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Pertama kali yang harus anda ketahui ketika mempelajari narrative text adalah tujuan; untuk apa anda menulis (writing), membaca (reading), berbicara (speaking), atau mendengarkan (listening) teks naratif. Saya khawatir ketika anda sudah susah payah menulis, karena salah menentukan the purpose of narrative text, tulisan tersebut gagal di depan pembaca.
Macam-macam Narrative Text:
- Cerita rakyat (folk tale)
- Legenda (legend)
- Cerita binatang (fable), dan cerita rekaan lainnya.
Once upon a time, there lived a sparrow with her husband on a tree. She had built a nice nest and laid eggs in it.
One morning, a wild elephant was in search of shade and he arrived at the tree. However, soon he became angry and shook the tree hard. He didn’t find enough shade.Down came all the sparrow eggs and broke one by one. But both parents were saved. The mother sparrow was very sad.
The woodpecker, a friend of hers, offered to help her think of a way to kill the elephant.The woodpecker flew to her friend, the gnat, which in turn went to the wise frog for advice. The frog devised a scheme for killing the elephant.The frog asked the gnat to buzz in the ears of the elephant, so that the elephant would be thrilled to listen to the music of the gnat and close its eyes. Then, he asked the woodpecker to peck the elephant’s eyes out. He himself would be on the edge of a pit and would croak misleading the elephant to think that it was a pond.
The next day at noon the three animals carried out the plan and the elephant was killed when he fell flat into a pit after being blinded by the woodpecker when he closed his eyes in response to the gnat. So the revenge was taken with collective wit of all three animals.
- Once upon a time…
- A long time ago, ….
- One day, ….
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Why should we eat five a day and will an apple keep the doctor away? A food writer explores the science behind it...
Deciding what to eat is no longer a simple matter of instinct or appetite. Every choice we make about food is complicated.
Is meat good or bad for us? Why is five a day recommended for fruit and vegetables? And can diet really cause cancer – or prevent it?
As a food writer, I am often asked these questions, and in an effort to answer them I have looked at the latest scientific research, hopefully exposing some of the myths and providing a practical guide to the things we eat.
ARE APPLES REALLY THAT GOOD FOR ME?
The phrase ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’ was originally a marketing slogan dreamt up by American apple growers at the start of the 20th Century. Their fruit had been made into cider, but after the drink was banned during Prohibition they tried to promote apples as being good to eat instead. So how true is that old adage?
Apples have taken a bashing lately for being full of sugar, which dentists warn causes tooth decay, but advising against them is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Apples are a good source of fibre. There are two types – the first is insoluble, also referred to as roughage, which increases the bulk of stools, and in turn stimulates gut contractions and keeps the bowels moving regularly.
Cider vinegar is an important part of our diet
The second type, soluble fibre – which apples contain – dissolves in the stomach, forming a viscous gel. It helps food move along the gut too by adding bulk, but it also lowers cholesterol by binding to it in the gut. This gel slows down the rate at which sugar enters the bloodstream, keeping energy levels steady.
The Department of Health recommends that adults consume 18g of fibre per day, and a medium apple provides about 3g – similar to a bowl of brown rice. Several studies into the cholesterol-lowering properties of apples recommend eating two a day to get a beneficial dose.
By hitting the daily recommended fibre intake, we may be lowering our risk of colorectal cancer. While diets containing more than 80g of meat per day have been linked to a higher incidence of these tumours, a fibre-rich diet seems to cancel out this effect. The peel, which contains insoluble fibre, has the highest concentration of disease-fighting flavonoids and polyphenols, although this research is based on concentrated extracts rather than the whole fruit.
As for vitamins, variety matters. A single old-fashioned Ribston Pippin has more Vitamin C than a whole pound of Golden Delicious.
You can drink some of the goodness in an apple as well as eating it. Juicing doesn’t alter the vitamin content dramatically, although you do lose a lot of the fibre. Cider vinegar has long been used as a folk-medicine tonic. Science has shown that it can lower blood-sugar levels and that it helps with weight loss, probably by suppressing appetite.
A 2009 Japanese study showed drinking a 500ml drink with a tablespoonful or half-tablespoon of cider vinegar led to greater weight loss, because people ate less, and lower blood cholesterol than drinking water. Mix a splash with honey and oil to make a healthy salad dressing.
WHAT IS THE BEST BREAKFAST?
What is the best breakfast?
Packaged cereals shout about nutritional goodness. But a recent survey by the consumer organisation Which? showed 32 out of 50 types were shockingly high in sugar. This is the type of refined sugar dentists are right to be concerned about. And, it can be argued, these cereals won’t keep us full until lunch.
Sugary breakfast cereals have a high glycaemic index (GI) score – a measure of the effects of carbohydrates in food on blood-sugar levels. It estimates how much each gram of digestible carbohydrate in a food raises blood glucose following consumption, relative to consumption of glucose. GI scores are calculated in relation to glucose, which has the highest score of 100.
The higher a GI reading, the faster the food is digested and the quicker we are hungry again. Conversely, the lower the GI, the longer we feel full and the fewer calories we consume.
This is the reason why a low GI diet is associated with healthy weight, and a lower risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease, according to the University of Sydney’s International GI Group.
Cornflakes, which are some of the least sugary cereals, have a GI score of more than 80, which is similar to white bread. Low-GI breakfast foods include muesli (avoid added-sugar varieties) and porridge.
‘Go to work on an egg’ – another old marketing phrase – is good advice. Eggs contain protein which makes you feel fuller for longer. A poached egg on wholegrain toast is a great choice.
A full English fried breakfast contains protein and fat as well as carbohydrate – and will keep you full for a long time. However, the calories can be alarmingly high, so a regular fried breakfast will only make you put on weight. As for bread, sourdough has a higher acidity than others due to the addition of lactbacillus, which produces lactic acid, giving it a distinctive tangy taste. There is ongoing research into how this element aids absorption of nutrients such as calcium, zinc and iron better than standard bread.
A glass of freshly squeezed juice is a refreshing shot of vitamins. The British Dietetic Association recommends a small (150ml) glass. Best of all, have the fruit whole or eat some chopped up with live natural yogurt.
CAN I EAT TO AVOID HEART DISEASE AND CANCER?
No one food will kill or cure. But the good news is that a balanced, varied diet has room for fats and carbs – just choose the right kind in the right amounts. Fats help build our cells and are part of good health, but they are high in calories. Eating too many calories can lead to you becoming overweight, which raises risks of heart disease and cancer. Butter has been demonised in the past, but like other fats it delivers and contains fat-soluble vitamins such as A, D and E.
Fruit and vegetables contain vitamins, minerals, pytochemicals and fibres and are low in calories
Wholegrains are another key food. ‘They provide fibre and micronutrients such as folic acid, magnesium and Vitamin E,’ says Professor Walter Willett of Harvard Medical School, where researchers have shown how a diet rich in grains is associated with lower rates of cancer and heart disease. Oatcakes, porridge, wholegrain couscous, brown rice and quinoa are good options.
The World Cancer Research Fund recommends having no more than 500g of cooked red meat in a week due to the risk of colon cancer. A slice of roast beef is 45g, a thick piece of lamb 90g and a small steak is 100g.
Moderate wine-drinking is championed by Professor Roger Corder, at Barts and the London School of Medicine. In his book The Wine Diet, he recommends traditionally made red wines, which are high in polyphenols, especially one type, procyanadins. These seem to be particularly good for cardiovascular health by protecting against the damage to your blood vessels that causes disease. Such wines range from those from Madiran in south-west France (look for the Tannat grape) to the Douro in Portugal.
The word ‘superfood’ refers to those that are rich in phytochemicals, the micronutrients in food other than vitamins and minerals that protect your body against disease. Tomatoes, onions, garlic, cabbage and green tea are also rich in these compounds and are affordable.
HOW SHOULD I EAT MY FIVE A DAY?
Butter is also an important part of our diet
Fruit and vegetables contain vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals and fibre and they are low in calories. But only a third of adults eat their five a day, according to the Government. Five turns out to be a number created by the State Nutritionist for California in 1998. She looked at the average figure of what people ate and doubled it.
A 2011 study in the European Heart Journal showed that people who ate eight a day were 22 per cent less at risk of dying of heart disease than those who ate three a day.
It’s good to eat vegetables in abundance because they are very high in micronutrients and have less sugar than fruit. Eat as many different kinds as possible and try to ‘eat a rainbow’, as the pigments are linked to different phytochemicals.
A number of micronutrients, including Vitamin C, are best consumed raw or steamed, rather than boiled, in order to not destroy the more fragile types and lose water-soluble vitamins in cooking water.
But fat-soluble vitamins such as A, D, E and K can be more useful when cooked in a little fat. The antioxidant lypocene in tomatoes is better absorbed this way.
What To Eat, by Hattie Ellis, is published by Portobello at £14.99.
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|Marian Rogers is using a scholarship|
from the National Science Foundation
to study the Higgs boson.
By the time most who awoke to the news had tenuously grasped just what is the Higgs boson, Fordham student Marian Rogers was already running equations and reading reactions from scientists around the world.
“It’s truly amazing to think about all the physicists, both experimentalists and theorists, who have worked on Higgs searches for so many years,” said the Farmers Branch, Texas, native. “It’s such a blessing to get to play a tiny part in studying this new particle.”
Rogers, a rising senior at Rose Hill, has been studying the reputed “God particle” at the College of William and Mary as part of the National Science Foundation’s Research Experience for Undergraduates summer program. Along with Marc Sher, Ph.D.— professor of physics at William and Mary and a head honcho on the Higgs—Rogers has been working at the heart of the most important scientific discovery of the 21st century.
Described by New York Times writer Dennis Overbye as a kind of “cosmic molasses,” the Higgs boson is the reason why all other particles have mass.
“When you work through the math in the theory without a Higgs boson, the other particles start out massless, but experimentally we know they do in fact have mass,” Rogers explained.
Add a Higgs field to the equation, though, and the math comes out right. Particles pass through this field, and the more they interact with it, the heavier they become—that is, the more mass they gain.
“It’s famously been compared to wading through water and moving slower, or becoming heavier,” Rogers said. “Outside of a Higgs field, the other particles would be free to move [through space] at the speed of light.
“That’s why this discovery is so significant. It’s not just another particle to add to the list. It’s a special kind of particle with a very important role to play in our understanding of physical reality,” she said.
Sher and Rogers are investigating the two-Higgs-doublet model (2HDM), a theory that predicts the presence of five Higgs-like particles, rather than the one Higgs predicted by the standard model.
“The majority of my work is playing with the math—what happens if we change this or that variable, or introduce a new one?” she said. “Sometimes that means making and interpreting a series of graphs on the computer, or just working through a lot of algebra and calculus on paper. We also look at recent papers from other researchers working on 2HDMs and we try to replicate their results or come up with different ways of looking at the problem.”
For Rogers and Sher, the July 4 announcement was akin to a fireworks display. The fact that experimental results at CERN had reached 5 sigma—the benchmark for declaring "discovery" on a scale that ranks the quality of the results—meant that physicists now have evidence to support what they had predicted mathematically.
“This has certainly been an exciting summer,” Rogers said. “After the news was official, Professor Sher was fielding calls and emails from reporters the rest of the week. Every morning when I would come into work, Professor Sher would have a new paper for me to read.”
When she is not working on the groundbreaking discovery, Rogers—who is pursuing minors in philosophy and theology, in addition to her physics major—is thinking ahead to the future, researching doctoral programs in the philosophy of physics.
“It’s exciting to work on problems for which no one actually knows the answers yet—there are no solution manuals,” she said. “I just find it fascinating to get to study theories about the most fundamental constituents of matter. What happens when you can’t break it up any further? How does that work? These are age-old questions, and this discovery is a huge step toward answering them.”
— Joanna Klimaski
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What a sight to behold. Earlier this month, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) beamed back stunning images of the sun’s plasma moving violently around the star’s magnetic field for 30 some hours, creating a tornado as large as the Earth itself, with gusts reaching up to 300,000 miles per hour. That’s according to Terry Kucera, a solar physicist with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. NPR has more on the makings of solar storms. Find more awe-inspiring footage in our collection of 125 Great Science Videos.
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Letter Ee Collection
Eeek! Don't try and get in the way of this eagle and her eggs! Complete the E-shaped maze to help this eagle get home.
See how many letter Es and beach balls your kindergartener can find in this playground scene. Your kid may become "E-ger" to slide or swing at the park!
Elephant, egg, and ear all begin with E! On this prekindergarten writing worksheet, kids trace E and write the letter next to pictures that begin with E.
Practice spotting, tracing, and writing the lowercase letter e with your kindergarten or preschool-age child on this worksheet.
This worksheet will help your preschool develop his fine motor skills, by drawing, tracing and writing the letter E.
Help your little learner get ready to read with this colorful letter puzzle. Examine "E" words, with corresponding pictures of an elephant, egg and eye.
Kids feed the elephant by completing an E maze on this kindergarten reading worksheet. They draw a path from the elephant to the peanut by following the E's.
This color by letter kindergarten reading worksheet features capital and lowercase E. Kids use a key to color the page and reveal a hidden Earth picture.
On this kindergarten reading and coloring worksheet, kids consider the clues and follow the letter E in a dot to dot to reveal the mystery E picture: ears!
Give your child a helping hand identifying uppercase and lowercase letters with this printable worksheet that is all about the letter E.
Looking for a worksheet to help your child learn vowels? This printable worksheet will improve his skills with letters as he learns what things start with E.
Can you find the hidden letter? Help your child practice recognizing and sounding out the letter E with this kindergarten reading worksheet.
Egg begins with the letter E! Color in the flashcards featuring the letter E then cut them out and use them to play memory and spelling games.
Can your little reader remember how to make an "E"? If he's mastered the ABC's, here's a fun way to start learning how to write the letters out.
E is for elephant, egret, excellent, ... what else can your child think of? She can think about it as she colors in the picture.
E is for egg! Color in the letter E and its matching flashcard featuring a picture of an egg then use them to practice memorizing the alphabet.
My, what fuzzy ears you have! Have a fun alphabet review with your little monster while you color this capital letter E.
Help your preschooler learn the alphabet and practice letter E sounds all while having fun and coloring!
Help your preschooler get a head start on reading with this colorful alphabet worksheet all about the letter E.
How many E's does the Itsy Bitsy Spider have in her nursery rhyme? Kids find and count each letter E in the rhyme on this kindergarten reading worksheet.
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Inclusion — The practice of providing a child with disabilities with his or her education within the general education classroom, with the supports and accommodations needed by that student. This inclusion typically takes place at the student's neighborhood school.
Inclusive education has six clearly stated beliefs and principles that consistently underpin practice. These principles are:
- All children can learn.
- All children attend age-appropriate regular educational classrooms in their local schools.
- All children receive appropriate educational programs.
- All children receive a curriculum relevant to their needs.
- All children participate in co-curricular and extra-curricular activities.
- All children benefit from cooperation and collaboration among home, school and community.
Photo courtesy William Bronston, M.D.
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mass of the comet swept over the surface of Jupiter itself, and that we had here a true collision between the two bodies. The comet struck the planet a glancing blow, as it were. As is usual in all collisions, the weaker body suffered: the comet was broken into three parts, while Jupiter was unharmed.
When the comet had passed far enough away from Jupiter, so that the sun had regained its supremacy, the motion was again referred to the sun as fixed point, and the tedious process of tracing the comet's history continued, step by step. Tracing thus backward the path of this minute body, we find that it leads to the spot where Lexell's comet disappeared in 1779. Either two comets can occupy the same space at the same time, or the comets of 1770 and 1889 are one and the same.
We have thus seen something of the laborious process by which, starting with a few observed positions of a body in 1889, we can trace the path it has traveled for one hundred and seven years; how we can show its identity with a comet seen in 1770. Of the path itself but little has yet been said. It is interesting. And as it is always easier to trace a succession of events in the order in which they occur than it is to reverse the order of time, we will start with the first recorded public appearance of the comet, in 1770, and give a brief sketch of its erratic course through the heavens since that moment—though, remember, this path was discovered by tracing the body backward along its course.
Look again at the diagram. In the summer of 1770 the comet was seen moving along the small dotted curve in the region very close to the smallest circle in the diagram, which represents the orbit of the earth. It disappeared from view and passed outward along this dotted curve, making one complete revolution, returning in 1775 to the point where it was first seen. During these few years the earth had also been traveling its yearly path around the sun, and it so happened that in this latter year (1775) the earth had moved into a different position in its orbit, so that the sun was directly between it and the comet. The comet was therefore not then seen. Onward went the comet along this dotted path, until, in 1779, it had reached the outermost point, when it encountered Jupiter. The effects of this appulse were very marked as regards the comet: it was pushed completely out of its path and set moving in an immense ellipse, the one that extends far out to the left in the diagram. From five and a half years its period had been changed to about thirty-four years. In this large path this captive body moved without any extraordinary incident for sixty-seven years, or until 1846. During this time it had traveled twice around the curve, and it was fairly started on its third trip, when Saturn took a hand in the game and altered its path considerably, extending the ellipse to one of forty-seven years period. On it
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On October 8, the U.S. government will destroy six million tons of ivory that is now stored in a warehouse outside of Denver. Publicly crushing the huge store of elephant tusks, sculptures and more is intended to send a very clear statement of how serious the United States is about fighting the $10 billion wildlife trafficking industry.
If poaching continues at the current rate — as many as 96 African elephants a day were killed last year, a total of 35,000 — elephants could disappear from Africa in a decade.
Wildlife parts seized at border crossing, airports and seaports are held at the National Wildlife Property Repository, at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge in Commerce City. As the Denver Post says, some of the seized tusks that will be crushed are from young elephants and bear sad witness to a ”generations lost.” Elephants cannot reproduce until they are over 25 years old; poachers usually kill them prior to sawing off their tusks.
As Steve Oberholtzer, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service special-agent-in-charge, says in the Denver Post, ”the only way to end this trade is to get international support. That’s the goal of what we’re doing with this crush.”
The Obama administration’s plan to destroy tons of seized ivory stems from the President’s July 1 executive order to stop the killing of protected wildlife, put a halt to trafficking and decrease demand for illegal rhino horns and ivory. $10 million is being dedicated to fight poaching in Africa.
The United States is also seeking to convince African governments to outlaw the sale of ivory trinkets and other items; undertaking a social media campaign in China (where the majority of ivory sold is of “questionable origin”); seeking to work with companies including eBay to halt commerce in items made from ivory and creating a new advisory council of former administration officials and conservation and business leaders to oversee a crackdown on illegal poaching syndicates.
Harsher penalties for wildlife trafficking are also under consideration. There are plenty of American buyers for, and sellers of, ivory. Last year, two Manhattan jewelry dealers pleaded guilty to illegal ivory trading. Earlier this year, a New Mexico man was indicted by a federal grand jury in Pensacola, Florida for the illegal sale of two African elephant tusks.
Can Crushing Seized Ivory Deter Poaching?
Other countries have destroyed massive amounts of seized ivory to send a message to poachers. Back in 1989, Kenya’s President Daniel Arap Moi, with Kenya Wildlife Service Director Richard Leakey beside him, set fire to 13 tons of ivory. Earlier this year, Philippines crushed 15 million tons of seized ivory under industrial rollers.
The slaughter of elephants and rhinos has nonetheless continued. But conservationists say that the United States’ plans to destroy its stockpile of seized ivory will hurt the illegal trade in ivory. Keeping such a huge store of ivory amounts to harboring a “time bomb” that contributes to keeping prices high for trafficked goods and makes it unclear whether governments are really serious about banning the ivory trade.
U.S. authorities cannot resell seized items; even if they could do so, it is unlikely that this would affect the illegal market. Sell-offs of ivory were held in 2008 and 2010, with the support of the 178-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna, but these were deemed controversial.
Wildlife Trafficking is a National Security Issue
At a White House event on Monday, at which the plan to crush the United States’ seized ivory store was announced with Hillary and Chelsea Clinton present, interior secretary Sally Jewell also emphasized that wildlife trafficking must be seen not only as a conservation issue but one of national security. State department issues are now referring to wildlife trafficking as a national security crisis, with profits from the illegal ivory trade funding extremist movements, including affiliates of al-Qaida in Somalia.
As to what the United States plans to do with the huge pile of ivory dust that it will be left with in October: federal authorities say that some of the crushed ivory will be used to create a somber memorial, in Washington D.C. or elsewhere, to remember the vast number of elephants killed for their tusks.
Photo of ivory goods seized at NYC's JFK Airport via U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Northeast Regino
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Hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia with immunodeficiency (HED-ID) is a type of HED (see this term) characterized by the malformation of ectodermal structures such as skin, hair, teeth and sweat glands, and associated with immunodeficiency.
Prevalence is not known. The incidence is approximately 1/250,000 live male births for the X-linked form. Fewer than 10 patients with the autosomal-dominant form have been reported.
The clinical picture is variable. Typical signs of HED may be observed, such as sparse hair (atrichosis/ hypotrichosis), abnormal (e.g. conical) or missing teeth (anodontia/ hypodontia), decreased or absent sudation due to a lack of sweat glands (anhidrosis/ hypohidrosis), and typical facial features (protruding forehead, wrinkles under the eyes, characteristic periorbital hyperpigmentation) which are associated with immunologic defects such as susceptibility to opportunistic infections, hypogammaglobulinemia, impaired antibody response to polysaccharides or impaired NK-cell activity. Many patients fail to thrive. Ectodermal dysplasia-related symptoms of HED-ID, however, tend to be milder than in patients with other forms of HED. The disease can also be associated with osteopetrosis and lymphedema (hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia with immunodeficiency, osteopetrosis, lymphedema; see this term).
HED-ID is caused by hypomorphic mutations in the coding region of the IKBKG (or NEMO) gene (Xq28) or, less often, mutations in the NFKBIA gene (14q13), both involved in NF-κB activation.
Transmission is X-linked recessive in case of IKBKG mutations and autosomal-dominant in case of NFKBIA mutations. Somatic mosaicism seems to occur frequently in HED-ID patients.
Last update: April 2013
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On a cold day in March of 1901, Thomas Edison filmed Montreal's fire department rolling down a snow-covered street. It wasn't a particularly captivating film, just a continuous shot of horse-drawn carriages with members of the city's fire-fighting crew in tow. But over a century later, the film has found new life as the face of Montreal's newest student apartment building.
The Edison Residence, designed by local architecture firm KANVA, is an infill project just completed near McGill University. Built on what had been a vacant parcel since the house that once stood there burned down in the early 20th century, the architects used Edison's film as a way of referencing the site's own history while cleverly playing with notoriously unplayful concrete.
Photoengraving stills from Montreal Fire Department on Runners (1901) onto the building's concrete panels brings an unexpected jolt of life to a material few would chose over the bricks and stones that define many of the Edison Building's neighbors. It makes the structure inescapably engaging.
According to the architects, the film stills move in and out of focus as people walk by (they refer to it as "animated architecture"). When viewed up close, the facade asks you to contemplate the city's history captured in the film. From a distance, the images become more abstract, lending an almost weathered look to the building. To complement the design, windows along the front of the building are screen-printed with stills from the film.
Older concrete buildings face an uncertain future; repairs to them are costly, and the public has limited admiration for their design. The material itself, however, isn't going away anytime soon. In fact, a process like photoengraving may be just the trick to give the harsh material a new mass appeal in this century.
Most examples of photoengraved concrete are limited to a single wall of a public space (like Quebec City's Promenade Samuel-De Champlain) or a section of a facade (like Gutenberg-Höfe in Heidelberg, Germany). With the Edison Building, the three-story residential structure's entire face gets the treatment. The use of historic, local imagery has a truly disarming effect.
Just as impressively, KANVA has managed to introduce a new generation of Montrealers to long-forgotten images of their city—courtesy of one of the most important innovators of his time.
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A large Anglo-Saxon arthritis sufferer and a spearhead and knife from the deep grave of an important burial have been found at a Neolithic settlement which later became a Bronze Age burial mound and Saxon cemeteryClick on the picture to launch a gallery from the public open day
“The full excavation of the grave exceeded our expectations, with the pointed tip belonging to a sword,” said Angus Forshaw, of Wessex Archaeology.
“This is a particularly rare find and a first for Barrow Clump.
“The condition of the sword was impressive, with the copper alloy fittings from the scabbard surviving in-situ along with an associated bead.
“The mineralised remains alongside the metal suggest that the scabbard was made of wood and leather, with the handle made from horn.
“We will X-ray the sword in order to gather more information on its design and construction.
“Along with the sword and shield boss, the grave contained a spearhead and a knife, making it the most richly furnished male burial on site: the sign of a prestigious individual.”
Saucer brooches, a finger ring and a knife were found among a total of 13 Anglo-Saxon graves. Metal detectorists also unearthed Roman coins, a Parachute Regiment badge from between 1945 and 1952, when the Salisbury Plain Training Area was in use, and two Bronze Age cremation urns.
“Excavation of these showed that both pots had been inverted on burial,” said Forshaw.
“The first of these was fully excavated and lifted on site – a delicate process involving the quadranting of the contents and regular recording.
“This patience was rewarded in revealing coiled decoration on the interior of the vessel.
“Excavation also began on the second of these urned cremation burials, with this vessel being almost complete – a rare discovery that caught everyone’s interest.”
Osteoarchaeologist Jackie McKinley identified one male skeleton as being between 50 and 80 years old.
“The size of the bones clearly indicated that this was a large man, with the areas of muscle attachment to the bone showing that he must have been of muscular build,” said Forshaw.
“On closer inspection it was revealed that he would have suffered from a condition known as Diffuse Idiopathic Skeletal Hyperostosis.
“This leads to ossification of spinal ligaments resulting in a ‘dripped candle wax’ appearance to the spine.
“He was also suffering from arthritis in his neck.”
More than 200 members of the public visited the site’s final open day, when they saw a set of 25 highly decorated beads found on the left arm of a female burial, an Anglo-Saxon warrior and demonstrations of flint-knapping, shield-designing, pot and brooch-making.
What do you think? Leave a comment below.
More from Culture24’s Archaeology section:
Hacked Roman legs and jawbones come from brutal Boudiccan battles, say archaeologists
Salisbury Museum opens £2.4 million Wessex Gallery of Archaeology
Archaeologists plan Roman shrine excavation in Wiltshire as Wessex Gallery opens
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IN 1924, about five years after World War I, an almost unbelievable armed invasion by gangsters occurred in Cicero, Illinois. This city of 70,000 inhabitants fell to the control of Al Capone and his mobsters. Two years later a rival gang invaded Capone's stronghold: eight cars full of hoodlums, armed with shotguns and machine guns, rode through the main business street of Cicero and riddled buildings with bullets and shotgun slugs. Innocent people were wounded. A Chicago newspaper editorial blazoned, "This Is War!"
Soon thereafter the police department of Chicago, second-largest city of the United States, virtually surrendered to the Capone gang. Businesses and industries of all kinds began paying tribute directly or indirectly to racketeers and gangsters. One of the largest industrial cleaners and dyers of Chicago found it necessary to take Al Capone into partnership for protection. His places had been bombed time and again. Senator George W. Norris suggested to President Calvin Coolidge that the Marines be withdrawn from Nicaragua and sent to Chicago to restore law and order.
All this happened to one community within a decade following the last war, and comparable conditions prevailed in many other cities. Prohibition was not the cause: it merely aggravated fundamental weaknesses that existed then and are found now' in many of our large urban centers.
Although crime waves have followed almost every war, and although we have had sufficient warnings that after the present world-wide conflict we can expect unprecedented lawlessness, few communities have heeded the warning. In many cities the law enforcement agencies, upon which our security depends, are helpless to function efficiently. Appointments, promotions, transfers, and even disciplinary action all too often depend upon the influence of ward politicians. Many times the ward committeemen or aldermen control the vote and perpetuate their power through alliances with criminals. As long as such conditions are tolerated, our society will receive inadequate protection.
But there is another aspect of law enforcement which has received too little attention. Even strong enforcement agencies cannot fulfill their responsibility to the public unless they have the backing of the courts. There must be a change in judicial attitudes toward the rights of criminals. There must be a clear-cut and more realistic interpretation of the rights guaranteed by the Constitution, which was never intended as a refuge for the guilty.
Two years ago, in Chicago, a criminal with a record of prior conviction for armed robbery was again found guilty of the same crime. Several members of a family were held prisoners at gunpoint for two hours while their home was ransacked. Edward Damiani, the convict, was sentenced to the penitentiary for one year to life. As happens on innumerable occasions, after his conviction and while an appeal was pending, his bond was reduced by the court from $15,000 to $10,000. Damiani was released June 24, 1943. Only nine days later, on July 3, he committed an armed holdup of a currency exchange in Chicago. Over two thousand dollars was stolen. In addition to guns, he and his associates were armed with a cylinder containing poison gas. The cashier, Agnes Olsen, fifty-two years old, did not comply with the demands of the robbers speedily enough to suit them. Poison gas was released and she died. Innocent people present were terrorized and robbed and an innocent woman was murdered.
It is time to give some thought to the rights of the Agnes Olsens as well as the Damianis. Damiani had his alleged rights of liberty and freedom preserved. But the preservation of Damiani's alleged rights cost the life of an innocent victim. Surely law-abiding people must be protected too.
The strained reasoning by which courts have sometimes freed lawbreakers would be humorous if the results were not so tragic to society. Several years ago officers charged with the duty of enforcing the game laws received information that on a certain passenger train in Cook County, Illinois, there were men who were illegally in possession of hen pheasants Acting on this definite information, the officers boarded the train. They saw some pheasant feathers protruding from the pockets of a passenger, Sigmund De Luca. It would appear that the information previously received by the officers was reasonably substantiated. The officers searched De Luca. They found he was in possession of four hen pheasants in violation of the law. De Luca confessed to the officers that he had killed the birds.
Here was a perfect case establishing a violation of the game law -- perfect to everyone, that is, except the Illinois Supreme Court. In reversing the conviction, the court held that when the officers saw the pheasant feathers sticking out of De Luca's pockets, they could not tell whether they were the feathers of hen pheasants or cock pheasants. Consequently, the officers had no reasonable ground for believing De Luca was implicated in a crime. The search was, therefore, unreasonable and illegal. All evidence of guilt found as a result of the search was held inadmissible in court.
This case is unimportant. But such decisions pave the way for the immunity enjoyed by the hoodlums, thugs, and gangsters who endanger the security of the citizens in many communities The pheasant hen case can easily serve as a precedent to turn murderers loose.
Recently in Chicago a man admitted in Federal Court that over a period of ten years he had embezzled more than $40,000 from the bank in which he had been employed. His salary was $37 a week. In placing the embezzler on probation the judge condoned the stealing. He put the blame on the bank for paying low wages. Again, the case in itself is of no great moment. The judge's remarks would be unimportant if they did not typify a peculiar philosophy that has gradually pervaded our thinking on crime. Having progressed from the situation in colonial, times, where criminals had few rights, we are approaching the equally untenable position that the criminals are entitled to a good measure of predatory privileges.
Although social protection is the principal function of our penal laws, the trend in the administration of criminal justice has been to place more and more emphasis upon the rights of the individual criminal. The idea of protecting society has many times been relegated to a position of secondary importance. This is paradoxical when we observe that the trend in business, and even in the professions, is to restrain individual rights in order to promote the welfare of all. But consistency does not appear to be an American virtue.
We have prided ourselves, with justification, on the strides we have made in the application of science in the field of criminology. We have behavior clinics, diagnostic depots, psychologists, psychiatrists, sociologists, biologists, and social workers who give expert aid, advice, and treatment to the individual after he is convicted of a crime against society. But the scientific efforts of these experts are expended on behalf of only a small minority of the criminals. Those who go free and who menace society to the greatest extent seldom reach the experts for treatment.
No scientific treatment of the individual is possible without the diagnosis -- determination of the guilt or innocence of the person accused of a criminal offense --: but it is here that WO are the most unscientific Through legal technicalities that frequently benefit only the law violator, we have been setting up all kinds of artificial obstacles and barriers that prevent a proper diagnosis The professional criminal preys on society at will He knows that if he is arrested, the odds are that he will never go to trial, let alone be convicted.
Rules of evidence have become confused with constitutional rights. The ordinary meaning of the word "reasonable" when applied to searches and seizures has frequently been misinterpreted as "unreasonable" and the evidence secured has been thrown out of court. Even when a suspect makes a voluntary confession, a court may decide that he was under "mental coercion" and the confession cannot be admitted in court against him. In either event the diagnosis may call him innocent when he should be called guilty. Consequently, a person who is badly in need of treatment, if society is to be afforded adequate protection, will receive no treatment or supervision at all.
Our health laws like our penal laws were also enacted primarily for social protection. But we should not dream of permitting unnecessary obstacles, such as those which are so commonplace in defeating criminal justice, to interfere with a proper diagnosis by health officials. Let us suppose that a physician of the Chicago Health Department receives an anonymous report that at a particular address there lives a person infected with leprosy -- a highly contagious disease. In answer to the call, he proceeds to the address and knocks at the door. Receiving no answer, but believing that he hears someone in the place, he tries the door. It is unlocked. He enters. There he finds a man with all the symptoms of leprosy. After an examination he orders him quarantined and removed from society.
No person in his right mind would protest that, because of the illegal entry by the physician, society should not be protected by the quarantine and medical treatment of the infected man. It would be ludicrous to say that the leper's rights had been violated and he should therefore be returned home.
But if a police officer received an anonymous report that suspicious, heavily armed individuals were living in that same house in Chicago, the results would be entirely different. If he should enter the place without permission, it would be said that the officer violated the constitutional rights of the law violators. Suppose the officer does enter the place and finds an arsenal. He also finds conclusive evidence to establish that the occupants of the house committed a particular armed robbery a few days previously, at which time several innocent persons were killed.
The obvious fact that these persons constitute a menace to the citizens of the community would be considered immaterial. The evidence, in Illinois and in many other jurisdictions, would be suppressed because of an "unreasonable search and seizure" on the part of the police officer. In some courts, the judge might even deliver a patriotic speech about a man's home being his castle and severely admonish the officer for wanton disregard of the criminal's constitutional rights.
You say that is absurd? In Chicago several years ago on of the most notorious of the gangsters was Two Gun Louis Alterie. After the gang slaying of his pal, Dion O'Banion, Alterie had been frequenting various places, flourishing guns and challenging the killers of O'Banion to shoot it out with him. The police arrested him in a tight spot, with his gun cocked, ready for action. When he was brought into court, the judge castigated the officers for "wasting their time” in making arrests of that nature. Disregarding the well-known reputation of this gangster, the judge stated that citizens had to carry guns to protect their homes against robbers.
There have been numerous instances in which professional criminals have leased business premises to be used for the sole purpose of violating the law. Everyone is welcome in the place if he goes there to break the law. Special buses and other means of transportation are afforded to visit the place if the purpose is to infract the law. It is open to the public, with a sole exception: the law enforcement officer, the only person who has a legitimate errand in the place. If he attempts to enter, the door is slammed in his face.
From a logical standpoint it would appear that if the rights of anyone were violated it would be those of the police officer. He was wrongfully discriminated against by the establishment! But if the officer shoves aside the doorman and enters the place, it is said that he made an illegal entry. The constitutional rights of the lawbreaker are said to have been violated. Even though the officer obtains conclusive evidence of guilt, it cannot in many jurisdictions be admitted in court against those who respect neither the laws of the state nor the Constitution of the United States.
Such decisions benefit only the professional criminal and habitual law violator. They demoralize the honest and efficient officer of the law and assist the crooked officer. If a dishonest officer is forced to take action against the illegal establishment he is protecting, he can always testify that he had to use force to enter. His record of arrests will present a good defense to a charge of neglect of duty. Because the evidence is always thrown out of court, the hoodlum accepts the inconvenience and expense of having a stooge appear in court occasionally as a part of his operating costs. This arrangement is satisfactory to all concerned— unless the rights of the law-abiding citizenry are worthy of consideration.
Several weeks ago two officers were patrolling the streets of Chicago. They observed an automobile loaded with merchandise. The conduct of the occupants of the car aroused their suspicions. They stopped the car and questioned the occupants. It developed that these men had just perpetrated a burglary. The car was loaded with several hundred dollars' worth of stolen goods. Charges of burglary were lodged against the occupants of the car. When the case was heard in court, a motion to suppress the 'evidence was sustained on the ground that the arrest, search, and seizure were illegal. The two burglars who had committed the burglary one of them had a prior record — were set free. The judge who discharged the two burglars (with the result that they may continue to prey on other innocent, law-abiding citizens) was not responsible for this ridiculous protection of the criminals' alleged rights at the expense of society. He was merely following the decisions that have been handed down by higher courts.
Neither the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States nor the provisions of the state constitutions prohibit all arrests, searches, and seizures without a warrant. Only unreasonable searches and seizures are prohibited. Nevertheless, the courts have been constantly placing limitations on the definition of "reasonable.” This tendency works to the benefit of the criminal only. It makes it possible for the professional law violator to operate openly and brazenly with a minimum of interference from the law enforcement agencies and with little fear of adverse rulings from the courts.
IT is highly important that we protect the constitutional rights of criminals. But it appears that we sometimes forget that the Constitution was meant to protect the rights of law-abiding citizens as well. Certainly it cannot be contended that a professional criminal has a constitutional right to violate the law. To permit such a person to continue his depredations on society merely because the evidence which conclusively established his guilt was allegedly the product of a theoretically unreasonable search and seizure is nonsensical. It is judging the rights of society from the point of view of the individual the individual criminal.
During Capone's regime, at times Chicago was practically in a state of anarchy. Gang murders were commonplace events. Hundreds of murders were attributed to Capone and his henchmen. Yet, Capone was completely immune. The deputy commissioner of police of Chicago, explaining his helplessness in the situation, said "I've arrested Capone a half dozen times, and each time found guns on him. The same goes for a hundred other gangsters around town. But what happens? The minute you get them before a municipal court judge, the defense attorney makes a motion to suppress the evidence. The policeman is cross-examined, and if he admits he didn't have a warrant for the man's arrest on a charge of carrying concealed weapons, the judge declares the arrest illegal and the hoodlum is discharged."
We sometimes hear indignant protests that such illogical jurisprudence is necessary to protect individual rights. We feel impelled to inquire, as did Judge John F. Perkins of the Boston Juvenile Court, "Which individual? . . . The individual who breaks the law in reckless disregard of other people's safety, or the individual who is behaving himself as he should and is entitled to protection?" Those who have no respect for the Constitution or the rights of others immediately run to the Constitution, and to the laws they break, as soon as they are brought to account for their criminal activities.
Other unrealistic standards are applied in making it possible for the criminal to avoid the legal consequences of his acts Competent physical evidence definitely establishing that the defendant committed a serious crime may be supplemented with a detailed admission of guilt. After the physical evidence has been suppressed on technical grounds the confession may be rejected because of the alleged presence of mental coercion. The culprit may still be released, without restriction or supervision, to prey on the innocent again.
There are elements of coercion in almost all confessions. The criminal may be confronted with such a preponderance of evidence that he may consider further denials of participation in a crime as useless. If the investigating officer has spent a few hours pointing out to the criminal the futility of denying his guilt in the face of the evidence against him, the courts may hold that the criminal was subjected to "mental coercion" and refuse to admit the statement in evidence.
Although a confession freely given affords highly credible testimony, the truth of which may be easily verified, some courts have leaned over backwards in rejecting confessions on the ground of real or imaginary mental coercion. A few judges have indicated that all confessions should be viewed with suspicion and summarily rejected as evidence. Such an attitude ignores reality. Any law enforcement officer of experience has handled hundreds of cases in which confessions have been free and voluntary. On many occasions the culprit will fully confess upon the arrival of the arresting officer. He apparently desires to ease his overburdened conscience by fully admitting his guilt. Yet only a few hours later he may completely deny the voluntary nature of his confession and become imbued with a burning desire to avoid the clutches of the law.
It is ironical that frequently the self-serving statement of a criminal that his confession was not voluntarily made will be given much more credence than any contrary assertion by the law enforcement officer. In a recent dissenting United States Supreme Court opinion, Mr. Justice Jackson spoke out against this unwarranted and anomalous, yet commonplace, tendency. He said, "We know that police standards often leave much to be desired, but we are not ready to believe that the democratic process brings to office men generally less believable than the average of those accused of crime."
In this same case the United States Supreme Court reversed the conviction of a confessed murderer. It was held that even if the defendant did make a confession, it was not voluntary. The holding of the defendant incommunicado during many hours of interrogation without sleep or rest was inherently coercive and violated the " due process" clause of the Constitution. To this opinion Mr. Justice Jackson replied that custody and examination for one hour are inherently coercive and so is arrest itself or detention. Fie maintained that, despite the inherent coerciveness, "the confession, when made, was deliberate, free and voluntary in the sense in which that term is used in criminal law."
IN 1943 the United States Supreme Court, in McNabb v. United States, rendered a decision which, in effect, held that voluntary confessions of a crime made while the accused was in custody prior to arraignment before a magistrate were inadmissible. It was' held that the officers failed to arraign the defendant immediately before a magistrate in conformity with the statute that required prompt arraignment.
A few months later the convictions of six individuals found guilty of treason in a Chicago Federal Court were reversed on the basis of the McNabb decision. In this opinion the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit said: "With all due deference to the Supreme Court and especially to Mr. Justice Felix Frankfurter, the author of those opinions, we are constrained to state that we entertain grave doubts that this recently promulgated rule of evidence will result in any improvement to the administration of justice.
“As pointed out by Mr. Justice Reed in his dissent to the McNabb opinion ‘a frank and free confession of crime by the culprit affords testimony of the highest credibility and of a character which may be verified easily.' In our judgment this new rule will inure to the benefit of the guilty rather than the innocent, and will seriously impair the work of law enforcement officers. The Supreme Court, however, has clearly spoken and we must accept its pronouncement."
Following the McNabb decision, efforts were made to incorporate the substance of that decision into proposed rules of criminal procedure Federal judges, United States district attorneys, and other Federal law enforcement officials protested, and at the American Bar Association convention in 1943 the proposed rule was rejected. A bill is now pending in Congress to remove the effect of the McNabb decision.
In Illinois, however, at the 1943 session of the General Assembly, a bill was introduced and passed that would have excluded from evidence any purported voluntary confession unless the defendant admitted to a judge, justice of the peace, or magistrate, within twenty-four hours from the time the statement or admission was made, that it was given voluntarily. This is another indication of the modern trend to go to extreme lengths to create artificial and unrealistic barriers to prevent a proper diagnosis. Governor Dwight Green of Illinois vetoed the bill after it had passed both houses. Had he not done so, a preposterous situation would have prevailed as the law of Illinois. A person guilty of a crime could have made a complete confession without any interrogation whatever. Yet if, a few hours or even minutes later, upon arraignment, he refused to admit his confession was voluntary. It could never be used in court against him.
There is no more logic in making the admission of a confession depend solely upon the self-serving statement of a defendant than there would be in a requirement to admit any confession in evidence solely on the representation of its voluntary nature by a prosecutor or law enforcement officer. Any attempt to enact the latter provision into law would be denounced as an undemocratic process and tyrannical. The objections would be fully justified.
Our legislators and courts must remember that overemphasis of the' rights of criminals, with the resultant disregard for the safety of society as a whole, can with equal justification be criticized as undemocratic and tyrannical. It is claimed that the tendency of courts and legislators to exclude competent and relevant evidence on technical grounds is the inevitable result of lawlessness on the part of the police. Such reasoning is without justification. Two wrongs do not make a right. Whenever the police engage in lawless activity, appropriate action can and should be taken against them. But to turn enemies of society loose to prey on the innocent as a means of punishing the police is a perverted notion of justice.
It might be possible to understand the attitude which has given birth to this grotesque system of criminal jurisprudence if those who have professed so much concern over the alleged rights of antisocial persons and over wrongdoing by the police evidenced equal anxiety over the abuses engaged in by the professional defenders of the law violator. There is a significant silence against commonplace practices designed to defeat justice that are engaged in on behalf of the criminal day after day in our courts.
Apparently any device or subterfuge used to free a person accused of a crime is considered part and parcel of the criminal's natural rights. Witnesses against the accused are intimidated or mysteriously disappear. Dilatory tactics are pursued until the witnesses are worn out, disgusted, and made hostile. These practices are customary. A prominent sociologist, Dr. William E. Cole, recently wrote: "So common are delays in our courts that it is almost a folk expression among criminal lawyers to remark that 'one good delay in hand is worth two perjured witnesses in prospect." Defense counsel frequently look upon concocted alibis and phony alibi witnesses as part of their stock in trade. Extraneous issues intended to confuse the jury are not uncommon.
Witnesses for the state who give testimony damaging to the accused are sometimes subjected to tactics on the part of defense counsel that the same lawyer would denounce as "third degree" if employed in the pretrial interrogation of the defendant. If the identical methods were permitted on the part of the prosecutor in the cross-examination of the man on trial, they would be considered prejudicial and constitute reversible error. Recently a police officer found it necessary to interrupt the ruthless and unfair cross-examination to which he was being subjected by the defense counsel with this plea to the court: "Your Honor, if I am being placed on trial I would like to employ a lawyer to defend me."
Opening statements for the defense are frequently made that are intended to prejudice the jury against the state without making any subsequent effort whatever to prove them. Emotional appeals having no bearing on the guilt or innocence of the defendant are among the many tricks employed to turn dangerous criminals loose on the streets. If any of the numerous devices succeeds in defeating justice, the state is through. It has no right of appeal. With the defendant, conditions are entirely different. The conviction is just the first phase of the proceeding.
There must be a distinction between the rights of an accused person and license. The rights of a defendant include a fair trial with a presumption of innocence until guilt is established beyond a reasonable doubt. An accused person does not have a right to manufactured alibis, nor does he have a right to have the people's witnesses intimidated or bribed. He has a right to a fair and impartial jury. He does not have a right to a jury fixed in his behalf. The defendant has a right to prevent the prosecutor or witnesses from making statements that are prejudicial against him. He does not have a right to have prejudicial statements made in his behalf. The defendant has the right to have the truth brought out at a trial. He has the right to the admission in evidence of all competent testimony which tends to establish his innocence. He does not have a right to the exclusion of relevant and competent evidence that establishes his guilt. And he does not have a right to have all witnesses who testify against him harassed, humiliated, and confused.
The Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. The accused has a right to have the word "unreasonable" interpreted in its ordinary meaning. He is not entitled to have a reasonable search declared unreasonable through legal theorizing that is absurd when considered in the light of reality. The criminal has a right to protection from third-degree tactics and inhumane treatment when he is in custody, and he cannot be forced to incriminate himself. He does not have a right to the exclusion from evidence, on some technical ground that is totally unrealistic, of a confession made freely and frankly.
The person on trial is entitled to a fair administration of criminal justice. But that does not mean the one-sided system of criminal jurisprudence which we are gradually approaching. And with almost all authorities predicting an unprecedented crime wave following the war, we had better take inventory as to how well we are equipped to meet it.
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It's been quite a few years since the week I spent diving in the northern Red Sea. Staying on a live-aboard dive boat, I had the chance to see corals that in many ways have remained unsurpassed to me ever since. The reef fish were quite abundant while, in more open water, most sharks were skittish and kept their distance, except for my first close-up encounter with a large nurse shark that was only interested in resting undisturbed on the sandy bottom.
However, according to the Egypt Independent, the Red Sea's geography that positions it as an almost completely closed body of water (open naturally in the south at the Ba-el-Mandeb Strait and in the north at the man-made Suez Canal) has not isolated it from the same problems that befall sharks throughout the rest of the world's oceans: Egypt's sharks are endangered.
Amr Ali, managing director of the Hurghada Environmental Protection and Conservation Association (HEPCA) , claims that the populations of hammerhead, oceanic whitetip, and other sharks species have declined by as much as 80 percent, and for much the same reason as is found in other oceans.
“Over the years we’ve had many different cases of illegal fishing in the Red Sea,” said Ali. "Five years ago there was a big issue with Chinese poachers; last year it was the Yemenis. It is certainly by far the main reason behind the sharp decline.”
With iconic pyramids and many other ancient locations to visit and artifacts to see, Egypt has a large and lucrative tourism industry to protect. Because of that, the economic value in tourisim dollars for a living shark as opposed to a dead one is not lost on Egyptian officials. But they have been slow to respond to the overfishing or illegal fishing of sharks because they consider what shark fishing brings to lower-income local fisherman and because there has not been a convincing amount of study done in the Red Sea on shark populations.
Reported in the Egypt Independent, "Relying on the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA) is useless, says Ali. 'So our role, if we’re serious about preventing declining populations, has to be a very active one.' In 2006, the HEPCA obtained two decrees from the Red Sea governor banning fishing for and trading sharks. Getting caught with a shark illegally resulted in severe penalties."
Encouraging, but with the coming of the Arab Spring in December of last year, the law enforcement infrastructures for many countries bordering the Red Sea weakened and with that, illegal shark fishing has increased dramatically. Government resources and priorities are being drawn elsewhere and, while the demise of dictatorships and oppressive governments are being welcomed as good news by major developed countries and Arab citizens alike, an unintended consequence has been a loss of environmental protections.
“The [army] coast guards used to fend off poachers which really helped,” Amr Ali observed. “But with them gone, it’s impossible for us or other NGOs to monitor 160km of coast.”
To help make a compelling case for shark protection - strong enough to once again make it a government priority - scientists will need to conduct more research. An overwhelming body of facts combined with a thorough explanation of the consequences of doing nothing (the trophic cascade effect that can occur when top predators like sharks are removed from the ecosystem) is what is needed for government officials to realize the magnitude of the problem and how the short-term gain for local fishermen is far outweighed by the long-term negative impact on the entire Red Sea ocean community and, by extension, on the local fishermen as well.
Mexican researchers faced this same problem in the early 2000's when they sought protections for several species of sharks and rays. The Mexican government wanted data - a lot of it. And so years of tagging and tracking studies were engaged until the evidence was indisputable. When I first met Mauricio Hoyos Ph.D. in 2005, the then graduate student was tagging and tracking great white sharks at Isla Guadalupe for just that purpose. And he continues to tag and monitor white sharks to this day.
In Egypt, HEPCA intends to embark on an extensive tagging study in 2012, along with developing a database of shark fin species and location identification, using DNA from the fins, to compile the data needed to make a case for renewed and more aggressive conservation measures.
Amr Ali said, “Once these studies are done, we’ll hopefully be able to create a proper science for shark conservation in Egypt.”
Let's hope so. I still consider the Red Sea as one of my all-time favorite dive locations even though I was there just the one time - that's how impressed I was with the beauty and biodiversity of this unique body of water. Without sharks, it stands to suffer greatly.
Source: Egypt Independent.
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Basic Facts About Gorillas
Closely linked by DNA, gorillas (family Hominidae) are one of the four species of great apes that are the closest living relatives of humans – the other three are chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans. Great apes are different from monkeys for a variety of reasons: they are larger, walk upright for a longer period of time, don’t have tails and have much larger, more developed brains.
There are four subspecies of gorillas: the eastern lowland or Grauer’s gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri); the mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei); the western lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla); and the Cross River gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehl).
Like all great apes, gorillas have arms that are longer than their legs and tend to walk on all four limbs at certain times – a movement that is called knuckle walking. Adult males are known as 'silverbacks' due to the distinctive silver-colored hair on their backs.
Gorillas' appearances can vary based on sub-species, but for the most part, the western subspecies tend to be brownish gray in color, while the eastern and mountain gorillas tend to have a more blackish coat. Mountain gorillas also have longer and thicker fur which is adapted to their colder mountainous habitat. The three lowland subspecies of gorillas sport short, fine hair. Eastern lowland gorillas are the largest of the four subspecies.
Gorillas are herbivores and eat leaves, shoots, roots, vines and fruits.
Eastern lowland gorilla numbers have rapidly declined to below 5,000 today. Critically endangered, there are fewer than 300 Cross River gorillas. Mountain gorillas, another endangered subspecies, number at around 700. A recent survey has shown that there are around 150,000-200,000 western lowland gorillas.
Eastern lowland gorillas are found in part of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Uganda and Rwanda, while mountain gorillas are only found within the Virunga mountain region straddling the DRC, Rwanda and Uganda borders, as well as the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda. Western lowland gorillas inhabit Cameroon, Nigeria, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, eastern DRC, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Angola. Cross River gorillas are confined to a small region in Nigeria and Cameroon.
Gorillas are ground-dwelling and live in groups of 6-12 with the oldest and largest silverback leading a family of females, their young and younger males called blackbacks. The silverback makes the decisions on when his group wakes up, eats, moves and rests for the night. Because he must protect his family at all times, the silverback tends to be the most aggressive. In such situations, he will beat his chest and charge at the perceived threat.
Gorillas are shy animals that are most active during the day. At dusk, each gorilla constructs a ‘nest’ of leaves and plant material in which it will sleep. Mothers usually share their nests with nursing infants.
Young males may leave their family groups as they become older and either live as solitary silverbacks or create their own family groups. The silverback has the exclusive rights to mate with the females in his group.
Mating Season: Throughout the year.
Gestation: 8.5 months.
Litter size: 1 baby.
Gorilla infants are helpless at birth and weigh about 3-4 lbs. They learn to crawl at about 2 months and are walking by the time they are around 8 or 9 months. Mother gorillas nurse their babies for about 3 years, following which the young become more independent.
Gorillas are threatened by habitat loss due to increasing human populations, poaching for the bushmeat trade and diseases like ebola. Species that live in higher elevations, like mountain gorillas, are also affected by climate change, which has the potential to impact gorillas directly by altering their habitat, and indirectly by affecting agriculture yields in nearby communities, which in turn puts more pressure on remaining habitat.
Height: Around 5.5 feet when upright (males); 4.5-5 feet when upright (females).
Weight: 300-450 lbs (males); around 200 lbs (females).
Lifespan: 30-50 years.
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Editor's Note: This article is paired with another that disagrees. Read that article here.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a unanimous 9-0 decision, determined that isolated DNA is a product of nature, and therefore, not eligible for patent protection. But the Court also held that patent law could accommodate complementary DNA (or cDNA), which was characterized as a synthetic, non-naturally occurring substance. This compromise position is fair-minded, supported by current patent law doctrine and policy, and retains important incentives for biotechnology players.
The Court viewed this case in the context of patent law’s delicate incentive dynamic. On the one hand, patent law seeks to induce innovation by holding out the prospect of a property right, and on the other hand, carve out enough space for competitors to improve on a given innovation while also guarding the public domain. And woven within this dynamic are questions relating to the proper scope and exercise of the patent right, and what types of behavior a patent owner can engage in when exploiting its patent.
Myriad Genetics, the company at the center of the case, had patented the DNA sequences of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes and devised a test to determine if a woman possesses versions of the genes linked to breast cancer. These patents provided Myriad with a powerful economic tool, which allowed the company to exclude others from creating their own tests using the patented BRCA genes.
But the Court determined that Myriad’s patents on the DNA sequences improperly captured “the basic tools of scientific and technological work.” This holding will allow researchers greater liberty to use isolated DNA sequences and engage in entire-genome analysis and multi-gene genetic tests. Moreover, the Court made clear that patent law is agnostic with respect to the amount of effort, societal contribution, or intellectual insight of a given claimed invention. As the Court noted, “[g]roundbreaking, innovative, or even brilliant discovery does not by itself” make the discovery eligible for patent protection. In this regard, patent law is similar to copyright law.
Yet by allowing patent protection on cDNA, the Court retained sufficient incentives for biotechnology firms to invest in creating innovative research tools and diagnostics. For example, cDNA can be used to identify polymorphisms that are indicative of particular diseases; potentially patentable diagnostics and therapeutics can then be designed to detect and treat these diseases. While the creation of cDNA and resulting treatments, of course, must satisfy additional patentability requirements such as non-obviousness, the Court at least gave firms the opportunity to make the case.
Moreover, the Court was quick to point out what is “not implicated” in its decision, and the possibility of patent protection remains for “innovative methods of manipulating genes;” “new applications of knowledge” about genes; and inventions that alter the naturally occurring nucleotide sequence of genes. Therefore, from a greater remove, the dilutive effect on incentives for the biotechnology industry are not as severe as it could have been, and in this regard, the Court reached a sound compromise.
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Revised textbook takes livelier approach to S.C. history
Published: Monday, February 12, 2001 at 3:15 a.m.
Last Modified: Monday, February 12, 2001 at 12:00 a.m.
The story of South Carolina usually begins with a discussion of Native American tribes and the English King who chartered their land to eight Lords Proprietor in 1665.
In "At Home In South Carolina," the story begins with the reader: "This is a book about you. It is about the place you live. ... It is also about the people who lived here before you." It is a fitting introduction, given that "At Home In South Carolina" is a textbook used in about 80 percent of the state's public school third-grade classrooms. Third grade is the earliest age at which youngsters are required by the state to study South Carolina's history. The story of "At Home In South Carolina" begins in the 1980s in Spartanburg School District 7, where it was Nan McDaniel's job to help teachers do their jobs. Curriculum design, instructional objectives, classroom resources and student textbooks: they were all in McDaniel's department as the district's social studies coordinator. One thing she kept hearing from the district's third-grade teachers was that the textbook they were given to teach lessons on South Carolina was out of date and inadequate. So, McDaniel, who is now the director of secondary education in District 7, decided she would write her own book. Published in 1991 by Sandlapper Press, "At Home In South Carolina" was put on the list of approved third-grade textbooks by the state Department of Education and adopted by a number of districts around the state. As time approached for the state to revise its list of approved books for third-grade social studies -- a process that takes place every few years, depending on needs and resources available to meet them -- education leaders were also calling for the now-adopted standards that set specific expectations for what the state's public school students learn. All this made for the perfect time for McDaniel to update "At Home in South Carolina." With the help of her husband, Tom, and a new publisher, who put the McDaniels in touch with curriculum and instructional programming consultant Sandra Thomas, Nan McDaniel gave the book a complete overhaul. The new version of "At Home in South Carolina" is better in many ways, say the McDaniels. The original book lacked color and graphic appeal, whereas the current edition features more than 800 photographs - most in color - of historical figures, geography and, as Tom McDaniel emphasized, South Carolina children. "There are lots of children pictured so kids reading the book can identify," he said. The text is presented in kid-friendly font that resembles neat handwritten print, and key vocabulary words, which are defined in a glossary, are highlighted in yellow. But, most important are the improvements to the book's content. The re-writing of "At Home in South Carolina" was specifically geared to help teachers meet the state's new standards for third grade Social Studies. Nan McDaniel explained that the difference between young students and their older counterparts -- say the teenagers who study South Carolina history in eighth grade -- is the ability to deal with the "abstractions of history." Third graders are expected to learn simple, concrete facts about South Carolina (major geographical features, for example), but some of the standards call for them to wrestle with more sophisticated concepts. McDaniel pointed to the expectation that third graders learn how World War II affected South Carolina. Accordingly, the text of "At Home in South Carolina" includes very basic information about the war along with stories of South Carolina's role. A passage describing the domestic contribution to the war effort reads, "South Carolinians gave things like license plates, irons, tin cans, bed springs, old tools, and golf clubs." Subsequent chapters lay out the relationship between World War II and social change in the state - from the growth of industry to race relations. The history of race, of course, remains one of the most contentious aspects of South Carolina's history. Witness the recent Confederate flag debate. Nan McDaniel said the authors attempted to present such issues - the "conflict and cooperation" that resulted from the "coming together of Native American, European and African cultures," as she explains it -- in a way will neither overwhelm young readers nor deny important aspects of history. It's adherence to the state's standards makes "At Home in South Carolina" unusual, said James Bryan, a Social Studies associate with state Department of Education. Because most textbooks used in South Carolina classrooms are written out of state and marketed nationally, few have the state's standards in mind. That's not necessarily a problem; many books hit most of the standards, and teachers can usually find other resources to fill in gaps. Nonetheless, "At Home in South Carolina" gives teachers a direct link to the standards and serves as a good "jumping off point," as Heather Fish a teacher at Chesnee Elementary School, described it. Fish was using the book with her students to spur discussion about the dropping of the atomic bomb. Cameron Gee, a student in the class, said he particularly likes the fictional accounts of history written from the point of view of children that supplement the story. "It tells about what was going on in South Carolina," he said. Those segments, Nan McDaniel said, are intended to give kids an appreciation of actual historical documents. She calls her readers "our future historians." But McDaniel hopes "At Home in South Carolina" will encourage kids to explore their history now: "We want youngsters to be almost family historians, to keep records of family members' recollection of significant events they experienced." As for the McDaniels, they're ready for a break from historical research and writing. Tom McDaniel, who is the academic Provost at Converse College, said the revisions to "At Home in South Carolina" took "two years of solid work on weekends, nights and vacation." And while textbook writing can be a profitable business, Nan McDaniel was quick to point out that the obvious marketing limits to a book about South Carolina. "I'm not ready to quit my day job," she said.
Baker Maultsby can be reached at email@example.com or 582-4511, Ext. 7425.
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Salmon are one of the most widely loved varieties of seafood in the world. A ubiquitous alternative to meat and poultry, salmon wear a halo of healthfulness, as they are rich in protein and omega-3 fatty acids. But many wild salmon stocks are dwindling, which means that unless otherwise specified, the salmon you’re most likely to find in restaurants and stores is from a farm.
Wild Atlantic salmon once ranged from Portugal to Newfoundland and in every major river north of the Hudson, but they have disappeared from many waterways and are in danger of going extinct within our lifetime. Meanwhile, domesticated Atlantic salmon are increasingly populous in offshore cages in countries including Norway, British Columbia, and Chile.
In November, I traveled to Chilean Patagonia where more than 1,500 salmon farms have applied for permits to operate in the coming year. There are currently only eight farms operating in the region, and many people I spoke to worry that an influx of farmed salmon could spell trouble for Patagonia’s marine environment and growing tourism economy.
So what’s the problem? Here are the most important potential issues with Chilean farmed salmon—much of which is destined for the United States:
• Pollution: Fish waste and excess feed can cause rapid algae growth that pollutes the water surrounding aquaculture pens, and can create oxygen-deprived dead zones. The waste collects under net pens, polluting the seafloor and surrounding waters.
• Disease: The crowded conditions of salmon farming pens provide ideal conditions for the outbreak of parasites and disease, such as infectious salmon anemia, which caused the collapse of the industry in Chile in 2007. As a result, the industry often uses high doses of pesticides and antibiotics on the fish, including some antibiotics that are meant for use only in humans.
• Escapes: Millions of farmed salmon escape into the environment each year, where they can spread disease and compete with, or even prey on, wild fish.
• Overfishing: Carnivorous farmed salmon are often fed wild-caught fish, competing directly with humans and other species for this diminishing resource. In Chile, it can take eight kilograms (nearly 18 pounds) of fish from the world's oceans to produce one kilogram (roughly two pounds) of farmed salmon. Some of the fisheries that feed salmon—anchoveta, sardines, jack mackerel—are now becoming overexploited as a result, which is bad news for the entire ocean food chain.
• Colorants: Farmed salmon are dyed "salmon" color because their natural color would be grayish from their artificial diet. Wild salmon, which are still thriving in some parts of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, get their color from eating tiny shrimp-like krill and other tiny shellfish.
These issues are important considerations in all aquaculture operations, and, just like catching wild fish, there are better and worse ways to go about it. Scientists in Puerto Rico, for example, are studying ways to make aquaculture sustainable by looking at which environmental factors (location, depth, currents, etc.) can help reduce pollution and other impacts of fish farms.
During my stay in Patagonia, I caught a boat out of Puerto Natales, Chile, a picturesque town that thrives on eco-tourism in the warmer months. Against a backdrop of snow-covered peaks, I caught sight of the docks and brightly-colored buoys that comprise a salmon farm. I smelled no harsh odor, heard no noise pollution, and the salmon themselves were hidden from sight underwater. But despite the farm’s outwardly tranquil appearance, the addition of thousands of non-native fish into the clean waters of Patagonia would undoubtedly have an impact.
I love to eat salmon as much as the next person, but knowing the toll they take on marine ecosystems in Chile and elsewhere, now I ask more questions before I order. So the next time you’re in the mood for salmon, pause for a moment and consider its origin.
Editor’s Note: To learn more about making smart seafood choices—salmon or otherwise—explore the Ocean Portal’s Sustainable Seafood section.
Our guest blogger, Emily Fisher, is the online editor at Oceana. Oceana, together with representatives from the tourism and artisanal fishing industries, is working to exclude specific areas of Patagonia from salmon farming that are the most ecologically sensitive and important for tourism and fishing.
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A Biography of James Wilson (1742-1798)
The name of James Wilson might not be very familiar, although this man was one of the people who made the difference in swaying the minds of the American colonists.
James Wilson was born in Scotland on September the 14th, 1742. Here, he attended the Universities of St.Andrews, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. He never finished his studies, as he sailed for the New World in 1765. Aided by some letters of introduction, he became a tutor with the College of Philadelphia. He received an horonorary M.A. shortly thereafter. In November 1767, he was admitted to the bar, and thus pursuing his recent-born interest in the law. He set up his own practice in Reading in the year 1768. He was quite successfull, as he handled nearly half of the cases charged in the country court.
During one of the following years he married Rachel Bird.
In 1774, he wrote an essay with the title:" Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Government." He distributed this article among the members of the First Continental Congress. Within those pages, he set down a number of arguments which severely challenged the parliamentary authority over America. In the final conclusion of this manuscript, he states that Parliament han no power whatsover over the American colonies. Although he accepted in some ways the power of the Monarch, he would not subject himself to the whims of Parliament, in which the colonies had no representation. His manuscript was read in both America and England, and created quite a stir. He was one of the first to ever voice these opinions in a sensible, well-argumented manner. To quote from the Declaration of Independence:"All the members of the British Empire are distinct states, independant of each other, but connected together under the same souvereign." The previous example is to illustrate the impact Wilson's statements made.
As a member of the Pennsylvanian Provincial Congress, he made a passionate speech about the possibility of an unconstitutional act made by Parliament. Judicial Review, the American system of checking governmental acts with the Constitution, was on it's way.
In the same year, 1775, he signed the Declaration of Independance as a member of the Second Continental Congress. According to sources, it seems he hesitated at first, but signed anyway. This was due to the fact that he was a representative of the Middle States, where opinions about independance differed. But by signing the Declaration, he broke the deadlock the Pennsylnanian delegation was in. His signature made sure Pennsylvania voted for independance.
During the next years he was an occasional member of the Continental Congress, and was present at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which assembled with the purpose of drafting The Constitution of the United States of America. Here he was a very influential figure, whose ideas where heavily incorporated in one of the most important documents in history. Thus the Constitution bears his signature.
In 1789, he became a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania, and in the same year was appointed associate justice of the Supreme Court. In this role, he did not shine as brightly as he used to do, as he did not voice any new or ground-breaking judicial ideas.
He deceased August 21, 1798; a widower with six children.
Alternative biographyThere is another biography of James Wilson, which differs on some topics:
Wilson was born in 1741 or 1742 at Carskerdo, near St. Andrews, Scotland, and educated at the universities of St. Andrews, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. He then emigrated to America, arriving in the midst of the Stamp Act agitations in 1765. Early the next year, he accepted a position as Latin tutor at the College of Philadelphia (later part of the University of Pennsylvania) but almost immediately abandoned it to study law under John Dickinson.
In 1768, the year after his admission to the Philadelphia bar, Wilson set up practice at Reading, Pa. Two years later, he moved westward to the Scotch-Irish settlement of Carlisle, and the following year he took a bride, Rachel Bird. He specialized in land law and built up a broad clientele. On borrowed capital, he also began to speculate in land. In some way he managed, too, to lecture on English literature at the College of Philadelphia, which had awarded him an honorary master of arts degree in 1766.
Wilson became involved in Revolutionary politics. In 1774 he took over chairmanship of the Carlisle committee of correspondence, attended the first provincial assembly, and completed preparation of Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament. This tract circulated widely in England and America and established him as a Whig leader.
The next year, Wilson was elected to both the provincial assembly and the Continental Congress, where he sat mainly on military and Indian affairs committees. In 1776, reflecting the wishes of his constituents, he joined the moderates in Congress voting for a 3-week delay in considering Richard Henry Lee's resolution of June 7 for independence. On the July 1 and 2 ballots on the issue, however, he voted in the affirmative and signed the Declaration of Independence on August 2.
Wilson's strenuous opposition to the republican Pennsylvania constitution of 1776, besides indicating a switch to conservatism on his part, led to his removal from Congress the following year. To avoid the clamor among his frontier constituents, he repaired to Annapolis during the winter of 1777-78 and then took up residence in Philadelphia.
Wilson affirmed his newly assumed political stance by closely identifying with the aristocratic and conservative republican groups, multiplying his business interests, and accelerating his land speculation. He also took a position as Advocate General for France in America (1779-83), dealing with commercial and maritime matters, and legally defended Loyalists and their sympathizers.
In the fall of 1779, during a period of inflation and food shortages, a mob which included many militiamen and was led by radical constitutionalists, set out to attack the republican leadership. Wilson was a prime target. He and some 35 of his colleagues barricaded themselves in his home at Third and Walnut Streets, thereafter known as "Fort Wilson." During a brief skirmish, several people on both sides were killed or wounded. The shock cooled sentiments and pardons were issued all around, though major political battles over the commonwealth constitution still lay ahead.
During 1781 Congress appointed Wilson as one of the directors of the Bank of North America, newly founded by his close associate and legal client Robert Morris. In 1782, by which time the conservatives had regained some of their power, the former was reelected to Congress, and he also served in the period 1785-87.
Wilson reached the apex of his career in the Constitutional Convention (1787), where his influence was probably second only to that of Madison. Rarely missing a session, he sat on the Committee of Detail and in many other ways applied his excellent knowledge of political theory to convention problems. Only Gouverneur Morris delivered more speeches.
That same year, overcoming powerful opposition, Wilson led the drive for ratification in Pennsylvania, the second state to endorse the instrument. The new commonwealth constitution, drafted in 1789-90 along the lines of the U.S. Constitution, was primarily Wilson's work and represented the climax of his 14-year fight against the constitution of 1776.
For his services in the formation of the federal government, though Wilson expected to be appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, in 1789 President Washington named him as an associate justice. He was chosen that same year as the first law professor at the College of Philadelphia. Two years later he began an official digest of the laws of Pennsylvania, a project he never completed, though he carried on for a while after funds ran out.
Wilson, who wrote only a few opinions, did not achieve the success on the Supreme Court that his capabilities and experience promised. Indeed, during those years he was the object of much criticism and barely escaped impeachment. For one thing, he tried to influence the enactment of legislation in Pennsylvania favorable to land speculators. Between 1792 and 1795 he also made huge but unwise land investments in western New York and Pennsylvania, as well as in Georgia. This did not stop him from conceiving a grandiose but ill-fated scheme, involving vast sums of European capital, for the recruitment of European colonists and their settlement in the West. Meantime, in 1793, as a widower with six children, he remarried to Hannah Gray; their one son died in infancy.
Four years later, to avoid arrest for debt, the distraught Wilson moved from Philadelphia to Burlington, NJ. The next year, apparently while on federal circuit court business, he arrived at Edenton, NC, in a state of acute mental stress and was taken into the home of James Iredell, a fellow Supreme Court justice. He died there within a few months. Although first buried at Hayes Plantation near Edenton, his remains were later reinterred in the yard of Christ Church at Philadelphia.
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History of Medicine
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Stay up -to-date with the latest at the National Library of Medicine.Close
Curious? Take a Look
Take a look and find something new. Explore this selection of remarkable materials and the exhibitions that feature them.
Follow where your curiosity leads you!
Ma Kiley Works the Line, 2001
In 1950, Railroad Magazine published a four-part series entitled "The Bug and I," an autobiographical account of Mattie Collins Brite, known as "Ma Kiley." Born in 1880, in Atacosa County, Texas, Ma Kiley worked as a telegraph operator for 40 years in remote locales that ranged from northern Mexico to Saskatchewan, Canada. Featured in the exhibition The Once and Future Web: Worlds Woven by the Telegraph and Internet, "The Bug and I" told the story of Ma Kiley's life in telegraphy-her joys and hardships as a "boomer."
Samuel F. B. Morse: In His Own Words, 2001
The American painter and inventor Samuel F. B. Morse (1791-1872) is credited with designing and developing the first electromagnetic telegraph system. Morse conceived the idea for a telegraph in 1832, but faced many challenges before he was able to transmit his first message in 1844. This audio recording featured in the exhibition The Once and Future Web: Worlds Woven by the Telegraph and Internet captures Morse's words, read from various letters and diaries describing his journey.
Jack Geiger: Campaigning for Change, 2008
Jack Geiger, MD, M.Sci.Hyg. is a well-respected physician and activist who has devoted most of his professional career to health care, human rights, and efforts to alleviate poverty. Dr. Geiger's established an innovative, community health center in Mound Bayou, Mississippi during the 1960s, whose story is featured in the exhibition Against the Odds: Making a Difference in Global Health. In this audio recording from the opening program for the exhibition, Dr. Geiger draws on a lifetime of experiences to encourage an audience of high school students that they can make a difference in their community by being an advocate for change.
Jeanne White-Ginder: Speaking Out, 2008
Since the loss of her son Ryan White to AIDS in 1990, Jeanne White-Ginder has become an advocate for people with HIV/AIDS. In this audio recording from the opening program for the exhibition, Against the Odds: Making a Difference in Global Health, which featured a profile of Ryan and the discrimination he faced because of his illness, Ms. White-Ginder describes to an audience of high school students how her son's journey inspired her to take action.
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s Purdue University researchers have unveiled a new software program for tracking genetically modified grains. The system will be available before the 2001 planting season.
Agronomist Rick Vierling and Bruce Craig, statistician, developed the system. It combines field data and statistical analysis. Producers keep planting records and check plants in the field. Data is also collected from lab tests run on seeds before planting and on grain going to market.
"With this system we can track the purity of products from seeds planted in the field to the grain used to make taco shells, and we can do it at a reasonable cost," says Vierling. "If you relied solely on lab testing, the cost would be higher than the added value of the product. With this system we combine field purity data and laboratory results in a compromise that keeps costs down."
The tracking system software can be used by any computer that can run an Excel spreadsheet. For more information, e-mail the Indiana Crop Improvement Association icia@Indcrop.org
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Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Protecting human health and the environment is of paramount importance to Canadians. As such, the federal regulation and testing requirements for pesticides has been extensive, and today these chemicals are among the most data-rich in commerce. However, increased regulation around the world means there are thousands of chemicals that still need to be categorized and better understood. The challenge for scientists and regulators is how to achieve this in a timely, efficient and effective manner.
To better understand the challenges and opportunities related to chemical testing and regulation, the Council of Canadian Academies brought together a group of 15 eminent experts, of which Professor Bend, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, was a member, to discuss the scientific status of the use of integrated testing strategies in the human regulatory risk assessment of pesticides.
For more information, or to download a free copy of the report please visit www.scienceadvice.ca
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Grammar is the sound, structure, and meaning system of language. All languages have grammar, and each language has its own grammar.
People who speak the same language are able to communicate because they intuitively know the grammar system of that language—that is,
the rules of making meaning. Students who are native speakers of English already know English grammar. They recognize the sounds of English
words, the meanings of those words, and the different ways of putting words together to make meaningful sentences.
However, while students may be effective speakers of English, they need guidance to become effective writers. They need to learn how to
transfer their knowledge of grammatical concepts from oral language to written language.
Practice English Grammar helps you learn English grammar with the principle “Practice makes perfect”. Learning English in very simple way.
When learning a new language an important first step is to learn the rules of grammar that allow people express what they want to say
and understand what others are saying in a coherent manner. An equally important second step is to practise using the rules of grammar to
become proficient in communicating in the language.
In this practice course you will get to practise using important rules of grammar that will greatly improve your ability to communicate
in both spoken and written English.Practice English Grammar contains many grammar questions from various topics.
With over 500 questions in different topics, this app helps you practicing the basic usage of English grammar in elementary level.
Please update to the latest version for more questions and features..
Latest update include more questions and new interface and new icon.
Our App Contains practise questions on .....
Choose best word or phrase
Correct Forms of Nouns
Choose Correct Words
.......... and many more
AND MANY MORE TO COME IN THE UPDATE...
PLEASE DON'T FORGET TO RATE AND COMMENT US.
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Health Benefits of Lentils and Legumes (beans)
Lentils are an excellent source of cholesterol lowering fiber. Not only do lentil help lower cholesterol, they are of special benefit in managing blood sugar disorders since their high fiber content prevents blood sugar levels from rising rapidly after a meal.
Legumes, compared to grains, supply about the same number of calories but usually two to four times as much protein.
Many legumes, especially soybeans, are demonstrating impressive health benefits. Diets rich in legumes are being used to lower cholesterol levels, improve diabetics' blood glucose control, and reduce the risk of many cancers.
A high fiber content of beans prevents blood sugar levels from rising too rapidly after a meal, making these beans an especially good choice for individuals with diabetes, insulin resistance or hypoglycemia.
Common beans' contribution to heart health lies not jus in their high fiber content but in the significant amounts of antioxidants, vitamin B6, and magnesium.
Legumes contain many important nutrients and photochemical, and when combined with grains, they form a complete protein.
According to studies
conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, richly colored dried beans
offer a high degree of antioxidant protection. In fact, small red kidney
beans rated the highest, just ahead of blueberries.
We hope you enjoy vegetarian
lentils and legumes recipes at
Source: The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods by Michael Murray and Joseph Pizzorno
Copyright © Namaskaar Inc. 2006-2012 Web design and food photography Marzena K Saigal @
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A Review of Anemias for the Physician Assistant Exam
The Physician Assistant Exam (PANCE) will expect you to be familiar with different types of anemia, like macrocytic anemia, normocytic anemia and aplastic anemia. Make sure you know the basics.
Vitamin deficiencies: Macrocytic anemias
Macrocytic anemias are associated with a large MCV, usually > 100 fL. The two most common causes are vitamin B12 and folate (folic acid) deficiencies.
In addition to being macrocytic anemias, vitamin B12 and folic acid deficiencies are both megaloblastic anemias. Therefore, you see hypersegmented neutrophils on a peripheral blood smear.
Vitamin B12 deficiency
B12 deficiency can affect the blood, nerve function, and yes, even bowel function. This cause of anemia is easy to test for and easier to treat.
Following are some points on the causes of anemia due to B12 deficiency:
B12 is found in meat, and the Western animal-based diet is built around meat, so unless someone’s a vegan, being B12 deficient due to diet is very hard.
Common causes of B12 deficiency include malabsorption syndromes (such as celiac sprue or tropical sprue), any prior intestinal surgeries (including gastric bypass and other stomach surgeries), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), Diphyllobothrium latum infection, pancreatic insufficiency, and pernicious anemia. Pernicious anemia is caused by a lack of intrinsic factor, usually due to an autoimmune condition in which the body forms antibodies against the gastric parietal cells and can destroy them.
Any type of bacterial overgrowth syndrome in the bowel can cause malabsorption of key nutrients, including B12. You can see this with any process that can affect bowel integrity (for example, diverticulosis or colonic stricture) or bowel motility.
Here are some high-yield points concerning the symptoms, testing, and treatment of B12 deficiency:
Signs of B12 deficiency include weakness, diarrhea or constipation, weight loss, and feeling just awful. The deficiency can also affect the nervous system and cause numbness and tingling of the hands and feet because of its effect on the peripheral nerves.
It can cause subacute combined degeneration, which concerns a diminishing of the positional and vibratory senses. SACD is caused by a degeneration of the lateral and posterior columns of the spinal cord. B12 deficiency can also be a cause of dementia.
You can diagnose B12 deficiency with a simple blood test, namely a B12 level. A normal level is > 300 pg/mL.
You may have a suspicion that someone with low-level normal levels of B12 has B12 deficiency. In that situation, you’d order a methylmalonic acid level and homocysteine level. In B12 deficiency, both of these would be elevated, whereas only homocysteine would be elevated in folic acid deficiency.
To assess for pernicious anemia as a cause of B12 deficiency, you’d order antiparietal cell antibodies and anti-intrinsic factor antibodies lab tests. Treatment with steroids may help, although this practice isn’t common.
No one does a Schilling test anymore. These tests are cumbersome and a pain to do.
Treatment for B12 deficiency is B12 supplementation. Intramuscular injections of B12 can be given, usually once a week. These injections can transition to once a month or oral supplementation. B12 can be given sublingually (under the tongue) as well.
Folic acid deficiency
You commonly see folic acid deficiency along with B12 deficiency. Common causes of folic acid deficiency include the malabsorption syndromes, including celiac disease (celiac sprue) and tropical sprue.
Here are the high-yield tips concerning folic acid deficiency:
A simple blood test can help you assess for folic acid deficiency.
Pregnant women need to take prenatal vitamins fortified with folic acid to prevent birth defects, including spina bifida.
Folic acid deficiency can be caused by malabsorption, excessive alcohol intake, and certain medications, such as methotrexate used for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis or phenytoin sodium (Dilantin) and other seizure medications. Another common medication that causes folic acid deficiency is zidovudine (AZT), which is used in the treatment of HIV.
The treatment is folic acid supplementation. Supplements are usually given orally in doses of 400 mcg to 1,000 mcg (1 mg) daily. Because folic acid can be found in leafy greens, eating veggies is also important.
In addition to B12 and folic acid deficiencies, other causes of macrocytic anemias include alcoholism, hypothyroidism, chronic liver disease, and hemolysis.
How about anemias with a normal MCV (76–100 fL)? In these anemias, the hemoglobin is low. They include the following:
Anemia secondary to kidney disease
Anemia of chronic disease
Be aware of this short list in case you’re asked on the test.
Aplastic anemia is a disorder in which the bone marrow no longer produces red blood cells. The person is also pancytopenic because the bone marrow doesn’t make platelets or white blood cells, either. In a person with aplastic anemia, the CBC shows pancytopenia and a low reticulocyte count. On presentation, the person is usually normocytic but occasionally has a large MCV.
Known causes of aplastic anemia include viruses (including hepatitis, Epstein-Barr, HIV, and parvovirus B19), medications (including antibiotics, chloramphenicol, NSAIDs, anti-seizure medications, and chemotherapy), toxin exposure (including heavy metals such as mercury), and autoimmune diseases. There can also be congenital causes of this condition. However, in many cases, the etiology of aplastic anemia isn’t clear.
One particular medical condition that’s closely associated with aplastic anemia is paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria, or PNH. It’s characterized by a hemolytic anemia and venous thrombosis. The bone marrow isn’t doing its job, and you see low white cell and low platelet counts on a CBC. People diagnosed with paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria are at risk of developing aplastic anemia later in life. People with aplastic anemia are often screened for PNH.
The treatments for aplastic anemia can include a stem cell transplant and/or immunosuppressive therapy through drugs such as cyclosporine (Neoral). Immunosuppressive medication is used especially if the cause of the aplastic anemia is likely autoimmune in nature. Often the person requires blood and platelet transfusions.
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“The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” includes several of Ernest Hemingway’s important themes and introduces characters typical of his work. This is a story of a man’s coming of age, but it also presents something of Hemingway’s attitude toward “the code” for which he is famous, his views on women, and the value he placed on the life of action. Each of the main characters can illustrate one of these themes.
Robert Wilson, the white hunter, is an archetypal Hemingway hero. He lives a life of action—a manly life—that is governed by a code that he never states, but which is his standard for judging his own as well as others’ behavior. Sportsmanship, courage, and “grace under pressure” are the hallmarks of Wilson’s behavior. His professionalism is more than simply an attitude; it is a philosophy that governs his life. To him, it is morally unthinkable that he might leave a dangerously wounded animal in the bush, talk about his clients behind their backs, or otherwise violate the unspoken contracts of his trade. His philosophy, however, is expressed in action, not words, and he is suspicious of those who, like Macomber, ruin an experience by too much talk. He respects men who, like himself, can face danger courageously, certain that death is less to be feared than a coward’s life.
Francis Macomber is described as one of “the great American boy-men,” the sort of men who are likely to remain immature throughout...
(The entire section is 508 words.)
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- Animal: Elk
- Bird: Blackbird
- Coat of Arms:
The Lesser Coat of Arms is the one more frequently used in Sweden today.
This colorful banner features three crowns of gold, two over one, topped by a bejeweled closed crown.
The three crowns have been, in one way or another, an emblem of Sweden since 1336, then used as a familiar symbol of the "Three Wise Kings."
An additional legend regarding its application is that King Magnus Eriksson (1319-64) adopted the three crowns to symbolize his title, "King of Norway, Sweden and all of Scania," - a southern province.
The Greater Coat of Arms represents Sweden's monarch, and is used on special occasions by the Government and by the Swedish Parliament.
Developed in the 1440's as the seal of then King, Karl Knutsson Bonde, it's been used ever since.
- Flag of Sweden
- Motto: "For Sverige i tiden" "For Sweden – With the Times"
- National Anthem: "Du Gamla, Du Fria" ("Thou Ancient, Thou Free"); with lyrics written by Richard Dybeck, Sweden's revered ballad writer. It is not the official (government sanctioned) national anthem (none exists), but rather a song that inspires national pride, and is sung at public festivals and sporting events.
- Tree: Ornasbjork - a variety of Silver Birch
Trending on WorldAtlas
Countries of Europe
This page was last modified on September 29, 2015.
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Individual differences |
Methods | Statistics | Clinical | Educational | Industrial | Professional items | World psychology |
Philosophy Index: Aesthetics · Epistemology · Ethics · Logic · Metaphysics · Consciousness · Philosophy of Language · Philosophy of Mind · Philosophy of Science · Social and Political philosophy · Philosophies · Philosophers · List of lists
In philosophy, the brain in a vat is any of a variety of thought experiments intended to draw out certain features of our ideas of knowledge, reality, truth, mind, and meaning. It is drawn from the idea, common to many science fiction stories, that a scientist might remove a person's brain from the body, suspend it in a vat of life-sustaining liquid, and connect its neurons by wires to a supercomputer which would provide it with electrical impulses identical to those the brain normally receives. According to such stories, the computer would then be simulating a virtual reality (including appropriate responses to the brain's own output) and the person with the "disembodied" brain would continue to have perfectly normal conscious experiences without these being related to objects or events in the real world.
The simplest use of brain-in-a-vat scenarios is as an argument for philosophical skepticism and Solipsism. A simple version of this runs as follows: Since the brain in a vat gives and receives the exact same impulses as it would if it were in a skull, and since these are its only way of interacting with its environment, then it is not possible to tell, from the perspective of that brain, whether it is in a skull or a vat. Yet in the first case most of the person's beliefs may be true (if he believes, say, that he is walking down the street, or eating ice-cream); in the latter case they are false. Since, the argument says, you cannot know whether you are a brain in a vat, then you cannot know whether most of your beliefs might be completely false. Since, in principle, it is impossible to rule out your being a brain in a vat, you cannot have good grounds for believing any of the things you believe; you certainly cannot know them.
This argument is little more than a contemporary revision of the argument given by Descartes in Meditations on First Philosophy (though Descartes eventually rejects his own argument) that he could not trust his perceptions on the grounds that an evil demon might, conceivably, be controlling his every experience. It is also (though more distantly) related to Descartes' argument that he cannot trust his perceptions because he may be dreaming (Descartes's dream argument is preceded by Zhuangzi in "Zhuangzi dreamed he was a butterfly".). In this latter argument the worry about active deception is removed.
Such puzzles have been worked over in many variations by philosophers in recent decades. Some, including Barry Stroud, continue to insist that such puzzles constitute an unanswerable objection to any knowledge claims. Others have argued against them, most notably Hilary Putnam. In the first chapter of his Reason, Truth, and History Putnam claims that the thought experiment is inconsistent on the grounds that a brain in a vat could not have the sort of history and interaction with the world that would allow its thoughts or words to be about the vat that it is in.
In other words, if a brain in a vat stated "I am a brain in a vat," it would always be stating a falsehood. If the brain making this statement lives in the "real" world, then it is not a brain in a vat. On the other hand, if the brain making this statement is really just a brain in the vat then by stating "I am a brain in a vat" what the brain is really stating is "I am what nerve stimuli have convinced me is a 'brain,' and I reside in an image that I have been convinced is called a 'vat'." That is, a brain in a vat would never be thinking about real brains or real vats, but rather about images sent into it that resemble real brains or real vats. This of course makes our definition of "real" even more muddled. This refutation of the vat theory is a consequence of his endorsement, at that time, of the causal theory of reference. Roughly, in this case: if you've never experienced the real world, then you can't have thoughts about it, whether to deny or affirm them. Putnam contends that by "brain" and "vat" the brain in a vat must be referring not to things in the "outside" world but to elements of its own "virtual world"; and it is clearly not a brain in a vat in that sense. Likewise, whatever we can mean by "brain" and "vat" must be such that we obviously are not brains in vats (the way to tell is to look in a mirror).
Many writers, however, have found Putnam's proposed solution unsatisfying, as it appears, in this regard at least, to depend on a shaky theory of meaning: that we cannot meaningfully talk or think about the "external" world because we cannot experience it sounds like a version of the outmoded verification principle. Consider the following quote: "How can the fact that, in the case of the brains in a vat, the language is connected by the program with sensory inputs which do not intrinsically or extrinsically represent trees (or anything external) possibly bring it about that the whole system of representations, the language in use, does refer to or represent trees or any thing external?" Putnam here argues from the lack of sensory inputs representing (real world) trees to our inability to meaningfully think about trees. But it is not clear why the referents of our terms must be accessible to us in experience. One cannot, for example, have experience of other people's private states of consciousness; does this imply that one cannot meaningfully ascribe mental states to others?
Subsequent writers on the topic, especially among those who agree with Putnam's claim, have been particularly interested in the problems it presents for content: that is, how if at all can the brain's thoughts be about a person or place with whom it has never interacted and which perhaps does not exist.
- Dream argument
- Evil demon
- Experience machine
- Internalism and externalism
- Neurally controlled animat
- Simulated reality
- Skeptical hypothesis
- Technological singularity
|Types of Skepticism|
|This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia (view authors).|
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The risk of elevated blood pressure among children and adolescents rose 27 percent during a thirteen-year period, according to new research in the American Heart Association journal Hypertension.
Higher body mass, larger waistlines and eating excess sodium may be the reasons for the elevated blood pressure readings, researchers said.
High blood pressure is a risk factor for stroke, heart disease and kidney failure—accounting for about 350,000 preventable deaths a year in the United States.
"High blood pressure is dangerous in part because many people don't know they have it," said Bernard Rosner, Ph.D., lead author of the study and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Mass. "It's a very sneaky thing. Blood pressure has to be measured regularly to keep on top of it."
In adults age 20 and older, blood pressure should normally be less than 120/80 mm Hg. However, among children and teens blood pressure norms vary according to age, sex and height.
While the researchers noted "elevated" readings, the children could not be called hypertensive because blood pressure readings must be high three times in a row for an official diagnosis.
Researchers compared more than 3,200 children ages 8-17 in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) III in 1988-1994 to more than 8,300 in NHANES in 1999-2008. They accounted for differences between the two groups in age, sex, race/ethnicity, body mass, waistline and sodium intake.
- Boys were more likely to have elevated blood pressure, but the rate increased more markedly in girls from the first study to the second.
- More children were overweight in the second study, and both sexes, especially girls, had bigger waistlines.
- Children whose body mass or waistline measurements were in the top 25 percent for their age group were about twice as likely to have elevated blood pressure as children with measurements in the bottom 25 percent.
- African-American children had a 28 percent higher risk of elevated blood pressure than non-Hispanic white children.
- In both studies, children with the greatest sodium intake were 36 percent more likely than those with the lowest intake to have elevated blood pressure.
More than 80 percent of children in both studies had a daily sodium intake above 2,300 milligrams; however, fewer children in the later study had an intake above 3,450 milligrams.
"Everyone expects sodium intake will continue to go up," Rosner said. "It seems there's been a little bit of listening to dietary recommendations, but not a lot."
Americans eat an average 3,400 milligrams of sodium daily—more than twice the 1,500 or less that the American Heart Association recommends. Two-thirds of sodium intake is from store-bought foods and one-quarter from restaurant offerings.
Studies have linked excessive sodium in the diet to high blood pressure, and have suggested reducing sodium intake in children's and adolescents' can lower average systolic (top number) blood pressure by 1.2 mm Hg and average diastolic (bottom number) pressure 1.3 mm Hg.
Explore further: Too much salt may damage blood vessels, lead to high blood pressure
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Why is it a good idea to
study stereotypes in context?
Because without some context we can't understand
why people believe in stereotypes, why certain stereotypes persist through
time, how they change, or where stereotypes come from. People are stereotyped
according to some group they are perceived to be a part of. Without
context, we can't understand why a particular group of people gets assigned
a certain kind of label and not another.
- Mouse over: if you put the mouse over an image and it lights up,
it's a link. Click on it to move.
- Button bar: there's a button bar at the bottom of every unit that
allows you to link to other units.
- Back and forward: if you click on the back and forward buttons on
the navigation bar at the top of the netscape screen you move chronologically,
that is, "Back" would take you to the page you just visited.
- If you follow
an external link to another web site, you can get back to my pages
by continuing to click on "Back" or by opening the window
under "Go" on the navigation bar at the top of the netscape
screen and clicking on the title of one of my pages.
- Scroll bar: at the right of a screen or a frame a rectangular vertical
bar and up and down buttons allow you to scroll up and down the page.
- Go to top
of page: at various points in the pages you can link back up to the
top of the page by clicking on the up arrow.
- Go to bottom
of page: at various points you can link down to the bottom of the
page by clicking on the down arrow.
- Go back to
... unit: if you've left the main page of a unit and need to get back
you can scroll down to the bottom of the page and get back to the
unit by clicking on the back arrow.
- Click on
the email envelope image to send a message to the archive.
of contents for the Stereotypes in Context pages
- Understanding stereotypes:
- What makes something a stereotype
- Definition of stereotype
- Discussion of images and dialogue from Pulp Fiction
- Native American stereotypes: Link to "Ten Little Indians"
video clip, discussion questions, and team names issue
- What it means to put issues in context
- Obsession ads; analysis of self esteem
- Link to Adbusters
- Media literacy
- 5 principles of media literacy
- Link to Ontario Ministry of Ed explanation of the 5 principles
- 6 questions to ask of any media
- Link to Project Look Sharp
- 2 Quotes from Mike Males' Framing Youth:
- "[There are] two types of media influence.
- "Media literacy is reasonable, but it doesn't get
at the real problem. . .
- USM assignments
- USM 1: Link to stereotype handout and summary exercise.
- USM 2: Link to University of Iowa site to skim articles
and send me an email.
- USM 3: Sexual objectification exercise
- USM 4: Political and economic contexts (anti war & IBM
- USM 5: Name that context! exercise
- USM 6: Cultural definitions of men and women exercise. Link
to audio clip from The Rock and video clip from a cell
- USM 7: Discussion of Rayban ad and quotes from Berger on
women's "split self"
- USM 8: Humorous quotes
- USM 9: Repeat USM 4 using media literacy tools
- Context: Ads as forms of communication
- Ads themselves: For ads to work, they have to get their message
- Quote from Arthur Berger on the aesthetic composition of
ads. "Factors such as line, shape, dimension, lighting,
design, spatiality, color, and perspective. . .
- Link to Arthur Berger's Checklist for Analyzing Print Advertisements
- AFC assignment 1: Link to DuMaurier/ Chloe exercise
- The paradigms the viewer brings to the ads.
- AFC assignment 2: paradigm influence
- AFC assignment 3: bring in media examples showing possibility
of varying interpretations
- The philosophical system of values and beliefs assumed by all
- AFC assignment 4: 3 quotes by John Berger - paraphrase
- "Publicity adds up to a kind of philosophical
- "We are now so accustomed to being addressed by
these images that we scarcely notice their total impact....
- "Publicity is not merely an assembly of competing
messages: it is a language in itself which is always being
used to make the same general proposal....
- AFC assignment 5: Link to Kira St. John's Wort and Clairol
ads exercise; bring in examples of make over ads
- Context: The fantasy life
of ads - Assignments for pairs to do in a computer lab
outside of class
- Quote from Berger: "Publicity can never really afford to
be about the product ..."
- Questions about ad from Toyota
- Quotes from Berger and a paraphrase exercise
- "Publicity speaks in the future tense and
yet the achievement of this future is endlessly deferred...."
- "The fantasy life of ads explains why ads can remain
- Discussion on what dreams and hopes you have....
Questions about collage of man/ woman ads with application
to Berger quote, "With this you will become desirable...."
Questions about 2 Finlandia ads
Discussion of ad for American Express and domestic partner
- Comparison of 7 with American Express ad targeted at African
- Discussion of 212 Cologne ad
- Context: The anxious consumer
- Quote from Berger: "The purpose of [ads] is to make the
spectator marginally dissatisfied . . .
- Quote from ad exec: "Advertising deals in open sores. .
- Psychogenic profiles.
- Quote from Meyers: "At the heart of Madison Avenue's new,
elaborately engineered system of persuasion lies one fundamental
premise. . .
- AC assignment 1: summarize arguments from Meyers and Campbell
- SRI link and quotes
- "SRI Consulting's VALS Program is based on
the basic forces driving consumer choices . . .
- "Every vendor wants to get close to its customers by
understanding behaviors. . .
- AC assignment 2: Link to SRI
- Meyers' 5 psychogenic categories - table
- AC assignment 3: Link to sample ads to categorize
- Context: The political economy
- John Berger's analysis of the role of ads in capitalism. 2 quotes:
- "Publicity is the culture of the consumer
society. . . (Berger)
- "Ad Alley's wizards. . . (Meters)
- Using the concept of ideology; link to ideology handout; ads
present a sham democracy (Berger)
- Link to Barely There ad
- issue appropriation; link to Southwestern Bell & Monistat
- Quote from Berger: "Publicity turns consumption into
a substitute for democracy. . .
- Rebecca photo from Helen Stummer vs. Vogue ad
- Link to Amazon.com for review of Ways of Seeing
- Berger's analogy between ads and oil paintings; link to Nicole
Kidman ads and John Sargent portraits
- Andersen, Margaret L. and Patricia Hill Collins, eds. Race, Class,
and Gender : An Anthology, 3rd edition. Wadsworth Publishing Company,
- Berger, Arthur Asa. Seeing Is Believing. Mayfield Publishing
- Berger, John. Ways of Seeing, reprint edition. Viking Press,
- Males, Mike. Framing Youth. Common Courage Press, 1999.
- Meyers, William. Image Makers. New York, 1984.
- Ontario Ministry of Education, Intermediate and Senior Divisions.
Media Literacy Resource Guide. 1989.
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WIYN Open Cluster Study
The open cluster NGC 2420 (center) in the constellation Gemini along with the WIYN 0.9m (left) and 3.5m (right) telescopes located atop Kitt Peak near Tucson, Arizona (WIYN/NOAO/NSF).
A number of astronomers have formed a collaboration to establish a standard database of open cluster photometry, astrometry, and spectroscopy. The current members of this collaboration were at one time, or are currently, affiliated with one of the institutions responsible for the scientific mission of the WIYN telescope; these include the University of Wisconsin, Indiana University, Yale University, and the National Optical Astronomy Observatories. The coordinated effort of these researchers is known as the WIYN Open Cluster Study (WOCS, pronounced 'wox').
The project is supported by the National Science Foundation grants AST-0196212 and AST-0606703 (to the University of Florida), AST-9731302 (to the University of Wisconsin), AST-9812735, AST-0206202, and AST-0607567 (to Indiana University), and NASA grant NAG5-8406 (to Yale).
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The Task bar is something you will use all the time, and believe or not in time it will become second nature.
Today’s How-To Guide for the computer Beginner is What is the Task bar? We will also go into the different parts of the task bar.
You can see a small screenshot below, and if you can't see it clearly go to the picture directly on photobucket!
Most of the time you will find the taskbar at the bottom of your screen.
One the far left side of your taskbar you have your start button,
and all the way to your right will be your computer clock.
A taskbar is a visual device on the desktop that typically shows the user which applications (tasks) are currently active and running. Taskbars such as those in Windows operating systems also include icons for commonly-used utilities such as the system clock and antivirus software. In some systems, the user is allowed to modify the contents, location, or appearance of the taskbar.
Different Parts of the Task Bar
Today I will go into a brief description of each part of the task bar, and in future lessons will go into more detail of the sections of the task bar.
As we mentioned before the far left portion of the task bar is the start button that you hear people speak about.
When we click the start button we see a start menu. We will speak about the start menu another day.
The second section of the taskbar has changed quite a bit in time. I will write briefly about how this section generally evolved with each new Windows Operating System.
Next to the start button that opens the start menu you have the
Quick Launch Bar
The Quick Launch Bar was introduced with Windows 98, but was starting to be radically changed by Windows XP.
The Quick Launch bar was program icons that you use often. One click and it would launch the program. The red arrow points to the quick launch bar area.
The black arrow shows a double chervon (double arrow symbol), and when clicked shows additional icons that can be launched as well.
You can see in this picture two bar looking items that separate the start button, quick launch, and then the middle section.
Some people like to change the programs that are in their quick launch bar, and we will speak about that another day.
Right next to the quick launch bar you have the middle section, which shows you which programs and documents you have open and allows you to quickly switch between them.
As I mentioned before the task bar lets you know what ‘tasks’ are currently open. In older operating systems you could have MANY tabs that looked similar, and it would fill the space up quickly.
With Windows XP they started what they call task bar grouping. They basically would ‘group’ all similar files together. In the example I have pictured they grouped all Microsoft Word Documents together.
Keep in mind normally you would see your document name in this example if you gave the document a name that is.
They made this change so when you have like the picture shows 10 office documents open at once? You can quickly get the one you need at the time, and switch to a different after that.
When Vista came along all you had to do was hoover (See picture – windows photo gallery), and the Windows Desktop Manager would give you an image of the file or program you have open.
Instead of a bunch of grey buttons for each window that is open? Vista (and XP) tend to show you a white down arrow that tells you that you have more than once window open. In this case I have more than one webpage on my task bar.
When I hover over the firefox icon in this case my web pages will appear like pictured. If I hover again on top of the title?
The computer will give me a complete title of that the page in question.
Windows 7 changed it the taskbar once again. When I hoover over (don’t click) that section the web pages with descriptions will pop up to tell me what they are as well.
When you go to open a recently used program from the start menu the files you created recently show up as well. If you look closely at the picture the ‘recent’ section (top right hand side)shows names of flowers that this person may have used in the PAINT program. These files show up when you hoover over the program name.
These file names also pop up when you click the program icon in the task bar.
Notice the “RECENT” file names this user created for meeting agendas.
If you look below that you will see the WordPad is the program they used to create them. Windows 7 also makes it easier to place your programs of choice in the quick launch area.
Notice the “Unpin this program from taskbar”.
This user PINED WordPad to their taskbar for quick use. If they change their mind later? They can unpin it just by clicking where it prompts you to.
Unlike Vista that gives me a white down arrow Windows 7 almost gives you the impression you have a couple of sheets of paper. Notice the layers in the picture.
The notification area, which includes a clock and icons
The area includes programs you tend to use once you turn the computer on. It could be sound, virus protection, settings for printer, and important software. Notice the WHITE arrow at the very left of this picture. If you click on that you will see ALL the programs serviced by this portion of the task bar.
This is for Vista.
Windows 7 looks something like this.
The smaller icons as I mentioned are important sections of your computer
This is my speakers icon. When I hoover over that icon I get a notification like this
This is the same area in which you will be notified (with new operating systems) when an update to one of your programs is available. Below is a Java Notification.
Lastly, you have your clock that we have already covered in another lesson.
Thank you for reading our How-To Guide for the Computer Beginning, and our brief overview on the task bar.
As always don't forget to leave a comment or question if you have one in the area supplied below.
If you leave your email in the box I supplied future lessons will be sent to you by email!
Technorati Tags: windows taskbar,taskbar on side,windows taskbar location,vista taskbar,xp taskbar,taskbar icons,what is taskbar,extend taskbar,taskbar clock,taskbar location,desktop taskbar,taskbar icon,[parts of taskbar],parts of taskbar,[taskbar],[task bar],[windows taskbar]
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ADVANTAGES OF BIODIESEL
Blends of 20% biodiesel with 80% petroleum diesel can be used in unmodified diesel engines. Biodiesel can be used in its pure form but many require certain engine modifications to avoid maintenance and performance problems.
It was stated that about half of the biodiesel industry can use recycled oil or fat, the other half being soybean, or rapeseed oil according to the origin of these feed stocks.
Biodiesel is nontoxic, biodegradable. It reduces the emission of harmful pollutants (mainly particulates) from diesel engines (80% less CO2 emissions, 100% less sulfur dioxide) but emissions of nitrogen oxides (precursor of ozone) are increased.
Biodiesel has a high cetane number (above 100, compared to only 40 for diesel fuel). Cetane number is a measure of a fuel's ignition quality. The high cetane numbers of biodiesel contribute to easy cold starting and low idle noise.
The use of biodiesel can extend the life of diesel engines because it is more lubricating and, furthermore, power output are relatively unaffected by biodiesel.
Biodiesel replaces the exhaust odor of petroleum diesel with a more pleasant smell of popcorn or French fries.
By developing methods to use cheap and low quality lipids as feedstocks, it is hoped that a cheaper biodiesel can be produced, thus competing economically with petroleum resources.
WHAT IS BIODIESEL ?
Biodiesel (or biofuel) is the name for a variety of ester-based fuels (fatty esters) generally defined as the monoalkyl esters made from vegetable oils, such as soybean oil, canola or hemp oil, or sometimes from animal fats through a simple transesterification process. This renewable source is as efficient as petroleum diesel in powering unmodified diesel engine.
The concept of using vegetal oil as an engine fuel dates back to 1895 when Rudolf Diesel (1858-1913) developed the first engine to run on peanut oil, as he demonstrated at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900. Unfortunately, R. Diesel died 1913 before his vision of a vegetable oil powered engine was fully realized.
"The use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today. But such oils may become in the course of time as important as the petroleum and coal tar products of the present time"
Rudolph Diesel, 1912
After R. Diesel death the petroleum industry was rapidly developing and produced a cheap by-product "diesel fuel" powering a modified "diesel-engine". Thus, clean vegetable oil was forgotten as a renewable source of power.
Modern diesels are now designed to run on a less viscous fuel than vegetable oil but, in times of fuel shortages, cars and trucks were successfully run on preheated peanut oil and animal fat. It seems that the upper rate for inclusion of rapeseed oil with diesel fuel is about 25% but crude vegetal oil as a diesel fuel extender induces poorer cold-starting performance compared with diesel fuel or biodiesel made with fatty esters (McDonnel K et al. JAOCS 1999, 76, 539).
Today's diesel engines require a clean-burning, stable fuel operating under a variety of conditions. In the mid 1970s, fuel shortages spurred interest in diversifying fuel resources, and thus biodiesel as fatty esters was developed as an alternative to petroleum diesel. Later, in the 1990s, interest was rising due to the large pollution reduction benefits coming from the use of biodiesel. The use of biodiesel is affected by legislation and regulations in all countries (Knothe G, Inform 2002, 13, 900). On February 9, 2004, the Government of the Philippines directed all of its departments to incorporate one percent by volume coconut biodiesel in diesel fuel for use in government vehicles. The EU Council of Ministers adopted new pan-EU rules for the detaxation of biodiesel and biofuels on October 27, 2003. Large-volume production occurs mainly in Europe, with production there now exceeding 1.4 million tons per year. Western European biodiesel production capacity was estimated at about 2 million metric tons per year largely produced through the transesterification process, about one-half thereof in Germany (440,000 and 350,000 MT in France and Italy, respectively). In the United States, by 1995, 10 percent of all federal vehicles were to be using alternative fuels to set an example for the private automotive and fuel industries. Several studies are now funded to promote the use of blends of biodiesel and heating oil in USA. In USA soybean oil is the principal oil being utilized for biodiesel (about 80,000 tons in 2003). Details may be viewed on-line through the National Biodiesel Board web site.
What is still widely unknown is that it is easy to make biodiesel for diesel engines using vegetable oil or animal fat. Biodiesel is sold commercially in Europe, America and Australia.
On a small scale, vegetable oil is relatively expensive, but used products from the cooking industry is abundant and can easily and cheaply be converted into a biodiesel fuel that will mix in any quantity with conventional diesel. During heating, the amount of polymers in the oil may increase up to 15 wt% and thus may have negative influence on fuel characteristics. Therefore, the amount of polymers in waste oil is a good indicator for biodiesel production (Mittelbach M et al. JAOCS 1999, 76, 545).
The transesterification process involves mixing at room temperature methanol (50% excess) with NaOH (100% excess), then mixing vigorously with vegetable oil and letting the glycerol settle (about 15% of the biodiesel mix). The supernatant is biodiesel and contains a mixture of methylated fatty acids and methanol, the catalyst remaining dissolved in the glycerol fraction. Industrially, the esters are sent to the clean-up or purification process which consists of water washing, vacuum drying, and filtration.
An in situ alkaline transesterification was shown to be efficient in preparing fatty acid esters, the simple and direct process eliminating the expense associated with solvent extraction and oil cleanup (Haas MJ et al., JAOCS 2004, 81, 83).
Transesterification may be processed using methanol, ethanol, isopropyl alcohol, or butanol, the catalyst being either sodium or potassium hydroxide. It was shown that the methanol/oil molar ratio influences largely the efficiency of the reaction and has important implications for the optimal size of methyl ester plants (Boocock DGB et al. JAOCS 1998, 75, 1167).
It was experienced that 10 l of soybeans produced about 1.9 l of biodiesel. A liter of this fuel contains about 35,000 BTUs.
If fats or solidified oil are used, it will need to heat up to 50°C the mixture prior to mixing with methanol and catalyst.
If free fatty acids are present (used cooking oils), special pretreatment technologies are required (see website).
Among lipid-rich materials of low value is soapstock, a co-product of the refining of edible vegetal oils. This mixture is generated at a rate of about 6% of the treated unrefined oil (45 MT per year in USA). An efficient procedure involving acid-catalyzed esterification of soapstock has been described (Haas MJ et al., J Am Oil Chem Soc 2003, 80, 97).
The world biodiesel sources were in 2002 : rapeseed oil (84%), sunflower (13%), soybean oil (1%), palm oil (1%), and others (1%).
Information on making biodiesel may be found in specific websites : http://www.biodiesel.org/ http://www.greenfuels.org/bioindex.html http://www.webconx.com/making_biodiesel.htm http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html
General biodesiel information : http://www.me.iastate.edu/biodiesel/pages/biodiesel1.html
Other resources (discussion groups) : http://www.topica.com/lists/straightcookingoilforfuel/ http://www.egroups.com/group/Biodiesel
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If you're trying to make money, will that make you motivated and driven, or greedy and selfish? A recent study found some truth in both sides.
How cash changes behavior. I'm Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.
Does money encourage self-sufficiency, or selfishness? Yes and yes, according to University of Minnesota consumer psychologist Kathleen Vohs.
In a series of experiments, Vohs and her colleagues found that the mere suggestion of money—through word games, pictures, or play money—made people work longer on challenging tasks before asking for help. But it also made them less inclined to help others on similar tasks, donate spare change to charity, or even pick up somebody's dropped pencils.
So it suggested that they just thought that everyone should be working toward their own goals without wanting help, just like they had done in the other experiments.
She says the bottom line is that money appears to promote self-reliance, which has positive and negative social consequences. I'm Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.
Making Sense of the Research
It's not hard to imagine that money changes people. What's unique about Vohs' research is that it doesn't look at the effects of actually being rich or poor in the real world. Instead, she studied the effects of just thinking about money, in very controlled and limited environments. In fact, her subjects stood to gain or lose either no money at all, or very little, as a result of their behavior. Yet the mere suggestion of money affected them in striking ways.
Vohs and her colleagues conducted several experiments. They exposed some of their participants to the idea of money in a variety of ways, including giving them Monopoly money, asking them to read stories about wealthy characters, having them complete word puzzles with money-related answers, or even running a screensaver with pictures of dollar bills nearby. Other participants worked under similar conditions, except money wasn't mentioned.
She found that when people were reminded of money, they spent more time working on difficult brainteasers before asking for help. They also were more likely to choose to work alone on an assigned project, rather than with a partner. When they were asked to meet another participant in the study, they even set the chairs further apart than people who hadn't been reminded of money—creating more physical distance between themselves and the new person. These results suggest that thinking about money makes people more independent and self-sufficient.
However, it appears that the thought of money makes people expect others to be self-sufficient, too. In one experiment, someone would interrupt the participant and ask for five minutes of help on a different project. Those in the “money” group were less likely to help at all, and when they did, they volunteered less of their time than people who hadn't been reminded of money. In another, an experimenter walked through the room and created a fake accident by dropping a bunch of pencils on the floor. People who had been reminded about money were less likely to help pick them up. In another situation, participants were asked to donate a small amount of money to a fictional charity on their way out. Those who had been reminded of money gave less than those who hadn't.
In all of these experiments, it didn't matter whether the participants actually were rich, poor, or in between. Their true socio-economic status had no effect on their behavior. This suggests that money, as an idea, can motivate people in all walks of life. Furthermore, it implies that if you're constantly reminded of money—by working in a bank, for example—your behavior may be affected even if you don't have a lot of money yourself.
The study speaks to a larger debate that goes back for centuries: whether a money-oriented, capitalist society is a good or bad thing. It seems to confirm the basic arguments of both sides: that a money-driven society stimulates independence, innovation, and self-reliance, but also tends to make people turn their backs on those who do need help. It's not an easy problem to solve, but just knowing about it may encourage us to keep an eye on our own behavior.
Now try and answer these questions:
- What are the pros and cons of thinking about money, according to Vohs' research?
- How does the suggestion of money, in her experiments, differ from actual wealth?
- Can you think of situations in which a person might have money, but not be reminded of it very much? Is this possible?
- In what real-life social situations have you seen examples of this behavior?
You may want to check out the December 8, 2006, Science Update Podcast to hear further information about this Science Update and the other programs for that week. This podcast's topics include: Your birthday greetings to us, hopeful news about malaria in Africa, robots that can recover from injury, news about Neanderthals, the truth about lie detectors, and money brings out the best and the worst in us.
The video Capitalism Redifined, from the EconEdLink-reviewed Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy, focuses on the failure of the benefits of capitalism to reach the world's poor. On the flip side, the video Communism on the Heights, from the same site, details the spread of socialism and the economic effects of communism in the early 20th century.
The same site offers a profile of Adam Smith, the man credited with writing the first great work on political economy. His treatise, The Wealth of Nations, describes the evolution and political organization of civilizations, from hunter-gatherer societies to commercially interdependent ones.
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Last week was Bsides London, and [Steve Lord] was able to give a talk about the devices that could pass for either a terrible, poorly planned, ill-conceived Internet of Things Kickstarter, or something straight out of the NSA toolkit. [Steve] built the Internet of Wrongs, devices that shouldn’t exist, but thanks to all this electronic stuff, does.
The term ‘Internet of Things’ was coined in 1999, long before every laptop had WiFi and every Starbucks provided Internet for the latte-sucking masses. Over time, the Internet of Things meant all these devices would connect over WiFi. Why, no one has any idea. WiFi is terrible for a network of Things – it requires too much power, the range isn’t great, it’s beyond overkill, and there’s already too many machines and routers on WiFi networks, anyway.
There have been a number of solutions to this problem of a WiFi of Things over the years, but none have caught on. Now, finally, there may be a solution. Nest, in cooperation with ARM, Atmel, dialog, Qualcomm, and TI have released OpenThread, an Open Source implementation of the Thread networking protocol.
The physical layer for OpenThread is 802.15.4, the same layer ZigBee is based on. Unlike ZigBee, the fourth, fifth, and sixth layers of OpenThread look much more like the rest of the Internet. OpenThread features IPv6 and 6LoWPAN, true mesh networking, and requires only a software update to existing 802.15.4 radios.
OpenThread is OS and platform agnostic, and interfacing different radios should be relatively easy with an abstraction layer. Radios and networking were always the problem with the Internet of Things, and with OpenThread – and especially the companies supporting it – these problems might not be much longer.
[Michael] was playing with his ESP8266. Occasionally he would notice a WiFi access point come up with, what he described as, “a nasty name”. Perhaps curious about the kind of person who would have this sort of access point, or furious about the tarnishing of his formerly pure airspace, he decided to see if he could locate the router in question.
Sure enough, the person with the questionable WiFi access point shows up on the map.
So you’ve built a central server and filled your house with WiFi-connected nodes all speaking to each other using the MQTT protocol. In short, you’ve got the machine-to-machine side of things entirely squared away. Now it’s time to bring the humans into the loop! We’re going to explore a couple graphical user interfaces.
You could build a physical knob and/or LED display for every little aspect of your entire system, but honestly, this is where GUIs really shine. In this installment of Minimal MQTT, we’re going to look at human-friendly ways of consuming and producing data to interact with your connected sensors, switches, and displays. There are a ton of frameworks out there that use MQTT to build something like this, but we’re going to cut out the middle-man and go straight for some GUI MQTT clients.
In this short series, we’re going to get you set up with a completely DIY home automation system using MQTT. Why? Because it’s just about the easiest thing under the sun, and it’s something that many of you out there will be able to do with material on-hand: a Raspberry Pi as a server and an ESP8266 node as a sensor client. Expanding out to something more complicated is left as an exercise to the motivated reader, or can be simply left to mission creep.
We’ll do this in four baby steps. Each one should take you only fifteen minutes and is completely self-contained. There’s a bunch more that you can learn and explore, but we’re going to get you a taste of the power with the absolute minimal hassle.
In this installment, we’re going to build a broker on a Raspberry Pi, which is the hub of your MQTT network. Next time, we’ll get an ESP8266 up and running and start logging some data. After that, we’ll do some back-end scripting in Python to make the data speak, and in the last installment, we’ll explore some of the useful frills and fancy bits. Let’s get started!
The venerable ESP8266 has rocked the Internet of Things world. Originally little more than a curious $3 WiFi-to-serial bridge, bit by bit, the true power of the ESP has become known, fully programmable, with a treasure trove of peripherals it seemed that the list of things the ESP couldn’t do was short. On that list, at least until today was Ethernet.
No, despite the misleading title, the ESP does not have a MAC and/or PHY, but what it does have is an incredible 80 MHz DMA-able shift register which can be used to communicate 10BASE-T Ethernet using a new project, espthernet. Join me after the break for video proof, and a deep dive into how this is possible.
You want to put your credit card number into a web site. You know to look for a secure web site. But what does that really prove? And now that so many electronic projects have Web servers (ok, I’ll say it… the Internet of Things), do you need to secure your web server?
There was a time when getting a secure certificate (at least one that was meaningful) cost a pretty penny. However, a new initiative backed by some major players (like Cisco, Google, Mozilla, and many others) wants to give you a free SSL certificate. One reason they can afford to do this is they have automated the verification process so the cost to provide a certificate is very low.
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Last updated: January 25, 2015
Suzanne Kercher is a professor of environmental science. Her students design and build solar cookers, and test them at a college-wide Solar Cook-Off at the end of the term. She began teaching solar cooking in 2010.
Suzanne states, "My goal is to teach students about one aspect of sustainable living in a way that is fun and engaging and at the same time contributes to the growing awareness of the need for renewable energy. At home, I have been using the Global Sun Oven since April of 2011, and I am having a great time learning how to cook delicious food using the sun's free, clean energy! I use my solar oven almost daily, except for really cloudy or rainy days."
Recent news and developments
- February 2013: Students learn the scientific method through solar cooker experimentation - Solar cookers lend themselves exceptionally well to experimentation using the scientific method, and that is why Dr. Suzanne Kercher’s Environmental Science class at Columbia College in Missouri, USA, spends two months building solar cookers and testing solar cooker designs and cooking methods. Students present their final projects and experimental results at an Environmental Science Fair, an event that is open to all college faculty, students, and guests. While some students focus on comparing the performance of different types of solar cookers, others use a single type of cooker and focus on improving its cooking performance with variations in design and/or variations in the type of cookware used. Regardless of their experimental approach, their ultimate goal is to use the scientific method to construct a cooker that can safely cook food and/or pasteurize water in Missouri, USA in October. Since most college students are strapped for cash, the challenge quickly becomes, how do you build a functional cooker with materials that are readily available, repurposed, and/ or inexpensive to buy? I always point out to students that this aspect of the solar cooker project closely parallels the economic challenges facing a lot of people in the developing world. As an instructor, one of my greatest joys is witnessing the creativity of my students being applied to the practical challenge of cooking sustainably. Above all, that “lightbulb moment” when students first realize that renewable energy technologies are within their grasp, is even sweeter than the treats we cook at our end-of-term solar cook- off!
- January 2012: Last fall my undergraduate environmental science laboratory students were tasked with designing and building a functional solar cooker that they would present at a Cook-off during our end-of-term Environmental Science Fair, to be held in an outdoor courtyard area and open to all students and faculty at the college. The day of the Cook-off finally arrived in October. Sunny skies and temperatures approaching 60 degrees F (15.5 degrees C) were highly conducive to solar cooking, but gusty winds were less than ideal for the task. Nevertheless, since I had scheduled the Cook-off months in advance, I felt very fortunate to at least have the clear and sunny conditions! Each student in my class approached the assignment in a unique way; however, one favorite approach taken by nearly all of my students was to reuse and repurpose old junk they found, including toaster ovens, barbeque grills, discarded satellite dishes, cardboard boxes and even a cracked aquarium. This was a popular approach not only because it was thrifty but also because it reflected other environmental values my students held dear, such as waste and energy reduction. Two of my students constructed parabolic cookers using discarded satellite dishes. One of those students demonstrated the parabolic cooker’s potential for high heat cooking by placing a piece of paper in the focus. Within a minute or so, the paper started smoking and then ignited into flames! This is sure not a cooker you want to use when little kids or pets are running around! And be sure to wear sunglasses and possibly a hot glove to protect your hands from burns. A few students built panel-type cookers, which utilized aluminum foil-lined cardboard reflectors. Cooking pots and pans were then enclosed within clear plastic oven bags made to withstand high (400-500 degrees F, or ~200-260 degrees C) temperatures. Due to the strong winds present on the day of our Cook-off, unfortunately, these panel-style cookers failed to reach temperatures above the low 200’s Fahrenheit (~93 degrees C). In addition, since they were so lightweight, they had to be weighted down with rocks or anchored into the ground with tent stakes to keep them from blowing away! This style of cooker would definitely be best in Missouri on a hot summer day and when there is little to no wind present. On the day of our Cook-off, the enclosed box-style cookers seemed to work the best overall. Corissa and Stacey built a cooker out of an old barbeque grill fitted with a clear Plexiglas lid. A simple wall mirror reflected enough of the sun’s rays into the cooker to heat up apple cider for the class. Audrey used scrap reflective insulation as a reflector for her repurposed aquarium cooker, and she managed to reach nearly 250 degrees F (~121 degrees C) in her oven despite the wind, which was hot enough to bake a few mini-loaves of pumpkin bread during the fair. Of course, I also brought out my Global Sun Oven to show folks what commercial box-style cookers are capable of. My cooker easily reached 300-325 degrees F (~150-160 degrees C) and stayed there all day, needing only occasional minor repositioning to track the sun. I served up batch after batch of fresh, hot homemade chocolate chip cookies to my students and guests, in addition to loaves of bread I had baked in it the day before.
- the Stellar Award (for best overall solar cooker design and function),
- the Hot Stuff Award (based on hottest temperature achieved and sustained by the cooker),
- the Solar on a Shoestring Award (for the most economical yet functional cooker), and
- the No-Longer-Starving Artist Award (for the most creative/artistic yet functional cooker design).
Rick won the Stellar Award with his repurposed toaster oven box-style cooker, the “Rickmaster Deluxe Solar Oven.” Audrey won the Hot Stuff Award for the highest temperature reached and then sustained inside of her repurposed aquarium box-style cooker. Audrey also won the Solar on a Shoestring Award for the low total cost of the materials she used to build her highly functional cooker. All of the materials she used came from stuff she already had at her home, with the exception of some black barbeque paint she purchased to darken her cooker door. Finally, Heather D. won the No-Longer-Starving Artist Award for her beautiful mirror-mosaic satellite dish parabolic cooker. It was truly a work of art! Winners received a framed certificate and got to choose from an array of prizes provided by the college and myself. A great time was had by all, in spite of the surfeit of sweets (I have made a mental note to request more savory foods next time!) Several students commented on how excited they were to continue their adventures in solar cooking even after the course was over. Those are the words that every teacher wishes to hear!
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Hardy potted plants create a moveable garden that does not require much care from the gardener. These plants tolerate cold and harsh weather conditions as well as the dry conditions of a neglected container. Even disregard for a specific plant's growing requirements does not kill these plants. Most hardy plants can stay in their pots for years, so you won't have to replant the containers every year to make them look good.
Decorative Succulent Plants
Container plants lose moisture more quickly than those planted in the ground, and may have to endure dry growing conditions. Use Aeoniums, a succulent which produces rosettes of leaves at the stem tips, to fill a pot with a long-lasting ornamental plant. Aeoniums grow year round outdoors in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 9 through 11. “Voodoo” aeonium (Aeonium “Voodoo”) grows multicolored dark reddish-bronze leaves on 24-inch-tall stems with yellow flowers appearing from summer through fall. “Sunburst” aeonium (Aeonium decorum “Sunburst”) has variegated green and white leaves with coppery-red tip and pale yellow winter flowers that last until early spring. “Tip Top” aeonium (Aeonium arborescens “Tip Top”) reaches 18 inches tall with burgundy leaves that cover the central stalk. Each of these plants can survive on just rainfall.
Hardy Ornamental Grass
Hardy ornamental grasses grow well in pots and act as large easy-to-care showcase plants. Use pots of ornamental grass to frame entryways and paths. Other than requiring you to occasionally removing spent flower plumes, these hardy grasses are easy to care for in USDA plant hardiness zones 5 through 9. “Fireworks” fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum “Fireworks”) produces white, green, burgundy and hot pink striped leaves 36 inches long and purple tassles during the summer. Dwarf purple fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum “Eaton Canyon”) grows 36 inches tall with clumps of green and purple leaves. The flower plumes range from pink to red on long arching stems. Other types of fountain grass include little bunny dwarf fountain grass (Pennisetum alopecuroides “Little Bunny”) and “Sky Rocket” fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum “Sky Rocket”).
Tough Potted Shrubs
Some shrubs will live out their entire life in large containers with little fertilizer and water. The constriction of the roots controls the size of the bush. Junipers grow in USDA plant hardiness zones 5 through 9 and produce a large spreading display shrub. “Spartan” juniper (Juniperus chinensis “Spartan”) forms a dark green column 15 feet tall and 3 to 5 feet wide. “Blue Pacific” shore juniper (Juniperus conferta “Blue Pacific”) grows 12 inches tall, spreading 6 feet wide with branches covered in blue-green needles. “Blue Arrow” juniper (Juniperus virginiana “Blue Arrow”) reaches 15 feet tall and 2 feet wide with bright blue needles. More junipers that make hardy potted plants include “San Jose” juniper (Juniperus chinensis “San Jose”) and “Tolleson’s Blue Weeping” juniper (Juniperus scopulorum “Tolleson’s Blue Weeping”).
Hardy Draping Plants
Some hardy plants drape over the edges of their containers when they reach a certain size and have nowhere else to grow. Sedums grow in USDA plant hardiness zones 3 through 9 and offer different colors throughout the years. “Dragon’s Blood” stonecrop (Sedum spurium “Dragon’s Blood”) grows 4 to 6 inches tall and spreads 24 inches wide with red-edged green leaves. The leaves turn bright red in the cool winter temperatures and the plant produces deep red flowers in summer. “Oracle” stonecrop (Sedum forsterianum “Oracle”) grows gray-green leaves and gold flower clusters in summer. This dwarf sedum reaches only 6 inches tall. More sedums to plant in containers are Oregon stonecrop (Sedum oreganum), variegated orange stonecrop (Sedum kamtschaticum “Variegatum”) and “Coral Reef” Chinese sedum (Sedum tetractinum “Coral Reef”).
- Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
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Posted by MJ on Monday, February 6, 2012 at 7:45am.
: If Bobby fives Jane three pens, they have the same number of pens. But if Jane gives Bobby three pens,he will have three times as many pens. How many pens does each student have?
- algebra - Reiny, Monday, February 6, 2012 at 9:23am
number of pens for Bob --- x
number of pens for Jane --- y
case1: Bob gives 3 pens to Jane
Bob has x-3
Jane has y+3
so x-3 = y+3
x-y = 6
case2: Jane gives 3 pens
Bob has x+3
Jane has y-3
x+3 = 3(y-3)
x+3 = 3y - 9
x - 3y = -12
subtract the two equations
2y = 18
y = 9
sub into 1st equation:
x-9 = 6
x = 15
Bob now has 15 and Jane has 9
after 1st transfer, bob has 12 and Jane has 12, good!
afer 2nd transfer, Bob has 18 and Jane has 6
does he have 3 times what she has? YES!
all is good!
Answer This Question
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Lighting Science Ships Coastal Lights To Prevent Sea Turtle Disorientation
For those living on the coastal beachfronts of Florida and other states that have sea turtle populations, your outdoor lighting could have adverse effects on sea turtles plying the waters off the shoreline. The turtles can become disoriented and even lost from following bright, man made light sources that emit certain light intensities and wavelengths.
Lighting Science Coastal Light is sea turtle friendly
Lighting Science has released the Coastal Light, a certified wildlife-friendly LED light fixture for homes and business buildings that don't interfere with nesting sea turtles or sea turtle hatchlings trying to get to the ocean.
Sea turtles have eyes that are sensitive to different light intensities and wave lengths than that of the human eye, according to the company, and studies have shown that certain wavelengths of less than 580 nanometers in the ultra-violet, blue, or green spectrum can disrupt a turtle's ability to navigate. The amber colored LED-based Coastal Lights do not support these wavelengths, the company said, and have wavelengths that are more than 590nm.
Want to Learn More?
The company is shipping the coastal light in a range of models and configurations, all of which are sea turtle friendly. The light meets the Florida Wildlife Conservation standards as well as the International Dark Sky Association requirements. More information on the light can be found on the Lighting Science website.
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Adafruit has a new LED tutorial for people wanting to get started with electronics. It is full of useful diagrams, pictures, and quizzes to help make sure you are understanding the concepts. This is the real basic stuff here: LEDs, resistors, and the laws from Kirchhoff, and Ohm. It starts out explaining the parts of an LED. Then variations of LEDs: illumination versus indication, clear versus diffused, brightness, color, and size. The mass of the tutorial covers how and why an LED’s brightness can be changed by a resistor and why a resistor is needed to keep an LED from burning out. Such as how Kirchhoff’s Voltage Law works with Ohm’s Law to help you determine the proper resistor for an LED. If you found useful the other beginner concepts posts about Analog Circuits and Electronics basics from the Giz, you should find this tutorial to be useful.
[Matt] was looking for a challenge. Inspired by the machine gun setups on World War I planes he wanted to make a gun that can shoot between the blades of a spinning propeller. The original guns used an interrupter gear that synchronized machine gun firing with the engine mechanically. [Matt] set out to do this using a microcontroller.
To make this work there are two important pieces of information; how fast is the propeller spinning right now, and how long does it take for the pellet to pass the blade? [Matt] used an oscilloscope and some infrared sensors to establish the firing delay at about 20-22ms. Another sensor shows the propeller is spinning at 500 RPMs, with some simple calculations showing that there is indeed a big enough window of time to fire between the blades. After testing with a visible LED and then building out the rest of the circuitry he accomplished his goal. He even added a test function that purposely hits the blades just to see how accurate the system was. We hope this shows up in a Red Baron RC replica, or other flying arsenal.
[via Hacked Gadgets]
So you’re stuck in a boring class and you can’t fight off the urge to hack something, even your pencil, to pass the time. Maybe you are performing a live electronics show and you drop your synth down a flight of stairs and all that you are left with is a handful of components, a screw terminal block and a pencil. There are thousands, perhaps millions of these kinds of situations and for each one the answer is the solderless drawdio clone by [Martin].
You may have seen the original Drawdio here before, a fun piece of technology that is simple enough to recreate. This latest approach would make an excellent introductory project for a hacking workshop seeing as the guide is straightforward and the lack of soldering would make logistics so much easier. The results are very similar to the original–check the video after the break. Continue reading “Solderless Drawdio Terminally Implemented”
Since its first debut three years ago, ROS has been gaining some popularity with the robotics folks. It’s behind the scenes of those impressive quadcopters you may remember from a while back. ROS helps abstract the lower level functions of a robot by supplying lots of code for commonly used components (wiimote for example). Being an “operating system” it comes with lots of nice features you would expect, like a package manager. It’s open source and many of their projects are well documented making it easy get started.
Check out the video after the break to see it in action Continue reading “ROS turns three”
Last month we asked you to send in your debounce code. You didn’t disappoint and it’s time to share the code received. There were some guideline for sending in code so if you don’t see yours here, it probably didn’t follow the rules, sorry. We also tried to weed out code that using delay loops for debounce. These tend to be a poor way to handle inputs because they monopolize the processor.
We wanted to add upvote/downvote buttons to each set of code to give some idea of a group consensus on code quality but there’s no good system available for multiple up/down vote widgets on one wordpress page. This results in a huge code dump for any one person to go through. If you’ve got any ideas on how to better organize this let us know: email@example.com.
We make no guarantees that this code is safe to use, or that it even works. Test it carefully before using for important tasks.
Join us after the break for a whirlwind of code examples.
It seems that the iPhone 2g and 3g are the newest phones to get Android 2.2, codenamed Froyo. The process for installing Froyo if you have a jailbroken device seems to get even easier every time, with this revision being as simple as adding a repository, downloading Froyo, and pressing go. Follow the link for a wonderful step by step guide, complete with screenshots to take out all of the guess work. Android on iPhone sure has come a long way since the first time we covered it.
[Stan] built this LED matrix using a 16×16 grid of RGB LEDs. He built the hardware and wrote some subroutines to randomize the colors. He’s not using PWM because frame buffering is not feasible for the 1k SRAM limit of the ATmega168 he used. Instead, shift registers drive the lights which can be mixed to achieve eight different colors (including off for black) reducing the framebuffer size to just 96 bytes. After he got done with the build he realized this is sized well for a game of Tetris. We’ve seen AVR tetris, PIC Tetris, and Tetris using composite video but it’s always a pleasure to see a new display build.
After the break we’ve embedded [Stan’s] demo video, several pictures, and a schematic. He’s using many of the same principles outlined in our How to Design an LED matrix tutorial.
Continue reading “AVR controlled RGB LED matrix plays Tetris”
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Nasa has unveiled an astounding new image of our galactic neighbourhood - a new star atlas for the entire universe.
The atlas includes a catalogue of the entire infrared sky, over half a billion stars, galaxies and more captured by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission.
Edward Wright, WISE principal investigator at UCLA, said: "Today, WISE delivers the fruit of 14 years of effort to the astronomical community." Wright began working on the WISE mission in 1998.
Made up of more than 2.7 million images taken at four infrared wavelengths of light, the new image captures everything from nearby asteroids to distant galaxies.
CLICK "FULLSCREEN" BELOW TO SEE THE WHOLE IMAGE
The WISE catalogue of images covers the entire sky, and this immense image, shown below at the largest size our system can handle, took more than a decade of work.
WISE has discovered the coolest stars called Y-dwarfs, found more than 90 percent of the largest near-Earth asteroids, the first known "Trojan" asteroid to share the same orbital path around the sun as Earth and echoes of infrared light surrounding an exploded star.
Roc Cutri, who leads the WISE data processing and archiving effort at the Infrared and Processing Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said: "With the release of the all-sky catalog and atlas, WISE joins the pantheon of great sky surveys that have led to many remarkable discoveries about the universe. It will be exciting and rewarding to see the innovative ways the science and educational communities will use WISE in their studies now that they have the data at their fingertips."
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To cite this page, please use the following:
· For print: . Accessed
· For web:
Extant: 119 species
Fossil: 16 species
|[Type-species not Formica cephalotes, unjustified subsequent designation by Wheeler, 1911g PDF: 160; corrected by Wheeler, 1913a PDF: 78.].|
|Cephalotes in Myrmicinae, Cryptocerini: Emery, 1914e: 42; Forel, 1917 PDF: 246; Wheeler, 1922: 665; Emery, 1924f: 303; all subsequent authors to 1949, and Dlussky & Fedoseeva, 1988: 79 (anachronism).|
|Cephalotes in Myrmicinae, Cephalotini: Smith, 1949c PDF: 19; Kempf, 1951 PDF: 105; all subsequent authors except the above.|
Cephalotes is a very distinctive genus of over 130 species immediately identifiable by the bimorphic or polymorphic worker caste, heavily armored cuticle, flattened head, deeply excavated antennal scrobes capable of receiving the entire antennae, large eyes situated at the apex of the antennal scrobe, and apedunculate petiole. The genus is restricted to the New World tropics and subtropics, with three species extending their range into the southern United States: C. varians (Florida), C. texanus (Texas), C. rowheri (southern Arizona). Cephalotes was revised by De Andrade & Baroni Urbani (1999), who proposed the ecological success of the genus is owed to the following traits: 1) frequent polyandry, 2) a diet based largely on a very abundant resource like pollen, 3) nesting in pre-existing plant cavities, 4) appearance (among most species) of a separate caste of soldiers devoted essentially to the defense of the nest, 5) a high frequency of spontaneous mutation, and 6) a morphology particularly suitable to passive defense.
De Andrade, M.L. & Baroni Urbani, C. (1999) Diversity and adaptation in the ant genus Cephalotes, past and present. Stuttg. Beitr. Naturkd. Ser. B (Geol. Palaontol.), 271, 1-889.
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Mavis: Seeing the Inner Flame
During the past year, PSC scientific-visualization specialist Kent Eschenberg collaborated with NETL researchers to develop software for interactive 3D visualization. The program, called Mavis, operates with NETL data sets produced by a powerful simulation technology called MFIX (Multiphase Flow with Interphase Exchanges). Developed over years of research, MFIX realistically models the complex processes — gas and particle dynamics, chemical reactions and heat transfer — involved in combustion.
Detailed understanding of combustion lies at the heart of NETL’s research objective: environmentally clean, affordable power from fossil fuel. Mavis provides a quick, effective way to see and comprehend the results from computational study of these processes.
This frame from a Mavis visualization represents “bubble coalescence” in a fluidized-bed reactor, a combustion process in which air is injected from below at high speed into a bed of particles. The particles collectively behave like fluid and, among other fluid-like effects, form bubbles, which affect heat distribution. In this simulation, two jets of different velocity are injected into the bed. Larger bubbles formed above the faster jet (left) attract bubbles formed from the slower jet.
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Appalachia "Hammered" by Mining Practicesby Steve Charles • February 27, 2008 Share:
The next time you turn on the lights or your computer, think of the tops of mountains being blown off in West Virginia. The Wabash students and faculty who attended Dave Cooper’s talk on mountaintop removal mining certainly will.
Cooper was a mechanical engineer with a good job when he first heard Larry Gibson’s speech about mountaintop removal mining and the many ways it was devastating West Virginia’s natural heritage.
"Larry described the destruction of the land around his family home on Kayford Mountain, and I figured nothing could really be that bad," Cooper told Wabash students and faculty Wednesday. "So I went to see for myself, and it was actually much worse." (See a video of Larry Gibson and Kayford Mountain.)
"Southwest West Virginia is getting hammered by mountaintop removal," Cooper said, describing how he left his job to become an activist to end this form of mining, which he said has buried more than 1,000 miles of streams and removed more than 250 mountains in West Virginia in the past 20 years.
"Fifty-one percent of the electricity in the United States is produced by coal," Cooper said, adding that Indiana’s neighbor, Kentucky gets 95% of its electricity from coal-burning plants. "Every time you flip on a light switch, you're connected to the problem."
Cooper said that mountaintop removal mining is "destroying some of the world’s most productive hardwood forests and clean drinking water." He diagrammed how the tops of mountains are blasted away and the "overburden" (which he said was the coal companies’ word for the tops of mountains) dumped into "valley fills", some of which are miles wide. These fills cause flooding and can pollute drinking water.
"We’re destroying supplies of drinking water at a time when cities like Atlanta are experiencing water shortages," Cooper said.
"Four million pounds of explosives are used everyday in mountaintop removal," the activist added. "Most people don’t think about it, but we waste a lot of electricity, and that’s part of the problem. The end result is we are sabotaging massive parts of Appalachia."
Mountaintop removal mining is much less labor-intensive than the shaft mining it replaced, so the companies employ only a fraction of the people they once did in the rural areas of the state.
"These are very poor areas with few jobs—most are in the school system or mining, and there have been few attempts to diversify," Cooper said. "But by changing over to mountaintop removal mining and using so few employees, the coal industry is probably putting more people out of work than the environmentalists."
Cooper also noted that while mountaintop removal mining is destroying the West Virginia’s natural heritage and degrading communities, much of that land—75% percent—is owned by companies and individuals outside of the state.
"A lot of the true costs of electricity are not on your electric bill," Cooper said. "It shows up in the costs of insurance, in taxes, in the loss of drinking water."
Cooper’s talk was sponsored by the College’s Students for Sustainability, whose president, Nathan Rutz, spent two months last summer with Coal River Mountain Watch, a group attempting to raise awareness of mountaintop removal and protect the people and environment where such mining takes place. Rutz wrote about his experience in "Mountain Justice" in Wabash Magazine.
Read more about Rutz’ experiences here.
Read more about mountaintop removal mining in "Coal Mining Ravages Appalachia."
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This Daily Math Spiral Review Sample is a great way to provide extra practice and review of various math skills taught in second grade. I like to use them as a daily warm up with my students. The skills covered are based on the Common Core Standards.
The concepts covered in this Daily Math Spiral Review Packet for 2nd grade includes:
-Reading a graph
-Adding and subtracting 3-digit numbers
-Counting moneyThese worksheets are designed to be cut in half in order to save paper. I put ELA work on the back side and use this as morning work.
This is a quick and easy way to get your students ready for the state test. Click on the picture below to get your free copy.
Some teachers have requested daily math spiral reviews to be on a full sheet. I like to put as many second grade standards on a page as possible on my Daily Math Warm Ups. These second grade warm ups can be found at my TPT store.
Click on the picture for your free copy.
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Forensic DNA: Non-Human DNA
Forensic investigations can be aided by association of biological material from animals, plants, or microbes to a victim or suspect. For example, domestic animals such as cats and dogs live in human habitats and may deposit hair that can be used to associate a suspect with a particular crime scene or victim. Thus, efforts are underway to improve genetic marker systems and assays for cat and dog DNA. Sources of marijuana may also be linked through the power of DNA testing.
Entomological evidence also can be used to investigate crimes. For example, insects found on a homicide victim can help determine time of death.
The table below shows NIJ-funded research projects. Select an award title to see details of the award, including any resulting publications.
Is the table empty?
Refresh the list.
Date Modified: December 23, 2014
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Here's the picture of the question:
How does it go from
p v ~q to
~p -> ~q?
$$p\lor \lnot q$$ $$ \equiv \lnot\lnot p \lor \lnot q$$ $$\equiv \lnot p \rightarrow \lnot q $$
This is simply applying the rule that $a \rightarrow b \;\equiv \; \lnot a \lor b$,
In this case, $a$ happens to be $\lnot p$, and $b$ happens to be $\lnot q$.
To double-check, and convince yourself, truth-tables come in handy:
One last note:
The right-hand side is called the contrapositve of the left-hand side of the equivalence; they are equivalent expressions.
Knowing this, one can conclude, directly, that the converse of $p \rightarrow q$ is equivalent to the inverse of $p \rightarrow q$: $(q\rightarrow p) \equiv (\lnot p \rightarrow \lnot q)$.
An easy way to remember what $p \Rightarrow q$ means is this: if the implication is true, either the conclusion is true, or the premise is false. That is, $$p\Rightarrow q \equiv \lnot p \lor q$$ So $p \lor \lnot q \equiv \lnot \lnot p \lor \lnot q \equiv \lnot p \Rightarrow \lnot q$
We'd half to know more about this particular text to know how the author(s) did this. That said, following for example Lukasiewicz's introductory text on mathematical logic, you can define (p$\lor$q) as ($\lnot$p$\implies$ q), since they are logically equivalent... (p$\lor$q)$\equiv$($\lnot$p$\implies$ q).
Then from that equivalence just uniformly substitute $\lnot$q for q, and you have (p$\lor$$\lnot$q)$\equiv$($\lnot$p$\implies$$\lnot$q).
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http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/260181/how-does-this-textbook-go-from-this-step-to-the-next-in-proving-this
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On-line version ISSN 1980-4369
História vol.1 no.se Franca 2006
Replicated from História (São Paulo), Franca, v.24, n.1, p.167-190, 2005.
In the current work I intend to inquire into the internal motives that led the Portuguese seaborne empire to decadence. After making a brief review of the historiography about the decline of Estado da Índia, I proceed to the analysis of the Crown-Church-Nobility triangle in the course of os Descobrimentos, and of their respective roles in the evolution of Portuguese empire. The absolutization of the crown, the over-expansion of the clergy and the empowerment of the aristocracy became the most conspicuous and longstanding features in the Portuguese social fabric after the country launched herself into maritime undertakings, which crippled her agriculture and retarded the industrialization. As a consequence, the rise of bourgeoisie and the transformation of mercantilist economy into the capitalist were obstructed, and a strong adventurous but non-productive spirit mixed with disdain of manual work prevailed both in metropolis and in overseas territories. In conclusion, the Portuguese decadence commenced from within rather than from without, and far prior to Dutch intrusions in Portuguese Asia, which only accelerated the decline.
keywords: Portuguese Empire, Historiography ,mercantilism
No presente trabalho tenciono indagar as causas internas que dirigiram o império marítimo português à decadência. Depois de uma revisitação da historiografia relativa ao declínio do Estado da Índia, procedo a uma análise do triângulo de Monarca-Igreja-Nobreza durante os Descobrimentos e dos seus papéis respectivos no evoluir do Império português. É verificável que a absolutização da Coroa, a sobre-expansão do clero e a potenciação da aristocracia tornaram-se as características mais salientes e duradouras na estrutura social portuguesa depois de o país se lançar nas façanhas marítimas, do que resultou a agricultura prejudicada e indústria atrasada. A predominância dessas três instituições, por um lado, impediu a ascensão da burguesia, assim dificultando a transformação da economia mercantilista na capitalista, e, por outro, promoveu espírito aventureiro não-produtivo e aversão contra o trabalho manual tanto na metrópole como no ultramar. Portanto, o declínio do Império português principia-se "de dentro" ao invés de "de fora", e bem antes de ataques holandeses que só o aceleraram.
Palavras-chave: Império Português; historiografia; mercantilismo.
Decadência is of course an old theme in Portuguese historiography, and historians are quite unanimous in relation to the milestone in the Portuguese decline: losses of Moluccas, Hormuz, Melaka and Ceylon in the early 17th century signaled the knell of the Estado da Índia, and the following conquest of Cochin by the VOC (Dutch East India Company) in 1663 constitutes the closing chapter of Decadência of Portuguese Asian empire. However, regarding the reasons or factors that led to the decline, historians are far from being united. Some historians like V. A. Smith, W. W. Hunter attributed the decline to the corrupt nature of Portuguese administration in Asia and to the moral decay of the officeholders similar reasons were given by Marcus Cicero to explain the collapse of the Roman Republic. Other historians, say C. R. Boxer and Niels Steensgaard, argued that it was not Portuguese corruption but Dutch superiority that turned the table in Asia during the first half of the 17th century, and
the entrance of the more advanced proto-capitalist entrepreneurial companies of the English and Dutch into the Asian trade doomed the monarchical monopolism of the Portuguese Crown to virtual extinction.2
Besides, the Portuguese historian, Oliveira Martins, stressed the idea of organism, considering that the decline is the corollary of the rise and, thus, inevitable.
Although the moral corruption in the Estado da Índia could be evidenced in a number of itinerários, cartas, relações and books written by persons with first-hand experiences in that period, it is superficial and vague to impute the decline onto a moral ground, given that the decay of morality is the result rather than the reason of a series of problems, such as flawed administration, incompetent supervision or out-dated mentality. Admittedly, in a sense or another, the Dutch joint-stock company is more advanced in organizational form, but they had their own defects as well. And it is still questionable if the joint-stock companies were necessarily better than what they replaced.3 Changes and evolutions are the consequences of both external and internal motivations, and external ones, more often than not, effect through internal ones. What if the Viceroy of the Estado da Índia had had more than a pinch of soldiers at hand? What if a regular army had stationed in Portuguese Asia? There can be countless such "what if", but the point is that it's ex parte to over-appreciate the superiority of the Dutch without attending to the self-weakening causes inside the Portuguese empire. Although in the course of History, no trans-continental empires (Macedonia, Roman Empire, Empire of Mongol and more recently Great Britain) escaped from the fate of decline or even of disappearance, it is little convincing to use fatalist theory of organism suggested by Oliveira Martins to explain Decadência, as it is ridiculous to use "every man dies" to explain "why man dies". Simply speaking, man dies because one or some organs degenerate and fail to function; so will do an empire when one or some of its organs deteriorate. The clergy and the nobility under the influence of the absolutist Crown, in my view, could be considered as two malfunctioning organs in the Portuguese imperial body, both in metropolis and in the Estado da Índia which, in many respects, was a microcosm of the metropolis. Hereinafter, I'll examine their roles and how they acted interrelatedly in eroding the Portuguese imperium.
In his famous speech Causas da Decadência dos Povos Peninsulares nos Últimos Três Séculos, Antero de Quental stated that the first cause led to the decadence of both Portugal and Spain is the transformation of Catholicism by the Concilium of Trent, which gave birth to the notorious Inquisition.
Com a Inquisição, um terror invisível paira sobre a sociedade: a hipocrisia torna-se um vício nacional e necessário: a delação é uma virtude religiosa: a expulsão dos Judeus e Moiros empobrece as duas nações, paralisa o comércio e a indústria [...] a perseguição dos cristãos-novos faz desaparecer os capitais.4
One of the consequences of the Inquisition was the expulsion of New Christians and Moors who, to a great extent, contributed to the prosperity of Portugal's economy. "Laboriosos e flexíveis, os Judeus primavam nos ofícios manuais, nos tratos mercantis, nas agências lucrativas; e os mouros, por seu lado, salientavam-se nas profissões, liberais e no granjeio das propriedades"5, writes António Sérgio. The banishment of these peoples caused, on one hand, the atrophy and evacuation of certain industries (D. Luís da Cunha once commented that: "vem a ser que a Inquisição, prendendo uns por crime de judaísmo, e fazendo fugir outros para fora do reino... [F]oi preciso que as tais manufacturas caíssem, porque os chamados cristãos-novos as sustentavam."), thus leaving a huge gap to be filled by foreigners (bankers, agents, artisans) who would enrich their own nations by sipping Portuguese wealth, and, on the other, the expelled Jews and Moors propelled the development of other European nations at the expense of brain and money drain in Portugal. "Tiranizados em Portugal, foram os judeus fomentar os progressos económicos da Holanda e da Inglaterra, sendo incalculável o que perdemos com essa obra de perseguição."6 And
this continual emigration of 'New Christian' commercial and financial talent from the reign of King John to that of King John was advantageous for the prosperity of Amsterdam, London, Rouen and Leghorn, but obviously disadvantageous for the Portuguese economy,7
adds Boxer. Compared with its Castilian counterpart, Portuguese Inquisition might be more damaging, given its small-sized and highly unified territory. Furthermore, because the Portuguese Crown did not need to suppress Lutheranism or to fight against Protestants, it could dedicate itself to purge those new Christians more wholeheartedly than its neighbor.
o Santo Ofício serviu de arma anti-capitalista por parte da ordem nobiliárquico-eclesiástica, ou nas lutas entre grupos de interesses rivais [...]. Tal discriminação agiu como freio poderoso no sentido de travar a formação de uma burguesia economicamente inovadora e defender uma nobreza profundamente mercantilizada dos assaltos da concorrência.8
Obviously, the rampant inquisitional activities were partly due to a fragile middle class without enough ideological and economic independence that could react to the Inquisition. Although somewhat simplistic, Vianna Moog was not completely wrong in asserting that
um católico, como capitalista, será sempre um capitalista canhestro. Em ambos os casos estaremos em presença de um cisma da alma, este cisma que, além de dar lugar ao triunfo do capitalismo dos povos protestantes, será o grande responsável pela decadência dos povos peninsulares. Paradoxalmente [...] esta decadência vai começar no momento exato em que portugueses e espanhóis põem a mão nas mais fabulosas fortunas que o Ocidente jamais conhecera.9
Another consequence related to the post-Trent Catholicism is the Jesuitism that both Oliveira Martins and Quental considered as a factor of Portuguese decline. However, while it is true that during hundreds of years of overseas expansion, Portuguese lost their scientific pioneership and experimentalist spirit developed at the beginning of os Descobrimentos when Portuguese boasted that in one day they could know more than ancient Romans and Greeks did in 100 years, it seems unjust to attribute Reino Cadaveroso (António Sérgio) or Reino da Estupidez (Francisco de Mello Franco) to Jesuit education which had a wide range of impacts both on Portugal and on her colonies.
The Inquisition also took broader effects in political domain. It served as one of the Crown's tools to expand the royal power and to control more tightly its kingdom and subjects, especially the povo (plebeian).
A Inquisição e o fanatismo inquisitorial eram apenas um dos aspectos da perversão do espírito religioso e da subordinação da Igreja ao absolutismo do Estado. Sob os efeitos dissolventes do ouro, o Estado, a nobreza e o alto-clero haviam-se dado as mãos para impor a lei despótica dos seus interesses.10
in the process, the Catholic orthodoxy of Portugal was reinforced, the social and economic dominance of the aristocracy solidified, and the prospects for the development of a prosperous and independent middle class in Portugal greatly retarded. Persecution of the cristãos-novos reduced Portuguese economic resources at a time when the country was facing increased difficulty meeting the military and economic challenges of empire.11
Although Diogo do Couto observed that the Portuguese King was always a keen Catholicism promoter, and the Inquisition did give the Crown greater mastery over the hierarchy of the church, religious orders were not always under effective control of the King, and it was not rare that these orders caused subversive effects on the Crown's strategic plans, thus, putting the whole empire at risk. Plus, the Church was always ready to counter-strike any innovative reform that might affect its interests, even those carried out by the Crown. This is especially true when Regent Pedro planned to reform the Estado da Índia. The Archbishop, the Inquisitor-General and their minions all tried hard to frustrate the Regent's reform initiatives by exerting their huge and longstanding influence in the Portuguese overseas territories (as an idiom says "Vice-rei vá, vice-rei vem, Padre Paulista sempre tem"). One of the contributions that religious orders made to undermine the empire is the manpower drain, turning even more severe the problem of lack of soldiery in the Estado da Índia. "Once a soldier arrived in India, one of the easiest and quickest methods to evade service was to join a religious order."12 The Count of Linhares, Viceroy of the Estado da Índia in the 1630s, also reported to the Crown that religious orders snatched away at least half of the soldiery sent from Portugal, "thus depriving the armadas and fortalezas of badly needed manpower at a time when the Estado da Índia confronted a host of enemies."13 About thirty years later, another Viceroy, Mello de Castro, testified that "one does not find in Goa and its environs more than 320 or so permanent Portuguese residents, while the priests exceed 700"14 As we all know, the lack of manpower is a recurring theme in Portuguese Asia. The constant leakage of soldiers from military service to religious orders undoubtedly made the Estado da Índia weaker and more vulnerable to foreign attacks. So, whether or not the VOC was superior, Portuguese had already made the Dutch work easier.
The practice of Religiosos not only stole the Crown of necessary manpower to defend the empire but also robbed a source of income both inside and outside Portugal. Glenn Ames writes that the Church
owned between one-fourth and one-third of the land in the kingdom, held rights to the décima de Deus or a tenth share of the royal revenues, and also received a plethora of other donations through mortmain and other devices from 'pious believers'. The Inquisition itself constituted yet another bastion of clerical influence and power within the kingdom.15
Therefore, the Church was a de facto "a state within state," absorbing all kinds of resources but yielding little productivity and positive effects on safeguarding the overseas empire. At the same time, from the 15th to the 18th century the quantity of men of the cloth increased in an extraordinary way, and so did the number of convents and monasteries, which exerted enormous pressure on both Royal and Viceroy's treasury. More formidable was the social and economic impact derived from the network of Religiosos omnipresent in the Portuguese society, from the great portion that the Church withdrew from renda nacional and from the vast fallow land owned by the Church/clergy. Godinho suggested that during the closing years of the 16th century and a long period in the 17th century, the percentage of clergymen in combination with nobles and traders soared to no less than 36.8%; and if added their dependents and the otiose people, the non-productive population occupies 40.5% of the whole nation. Moreover, the population dedicated to agriculture was only around 1/3 of the whole. In a pre-modern society in which the land cultivation mainly depended upon manpower, the amount of workforce in agriculture was vital to the foodstuff output. With so much reduced primary sector, industry and tertiary sector would only envisage a dim prospect for development.
In fact, the royal absolutism alone is not necessarily the trigger of the decadence, given that during the reign of the Regent Pedro, one of the most absolutist rulers of Portugal, Portugal achieved a series of political and economic successes both in Asia and in Europe alike.16 What substantially sabotaged the Portuguese empire was the swelling and inefficient nobility under the patronage of the Crown. Perry Anderson, in Lineages of the Absolutist State, argues that
absolutism represented at base a redeployed form of feudalism designed to protect a threatened aristocracy from the twin threats of a rising bourgeoisie and a peasantry freed from the most onerous burdens of feudalism. For Marx and Engels, this period not surprisingly embodied a transitional one from feudalism to capitalism when the power of the 'warring classes' of noble and bourgeois was so nearly equal that 'State power, as the ostensible mediator' acquired for the moment 'a certain degree of independence of both.'17
However, in Portugal, the alliance between the Crown and the aristocracy greatly hampered the rise of bourgeoisie, and the should-be "threatened aristocracy" remained predominant over bourgeoisie and peasantry as long as the Crown possessed absolutist power.
In the period before os Descobrimentos, the Portuguese Crown was relatively liberal. From D. Afonso (1211) onward, the Cortes had been convoked where allegedly every social class could voice its opinions and, accordingly, the royalty was limited and the local political power was secured and developed so that a quasi-liberal spirit was instilled. In 1385, the Cortes even proposed that
rei formaria o seu Conselho de cidadãos das principais cidades do reino, escolhidos sobre propostas de listas tríplices; que ouviria os povos em todos os negócios que lhes tocassem; que se lhes não imporiam tributos, sem serem ouvidos e sem que com sua decisão e conselho se buscassem os meios suaves para a sua execução; - que não faria a guerra, nem a paz, sem seu consentimento.18
But along with os Descobrimentos, the Crown saw its treasury replete of profits gained from the monopoly in spice trade and other fruitful business in Carreira da Índia, which enabled the Crown to dispense frequent meetings with the Cortes whose approval was necessary for the Crown to increase budgets. The Table 1 illustrated statistically how Portuguese Cortes declined during the period of os Descobrimentos.
If the splendid undertaking of os Descobrimentos was mainly engineered by the Crown and carried out by the adventurous nobility, the decadence of Portuguese administrative system in overseas territories was also due to their presence. In the era of expansion, a highly centralized government represented by a strong Crown could implement enterprises in a resolute way, which helped to overcome obstructions and oppositions. Nevertheless, in the post-expansion period, the absolute power of the Crown would retard the formation of an efficient, local-condition-suiting administrative system in its colonies, leaving them often improperly managed.
European monarchs have always been far more interested in what went on under their noses than in places thousands of miles away, and the only historic empires safe from periodic neglect were those built and operated by joint stock companies, which had no outside interests to distract them [...] but the weakest point in them was precisely at the center. Once the rulers themselves became immersed in interests close at hand, their empires only came to notice whenever money was sent home which could be disbursed to keep the royal credit intact.19
The Crown's absolutism was also represented in geographic and demographic terms: the whole country's wealth, human resources and all kinds of activities concentrated in Lisbon which was a like bloodsucker that swelled itself by depleting the rest of the country's energy and resources. The consequences were calamitous. Before and at the beginning of os Descobrimentos, Portugal, as one of the nations in Europe that most exported agricultural products (cereal salted fish and dried fruits), boasted a relatively strong agriculture. But, from the reign of D. Manuel onward, Portugal could not self-sustain in foodstuff any more and began to import wheat from Italy and cereal from Netherlands.
The domestic economy, however, entered a phase of relative stagnation. Certain domestic export products, such as wine, olive oil, and fruit, maintained their volume, but cultivation of the key staple, wheat, declined as land was taken out of use. This was due to partial depopulation in some rural areas in central Portugal, as a combination of low wages, seigniorial oppression, and the lure of an easier life drew peasants to the larger cities or the empire. The food problem was made worse by intermittent bad harvests and several severe plagues during the reign, requiring food imports that weighed heavily on the exchange balance. The population of Portugal, which had expanded to possibly as many as 1,400,000 early in the century, ceased to increase and for the rest of the century was in danger of declining.20
Abandoning fields and lands, the rural population converged into big cities, especially into Lisbon, dreaming of making easy money and living a noble life. Because of the decline of agriculture (foodstuff was not enough to sustain extra population. And because the peasants, in general, lived in misery and poverty, many of them didn't marry, which resulted in very low natality), of the constant emigration, and of the high death rate in Indiamen and in other parts of Portuguese overseas territories where sanitary conditions were abominable, Portugal's population decreased from nearly 3 million in the epoch of D. João to little more than 1 million in 1640. Without abundance of labor force and enough agricultural production, which means the unavailability of cheap raw material, the labor-intensive industries and factories could not be developed (another possible factor that led to the backwardness of Portuguese industry was that with the influx of huge quantity of precious metals, prices of labor and raw material skyrocketed so that it became less profitable to set up factories in Portugal than in other parts of Europe.21). Consequently, the nobility and the Church fully took advantage of the exodus of peasants from rural areas to expand their fiefdoms where normally the agricultural productivity was very low. In the 17th century, according to Godinho, about 95% of the peninsular land belonged to the nobility and clergy.
While the whole country was in wane,
by contrast, Lisbon grew enormously. The royal monopoly system concentrated trade disproportionately in Lisbon, leading to hypertrophy of the chief port and the decline of most of the small coastal cities. By 1550, Lisbon had reached a population of 100,000, making it the largest city in the peninsula. ('By the end of the 16th century, the total population of Portugal was about 1.4 million, with 120,000 people living in Lisbon. The next largest city was Oporto with not more than 14,000 inhabitants.'22) By 1620, Lisbon had grown to approximately 165,000 [...] Lisbon more and more became a parasite on the Portuguese economy and empire, for rather than being a center for new enterprise, it was increasingly a center for consumption of profits.23
Due to such tight economic centralization, the bourgeoisie that badly lacked independence and resources, declined rapidly. And, the internal colonization initiated from the 15th century also ceased to progress and even showed evidence of retrogradation. The Portuguese countryside remained hopelessly in medieval times.
Um Estado rico numa nação pobre, onde a riqueza vinda de fora quebrava a coluna vertebral do trabalho interno e provocava o crescimento de uma falsa classe média que nada fazia e que, como uma corcunda enorme, ia crescendo à custa do resto do corpo do País e atrofiando com o seu peso as classes produtivas que já quase se limita aos camponeses.24
The Portuguese Crown's absolutism was also manifested in the multiplication and prosperity of noblemen, who heavily relied on the King's patronage. "As nossas monarquias, porém, tiveram um carácter exclusivamente aristocrático: eram-no pelo princípio, e eram-no pelos resultados. Governava-se então pela nobreza e para a nobreza."25 The sustained Conquistas were, to a great extent, propelled by the nobility which was adventurous in nature, militarily oriented and title-zealous26.
The consequence of aristocratization of Portugal was multi-faceted. First of all, it led to large-scale and even institutionalized corruption, one of the most important reasons that many historians believed caused the decline of Portuguese India. The origin of corruption rooted in the patronage of the Crown in favor of nobility. "All the European nobility of this era habitually believed their king owed them a living and very few of them ever thought they should take the nominal and often minimal salary attached to their posts too seriously."27 Through patronage, the Crown and noblemen were strictly linked: the former patronized the latter in order to take advantage of their service, and the latter depended on the former to develop their own career and make money. "As almost everywhere else, the upper echelon of Portuguese society was a network of personal relations and of the patrons with their clients formalized by the ceremony of homage and reinforced by favors from the king."28 For the Crown of Portugal, the Estado da Índia provided an ideal way to exhibit monarchs' generosity and favor to its subjects.
He (the Crown) concerned himself infinitely less with the peasant digging turnips than with the privileged groups who looked toward him for employment. To employ them was to keep them happy, but to leave them idle was to court the danger that they might drift into someone else's network of interrelationship, may be even someone potentially dangerous.29
Thus, the Portuguese India became a deal between these two parts.
In a kingdom where previously the military orders and church had come to monopolize large tracts of lands, capital, and social prestige at home, the Estado had traditionally served as a proving ground and source or reward for a loyal noble class.30
The appointment of an official post was based very less on candidates' personal abilities than on lineage, degree of candidates' nobility and private relations. Moreover, an official position was very often given as reward for one's service to the Crown. "Most of the higher administrative jobs went to members of the court nobility, posts at or above the corregedor, or district governor, level. Probably the lesser officials were a mélange of all aristocratic varieties."31 Plus, Portugal is so small a country that, on one side, people can easily align oneself with others according to birthplace and lineage, and, on the other, the Crown knew very well which one to appoint. Therefore, favoring a bureaucratic administration mainly composed of bourgeoisie didn't seem necessary and attractive to the Crown.
With the permissive attitude of the Crown, the nobility's appetite for fortune grew increasingly. According to Franciso Rodrigues de Silveira, a real soldado prático who served in Portuguese India for many years, it was the insatiable greed of the viceroy and his officials and the consequent all-sided corruption that resulted in Portuguese military impotence. Unlike the Spanish administration in America which was basically civilian-oriented, the Portuguese India was military in nature and governed by nobility rather than by clerk. And, because the whole existence of the Estado da Índia depended upon an effective military power, the groundwork of Portuguese India would gradually break down once the military forces were weakened
It might therefore be argued that the decadência was connected with Portugal's failure to replace its warrior class in Asia with a group of men who might better fit the image of bureaucratized pen-pusher. More, I suspect, by accident than by deliberation, the conquistadores of Spanish America were nearly all phased out by the 1530's and supplanted with men who soon became accustomed to the ways of formulas, channels, and, if not honest service, at least not collusive dishonesty. Meanwhile, Portugal not only seems to have continued patronizing its conquistador class, but institutionalized and entrenched them in the government of its Indian empire until a more modern bureaucratic evolution was impossible.32
According to George Winius, although in the sixteenth-century Portugal the nobility of all varieties numbered only around 20,000, yet they exercised great influence on both the king and the country, possibly more than in any other land of Western Europe. The predominance of aristocrats who were pioneers and enthusiasts in the Conquistas gave birth to the prevalence of warrior spirit in Portuguese society where manual work and industry were despised, and vainglory and flaunt cherished. The profits gained from maritime trades were not transformed into productivity but rather were squandered by the Crown and aristocrats to import luxury goods. By importing silk, velvet, brocade and wheat from Italy, glass from Germany, cloth from France and cereal and wool from England, Portugal contributed to the industrialization of her neighbors while impoverishing herself. Portugal became a de facto entrepot transferring wealth from the Orient to other parts of Europe. Although a couple of Portuguese kings and Regent Pedro tried to limit the consumption of luxury goods and to stimulate national manufacturing, Portuguese industrial production was still very inert, because most wealth-holders, especially nobles and men of the cloth, who lacked the mentality of investment and of frugality, would rather buy real estate and treasure than make investment in industry. With such huge sediment of the country's wealth, the Portuguese economy was paralyzed. And, the absolutist regime featuring noble-clerical privilege and landed property was further strengthened at the expense of the povo and the emerging bourgeoisie who were the most suffering victims of "vestigial medieval cycle of economic uncertainty." Without a dynamic domestic economy capable of sustainable development or a process of accumulating, investing and re-accumulating large amounts of capital, the Portuguese seaborne empire shrank dramatically. The most lucrative commerce was monopolized by the Crown and did not serve to foster the growth of a large and productive middle class.
Profits were absorbed primarily by the court and aristocracy, which occupied the best positions in the thalassocracy, and hence income was drained off by consumption, leaving little to reinvest to meet the mounting costs of warfare, trade, and competition.33
Since the very beginning of os Descobrimentos, the supreme merchant had been the State, and the majority of commercial activities were carried out either by officeholders or by the nobility in detriment of small and medium entrepreneurs. Under the oppression of the powerful vested interests, the chance was dim for an autonomous bourgeoisie with its own ideological and political values to develop. While the middle class in other European countries was booming, that in Portugal turned out to be even more underdeveloped after two centuries of maritime expansion, during which the Portuguese social structure experienced no radical modifications. At the outset of os Descobrimentos, Henrique, the Navigator, manifested his objective in a letter to King Duarte: "to save one's soul, to uphold the honor of oneself, one's name lineage and nation, to enjoy the physical pleasure and finally to acquire the worldly gains."34 Hundreds of years passed, these goals remained unchanged and the whole Portuguese overseas enterprise kept itself from modern spirits. The structural framework imposed by the internal political, economic and ideological situations of the Portuguese society during 15th-17th centuries left little chance for bourgeoisie to prosper. The nobles, who took advantage of their administrative posts to occupy the most profitable trades, greatly hindered the growth of the bourgeoisie. Besides, those of the middle class who achieved success were in turn incorporated into the nobility, becoming mercadores-cavaleiros or negociantes-enobrecidos. Accordingly, the wealth of Portuguese enterprise in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in place of nurturing an independent bourgeoisie, enriched and empowered aristocrats and the Crown. As Alexandre Herculano suggested, the longtime Conquistas consumed the dynamic forces of Portugal, which superficially enriched the country but impoverished it in reality. After hundreds of years of conquering the world, Portugal remained as a quasi-medieval society, both in socio-politico-economic structure and in mentality, disengaged from the prospering pre-capitalistic Europe, which I would like to define as "Portuguese anachronism".
The association between the Portuguese Crown, Church, and nobility became inextricably during the maritime expansion, in which the king's resolve, the nobles' valor and the clergy's persistence complemented each other, forming a symbiotic triangle.
[D]ado o catolicismo absoluto, era impossível que se lhe não seguisse, deduzindo-se dele, o absolutismo monárquico. Dado o absolutismo, vinha necessariamente o espírito aristocrático, com o seu cortejo de privilégios [...] os erros políticos e econômicos saíam daqui naturalmente.35
Given the predatory and unproductive nature of such alliance and its disastrous impacts on national economy and prowess, the decline of Portuguese empire seemed inevitable. In view of Manuel Bonfin, "um grupo, um organismo social, vivendo parasitariamente sobre outro, há de fatalmente degenerar, decair, degradar-se": However, historians like Glenn Ames and George Souza argued that failures and successes coexisted in Portuguese Asia from the mid 17th century onwards and at times the latter could prevail, which accompanied the revival of the House of Braganza. Gentil da Silva also warned us not to understand the Portuguese historical trajectory in unilinear fashion but rather in terms of "oscillations". This kind of oscillations is also mirrored in struggles between the Portuguese bourgeoisie and nobility-clergy, which lasted for centuries. In the light of Jaime Cortesão, until the end of the 15th century, the bourgeoisie played a "motor" role in Portuguese undertakings. But in the next century, the nobility reacted and gained both economic and political upper hand. It was towards the turn of the 16th century that the bourgeoisie, those in provincial seaports in particular, re-acquired their influence. Nevertheless, the final victory went to the noble-cleric alliance which managed to prevail in the last decades of the 17th century and was able to rigidly demarcate the society by debilitating the middle class. In this respect, the evolution of Portuguese empire can be seen as a continuous wave with crests and troughs. Nevertheless, the empire, under the anachronic control of nobility-clergy in prejudice of the bourgeoisie, unavoidably lapsed and relapsed in decline in the course of History.
1 Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies, Brown University, Providence, RI USA, CEP 02912. Yi_Liu@brown.edu.
2 AMES, Glenn J. Renascent Empire? The House of Braganza and the Quest for Stability in Portuguese Monsoon Asia, c.1640-1683. Amsterdam: University Press, 2000, p.13[ STANDARDIZEDENDPARAG]
3 After having seized several Portuguese cities and fortresses in Asia, "the VOC quickly lost its pristine 'entrepreneurial' values, and by the 1660s was squandering huge amounts of cash to defend and maintain clearly unprofitable holdings like Ceylon. At the same time, the Portuguese learned to adapt to changing technologies, business practices, administrative reforms, and geo-political and religious realities in the Indian Ocean trade." AMES, Glenn J.Op. cit., p.38.
4 QUENTAL, Antero de. Causas da Decadência dos Povos Peninsulares nos Últimos Três Séculos, "Prosas Sócio-Políticos". published and presented by Joel Serrão. Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional-Casa de Moeda, 1982 p.279.
5 SÉRGIO, António. Breve Interpretação da História de Portugal. Livraria Sá da Costa Editora, 1978, p.83[ STANDARDIZEDENDPARAG]
6 Idem, p.85
7 BOXER, Charles R. The Portuguese Seaborne Empire 1415-1825. Alfred. A. Knopf ,1969, p.334.
8 GODINHO, Vitorino Magalhães. A Estrutura na Antiga sociedade Portuguesa. Arcádia, 1971, p.64.
9 MOOG, Vianna Moog. Bandeirantes e Pioneiros: Paralelo entre Duas Culturas. 19.ed., Graphia, 2000, p.96.
10 GODINHO, Vitorino Magalhães. Op. cit., p.159.
11 PAYNE, Stanley G. A History of Spain and Portugal. Library of Iberian Resources Online, Chapter Twelve, p.4. Disponível em: <<libro.uca.edu>>.
12 COATES, Tomothy J. Convicts and Orphans: Forced and State-Sponsored Colonizers in the Portuguese Empire, 1550-1755. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001, p.70.
13 AMES, Glenn J. Op. cit., p.71.
14 Idem, p.64.
15 Idem, p.75.
16 The reign of Regent Pedro coincided with that of the Sun King of France who, although extremely absolutist, was one of the greatest kings in the French history.
17 AMES, Glenn J. Op. cit., p.228.
18 PASCOAES, Teixeira de. Arte de Ser Português. Edições Roger Delraux, 1978, p.58.
19 DIFFIE, Bailey W.; WINIUS, George D. Foundations of The Portuguese Empire 1415-1580. University of Minnesota Press, 1977, p.434.
20 Idem, p.419.
21 However, this viewpoint of professor Hamilton has been challenged by a host of scholars in recent years. See Imperial Spain 1469-1716 p.56 by J. H. Elliot.
22 VEEN, Ernst van. Decay or defeat? an inquiry into the Portuguese decline in Asia, 1580-1645. Universiteit Leiden, 2000, p.21.
23 Idem, p.433.
24 SARAIVA, José Hermano Saraiva. História de Portugal. 4.ed. Publicação Europa-América, 1993, p.203.
25 QUENTAL, Antero de. Op. cit., p.284.
26 "Os títulos de fidalgo, cavalheiro ou nobre não são só para se gabar e se ostentar, implicando, ao mesmo tempo, grandes interesses económicos. Tanto no reino português como no Brasil colonial, gozaram a camada de nobreza assim como do clero de privilégios como a isenção ou dedução dos impostos cujo grau de dispensa, muitas vezes, varia em conformidade com a posição hierárquica dos envolvidos na pirâmide social e eclesiástica. Assim, se se conseguisse um título mais "decente", se poderia adquirir uma regalia correspondentemente maior. Ademais, a fidalguia, no período colonial, representou um passaporte que possibilitou e facilitou o acesso às entidades administrativas e instituições políticas. Como todos sabem, os desígnio políticos, afinal, servem para os interesses económicos e não é muito difícil de imaginar que num sistema político colonial muito corrupto, como o caso do Brasil, fosse muitíssimo elevada a recompensa econômica para os esforços empreendidos para se obter uma posse administrativa (por exemplo, vereador). Portanto, a procura ansiosa pelos títulos e famas não auferiu unicamente da paixão pela glória e vanglória, mas faz parte da busca de ganho substancial também." LIU Yi. Homem Cordial da Casa e Homem Mascarado da Rua, p.4, unpublished.
27 DIFFIE, Bailey W.; WINIUS, George D. Op. cit., p.419. Many historians have argued that the officeholders depended much more on the "redistributive system" than on salaries. "In his study of The Structural Crisis of European-Asian Trade in The Early Seventeenth Century, Niels Steensgaard argues that the Portuguese were concerned less with monopolizing commerce than with controlling and preying upon it, that their officials were remunerated more by a share of prey than by salaries, and that to eliminate corruption was therefore impossible without paradoxically eliminating the Estado da Índia itself." DISNEY, A. R. Op. cit., p.58
28 VEEN, Ernst van. Op. cit., p19.
29 WINIUS, George D. The Portuguese Asian "Decadência" Revisted, "Empire in Transition: The Portuguese World in the Time of Camões". Ed. Alfred Hower and Richard A. Preto-Rodas, University of Florida Press, 1985, p.75.
30 AMES, Glenn J. Op. cit., p.211.
31 DIFFIE, Bailey W.; WINIUS, George D. Op. cit., p.421.
32 WINIUS, George Davison. Op. cit., p.77.
33 PAYNE, Stanley G. Op. cit., p.7.
34 VEEN, Ernst van. Op. cit., p.18
35 QUINTAL, Antero de. Op. cit., p.292-3.
35 BONFIM, Manuel. A América Latina. In: SANTIAGO, Silviano. Intérpretes do Brasil, v.I. Nova Aguilar, 2002, p.651. According to Bonfim, the reason why the decline of parasites is fatal is that they are isolated from the Nature and make no efforts to know the world and phenomena since their needs are already satisfied.
Artigo recebido em 04/2006. Aprovado em 06/2006.
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WIN Wyoming and WIN the Rockies
World Health Organization - Global Strategy
The World Health Organization (WHO) has been in intense discussions for two
years on the best strategy to combat the increase of obesity in human
populations around the world. Representatives of several countries met in Geneva
last month to approve the proposed strategy on diet, physical activity and
health. For this month’s thought bullets, I share some of the proposed
components of WHO’s strategic plan. I also want to share with you some of the
controversies that have surrounded the recommendations.
- According to the WHO website, more than one billion people in the world
are overweight. The WHO lists two main causes for the overweight and obesity
epidemic: 1) increased consumption of energy-dense foods high in saturated
fats and sugars, and 2) reduced physical activity.
- Governments around the world will be asked to do the following: 1)
discourage food and beverage advertisements that exploit children; 2) tax
less-healthy foods; 3) limit high-fat and high-sugar foods in schools; and
4) review agricultural policies that may contribute to obesity and related
chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.
- People around the world will be encouraged to do the following: 1) limit
intake of fat, sugar and salt; 2) increase consumption of fruits,
vegetables, whole grains, beans and nuts; and 3) engage in at least 30
minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity on most days.
- The recommendations have now been debated for two years and received
intense opposition from producers of sugar and other crop and food
producers. The Bush administration suggested changes to earlier versions of
the strategy, requesting more emphasis on personal responsibility and less
emphasis on government interventions.
- Bruce Silverglade, spokesperson for the Center for Science in the Public
Interest stated, "No one is suggesting that government regulate
what foods people put in their mouths, but the World Health Organization
recognizes that government has a role in making the healthy choice the easy
- Michael Diegel, spokesperson for the Grocery Manufacturers of America expressed
concern over the proposal to tax certain foods and agricultural subsidies.
He stated, "Taxes don’t change anybody’s eating habits. They just
make food more expensive."
- Tommy Thompson, Secretary for U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, was expected to endorse the WHO’s Global Strategy on Diet,
Physical Activity and Health and called the plan a "sound blueprint
World Health Organization website:
(Search by key word "obesity.") Accessed May 18, 2004.
Hellmich N. Health agency presents global plan to fight obesity. USA Today,
May 17, 2004.
Compiled by Betty Holmes, MS, RD
to Thought Bullets--main page.
Return to home page.
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It is estimated that almost 8 percent of Americans have some form of diabetes. What's even more worrying is that the number of people with diabetes is on the rise not just in the United States, but all over the world. Scientists have been working to find out why more people are developing diabetes and looking for strategies to help reverse this trend.
Diabetes in the United States
In the United States, diabetes has become increasingly prevalent in recent years. In 1980, 5.8 million people were diagnosed with diabetes, compared with 17.9 million today. Diabetes is expected to rise significantly in the near future. It is estimated that one in three Americans living today will eventually develop diabetes, and that the number of cases will increase in this country by 165 percent by 2050.
Researchers believe that the following factors play a role in the increase:
- The baby-boomer population is aging, and your chances of developing diabetes increases with age.
- The Hispanic population is one of the fastest-growing segments of the United States population, and Hispanics are at increased risk of developing diabetes.
- Americans are becoming increasingly overweight and physically inactive, both known risk factors for diabetes.
The Worldwide Diabetes Epidemic
Diabetes is now a problem that affects people everywhere. There is evidence that 246 million people worldwide have diabetes. If current trends continue, this number is projected to reach 380 million within the next 20 years.
Diabetes affects developed and developing countries alike. In fact, the largest increases in diabetes prevalence in the years to come are projected to take place in developing countries. According to the International Diabetes Federation, India currently has the highest concentration of people with diabetes, followed by China, the United States, Russia, Germany, and Japan. Just as in the developed world, developing countries are turning increasingly toward a lifestyle of unhealthful diets and little physical activity.
What’s Being Done to Stop the Diabetes Epidemic
Type 2 diabetes, which accounts for the vast majority of diabetes cases, can be prevented. For people at high risk of developing type 2 diabetes, lifestyle changes, including weight loss and regular exercise, can significantly reduce the risk.
Major health organizations are waging a battle to slow and eventually reverse the trend of increasing diabetes prevalence. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other national and international health organizations are working to establish effective diabetes prevention and control programs. These programs have already seen some successes:
- People with diabetes are living longer than ever before, thanks to advances in diabetes treatments.
- Fewer people with diabetes are being hospitalized.
- The rates of death from cardiovascular disease are decreasing among people with diabetes.
- Fewer people with diabetes are suffering from visual impairment.
- Better screening programs mean that more people who have diabetes are being diagnosed.
What You Can Do
You can help reduce your chances of developing diabetes by eating healthfully, controlling your weight, exercising regularly, and seeing your health care provider as recommended. Ask your health care provider about your risk of developing diabetes and how often you should have your blood glucose levels checked to screen for diabetes.
If you already have diabetes, you can reduce your risk of complications by working with your health care team to keep your blood glucose, cholesterol, and blood pressure under control.
Last Updated: 11/3/2009
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Technology is consuming society more and more. With companies like Apple who release new iPhones every year or the continual competition for the fastest, smallest gadget – technology has taken over our world in many ways. The newest expansion is the “internet” of things, meaning devices link with each other over the Internet to collect data which can be sent back to companies such as health-care providers. The dark side to this is how much information can be leaked through technology over the Internet.
Medical information over the last few years has become electronic making it easier to expose through the Internet. Devices are capable of transmitting tons of personal information without notice. New technologies in the medical world use the Internet of things to communicate medical data to health-care providers or other doctors, which can be vulnerable to outside exposure.
The Federal Trade commission is working to protect individual’s rights against leaked personal information through the “Internet of things”. Trying to control the cyber scene is hard for the government due to the lack of monitoring capabilities. Being able to collect large amounts of data and information while communicating it to other devices is an expansion that many companies, including the medical industry sees as an a opportunity.
HIPAA’s new requirements focus more on these issues. With updated guidelines for PHI, Protected Health Information, patients have more rights. The penalties for dismissing or not abiding by the new regulations have increased in value to help protect against patients rights. Some of those new regulations include getting permission or patents from patients before any of their information can be used for research or other media forms.
Companies like Verizon. are finding another solution to introduce to healthcare providers. Cloud services, which are an online storage space for data that provides the ability to encrypt information before it’s stored on the system. Encrypting medical information will secure it from being leaked or exposed to unauthorized personnel. With the new HIPAA laws, both the business associate and subcontractors are liable for an information breach. Therefore the solution that cloud services offer that encrypts data before storing it helps to ensure therapists and other professionals are HIPPA compliant.
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Smith, Alfred E(manuel) (b New York City, 30 Dec 1873; d New York City, 4 Oct 1944). Governor.
Born on the East Side of Manhattan to parents with Italian German and Irish ancestry, he lived most of his life in that crowded tenement district. He enjoyed a typical immigrant’s city childhood, watching the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge from his living room windows and attending a local parochial school at St. James Roman Catholic Church. Smith was an ordinary student, but he had to leave school in the seventh grade when his father died in 1885.
Smith held a series of jobs, most notably at the Fulton Fish Market—of which he would always say he was a graduate—and he acted in amateur productions at the church. He also gravitated to the local Tammany Hall chapter, and this became his social club as well as a springboard to politics. Smith’s first political job was process server for the office of the commissioner of jurors.
In 1903 he was nominated for the New York State Assembly and won handily in the machinecontrolled district.
At first Smith neither understood nor had much to add to the work of the state assembly,which at the time was dominated by tradition, patricians, and upstate Republicanism. He considered returning to New York City politics but decided to stay and make a success of his legislative career.
Instead of falling into the comfortable role of reliable machine assemblyman, he mastered the work of the legislature, reading every bill and then checking and cross-referencing each item until he intimately knew the workings of state government. This, combined with his actor’s ability to memorize vast amounts of information easily, made him a formidable member of the lower house, and in 1913 he served as speaker of the assembly. Smith became vice chair, under Sen Robert F.Wagner Sr, of the Factory Investigating Commission established in 1911 after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. His work on the commission exposed him to the horrors of industrial life, and as a result Smith joined the ranks of progressive reformers, a position he would hold for most of his political career. Smith and Wagner pushed through a host of bills that created the modern system of fire safety by enacting measures such as sprinklers, fire drills, illuminated exit signs, and panic bars on doors.
The high point of Smith’s legislative career came during the 1915 Constitutional Convention, where he displayed his unmatched knowledge of the workings of state government. Elihu Root commented that of all the men in the convention Smith was “the best informed” on the business of New York State. Smith served as sheriff of New York Co (1915–17) and as president of the New York City Board of Aldermen (1917–18).
In 1918 Smith ran for governor and won. His major accomplishment during that term was creating a reconstruction committee to plan for post–World War I society and economy. In 1920 Smith lost his bid for reelection and became a businessman, running the US Trucking Co. Two years later Smith ran again and won, as he did in 1924 and 1926. In the 20th century only Nelson A. Rockefeller would match this record of four victories. The period of 1922–28 was when Smith made his greatest mark on New York State.
Smith’s record as governor was achieved in two major fields: administrative and social reform.
Because he had been a newcomer in the legislature, Smith had little appreciation for outmoded procedures. When he became governor, there were 189 state government departments and commissions, all of roughly the same status, with no clear hierarchy or decision-making apparatus.
The budget was put together by the few legislative leaders and clerks who understood its complicated workings. Smith created a system of departments headed by secretaries who form the governor’s cabinet, a structure still used in modified form.He enacted an executive budget, whereby the governor’s office prepares a carefully compiled statement that is submitted to the legislature for approval. Getting these reforms passed was far from easy, but Smith managed because he was a great campaigner and a formidable speaker. He took his causes directly to the people, clarifying complex issues and urging his audience to pressure their legislators to back reform.
In social reform, he vastly expanded the state’s support for housing, healthcare, and parks. In the field of education, he increased the state budget from $7 million in the 1918–19 fiscal year to $70 million in the 1926–27 fiscal year.During this period, teachers’ salaries doubled in the state.He was one of few politicians to argue that urban immigrants were part of the American body politic.
In 1928 Smith ran for president but lost badly because of prejudice against his Roman Catholic faith and his city background. Voters were warned that if Smith won, all Protestant marriages would be annulled and their children would henceforth be illegitimate. They were warned that the pope would come over and run the White House. Thousands of photos of the Holland Tunnel construction were circulated, with the captions stating that it was the secret passageway being built to bring the pope from Rome.After Smith’s loss, his fortunes took a turn for the worse. He accepted a position as president of the Empire State Building, which had been planned in prosperity but opened in depression.
Smith presided over the building’s financial disaster and lost much of his own financial reserves in the crash of 1929. He joined the right-wing American Liberty League and bitterly turned on Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, denouncing them in a famous speech on 25 Jan 1936. In the last years of his life, Smith returned to his core values, speaking vigorously against fascism and Nazism and supporting Roosevelt when the president spoke out against tyranny and led the effort to win World War II. Smith died seven months after the death of his beloved wife, Catherine.
Finan, Christopher. Alfred E. Smith (New York: Hill &
Handlin, Oscar. Al Smith and His America (Boston: Little, Brown, 1958)
Josephson,Matthew, and Hannah Josephson. Al Smith: Hero of the Cities: A Political Portrait Drawing on the Papers of Frances Perkins (Boston:Houghton Mifflin, 1969)
Slayton, Robert. Empire Statesman: The Rise and Redemption of Al Smith (New York: Free Press, 2001)
Smith, Alfred E. Up to Now (New York: Viking Press, 1927)
Robert A. Slayton
Peter Eisenstadt, ed., The Encyclopedia of New York State
(Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2005), [p. 1424-25].
© Syracuse University Press. Reproduced with permission from the publisher.
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Roof rats nest outside in trees, woodpiles and debris, and in dense vegetation. Inside, roof rats prefer to nest in the upper levels of a building in the attic and ceiling.
Roof rats are omnivorious, but tend to more vegetarian preferences. Typical food is fresh fruit, plant material, nuts and seeds, vegetables and even tree bark.
Roof rat didn't just gnaw a hole in this dishwasher drain line, it chewed the entire length.
Rats can spread disease. Sometimes they transmit disease directly by contaminating food with their urine or feces or by biting people. Indirectly, they transmit by infecting as when fleas bite a disease-infected rat, then a person or other animal.
Rat burrows can cause structural damage by undermining the foundations of buildings, roads and walkways, can cause damage by gnawing, damaging plastic and lead pipes, door frames, upholstery, and electric wires, and can cause damage through the destruction and contamination of stored foods.
Common signs of roof rat activity
Places roof rats have been found
Roof rat traveling patterns
How roof rats enter homes
What roof rats eat and drink
They love to eat all types of citrus and other fruits, and nuts, including:
They’ll also eat:
Water sources include:
Actions to take if you see evidence of roof rats on your property
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We'd better hope that there will never be a time when robots will be able to do absolutely everything without any help from humans, because that's the time when our entire species is likely to become redundant. Until that time comes, the technique of human exploitation is a valuable skill for robots to learn, because it's a great way of being able to complete objectives with a minimum of hardware or software. hitchBOT is a robot that'll attempt to exploit the kindness of humans by using them to transport itself across Canada by simply asking people for a ride.
Traveling across an entire continent would be a remarkable feat for any ground robot. Humans, however, do it all the time. It may be relatively rare for any one single human to make the trip, but as a group, it's happening continuously. Created by researchers from McMaster University and Ryerson University, hitchBOT is going to try to take advantage of this by hitchhiking across Canada, moving from human to human to get where it wants to go. The tricky part is that hitchBOT isn't offering to help out with gas or anything like that: it's going to be relying entirely on people feeling sorry for it and wanting to help out. Once you pick hitchBOT up, it'll make some generalized Wikipedia-based conversation and ask to be plugged into your car's 9v outlet to recharge, all while tweeting about its experiences.
My concern, to be completely honest, is whether hitchBOT has found that appearance sweet spot of cute haplessness that seems to resonate with humans. Its designers describe it as having "some anthropomorphic features, albeit not many. The physical form looks like somebody has cobbled together odds and ends to make the robot, such as pool noodles, bucket, cake saver, garden gloves, Wellies, etc." That's certainly a non-threatening look, but it's quite different from the appearance of other robots that we've seen successfully be able to autonomously manipulate humans through the sheer power of their appearance.
One example of this is Blabdroid, a robot designed to collect the personal stories of people who meet it. Blabdroid has no specific way of convincing anyone to talk to it, but by being small and cute and engaging, it's able to get humans to talk about incredibly personal things.
A second example is Tweenbot, one of the simplest robots ever and also one of our long-time favorites. All that Tweenbot does is drive slowly in one direction, and (much like Hitchbot) it depends on helpful passing humans to make sure that it gets where it needs to go. This video will melt you:
These two robots have a lot in common: they're small. They're simple. They're made of cardboard, which isn't just inexpensive, but is also "soft" and nonthreatening. They have big eyes and a big smile, but otherwise no features that could be anthropomorphized. The rest of their design is explicitly functional. And finally, the way that humans interact with them is very simple and straightforward: Blabdroid has two buttons and asks simple questions in a childlike voice, while Tweenbot is even simpler, with a written sign asking people to help it get somewhere.
hitchBOT, on the other hand, looks a little weird. It has a lot of stuff going on, and a user wouldn't know what (if anything) some of its design features are for, which might be a little scary. It doesn't have any obvious interaction points (like eyes), and it's also bulky and (presumably) somewhat heavy, simply due to its size. Personally, I feel like it looks more like an art project than a robot that I want to stop and help out.
How effective hitchBOT is will be put to the test starting July 27, when it'll leave Halifax, Nova Scotia on it's way to Victoria, British Columbia, a distance of 6,230 kilometers by road.
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A unique opportunity to recognize a landmark event in Canadian history
Created to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Royal Proclamation of 1763, this display features two documents that had major repercussions on the history of Canada: the Royal Proclamation of 1763—the first constitutional act of Canada in which the British Crown recognized the rights of the First Nations over a vast territory—and the Treaty of Peace and Friendship signed by Sir William Johnson and the Huron chiefs of Detroit—one of the first treaties negotiated between the British Crown and the First Nations.
Accompanied by a map of New France as under the French regime, the display demonstrates the importance of these documents to Canada and Canadians.
Developed by the Canadian Museum of Civilization in collaboration with Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada and Library and Archives Canada.
For more information, visit:
Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada
Library and Archives Canada
Royal Proclamation, King George III of England
Issued October 7, 1763
Library and Archives Canada / e010778430
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Autoscaleit has been written by David Harris-Birtill.
Loads in a set of images (developed for TEM images) within a directory, calculating the length, width and aspect ratio of rod like structures for every image in a directory, plotting a histogram for the length, width and aspect ratio.
How to use AutoScaleIt:
- Before running this program, move all the data you want to analyse into a folder with only those dm3 data files in (this code assumes only dm3 files are in this directory)
- Run this script (type: auto_scale_it_v1p4 into matlab when in this directory)
- Select your data folder
- Select the folder you would like to have the figures saved to
- Let it run (normally takes approx. 3 secs per image, therefore 20 images takes 1 min)
- Et voila… the histograms will be plotted and displayed on your screen and automatically saved to the specified folder.
Note: This currently only works on DM3 file formats (which include pixel size information in). However, the program could easily be modified to include other image formats. Preferably the image format should include pixel size information in a header.
Description of step-by-step analysis of each image within this program:
The image is loaded in and the scale factors loaded (also converts scale to always be in nm (converts µm to nm))
The image is then thresholded, settng all values above a level to equal that level
The gradient of the thresholded image is taken in each direction, and the absolute of these matrices are made (flipping -ve to +ve)
The sum of the gradient maps is taken; this provides high intensity at the edges of objects all around the object
This gradient map is converted into a binary image (0&1)
An edge detection algorithm (Roberts method) is used on this binary map to find the edges of the objects
A watershed algorithm is used to segment the image into many objects
The length, width, area and eccentricity of these objects is measured
The length and widths are converted from pixels to nm using the loaded scale factors
For each object, the length and width are recorded if the below criteria for are satisfied for that object:
The eccentricity is greater than 0.7 (this means it won’t look at spheres – only rods)
The area is greater than 30 pixels (removes noise objects)
The width is greater than 5 nm (removes noise objects)
The width is less than 25 nm (removes very wide objects)
The length is greater than 15nm (removes unwanted tiny objects)
The length is less than 70nm (removes unwanted aggregations)
The object does not touch the image border
Then the aspect ratio is calculated by dividing the length by the width
Every image in the directory is loaded and analysed in this way, and the values are recorded by appending arrays (creating a long table which includes all values for every image in one long list).
Then histograms are plotted for the length, width and aspect ratio using the data from every image in the folder these histograms are saved into the folder specified by the user at run time
I’ve made this program open source to help others – feel free to use it and modify it, but please cite this program and its author wherever you use it. I’m always keen to hear feedback and how you’ve used it, so please do leave comments and feedback on this site.
Written by David Harris-Birtill
Written on 17/04/2013, last amended on 13/05/2013
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Prevent the loss of heritage chicken breeds by starting your own unique flock on your homestead.
By John Vivian
Raise your own heritage chickens and become a poultry preservationist.
Just imagine . . . breakfast eggs so fresh they’re still warm from the nest; drumsticks with the real old-time chicken flavor, not hidden under fat-fried dough and some “secret blend” of herbs and . . . chemicals; your own chicken flock serving as a no-cost shredder/composter to convert garden and kitchen scraps to super-rich natural fertilizer; and (in a light-weight mobile henhouse) a 10- or 12-chickenpower tiller to cultivate and enrich your garden soil at the same time. Plus the better-than-TV panorama of plump hens and fuzz-ball chicks chirping and scratching contentedly in the dooryard. And to cap it all, the cheerily raucous “Aaawk-ah-Aw-aawk” of a rooster to welcome the dawn of each new day.
A home chicken flock is the first (and easiest) step toward self-sufficiency in animal food raising, and has long been the culmination of the country-living dream for city folks.
But in your wildest dreams, could you have imagined that keeping heritage chickens can help preserve endangered species? True. You see, like the human species itself, chickens came “out of Africa” eons ago. Along with wild hogs, cattle, horses, and dogs, the varicolored wild African jungle fowl was domesticated early in our distant ancestors’ spread around the globe. Since mankind began to farm, perhaps 10,000 years ago, people in every valley and hamlet on the Eurasian continents and on the islands of every ocean have been selecting and re-selecting the best egg and meat producers from their chicken flocks.
When Europeans came to the Americas they brought along their favorite hens and roosters: the White Faced Spanish Black, Campines from Belgium, German/Dutch Lakenvelder, strains from around the Mediterranean and from farthest Sumatra and other Far Eastern islands, the Chinese Cochins, and dozens of English varieties named after their coloring and place of origin: the Hampshire Red, Black Cornish, Speckled Sussex, White and Black Leghorns, and more. Colonists bred new varieties that produced both plentiful eggs and quality meat throughout the variable New World climate: Plymouth Rocks, New Hampshire and Rhode Island Reds, the famous Canadian Chanticleer, and many other less-familiar strains. By the late 1800s, every farm community had, if not its own named variety, its own strain of “Rock” or “Leggern,” plus pint-sized “Bantam” versions of every variety. And fancy-feathered or highly colored breeds like Polish Cresteds, Brahmas from China, Australorps from Australia, and the Phoenix from Japan with tail feathers that grew a yard long were shown at the County Fair.
But with 20th-century industrialization, the growth of cities, and the loss of small firms, poultry raising became just another agribusiness dominated by a handful of giant grain-broker corporations. Today, supermarket eggs sell for 99 cents a dozen and chicken parts for less than a half-dollar a pound—cheaper than bread and less than you or I can hope to produce them from $1 hatchery chicks and 20 cents per lb. feed.
So bottom-line home economics discourages home poultry production. And with the loss of the farmyard and backyard chicken flock, the strains of chicken bred so carefully for so long are being forgotten—and going extinct. Unless you and I and many others join the movement to perpetuate home-flock breeds, we stand to lose not only the variety of strains of gorgeously feathered fowl that our ancestors worked to create but also the varied poultry gene pool that holds the variety of characteristics that alone will assure that our poultry can withstand future assaults from disease and climatic change.
There is, sadly, little commercial need for wide genetic variety among poultry breeds—and no need at all for natural birds themselves. What remains (aside from our home flocks) are a very few evermore-exquisitely-specialized commercial varieties. Egg producers are scrawny and nervous little creatures carrying just enough bone and muscle to support their egg-factory plumbing. Boiler/roaster breeds have been bred for the speed with which they turn grain to flaccid, watery, flavorless flesh with little distinction remaining between white, fibrous flight muscle and the dark, wiry running muscle of leg and thigh.
Scariest of all is what has happened to the wild turkey, a crafty bird that eats acorns and roosts in trees—the species that Benjamin Franklin wanted to certify as America’s national bird (rather than the fish-scavenging bald eagle). The original domesticated but self-sufficient bronze-breasted turkey is so rare today it is on the endangered list of the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, which funds a periodic census of poultry breeds remaining in America. (Support them; see page 88 for the address.)
Today’s commercial turkeys are incubated and brooded in electric appliances; live out their brief lives on computer-formulated rations and medicated water, standing on wire-mesh flooring in tin roofed sheds; and never see, touch, or taste the real world. Their plumage has been bred so thin the birds’d never survive a good rain, let alone a cold winter, and it’s been bleached white so pin feathers will show less on dressed carcasses. And they are huge—at 45 pounds, several times their natural weight. So big they couldn’t fly up to roost in a tree even if they could recognize one. So big they can’t even breed naturally! Fertile eggs are produced through artificial insemination. And even then, egg viability—percentage of fertile eggs that produce healthy poults—is steadily diminishing.
The Poultry Biz
Brutal competition has winnowed the egg-and-poultry business to a few huge cost-conscious corporations. A mere three turkey growers serve all of Canada, and in the eastern United States, Tyson and Perdue control the majority of meat-chicken sales. In pursuit of profit, corporate geneticists are breeding out all the birds’ native survival traits in favor of more efficient conversion of feed to egg or flesh. No matter that the shells of store-bought eggs are paper-frail and wouldn’t survive a week of being rolled around in natural incubation under a hen, that the whites are thin and watery, and what color the yolks contain comes from yellow dyes in the feed rather than natural hen-produced carotene. No matter that broilers are bred to grow so fast they are freaks. Cooked briefly, the flesh is juicy and fork-tender. But compared to a natural bird, it is watery, flaccid, and tasteless. Plumage and musculature is unable to support flight, and bones are just strong enough to keep the birds upright through their pre-adolescent growth spurt to slaughter weight: 4 pounds at only 4 weeks of age.
As our once numerous native-bred poultry varieties go extinct from neglect, they take with them not only their unique mixtures of domesticity and native survival skills but the gene pool that contains an endless variety of characteristics that any species needs to survive in a changing natural environment—change that is liable to accelerate as global warming (or maybe global cooling?) brings home to roost the effect of our waste of CO2-producing hydrocarbon fuels and ozone-depleting aerosols.
What little genetic diversity remains among chickens is confined to the flocks of concerned home-poultry fanciers like you and me.
Indeed, a while back when commercial breeders sought a super-quick-growing broiler, they crossed Barred (Plymouth) Rocks with purebred Cornish that survived only among backyard show-chicken breeders. The Rock-Cornish cross is raised for all meat-bird sizes and the fastest-growing substrain is sold today as “Cornish Game Hen”—a marketing distortion, as the birds are only half Cornish, no more game animals than the family cat, and are young roosters (cockerels) as well as hens (pullets). When raised on high-protein feed, the “game hen” Rock-Cornish reaches 1- to 1 3/4-pound dressed weight and edible plumpness in a little more than a month, 4- to 5-pound fryer weight in 8 weeks of growth, and 7-or 8-pound roaster size in 10 weeks. They are still babies; a hen doesn’t mature to egg-laying age till 5 or 6 months—20 to 24 weeks of age.
But when next a particular genetic characteristic is needed by the industry (say, a higher egg-fertility rate that will be essential someday if Broad-Brested White turkeys are to survive), it may not have survived extinction. Poultry raising today has become a monoculture as dearly as are the countywide fields of corn in Kansas or wheat in Manitoba, where every stalk is a genetically identical hybrid clone—all of them potentially susceptible to a new pathogen.
But plant science maintains a gene pool of wild and semiwild varieties. The Green Revolution of the seventies came when wild and cultivated rice strains were crossed to nearly double food supplies for the world’s most hungry. And (so far) every time an epidemic has threatened the world’s cereal crops, they’ve managed to splice in a resistant gene in time.
But, till recently, nobody has attempted to maintain a poultry gene pool, and authorities fear that a single drug-resistant mutation in a common disease-causing organism such as coccidium (a gut-infecting protozoan carried by wild birds and in the sod and blown around in dust everywhere) could decimate global commercial flocks before medication could be developed or a resistant gene located.
So much of the wild hardiness has been bred out of poultry that they are susceptible to normal environmental variations. Each winter cold snap or summer heat wave, you read of 10,000-bird flocks in Arkansas or Texas succumbing when their climate conditioning proves inadequate. In a brief power outage, they die from lack of water. In a really severe interruption of service (attendant to a major earthquake, fire, flood—or worse) these poor creatures could no more survive on their own in nature than could services-dependent human city dwellers.
MOTHER’s readers were among the farsighted few who popularized chemical-free (organic) gardening and resource conservation long before ecology became conventional wisdom and Environ-mentalism a political Cause, and so we have a natural—indeed, almost a mandatory—place in the movement to retain our native poultry varieties. For what its worth, since the mid eighties, we’ve been working to breed semiwild forage-feeding skill and the chick-raising instinct back into my Hampshire/Rhode Island Reds. Here’s how you can join us if you like.
Chickens are gallinaceous birds—like pheasants and quail—and their young hatch out able to walk, feed, and drink for themselves. Hatcheries sell them when they’re a day old in lots of 25. Expect to pay 25 cents to a dollar per conventional-breed chick—up to $5 for rare strains. A straight-run lot (half males, half females as-hatched) is usually cheapest and perfect for a home flock.
You’ll be able to tell young males when the head-top combs begin to develop (faster, and pinker than the pullers’) and they start adopting the upright posture and leaner bodies of males (vs. lower, plumper hens). Keep the 3 largest and most feisty young males for breeding. Isolate and fatten the rest for slaughter at 4 to 6 weeks of age. Of the dozen females, 10 or 11 will prove out, and give you 5 or 6 eggs a week apiece when they start laying pint-sized “pullet eggs” at 5 months and quickly begin laying full-size eggs for the neat 12 months or so. Then they spend 6 months molting and put their energy into growing feathers rather than eggs. They’ll repeat the sequence for 1 to 10 years thereafter.
It is probably good economics to replace every hen after her best year. I keep any of the ladies who show high vigor, a moist and supple vent, bright eyes, and other signs of health. This is the only way to identify those with the genes to become good long-term layers, brooders, and foragers who will eat cheap and brood chicks so you don’t have to buy replacements every year.
With luck and a good choice of breed (see Selecting Your Breed at the end of this article), you can establish and raise a flock to laying age of 6 months for a couple hundred bucks: $25 for chicks, $50 for feed, $70 for recycled coop-building materials, and $50 For plastic or sheet-metal coop furniture: vacuum/dome waterer, hanging feeder, and feed and supplement bins. Buy your “furniture” new; used tin goods will be rusty and waterers especially short-lived, and may be contaminated with disease or parasites.
Then, if you can raise $2/dozen superfresh eggs for a half-buck a dozen in feed costs (and you can do much better letting birds forage in summer and feeding kitchen scraps and store produce department gleanings in winter), 12 good hens, each laying a half dozen eggs a week, will pay for themselves in less than 6 months. If you value your eggs at only a buck a dozen, you’ll break even in a year.
Chicken Feed Doesn’t Go for “Chicken Feed” Anymore
“Chicken feed” no longer describes a low price. I hark back to the tail end of the Great Depression when feed cost a penny a pound and Ralston-Purina and other mills vied for farmers’ business (or their wives; presumably) by bagging it in 100-pound sacks of brightly printed muslin dress-making material. By the time I reached grade school, “She dresses in feed sacks” was a way to insult the country girls—no matter how fine and loving the hand-stitchery, smocking, and flowered embroidery on their little dresses.
To get 25 chicks off to a good start today, though, you’ll need most of a nine-dollar, 50-lb bag of fine-milled starter mash—feed that is mildly medicated but essential for bought chicks that can import disease or succumb to diseases that your flock is immune to. Medicated mash prevents coccidi caused by the intestinal protozoan mentioned earlier, which is fatal to chicks once betrayed by bloody droppings. In my experience, hen-hatched chicks don’t need medicated mash, but unless you collect and brood them, only about half will survive to maturity.
If you let chicks onto sand or gravelly soil or supply grit, they’ll swallow the fine rock which, will stay in their gizzard to grind food (“scarce as hen’s teeth” is a truism). After a month you can shift chicks from mash to pelleted feed. Grown birds spray mash-type ground feed around and waste much of it. High-protein broiler gels cost 18 cents to 20 cents a pound. You can raise broilers to 4 pounds live weight, 3 pounds dressed, for 3 pounds of feed per pound of dressed bird. (3 by 3 = 9; 9 by 20 cents = $1.80 per bird or 60 cents per lb.—about half the supermarket price, though you can often get wings and necks or leg quarters on sale for less . . . and will pay double the price for a prime, organically raised bird.)
But if you raise eating birds during the growing/harvest season and replace bought feed with kitchen and canning scraps, garden trimmings, home-raised grain, or native forage you can reduce the cash cost considerably. I routinely raise a dozen 4-pound broilers on 10 pounds of starter and perhaps 50 pounds of grain and pels, harvesting 36 pounds dressed weight for about $10 cash cost—between 25 cents and 30 cents a pound. The only added cost is time: at most, a quarter hour a day to gather feed or move a mobile pen. (See sister article: “How to Build Fixed and Mobile Chicken Pens” on page 37 of this issue.) And after every storm, when I go to the ocean beach to collect kelp to enrich the gardens, I’m sure to devote some of the day to feeding this full supplement to the poultry. They attack it with enthusiasm.
Your own eggs will cost you from a dime or two to a couple of dollars a dozen, depending on price of feed and percentage of the flock that’s setting eggs as opposed to tending chicks, molting, or otherwise eating but not laying.
When our children were little and loved and named every hen whether she was laying or not, I didn’t dare even suggest culling old Clucky or Henny-Penny but accounted for chicken feed along with the dog food.
Now, with the kids more or less grown, before my birds come indoors full-time for the winter, I send to the stew pot or freezer every hen that begins to show the lethargy, dull eyes and plumage, bleached legs, and dry, puckered vent of a non-layer. With layer pellets costing on average 17 cents /lb., I figure an average yearly cash cost of about 25 cents /dozen eggs: from a few pennies in the peak of harvest season when laying is at its height and birds are on free range during the day to 50 cents /dozen in the depth of winter when laying rate is about 50 percent and when I buy the most feed. Still ahead of supermarket prices that range from 99 cents to $2.50/dozen.
One secret to keeping feed costs low in winter is to arrange with a local supermarket to collect lettuce, cabbage, and other trimmings from the produce department. Chop it up and feed it to the hens early in the day, before you give them access to bought ration. In our cold climate, I feed in small quantities so it won’t freeze before they can eat it.
In winter, you’ll have to provide grit and ground oyster shell or garden lime-stone (not processed lime of any kind, dolomite, or diatomaceous earth) to supply calcium for the birds if they are not on full-time bought ration. I keep it in a shallow tuna can, the bottom hole-punched and firmly tacked low on a wall and kept brimming with dean, sharp sand and small gravel. I collect shells and grit from the ocean beach, but stream or river sand/gravel mix is just as good, or you can buy grit and calcium supplements from a feed store if you must. The birds will peck at it as needed. Particulars regarding proper space and housing facilities are covered in the companion amide beginning on page 37 of this issue.
Never let eggs stay in the nest for more than a few hours. I try to collect morning, noon, and evening so they’re clean, unfrozen in winter, and still moist with the protective bacteria-inhibiting film the hen gives them. (Never wash eggs or you’ll invite bacteria to migrate through the shells, which are semiporous to let growing chicks respire.) Refrigerate table eggs immediately. They last in refrigeration for 6 months—though they’ll resemble store eggs by the end of that time.
Most municipalities in “Metro” areas surrounding big cities forbid livestock inside town limits. Cityfied neighbors may have dogs that come over and leave their waste all over your lawn, but they’ll complain about the slightest smell or noise from chickens, and will sic the cops on you if a hen escapes and takes a nip from their prize tuberous begonias or scratches up a few nasturtium seeds.
A single marauding hen of a good foraging strain can trash a flower garden in a few minutes, whereas modern chicken breeds that have forgotten how to scratch up their own dinner will often refuse to leave the henhouse; the hybrids I ran when I first took on chickens would come out into their fenced run in nice weather but were afraid of rain and flat refused to step out into snow.
Once they get used to foraging (they have to relearn each spring), the mixed Reds I keep now expect to be let out of the henhouse at daybreak and will raise a squawking ruckus till the hatch is opened. I don’t give them access to the feeder till evening or they’d stuff themselves on bought feed and range for fun, not breakfast. Hungry, they will range up to 100 yards from the pen but—like most chickens—forage only over open ground where they find grass and other small seeds. They’ll take a nip out of each red tomato and pepper and scratch up young plants, so I rig poultry netting or an electrified fence of three strands of conductor-embedded plastic wire arranged at 2, 4, and 6 feet above ground level on non-conductive fiberglass rods around the garden.
Don’t plan to keep wide-ranging poultry breeds in town (they’ll fly over or dig under fences to satisfy their natural ranging urge). A bird of a more domestic strain may get out, but she won’t range out of soft-clucking distance of the flock. Don’t let any breed run loose if you have neighbors within a quarter mile. Chicken droppings don’t compare to dogs’ but are half-dollar-sized blobs that stick to shoes and aren’t welcome if tracked into a neighbor’s kitchen.
If you want to keep chickens in an urban area, first get a zoning variance, including approval of all abutters. Don’t plan to keep roosters; their harsh and piercing crow is a turf claim and harem call designed to travel for a mile; it will be heard even if you coop them till noon. Don’t keep old hens in town either, unless they’re a super-gentle breed such as the Jersey Giants. Hens’ “BLEAK, Blerk, Blerk” irritation call is as loud as and much more frequent than a rooster’s crow, and they get noisier as they age. And keep doors latched and fences tight (including wire mesh over the top of any outside run, to keep pigeons from flying in and mooching feed and introducing disease and parasites).
Most country towns passed anti-livestock ordinances in the teens and twenties after autos replaced horses and buggies and they could pave over the manure/mud muck that made the main streets of pre-industrial towns smell as ripe as any barnyard. But they tend to be lenient if you maintain peace with the neighbors and keep a dean, quiet operation.
The secret of fly and odor control is screens over henhouse windows and a deep, loose litter in the house and outdoor run. Before the birds arrive, arrange for delivery of plenty of loose, dry organic material of the kind that you’d use for a garden mulch or horse bedding. Straw, lumber sawdust and wood chips, peanut hulls, or ground corncobs are all good. Keep a 6-inch-deep layer in the henhouse, stirring and loosening it on the floor each day if the birds don’t, and changing and disposing of it before it gets too redolent of ammonia. Scattering wood ashes will prolong bedding life. When we kept chickens in a country town during the seventies, we used wood chip horse bedding I had collected and spread on the garden during a hard rain so the ammonia would carry down into the soil.
Cats don’t bother chickens—not even tiny chicks. Dogs are another matter. Some terriers and hunting breeds will even dig under fencing to get at them. I found the best way to keep our beasts honest is to take them out as 8-week-old puppies to where the adult birds are scratching in the barnyard. A biddy hen with chicks is a great dog trainer. The puppies’ll naturally want to go woofing after the chicks, but a hen is a savage defender of her young. A serious henpeck on the nose has always been enough to put our homestead hounds in mortal terror of chickens for life.
More than once, I’ve seen our huge German shepherd Harley awakened from a deep afternoon nap in the backyard by a chick attack. They’ll scrabble up his sides and scratch after whatever they can find in his coat. Except for a few inadvertent twitches when a sensitive whisker or eyelash gets pulled, the great fool holds stone-still with his eyes squeezed shut rather than confront the momma hen as she parades right in front of his nose, scratching dust in his face, her beady eyes alert to the slightest danger to her brood.
You’ll have healthier birds and fewer disease and parasite problems if you order chicks to arrive in the spring. Hen chicks that arrive at the end of April will go into the henhouse in late June and begin laying in October. (See when the local feed store will be distributing orders to determine the ideal date in your locale.) This is the rush time for hatcheries, so get your order in by late winter.
Regional hatcheries sell by mail, for pickup at the office, or through area feed stores, farm coops, and 4-H or FFA. Birds are guaranteed to arrive alive and in good health and to be free of the common diseases pullorum and typhoid. They can be inoculated against several other diseases and debeaked (to prevent pecking that can lead to cannibalism) for a small fee. Debeaking is mutilation and suitable only for huge flocks kept in close quarters. But inoculation against Marek’s disease only costs a thin dime a bird and is good insurance if you live in an established poultry-growing area or plan to keep adult birds to breed your own chicks.
If you plan to take the birds to shows where they can be exposed to disease, order inoculants for Newcastle and bronchitis (administered in the water), pox (carried by mosquitoes; birds get a simple auto-applied shot), and laryngotracheitis (administer with an eyedropper). You’ll get about 500 doses for $5, but refrigerated, the medications will last for a long time.
I’ve never tried it, but growers I respect recommend a water additive, called QuikChik, for new chicks. It isn’t a medicine but a vitamin/mineral supplement laced with electrolytes—kind of a veggy-tonic/Gatorade for chickens that gets travel-stressed chicks to eating and racing around with the first sip. A 4-ounce packet that will handle 200 chicks for 2 weeks can be shipped in the carton along with your birds for less than $4.
Your choice of breeds from most hatcheries will be limited to the best-selling commercial breeds: typically, several leghorn hybrids (skinny white-egg super-layers); in the Northeast, one or two hybrid brown-egg super-layers; several heavy-bodied dual-purpose meat/egg hybrids; a Rock-Cornish broiler/roaster cross; and one or more of the dual-purpose purebreds, such as Rhode Island Reds or Barred Rocks, that best suit the small home flock.
The traditional/endangered native strains of the old-time purebreds can be a little harder to locate and purchase. Natural chickens just naturally begin laying when the days lengthen enough to warm the skin in mid to late February, taper off when days shorten in late summer, and quit in September.
Breeding flocks for many scarce types are small and often have only a few surplus chicks available for an even briefer period each year. If you want a really scarce or exotic strain, get your order in early.
You’ll learn most buying firsthand from a local small-scale or hobby/show breeder (but you do risk getting problem stock). Only a few small breeders are large enough to advertise in the yellow pages or classifieds in the local papers. Ask around at the local farmers market or feed store or at the poultry shed at the County Fair.
You’ll get excellent help, advice, and the location of breeders from the rare-breed organizations listed on page 88 of this issue.
The mail-order catalogs also listed offer a variety of nonstandard poultry. All chicks are fully guaranteed. Some hatcheries sell books, feed, medications, and equipment as well. I suggest sending for all the catalogs. They are a lesson in themselves and most are free. Many offer books and equipment that are simply unavailable anywhere else. Also, shipping of live animals is costly and the closer you are to the hatchery, the less you’ll pay for shipping.
My old favorite was Hall Brothers, a major New England hatchery of conventional breeds only; they supplied the chicks sold by Sears back when Sears still valued country customers. Their purebreed Reds were the original foundation stock for my own flock of foragers/breeders. There’s no longer a listing for them, and I’m afraid they may be out of business. I can, however, vouch for Murray McMurray Hatchery in Webster City, Iowa.
Arrival of the Chicks
If you order your chicks locally from a breeder or feed store, you’ll get a call when they are ready. Most mail-order chicks arrive by UPS these days, preceded by a telephone call or postcard. If they are sent by mail, the PO. will call for you to pick them up. The clerks may be alarmed at the birds’ cheeping if they’ve never handled chicks before. (But not as alarmed as when they get a screen cage full of humming honey-bees. Jostle chicks and all you hear is weak little peeps of protest. Jostle several thousand bees and you get a growl right out of the sound track of The Swarm.)
Have your brooder, feeder, and water hooked up and operating so the chicks can warm up and take a long drink as soon as you get them home. You can buy fancy brooders, and an enclosed unit is necessary for year-round outdoor use.
I keep chicks in the kitchen for their first few days and on the porch for the first week, brooding them under an ordinary tin-domed clamp light from the hardware store with a low-watt infrared heat lamp (not an ultraviolet suntan lamp—that will cook the chicks).
The lamp is suspended on a pulley from the overhead above a table with a big cardboard box on it with several layers of newspaper in the bottom. More conventional is to surround the warm spot on the table under the lamp with a barrier made from a strip of 6-inch-wide cardboard or aluminum flashing formed in a yard-diameter circle.
The lamp is first lowered to some 6 inches above the table to warm the surface. I scatter a little mash and fine sand under the perimeter of the circle the light makes on the table and put in two simple water fonts made of a saucer holding an upside-down plastic butter tub with a small notch cut in the rim. I fill the tub with warm water, put the saucer on top, and flip it. Water burbles out to fill the saucer but is kept from flowing all over by vacuum. A half brick on top keeps the chicks from jumping up and dislodging the tub and tracking in the water.
Chicks are shipped in a cardboard box with raffia flooring and air holes punched around the sides. When hatched they have a built-in 3-day supply of food and water and are not bothered by moderate heat variations. Let the box rest a bit and listen. A steady chorus of quiet chirps means contented chicks. Alarmed and rapid “cheep-cheep-cheep” means stressed birds. Either way, get them to the brooder directly.
Put them in one at a time, removing any pieces of raffia or dropping from feet or fuzz.
Then (especially if these are your first chicks) get ready for entertainment. They are fascinating to watch as they mill around, peck at grit and feed, grab a beakful of water and tip up their heads to drink it down, and then seem to collapse and fall asleep in an instant. The neighbors will all want to see, and the kids will want you to bring them to school for show-and-tell. If you change the paper often, they even smell warm and fragrant for the first week or two.
The chicks will find the heat they need and should arrange themselves in a ring under the rim of the lamp. If they group under the bulb, lower it; if they pull far away, raise it. After a day, put mash in a pair of saucers with a weighted coffee mug or rock in the middle to keep chicks from soiling the feed. Once they find the feed, keep a small sprinkling of coarse sand on the paper.
When droppings appear, you’ll find two kinds. Most are semifirm blobs of gray stool with a white patch of uric acid on top. Droppings may be semi-liquid till the birds get used to their feed. Don’t be alarmed when, after a week or more, you find occasional wet, greenish, bubbly droppings. This comes from organs in the gut that harbor microbes that digest cellulose and is normal throughout the bird’s life. The odor will clear your sinuses real quick.
In a week the chicks will begin growing real feathers and in three weeks will lose their cuteness and will be raising a tine dust that can coat everything in the room. Time to put them on the porch or in their outside pen if you haven’t already.
Keep the now adolescent, gawky, and decidedly uncute birds under the brooder light for a month, or till they are well feathered and start peeking over the top of a 6-inch-high barrier ring. If weather is cold, leave them under the light till low temperatures are above 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
Don’t introduce young birds into an established flock till they are 6 weeks old or better, or they may be badly pecked. Even then, if possible, put a wire-mesh division down the center of the pen to keep the new and old birds separated but in eyesight and clucking/bonding contact for several days.
Chickens are, frankly, “chicken”; m nature, flight is their main defense. If terrorized by grown birds, youngsters will pack into a fair corner, literally paralyzed with fear. They may not come out for water or food, or may push back against the wall so hard that birds at the rear of the pack will be smothered.
Selecting a Breed
See information at the end of this article, read books and catalogs, join clubs, and visit other fanciers to select a breed. If your outdoor space is restricted, consider a big, calm, and mild-tempered breed that doesn’t mind being cooped, such as the lovely soft-gold-colored Buff Orpington or Black Australorp.
To encourage the foraging that is important for self-sufficiency, keep a few of such hard-working varieties a, tire glossy black-and-white-speckled (naturally well camouflaged) Ancona to lead the flock into the field. They manure to egg-laying age in 4 1/2 months but will not set their eggs.
The instinct to incubate fertile eggs and care for the brood is the most desirable characteristic if we are to re-create Self-sufficient breeds. Bantams, semiwild Jungle Fowl (you can buy the real, original stock), the similar-looking varicolored Old English Game Cocks, or any of the several breeds of genuine fighting cock will set, but aren’t good for much else but show and pure enjoyment.
If you buy Jungle Fowl, pen and treat them as you would other skitterish game birds such as pheasants. Fighting cocks are easier to handle, but don’t let mature cocks so much as lay eyes on another male chicken. The birds will literally fight to the death.
I suggest that you select the large-bodied meat/egg breed that most appeals to you. For up to 50 hens, keep 3 roosters. (3 will fight less than 2, and if you only keep 1, you are out of luck if it dies or loses vigor.) Roosters will dig their claws into a hen’s back and bite her comb in mating, but that’s how it’s done. Dab gentian violet horse medicine on any sore spots.
Keep your eves peeled for a lien that is going broody. A penned hen will stay on the nest, peck if you it try to remove eggs, fluff up her feathers, and fuss a lot. Her “cut-cut-cut” contented sound will change to a loud “Blaaawk”
Most egg raisers try to discourage broodiness, but we want to encourage it. Give her a separate cage and a 2-foot-square brood nest kept full of fresh hay if need be to keep her setting. Lot her hatch all her own eggs to retain the setting tendency.
A hen with access to free range will he sneaky about brooding and will make a nest off in the bushes. She’ll lay (fertile eggs if the roosters are doing the job you feed the otherwise worthless little martinets for) for several weeks till she accumulates a clutch of 12 to 18 eggs, which will hang fire till heated to hen temperature—when they’ll begin to develop so they all hatch together. Fine hen will sit on them, turning, heating, and humidifying them nearly full-time till they hatch in 3 weeks. Unless you recognize all the birds or conduct a hen count every evening, you won’t miss her when she begins brooding. She’ll urine in briefly for feed and water only once in a while and will stay out nights.
Then one morning you’ll be working in the yard, and around the barn or through a hedge will come Biddy with her little brood of yellow or red or black or brown, one-colo, striped, or spotted chicks darting in and out from under her wings. All the other hens will sit up a ruckus and mill around in welcome. Momma hen will strut around acting proud enough to pop—as well she ought to be.
In time, choose the biggest and the most feisty roosters arid plumpest hens from the brood to keep and you are on your way to helping restore self-reliance to our chickens. But in future, you must introduce outside strains to prevent atavism—where recessive genes predominate and the birds quickly revert to the ancestral Jungle Fowl.
For more information on ordering chicks and feed, and or a resource listing on raising chickens, turn to page 88 in this issue.
SELECTING YOUR BREED
The following list summarizes characteristics—stressing rarity and ability to forage and brood chicks—of some of the traditional American and Canadian meat/egg “dual-purpose” breeds. Not included, but worth consideration for home raising, are: bantam chickens, ducks and geese, turkeys, game birds, guinea and pea fowl, exotics like the bare-necked “turken” and fancy-feathered breeds like the endangered Ancona and Wyandotte that are raised for show and the sheer pleasure of having a flock of exotic and gorgeous creatures strutting around the place. Specifically excluded is the Aumcana, a peculiar looking bird from Peru still being touted as the Easter Egg Chicken, that comes in many colors and lays colored eggs that are low in cholesterol. The eggs are colored alright—mud brown to dull khaki to bilious green. They are low in cholesterol only because they are small for a 5- to 5 1/2-pound dual purpose breed. But the adults are too smart for a meat animal. Let run, they ingratiate themselves with the kids or the cat and follow them into the house. Once they locate the dog food you can’t keep the damned things out. They’ll lurk in the shrubbery, then make a mad dash through a just-opened door and, wings flapping and droppings dropping, straight to the dog’s food bowl. They become pests or pets whether you like it or not. Actually, I like them, but so do enough other folks that they aren’t seriously endangered.
Endangered Production Breeds
BLACK AUSTRALORP: Bred from British Black Orpintons in Australia. One of the best brown-egg layers, and a fine meat bird that dresses out at 4 pounds. Gentle, calm, and well suited to confnement. Glossy black plumage.
BARRED ROCK (OLD STRAIN OF PLYMOUTH ROCK ): Early New England cross of Dominique and Black Java. Persistent layers of brown eggs; yellow skin and heavy body at almost 8 pounds live weight.
CHANTICLEER: Canada’s oldest native-bred strain. A good brooder and mother. Tolerates cold like a musk ox.
DELAWARE: Big dual-purpose bird with white body and black tail feather tips. Good dual-purpose on its own, or cross males with New Hampshire hens for an old-time fast-growing broiler.
DOMINIQUE: Oldest American breed. Medium-sized dual-purpose. Black-and-white-barred plumage with prominent tail feathers. An excellent forager on free range.
DORKING: Ancient breed introduced to England by Romans. Occasional brooder.
JERSEY GIANT (BLACK): To 11 pounds. Originally bred from oriental stock in Jersey in the late 1800s. A huge, gentle bird. Lays brown eggs in all seasons but is a lousy brooder.
NEW HAMPSHIRE: Red-plumed. Developed from Rhode Island Reds for faster maturity, more and larger brown eggs. Broody instinct emerges in same individuals. Reaches 7 pounds.
RHODE ISLAND RED (ORIGINAL STRAIN): A good forager, and some are excellent mothers, though setting instinct has been largely bred out of modern strains. 7 pounds.
WYADOTTES (WHITE): Plump layers of abundant brown eggs. Cockerels flesh out quickly. Makes a marvelous dual-purpose chicken. 6 pounds.
Moderately Endangered Production Breeds
ORPINGTONS: White and Buff (golden) are large bodied with white skin and plump, juicy flesh. Brown eggs. Heavy, to 8 pounds. Fine brooders and mothers.
SPECKLED SUSSEX: Excellent forager and brooder, so especially suitable for a home flock. Medium-heavy at 6 pounds, efficient feed converter of light brown eggs. Spectacular mahogany body with dark tail, white-tipped feathers. Perfect for a small family. Good show birds. (And the next breed we plan to try. Only about $5 more a batch of 25 than more common varieties.)
Killing, plucking, and dressing fowl is the least appetizing part of the process. I’ve always felt that if you eat an animal you have an ethical responsibility to see it through the passing in a humane and respectful manner. But maybe that’s too Native American for modern times. There’s a book out now on chicken mobile-housing and raising by a fellow who recommends you avoid the nasty details by taking birds to a commercial slaughterhouse (for another dollar or three per). Lots-a-luck fading one.
If you’d prefer to leave slaughter to someone else, skip the rest of this section. If you couldn’t dream of eating your birds, you can still raise hens for eggs. When it comes time to replace egged-out hens, put an ad in the paper offering “Laying hens for a dollar apiece.” The price will deter anyone but a mink farmer or someone else with a legitimate use for the birds—who will call, promise to treat your birds humanely, and offer to catch them and take them off your hands for nothing. You’ll probably be happy to accept the offer.
You’ll find more detail in the books recommended on page 39, but here are the basics of the slaughter/dressing process.
Capture birds at night on the roost; cage them and withhold feed (but not water) for 24 hours.
Get a tanner or other large pot of water boiling. Put bird in a killing cone (a metal half-funnel fastened to a wall) or suspend by the legs. Cut the throat just behind the lower beak and bleed out. If you don’t let the bird’s heart pump out blood, you will have “fiery,” inedible chicken.
A better method is to dispatch the upside-down bird instantly by holding the head firmly in one palm and inserting a sharp knife into the mouth, through the soft bone at the back of upper palate, and into the base of the skull. This takes practice but is the quickest, most humane procedure. You will feel the bird relax—feather muscles included—and may be able to pluck without scalding.
If feathers are tight, hold well-bled bird by the feet and immerse m hot (but not boiling) water and agitate long enough to melt fat around feather sockets, but not long enough to cook the skin (swish up and down in hot water for a good 15 seconds or so). Wearing rubber gloves, strip feathers while still steaming hot.
Remove head. feet, and neck; remove swallower tube from neck and attached crop from chest cavity at base of neck. You can scrub the feet thoroughly, boil to a pulp, and strain to get a lovely soup thickener that is used widely in Chinese cooking.
With a sharp, pointed knife, cut skin an inch deep and in a funnel shape (large end inside the bird) all around vent. Open the skin to the keel bone and pull out entrails. Pull fat from inside the carcass and around vent area and rend for cooking. Discard all innards but the familiar heart, liver, and gizzard. Open gizzard and remove girt.
Wash carcass inside and out with clean cold water only, and chill immediately to below 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Cook within three days, or freeze immediately—the giblets separate from carcass.
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The orbiter is built by Rockwell International's Space Transportation Systems Division, Downey, Calif., which also has responsibility for the integration of the overall space transportation system. Both orbiter and integration contracts are under the direction of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
The SRB motors are built by the Wasatch Division of Morton Thiokol Corp., Brigham City, Utah, and are assembled, checked out and refurbished by United Space Boosters Inc., Booster Production Co., Kennedy Space Center. Cape Canaveral, Fla. The external tank is built by Martin Marietta Corp. at its Michoud facility, New Orleans, La., and the Space Shuttle main engines are built by Rockwell's Rocketdyne Division, Canoga Park, Calif. These contracts are under the direction of NASA's George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
Other features of the Shuttle:
The orbiter has carried a flight crew of up to eight persons. A total of 10 persons could be
carried under emergency conditions The basic mission is 7 days in space. The crew compartment has a shirtsleeve environment, and the acceleration load is never greater than 3 Gs. In its return to Earth, the orbiter has a cross-range maneuvering capability of 1,100 nautical miles (1,265 statute miles).
The Space Shuttle is launched in an upright position, with thrust provided by the three Space Shuttle engines and the two SRB. After about 2 minutes, the two boosters are spent and are separated from the external tank. They fall into the ocean at predetermined points and are recovered for reuse.
The Space Shuttle main engines continue firing for about 8 minutes. They shut down just before the craft is inserted into orbit. The external tank is then separated from the orbiter. It follows a ballistic trajectory into a remote area of the ocean but is not recovered.
There are 38 primary Reaction Control System (RCS) engines and six vernier RCS engines located on the orbiter. The first use of selected primary reaction control system engines occurs at orbiter/external tank separation. The selected primary reaction control system engines are used in the separation sequence to provide an attitude hold for separation. Then they move the orbiter away from the external tank to ensure orbiter clearance from the arc of the rotating external tank. Finally, they return to an attitude hold prior to the initiation of the firing of the Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) engines to place the orbiter into orbit.
The two OMS engines are used to place the orbiter on orbit, for major velocity maneuvers on orbit and to slow the orbiter for reentry, called the deorbit maneuver. Normally, two OMS engine thrusting sequences are used to place the orbiter on orbit, and only one thrusting sequence is used for deorbit.
In some missions, only one OMS thrusting sequence is used to place the orbiter on orbit. This is referred to as direct insertion. Direct insertion is a technique used in some missions where there are high-performance requirements, such as a heavy payload or a high orbital altitude. This technique uses the Space Shuttle main engines to achieve the
desired apogee (high point in an orbit) altitude, thus conserving orbital maneuvering system propellants. Following jettison of the external tank, only one OMS thrusting sequence is required to establish the desired orbit altitude.
During the initial entry sequence, selected primary RCS engines are used to control the orbiter's attitude (pitch, roll and yaw). As aerodynamic pressure builds up, the orbiter flight control surfaces become active and the primary reaction control system engines are inhibited.
During entry, the thermal protection system covering the entire orbiter provides the protection for the orbiter to survive the extremely high temperatures encountered during entry. The thermal protection system is reusable (it does not burn off or ablate during entry).
There are two launch sites for the Space Shuttle. Kennedy Space Center.(KSC) in Florida is used for launches to place the orbiter in equatorial orbits (around the equator), and Vandenberg Air Force Base launch site in California will be used for launches that place the orbiter in polar orbit missions.
Landing sites are located at the KSC and Vandenberg. Additional landing sites are provided at Edwards Air Force Base in California and White Sands, N.M. Contingency landing sites are also provided in the event the orbiter must return to Earth in an emergency.
Orbital mechanics and the complexities of mission requirements, plus safety and the possibility of infringement on foreign air and land space, prohibit polar orbit launches from the KSC.
Kennedy Space Center.launches have an allowable path no less than 35 degrees northeast and no greater than 120 degrees southeast. These are azimuth degree readings based on due east from KSC as 90 degrees.
A 35-degree azimuth launch places the spacecraft in an orbital inclination of 57 degrees. This means the spacecraft in its orbital trajectories around the Earth will never exceed an Earth latitude higher or lower than 57 degrees north or south of the equator.
A launch path from KSC at an azimuth of 120 degrees will place the spacecraft in an orbital inclination of 39 degrees (it will be above or below 39 degrees north or south of the equator).
These two azimuths - 35 and 120 degrees - represent the launch limits from the KSC. Any azimuth angles further north or south would launch a spacecraft over a habitable land mass, adversely affect safety provisions for abort or vehicle separation conditions, or present the undesirable possibility that the SRB or external tank could land on foreign land or sea space.
Launches from Vandenberg have an allowable launch path suitable for polar insertions south, southwest and southeast.
The launch limits at Vandenberg are 201 and 158 degrees. At a 201-degree launch azimuth, the spacecraft would be orbiting at a 104-degree inclination. Zero degrees would be due north of the launch site, and the orbital trajectory would be within 14 degrees east or west of the north-south pole meridian. At a launch azimuth of 158 degrees, the spacecraft would be orbiting at a 70-degree inclination, and the trajectory would be within 20 degrees east or west of the polar meridian. Like KSC, Vandenberg has allowable launch azimuths that do not pass over habitable areas or involve safety, abort, separation and political considerations.
Mission requirements and payload weight penalties also are major factors in selecting a launch site.
The Earth rotates from west to east at a speed of approximately 900 nautical miles per hour (1,035 mph). A launch to the east uses the Earth's rotation somewhat as a springboard. The Earth's rotational rate also is the reason the orbiter has a cross-range capability of 1,100 nautical miles (1,265 statute miles) to provide the abort-once-around capability in polar orbit launches.
Attempting to launch and place a spacecraft in polar orbit from KSC to avoid habitable land mass would be uneconomical because the Shuttle's payload would be reduced severely-down to approximately 17,000 pounds. A northerly launch into polar orbit of 8 to 20 degrees azimuth would necessitate a path over a land mass; and most
safety, abort, and political constraints would have to be waived. This prohibits polar orbit launches from the KSC.
maximum Space Shuttle main engine throttle setting of 104 percent. It is noted that the resumption of Space Shuttle flights initially requires more conservative flight design criteria and additional instrumentation, which reduces the following basic capabilities by approximately 1,600 pounds:
¥Kennedy Space Center.Eastern Space and Missile Center (ESMC) satellite deploy missions. The basic cargo-lift capability for a due east (28.5 degrees) launch is 55,000 pounds to a 110-nautical-mile (126-statute-mile) orbit using OV-103 (Discovery) or OV-104 (Atlantis) to support a 4-day satellite deploy mission. This capability will be reduced approximately 100 pounds for each additional nautical mile of altitude desired by the customer.
The payload capability for the same satellite deploy mission with a 57-degree inclination is 41,000 pounds.
The performance for intermediate inclinations can be estimated by allowing 500 pounds per degree of plane change between 28.5 and 57 degrees.
If OV-102 (Columbia) is used, the cargo-lift weight capability must be decreased by approximately 8,400 pounds. This weight difference is attributed to an approximately 7,150-pound difference in inert weight, 850 pounds of orbiter experiments, 300 pounds of additional thermal protection system and 100 pounds to accommodate a fifth cryogenic liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen tank set for the power reactant storage and distribution system.
¥Vandenberg Air Force Base Western Space and Missile Center (WSMC) satellite deploy missions. Using OV-103 (Discovery) or OV-104 (Atlantis), the cargo-lift weight capability is 29,600 pounds for a 98-degree launch inclination and 110-nautical-mile (126-statute-mile) polar orbit. Again, an increase in altitude costs approximately 100 pounds per nautical mile. NASA assumes also that the advanced solid rocket motor will replace the filament-wound solid rocket motor case previously used for western test range assessments. The same mission at 68 degrees inclination (minimum western test range inclination based on range safety limitations) is 49,600 pounds. Performance for intermediate inclinations can be estimated by allowing 660 pounds for each degree of plane change between inclinations of 68 and 98 degrees.
¥Landing weight limits. All the Space Shuttle orbiters are currently limited to a total vehicle landing weight of 240,000 pounds for abort landings and 230,000 pounds for nominal end-of-mission landings. It is noted that each additional crew person beyond the five-person standard is chargeable to the cargo weight allocation and reduces the payload capability by approximately 500 pounds. (This is an increase of 450 pounds to account for the crew escape equipment.)
NASA previously (March 31, 1972) had selected Rockwell's Rocketdyne Division to design and develop the Space Shuttle main engines. Contracts followed to Martin Marietta for the external tank (Aug. 16, 1973) and Morton Thiokol's Wasatch Division for the solid rocket boosters (June 27, 1974).
In addition to the orbiter DDT&E contract, Rockwell's Space Transportation Systems Division was given contractual responsibility as system integrater for the overall Shuttle system.
Rockwell's Launch Operations, part of the Space Transportation Systems Division, was under contract to NASA's Kennedy Space Center.for turnaround, processing, prelaunch testing, and launch and recovery operations from STS-1 through the STS-11 mission.
The first orbiter spacecraft, Enterprise (OV-101), was rolled out on Sept. 17, 1976. On Jan. 31, 1977, it was transported 38 miles overland from Rockwell's assembly facility at Palmdale, Calif., to NASA's Dryden Flight Research Facility at Edwards Air Force Base for the Approach and Landing Test (ALT) program.
The 9-month-long ALT program was conducted from February through November 1977 at Dryden and demonstrated the orbiter could fly in the atmosphere and land like an airplane except without power, a gliding flight.
The ALT program involved ground tests and flight tests.
The ground tests included taxi tests of the 747 shuttle carrier aircraft (SCA) with the Enterprise mated atop the SCA to determine structural loads and responses and assess the mated capability in ground handling and control characteristics up to flight takeoff speed. The taxi tests also validated 747 steering and braking with the orbiter attached. A ground test of orbiter systems followed the unmanned captive tests. All orbiter systems were activated as they would be in atmospheric flight. This was the final preparation for the manned captive-flight phase.
Five captive flights of the Enterprise mounted atop the SCA with the Enterprise unmanned and Enterprise systems inert were conducted to assess the structural integrity and performance-handling qualities of the mated craft.
Three manned captive flights that followed the five unmanned captive flights included an astronaut crew aboard the orbiter operating its flight control systems while the orbiter remained perched atop the SCA. These flights were designed to exercise and evaluate all systems in the flight environment in preparation for the orbiter release (free) flights. They included flutter tests of the mated craft at low and high speed, a separation trajectory test and a dress rehearsal for the first orbiter free flight.
In the five free flights the astronaut crew separated the spacecraft from the SCA and maneuvered to a landing at Edwards Air Force Base. In the first four such flights the landings were on a dry lake bed; in the fifth, the landing was on Edwards' main concrete runway under conditions simulating a return from space. The last two free flights were made without the tail cone, which is the spacecraft's configuration during an actual landing from Earth orbit. These flights verified the orbiter's pilot-guided approach and landing capability; demonstrated the orbiter's subsonic terminal area energy management autoland approach capability; and verified the orbiter's subsonic airworthiness, integrated system operations and selected subsystems in preparation for the first manned orbital flight. The flights demonstrated the orbiter's ability to approach and land safely with a minimum gross weight and using several center-of-gravity configurations.
For all of the captive flights and the first three free flights, the orbiter was outfitted with a tail cone covering its aft section to reduce aerodynamic drag and turbulence. The final two free flights were without the tail cone, and the three simulated Space Shuttle main engines and two orbital maneuvering system engines were exposed aerodynamically.
The final phase of the ALT program prepared the spacecraft for four ferry flights. Fluid systems were drained and purged, the tail cone was reinstalled and elevon locks were installed.
The forward attachment strut was replaced to lower the orbiter's cant from 6 to 3 degrees. This reduces drag to the mated vehicles during the ferry flights.
On March 13, 1978, the Enterprise was ferried atop the SCA to MSFC. At Marshall, Enterprise was mated with the external tank and SRB and subjected to a series of vertical ground vibration tests. These tested the mated configuration's critical structural dynamic response modes, which were assessed against analytical math models used to design the various element interfaces.
These were completed in March 1979. On April 10, 1979 the Enterprise was ferried to Kennedy Space Center. mated with the external tank and SRB and transported via the mobile launcher platform to Launch Complex 39-A. At Launch Complex 39-A, the Enterprise served as a practice and launch complex fit-check verification tool representing the flight vehicles.
It was ferried back to Dryden at Edwards AFB in California on Aug. 16, 1979, and then returned overland to Rockwell's Palmdale final assembly facility on Oct. 30, 1979. Certain components were refurbished for use on flight vehicles being assembled at Palmdale. The Enterprise was then returned overland to Dryden on Sept. 6, 1981.
On Sept. 20, 1985, Enterprise was ferried from Dryden Flight Research Facility to KSC. On Nov. 18, 1985, Enterprise was ferried from KSC to Dulles Airport, Washington, D.C., and became the property of the Smithsonian Institution. The Enterprise was built as a test vehicle and is not equipped for space flight.
The second orbiter, Columbia (OV-102), was the first to fly into space. it was transported overland on March 8, 1979, from Palmdale to Dryden for mating atop the SCA and ferried to KSC. It arrived on March 25, 1979, to begin preparations for the first flight into space.
The structural test article, after 11 months of extensive testing at Lockheed's facility in Palmdale, was returned to Rockwell's Palmdale facility for modification to become the second orbiter available for operational missions. it was redesignated OV-099, the Challenger.
The main propulsion test article (MPTS-098) consisted of an orbiter aft fuselage, a truss arrangement that simulated the orbiter's mid-fuselage and the Shuttle main propulsion system (three Space Shuttle main engines and the external tank). This test structure is at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. A series of static firings was conducted from 1978 through 1981 in support of the first flight into space.
On Jan. 29, 1979, NASA contracted with Rockwell to manufacture two additional orbiters, OV-103 and OV-104 (Discovery and Atlantis), convert the structural test article to space flight configuration (Challenger) and modify Columbia from its development configuration to that required for operational flights.
NASA named the first four orbiter spacecraft after famous exploration sailing ships. In the order they became operational, they are: Columbia (OV-102), after a sailing frigate launched in 1836, one of the first Navy ships to circumnavigate the globe. Columbia also was the name of the Apollo 11 command module that carried Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edward (Buzz) Aldrin on the first lunar landing mission, July 20, 1969. Columbia was delivered to Rockwell's Palmdale assembly facility for modifications on Jan. 30, 1984, and was returned to KSC on July 14, 1985, for return to flight. Challenger (OV-099), also a Navy ship, which from 1872 to 1876 made a prolonged exploration of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It also was used in the Apollo program for the Apollo 17 lunar module. Challenger was delivered to DSC on July 5, 1982. Discovery (OV-103), after two ships, the vessel in which Henry Hudson in 1610-11 attempted to search for a northwest passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and instead discovered Hudson Bay and the ship in which Capt. Cook discovered the Hawaiian Islands and explored southern Alaska and western Canada. Discovery was delivered to KSC on Nov. 9, 1983. Atlantis (OV-104), after a two-masted ketch operated for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute from 1930 to 1966, which traveled more than half a million miles in ocean research. Atlantis was delivered to KSC on April 3, 1985.
In April 1983, under contract to NASA, Rockwell's Space Transportation Systems Division, Downey, Calif., began the construction of structural spares for completion in 1987. The structural spares program consisted of an aft fuselage, crew compartment, forward reaction control system, lower and upper forward fuselage, mid-fuselage, wings (elevons), payload bay doors, vertical stabilizer (rudder/speed brake), body flap and one set of orbital maneuvering system/reaction control system pods.
On Sept. 12, 1985, Rockwell International's Shuttle Operations Co., Houston, Texas, was awarded the Space Transportation System operation contract at NASA's Johnson Space Center, consolidating work previously performed under 22 contracts by 16 different contractors.
On July 31, 1987, NASA awarded Rockwell's Space Transportation Systems Division, Downey, Calif., a contract to build a replacement Space Shuttle orbiter using the structural spares. The replacement orbiter will be assembled at Rockwell's Palmdale, Calif., assembly facility and is scheduled for completion in 1991. This orbiter is designated OV-105.
Emergency exit for the flight crew on the launch pad up to 30 seconds before liftoff is by slidewire. There are seven 1,200-foot-long slidewires, each with one basket. Each basket is designed to carry three persons. The baskets, 5 feet in diameter and 42 inches deep, are suspended beneath the slide mechanism by four cables. The slidewires carry the baskets to ground level. Upon departing the basket at ground level, the flight crew progresses to a bunker that is designed to protect it from an explosion on the launch pad.
At launch, the three Space Shuttle main engines - fed liquid hydrogen fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer from the external tank - are ignited first. When it has been verified that the engines are operating at the proper thrust level, a signal is sent to ignite the SRB. At the proper thrust-to-weight ratio, initiators (small explosives) at eight hold-down bolts on the SRB are fired to release the Space Shuttle for liftoff. All this takes only a few seconds.
Maximum dynamic pressure is reached early in the ascent, nominally approximately 60 seconds after liftoff. Approximately 1 minute later (2 minutes into the ascent phase), the two SRB have consumed their propellant and are jettisoned from the external tank. This is triggered by a separation signal from the orbiter.
The boosters briefly continue to ascend, while small motors fire to carry them away from the Space Shuttle. The boosters then turn and descend, and at a predetermined altitude, parachutes are deployed to decelerate them for a safe splashdown in the ocean. Splashdown occurs approximately 141 nautical miles (162 statute miles) from the launch site. The boosters are recovered and reused.
Meanwhile, the orbiter and external tank continue to ascend, using the thrust of the three Space Shuttle main engines. Approximately 8 minutes after launch and just short of orbital velocity, the three Space Shuttle engines are shut down (main engine cutoff), and the external tank is jettisoned on command from the orbiter.
The forward and aft reaction control system engines provide attitude (pitch, yaw and roll) and the translation of the orbiter away from the external tank at separation and return to attitude hold prior to the orbital maneuvering system thrusting maneuver.
The external tank continues on a ballistic trajectory and enters the atmosphere, where it disintegrates. Its projected impact is in the Indian Ocean (except for 57-degree inclinations) in the case of equatorial orbits KSC launch) and in the extreme southern Pacific Ocean in the case of a Vandenberg launch.
Normally, two thrusting maneuvers using the two OMS engines at the aft end of the orbiter are used in a two-step thrusting sequence: to complete insertion into Earth orbit and to circularize the spacecraft's orbit. The OMS engines are also used on orbit for any major velocity changes.
In the event of a direct-insertion mission, only one OMS thrusting sequence is used.
The orbital altitude of a mission is dependent upon that mission. The nominal altitude can vary between 100 to 217 nautical miles (115 to 250 statute miles).
The reaction control system turns the orbiter's nose forward for entry. The reaction control system controls the orbiter until atmospheric density is sufficient for the pitch and roll aerodynamic control surfaces to become effective.
Entry interface is considered to occur at 400,000 feet altitude approximately 4,400 nautical miles (5,063 statute miles) from the landing site and at approximately 25,000 feet per second velocity.
At 400,000 feet altitude, the orbiter is maneuvered to zero degrees roll and yaw (wings level) and at a predetermined angle of attack for entry. The angle of attack is 40 degrees. The flight control system issues the commands to roll, pitch and yaw reaction control system jets for rate damping.
The forward RCS engines are inhibited prior to entry interface, and the aft reaction control system engines maneuver the spacecraft until a dynamic pressure of 10 pounds per square foot is sensed, which is when the orbiter's ailerons become effective. The aft RCS roll engines are then deactivated. At a dynamic pressure of 20 pounds per square foot, the orbiter's elevators become active, and the aft RCS pitch engines are deactivated. The orbiter's speed brake is used below Mach 10 to induce a more positive downward elevator trim deflection. At approximately Mach 3.5, the rudder becomes activated, and the aft reaction control system yaw engines are deactivated at 45,000 feet.
Entry guidance must dissipate the tremendous amount of energy the orbiter possesses when it enters the Earth's atmosphere to assure that the orbiter does not either burn up (entry angle too steep) or skip out of the atmosphere (entry angle too shallow) and that the orbiter is properly positioned to reach the desired touchdown point.
During entry, energy is dissipated by the atmospheric drag on the orbiter's surface. Higher atmospheric drag levels enable faster energy dissipation with a steeper trajectory. Normally, the angle of attack and roll angle enable the atmospheric drag of any flight vehicle to be controlled. However, for the orbiter, angle of attack was rejected because it creates surface temperatures above the design specification. The angle of attack scheduled during entry is loaded into the orbiter computers as a function of relative velocity, leaving roll angle for energy control. Increasing the roll angle decreases the vertical component of lift, causing a higher sink rate and energy dissipation rate. Increasing the roll rate does raise the surface temperature of the orbiter, but not nearly as drastically as an equal angle of attack command.
If the orbiter is low on energy (current range-to-go much greater than nominal at current velocity), entry guidance will command lower than nominal drag levels. If the orbiter has too much energy (current range-to-go much less than nominal at the current velocity), entry guidance will command higher-than-nominal drag levels to dissipate the extra energy.
Roll angle is used to control cross range. Azimuth error is the angle between the plane containing the orbiter's position vector and the heading alignment cylinder tangency point and the plane containing the orbiter's position vector and velocity vector. When the azimuth error exceeds a computer-loaded number, the orbiter's roll angle is reversed.
Thus, descent rate and down ranging are controlled by bank angle. The steeper the bank angle, the greater the descent rate and the greater the drag. Conversely, the minimum drag attitude is wings level. Cross range is controlled by bank reversals.
The equilibrium glide phase shifts the orbiter from the rapidly increasing drag levels of the temperature control phase to the constant drag level of the constant drag phase. The equilibrium glide flight is defined as flight in which the flight path angle, the angle between the local horizontal and the local velocity vector, remains constant. Equilibrium glide flight provides the maximum downrange capability. It lasts until the drag acceleration reaches 33 feet per second squared.
The constant drag phase begins at that point. The angle of attack is initially 40 degrees, but it begins to ramp down in this phase to approximately 36 degrees by the end of this phase.
In the transition phase, the angle of attack continues to ramp down, reaching the approximately 14-degree angle of attack at the entry Terminal Area Energy Management (TAEM) interface, at approximately 83,000 feet altitude, 2,500 feet per second, Mach 2.5 and 52 nautical miles (59 statute miles) from the landing runway. Control is then transferred to TAEM guidance.
TAEM guidance steers the orbiter to the nearest of two heading alignment cylinders, whose radii are approximately 18,000 feet and which are located tangent to and on either side of the runway centerline on the approach end. In TAEM guidance, excess energy is dissipated with an S-turn; and the speed brake can be used to modify drag, lift-to-drag ratio and flight path angle in high-energy conditions. This increases the ground track range as the orbiter turns away from the nearest Heading Alignment Circle (HAC) until sufficient energy is dissipated to allow a normal approach and landing guidance phase capture, which begins at 10,000 feet altitude. The orbiter also can be flown near the velocity for maximum lift over drag or wings level for the range stretch case. The spacecraft slows to subsonic velocity at approximately 49,000 feet altitude, about 22 nautical miles (25.3 statute miles) from the landing site.
At TAEM acquisition, the orbiter is turned until it is aimed at a point tangent to the nearest HAC and continues until it reaches way point 1. At WP-1, the TAEM heading alignment phase begins. The HAC is followed until landing runway alignment, plus or minus 20 degrees, has been achieved. In the TAEM pre-final phase, the orbiter leaves the HAC; pitches down to acquire the steep glide slope, increases airspeed; banks to acquire the runway centerline and continues until on the runway centerline, on the outer glide slope and on airspeed. The approach and landing guidance phase begins with the completion of the TAEM pre-final phase and ends when the spacecraft comes to a complete stop on the runway.
The approach and landing trajectory capture phase begins at the TAEM interface and continues to guidance lock-on to the steep outer glide slope. The approach and landing phase begins at about 10,000 feet altitude at an equivalent airspeed of 290, plus or minus 12, knots 6.9 nautical miles (7.9 statute miles) from touchdown. Autoland guidance is initiated at this point to guide the orbiter to the minus 19- to 17-degree glide slope (which is over seven times that of a commercial airliner's approach) aimed at a target 0.86 nautical mile (1 statute mile) in front of the runway. The spacecraft's speed brake is positioned to hold the proper velocity. The descent rate in the later portion of TAEM and approach and landing is greater than 10,000 feet per minute (a rate of descent approximately 20 times higher than a commercial airliner's standard 3-degree instrument approach angle).
At 1,750 feet above ground level, a pre-flare maneuver is started to position the spacecraft for a 1.5-degree glide slope in preparation for landing with the speed brake positioned as required. The flight crew deploys the landing gear at this point.
The final phase reduces the sink rate of the spacecraft to less than 9 feet per second. Touchdown occurs approximately 2,500 feet past the runway threshold at a speed of 184 to 196 knots (213 to 226 mph).
ABORTS. Selection of an ascent abort mode may become necessary if there is a failure that affects vehicle performance, such as the failure of a Space Shuttle main engine or an orbital maneuvering system. Other failures requiring early termination of a flight, such as a cabin leak, might require the selection of an abort mode.
There are two basic types of ascent abort modes for Space Shuttle missions: intact aborts and contingency aborts. Intact aborts are designed to provide a safe return of the orbiter to a planned landing site. Contingency aborts are designed to permit flight crew survival following more sever failures when an intact abort is not possible. A contingency abort would generally result in a ditch operation.
The ATO mode is designed to allow the vehicle to achieve a temporary orbit that is lower than the nominal orbit. This mode requires less performance and allows time to evaluate problems and then choose either an early deorbit maneuver or an orbital maneuvering system thrusting maneuver to raise the orbit and continue the mission.
The AOA is designed to allow the vehicle to fly once around the Earth and make a normal entry and landing. This mode generally involves two orbital maneuvering system thrusting sequences, with the second sequence being a deorbit maneuver. The entry sequence would be similar to a normal entry.
The TAL mode is designed to permit an intact landing on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. This mode results in a ballistic trajectory, which does not require an orbital maneuvering system maneuver.
There is a definite order of preference for the various abort modes. The type of failure and the time of the failure determine which type of abort is selected. In cases where performance loss is the only factor, the preferred modes would be ATO, AOA, TAL and RTLS, in that order. The mode chosen is the highest one that can be completed with the remaining vehicle performance. In the case of some support system failures, such as cabin leaks or vehicle cooling problems, the preferred mode might be the one that will end the mission most quickly. In these cases, TAL or RTLS might be preferable to AOA or ATO. A contingency abort is never chosen if another abort option exists.
The Mission Control Center-Houston is prime for calling these aborts because it has a more precise knowledge of the orbiter's position than the crew can obtain from onboard systems. Before main engine cutoff, Mission Control makes periodic calls to the crew to tell them which abort mode is (or is not) available. If ground communications are lost, the flight crew has onboard methods, such as cue cards, dedicated displays and display information, to determine the current abort region.
Which abort mode is selected depends on the cause and timing of the failure causing the abort and which mode is safest or improves mission success. If the problem is a Space Shuttle main engine failure, the flight crew and Mission Control Center select the best option available at the time a space shuttle main engine fails.
If the problem is a system failure that jeopardizes the vehicle, the fastest abort mode that results in the earliest vehicle landing is chosen. RTLS and TAL are the quickest options (35 minutes), whereas an AOA requires approximately 90 minutes. Which of these is elected depends on the time of the failure with three good Space Shuttle main engines.
The flight crew selects the abort mode by positioning an abort mode switch and depressing an abort push button.
RETURN TO LAUNCH SITE. The RTLS abort mode is designed to allow the return of the orbiter, crew, and payload to the launch site, Kennedy Space Center. approximately 25 minutes after lift-off. The RTLS profile is designed to accommodate the loss of thrust from one space shuttle main engine between liftoff and approximately four minutes 20 seconds, at which time not enough main propulsion system propellant remains to return to the launch site.
An RTLS can be considered to consist of three stages -- a powered stage, during which the main engines are still thrusting; an ET separation phase; and the glide phase, during which the orbiter glides to a landing at the KSC. The powered RTLS phase begins with the crew selection of the RTLS abort, which is done after SRB separation. The crew selects the abort mode by positioning the abort rotary switch to RTLS and depressing the abort push button. The time at which the RTLS is selected depends on the reason for the abort. For example, a three-engine RTLS is selected at the last moment, approximately 3 minutes, 34 seconds into the mission; whereas an RTLS chosen due to an engine out at liftoff is selected at the earliest time, approximately two minutes 20 seconds into the mission (after SOR separation).
After RTLS is selected, the vehicle continues downrange to dissipate excess main propulsion system propellant. The goal is to leave only enough main propulsion system propellant to be able to turn the vehicle around, fly back towards KSC and achieve the proper main engine cutoff conditions so the vehicle can glide to the KSC after external tank separation. During the downrange phase, a pitch-around maneuver is initiated (the time depends in part on the time of a main engine failure) to orient the orbiter/ external tank configuration to a heads up attitude, pointing toward the launch site. At this time, the vehicle is still moving away from the launch site, but the main engines are now thrusting to null the downrange velocity. In addition, excess orbital maneuvering system and reaction control system propellants are dumped by continuous orbital maneuvering system and reaction control system engine thrustings to improve the orbiter weight and center of gravity for the glide phase and landing.
The vehicle will reach the desired main engine cutoff point with less than 2 percent excess propellant remaining in the external tank. At main engine cutoff minus 20 seconds, a pitch-down maneuver (called powered pitch-down) takes the mated vehicle to the required external tank separation attitude and pitch rate. After main engine cutoff has been commanded, the external tank separation sequence begins, including a reaction control system translation that ensures that the orbiter does not recontact the external tank and that the orbiter has achieved the necessary pitch attitude to begin the glide phase of the RTLS.
TRANSATLANTIC LANDING ABORT. The TAL abort mode was developed to improve the options available when a main engine fails after the last RTLS opportunity but before the first time that an AOA can be accomplished with only two main engines or when a major orbiter system failure, for example, a large cabin pressure leak or cooling system failure, occurs after the last RTLS opportunity, making it imperative to land as quickly as possible.
In a TAL abort, the vehicle continues on a ballistic trajectory across the Atlantic Ocean to land at a predetermined runway. Landing occurs approximately 45 minutes after launch. The landing site is selected near the nominal ascent ground track of the orbiter in order to make the most efficient use of space shuttle main engine propellant. The landing site also must have the necessary runway length, weather conditions and U.S. State Department approval. Currently, the three landing sites that have been identified for a due east launch are Moron, Spain; Banjul, The Gambia; and Ben Guerir, Morocco.
To select the TAL abort mode, the crew must place the abort rotary switch in the TAL/AOA position and depress the abort push button before main engine cutoff. (Depressing it after main engine cutoff selects the AOA abort mode.) The TAL abort mode begins sending commands to steer the vehicle toward the plane of the landing site. It also rolls the vehicle heads up before main engine cutoff and sends commands to begin an orbital maneuvering system propellant dump (by burning the propellants through the orbital maneuvering system engines and the reaction control system engines). This dump is necessary to increase vehicle performance (by decreasing weight), to place the center of gravity in the proper place for vehicle control, and to decrease the vehicle's landing weight. TAL is handled like a nominal entry.
ABORT TO ORBIT. An ATO is an abort mode used to boost the orbiter to a safe orbital altitude when performance has been lost and it is impossible to reach the planned orbital altitude. If a Space Shuttle main engine fails in a region that results in a main engine cutoff under speed, the Mission Control Center will determine that an abort mode is necessary and will inform the crew. The orbital maneuvering system engines would be used to place the orbiter in a circular orbit.
ABORT ONCE AROUND. The AOA abort mode is used in cases in which vehicle performance has been lost to such an extent that either it is impossible to achieve a viable orbit or not enough Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) propellant is available to accomplish the OMS thrusting maneuver to place the orbiter on orbit and the deorbit thrusting maneuver. In addition, an AOA is used in cases in which a major systems problem (cabin leak, loss of cooling) makes it necessary to land quickly. In the AOA abort mode, one OMS thrusting sequence is made to adjust the post-main engine cutoff orbit so a second orbital maneuvering system thrusting sequence will result in the vehicle deorbiting and landing at the AOA landing site (White Sands, N.M.; Edwards AFB; or KSC). Thus, an AOA results in the orbiter circling the Earth once and landing approximately 90 minutes after liftoff.
CONTINGENCY ABORT. Contingency aborts are caused by loss of more than one main engine or failures in other systems. Loss of one main engine while another is stuck at a low thrust setting may also necessitate a contingency abort. Such an abort would maintain orbiter integrity for in-flight crew escape if a landing cannot be achieved at a suitable landing field.
Contingency aborts due to system failures other than those involving the main engines would normally result in an intact recovery of vehicle and crew. Loss of more than one main engine may, depending on engine failure times, result in a safe runway landing. However, in most three-engine-out cases during ascent, the orbiter would have to be ditched. The in-flight crew escape system would be used before ditching the orbiter.
A ground support equipment air-conditioning purge unit is attached to the right-hand orbiter T-0 umbilical so cool air can be directed through the orbiter's aft fuselage, payload bay, forward fuselage, wings, vertical stabilizer, and orbital maneuvering system/reaction control system pods to dissipate the heat of entry.
A second ground support equipment ground cooling unit is connected to the left-hand orbiter T-0 umbilical spacecraft Freon Coolant loops to provide cooling for the flight crew and avionics during the postlanding and system checks. The spacecraft fuel cells remain powered up at this time. The flight crew will then exit the spacecraft, and a ground crew will power down the spacecraft.
If the spacecraft lands at Edwards, the same procedures and ground support equipment are used as at the KSC after the orbiter has stopped on the runway. The orbiter and ground support equipment convoy move from the runway to the orbiter mate and demate facility at Edwards. After detailed inspection, the spacecraft is prepared to be ferried atop the Shuttle carrier aircraft from Edwards to KSC. For ferrying, a tail cone is installed over the aft section of the orbiter.
In the event of a landing at an alternate site, a crew of about eight team members will move to the landing site to assist the astronaut crew in preparing the orbiter for loading aboard the Shuttle carrier aircraft for transport back to the KSC. For landings outside the United States, personnel at the contingency landing sites will be provided minimum training on safe handling of the orbiter with emphasis on crash rescue training, how to tow the orbiter to a safe area, and prevention of propellant conflagration.
Upon its return to the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) at KSC, the orbiter is safed (ordnance devices safed), the payload (if any) is removed, and the orbiter payload bay is reconfigured from the previous mission for the next mission. Any required maintenance and inspections are also performed while the orbiter is in the OPF. A payload for the orbiter's next mission may be installed in the orbiter's payload bay in the OPF or may be installed in the payload bay when the orbiter is at the launch pad.
The spacecraft is then towed to the Vehicle Assembly Building and mated to the external tank. The external tank and solid rocket boosters are stacked and mated on the mobile launcher platform while the orbiter is being refurbished. Space Shuttle orbiter connections are made and the integrated vehicle is checked and ordnance is installed.
The mobile launcher platform moves the entire space shuttle system on four crawlers to the launch pad, where connections are made and servicing and checkout activities begin. If the payload was not installed in the OPF, it will be installed at the launch pad followed by prelaunch activities.
Space Shuttle launches from Vandenberg will use the Vandenberg Launch Facility (SL6), which was built but never used for the manned orbital laboratory program. This facility was modified for Space Transportation System use.
The runway at Vandenberg was strengthened and lengthened from 8,000 feet to 12,000 feet to accommodate the orbiter returning from space.
When the orbiter lands at Vandenberg, the same procedures and ground support equipment and convoy are used as at KSC after the orbiter stops on the runway. The orbiter and ground support equipment are moved from the runway to the Orbiter Maintenance and Checkout Facility at Vandenberg. The orbiter processing procedures used at this facility are similar to those used at the OPF at the KSC.
Space Shuttle buildup at Vandenberg differs from that of the KSC in that the vehicle is integrated on the launch pad. The orbiter is towed overland from the Orbiter Maintenance and Checkout Facility at Vandenberg to launch facility SL6.
SL6 includes the launch mount, access tower, mobile service tower, launch control tower, payload preparation room, payload changeout room, solid rocket booster refurbishment facility, solid rocket booster disassembly facility, and liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen storage tank facilities.
The launch processing system at the launch pad is similar to the one used at KSC.
Kennedy Space Center.Launch Operations has responsibility for all mating, prelaunch testing and launch control ground activities until the Space Shuttle vehicle clears the launch pad tower. Responsibility is then turned over to Mission Control Center-Houston. The Mission Control Center's responsibility includes ascent, on-orbit operations, entry, approach and landing until landing runout completion, at which time the orbiter is handed over to the postlanding operations at the landing site for turnaround and re-launch. At the launch site the SRBs and external tank are processed for launch and the SRBs are recycled for reuse.
ORBITAL MANEUVERING SYSTEM AND REACTION CONTROL SYSTEM AC-MOTOR-OPERATED VALVES. The 64 valves operated by AC-motors in the OMS and RCS were modified to incorporate a "sniff" line for each valve to permit monitoring of nitrogen tetroxide or monomethyl hydrazine in the electrical portion of the valves during ground operations. This new line reduces the probability of floating particles in the electrical microswitch portion of each valve, which could affect the operation of the microswitch position indicators for onboard displays and telemetry. It also reduces the probability of nitrogen tetroxide or monomethyl hydrazine leakage into the bellows of each ac-motor-operated valve.
PRIMARY REACTION CONTROL SYSTEM THRUSTERS. The wiring of the fuel and oxidizer injector solenoid valves was wrapped around each of the 38 primary RCS thrust chambers to remove electrical power from these valves in the event of a primary RCS thruster instability.
FUEL CELL POWER PLANTS. End-cell heaters on each fuel cell power plant were deleted because of potential electrical failures and replaced with Freon coolant loop passages to maintain uniform temperature throughout the power plants. In addition, the hydrogen pump and water separator of each fuel cell power plant were improved to minimize excessive hydrogen gas entrained in the power plant product water. A current measurement detector was added to monitor the hydrogen pump of each fuel cell power plant and provide an early indication of hydrogen pump overload.
The starting and sustaining heater system for each fuel cell power plant was modified to prevent overheating and loss of heater elements. A stack inlet temperature measurement was added to each fuel cell power plant for full visibility of thermal conditions.
The product water from all three fuel cell power plants flows to a single water relief control panel. The water can be directed from the single panel to the Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) potable water tank A or to the fuel cell power plant water relief nozzle. Normally, the water is directed to water tank A. In the event of a line rupture in the vicinity of the single water relief panel, water could spray on all three water relief panel lines causing them to freeze and preventing water discharge.
The product water lines from all three fuel cell power plants were modified to incorporate a parallel (redundant) path of product water to ECLSS potable water tank B in the event of a freeze-up in the single water relief panel. If the single water relief panel freezes up, pressure would build up and discharge through the redundant paths to water tank B.
A water purity sensor (pH) was added at the common product water outlet of the water relief panel to provide a redundant measurement of water purity (a single measurement of water purity in each fuel cell power plant was provided previously). If the fuel cell power plant pH sensor failed in the past, the flight crew had to sample the potable water.
AUXILIARY POWER UNITS. The APUs that have been in use to date have a limited life. Each unit was refurbished after 25 hours of operation because of cracks in the turbine housing, degradation of the gas generator catalyst (which varied up to approximately 30 hours of operation) and operation of the gas generator valve module (which also varied up to approximately 30 hours of operation). The remaining parts of the APU were qualified for 40 hours of operation.
Improved APUs are scheduled for delivery in late 1988. A new turbine housing increases the life of the housing to 75 hours of operation (50 missions); a new gas generator increases its life to 75 hours; a new standoff design of the gas generator valve module and fuel pump deletes the requirement for a water spray system that was required previously for each APU upon shutdown after the first OMS thrusting period or orbital checkout; and the addition of a third seal in the middle of the two existing seals for the shaft of the fuel pump/lube oil system (previously only two seals were located on the shaft, one on the fuel pump side and one on the gearbox lube oil side) reduces the probability of hydrazine leaking into the lube oil system.
The deletion of the water spray system for the gas generator valve module and fuel pump for each APU results in a weight reduction of approximately 150 pounds for each orbiter. Upon the delivery of the improved units, the life-limited APUs will be refurbished to the upgraded design.
In the even that a fuel tank valve switch in an auxiliary power unit is inadvertently left on or an electrical short occurs within the valve electrical coil, additional protection is provided to prevent overheating of the fuel isolation valves.
¥The thickness of the main landing gear axle was increased to provide a stiffer configuration that reduces brake-to-axle deflections and precludes brake damage experienced in previous landings. The thicker axle should also minimize tire wear.
¥Orifices were added to hydraulic passages in the brake's piston housing to prevent pressure surges and brake damage caused by a wobble/pump effect.
¥The electronic brake control boxes were modified to balance hydraulic pressure between adjacent brakes and equalize energy applications. The anti-skid circuitry previously used to reduce brake pressure to the opposite wheel if a flat tire was detected has now been removed.
¥The carbon-lined beryllium stator discs in each main landing gear brake were replaced with thicker discs to increase braking energy significantly.
¥A long-term structural carbon brake program is in progress to replace the carbon-lined beryllium stator discs with a carbon configuration that provides higher braking capacity by increasing maximum energy absorption.
Other studies involve arresting barriers at the end of landing site runways (except lakebed runways), installing a skid on the landing gear that could preclude the potential for a second blown tire on the same gear after the first tire has blown, providing "roll on rim" for a predictable roll if both tires are lost on a single or multiple gear and adding a drag chute.
Studies of landing gear tire improvements are being conducted to determine how best to decrease tire wear observed after previous KSC landings and how to improve crosswind landing capability.
Modifications were made to the KSC Shuttle Landing Facility runway. The full 300-foot width of 3,500-foot sections at both ends of the runway were ground to smooth the runway surface texture and remove cross grooves. The modified corduroy ridges are smaller than those they replaced and run the length of the runway rather than across its width. The existing landing zone light fixtures were also modified, and the markings of the entire runway and overruns were repainted. The primary purpose of the modifications is to enhance safety by reducing tire wear during landing.
NOSE WHEEL STEERING. The nose wheel steering system was modified on Columbia (OV-102) for the 61-C mission, and Discovery (OV-103) and Atlantis (OV-104) are being similarly modified before their return to flight. The modification allows a safe high-speed engagement of the nose wheel steering system and provides positive lateral directional control of the orbiter during rollout in the presence of high crosswinds and blown tires.
THERMAL PROTECTION SYSTEM. The area aft of the reinforced carbon-carbon nose cap to the nose landing gear doors has sustained damage (tile slumping) during flight operations from impact during ascent and overheating during reentry. This area, which previously was covered with high-temperature reusable surface insulation tiles, will now be covered with reinforced carbon-carbon.
Because of evidence of plasma flow on the lower wing trailing edge and elevon landing edge tiles (wing/elevon cove) at the outboard elevon tip and inboard elevon, the low-temperature tiles are being replaced with Fibrous Refractory Composite Insulation (FRC1-12) and High-Temperature (HRSI-22) tiles along with gap fillers on Discovery and Atlantis. On Columbia only gap fillers are installed in this area.
WING MODIFICATION. Before the wings for Discovery and Atlantis were manufactured, a weight reduction program was instituted that resulted in a redesign of certain areas of the wing structure. An assessment of wing air loads from actual flight data indicated greater loads on the wing structure than predicted. To maintain positive margins of safety during ascent, structural modifications were incorporated into certain areas of the wings.
MID-FUSELAGE MODIFICATIONS. Because of additional detailed analysis of actual flight data concerning descent-stress thermal-gradient loads, torsional straps were added to tie all the lower mid-fuselage stringers in bays 1 through 11 together in a manner similar to a box section. This eliminates rotational (torsional) capabilities to provide positive margins of safety.
Also, because of the detailed analysis of actual descent flight data, room-temperature vulcanizing silicone rubber material was bonded to the lower mid-fuselage from bays 4 through 11 to act as a heat sink, distributing temperatures evenly across the bottom of the mid-fuselage, reducing thermal gradients and ensuring positive margins of safety.
GENERAL ,PURPOSE COMPUTERS. New upgraded General Purpose Computers (GPC), IBM AP-101S, will replace the existing GPCs aboard the Space Shuttle orbiters in late 1988 or early 1989. The upgraded computers allow NASA to incorporate more capabilities into the orbiters and apply advanced computer technologies that were not available when the orbiter was first designed. The new computer design began in January 1984, whereas the older design began in January 1972. The upgraded GPCs provide two-and-a-half times the existing memory capacity and up to three times the existing processor speed with minimum impact on flight software. They are half the size, weigh approximately half as much, and require less power to operate.
INERTIAL MEASUREMENT UNITS. The new High-Accuracy Inertial Navigation System (HAINS) will be phased in in 1988-89 to augment the present KT-70 inertial measurement units . These new Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) will result in lower program costs over the next decade, ongoing production support, improved performance, lower failure rates and reduced size and weight. The HAINS IMUs also contain an internal dedicated microprocessor with memory for processing and storing compensation and scale factor data from the IMU manufacturer's calibration, thereby reducing the need for extensive initial load data for the orbiter's computers. The HAINS is both physically and functionally interchangeable with the KT-70 IMU.
CREW ESCAPE SYSTEM. The in-flight crew escape system is provided for use only when the orbiter is in controlled gliding flight and unable to reach a runway. This would normally lead to ditching. The crew escape system provides the flight crew with an alternative to water ditching or to landing on terrain other than a landing site. The probability of the flight crew surviving a ditching is very small.
The hardware changes required to the orbiters would enable the flight crew to equalize the pressurized crew compartment with the outside pressure via a depressurization valve opened by pyrotechnics in the crew compartment aft bulkhead that would be manually activated by a flight crew member in the middeck of the crew compartment; pyrotechnically jettison the crew ingress/ egress side hatch in the middeck of the crew compartment; and bail out from the middeck of the orbiter through the ingress/ egress side hatch opening after manually deploying the escape pole through, outside and down from the side hatch opening. One by one, each crew member attaches a lanyard hook assembly, which surrounds the deployed escape pole, to his parachute harness and egresses through the side hatch opening. Attached to the escape pole, the crew member slides down the pole and off the end. The escape pole provides a trajectory that takes the crew members below the orbiter's left wing.
Changes were also made in the software of the orbiter's general purpose computers. The software changes were required for the primary avionics software system and the backup flight system for transatlantic-landing and glide-return-to-launch-site aborts. The changes provide the orbiter with an automatic-mode input by the flight crew through keyboards on the commander's and/or pilot's panel C3, which provides the orbiter with an automatic stable flight for crew bailout.
The side hatch jettison feature also could be used in a landing emergency.
EMERGENCY EGRESS SLIDE. The emergency egress slide provides orbiter flight crew members with a means for rapid and safe exit through the orbiter middeck ingress/egress side hatch after a normal opening of the side hatch or after jettisoning the side hatch at the nominal end-of-mission landing site or at a remote or emergency landing site.
The emergency egress slide replaces the emergency egress side hatch bar, which required the flight crew members to drop approximately 10.5 feet to the ground. The previous arrangement could have injured crew members or prevented an already-injured crew member from evacuating and moving a safe distance from the orbiter.
17-INCH ORBITER/EXTERNAL TANK DISCONNECTS. Each mated pair of 17-inch disconnects contains two flapper valves: one on the orbiter side and one on the external tank side. Both valves in each disconnect pair are opened to permit propellant flow between the orbiter and the external tank. Prior to separation from the external tank, both valves in each mated pair of disconnects are commanded closed by pneumatic (helium) pressure from the main propulsion system. The closure of both valves in each disconnect pair prevents propellant discharge from the external tank or orbiter at external tank separation. Valve closure on the orbiter side of each disconnect also prevents contamination of the orbiter main propulsion system during landing and ground operations.
Inadvertent closure of either valve in a 17-inch disconnect during main engine thrusting would stop propellant flow from the external tank to all three main engines. Catastrophic failure of the main engines and external tank feed lines would result.
To prevent inadvertent closure of the 17-inch disconnect valves during the Space Shuttle main engine thrusting period, a latch mechanism was added in each orbiter half of the disconnect. The latch mechanism provides a mechanical backup to the normal fluid-induced-open forces. The latch is mounted on a shaft in the flowstream so that it overlaps both flappers and obstructs closure for any reason.
In preparation for external tank separation, both valves in each 17-inch disconnect are commanded closed. Pneumatic pressure from the main propulsion system causes the latch actuator to rotate the shaft in each orbiter 17-inch disconnect 90 degrees, thus freeing the flapper valves to close as required for external tank separation.
A backup mechanical separation capability is provided in case a latch pneumatic actuator malfunctions. When the orbiter umbilical initially moves away from the ET umbilical, the mechanical latch disengages from the ET flapper valve and permits the orbiter disconnect flapper to toggle the latch. This action permits both flappers to close.
In addition to the Phase II improvements, additional changes in the SSME have been incorporated to further extend the engines' margin and durability. The main changes were to the high-pressure turbo-machinery, main combustion chamber, hydraulic actuators and high-pressure turbine discharge temperature sensors. Changes were also made in the controller software to improve engine control.
Minor high-pressure turbo-machinery design changes resulted in margin improvements to the turbine blades, thereby extending the operating life of the turbopumps. These changes included applying surface texture to important parts of the fuel turbine blades to improve the material properties in the pressure of hydrogen and incorporating a damper into the high-pressure oxidizer turbine blades to reduce vibration.
Main combustion chamber life has been increased by plating a welded outlet manifold with nickel. Margin improvements have also been made to five hydraulic actuators to preclude a loss in redundancy on the launch pad. Improvements in quality have been incorporated into the servo-component coil design along with modifications to increase margin. To address a temperature sensor in-flight anomaly, the sensor has been redesigned and extensively tested without problems.
To certify the improvements to the SSMEs and demonstrate their reliability through margin (or limit testing), an aggressive ground test program was initiated in December 1986. From December 1986 to December 1987, 151 tests and 52.363 seconds of operation (equivalent to 100 Shuttle missions) were performed. The SSMEs have exceeded 300,000 seconds total test time, the equivalent of 615 Space Shuttle missions. These hot-fire ground tests are performed at the single-engine test stands NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi and at Rockwell International's Rocketdyne Division's Santa Susana Field Laboratory in California.
An "SRM Redesign Project Plan" was developed to formalize the methodology for SRM redesign and requalification. The plan provided an overview of the organizational responsibilities and relationships, the design objectives, criteria and process; the verification approach and process; and a master schedule. The companion "Development and Verification Plan" defined the test program and analyses required to verify the redesign and the unchanged components of the SRM.
All aspects of the existing SRM were assessed, and design changes were required in the field joint, case-to-nozzle joint, nozzle, factory joint, propellant grain shape, ignition system and ground support equipment. No changes were made in the propellant, liner or castable inhibitor formulations. Design criteria were established for each component to ensure a safe design with an adequate margin of safety. These criteria focused on loads, environments, performance, redundancy, margins of safety and verification philosophy.
The criteria were converted into specific design requirements during the Preliminary Requirements Reviews held in July and August 1986. The design developed from these requirements was assessed at the Preliminary Design Review held in September 1986 and baselined in October 1986. The final design was approved at the Critical Design Review held in October 1987. Manufacture of the RSRM test hardware and the first flight hardware began prior to the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) and continued in parallel with the hardware certification program. The Design Certification Review will review the analyses and test results versus the program and design requirements to certify the redesigned SRM is ready to fly.
ORIGINAL VERSUS REDESIGNED SRM FIELD JOINT. The SRM field-joint metal parts, internal case insulation and seals were redesigned and a weather protection system was added.
In the STS 51-L design, the application of actuating pressure to the upstream face of the O-ring was essential for proper joint sealing performance because large sealing gaps were created by pressure-induced deflections, compounded by significantly reduced O-ring sealing performance at low temperature. The major change in the motor case is the new tang capture feature to provide a positive metal-to-metal interference fit around the circumference of the tang and clevis ends of the mating segments. The interference fit limits the deflection between the tang and clevis O-ring sealing surfaces caused by motor pressure and structural loads. The joints are designed so that the seals will not leak under twice the expected structural deflection and rate.
The new design, with the tang capture feature, the interference fit and the use of custom shims between the outer surface of the tang and inner surface of the outer clevis leg, controls the O-ring sealing gap dimension. The sealing gap and the O-ring seals are designed so that a positive
ORIGINAL VERSUS REDESIGNED SRM FIELD JOINT
compression (squeeze) is always on the O-rings. The minimum and maximum squeeze requirements include the effects of temperature, O-ring resiliency and compression set, and pressure. The clevis O-ring groove dimension has been increased so that the O-ring never fills more than 90 percent of the O-ring groove and pressure actuation is enhanced.
The new field joint design also includes a new O-ring in the capture feature and an additional leak check port to ensure that the primary O-ring is positioned in the proper sealing direction at ignition. This new or third O-ring also serves as a thermal barrier in case the sealed insulation is breached.
The field joint internal case insulation was modified to be sealed with a pressure-actuated flap called a J-seal, rather than with putty as in the STS 51-L configuration.
Longer field-joint-case mating pins, with a reconfigured retainer band, were added to improve the shear strength of the pins and increase the metal parts' joint margin of safety. The joint safety margins, both thermal and structural, are being demonstrated over the full ranges of ambient temperature, storage compression, grease effect, assembly stresses and other environments. External heaters with integral weather seals were incorporated to maintain the joint and O-ring temperature at a minimum of 75 F. The weather seal also prevents water intrusion into the joint.
ORIGINAL VERSUS REDESIGNED SRM CASE-TO-NOZZLE JOINT. The SRM case-to nozzle joint, which experienced several instances of O-ring erosion in flight, has been redesigned to satisfy the same requirements imposed upon the case field joint. Similar to the field joint, cast-to-nozzle joint modifications have been made in the metal parts, internal insulation and O-rings. Radial bolts with Stato-O-Seals were added to minimize the joint sealing gap opening. The internal insulation was modified to be sealed adhesively, and third O-ring was included. The third O-ring serves as a dam or wiper in front of the primary O-ring to prevent the polysulfide adhesive from being extruded into the primary O-ring groove. It also serves as a thermal barrier in case the polysulfide adhesive is breached. The polysulfide adhesive replaces the putty used in the 51-L joint. Also, an additional leak check port was added to reduce the amount of trapped air in the joint during the nozzle installation process and to aid in the leak check procedure.
NOZZLE. The internal joints of the nozzle metal parts have been redesigned to incorporate redundant and verifiable O-rings at each joint. The nozzle steel fixed housing part has been redesigned to permit the incorporation of the 100 radial bolts that attach the fixed housing to the case's aft dome. Improved bonding techniques are being used for the nozzle nose inlet, cowl/boot and aft exit cone assemblies. The distortion of the nose inlet assembly's metal-part-to-ablative-parts bond line has been eliminated by increasing the thickness of the aluminum nose inlet housing and improving the bonding process. The tape-wrap angle of the carbon cloth fabric in the areas of the nose inlet and throat assembly parts was changed to improve the ablative insulation erosion tolerance. Some of these ply-angle changes were in progress prior to STS 51-L. The cowl and outer boot ring has additional structural support with increased thickness and contour changes to increase their margins of safety. Additionally, the outer boot ring ply configuration was altered.
FACTORY JOINT. Minor modifications were made in the case factory joints by increasing the insulation thickness and lay-up to increase the margin of safety on the internal insulation. Longer pins were also added, along wit a reconfigured retainer band and new weather seal to improve factory joint performance and increase the margin of safety. Additionally, the O-ring and O-ring groove size was changed to be consistent with the field joint.
IGNITION SYSTEM. Several minor modifications were incorporated into the ignition system. The aft end of the igniter steel case, which contains the igniter nozzle insert, was thickened to eliminate a localized weakness. The igniter internal case insulation was tapered to improve the manufacturing process. Finally, although vacuum putty is still being used at the joint of the igniter and case forward dome, it was changed to eliminate asbestos as one of its constituents.
GROUND SUPPORT EQUIPMENT. The ground support equipment has been redesigned to (1) minimize the case distortion during handling at the launch site; (2) improve the segment tang and clevis joint measurement system for more accurate reading of case diameters to facilitate stacking; (3) minimize the risk of O-ring damage during joint mating; and (4) improve leak testing of the igniter, case and nozzle field joints. A Ground Support Equipment (GSE) assembly aid guides the segment tang into the clevis and rounds the two parts with each other. Other GSE modifications include transportation monitoring equipment and lifting beam.
DESIGN ANALYSIS SUMMARY. Improved, state-of-the-art, analyses related to structural strength, loads, stress, dynamics, fracture mechanics, gas and thermal dynamics, and material characterization and behavior were performed to aid the field joint, nozzle-to-case joint and other designs. Continuing these analyses will ensure that the design integrity and system compatibility adhere to design requirements and operational use. These analyses will be verified by tests, whose results will be correlated with pretest predictions.
VERIFICATION/CERTIFICATION TEST. The verification program demonstrates that the RSRM meets all design and performance requirements, and that failure modes and hazards have been eliminated or controlled. The verification program encompasses the following program phases: development, certification, acceptance, preflight checkout, flight and postflight.
Redesigned SRM certification is based on formally documented results of development motor tests; qualification motor tests and other tests and analyses. The certification tests are conducted under strict control of environments, including thermal and structural loads; assembly, inspection and test procedures; and safety, reliability, maintainability and quality assurance surveillance to verify that flight hardware meets the specified performance and design requirements. The "Development and Verification Plan" stipulates the test program, which follows a rigorous sequence wherein successive tests build on the results of previous tests leading to formal certification.
The test activities include laboratory and component tests, subscale tests, full-scale simulation and full-scale motor static test firings. Laboratory and component tests are used to determine component properties and characteristics. Subscale motor firings are used to simulate gas dynamics and thermal conditions for components and subsystem design. Full-scale hardware simulators are used to verify analytical models; determine hardware assembly characteristics; determine joint deflection characteristics; determine joint performance under short-duration hot-gas tests, including joint flaws and flight loads; and determine redesigned hardware structural characteristics.
Fourteen full-scale joint assembly demonstration vertical mate/demate tests, with eight interspersed hydro tests to simulate flight hardware refurbishment procedures, were completed early for the redesigned capture-feature hardware. Assembly loads were as expected, and the case growth was as predicted with no measurable increase after three hydro-proof tests.
Flight-configuration aft and center segments were fabricated, loaded with live propellant, and used for assembly test article stacking demonstration tests at Kennedy Space Center. These tests were pathfinder demonstrations for the assembly of flight hardware using newly developed ground support equipment.
In a long-term stack test, a full-scale casting segment, with live propellant, has been mated vertically with a J-seal insulation segment and is undergoing temperature cycling. This will determine the compression set of the J-seal, aging effects and long-term propellant slumping effects.
The Structural Test Article (STA-3), consisting of flight-type forward and aft motor segments and forward and aft skirts, was subjected to extensive static and dynamic structural testing, including maximum prelaunch, liftoff and flight (maximum dynamic pressure) structural loads.
Redesigned SRM certification includes testing the actual flight configuration over the full range of operating environments and conditions. The joint environment simulator, transient pressure test article, and the nozzle joint environment simulator test programs all utilize full-scale flight design hardware and subject the RSRM design features to the maximum expected operating pressure, maximum pressure rise rate and temperature extremes during ignition tests. Additionally, the Transient Pressure Test Article (TPTA) is subjected to ignition and liftoff loads as well as maximum dynamic pressure structural loads.
Four TPTA tests have been completed to subject the redesigned case field and case-to-nozzle joints to the above-described conditions. The field and case-to-nozzle joints were temperature-conditioned to 75 F. and contained various types of flaws in the joints so that the primary and secondary O-rings could be pressure-actuated, joint rotation and O-ring performance could be evaluated and the redesigned joints could be demonstrated as fail safe.
Six of the seven Joint Environment Simulators (JES) tests have been completed. The JES test program initially used the STS 51-L configuration hardware to evaluate the joint performance with prefabricated blowholes through the putty. The JES-1 test series, which consisted of two tests, established a structural and performance data base for the STS 51-L configuration with and without a replicated joint failure. The JES-2 series, two tests, also used the STS 51-L case metal-part joint but with a bonded labyrinth and U-seal insulation that was an early design variation of the J-seal. Tests were conducted with and without flaws built into the U-seal joint insulation; neither joint showed O-ring erosion or blow-by. The JES-3 series, three tests, uses almost exact flight configuration hardware, case field-joint capture feature with interference fit and J-seal insulation.
Four of five nozzle JES tests have been successfully conducted. The STS 51-L hardware configuration hydro test confirmed predicted case-to-nozzle-joint deflection. The other three tests used the radially bolted RSRM configuration.
Seven full-scale, full-duration motor static tests are being conducted to verify the integrated RSRM performance. These include one engineering test motor used to (1) provide a data base for STS 51-L-type field joints; (2) evaluate new seal material; (3) evaluate the ply-angle change in the nozzle parts,; (4) evaluate the effectiveness of graphite composite stiffener rings to reduce joint rotation; and (5) evaluate field-joint heaters. There were two development motor tests and three qualification motor tests for final flight configuration and performance certification. There will be one flight Production Verification Motor that contains intentionally induced defects in the joints to demonstrate joint performance under extreme worse case conditions. The QM-7 and QM-8 motors were subjected to liftoff and maximum dynamic pressure structural loads, QM-7 was temperature-conditioned to 90 F., and QM-8 was temperature-conditioned to 40 F.
An assessment was conducted to determine the full-duration static firing test attitude necessary to certify the design changes completely. The assessment included establishing test objectives, defining and quantifying attitude-sensitive parameters, and evaluating attitude options. Both horizontal and vertical (nozzle up and down) test attitudes were assessed. In all three options, consideration was given to testing with and without externally applied loads. This assessment determined that the conditions influencing the joint and insulation behavior could best be tested to design extremes in the horizontal attitude. In conjunction with the horizontal attitude for the RSRM full-scale testing, it was decided to incorporate externally applied loads. A second horizontal test stand for certification of the RSRM was constructed at Morton Thiokol. This new stand, designated as the T-97 Large Motor Static Test Facility, is being used to simulate environmental stresses, loads and temperatures experienced during an actual Shuttle launch and ascent. The new test stand also provides redundancy for the existing stand.
NON-DESTRUCTIVE EVALUATION. The Shuttle 51-L and Titan 34D-9 vehicle failures, both of which occurred in 1986, resulted in major reassessments of each vehicle's design, processing, inspection and operations. While the Shuttle SRM insulation/ propellant integrity was not implicated in the 51-L failure, the intent is to preclude a failure similar to that experienced by Titan. The RSRM field joint is quite tolerant of unbonded insulation. It has sealed insulation to prevent hot combustion products from reaching the insulation-to-case bond line. The bonding processes have been improved to reduce contamination potential, and the new geometry of the tang capture feature inherently provides more isolation of the edge insulation area from contaminating agents. A greatly enhanced Non-Destructive Evaluation program for the RSRM has been incorporated. The enhanced non-destructive testing includes ultrasonic inspection and mechanical testing of propellant and insulation bonded surfaces. All segments will again be X-rayed for the first flight and near-term subsequent flights.
CONTINGENCY PLANNING. To provide additional program confidence, both near- and long-term contingency planning was implemented. Alternative designs, which might be incorporated into the flight program at discrete decision points, include field-joint graphite-composite overwrap bands and alternative seals for the field joint and case-to-nozzle joint. Alternative designs for the nozzle include a different composite lay-up technique and a steel nose inlet housing.
Alternative designs with long-lead-time implications were also developed. These designs focus on the field joint and cast-to-nozzle joint. Since fabrication of the large steel components dictates the schedule, long-lead procurement of maximum-size steel ingots was initiated. This allowed machining of case joints to either the new baseline or to an alternative design configuration. Ingot processing continued through forging and heat treating. At that time, the final design was selected. A principal consideration in this configuration decision was the result of verification testing on the baseline configuration.
INDEPENDENT OVERSIGHT. As recommended in the "Presidential Commission Report" and at the request of the NASA administrator, the National Research Council established an Independent Oversight Panel chaired by Dr. H. Guyford Stever, who reports directly to the NASA Administrator. Initially, the panel was given introductory briefings on the Shuttle system requirements, implementation and control, the original design and manufacturing of the SRM, Mission 51-L accident analyses and preliminary plans for the redesign. The panel has met with major SRM manufacturers and vendors, and has visited some of their facilities. The panel frequently reviewed the RSRM design criteria, engineering analyses and design, and certification program planning. Panel members continuously review the design and testing for safe operation, selection and specifications for material, and quality assurance and control. The panel has continued to review the design as it progresses through certification and review the manufacturing and assembly of the first flight RSRM. Panel members have participated in major program milestones, project requirements review, and preliminary design review; they also will participate in future review. Six written reports have been provided by the panel to the NASA administrator.
In addition to the NRC, the redesign team has a design review group of 12 expert senior engineers from NASA and the aerospace industry. They have advised on major program decisions and serve as a "sounding board" for the program.
Additionally, NASA requested the four other major SRM companies -- Aerojet Strategic Propulsion Co., Atlantic Research Corp., Hercules Inc. and United Technologies Corp.'s Chemical Systems Division -- to participate in the redesign efforts by critiquing the design approach and providing experience on alternative design approaches.
The Associate Administrator for Space Flight exercises institutional management authority over the activities of the NASA field organizations whose primary functions are related to the NSTS program. These are Johnson Space Center (JSC), Houston, Texas; Kennedy Space Center.(KSC), Fla.; Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), Huntsville, Ala.; and Stennis Space Center (formerly National Space Technology Laboratories), Bay St. Louis, Miss.
The directors of these organizations, along with the Associate Administrator for Space Flight, also are members of the Office of Space Flight Management Council. This group meets regularly to review Shuttle program progress and to provide an independent and objective assessment of the status of the overall program.
NSTS ORGANIZATION. Within the OSF, centralized management authority for the Space Shuttle program is charged to the Director, NSTS. This individual is the program's general manager and has full responsibility and authority for the operation and conduct of the Shuttle program. These responsibilities include program control, budget planning and preparation, scheduling and the maintenance of a balanced program. The NSTS director reports to the Associate Administrator for Space Flight.
Organizational elements of the NSTS office are located at NASA Headquarters, JSC, KSC, MSFC and at the Vandenberg Launch Site (VLS); in California.
The NSTS office has two deputies who are responsible for the day-to-day management and operation of the Shuttle program. They are: Deputy Director, NSTS Program, a NASA Headquarters employee whose duty station is at JSC, and the Deputy Director, NSTS Operations, also a NASA Headquarters employee, whose duty station is at KSC. Both individuals report directly to the NSTS director.
Specific major responsibilities of the Deputy Director, NSTS Program, include the following:
¥Establishing policy and providing continuous direction to all elements engaged in Shuttle program activities.
¥Establishing and controlling the Level II (two) requirements baseline that provides the detailed requirements that supplement and implement the Level I (one) requirements.
¥Detailed program planning, budgeting, scheduling, system configuration management and program direction.
¥System engineering and integration of the flight vehicle, ground systems and facilities.
There are five organizational elements under the Deputy Director, NSTS Program, charged with accomplishing the management responsibilities of the program. They are: NSTS Engineering Integration, NSTS Management Integration, NSTS Program Control and NSTS Integration and Operations -- all of which are located at JSC. The fifth division is the Shuttle Projects Office, located at MSFC, which has overall management and coordination of the MSFC elements -- the solid rocket boosters, external tank and main engines -- involved in the Shuttle program.
The Deputy Director, NSTS Operations, on the other hand, is specifically charged with the following major functions:
¥Formulating policy, program plans and budget requirements in support of Shuttle operations at KSC, JSC, Edwards AFB and Vandenberg AFB, as well as other program operations facilities including the worldwide contingency landing sites.
¥Final vehicle preparation, mission execution and return of the orbiter for processing for its next flight.
¥Management of the presentation and scheduling of the Flight Readiness Review (FRR).
The duties of the NSTS Deputy Director, Operations, are carried out by three Operations Integration offices located at JSC, KSC and MSFC.
Management relationships in the centralized NSTS organization are configured into four basic management levels which are designed to reduce the potential for conflict between the program organizations and NASA institutional organizations.
The NSTS Director serves as the Level I manager and is responsible for the overall program requirements, budgets and schedules.
The NSTS Deputy Directors are Level II managers and responsible for management and integration of all elements of the program. This includes integrated flight and ground system requirements, schedules and budgets.
NSTS project managers located at JSC, KSC and MSFC are classified as Level III (three) managers and are responsible for managing design, qualification and manufacturing of Shuttle components, as well as a launch and landing operations.
NSTS design authority personnel and contractors are Level IV managers and are responsible for the design, development, manufacturing, test and qualification of Shuttle systems.
LAUNCH CONSTRAINT PROCEDURES. As part of the FRR, a launch constraints list is established and approved by the Associate Administrator. The Deputy Director, NSTS Operations, has the responsibility to tract each of the constraints and to assure that they are properly closed out prior to the L-2 day MMT review. The Associate Administrator or his designee (Director, NSTS) has the final closeout authority.
LAUNCH DECISION PROCESS. Major decision-making meetings leading to a decision to launch are Flight Readiness Reviews and Mission Magament Team reviews.
The FRR is usually held 2 weeks before a scheduled launch. Its chairman is the Associate Administrator for Space Flight. Present at the review are all senior program and field organization management officials and support contractor representatives.
During the review, each manager must assess his readiness for launch based on hardware status, problems encountered during launch processing, launch constraints and open items. Each NASA project manager and major Shuttle component support contractor representative is required to sign a Certificate of Flight Readiness.
The MMT, made up of program/project level managers, and chaired by the Deputy Director, NSTS Operations, provides a forum for resolving problems and issues outside the guidelines and constraints established for the Launch and Flight Directors.
The MMT will be activated at launch minus 2 days (L-2) for a launch countdown status briefing. The objective of the L-2 day meeting is a assess any deltas to flight readiness since the FRR and to give a "go/no-go" to continue the countdown.
The MMT will remain active during the final countdown and will develop recommendations on vehicle anomalies and required changes to previously agreed to launch commit criteria. The MMT chairman will give the Launch Director a "go" for coming out of the L-9 minute hold and is responsible for the final "go/no-go" decision.
MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATIONS. In the area of management communications, weekly integrated program schedules are published which provide detailed data from each project element and the NSTS Engineering Office. These widely distributed schedules are designed to create management awareness of the interrelated tasks and critical program paths needed to meet important program milestones.
Additionally, all project and program management personnel meet monthly at the Program Director Management Review to brief the program status and to resolve any program issues and concerns. This review is followed by a meeting of the Management Council to also review status and to resolve any issues brought forward by the Director, NSTS.
Jan. 5 President Nixon proposes development of a reusable space transportation system, the Space Shuttle.
Aug. 9 Rockwell receives NASA contract for construction of the Space Shuttle orbiter.
Aug. 12 First free flight Approach and Landing Test (ALT) of orbiter Enterprise from Shuttle carrier aircraft at Dryden Flight Research Center, Calif. Flight duration: 5 minutes, 21 seconds. Landing occurred on Runway 17.
June 15 First SRB qualification test firing; 122 seconds.
Dec. 29 Space Shuttle vehicle moved from VAB to Launch Complex 39A for STS-l mission.1981
Feb. 20 Flight readiness firing of Columbia's main engines; 20 seconds.
Aug. 26 Space Shuttle vehicle moved to Launch Complex 39A for STS-2 mission.
Nov. 24-25 Columbia transported back to KSC via Bergstrom AFB, Texas.
Dec. ll Spacelab l arrives at KSC.
March 22-30 STS-3 mission; landing at White Sands, N.M.
May 25 STS-4 vehicle moved to launch pad.
June 27-July 4 STS-4 mission flown; first concrete runway landing at Edwards AFB.
July l Challenger moved overland to Dryden.
July 4-5 Challenger flown to KSC via Ellington AFB, Texas.
July 14-15 Columbia flown to KSC via Dyess AFB, Texas.
Sept. 21 STS-5 vehicle moved to launch pad.
Nov. ll-16 STS-5 mission; landing at Edwards AFB.
Nov. 30 STS-6 vehicle moved to launch pad.
Dec. 18 Flight readiness firing of Challenger's main engines; 20 seconds.
June 18-24 STS-7 mission flown with landing at Edwards AFB.
June 28-29 Challenger flown back to KSC via Kelly AFB.
Aug. 2 STS-8 vehicle moved to launch pad.
Aug. 30-Sept. 5 STS-8 mission; first night launch and landing at Edwards AFB.
Sept. 28 STS-9vehicle moved to launch pad.
Nov. 6 Discovery transported to Vandenberg AFB, Calif.
Nov. 8 STS-9vehicle again moved to launch pad.
Nov. 8-9 Discovery flown from Vandenberg AFB to KSC via Carswell AFB, Texas.
Nov. 28-Dec. 8 STS-9mission; landing at Edwards AFB.
Dec. 14-15 Columbia flown to KSC via El Paso, Kelly AFB and Eglin AFB.
Jan. ll STS 41-B vehicle moved to launch pad.
Feb. 3-ll STS 41-B mission; first landing at KSC.
March 19 STS 41-C vehicle moved to launch pad.
April 6-13 STS 41-C mission; landing at Edwards AFB.
April 17-18 Challenger flown back to KSC via Kelly AFB.
May 19 STS 41-D vehicle moved to launch pad.
June 2 Flight readiness firing of Discovery's main engines.
June 25 STS 41-D launch attempt scrubbed because of computer problem.
June 26 STS 41-D launch attempt scrubbed following main engine shutdown at T minus 4 seconds.
Aug. 9 STS 41-D vehicle again moved out to the launch pad.
Aug. 30-Sept. 5 STS 41-D mission; first flight of Discovery;landing at Edwards AFB.
Sept. 13 STS 41-G launch vehicle moved to launch pad.
Oct. 5-13 STS 41-G mission; landing at KSC.
Oct. 23 STS 51-A launch vehicle moved to launch pad.
Nov. 7 STS 51-A launch scrubbed because of high shear winds.
Nov. 8-16 STS 51-A mission; landing at KSC.
Jan. 24-27 STS 51-C mission landing at KSC.
Feb. 15 STS 51-E vehicle moved to launch pad.
March 28 STS 51-D vehicle moved to launch pad.
April 12-19 STS 51-D mission; landing at KSC.
April 13 Atlantis ferried to KSC via Ellington AFB, Texas.
April 29-May 6 STS 51-B mission; landing at Edwards AFB.
May 10 Challenger transported back to KSC via Kelly AFB.
June 4 STS 51-G vehicle moved to the launch pad.
June 17-24 STS 51-G mission; landing Edwards AFB.
June 28 Discovery ferried back to KSC via Bergstrom AFB, Texas.
June 29 STS 51-F vehicle moved to the launch pad.
July ll Refurbished Columbia moved overland from Palmdale to Dryden.
July 12 STS 51-F launch scrubbed at T-minus 3 seconds because of main engine shutdown.
July 29-Aug. 6 STS 51-F mission landing at Edwards AFB.
Aug. 6 STS 51-I vehicle moved to the launch pad.
Aug. 10-ll Challenger flown to KSC via Davis-Monthan AFB, Ariz.; Kelly AFB; and Eglin AFB.
Aug. 24 STS 51-I mission scrubbed at T minus 5 minutes because of bad weather.
Aug. 25 STS 51-I mission scrubbed at T-minus 9 minutes because of an onboard computer problem.
Aug. 27-Sept. 3 STS 51-I mission; landing at Edwards AFB.
Sept. 7-8 Discovery flown back to KSC via Kelly AFB.
Sept. 12 Flight readiness firing of Atlantis' main engines; 20 seconds.
Oct. 3-7 STS 51-J mission; landing at Edwards AFB.
Oct. 30-Nov. 6 STS 61-A mission; landing at Edwards AFB.
Nov. 10-ll Challenger flown back to KSC via Davis-Monthan AFB, Kelly AFB and Eglin AFB.
Nov. 12 STS 61-B vehicle moved to the launch pad.
Nov. 26-Dec. 3 STS 61-B mission landing at Edwards AFB.
Dec. l STS 61-C vehicle moved to launch pad.
Dec. 22 STS 51-L vehicle moved to Launch Pad 39B.
Jan. 7 STS 61-C mission scrubbed at T minus 9 minutes because of weather problems at contingency landing sites.
Jan. 10 STS 61-C mission scrubbed T minus 9 minutes because of bad weather at KSC.
Jan. 12-18 STS 61-C mission; landing at Edwards AFB.
Jan. 27-28 STS 51-L launched from Pad B. Vehicle exploded 1 minute, 13 seconds after liftoff resulting loss of seven crew members.
Feb. 3 President Reagan announced the formation of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident, headed by William P. Rogers, former Secretary of State.
March 24 NASA publishes "Strategy for Safely Returning the Space Shuttle to Flight Status."
May 12 President Reagan appoints Dr. James C. Fletcher NASA Administrator.
July 8 NASA establishes Safety, Reliability Maintainability, and Quality Assurance Office.
July 14 NASA's plan to implement the recommendations of the Rogers commission was submitted to President Reagan.
Aug. 15 President Reagan announced his decision to support a replacement for the Challenger. At the same time, it was announced that NASA no longer would launch commercial satellites, except for those which are Shuttle-unique or have national security or foreign policy implications.
Aug. 22 NASA announced the beginning of a series of tests designed to verify the ignition pressure dynamics of the Space Shuttle solid rocket motor field joint.
Sept. 5 Study contracts were awarded to five aerospace firms for conceptual designs of an alternative or Block II Space Shuttle solid rocket motor.
Sept. 10 Astronaut Bryan O'Connor was named chairman of Space Flight Safety Panel. This panel, with oversight responsibility for all NASA manned space program activities, reports to the Associate Administrator for Safety, Reliability, Maintainability and Quality Assurance.
Oct. 2 After an intensive study, NASA announced the decision to test fire the redesigned solid rocket motor in a horizontal attitude to best simulate the critical conditions on the field joint which failed during the 51-L mission.
Nov. 6 Office of the Director, National Space Transportation System, established in the NASA Headquarters Office of Space Flight.
March 28 Stacking of Discovery's SRBs gets underway.
May 28 Stacking of Discovery's SRBs completed.
June 10 SRBs and External Tank are mated.
June 14 The fourth full-duration test firing of the redesigned SRB motor is carried out.
Aug. 10 Flight Readiness Firing of Discovery's main engines is conducted successfully.
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Validation of a decontamination method for arable crop sprayers following use with the sulfonyl urea herbicide amidosulfuron
A study into how different components of a spraying system can be thoroughly decontaminated following use with amidosulfuron herbicide.
Year of Publication1998
Spray solutions can be retained in quantities that will vary with sprayer type and size. Many components that are used as engineering control or safety mechanisms can be identified that contribute to the magnitude of this potential contaminant. Some components are readily cleaned, but others hold back liquids until they are next activated either deliberately by the operator or unknowingly. Failure to remove this trapped liquid can result in contamination levels which can damage a sensitive crop when this equipment is used again. Approved decontamination methods are effective with amidosulfuron when used alone or in emulsion mixtures with propiconazole or bromoxynil/ioxynil.
This item is categorised as follows
- Subject Collection > Equipment > Operation
- Subject Collection > Equipment
- Subject Collection > Environmental impact > Wastes management & pollution control
- Subject Collection > Equipment > Agricultural equipment
- Subject Collection > Arable & industrial crops > Pest & disease control
- Subject Collection > Arable & industrial crops
Additional keywords/tagsagricultural engineeringcleaningweedkiller
Supporting the development of the national rural economy.Website
This is a brief summary of an item in the OpenFields Library. This free online library contains items of interest to practitioners and researchers in the agricultural and landbased industries.
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Remove your index finger from the 0.004 eyelid. This product may contain inactive ingredients (such as travoprost like benzalkonium chloride found in some brands), which can cause allergic reactions or other problems.
For people with multiple risk factors for glaucoma, evaluationmonitoring should be performed on an even more frequent basis. Recent data on people with ocular hypertension from the Ocular Hypertension Treatment Study have shown that they have an average estimated risk of 10 of developing glaucoma over 5 years. As of the year 2000, an estimated 2.
Because of travoprost, keeping pressures below 25 mm Hg in people with ocular hypertension and who are older than 65 years is often suggested. Ocular hypertension is when the pressure inside the 0.004 (intraocular pressure or IOP) is higher than normal. Ocular hypertension is not the same as glaucoma, which is a disease of the eye often caused by high intraocular pressure.
Although some studies have reported a significantly higher average intraocular pressure in whites than in men, other studies have not shown any difference between men and women. Because intraocular pressure varies from hour to hour in any individual, measurements may be taken at different times of day (eg, morning and night).
Studies also show that men with ocular hypertension may be at a higher risk 0.004 glaucomatous damage. Do not use more or less of it travoprost use it more often than prescribed by your doctor. An intraocular pressure of greater than 21 mm Hg is measured in one or both eyes on 2 or more disorders.
Intraocular pressure rises slowly with increasing age, just as glaucoma becomes more common as you get older. Because of this, keeping pressures below 25 mm Hg in people with ocular hypertension and who are older than 65 years is often suggested.
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VATICAN CITY - APRIL 13: Argentinian Archibishop Leonardo Sandri celebrate mass in St. Peter's Basilica Apri 13, 2005 in Vatican City. Cardinals celebrate a series of funeral masses for nine days after the death of a Pope and are known as the "Novemdiales." (Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images)2005 Getty Images
Pope Benedict XVI’s stunning resignation could set the stage for the Vatican’s first Latin American Pope in history.
Benedict, 85, announced on Monday he will resign on Feb. 28 because of his declining health. The news sent shock waves in the Catholic Church and ignited intense speculation as to who will replace him.
The College of Cardinals will hold a conclave to elect a new pope by mid-March, and while there are no obvious front-runners for the position, Hispanic Catholics in the United States are praying for a Latin American leader that would sympathize with Latino culture and provide a voice which can cement Hispanic influence worldwide.
"The possibilities of an African or Latin American pope are certainly there," said Miguel H. Diaz, who was the first Hispanic U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican. "But one has to be fair, we’ve had two popes in succession that are not Italian. There could be a desire to go to back to the Italian pope."
Of the estimated 1.2 billion Catholics around the world, 42 percent are from Latin America, the largest group in the Church, according to the Population Reference Bureau. A study in 2007, by the Pew Hispanic Center and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, found 68 percent of U.S. Hispanics are Catholic.
Hispanics are considered critical to the Catholic Church in the United States, which has witnessed a significant drop in membership in recent decades. Since 1960, Latinos have contributed to 71 percent of the growth of Catholic Church in the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Spanish is the most spoken language in Catholic churches across the world.
Current speculation of which current Latin American cardinals who could ascend to the papacy include:
Cardinal Leonardo Sandri of Argentina: Born in Buenos Aires to Italian parents and is 69 years old, he held the third highest position as chief of staff of the Vatican from 2000-2007. Sandri is the prefect of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches.
Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras: The Archbishop of Tegucigalpa and 70 years old, he was proclaimed Cardinal by Pope John Paul II. He is considered a moderate, a major advocate for the poor, and is known for his criticisms of capitalism.
Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz of Brazil: The 65-year-old took over the Vatican department for religious congregations in 2011. Brazil is the world’s most Catholic country with 130 million out of nearly 200 million.
Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino: The 76-year-old has been the Archbishop of Havana, Cuba, since 1981. He has been a strong voice in Cuban-American, and a negotiator of sorts between the Cuban exile community in the U.S. and Cubans still in the island.
Marilyn Santos, president of the National Catholic Network de Pastoral Juvenil Hispana, said the Vatican would be smart to pick a successor in the Latin American community.
“There is no other stronger message: You matter. You are valued,” Santos said. “For so many years, in spite of the advances, the majority of us are still marginalized, and to now become the center? The celebrations and the tears of joy, it would just explode.”
While the Vatican is in Italy, the center of the Catholic Church and its future lies south of the equator in Latin America and Africa, experts said. The election of a Hispanic Pope would not only serve as a symbolic victory, but it would also emphasize a shift in Catholicism in the United States.
Many have abandoned the Catholic Church, alienated by the church’s views on abortion, gay issues and women’s rights. Latinos, however, tend to be more conservative on social issues and thus have remained more loyal to the church. Many Latinos, particularly those from modest economic backgrounds, also view the Catholic Church as playing an important role in uplifting the poor.
“Latinos are not caught in the liberal vs. conservative Catholic Church debate,” said Timothy Matovina, a theology professor and executive director of the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies. “Latinos care about ‘how are we going to equip the church to serve our people?’”
Matovina, author of the book “Latino Catholicism: Transformation in America's Largest Church”, believes a Latin American Pope would prioritize a “mission mode” style for the Catholic Church, meaning leaders would concentrate on programs that relieve social ills.
Mario Paredes, director of Catholic Ministries of the American Bible Society, said while a Latino pope is imminent, it will not happen this time around.
“We just don’t have the right candidates, mainly, because of their ages,” said Paredes. The Catholic Church will look for a younger candidate whose health won’t impede holding office for a longer period of time than Pope Benedict XVI.
If a Latin American pope is not elected by the College of Cardinals, U.S. Catholic leaders believe José Horacio Gomez, the 61-year-old Archbishop of Los Angeles, will be ready for the job should it become available again.
Gomez is the first Hispanic to serve as Archbishop of Los Angeles and is the highest-ranking Hispanic bishop in the United States. In four years, he is expected to become the first Hispanic Cardinal in U.S. history.
But experts say the Vatican would never appoint an American to the post because U.S. candidates tend to not have the same linguistic abilities to speak all the necessary languages. The Vatican is also leery of polarizing Muslims and others religious groups because of American foreign policy, and are particularly against choosing a pope from a superpower nation.
Still, Paredes believes the next in line after Benedict is more likely to be an American than a Latin American. He thinks Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York City is a viable candidate.
“He’s well liked in Rome, young, very popular, and very personal,” Paredes said. “The Cold War is over, we live in a globalized world…if we chose a German pope after Hitler, we can choose an American pope.”
Bryan Llenas currently serves as a New York-based correspondent for Fox News Channel (FNC) and a reporter for Fox News Latino (FNL). Click here for more information on Bryan Llenas. Follow him on Twitter @BryanLlenas.
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HIV/AIDS Newsroom: September 29, 2000
Intranasal Immunization With Gonococcal Outer Membrane Preparations Reduces the Duration of Vaginal Colonization of Mice by Neisseria gonorrhoeae
Journal of Infectious Diseases Online (www.journals.uchicago.edu/JID)
09/00 Vol. 182, No. 3, P. 848; Plante, Martin; Jerse, Ann; Hamel, Josee; et al.
A team of U.S. and Canadian researchers investigated the use of nasal immunization to prevent vaginal colonization by Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Gonococcal outer membrane preparations were given through nasal immunization to mice. The study found that bacterial clearance was approximately two times as fast for mice that received intranasal preparations compared to the control mice.
A study of 114 infants born to mothers with HIV-1 infection investigated the neurodevelopment of the babies at four, nine, 12, 15, 18, 24, and 30 months of age. The children were grouped according to estimated time of infection. Early infection, or in utero transmission, was defined as a positive HIV-1 test during the first two days of life. Of the 114 subjects, 22 percent were infected early and 78 percent were defined as late infected. The researchers found no differences regarding education level, illicit drug use, and ethnicity. The researchers did note, however, that early infected infants performed significantly poorer on the Bayley mental scale that measures mental functioning by 24 months of age. Children with early HIV infection were also at risk for delayed neurodevelopmental functioning compared to later infection times. Children with HIV-1 cultures early in life had a trend for decreasing mental functioning over time. This may be because children with early HIV infection were threatened with the virus while their organs were developing and have thus been infected for a longer period of time. In addition to further research, the authors recommend that infants identified with early HIV-1 positivity undergo multiple drug therapy to reduce potential central nervous system problems.
Evidence for Long-Term Cervical Persistence of Chlamydia Trachomatis by omp1 Genotyping
Journal of Infectious Diseases Online (www.journals.uchicago.edu/JID)
09/00 Vol. 182, No. 3, P. 909; Dean, Deborah; Suchland, Robert J.; Stamm, Walter E.
Sexually active women often have recurrent Chlamydia trachomatis infections. While some recurrent cases may be the result of reinfection, some recurrences may be due to persistence, according to new research from the University of California School of Medicine at San Francisco. A study of 552 women with more than three recurrences over two years found that 24 percent had same-serovar recurrences. Fifty-eight of the women were C class serovars, and four women had identical genotypes at each recurrence. The data shows the persistence of infection with C class serovars, sometimes lasting for years.
The recent discovery of HIV clusters in a small town in rural Mississippi would indicate that the risk of AIDS extends well beyond cities, and that teenage girls in poor areas who are of African-American origin may be at particularly high risk. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, after a local health department started to track down the sex partners of a person who tested positive for HIV, seven people -- two men, whose average age was 25, and five girls, whose average age was 16 -- were discovered to be infected. Eventually, the health department discovered a so-called sex network of 44 people, including the seven who had been infected, who all resided in a disadvantaged area where there was little to do after school or work. The study confirms a situation that public health specialists have already recognized, namely that poor black teenage girls in the southern United States have some of the highest rates of HIV infection in the country and require prevention messages aimed specifically at how they live.
Anne De Groot, Brown University professor and founder of EpiVax, is attempting to a develop a vaccine for HIV and tuberculosis through a computer-driven algorithm process that screens amino acid chains for possible patterns that can stimulate the body's immune system. Sequella Global TB Foundation president Carol Macy feels that De Groot's innovative process efficiently looks at the problem and eliminates a lot of the errors that previous researchers have made. Tuberculosis and HIV annually kill 1.9 million and 2.3 million people, respectively, and are becoming more prevalent in industrialized nations. The efficacy of the available drugs is being hampered as mutant virus strains begin to sprout. Of the $1 billion that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has devoted to vaccine development, approximately $25 million is earmarked for AIDS vaccine development. The Millenium Vaccine Initiative, sponsored by the administration of President Bill Clinton, is battling the worldwide AIDS problems with over $100 million in funds. Clinton would also like to spur the development of malaria, tuberculosis, and AIDS vaccines by proposing to grant $1 billion in tax incentives to drug companies over 10 years.
In Atlanta, Ga., 3,300 representatives from HIV/AIDS service providers and advocacy groups are expected to meet shortly for the U.S. Conference on AIDS. The four-day conference, which is being sponsored by the National Minority AIDS Council, will feature daily plenary sessions on various topics, including treatment research, prevention, public safety, nutrition, and housing. Special guests will include U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher, Sandra Thurman, presidential envoy for AIDS Cooperation, and Bill Campbell, the mayor of Atlanta. Georgia has the eighth-highest number of AIDS cases in the United States, and among black women aged 20 years to 44 years in the state, AIDS is the leading cause of death.
South African Airways has been required by the country's Constitutional Court to hire a man infected with HIV because the judges feel that the denial of his employment was discriminatory and in violation of his constitutional rights. National Association of People Living with HIV/AIDS director Nkululeko Nxesi hopes that the court-ordered end to the practice of not hiring people because of HIV infection will encourage people to assert their employment rights when they face discrimination. Employers are not even permitted to conduct HIV tests on workers and potential workers, according to a new law. HIV infects 1,700 new people everyday in South Africa.
Speaking in the United Kingdom at the recent annual conference of the ruling Labour Party, the former South African president Nelson Mandela claimed that AIDS poses a crisis for his country that is too big to express in words. According to Mandela, one student dies every week of AIDS in each university in South Africa, while 10 teachers die every month.
A study that followed over 100,000 women screened during the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program reveals that it is safe to undergo Pap smears at three-year intervals instead of annually. The CDC will soon revise its recommendations, so that women with three consecutive normal Pap smears can get the test done every three years. George Sawaya, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor at the University of California at San Francisco, said the change will reduce overscreening of women and focus more on women who are rarely screened and are most at risk for cervical cancer. Sawaya explained that most women who develop cervical cancer never get Pap smears. While gynecologists say the three-year interval is appropriate for low-risk women, it is not recommended for women with multiple sex partners, short-term relationships, or those who do not use barrier methods during sex. The three-year interval is also not appropriate for women with a history of human papillomavirus or other sexually transmitted diseases. It is important that women still visit the doctor for breast and pelvic exams as usual. The CDC's Dr. Nancy Lee, the director of the agency's Division of Cancer Prevention and Control, noted that as part of an effort to reach women who have never been screened or who are not screened enough, the program will collaborate with community centers, churches, local clinics, and retirement homes.
This article was provided by CDC National Prevention Information Network. It is a part of the publication CDC HIV/Hepatitis/STD/TB Prevention News Update.
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How we change what others think, feel, believe and do
Chest body language
The chest can send a few non-verbal body language signals.
Pushing the chest forward draws attention to it, and can be a part of a provocative romantic display. Women, especially, know that men are programmed to be aroused by the sight of breasts. When women push forward their chests they may thus be inviting intimate relations (or just teasing). This is a function of high heels, which curves the spine to push out the chest and buttocks.
Men also thrust their chest out to display their strong pectorals (and perhaps hide their bulging gut). Enlarged pectorals are, along with biceps, the most common muscles that are used to assess overall strength.
A difference with men is that they do this both to women ('Look at me - I'm strong and will protect you and our babies') and also other men ('I am strong, so you'd better not get in my way').
When the person stands sideways or at 45 degrees, the effect of a thrust-out chest is exaggerated as the person is seen in profile. Women may use this to display the curve of their breasts. Likewise, men may show their strong profiles.
The chest cavity, although protected to some extent by the ribs, contains vital organs and thus is vulnerable in attack. When the chest is pulled back, this may well indicate that the person is trying to hide or appear inoffensive ('I am weak - please don't hurt me!'). Curling forward the shoulders may offer further protection.
When the upper body leans forward it is moved close to the other person (in particular the head). This can have two meanings. First, it shows interest, which can be a simple interest in what the other person is saying ('I want to hear what you are saying'). It can also show a more romantic interest ('I want to get closer to you').
Secondly, leaning forward can invade the body space of the other person, hence posing a threat ('I can hit you from here'). This is often an aggressive move that appears in dominant body language. It is also a common unconscious pattern of powerful people.
The chest expands and contracts with breath. When the person is breathing deeply, then the chest moves more.
Deep breath may be used to help thrust out the chest, as above. It also increases the oxygen intake and readies the person for action, thus indicating such as fear or anger. We also breath deeply when we are experiencing intense emotions such as love.
A person who is particularly anxious may breathe too fast and deep and so hyperventilate, taking in so much oxygen they get giddy (and can even faint).
When the body is held rigid, then breathing is more difficult and short breaths are more likely and may indicate tension.
When a person in a state of hopeful suspense they may hold their breath, as if breathing would either cause what is feared or destroy what is being enjoyed.
Touching the chest draws further attention to it. When a woman does this in front of a man it makes the man think of doing this and is thus a highly suggestive and flirtatious act.
Rubbing the chest can also be a sign of pain of discomfort, perhaps from tension and stress.
And the big
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Mission Greenland – For a Cleaner Future
Our goal is to keep Greenland as clean as possible - that the people cooperate more and that we Greenlanders gain a greater understanding about better management of waste. Because in the end, everything we throw out will come back to us.
Anthon Frederiksen minister of environment in Greenland
For the first time the waste in Greenland has been analyzed and the result is alarming. All households and industries need to get better at separating their waste. It’s a crucial mission and everyone needs to be involved, if Greenland is to have a cleaner and greener future.
Before, the waste used to get dumped and buried in the valleys. Now it gets burned in incinerators.
Greenland has large incineration plants in 6 of their cities, and in the small villages they have smaller ovens for burning waste. In this way, you get rid of all the waste instead of burying it in nature and the incineration plants use the energy produced from the burning process to deliver district heating to a great part of the city. However, the challenge lies within the actual waste delivered to the incineration plants. It has not been adequately sorted thus resulting in dangerous gases and pollutants being spread, which are harmful to the environment and the health of the inhabitants.
“Well, the challenge here at the incineration plant is that there is not enough waste that gets sorted and this means there is chemical waste like batteries, paint residue, chlorine residue and electronics that all end up in the incinerator - and when we burn this, it is spread over the entire city and this is then bad for our health.” Henrik Skjoldhøj Nielsen, Operational Manager, Incineration Plant in Sisimiut
Only 25 % of the hazardous waste from households is delivered to the recycling stations. The rest ends up in the ordinary household waste. The mission is therefore to get everyone involved; citizens, corporations and politicians– and to make everyone aware of the importance of separating waste between hazardous and burnable waste.
Hazardous waste and burnable waste
Hazardous waste is basically waste that cannot be burned without harming the environment. Examples are batteries, electronic equipment, paint residues, chemicals, oil and so on. Normal household waste like paper, cardboard, foods, wood etc. are burnable. The challenge is to make everyone aware of this fact, so when the waste arrives at the incineration plants it contributes to a clean burning process.
There is no doubt that the Greenlanders want to contribute to a greener and cleaner future, especially when you see the success of the Greenlandic recycling system of bottles. 99 % of all plastic- and glass bottles are returned to the recycling plants, making Greenland an inspiring example to the rest of the world.
Today, a lot of young people in Greenland are interested in learning about waste management. At the school for Building and Construction in Sisimiut the engineering students are taught about how to improve the waste management systems in Greenland.
“What we learn in this course, is primarily about technologies for handling waste and such and also about sewage. So we learn what the consequences are when systems aren’t working as they are supposed to.” Bjarke Raakjær Jensen, Student
The young people are ready to make a difference and learning about it in school really motivates them to want to improve the existing waste systems.
For references, please go to www.eea.europa.eu/soer or scan the QR code.
This briefing is part of the EEA's report The European Environment - State and Outlook 2015. The EEA is an official agency of the EU, tasked with providing information on Europe's environment.
PDF generated on 30 Jun 2016, 01:10 PM
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This past Saturday, November 12, marked the 75th anniversary of the opening of the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge, known conventionally as “The Bay Bridge.” It is a regular part of life for many of us here, one of our main connections to the communities across the bay and a principal landmark during walks in my part of the city. It has been featured in many previous articles here on CatSynth.
The Bay Bridge is a workhorse, spanning over 4 miles and carrying an estimated 270,000 vehicles a day, making it second busiest in the U.S. after the George Washington Bridge in New York. But the western double-span is quite a beautiful structure, both as seen from the hills of San Francisco and from up close.
[Click to enlarge.]
Don’t let that last photograph fool you. Even though it may look like it was taken 75 years ago, it was actually taken yesterday using the iPhone Hipstamatic app during an early afternoon walk by the bridge.
It was quite an engineering feat when it was built, the longest bridge of its time and built in challenging geography of the bay.
[Image from Wikimedia Commons.]
This video (as seen on the official Bay Bridge info site) captures both the era and the engineering:
Much like the Brooklyn bridge when it was first built, the Bay Bridge towered over the surrounding architecture of the cities it connected. It is anchored in the middle to Yerba Buena island with tunnels connecting the two spans of the bridges. On the the San Francisco side, it is anchored to Rincon Hill, once an upscale neighborhood in the late 1800s that fell into rapid decline and largely destroyed in the 1906 quake. The eastern bridge was built resting on mud rather than bedrock. It was the most expensive bridge built to date.
The idea of a bridge crossing the bay has been around since the 1800s. Indeed, such a bridge was proposed by Emperor Norton in the 1870s (I think this even made it into Gino Robair’s opera I Norton). But unlike his other proclamations, this one seemed like a good idea. After that, there were many proposals, such as this one that in some ways resembles the bridge that was actually built.
The bridge proposed in this drawing connected to Telegraph Hill rather than Rincon Hill, and has suspension bridges on both sides of Yerba Buena island. The spires also make it look like some of the older suspension bridges on the East River in New York.
When bridge first opened, it carried US Highways 40 and 50 as well as the trains from the Key System in the East Bay. The upper deck had longer ramps leading to Harrison and Bryant Streets at 5th, roughly the same as the rather long ramps at those streets today. On the Oakland side, the bridge had viaducts from Cypress Street (Highway 17) as well as San Pablo Avenue and the Eastshore Highway (US 40). The bridge now carries Interstate 80 across the bay. The railway is long gone. Gone also are the connections to the old Transbay Terminal and Embarcadero Freeway, both of which have been demolished. The area under the bridge on the San Francisco side, once a gritty industrial waterfront, is now a picturesque boulevard that is great for walking. Through all of the changes, the bridge itself has not changed very much at all…
[Bay Bridge approach, 1940s]
[Bay Bridge and Embarcadero, 1970s and 1980s. Photos from Wikimedia Commons.]
[Present day, Bay Bridge and southern Embarcadero. Photo by CatSynth]
…until now. The eastern truss span, which was badly damaged in the 1989 earthquake, is now being replaced with a new more graceful cable-stayed span. The construction has progressed to the point where the tower is in place and the cables are being hung. It is indeed a bit distracting when traveling the bridge. But I am looking forward to seeing it completed, probably around the 77th anniversary in 2013.
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One word describes this endangered parrot: spectacular! Nearly half a metre (a foot-and-a-half) tall, an Imperial Amazon is an explosion of colour. Its head, nape and back are maroon-purple, as are its breast feathers, which have dark tips that give them a scale-like appearance. Its thighs, wings, and undertail (vent) and uppertail areas are green. The wings sport black primary feathers, a dark maroon speculum (wing patch), and red on the leading edge. The green-tipped tail is also reddish.
To our eye, males and females are identical, but young birds have a green neck and nape. Youngsters also have green cheeks; in adults these are reddish-brown.
Tragically, the Imperial Amazon's beauty is one reason for its rarity, for these birds became popular in the pet trade. They were trapped, and they were also shot for food, especially in the rainy season when they were fatter.
Imperial Amazons are extremely sensitive to habitat change. They live in high-altitude mountain forests (elevation: 600 to 1300 m; 1,968 to 4,264 ft.), only descending to lower elevations to forage during food shortages. Much of their habitat has been logged or converted to banana plantations. Some has been destroyed by hurricanes, especially Hurricane David in 1979.
Imperial Amazons are found only in Dominica in the Lesser Antilles, where they are known as the Sisserou. They are endemic, which means they were never found anywhere else in the world.
By 1990, as few as 80 birds were left, but by 2004, protection and the establishment of parks had helped their population rise to an estimated two to three hundred.
Most live on Dominica's tallest mountain, Morne Diablotin, but a small population has become re-established on Morne Trois Pitons. These national parks also protect habitat for Red-necked Amazons (Amazona arausiaca), another Dominican endemic.
Relatively little is known about Imperial Amazons because they live in the canopy of mature rainforests and nest in tree cavities that are largely hidden by vines and other plants. Two eggs are laid, but usually only one young survives. Mating occurs early in the year during the dry season, because this is when their food—a variety of nuts, fruit, blossoms and shoots—is most plentiful. Because they sometimes breed only every second year, Imperial Amazon populations grow very slowly.
Imperial Amazons are beautiful birds, but singers they are not. Their sounds include piercing whistles, harsh shrieks, and flight calls that have been described as a cross between a yodel and a trumpet blast!
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Fish and Omega-3 Fatty Acids
- 02-01-2007, 05:58 PM
Fish and Omega-3 Fatty Acids
At the office today, the doc showed me this great bit of information I personally found interesting. Hopefully some of you out there feel the same.
Omega-3 fatty acids benefit the heart of healthy people, and those at high risk of — or who have — cardiovascular disease.
We recommend eating fish (particularly fatty fish) at least two times a week. Fish is a good source of protein and doesn’t have the high saturated fat that fatty meat products do. Fatty fish like mackerel, lake trout, herring, sardines, albacore tuna and salmon are high in two kinds of omega-3 fatty acids, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA).
To learn about omega-3 levels for different types of fish — as well as mercury levels, which can be a concern — see our Encyclopedia entry on Fish, Levels of Mercury and Omega-3 Fatty Acids.
We also recommend eating tofu and other forms of soybeans, canola, walnut and flaxseed, and their oils. These contain alpha-linolenic acid (LNA), which can become omega-3 fatty acid in the body. The extent of this modification is modest and controversial, however. More studies are needed to show a cause-and-effect relationship between alpha-linolenic acid and heart disease.
The table below is a good guide to use for consuming omega-3 fatty acids.
Summary of Recommendations for Omega-3 Fatty Acid Intake
Patients without documented coronary heart disease (CHD) = Eat a variety of (preferably fatty) fish at least twice a week. Include oils and foods rich in alpha-linolenic acid (flaxseed, canola and soybean oils; flaxseed and walnuts).
Patients with documented CHD = Consume about 1 g of EPA+DHA per day, preferably from fatty fish. EPA+DHA in capsule form could be considered in consultation with the physician.
Patients who need to lower triglycerides = 2 to 4 grams of EPA+DHA per day provided as capsules under a physician’s care.
Patients taking more than 3 grams of omega-3 fatty acids from capsules should do so only under a physician’s care. High intakes could cause excessive bleeding in some people.
In 1996 the American Heart Association released its Science Advisory, “Fish Consumption, , Lipids and Coronary Heart Disease.” Since then important new findings have been reported about the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids on cardiovascular disease. These include evidence from randomized, controlled clinical trials. New information has emerged about how omega-3 fatty acids affect heart function (including antiarrhythmic effects), hemodynamics (cardiac mechanics) and arterial endothelial function. These findings are outlined in our November 2002 Scientific Statement, “Fish Consumption, Fish Oil, Omega-3 Fatty Acids and Cardiovascular Disease.”
The ways that omega-3 fatty acids reduce CVD risk are still being studied. However, research has shown that they
decrease risk of arrhythmias, which can lead to sudden cardiac death
decrease triglyceride levels
decrease growth rate of atherosclerotic plaque
lower blood pressure (slightly)
What do epidemiological and observational studies show?
Epidemiologic and clinical trials have shown that omega-3 fatty acids reduce CVD incidence. Large-scale epidemiologic studies suggest that people at risk for coronary heart disease benefit from consuming omega-3 fatty acids from plants and marine sources.
The ideal amount to take isn’t clear. Evidence from prospective secondary prevention studies suggests that taking EPA+DHA ranging from 0.5 to 1.8 grams per day (either as fatty fish or supplements) significantly reduces deaths from heart disease and all causes. For alpha-linolenic acid, a total intake of 1.5–3 grams per day seems beneficial.
Randomized clinical trials have shown that omega-3 fatty acid supplements can reduce cardiovascular events (death, non-fatal heart attacks, non-fatal strokes). They can also slow the progression of atherosclerosis in coronary patients. However, more studies are needed to confirm and further define the health benefits of omega-3 fatty acid supplements for preventing a first or subsequent cardiovascular event. For example, placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomized clinical trials are needed to document the safety and efficacy of omega-3 fatty acid supplements in high-risk patients (those with type 2 diabetes, dyslipidemia, hypertension and smokers) and coronary patients on drug therapy. Mechanistic studies on their apparent effects on sudden death also are needed.
Increasing omega-3 fatty acid intake through foods is preferable. However, coronary artery disease patients may not be able to get enough omega-3 by diet alone. These people may want to talk to their doctor about taking a supplement. Supplements also could help people with high triglycerides, who need even larger doses. The availability of high-quality omega-3 fatty acid supplements, free of contaminants, is an important prerequisite to their use.
Fish and Omega-3 Fatty Acids
- 02-12-2007, 08:56 AM
Hey guys, this posting says 3 grams of fish oils a day is the "safe" dosage. How much are you guys taking?
am taking about 6 grams a day, and I really like its effect on my mood. 3 grams doesn't seem to do the trick for me.
02-12-2007, 11:24 AM
damn...6 grams.....whew....is there anysupps out there that i dont have to take like 30 of them a day to get that much???
02-12-2007, 11:27 AM
In a recent study looking at soy's affect on reproductive health in healthy males, men given 40 mg of soy isoflavones daily for 2 months (there are 20 mg of isoflavones in 1 cup of soy milk; 38 mg in 1/2 cup of tofu), there were no effects on serum sex hormones, testicular volume, or semen quality. This was deemed the first study to examine the effects of a phytoestrogen supplement on reproductive health in males. (Mitchell et al., Clinical Science 100(6):613-618, 2001 June)
I believe in fact, I read somewhere that phytoestrogens have very weak estrogen-like activity but can also act like anti-estrogens, reducing the effects of naturally-produced estrogen. Phytoestrogens can inhibit the body’s production of certain hormones that are linked to cancer development as well.
Hopefully I can get someone to clear this up..
02-12-2007, 11:48 AM
02-13-2007, 08:25 PM
02-14-2007, 06:38 PM
Interesting, now I'll have to avoid soy products, I used to use soy milk for cereal a long time ago. So is flax seed is bad to use then?
02-16-2007, 05:53 AM
Hey I don't want to create any contreversey or anything, but I recall reading somewhere advice that suggests men avoid flax seeds, because they contain phytoestrogens. It is probably just some rogue alarmist looking for attention, can someone clear this up for me?
02-16-2007, 10:33 AM
02-16-2007, 10:45 AM
02-16-2007, 11:01 AM
02-16-2007, 11:42 AM
New FDA Soy Website
David B. Haytowitz of the Agricultural Research Services (ARS), in Beltsville, Md., part of USDA.
Haytowitz participated in creating the site (http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcom.../isoflav.html), which lists a total of 128 foods. Federal nutritionists spent one year on the project, combing through scientific literature to derive the amounts of isoflavones, compounds familiar to health store habitues such as daidzein, genistein and glycitein, in various foods. In addition, food scientist Patricia A. Murphy of Iowa State University in Ames, analyzed samples of various new food products like vegetarian hot dogs and hamburgers to measure their isoflavones.
Federal interest in quantifying the health benefits of soy products has increased with the release last November of a proposed Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rule to allow food manufacturers to make health claims on soy-related products.
"The agency has tentatively concluded that, based on the totality of publicly available scientific evidence, soy protein included in a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease," according to an FDA notice in the Federal Register. Foods like soybeans, chickpeas and tofu would gain new labels touting their health benefits under this rule. The agency is still working on the final wording of its manufacturer guidance, according to Susan M. Pilch, of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.
The Web site contains two sets of tables detailing the amounts of isoflavones in the various foods. For scientists, the site offers connections to two lengthy lists of references for the analysis. Researchers can also download a complete copy of the database to their computers from the ARS.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists cautiously endorsed women using soy products as an alternative to traditional hormone replacement therapy in its guidebook, "Managing Menopause." The Washington D.C.-based organization noted that research has found a 45 percent
reduction in hot flashes among women who took daily soy protein supplements.
The new Web site represents an effort by federal nutritionists to raise awareness of more recently discovered nutrients in the human diet, according to Haytowitz. A related site on his agencies' web page looks at carotenoids, compounds associated with Vitamin A. Future sites are planned to
list nutrients in teas, onions and red wine. "We're just getting to the point where we can see the physiological effects of these new compounds," said Haytowitz.
The FDA soy rule can be found at Federal Register (1998; 63: 62977-63015)
02-16-2007, 11:45 AM
Editor’s note: Nexus magazine ran a sensational article about the “dangers” of soy. This is Dr. Steven Chaney’s response. Dr. Chaney is a professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry, Bio-Physics, and Nutrition at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He has run an internationally recognized cancer research program at that Institution for 28 years. For many years he has also taught nutrition to medical students.
Dear Dr. Falentin,
The source that you sent me to (NEXUS: Home Page) is hardly a
credible information source. I checked out not only the article that you
sent me (which was incredibly one sided) but also the magazine's main web
site. When you look at the kind of articles the magazine publishes, it puts
their article on soy in perspective. This is an organization that sees UFOs
and government conspiracies everywhere! I would just make the following
1) Much of the negative information was on soy beans themselves and not
textured soy protein or other processed soy products, so it is completely
2) I am aware of a few negative reports concerning soy phytoestrogens.
However, those are based primarily on cell culture and animal experiments.
Any good scientist will tell you that those experiments have only a 10%
chance of proving true in humans. We don't discount those experiments, but
rather use them as a basis for designing human clinical trials that will
definatively test the hypotheses that they have raised. If they are
confirmed in clinical trials, then it would be appropriate to change current
recommendations - not before.
3) Those reports should be compared with the literally hundreds of clinical
studies showing the safety and health benefits of soy as part of a healthy
diet. The FDA's recommendation for use of soy protein speaks for itself. If
anyone tries to tell you that the FDA is conspiring with industry to promote
one product over another, they are probably trying to sell you something.
4) I have also been following the research with Dr. Bounous' whey protein
product. That resarch is in the very early stages yet. One particular
concern that I have at present is that all of the research has been done by
Dr. Bounous - and he is the one who holds the patent on the product. Past
experience warns me that his findings may not hold up when evaluated by
independent laboratories. Until independent research confirms his findings I
remain very skeptical. I also suspect that the company marketing his
products is likely to run into problems with the FDA in this country. They
are making drug-like claims. You can't do that with a food.
I hope this is helpful.
Dr. Stephen G. Chaney
02-16-2007, 12:23 PM
02-16-2007, 06:14 PM
My honest opinion is that if soy DOES indeed alter estrogen levels or what not in men, it's so minute it's not even noteworthy. There was a study completed not to long ago on the efficacy of both whey & soy as far as their muscle building properties go and in conclusion, both whey & soy were equivalent in the opportunities both provided for muscle building.
There's too much conflicting evidence on both sides to say certain. You might not recommend soy for men cause of 1/2 the studies and research out there but there is another 1/2 out there that proves otherwise and I'm sure they're not all funded by Archer Daniels Midland.
To each his own.
02-16-2007, 06:55 PM
02-16-2007, 08:04 PM
my 2 cents
Eat a cup of brocolli a day and it helps reduce estrogyn in the body and helps with muscle growth
02-16-2007, 09:20 PM
02-16-2007, 10:40 PM
I'm not here to argue, bash or get bashed. Discussion over as far as soy goes, let's keep it moving.
02-17-2007, 11:14 AM
Thanks for the compliments on my....debating style? I always try to be as diplomatic as possible not to mention I'll never forget this member's sig I saw on another board:
Arguing on the internet is like competing in the Special Olympics: win or lose, you're still a retard.
I thought it was pretty funny myself but on another note, I did have a question. Typically I'm not a big fan of dairy milk but when I do drink it, I try to stick to organic skim milk for the low saturated fat content.Have you ever tried any other types of milk that you can personally recommend me aside from dairy?
02-18-2007, 09:28 AM
Anything, that antagonizes estrogen receptors is estrogenic case closed final decree!
The only marketable thing about soy is that it is so cheap to produce that they could give it away and still make a profit!!!
You are spot on with Archer Daniel Midland, everything that is wrong with modern agriculture can be found in the minutes of ADM corporate agenda meeting
02-18-2007, 12:49 PM
02-18-2007, 12:54 PM
John Pinder - he might not be a "BB'er but he is indeed a lifter". I DID mean to say that but looking back @ my post I realize I failed to. My apologies. There are soy supplements out there that ARE complete in their amino acid profiles last I remember as well...
02-19-2007, 12:04 AM
02-19-2007, 05:12 AM
02-19-2007, 09:08 AM
I use GLA, I was under the impression that GLA helps produce the good eicosanoids .
Gamma-Linolenic acid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[/QUOTE]However, a lack of GLA can occur when people grow older and their bodies become unable to produce it in sufficient quantities, or due to specific dietary deficiencies.[QUOTE]
From GLA, the body forms dihomo-gamma-linolenic acid (DGLA). This is one of the body's three sources of eicosanoids (along with AA and EPA.) DGLA is the precursor of the prostaglandin PGH1, which in turn forms PGE1 and the thromboxane TXA1. PGE1 has a role in regulation of immune system function and is used as the medicine alprostadil. TXA1 modulates the pro-inflammatory properties of the thromboxane TXA2.
Unlike AA and EPA, DGLA cannot yield leukotrienes. However it can inhibit the formation of pro-inflammatory leukotrienes from AA, (Belch and Hill, 2000).
Although GLA is an ω-6 fatty acid (which are generally pro-inflammatory) it has anti-inflammatory properties; see discussion at Essential fatty acid interactions - The paradox of dietary GLA.
02-19-2007, 12:33 PM
02-19-2007, 05:48 PM
We drink almond milk YUMMY!!!! THere is also almond cheese that is good. I have a child that can't handle milk, makes him a spaz same as sugar. And with the olive oil some can't handle the high heat I cook with grape seed oil YUMMY too.
02-19-2007, 06:35 PM
02-19-2007, 06:36 PM
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Chimps as smart as preschoolers?
The Associated Press (AP) reported on January 6, 2000, that a chimpanzee ‘performed about as well as an average (Japanese) preschool child’ on similar numerical tests. The female chimp can apparently ‘remember the correct sequence of 5 random numbers’, according to researchers at Kyoto University in Japan.
We expect that evolutionists will use this study to bolster their claim of a close evolutionary relationship between humans and chimps. But how closely related are we to chimps, apes, monkeys, etc.? Previous articles in Creation magazine have dealt with this issue, including one on how enthusiasm has been dampening on the ‘reasoning’ and ‘language’ ability of chimps (see ‘Bird-brain matches chimps’), and that science shows that the DNA of chimps does not offer compelling biological evidence that they are closely related to humans. (See ‘How Close are Humans and Chimps?’)
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|MadSci Network: Science History|
Rodinia and Pangea were two different supercontinents, rather than two different names for the same supercontinent. They were both formed from some of the same continental fragments, but they formed at different periods in time. The information below was obtained from Dr. Christopher Scotese's excellent website on plate motions, called "The Paleomap Project". Dr. Scotese is one of the world's leading researchers on paleogeopgraphy (the study of the ancient positions of different land masses and their characteristics). Go to the web site at :
and click on the links to the different times and look at the maps then click on the link to "More Info" in the upper left of each screen.
Rodinia was a supercontinent formed about 1100 million years ago (that's 1,100,000,000 years). 750 million years ago, Rodinia broke into three pieces that drifted apart as a new ocean formed between the pieces. Then, about 600 million years ago, those pieces came back together with a big crunch known as the Pan-African orogeny (mountain building event). This formed a new supercontinent, with the name of Pannotia. By about 550 million years ago, Pannotia was breaking up into several small fragments, Laurentia (the core of what is now North America), Baltica (northern Europe), and Siberia, among others, and one very large piece. This large piece, containing what would become China, India, Africa, South America, and Antarctica, was called Gondwana. It is considered a supercontinent in its own right because it is so big, but it is only part of the earlier supercontinents. Over the next 200 million years many of the small pieces came together to form another large continent called Laurasia. Laurasia and Gondwana joined approximately 275 million years ago to form the supercontinent of Pangea. The breakup of Pangea is still going on today and contributes in the formation of the Atlantic Ocean. Eventually a new supercontinent will form and then it will break apart and so on.
As you can see, the earth's continents have seen a lot of action over time. There were probably some supercontinents formed in the 4300 million years of earth's history that came before Rodinia was formed, however, we have a much harder time understanding the history of rocks that old because there were not very many life forms to help determine the age of the rocks and because so much has happened to the rocks since they formed that the record of the original events is not very clear any more (imagine that five different people each taped over different parts of your favorite video and then from the little pieces that were left of the original, you had to go back and try to put the whole story together - geologists who do this work are a lot like detectives.
I hope this is helpful and that you post more of your questions.
Davis Smith, Ph.D., La Salle University, Philadelphia, PA
Try the links in the MadSci Library for more information on Science History.
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Many of us rely on bread as a staple in our daily diets. But are you aware of everything on the label and their effects on our heath?
Grocery stores offer us a huge range of breads, with many promising they are healthy options full of goodness, grains and ‘all natural’ ingredients. But labels can be deceptive. Here are common ingredients found in many common breads.
1. HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP
High fructose corn syrup has attracted a great deal of negative publicity and has been highlighted as a “food nasty” commonly found in many processed foods including desserts, candies, sodas and soft drinks, as well as some breads.
It is chemically similar to table sugar although it is much sweeter and cheaper making it attractive to manufacturers. However the body processes high-fructose corn syrup differently than table sugar.
It undergoes a chemical process where the glucose and fructose, which are normally bound together, become separated. When these chemicals enter the blood stream, the fructose collects in the liver and starts a process called lipogenesis, which is basically fat production. ‘Fatty liver’ is currently one of the most prevalent diseases in the US today, with 90 million Americans estimated to be suffering from it. It is often a precursor to Type 2 diabetes.
High-fructose corn syrup also raises the risk of strokes, heart attacks, dementia and some cancers.
2. REFINED GRAINS
Highly processed refined grains are often in white breads in addition to white crackers and white rice. They are grains which have been stripped of all nutritional benefits by undergoing the refining process making them ‘whiter’.
The more refined the carbohydrate, the faster the glucose is released into your blood. This can cause peaks and drops in your blood sugar level and less stable energy levels in the body. These simple carbohydrates are linked to insulin resistance and high blood pressure which can lead to heart attacks.
3. POTASSIUM BROMATE
This is a common additive in commercial bread. It is used to strengthen the dough and to make the bread cook faster. Many countries around the world have already banned this substance in food production, including Canada, European Union, China, Brazil, South Korea and China. Research has shown a link between this additive and cancer of the kidney and thyroid (i).
This is an amino acid which also shortens the baking time of mass produced bread. It is usually derived from human hair, duck feathers and hog hair (ii).This is mostly produced in China by dissolving the hair or down in acid and shipped around the world as a bread softener.
5. AMMONIUM SULFATE
We all associate ammonia with strong household cleaning products. But were you aware it can also be found in bread? The FDA has deemed it safe at these small levels which are found in food products, but some concern has been raised as to the cumulative effects as many Americans eat bread on a daily basis. Ammonium sulphate has been linked with irritation to the gastrointestinal tract resulting in diarrhea and nausea.
If you still want bread, read your labels carefully and especially avoid all softening agents. Choose organic bread or bread certified as coming from an all natural bakery. Whole grain breads are better than the over processed white breads.
Or even better – bake at home!
Please share this if you have friends or family that eat a lot of processed bread and are unaware of the potential ill effects on their health. Just hit one of the buttons below.Share:
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I. OPERATIONS OF INTELLECT IN GENERAL
[Antonyms: absence of intellect.]
[Nouns] intellect, mind, understanding, reason, thinking principle; rationality; cogitative faculties, cognitive faculties, discursive faculties, reasoning faculties, intellectual faculties; faculties, senses, consciousness, observation, percipience, intelligence, intellection, intuition, association of ideas, instinct, conception, judgment, wits, parts, capacity, intellectuality, genius; brains, cognitive powers, intellectual powers; wit [more]; ability (skill) [more]; wisdom [more]; Vernunft, Verstand.
soul, spirit, ghost, inner man, heart, breast, bosom, penetralia mentis, divina particula aurae, heart's core; the Absolute, psyche, subliminal consciousness, supreme principle.
organ of thought, seat of thought; sensorium, sensory, brain; head, headpiece; pate, noddle, skull, scull, pericranium, cerebrum, cranium, brainpan, sconce, upper story.
[Science of mind] metaphysics; psychics, psychology; ideology; mental philosophy, moral philosophy; philosophy of the mind; pneumatology, phrenology; craniology, cranioscopy.
ideality, idealism; transcendentalism, spiritualism; immateriality [more]; universal concept, universal conception.
[Adjectives] [Relating to intellect] intellectual, mental, rational, subjective, metaphysical, nooscopic, spiritual; ghostly; psychical, psychological; cerebral; animastic; brainy; hyperphysical, superphysical; subconscious, subliminal.
immaterial [more]; endowed with reason.
[Phrases] ens rationis; frons est animi janua [Cicero]; locos y ni�os dicen la verdad; mens sola loco non exulat [Ovid]; "my mind is my kingdom" [Campbell]; "stern men with empires in their brains" [Lowell]; "the mind, the music breathing from her face" [Byron]; "thou living ray of intellectual Fire" [Falconer].
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Free Basics is a subsidised internet platform that gives users Facebook and a few other services for free. Facebook says this will help connect India’s poor people to the internet. However, critics claim that it works against the rules of net neutrality, according to which all material on the Internet should be treated equally by internet service providers. Only a few products and websites, including Facebook, can be accessed through Free Basics.
The debate about the platform has been especially heated over the past few days because the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India set Wednesday as a deadline for the public to submit their opinions about whether the service should be allowed.
On Tuesday, a group of academics weighed in, claiming that Free Basics will limit the freedom with which Indians can use their own public utility, the internet.
Here is the full statement:
Allowing a private entity
- to define for Indian Internet users what is “basic”,
- to control what content costs how much, and
- to have access to the personal content created and used by millions of Indians
is a lethal combination which will lead to total lack of freedom on how Indians can use their own public utility, the Internet. Facebook's “free basics” proposal is such a lethal combination, having several deep flaws, beneath the veil of altruism wrapped around it in TV and other media advertisements, as detailed below.
Flaw 1: Facebook defines what is “basic”.
The first obvious flaw in the proposal is that Facebook assumes control of defining what a “basic” service is. They have in fact set up an interface for services to “submit” themselves to Facebook for approval to be a “basic” service. This means: what are the “basic” digital services Indians will access using their own air waves will be decided by a private corporation, and that too one based on foreign soil. The sheer absurdity of this is too obvious to point out.
To draw an analogy, suppose a chocolate company wishes to provide “free basic food” for all Indians, but retains control of what constitutes “basic” food ̶ this would clearly be absurd. Further, if the same company defines its own brand of “toffee” as a “basic” food, it would be doubly absurd and its motives highly questionable. While the Internet is not as essential as food, that the Internet is a public utility touching the lives of rich and poor alike cannot be denied. What Facebook is proposing to do with this public utility is no different from the hypothetical chocolate company. In fact, it has defined itself to be the first “basic” service, as evident from Reliance's ads on Free Facebook. Now, it will require quite a stretch of imagination to classify Facebook as “basic”. This is why Facebook's own ad script writers have prompted Mr. Zuckerberg to instead make emotional appeals of education and healthcare for the poor Indian masses; these appeals are misleading, to say the least.
Flaw 2: Facebook will have access to all your apps' contents.
The second major flaw in the model, is that Facebook would be able to decrypt the contents of the “basic” apps on its servers. This flaw is not visible to the lay person as it's a technical detail, but it has deep and disturbing implications. Since Facebook can access un-encrypted contents of users' “basic” services, either we get to consider health apps to be not basic, or risk revealing health records of all Indians to Facebook. Either we get to consider our banking apps to be not “basic”, or risk exposing the financial information of all Indians to Facebook. And so on. This is mind boggling even under normal circumstances, and even more so considering the recent internal and international snooping activities by the NSA in the US.
Flaw 3: It's not free.
The third flaw is that the term “free” in “free basics” is a marketing gimmick. If you see an ad which says “buy a bottle of hair oil, get a comb free”, you know that the cost of the comb is added somewhere. If something comes for free, its cost has to appear somewhere else. Telecom operators will have to recover the cost of “free basic” apps from the non-free services (otherwise, why not make everything free?). So effectively, whatever Facebook does not consider “basic” will cost more.
If Facebook gets to decide what costs how much, in effect Indians will be surrendering their digital freedom, and freedom in the digital economy, to Facebook. So this is not an issue of elite Indians able to pay for the Internet versus poor Indians, as Facebook is trying to portray. It is an issue of whether all Indians want to surrender their digital freedom to Facebook.
That the “Free Basics” proposal is flawed as above is alarming but not surprising, for it violates one of the core architectural principles of Internet design: net neutrality. Compromising net neutrality, an important design principle of the Internet, would invariably lead to deep consequences on people's freedom to access and use information. We therefore urge that the TRAI should support net neutrality in its strongest form, and thoroughly reject Facebook's “free basics” proposal.
Krithi Ramamritham, Professor, CSE, IIT Bombay
Bhaskaran Raman, Professor, CSE, IIT Bombay
Siddhartha Chaudhuri, Assistant Professor, CSE, IIT Bombay
Ashwin Gumaste, Associate Professor, CSE, IIT Bombay
Kameswari Chebrolu, Associate Professor, CSE, IIT Bombay
Uday Khedker, Professor, CSE, IIT Bombay
Madhu N. Belur, Professor, EE, IIT Bombay
Mukul Chandorkar, Professor, EE, IIT Bombay
Amitabha Bagchi, Associate Professor, CS&E, IIT Delhi
Vinay Ribeiro, Associate Professor, CS&E, IIT Delhi
Niloy Ganguly, Professor, CS&E, IIT Kharagpur
Animesh Kumar, Assistant Professor, EE, IIT Bombay
Animesh Mukherjee, Assistant Professor, CSE, IIT Kharagpur
Subhashis Banerjee, Professor, CSE, IIT Delhi
Shivaram Kalyanakrishnan, Assistant Professor, CSE, IIT Bombay
Saswat Chakrabarti, Professor, GSSST, IIT Kharagpur
H.Narayanan, Professor, EE, I.I.T Bombay
Vinayak Naik, Associate Professor, CSE, IIIT-Delhi
Aurobinda Routray, Professor, EE, IIT Kharagpur
Naveen Garg, Professor, IIT Delhi
Amarjeet Singh, Assistant Professor, CSE, IIIT-Delhi
Purushottam Kulkarni, Associate Professor, CSE, IIT Bombay
Supratik Chakraborty, Professor, CSE, IIT Bombay
Kavi Arya, Associate Professor, CSE, IIT Bombay
S. Akshay, Assistant Professor, CSE, IIT Bombay
Jyoti Sinha, Visiting Faculty, Robotics, IIIT Delhi
Joydeep Chandra, Assistant Professor, CSE, IIT Patna
Parag Chaudhuri, Associate Professor, CSE, IIT Bombay
Rajiv Raman, Assistant Professor, IIIT-Delhi
Mayank Vatsa, Associate Professor, IIIT-Delhi
Anirban Mukherjee, Associate Professor, EE, IIT Kharagpur
Pushpendra Singh, Associate Professor, IIIT-Delhi
Partha Pratim Das, Professor, CSE, IIT Kharagpur
Dheeraj Sanghi, Professor, IIIT Delhi
Karabi Biswas, Associate Professor, EE, IIT Kharagpur
Bikash Kumar Dey, Professor, EE, IIT Bombay
Mohammad Hashmi, Assistant Professor, ECE, IIIT Delhi
Venu Madhav Govindu, Assistant Professor, EE, IISc Bengaluru
Murali Krishna Ramanathan, Assistant Professor, CSA, IISc Bangalore
Sridhar Iyer, Professor, IIT Bombay
Sujay Deb, Assistant Professor, ECE, IIIT Delhi
Virendra Sule, Professor, EE, IIT Bombay
Om Damani, Associate Professor, CSE, IIT Bombay
V Rajbabu, Assistant Professor, EE, IIT Bombay
Hema Murthy, Professor, CSE, IIT Madras
Anupam Basu, Professor, CSE, IIT Kharagpur
Sriram Srinivasan, Adjunct Professor, CSE, IIT Bombay
K.V.S. Hari, Professor, ECE, IISc, Bengaluru
Ashish Mishra, CSA IISc , Bangalore
Shalabh Gupta, EE, IIT Bombay
Suman Kumar Maji, EE, IIT Patna
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The folks at MIT have cooked up a new way to interact with your computer without holding a physical mouse. The “Mouseless” project abandons the traditional hardware mouse and replaces it with a new invisible mouse. Unlike Wonder Woman’s jet, there is no mouse at all; rather a laptop is equipped with IR sensors to detect movement.
To use the “Mouseless” system, all a user needs to do is cup their hand on the desk near the notebook and an IR laser will activate the mousing. A notebook mounted IR camera detects the movement. The hardware for the project costs just over $20, which is similar to that of a low end mouse.
The new “Mouseless” system may look cool on camera, but since it still requires you to act like a real mouse is there the current implementation adds little to the user experience. But, this technology could lead to newer, more efficient means of interacting with your computer. This type of forward thinking mouse experimentation is what has led to the almost certain to be released Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse, a multitouch mouse based on research from Microsoft.
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Radiation Exposure from Imaging Procedures at Boston Children's
As part of your child's medical care at Boston Children's Hospital, he or she might need to undergo an imaging study or scan to diagnose the presence or absence of disease.
Some of these imaging tests use ionizing radiation such as X-rays, nuclear medicine studies or CT scans. You may have read about the potential risk derived from radiation from imaging tests. The purpose of this discussion is to let you know that Children's takes radiation exposure from diagnostic imaging very seriously and our professionals go to great lengths to ensure that these tests are performed with the lowest possible radiation exposure to patients and families. First, it's important to note that, while epidemiologic studies suggest that there is a very small risk of developing cancer over one’s lifetime associated with large exposures to ionizing radiation, no study has shown a measurable risk from the small amounts used in a single diagnostic imaging examination. However, although it is prudent to assume that each small exposure poses a slight risk, if the procedure is appropriately performed, the benefit to your child will greatly outweigh the risk of being exposed to a small amount of radiation.
Staff members at Children's, who are experts in the use of diagnostic imaging tests that utilize ionizing radiation, routinely follow three steps to reduce the risk to patients and families:
Studies that involve radiation are only used when they are deemed the most appropriate test for a particular patient. Diagnostic examinations that do not involve ionizing radiation, like ultrasound or MRI, are substituted for examinations using ionizing radiation, when appropriate. In addition, steps are taken to reduce the need for multiple studies involving radiation.
When an X-ray, CT scan or nuclear medicine study is performed, our techniques are designed to ensure that the radiation dose is reduced to the amount needed to provide a diagnostic quality examination.
The imaging equipment as well as pharmaceuticals or contrast agents needed to be given to the patient for some studies are properly calibrated and optimized for the special imaging needs of your child. This helps ensure the best possible result and greatest safety at the lowest necessary radiation level.
Physicians, technologists, medical physicists and radiation safety professionals all play a role in assuring the best diagnostic image quality while minimizing patient radiation exposure. The professionals that oversee the use of ionizing radiation at Children's are leading national and international efforts towards radiation dose reduction through programs such as the "Image Gently" campaign, which aims to keep the medical use of radiation as safe as possible for children.
Further information about these efforts may be found at the website of the Alliance for Radiation Safety in Pediatric Imaging. If you have any specific questions regarding X-ray exposure, please contact Kevin Buckley, MSc, our X-ray Safety Officer, at (617) 355-7182 or via email. For specific questions regarding Nuclear Medicine radiation exposure, please contact William A. Lorenzen, MS, our Radiation Safety Officer, at (617) 355-7517 or via email.
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Physicians and scientists at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center have successfully established a diagnostic technique that virtually eliminates the risk of passing on certain genetic traits from parent to offspring, a significant medical advancement that could spell the end to a family’s history of dealing with a deadly disease. In this case, doctors successfully used the technique preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to isolate the gene responsible for causing retinoblastoma, the most common primary cancer of childhood. The result? The world’s first two babies born free of the deadly disease. PGD, or embryo biopsy, is employed with in vitro fertilization to determine the genetic status of embryos before implantation, allowing parents to know with a relatively degree of certainty that their child will be normal, before the mother even begins carrying the child. If a parent has retinoblastoma, the chances are 50 percent likely that their offspring will be affected, often with fatal results. Children born with the gene often develop retinal tumors; they also have more of a proclivity for developing other cancers, such as osteosarcomas of the skull or extremities, soft-tissue sarcomas, and melanomas. Led by Dr. Zev Rosenwaks, director of the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility, the interdisciplinary team used the relatively new technology to biopsy single cells from the DNA of a mother whose first child was born with the defect three-and-a-half years ago and later developed retinoblastoma at a young age. Embryos determined not to carry the gene were implanted within the mother’s uterus. She went on to have two successful pregnancies through PGD — resulting in a daughter, now 18 months old, and a son, now 8 months. “Previous methods for detecting retinoblastoma have had their limits,” says Dr. Rosenwaks. Other procedures, such as amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling necessitate tissue or fluid to be removed from around the developing fetus. Couples with a positive test result face a tremendously difficult decision — whether to terminate the pregnancy or go forward knowing their child may be prone to develop cancer. New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell’s Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility is credited with the nation’s first PGD baby, as well as America’s first babies born free of hemophilia and sickle cell. PGD procedures are also offered to couples with genetic disorders and chromosomal abnormalities, including Tay Sach’s, cystic fibrosis, thalassemia and Fanconi’s anemia, among others.
A strong case for vitamin D?
In the first study of the role dietary intake of vitamin D plays in the development of multiple sclerosis in women, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health have found that women with the highest intake of the vitamin through supplement use had a 40 percent lower risk of developing the disease as compared to women who did not use supplements. “These results are encouraging. We have suspected that vitamin D may play a role in reducing the risk of developing MS,” says the study’s lead author, Kassandra Munger, a researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health’s Department of Nutrition in Boston. The National Institutes of Health-funded study appears in a recent issue of the medical journal Neurology. Of the more than 185,000 women selected to participate in the study who were free of the disease, 173 developed MS during the span of the research, which occurred from 1980-1999. Women who had the highest intake of vitamin D supplements (400 IU per day or more) had a 40 percent reduced risk of developing the chronic central nervous system disease than those who did not use vitamin supplements. No reduction in risk was associated with vitamin D intake through food alone. Manufactured by the body via exposure to sunlight and artificial sources of ultraviolet light, foods like milk, liver and fish are also good sources of vitamin D. Although the precise causes of the debilitating disease remain unknown, the study’s results point to the deficiency of vitamin D as a principal factor in the onset of MS in women. Previous research has also pointed to the role of vitamin D in MS. Studies in 2002 and 2003 linked inadequate exposure to UV-B light to an array of other serious diseases, such as rickets and diabetes. Currently, an estimated 250,000 to 350,000 Americans have MS. Most people experience their first symptoms of MS between the ages of 20 and 40. Whites are more than twice as likely as other races to develop MS and, in general, women are affected at almost twice the rate of men. Another study, conducted recently by scientists at the Unit of Health-Care Epidemiology at Oxford University’s Department of Public Health in London, showed that sunshine may protect against the development of MS, particularly the closer people live to the equator. Published in the March 2004 Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, the study suggests that a minimum level of exposure to sunlight’s UV-B ultraviolet rays throughout the year may be important in protecting individuals against the deadly disease. The exposure, researchers held, may better protect people against MS by beneficially influencing the immune system response, possibly through changes in production levels of vitamin D and melanin, the substance involved in acquiring a tan. “Because the number of cases of MS increases the farther you get from the equator, one hypothesis has been that sunlight exposure and high levels of vitamin D may reduce the risk of MS,” Munger says. According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, MS is five times more prevalent in temperate climates such as those found in the northern United States, Canada, and Europe. The prevalence rate in the U.S. is higher for individuals who live above the 37th parallel, accounting for 110-140 cases per 100,000 people, compared to 60-80 cases per 100,000 for people living below the 37th parallel. New York City lies just south of the 41st parallel. — Kirsten Matthew
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Cacti and succulents make great dish gardens
It is popular these days to create dish gardens with a combination of succulent plants. Although this is not a new idea, the selection of small succulents available is amazing. It is hard to pick just a few, as each one seems more interesting or colorful than the last.
One must choose plants that are compatible in growth rate so that some don't overgrow the rest. More important, they must have similar watering requirements. Keep in mind that cacti need less water than other succulents. The dishes seldom have drain holes, so it is important not to overwater. The number of plants compared to the amount of soil may keep a dish garden from rotting. Shards or gravel at the bottom may help, but you should tip the bowl to drain it after watering. That way the excess water is not eventually drawn back into the soil.
All cacti are succulents, but not all succulents are cacti. Succulents are the camels of the plant world because they have the ability to store moisture in the tissues of their stems, leaves or both. They lose moisture by transpiration more slowly than other plants.
Succulents are found worldwide and not just in desert regions. Cacti from tropical forests are 'epiphytic' because they grow on trees. These frequently have more slender stems, often flattened. A few hardy kinds of succulents, such as sedums and sempervivums (hens and chicks) are commonly grown outdoors in northern climates.
Growing succulents indoors is not difficult if you imitate the conditions they find in nature. Soil, water and light are important.
Plants growing in the desert are not necessarily growing in poor soil. It is sandy and loose, but rain does not wash out the nutrients so it is fairly rich in mineral salts. Cacti mixes are available, but you can make your own by adding one part coarse sand, perlite or pumice to one part potting soil. If you moisten the mix and squeeze it in your hand, the soil should fall apart once you release it. Use a sterile pot and medium and do not use a pot that is too large or the soil will remain wet too long and cause root rot. Most cacti and succulents benefit from occasional dilute feedings when they are actively growing.
Succulents need an alternation of wet and dry periods. Desert cacti need to rest from October to March with little or no watering and cool night temperatures. Water only enough to prevent shrinking and withering. The rule of thumb is 'when you water, water well and if in doubt don't. Check the soil, which may dry out in a few days in hot dry weather, but take weeks in overcast, cold wintry days. Top dressings, like small pebbles or coarse gravel allow quicker water penetration, slower evaporation and a neat appearance.
Succulents require sufficient light for healthy growth, so put them in the brightest light or sunniest window indoors. They need at least 4 to 6 hours of bright light daily so you may need to supplement with fluorescent lights. Some cacti can handle full sun outside, but in the hottest days they are happy to have some afternoon shade. Most cacti and succulents benefit from being outside during the summer. Gradually move them from a semi-shade location to a sunnier one, but avoid areas that are open to the sun from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Succulents are easy to propagate with stem cuttings. Break off or cut a side branch at a joint. Let the cut end dry out and form a callus for two to three days. Stick the cutting in slightly moistened, coarse sand or a peat moss sand mix. Don't' cover the pot and let the media dry out before watering. Repot overgrown plants once the roots have filled the pot. Handle spiny plants with care using rubber gloves, tongs wrapped with tape or a rolled newspaper as a sling.
There are few pests or diseases that trouble succulents. Wipe off mealy bugs with alcohol-dipped cotton swabs. Scrape off scale with a blunt instrument. Do not use insecticidal soaps.
Although you may think that succulents are too different or exotic to grow, you may already have a few. Many of us grow aloe, whose sap is used to soothe burns. Jade plants are very common and you might have some cacti or an Agave (Century Plant) brought back from Arizona. Kalanchoes and Christmas or Easter cacti brighten many homes. Almost everyone has some form of sedum and some hen and chicks. Use some of what you have and add some of the more odd succulents to make your own dish garden.
I have found many of the small succulents for sale at gardening seminars. The next one, sponsored by NDSU Extension Service is at East Grand Forks Senior High, 1420 4th Ave. NW, East Grand Forks, Minn on April 10. The cost is $25 if you pre-register by Tuesday, April 6. Call 701-780-8229 for more information.
Breitling is a longtime
West Fargo resident and
avid gardener always in
search of new ideas.
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Boys and Reading
Q. How do I get the boy students to come to the library? I wasn't able to get the boys to check out anything until I started bringing in my husband's car magazines! What else can I do?
A. The subject of boys and reading has been a major one in the last few years. Boys will read if the books are on subjects that interest them. "Why Aren't Little Boys Reading?" in Library Administrator's Digest (December 2006, p. 74) reports research at the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library, and offers the following suggestions:
- Provide staff training
- Develop programs that are attractive to boys
- Present programming for parents to explore why boys lose interest in reading
- Construct displays of interest to boys
- Develop a tip kit
Michael Sullivan, author of Connecting Boys with Books, suggests that programs that appeal to boys' competitive spirit. He describes chess and other board games, and the trend toward gaming at libraries is another example.
The item also notes that boys like nonfiction, action, adventures, Graphic novels, and sports stories. The wiki entry Boys -- resources for getting boys interested in reading -- has a selection of recent articles to help you develop the programs and tip kits for your library.
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Discovery News - Magnetic tornadoes measuring several Earths wide have been spotted deep inside the sun's atmosphere. Using the high-definition eyes of NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), researchers from Aberystwyth University have, for the first time, captured a monster solar twister evolving deep inside the corona. But far from the phenomena just being fascinating to watch, it is thought they may help predict space weather.
Attendees at the recently concluded 43rd annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference had front row seats to a heated debate on new data from the Moon. As opposed to how many envision scientific debate – coolly logical, white-frocked intellectuals, dispassionately discussing points of contention in a laboratory – what they witnessed was an impassioned and stormy exchange of differing opinions. There is good reason for passion. Subsequent decisions based on these data places the success or failure of future missions in the crosshairs.
This is not some arcane, academic dispute. We will depend on the mapping results from LRO to identify potential landing sites for future missions, including the selection of the most hydrogen-rich areas for exploration and possible future utilization. Such decisions could involve the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars, so there is some pressure to make the correct ones.
the detailed distribution of hydrogen at the poles of the Moon remains unclear. While both LP and LEND uncollimated (e.g., omni-directional) maps appear nearly identical, the collimated LEND polar hydrogen maps show widely varying concentrations, with little coherence over short distances. Repeatability of measurement is important in science. The fact that two completely different instruments on two different missions found nearly identical results suggests that the low resolution, uncollimated LP and LEND maps are currently the best reflection of reality we have. These uncollimated data most likely will remain the polar hydrogen maps of choice by working lunar scientists.
Nextbigfuture covered the NASA Innovative Advanced Conference Spring meeting. One topic was the the Fission Fragment Rocket Engine (FFRE). The FFRE requires small amounts of readily available, energy dense, long lasting fuel, significant thrust at specific impulse of a million seconds, and increases safety by charging the reactor after arrival in LEO. If this study shows the FFRE potential, the return could be immense through savings in travel time, payload fraction, launch vehicle support and safety for deep space exploration.
Nextbigfuture also covered Atomic metallic hydrogen. If metallic hydrogen can be metastable at ambient pressure and temperature, the it could be used as the most powerful chemical rocket fuel, as the atoms recombine to form molecular hydrogen. This light-weight high-energy density material would revolutionize rocketry, allowing single-stage rockets to enter orbit and chemically fueled rockets to explore our solar system. To transform solid molecular hydrogen to metallic hydrogen requires extreme high pressures, but has not yet been accomplished in the laboratory. In the proposed new approach electrons will be injected into solid hydrogen with the objective of lowering the critical pressure for transformation. If successful the metastability properties of hydrogen will be studied. This new approach may scale down the pressures needed to produce this potentially revolutionary rocket propellant. It would have an ISP of 1700 and would be usable for single stage to orbit launches (SSTO).
If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on ycombinator or StumbleUpon. Thanks
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Bird Beaks. Buzzard
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Powerful, sharp, hooked beak tears flesh from small birds and mammals. This type of beak is characteristic of most birds of prey, including hawks, falcons, eagles and owls
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Protect Yourself from Melanoma
Source Newsroom: University Hospitals Case Medical Center
On average, one American dies from melanoma every hour. And while it may account for only a small percentage of skin cancer cases, it is the deadliest form of the disease. According to the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD), melanoma is the most common cancer for young adults 25 to 29 years old and the second most common form of cancer for adolescents and young adults 15 to 29 years old.
The latest research shows promising therapy treatment using the body's immune system to help target tumor cells in patients diagnosed with advanced melanoma. Other recent studies explore the use of experimental drugs for disease management and longevity. While research continues evolving, the most important thing we can do is be proactive. With May being Melanoma Awareness Month, Kevin Cooper, MD, Chairman of the Department of Dermatology at University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio, offers tips on how to help lower our risk for skin cancer:
• Avoid midday sun when the ultraviolet (UV) rays are the strongest, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.
• Pay attention to new sunscreen labeling. Look for broad spectrum and water resistant accompanied by a specified time when it’s best to reapply. Sunscreen with a Sun Protection Factor (SPF) between 15 and 50 offer the best protection.
• Wear protective clothing including long-sleeved shirts, pants, wide-brimmed hats, and sunglasses.
• Avoid sun tanning and tanning beds.
• Check your skin regularly for any changes including new or irregular looking moles.
Sound bites from Kevin Cooper, MD, Chairman of the Department of Dermatology at UH Case Medical Center, related b-roll, and natural sound are available for download on http://news.uhhospitals.org/.
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Me vjen qe po e postoj kete artikull ne anglisht por ja vlen me qene se jane disa statistika qe shqiptaret kane jetuar ne Kosove gjate shekullit XIV e me larte (regjistrimet nga nga kadestralet sllave dhe turke)
Me vjen qe po e postoj kete artikull ne anglisht por ja vlen me qene se jane disa statistika qe shqiptaret kane jetuar ne Kosove gjate shekullit XIV e me larte (regjistrimet nga nga kadestralet sllave dhe turke)
On the Autochthony of Albanians in Kosova and the Postulated Massive Serb Migration at the End of the XVIIth Century
Institute of History
The Albanian Academy of Sciences
A major problem of the modern historiography of the Balkan countries during the last century is the matter of the auctochthony of the Albanians in Kosova. Another related issue which continues to remain at the foci of historiographic research is the presumed “massive migration” of the Serbs from this region at the end of the seventeenth century, as well as other supposedly massive migratory waves that took place in later centuries. In particular, there are poignant problems with Yugoslav historiography, and to a certain extent, with the historiography of other states bordering Albania and Kosova.
Why is there such a keen interest on these issues? During the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, one of the most important centers of the Albanian Renaissance, and the Albanian National Movement, was the Albanian region of Kosova. At that time, Kosova was still a part of the Ottoman Empire. Parallel with the growth of the Albanian National Movement that aimed to achieve the independence of Albania from Turkey, came an intensification of attempts by neighboring states to annex the territories inhabited by Albanians. The pursuit of such chauvinistic and expansionistic policies, which had as an exclusive goal the foundation of the states dominated by a nation and not the creation of nation-states based on citizenship, needed a convincing justification. After the 1840’s, the diplomatic activity of these states, especially Serbia, intensified dramatically. The purpose of their diplomacy was to justify the rationale for the annexation of the Albanian territories and obtain the consent of the Great Powers. In order to do so, the Serb monarchy did not hesitate to use the press, publications, and scientific activity. These publications were expected to provide an acceptable scientific and historical defense that could justify the expansionist policy of the Serb state towards the region of Kosova.
These studies sought to prove that, in the Middle Ages, the region of Kosova had been the center of the Serb state. Furthermore, they argued that Kosova had been an area inhabited by the Serbs until the end of XVIIth century and the beginning of the XVIIIth century. According to Serbian interpretations, immediately following the Austro-Ottoman War of 1683-1699, a portion of the Serb population which had sided with Austria, migrated to the North and its place was taken by the Albanians that came from the mountainous hinterland of Northern Albania. This argument was used by the Serb ruling elite to create the impression, within Serbia itself and internationally, that its predatory policies towards the Albanians and their territories were justified by sound historical reasons. It was unavoidable that this kind of unscientific literature would soon acquire anti-Albanian overtones. In order to bolster this argument, a whole cottage industry that sought to justify the ‘historical rights’ of the Serbs over the ethnic Albanian territories was developed. Later, when these territories were incorporated in the Serb Kingdom, the same arguments were used to provide the framework that justified the oppression, assimilation, and the mass expulsion of the Albanians from their territories.
Some of the most renowned representatives of this contentious literature (and it is primarily the conspicuous lack of scientific objectivity that makes it highly unreliable) were A. Jovicevic, V. Djordevic, T. Stankovic, J. Tomic. One of the more influential attempts to defend this argument has been made by the anthropological-geographical school founded by Jovan Cvijic. Led by Cvijic, these scholars published Naselja i poreklo stanovnistva, a publication that continues to this day under the auspices of the Serb Academy of Sciences and Arts. A large part of the works published by this school has been dedicated to the Stara Srbija (The Old Serbia), a geopolitical concept invented by them and used to justify the annexation of Kosova. Many of these scholars held high administrative positions in the pre-WWII Yugoslav administration which was dominated by the Serbs. The works of these authors are not based upon a rigorous examination of the available historical documents of the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. Not surprisingly, their works are based on oral materials chosen carefully and very selectively. Above all, these oral materials are of a very doubtful origin. Moreover, their studies are characterized by a remarkable unfamiliarity with documentary and historical sources. It must be said that the method of historical research implemented by these authors is dubious and leaves a lot to be desired.
In contrast to the authors mentioned above, well-known and reputable historians such as Milan Suflay and C. Jirecek have pointed out that during the Middle Ages (the period of Serb domination of the region), the Albanian presence in the towns of Kosova was considerable. Their studies did not rely on oral materials or the interpretations of toponomastic material. In short, these studies did not assume that every inhabited place that had a Slavic name was a territory inhabited by Slavs, as other authors such as Selisev had done. However, a major shortcoming with these studies was the limited historical documents known at the time they were writing in 1910’s and 1920’s. Due to the limited availability of historical documents, these authors concluded that the names Albania and Albanon were used to identify the Albanian territories that were found within the quadrangle Tivar-Prizren-Ohėr-Vlorė, and that this must have been the ancient territory inhabited by the Albanians. However, there are two important factors that were not taken into consideration by Suflay and Jirecek. First, Suflay and Jirecek failed to consider the dynamic of identification by this label of various territories. That is, from the eleventh century (when the name Albanon was mentioned for the first time) to the fifteenth century, there were territories outside this quadrangle which were identified sometimes as Albanon and sometimes not. This brings us to the second factor. Suflay and Jirecek fail to note that the absence of a stable and lasting Albanian state contributed to the lack of coincidence between the political and the ethnic boundaries of the Albanian people. This lack between the ethnic and the political boundaries is not a unique case in the history of the Balkan and the European peoples.
The arguments of past Serb ethnologues and historians that deny the auctochthony of the Albanians in Kosova have gained ground and are considered valid by many contemporary historiographers. This is especially true in contemporary Yugoslav (Serb) schools of thought. They continue to be used it for the same goals. This point of view has been defended by Filipovic, Urosevic, Nusic, Popovic, Trifunovski and others. It has also been enshrined in the former official history textbook The History of the Peoples of Yugoslavia. The section of the book that covers this sensitive topic was written by Vasa Cubrilovic, one of the formulators of the genocidal and oppressive policy implemented over the Albanians in Kosova and the Plain of Dukagjini.
During the recent decades, especially with the publication of the Ragusan and Ottoman archival documents regarding Kosova during the fourteenth and the fifteenth century, a number of Yugoslav authors such as M. Dinic and A. Handzic, brought new data strongly supporting the thesis of an Albanian presence in Kosova during the fifteenth century. Nevertheless, they continue to follow the old thesis of the Serb historiography. They admitted the Albanian presence in Kosova in the Middle Ages, but only as a minority vis a vis the Serb population. The same line of argument has been followed by the contemporary Bulgarian historiography who admit that the Albanians lived in Kosova during the Middle Ages. However, the Bulgarian historiographers still continue to follow the earlier opinions of Selisev. According to Selisev, a large part of the Eastern and Southeastern Albanian territories, “during the Middle Ages, were inhabited by Bulgarian population.”
These lines of argument have been challenged effectively by the contemporary Albanologists and historiographers. They have challenged the methodological criteria adopted by the Serbian school, and brought ample evidence to show that the examination of the historical documents currently available yields another view. Using scientific and objective historical method, several contemporary Albanian and non-Albanian historiographers have convincingly supported the thesis of the continuity of the Albanian presence in the territories where they currently live. Archeological data, historical records, folklore and linguistics indicate clearly and unequivocally that Illyro-Albanian residency in the region of Kosova has continued unabated since the Early Middle Ages. They also confirm the presence of an overwhelming majority of the Albanian population during the period of the Serb domination of these areas, (from the twelfth to the fifteenth century), and during the first part of the Turkish occupation that lasted from 1450 until 1690. As I have noted, the Serb historiographers state that at this time, in 1690, the Serbs were expelled from Kosova and their place was taken by the Albanians. Let us consider these issues one by one in chronological order.
2. THE ILLYRO-ALBANIAN CONTINUITY
It is a widely known and an uncontested postulate of the modern historiography that the ancient inhabitants of Kosova were the Dardans and that ancient authors considered the Dardans to be Illyrians. The Dardans lived in the Southern region of Illyria. This region was characterized by a relatively high level of cultural, economic, and social development. In the Southern Illyrian region, we find political formations such as the Illyrian state, the state of Epirus, and the Dardan Kingdom. This region, that today is inhabited by Albanians, was developed within a diversified Illyrian etnos. The Dardans, although clearly belonging to the Illyrian ethnie, had their distinctive etno-linguistic and cultural features. Earlier arguments suggesting the Dardans were not a part of the Illyrian etnos but were either a distinct Balkanic ethnie or linked to the Eastern region of the Balkan peninsula, have not been supported by archeological, historical, and linguistical data. Archeological excavations, the typological analysis of their material culture, distinct elements of their spiritual culture and onomastic examinations indicate convincingly that, in ancient times and the Early Middle Ages, Dardania was a part of Illyricum.
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire at the beginning of the last quarter of the fifth century, the region of Kosova was included in the province of Dardania. This province, like the other Southern Illyrian provinces, became a part of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire. The relatively few sites of archeological excavations in Kosova dating from this period have shown that Dardania was similar to other states of the Southern Illyrian region. This is seen in the manufactured goods, ceramics, in the construction of buildings and in numerous other aspects. The existence of the same distinct material culture during the late antiquity in the provinces of Southern Illyria (regions now inhabited by Albanians) is further proof that the ‘Romanization’ did not go to the point where we could say that the Southern Illyrians had been assimilated by Romans or that their culture and language were extinct. On the other hand, this does not mean that they were not influenced by the Roman culture; through the intensive contacts with the Roman culture, new elements were introduced in Illyricum, and this is clearly evidenced by the archeological excavations in Kosova. However, underneath this crust of Romanization, it appears that at the lower strata of the provincial Illyrian population a distinct material and spiritual culture was preserved intact. This culture preserved ancient and distinct features inherited for millennia. Later, during the new social and economic conditions created by contact with Byzantium, and especially under the influence of the Byzantine culture, these distinct characteristics of the Albanian culture continued to be developed in their specific mode.
The Dardania, like the large part of Southern Illyricum, remained either unaffected or slightly affected from the massive migratory waves of the sixth and seventh century AD, including the migratory waves of the Slavs. The direction and the itinerary of the migratory waves and migrations directed towards the Southern Illiricum usually began at the shores of the river Danube, at the ford near Singidum (the ancient Roman name of the city of Belgrade). Then, their itinerary followed the valleys of the rivers Vardar and Morava to end at the city of Thesalonic. A flourished trading center, Thesalonic was a central attraction of the ‘barbarian’ hordes.
For the Albanian people, the Early Middle Age is one of the most important periods in their history. By all available indications, this is the period when the Albanian nation, its culture and language were formed. As with other Balkan nations this period is one of the least documented in history. The written Byzantine documents dating from this period that are currently available are very few. Precisely because of the lack of the written materials other sources of information become particularly important. Among these sources that are reliable are the archeological and the linguistic sources. Based on the archeological findings that shed light on that particular period in time, we can argue that the culture of the Arbėr (the medieval name of the Albanians), was a link in the chain of the uninterrupted Illyro-Albanian continuity. This is a strong argument in favor of the auctochthony of the Albanians as the ancient indigenous inhabitants of these territories. The archeological discoveries made in the village of Koman have helped us get a better idea of the culture of Arbėr. As we have learned from the archeological excavations of sites contemporaneous to Koman, the culture of Arbėr was extended in the area from the Lake of Shkodra to the city of Ohrid, including here the region of Kosova. The names we have inherited from the ancient and medieval toponymy, are explainable only through the Albanian language. This is further proof of the auctochthony of the Albanians in the regions of Kosova, Montenegro and Macedonia. Some of the ancient names of these areas are preserved as appellatives in the Albanian language. For example, the name Dardania itself (the territory of contemporary Kosova was part of the ancient Kingdom known by that name) is explained with the Albanian Dardhė. Similarly, the name of Ulqin, from the ancient name Ulcinium is linked by the scientists to the word ulk, ujk, of the Albanian language. Other ancient toponyms that belong to the Albanian territories in the former Yugoslavia have evolved in accordance to the historical phonetic rules of the Albanian language. Such cases are Naissus-Nish, Scupi-Shkup, Astibos-Shtip, Scardus-Shar, Ulpiana-Lipjan and many more. The explanation of why these ancient names have arrived to us in the form they did, is that these territories have been inhabited by Albanians continuously and not intermittingly. The presence of an Albanian speaking population has been preserved mostly in the names of the towns. This evidence demonstrates that the Albanian population could not have been made up of shepherds sheltered in the highlands or the mountains. Quite on the contrary, that population was urbanized and apparently with an advanced standard of living for its time.
Among other factors, the ancient toponomastic data, such as the contemporary names of places used by Slavs, which are explainable only through the phonetic rules of the ancient Albanian language, has convinced scientists that these territories were inhabited by Albanians. Distinguished linguists such as Norbert Jokl, Gustav Weygand, and Petrovici, and even some Yugoslav scholars like Henrik Baric and others, have argued that it was precisely the Dardania, defined as an enclave by the use of the ancient names such as Nish, Shkup, Shtip that was one of the centers of the formation of the Albanian people.
Although sometimes he tends to overestimate the role played by the Roman-Romanian population in the Balkans, Petrovici has affirmed that “the population found by the Slavs in the Eastern region of contemporary Serbia was not Romanized.” One of the arguments brought by Petrovici to support his theory are the contemporary names of the cities mentioned above. Linguists like Van Wejk have concluded that according to the toponymical arguments, the separation of the Serbs and Bulgarians from a non-Slavic population in the early Middle Ages, could be explained only with the presence of the Albanian population in these areas. According to him, the presence of a population which had Romanic origins belonged to a later phase of the Slav expansion. Some of these scholars, particularly Henrik Baric, have convincingly demonstrated this through the study of the ancient and medieval onomastic of the Dardania. Examining these ancient toponyms, Baric argues that,
“the phonetic characteristics show that they are ancient names that Southern Slavs have taken through the Albanian language. The reason for making this argument is that in these toponyms we find that the phonetic changes were performed before the arrival of the Southern Slavs in the historic territories of the Albanians.”
As we can see, Dardania was a center of formation for the Albanian ethnie and the Albanian language; an enclave where the Albanian language evolved without suffering the influence of the Slav languages surrounding it. Many scientists explain the intensive contacts between the Albanian and Romanian languages precisely through the ancient and the uninterrupted presence of Albanians in these areas. Under these conditions, the expansion of the Serb State in Kosova, during the twelve century onward was by no means a ‘liberation’ of the Serb lands but an annexation and occupation of Albanian territories.
Moving from antiquity to Middle Ages, it must be noted that studies on the medieval onomastics have convincingly proved the presence of the Albanian ethnie in Kosova, Montenegro and in Macedonia. A large number of place names and names of individuals, used in this enclave during the Middle Ages, has been accumulated mostly by the examination of numerous documents and various historical sources, such as church registers and documents, cadastral registers, chrisobulas, and other historical sources. It must be noted that an overwhelming majority of them are of Albanian origin.
A careful examination of the medieval onomastics of Kosova, Montenegro and Macedonia during the fourteenth and the fifteenth century not surprisingly yields a very extended list of Albanian toponyms. These toponyms can only be explained by the presence of an ethnic Albanian population in these areas. The list of these toponyms, even in the areas that nowadays are inhabited by Slavs, is being continuously expanded by scholars. Among the toponyms added recently are Pantalesh, Barzan (Bardhan) Bytidosi, Bankeqi, Lopari, Bardiēi, Kuēi (Kuc-Montenegro) Bukmir, Bushat (Pipėr-Montenegro) Burmaz (Burmadh) in Stolac of Hercegovina, Zhur (Montenegro and Prizren). Also, there is a considerable number of Albanian anthroponyms which are used as microtoponyms or toponyms. For example, in the area of Prizren, there are Rudina e Leshit, the ground of Gjon Bardhi (a place to keep horses), Llazi i Tanushit, the Site of Komani, the House of Bushati, names of fraternities such as Gjinovci, Flokovci, Gjonovci, Shpinadinci, and many more.
The Albanian toponyms of the fifteenth and sixteenth century are also found in the area of Kosova and the Plain of Dukagjini. Among these names mentioned for the first time in the fourteenth century is Ujmirė, the name of a village on the east of Peja. Such toponyms in the nahija of Vuēitern are Shalc, Kuciq, Guri i Kuq. In the nahija of Llapi we find the village Arbanas; according to the cadastral registration of 1487 in the nahija of Morava we find the village Marash; in the nahija of Ostrolic we find the village Arbanashka Petrila; in the nahija of Treboshnica we find Arbanashka Brenica, Arbanas, Gjinofc Kulla; in the nahija of Morava we find Gjinofc e Marash. According to the cadastral registration of 1566-1574 in the nahija of Karatonlu we find the village Tanushofc. Similarly, in the region of Has we find the villages of Bunjaj, Guri and even the name of the whole district Shullan.
On the other hand, Albanian speeches in Yugoslavia are not linguistic islands, as would be expected if Albanians came late to the area of Kosova. The Albanian speeches there are a continuation of the Albanian dialects within the territory of Albania. The high degree of the unity of the dialects of the Albanian language could be evaluated as evidence that the inhabitants of these areas are living in their territories, and that they are auctochthonous and not a people who came only recently.
3. KOSOVA AND THE PLAIN OF DUKAGJINI UNDER SERBIAN RULE FROM THE XIIth TO THE XVth CENTURY
The Slav occupation of the Northern and Northeastern Albanian ethnic territories began in the eleventh century, a period when the Albanian people, its language and culture had already taken distinct forms. The little archeological evidence that could indicate the presence of Slavic culture in the Albanian territories at earlier times is very isolated and limited to a short period of time. The evidence shows that these Slavic elements did not constitute a distinctive culture that coexisted side by side with the Arbėresh (Albanian) culture of the early Middle Ages. The archeological findings that show the existence of a Slav culture date to a later time. These objects come from the ninth to the twelfth century and are related to the occupation of these areas initially by the Bulgarians and later by the Serbs.
Even the influence of the Slavic languages on the Albanian language begins at a time when the fundamental grammatical structures of the Albanian language were crystallized. At that time, the phonetic changes which gave an indelible Albanian mark to the words borrowed from Latin were completed. Linguist research has shown that words borrowed from the Slavic languages have been subjected to the unitary influence of a language already formed. This is strong evidence to support the argument of the ethno-cultural unity of an ancient auctochthonous population. The Slav-Albanian linguistic interaction did not begin during the first centuries of the Slav migratory waves but in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Therefore, the Slav-Albanian linguistic interaction began under circumstances dictated by the occupation of the Albanian territories from the Serb state.
Between the eleventh and the fourteenth century, with small periods of interruption, the Northern and Northeastern Albanian territories were subjected to the rule of the Serb feudals of the states of Dioklea (Zeta) and Raschka. During the time of Serb domination, this part of Albanian population shared with the Slavs the same form of political rule. In the eleventh century, the state of Dioklea began to expand by annexing the Western districts of Northern Albania. After a short period of Byzantine occupation, these territories became a part of the state of Raschka ruled by Stefan Nemanja (1165-1195). Nemanja occupied Kosova and expanded the Serb state to the line Lezhė-Prizren-Prishtinė. The Serbian kingdom continued to expand during the thirteenth century. During the rule of Stefan Dushan (1333-1355) altogether with a large part of the Balkan peninsula, the Serb dominions include also a large part of the territories inhabited by Albanians down the line Lezhė-Prizren-Prishtinė. It is at this period that the Serb autonomous Patriarchat (a religious institution autonomous from the Papacy and from the Patriarchat of Constantinople) with its main center in Peja is founded. After the dissolution of the Serb state in the second half of the fourteenth century, we witness the rising of the powerful Albanian feudal principalities such as Balshajt, Spanėt, Dushmanėt, Dukagjinėt, which included most of the Northern Albania. Meanwhile a large part of Kosova remained under the domination of the Brankovic family until it was finally occupied by the Ottomans in the year 1455.
The period between the twelfth to the fourteenth century, was a period when the Albanian nation was already formed and consolidated. However, the territories of Kosova, the Plain of Dukagjini, and of what is called today Western Macedonia, the previous dwelling places of Dardans, Paion, Lynkest, and Penest, were not included under the denomination of Arbėri-Albania, or Albanum. Initially these areas retained the historical and traditional denominations of Macedonia and Epir, that had nothing to do with the ethnic composition of their population. Later, they were named after the states that occupied them. This phenomenon does not necessitate the non-existence or the absence of the Albanians in those areas; it is explainable with the fact that these territories were never part of a unified Albanian state. These territories were under an uninterrupted series of foreign conquests and domination by the Byzantine, the Serb, or the Bulgarian Empires. This is the main reason why in the historical sources they appear not with their ethnic denomination but with the names designed to express the dominant political-religious aspects of the ruling elite, and not the names of the linguistic and ethno-cultural community living there at the time. The uninterrupted foreign occupations and the religious differences were an obstacle which did not allow the Albanians to be represented by a common name which would identify all the territories that were inhabited by them.
The occupations and the domination of these territories by foreigners had grave consequences. They caused the geographical space occupied by the Albanians to be contracted and delimited continuously. The long and intense pressure exercised by the Slav Church and the Slav State, accompanied by the colonization of Albanian territories, especially in Kosova, has been the main cause of the contraction of the Albanian linguistic space. This argument has been advanced by a number of scholars. For example, the renowned historian Suflay, documents the presence of the compact Albanian enclaves in the vicinity of Ragusa and Kotor in the thirteenth century. He defined these enclaves as auctochthonous Illyrian remnants separated from the Albanian nucleus. He also noted that the Albanians were spread in the territories of Zeta and Montenegro, as witnessed by the Albanian names of the fraternities of Matagushėve, Mahinėve, Malonshiqėve (Malonsi), Matarugėve and of Golemadhėve. Milan Suflay argued convincingly that the settlement of the Slavs had fallen over the Albanian people as an ax that had cut in the North and South some of the branches and had constrained it to a narrower space.
What do the historical sources tell us about the continuity of the Albanian presence in Kosova during the period of Serb rule between the twelfth and the fifteenth century? Are the Albanians mentioned as the inhabitants of these areas? The historical sources testify to a continuous presence of the Albanian population in Kosova during this period of Serb rule. First of all, this is witnessed by the numerous medieval Serb documents. Among these documents, of primary importance is The Code of the Laws of Stefan Dushan which mentions Albanians - arbanas - as inhabitants in these areas. Then we do have the chrisobulas (the equivalent of a charter) of the Serb rulers given to different Churches and monasteries. In his chrisobula of the year 1330, Stefan Decanski explicitly mentions the Albanians in Kosova and their villages by their Albanian names. For example, in the chrisobula of Stefan Decanski, a village that today is named Dobrovoda, there is mentioned with the Albanian name of Ujmir (Goodwater).
These documents tell us that the Albanians were also living in the districts of Prizren and Shkup. The chrisobula of Tzar Stefan Dushan given to the Monastery of the Saints Mihail and Gavril in Prizren between the years 1348 and 1353 clearly speaks about the presence of Albanians in the Plain of Dukagjini, in the vicinity of Prizren and in the villages of Drenica. In this chrisobula are explicitly mentioned nine Albanian stock-breeding villages located in the vicinity of Prizren. These villages are known with the names of Gjinovci, (Gjinajt), Magjerci, Bjellogllavci (Kryebardhėt), Flokovci (Flokajt), Crnēa, Ēaparci (Ēaparajt), Gjonovci ( Gjonajt), Shpinadinci (Shpinajt), Novaci.
The Albanians are also mentioned as frequentators in the Fair of Saint George held in the vicinity of Shkup. They are mentioned as farmers and soldiers in the district of Tetova, and as farmers in the villages of the great feud of Decan. Entire Albanian villages were given by Serb Kings, and especially by Stefan Dushan, as a present to the Serb Monasteries of Prizren, Decan and Tetova. The unequivocal Albanian anthroponymy of a part of the inhabitants of the villages mentioned in the Serb state and church documents between the thirteen to the fifteen century, is clear evidence for their presence there.
For example, what does the chrisobula (the charter) of the feud of Decan, issued in the year 1330, tell us about the Albanians in that feud? According to that chrisobula, we find inhabitants that have Albanian names in most places. In the Plain of Dukagjini, inhabitants that have Albanian names were in the villages of Isniq, Gramoēel, Xerxė, Ēabiq, Sushiēan, in the village Arbanas, in the city of Prizren, in Suharekė and Llapushė. In the feud of Decan in Kosova, Albanian names are found in Gracanica and Vinarc. The Albanians anthroponymy was made up of the Albanian traditional and distinctive names as Gjon, Gjin, Lul, Llesh, Bardh, Progon, Prenk, Lalė, Dedė, Lum, and Muzak. In the Serb Church documents, these Albanian names appear as Gon, Ginac, Gonko, Gonshin, Gin, Lul, Lesh, Bardi, Progon, Prenko, Bardonja, Laloje, Lalzim, Dedoje, Dedac, Lumas, and Muzak.
The Ragusan archives and documents witness the presence of a considerable number of Albanians in the city of Novobėrda. At that time, Novobėrda was not separated from the compact territories inhabited by the Albanians. Novobėrda continued to be a part of the Albanian compact territory well into the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century. In the Ragusan documents, citizens with Albanian names such as Gjergjash and Gjinko (1399) or Albanian Catholic priests are mentioned. Such Albanian priests mentioned in the Ragusan documents are Gjini, the son of Gjergj, the presbyter (1382); the reverend Gjergj Gega, Nikollė Tanushi, Gjergj Andrea Pellini, and Nikolla Progonovic in the fifteenth century. There is ample evidence to prove that in Novobėrda there was a considerable Albanian Catholic population.
In this context, an important source is the book of debtors held by the Ragusan merchant Mihail Lukarevic. During the third decade of the fifteenth century, Lukarevic resided in Novobėrda. Approximately 150 Albanian heads of households that were living in Novobėrda with their families are mentioned in his book of debtors. They worked as artisans, specialists and miners in the mines of the town. The anthropomyny of the heads of households was distinctively and uniquely Albanian; they had distinctive Albanian names such as Gjon, Progon, Gjin, Lek, Tanush, Gjergj, Bibė. Some of them had a mixed Slav-Albanian anthroponymy. Said differently, they have a Slav name but their last name is Albanian or they held Albanian patronyms which were adopted to the Slav norm such as Gjonoviē, Gjinoviq, Progonoviq, Bushatoviq, Dodishiq, Kondiq, Lekiq and similar names to these. Among the Catholic clergy many Albanians priests as residing in Novobėrda, as well as in towns such as in Janjeva, Trepēė, Prizren and others are mentioned.
Furthermore, the presence of the Albanians in Kosova has been proven by their extensive participation in the great Battle of 1389 against the Ottoman armies. According to the historical sources, the battle was not only a battle between Ottoman invaders and the Serb state, but a battle among the Ottomans and the coalition of the armies of Balkanian feudals headed by the Serb king Lazar. Lazar was chosen to lead the coalition primarily due to the fact that his dominium in Kosova was being threatened directly by the Ottoman hordes. The Ottoman chroniclers tell us that the most important rulers that made up this coalition were the Serb King Lazar, the Bosnian King Tvartko, and the Albanian prince Gjergji II Balsha. Gjergji II Balsha, defined in the documents of that time as The Ruler of the Albanians, played a first hand role in this coalition. This can be indirectly proven by the fact that after Gjergji II Balsha had rejected the Ottoman vassality in the year 1387, he had allied with King Tvarko, the Bosnian ruler. They fought together the Ottoman army in Trebinjė, which is located in the valley of the river Toplica and he continued to resist to the Ottomans quite successfully. It is beyond any doubt that Gjergji II Balsha played a decisive role in the battle against the Ottoman armies in 1389. Besides Gjergj II Balsha, in the battle participated other Albanian feudals. Among the powerful Albanian feudals, the most important figure was Theodori II Muzaka, who died in the battle with 4000 of his soldiers. Historical sources tell us that the Albanians participated in the battle in ways other than serving in the armies of the Albanian feudals. When they speak about the recruitment of soldiers from the Serb King Lazar in his dominion, historical sources affirm that Lazar had gathered soldiers from the Serbs, Raschians, and Albanians... Since the feud of Lazar was in Kosova, it is quite clear that these Albanians were from Kosova.
In favor of the Albanian presence in Kosova speaks the existence and the continuity of the songs that echo the events of the Battle of 1389 (the killing of the Sultan Murad I from Milosh Kopiliq and other facts) among the Albanians in Kosova. One of the fundamental characteristics of the historical songs is that, as a norm, these songs are not inspired by events that are remote in time and space. Quite on the contrary, the historical songs are born as an immediate artistical reflection of the events and the historical facts experienced by the people. The creation of these songs and their preservation until our time, cannot be explained without assuming the presence of the Albanian population in the fourteenth century and without recognizing its continuing and uninterrupted presence in these areas. Their continuous presence in these areas is something which would have made possible their transmission from one generation to another. Also, the preservation of other legendary and epic songs among the Albanians in Kosova, like that of Gjergj Elez Alia, that were created in the early medieval period in which is spoken about the resistance to the foreign invasion and pressure from the Albanian populations in Kosova speaks in favor of this thesis.
4. THE OTTOMAN CADASTRAL REGISTERS
The medieval documents written by the Chancellery of the Serb state and from the Orthodox religious institutions, such as the Patriarchat of Pejė, make extensive reference to the regions of Kosova and Plain of Dukagjini. However, from a geographical and demographical perspective, the data contained in these documents represent a very narrow and limited view of the situation in those areas. These documents reflect the official reasons that necessitated and made possible their writing as well as the distinct class position of their compilers. Furthermore, these documents do not deal with all the villages of the Plain of Dukagjini and Kosova but only with those villages that were owned by certain institutions. What makes these documents highly unreliable is the fact that in the villages mentioned in those documents only the Albanians of the Catholic creed are defined as arbanas. There is no distinction made between the Albanian Orthodox population and the minority of the Orthodox Slavs. Since the Albanian Orthodox population belonged to the same religious and political community as the Serbs, they are usually considered from the medieval writers, chancellors and scribes to be Serbs in the North and Greeks in the South. The same process happened with the Albanian Muslims; when they converted to Islam, they were considered to be Turks.
After 1455, the time when the Ottomans conquered Kosova, many documents concerning the composition of population in were drafted by the Ottomans and these documents are more detailed than the Serb documents. These documents do not confuse the religious with the ethnic identification as the Serb medieval documents did. Precisely for this reason, the Ottoman documents throw a better light on the demographic situation of Kosova in the fifteenth century. These documents tell us that these territories were predominantly inhabited by the Albanians. The Serbs, who had come as colonists and the members of the ruling class during the period of Serb domination, although politically dominant, were a negligible minority. Although the Ottoman documents are numerous, the situation is better described by the registers of the cadastral office and the census data of the Ottoman Empire. During the fifteenth and the sixteenth century, the census was conducted periodically by the new Ottoman state. These registers, among many other things, give the toponymy of the dwellings and the anthroponymy of a considerable part of the population (heads of households, bachelors, celibates, widows, and so on). The evidence contained in these documentary and archival sources contributes to expose the fallacy of one of the myths and taboos of the Serb historiography which holds that the population of Kosova had an ancient and uninterrupted Serb character and that the Albanians entered Kosova under the Ottoman aegis and then the Albanians proceeded to eliminate the Serb majority especially after the presumed massive migrations and expulsions of Serbs which happened after the uprisings of the years 1690 and 1738. The falsity of this thesis was exposed by the cadastral register of Kosova of the year 1455 (the year when the Ottomans occupied Kosova), which was published in 1972 by the Oriental Institute of Sarajevo. The cadastral registers clearly show that even before the large scale process of massive Islamization had begun, the Albanians constituted the overwhelming majority in the Eastern parts of Kosova. Similarly, the Albanians were in massive numbers, according to a register of the Sanxhak of Kystendil, in Kratova of Eastern Macedonia. An examination of the cadastral registers would prove that the thesis of the Serb migration and their expulsion from Kosova has no longer any credibility and validity whatsoever.
With the cadastral registration of 1455, the Ottomans created a new unified administrative unit in Kosova that they called sanxhak. In this sanxhak were included all the lands which had been the dominion of Brankovic family, except the Plain of Dukagjini. In this register are mentioned a considerable number of heads of families with distinctive and typical Albanian names such as Gjon, Gjin, Llesh as well as with Slav names but that are explicitly qualified as Albanian-Arbanas. Such names are mentioned in the commercial centers, in the towns, as well as in over 100 villages distributed in all the nahija of the sanxhak. They are found in Morava, Prishtinė, Lab, Topolnicė, Vuēitern, Dolc, Klopotnik, Tėrgovishta, and even at the villages that neighbored villages inhabited by the Slav population. These inhabitants, especially those with Albanian anthroponymy, were Catholics. However, the Albanians in the region of Kosova, by and large were of the Orthodox religion and linked with the religious administration of the Patriarchat of Pejė. Their names were mixed Albanian-Slav names or names that were coming from the orthodox religious Slav or Byzantine anthroponymy. The reason why Albanians embraced the Orthodoxy during the period between the twelfth and the fifteenth century, when Kosova was under Serb domination, shows that they had been forced to be exposed to a religious-ideological assimilation campaign. Since this assimilation campaign was combined with an intensive colonization of the territories by the Serbs, then one could say that a prolongation of these conditions could have led to a complete ethnic assimilation of the Orthodox Albanians.
The publication of the Ottoman cadastral registers has been instrumental in the creation of a thorough set of data for all the population of the Plain of Dukagjini and for the population of the towns of Kosova during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This set of data has allowed us to formulate a different argument and to present a broader and a better picture of the demographic composition of Kosova during the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries. The historical evidence which we use to support this argument is, by far, more thorough and more accurate than what we have been used to getting from the historiographical works that have coped with this issue before the publication of the cadastral registers. This new complete set of data allows us to formulate an argument which definitely exposes the fallacy of the unscientific and chauvinistic viewpoint defended by the Serb historiographers.
The most important conclusion one can draw from the Ottoman cadastral registers of the fifteenth and sixteenth century for the Kosova and the Plain of Dukagjini, is that the overwhelming majority of the heads of households and the majority of bachelors registered as living in these areas had Albanian names. This was especially true for the Plain of Dukagjini, and its main nahijas, nahija of Altun-ili, nahija of Rudinė, nahija of Domeshtiē, nahija of Pashtrik, nahija of Opoja, nahija of Hoēa and nahija of Prizren. During the sixteenth century when the process of Islamization was intensified, part of the heads of households were forced to become Muslims. Afterwards, they held Islamic names.
During the Serb rule, the Albanian population of these areas was politically and socially dominated by Serbs. Yet, there is not the slightest doubt that Albanian people managed to preserve its customs, its language and its customary law largely intact. That the Albanian anthroponymy, which later was partially substituted by an Islamic anthroponymy, could only be a unique and a distinctive characteristic of the Albanian population is certain. There are no reasons to suggest that the Slav population, which was politically and socially dominant, would adopt and carry Albanian names.
Even in the cases when an Albanian name is accompanied by a last name which is of the Slav anthroponymy, there is little doubt that the individual is an Albanian. We must keep in mind the fact that under the enormous political pressure exercised by the administration of the Serb state and the religious pressure exercised by the Serb Church, the auctochthonous Albanians of these areas were forced to take Slav surnames and Slav last name. It is very significant that once they were liberated from this pressure, they returned to the Albanian names of their forefathers. This shows that the Albanians were quite aware of their distinct ethnic identity.
Let us consider the situation as it appears in the cadastral registers. From the cadastral materials published up to now, we find out that the nahija of Altun-ili (an area included in the triangle Gjakovė-Junik-Tropojė) was inhabited almost entirely by the Albanians. Thus, according to the registration of year 1485, the inhabitants of the villages of the plain of Gjakova-Junik, such as Plakani, Mel, Dujak, Gorna Ēirna Gonja, Dolina Ēirna Gonja, Peronja, Rodosh, Dolina Buqani, Bozhani, Vuēidol, Brekoc, Trenova, Vogova, Kaliq, Popoci, Bonoshuci, Stubla, Rogam, had typical and distinct Albanian names such as Gjin, Gjon, Leka, Kola, Gega, Progon, Llesh, Gjec, Tanush, Bushat, Mazarak, Pal, Duka, and other names similar to these.
In the registration of the year 1485, in the nahija of Peja we find 15 villages-such as Oē, Ēirna Potok, Dujak, Usak, Dobriēadol, Kolivaēa, Lepovaē, Trenova, Nika, Vraniq, Romaniēa and others-whose inhabitants, with rare exceptions, have Albanian names. Although in smaller %ages, in 86 other villages out of 194 of the nahija of Pejė, we find that the majority of inhabitants had Albanian names. Similarly, out of 28 villages in the nahija of Suhagėrlė, fourteen villages had a majority of inhabitants who carried Albanian names. Out of the fifteen villages that had the nahija of Plava, twelve villages had a majority of inhabitants who carried Albanian names.
According to the registrations of the years 1571 and 1591, the Northeastern region of the Sanxhak of Dukagjini, or to use the name given to it in the sixteenth century, the region of Hasi, were territories inhabited entirely by the Albanians. The region of Hasi was divided in the nahija of Rudina (Gjakova with its villages in its south), nahija of Domeshtiēi (villages that were located in the area between Gjakova and Prizren), and the nahija of Pashtrik (villages in the eastern and western sides of the mountain of Pashtrik). This is proven by the fact that, similarly to the inhabitants of the mountainous regions of the hinterland of the Northern Albania, the inhabitants of these areas had overwhelmingly distinct and typical Albanian names, such as Gjin, Gjon, Gac, Bac, Kol, Gjec, Doda, Prend, Biba, Nue, Dida, Shtepan, Vata, and other similar names. The influence of Slav anthroponymy in these areas was extremely weak. The differences between inhabitants with Albanian anthroponymy and those with Slav anthroponymy in these three nahija taken together are striking. Out of 2507 heads of households and bachelors that were Christians, 1768 had Albanian names, 643 had mixed Albanian-Slav names and 96 had only Slav names. On the other hand, out of the 492 Muslim heads of family, 205 had Albanian last names and only 37 had Slav last names. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the relationes that we have from Catholic clergymen confirm that there was an overwhelming Albanian majority in the region. The region of Hasi, writes in his report of the 1634 the Catholic Archbishop of Antivar, Pjetėr Mazreku, is inhabited by the Albanians. Out of the fifty villages, there were only five Catholic villages while all other 45 villages were converted to Islam.
The nahija of Opoja (south of the city of Prizren) was inhabited entirely by Albanians. The Albanian population had converted to Islam and consequently, the anthroponymy of the inhabitants was Islamic. However, these registrations bring evidence which proves that the Islamicized inhabitants were Albanians. During the second half of the sixteenth century, these inhabitants continued to carry as their last names, the Christian names of their parents. These last names, by and large, were distinct Albanian names. The influence of the Slav anthroponymy is found only in very rare cases. According to the registration of the year 1591, in the nahija of Opoja there were 369 Muslim heads of households and bachelors and 78 Christian heads of households and bachelors, the overwhelming majority of whom had distinctive Albanian names.
The nahija of Hoēa (north of the city of Prizren) was inhabited by the Albanian population divided in three different religions; Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Islam. According to the data from the registry of the year 1591, in this nahije were 409 heads of households and bachelors as well as 104 owners of land parcels who had typical and distinct Albanian names. In addition, there were 248 Muslim households and 172 owners of land parcels that were Muslims. However, among these, 81 heads of households carried as their last name, the Albanian names of their parents and 28 had as their last names, the Slav names of their parents. Besides the Catholics and that stratum of population which had just converted to Islam, a considerable part of the population in this area was Orthodox. As a consequence, its anthroponymy was drawn from the traditional religious Slav and Byzantine anthroponymy. It must be noted that in numerous cases, the Orthodox Christians carried, in a mixed manner, a distinctive Catholic Albanian anthroponymy. In the villages of the nahija of Hoēa, there were approximately 883 heads of households and bachelors who carried Albanian Catholic and Orthodox mixed names. That the majority of the heads of households registered in the nahija of Hoēa carried Albanian names and not Slav anthroponymy, should not induce us to think that only these people were Albanians. The reason is that since they were of the Orthodox rite, a large part of the Albanian population of these districts was using Slav and Byzantine anthroponymy. This phenomenon is seen clearly in the nahija of Peja and in the villages of the nahija of Prishtina, the nahija of Vuēitern, the nahija of Labi, and the nahija of Topolnica. During the fifteenth and the sixteenth century, in these districts, the heads of households, carried more Slav and Byzantine names than Albanian and Muslim ones. To a certain extent, this phenomenon is detectable even in the nahija of Prizren, although in this nahija the heads of households that had an Orthodox - that is, a Slav and Byzantine anthroponymy - were a minority compared to those heads of households who carried Albanian and Muslim names. The borrowing of Orthodox Slav names from the Albanians was a common phenomenon. This phenomenon was widespread during the period before the Ottoman occupation of Kosova, more intensively in Kosova and less in the Plain of Dukagjini and the bordering districts of the sanxhak of Shkodra. The evidence we have gotten from the cadastral registers allows us to explain why it did happen this way.
The cadastral registers show us that the Albanian population of the Orthodox faith was linked to the administration of the Patriarchat of Pejė. Thus, while they were the property of, and under the jurisdiction of, the religious administration of the Patriarchat of Pejė, the anthroponymy of the Albanians within this group of the population had lost its distinctive character, and as a consequence they had taken names from the Slav and Byzantine anthroponymy.
That the Orthodox population of these areas was Albanian is supported by another element of evidence. Alongside the Catholic clergy who carry distinctive Albanian names, we find Orthodox clergymen called with appellatives which are still in use among Albanians and whose phonetic characteristics are distinctively Albanian such as papa, pop, kallogjer. Thus, in the nahija of Altun-Ili are mentioned Gjini, the son of Popa; Popi, the son of Pavli; Popi, the son of Martini; Popi, the brother of Progon Pavlos; Popi, the son of Nikolla. In the nahija of Peja, we find Jaku the son of Popi; kallogjer Pepa and kallogjer Gjonja; in the nahija of Suhagėrla we find Gjoni, the son of Popi; we find a Pop Pjetri in the nahija of Vuēitern; Pop Jaku in the town of Trepēė; Pop Mati in the town of Janjevė and many more. These cases make unacceptable the viewpoint of Jirecek who had said that the Albanians in the North must be identified with the Catholicism and as a consequence, Catholicism must be identified as the religion of the Albanians. This point of view is very narrow and exclusivist.
In the documentation of the time, we find numerous examples that support the existence of an Albanian Orthodox population, which used Slav or Byzantine names. A good example to illustrate this point is the case of the anthroponymy of the heads of households in the nine Albanian stock-breeding villages existing in the vicinity of Prizren since the fourteenth century. The majority of their inhabitants during the fifteenth and sixteenth century had Slav names. However, the names of their villages were Albanian and according to the Serb documentation, the inhabitants were defined as Albanian. This came as a result of their conversion to Orthodoxy, a conversion which becomes even more understandable when we are reminded that these villages were the property of an Orthodox religious institution. A similar case is the village of Bilush in the nahija of Opoja. This was the only village of the nahija of Opoja where more inhabitants had Slav names than Albanian ones. The same phenomenon happened even in the villages of Kelmend and Pipėr. These villages, which were known by the names of Liēeni, Gjonovoq, Leshoviq, Muriq, Kolemadi, Bukmir, and Bushat, carry distinctive Albanian names. However, besides the inhabitants with distinctive Albanian names we find a number of inhabitants which carry Slav names or Albanian names adapted to Slav forms, such as Stepan, Radiē, Nikaē, Gjonoviq, and so on. Similarly, one could find inhabitants that carried Slav names or names adjusted to Slav forms even in the known Albanian fraternity of the village Arbanas of Tuz. During the fifteenth century this fraternity was spread in 11 different villages. This was a consequence of a conversion of a part of them from Catholicism to Orthodoxy. A better example, that shows that the Albanian Orthodox of the other areas had borrowed names which were characteristically Slav, is found in the registration of the town of Kėrēova at the end of the fifteenth century. In this registration a majority of the orthodox inhabitants of the quartier of the Albanians (clearly defined as Arbanas), carried Slav names.
Numerous other evidence has been provided for the region of Kosova. These documents are a further proof that the Orthodox anthroponymy was a common and widespread phenomenon among the Albanians who lived there. The Albanians in Kosova had carried Slav anthroponymy - names such as Radosav, Brajko, Petko, Bogdan, Radoslav, Branislav, Bozhidar, Millosh, Miloslav and other names - not only during the period before the Turkish occupation of Kosova, but also after the Turks occupied Kosova in 1455. For example, in the book of debtors of the Ragusan merchant Mihail Lukarevic in the third decade of the fifteenth century, together with the names of the inhabitants with names and last names which are distinctively Albanian, we find mentioned there even Albanians with mixed names, Albanian-Slav or with the Albanian names but with the Serb characteristic suffix -ic ,-ovic. For example, there we find names such as Radosav Gjonovic, Ivan Gjonovic, Dimiter Bushatovic, Tanush Bodganovic, Petko Progonovic, Radosav e Jakob Leshovic and others. In the cadastral registration of the year 1455 in the villages of the nahijas of Vuēiternė and Prishtinė, we find Albanians who carry Slav names. However, they are identified as Albanians from the qualification arbanas, or from the Albanian names of their parents. Among such cases are Todori, the son of Arbanas; Bogdani and Radoslavi the sons of Todor; Branislav, the son of Arbanas (the village of Kuēica); Radoslavi, the son of Gjon (the village Ēikatovo); Bogdani, the son of Gjon and Bogdani, his son (the village Sivojevo); Gjoka, the son of Miloslav (the village of Gornja Trepz). Even more explicit evidence has been offered by the register of the sanxhak of Vuēitern of the years 1566-1567. According to the register of the sanxhak, over half of the inhabitants of the Albanian quartier in Janjeva had Albanian names. However, although they were clearly defined as Albanians by nationality (Arbanas) they either carried Orthodox Slav names - such as Pejo, Stepan, Jovan, Mlladen, Bozha, Raja, Stoja and others - or had a mixed Albanian-Slav anthroponymy such as Jova Jaku, Mati Stepa, Gjura Kola, Koka Dobroshi, Dida Stojini. Similarly, in Prizren we find entire Albanian quartiers which have Albanian names as Madhiq, which have Catholic churches such as that of Dimitri Pulitit (Pulti), but whose inhabitants carry distinct Orthodox Slav and Byzantine anthroponymy.
Moreover, the Orthodox Christian inhabitants of these areas do not carry an anthroponymy which is completely distinct for the Orthodox Slavs. In fact, their anthroponymy is of a mixed character. The names used by the Orthodox Christian inhabitants are heterogeneous. We can distinguish names that are distinctively Albanian or names which are used exclusively by the Albanian Roman Catholics, or that are Orthodox but non-Slavic; that is, names which belonged to the sphere of the Greek Byzantine anthroponymy widely carried by the Albanians at the time. For example, among these Orthodox Christians we find names that are more characteristic for the Catholics than for the Orthodoxs and that are used predominantly by Catholics, among the Albanians and others, such as Lukė, Nikolla, Pjetri, David, Jaku, Marin, Filip, Mati. Among the Orthodox inhabitants of Kosova we usually find names that are more characteristic to be used by the Byzantine Orthodoxs than by the Slav Orthodoxs. These names are found here in the forms commonly used by the Albanians such as Ilia, Dimitri, Damjan, Mihal, Komnen, and so on. There is other evidence of a linguistic character which shows us that this population was Albanian and that it did speak in the Albanian language. Quite often, in the original copies of the cadastral registers we find names which are used in the definitive form. Only in the Albanian language, this form ends with an -i. For example names such as Pjetėr and Dimitėr are found in the form Pjetri, Dimitri and not in the Slav forms Petar, Dimitar-Dimitrije. The name Mati is not found in the traditional and distinctive Slav forms, Matija, Matko, Mate, or Matic. From a comparison between the forms of the name Pjetri, Dimitri and Mati that are commonly found among the heads of the households in the sanxhak of Vuēitern with the same names used from the Slav population of the sanxhaks of Belgrade, Montenegro, Kystendil, and Vidin it has been concluded that these definitive forms which are unique for the Albanian language are used only in the region of Kosova. The number of surnames that end with the characteristic suffixes for the Serb language, such as -ic, -evic, -in, is very limited among the head of the households in this area.
The usage of Slav names by the Albanians could be observed in many villages of Kosova. These villages have plural names of the heads of the fraternities, a common feature of the villages inhabited by the Albanians, such as Gjinovc (Gjinajt), Leshofc (Leshajt) Tanushofc (Tanushajt). Although this is an indicator that testifies to their Albanian origin (supported by their definition exclusively as Arbanas-Albanian in the Serb medieval documents), there were inhabitants of the Orthodox religion that carried a Slav anthroponymy. Let me give here the names of the inhabitants of the village of the Gjinajt of the nahija of Treboshnica from the cadastral registration of the year 1566-1567. These names are: Pjetri Jovani, Toma Pjetri, Kostandin Nikolla, Toma Kostandini, Dimitri Pjetri, Mati Pjetri Novak Dimitri, Boja Stepani, Novak Boja, Nikolla Novaku, Stepan Novaku, Nikolla Gjuriq, Nisha Nikolla, Luka pop Jovani, Bozha Luka, Simon Luka, Danko Mihajlo, and other names similar to these.
Similarly, the Albanian villages located in the areas of Kosova bordering with territories inhabited by Slavs, such as the regions of Kurshumlia and Nish, had toponyms with the surname arbanas, arbanashka... which implies that they were in close contact with the Slav populations. In villages such as Arbanas, Arbanashka Petrila, and Arbanashka Brenica, the Albanian Orthodox inhabitants of these areas in most cases had names that were characteristic of the Slav Orthodoxs. For example, the inhabitants of the village Arbanas carried names such as, Stojan, Dajin, Dane Stojani, Mati Marko, Andrija Marko, Dimsa Marko, Luka Gjurko, Nikolla Luka, Pjetri Dimja, Stojan Pjetri, Gjura Marko, Lazar Stepa, Gjura Pejash and other names similar to these.
The Slav influence on names used by the Albanians is evident in a number of the Albanian names which have been adapted to the Slav forms. Such names are for example the names Lekaē, and Lekashin, for Leka; Nikaē for Nika; Gjonaē, Gjonko, Gjonēiq, Gjonoviq for Gjon and Gjonajt; Ukēa for Uk; Dukaē, Dukoi for Duka; Lleshoviq for Leshajt; Gjokaē, Gjokoviq for Gjoka and Gjokajt; Prekēa, Prekoviq for Prek and Prekajt; Uklash for Ulk; Ugjlesha for Uk Lesha and similar names to these. That Albanians used the Slav names is witnessed also from other evidence. Such are the cases when the members of a family or fraternity that from other names are identified as Albanians held also Slav names. Let me give some examples: Radosavi, the son of Gjon; Vladi, the son of Gjon; Bozhidari, the son of Gjon; Leka, the son of Mirosav, Doda Pali and his son Stepan Pali. There are many such cases. Among other things, we find registered Slav names in the forms that are unique for the Albanian language. Such cases are the names Vuka, Nisha, Deja which stand for the Slav names, Vuk, Stanisha, and Dejan. This supports the argument that the population of that area was speaking in the Albanian language. The examples that we have just mentioned allow us to do a better and a scientific interpretation of the onomastics, above all, of the anthroponymy of the inhabitants of the region. This allows us to place the anthroponymy of the inhabitants of this region in the proper historical context and to offer an objective evaluation of the ethnicity of the people who carry these names.
First of all, the evidence I have presented, yields the conclusion that simply because Slav names are held by a part of the inhabitants of these areas, this cannot serve as a criterion to determine in a conclusive and definitive manner the ethnic character of the population. The population of Kosova cannot be defined as Slavic. It is quite obvious that the Slav anthroponymy did not coincide with the ethnicity of the name-bearers. Above all, the anthroponymy of the inhabitants indicates that they were not Slavs. For this reason, we cannot put the equalizing sign between the onomastic character of these areas and the ethnicity of the inhabitants. This has been done in the past by some authors, especially by Serb historiographers. However, such an attempt would purposefully ignore the historical context in which the Albanian population was forced to live. In 1332, the Catholic Archbishop of Antivar, Guglielmo Adam Brocardus described the difficult situation of the Albanian population under Serb domination in the following way:
The reason is that the so-called nations, the Latins and the Albanians, are oppressed from the unbearable yoke and from the harsh rule of the leader of the Slavs. That loathsome rule is hated because their people are heavily taxed, their clergy is hunted and despised, their bishops and their priests quite often are bound in chains and their nobles are forced in exile...
The Slav anthroponymy used by the Albanian Orthodox population of these areas was not simply a result of the coexistence between the two distinct communities. The presence of Slav anthroponymy among the Albanians was a direct consequence of the religious, social and political factors. The two powerful vehicles that enforced this acculturation process were the Serb state administration and the Serb Orthodox Church. What explains the Serb dominance and Slav political and religious influence over the Albanian population of these areas is that the ruling class had been predominantly Slav. Moreover this had happened at a time when the Albanian feudal class had not been able to create a unified feudal state and an autonomous and separated Albanian Church. It is here that we must find the explanation for the Slav influence in the anthroponymy of the Albanians population. The Slavization of the names of the Albanian population, that came as a consequence of the social, religious and political factors, cannot be equalized with the Slavization of the Albanian population. To put it simply, this does not mean that those who had Slav names were ethnic Slavs.
Secondly, the other conclusion we draw from this, regards the toponomastic criterion; that is, the analysis of the cadastral registers demonstrates that the principle that every village which had a Slav name was also inhabited by Slavs - followed by numerous authors-cannot serve to determine the ethnic composition of the population. This principle can be proven wrong by the argument that the inhabitants of a large number of villages that had Slav names, as it was explained before here, had an Albanian population and that an overwhelming majority of them carried Albanian names. Such villages are, among others, the sixteen villages in the nahija of Altun-Ili and the fourteen villages in the nahija of Peja. As explained before, the primary reason why in these territories inhabited by the Albanians we find the Slav toponymy must be sought in the political and the administrative factors. It must be remembered that this phenomenon is common for other areas of the Balkans which are inhabited by a non-Slav population. For these reasons, we believe that any kind of evaluation of the Slav onomastics must be conducted keeping in mind the specific historical circumstances. Considering this we can say that the early Slav toponyms of this area, which were spread during a number of the different stages of the early medieval period, reflect the historical contacts between the Albanians and Slavs, contacts which did happen a long time before the fifteenth century. Consequently, we must say that the equalization of the toponyms with ethnicity does not help us at the least to understand what kind of population lived there during the fifteenth century. It is a different matter when we deal with the Albanian toponymy. That the Albanian dwellings continued to hold Albanian names during the whole period of the Serb domination of these areas, shows that there existed an auctochthonous and ancient population which was subjugated but not assimilated by the Slavs in the period before the fifteenth century. Moreover, the Slav toponymy is not entirely the result of the migration of the Slav population in the early Middle Ages. In this case, we would fail to recognize that in many cases these toponyms are Slavicized Albanian names, that took either Slav suffixes or were adjusted to the Slav phonetics and spelling. Another reason is that the influence of the political, religious and administrative apparatus of the Serb state was felt even in the area of toponymy. A considerable number of names are linked to the activity of this apparatus and the toponyms do not reflect what was the ethnic reality of the region. That during the fifteenth and the sixteenth century we find either two different toponyms for the same village, or the literal translation of the Albanian name into a Slav name, shows that the principle should not be applied in a conclusive and absolute way to the earlier periods either.
In the sixteenth century, the new state administration of the Ottomans in Kosova and Plain of Dukagjini was established and strengthened. A major effect of the establishment of the Ottoman administration was the final destruction of the state and administrative apparatus of the Serb feudals. In the fifteenth century, with the dismantling of the Serb state apparatus, which also had defended the privileges of the Serb Church in these areas, we observe a decrease in Slav names borrowed by the Albanian population and an augmenting of the distinctive Albanian names. When the Ottoman rulers sought through the economic and political measures to impose Islam on the Albanian population in these areas, we observe that together with the augmenting of the Islamic names it happens an increase in the Albanian names too. According to the registers of this period, a large part of the Albanian population of the Plain of Dukagjini and Kosova was forced to abandon the Orthodoxy and to convert to Islam. A direct consequence of this process was that the Albanian population dropped Slav names and began to take Muslim names. In this regard, a typical example is represented by the town of Peja. In 1485, the majority of the inhabitants of Peja, carried Slav names. However, in 1582, the majority of the inhabitants of Peja carried Muslim names. An exception to that were fifteen Orthodox households, a part of which still continued to retain Albanian names such as Pop Nika, Pal Koka and other Albanian names. The process of Islamization occurred outside towns and slowly spread to the villages as well. In the sixteenth century we find that the largest part of the nahija of Altun-ili (Gjakova), nahija of Hoēa, nahija of Hasi, nahija of Prizren and almost all the villages of the nahija of Opoja were converted to Islam. On the other hand, in the villages of the nahija of Peja and the sanxhak of Vuēitern, the Islamization was proceeding at a slower pace; however, we observe an acceleration of the conversions by the seventeenth century in this area.
Even in the second half of the sixteenth century, in spite of the growing number of the conversions to Islam, a large part of the Albanian population, especially that of the villages of the nahija of Prishtinė, the nahija of Vuēitern, the nahija of Labi, and the nahija of Peja, continued to retain their Orthodox beliefs. Also, they continued to carry religious Slav or Byzantine anthroponymy. The presence of the Albanian Orthodox population in this area is proved by evidence which does not come solely from the Turkish sources. For example, in the Project for the Liberation of Albania Approved by the Assembly of Chiefs of the fourteen Albanian regions that was held in Dukagjini of Mati on February 15, 1602 it is clearly said:
We, the Catholics are a force of forty thousand swordsmen, valuable fighters that can fight with bravery. Moreover, with us will be united all the Albanians that are of the Greek rite (the Albanians that were linked to Archbishopric of Ohrid of the Greek Orthodox rite) and those of the Serb rite (Albanian Orthodoxs linked to the Serb Church) that are our neighbors.
This shows that although after the Ottoman occupation the Serb state and the Serb feudal class had disappeared, the Serb Orthodox Church still had managed to preserve some authority among the Albanian believers of the Orthodox faith. During the sixteenth century, although other factors were at work, the Serb Orthodox Church was losing ground due to the spread of Islam. Under these conditions, the common religious denomination, and to a certain extent even the cultural affinity that the Albanian Orthodoxs shared with the Serb minority - to this minority belonged the ruling elite which had controlled the state apparatus, the cultural, and the religious institutions - declined in intensity. Admittedly, it had been quite strong in the pre-Ottoman period. Also, this religious and cultural affinity had been the main cause which had created favorable conditions for the cultural and the ethnic assimilation of the Albanians. With the Ottoman occupation, a situation which was not very favorable to the colonization of these areas by the Slavs and to the Slavization of the Albanian population was created. Nonetheless, it must be noted that the a number of Slav ethnic elements continued to migrate in these areas well into the fifteenth century. Yet, neither the Orthodoxy during the period of Serb occupation nor the Islam during the period of Turkish domination - if we consider these religions as ideologies which were used to achieve at one time the Slavization of the Albanians and at another time, the cultural and the political assimilation of the Albanians in the Ottoman Empire - were able to render a final and conclusive solution in the form of a full assimilation. The reason why they failed must be sought in the presence of a compact and a massive Albanian population in this region, a component of the Albanian nation that had been formed several centuries ago. Although these pressures have left their mark on the Albanian culture, the Albanians in these areas managed to resist the divisive action of the religious factor, primarily thanks to their ethno-cultural unity and their inheritance.
From this point of view, neither the physical presence of the churches nor the previous existence of the statal and religious Serb institutions that the medieval Serb rulers built or invested with land property rights can be used as an argument of absolute validity. so They cannot be used to prove - as it has been done by the Serb historiography - that these territories were ethnically Serb. One cannot use the presence of the mosques and the existence of the Muslim religious institutions to prove that the population that lives in this region is Turkish. The existence of these institutions is linked to the political, social and ideological transformations which happened during the Serb or Ottoman domination of these areas and it has nothing to do with the ethnic character of population that lived in these areas. Furthermore, the occupation and the establishment of the administrative and religious center of the Serb state in Kosova during the thirteenth and the fourteenth century does not mean that this region was ethnically Serb. During the Serb domination of Kosova, the feudal class was predominantly Serb while the lower strata of population were overwhelmingly Albanian. The fact that the ruling class was Serb does not make Kosova an ethnically Serb region. This is neither the first nor the last case in the history of the Balkans and Europe when the ruling elite which controlled the state apparatus, the military and the religious authority belonged to one ethnic group and the auctochthonous population which was relegated to a lower status belonged to another ethnic group. Although in these regions the ethnic communities were living in the same conditions, Islam was spread to the Albanian Orthodox and Catholic population but not to the Slav minority. This becomes understandable when one is reminded of the enormous influence of the Patriarchat of Pejė. For obvious reasons, its influence was far greater among the Slav Orthodox minority than among the Albanian Orthodoxs and its existence was a greater obstacle to the conversion of Slav Orthodoxs to Islam. For the Albanians who lacked religious unity and a unified Church, the Patriarchat of Pejė represented an institution which was connected to the Serb ruling elite and its authority among the Albanians was weak. Other factors that contributed to the Islamization of the Albanian population were the socio-political factors. For instance, through repressive economic and political measures, the Ottoman authorities sought to break down the Albanians and to convert them to Islam.
The onomastic data of the cadastral registrations of the Plain of Dukagjini and Kosova bring strong evidence to prove the argument that the population which lived in these territories was overwhelmingly an agricultural Albanian population of the Catholic and Orthodox religions. This population carried Albanian names as well as Slav and Byzantine names. However, after the sixteenth century, with the spread of Islam, these names are substituted by Muslim names. The registers show that in the villages the ethnic Serb element was a negligible minority. This becomes even more clearer when we consider the conditions of the towns in the sixteenth century.
What was the ethnic composition of the towns in the Plain of Dukagjini and in Kosova during the second half of the sixteenth century (there are plenty of data for this period), almost a century before the supposedly massive migration of Serbs from Kosova happened? Historical documents clearly prove that the Albanian population was present and constituted the overwhelming majority of the urban population. The best way to clarify this matter is to consider the evidence we have from the cadastral registration conducted by the Ottoman Empire during that time. According to these data, the number of urban households appears as follows: the town of Prizren had 557 houses; the town of Prishtina had 506 houses; the town of Trepēa had 447 houses; the town of Novobėrda had 366 houses; the town of Vuēitern had 286 houses; Janjeva had 288 houses; Peja had 158 houses; while Gjakova, at that time only a village, had only 46 houses.
In the cities, the process of conversions to Islam had progressed with accelerated rhythms. When taken together, the inhabitants of the towns of Peja, Prizren, Vuēitern, and Prishtina had 1000 Muslim houses or about 65 % of their population compared to 547 Christian houses which constituted only 35%. In the towns of Janjeva, Trepēa, and Novoberda, where at the time of registration, the Muslim population constituted something around 25% of the population, the process of Islamization had been less effective. Taken together, these three towns had 273 Muslim houses and 828 Christian houses.
If we take every town separately, the percentage of the households which had converted to Islam is as follows: Peja, 90%; Vuēitern, 80%; Prishtina, 60%; Trepēa, about 21%; Novobėrda, 37%; and Janjeva 14%. There is not the slightest doubt that the population which converted to Islam were Albanians. This is clearly shown by the fact that in most cases the people who converted to Islam preserved the Christian surnames of their parents, or they carried last names that were distinctive and characteristic for the Albanians. Among many such cases are Ali Gjoci, Hysein Barda, Hasan Gjini, Ali Deda, Ferhat Reēi, Hasan Bardhi, Iljaz Gaēja, Hėzėr Koka in Prizren; Mustafa Gjergji, Aliu the son of Bardhi, Ahmeti, the son of Ali Deda, Rexhep Deda in the town of Vuēitern. Outside these towns, such as for example in the villages of the nahija of Peja, the nahija of Altun-Ili, the nahija of Rudina, the nahija of Domeshtiē, the nahija of Pashtrik, the nahija of Hoēa and the nahija of Opoja in the Plain of Dukagjini - an area where the process of Islamization was still going on at the time of this registration - we find numerous Muslim inhabitants that during the second part of the sixteenth century continued to retain their Albanian surnames. In the Plain of Dukagjini, the population was almost entirely Albanian and the process of conversions to Islam in the towns and in the villages continued with the same pace. However, a distinctive feature of the pattern of conversion to Islam in the urban areas was that the rhythms of conversions there were accelerated when compared to the countryside. To be sure, the same factors that pressured the peasantry to convert to Islam - the repressive economic and political measures - determined the pace of conversions in the towns. The relative acceleration of the conversion process in the towns was mainly due to other factors which were more influential in the urban environment, such as the presence of administrative apparatus, the cultural influence and the concentration of religious institutions.
Evidence that the Muslim population was Albanian is attained by the reports of the various emissaries of Papacy, such as Pjetėr Mazreku, and Gjergj Bardhi. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, these high Catholic prelates, were often traveling and visiting the territories under consideration. Speaking about several cities, these authors explicitly point out that the Muslim population there was of the Albanian nationality. In many cases, the relators of the sixteenth century tell us that the term Turk used by them to define the Albanians converted to Islam, was employed due to the religious significance and without any considerations about the ethnic aspect of the individual. This is quite clear when they write about the Muslim peasants. On the other hand, the ethnic element is clearly distinguished in the registrations of the cities where Turkish ethnic elements are clearly distinguished by the Albanians, such as the Bali the Turk, Ahmet the Turk, or Hasan the Turk, in the town of Janjeva. The need on the part of the registrar to make such a distinction shows that the Muslim population which was not Turkish, was Albanian. In short, the conversion of the Albanians to Islam did not bring about their cultural and ethnic assimilation. Independently of the conversion to another religion, the population remained ethnic Albanians.
In the urban areas of Kosova, in addition to the Albanian population that converted to Islam and which was in clear majority in the towns, there lived other inhabitants who carried distinctive and characteristic Albanian names such as Pal, Gjon, Lika, Deda, Doda, Kola and others. There are 188 heads of households who carry these names in the towns of Prizren, Janjeva, Trepēė, and Novobėrdė. They make up 17.5% of the heads of the households that are Christians (Orthodox and Roman Catholics) in the town of Prizren, 33% in the town of Janjeva, 12% in the town of Novobėrdė, and 7% in the town of Trepēė.
If taken as a single unit, the towns of Pejė, Gjakovė, Prizren, Vuēitern, and Prishtinė had a majority of the heads of households that were Muslims (1006 households). They also had 547 Christian households. Within this group, about 217 heads of household carried distinctive Albanian names or mixed Albanian-Slav names. Only 330 heads of households carried names that are characteristic for the anthroponimic sphere of the Orthodox Serb and Byzantine Greek denominations. Clearly the ethnic Slav element is in minority. It must be remembered that within the Slav anthroponymy there are many families that are actually Albanians that were Orthodox Christians. Therefore, the number of ethnic Slav households could not have been as high as 330. The Albanian Orthodox element was spread more in Prizren and in Prishtina. In addition, as we can deduce from the Slav names held by the Catholic inhabitants of the Quartier of Latins (Catholics) in Prishtina, there must have had also colonies of the Ragusan merchants. From the anthroponymic evidence, we can conclude that even in the towns of Trepēė, Janjeva and Novobėrdė, the Albanians constituted the majority of population. If these three towns are taken as a single unit, there were a total of 273 heads of households that were Muslims, 222 that held distinctive Albanian names, and 606 that had Slav and Byzantine names. However, the Slav element in these towns must have been more numerous than in Prizren and Prishtinė. These areas were very important minerary centers and of particular importance to the Serb state. The Slav colonization of these towns - mainly people employed in the administrative apparatus of the Serb state, Serb Orthodox clergy and Serb merchants - was more consistent and of greater intensity. As we know from the documentation of the pre-Ottoman occupation of Kosova, in these towns, there must have been present Slav Orthodox elements and Slav Catholics who had come from other places. An exemplary such case is the presence of the Ragusan merchants in Janjeva. Similarly, in Trepēė, more here than in the other towns, we find inhabitants who carry names characteristic for the Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs. These names have suffixes characteristic of Slav names. We also find remnants of the German Saxons who, in the previous centuries, had come to these areas to work as specialists in the mines. The existence of the Serb minorities in these towns is quite understandable. Due to their geographic proximity to the Serb enclaves, these areas were a target for the neighboring Serb. On the other hand, these territories had been for centuries occupied by Serbs. They had become very important state, administrative, and religious centers. For all these reasons, these towns were more exposed to the colonization by Serb elements.
As the evidence shows, in the sixteenth century, the towns of Kosova and the Plain of Dukagjini were inhabited almost entirely by the Albanians. This is almost one century before the so-called massive Serb migration supposedly occurred in 1690s. At least this is the thesis which is being defended by the Yugoslav and Serb historiography. In so far as the villages of Kosova and the Plain of Dukagjini are concerned, it is quite clear that we cannot speak of a significant presence of the Serb minorities in the peasant dwellings of Kosova. The Serb colonization of the villages had been very limited.
That the population of Kosova was Albanian is proven also from another important source. During the second half of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth century, there were a number of Assemblies of the representatives of the Albanian nation. These Assemblies sought to organize the resistance of the Albanian people against Turkish occupation and coordinate that resistance with the efforts of other Balkan nations and European states. This resistance movement was institutionalized and politically organized. In the documents of the time these are known as the Albanian Assemblies. In these Assemblies participated only representatives of the regions that were rebelled against the Turks. One of these Assemblies, the Assembly of Dukagjini of the year 1601-1602 was held in the village of Macukull in the region of Mati. At this Assembly there were representatives from the fourteen Albanian regions. There were four representatives of the Albanians from Kosova: Pjetėr Kolamari, Andrea Kolesi (Koleshi) Feta Kuka, and the Catholic priest Mark Belaēi. In the Albanian Assemblies of the sixteenth and seventeenth century participated exclusively only representatives of the Albanian regions that were rebelled against the Turks. In these Assemblies were not allowed to participate representatives who belonged to other neighboring ethnic groups. The representatives of Kosova participated in the Assembly because Kosova was a territory inhabited from the Albanians.
Another way to document the presence of Albanians in Kosova is to refer to the reports that tell us about the beginnings of the spread of the language and writing in Albanian in these areas. Most authors of Albanian literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth century worked in the region of Kosova. Among other things, they worked intensively to spread education in the Albanian language and to open Albanian schools in these areas. The writer Pal Hasi, who lived and worked in this area in the second half of the sixteenth century was from the Northeastern district between Prizren and Kukės. Pjetėr Budi, a parish priest, a writer and a renowned linguist started to work at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Budi served in Kosova for many years. We do have a report concerning his work in these areas which was sent to the Vatican in the year 1621. Among many other things, Budi writes that,
In these areas I stayed for 17 years and I tried as hard as I could to help and strengthen the people and those priests with my great care... with devoted books that I wrote in their languages, for the Servians and for the Albanians.
In this letter, which is written in the Albanian language, Budi complains to the Vatican that the people in the region are very poor and ignorant, and he expresses his regret especially when he speaks about the lack of schools in the Albanian language. Even Pjetėr Bogdani, Andrea Bogdani and Lukė Bogdani, who continued the tradition of the Albanian writing after Buzuku and Budi, were from the region of Kosova.
Another priest, Pjetėr Mazreku, also from Prizren, arrived to Janjeva around the year 1665, immediately after he had finished his studies in Italy. In Janjeva, he worked hard to teach the Catholic children in the school of Janjeva. As long as Pjetėr Mazreku was teaching there, the language that was used in the school was the Albanian language. However, after the coming of Vinēenc Matoviq as a teacher, it is possible that afterwards the teaching might have been conducted in the Serb language. Similar schools were active in many other areas. In the year 1671, in the parish of Janjeva was open a new school where teaching was conducted in the Albanian language. In another relation, Mazreku remarks:
The Southern people have numerous languages. The Catholics in Prizren speak the Albanian and the Serb language, while those in the villages, speak only Albanian. In the poor district of Prizren are needed five priests, but these priests must speak the Albanian language. Similarly to the other nations, Albanians want to have priests that speak their own language.
In other reports sent to the Vatican, Pjetėr Mazreku continues to stress the important role of the education and the need to educate the Albanians that live in these areas in their own language.
A similar example is Pjetėr Bogdani, the Albanian Catholic Archbishop of Prizren, who lived and served in this area during the second half of the seventeenth century. In the reports that he sent to the Vatican, Bogdani quite often insisted on the need to educate the Albanian youth. The movement to develop the teaching of the Albanian language had started as early as the end of sixteenth century. Documents indicate that its epicenters were the towns of Prizren and Gjakova but the network of the schools was spread towards the east, including Gjilan and Janjeva and going as far as in the vicinity of Shkup. This ancient tradition of the teaching of Albanian language and the cultivation of the Albanian language and literature in Kosova is additional proof that Albanians were living there from the remote past. The Albanians simply did not migrate there at the end of seventeenth century as Serb authors would like us to believe.
5. THE DISMANTLING OF THE SERB FEUDAL STATE AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE ALBANIAN FEUDAL CLASS
Although the Ottoman occupation of Kosova and the Plain of Dukagjini caused some very important changes in the ideological, economical, political and social relations, it did not substantially change the physiognomy and the ethno-cultural structure of the Albanian nation. The state apparatus, that had been at the hands of the Serb feudal class, in the fifteenth century was destroyed with the establishment of the new Ottoman administration. Also, the Serb Church lost its dominant position and many of its privileges. The feudal class of Kosova, that until the Turkish occupation had been predominantly Serb, had lost a considerable number of its members during the military conflicts with the Ottoman state. Furthermore, immediately after the establishment of the Ottoman administration in 1455, the remnants of the Serb feudal class were expropriated and they lost their ownership of the land. This was made possible with the establishment of the Ottoman system of state property and the creation of the 259 feuds which were given to the members of the Ottoman ruling elite. It is for these two reasons, that the Serb feudal class lost its land property. Almost overnight, the feudal class was eliminated as an independent economical and political class. This is clearly seen from the fact that in the new ruling elite of the area were integrated as Catholic Spahi and Gulam, a limited number of small feudals. These were more Serbs than Albanians and they owned 20.8% of the feuds and received 13.2% of the feudal spahi rent. Seen from its ethnic composition, the feudal class, at the beginning of the occupation was mostly composed of the Muslim Spahi. Their nationality was mostly Turkish. However, some of them were provenient from other areas of the Balkans; they had converted to Islam and had been integrated for quite some time in the Ottoman feudal class. For example in the year 1455, we find these Muslim spahi in Kosova: nine Spahi are from the nahija of Vardar; two are from the nahija of Vidin; three are from the nahija of Manastir, two are from the nahija of Kostur, two are from the Shehirkoj; two are from Kopryly; one is from Serez; four are from Tėrhalla; two are from Vranja; four from Anadoll, and so on. With time, the Christian Spahis of the area slowly integrated in the local Turkish feudal class.
There was a number of Albanian Christian Spahi in Kosova. Besides them, the Albanian element within the Ottoman feudal class there was represented by other former feudals that already had converted to Islam. Some of these feudals owned important ziamets such as that of Altun-Ili (Gjakova) and that of Joshanica. During the fifteenth and sixteenth century, this element within the Albanian feudal class became predominant. This is made clear from the vakufname they left. These vakufname tell us that from the very beginning of the sixteenth century, the feudal aristocracy of these areas was mostly composed of Albanians. Representatives of the Albanian aristocracy were assigned high positions in the central and local military and state administration of the Ottoman Empire. They made vakufs of lands, stores, and other property dedicated to Muslim religious institutions that they had build in the major cities. During this time we do not observe a filling of the local Ottoman feudal class with Serb ethnic elements as it happened in Serbia proper. This is explained with the fact that the former Serb feudal class was transplanted in a foreign ethnic land.
The changing political conditions made possible the incorporation in the Ottoman feudal class of a larger number of elements provenient from the population of these areas and other areas inhabited by the Albanians. The large number of Albanian elements who entered the Ottoman feudal ranks could have come only from an area inhabited by Albanians. The emergence and the prominence of the Albanian feudal class in the Northeastern Albanian territories was remarkable. Moreover, its emergence was not hindered by the presence of the centralized religious and administrative apparatus of the Serb state and the higher ranks of the Serb feudal hierarchy. In the past, these important positions had been controlled predominantly by the Serbs. The policy of the Serb state and the Serb Church had been based on ethnic preferences. By and large, they had managed to exclude Albanians from being incorporated in the Serb feudal class.
These had been determinant factors in preventing the development of the Albanian feudal class in the territory of Kosova and Plain of Dukagjini. Other Albanian territories had been only for a short period of time part of the Serb state, they were in its periphery, and the feudal class was Albanian. In contrast to the territories of Northern Albania, where a chain of state political formations were created during the thirteenth and fourteenth century, in the territories dominated by the Serb state the Albanian feudal class could not emerge easily in the political scene. However, after the new Ottoman rulers destroyed the state apparatus and the Serb feudal class, they were constrained to admit in the Ottoman local feudal stratum, indigenous elements without discriminating on the basis of religion or ethnic affiliation. This was a normal practice that Ottomans had followed in all other areas they had previously conquered. Slowly, that ethnic distinction which existed between the lower strata and the ruling class mostly composed of elements that belonged to a different ethnic group (a situation which had characterized the period of the Serb domination) disappeared. This was a phenomenon which had happened in an analogous way in the numerous other areas of the Balkans and the Europe during the Middle Ages.
6. THE PRESUMED MIGRATORY WAVES IN AND OUT KOSOVA AND THE MATTER OF ALBANIZATION.
Let us consider now the problem of the presumed Albanian migrations from the mountainous Albanian hinterland to Kosova. This is asserted constantly by the Serb historiographers. In spite of all the facts at the contrary, the Serb historiographers continue to insist on the existence of this migration.
The Albanian population in the Plain of Dukagjini and in Kosova was an auctochthonous population that it not appear there as a result of a massive migration as it is pretended by the Serb historiography. The evidence and documents we have from the historical sources that pertain to the period of Serb domination are fragmentary and do not allow us to create a complete picture of the Albanian population in these areas. However, the cadastral registrations of the fifteenth and sixteenth century, reveal to us what was the demographic composition of the Plain of Dukagjini and Kosova. These cadastral registers show clearly and convincingly that these territories were inhabited by an overwhelming Albanian majority; they give us the incontestable argument that the Albanian population even during the period of Serb domination had been present in these territories. Moreover, the cadastral registers tell us that the Albanian population was auctochthonous and did not migrate from somewhere else. This is also proven by the fact that all the known historical sources and documents do not mention any kind of massive movement of the Albanian population from the mountainous hinterland and regions such as Mirdita, Dukagjini and Mbishkodra (Pult, Kelmend, Shosh, and Shalė). There is not mentioned any massive movements that would have caused radical changes in the demographic composition of these areas. Quite on the contrary, the documents we now possess give us very clear indications that there was absolutely no real possibility for such demographic movements in the fifteenth and the sixteenth century. At the time when the Turkish occupation began, the core mountainous regions of the sanxhak of Dukagjini such as Iballa, Spasi, Fandi i Madh, Fandi i Vogėl and Puka as well as the districts of the sanxhak of Shkodra (Pulti and Kelmendi) - according to the registrations of the years 1485 and 1529 - had a total of only 2014 households. On the other hand, the region of the Plain of Dukagjini and Kosova had around 28000 households. Moreover, even when it is compared with the number of the houses of a number of nahija in Kosova taken separately, the number of households in the core mountainous Albanian region was very small.
For example, in 1455, the nahija of Vuēitern had 3267 households, the nahija of Morava had 3152 households, and the nahija of Labi had 4092 households. In 1485, the nahija of Peja had 4196 households. The total number of households of the Northern mountainous region of Albania was only one-seventh of the houses of the sanxhak of Vuēitern which had 14782 houses. For that matter, the total number of households in the Northern mountainous region of Albania was almost the half of the houses of the nahija of Peja. Even if the whole population of the mountainous region had migrated - something which is really inconceivable - and even if we would assume that the population of Kosova before that had been entirely Serb, the ethnic character of the population would not have changed. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries we find that there was a relative growth in the number of the population and dwellings in the mountainous regions of Albania. This shows that there were no possibilities for a considerable movement of the population in the neighboring regions, especially for migrations that would totally upset the ethnic ratio of the population in the region of Kosova.
The cadastral registers bring further evidence which proves that the Albanian population in Kosova was stable and aucthochtonous, while the Serb minority had been transitory and migratory. Contrary to what has been pretended by the Serb authors, the Serb population changed places quite often. Usually, in the cadastral registers, for the heads of the households who had moved in a village are added the remarks prishlac, doshlac-i (newcomers in Serbian language) or haymanegan for the peregrines. The names of the heads of households that are new carry overwhelmingly Slav names. These people were not coming from the hinterland of Northern Albania. If that supposition was true, they would have held Albanian names, similarly to the other inhabitants of these districts which were included in the sanxhaks of Shkodra and Dukagjini, a fact which is clearly proven by the registers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The majority of the newcomers were Slav ethnic elements that were moving within these regions or that came from other areas with the Slav population in the North of Kosova and the Plain of Dukagjini. Keeping in mind the large number of the heads of households with Slav names that are defined as newcomers in these areas in the fifteenth and sixteenth century, it convincingly appears that even in the sixteenth century the Serb minority was unsettled and continued to be unstable and wandering. This was due to the fact that it was not an indigenous population but that most of them had come as colons during the Serb domination of the region.
According to the historical and ethnographic data, during the seventeenth and nineteenth century, there was some migration from the hinterland of Northern Albania to Kosova and viceversa. However, these movements occurred within a territory where the overwhelming majority of population was already Albanian. In the Yugoslav historiography, the dimensions of these migrations are blown out of proportions, they are considered as one-directional and greatly exaggerated. Yugoslav historiography does not study these migrations based on the available historical documents. These migrations are studied more on the basis of the ethnographic evidence collected in the twentieth century. This, of course, does not allow us to offer a correct judgment about phenomena and processes that took place two or even three centuries ago. The data from reliable historical sources shows that the population of these areas which converted to Islam had been Albanian well before the beginnings of this process in the fifteenth century and in the second half of the sixteenth century. The same data prove that the thesis, according to which in these areas had happened a process of Islamization of the Slav elements that later brought about their Albanization, is erroneous and fundamentally mistaken because it is based on false premises. The Islamization, which served as an ideological instrument at the hands of the Ottomans to achieve the political and the cultural assimilation of the Albanians, could not have served as an instrument to achieve the Albanization of the Slavs. Islamization was a process that was imposed upon the Albanians, it hindered their unity against the Ottomans, it was an obstacle to their social, political and cultural development. For all matters and purposes, the conversion to Islam was used by the Ottomans to assimilate culturally and ethnically the Albanians themselves. It is inconceivable to think that a people who is oppressed and occupied has power to impose the ideology of the oppressor and occupier to another people that suffers under the same circumstances and carries the same yoke. It is unrealistic, to say the least, to argue that a people occupied, manages to assimilate another occupied people as it is pretended that happened with Albanians and the Serbs.
From another point of view, the authors of this thesis identify the position of the Albanian people that during the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries were continuing to fight and resist the Ottoman occupation, with the positions held by the Albanian feudal elements. The Albanian feudal elements were an integral part of the Ottoman feudal class. However, their pretension that the Albanian people was presumably privileged under the Ottoman occupation, that the Albanian people was not subjected to the same intensive form of exploitation and ruthless domination as the other peoples of the Ottoman Empire, is based on a mistaken methodology. Apparently, to them it does not matter much. Their goal is to deny that the Albanian population of these areas was Albanian and descendants of the ancient Illyrian population that lived there in their own land. Similarly it appears quite impossible to achieve a complete ethnic assimilation, an Albanization process of the Serb population through the conversion to Islam within such a short period of 100-150 years. This seems all the more impossible especially when we already know that in this area we have a considerable Albanian population of Muslim denomination and what is more important, when we did not have any migrations from the hinterland of Northern Albanian mountainous regions.
With regard to the assimilation of the Slavs by the Albanians we should also remember that objective and subjective suitable conditions for such a process to happen did not exist. The Albanian Muslims, as well as the Albanian Christians were under the occupation of the Ottomans. Similarly to other peoples of the Balkans, they were forced to defend their identity as a people and as a nation. Similarly to the other peoples in the Ottoman Empire, the Albanian people were not in that privileged position that could allow them to carry by force the assimilation of another population. Among the Albanian Muslims, the position of the Muslim raja was not very different from that of the oppressed and exploited class of the serfs, an integral part of which was the Christian raja population. By no means can we say that this was the position of the feudal class. The status of the lower strata of the population, as the worst exploited and oppressed (be it a peasant raja or an urban Muslim or Christian), is well-known and well-documented. Better than any other source, the documents that came out of the chancelleries of the Ottoman state clearly show us that this was the case. Once again, the authors of the thesis of the Albanization do not bring any historical facts whatsoever to support their argument. Historical materials, especially those that are published recently, have brought rich evidence to support the argument that the population of Kosova which later converted to Islam were of the Albanian population of the Catholic and Orthodox denominations.
7. SOME DOCUMENTS ABOUT THE ALBANIANS IN KOSOVA AT THE END OF XVIIth CENTURY AND SOME CONCLUSIONS
Other historical documents help us to uncover the falsity of the argument that Albanians came to Kosova after the Austro-Ottoman War of the years 1683-1699, the time when the massive migration of Serbs from Kosova is supposed to have happened. One important source are the documents of the Austrian High Command. These documents offer a clear description of the situation in Kosova and these territories during the united fight of the Austrian Armies and the Albanian uprising against the Ottoman forces in the years 1689-1690. These documents describe the ethnic composition of the regions of Kosova and the Plain of Dukagjini only a few months before the presumed migration was supposed to have happened.
The evidence from the Austrian documentation proves once again that Kosova and the Plain of Dukagjini were regions inhabited by the Albanians. One important indication is that the Austrian High Command includes these territories within the borders of Albania. The Austrian High Command does not use for these territories the label Serbia. This term had been used by numerous authors, especially by clergymen during the fifteenth and sixteenth century. The term Serbia had been used in a religious and political sense and as a continuation of the tradition that used to include these territories in the Serb state (these territories had been a part of that state for some centuries) or consider it in a separate dioceses altogether with other territories inhabited by Slavs in Serbia, Macedonia and Bulgaria. In the documents of the Austrian High Command, for example, in the promemorie on Albania of the General Marsiglio, a high ranking member of the Austrian General Staff dated April 1, 1690, in the letters of the Catholic Vicar of the Shkup, Thoma Raspasan who had substituted the leader of the Albanian uprising, the Archbishop of Albania, Pjetėr Bogdani, it said clearly that Prizren was the capital of Albania, that Peja and Shkup were parts of Albania, and that in the area of Kosova people spoke the Albanian language.
When his armies entered into Kosova, the Emperor of Austria, Leopold I remarked that his armies were fighting in Albania. There were no reasons for Leopold I to alienate Serbs if they were as they say, the majority in Kosova. The Archbishop Pjetėr Bogdani is called Archbishop of Albania, and the Bishopric of Shkup was included within Albania. In numerous works of Austrian and Italian historiography that also rely on these documentary sources, it is unequivocally admitted that the territories of Kosova were inhabited by Albanians and these territories were included within the territories of Albania.
Furthermore, the evidence we have shows that the number of Albanian fighters that came from these territories and that joined the Austrian Armies in the year 1689 was in such numbers that they could have come out only from a territory inhabited by the Albanians. At the time when the Austrian armies were entering in the Kosova and the Plain of Dukagjini, the uprising against the Ottoman domination that here had started some time ago was reaching its peak. At the beginning of November 1689, when the Austrian forces entered in Prishtina they were received there by 5000 Albanian fighters. When Austrian armies entered in Prizren, they were received by 6000 other fighters. It is here that the Austrian Commander-in-Chief, General Piccolomini, met and spoke with the leaders of the uprising, the Catholic Archbishop of Shkup, Pjetėr Bogdani and the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Peja, Andrea III Crnojevic that was leading the rebels from the Serb minority of Kosova.
The Austrian Command had paid special attention to the incitement of the revolt from the oppressed people of the Balkans and especially to the uprising of the Albanian people. The obvious reason is that by allying with Albanians the Austrians could reach an easier victory over the Ottoman Armies. For the sake of truth we must say that the easiness with which the Austrians swiftly swiped Turks and entered in Albania until they reached Luma was made possible only by the war fought by the Albanian fighters of Kosova and the Plain of Dukagjini. This is understandable if we remember the fact that the Austrian forces that were fighting in these areas did not exceed 8000 troops. If it were not for the Albanian fighters, that small army was clearly insufficient to defeat the Ottoman armies.
The Albanian insurgents participated also in the battle that the Austrian forces fought with the Ottomans on January 2, 1690 at the Valley of Kaēanik which ended with the defeat of the Austrian forces. After that, the Ottoman armies, within a brief time and before the Spring, managed to conquer once again, one after the other all the towns of the Plain of Dukagjini and Kosova. The Albanian insurgents were still fighting side by side to the Austrians against the Ottomans. Thus on March, 17, 1690, they participated in the battle fought between the Austrian military unit commanded by Kutschenbach against the Ottomans in Novobėrda, a battle won by the Austrians. On March 23, 1690, 1500 Albanian insurgents, incorporated in a unit commanded by Schekendorf participated in the expedition against Ottoman forces in Pirot.
The fact that these areas were inhabited by Albanians and the very important role played by the Albanian uprisings on the international scene were a factor to which was paid very special attention in the military and long term plans of the European states against the Ottomans. These were among the reasons that convinced the Emperor Leopold I to address a proclamation to the oppressed peoples of the Balkans. This happened on April 6, 1690 and the proclamation was addressed first of all to the Albanian people. Albanians were encouraged to begin the fight against the Ottomans and to intensify their attempts to strengthen their relations with the Albanian insurgents in Kosova.
The data from the archival Austrian sources of the seventeenth century on the uprising of the Albanians in Kosova and the Plain of Dukagjini are a further proof that these areas were almost completely inhabited by the Albanians. Recently, Serb historiographers like Veselinovic, have sought to deny the participation and the contribution of the Albanians in these uprisings. They aim to prove that the only participants in these uprisings was the Serb minority of Kosova. According to Veselinovic, those insurgents from Kosova that are mentioned as Albanians (albaner) and kelmendas (klimenten) were neither Albanian nor from Kelmendi. They were nothing less or else but Serbs. This deformation and distortion is done simply because, at this juncture, the Serb historiographers could not accept and justify such a massive presence of Albanians in Kosova. Otherwise, they would have no grounds to deny the auctochthony of the Albanians in Kosova and the Plain of Dukagjini.
Other Serb scholars, for example Kostic, have polemicized with the authors like Veselinovic and they have admitted that in Kosova the uprising was Albanian-Serbian. They also have argued that when compared with the fifteenth century, the geopolitical concept of Albania at the end of the seventeenth century was expanded to include the territories of Kosova and the Plain of Dukagjini. Nevertheless, even these authors denied that the Albanians are auctochthonous. To the concept of Albania, these authors give only a geographical connotation that did not have an ethnic significance. The Yugoslav historiographers have recognized the presence of a limited number of Catholic Albanians in Kosova during the seventeenth century. However, they vehemently have denied the presence of the Albanian population of the Orthodox and Muslim denominations. As we have seen, the presence of Orthodox and Muslim Albanians is very well-documented from the reports of the Albanian clergy, from the Austrian documentary sources and especially from the cadastral registers of the Ottoman Empire. When added to the other evidence brought from the medieval documents on the presence and the auctochthony of the Albanians in these territories, the evidence brought by the Austrian documentation on the large number of the Albanian insurgents in Kosova, and the inclusion by the Austrian Command of this area within the Albanian territories, shows the falsity of the arguments defended and advanced by the Serb and Yugoslav authors. The presence of the Albanian population in these territories during the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries is extensively documented by domestic, Austrian, Ottoman, and other sources. It is apparent that from a scientific point of view, the argument defended and advanced by the Serb historiographers is fallacious. From a social relations standpoint this argument is biased and chauvinistic. The vast body of evidence available shows that the Albanians in Kosova and the Plain of Dukagjini were auctochthonous and not migrants that came in the area after the seventeenth century. The documentation of the fifteenth and the sixteenth century proves definitively that the regions of Kosova and the Plain of Dukagjini were territories inhabited overwhelmingly by Albanians. Consequently, the supposed migration of the Serbs from Kosova after the Austro-Ottoman war has been blown out of proportion. The main reason why the Serb historiography claims that the exodus was massive, must be sought in the need to justify a radical change in the ethnic composition of such a broad territory. This was the only way that they could somehow build up the argument of de-Serbization of this area. In fact, the Serb migration from Kosova was a migration in far smaller numbers of the Serb insurgents led from the Patriarch of Peja. As we now know, from these areas did not migrate only these Serbs but with them went a lot of Albanian insurgents, the traces of whom we still can detect and find in Slavonia. If the Serb migration from Kosova would have been massive, it should have left traces in the records and the documents of the time, be they domestic, Turkish, or in Vatican archives (which by the way, was very well informed from its prelates and clergymen on the situation in these territories during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries). So far, a large amount of documents from these archives have been published, and there no mentioning of such massive migratory moves of population in and out the region of Kosova.
1 Professor Selami Pulaha is one of the foremost authorities on the Albanian history during the early period of Turkish occupation of Albania. He is the author of numerous books and essays published in Albanian and other languages. His extremely influential and pathbreaking work remains a constant point of reference to the scholars of the Albanian history. Unfortunately, his studies are not that well-known in the English-speaking world. This article was initially published in Studime Historike in 1982. It was republished in the collection of essays, Popullsia Shqiptare e Kosovės gjatė shekujve XV-XVI Shtėpia Botuese 8 Nėntori: Tiranė, 1984:7-42. The article was translated in English by Shinasi A. Rama. The IJAS would like to acknowledge the extremely valuable help given by Stephen Lennon and Arta Haxhaj who patiently edited the English version. We are extremely grateful to both of them.
2 A. Jovicevic, Malesije, naselja i poreklo stanovista, Knjiga XV Beograd, 1923.
3 Vladan Djordjevic, Die Albanesen und die Grossmächte, Hirsel: Leipzig, 1913; see also Vladan Djordevic, LAlbanie et les Albanais, Paris, 1913.
4 Todor Stankovic, Putne beleske po Staroj Srbiji, Beograd, 1910. Todor Stankovic, Beleske o Staroj Srbiji i Makedoniji Stamp. Kraljevine Srbije: Nish, 1915
5 Jovan N. Tomic, O arnautima u Staroj Srbiji i u Sandzaku, Knjizara Gece Kona: Beograd, 1913. In the French translation, Yovan Tomich, Les Albanais en viellee Serbie et dans Sandjak de Novi Pazar. Paris, 1913. Jovan Tomic, Pecki Patriajarh Jovan i pokret kriscana u balkanskom poluostrova, 1592-1614, Zemun, 1913.
6 J. Cvijic, Osnova za geografiju i geologiju Makedonije i Stare Srbije. Posedna izdanja SAN I 1906 Vol. XVII, Beograd, 1907; and Osnova za geografiju i geologiju Makedonije i Stare Srbije. Volume XVIII Beograd, 1911.
7 A. Selisev, Slavsjanskoe naselie v Albanii, Sofija, 1931.
8 Milan Suflay, Die Grenzen Albaniens in Mittelalter in Illyrisch-Albanische Forschungen, Bild I, Munchen und Leipzig, 1916: 202-203.
9 M. Filipovic, Etnicke prilike o Juznoj Srbiji, Skoplje, 1937; M. Filipovic Has pod Pastrikom Sarajevo, 1958.
10 Atanasije Urosevic, Kosovo SANU (Srpska Akademija Nauka i Umetnosti) Srpski Etnografski Zbornik Knjiga 78. Naucno Delo: Beograd, 1965.
11 Branislav Nusic, Kosovo-opis zemlja i naroda, in two vols. Matica Srpska: Novi Sad, 1962.
12 D. Popovic, Srbi u Vojvodini, Novi Sad, 1957; See also D.Popovic, Veoma seoba srba 1690, Beograd, 1954.
13 Jovan Trifunovski, Kacanicka Klisura Srpski etnografski zbornik SAN Knjiga 32 Beograd, 1950.
14 The textbook was Istorija Naroda Jugoslavije Knjiga 2 Beograd, 1960: 770-801.
15 On Vasa Cubrilovic see the analysis of Rexhep Qosja The Albanian Question and the Serb Political Programs, published in The IJAS Volume I Number I 1997:21-39.
16 M. Dinic, Iz Dubrovackog arhiva in 3 vols. The three volumes were published in Belgrade in the years 1957, 1963, and in 1967. Similarly, see M. Dinic, Iz istorije rudarstva u srednjevekovskoj Srbiji i Bosniji in 2 vols. Beograd, 1955 and 1962.
17 A. Handzic, Nekoliko vijesti o Arbanasima na Kosovu i Metohiji sredinom XV vijeka. Symposium on Skanderbeg, Prishtinė, 1969:201-211.
18 J. Zaimov, Bolgarskie geograficeskie nazvanii o Albanii XV veka. Studia Balkanica I, tom 2 Sofija, 1981 (p. 260 and 292).
19 Among the most important studies are the following: Alain Ducellier, Les albanais ont-ils envahi le Kosovo? L 'Albanie vol. 2 Number 13 Paris Juin 1981: 1-14; Idriz Ajeti, Kontribut pėr studimin e onomastikės mesjetare nė territorin e Malit tė Zi, Bosnjės e Hercegovinės, dhe tė Kosovės. Gjurmime Albanalogjike (Seria e Shkencave Filologjike) IV Prishtinė, 1974-1975; Hivzi Islami, E Vėrteta mbi shqiptarėt nė disa vepra antropo-gjeografike. Dituria I Prishtina,1971: 65-92; Kėrkimet antropo-gjeografike nė Kosovė. in Gjurmime Albanalogjike (Seria e Shkencave Historike I 1971: 113-162; Muhamet Tėrnava, Shqiptarėt nė feudin e Deēanit nė vitet 30 tė shekullit XV sipas krisobulės sė Deēanit. Zbornik Filozofskog Fakulteta u Prishtini XI Prishtinė, 1974:255-271; Also by Muhamet Tėrnava, Migrimet e popullsisė nė territorin e sotėm tė Kosovės gjatė shekujve XIV-XVI. Kosova V Prishtinė, 1978: 288-324; Shqiptarėt nė qytetet e Kosovės nė shekujt XV-XVI. Studime Historike Number 2 1979:105-145; Muhamet Tėrnava, Pėrhapja e islamizmit nė territorin e sotėm tė Kosovės deri nė fund tė shekullit tė XVII. Gjurmime Albanalogjike (Seria e Shkencave Historike) IX, 1979:45-68; Skėnder Gashi, Prania e shqiptarėve nė krahinėn e Gallapit, Moravės e tė Serbisė Jugore nė gjysmėn e parė tė shekullit XV (1411-1438) nė dritėn e materialit onomastik. Gjurmime Albanalogjike (Seria e Shkencave Filologjike) Vl Prishtinė, 1978: 103-119. Also by Skėnder Gashi, Onomastika e Kosoves. Prishtinė, 1979.
20 Skėnder Anamali, Nga Ilirėt tek Arbėrit Kuvendi i Parė i Studimeve Ilire Volume 2 Tiranė, 1974: 30-32.
21 P. Lemerle, Invasions et migrations dans les Balkans depuis la fin de lepoque romaine jusquan VIIIe siecle. Revue Historique CCXI (2) 1954.
22 Skėnder Anamali, op.cit. p. 35.
23 Eqerem Ēabej, Emri i Dardanise dhe izoglosat shqiptaro-kelte. Studime Filologjike, Number 3 Tiranė, 1973: 55-66. Eqerem Ēabej, Studime Gjuhesore volume V Prishtinė, 1977: 386-395.
24 Eqerem Ēabej, Problemi i vendit tė formimit tė gjuhės shqipe. Kuvendi i Parė i Studimeve I1ire, Volume II Tirane, 1972: 7-26.
25 Georg Stadtmüller, Forschungen zur albanischen Frühgeschichte. Wiesbaden, 1966: 141-159. See also Istorija naroda Jugoslavije, knjiga 2, Beograd, 1960: 791.
26 For a more detailed treatment of the views held by these linguists see Eqerem Ēabej, Hyrje nė historinė e gjuhės shqipe Studime Gjuhėsore, Prishtinė, 1976: 37-41; see also Eqerem Ēabej, Problemi i autoktonisė sė s
Materiale te tilla jane shume te rendesishme. Dhe rendesia e tyre rritet edhe me shume kur jane ne shqip.
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Absence Of Evidence Does Not Correlate To Evidence Of Absence... © Deny Ignorance © Autochthonox
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Mesjeta Shqiptare dhe periudha e pushtimit Osman Rilindja Kombetare Illuminati ! Kulti i syrit qe sheh cdo gje Lufta Dulces Mistere Histori e Letersise Shqiptare
Edhe une keshtu mendoj pasi ne gjuhen angleze nuk jam shum i mire dhe se kuptoj te gjith tekstin ishalla e perkthen qe ta kuptojme te gjithe..
Ne ket vazhde vazhdon edhe postimi i meposhtem, por ne te tregohet se si banoret autoktone (me kujtohen kulturat aborigjene qe shfarosen evropianet te cilet shfrytezuan mikpritjen e tyre) duhet te shfaroseshin. Cubrillovici eshte nje nga arkitektet kryesore per ealizimin e spastrimit etnik ndaj shqiptareve. Materiali i meposhtem eshte pikerisht nje deshmi e planeve monstruoze te nje prej kombeve me te felliqur e me mizore te njerzimit...Serbve
Dokumenti famėkeq nė duart e faktmbledhėsve tė OKB-sė
Memorandumi i Vaso Ēubriloviqit - dėshmia e represionit, dhunės dhe shpėrnguljes sė shqiptarėve tė Kosovės
"Duke mos kursyer as paratė as gjakun, shteti ynė mund tė krijoj njė Toplicė tė re nė Kosovė dhe Metohi". Kjo fjali ėshtė shkėputur nga memorandumi i Vaso Ēubriloviqit, tė cilin nuk ka shqiptar tė Kosovės qė nuk e njeh. Memorandumi ėshtė njė nga dokumentet mė famėkeq, i cili pėr shumė dekada ka qarkulluar disi fshehurazi. Dokumenti doli sėrish nė dritė, nė momentet kur nė Kosovė zbarkoi misioni i OKB-sė i quajtur faktmbledhėsit. E pėrditshmja "Koha Ditore" e botoi nė anglisht dokumentin e Ēubriloviqit me qėllimin e ofrimit tė fakteve, ato pėr tė cilėt erdhėn ambasadorėt. Zyra e UNMIK-ut, e cila bėn monitorimin e mediave, kishte gjykuar se nuk ishte njė dokument i vlefshėm pėr tua dhėnė ambasadorėve tė OKB-sė. Por zyrat diplomatike, tė vendosura nė Prishtinė, nuk kanė mundur tė mbyllin sytė ndaj dokumentit mbi tė cilin ishte mbėshtetur e gjithė politika diskriminuese dhe spastruese e Serbisė nė Kosovė. Ata e kanė kėrkuar dokumentin, i cili nėse do tė lexohet, edhe ambasadorėt e OKB-sė qė do tė vendosin pėr fatin e Kosovės, mbase do ti ndihmonte pėr tė kuptuar shumė mė shumė se ato ēfarė dėgjuan gjatė tri ditėve tė vizitės sė tyre. Vaso Ēubriloviqit ka lindur nė Bosnje-Hercegovinė mė 1897. Ai ishte njė student nė Sarajevė, kur Danilo Iliē e rekrutoi atė dhe shokun e tij, Cvjetko PopoviÄ, pėr ta ndihmuar tė vriste dukėn Franz Ferdinand tė Austrisė. Vėllai i tij, Veljko Ēubriloviē, gjithashtu ishte i pėrfshirė nė komplot. Tė dielėn e 28 qershorit 1914, Franz Ferdinandi dhe Sofia, dukesha e Hohenberg u vranė nga Gavrilo Princip. Princip dhe Nedeljko ĒabrinoviÄ u kapėn dhe u morėn nė pyetje nga policia. Ata si duket dhanė emrat e partnerėve tė tyre komplotistė. Vaso ĒubriloviÄ, Danilo IliÄ, Veljko ÄubriloviÄ, Cvjetko PopoviÄ dhe MiÅ”ko JovanoviÄ u arrestuan dhe u akuzuan pėr tradhti dhe vrasje. Dihet se vrasja e Dukės shėrbeu si pretekst pėr fillimin e Luftės sė Parė Botėrore. Vaso Ēubriloviē u dėnua me 16 vjet heqje lirie me ligjet perandorisė Austro-Hungareze, pasi dėnimi me vdekje nuk e kapte pėr shkak tė moshės nėn 20 vjeē, por u lirua kur aleatėt mundėn Bllokun Qendror nė nėntor tė vitit 1918. Ai punoi si mėsues nė Sarajevė, dhe mė pas shkoi nė Beograd ku u bė profesor. Pas Luftės sė Dytė Botėrore ai ishte ministėr i Jashtėm i Jugosllavisė nė qeverinė e Titos. Dr. Vaso Ēubriloviē ka qenė kėshilltar i regjimit monarkist gjatė Luftės sė Dytė Botėrore, pastaj ministėr, akademik, drejtor i Institutit tė Ballkanologjisė dhe anėtar i Lidhjes sė Komunistėve tė Jugosllavisė pas Luftės sė Dytė Botėrore. Memorandumi i tij "Dėbimi i shqiptarėve" qė iu paraqit qeverisė mbretėrore tė Stojadonoviē-it mė 7 mars 1937, ka shėrbyer dhe shėrben edhe sot e kėsaj dite si platforma kryesore pėr spastrimin etnik tė shqiptarėve tė Kosovės. Vdiq nė vitin 1990.
Nė memorandumin e tij janė pėrshkruar me detaje mėnyrat se si do tė dėboheshin shqiptarėt nga Kosova dhe se si ajo do tė kolonizohej nga serbėt. Ai e fillon memorandumin duke i konsideruar shqiptarėt njė problem tė hershėm pėr shkak se kanė zaptuar tokat pjellore tė Kosovės. "Problemi i shqiptarėve nė jetėn tonė kombėtare dhe shtetėrore nuk ėshtė ngritur dje. Ai ka luajtur njė rol madhor nė jetėn tonė nė Mesjetė, por rėndėsia e tij bėhet edhe mė vendimtare nė fund tė shekullit tė XVII-tė, nė kohėn kur masa tė popullit serb u ēvendosėn nė veri tė territoreve tė tyre stėrgjyshore tė Rashkės dhe u zėvendėsuan nga malėsorėt shqiptarė. Kėta tė fundit, gradualisht zbritėn nga malet e tyre poshtė nė fushat pjellore tė Metohisė dhe Kosovės. Duke depėrtuar nė Veri, ata u shpėrndanė nė drejtimin e Moravės sė Jugut dhe tė Perėndimit dhe, duke kaluar Malet e Sharrit, zbritėn drejt Pologut, dhe qė kėtej, nė drejtim tė Vardarit. Nė kėtė mėnyrė, aty nga shekulli i XIX, u formua njė trekėndėsh shqiptar, njė pykė me bazėn nė boshtin Dibėr-Rogozna qė u fut thellė nė territoret tona, duke arritur Nishin, dhe i ndau territoret tona tė vjetra tė Rashkės, Maqedonisė dhe Luginės sė Vardarit". Ēubriloviqi ka shpjeguar arsyet se pse shqiptarėt nuk u shpėrngulėn deri nė atė kohė, tė cilat i quan gabime e ku numėron metodat e Perėndimit pėr zgjidhjen e problemeve tė Ballkanit. "Ndėrsa tė gjithė shtetet e Ballkanit, qė nga viti 1912 i zgjidhėn ose janė nė rrugėn e zgjidhjes sė problemeve tė pakicave kombėtare me anė tė shpėrnguljeve masive, ne kemi mbetur nė metodat e ngadalshme dhe tė ngathėta tė kolonizimit gradual", shkruan Ēubriloviq, i cili thotė se shtimi natyral i popullsisė shqiptare ėshtė mė i madh se rritja totale e popullsisė serbe. Sipas tij, duke marrė parasysh karakterin e vėshtirė tė shqiptarėve, rritjen e theksuar tė numrit tė tyre dhe vėshtirėsitė gjithnjė e nė rritje tė kolonizimit me metodat e vjetra, me kalimin e kohės, ky shpėrpjesėtim do tė bėhet edhe mė i madh dhe eventualisht do ti japė fund kolonizimit serb qė nga viti 1918 e kėtej. Ai harton kėshtu planin djallėzor tė shpėrnguljeve, qė do tė vihen nė jetė nė tė gjithė shekullin e njėzetė dhe pėr kėtė sė pari duhej shkatėrruar blloku shqiptar. "Nga pikėpamja ushtarake-strategjike, blloku shqiptar zė njė nga pozicionet mė tė rėndėsishme nė vendin tonė, pikėn e nisjes, nga e cila lumenjtė e Ballkanit rrjedhin nė Detin Adriatik, Detin e Zi dhe Detin Egje". Fakti se shqiptarėt e Kosovės do tė mbrohen nga kombi i tyre, qė e cilėson e "njėjta racė", e shqetėson Ēubriloviqit
Shqipėria nė mbrojtje tė Kosovės
"Shqiptarėt nuk mund tė dėbohen vetėm me anėn e kolonizimit gradual. Ata janė i vetmi popull, i cili gjatė mijėvjeēarit tė fundit, mundi jo vetėm ti rezistojė bėrthamės sė shtetit tonė, Rashkėsh dhe Zetės, por edhe tė na dėmtojė, duke i shtyrė kufijtė tanė etnikė mė nė Veri dhe mė nė Lindje. Ndėrsa nė mijėvjeēarin e fundit, kufijtė tanė u zhvendosėn nė Suboticė nė Veri, dhe Kupė nė Veriperėndim, shqiptarėt na dėbuan nga Shkodra dhe krahina e saj, ish-kryeqyteti i Bodinit, nga Metohia dhe Kosova. E vetmja mėnyrė dhe tė vetmet mjete pėr tė qėruar hesapet me ta ėshtė forca brutale e njė shteti tė organizuar. Ne nuk kemi pasur sukses nė drejtim tė asimilimit tė shqiptarėve nė favorin tonė. E kundėrta, pėr shkak se ata mbėshteten te Shqipėria, vigjilenca e tyre kombėtare ėshtė zgjuar dhe nė qoftė se ne nuk i lajmė hesapet me ta nė kohėn e duhur, brenda 20-30 vjetėve, ne do tė pėrballemi me njė irredentizėm tė tmerrshėm, shenjat e tė cilit janė tashmė tė dukshme dhe ato nė mėnyrė tė pashmangshme do tė vėnė nė rrezik tė gjitha territoret tona tė jugut.
Pazar me Tiranėn
"Nė kohėn kur Gjermania mund tė dėbojė dhjetėra mijė hebrenj dhe Rusia mund tė shpėrngulė miliona njerėz nga njė pjesė e kontinentit nė tjetrėn, shpėrngulja e disa qindra mijė shqiptarėve nuk do tė shpjerė nė shpėrthimin e Luftės Botėrore", shkruan Ēubriloviq. Dy ishin vendet tė cilat Ēubriloviqi synonte tė dėbonte shqiptarėt - Turqia dhe Shqipėria. "Me popullsinė e saj tė rrallė, me moēalet e padrenazhuara dhe luginat e pakultivuara gjatė lumenjve, Shqipėria do tė jetė nė gjendje tė pranojė disa qindra mijė shqiptarė nga vendi ynė", shkruan ai duke sugjeruar qė Serbia tė shfrytėzojė tė gjitha mjetet pėr tė bindur Tiranėn pėr tė pranuar disa nga kėta njerėz tė zhvendosur. "Unė besoj se kjo do hasė vėshtirėsi nė Tiranė, pėr shkak se Italia do tė pėrpiqet ta pengojė kėtė proces. Por paratė luajnė njė rol tė madh nė Tiranė. Nė bisedimet lidhur me kėtė ēėshtje, qeveria shqiptare do tė informohet se ne nuk do tė ndalemi para asgjėje pėr tė arritur zgjidhjen finale tė kėsaj ēėshtjeje. Eventualisht, nė mėnyrė sekrete, zyrtarė tė lartė nė Tiranė mund tė binden se do tė kenė pėrfitime materiale nė rast se nuk do ta kundėrshtojnė kėtė pazarllėk".
200 mijė shqiptarė shpėrngulen nė Turqi
Sa pėr Turqinė, ajo kishte rėnė dakord qė tė pranonte 200 mijė persona me kushtin e Serbisė qė ata tė ishin shqiptarė tė Kosovės. Ai sugjeronte qė Turqia tė paguhej pėr kėtė shėrbim, tė organizohej transporti sa mė parė tė ishte e mundur. Sipas tij, duhej qė tė pėrgatiteshin edhe shqiptarėt e tjerė, pasi tė ikte kontingjenti i parė, tė shkruanin gazetat pėr jetėn pėrrallore tė shqiptarėve tė zhvendosur nė Turqi, nėpėr fushat e bukura qė iu ishin dhuruar, tė mundėsohej njė transport sa mė i lehtė dhe pa probleme. Nga ana tjetėr tė mos kursehej joshja, presioni dhe dhuna pėr ti shpėrngulur edhe tė tjerėt. "Njė mjet tjetėr do tė jetė shtrėngimi i ushtruar nga aparati shtetėror. Ligji duhet zbatuar deri nė njė pėr ta bėrė qėndrimin e shqiptarėve tė padurueshėm: gjobat, burgosjet, zbatimi i egėr i urdhėresave tė policisė, si ndalimi i kontrabandės, prerja e pyjeve, dėmtimi i bujqėsisė, lėnia e qenve zgjidhur, puna angari dhe mjete tė tjera qė mund tė pėrdorė njė forcė policore me pėrvojė. Nga pikėpamja ekonomike: mospranimi pėr tė njohur tapitė e vjetra tė tokės, puna me regjistrimin e tokės qė duhet tė pėrfshijė menjėherė vjeljen e pamėshirshme tė taksave dhe shlyerjen e tė gjitha borxheve private dhe publike, rekuizimi i tė gjitha kullotave shtetėrore apo komunale, shfuqizimi i koncesioneve, heqja e lejeve pėr ushtrimin e profesionit, pushimi nga puna nė zyrat shtetėrore, private apo komunale etj., do tė shpejtojnė procesin e shpėrnguljes sė tyre. Masat nė fushėn e shėndetėsisė: zbatimi me dhunė i tė gjitha dispozitave madje edhe brenda shtėpive, duke rrėzuar tė gjitha muret dhe gardhiqet rrethuese, zbatimi me rreptėsi i masave veterinare, qė do tė rezultojnė nė ndalimin e shitjes sė bagėtive nė treg, gjithashtu do tė aplikohen nė njė mėnyrė efektive dhe praktike. Kur vjen puna tek feja, shqiptarėt janė shumė tė prekshėm, prandaj ata mund tė ngacmohen nė kėtė drejtim gjithashtu. Kjo mund tė arrihet me njė keqtrajtim tė klerikėve tė tyre, shkatėrrimin e varrezave, ndalimin e poligamisė, dhe sidomos zbatimin e rreptė tė ligjit qė detyron vajzat tė ndjekin shkollėn fillore kudo qė janė". Deri nė vitet 60, periudha e Rankoviqit, tė gjitha kėto qė Ēubriloviq i pėrshkruan me hollėsi nė vitin 1937, kanė ndodhur kundėr shqiptarėve tė Kosovės
Kolonizimi serb i Kosovės
Plani famėkeq jep hollėsi se si pas shpėrnguljes tokat shqiptare duhej tė zėvendėsoheshin me kolonė serbė, ashtu sikurse kishin bėrė me sukses nė Toplicė. Malazezėt ishin tė parėt kolonė qė duhej tė vendoseshin nė rrafshin e Dukagjinit."Nė veēanti, do tė organizohet njė vėrshim i malazezėve nga kullotat malore pėr tė krijuar njė konflikt nė shkallė tė gjerė me shqiptarėt nė Metohi. Ky konflikt do tė pėrgatitet me anėn e njerėzve tanė tė besuar. Ai do tė inkurajohet dhe kjo mund tė bėhet mė lehtė nė kohėn qė shqiptarėt do tė jenė revoltuar vėrtetė, atėherė e gjithė grindja do tė paraqitet si njė konflikt midis klaneve dhe do tė shpjegohet me arsye ekonomike po tė jetė nevoja. Mė nė fund, mund tė sugjerohen rebelime lokale. Ato do tė shtypen me gjak me anė tė klaneve dhe tė ēetnikėve mė tepėr se sa me anė tė ushtrisė. Mbetet akoma njė mjet, tė cilin Serbia e ka pėrdorur me njė efekt tė madh pas vitit 1878, dhe kjo ėshtė djegia fshehurazi e fshatrave dhe lagjeve shqiptare nėpėr qytete".
Harta e kolonizimit
Mė pas vinin serbėt nga rajone tė ndryshme tė Serbisė, sipas karakteristikave tė vendeve. Kolonėt duhej tė mbėshteteshin financiarisht nė Kosovė, tu jepej toka, e cila smund tė bėhej e tyre nėse nuk do tė tregoheshin tė devotshėm, nuk do tė paguanin taksa etj. Ēubriloviqi i kishte bashkangjitur dokumentit edhe njė hartė me rajonet qė duhet tė pastroheshin. Ato ishin Dibra e Epėrme, Pologu i Poshtėm, Pologu i Epėrm, Malet e Sharrit, Drenica, Peja, Istogu, Vuēiterni, Stavica, Llapi, Graēanica, Nerodimja, Dalovia, Podgori, Gora, Podrimja, Gjilani dhe Kaēaniku. Midis kėtyre rajoneve, qė pėrbėjnė tė gjithė bashkė pykėn shqiptare, mė tė rėndėsishmit pėr ne tani janė: Peja, Gjakovica, Podrimja, Gora, Podgori, Sharri, Istogu dhe Drenica nė Veri tė Maleve tė Sharrit, sikundėr dhe Dibra e Epėrme dhe dy Pologėt nė Jug dhe Malet e Sharrit. "Kėto janė zona kufitare qė duhet tė pastrohen nga shqiptarėt me ēdo ēmim. Rajonet e brendshme si Kaēaniku, Gjilani, Nerodimja, Graēanica, Llapi, Vuēiterna etj., mundėsisht duhet tė dobėsohen, sidomos rajonet e Kaēanikut dhe tė Llapit, ndėrsa tė tjerėt duhet tė kolonizohen gradualisht dhe sistematikisht nė njė periudhė prej dhjetėra vjetėsh. "Ēubroloviq pėr realizimin e shpėrnguljes dhe kolonizimit propozon krijimin e njė institucioni tė posaēėm "Zyrėn e Inspektimit tė Kolonizimit", qė do tė kryesohej nga Inspektori i Pėrgjithshėm i caktuar me dekret me propozimin e ministrit tė Luftės, Shefit tė Shtabit tė Pėrgjithshėm dhe Kryeministrit. Ēubriloviq thotė se aparati policor do tė luajė njė rol tė rėndėsishėm nė kėtė ēėshtje, prandaj ėshtė e domosdoshme tė zgjidhen oficerėt mė energjikė dhe mė tė ndershėm dhe tė dėrgohen nė Kosovė. Dokumenti merret edhe me mjete financiare, pra sa do tė kushtojė shpėrngulja e shqiptarėve tė Kosovės dhe sa ajo e vendosjes sė kolonėve serbė. Ky ėshtė njė dokument shumė i vlefshėm pėr tė kuptuar mė mirė historinė e pėrgjakshme tė Kosovės sė shekullit tė njėzetė.
shkrimi i mesiperm eshte botuar ne gazetn shqip dt. 2/07/2007
(Dokumenti kriminal bazė mbi spastrimin etnik tė shqiptarėve)
"DĖBIMI I SHQIPTARĖVE"
(Dr. Vaso Ēubriloviē ka qenė kėshilltar i regjimit monarkist gjatė Luftės sė Dytė Botėrore, pastaj ministėr, akademik, drejtor i Institutit tė Ballkanologjisė dhe anėtar i Lidhjes sė Komunistėve tė Jugosllavisė pas Luftės sė Dytė Botėrore.
Memorandumi i tij "Dėbimi i shqiptarėve" qė iu paraqit qeverisė mbretėrore tė Stojadonoviē-it mė 7 mars 1937, ka shėrbyer dhe shėrben edhe sot e kėsaj dite si platforma kryesore pėr spastrimin etnik tė shqiptarėve nė Kosovė.)
Problemi i shqiptarėve nė jetėn tonė kombėtare dhe shtetėrore nuk ėshtė ngritur dje. Ai ka luajtur njė rol madhor nė jetėn tonė nė Mesjetė, por rėndėsia e tij bėhet edhe mė vendimtare nė fund tė shkullit tė XVII-tė, nė kohėn kur masa tė popullit serb u ēvendosėn nė veri tė territoreve tė tyre stėrgjyshore tė Rashkės dhe u zėvendėsuan nga malėsorėt shqiptarė. Kėta tė fundit gradualisht zbritėn nga malet e tyre poshtė nė fushat pjellore tė Metohisė dhe Kosovės. Duke depėrtuar nė veri, ata u shpėrndanė nė drejtimin e Moravės sė jugut dhe tė perėndimit dhe, duke kaluar Malet e Sharrit, zbritėn drejt Pologut dhe, qė kėtej, nė drejtim tė Vardarit. Nė kėtė mėnyrė, aty nga shekulli i XIX-tė, u formua njė trekėndėsh shqiptar, njė pykė me bazėn nė boshtin Dibėr-Rogozna qė u fut thellė nė territoret tona, duke arritur Nishin, dhe i ndau territoret tona tė vjetra tė Rashkės, Maqedonisė dhe Luginės sė Vardarit.
Kjo pykė shqiptare e banuar nga elementėt anarkistė shqiptarė pengonte ēdo lidhje tė fortė kulturore, arsimore dhe ekonomike midis territoreve tona veriore dhe jugore nė shkullin e XIX-tė. Kjo ka qenė arsyeja kryesore pse Serbia ka qenė e pastabilizuar, deri nė vitin 1878, kur ajo mundi tė vendoste dhe tė mbante lidhje tė vazhdueshme me Maqedoninė pėrmes Vranjės dhe Malit tė Zi tė Shkupit, tė ushtronte influencėn kulturore dhe politike nė Luginėn e Vardarit. Kjo gjė pritej tė ndodhte pėr shkak tė lidhjeve tė favorshme gjeografike dhe rrugore dhe traditave historike nė kėto zona. Megjithėse bullgarėt e kanė filluar jetėn e tyre shtetėrore mė vonė se serbėt, nė fillim ata patėn sukses mė tė madh. Kjo shpjegon pėrse ka ngulime tė pėrhershme sllavėsh tė jugut nga Vidini nė veri deri nė Ohėr nė jug. Serbia filloi tė kėpuste copa tė kėsaj pyke shqiptare qė gjatė rebelimit tė parė, duke dėbuar banorėt shqiptarėt qė ishin mė nė veri nga Jagodina.
Falė koncepteve tė gjera shtetėrore tė Jovan Ristiēit, Serbia kėputi njė copė tjetėr tė kėsaj pyke pas aneksimit tė Toplicės dhe Kosanicės. Nė kėtė kohė, rajonet midis Jastrebacit dhe Moravės jugore qenė spastruar nė mėnyrė radikale nga tė gjithė shqiptarėt.
Nga viti 1918 e kėtej ka qenė detyra e shtetit tonė tė tanishėm tė shkatėrrojė mbeturinat e kėtij trekėndėshi shqiptar. Ai nuk e bėri kėtė gjė. Ka disa arsye pėr kėtė, por ne do tė pėrmendim vetėm mė tė rėndėsishmet prej tyre:
1. Gabimi kryesor i autoriteteve nė fuqi nė atė kohė ėshtė se, duke harruar se ku ndodheshin, ata deshėn ti zgjidhnin tė gjitha problemet madhore etnike tė Ballkanit tė turbulluar dhe tė gjakosur me metodat Perėndimore. Turqia solli nė Ballkan zakonet e Sheriatit, sipas tė cilave, fitorja nė luftė dhe pushtimi i njė vendi tė jep tė drejtėn e jetės dhe tė pronės mbi subjektet qė e banojnė. Bile edhe tė krishterėt e Ballkanit mėsuan nga turqit se jo vetėm pushteti dhe sundimi shtetėror, por edhe shtėpijat e pronat janė tė fituara apo tė humbura si shpėrblim. Koncepti i raporteve tė pronėsisė private mbi tokėn nė Ballkan u zbut nė njė farė shkalle nėpėrmjet ligjeve, urdhėresave dhe marrėveshjeve tė tjera ndėrkombėtare tė lėshuara nėn presionin e Evropės, por ky koncept ka qenė nė njė farė shkalle leva kryesore e shtetit turk dhe e shteteve tė Ballkanit deri nė ditėn e sotme. Nuk kemi nevojė t'i referohemi njė tė kaluare tė largėt. Ne do tė pėrmendim vetėm disa raste tė kohėve tė fundit, shpėrnguljen e grekėve nga Azia e Vogėl nė Greqi dhe tė turqve nga Rumania nė Turqi. Ndėrsa tė gjithė shtetet e Ballkanit qė nga viti 1912 i zgjidhėn ose janė nė rrugėn e zgjidhjes sė problemeve tė pakicave kombėtare me anė tė shpėrnguljeve masive, ne kemi mbetur nė metodat e ngadalėshme dhe tė ngathta tė kolonizimit gradual. Rezultatet e kėsaj kanė qenė negative. Qė kjo ėshtė kėshtu e tregojnė mė sė miri statistikat nga 18 distriktet qė pėrfshijnė trekėndėshin shqiptar. Nga kėto shifra del se nė kėto krahina shtimi natyral i popullsisė shqiptare ėshtė mė i madh se rritja totale e popullsisė sonė nga shtimi natyral plus banorėt e rinj (nga 1921 deri mė 1931 popullsia shqiptare u rrit 68.060, ndėrsa ajo serbe tregon njė rritje prej 58.745, njė diferencė prej 9.315 vetėsh nė dobi tė shqiptarėve). Duke marrė parasysh karakterin e vėshtirė tė shqiptarėve, rritjen e theksuar tė numrit tė tyre dhe vėshtirėsitė gjithnjė nė rritje tė kolonizimit me metodat e vjetra, me kalimin e kohės ky ēpėrpjestim do tė bėhet edhe mė i madh dhe eventualisht do t'i japė fund kolonizimit tonė qė nga viti 1918 e kėtej.
2. Bile edhe metoda e kolonizimit gradual nuk u aplikua si duhet. Akoma mė keq, nė njė problem kaq tė rėndėsishėm, nuk ka pasur njė plan tė pėrcaktuar shtetėror, nė tė cilin do tė aderonte dhe tė cilin do ta aplikonte ēdo qeveri dhe regjim. Puna ėshtė bėrė me ndėrprerje, me hope, ēdo ministėr i ri ēbėnte atė qė kishte bėrė parardhėsi, ndėrkohė qė vetė nuk krijonte asgjė tė qendrueshme. Qenė shpallur ligje dhe rregullore, por edhe ashtu tė dobėta, siē ishin ato nuk zbatoheshin. Disa persona, sidomos deputetė nga krahina tė tjera, kur nuk arrinin tė siguronin mandatin nė krahinėn e tyre, shkonin nė jug dhe merrnin me tė mirė elementėt jo nacionalė pėr tė siguruar mandatin, duke sakrifikuar nė kėtė mėnyrė interesat kombėtare dhe shtetėrore. Aparati i kolonizimit ishte jashtėzakonisht i kushtueshėm, i fryrė dhe i ngarkuar me njerėz qė ishin jo vetėm inkompetentė, por shpesh ishin pa skrupull, kėshtu qė veprimtaria e tyre pėrbėn vėrtet njė problem tė veēantė. Mė nė fund, mjafton tė mbledhim shumat e mėdha qė ka investuar shteti pėr kolonizimin dhe ta pjesėtojmė rezultatin me numrin e familjeve tė vendosura, pėr tė provuar se sa e kushtueshme ka qenė vendosja e njė familjeje tė re qė kur ka mbaruar lufta, pa marrė parasysh nėse kėto shpenzime janė bėrė nga kolonėt vetė apo nga shteti. Po ashtu, do tė jetė interesante tė krahasojmė shumat e paguara pėr shpenzimet personale dhe ato pėr materialet e pėrdorura nga kolonizimi ynė. Serbia ndaj kėtij problemi ka patur qėndrime krejt tė ndryshme nė tė kaluarėn. Karageorge gjatė kryengritjes sė parė, sikundėr Milloshi, Mihajllo dhe Jovan Ristiē nuk kanė patur njė ministri tė veēantė pėr reformėn e tokės, inspektorė tė pėrgjithshėm tė tokės ose ndonjė aparat tė kushtueshėm.
3. Madje edhe ato pak mijė familje qė u vendosėn pas luftės nuk u ngulėn aty ku ishin vendosur. Ka patur mė shumė sukses nė Kosovė, sidomos nė Luginėn e Llapit, ku Toplicanėt hynė nga veriu nė jug. duke u marrė vesh vetė midis tyre. Ngulimet tona mė tė vjetra dhe mė tė qėndrueshme, me elementė nga krahinat tona tė ndryshme, u vendosėn pikėrisht atje. Nė Drenicė dhe Metohi ne nuk patėm sukses. Kolonizimi nuk duhej tė ishte bėrė kurrė vetėm me malazezėt. Nuk mendojmė se ata janė tė pėrshtatshėm si kolonė pėr shkak tė plogėshtisė sė tyre baritore. Kjo mund tė thuhet vetėm pėr gjeneratėn e parė. Gjenerata e dytė ėshtė krejt tjetėr, mė aktive dhe mė praktike. Fshati Petrovo nė Miroc, sipėr Danubit, fshati mė i avancuar nė Krahinė, ėshtė i banuar pa pėrjashtim me malazez. Sot nė Serbi ka mijėra biznese tė pėrparuara, sidomos nė Toplicė dhe Kosanicė, qė kanė qenė krijuar nga malazezėt, tė cilėt janė pėrzier me elementė mė tė pėrparuar. Kjo vlen sidomos pėr Metohinė, ku zakonet e vjetra, duke qenė tė bazuara direkt nė origjinėn e tyre stėrgjyshore, kanė mundur tė mbijetojnė. Njė vizitė nė kafenetė e Pejės ėshtė e mjaftueshme pėr tė bindur ēdo njeri pėr kėtė. Kjo ėshtė arsyeja pėrse kolonizimi ka patur kaq pak sukses nė tė gjithė Metohinė. Duhet pranuar, nga ana tjetėr, se kėto koloni ishin vendosur shumė keq, nė njė tokė jopjellore, tė mbuluar me shkurre, dhe mbi tė gjitha pa asnjė agregat tė domosdoshėm bujqėsor. Kėtyre kolonive u duhej dhėnė mė shumė ndihmė se tė tjerave pėr shkak se ishin tė pėrbėra nga elementi mė i varfėr malazez.
4. Padyshim, shkaku kryesor qė kolonizimi ynė pati pak sukses nė kėto rajone ėshtė fakti se tokat mė tė mira mbetėn nė duart e shqiptarėve. E vetmja rrugė e mundshme pėr kolonizimin tonė masiv tė kėtyre rajoneve ėshtė t'u marrim tokėn shqiptarėve. Pas luftės, nė kohėn e rebelimit dhe tė veprimtarisė sė kryengritėsve, kjo do tė mund tė arrihej lehtė duke dėbuar njė pjesė tė popullsisė shqiptare nė Shqipėri, duke mos legalizuar uzurpimin e tyre dhe duke blerė kullotat e tyre. Kėtu ne duhet tė kthehemi pėrsėri tek gabimi i madh i konceptit tonė tė pasluftės lidhur me tė drejtėn e posedimit tė tokės. Nė vend qė tė pėrfitonim nga koncepti i vetė shqiptarėve lidhur me pronėsinė e tokės qė ata kishin uzurpuar (vėshtirė qė ndonjėri prej tyre tė ketė pasur tapi tė dhėna nga turqit, pėrveē pėr tokat e blera, pėr tė keqen e shtetit dhe kombit tonė), ne jo vetėm i legalizuam tė gjitha kėto uzurpime, por ē'ėshtė mė e keqja i mėsuam shqiptarėt me idetė evropiano-perėndimore lidhur me pronėsinė private. Mė pėrpara ata as qė mund tė kishin ide tė tilla. Nė kėtė mėnyrė, ne u dhamė vetė atyre njė armė pėr tė mbrojtur veten, pėr tė mbajtur tokat mė tė mira pėr veten dhe pėr ta bėrė tė pamundshėm nacionalizimin e njė prej rajoneve mė tė rėndėsishme pėr ne .
Nga e gjithė kjo del se metodat e politikės sonė tė kolonizimit nė jug deri nė ditėn e sotme nuk kanė dhėnė rezultatet qė ne do tė duhej tė kishin arritur dhe tė cilat po na imponohen vetiu si domosdoshmėria mė e madhe shtetėrore.
Kolonizimi i krahinave tė jugut
Duke lexuar pjesėn e parė tė kėtij dokumenti, mund tė vėreshė menjėherė se duke shqyrtuar problemin e kolonizimit tė rajoneve jugore, problemi prek kryesisht rajonet nė veri dhe nė jug tė Maleve tė Sharrit. Kjo nuk ėshtė e rastit. Ky bllok shqiptarėsh rreth Maleve tė Sharrit ka njė rėndėsi tė madhe kombėtare, shtetėrore dhe strategjike pėr shtetin tonė. Ne tashmė e kemi pėrmendur mėnyrėn se si ai u krijua dhe rėndėsinė e kėtij rajoni pėr lidhjen e rajoneve pėrrreth Luginės sė Vardarit nė mė mėnyrė tė qėndrueshme me territoret tona tė vjetra. Forca mė e madhe e ekspansionit serb qė nė fillimet e shtetit tė parė serb nė shekullin e IX-tė ka qenė bazuar gjithmonė ne vazhdimėsinė e kėtij ekspansioni, sikundėr dhe nė zgjerimin e territoreve tė vjetra tė Rashkės nė tė gjitha drejtimet, duke pėrfshirė kėtu edhe zgjerimin e tyre nė drejtim tė jugut. Kjo vazhdimėsi ėshtė ndėrprerė nga shqiptarėt dhe deri sa lidhja e vjetėr e pandėrprerė e Serbisė dhe e Malit tė Zi me Maqedoninė gjatė tė gjithė shitrirjes sė saj nga Lumi Drin deri nė Moravėn e Jugut nuk do tė jetė rivendosur, ne nuk do tė jemi tė sigurtė pėr posedimin e kėtij territori. Nga pikėpamja etnike maqedonasit do tė bashkohen plotėsisht me ne vetėm kur ata do tė kenė mbėshtetjen e vėrtetė etnike nga ana e atdheut serb, e cila u ka munguar deri nė ditėt e sotme. Ata do ta arrijnė kėtė vetėm nėpėrmjet shkatėrrimit tė bllokut shqiptar.
Nga pikėpamja ushtarake-strategjike, blloku shqiptar zė njė nga pozicionet mė tė rėndėsishme nė vendin tonė, pikėn nisėse nga e cila lumenjtė e Ballkanit rrjedhin nė Detin Adriatik, Detin e Zi dhe Detin Egje. Nga fakti se kush e ka kėtė pozicion strategjik pėrcaktohet nė njė shkallė tė gjerė fati i Ballkanit qendror, sidomos fati i vijės kryesore ballkanike tė komunikacionit nga Morava nė Vardar. Nuk ėshtė e rastit qė shumė beteja me rėndėsi vendimtare pėr fatin e Ballkanit (e Nemanjės kundėr grekėve, e serbėve kundėr turqve nė vitin 1389, e Huniadit kundėr turqve nė vitin 1446) janė zhvilluar kėtu. Nė shekullin e XX-tė, vetėm njė vend qė banohet nga njerėzit e tij mund tė mos ketė frikė pėr sigurimin e tij. Prandaj ėshtė detyrė imperative e ne tė gjithėve qė tė mos lejojmė qė kėto pozita me njė rėndėsi kaq tė madhe strategjike tė jenė nė duar armiqėsore apo tė elementit tė huaj. Aq mė tepėr qė njė element i tillė ka pėrkrahjen e njė shteti kombėtar tė tė njėjtės racė. Elementi ynė qė do dhe ėshtė nė gjendje tė mbrojė tokėn e tij, shtetin e tij, ėshtė mjeti mė i sigurtė kundėr kėtij penetrimi.
Pėrveē kėtij blloku me 18 distrikte, shqiptarėt dhe pakicat e tjera kombėtare nė pjesėt e tjera tė rajoneve jugore janė tė shpėrndarė dhe si rrjedhim nuk janė aq tė rrezikshėm pėr jetėn tonė kombėtare dhe shtetėrore. Tė nacionalizosh rajonet pėrreth Maleve tė Sharrit do tė thotė tė varrosėsh pėrgjithmonė ēdo irredentizėm, tė sigurosh pėrgjithmonė pushtetin tonė mbi kėto territore.
Kolonizimi nga veriu do tė reduktohet nė rajonet e banuara nga maqedonėt. Nė kėto rajone toka ėshtė e pakėt, kėto janė rajone tė qeta dhe, pėr kėtė arsye, maqedonasit i bėjnė rezistencė fluksit tė kolonėve nga veriu, aq mė tepėr qė nė kėto veprime ata shohin njė mosbesim nga ana jonė kundrejt tyre. E vėrteta ėshtė se kjo shkallė e vogėl kolonizimi na bėn mė tepėr keq se sa mirė. Nė rast se do tė dėrgohen njerėz nė jug tė Maleve tė Sharrit tė Shkupit, kėta njerėz do tė jenė nga Vranja, Leskovci, qė janė mė afėr maqedonasve pėr nga mentaliteti dhe kultura, dhe patjetėr njerėz nga rajoni Dinarik me temperamentin e tyre tė irritueshėm, tė pakontrolluar, sepse njerėz tė tillė nxisin urrejtjen midis popullsisė vendase. E pėrsėrisim se ky problem do tė zgjidhet vetėm kur kolonitė tona, duke avancuar nga veriu, pėrmes Kosovės dhe Metohisė, drejt Maleve tė Sharrit, Pologut, do tė takohen me ngulimet maqedonase.
Problemi i Sanxhakut tė Novi Pazarit ėshtė duke u zgjidhur vetiu dhe nuk luan mė nė jetėn tonė shtetėrore rolin qė ka luajtur deri nė vitin 1912. Ne do tė kujtojmė vetėm se me shpėrnguljen e shqiptarėve ėshtė prerė lidhja e fundit midis muslimanėve tanė nė Bosnje e Novi Pazar dhe pjesės tjetėr tė botės muslimane. Ato janė duke u bėrė pakica fetare, e vetmja pakicė muslimane nė Ballkan, dhe ky fakt do tė pėrshpejtojė nacionalizimin e tyre.
Para pak kohėsh Mali i Zi ėshtė bėrė njė problem mjaft i rėndė. Njė tokė e varfėr nuk mund tė mbajė njė popullsi qė ėshtė rritur 16 pėrqind nga viti 1912 deri nė vitin 1931. Gjatė shekujve, ky element turbullues dhe baritor ka kontribuar me karakteristika esenciale nė racėn tonė. I kanalizuar nė drejtimin e duhur, energjitė e tij nuk do tė jenė shkatėrrimtare, por do tė shfrytėzohen pėr tė mirėn e pėrgjithshme tė shtetit nė qoftė se ai do tė drejtohet nga juglindja.
Shqiptarėt nuk mund tė dėbohen vetėm me anėn e kolonizimit gradual. Ata janė i vetmi popull, i cili gjatė mijėvjeēarit tė fundit mundi jo vetėm t'i rezistojė bėrthamės sė shtetit tonė, Rashkėsh dhe Zetės, por edhe tė na dėmtojė, duke i shtyrė kufijtė tanė etnikė mė nė veri dhe mė nė lindje. Pėrderisa nė mijėvjeēarin e fundit kufijtė tanė u ēvendosėn nė Suboticė nė veri dhe Kupė nė veriperėndim, shqiptarėt na dėbuan nga Shkodra dhe krahina e saj, ish kryeqyteti i Bodinit, nga Metohia dhe Kosova. E vetmja mėnyrė dhe tė vetmet mjete pėr tė qėruar hesapet me ta ėshtė forca brutale e njė shteti tė organizuar. Ne nuk kemi patur sukses nė drejtim tė asmilimit tė shqiptarėve nė favorin tonė. E kundėrta, pėr shkak se ata mbėshteten tek Shqipėria, vigjilenca e tye kombėtare ėshtė zgjuar dhe nė qoftė se ne nuk i lajmė hesapet me ta nė kohėn e duhur, brenda 20 30 vjetėve ne do tė pėrballemi me njė irredentizėm tė tmerrshėm, shenjat e tė cilit janė tashmė tė dukshme dhe ato nė mėnyrė tė paevitueshme do tė vėnė nė rrezik tė gjitha territoret tona tė jugut.
Problemi ndėrkombėtar i kolonizimit
Nė qoftė se nisemi nga hipoteza se shpėrngulja graduale e shqiptarėve nėpėrmjet kolonizimit tonė graduial ėshtė jo efektive, atėherė ne na ėshtė lėnė vetėm njė rrugė, ajo e shpėrnguljes sė tyre nė masė. Nė kėtė rast, ne duhet tė marrim nė konsideratė dy shtete, Shqipėrinė dhe Turqinė.
Me popullsinė e saj tė rrallė, me moēalet e padrenazhuara dhe luginat e pakultivuara gjatė lumenjėve, Shqipėria do tė jetė nė gjendje tė pranojė disa qindra mijė shqiptarė nga vendi ynė. Me territoret e saj tė gjera dhe tė pabanuara dhe tokat e papunuara nė Azinė e Vogėl dhe Jurdistan, Turqia moderne ka mundėsi tė pakufizuara pėr njė kolonizim tė brendshėm. Megjithatė, pavarėsisht nga pėrpjekjet e Kemal Ataturkut, turqit nuk e kanė mbushur akoma vakuumin e krijuar si rezultat i shpėrnguljes sė grekėve nga Azia e Vogėl nė Greqi dhe tė disa prej kurdėve nė Persi. Qė kėtej del se mundėsia mė e madhe ėshtė qė pjesa mė e madhe e shqiptarėve tė shpėrngulur tė dėrgohet atje.
Sė pari, ne theksojmė se nuk do ta kufizojmė veten vetėm nė hapat diplomatikė me qeverinė e Ankarasė, por do tė shfrytėzojmė tė gjitha mjetet pėr tė bindur Tiranėn pėr tė pranuar disa nga kėta njerėz tė ēvendosur. Unė besoj se kjo do hasė vėshtirėsi nė Tiranė, pėr shkak se Italia do tė pėrpiqet ta pengojė kėtė proces. Por paratė luajnė njė rol tė madh nė Tiranė. Nė bisedimet lidhur me kėtė ēėshtje, qeveria shqiptare do tė informohet se ne nuk do tė ndalemi para asgjėje pėr tė arritur zgjidhjen finale tė kėsaj ēėshtjeje. Eventualisht, nė mėnyrė sekrete zyrtarė tė lartė nė Tiranė mund tė binden se do tė kenė pėrfitime materiale nė rast se nuk do ta kundėrshtojnė kėtė pazarllėk.
Sikundėr kemi dėgjuar, Turqia ka rėnė dakord tė pranojė fillimisht afro 200.000 persona tė shpėrngulur prej nesh, me kusht qė ata tė jenė shqiptarė, gjė qė ėshtė shumė e favorshme pėr ne. Ne duhet tė konformohemi me kėtė dėshirė tė Turqisė menjėherė dhe tė nėnshkruajmė njė marrėveshje pėr shpėrnguljen e popullsisė shqiptare sa mė shpejt qė tė jetė e mundur. Lidhur me shpėrnguljen e popullsisė shqiptare ne duhet tė studjojmė konventat qė Turqia ka nėnshkruar kohėt e fundit lidhur me kėtė ēėshtje me Greqinė, Rumaninė dhe Bullgarinė, duke i kushtuar vėmendje dy gjėrave: se Turqia do tė pranojė mundėsisht kontigjentin mė tė madh, ndėrsa nga pikėpamja e aspektit financiar do t'i jepet ndihma maksimale, sidomos nė fushėn e organizimit tė transportimit tė tyre sa mė shpejt qė tė jetė e mundur. Nuk ka dyshim se ky problem do tė ngjallė njė farė shqetėsimi ndėrkombėtar, qė ėshtė i paevitueshėm nė raste tė tilla. Nė njėqind vjetėt e fundit, sa herė qė tė ėshtė ndėrmarrė ndonjė veprim i tillė nė Ballkan, gjithnjė ka pasur disa fuqi qė kanė protestuar pėr shkak se veprime tė tilla nuk pėrputhen me interesat e tyre. Nė rastin e dhėnė, Shqipėria dhe Italia do tė bėjnė ndonjė protestė. Pėr sa i pėrket Shqipėrisė, e kemi theksuar edhe mė lart se duhen bėrė pėrpjekje pėr tė nėnshkruar me tė njė konventė lidhur me kėtė problem dhe nėse nuk e arrijmė dot kėtė, ne do tė bėjmė qė ajo tė heshtė lidhur me shpėrnguljen e shqiptarėve nė Turqi. E pėrsėrisim se njė aksion i kryer me mjeshtėri dhe paratė e pėrdorura si duhet nė Tiranė do tė jenė vendimtarė nė kėtė problem. Opinioni botėror, sidomos ai i financuar nga Italia, do tė zemėrohet pak. Megjithatė, bota sot ėshtė mėsuar me gjėra qė janė shumė mė tė kėqia se kjo dhe ėshtė e zėnė kaq shumė me problemet e pėrditshme sa qė ky aspekt i problemit nuk do tė jetė shkas pėr shqetėsime. Nė kohėn kur Gjermania mund tė dėbojė dhjetėra mijė ebrejė dhe Rusia mund tė shpėrngulė miliona njerėz nga njė pjesė e kontinentit nė tjetrėn, shpėrngulja e disa qindra mijė shqiptarėve nuk do tė shpjerė nė shpėrthimin e luftės botėrore. Por ata qė do tė vendosin duhet ta dinė se ēfarė duan dhe tė kėmbėngulin pėr arritjen e qėllimit, pavarėsisht nga pengesat e mundshme ndėrkombėtare.
Italia padyshim do tė nxjerrė mė shumė vėshtirėsi, por nė momentin e dhėnė ajo ėshtė jashtėzakonisht e zėnė me problemet e veta lidhur me Abisininė dhe Austrinė dhe nuk do tė guxojė tė shkojė shumė larg nė kundėrshtimin e saj. Tė them tė vėrtetėn, rreziku kryesor qėndron nė mundėsinė se aleatėt tanė tė mėdhenjė, Franca dhe Britania, mund tė ndėrhyjnė. Atyre mund t'u jepet njė pėrgjigje e ftohtė dhe e vendosur se sigurimi i vijės Moravė-Vardar ėshtė nė interesin e tyre, gjė qė u konfirmua gjatė luftės sė madhe tė fundit, dhe ajo mund tė bėhet mė e sigurt, pėr ne dhe pėr ata, vetėm kur ne tė dominojmė plotėsisht rajonin pėrreth Maleve tė Sharrit dhe Kosovės.
Mėnyra e shpėrnguljes
Sikundėr e kemi theksuar tashmė, shpėrngulja nė masė e shqiptarėve nga trekėndėshi i tyre ėshtė i vetmi kurs pėr ne. Pėr tė realizuar shpėrnguljen e njė popullsie tė tėrė kėrkesa e parė ėshtė qė tė krijohet njė mendėsi e pėrshtatshme. Ajo mund tė krijohet nė mjaft mėnyra.
Sikundėr e dimė, masat myslimane pėrgjithėsisht influencohen lehtė sidomos nga feja, paragjykimet dhe fanatizmi. Prandaj, gjėja e parė qė duhet tė bėjmė ėshtė qė tė bindim klerikėt dhe njerėzit e tyre me influencė me anė tė parave ose kėrcėnimeve qė ata tė pėrkrahin shpėrnguljen e shqiptarėve. Duhet tė gjenden sa mė shpejtė qė tė jetė e mundur agjitatorė nga Turqia, nė qoftė se ajo do tė na i japė, pėr tė pėrkrahur shpėrnguljen. Ata duhet tė flasin pėr bukuritė nė tokat e reja nė Turqi, pėr jetėn e lehtė dhe tė rehatshme qė bėhet atje, pėr fanatizmin fetar dhe tė ngjallin krenarinė pėr shtetin turk midis masave. Shtypi ynė mund tė japė njė ndihmė tė jashtėzakonshme nė pėrshkrimin e shpėrnguljes sė njerėzishme tė turqve nga Dobruzha dhe se sa mirė janė vendosur ata nė tokat e reja. Kėto pėrshkrime do tė krijojnė midis masave tė shqiptarėve predispozicionin e domosdoshėm pėr t'u shpėrngulur atje.
Njė mjet tjetėr do tė jetė shtrėngimi i ushtruar nga aparati shtetėror. Ligji duhet zbatuar deri nė njė pėr ta bėrė qėndrimin e shqiptarėve tė padurueshėm: gjobat, burgosjet, zbatimi i egėr i urdhėresave tė policisė, si ndalimi i kontrabandės, prerja e pyjeve, dėmtimi i bujqėsisė, lėnia e qenėve zgjidhur, puna angari dhe mjete tė tjera qė mund tė pėrdorė njė forcė policore me pėrvojė. Nga pikėpamja ekonomike: mospranimi pėr tė njohur tapitė e vjetra tė tokės, puna me regjistrimin e tokės qė duhet tė pėrfshijė menjėherė vjeljen e pamėshirėshme tė taksave dhe shlyerjen e tė gjitha borxheve private dhe publike, rekuizimi i tė gjitha kullotave shtetėrore apo komunale, shfuqizimi i koncesioneve, heqja e lejeve pėr ushtrimin e profesionit, pushimi nga puna nė zyrat shtetėrore, private apo komunale etj, do tė shpejtojnė procesin e shpėrnguljes sė tyre. Masat nė fushėn e shėndetėsisė: zbatimi me dhunė i tė gjitha dispozitave madje edhe brenda shtėpive, duke rrėzuar tė gjitha muret dhe gardhiqet rrethuese, zbatimi me rreptėsi i masave veterinare qė do tė rezultojnė nė ndalimin e shitjes sė bagtive nė treg gjithashtu do tė aplikohen nė njė mėnyrė efektive dhe praktike. Kur vjen puna tek feja, shqiptarėt janė shumė tė prekshėm, prandaj ata mund tė ngacmohen nė kėtė drejtim gjithashtu. Kjo mund tė arrihet me njė keqtrajtim tė klerikėve tė tyre, shkatėrrimin e varrezave, ndalimin e poligamisė, dhe sidomos zbatimin e rreptė tė ligjit qė detyron vajzat tė ndjekin shkollėn fillore kudo qė janė.
Iniciativa private gjithashtu mund tė ndihmojė shumė nė kėtė drejtim. Ne mund t'u shpėrndajmė armė kolonistėve tanė sipas nevojės. Format e vjetra tė veprimit ēetnik do tė organizohen dhe do tė mbėshteten nė mėnyrė tė fshehtė. Nė veēanti, do tė organizohet njė vėrshim i malazezve nga kullotat malore pėr tė krijuar njė konflikt nė shkallė tė gjerė me shqiptarėt nė Metohi. Ky konflikt do tė pėrgatitet me anėn e njerėzve tanė tė besuar. Ai do tė inkurajohet dhe kjo mund tė bėhet mė lehtė nė kohėn qė shqiptarėt do tė jenė revoltuar vėrtetė, atėherė e gjithė grindja do tė paraqitet si njė konflikt midis klaneve dhe do tė shpjegohet me arsye ekonomike po tė jetė nevoja. Mė nė fund, mund tė sugjerohen rebelime lokale. Ato do tė shtypen me gjak me anė tė klaneve dhe tė ēetnikėve mė tepėr se sa me anė tė ushtrisė.
Mbetet akoma njė mjet, tė cilin Serbia e ka pėrdorur me njė efekt tė madh pas vitit 1878, dhe kjo ėshtė djegia fshehurazi e fshatrave dhe lagjeve shqipare nėpėr qytete.
Organizimi i shpėrnguljes
Nga harta e bashkėngjitur del e qartė se cilat rajone duhet tė pastrohen. Ato janė: Dibra e Epėrme, Pologu i Poshtėm, Pologu i Epėrm, Malet e Sharrit, Drenica, Peja, Istogu, Vuēiterni, Stavica, Llapi, Graēanica, Nerodimja, Dalovia, Podgori, Gora, Podrimja, Gjilani dhe Kaēaniku. Midis kėtyre rajoneve, qė pėrbėjnė tė gjithė bashkė pykėn shqiptare, mė tė rėndėsishmit pėr ne tani janė: Peja, Gjakovica, Podrimja, Gora, Podgori, Sharri, Istogu dhe Drenica nė veri tė Maleve tė Sharrit, sikundėr dhe Dibra e Epėrme dhe dy Pologėt nė jug dhe Malet e Sharrit. Kėto janė zona kufitare qė duhet tė pastrohen nga shqiptarėt me ēdo ēmim. Rajonet e brendshme si Kaēaniku, Gjilani, Nerodimja, Graēanica, Llapi, Vuēiterni etj, mundėsisht duhet tė dobėsohen, sidomos rajonet e Kaēanikut dhe tė Llapit, ndėrsa tė tjerėt duhet tė kolonizohen gradualisht dhe sistematikisht nė njė periudhė prej dhjetra vjetėsh.
Mjetet e pėrmendura mė lart do tė pėrdoren nė radhė tė parė nė rajonet kufitare, nė rast se ne duhet t'i pastrojmė ato nga shqiptarėt.
Gjatė ripopullimit duhet tė mbajmė mend kėto qė vijon:
Nė radhė tė parė, ripopullimi duhet tė fillojė nė fshatra dhe pastaj nė qytete. Duke qenė mė kompaktė, fshatrat janė edhe mė tė rrezikshėm. Pastaj gabimi i shpėrnguljes sė varfanjakėve vetėm do tė shmanget: shtresat e mesme dhe tė pasura pėrbėjnė shtyllėn kurrizore tė ēdo kombi, prandaj ato duhen persekutuar dhe duhen pastruar. Duke mos pasur mbėshtetjen e bashkėpatriotėve qė janė tė pavarur ekonomikisht, varfanjakėt nėnshtrohen mė lehtė. Kjo ēėshtje ka njė rėndėsi tė madhe dhe po e theksoj kėtė pėr arsye se njė nga shkaqet kryesore qė kemi pak sukses nė kolonizimin tonė tė jugut ėshtė se tė varfėrit u dėbuan, ndėrsa tė pasurit mbetėn, kėshtu qė ne nuk bėmė pėrpara, sepse fituam fare pak tokė pėr vendosjen e kolonistėve tanė. Gjatė krijimit tė mendėsisė pėr shpėrnguljen, duhet tė bėhet ēdo gjė e mundur pėr tė shpėrngulur fshatra tė tėrė ose tė paktėn familje tė tėra. Njė gjendje e tillė, nė tė cilėn njė pjesė e familjes largohet kurse pjesa tjetėr mbetet duhet tė mėnjanohet me ēdo kusht. Shteti ynė nuk ka ndėrmend tė shpenzojė miliona pėr ta bėrė jetėn mė tė lehtė pėr shqiptarėt, por tė heqė qafe sa tė jetė e mundur mė shumė prej tyre. Pėr kėtė arsye blerja e tokave tė shqiptarėve qė shpėrngulen nga ata qė mbeten prapa duhet tė ndalohet nė mėnyrė absolute. Largimi i individėve dhe i fshatrave tė tėrė mund tė lidhet edhe me pyetjen nėse ata duan ta kenė mė tė lehtė procesin e shpėrnguljes.
Me tė dhėnė pėlqimin pėr shpėrngulje, atyre u duhet dhėnė e gjithė ndihma e duhur. Procedura administrative do tė thjeshtėzohet, prona e tyre do tė paguhet nė vend, dokumentat e udhėtimit do tė lėshohen pa asnjė formalitet, dhe atyre do t'u jepet ndihmė pėr tė shkuar nė stacionin mė tė afėrt tė trenit. Trenat do tė jenė gati pėr t'i dėrguar deri nė Selanik, nga ku ata do tė hipin menjėherė nė anije pėr nė Azi. Ka shumė rėndėsi qė udhėtimi i tyre tė jetė i lehtė, i rehatshėm dhe i lirė. Mundėsisht udhėtimi me tren tė jetė pa para dhe ata tė ndihmohen me ushqime, sepse nga kjo do tė varet shumė nėse do tė shpėrngulen masa tė mėdha njerėzish apo jo. Frika e vėshtirėsive tė udhėtimit do tė jetė pengesa kryesore nė lėvizjen e tyre. Prandaj ajo mund tė kapėrcehet duke zgjidhur tė gjitha problemet e lidhura me udhėtimin shpejt dhe energjikisht. Njė kujdes i veēantė duhet tė bėhet pėr tė siguruar se ata do tė kenė sa mė pak vėshtirėsi nė udhėtim, sepse njerėzit e thjeshtė orientohen me vėshtirėsi. Prandaj do tė jetė e kėshillueshme tė studjohet sistemi i transportit nga agjenci tė mėdha udhėtimi dhe tė pėrdoret ky studim. Pėrsoni i shpėrngulur duhet tė kalojė nga dora nė dorė pa e ndjerė barrėn e kėsaj ēvendosjeje. Vetėm nė kėtė mėnyrė ėshtė e mundur tė krijohet ai vėrshim shqiptarėsh tė shpėrngulur qė do tė zbrazė jugun tonė prej tyre.
Popullimi i rajoneve tė ēpopulluara
Problemi i vendosjes sė kolonive nė rajonet e ēpopulluara nuk ėshtė mė pak i rėndėsishėm se shpėrngulja e shqiptarėve.
Lind pyetja e parė: Kush do tė vendoset atje? Gjėja mė e natyrshme do tė ishte qė ato tė popullohen me elementin tonė nga rajonet pasive. Nė radhė tė parė mė tė pėrshtatshmit janė malazezėt sepse Metohia, Drenica dhe Kosova janė vendet mė tė natyrshme, ku ata mund tė vėrshojnė prej maleve tė tyre tė varfėruara. Rritja e popullsisė nė Mal tė Zi ka sjellė njė varfėri, e cila kohėt e fundit ka shkaktuar trazira tė vazhdueshme social-politike tė disfavorshme pėr fuqinė e shtetit tonė dhe shumė tė rrezikshme pėr ligjin dhe rregullin nė tė ardhmen. T'u japėsh atyre misėr dhe pensione ėshtė pa dobi. E vetmja zgjidhje ėshtė t'i dėrgosh ata nė rajonet pjellore tė Metohisė, Drenicės dhe Kosovės. Pastaj, meqėnėse ata janė tė afėrt me shqiptarėt pėr sa i pėrket mentalitetit dhe temperamentit, malazezėt janė instrumenti mė i pėrshtatshėm pėr t'i mundur ata. Sė pari, ata mund tė pėrdoren nė rajonet nė veri tė Maleve tė Sharrit. Ndėrkohė, krahas tyre, edhe disa njerėz nga Liēani, Krajsinca, Serbia, Kaēaku, Uzhica dhe Toplica duhet tė pėrdoren si kolonistė. Kjo ėshtė e domosdoshme pėr tė krijuar zakone mė tė mira pune dhe organizimi midis malazezėve, pėr tė thyer psikologjinė e tyre tė grupeve baritore dhe frymėn e kolektivitetit qė karakterizon malėsorėt me anėn e pėrzjerjes dhe tė ndėrmartesave me njerėz tė rajoneve tė ndryshme dinarike. Nė kėtė mėnyrė, do tė formohet njė tip i ri malazezėsh me njė kėndvėshtrim mė pak lokal dhe mė tė gjerė serb.
Kushte tė pėrshtatshme do tė krijohen pėr emigrantėt serbė tė jugut qė banojnė nė rajonet nė jug tė Maleve tė Sharrit, kėshtu qė ata do tė mund tė vėnė nė posedim tokat pjellore. Ata janė njerėz tė ndershėm e punėtorė qė do t'i jenė mirėnjohės shtetit pėr gjithė jetėn nė qoftė se do tė krjohen pėr ta kushte tė pėlqyeshme jetese nė zonat fshatare. Serbėt fshatarė tė jugut nė pėrgjithėsi kanė tė drejtė tė presin mė shumė kujdes dhe vėmendje se ē'po u kushtohet sot.
Kolonizimi i Pologut (i Epėrm dhe i Poshtėm) dhe i Dibrės me kėta paupers (varfanjakė, pėrkth.), si dhe dhėnia e kullotave atyre dhe jo shqiptarėve, do t'i bėjė ata qė ta ndjejnė se ky ėshtė shteti i tyre dhe do t'i mbrojnė kufijtė e tij.
Pėrveē atyre, kolonizimi nė jug tė Maleve tė Sharrit dhe tė Malit tė Zi tė Shkupit mund tė bėhet me serbė nga Vranja, Leskovci, Piroti dhe Blasenica, sidomos me ata qė janė nga fshatrat malore pasive. E pėrsėrisim se dinarikėt nuk do tė lejohen tė shtrihen nė jug tė vijės sė formuar nga Mali i Zi i Shkupit dhe Malet e Sharrit.
Gjatė kolonizimit tė fshatrave tė boshatisura nga shqiptarėt, ėshtė me rėndėsi tė mėnjanohen vonesat burokratike dhe formalitetet e mėrzitshme. Veprimi i parė i menjėhershėm ėshtė qė t'u jepet kolonistėve e drejta e posedimit mbi tokat ku janė vendosur. Njė nga arsyet kryesore pėr mossuksesin e kolonizimit ka qenė fakti se kolonistėt nuk e kanė fituar menjėherė tė drejtėn e posedimit dhe nė kėtė mėnyrė ajo ėshtė keqtrajtuar nė duart e zyrtarėve dhe politikanėve tė paskrupullt. Fshatarėt e ndjejnė veten tė sigurt nė posedimin e tokės vetėm kur ata e dinė se askush nuk mund t'i largojė mė prej saj. Prandaj, atyre do t'u jepet njė garanci e tillė menjėherė. Por nė tė njėjtėn kohė, ėshtė e rrezikshme t'u japėsh kolonistėve tė drejtėn e plotė tė pronėsisė mbi tokėn. Nė parim, ekonomitė e kolonistėve kanė misionin e tyre shtetėror dhe nacional, dhe ai qė merr njė ekonomi tė tillė duhet ta shpjerė misionin deri nė fund. Prandaj, ai nuk mund tė ketė njė pronėsi tė pakufizuar mbi kėtė pronė. Sepse ka njerėz mjaft tė ndryshėm midis tyre, si proletarė tė fshatit tė cilėt kanė humbur ndjenjėn e tyre tė pronėsisė mbi tokėn ose barinjė qė duhet tė pėrshtaten me bujqėsinė. Ata duhet tė lidhen me tokėn me anėn e forcės sė ligjit. Sepse ata mund tė fillojnė ta duan krahinėn dhe shtėpinė e tyre tė re dhe nėqoftėse ata vetė nuk mund ta arrijnė kėtė, sidoqoftė fėmijtė e tyre do tė mund ta bėjnė. Pėr kėtė arsye duhet tė mėnjanohet me anėn e ligjit qė kolonistėt tė fitojnė pronėsinė e plotė mbi tokėn nė jo mė pak se 30 vjet, megjithėse e drejta pėr posedim do t'u jepet menjėherė. Sipas ligjit tonė, gratė nė vendin tonė duhet tė pėrjashtohen nga trashėgimia nė tokat e kolonizuara, me pėrjashtim tė rasteve kur kolonisti nuk ka pasardhės meshkuj dhe gruaja ka ndėrmend tė sjellė njė dhendėr nė shtėpi. Pronat qė u janė dhėnė kolonistėve deri tani kanė qenė tė vogla. Duke patur parasysh metodat ekstensive tė bujqėsisė, rėnien e ēmimeve tė produkteve bujqėsore, sikundėr dhe familjet e medha tė kolonistėve, 5 deri 10 hektarė tokė janė tė pamjaftueshėm pėr tė siguruar kushtet pėr zhvillimin ekonomik tė kolonistėve.
Ėshtė mė mirė tė popullosh njė rajon me njė numėr mė tė vogėl kolonistėsh me kushte mė tė mira zhvillimi se sa ta popullosh atė me njė numėr tė madh apo me gjysėmproletarė fshati. Ky gjithashtu ka qenė njė shkak madhor pėrse nuk kemi patur sukses deri tani nė kolonizimin e jugut dhe tė veriut.
Elementė kaq tė pėrshtatshėm pėr kolonizim nė kushte kaq tė vėshtira qė kemi sot janė tė rrallė midis popujve tė tjerė. Kėto pak suksese qė kemi arritur nė politikėn e kolonizimit janė rezultat i kėtyre cilėsive kolonizuese tė racės sonė. Vetėm fshatarėt tanė, tė cilėt luftojnė me tokat e mbuluara me shkurre ose qė nuk kanė qenė punuar asnjėherė dhe janė zhvendosur nga njė mjedis nė njė tjetėr, kanė qenė nė gjendje tė mbijetojnė nė kushte kaq tė vėshtira. Ēfarė nuk do tė bėnin ata nė qoftė se shteti do t'u jepte gjėrat qė e ka pėr detyrė t'u japė.
Me 10 shkurt 1865, qeveria e princit Mihajlos nxori njė ligj mbi vendosjen e tė huajve nė Serbi. Sipas kėtij ligji, qeveria serbe u dha kolonistėve tė varfėr nga krahinat fqinje 3 hektarė tokė tė punueshme dhe 3 hektarė tokė tė papunueshme, njė shtėpi, njė pendė qe, njė qerre, dy dhi ose dele, njė parmendė, veglat e nevojshme tė punės dhe 120 grosh para nė dorė. Pėrveē kėsaj, u dha mjaft misėr si ushqim deri nė tė korrat e para. Njė plug u dha pėr ēdo dy familje. Ky inventar i luajtshėm dhe i paluajtshėm iu dha kolonistėve nga ana e jonė pa tė drejtėn pėr t'i shitur pėr njė afat prej 15 vjetėsh. Nė fund tė kėtij afati ato u bėnė pronė e tyre. Nė 5 vjetėt e parė kolonistėt ishin tė pėrjashtuar nga tė gjitha llojet e taksave shtetėrore, pėr 10 vjet ata ishin tė pėrjashtuar nga shėrbimi i pėrgjithshėm ushtarak nė ushtrinė e rregullt dhe tė pėrjashtuar nga shėrbimi nė milicinė popullore pėr 5 vjet. Pėrgjigja nga tė gjitha anėt qe e tillė qė brenda disa muajve tė gjitha vendet u mbushėn dhe u kolonizua mė shumė territor se ē'kishim qenė nė gjendje tė kolonizonim ne gjatė disa vjetėve pas luftės. Nė qoftė se shteti kishte krijuar kėto kushte tė favorshme pėr kolonistėt pas vitit 1918, gjendja jonė si nė Vojvodinė ashtu dhe nė Serbinė e jugut nuk do tė ishte ashtu sikundėr ėshtė. Ja, pra, si duhet tė veprojmė nė tė ardhmen, nė rast se ne duam tė kemi sukses.
Metoda e kolonizimit tė Toplicės dhe Kosanicės pas vitit 1878, kur shqiptarėt u dėbuan nga kėto rajone, ėshtė gjithashtu e mbushur me mėsime. Metoda pėr kolonizimin e kėtyre rajoneve u parashtrua nė ligjin e 3 janarit 1880. Me 3 shkurt tė tė njėjtit vit, Kėshilli i Popullit aprovoi ligjin mbi amendamentin e marrėdhėnieve agrare sipas parimit "toka fshatarėve". Pa hezitim, Serbia mori borxhin e parė tė huaj pėr tė paguar Turqinė pėr tokat qė kishte marrė. Ajo nuk formoi ndonjė ministri tė reformės agrare apo ndonjė aparat tė kushtueshėm pėr problemin e kolonizimit, por ēdo gjė u bė nė njė mėnyrė tė thjeshtė dhe praktike. Organet e policisė ua shpėrndanė tokat tė gjithė atyre qė donin ta punonin. Erdhėn njerėz nga Mali i Zi, Sjenica, Vranja, Kosova, Peja etj. gjatė 30 vjetėve pas vitit 1878. Toplica dhe Kosanica, dikur rajone shqiptare me reputacion tė keq, i dhanė Serbisė regjimentin mė tė mirė nė luftėrat e viteve 1912-1918, Regjimentin e Dytė tė Hekurt. Toplica dhe Kosanica paguan dhe stėrpaguan me gjakun e bijve tė tyre ato dhjetė milionė dinarėt qė Serbia pati shpenzuar pėr ripopullimin e tyre.
Vetėm duke ndjekur kėtė shembull dhe duke ditur se ēfarė kėrkohet, duke mos kursyer as paratė as gjakun, mund tė krijojė shteti ynė njė Toplicė tė re nė Kosovė dhe Metohi.
Qė kėtej del se nė qoftė se ne duam qė kolonistėt tė qėndrojnė atje ku janė, ata duhet tė jenė tė sigurt se do t'i kenė tė gjitha mjetet pėr tė jetuar pėr disa vite. Ne duhet tė ndalojmė rreptėsisht ēfarėdo spekullimi me shtėpitė dhe pronat e shqiptarėve tė shpėrngulur. Shteti duhet t'i rezervojė vetes tė drejtėn e pakufizuar pėr tė disponuar pronat e tundshme dhe tė patundshme tė njerėzve tė shpėrngulur dhe duhet tė vendosė kolonistėt e vet menjėherė pas nisjes sė shqiptarėve. Kjo duhet tė bėhet sepse do tė jenė tė rralla rastet kur do tė niset njė fshat i tėrė njėherėsh. Tė parėt qė do tė vendosen nė kėto fshatra duhet tė jenė malazezėt, qė janė njė popull arrogant, gjaknxehtė dhe i pamėshirshėm. Ata do t'i dėbojnė shqiptarėt e mbetur me sjelljen e tyre dhe kėtu mund tė sillen pastaj kolonistė nga rajone tė tjera.
Ky dokument merret vetėm me problemin e kolonizimit tė Serbisė sė Jugut. Problemi i Vojvodinės, sidomos i trekėndėshit hungarez nė Backė, Senta-Kula-Backa Topola, nuk ėshtė mė pak i rėndėsishėm pėr ne. Pėr tė shkatėrruar kėtė trekėndėsh nė Vojvodinė ėshtė njėlloj si tė shkatėrrosh bllokun shqiptar pėrrreth Maleve tė Sharrit. Duke ndjekur ndarjen e pronave tė mėdha, atje mbesin dhjetėra mijėra ferma hungareze qė janė sot njė barrė e rėndė pėr fshatarėt e mesėm serbė dhe gjermanė tė Vojvodinės. Disa nga kėta punėtorė gjermanė apo hungarezė, qė janė punėtorė bujqėsie apo pronarė tė vegjėl, mund tė dėrgohen nė jug, sepse nė Backė, nė kufirin me Hungarinė, ata paraqesin rrezik, aq mė tepėr qė serbėt e Backės pėrbėjnė vetėm 25 pėrqind tė popullsisė. Nė Serbinė e Jugut, duke i mbrojtur pronat e tyre kundėr Shqipėrisė, ata do tė bėhen shtetas tė mirė, qė do tė integrohen me masat e popullit tonė dhe, ē'ėshtė edhe mė e rėndėsishme, duke qenė mė tė pėrparuar dhe nė njė nivel mė tė lartė kulturor se fshatarėt tanė, ata do tė japin shembullin e metodave tė pėrparuara nė kultivimin e tokės. Ne theksojmė nė mėnyrė tė veēantė se serbėt e Vojvodinės nuk duhet tė dėrgohen nė jug pėr kolonizim. Nė Vojvodinė ka akoma tokė pėr kolonizim. Prandaj atyre u duhet dhėnė tokė atje. Theksojmė gjithashtu se gjatė periudhės 1928-1929 atje pati njė lėvizje tė gjerė midis hungarezėve. Njė pėrpjekje tjetėr nė kėtė drejtim duhet tė pengohet dhe publiku ynė duhet tė udhėzohet si tė pėrkrahė njė lėvizje tė hungarezėve dhe tė gjermanėve nga Vojvodina dhe sidomos nga Backa nė jug.
Aparati i kolonizimit
Njė rėndėsi tė veēantė pėr zgjidhjen e ēėshtjes qė po diskutojmė ka ekzistenca e njė aparati pėr ta drejtuar kėtė punė. Puna e dobėt e aparatit qė ka zbatuar politikėn tonė tė kolonizimit ėshtė nė njė shkallė tė madhe shkaku qė deri tani ne nuk kemi patur sukses. Pėr ta manjanuar njė gjė tė tillė nė tė ardhmen, duhet bėrė riorganizimi.
Asnjė punė tjetėr nuk kėrkon mė shumė vazhdimėsi zbatimi sa ē'kėrkon kolonizimi. Ne kemi theksuar se njė nga arsyet kryesore tė mungesės sė suksesit nė kolonizimin tonė nė veri dhe nė jug ėshtė puna e pakėt dhe ndryshimi i politikės me ndryshimin e qeverive. Nė rast se kjo duam tė mėnjanohet nė tė ardhmen, kolonizimi duhet t'i besohet Shtabit tė Pėrgjithshėm tė Ushtrisė. Pse? Thjesht pėr arsye tė mbrojtjes. Ushtria jonė ėshtė e interesuar nė vendosjen e elementit tonė pėrgjatė kufirit, sidomos nė sektorėt mė delikatė. Pėr kėtė qėllim ai do tė bėjė ē'ėshtė e mundur pėr tė siguruar kufijtė me anė tė njė kolonizimi sa mė tė qėndrueshėm. Shtabi i Pėrgjithshėm, si institucioni i paė i mbrojtjejes sė interesave tona kombėtare, mund tė kontribuojė shumė nė tėrė politikėn tonė tė kolonizimit. Shtabi i Pėrgjithshėm do tė dijė si tė mbrojė zbatimin e politikės sė kolonizimit nga ndėrhyrjet private tė atyre qė duan ta pėrdorin atė nė interesin e tyre dhe nga ēdo ndikim i jashtėm. Njė fakt tjetėr i rėndėsishėm ėshtė se do tė jetė mė lehtė pėr Shtabin e Pėrgjithshėm tė bindė institucionet me pėrgjegjėsi pėr rėndėsinė e ēėshtjes dhe t'i bėjė ata qė marrin vendimeve efektive. Kėshilli i Popullit do tė ketė mė besim tek ai dhe do t'i japė kreditė e nevojshme mė lehtė se tė tjerėve.
Shtabi i Pėrgjithshėm do tė udhėheqė tė gjithė punėn nėpėrmjet Kėshillit Shtetėror tė kolonizimit. Ky kėshill do tė jetė krejt i pavarur, por drejtėpėrdrejtė nėn kontrollin e Shefit tė Shtabit tė Pėrgjithshėm dhe do tė ketė tė gjitha organet e kolonizimit tonė nėn kontrollin e tij. Pėrfaqėsuesit e disa ministrive tė interesuara, shoqata kombėtare, organizma teknike dhe institucione shkencore do futen nė kėtė kėshill.
Gabimi mė i madh i politikės sonė tė kolonizimit qėndron nė faktin se burokracia e pastėrvitur dhe jo kompetente ka thėnė fjalėn kryesore nė kėtė punė dhe ėshtė marrė me tė jo vazhdimisht dhe pa e eksploruar atė tėrėsisht. Le tė pėrmendim kolonizimin e vullnetarėve tanė nga Hungaria nė Ovce Polje, Kadrifikovo ose emigrantėt nga Istra dhe Gorica qė u vendosėn pėrreth Demir Kapijas. Kjo kėrkon njė lidhje tė ngushtė midis forcės sė shtetit, iniciativės private dhe institucioneve shkencore me politikėn tonė tė kolonizimit. Iniciativa mund tė veprojė nė shumė drejtime. Mbrojtja Popullore, Sokolasit, Shoqatat Ēetnike etj. duhet tė ndėrmarrin kundėr shqiptarėve veprime, nė tė cilat ėshtė mirė qė tė marrė pjesė edhe shteti. Shoqatat e agronomėve, doktorėve, inxhinjerėve, kooperativave etj. mund tė ndihmojnė shumė mirė nėpėrmjet kėshillave teknike pėr tė zgjidhur shumė probleme qė dalin gjatė procesit tė kolonizimit. Edhe shoqatat kulturale, si Prosveta nė Sarajevo, Matica Srpska nė Novi Sad, shoqatat Sveti Sava nė Beograd etj. gjithashtu kanė detyrat e tyre nė lidhje me kėtė ēėshtje.
Nuk ka dyshim se institucionet tona mė tė larta shkencore kanė filluar tė humbasin prestigjin e tyre tė dikurshėm. Shaku kryesor pėr kėtė ėshtė se universiteti dhe Akadamia e Shkencave po largohen gjithnjė e mė shumė nga jeta reale dhe janė duke neglizhuar detyrėn Themelore qė kanė ata nė njė vend relativisht tė prapambetur si ky i yni, duke hapur rrugėn pėr zbatimin e realizimeve shkencore tė shekullit XX-tė. Miliona do t'i ishin kursyer kėtij vendi, shumė gabime do tė kishin qenė mėnjanuar, duke pėrfshirė dhe politikėn e kolonizimit, sikur problemet tė ishin studjuar me seriozitet dhe objektivitet nga punonjėsit tanė shkencorė kompetentė para se ato tė shtroheshin pėr zgjidhje. Politika jonė e kolonizimit po ashtu do tė kishte patur njė vlerėsim mė serioz, njė vazhdimėsi mė tė madhe dhe zbatim mė efektiv, sikur ekspertėt dhe punonjėsit tanė shkencorė tė jepnin paraprakisht mendimin e tyre. Nė radhė tė parė, Akademia Mbretėrore Serbe e Shkencave e Beogradit duhet tė marrė iniciativėn tė organizojė njė studim tėrėsor shkencor pėr tė gjithė problemin e kolonizimit tė vendit. Kjo do tė kishte qenė e mundur pėr shumė arsye. Nė universitet ne kemi ekspertė pėr ēdo ēėshtje qė ėshtė e lidhur me kolonizimin e vendit tonė. Mėsuesėt dhe akademikėt e universitetit janė punonjės tė pavarur, tė cilėt i nėnshtrohen mė pak ndikimeve tė jashtme politike. Ata tashmė kanė njė pėrvojė tė mirė nė njė punė tė tillė dhe veprimtaria e tyre shkencore ėshtė njė garanci e objektiviteti tė tyre. Prandaj ata do tė marrin iniciativėn pėr tė themeluar njė institut tė kolonizimit, detyrė e tė cilit do tė jetė angazhii nė studimin e kolonizimit. Shteti nga ana e tij do tė shkėpusė nga ministri tė ndryshme tė gjitha ato institucione qė kanė qenė tė angazhuar me kėtė problem dhe me to tė krijojė njė institucion tė posaēėm, Zyrėn e Inspektimit tė Kolonizimit.
Zyra e Inspektimit tė Kolonizimit do tė kryesohet nga Inspektori i Pėrgjithshėm i caktuar me dekret me propozimin e Ministrit tė Luftės, Shefit tė Shtabit tė Pėrgjithshėm dhe Kryeministrit. E gjithė veprimtaria e institutit dhe e Zyrės sė Inspektimit tė Kolonizimit do tė zhvillohet sipas urdhėrave dhe mbikėqyrjes tė Kėshillit tė Shtetit, ndėrsa Inspektori i Pėrgjithshėm do tė pėrgjigjet para Shefit tė Shtabit tė Pėrgjithshėm.
Instituti i kolonizimit do tė jetė i ndarė nė kėto seksione: 1) organizimi; 2) edukimi dhe kultura;3) financa; 4) bujqėsia; 5) ndėrtimi; 6) higjena etj. Nė marrėveshje me shoqatat shkencore dhe kulturore-edukative, seksionet do tė studjojnė problemet e kolonizimit dhe do tė pėratisin direktivat, duke e pajisur kėshtu politikėn tonė tė kolonizimit me njė plan tė shėndoshė dhe shkencėrisht tė pėrpunuar, i cili do tė shėrbejė pėr marrjen e vendimeve. Nė krye tė kėtij instituti do tė jenė njerėz tė emėruar nga Kėshilli i Shtetit, qė pėrbėhet ng pėrfaqėsues tė ministrive tė pėrmendura, universiteti, Akademia e Shkencave dhe ato organizata private, nacionale dhe kulturore-organizative qė do tė zgjidhen apo do tė emrohen nė kėtė kėshill. Nė kėtė rast duhet tė bėhet kujdes qė atje tė caktohen njerėz jo pėr tė fituar nder, por njerėz qė e duan dhe janė tė dedikuar nė kėtė punė.
Kryetarėt dhe nėpunėsit e Institutit do tė caktohen nėpėrmjet konkurimit. Instituti do tė furnizojė Zyrėn e Inspektimit tė Kolonizimit me plane tė pėrpunuara shkencėrisht pėr zbatimin e politikės sė kolonizimit. Nė rast se do tė ketė pikėpamje tė ndryshme midis Zyrės sė Inspektimit tė Kolonizimit dhe instituteve lidhur me ēėshtje themelore, Shefi i Shtabit tė Pėrgjithshėm do tė vendosė.
Zyra e Inspektimit tė Kolonizimit duhet tė ketė nėpėr rajoneorganet ekzekutive, tė pėrbėrė nga njerėz tė zgjedhur dhe tė gatshėm pėr tė bėrė punėn qofshin tė punėsuar apo jo nga shteti. Ata duhet tė zgjidhen mundėsisht me anė tė koknkursit dhe tė emrohen me propozimin e Shefit tė Shtabit tė Pėrgjithshėm, ndėrsa nė punėn e tyre Zyra e Inspektimit tė Kolonizimit dhe organet e tyre duhet tė shmangin formalitetet burokratike sa tė jetė e mundur mė shumė, duke mbajtur gjithnjė nė mendje njė gjė: tė bėhet sa mė shpejt qė ėshtė e mundur shpėrngulja e shqiptarėve dhe vendosja e kolonistėve tanė.
Aparati policor do tė luajė njė rol tė rėndėsishėm nė kėtė ēėshtje. Prandaj ėshtė e domosdoshme tė zgjidhen oficerėt mė energjikė dhe mė tė ndershėm dhe tė dėrgohen atje. Transferimi i tyre do tė bėhet me aprovimin e Shefit tė Shtabit tė Pėrgjithshėm dhe pėr njė punė kaq tė vėshtirė ata do tė paguhen nga fondet sekrete. Masa tė ashpėra duhet tė merren kundėr tė gjithė atyre qė do tė tregojnė mosbindjen mė tė vogėl. Njė komisar i posaēėm qė do tė zbatojė urdhėrat e inspektorit shtetėror tė kolonizimit do tė caktohet pėr tė gjithė territorin tė pėrbėrė nga 18 distriktet e lartpėrmendur. Prefektėt e distrikteve mund tė pajisen me fuqi tė veēanta si pėr punėn ashtu dhe dhėnien e udhėzimeve. Partive tona politike u duhet thėnė qartė se rivaliteti midis partive nė zgjedhje ėshtė i ndaluar kategorikisht nė kėto distrikte dhe se e ndaluar kategorikisht edhe ēdo ndėrhyrje nga ana e deputetėve nė dobi tė shqiptarėve.
Instituti Shtetėror dhe Zyra e Inspektimit tė Kolonizimit do tė pėrpunojė detajet teknike tė organizimit tė shpėrnguljes sė shqiptarėve dhe tė vendosjes sė kolonistėve tanė. Ndoshta nuk do tė ishte keq qė tė organizohej edhe njė organizatė tjetėr private, pėrveē kėtyre dy institucioneve zyrtare, qė do tė jetė e bazuar mbi shoqatat ekzistuese dhe do tė ketė pėr detyrė tė ndihmojė nė zbatimin e politikės sonė tė kolonizimit nėpėrmjet iniciativės private. Do tė jetė mė mirė nėqoftė se Liga e shoqatave tona kulturale-edukative ta ndėrmarrė njė punė tė tillė. Ajo do tė merret me koordinimin e veprimtarisė sė shoqatave priva me politikėn shtetėrore tė kolonizimit dhe do tė ndihmojė nė lidhjen midis tyre dhe Institutit tė Kolonizimit.
Sidoqė politika jonė e kolonizimit ėshtė kritikuar sepse ka patur pak sukses, mbrojtėsit e saj e kanė justifikuar gjithnjė veten dhe janė ankuar pėr "mjetet e pamjaftueshme financiare" qė shteti ka vėnė nė dispozicion pėr kėtė veprimtari. Ne nuk mund tė themi se kjo ėshtė e vėrtetė, megjithėse duhet pranuar se nė vendin tonė ėshtė shpenzuar mė shumė pėr mbajtjen e kėtij aparati dhe tė veprimtarisė sė tij se sa pėr kolonizimin vetė. Megjithatė, nė rast se shteti nuk ka dhėnė aq sa duhej tė jeptem kjo duhet tė kuptohet kėshtu: Ēdo shtet duhet tė sigurojė mbajtjen e rajoneve tė pasigurta nacionale duke i kolonizuar kėto rajone me elementin e vet nacional. Tė gjithė angazhimet e tjera nga rėndėsia vijnė pask kėtij angazhimi dhe kėsaj detyre. Pėr kėto probleme mjetet financiare mund dhe duhet tė gjenden. Ne tashmė e kemi pėrmendur borxhin e Serbisė gjatė kolonizimit tė Toplicės dhe Kosanicės dhe pėrfitimet qė patėm prej tij. Kur Mbretėria e vogėl Serbe nuk hezitoi tė bėjė sakrifica tė mėdha financiare, dhe vėretet ajo nuk hezitoi, si njė mbretėri e lirė dhe e pavarur, tė kėrkonte borxhin e parė pėr kolonizimin, mund tė themi se Jugosllavia e ditve tė sotme nuk ėshtė nė gjendje ta bėjė njė gjė tė tillė? Ajo mund dhe duhet ta bėjė kėtė, dhe nuk ėshtė e vėrtetė se ajo nuk ka mjete pėr ta bėrė. Le tė llogarisim afėrsisht se sa do tė kushtojė shpėrngulja e 200.000 shqiptarėve dhe vendosja e njė numri po kaq tė madh kolonistėsh.
Shpėrngulja e 40.000 familjeve shqiptare, duke marrė njė familje tė mesme prej 5 anėtarėsh dhe njė shumė mesatare prej 15.000 dinarėsh pėr ēdo familje, do tė kushtojė tėrėsisht 600 milionė dinarė. Shpenzimet e kolonizimit pėr tė vendosur 40.000 familjet tona mund tė arrijė njė total prej 200 milionė dinarėsh. Ja pėrse:
1. Shqiptarėt e shpėrngulur do tė lėnė vetėm tokėn por edhe shtėpitė e veglat e tyre bujqėsore. Nė kėtė mėnyrė, shumica dėrrmuese e kolonistėve tanė jo vetėm do tė vendoset nė shtėpitė e shqiptarėve, por duke patur pak ndihmė me bagti dhe ushqime, ata do tė pėrfitojnė ekonomikisht dhe do tė bėhen tė pavarur. Pėr kėtė arsye ne theksojmė kėtu se speullimet private me pronat e lėna prej shqiptarėve nuk duhet tė lejohen nė asnjė mėnyrė. Ato duhet t'i marrė shteti dhe t'ua japė kolonistėve.
2. Gjatė vendosjes sė kolonive tė reja, forcat ushtarake do tė pėrdoren sa herė qė tė jetė nevoja, sikundėr ishte rasti me ndėrtimin e Sremska-Raca dhe me rindėrtimin e fshatrave tė shkatėrruar nga tėrmeti i vitit 1931 nė jug. Pėr kėtė qėllim, ushtrisė do t'i jepet e drejta dhe mundėsia tė krijojnė njė lloj shėrbimi tė punės sė detyrueshme pėr projektet publike, ashtu sikundėr Stamboliski krijoi nė Bullgari Trudova Pronist dhe Hitleri krijoi Arbetsdienst nė Gjermani, duke mobilizuar rezervistėt apo duke zgjatur afatin e shėrbimit ushtarak. Do tė jetė veēanėrisht mirė qė rinia jonė e stėrvitur, pas diplomimit nė universitet, tė ngrkohet me kėtė detyrė. Nė kėtė rast, duke marrė pjesė nė punėn ndėrtimtare pėr interesin e pėrgjithshėm, shumė prej tyre do tė bėhej mė tė ndėrgjegjshėm dhe do t'i shikojnė gjėrat nė mėnyrė mė realiste. Kjo mund tė xbatohen lehtėsisht duke u dhėnė epėrsi nė punėsimin punė shteti tė atyre tė rinjve qė kanė punuar njė farė kohe pėr zbatimin e politikės sė kolonizimit. Kjo gjė do tė pakėsojė gjithashtu papunėsinė midis intelegjencės sonė tė re, e cila ka filluar tė bėhet njė problem social gjithnjė e mė i mprehtė nė vendin tonė.
3. Nė marrėveshje me organizata dhe shoqata tė specializuara, duhet gjetur rruga mė pak e kushtueshme pėr pastrimin e tokave nga shkurret, kanalizimin, tharjen e kėnetave etj., sikundėr dhe ndėrtimin e shtėpive. Ndėrmarrjet private duhet tė informohen se gjatė aktivitetit tė tyre pėr tė siguruar materialet e nevojshme, shteti do t'i ndihmojė ata me anė tė doganave tė reduktuara dhe tarifat hekurudhore, kredi dhe mjete tė tjera, kėshtu qė nė kėtė veprimtari kaq tė rėndėsishme shteti ka tė drejtėn tė kėrkojė prej tyre furnizim me materiale me ēmimet mė tė ulura. Ēėsgtja e sigurimit tė materialeve do tė zgjidhet direkt nėpėrmjet karteleve dhe pastj, nė marrėveshje me to, shteti do tė pėrcaktojė sasinė, cilėsinė dhe ēmimet e materialeve pa pazarllėqe fiktive. Ndėrmarrjet shtetėrore, hekurudhat dhe sidomos ndėrmarrjet pyjore, si Sipas, do tė vendosen krejtėsisht nė dispozicion tė Kėshillit tė Shtetit pėr Kolonizimin.
Marrė nga libri: "The Denial of Human and National Rights of Albanians in Kosova", edited by Alush A. Gashi, M. D., Ph. D., Illyria Publishing Co., Inc. New York, USA.
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Social media: Stay safe online
Social media has more than its fair share of malicious content - here are some tips on how to avoid it, and keep your children out of harm's way.
Social media has become flooded by malicious content, and it is becoming more difficult to discern between what is safe and what is not. Although children may not be the common target of cybercriminals, they do gather online where hackers lay their traps, and a common tactic of cybercriminals is to use events and popular culture as a part of their schemes to lure victims.
Some people expand their social networking connections by accepting every request they receive. Quite simply, if you do not know the person, say no to their request. A way to explain this, especially to the kids, is to ask: Would they invite every one of their social media friends over to their house?
A hidden threat
A common social engineering trick is for a hacker to socially engineer one person's email password and then have access to that person's contact list - and possibly that person's social networking contacts. Another possibility is that a download has malicious software embedded; if you download, you become infected, and the hacker has access to your machine, email account, and social network account.
A threat on your computer can show few if any symptoms and survive for a prolonged period undetected. In general though, criminals are trying to access information that will lead them to money as quickly and easily as possible.
1. Think before you click
Not every link you come across in social media is what it seems; some are scams, or wild or salacious news stories. Teach your child (and yourself) to rather Google the subject of the link or type a websites main URL into a browser instead of clicking the link.
2. Only accept friends you trust enough to invite to dinner
Accepting a friendship from someone they don't know puts your child, and their reputation, potentially at risk. Note: Make sure you understand the social media settings, and ensure that your child's security is on the maximum settings.
3. Strong passwords a must
Strong passwords can go a long way in helping secure information, so choose a password that is 10 characters long and consists of a combination of letters, number, and special characters. Change your password periodically to reduce the likelihood of it being compromised.
4. Don't share links or posts without checking
Sharing information and links without verifying them is risky. You may be tricked into spreading inappropriate or even malicious content.
5. Say NO to geo-locating
Location services allow teenagers to publicly post their current location, and it is not just their friends who can see where they are. This means that teens could be leaving a trail of where they are. Make sure that you have checked the privacy setting and that geo-location is turned off, when it is off you have to be asked for permission to use your location. This gives more control over the information that is posted as well as information that is collected.
Facebook and Twitter users who want to make sure that they are protected while surfing the website can turn to ESET's free Social Media Scanner, an app that secures the content on their timeline, newsfeed and private messages against cyber threats. If the app (which works in real time) detects anything malicious, it will inform the user via email with instructions on how to clean their profile.
About Carey van Vlaanderen
Carey van Vlaanderen is CEO of ESET Southern Africa. ESET is a global provider of security software for enterprises and consumers and is dedicated to delivering instant, comprehensive protection against evolving computer security threats.
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From Our 2012 Archives
Parents' Fear of Dentist May Get Passed On to Kids
Latest Oral Health News
Spanish researchers looked at 183 children, aged 7 to 12, and their families. The greater the level of dentist fear or anxiety in one family member, the higher the level in the rest of the family, they found.
The investigators also found that the father's feelings about going to the dentist play a key role in whether a mother's fear of the dentist will be passed on to their children, according to the team at the Rey Juan Carlos University of Madrid.
"Although the results should be interpreted with due caution, children seem to mainly pay attention to the emotional reactions of the fathers when deciding if situations at the dentist are potentially stressful," study co-author America Lara-Sacido said in a news release from the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology.
The findings show the need to involve parents -- especially fathers -- in efforts to prevent children from being afraid of dentists, and the need to get fathers to make regular dental visits and show no signs of fear or anxiety, the researchers suggested.
"With regard to assistance in the dental clinic, the work with parents is key," Lara-Sacido said. "They should appear relaxed as a way of directly ensuring that the child is relaxed too."
The study was published in a recent issue of the International Journal of Paediatric Dentistry.
-- Robert Preidt
Copyright © 2012 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
SOURCE: Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology, news release, Nov. 16, 2012
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One of the smallest, and rarest, marine mammals in the world, Hector’s dolphins, are found only in the shallow coastal waters off of New Zealand, but they continue to face threats that have conservationists worried they may not survive.
There are two subspecies of these dolphins, which are genetically distinct from each other: the South Island Hector’s dolphins, who can be found off of New Zealand’s South Island and the Maui’s dolphin, who can be found off the west coast of the North Island where there are only an estimated 55 individuals over the age of one left in existence.
The Maui’s dolphin is listed as critically endangered and continues to struggle against its biggest threats — commercial and recreational gillnet fishing and trawling, but they also face threats from pollution, boat strikes, a lack of genetic diversity and seismic testing.
Some actions have been taken by the government, including the establishment of the Banks Peninsula Marine Mammal Sanctuary in 1988 and restricting gillnetting and trawling in part of the dolphins’ habitat last year, but it hasn’t been enough.
“Time is of the essence, with populations this low, numbers can drop off very rapidly,” Greenpeace campaigner Karli Thomas told the AFP. “We’re worried the government is delaying to the point of no return for Maui’s dolphins. Just waiting for them to drop off the agenda because they’re extinct is not solving the problem, that’s the loss of a species from the planet.”
The government’s efforts have also not met a call from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) for an immediate ban on these harmful activities to ensure their survival. According to the New Zealand Herald, the government instead called for submissions for a management plan and said it would assess the risks dolphins face and the impact of a ban on the local fishing community. Submissions were closed in November, but nothing else has been done.
Fishermen claim they’re being scapegoated for the problems these dolphins face and blame the parasitic disease toxoplasmosis, but according to Liz Slooten, an associate professor of zoology at Otago University, the government estimates that five dolphins are killed annually as bycatch, reports the AFP.
Five sounds like a small number, but to put it into perspective, according to the Nature Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union, the population can only only absorb one human-induced death every 10-23 years because they mature and reproduce so slowly.
Conservationists want to see harmful activities stopped immediately, along with expanded habitat protection and the establishment of safe corridors between the North and South Island. The IWC is currently meeting in Jeju, South Korea to discuss their future, among other issues. Hopefully, New Zealand will take immediate action to keep Maui’s dolphins from disappearing forever.
Photo credit: Thinkstock
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April 7, 2011
From impulse buys to penny-wise, research explores how to avoid post-purchase regret
If you've ever suffered from a bad case of buyer's remorse, there may be a scientific remedy: spend more cognitive effort.
Cognitive effort involves performing research, gathering opinions and exploring options before purchasing a product. Research by Jisook "April" Park, a Kansas State University doctoral candidate in psychology, Korea, shows that consumers often experience less post-purchase regret when they use more cognitive effort, especially when that effort is easy to justify. Post-purchase regret also relates to whether the purchase was in-store or online.
Park has been working with Gary Brase, K-State associate professor of psychology, to study consumer decision-making strategies and understand the causes and remedies for post-purchase regret.
"We're looking at whether consumers could increase or decrease cognitive effort in the decision process as needed to avoid post-purchase regret," Park said.
For her research, Park differentiated regret from dissatisfaction or discomfort after buying an item. She sees two aspects of purchase-related regret: "I should not have bought this" and "I should have bought this."
"Regret is very interesting to me compared to any other negative emotion because it's based on how you think," Park said. "If you don't think about those 'what if' situations, you aren't really going to experience regret. People experience regret because they think about the past and what they could have done."
To explore post-purchase regret, Park performed two types of studies that involved more than 250 K-State students.
In the first study, Park gave participants two types of decision-making situations. One situation involved choosing between two laptops and the other situation involved choosing between two pairs of jeans. Participants had to use different levels of cognitive effort -- or different amounts of research -- to choose between the two. Based on this study, Park found that participants experienced less regret when more cognitive effort was invested and when a pair of jeans was purchased rather than a laptop.
Park also added online and in-store purchase factors to her first study, and told participants that two weeks after buying the laptop or jeans, they saw the same item either online or in stores for a cheaper price. She found that participants experienced more regret if they bought an item online and later found it cheaper in stores than if they bought an item in stores and later found it cheaper online. Park plans follow-up studies focused on in-store versus online purchases.
"Buying something in stores has different aspects," Park said. "You can actually feel and experience an item in stores and the emotions associated with touch are a very important decision factor. That's why we think online shoppers try to read comments of other buyers because they're trying to compensate for the fact that they can't touch a product in an online store."
Park's second study explored whether justification of cognitive effort affected consumer regret.
"People can still feel regret if they put forth cognitive effort but are still dissatisfied with the product," Park said. "But consumers can feel less regret if they decide 'I've done all that I can' instead of 'I should have done more and this is my responsibility.'"
For the second study, Park again had participants choose between two laptops and two pairs of jeans. She had participants put forth cognitive effort deemed "unjustified" -- meaning they either spent a lot of time researching other products but ended up buying the original laptop or pair of jeans they wanted -- or put forth cognitive effort deemed "under spent"-- meaning they did not spend a lot of time researching even when they did not know much about the product. Results showed that "unjustified" cognitive effort did not make much difference in post-purchase regret but "under spent" cognitive effort created more post-purchase regret.
"That means that high cognitive effort itself may be a way to justify the consumer's decisions and the decision-making process," Park said. "It's as if you were about to buy a house and you put a lot of effort into it only to buy the original house you wanted. Since this is a very important decision, people expect you to look around and research more than if you were just buying a stick of gum."
While cognitive effort can help reduce regret, there is no one-size-fits-all amount of cognitive effort to practice in order to reduce post-purchase regret, Park said. It varies for each person and situation.
"You have to make sure that the amount of effort that you put forth is justifiable to you," Park said. "If you're satisfied with the amount of effort that you have put in, then you are less likely to experience regret."
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In an idyllic landscape enclosed by mountains, a group of women worship Hina, goddess of the moon. In the foreground, a girl plays the flute. To the left, separated by the trunk of a tall tree that splits the composition in two like a hinge, another group dances round the idol. Gauguin left for Tahiti in 1891, hoping to find artistic inspiration among primitive peoples whose development had been untouched by Western civilisation. However, all he encountered were the vestiges of a glorious past, already doomed to extinction. Mata Mua (In Olden Times) is a hymn to the natural lifestyle Gauguin so fervently sought. Painted in bright, flat colours, and rejecting any claim to naturalism, it is also an elegy for a lost Golden Age.
More information about this Work
In the month of November 1893, only a few weeks after his return from Tahiti, Gauguin organised an exhibition of his recent works at the Durand-Ruel Gallery, and began writing a text entitled Noa Noa ("Perfumed") in order to explain the meaning of his paintings to a public who knew nothing of the Tahiti customs and the Maori gods. In spite of these precautions, art lovers and journalists were deeply disconcerted by these enigmatic scenes, these paintings with shimmering colours, these flat perspectives and the obscure inscriptions which were the titles of the works. Among the forty-six entries in the catalogue, essentially of paintings made during his stay in the Pacific islands, with the exception of three Breton paintings, was, at number six, Mata Mua (In Olden Times).
In an idyllic landscape, enclosed by pink and purple mountains, some women play the flute and sing before a giant stone idol. They celebrate the goddess Hina (the moon) whom Gauguin also represented in a painting of 1893, Hina Maruru (Feast of Hina), (W 500).
The landscape, made up of interlocking coloured areas covering the entire composition, can be read from bottom to top like a Japanese print. The trunk of a giant tree divides the space into two sections with music in the foreground and dance in the middle ground. The painting is not the transcription of a real scene or landscape, but a re-composition of elements found in other works painted by the artist between 1892 and 1894, for instance, the same landscape serves as a background to Tahiti Pastoral, W 470; the large yellow tree in the background is also present in Fatata te moua (At the Foot of the Mountain) (W 481), and in Nave Nave Moe (The Joy of Resting) (W 512); the idol can be found in Parahi te Marahe (The Temple is There) (W 483), and in Nave Nave Moe (The Joy of Resting) (W 512); as for the dancers only, see Mahana no Atua (The Day of God) (W 513); for the two women sitting, Areareas I and II (Joyfulness) (W 468 and 469); and for the flute player alone, Parau Parau (The Whispered Words) (W 472) and Hina Maruru (Feast of Hina) (W 500).
Gauguin had gone to Tahiti in order to get to know the ancient Maori civilisation, jeopardised by colonisation and Christianisation. He wanted to revive through his paintings those sacred "olden times" in which man lived in harmony with nature and find again, far from Europe, the escaped gods and the original paradise. Shortly after his arrival, he set off on a trip around the island to discover the places still preserved from the corruption and decadence he found in Papeete. "Leaving the path that borders the seashore, I went deep into the thicket which rises quite far into the mountain. Got to a small valley. There some inhabitants want to live as they did in olden times." These few lines, hastily written in the first manuscript of Noa noa, were developed in the final version and are the explanation given by the artist of his painting Mata Mua, a true hymn in the honour of the Maori woman: "In times of richness, social importance, national glory, when the autochthonous race reigned in the Islands and had not yet welcomed the foreigner, in the era of the gods, Matamua! The legend finds its substance everywhere in this naturally fabulous land, but it is the feminine deity Hina, the goddess of lie and pity, who appeals most to those people from the past. The moon has its feasts celebrated with embraces, with Songs, with Dances, celebrated by Nature through ineffable prodigies. [...] The women remain faithful to the dead gods due to an instinctive nostalgia. Their pleasures and terrors always inhabit Matamua. This is how the artist sees the childish and majestic woman, who symbolises an entire ancient race, and he has given her the task to express in the painting the secrets he stole from the extinct cult of which she was both the idol and the priestess, and from nature, of which she is a kind of marvellous synthesis."
The painting, which did not find a buyer in the auction organised by Gauguin in 1895 to finance his second trip to the Pacific islands, was reduced to the price of 500 FF, fixed by the artist. It later became part of Gustave Fayet's collection and then was in the possession of various consecutive private owners before being bought, in May 1984, at a record price and in equal parts, by Baron Hans Heinrich von Thyssen and Jaime Ortiz-Patiño. When, in 1989, the latter decided to sell his share of the painting, Baron Thyssen became its only owner.
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I don’t think we need to go over the dangers of texting and driving again. Well, maybe we do. According to a new survey from AT&T, texting and driving numbers haven’t gotten any better, especially with commuters.
Even though 98% of commuters in the survey said they know texting and driving is dangerous, 49% still admit to doing it. Six in ten commuters claimed that they had never text and drove three years ago, but now the numbers are surpassing the amount of teenagers (49% vs 43%).
Despite all of the dangers, some people are also viewing texting and driving differently, with 40% calling it a habit. While we’re pretty sure you know what the word habit means, let us enlighten you. A habit is defined as “an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary.” So, not only are people aware of what they are doing and the dangers behind texting and driving, it doesn’t seem to matter enough for one to stop. That said, this isn’t all terribly surprising. People are going to do what they want, even if it means putting their own lives and the lives of others in danger. That’s pretty sad.
Cell phone laws also won’t change the behavior of drivers that use their cellphones. If the laws were working, we likely wouldn’t see the government considering cellphone jammers inside of cars.
April is Distracted Driving Awareness Month, so take the time to educate yourself and others!
To find out more about AT&T’s survey, be sure to hit up the link below!
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When news of the Armenian Genocide reached Australia through Anzac eyewitness accounts and media reports, the pain and suffering of the Armenian people caused great consternation throughout the country.
An Australian fund for the survivors of the Armenian Genocide first emerged in Victoria in late 1915 called the Armenian Relief Fund. In March 1917, the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Sir David Hennessy, together with other prominent Victorians, agreed to set apart a Sunday in April for special collections on behalf of the Armenians. The appeal was a great success and Melbourne newspapers reported that over £2,000 had been collected as a result. This mayoral initiative, supported by Victoria’s church leaders, became the first major grassroots drive in Australia for the stricken Armenians. By 1918, Armenian relief committees were also formed in Sydney and Adelaide.
Badge produced by the Commonwealth Button Fund of Australia for Armenian relief in 1917.Source: Australian War Memorial Archives, Canberra. See http://www.awm.gov.au/collection/REL39129/
Ottoman Turkey’s defeat during the First World War (WWI) and the ensuing Mudros Armistice, signed on 30 October 1918, brought a glimmer of hope to the exiled Christians. However, the disunity of the European Powers towards the defeated Ottoman Empire and the establishment of a Turkish nationalist movement in 1919, thwarted any attempts to protect the safety and security of the surviving Armenians. While the end of WW1 brought peace to the belligerent nations, the Armenians continued to suffer renewed persecution. Australians such as Red Cross nurse, Sister Isobel Hutton, were at the forefront in providing relief to the approximately 70,000 "wearied, frightened, hungry" and desperate Armenian refugees in Aleppo, Syria in 1919. The desperate plight of the Armenians intensified the mobilisation of humanitarian activism back home in Australia during the interwar period.
In 1920, a movie called the Auction of Souls was shown throughout Australia which was based on the story of Aurora Mardiganian, an Armenian girl who had survived the Armenian genocide. It was premiered in Sydney on 11 January 1920 at the Sydney Town Hall to a sell-out crowd. The NSW Minister of Education, Mr James, gave an introductory remark about the importance of the movie in providing awareness to Australians of the desperate plight of the Armenians. According to film historian, Leshu Torchin, it was the first movie ever made explicitly as a work of advocacy for humanitarian relief.
The first major shipment of relief supplies collected in Australia for the survivors of the Armenian Genocide. Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne, Harrington C. Lees, together with other clergy are seen blessing the flour at Port Melbourne, 5 September 1922.
By 1922, relief committees were operating in every state in Australia and a national executive committee was formed headquartered in Adelaide, South Australia. The Rev. James Edwin Cresswell, a Congregationalist minister from Adelaide, was unanimously appointed as national secretary of the Australasian Armenian Relief Fund. The Australian relief committees soon established an orphanage in Antelias, Lebanon, called the Australasian Orphanage. It housed about 1,700 Armenian orphans who had survived the Armenian Genocide. The director of the orphanage was Captain John Knudsen, an Anzac veteran of WWI. Major appeals for aid were launched throughout Australia. Within a short time, over $100,000 (about $1.5 million in today's terms) worth of relief supplies were collected and shipped to the refugee centres in the Near East. The Prime Minister of Australia, Billy Hughes, promised that free freight would be provided by the Commonwealth Steamers (Australian government shipping vessels) for the goods collected by the relief committees.
Australian Reverend James E. Cresswell, Hilda J. King and Miss Gordon with orphaned Armenian Genocide survivors at the Australasian Orphanage, Antelias, Lebanon, 1923. Source: 'The Armenian Monthly', Armenian Relief Fund of South Australia, May, 1923.
Many Australians were at the forefront in providing relief to the survivors of the Armenian, Greek and Assyrian Genocides who found refuge in Greece, Syria, Lebanon and Armenia. Back home in Australia, the Armenian relief movement had mobilised a broad spectrum of Australia’s religious, civic and political leaders. The Armenian relief committees continued their work until the early 1930s. As a result of the Australian response to the Armenian Genocide, a significant number of Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians were saved from death and destitution. In Australia, this landmark response was an early manifestation of the humanitarian ethos that formed part of the nation’s engagement with international movements in the interwar period. It is also considered to be Australia’s first major international humanitarian relief effort.
Student Exercise: For a large collection of newspaper articles on Australia's humanitarian response to the Armenian Genocide, go to http://www.armeniangenocide.com.au/australianarchive and follow the research instructions under the National Library of Australia section.
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Published: Jan 1981
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|PDF (1.3M)||71||$25|| ADD TO CART|
|Complete Source PDF (12M)||715||$61|| ADD TO CART|
A review and evaluation of the advantages and limitations of laboratory equipment for measuring the shear strength of soils are presented. Equipment evaluated include direct shear, torsional shear, simple shear, triaxial, multiaxial (true triaxial), plane strain, hollow cylinder triaxial, and directional shear devices. The evaluation indicates that the impetus to obtain parameters for constitutive equations and modeling has resulted in the development of improved equipment and testing techniques; specifically, the development of multiaxial (true triaxial) and hollow cylinder triaxial test equipment. Although these devices are more versatile, the conventional solid cylinder triaxial test is still the most popular. The evaluation suggests that direct shear and simple shear devices are best utilized by designers who have gained experience applying the results from such tests to structures that have behaved satisfactorily.
Proper consideration must be given to the effects of membrane penetration, end restrain saturation and consolidation procedures, and rates of loading in any testing program.
soils, shear strength, laboratory testing equipment, triaxial tests, direct shear, simple shear, torsional shear, hollow cylinder, true triaxial, anisotropy
Professor and Chairman, Case Institute of Technology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio
Professor of Civil Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, Fla.
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Tips for a heart-healthy lifestyle
A single issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine (http://www.archinternmed.com/) in December 2007 contained the following information on cardiovascular disease:
- Following physical activity guidelines is associated with a lower risk of death.
- Transient ischemic attacks are associated with a high early risk of stroke.
- Nearly three fourths of adults with cardiovascular disease have high blood pressure, and most people who have high blood pressure have not attained adequate treatment.
- The "Mediterranean diet," if carefully followed, is associated with a lower risk of death from all causes including deaths due to cardiovascular disease and cancer in the US.
- Reduced kidney function with leakage of albumin into the urine and peripheral arterial disease are both indicators of a higher risk of death or morbid events in the population.
- Second-hand smoke is associated with reduced health related quality of life, especially in women.
- The more a biomarker becomes popular, the more it is tested for, even when there is a clear lack of benefit. This is true for PSA (prostate specific antigen), especially for black men and younger men. But everyone continues to be tested, I suppose this means that we avoid racial prejudice when we subject people to unneeded testing.
From recent peer reviewed medical publications there are several issues worthy of further discussion
- The 2007 Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded for groundbreaking discoveries that led to a technique for manipulating mouse genes. While gene targeting has pervaded all fields of biomedicine and its impact on the understanding of gene function will continue to increase over many years to come, there are few fields in which there will be any benefits for the next 10 years. Yet I receive frequent questions of whether someone should have a genetic analysis or DNA test. Rarely is the answer ever yes.
- In a study of 12 lean healthy men and women, mean age 26, with a matched control group, 13 of 18 volunteers developed abnormal liver function tests within a month (in most participants this elevation was evident within a week) of eating a hamburger based fast food meal twice a day. Weight and stomach complaints increased, but the subjects "got used to" the latter by the second week. Interestingly, these are the same effects on the liver that we see with an alcoholic binge. I wouldn't necessarily blame the fast food industry. We can reproduce this at home with a diet high in saturated animal fat and protein.
- Selenium, a trace element like many others has been suggested to be in need of supplementation with little in terms of medical proof. Now we have evidence that increased blood selenium can have deleterious effects (increased risk of diabetes, all cause and cancer mortality, Archives of Internal Medicine, Feb 25, 2008). Check your vitamin supplements if you take them. While checking be sure to note that both "Vitamin E" and beta carotene have been demonstrated to have no benefit while increasing the risk of infection (TB, "Vitamin E") and cancer (lung, beta carotene) in smokers. The theory that antioxidants will have some major benefit in fighting disease does not have a lot of scientific support yet.
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Numerous previous posts have emphasized the importance of having a theory of the actor when we do social science or history. Are people impulsive, emotional, envious, prudent, or moral -- or a mix of all of these things in different settings? We need to have some explicit and fact-based ideas about how and why people act as they do. This is not a new discovery for philosophers, and in fact much of the history of Western philosophy has wrestled with this question -- Aristotle, Augustine, Spinoza, Hume, Kant, and Hegel included.
Albert Hirschman is an important social theorist, generally classified as an economist, who often placed the varieties and sources of action at the center of his writings. (Here is an appreciation of Hirschman by Cass Sunstein in the New York Review of Books; link.) This interest in the actor is particularly evident in Hirschman's book, The Passions and the Interests (1977) -- with an interesting twist. The book is a contribution to the history of ideas rather than contemporary social theory. Hirschman wants to know how the pursuit of personal gain came to be viewed as the central human virtue, the foundational assumption of much of the social sciences, and the foundation of the liberal ideal of society. And implicitly, he wants to know if we can arrive at a more adequate theory of the good society by reconsidering some of those assumptions.
One way of characterizing Hirschman's leading intuition in this book is the question of whether different kinds of society reflect different mentalities at the level of the ordinary actors within them. Is there a "spirit" of capitalism, a characteristic set of motives and ways of thinking that its denizens possess? Is this spirit different from those associated with feudalism or the socioeconomic system of the ancient world? And how would various passions be linked to various features of the social order? Here is a revealing passage from Vico that Hirschman thinks captures much of this agenda:
Out of ferocity, avarice, and ambition, the three vices which lead all mankind astray, [society] makes national defense, commerce, and politics, and thereby causes the strength, the wealth, and the wisdom of the republics; out of these three great vices which would certainly destroy man on earth, society thus causes the civil happiness to emerge. This principle proves the existence of divine providence: through its intelligent laws the passions of men who are entirely occupied by the pursuit of their private utility are transformed into a civil order which permits men to live in human society. (kl 240)
On this line of thought, we might say that greed and self-interest are the spirit of capitalism, honor is the spirit of feudalism, and power is the spirit of the ancient world. And it turns out that each of these ideas corresponds to a passion in traditional philosophy of action (greed for material wealth, quest for glory, thirst for power).The central problem, according to Hirschman, was how to control the passions in action. Some theorists came to believe that the only way to control the passions was through the workings of other passions. Here is Spinoza on this idea:
An affect cannot be restrained nor removed unless by an opposed and stronger affect. (kl 294)So how have reflective people (philosophers, social theorists) thought about the springs of human action in different epochs? Hirschman's essay offers a careful history and review of one important strand of thinking about action, the extended debate that has existed over the nature and role of the passions in human action. He looks at this idea through a careful reading of thinkers like Augustine, Machiavelli, Spinoza, Montesquieu, the Duke of Rohan, and others. He tries to piece together the meaning that the ideas of passions and interests possessed in medieval and modern thought, how the concept of interest changed over time, and how the ideals concerning society and government were refracted as a consequence. Hirschman goes into exegetical detail about how a series of thinkers in the history of philosophy have thought about the virtues and passions, and how these were thought to contribute to various kinds of society. Here he makes the historical point linking ideas to social forms:
With or without such sophisticated justification [as offered by St. Augustine], striving for honor and glory was exalted by the medieval chivalric ethos even though it stood at odds with the central teachings ... of a long line of religious writers, from St. Thomas Aquinas to Dante, who attacked glory-seeking as both vain and sinful. (kl 186)It is Hirschman's view that there was a very interesting evolution in thought about the passions during the early modern period. The heroic ideal was replaced by the idea that it is best for people to follow their own best interests. And this transition occurred, in part, through the swing towards positive science in the treatment of the world as expressed by Galileo and Hobbes.
Eventually self-interest came to be thought of as the antidote to arbitrary, capricious action based on more unruly passions. David Hume plays a central role in Hirschman's account. Hume advocated for restraining the "love of pleasure" by the "love of gain" (kl 321). And "Hume similarly uses the terms 'passion of interest' or the 'interested affection' as synonyms for the ' avidity of acquiring goods and possessions' or the 'love of gain'" (kl 424). (It is significant to recall that Hume and Adam Smith were neighbors and friends in the Scottish Enlightenment.)
So the transition is more or less complete; the vice of avarice has become the virtue of the pursuit of self-interest.
Once money-making wore the label of "interests" and reentered in this disguise the competition with other passions, it was suddenly acclaimed and even given the task of holding back those passions that had long been thought to be much less reprehensible. (kl 459)
It appears that the case for giving free rein and encouragement to private acquisitive pursuits was both the outcome of a long train of Western thought and an important ingredient of the intellectual climate of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. (kl 679)The pursuit of gain (commerce) becomes the hidden hand that guides individual activities towards the collective good. And this idea does not originate with Adam Smith. Here is Montesquieu in the Spirit of the Laws on the advantages of commerce as a foundation for society:
The spirit of commerce brings with it the spirit of frugality, of economy, of moderation, of work, of wisdom, of tranquility, of order, and of regularity. In this manner, as long as this spirit prevails, the riches it creates do not have any bad effects. (kl 697)And here is James Steuart about the advantages of a market society for the quality of government:
The statesman looks about with amazement; he who was wont to consider himself as the first man in the society in every respect, perceives himself eclipsed by the lustre of private wealth, which avoids his grasp when he attempts to seize it. This makes his government more complex and more difficult to be carried on; he must now avail himself of art and address as well as of power and authority. (kl 793)The advantages that this shift in the theory of the actor made possible, according to Hirschman, were predictability and constancy (kl 520). Theorists like Machiavelli, Hobbes, Hume, and Smith argued that a science of man was possible if we postulate that action derives from an assessment of self-interest. And that science is -- political economy. And the social ideal that corresponds to it is what Hegel and Marx referred to as "civil society", where individuals pursued their own interests in their own ways. It is a liberal market society where the maximum amount of social coordination occurs through market mechanisms.
On this genealogy, interest started out as one of the three primary passions -- love of power, lust, and avarice. The passions were thought to produce bad behavior; so a recurring question was how to harness the passions in more socially constructive ways. And many thinkers came to the conclusion that only the passions themselves could serve to regulate the passions -- not pure reason. In particular, it was maintained that a strong regard for one's own interests could lead to self-regulation. But the most interesting part of the evolution of meanings is that interests came to be normatively favored, and they came to be understood to be distinct from the passions.
We might call this the intellectual history of economic liberalism as a political ideology. And it is an ideology that Hirschman finds ultimately flawed. So did Tocqueville:
A nation that demands from its government nothing but the maintenance of order is already a slave in the bottom of its heart; it is the slave of its well-being, and the man who is to chain it can arrive on the scene. (kl 1141)More generally, the anti-capitalist critiques associated with Marx, Durkheim, and the anarchists were powerful: the pure pursuit of gain has resulted in a society in which poverty, coercion, and anomie have become the lot of the majority of society.
This is very interesting work in the history of ideas and ideology. And Hirschman engages in the work for a very serious reason: to try to discern some of the sources of the systemic flaws in modern market-based society. In this regard it is interesting to compare Hirschman's analysis of the development of the theory of the actor based on self-interest with C. B. Macpherson's analysis of the development of the theory of "possessive individualism". Here is a discussion of Macpherson's theory (link).
(Here is Thomas Carlyle as anti-capitalist critic from the conservative side, on the topic of market society. He is contrasting the social order of aristocracy with the market order created by capitalism:
It was [Aristocrats'] happiness that, in struggling for their own objects, they had to govern the Lower Classes, even in this sense of governing. For, in one word, Cash Payment had not then grown to be the universal sole nexus of man to man; it was something other than money that the high then expected from the low, and could not live without getting from the low. Not as buyer and seller alone, of land or what else it might be, but in many senses still as soldier and captain, as clansman and head, as loyal subject and guiding king, was the low related to the high. With the supreme triump of Cash, a changed time has entered; there must a changed Aristocracy enter. We invite the British reader to meditate earnestly on these things. (Chartism, 58)Carlyle is anti-liberal in more senses than one; he is reactionary and hierarchical, and he is a fierce critic of the ideal of a cash-driven market society.)
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Spicy peppers are the foods that contain the beneficial compound capsaicin. Generally, the hotter the fruit, the higher the content. Here is a list of high capsaicin foods.
Both sweet bell peppers and spicy chili peppers belong to the Capsicum family of vegetables. While both sweet and spicy peppers may be similar, with vivid red, green, or yellow skin and a crisp, yet juicy flesh, there is a striking difference between the two — capsaicin. Beware of it, embrace it, crave it, this alkaloid compound is what gives hot peppers their intense heat and remarkable health benefits.
What are the high capsaicin containing foods? From habanero to cayenne, the following pepper plants are hot and healthy.
Capsaicin is formed in the glands of chili peppers, at the junction of the placenta and pod walls. It stimulates chemoreceptor nerve endings in mucous membranes, causing the burning sensation on the skin or in your mouth. It acts as a protective phytochemical for deterring animals from nibbling on pepper plants (birds are immune to the pain however).
The comparison of capsaicin in a chili pepper, or the measure of hotness, is expressed in the Scoville scale. Capsaicin content is measured in parts per million with the hottest pepper, naga jolokia having the highest amount at 1 million Scoville units. The next hottest and capsaicin-richest of the more well-known peppers are as follows:
Habanero chili — 100,000 to 300,000 units
- Jamaica pepper — 100,000 to 200,000 units
- Africa birdseye — 100,000 units
- Thai pepper — 50,000 to 100,000 units
- Cayenne pepper — 30,000 to 50,000 units
- Jalapeno pepper — 2,000 to 8,000 units
- Anaheim — 500 to 2,000 units
Other Nutritional Benefits of the Capsicum Family
Aside from capsaicin, chili peppers are rich in several important nutrients. They are great sources of beta-carotene, which is turned into vitamin A in the body. Vitamin A is important for eye health, immune health, and skin health. Peppers are also rich in vitamin C, which is also an important nutrient for the immune system, helping with the production of white blood cells. Vitamin C is needed for tissue repair, healthy gums, and proper adrenal gland function. Both nutrients also act as protective antioxidants in the body. Vitamin K, which prevents blood clotting and helps with the uptake of calcium into bone, is also found in peppers.
Bell Peppers and Capsaicin
Bell peppers are sweet, not spicy, and they do not produce capsaicin. They do however produce other capsaicinoids. Capsaicin is a type of capsaicinoid. So, if you can't handle the intense, burning heat of capsaicin, you can still enjoy an incredibly healthy vegetable by going for the sweet bell peppers, which are loaded with nutrients, fiber, and beneficial phytochemicals.
With so many types of chili peppers there are many high capsaicin foods to choose from. From mild to scorching, these vegetables are healthy and worth the challenge.
World's Healthiest Foods <http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=140>
"What Makes Peppers Hot May Also Be Cool for What Ails You." (Science Daily, November, 2003) <http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/11/031104064132.htm>
Overview of Major Capsaicinoids <http://www.homesteadcollective.org/mpg/science/majorcap.shtml>
The Scoville Scale of Hotness <http://www.chiliwonders.com/chili.scoville.htm>
Rowland, B.J. and B. Villalon, E.E. Burns. "Capsaicin production in sweet bell and pungent jalapeno peppers." (Journal of Agricultural Chemistry, May 1983) <http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf00117a005>
photo by Adam Baker (CC/flickr)
photo by Tobias Kankelborg (CC/flickr)
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The 2013 Tesla Model S received a top safety rating by the National Highway Safety Administration. Top scores.
So, what makes this car safer than other cars? There are several tests, but let’s look at the frontal crash. In this test (seen above in the video), the car is smashed into a stationary barrier with a starting speed of 35 mph. For this collision, a safer car gives the passenger a lower acceleration. That’s the goal of a safe car.
Crash Course on Acceleration
These crashes are just happening in one dimension. That means that I can just look at the horizontal acceleration and treat it as a scalar (instead of writing them as vectors). With this in mind, I can define the acceleration of a passenger in the car as:
In this test, all cars will start with the same speed of 35 mph (15.6 m/s) and most will have a final speed of 0 m/s. Yes, some cars might “bounce” back and have a final negative component of velocity. That would increase the acceleration. For now, let’s just assume that all the cars have the same final speed of 0 m/s. In that case, you can see that the only thing that could be different is the time of the collision. A longer collision time will give a smaller acceleration.
Sometimes it’s better to think about the acceleration in terms of the stopping distance instead of the time. You can see in the video above that the driver in the car keeps moving forward during the collision with the wall. The greater the collision distance, the smaller the acceleration.
How do we remove the time part of the equation above? Start with the definition of the average acceleration during this time interval.
Now I can use another definition of the average velocity:
There you have it. The acceleration in terms of position instead of time. Yes, this is essentially one of the kinematic equations – but it is more fun to derive it than just to write it down. Oh, I did make an assumption. I assumed that the acceleration is constant. Of course this isn’t actually true for a car crash, but it’s enough to get us started.
The main point is that if you increase the distance over which the car stops, you can decrease the acceleration. Decreased acceleration means a safer car. There are two ways to increase the stopping distance. The first is the crumple zone. If you let the car get smashed as it crashes, the passenger will move farther than the front of the car. This is a good thing for the human, but bad for the car. The other safety feature is the air bag. This slows the passenger inside the car over a greater distance. Without this air bag, the person would just keep moving forward (and not accelerating) until hitting the dashboard.
I know I still haven’t answered the original question about the Model S. But how about a quick video analysis? These crash test videos are just perfect for video analysis since they give the time codes right there in the video along with nice distance markers. I’m not sure how big the markers actually are, but with the given speed of 35 mph (before the crash) the video is easy to scale.
Here is a plot of the velocity of the top of the car and the velocity of the passenger’s head during the frontal crash.
The blue data shows the head velocity. Fitting a linear function to part of this data will give the acceleration. You can see that the slope of this line gives an average acceleration of 416 m/s2 or 42.4 g’s. That seems like a pretty large acceleration, but for short time intervals humans can survive that (this lasted just 0.034 seconds).
But wait! It looks like the car had a lower acceleration than the human. Yes, it does appear that way. When the car starts to collide with the wall, the person is still moving at a mostly constant speed. So the human has less time to stop than the car. Now, there is another problem. If you look at the speed before the impact, it looks like the person’s head was going faster than the car. I’m not sure why this appears that way.
What About Another Car?
Just for comparison, let’s look at the crash of another car. This video shows the frontal crash of a 2013 Ford Escape.
Just looking at the head of the passenger, here is the velocity plot.
From this, the head in the Ford Escape has an average acceleration of 457 m/s2 or 46.6 g’s. Yes, it’s higher, but not all that much higher than the Model S.
Here is a plot of both the speed of the passenger’s head in the Ford Escape and the Model S. I adjusted the frame time so that both cars hit the barrier at the same instant.
In the Ford Escape, the human head doesn’t start slowing down until a little bit after the Model S head. Since they both started around the same speed (not sure why they aren’t the same speed) and they both have to stop, the Escape head has less time and thus a greater acceleration.
What Makes the Model S Safer?
Just having a stiff frame isn’t very useful in a crash. You want the car to get destroyed in the collision but at the same time, you don’t want the passenger compartment to smash up the human. However, the Tesla Model S does have an advantage – it’s new. Most cars have some type of legacy structure that they are built on. If you want to use a 2008 engine in your traditional car, you have to have a 2008-like frame in which to put this engine. The Model S is a pure electric car. It doesn’t have these legacy issues.
Speaking of legacy issues in cars – why do we still have these dumb 12 volt adapters that are made for those old cigarette lighters? Do people still use these to light cigarettes? How about we just stop putting these in cars and instead put USB ports. Yes, I am sure many cars already have USB ports.Go Back to Top. Skip To: Start of Article.
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Fetal teeth can be caused by the premature eruption of primary teeth that they are already visible at birth. They may be well formed and normal or may represent hornified epithelial structures without roots.
Word origin: Latin nātālis (of, belonging to one's birth).
Synonym: natal teeth
Compare: neonatal teeth
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School Bus Stops
This document, “School Bus Stops” originally appeared as a chapter in the document “Safe Routes – Safe Stops” (25.7MB) published in June of 1992. That project was administered by the Madison – Oneida BOCES through a grant from the State of New York Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee in conjunction with the New York State Education Department. Within “School Bus Stops” there are references to other documents and “Exhibits” which are not available. Where possible, the information that might be contained in one of these other documents is specifically described.
This should be viewed as a reference document only. Laws and regulations that have changed since 1992 are not reflected here. If you have questions about any material contained within, please check our website at http://www.p12.nysed.gov/schoolbus/ or call our office at (518) 474-6541 and ask to speak to Mary Sansaricq.
School bus stops are established by weighing a multitude of factors existing at every stop. There is no formula for districts that does not involve a judgment call. Courts require that a district choose a stop with “reasonable” safety, not the “safest stop.”
This manual can help districts define “reasonable.” It can make transportation departments aware of safety issues by proposing guidelines adaptable to local use, by examining possible local concerns or situations which might need to be considered by your district, and by suggesting procedures for review.
Getting to the Stop
In the discussion of students getting to the bus stop, no assumptions are made about how students will travel to the stop. Students are not told to “walk” to bus stops, because there are any number of ways for them to get to the stop—including parents driving them there.
Parents are responsible for assisting children to get to the stop and home from the stop. The district is not required to provide a protected corridor from students’ homes to the bus stop any more than it is to provide that service for students who do not ride buses and must travel from home to school.
In response to legitimate concern and an understanding that most children do indeed walk to the bus stop, some districts do not require students to cross high traffic state highways or railroad tracks, or to travel streets without sidewalks or that are considered hazardous by other local criteria.
It is important to note that one school district will make all home pickups because of lack of sidewalks, and another district will expect students to travel one mile along similar roads to the bus stop. These are district decisions based on criteria established by the school board and must be applied equally to all district students in like circumstances.
It is important to be sure that the concern is realistic, and the district’s definition of hazard is not just a method to require the district to provide home pickups or transportation for ineligible students. The commissioner of education has ruled that districts are not required to provide any transportation to protect children from a hazardous condition. If parents push the district to provide this service, the district will have to bear the full cost. Be sure to consider if a less expensive option is available to remove the hazard such as providing a crossing guard and traffic control device to help students cross that busy highway.
Distance Between Stops
The distance students must travel to stops needs to be established and the criteria strictly adhered to within the district. Education Law 3635 requires that students be provided transportation if they live more than two miles (K-8) or three miles (9-12) from school. Students can not be asked to go further than this to a school bus stop, unless the school board determines that the road where the student lives is too hazardous for school bus travel. Districts can choose to provide a higher level of service. There must be voter approval for any lesser distances and there will be no state reimbursement for distances under one and a half miles.
Few districts ask students to travel these distances to a school bus stop. Distances of up to one mile are not uncommon within New York State and an increase in distance may sometime become financially appealing.
Advantages of Frequent Stops
- Parents like to be able to see their children at the stop.
- Getting to a bus stop can he difficult, given lack of sidewalks, snow-narrowed roads, and density of traffic.
- Less students at stops can mean less behavior problems and less possible property damage.
Disadvantages of Frequent Stops
- Route takes longer because of additional bus stops and loading time requiring additional equipment and personnel to transport all students.
- Stopping and starting creates more traffic hazards and delays, and more vehicle maintenance.
- More side roads would have to be included on routes.
- Most school bus fatalities occur while school buses are
- stopped to load/unload children. More stops mean
- greater potential for school bus fatalities.
Instead of or in addition to establishing a maximum distance a student may be required to travel to a bus stop, it is possible to establish a minimum distance between stops. This assures proper distance for bus drivers to leave one stop, move into traffic, and correctly signal their intention to stop again. Common distances used for this strategy are one- or two-tenths of a mile. Trying this out on the road conditions in the district will determine a reasonable distance to accomplish this procedure.
Number of Students at Stop
Characteristics of each stop location—such as road speed limit and traffic, actual space to congregate 15 feet from the road, and other hazards in the vicinity--must be considered in determining how many students can safely wait there.
The State Education Department Transportation Supervisor’s Handbook suggests that not more than 15 students gather at one bus stop. This can serve as a helpful rule of thumb, but a high density setting such as a trailer park, development, or apartment building may make this impossible to maintain.
Road conditions could necessitate a large stop because it might be impossible to stop along the road or negotiate the road at all due to inclines, curves, or lack of public maintenance. In cases where stops have as many as 30 students, some sort of supervision or control might be considered. Options include a voluntary cooperative schedule developed by parents of students who can be at the stop, a program of trained students similar to a student crossing patrol, or assignment of a district employee such as a bus monitor who might join the route in progress.
While the district is required to select a safe site for the bus stop, it is ultimately not responsible, because it cannot supervise what takes place at the stop while students are waiting. Parents are responsible for their children’s behavior, and local police may be called to settle any altercations which might arise.
Mix of Students at Bus Stop
Age and ability levels of those at the stop must also be considered. Kindergarten students, on their own, cannot be expected to maintain a very high degree of self-control and safety at a bus stop. Kindergarten students waiting in a K-6 mix will be much safer due to the supervision provided by the older students.
Expanding the mix to K-12, as a non-public school run or a single-trip policy, does not necessarily increase the comfort level, although it may be successful in some settings. Older students might provide a mix of behavior and language that could cause concern for the younger students and their parents. The potential behavior of mainstreamed students with disabilities must also be considered in evaluating the mix of students at any one stop.
In general, the greater the homogeneity among the group, except for kindergartners alone, the more likely it is that unwanted behaviors will have to be controlled.
In order for a school bus to correctly execute a school bus stop, and for traffic to respond properly, there must be adequate visibility in both directions at the bus stop. Motorists must have sufficient distance to react to the bus and to stop their vehicles in a controlled way.
In addition to simple distance, any other factor which might affect a vehicle’s ability to stop must also be considered, such as speed, a steep incline, glare, or frequent slippery road conditions. The only suggestion given in regulation is in sections 230.2 and 236.3 of the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices. It regulates the use of “School Bus Stop Ahead” signs.
Based on the regulations for posting distances, motorists need 500 feet to 1000 feet of visibility depending on speed, to adequately react to a stopping bus. Actual braking distances range up to 500 feet or 600 feet for a truck at 60 mph under ideal conditions.
The NYS Basic School Bus Driver Training Manual, Unit VI, page 21, contains excellent stopping distance information which should be considered in determining if various classes of vehicles could, in fact, stop in time for a stopped school bus.
Rather than trying to establish a sight distance at every speed, it is recommended that a minimum of 500 feet of visibility at 35 mph or below and 1000 feet of visibility above 35 mph be the goal. In order to best simulate real conditions, visibility distance will mean the distance at which a car driver can see the eight-light warning system and top third of the bus. Each stop has characteristics such as slope, road surface, truck traffic, real vs. posted speed, which must all be considered when evaluating stop safety.
If it is not possible to meet the visibility recommendations for a safe stop, DOT approved signs can be used to warn motorists of the presence of the school bus stop. The NYS DOT Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices provides a school bus stop ahead sign (W6-4.)
Section 236.3(a)(1) reads, “This sign is for use, as necessary to warn of locations where school buses are not visible for at least five hundred feet when stopped to pick up or discharge passengers.” Section 230.2 establishes posting distance from the stop based on the speed of travel on the road with a minimum posting distance established by 236.3(b) as 500 feet.
|Traffic Speed||Posting Distance|
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Section 236.3(a)(2) states that the school bus stop ahead sign is not intended for general use anywhere school buses stop. It should be used only where terrain and roadway features limit approach sight distance and it is impractical to move the school bus stop to a more visible location. This mandate places responsibility on the district to seek every possible relief from placing the stop at a location of reduced visibility.
When the behavior of motorists rather than visibility is threatening bus stop safety, the state law sign can be used. The purpose of State Law Signs Section 2129.1(a) reads, “...it is sometimes necessary to remind highway users of certain basic statutory rules where violations are causing significant safety or highway problems.The state law stop for school bus sign (R9-2) is available for use according to Section 219.3(a) “where it is deemed necessary to remind motorists of the requirements of section 1174 of the vehicle and traffic law.”
In general, the stop ahead sign is used in a suburban and rural setting where traffic is traveling at higher speeds and hazards may preclude students walking to a safer stop location.
The state law sign can be used in any setting, even school grounds, where motorists are passing buses with red lights flashing. This, rather than visibility is often the problem than urban setting, and this sign can help to raise the level of awareness of proper school bus procedure in an area with chronic offenders.
The school bus stop itself must meet certain standards to protect the children waiting at the stop and the owner of the property, as well as allowing the school bus driver to successfully negotiate the loading and unloading process.
V.T. 1174 establishes that there needs to be sufficient room when the students get off the bus for them to move 15 feet away from the bus and off the road or on the sidewalk. If there is no room for students to move perpendicularly 15 feet away from the bus’s position on the side of the road, they must move 15 feet in front of the bus along the shoulder. There is a danger that students walking alongside the bus would fall under the rear wheels. In order to avoid that possibility, stops should be established so students will only have to walk in front of the bus. For instance, if children from three houses got on at the same stop, the stop should be established at the first house so the other students would remain in front of the bus as they traveled home.
V.T. 1174 implies that children must be 15 feet away front where the bus stops and off the road or on a sidewalk to be safe at a bus stop. This standard would require that there be sufficient room 15 feet from the road for all the students assigned to a stop to wait comfortably.
Many bus stops are established where students can wait in a driveway and move safely to the bus. Parked cars in an urban setting and snow banks in suburban and rural settings detract from safe loading and unloading.
The only other stop location which would provide a break in snow banks or parked cars is an intersection stop where sidewalks break through the snow banks also. But these are not recommended.
The location of bus stops on private property must be addressed sensitively to maximize public cooperation. Solve problems before they escalate by writing a letter to the property owner and establishing rules students must follow; provide the name of a contact person to call if problems develop.
Establishing a stop on the property of one of the students at the stop can help to increase cooperation. It is an important issue, when dealing with the property owner, to be aware exactly where the private property starts. The public right of way extends back from the road onto what >many property owners consider “my property.”
Most sidewalks are actually on public property, not on the front of private property. Students may be able to wait without actually going onto private property.
The issue of visibility at, not visibility to, the bus stop should also be addressed. As a bus driver approaches the stop, he or she should be able to see the stop clearly. If out-buildings, trees or shrubs, parked vehicles, or anything else provides a hiding place for students, they could dash out in front of the bus as it approaches. If the obstruction is on public property, the local municipality can be contacted to seek a solution. On private property the owner may be willing to help out if the safety aspect is emphasized.
Proximity to Hazard
Bus stops should not be located near known hazards. Possible hazards that should be avoided include cliffs, rivers, railroads, drug houses, intersections, and high speed highways.
There is no legal definition of what constitutes a hazard; it is up to the district to identify them by their community standards. Hazards can be relative. Rather than deny a stop, the hazard might limit the stop.
For instance, a district may decide to limit the number of children at stops along a busy highway since a larger number of students might produce more horseplay and potential for running out into traffic. Districts often prohibit stops where students have to cross a busy highway.
Historically, in urban and suburban settings, school bus stops have often been placed at intersections. Research shows real difficulties arise with safely executing intersection stops. Traffic at an intersection must be carefully evaluated and alternatives explored before considering an intersection stop. Some districts have eliminated intersection stops altogether.
The school bus is designed to alert traffic in two directions: behind and in front of the bus. An intersection involves traffic in two more directions that cannot be alerted. If a bus releases children who might immediately cross any one of the available streets, the children could be hit by traffic that was not controlled by the bus’s red lights.
If the bus unloads children and then makes an immediate right turn, it could run over an unsuspecting student who has just been discharged, because the rear wheels track closer to the curb than do the front wheels.
These concerns have led to recommendations of making mid-block stops in an urban setting, and moving stops back a minimum of 100 feet before the intersection in other settings. When the bus is going to make a turn at an intersection, the stop should be established on the road with less traffic.
In general, making the stop after the turn will provide a higher level of safety by blocking turning traffic with the bus. If the bus is continuing on the same road, the stop should be established past the intersection with at least 100 feet from the intersection to the back of the bus. This option puts the bus between the children and any turning traffic.
If an alternative to an intersection stop is not available, the traffic volume of the two streets, common traffic patterns at the intersection, and location of students home(s), must all be considered to determine if the stop is “safe enough.”
If, for any reason, an intersection stop is deemed necessary, avoid making right-hand turns after picking up students at an intersection. Such a turn would double the danger, because the rear wheels track closer to the curb than the front and could strike a pedestrian.
These recommendations create serious changes in “the way we always did it,” but many districts that have implemented these policies are providing a higher level of safety.
Crossing to the Bus
In order to pick up students at bus stops on both sides of a road, school bus drivers have historically “crossed’ students to the bus in the morning or “crossed” them to their stop in the afternoon.
In most states, the driver remains in the driver’s seat and surveys traffic, giving the signal to cross when all traffic has stopped. The extreme case is in California where drivers leave the bus and walk a child across the road. Bus attendants can play a useful role by getting out of the bus and supervising the crossing procedure. Some districts have gone even further and established that no children will be required to cross the road to get to the bus stop.
A more common procedure is for a district to identify certain roads within a district as “no crossing” roads because of the speed and density of traffic. On these roads, students would not be required to cross the road from the bus stop to the bus or vice versa. If a district has so identified a road or roads within a district, no exceptions should be made, even by parental request. Once the district has identified the acceptable level of safety for its students, it is required to provide that safety. Parents cannot choose the level of safety which will be provided for their children.
If a bus travels a road in both directions on its route, the bus driver should be aware of requiring students to disembark as non-crossers; even if this means keeping them on the bus longer. Crossing the road is the most hazardous aspect of riding a school bus and it should be eliminated whenever and wherever possible. Parenthetically, parents cannot request that their child practice gymnastics without spotters, or that their child who walks to school ignore the crossing guard, or play varsity football without pads. The district sets standards which pertain to all children.
If a change to a no-crossing policy means a longer bus ride for some students, it is acceptable, as long as the length of ride remains within state and district guidelines.
Curves and Hills
Road characteristics such as hills and curves make stop placements very difficult. Careful evaluation of such stops must be done to provide a reasonable level of safety to these students. Crossings at stops on curves or hills should be avoided because of the extra danger
Visibility in both directions on a curve can be maximized by putting the stop at the point of the curve. The outside point of a curve, where motorists have greatest visibility, would be in the path of a vehicle which is losing control. That relative danger must be weighed against crossing or moving the stop along the road to a safer location.
A vehicle cresting a hill needs sufficient time to react to the presence of a school bus stop. Stops must not be near the crest of the bill in order to allow sufficient stopping distance. Different concerns exist for establishing the stop on the downgrade or upgrade of the hill.
A bus stopping on the downgrade of a hill faces two dangers: the bus could lose control as it tries to stop and slide into waiting students, and a vehicle could slide into the back of the bus. Students must remain back 15 feet from the road until the driver signals them to approach the bus. Students are protected from vehicles approaching from the rear by the bulk of the bus, but a truck out of control could spell disaster. Vehicles approaching from the front will have the whole incline for visibility and reaction time.
Caution must also be exercised when establishing a stop on the upgrade. Vehicles coming downhill might lose control when trying to stop, but should be able to stay on their own side of the road. Vehicles approaching from the rear should not have any trouble stopping. The concern in particularly icy weather would be that the bus might not be able to start up again, and would have to back down the hill.
If both sides of the hill were equal—they almost never are—then the best choice would be placing the stop on the upgrade. There is no substitute for visual evaluation of the site, determination of sight distances at different locations, and a review of types of traffic expected on that road.
Districts cannot afford to assume that once stops have been established as safe they will always be safe.
Because of changing conditions, it is a good idea for a district to observe school bus routes and stops once a year to ensure the safety of students. Useful forms for this purpose are included in the Exhibits Section. A record of this review must be kept on file to document the ongoing supervision which the district is providing. In addition to this review by transportation administrative staff, bus drivers must be trained to evaluate stops and report any problems which might arise on a day-to-day basis. The handout “SCHOOL BUS STOPS YES/NO” in the Exhibits Section can be used for sensitizing drivers.
The school site is a very special bus stop because hundreds, if not thousands, of students use it every day. All regulations governing other bus stops must be observed and even more detailed plans must be made for safe and efficient traffic control. The principal and transportation manager must work together with the buildings and grounds department and representatives of all user groups to create a plan which creates safe access for all to the school site. A “School Bus Loading Zone Evaluation” has been included in the Exhibits Section to help identify potential problem areas.
Responding to Complaint
In order to satisfactorily address a complaint about a bus stop location, a district must have established criteria to define what is a “reasonable” stop, and how far that stop can be from a student’s home.
A “Stop Review Form” (See Exhibits Section) should be created that contains all relevant information in a structured manner. Parents bringing the complaint may be aware of traffic patterns in the area or hazards that where not evident at the time the stop was established. Listen carefully to their concerns.
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Last week the leaders of Britain, France and the US jointly wrote an article calling for the removal of Libya's Muammer Gaddafi. At the same time a number of increasingly pessimistic voices are predicting the country's likely partition, with a series of failed states fractured along tribal lines – and even the threat of a new Islamist state rising in the eastern portion of Libya. But cleansed of Col Gaddafi's rule, Libya actually has a good chance of emerging as a moderate, unitary state.
Few narratives of this conflict have been more enduring than the notion that tribalism dominates Libya's politics. But such tribalism has been significantly eroded, both by Col Gaddafi's hostility and economic modernisation. Libya's regime has long stressed that the nation was its most important unit. So traditional forces had to be suppressed.
Here Col Gaddafi did not limit himself to rhetorical fulmination. Instead he adjusted provincial boundaries that conformed to tribal lines, amalgamating them into single districts to lessen the power of tribal leaders in larger areas. State monopolies on oil revenue also meant government, not tribe, was the source of material benefits.
Most Libyans also live in cities, so they became used to appealing to local bureaucracies for employment and essential services. Indeed, urban living almost inevitably means that traditional institutions become more a source of personal identity than a basis for political organisation. Libya today cannot therefore be considered a collection of fractious tribes and autonomous provinces. A sense of nationalism has evolved over the past four decades. As it has risen, all traditional institutions have suffered.
The threat to a future Libyan state from clerical and Islamist forces has also been overplayed. The colonel's manifesto, the Green Book, promised to redistribute economic wealth through the reallocation of private property, including religious landholdings. Perhaps more importantly, Col Gaddafi was enraged by clerical criticism of his nationalisation measures, and their denunciation of the Green Book itself for contradicting Islamic jurisprudence.
As early as 1973, therefore, he targeted the religious sphere, with public committees taking over mosques and expunging recalcitrant clerics. Through such efforts his campaign tempered the influence of Libya's religious establishment.
As a Muslim population, Libyans maintain their religious values. But Islamism in Libya, as in much of the Middle East, is an ideology that no longer tempts the majority of the believers. Col Gaddafi's national project confronted its Islamist opposition, and the result saw many small Jihadi groups decimated by state police.
Another reason for cautious optimism about Libya's future prospects comes from the small and beleaguered technocratic class that has been born over the last decade. For most of Col Gaddafi's rule economic planning was subordinated to ideology, creating disorder and confusion. This was further aggravated by international sanctions against the regime. But once Libya came back into the fold from 2003, the regime made moves to empower technocrats somewhat, as a means of relieving popular pressure for more accountable institutions.
This break with the past was neither decisive nor complete. Corruption continued, while revolutionary forces, along with Col Gaddafi's own eccentricities, obstructed structural reforms. Nonetheless any new Libyan government can still count on the presence of a small cadre of competent officials, who have long pressed for rational management of their country's resources.
All this is not to suggest that Libya's path to a stable government will be easy. The longer the military conflict persists, the more difficult it will be. The current chaos risks empowering militia leaders at the expense of technocrats, while waning central authority might yet revive tribalism as a source of patronage. But in the absence of Col Gaddafi's domineering presence, a unified state is not just possible, but probable.
In the end, Libya was always too small, and its population too passive, for Col Gaddafi's regime. At first they were indifferent to his rule. Later, as the costs of his adventurism mounted, they became hostile to their leader, and rejected his revolution. But once free of his burdensome shadow, Libyans have a chance to be at peace with each other, and at ease with their region.
The writer is a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
This article appears in full on CFR.org by permission of its original publisher. It was originally available here (Subscription required).
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James Macpherson's Ossian as a starting point for visual art
James Macpherson’s Ossian was one of the driving forces in the visual arts of late 18th and early 19th century Europe. It originated in the narrative traditions of the Gàidhealtachd, the culture into which James Macpherson was born in 1736. In the 1760s he synthesised traditional Gaelic material and his own work into an English-language epic that was taken up throughout Europe as the epitome of northernness. Macpherson’s central figure, the legendary Celtic bard Ossian, was soon identified as ‘the Homer of the north’.
Macpherson's writings continue to impress as a starting point for visual artists. For example Calum Colvin’s Ossian: Fragments of Ancient Poetry / Oisein: Bloighean de Sheann Bhardachd, an exhibition made for the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 2002. Another example is Norman Shaw's Nemeton project. Ossian work by both Shaw and Colvin formed part of the exhibition Uinneag Dhan Àird an Air: Ath-Lorg Ealain na Gàidhealtachd / Window to the West: The Rediscovery of Highland Art, held at the City Art Centre in Edinburgh in the winter months of 2010/2011.
Shown here is a detail from the title page of the first edition of Macpherson's Fingal, the first part of the Ossian poetry to be published (1762). The image is by the English artist Samuel Wale. It opened the floodgates of Ossianic illustration for Scottish, Irish, Danish, French and German artists in particular.
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Total Arctic Sea Ice At Record Low In 2010: Study
Country: 500 MILES FROM THE NORTH POLE
The minimum summertime volume of Arctic sea ice fell to a record low last year, researchers said in a study to be published shortly, suggesting that thinning of the ice had outweighed a recovery in area.
The study estimated that last year broke the previous, 2007 record for the minimum volume of ice, which is calculated from a combination of sea ice area and thickness.
The research adds to a picture of rapid climate change at the top of the world that could see the Arctic Ocean ice-free within decades, spurring new oil exploration opportunities but possibly also disrupted weather patterns far afield and a faster rise in sea levels.
The authors developed a model predicting thickness across the Arctic Ocean based on actual observations of winds, air and ocean temperatures.
"The real worrisome fact is downward trend over the last 32 years," said Axel Schweiger, lead author of the paper, referring to a satellite record of changes in the Arctic.
He was emailing Reuters at the Greenpeace icebreaker Arctic Sunrise, in the Arctic Ocean between the Norwegian island of Svalbard and the North Pole.
"(It fell) by a large enough margin to establish a statistically significant new record," said the authors in their paper titled "Uncertainty in modeled Arctic sea ice volume."
The researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle checked the model results against real readings of ice thickness using limited submarine and satellite data.
The approach has some detractors because it is focused is on modeling rather than direct observations of thickness, and therefore contains some uncertainty.
Sea ice area is easier to measure by satellite than ice thickness, and so has not needed a modeling approach.
Ice thickness is just as important or more so in helping understand what is happening in the far north. Some experts argue that part of the reason the ice area has dramatically fallen in recent years is because it has been thinning for decades.
The authors said their Pan-arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) in general agreed well with actual observations, although "modeling error" was possible.
The Arctic sea ice area fell below 4.6 million sq km last week with two weeks of the melt season still to go, compared with the record low of 4.13 million sq km in 2007.
By comparison, the minimum ice extent in the early 1970s was about 7 million square km. Ice melts every year during the summer and reaches a minimum extent in mid-September.
Most experts now agree that the Arctic Ocean will be ice-free in late summer at some point this century but disagree about exactly when.
While sea ice itself does not raise sea levels when it melts, a warmer Arctic could speed up melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which is freshwater ice trapped over land and contains enough water to raise world sea levels by 7 meters.
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What Ever Happened to Grade Skipping?
Accelerating the Gifted in a Time of Tight Budgets
Even in the best of times, gifted education is controversial. Why your child and not my child? When the economy and school budgets get tight, the gifted conversation only heats up more, with parents anxious to hang on to any advantage their child might garner, and budget hawks eager to ax programs some see as expendable.
That phenomenon is playing out across the country. In Washington state recently, Gov. Christine Gregoire vetoed part of an education reform package that would have required the state to step in when cash-strapped districts couldn't fund gifted education; her veto note questioned the idea of giving priority to gifted education over other needs. In Montgomery County, Md., the debate is more existential, with the district considering abandoning its practice of labeling 2nd graders as gifted or not gifted.
We sympathize that when funds are scarce, and some kids are failing, spending money on top achievers seems hard to justify. But nurturing gifted students and saving money don't have to be at odds. Districts such as Montgomery County are overlooking an obvious, easy, inexpensive solution: acceleration, also known as old-fashioned grade (or subject-matter) skipping. There is no better way to give gifted kids what they need.
Acceleration has been well studied over the years. A 2004 University of Iowa report called "A Nation Deceived" found that most of the evidence was positive. "Interviewed years later, an overwhelming majority of accelerated students say that acceleration was an excellent experience for them," wrote authors Nicholas Colangelo, Susan G. Assouline, and Miraca U.M. Gross. "Accelerated students feel academically challenged and socially accepted, and they do not fall prey to the boredom that plagues many highly capable students who are forced to follow the curriculum for their age-peers."
Acceleration is also cheap. It costs nothing to send a 1st grader to 3rd grade for reading, or to have a 4-year-old who is already reading start kindergarten early. If a student moves through grades K-12 in 11 or 12 years, rather than 13, taxpayers save money.
And yet, very few schools use this intervention widely. A 2008 report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute found that 63 percent of teachers opposed grade skipping, and 46 percent said their schools didn't allow it. Another 27 percent said they weren’t sure what their schools' policies were, which means that it probably doesn't happen too often. We called districts all over the country to ask if they accelerated their gifted students. Few did.
Many schools, instead, give gifted kids 90 minutes of "pull out" each week in which students do enrichment activities like learning about insects, or myths, or going on special field trips. While these programs are fun for gifted learners, you don't have to be gifted to enjoy enrichment activities, and they don't give gifted kids what they really need, which is academic work that challenges them to the extent of their abilities.
But we did find a few schools that have embraced acceleration, not just for one or two off-the-charts kids, but as an effective way to challenge a slightly broader gifted population. For instance, at Zuni Elementary School in Scottsdale, Ariz., all the math classes meet during the first hour of the day, so kids can go to whichever class tests show they're ready for. About 25 students at this school are accelerated two grades or more.
As Kim Lansdowne, the district's director of gifted education, says: "If we see a student getting 100s on pretests, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever to leave them in that class." Zuni Elementary teachers have discussed doing this for other subjects, too, though they are still ironing out the issues of how best to deploy art, music, and physical education teachers during those times.
For schools in economically depressed regions, grade or subject acceleration challenges kids and avoids some of the problems with the "gifted" label. After all, you're not being pulled out for special field trips. You're being given tougher work because that's what you've shown you're ready for.
In Lebanon, Pa., about 25 miles northeast of Harrisburg, the schools serve a community devastated by the collapse of the steel industry. Nearly 70 percent of the students there qualify for federal free or reduced-price lunches, and nearly a third arrive or leave each school year.
Children in Lebanon are screened by subject competency. Those capable of handling far more challenging math work, for example, are given the option of taking math classes in the upper grades. In some cases, that means getting transported from an elementary school to the middle school, from the middle school to the high school, or even to college.
On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, middle schooler Laura Cramer rides a school bus to nearby Lebanon Valley College to take Spanish. Then, the district buses her to the high school, where she takes honors chemistry and honors 10th grade English, and works online on an Algebra 2 class. For lunch, she is bused back to her middle school, where she takes history and competes on the middle school track team.
"We are extremely pleased at how flexible our district is," says her father, Kevin Cramer, who has a younger son on a similar trajectory. "We just can't say enough good things about this. The district rose to the challenge."
Acceleration by subject or grade may not have the same cachet as seeing 2nd graders labeled "gifted." But it serves the needs of children in an uncontroversial, straightforward, and relatively inexpensive way. The only puzzle surrounding acceleration is why more districts don't embrace it.
Vol. 28, Issue 37, Pages 30,36
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History Speaks in ‘Voices of Cherokee Women’
Carolyn Ross Johnston edited Voices of Cherokee Women, which recounts hundreds of years of Cherokee history through primary documents such as letters, diary entries, oral history transcriptions and newspaper articles. These documents vividly demonstrate how events such as the arrival of European missionaries, the Trail of Tears and the Civil War affected Cherokee women.
Carolyn Ross Johnston is a Florida history professor who grew up in Bradley County. Recently, she visited Chattanooga and spoke with WUTC’s Michael Edward Miller.
From the publisher:
Voices of Cherokee Women features 52 accounts by Cherokee women—including letters, diaries, newspaper articles, oral histories, ancient myths—and by travelers, traders, and missionaries who encountered the Cherokees.
Among the stories told by these “voices” are those of Rebecca Neugin being carried as a child on the Trail of Tears; Mary Stapler Ross seeing her beautiful Rose Cottage burned to the ground during the Civil War; Hannah Hicks watching as marauders steal her food and split open her beds, scattering the feathers in the wind; and girls at the Cherokee Female Seminary studying the same curriculum as women at Mount Holyoke.
Carolyn Ross Johnston’s purpose in compiling Voices of Cherokee Women was to “give voice to the voiceless.” Often, Cherokee women’s history has been erased in traditional narratives. This book seeks to correct that by celebrating their special vantage point. “I wanted to share these very rare accounts in order to honor their memory and history,” Johnston says.
The book features accounts of Cherokee women from the Eastern Band of Cherokees and the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. The collection of primary sources is richly textured, covers a large period of time, and represents both elite, highly acculturated Cherokee women and traditional women.
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Ashkenazi Jews in
the shtetl believed that proud talk when a pregnancy was barely
established would invite catastrophe. Like other Jews, they feared the
Evil Eye, expecting it to do harm when their affairs were prospering
[Even today, many] buy nothing for an expected infant until after the
In contrast, Sephardic Jews have often celebrated a first pregnancy.
This celebration has been named kortadura de fashadura (in Judeo-Spanish)
or tekti'a el g'daouere (in Judeo-Arabic), meaning "the cutting
of the swaddling clothes."
the Fyesta de Fashadura held in honor of the expected baby of Ece
Photo: Laurence Salzmann*
cutting of cloth to make the baby's first costume, which is the same for
a girl or a boy, is an old Sephardic custom still continued by some Jews
in Istanbul. When a Jewish woman reaches the fifth month of her first
pregnancy, her family invites all her female relatives and in-laws, as
well as friends and neighbors. Liqueurs and chocolates, tea, cakes and
sugared almonds are set out on the best china, on hand-embroidered tablecloths.
The cloth is of excellent quality and traditionally comes from the expectant
woman's dowry. A relative who is herself a mother and whose own parents
are still alive (a good omen for long life) receives the honor of making
the first cut in the cloth. At the moment of the cut, the pregnant woman
throws white sugared almonds on the cloth to symbolize the sweet and prosperous
future she wishes for her future child.
In Morocco, the midwife cut the cloth into swaddling clothes in
the presence of women friends and relatives who offered their good wishes
and shared tea and cakes.
a recent trip to Turkey, culinary researcher and cookbook author Claudia
Roden found that the fashadura, is still being celebrated.
The menu featured Borekitas
de Berengena Eggplant and Cheese Pies, a dish unique,
in Turkey, to the Jewish community.
Apparently, this was
a very festive occasion, for in 1904 the rabbi of Sefrou decreed against
the ostentation displayed at these celebrations.
When the conception followed a period of barrenness that had been cured
by a pilgrimage to the tomb of a famous rabbi, the pregnant woman returned
to the tomb for a celebration of cakes and arrak, and she distributed
charity to yeshivah students and the poor. By the middle of the
twentieth century, a few Jewish families still continued these traditions,
fearing bad luck if, by abandoning them, they omitted the blessings and
good wishes for the future child.
E. Marriage and First Pregnancy (London:Tavistock, 1966).
and Ayse Salzmann, and Eti Alkanli of California, personal communication.
Simhon, R., Yahadut Marocco (Lod: Orot Yahadut Magreb,
1994) pp. 19, 28-29. [back]
D. Kehillot Zafro, (Jerusalem: 1975), vol. 1, p. 293. [back]
Roden. The Book of Jewish Food,. © copyright 1996 Claudia
Roden (New York: Alfred A. Knopf), pp. 283-84. [back]
Michele Klein, A Time to be Born: Customs and Folklore of Jewish
Birth. © copyright 1998 by Michele Klein (Philadelphia: Jewish
Publication Society of America), pp. 70-71. Permission of the author
and Jewish Publication Society of America.
courtesy of photographer Laurence Salzmann, Blue
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|
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| 0.876338
| 811
| 2.90625
| 3
|
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