text
stringlengths 199
648k
| id
stringlengths 47
47
| dump
stringclasses 1
value | url
stringlengths 14
419
| file_path
stringlengths 139
140
| language
stringclasses 1
value | language_score
float64 0.65
1
| token_count
int64 50
235k
| score
float64 2.52
5.34
| int_score
int64 3
5
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mercantilism dominated economic thought in the West between roughly 1500 and 1800. In the mercantilist system, a colony such as North Carolina was intended to contribute to the economic and political strength of the metropolitan power that undertook or authorized its establishment. A colony supplied the mother country-in North Carolina's case, Great Britain-with important raw materials, commodities, or products. It also served as a market or "vent" for commodities, goods, and services supplied by the mother country. North Carolina's imports were largely processed, finished, or semifinished goods. Moreover, almost all of North Carolina's trade was conducted according to British mercantile guidelines regarding venues, carriers, and personnel.
Some of North Carolina's exports, however, received monetary encouragement in the form of bounties or subsidies from the mother country, without which they would have been much less competitive. When one factors in the relatively high living standards in colonial North Carolina, the superior quality and low price of most imported goods, and the relatively inexpensive military protection provided by Britain, it seems clear that on balance the mercantilist relationship was not particularly burdensome to North Carolina's economic development.
C. Christopher Crittenden, The Commerce of North Carolina, 1763-1789 (1936).
Justin Williams, "English Mercantilism and Carolina Naval Stores, 1705-1776," Journal of Southern History 1 (1935).
Colonial Coin, "God Preserve Carolina and Lords Proprietors, 1694." Image courtesy of NC Dept. of Cultural Resources Collections. Available from http://collections.ncdcr.gov (accessed August 31, 2012).
1 January 2006 | Coclanis, Peter A.
|
<urn:uuid:1635b40a-0be4-4315-8e93-69dc251816b7>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.ncpedia.org/node/2926/backlinks
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403826.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00070-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.941357
| 353
| 4
| 4
|
Sweden’s Volvo Trucksis in the midst of testing a new technological package that aims to squeeze more fuel economy out of modern-day big rigs – using an “autopilot” style system in an attempt to control and capture the “kinetic energy” created when using a truck’s brakes, helping boost fuel economy by 5%.
This new system – dubbed “I-See” – aims to harness such “kinetic energy” to aid in truck propulsion.’s Anders Eriksson explained that kinetic energy is the mechanical work needed to reduce an object’s speed to zero. When an object in motion is slowed down, its kinetic energy has to be transformed into some other form of energy – thus, when atruck hits thebrakes, its kinetic energy is converted into heat, he said.
What Volvo’s I-See system aims to do is harness the kinetic energy produced by a truck’s brakes to help “push” the vehicle up hills, then use that same energy on downhill gradients for acceleration – all without tapping the engine. Again, Ericksson said Volvo’s tests so far show that using kinetic energy in this manner can reduce fuel consumption by 5%.
“If kinetic energy can be exploited to a greater extent, it may help cut fuel consumption,” he pointed out. “This will benefit both the environment and the industry’s economy, something that is very important today as fuel costs are becoming an increasingly heavy burden on many haulage firms.”
[Why Europeans call trucking companies “haulage firms,” though, is beyond me.]
The way it works, Ericksson said, is that “I-See” controller gets linked to the transmission’s tilt sensor, obtaining information about the road topography digitally and then making gear changes accordingly.
“I-See is an ‘autopilot’ linked to the truck’s cruise control, taking over and handling gear changes, throttle and brakes on gradients, ensuring they all operate in the most fuel-efficient way possible,” explained Hayder Wokil, product manager at Volvo Trucks – the parent company (as if you didn’t know) of Volvo Trucks North Americaon this side of the pond.
“I-See ‘freewheels’ as much as possible so on certain stretches of road no fuel is used at all,” he added. “In this way fuel consumption can be cut by up to 5%; a figure based on the results of simulations and tests on public roads.”
Basically, I-See carries out six different operations to tap into a truck’s kinetic energy. For instance, I-See accelerates up hills, remains in a high gear for as long as possible and then “freewheels” on descents to exploit the truck’s weight as a propulsion motor.
“I-See works best in undulating terrain,” said Eriksson. “With moderately long and steep slopes, I-See ensures that you can freewheel for long distances without using the engine – and it is this freewheeling capability that makes the system special, for when the truck rolls freely, virtually no fuel is used.”
But in order to successfully “freewheel,” a whole lot of data is required, he stressed. “It imposes high demands on precision,” Ericksson said. “For instance, you have to know whether your speed will drop or increase over the next stretch of road. A gradient of just a few percent can be the decisive factor.”
Other factors that make a difference are air resistance and the truck’s weight. All told the system has to keep track of and process a lot of information, he noted.
I-See also requires use of the cruise control, and Volvo’s data indicates that on average European truck drivers use cruise control about half the time.
Thus, for a truck in normal operation, covering 140,000 kilometers a year (about 86,992 miles annually) fuel savings should total some 1,000 liters or a little over 264 gallons per year.
“This makes a big difference to a haulage firm’s profitability,” Wokil noted. “But unlike a driver, I-See never gets tired – it’s like an autopilot. This also allows the driver to focus more on the surrounding traffic and other aspects of the journey. And an alert driver is a better driver. That’s something we know for sure.”
|
<urn:uuid:6f68051c-ab2a-464b-925e-6fab664a2b03>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://fleetowner.com/print/blog/autopilot-fuel-savings
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395166.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00029-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.921456
| 987
| 2.703125
| 3
|
Climate change is producing profound changes globally. Yet we still know little about how it affects real people in real places on a daily basis because most of our knowledge comes from scientific studies that try to estimate impacts and project future climate scenarios. This book is different, illustrating in vivid detail how people in the Andes have grappled with the effects of climate change and ensuing natural disasters for more than half a century. In Peru's Cordillera Blanca mountain range, global climate change has generated the world's most deadly glacial lake outburst floods and glacier avalanches, killing 25,000 people since 1941. As survivors grieved, they formed community organizations to learn about precarious glacial lakes while they sent priests to the mountains, hoping that God could calm the increasingly hostile landscape. Meanwhile, Peruvian engineers working with miniscule budgets invented innovative strategies to drain dozens of the most unstable lakes that continue forming in the twenty first century.
But adaptation to global climate change was never simply about engineering the Andes to eliminate environmental hazards. Local urban and rural populations, engineers, hydroelectric developers, irrigators, mountaineers, and policymakers all perceived and responded to glacier melting differently-based on their own view of an ideal Andean world. Disaster prevention projects involved debates about economic development, state authority, race relations, class divisions, cultural values, the evolution of science and technology, and shifting views of nature. Over time, the influx of new groups to manage the Andes helped transform glaciated mountains into commodities to consume. Locals lost power in the process and today comprise just one among many stakeholders in the high Andes-and perhaps the least powerful. Climate change transformed a region, triggering catastrophes while simultaneously jumpstarting modernization processes. This book's historical perspective illuminates these trends that would be ignored in any scientific projections about future climate scenarios.
Back to top
Rent In the Shadow of Melting Glaciers 1st edition today, or search our site for other textbooks by Mark Carey. Every textbook comes with a 21-day "Any Reason" guarantee. Published by Oxford University Press.
Need help ASAP? We have you covered with 24/7 instant online tutoring. Connect with one of our tutors now.
|
<urn:uuid:53e5c811-7d68-4250-b436-e5db49430021>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.chegg.com/textbooks/in-the-shadow-of-melting-glaciers-1st-edition-9780195396065-0195396065?ii=6&trackid=c5ec5c45&omre_ir=1&omre_sp=
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00099-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.927011
| 449
| 3.671875
| 4
|
A heart attack occurs, in most cases, when a vessel supplying the heart muscle with blood and oxygen becomes completely blocked. This can occur when fatty deposits build within vessels. Clots can completely block the supply of blood to the heart muscle. The heart muscle will begin to die if the individual does not immediately seek medical attention.
Heart Attack Warning Signs
Heart disease is the number one cause of death in the United States. Each year, approximately 1.2 million Americans suffer a heart attack. Some heart attacks are sudden and intense, however, most heart attack start slowly with mild discomfort. We want you to recognize the early symptoms of a heart attack and call 911.
Signs of a heart attack include the following:
Chest pain or pressure
Discomfort in other areas of the upper body. This may include pain or discomfort in one or both arms, the back, neck, jaw, or stomach.
Shortness of breath
Other symptoms may include breaking out in a cold sweat, nausea, or light-headedness.
Women, Elderly, or diabetics may be more likely to present with symptoms other than chest pain which include: Nausea, vomiting, dizziness and fainting.
If you have chest pain or other heart attack symptoms, call 911 and seek immediate medical attention.
|
<urn:uuid:cb9985bd-ece1-408f-8967-8b1e2504c13a>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.dhr-rgv.com/Healthcare-Services/Chest-Pain-Center/What-is-a-heart-attack.aspx
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395548.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00141-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.922523
| 266
| 3.296875
| 3
|
While digging through Cole Blaq's photostream to find an appropriate spray can model for my previous blog post, I once again enjoyed looking at his Enter the Brick series of sculptures based on the basic LEGO brick. One that deserves some highlight here is his melting point. The melting point is the temperature at which a solid changes into a liquid form. When I'm teaching about melting point, I often use LEGO bricks as an analogy (or just basic brick walls). A solid crystal is like a wall built of overlapping LEGO bricks. Each molecule is interacting with the molecules around it via a series of forces. As temperature is added, these molecules vibrate more and more. At some point, the force of the molecules vibrating is greater than the force holding them together, and so they start to slide past each other--i.e. go from the solid phase to the liquid phase. In a pure sample, each 'brick' is in a completely identical situation, and so each 'brick' is held to its neighbors by identical forces. Because of this, it takes the exact same amount of heat energy to break apart each of the bricks, and so there is a sharp melting point (that is, everything melts within a couple of degree range). On the other hand, if you have a mixture of different types of bricks, they don't fit together as neatly or as regularly. Therefore it takes less heat energy to cause melting (this is why, btw, you dump salt on the ice on your sidewalk), and, since each brick is in a slightly different situation and is therefore held to its neighbors by a different amount of force, the melting happens over a much broader range.
|
<urn:uuid:b14005a6-1ee4-4e1d-aeca-1d2f638be348>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://scibricks.blogspot.com/2012/03/melting-point.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00130-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.963367
| 341
| 3.09375
| 3
|
Every Jewish worship service has space for silent prayer. Yet, many of us find it difficult to pray and reflect in such moments. We tend to feel most comfortable when either speaking or listening. “Judaism,” said Elie Wiesel, “has its times of silence. But we never talk about them.”
Perhaps it would be wise to do so. In a culture where information enters our consciousness at a startling pace, taking time for and appreciating silence can renew and refresh us. Silence can help us discern the music amidst the noise.
Here are some tips for letting silence work its magic:
1. Close your eyes: The visual landscape naturally draws our attention. We can redirect that attention inward, clearing our mind and letting us appreciate the silence more fully.
It is no accident that a tradition developed in Jewish worship to close our eyes during the saying of our most important prayer, the Shema. Focus turns to sound rather than sight.
2. Listen to the silence: An article recently appeared in the New York Times about a famous musical piece by John Cage. Entitled 4’33, it consists of no sound. A group of musicians walk up to their instruments and sit down quietly for four minutes and thirty three seconds.
The thinking behind the piece is that any sound constitutes music. The audience is meant to listen to the sounds around them without the distraction of the instruments. We each hear something different, and the environment creates its own music.
3. Breathe: The Hebrew word for breath–Neshima–also means soul. Breathing can open up the channel between our mind and heart. When we hear our breath, we hear what is inside of us.
4. Make the most of the subsequent moments: Silence can magnify the audible. After a few moments of silence, words can feel more piercing. Our minds and our hearts open wider. The subsequent moments can lift up our hearts and make the entire worship service more lasting and meaningful.
5. Read a short passage: Words shape our thoughts. During a moment of silence, the right words can direct our minds upward and inward. In our Reform Jewish prayerbook, an anonmymous passage always tugs at my heart: “Pray as if everything depends on God. Act as if everything depends on you.”
|
<urn:uuid:f00b635e-7812-425d-9028-f337266b1c7a>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/truthsyoucanuse/2012/08/the-secret-of-silence.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00049-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.936374
| 481
| 2.625
| 3
|
4.0. Ochratoxin A in Coffee (OTA)
Ochratoxin A (OTA) is a form of mycotoxin produced as a metabolic product of certain fungi, mainly of the genera Aspergillus and penicillium. Its occurrence has been shown in a variety of unprocessed and processed foods. The main foodstuffs infested by OTA are cereals and cereal products. Other products that may contain OTA are coffee, beer, pork, blood plasma, etc.
The growth of mould on coffee beans is possible if the moisture content of the beans exceeds the accepted standard for an extended time. Beans containing OTA cannot be detected directly in all cases by visual and organoleptic control, because either not all mouldy beans are infected by OTA, or non-mouldy dried beans may still contain the toxin.
Since 1980, several studies have reported OTA presence in raw coffee. More recently, data from the Finnish Customs Laboratory for 1996 became available. In total, data on 625 samples from the major coffee producing countries are now available. The overall mean OTA content for the 625 samples of raw coffee was 1.6 ppb; whereas over 85% of the samples were in the lowest category (undetectable up to 2 ppb). 1-2% of the samples were highly contaminated and had a large effect on the overall mean value.
Another study was carried out in Italy (Santina, R. et al), in order to determine the level of OTA contamination in green coffee samples of different origins. A total of 162 samples of green coffee beans from various countries (84 from Africa, 60 from America, and 18 from Asia) were analysed for OTA. The results showed that 106 of the overall samples were positive for OTA, with concentration ranging from 0 to 48 ppb. In particular, it was possible to verify that, samples from African countries were more contaminated as compared to samples from other origins in terms of frequency and level of OTA. The highest concentrations observed were 18 and 48 ppb in two samples from The Congo D.R.
Some European Commission (EC) member states already have statutory legal OTA limits for coffee; Italy, (8ppb for green coffee and 4ppb for final product), Finland (10ppb) and Greece (20ppb). Currently, EC authorities in Brussels are discussing the introduction of a maximum limit for OTA on several agricultural products, including coffee. Such a limit, if and when established, would necessary result in the rejection of certain percentage of traded coffee for non-conformity with this safety limit. As there is no alternative use for raw coffee, rejected lots would most probably find their way to the consumers in the producing countries.
If such a limit were fixed at 5 ppb as currently discussed by EC authorities, some 7% of the samples included in the Finnish Customs Laboratory review would exceed this amount. Incidental values over 10 ppb were found in coffee lots originating from almost all producing countries, which would be hit by an EC OTA limit, most African producing countries would be in the top of the list. From the West African samples, about 18% exceeded this limit and from the East African samples 9%.
Surveillance of green coffee imported into the UK, Finland and Hungary shows that OTA can occur in coffee from most origins and of all major types of washed and unwashed Arabicas and Robustas, although there seems to be greater occurrence in unwashed coffees.
Further research in Thailand (Peter Bucheli et al., 2000) on drying of Robusta coffee has shown that OTA is formed during sun drying in the coffee cherry pericarp (pulp and parchment), the part of the cherry which is removed as husks in the dehulling process. Broken and infested beans, together with husks were the most important source of OTA contamination found in green coffee. The occurrence of 319ppb of OTA in an aggregate husk sample of a public coffee dehuller demonstrated that husks are the richest source of OTA in green coffee.
All the above mentioned factors call for increased attention to prevention as the method of choice for eliminating mould mediated loss and for improving the quality of coffee.
Very stringent measures must be taken to improve on post harvest handling and processing of coffee in the coffee exporting countries and particularly African countries which have shown higher percentages of OTA in their samples. The most critical stages for both wet and dry methods are the drying and storage stages. Drying must be done according to the recommended practice upto the required moisture content of 12%. Rewetting of the beans or reabsorption of moisture should be avoided at all times during or after drying. Storage should be in well-ventilated stores, which do not allow any form of moisture to get to the coffee.
|
<urn:uuid:b77fed03-c1cc-4f67-8dda-ca9e04eadae6>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/x6939e/X6939e04.htm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397864.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00067-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.960204
| 998
| 3.03125
| 3
|
U.N. Warns of Rural Flight by Tsunami Victims
ROME Beyond the threat of disease and hunger, tsunami-struck southern Asia risks a rural exodus without swift emergency aid to rebuild agriculture, a U.N. official warned on Wednesday.
Fernanda Guerrieri, chief of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation's emergency operation service, said in an interview the massive effort will take at least two years and billions of dollars in financial aid.
The FAO alone, she said, will need more than $50 million in the next six months to help the millions of people on Indian Ocean shores already scrambling for food and clean water.
It is only a matter of time before they start heading to the nearest towns and cities.
"That's what we would like to prevent. This massive movement to the urban centres," Guerrieri said.
"The urban centres are not prepared to receive them."
FAO teams, many of them already in countries hard-hit by rural poverty prior to the tsunami, were still in the phase of "need assessment" in worst-off nations Sri Lanka and Thailand.
Experts were flying over the hard-to-reach areas of other countries, including Somalia, to assess damage, she said.
"We expect the recovery process to take a very long time, unfortunately. I think we can give them some productive capacity in six months, but I think it could take up to 24 months to completely recover," she said.
Guerrieri warned of dangers in the months ahead, including the chance that wealthy nations may try to dump low-quality seeds on the crisis-hit region.
"Disaster should not be the occasion to dump on these people low quality inputs ... seeds that don't germinate, fertilizers that are not appropriate for certain environments," she said.
She said the FAO, which delivers support across the globe, feared attention to Asia could hurt assistance programmes elsewhere, such as Iraq and Sudan.
There had been no impact so far, however.
"Usually there is always a certain negative affect. For the governments, visibility is very important. So they may divert resources that were targeted to other emergencies," she said.
"We must not forget these other crises."
|
<urn:uuid:8e497dd8-ef3e-4487-b9b1-1b6a5d48f02d>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/690
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00053-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.966524
| 465
| 2.609375
| 3
|
Decimals and Roman Numerals
Date: 10/22/98 at 03:21:16 From: Richard Collecutt Subject: Roman numerals Do you know of any method for representing Roman numerals in a floating point format? For example, does 10.5 = X.V?
Date: 10/22/98 at 08:26:37 From: Doctor Rick Subject: Re: Roman numerals Hello, Richard. The Romans didn't have a standard way of writing fractions (or decimals.) Usually, they just wrote out the appropriate word, such as "tres septimae" for three-sevenths. When they needed to do serious calculations with fractions, the Romans used the uncia, a unit that meant 1/12 of anything. There were names and symbols for different multiples of the uncia. For example, six unciae, or 6/12, made up the semis. The semis meant one-half, and its symbol was an S cut in half (this looks a lot like a backward 2.) Unfortunately, uncia symbols didn't follow any real system, and they were never entirely standardized. Jeff Miller's page on the "Earliest Uses of Symbols for Fractions and Decimals" has more information about the uncia: http://jeff560.tripod.com/fractions.html It's important also to understand that Roman numerals are not a place- value system; there is no ones place, tens place, etc., so there is no "place" for a decimal point. If I were to invent a system for writing fractional quantities in Roman numerals, other than writing a fraction with Roman numerals in the numerator and denominator, I would take a cue from the method, occasionally seen, of writing a horizontal bar over a Roman numeral to signify multiplication by 1000: _ M = 1000 * 1000 = 1,000,000 and use, say, a bar under a Roman numeral to signify division by 1000. - Doctors Rick and Ursula, The Math Forum http://mathforum.org/dr.math/
Search the Dr. Math Library:
Ask Dr. MathTM
© 1994-2015 The Math Forum
|
<urn:uuid:42ac51ba-8402-4785-8457-5c9e4bfb40ca>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/52552.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397748.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00074-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.904296
| 461
| 3.125
| 3
|
Last week I wrote about a study that revealed interesting clues that may help us to understand why synthetic estrogens, including Bisphenol-A (BPA), found in many widely-used plastics, have a detrimental effect on a developing fetus.
BPA has been in the news recently; a New York Times article discusses Canada’s proposed ban, and parents have become more and more aware of the adverse effects of using baby bottles, pacifiers and soft rubber toys with their babies. But, the danger of synthetic estrogen can effect us all. So what can you do to avoid this toxin and provide a safe home for your family.?
Dr. Joesph Mercola, a well known osteopathic physician, author and natural health advocate has a few recommendations:
10 Tips to Reduce Your Exposure to BPA
1. Only use glass baby bottles and dishes for your baby (and yourself)
2. Give your baby natural fabric toys instead of plastic ones
3. Store your food and beverages – not plastic containers
4. IF you choose to use a microwave, don’t microwave food in a plastic container
5. Stop buying and consuming canned foods and drinks
6. Avoid using plastic wrap (and never microwave anything covered in it)
7. Get rid of your plastic dishes and cups, and replace them with glass varieties
8. If you opt to use plastic kitchenware, at least get rid of the older, scratched-up varieties, avoid putting them in the dishwasher, and don’t wash them with harsh detergents, as these things can cause more chemicals to leach into your food
9. Avoid using bottled water; filter your own using a reverse osmosis filter instead
10. Before allowing a dental sealant to be applied to your, or your children’s, teeth, ask your dentist to verify that it does not contain BPA
While it may seem difficult to follow all of these rules, the more you reduce your exposure to BPA, the better.
Photo courtesy: New York Times
|
<urn:uuid:59f2c65a-9713-4093-a783-d735b155e0e1>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://ecochildsplay.com/2008/04/17/10-ways-to-avoid-toxic-plastic-bpa-synthetic-estrogens-and-your-child/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00114-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.929541
| 421
| 2.78125
| 3
|
One of the most important financial planning advices that are given to people is to start investing early when people are still in their twenties. In order to achieve and realize your financial goals in life, developing spending and saving habits early in life and learning to budget as well as investing while one is in his or her twenties will help one prevent needless debt in the future and later in life. In fact, those who start to invest early will find that they will do this with little effort and investing regularly will be a relatively smooth road.
A good example of good financial planning advice given is that of a 25-year old who starts investing $2,000 a year and does this for 8 years. After age 33, he never invests a single additional dollar. This young man will earn more by the time he is 65 years than a 35-year old who starts his or her investment and does this for 32 years. Even though this 35-year old invests four times as much as the 25-year old, the young man will still earn way more than him.
Whenever you sit down to take any financial planning advice, you must have identified your short, medium and long-term goals. Short term goals include such things as a wedding, buying furniture, your honeymoon and buying a new car. Next, is to consider your medium-term goals. These may include things like financing a mortgage and paying for your kid’s college education. Long-term goals include planning for retirement and travel. When you sit down to calculate all of these expenses, consider what you are going to save to reach each and every one of your goals within the set timeframe. When making a budget, set aside some time for each of these and do not try to sacrifice one for the other.
Another financial planning advice would be to invest in Certificates of Deposit or Money Market Funds for short-term goals and investing in the stock market for long-term goals. Throughout, it has been shown that the stock market has out-performed just about any other type of investment. However, this form of investment is not for the faint of heart. This is a very volatile field and therefore makes it less ideal for short-term goals; unless of course you can tolerate high risks.
A financial advice will also offer another financial planning advice which is finding out if your employer has a tax-deferred retirement plan or a 401(k) plan. If there is one in place, take advantage of it. This is a good investment plan since your contributions to the plan will be made tax-free, and any taxes on whatever is earned will be deferred until you withdraw them in your retirement. In addition, and probably even better, many of the employers will match a part or all of your contributions resulting in hug gains. The internet has a wealth of financial planning advice, and it has never been easier to learn how to be a smart investor. Just take the time to look up the thousands of pages on financial advice available and start your early investment now.
|
<urn:uuid:ab8d5828-19d3-4573-aba1-1b2a6b4296c9>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.cent-anni.com/investing-wisely-how-and-when.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396029.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00129-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.976665
| 615
| 2.671875
| 3
|
All prices are in All prices are in USD
Posted by Yevgeni Kuritski on March 02, 2014
Chai (pronounced [xai], occasionally [ħai]) is a symbol and word that figures prominently in Jewish culture and consists of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet Het (ח) and Yod (י). In the Hebrew language, the word chai (חַי) spelled by these two letters means "living," is related to the term for "life," chaim, and also appears in the slogan "`am yisrael chai!" ("The nation of Israel lives!", referring to all Jews).
There have been various mystical numerological speculations about the fact that, according to the system of gematria, the letters of chai add up to 18 (see "Jewish use of the Tetragrammaton" and "Lamedvavniks"). For this reason, 18 is a lucky number in Judaism, and many Jews give gifts of money in multiples of 18 as a result.
References in culture
The Chai symbol is often worn by Jews as a medallion around the neck (along with the Star of David (Magen David) and the Hamsa). In Hebrew, the related word chaya means living thing or animal, derived from the Hebrew word chai (חי), meaning "life". Although rare, Chai can also be used as a boy's name. Chaya, derived from chai was a popular female name in Hebrew. The name "Chaim" is quite a common boy's name, particularly among Orthodox Jews and in Israel. Among all Jews, both religious and secular, the toast "l´chaim", which means "to life", is frequently used when celebrating something, such as one of the high holidays, birthdays, weddings etc. See also the article about "Etz Chaim", meaning "tree of life" for more related information.
|
<urn:uuid:835ddbd6-21bf-47b7-a408-58747d4d9903>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.yourholylandstore.com/the-meaning-of-chai/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00111-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.954166
| 406
| 2.734375
| 3
|
The Jataka, Volume I, tr. by Robert Chalmers, , at sacred-texts.com
"Naught can compare."--This story was told by the Master while at Jetavana, about a brahmin who put to the test his reputation for goodness. This Brother, who was maintained by ṭhe King of Kosala, had sought the Three Refuges; he kept the Five Commandments, and was versed in the Three Vedas. "This is a good man," thought the King, and shewed him great honour. But that Brother thought to himself, "The King shews honour to me beyond other brahmins, and has manifested his great regard by making me his spiritual director. But is his favour due to my goodness or only to my birth, lineage, family, country and accomplishments? I must clear this up without delay." Accordingly, one day when he was leaving the palace, he took unbidden a coin from a treasurer's counter, and went his way. Such was the treasurer's veneration for the brahmin that he sat perfectly still and said not a word. Next day the brahmin took two coins; but still the official made no remonstrance. The third day the brahmin took a whole handful of coins. "This is the third day," cried the treasurer, "that you have robbed his Majesty;" and he shouted out three times,--"I have caught the thief who robs the treasury." In rushed a crowd of people from every side, crying, "Ah, you've long been posing as a model of goodness." And dealing him two or three blows, they led him before the King. In great sorrow the King said to him, "What led you, brahmin, to do, so wicked a thing?" And he gave orders, saying, "Off with him to punishment." "I are no thief, sire," said the brahmin. "Then why did you take money from the treasury?" "Because you shewed me such great honour, sire, and because I made up my mind to find out whether that honour was paid to my birth and the like or only to my goodness. That was my motive, and now I know for certain (inasmuch as you order me off to punishment) that it was my goodness and not my birth and other advantages, that won me your majesty's favour. Goodness I know to be the chief and supreme good; I know too that to goodness I can
never attain in this life, whilst I remain a layman, living in the midst of sinful pleasures. Wherefore, this very day I would fain go to the Master at Jetavana and renounce the world for the Brotherhood. Grant me your leave, sire." The King consenting, the brahmin set out for Jetavana. His friends and relations in a body tried to turn him from his purpose, but, finding their efforts of no avail, left him alone. He came to the Master and asked to be admitted to the Brotherhood. After admission to the lower and higher orders, he won by application spiritual insight and became an Arahat, whereon he drew near to the Master, saying, "Sir, my joining the Order has borne the Supreme Fruit,"--thereby signifying that he had won Arahatship. Hearing of this, the Brethren, assembling in the Hall of Truth, spoke with one another of the virtues of the King's chaplain who tested his own reputation for goodness and who, leaving the King, had now risen to be an Arahat. Entering the Hall, the Master asked what the Brethren were discussing, and they told him. "Not without a precedent, Brethren," said he, "is the action of this brahmin in putting to the test his reputation for goodness and in working out his salvation after renouncing the world. The like was done by the wise and good of bygone days as well." And so saying, he told this story of the past.
Once on a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was his chaplain,--a man given to charity and other good works, whose mind was set on righteousness, always keeping unbroken the Five Commandments. And the King honoured him beyond the other brahmins; and everything came to pass as above.
But, as the Bodhisatta was being brought in bonds before the King, he came where some snake-charmers were exhibiting a snake, which they laid hold of by the tail and the throat, and tied round their necks. Seeing this, the Bodhisatta begged the men to desist, for the snake might bite them and cut their lives short. "Brahmin," replied the snake-charmers, "this is a good and well-behaved cobra; he's not wicked like you, who for your wickedness and misconduct are being hauled off in custody."
Thought the Bodhisatta to himself, "Even cobras, if they do not bite or wound, are called 'good.' How much more must this be the case with those who have come to be human beings! Verily it is just this goodness which is the most excellent thing in all the world, nor does aught surpass it." Then he was brought before the King. "What is this, my friends?" said the King. "Here's a thief who has been robbing your majesty's treasury." "Away with him to execution." "Sire," said the brahmin, "I am no thief." "Then how came you to take the money?" Hereon the Bodhisatta made answer precisely as above, ending as follows:--"This then is why I have come to the conclusion that it is goodness which is the highest and most excellent thing in all the world. But be that as it may, yet, seeing that the cobra, when it does not bite or wound, must simply be called 'good' and nothing more, for this reason too it is
goodness alone which is the highest and most excellent of all things." Then in praise of goodness he uttered this stanza:--
After preaching the truth to the King in this stanza, the Bodhisatta, abjuring all Lusts, and renouncing the world for the hermit's life, repaired to the Himalayas, where he attained to the five Knowledges and the eight Attainments, earning for himself the sure hope of re-birth thereafter in the Brahma Realm.
His lesson ended, the Master identified the Birth by saying, "My disciples were the King's following in those days, and I myself the King's chaplain."
[Note. Compare Nos. 290, 330, and 362; and see Feer's Études sur le Játaka.]
|
<urn:uuid:eb3d8d37-b8fa-43b3-a389-4ee368109278>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/j1/j1089.htm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00172-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.9828
| 1,419
| 2.546875
| 3
|
Worried your kid forgets everything they've learnt when not at school? Here's how to keep their brain sharp. more
There are different ways you can use Time Out techniques and once you get the principles under your belt, you can try to tailor the techniques to suit your family.
- Don't lose your cool. The way Time Out works is that you don't give your child any attention while she's in Time Out. The withdrawal of your attention is the punishment, so if you yell at her while she's in Time Out, you'll actually be rewarding her with plenty of the very thing you're meant to be withholding - your attention. So stay calm, cool and collected while she's in Time Out.
- You need to have lots of 'time-in' before Time Out is can be effective. Make sure that you have lots of enjoyable time with your child. Sometimes you'll have to work especially hard to do this if she's developed a negative way of dealing with those around her. But persisting here pays off because without the good times to think about, Time Out just becomes part of the everyday experience and loses any power for change it may have had.
- Time Out is time without attention. When you take your child to Time Out make sure that she knows how to time her Time Out. Use a clock alarm or an egg timer - but giver her something she can measure her time with, otherwise it may seem to her that she's been forgotten about. When she is in Time Out, just go about your day as usual and ignore her until her time is up. Don't talk to her, don't engage with her in any way, but if she is too disruptive and noisy, tell her that you will be reseting the timer and Time Out will begin when she's quiet.
- Keep Time Out short and sweet. Try keeping Time Out to one minute for every year (a four year-old sits in Time Out for four minutes). Time Out is meant to reinforce that a misbehaviour is unacceptable, but with a long, drawn-out punishment you risk your child forgetting what she was being punished for and the whole point of Time Out being lost.
- When Time Out's over, let it go. Don't continue the punishment once your child has finished Time Out by remaining angry. Instead, ask for an apology, have a cuddle and move on to new, more enjoyable things together.
- Don't threaten Time Outs. There's nothing effective about endlessly threatening your child with a Time Out if you don't follow through in a timely manner, all your child is likely to learn from this is that she doesn't have to take your threats seriously as you are not going to make good on them. If you give your child a warning, and she persists with unacceptable behaviour, then you need to follow up immediately with a Time Out so there can be no mistaking the consequences of her actions.
Related discipline articles:
- Time out tips
- Time-out and discipline
- The trouble with time-out
- Understand consequences and discipline
- What is discipline?
- Discipline and how to set rules
- Discipline and your baby
- Find discipline techniques that work
- Get discipline tips
- Physical punishment and your child
- Understand positive reinforcement and discipline
- 1. Baby wraps
- 2. Baby name finder
- 3. All breastfeeding articles
- 4. All bottle feeding articles
- 5. Baby allergy resource
- 6. All SIDS and safe sleep articles
- 7. All getting baby to sleep articles
- 8. All baby play articles
- 9. All baby growth articles
- 10. All child care articles
- 11. Baby gifts mums recommend
- 12. All nappy articles
- 13. All discipline articles
- 14. All safety articles
- 15. 2008 Kidspot Best of Awards winners
|
<urn:uuid:dfb40cb0-92c8-4fd2-a4bd-6215ce3ad142>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.kidspot.com.au/Baby-Behaviour-Time-Out-techniques+557+45+article.htm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00025-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.947555
| 800
| 2.609375
| 3
|
Walk into almost any home, cafe or shop in Vietnam and you'll find a small
red altar tucked into a corner of the room. On it sits a small ceramic
Buddha silently keeping watch. Fruit, wine and incense are offered daily
at the shrine to pay respect and ensure protection from bad spirits. In
every household altars are set up to honor deceased relatives and are
kept well stocked with food and drink to help the spirits of loved ones
as they wait to be reincarnated. Eighty percent of Vietnamese practice
a Buddhism that is mixed with Confucian, Taoist and Animist beliefs. Twenty
percent of Vietnamese believe in the Catholicism introduced by missionaries
in the 16th century. There are also very small populations of Hindus,
Muslims, Protestants and religions of indigenous tribes.
A word in Vietnamese
changes with an accent or context. Here is how the word "ban"
changes with the accent used.(click on the word to hear the sound)
- give, bestow, proclaim
- table, desk; discuss, talk
- to sell; semi or half
- copy, composition; mountain village
Here's a Vietnamese
"Three busy friends sell four dirty tables."
to Say Hello in Vietnamese
In the late 1600's, Portuguese and French missionaries translated Vietnamese
into the Roman alphabet, adding five tones . The goal was to make missionary
work easier, but it ended up revolutionizing the country. The script gradually
replaced Chinese characters as the preferred writing style, taking literacy
out of the hands of a few scholars and giving it to the masses. But don't
think the familiar letters help foreigners pronounce the language -- one
word can have six different meanings, depending on the accent used. This
language is not for the linguistically handicapped.
Vietnamese have many unique traditions and beliefs.
Here are just a few:
Hello, how old
Don't be surprised if Vietnamese people ask you how old you are upon first
meeting you. While it's considered rule in western cultures, it's essential
information to the Vietnamese, whose greetings are age-specific. Based
on the teachings of Confucius, the important hierarchy of respect from
old to young is at the heart of Vietnamese society.
Don't Eat the
Like other Chinese influenced cultures, the Vietnamese believe in Yin
and Yang. It's a philosphy dealing with positive and negative, male and
female, hot and cold. It has an impact on every aspect of life, even food.
The balance of Yin and Yang in a person is important for strong health.
It can be affected by "hot" and "cool" foods. Fruits
like mangos and litchees are considered "hot." Eating too much
of them will cause your body heat to rise and even cause skin problems
like acne. Papayas are "cool" but perhaps a little too
cool -- they're considered detrimental to a man's sex drive. But never
fear, ginseng tea and seafood are generally held as heating agents, and
can remedies to this small problem.
Tet - It's not an "Offensive"
Imagine a mix of Christmas and the Fourth of July (minus the beer and
wine) and you'll have an idea what Tet, the celebration of the lunar New
Year, is like. For five days the country all but shuts down as people
visit friends and relatives, offering small red envelopes of lucky money
to the children. The first visitor of the New Year for each household
is carefully planned, as it's believed the year's good or bad fortune
will be brought by the first person to cross the threshold. The pagodas
swell with people making offerings in hopes of a fortunate year ahead.
Kumquat Tree, Oh Kumquat Tree...
Maybe it doesn't have the same ring, but similar to Christmas trees in
the States, families buy small kumquat trees during Tet to have in their
homes. (Kumquats are orange-like fruits about the size of a golf ball.)
Some families prefer to buy small cherry blossom branches or trees which
have been painstakingly shaped and raised to bloom just in time for the
Why Dog Meat?
Horrific to foreigners is the practice of eating dog meat. Vietnamese
believe that eating dog on the last day of the month is good for removing
any bad luck or negative vibes. This can also be done at other times of
the month if you've just suffered some really bad luck. If it's
any consolation, only specially raised dogs make it to the dinner table,
and only then at restaurants that specialize in dog dishes. Many Vietnamese,
especially women and the young, don't subscribe to the practice and find
it as disturbing as most foreigners would. Unless ambushed by a tour guide,
the average tourist doesn't have to worry about finding Lassie on their
To learn more about
Vietnamese customs and traditions visit our links.
|
<urn:uuid:04c7c0e9-58a2-4f1d-b52a-c069d40e56b4>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.pbs.org/hanoi/vietnam1.htm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393533.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00066-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.936655
| 1,050
| 2.703125
| 3
|
I don't want to sound alarmist, but glow-in-the-dark animals are real-- and it's not just cute kitty-cats. As reported earlier here at Science 2.0, scientists did this and that to genetics to make AIDS-resistant cats. Part of the process includes splicing in jellyfish DNA so the cats glow in the dark.
Yes, not 'they glow because of the medical reason', they glow for the fun of it. They glow because the scientists wanted to track the progress of the other stuff, the real medical stuff they were doing.
It turns out jellyfish DNA for glow-in-the-dark is like the corn syrup of the gene-splicing world. It's not just cats, it's in everything.
It's called GFP, for Green Fluorescent Protein. We've got glowing mice, glowing rabbits, even glowing pigs.
Did I mention the glowing pig research was done with an eye towards organ harvesting for humans? It's a great plan. Not only do you have a glowing, cute pet that is
easy to spot in the dark, but you can use it if you need a spare kidney.
Eleven years ago, they even made glowing E. coli, perhaps handy if you're curious if your meat is tainted.
Fluorescent fish aren't terribly new, but genetically manipulated GloFish uses GFP.
Oh, and glowing monkeys. As in, primates. Similar to use. But they'd never use this for humans, right?
And the obvious use of GFP for humans is to create glow in the dark tattoos.
The ones that exist now using cancer-causing illegal chemicals. But
imagine if you could just genetically engineer yourself to glow as you
want? Want your cancer to glow in the dark, so a doctor can more easily remove it? Chemically induced florescence via fluorescein or a similar chemical can do it. So yes, we can glow too.
One might think I'm expressing outrage, but I think this is way cooler than making genetically 'superior' tasteless tomatos and other GMO foods. I look forward to the day when the phrase "she's so radiant" is no longer figurative.
Until next week,
Tuesdays at The Satellite Diaries and Friday at The Daytime Astronomer (twitter @skyday)
- PHYSICAL SCIENCES
- EARTH SCIENCES
- LIFE SCIENCES
- SOCIAL SCIENCES
Subscribe to the newsletter
Stay in touch with the scientific world!
Know Science And Want To Write?
- How A Former Naturopath Can Help Unravel The Trickery of Alternative Medicine
- 9,000 Years: Origin Of Farmed Rice Gets Pushed Back
- Tidal Disruption Event: Black Hole Eats Star, Beams Signal To Earth
- Better Brains With Beer
- HIPAA: How Laws For Medical Care Hindered Response To Orlando Massacre
- Precise Control Of Brain Circuit Alters Mood
- Antidepressive Treatment During Pregnancy Can Affect Newborn Brain Activity
- "Well, isn’t that just the cat’s whiskers! ..."
- "Was the message to vote Brexit?..."
- "Just about all the photos of Nibiru shared online are lens flares, or offset lens reflections,..."
- "Hello, I am also wondering who is paying you to lie......I have pictures of it and so do all my..."
- "Oh, excellent transition! Thank you for making this very difficult change in your life. I think..."
- ACSH Applauds Media Awareness of the Fentanyl Crisis
- Counting Bites Examined, to Help Decrease Food Intake
- The Safe And Unsafe Nutty Treats For Your Pup
- Mr. Potato Head Needs a New Warning Label!
- Shark Finning is Banned in the US; Banning Trade in Fins May Be Next
- Move Over Zika, It’s Yellow Fever’s Turn
- Should I stay or should I go?
- New cancer immunotherapy drugs linked to arthritis in some patients
- Simulations foresee hordes of colliding black holes in LIGO's future
- Analysis of genetic repeats suggests role for DNA instability in schizophrenia
- Analysis of media reporting reveals new information about snakebites and how and when they occur
|
<urn:uuid:e7c64bed-07e5-43d7-8c5c-3b7a2953c910>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.science20.com/daytime_astronomer/glowinthedark_kittens_and_monkeys_and_ovaries-82962
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00012-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.901712
| 916
| 2.984375
| 3
|
Adapted from Susan Glaspell’s popular one-act play, Trifles (1920), “A Jury of Her Peers” is about sisterhood. Women’s roles as wives, mothers, and homemakers do not make them totally passive, unintelligent, or subordinate to men. Mrs. Peters, for example, being small, thin, and soft-spoken, did not strike Martha Hale as a sheriff’s wife when they first met; however, Mrs. Peters reveals her inner strength in defying her husband by suppressing evidence that would surely convict Minnie Wright of murder. Because they understand how John’s killing the canary must have been the last straw in killing his wife’s love of life, Martha and Mrs. Peters “knot” the criminal investigation. They shift their loyalty from their husbands, and the male-dominated legal system, to a woman who mirrors their own lives. As Martha wistfully says of her regret in abandoning her neighbor Minnie, “We live close together, and we live far apart. We all go through the same things—it’s all just a different kind of same thing!” Because the legal defense of justifiable homicide by an abused wife might not have succeeded in the early twentieth century, the women take matters into their own hands.
They also retaliate against the men’s arrogant air of superiority. The men’s supposedly logical, intelligent methods of investigation lead to naught, whereas the women’s intuitive, emotional responses to their “sister” probably will save Minnie’s life. A climactic moment occurs when the attorney laughingly says that the ladies would not gather dangerous things to take to Mrs. Wright in jail, unaware that they are concealing crucial evidence. When Henderson says that Mrs. Peters does not need supervising because “a sheriff’s wife is married to the law,” she responds that she does not think of it that way. Rejecting the way the men think about Mrs. Wright’s guilt, the women also reject the men’s control over their lives. This assertion of power to think and act independently reiterates a strong feminist theme: Their allegiance to sisterhood is stronger than that to marriage.
|
<urn:uuid:585d8767-7b8a-4e48-8abc-1f2da59d2711>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.enotes.com/topics/jury-her-peers/themes
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397565.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00018-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.963202
| 474
| 2.9375
| 3
|
for National Geographic News
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has dug up new clues to the red planet's wet past and has witnessed what could be a current water cycle in the form of falling snow, scientists announced today.
From its landing site near Mars's north pole, the lander has collected and analyzed soil samples that show minerals on Mars that are associated with liquid water on Earth.
Phoenix also recorded the planet's real-time transition from summer to fall, which revealed tantalizing evidence of an ongoing hydrological cycle, said Peter Smith, Phoenix's principal investigator based at the University of Arizona.
Jim Whiteway, lead scientist for the Phoenix Meteorological Station, said that instruments on board the craft recorded rising temperatures and humidity in the two months leading up to the Martian summer solstice in July.
Temperatures have been falling ever since.
"In the second half of the mission we saw frost, ground fog, and clouds. This is now occurring every night," Whiteway said.
Ice crystals were detected coming from clouds about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) above the spacecraft's landing site. The crystals are most likely water-based, the scientists said, because it's not yet cold enough on Mars for carbon-dioxide snow to form.
The team hopes Phoenix will help confirm whether the snow hits the ground before the craft—which has already survived beyond its expected lifespan—freezes up forever during the cold Martian winter.
"We're going to be watching very closely for the next months to see if the snow is falling on the Martian surface," Whiteway said.
Rewriting Mars's Geochemistry
The latest soil data from Phoenix have confirmed the presence of calcium carbonates, common clays found in wet environments on Earth.
SOURCES AND RELATED WEB SITES
|
<urn:uuid:198ef584-695b-40a7-be87-98be032654ec>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080929-mars-snow.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00053-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.947471
| 372
| 3.578125
| 4
|
Understanding the pitfalls of behavioral finance
Investment decisions are among the most important life choices a person can make. They may determine where your children will be able to go to college, when you'll be able to retire and the type of lifestyle you'll enjoy after you retire.For these reasons, many investors are now re-evaluating their strategies, reassessing their personal tolerance for risk, revisiting their asset allocation strategy and rethinking their long-term financial plans.In order to make sound decisions in this environment, investors should be aware of their own psychological blind spots. These can lead all of us to make persistently poor financial choices -- errors that over time can do significant damage to our portfolios.Traditional financial theory assumes all investment decisions are made rationally, based on the best available information. In theory, the result is an efficient market -- one in which prices accurately reflect fundamentals, such as earnings and interest rates.However, it's not always easy to reconcile financial theory with financial reality. Investors often appear determined to ignore the fundamentals, both in bidding stock prices up and creating "bubbles" only to watch them fall -- and often fall dramatically as we have recently witnessed."In many important ways, real financial markets do not resemble the ones we would imagine if we only read finance textbooks," notes Richard Thaler, a professor at the University of Chicago and a leading behavioral finance researcher.Prudent strategiesIt's not that investors are totally irrational, Thaler and other researchers argue, but rather that their thinking can be influenced by mental biases. These quirks can lead themto make choices that appear intuitively correct, but produce poor performance.This field is known as behavioral finance, and it tries to find explanations for these apparent contradictions. It's not that investors are irrational, but that their thinking may be often guided - or, in some cases, misguided - by subtle biases and mental blind spots.Some examples include: • Investors generally assume they know more than they actually do. They also tend to remember previous investment decisions in ways that exaggerate their own foresight. This can lead to overly aggressive trading and a reluctance to admit -- and correct -- mistakes. • Financial experts often advise investors to take their entire portfolio into account when making investment decisions. Yet many investors unconsciously divide their wealth into separate pots. If they have a big gain, for example, they may think of it as essentially "free" money and take greater risks with it than they would with their "own" money. • Logically, investors should always base their decisions on current prices and expectations. Instead, they often become fixed on past events, such as the price they paid for a particular stock. Investors will often refuse to sell at a price lower than that -- even when it makes more sense to accept their loss and invest their remaining money elsewhere. • How people view a decision often depends on how their choices are presented. For example, in one study researchers asked participants how much they would be willing to pay to avoid a one-in-a-thousand chance of being killed. The average answer was $1,000. Participants were then asked how much they would demand to accept the same risk. This time, the answers ranged as high as $200,000. From an economic point of view, the two questions were identical, but subjects saw them very differently. • In a completely rational market, the risk of loss and the possibility of gain should carry equal weight. However, on average, investors place twice as much importance on avoiding a loss as they do on making a gain. In other words, to accept a 50 percent chance of losing $100, most people will demand at least a 50 percent chance of earning $200.Are investors doomed to repeat these mistakes? Maybe not. Some studies have shown that the more investors know about the investment process, the less likely they are to be misled by behavioral biases.This is one reason we encourage investors to develop prudent, long-term investment strategies that take into account their goals and tolerance for risk. While this doesn't guarantee investment success, it can at least reduce the risk of being led astray by behavioral blind spots. That's something even the smartest investor may benefit from in today's volatile market environment.Don Sommese, a certified financial planner who works in the Manchester office of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, can be reached at 603-629-0200.
|
<urn:uuid:9a726715-b7f0-4d94-9400-ab13bbce5488>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.nhbr.com/September-23-2011/Understanding-the-pitfalls-of-behavioral-finance/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00001-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.970551
| 885
| 2.703125
| 3
|
Utah Office of Ed Initiative Develops Open Textbooks
Diana Suddreth is the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, or STEM Coordinator with the Utah State Office of Education. She said the USOE has a plan to create open source textbooks.
Open source textbooks have all open-access information and are being developed by a new initiative.
Teachers will have online textbooks available, with all the online access of the web, or print.
They'll be printable for $5 a piece. This way, each year the district has the opportunity to update them immediately.
Expert teachers are putting these textbooks together, and districts can then add or remove information from it.
Jeff Robinson has the story.
|
<urn:uuid:68694747-e5a3-40f8-8d27-d8496ba7d933>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://upr.org/post/utah-office-ed-initiative-develops-open-textbooks
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00098-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.912886
| 146
| 2.765625
| 3
|
In the software, a run is the cable tray or conduit parts that encase or support wires, bringing them from one point, such as a junction box or a panel, to another point, such as the junction with another run. A network is a group of interconnected cable tray or conduit runs.
Viewing conduit and junction boxes in 3D
To add cable trays and conduits to a drawing, you draw the main runs, locating the risers. As you , you lay out wireway geometry by specifying points in the drawing. The software automatically adds fittings to connect segments when forming a run and to connect runs to risers and branches when forming a network (auto layout). You can also .
Drawing a cable tray segment
Once you have drawn the cable tray or conduit runs, you can connect them to form a complete cable tray or conduit network. can help you locate valid connection points on objects in your drawing. You can start a run at the end of a segment or run, or at any point along the path of another run. In this case, the software inserts an appropriate fitting to connect the 2 runs, .
Drawing a branch
Cable tray and conduit components store properties such as connection type, size, system, and part type. When you connect to existing cable tray or conduit runs to create branches, part properties are inherited, providing a consistent method of drafting a layout. This ensures that you are creating intelligent building system designs.
You can also assign to cable tray and conduit to enable layouts to act together by maintaining the same look and feel throughout the system. For example, a group of cable tray runs can represent a power and lighting system, while another group of cable tray runs can represent a general system.
|
<urn:uuid:423edb5e-5b15-4daf-8ab5-6648be94bd26>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://docs.autodesk.com/BLDSYS/2011/ENU/filesAMEUGUsersGuide/WS73099cc142f48755-575eab4c124f5234aa8-5adb.htm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00147-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.878898
| 355
| 2.78125
| 3
|
Part of the reason it is such a mess is because it is trying to do so many things at once, and manages to do none of them very well. The movie establishes a few salient points of Turing's life, while simultaneously attempting to cover a host of other issues, including but not limited to:
- Turing's theories about computing,
- how to break codes,
- why breaking the Enigma code was important to the British war effort,
- how the code was broken,
- what the modern world owes to Turing's eccentric mind,
- how that mind worked,
- the emotional stakes involved in war work,
- the strain of being a lonely genius,
- the homophobia that forced him to live his life in hiding and that ultimately killed him,
- the seeds of the Cold War planted during World War II,
- the sexism rife in the 1940s,
- the evolving nature of WWII intelligence work,
- the role of M6,
- the conflict between logic and emotion,
- the nature of human social relations,
- bullying in boy's schools of the 1920s,
- the nature of violence,
- the effect of the Battle of Britain on civilians. . .
All with a running time of under two hours. You can see the problem. Furthermore, the movie skips around in three different time periods, which was maybe not such a useful structure. Shall we dive in?
(By this point, I have lost track of exactly how the movie skips through time, and in what order. For clarity's sake, I am going to just summarize each time period. Let's finish out 1951, even if that does take us to the end of the movie before we even get to the middle.)
The movie opens in 1951, when some cops arrive at Alan Turing's home in Manchester in response to a neighbor's report of a burglary. Turing is bent over amid the mess, sweeping up a fine powder which he identifies as cyanide. Somehow, the police know that nothing has been stolen, but they want Turing to file a report anyway, which he declines to do. Apparently the crime rate in Manchester in 1951 was sufficiently low that the police didn't have enough to do: Detective Nock decides that "Professor Turing is hiding something" and he decides to pry into the professor's war records.
Now all of this is rather telling, if you are already familiar with the broad outlines of Turing's life. In that case, you realize that his war record is stellar, but he's hiding his homosexuality. The "burglary" was committed by a young male prostitute who Turing knew. The cyanide is a foreshadowing of Turing's eventual suicide by cyanide, widely presumed to have been staged to look like an accident to spare his mother's feelings. If you don't already know these things, well, too bad, because the movie isn't really going to explain most of them.
(There is also a very James Bond looking moment where a shadowy official-looking figure is handed a note that says "Alan Turing's home was burgled." It looks ominous, but might not be? No--we aren't ever going to have this explained either. )
Detective Nock is using correction fluid to alter some document. Remember correction fluid? Oh, those Olde Tymes! Apparently, this clumsy forgery fools the staff of an unidentified depository, where he is asking to look at Turing's classified war records. What he gets--eventually--is an empty envelope. Which he takes to mean that Turing is a Soviet spy.
Okay, let's just stop here for a moment, because I have some questions that the movie neither asks nor answers. First of all--if the War Secrets Act forbids Turing from ever talking about his work at Bletchley Park (and that information was classified for some 50 years after the war), don't you think somebody would have looked at a letter with a big glob of Wite-Out on it and maybe. . .raised some questions? Confronted the guy with trying to illicitly obtain War Secrets? Maybe had him arrested? Or, are we supposed to think that this is an Especially Clever Detective who has fooled the British Military establishment?
Alternatively, are we to think that the military was not fooled by the "Wite-Out Stratagem" and rather than confronting the guy, simply gave him an empty envelope? And he wasn't smart enough to figure that out either? I don't know. And as the movie progresses, we don't get any answers to that either.
What does happen is that while Nock is apparently dreaming that he's about to bring down a Soviet spy ring, the constables find Turing's burglar, who discloses that Turing is "a pouf." Homosexuality is illegal, so they issue a warrant and arrest him. Nock is appalled, and says so. "That's not the investigation I was running!" But a crime is a crime, so Nock asks to be the one who interrogates Turing.
So now this Detective Nock is the audience surrogate? He talks to Turing, and elicits the story we see on screen? I mean, the movie actually does start with a voice over, and there is some confusing dialogue where Turing invites the detective to "play" the imitation game, by asking questions.* So it seems that in some version of this movie, Detective Nock was the framing device, but that more or less got revised and muddled, because significant swaths of the story don't seem like they would be at all relevant to either the investigation into his homosexuality, the burglary, spying, or the Turing Test. Why would he go into detail about his 1928 school days to a cop? (Why are we watching those scenes either?)
*I assume this is what might be better known as the "Turing Test"--a thought experiment where a person poses questions to unseen participants. A computer can be said to beat the Turing test if the questioner can't tell the computer's answers from a human's. Not sure how the detective can play this game when face to face with Turing, but that's yet another thing the movie fails to address.
Anyway, the framing device doesn't really make sense, and the detective fails to create any sense of audience identification. He's a mook, who starts poking around in Turing's life for no clear reason, violates War Secrets acts, gets the whole story of Turing's (classified, remember?) war service that he doesn't have clearance to hear.
I wonder if somebody realized this? But maybe only in, like, post-production? "Hey--the way we set this up, both Turing and Nock should be hanged as traitors. Can we maybe do something about that?" "Well, we can't get Cumberbatch back for reshoots, so we'll just mess up the timeline and maybe nobody will notice?"
So, let's skip to the meatiest part of the film, the Bletchley Park years.
Turing applies to work at Bletchley Park. He tells us he's currently 27, although he looks basically the same as he did in 1951, plus he's still got the same (stupid) haircut. He's being interviewed by a high ranking military officer who is played by Charles Dance. If you primarily know Charles Dance as Tywin Lannister from Game of Thrones, you might be surprised at how funny he can be. The scene starts out as nearly a cross-talk vaudeville routine, riffing on Turing's inability to recognize a joke or sarcasm. In an exposition dump that is pretty well disguised by the humor, we learn that Turing is a math prodigy, he solves puzzles, he wants to break the Enigma code because it is the worlds hardest puzzle, and he doesn't do well with authority. There is a reference to "Mother says I'm off-putting." Again, if you know about his "accidental suicide" the reference to his mother is telling. Otherwise, it merely makes him seem extraordinarily odd and a-social. So, mission accomplished I guess.
Weirdly, the Big Initiative to Break the German Codes has. . .a total of 6 guys? There seems to be a lot of activity in the area, and lots of secretaries and transcriptionists, but only six guys who are trying to actually break the codes? And their equipment seems to be pencils? We know they have an actual Enigma machine, because that's the first thing they see. Why not just put the intercepted messages through the machine, one of them asks. You need to have the password, and there are "159 million million million" possible combinations. "That's 159 with eighteen zeroes behind it." We are also told that the Germans change their password at midnight every day, and the first messages go out at 6 a.m. They do have one decoded message (from where? Oh, silly audience, why would the movie answer that?) and it's a weather report.
So five of the guys sit around, write things on a black board and go out for sandwiches. It is not clear what strategy--if any--they have for breaking codes. Meanwhile, Turing invents a machine with 108 rotating dials that he intends to use to churn through all the possible combinations mechanically. (This is the first computer ever built. Turing names it "Christopher".) There are some power politics, and once the machine is built, for some reason, Tywin Lannister decides it's not working and so he's going to have it destroyed. The other five guys make a show of solidarity--if you fire Turing, you will have to fire us as well.
Okay--but it's been two years, there's been no code broken as far as we know, and no progress on any front. Tywin hates Turing, we are told, but not why. Not sure why turning off the machine would help more than--oh just off the top of my head--hiring more cryptographers? No--five guys seems to be all Britain wants to use.
Turing hires two additional people--Keira Knightley, and some Random Guy with Glasses. There are a couple of scenes where Keira gets marginalized, because she's female, and Turing goes to bat for her. He illegally smuggles messages out of Bletchley to her, because she is also a math wizard who solves crossword puzzles very quickly. So she never does any code breaking, but teaches Turing to tell jokes and try to be more socially gracious. They get engaged, even though he's homosexual, she doesn't care because she can stay at Bletchley if she's married, otherwise her parents want her to come back home and live like a decent unmarried 25 year old spinster. Which is all--what? Why is this even in this movie?
At the engagement party, Turing confesses his homosexuality to one of the other code (non)breakers, John Cairncross, played by Allan Leech, better known as Tom Branson from Downtown Abbey. Branson already figured out Turing is homosexual, but advises him not to tell Keira Knightley because women aren't keen on marrying known homosexuals. Branson turns out to be passing information to the Soviets, and claims they are on the same side, so it's okay, and anyway, Turing can't tell because then Branson will tell his secret. Then it turns out that Mark Strong (acting with hair this time!) planted Branson in order to control what does get passed to Stalin, and poor Turing can't keep up with the double-double crosses.
Eventually, the break the code. Do you know how they break the code? They bother to look at messages that have been decoded (where? How? why did it take them years to think of doing that?) and they discover that the Germans end every message with "Heil Hitler." Also, the 6 a.m. weather reports always have the time (6 a.m.) and weather words.
Now, I'm sorry, but knowing that every message ends with "Heil Hitler" means that you have a whole lot fewer codes you need to worry about, doesn't it? Shouldn't they have figured that out a whole lot earlier in the war? Why do they even need Turing's machine if they know that?
There's no time for that! The movie must speed ahead! We have broken the code! We have read the dispatches! We have a map with all the Uboats placed--and it looks like they are about to attack a civilian convoy--that has soldiers on it too. One of the code breakers has a brother serving on one of the ships. We have to notify the army and save the civilians!
But Turing knows--we can't! Then the Germans will know Britain has broken Enigma, and they will simply switch up the machine, and we will have to start all over again! So the Littlest Code Breaker (the one with the brother that was only mentioned in passing once before) stands there in tears and keeps repeating "my brother, my brother" while the rest of the cryptologists unilaterally decide the strategy for handling military intelligence. Because that's how the military works.
Also, they stay on and use "statistics" and "data" to determine how much intelligence they can release without the Germans realizing that Enigma has been compromised. They can't explain how they do that, because it is far too technical, but it's a huge emotional burden. Except for Turing, who doesn't understand emotions. And then the war is won hurrah! And they have to dismantle and burn all their papers because of Reasons.
Interleaved throughout are some Alan Turing's School Days scenes, set in 1928, when he makes a friend who teaches him about codes. They pass coded messages back and forth during math class (which is too easy for them) and Young Turing falls in love, but Christopher dies over break of "bovine tuberculosis" and Turing denies that they knew each other very well at all. So the big emotional scene is played by some kid pretending to be the young Cumberbatch, while not looking like him at all. The culmination of the 1928 scenes is this kid trying to hold his face steady, while his heart is breaking, and while he lies to his headmaster about "I scarcely knew him at all." Why? What does this have to do with adult Turing? Not clear, other than explaining why he named his computer "Christopher."
Then there is a coda, that wraps up Turing's conviction for "gross indecency" and his election to take "chemical castration" to "cure" him of his homosexual predilections instead of two years of prison time. Keira Knightley comes to visit him, and he's a shaky mess, can't do a crossword puzzle (what is causing his mental incapacity, and how bad is it). He ends up breaking down into tears over the idea of being separated from "Christopher." Keira tells him that she is glad he isn't "normal" because there are people alive and towns that exist that wouldn't if he hadn't cracked the Enigma code.
Text on screen tells us that Turing committed suicide in 1954 at the age of 41. Turing's work is estimated to have shortened the war by 2 years, saving millions of lives. "Turing machines" are now called "computers." The End. Annnnnnd--credits.
Honestly? This is such a mess that it's hard to sort out just where it went wrong. Maybe it just tried to do too many things at one. American's aren't really up to scratch with Bletchley Park and the role of the Enigma code break and how it affected the war, so U.S. audiences have to be filled in on the essentials. There are attempts to impose the "ticking clock"--we have to crack this code before time runs out!--that just don't connect. There are scenes of British civilians during air raids and evacuating children that fail to connect dramatically, because those scenes are all populated by extras with no connection to anybody we know form the rest of the film. Stock film of bombing of London reminds us that there is a war on, but again--doesn't really affect anybody individually. The risk that Keira might have to move home and live with her parents has more impact than grainy black-and-white film of German planes.
The cost to Turing and to the world of the homophobia is gestured towards, but not really explored. He was a genius and a hero, and it certainly seems unfair NOW to hound him for his sexual preferences. . .but would we feel differently (even now) if he was a pederast? Arguably, in 1951, homosexuality was considered the same way. So if you are really going to try to challenge homophobia, maybe you need to actually challenge it? Nobody but the Manchester bobbies of 1951 seemed to have any real problem with Turing's obvious preferences. Not even Keira cared--she was willing to marry him even after he confessed to her.
It appears that the Weinstein Company is pitching their Oscar campaign on this issue. Too bad the movie itself muddles it so badly.
There are a couple of through lines that should have landed better. The recurrent motif of "is Turing a Soviet Spy" should have felt more ominous--either that he was and we had misjudged him, or that there were serious consequences to him looming. The fact that M6 not only knew who the spy was, but had planted him there from the beginning defanged all threat, both during the war, and afterwards.
"Sometimes, it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine." This gets repeated throughout the film, without ever adding up to much. Christopher says it to Turing in 1928. Turing says it to Keira Knightley in order to get her to Bletchley in 1942. Keira says it back to Turing in 1952-ish. It's really the message of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, isn't it? "You are weird, Alan Turing, but that weirdness can be useful."
Should have been better.
|
<urn:uuid:ecd91029-3efb-4cd2-b72d-d390611563fe>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://mistressofallevil.blogspot.com/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391766.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00041-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.977231
| 3,779
| 2.59375
| 3
|
Above: An incomplete sketch by Hans Holbein the Younger (d. 1543) believed to show Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder (1503 - 1542), a Tudor courtier, diplomat, politician and adventurer, who is perhaps best known nowadays for being one of sixteenth century England's most influential poets. He was arrested on May 5th, 1536 under apparent suspicion of being Queen Anne Boleyn's sixth lover. He was a close friend of her brother, Lord Rochford, "a tall, muscular, multi-lingual Oxford graduate with a passion for poetry, power and Protestantism," who was also currently a prisoner in the Tower.
"... Sir Thomas Wyatt, was a 32 year-old poet, who had known the Queen since her arrival in England as a debutante fourteen years earlier. His sister, Lady Lee, was one of the Queen’s chief ladies-in-waiting and in the days before she had come to Henry VIII’s attention, Wyatt had apparently been in love with Anne Boleyn, “this new beauty.” By the accounts of all those who actually knew them, this love was unrequited and we have some haunting poetry from that time expressing Wyatt’s pain at the situation. Upon hearing of Anne’s betrothal to the King, he had returned to his rooms, packed his bags and gone to Italy for several years on a diplomatic mission to the Vatican. The kind of overblown and melodramatic gesture one might expect from a poet and an indication of why he made so many women go weak at the knees - all except Anne, of course, and his own wife, who openly despised him."
For this blog's full account of the day on which Wyatt was arrested and escorted to the Tower, click HERE.
|
<urn:uuid:588f9972-466c-4376-bec8-a9f2b2d6a06a>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://garethrussellcidevant.blogspot.com/2011/05/fall-of-anne-boleyn-day-5-arrest-of.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00161-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.984897
| 373
| 3.125
| 3
|
Toni Morrison's first novel, The Bluest Eye, was published by Holt, Rinehart, and Winston in 1970 while Morrison was an editor for Random House in New York City. She remained at Random House until 1983, the year after the publication of her fifth novel Beloved. Morrison's inaugural novel received faint praise from most, though not all, reviewers, primarily because few of the reviewers for the well-known national publications understood the book. Reviews in small circulation publications such as Black World and Freedomways were notable exceptions. Nevertheless, as a first-time novelist Toni Morrison's notices in the New York Times Book Review and The New Yorker gave her national recognition that w…
Jimoh, A Yemisi. "The Bluest Eye". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 September 2003; last revised 20 March 2012.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1425, accessed 02 July 2016.]
|
<urn:uuid:844c2086-43e7-4184-80da-2a1fb87b3fbd>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1425
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403826.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00018-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.957056
| 202
| 2.859375
| 3
|
Rosa Parks: Think Aloud 1Watch Andrew contextualize Bayard Rustin's Diary
"So, hmm, so they’re afraid of his differences here, one for being gay, and two for the Communist, I guess that the one thing they did not want to do is make it look like the Communists were supporting this movement because then that would spook everyone in America because, well not everyone in America, but this was during a great fear of Communists in America and would definitely, if the movement was aligned with Communists, then it would lose a lot of support."
In this clip, Andrew demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of contextualization. Reading the head note for the Rustin document, Andrew notices the description of Rustin as a "gay Communist" who was asked to leave Montgomery. As a high school sophomore, Andrew has not yet studied 20th century American history in high school, but he clearly has some knowledge about the Communist Party and how it was perceived at that time. He notes, "This was during a great fear of Communists in America." He understands that Rustin’s involvement would hurt the larger Civil Rights movement, "if the movement was aligned with the Communists, then it would lose a lot of support."
Andrew draws on knowledge of context to make sense of why a movement that championed equal rights would, paradoxically, ask one of its main supporters to leave. It was crucial for Civil Rights leaders to build support from a variety of groups. Allowing a Communist—a gay Communist at that—to be associated with the movement would, in Andrew’s words, "spook everyone." Few other students we interviewed made these connections. Instead, they saw Rustin’s treatment as "unfair" and questioned whether the movement was "hypocritical."Andrew, on the other hand, does something quite different. He pauses at this unexpected detail, and rather than issuing judgments about the fairness of Rustin’s expulsion, he uses this information to imagine a different time: an America rabidly paranoid of Communists and viciously antagonistic to gays. For Andrew, the unexpected is an invitation to historical thought rather than a signal to issue a quick condemnation. By engaging in contextualization, Andrew is able to see how these actions might have been perceived to someone living in the 1950s, not the world of today.
|
<urn:uuid:610b05a9-4043-46f0-8aef-034dfc37216a>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://historicalthinkingmatters.org/rosaparks/1/studentwork/ta1/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398216.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00021-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.981083
| 480
| 3.078125
| 3
|
Definitions for arielˈɛər i əl
This page provides all possible meanings and translations of the word ariel
A name for the city of Jerusalem.
, also ascribed to spirits and angels in English literature.
, used mainly since the 1980s.
Name of the twelfth and brightest moon of the planet Uranus.
type of mountain gazelle, native to Arabia
Origin: From Biblical , meaning "lion of God".
alt. of Ariel gazelle
Origin: [Heb. aril, perh. confused with E. arial.]
Ariel is the fourth-largest of the 27 known moons of Uranus. Ariel orbits and rotates in the equatorial plane of Uranus, which is almost perpendicular to the orbit of Uranus, and so has an extreme seasonal cycle. It was discovered in October 1851 by William Lassell, and named for a character in two different pieces of literature. As of 2012, much of the detailed knowledge of Ariel derives from a single flyby of Uranus performed by the spacecraft Voyager 2 in 1986, which managed to image around 35% of the moon's surface. There are no active plans at present to return to study the moon in more detail, although various concepts such as Uranus orbiter and probe are proposed from time to time. After Miranda, Ariel is the second-smallest of Uranus' five major rounded satellites, and the second-closest to its planet. Among the smallest of the Solar System's 19 known spherical moons, it is believed to be composed of roughly equal parts ice and rocky material. Like all of Uranus' moons, Ariel probably formed from an accretion disc that surrounded the planet shortly after its formation, and, like other large moons, it is likely differentiated, with an inner core of rock surrounded by a mantle of ice. Ariel has a complex surface consisting of extensive cratered terrain cross-cut by a system of scarps, canyons and ridges. The surface shows signs of more recent geological activity than other Uranian moons, most likely due to tidal heating.
Chambers 20th Century Dictionary
ā′ri-el, n. a man's name in the Old Testament, variously explained as 'lion of God,' 'hearth of God:' in later demonology, a water-spirit: an angel: a spirit of the air. [Heb. ariēl.]
ā′ri-el, n. a species of gazelle in Western Asia. [Ar. aryil.]
The Nuttall Encyclopedia
an idol of the Moabites, an outcast angel.
The numerical value of ariel in Chaldean Numerology is: 3
The numerical value of ariel in Pythagorean Numerology is: 9
Sample Sentences & Example Usage
This is the most right-wing government in Israeli history, much further to the right than the Menachem Begin or Ariel Sharon governments.
I can't even really put it into words about how amazing it feels to really feel right. ariel Winter started to hurt so bad that I couldn't take the pain.
It’s the girls, Ariel, on our show, and Sarah and Sofia, he told FOX411. It’s rough, and people are really super mean, and they’re cowards on social media.
Oh, she does great work on' Modern Family.' ariel Winter's something that I did to better my life and better my health, and I think that that can benefit a lot of young girls.
It was not easy parting with the coin, after all, it is not every day one discovers such an amazing object, but I hope I will see it displayed in a museum in the near future. Related : Archaeologists discover ancient Anglo-Saxon island in UK countryside It was quickly determined this was not just any coin. It dates to 107 AD and was part of a series of nostalgic coins that Emperor Trajan minted and dedicated to the Roman emperors that ruled before Emperor Trajan. The only other coin of this kind is believed to be the one held by the British Museum. Two other gold coins of this emperor have been registered in the State Treasures, one from Giv ‘ at Shaul near Jerusalem, and the other from the Qiryat Gat region, Donald T. Ariel, head curator of the coin department at the Israel Antiquities Authority, said in a statement. But the details on both are different to those that appear on the coin found by Rimon.
Images & Illustrations of ariel
Find a translation for the ariel definition in other languages:
Select another language:
|
<urn:uuid:0b67c83c-c047-4b86-bb25-72261031d408>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.definitions.net/definition/ariel
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397797.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00141-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.933614
| 974
| 3.046875
| 3
|
``Sacrum commercium,'' an early Franciscan tract, as theological literature
The study examines an allegorical prose work, Sacrum commercium Sancti Francisci cum domina Paupertate (The Sacred Bond of Saint Francis with Lady Poverty). Written perhaps in the year after Francis' death (1227), it advocates insistence on voluntary poverty for Franciscanism. Sometimes taken as a romance depicting a spiritual marriage between Francis and Poverty, it is actually an oblique defense of the Founder's most distinctive intention.^ After setting the historical context, the study investigates the shades of meaning in the title, Commercium. Applying literary criticism to primarily theological material, it interprets the central personification allegory according to medieval theories of figuralism. Sources and influences identified include Boethius, Alan of Lille, and even Vergil. Rhetorical sophistication, especially in the use of biblical diction, is stressed. Finally Poverty's role (within the allegory) as pivotal in human Redemption is delineated.^ Primary sources were Sacrum commercium, Francis' own writings, and the Legendae (early biographies.) Earlier allegories are cited as prototypes.^ Secondary sources include writings on Sacrum commercium, particularly by Sabatier and Esser. The latter's views are crucial. Of the literary theorists cited, Erich Auerbach and Northrup Frye are preeminent, while Caroline Walker Bynum and Ewert Cousins especially influenced the theological perspective.^ The study concludes that, except for one possible scribal emendation, a marriage bond is not supported by the text. A feudal pact, with Francis as vassal and Lady Poverty as liege, better suits its sense and ultimate purpose. Intrinsically, the work is a persuasive defense of Evangelical Poverty.^ The theme of Bridal Mysticism was eventually to become associated with this work through the influence of Celano, Dante and Giotto. The result was that Sacrum commercium came to be seen more as glorification of Francis than of Poverty. However worthy the latter may seem, it detracts from the cutting edge of the argument. Sacrum commercium, when read straightforwardly, carries a message as pertinent to the Religious Life today as when it was written. ^
Robert M Dresser,
"``Sacrum commercium,'' an early Franciscan tract, as theological literature"
(January 1, 1990).
ETD Collection for Fordham University.
|
<urn:uuid:d769abf9-aeb4-4d8e-a61a-48408772a04d>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://fordham.bepress.com/dissertations/AAI9105784/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00125-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.914759
| 506
| 2.65625
| 3
|
The 2014 B.A.T. Mobile race will be held at the Florida Solar Energy Center,
March 8, 2014.
The competition is part of the Science Bowl for Middle School students held by the Space Coast Science Education Alliance (SCSEA).
Middle school students, 6-8th grade are invited to design, build and race electric cars. The small model cars — are built as team efforts guided by teachers.
To view photos of the 2013 B.A.T. Mobile Challenge,
visit our online photo gallery.
This competition is the second part of the SCSEA Science Bowl for Middle School Students. To register, please visit the Space Coast Science Education website.
Transportation in the United States is expected to change radically in response to environmental constraints, fluctuating oil availability and economic factors. The transportation systems that emerge in the 21st century will be defined largely by the choices, skills and imagination of today's youth. As scientists and engineers, they will develop new vehicle and fuel technologies. As citizens, they will make decisions balancing mobility, environmental and economic needs.
The race tests the creative engineering skills of students as they gain hands-on experience in the automotive design process.
|
<urn:uuid:6d40111c-8ee4-449d-afb0-07fa2ae3db05>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.fsec.ucf.edu/en/education/k-12/energywhiz_olympics/batt_mobile/index.htm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396027.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00091-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.950824
| 244
| 2.96875
| 3
|
hydroxychloroquine - oral, Plaquenil (cont.)
HOW TO USE: Hydroxychloroquine is usually taken with food or milk to prevent stomach upset. The dosage and length of treatment are based on your medical condition and response to therapy. In children, dosage is also based on weight. For malaria prevention, take this medication by mouth once a week on the same day of the week, or as directed by your doctor. Mark a calendar to help you remember. This drug is usually started 2 weeks before entering the area with malaria. Take it once weekly while in the area, and continue taking it for 4 to 8 weeks after leaving the area or as directed by your doctor. To treat malaria, follow your doctor's instructions.For lupus or rheumatoid arthritis, take this medication by mouth, usually once or twice daily or as directed. Your doctor may gradually increase your dose. Once you have been taking the medication for a while and your condition has improved, your doctor may instruct you to lower your dose until you find the dose that works best with the fewest side effects.Use this medication regularly in order to get the most benefit from it. If you are taking it on a daily schedule, take it at the same time each day. Take this medication exactly as prescribed. Do not stop taking it without talking with your doctor, especially if you are taking it for malaria. It is important to continue taking this for the length of time prescribed. Stopping prevention or treatment too soon may lead to infection or a return of the infection.Inform your doctor if your condition persists or worsens. It may take several weeks or months to see improvement if you are taking this for lupus or arthritis. Hydroxychloroquine may not prevent malaria in all cases. If you experience fever or other symptoms of illness, seek immediate medical attention. You may need a different medication. Avoid exposure to mosquitoes. (See also Notes section.)
SIDE EFFECTS: Nausea, stomach cramps, loss of appetite, diarrhea, dizziness, or headache may occur. If any of these effects persist or worsen, notify your doctor or pharmacist promptly.Remember that your doctor has prescribed this medication because he or she has judged that the benefit to you is greater than the risk of side effects. Many people using this medication do not have serious side effects.Tell your doctor immediately if any of these unlikely but serious side effects occur: arm/leg/back pain, fast heartbeat, hair loss/color change, mental/mood changes (e.g., anxiety, depression, hallucinations), ringing in the ears/hearing loss, worsening of skin conditions (e.g., psoriasis).This medication may infrequently cause serious (sometimes permanent) eye problems or muscle damage, especially if you take it for a long time. Seek immediate medical attention if any of these unlikely but very serious side effects occur: sensitivity to light, vision changes (e.g., blurred vision, seeing light flashes/streaks/halos, missing/blacked-out areas of vision), muscle weakness.Tell your doctor immediately if any of these rare but very serious side effects occur: severe stomach/abdominal pain, severe nausea/vomiting, easy bleeding/bruising, signs of infection (e.g., fever, persistent sore throat), seizures, shortness of breath, swelling ankles/feet, extreme tiredness, dark urine, yellowing eyes/skin.A very serious allergic reaction is unlikely, but seek immediate medical attention if it occurs. Symptoms of a serious allergic reaction may include: rash, itching/swelling (especially of the face/tongue/throat), dizziness, trouble breathing.This is not a complete list of possible side effects. If you notice other effects not listed above, contact your doctor or pharmacist.In the US -Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088.In Canada - Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to Health Canada at 1-866-234-2345.
Report Problems to the Food and Drug Administration
You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit the FDA MedWatch website or call 1-800-FDA-1088.
Need help identifying pills and medications?
Back to Medications Index
|
<urn:uuid:a2aeba0e-5dfa-49d1-9cf8-39a9a6fb4b31>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.medicinenet.com/hydroxychloroquine-oral/page2.htm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404382.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00049-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.915869
| 908
| 2.65625
| 3
|
Posts by Annmarie Dadoly
Everyone has moments of forgetfulness—misplaced keys, a forgotten errand, the name of that movie you want to recommend but can’t get off the tip of your tongue. A certain amount of forgetfulness seems to be a normal byproduct of aging. But how do you know is forgetfulness signals something more serious, like Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia? According to “A Guide to Alzheimer’s Disease,” an updated Special Health Report from Harvard Medical School, by exploring several questions you may be able to get a clearer sense of normal versus worrisome forgetfulness: Is my loved one worried about the memory loss? Is he or she getting lost in familiar territory? Are word-finding problems common? Is your loved one losing the ability to socialize, or interest in it?
Replacing unhealthy behaviors with healthier ones usually isn’t easy, and many ambitious attempts often fall short. But you’re more likely to succeed if you start by choosing the right goal—the one you are most likely to accomplish—rather than the goal you think you should make. Breaking a goal into bite-sized pieces also helps. So does making your goal a SMART one (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-based).
As summer winds to a close, many school age children are reluctant to greet another school year. Who can blame them? Swapping swimming, lazy days, camp activities, and late nights for classrooms, homework, and early morning bus rides isn’t much of a trade at all. For some children, reluctance turns into school refusal. This goes beyond an occasional “I hate school” or “I don’t want to go to school today.” Children with school refusal may sob, scream, or plead for hours before school in an attempt to stay home. They may often complain of illness and run home from school if forced to go. Absences can last weeks or even months. The problem may start at any point but common triggers are the start of a new school year, making the transition to a new school (middle school to high school, for example), or returning from school vacation. School refusal often stems from an anxiety disorder, according to Coping with Anxiety and Phobias, a new Special Health Report from Harvard Medical School. Helping a child through school refusal often takes concerted effort from the parents, school staff, a therapist, and the child.
Your body’s core—the girdle of muscles, bones, and joints that connects your upper and lower body—gives you stability and helps power the moves you make every day. Whether it’s bending to pick up a laundry basket, paddling a kayak, or reaching to pull a vase from the top shelf of a cabinet, a strong and flexible core makes the move more fluid, efficient, and robust. Strong, well-balanced core muscles can also improve your posture and help prevent back injuries. Exercise and fitness programs increasingly focus on the core. Lunges, squats, and planks (a move that looks a bit like a push-up and is often substituted for sit-ups) are key moves in most good core workouts. But it’s important to pay attention to proper form to protect you from injury and help you gain the most benefit from each exercise.
Feeling stressed? Call a timeout, counsels “Stress Management,” a new Special Health Report from Harvard Health Publications. One way to stop stress and worry from taking over your days involves setting aside 15 minutes or so to focus on your problems. When the time is up, try to leave your worries aside and focus on something more productive. Writing down your worries and dropping them in a “worry box” can also help, explains Harvard Health editor Annmarie Dadoly.
Many suicides are impulsive, with just minutes or an hour elapsing between the time a person decides upon suicide and when he or she commits the act. Yet the stressful events that lead to suicidal thoughts are often temporary, such as losing a job or having a romantic relationship end.
|
<urn:uuid:5e1e7331-db5b-4c1a-a385-785ff3ef7468>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/author/annmariedadoly
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397842.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00078-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.95428
| 857
| 2.65625
| 3
|
The Little Book On Line
A Study Guide for the Ohio Ninth-Grade Citizenship Proficiency Test
S. Evaluating Officials and Issues
Public officials are responsible to the people they serve. Therefore it is important that
think seriously about those they elect. The
who merely talks well and who promises more than he or she can deliver is not
the person for the job.
must be considered as
for public office. Is the candidate honest, hard-working? Do his policies
and voting record reflect the interest of the people who elected him, or is he
out for political or personal gain?
Issuesor matters to be decided by voters at the ballot box, also deserve careful attention. These may concern matters affecting schools,
roads, taxes, welfare payments and job opportunities. Before every election
there will be a lot of
over TV. One has to distinguish between exaggerated
discussion of issues.
Good sources of information
local or national newspapers
national news broadcasts
local public television station.
In other words, articles and programs which are not
and whose claims are supported by
can be considered
The informed citizen is perhaps a nation's most important
Background information on all subjects is available at your public or school
library. For example, encyclopedias and atlases are fine sources. Learning to
which follow is another way of adding to your general knowledge.
|
<urn:uuid:dd7c8c64-22c4-48c5-b947-a3cac760b5df>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.saturdaytutoring.org/book/evaluate.htm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00180-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.921745
| 286
| 3.59375
| 4
|
The Tickle Trunk
Morphogenesis is the development of structural features and patterns in organisms. Formal interest in this area probably dates to the 19th century, when it was observed that the phyllotaxis (leaf arrangement) of many plants could be predicted using the ratios of successive Fibonacci numbers. The field received a true jump-start in 1952, however, when Alan Turing published "The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis" , his last publication before his death in 1954. Turing proposed a reaction-diffusion model as a possible basis for the development of many features, including the arrangement of tentacles on the hydra and the patterns of colour seen on animal skin. Turing, more widely known for his work in cryptography and computing science, made use of an early computer (the Ferranti Mark I) to solve the differential equations that formed the basis of this model. (There is an applet on this site that will help you do the same.)
Computing has continued to play an important role in the study of morphogenesis, although it was the introduction of Lindenmayer systems in 1968 that marked the first use of not only computational power but also made use of theoretical computer science. The eponymic Aristid Lindenmayer was a theoretical biologist who proposed L-systems to formally describe the growth patterns of algae. It was later extended to include the branching structures of plants.
Formally, an L-system is a language, which means a set of strings that is made by the application of certain rules. (A string is a sequence of symbols—the text of this page is a string, for example.) Informally, L-systems consist of two important pieces: an axiom, and a set of productions. The axiom is the starting point, like a seed. The set of productions are the rules. By applying these rules, any other string in the language can be produced. When the productions are applied to the axiom, they produce more strings which (along with the axiom) are also in the language of that L-system. The rules can then be applied to each of those strings to produce even more strings that are in the language, and so on. The languages of most L-systems (the most useful ones, anyway) contain an infinite number of strings.
Let's look at a simple example:
Y → XYX
The first line above gives the axiom, and the next two lines are the productions. To apply the productions, you scan a string that is known to be the language. Anywhere you see a pattern on the left side of the → symbol, you replace it with the string on the right. Let's see how that works for this system. Start with the axiom, Y. That is our "order 0" string. When you look at the single production, you see that you can replace the Y with XYX by following the rule Y → XYX. That is the order 1 string. At order 2, you see that again the rule can only be applied in one place. We replace the inner Y of XYX with XYX again, and we get XXYXX. In general, at order n, this system will produce a string that consists of n X's, a Y, and n X's again.
What happens if you add the following production?
YX → XY
The system starts the same, producing Y and then XYX as before. At the next order, you run into a problem. Two different rules can be applied at the same spot. You can replace the Y with XYX, or you can replace the Y and the following X with XY. Which to choose? It turns out that both possibilities are allowed. Systems that allow rules like these tend to become very complex. While this ability can be useful, you can still do a lot of interesting stuff—and with a lot fewer headaches—if you use a subtype of L-system called a d0L-system. This kind of system has some restrictions on it that make it easier (and computationally feasible) to work with: First, the left hand side of a production can only be a single letter. Second, no two productions can have the same left-hand side.
These restrictions ensure that a given string in the language of a d0L-system can only be transformed into exactly one other string. No more ambiguity. Our use of the term "order n string" makes sense for these systems, because there will only be one of them. Here is an interesting d0L-system:
A → AB
B → A
If you try writing the first eight orders of this system you'll get B, A, AB, ABA, ABAAB, ABAABABA, ABAABABAABAAB and ABAABABAABAABABAABABA. Notice a pattern? Consider the length of each of these strings. Can you see why the strings produced by this d0L system are called Fibostrings?
Other than a vague connection with phyllotaxis via the Fibostrings above, you may think we've gotten pretty far off track from describing the development of living organisms. Not so. Aside from producing the Fibostrings, the above system was used by Lindenmayer to characterize the growth patterns of certain kinds of algae. We can make things more interesting, though, by applying a geometric interpretation to the symbols of L-system strings.
This is done using "turtle graphics," an odd name which comes from the Logo programming language. They work like this: Imagine you're a turtle on an infinitely large piece of paper. Not just any turtle, but one that can understand simple instructions and that has a basic understanding of geometry. Finally, imagine that you (the unusually bright turtle, that is) also have a pen in your mouth.
Have you got that image in mind? Good.
Now suppose I start giving you instructions like this:
In this case, you'd have drawn a square. What a good little turtle you are.
Getting back to our L-system strings, you can assign commands like the ones above to symbols in our L-system. Then by generating a string of a certain order, you have also described instructions for drawing a picture—instructions that can be carried out by our ever-faithful turtle. Here is an example:
X → X+YF+
Y → -FX-Y
F → ε
The special symbol ε stands for the empty string, which means that we will delete any F's from the result when we rewrite the string. If the turtle interprets F to mean "move forward one step with the pen down" and - and + to mean "turn right 90°" and "turn left 90°", respectively, then the turtle will draw this picture from the order 10 string:
If you are familiar with fractals, you might recognize that picture as the famous Dragon Curve. But, while fractals are interesting enough in their own right, we were talking about morphogenesis. As I said earlier, L-systems came to be applied to the description of plants. To do this, we have to extend the turtle's capabilities a little. First, we will add a way to tell the turtle to change how far it goes in one step. Second, we will have to give the turtle a stack. A stack is a way for the turtle to remember what it is doing. It can then go off and do something else for a bit, and when it comes back it will pick up right where it left off. What's more, it can be interrupted in the middle of one of these interruptions, tend to that, and return to the first interruption, tend to that, and then return to what it was originally doing, ad infinitum. The device that the turtle uses to keep track of all its jobs is called a stack because, like a stack of dishes, the next item to come off the stack is always the item that was put there most recently. The "something else" that the turtle gets up to will usually be (in the case of plants) a smaller branch that leads off of the current one.
To get us started, here is a very simple recursive definition of a tree (recursive means that it is defined in terms of itself):
A tree is a trunk with two shorter branches coming out of the top of it at a right angle to each other.
A branch is a tree.
Let's make a tree from this definition:
A tree is a trunk with two branches...
Each branch is a tree...
Each of those branches is a tree...
After several more steps we'll get this:
Which is indeed rather tree-like. If you noticed the similarity between this process and replacing the symbols to rewrite an L-system at a higher order, then pat yourself on the back. All we need is a symbol for the "shorter" part of the definition, and a way to represent starting and stopping the interruptions ("pushing" and "popping" the stack), and we can write the above definition in L-system form. We'll use S, [, and ] for these, respectively, and we'll redefine - and + to turns of 45° rather than 90°. Then we have:
X → S[-FX]+FX
The axiom is similar to step 1 of our definition. The F draws the trunk and the X represents the branches. This is our basic definition of a tree; everywhere we write FX, a tree will sprout. The X isn't actually expanded into branches until the next order, but if we assume that the X part knows what it's doing, then we can see that this will indeed draw a tree as defined above. The order 1 string of the system will be FS[-FX]+FX. We can read this as: move forward (the trunk); shorten the length of each move; stop what you're doing; turn right; draw a tree (remember that we said every FX will sprout a new tree); return to where you were when you were last interrupted; turn left; draw a tree. The place "where you were last interrupted" is just after the point where we drew the trunk (from the order 0 part). The result will look like the picture on the left of the figure above.
Consider what will happen with the next order string, FS[-FS[-FX]+FX]+FS[-FX]+FX. The main trunk (0) is drawn; the turtle goes right; a new trunk (1) is drawn; the turtle goes right again and draws another trunk (2) and an X to be expanded next time. Now it returns to where it was last interrupted, trunk (1). It then turns left and draws a trunk (3) and an X to be expanded next time. Now it returns to where it was last interrupted again, which is at the main trunk (0). It turns left, draws a trunk (4), and then repeats the same process as for trunk (2). The result is the middle picture of the figure above. As an exercise, you might try deriving the order 3 string yourself and then trying to draw it by following the turtle rules. Verify that the result looks like the rightmost picture.
Impatient little turtle, aren't you?
But I did indeed, and you're nearly ready to try it out (and probably already have). But first I need to explain a few differences between what we've been working with and how the program works. First, since → is not very convenient to type on most keyboards, the program uses = instead. Second, to specify how far the turtle should turn with each - or +, you use an angle n command. The turtle will turn in 360/n° increments. Third, the letter G will cause the turtle to move forward without drawing. Fourth, as with →, typing ε is inconvenient for most people. To specify the empty string, you can either leave the right side of the production blank or use the _ character. Lastly, to change the line length, use @ followed by a number. The current line length will be multiplied by the number you supply. (Note: Even if you normally use "," to indicate a decimal point, use "." in the program. One half is "@0.5".) The grammar for our tree system works out to:
X = @.6[-FX]+FX
There are some more commands as well, for doing things like drawing in colour. But you seem anxious to start, so go ahead. There is a table further down that explains the rest of the commands when you're ready.
Once Java has started up and downloaded the applet, a button will appear below that opens its main window. This window is split in two halves; you choose the details of the L-system you wish to work with on the left half, and the results are drawn on the right half (the "canvas"). There are three basic steps for working with the applet:
Generally, L-systems grow in size extremely quickly. Since applets are only allowed to use a fairly small amount of memory for security reasons, it is easy to request an order that is too high for the applet to compute. When this happens, a message will appear on the canvas to tell you. Just use the Previous button to go back down an order or choose a new grammar to explore.
Note: It may take a minute for the launch button to appear above.
The command set is designed to be similar to that of the fractal software FRACTINT, although the applet's grammar language has both some added and some missing features compared to FRACTINT's L-system support. One important difference is that this parser is case-sensitive, while FRACTINT is not. Another is that the D/M form of the F/G commands is not implemented. This form is rarely used, although / and \ have been reserved, so they might be implemented in future. I must also give credit to others for the included grammars, many of which were copied or adapted from the FRACTINT or other L-system collections of many individuals.
|angle n||Sets the amount of a single turn using + or - to 360/n°.|
|order n||Sets the default order to draw this system at to n.|
|rotate n||The entire image will be rotated n° before drawing.|
|axiom s||The initial string produced by the L-system at order 0.|
|p = s||When the L-system is rewritten at a higher order, every instance of the letter p will be replaced by the string s. Note that p must be a single character, and cannot be one of the special symbols =, +, -, !, |, [, ], <, >, @, /, \, _, c, or the space character. Rewriting is case-sensitive, so, e.g., x = xXx is different from x = xxx.|
|F||The turtle will move forward one stroke with the pen down, i.e., it will draw as it moves. Note that f (the lowercase form) has no special meaning. Because F is not a reserved special symbol, it can (and often does) appear on the left side of a production.|
|G||The turtle will move forward one stroke with the pen up. Note that g has no special meaning. Because G is not a reserved special symbol, it can (and often does) appear on the left side of a production.|
|+||The turtle turns one step to the "left" without moving.|
|-||The turtle turns one step to the "right" without moving.|
|!||Reverses the meaning of "left" and "right."|
||||Turn around (the turtle turns as close to 180° as possible).|
|@n||Multiply the current stroke length by n, where n is a decimal number. The value n may be preceded by an I, in which case 1/n is used instead, or it may be preceded by a Q, in which case the square root of n is used. Example: @IQ2 multiplies the current line length by 1/√2.|
|>, >n||The > command changes the colour of the drawing pen. The turtle has a set of 256 pens which progress smoothly through the colours brown, green, blue, indigo, violet, red, orange, and back to brown. This palette has been chosen to make it easy to draw both plant-like structures and freeform designs with nice results. Using a > moves the pen one colour to the right (towards the right end of the above list). Optionally, the > may be followed by a number n, in which case the colour changes by n steps instead of 1.|
|<, <n||As above, with the colour change moving toward the left instead of the right.|
|cn||Change directly to pen colour n.|
|[||Store the current state of the turtle, including position, direction, stroke length, and pen colour on a stack.|
|]||Restores the state of the turtle to be exactly as it was when the most recent [ command was processed. Note that the number of [ and ] commands should match.|
|/, \||Reserved. These symbols are reserved and may be used in a future version.|
|;||A semicolon causes the rest of the current line (including the ; itself) to be ignored.|
Aristid Lindenmayer. Mathematical models for cellular interaction in development. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 18:280–315, 1968.
Alan M. Turing. The chemical basis of morphogenesis. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. B 327, 37–72 (1952).
April 14, 2002—Updated January 01, 2011
|
<urn:uuid:63a6b18b-ec40-4e1c-ace1-e4e5d747e4a3>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://cgjennings.ca/toybox/lsystems/index.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396459.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00116-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.945078
| 3,757
| 3.4375
| 3
|
THE IRISH IN SOUTH AMERICA
By MARION MULHALL.
I.—FROM THE SPANISH CONQUEST TO THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.
South America, although comparatively little known until recent times to the outside world, contains much to interest the missionary, the scientist, the historian, the traveler, and the financier. The twentieth century will probably see hundreds following in the footsteps of their predecessors. In the meantime, the brilliant achievements of numerous Irish men and women in that part of the world are falling into oblivion, and call for a friendly hand to collect the fragments of historical lore connected with their exploits.
This paper will cover three periods:—
(1). From the Spanish Conquest to the War of Independence: here the principal actors were maritime explorers, buccaneers, and mercantile adventurers;
(2). The War of Independence from 1810 to 1826: in this period Irishmen performed feats of valor worthy to rank with those in Greek or Roman history.
(3). Since the Independence; a period of commercial and industrial development, in which Irishmen have played a foremost part.
* * * * *
It has been said that George Barlow, the companion of Sebastian Cabot, was an Irishman. Cabot was the first Britisher to sail up the Rio de la Plata, and gave it its name just thirty-five years after the discovery of America. Barlow was in the service of the king of Spain, and in that country met Cabot, who had been appointed Pilot Major to his Majesty in the year 1518. In 1577 we read of the famous Admiral Drake’s expedition to the River Plate, which he reached on April 14, 1578. Evidently it was a successful one in the opinion of Queen Elizabeth, for on Drake’s return to Plymouth, September 26, 1580, she came aboard his ship and knighted him. There seem to have been three Irishmen on this expedition, Fenton, Merrick, and Ward. Fenton, who was in command of two vessels, was attacked by a Spanish squadron between Brazil and the River Plate, and the battle continued by moonlight until one of the Spaniards was sunk. The Spanish historian adds that Fenton might have sunk another of the enemy’s ships, but refrained because there were several women on board.
Lozana in his History mentions a revolution in Paraguay in 1555, which was headed by an Irishman named Nicholas Colman. This revolution was quickly suppressed by the Spanish viceroy, Yrala, but Colman led a second revolution in 1570, when Captain Rigueline was governor of Guayra. The mutineers named Colman for their chief, put their treasures into canoes, and floated down the Parana until their boats were capsized by some rapids, probably the falls of Apipe in Misiones. The viceroy, on hearing of the revolt, sent troops to bring back the fugitives, and the latter were treated with unusual clemency. Lozana describes Colman as a daring, turbulent buccaneer. For fifteen years he seems to have played an important part in Guayra; his subsequent fate is unknown.
|
<urn:uuid:5d8ad940-b1da-4058-b587-b929f0383a96>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/12111/165.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00158-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.978007
| 674
| 3.109375
| 3
|
Click photo to enlarge
Composting using worms is good for the environment and your garden, but maybe not your manicure.
Scott Strazzante/Chicago Tribune
Composting kitchen and garden waste is great for the environment and for our plants, and composting with worms has the added benefit that worms are pretty awesome creatures.
Master composter Linda Mizes calls them "our BFFs," and she likes worm composting so much that she has seven bins of red wigglers in addition to her traditional composting piles.
Worms need consistent care, but not much of it. The fertilizer they produce, known as worm castings, is rich in nutrients and ready to use.
Here are some of Mizes' best tips in starting and maintaining your own worm farm.
Set up Use Eisenia fetida (red wigglers) worms. They are the most productive. A half-pound to a pound is enough to start. The bedding for your worms can be moistened, shredded newspaper, which provides a good source of carbon and helps protect the worms. Put the bedding and worms in an aerated bin made of plastic or untreated wood. Cover it to keep out the rain and any creatures who will snack on your worms. You can make your own bin using a Rubbermaid-type container and drilling holes in it, or purchase a commercial bin.
Feeding the worms Worms eat all kinds of food, but avoid those that are oily, have too much acid and which will smell bad as they decay. Fruits and vegetables scraps, coffee grounds and their filters, tea bags, bread, pasta, rice and cereals, cut into chunky bits, are good. Avoid citrus peels, hot peppers, dairy, meat, oils and eggs (egg shells are OK). Add the food in a thin layer and cover with bedding. Wait to feed again until most of the food has been consumed, generally once a week.
Maintenance Keep the bin in a protected area out of direct sunlight and high temperatures. If you are using a plastic bin, brown liquid will collect in the bottom. Although some people recommend against it, Mizes says you can collect the liquid and use it on your plants. As the food is consumed, the worms will begin producing dark castings (worm poop). They resemble coffee grounds. Allow the castings to accumulate for two to three months and harvest it when it is 3 to 4 inches deep. You may find other creatures in the bin -- springtails, pot worms, mites and sow bugs -- but as long as the worms are thriving, don't worry.
Harvesting Remove all of the uneaten food and bedding. Empty the bin onto a plastic sheet in a sunlit area, creating several volcanolike hills with the castings. Wait 30 minutes, prepping the bin with new and some old bedding. The worms will move to the center of the hills, leaving you to scoop the casting off the top and sides. Consolidate the hills as you go until you have one large pile of castings and one pile of squirming worms. Return the worms to the bins and use the castings on your garden.
New in Our Garden
We are well on our way to our goal, as our donations to the Monument Crisis Center in Concord topped 1,230 pounds with this week's harvest of tomatoes, squash, cucumbers and peppers.
Ruth Bancroft Garden's Brian Kemble speaks on succulents next week. The free classes are at 10 a.m. Wednesdays at the Contra Costa Times, 2640 Shadelands Drive, Walnut Creek. Master Gardeners are on hand to answer questions, diagnose sick plants and identify pests. Winter vegetable seedlings and ornamental plants also are available for sale.
-- Joan Morris
Like us at Facebook.com/bang.home.garden; follow us at Twitter.com/gardeneditor. For a complete list of classes, go to mercurynews.com/our-community-garden.
|
<urn:uuid:4b2cb72c-7d94-4527-86c3-cb6da21665d8>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.mercurynews.com/home-garden/ci_21274010/our-garden-all-about-worms
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00188-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.938835
| 832
| 2.984375
| 3
|
Section 2. The Philippines renounces war as an instrument of national policy, adopts the generally accepted principles of international law as part of the law of the land and adheres to the policy of peace, equality, justice, freedom, cooperation, and amity with all nations.
Section 3. Civilian authority is, at all times, supreme over the military. The Armed Forces of the Philippines is the protector of the people and the State. Its goal is to secure the sovereignty of the State and the integrity of the national territory.
Section 4. The prime duty of the Government is to serve and protect the people. The Government may call upon the people to defend the State and, in the fulfillment thereof, all citizens may be required, under conditions provided by law, to render personal, military or civil service.
Section 5. The maintenance of peace and order, the protection of life, liberty, and property, and promotion of the general welfare are essential for the enjoyment by all the people of the blessings of democracy.
Section 6. The separation of Church and State shall be inviolable.
Section 8. The Philippines, consistent with the national interest, adopts and pursues a policy of freedom from nuclear weapons in its territory.
Section 9. The State shall promote a just and dynamic social order that will ensure the prosperity and independence of the nation and free the people from poverty through policies that provide adequate social services, promote full employment, a rising standard of living, and an improved quality of life for all.
Section 10. The State shall promote social justice in all phases of national development.
Section 11. The State values the dignity of every human person and guarantees full respect for human rights.
Section 12. The State recognizes the sanctity of family life and shall protect and strengthen the family as a basic autonomous social institution. It shall equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception. The natural and primary right and duty of parents in the rearing of the youth for civic efficiency and the development of moral character shall receive the support of the Government.
Section 13. The State recognizes the vital role of the youth in nation-building and shall promote and protect their physical, moral, spiritual, intellectual, and social well-being. It shall inculcate in the youth patriotism and nationalism, and encourage their involvement in public and civic affairs.
Section 14. The State recognizes the role of women in nation-building, and shall ensure the fundamental equality before the law of women and men.
Section 15. The State shall protect and promote the right to health of the people and instill health consciousness among them.
Section 16. The State shall protect and advance the right of the people to a balanced and healthful ecology in accord with the rhythm and harmony of nature.
Section 17. The State shall give priority to education, science and technology, arts, culture, and sports to foster patriotism and nationalism, accelerate social progress, and promote total human liberation and development.
Section 18. The State affirms labor as a primary social economic force. It shall protect the rights of workers and promote their welfare.
Section 19. The State shall develop a self-reliant and independent national economy effectively controlled by Filipinos.
Section 20. The State recognizes the indispensable role of the private sector, encourages private enterprise, and provides incentives to needed investments.
Section 21. The State shall promote comprehensive rural development and agrarian reform.
Section 22. The State recognizes and promotes the rights of indigenous cultural communities within the framework of national unity and development.
Section 23. The State shall encourage non-governmental, community-based, or sectoral organizations that promote the welfare of the nation.
Section 24. The State recognizes the vital role of communication and information in nation-building.
Section 25. The State shall ensure the autonomy of local governments.
Section 26. The State shall guarantee equal access to opportunities for public service and prohibit political dynasties as may be defined by law.
Section 27. The State shall maintain honesty and integrity in the public service and take positive and effective measures against graft and corruption.
Section 2. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures of whatever nature and for any purpose shall be inviolable, and no search warrant or warrant of arrest shall issue except upon probable cause to be determined personally by the judge after examination under oath or affirmation of the complainant and the witnesses he may produce, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.
Section 3. (1) The privacy of communication and correspondence shall be inviolable except upon lawful order of the court, or when public safety or order requires otherwise, as prescribed by law.
(2) Any evidence obtained in violation of this or the preceding section shall be inadmissible for any purpose in any proceeding.
Section 4. No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances.
Section 5. No law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall forever be allowed. No religious test shall be required for the exercise of civil or political rights.
Section 6. The liberty of abode and of changing the same within the limits prescribed by law shall not be impaired except upon lawful order of the court. Neither shall the right to travel be impaired except in the interest of national security, public safety, or public health, as may be provided by law.
Section 7. The right of the people to information on matters of public concern shall be recognized. Access to official records, and to documents and papers pertaining to official acts, transactions, or decisions, as well as to government research data used as basis for policy development, shall be afforded the citizen, subject to such limitations as may be provided by law.
Section 8. The right of the people, including those employed in the public and private sectors, to form unions, associations, or societies for purposes not contrary to law shall not be abridged.
Section 9. Private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation.
Section 10. No law impairing the obligation of contracts shall be passed.
Section 11. Free access to the courts and quasi-judicial bodies and adequate legal assistance shall not be denied to any person by reason of poverty.
Section 12. (1) Any person under investigation for the commission of an offense shall have the right to be informed of his right to remain silent and to have competent and independent counsel preferably of his own choice. If the person cannot afford the services of counsel, he must be provided with one. These rights cannot be waived except in writing and in the presence of counsel.
(2) No torture, force, violence, threat, intimidation, or any other means which vitiate the free will shall be used against him. Secret detention places, solitary, incommunicado, or other similar forms of detention are prohibited.
(3) Any confession or admission obtained in violation of this or Section 17 hereof shall be inadmissible in evidence against him.
(4) The law shall provide for penal and civil sanctions for violations of this section as well as compensation to the rehabilitation of victims of torture or similar practices, and their families.
Section 13. All persons, except those charged with offenses punishable by reclusion perpetua when evidence of guilt is strong, shall, before conviction, be bailable by sufficient sureties, or be released on recognizance as may be provided by law. The right to bail shall not be impaired even when the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus is suspended. Excessive bail shall not be required.
Section 14. (1) No person shall be held to answer for a criminal offense without due process of law.
(2) In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall be presumed innocent until the contrary is proved, and shall enjoy the right to be heard by himself and counsel, to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against him, to have a speedy, impartial, and public trial, to meet the witnesses face to face, and to have compulsory process to secure the attendance of witnesses and the production of evidence in his behalf. However, after arraignment, trial may proceed notwithstanding the absence of the accused: Provided, that he has been duly notified and his failure to appear is unjustifiable.
Section 15. The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended except in cases of invasion or rebellion, when the public safety requires it.
Section 16. All persons shall have the right to a speedy disposition of their cases before all judicial, quasi-judicial, or administrative bodies.
Section 17. No person shall be compelled to be a witness against himself.
Section 18. (1) No person shall be detained solely by reason of his political beliefs and aspirations.
(2) No involuntary servitude in any form shall exist except as a punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.
Section 19. (1) Excessive fines shall not be imposed, nor cruel, degrading or inhuman punishment inflicted. Neither shall death penalty be imposed, unless, for compelling reasons involving heinous crimes, the Congress hereafter provides for it. Any death penalty already imposed shall be reduced to reclusion perpetua.
(2) The employment of physical, psychological, or degrading punishment against any prisoner or detainee or the use of substandard or inadequate penal facilities under subhuman conditions shall be dealt with by law.
Section 20. No person shall be imprisoned for debt or non-payment of a poll tax.
Section 21. No person shall be twice put in jeopardy of punishment for the same offense. If an act is punished by a law and an ordinance, conviction or acquittal under either shall constitute a bar to another prosecution for the same act.
Those who are citizens of the Philippines at the time of the adoption of this Constitution;
Those whose fathers or mothers are citizens of the Philippines;
Those born before January 17, 1973, of Filipino mothers, who elect Philippine citizenship upon reaching the age of majority; and
Those who are naturalized in accordance with law.
Section 2. Natural-born citizens are those who are citizens of the Philippines from birth without having to perform any act to acquire or perfect their Philippine citizenship. Those who elect Philippine citizenship in accordance with paragraph (3), Section 1 hereof shall be deemed natural-born citizens.
Section 3. Philippine citizenship may be lost or reacquired in the manner provided by law.
Section 4. Citizens of the Philippines who marry aliens shall retain their citizenship, unless by their act or omission, they are deemed, under the law, to have renounced it.
Section 2. The Congress shall provide a system for securing the secrecy and sanctity of the ballot as well as a system for absentee voting by qualified Filipinos abroad.
Section 2. The Senate shall be composed of twenty-four Senators who shall be elected at large by the qualified voters of the Philippines, as may be provided by law.
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator unless he is a natural-born citizen of the Philippines and, on the day of the election, is at least thirty-five years of age, able to read and write, a registered voter, and a resident of the Philippines for not less than two years immediately preceding the day of the election.
Section 4. The term of office of the Senators shall be six years and shall commence, unless otherwise provided by law, at noon on the thirtieth day of June next following their election. No Senator shall serve for more than two consecutive terms. Voluntary renunciation of the office for any length of time shall not be considered as an interruption in the continuity of his service for the full term of which he was elected.
Section 5. (1) The House of Representatives shall be composed of not more than two hundred and fifty members, unless otherwise fixed by law, who shall be elected from legislative districts apportioned among the provinces, cities, and the Metropolitan Manila area in accordance with the number of their respective inhabitants, and on the basis of a uniform and progressive ratio, and those who, as provided by law, shall be elected through a party-list system of registered national, regional, and sectoral parties or organizations.
(2) The party-list representatives shall constitute twenty per centum of the total number of representatives including those under the party list. For three consecutive terms after the ratification of this Constitution, one-half of the seats allocated to party-list representatives shall be filled, as provided by law, by selection or election from the labor, peasant, urban poor, indigenous cultural communities, women, youth, and such other sectors as may be provided by law, except the religious sector.
(3) Each legislative district shall comprise, as far as practicable, contiguous, compact, and adjacent territory. Each city with a population of at least two hundred fifty thousand, or each province, shall have at least one representative.
(4) Within three years following the return of every census, the Congress shall make a reapportionment of legislative districts based on the standards provided in this section.
Section 6. No person shall be a Member of the House of Representatives unless he is a natural-born citizen of the Philippines and, on the day of the election, is at least twenty-five years of age, able to read and write, and, except the party-list representatives, a registered voter in the district in which he shall be elected, and a resident thereof for a period of not less than one year immediately preceding the day of the election.
Section 7. The Members of the House of Representatives shall be elected for a term of three years which shall begin, unless otherwise provided by law, at noon on the thirtieth day of June next following their election. No Member of the House of Representatives shall serve for more than three consecutive terms. Voluntary renunciation of the office for any length of time shall not be considered as an interruption in the continuity of his service for the full term for which he was elected.
Section 8. Unless otherwise provided by law, the regular election of the Senators and the Members of the House of Representatives shall be held on the second Monday of May.
Section 9. In case of vacancy in the Senate or in the House of Representatives, a special election may be called to fill such vacancy in the manner prescribed by law, but the Senator or Member of the House of Representatives thus elected shall serve only for the unexpired term.
Section 10. The salaries of Senators and Members of the House of Representatives shall be determined by law. No increase in said compensation shall take effect until after the expiration of the full term of all the Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives approving such increase.
Section 11. A Senator or Member of the House of Representatives shall, in all offenses punishable by not more than six years imprisonment, be privileged from arrest while the Congress is in session. No Member shall be questioned nor be held liable in any other place for any speech or debate in the Congress or in any committee thereof.
Section 12. All Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives shall, upon assumption of office, make a full disclosure of their financial and business interests. They shall notify the House concerned of a potential conflict of interest that may arise from the filing of a proposed legislation of which they are authors.
Section 13. No Senator or Member of the House of Representatives may hold any other office or employment in the Government, or any subdivision, agency, or instrumentality thereof, including government-owned or controlled corporations or their subsidiaries, during his term without forfeiting his seat. Neither shall he be appointed to any office which may have been created or the emoluments thereof increased during the term for which he was elected.
Section 14. No Senator or Member of the House of Representatives may personally appear as counsel before any court of justice or before the Electoral Tribunals, or quasi-judicial and other administrative bodies. Neither shall he, directly or indirectly, be interested financially in any contract with, or in any franchise or special privilege granted by the Government, or any subdivision, agency, or instrumentality thereof, including any government-owned or controlled corporation, or its subsidiary, during his term of office. He shall not intervene in any matter before any office of the Government for his pecuniary benefit or where he may be called upon to act on account of his office.
Section 15. The Congress shall convene once every year on the fourth Monday of July for its regular session, unless a different date is fixed by law, and shall continue to be in session for such number of days as it may determine until thirty days before the opening of its next regular session, exclusive of Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays. The President may call a special session at any time.
Section 16. (1). The Senate shall elect its President and the House of Representatives, its Speaker, by a majority vote of all its respective Members. Each House shall choose such other officers as it may deem necessary.
(2) A majority of each House shall constitute a quorum to do business, but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day and may compel the attendance of absent Members in such manner, and under such penalties, as such House may provide.
(3) Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds of all its Members, suspend or expel a Member. A penalty of suspension, when imposed, shall not exceed sixty days.
(4) Each House shall keep a Journal of its proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such parts as may, in its judgment, affect national security; and the yeas and nays on any question shall, at the request of one-fifth of the Members present, be entered in the Journal. Each House shall also keep a Record of its proceedings.
(5) Neither House during the sessions of the Congress shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.
Section 17. The Senate and the House of Representatives shall each have an Electoral Tribunal which shall be the sole judge of all contests relating to the election, returns, and qualifications of their respective Members. Each Electoral Tribunal shall be composed of nine Members, three of whom shall be Justices of the Supreme Court to be designated by the Chief Justice, and the remaining six shall be Members of the Senate or the House of Representatives, as the case may be, who shall be chosen on the basis of proportional representation from the political parties and the parties or organizations registered under the party-list system represented therein. The senior Justice in the Electoral Tribunal shall be its Chairman.
Section 18. There shall be a Commission on Appointments consisting of the President of the Senate, as ex officio Chairman, twelve Senators, and twelve Members of the House of Representatives, elected by each House on the basis of proportional representation from the political parties and parties or organizations registered under the party-list system represented therein. The chairman of the Commission shall not vote, except in case of a tie. The Commission shall act on all appointments submitted to it within thirty session days of the Congress from their submission. The Commission shall rule by a majority vote of all the Members.
Section 19. The Electoral Tribunals and the Commission on Appointments shall be constituted within thirty days after the Senate and the House of Representatives shall have been organized with the election of the President and the Speaker. The Commission on Appointments shall meet only while the Congress is in session, at the call of its Chairman or a majority of all its Members, to discharge such powers and functions as are herein conferred upon it.
Section 20. The records and books of accounts of the Congress shall be preserved and be open to the public in accordance with law, and such books shall be audited by the Commission on Audit which shall publish annually an itemized list of amounts paid to and expenses incurred for each Member.
Section 21. The Senate or the House of Representatives or any of its respective committees may conduct inquiries in aid of legislation in accordance with its duly published rules of procedure. The rights of persons appearing in, or affected by, such inquiries shall be respected.
Section 22. The heads of departments may, upon their own initiative, with the consent of the President, or upon the request of either House, as the rules of each House shall provide, appear before and be heard by such House on any matter pertaining to their departments. Written questions shall be submitted to the President of the Senate or the Speaker of the House of Representatives at least three days before their scheduled appearance. Interpellations shall not be limited to written questions, but may cover matters related thereto. When the security of the State or the public interest so requires and the President so states in writing, the appearance shall be conducted in executive session.
Section 23. (1) The Congress, by a vote of two-thirds of both Houses in joint session assembled, voting separately, shall have the sole power to declare the existence of a state of war.
(2) In times of war or other national emergency, the Congress may, by law, authorize the President, for a limited period and subject to such restrictions as it may prescribe, to exercise powers necessary and proper to carry out a declared national policy. Unless sooner withdrawn by resolution of the Congress, such powers shall cease upon the next adjournment thereof.
Section 24. All appropriation, revenue or tariff bills, bills authorizing increase of the public debt, bills of local application, and private bills, shall originate exclusively in the House of Representatives, but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments.
Section 25. (1) The Congress may not increase the appropriations recommended by the President for the operation of the Government as specified in the budget. The form, content, and manner of preparation of the budget shall be prescribed by law.
(2) No provision or enactment shall be embraced in the general appropriations bill unless it relates specifically to some particular appropriation therein. Any such provision or enactment shall be limited in its operation to the appropriation to which it relates.
(3) The procedure in approving appropriations for the Congress shall strictly follow the procedure for approving appropriations for other departments and agencies.
(4) A special appropriations bill shall specify the purpose for which it is intended, and shall be supported by funds actually available as certified by the National Treasurer, or to be raised by a corresponding revenue proposal therein.
(5) No law shall be passed authorizing any transfer of appropriations; however, the President, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and the heads of Constitutional Commissions may, by law, be authorized to augment any item in the general appropriations law for their respective offices from savings in other items of their respective appropriations.
(6) Discretionary funds appropriated for particular officials shall be disbursed only for public purposes to be supported by appropriate vouchers and subject to such guidelines as may be prescribed by law.
(7) If, by the end of any fiscal year, the Congress shall have failed to pass the general appropriations bill for the ensuing fiscal year, the general appropriations law for the preceding fiscal year shall be deemed re-enacted and shall remain in force and effect until the general appropriations bill is passed by the Congress.
Section 26. (1) Every bill passed by the Congress shall embrace only one subject which shall be expressed in the title thereof.
(2) No bill passed by either House shall become a law unless it has passed three readings on separate days, and printed copies thereof in its final form have been distributed to its Members three days before its passage, except when the President certifies to the necessity of its immediate enactment to meet a public calamity or emergency. Upon the last reading of a bill, no amendment thereto shall be allowed, and the vote thereon shall be taken immediately thereafter, and the yeas and nays entered in the Journal.
Section 27. (1) Every bill passed by the Congress shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the President. If he approves the same he shall sign it; otherwise, he shall veto it and return the same with his objections to the House where it originated, which shall enter the objections at large in its Journal and proceed to reconsider it. If, after such reconsideration, two-thirds of all the Members of such House shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the objections, to the other House by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two-thirds of all the Members of that House, it shall become a law. In all such cases, the votes of each House shall be determined by yeas or nays, and the names of the Members voting for or against shall be entered in its Journal. The President shall communicate his veto of any bill to the House where it originated within thirty days after the date of receipt thereof, otherwise, it shall become a law as if he had signed it.
(2) The President shall have the power to veto any particular item or items in an appropriation, revenue, or tariff bill, but the veto shall not affect the item or items to which he does not object.
Section 28. (1) The rule of taxation shall be uniform and equitable. The Congress shall evolve a progressive system of taxation.
(2) The Congress may, by law, authorize the President to fix within specified limits, and subject to such limitations and restrictions as it may impose, tariff rates, import and export quotas, tonnage and wharfage dues, and other duties or imposts within the framework of the national development program of the Government.
(3) Charitable institutions, churches and personages or convents appurtenant thereto, mosques, non-profit cemeteries, and all lands, buildings, and improvements, actually, directly, and exclusively used for religious, charitable, or educational purposes shall be exempt from taxation.
(4) No law granting any tax exemption shall be passed without the concurrence of a majority of all the Members of the Congress.
Section 29. (1) No money shall be paid out of the Treasury except in pursuance of an appropriation made by law.
(2) No public money or property shall be appropriated, applied, paid, or employed, directly or indirectly, for the use, benefit, or support of any sect, church, denomination, sectarian institution, or system of religion, or of any priest, preacher, minister, other religious teacher, or dignitary as such, except when such priest, preacher, minister, or dignitary is assigned to the armed forces, or to any penal institution, or government orphanage or leprosarium.
(3) All money collected on any tax levied for a special purpose shall be treated as a special fund and paid out for such purpose only. If the purpose for which a special fund was created has been fulfilled or abandoned, the balance, if any, shall be transferred to the general funds of the Government.
Section 30. No law shall be passed increasing the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court as provided in this Constitution without its advice and concurrence.
Section 31. No law granting a title of royalty or nobility shall be enacted.
Section 2. No person may be elected President unless he is a natural-born citizen of the Philippines, a registered voter, able to read and write, at least forty years of age on the day of the election, and a resident of the Philippines for at least ten years immediately preceding such election.
Section 3. There shall be a Vice-President who shall have the same qualifications and term of office and be elected with, and in the same manner, as the President. He may be removed from office in the same manner as the President.
The Vice-President may be appointed as a Member of the Cabinet. Such appointment requires no confirmation.
Section 4. The President and the Vice-President shall be elected by direct vote of the people for a term of six years which shall begin at noon on the thirtieth day of June next following the day of the election and shall end at noon of the same date, six years thereafter. The President shall not be eligible for any re-election. No person who has succeeded as President and has served as such for more than four years shall be qualified for election to the same office at any time.
No Vice-President shall serve for more than two successive terms. Voluntary renunciation of the office for any length of time shall not be considered as an interruption in the continuity of the service for the full term for which he was elected.
Unless otherwise provided by law, the regular election for President and Vice-President shall be held on the second Monday of May.
The returns of every election for President and Vice-President, duly certified by the board of canvassers of each province or city, shall be transmitted to the Congress, directed to the President of the Senate. Upon receipt of the certificates of canvass, the President of the Senate shall, not later than thirty days after the day of the election, open all the certificates in the presence of the Senate and the House of Representatives in joint public session, and the Congress, upon determination of the authenticity and due execution thereof in the manner provided by law, canvass the votes.
The person having the highest number of votes shall be proclaimed elected, but in case two or more shall have an equal and highest number of votes, one of them shall forthwith be chosen by the vote of a majority of all the Members of both Houses of the Congress, voting separately.
The Congress shall promulgate its rules for the canvassing of the certificates.
The Supreme Court, sitting en banc, shall be the sole judge of all contests relating to the election, returns, and qualifications of the President or Vice-President, and may promulgate its rules for the purpose.
Section 5. Before they enter on the execution of their office, the President, the Vice-President, or the Acting President shall take the following oath or affirmation:
"I do solemnly swear [or affirm] that I will faithfully and conscientiously fulfill my duties as President [or Vice-President or Acting President] of the Philippines, preserve and defend its Constitution, execute its laws, do justice to every man, and consecrate myself to the service of the Nation. So help me God." [In case of affirmation, last sentence will be omitted].
Section 6. The President shall have an official residence. The salaries of the President and Vice-President shall be determined by law and shall not be decreased during their tenure. No increase in said compensation shall take effect until after the expiration of the term of the incumbent during which such increase was approved. They shall not receive during their tenure any other emolument from the Government or any other source.
Section 7. The President-elect and the Vice President-elect shall assume office at the beginning of their terms.
If the President-elect fails to qualify, the Vice President-elect shall act as President until the President-elect shall have qualified.
If a President shall not have been chosen, the Vice President-elect shall act as President until a President shall have been chosen and qualified.
If at the beginning of the term of the President, the President-elect shall have died or shall have become permanently disabled, the Vice President-elect shall become President.
Where no President and Vice-President shall have been chosen or shall have qualified, or where both shall have died or become permanently disabled, the President of the Senate or, in case of his inability, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, shall act as President until a President or a Vice-President shall have been chosen and qualified.
The Congress shall, by law, provide for the manner in which one who is to act as President shall be selected until a President or a Vice-President shall have qualified, in case of death, permanent disability, or inability of the officials mentioned in the next preceding paragraph.
Section 8. In case of death, permanent disability, removal from office, or resignation of the President, the Vice-President shall become the President to serve the unexpired term. In case of death, permanent disability, removal from office, or resignation of both the President and Vice-President, the President of the Senate or, in case of his inability, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, shall then act as President until the President or Vice-President shall have been elected and qualified.
The Congress shall, by law, provide who shall serve as President in case of death, permanent disability, or resignation of the Acting President. He shall serve until the President or the Vice-President shall have been elected and qualified, and be subject to the same restrictions of powers and disqualifications as the Acting President.
Section 9. Whenever there is a vacancy in the Office of the Vice-President during the term for which he was elected, the President shall nominate a Vice-President from among the Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives who shall assume office upon confirmation by a majority vote of all the Members of both Houses of the Congress, voting separately.
Section 10. The Congress shall, at ten o'clock in the morning of the third day after the vacancy in the offices of the President and Vice-President occurs, convene in accordance with its rules without need of a call and within seven days, enact a law calling for a special election to elect a President and a Vice-President to be held not earlier than forty-five days nor later than sixty days from the time of such call. The bill calling such special election shall be deemed certified under paragraph 2, Section 26, Article V1 of this Constitution and shall become law upon its approval on third reading by the Congress. Appropriations for the special election shall be charged against any current appropriations and shall be exempt from the requirements of paragraph 4, Section 25, Article V1 of this Constitution. The convening of the Congress cannot be suspended nor the special election postponed. No special election shall be called if the vacancy occurs within eighteen months before the date of the next presidential election.
Section 11. Whenever the President transmits to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice-President as Acting President.
Whenever a majority of all the Members of the Cabinet transmit to the President of the Senate and to the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice-President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President of the Senate and to the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall reassume the powers and duties of his office. Meanwhile, should a majority of all the Members of the Cabinet transmit within five days to the President of the Senate and to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Congress shall decide the issue. For that purpose, the Congress shall convene, if it is not in session, within forty-eight hours, in accordance with its rules and without need of call.
If the Congress, within ten days after receipt of the last written declaration, or, if not in session, within twelve days after it is required to assemble, determines by a two-thirds vote of both Houses, voting separately, that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice-President shall act as President; otherwise, the President shall continue exercising the powers and duties of his office.
Section 12. In case of serious illness of the President, the public shall be informed of the state of his health. The members of the Cabinet in charge of national security and foreign relations and the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, shall not be denied access to the President during such illness.
Section 13. The President, Vice-President, the Members of the Cabinet, and their deputies or assistants shall not, unless otherwise provided in this Constitution, hold any other office or employment during their tenure. They shall not, during said tenure, directly or indirectly, practice any other profession, participate in any business, or be financially interested in any contract with, or in any franchise, or special privilege granted by the Government or any subdivision, agency, or instrumentality thereof, including government-owned or controlled corporations or their subsidiaries. They shall strictly avoid conflict of interest in the conduct of their office.
The spouse and relatives by consanguinity or affinity within the fourth civil degree of the President shall not, during his tenure, be appointed as Members of the Constitutional Commissions, or the Office of the Ombudsman, or as Secretaries, Undersecretaries, chairmen or heads of bureaus or offices, including government-owned or controlled corporations and their subsidiaries.
Section 14. Appointments extended by an Acting President shall remain effective, unless revoked by the elected President, within ninety days from his assumption or reassumption of office.
Section 15. Two months immediately before the next presidential elections and up to the end of his term, a President or Acting President shall not make appointments, except temporary appointments to executive positions when continued vacancies therein will prejudice public service or endanger public safety.
Section 16. The President shall nominate and, with the consent of the Commission on Appointments, appoint the heads of the executive departments, ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, or officers of the armed forces from the rank of colonel or naval captain, and other officers whose appointments are vested in him in this Constitution. He shall also appoint all other officers of the Government whose appointments are not otherwise provided for by law, and those whom he may be authorized by law to appoint. The Congress may, by law, vest the appointment of other officers lower in rank in the President alone, in the courts, or in the heads of departments, agencies, commissions, or boards.
The President shall have the power to make appointments during the recess of the Congress, whether voluntary or compulsory, but such appointments shall be effective only until disapproved by the Commission on Appointments or until the next adjournment of the Congress.
Section 17. The President shall have control of all the executive departments, bureaus, and offices. He shall ensure that the laws be faithfully executed.
Section 18. The President shall be the Commander-in-Chief of all armed forces of the Philippines and whenever it becomes necessary, he may call out such armed forces to prevent or suppress lawless violence, invasion or rebellion. In case of invasion or rebellion, when the public safety requires it, he may, for a period not exceeding sixty days, suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus or place the Philippines or any part thereof under martial law. Within forty-eight hours from the proclamation of martial law or the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, the President shall submit a report in person or in writing to the Congress. The Congress, voting jointly, by a vote of at least a majority of all its Members in regular or special session, may revoke such proclamation or suspension, which revocation shall not be set aside by the President. Upon the initiative of the President, the Congress may, in the same manner, extend such proclamation or suspension for a period to be determined by the Congress, if the invasion or rebellion shall persist and public safety requires it.
The Congress, if not in session, shall, within twenty-four hours following such proclamation or suspension, convene in accordance with its rules without need of a call.
The Supreme Court may review, in an appropriate proceeding filed by any citizen, the sufficiency of the factual basis of the proclamation of martial law or the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus or the extension thereof, and must promulgate its decision thereon within thirty days from its filing.
A state of martial law does not suspend the operation of the Constitution, nor supplant the functioning of the civil courts or legislative assemblies, nor authorize the conferment of jurisdiction on military courts and agencies over civilians where civil courts are able to function, nor automatically suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus.
The suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall apply only to persons judicially charged for rebellion or offenses inherent in, or directly connected with, invasion.
During the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, any person thus arrested or detained shall be judicially charged within three days, otherwise he shall be released.
Section 19. Except in cases of impeachment, or as otherwise provided in this Constitution, the President may grant reprieves, commutations, and pardons, and remit fines and forfeitures, after conviction by final judgment.
He shall also have the power to grant amnesty with the concurrence of a majority of all the Members of the Congress.
Section 20. The President may contract or guarantee foreign loans on behalf of the Republic of the Philippines with the prior concurrence of the Monetary Board, and subject to such limitations as may be provided by law. The Monetary Board shall, within thirty days from the end of every quarter of the calendar year, submit to the Congress a complete report of its decision on applications for loans to be contracted or guaranteed by the Government or government-owned and controlled corporations which would have the effect of increasing the foreign debt, and containing other matters as may be provided by law.
Section 21. No treaty or international agreement shall be valid and effective unless concurred in by at least two-thirds of all the Members of the Senate.
Section 22. The President shall submit to the Congress, within thirty days from the opening of every regular session as the basis of the general appropriations bill, a budget of expenditures and sources of financing, including receipts from existing and proposed revenue measures.
Judicial power includes the duty of the courts of justice to settle actual controversies involving rights which are legally demandable and enforceable, and to determine whether or not there has been a grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction on the part of any branch or instrumentality of the Government.
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to define, prescribe, and apportion the jurisdiction of the various courts but may not deprive the Supreme Court of its jurisdiction over cases enumerated in Section 5 hereof.
No law shall be passed reorganizing the Judiciary when it undermines the security of tenure of its Members.
Section 3. The Judiciary shall enjoy fiscal autonomy. Appropriations for the Judiciary may not be reduced by the legislature below the amount appropriated for the previous year and, after approval, shall be automatically and regularly released.
Section 4. (1) The Supreme Court shall be composed of a Chief Justice and fourteen Associate Justices. It may sit en banc or in its discretion, in division of three, five, or seven Members. Any vacancy shall be filled within ninety days from the occurrence thereof.
(2) All cases involving the constitutionality of a treaty, international or executive agreement, or law, which shall be heard by the Supreme Court en banc, and all other cases which under the Rules of Court are required to be heard en banc, including those involving the constitutionality, application, or operation of presidential decrees, proclamations, orders, instructions, ordinances, and other regulations, shall be decided with the concurrence of a majority of the Members who actually took part in the deliberations on the issues in the case and voted thereon.
(3) Cases or matters heard by a division shall be decided or resolved with the concurrence of a majority of the Members who actually took part in the deliberations on the issues in the case and voted thereon, and in no case without the concurrence of at least three of such Members. When the required number is not obtained, the case shall be decided en banc: Provided, that no doctrine or principle of law laid down by the court in a decision rendered en banc or in division may be modified or reversed except by the court sitting en banc.
Section 5. The Supreme Court shall have the following powers:
1) Exercise original jurisdiction over cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and over petitions for certiorari, prohibition, mandamus, quo warranto, and habeas corpus.
(2) Review, revise, reverse, modify, or affirm on appeal or certiorari, as the law or the Rules of Court may provide, final judgments and orders of lower courts in:
(a) All cases in which the constitutionality or validity of any treaty, international or executive agreement, law, presidential decree, proclamation, order, instruction, ordinance, or regulation is in question.
(b) All cases involving the legality of any tax, impost, assessment, or toll, or any penalty imposed in relation thereto.
(c) All cases in which the jurisdiction of any lower court is in issue.
(d) All criminal cases in which the penalty imposed is reclusion perpetua or higher.
(e) All cases in which only an error or question of law is involved.
(3) Assign temporarily judges of lower courts to other stations as public interest may require. Such temporary assignment shall not exceed six months without the consent of the judge concerned.
(4) Order a change of venue or place of trial to avoid a miscarriage of justice.
(5) Promulgate rules concerning the protection and enforcement of constitutional rights, pleading, practice, and procedure in all courts, the admission to the practice of law, the integrated bar, and legal assistance to the under-privileged. Such rules shall provide a simplified and inexpensive procedure for the speedy disposition of cases, shall be uniform for all courts of the same grade, and shall not diminish, increase, or modify substantive rights. Rules of procedure of special courts and quasi-judicial bodies shall remain effective unless disapproved by the Supreme Court.
(6) Appoint all officials and employees of the Judiciary in accordance with the Civil Service Law.
Section 6. The Supreme Court shall have administrative supervision over all courts and the personnel thereof.
Section 7. (1) No person shall be appointed Member of the Supreme Court or any lower collegiate court unless he is a natural-born citizen of the Philippines. A Member of the Supreme Court must be at least forty years of age, and must have been for fifteen years or more, a judge of a lower court or engaged in the practice of law in the Philippines.
(2) The Congress shall prescribe the qualifications of judges of lower courts, but no person may be appointed judge thereof unless he is a citizen of the Philippines and a member of the Philippine Bar.
(3) A Member of the Judiciary must be a person of proven competence, integrity, probity, and independence.
Section 8. (1) A Judicial and Bar Council is hereby created under the supervision of the Supreme Court composed of the Chief Justice as ex officio Chairman, the Secretary of Justice, and a representative of the Congress as ex officio Members, a representative of the Integrated Bar, a professor of law, a retired Member of the Supreme Court, and a representative of the private sector.
(2) The regular members of the Council shall be appointed by the President for a term of four years with the consent of the Commission on Appointments. Of the Members first appointed, the representative of the Integrated Bar shall serve for four years, the professor of law for three years, the retired Justice for two years, and the representative of the private sector for one year.
(3) The Clerk of the Supreme Court shall be the Secretary ex officio of the Council and shall keep a record of its proceedings.
(4) The regular Members of the Council shall receive such emoluments as may be determined by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court shall provide in its annual budget the appropriations for the Council.
(5) The Council shall have the principal function of recommending appointees to the Judiciary. It may exercise such other functions and duties as the Supreme Court may assign to it.
Section 9. The Members of the Supreme Court and judges of the lower courts shall be appointed by the President from a list of at least three nominees prepared by the Judicial and Bar Council for every vacancy. Such appointments need no confirmation.
For the lower courts, the President shall issue the appointments within ninety days from the submission of the list.
Section 10. The salary of the Chief Justice and of the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, and of judges of lower courts, shall be fixed by law. During their continuance in office, their salary shall not be decreased.
Section 11. The Members of the Supreme Court and judges of lower courts shall hold office during good behavior until they reach the age of seventy years or become incapacitated to discharge the duties of their office. The Supreme Court en banc shall have the power to discipline judges of lower courts, or order their dismissal by a vote of a majority of the Members who actually took part in the deliberations on the issues in the case and voted thereon.
Section 12. The Members of the Supreme Court and of other courts established by law shall not be designated to any agency performing quasi-judicial or administrative functions.
Section 13. The conclusions of the Supreme Court in any case submitted to it for decision en banc or in division shall be reached in consultation before the case is assigned to a Member for the writing of the opinion of the Court. A certification to this effect signed by the Chief Justice shall be issued and a copy thereof attached to the record of the case and served upon the parties. Any Members who took no part, or dissented, or abstained from a decision or resolution, must state the reason therefor. The same requirements shall be observed by all lower collegiate courts.
Section 14. No decision shall be rendered by any court without expressing therein clearly and distinctly the facts and the law on which it is based.
No petition for review or motion for reconsideration of a decision of the court shall be refused due course or denied without stating the legal basis therefor.
Section 15. (1) All cases or matters filed after the effectivity of this Constitution must be decided or resolved within twenty-four months from date of submission for the Supreme Court, and, unless reduced by the Supreme Court, twelve months for all lower collegiate courts, and three months for all other lower courts.
(2) A case or matter shall be deemed submitted for decision or resolution upon the filing of the last pleading, brief, or memorandum required by the Rules of Court or by the court itself.
(3) Upon the expiration of the corresponding period, a certification to this effect signed by the Chief Justice or the presiding judge shall forthwith be issued and a copy thereof attached to the record of the case or matter, and served upon the parties. The certification shall state why a decision or resolution has not been rendered or issued within said period.
(4) Despite the expiration of the applicable mandatory period, the court, without prejudice to such responsibility as may have been incurred in consequence thereof, shall decide or resolve the case or matter submitted thereto for determination, without further delay.
Section 2. No member of a Constitutional Commission shall, during his tenure, hold any other office or employment. Neither shall he engage in the practice of any profession or in the active management or control of any business which, in any way, may be affected by the functions of his office, nor shall he be financially interested, directly or indirectly, in any contract with, or in any franchise or privilege granted by the Government, any of its subdivisions, agencies, or instrumentalities, including government-owned or controlled corporations or their subsidiaries.
Section. 3. The salary of the Chairman and the Commissioners shall be fixed by law and shall not be decreased during their tenure.
Section 4. The Constitutional Commissions shall appoint their officials and employees in accordance with law.
Section 5. The Commission shall enjoy fiscal autonomy. Their approved annual appropriations shall be automatically and regularly released.
Section 6. Each Commission en banc may promulgate its own rules concerning pleadings and practice before it or before any of its offices. Such rules, however, shall not diminish, increase, or modify substantive rights.
Section 7. Each Commission shall decide by a majority vote of all its Members, any case or matter brought before it within sixty days from the date of its submission for decision or resolution. A case or matter is deemed submitted for decision or resolution upon the filing of the last pleading, brief, or memorandum required by the rules of the Commission or by the Commission itself. Unless otherwise provided by this Constitution or by law, any decision, order, or ruling of each Commission may be brought to the Supreme Court on certiorari by the aggrieved party within thirty days from receipt of a copy thereof.
(2) The Chairman and the Commissioners shall be appointed by the President with the consent of the Commission on Appointments for a term of seven years without reappointment. Of those first appointed, the Chairman shall hold office for seven years, a Commissioner for five years, and another Commissioner for three years, without reappointment. Appointment to any vacancy shall be only for the unexpired term of the predecessor. In no case shall any Member be appointed or designated in a temporary or acting capacity.
Section 2. (1) The civil service embraces all branches, subdivisions, instrumentalities, and agencies of the Government, including government-owned or controlled corporations with original charters.
(2) Appointments in the civil service shall be made only according to merit and fitness to be determined, as far as practicable, and, except to positions which are policy-determining, primarily confidential, or highly technical, by competitive examination.
(3) No officer or employee of the civil service shall be removed or suspended except for cause provided by law.
(4) No officer or employee in the civil service shall engage, directly or indirectly, in any electioneering or partisan political campaign.
(5) The right to self-organization shall not be denied to government employees.
(6) Temporary employees of the Government shall be given such protection as may be provided by law.
Section 3. The Civil Service Commission, as the central personnel agency of the Government, shall establish a career service and adopt measures to promote morale, efficiency, integrity, responsiveness, progressiveness, and courtesy in the civil service. It shall strengthen the merit and rewards system, integrate all human resources development programs for all levels and ranks, and institutionalize a management climate conducive to public accountability. It shall submit to the President and the Congress an annual report on its personnel programs.
Section 4. All public officers and employees shall take an oath or affirmation to uphold and defend this Constitution.
Section 5. The Congress shall provide for the standardization of compensation of government officials and employees, including those in government-owned or controlled corporations with original charters, taking into account the nature of the responsibilities pertaining to, and the qualifications required for, their positions.
Section 6. No candidate who has lost in any election shall, within one year after such election, be appointed to any office in the Government or any Government-owned or controlled corporations or in any of their subsidiaries.
Section 7. No elective official shall be eligible for appointment or designation in any capacity to any public office or position during his tenure.
Unless otherwise allowed by law or by the primary functions of his position, no appointive official shall hold any other office or employment in the Government or any subdivision, agency or instrumentality thereof, including Government-owned or controlled corporations or their subsidiaries.
Section 8. No elective or appointive public officer or employee shall receive additional, double, or indirect compensation, unless specifically authorized by law, nor accept without the consent of the Congress, any present, emolument, office, or title of any kind from any foreign government.
(2) The Chairman and the Commissioners shall be appointed by the President with the consent of the Commission on Appointments for a term of seven years without reappointment. Of those first appointed, three Members shall hold office for seven years, two Members for five years, and the last Members for three years, without reappointment. Appointment to any vacancy shall be only for the unexpired term of the predecessor. In no case shall any Member be appointed or designated in a temporary or acting capacity.
Sec. 2. The Commission on Elections shall exercise the following powers and functions:
(1) Enforce and administer all laws and regulations relative to the conduct of an election, plebiscite, initiative, referendum, and recall.
(2) Exercise exclusive original jurisdiction over all contests relating to the elections, returns, and qualifications of all elective regional, provincial, and city officials, and appellate jurisdiction over all contests involving elective municipal officials decided by trial courts of general jurisdiction, or involving elective barangay officials decided by trial courts of limited jurisdiction.
Decisions, final orders, or rulings of the Commission on election contests involving elective municipal and barangay offices shall be final, executory, and not appealable.
(3) Decide, except those involving the right to vote, all questions affecting elections, including determination of the number and location of polling places, appointment of election officials and inspectors, and registration of voters.
(4) Deputize, with the concurrence of the President, law enforcement agencies and instrumentalities of the Government, including the Armed Forces of the Philippines, for the exclusive purpose of ensuring free, orderly, honest, peaceful, and credible elections.
(5) Register, after sufficient publication, political parties, organizations, or coalitions which, in addition to other requirements, must present their platform or program of government; and accredit citizens' arms of the Commission on Elections. Religious denominations and sects shall not be registered. Those which seek to achieve their goals through violence or unlawful means, or refuse to uphold and adhere to this Constitution, or which are supported by any foreign government shall likewise be refused registration.
Financial contributions from foreign governments and their agencies to political parties, organizations, coalitions, or candidates related to elections, constitute interference in national affairs, and, when accepted, shall be an additional ground for the cancellation of their registration with the Commission, in addition to other penalties that may be prescribed by law.
(6) File, upon a verified complaint, or on its own initiative, petitions in court for inclusion or exclusion of voters; investigate and, where appropriate, prosecute cases of violations of election laws, including acts or omissions constituting election frauds, offenses, and malpractices.
(7) Recommend to the Congress effective measures to minimize election spending, including limitation of places where propaganda materials shall be posted, and to prevent and penalize all forms of election frauds, offenses, malpractices, and nuisance candidacies.
(8) Recommend to the President the removal of any officer or employee it has deputized, or the imposition of any other disciplinary action, for violation or disregard of, or disobedience to, its directive, order, or decision.
(9) Submit to the President and the Congress, a comprehensive report on the conduct of each election, plebiscite, initiative, referendum, or recall.
Section 3. The Commission on Elections may sit en banc or in two divisions, and shall promulgate its rules of procedure in order to expedite disposition of election cases, including pre- proclamation controversies. All such election cases shall be heard and decided in division, provided that motions for reconsideration of decisions shall be decided by the Commission en banc.
Section 4. The Commission may, during the election period, supervise or regulate the enjoyment or utilization of all franchises or permits for the operation of transportation and other public utilities, media of communication or information, all grants, special privileges, or concessions granted by the Government or any subdivision, agency, or instrumentality thereof, including any government-owned or controlled corporation or its subsidiary. Such supervision or regulation shall aim to ensure equal opportunity, and equal rates therefor, for public information campaigns and forums among candidates in connection with the objective of holding free, orderly, honest, peaceful, and credible elections.
Section 5. No pardon, amnesty, parole, or suspension of sentence for violation of election laws, rules, and regulations shall be granted by the President without the favorable recommendation of the Commission.
Section 6. A free and open party system shall be allowed to evolve according to the free choice of the people, subject to the provisions of this Article.
Section 7. No votes cast in favor of a political party, organization, or coalition shall be valid, except for those registered under the party-list system as provided in this Constitution.
Section 8. Political parties, or organizations or coalitions registered under the party-list system, shall not be represented in the voters' registration boards, boards of election inspectors, boards of canvassers, or other similar bodies. However, they shall be entitled to appoint poll watchers in accordance with law.
Section 9. Unless otherwise fixed by the Commission in special cases, the election period shall commence ninety days before the day of election and shall end thirty days thereafter.
Section 10. Bona fide candidates for any public office shall be free from any form of harassment and discrimination.
(2) The Chairman and the Commissioners shall be appointed by the President with the consent of the Commission on Appointments for a term of seven years without reappointment. Of those first appointed, the Chairman shall hold office for seven years, one Commissioner for five years, and the other Commissioner for three years, without reappointment. Appointment to any vacancy shall be only for the unexpired portion of the term of the predecessor. In no case shall any Member be appointed or designated in a temporary or acting capacity.
Section 2. (1) The Commission on Audit shall have the power, authority, and duty to examine, audit, and settle all accounts pertaining to the revenue and receipts of, and expenditures or uses of funds and property, owned or held in trust by, or pertaining to, the Government, or any of its subdivisions, agencies, or instrumentalities, including government-owned or controlled corporations with original charters, and on a post- audit basis: (a) constitutional bodies, commissions and offices that have been granted fiscal autonomy under this Constitution; (b) autonomous state colleges and universities; (c) other government-owned or controlled corporations and their subsidiaries; and (d) such non-governmental entities receiving subsidy or equity, directly or indirectly, from or through the Government, which are required by law or the granting institution to submit to such audit as a condition of subsidy or equity. However, where the internal control system of the audited agencies is inadequate, the Commission may adopt such measures, including temporary or special pre-audit, as are necessary and appropriate to correct the deficiencies. It shall keep the general accounts of the Government and, for such period as may be provided by law, preserve the vouchers and other supporting papers pertaining thereto.
(2) The Commission shall have exclusive authority, subject to the limitations in this Article, to define the scope of its audit and examination, establish the techniques and methods required therefor, and promulgate accounting and auditing rules and regulations, including those for the prevention and disallowance of irregular, unnecessary, excessive, extravagant, or unconscionable expenditures or uses of government funds and properties.
Section 3. No law shall be passed exempting any entity of the Government or its subsidiaries in any guise whatever, or any investment of public funds, from the jurisdiction of the Commission on Audit.
Section 2. The territorial and political subdivisions shall enjoy local autonomy.
Section 3. The Congress shall enact a local government code which shall provide for a more responsive and accountable local government structure instituted through a system of decentralization with effective mechanisms of recall, initiative, and referendum, allocate among the different local government units their powers, responsibilities, and resources, and provide for the qualifications, election, appointment and removal, term, salaries, powers and functions and duties of local officials, and all other matters relating to the organization and operation of the local units.
Section 4. The President of the Philippines shall exercise general supervision over local governments. Provinces with respect to component cities and municipalities, and cities and municipalities with respect to component barangays, shall ensure that the acts of their component units are within the scope of their prescribed powers and functions.
Section 5. Each local government unit shall have the power to create its own sources of revenues and to levy taxes, fees and charges subject to such guidelines and limitations as the Congress may provide, consistent with the basic policy of local autonomy. Such taxes, fees, and charges shall accrue exclusively to the local governments.
Section 6. Local government units shall have a just share, as determined by law, in the national taxes which shall be automatically released to them.
Section 7. Local governments shall be entitled to an equitable share in the proceeds of the utilization and development of the national wealth within their respective areas, in the manner provided by law, including sharing the same with the inhabitants by way of direct benefits.
Section 8. The term of office of elective local officials, except barangay officials, which shall be determined by law, shall be three years and no such official shall serve for more than three consecutive terms. Voluntary renunciation of the office for any length of time shall not be considered as an interruption in the continuity of his service for the full term for which he was elected.
Section 9. Legislative bodies of local governments shall have sectoral representation as may be prescribed by law.
Section 10. No province, city, municipality, or barangay may be created, divided, merged, abolished, or its boundary substantially altered, except in accordance with the criteria established in the local government code and subject to approval by a majority of the votes cast in a plebiscite in the political units directly affected.
Section 11. The Congress may, by law, create special metropolitan political subdivisions, subject to a plebiscite as set forth in Section 10 hereof. The component cities and municipalities shall retain their basic autonomy and shall be entitled to their own local executive and legislative assemblies. The jurisdiction of the metropolitan authority that will thereby be created shall be limited to basic services requiring coordination.
Section 12. Cities that are highly urbanized, as determined by law, and component cities whose charters prohibit their voters from voting for provincial elective officials, shall be independent of the province. The voters of component cities within a province, whose charters contain no such prohibition, shall not be deprived of their right to vote for elective provincial officials.
Section 13. Local government units may group themselves, consolidate or coordinate their efforts, services, and resources for purposes commonly beneficial to them in accordance with law.
Section 16. The President shall exercise general supervision over autonomous regions to ensure that laws are faithfully executed.
Section 17. All powers, functions, and responsibilities not granted by this Constitution or by law to the autonomous regions shall be vested in the National Government.
Section 18. The Congress shall enact an organic act for each autonomous region with the assistance and participation of the regional consultative commission composed of representatives appointed by the President from a list of nominees from multi-sectoral bodies. The organic act shall define the basic structure of government for the region consisting of the executive department and legislative assembly, both of which shall be elective and representative of the constituent political units. The organic acts shall likewise provide for special courts with personal, family, and property law jurisdiction consistent with the provisions of this Constitution and national laws.
The creation of the autonomous region shall be effective when approved by majority of the votes cast by the constituent units in a plebiscite called for the purpose, provided that only provinces, cities, and geographic areas voting favorably in such plebiscite shall be included in the autonomous region.
Section 19. The first Congress elected under this Constitution shall, within eighteen months from the time of organization of both Houses, pass the organic acts for the autonomous regions in Muslim Mindanao and the Cordilleras.
Section 20. Within its territorial jurisdiction and subject to the provisions of this Constitution and national laws, the organic act of autonomous regions shall provide for legislative powers over:
Section 21. The preservation of peace and order within the regions shall be the responsibility of the local police agencies which shall be organized, maintained, supervised, and utilized in accordance with applicable laws. The defense and security of the regions shall be the responsibility of the National Government.
Section 2. The President, the Vice-President, the Members of the Supreme Court, the Members of the Constitutional Commissions, and the Ombudsman may be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes, or betrayal of public trust. All other public officers and employees may be removed from office as provided by law, but not by impeachment.
Section 3. (1) The House of Representatives shall have the exclusive power to initiate all cases of impeachment.
(2) A verified complaint for impeachment may be filed by any Member of the House of Representatives or by any citizen upon a resolution or endorsement by any Member thereof, which shall be included in the Order of Business within ten session days, and referred to the proper Committee within three session days thereafter. The Committee, after hearing, and by a majority vote of all its Members, shall submit its report to the House within sixty session days from such referral, together with the corresponding resolution. The resolution shall be calendared for consideration by the House within ten session days from receipt thereof.
(3) A vote of at least one-third of all the Members of the House shall be necessary either to affirm a favorable resolution with the Articles of Impeachment of the Committee, or override its contrary resolution. The vote of each Member shall be recorded.
(4) In case the verified complaint or resolution of impeachment is filed by at least one-third of all the Members of the House, the same shall constitute the Articles of Impeachment, and trial by the Senate shall forthwith proceed.
(5) No impeachment proceedings shall be initiated against the same official more than once within a period of one year.
(6) The Senate shall have the sole power to try and decide all cases of impeachment. When sitting for that purpose, the Senators shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the Philippines is on trial, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court shall preside, but shall not vote. No person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of all the Members of the Senate.
(7) Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than removal from office and disqualification to hold any office under the Republic of the Philippines, but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to prosecution, trial, and punishment, according to law.
(8) The Congress shall promulgate its rules on impeachment to effectively carry out the purpose of this section.
Section 4. The present anti-graft court known as the Sandiganbayan shall continue to function and exercise its jurisdiction as now or hereafter may be provided by law.
Section 5. There is hereby created the independent Office of the Ombudsman, composed of the Ombudsman to be known as Tanodbayan, one overall Deputy and at least one Deputy each for Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. A separate Deputy for the military establishment may likewise be appointed.
Section 6. The officials and employees of the Office of the Ombudsman, other than the Deputies, shall be appointed by the Ombudsman, according to the Civil Service Law.
Section 7. The existing Tanodbayan shall hereafter be known as the Office of the Special Prosecutor. It shall continue to function and exercise its powers as now or hereafter may be provided by law, except those conferred on the Office of the Ombudsman created under this Constitution.
Section 8. The Ombudsman and his Deputies shall be natural-born citizens of the Philippines, and at the time of their appointment, at least forty years old, of recognized probity and independence, and members of the Philippine Bar, and must not have been candidates for any elective office in the immediately preceding election. The Ombudsman must have, for ten years or more, been a judge or engaged in the practice of law in the Philippines.
During their tenure, they shall be subject to the same disqualifications and prohibitions as provided for in Section 2 of Article 1X-A of this Constitution.
Section 9. The Ombudsman and his Deputies shall be appointed by the President from a list of at least six nominees prepared by the Judicial and Bar Council, and from a list of three nominees for every vacancy thereafter. Such appointments shall require no confirmation. All vacancies shall be filled within three months after they occur.
Section 10. The Ombudsman and his Deputies shall have the rank of Chairman and Members, respectively, of the Constitutional Commissions, and they shall receive the same salary which shall not be decreased during their term of office.
Section 11. The Ombudsman and his Deputies shall serve for a term of seven years without reappointment. They shall not be qualified to run for any office in the election immediately succeeding their cessation from office.
Section 12. The Ombudsman and his Deputies, as protectors of the people, shall act promptly on complaints filed in any form or manner against public officials or employees of the Government, or any subdivision, agency or instrumentality thereof, including government-owned or controlled corporations, and shall, in appropriate cases, notify the complainants of the action taken and the result thereof.
Section 13. The Office of the Ombudsman shall have the following powers, functions, and duties:
(1) Investigate on its own, or on complaint by any person, any act or omission of any public official, employee, office or agency, when such act or omission appears to be illegal, unjust, improper, or inefficient.
(2) Direct, upon complaint or at its own instance, any public official or employee of the Government, or any subdivision, agency or instrumentality thereof, as well as of any government-owned or controlled corporation with original charter, to perform and expedite any act or duty required by law, or to stop, prevent, and correct any abuse or impropriety in the performance of duties.
(3) Direct the officer concerned to take appropriate action against a public official or employee at fault, and recommend his removal, suspension, demotion, fine, censure, or prosecution, and ensure compliance therewith.
(4) Direct the officer concerned, in any appropriate case, and subject to such limitations as may be provided by law, to furnish it with copies of documents relating to contracts or transactions entered into by his office involving the disbursement or use of public funds or properties, and report any irregularity to the Commission on Audit for appropriate action.
(5) Request any government agency for assistance and information necessary in the discharge of its responsibilities, and to examine, if necessary, pertinent records and documents.
(6) Publicize matters covered by its investigation when circumstances so warrant and with due prudence.
(7) Determine the causes of inefficiency, red tape, mismanagement, fraud, and corruption in the Government and make recommendations for their elimination and the observance of high standards of ethics and efficiency.
(8) Promulgate its rules of procedure and exercise such other powers or perform such functions or duties as may be provided by law.
Section 14. The Office of the Ombudsman shall enjoy fiscal autonomy. Its approved annual appropriations shall be automatically and regularly released.
Section 15. The right of the State to recover properties unlawfully acquired by public officials or employees, from them or from their nominees or transferees, shall not be barred by prescription, laches, or estoppel.
Section 16. No loan, guaranty, or other form of financial accommodation for any business purpose may be granted, directly or indirectly, by any government-owned or controlled bank or financial institution to the President, the Vice-President, the Members of the Cabinet, the Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Constitutional Commissions, the Ombudsman, or to any firm or entity in which they have controlling interest, during their tenure.
Section 17. A public officer or employee shall, upon assumption of office and as often thereafter as may be required by law, submit a declaration under oath of his assets, liabilities, and net worth. In the case of the President, the Vice-President, the Members of the Cabinet, the Congress, the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Commissions and other constitutional offices, and officers of the armed forces with general or flag rank, the declaration shall be disclosed to the public in the manner provided by law.
The State shall promote industrialization and full employment based on sound agricultural development and agrarian reform, through industries that make full and efficient use of human and natural resources, and which are competitive in both domestic and foreign markets. However, the State shall protect Filipino enterprises against unfair foreign competition and trade practices.
In the pursuit of these goals, all sectors of the economy and all regions of the country shall be given optimum opportunity to develop. Private enterprises, including corporations, cooperatives, and similar collective organizations, shall be encouraged to broaden the base of their ownership.
Section 2. All lands of the public domain, waters, minerals, coal, petroleum, and other mineral oils, all forces of potential energy, fisheries, forests or timber, wildlife, flora and fauna, and other natural resources are owned by the State. With the exception of agricultural lands, all other natural resources shall not be alienated. The exploration, development, and utilization of natural resources shall be under the full control and supervision of the State. The State may directly undertake such activities, or it may enter into co-production, joint venture, or production-sharing agreements with Filipino citizens, or corporations or associations at least sixty per centum of whose capital is owned by such citizens. Such agreements may be for a period not exceeding twenty-five years, renewable for not more than twenty-five years, and under such terms and conditions as may be provided by law. In cases of water rights for irrigation, water supply fisheries, or industrial uses other than the development of water power, beneficial use may be the measure and limit of the grant.
The State shall protect the nation's marine wealth in its archipelagic waters, territorial sea, and exclusive economic zone, and reserve its use and enjoyment exclusively to Filipino citizens.
The Congress may, by law, allow small-scale utilization of natural resources by Filipino citizens, as well as cooperative fish farming, with priority to subsistence fishermen and fish- workers in rivers, lakes, bays, and lagoons.
The President may enter into agreements with foreign-owned corporations involving either technical or financial assistance for large-scale exploration, development, and utilization of minerals, petroleum, and other mineral oils according to the general terms and conditions provided by law, based on real contributions to the economic growth and general welfare of the country. In such agreements, the State shall promote the development and use of local scientific and technical resources.
The President shall notify the Congress of every contract entered into in accordance with this provision, within thirty days from its execution.
Section 3. Lands of the public domain are classified into agricultural, forest or timber, mineral lands and national parks. Agricultural lands of the public domain may be further classified by law according to the uses to which they may be devoted. Alienable lands of the public domain shall be limited to agricultural lands. Private corporations or associations may not hold such alienable lands of the public domain except by lease, for a period not exceeding twenty-five years, renewable for not more than twenty-five years, and not to exceed one thousand hectares in area. Citizens of the Philippines may lease not more than five hundred hectares, or acquire not more than twelve hectares thereof, by purchase, homestead, or grant.
Taking into account the requirements of conservation, ecology, and development, and subject to the requirements of agrarian reform, the Congress shall determine, by law, the size of lands of the public domain which may be acquired, developed, held, or leased and the conditions therefor.
Section 4. The Congress shall, as soon as possible, determine, by law, the specific limits of forest lands and national parks, marking clearly their boundaries on the ground. Thereafter, such forest lands and national parks shall be conserved and may not be increased nor diminished, except by law. The Congress shall provide for such period as it may determine, measures to prohibit logging in endangered forests and watershed areas.
Section 5. The State, subject to the provisions of this Constitution and national development policies and programs, shall protect the rights of indigenous cultural communities to their ancestral lands to ensure their economic, social, and cultural well-being.
The Congress may provide for the applicability of customary laws governing property rights or relations in determining the ownership and extent of ancestral domain.
Section 6. The use of property bears a social function, and all economic agents shall contribute to the common good. Individuals and private groups, including corporations, cooperatives, and similar collective organizations, shall have the right to own, establish, and operate economic enterprises, subject to the duty of the State to promote distributive justice and to intervene when the common good so demands.
Section 7. Save in cases of hereditary succession, no private lands shall be transferred or conveyed except to individuals, corporations, or associations qualified to acquire or hold lands of the public domain.
Section 8. Notwithstanding the provisions of Section 7 of this Article, a natural-born citizen of the Philippines who has lost his Philippine citizenship may be a transferee of private lands, subject to limitations provided by law.
Section 9. The Congress may establish an independent economic and planning agency headed by the President, which shall, after consultations with the appropriate public agencies, various private sectors, and local government units, recommend to Congress, and implement continuing integrated and coordinated programs and policies for national development.
Until the Congress provides otherwise, the National Economic and Development Authority shall function as the independent planning agency of the government.
Section 10. The Congress shall, upon recommendation of the economic and planning agency, when the national interest dictates, reserve to citizens of the Philippines or to corporations or associations at least sixty per centum of whose capital is owned by such citizens, or such higher percentage as Congress may prescribe, certain areas of investments. The Congress shall enact measures that will encourage the formation and operation of enterprises whose capital is wholly owned by Filipinos.
In the grant of rights, privileges, and concessions covering the national economy and patrimony, the State shall give preference to qualified Filipinos.
The State shall regulate and exercise authority over foreign investments within its national jurisdiction and in accordance with its national goals and priorities.
Section 11. No franchise, certificate, or any other form of authorization for the operation of a public utility shall be granted except to citizens of the Philippines or to corporations or associations organized under the laws of the Philippines, at least sixty per centum of whose capital is owned by such citizens; nor shall such franchise, certificate, or authorization be exclusive in character or for a longer period than fifty years. Neither shall any such franchise or right be granted except under the condition that it shall be subject to amendment, alteration, or repeal by the Congress when the common good so requires. The State shall encourage equity participation in public utilities by the general public. The participation of foreign investors in the governing body of any public utility enterprise shall be limited to their proportionate share in its capital, and all the executive and managing officers of such corporation or association must be citizens of the Philippines.
Section 12. The State shall promote the preferential use of Filipino labor, domestic materials and locally produced goods, and adopt measures that help make them competitive.
Section 13. The State shall pursue a trade policy that serves the general welfare and utilizes all forms and arrangements of exchange on the basis of equality and reciprocity.
Section 14. The sustained development of a reservoir of national talents consisting of Filipino scientists, entrepreneurs, professionals, managers, high-level technical manpower and skilled workers and craftsmen in all fields shall be promoted by the State. The State shall encourage appropriate technology and regulate its transfer for the national benefit.
The practice of all professions in the Philippines shall be limited to Filipino citizens, save in cases prescribed by law.
Section 15. The Congress shall create an agency to promote the viability and growth of cooperatives as instruments for social justice and economic development.
Section 16. The Congress shall not, except by general law, provide for the formation, organization, or regulation of private corporations. Government-owned or controlled corporations may be created or established by special charters in the interest of the common good and subject to the test of economic viability.
Section 17. In times of national emergency, when the public interest so requires, the State may, during the emergency and under reasonable terms prescribed by it, temporarily take over or direct the operation of any privately-owned public utility or business affected with public interest.
Section 18. The State may, in the interest of national welfare or defense, establish and operate vital industries and, upon payment of just compensation, transfer to public ownership utilities and other private enterprises to be operated by the Government.
Section 19. The State shall regulate or prohibit monopolies when the public interest so requires. No combinations in restraint of trade or unfair competition shall be allowed.
Section 20. The Congress shall establish an independent central monetary authority, the members of whose governing board must be natural-born Filipino citizens, of known probity, integrity, and patriotism, the majority of whom shall come from the private sector. They shall also be subject to such other qualifications and disabilities as may be prescribed by law. The authority shall provide policy direction in the areas of money, banking, and credit. It shall have supervision over the operations of banks and exercise such regulatory powers as may be provided by law over the operations of finance companies and other institutions performing similar functions.
Until the Congress otherwise provides, the Central Bank of the Philippines operating under existing laws, shall function as the central monetary authority.
Section 21. Foreign loans may only be incurred in accordance with law and the regulation of the monetary authority. Information on foreign loans obtained or guaranteed by the Government shall be made available to the public.
To this end, the State shall regulate the acquisition, ownership, use, and disposition of property and its increments.
It shall guarantee the rights of all workers to self-organization, collective bargaining and negotiations, and peaceful concerted activities, including the right to strike in accordance with law. They shall be entitled to security of tenure, humane conditions of work, and a living wage. They shall also participate in policy and decision-making processes affecting their rights and benefits as may be provided by law.
The State shall promote the principle of shared responsibility between workers and employers and the preferential use of voluntary modes in settling disputes, including conciliation, and shall enforce their mutual compliance therewith to foster industrial peace.
AGRARIAN AND NATURAL RESOURCES REFORM
Section 5. The State shall recognize the right of farmers, farmworkers, and landowners, as well as cooperatives, and other independent farmers' organizations to participate in the planning, organization, and management of the program, and shall provide support to agriculture through appropriate technology and research, and adequate financial, production, marketing, and other support services.
Section 6. The State shall apply the principles of agrarian reform or stewardship, whenever applicable in accordance with law, in the disposition or utilization of other natural resources, including lands of the public domain under lease or concession suitable to agriculture, subject to prior rights, homestead rights of small settlers, and the rights of indigenous communities to their ancestral lands.
The State may resettle landless farmers and farmworkers in its own agricultural estates which shall be distributed to them in the manner provided by law.
Section 7. The State shall protect the rights of subsistence fishermen, especially of local communities, to the preferential use of the communal marine and fishing resources, both inland and offshore. It shall provide support to such fishermen through appropriate technology and research, adequate financial, production, and marketing assistance, and other services. The State shall also protect, develop, and conserve such resources. The protection shall extend to offshore fishing grounds of subsistence fishermen against foreign intrusion. Fishworkers shall receive a just share from their labor in the utilization of marine and fishing resources.
Section 10. Urban or rural poor dwellers shall not be evicted nor their dwelling demolished, except in accordance with law and in a just and humane manner.
Section 12. The State shall establish and maintain an effective food and drug regulatory system and undertake appropriate health, manpower development, and research, responsive to the country's health needs and problems.
ROLE AND RIGHTS OF PEOPLE'S ORGANIZATIONS
People's organizations are bona fide associations of citizens with demonstrated capacity to promote the public interest and with identifiable leadership, membership, and structure.
(2) The Commission shall be composed of a Chairman and four Members who must be natural-born citizens of the Philippines and a majority of whom shall be members of the Bar. The term of office and other qualifications and disabilities of the Members of the Commission shall be provided by law.
(3) Until this Commission is constituted, the existing Presidential Committee on Human Rights shall continue to exercise its present functions and powers.
(4) The approved annual appropriations of the Commission shall be automatically and regularly released.
Section 18. The Commission on Human Rights shall have the following powers and functions:
(1) Investigate, on its own or on complaint by any party, all forms of human rights violations involving civil and political rights;
(2) Adopt its operational guidelines and rules of procedure, and cite for contempt for violations thereof in accordance with the Rules of Court;
(3) Provide appropriate legal measures for the protection of human rights of all persons within the Philippines, as well as Filipinos residing abroad, and provide for preventive measures and legal aid services to the under-privileged whose human rights have been violated or need protection;
(4) Exercise visitorial powers over jails, prisons, or detention facilities;
(5) Establish a continuing program of research, education, and information to enhance respect for the primacy of human rights;
(6) Recommend to Congress effective measures to promote human rights and to provide for compensation to victims of violations of human rights, or their families;
(7) Monitor the Philippine Government's compliance with international treaty obligations on human rights;
(8) Grant immunity from prosecution to any person whose testimony or whose possession of documents or other evidence is necessary or convenient to determine the truth in any investigation conducted by it or under its authority;
(9) Request the assistance of any department, bureau, office, or agency in the performance of its functions;
(10) Appoint its officers and employees in accordance with law; and
(11) Perform such other duties and functions as may be provided by law.
Section 2. The State shall:
(1) Establish, maintain, and support a complete, adequate, and integrated system of education relevant to the needs of the people and society;
(2) Establish and maintain, a system of free public education in the elementary and high school levels. Without limiting the natural rights of parents to rear their children, elementary education is compulsory for all children of school age;
(3) Establish and maintain a system of scholarship grants, student loan programs, subsidies, and other incentives which shall be available to deserving students in both public and private schools, especially to the under-privileged;
(4) Encourage non-formal, informal, and indigenous learning systems, as well as self-learning, independent, and out-of-school study programs particularly those that respond to community needs; and
(5) Provide adult citizens, the disabled, and out-of-school youth with training in civics, vocational efficiency, and other skills.
Section 3. (1) All educational institutions shall include the study of the Constitution as part of the curricula.
(2) They shall inculcate patriotism and nationalism, foster love of humanity, respect for human rights, appreciation of the role of national heroes in the historical development of the country, teach the rights and duties of citizenship, strengthen ethical and spiritual values, develop moral character and personal discipline, encourage critical and creative thinking, broaden scientific and technological knowledge, and promote vocational efficiency.
(3) At the option expressed in writing by the parents or guardians, religion shall be allowed to be taught to their children or wards in public elementary and high schools within the regular class hours by instructors designated or approved by the religious authorities of the religion to which the children or wards belong, without additional cost to the Government.
Section 4.(1) The State recognizes the complementary roles of public and private institutions in the educational system and shall exercise reasonable supervision and regulation of all educational institutions.
(2) Educational institutions, other than those established by religious groups and mission boards, shall be owned solely by citizens of the Philippines or corporations or associations at least sixty per centum of the capital of which is owned by such citizens. The Congress may, however, require increased Filipino equity participation in all educational institutions.
The control and administration of educational institutions shall be vested in citizens of the Philippines.
No educational institution shall be established exclusively for aliens and no group of aliens shall comprise more than one-third of the enrollment in any school. The provisions of this subsection shall not apply to schools established for foreign diplomatic personnel and their dependents and, unless otherwise provided by law, for other foreign temporary residents.
(3) All revenues and assets of non-stock, non-profit educational institutions used actually, directly, and exclusively for educational purposes shall be exempt from taxes and duties. Upon the dissolution or cessation of the corporate existence of such institutions, their assets shall be disposed of in the manner provided by law.
Proprietary educational institutions, including those cooperatively owned, may likewise be entitled to such exemptions, subject to the limitations provided by law, including restrictions on dividends and provisions for reinvestment.
(4) Subject to conditions prescribed by law, all grants, endowments, donations, or contributions used actually, directly, and exclusively for educational purposes shall be exempt from tax.
Section 5. (1) the State shall take into account regional and sectoral needs and conditions and shall encourage local planning in the development of educational policies and programs.
(2) Academic freedom shall be enjoyed in all institutions of higher learning.
(3) Every citizen has a right to select a profession or course of study, subject to fair, reasonable, and equitable admission and academic requirements.
(4) The State shall enhance the right of teachers to professional advancement. Non-teaching academic and non-academic personnel shall enjoy the protection of the State.
ARTS AND CULTURE
Section 15. Arts and letters shall enjoy the patronage of the State. The State shall conserve, promote, and popularize the nation's historical and cultural heritage and resources, as well as artistic creations.
Section 16. All the country's artistic and historic wealth constitutes the cultural treasure of the nation and shall be under the protection of the State which may regulate its disposition.
Section 17. The State shall recognize, respect, and protect the rights of indigenous cultural communities to preserve and develop their cultures, traditions, and institutions. It shall consider these rights in the formulation of national plans and policies.
Section 18. (1) The State shall ensure equal access to cultural opportunities through the educational system, public or private cultural entities, scholarships, grants and other incentives, and community cultural centers, and other public venues.
Subject to provisions of law and as the Congress may deem appropriate, the Government shall take steps to initiate and sustain the use of Filipino as a medium of official communication and as language of instruction in the educational system.
Section 7. For purposes of communication and instruction, the official languages of the Philippines are Filipino and, until otherwise provided by law, English.
The regional languages are the auxiliary official languages in the regions and shall serve as auxiliary media of instruction therein.
Spanish and Arabic shall be promoted on a voluntary and optional basis.
Section 8. This Constitution shall be promulgated in Filipino and English and shall be translated into major regional languages, Arabic, and Spanish.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Section 11. The Congress may provide for incentives, including tax deductions, to encourage private participation in programs of basic and applied scientific research. Scholarships, grants-in-aid, or other forms of incentives shall be provided to deserving science students, researchers, scientists, inventors, technologists, and specially gifted citizens.
Section 12. The State shall regulate the transfer and promote the adaptation of technology from all sources for the national benefit. It shall encourage the widest participation of private groups, local governments, and community-based organizations in the generation and utilization of science and technology.
(2) All educational institutions shall undertake regular sports activities throughout the country in cooperation with athletic clubs and other sectors.
Section 2. Marriage, as an inviolable social institution, is the foundation of the family and shall be protected by the State.
Section 3. The State shall defend:
(1) The right of spouses to found a family in accordance with their religious convictions and the demands of responsible parenthood;
(2) The right of children to assistance, including proper care and nutrition, and special protection from all forms of neglect, abuse, cruelty, exploitation and other conditions prejudicial to their development;
(3) The right of the family to a family living wage and income; and
(4) The right of families or family associations to participate in the planning and implementation of policies and programs that affect them.
Section 4. The family has the duty to care for its elderly members but the State may also do so through just programs of social security.
Section 2. The Congress may, by law, adopt a new name for the country, a national anthem, or a national seal, which shall all be truly reflective and symbolic of the ideals, history, and traditions of the people. Such law shall take effect only upon its ratification by the people in a national referendum.
Section 3. The State may not be sued without its consent.
Section 4. The Armed Forces of the Philippines shall be composed of a citizen armed force which shall undergo military training and serve as may be provided by law. It shall keep a regular force necessary for the security of the State.
Section 5. (1) All members of the armed forces shall take an oath or affirmation to uphold and defend this Constitution.
(2) The State shall strengthen the patriotic spirit and nationalist consciousness of the military, and respect for people's rights in the performance of their duty.
(3) Professionalism in the armed forces and adequate remuneration and benefits of its members shall be a prime concern of the State. The armed forces shall be insulated from partisan politics.
No member of the military shall engage, directly or indirectly, in any partisan political activity, except to vote.
(4) No member of the armed forces in the active service shall, at any time, be appointed or designated in any capacity to a civilian position in the Government, including government-owned or controlled corporations or any of their subsidiaries.
(5) Laws on retirement of military officers shall not allow extension of their service.
(6) The officers and men of the regular force of the armed forces shall be recruited proportionately from all provinces and cities as far as practicable.
(7) The tour of duty of the Chief of Staff of the armed forces shall not exceed three years. However, in times of war or other national emergency declared by the Congress, the President may extend such tour of duty.
Section 6. The State shall establish and maintain one police force, which shall be national in scope and civilian in character, to be administered and controlled by a national police commission. The authority of local executives over the police units in their jurisdiction shall be provided by law.
Section 7. The State shall provide immediate and adequate care, benefits, and other forms of assistance to war veterans and veterans of military campaigns, their surviving spouses and orphans. Funds shall be provided therefor and due consideration shall be given them in the disposition of agricultural lands of the public domain and, in appropriate cases, in the utilization of natural resources.
Section 8. The State shall, from time to time, review to increase the pensions and other benefits due to retirees of both the government and the private sectors.
Section 9. The State shall protect consumers from trade malpractices and from substandard or hazardous products.
Section 10. The State shall provide the policy environment for the full development of Filipino capability and the emergence of communication structures suitable to the needs and aspirations of the nation and the balanced flow of information into, out of, and across the country, in accordance with a policy that respects the freedom of speech and of the press.
Section 11. (1) The ownership and management of mass media shall be limited to citizens of the Philippines, or to corporations, cooperatives or associations, wholly-owned and managed by such citizens.
The Congress shall regulate or prohibit monopolies in commercial mass media when the public interest so requires. No combinations in restraint of trade or unfair competition therein shall be allowed.
(2) The advertising industry is impressed with public interest, and shall be regulated by law for the protection of consumers and the promotion of the general welfare.
Only Filipino citizens or corporations or associations at least seventy per centum of the capital of which is owned by such citizens shall be allowed to engage in the advertising industry.
The participation of foreign investors in the governing body of entities in such industry shall be limited to their proportionate share in the capital thereof, and all the executive and managing officers of such entities must be citizens of the Philippines.
(1) The Congress, upon a vote of three-fourths of all its Members; or
(2) A constitutional convention.
Section 2. Amendments to this Constitution may likewise be directly proposed by the people through initiative upon a petition of at least twelve per centum of the total number of registered voters, of which every legislative district must be represented by at least three per centum of the registered voters therein. No amendment under this section shall be authorized within five years following the ratification of this Constitution nor oftener than once every five years thereafter.
The Congress shall provide for the implementation of the exercise of this right.
Section 3. The Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of all its Members, call a constitutional convention, or by a majority vote of all its Members, submit to the electorate the question of calling such a convention.
Section 4. Any amendment to, or revision of, this Constitution under Section 1 hereof shall be valid when ratified by a majority of the votes cast in a plebiscite which shall be held not earlier than sixty days nor later than ninety days after the approval of such amendment or revision.
The first local elections shall be held on a date to be determined by the President, which may be simultaneous with the election of the Members of the Congress. It shall include the election of all Members of the city or municipal councils in the Metropolitan Manila area.
Section 2. The Senators, Members of the House of Representatives, and the local officials first elected under this Constitution shall serve until noon of June 30, 1992.
Of the Senators elected in the elections in 1992, the first twelve obtaining the highest number of votes shall serve for six years and the remaining twelve for three years.
Section 3. All existing laws, decrees, executive orders, proclamations, letters of instructions, and other executive issuances not inconsistent with this Constitution shall remain operative until amended, repealed, or revoked.
Section 4. All existing treaties or international agreements which have not been ratified shall not be renewed or extended without the concurrence of at least two-thirds of all the Members of the Senate.
Section 5. The six-year term of the incumbent President and Vice-President elected in the February 7, 1986 election is, for purposes of synchronization of elections, hereby extended to noon of June 30, 1992.
The first regular elections for the President and Vice-President under this Constitution shall be held on the second Monday of May, 1992.
Section 6. The incumbent President shall continue to exercise legislative powers until the first Congress is convened.
Section 7. Until a law is passed, the President may fill by appointment from a list of nominees by the respective sectors, the seats reserved for sectoral representation in paragraph (2), Section 5 of Article V1 of this Constitution.
Section 8. Until otherwise provided by the Congress, the President may constitute the Metropolitan Manila Authority to be composed of the heads of all local government units comprising the Metropolitan Manila area.
Section 9. A sub-province shall continue to exist and operate until it is converted into a regular province or until its component municipalities are reverted to the mother province.
Section 10. All courts existing at the time of the ratification of this Constitution shall continue to exercise their jurisdiction, until otherwise provided by law. The provisions of the existing Rules of Court, judiciary acts, and procedural laws not inconsistent with this Constitution shall remain operative unless amended or repealed by the Supreme Court or the Congress.
Section 11. The incumbent Members of the Judiciary shall continue in office until they reach the age of seventy years or become incapacitated to discharge the duties of their office or are removed for cause.
Section 12. The Supreme Court shall, within one year after the ratification of this Constitution, adopt a systematic plan to expedite the decision or resolution of cases or matters pending in the Supreme Court or the lower courts prior to the effectivity of this Constitution. A similar plan shall be adopted for all special courts and quasi-judicial bodies.
Section 13. The legal effect of the lapse, before the ratification of this Constitution, of the applicable period for the decision or resolution of the cases or matters submitted for adjudication by the courts, shall be determined by the Supreme Court as soon as practicable.
Section 14. The provisions of paragraphs (3) and (4), Section 15 of Article VIII of this Constitution shall apply to cases or matters filed before the ratification of this Constitution, when the applicable period lapses after such ratification.
Section 15. The incumbent Members of the Civil Service Commission, the Commission on Elections, and the Commission on Audit shall continue in office for one year after the ratification of this Constitution, unless they are sooner removed for cause or become incapacitated to discharge the duties of their office or appointed to a new term thereunder. In no case shall any Member serve longer than seven years including service before the ratification of this Constitution.
Section 16. Career civil service employees separated from the service not for cause but as a result of the reorganization pursuant to Proclamation No. 3 dated March 25, 1986 and the reorganization following the ratification of this Constitution shall be entitled to appropriate separation pay and to retirement and other benefits accruing to them under the laws of general application in force at the time of their separation. In lieu thereof, at the option of the employees, they may be considered for employment in the Government or in any of its subdivisions, instrumentalities, or agencies, including government-owned or controlled corporations and their subsidiaries. This provision also applies to career officers whose resignation, tendered in line with the existing policy, had been accepted.
Section 17. Until the Congress provides otherwise, the President shall receive an annual salary of three hundred thousand pesos; the Vice-President, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, two hundred forty thousand pesos each; the Senators, the Members of the House of Representatives, the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, and the Chairmen of the Constitutional Commissions, two hundred four thousand pesos each; and the Members of the Constitutional Commissions, one hundred eighty thousand pesos each.
Section 18. At the earliest possible time, the Government shall increase the salary scales of the other officials and employees of the National Government.
Section 19. All properties, records, equipment, buildings, facilities, and other assets of any office or body abolished or reorganized under Proclamation No. 3 dated March 25, 1986 or this Constitution shall be transferred to the office or body to which its powers, functions, and responsibilities substantially pertain.
Section 20. The first Congress shall give priority to the determination of the period for the full implementation of free public secondary education.
Section 21. The Congress shall provide efficacious procedures and adequate remedies for the reversion to the State of all lands of the public domain and real rights connected therewith which were acquired in violation of the Constitution or the public land laws, or through corrupt practices. No transfer or disposition of such lands or real rights shall be allowed until after the lapse of one year from the ratification of this Constitution.
Section 22. At the earliest possible time, the Government shall expropriate idle or abandoned agricultural lands as may be defined by law, for distribution to the beneficiaries of the agrarian reform program.
Section 23. Advertising entities affected by paragraph (2), Section 11 of Article XV1 of this Constitution shall have five years from its ratification to comply on a graduated and proportionate basis with the minimum Filipino ownership requirement therein.
Section 24. Private armies and other armed groups not recognized by duly constituted authority shall be dismantled. All paramilitary forces including Civilian Home Defense Forces not consistent with the citizen armed force established in this Constitution, shall be dissolved or, where appropriate, converted into the regular force.
Section 25. After the expiration in 1991 of the Agreement between the Republic of the Philippines and the United States of America concerning military bases, foreign military bases, troops, or facilities shall not be allowed in the Philippines except under a treaty duly concurred in by the Senate and, when the Congress so requires, ratified by a majority of the votes cast by the people in a national referendum held for that purpose, and recognized as a treaty by the other contracting State.
Section 26. The authority to issue sequestration or freeze orders under Proclamation No. 3 dated March 25, 1986 in relation to the recovery of ill-gotten wealth shall remain operative for not more than eighteen months after the ratification of this Constitution. However, in the national interest, as certified by the President, the Congress may extend such period.
A sequestration or freeze order shall be issued only upon showing of a prima facie case. The order and the list of the sequestered or frozen properties shall forthwith be registered with the proper court. For orders issued before the ratification of this Constitution, the corresponding judicial action or proceeding shall be filed within six months from its ratification. For those issued after such ratification, the judicial action or proceeding shall be commenced within six months from the issuance thereof.
The sequestration or freeze order is deemed automatically lifted if no judicial action or proceeding is commenced as herein provided.
Section 27. This Constitution shall take effect immediately upon its ratification by a majority of the votes cast in a plebiscite held for the purpose and shall supersede all previous Constitutions.
Cecilia Munoz Palma
Yusuf R. Abubakar Felicitas S. Aquino
Attested by :
Section 1. For purposes of the election of Members of the House of Representatives of the First Congress of the Philippines under the Constitution proposed by the 1986 Constitutional Commission and subsequent elections, and until otherwise provided by law, the Members thereof shall be elected from legislative districts apportioned among the provinces, cities, and the Metropolitan Manila Area as follows:
METROPOLITAN MANILA AREA
QUEZON CITY, four (4) - First District : Barangays Del Monte, Paltok, Bungad, San Antonio, Katipunan, Veterans Village, Talayan, Damayan, Mariblo, Paraiso, Sta. Cruz, Nayong Kanluran, Philam, West Triangle, N.S. Amoranto, Paang Bundok, San Isidro Labrador, Sta. Teresita, Salvacion, Maharlika, St. Peter, Lourdes, Sto. Domingo, Sienna, San Jose, Manresa, Pag-ibig sa Nayon, Balingasa, Masambong, Damar, Bahay Toro, St. Cristo, Ramon Magsaysay, Project 6, Vasra, Alicia, and Bagong Pag-asa; Second District: Barangays Fairview, New Era, Holy Spirit, Batasan Hills, Commonwealth, Payatas, Bagong Silangan, Sauyo, Talipapa, Bagbag, San Bartolome, Sta. Lucia, Gulod, Novaliches Proper, San Agustin, Nagkaisang Nayon, Sta. Monica, Kaligayahan, Pasong Putik, Apolonio Samson, Unang Sigaw, Tandang Sora, Pasong Tamo, Culiat, Baesa, Capri, Balumbato, and Sangandaan: Third District : Barangays E. Rodriguez, Silangan, Quirino 3-A, Duyan-Duyan, Quirino 3-B, Amihan, Socorro, San Roque, Manga, Zobel Dioquino, Tagumpay, Aguinaldo, Escopa 1, Escopa 2, Escopa 3, Escopa 4, West Kamias, East Kamias, Quirino 2 A, Quririno 2 B, Quirino 2 C, Ugong Norte, Bagumbayan, Libis, Villa Maria Clara, Masagana, Milagrosa, Marilag, Bagumbayan, Loyola Heights, Pansol, and Matandang Balara; Fourth District: Barangays Bagong Lipunan, Kaunlaran, San Martin, Immaculate Concepcion, South Triangle, Sacred Heart, Laging Handa, Paligsahan, Obrero, Roxas, Kamuning, Kanluran, Kamuning Silangan, Tatalon, Don Manuel, Dona Josefa, San Isidro, Dona Aurora, Santo Nino, Santol, Dona Imelda, Kristong Hari, Kalusugan, Damayang Lagi, Mariana, Valencia, Horseshoe, Pinagkaisahan, San Vicente, U.P. Campus, Krus Na Ligas, Central, Old Capital Site, U.P. Village, Teacher's East, Teacher's West, Sikatuna, Malaya, Pinahan, and Botocan.
CALOOCAN CITY, two (2) - First District : 70 Barangays; All of Caloocan North EDSA; Second District: 118 Barangays; All of Caloocan South EDSA.
PASAY CITY, one (1)
MALABON and NAVOTAS, one (1)
SAN JUAN and MANDALUYONG, one (1)
MARIKINA, one (1)
MAKATI, one (1)
PASIG, one (1) PARANAQUE, one (1)
LAS PINAS and MUNTINGLUPA, one (1)
PATEROS and TAGUIG, one (1)
BENGUET, with the City of Baguio, two (2) - First District: Baguio City; Second District: all the Municipalities of Benguet.
ILOCOS NORTE, with Laog City, two (2) - First District: Laoag City and the Municipalities of Bacarra, Bangui, Burgos, Pagud-Pagud, Pasuquin, Piddig, Sarrat, Vintar, Adams, Carasi, and Dumalneg; Second District: Municipalities of Badoc, Batac, Currimao, Dingras, Espiritu, Marcos, Nueva Era, Paoay, Pinili, San Nicolas, and Solsona.
ILOCOS SUR, two (2) - First District: Municipalities of Bantay, Cabugao, Caoayan, Magsingal, San Ildefonso, San Juan, San Vicente, San Catalina, Santo Domingo, Sinait, and Vigan; Second District: Municipalities of Alilem, Banayoyo, Burgos, Candon, Cervantes, Galimuyod, Gregorio del Pilar, Lidlidda, Nagbukel, Narvacan, Quirino, Salcedo, San Emilio, San Esteban, Santa, Santa Cruz, Santa Lucia, Santa Maria, Santiago, Suyo, Tagudin, Sigay, and Sugpon.
LA UNION, two (2) - First District : Municipalities of Bacnotan, Balaoan, Bangar, Luna, San Fernando, San Gabriel, San Juan, Santol, and Sudipen; Second District: Municipalities of Agoo, Aringay, Bagulin, Bauang, Burgos, Caba, Naguilian, Pugo, Rosario, Santo Tomas, and Tubao.
MOUNTAIN PROVINCE, one (1)
PANGASINAN, with the Cities of Dagupan and San Carlos, six (6) - First District: Municipalities of Bolinao, Bani, Agno, Burgos, Dasol, Infanta, Mabini, Alaminos, Anda and Sual; Second District: Municipalities of Labrador, Lingayen, Bugallon, Aguilar, Mangatarem, Binmaley, Urbiztondo, and Basista; Third District: San Carlos City, and the Municipalities of Malasiqui, Bayambang, Calasiao, Mapandan, and Sta. Barbara; Fourth District: Dagupan City and the Municipalities of Mangaldan, San Fabian, San Jacinto, and Manaoag; Fifth District: Municipalities of Binalonan, Laoac, Urdaneta, Villasis, Sison, Pozorrubio, Bautista, Alcala, and Sto. Tomas; Sixth District: Municipalities of Rosales, Asingan, Balungao, Sta. Maria, Umingan, San Quintin, Natividad, Tayug, San Nicolas, and San Manuel.
CAGAYAN, three (3) - First District: Municipalities of Aparri, Camalaniugan, Lallo, Buguey, Sta. Teresita, Gonzaga, Sta. Ana, Gattaran, Baggao, and Alcala; Second District: Municipalities of Sta. Praxedes, Sanchez Mira, Claveria, Pamplona, Abulug, Ballesteros, Allacapan, Lasam, Sto. Nino, Rizal, Piat, and Calayan; Third District: Municipalities of Tuguegarao, Solana, Enrile, Penablanca, Iguig, Amulung, and Tuao.
IFUGAO, one (1)
ISABELA, four (4) - First District: Municipalities of Sta. Maria, San Pablo, Cabagan, Sto. Tomas, Albano, Tumauini, Ilagan, Divilican, Maconacon, and Palanan; Second District: Municipalities of Aurora, San Manuel, Roxas, Mallig, Quezon, Quirino, Burgos, Gamu, Naguilian, Benito Soliven, An Mariano; Third District: Municipalities of Reina Mercedes, Cauayan, Luna, Cabatuan, San Mateo, Alicia, Angadanan, and San Guillermo; Fourth District: Municipalities Cordon, Santiango, Ramon, San Isidro, Echague, Jones, San Agustin, and Dinapigui.
KALINGA-APAYAO, one (1)
NUEVA VIZCAYA, one (1)
BULACAN, four (4) - First District : Municipalities of Hagonoy, Paombong, Malolos, Calumpit, Pulilan, and Bulacan; Second Distict: Municipalities Baliuag, Bustos, Plaridel, Guiguinto, Balagtas, Pandi, and Bocaue; Third District: Municipalities of San Miguel, San Ildefonso, San Rafael, Angat, Norzagaray, and Remedios Trinidad; Fourth District: Municipalities of San Jose del Monte, Sta. Maria, Marilao, Meycauayan,, and Obando.
NUEVA ECIJA, with the Cities of Cabanatuan, Palayan and San Jose, four (4) - First District: Municipalities of Nampicuan, Cuyapo, Guimba, Quezon, Talavera, Licab, Sto. Domingo, Aliaga, and Zaragoza, Second District: San Jose City and the Municipalities of Lupao, Munoz, Talugtog, Caranglan, Pantabangan, Lanera, and Rizal; Third District: Cabanatuan City; Palayan City, and the Municipalities of General Natividad, Bongabong, Laur, Gabaldon, and Sta. Rosa, Fourth District: Municipalities fof San Leonardo, General Tinio, Penaranda, Gapan, San Isidro, Cabiao, San Antonio, and Jaen.
PAMPANGA, with Angeles City, four (4) - First District : Angeles City and the Municipalities of Mabalacat and Magalang; Second District: Municipalities of Lubao, Guagua, Floridablanca, Porac, Sta. Rita, and Sexmoan; Third District: Municipalities of San Fernando, Arayat, Mexico, Bacolor, and Sta. ana; Fourth District: Municipalities of Candaba, Apalit, Macabebe, Masantol, Minalin, Sto. Tomas, San Luis, and San Simon.
TARLAC, three (3) - First District: Municipalities of Mayantoc, Sta. Ignacia, Camiling, Moncada, San Manuel, Anao, Paniqui, Ramos, San Clemente, and Pura; Second District: Municipalities of Tarlac, Gerona, and Victoria; Third District: Municipalities of Bamban, Capas, Concepcion, and La Paz.
BATANGAS, with the Cities of Batangas and Lipa, four (4) - First District: Municipalities of Nasugbu, Lian, Calatagan, Balayan, Tuy, Calaca, Lemery, and Taal; Second District: Batangas City and the Municipalities of Lobo, San Pascual, Bauan, Mabini, San Luis, and Tingloy; Third District: Municipalities of Balete, Malvar, Sto. Tomas, Tanauan, Talisay, Laurel, Agoncillo, San Nicolas, Sta. Teresita, Alitagtag, Cuenca, and Mataas na Kahoy; Fourth District : Lipa City and the Municipalities of San Juan, Taysan, Rosario, P. Garcia, Ibaan, and San Jose.
CAVITE, with the Cities of Tagaytay, Cavite and Trece Martires, three (30 - First District: Cavite City and the Municipalities of Bacoor, Kawit, Noveleta, and Rosario; Second District: Trece Martires City and the Municipalities of Imus, Dasmarinas, Carmona, Gen. Mariano Alvarez, General Trias, and Tanza; Third District: Tagaytay City and the Municipalities of Alfonso, Amadeo, General Aguinaldo, Indang, Magallanes, Maragondon, Mendez-Nunez, Naic, Silang, and Ternate.
LAGUNA, with San Pablo City, four (4) - First District: Municipalities of Binan, San Pedro and Sta. Rosa; Second District: Municipalities of Bay, Cabuyao, Calamba, and Los Banos; Third District: San Pablo City and the Municipalities of Calauan, Alaminos, Rizal, Nagcarlan, Liliw, and Victoria: Fourth District: Municipalities of Sta. Cruz, Pila, Lumban, Pagsanjan, Cavinti, Kalayaan, Paete, Pakil, Pangil, Siniloan, Famy, Mabitac, Sta. Maria, Magdalena, Luisiana, and Majayjay.
MARINDUQUE, one (1)
OCCIDENTAL MINDORO, one (1)
ORIENTAL MINDORO, two (2) - First District: Municipalities of Baco, Calapan, Naujan, Puerto Galera, San Teodoro, Victoria, Pola, and Socorro; Second District: Municipalities of Bansud, Bongabon, Bulalakao, Gloria, Mansalay, Pinamalayan, and Roxas.
PALAWAN, with Puerto Princesa City, two (2) - First District: Municipalities of Agutaya, Araceli, Busuanga, Cagayancillo, Coron, Cuyo, Dumaran, El Nido, Linapacan, Magsaysay, Roxas, San Vicente, Taytay, and Kalayaan; Second District: Puerto Princesa City and the Municipalities of Aborlan, Balabac, Batarasa, Brooke's Point, Narra, Quezon, and Marcos.
QUEZON, with Lucena City, four (4) - First District: Municipalities of Burdeos, Gen. Nakar, Infanta, Jumalig, Panukulan, Patnanungan, Polilio, Real, Sampaloc, Mauban, Pagbilao, Lucban, and Tayabas; Second District: Lucena city and Municipalities of Candelaria, Dolores, San Antonio, Sariaya, and Tiaong; Third District: Municipalities of Catanauan, Gen. Luna, Macalelon, Mulanay, Pitogo, San Andres, San Francisco, San Narciso, Buenavista, Padre Burgos, Agdangan, and Unisan; Fourth District: Municipalities of Calauag, Guinayangan, Gumaca, Lopez, Tagkawayan, Atimonan, Plaridel, Alabat, Perez, and Quezon
RIZAL, two (2) - First District: Municipalities of Antipolo, Taytay, Cainta, Angono, and Binangonan; Second District: Municipalities of E. Rodriguez, San Mateo, Morong, Cardona, Teresa, Baras, Tanay, Pililla, and Jala-Jala.
CAMARINES NORTE, one (1)
CAMARINES SUR, including the Cities of Naga and Iriga, four (4) - First District: Municipalities of Del Gallego, Ragay, Lupi, Sipocot, Libmanan, Cabusao, Pamplona, Pasacao, Minalabac, and San Fernando, Second District : Naga City and the Municipalities of Bonbon, Calabanga, Camaligan, Canaman, Gainza, Magarao, Milaor, Ocampo, and Pili; Third District: Municipalities of Caramoan, Garchitorena, Goa, Lagonoy, Presentacion, Sangay, San Jose, Tigaon, Tinambac, and Siruma; Fourth District: Iriga City and the Municipalities of Baao, Balatan, Bato, Buhi, Bula, and Nabua.
CATANDUANES, one (1)
MASBATE, three (3) - First District Municipalities of San Pascual, Claveria, Monreal, San Jacinto, San Fernando, and Batuan; Second District: Municipalities of Masbate, Mobo, Milagros, Aroroy, Baleno, Balud, and Mandaon; Third District: Municipalities of Uson, Dimasalang, Palanas, Cataingan, Pio V. Corpuz, Esperanza, Placer, and Cawayan.
ANTIQUE, one (1)
CAPIZ, including Roxas City, two (2) - First District: Roxas City and the Municipalities of Panay, Pilar, Pontevedra, President Roxas, Ma-ayon, and Panitan; Second District: Municipalities of Dumalag, Jamindan, Mambusao, Sapian, Sigma, Tapaz, Cuartero, Dao, Dumarao, and Ivisan.
ILOILO, five (5) - First District: Municipalities of Guimbal, Igbaras, San Joaquin, Tigbauan, Tubungan, Miagao, and Oton; Second District; Municipalities of Jordan, Nueva Valencia, Buenavista, Pavia, Leganes, Sta. Barbara, New Lucena, Zarraga, Alimodian, Leon, and San Miguel; Third District: Municipalities of Maasin, Cabatuan, Janiuay, Badiangan, Mina, Pototan, Calinog, Lambunao, and Bingawan; Fourth District: Municipalities of Passi, San Enrique, Duenas, Dingle, Barotac Nuevo, Dumangas, Anilao, and Banate; Fifth District: Municipalities of Barotac Viejo, San Rafael, Ajuy, Lemery, Concepcion, Sara, San Dionisio, Batad, Estancia, Balasan, and Carles.
ILOILO CITY, one (1)
NEGROS OCCIDENTAL, with the Cities of San Carlos, Cadiz, Bago, La Carlota, and Silay, six (6) - First District: San Carlos City and the Municipalities of Toboso, Calatrava, Escalante, and S. Benedicto; Second District: Cadiz City and the Municipalities of Sagay and Manapla; Third District: Silay City and the Municipalities of Victorias, Enrique B. Magalona, Talisay, and Murcia; Fourth District: Bago City and the Municipalities of Valladolid, San Enrique, Pontevedra, Pulupandan, and La Carlota; Fifth District: Municipalities of La Castellana, Moises Padilla, Isabela, Binalbagan, Himamaylan, and Hinigaran; Sixth District: Municipalities of Kabankalan, Ilog, Cauayan, Candoni, Sipalay, and Hinobaan.
CEBU, with the Cities of Danao, Lapu-Lapu, Mandaue, and Toledo, six (6) - First District: Municipalities of Talisay, Minglanilla, Naga, San Fernando, Carcar, and Sibongan; Second District: Municipalities of Argao, Dalaguete, Alcoy, Boljoon, Oslob, Santander, Samboan, Ginatilan, Malabuyoc, Alegria, Badian, Moal- boal, Alcantara, Ronda, and Dumanjug; Third District: Toledo City and the Municipalities of Barili, Alonguinsan, Pinamungajan, Balamban, Asturias, and Tuburan; Fourth District: Municipalities of Tabuelan, San Remigio, Sta. Fe, Bantayan, Madridejos, Daan- bantayan, Medellin, Bogo, and Tabogon; Fifth District: Danao City and the Municipalities of Borbon, Sogod, Catmon, Carmen, Compostela, Liloan, San Francisco, Poro, Tudela, and Pilar; Sixth District: Lapu-lapu City, Mandanue City, and the Municipalities of Cordova and Consolacion.
CEBU CITY, two (2) - First District: Barangays of Adlawon, Agsungot, Apas, Bacayan, Banilad, Binaliw, Budla-an, Busay, Cmbinocot, Camputhaw, Capitol Site, Carreta, Central Proper, Cogon-Ramos, Day-as, Ermita, Guba, Hipodromo, Kalubihan, Kamagayan, Kasambagan, Lahug, Lorega, Lusaran, Luz, Mabini, Mabolo, Malubog, Pahina Central, Parian, Paril, Pit-os, Pulang Bato, Sambag 1, Sambag 11, San Antonio, San Jose, San Roque, Sta. Cruz, Sirao, T. Padilla, Talamban, Taptap, Tejero, Tinago, and Zapatera; Second District: Barangays of Babag, Basak Pardo, Basak San Nicolas, Bonbon, Buhisan, Bulacao pardo, Bout-Taup, Calamba, Cogon Pardo, Duljo Fatima, Guadalupe, Inayawan, Kalunasan, Kinasang-an Pardo, Labangon, Mambaling, Pahina San Nicolas, Pamutan, Pardo, Pasil Abuno, Sibugay, Punta Princesa, Quiot, San Nicolas, Sawang Calero, Sinsin, Suba Pasil, Sudlon, Sapangdako, Tabunan, Tigbao, Tisa, and Toong.
NEGROS ORIENTAL, with the Cities of Bais, Canlaon, and Dumaguete, three (3) - First District: Canlaon City and the Municipalities of Vallehermoso, Guihulngan, La Libertad, Jimalalud, Tayasan, Ayungon, Bindoy, and Manjuyod; Second District: Bais City, Dumaguete City, and the Municipalities of Mabinay, Tanjay, Pamplona, Amlan, San Jose, and Sibulan; Third District: Municipalities of Valencia, Bacong, Dauin, Zamboanguita, Siaton, Sta. Catalina, Bayawan, and Basay.
SOUTHERN LEYTE, one (1)
EASTERN SAMAR, one (1)
NORTHERN SAMAR, two (2) - First District: Municipalities of Allen, Biri, Bobon, Capul, Catarman, Lavezares, Lope de Vega, Rosario, San Antonio, San Isidro, San Jose, San Vicente, Victoria, and Mondragon; Second District: Municipalities of Silvino Lobos, San Roque, Pambuyan, Las Navas, Catubig, Laoang, Palapag, Mapanas, Gamay, and Lapinig.
SULU, two (2) - First District: Municipalities of Jolo, Marungas, Indanan, Pangutaran, Parang, Talipao, Maimbung, and Patikul; Second District: Municipalities of Siasi, Pandami, Pata, Luuk, K. Culuang, Panamao, New Panamao, Tapul, Lungus, and Tongkil.
TAWI-TAWI, one (1)
ZAMBOANGA DEL NORTE, with the Cities of Dapitan and Dipolog, three (3) - First District: Dapitan City and the Municipalities of Sibutad, Rizal, La Libertad, Mutia, Pinan, Sergio Osmena, Sr., and Polanco; Second District: Dipolog City and the Municipalities of Katipunan, Pres. Manuel A. Roxas, Manukan, Ponot, Siayan, and Sindangan; Third District: Municipalities of Salug; Godod, Liloy, Tampilisan, Labason, Gutalac, Siocon, Baliquian, Siraway, Bacungan, and Sibuco.
ZAMBOANGA DEL SUR, with Pagadian City, three (3) - First District: Pagadian City and the Municipalities of Dumingag, Mahayag, Molave, Tambulig, Midsalip, R. Magsaysay, Labangan, Aurora, Tukuran, Josefina, and Don Mariano Marcos; Second District: Municipalities of Dumalinao, San Pablo, Tabina, Dima- taling, Dinas, San Miguel, Margosatubig, Lapuyan, Kumalarang, Bayog, Lakewood, Pitogo, and Vincenzo A. Sagun; Third District: Municipalities of Malangas, Alicia, Olutanga, Mabuhay, Siay, Kabasalan, Naga, Ipil, Titay, Tungawan, Buug, Imelda, Payao, Talusan, Diplahan, and Roseller Lim.
AGUSAN DEL SUR, one (1)
BUKIDNON, three (3) - First District: Municipalities of Talakag, Baungon, Malitbog, Libona, Manolo Fortich, Sumialo, Panganto-can, and Kalilangan; Second District: Municipalities of Malay-balay, Lantapan, Cabanglasan, Valencia, San Fernando, and Impasugong; Third District: Municipalities of Maramag, Quezon, Don Carlos, Kitaotao, Dangcagan, Kibawe, Damulog, and Kadingilan.
CAMIGUIN, one (1)
MISAMIS OCCIDENTAL, with the Cities of Oroquieta, Ozamiz and Tangub, two (2) - First District: Oroquieta City and the Municipalities of Baliangao, Plaridel, Calamba, Sapang Dalaga, Lopez Jaena, Aloran, Concepcion, Panaon, and Jimenez; Second District: Ozamiz City, Tangub City, and the Municipalities of Bonifacio, Tudela, Clarin, Sinacaban, and Don Mariano Marcos.
MISAMIS ORIENTAL, with Gingoog City, two (2) - First District: Gingoog City and the Municipalities of Magsaysay, Talisayan, Balingoan, Medina, Kinogitan, Sugbongcogon, Binuangan, Salay, Lagonglong, and Balingasag; Second District: Municipalities of Claveria, Jasaan, Villanueva, Tagoloan, Alubijid, El Salvador, Gitagum, Initao, Laguindingan, Libertad, Lugait, Manticao, Naawan, and Opol.
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, one (1)
DAVAO ORIENTAL, two (2) - First District: Municipalities of Boston, Cateel, Baganga, Caraga, Manay, and Tarragona; Second District: Municipalities of Mati, Banaybanay, Lupon, San Isidro, and Governor Generoso.
DAVAO DEL SUR, two (2) - First District: Municipalities of Magsaysay, Bansalan, Sta. Cruz, Matanao, Digos, Hagonoy, and Padada; Second District: Municipalities of Kiblawan, Sulop, Malalag, Sta. Maria, Malita, Jose Abad Santos, Don Marcelino, and Saranggani.
DAVAO CITY, three (3) - First District: Districts of
SOUTH COTABATO, with General Santos City, three (3) - First District: General Santos City, and the Municipalities of Polomolok, Tampakan, and Tupi; Second District: Municipalities of Tantangan, Norala, Banga, Sto. Nino, Surallah, Koronadal, Tiboli, and Lake Sebu; Third District: Municipalities of Alabel, Malapatan, Glan, Maasim, Kiamba, Maitum, and Malungon.
LANAO DEL SUR, with Marawi City, (2) - First District: Marawi City and the Municipalities of Marantao, Piagapo, Saguiaran, Tagoloan, Kapai, Ditsaan - Ramain, Bubong, Buadiposo-Buntong, Bumbaran, Maguing, Wao, Molundo, Taraka, Lumba-Bayabao, Poona-Bayabao, Masiu and Tamparan; Second District: Municipalities of Balindong, Tugaya, Bacolod Grande, Madalum, Madamba, Pualas, Ganassi, Pagayawan, Sultan Gumander, Malabang, Balabagan, Kapatagan, Marogong, Tubaran, Binidayan, Lumbatan, Lumbayanague, Butig, Bayang and Calanogas.
MAGUINDANAO, with Cotabato City, two (2) - First District: Cotabato City and the Municipalities of Parang, Sultan Kudarat, Buldon, Barira, Dinaig, Kabuntalan, Matanog and Upi; Second District: Municipalities of Pagalunga, Buluan, Sultan sa Barongis, Maganoy, Talaya, South Upi, Datu Piang, Datu Paglas, and Ampatuan.
NORTH COTABATO, two (2) - First District: Municipalities of Carmen, Kabacan, Libungan, Midsayap, Pigkawayan, Pikit, Aleosan, Banisilan, and Alamada; Second District: Municipalities of Kidapawan, Makilala, Matalam, Antipas, Mlang, Pres. Roxas Tulunan, and Magpet.
SULTAN KUDARAT, one (1)
Section 2. The Commission on Elections is hereby empowered to make minor adjustments of the reapportionment herein made.
Section 3. Any province that may hereafter be created, or any city whose population may hereafter increase to more than two hundred fifty thousand shall be entitiled in the immediately following election to at least one Member or such number of Members as it may be entitled to on the basis of the number of its inhabitants and according to the standards setforth in paragraph (3), Section 5 of Article VI of the Constitution. The number of Members apportioned to the province out of which such new province was created or where the city, whose population has so increased, is geographically located shall be correspondingly adjusted by the Commission on Elections but such adjustment shall not be made within one hundred and twenty days before the election.
Section 4. This Ordinance shall be appended to the Constitution proposed by the 1986 Constitutional Commission, and shall be submitted to a plebiscite simultaneously with such Constitution, and shall take effect upon its ratification by a majority of the votes cast in such plebiscite.
Cecilia Munoz Palma
Flerida Ruth P. Romero
MEMBERS OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL COMMISSION (CON COM)
Cecilia Munoz Palma
Ambrosio B. Padilla
Napoleon G. Rama
Ahmad Domocao Alonto
Jose D. Calderon
Attested by :
Flerida Ruth P. Romero
Philippine Country Links
|
<urn:uuid:551dfff6-6024-4cf2-a282-818e57d16350>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.philippinecountry.com/philippine_constitution/1987_constitution.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394987.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00179-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.922989
| 30,156
| 2.71875
| 3
|
Mission to record last of Aramaic
A British academic is attempting to document different dialects of Aramaic spoken by Iranian and Iraqi Jews before the language disappears from active use for good.
Dr Geoffrey Khan, Regius Professor of Hebrew at Cambridge University, has been researching Aramaic since the 1990s, studying both its historic application and the many modern variations spoken in Christian and Jewish communities today.
Now on sabbatical at Hebrew University’s Institute for Advanced Hebrew Studies, he is part of a team embarking on a last-ditch effort to make recordings of the few remaining Jewish Aramaic speakers.
For centuries, Aramaic survived in Jewish communities in Iraq and northwestern Iran, the majority of whose members fled to Israel or the West in the 1950s. Few have passed it on, leaving Jewish Aramaic particularly vulnerable.
An ancient language, dating back to as early as 1,000 BC, and used in myriad Jewish texts including the books of Daniel and Ezra, rabbinic writings, and in the Babylonian Talmud, Aramaic was dominant in the Middle East until the emergence of Arabic.
“Now only the very old can still speak any of the dialects,” said Dr Khan. “These are the final vestiges of this spoken language. We have 10 years at most; we are at a very urgent stage.”
Dr Khan’s mission is not religiously motivated, nor is he hoping to keep the language alive.
“That is a job for politicians, not academics. Losing these dialects would be a loss to human culture”.
|
<urn:uuid:88d743e5-92bc-401f-a1c6-82e9aa630526>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/102242/mission-record-last-aramaic
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397565.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00185-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.958016
| 329
| 3.015625
| 3
|
How to end bullying? Talk about it. A lot
Students at an elementary school in Janesville, Wis., act out bullying scenarios — like a bus ride tease — with supervisors, a sign that more educators are trying to prevent bullying rather than remediate its aftereffects.
Janesville, Wis. — The kids in Amanda Werner's fifth-grade class were role playing.
The scene: A girl on the bus was calling another girl names.
"I would tell the driver. Or I would go up to her and tell her she shouldn't say mean things to people," Payton Kahl said.
"Would you confront her?" asked student services specialist Ryan Stengl, who was leading the discussion.
"I would," Payton said.
"I would tell her to stop being mean," agreed Caleb Nelson.
Stengl wanted to make a point about confronting the bully. "If you feel safe doing that, that's probably the biggest difference you could make," Stengl told the students.
Stengl talked to the kids about bullying when they were fourth-graders. He was back to give them a refresher. All students at Adams Elementary get lessons and reminders on a regular basis. It's part of the school's overall discipline program, The Janesville Gazette reported.
Schools these days are working to stamp out bullying before it starts, or at least limit it as much as possible. They start early and repeat the message often, said Adams Principal Sally Parks and Stengl, who sat for a separate interview.
The local effort reflects a push by the federal government, which started an interagency website, stopbullying.gov, Parks noted. An attitude of an earlier generation was that bullying happens, kids will be kids, and there's not much that can be done to prevent it, Parks said.
Now, educators intervene early, hoping students will be less likely to be bullies or victims of bullies later. Middle school, as district statistics suggest, is the worst time for bullying. Werner's fifth-graders will be in middle school next September.
"We're really teaching social skills, and the best time to learn that is early on," Stengl said.
"I don't think anyone here is a bully," Werner told her students. "But I've talked to you guys about your choices."
Indeed, after numerous visits to the class, The Gazette has seen little evidence of meanness and never an outright bullying incident.
Werner told the kids she wants them to recognize their roles when bullying occurs — do they encourage the bully by joining in or even by not getting involved, or do they do something?
"That's a tricky part," she said. "It's tricky even for adults."
Kids are taught that telling an adult about bullying is not the negative "tattling" of a previous generation. "We really need the kids on board, so they're reporting and talking to us," Parks said.
Students are encouraged to report incidents even if they aren't sure that what they saw was a problem. That message — don't be a passive bystander; do something — was not what children were told not so long ago, Parks said. The message is that if you do nothing, you're a part of the problem.
Bullying-prevention messages are reinforced through the year — signs on the walls, a Bullying Prevention Week, and class discussions. Even reading class can help, with a large selection of books about friends, Parks said.
Stengl reviewed with the class what bullying is and isn't.
A dispute or a fight are not necessarily bullying, he reminded them, and he asked the kids to recall the questions that distinguish bullying from something else.
"Is it one-sided or two?" Stella Pearson said.
"Is it happening repeatedly?" Deonica Pauls said.
They couldn't recall the last question.
"You can feel it in your gut," Stengl told them. "Is this unfair, what's happening? Is it unjust?"
What can a fifth-grader do when bullying happens? Stengl encouraged them to stand up for themselves or for others. "If you are a bystander and you don't speak up, what are you doing?"
Being passive only makes the problem worse, the kids heard in a short video.
Stengl also mentioned something these kids' parents didn't deal with at their age: cyberbullying. That aspect has gotten lots of attention of late, with the introduction of bullying with a cellphone text message or social media postings, which make it all the more hurtful because they are broadcast to a larger audience and don't go away.
That's an aspect that is bound to loom larger in these students' lives in middle and high school.
Bullying also can be about excluding someone, Werner told the kids. Has anyone ever felt left out? Ever witnessed bullying? Ever been bullied? As Werner asked the questions, most hands went up, although there were fewer for the last question.
Developing empathy — the capacity to understand what another student is feeling — is part of the program as well. The key is self-confidence, officials believe.
"Really confident kids don't have many issues with getting picked on," Stengl said. "Things happen, but it's our hope kids will be so confident in their own skin that it just won't bother them," he added.
The bully is not ignored in all of this. The old procedure was one of zero tolerance, Parks said. Now, Parks' task is to find out what's the source of the bully's actions and to deal with what's going on in the child's life. Parks will work with troubled students, getting families involved, and setting goals that lead the offender back to the right track.
By nipping a dispute in the bud, a student who shows tendencies could be led in a positive direction and never become a full-fledged bully, Parks suggested.
Students are sometimes brought into a "restorative circle" in which the bully and victim discuss what happened and try to understand each other's behavior, Stengl said.
Follow-up is key, Stengl said. Students involved in past incidents are asked regularly how they're doing.
Staff members are trained to be on the lookout for tensions developing between students, and they warn each other if they suspect a flare-up is imminent.
"We have a great staff in terms of caring about kids and being in tune to changes in kids," Parks said.
|
<urn:uuid:d635c519-4e6f-4856-9321-3e3e6345df47>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Family/2013/0404/How-to-end-bullying-Talk-about-it.-A-lot
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391766.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00024-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.979483
| 1,354
| 3.359375
| 3
|
This documentary covered a subject which is frequently resorted to in Darwinist propaganda in order to mislead the public: chimpanzee intelligence and behaviour. Its subject matter was a group of chimpanzees who live in the rainforests, known as the Tai Jungle, on the coast of the Western African country The Ivory Coast.
Viewers were shown images and provided comments regarding a chimpanzee community said to consist of 60 individuals which had been studied by a husband and wife team of researchers. The most emphasized point in this production was the way this chimpanzee community was able to crack walnuts to an extent not observed in other chimpanzee societies. Indeed, the chimpanzees did demonstrate an astonishing level of ability in that regard.
The chimpanzees obtained the contents of the nut by placing the shell on a wooden anvil and hitting it with a thick branch. According to the commentary, this technique could only be employed by chimpanzees older than 10, and chimpanzees handed on this knowledge from one generation to the next. Unsurprisingly, Animal Planet then interpreted this behaviour from a Darwinist perspective. According to Animal Planet, this chimpanzee community was able to shed light on our alleged evolutionary ancestors. Animal Planet knows no bounds in its evolutionist propaganda, and did not hesitate to describe these chimpanzees as "one of us."
Moreover, Animal Planet also claimed that these chimpanzees also used branches to hit trees with, like a drumstick, thus communicating with one another.
The chimpanzee behaviour forced into a Darwinist mould on Animal Planet actually consists of the fantasies of a belief system which displays a blind devotion to scenarios of human evolution but which provides no scientific evidence for them. As Animal Planet viewers, we witness the chimpanzees" behaviour and listen to tall tales about how such behaviour has been left over from the evolutionary process. The fact is, however, that showing us "human-like" behaviour, especially of chimpanzees, must not give the impression that chimpanzees are the only creatures to display such "human-like" behaviour.
Contrary to the picture which Animal Planet seeks to form in our minds, there are many creatures in nature which display what could be termed "human-like" behaviour. When one examines the human-like behaviour of such animals as bees, beaver, ants and crows, it can be seen how misleading similar evolutionary claims concerning chimpanzees are. Although these creatures are far remote to man on the illusory evolutionary family tree than chimpanzees are, they display a level of intelligence which no chimpanzee could match.
To give a brief example, elephants communicate by striking their feet on the ground and set up a complex network of communication. Of course, however, this ability in elephants does not show that they and man evolved from a common ancestor.
There are many other creatures as well as elephants which invalidate the Darwinist propaganda concerning chimpanzees. (You can find a more detailed article of ours on this subject here.)
As we have seen, there is no scientific basis behind showing the human-like behaviour of chimpanzees to the accompaniment of Darwinist tall tales.
The support which Animal Planet gave to Darwinism in this program was not restricted to chimpanzees" success in cracking walnuts. Animal Planet also engaged in Social Darwinist propaganda when describing another form of behaviour to do with chimpanzees. The documentary also showed a hunt in which the chimpanzee community in question ambushed a long-tailed monkey, catching it in the trees, and then tore it limb from limb and ate it, to the accompaniment of savage cries. A large number of chimpanzees tried to take a piece of the corpse, and fought with one another to do so. These formed a terrible picture of mixed savagery and selfishness.
In a most interesting way, this savage and selfish behaviour was declared on Animal Planet to be behaviour which inspired the "love and respect" of the researchers. According to this, the married couple watching the chimpanzees "increased their feelings of love and respect for the chimpanzees as they came to better understand the selfishness in the sharing out of the prey."
These statements clearly showed that Animal Planet thought that man"s alleged evolutionary ancestors had once shared this savagery and selfishness, and that it was a cause for rejoicing that such selfish behaviour should be observed in man"s so-called relatives.
This Darwinist message given by Animal Planet -reveals that those who support that ideology do so as a so-called justification of the conflict of interests and selfishness in man"s nature. As we know, Darwinism is a philosophy which maintains that there is a constant struggle for survival in nature and that only the strong survive. The damage this philosophy does to human relations is evident. In a society where Darwinist philosophy prevails, the weak will be crushed, and individuals will engage in conflict with others in accordance with their own interests. If these conflicts spread through that society and cannot be reined in, then a society in which chaos and anarchy rule will be the inevitable result.
Not for nothing did the racist/fascist/communist dictators and theoreticians who wreaked bloodshed and destruction on humanity in the 20th century rain praise on Darwin"s theories. Many events of bloodshed in the 20th century were a deadly experiment in which Darwinism was implemented in social life.
We advise Animal Planet to cease engaging in Social Darwinist propaganda2003-08-18 00:00:00
|
<urn:uuid:315b8a94-756a-4f15-9bd0-337bba4d01d2>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.harunyahya.com/en/NetCevap/147980/Animals-from-A-to-Z-Too-Close-For-Comfort
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394414.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00077-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.955706
| 1,086
| 2.96875
| 3
|
Search IP address or hostname:
126.96.36.199 IP address Information
The IP address 188.8.131.52 was found in China. It is allocated to China Education and Research Network Center, Xi'an Institute of Technology. Additional IP location information, as well as network tools are available below.
|ISP: ||China Education and Research Network Center|
|Organization: ||Xi'an Institute of Technology|
|Country: ||China (CN) |
184.108.40.206 Location Map
Computers connected to a network are assigned a unique number known as Internet Protocol (IP) Address.
IP (version 4) addresses consist of four numbers in the range 0-255 separated by periods (i.e. 127.0.0.1).
A computer may have either a permanent (static) IP address, or one that is dynamically assigned/leased to it.
Most IP addresses can be mapped to host/domain names (i.e. www.speedguide.net).
Resolution between domain names and IP addresses is handled by Domain Name Servers (DNS).
|
<urn:uuid:a59f46c1-1226-49c5-aa7a-49accd401df4>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.speedguide.net/ip/222.25.50.20
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397864.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00143-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.897455
| 235
| 2.5625
| 3
|
A hazardous material spill is a spill in which there is a significant amount of a hazardous material released or one in which the release of the substance cannot be controlled. Examples of hazardous materials in quantities that would be considered a spill are: more than one gallon of bleach, more than 100 milliliters of sulfuric acid, more than one gallon of gasoline, and any quantity of mercury. Examples of infectious materials include blood and other body fluids.
Hazardous Material Spill Response
Copyright © 2016 Ball State University 2000 W. University Ave. Muncie, IN 47306
800-382-8540 and 765-289-1241
|
<urn:uuid:1289f334-bd7f-4c3b-9980-830c0aa137cc>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
https://cms.bsu.edu/about/administrativeoffices/emergencyprepared/guidelines/hazardousmaterialspill
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00077-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.88195
| 131
| 3.046875
| 3
|
|A solar power project at Santa Clara University|
Santa Clara University, a private Jesuit school in California’s Silicon Valley, is using solar to get it closer to its net-zero carbon goal. The University installed a new 1-megawatt system on the roofs of its event center, a recreation center and a parking garage late last month. The school just received its first bill since the system went in, said Joe Sugg, who heads up the University’s energy program. “So we’re still figuring out how much this will save us,” he said. The University has made a pledge to be carbon-neutral by 2016, just five years off, Sugg said.“It’s not so much an investment in solar,” Sugg said. “It’s an investment in environmental justice, and it’s an investment in our core values as a Jesuit institution.” Sugg said the university is aggressively going after its goal to reduce its carbon emissions in order to meet its goal.
Link (here) to read the full story
|
<urn:uuid:05c63203-eb56-4cc6-bb9a-4b97692d8f37>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://goodjesuitbadjesuit.blogspot.com/2010/11/were-still-try-to-figure-out.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397797.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00155-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.962374
| 229
| 2.640625
| 3
|
Major depression during pregnancy affects fourteen percent of women. Researchers from Stanford University Medical Center say acupuncture could be considered a treatment option for pregnant women suffering from depression that could lead to poor birth outcomes for mother and baby.
Rachel Manber, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and leader of the study found that 94 percent of pregnant women are hesitant to take antidepressants due to concerns about the effect of on fetal development. "Because there's this concern about medication among pregnant women and their physicians, it's important to find an alternative,"
Some antidepressants used during pregnancy have been linked to low birth weight, heart problems, and pulmonary artery hypertension (PAH). Untreated symptoms of depression can also increase the risk of pre-term birth.
Researchers recruited 150 women meeting criteria for major depression for their study, comparing depression specific acupuncture treatment to acupuncture using needles inserted in points that did not alleviate depression and to massage. The women were randomly assigned to the treatments, making the study well controlled.
Treatment with acupuncture resulted in a 63 percent reduction in symptoms compared to pregnant women who received massage or acupuncture that was known to not treat depression.
Study co-author Deirdre Lyell, MD, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology says acupuncture might not work for everyone, but hopes that people "will respect the rigorous methodology" and consider acupuncture an option for treating depression during pregnancy. Acupuncture lowered depression by 63 percent among pregnant women studied.
Obstetrics and Gynecology
In Charlotte NC, Acupuncture that could treat depression during pregnancy is offered at:
Tao Acupuncture Center
|
<urn:uuid:0868cf21-39f1-4a10-b0ee-feeb009f962e>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.examiner.com/article/acupuncture-should-be-considered-for-depression-during-pregnancy
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403826.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00191-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.946489
| 324
| 2.84375
| 3
|
Cecil John Rhodes, a mining entrepreneur, colonial politician, and empire builder, was born in Bishop’s Stortford (Hertfordshire, England) as the fifth son in a family of eleven children headed by Francis William Rhodes, the local vicar, and Louisa Taylor Peacock.
Cecil Rhodes was educated at the local grammar school, supervised by his father. A wished-for higher education in Oxford did not materialize. Instead, Rhodes went to South Africa in 1871 to join his eldest brother Herbert, a cotton planter in the British colony of Natal. On his arrival, Cecil left for the newly discovered diamond fields in Griqualand West. Rhodes set himself up as a cotton planter, but he was unsuccessful and became one of the region’s many diamond prospectors within the year.
The brief Natal experience made Rhodes aware of his latent managerial skills, which he later exploited to the maximum, first as manager of his brother’s diamond claims at Kimberley, and later as a businessman in his own right and as a politician. In the social conundrum of the diamond mines of the early 1870s, Rhodes formed a group of close friends, including John X. Merriman (1841-1926), a member of the Cape Legislative Assembly and future prime minister, and John Blades Currey (1829-1904), secretary of the British administration in Griqualand West. They introduced Rhodes to colonial politics.
By 1873 Rhodes had accumulated enough capital to go to Oxford University. The first phase of his Oxford career was short and incomplete, and it would take until 1881 and several more short periods of study before Rhodes acquired a degree. Although he was admitted at the Inner Temple in London (one of the traditional English ”law schools”) in March 1876, he never seriously pursued a career in the law. Though not much of an academic himself, Rhodes’s relationship with academia extends to the present day with a legacy of scholarships and fellowships, the Rhodes House Library in Oxford, and funds set up to support several South African universities. In 1891 Rhodes received an honorary degree from his alma mater.
In the mid-1870s the diamond industry went through a crisis and rapid change. Adverse weather, the need for complex technologies to work hard rock in deep open pits, and the resulting squabbles between black and white small-claim holders led to unrest and the departure of many diggers from the business. On his return from Oxford, Rhodes positioned himself in the camp of the larger claim-holders and colonial authority. With his partner, Charles Dunnell Rudd (1844-1916), Rhodes strongly advocated rationalization and amalgamation of the mines, not only for the common good of the mining industry, but also with personal motives.
Cecil Rhodes. The nineteenth-century British diamond magnate, colonial politician, and empire builder, photographed with his pet collie.
By the late 1880s, the De Beers Consolidated mining company, grown out of the De Beers mine set up by Rhodes and Rudd, had turned into a worldwide concern with a board in the Cape and in London and a virtual monopoly over diamond production and trade from South Africa. The amalgamation of the mines also meant extensive rationalization of business practices. De Beers introduced new systems of labor control, including the reorganization of black migrant labor into closed compounds, and rigorous and systematic strip searches of workers to prevent theft and smuggling of diamonds.
The enforcement of labor-control measures went hand in hand with British imperial expansion and the annexation of Griqualand West to the Cape Colony. It bought Rhodes a seat in the Cape parliament, and made his labor-control laws and institutions a model for twentieth-century South Africa.
Rhodes’s entry into Cape politics in 1881 was forceful and set the tone for his imperial ambitions and handiwork in later years. He became the spokesman for the mining industry, pushing forward the Diamond Trade Act of 1882 in parliament, with the help of the Cape Argus newspaper, which he had bought for the purpose. Mining interests were soon allied to an expansionist imperial interest when Rhodes successfully argued for the disannexation of Basutoland (now Lesotho) from the Cape Colony and the expansion of British rule toward the north of Griqualand West in order to curb both Afrikaner and Tswana ambitions for control over land and water in the area.
After 1886, when gold was first prospected on the Witwatersrand, the northward expansion of British colonial control increased its pace. Rhodes was interested in gold, but decided to go for the exploration of this mineral north of the Limpopo River in the Ndebele kingdom, thus bypassing the Boer-controlled South African Republic (Transvaal) and at the same time leading the British effort in the scramble for this part of Africa, now contested by Britain, Germany, Portugal, and Belgium.
The formation of the British South Africa Company (BSAC), chartered by the British government in 1889, allowed Rhodes and his partners to exploit and extend administrative control over a vast, if ill-defined, area of southern and central Africa. Within a couple of years, the BSAC not only annexed most of the territory now known as Zimbabwe (formerly Southern Rhodesia), but the company also incorporated what are now Zambia and Malawi by way of treaties with local leaders. Underlying the BSAC’s actions was a promise to populate the areas brought under its control with settlers, which would allow for an effective British occupation against contending European powers, and introduce the necessary capitalist development to the interior at minimum cost.
In the Cape, Rhodes’s political star was rising. From the mid-1880s, Rhodes supported the policies of the powerful Afrikaner Bond, a political party founded in 1880, with regard to the control of African land ownership, franchise, and labor in the Cape. Through judicious agreements with the Afrikaner Bond and some of the liberal parliamentarians, Rhodes managed to become prime minister of the Cape Colony in 1890. When he lost the support of the liberals in 1893, a general election brought him back stronger and with enhanced support from the Afrikaner Bond.
Rhodes’s second ministry, in which he also acted as minister for Native Affairs, saw the inclusion of all the remaining independent African polities into the Cape Colony. In Britain, his status as a colonial politician was confirmed with his appointment to the Privy Council, the traditional council of advisors to the British Crown, similar to a council of state, in 1895.
The construction of a railway line between the Cape and Transvaal in 1892 was popular with the Bond, but eventually led to a sharp conflict with the South African Republic led by Paul Kruger (1825-1904). In the next four years, the conflict built up and eventually led to a plan to incorporate the South African Republic. Rhodes and others, backed by British businessmen on the Witwatersrand and the British colonial secretary, made use of a trumped-up conflict about disenfranchised British immigrants (Uitlanders) in the South African Republic to stage an armed overthrow.
Leander Starr Jameson (1853-1917), a BSAC agent, invaded the Republic on his own accord, and against Rhodes’s wish to postpone the invasion, in late 1895 with the British South Africa Police Force, only to find that there was no support from inside. The raid forced Rhodes to resign and lost him much of the Afrikaner sympathy he had so carefully built up. It also caused a final rift between Afrikaners and the British, both in the Cape and the Boer republics. The affair also lost Rhodes his position as managing director of the BSAC and threatened the charter of the company. It was only Liberal parliamentarian Joseph Chamberlain’s (18361914) support of Rhodes before a House of Commons inquiry, in exchange for Rhodes’s silence about the former’s complicity, that prevented the revocation of the charter.
In the aftermath of the raid, the Ndebele of Southern Rhodesia rose against the white settlers in their area, and they were soon followed by the Shona people. Rhodes intervened personally and managed to diffuse the uprising by initiating successful secret negotiations with the Ndebele leadership, against the wishes of the white settlers. One result of the uprising was that the British government for the first time intervened directly in BSAC affairs by appointing a resident commissioner to the area. The era of colonialism and settler domination had started.
Despite the political setbacks of the 1890s, Rhodes returned to the political scene of the Cape Colony in the 1898 election, now as leader of the so-called Progressives in the Cape parliament, and against the Afrikaner Bond.
When the latter party won the general election, Rhodes’s role in Cape politics was finally over.
In the last four years of his life, Rhodes stayed in England for a considerable time. He also took time to fight legal battles against accusations made over his role in the Jameson Raid, and against the Polish fortune-seeker Princess Catherine Radziwill (1858-1941), who first tried to attach herself to Rhodes and later—when unsuccessful in her attempts—blackmailed him. Suffering from deteriorating health, Rhodes died at his Cape cottage on March 26, 1902. At his own request, he was buried on the Matopo Plateau in Southern Rhodesia two weeks later.
|
<urn:uuid:87fbad63-e122-4ef1-b24d-409b6a3e904e>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://what-when-how.com/western-colonialism/rhodes-cecil-western-colonialism/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00200-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.97275
| 1,975
| 3.421875
| 3
|
"The ALL Species Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to the complete inventory of all species of life on Earth within the next 25 years - a human generation. "
Animals4ever World's most interactive Zoological site made by and for you.: Animals4ever is a non profit organisation with the aim to promote natural sciences and the "first arts". Its main goal is to fill the gap between the scientific community and the public. Providing tools for both of them, such as this website, is one of its topics. Animals4ever is based in Belgium.
Animal Omnibus: “While searching the web for animal information, we realized that a child looking for an animal might have a hard time finding it. The Animal Omnibus is a list of web sources indexed by the name of the animal…” Brought to you by the Birmingham Zoo Animal sights, sounds and even Teacher’s Lesson Plans in Science
Arctic Science Journeys: 1999 Radio Transcripts of these expeditions.
Bill Nye the Science Guy: Science goodies, Ask Bill, Teacher’s lounge, Online labs and much more.
Biological Sciences Database - Marine Biology: "The DELTA Collaborative Multimedia Database Project is designed to provide faculty and students with access to a rich diversity of digital instructional materials (DIM) for self study and for use by faculty in developing courseware and electronic presentations for instructional purposes. "
Biology Learning Center - Online Science Courses: Online courses in fish biology, fish ecology, marine ecology, coral reefs, dolphins, and more.
in Krill and Other Deep Sea Creatures for Kids! "We
can derive a basic understanding of the word bioluminescence by
breaking it down into two parts. Bio refers to a living thing
while luminescence is an emission of light...."
Birdwatching.Com - About Wild Birds and Birding. FAQs, Resources,Video clips, Stories, Software, Online Store and much more
Darwin Research Station - Galapagos: This is the homepage of the Charles
Darwin Research Station, located in the Galapagos Archipelago. Read papers
about ongoing research at the station. Or you can learn about ongoing conservation
projects for the giant tortoise, land iguanas, and the dark-rumped petrel.
Cladistics: A method of classification of animals and plants on the basis of those shared derived characteristics that were not present in their distant ancestors (synapomorphies) which are assumed to indicate common ancestry. It uses strict monophyly as the only criterion for grouping related species.
The Cretaceous Extinction: ... included planktonic foraminifera, calcareous nannoplankton, diatoms, dinoflagellates, brachiopods, molluscs, echinoids, and fish. …”Following the Permian mass extinction, life was abundant but there was a low diversity of species. However, through the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous, major faunal radiations resulted in a large number of new species and forms. New terrestrial fauna that made their first appearance in the Triassic included the dinosaurs, mammals, pterosaurs (flying reptiles), amphibians (including frogs and turtles). In addition, the first birds appeared in the Jurassic. Among the terrestrial flora, the gymnosperms of the Permian remained dominant until the evolution of the angiosperms (flowering plants) in the Cretaceous. In the Cretaceous there was also major radiations occurring in several established groups including the marine reptiles, rudist bivalves, ammonoids, belemnoids, and scleractinian corals. Bivalves, and brachiopods. Marine groups that were present but did not undergo major evolutionary expansion in the period included the gastropods,bryozoans, crinoids, sea urchins, and sponges http://park.org/Canada/Museum/extinction/cretmass.html
DEEP-SEA Pages: Paul H. Yancey, Ph.D.: "These pages contain pictures, links and information on deep sea habitats and animals, with details on our studies."
Discovery.com:- Offers real-life non-fiction entertainment covering nature, science and technology, history, and world exploration.
The DEEPSEA Research Newsgroup exists to serve as an electronic forum for the world's community of deep-sea and hydrothermal vent/seep biologists, oceanographers, and geologists. Frequent uses of DEEPSEA include searches for specialist literature or opinion, specimen exchange, technical discussions, and general discussions about deep-sea marine biology and geology. As of December 1995, DEEPSEA had over 600 members representing more than 35 countries.
Earth Island Institute: "Welcome to Earth Island's home on the web. This site provides in-depth information and resources from our project network, award-winning journalism from the Earth Island Journal, and tools to address the environmental challenges we face."
Education Planet The K-12 education Web guide has links to help teachers, students and parents find quality educational resources, Science Sections: Science: Earth, Life, Physical. This is only a fraction of the subjects available. TEACHERS!!! This is a must site for you.
eNature.com The complete guide to over 4,800 North American plants and animals, with detailed descriptions and photographs.
Enchanted Learning.com: Zoom School is an on-line elementary school classroom with lessons in geography, biology, language arts, and early childhood activities.
Endangered Species: US Fish and Wildlife Program
Fossils: University of California Berkeley: Museum of Paleontology : Educational resources on geologic time, diversity of life through time, evolution and more. They also have catalogues, collections. upcoming events and pages galore to explore.
GryFinN: (Grid Physics Network)
The Challenge: Data-Intensive Science and Virtual Data: The GriPhyN (Grid Physics Network) collaboration is a team of experimental physicists and information technology (IT) researchers who plan to implement the first Petabyte-scale computational environments for data intensive science in the 21st century.
HotAIR: - Rare and well-done tidbits from the Annals of Improbable Research: The Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) is the humor magazine of science, medicine, and technology. AIR is known for (a) funny genuine science; (b) deadpan satire; and (c) the Ig Nobel Prizes. Many scientists, doctors, and engineers tell us that AIR is the only journal
Kimball’s Biology Pages: “Although some of this information has been drawn from the sixth edition of the author's text Biology published in 1994 by Wm. C. Brown, every effort has been made to adapt the material to the opportunities provided by an online text:”
Kingdoms Project: The Kingdoms Project's Natural Sciences Databases will be organized into various directories. Two major types of these directories exist, the kingdom-based directories and other types of directories. This is a collaboration of the Illinois State Academy of Science, the Illinois State Museum, and the Weizmann Institute of Science.
Mad Scientist Network: "Welcome to the laboratory that never sleeps! MadSci Network represents a collective cranium of scientists providing answers to your questions. For good measure we provide a variety of oddities and other ends as well."
Man and Mollusc:
More Internet Resource Pages dealing with science
(You are now on the main science page)
Marine Biological Institute: The oldest private marine laboratory in the western hemisphere, the Marine Biological Laboratory was founded in 1888 as an independent institution for teaching and research.
Marine Biology WEB MBWEB is an educational resource for marine biology students with reference lists organized by subject. Many other links are here including links to marine stations, tide information, and lots more!
Marine:Learn About Marine Life: This site offers basic information on a variety of marine creatures, and plants. There are also accompanying photos.
Marine Life Information Network (MarLIN) The organization that sponsors this website created it to be "the most comprehensive and easily used source of information about marine habitats, communities and species around Britain and Ireland." There are information and photos available for many different species of marine life. The site is designed to "provide a structure for linking available data on marine life around Britain and Ireland."
Marine; The Ocean of Know: "Our World Wide Web site is an on-line biology lab and lesson plan, where tele-students can read about a topic and then participate in scientific experiments. Tele-students can also dial into Mote Marine Laboratories in Florida, for a live ISDN video link. "
Marine Picture Book:by Boris Masis: Welcome to the Online Marine Picture Book! "This picture book will teach you about Rocky Shore Plants and Animals particularly in the intertidal zone..."
Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera Image Gallery: Contains more than 57,500 Images! Welcome to the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) Image Gallery! This site contains the pictures of Mars acquired by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) orbiter through February 2000.
Microsoft Terraserver: Get Free Satellite Imagery Of Virtually Any Locality
NASA: All sorts of interesting facts about space travel, and you can sign up for an "updates" newsletter that tells you what is going on behind the scenes in man's exploration of space. This site is great for all ages!
National Audubon Society(NAS):
Kids and Education Page The mission
of the National Audubon Society is to conserve and restore natural ecosystems,
focusing on birds and other wildlife for the benefit of humanity and the earth's
biological diversity. Founded in 1905, the National Audubon Society is named
for John James Audubon (1785-1851),
famed ornithologist, explorer, and wildlife artist.
RandomHouse NAS Guides
National Center for Biotechnology Information: Established in 1988 as a national resource for molecular biology information, NCBI creates public databases, conducts research in computational biology, develops software tools for analyzing genome data, and disseminates biomedical information - all for the better understanding of molecular processes affecting human health and disease.
National Geographic.com Home Page
Natural Perspective: “This site is dedicated to the beauty and science of nature and to the joys nature brings to those who explore it. The joy of seeing "familiar faces" everywhere; the invigoration a nature walk brings to both body and soul; the beauty and diversity of our Earthly co-habitants; and the pleasure of eating something found along the way.”
Nature International Weekly Journal of Science and now with a daily science and nature online update
an online encyclopedia of life: a source for authoritative conservation information
on more than 50,000 plants, animals, and ecological communities of the United
States and Canada. NatureServe provides in-depth information on rare and endangered
species, but includes common plants and animals too. NatureServe is a product
of the Association for Biodiversity Information in collaboration
with the Natural Heritage Network.
Search Name Criteria - All Species, Species - Informal Names
New Scientist.com: Enjoy this weekly science and technology news. They also have a searchable data base and an online subscription to their magazine. Be sure to check out their various pages; such as:
Newton’s Apple: Public TV's Family Science Show; GET YOUR HANDS ON SCIENCE!
Ocean Animals: Reference information about a host of sea creatures including killer whales, eagle rays, common puffins, harbour porpoises, coral reef animals, and estuary and coastal water animals. An illustration of each animal is accompanied by details of their class, order, size, family, scientific name, range, diet, conservation status, and habitat. General facts about sea turtles and invertebrates such as sponges, molluscs, echinoderms, and cnidarians are also offered. Author: Evergreen Project
OceanLink Packed with information this site originates in Canada and is a good resource for anyone with an interest in the marine world. News, Ecology, Student Resources, Careers, Ask a Scientist, Explore the World of Underwater Sound, and many more fascinating areas to explore on this GREAT SITE!
Christopher R. Scotese: "The goal of the PALEOMAP Project is to illustrate
the plate tectonic development of the ocean basins and continents, as well
as the changing distribution of land and sea during the past 1100 million
Some GREAT animations and teaching aids here.
The Living Rain Forest:"The Living Rainforest is a visitor centre in Berkshire, UK with a tract of rainforest under glass. Visitors can see free-flying birds and butterflies, as well as a crocodile, monkeys and much more. Our website contains information about plants, animals and peoples of the tropical rainforests."
The Saturday Scientist: Read articles such as:
Sea World Animal Information Database: Sea World /Busch Gardens: See the wondrous world of marine animals when you go sightswimming at Sea World online. Animal resources, educational programs, lesson plans for teachers and marine career information can all be found here. You can even take a field trip without ever leaving home! The sights and sounds are definitely worth a visit!
Studyweb: Marine Biology: Set of annotated links to research papers, course materials and other educational resources relevant to marine biology, including whales, dolphins, fish and sharks, coral reefs, crustaceans, molluscs and echinoderms and shore life.
Think Quest: "ThinkQuest is a global network of students, teachers, parents and technologists dedicated to exploring youth-centered learning on the Net. "
The Tide Pool Page: "The systems created where the land meets the sea are some of the most beautiful and diverse on our planet. Tide pools are one such community, created where rocky shores are covered and uncovered daily by the ocean. Organisms that have made this area their home must be well adapted to adjust to the drastic changes in environment that come with the changing of tides each day. This web page is devoted to the type of tide pool found in the Pacific Northwest, specifically of the Oregon coast."
Try Science.org: TryScience.org is your gateway to experience the excitement of contemporary science and technology through on and offline interactivity with science and technology centers worldwide. Science is exciting, and it's for everyone! That's why TryScience and over 400 science centers worldwide invite you to investigate, discover, and try science yourself.
US Geologic Survey: Science for a changing world: A Tapestry of Time and Terrain: The Union of Two Maps - Geology and Topography
The Virtual Silurian Reef : A distance-learning project of the MILWAUKEE PUBLIC MUSEUM,: "During the Silurian Period in earth history, 425 million years ago, when much of North America was covered by a shallow, tropical sea, reefs flourished in the area now occupied by Wisconsin and Illinois. This site uses these reefs as a vehicle for students to learn general principles, local details, and environmental significance of the study of the ancient past..."
Volcano World: includes current eruptions, world volcano listings by region, and images.
Welcome to the Sequence Monkey Home Page!
FREE downloadable software
You are tired of the tedious chore of compiling individual DNA or amino acid sequences into formats appropriate for PAUP, MacClade, MacVector, or Clustal.
You are looking for a faster interface for conversion among multi-sequence alignment formats?
You are fed-up with too-inflexible software applications that crash with the slightest misstep?
You are looking for Sequence Monkey!
Welcome to the Earth Life Web:
A Great online
"The Earth Life Web is a web site dedicated to supplying you with all the information you want about life on this planet. In short it is an encyclopedia of life on earth.
It is now, and perhaps will always be, 'under construction'. There is a lot of life on planet earth so it will take some time to get it all written, just typing out the names of all the species would take me over 10 years. I have no intention of trying to do that, but even so there is a lot to write, so please be patient. ".
Windows to the Universe:
Welcome to Windows to the Universe! Our purpose is to develop a fun
and different Web site about the Earth and Space sciences. Windows to the
Universe is graphics intensive!
Articles of Interest:
Educational Standards Keyword Search: "The purpose of this form is to allow educators to search Windows to the Universe pages that contain content relevant to Michigan Essential Goals and Objectives for Science and Education (MEGOSE) or National Science Education Standards."
page was last completely edited
September 04, 2002
If you have a site you would like to see added to this or any other of Man and Mollusc Link pages; PLEASE notify me
This is a new counter system set up by Globel on
December 01, 2002
Articles Page Mollusc of the Moment Translation Page History What's New Molluscan Links Non- Molluscan Links Links Related Kid's Colouring Pages Avril's Fun Page Edible Molluscan Data Base Meet my Sponsors Information on becoming a sponsor Cone Wars page 1 Cone Wars page 2 Prehistoric Shellfish Gathering Naming a New Mollusk Species Octopuses are Smart Suckers Taxonomy of the Phylum Mollusca Voyages of the H.M. Bark Endeavour and its Replica Interesting Geoduck Facts Educational Moluscs Subject_index Endangered Molluscs Scaphopoda Links General Page 1 Links General Page 2 Collections for Sale Commercial Sites Cones Other Great Shell Collections: International Page 1 (A - I) Page 2 (J - Z) : and Non-Specific The Teres Complex Leproicypraea Mappa Erosaria Nebrites Form Labrospinosa TRITON TRITON #8 Ed Heiman's Personal Page Edible Molluscan Data Base Food Trade Goods Medicinal Uses Art and Architecture Music & Communication Personal Adornment Industry Offshoots Miscellaneous Uses Shell Collecting POLYPLACOPHORA MONOPLACOPHORA APLACOPHORA SCAPHOPODA GASTROPODA BIVALVA, or PELECYPODA CEPHALOPODA References Used
|
<urn:uuid:11e400f4-49b6-43ad-9520-143038554e21>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://avrils-place.com/links-index-mm/links_science.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399522.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00029-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.894711
| 3,898
| 2.71875
| 3
|
Island in a storm; Both US and Canada lay claim to a granite speck in Gulf of Maine
Jonesport, Maine — Capt. Barna B. Norton looks out his kitchen window across Jonesport Harbor and up the Maine coast, now a splash of brilliant orange sandwiched between black water and dark rain clouds.
Fifteen nautical miles to the northeast, a smaller storm has been brewing for 200 years on Machias Seal Island - a guano-covered speck of granite claimed by both the United States and Canada. And Captain Norton, who has been ferrying bird watchers and photographers to the island since 1940, is up to his hip boots in the latest round of the dispute.
Canada built a lighthouse on the island in 1832; declared it a bird sanctuary in 1944; and in June of this year, restricted the number of visitors to 25 a day to protect the puffins and Arctic terns nesting there.
Captain Norton says those on both sides of the issue got along well until early June, when the Canadian Wildlife Service warden on the island ordered him to land three tourists on a ramp ''when the sea was running and it was unsafe. I informed him (the warden) he had no authority over me as I was a United States citizen and this was United States territory.''
Norton says after he landed the tourists behind a protected ledge, the warden threatened him with arrest by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and jail in Canada.
Norton then produced a letter from the State Department's David A. Colson, assistant legal adviser for oceans and international environmental and scientific affairs. Mr. Colson had assured Captain Norton in May ''that Machias Seal Island is part of the United States, and has been since the founding of the Republic. . . . You have every right to ignore any regulations that Canada might pretend to set for Machias Seal Island.''
''We honored the treaty (of Paris in 1783), I'm just waiting for them (Canadians) to honor it,'' Captain Norton says in his downeast drawl. ''You can't negotiate, 'cause we own it.''
Canada, however, says that treaty - which defined the US-Canada border at the close of the American Revolution - has no bearing on ownership of the island, which lies 11 miles southwest of New Brunswick's Grand Manan Island. Grand Manan Island was awarded to Britain in 1817 by a commission set up by the Treaty of Ghent. Some Canadians claim Machias Seal Island is part of the Grand Manan Archipelago of about 100 tiny islands scattered in the shoals southwest of Grand Manan.
An official in Canada's Department of External Affairs states very simply: ''There is no dispute as far as we are concerned. We have maintained a lighthouse on the island since 1832 and we consider it our island. It is a Canadian island and Canadian-regulated, and if we have to protect birds we will call on those regulations.''
Although the puffins and terns left the island in mid-August for their annual migration south, the storm has not been allowed to blow itself out.
A Canadian newspaper picked up the story of Norton's confrontation with the warden. It reported that Captain Norton was ''flooding the island'' with visitors and endangering the bird populations:
''More than 1,300 bird watchers, biologists, and environmentalists have flocked to the six-hectare-square (about 15 acres) island this year, nearly double the number of recent years. Norton, who has accounted for nearly 500 of this year's visitors, vows to keep them coming and says his son may add a second boat next year unless the dispute is resolved,'' the Saint John Telegraph Journal reported in September.
Captain Norton denies the report. ''I'll go along with their protection of the birds - they're attacking the wrong guy on that one. I come from a long line of people interested in the environment. But I'm not going to flood that island. That's crazy. It's my business.'' As for his son, ''He's still got two years in the Coast Guard,'' Norton says.
''There's always someone (who) wants to stir up trouble,'' he continues. ''It's not the local people. Someone in an office somewheres wants to stir up things. They're using that particular environmental thing to wrestle a claim on Machias Seal Island.''
There have been other claims to the island during the past 200 years. In 1976 , for example, when the possibility of offshore oil exploration in the area was raised, the 1956 graduating class of Grand Manan High School staked a mineral claim on Machias Seal Island. After some initial publicity, the claim seems to have been forgotten.
Over the years there have been small feuds between Maine and New Brunswick lobstermen fishing the area around the island, but there has been little pressure to resolve the stalemate. Captain Norton maintains everyone ''gets along fine.''
Norton admits that the ''Canadian lighthouse has been a godsend to all of us. We've used it more than they have. And the keepers have been my very best friends. I get along just great with 'em. I take them milk, mail, and furniture in the summer. I furnished them with a rowboat - it's rough all around the island. As a matter of fact, I don't go through customs out there, and they (the keepers) don't even pay duty on the TVs or furniture I bring them until they come into Canada as secondhand material.
''If they'd (all) just let us alone I think we could settle it,'' he says.
There have been several international attempts to resolve the dispute, but none so far has been successful. The current arbitration over a maritime boundary in the Gulf of Maine, now before a chamber of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, actually excludes Machias Seal Island from the negotiation.
Robert Smith of the Office of the Geographer in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research says resolution of the conflict ''has been on the back burner. We're not addressing it at this time. And the negotiation over the maritime boundary in the Gulf of Maine does not (affect) Machias Seal Island. We're only looking at the line (15 to 20 miles) seaward of Machias.''
The Canadians would like the maritime boundary line drawn equidistant between the US coastline and the nearest Canadian territory - which in this case is Grand Manan Island.
The United States would like to see an equitable line drawn through Georges Basin that would share with Canada the rich fishing and petroleum resources of Georges Bank.
''Once a decision is made by the (International) court (of Justice) on the maritime boundary,'' says a specialist in maritime law, ''it will be easier to reach an agreement and decision on the fisheries and possibly work out a deal (on Machias Seal Island).''
Captain Norton, however, says that ''if they allow Canada to take over Machias, the people in Washington County - we're all fishermen - would starve. It's bad enough here as it is.''
Until the Machias Seal Island dispute is settled, Captain Norton says he plans to ''continue as I've done for 40 years'' - taking groups out to the island beginning June 1 through mid-August.
In the meantime, he says he is going to ''get my equipment in order. You don't have boats and just get in 'em and sail into the sunset. It isn't that way. I get my boats in just as good condition as I can.''
|
<urn:uuid:1b6d94ff-fe92-45b0-b956-7ea030b8c92b>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.csmonitor.com/1983/1027/102724.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403508.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00180-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.969358
| 1,563
| 2.734375
| 3
|
Opening of the International Tracing Service's Holocaust-Era Archives in Bad Arolsen, Germany
Publication Date: April 2007
Publisher(s): Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service
For over 60 years, the International Tracing Service (ITS) has limited access to information in its vast archives of documents relating to victims of Germany's NationalSocialist (Nazi) regime to survivors of Nazi crimes and their descendants. As recently as 2006, ITS had a recorded backlog of over 400,000 requests for information. The archives remain off-limits to historical research. In May 2006, responding largely to pressure from Holocaust survivors and their advocates, the International Commission overseeing ITS agreed to open the archives for historical research and to make digital copies of its collections available to research institutions in Commission member states. Six member states have yet to approve the agreement. In March 2007, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs reported out H.Res. 240 urging these states to expedite approval of the Commission's decision to open the archives. Some Members of Congress have urged the Administration to seek authorization for the immediate transfer of digitized copies of archived materials to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum at the Commission's May 2007 meeting. This report will be updated after the May meeting.
|
<urn:uuid:74be6e6a-b98b-4fe0-a726-3aaa2c49a0bf>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.policyarchive.org/handle/10207/4480
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398869.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00197-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.937121
| 253
| 2.671875
| 3
|
Breeding males can be recognised by their booming call, which can be heard from three miles away.
The birds had come under threat when their habitat - damp, reedy fenland - was drained, damaged or neglected.
But intensive work to create new places for the birds to live has helped bring them back to places like Norfolk.
Graham Madge, of the RSPB, said "There's no reason why the population shouldn't grow and grow now."
Bitterns were once very common, and even considered a bit of a luxury meat.
|
<urn:uuid:308bb5e2-a318-43b6-918a-0a8a506d03d4>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/animals/newsid_3175000/3175203.stm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396887.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00197-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.982035
| 115
| 2.8125
| 3
|
Definitions for chagrinʃəˈgrɪn
This page provides all possible meanings and translations of the word chagrin
chagrin, humiliation, mortification(verb)
strong feelings of embarrassment
humiliate, mortify, chagrin, humble, abase(verb)
cause to feel shame; hurt the pride of
"He humiliated his colleague by criticising him in front of the boss"
Distress of mind caused by a failure of aims or plans, want of appreciation, mistakes etc; vexation or mortification.
A type of leather or skin with a rough surface.
To bother or vex; to mortify.
She was chagrined to note that the paint had dried into a blotchy mess.
Origin: From chagrin. Prior to that, the etymology is unclear, with several theories – of Germanic or possibly Turkish origin.
to excite ill-humor in; to vex; to mortify; as, he was not a little chagrined
to be vexed or annoyed
Origin: [Cf. F. chagriner See Chagrin, n.]
Chambers 20th Century Dictionary
sha-grēn′, n. that which wears or gnaws the mind: vexation: annoyance.—v.t. to vex or annoy.—p.adj. Chagrined′. [Fr. chagrin, shagreen, rough skin, ill-humour.]
The numerical value of chagrin in Chaldean Numerology is: 2
The numerical value of chagrin in Pythagorean Numerology is: 6
Sample Sentences & Example Usage
I hope the Dutch can get over their chagrin and say: 'Yes, we are annoyed with Europe, we are annoyed with this Dutch government, but we will still support Ukraine.
To Netanyahu's chagrin, however, the Iranian threat is simply not the most important issue to voters in this election -- a fact that was true ahead of the last elections as well.
Images & Illustrations of chagrin
Translations for chagrin
From our Multilingual Translation Dictionary
- разочарование, огорчавам, огорчение, досаждамBulgarian
- zarmoutit, zklamat, zármutekCzech
- Verdruss, verdrießenGerman
- mielipaha, olla pahoillaanFinnish
- miabhadh, sàraichScottish Gaelic
- mortificare, mortificazione, dispiacere, deludere, delusioneItalian
- verdriet, vervelen, chagrijn, irritatie, storen, ongenoegenDutch
- poczucie klęskiPolish
- огорчение, огорчать, шагреневая кожа, досада, досаждатьRussian
Get even more translations for chagrin »
Find a translation for the chagrin definition in other languages:
Select another language:
|
<urn:uuid:eae26414-152c-4559-9c73-16c039c3e125>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.definitions.net/definition/chagrin
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00056-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.733079
| 739
| 2.984375
| 3
|
NERSC Initiative for Scientific Exploration (NISE) 2011 Awards
High resolution modeling to identify the location of the meltwater flood responsible for the Younger Dryas cold episode
Alan Condron, Pennsylvania State University
Associated NERSC Project: Abrupt Climate Change and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (m1068)
Principal Investigator: Peter Winsor, University of Alaska Fairbanks
|NISE Award:||1,000,000 Hours|
|Award Date:||June 2011|
As the rate of melt from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets increases in the future, the additional meltwater entering the ocean could threaten the continuation of our present-day warm climate by causing us to suddenly plunge into a very cold, glacial period. Our research aims to understand where this stability threshold lies, and how close our modern day climate is to crossing it.
Using the state-of-the-art, high resolution, Massachusetts Institute of Technology general circulation model (MITgcm), our previous research results have begun to allow us to develop a more complete understanding of the role glacial meltwater floods played in modulating the earth’s climate in the past. By modeling the discharge of meltwater from a number of different regions of the North American continent at a numerical resolution many times higher than achievable if we had not had access to the NERSC supercomputing center, we have been able to show that the delivery of meltwater to the ocean in the past was very different from the conceptual ‘textbook’ idea that meltwater created a large homogeneous fresh layer over the sub-polar North Atlantic. These results have been met with considerable enthusiasm by the scientific community and have now been published in the journal of Geophysical Research Letters
We request additional computer hours to try and resolve the on-going debate in the scientific community as to the geographic location, magnitude, and duration, of the meltwater pulse(s) responsible for triggering a ~1300 year cold episode around 13,000 cal years ago, known as the Younger Dryas. The main contenders for this title are meltwater discharged to the ocean from either via the Mackenzie River (i.e into the western Arctic) or the Gulf of St. Lawrence (western North Atlantic). A number of other sources have also been hypothesized, including the discharge of thick sea-ice from the Arctic, and meltwater from the Eurasian Ice sheet.
We will release meltwater into our model at each location, at a range of magnitudes, and differing durations (years to decades), in order to quantify which meltwater sources have the largest impact on the climate system, and therefore which had the most potential to trigger a Younger Dryas like cold episode. We will also undertake a series of integrations looking at the impact of freshwater at different states of the climate system, including full glacial and relative warm (modern) conditions. Computer hours are also requested to extend the length of several existing integrations to more fully understand the impact of freshwater on the climate system.
The research we are undertaking has a direct bearing on understanding our future climate by quantifying the impact of freshwater from accelerated melting of glaciers around Greenland and Antarctica. Due to the computationally demanding nature of these experiments – integrations typically utilize 1800 processors - access to the supercomputing center at NERSC is required to carry out our proposed experiments. Our integrations have typically been run on Franklin, but we have recently had considerable success integrating our configuration on NERSCs new Hopper II machine.
|
<urn:uuid:cbc9e0b4-a0c0-4547-a218-7926ab47b678>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.nersc.gov/users/accounts/awarded-projects/previous-year-awards/nise-2011-awards/?start=11
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403502.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00109-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.931546
| 723
| 2.578125
| 3
|
Miniature Bibles by David Bryce
'The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour
(Glasgow: David Bryce, 1895) [NLS shelfmark ABS.4.203.05].
In 1895, a year before he issued a complete Bible in miniature, David Bryce published a remarkably tiny New Testament measuring only 18mm tall. It was a photolithographic reduction of the Oxford Pica New Testament.
(Glasgow: D Bryce, 1901)
[NLS shelfmark: RB.s.2191].
Published in the tens of thousands, this was the smallest work in Bryce's output.
First complete Bible
Bryce's first complete Bible in miniature appeared in 1896 and was a reduced facsimile of the Oxford 16mo (sextodecimo) edition.
Edward VII and Queen
Alexandra (Glasgow: David Bryce,
1902) [NLS shelfmark: RB.s.2197].
Later editions were undated, but were published around 1901. They typically measured 43mm in height, had 876 pages and included 29 line drawings.
Bryce produced hundreds of thousands of these tiny Bibles and many were presented to serving soldiers throughout the British Empire.
Books produced by Gleniffer Press featured in the miniature books display at the National Library of Scotland from 18 September to 17 November 2013.
|
<urn:uuid:278399f0-28b6-46a6-a028-826df9bef58c>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.nls.uk/exhibitions/treasures/miniature-books/tiny-bibles
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397748.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00190-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.946026
| 282
| 2.84375
| 3
|
Lichen planus is an inflammatory skin condition that can be itchy, painful and leave permanent scars.
lichen planus: an inflammatory condition of the skin; can be present anywhere on the skin, on the scalp, in the mouth, or on the nails
According to the American Academy of Dermatology, lichen planus affects about 1%-2% of the general population. There is little known as to the cause of the condition, but all theories include a reaction of the body’s immune system. The problem is doctors don’t know what causes the immune system to react. “There is no evidence of outside stimulus,” says Dr. Jere Mammino, D.O., a clinical dermatologist at Advanced Dermatology in Oviedo, Fla. “In a way, lichen planus is an auto-immune condition, because the immune system attacks the skin,” says Mammino. But even in this, lichen planus is an exception. “That term refers to genetic conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis or lupus,” he says. Yet, there is no conclusive evidence that lichen planus is genetic. Lichen planus can develop nearly anywhere on the body. On the skin, lichen planus “appears as rows of itchy, flat -topped bumps,” according to the Mayo Clinic. Lichen planus can also appear on the inside of the cheek and on the gums and tongue. Often a dentist will recognize the white lines and dots that are present in the mouth and send the patient to a dermatologist for diagnosis. Lichen planus also appears on the scalp (referred to as lichen planopilaris). On the scalp, lichen planopilaris can cause permanent damage to hair follicles and leave adults with patches of baldness. Of those affected with the condition, about 10% will have lichen planus on the nails, says Dr. Mammino. The condition can cause splitting or thinning of the nails. “It can be very difficult to diagnose,” says Mammino. One reason is it’s easy to confuse with other nail conditions, such as pterygium. Another roadblock to a diagnosis is the fact that lichen planus can show up on all the nails and toes, on only the nails or the toes, or on only select nails or toes. There’s no hard and fast rule for how or where lichen planus will appear on the nails. “It really is a diagnosis of exclusion,” says Dr. Lisa Hitchins, a Houston-based board-certified dermatologist. “There is no particular treatment for lichen planus of the nails,” says Hitchins. “There is really not a lot you can do.” When lichen planus appears on the skin, says Hitchins, two-thirds of patients will suffer for less than a year. Almost all of them will be clear by the second year. However, when lichen planus appears on the nail, it often destroys the matrix. Consequently, even if the lichen planus clears up, the nail will still be damaged. Lichen planus can be itchy, and it can cause inflammation. For these reasons, doctors sometimes prescribe steroids or suggest a cortisone shot at the base of the nail. These treatments don’t cure lichen planus, but they can provide clients relief from the itching or pain. Other recommendations for relief include a tepid soak or an over-the-counter antihistamine or a hydrocortisone cream. The good news is that lichen planus is not contagious and it’s not dangerous, so techs don’t have to fear contracting the condition or spreading it from client to client.
|
<urn:uuid:394516fb-25e2-425b-8f05-4739f37ce8af>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.nailsmag.com/article/81889/what-is-lichen-planus
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00039-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.93544
| 803
| 3.140625
| 3
|
Fortran to C++ Conversion
Fortran to C++ conversions are performed using a sophisticated system Objexx has developed and extended over a number of years. This conversion process preserves the syntax and semantics of the Fortran within fully ANSI/ISO compliant C++11 to retain the value of the code and existing documentation and to allow a wide range of developers to maintain the code.
Conversion Benefits and Tradeoffs
Conversion to C++ can be the right choice for a project in a number of situations. C++ is a more powerful language with better object-oriented design support and a much larger pool of developers to draw from. C++ also has a vast range of libraries and excellent GUI, visualization, and plotting packages to choose from.
Conversion vs. Wrapping
It is possible to get many of these benefits by wrapping a Fortran computational core in a modern C++ application, and Objexx uses this approach for some projects. But the burden of maintaining the C++—Fortran interface and the additional complexity of a hybrid application are often not warranted.
The performance of the converted C++ code may initially be slower than the Fortran but can be brought up to parity with a modest tuning effort. The ObjexxFCL arrays have a built-in fast lookup method that can go a long way towards bringing the speed back to that of the Fortran, or in some cases exceeding it. Objexx can do further performance enhancement of converted code, typically achieving speeds well beyond that of the Fortran.
When Performance considerations are important Objexx can do a small conversion+tuning study on sample code to demonstrate the performance of the C++ vs. that of the Fortran.
Conversion to C++ is often a first step in a code evolution plan. Objexx can perform refactoring and/or provide team mentoring to help clients migrate the converted C++ to exploit the capabilities of the language, such as improved modularity via object-oriented design and improved testability.
Some of the technical aspects of our conversion include:
- Reference (not pointer!) argument passing for clean code that corresponds to the Fortran.
- Variable names and comments are preserved.
- Fortran-like array template classes provide column-major arrays that preserve the element indexing of the Fortran and Fortran's array passing "tricks".
- Fortran-like string and substring classes are provided to encapsulate the distinct properties of Fortran strings and allow these strings to work smoothly with C++ strings.
- DATA statements become constructor initializers.
- PARAMETER, SAVE, VOLATILE, INTENT and other Fortran declaration attribute semantics are preserved.
- COMMON blocks are converted to namespaces.
- EQUIVALENCEs and COMMONs that can introduce aliasing are detected and converted as appropriate for the intent of the usage.
The Objexx Fortran Compatibility Library (ObjexxFCL) that provides the array, string, and intrinsic function support is open source: it is included in C++ source form with licensing that allows modification by the clients. The ObjexxFCL is in use in major codes and has been heavily tested and vetted for correctness. The ObjexxFCL arrays provide high-performance tuning capabilities and some unique dynamic sizing capabilities that can be exploited to great effect in meeting post-conversion modernization and refactoring goals.
This conversion of a simple Fortran 77 routine to C++ (shown at right) gives some sense of our approach. The philosophy of this method is to maintain the syntax and semantics of the Fortran as much as possible, thereby allowing both C++ and Fortran developers to maintain the code.
|
<urn:uuid:3461ff00-18ed-4158-be83-f00c5d89244c>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://objexx.com/Fortran_to_Cpp.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393146.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00104-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.87928
| 763
| 2.5625
| 3
|
Southern Diet, Fried Foods, May Raise Stroke Risk
Deep-fried foods may be causing trouble in the Deep South. A study finds that people who consume a lot of fried foods and drinks like sweet tea and soda were 41 percent more likely to suffer a stroke than people who ate that way about once a month.
Researchers say the study might help explain why blacks in the Southeast suffer more strokes. Blacks were five times more likely than whites to have the Southern dietary pattern.
The diet tied to highest stroke risk was heavy on fried foods, hamburgers, hot dogs, bacon, ham, liver, gizzards and sugary drinks. In contrast, people who ate a lot of vegetables, fruits, fish and whole grains had a lower stroke risk.
Results were reported Thursday at a stroke conference in Honolulu.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.
|
<urn:uuid:a4a2bb6c-4453-4615-a620-0e117e6612ac>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://apr.org/post/southern-diet-fried-foods-may-raise-stroke-risk
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00038-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.970303
| 173
| 2.53125
| 3
|
Having a dietary supplement as a daily routine is a common thing in modern lifestyle. People do it to stay fit and healthy. The market is flooded with so many dietary supplements, lot of health claims are made about their benefits, however are they really safe and effective? This article is to analyze the information about dietary supplements, the safety considerations, and other unknown facets of Supplements.
Dietary Supplements – Key Points[checklist]
- There is a huge difference between over-the-counter drugs and dietary supplements. The FDA (federal) regulations for dietary supplements are far simple and a dietary supplement does not have to prove a product’s safety and effectiveness before it is marketed to the people unlike prescription and over-the-counter drugs.
- Dietary supplements may contain ingredients that are not listed on the label.
- One should not hide anything from their health care provider, including things like alternative practices or dietary supplements. Such a practice will make sure of a coordinated and safe care.
- Not many people know that the dietary supplement that they take can interact with their medications. People should get reliable information from trusted sources before opting for supplements. For instance kiwi supplements are blood thinners, hence should not be consumed before a heart surgery. Acai supplements should not be taken before an MRI scan as it can change the results. A lot of supplements can interact with the medications.
Definition of “Dietary Supplements”:
A law passed in 1994 by the Congress named “Dietary Supplement Health Education Act (DSHEA) defines the term Dietary supplements. Acording to that law a dietary supplement can be defined as a product that:[starlist]
- Is intended to supplement the diet
- Contains one or more dietary ingredients (including vitamins, minerals, herbs or other botanicals, amino acids, and certain other substances) or their constituents
- Is intended to be taken by mouth, in forms such as tablet, capsule, powder, softgel, gelcap, or liquid
- Is labeled as being a dietary supplement.
- [highlight]Herbal supplements are one type of dietary supplement. An herb is a plant or plant part (such as leaves, flowers, or seeds) that is used for its flavor, scent, and/or therapeutic properties. “Botanical” is often used as a synonym for “herb.” An herbal supplement may contain a single herb or mixtures of herbs.[/highlight][/starlist]
Research has proven that several dietary and herbal supplements are effective in preventing or treating diseases. For example, scientists have found that folic acid (a vitamin) prevents certain birth defects, and a regimen of vitamins and zinc can slow the progression of the age- related eye disease macular degeneration. Also, calcium and vitamin D supplements can be helpful in preventing and treating bone loss and osteoporosis (thinning of bone tissue).
Research has also produced some promising results suggesting that other dietary supplements may be helpful for other health conditions (e.g., omega-3 fatty acids for coronary disease), but in most cases, additional research is needed before firm conclusions can be drawn.
Dietary Supplements – Federal Regulations:
The Federal Government regulates dietary supplements through the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The regulations for dietary supplements are not the same as those for prescription or over-the-counter drugs. In general, the regulations for dietary supplements are less strict.[box type=”success” align=”alignleft” width=”600″ ]A manufacturer does not have to prove the safety and effectiveness of a dietary supplement before it is marketed. A manufacturer is permitted to say that a dietary supplement addresses a nutrient deficiency, supports health, or is linked to a particular body function (e.g., immunity), if there is research to support the claim. Such a claim must be followed by the words “This statement has not been evaluated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.”
Manufacturers are expected to follow certain “good manufacturing practices” (GMPs) to ensure that dietary supplements are processed consistently and meet quality standards. Requirements for GMPs went into effect in 2008 for large manufacturers and are being phased in for small manufacturers through 2010.
Once a dietary supplement is on the market, the FDA monitors safety. If it finds a product to be unsafe, it can take action against the manufacturer and/or distributor, and may issue a warning or require that the product be removed from the marketplace.
Also, once a dietary supplement is on the market, the FDA monitors product information, such as label claims and package inserts. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is responsible for regulating product advertising; it requires that all information be truthful and not misleading.
The Federal Government has taken legal action against a number of dietary supplement promoters or Web sites that promote or sell dietary supplements because they have made false or deceptive statements about their products or because marketed products have proven to be unsafe.[/box]
Reliable Information Providers:
It is extremely important to get information from a reliable source rather than websites whose sole intention is to sell you some product. Also every person is unique, their needs and physical conditions are totally different and hence one should not blindly follow what others are taking as a supplement. One should understand their own body before deciding on the correct supplement.
Safety Considerations of Dietary Supplements:
If you are thinking about or are using a dietary supplement, here are some points to keep in mind.
It is especially important to talk to your health care provider if you are[checklist]
- Thinking about replacing your regular medication with one or more dietary supplements.
- Taking any medications (whether prescription or over-the-counter), as some dietary supplements have been found to interact with medications.
- Planning to have surgery. Certain dietary supplements may increase the risk of bleeding or affect the response to anesthesia.
- Pregnant or nursing a baby, or are considering giving a child a dietary supplement. Most dietary supplements have not been tested in pregnant women, nursing mothers, or children.
- If you are taking a dietary supplement, read the label instructions. Talk to your health care provider if you have any questions, particularly about the best dosage for you to take. If you experience any side effects that concern you, stop taking the dietary supplement, and contact your health care provider. You can also report your experience to the FDA’s MedWatch program. Consumer safety reports on dietary supplements are an important source of information for the FDA.[/checklist]
Risks Associated with Herbal Supplements:
- An herbal supplement may not contain the correct plant species.
- The amount of the active ingredient may be lower or higher than the label states. That means you may be taking less—or more—of the dietary supplement than you realize.
- The dietary supplement may be contaminated with other herbs, pesticides, or metals, or even adulterated with unlabeled ingredients such as prescription drugs.
- For current information from the Federal Government on the safety of particular dietary supplements, check the “Dietary Supplement and Safety Information” section of the FDA Web site at www.fda.gov/Food/DietarySupplements/Alerts/ or the “Alerts and Advisories” section of the NCCAM Web site at nccam.nih.gov/news/alerts.
- Barnes PM, Bloom B, Nahin R. Complementary and alternative medicine use among adults and children: United States, 2007. CDC National Health Statistics Report #12. 2008.
- Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994. U.S. Food and Drug Administration Web site. Accessed at http://www.fda.gov/RegulatoryInformation/Legislation/ on May 12, 2008.
- Dietary supplements: overview. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition Web site. Accessed at www.fda.gov/Food/DietarySupplements/ on May 12, 2008.
- Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database. Product monographs. Accessed at www.naturaldatabase.com on May 13, 2008.
|
<urn:uuid:c6edccad-2b00-4d4f-a0b3-d7a686f4782f>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://alternativemedicinewiz.com/supplements/dietary-supplements-the-unknown-facts-and-risks/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397864.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00149-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.929294
| 1,724
| 2.6875
| 3
|
If you would like to understand the physics behind reflections and the methods and/or tricks that are sometimes used to avoid them, then Light: Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting explains everything in glorious detail.
Brief summary (from memory, bear with me!):
A good part of the book describes the concept of the "family of angles". These are the range of angles where any light sources will cast a visible reflection. Having all the light sources outside the family of angles will guarantee that there are absolutely no reflections, so when you achieve that you should be able to shoot through glass and the only thing from it that will get in your picture is the dirt in it.
This is hard to explain without diagrams, but basically the idea is that you take the cone determined by the field of view of your lens and bounce its boundaries as they hit the surface (the glass in this case). The area inside the bounced conic section is your family of angles. From the above it is clear that field of view, camera position and orientation, and surface position and orientation will all have influence in what is the family of angles for a given shot.
Since in your case you are dealing with natural light, instead of moving your lights outside the family of angles, you will have to move and orient your camera, relative to the glass surface, so that as much of the light source(s) fall outside the family of angles. Working with reflected natural light will make this a very challenging task, but nevertheless, I recommend that you read the book from start to end and master the concept, at least so that you can find how to minimize the issue.
|
<urn:uuid:ec825fdd-0e91-490d-955e-127621099545>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/18221/how-can-i-avoid-reflections-when-photographing-into-store-windows/18273
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00096-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.953153
| 337
| 2.796875
| 3
|
Why Hong Kong is becoming a hub for educational mobile apps
The city's high penetration of smartphones makes it an attractive hub for app developers to use mobile devices as educational tools, writes Linda Yeung
It's difficult to separate youngsters from their smartphones, as they watch videos, play games and chat with friends. But what you seldom see is children using their phones as learning tools. That's because very few educational apps are available in the mobile format.
All that may be about to change, however, as a group of software developers look to take advantage of the huge potential for mobile educational apps in a city that has the seventh highest penetration rate of smartphones in the world, according to a recent Google survey.
One of them is Leung Wai-fung, the founder of Artemis Digital, whose e-book series on popular travel destinations has been downloaded in 67 countries since last year. Equally popular are his company's interactive books. About 60 per cent of them have ranked in the top 10 in the Apple Store's education category. However, 99 per cent of the apps for children in the Apple Store are games, Leung says.
To keep users focused on learning, his team developed a feature that sends an alert when a user has spent too much time on a device, to prevent possible deterioration of their eyesight. To protect target users - primary students - from negative influences, there is no access to cyberspace. "Our books are not linked to social media like Facebook," says Leung.
Mobile devices are especially useful for learning languages because they allow for frequent practice anywhere and at any time. Qooco, a Beijing-based mobile learning technology company, has tapped that possibility, incorporating cloud-based technology in its apps for learning English and Putonghua. The apps have speaking and listening exercises, and vocabulary banks for students to use. Teachers and parents can monitor their progress by accessing data on their practice sessions stored in the cloud.
Qooco chief executive David Topolewski expects an explosion in the use of tablets on the mainland in the next few years, including at schools.
"Shanghai is doing some experimentation with tablets to look at what kind of content will be effective," Topolewski says. "Our belief is that some time in the next two years there will be a big push from typical printed books into tablets and you can build a lot of accountability into the system, and leverage and really level the playing field for students, not just in the coastal regions but all over China."
Up to 150,000 mainland subscribers have downloaded the Qooco Kids app, which he says fills a gap in English-language education in the country. "There is a training problem in China. Teachers understand the grammar and vocabulary but can't speak the language, so it's hard for them to teach spoken language. The other issue is large class sizes. It's impractical for these kids to learn."
Targeting students aged five to 13, Qooco Kids features a rating system and colour coding that show how well a learner has pronounced a word or sentence. Students first listen to words, phrases or sentences like "This is my mum and dad" on a mobile device, then practice by saying the words repeatedly.
The rating is questionable though, because the device might not pick up a person's pronunciation properly in a noisy environment - a problem Topolewski acknowledges.
Formerly responsible for the popular Tuneland and Monty Python games by developer 7th Level, Topolewski is nonetheless confident of the value of advanced technology. "We can track students' level of engagement, and if we know they are using it less frequently we will inform the teachers and parents." The app used for learning Putonghua - more relevant in places such as Singapore - comes with a tone analysis function that helps learners identify the right tone for a word.
The apps are meant to supplement formal learning, which is why Qooco runs three tutorial centres in Beijing to provide face-to-face instructions for students. Topolewski believes this "blended learning" approach is effective for bolstering students' level of spoken English. Its centres now cater to 1,500 students. "Mobile [learning] gives you access to practice 15 or 20 times a day if you like. It is unrealistic to do this in a centre - so it's a combination of pedagogy and convenience. We have also gamified the app so it's fun."
He cites GCSE results indicating that students who adopted the hybrid model scored much better than those who had not. The wide range of inexpensive tablets on the mainland, as well as iPads, has fuelled his optimism about the growth possibility of learning apps. "A cross-section of Chinese families can afford to support their children's learning with mobiles devices," he says.
For now, South Korea is taking the lead following its announcement to spend more than US$2 billion to develop digital textbooks, and allow students to access paper-free learning materials from a cloud-based system from 2015. All students by then will be learning on school-supplied tablets.
In Hong Kong, all aided and government schools will have free access to the cloud starting from the new school year, under an agreement between the Education Bureau and Microsoft.
Recognising the ubiquitousness of mobile devices, one parent representative welcomes the trend. Jao Ming, chairman of Eastern District Parents' Association, says: "Parents are willing to use any medium that helps their children learn. My 13-year-old daughter has a smartphone. Even Primary Five and Six students have iPhones today. Secondary school students today don't talk much on the phone but communicate via tools such as WhatsApp. This will also become a trend among primary students."
What concerns him, he says, is that students must have equal access to mobile devices. But following South Korea's example would have huge cost implications.
For Topolewski, who is abuzz with a marketing plan to invite students from Asia for a spelling contest in Singapore later this year, Hong Kong is ready for mobile learning. "We will contact local schools and need to get ourselves a local presence here. Hong Kong has the challenge of nurturing students who are trilingual and bi-literate - there is a big opportunity here," he says.
|
<urn:uuid:78798890-4c69-4b03-909f-3e5d8b1810b2>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-education/article/1300685/why-hong-kong-becoming-hub-educational-mobile-apps
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403823.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00164-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.965728
| 1,286
| 2.546875
| 3
|
Land Use Change and Economic Opportunity in Amazonia: An Agent-based Model
Cabrera, Arthur Raymond
MetadataShow full item record
Economic changes such as rising açaí prices and the availability of off-farm employment are transforming the landscape of the Amazonian várzea, subject to decision-making at the farming household level. Land use change results from complex human-environment interactions which can be addressed by an agent-based model. An agent-based model is a simulation model composed of autonomous interacting entities known as agents, built from the bottom-up. Coupled with cellular automata, which forms the agents’ environment, agent-based models are becoming an important tool of land use science, complementing traditional methods of induction and deduction. The decision-making methods employed by agent-based models in recent years have included optimization, imitation, heuristics, classifier systems and genetic algorithms, among others, but multiple methods have rarely been comparatively analyzed. A modular agent-based model is designed to allow the researcher to substitute alternative decision-making methods. For a smallholder farming community in Marajó Island near Ponta de Pedras, Pará, Brazil, 21 households are simulated over a 40-year period. In three major scenarios of increasing complexity, these households first face an environment where goods sell at a constant price throughout the simulated period and there are no outside employment opportunities. This is followed by a scenario of variable prices based on empirical data. The third scenario combines variable prices with limited employment opportunities, creating multi-sited households as members emigrate. In each scenario, populations of optimizing agents and heuristic agents are analyzed in parallel. While optimizing agents allocate land cells to maximize revenue using linear programming, fast and frugal heuristic agents use decision trees to quickly pare down feasible solutions and probabilistically select between alternatives weighted by expected revenue. Using distributed computing, the model is run through several parameter sweeps and results are recorded to a cenral database. Land use trajectories and sensitivity analyses highlight the relative biases of each decision-making method and illustrate cases where alternative methods lead to significantly divergent outcomes. A hybrid approach is recommended, employing alternative decision-making methods in parallel to illustrate inefficiencies exogenous and endogenous to the decision-maker, or allowing agents to select among multiple methods to mitigate bias and best represent their real-world analogues.
|
<urn:uuid:fa2e4f21-ebf0-4468-b029-aa890487910c>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
https://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/handle/10012/4677
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396027.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00127-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.919087
| 485
| 2.609375
| 3
|
Golden legacy for ESA's observatory
ESA PR 46-2003. Scientists are celebrating the thousandth scientific publication from ESA's Infrared Space Observatory (ISO). ISO is fast becoming one of the world's most productive space missions, even though its operational life ended in 1998.
ISO was the world’s first space observatory able to see the sky in infrared light. Using its eyes, we have discovered many new phenomena that have radically changed our view of the Universe.
Everybody knows that when something is heated it glows. However things also glow with a light our eyes do not detect at room temperature, this is infrared light. Infrared telescopes do not work well on the Earth’s surface because such light is absorbed by the atmosphere.
ISO looks at the cold parts of the universe, usually the 'cold and dusty' parts. ISO peered into clouds of dust and gas where stars are being born, observing for the first time the earliest steps of star formation. It discovered, for example, that stars begin to form at temperatures as low as -250°C or less.
Scientists were able to follow the evolution of dust from where it is produced (that is, old stars - the massive 'dust factories'), to the regions where it forms new planetary systems. ISO found that most young stars are surrounded by discs of dust that could harbour planets. The observatory also analysed the chemical composition of the cosmic dust, thereby opening up a new field of research, ‘astromineralogy’.
With ISO we have been able to discover the presence of water in many different regions in space. Another new discipline, 'astrochemistry', was boosted when ISO discovered that the water molecule is common in the Universe, even in distant galaxies, and complex organic molecules like benzene form easily in the surroundings of some stars.
"ISO results are impacting most fields of astronomical research, almost literally from comets to cosmology," explains Alberto Salama, ISO Project Scientist. "Some results answer questions. Others open new fields. Some are already being followed up by existing telescopes; others have to await future facilities."
When ISO's operational life finished, in 1998, its observations became freely available to the world scientific community via ISO’s data archive. In May 2003, the 'milestone number' of 1000 scientific papers was reached. Even now, ISO's data archive remains a valuable source of new results. For example, some of the latest papers describe the detection of water in 'protostars', which are stars in the process of being born, and studies of numerous close-by galaxies.
"Of course we were confident ISO was going to do very well, but its actual productivity is well beyond our expectations. The publication rate does not even seem to have peaked yet! We expect many more results," Salama says.
|
<urn:uuid:50c4649b-c3ee-467d-ba19-161cdabd612b>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.esa.int/ESA_in_your_country/United_Kingdom/Golden_legacy_for_ESA_s_observatory/(print)
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399428.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00149-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.954118
| 579
| 3.625
| 4
|
Since the advent of the Atomic Age in 1945 and the tensions of the Cold War, films, plays, TV shows, songs, and even video games have been created that focus on how a nuclear war could occur, and what may happen to society after it. As part of this, the Cuban Missile Crisis is often (rightfully) depicted as the closest humanity ever came to nuclear war. These media depictions serve as valuable records for how mankind viewed the dangers of the atomic age, and as reminders of what nuclear war is capable of.
Click here for examples of Cuban Missile Crisis depictions in the media.
Click here for examples of nuclear war depictions in the media.
Cuban Missile Crisis
- Thirteen Days
- The Missiles of October
Thirteen Days (2000), starring Kevin Costner and directed by Roger Donaldson, is a film that chronicles the decision-making of President Kennedy and his EXCOMM during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The film focuses on Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy, and White House aide Kenneth O’Donnell. The film used the transcripts of EXCOMM’s deliberations as the basis for its script. In 2000-1, the Belfer Center partnered with the makers of Thirteen Days to analyze the film’s historical accuracy and efficacy at presenting the White House deliberations of how to respond to the Soviet Union.
Peter Almond (a co-producer of Thirteen Days), Graham Allison, and Ernest May (leading experts on the Cuban Missile Crisis) offer their opinions on the movie’s depiction of the Crisis.
The Missiles of October (1974), starring William Devane and Martin Sheen and directed by Anthony Page, is a teleplay chronicling the deliberations inside the White House and between Kennedy and Khrushchev during the Missile Crisis. The program’s used 1969’s Thirteen Days, written by Robert F. Kennedy, as the basis for the script..
- Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
- When the Wind Blows
- On the Beach
- The Day After
Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), starring Peter Sellers and George C. Scott and directed by Stanley Kubrick, is a wickedly funny satire of nuclear war. The film describes how nuclear war may occur due to the actions of a rogue American general (convinced that the fluoridation of America’s tap water is a Communist plot to create sexual impotence in men), and how the President and his staff try to prevent it. Peter Sellers plays multiple characters in the film, including the titular Dr. Strangelove, an ex-Nazi scientist who serves as an amalgamation of nuclear strategists like Herman Kahn and ex-Nazis like Werner von Braun. One of the film’s most famous scenes involves Slim Pickens riding a nuclear bomb..
Fail-Safe (1964), starring Henry Fonda and Walter Matthau and directed by Sidney Lumet, is a sober, serious film detailing how the United States and Soviet Union would negotiate during a nuclear crisis. After American planes are mistakenly launched to attack the USSR, the US and USSR both communicate and deliberate over how to stop the bombers from destroying Soviet Union. While critically acclaimed, the film was overshadowed by the success of Dr. Strangelove..
When the Wind Blows (1986), starring John Mills and Peggy Ashcroft and directed by Jimmy Murakami, is an animated film about an elderly couple’s response to nuclear war. The British film depicts how an elderly couple living in rural England deals with the aftermath of nuclear war between NATO and the Soviet Union. While the couple is not shown dying, it is heavily suggested that they will succumb to the effects of radiation sickness..
On the Beach (1959), starring Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner and directed by Stanley Kramer, is a film that describes the aftermath of nuclear war and how the final living human beings spend their last days on Earth. After nuclear war pollutes the world’s atmosphere, air flow slowly brings nuclear fallout to the southern hemisphere and the last human survivors of the war in Australia. The film focuses on an American submarine captain and his love interest as humanity tries to cope with the knowledge that all human life is ending..
The Day After (1983), starring JoBeth Williams, Jason Robards, Steve Guttenberg, John Lithgow, and others from an ensemble cast and directed by Nicholas Meyer, is a miniseries that depicts the aftermath of nuclear war on the mid-western United States. The film’s harrowing portrayal of post-nuclear America sparked a national debate about nuclear war and nuclear proliferation. While President, Ronald Reagan commented that in his diary that the film was “very effective and left me greatly depressed.”.
Threads (1984), starring Karen Meagher and Reece Dinsdale and directed by Mick Jackson, is a British television film describing the prelude, fighting, and aftermath of nuclear war in northern England. The film uses a documentary style to focus on the aftermath of the war on two English families and how the war would decimate civilization, bringing it to near-medieval levels of poverty and strife..
|
<urn:uuid:9a8a9fbf-dda3-432b-8873-f5cc479adbc3>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.cubanmissilecrisis.org/for-educators/media-depictions/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403508.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00200-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.94658
| 1,081
| 2.90625
| 3
|
A Guide to Chemical Storage Buildings
Different companies are required to have safety storage of their wastes as well as hazardous materials. With this in mind, outdoor chemical storage buildings provide effective solutions to fulfill this need. These storage buildings are also defined as prefabricated structure that is mainly manufactured at the site other than the structure’s final location and is transported in a ready to assemble package or perhaps, completely assembled to the final location.
These buildings are providing economical means of storage as well as secondary containment as they can deduct the expense of constructing a permanent structure. In addition to that, they are offering quite a lot of benefits like allowing buildings to be relocated in case the need arise, portability and so forth.
When you are in the process of choosing an outdoor chemical storage buildings, your decision will depend mostly on the materials that have to be stored, the volume of materials that’ll be stored, location of the building, how the building will be put into used and the design requirements.
Say for example that the materials that’ll be stored are either combustible or flammable, you need a building that fits the NFPA code 30 or equivalent local code. And to be able to determine which code is enforced locally, check with the AHJ or Authority Having Jurisdiction.
The class of flammable combustible materials refers to the NFPA code 30 that can dictate what kind of building construction is necessary. Class 1, 2 or 3 combustible and flammable liquids need either a fire rated building or non combustible building. As for the latter, these are built of non combustible materials similar to steel while the fire rated buildings are made from non combustible materials and has fire resistant insulation in its walls. What’s more, the fire rated buildings are divided to categories that are based on fire resistance walls, openings and roof.
The building’s design will be affected as well by whether you’ll be dispensing from the containers stored in buildings or not. Explosion relief panels are also required for buildings that store and dispense class IA liquids and those that are dispensing class IB liquids.
The building’s interior must be able to accommodate the number of required containers in single layer and have enough sump capacity in order to comply with Environmental Protection Code Secondary Containment Requirements. As for the sump pump containment, it has to be big enough to hold 100 percent of volume of the largest container stored inside the building or at least, 10 percent of overall volume of all the containers stored within the building or whichever is larger to meet the regulation.
|
<urn:uuid:1176f85e-c226-4963-ae38-226f2f851a94>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.accountanteastlondon.gq/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399428.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00002-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.955856
| 530
| 2.703125
| 3
|
Vitamin D and Health
New research indicates that vitamin D—whether produced in the skin as a result of exposure to ultraviolet radiation (from sunlight or from tanning beds) or obtained from supplementation with cholecalciferol (vitamin D3)—may help prevent cancer. News headlines regarding the many health benefits of vitamin D are appearing everywhere. For decades, people wrongly assumed that we get enough vitamin D from our diet and by taking a daily multivitamin pill. Today, studies are reporting most of us are vitamin D deficient and vitamin D deficiencies may well be causing numerous illnesses.
Depleted of vitamin D, your immune system may not be up to its full potential leaving you more susceptible to additional health concerns. It’s strongly believed that vitamin D deficiency is a growing epidemic! Vitamin D has demonstrated support for:
Vitamin D has demonstrated support for:
- Your healthy immune system
- Your cardiovascular system
- Your prostate
- Helping increase your level of white blood cells
- Your healthy skin
Vitamin D and the Body
Vitamin D is naturally produced by the human body when exposed to direct sunlight. Synthesis in the skin involves UVB radiation. Geographic latitude, time of day, cloud cover, smog, sunscreen and season all affect UV ray exposure and vitamin D synthesis in the skin.
Vitamin D and Diet
We get a little vitamin D in our diet, but not enough. We also get some in multivitamins, but multivitamins only contain 400 units, which is about 10% of the body's daily need. Because most of us do NOT get enough vitamin D from our diet and from vitamins, producing vitamin D naturally with help from the sun or tanning bed’s UVB rays is essential.
The Importance of UVB Rays for your Health
In moderation, ultraviolet rays from the sun or a tanning system can have many health benefits from producing vitamin D as discussed above. Unfortunately, up to half of the population is not getting enough vitamin D from ultraviolet rays. UVB rays actually help your skin to produce up to 80% of the vitamin D in your body. Your body simply can't make vitamin D without exposure to UVB energy.
UVB Rays are the Best Natural Source of Vitamin D
To produce vitamin D naturally you need to get some exposure to ultraviolet rays. You can take vitamin D supplements if you believe you are not getting enough sun rays, but a better way is to get vitamin D naturally by allowing your body to make it naturally. In order for your body to produce vitamin D naturally you need to get some exposure to ultraviolet A (UVA) and B (UVB) rays, like those produced by the sun and tanning systems.
Regulate your body's vitamin D levels with the sun’s UVB rays not supplements. The best way to regulate your body's vitamin D levels is with the sun’s UVB rays not with supplements. Many supplements are synthetic, which you should avoid. Also, taking vitamin D supplements in excessive doses can lead to additional health concerns. The best place to get your vitamin D is from ultraviolet B rays. The amount of time an individual requires to produce a given amount of vitamin D may also depend upon the person's distance from the equator and on the season of the year.
Tanning bed’s UVB rays is a good option for regulating your vitamin D levels. For many, getting ample sunlight just isn't an option. You may have busy lives or it could be the weather that does not allow you to get outdoors a lot. In these cases tanning beds are your next best option in regulating your vitamin D levels.
Exposure to the sun’s or artificial UVB rays is necessary. For years we’ve been warned that tanning systems artificial UVA and UVB rays were dangerous. But now some health professionals are saying some exposure to the sun’s or artificial UVB rays is necessary.
The use of tanning systems is important during the winter months. More people are "under the weather" or feel fatigued and run-down during the months November through March. During that period, in most of the United States the sun won't stimulate vitamin D in your body, due to its increased distance. Your vitamin D levels can drop as much as 50% during the winter.
Not all Tanning Beds are Created Equal.
It is also important to note that not all tanning beds are safe and many can produce burning rays. Also many people ABUSE tanning beds and spend too much time in them, INCREASING their risk of cancer. Most tanning beds on the market do not use the proper light rays and the conventional fluorescent bulbs they use emit harmful rays out the ends of the bulb. Many tanning beds also use magnetic ballasts that emit EMF's (electromagnetic frequency waves) that can be very harmful to the body as well. There are studies that associate EMF with cancer. Use tanning beds that use electronic ballasts, eliminating that concern over electromagnetic radiation.
Bottom Line on Vitamin D
Scientists at the Vitamin D Council agree that both children and adults should have a Vitamin D level of 50 ng/ml all year-round. They recommend the use of most tanning systems as a safe and effective way to help you achieve natural levels of vitamin D.
|
<urn:uuid:e1b80218-d76e-4d39-b58f-ae20adb21877>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.mybesthealthportal.net/health/health-and-wellness-tips/tanning-beds-uvb-rays-a-good-source-of-vitamin-d.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00094-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.932127
| 1,104
| 3.0625
| 3
|
Luna was a series of Soviet Moon probes, including orbiters, landers, and sample-return craft, launched between 1959 and 1976. Lunas were the first man-made objects to reach escape velocity, crash into the Moon, photograph the Moon's farside, soft land on the Moon, automatically return lunar surface material to Earth, and deploy a rover on the Moon's surface.
Following the success of the first three Lunas (known in the West as "Luniks"), was a gap of three and a half years while the Soviets developed a more sophisticated strategy for lunar exploration. This involved placing a probe in a temporary parking orbit around Earth before firing a rocket to put the craft on a lunar trajectory – in principle, a more accurate method than direct ascent (that is, shooting straight at the Moon from the ground). However Lunas 4 through 8 all failed, for various reasons, in their attempts to soft-land. Success came again with Luna 9, the first spacecraft to send back photos from the lunar surface. Lunas 10-12 and 14 were orbiters, designed in part to provide detailed photographic maps and collect other data that were essential to the Soviet manned lunar program.
Then came a sudden shift in emphasis. With the Moon Race lost to the Americans, the Soviets began launching much larger Lunas – three times more massive than the earlier craft-requiring the more powerful but less reliable Proton rocket. Several of the new generation of Lunas (though not officially named as such) were left stranded in Earth orbit before Luna 15 was successfully placed on a lunar trajectory just two days ahead of Apollo 11. Its audacious mission, to upstage Apollo 11, ended when it crashed on July 21 just as Armstrong and Aldrin were preparing to leave the Moon. Subsequent heavy Luna's, however, were for the most part highly successful, returning several samples along with other valuable data and delivering the first automated rovers to explore another world.
Luna 1The first man-made object to reach escape velocity; it was supposed to hit the Moon but a failure of the launch vehicle's control system caused it to miss by about 6,000 km. En route the probe released a cloud of sodium gas (as did Luna 2), the glowing orange trail of which allowed astronomers to track the progress of the spacecraft visually. Luna 1, also known as Mechta (Dream), measured the strength of the solar wind and showed that the Moon had no magnetic field. The spacecraft contained radio equipment, a tracking transmitter, and telemetry system, five different sets of scientific devices for studying interplanetary space, including a magnetometer, Geiger counter, scintillation counter, and micrometeorite detector, and other equipment.
Luna 2The first probe to hit the Moon. Luna 2 was similar in design to Luna 1, a spherical spacecraft with protruding antennae and instrument parts. The instrumentation was also similar, including scintillation- and Geiger- counters, a magnetometer, and micrometeorite detectors. On impact, east of the Sea of Serenity, it scattered a number of Soviet emblems and ribbons across the surface. About 30 minutes later, the final stage of Luna 2's booster rocket made its own fresh crater.
Luna 3The first probe to return images of the lunar farside. Luna 3 was launched on a figure-eight trajectory bringing it within 6,200 km of the Moon and around the farside, which was sunlit at the time. The 17 indistinct pictures received from the spacecraft showed the farside to be mountainous with two dark regions which were subsequently named Mare Moscovrae (Sea of Moscow) and Mare Desiderii (Sea of Dreams). (Mare Desiderii was later found to be composed of a smaller mare, Mare Ingenii [Sea of Ingenuity] and other dark craters.)
Luna 4-8The first Lunas to be placed in low Earth parking orbit prior to lunar trajectory insertion. All were attempted soft-landings and all failed because of faulty rocket firings in Earth orbit, in midcourse, or during descent to the lunar surface.
The first successful lunar soft-lander. The landing capsule was a 100-kg sphere which was dropped roughly on to the Ocean of Storms by a cylindrical mother craft which carried the main braking rocket and fell to destruction after its work was done. Once the lander had rolled to a stop, four petal-like covers opened and four radio antennas extended, allowing Luna 9 to remain in contact with Earth for the next three days. Its TV camera sent back images which, when pieced together, provided a panoramic view of the surface, including views of nearby rocks and of the horizon 1.4 km away.
Luna 10-12, 14Lunar orbiter missions that returned photographs, and took measurements of infrared, X-ray, and gamma emission from the Moon (to determine chemical composition), on-orbit radiation conditions, micrometeorite collisions, and variations in the lunar gravitational field caused by mass concentrations, or "mascons." They typically functioned for several months.
Luna 13Soft-lander, similar to Luna 9, which arrived on the Ocean of Storms on Christmas Eve, 1966. In addition to a camera that sent back photographic panoramas under different lighting conditions, Luna 13 was equipped with two spring-loaded arms. One of these was used to determine the density of the surface by measuring the effect of the landing capsule's impact on the soil – a piece of information crucial to the designers of a manned mission. The other arm probed the chemical composition of the surface.
Luna 15, 16, 18, 20, 23, 24Automated lunar sample-return craft, three of which were successful. Luna 15 entered lunar orbit two days ahead of Apollo 11, and on the day Apollo 11 began circling the Moon lowered its own orbit to 9 by 203 km. At this point there was concern in the United States that the Russian probe would somehow interfere with the manned mission. However, assurances were quickly given by the Soviets that this would not be the case. On July 20, just hours before Apollo 11's scheduled landing, Luna 15 carried out another maneuver to put it in a 16- by 110-km orbit. The next day, while Armstrong and Aldrin were on the surface, the little probe made its last retrorocket burn and began to descend to what was supposed to be a soft landing. Unfortunately, it made contact instead at 480 km/h in the Sea of Crises. Almost twenty years would pass before the Soviets officially admitted that Luna 15 was a failed sample-return attempt. Whether, if all had gone well, it could have beaten Apollo 11 is unclear. Even if its landing attempt had succeeded, it would not have returned to Earth until the day after Apollo 11 splashed down. On the other hand, Lunar 15 did spend one day longer in lunar orbit than was typical of later sample missions. If the probe had made it down in three days instead of four, or if Apollo 11 had failed to return samples, the Soviets might just have pulled off an outrageous coup.
Luna 16 landed safely on the Moon on September 20, 1970 on the Sea of Fertility and deployed an extendable arm with a drilling rig to collect 100 g of soil and rock. After 26 hr 25 min. on the surface, the ascent stage, with a hermetically sealed soil sample container, took off and returned to Russia on September 24. The lower stage remained on the lunar surface and continued sending back on temperature and radiation.
Luna 18 used a new method of navigation in lunar orbit and for landing. However, after 54 lunar orbits, it failed as it descended toward the Sea of Fertility on September 11, 1971 and crashed into mountainous terrain. On February 21, 1972, Luna 20 soft-landed in the Apollonius highlands, just 120 km from where Luna 18 had come down, collected 30 g of samples and returned to Earth four days later.
A similar scenario played out with Lunas 23 and 24. The former actually survived its landing on the Sea of Crises but was sufficiently battered that its sample-collecting apparatus was knocked out of action. However its successor, the final Luna mission, touched down just a few hundred meters away and returned triumphantly with 170 g of Moon rock.
Luna 17, 21Soft-landers carrying Lunokhod automated rovers. Luna 17 entered lunar orbit on November 15, 1970 and landed two days later on the Sea of Rains. Having taken pictures of its surroundings, Lunokhod 1 then rolled down a ramp and began exploring the surface. The rover would run during the lunar day, stopping occasionally to recharge its batteries via the solar panels. At night it would hibernate until the next sunrise, kept warm by the radioactive source. Although intended to operate through three lunar days (earth months) the rover actually operated for eleven, officially ending its mission on October 4, 1971, the anniversary of Sputnik 1. By then it had traveled 10.5 km, transmitted more than 20,000 TV pictures and 200 TV panoramas, and conducted more than 500 soil tests.
On Jan. 15, 1973, Luna 21 touched down in LeMonnier crater on the Sea of Serenity with Lunokhod 2 aboard. Over an operating period of four months, this second rover covered 37 km, including hilly upland areas and rilles, sent back over 80,000 TV pictures and 86 panoramic images, and carried out a variety of experiments including mechanical tests of the surface and laser ranging,
Luna 19, 22Heavy lunar orbiters that continued mapping the Moon's surface and extended earlier studies of the lunar gravitational field and the location of mascons, the on-orbit radiation environment, the gamma-active lunar surface, micrometeoroids, and the solar wind. Luna 22's orbit was eventually adjusted so that its perilune was as low as 25 km.
Related entry Moon, unmanned spacecraft
Related categories SATELLITES AND SPACE PROBES
Home • About • Copyright © The Worlds of David Darling • Encyclopedia of Alternative Energy • Contact
|
<urn:uuid:1353e02e-d5ae-4be3-9f39-395f4548a5cf>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/L/Luna.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398869.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00085-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.962527
| 2,103
| 4.1875
| 4
|
We got a first-hand look at how “connected vehicles” work yesterday at the Intelligent Transportation Society of America's 22nd annual convention.
A technology similar to Wi Fi, dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) enables vehicles to radio their location and speed to each other and infrastructure like traffic signals and toll booth and warn drivers - through sound, internal lighting, and haptic feedback (i.e., the driver's seat vibrates) - of impending collisions in time to keep them from happening.
from the first phase of testing, 90% of people who drove an equipped vehicle found the warning systems useful. Beginning in August, the City of Ann Arbor, Mich., will find out how well vehicle-to-vehicle communication technology works with cars, buses, and trucks operating in the real world.
In a $15 million pilot project funded by the U.S. and Michigan DOTs, approximately 18 roadside antennas (called “beacons”) will be installed in the right of way - on infrastructure assets like signal control arms, poles, and boxes - around the University of Michigan hospital. For one year, almost 3,000 volunteers will drive either their own vehicle retrofit with the necessary equipment or a fully equipped vehicle on loan from one of the eight manufacturers developing the systems with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA):
- Ford Motor Co.
- General Motors LLC
- Honda R&D Americas Inc.
- Hyundai-Kia America Technical Center Inc.
- Mercedes-Benz Research and Development North America Inc.
- Nissan Technical Center North America
- Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America Inc.
- Volkswagen Group of America Inc.
Other than the beacons, Ann Arbor will install no new traffic control equipment or technology, change existing traffic timing plans, or make any other change for the project.
The U.S. DOT says the technology addresses up to 80% of crashes not involving impaired drivers. It's supposed to lower congestion due to things like rush-hour collisions, but whether or not it'll be equally effective on rural roads - still the most dangerous despite aggressive federal, state, and local efforts like the Zero Death Initiative - remains to be seen.
The technology will work as intended only if all vehicles are properly equipped. After analyzing Ann Arbor's experience, NHTSA will proceed to rulemaking in summer 2013: deciding whether to require manufacturers to make certain options standard or optional.
|
<urn:uuid:4e9de883-6b5a-4024-9f2f-775948815442>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.pwmag.com/right-of-way/michigan-traffic-managers-to-test-vehicle-to-vehi.aspx?dfpzone=roadways.trafficcontrol
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00143-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.893439
| 501
| 2.859375
| 3
|
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 6, by Edward Gibbon, , at sacred-texts.com
The generosity of the Christian princes was cold and tardy; but in the first apprehension of a siege, Constantine had negotiated, in the isles of the Archipelago, the Morea, and Sicily, the most indispensable supplies. As early as the beginning of April, five 42 great ships, equipped for merchandise and war, would have sailed from the harbor of Chios, had not the wind blown obstinately from the north. 43 One of these ships bore the Imperial flag; the remaining four belonged to the Genoese; and they were laden with wheat and barley, with wine, oil, and vegetables, and, above all, with soldiers and mariners for the service of the capital. After a tedious delay, a gentle breeze, and, on the second day, a strong gale from the south, carried them through the Hellespont and the Propontis: but the city was already invested by sea and land; and the Turkish fleet, at the entrance of the Bosphorus, was stretched from shore to shore, in the form of a crescent, to intercept, or at least to repel, these bold auxiliaries. The reader who has present to his mind the geographical picture of Constantinople, will conceive and admire the greatness of the spectacle. The five Christian ships continued to advance with joyful shouts, and a full press both of sails and oars, against a hostile fleet of three hundred vessels; and the rampart, the camp, the coasts of Europe and Asia, were lined with innumerable spectators, who anxiously awaited the event of this momentous succor. At the first view that event could not appear doubtful; the superiority of the Moslems was beyond all measure or account: and, in a calm, their numbers and valor must inevitably have prevailed. But their hasty and imperfect navy had been created, not by the genius of the people, but by the will of the sultan: in the height of their prosperity, the Turks have acknowledged, that if God had given them the earth, he had left the sea to the infidels; 44 and a series of defeats, a rapid progress of decay, has established the truth of their modest confession. Except eighteen galleys of some force, the rest of their fleet consisted of open boats, rudely constructed and awkwardly managed, crowded with troops, and destitute of cannon; and since courage arises in a great measure from the consciousness of strength, the bravest of the Janizaries might tremble on a new element. In the Christian squadron, five stout and lofty ships were guided by skilful pilots, and manned with the veterans of Italy and Greece, long practised in the arts and perils of the sea. Their weight was directed to sink or scatter the weak obstacles that impeded their passage: their artillery swept the waters: their liquid fire was poured on the heads of the adversaries, who, with the design of boarding, presumed to approach them; and the winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators. In this conflict, the Imperial vessel, which had been almost overpowered, was rescued by the Genoese; but the Turks, in a distant and closer attack, were twice repulsed with considerable loss. Mahomet himself sat on horseback on the beach to encourage their valor by his voice and presence, by the promise of reward, and by fear more potent than the fear of the enemy. The passions of his soul, and even the gestures of his body, 45 seemed to imitate the actions of the combatants; and, as if he had been the lord of nature, he spurred his horse with a fearless and impotent effort into the sea. His loud reproaches, and the clamors of the camp, urged the Ottomans to a third attack, more fatal and bloody than the two former; and I must repeat, though I cannot credit, the evidence of Phranza, who affirms, from their own mouth, that they lost above twelve thousand men in the slaughter of the day. They fled in disorder to the shores of Europe and Asia, while the Christian squadron, triumphant and unhurt, steered along the Bosphorus, and securely anchored within the chain of the harbor. In the confidence of victory, they boasted that the whole Turkish power must have yielded to their arms; but the admiral, or captain bashaw, found some consolation for a painful wound in his eye, by representing that accident as the cause of his defeat. Balthi Ogli was a renegade of the race of the Bulgarian princes: his military character was tainted with the unpopular vice of avarice; and under the despotism of the prince or people, misfortune is a sufficient evidence of guilt. *_0059 His rank and services were annihilated by the displeasure of Mahomet. In the royal presence, the captain bashaw was extended on the ground by four slaves, and received one hundred strokes with a golden rod: 46 his death had been pronounced; and he adored the clemency of the sultan, who was satisfied with the milder punishment of confiscation and exile. The introduction of this supply revived the hopes of the Greeks, and accused the supineness of their Western allies. Amidst the deserts of Anatolia and the rocks of Palestine, the millions of the crusades had buried themselves in a voluntary and inevitable grave; but the situation of the Imperial city was strong against her enemies, and accessible to her friends; and a rational and moderate armament of the marine states might have saved the relics of the Roman name, and maintained a Christian fortress in the heart of the Ottoman empire. Yet this was the sole and feeble attempt for the deliverance of Constantinople: the more distant powers were insensible of its danger; and the ambassador of Hungary, or at least of Huniades, resided in the Turkish camp, to remove the fears, and to direct the operations, of the sultan. 47
It was difficult for the Greeks to penetrate the secret of the divan; yet the Greeks are persuaded, that a resistance so obstinate and surprising, had fatigued the perseverance of Mahomet. He began to meditate a retreat; and the siege would have been speedily raised, if the ambition and jealousy of the second vizier had not opposed the perfidious advice of Calil Bashaw, who still maintained a secret correspondence with the Byzantine court. The reduction of the city appeared to be hopeless, unless a double attack could be made from the harbor as well as from the land; but the harbor was inaccessible: an impenetrable chain was now defended by eight large ships, more than twenty of a smaller size, with several galleys and sloops; and, instead of forcing this barrier, the Turks might apprehend a naval sally, and a second encounter in the open sea. In this perplexity, the genius of Mahomet conceived and executed a plan of a bold and marvellous cast, of transporting by land his lighter vessels and military stores from the Bosphorus into the higher part of the harbor. The distance is about ten *_0060 miles; the ground is uneven, and was overspread with thickets; and, as the road must be opened behind the suburb of Galata, their free passage or total destruction must depend on the option of the Genoese. But these selfish merchants were ambitious of the favor of being the last devoured; and the deficiency of art was supplied by the strength of obedient myraids. A level way was covered with a broad platform of strong and solid planks; and to render them more slippery and smooth, they were anointed with the fat of sheep and oxen. Fourscore light galleys and brigantines, of fifty and thirty oars, were disembarked on the Bosphorus shore; arranged successively on rollers; and drawn forwards by the power of men and pulleys. Two guides or pilots were stationed at the helm, and the prow, of each vessel: the sails were unfurled to the winds; and the labor was cheered by song and acclamation. In the course of a single night, this Turkish fleet painfully climbed the hill, steered over the plain, and was launched from the declivity into the shallow waters of the harbor, far above the molestation of the deeper vessels of the Greeks. The real importance of this operation was magnified by the consternation and confidence which it inspired: but the notorious, unquestionable fact was displayed before the eyes, and is recorded by the pens, of the two nations. 48 A similar stratagem had been repeatedly practised by the ancients; 49 the Ottoman galleys (I must again repeat) should be considered as large boats; and, if we compare the magnitude and the distance, the obstacles and the means, the boasted miracle 50 has perhaps been equalled by the industry of our own times. 51 As soon as Mahomet had occupied the upper harbor with a fleet and army, he constructed, in the narrowest part, a bridge, or rather mole, of fifty cubits in breadth, and one hundred in length: it was formed of casks and hogsheads; joined with rafters, linked with iron, and covered with a solid floor. On this floating battery he planted one of his largest cannon, while the fourscore galleys, with troops and scaling ladders, approached the most accessible side, which had formerly been stormed by the Latin conquerors. The indolence of the Christians has been accused for not destroying these unfinished works; !_0060 but their fire, by a superior fire, was controlled and silenced; nor were they wanting in a nocturnal attempt to burn the vessels as well as the bridge of the sultan. His vigilance prevented their approach; their foremost galiots were sunk or taken; forty youths, the bravest of Italy and Greece, were inhumanly massacred at his command; nor could the emperor's grief be assuaged by the just though cruel retaliation, of exposing from the walls the heads of two hundred and sixty Mussulman captives. After a siege of forty days, the fate of Constantinople could no longer be averted. The diminutive garrison was exhausted by a double attack: the fortifications, which had stood for ages against hostile violence, were dismantled on all sides by the Ottoman cannon: many breaches were opened; and near the gate of St. Romanus, four towers had been levelled with the ground. For the payment of his feeble and mutinous troops, Constantine was compelled to despoil the churches with the promise of a fourfold restitution; and his sacrilege offered a new reproach to the enemies of the union. A spirit of discord impaired the remnant of the Christian strength; the Genoese and Venetian auxiliaries asserted the preeminence of their respective service; and Justiniani and the great duke, whose ambition was not extinguished by the common danger, accused each other of treachery and cowardice.
During the siege of Constantinople, the words of peace and capitulation had been sometimes pronounced; and several embassies had passed between the camp and the city. 52 The Greek emperor was humbled by adversity; and would have yielded to any terms compatible with religion and royalty. The Turkish sultan was desirous of sparing the blood of his soldiers; still more desirous of securing for his own use the Byzantine treasures: and he accomplished a sacred duty in presenting to the Gabours the choice of circumcision, of tribute, or of death. The avarice of Mahomet might have been satisfied with an annual sum of one hundred thousand ducats; but his ambition grasped the capital of the East: to the prince he offered a rich equivalent, to the people a free toleration, or a safe departure: but after some fruitless treaty, he declared his resolution of finding either a throne, or a grave, under the walls of Constantinople. A sense of honor, and the fear of universal reproach, forbade Palaeologus to resign the city into the hands of the Ottomans; and he determined to abide the last extremities of war. Several days were employed by the sultan in the preparations of the assault; and a respite was granted by his favorite science of astrology, which had fixed on the twenty-ninth of May, as the fortunate and fatal hour. On the evening of the twenty-seventh, he issued his final orders; assembled in his presence the military chiefs, and dispersed his heralds through the camp to proclaim the duty, and the motives, of the perilous enterprise. Fear is the first principle of a despotic government; and his menaces were expressed in the Oriental style, that the fugitives and deserters, had they the wings of a bird, 53 should not escape from his inexorable justice. The greatest part of his bashaws and Janizaries were the offspring of Christian parents: but the glories of the Turkish name were perpetuated by successive adoption; and in the gradual change of individuals, the spirit of a legion, a regiment, or an oda, is kept alive by imitation and discipline. In this holy warfare, the Moslems were exhorted to purify their minds with prayer, their bodies with seven ablutions; and to abstain from food till the close of the ensuing day. A crowd of dervises visited the tents, to instil the desire of martyrdom, and the assurance of spending an immortal youth amidst the rivers and gardens of paradise, and in the embraces of the black-eyed virgins. Yet Mahomet principally trusted to the efficacy of temporal and visible rewards. A double pay was promised to the victorious troops: "The city and the buildings," said Mahomet, "are mine; but I resign to your valor the captives and the spoil, the treasures of gold and beauty; be rich and be happy. Many are the provinces of my empire: the intrepid soldier who first ascends the walls of Constantinople shall be rewarded with the government of the fairest and most wealthy; and my gratitude shall accumulate his honors and fortunes above the measure of his own hopes." Such various and potent motives diffused among the Turks a general ardor, regardless of life and impatient for action: the camp reechoed with the Moslem shouts of "God is God: there is but one God, and Mahomet is the apostle of God;" 54 and the sea and land, from Galata to the seven towers, were illuminated by the blaze of their nocturnal fires. *_0061
Far different was the state of the Christians; who, with loud and impotent complaints, deplored the guilt, or the punishment, of their sins. The celestial image of the Virgin had been exposed in solemn procession; but their divine patroness was deaf to their entreaties: they accused the obstinacy of the emperor for refusing a timely surrender; anticipated the horrors of their fate; and sighed for the repose and security of Turkish servitude. The noblest of the Greeks, and the bravest of the allies, were summoned to the palace, to prepare them, on the evening of the twenty-eighth, for the duties and dangers of the general assault. The last speech of Palaeologus was the funeral oration of the Roman empire: 55 he promised, he conjured, and he vainly attempted to infuse the hope which was extinguished in his own mind. In this world all was comfortless and gloomy; and neither the gospel nor the church have proposed any conspicuous recompense to the heroes who fall in the service of their country. But the example of their prince, and the confinement of a siege, had armed these warriors with the courage of despair, and the pathetic scene is described by the feelings of the historian Phranza, who was himself present at this mournful assembly. They wept, they embraced; regardless of their families and fortunes, they devoted their lives; and each commander, departing to his station, maintained all night a vigilant and anxious watch on the rampart. The emperor, and some faithful companions, entered the dome of St. Sophia, which in a few hours was to be converted into a mosque; and devoutly received, with tears and prayers, the sacrament of the holy communion. He reposed some moments in the palace, which resounded with cries and lamentations; solicited the pardon of all whom he might have injured; 56 and mounted on horseback to visit the guards, and explore the motions of the enemy. The distress and fall of the last Constantine are more glorious than the long prosperity of the Byzantine Caesars. *_0062
In the confusion of darkness, an assailant may sometimes succeed; out in this great and general attack, the military judgment and astrological knowledge of Mahomet advised him to expect the morning, the memorable twenty- ninth of May, in the fourteen hundred and fifty-third year of the Christian aera. The preceding night had been strenuously employed: the troops, the cannons, and the fascines, were advanced to the edge of the ditch, which in many parts presented a smooth and level passage to the breach; and his fourscore galleys almost touched, with the prows and their scaling-ladders, the less defensible walls of the harbor. Under pain of death, silence was enjoined: but the physical laws of motion and sound are not obedient to discipline or fear; each individual might suppress his voice and measure his footsteps; but the march and labor of thousands must inevitably produce a strange confusion of dissonant clamors, which reached the ears of the watchmen of the towers. At daybreak, without the customary signal of the morning gun, the Turks assaulted the city by sea and land; and the similitude of a twined or twisted thread has been applied to the closeness and continuity of their line of attack. 57 The foremost ranks consisted of the refuse of the host, a voluntary crowd who fought without order or command; of the feebleness of age or childhood, of peasants and vagrants, and of all who had joined the camp in the blind hope of plunder and martyrdom. The common impulse drove them onwards to the wall; the most audacious to climb were instantly precipitated; and not a dart, not a bullet, of the Christians, was idly wasted on the accumulated throng. But their strength and ammunition were exhausted in this laborious defence: the ditch was filled with the bodies of the slain; they supported the footsteps of their companions; and of this devoted vanguard the death was more serviceable than the life. Under their respective bashaws and sanjaks, the troops of Anatolia and Romania were successively led to the charge: their progress was various and doubtful; but, after a conflict of two hours, the Greeks still maintained, and improved their advantage; and the voice of the emperor was heard, encouraging his soldiers to achieve, by a last effort, the deliverance of their country. In that fatal moment, the Janizaries arose, fresh, vigorous, and invincible. The sultan himself on horseback, with an iron mace in his hand, was the spectator and judge of their valor: he was surrounded by ten thousand of his domestic troops, whom he reserved for the decisive occasion; and the tide of battle was directed and impelled by his voice and eye. His numerous ministers of justice were posted behind the line, to urge, to restrain, and to punish; and if danger was in the front, shame and inevitable death were in the rear, of the fugitives. The cries of fear and of pain were drowned in the martial music of drums, trumpets, and attaballs; and experience has proved, that the mechanical operation of sounds, by quickening the circulation of the blood and spirits, will act on the human machine more forcibly than the eloquence of reason and honor. From the lines, the galleys, and the bridge, the Ottoman artillery thundered on all sides; and the camp and city, the Greeks and the Turks, were involved in a cloud of smoke which could only be dispelled by the final deliverance or destruction of the Roman empire. The single combats of the heroes of history or fable amuse our fancy and engage our affections: the skilful evolutions of war may inform the mind, and improve a necessary, though pernicious, science. But in the uniform and odious pictures of a general assault, all is blood, and horror, and confusion nor shall I strive, at the distance of three centuries, and a thousand miles, to delineate a scene of which there could be no spectators, and of which the actors themselves were incapable of forming any just or adequate idea.
The immediate loss of Constantinople may be ascribed to the bullet, or arrow, which pierced the gauntlet of John Justiniani. The sight of his blood, and the exquisite pain, appalled the courage of the chief, whose arms and counsels were the firmest rampart of the city. As he withdrew from his station in quest of a surgeon, his flight was perceived and stopped by the indefatigable emperor. "Your wound," exclaimed Palaeologus, "is slight; the danger is pressing: your presence is necessary; and whither will you retire?" - "I will retire," said the trembling Genoese, "by the same road which God has opened to the Turks;" and at these words he hastily passed through one of the breaches of the inner wall. By this pusillanimous act he stained the honors of a military life; and the few days which he survived in Galata, or the Isle of Chios, were embittered by his own and the public reproach. 58 His example was imitated by the greatest part of the Latin auxiliaries, and the defence began to slacken when the attack was pressed with redoubled vigor. The number of the Ottomans was fifty, perhaps a hundred, times superior to that of the Christians; the double walls were reduced by the cannon to a heap of ruins: in a circuit of several miles, some places must be found more easy of access, or more feebly guarded; and if the besiegers could penetrate in a single point, the whole city was irrecoverably lost. The first who deserved the sultan's reward was Hassan the Janizary, of gigantic stature and strength. With his cimeter in one hand and his buckler in the other, he ascended the outward fortification: of the thirty Janizaries, who were emulous of his valor, eighteen perished in the bold adventure. Hassan and his twelve companions had reached the summit: the giant was precipitated from the rampart: he rose on one knee, and was again oppressed by a shower of darts and stones. But his success had proved that the achievement was possible: the walls and towers were instantly covered with a swarm of Turks; and the Greeks, now driven from the vantage ground, were overwhelmed by increasing multitudes. Amidst these multitudes, the emperor, 59 who accomplished all the duties of a general and a soldier, was long seen and finally lost. The nobles, who fought round his person, sustained, till their last breath, the honorable names of Palaeologus and Cantacuzene: his mournful exclamation was heard, "Cannot there be found a Christian to cut off my head?" 60 and his last fear was that of falling alive into the hands of the infidels. 61 The prudent despair of Constantine cast away the purple: amidst the tumult he fell by an unknown hand, and his body was buried under a mountain of the slain. After his death, resistance and order were no more: the Greeks fled towards the city; and many were pressed and stifled in the narrow pass of the gate of St. Romanus. The victorious Turks rushed through the breaches of the inner wall; and as they advanced into the streets, they were soon joined by their brethren, who had forced the gate Phenar on the side of the harbor. 62 In the first heat of the pursuit, about two thousand Christians were put to the sword; but avarice soon prevailed over cruelty; and the victors acknowledged, that they should immediately have given quarter if the valor of the emperor and his chosen bands had not prepared them for a similar opposition in every part of the capital. It was thus, after a siege of fifty-three days, that Constantinople, which had defied the power of Chosroes, the Chagan, and the caliphs, was irretrievably subdued by the arms of Mahomet the Second. Her empire only had been subverted by the Latins: her religion was trampled in the dust by the Moslem conquerors. 63
The tidings of misfortune fly with a rapid wing; yet such was the extent of Constantinople, that the more distant quarters might prolong, some moments, the happy ignorance of their ruin. 64 But in the general consternation, in the feelings of selfish or social anxiety, in the tumult and thunder of the assault, a sleepless night and morning *_0063 must have elapsed; nor can I believe that many Grecian ladies were awakened by the Janizaries from a sound and tranquil slumber. On the assurance of the public calamity, the houses and convents were instantly deserted; and the trembling inhabitants flocked together in the streets, like a herd of timid animals, as if accumulated weakness could be productive of strength, or in the vain hope, that amid the crowd each individual might be safe and invisible. From every part of the capital, they flowed into the church of St. Sophia: in the space of an hour, the sanctuary, the choir, the nave, the upper and lower galleries, were filled with the multitudes of fathers and husbands, of women and children, of priests, monks, and religious virgins: the doors were barred on the inside, and they sought protection from the sacred dome, which they had so lately abhorred as a profane and polluted edifice. Their confidence was founded on the prophecy of an enthusiast or impostor; that one day the Turks would enter Constantinople, and pursue the Romans as far as the column of Constantine in the square before St. Sophia: but that this would be the term of their calamities: that an angel would descend from heaven, with a sword in his hand, and would deliver the empire, with that celestial weapon, to a poor man seated at the foot of the column. "Take this sword," would he say, "and avenge the people of the Lord." At these animating words, the Turks would instantly fly, and the victorious Romans would drive them from the West, and from all Anatolia as far as the frontiers of Persia. It is on this occasion that Ducas, with some fancy and much truth, upbraids the discord and obstinacy of the Greeks. "Had that angel appeared," exclaims the historian, "had he offered to exterminate your foes if you would consent to the union of the church, even event then, in that fatal moment, you would have rejected your safety, or have deceived your God." 65
42 It is singular that the Greeks should not agree in the number of these illustrious vessels; the five of Ducas, the four of Phranza and Leonardus, and the two of Chalcondyles, must be extended to the smaller, or confined to the larger, size. Voltaire, in giving one of these ships to Frederic III., confounds the emperors of the East and West.
43 In bold defiance, or rather in gross ignorance, of language and geography, the president Cousin detains them in Chios with a south, and wafts them to Constantinople with a north, wind.
44 The perpetual decay and weakness of the Turkish navy may be observed in Ricaut, (State of the Ottoman Empire, p. 372 - 378,) Thevenot, (Voyages, P. i. p. 229 - 242, and Tott, (Memoires, tom. iii;) the last of whom is always solicitous to amuse and amaze his reader
45 I must confess that I have before my eyes the living picture which Thucydides (l. vii. c. 71) has drawn of the passions and gestures of the Athenians in a naval engagement in the great harbor of Syracuse.
*_0059 According to Ducas, one of the Afabi beat out his eye with a stone Compare Von Hammer. - M.
46 According to the exaggeration or corrupt text of Ducas, (c. 38,) this golden bar was of the enormous or incredible weight of 500 librae, or pounds. Bouillaud's reading of 500 drachms, or five pounds, is sufficient to exercise the arm of Mahomet, and bruise the back of his admiral.
47 Ducas, who confesses himself ill informed of the affairs of Hungary assigns a motive of superstition, a fatal belief that Constantinople would be the term of the Turkish conquests. See Phranza (l. iii. c. 20) and Spondanus.
48 The unanimous testimony of the four Greeks is confirmed by Cantemir (p. 96) from the Turkish annals; but I could wish to contract the distance of ten miles, and to prolong the term of one night.
*_0060 Six miles, not ten. Von Hammer. - M
49 Phranza relates two examples of a similar transportation over the six miles of the Isthmus of Corinth; the one fabulous, of Augustus after the battle of Actium; the other true, of Nicetas, a Greek general in the xth century. To these he might have added a bold enterprise of Hannibal, to introduce his vessels into the harbor of Tarentum, (Polybius, l. viii. p. 749, edit. Gronov.)
Note: Von Hammer gives a longer list of such transportations, p. 533. Dion Cassius distinctly relates the occurrence treated as fabulous by Gibbon. - M.
50 A Greek of Candia, who had served the Venetians in a similar undertaking, (Spond. A.D. 1438, No. 37,) might possibly be the adviser and agent of Mahomet.
51 I particularly allude to our own embarkations on the lakes of Canada in the years 1776 and 1777, so great in the labor, so fruitless in the event.
!_0060 They were betrayed, according to some accounts, by the Genoese of Galata. Von Hammer, p. 536. - M.
52 Chalcondyles and Ducas differ in the time and circumstances of the negotiation; and as it was neither glorious nor salutory, the faithful Phranza spares his prince even the thought of a surrender.
53 These wings (Chalcondyles, l. viii. p. 208) are no more than an Oriental figure: but in the tragedy of Irene, Mahomet's passion soars above sense and reason: -
Should the fierce North, upon his frozen wings. Bear him aloft above the wondering clouds, And seat him in the Pleiads' golden chariot - Then should my fury drag him down to tortures.
Besides the extravagance of the rant, I must observe, 1. That the operation of the winds must be confined to the lower region of the air. 2. That the name, etymology, and fable of the Pleiads are purely Greek, (Scholiast ad Homer, Sigma 686. Eudocia in Ionia, p. 399. Apollodor. l. iii. c. 10. Heyne, p. 229, Not. 682,) and had no affinity with the astronomy of the East, (Hyde ad Ulugbeg, Tabul. in Syntagma Dissert. tom. i. p. 40, 42. Goguet, Origine des Arts, &c., tom. vi. p. 73 - 78. Gebelin, Hist. du Calendrier, p. 73,) which Mahomet had studied. 3. The golden chariot does not exist either in science or fiction; but I much fear Dr. Johnson has confounded the Pleiades with the great bear or wagon, the zodiac with a northern constalation.
54 Phranza quarrels with these Moslem acclamations, not for the name of God, but for that of the prophet: the pious zeal of Voltaire is excessive, and even ridiculous.
*_0061 The picture is heightened by the addition of the wailing cries of Kyris, which were heard from the dark interior of the city. Von Hammer p. 539. - M.
55 I am afraid that this discourse was composed by Phranza himself; and it smells so grossly of the sermon and the convent, that I almost doubt whether it was pronounced by Constantine. Leonardus assigns him another speech, in which he addresses himself more respectfully to the Latin auxiliaries.
56 This abasement, which devotion has sometimes extorted from dying princes, is an improvement of the gospel doctrine of the forgiveness of injuries: it is more easy to forgive 490 times, than once to ask pardon of an inferior.
*_0062 Compare the very curious Armenian elegy on the fall of Constantinople, translated by M. Bore, in the Journal Asiatique for March, 1835; and by M. Brosset, in the new edition of Le Beau, (tom. xxi. p. 308.) The author thus ends his poem: "I, Abraham, loaded with sins, have composed this elegy with the most lively sorrow; for I have seen Constantinople in the days of its glory." - M.
57 Besides the 10,000 guards, and the sailors and the marines, Ducas numbers in this general assault 250,000 Turks, both horse and foot.
58 In the severe censure of the flight of Justiniani, Phranza expresses his own feelings and those of the public. For some private reasons, he is treated with more lenity and respect by Ducas; but the words of Leonardus Chiensis express his strong and recent indignation, gloriae salutis suique oblitus. In the whole series of their Eastern policy, his countrymen, the Genoese, were always suspected, and often guilty.
Note: M. Brosset has given some extracts from the Georgian account of the siege of Constantinople, in which Justiniani's wound in the left foot is represented as more serious. With charitable ambiguity the chronicler adds that his soldiers carried him away with them in their vessel. - M.
59 Ducas kills him with two blows of Turkish soldiers; Chalcondyles wounds him in the shoulder, and then tramples him in the gate. The grief of Phranza, carrying him among the enemy, escapes from the precise image of his death; but we may, without flattery, apply these noble lines of Dryden: - As to Sebastian, let them search the field; And where they find a mountain of the slain, Send one to climb, and looking down beneath, There they will find him at his manly length, With his face up to heaven, in that red monument Which his good sword had digged.
60 Spondanus, (A.D. 1453, No. 10,) who has hopes of his salvation, wishes to absolve this demand from the guilt of suicide.
61 Leonardus Chiensis very properly observes, that the Turks, had they known the emperor, would have labored to save and secure a captive so acceptable to the sultan.
62 Cantemir, p. 96. The Christian ships in the mouth of the harbor had flanked and retarded this naval attack.
63 Chalcondyles most absurdly supposes, that Constantinople was sacked by the Asiatics in revenge for the ancient calamities of Troy; and the grammarians of the xvth century are happy to melt down the uncouth appellation of Turks into the more classical name of Teucri.
64 When Cyrus suppressed Babylon during the celebration of a festival, so vast was the city, and so careless were the inhabitants, that much time elapsed before the distant quarters knew that they were captives. Herodotus, (l. i. c. 191,) and Usher, (Annal. p. 78,) who has quoted from the prophet Jeremiah a passage of similar import.
*_0063 This refers to an expression in Ducas, who, to heighten the effect of his description, speaks of the "sweet morning sleep resting on the eyes of youths and maidens," p. 288. Edit. Bekker. - M.
65 This lively description is extracted from Ducas, (c. 39,) who two years afterwards was sent ambassador from the prince of Lesbos to the sultan, (c. 44.) Till Lesbos was subdued in 1463, (Phranza, l. iii. c. 27,) that island must have been full of the fugitives of Constantinople, who delighted to repeat, perhaps to adorn, the tale of their misery.
|
<urn:uuid:304ff707-ec01-46aa-81e4-e00d0d88e513>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://sacred-texts.com/cla/gibbon/06/daf06031.htm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00080-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.975298
| 7,705
| 2.65625
| 3
|
Mount Lokon spews ash clouds in seventh eruption since Sept
- From: AFP
- October 08, 2012
ONE of Indonesia's most active volcanoes has erupted again, spewing clouds of ash, an official has said.
The 1580 metre (5,214 feet) Mount Lokon on northeast Sulawesi island erupted at 2pm local time on Sunday with thunderous sounds heard as far as five kilometres away.
"Lokon has been quite active the past few months. This was the seventh biggest eruption since mid-September," government vulcanologist Farid Bina told AFP from the volcano's monitoring post in North Sulawesi province.
"It produced a loud sound like thunder. But we cannot detect the height of the eruption as thick clouds covered its peak," he said, adding that muddy rains fell in surrounding areas.
There was no plan to upgrade the volcano's alert level despite the series of eruptions, he said, adding that the nearest village of 250 people was outside the 2.5 kilometre danger zone.
The volcano experienced its biggest recent eruption in July 2011, when more than 5200 people were evacuated as it sent huge clouds of ash as high as 3500 metres into the sky.
Since then Mount Lokon has erupted and spewed clouds of ash about 600 times.
The volcano's last deadly eruption was in 1991, when it killed a Swiss tourist.
The Indonesian archipelago has dozens of active volcanoes and straddles major tectonic fault lines known as the "Ring of Fire" between the Pacific and Indian oceans.
The country's most active volcano, Mount Merapi in central Java, killed more than 350 people in a series of violent eruptions last year.
|
<urn:uuid:eba51ccf-c168-4760-a892-3a96da17ebe6>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.news.com.au/world/mount-lokon-spews-ash-clouds-in-seventh-eruption-since-sept/story-fndir2ev-1226491004797?from=public_rss
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394987.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00069-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.978871
| 354
| 2.5625
| 3
|
Google and Time Magazine have partnered to create a brilliant new project called Timelapse that shows satellite imagery of earth during the course of nearly 30 years, giving us a better understanding of how our planet is transforming.
“Working with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), NASA, and TIME, we’re releasing more than a quarter-century of images of Earth taken from space, compiled for the first time into an interactive time-lapse experience,” Google engineering manager Rebecca Moore wrote in a blog post today. “We believe this is the most comprehensive picture of our changing planet ever made available to the public.”
The image catalogs are built from more than two million satellite images from all over the world from 1984 to today. Some key examples of what you can see in the project are Alaskan glaciers melting, the deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon, and urban growth in rapidly evolving cities.
“We started working with the USGS in 2009 to make this historic archive of earth imagery available online,” Moore wrote. “Using Google Earth Engine technology, we sifted through 2,068,467 images — a total of 909 terabytes of data — to find the highest-quality pixels (e.g., those without clouds), for every year since 1984 and for every spot on Earth. We then compiled these into enormous planetary images, 1.78 terapixels each, one for each year.”
Time Magazine also used the Timelapse project as a jumping off point to tell stories about how satellites collect imagery, climate change, urban population increases, and the extraction of natural resources. One particular standout is the population explosion of Las Vegas from 1984 to today. Check out what Vegas looks today below:
|
<urn:uuid:48805890-f2e9-41ba-bdc8-7a54adce0da5>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/09/google-time-earth-timelapse/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397565.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00049-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.909732
| 361
| 3.5625
| 4
|
|Name: _________________________||Period: ___________________|
This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Reeve's mother is __________ after hearing why Reeve runs away with Janie.
2. What does Janie promise her parents?
(a) That she does not run away.
(b) That she does not call the police.
(c) That she does not search for Hannah.
(d) That she does forgive them.
3. Who does Reeve drive home with instead of Janie in chapter 17?
(b) Another girl.
4. Finish the sentence. Janie does not wish to spend the night with Reeve because she wants it to be __________.
(d) In love.
5. Janie finally comes clean about the situation. Which word best describes how the Johnsons are feeling?
Short Answer Questions
1. Which of the following literary devices is not used within the novel?
2. Where does Janie want to go with Reeve in chapter 14?
3. What type of food does Reeve order in the last chapter of the book?
4. What is it that disappears from Janie's mind in chapter 10?
5. The Johnsons are ___________ when they learn that Janie runs away.
Short Essay Questions
1. How does Reeve perceive Janie's thoughts about the milk carton?
2. Why is Janie relieved that the Johnsons are screaming at her?
3. How does the novel end? Explain.
4. What might "attention" have to do with Janie's kidnapping, as supposed by Janie?
5. Why does Janie begin shredding the milk carton in chapter 16?
6. Describe the argument between Janie and Reeve in chapter 16.
7. Why does Janie wait to pursue an adult relationship with Reeve?
8. Why do Janie and Reeve decide against staying in the motel together/
9. Explain how and why Janie travels to New Jersey.
10. Explain the contrast present between Janie's relationship with Reeve and Janie's relationship with her family.
This section contains 817 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page)
|
<urn:uuid:230ffa9f-1d46-4804-9344-6435a6f4de69>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.bookrags.com/lessonplan/face-on-the-milk-carton/test4.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393518.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00001-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.898806
| 496
| 2.640625
| 3
|
Skip to Content
Thursday, Nov. 8, 2012, 10:39 AM
A monitoring and alert system developed and implemented at Vanderbilt University Medical Center that prompts caregivers to check glucose levels for patients with diabetes while they are undergoing surgery has been found to help improve outcomes such as reduced abnormal glucose values, fewer surgical site infections and reduced hospital readmissions after surgery.
Approximately 17.5 million people in the United States have diabetes. These patients are known to have a higher likelihood of undergoing major surgery, a higher risk of adverse events during surgery and a 30 percent to 50 percent longer stay in the hospital post-surgery.
“Avoiding extremes in blood glucose values, especially hypoglycemia or low blood sugar, is imperative to ensuring the safety of patients with diabetes during surgery,” said study author Jesse Ehrenfeld, M.D., MPH, assistant professor of Anesthesiology and Biomedical Informatics.
“This is particularly important for surgical patients because the clinical signs of hypoglycemia can be masked by general anesthesia while patients are unable to communicate with their physicians.”
To better maintain glycemic control throughout the perioperative period (defined as before, during and immediately after surgery), the VUMC Perioperative Informatics Group developed an automated system to routinely remind caregivers to monitor a patient’s blood glucose level.
To learn the efficacy of the improved monitoring, Ehrenfeld studied the effects of electronic notifications regarding intraoperative glucose testing being provided to anesthesia providers during surgery, and his results were featured this month during the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
“There are some really exciting results,” Ehrenfeld said. “We found that the point-of-care notifications reduced the number of dangerously out-of-range blood sugar values. We also found that fewer patients had surgical site infections after surgery, and that patients who were enrolled in this study got readmitted to the hospital less often after they went home.”
The study, which was conducted at both VUMC and Massachusetts General Hospital, included 13,384 patients undergoing routine surgeries from May 2010 to July 2012.
The Intraoperative Glucose Monitoring Alert recommended that glucose be measured every hour if insulin was administered during surgery, and every two hours if a patient with diabetes was undergoing surgery but not receiving intraoperative insulin.
The following results were measured: the impact of point-of-care notifications on glucose monitoring, dangerously out-of-range blood sugar values, surgical site infection rates and hospital length of stay.
“The results of this study are likely to change care for the thousands of patients with diabetes who undergo surgical procedures every day,” said Ehrenfeld.
“While this study was conducted at two large academic medical centers, we have enough confidence in these results and there was enough improvement in patient care and outcomes that we believe that an adoption of a similar strategy across the nation and across the world will impact millions of patients every year.”
There are lots of ways to keep up with Vanderbilt. Choose your preferred method:
|
<urn:uuid:20d2bd9d-4c58-48f0-a167-81c51a2920e8>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2012/11/alerts-ease-surgery-for-patients-with-diabetes/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00048-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.963186
| 644
| 2.625
| 3
|
Everyone’s breasts are different, and your breasts can change with age and at different times of the month. It’s important to get to know how your breasts normally look and feel so it will be easier to spot if there are any unusual changes for you.
If you do spot any unusual changes to your breasts you should get them checked out by your doctor.
Finding out about breast cancer signs and symptoms can help you understand what breast changes to look out for.
Lumps are vital to look out for, and for many women the first sign or symptom of breast cancer is a lump in their breast. But many women have breast lumps and most of them are benign (not cancerous), and there are other important signs and symptoms too.
Changes to check for
Lump - may not be seen, but might be felt.
Can you feel a lump?
Either in the breast, upper chest or armpit?
Is there a lumpy area?
Or unusual thickening of the breast tissue
that doesn't go away?
Is there any unusual pain?
Either in part of the breast or the armpit?
e.g. dimpling or puckering
Any change in size or shape?
For example, one breast might become larger or lower than the other.
Any change in colour?
E.g. the breast may look red or inflamed.
Any change in skin texture?
Such as puckering or dimpling of the skin of the breast.
Appearance or direction of the nipple
What about the appearance or the direction of the nipple?
E.g. one might become inverted (turned in) when it normally points out.
Any unusual discharge?
One or both nipples might have a discharge.
Rash or crusting
Any rash or crusting of the nipple or surrounding area.
It’s as simple as TLC
TOUCH your breasts. Can you feel anything unusual?
LOOK for changes. Is there any change in shape or texture?
CHECK anything unusual with your doctor.Love your breasts - be breast aware
Most cases of breast cancer are found by women noticing unusual changes and visiting their doctor to get them checked. The earlier breast cancer is found, the better the chance of beating it – so it’s important to be breast aware.
Being breast aware simply means knowing what your breasts look and feel like normally, being on the lookout for any unusual changes and getting them checked out by your doctor.
No one knows your body better than you and everyone will have their own way of touching and looking for changes – there’s no special technique and you don’t need any training.
It’s good to get into the habit of doing this regularly – maybe when you’re in the bath or shower, or while getting dressed in the morning.
Watch our video to find out how some women stay breast aware and check for the signs and symptoms of breast cancer
You’ll find further details on how to be breast aware in our Touch Look Check leaflet and mini guide, which you can download below.
|
<urn:uuid:d80ac72b-4bc2-4b44-8f24-e2b5d8e2f11e>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://breastcancernow.org/about-breast-cancer/what-are-the-signs-and-symptoms-of-breast-cancer
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402479.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00196-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.930971
| 648
| 2.609375
| 3
|
Scientists Call For Global Push To Advance Research In Synthetic Biology
With research backgrounds ranging from materials engineering to molecular biophysics, seventeen leading scientists issued a statement today announcing that, much as the discovery of DNA and creation of the transistor revolutionized science, there is a new scientific field on the brink of revolutionizing our approach to problems ranging from eco-safe energy to outbreaks of malaria.
That research area is synthetic biology -- the construction or redesign of biological systems components that do not naturally exist, by combining the engineering applications and practices of nanoscience with molecular biology.
"The early twenty-first century is a time of tremendous promise and tremendous peril," includes the statement. "We face daunting problems of climate change, energy, health, and water resources. Synthetic biology offers solutions to these issues: microorganisms that convert plant matter to fuels or that synthesize new drugs or target and destroy rogue cells in the body."
The two-page statement calls for an international effort to advance synthetic biology that would not only propel research, but do so while developing protective measures against accidents and abuses of synthetic biology.
The statement was issued following the conclusion of the first Kavli Futures Symposium, held June 11-15 in Ilulissat, Greenland. Signed unanimously, signatories include scientists from the California Institute of Technology, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Cornell University, J. Craig Venter Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Institute for Advanced Study, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Stanford University, and University of California at Berkeley (United States); Ecole Normale Superieure (France); Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands); Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, TU Dresden (Germany); Weizman Institute of Science (Israel); Systems Biology Institute, and Sony Computer Science Laboratories (Japan).
"When we gathered at the Kavli Futures Symposium, researchers -- among the best in their fields -- in areas such as nanoscience, physics, biology, materials science and engineering met to share their expertise and brainstorm on one of the most promising yet controversial fields facing science today," said Cees Dekker, professor of molecular biophysics in the Kavli Institute of NanoScience at the Delft University of Technology. "That we not only achieved a consensus, but resolved to issue a unanimous statement on the critical importance of this field is significant."
The statement also addresses the uncertainties of synthetic biology. "As with any powerful technology, the promise comes with risk. We need to develop protective measures against accidents and abuses of synthetic biology. A system of best practices must be established to foster positive uses of the technology and suppress negative ones. The risks are real; but the potential benefits are truly extraordinary."
The statement's recommendations include creation of a professional organization that will engage with the broader society to maximize the benefits, minimize the risks, and oversee the ethics of synthetic life.
"This is a critical moment for synthetic biology," said Paul McEuen, professor of physics, Cornell University. "The choices facing us now -- the scientific investments we make and the rules we set down to govern the field -- will impact society for decades to come."
The symposium was sponsored by The Kavli Foundation and co-hosted and organized by The Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscience and The Kavli Institute of Nanoscience at Delft University of Technology. "This is the first of a series of unique symposia that focus on the trends, challenges and opportunities for future scientific research," said David Auston, president of the Kavli Foundation. "By emphasizing a forward looking perspective, the Kavli Futures Symposia provide a forum for discussion of the key issues facing future developments and directions in specific fields, and thereby help to define and guide the development of the research in these fields." Said Fred Kavli, founder of The Kavli Foundation, "I am delighted at the success of this inaugural symposium, which has not only taken a look into the future of science, but provided the first steps toward navigating a successful journey into an exciting and challenging new frontier."
Cornell University. June 2007.
rating: 0.00 from 0 votes | updated on: 5 Dec 2007 | views: 1317 |
|
<urn:uuid:baeb502b-4fdc-43a7-a63e-d4c62f0f3065>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.biology-online.org/articles/scientists_call_global_push.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398516.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00108-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.9144
| 878
| 2.75
| 3
|
Guest Author - Kathy L. Brown
We need some fat in our diet. It provides satiety (a satisfied, full feeling), is a vehicle for fat-soluble vitamin absorption, and is a great energy source. It is vital for a child's proper neurological development. However, its high caloric price tag and the health issues posed by saturated fat intake lead many to cut down on fats and oils whenever possible.
It is fairly easy to reduced the amount of fat added to foods, such as in salad dressing or as part of a casserole. A change in cooking methods, like substitution of oven-frying for deep-fat frying usually works well and yield a good, if not identical, dish. Such tinkering with favorite recipes requires a dry-run before you serve it for company dinner, but is possible without a major disaster.
Baking is another story. Fat is part of a series of complex chemical reactions going on in the batter or dough, and a small change can lead to a big problem. But understanding a few basic principles will help your experiments in low-fat baking go smoother.
One substitution you might consider is removing solid fat, such as butter or margarine, and adding liquid vegetable oil. The cake will have the same amount of fat (and thus shouldn't be too different chemically) but it will be healthier, unsaturated fat.
I decided to lighten up the following recipe (follow the link below to the full, lightened up recipe and instructions):
Sour Cream Coffee Cake
½ Cup margarine or butter, softened
¼ Cup sugar
½ Cup dairy sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 Cup all purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
Substituting oil for butter is said to lead to a dense, greasy, unpleasant cake. The reason is that oil is 100% fat and butter and margarine are 80% fat. Using ½ cup of canola oil for the ½ cup of margarine or butter would increase the amount of actual fat in the batter and change the nature of the cake. We must use less vegetable oil. How much less?
If you do the math, 1 cup of butter or margarine = ¾ cup plus one Tablespoon of oil. And the substitution decreases the volume of the batter (remember, butter has 15% water and 5% milk solids), so also add a little extra water. My recipe now uses, instead of the ½ cup of butter, 6 ½ Tablespoons vegetable oil and 1 ½ Tablespoons of water.
Sour cream is another source of unhealthy fats, and is easily replaced by an equal volume of fat-free or low-fat plain yogurt. Two beaten egg whites can be substituted for the one egg, if you like.
These small changes yield a moist, light cake that my family still loves.
|
<urn:uuid:e3c86b4e-d421-4246-88c8-ab71ad724477>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art9759.asp
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00016-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.934996
| 578
| 2.59375
| 3
|
He was literally up a tree. In 1950, a small black bear cub, surrounded by smoke and flames, scurried up a tree in the midst of a catastrophic forest fire in the Capitan Mountains of New Mexico. He tenaciously held on while his forest home turned into charred embers around him.
When firefighters found the cub, he was frightened and famished, but clinging to life with the same determination he'd used to cling to his perch. The brave bear was rushed to Dr. Edwin J. Smith, a practitioner in nearby Santa Fe. Dr. Smith was a small animal practitioner who had treated wildlife for the US Forest Service, but never a bear.
"Come to think of it," Dr. Smith said, "that was the first and last time I ever treated a bear."
The bear's front paws were badly burned. All the fur was scorched off his abdomen, and the skin over his stomach was inflamed.
"Without medical assistance, the infection would have killed him," Dr. Smith said, "but I treated him real good."
Dr. Smith applied salve to the cub's wounds and wrapped the burns. He changed the wrappings daily to avoid infection.
Dr. Edwin Smith and Smokey Bear
"He became my good little patient," Dr. Smith said. "He always wanted to sleep on my shoulder." After a few weeks the bear went home with a forest ranger, but whenever the cub revisited Dr. Smith it would run to him, wanting to be picked up.
"I was told he was an ornery little dickens and that he'd try to bite. But he never tried to bite me."
Since 1944, the Smokey Bear cartoon campaign has been telling us: "Remember, only YOU can prevent forest fires." Few animals in public service campaigns have had such a lasting impact.
Word sometimes travels faster than a wildfire, and before long the unnamed bear cub had become a celebrity. Inspired by the advertising campaign, the US Forestry Service and the New Mexico Fish and Game Commission decided to christen him Smokey Bear, and he became the real-life embodiment of the symbol for forest fire prevention.
After his recovery, the real-life Smokey Bear took up residence at the National Zoo in Washington, DC. Dr. Smith saw Smokey there in 1962, 12 years after treating him. The plucky bear cub had grown to 400 pounds.
Fifty years later, Dr. Smith continues to tell the Smokey Bear story.
"I went up to his pen and patted his front paws, and he seemed to respond to me like he knew me. I must have made some impression on him when he was a baby."
Smokey died of natural causes at age 26 in 1976. His remains are buried in Capitan, where there is a museum to honor him. The Smokey Bear Historical State Park include a visitor's center and a half-acre boardwalk featuring the various plants of New Mexico and the grave of Smokey Bear.
Dr. Smith retired to Pueblo, Colo in 1994. Since that time, he and his wife have volunteered their time to spread the word about forest fire prevention. Now in his 80s, Dr. Smith still regularly visits area schools, service clubs, and interagency groups to relate his unique story about Smokey. In recognition for their public service, the US Forest Service, National Association of State Foresters, and Advertising Council Inc honored Dr. Smith with the Bronze Smokey Bear Award at a ceremony and reception in Pueblo. The Bronze Smokey is awarded for outstanding contribution to local or statewide fire prevention efforts for 2 years or more.
In addition to the message he spread about the value of preserving our woodlands from forest fires, Dr. Smith gained experience treating Smokey that taught him a valuable lesson about the human-animal bond. "If you're good to animals, they'll remember you for a long time."
Apart from playing a historic role in Americana, Dr. Edwin J. Smith has created a legacy all his own. The brother of two practitioners, Dr. Kenneth Smith and Dr. Earl Smith, he opened Smith Veterinary Hospital in Santa Fe in 1946. The practice was eventually turned over to his son, Dr. Tom Smith. Tom was later assisted by a third generation of the family in the person of his daughter, Dr. Kathy Smith-Dobesh, who now runs the clinic with her husband, Dr. Mike Dobesh. All of the aforementioned are graduates of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Colorado State University. Kelsey Dobesh, the couple's young daughter, may one day represent a fourth generation in the profession. Kelsey has already shown an interest in animals.
|
<urn:uuid:53e9ca00-835b-4def-a19d-b555eb112268>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
https://www.avma.org/News/JAVMANews/Pages/s021500m.aspx
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397565.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00069-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.98269
| 968
| 3.140625
| 3
|
"The tranquil woods that surround you now once resembled an industrial park. The springs were exploited for their carbonic gas during the late 1800's and early 1900's...the amount of water being pumped from the ground eventually took its toll on the quality and flow of the mineral springs of Saratoga, and they began to run dry. A local Committee of Concerned Citizens successfully lobbied the state legislature for the preservation of the Springs, resulting in the Anti-Pumping Act of 1908...The gas companies were shut down and many of the wells were capped. It took many years for the remaining springs to regain their flow." – From an interpretive marker in Saratoga Spa State Park, New York
As I have become more interested in the history of Florida's springs, I've been particularly fascinated with the guilded age practice of "taking the waters" for improved health and rejuvenation. "The centuries-old act of bathing, soaking, or ingesting mineral-rich spring or seawater to cure a broad range of ailments, such as arthritis, rheumatism, and various aches and pains" was in vogue at springs in the late 19th and early 20th century.
I'm not sure exactly where the practice originated in the United States, but it surely had its roots in Europe, where towns like Baden-Baden in Germany, Bath in England and Spa in Belgium were known throughout the world for their water therapies. One of the most popular spots to take the waters in the early days of the United States was Saratoga Springs, New York.
As in Florida, the Native Americans of the region revered the springs and the springs of Saratoga were not discovered by people of European descent until the late 18th century. By the early 1800s, hotels had been built near the springs for visitors seeking the therapeutic qualities of the water. Soon large scale resorts catering to wealthy tourists were developed, including two of the largest hotels in the world at the time. Similar Victorian-era spas were also developed in Florida at places like Green Cove Springs, Suwannee Springs and White Sulfur Springs.
|Green Cove Springs, FL (State Archives of Florida)|
|Hampton Springs, FL (State Archives of Florida)|
Like the springs in Florida, the springs waters of New York are a constant cold temperature (in this case 55 degrees compared to the 72 degree temperature of those in Florida.) Some of Saratoga's springs were "sprouters" that rise dramatically in the air like a geyser. All of the Saratoga springs have a high mineral content and are naturally carbonated, a fact that ultimately put them at risk.
|Geyser Island Spring, located in Saratoga Spa State Park, |
is a "sprouter" on an island of minerals.
According to a display at the town's history museum, bottlers of soda pop at the start of the 20th century hired "companies to extract carbon dioxide gas from the mineral springs" causing the "depletion of the springs by over pumping." According to text on a separate exhibit at the town's visitors center, a single company might pump up to 400,000 gallons a day just to extract the gas and then merely dump the spring water on the ground. After the State assumed control of the 155 springs in 1909, all but 18 were sealed. The surviving springs are located in three areas, the Congress Park and High Rock Area near Saratoga Spring's downtown, and the spa complex today known as Saratoga Spa State Park. The later was developed by FDR as one of the first projects of the New Deal in 1929.
|Congress Spring, said to be the "most famous of all of Saratoga's mineral waters", |
was once "bottled and sold around the world."
|Detail of Congress Spring tap; I wonder if the presence|
of algae indicates contemporary water quality issues...
|Deer Park Spring emanates from this beautiful Victorian structure.|
|Hathorn Springs is a recently restored addition to the Congress Park area|
|Text on a tableau of one of the New Deal era buildings of Saratoga Spa State Park|
|While some of the structures are in wonderful condition, |
others are in dire need of restoration
|Art Deco relief on the pediment of Roosevelt Baths|
|Administration Building at Saratoga Spa State Park|
|Orenda Spring is said to have high iron content and is good for "strong blood"|
|The overflow from Orenda Spring forms this mound of hardened minerals|
|The high mineral content is obvious in spring|
|Sarasota Springs locals still swear by the medicinal value of the water |
and fill water jugs from their favorite springs
I visited Saratoga Springs on two occasions on my recent vacation, stopping first at Saratoga Spa State Park and then making a separate pilgrimage to Congress Park to learn more. Despite the physical differences between the geology of the springs in Florida and Saratoga Springs, I found a common history and a common challenge. Overuse threatens the springs of Florida like they did in Saratoga Springs over 100 years ago. I was encouraged to read about the "Committee of Concerned Citizens" that came together to save these pure waters a century ago. Surely the concerned citizens of Florida can do the same in the 21st century.
|
<urn:uuid:80936499-3630-4c9c-841b-4a617191c365>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://studiohourglass.blogspot.com/2012_07_01_archive.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393533.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00168-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.962196
| 1,117
| 2.8125
| 3
|
Even before last week's chemical spill fouled tap water in nine counties in West Virginia, where more than 200,000 people still cannot use their water after seven long days, it was not unusual to find black water running from kitchen faucets in homes outside Charleston.
Or to see children with chronic skin rashes. Or bathtub enamel eaten away, leaving locals to wonder what the same water was doing to their teeth.
"Welcome to our world," says Vivian Stockman, 52, a longtime resident of rural Roane County, north of Charleston, the state capital, and an activist with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition.
Indeed, people who live in the Kanawha River Valley, which much of the world learned recently is also known as Chemical Valley, have endured a long history of pollution of many kinds.
The coal-cleansing chemical that spilled from Freedom Industries' storage tank into the Elk River last Thursday is only the latest insult in what for some has been a lifetime of industrial accidents that have poisoned groundwater, spewed toxic gas emissions, and caused fires, explosions, and other disasters that neither state nor federal regulators have been able to protect against.
For nearly a century, Chemical Valley was home to the largest concentration of chemical plants in the United States, according to a 2004 history by Nathan Cantrell, published by the West Virginia Historical Society.
And though some of West Virginia's chemical manufacturers have shifted to Calgary's gas fields and to the oil-rich Gulf Coast in recent years, the discovery of the Marcellus Shale—which extends throughout much of the eastern United States and is touted as the largest natural gas field in the world—has raised hopes of a rebirth of Chemical Valley.
"We are seeing a renaissance now because of Marcellus Shale," said Kevin DiGregorio, executive director of the Chemical Alliance Zone, a nonprofit economic development group dedicated to building the chemical industry in West Virginia.
"To those of us in the chemical industry, safety is number one," he said. "We drink the water, too."
The Elk River spill is the region's third accident in the last five years. It left 300,000 people surrounding Charleston unable to even touch tap water and essentially shut down the state's capital city as residents scavenged for bottled water, baby wipes, and frozen TV dinners requiring no water for cooking or cleanup.
And though about 70,000 customers have been told their water is safe again as of Wednesday night, the spill has renewed the long-running debate over environmental oversight of the coal and chemical industries, the foundation for West Virginia's fragile economy.
A Century of Chemicals
Chemical Valley begins at the hamlet of Gauley Bridge, population 614, in central West Virginia, where the New River and the Gauley River converge and flow into the much larger Kanawha. That river wends through the mountains and empties into the Ohio River on the Ohio-West Virginia border at Point Pleasant.
The chemical industry followed early salt miners and then the kings of coal to West Virginia in the late 1700s. But the real buildup came with World War I and the demand for explosives and other chemical products.
The town of Nitro, 14 miles downriver from Charleston, is named for gunpowder manufactured there in 1917 and 1918. A plan to make mustard gas in the town for battlefields in Europe never materialized.
But Agent Orange, which was used extensively—and controversially—in Southeast Asia to defoliate jungles during the Vietnam War, was produced at Nitro's Monsanto Co. plant from the 1940s until 1971.
Nitro has been back in the news more recently. Two years ago, Monsanto agreed to pay $93 million for medical monitoring of some 5,000 Nitro factory workers who alleged in a class action suit that their town had been contaminated with dioxin, a toxic byproduct of Agent Orange production that is linked to cancer. The chemical giant also paid $9 million to clean dioxin-contaminated dust from 4,500 homes, according to the 385-page court order.
Accidents and Explosions
By the time of the Monsanto settlement, Chemical Valley had already achieved a degree of global infamy, if only by association.
In 1984, thousands of villagers in India died after methyl isocyanate, or MIC—a chemical used to make pesticides, plastics, and other products—escaped from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal. The only place in the U.S. where MIC was manufactured and stockpiled was at Union Carbide's plant in Institute, West Virginia, in the heart of Chemical Valley.
Two years after the Bhopal disaster, Union Carbide sold its factory. The plant saw nonfatal incidents, including a leak, an explosion, and a fire, during the late 1980s and 1990s.
Then, in 2008, after the plant was bought by Bayer CropScience, an explosion killed two workers. Projectiles from the explosion nearly penetrated an aboveground MIC storage tank, drawing attention from federal investigators concerned that the plant was vulnerable to a Bhopal-like disaster.
In 2011, after a nearly 30-year court battle with residents of Institute, Bayer CropScience dropped plans to resume production of MIC, according to the Associated Press, and announced it would dismantle the production unit.
Coal Companies vs. Chemical Companies
When drinking water is contaminated in West Virginia, coal-mining operations are usually the culprit. As coal is prepared for shipment, it is washed with chemicals, including a cleanser known as crude MCHM, which is at the heart of last week's accident.
The toxic wastewater produced in the cleansing process, known as coal slurry, is either injected into the ground—a moratorium bans that for now, says Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition's Stockman—or is stored in impoundment ponds, or sludge "lakes" behind earthen dams.
Last week's spill is believed to be West Virginia's first chemical accident involving contamination of a large municipal system, and Governor Earl Ray Tomblin has warned out-of-town media against misattributing blame.
"This was not a coal company incident, this was a chemical company incident," he said, in an account of the scolding published in the Charleston Gazette. "As far as I know, there was no coal company within miles."
But Donna Willis, 58, a disabled legal secretary who grew up in Institute and remembers the toxic releases and explosions, argued that drawing a bright line between the coal and chemical industries as if they have nothing to do with each other misses the larger point.
"I don't drink our water," she said. "Unless it is in a container that says purified water, distilled water, or I bought it myself and put it through my machine, I don't drink anybody's water. Not in this state."
She has so little trust in official pronouncements that she doesn't believe assurances Wednesday from West Virginia American Water, the regional supplier involved in the incident, that Nitro's water is safe again.
"Until the Next Thing Happens"
For all the industrial incidents and accidents, residents say not much in their state seems to change.
After the 2008 explosion at Bayer CropScience, the federal Chemical Safety Board recommended new state and federal safety regulations. The safety board returned to West Virginia in 2010, after an accidental release of toxic gas at the DuPont plant in Belle killed one worker there, and again urged new safety oversight.
But the measures found little support in the capitol in Charleston.
The Chemical Safety Board dispatched a team to West Virginia this week to investigate how 5,000 gallons of the chemical 4-methylcyclohexane methanol (MCMH) leaked into the Elk River above Charleston.
Maya Nye, who grew up in St. Albans, across the Kanawha River from Nitro, is working to improve federal oversight of the coal and chemical industries in her region. She's president of People Concerned About Chemical Safety, which pressed West Virginia lawmakers in 2009 to pass legislation modeled on a California industrial safety program that Nye says has minimized industrial accidents there.
The proposal calls for annual safety audits by public health officials and other chemical safety experts. The Chemical Safety Board made similar recommendations in its reports of the 2008 and 2010 accidents, but the proposal died in the legislature without coming up for a vote.
"We just live with it until the next thing happens and then we rehash it all over again," Nye said. "But it doesn't ever get any better."
|
<urn:uuid:ef451db3-36e8-46d5-acdd-0d0c4e4774b5>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140116-chemical-valley-west-virginia-chemical-spill-coal/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397562.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00170-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.961487
| 1,769
| 2.921875
| 3
|
Science and technology (S&T), both its practice and products, is becoming increasingly important to international relations and diplomacy. Therefore, the capacity to understand “science diplomacy”1 is necessary for foreign policy experts and practitioners to use it effectively. The formal and informal education and training of international relations professionals defined broadly, which includes professional diplomats and international science managers, are key components of increasing this capacity. Education and training ranges from courses affiliated with foreign ministries, such as the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute (FSI), to postgraduate programs at schools of public policy and international relations.
Science diplomacy education and training can comprise a wide range of subjects, from broad themes to specific topics. Certain S&T-related international relations issues, such as weapons of mass destruction and other international security topics, are well covered. More recently, environmental science policy, water diplomacy, and other natural resource issues have also received attention. However, these topics have typically been targeted at specialists, not necessarily the broad array of international relations professionals. Given the pervasive nature of S&T, topics and resources can and should also be integrated and directed at a more general audience.
Professionals in the diverse sectors that are inherently international in nature and necessitate strong connections between technical and policy expertise—even beyond the more established areas of trade, environment, natural resources, and security—can benefit from some type of science diplomacy education and training at different stages of their careers. For example, U.S. foreign service officers, who typically do not have S&T backgrounds, entering into overseas positions responsible for ESTH (environment, science, technology, and health) issues receive orientation-type training at FSI that surveys relevant S&T-related policies.
The means to teach science diplomacy is intimately connected with who is learning and what is to be taught. Different institutions and programs, from public policy and international affairs professional schools to diplomatic training centers, can offer a spectrum of courses, workshops, and even laboratories that reflect their individual expertise and satisfy the needs of a diverse array of international relations professionals. Graduate schools offer individual courses, specialty seminars, and even entire degrees on various topics of science diplomacy. Foreign ministries and diplomatic academies can help train a country’s diplomats in addressing S&T-related foreign policy priorities. They can also open their doors and provide hands-on learning to S&T professionals with interests in diplomacy.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Center for Science Diplomacy and its policy journal, Science & Diplomacy, have initiated an effort to begin to help build the foundations and resources for science diplomacy education and training. The center recently organized a roundtable discussion on the topic “Educating for Science Diplomacy,” which brought together practitioners and educators to address some of the key issues in this area. Beyond a better understanding of the current “who, what, and how” of various aspects of science diplomacy education and training, the roundtable identified gaps related to the topics addressed, resources available, and mechanisms in place. The discussion involved ideas on ways to meet future needs and to articulate integrated or systemic approaches to science diplomacy education and training that may be generally applicable to international relations professionals. Some important recommendations from the roundtable included the development of an analytical framework for teaching science diplomacy and all its components and the construction of a structured database of existing courses and science diplomacy-related organizations.2
Furthermore, in collaboration with The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), the center has developed a short course surveying contemporary science diplomacy topics that is targeted toward diplomats, policy makers, and early career scientists from developing countries.3 The week-long course will be offered for the first time this summer in Trieste, Italy (and on a regular basis in the future).
To provide education resources, Science & Diplomacy has developed a series of readers (compendia of selected articles) around specific science diplomacy topics. Each reader includes a series of discussion questions that probes the topic and the associated articles. The first three readers, which can be accessed at http://www.sciencediplomacy.org/education-resources, focus on national approaches to science diplomacy; transboundary issues and shared spaces; and international research and large-scale infrastructures. Over time, additional readers will be released on other important science diplomacy topics. The readers are freely available and distributable for noncommercial use, in line with the open-access policy of Science & Diplomacy.
The education and training of science diplomacy practitioners and policy makers requires a broader intellectual foundation. We believe that the activities undertaken thus far represent important first steps toward contributing to this effort. We hope that the center and its publication can continue to provide leadership in educating the next generation of science diplomats.
- For background information on science diplomacy, see “Resources,” AAAS Center for Science Diplomacy, http://www.aaas.org/page/resources; and “Topics,” Science & Diplomacy, http://www.sciencediplomacy.org/topics.
- “Summary of the 2nd Neureiter Science Diplomacy Roundtable: Educating for Science Diplomacy,” AAAS Center for Science Diplomacy, http://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/AAAS%20CSD%20-%20Educating%20for%20Science%20Diplomacy%20-%20Dec2013%20-%20summary.pdf.
- “Call for applications: AAAS-TWAS Course on Science Diplomacy,” TWAS website, accessed March 21, 2014, http://twas.org/node/6081.
|
<urn:uuid:518f7380-415d-435c-a975-876782d57bc2>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.sciencediplomacy.org/editorial/2014/educating-for-science-diplomacy
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395613.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00099-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.928405
| 1,174
| 2.890625
| 3
|
Apache County, AZ
Apache Co., AZ
|PRAIRIE RATTLESNAKE Crotalus viridis||
|DESCRIPTION: Maximum size for this rattlesnake ranges from 700 mm (28") to 1,620 mm (64") in total length excluding rattle. Base coloration is highly variable. Individuals can be olive, straw-yellow, gray-brown, pinkish, or orange-brown. A series of large, dark blotches, often with thin white edges, runs the length of the back. Two additional rows of small blotches line each side. Facial and head markings are usually prominent and include dark bars extending from the eye to the corner of the mouth. A dark bar often extends across the top of the head between the eyes. The pupils are vertically elliptical. The dorsal scales are keeled. The neck is slender and the head is broad and triangular. On the end of the tail is a rattle composed of a series of loosely interlocking keratinous sections. A new section is added each time the snake sheds its skin.
DISTRIBUTION: This snake is distributed across the plateaus of northeastern Arizona south and east of the Colorado River. In Arizona it is found at elevations ranging from ca. 4,500' to about 9,000'.
HABITAT: The Prairie Rattlesnake is found in Great Basin Desertscrub, Plains and Great Basin Grassland, and lower reaches of Great Basin Conifer Woodland communities. It is often encountered near features such as rock outcroppings and low ridges but it is also encountered on vast, relatively featureless plains.
BEHAVIOR: It is primarily nocturnal and crepuscular during the hot summer months and diurnal in spring and on mild or overcast summer days. It hibernates alone or in a group den during the cold months of late fall and winter. Like the other "pit-vipers" (members of the subfamily Crotalinae) this snake uses heat sensing pits (one on each side of the face between the eye and nostril) to detect warm-blooded predators and prey.
DIET: The Prairie Rattlesnake feeds on mice, other small mammals, birds, and lizards. It uses venom injected through long, hollow, retractable fangs to kill and begin digesting its prey.
REPRODUCTION: Mating takes place in July and August. Young are born in summer.
SUBSPECIES FOUND IN AZ:
HOPI RATTLESNAKE Crotalus viridis nuntius. This subspecies is usually small (up to 28") and has variable coloration. Specimens can be tan, gray, gray-brown, pinkish-brown, orange-brown, or yellowish-tan.
GREEN PRAIRIE RATTLESNAKE Crotalus viridis viridis. This subspecies is larger (up to 64") and is usually tan or yellow-brown with brown blotches. Some specimens are olive or greenish-gray.
REMARKS: This rattlesnake is capable of delivering large amounts of potent venom. If encountered it should be left alone. A large percentage of envenomations occur when a snake is handled or abused.
By Thomas C. Brennan
Bartlett. 2000. Snakes of North America: Western Region. Gulf Publishing Co. Houston, TX
Brennan, T. C., and A. T. Holycross. 2006. A Field Guide to Amphibians and Reptiles in Arizona. Arizona Game and Fish Department. Phoenix, AZ
Degenhardt, W. G., Painter, C. W., and Price, A. H.. 1996. Amphibians and Reptiles of New Mexico. University of New Mexico Press. Albuquerque.
Fowlie. 1965. The Snakes of Arizona. Azul Quinta Press, Fallbrook, California
Lowe, Schwalbe, Johnson. 1986. The Venomous Reptiles of Arizona. Nongame Branch Arizona Game and Fish Department. Phoenix, AZ
Stebbins. 1985. Western Reptiles and Amphibians. Houghton Mifflin. New York, NY
All content on this website is copyrighted © 2008 Thomas C. Brennan.
We request that if you make use of the textual contents of this site in reports, publications, etc. that you cite and credit the author(s) and photographer(s). All photos on this website are copyrighted. However, those found in the species account and habitat sections may be used for any noncommercial scientific, educational, or conservation purposes provided that photographs are not altered and continue to bear the copyright symbol and name of the photographer. Please contact the photographer regarding commercial use of copyrighted photographs.
|
<urn:uuid:8da8f9f6-1e03-4461-9d41-82f9ba246235>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.reptilesofaz.org/Snakes-Subpages/h-c-viridis.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00098-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.875283
| 995
| 3.203125
| 3
|
Take a sneak peek at the new NIST.gov and let us know what you think!
(Please note: some content may not be complete on the beta site.).
New JILA Technique Reveals Hidden Properties of Ultracold Atomic Gases
For Immediate Release: August 6, 2008
BOULDER, Colo.—Physicists at JILA, a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado at Boulder, have demonstrated a powerful new technique that reveals hidden properties of ultracold atomic gases.
To develop the new technique, the scientists borrowed an idea used for nearly a century in the study of materials: photoemission spectroscopy. Traditional photoemission spectroscopy probes the energy of electrons in a material. The new photoemission spectroscopy technique, described in the Aug. 7 issue of Nature,* adapts this technique to study potassium atoms in an ultracold gas.
Photoemission spectroscopy is particularly powerful in revealing details of the pairing of electrons in high-temperature superconductors, which are solids that have zero resistance to electrical current at relatively high temperatures (but still below room temperature). The scientists at JILA study a very similar phenomenon: superfluidity (fluids that can flow with zero friction). Specifically, they study how atoms in a Fermi gas behave as they “cross over” from acting like a Bose Einstein Condensate (in which fermions pair up to form tightly bound molecules) to behaving like pairs of separated electrons in a superconductor.
In the crossover region, atoms in an ultracold gas exert very strong forces on each other, which masks their individual properties. To see the hidden behavior, JILA scientists apply a radio frequency field to a cloud of trapped, paired potassium atoms, ejecting a few atoms from the strongly interacting cloud. Then the laser trap is turned off so the gas can expand. Scientists make images and count the numbers of escaping atoms at different velocities. With this information, scientists can calculate the atoms’ original energy states and momentum values back when they were inside the gas. Scientists then map the energy levels for all the original states of the atoms and can identify a particular pattern that shows the appearance of a large “energy gap,” which represents the amount of energy needed to break apart a pair of atoms.
The new photoemission technique represents a huge jump in the information available to physicists who study ultracold gases. Traditionally, scientists could probe either the energy or momentum of these gases, not both. The new technique simultaneously probes the energy and momentum, allowing the scientists to study the microscopics involved in the pairing of two atoms.
"This technique is a clean probe of the microscopics in this system, and it allows us to see interesting things like a very large energy gap that seems to appear before the superfluid state," says group leader Deborah Jin, a JILA/NIST fellow. Another research group previously identified what seemed to be an energy gap; however, the results of the JILA technique are much clearer to interpret, Jin says.
Ultimately, the JILA work studying superfluidity in atomic gases may one day help in understanding the energy gap that appears in high-temperature superconductors, which may have applications such as more efficient transmission of electricity across power grids. In addition, the new technique can be extended beyond the study of pairing to include, for example, the study of atoms trapped in crisscrossed "lattices" of laser light, a building block for some atomic clock and quantum computer designs.
Funding for the research was provided by the National Science Foundation.
*J.T. Stewart, J.P. Gaebler and D.S. Jin. Using photoemission spectroscopy to probe a strongly interacting Fermi gas. Nature. Aug. 7, 2008.
|
<urn:uuid:38b2f91d-fb7c-47eb-88ac-9207f6567445>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/ultracold_080608.cfm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397695.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00113-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.895471
| 807
| 3.515625
| 4
|
April 1, 2013
Infant tests for debilitating diseases set for mainstream
Michael Gelb and František Tureček have worked more than a decade to devise and implement newborn screening for some debilitating, often-fatal conditions that show up in the first year to several years of a child’s life.
The idea is to detect the conditions as early as possible, before symptoms begin to appear, so treatment can lessen the physical damage.
Now the University of Washington chemistry professors’ methodology is drawing interest from companies that could use it in tests distributed nationally and around the world.
“It’s the ultimate analytical device to find a needle in a haystack, when you know what you are looking for,” Gelb said.
Currently, the screening can detect six diseases — Krabbe, Pompe, Niemann-Pick, Gaucher, Fabry and Hurler syndromes — that are associated with enzyme deficiencies within lysosomes, structures that break down large molecules and eliminate waste in most cells. Three others are likely to be added to the screening soon, and more can be added as treatments for the conditions are developed.
One question – whether the UW-developed test, which uses a method called tandem mass spectrometry, could be integrated into routine newborn screening – was tested at the Washington State Newborn Screening laboratory.
A new research paper in press with the Journal of Pediatrics shows that not only can the lysosomal storage disease testing be integrated with other newborn screening, but that it is a better predictor than the methods currently used for non-lysosomal disorders, said Dr. Ronald Scott, the paper’s lead author and a UW professor of pediatrics.
There are more than 40 lysosomal storage diseases, but there are effective treatments for fewer than a dozen. “Those are the ones we focus on,” said Scott, who serves as an adviser to the Washington Health Department on newborn screening and has worked closely with Gelb and Tureček in their research (they are coauthors of the Journal of Pediatrics paper).
Newborns are routinely screened for a variety of disorders. In Washington state those range from maple syrup urine disorder to cystic fibrosis. But screening for lysosomal storage diseases is just now being added by a few states. New York, with efforts led by Hunter’s Hope Foundation, tests for Krabbe disease, the condition that claimed the life Hunter Kelly, son of former Buffalo Bills quarterback Jim Kelly.
New Jersey has passed legislation to screen for several disorders as soon as testing has passed federal approval and is readily available. Similar significant efforts, led by the Evanosky Foundation, are under way in Illinois and Missouri, and there have been inquiries from other states.
The screening developed by Gelb and Tureček is similar in some ways to newborn screening for other disorders – a spot of blood drawn from a baby’s heel is dried on a paper card, a small section of the blood spot is punched out and rehydrated, then target enzymes are incubated and measured using tandem mass spectrometry, a means of determining a substance’s chemical makeup and quantity.
“In the sense of making it to the real world, it’s very far along,” Gelb said of the technique. “But in terms of worldwide use, it’s still very early.”
Lysosomal disorders have a variety of effects and treatments. In Gaucher and Fabry disorders, for example, enzyme therapy can help to alleviate symptoms, Scott said. Enzyme therapy is not effective for Krabbe disease, an often-fatal disorder that affects the myelin sheath of nerves, and it is treated instead with a bone marrow transplant.
A condition called Mucopolysaccharidosis II – with symptoms ranging from a complete halt to development at an early age to learning disabilities, psychiatric problems or aortic valve disease at a later age – has not yet been added to the testing regimen. But testing can detect it early enough that an infant can be treated and kept stable until the age of 2, when a bone marrow transplant can be performed to treat symptoms that affect the central nervous system.
“Depending on the mutation, some affected individuals will develop a severe infantile form of the disease and be treated as soon as possible,” Tureček said. “Others will have milder forms that may cause associated health problems later in life, but there is no need for early treatment.”
Besides the growing U.S. interest, some in other countries – ranging from individual doctors to government officials – have expressed an interest in learning more. And there are concerns. Cost is an issue for some, Gelb said, while for others it’s that testing and early treatment aren’t necessarily a perfect answer.
“Many of these babies are not saved from illness,” he said. “They’re better, but they’re not perfect. Some are better than others.”
But Scott, who has spent his career leading research at UW and Seattle Children’s on a variety of pediatric genetic disorders, has been heartened by the advances in detection and treatment that have come in a relatively short time.
“I am absolutely enthralled with the changes that have been made for some of the lysosomal storage diseases in the last decade,” he said. “I have patients who in the past would have been seriously debilitated but who are now leading normal lives, going to college, raising families, and for the most part with no symptoms.”
|
<urn:uuid:304cdb1d-16b8-4f6b-b334-33c7243038d0>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/04/01/infant-tests-for-debilitating-diseases-set-for-mainstream/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396959.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00134-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.958175
| 1,181
| 2.625
| 3
|
These Wetsuits Could Make You Invisible to Sharks
By Chris Gayomali
Although still incredibly rare in the United States, shark attacks reached decade-high levels in 2012, according to a University of Florida study. Including data from Hawaii and Puerto Rico, 53 attacks occurred in U.S. waters, with a fatality rate of just two percent.
To be clear, you're still more likely to die from a lightning strike.
It's a different story in other parts of the world, particularly along the coast of Western Australia, where the surf is pristine and great white sharks are abundant. Although we're still a far greater threat to them than they are to us—practices like shark finning have reduced the animals to dangerously low levels around the globe—a series of high-profile incidents have painted the area as a hotbed for attacks.
For surfers, international or otherwise, the allure of a shark-repellant wetsuit has always been something of a Holy Grail, if only for the peace of mind. Scientists from the University of Western Australia, working with suit designers at Shark Attack Mitigation Systems (SAMS), have revealed two new "shark-proof" wetsuits designed to make you look less like a tasty shark-snack: One makes you "invisible" to their eyes, while the other mimics the pattern of a toxic fish the predators are known to avoid.
Sharks actually have amazing vision, despite what you may have heard. Although their visual systems are similar to those of humans, their eyes actually have stacked duplex retinas that allow them to see prey clearly even in dark, murky waters. The "invisibility suit," according to researchers, takes advantage of the "upper limits on spatial resolving power/visual acuity of the eye in pelagic sharks"—a kind of blind spot—and effectively renders the swimmer camouflaged.
The idea behind the other shark-repelling suit has actually been around for awhile. The black and white stripes of the poisonous pilotfish have long been known as a biological deterrent. In fact, the fish are known to spend most of their lives alongside sharks.
And even though your safety isn't guaranteed with either wetsuit, it sure beats anything that makes you look like a hapless seal.
More from The Week...
Found: The Space Rockets that Propelled Neil Armstrong to the Moon
The Great Beanie Baby Bubble
Meet the World's Largest Virus
|
<urn:uuid:24b6f823-9d08-40d2-bab5-933354d9f998>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://mentalfloss.com/article/51813/these-wetsuits-could-make-you-invisible-sharks
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00027-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.951033
| 507
| 2.625
| 3
|
New algorithm improves speed and accuracy of pedestrian detection
|Pedestrian detection system developed in the Statistical Visual Computing Lab at UC San Diego.|
San Diego, Calif., Feb. 8, 2016 -- What if computers could recognize objects as well as the human brain could? Electrical engineers at the University of California, San Diego have taken an important step toward that goal by developing a pedestrian detection system that performs in near real-time (2–4 frames per second) and with higher accuracy (close to half the error) compared to existing systems. The technology, which incorporates deep learning models, could be used in “smart” vehicles, robotics and image and video search systems.
“We’re aiming to build computer vision systems that will help computers better understand the world around them,” said Nuno Vasconcelos, electrical engineering professor at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering who directed the research. A big goal is real-time vision, he says, especially for pedestrian detection systems in self-driving cars. Vasconcelos is a faculty affiliate of the Center for Visual Computing and the Contextual Robotics Institute, both at UC San Diego.
The new pedestrian detection algorithm developed by Vasconcelos and his team combines a traditional computer vision classification architecture, known as cascade detection, with deep learning models.
Pedestrian detection systems typically break down an image into small windows that are processed by a classifier that signals the presence or absence of a pedestrian. This approach is challenging because pedestrians appear in different sizes—depending on distance to the camera—and locations within an image. Typically, millions of windows must be inspected by video frame at speeds ranging from 5–30 frames per second.
In cascade detection, the detector operates throughout a series of stages. In the first stages, the algorithm quickly identifies and discards windows that it can easily recognize as not containing a person (such as the sky). The next stages process the windows that are harder for the algorithm to classify, such as those containing a tree, which the algorithm could recognize as having person-like features (shape, color, contours, etc.). In the final stages, the algorithm must distinguish between a pedestrian and very similar objects. However, because the final stages only process a few windows, the overall complexity is low.
Traditional cascade detection relies on “weak learners,” which are simple classifiers, to do the job at each stage. The first stages use a small number of weak learners to reject the easy windows, while the later stages rely on larger numbers of weak learners to process the harder windows. While this method is fast, it isn’t powerful enough when it reaches the final stages. That’s because the weak learners used in all stages of the cascade are identical. So even though there are more classifiers in the last stages, they’re not necessarily capable of performing highly complex classification.
Deep learning models
To address this problem, Vasconcelos and his team developed a novel algorithm that incorporates deep learning models in the final stages of a cascaded detector. Deep learning models are better suited for complex pattern recognition, which they can perform after being trained with hundreds or thousands of examples—in this case, images that either have or don’t have a person. However, deep learning models are too complex for real-time implementation. While they work well for the final cascade stages, they are too complex to be used in the early ones.
The solution is a new cascade architecture that combines classifiers from different families: simple classifiers (weak learners) in the early stages complex classifiers (deep learning models) in the later stages. This is not trivial to accomplish, noted Vasconcelos, since the algorithm used to learn the cascade has to find the combination of weak learners that achieves the optimal trade-off between detection accuracy and complexity for each cascade stage. Accordingly, Vasconcelos and his team introduced a new mathematical formulation for this problem, which resulted in a new algorithm for cascade design.
“No previous algorithms have been capable of optimizing the trade-off between detection accuracy and speed for cascades with stages of such different complexities. In fact, these are the first cascades to include stages of deep learning. The results we’re obtaining with this new algorithm are substantially better for real-time, accurate pedestrian detection,” said Vasconcelos.
The algorithm currently only works for binary detection tasks, such as pedestrian detection, but the researchers are aiming to extend the cascade technology to detect many objects simultaneously.
“One approach to this problem is to train, for example, five different detectors to recognize five different objects. But we want to train just one detector to do this. Developing that algorithm is the next challenge,” said Vasconcelos.
Here is a video showing the pedestrian detection system at work:
The work, titled “Learning Complexity-Aware Cascades for Deep Pedestrian Detection,” was presented Dec. 15, 2015 at the International Conference on Computer Vision in Santiago, Chile. The research team also included Zhaowei Cai of UC San Diego and Mohammed Saberian of Yahoo Labs. The work was supported by awards from the National Science Foundation and funding from Northrop Grumman.
Jacobs School of Engineering
|
<urn:uuid:44c85c42-e568-4e99-979d-0bcb9e917041>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/news/news_releases/release.sfe?id=1883
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398628.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00056-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.944869
| 1,090
| 3.125
| 3
|
Complete Commentary on the Whole Bible, by Matthew Henry, , at sacred-texts.com
"You have heard of the patience of Job," says the apostle, Jam 5:11. So we have, and of his impatience too. We wondered that a man should be so patient as he was (ch. 1 and Job 2:1-13), but we wonder also that a good man should be so impatient as he is in this chapter, where we find him cursing his day, and, in passion, I. Complaining that he was born (Job 3:1-10). II. Complaining that he did not die as soon as he was born (Job 3:11-19). III. Complaining that his life was now continued when he was in misery (Job 3:20-26). In this it must be owned that Job sinned with his lips, and it is written, not for our imitation, but our admonition, that he who things he stands may take heed lest he fall.
Long was Job's heart hot within him; and, while he was musing, the fire burned, and the more for being stifled and suppressed. At length he spoke with his tongue, but not such a good word as David spoke after a long pause: Lord, make me to know my end, Psa 39:3, Psa 39:4. Seven days the prophet Ezekiel sat down astonished with the captives, and then (probably on the sabbath day) the word of the Lord came to him, Eze 3:15, Eze 3:16. So long Job and his friends sat thinking, but said nothing; they were afraid of speaking what they thought, lest they should grieve him, and he durst not give vent to his thoughts, lest he should offend them. They came to comfort him, but, finding his afflictions very extraordinary, they began to think comfort did not belong to him, suspecting him to be a hypocrite, and therefore they said nothing. But losers think they may have leave to speak, and therefore Job first gives vent to his thoughts. Unless they had been better, it would however have been well if he had kept them to himself. In short, he cursed his day, the day of his birth, wished he had never been born, could not think or speak of his own birth without regret and vexation. Whereas men usually observe the annual return of their birthday with rejoicing, he looked upon it as the unhappiest day of the year, because the unhappiest of his life, being the inlet into all his woe. Now,
I. This was bad enough. The extremity of his trouble and the discomposure of his spirits may excuse it in part, but he can by no means be justified in it. Now he has forgotten the good he was born to, the lean kine have eaten up the fat ones, and he is filled with thoughts of the evil only, and wishes he had never been born. The prophet Jeremiah himself expressed his painful sense of his calamities in language not much unlike this: Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me! Jer 15:10. Cursed be the day wherein I was born, Jer 20:14, etc. We may suppose that Job in his prosperity had many a time blessed God for the day of his birth, and reckoned it a happy day; yet now he brands it with all possible marks of infamy. When we consider the iniquity in which we were conceived and born we have reason enough to reflect with sorrow and shame upon the day of our birth, and to say that the day of our death, by which we are freed from sin (Rom 6:7), is far better. Ecc 7:1. But to curse the day of our birth because then we entered upon the calamitous scene of life is to quarrel with the God of nature, to despise the dignity of our being, and to indulge a passion which our own calm and sober thoughts will make us ashamed of. Certainly there is no condition of life a man can be in in this world but he may in it (if it be not his own fault) so honour God, and work out his own salvation, and make sure a happiness for himself in a better world, that he will have no reason at all to wish he had never been born, but a great deal of reason to say that he had his being to good purpose. Yet it must be owned, if there were not another life after this, and divine consolations to support us in the prospect of it, so many are the sorrows and troubles of this that we might sometimes be tempted to say that we were made in vain (Psa 89:47), and to wish we had never been. There are those in hell who with good reason wish they had never been born, as Judas, Mat 26:24. But, on this side hell, there can be no reason for so vain and ungrateful a wish. It was Job's folly and weakness to curse his day. We must say of it, This was his infirmity; but good men have sometimes failed in the exercise of those graces which they have been most eminent for, that we may understand that when they are said to be perfect it is meant that they were upright, not that they were sinless. Lastly, Let us observe it, to the honour of the spiritual life above the natural, that though many have cursed the day of their first birth, never any cursed the day of their new-birth, nor wished they never had had grace, and the Spirit of grace, given them. Those are the most excellent gifts, above life and being itself, and which will never be a burden.
II. Yet it was not so bad as Satan promised himself. Job cursed his day, but he did not curse his God - was weary of his life, and would gladly have parted with that, but not weary of his religion; he resolutely cleaves to that, and will never let it go. The dispute between God and Satan concerning Job was not whether Job had his infirmities, and whether he was subject to like passions as we are (that was granted), but whether he was a hypocrite, who secretly hated God, and if he were provoked, would show his hatred; and, upon trial, it proved that he was no such man. Nay, all this may consist with his being a pattern of patience; for, though he did thus speak unadvisedly with his lips, yet both before and after he expressed great submission and resignation to the holy will of God and repented of his impatience; he condemned himself for it, and therefore God did not condemn him, nor must we, but watch the more carefully over ourselves, lest we sin after the similitude of this transgression.
1. The particular expressions which Job used in cursing his day are full of poetical fancy, flame, and rapture, and create as much difficulty to the critics as the thing itself does to the divines: we need not be particular in our observations upon them. When he would express his passionate wish that he had never been, he falls foul upon the day, and wishes,
(1.) That earth might forget it: Let it perish (Job 3:3); let it not be joined to the days of the year, Job 3:6. "Let it be not only not inserted in the calendar in red letters, as the day of the king's nativity useth to be" (and Job was a king, Job 29:25), "but let it be erased and blotted out, and buried in oblivion. Let not the world know that ever such a man as I was born into it, and lived in it, who am made such a spectacle of misery."
(2.) That Heaven might frown upon it: Let not God regard it from above, Job 3:4. "Every thing is indeed as it is with God; that day is honourable on which he puts honour, and which he distinguishes and crowns with his favour and blessing, as he did the seventh day of the week; but let my birthday never be so honoured; let it be nigro carbone notandus - marked as with a black coal for an evil day by him that determines the times before appointed. The father and fountain of light appointed the greater light to rule the day and the less lights to rule the night; but let that want the benefit of both." [1.] Let that day be darkness (Job 3:4); and, if the light of the day be darkness, how great is that darkness! how terrible! because then we look for light. Let the gloominess of the day represent Job's condition, whose sun went down at noon. [2.] As for that night too, let it want the benefit of moon and stars, and let darkness seize upon it, thick darkness, darkness that may be felt, which will not befriend the repose of the night by its silence, but rather disturb it with its terrors.
(3.) That all joy might forsake it: "Let it be a melancholy night, solitary, and not a merry night of music and dancing. Let no joyful voice come therein (Job 3:7); let it be a long night, and not see the eye-lids of the morning (Job 3:9), which bring joy with them."
(4.) That all curses might follow it (Job 3:8): "Let none ever desire to see it, or bid it welcome when it comes, but, on the contrary, let those curse it that curse the day. Whatever day any are tempted to curse, let them at the same time bestow one curse upon my birthday, particularly those that make it their trade to raise up mourning at funerals with their ditties of lamentation. Let those that curse the day of the death of others in the same breath curse the day of my birth." Or those who are so fierce and daring as to be ready to raise up the Leviathan (for that is the word here), who, being about to strike the whale or crocodile, curse it with the bitterest curse they can invent, hoping by their incantations to weaken it, and so to make themselves master of it. Probably some such custom might there be used, to which our divine poet alludes. "Let it be as odious as the day wherein men bewail the greatest misfortune, or the time wherein they see the most dreadful apparition;" so bishop Patrick, I suppose taking the Leviathan here to signify the devil, as others do, who understand it of the curses used by conjurors and magicians in raising the devil, or when they have raised a devil that they cannot lay.
2. But what is the ground of Job's quarrel with the day and night of his birth? It is because it shut not up the doors of his mother's womb, Job 3:10. See the folly and madness of a passionate discontent, and how absurdly and extravagantly it talks when the reins are laid on the neck of it. Is this Job, who was so much admired for his wisdom that unto him men gave ear, and kept silence at his counsel, and after his words they spoke not again? Job 29:21, Job 29:11. Surely his wisdom failed him, (1.) When he took so much pains to express his desire that he had never been born, which, at the best was a vain wish, for it is impossible to make that which has been not to have been. (2.) When he was so liberal of his curses upon a day and a night that could not be hurt, or made any the worse for his curses. (3.) When he wished a thing so very barbarous to his own mother as that she had not brought him forth when her full time had come, which must inevitably have been her death, and a miserable death. (4.) When he despised the goodness of God to him in giving him a being (such a being, so noble and excellent a life, such a life, so far above that of any other creature in this lower world), and undervalued the gift, as not worth the acceptance, only because transit cum onere - it was clogged with a proviso of trouble, which now at length came upon him, after many years' enjoyment of its pleasures. What a foolish thing it was to wish that his eyes had never seen the light, that so they might not have seen sorrow, which yet he might hope to see through, and beyond which he might see joy! Did Job believe and hope that he should in his flesh see God at the latter day (Job 19:26), and yet would he wish he had never had a being capable of such a bliss, only because, for the present, he had sorrow in the flesh? God by his grace arm us against this foolish and hurtful lust of impatience.
Job, perhaps reflecting upon himself for his folly in wishing he had never been born, follows it, and thinks to mend it, with another, little better, that he had died as soon as he was born, which he enlarges upon in these verses. When our Saviour would set forth a very calamitous state of things he seems to allow such a saying as this, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the paps which never gave suck (Luk 23:29); but blessing the barren womb is one thing and cursing the fruitful womb is another! It is good to make the best of afflictions, but it is not good to make the worst of mercies. Our rule is, Bless, and curse not. Life is often put for all good, and death for all evil; yet Job here very absurdly complains of life and its supports as a curse and plague to him, and covets death and the grave as the greatest and most desirable bliss. Surely Satan was deceived in Job when he applied that maxim to him, All that a man hath will he give for his life; for never any man valued life at a lower rate than he did.
I. He ungratefully quarrels with life, and is angry that it was not taken from him as soon as it was given him (Job 3:11, Job 3:12): Why died not I from the womb? See here, 1. What a weak and helpless creature man is when he comes into the world, and how slender the thread of life is when it is first drawn. We are ready to die from the womb, and to breathe our last as soon as we begin to breathe at all. We can do nothing for ourselves, as other creatures can, but should drop into the grave if the knees did not prevent us; and the lamp of life, when first lighted, would go out of itself if the breasts given us, that we should suck, did not supply it with fresh oil. 2. What a merciful and tender care divine Providence took of us at our entrance into the world. It was owing to this that we died not from the womb and did not give up the ghost when we came out of the belly. Why were we not cut off as soon as we were born? Not because we did not deserve it. Justly might such weeds have been plucked up as soon as they appeared; justly might such cockatrices have been crushed in the egg. Nor was it because we did, or could, take any care of ourselves and our own safety: no creature comes into the world so shiftless as man. It was not our might, or the power of our hand, that preserved us these beings, but God's power and providence upheld our frail lives, and his pity and patience spared our forfeited lives. It was owing to this that the knees prevented us. Natural affection is put into parents' hearts by the hand of the God of nature: and hence it was that the blessings of the breast attended those of the womb. 3. What a great deal of vanity and vexation of spirit attends human life. If we had not a God to serve in this world, and better things to hope for in another world, considering the faculties we are endued with and the troubles we are surrounded with, we should be strongly tempted to wish that we had died from the womb, which would have prevented a great deal both of sin and misery.
He that is born today, and dies tomorrow,
Loses some hours of joy, but months of sorrow.
4. The evil of impatience, fretfulness, and discontent. When they thus prevail they are unreasonable and absurd, impious and ungrateful. To indulge them is a slighting and undervaluing of God's favour. How much soever life is embittered, we must say, "It was of the Lord's mercies that we died not from the womb, that we were not consumed." Hatred of life is a contradiction to the common sense and sentiments of mankind, and to our own at any other time. Let discontented people declaim ever so much against life, they will be loth to part with it when it comes to the point. When the old man in the fable, being tired with his burden, threw it down with discontent and called for Death, and Death came to him and asked him what he would have with him, he then answered, "Nothing, but to help me up with my burden."
II. He passionately applauds death and the grave, and seems quite in love with them. To desire to die that we may be with Christ, that we may be free from sin, and that we may be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven, is the effect and evidence of grace; but to desire to die only that we may be quiet in the grave, and delivered from the troubles of this life, savours of corruption. Job's considerations here may be of good use to reconcile us to death when it comes, and to make us easy under the arrest of it; but they ought not to be made use of as a pretence to quarrel with life while it is continued, or to make us uneasy under the burdens of it. It is our wisdom and duty to make the best of that which is, be it living or dying, and so to live to the Lord and die to the Lord, and to be his in both, Rom 14:8. Job here frets himself with thinking that if he had but died as soon as he was born, and been carried from the womb to the grave, 1. His condition would have been as good as that of the best: I would have been (says he, Job 3:14) with kings and counsellors of the earth, whose pomp, power, and policy, cannot set them out of the reach of death, nor secure them from the grave, nor distinguish theirs from common dust in the grave. Even princes, who had gold in abundance, could not with it bribe Death to overlook them when he came with commission; and, though they filled their houses with silver, yet they were forced to leave it all behind them, no more to return to it. Some, by the desolate places which the kings and counsellors are here said to build for themselves, understand the sepulchres or monuments they prepared for themselves in their life-time; as Shebna (Isa 22:16) hewed himself out a sepulchre; and by the gold which the princes had, and the silver with which they filled their houses, they understand the treasures which, they say, it was usual to deposit in the graves of great men. Such arts have been used to preserve their dignity, if possible, on the other side death, and to keep themselves from lying even with those of inferior rank; but it will not do: death is, and will be, an irresistible leveller. Mors sceptra ligonibus aequat - Death mingles sceptres with spades. Rich and poor meet together in the grave; and there a hidden untimely birth (Job 3:16), a child that either never saw light or but just opened its eyes and peeped into the world, and, not liking it, closed them again and hastened out of it, lies as soft and easy, lies as high and safe, as kings and counsellors, and princes, that had gold. "And therefore," says Job, "would I had lain there in the dust, rather than to lie here in the ashes!" 2. His condition would have been much better than now it was (Job 3:13): "Then should I have lain still, and been quiet, which now I cannot do, I cannot be, but am still tossing and unquiet; then I should have slept, whereas now sleep departeth from my eyes; then had I been at rest, whereas now I am restless." Now that life and immortality are brought to a much clearer light by the gospel than before they were placed in good Christians can give a better account than this of the gain of death: "Then should I have been present with the Lord; then should I have seen his glory face to face, and no longer through a glass darkly." But all that poor Job dreamed of was rest and quietness in the grave out of the fear of evil tidings and out of the feeling of sore boils. Then should I have been quiet; and had he kept his temper, his even easy temper still, which he was in as recorded in the two foregoing chapters, entirely resigned to the holy will of God and acquiescing in it, he might have been quiet now; his soul, at least, might have dwelt at ease, even when his body lay in pain, Psa 25:13. Observe how finely he describes the repose of the grave, which (provided the soul also be at rest in God) may much assist our triumphs over it. (1.) Those that now are troubled will there be out of the reach of trouble (Job 3:17): There the wicked cease from troubling. When persecutors die they can no longer persecute; their hatred and envy will then perish. Herod had vexed the church, but, when he became a prey for worms, he ceased from troubling. When the persecuted die they are out of the danger of being any further troubled. Had Job been at rest in his grave, he would have had no disturbance from the Sabeans and Chaldeans, none of all his enemies would have created him any trouble. (2.) Those that are now toiled will there see the period of their toils. There the weary are at rest. Heaven is more than a rest to the souls of the saints, but the grave is a rest to their bodies. Their pilgrimage is a weary pilgrimage; sin and the world they are weary of; their services, sufferings, and expectations, they are wearied with; but in the grave they rest from all their labours, Rev 14:13; Isa 57:2. They are easy there, and make no complaints; there believers sleep in Jesus. (3.) Those that were here enslaved are there at liberty. Death is the prisoner's discharge, the relief of the oppressed, and the servant's manumission (Job 3:18): There the prisoners, though they walk not at large, yet they rest together, and are not put to work, to grind in that prison-house. They are no more insulted and trampled upon, menaced and terrified, by their cruel task-masters: They hear not the voice of the oppressor. Those that were here doomed to perpetual servitude, that could call nothing their own, no, not their own bodies, are there no longer under command or control: There the servant is free from his master, which is a good reason why those that have power should use it moderately, and those that are in subjection should bear it patiently, yet a little while. (4.) Those that were at a vast distance from others are there upon a level (Job 3:19): The small and great are there, there the same, there all one, all alike free among the dead. The tedious pomp and state which attend the great are at an end there. All the inconveniences of a poor and low condition are likewise over; death and the grave know no difference.
Levelled by death, the conqueror and the slave,
The wise and foolish, cowards and the brave,
Lie mixed and undistinguished in the grave.
- Sir R. Blackmore
Job, finding it to no purpose to wish either that he had not been born or had died as soon as he was born, here complains that his life was now continued and not cut off. When men are set on quarrelling there is no end of it; the corrupt heart will carry on the humour. Having cursed the day of his birth, here he courts the day of his death. The beginning of this strife and impatience is as the letting forth of water.
I. He thinks it hard, in general, that miserable lives should be prolonged (Job 3:20-22): Wherefore is light in life given to those that are bitter in soul? Bitterness of soul, through spiritual grievances, makes life itself bitter. Why doth he give light? (so it is in the original): he means God, yet does not name him, though the devil had said, "He will curse thee to thy face;" but he tacitly reflects on the divine Providence as unjust and unkind in continuing life when the comforts of life are removed. Life is called light, because pleasant and serviceable for walking and working. It is candle-light; the longer it burns the shorter it is, and the nearer to the socket. This light is said to be given us; for, if it were not daily renewed to us by a fresh gift, it would be lost. But Job reckons that to those who are in misery it is dōron adōron - gift and no gift, a gift that they had better be without, while the light only serves them to see their own misery by. Such is the vanity of human life that it sometimes becomes a vexation of spirit; and so alterable is the property of death that, though dreadful to nature, it may become desirable even to nature itself. He here speaks of those, 1. Who long for death, when they have out-lived their comforts and usefulness, are burdened with age and infirmities, with pain or sickness, poverty or disgrace, and yet it comes not; while, at the same time, it comes to many who dread it and would put it far from them. The continuance and period of life must be according to God's will, not according to ours. It is not fit that we should be consulted how long we would live and when we would die; our times are in a better hand than our own. 2. Who dig for it as for hidden treasures, that is, would give any thing for a fair dismission out of this world, which supposes that then the thought of men's being their own executioners was not so much as entertained or suggested, else those who longed for it needed not take much pains for it, they might soon come at it (as Seneca tells them) if they are pleased. 3. Who bid it welcome, and are glad when they can find the grave and see themselves stepping into it. If the miseries of this life can prevail, contrary to nature, to make death itself desirable, shall not much more the hopes and prospects of a better life, to which death is our passage, make it so, and set us quite above the fear of it? It may be a sin to long for death, but I am sure it is no sin to long for heaven.
II. He thinks himself, in particular, hardly dealt with, that he might not be eased of his pain and misery by death when he could not get ease in any other way. To be thus impatient of life for the sake of the troubles we meet with is not only unnatural in itself, but ungrateful to the giver of life, and argues a sinful indulgence of our own passion and a sinful inconsideration of our future state. Let it be our great and constant care to get ready for another world, and then let us leave it to God to order the circumstances of our removal thither as he thinks fit: "Lord, when and how thou pleasest;" and this with such an indifference that, if he should refer it to us, we would refer it to him again. Grace teaches us, in the midst of life's greatest comforts, to be willing to die, and, in the midst of its greatest crosses, to be willing to live. Job, to excuse himself in this earnest desire which he had to die, pleads the little comfort and satisfaction he had in life.
1. In his present afflicted state troubles were continually felt, and were likely to be so. He thought he had cause enough to be weary of living, for, (1.) He had no comfort of his life: My sighing comes before I eat, Job 3:24. The sorrows of life prevented and anticipated the supports of life; nay, they took away his appetite for his necessary food. His griefs returned as duly as his meals, and affliction was his daily bread. Nay, so great was the extremity of his pain and anguish that he did not only sigh, but roar, and his roarings were poured out like the waters in a full and constant stream. Our Master was acquainted with grief, and we must expect to be so too. (2.) He had no prospect of bettering his condition: His way was hidden, and God had hedged him in, Job 3:23. He saw no way open of deliverance, nor knew he what course to take; his way was hedged up with thorns, that he could not find his path. See Job 23:8; Lam 3:7.
2. Even in his former prosperous state troubles were continually feared; so that then he was never easy, Job 3:25, Job 3:26. He knew so much of the vanity of the world, and the troubles to which, of course, he was born, that he was not in safety, neither had he rest then. That which made his grief now the more grievous was that he was not conscious to himself of any great degree either of negligence or security in the day of his prosperity, which might provoke God thus to chastise him. (1.) He had not been negligent and unmindful of his affairs, but kept up such a fear of trouble as was necessary to the maintaining of his guard. He was afraid for his children when they were feasting, lest they should offend God (Job 1:5), afraid for his servants lest they should offend his neighbours; he took all the care he could of his own health, and managed himself and his affairs with all possible precaution; yet all would not do. (2.) He had not been secure, nor indulged himself in ease and softness, had not trusted in his wealth, nor flattered himself with the hopes of the perpetuity of his mirth; yet trouble came, to convince and remind him of the vanity of the world, which yet he had not forgotten when he lived at ease. Thus his way was hidden, for he knew not wherefore God contended with him. Now this consideration, instead of aggravating his grief, might rather serve to alleviate it. Nothing will make trouble easy so much as the testimony of our consciences for us, that, in some measure, we did our duty in a day of prosperity; and an expectation of trouble will make it sit the lighter when it comes. The less it is a surprise the less it is a terror.
|
<urn:uuid:d413f290-7848-41d4-8623-f898a6b1e71b>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/cmt/henry/job003.htm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393093.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00104-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.988838
| 6,602
| 2.5625
| 3
|
The Mesoamerica Center Colloquium Series: Patrick Hajovsky
Moteuczoma’s Fame in Three Dimensions: Sign, Speech and Portrait in Tenochtitlan
Two Nahuatl terms for fame—mahuizotl (literally, "fearsomeness") and tenyotl (literally, "lipness")—serve as a guide to understand sculptural representations of the Mexica-Aztec king Moteuczoma (r. 1502-20). His name hieroglyph appears on eight stone sculptures, and it incorporates almost as many qualifying elements and speech iconographies; sometimes it even appears with an iconic portrait. The name glyph is located on various sculptural forms and on different surfaces (including the underside of one), thus evoking complex notions of personhood and publicity. Across the sculptures, the name and speech signs comment in different ways upon his unique power of command, both as a political agent and as a mediator to the gods.
Patrick Hajovsky is Assistant Professor of Art History at Southwestern University, where he has been teaching pre-Columbian and colonial Latin American art since 2009. He is the author of an upcoming book with UT Press (due in 2015), tentatively titled Moteuczoma, On the Lips of Others: Sculpture, Ritual and Fame in Tenochtitlan.
|
<urn:uuid:090f4f13-8a90-43fa-89f1-02569b57785e>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.utexas.edu/finearts/aah/event/mesoamerica-center-colloquium-series-patrick-hajovsky
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00080-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.937994
| 284
| 2.78125
| 3
|
Triumph and tragedy at Decatur House
Decatur House, located at the northwest corner of Lafayette Square, became a focal point for Washington society as soon as it was constructed for naval hero Stephen Decatur (1779-1820) in 1819. Designed for entertainment, the house has had a long career as the backdrop for both social triumph and personal tragedy.
Left: Decatur House circa 1920. Photo from the Library of Congress.
Right: Decatur House in 2006. Photo by the author.
Decatur was a rock star in his day, universally celebrated for his daring naval exploits. He was fortunate to be a great naval commander during the relatively brief period in the early 19th century when military prowess at sea fired the imagination of the public as little else did. After the War of 1812, at the second inaugural ball of President James Madison, Decatur laid the battle flag of a British ship he had vanquished at the feet of Dolley Madison, another idol of the day.
Having at last been appointed to Washington as a commissioner of the Navy, Decatur decided it was time to build a show house for himself and his wife Susan with the prize money he had received for his naval conquests. He bought a prominent lot on the west side of what would become Lafayette Park and commissioned architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe (1764-1820) to design an appropriately prominent mansion. He is said to have asked for a house that would be "sturdy as a ship."
The Decatur House, as designed by Latrobe, is an architectural conundrum, both sophisticated and problematic. Latrobe is now universally acclaimed as America's first great architect, a brilliant contributor to the U.S. Capitol and the White House as well as designer of other innovative and influential buildings, including nearby St. John's Church and many private residences.
Decatur House is the only residence designed by Latrobe that is still standing in Washington. As W. Brown Morton of the National Park Service has pointed out in the building's National Register listing, the exterior of the house is actually somewhat flawed, particularly on the H Street side, where six "blind" (bricked-up) windows look so awkward that through the years people have felt the need to make up stories about why they are there (more about that later).
Nevertheless, the rooms are masterfully laid out and demonstrate Latrobe's extraordinary skill at creating flowing, elegant interior spaces. A striking, lozenge-shaped front entrance vestibule leads to a graceful staircase at the rear of the house that brings guests up to grand parlors on the second floor. As a vehicle for social levees in 1819, this place was second to none.
The entrance vestibule. Image from the Historic American Buildings Survey.
Decatur would have little more than a year to live in this beautiful new house, for he had become entangled in a fatal dispute with a fellow commander, James Barron (1768-1851). Barron had had the bad luck back in 1807 to be captain of the frigate Chesapeake when it was attacked and boarded by the British, who seized four of its American crew who were allegedly British deserters. The incident was deeply humiliating to Americans, and Barron was faulted for being unprepared to respond to it more forcefully.
Decatur, no great friend of Barron's to begin with, served as a member of the board of inquiry that suspended Barron from naval service for five years as punishment for mishandling the encounter. Barron then went off to Europe to wait out his exile, which happened to finish in 1813, right in the middle of the War of 1812. At that time he was summoned back urgently to active duty but failed to return to the States until after the war had ended. It was only then that he requested his old job back, much to the irritation of his former colleagues, including Decatur, who had fought so valiantly against the British.
Decatur badmouthed Barron, who caught wind of it from a colleague eager to fan the flames of enmity between them, and Barron then confronted Decatur in a series of letters beginning in June 1819. At first Barron didn't directly challenge Decatur to a duel but tried to provoke him more subtly. Decatur resisted, stating in October that, "I do not think that fighting duels, under any circumstances, can raise the reputation of any man."
Still, in January 1820 Decatur accepted a direct challenge from Barron, brushing off pleas from his close friends to decline. Both men appointed seconds to make formal arrangements on their behalf, and the duel was set for the morning of March 22, 1820.
Even in those early days, the District of Columbia had a law aimed at curtailing handgun violence: dueling was illegal. People got around it by taking their fights to Maryland or Virginia. One of the few roads out of town led northeast to the small village of Bladensburg, just across the Maryland line, where the British had routed American troops in 1814.
A creek-side clearing had become a favorite spot for dueling, and Decatur and Barron met there on a cold, damp March morning. As they were preparing for the showdown, Barron reportedly called out, "Now Decatur, if we meet in another world, let us hope that we will be better friends," to which Decatur replied, "I was never your enemy."
The seconds, if they had wanted to avoid the duel, could have taken this as an opening for reconciliation and called off the whole sordid business, but instead the two antagonists were called to take their positions. At a short 8 paces, both fired simultaneously; both hit each other in the hip.
Decatur's shot deflected off Barron's femur and left him with a very painful wound. More seriously, Barron's shot deflected inward from Decatur's hip to his abdomen, a fatal injury in those days. Decatur was taken back to a first-floor room in his house on Lafayette Square where he died in great pain the next day.
Stephen Decatur. Image from the Library of Congress.
Susan Decatur, a "dainty little woman with large, dark eyes," was deeply committed to her husband and suffered enormously when he died. The daughter of a prominent Norfolk, Virginia, merchant, Mrs. Decatur had been a sophisticated and popular hostess. "To be admitted into her set is a favor granted to comparatively few, and, of course, desired by all," remarked Mrs. Edward Livingston, who would later host soirees at Decatur House as well.
Susan had undoubtedly endured much anxiety through the years that Decatur was fighting at sea, and it was a cruel irony that he should lose his life in a duel. Inconsolable after his death, she soon moved out of Decatur House, which she then rented out for many years. She used what powers she had to punish Barron and the two seconds who had facilitated the duel, refusing to attend any social event where there was a chance of encountering any of the three and reiterating her objections whenever she received an invitation.
Her campaign was effective; Barron was kept from gaining a position on the naval board of commissioners, and one of the seconds, Jesse Elliott, was court-martialed and kicked out of the Navy. Susan converted to Catholicism in 1828 and in later years lived in a small house near Georgetown University, where she was known as "a venerable and stately lady."
After Susan Decatur left, the house was occupied by a succession of distinguished tenants, many of them members of the diplomatic community, including ministers from France, Russia, and Great Britain. The house was strategically located for a diplomatic role, with both the White House and the State Department being only a block to the south. From 1827 to 1833, the house became the unofficial residence of the Secretary of State, being occupied successively by Henry Clay (1777-1852), Martin Van Buren (1782-1862), and Edward Livingston (1764-1836).
In 1836, Decatur House was purchased for $12,000 by John Gadsby (1766-1844), an entrepreneurial innkeeper said to be the richest man in Washington. In addition to previously running Gadsby's Tavern in Alexandria, Virginia, Gadsby made lots of money in the slave trade and came to Washington when he decided to invest in a new hotel, which he opened on Pennsylvania Avenue in 1827.
Gadsby's Hotel would become well-known as the National Hotel. Gadsby represented a shift from the house's previous upper-class tenants with diplomatic connections to a nouveau-riche mercantile man with distinctly less-refined tastes. The French minister commented on a party of Gadsby's held at Decatur House:
Some days ago I went to an evening party at Mr. Gadsby's, proprietor of the hotel where I stayed on my arrival here. He is an old wretch who has made a fortune in the slave trade, which does not prevent Washington society from rushing to his house, and I should make my government very unpopular if I refused to associate with his kind of people. This gentleman's house is the most beautiful in the city, very well furnished, and perfect in the distribution of the rooms, but the society, my God!Gadsby built a low addition behind the house on H Street. He used the bottom floor for a kitchen, freeing up the previous kitchen space on the first floor of the main house. Above the kitchen were quarters for as many as 20 slaves, possibly including some that worked at the National Hotel. Gadsby also reportedly conducted slave auctions in the courtyard behind the house. Thankfully, this ignominious chapter in the history of the house lasted only a few years.
During the Civil War, the federal government took over Decatur House for offices, as it did many properties on Lafayette Square. The house became rather rundown.
Then in 1871, Gen. Edward Fitzgerald Beale (1822-1893) bought the house for $60,000. Beale, famous for exploring and taming the West, had made lots of money from ranching and gold-mining in California. Nevertheless, he had been born and grew up in Washington at his father's estate, Bloomingdale, in the neighborhood that now bears the same name, and he was happy to return to his native city.
Beale immediately began making extensive renovations to Decatur House to create once more an elegant social venue. He had the front windows on the first floor lengthened and fashionable Victorian sandstone trim applied over the windows and front entrance. Inside, intricate parquet flooring was laid over the original floorboards, and the second floor was elaborately redecorated, with the state seal of California created out of inlaid exotic woods in the center of the drawing room floor. The house once more became an important social venue, with Beale's good friend Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) often dropping by to visit.
Decatur House in 1937, with first-floor Victorian trim. The office building to the left was built in 1929 and removed in the 1960s. Image from the Historic American Buildings Survey.
Beale's son Truxton (1856-1936) inherited the house from his father. He married Marie Oge in 1903. As its longest inhabitant, Marie Oge Beale (1880-1956) carried on the grand tradition of entertaining at Decatur House. Along with Mildred Bliss of Dumbarton Oaks and Virginia Bacon of the John Marshall House, she was one of the "3 Mrs. B's" who took delight in entertaining high society at their historic houses in the early decades of the 20th century.
Also in keeping with Decatur House's tradition, many of Mrs. Beale's receptions catered to the diplomatic corps. Her husband had served in important diplomatic roles, and it became a tradition that after the annual White House reception for the diplomatic corps, the guests went over to Decatur House for a supper party. Even during Prohibition years, when the White House served no alcohol, Decatur House always had champagne on hand, its wine cellar supposedly having been really well stocked before the ban on sales of spirits kicked in.
Perhaps most importantly for us, Marie Beale was an early and ardent advocate of historic preservation. As early as 1902, the Senate Park Commission (the McMillan Commission) proposed "unifying" Lafayette Square by demolishing all the buildings around it, including Decatur House, and replacing them with ponderous, white-marble, neoclassical temples.
Mrs. Beale lobbied her government connections to ensure Decatur House would be protected whenever proposals were floated that suggested it be razed. In 1944, she commissioned architect Thomas T. Waterman (1900-1951), an authority on colonial architecture, to restore the building's facade by removing the Victorian sandstone trim and recreating, as closely as possible, the original Latrobe appearance.
Upon her death in 1956, Marie Beale bequeathed the house to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which opened it as a museum in the 1960s. Most recently, in 2009, the National Trust inked an agreement to allow the White House Historical Association to use the facility as the National Center for White House History. The Association is currently drafting a master plan and historic structure report to help guide restoration work on the house as it assumes its new role.
One of the first things the Association did was to reinstall shutters over the blind windows on H Street. Waterman had had these shutters made in 1944, arguing that Latrobe would certainly have wanted them installed. They certainly can keep people from wondering why the blind windows exist on such a stately and historic house inventing explanations.
The classic story, as recounted in the Washington Post at Halloween in 1969, goes back to the time of the Decatur-Barron duel:
It is said that the night before the duel, a troubled Decatur stood at the window on the H Street side, looking out, lost in deep thought. After his death, people claimed they could still see him standing there by the window. Finally to stop the stories, the window was walled up. Even then, the spectre of a worried young man could be seen before daybreak, slipping out the Decatur House with a long black box of pistols.Of course, the windows (at least six of them) were never actually not walled up. A drawing by Latrobe shows how a complicated system of chimney flues in the H Street wall prevented real windows from ever being installed on much of that side of the house. Perhaps with the shutters newly re-installed tour guides won't be telling that tall tale quite as often.
Watercolor by Benjamin Henry Latrobe, 1818.
Image from the Library of Congress.
Sources for this article included: John Alexander, Ghosts: Washington Revisited (1998); Marie Beale, Decatur House and Its Inhabitants (1954); Harold D. Eberlein and Cortlandt V. Hubbard, Historic Houses of George-town & Washington City (1958); Jeanne Fogle, Proximity To Power: Neighbors to the President near Lafayette Square (1999); Historic American Buildings Survey, Decatur House (1945); Diane Maddex, Historic Buildings of Washington, D.C. (1973); National Register of Historic Places, Decatur House (1971); National Trust for Historic Preservation, Decatur House (1967); John H. Schroeder, Commodore John Rodgers: Paragon of the Early American Navy (2006); Pamela Scott and Antoinette J. Lee, Buildings of the District of Columbia (1993); Benjamin Ogle Tayloe, Our Neighbors on Lafayette Square (1872, reprinted 1982); and numerous newspaper articles. Additional information was graciously provided by Maria Downs of the White House Historical Association.
Cross-posted at Streets Of Washington.
- Let's stand by the Silver Line
- DC Council postpones fixing an injustice to pedestrians and cyclists because Kenyan McDuffie's dog ate his homework
- Nobody wants these school buses in their backyard. But moving them is worth it.
- Near National airport, the Mount Vernon Trail is new again
- Think you know Metro? It's whichWMATA week 86
- N Street NW has new bike lanes
- A big development in Woodley Park may spark DC's next housing battle
|
<urn:uuid:681f496f-a848-4998-b3c5-84a447ebe1a3>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/8673/triumph-and-tragedy-at-decatur-house/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397864.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00083-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.977731
| 3,405
| 2.765625
| 3
|
Are chubby children destined to become fat teenagers who grow up to be obese adults?
Research suggests that the problem of childhood obesity, which has escalated alarmingly in the last two decades, reflects a complicated and still poorly understood mix of genetic and environmental factors. Weight-control experts say that while fatness in infancy does not predict excess fat later in life, overweight at later stages of childhood becomes an increasingly accurate predictor.
"All the data does suggest that obesity tracks across age groups," says Leonard H. Epstein, a pediatric obesity researcher who is professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Buffalo. "The important factors are the age of the child and the degree of obesity in the child and in other family members."
Studies have found that 40% of fat 7-year-olds will grow up to be overweight adults, while 70% of overweight children 10 to 13 will become fat adults. Numerous researchers have found that obesity runs in families: A child with two fat parents has an 80% chance of being fat as an adult; the risk is cut in half if only one parent is obese. By contrast a child of two normal-weight parents has a 14% chance of growing up to be fat.
While the findings of population studies indicate that the tendency toward obesity is inherited, environmental factors--such as the time spent watching television, parental feeding styles and attitudes toward weight--play a critical and possibly decisive role.
Increasingly, researchers are studying parental feeding behaviors and their relationship to obesity in children and adolescents. "There's ample evidence that fatness is genetic," says Ellyn Satter, a Madison, Wis., family therapist and dietitian who has written several books about children and food. "But many times parents and others interfere with a child's normal regulatory processes and make the child fatter than he or she otherwise might be."
Interference, Satter says, can be subtle or overt and is not confined to the families of overweight kids. Traditional child-rearing practices can fuel future weight problems. Such practices include forcing children to "clean their plates"; bribing them with food; using dessert as a reward rather than making it a normal part of a meal; forbidding children to eat foods such as candy or cookies because they're too fattening or harmful; and discussing how much or how little children eat in their presence. Most experts warn that placing children on restrictive, low-calorie diets without a compelling medical reason and a doctor's supervision is particularly harmful because it can permanently stunt growth.
"Infants are born with the ability to regulate their caloric intake," says Joanne Ikeda, a dietitian at UC Berkeley who treats overweight children.
She cites studies that demonstrated that babies fed concentrated formula drank less, while those given diluted formula consumed more to compensate. "This ability to regulate intake extends to the preschool years and varies tremendously from meal to meal," she says. "Where and how kids lose this and start responding to external cues, we don't know."
The loss of that ability may mark the beginning of a pattern of overeating that can last a lifetime.
"It's a very interesting area," Epstein says. "You have to figure that if young kids can regulate their eating and adults can't--and adults are notoriously poor at it--something has happened along the way."
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Obesity Study Still Holds Up
One of the most often cited studies on the genetics of obesity was published in 1986 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Researchers led by Albert J. Stunkard of the University of Pennsylvania studied 540 Danish adults, nearly all of whom were adopted before age 1. Stunkard divided the adoptees into four groups: thin, median weight, overweight and obese. He compared their height and weight with those of their adoptive parents and their biological parents. He found no correlation between the weights of the adoptees and the parents who raised them. There was, however, a strong relationship between the adoptees and their biological parents.
|
<urn:uuid:183c0ce7-4ac7-4a6e-a98a-5ba564e7cba1>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://articles.latimes.com/1996-05-08/news/ls-1560_1_fat-adult
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00069-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.967698
| 832
| 3.15625
| 3
|
Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
|Title:||Annals of the Labouring Poor: Social Change and Agrarian England, 1660-1900|
|Authors:||Snell, Keith D.M.|
|Publisher:||Cambridge University Press|
|Series/Report no.:||Cambridge studies in population, economy and society in past time ; 2|
|Description:||Contents: Preface; Introduction; 1. Agricultural seasonal unemployment, the standard of living, and women's work, 1690-1860; 2. Social relations - the decline of service; 3. Social relations - the poor law; 4. Enclosure and employment - the social consequences of enclosure; 5. The decline of apprenticeship; 6. The apprenticeship of women; 7. The family; 8. Thomas Hardy, rural Dorset, and the family; Appendix; Bibliography; Index.|
Summary: This collection of inter-connected essays is concerned with the impact of social and economic change upon the rural labouring poor and artisans in England, and combines a sensitive understanding of their social priorities with innovative quantitative analysis. It is based on an impressive range of sources, and its particular significance arises from the pioneering use made of a largely neglected archival source - settlement records - to address questions of central importance in English social and economic history in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Levels of employment, wage rates, poor relief, the sexual division of labour, the social consequences of enclosure, the decline of farm service and traditional apprenticeship, and th equality of family life are amongst the issues discussed in a profound re-assessment of a perennial problem: the standard of living (in its widest sense) of the labouring poor during the period of industrialisation. The author's conclusions challenge much of the prevailing orthodoxy, and his extensive use of literary and attitudinal material is closely integrated with the quantitative restatement of an interpretation that owes much to the older tradition of the Hammonds' Village Labourer.
Metadata only entry
This book is available from Cambridge University Press at http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521335584
|Appears in Collections:||Books & Book Chapters, School of Historical Studies|
Files in This Item:
There are no files associated with this item.
Items in LRA are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.
|
<urn:uuid:fae3597b-ad28-4928-b522-63b8826cfb7f>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
https://lra.le.ac.uk/handle/2381/8254
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397748.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00092-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.854526
| 513
| 2.671875
| 3
|
Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines
© 2004 Robert A. Freitas Jr. and Ralph C. Merkle. All Rights Reserved.
Robert A. Freitas Jr., Ralph C. Merkle, Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines, Landes Bioscience, Georgetown, TX, 2004.
4.17 Zyvex Exponential Assembly (2000)
At the micron scale, using existing MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) technology, Zyvex Corp. has designed simple pick-and-place robotic arms that could pick up relatively complex, planar, micron-scale parts made using lithographic techniques and then assemble those planar parts into simple three-dimensional robotic arms that have the ability to pick up specially designed MEMS parts. In Zyvex’s RotapodTM exponential assembly design , this replicative technology starts with a single robotic arm on a wafer (Figure 4.52) that makes a second robotic arm on a facing surface by picking up miniature parts — carefully laid out in advance in exactly the right locations so the tiny robotic arm can find them — and assembling them (Figure 4.53). The two robotic arms then make two more robotic arms, one on each of the two facing surfaces. These four robotic arms, two on each surface, then make four more robotic arms. This process continues with the number of robotic arms steadily increasing in the pattern 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc., until some manufacturing limit is reached (e.g., both surfaces are completely covered with tiny robotic arms). This is an exponential growth rate, hence the name exponential assembly, but the assembly process requires (among other things) lithographically produced parts as well as externally provided power and computer control signals to coordinate the complex motions of the robotic arms. Thus this approach is an example of both the broadcast architecture (for instructions) and the vitamin architecture (for parts and energy) being employed in a single system. As a result, this system is very “inherently safe” (Section 5.11).
While a general purpose robotic arm having six degrees of free movement (like human arms and hands) would be able to pick up parts and position them in any orientation and position desired, such a general purpose arm is harder to make. Zyvex’s simpler RotapodTM design uses robotic arms having only two rotational degrees of freedom and a gripper (Figure 4.52), while offloading three degrees of freedom to the external environment: the surfaces on which the parts are arrayed can be moved in X, Y and Z, providing a total of five degrees of freedom for each robotic arm, with the three translational degrees of freedom being shared across all the robotic arms on a surface. Externally provided power and computer control cause all the robotic arms on a surface to operate synchronously and in parallel.
Exponential assembly can be implemented on many different length scales. Given existing manufacturing capabilities, it should be possible to implement exponential assembly using MEMS technology with device sizes measuring tens or hundreds of microns and feature sizes of about one micron. Each rotational degree of freedom could be implemented using a planar rotating stage produced using standard lithographic techniques. Two such rotating stages can be attached at right angles, providing the desired two degrees of rotational freedom for this assembly station. A gripper attached to one rotating stage completes the basic design. Assembly of the first robotic arm could be done manually using Zyvex’s MEMbler™ conceptual MEMS assembly station . Having assembled the first robotic arm, the RotopodTM could then assemble further robotic arms in exponentially increasing numbers (Figure 4.54), as illustrated in an animation . In 2003, a patent “Method and System for Self-Replicating Manufacturing Stations” (#6,510,359) for this manufacturing system was issued to Zyvex by the U.S. Patent Office . A crudely analogous electrophoretic system for stepwise exponential growth of DNA-based chemical replicators using pairs of alternating opposed deposition surfaces has been proposed by von Kiedrowski’s group [1362, 1428-1430].
In 2001, Zyvex was awarded a $25 million, five-year, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Advanced Technology Program government contract – to develop prototype microscale assemblers using microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), extend the capabilities to nanometer geometries, and then to develop nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) for prototype nanoscale assemblers . Along with its commercial partners and its university collaborators (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Center for Automation Technologies , the University of Texas at Dallas, and the University of North Texas), Zyvex hopes to accelerate the production and commercialization of low-cost assemblers for micro- and nanoscale components and subsystems. The ultimate program goal through 2006 is nothing less than automated micro- and nano-manufacturing – the design and construction of assemblers capable of handling thousands of sub-micrometer components at high speed, using MEMS to prototype systems which could then be built at relatively low cost. Zyvex engineers are conceiving and testing various manufacturing architectures that someday might lead to the massively parallel construction of large batches of identical molecular machines simultaneously. This could allow vast numbers of nanodevices and nanorobots to be produced to precise molecular specifications, relatively inexpensively.
Last updated on 1 August 2005
|
<urn:uuid:d5d843fd-1c98-411f-a7cc-d4f03e51fd62>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.molecularassembler.com/KSRM/4.17.htm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402516.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00037-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.894455
| 1,135
| 3.375
| 3
|
Just about everyone will agree that trees are made from sunlight, water, and soil the trees suck up from their roots. But the surprising truth is that trees are made from air! Trees are solar-powered machines that convert air into wood. Why is it that, despite the fact that photosynthesis is one of the most widely taught subjects in science, so few people really understand the central idea underlying this system? Starting with this question, program two explores why something taught in school can go unlearned and shows that we often teach without regard to what children actually need to know.
|
<urn:uuid:e6defbfc-a883-49e2-896a-e9ede80a62d5>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.watchknowlearn.org/Video.aspx?VideoID=18246&CategoryID=4863
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00100-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.983622
| 116
| 3.203125
| 3
|
Portuguese Canadians() are both Canadians born with Portuguese descent or citizenship or Portuguese born with Canadian descent or citizenship . According to StatCan, in 2006, there were 410,850 persons of Portuguese descent living in Canada, or 1.3% of the nation's total population. Most Portuguese Canadians live in Ontario 282,865 (69%), followed by Quebec 57,445 (14%) and British Columbia 34,660 (8%).
History of Portuguese in Canada
The Portuguese Canadian community, chose 2003 as the year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their officially-sponsored immigration to Canada. The Honourable David Collenette, Minister of Transport and Minister Responsible for Canada Post, said that "the Portuguese Canadian community is a vibrant group that enriches the Canadian mosaic with its history, language, culture and work ethic." He added that Canada Post was proud to be issuing a stamp honouring Portuguese Canadians during the month of June when cultural celebrations honouring the life of 16th century poet Luís de Camões, considered to be Portugal's greatest poet, are taking place in many communities across the country.
|
<urn:uuid:c90f90bf-ff74-4ed5-8747-bf446fde2f15>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://pages.rediff.com/portuguese-canadians/349661
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396875.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00043-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.964597
| 226
| 2.578125
| 3
|
Electric car guru Martin Eberhard said last week that EVs will reach 500 miles of range by 2020.
There’s nothing new about electric car proponents making wild predictions, of course, but in an interview with the U.K. publication, Autocar, Eberhard provides some interesting reasoning for his prediction. Eberhard, who’s best known for co-founding Tesla Motors and then famously leaving the company, is now working for Volkswagen’s Electronics Research Laboratory in Palo Alto, CA. There, he’s involved in development of lithium-ion battery packs for Volkswagen’s Blue-e-motion Golf and the Audi e-Tron.
Last week, he told Autocar that the future lies in the use of 18650 lithium-ion batteries – cylindrical cells a little larger than a AA-battery – instead of the monolithic batteries employed in the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt.
“(The) 18650 cells are at the leading edge of battery development, and by using them we can benefit from state-of-the-art technology straight away,” he said. “Put simply, 18650s develop faster than any other kind of battery because there’s more demand for them; the industry is already making two billion of them a year.
“To illustrate the point, the lithium-ion cells we’re currently working with contain 2.9 amp-hours of power; five years ago the ones we were using at Tesla only had 1.4 amp-hours. That rate of development has already had an impact on the cars we’re working on. The batteries we used in the original Audi e-Tron prototype, for example, gave it 60 kWh of power and a range of just over 150 miles.”
Eberhard isn’t the first to use 18650s. Tesla Motors also employed 18650 batteries in its Roadster. Big automakers such as Chevrolet and Nissan, however, have opted for larger-scale batteries to enhance thermal safety and improve battery pack reliability. Many engineers question the reliability of connecting thousands of small batteries together to form a battery pack.
Autocar’s interview doesn’t address those issues but it does say that Eberhard believes that 18650s can solve the so-called “range anxiety” problem associated with EVs. “At the current rate of progress, I’d say we will have banished the range anxiety problem, and will be making EVs with greater than 500 miles of operational range within ten years,” he told Autocar. “At that point, the further development of fast-charging infrastructure won’t be so important – because how often do you drive more than 500 miles in a day?”
|
<urn:uuid:60840e96-f562-4b9e-995c-aedfa98a6b16>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1366&doc_id=212151&piddl_msgorder=thrd
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00124-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.938487
| 580
| 2.59375
| 3
|
Revealed How smoking marijuana makes you lose your memory by scrambling your brain waves
Smoking marijuana can affect your short-term memory
Regularly smoking marijuana over a number of years can affect your short-term memory, researchers have found.
Long-term smokers may notice that they cannot temporarily hold information in their heads, like a telephone number or the name of someone they have just met.
A teams of scientists claim that this common side effect occurs because the drug hinders a signalling mechanism between neurons and non-neuronal cells called astrocytes, reports Nature.
The research by Neuroscientists Giovanni Marsicano of the University of Bordeaux, France, and Xia Zhang of the University of Ottawa Institute of Mental Health Research examines the role of the astrocytes, which have long been considered nothing more than support cells that protect neurons.
'Our study provides compelling evidence that astrocytes control neurons and memory,' Zhang said reports Nature.
'The supporting actor has become the leading actor.'
The researchers found that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive ingredient of marijuana, weakens the connections between neurons in the hippocampus, a structure that is crucial for memory formation, reports Nature.
A teams of scientists claim that this common side effect occurs because the drug hinders a signalling mechanism between neurons and non-neuronal cells called astrocytes
The team came to this conclusion after injecting mice with THC and giving them a series of memory tests, such as forcing them to remember the location of an underwater platform in order to emerge from a miniature swimming pool.
'It's probably the first time it's been shown that astrocytes are involved in the primary event [that regulates] memory,' says Marsicano, reports the Scientific American.
Marsicano told Nature that understanding how the drug causes memory loss could help scientists create drugs that have the same therapeutic benefits but with fewer side effects, for example painkillers, without affecting the function of working memory.
Long-term smokers may notice that they cannot temporarily hold information in their heads, like a telephone number or the name of someone they have just met
One group of mice were genetically modified to lack CB1 receptors (tiny cellular structures normally found on both neurons and astrocytes) on astrocytes and altered another
group of mice to lack these receptors
on neurons, reports the Scientist.
Mice lacking CB1s on
astrocytes did much better on the memory tests than mice lacking the
receptors on their neurons, which suggests that marijuana impaired working memory only when it was able to bind to astrocytes.
Ben Whalley, a pharmacologist at the University of Reading, UK, told Nature that: 'It’ll be fascinating to investigate their consequences for endogenous cannabinoid signalling in normal brain function and in pathological states,' he adds, reports Nature.
However he cautions that; 'we still haven’t separated out the different effects of neuronal and astrocyte CB1 receptors, so the jury’s still out on the potential therapeutic effects of targeting the neuronal receptors.'
The comments below have not been moderated.
The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.
We are no longer accepting comments on this article.
|
<urn:uuid:1704203d-56f9-413d-b5f6-b6bbc7643700>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2109731/How-smoking-marijuana-makes-lose-memory.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398216.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00047-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.937166
| 692
| 2.828125
| 3
|
Very soft and delicate in texture, which expands its tentacles very readily. Diameter of base up to 20 mm, span of tentacles to 30 mm; specimens occurring on the shore are usually about half this size.
Base a little wider than column, lightly adherent. Column usually short but capable of becoming taller than wide in extension. Cinclides visible as dark dots on upper part of column, acontia are emitted through them very readily.
Tentacles: Moderate in length, characteristically stout at the base and tapering to fine points; they are usually irregularly arranged, up to about 120.
Colouration: Column rather uneven in colour, translucent dirty white or greyish, with longitudinal patches of pure white tending to form stripes. Tentacles white, translucent. Disc may be white, with the pigment patchily distributed, bright yellow or pale orange, usually with vague dark markings surrounding the tentacle bases.
Nematocysts of acontia: p-mastigophores 43-86 x 6.0-9.0 öm, b-mastigophores 22-32 x 1.6-2.5 öm.
Attached to rocks or other hard substrata, usually on flat surfaces rather than in holes or crevices like most other sagartiids; also occurs on various algae, e.g. Laminaria, or Himanthalia buttons. Occasional on the shore in shaded situations, usually on vertical or overhanging surfaces. More common and widespread sublittorally, down to about 40 m. Frequently occurs in the company of Caryophyllia and Corynactis.
Locally abundant on west coasts of British Isles, as far north as Shetland but more common in the south. Southern limits of its range are uncertain; it occurs at least to Biscay but is apparently absent from the Mediterranean.
|
<urn:uuid:79c09ade-fe25-4026-84cc-a8588ec4e653>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://species-identification.org/species.php?species_group=anthozoa&id=78
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393518.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00124-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.908167
| 394
| 2.53125
| 3
|
These Dawn framing camera (FC) images of Vesta show Publicia crater at both HAMO (high-altitude mapping orbit) and LAMO (low-altitude mapping orbit) resolutions. The left image is the HAMO image and the right image is the LAMO image. Publicia is the crater offset to the left of the LAMO image. The LAMO image is approximately three times better spatial resolution than the HAMO image. In images with higher spatial resolutions smaller objects can be better distinguished. For example, the fine-scale of streaks of bright and dark material that originate from the rim of Publicia can be seen in the LAMO image, along with grooves outside of the crater that run roughly diagonally across the image from the bottom left to top right. Unfortunately, more of the inside of Publicia is obscured by shadows in the LAMO image than in the HAMO image. The shadow is due to the relative positions of the Sun and spacecraft at the time the images were taken.
These images are located in Vesta's Lucaria Tholus quadrangle, in Vesta's northern hemisphere. NASA's Dawn spacecraft obtained the left image with its framing camera on Oct. 14, 2011. This image was taken through the camera's clear filter. The distance to the surface of Vesta is 700 kilometers (435 miles) and the image has a resolution of about 63 meters (207 feet) per pixel. This image was acquired during the HAMO (high-altitude mapping orbit) phase of the mission. NASA's Dawn spacecraft obtained the right image with its framing camera on Jan. 1, 2012. This image was taken through the camera's clear filter. The distance to the surface of Vesta is 272 kilometers (169 miles) and the image has a resolution of about 21 meters (69 feet) per pixel. This image was acquired during the LAMO (low-altitude mappng orbit) phase of the mission.
The Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington D.C. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. The Dawn framing cameras have been developed and built under the leadership of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, with significant contributions by DLR German Aerospace Center, Institute of Planetary Research, Berlin, and in coordination with the Institute of Computer and Communication Network Engineering, Braunschweig. The framing camera project is funded by the Max Planck Society, DLR, and NASA/JPL.
|
<urn:uuid:97791000-737b-494d-a186-00775f8087b1>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA15867
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00089-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.931319
| 546
| 2.796875
| 3
|
When birds of a feather don’t breed together …-->
Birds of a feather don’t breed together
The fascinating phenomenon known as ‘ring species’ is sometimes quite incorrectly used to ‘prove’ evolution. The classic example is as follows.
In Britain, the herring gull is clearly a different species from the lesser black-backed gull. Not only can they be easily told apart, but apparently they never interbreed, even though they may inhabit the same areas. By the usual biological definition, they are therefore technically different species.
However, as you go westward around the top half of the globe to North America and study the herring gull population, an interesting fact emerges. The gulls become more like black-backed gulls, and less like herring gulls, even though they can still interbreed with herring gulls from Britain.
Now go still further via Alaska and then into Siberia (see map). The further west you go, the more each successive population becomes less like a herring gull and more like the black-backed.
At every step along the way, each population is able to interbreed with those you studied just before you moved further west. Therefore, you are never technically dealing with separate species. Until, that is, you continue your journey into Europe and back to Britain, where you find that the lesser black-backed gulls there ‘are actually the other end of a ring that started out as herring gulls. At every stage around the ring, the birds are sufficiently similar to their neighbours to interbreed with them.’1 Yet when the ends of the ring meet, the two do not interbreed and so are for all intents and purposes separate species.
As you travel west via the route shown by the yellow band, each successive population of herring gull seems more like the black-backed gull.
It is clear from such examples that species are not fixed and unchanging, and that two apparently different species may in fact be genetically related. New species (as man defines them) can form. The herring gull and the lesser black-backed gull could not have been initially created as two separate groups reproducing only after their kind, or else they would not be joined by a chain of interbreeding intermediates.
There are also observations of other wild populations from which a reasonable person must infer that certain very similar species did indeed share the same ancestor, even though there is no complete ‘ring’.
Many have been misled into thinking this is evidence for evolution and against biblical creation. However, some thought reveals otherwise. The key to understanding this is to consider the vast amounts of complex information in all living things, coding for functionally useful structures and processes.
Creation as described in the book of Genesis implies that virtually all the genetic information in today’s world was present in the beginning, contained in separate populations (the original created kinds).
This information would not be expected to increase, but could decrease with time—in other words, any genetic changes would be expected to be informationally downhill.
Evolution (in the normal meaning of the word) implies on the other hand that a single cell has become people, pelicans and palm trees. If true, then this is an uphill process—involving a massive increase of information.2
Change—but what sort?
The formation of new species actually fits the creation model very comfortably. The wolf, the dingo and the coyote are all regarded as separate species. However, they (perhaps along with several other species) almost certainly ‘split off’ from an original pair on the Ark—a species representing the surviving information of one created kind. Is there evidence that this can happen, and that it can happen without adding new information, that is, within the limits of the information already present at creation?
A ‘mongrel’ dog population can be ‘split’ into separate sub-groups, the varieties of domestic dog (breeders can isolate portions of the total information into populations which do not contain some other portions of that information). This sort of variation does not add any new information. On the contrary, it is genetically downhill. It involves a reduction of the information in each of the descendant populations compared to the ancestral one. Thus, a population of pampered lap-dogs has less genetic information/variability, from which nature or man can select further changes, than the more ‘wild’ population before evolution selection took place.
But is it conceivable that such change (which is obviously limited by the amount of information already present in the original kind) can extend to full, complete formation of separate species without any new information arising, without any new genes? (In other words, since evolution means lots of new, useful genes arising with time, can you have new species without any real evolution?)
Photo by Matti Á, flickr.com
Even leading evolutionist Richard Dawkins, who should know better, has erroneously cited ‘ring species’ as being evidence of the supposed inevitability of evolution. In his book The Ancestor’s Tale, Dawkins observed that ring species “are only showing us in the spatial dimension something that must always happen in the time dimension.”
Richard Lewontin is Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology at Harvard. In his book The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change he says there are instances in which ‘speciation and divergence of new full species’ have obviously occurred using ‘the available repertoire of genetic variants’,3 without requiring any ‘novelties by new mutation’. In other words, an ancestral species can split into other species within the limits of the information already present in that kind—just as creationists maintain must have happened.4
In the example we looked at, there is no reason to believe that the differences between the two gull species are the result of any new, more complex, functional genetic information not already present in an ancestral, interbreeding gull population. Because there is no evidence of any such information-adding change, it is misleading to say this gives evidence of evolution, of even a little bit of the sort of change required to eventually turn a fish into a philosopher.
Ring species and similar examples actually highlight the great variety and rich information which must have been present in the original created kinds.5 They can be said to demonstrate evolution only to the gullible (pun intended).
References and footnotes
- New Scientist, 5th June 1993, p. 37. Return to text.
- See C. Wieland, ‘Variation, Information and the Created Kind’, Journal of creation 5(1):42–47, April 1991. The usual mechanism proposed is the cumulative selection of ‘uphill’ copying mistakes. However, the observational evidence for such information-adding mutations (as opposed to the occasional loss/defect giving survival value—e.g. eyeless fish in caves) does not appear to exist. On information-theoretical grounds one would expect them to be vanishingly rare if not non-existent. Return to text.
- Columbia University Press, 1974, p. 186. Lewontin refers to ‘new mutations’, as he believes that all existing variation came about by copying accidents (‘old mutations’) in the first place. However, that is belief, not observation. Note that a ‘downhill’ mutation can theoretically cause a reproductive barrier (and speciation) without adding any new, functional information. Return to text.
- For evidence that this can happen very rapidly, see ‘Darwin’s finches—evidence of rapid post-Flood migration’, Creation 14(3):22–23, June–August 1992. Return to text.
- It requires enormous amounts of variation to be already present for selection to result in ‘new’ types. A farmer cannot select for bigger eggs from his hens unless the information for this is already in the genes of some of them. Note that the common ancestor of these two gull species was likely already split off from (and genetically depleted compared to) the original kind. Return to text.
|
<urn:uuid:7eabfcab-5141-4f97-b1f6-84ebf5fdca33>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://creation.com/birds-of-a-feather-don-t-breed-together
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396459.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00107-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.944088
| 1,703
| 3.421875
| 3
|
How Hand-Powered Generators Work ?
Human beings have become so accustomed to “things” being done for them, it is rare to find work or play being performed by hand. Of course, we still do some hand cutting, sawing etc. and we also play games “by hand.” Yet there are parts of our lives that we don’t have to see and touch, one of them being the world of electricity and power.
People in a so-called “developed” society expect electricity to be delivered to their homes from large power-generating stations located hundreds of miles away. If for some reason our electrical power stops we sometimes provide for emergency electrical power with a gasoline-powered or diesel-powered generator. Beyond this level of back-up power, there is one more method for generating electricity in specific situations – the hand-powered generator.
If we don’t have the funds to put a large gas-powered generator next to our homes, we might find ourselves “going back” a couple of hundred years to the time when light and heat were provided by candles and wood. What if we’re on the road and don’t have access to an electrical outlet? Is there a way to get electricity in these situations? The answer can still be “yes.” We simply have to use a hand-powered generator.
A generator converts mechanical energy, such as turning a crank, to electrical energy. The generator “forces electrons in the windings to flow through the external electrical circuit. It is somewhat analogous to a water pump, which creates a flow of water but does not create the water inside the pump.” (Wikipedia)
We can even make a simple generator using the motor from a battery-powered drill. Using the battery pack we can wire this power source to whatever we want to power. The shaft of the drill’s motor can be turned by hand to charge the batteries. The source of power is your hand and arm. If you want to use this simple generator for sensitive equipment you’ll have to be very careful. It’s difficult to control the voltage. But this is the general description of a working hand-powered generator.
There is another way, of course. Some companies offer hand-powered generators at retail stores or from specialty suppliers. A few devices even come with generators as part of the purchase, though these generators are limited to use with particular equipment, lights etc. Many are even small enough to be suitable for travel. They have a handle that can be turned when access to electricity isn’t feasible. Many of these have a regulator to control voltage so the equipment being charged or used isn’t damaged.
Companies also make slightly larger generators designed to be used with pedal-power, like a bicycle. These can generate enough power to charge large batteries and in some applications can even provide power to small electrical equipment.Category: Technology
|
<urn:uuid:65dfb170-92a9-454f-8cd0-4590def7c0eb>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.thegeminigeek.com/how-hand-powered-generators-work/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00109-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.954472
| 610
| 3.1875
| 3
|
It’s strange how something deadly can also be beautiful. These images are all of major diseases—hepatitis B, osteoporosis, cirrhosis of the liver, and so on—yet they capture something mysterious and wonderful about human life, as well. They’re from a new book called Hidden Beauty: Exploring the Aesthetics of Medical Science, by Norman Barker and Christine Iacobuzio-Donahue, at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Barker, who specializes in "art as applied to medicine," says the images were captured using a variety of techniques, including spectral karyotyping, MRI, and scanning electron microscopy. In all, there are 113 illustrations, covering everything from Alzheimer’s to testicular cancer. You see a few more here.
"Everyone has either experienced one of these diseases personally, or certainly has known a friend or family member that has had a battle with one," Barker says. "In no way are we trying to glorify disease, but it is part of the human condition that we all must face, just like birth or death."
Barker hopes viewing the images will encourage people to get to know about disease and how it affects the body. "In many ways, we are trying to let a lay audience know what the disease is and what is being done in modern medical research to combat the specific disease and find a cure."
"When we are confronted with an image we don’t understand, we want to know more. What is it? Most people don’t realize that when they look at the front cover of the book, the beautiful image is of gallstones."
|
<urn:uuid:8c84734b-de99-4076-b3e8-dececf4a3fe5>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.fastcoexist.com/1682714/these-deadly-diseases-turn-into-art-when-you-zoom-in
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396872.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00112-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.971794
| 346
| 2.796875
| 3
|
Nov. 13 St. Augustine
Did you know that one of the pillars of the Catholic Church, St. Augustine wrote 96 books during his lifetime?
The two most famous are his biography, Confessions and City of God. Saint Augustine’s writings covered a huge range of subjects such as morals, history, philosophy, and heresy. Christian churches throughout the world have used Augustine’s works as major references. Pope Leo X admired St. Augustine so much, that he allowed this bishop’s feast to be honored the same as those of Christ’s Apostles.
More about Black Catholic history
Blacks in Catholic Christianity have a long and vibrant history.
Much of that history is generally unknown to Black Catholics as well as to the rest of the faithful. On July 24, 1990, the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus of the United States designated November as Black Catholic History Month to celebrate this long history and proud heritage of Black Catholics. During this month we celebrate the presence of our ancestors who kept the faith and are models of living the Gospel life.
November is Black Catholic History Month, read more about it .
|
<urn:uuid:161fcd88-a7d0-4842-8be4-eafedb901262>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://ncronline.org/print/blogs/ncr-today/black-saints-augustine
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396459.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00056-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.959201
| 230
| 3.34375
| 3
|
Permafrost Thaw Slumps
Background Info - Peel Plateau Lake Drainage
Permafrost Thaw Causes Lake Drainage on the Peel Plateau
- An acceleration of permafrost thaw in northwestern NWT is causing notable landscape changes. The Northwest Territories Geological Survey (NTGS) is collaborating with Universities, Governments and the Tetlit Gwich’in Renewable Resources Council to study landscape change and permafrost geohazards on the Peel Plateau.
- Permafrost thaw has caused development of very large thaw slumps; Individual disturbances can impact over 30 ha of terrain, displace millions of cubic metres of sediments to reconfigure slopes and impact downstream environments.
- One particular thaw slump about 20 km northwest of Fort McPherson has been growing for about a decade. It has caused gradual collapse of an entire hill, resulting in the rapid, partial drainage of a small upland lake about 1.5 ha in area.
- In anticipation of the drainage event, a geohazard advisory was re-issued by the NTGS in June 2015.
- The drainage event was captured by remote cameras. When the slump eroded to the edge of the lake, about half of the lake volume estimated to be about 30,000 m3 drained in about 2 hours by pouring over the slump headwall and forming a temporary waterfall 10 to 15 m high. Peak flows lasted less than 30 minutes and flow rates reached at least 10 m3/second. Water rushed over the slump debris and down a narrow valley before emptying into a larger lake about 5 km downstream in the Mackenzie Delta. The turbidity in the downstream lake was significantly elevated as a result of sediments transported by the drainage event. Two days following drainage, saturated debris flowed downslope at rates of up to about 50 m/hour for several days to enlarge a debris tongue deposit that has infilled about 2 km of valley.
- No one was in the vicinity when partial drainage occurred on the 15th of July, and the Renewable Resources Council in Fort McPherson was notified; We thank several individuals involved in research, regulation and industry activities for diverting flight plans to examine and report on the status of the lake. The lake partially drained so there is a chance that another release of water could occur.
- When the growing thaw slump encountered unfrozen sediments (talik) beneath the lake, thermal erosion stopped. This likely explains why drainage was only partial.
- In 2016 NTGS and University and Government partners will further investigate the impacts of slumps on landscapes, streams and lakes and explore the use of remote sensing to better monitor the landscape changes.
What is a thaw slump?
- Slumps develop when ice-rich permafrost thaws, causing ground to collapse and a crater like scar area to form. The headwall of thawing ground ice, which “eats away at the slope” can form a vertical wall of ice-rich permafrost up to 30 m height. Thaw of icy permafrost turns into a saturated slurry of mud which can accumulate or flow downslope to form a large tongue of debris. A debris tongue can fill a stream valley with millions of cubic metres of sediment (1 pickup truck = 2.5m3 so one million cubic metres of sediment = 400,000 pickup truck loads). Plugs of saturated sediment have been observed to ooze downslope at rates of up to 100 m/hr (this is fast, but not that fast).
Is thaw slumping and the changes we are observed today normal?
- Thaw slumping is a natural landscape process and these disturbances have always affected the certain landscapes. In northwestern Canada, ice-rich terrain that was deposited by the Laurentide ice sheet is particularly susceptible to thaw slump disturbances. Permafrost has preserved relict ground ice for over ten thousand years. The slumps we observe today develop in these landscapes and they are more abundant and much larger than they were in the recent past, so for northerners these are becoming increasingly important geohazards to be aware of.
- Slump activity on the Peel Plateau and other parts of the western Canadian Arctic underlain by ice-rich permafrost has become more common in the past two decades. This is in part being driven by rising air and ground temperatures and by increased rainfall. Intensification of rainfall means that mud flows will be more active and the slopes are less likely to stabilize. This allows slumps to enlarge beyond what was normal under colder or drier conditions.
What are the impacts of bigger slumps?
- Slumps can grow upslope over a period of several years or decades. Each summer an active headwall can grow up to 20 m upslope dramatically increasing the size of the crater-like scar area. The scar of active slumps and the debris tongue deposits can cover tens of hectares of terrain and can be hazardous because when saturated, the muds behave like quicksand. Extreme care is required around active disturbances.
- Some of the large slumps have displaced volumes of 5 to 10 million m3 of permafrost (ice and sediment) in the past decade and a half. The Rogers Centre “Sky dome and home of the Toronto Blue Jays” has a volume with roof closed of 1.6 million m3.
- The lake drainage we have documented is only one consequence of increasing slump activity. These disturbances are mobilizing previously frozen materials that have been stable for thousands of years. Other impacts include clogging up of stream valleys, development of debris damned lakes, elevated sediment loads in streams and rivers and changes to water chemistry. Stream ecologists from the NWT Cumulative Impact Monitoring Program and University of New Brunswick have been recently studying slump impacts on the biology of the streams and have found that sedimentation of the streams from slumps has a strong negative effect on benthic organisms.
- At NTGS we will continue working with Government, Academic and Community partners to investigate permafrost terrain sensitivity, develop tools that can help us monitor landscape change, and continue to disseminate geoscience information to northerners, project planners and regulators. Improving our geoscience information base will support northern decision making and resilient communities.
|
<urn:uuid:dbe5f7b0-c019-4848-a9cb-b699febda4f6>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.nwtgeoscience.ca/permafrost-thaw-slumps/media-backgrounder-peel-plateau-lake-drainage
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00139-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.93698
| 1,294
| 2.875
| 3
|
My problem is:
Solve for x: ax + b = bx - a
I found a similar problem in the book, and wondered if I'm on the right track or not.
ax - bx = -a - b
x(a - b) = -a - b
x = -1 ?Code:x = -a – b ------- a – b
I guess because each letter is only equal to 1 my only possible answer is then 1? Is that how we get this answer? I'm only guessing...
Can you please explain how this one equals 1 and the other one results to a fraction?
ax + b = bx + a
Thanks again! Just trying to understand this, so hopefully I'll retain it.
Now recall, a fraction is equal to 1 if the numerator and denomenator are equal--and of course the denominator can't be zero. We get -1 if the numerator is the negative of the denominator, which was the case in the example i choose that we would need to get -1.
Now on to the next question:
..........get all the 's on one side
........now factor out the common
.......now divide both sides by
we have a number divided by itself, provided we will get 1
|
<urn:uuid:2e195b8f-eaf4-4865-87fd-e243b9507488>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://mathhelpforum.com/algebra/15696-solving-x-terms-other-letters-pls-help.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397636.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00055-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.919706
| 270
| 3.78125
| 4
|
Sacramento Valley Transportation
In the traditions of Sacramento
Valley Native Americans, mysterious figures were transported
over water in a raft to create the world. One dove from
the raft into the water and came up with dirt. From
that soil the world was formed.
The transportation by a raft is symbolic of the role
of transportation in the evolution of local history.
Paleo-Indians arrived about 12,000 years ago. The rich
natural resources made the Sacramento Valley a "Garden
of Eden." Permanent villages were established about
8,000 years ago. Native Americans walked and traveled
the rivers and waterways with rafts. The later arriving
Spanish entered the Valley by horse, British and American
trappers entered by horse and on foot. Settlers from
the midwest and east coast arrived in wagon trains.
Gold seekers walked over land along side wagons or by
sea on sailing ships and later steamboats. By the late
1840's dreams of a transcontinental railroad were debated.
In 1849 the "friends of a Rail Road to California"
met in Boston to hear a proposal for a railroad from
St. Louis to San Francisco. But the shorter transcontinental
crossing at the Isthmus of Panama by a railroad would
occur first in 1855. Meanwhile, the connection between
San Francisco and Sacramento was improved by an expanding,
fast, and efficient steamboat service. In 1856 the Sacramento
Valley Railroad opened officially for service between
Sacramento and Folsom.
In less than a decade, California moved from an ox
cart economy, with wheels made from rounds cut from
tree trunks, to a complex economy with an industrial
age transportation system. By 1869 that transportation
evolution would result in a transcontinental railroad,
across the nation, and a network of steam ships that
connected California to China, the eastern states, and
the whole world.
Just as transportation improved travel, it also accelerated
the economic development of California. In 1849, California
gold fields were referred to as the "Extremity
of Civilization" and in the next decade because
of transportation, California began to impact the economy
of the United States and eventually the world.
The growth and influence of Sacramento in California
was a combination of many factors but being at the inland
end of a great "river" highway to the gold
fields combined with the fortunate timing of the expansion
of steam powered transportation in the 1850s and 1860s,
strengthened the region and it's stature. The Sacramento
River was the major route for steamboats with over fifty
boats plying the river between San Francisco and Sacramento.
By 1858 the gold mining districts and emerging agricultural
communities in the Central Valley were connected by
over 270 individual teamsters with wagons pulled by
horses and mules. Each wagon could move up to 9,000
pounds and operated seasonally. Between thirty and forty
wagons departed Sacramento each day for the mines.
Passengers were moved by stagecoach. By 1854, many
of the stage operators were merged by James Birch into
the California Stage Company. Birch's stage line controlled
eighty percent of the stagecoach traffic over 3,000
miles of routes connecting the western portion of the
United States. In 1856, Birch lobbied Congress to establish
a national wagon road. He presented Congress with a
petition from Northern California with 75,000 signatures.
As one of the largest petitions yet received by Congress,
they responded by establishing three wagon roads to
the Pacific Coast and appropriating $600,000 for a twice-weekly
overland mail service from St. Louis to San Francisco.
The Sacramento region exerted great power in the decade
of the 1850s, in spite of its small resident population,
when compared to San Francisco. The largest portion
of the state's population lived in the "Sacramento
District." Sacramento representatives strongly
influenced the State's Constitutional Convention, landed
the permanent State Capitol, and elected the State's
first governor. Sacramento's influence was in large
part due to its growth in commerce, particularly that
portion related to transportation such as railroads
and steamboats, as well as wholesale merchants who supplied
retailers throughout California and Nevada. Those large-scale
merchants of Sacramento saw their success tied to better
wagon roads and railroads.
Great wealth was to be gained by a wagon toll road
over the Sierra Nevada Mountains to Virginia City and
even greater fortunes in a transcontinental railroad.
The railroad would offer enormous opportunities for
California and the Sacramento region to grow. The potential
bounty of Sacramento Valley agriculture was to be realized
with faster and more efficient transportation. Sacramento
merchants would organize and build the western half
of that railroad.
By 1887, bicycles were present in numbers that caused
the organization of clubs such as the "Capitol
City Wheelmen." Groups like the Wheelmen focused
on the bicycle as transportation, and sport, and as
a contributor to recreation and leisure adventures.
They coordinated with other groups and lobbied for improvements
that led to a paved road from Sacramento to Folsom suitable
for bicycle excursions. The Wheelmen were by the end
of the 19th century, able to push the "Good Roads"
movement and influence the shape of the State's early
By the earliest part of the 20th century, photography
of early construction projects show workers who utilized
the bicycle as an alternative to other traditional transportation
for going to and from work. The "safety" bicycle
gave the greater population a taste of the freedom of
In the 1890s the first commercial automobiles began
to arrive in Sacramento. By 1905, twenty-seven automobiles
were registered in Sacramento County. By 1910, seven
hundred more were registered, and by July 1911, in what
can only be called an "Auto Frenzy," Sacramentans
were buying seventy-five autos per day. Automobiles
alone could not make a significant difference. A network
of paved roads was essential. Three bridges had to
cross the American River between Sacramento and Fair
Oaks. Perhaps the best symbol of this growing network
would be the completion of the Yolo Causeway in 1916.
The Causeway would be a key local component in the completion
of a National Road linking by automobile, the East and
West coasts, right through Sacramento and across the
center of the nation, identified as the "Lincoln
Highway." During the first third of the 20th century
a competition emerged for a dominant form of transportation
between riverboats, railroads, and automotive vehicles.
For the Sacramento Valley, airplanes and other airships
including balloons were a novelty until 1917. With the
nation gearing up for W.W.I, the Government awarded
a $3,000,000 contract to build "JN-4" (Jenny)
bi-wing military airplanes in North Sacramento. For
the rest of that Century, Sacramento would look to aviation
as a vital source of economic sustenance.
By 1919, with the end of the war, many of the Jennys
became surplus and were converted to civilian use. One
innovative use of the planes earned a pilot the title
of "First Air-born Duck Herder." He would
drive ducks out of rice fields for a fee with his airplane.
The tactic was a great success, but he was later ridiculed
for dropping surplus grenades from his plane to scare
the ducks. It was reported that he did more damage to
the rice fields than the ducks. By 1929, the region's
farmers were experimenting with aerial seeding of agricultural
The fascination with flying made the early aviators
a huge success. For two decades, aerial shows were put
on at the State Fair and Mather Field. "Barn Stormer's"
would perform exhibitions or take a passenger for a
ride from a hastily prepared open field. Aviation had
shown its potential and would become a vital part of
the Sacramento region's development.
As urban areas developed, streetcar systems evolved,
first pulled by horses and later using electricity.
For those in urban areas, it was the first experience
at the freedom of cheap efficient public transportation.
Urban transportation led to inter-urban systems which
would ultimately evolve into an electric passenger railroad
system, linking the Bay area with Sacramento and smaller
Valley communities all the way to Chico.
The development of the Sacramento region is so intertwined
with transportation that the region's history would
be incomplete without serious attention given to the
impact of wagon trains, steamboats, railroads, and automobiles.
Sacramento Valley Agriculture
A Sacramento Valley Land Development Association pamphlet declared in 1911 that
the "Sacramento Valley is one of the great valleys of the world, with a vast
and fertile soil area. It produces great quantities of precious metals and
structural materials. It is blessed with an abundant water supply, and an
agriculture much more diversified than is found anywhere else on the face of
The Sacramento Valley, that "vast and fertile soil area," covers over 6,500
square miles, is almost 200 miles long, and ranges from 10 to 50 miles wide.
It begins in the north near Redding and extends south to the Mokelumne River.
Within the territory it encompasses are Shasta, Tehama, Glenn, Butte, Colusa,
Sutter, Yuba, Placer, Yolo, Sacramento and Solano counties.
Major influences in the development of agriculture in the Sacramento Valley
included the Gold Rush and the resulting influx of miners, climate (droughts
and floods), railroads, land speculation, development of irrigation, and the
transition to a diversified crop culture.
Millions of years ago, a sea covered what is today Northern California.
Mountain ranges eventually appeared, leaving a depression filled with water.
When the sea disappeared, the valley floor was exposed, with the Sacramento
River providing the major channel for water into which all other streams flow.
By the 1830s, the valley had been explored and mapped, and was being used by
fur traders as a route to Oregon. In 1837, Ewing Young drove a herd of cattle
from San Francisco Bay to Oregon via Sacramento. Sutter took advantage of a
Mexican land grant, acquiring over 48,000 acres in 1841, and began cultivating
wheat and other crops.
The discovery of gold in Coloma by James Marshall in 1848 brought more than
100,000 people to California within two years. In response to the needs of
these Gold Rush pioneers, agricultural expansion in the Sacramento Valley began
in earnest, especially in the mid-1850s. At that time the decreasing
opportunities in the mines brought many of the miners into the valley. Grains
for flour, and feed for horses and mules were needed. Production of barley,
hay, wheat, alfalfa, fruit orchards, and grapes began.
Most of the early farmers concentrated on raising cattle and sheep, in part
because of the scarcity of labor. Manufactured reapers - mowing and threshing
machines operated by horses - began to appear in 1853, and marked the beginnings
of extensive grain farming. Steam power replaced animal power within 10 years.
By 1860, Sacramento County led the state in production of apples, peaches,
plums, quinces, lemons, olives, pomegranates, almonds, walnuts, and
raspberries. It was second in production of pears, cherries, apricots, figs,
strawberries, and grape vines. By 1864, Yolo, Yuba, and Solano counties
achieved prominence in the production of fruits and nuts.
Droughts in the late 1850s dried up the range lands, and floods in the 1860s
drowned hundreds of cattle, only to be followed again by drought. This vicious
cycle brought disaster to the cattle industry, which never fully recovered.
Sheep fared better throughout these difficult years, because they were able to
adjust to the scarcity of water. Additionally, the Civil War increased the
demand for wool for uniforms.
Prior to 1867 and the development of irrigation, crops were grown on lands
along the rivers and streams. The fertility of the soil, however, was reduced
by the reliance on a one-crop system and the failure to use fertilizers. By the
late 1860s many farms along the waterways were completely buried by the debris
coming from hydraulic mining in the foothills. The conflict between farmers and
miners continued for over 20 years. In 1884, the famous Sawyer decision
prohibited the dumping of hydraulic mining debris in the rivers.
As the population increased, more lands were put under cultivation. The federal
government had given 11.5 million acres to the railroads and 8.5 million acres
of swamp and overflow lands to the state of California. The state in turn sold
this land to individuals for less than a dollar an acre. The completion of the
transcontinental railroad in 1869 led to an increase in immigrants to
California, lured by a series of promotional publications glorifying life in
the Golden State.
By 1865, the foundations of Sacramento Valley agriculture had been laid.
Charles Nordhoff in his book California for Health, Pleasure, and Residence,
published in 1873, described the Sacramento Valley as "an immense fertile
plain" with oats "so high that I could and did tie the oats over my head."
Between 1867 and 1880 agriculture in the Sacramento Valley became productive
and profitable. Development of ventilated railroad cars in 1870 opened markets
for growers of perishable items such as fruit.
The wheat industry and big ranches dominated the area north of Sacramento.
Wheat farming was the backbone of the valleyıs economy from 1867 until the mid
1880s. Just eighty-two people owned approximately one million acres of the
best land - one fourth of the total acreage of the Sacramento Valley. Smaller
farms were more diversified with fruit, vegetables, and dairy products as their
Fruit colonies, such as the English Colony Association, were founded on the
eastern edge of the valley between 1886 and 1895, and were generally in lots of
10 to 20 acres with irrigation ditches dug to provide a reliable water supply.
Fruit lands in most of Sacramento, Yolo, and Solano counties didnıt need
irrigation because of the high water table. Irrigation made cultivation of
orchards, rice, and alfalfa possible in areas not bordered by the rivers and
streams. Reclamation and irrigation made thousands of additional acres
available for cultivation, helping to lead to a land boom. Propaganda and
citrus fairs helped stimulate the change. In addition to making hundreds of
thousands of acres available for cultivation, irrigation increased land values
and taxes, and forced many owners of large ranches to subdivide and sell their
Between 1883 and 1900 - aided by the introduction of competing railroads and the
development of refrigerated railroad cars - fruit outpaced wheat as the most
valuable cash crop in the Valley. The price of wheat was so low by 1885 that
only large ranches with expensive machinery were able to compete in the world
market. The decline of the price of wheat reduced the profitability of large
grain ranches. Between the 1880s and the early 1900s many of the big ranches in
the valley were subdivided since most of the owners were in debt. With the
death of the original land barons, heirs subdivided or sold the property and
thus contributed to a land boom. New crops such as rice and fruit were better
suited to smaller parcels.
Although the Wright Act - authorizing the creation of irrigation districts - was
passed in 1887, the first extensive and successful development of irrigation in
the valley occurred between 1900 and 1920. The development of irrigation
profoundly changed the landscape beginning in 1905.
By 1929, fifty-one irrigation districts were organized into systems that
delivered water to 282,000 acres. Twenty-two areas were direct products of the
Wright Act, public districts organized under the state irrigation law; 19 were
mutual irrigation companies organized to deliver water to stockholders at cost;
10 consisted of public utility water systems.
The rapid expansion of the fruit industry between 1870 and 1900 relied on
Chinese labor until the early 1890s when the effects of the Chinese Exclusion
Act became noticeable. Japanese Americans replaced the Chinese workers, but
their numbers were also reduced by the Alien Land Law in 1913 and its
amendments in 1924. Since the 1920s, the agricultural labor force has been
primarily composed of transient workers.
World War I precipitated the rapid development of trucks and tractors. Farmers
increased their production to help feed the armies. After the war, crop prices
collapsed and land prices rose. The National Prohibition Amendment in 1919 had
a significant impact in the Sacramento Valley. Farmers began to pull out
vineyards and convert their land to other crops. The two largest vineyards in
the nation (Stanfordıs Vina Ranch and the Natomas vineyards south of the
American River) disappeared.
In the 1920s, agriculture still formed the basis of the economy in the
Sacramento Valley. Although farmers planted most of the land in grain, the
financial return per acre was considerably more for other crops. In 1921, a
brochure published by the Sacramento Chamber of Commerce, Sacramento - The
Gateway to California, stated that "a sight more grand seldom stands out before
one as strikingly as that which meets your eyes when the Overland train slows
down for its initial stop in California. As far as you can see - away toward the
setting sun - lies the Sacramento Valley, the most fertile in all the world."
In 1929, the Sacramento Valley had 1,250,000 acres in grain with over one-third
concentrated in northern Yolo, Colusa, and Glenn Counties. Rice was grown on
250,000 acres, primarily in Butte, Colusa, and Glenn Counties. Over 300,000
acres of fruit orchards dotted the valley. There were about 130,000 acres in
truck crops (vegetables), most of them in Sacramento, Solano, and Yolo
Eventually, canning processes became more efficient. The development of
trucking reduced the need for smaller canneries and those located in strategic
areas were enlarged. Techniques in farming also changed with the use of the
gasoline engine. It has been estimated that 150,000 horses were replaced with
15,000 tractors by 1919.
Sun-drying for fruit preservation was replaced by a modern dehydrator in 1925.
Contour plowing saved labor and irrigation costs and became a general practice
in the 1920s. Smudging as a means to prevent frost damage was widely accepted.
The large California Valley Rice Growers Association mill in Sacramento
eventually forced many smaller mills out of business.
Reclamation was begun in the early 1900s by private investors, and was endorsed
by the state in 1911 and the federal government in 1917. Between 1905 and 1920
there was a massive attempt to reclaim valley lands and control the rivers.
Floods, which always played an important role in the valley, brought the 1920s
to a close. In 1928 the Feather River overflowed at Hamilton Bend and levees
broke on the Sutter County side of Marysville, near Arboga. North Sacramento
was flooded and Sacramento threatened. Although the flood inflicted great
damage to farmlands, it led to the development of more effective flood control.
Farming in the twentieth century was drastically different from that of the
nineteenth century. Reclamation, irrigation, and the land boom reduced general
farming and emphasized crop specialization. Valley farmers were no longer as
self-sufficient as they had been previously and now relied heavily on an
international market. Nevertheless, the Sacramento Valley remained one of the
most productive and profitable agricultural regions in the world.
|
<urn:uuid:f9e5723f-a822-4f82-a76e-7a7a84abf30d>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.sacramentohistory.org/resources_essay.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393533.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00142-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.956646
| 4,265
| 4
| 4
|
The lovely aspect of the resource is that it forms a personal archive of the recollected stories and knowledge of those with an interest in preserving the history of local women. Visitors to the site are encouraged to sign up to log new memorials and share photographs through the beautiful Flickr gallery where we sourced this image of La Pasionaria, the familiar monument walkers and cyclists pass the River Clyde Walkway - a tribute to those people who died resisting Fascism in Spain during the 1930s.
If you can think of your own contribution, why not add it to the site where others can discover it using The Memorials Map or search function! The stories behind 300 memorials have been logged with the resource gathering momentum through training sessions ran by GWL earlier in the year. Look out for the potential announcement of more training opportunities on the site or search for similar-themed events on the GWL's calendar.
Using the map, we chanced upon this delightful mosaic plaque above the door of Greengate, Jessie M. King's house in the artist's town of Kirkcudbright. The children's illustrator moved to the town in 1915, twenty-three years after she first entered Glasgow School of Art as a student in 1892, and continued to work there until her death. Here she produced books of drawings, among them Kirkcudbright: A Royal Burgh, a delicately-coloured book published by Gowans & Gray in 1934 and held in our Glasgow Style Book Design Collection in the Library Special Collections.
Finding the online tribute to King on the mapping memorial site is a happy coincidence and one, we think, which helps to illustrate the potential of this wonderful online resource!
|
<urn:uuid:866433a2-49c7-4a94-b447-15c891b6aeb2>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://gsaartdesign.blogspot.com/2013/08/online-resource-mapping-memorials-to.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391766.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00135-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.937842
| 341
| 2.703125
| 3
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.