes back positive, the next steps are a transvaginal ultrasound and then a biopsy.
“It is important to be your own advocate because nobody else is really going to look out for you,” Mazurkewich said. “You think you are putting your life in everybody else’s hands but truly women have to learn to be their own advocate too.”
For more information about the Ovarian Cancer Canada Walk of Hope, click here.
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This article is part of the Stairway Series: Stairway to T-SQL DML
This Stairway will provide you with a basic understanding of how to work with data from SQL Server tables, using SQL Server’s Transact-SQL (T-SQL) dialect. DML is the Data Manipulation Language, and is the aspect of the language dealing with the data. It includes the statements SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE. This Stairway will as also provide some history of the SQL language and some general concepts about set theory. Each level will build upon the prior level, so by the time you are finished you will have a good understanding of how to select and modify data from SQL Server.
In Level 1 of this stairway I gave you some information about how to write a basic SELECT statement. Now let’s step back in time and discuss the history of Structured Query Language, or what most SQL Server professionals just shorten to SQL or pronounce like the second part of a bad movie and say sequel. Fasten your seatbelts while I crank up the time machine and travel back in time to follow the history of SQL and Microsoft SQL Server from its early years to where they are today.
It all began at a little known company called IBM in the early 1970s. A couple of researchers named Donald D. Chamberlin and Raymond F. Boyce developed the first incarnation of the SQL language while they were working in IBM’s San Jose Research lab. They originally called this new coding language SEQUEL, which stood for Structured English Query Language. They invented this language to allowed programmers and infrequent database users to interact with data. The original SQL code set identified a set of functions , and a set of simple and consistent rules. If you want to find out more information about the first SEQUEL rule set you can read a paper published by Chamberlin and Raymond, which can be found here: http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/people/chamberlin/sequel-1974.pdf.
It was discovered that the name SEQUEL was already trademarked by a United Kingdom aircraft company named Hawker Siddeley, which caused IBM to change the name of this new data manipulation language. They shortened the name to just three letters, SQL. That is how the SQL language was now born.
In the late 1970s a company called Relational Software Inc., which later became Oracle, saw the value of the relational database model and the SQL language developed by Chamberlin and Raymond. They started developing a database management system they hoped to sell to the U.S. Government. In June 1979 they released the first commercially available RDBMS that used SQL, which was called Oracle V2 which ran on a VAX machine.
Relational Software Inc. beat IBM to market place with SQL, and this wouldn’t be the first or last time that a company beat IBM to the market place on a technology product. Shortly after the release of Oracle V2, IBM released its RDBMS known as System/38 which used the SQL language to manipulate data. System/38 proved to be a viable offering that lead IBM to spend even more time and effort exploring other software applications that took advantage of SQL.
In the 1980s many other products that used SQL came to market. With many vendors exploiting SQL, the language was standardized by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) who defined the SQL-86 standard in 1986. In 1987 the International Organization for Standards (ISO) adopted SQL. During this standardization process the official pronunciation for SQL was declared to be ess queue el, but many people still refer to it as sequel.
With the SQL language now being a standard, vendor implementations of SQL found it hard to support their product lines with only standard SQL syntax, therefore vendors started creating their own extensions to the SQL language to enhance their products. This is what led to Sybase to develop the Transact-SQL language extensions to support their own RDBMS implementation. Over time many of these original vendor-specific extensions would be adopted by other vendors, eventually finding their way into the standard SQL language.
In late 1987 Sybase and Microsoft launched into a partnership to produce and market DataServer, which used SQL, and ran on the OS/2 operating system. At the time Ashton-Tate was the leader in PC databases with a product named dBase. In 1989 Microsoft went into a partnership with Ashton-Tate to release the first product that contained the name SQL Server, with a product named Ashton-Tate/Microsoft SQL Server. A beta release of this product was shipped in the fall of 1988. This release was also called version 1.0 of SQL Server by some, since the original name was a little too awkward for many people to refer to easily.
As with any standard, as it is used and expanded by different vendors and products, it needs to evolve. This was no different for SQL. In 1989 a new version of the ANSI/ISO SQL standard was established, which was dubbed SQL-89.
In the 1990s there were many vendors who were providing products that used SQL. This continued support and expansion of the SQL language kept SQL moving forward in the software evolution process. The standards developed in the 80s, where eventually reviewed and a new standard emerged called SQL-92.
The SQL-92 standard expanded the standard SQL Language by leaps and bounds. SQL-92 brought in the concept of a schema manipulation language. This change introduced the ALTER and DROP commands into the SQL language. It also allowed for the dynamic creation of SQL statements and supported a number of new data types. Additional syntax was added to support outer joins as well as cascade updates and deletes. There were many other new features added to make the SQL language more flexible.
At the time SQL-92 was written there was no one vendor that adhered to the complete standard. Because of this, the standard was broken down into three different levels of compliance: entry, intermediate, and full. Each of these levels implemented a subset of the next higher level. The entry level contained a subset of the functionality of the intermediate level, and the intermediate level contained a subset of the full standard. When buying products in the 1990s, vendors noted the level at which the product conformed to the standard.
In early 1990, Microsoft continued to enhance their 1988 release of SQL Server. In the summer of 1990 they release version 1.1. This version contained many bug fixes, but also supported the just released Windows 3.0 operating system. Microsoft continued to exploit the SQL language when version 4.2 of SQL Server was released in 1993. This was the last release provided during the Sybase/Microsoft partnership.
In June of 1995 Microsoft released version 6.0 of SQL Server, which supported their new Windows 95 operating system. This release was then followed by SQL Server 6.5 in 1996. To round out the different versions released in the 90s Microsoft rolled out SQL Server 7.0 in in 1998.
While Microsoft and other vendors continued rolling out new releases of their database software, the SQL standards continued evolving as well. In 1999 the standards organizations published SQL:1999. This latest standard included a number of new features to support the ever changing SQL Server landscape. It was this version of the standard that incorporated support for large object types, user defined data types (UDT), established the SIMILAR and DISTINCT predicate, and many more new features. By the close of the century SQL was becoming a commonly used language for storing and manipulating relational data.
Evolution of SQL didn’t stop when the sands of time crossed over to the new millennium. Shortly after the beginning of the twenty-first century Microsoft released the next version of SQL Server, code named Shiloh, or more commonly known as SQL Server 2000. As time marched on it took another 5 years before the next release of SQL Server, code named Yukon, which was released in 2005 with a name of SQL Server 2005. Before the first decade of the new millennium was in the history books Microsoft would release SQL Server 2008, staying with the year theme for their releases.
Just as Microsoft did in updating their older releases with a newer version of SQL Server, so did the governing body over the SQL language standards. During the first decade of the new millennium two different versions of the SQL standards were published: SQL:2003 and SQL:2008. These two new versions bring the standards into the new technology age. These releases provide many clarifications as well as made minor modifications to the already solid SQL language. A couple of significant features released with the SQL:2003 were support for XML and the MERGE statement. With the release of SQL:2008 support for INSTEAD OF triggers, and the TRUNCATE statement are a couple of the key new features.
The Rest is History
The SQL language has come a long way since its early days at IBM. It is now widely used by many database vendors in one flavor or another. Microsoft SQL Server has also evolved into one of the leading contenders within the RDBMS space. The current decade has already seen a new release of SQL Server, named SQL Server 2008 R2, which was released in 2010. The rest of the future for the current decade is not known, but I’m sure the SQL language will continue to be refined and expanded. The SQL language invented in the 70s was incorporated into the first version SQL Server in the late 80s. The rest of the journey from there to where we are at today is just history.
To truly have an appreciation for the world of SQL one needs to have at least a high level understanding of relational database design. In my next Stairway article I will be providing another history lesson about the father of relational database design (Edgar Frank “Ted” Codd), as well as a discussion of different database components related to database design.
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From Our 2013 Archives
High Blood Sugar Levels Tied to Small Increases in Dementia Risk
Latest Alzheimers News
The effect was very subtle, however, suggesting that higher blood sugar levels may be more of a nudge toward memory loss than a shove.
"If I had diabetes and I read this study, my reaction would be relief," said Dr. Richard O'Brien, chair of neurology at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore, who was not involved in the research. "The effect was small."
The risk increases tied to rising blood sugar (or blood glucose) levels ranged from 10 percent to 40 percent. O'Brien pointed out that other risks appear to have much greater impacts. Having a parent with dementia, for example, roughly doubles or triples a person's risk for developing the disease.
O'Brien recently conducted a different study that looked at a similar, but slightly different question: whether or not blood glucose levels were linked to brain changes of Alzheimer's disease. That study, published online July 29 in JAMA Neurology, concluded there was no connection.
But O'Brien's study had fewer participants than the current investigation, which means it may not have been large enough to detect the slight differences between people who did and did not have signs of Alzheimer's. And because his study was solely focused on Alzheimer's disease, it couldn't rule out the possibility that higher blood sugar levels might be contributing to other kinds of dementia, particularly when it's caused by damage to the small blood vessels of the brain.
"The studies are completely compatible with each other," he said.
The U.S. obesity epidemic has led to soaring rates of type 2 diabetes, which is characterized by higher than normal blood sugar. As the baby boom generation ages, Alzheimer's disease is also on the rise, and experts are trying to determine whether a connection exists between the two.
For the new study, published Aug. 8 in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers followed more than 2,000 adults enrolled in the Group Health Cooperative, a nonprofit managed care collective in Washington State.
All study participants were aged 65 and older and free of dementia at the start of the study. Everyone had had at least five blood sugar checks in the two years prior to study enrollment.
At the start of the study, 232 people had diabetes, while 1,835 did not.
Through detailed health records kept on each participant, the researchers were able to estimate each person's average glucose levels.
Over the next seven years, on average, one-quarter of the participants developed dementia, including 450 who did not have diabetes and 74 with diabetes. About 20 percent of them had probable Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, while roughly 3 percent had dementia from vascular disease and slightly more than 3 percent were deemed to have dementia from other causes.
When researchers compared participants' average blood glucose levels to their risk of dementia, they found that for people without diabetes, as glucose levels rose above 100 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL), dementia risk increased, too.
People with average daily blood sugars of 105 to 115 mg/dL in the previous five years saw a 10 percent to 18 percent increase in the risk of developing dementia.
For people with diabetes, the risk began to rise with average blood sugars above 160 mg/dL. People with diabetes had a 40 percent greater risk of developing dementia if their average blood sugars were above 190 mg/dL for the same time frame.
Study author Dr. Paul Crane, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle, agreed the risk isn't monumental. "It's not explaining boatloads of dementia risk," he said.
And because the study only looked at the relationship between blood glucose and dementia, it can't definitively say that higher blood sugar levels lead to memory loss, or that lowering blood sugar can reduce a person's risk.
"People who had lower blood sugar had lower risk than people who had higher blood sugar," Crane said. "That's not the same thing as saying that lowering your own blood sugar through any means has any influence on your personal risk of dementia," he added.
Other studies will need to test that theory more directly. Until more is known, Crane said exercise appears to be a good way to lower your personal risk of dementia.
"There's a lot of observational data to suggest that exercise is good for your brain, and exercise is one means to lower your blood sugar," he said. "I tell my patients to exercise."
SOURCES: Richard O'Brien, M.D., chair, neurology, Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Baltimore; Paul Crane, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor, medicine, University of Washington, Seattle; Aug. 8, 2013, New England Journal of Medicine
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Bridging the Digital Divide at The Children's Aid Society
Many of us remember the days when we used to write our school essays in painstakingly neat longhand….or spending the night two-finger typing on the old electric typewriter! Well, those days seem to be gone forever. In the digital era we now live in, our children can’t imagine what it would be like to function in a B.P.C. (Before Personal Computers) world!
But Children’s Aid Society students do not typically have access to a home computer. Our community schools give these economically disadvantaged kids full exposure to technology by enabling them to not only learn how to use computers, but also to advance themselves in many computer-related skills. Thanks to our technology centers and dedicated team of professionals, Children’s Aid is able to arm students with the computer knowledge and the skill set needed to compete and succeed in this technologically advanced world of ours.
On Manhattan’s Upper West Side, the Frederick Douglass Center is home to the innovative Intel Computer Clubhouse, a creative space where students learn all aspects of computing – from exploring the Internet to learning about 3-D modeling, multimedia, digital music recording and even animation. It’s a fabulous environment for kids to become computer literate and to be inspired to explore technology-specific careers, in fields like engineering, computer programming, architecture, and film animation. Through this exposure to the world of high tech, our students quickly learn that there are endless opportunities for them out there – all within their grasp. Knowledge is a powerful thing!
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Tue 19 Mar 2013
If food insecurity is not about global food shortages, what is it? Following the a vast body of literature and experience addressing food insecurity, it is the outcome of a complex interplay between:
- locally-accessible food production
- local livelihoods options that might provide sufficient, reliable income or sources of food
- local social relations (which mobilize and create social divisions by gender, class, age, etc.) which shape access to both livelihoods opportunities and available food within communities and even households
- structures of governance and markets in which that production takes place
- global markets for food and other commodities that can impinge on local pricing.
Changes in the natural environment play into this mix in that they generally impinge upon locally-accessible production and on global markets. The experience of the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS-NET) provides evidence to this effect. FEWS-NET builds its forecasts through a consideration of all of these factors, and as it has gained resolution on things like local livelihoods activities and market pricing and functions, its predictive resolution has increased.
Despite decades of literature and body of experience to the contrary, it seems that the policy world, and indeed much development implementation, continues to view issues of hunger as the relatively straightforward outcome of production shortfalls that can be addressed through equally straightforward technical fixes ranging from changed farming techniques to new agricultural technologies such as GMOs. This view is frustrating, given its persistence in the face of roughly five decades of project failures and ephemeral results that evaporated at the end of “successful” projects. More nuanced work has started to think about issues of production in concert with the distribution function of markets. However, the bulk of policy and implementation along these lines couples the simplistic “technical fix” mentality of earlier work on food security with a sort of naïve market triumphalism that tends to focus on the possible benefits of market engagement with little mention or reasonable understanding of likely problematic outcomes. Put another way, most of this thinking can be reduced to:
increased agricultural production = increased economic productivity = increased food security and decreased poverty
The problem with this equation is that the connection between agricultural productivity and economic growth is pretty variable/shaky in most places, and the connection between economic growth and any specific development outcome is shaky/nonexistent pretty much everywhere unless there has been careful work done to make sure that new income is mobilized in a specific manner that addresses the challenge at hand. Most of the time, the food security via economic growth crowd has not done this last bit of legwork. In short, the mantra of “better technology and more markets” as currently manifest in policy circles is unlikely to advance the cause of food security and address global hunger any more effectively than prior interventions based on a version of the same mantra.
These issues present us with several key points about the problem we are trying to solve that should shape a general approach to food insecurity:
1) Because food insecurity is the outcome of the complex interplay of many factors, sectoral approaches are doomed to failure. At best, they will address a necessary but insufficient cause of the particular food insecurity issue at hand. However, in leaving other key causes unaddressed, these partial solutions nearly always succumb to problems in the unaddressed causes.
2) Production-led solutions will rarely, if ever, address enough significant causes of food insecurity to succeed. Simply put, while production is a necessary part of understanding food insecurity, it is insufficient for explaining the causes of particular food insecurity situations, or identifying appropriate solutions for those situations.
3) Increased production is not guaranteed to lead to economic growth. The crops at hand, who consumes them, the infrastructure for their transport, and national/global market conditions all shape this particular outcome, which can shift from season to season.
4) Economic growth does not solve things magically. Even if you can generate economic growth through increased agricultural production, this does not mean you will be addressing food insecurity. Programs must think carefully about where the proceeds from this new economic growth will go in the economy and society at hand, and if/how those pathways will result in greater opportunity for the food insecurity.
5) Embrace the fact complexity takes different forms in different places. In some places, markets will be a major cause of insecurity. In other places, environmental degradation might play this role. In still other places, failed governance will be the biggest issue driving food outcomes. In nearly all cases, though, all three of these factors will be present, and accompanied by others. Further, the form this insecurity takes will be highly variable within countries, provinces, districts, communities and even households, depending on the roles people play and the places in which they play them. There is no good template in which to fit a particular case of food insecurity, just a lot of causal factors that require extensive teasing out if one hopes to explain food outcomes and therefore address the problem.
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Optimizing SQL Server Performance by Using File and Filegroups
June 4, 2001
- General concepts
- Optimization tips
There are no devices and segments in SQL Server 7.0 and SQL Server 2000,
as in SQL Server 6.5. Now databases reside on operating-system files.
There are three types of such files:
Each database consists of at least two files: one is a primary data
file (by default, with the .mdf extension), the other is log file
(by default, with the .ldf extension). There are also secondary data
files (by default, with the .ndf extension). A database can have only
one primary data file, zero or more secondary data files, and one or
more log files. Each database file can be used by only one database.
So there is no such situation (as in SQL Server 6.5 was) in which you
can create some databases with their logs on the same device (on the
same file with the .dat extension).
The database files are combined into filegroups. Each data file can be
a member of only one filegroup, but the log files cannot be members
of any filegroups. In other words, log files are managed separately
from one another. There are three types of filegroups:
Each database can have only one primary filegroup, only one default
filegroup, and zero or more user-defined filegroups. If you don't
specify user-defined filegroups, your database will contain only
one primary filegroup, which will also be the default filegroup. The
primary filegroup contains the primary data file with all system
objects in it (system tables, system stored procedures, extended
stored procedures and so on). You cannot remove system objects from
the primary filegroup, but you can create user objects in the
user-defined filegroups for allocation, performance, and administration
purposes. To create user-defined filegroup, you should use a
CREATE DATABASE or ALTER DATABASE statement with the FILEGROUP keyword.
The default filegroup is the filegroup, where all the new user
objects will be created. You can change the default filegroup
by using ALTER DATABASE statement with the DEFAULT keyword.
SQL Server database files can be configured to grow and shrink
automatically, reducing the need for database management and
eliminating many problems that occur when logs or databases run
out of space. The autogrow feature is set by default; the autoshrink
feature is set by default only for the Desktop Edition of
SQL Server 7.0. When you create a database, you must set an initial
size for the data and log files. If you want to set database files
to grow automatically, you should also specify the autogrow increment
in megabytes, kilobytes, gigabytes, terabytes, or percent. The default
is MB. You can also specify a maximum file size to prevent disk drives
from running out of space.
Set a reasonable size for your database.
First of all, before database creation, you should estimate how large
your database will be.
To estimate the reasonable database size, you should first estimate
the size of each table individually, and then add the values obtained.
See this link for more information:
Estimating the Size of a Table
Set a reasonable size for your transaction log.
The general rule of thumb for setting the transaction log size is
to set it to 20-25 percent of the database size. The smaller the size
of your database, the greater the size of the transaction log
should be, and vice versa. For example, if the estimated database
size is equal to 10Mb, you should set the size of the transaction log
to 4-5Mb, but if the estimated database size is over 500Mb,
then 50Mb can be enough for the size of the transaction log.
Leave the autogrow feature on for the data files and for the log files.
Leave this feature to let SQL Server increase allocated resources
when necessary without DBA intervention. The Autogrow feature is
necessary when there is no DBA in your firm, or your DBA has limited
Set a reasonable size for the Autogrow increment.
Automatically growing does result in some performance degradation,
therefore you should set a reasonable size for the autogrow increment
to avoid automatic growing too often. Try to set the initial size
of the database and the size of the autogrow increment so that
automatic growing will only arise at most once per week.
Don't set the autoshrink feature.
Autoshrinking results in some performance degradation, therefore you
should shrink the database manually or create the schedule task
to shrink database periodically during off-peak times, rather than
setting the autoshrink feature.
Set the maximum size of the data and log files.
Specify the maximum size for which the files can grow in order to
prevent disk drives from running out of space.
Create a user-defined filegroup and make it the default filegroup.
In general, it's a good decision to store and manage system and
user objects separately from one another. This is so that the user
objects will not compete with system objects for space in the primary
filegroup. Usually a user-defined filegroup is not created for the
small database if, for example, your database is less than 100Mb.
Create a user-defined filegroup and create some tables in it to run
maintenance tasks (backups, DBCC, update statistics, and so on)
against these tables.
LOAD TABLE and DUMP TABLE are no longer supported in SQL Server 7.0
(and higher), but you can place a table in its own filegroup and can
backup and restore only this table. This will allow you to group user
objects with similar maintenance requirements into the same filegroup.
If you have several physical disks, try to create as many files
per filegroup as there are physical disks, and put one file
This will improve performance, because when table is accessed
sequentially, a separate thread is created for each file to read
the table's data in parallel.
Don't create many data and log files on the same physical disk.
Leaving the autogrow feature on for the data and for the log files
can cause fragmentation of those files if there are many files
on the same physical disk.
In most cases, it's enough to have 1-2 database files on the same
For a heavily accessed table, place this table in one filegroup and
place the table's indexes in a different filegroup on different
This will improve performance, because separate threads will be
created for the table's and index's data in parallel.
For a heavily accessed table with text/image columns, place this
table in one filegroup and place text/image columns in a different
filegroup on different physical disks.
You can use a CREATE TABLE statement with TEXTIMAGE_ON keyword to
place text/image columns in a different filegroup.
See SQL BOL for details.
Place the log files on different physical disk(s) than data files.
Because logging is more write-intensive, it's important that
the disks containing SQL Server log files have sufficient
disk I/O performance.
If one of the join queries is used most often, place the tables
used in this query in different filegroups on different
If you have read-only tables, place these tables in different
filegroups on different physical disks and use ALTER DATABASE
statements to make just these filegroups READ ONLY.
This not only increases read performance, but it prevents any
data changes and allows you to control permissions to this data.
Use Windows NT Performance Monitor to determine the appropriate
number of the data and log files by checking the Disk Queue Length
The more database files and filegroups, the more difficult
administering this database will be. Consider reducing the number
of files if Disk Queue length is above 3, and continue monitoring.
1. SQL Server Books Online.
2. Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Performance Tuning Guide
3. Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Storage Engine
4. Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Storage Engine Capacity Planning Tips
See All Articles by Columnist Alexander Chigrik
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Artists by Movement:
America, 1920's to 1930's
Precisionism (or Cubist Realism) is a style of representation in which an object is rendered in a realistic manner, but with an emphasis on its geometric form. An important part of American Modernism, it was inspired by the development of Cubism in Europe, and by the rapid growth of industrialization of North America in the wake of innovators such as Henry Ford. In its emphasis on stylized angular forms it is also visually somewhat similar to Art Deco.
Charles Demuth and Charles Sheeler are the artists most closely associated with Precisionism. The urban works of Georgia O'Keeffe are also highly typical of this style.
Dealing as it did with pure form more than with any type of narrative or subject matter, Precisionism gradually evolved towards Abstraction, and faded away as an important influence.
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For many Jews who celebrate Passover, the traditional shmurah matzah has become a meaningful symbol of the holiday. So what exactly is shmurah matzah? Shmura means “watched”; this means that the matzah has been scrupulously watched from the harvest of the wheat until the final baking. This also means that the entire process has been strictly supervised by a rabbi and that the matzah has been made in small batches by hand. Curious about this process, CookKosher explored the Lakewood, NJ matzah bakery. Join us for a virtual tour!
The entire process is done in an assembly line. In each 18 minute round, a few batches of matzos are made. At the end of the 18 minute round, the timer is stopped, and the entire bakery is carefully cleaned to ensure that there is no leftover dough.
All the utensils in the matzah bakery are made of stainless steel; this way it is easy to spot and clean up the leftover residue.
The special water for matzah baking- called mayim shelunu- is kept in a tank. This water comes from an over ground well.
The water and flour are kept in two separate rooms- to ensure that they never touch each other before being mixed. The water and flour are each carefully weighed.
The water and flour are carefully mixed together in stainless steel bowls.
The dough is kneaded with a medal rod that goes up and down.
The dough is divided into equal parts to ensure that the matzos are of equal size.
The matzos are then passed down the assembly line. Each baker rolls it a few times with a stainless steel rolling pin, and then flips it to the next baker. (Some matzah bakeries use wooden rolling pins which are sanded down in between each use.) By the time the matzos reach the end of the assembly line they are super thin.
At the end of the assembly line, the next baker uses a special utensil which punches holes into the matzos. The purposes of these holes are to ensure that the dough is super thin and that no dough is left raw.
The matzah is then placed on a rod with paper.
The matzah is then placed on a rod with paper. (The paper is changed in between each batch of matzah.)
The rod is carried over to the oven where another baker inserts the raw matzos into the steaming hot oven.
It takes only 32 seconds (!) for a matzos to bake.
The matzos are then taken out of the oven to cool.
Afterward, the matzos are inspected for creases and folds. If they do contain creases or folds, they are removed and not certified as kosher for Passover.
This is because raw dough in the matzah is suspected.
At this point the matzos are complete!
They are now ready to be packaged into neat boxes and shipped to Jews around the world- to be enjoyed all through the eight days of Passover.
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The Antarctic tourism industry’s carbon footprint
The beauty of Antarctica’s vast ice sheet may be a selling point in the travel brochures, but researchers are now taking a closer look at how much the South Pole’s tourism industry contributes to the global carbon emissions that are threatening to melt the ice.
Traveling to Antarctica is energy-intensive, Ramon Farreny of the Autonomous University of Barcelona and seven colleagues write in Antarctic Science, especially because “ships represent the world’s most polluting combustion sources per unit of fuel consumed.” Antarctic tourism reached a high of 46,000 visitors during the 2006–2007 season, and the ecological impact of those visitors is a contentious issue. Farreny’s team entered the fray by estimating “the global environmental impact of Antarctic tourism in terms of CO2 emissions.”
Using data on 36 vessels and 36,520 passengers from the 2008–2009 tourist season, the researchers calculated the total emissions from polar cruises. Then they added estimates of emissions from the commercial flights that bring tourists from their home countries to the gateway cities of South America.
“An average tourist trip to Antarctica results in average emissions of 5.44 [tons] of CO2 per passenger,” they concluded. “Approximately 70 percent of these emissions are attributable to the cruising part of the trip and 30 percent to the flight.” In total, ship-based tourism produced more than 198,000 tons of carbon-dioxide emissions during the 2008–2009 season. Although this accounts for just about 0.02 percent of worldwide tourism-related emissions, “the emissions caused by a single Antarctic holiday do not only vastly exceed the average emissions per international tourist trip (0.68 tons of CO2), but also the annual per capita emissions of the average world citizen (4.38 tons).”
– David Malakoff
Farreny, R. et al. 2011. Carbon dioxide emissions of Antarctic tourism. Antarctic Science doi:10.1017/S0954102011000435.
Photo: ©Steve Estvanik/Dreamstime.com
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Dr Clare Gerada, GP:
Sometimes people make rather too much of not being able to sleep. Not being able to sleep is very unpleasant but it's not going to kill you – no one ever died from not sleeping. If you can't sleep, you should get up and go into another room and do something else for a bit. Everyone laughs at me when I say this, but knitting is the best thing you can do because it's monotonous and distracting.
Then you should try again later. It can be the case that if there's no obvious reason for the sleeplessness, you could have just got yourself into a pattern of not sleeping and of associating your bed with not being able to sleep. In those circumstances, I would suggest buying an anti-histamine over the counter. Phenergan is a babies' antihistamine and it causes drowsiness; it could be that that's all you need to get over the psychological hump of dropping off.
In this way, you can break that cycle of not sleeping pharmacologically and without taking medicine long-term. Most of the people who come to me saying that they can't sleep get over it fairly quickly.
Jim Horne, professor of psychophysiology and director of the Sleep Research Centre at the University of Loughborough:
We are such creatures of habit, and most people like to do certain things before they go to sleep and have routines, which is why they sometimes find it difficult to sleep if they're away from home or staying in a hotel. Peace of mind at bedtime has an overwhelming importance in terms of how easily you will fall asleep.
The quality of the sleep you have is just as important as how easily you fall asleep. Some people can fall asleep but don't sleep efficiently and are tired during the day. We all have a natural dip in the afternoon, but if that dip becomes pronounced or spills out into the rest of the day then there might be something wrong. It's quite difficult to find out what is disturbing your sleep if you're asleep; sometimes it can be as simple as your bedroom being too hot. A partner might be able to tell you if you snore, which can disrupt your sleep. Your partner being very active during the night can also be disruptive.
True insomnia is really a 24-hour disorder: it's a sort of constant wakefulness. Insomniacs tend to be pretty alert during the day and get better sleep at night than they think. People who can't sleep and are very tired during the day might not be suffering from insomnia but tiredness, boredom or depression; they attribute their tiredness to insomnia, but actually it's the other way around. Hypnotics and bubble baths and things like that won't help; the only cure is to find the psychological source of the unhappiness.
Dr Sara Eames, The Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital:
It's amazing how many people are doing simple things wrong that keep them awake, such as drinking caffeine before bed or keeping their bedroom too warm. The good thing about homoeopathy is that there are different remedies for different sorts of sleeplessness. For recent bereavement, ignatia is good; for ongoing, chronic grief, natrum mur can help. If someone is overworked and unable to wind down, nux vomica can help; it can also help if you've eaten or drunk too much and you can't settle down because of that. If it's physical pain that's stopping you from dropping off, rhus tox is helpful.
For new mothers or carers who have their sleep interrupted a lot and then can't sleep when they get the chance to, cocculus can work. Those are things that people can try initially; they can always get a homoeopathic consultation if they need more specific advice.
Joanne Lunn, The British Nutrition Foundation:
Just before bed, you should always avoid anything with a stimulant in it, such as coffee or tea. Some medicine has caffeine in it, too, so check the label of anything you're taking. It's usually daytime cold and flu remedies that are the most likely to contain caffeine. Everyone is different, though, and you are likely to know how sensitive you are to caffeine and how likely it is to keep you awake.
Alcohol is something else that will disturb your sleep. In some cases, it can make you fall asleep, but once you are asleep, you won't be getting as good a rest as you would be if you hadn't drunk anything. To get a really good sleep, you should stop drinking two or three hours before you go to bed. There is a theory that the reason hot milk helps you sleep is that it contains tryptophan, which produces serotonin and makes you feel relaxed. There's probably something psychological about it: if you think it's going to help you sleep, it probably will.
Eating late at night will disrupt your sleep, because if you go to bed on a full stomach, it can cause indigestion and heartburn. If you find yourself hungry just before bed, then it's best to eat a carbohydrate-rich snack such as cereal or wholemeal toast because carbs are digested fairly quickly; the worst things to eat are anything fatty or high in protein.
Jane Kersel, Triyoga Centre, Primrose Hill, London:
This is a 15-minute programme, suitable to practise before you go to sleep, and which will aid relaxation.
1. Lie on the floor on your back, with your head on a pillow. Bend both knees, feet hip-width apart, a few inches away from your buttocks. Draw your right knee in towards you with both hands cupped around the knee/shin, and as you inhale, press the knee gently away from you – feel the stretch through your shoulders and mid-back. As you exhale, gently draw the leg in towards your chest. Repeat five times, and as you exhale, place the foot back to the floor and repeat on the left side. This will open your spine, connect you to your breath and bring you deeper into your body rather than into your thoughts.
2. Keep both feet to the floor, still hipwidth apart and, as you exhale, slowly take both knees over to the right-hand side so that your hips gently turn – keep your torso flat on the floor. As you inhale, slowly bring the legs back up and exhale to the left. Every time you exhale, your legs go towards the floor, and everytime you inhale, lift your knees back up to the centre. Repeat for 10 breaths. This brings you from your thinking mind into your feeling body while at the same time gently stretching your spine and releasing tension in your shoulders and in your neck.
3. Lying on your back, position yourself near a wall, and stretch one leg so that your heel or back of your leg (if you're more flexible) makes contact with the wall. Stretch both legs up against the wall either together or hip-width apart, and allow the wall to completely take the weight of your legs. Place your palms gently on your lower belly. As you inhale, feel the breath lift the belly a little, and as you exhale, feel your belly gently release down towards the floor. Stay in this pose for three to five minutes. With each breath, feel your legs gently releasing and your spine lengthening. This pose is not only great for bringing you into a peaceful place, it's fantastic for helping tired, stressed backs and tight hamstrings. To come out of the pose, bring your legs down the wall and gently roll to your right hand side. Use your hands to gently bring you back up to a seat-ed position.
4. Finally, lie in bed on your back with your head on a pillow. Place your hands, palms up, by your sides. Feel your shoulders relax and the chest open up and breathe easily and long. As you inhale, consciously make your exhale some two to four seconds longer than your inhale (without straining). This will really help to relax you – it's a basic pranayama (yoga breathing technique) that calms and soothes the nervous system.
Shakila Ahmed, Travelodge:
When people check into a Travelodge, they're usually on the move. What they want from us most is a good night's sleep, so we're always coming up with ways of trying to improve sleep. Many of our guests are businessmen, and a lot of them tell us that they have trouble sleeping because they are worried about work. That problem inspired us to offer guests 15 minutes' goldfish-watching before they went to bed; studies have shown that watching fish swim lowers your stress levels significantly. They were a great success. Then we offered "nodcasts", which are podcasts to aid sleep.
The idea behind them is to take advantage of how open the mind is just before you nod off; we explored all the issues that tend to keep people awake and tackle them in the nodcasts.
We've just finished trialling our new pyjamas, which are made of lightweight cotton and silk. It's amazing how something as simple as what you wear to bed can affect how you sleep, and most people complain that they can't sleep because they are too hot. Some people wear too much to bed or wear a nightie that rides up and you end up having a fight with it in the middle of the night. Our pyjamas are like a second skin and keep your body temperature constant while you sleep – it's like sleeping in the buff.
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Cantonese Opera Cantonese opera is one of the major Chinese opera categories. It is a traditional Chinese art form that originated in southern China’s Cantonese culture, and involves music, singing, martial arts, acrobatics and acting. Today it is not only very popular in Guangdong, Guangxi, Hong Kong and Macao, but also performed in Southeast Asia, Oceania and American countries where Cantonese people live. Cantonese opera was included in the first list of 518 state-level intangible cultural heritage elements, which was announced on May 20th, 2006.
History Cantonese opera was originally called Narm hei (南戏), or Nanxi (Southern opera) in the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, and was popular in Guangdong and Guangxi at that time. The first performance language was Central Plains music (中原音韵), also known as Theatre Mandarin. Later, at the end of the Qing Dynasty, Theatre Mandarin was changed to Cantonese so that it could be easy for people to understand. During the Qing Dynasty, Nanxi employed “Banghuang” as the basic tone and had also preserved tones of Kunqu opera, Ge opera and Guang opera. By absorbing the folk melodies and tunes of Guangdong, Nanxi was developed into the earliest kind of Cantonese opera.
During the Xinhai Revolution, many patriotic Cantonese performers promoted the idea of fighting with the Qing Dynasty, imperialism and feudalism through their performances in Cantonese opera. They often practiced and organized performances, and meanwhile absorbed the cream of dramas and movies. Soon Cantonese opera had been enriched by the cream of dramas and movies.
Since 1949, when the People’s Republic of China was founded, the Chinese government has placed great importance on the arts. Consequently, Cantonese opera has obtained further development and many excellent operas have been performed. In addition, many new people have been cultivated to engage in this profession. In 1958, the Guangdong Opera House was founded. Dress-up of Cantonese opera Makeup At early stage, performers liked to wear a great deal of makeup, but they used very simple cosmetics. The main five colors—red, black, white, blue and yellow—symbolized loyalty, honesty, cattiness, arrogance and capability, respectively. Different roles might wear different types of make-up in order to match the role. However, in the 1920s performers preferred to wear light makeup, and the most common makeup was “red-white face.”
Headwear There is a variety of headwear used in Cantonese opera, such as headgear, chignon and accessories. Different types of headwear have their own characteristics, so they must each be used and protected in a different way. In general, females have more headwear than males. But male performers do have some headwear, such as Taizi (Chinese prince) helmets. What Jia Baoyu in A Dream of Red Mansions wears is a Taizi helmet, which is often worn by princes or young generals.
Costume In the beginning, Cantonese opera costumes reflected the clothing style of the Ming Dynasty. Later, as Peking opera became increasingly popular, it was strongly influenced by Peking opera costumes. Costumes were made of cloth and later some accessories were added. Today embroidered costumes are the order of the day.
Different roles require different costumes. For example, an actor playing the Xiaosheng, a very gentle role, wears a costume with long sleeves, while the Xiaowu, an acting role, demands a costume with short sleeves so as to act easily.
Performing skills Generally, Cantonese opera performers have to master four skills: singing, acting/movement, delivery of speeches, and martial/gymnastic skills.
Different roles conform to different requirements and are each sung in their own way. Males often sing falsetto to act as females. Until the 20th century, all female roles were performed by males. Acting refers to body language, including gestures and particular styles of walking on the stage. Performers deliver speeches to inform the audience of the opera’s plot and the characters’ emotions.
Musical instruments To date, more than 40 musical instruments have been used in Cantonese opera. They can be divided into four categories: wind instruments, plucked instruments, string instruments and percussion instruments.
Cantonese opera roles Cantonese opera has ten roles: Mo, Sheng, Dan, Jing, Chou, Wai, Xiao, Fu, Tie and Za. In order to perform these roles well, opera performers have to receive extensive training and master skills required by the role.
Cantonese operas Many well-known operas are still performed today, such as The Purple Hairpin (紫钗记) and Rejuvenation of the Red Plum Flower, which originated in the Yuan Dynasty. Other Cantonese operas are adapted from western movies or novels.
Cantonese opera performers There have been many famous Cantonese opera performers. From the 1920s to the 1940s, Xue Juexian, who played Wen and Wu roles, and Ma Shi, who played Chou roles, made great contributions to the development of Cantonese opera. Today, the CYL Cantonese Opera Troupe plays an important role in the development and promotion of Cantonese opera.
Many Cantonese operas preach the importance of being loyal to one’s country, filial to one’s parents, and kind to one’s friends. Therefore, Cantonese opera not only entertains, but also plays a significant part in cultivating good values.
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oulos, Kotsopoulos, D., Makosz, S., Zambrzycka, J., & McCarthy, K. (accepted). The effects of different pedagogical approaches on the learning of length measurement in kindergarten. Early Childhood Education Journal.
Kotsopoulos, D., Lee, J., Cordy, M., & Bruyns, S., (2014). Electronic portfolios in grades one, two, and three: A cautionary tale. Technology, Pedagogy and Education. DOI. 10.1080/1475939X.2014.961952.
Kotsopoulos, D., & Lee, J. (2014). Let's talk about math: The LittleCounters approach to early math. Brookes Publishing, Co.
Kotsopoulos, D., Cordy, M., Langemeyer, M., & Khattack, L. (2014). How do children draw, describe, and gesture about motion? In J. L. Polman, E. A. Kyza, D. K. O'Neill, I. Tabak, W. R. Penuel, A.S. Jurow, . . . L. D'Amico (Eds.), proceedings of the 11th International Conference of the Learning Sciences: Vol. 3 (pp. 1521-1522), Boulder, Colorado: University of Denver at Boulder.[Available at here.]
Lee, J., Kotsopoulos, D., Tumber, A., & Makosz, S. (2014). Gesturing about number sense. Journal of Early Childhood Research. DOI. 10.1177/1476718X13510914.Kotsopoulos, D., Weatherby, C., Woolford, D., & Khattak, L. (2014). Supporting success in post-secondary mathematics education: A cross-sectional institutional analysis. Presentation at the Integrated and Engaged Learning Conference 2014, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario.
Kotsopoulos, D. (2013). The case of Mitchell's cube: Interactive and reflexive positioning during collaborative learning in mathematics. Mind, Culture, and Activity: An International Journal. DOI: 10.1080/10749039.2013.790905.
Kotsopoulos, D., & Lee, J. (2013). What are the development enhancing features of mathematical play? An Leanbh Og: The OMEP Ireland Journal of Early Childhood, 7, 46-78.
Buzza, D. Kotsopoulos, D., Mueller, J., & Johnston, M. (2013). Exploring the relationship between self-regulated learning and reflection in teacher education. Journal of Teaching and Learning, 9(1), 1-12.
Kotsopoulos, D. & Lee, J. (2012). A naturalistic study of executive function and mathematical problem-solving. Journal of Mathematical Behavior, 31(2), 196-208.
Kotsopoulos, D., & Lee, J. (2012). An analysis of math congress in an eighth grade classroom. Mathematical Thinking and learning, 14(3), 181-198.
Kotsopoulos, D., Mueller, J., & Buzza, D. (2012). Pre-service teacher research: Early acculturation into a research disposition. Journal of Education for Teaching, 38(1), 28-36.
Lee, J., Kotsopoulos, D., & Stordy, C. A. (2012). Mathematically-relevant input during play of a caregiver with a visual impairment and her toddler. International Journal of Early Childhood, 44(1), 71-90.
Kotsopoulos, D., Lee, J., & Heide. D. ( 2011). A pair-wise analysis of the cognitive demand levels of mathematical tasks used during classroom instruction and those assigned for homework. Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, 11(4), 348-364.
Kotsopoulos, D. (2010). When collaborative is not collaborative: Supporting peer learning through self-surveillance. International Journal of Educational Research, 49, 129-140.
Kotsopoulos, D. (2010). An analysis of talking aloud during peer collaborations. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 8(6), 1049-1070.
Buzza, D., Kotsopoulos, D., Mueller, J., & Johnston, M. (2010). Investigating a professional development school model of teacher education in Canada. McGill Journal of Education, 45(1), 45-62.
Kotsopoulos, D., Lee, J., & Heide, D. (2010). Investigating mathematical cognition using distinctive features of mathematical discourse, International Journal of Mathematics Education Research, 2, 138-162.
Kotsopoulos, D., & Cordy, M. (2009). Investigating imagination as a cognitive space for learning mathematics. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 70(3), 259-274.
Gadanidis, G. & Kotsopoulos, D. (2009). "This is how we do this and this is the way it is." Factors affecting teachers' choice of mathematical compass. For the Learning of Mathematics.
Kotsopoulos, D. & Lavigne, S. (2008). Examining “mathematics for teaching” through an analysis of teachers’ perceptions of student “learning paths.” International Electronic Journal of Mathematics Education, 3(1), 1-23.
Kotsopoulos, D. (2008). Beyond teachers’ sight lines: Using video modeling to examine the peer discourse. Mathematics Teacher. 101(6), 468-472.
Kotsopoulos, D. (2007). Unraveling student challenges with quadratics: A cognitive approach. The Australian Mathematics Teacher, 63(2), 19-24.
Kotsopoulos, D. & Lavigne, S. (2007). What is water pressure? Reflecting on a grade 10 academic performance task. Ontario Mathematics Gazette, 45(3), 25-28.
Kotsopoulos, D. (2007). Mathematics discourse: “It sounds like hearing a foreign language.” Mathematics Teacher, 101(4), 301-305.
Kotsopoulos, D. (2006). Researching linguistic discrimination. For the Learning of Mathematics, 26(3), 21-22.
Kotsopoulos, D., & Taylor, S. (2004). Appropriating the discourse of language in mathematics education. International Journal of Diversity in Organisations, Communities and Nations, Volume 4. (ISSN 1447-9532 (print). ISSN 1447-9583 (online).
Kotsopoulos, D. (2004). Literacy across the curriculum: Myth, mystery or bi-literacy? The Case of Mathematics Education. TESOL: The Bilingual Basics, 2(6), 1-6.
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Present estimates suggest that about 1.5 billion people lack access to electricity worldwide. Many scenarios for the "successful" implementation of mitigation policies leave what we believe to be an unacceptable number of people literally in the dark. For instance, the IEA's 2009 scenario has global emissions on a trajectory to stabilisation at 450 ppm carbon dioxide; yet 1.3 billion people worldwide remain without access to electricity. If energy access is to be expanded to include those without access today while meeting expected growth in global energy demand in the rest of the world, the unit costs of energy will necessarily have to come down. But the higher quality fossil fuels are in already tight markets. If the attempt is made to satisfy new demand using these fuels, then costs will rise. Alternatives to fossil fuels must be made cheaper. For this to happen, innovation is required.
Broadening the range of management strategies beyond those conventionally defined as "mitigation" would have other benefits, which, together with their climate change relevance, justify the actions needed to achieve the alternative scenario.
Eradicate emissions of black carbon. Black carbon (or soot) is a public health hazard. Around 1.8 million people die every year from exposure to black carbon through indoor fires. Black carbon also warms the atmosphere at regional and global scales, contributing between 5 and 10% of the total human forcing of the climate system. It is feasible nearly to eradicate emissions of black carbon through targeted and enforced regulation. The environmental pay-back here is relatively quick, with huge public health benefits, especially for the poorest in developing countries.
Reduce tropospheric ozone. Poor air quality in urban environments is exacerbated by emissions of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, methane and other volatile organic compounds. These gases react in the troposphere to form ozone, which is toxic to humans and to plants including crops. Tropospheric ozone contributes between 5 and 10% of the total human forcing of the climate system. Rigorous implementation of air pollution regulations, together with a move towards more efficient urban transportation systems, could more than halve these emissions of ozone precursor gases.
Protect tropical forests. Tropical forests are a key asset for humanity's future for reasons that extend well beyond their function as a carbon store... Rather than seeking to lock tropical forest management into an all-embracing climate convention, and thus get snarled up in the complexities of reducing industrial carbon emissions, forests should be managed in ways which recognise the integrated value of these ecosystems. Issues of deforestation should be de-coupled from the Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Accelerate energy efficiency. Energy efficiency offers an important avenue for short- to medium-term progress. Efficiency saves money, makes industry more productive and attains other worthwhile objectives. This makes it worth doing irrespective of the benefits to carbon policy. This strategy is also harmonious with economic growth, which is a prerequisite for any sort of political traction in major economies.
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- Ignore Project Fear: Brexit Won't Ruin Us
- Uncontrolled Immigration Means Finis Britanniae
- The Next US President Must Carry A Big Stick
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- How to Survive the Fourth Industrial Revolution
- The Spectre Of Mayor Khan's Islamist London
- Students Are Leading The Free Speech Fightback
- Fortress Europe Faces An African Migrant Tsunami
- Trump May Be Bad, But What Comes Next Will Be Worse
- Myth Of Stressed-Out Soldiers On The Street
- The Russian Love Affair With Palmyra Resumes
- How Russia Is Ruled By The Putin Doctrine
- The Doors Of Holocaust Memory Are Closing
- Rediscovering The Point Of Language
- The Novelist For Whom Small Was Beautiful
- A Recipe For Disaster
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Thunder is the sound made by lightning.
Depending on the nature of the lightning and distance of the listener, thunder can range from a sharp, loud crack to a long, low rumble.
The deep rumbling and sharp cracks of thunder are produced as the air around the lightning bolt is super heated up to 60,000 degrees Fahrenheit (33,315 C), which then rapidly expands.
In turn, this expansion of air creates a sonic shock wave which produces the sound of thunder.
The closer the lightning is, the louder the clap of thunder will be.
The distance of the lightning can be calculated by the listener based on the time interval from when the lightning is seen to when the sound is heard.
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Rainwater Environmental Alliance for Learning (REAL) School Gardens, a program that works with 57 urban elementary schools in north Texas, received a $50,000 grant from the Motorola Foundation to fund a yearlong project focusing on alternative energy education in third- through sixth-grade classrooms.
The grant will allow about 920 students, along with instructors and local experts, to conduct experiments outdoors with the goal of powering the school gardens’ water pumps with wind and solar energy. REAL School Gardens hopes the new project will help children understand renewable energy locally, as well as globally.
The grant was part of the Motorola Foundation’s Generation Innovation effort, which is geared toward educational programs in science, technology, engineering and math. REAL School Gardens works with more than 40,000 children and 2,300 educators to provide hands-on learning about nature. Read more at the REAL School Gardens website.
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