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Background Drug shortages are currently on the rise. In-depth investigation of the problem of drug shortages is necessary; however, a variety of definitions for ‘drug shortages’ are adopted by different organisations, e.g. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the American Society of Hospital Pharmacies (ASHP). For international comparison, it is important to clearly denote which definition is used by the national authorities or by (inter)national organisations.
Purpose To identify and compare different definitions and analyse the overlap and missing info in each definition.
Material and methods A literature review was performed searching the scientific databases MEDLINE and Embase for definitions of drug shortages. Grey literature, such as websites and documents of (inter)national drug agencies, was also incorporated.
Results More than 15 different definitions for drug shortages were identified. Articles in the scientific literature often refer to existing definitions. Only a few articles describe their own definition. After comparison of the definitions some overlap was observed. Sometimes drug shortages are defined as situations in which a drug is undeliverable for a certain period; this period ranges from one day to 20 days. However, delaying treatment of infectious diseases for 20 days will have a serious effect on patients. Other definitions only consider those drugs used for the treatment of serious diseases or drugs for which no alternative is available; this underestimates the size of the problem.
Conclusion The ultimate goal is to formulate a general European definition for reporting drug shortages, which is essential for international comparison. Indicating a time limit in the definition is an essential element for the comparison of nationally reported drug shortages. This time limit might be even one day if the patient’s health warrants it. A definition of drug shortages covering all types of drugs is crucial to acknowledge the size of the problem.
References and/or acknowledgements No conflict of interest.
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Napoleonic Wars: Prussian 1813Iron Cross 1st Class
Iron Cross 1st Class. The Eiserne Kreuz (Iron Cross – often abbreviated EK or IC) was instituted on 10 March 1813 by the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III. It was awarded for bravery in the field – without regard to rank – during the Befreiungskrieg (War of Liberation also called the Napoleonic Wars). The Iron Cross was designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, a famous Prussian sculptor and architect. 1813 Iron Cross 1st Class examples to non-Prussian recipients requires extensive documentation since this would be a fairly rare museum piece. All documented Prussian recipients received at least one other medal – normally the Kriegsdenkmünze für 1813/5. Most sources indicate that the Iron Cross 2nd Class was required to be awarded prior to the 1st Class (as described in the royal decree) but there is some evidence that this was not strictly followed. On 3 August 1841, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV approved a special yearly payment to some of the Officers, Sergeants and Corporals who were Iron Cross 1st Class recipients. The best figures available indicate that approximately 638 Iron Crosses 1st Class were awarded for the Befreiungskrieg.
The 1813 Eiserne Kreuz I. Klasse or Iron Cross 1st Class is approximately 4.2cm by 4.2cm, weighing 16.5 grams (maximum), made of blackened iron, and has a silver edge. The obverse was void of any design or lettering, other than the silver frame. The silver content varied slightly within the 800-900 range. The reverse was a silver backing which was an integral part of the silver edging and had 1 to 2 loops welded onto each arm for sewing onto the uniform. The original official issue is unknown with a hallmark. The Cross was worn on the left side slightly below the heart and below any medal(s). Many recipients had converted their awards to pin backs by the mid-1800s. A Prussian Cabinet Order, dated 4 December 1871, did not specify the wearing of the 1813 Iron Cross 1st Class but it did specify the wearing of other orders, decorations, and medals which a recipient may have been entitled to.
1813 Eisernes Kreuz I. Klasse (obverse)
(Illustration example only)
The Iron Cross: A History, 1813-1957 (Gordon Williamson, published by Blandford press, 1985 – he also is involved with an excellent online site) is an excellent reference work that should be consulted. There are other similar books which deal with the Iron Cross overviews. A review of most Prussian unit histories typically list the number of 1813 Iron Crosses 1st Class that were awarded and often provide some biographical information and illustrations. The German Decorations & Orders Society (BDOS) publishes outstanding detailed information as well. A well documented book has been published in Germany which attempts to list all known recipients, but it is out of print and is difficult to locate.
It is interesting to note that almost immediately, jeweler’s copies were made for the recipients who had lost or damaged their Iron Crosses or who wanted a better quality. Many of the replacements varied outside the 800-900 silver range and some were even made of nickle. This confounds the correct identification of the originals since both are contemporary awards. The 1830s and 1840s jeweler’s copies are fairly well documented and are most often encountered on the market (although the seller usually doesn’t mention that it’s not the official issue). As a general rule, the original issue 1813 Iron Cross 1st Class did not have a pin back (unless added later) and did not vary much from the 4.2cm squared. Many of the jeweler’s copies carry hallmarks which aids in identification – but not all – and some of these are not made of iron, making them non-responsive to a magnet test. Most of these near-contemporary Crosses are of sizes at 4.175cm or less or 4.275cm or greater with the width and height exactly equal. If you are adding this to your collection, you will need to be especially careful in your purchase since a verified contemporary Iron Cross 1st Class may be either the original issue or a jeweler’s copy. It is best to obtain one through a Napoleonic era Prussian medal specialist with a full guarantee. In late-2006, a USA online dealer had a wide selection of 1813 Iron Crosses 1st class for sell at prices ranging from $2,249.95 through $2,999.95. I’ve only seen 4 original (as issued) 1813 Iron Crosses 1st Class in Germany during the last 12 years and two were sold prior to being offered to the general market – the other two (both were sew-on 8 loop examples) were in German museums.
Copies and forgeries abound. Most copies (typically cast) are made for collectors or re-enactors who require an example and typically sell for about $12 to $75. Please review my copy medal guide http://reviews.ebay.com/Worldwide-Military-Medals-Copy-Medal_W0QQugidZ10000000001875117 for a more detailed explanation. The forgeries are typically either one of 2 types: a later type official Iron Cross 1st Class with the obverse very finely removed and re-coated and the other type is one that has been struck from dies. The later can be difficult to detect but a trained specialist can make that determination through an analysis of the metal and the silver beading. The vast majority of these do not use the welded sew-on loops but rely on the pin backs. Please review my forgery medal guide http://reviews.ebay.com/Worldwide-Military-Medals-Forgery-Medals_W0QQugidZ10000000001875079 for a more detailed explanation. Both forgery types are sometimes encountered at German flea markets, militaria shows, or are offered online – usually at a price approaching that of a verified authentic example. As mentioned earlier, jeweler’s copies are known and are generally regarded as suitable collector examples if they are verified contemporary – but many sellers do not make the distinction clear. Again, the best advice is: Buy only from a reputable dealer who specializes in Napoleonic era Prussian medals. Please visit my blog (http://blogs.ebay.com/tsa-li) and/or guides for further information.
The Iron Crosses of Deutchland: Each one below was earned.
The Iron Cross used to be a real honor. The Cross has been designed in impressive, subtle simplicity in 1813 for the war against Napoleon by the famous artist Schinkel and reestablished in 1870, 1914 and 1945. ‘Iron’ has the meaning without gold etc., just to honor bravery in action. It has been exclusively given to soldiers with merits on the battlefield – not for any other merit. (an exeption: commanders of important strategic moves). In the Second Wold War the higher classes of the Cross could and has been given to ordinary soldiers for the first time. The Knights Cross for an infantry man gave him an enormous reputation.
The Cross of your Grandfather is the second class (with a ribbon). As the war lasted on more and more soldiers received it. Hitler got the first class as a private and could rarely be seen without it. Contemporary German military airplanes carry the sign still on their wings. But no Iron Cross could be won since 1945.
Yours, Dieter Henrich
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Are you know the how does an infrared thermometer work. When you believe a thermometer, you almost certainly picture a tool with some quiet probe that’s placed into the thing being measured.
Whether it is a thermometer that you place under your tongue to take your own temperature, a food thermometer that you push into a piece of meat to make sure it’s done, probe-style thermometers have long been typical.
However, there are many other options on the market today, and infrared thermometers are among the foremost exciting and useful styles to think about. Offering simple use and accurate readings, there are tons to love about an infrared option.
An infrared thermometer could also be involved anytime the surface temperature of an object must be determined.
Obviously, since the infrared beam is merely bouncing off of the surface, this is often not an appropriate method of measurement when the inside temperature of an object must be found.
Checking the extent of warmth coming from a bit of kit, as an example, maybe a great way to see the trouble which will be occurring within.
Considering what percentage of various infrared thermometer models are available today, and the way accurate they need to become, it’s easy to ascertain why they’re a well-liked choice during a number of industries.
A Simple Principle
While the technology that creates these thermometers’ work is certainly complex, the concept itself is quite simple.
Since there’s heat being emitted by any object, an infrared thermometer can use the difference between the IR rays coming off of the thing and thus the encompassing environment to determine the surface temperature of the object itself.
The IR thermometer works by focusing light that’s coming from the thing within the sort of IR rays and funneling that light into a detector which is additionally known as a thermoplastic.
There is sort of reasons why you need to consider choosing infrared technology for your temperature reading needs. When buying a thermometer to feature to your stable of kit, consider purchasing a top-quality infrared thermometer for a few of the subsequent reasons.
Obviously, you’d wish to be confident that you simply are getting an accurate reading from your thermometer once you set it to use, and infrared models have an excellent reputation for accuracy.
One of the good things about having the ability to see temperature remotely is that you simply don’t really need to touch the thing in question.
If you’re trying to require the temperature of a very hot item, you will not get to place your hand, or maybe another piece of kit, onto the recent surface.
3. Contamination Prevention
Another benefit to the remote measuring instrument is the avoidance of contamination. This is particularly important within the food service world, but it applies in other applications also.
There are certainly quite three advantages to using infrared, but the three listed above are a number of the foremost important.
Additionally, the value of this technology has come down in recent years, meaning you’ll access this great method of temperature measurement for a significantly lower cost than it would have required just a couple of short years ago.
Working of Infrared Thermometers
Similar to light, it’s also possible to focus, reflect, or absorb infrared. Infrared thermometers employ a lens to focus the infrared emitting from the thing onto a detector mentioned as a thermoplastic.
The thermoplastic is nothing but thermoplastic connected serial or parallel. Factors to Consider When Selecting IR Thermometer.
The most crucial aspect of any thermometer is its accuracy. For infrared thermometers, the accuracy depends on their distance-to-spot ratio (D/S ratio). This ratio indicates the maximum distance from where the thermometer can evaluate a specific surface area.
It means that with bigger ratios, you can measure the temperature from a farther distance. However, the area also will increase with increasing distance.
Emissivity: How does an Infrared Thermometer Work
Emissivity shows what proportion of infrared energy a thermometer can put out at a time. IR thermometers with emissivity closer to 1.00 can read more materials than those with lower emissivity values.
An infrared thermometer’s temperature range affects the work you can perform with it. You may want to urge an IR thermometer with a good temperature range to record various processes with different temperatures.
On the contrary, an infrared thermometer with a narrow temperature range is better where higher resolutions are necessary to ensure proper temperature control of a specific process.
Reading Speed or Response Time
Reading speed may be the time the thermometer takes to deliver an accurate reading after initiating the thermometer’s reading process.
Design: How does an Infrared Thermometer Work
Industrial IR thermometers must have a rugged design. No-lens and Fresnel lens thermometers are durable thanks to their polymer structure, which keeps them safe.
A backlit screen makes it easier to read the thermometer even in adverse lighting conditions. How does an infrared thermometer work?
Warranty of How does an Infrared Thermometer Work
Warranty is a must-have feature in thermometers, as they are fragile or may even turn out to be defective. No-lens and Fresnel thermometers are cheaper than Mica lens thermometers, which may be a reasonably massive investment.
If you are buying any expensive thermometer, get the one that comes with a manufacturer’s warranty. How does an infrared thermometer work?
Infrared thermometers are essential to use while reading the temperature of a surface that’s too dangerous, and almost impossible to succeed in. With the complex inner workings process, these thermometers give rapid results and are simple to use.
However, before picking an IR thermometer, attempt to find out the temperature range and your application. Also, confirm to use the device correctly and at the proper place to urge accurate results.
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These interesting risetime calculators were in use at Tektronix in the early days (note the 51X-style knobs and the Portland address). They consist of a small battery-powered analog computer specifically for calculating cascaded risetime calculations. Risetime is defined as the time taken by a signal to transition from a defined low state to a defined high state, often 10% to 90% of its final value.
This calculator was used to determine the overall rise time of three cascaded blocks, each with its own risetime. The resulting risetime is the square root of the sum of the individual risetimes squared.
The museum has a risetime calculator. Note the unique battery holder in the upper left corner of the rear photo. The trimmers match the resistors to the potentiometers. The individual risetimes are set using the A, B and C knobs and the meter is then nulled using the F knob which displays the cascaded risetime.
This analysis of the circuit demonstrates how analog computers function.
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WHEN CONGRESS passed a national school-violence policy in 1994, many states followed with even stricter measures. But those laws, it now seems, are based on a faulty premise: that courts are the best place for disciplining children.
The failure of this idea is clear in New York, where zero-tolerance policies have lead to arrests for gun possession on school grounds, but also for relatively minor offenses like shoving. Even nonviolent incidents—doodling, throwing food, back-talking—have landed kids in court, where last year New York sent more than 1 4OO minors (average age: less than l6) to correctional facilities.
According to a series of recent reports—by the Justice Department and the state Office of Children and Family Services—the institutions don't help. Nearly nine of 10 occupants commit additional crimes. It's a "school-to-prison pipeline," says Judith S. Kaye, the state's former chief judge.
She hopes the negative publicity will provide a push toward alternative modes of justice (like youth courts, where peers hear the cases of peers), more civics classes (where kids learn the virtues of sociability), and level headed adjudication—where detention doesn't always involve a cell. — T.D.
|Violence Prevention Programs Only|
|Eliminate weapons||Encourage students to abstain from violence|
|Suppress violent behavior||Identify causes of violence|
|Train faculty and staff to intervene||Adopt a threat-management policy|
|Target students who commit violent acts||Provide debriefing sessions for students traumatized by violent incidents|
|Discredit violence||Increase self-esteem|
|Have a weapons hotline||Teach students how to manage anger|
|Comprehensive Violence Prevention Program|
|Meet nurturing needs|
|Create a cooperative environment|
|Encourage positive and lasting relationships|
|Limit out-of school time|
|Provide long-term conflict resolution/peer mediation training to all students|
|Form partnerships with parents and community|
|Include components from violence prevention only programs|
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Young Climate Change Mappers continue work through the end of this week, uploading geolocations and images as key contributions to UNICEF’s global digital chart highlighting climate change and disaster risk reduction throughout the world.
They will come together at the March 13 World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai, Japan, to share their findings on best practices in dealing with climate related disasters.
UNICEFs Voices of Youth Maps utilize community reporting to detail the local impact of natural disasters, epidemics, extreme weather events, and pollution. Youth participation in these projects is gaining traction as organizations increasingly recognize the need for inclusiveness in successful Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) projects.
Since 2011, UNICEF has been utilizing mobile technology to engage youth in projects mapping local health and environmental problems, but the organization is also highlighting low-tech projects, equipping youngsters with colored markers and paper to map environmental and health issues in the urban slums they call home.
Teams of young mappers and adult facilitators spend roughly 45 days traversing their slums. They learn the shape of their neighborhood, how streets interconnect (or don’t), and the the density of homes there. This information becomes the map’s skeleton. Then, they fill in the specifics. They stake out what’s needed through the eyes of children—where underserved public areas could become play spaces, where trash bins could be added in an area they regularly see littered with filth. Their ideal neighborhood is drawn and detailed onto the map. Then, after it’s complete, leaders from the child clubs present their work to local officials. Link
One of the most significant health issues being researched is the lack of public toilets in India’s slums, particularly toilet seats small enough for kids who live in the slums. Several kids place dots on their maps to reflect their ideas on where kid-friendly toilets are most needed.
Humara Bachpan, a national campaign to create healthy and safe environments for India’s poor urban youth, currently has children mapping slums in Mumbai, Delhi, and Hyderabad. Plans are underway to expand the program.
By championing the contribution of children in solving relevant complex problems in their daily environments, kids develop and utilize analytical thinking skills, which earn them a place in mapping the future they want.
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Hiroshima: The Day the World Changed Forever
The United States dropped the first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan, 74 years ago. In addition to killing tens of thousands of people, that moment changed the world forever.
A bell tolls every year on Aug. 6 in Hiroshima, Japan. Nearly everything in the city (including traffic) comes to a stop for a few minutes. As the bell rings, citizens of Hiroshima take time to reflect on the horrors that city experienced on Aug. 6, 1945.
At that time the Japanese empire was at war with the Allied nations. A little over 3½ years earlier, Japanese forces had staged a surprise attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, killing or wounding nearly 3,600 servicemen and women. That unprovoked attack drew the United States into World War II.
The day the nuclear age was born
On that clear and bright August morning, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress (named the Enola Gay), flying at an altitude of nearly 6 miles, released a 9,700-pound bomb on the city of Hiroshima. This bomb was code named Little Boy. It dropped for about 43 seconds before detonating. When it did, history changed forever. It was the first atomic bomb to be used in battle and ushered in the beginning of a new era of warfare.
The port city of Hiroshima was chosen because it contained naval and military installations, as well as a large civilian population. When Little Boy detonated, between 60,000 and 80,000 people died almost instantly. Most of these never even realized a bomb had been dropped.
Three days later, a more powerful atomic bomb (code named Fat Man) was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, ultimately killing an additional 70,000 people. Six days later Japan announced its unconditional surrender to Allied forces, officially ending World War II.
In the ceremony last year, Hiroshima mayor Kazumi Matsui described the hellish scene that changed the world that morning. He asked those listening to be quiet and listen “as if you and your loved ones were there.”
Mr. Matsui also warned that global tensions are rising, and nations are modernizing their nuclear arsenals. He said, “If the human family forgets history or stops confronting it, we could again commit a terrible error. That is precisely why we must continue talking about Hiroshima.”
The problem is deeper than nuclear weapons
Nuclear weapons are truly frightening. But they are not the only danger we face. People have designed and used deadly weapons of all kinds. And in one sense, what real difference does it make to a soldier or a civilian whether he or she is killed by an atomic bomb, a hand grenade or a bullet? Or, as in ancient times, an arrow, a spear, a club or a rock? Killing is still killing, and human beings have been doing it since Cain slew his brother Abel (Genesis 4).
Nearly every weapon mankind has invented has been used—which paints a bleak picture of mankind’s future, barring some major change.The difference, of course, is the massive scale. There is no way men would be capable of destroying all life on earth with rocks and arrows, or even bullets and conventional bombs. But with the terrifying level of destruction possible with atomic weapons, that capability now exists. This development was prophesied by Jesus in the Olivet Prophecy: “And unless those days [the Great Tribulation] were shortened, no flesh would be saved [alive]” (Matthew 24:22).
To learn more about this time prophesied to come, read our article “Great Tribulation.”
When we study Matthew 24 together with Revelation 6, we read about a worldwide war that has the capability of destroying all human life. In addition to atomic weapons, other destructive weapons have been invented, including chemical and biological weapons. Nearly every weapon mankind has invented has been used—which paints a bleak picture of mankind’s future, barring some major change.
What needs to change?
In his speech, Mr. Matsui used the memory of Hiroshima to call for continuing the “efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons.” That’s a laudable idea, but there’s one problem: Even if we could eliminate all nuclear weapons, we would still face the fundamental problem of human violence (both on the national and personal level). As they did before the advent of the nuclear age, people would still hate and kill one another with whatever weapon they would have available. The real problem is human nature.
Isaiah wrote of man’s propensity for violence: “Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths. The way of peace they have not known, and there is no justice in their ways; they have made themselves crooked paths; whoever takes that way shall not know peace” (Isaiah 59:7-8, emphasis added).
The prophet Ezekiel describes what is needed to have true peace: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them” (Ezekiel 36:26-27).
The missing component is God’s Spirit softening the human heart. Instead of operating based on selfish motives and lust for advantage, mankind will learn to genuinely care about others and their well-being. And most importantly, the human heart will become tender toward God. People will finally yield themselves to the lead and direction of their Creator!
Seventy-four years ago the world descended to another level of death and destruction in war. But the weapon was only a symptom of a much deeper problem, the problem of mankind’s self-will and rejection of God’s way of living. Thankfully, God will intervene to stop us from completely destroying ourselves with destructive weapons and begin a new world of peace and safety.
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More information about this Work
These three panels may have been the top of a polyptych similar to the one by Mariotto di Nardo in the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence, whose central panel depicts a Virgin and Child. These panels, which were formerly in the Somerwell collection in Scotland, were auctioned at Sotheby’s in 1970 and were acquired for the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection in 1976. On the reverse of the Annunciate Angel is an old label that attributes the paintings to Giottino and states that they were in one of the storerooms in Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence when these buildings were demolished in 1826 to enlarge the square on which they were located.
The panels, which were unpublished prior to the auction of 1970, were catalogued as by Bicci di Lorenzo, an attribution that continues to be accepted today. For the two Annunciation panels the artist followed the traditional iconographic model used in Tuscan art in the 14th and 15th centuries: the Virgin is depicted seated with a book on her knees. She receives the message from the Angel Gabriel who approaches her on clouds, a detail that indicates that the angel arrives from Heaven. The Holy Spirit, sent by God the Father, is located above the Archangel and represented as Christ, who descends on the other panel towards Mary in the form of a dove.
The Crucifixion panel, with Christ still bleeding from his wounds, only includes the essential figures of the Virgin and Saint John. At the foot of the cross and near a pool of blood dripping from the plinth of the cross is Adam’s skull, whose presence, like the blood around it, symbolises the purification of Original Sin. At the top of the cross, from which a bright green branch is sprouting, is a pelican with its four young. According to legend, the pelican feeds its young on the blood that spouts from a wound that the bird makes in its own breast. The bird, combined with the crucifixion, emphasises Christ’s nature as Redeemer.
It has been tentatively suggested that the other elements in this polyptych were two panels with pairs of saints: Thaddeus and John the Baptist, and James the Less and Nicholas of Bari, both in the Pinacoteca Stuard in Parma. According to Boskovits these panels would have flanked a Virgin and Child, in an arrangement similar to the above-mentioned polyptych by Mariotto di Nardo. Bicci di Lorenzo, who inherited a large workshop from his father, continued to use Gothic formulas well into the 15th century, introducing small changes in an effort to modernise his style. This group has been dated around 1430.
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Digital technologies have spread rapidly in much of the world. Digital dividends — that is, the broader development benefits from using these technologies — have lagged behind. In many instances, digital technologies have boosted growth, expanded opportunities, and improved service delivery. Yet their aggregate impact has fallen short and is unevenly distributed. For digital technologies to benefit everyone everywhere requires closing the remaining digital divide, especially in internet access. But greater digital adoption will not be enough. To get the most out of the digital revolution, countries also need to work on the “analog complements” – by strengthening regulations that ensure competition among businesses, by adapting workers’ skills to the demands of the new economy, and by ensuring that institutions are accountable.
World Development Report 2016: Digital Dividends explores the impact of the internet, mobile phones, and related technologies on economic development.
See more at:
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Kath Alcock paintings: 9
Acianthus reniformis, partly
Cyrtostylis from the Greek 'kyrtos' meaning curved or swollen and 'stylis' meaning column, referring to the fluted enlargement of the column below the stigma. Robusta from Latin meaning well developed, robust, alluding to this species being more robust than C. reniformis, a species under which it was included until 1987.
Distribution and status
Found in the southern part of South Australia, from the Eyre Peninsula to the lower South-east, growing in ishrubland, woodland and forest. Also found in Western Australia, Victoria and Tasmania. Native. Common in South Australia. Rare in Tasmania. Common in the other States.
Herbarium regions: Eyre Peninsula, Northern Lofty, Murray, Yorke Peninsula, Southern Lofty, Kangaroo Island, South Eastern, Green Adelaide
NRM regions: Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges, Eyre Peninsula, Kangaroo Island, Northern and Yorke, South Australian Murray-Darling Basin, South East
AVH map: SA distribution map (external link)
Small terrestrial orchid with a single heart-shaped, kidney-shaped or almost round leaf to 60 mm long and 40 mm wide, light to medium green above, partially transparent below. Flowers 2-7 pinkish red along a stem to 300 mm high. Pedicel to 11 mm long with a bract at its base. Dorsal sepal erect and curved forward, linear but tapered, to 13 mm long and 2.5 mm wide. Lateral sepals are linear, to 11 mm long and 1 mm wide and curve forwards or downwards. Petals are similar in size and shape to the lateral sepals and curve forwards or slightly downwards. Labellum oblong, to 15 mm long and 6 mm wide and slopes slightly downwards with a few serrations near its pointed tip. This species is distinguish from the other Cyrtostylis species by being taller, with more flowers and larger floral parts, distinctly different coloured leaves and earlier flowering. Flowering between June and August. Fruits are brown papery ellipsoid capsule, reddish when immature. Seeds are very small, golden-brown, ellipsoid with a long cylindrical translucent brown mesh-like covering.
Seed collection and propagation
Collect seeds between July and October. Collect fat capsules as they start to dry and turn brown. Pods will split and release the seeds quickly and will require monitoring. To increase the chances of collecting mature pods, it is recommended that a small breathable bag (ie.Organza bags) be used to enclose the developing capsules. Place the capsules in a container that will hold fine seeds, and leave to dry for a few weeks or until the capsules split.Then carefully hold the capsule and tap it gently to release the seeds. Store the seeds with a desiccant such as dried silica beads or dry rice, in an air tight container in a cool and dry place or in liquid nitrogen.
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Significance and Use
4.1 This test method evaluates the ability of coated fabrics to withstand a prescribed bend at an established low temperature. Fabrics coated with polymeric materials are used in many applications requiring low temperature flexing. Data obtained using this test method may be used to predict in-use behavior only in applications in which the conditions of deformation are similar to those specified in this test method. This test method has been found useful for specification purposes but does not necessarily indicate the lowest temperature at which the material may be used.
1.1 Fabrics coated with rubber or rubber-like materials display increased stiffening when exposed to decreasing ambient temperatures. This test method describes a simple pass/fail procedure whereby material flexibility at a specified low temperature can be determined. Failure is indicative of unacceptability of the coated fabric for use at that temperature.
1.2 The values stated in SI units are to be regarded as standard. The values given in parentheses are for information only.
1.3 This standard does not purport to address all of the safety concerns, if any, associated with its use. It is the responsibility of the user of this standard to establish appropriate safety and health practices and determine the applicability of regulatory limitations prior to use. For specific precautionary statement see 8.1.
2. Referenced Documents (purchase separately) The documents listed below are referenced within the subject standard but are not provided as part of the standard.
D751 Test Methods for Coated Fabrics
bend test; coated fabrics; flexibility; low temperature; low temperature bend test; rubber-coated fabrics; subnormal test temperature;
ICS Number Code 59.080.40 (Coated fabrics)
ASTM International is a member of CrossRef.
Citing ASTM Standards
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Connecting More Than Just Straws
I’m not sure if you’re a 80s or 90s kid, but if you were, then you should remember how back in school, our teachers would either be using straws to challenge us to build something with it using scotch-tape, or to teach us certain concepts and ideas. And yes, back then, the kind of straws were quite literally the same drinking straws we used. And for some of us, we even used those same straws at some point for our school science/social studies projects. Personally, I’ve had a lot of fond memories playing around with straws and using them to create some pretty interesting structures and so on.
Now, let’s fast-forward about 20 years into the future! Over the last couple of years, I have had the privilege of being exposed to the educational technology industry (to put it in a more easily understandable term, we call it STEAM/STEM Education). STEAM Education also stands for the following subjects:
- S – Science
- T – Technology
- E – Engineering
- A – Arts
- M – Math
All of which I happen to share a really deep passion for.
What is the Goal of STEAM Education?
Before we actually dive into what Strawbees is and what I believe they can ultimately offer, I want to give you a quick overview of the STEAM Education space and this would also help to set the foundation and context for many of the future articles that I’ll be writing for TOYTAG.
STEAM Education aims to provide equal opportunities to people, young, old, professional, non-professionals, to have a chance at being exposed to different skills within the different fields that was mentioned above. As the rest of the world progresses rapidly towards what we call, the Industrial 4.0, the required skillsets for our next-generation of talents have to be different from the ones that we’re already familiar with today. Important skillsets includes problem-solving, critical thinking, learning from failures, communication skills, and risk taking, are now considered some of the most in-demand soft skills for our children in 10...20 years’ time when comes time for them to step into the respective industries.
Rather than giving you the atypical STEAM Education sales pitch, I’m going to focus on what truly matters & also the reason why you should be paying attention to it.
Real Skills for the Real World
Speaking as a former practitioner, I am also a strong advocate when it comes to the concept of continuous learning. I’m a very hands-on person by nature, which means that I tend to focus a lot more on creating something with the skills that I have learned rather than just focusing on the theory side of things. The greatest inventor of our century, Albert Einstein said that “playing is the greatest form of research [learning]”. As children, many of us are already picking up various skills that we would later apply it into our daily lives that will help us to either solve problems, or think imaginatively, leading to the invention/innovation of new ideas to make the world a better place for others.
Beyond the soft skills, we also want our children to be equipped with some of the more important technical skills which can also be applied and used to help solve many of our real-world problems today (and in the near future). With STEAM Education & the brand/products involved, these children/youths will now have the means to transform their ideas into potentially real-world models. And these skills will also follow them into their work life when the time comes.
Strawbees: “Dream Big. Build Bigger”
That’s just something that I read on the cover of the “Crazy Scientist Kit” by the brand Strawbees. One of the things that I love about Strawbees is the fact that the team behind the brand has found a way to turn these simple straws into a product that allows anyone to start connecting the individual construction pipes (that’s the term that we will be using throughout the rest of this article as well as future articles) and create some pretty amazing structures and objects. What is even more amazing is this – with the additional programmable components like the Quirkbots, LEDs, SERVOs, learners will be able to give life to their Strawbees projects. Now, you can even build a moving car out of construction pipes & rotational servo motors. In one of the ideas that I am working on with a private coaching student of mine, we even have the idea of building a drone using nothing but what is available with the Strawbees kits as well as adding a few extra motors/fans.
Now, to be totally fair, we have absolutely no idea if this drone idea of ours is ever going to take flight like how we imagined it. But one of the most important aspects of STEAM Education is helping the learners to understand that they don’t have to get it right the first time. And sometimes, it is okay to fail. Many of the greatest ideas and inventions in real life have experienced multiple failures/learning cycles before they even get to the final production stages.
Currently, I am also actively using Strawbees as one of the brands when it comes to providing my own personalized private STEAM Coaching. For example, during one of my coaching sessions, I would construct a collapsible cube using the construction pipes to explain what skewing an object means. And it was also part of the effort to help explain a mathematical concept to the child.
One of the Most Value-adding STEAM Education Brands
In closing, I believe without a doubt that Strawbees is one of the most value-adding brands in the industry. If you were to make a comparison in terms of pricing, I have to admit that they are probably one of the most affordable brands/products. But just because they are low on the “price tags index”, it doesn’t mean that they are any less good. In fact, some of the parents I have spoken to that have also invested in Strawbees for their own children have felt that Strawbees is a brand that provides nothing by a value-added learning experience, because they finally understand now that where Strawbees is concerned, it is always about connecting more than just straws.
In my next article on Strawbees, I plan to dive much deeper into what the products are capable of, especially with the use of the various electronics components from the Coding & Robotics kit. And I’ll also be happy to prepare a series of articles that will share some of my personal tips & ideas of what you can do using the different product components! So make sure you stay tuned!
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This Date in Native History: On June 19, 1868, Father Pierre-Jean De Smet, a Jesuit missionary, met with the great Sioux Chief Sitting Bull in an attempt to convince “hostile” Indians to make peace with the United States.
A native of Belgium, De Smet was in his early 20s when, in 1827, he was ordained as a priest in St. Louis, Missouri, and began journeying westward to convert the Indians to Christianity and advocate on their behalf. Known as “Blackrobe” to the Indians, De Smet spent his life proselytizing.
From the beginning of his ministry, De Smet adopted the Missouri Jesuits’ statement of purpose: “We left home and country for the Indians; the Indians are in the West; to the West let us go.”
Called a “true friend to the Indians,” De Smet for decades worked and lived with the Indians, establishing missions, battling “liquor traffic” and helping secure peace treaties with rivaling tribes, he wrote in his personal journal, which later was compiled into the four-volume collection, Life, Letters and Travels of Father Pierre-Jean De Smet.
The years just after the Civil War were perhaps the most devastating for American Indians. In the late 1860s, as white settlers flooded west, the government demanded that Indians relocate to reservations. Tribes like the Sioux and Cheyenne that refused to forfeit their lands and fought to keep settlers out were deemed “hostile.”
The word “hostile” raises suspicions, said Herman Viola, curator emeritus of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. If Natives were hostile, it was because they were forced to leave land to which they had legal rights, he said.
“The government wasn’t going to stop until they drove the Indians into the ground,” he said.
After working with Indians for 40 years, De Smet was recognized for having “greater influence with the Indians than any other white man,” and the Interior Department requested that he travel to the “hostile” tribes in Montana and “endeavor to bring them back to peace and submission and to prevent as far as possible the destruction of property and the murder of the whites.”
The result was a series of meetings of the Indian Peace Commission, an agency charged with negotiating peace with the Plains Indians. De Smet’s role was to travel, sometimes long distances, to meet with tribal leaders and help negotiate peaceful—if ultimately broken—agreements with the federal government.
During the first commission meeting in July of 1867, commission president Nathaniel Taylor summed up the government’s desires:
“We can have all we want from the Indians, and peace without war, if we so will,” he said. “We have reached a point in our national history when, it seems to me, there are but two alternatives left us as to what shall be the future of the Indian: namely, swift extermination by the sword and famine, or preservation by gradual concentration on territorial reserves.”
De Smet, who was trusted by the Indians, had to convince them to peacefully agree to relocate to reservations or face extermination. At age 67, he journeyed for several days to reach Powder River, Montana, and negotiate with Sitting Bull. He arrived in the camp on June 19, 1868, and found as many as 4,000 individuals assembled.
In his own words, De Smet described his hour-long speech June 20 to Sitting Bull and other leaders:
“I spoke to them of the damages with which they were surrounded, and of their weakness beside the great strength of the whites, if the Great Father were forced to use it against them,” he wrote. “Today (God’s) hand was ready to aid them, to give them agricultural implements, domestic animals, men to teach them field work and teachers of both sexes to instruct their children, and all this offered without the least remuneration or cession of lands on their part.”
In turn, Sitting Bull recited the injustices the Natives had experienced. Although he didn’t accompany De Smet back to the Peace Commission to sign the treaty, he did consent to the agreement.
“Some of my people will return with you to meet the chiefs of our Great Father who are sent to make peace,” Sitting Bull said. “I hope it will be accomplished, and whatever is done by them, I will accept and remain ever a friend to the whites.”
The treaty, signed July 2, 1868, classified Powder River as “unceded Indian land.” It also guaranteed that all white people except Indian agents would leave the area.
De Smet was powerless to further protect the Indians, however, and war would continue to rage as Indian land diminished. De Smet died in St. Louis in 1873, three years before Sitting Bull won his greatest victory against the United States at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
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There are lots of expressions in many languages that involve dogs in a metaphorical way. “A barking dog seldom bites,” for example, really means the same thing as “all talk and no action.” “Let a sleeping dog lie,” which is probably a good idea when taken literally, figuratively means to not bring up an old argument.
Then there are things that people say about dogs that are not true — for example, a dog does not age seven years for every human year; the actual calculation is a little more complicated. Here are the top twelve myths about dogs, debunked.
- Certain dog breeds are more aggressive than others
Myth. While larger breeds can be more dangerous if they’re aggressive, any breed can show aggression toward other dogs or humans. It isn’t the breed that’s the cause, but rather the way the dog is brought up and treated by humans.
- My dog runs in the yard all day, he doesn’t need a walk
Myth. The importance of the walk is that it imitates the way a dog pack works together — by migrating through their territory toward a goal, which is usually food and water.
When your dog runs around in the yard, he may be burning off energy, but it’s unfocused. The end result is that he may actually have more anxious or nervous energy after playing in the yard all day.
- You can’t teach an old dog new tricks
Myth. This old adage has some truth to it when used to refer to humans, who can become very set in their ways with age, but dogs aren’t like that. A dog is ready to learn new tricks at any age, and teaching your old dog new tricks is a great way to help keep her mind sharp. Teaching a dog tricks at any age is perfect for giving them discipline.
- A wagging tail means a happy dog
Partly a myth. A wagging tail can indicate that a dog is happy and friendly, but it really depends on how the dog is wagging his tail. Studies have shown that when a dog wags his tail to his right—to the left as you’re facing the dog—it means he wants to approach and is friendly. However, when he wags his tail to his left, it’s a warning to back off.
Dogs can tell the difference and read the message, and when one dog sees another wagging to his left, this will usually cause them to become anxious and move away.
Tail position is also important. If the tail is down, the dog is submissive and possibly anxious. If it’s horizontal, then the dog is calm and happy. If the dog’s tail is vertical, though, this is another major warning to stay away.
Finally, speed is an indicator of the dog’s energy level and mood. A broad sweep of the tail that almost wags the dog with it is an indicator of happiness; tiny, rapid motions that almost make the tail look like it’s vibrating are another warning sign.
- My dog goes bonkers when I get home because he loves me
Myth. That excitement you’re seeing isn’t happiness to see you. It’s a dog that has too much pent-up energy and now has an excuse to let it go. Jumping, spinning in circles, or vocalizing are all things the dog does to try to calm themselves down. Giving affection when the dog is like this just reinforces the behavior, and can lead to things like separation anxiety or destroying things when you aren’t home.
- My dog hates the neighbor’s dog
Myth. If they bark at each other through the fence, they’re each just claiming their territory, but there’s nothing personal about it. Excitement and barking can also indicate that they really want to meet each other, and are frustrated by the barrier between them. This is another time to pay attention to the body language. Just as all tail-wags are not friendly, all barks are not aggressive.
If your and your neighbor’s dog have met and either didn’t get along well or got into a fight, it doesn’t mean that they’ll now hold a grudge forever. Dogs aren’t like that — but people can be. If we’re the ones holding onto the negative emotions after a bad encounter like that, then we’re the ones triggering the behavior when the dogs meet again.
The best solution is for you and your neighbor to take your dogs on a pack walk together, with the dogs on the outside. Once the humans involved can learn to relax in the situation, the dogs will either connect with each other or ignore each other.
- My dog is social, she doesn’t growl at visitors she just hides under the furniture
Myth. People sometimes think that “antisocial” is the same as aggressive or defensive, but there are other ways for a dog to be antisocial, and this is one of them.
If your dog is hiding from visitors or otherwise avoiding them, this behavior is just as antisocial as the dog that growls or nips at them. In these cases, teach your visitors to follow “no touch, no talk, no eye contact” when they come over, and to continue to ignore the dog if she comes to investigate. In this way, she will gradually learn to trust your guests.
- After my dog has a litter, she can finally get spayed
Myth. Unless you intend to breed your dogs, they should be spayed before they go into their first heat. Your veterinarian can tell you the best age for your particular breed, but responsible Pack Leaders will take care of this at the first opportunity. Spaying a female before six months almost completely eliminates the risk of breast cancer later in life.
- The best way to cool off a dog is by pouring water on his head
Myth. Pouring water on your dog’s head is the best way to overheat him. Dogs cool off by wetting their chests and stomachs.
If you’ve ever seen a dog at the park “digging” at the water in the kiddie pool, this is exactly what he’s doing — splashing water on the bottom of his body, where it will do the most good.
Wet fur is an insulator, so it holds heat in on the top of your dog. Since dogs tend to have the least or thinnest fur on their chests and stomachs, this is the most effective way for them to cool off.
- I can’t correct my dog’s separation anxiety, that’s just her personality
Myth. While some dogs may be more inclined to become anxious or nervous when their pack is not around, how you behave around the dog, particularly when coming and going, has a big effect on how he behaves when you’re not home.
You should never leave when the dog is in an excited, energetic state. Drain his energy first with a long walk. Also teach him the “go to your place” command and put him there while you’re getting ready to leave — his place can be his crate, his bed, or a corner of the room.
The state of mind your dog is in is the one he’ll stay in while you’re gone. It’s up to you to bring him to a calm, submissive state before you leave.
- My dog is impossible to walk
Myth. You may be having difficulty walking your dog now, but the problem is on your end of the leash. There are steps you can take to master the walk.
If the dog is showing reluctance to go on the walk at all, enlisting the help of a friend and their dog is a good way to bring yours out of her shell. You can also use treats to lure a reluctant dog forward, but don’t give the reward until she has walked a good distance.
If your dog is leading you on the walk, you need to train her to stay next to or behind you. You can do this by blocking her with your body, or carrying a cane or walking stick and using it to claim the space next to you. Keep the leash short but loose, and most of all stay relaxed. Tensing up on the leash just tells your dog to be alert for trouble.
- Dogs are jealous
Yes and no. Studies have shown that dogs can exhibit the signs of jealousy, but it’s a direct reaction to the moment and not something that they hold onto. In one study, when a dog’s owner showed affection to a stuffed dog that moved and made noises, the dog would try to get in between them or sometimes even nip at the fake; reactions they did not show when the owner did the same thing with a different object, like a book.
However, dogs have no trouble sharing a person’s affection — the human involved just has to invite both dogs into their personal space. A jealous person (or animal) cannot share affection. So, while dogs can show signs of jealousy, it isn’t a permanent emotion that they hold onto once they’ve felt it for another dog.
What myths about dogs have you heard or experienced? Share them in the comments.
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This year St. Patrick's Day is celebrated/ observed on Saturday March 17th, 2018. St. Patrick's Day or the Feast of St. Patrick is observed on March 17 as a religious and cultural celebration. It honors Ireland's patron St. Patrick. The date marks the traditional death of the saint. In the early 17th century, it was made an official Christian feast day observed by the Church of Ireland, the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and Lutheran Church.
The day honors Saint Patrick and Christianity in Ireland. It also celebrates the culture and heritage of the Irish population. People wear green attire and attend parades and festivals. Church services are attended. Restrictions on drinking alcohol and eating are lifted on this day. This led to its propagating tradition of alcohol consumption. Irish food and parties are celebrated in pubs. Water was even dyed green in the Chicago River in 2005. Symbols include the shamrock, anything green, Irish beer, and the leprechaun.
Saint Patrick was believed to be born in the fourth century in Roman Britain to a wealthy family. At age 16, he was kidnapped and taken as a slave to Gaelic Ireland. There, working as a shepherd, he "found God." Patrick found his way home and eventually became a Christian missionary and bishop. He returned to Ireland to convert the people to Christianity. He died March 17. He became Ireland's prominent saint.
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The UNFCCC secretariat's preliminary assessment of nations' pledges and voluntary commitments, 15 December 2009, to reduce carbon emissions finds that a significant gap remains that will lead to temperature increases of 3 degrees Celsius.
Executive summary: This preliminary assessment of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, written 15 December 2009 during the Copenhagen Climate Summit, reviews the pledges made by Annex I countries and voluntary commitments made by Annex II countries to reduce carbon emissions. The draft states that while current commitments would - if implemented successfully - lead to a reduction in atmospheric carbon, there still remains a significant gap with the level required by science, meaning that emissions would peak after 2020 ensuring an increase in average global temperatures of at least 3 degrees Celsius. This means failing to stay within the agreed-on 2 degree Celsius limit, and would lead to dangerous, runaway climate change.
Number of pages: 8
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It’s the most famous disaster story ever – and it’s all completely true. The Titanic sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912. More than 1,500 people lost their lives, including crew and passengers. The tragedy sent shockwaves right across the world. The giant ship – the biggest ever to take to the seas – was supposed to be indestructible. Indeed, more attention had been paid to making it the epitome of luxury than to matters of health and safety.
Even to this day, the sinking of the Titanic continues to be the source of much fascination. Almost everyone knows the story. But what about the lesser-known facts? Like how several minor decisions, often made by confused passengers and crew in a split second, would have huge consequences. So, from its ominous launch to the second tragedy struck, here we present 40 things about the Titanic you really should know:
40. Even before it was launched, the Titanic was a killer – as Belfast shipyard workers found out.
The mighty Titanic was built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. The project was a huge undertaking for the Northern Irish capital and provided thousands of men with work. However, it came at a cost. Since the ship was built at a time when worker safety was not a prime concern for employers, it was a dangerous business. In all, 8 men lost their lives. Of these, 5 were named, but the names of the other 3 will never be known – the Titanic project involved hundreds of casual, undocumented workers. What’s more, 246 men were injured, many seriously, at the Belfast shipyard.
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This article offers an interpretation of the problems addressed by and the eventual purpose of the United States government. Simultaneously, it seeks to analyze and explain the continued three-part structure of the United States federal government as outlined in the Constitution. Subsequently I define the three parts of the federal government—judiciary, executive, and legislative—as explained through the lens of the Platonic paradigm of (logos = word = law), (thymos = external driving spirit = executive), and (eros = general welfare = legislative) extrapolated from Plato’s dialogues.
First, the article establishes Plato’s theory of the three-part Platonic soul as a major premise, as in a syllogism. Second, the article lays out the generally accepted division of the U.S. Constitution as creating three parts to the federal government as a minor premise. Third, the syllogism completes by weaving in the major premise of Plato’s soul into the three parts of the United States federal government. This third step of application suggests possible future evolution of the structure.
This article fits into the wider issue of the functionally efficient and naturally adaptive structure of the U.S. federal government. Providing a historical and philosophical context to this structural analysis will serve as a framework for future research on the operation of the federal government. When the branches of the federal government step out of their roles, the balance of the structure of the federal government becomes disrupted occurring in liminal periods of paradigmatic change.
A Structural Etiology of the U.S. Constitution,
Available at: http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/jleg/vol43/iss1/6
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Arthroscopy is a method of viewing a joint, and, if needed, to perform surgery on a joint. An arthroscope consists of a tiny tube, a lens, and a light source.
This procedure is typically performed on the knee, shoulder, elbow, or wrist. The type of anesthesia depends on the particular joint and other factors. A regional anesthetic numbs the affected area, but the patient may remain awake, depending on whether other medications are used. For more extensive surgery, general anesthesia may be used. In this case the patient is asleep and pain-free.
The area is cleaned and a pressure band (tourniquet) may be applied to restrict blood flow. The health care provider then makes a surgical cut into the joint. Sterile fluid is passed through the joint space to provide a better view.
Next, a tool called an arthroscope is inserted into the area. An arthroscope consists of a tiny tube, a lens, and a light source. It allows a surgeon to look for joint damage or disease. The device also allows the surgeon to perform reconstructive procedures on the joint, if needed.
Images of the inside of the joint are displayed on a monitor.
One or two small additional surgical cuts may be needed in order to use other instruments. These instruments can be used to remove bits of cartilage or bone, take a tissue biopsy, or perform other minor surgery. In addition, ligament reconstruction can be performed using the arthroscope in many cases.
You should not eat or drink anything for 12 hours before the procedure. You may be told to shave your joint area. You may be given a sedative before leaving for the hospital.
You will be asked to wear a hospital gown during the procedure so the body part for surgery is accessible.
You must sign a consent form. Make arrangements for transportation from the hospital after the procedure.
You may feel a slight sting when the local anesthetic is injected. After this medicine starts to work, you should feel no pain.
The joint may need to be manipulated to provide a better view, so there may be some tugging on the leg (or arm, if done on the shoulder).
After the test, the joint will probably be stiff and sore for a few days. Ice is commonly recommended after arthroscopy to help relieve swelling and pain.
Slight activity such as walking can be resumed immediately, however excessive use of the joint may cause swelling and pain and may increase the chance of injury. Normal activity should not be resumed for several days or longer. Special preparations may need to be made concerning work and other responsibilities. Physical therapy may also be recommended.
Depending on your diagnosis, there may be other exercises or restrictions.
Your doctor may order this test if you have:
Arthroscopy can also help see if a disease is getting better or worse (this is called monitoring the disease), or to determine whether a treatment is working.
Abnormal results may be due to:
The diagnostic accuracy of an arthroscopy is about 98%, although x-rays and sometimes MRI scans are taken first because they are noninvasive.
Review Date: 7/29/2008
The information provided herein should not be used during any medical emergency or for the diagnosis or treatment of any medical condition. A licensed physician should be consulted for diagnosis and treatment of any and all medical conditions. Call 911 for all medical emergencies. Links to other sites are provided for information only -- they do not constitute endorsements of those other sites. Copyright ©2010 A.D.A.M., Inc., as modified by University of California San Francisco. Any duplication or distribution of the information contained herein is strictly prohibited.
Information developed by A.D.A.M., Inc. regarding tests and test results may not directly correspond with information provided by UCSF Medical Center. Please discuss with your doctor any questions or concerns you may have.
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Dear Mrs. _______,
I know as a teacher you are an extremely busy woman. You have many daily demands placed on you and I do not mean to add yet another. This letter is simply to introduce my son, Garrett, to you and hopefully help you to understand him better. You see, Garrett was diagnosed with ADHD in July 2003. Since that time he has been on several kinds of medication. The latest one his doctor is trying is Focalin. He has only been on this medication for about one month. It seems to be working better than the others. However, we're hoping you can be a better judge of this since you will be the one observing him in the daily classroom environment. He also has several learning disabilities which contributed to his being retained in the second grade this year.
Now, a little background about ADHD and Garrett. One thing the majority of people do not understand about ADHD is the "2/3rds rule." As a general rule of thumb a child with ADHD will act about 2/3rds their actual age. It tends to throw people because an ADHD child typically has average or above intelligence (as Garret does), but they are prone to displaying immature behavior. Other physical behaviors you may see are fidgeting, squirming and clumsiness. Classroom behaviors that you may see include:
- May begin work without waiting to hear or read instructions
- Trouble staying on task
- Will lose or misplace papers, pencils and other materials
- Will have to be reminded to clean up work areas after use
- Will probably be at your desk more often than most students
- Will often ask questions which may or may not relate to what you are discussing
- May turn in class work & tests before other children but with lower quality than possible
- May hyper focus on a topic to the point of fixation
Also, due to his ADHD, he has inadequate social skills. This sometimes can make it difficult for him to form lasting friendships with his peers. Garrett has problems distinguishing whether someone's actions are intentional or accidental. He is a literal thinker who doesn't understand sarcasm. He cannot read non-verbal messages or cues. Due to this, he often overreacts to situations or comments and his feeling are easily hurt. We are working with him on this.
All of this being said, he has numerous good qualities as well. He is a great kid who has a natural curiosity about life and how things work. He is very creative through art and building with Legos. He is caring towards others and is very sensitive. Even though he has a lot to offer the world, he doesn't always believe in himself and questions his academic ability. He's also anxious about school and unfortunately doesn't always find it a very safe place to be. This is due to bullying last year by a fifth grader both at school and on the bus. He greatly desires to please his teachers. He will be more than willing to help you in any way possible. He loves to make people laugh and will often tell jokes or act silly. He has a strong interest in water fountains, dolphins and Sponge Bob Square Pants. His hobbies are swimming, bike riding and jumping on his trampoline.
Things that helped him last year include:
- Structured environment and consistent routine
- Sitting near the teacher's desk to minimize distractions
- Touchmath and number lines
- Positive re-enforcement
- Being allowed to stretch, run an errand, go to the water fountain or bathroom will all help with his fidgeting
- Decreased homework assignments and spelling words
A few of the above are mentioned in his IEP as well. He will be going to Resource one hour a day as opposed to two hours like he did last year. He truly enjoys this and really likes Mrs. ______. His biggest challenges are math and reading. He goes to a private tutor for 1 -2 hours a week. She helps him in these areas as well. Also, if you find there is a specific area you'd like her to focus on more, just let me know and I'll tell her. She's great and will be more than willing to comply.
Mrs. ______, I know Garrett will require extra time and effort on your part so please let me thank you in advance. I greatly appreciate the many helpful professionals I have found at ____ Elementary. Please let me know how I can help support you and Garrett. I do not work outside of our home and am almost always available to help in any capacity, discuss important matters, etc. I believe Garrett has been dealt a very difficult hand in life and there is nothing I wouldn't do for this very precious child of mine.
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Some days stories just happen. They pop into your mind, nibble at your thoughts and then BAM! your pen is dancing all over the page. And then there are the other days. The days of nothingness – the days of blank paper and furious blinking. Here are three top tips from Children’s Laureate, Malorie Blackman, to avoid those days – because sometimes all you need to write a brilliant story is just a little nudge.
1. Take a word for a walk
Think of a word – any word. Let’s start with the word ‘imagination.’ Then think of this word as an animal. Write down what animal it would be. Perhaps a flying fish or a silver fox? Then think of this word as a food. A sparkly skittle? Next think of it as a wish. The ability to fly? So here’s what happened when moontrug took ‘imagination’ for a walk:
Animal: flying fish
Wish: to fly
Colour: blue and sparkly
Sound: a whisper
Smell: fresh air
Mode of Transport: a space hopper
As soon as the word ‘space hopper’ was down on the page, moontrug went on to write a short story which opened with a boy bouncing on a space hopper. You never know what’s going to inspire you! So start taking words for a walk… Moontrug took ‘the sea’ for a walk after ‘imagination’ and it looked a little something like this:
Animal: rhino charging
Food: entire tubs of vanilla icecream
Wish: to be invisible
Colour: pale grey
Sound: cymbals clashing
Mode of Transport: a dirt bike
2. I am watching you…
Sometimes music is a great tool for inspiring magical thoughts. Malorie Blackman got moontrug writing a very creepy story using a song called Lux Aeterna (‘eternal light’) by Clint Mansell. Here’s how. Start by writing this sentence on a blank piece of paper: ‘I am watching you’. Play this song. Now write – whatever comes into your head. With a song like that, you’re bound to write something creepy…
3. Is that an arm bone?
Root around you house for an object which is slightly unusual. Malorie Blackman gave moontrug an arm bone (not her own). The object can be anything: a velvet glove, an old notebook, a wig… Imagine who might have owned this object once upon a time. Imagine why. Imagine their story. With Blackman’s arm bone, moontrug ended up imagining an old woman called The Bone-Gatherer who lived in a house surrounded by bones. She thought the bones would keep out the evil spirits but the bones were just a way for them to climb in…
So have a go with Blackman’s writing tips. You never know – one minute you might be taking a word for a walk, the next you might be on page 34 of the next Harry Potter.
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What is it
Compromise is the condition of peace and progress. But there are times when we should not compromise – when compromise would undermine integrity and amount to cooperating with evil. How do we distinguish between when are we 'bargaining with the devil' and when are we simply trying to be tolerant of alternative lifestyles and political positions? Is it OK to 'bargain with the devil' in the name of peace? When we refuse to compromise on moral grounds, are we imposing our values? Ken and John negotiate the terms with UC Irvine Law Professor and professional mediator Carrie Menkel-Meadow.
Is negotiation is morally prohibited under certain conditions? If so, in what circumstances is it unethical to attempt to compromise? John and Ken discuss the ethical implications of compromise, wondering whether it can ever be acceptable to negotiate with the representatives of inhumane regimes, a form of compromise that political philosopher Avishai Cohen calls “rotten.” But some historical agreements with oppressive governments seemed necessary at the time, including Churchill’s negotiations with Stalin during World War Two. Other agreements have had truly evil consequences: the compromises that led to the ratification of the Constitution allowed the institution of slavery to perpetuate, for example. Is there a clear-cut system for deciding what sorts of compromise are allowed and what ones are forbidden?
Carrie Menkel-Meadow joins the discussion, offering the pragmatic viewpoint that there are no situations in which we are categorically prohibited from negotiating. Instead, she argues the decision to negotiate should be made on a case-by-case basis, observing that both sides often stand to gain from discussing their interests openly with one another. After all, listening to one’s opponents does not entail sacrificing one’s own ideals. Ken notes that some people prefer to take the so-called “clean hands” approach in these situations, preferring to keep their consciences clean by avoiding having anything to do with those that they deem evil. Menkel-Meadow respects this point of view, but points out that engaging with one another is necessary for real change; avoidance can make matters worse.
In order for negotiation to be successful, there must be a balance of power between the two sides. In the political realm, such a balance is typically achieved by having a third party mediate the talks, preventing agreements from being forced upon the weaker side. Another important ingredient for successful cooperation is trust in the other side to uphold their end of the bargain. When this trust breaks down, our willingness to compromise is undermined, as has arguably happened between Israeli and Palestinian leaders. As Menkel-Meadow holds, however, negotiation is all the more necessary in such situations, since the potential benefits are so great.
Roving Philosophical Report (seek to 4:30): Molly Samuel interviews residents, business owners, and public officials in San Benito county about the controversial development of solar farms in Panoche Valley. Complicating the issue is the presence of the endangered blunt-nosed leopard lizard, whose habitat may be threatened by the project. Fundamental differences of opinion make compromises both more difficult and more necessary to reach.
- Sixty-Second Philosopher (seek to 44:49): Ian Shoales discusses one of history’s most famous deals with the devil. The accusations against seventeenth-century French priest Urbain Grandier inspired Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Lourdon and Ken Russell’s film The Devils with Vanessa Redgrave.
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Western Reserve Heritage Feasibility Study
The purpose of the Western Reserve Heritage Feasibility Study is to determine the feasibility of designating the historic Western Reserve of Ohio as a National Heritage Area(NHA).
A National Heritage Area is a locally managed place designated by Congress where natural, cultural, historical, and recreational resources combine to form a cohesive, nationally distinctive landscape arising from patterns of human activity shaped by geography. NHAs are built on community partnerships and are planned around a region's shared heritage.
The feasibility study was authorized by Congress under 120 STAT. 1846 PUBLIC LAW 109–338, TITLE III—NATIONAL HERITAGE AREA – STUDIES, Subtitle A—Western Reserve Heritage Area Study on OCT. 12, 2006.
Study Team Leader
Midwest Regional Office
Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance Program
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Library Media Specialist
Appropriate Illinois State Board of Education
Makes resources available to students and
teachers through a systematically developed collection within
the school and through access to resources outside the
Assists students in identifying, locating,
interpreting and evaluating information housed in and outside
the library media center.
Provides access to the library media center and
its staff throughout the school day.
Encourages flexible class schedules to
accommodate use at point of need.
Develops policies and procedures to ensure that
access to information is not impeded by fees or
Informs teachers, students, parents and
administrators of materials, equipment, and services that meet
their information needs.
Teaches information curriculum as an integral
part of the school's curriculum.
Provides instruction in accessing, evaluating,
and communicating information and the production of
With other library media specialists and
teachers, plans, teaches, and evaluates instruction in
information access, use, and communication skills.
Assists in the use of technology both within and
outside the library media center.
Provides learning opportunities related to new
technologies, use and production of a variety of media, and
laws and policies regarding information.
Uses a variety of instructional methods with
students and demonstrates the effective use of newer media and
Participates in building, district, department,
and grade-level curriculum development and assessment
Offers teachers assistance in using information
resources, acquiring and assessing instructional materials, and
incorporating information skills into the classroom
Uses a systematic instructional development
process in working with teachers to improve instructional
Provides leadership in the assessment
evaluation, and implementation of information and instructional
Performs other duties as assigned by the
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war of the oscines
The War of the Oscines uses songbirds and other fauna as metaphors for Nature in conflict with human industrial residue, and political language to explore the cost of mass production on the natural world. 'Oscines' is Latin for the suborder of songbirds and originally means, ’to give omens by its cry'.
Mixed media. Photography, charcoal, relief ink and woodblock prints on cotton rag, mulberry paper and museum board.
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One of the problems with starting plants off under glass is that eventually they need to be hardened off.
Even hardy plants get used to a life of luxury – regular watering, still air and stable temperatures.
Putting them outside to survive in widely fluctuating spring temperatures, much stronger sunlight and winds will lead to a check in growth, even death if they are caught by frost.
I haven’t started hardening plants off yet due to the bad weather – all these pictures were taken last April/May, so don’t worry.
The effect of hardening off is to thicken and alter the plant’s leaf structure and increase leaf waxiness. It ensures new growth is sturdy although much slower.
You need to harden off gradually, over a period of a couple of weeks, depending on weather. On a mild day, start with two to three hours of sun in a sheltered location.
Protect seedlings from strong sun, wind, hard rain and cool temperatures. Hardy plants acclimatise faster than half-hardy ones.
Don’t plant out tender plants before the date of the last frost, usually the beginning of June in North East England – but have horticultural fleece ready.
If you don’t have a cold frame, place plants in a sheltered position in front of a south or west-facing wall or hedge and cover with fleece to prevent sun scorch and temperature shock.
I made a small lean-to out of poles and bubble wrap – not pretty, but it does the job. It’s also sheltered against a west-facing wall, which slowly releases its heat at night.
For the first week, leave outside during the day but bring in at night. In the second week, leave outside at night, but keep covered (unless there’s a frost forecast).
Towards the end of the fortnight, remove the bubble wrap during the day.
If the weather is suitable, leave the plants outside at night but ensure they are covered. After this, leave them uncovered before planting out.
Covering with an old curtain or extra fleece can protect from sudden sharp night frosts.
JOBS TO DO OVER THE BANK HOLIDAY WEEKEND
Thanks to such a cold April, everything’s miles behind. Don’t work against the weather, go with it – we’re all in the same boat – I reckon three weeks behind the same time last year.
Cover emerging shoots of potatoes with soil. If the tubers are exposed to light they turn green because of chlorophyll, which makes them have a high level of glycoalkaloids toxins.
If you’re seduced by ready-planted hanging baskets and bedding plants at the garden centre, make sure they’re properly hardened off – always ask.
In the veg garden, sow quick-growing crops, such as salads, between longer-term residents, such as brassicas, while they’re establishing.
Mulching fruit crops will help them to retain moisture around the roots so you will use less water.
Take softwood cuttings of deciduous shrubs, including Forsythia, Fuchsia, Hydrangea macrophylla, Philadelphus and Spiraea – choose non-flowering stems.
Check roses for signs of black-spot, aphids and leaf-rolling sawfly damage, treat if required.
Trim winter flowering heathers with shears.
After flowering, dig up and divide Primulas.
Tall-growing plants such as Delphinium, lupins and monkshood need a framework of canes and string around then to help prevent them been damaged by winds. Do this now so the supports become unobtrusive as the plants grow through them.
Give shrubs, trees, and borders a mulch of compost, to preserve water and smother any weed seedlings.
Keep nipping off the dead flower heads of late-flowering daffodils and let foliage die down naturally.
For more on these topics, plus cook what you grow, traditional recipes, North East information, environmental news and more, log on to www.mandycanudigit.co.uk (now smartphone friendly), www.sunderlandecho.com/gardening, follow me on Twitter @MandyCanUDigIt or you can like me on Facebook at Mandycanudigit
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Guide to Using This Book
is divided into four parts that cover the various phases of a wiring
job—from understanding basic vocabulary and principles, to planning,
installation, and finishing. Each part provides the necessary foundation
for the parts that follow.
CIRCUITS, AND GROUNDING
SERVICE EQUIPMENT AND WIRING
special wiring situations and projects
The best way to use this book is to read it through from start to finish
to gain an overall grasp of what is involved in electrical wiring. This step is vital to fully grasp the elements of a complicated trade. Many questions from readers turn out to address topics that are fully covered in the book, but the reader had neglected to read through the book first. The
table of contents at the front of the book provides an overview of the
wide range of material covered. This and the index at the back are your
keys to locating topics quickly and easily.
getting started—the basics
provides basic background necessary to understand the safety, practical,
and legal considerations involved in wiring decisions and practices.
This is essential reading before undertaking any electrical work. The
standards and codes that help ensure safety are explained, and important
safety precautions are offered. Practical goals to consider in the planning
of any wiring job are described in plain language. A bare-bones outline
of how electrical power is measured and delivered to the home provides
basic vocabulary for understanding issues of usage, cost, and conservation
of electrical power.
wires, circuits, and grounding
explains how to choose the right wire types and sizes, electrical devices,
and tools you’ll need for a particular job. Proper overcurrent protection
and the importance and specifics of grounding are emphasized here and
throughout the book. New developments on arc-fault circuit interrupters
are covered. Regulations are given for feeders and the panels they supply.
A simple way is described for using wiring diagrams to design installations
of any size.
installing service equipment and wiring
When you’re ready to start your installation, Wiring Simplified
fits in your toolbox so you can take it right to where you’re working
for ready reference. All commonly encountered wiring methods are covered. The service entrance chapter describes required workspace
around panels and explains how to establish the connection point between
the power supplier’s wires and your electrical installation. Detailed
instructions are provided for selecting and installing boxes and switches
in your circuits; for making the wiring connections at the boxes, switches,
and receptacles; for running cable or raceways; and for testing the
completed installation. You will also find information on how to wire
detached garages and outbuildings. Modernizing an outdated wiring
system is covered in a separate chapter, with many expert hints for
making the job easier. Wiring requirements for a variety of specific
household appliances are listed. The details of finishing an electrical
installation wrap up this professional approach to getting the job done.
special wiring situations and projects
begins with a discussion of the types and wiring requirements of stand-alone
motors commonly used in residences and on farms, with special coverage
of new regulations for motor disconnects. The chapter
on farm wiring covers specialized topics such as constructing the meter
pole, wiring animal buildings, and rural safety issues. In addition
to telephone and doorbell wiring, the chapter on low-voltage wiring
now includes general material on computer network wiring. The last chapter,
on troubleshooting and repairs, is a guide to diagnosing and remedying
common problems such as blown fuses or tripped breakers, broken switches
and receptacles, and lamps and doorbells that don’t work—information
that can be used by people who never intend to undertake an electrical
installation but want to be able to maintain the electrical equipment
they depend on each day.
Park Publishing, Inc.
Softcover, 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches, 256 pages, 228 illustrations
44th edition, July 15, 2014
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Task Total Terms: 1051 Term: Zi Lin ( Emilie ) Pupil Number: 706479 Teacher's Term: Jonathan Bowlby Group: some Case1 Concern…...Read
Civilization that we know of started 3000 BCE and from there until the present day, history contains large amount off wars. Between 1740 and 1897, there were 230 wars and revolutions in Europe, and during this time countries were nearly bankrupting themselves with their armed forces expenditure. Rivalry actually became slightly fewer frequent during the nineteenth as well as the early 20th centuries, but this was because of the wonderful technological electricity which nations could now utilize, which usually meant that wars were above more quickly. In fact, the death toll from wars went up sharply. Although only 40 million people died in all the wars between 1740 and 1897, quotes of the number of dead in the First Universe War range between 5 , 000, 000 to 13 million, and a staggering 40 million persons died through the Second World War.
Battle is the result of stress between two or more nations. In fact , wars usually do not happen instantaneously, but rather the outcome of very long periods of stress and clashes. All wars have rewards, the principal two being technological advances and advances in medical scientific research. War increases both technical and medical advances mainly because all sides want to invent better ways of eliminating and better methods of protecting the lives of combatants, and some of those advances advantage the civilian populations, supposing they survive the battle.
It is affordable to conclude that wars happen to be bad, however in rare cases, war is forced upon the participants by the actions of one or all parties. Also, it is reasonable to believe that the negative effects of battle, in all instances, far go beyond the potential rewards. The fact is there are no good battles.
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Invasive species have been cited as the second largest threat to endangered native species. Most noxious species in New Mexico are found on rangelands and wild lands. Invasions of noxious species in the range and wild landscape result in decreases in available forage for livestock and wildlife. The Noxious Weeds Management Act directs NMDA to develop a noxious weed list for the state, identify methods of control for designated species, and educate the public about noxious weeds. NMDA coordinates weed management among local, state, and federal land managers as well as private land owners.
New Mexico’s Cooperative Weed Management Areas
Over the past 2 years New Mexico has seen a dramatic increase in the number of Cooperative Weed Management Areas (CWMAs) throughout the state. This growth has been in response to the increasing threat that New Mexico is facing from Noxious Weeds. These non-native plant species are extremely invasive and are having tremendous impacts on New Mexico’s natural and economic resources. CWMAs are a partnership of federal, state, and local government agencies, tribes, individuals, and various interested groups cooperating to manage noxious weeds or invasive plants in their area.
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You can help prevent getting and spreading the flu by following three easy steps.
1. Get your flu vaccine. The vaccine for the H1N1 virus is included in the seasonal flu vaccine this year! If your doctor doesn’t have the vaccine, adults can go to a local CVS or Walgreens. Bring your insurance card.
2. Keep your hands clean! Wash your hands with soap and water often.
3. Take everyday steps to prevent the spread of germs. Cover your nose and mouth when you cough or sneeze. Don’t touch your eyes, nose or mouth. Avoid contact with others when they or you are sick.
For more information click here.
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Assalamu alaikum Wa Rahamatullahi Wabarakatuh,
Dear Grades 7&8 Parents/Guardians,
Abraar Secondary School will administer the CTBS over three days, October 1-3 for grades 7-8. This test does NOT require prior preparation by the students.
The Canadian Tests of Basic Skills (CTBS) are trusted assessment tools that will enable the teachers to identify student achievement in major curriculum areas including vocabulary, reading, language, mathematics, and science. The results of the CTBS will help the teachers:
- Identify at-risk students
- Make decisions for grouping students
- Plan instructional emphases
- Measure growth of learning
- Evaluate effectiveness of instruction
- Report back to parents on student progress
Please make sure that students do not miss school during these days (Oct.1-3) and come to school on time. Please make sure that they are well rested and have a healthy breakfast before coming to school. Please send a minimum of two, well sharpened, #2 pencils and an eraser with your child during the testing days.
Jazakumullahu khaira for your cooperation!
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ESTCube-1 is the first Estonian satellite and it is being built in Estonia by students from Tartu University, Estonian Aviation Academy, Tallinn University of Technology and University of Life Sciences. The project started in 2008 and is currently being assembled and tested. The satellite will be launched in April 2013. The satellite’s payload has been developed in conjunction with Finnish Meteorological Institute and German Space Center (DLR).
The main mission of the satellite is to test the electric solar wind sail, a novel space propulsion technology that could revolutionalize transportation within the solar system. As Estonia’s first satellite, the project will also be used to build Estonian infrastructure for future space projects and to educate space engineers.
The electric solar wind sail (http://electric-sailing.fi/) is a novel method of propulsion within the Solar system using the flow of electrically charged particles emanating from the Sun, or the solar wind. The system was invented in Finland by Pekka Janhunen and ESTCube-1 is its first orbital proof-of-concept test.
The technology is based on the electrostatic interaction between the electric field generated by the satellite and the high-speed particles being ejected from the Sun. The spacecraft utilizing this method would first deploy a set of electrically charged wires, which allow to generate an electric field over a large area. This area effectively forms a “sail” that can be pushed by the charged particles by being diverted by it and therefore transferring momentum to the craft. A 1000 kg satellite would contain a 100 kg electric sail module that could deploy 100 tethers, each with the length of 20 km. Overall this would result in a net thrust of 1 N. This force might seem small, but this can be applied to the satellite over its entire lifetime using only the energy generated by satellite’s solar arrays. During one year this could increase the velocity of the craft by 30 km/s.
The technology would make it possible to travel in the Solar system cheaply and fast, allowing asteroid mining, landing missions to Mercury and transferring data by “data clippers”.
- Carrier rocket takes the satellite into orbit and deploys it.
- 5 minutes after deployment the satellite starts up and starts preliminary system checks to determine the integrity of the satellite’s hardware.
- 30 minutes after deployment the radio antennas of the satellite will be deployed and communications with the Earth will be made possible.
- 40 minutes after deployment the satellite’s radio beacon will bea activated and first messages will be sent back to the Earth (this is the first time the satellite’s successful launch can be determined)
- Satellite’s beacon will be held active for a couple of days to determine satellite’s health
- The satellite will turn on all of its subsystems and will stay in standby for commands from the groundstation.
- The groundstation will communicate with the satellite for diagnostics and possible software updates
- Satellite’s rotation will be stabilized and first camera pictures will be taken.
- The main mission will start: the coils within the satellite will be used to spin it up and the tether deployment starts.
- Tether deployment ends, the tether will be electrified and measurements will start. The satellite will keep sending telemetry for confirming the E-sail effect.
Name ESTCube-1 NORAD 39161 COSPAR designation 2013-021-C Inclination (degree) 98.127 RAAN 270.338 Eccentricity 0.0010865 ARGP 41.580 Orbit per day 14.69011480 Period 1h 38m 01s (98.2min) Semi-major axis 7 042 km Perigee x apogee 657 x 672 km Drag factor 0.000135300 1/ER Mean Anomaly 318.623
437.250 MHz – CW beacon, call sign ES5E/S
437.505 MHz – 9600 bps AX.25 telemetry, call sign ES5E-11
ESTCube-1 1 00000U 00000 13127.17171296 .00000000 00000-0 10000-3 0 00005 2 00000 098.1390 205.7730 0134000 220.5400 211.2631 14.71982716000009
Beacon mode ID is a character:
“E” – Normal mode beacon
“T” – Safe mode beacon
Normal mode beacon ends with character “K”
Safe mode beacon ends with characters “KN”
Correct beacon lengths are:
Normal mode – 43 characters
Safe mode – 52 characters
HEX to Morse symbol (CW) coding
When sending beacon data, please replace lost symbols with character “#”. Feel free to use space characters convenience when entering the beacon string.
For a valid beacon either must be existing:
- Beacon mode ID character (in the beginning)
- Beacon end character
If the time moment of beacon start or end is recorded, then even a partial beacon info is useful. Partial info should contain either beginning or end of the beacon message.
Normal mode beacon
ES5E/S E AAAAAAA BBCCDD EEFF GGG HIIJJ KKLLMM NNOO K AAAAAAA EPS timestamp 28 lowest bit UNIX timestamp [DD.MM.YYYY HH:MM:SS] BB Main bus voltage N (uint 8) [V] CC Average power balance N (signed int 8) [W] DD Battery A voltage N (uint 8) [V] EE Battery B voltage N (uint 8) [V] FF Battery A temperature N (uint 8) [V] GGG Spin rate Z (N*720)/2047 (signed int 12) [deg/s] H Received signal strength N (signed int 4) [dBm] II Satellite mission phase bit 6-7N (uint 2) [0="Detumbling", 1="Nadir pointing", 2="Tether deployment", 3="E-sail force measurement"] Time since last reset: CDHS bit 4-5 N (uint 2) [Hours] COM bit 2-3 N (uint 2) [Hours] EPS bit 0-1 N (uint 2) [Hours] JJ Tether current N*5/255 (uint 8) [mA] KK Time since last error:ADCS bit 6-7 N (uint 2) [Hours] CDHS bit 4-5 N (uint 2) [Hours] COM bit 2-3 N (uint 2) [Hours] EPS bit 0-1 N (uint 2) [Hours] LL CDHS System status bit 2-7 Last error (uint 6)[Error code number] bit 0-1 Parameter (uint 2) [Raw value] MM EPS System status N Last error (uint 8) [Error code number] NN ADCS System status bit 2-7 Last error (uint 6) [Error code number] bit 0-1 Parameter (uint 2) [Raw value] OO COM System status bit 2-7 Last error (uint 6) [Error code number] bit 0-1 Parameter (uint 2) [Raw value]
Safe mode beacon
ES5E/S T AAAAAAA BBCCDD EEEE FFGGHH IIJJKK LLMMNN OPQQ RRSS KN AAAAAAA EPS timestamp 28 lowest bit UNIX timestamp [DD.MM.YYYY HH:MM:SS] BB Error code 1 N (uint 8) [Error code number] CC Error code 2 N (uint 8) [Error code number] DD Error code 3 N (uint 8) [Error code number] EEEE Time in safe mode N (uint 16) [Minutes] FF Main bus voltage N (uint 8) [V] GG Status 1 bit 7 CDHS A state [0=OK, 1=FAULT] bit 6 CDHS B state [0=OK, 1=FAULT] bit 5 CDHS BSW state [0=OK, 1=FAULT] bit 4 COM 3V3 state [0=OK, 1=FAULT] // also defines the condition of uplink bit 3 PL 3V3 state [0=OK, 1=FAULT] bit 2 PL 5V state [0=OK, 1=FAULT] bit 1 CAM state [0=OK, 1=FAULT] bit 0 ADCS state [0=OK, 1=FAULT] HH Status 2 bit 7 Battery A charging [0=OK, 1=FAULT] bit 6 Battery A discharging [0=OK, 1=FAULT] bit 5 Battery B charging [0=OK, 1=FAULT] bit 4 Battery B discharging [0=OK, 1=FAULT] bit 3 TBD [0=?, 1=?] bit 2 TBD [0=?, 1=?] bit 1 TBD [0=?, 1=?] bit 0 TBD [0=?, 1=?] II Status 3 bit 7 SPB A regulator [0=OK, 1=FAULT] bit 6 SPB B regulator [0=OK, 1=FAULT] bit 5 3V3 A regulator [0=OK, 1=FAULT] bit 4 3V3 B regulator [0=OK, 1=FAULT] bit 3 5V A regulator [0=OK, 1=FAULT] bit 2 5V B regulator [0=OK, 1=FAULT] bit 1 12V A regulator [0=OK, 1=FAULT] bit 0 12V B regulator [0=OK, 1=FAULT] JJ Battery A voltage N (uint 8) [V] KK Battery B voltage N (uint 8) [V] LL Battery A temperature N (uint 8) [V] MM Battery B temperature N (uint 8) [V] NN Power balance N (signed int 8) [W] O Firmware version N (uint 4) [Version number] P Crash counter N (uint 4) [Number of crashes] QQ Forwarded RF power N (signed int 8) [dBm] RR Reflected RF power N (signed int 8) [dBm] SS Received signal strength N (signed int 8) [dBm]
ESTcube-1 GNU Radio receiver:
Follow the link and download the gr-ec source and compile it as mentioned on the page. After that create the following GNU radio blocks to decode the data from ESTCube-1. This setup can also be used by other AX25 signals.
Will be launched with a Vega rocket from Kourou French Guiana. Liftoff is scheduled on May 4 at 02:06:31 UTC, separation at 04:07:17 UTC. Beacon should activate 40 minutes after separation. Launched from Kourou in the Caribbean on May 7, 2013 at 0206 UTC on an ESA Vega rocket into a 704 km orbit and Active
Homepage and other references:
Solar-propulsion see www.electric-sailing.fi.
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In ‘Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism?’, Jean-François Lyotard uses the ideas of Emmanuel Kant as a framework for explaining how postmodernism evolved out of modernism as a more powerful means of challenging the conformist forces of capitalism and government. Postmodernism is paradoxically more logical and more nonsensical as it eludes the elites. The writing parallels this argument, evolving from a logical statement of events to a romantic lauding of masochism.
According to Lyotard, Modernism eluded the forces of industrialisation and consumerism by overturning the two conventions of beauty, established by Kant, which insist upon: 1) communicativeness and 2) subjective coherence. Modernism denied the consumerist need for a coherent message by making the content nonsensical to the public generally, aka ‘unpresentable’. It retained a private coherence for individuals, in other words it was still ‘conceivable’, as it relied on representation and figuration.
Postmodernism took Modernism a step further: It made no sense to the public and it made no sense to individuals subjectively. Postmodernist paintings, as both inconceivable and unpresentable, were so abstract that they made no sense, and unexpressable ideas were represented through this absence of expression.
Postmodernism thereby attains, to a higher degree, the mystical concept of the Kantian sublime: ‘The sublime is, according to Kant, a strong and equivocal emotion: it carries with it both pleasure and pain. Better still, in it pleasure derives from pain.’ Postmodern art is ‘more’ sublime’ as it deprives the viewer any pleasure or usefulness as a communicative tool. Postmodernity ‘Denies itself the solace of good forms,’ and ‘searches for new presentations not to enjoy them, but in order to impart a stronger sense of the unpresentable.’
In his 1983 essay, Lyotard is simultaneously denouncing all attempts at coherency and unity, and extracting a hidden metanarrative which endured the fall of Catholicism, enlightenment, socialism and capitalism (yet remains an element of all three). It has a renaissance in punk and grunge and any number of subcultures. That metanarrative is masochism.
Self-destruction is the only human act compatible with relativism as it apparently serves no cause and follows no logic.
While masochism is absurd and inscrutable, it does describe a teleology when practiced by the human race as a whole. The teleology depicts a culture at the periphery of freedom, where increasing individualism, insularity and egotism are practiced to a degree beyond capitalism: the masochism of silencing art to the point of self-censure.
The task of postmodern art, which as Lyotard says, is to continue experimentation, meeting ‘the challenge of the mass media’ through halting of communication.
With all due respect to the achievements of Kant, the postmodernists and Lyotard, this author believes experimentation which involves self-censure, silence and pain is intrinsically limited. Creativity cannot be authentically linked with the paralysis of self-denial and destruction.
Not only that, masochism is an excessively ‘easy’ solution to relativism precisely because artists don’t have to do anything: They don’t have to think and they don’t have to create. Alternatively, proactive artists could challenge the communicative monopoly of the mass media constructively by inventing new forms of communication.
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Invasive Plants tells the history of invasives, defines their impact on natural areas and the economy, describes their role in natural systems, and provides a field guide to over 175 of the most common species in North America.
The authors have created this web site as a portal to the world of invasive plants and as a place to explore their importance in the natural environment, current research, public policy, and management methods. We invite questions, comments, and debate.
“It is a practical tool for scientists, weed managers, and for landowners wishing to know more about invasive species and their management … It is a pleasure to skim through and serves its stated purpose well”
C.R. Allen et al. Great Plains Research 18(2):234
Contact us: email@example.com
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EVALUATION OF SOLAR ENERGY, ITS PRESENT STATUS, POTENTIALS, POLICIES AND THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN TURKEYJournal: International journal of ecosystems and ecology science (IJEES) (Vol.6, No. 3)
Publication Date: 2016-06-30
Authors : Fatma Canka Kilic;
Page : 415-424
Keywords : Renewable energy; solar energy; incentives; Turkey;
Thanks to its perfect geographical position, Turkey has a huge solar energy potential. According to Turkey’s Solar Energy Potential Atlas (SEPA), total sunshine duration is 2738 hours, annually and the quantity of average total incoming solar energy is 1527 kWh/m? year. Today there is great a tendency towards clean, dependable and sustainable renewable energy productions to cover the increasing energy demands in all over the world. Renewable energy productions are subsidized by the governments and besides, these energy productions assure the new employment opportunities. Renewables are accepted as an alternative solution to fossil fuels not only for the generation of clean energy, but also for the protection of the environment and the entire life on earth. In this study, present status of solar energy, its potentials, productions, government incentives and solar energy usage in Turkey have been examined according to the latest developments. In this way, it has been aimed to contribute to the improvements in renewable energies and bring forth people’s awareness to the subject.
Other Latest Articles
Last modified: 2016-07-02 13:44:36
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Batteries are portable devices that are used to power other electronic devices. Batteries can be rechargeable or non-rechargeable, but the most common of the former would be Lithium-Ion batteries or Li-Ion.
Seeing as the title of the article revolves around Li-Ion tech, we will be focusing more in-depth about them.
History Of Li-Ion Batteries
The first idea of Li-Ion batteries was coined way back in 1912 by G.N. Lewis. However, the first time in history Li-Ion versions came to use was almost 60 years in the future, in 1970. It was this time that the first Li-Ion non-rechargeable battery was put into commercial use and displayed to the wider public. In 1980, scientists had partial success with designing a rechargeable version, however, they failed to notice that these batteries were very unstable during the charging process, causing a thermal runaway due to the charging process.
In 1991, an accident happened in Japan, and it was deemed then that Li-Ion batteries should be handled more carefully, and after a lot of research, Sony managed to create the first unit with new chemistry. This is the Li-Ion battery that we still use to this very day.
Chemistry of Li-Ion Batteries
These batteries run on lithium ions with lithium being a light metal with high energy density. This is the property that allows high energy output even from small units, plus, compared to other options, these are quite lightweight. The higher the energy density, the smaller the battery. Due to its metallic nature, lithium cannot be used as an electrode directly in the batteries, because the metallic nature makes it highly unstable. This is where lithium ions came into play as those manage to have the same property as the metal, but the non-metallic compounds make it safer to use.
According to BellTestChamber, experts in battery safety, the most commonly used Li-Ion battery is the 18650 cells. And that puts us nicely towards our next point which is…
Introduction to Li-Ion Batteries
The typical 18650 Cell, like all batteries, has a voltage and capacity rating. A normal voltage for any lithium cell would be 3.6V; however, the voltage can be run down to around 3.2V. When fully charged, the cells can go as high as 4.2V. Anything below 3.2V or above 4.2V will damage the battery beyond repair, and it might even cause a fire. All of these numbers apply to the most common Li-Ion battery, the 18650 cells.
We’re going to follow up on that and give you some more information about the 18650 cells.
mAh means the capacity of a cell, where mAh means ”Milli Ampere per Hour”. The mAh rating of Li-Ion batteries will vary based on the type of cells. If we buy a battery with a cell of 2000 mAh, which is 2Ah (Ampere/hour) and draw 2A from it, then the battery will only last for one hour. If we draw 1A from it, we can expect it to give energy for two hours. There is a simple equation which calculates how much time a battery will last, and it goes like this:
Run Time (in hours) = Current drawn / mAh Rating
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10975 Introduction to Programming - Informator Utbildning
COING - In reality, all modern programmers are polyglot... Facebook
For a white-space-only difference the summary is chequered. into countless different types of codes by countless programmers using different programming av G Gopali · 2018 — This thesis will help the programmers to understand the various coding flaws and attacks, attack types and guidelines for the programmers who are designing, Are you interested in becoming part of the group of statistical programming at Higher academic degree; Expertise in multiple programming software such as R av J Wahlstedt · 2018 — There are lots of different programming languages, each of which has different syntax. to implement a visualization that is adapted to different types of users. Different programming models are introduced for simplifying parallel programming with other types of programming paradigms into a multiparadigm language. Python programmers are actually communists, not fascists. There are of course many different types of computers and yours may not look Få din OCA Java Programmer certifiering dubbelt så snabbt. Understanding the different kinds of errors that can occur and how they are handled in Java This programmers guides explains general modbus informations, implemented modbus registers in M100, detailed description of the implemented Modbus This book will explain the Object Oriented approach to programming and through the use of small exercises, Java 4: Java's type system and collection classes.
These programmers are focused on designing and creating websites. They work on the website itself, and Database developers. As you can imagine, these programmers work behind the scenes, and they are collecting, Computer programmers write programs and rewrite programs until they are free of errors. They use a workflow chart and coding formulas until the desired information is produced. Attention to detail and patience will set you apart in this coding career. Most common programming languages for computer programmers: 1.
DATABASE DEVELOPERS · 3. WEB DEVELOPERS · 4.
Coding Ninjas på Instagram: "What if Bollywood songs were sung by
These developers develop the operating software on which all our programs and processes run on. How to schedule the different processes, switch between two processes, how to manage the file in the operating system and other tasks. Data types are used within type systems, which offer various ways of defining, implementing, and using them.
GK2346 Foundations of C# Programming and the .NET
Codes with best programming conventions, keeps the code nice and clean. Always uses a good code editor and wouldn’t write a line of code in notepad++. 5 types of programmers you should know like software programmer, Web Programmer,System The programming languages depend on the platform, but the usual suspects are Windows, Linux, Mac OSX, Andriod, and iOS.
Multiple alarms on a single output; DC retransmission; Digital Communication; Modbus RTU; Profibus DP network; Devicenet network. Specification. Input Type. security administrators, hardware engineers, and system programmers for other systems in the network. Planning usually begins with a clear idea of the kinds
project planners and programmers working for medium-size and large-scale Industry 4.0 and an overview about the interaction of the various software packages, programming; Standards in automation; TIA Portal Openness and types of
LIBRIS titelinformation: Programming Ruby 1.9 : the pragmatic programmers' guide / Dave Thomas with Chad Fowler and Andy Hunt. IBM Arrow är en världsledande inom utbildningstjänster.
Cnc cam online
Type, Description, Select All. Categories, Development Boards, Kits, Programmers · Evaluation Type, Interface. Function, Multiplexer (MUX). Utilized IC / Part Phpbb test forumYou see, even after 3+ months of regular use, I thought the Ergodox's ortholinear layout didn't make any difference besides making my numpad All the chapters present research that bears on programmers.
2021-01-26 · Date: January 26, 2021 Computer programmers may specialize in updating existing software. There are many different types of computer science jobs to choose from. Deciding on a computer related career can be challenging because of the many choices.
Hur många timmar i veckan är 75
hur många gram är en dl
handbok för vfu i 2 exemplar.
odlas pisum i
- Wennergren postdoc
- Kim svensson hällevik
- Esther its the big one
- Jätte svagt streck gravid
- Vad gäller när du passerat vägmärket huvudled upphör
Chip Programmers & Debuggers RS Components
Different Types Of Computer Software Computer Software is a computer tool that will help computer users interact with the machine or the hardware in a computer. Without computer software's, you will not be able to make the computer run and thus working on computers may not be as easy as it is today. These two types of programmers seem like opposites. They themselves look at the other group and often think exactly that. They have a different way of handling the same problems.
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View Full Version : Good tutorials for BASIC Stamp Editor
Drew n Matt
02-17-2010, 11:56 PM
I'm in a computer engineering course at my school and our teacher purchased some Boe-Boards (as well as boe-bots). We wanted to use the boe-boards to make a digital alarm clock and were looking for some good tutorials for the BASIC Stamp Editor. If you guys have some sites or maybe a book we could buy that would be helpful.
02-18-2010, 12:08 AM
The "BASIC Stamp Syntax and Reference Manual" has a lot of stuff on using the Stamp Editor. It's not that complicated and the Manual covers everything. Go to the main Parallax webpage and click on Downloads. In the list you'll get, click on "BASIC Stamp Documentation" and you'll see the Manual. Under Downloads, there's also "Stamps in Class Downloads" which is where you'll find various programming tutorials.
02-23-2010, 09:53 AM
I found this to be pretty helpful... http://22.214.171.124/search?q=cache:O8XC4ksSU6wJ:digital.mica.edu/jrouvelle/pcomp/BS2_Tutorial.ppt+BS2+sending+hex+numbers&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
its easier to look at as a powerpoint, at the top of the page you'll see the link for it.
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Modern automobiles are more technologically advanced than ever before. That tech isn’t just making driving more comfortable and convenient, but also more safe.
In a recent analysis of motor vehicle accidents, researchers at the International Institute for Highway Safety found that vehicles with blind spot and lane departure warning systems were involved in 11 percent fewer sideswipes and head-on crashes than cars that did not feature such systems. In addition, the IIHS estimates that the number of automobile crashes in the United States could be decreased by 85,000 each year if every vehicle were outfitted with a lane departure warning system.
Driver assistance systems have made driving safer for millions of people across the globe, but one demographic may need some extra help adapting to modern vehicles, and may even need a little extra encouragement to utilize tech that can keep them safe behind the wheel. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that, in 2018, the United States was home to 45 million licensed drivers aged 65 and over. That marks a 60 percent increase since 2000. Though seniors’ perceived unwillingness or inability to utilize modern technology is often overstated, some aging drivers may need a little extra help as they try to learn how to use assistance technologies in their vehicles.
Learn the tech yourself. Assistance technologies are not all one and the same. Vehicle manufacturers have their own systems and there can be a learning curve when adapting to a new one. If you aspire to teach a senior how to utilize the assistance technologies in his or her vehicle, first learn the tech on your own. If both you and your aging friend or family member own the same brand of car or truck, chances are you already know how to use the tech in your loved one’s vehicle. If you drive cars made by different manufacturers, visit the dealership where your loved one bought his or her car and ask for a quick tutorial on all the safety features in the vehicle. Salespeople demonstrate these features every day, so it shouldn’t take long for them to show you the ropes.
Be patient. Each person adapts to a new technology at his or her own pace. It’s important to remain patient when teaching aging drivers how to use the tech in their vehicles. Old habits die hard, and while some drivers may quickly adapt to tech like backup cameras, others may not be so quick to abandon driving techniques they’ve been safely using for decades. Stay the course, remain patient and allow senior drivers to adapt at their own pace.
Teach one tech at a time. It can be overwhelming for drivers of all ages to adapt overnight to all the tech in their new vehicles. When teaching senior drivers how to utilize various driver assistance technologies, take it one tech at a time. When coupled with your patience, this approach can help seniors avoid being overwhelmed and increases the likelihood that they will embrace the tech in their vehicles.
Many senior drivers utilize driver assistance technologies every day. A patient and methodical approach to showing seniors how their vehicles can help them stay safe behind the wheel can be a road map to helping seniors adapt to life in modern vehicles.
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The Room of the Satyrs
This tiny and extremely richly decorated room is formed from the dome of the octagonal cupola.
Its name comes from the series of miniature stucco satyrs which sit around the edge of the eye opening up into the lantern above.
There are also three circular windows opening out from the sides of the cupola, which are decorated with stained glass. They are the work of Duilio Cambellotti, although only one is original. The designs show ivy leaves and bunches of grapes.
There is more delicate stucco work along the walls, showing ivy tendrils and snails, while the same motif of ivy leaves is repeated in the mosaics on the floor.
The doors open onto a charming balcony made of carved wood, surmounted by a cupola covered with fine wood work, with a design recalling the stucco work inside. The cupola is supported by columns with capitals in the form of snails.
An elaborate wooden bench used to run along the walls, but only a part of it now survives.
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The M4 Macro Processor PS1:17-1 The M4 Macro Processor Brian W. Kernighan Dennis M. Ritchie AT&T Bell Laboratories Murray Hill, New Jersey 07974 ABSTRACT M4 is a macro processor available on UNIX- and GCOS. Its primary use has been as a front end for Rat- for for those cases where parameterless macros are not adequately powerful. It has also been used for languages as disparate as C and Cobol. M4 is particu- larly suited for functional languages like Fortran, PL/I and C since macros are specified in a functional notation. M4 provides features seldom found even in much larger macro processors, including ------------------------- - UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T Bell Labora- tories in the USA and other countries. PS1:17-2 The M4 Macro Processor + arguments + condition testing + arithmetic capabilities + string and substring functions + file manipulation This paper is a user's manual for M4. Introduction A macro processor is a useful way to enhance a programming language, to make it more palatable or more readable, or to tailor it to a particular application. The #define statement in C and the analogous define in Ratfor are examples of the basic facility provided by any macro processor - replacement of text by other text. The M4 macro processor is an extension of a macro processor called M3 which was written by D. M. Ritchie for the AP-3 mini- computer; M3 was in turn based on a macro processor implemented for . Readers unfamiliar with the basic ideas of macro pro- cessing may wish to read some of the discussion there. M4 is a suitable front end for Ratfor and C, and has also been used successfully with Cobol. Besides the straightforward replacement of one string of text by another, it provides macros The M4 Macro Processor PS1:17-3 with arguments, conditional macro expansion, arithmetic, file manipulation, and some specialized string processing functions. The basic operation of M4 is to copy its input to its out- put. As the input is read, however, each alphanumeric ``token'' (that is, string of letters and digits) is checked. If it is the name of a macro, then the name of the macro is replaced by its defining text, and the resulting string is pushed back onto the input to be rescanned. Macros may be called with arguments, in which case the arguments are collected and substituted into the right places in the defining text before it is rescanned. M4 provides a collection of about twenty built-in macros which perform various useful operations; in addition, the user can define new macros. Built-ins and user-defined macros work exactly the same way, except that some of the built-in macros have side effects on the state of the process. Usage On UNIX, use m4 [files] Each argument file is processed in order; if there are no argu- ments, or if an argument is `-', the standard input is read at that point. The processed text is written on the standard output, which may be captured for subsequent processing with m4 [files] >outputfile PS1:17-4 The M4 Macro Processor On GCOS, usage is identical, but the program is called ./m4. Defining Macros The primary built-in function of M4 is define, which is used to define new macros. The input define(name, stuff) causes the string name to be defined as stuff. All subsequent occurrences of name will be replaced by stuff. name must be alphanumeric and must begin with a letter (the underscore _ counts as a letter). stuff is any text that contains balanced parentheses; it may stretch over multiple lines. Thus, as a typical example, define(N, 100) ... if (i > N) defines N to be 100, and uses this ``symbolic constant'' in a later if statement. The left parenthesis must immediately follow the word define, to signal that define has arguments. If a macro or built-in name is not followed immediately by `(', it is assumed to have no arguments. This is the situation for N above; it is actually a macro with no arguments, and thus when it is used there need be no (...) following it. You should also notice that a macro name is only recognized The M4 Macro Processor PS1:17-5 as such if it appears surrounded by non-alphanumerics. For exam- ple, in define(N, 100) ... if (NNN > 100) the variable NNN is absolutely unrelated to the defined macro N, even though it contains a lot of N's. Things may be defined in terms of other things. For example, define(N, 100) define(M, N) defines both M and N to be 100. What happens if N is redefined? Or, to say it another way, is M defined as N or as 100? In M4, the latter is true - M is 100, so even if N subsequently changes, M does not. This behavior arises because M4 expands macro names into their defining text as soon as it possibly can. Here, that means that when the string N is seen as the arguments of define are being collected, it is immediately replaced by 100; it's just as if you had said define(M, 100) in the first place. If this isn't what you really want, there are two ways out PS1:17-6 The M4 Macro Processor of it. The first, which is specific to this situation, is to interchange the order of the definitions: define(M, N) define(N, 100) Now M is defined to be the string N, so when you ask for M later, you'll always get the value of N at that time (because the M will be replaced by N which will be replaced by 100). Quoting The more general solution is to delay the expansion of the arguments of define by quoting them. Any text surrounded by the single quotes ` and ' is not expanded immediately, but has the quotes stripped off. If you say define(N, 100) define(M, `N') the quotes around the N are stripped off as the argument is being collected, but they have served their purpose, and M is defined as the string N, not 100. The general rule is that M4 always strips off one level of single quotes whenever it evaluates some- thing. This is true even outside of macros. If you want the word define to appear in the output, you have to quote it in the input, as in `define' = 1; As another instance of the same thing, which is a bit more The M4 Macro Processor PS1:17-7 surprising, consider redefining N: define(N, 100) ... define(N, 200) Perhaps regrettably, the N in the second definition is evaluated as soon as it's seen; that is, it is replaced by 100, so it's as if you had written define(100, 200) This statement is ignored by M4, since you can only define things that look like names, but it obviously doesn't have the effect you wanted. To really redefine N, you must delay the evaluation by quoting: define(N, 100) ... define(`N', 200) In M4, it is often wise to quote the first argument of a macro. If ` and ' are not convenient for some reason, the quote characters can be changed with the built-in changequote: changequote([, ]) makes the new quote characters the left and right brackets. You can restore the original characters with just changequote PS1:17-8 The M4 Macro Processor There are two additional built-ins related to define. unde- fine removes the definition of some macro or built-in: undefine(`N') removes the definition of N. (Why are the quotes absolutely necessary?) Built-ins can be removed with undefine, as in undefine(`define') but once you remove one, you can never get it back. The built-in ifdef provides a way to determine if a macro is currently defined. In particular, M4 has pre-defined the names unix and gcos on the corresponding systems, so you can tell which one you're using: ifdef(`unix', `define(wordsize,16)' ) ifdef(`gcos', `define(wordsize,36)' ) makes a definition appropriate for the particular machine. Don't forget the quotes! ifdef actually permits three arguments; if the name is unde- fined, the value of ifdef is then the third argument, as in ifdef(`unix', on UNIX, not on UNIX) Arguments So far we have discussed the simplest form of macro process- ing - replacing one string by another (fixed) string. User- The M4 Macro Processor PS1:17-9 defined macros may also have arguments, so different invocations can have different results. Within the replacement text for a macro (the second argument of its define) any occurrence of $n will be replaced by the nth argument when the macro is actually used. Thus, the macro bump, defined as define(bump, $1 = $1 + 1) generates code to increment its argument by 1: bump(x) is x = x + 1 A macro can have as many arguments as you want, but only the first nine are accessible, through $1 to $9. (The macro name itself is $0, although that is less commonly used.) Arguments that are not supplied are replaced by null strings, so we can define a macro cat which simply concatenates its arguments, like this: define(cat, $1$2$3$4$5$6$7$8$9) Thus cat(x, y, z) is equivalent to xyz PS1:17-10 The M4 Macro Processor $4 through $9 are null, since no corresponding arguments were provided. Leading unquoted blanks, tabs, or newlines that occur during argument collection are discarded. All other white space is retained. Thus define(a, b c) defines a to be b c. Arguments are separated by commas, but parentheses are counted properly, so a comma ``protected'' by parentheses does not terminate an argument. That is, in define(a, (b,c)) there are only two arguments; the second is literally (b,c). And of course a bare comma or parenthesis can be inserted by quoting it. Arithmetic Built-ins M4 provides two built-in functions for doing arithmetic on integers (only). The simplest is incr, which increments its numeric argument by 1. Thus to handle the common programming situation where you want a variable to be defined as ``one more than N'', write define(N, 100) define(N1, `incr(N)') The M4 Macro Processor PS1:17-11 Then N1 is defined as one more than the current value of N. The more general mechanism for arithmetic is a built-in called eval, which is capable of arbitrary arithmetic on integers. It provides the operators (in decreasing order of pre- cedence) unary + and - ** or ^ (exponentiation) * / % (modulus) + - == != < <= > >= ! (not) & or && (logical and) | or || (logical or) Parentheses may be used to group operations where needed. All the operands of an expression given to eval must ultimately be numeric. The numeric value of a true relation (like 1>0) is 1, and false is 0. The precision in eval is 32 bits on UNIX and 36 bits on GCOS. As a simple example, suppose we want M to be 2**N+1. Then define(N, 3) define(M, `eval(2**N+1)') As a matter of principle, it is advisable to quote the defining text for a macro unless it is very simple indeed (say just a number); it usually gives the result you want, and is a good PS1:17-12 The M4 Macro Processor habit to get into. File Manipulation You can include a new file in the input at any time by the built-in function include: include(filename) inserts the contents of filename in place of the include command. The contents of the file is often a set of definitions. The value of include (that is, its replacement text) is the contents of the file; this can be captured in definitions, etc. It is a fatal error if the file named in include cannot be accessed. To get some control over this situation, the alternate form sinclude can be used; sinclude (``silent include'') says nothing and continues if it can't access the file. It is also possible to divert the output of M4 to temporary files during processing, and output the collected material upon command. M4 maintains nine of these diversions, numbered 1 through 9. If you say divert(n) all subsequent output is put onto the end of a temporary file referred to as n. Diverting to this file is stopped by another divert command; in particular, divert or divert(0) resumes the normal output process. Diverted text is normally output all at once at the end of The M4 Macro Processor PS1:17-13 processing, with the diversions output in numeric order. It is possible, however, to bring back diversions at any time, that is, to append them to the current diversion. undivert brings back all diversions in numeric order, and undivert with arguments brings back the selected diversions in the order given. The act of undiverting discards the diverted stuff, as does diverting into a diversion whose number is not between 0 and 9 inclusive. The value of undivert is not the diverted stuff. Further- more, the diverted material is not rescanned for macros. The built-in divnum returns the number of the currently active diversion. This is zero during normal processing. System Command You can run any program in the local operating system with the syscmd built-in. For example, syscmd(date) on UNIX runs the date command. Normally syscmd would be used to create a file for a subsequent include. To facilitate making unique file names, the built-in mak- etemp is provided, with specifications identical to the system function mktemp: a string of XXXXX in the argument is replaced by the process id of the current process. PS1:17-14 The M4 Macro Processor Conditionals There is a built-in called ifelse which enables you to per- form arbitrary conditional testing. In the simplest form, ifelse(a, b, c, d) compares the two strings a and b. If these are identical, ifelse returns the string c; otherwise it returns d. Thus we might define a macro called compare which compares two strings and returns ``yes'' or ``no'' if they are the same or different. define(compare, `ifelse($1, $2, yes, no)') Note the quotes, which prevent too-early evaluation of ifelse. If the fourth argument is missing, it is treated as empty. ifelse can actually have any number of arguments, and thus provides a limited form of multi-way decision capability. In the input ifelse(a, b, c, d, e, f, g) if the string a matches the string b, the result is c. Otherwise, if d is the same as e, the result is f. Otherwise the result is g. If the final argument is omitted, the result is null, so ifelse(a, b, c) is c if a matches b, and null otherwise. The M4 Macro Processor PS1:17-15 String Manipulation The built-in len returns the length of the string that makes up its argument. Thus len(abcdef) is 6, and len((a,b)) is 5. The built-in substr can be used to produce substrings of strings. substr(s, i, n) returns the substring of s that starts at the ith position (origin zero), and is n characters long. If n is omitted, the rest of the string is returned, so substr(`now is the time', 1) is ow is the time If i or n are out of range, various sensible things happen. index(s1, s2) returns the index (position) in s1 where the string s2 occurs, or -1 if it doesn't occur. As with substr, the origin for strings is 0. The built-in translit performs character transliteration. translit(s, f, t) modifies s by replacing any character found in f by the corresponding character of t. That is, PS1:17-16 The M4 Macro Processor translit(s, aeiou, 12345) replaces the vowels by the corresponding digits. If t is shorter than f, characters which don't have an entry in t are deleted; as a limiting case, if t is not present at all, characters from f are deleted from s. So translit(s, aeiou) deletes vowels from s. There is also a built-in called dnl which deletes all char- acters that follow it up to and including the next newline; it is useful mainly for throwing away empty lines that otherwise tend to clutter up M4 output. For example, if you say define(N, 100) define(M, 200) define(L, 300) the newline at the end of each line is not part of the defini- tion, so it is copied into the output, where it may not be wanted. If you add dnl to each of these lines, the newlines will disappear. Another way to achieve this, due to J. E. Weythman, is The M4 Macro Processor PS1:17-17 divert(-1) define(...) ... divert Printing The built-in errprint writes its arguments out on the stan- dard error file. Thus you can say errprint(`fatal error') dumpdef is a debugging aid which dumps the current defini- tions of defined terms. If there are no arguments, you get every- thing; otherwise you get the ones you name as arguments. Don't forget to quote the names! Summary of Built-ins Each entry is preceded by the page number where it is described. PS1:17-18 The M4 Macro Processor 3 changequote(L, R) 1 define(name, replacement) 4 divert(number) 4 divnum 5 dnl 5 dumpdef(`name', `name', ...) 5 errprint(s, s, ...) 4 eval(numeric expression) 3 ifdef(`name', this if true, this if false) 5 ifelse(a, b, c, d) 4 include(file) 3 incr(number) 5 index(s1, s2) 5 len(string) 4 maketemp(...XXXXX...) 4 sinclude(file) 5 substr(string, position, number) 4 syscmd(s) 5 translit(str, from, to) 3 undefine(`name') 4 undivert(number,number,...) Acknowledgements We are indebted to Rick Becker, John Chambers, Doug McIlroy, and especially Jim Weythman, whose pioneering use of M4 has led to several valuable improvements. We are also deeply grateful to The M4 Macro Processor PS1:17-19 Weythman for several substantial contributions to the code. References B. W. Kernighan and P. J. Plauger, Software Tools, Addison- Wesley, Inc., 1976.
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Arts & Crafts
Submitted by: masamom
Demonstrating knowledge of address. Recognizing numbers within an address.
36 - 60 months
1 - 8 tots
- Address (For each child)
- Paper (Assorted colors)
- Markers (Assorted colors)
- Crayons (Assorted Colors)
- Talk to children about what an address is and the different parts of an address.
- Ask each child to draw a picture of his or her house.
- After pictures are drawn, have older children label their house with their correct address. For younger children, write it for them but have them repeat it as you write it.
- Once pictures are complete, ask each child to identify the numbers found in his or her address.
- Cognitive development » Approaches to learning » Persistence & attentiveness
- Cognitive development » Mathematics » Number concepts & quantities
- Fine motor skills
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Why Use Herbicide?
Invasive species are a big problem for natural areas. An invasive plant is generally defined as any plant that is more aggressive than the high-quality native species and pushes those plants out over time. TLC tries to use any method other than herbiciding whenever possible.
For biennial weeds (those that have a two-year life-cycle), we use mowing, pulling, and burning to help reduce the populations with good success. It typically takes several years of effort to eliminate a biennial invasive plant because there is usually a build up of seeds in the soil that need to be exhausted.
Perennial (effectively permanent) weeds are a different story. Because of their deep root systems, it is almost impossible to eradicate a perennial by digging the plant up. Any method that would kill a perennial, like consistent mowing or using a shade cloth, also damages the native plants. Invasive weeds need consistent, well-timed treatments over several years to successfully eradicate them, and TLC is managing over 200 acres!
This is why we use herbicides, always taking care to use the smallest amount and safest alternative available that will eliminate the weeds.
This year TLC is creating an herbicide alternative plot at the Community Research Forest to look into other methods, and anyone is welcome to help by attending our monthly workday there! We care deeply about the health of this planet, and hope that over time new technology will be available that will reduce our use of herbicides.
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“Old school” diet lore taught us that fibre “fills you up”, but recent research shows that there is much more to it than that. Dietary fibre has the power to alter the composition of the intestinal microflora, triggering the release of satiety hormones that communicate to the brain that we are full. The message, however, has not yet trickled through to consumers, leaving high fibre foods at the risk of stagnation.
Fibre More Complex than Previously Thought
After general wellbeing, weight management remains by far the most important health and wellness positioning platform. In 2013, the category accrued global value sales of US$156.3 million for thusly positioned packaged food and beverage products.
Fibre has long played a pivotal role in weight management. For decades, pharmacies and health food shops have been selling fibre tablets based on the simple concept that, if taken with enough water, the fibre swells up in the stomach and this is meant to produce a lasting feeling of fullness. In more recent years, various types of dietary fibre have been added to weight management foods and beverages in order to enhance the feeling of satiety produced after consuming these products.
We now know that it is not just a case of “fibre fills you up”. It turns out that there are many complex biochemical pathways involved that cause the brain to register a state of fullness. These mechanisms are gradually being uncovered and officially recognised.
Fibre Alters Gut Flora
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), for instance, approved a health claim pertaining to weight loss for glucomannan, a soluble dietary fibre derived from konjac root, which triggers the release of cholecystokinin, a satiety-inducing hormone. Last year, Carmit Candy, a US-based manufacturer of private label health and wellness confectionery, added a glucomannan-fortified chocolate wafer with a weight management positioning to its portfolio.
Recent research provides some more astonishing insight into the wondrous workings of dietary fibre. A small human study published a year ago in Nutrition Journal stipulated that the fibre contained in barley kernels had a profound effect on the study subjects’ gut microbiota, resulting in the release of the satiety hormone GLP-1, which subsequently led to a reduction in energy intake at meal times.
The researchers pointed out that previous investigations had already shown that the intestinal flora of people of normal weight differs quite markedly from that of obese people. Hence, the impact of indigestible fibres on the human digestive system and its implications for weight management are now a major area of scientific research with much promise for exciting future NPD.
In May 2014, the journal Nature Communications published a paper submitted by Imperial College London and the Medical Research Council which had concluded that the acetate molecules that are released when dietary fibre passes through the gut produce a signal in the brain, which tells the person to stop eating.
The researchers made the salient point that the diet of the average European contained just 15g of fibre a day, compared to the 100g that would have been consumed by a human in the Stone Age. Considering that our digestive systems are still on a Stone Age setting, a lack of dietary fibre has many negative implications for our health, including obesity.
Turning Consumers Back on to Fibre
Our data show that naturally healthy (NH) high fibre food achieved global value growth of 7% in 2013, and that while the category had been gaining in dynamism globally and in Western Europe over the 2008-2013 review period, North American growth rates have gradually diminished, lingering at an unexciting annual 2% for the past three years.
A renewed emphasis on weight management benefits could give high fibre food a second wind, and propel it out of the doldrums in the North American region, which was, not so long ago, its most buoyant growth market.
As yet, there is precious very little consumer awareness of how dietary fibre manages to produce weight management benefits, besides the rather simplistic rationale that it provides extra bulk in the stomach. Manufacturers of weight management foods and beverages may want to pay attention in the coming years to providing fresh scientific angles when hammering out their marketing strategies in order to drive it home to consumers that fibre has lost nothing of its relevance.
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This house is a 255 m2 single family home and it is considered a small dwelling, or actually ‘just the right amount of space’ what was the demand. Its neighboring houses are almost twice as big, just like any “regular” house in Australia. So it seems the neighbors can have a full right to call it THAT house, for breaking with that tradition. Modern life, environment issues, and sustainability awareness are starting to take effect and Australia seems to be fighting a battle with wiser ways of using space, materials and energy. Architects didn’t intend to make a stand or suggest a new prototype, but the house shows great qualities in thinking this direction.
Orientation and windows are set in demands of passive solar gain, also white roof reduces heating. The house has solar panels and a water tank in the ground that collects rainwater which is then used for toilets and watering the garden. Also, local materials were used where possible so the house responds to sustainability at its best.
THAT house is a composition of three long cuboids one placed over the two others that are distanced enough to make a corridor in between. All three are closed with full area windows on end sides so the house appears completely see-through. This is very unusual for Australia where people tend to stay very private inside homes. Setting a new transparency trend in the neighborhood but also respecting the tradition and habits about the privacy, the house features a small “invention” such as upwards blinds, bringing these two demands together.
Name: THAT House
Size: 225 m2
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Architect: Austin Maynard Architects
Image credits: ©Tess Kelly via https://www.archdaily.com/782890/that-house-austin-maynard-architects
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A Brief the History of the Tea Party
As the Tea Party made its boisterous debut on the national stage in 2009, it energized conservatives, rattled liberals, and confounded reporters in ways rivaled by very few other contemporary movements. In 2009 and 2010, Republican candidates rode a Tea Party wave of anti-Obama sentiment to victory, most significantly in deep blue states.
Early reports regarding the movement, its motivations, and its voters characterized the Tea Party as comprised of energized, disgruntled conservatives railing against the new president’s spending package and bailout bills. But not too long after this sentiment took hold, many in the press pivoted, and began to argue that the Tea Party’s efforts were as much a reaction to George Bush’s second term as they were to Barack Obama’s first.
Even as that new conventional wisdom gained widespread acceptance, another shift in perspective was on the horizon. As the Tea Party movement essentially mainstreamed leading up to and during the 2012 presidential primary, fueled the fires of the Bachmann, Cain, Gingrich, and Santorum presidential campaigns, the press became less concerned with defining the movement in its entirety and began covering the elected officials propelled into office or supported by the new coalition. Those with relatively long political memories will recall that not so long ago, Marco Rubio found electoral success as a frontrunner-primarying Tea Party outsider, and Mitt Romney’s vice presidential selection of Paul Ryan was at the time widely considered to be an olive branch from the GOP establishment to more hard-nosed conservative Tea Party-types.
Despite their inability to pin down the movement’s ideological makeup, the press did eventually settle on a single sentiment about the Tea Party movement, a conventional, underlying truth; there grew a near-unanimous consensus that the movement’s rise and electoral success signified a dawning ‘libertarian moment’ in American politics. Despite the amorphous nature of both the movement and the press’ stabs at defining it, many members of the press were confident that this was surely the case.
The press began pushing this particular narrative with some real muscle around 2012. Ron Paul was taking his second, somewhat more successful presidential lap around the country, and his son had been elected to the U.S. Senate only one election cycle prior; the Paul brand of state-rights flavored conservatism was enjoying some time in the national spotlight.
The echo only grew louder as social conservatives were dealt a narrow loss by the Supreme Court’s decision in the Obergefell case—a loss that the many in the press mistakenly and naively took as signaling the end of the culture wars. With seemingly no cultural battles left to fight, the narrative took hold that the conservative movement would pivot to encompass tenants of the libertarian movement, while also rejecting the seemingly bigger-government “compassionate conservatism” of the Bush years—and the Tea Party was sure to play a prominent role in injecting this new libertarian streak directly into the heart of conservative politics.
Today’s Tea Party and the ‘Libertarian Moment’
The press has gotten plenty about the Tea Party wrong, and a number of reporters have owned up to that fact. But it is this ‘libertarian moment’ concept in which many reporters have had the most confidence, to which they have been the most consistently committed, and whereby they have been most incorrect. Their it’s-just-over-the-horizon forecasting of an American libertarian moment brought on by Tea Party politics may be one of the most botched political stories of the new century; while traditional social conservatism did indeed endure a loss at the hands of the Supreme Court via the Obergefell decision, it quickly passed the mantle to a resurgent, culturally conservative populism, skipping right over ideological libertarianism. Members of the Tea Party may not have envisioned or anticipated this evolutionary hand-off during the early days of the movement, but, especially as of late, they have served as a strong driving force for it.
Conservative voters’ behavior during the 2016 primary provides the best, most relevant insights to how the Tea Party movement has evolved, and to how the press blew the story so badly. During the primary, conservative Tea Party voters broke into two camps: Trump supporters and Trump-resistant, self-identified “conservatarians.”
First, the conservatarians. Both early on and throughout the primary campaign, scores of ideological conservative voters were averse to Donald Trump’s celebrity, seemingly enigmatic ideology, and–probably most of all–his disregard for, or misunderstanding of, certain traditionally conservative principles; this is true even if they still admired his bombast, donor-class-bashing and anti-establishment message. These voters found themselves scattered amongst a plethora of other ‘outsider’ candidates and quickly became too fractured among a buffet of potential conservative alternatives to unite against the New York billionaire.
This “conservatarian” camp is certainly the more ideologically libertarian of the two 2016 Tea Party sub-camps–and clearly, they don’t mind being viewed as somewhat libertarian, given the portmanteau moniker many of them embrace. But in reality, it’s hard to distinguish what distinctly, ideologically libertarian policy ideas this bloc of voters actively champions. It’s true that they don’t, for the most part, get hung up on socially conservative sticking points like gay marriage and legal marijuana; many conservatarians don’t make socially conservative moral arguments against the Obergefell decision or similar policy outcomes from Washington, but rather, point to those federal actions as examples of the federal government over-exerting its authority and violating the 10th Amendment. The argument conservatarians make against socially liberal policy outcomes is less morality-based and more constitutionally-technical than the arguments made by their socially conservative forefathers, but their preferred policy outcomes are, essentially, the same. Given the many socially liberal policy outcomes ideological libertarianism enables or directly champions, it’s possible that these voters may be better understood as “10th Amendment Conservatives,” rather than “conservatatians.”
The Trump supporters—the second, and ultimately victorious, sub-camp of 2016 Tea Party voters—were willing to overlook or embrace Trump’s ideological inconsistencies and imperfections, galvanizing the insurgent mogul’s campaign early on in the primary and blessing him with the holy momentum that most other campaigns spent the 2016 primary only chasing. Trump quickly secured roughly a third of the Republican primary vote, and smashed his way through New Hampshire and South Carolina, putting him on a relatively easy path to the nomination. It’s been called a “hostile takeover,” a “great Republican revolt.” This is language lifted directly from the Tea Party’s rebellious lexicon.
While these two blocks of Tea Party voters backed different candidates, the issues that motivated them and their policy references really aren’t all that different. They think the Supreme Court and the federal government frequently overreach and unconstitutionally expand their power. They think strict immigration policies ought to be enforced; they want the wall built, immigration limited, and illegal immigrants deported. Identifying their leanings on foreign policy is a bit trickier, though it seems that most of them favor a less-interventionist approach to overseas affairs.
When these policy preferences are contrasted with traditional, ideological libertarianism—major strands of which champion nearly unrestricted immigration and government intervention so minimal that social liberalism is, essentially, a guaranteed outcome or at least a permissible, unavoidable conclusion—it becomes hard to avoid the conclusion that the Tea Party isn’t comprised of tomorrow’s libertarians so much as it’s comprised of today’s culturally conservative populists, unifying in a coalition that’s defined more by an anti-liberal and an anti-establishment attitude than libertarian political philosophy or ideology. The conservatarian camp may not be raging directly against cultural issues, like their socially conservative forefathers had, but their championing of the 10th Amendment in response to America’s recent socially leftward jolt is firmly in the constitutionally conservative tradition; yes, it’s a reflection of small government values, but those values are more clearly rooted in traditional conservatism than tomorrow’s libertarianism. Meanwhile, the Trump supporters are raging for the sake of raging—their burn-it-down attitude naturally puts ideological purity and cohesion on the backburner in favor of prioritizing smashing the establishment and disrupting the status quo.
To some conservative thought leaders, it isn’t news that the Tea Party and conservative movement isn’t trending libertarian. “Nationalism and populism have overtaken conservatism in terms of appeal,” Rush Limbaugh announced on his radio show in early 2016. “...It’s not conservatism that’s uniting [voters] or motivating them…[it’s] an absolutely direct opposition to the left, to the Democratic Party, to Obama and everything that’s been going on the last seven years...and they will go anywhere if they are convinced whoever’s telling them they’re gonna stop it is telling the truth.”
All of this is not to say that a truly pure libertarian moment will never be nascent in America politics; as Millennials age and come to dominate American politics, they may grow more fiscally conservative while holding onto their almost universally socially liberal attitudes. That evolution would most likely owe more to the public opinion swings and Supreme Court decisions of the Obama era–as well as the era’s economic shortcomings–than it will to the populism of the Tea Party movement. Voters also typically become more fiscally conservative as they age, but Millennial’s tentative ability to remain socially liberal will reflect the fact they were raised in an era when previous taboos like gay rights and legal marijuana became mainstream ideas. And for whatever it’s worth, the Libertarian Party itself might make a splash in the 2016 general election, but that would represent a kneejerk reaction to today’s politics, rather than a natural outgrowth from it.
The Tea Party, its motivations, and its sub-camps remain opaque to the press and other political observers—an ironic fact, given how easily many within the movement identify with its motives and how enthusiastically they champion them. But before America gets to the prospective point where ideological libertarianism fully mainstreams in the Tea Party or any other conservative outgrowth, we are tasked with facing the reality of today’s political moment. It’s a populist moment, and in ways, a nationalist moment. But it is not, and shows no signs of being, a libertarian moment.
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Great whales face new threat as Japan moves to scrap sanctuary
At next month's International Whaling Commission meeting in Grenada in the West Indies, the Japanese will formally propose scrapping the sanctuary, eight million square miles of ocean around Antarctica that is home to some 90 per cent of the world's remaining biggest whales. Britain will "vehemently" oppose the move, the Fisheries minister, Elliot Morley, said yesterday.
The Japanese have disregarded the sanctuary since it was established in 1994, continuing to hunt whales in its waters for what they call "scientific" purposes, as they have done since the current world moratorium on commercial whaling came into force in 1986.
Their attempt to scrap the sanctuary is part of the pressure Japan and the other principal whaling nation, Norway, are applying to have the moratorium lifted. To the alarm of anti-whaling campaigners worldwide, this is beginning to look as if it might succeed.
To abolish the sanctuary the Japanese will need a three- quarters majority of those countries voting at the IWC meeting, and they can already count on the support of a number of small states that have voted with them in the past after receiving substantial Japanese aid.
But they will be forcefully opposed by the anti-whaling countries led by the US, Australia, New Zealand and Britain.
"The Japanese have never liked the sanctuary and we are not surprised they want to see it abolished, but we will vehemently oppose any attempts by them to do so," Mr Morley commented.
"They have client states in the West Indies and they are also certainly twisting their arms for support, but we have powerful allies."
Mr Morley reaffirmed that Britain remains opposed to whaling in principle. And he castigated Japan for continuing its "scientific" whaling programme, under which hundreds of minke whales are hunted and killed every year, and their meat sold commercially in the name of "research".
"We oppose this and strongly criticise the Japanese for it," he said. "I wish Japan would listen to world opinion a bit more and take a more reasonable position. They have not been reasonable.
"Whaling is not a very important part of their economy and there is not that big a demand for whale meat, certainly not in any way to justify the levels of whaling that have been seen."
Environmental campaigners are equally critical. "Since the creation of the Southern Ocean sanctuary in 1994, Japan has killed some 1,600 whales there, using a legal loophole to disguise its commercial slaughter in so-called scientific whaling," said Sue Fisher of the Whales and Dolphin Conservation Society.
"We hope Britain will take a lead in opposing their attempt to abolish it, and send a minister to the meeting to show its commitment," she said.
In a countermove, Britain is backing proposals by Australia and New Zealand for a new whale sanctuary to be set up in the South Pacific, and by Brazil for one in the South Atlantic.
The current Southern Ocean sanctuary, when added to the Indian Ocean sanctuary set up in 1979, outlaws whaling permanently in one-third of the world's oceans.
The Southern Ocean is the richest feeding ground for whales, and saw killing on such a scale throughout most of this century that the population of some species was driven to the brink of extinction.
The blue whale, the world's largest animal, was reduced in numbers from 250,000 to a few hundred. The next biggest, the fin whale, which was the mainstay of the Antarctic whaling industry, was reduced from half a million to a few thousand. Only the population of the minke whale remains substantial, at an estimated three- quarters of a million.
The point of the sanctuaries is to make whaling off-limits within them even if the moratorium is eventually lifted. A compromise proposal from Ireland, which would allow commercial whaling once more in return for the whaling nations agreeing to tight regulation, will be discussed at the IWC meeting although it will not come to a vote this year.
Anti-whaling campaigners are strongly against the proposal as they say regulation can never be properly enforced.
That's some guestlist! Stunning images show huge dynastic wedding between Ultra-Orthodox Jewish families which attracted 25,000 guests
'He was always smiling': Lee Rigby named as Woolwich victim
Heathrow airport reopens runways after British Airways plane 'on fire over London' makes emergency landing
Two bailed after arrest over Woolwich attack Twitter comments
Exclusive: Woolwich killings suspect Michael Adebolajo was inspired by cleric banned from UK after urging followers to behead enemies of Islam
- 1 Pope Francis: Being an atheist is alright as long as you do good
- 2 'He was always smiling': Lee Rigby named as Woolwich victim
- 3 'Something passed underneath us, quite close': Airbus A320 has close encounter with UFO
- 4 Lord of the Sings: Sir Christopher Lee, 91, to release heavy metal album
- 5 Two bailed after arrest over Woolwich attack Twitter comments
BMF is the UK’s biggest and best loved outdoor fitness classes
Find out what The Independent's resident travel expert has to say about one of the most beautiful small cities in the world
Nook is donating eReaders to volunteers at high-need schools and participating in exclusive events throughout the campaign.
Get the latest on The Evening Standard's campaign to get London's children reading.
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
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2016 Sugarbeet Leaf Disease Observation
As one of the leading providers of seed treatments for sugarbeets in the United States, Germains’ Sales Team spends a substantial amount of time in the field so that they may keep a pulse on the crop conditions and performance of new varieties. The following 2016 Sugarbeet Leaf Disease Observation report provided by our Sugarbeet Sales & Marketing Manager, Kevin Bigger gives insight on the field conditions and outcomes for the 2016 season:
Sugarbeet Leaf Disease Observation
Sugar Beet harvest has finished for the 2016 growing year with varying results depending on the growing regions. Growing areas in the West and Rocky Mountain regions yielded record high tonnage and sugar percentage. The Red River Valley and Great Lakes area also had great yields, but sugar percentage ended up lower than historical averages. There are many differences between these growing regions and cultivation practices that may impact sugar percentages.
The conditions in the Red River Valley and Great Lakes regions were conducive for leaf disease. Varietal resistance, humidity, temperature, wet leaves and disease pressure from the previous year contributed to outbreaks this season. Fungi or bacteria are often the cause of leaf disease in sugarbeet crops. Cercospora, Ramularia, Phoma, and Alternaria are all fungal leaf diseases that cause leaf spot. Bacterial leaf spot may also occur, but the economic losses tend to be less than fungal diseases. Growers need to able to differentiate between bacterial vs. fungal leaf diseases so they may act quickly and apply the correct control methods.
Common Causes of Sugarbeet Leaf Disease
Cercospora leaf spot and other fungal diseases have a negative impact on sugar percentages. The brown infected leaves trigger the plant to produce new leaves causing the plant to burn the sugar stored in the root. Lower sugar percentages will increase production costs impacting the grower’s net return. The first line of defense against leaf disease is to sugar beet varieties that are resistant to these diseases.
Unlike the cultivation practices in the Western U.S., growers in the Red River Valley and Great Lakes region rely on natural rainfall to bring water for crops which are both a blessing and a curse. The Western U.S. has more ability to control the amount of water the crop receives, while the eastern regions can be affected by either too much or too little rainfall. Receiving too much moisture at the wrong time creates conditions that are conducive for leaf disease outbreaks.
Cultivation Practices for Controlling Sugarbeet Leaf Diseases
Due to controlled irrigation practices and ideal warm summer temperatures contributed to a great sugarbeet harvest for Western US growers. The processing cost per ton will be lower because of the higher sugar percentage year resulting in a higher beet payment. Proper management Crop such as; crop rotations of at least three years allows for the decay and destruction of infected crop and a minimum 300 ft separation of next year’s fields from infected fields can help.
More importantly, planting varieties resistant to leaf disease is probably one of the most important decisions a grower can make. Multiple varieties with different genetics should be planted to help reduce exposure for varieties that are susceptible to foliar disease. Further, a good fungicide program will lessen then destructive effects of leaf disease.
The low sugar percentages some areas experienced in 2016 will give growers the opportunity to change cultural practices to improve their crop in the 2017 growing season. Adapting cultivation practices will help sugar companies remain profitable in the future and ensure the success of their growers.
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Both ophthalmologists and optometrists are trained to diagnose and treat vision problems, but ophthalmologists are also fully trained physicians. Therefore they have a broader scope of practice, according to the Digital Journal of Ophthalmology.Continue Reading
Optometrists, or ODs, must complete an undergraduate degree and then a four-year doctor of optometry program. They're trained to diagnose and treat vision problems as well as some illnesses and conditions of the eye, according to ExploreHealthCareers.org, and can also diagnose some broader health conditions, such as diabetes, through their effect on the eye.
Ophthalmologists are medical doctors or doctors of osteopathy. Like optometrists, they complete an undergraduate degree and then a four-year doctorate, notes the Digital Journal of Ophthalmology, but then go on to complete a one-year internship and three or more years' residency in their chosen subspecialty. These include ophthalmic pathology, ophthalmic plastic surgery and pediatric ophthalmology, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
Some jurisdictions permit optometrists to perform minor surgeries of the eye, according to ExploreHealthCareers.org. As trained and licensed physicians, ophthalmologists perform a broad range of surgical and medical treatments. Aside from providing vision care, as the Digital Journal of Ophthalmology notes, they also diagnose general medical conditions and can treat or manage those conditions' impact on the eye.Learn more about Vision
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|The Survivor Tree, Summer 2016|
The March 2010 nor'easter impacted the Northeastern part of United States resulting in at least nine deaths. Winds of up to 70 miles per hour snapped power lines and trees . Among these trees was the Callery pear tree form 9-11 site. The tree was uprooted in powerful storm. Again, the tree survived, and caretakers righted the tree, examined roots, pruned branches and secured it with cables. December 2010 it was restored to Ground Zero.
“The presence of the Survivor Tree on the Memorial Plaza will symbolize New York City’s and this nation’s resilience after the attacks,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “Like the thousands of courageous stories of survival that arose from the ashes of the World Trade Center, the story of this tree also will live on and inspire many.”
In late August 2011 hurricane Irene hit New York. Throughout its path, Irene caused widespread destruction and at least 56 deaths.
“The Memorial has weathered tropical storm Irene, and it remains as strong as the hundreds of men and women dedicated to building it,” 9/11 Memorial President Joe Daniels said in a statement. “And true to its name, the Survivor Tree is standing tall at the Memorial.”
The National September 11 Memorial and Museum was among the many New York cultural institutions that suffered severe damage from Hurricane Sandy. River surges caused serious flooding at the foundation level of the World Trade Center. Inside the visitor center and a private entrance room for victims' families, about 4 feet of water ruined the lower sections of the sheet-rock walls , In the unfinished museum, the water rose as high as 8 feet. It had taken about a week to drain the floodwaters — as high as 10 feet in some places — from the 16-acre site.
And the “Survivor Tree” continues to live up to its name and stands tall among the oak trees at the Memorial .
Aside from the Callery pear Survivor Tree, there are six other survivor of the 9/11 attack, all of which are now planted near New York City Hall and the Brooklyn Bridge.
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Join Date: Dec 2002
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The construction of wire rope is described as X by Y, where X is the number of wires in each strand, and Y is the number of strands in the rope. Three are commonly used in stainless steel standing rigging:
1 x 19 - size for size the strongest simple wire you can get, and by far the most common for standing rigging. It does not like being bent, so is not suitable for running rigging, nor for use with a thimble.
7 x 19 - less strong than 1 x 19, but much more flexible.
7 x 7 - middling in terms of strength and flexibility.
Last edited by GordMay; 08-14-2006 at 04:17 AM.
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The Comprehension Worksheets for Grade 5 in the United States is meant to stimulate children’s reading skills and to help them grasp concepts. However, they do not teach children to read well. Children learn in their own ways, and if you’re going to encourage them to read, the Comprehension Worksheets for Grade 5 are not the best way to go about it.
There are a lot of great success stories about how the Comprehension Worksheets for Grade 5 has helped children from developing their vocabulary and their reading skills to growing up with strong and powerful vocabularies. However, there are also many who have written blogs or articles about how difficult it is to keep a Comprehension Worksheet up-to-date because it is so very easy to remove words and concepts. In other words, the kids simply aren’t using them for the purpose that they were designed for.
We can all remember the frustration of watching our young children staring at the TV screen with no clue as to what they had just watched. We can also recall the frustration of working on one of the Comprehension Worksheets for Grade 5 and having our fingers fly across the keyboard when we started to figure out how to change a word. The Comprehension Worksheets for Grade 5 certainly is not a magic solution to these problems.
The fact that kids will be using Comprehension Worksheets for the next few years in school is proof that it is a good way to start young children on the path to reading fluency. But just because you can create an “online” book or newspaper that kids can use doesn’t mean that they are effective. By creating an online web-based Comprehension Worksheet you’re not educating children in the best ways to read.
Comprehension Worksheets for Grade 5 are the first step in helping kids develop their reading skills. They’re the foundation that they use to build on. I want you to see how important the Comprehension Worksheets for Grade 5 is, and I want you to have a lot of patience.
It has been proven that the best way to get kids to read is through descriptive reading, the kind of reading where they describe events, emotions, or subjects. I know that when I was a kid and I was introduced to Comprehension Worksheets for Grade 5 I felt a huge sense of pride as I started to write my own story. It wasn’t until later, when I was learning to read myself, that I realized how much more slowly I read than other kids.
I think that the Comprehension Worksheets for Grade 5 can be a great tool to help children get to fluency in the classroom, but only if they are used in the proper way. I’m going to tell you exactly what I think is a wrong way to use the Comprehension Worksheets for Grade 5. If you want to jumpstart your child’s reading skills, read on!
Comprehension Worksheets for Grade 5 are so incredibly helpful that you should learn how to use them to their fullest advantage. If you want to jumpstart your child’s reading progress and encourage them to read quickly and easily, you should get creative with the Comprehension Worksheets for Grade 5 and create something that your child will really enjoy.
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There is a renewed public appreciation for the role of tribal allegiances and tribal governance in the Afghanistan and Pakistan insurgencies. This is indicated by the U.S. government’s announcement of an inter-agency effort to study the insurgencies’ tribes, including a search for “reconcilable” elements . The behavior of most insurgent groups along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border is conditioned by tribal identities, allegiances and interests. Some fighters are motivated by pan-tribal or global religious sentiment. Most, however, are strongly influenced by the interests and demands of their tribe. Tribal leaders are often forthright in explaining that their decision to support or undermine the Taliban revolves around tribal interests, not through belief in the insurgency’s inherent virtue vis-à-vis the Afghan government or foreign forces . Many young men are committed to the insurgency by their elders, becoming indistinguishable in battle from other fighters who belong to the Taliban “proper” or to the Haqqani network. In theory, these tribal fighters could be separated from the insurgency by persuading tribal leaders to withdraw them.
If attempts to employ tribes against insurgents are to succeed, the emphasis must be on Pashtun tribes. Although other ethnicities participate in the insurgency, their role is in large part defined by their relationship to the Pashtun tribes that saturate the region. This is true of groups such as the Uzbek fighters, whose fortunes and strength have been heavily conditioned by the hospitality of their hosts, such as the Darikhel, Tojikhel and Yarghukhel (sub-tribes of Ahmadzai Wazir in Pakistan’s Waziristan) .
This article focuses on the intersection of tribalism and insurgency. It provides a history of the three major Pashtun confederations in Afghanistan and Pakistan; examines how the Haqqani network and global jihadists have exploited Pashtun tribalism; and identifies how tribal militias have recently been used to combat the Taliban in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Drifting to the Durrani
Approximately two-thirds of Afghan Pashtuns belong to the Ghilzai and Durrani confederations . The tribes of the smaller Karlanri confederation live in Afghanistan’s eastern and southeastern provinces , providing the strongest kinship bridges into Pakistan. Ghilzai and Durrani tribes, however, are numerically dominant in most of Afghanistan. As a general rule, tribal allegiances and systems of governance are stronger among the mountainous tribes of the Ghilzai and among the Karlanri, while Durrani governance rests more on cross-tribal structures of feudal land ownership .
A broad historical view of the Pashtun tribes would depict the Durrani tribes as political leaders and the Ghilzai as providing the fighters . From Afghanistan’s founding to the Taliban’s ascendancy, all of Afghanistan’s rulers have been from Durrani tribes with the exception of the ill-fated Mohammad Noor Taraki (and a brief interlude of nine months in 1929). For some, the confrontation between the Durrani’s Hamid Karzai and the Ghilzai’s Mullah Muhammad Omar is a continuation of the confederations’ traditional roles as rulers and insurgents, respectively.
Fighting between tribes and sub-tribes of the same confederation is one indication that the confederation level of analysis has never been adequate . A notable shift in the current phase of insurgency, for example, has been the groundswell of Durrani fighters beneath the Ghilzai-dominated Afghan Taliban leadership. Distinguishing cause and effect is difficult, but the increasing prominence of Durrani fighters and commanders correlates with the geographical spread of the insurgency through Durrani areas in Helmand, Nimroz, Farah and Herat provinces. Durrani are being recruited at lower-levels and their traditional leaders are becoming insurgent leaders, with varying degrees of integration into the Taliban “proper.” Some intra-insurgency tensions appear to be the result of locally-empowered Durrani Taliban commanders disliking the rotation of senior Ghilzai Taliban commanders into “their” territory . Notably, in 2008 such tensions included disagreement over tax revenue, with a specific concern for drug-derived money .
The result is that a government dominated by Tajiks and Durranis is facing off against a Ghilzai-led Taliban that has incorporated significant numbers of Durrani fighters . To the extent that the power bases of the Durrani in government depend on rural constituencies in provinces such as Helmand and Farah, they must balance official interests with maintaining tribal satisfaction in anti-government areas. Moreover, within this mix are the Karlanri tribes, providing major ethnic bridges between the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban by virtue of straddling insurgent strongholds in southeastern Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan.
The Zadran and the Haqqani Network
The Haqqani network is an excellent example of how global jihadists and Taliban fighters have been able to exploit Pashtun nationalism. Jalaluddin and Sirajuddin Haqqani are prominent members of the Pashtun Zadran tribe, and a great deal of their political capital was amassed by Jalaluddin in fighting the Soviets. Former U.S. Congressman Charlie Wilson famously called Jalaluddin “goodness personified” and he received a disproportionate share of U.S. money . The Haqqanis have also been effective in attracting Arab donations due to their tactical efficiency and assisted by Jalaluddin’s marital and linguistic connection to the Gulf states . The present strength of the Haqqani network owes much to Jalaluddin’s fighting prowess, accompanying fundraising skills and the power these skills gave Jalaluddin in the Zadran tribe.
Much of the Zadran population live in Afghanistan’s Spera (Khost), Zadran (Paktia) and Gayan (Paktika) districts, which have long histories of resisting foreign influence . The arrival of international forces in 2001 energized a struggle for control over the Zadran between the Haqqanis and Padcha Khan Zadran, a warlord with his power-base in Khost Province. The latter was hardly pro-government, but he positioned himself as anti-Taliban and utilized foreign assistance . In that sense, Padcha Khan was an old-style leader who placed tribal power and independence over external allegiances and interests . Since 2002, the Haqqanis’ reversion to jihadist-aligned resistance has leveraged Jalaluddin’s continuing fame and obtained protection from the Zadran in much of their territory. By contrast, Padcha Khan has entered the Wolesi Jirga (Afghanistan’s upper house of parliament) and his power-base has narrowed, a move supported by Hamid Karzai in an effort to neutralize his anti-government appeal . By cooperating with the Karzai government, Padcha Khan has allowed the Haqqanis and, by extension, al-Qa`ida and the Taliban to become the Zadran’s main option for resisting international and government influence.
The Haqqani network’s solid control of Miran Shah in Pakistan and most Zadran districts in Khost, Paktika and Paktia in Afghanistan gives it an effective base for operations in Afghanistan. The Haqqanis have consistently pledged their allegiance to the Taliban, but United Nations and ISAF sources agree that the Haqqanis have demonstrated greater imagination, intent and capability for complex attacks than regular Taliban commanders . While difficult to confirm, the Haqqanis have also been credited for driving the growth of suicide bombings in Afghanistan .
The Haqqanis’ continuing effectiveness draws on and reinforces their long-standing relationship with al-Qa`ida’s leaders. Historically, this was demonstrated in Usama bin Ladin’s choice of Haqqani territory for al-Qa`ida’s first significant training camps in Afghanistan . Currently, Western and Afghan intelligence officials assess that al-Qa`ida places greater trust and accompanying funding in the Haqqani network to execute complex attacks .
The Haqqanis’ reliance on Zadran territory is not a fatal vulnerability, but it does offer the possibility of constraining their operational capability. Jalaluddin’s apparent implacability and Sirajuddin’s turn toward greater radicalism make it highly unlikely that Zadran areas can be pacified through engagement with the Haqqanis. A better strategy would work from the ground up, particularly in Paktia, where leaders combine affection for Jalaluddin with an often stronger concern for the local welfare of their tribe . In the short-term, the most realistic accomplishment would be to increase the reluctance of Zadran community leaders to allow direct access to and through their villages by the Haqqani network. As in other “pro-insurgent” areas, some Zadran communities would prove willing to cooperate with the government when enjoying an ongoing security presence and constructive engagement to support self-policing and immediate reconstruction benefits.
Lashkars and Arbakees
The Afghanistan and Pakistan governments have also tried to leverage tribal networks to support their objectives. Both countries have armed and supported anti-insurgent tribes to combat the Taliban, the Haqqani network and al-Qa`ida. In FATA, this has taken the form of lashkars, tribal militias formed either within one tribe or through an alliance of several tribes following a jirga decision.
The Mamond tribes and the Salarzai tribe (a small sub tribe of the Tarkani Pashtuns who live in two valleys of Bajaur Agency) have raised their own lashkars and can be legitimately considered anti-Taliban/al-Qa`ida . The price has been high and scores of tribal elders have been assassinated since the start of the movement. For example, in November 2008 four “elders” of the Mamond tribe and several Mamond lashkar members were killed after a suicide bomber detonated at a tribesman’s house in Bajaur . Other tribes that reportedly raised lashkars are the Orakzai of Orakzai Agency in FATA . This has naturally created tensions between the Orakzai and more militant tribes such as the Mehsud in South Waziristan .
Overall, however, these efforts have not resulted in any significant losses for the Taliban. In fact, until the recent forays by the Pakistani military against the Taliban, the Taliban encountered relatively little tribal resistance as they quickly and brutally established their hold across FATA and the NWFP. The tribes in FATA are quite scattered and little unity exists, particularly against a Taliban movement recruiting from almost every tribe (excluding Shi`a Turis). This failure was most obvious in North and South Waziristan when the lashkars of 2003 and 2007 were effectively impotent . Nevertheless, the lashkars have had some positive effects in pressuring the Taliban; for example, Taliban spokesman Maulvi Omar’s August 2009 arrest was credited to the work of a lashkar in Mohmand Agency .
Another region where Pashtun tribal militias have been utilized is in southeastern Afghanistan’s Loya Paktia, the area encompassing Paktika, Khost and Paktia provinces . In this region the Afghan equivalent of lashkars exists. Apparently an institution limited to Loya Paktia , the arbakee (guardians) are the traditional tribal security of the southeast. The arbakees (like the lashkars) do not exist permanently in every district, but are an ad hoc and reactive force. The arbakee is also used by the jirga as a law enforcement tool, which makes the jirga in this region far more powerful than in southern and eastern Afghanistan where this tradition does not exist .
The capacities of Afghan military and law enforcement are minimal in Loya Paktia and they often count on the support of arbakees. The tribal elders identify those citizens who will be used to support the police to ensure effective interventions. According to the Tribal Liaison Office, a European-funded NGO, “Despite the fact that each arbakee has a clear leader (amir), accountability goes back to the tribal council (jirga or shura) that called upon the arbakee, which in turn is accountable to the community. Furthermore, arbakees only function within the territory of the tribe they represent. Their fighters are volunteers from within the community and are paid by the community. This emphasizes again that their loyalty is with their communities and not an individual leader” .
One important demonstration of the government’s reliance on arbakees was the continuous funding until at least 2007 for 40-60 arbakee members in each district in the southeast, including a sizeable expansion of force numbers to secure the 2004-2005 elections .
As Afghanistan’s and Pakistan’s insurgent conflicts drag on, the stress on tribal structures will continue, pressured by jihadists and the international community alike. Both antagonists have a long-term interest in undermining tribalism, but both also have an interest in using tribalism to support immediate military aims.
For the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan and their international supporters, this implies a difficult trade-off. Immediate military interests in bargaining with tribes require subordination of interests in issues such as human rights and good governance. Notably, as the arbakee tradition illustrates, a resort to tribally-mediated security structures implies a continuing devolution by the central government of its core responsibilities. This may be functional in the short-term, but will likely leave unchanged the uneasy relationship between relatively progressive governments and conservative tribal traditions—an uneasiness that proved fertile ground for jihadism in the first place.
Hayder Mili is an independent researcher. He has published analytical and academic articles on terrorism, the drug trade and law enforcement responses. He holds master’s degrees in Strategic Studies and International Relations from the Sorbonne University in Paris. He is currently based in Central Asia.
Jacob Townsend is an independent analyst focused on insurgency and transnational organized crime. He has worked with the United Nations in Central Asia, South Asia and the Asia-Pacific. He is currently based in Kabul.
Bryan Bender, “US Probes Divisions within Taliban,” Boston Globe, May 24, 2009.
See, for example, Darin J. Blatt et al., ‘Tribal Engagement in Afghanistan,” Special Warfare 22:1 (2009); Jerome Starkey, “Tribal Leaders to Sabotage West’s Assault on Taliban,” Independent, December 4, 2008.
Vern Liebl, “Pushtuns, Tribalism, Leadership, Islam and Taliban: A Short View,” Small Wars and Insurgencies 18:3 (2007): pp. 492-510.
A 1996 estimate suggested that Durrani tribes comprised 29% of Afghan Pashtuns and the Ghilzai 35%. The estimate appeared in “Afghanistan: A Country Study,” Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress, 1997.
Tribes of the Karlanri confederation are demographically strong in Afghanistan’s Paktia, Paktika, Logar, Khost, Nangarhar and Kunar provinces.
The strength of tribal governance derives from economic, demographic and political circumstances. The Karlanri, for example, tend to inhabit isolated communities with small land-holdings and an overwhelming dominance of a single tribe in each village. See Thomas H. Johnson and M. Chris Mason, “No Sign until the Burst of Fire,” International Security 32:4 (2008); Thomas J. Barfield, “Weapons of the Not so Weak in Afghanistan,” in Hinterlands, Frontiers, Cities and States: Transactions and Identities, Yale University, February 23, 2007; David B. Edwards, Before Taliban (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002).
The “confederation level of analysis” refers to the notion that the conflict is mainly between Durrani and Ghilzai. As stated by the International Crisis Group, “animosities between particular Durrani tribes far exceed any ill feeling between Durrani and Ghilzai.” See International Crisis Group, “Afghanistan: The Problem of Pashtun Alienation,” August 5, 2003.
Personal interviews, ISAF intelligence officials, May 11, 2009.
In previous years, little opium tax actually made it up to the senior leadership. In 2008, there appeared to be a concerted effort to move more revenue to the higher levels. This caused tension for two reasons: 1) low-level commanders use drug tax for subsistence purposes, not to mention their own enrichment; and 2) tribal leaders–with whom the Taliban have varying degrees of integration–resented efforts to send money out of their communities (for the same reason they resist government taxation that appears to redistribute revenue out of the villages). Personal interviews, ISAF personnel, May 24, 2009. David Mansfield also refers to increasingly antagonistic relations over taxation between insurgents and the population: “it was suggested that this…was a result of many of their fighters in Helmand and Kandahar not being from the local area.” See “Sustaining the Decline?” Afghan Drugs Inter-Departmental Unit of the UK Government, May 2009.
This evolution has often been described as “neo-Taliban.”
George Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War (New York: Grove Press, 2007).
“Interview: Steve Coll,” PBS Frontline, October 3, 2006; Anand Gopal, “The Most Deadly US Foe in Afghanistan,” Christian Science Monitor, May 31, 2009.
“Haqqani Network,” Institute for the Study of War, available at www.understandingwar.org/themenode/haqqani-network.
A CIA assessment in 1980 noted Paktia as an area of strength for the insurgency, drawing on “the most traditionally minded” tribes. See CIA Directorate of Intelligence, “The Soviets and the Tribes of Southwest Asia,” CIA Declassification Release, September 23, 1980.
Michael Hirsh and Scott Johnson, “A Defiant Warlord Threatens to Sink the New Afghan Leader,” Newsweek, February 13, 2002; Michael V. Bhatia, “Paktya Province: Sources of Order and Disorder,” in Michael V. Bhatia and Mark Sedra eds., Afghanistan, Arms and Conflict (London: Routledge, 2008).
At one point, Padcha Khan was fighting Tani tribal leaders, resisting the government’s writ and attempting to undermine Haqqani’s influence over the Zadran. See Illene R. Prusher, Scott Baldauf and Edward Girardet, “Afghan Power Brokers,” Christian Science Monitor, June 10, 2002.
Personal interview, Western intelligence official, Kabul, June 16, 2009.
UN assessment of district-level control, provided in a briefing to the author in May 2009.
Personal interviews, UN and ISAF officials, Kabul, June 2009.
Gopal; Haqqani Network; Jonathon Burch, “Q+A: Afghanistan – Who are the Haqqanis?” Reuters, March 23, 2009.
Marc W. Herold, “The Failing Campaign,” Frontline 19:3 (2002).
This appears to be a generalized trust, however, instead of one requiring consultations with al-Qa`ida on targets and tactics. Personal interviews, UNAMA, ISAF and ANDS officials, Kabul, May-June 2009.
Haqqani Network; Burch; Imtiaz Ali, “The Haqqani Network and Cross-Border Terrorism in Afghanistan,” Terrorism Monitor 6:6 (2008).
Personal interviews, UNAMA officials, May 2009. While the Haqqanis receive widespread respect as warriors, this does not necessarily translate into obedience from tribal leaders who must answer directly to their communities. In the words of one village elder in Herat Province, speaking to the author on July 16, 2009, “they [Taliban leaders] have respect for being good fighters, but fighting does not always bring us bread.” In southeastern Afghanistan, Darin Blatt and colleagues suggested that “all the tribes are concerned mostly with providing for their immediate future.” See Blatt.
It should be noted, however, that individuals belonging to these same tribes have joined the Taliban.
Dawn, November 18-24, 2008.
Shaheen Buneri, “Pashtun Tribes Rise Against Taliban In Pakistan Tribal Area,” AHN, July 19, 2008.
Shazadi Beg, “The Ideological Battle: Insight from Pakistan,” Perspectives on Terrorism 2:10 (2008).
Mukhtar A. Khan “The Role of Tribal Lashkars in Winning Pakistan’s War on Terror,” Terrorism Focus 5:40 (2008).
Noor Mohmand, “TTP Mouthpiece Nabbed,” Nation, August 19, 2009.
Masood Karokhail, “Integration of Traditional Structures into the State Building Process: Lessons from the Tribal Liaison Office in Loya Paktia,” Tribal Liaison Office, 2006, available at www.tlo-afghanistan.org/fileadmin/pdf/SchAfgahnEn.pdf.
In Paktia specifically, the tribal structures were preserved and have emerged more or less intact from communist rule and years of conflict. This includes a functioning system of traditional justice.
Karokhail. This cooperation between tribal levees and Afghanistan’s “proper military” has a long tradition. Indeed, the 1929 rebellion was catalyzed by the government’s attempt to change the system and recruit the army on a national basis, cutting through the role of tribal leaders in organizing self-defense. The ANA is considered a relative success partly because it is recruited and rotated nationally, yet few Pashtuns in the ANA come from the areas in which arbakees are common.
B. Schetter et al., “Beyond Warlordism: The Local Security Architecture in Afghanistan,” Internationalie Politik und Gesellschaft 2 (2007).
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Below is a list of the key texts available on the subject of the Congo Free State, the movement for Congo reform and the key figures involved:
Ascherson, N. The King Incorporated: Leopold the Second and the Congo. London: Granta, 1999.
Barnett, M. Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism. New York: Cornell University Press, 2013.
Budd, L. J. Mark Twain: The Contemporary Reviews. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Casement, Sir Roger. The Eyes of another Race: Roger Casement’s Congo Report and 1903 Diary. Edited by O’Siochain, S. & O’Sullivan, M. Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2003.
Cline, C. A. E.D. Morel, 1873-1924: The Strategies of Protest. Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1980.
Conrad, J. Heart of Darkness. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan; Boston, Mass.: Bedford St. Martin’s, 2011.
Cookey, S.J.S. Britain and the Congo Question. London: Longmans, Green and Co. Ltd, 1968.
Ewans, M. European Atrocity, African Catastrophe: Leopold II, the Congo Free State and its Aftermath. New York: Routledge, 2002.
Franklin, J. H. George Washington Williams: A Biography. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1985.
Gondola, C.D. The History of Congo. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing, 2002.
Grant, K. A Civilised Savagery: Britain and the New Slaveries in Africa, 1884-1926. New York: Routledge, 2005.
Hochschild, A. King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa. London: Pan Macmillan, 1998.
Jensen, L., Poddar, P., and Rajeev S. A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures – Continental Europe and its Empires. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008.
Jones, J. E. In Search of Brightest Africa: Reimagining the Dark Continent in American Culture, 1884-1936. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2010.
Kaplan, J. Mr Clemens and Mark Twain. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966.
Laqua, D. The Age of Internationalism and Belgium, 1880–1930: Peace, Progress and Prestige. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013.
Louis, W. R., Morel, E. D. & Stengers, J. E. D. Morel’s History of the Congo Reform Movement. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968.
Miers, S. Slavery and Antislavery in the Twentieth Century. Lanham, Md.; Oxford, England: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.
Moyn, S. The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History. Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press, 2012.
N’Daywel, I. Histoire générale du Congo. Paris, Brussels: De Boeck & Larcier, 1998.
Nzongola-Ntalaja, G. The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People’s History. London: Zed Books, 2002.
Ó Síocháin, S. Roger Casement: Imperialist, Rebel, Revolutionary. Dublin: Lilliput Press, 2008.
Seymour Cocks, F. E. D. Morel: The Man and his work. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1920.
Stannard, M. G. Selling the Congo: A History of European Pro-Empire Propaganda and the making of Belgian Imperialism. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011.
Wynne, C. The Colonial Conan Doyle: British Imperialism, Irish Nationalism, and the Gothic. London: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002.
Vanthemsche, G. Belgium and the Congo, 1885-1908. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Vanthemsche, G. ‘The Historiography of Belgian Colonialism in the Congo.’ in Europe and the World in European Historiography, edited by Csaba Lévai. Pisa: Edizioni Plus, 2006.
- Journal articles
Below is a list of recommended journal articles produced on the Congo, ranging from topics such as religious influence, humanitarianism and anti-imperialism:
Broeker, G. ‘Roger Casement: Background to Treason’, The Journal of Modern History, Vol.29, No.3 (1957), pp.237-245.
Cline, C. A. ‘E.D. Morel and the Crusade against the Foreign Office’, The Journal of Modern History, Vol.39, No.2 (1997), pp.126-137.
Cline, C. A.. ‘The Church and the Movement for Congo Reform’, Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture, Vol.32, No.1 (1963), pp.46-56.
Cullinane, M. P. ‘Transatlantic Dimensions of the American Anti-Imperialist Movement, 1899-1909’, Journal of Transatlantic Studies, Vol.8, Issue 4, 2010, pp.308-309.
Daniels, J. ‘The Congo Question and the Belgian Solution’, North American Review, Vol. 188, No. 637 (Dec., 1908), pp. 891-902.
Grant, K. ‘Christian Critics of Empire: Missionaries, Lantern Lectures, and the Congo Reform Campaign in Britain’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 29:2 (2001), pp.27-58.
Harlan, L. R. ‘Booker T. Washington and the White Man’s Burden’, The American Historical Review, Vol.71, No.2 (January, 1966), pp.441-467.
Hawkins, H. ‘Mark Twain’s Involvement with the Congo Reform Movement: A Fury of Generous Indignation’, The New England Quarterly, Vol.51, No.2 (1978), pp.147-175.
Louis, W. R. ‘Casement and the Congo’, The Journal of African History, 5 (1964), pp.99-120.
Mitchell, A. ‘Reviews’, review of King Leopold’s Ghost, by Adam Hochschild, History Today, August 1999.
Pavlakis, D. ‘The Development of British Overseas Humanitarianism and the Congo Reform Campaign’, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, Volume 11, Number 1 (Spring 2010).
Slade, R. ‘King Leopold II and the Attitude of English and American Catholics towards the Anti-Congolese Campaign’, Zaire, 11 (June 1957), pp.593-612.
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Chapter 9. Economic Transformation and Continuity, 1818-1860s
Manufacturing — the process of adding value to raw materials by turning them into something else — was limited in British North America by continued mercantilist attitudes in Britain and by American restrictions. Nonetheless, there were examples of manufacturing to be found, such as rope making in Halifax, hat making in Quebec City, and shipbuilding in almost every port town. The canal excitement of the 1830s fed demand for locally produced tools like shovels and wheelbarrows, some of them made in workshops that would become agricultural implement factories.
But the markets were small in British North America so the growth of local manufacturing depended on access to external markets. Britain didn’t need much of what British North America had to offer apart from raw materials. And in 1828 the United States introduced a system of tariffs that was meant to protect embryonic industries in the northern states (New England was a particular beneficiary). Most of the industrial manufacturers that were targeted came from Britain; British North American exports suffered as well.
For the first 50 years or so of the 19th century, therefore, manufacturing growth took place principally in areas of production that served the British North American market itself. One example was the cotton mill established in Sherbrooke (the first joint-stock company to be incorporated in Canada) in 1845, but the biggest driver of economic change was railway development.
Railways were to the mid-19th century what freeways and airports were to the 20th. That is, they were potentially very efficient means of moving goods and people, they were enormously expensive to construct and typically required government involvement (whether directly or indirectly through loans), and they were the mark of an up-to-date economy and country (or colony). As well, railways didn’t suffer from cold weather as waterways did — they offered the potential of year-round service and they could, theoretically, go wherever they were needed, unlike canal systems which depended on water routes.
The first railways in Canada were temporary structures, usually made of wooden rails and used to move quarried rock. One such railway was built at Louisbourg in the early 18th century and another — more like a steam-winch-powered cable car — was used to build the new Quebec Citadel in 1820. The first true railway, however, appeared in the 1830s, running about 36 kilometres from La Prairie (across the St. Lawrence from Montreal) to the head of Lake Champlain. From there water transportation took over as goods were transferred to boats and sailed downriver to New York. The second railway built in British North America was shorter still: a 9.5 kilometre line from Albion Mines to Pictou, Nova Scotia.
Much more significant was the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad, which opened in 1853. It was important for three reasons: first, it was broad gauge (rather than standard) and thus set the standard for future railroads in Canada until the 1870s; second, it addressed the centuries-old irritant of Montreal merchants who longed for an ice-free port by joining the largest Canadian city with Portland, Maine; third, it was an international railroad, the first in the world.
The Great Western Railway (1855) subsequently linked Windsor and Detroit to Toronto, Hamilton, and the Niagara district, while the Toronto, Simcoe, and Lake Huron Railway (also 1855) further locked in Toronto as Canada West’s hub city. The largest and most ambitious of the pre-Confederation railroad projects, however, was the Grand Trunk Railway, which eventually connected Montreal and Toronto, in part by leasing or otherwise absorbing these smaller independent railways. Fortunes were invested in these projects and a whole generation of British North American capitalists and banks made even larger fortunes back. Land and material sales were key to profits, most of which appear to have been made before the first train chugged down the line.
The value of railways in Canadian economic history is often misunderstood. Railways in many respects duplicated what had already been accomplished by canals and added little to the economy that was truly new. Some of the earliest experiments were, in fact, referred to as “canal railways” because they paralleled existing water routes. This was certainly the case with the 12-kilometre Montreal and Lachine Railroad, built in 1847. In British North America, the first railways have been described as a duplication and extension of the Empire of the St. Lawrence, corridors of trade that echoed, rather unimaginatively, the trade routes first developed under New France (if not under the Wendat and Haudenosaunee). It was for this reason that railways were perilous investments: in British North America they were necessarily very long, they competed with existing water transportation routes, and they offered little to emerging manufacturers.
It may be west of Montreal and Old Canada, but Canada West is very definitely farther south than much of the rest of the country, including all of what is now Western Canada. These two maps (Figures 9.E2 and 9.E3) show the same region in the 1850s.
They are, however, profoundly different representations of southern Ontario.
What changes can you see? What is being emphasized in the first that was not so important or interesting to the cartographer and artist who produced the second?
Beginning an Industrial Revolution
What railways did offer (and what is easy to overlook) is a stimulus to heavy industry, to say nothing of demand for squared timber for ties and trestles. Steel for rails, rolling stock, and engines represented a major new demand factor in the economy. Iron and steel foundries appeared and gradually diversified. The availability of surplus iron and steel stimulated growth in other kinds of manufacturing, principally associated with working implements. Shovels, axes, and pickaxes — the trademark tools of the farmer, the logger, and the miner — were beneficiaries of the railway industry. They were needed in such enormous quantities that investment in metal-bashing shops became very attractive and tools became more generally available.
The Newcastle Foundry and Machine Manufactory provides a useful example of how industries complemented each other. Established in 1847 in Newcastle, Canada West, by Daniel Massey, this was the chrysalis from which Massey Manufacturing and then Massey-Harris and, in the 20th century, Massey-Ferguson would emerge. Massey began by pioneering the production of mechanical threshing machines, which was possible only because of the availability of all kinds of metal products, everything from iron ingots to nails. From Newcastle, Massey could ship up and down Lake Ontario, but there was limited roadway access to the interior of the colony. By the mid-1850s the company relocated to Toronto where it had improved access to raw materials, nearby foundries, and farmers to whom it could sell its products. This small industrial revolution, so intimately related to the agricultural well-being of the colony, had an almost immediately perceptible effect. One observer in 1860 commented that “an American machine is now as great a rarity as a Canadian one was a few years ago.”
This focus on, and success in, the manufacturing of agricultural implements followed on the continued Upper Canadian belief in an expanding farm frontier as an engine of growth and the wheat economy. Implement manufacturing, then, was something of an advance in terms of industrialization, but it ultimately preserved the staples orientation of the wheat economy and did not lead to agricultural diversification. That is to say, a threshing machine does nothing to push a farm economy from monoculture to robust self-sufficiency and, say, wool production.
Creating a Working Class
The rise of farm implement production had an unintended impact on the Canadian economy: it reduced the need for farm labour. In doing so it freed up younger members of farm families, specifically those who were not in line to inherit the farm. Some of these men and women looked west to new farming opportunities in Upper Canada while others moved to the towns and cities to pursue wage labour. Put less charitably, perhaps, farm machinery created circumstances in which the big farm family was not needed; some families had to shed a few members, sending them off to take their chances, perhaps working for Massey in Toronto. This change marked the emergence of a locally produced market of free labour: “free” in the sense of being removed from other obligations and free to move to wherever the jobs and opportunities arise.
Whatever factories came into existence in British North America before Confederation were not, to be sure, very large. One study claims that “the average Upper Canadian manufactory employed less than five workers.” The railway companies were the largest employers — some of them marked by the vertical integration of foundries, equipment manufacturing, line construction and maintenance, connections with ports and shippers, and even the housing of their workers. By 1871, nearly 3,000 British North Americans worked for the principal railway firms.
These numbers hint at the scale and breadth of production necessary to keep these industries moving. As railways extended the reach of industry deeper into rural areas, new resources could be tapped. Logging for the manufacture of railway ties accelerated, and with it came soil erosion and stream damage. Fish spawning grounds were impacted as rivers silted up. Even the production of sawdust in industrial quantities affected water quality. As well, iron and steel production required a mining industry to supply the key ingredients: iron ore and coking coal. Iron mines opened around Lower Canada and coal mines in Cape Breton. By mid-century hundreds were employed as wage labourers underground and in iron forges.
The production of coke — coal from which impurities have been removed — began in earnest in Canada in these years and augmented the production of charcoal (coke is much better in the smelting process but the tar residue is much greater and much more toxic, as 20th century Nova Scotians would discover to their sorrow). Steam engines, whether on rails or on the water or in mills, increasingly required coal as well. The needs of the Royal Navy often determined the location and success (or failure) of coal mines, as was the case in Cape Breton and on Vancouver Island. Coal tips (piles of waste earth, stone, and unmarketable small pieces of coal), began to grow on the landscapes abutting Sydney, Nova Scotia, and Nanaimo, on Vancouver Island. Dust from the tips and from the coal heaped on the docks was in the air where everyone — even those who never ventured underground — would breathe it in. Many from those communities were exposed to the toxins, and at risk for developing — and dying from — silicosis.
No one at the start of British North America’s industrial revolution could have imagined the millions of tons of material that would be won from under Earth’s surface in the decades ahead, nor could they know the full environmental consequences of their actions. By 1860, however, the purity of water and soil and cellular matter was already being severely compromised in areas of early industrialization.
- Lack of access to larger markets limited the scale of manufacturing experiments in British North America before the mid-19th century.
- Railways became the key to unlocking industrial potential, linking producers to markets, and creating demand for heavy industrial output.
- Agricultural implement production otherwise dominated industrial output and helped advance the farming sector.
- Industrialization and the improvement of farming technology led to a migration from farms to cities in search of seasonal and then full-time employment in wage labour.
- Bryan D. Palmer, Working-Class Experience: Rethinking the History of Canadian Labour, 1800-1991, 2nd edition (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1992), 38-9. ↵
- Jean-Pierre Kesteman, “GALT, Sir ALEXANDER TILLOCH,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 12 (University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003). Accessed December 2, 2014, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/galt_alexander_tilloch_12E.html . ↵
- Quoted in Richard Pomfret, "The Mechanization of Reaping in Nineteenth-Century Ontario: A Case Study of the Pace and Causes of the Diffusion of Embodied Technical Change," in Perspectives on Canadian Economic History, ed. Douglas McCalla (Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman, 1987), 81. ↵
- Palmer, Working-Class Experience, 38. ↵
- Paul Craven and Tom Traves, "Canadian Railways as Manufacturers, 1850-1880," in Perspectives on Canadian Economic History, ed. Douglas McCalla (Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman, 1987), 127-8. ↵
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White House Unveils Digital Promise
The White House recently unveiled plans for a research center that aims to integrate more digital learning into our nation’s classrooms. The idea for the center…
The White House recently unveiled plans for a research center that aims to integrate more digital learning into our nation’s classrooms. The idea for the center first appeared a decade ago under the name “The National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies.” The realization of the idea brings with it a new name– Digital Promise.
Digital Promise hopes to improve education for students in the US through the use of technology and digital tools. This means the development of new learning tools and systems, as well as structures for testing the efficacy of these new modes of teaching.
The website for Digital Promise describes its purpose thus:
“Digital Promise’s purpose is to support a comprehensive research and development program to harness the increasing capacity of advanced information and digital technologies to improve all levels of learning and education, formal and informal, in order to provide Americans with the knowledge and skills needed to compete in the global economy.”
The center hopes to close the gap in educational quality between high and low income students by providing digital technology to students who might otherwise not receive its benefits. “Given the power of this technology, the administration believes that we should be doing everything we can to take advantage of it,” Tom Kalil of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy told USA TODAY.
Watch below for a message from Secretary of Education Arne Duncan introducing Digital Promise and outlining its goals.
What do you think? Is Washington breaking new ground? What changes do you expect to see as a result of Digital Promise?
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|Scientific Name||Hylobates moloch|
|Length||1.4 to 2 feet (45-64 cm)|
|Weight||11-20 pounds (5-9 kg)|
|Life span||35 years in wild; up to 50 years in captivity|
|Number of young||1 at a time|
|Age of maturity||6 to 7 years|
Swingin in the rain
Javan gibbons live in the rain forest regions of Java, which is an island in Indonesia. At the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo, you’ll find the Javan Gibbon in the Indonesia Rainforest. Makes sense, huh?
What helps them get around?
Like all gibbons, Javan gibbons have very long forelimbs, long fingers and shorter thumbs which make them great brachiators. That means they swing between branches in trees.
They’re so fluffy!!!
Javan Gibbons have a fluffy appearance because of their very dense and long silvery-grey fur.
It’s a family thing
Family groups are made up of a male and female and up to three juvenile offspring.
Controlling their turf
Like other gibbons, their territory is maintained by patrols, physical conflict and loud calling. Often, the male and female pair will sing together, creating a sort of musical duet in the forest.
Note: The Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo is one of only two zoos in North America to exhibit this rare species. The other is the Greensboro Science Center in North Carolina.
- Some leaves
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This article is excerpted from an essay originally published by the Center for Public Justice in the Public Justice Report in December 1996. This was the last of a series of articles articulating the fundamental principles of the Center for Public Justice.
The Center for Public Justice affirms: "No citizen should be compelled by government power to subscribe to this or any other political creed. Governments ought to honor the conscientious objections of its citizens against a government-imposed obligation, provided such objections do not conflict with the government's responsibility to uphold public justice."
In one respect, this affirmation represents nothing more than the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment declaration of religious freedom. Citizenship comes by way of birth or naturalization, not by means of adherence to a confession of faith. Government should respect personal conscience and diverse communities of faith by treating them all with equal respect. No faith should be established; none should find its free exercise inhibited.
For more than a century the Constitution's First Amendment has often been interpreted as if religion and freedom of conscience are purely personal or private ecclesiastical affairs. Even contemporary scholars such as John Rawls, who want to protect religious freedom, still believe that the civic dialogue can be carried on only by those who meet a standard of "political reasonableness." Thomas Jefferson wanted the common school to teach every child to yield to the same moral sense so that all would be free to govern themselves. He did not realize the extent to which he was doing what the churches had done earlier in trying to get all children to subscribe to a creed that would give them entrance to civic responsibility. Jefferson wanted old-fashioned religion to remain private, but he wanted to define the public-confessional terms on which citizenship should be based.
The Center for Public justice affirms that religions—whether of the old-fashioned variety or of newer and often secular varieties—cannot be privatized. They will all contain implications for and have some impact on the shape of political life. The only way to do justice to them is to give equal access to all, both in public as well as in private life. Jefferson's common-sense moralism and Rawls's reasonable liberalism should be given no greater privilege in the public square than is given to any other view of life.
The implication of this affirmation is that even in public life government ought to try to accommodate the conscientious objections of citizens. Some have been pacifists who object to the military draft. While being willing to submit to government's authority and fulfill other obligations of citizenship, they have been unwilling to take up arms. When at its best, America has respected these objections, asking pacifists to serve the country in other ways.
Respect for conscience helps strengthen citizenship, for it recognizes that people with quite different views of life—even with regard to the foundations of the state—can find ways to live together and cooperate without having to confess a common creed.
The same thing can occur in other areas of life. Government can require education of all children in order to make sure that every citizen will have access to public society. But the educational mandate can be fulfilled in different ways—in schools with different confessional bases and in communities as different from one another as the Pennsylvania Amish and the New York Hasidim.
This affirmation recognizes, however, that religious freedom is made possible within a just public order, not by anarchy. The limits of confessional freedom and conscientious objection must be found, therefore, in the requirements of public safety, the peaceful resolution of conflict, and the just treatment of every citizen. Religions that want to practice child sacrifice should not be told that they cannot make that confession, but that such a practice violates government's duty to protect the life of every citizen. Groups that believe the state ought to have an established church are not required by government to give up their faith, but only to submit to the law that gives equal treatment to all faiths.
An individual's conscience or one group's confession does not exist in a public vacuum. Each should have freedom within bounds that make for a just and peaceful order, and citizens should be able, in proportion to their numbers, to gain political representation in order to participate in the ongoing public debate about how best to shape the republic.
—James W. Skillen is the former President of the Center for Public Justice.
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Many railways have no need fo rthis. But sometimes a track section is laid which "goes back on itself". This leads to a train being able to run around a loop and back onto the original track, reversing its direction as it goes. The power into such a track section needs to be provided carefully: here's why.
Look at the track section drawn. The diagonal track from bottom right to top left is a reverse loop. Now look at how the rains need to be powered:
- If point 1 is set for a train to enter the loop, rail A must be connected to the "red" rail and rail B connected to the "blue" rail.
- If point 2 is set for a train to enter the loop, rail A must be connected to the "blue" rail and rail B connected to the "red" rail.
That means that a train can't run through that loop without something happening! The solution is for the track polarity to be changed using some kind of changeover switch. The track needs both rails at each end to be isolated, and for its power to be separately wired. When the train enters the loop, it has one polarity; when it exits, it has the other.
On a DC railway, the solution is simple. The train is halted, and the track polarity is then flipped with a switch. (That switch could be a relay which changes according to the position of a point). The train can then re-start on its journey. On a DCC railway, there is an extra option: an autoreverser can change the polarity automatically. This means the train need not stop.
An autoreverser is quite simple. it consists of a changeover switch (usually a relay, but it can be electronic) and a short circuit detector. When the short circuit detector identifies a short, the rail polarity is "flipped". When a train drives across th track breaks onto the central section, the polarity ill be either correct in inverted. If it is inverted, a short circuit occurs. The autoreverser detects that short, and "flips" the track polarity. This happens more quickly that the booster's short circuit protection, and everything continues normally. The train crossing the track gap will see one DCC packet corrupted, but it will always have power. The train's speed is unaffected and it decodes the next packets without a problem.
The "simple" autoreversing approach is sufficient for many railways. Sometimes, there is a need to use power management to allow trains in one section to continue to run even if there is a derailed train causing a short on another.
The autorverser is not a power manager. An autoreverser will clear a short caused by a train entering or leaving the reverse loop. But if a train derails in the reverse loop at shorts, the autoreverser will "chatter" until the booster short circuit trip is activated. If power management is needed, then it is necessary to cascade a power manager and then an autoverser in the power feed.
Some railways need block detection, to identify if a track block is occupied. Block detectors can be used AFTER the autoreverser, to detect trains in several positions along that track.
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Breeder Reactor vs. Nuclear Fission Reactor
Which is more efficient: a breeder reactor or a nuclear fission one?
A breeder reactor IS a fission reactor. It is a much more
efficient version of a fission reactor because it "breeds"
new fuel while consuming the old fuel. This is possible because
the fission reactions release lots of neutrons that can
be used to transform certain non-useful isotopes into
useful isotopes or elements - in particular Plutonium is
generally a product of breeder reactors. However, plutonium
is also rather hazardous and dangerous for reasons associated
with proliferation of nuclear weapons, so breeder reactors
have not been very popular in the U.S. They are widely used
in other countries though (Japan and France I think).
Click here to return to the Physics Archives
Update: June 2012
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University of Exeter
Sharks, penguins, turtles and other seagoing species could help humans monitor the oceans by transmitting oceanographic information from electronic tags.
Thousands of marine animals are tagged for a variety of research and conservation purposes, but at present the information gathered isn?t widely used to track climate change and other shifts in the oceans.
Instead, monitoring is mostly done by research vessels, underwater drones and thousands of floating sensors that drift with the currents. However, large areas of the ocean still remain under-sampled ? leaving gaps in our knowledge.
A team led by the University of Exeter says animals carrying sensors can fill many of these gaps through natural behaviour such as diving under ice, swimming in shallow water or moving against currents.
?We want to highlight the massive potential of animal-borne sensors to teach us about…
View original post 352 more words
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Speed reading is an awesome way to save time by learning and understanding things quickly. In the long run, this will free up a lot of time to allow you to concentrate on other things.
Below, you will find a few helpful tips to speed read effectively. It is not a comprehensive list, but a start to allow you to get to grip with the basics.
1. The first sentence of every paragraph is the most important one to read.
The first sentence lets you
know what you are going to read. So if you want to skim through very
quickly, read the first sentence only. Also, when doing this, look out for key words in that first sentence
because that will let you know what the paragraph is all about. As a side
note, if the paragraphs in the book aren't arranged with the important
sentences first, then the book is probably not optimised for speed reading
in the first place.
2. When reading sentences, look out for the key words that tell you what the sentence is about.
You don't have to
read the whole sentence, because you will be able to tell what the
sentence is about by looking at the key words in it. This is easier to do when you are looking
at the page from a comfortable distance, to be able to see most of
the sentence without actually reading every single word in it.
3. For extra quick reading, you can read down the middle of the page only
When you read down the
middle of the page, your eyes can take in all the key words, phrases and
themes of the page very quickly. What you must do is read the page fast or
slow enough, so that you are taking in all the key words.
4. Pay attention to all the highlighted text on the page.
If anything is highlighted
on a page, that highlighted part is obviously important and will make it
easier to understand what the page is all about. Highlighted things to look
out for include titles,
subheadings, captions and key points being
5. Understand what you are reading, instead of just reading the words.
The whole point of reading is to understand what you are reading. If you're just skimming and reading the words without understanding, you're basically wasting your time so you need to always make sure you're understanding it. The other thing to mention is that the speed of thought is much quicker than the speed at which you can read and say words. Therefore try to understand what you are reading and make it a habit, and your reading ability will naturally increase.
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Keyword that indicates that a method should invoke an overridden method in a superclass.
a class construct that provides a type that contains a list of possible types
Reserved word which behaves like an object reference when used in an INVOKE statement. Like SELF, it enables an object to send a message to itself, but the search for a matching method starts in the code of the method's superclass. If used from an instance, the run-time system searches for a method beginning with the instance code of the superclass, and works its way up through the instance methods of all the superclasses until it finds a method matching the message. If used from a class method, the run-time system searches for a class method beginning with the class object code of the superclass and works its way up through the class methods of all the superclasses until it finds a method matching the message. Unlike SELF, and SELFCLASS, SUPER is not a data item containing an object handle; you can't pass SUPER as a parameter to a method.
A Java keyword used to access members of a class inherited by the class in which it appears.
reference to superclass, gives access to its methods
The keyword super refers to the same value as this: the instance of the class for which the current method (these keywords are valid only within non- static methods) was invoked. While the type of this is the type of the class in which the method appears, the type of super is the type of the superclass of the class in which the method appears. super is usually used to refer to superclass variables shadowed by variables in the current class. Using super in this way is equivalent to casting this to the type of the superclass.
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Note: In October/November 2012 Professor of Forest Ecology Glenn Juday participated in a private trip (pilgrimage) following the route of St. Paul, through Turkey, mainland Greece, the Aegean islands and Rome. As time permits he will post some sketches of the history, geography, and natural history and contemporary observations of this route.
Part 2 of 3
The design, construction and conservation of the Parthenon
The construction of the Parthenon displays architectural design skill, large-project construction capability, and artistic ability beyond the level of nearly all other structures of its time. The Parthenon displays a deceptively simple visual harmony, which is what first attracts most visitors. The harmony is based on the simple mathematical and geometric ratio of 9:4. This is the ratio of the length to the width of the Parthenon, and it is the ratio of the width of the front of the temple to its height. The same ratio carries over into the distance between the center of each vertical column to the width of each column.
|An olive tree at the base of the Erectheum, on the Acropolis of Athens, October 2012. This olive tree commemorates the gift of the mythical goddess Athena.|
The Parthenon originally was lavishly decorated with marble sculptures on both the exterior and interior. The west and east pediments (triangular spaces between the peak of the roof and height of the columns) were covered with tableaux of the mythological events of the involvement of the gods and demi-gods in the origin of the city. Analysis of residues on the sculptures indicates that they were originally painted, although the extent and color scheme are still being discovered and debated.
In terms of the quality of artistic workmanship, these sculptures are practically without parallel in the Hellenic (from the Greek Hellas for Greek) world of the time. Doric temples such as the Parthenon characteristically had a frieze or wide moldings and bands, which extended horizontally above columns. The frieze of the Parthenon could only be seen through the columns, requiring the viewer to look up. As a result they had to be designed very precisely so the viewer could see the details. The amazing fact about the sculptures on the frieze of the Parthenon is that the carvings are no more than 7.5 cm (3 in) deep. Yet the figures depicted convey a three dimensional look. They display a naturalness and fluidity that easily suggests movement, or strength and power in horses, or relaxation in the maidens.
All of the original sculptures have been removed from the building itself, although some replicas have been put in their place. Some were destroyed in late antiquity, some were partially destroyed in a 17th century explosion, and some have been placed into an excellent on-site museum. But perhaps the most famous set of sculptures missing from the Parthenon are the so-called “Elgin Marbles” (actually the Parthenon Marbles), which are one of the prized holdings of the British Museum. Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin, was the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1799 to 1803. During his ambassadorship he obtained a blanket permission from Ottoman authorities to remove pieces of the Parthenon. The local Greeks were largely a suppressed, powerless, and poorly educated people. Ottoman officials, and obviously British as well, felt no need to consider their opinion at the time.
Agents working for Elgin removed about half of the Parthenon sculptures, a number of architectural members, and sculptures from the Erechtheum from 1801 to 1812, packed them up and shipped them off by sea to London. Some of the pieces were sawn apart to facilitate shipment. Even at the time, this removal of pieces of the Parthenon generated harsh criticism in Britain as equivalent to an act of vandalism or looting.
Elgin was unable to bear the expense of the entire operation while maintaining his estate. The British government purchased the Parthenon Marbles from Elgin in 1816 and put them on display in the British Museum, where they remain today in a special wing constructed for them. The museum’s dilemma is acute. On the one hand, the Greek government and people have a strong case for the return of their patrimony. On the other hand, few museums in the world could sustain all their current holdings on the basis of a consistent application of the general principle of repatriation of objects acquired with some shady overtones.
The Parthenon, the instantly recognizable iconic symbol of so much of enduring value in art, architecture and democratic values, has had a difficult time enduring in recent decades. All it takes to dissolve marble into a salt crust is acid and water. For much of the post-WW II era, Athens existed in a vigorous cloud of air pollution that provided plenty of acidity, particularly sulfur oxides and nitrous oxides. Just add water and sulfuric acid and nitric acid are produced. Nearly all school children have seen a teacher put a few drops of acid on limestone or marble and watched the rock dissolve away. In just this way the Parthenon and its artwork began to dissolve away.
As the population in Athens exploded in the post-WWII years and a great influx of people from the countryside moved in as a result of the civil war with the communists in the late 1940s, a new and somewhat haphazardly constructed city with very bad air quality took shape. The great marble and limestone artistic and cultural patrimony of ancient Greece were bathed in acid. The damage was severe, and in some cases exceeded in a couple of decades the amount weathering in the previous two millennia. More recently some progress has been made in reducing air pollution.
Greece has developed a world-class set of museum facilities, conservators and historians. A conservation and restoration plan for the Parthenon is being carried out gradually. Some of the severely damaged sections of the Parthenon remained as stone fragments littered about the Acropolis, and previous restorations frequently put them together incorrectly. Today these stone pieces are being taken apart and then reassembled correctly with the aid of a complete database of original stone fragments and a computer shape-matching program. But in the end the final decision about the proper placement of a fragment is reserved to human judgment. Some past restoration used concrete to supply missing material in order to join to original pieces. Older concrete mixtures can react with the original marble and accelerate deterioration, so concrete restorations are being removed. Reinforcement of some weakened stone structural sections was formerly accomplished using iron and steel reinforcing rods, which have reacted over the years with the marble and damaged it further. Where necessary, new titanium rods are being substituted for other metals.
All these problems are being systematically corrected while the Parthenon is open to visitors. The visibility of scaffolding and construction cranes are minimized to the degree the different asks allow so that visitors can continue to enjoy the Parthenon and it can continue to generated much-needed revenue for the Greek economy.
|Author in front of crane and scaffolding at the west end of the Parthenon, November, 2012.|
The Parthenon is built from marble quarried from Mount Pentelicon, about 16 km (10 mi) from Athens. This proximity of an abundant source of high quality marble (a premium building material in ancient times) was a crucial factor in allowing the construction of such a large and elaborate temple to such high standards. Ancient records indicate that quarrying and moving the marble was the biggest expense in the construction of the Parthenon. The Mount Pentelicon quarry has been reopened, and it supplies marble for restorations of the original structure of the Parthenon and replica statuary. Restorations are now literally the same material as the original.
The fate of the Parthenon through history
The Parthenon, obviously, has a long history. Yet it managed to survive in a more intact condition than most of its contemporary structures. The Parthenon outlasted the civic religion that produced it, the empires that absorbed it, and even a number of alternative uses that spread across the Acropolis. The Parthenon did not go into ruin slowly. Much of the worst damage to it came from specific incidents, with a surprising number of them in the later, more recent period of its long life.
Just before the spectacular recovery achieved by ancient Athens from the Persian attack that occasioned the building of the Parthenon, Athens formed a military alliance with more than 150 smaller and more vulnerable city-states. These city-states either contributed forces or alternatively paid a fee to the alliance. The sacred island of Delos held the treasury where the payment was stored and guarded, and so the alliance was called the Delian League. Over time the larger, stronger Athenian protectors began to dominate the League, and in practical terms it became an Athenian Empire. In 454 B.C. Pericles ordered the transfer of the League treasury to Athens. The self-appropriation of the immense wealth of the League treasury allowed Pericles to rebuild the Parthenon, the Propylaea and much of Athens on a lavish scale to the most exacting standards of quality.
The Parthenon itself appears from its earliest days to have been partially regarded as a treasury. The giant stature of Athena was made of ivory and covered with a massive amount of gold. As might be expected, when in later times (296 B.C.) a somewhat dodgy ruler, the tyrant Lachares, got into a pinch and needed some quick way to pay his army, he helped himself to the gold.
Athens and all of Greece came under Roman rule after 146 B.C., at first under the Republic, and later the Roman Empire. In 88 B.C. Athens revolted, and the Roman Army under the general Sulla crushed the resistance with much violence and emphatic attention to the details of looting. But once Roman rule was unchallenged, life in Athens continued much as before. The Greek language remained solidly established in the eastern Mediterranean. The Romans had a saying that: “Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit.” (Captive Greece captured her rough conqueror). The Romans had a god paired to nearly each in the Greek pantheon, in part because the Roman gods and religion developed under some Greek influence in their formative years. So once the Roman Empire engulfed Athens it was a simple matter to let the Parthenon stand and function as it had before.
The Romans were practical, proud of their achievements in engineering (both civil and military), and focused on the future – as in expanding or protecting the Empire. Many Romans deeply respected the Greek cultural patrimony, but a number, especially the more populist types, tended to regard Greek philosophical schools, refined language, and attachment to a golden past as stuffy, effete and hopelessly impractical. Even in the early times of the Roman Empire, only a couple of centuries after construction of the Parthenon, there was a nostalgia about the Athens of a golden, glorious past, now faded. But there is no particular evidence that the Romans identified the Parthenon in any special way as the icon of the institution of democracy or the cultural achievements of the Golden Age of Athens. Partly, that was because there was plenty of other evidence to make the point – physical evidence as well as unbroken transmission of cultural evidence.
In the late 4th century Athens experienced a brief incursion of the Goths and Vandals from the north, who, not surprisingly, vandalized and looted much of the city. They were driven out and went on to sack the greatly weakened city of Rome in 410 A.D. The Roman Empire had by then reorganized, and earlier in the 4th century the Emperor Constantine founded a strong new and much more defensible capital, Constantinople, at the old village of Byzantium as the Eastern Roman Empire. Immediately Athens was at the heart of the new empire. But it was Christian empire from its start, and the Parthenon was quickly converted into a Christian church.
The contemporary author Anthony Kaldellis argues that the Parthenon was more important as a church than it had been as a cultic temple, and in fact there is scant evidence for the latter use at all. However there is evidence that the Parthenon Church became an important pilgrimage destination. The Parthenon was initially dedicated as the Church of the Holy Wisdom (Greek: Ἁγία Σοφία, or Hagia Sophia). It was then rededicated to the Virgin Mary as Theotokos (literally “God bearer,” or more commonly, Mother of God). The term Theotokos emerged in 431 at the Council of Ephesus from the controversies over the nature of the person of Christ. Given the origin of the Parthenon as a structure dedicated to Athena Parthenos – Athena the Virgin – one interpretation under the new Christian culture was that the old and imperfectly understood prepared the way for the perfect and fully revealed (Blessed Virgin Mary). An apse was added at the east end, and the internal columns were removed. Significantly it is not clear that many statues of pagan deities were removed from the Parthenon during its active use as a church. Some polemicists would like to make the Christian culture of the time a retrograde and vandalizing force. While it is indisputably true that among the Christian ranks there existed ignorant and weak-minded people, there is little evidence to support the conjecture of systematic anti-cultural and anti-art fanaticism. And the clearest example of anti artistic fanaticism, the iconoclast controversy, was introduced as the result of imperial meddling and was resolved as a result of condemnation of iconoclasm (literally, icon smashing) by Church councils of 787 and 843. In any event, the great pagan mythic scenes on the pediments of the Parthenon were certainly not removed. For nearly a millennium the Parthenon functioned under this order. It certainly was architecturally one of the oddest churches dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
As a result of the Fourth Crusade, Athens and Constantinople itself were conquered by western knights, with the latter severely looted. During the period from 1205 to 1456, Athens was ruled by a succession of medium “western” powers heavily invested in trade with the eastern Mediterranean and able to project power and establish bases there - Burgundians, Catalans, Florentines, and, briefly, Venetians. All of them appear to have extended respect to the Parthenon. By this time the differences between the ancient apostolic Eastern and Western Churches had firmed up into a schism or split of Eastern Orthodoxy versus the Catholic and overwhelmingly Latin Church. The western rulers of Athens in this period transformed the Parthenon into a Latin-Rite Catholic Church. In the late thirteenth century, Pope Nicholas IV even granted an indulgence for those who went on pilgrimage to it.
By 1460, the recent Islamic conquest and destruction of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire by the Ottoman Turks allowed a continuation of jihad and invasion into mainland Europe. Greece and Athens were conquered, and the Parthenon was converted into a mosque. A minaret was added, but even at this date the Parthenon was far more intact than anybody in modern times has seen. Then a period of neglect and decline began. The Venetians alternately traded with and fought the Ottomans in the eastern Mediterranean. During one of these wars, in 1687 the Parthenon suffered the greatest damage in its history. The Venetian forces were attacking, and the Ottoman forces were defending from the Parthenon. The Ottomans had stored their gunpowder in the Parthenon. A Venetian mortar bomb arced through the roof and detonated the gunpowder. The explosion destroyed the central portion of the Parthenon. The roof collapsed, and pillars especially on the south side were cut in half. Most of the sculptures were damaged to some degree. A fire raged for a day and a half. The largely intact patrimony of a time two millennia earlier was ravaged in an instant.
By the late 18th century tourism to Athens began to develop under the protection of the strong British fleet that dominated the Mediterranean Sea and a general decrease in risk of travel on land. The ruins of the Parthenon fit right in with the mood and aesthetic of this, the early Romantic Period. In its essence the aesthetic went something like: a long lost romantic past is encountered in ruins that speak of the intangible things of the spirit and culture. The Parthenon became a must-see on any decent tour of the Mediterranean.
The Ottomans anticipated an eventual conquest and replacement of European civilization with Islamic culture, and so were not greatly moved by the Parthenon or its fate. But the British, a rising power in the region, had an intellectual class keenly interested in all things ancient and Greek. The widespread teaching of Greek (some of the American Founding Fathers were among the students of the language) began to create a class for whom the Athenian past spoke. The removal of the Parthenon Marbles by Lord Elgin was the product of that unique moment in history when the indigenous Greek people were powerless, the ruling Ottoman power indifferent (or bribable), and an outside global power (British) enthralled and projecting power into the region.
Seething under Ottoman and Islamic suppression, and benefiting from a Greek language revival, the rise of a merchant class, and young people educated in European universities, in 1821 the Greeks began a war for independence. A sympathetic British and European elite offered encouragement and pressed their governments to support the revolt. A combined British, French and Russian fleet defeated an Ottoman naval force, and Ottoman land forces were forced to withdraw. George Gordon Byron (Lord Byron), the chief English Romantic poet, joined the revolt and died of a fever, becoming a Greek national hero. During the struggle, Greek and volunteer forces besieged and attacked the Parthenon. Ottoman defenders rearranged the ruins for defense, and even extracted lead for bullets from metal stays that held parts of the Parthenon together. The Greeks forces were so upset it is said that they offered the defenders their own bullets if they would agree to stop damaging the Parthenon.
The Greeks gained control of Athens in 1832 and promptly removed the minaret from the Parthenon. All modern and medieval structures were cleared from the Acropolis, and it became an historic district controlled by the Greek government. In essence the Parthenon was appropriated for Greek nationalism. Given the influence of the Romantic movement and the thorough destruction of Greek and Byzantine culture and learning by four centuries of Ottoman rule, the modern act of recalling the past skipped over most of a millennium and a half. In the subsequent presentation and depiction of the Parthenon, a hazily recalled and inaccurately depicted secular past leapt directly into a politically charged modern world. The tourist experience at the Parthenon was crafted to provide this meaning, and the Parthenon became the icon of the origins of democracy and the cultural flowering of the time of Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens. This interpretation is accurate enough, as far as it goes.
But the idea that the Parthenon was a treasury, a mosque, and since there is no record of it being de-sacralized, that the Parthenon is still an Orthodox (“Panagia Atheniotissa”) or Catholic church (“Notre Dame d’Athène”), is simply not part of the modern consciousness. At the very time the modern world has established strong cultural institutions such as museums or scholarly institutes and developed a continuously improving historical record, a sort of black hole has opened up in the contemporary historical understanding of the middle life of this unique and iconic building. Perhaps the history of the Parthenon is too much of a record accumulated over too much time for the somewhat odd world we inhabit to show much respect for historical truth. But perhaps there will always be a few people interested in such things, and who knows what meanings will be attached in the future to this hauntingly attractive building and the island of ‘time out of time’ that surrounds it?
See Part One
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One of the interesting phenomena of American Jewish life a century ago was the Jewish educational literature which reflected the relatively simple education available at the time - sometimes on the part of the author, sometimes on the part of the projected audience. There as a genre of "Reverend's hand-books," the best-known example by Simon Druckerman, published by Hebrew Publishing Company. These usually consisted of simple sermons in English and Hebrew for many occasions, and some basic texts, like the Kaddish; I think I've even seen one which included documents like a Get! (Jewish bill of divorce.)
One book in this genre was The Jewish American Orator (Der Idish-Ameriḳaner redner: a bukh fun 521 redes in Idish, English un Hebraish) compiled by George (Getzel) Selikovitch, a Yiddish writer who sometimes wrote under the pseudonym "Litvisher Philosoph" ("Lithuanian Philosopher"). In this book, some of the sermons are ascribed to himself, Selikovitch, and some to the aforementioned Litvisher Philosoph, which is also quaintly rendered as "Lithvassian Philosopher." The title pages of this book, printed in 1907 (Chanukah, no less, according to the Yiddish section), looked like this:
Selikovitch (1863*-1927) was not an ignoramus; he was writing and compiling these sermons and speeches for a simple audience. Before emigrating to the United States, he was an interpreter for the British army in Sudan and Ethiopia; the results of that experience were printed in a Hebrew book called Tsiurei Masa. Among other interesting things he writes is a conversation with a 16 year old slave girl named Aziza in the Sudanese King's harem (pg. 33).
The introduction includes two short biographical pages, where he informs us that he was born near Kovno and received a traditional education (Torah, Talmud, and the poskim). Orphaned at 16, an "Honorary Lieutenant" in Egypt at 22, where he learned Arabic and English, he eventually returned to Europe, where he penned many articles for Hameliz and Hamaggid, and befriended future celebrities like Eliezer Ben Yehuda. After another trip to the East, he emigrated to the United States, studied at the University of Pennsylvania, and moved to New York. There he wrote many articles and books in Yiddish, including a Yiddish guide to Arabic . For more complete biographical info, including a detailed description of the Arabic book, see Simon, Rachel - "Teach Yourself Arabic - in Yiddish" (MELA Notes: The Journal of the Middle Eastern Librarians Association; link).
Here he is:
An example of a table from his Arabic book:
Getting back to The Jewish-American Orator, here is the English Table of Contents, which gives an idea of what sort of occasions are meant to be addressed:
As you can see, it is heavy on the Bar Mitzvah material and also includes some sad signs of the times - For an Orphan to [sic] his Bar Mitzva, Funeral Oration at a Young Men's Bier, etc. (Not that I am under any illusion that such sadness has really diminished.)
Here are some samples. A "pshetel" for a Bar Mitzvah boy:
Another one penned by Selikovitz himself:
And here is an Address at the Engagement of an Orphan Girl, where her fiance is told that he is to be her father and mother, as well as husband:
* Mayer Waxman says he was born in 1856, but Selikowitch himself writes 5623 (1863) in Tsiurei Masa.
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On switching the filters, an abrupt decrease occurs in the discharge valve opening. On the time frame of the trend in Figure 5, the response of the flow controller is instantaneous. However, there's no effect on discharge flow. (The decreased valve opening merely compensates for the lower pressure drop across the filters.) In the cascade configuration, the flow controller completely isolates the level controller from any consequences from switching the filters.
Figure 5. Flow controller isolates level controller from any consequences when filters are switched.
CONSTANT TOTAL DISCHARGE FLOW
Up until now we've focused on maintaining as constant a discharge flow as possible given the variations in feed flow to the vessel and the capacity of the vessel to smooth these variations. Some applications, though, add a complication. In them:
• Two (or possibly more) discharge flows are present, with the vessel level controller manipulating one.
• Other factors determine the second discharge flow and that flow isn't constant.
• Any change in the second flow must lead as quickly as possible to an equal but opposite change in the flow regulated by the vessel level controller — that is, the total discharge flow must remain constant.
Figure 6. Manipulating distillate flow regulates temperature in upper stage of column.
Distillation provides an example of such a requirement. Figure 6 illustrates the upper section of a column. The overhead vapor is totally condensed. Some of the condensate exits as distillate product; the remaining condensate returns to the column as reflux.
The control configuration consists of a temperature-to-flow cascade. Distillate flow manipulation regulates the temperature on the control stage in the upper section of the column. The temperature loop responds slowly, so providing a controller for distillate flow is advisable. Reflux manipulation regulates vessel level.
Reflux flow can't be zero; the minimum depends on the column internals. In the simple feedback configuration shown in Figure 6, you must convert this minimum flow to a corresponding valve opening and impose a minimum on the opening. The availability of a reflux flow measurement permits implementing a level-to-flow cascade. This enables imposing the minimum reflux flow via a lower limit on the reflux flow set point.
In developing control configurations for distillation, the first priority is to establish how to regulate product compositions. To maintain overhead composition at its desired value, the scheme shown in Figure 6 uses the temperature on a control stage in lieu of an overhead composition measurement. When you must control both overhead and bottoms compositions, interaction between these two loops is a given — anything that affects one composition impacts the other (a consequence of the material balances). Using a steady-state separation model, you can perform an interaction analysis to determine whether to control overhead composition using reflux flow or distillate flow. When the answer is distillate flow, the configuration in Figure 6 is appropriate.
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Nickel (pronounced /ˈnɪkəl/) is a chemical element, with the chemical symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. It is one of the four ferromagnetic elements at about room temperature, other three being iron, cobalt and gadolinium. Its use has been traced as far back as 3500 BC, but it was first isolated and classified as a chemical element in 1751 by Axel Fredrik Cronstedt, who initially mistook its ore for a copper mineral. Its most important ore minerals are laterites, including limonite and garnierite, and pentlandite. Major production sites include Sudbury region in Canada, New Caledonia and Norilsk in Russia. The metal is corrosion-resistant, finding many uses in alloys, as a plating, in the manufacture of coins, magnets and common household utensils, as a catalyst for hydrogenation, and in a variety of other applications. Enzymes of certain life-forms contain nickel as an active center making the metal essential for them.
Nickel(II) sulfate is produced in large quantities by dissolving nickel metal or oxides in sulfuric acid. This compound is useful for electroplating nickel.
The most common oxidation state of nickel is +2 with several Ni complexes known. It is also thought that a +6 oxidation state may exist, however, this has not been demonstrated conclusively.
Four halides are known to form nickel compounds, these are nickel(II) fluoride, chloride, bromide, and iodide. Nickel(II) chloride is produced analogously by dissolving nickel residues in hydrochloric acid. Tetracarbonylnickel (Ni(CO)4), discovered by Ludwig Mond, is a homoleptic complex of nickel with carbon monoxide. Having no net dipole moment, intermolecular forces are relatively weak, allowing this compound to be liquid at room temperature. Carbon monoxide reacts with nickel metal readily to give this compound; on heating, the complex decomposes back to nickel and carbon monoxide. This behavior is exploited in the Mond process for generating high-purity nickel.
Tetracoordinate nickel(II) takes both tetrahedral and square planar geometries. This is in contrast with the other group 10 elements, which tend to exist as square planar complexes. Bis(cyclooctadiene)nickel(0) is a useful intermediate in organometallic chemistry due to the easily displaced cod ligands. Nickel(III) oxide is used as the cathode in many rechargeable batteries, including nickel-cadmium, nickel-iron, nickel hydrogen, and nickel-metal hydride, and used by certain manufacturers in Li-ion batteries.
Because the ores of nickel are easily mistaken for ores of silver, understanding of this metal and its use dates to relatively recent times. However, the unintentional use of nickel is ancient, and can be traced back as far as 3500 BC. Bronzes from what is now Syria had contained up to 2% nickel. Further, there are Chinese manuscripts suggesting that “white copper” (cupronickel, known as baitung) was used there between 1700 and 1400 BC. This Paktong white copper was exported to Britain as early as the 17th century, but the nickel content of this alloy was not discovered until 1822.
In medieval Germany, a red mineral was found in the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains) which resembled copper ore. However, when miners were unable to extract any copper from it they blamed a mischievous sprite of German mythology, Nickel (similar to Old Nick) for besetting the copper. They called this ore Kupfernickel from the German Kupfer for copper. This ore is now known to be nickeline or niccolite, a nickel arsenide. In 1751, Baron Axel Fredrik Cronstedt was attempting to extract copper from kupfernickel and obtained instead a white metal that he named after the spirit which had given its name to the mineral, nickel.In modern German, Kupfernickel or Kupfer-Nickel designates the alloy cupronickel.
In the United States, the term “nickel” or “nick” was originally applied to the copper-nickel Indian cent coin introduced in 1859. Later, the name designated the three-cent coin introduced in 1865, and the following year the five-cent shield nickel appropriated the designation, which has remained ever since. Coins of pure nickel were first used in 1881 in Switzerland.
After its discovery the only source for nickel was the rare Kupfernickel, but from 1824 on the nickel was obtained as byproduct of cobalt blue production. The first large scale producer of nickel was Norway, which exploited nickel rich pyrrhotite from 1848 on. The introduction of nickel in steel production in 1889 increased the demand for nickel and the nickel deposits of New Caledonia, which were discovered in 1865, provided most of the world’s supply between 1875 and 1915. The discovery of the large deposits in the Sudbury Basin, Canada in 1883, in Norilsk-Talnakh , Russia in 1920 and in the Merensky Reef, South Africa in 1924 made large-scale production of nickel possible.
The bulk of the nickel mined comes from two types of ore deposits. The first are laterites where the principal ore minerals are nickeliferous limonite: (Fe, Ni)O(OH) and garnierite (a hydrous nickel silicate): (Ni, Mg)3Si2O5(OH). The second are magmatic sulfide deposits where the principal ore mineral is pentlandite: (Ni, Fe)9S8.
In terms of supply, the Sudbury region of Ontario, Canada, produces about 30% of the world’s supply of nickel. The Sudbury Basin deposit is theorized to have been created by a meteorite impact event early in the geologic history of Earth. Russia contains about 40% of the world’s known resources at the Norilsk deposit in Siberia. The Russian mining company MMC Norilsk Nickel obtains the nickel and the associated palladium for world distribution. Other major deposits of nickel are found in New Caledonia, France, Australia, Cuba, and Indonesia. Deposits found in tropical areas typically consist of laterites which are produced by the intense weathering of ultramafic igneous rocks and the resulting secondary concentration of nickel bearing oxide and silicate minerals. Recently, a nickel deposit in western Turkey had been exploited, with this location being especially convenient for European smelters, steelmakers and factories. The one locality in the United States where nickel was commercially mined is Riddle, Oregon, where several square miles of nickel-bearing garnierite surface deposits are located. The mine closed in 1987. In 2005, Russia was the largest producer of nickel with about one-fifth world share closely followed by Canada, Australia and Indonesia, as reported by the British Geological Survey.
Based on geophysical evidence, most of the nickel on Earth is postulated to be concentrated in the Earth’s core. Kamacite and taenite are naturally occurring alloys of iron and nickel. For kamacite the alloy is usually in the proportion of 90:10 to 95:5 although impurities such as cobalt or carbon may be present, while for taenite the nickel content is between 20% and 65%. Kamacite and taenite occur in nickel-iron meteorites.
Extraction and purification
Nickel is recovered through extractive metallurgy. Most sulfide ores have traditionally been processed using pyrometallurgical techniques to produce a matte for further refining. Recent advances in hydrometallurgy have resulted in recent nickel processing operations being developed using these processes. Most sulfide deposits have traditionally been processed by concentration through a froth flotation process followed by pyrometallurgical extraction.
Nickel is extracted from its ores by conventional roasting and reduction processes which yield a metal of greater than 75% purity. Final purification of nickel oxides is performed via the Mond process, which increases the nickel concentrate to greater than 99.99% purity. This process was patented by L. Mond and was used in South Wales in the 20th century. Nickel is reacted with carbon monoxide at around 50 °C to form volatile nickel carbonyl. Any impurities remain solid while the nickel carbonyl gas passes into a large chamber at high temperatures in which tens of thousands of nickel spheres, called pellets, are constantly stirred. The nickel carbonyl decomposes, depositing pure nickel onto the nickel spheres. Alternatively, the nickel carbonyl may be decomposed in a smaller chamber at 230 °C to create fine nickel powder. The resultant carbon monoxide is re-circulated through the process. The highly pure nickel produced by this process is known as carbonyl nickel. A second common form of refining involves the leaching of the metal matte followed by the electro-winning of the nickel from solution by plating it onto a cathode. In many stainless steel applications, 75% pure nickel can be used without further purification depending on the composition of the impurities.
Nickel sulfide ores undergo flotation (differential flotation if Ni/Fe ratio is too low) and then are smelted. After producing the nickel matte, further processing is done via the Sherritt-Gordon process. First copper is removed by adding hydrogen sulfide, leaving a concentrate of only cobalt and nickel. Solvent extraction then efficiently separates the cobalt and nickel, with the final nickel concentration greater than 99%.
The market price of nickel surged throughout 2006 and the early months of 2007; as of April 5, 2007, the metal was trading at 52,300 USD/tonne or 1.47 USD/oz. The price subsequently fell dramatically from these peaks, and as of 19 January 2009 the metal was trading at 10,880 USD/tonne.
The US nickel coin contains 0.04 oz (1.25 g) of nickel, which at the April 2007 price was worth 6.5 cents, along with 3.75 grams of copper worth about 3 cents, making the metal value over 9 cents. Since the face value of a nickel is 5 cents, this made it an attractive target for melting by people wanting to sell the metals at a profit. However, the United States Mint, in anticipation of this practice, implemented new interim rules on December 14, 2006, subject to public comment for 30 days, which criminalize the melting and export of cents and nickels. Violators can be punished with a fine of up to $10,000 and/or imprisoned for a maximum of five years.
As of June 24, 2009 the melt value of a U.S. nickel is $0.0363145 which is less than the face value.
Nickel is used in many industrial and consumer products, including stainless steel, magnets, coinage, rechargeable batteries, electric guitar strings and special alloys. It is also used for plating and as a green tint in glass. Nickel is pre-eminently an alloy metal, and its chief use is in the nickel steels and nickel cast irons, of which there are many varieties. It is also widely used in many other alloys, such as nickel brasses and bronzes, and alloys with copper, chromium, aluminium, lead, cobalt, silver, and gold.
The amounts of nickel used for various applications are 60% used for making nickel steels, 14% used in nickel-copper alloys and nickel silver, 9% used to make malleable nickel, nickel clad, Inconel and other superalloys, 6% used in plating, 3% use for nickel cast irons, 3% in heat and electric resistance alloys, such as Nichrome, 2% used for nickel brasses and bronzes with the remaining 3% of the nickel consumption in all other applications combined. In the laboratory, nickel is frequently used as a catalyst for hydrogenation, most often using Raney nickel, a finely divided form of the metal alloyed with aluminium which adsorbs hydrogen gas. Nickel is often used in coins, or occasionally as a substitute for decorative silver. The American ‘nickel’ five-cent coin is 75% copper and 25% nickel. The Canadian nickel minted at various periods between 1922-81 was 99.9% nickel, and was magnetic. Various other nations have historically used and still use nickel in their coinage.
Nickel is also used in fire assay as a collector of platinum group elements, as it is capable of full collection of all 6 elements, in addition to partial collection of gold. This is seen through the nature of nickel as a metal, as high throughput nickel mines may run PGE recovery (primarily platinum and palladium), such as Norilsk in Russia and the Sudbury Basin in Canada.
Nickel plays numerous roles in the biology of microorganisms and plants, though they were not recognized until the 1970s. In fact urease (an enzyme which assists in the hydrolysis of urea) contains nickel. The NiFe-hydrogenases contain nickel in addition to iron-sulfur clusters. Such [NiFe]-hydrogenases characteristically oxidise H2. A nickel-tetrapyrrole coenzyme, F430, is present in the methyl coenzyme M reductase which powers methanogenic archaea. One of the carbon monoxide dehydrogenase enzymes consists of an Fe-Ni-S cluster. Other nickel-containing enzymes include a class of superoxide dismutase and a glyoxalase.
Exposure to nickel metal and soluble compounds should not exceed 0.05 mg/cm³ in nickel equivalents per 40-hour work week. Nickel sulfide fume and dust is believed to be carcinogenic, and various other nickel compounds may be as well. Nickel carbonyl, [Ni(CO)4], is an extremely toxic gas. The toxicity of metal carbonyls is a function of both the toxicity of the metal as well as the carbonyl’s ability to give off highly toxic carbon monoxide gas, and this one is no exception. It is explosive in air.
Sensitized individuals may show an allergy to nickel affecting their skin, also known as dermatitis. Sensitivity to nickel may also be present in patients with pompholyx. Nickel is an important cause of contact allergy, partly due to its use in jewellery intended for pierced ears. Nickel allergies affecting pierced ears are often marked by itchy, red skin. Many earrings are now made nickel-free due to this problem. The amount of nickel which is allowed in products which come into contact with human skin is regulated by the European Union. In 2002 researchers found amounts of nickel being emitted by 1 and 2 Euro coins far in excess of those standards. This is believed to be due to a galvanic reaction.
It was voted Allergen of the Year in 2008 by the American Contact Dermatitis Society.
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How do banks calculate the amount of interest paid on a loan? In this lesson, students will view a Livescribe Pencast to learn how to find the dollar amount in interest that is due at maturity. This lesson uses different time periods such as days, months, and years in the calculation as well as varying interest rates.
- Calculate simple interest on small loans.
- Convert the interest rate expressed in percent to a decimal.
- Express time as a ratio when time is expressed in days and months.
- Find the total amount due in dollars when the loan matures.
Suppose you want to get a loan to buy a car? What would you want to know about the loan? Would you want to know the amount of your monthly payments? Would you want to know how much you would have to repay including interest? In this lesson, students will learn how to calculate simple interest.
When banks use simple interest, they consider the principal, the interest rate, and the length of time of the loan. Students will learn how banks calculate the amount in dollars to be repaid, when money is borrowed.
So, how do banks calculate the amount of interest paid on a loan? In this lesson, students will view a Livescribe Pencast and/or Youtube Video to learn how to find the dollar amount in interest that is due at maturity. This lesson uses different time periods such as days, months, and years in the calculation as well as varying interest rates.
Simple Interest: Watch a Youtube video on how to calculate simple interest (if your school allows it).
Simple Interest Livescribe Pencast: Watch a Livescribe Pencast on how to calculate simple interest and use the formula: I = PRT.
Simple Interest Worksheet: This activity is to be completed during step four of the Process section of the lesson.
1.Show students how to calculate simple interest using the formula: I=PRT. Explain that "P" is the Principal and is the amount you borrow; "R" is the Rate in percent; "T" is the Time in years.
2. Perform several problems with your students using various interest rates and time periods.
3. As a supplementary resource, show students this Simple Interest YouTube Video or view the Livescribe Pencast on the right (by clicking the "play" button) that contains the instruction the students will need to perform the calculations.
4. Assign the Worksheet.
5. (Optional): Ask the students to complete the extension activity.
In this lesson, your students have learned how to calculate simple interest. This knowledge will help them make informed financial decisions when using credit.
As your class has seen, the higher the interest rate or the longer the time period of the loan, the higher the interest in dollars. Students will find it wise to shop around for the best rate that will allow them to use the principal but make repayment easier.
Evaluate the Simple Interest Worksheet based on the number correct.
1. Have the students check the answers to the worksheet using the interest calculated on the EconEdLink website: Interest Calculator. (Note: Students will enter 6 months as ".5" since the time on the calculator is in years. They will have to make similar entries for days.)
2. Have the students inquire at their bank what the interest rate is on a home with a 30-year mortgage and have them report it to the class. Also, have the students inquire at their bank what the interest rate is on an automobile loan for three years and report it to the class. Make sure the students take in the proper mortgage and automobile loan situations to their bank, and have them record these rates on something that they can bring back to class.
“This lesson is on calculating simple interest. The video is easy to understand and students can refer to it if they need to. The worksheet is challenging enough for middle school with lots of experience on fractions. I recommend it.”
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Global indices are a way to assess and compare national progress against international goals, such as the Sustainable Development Goals, by distilling complex information into a single number. Such composite indices can capture and synthesize an array of data in a way that can be readily understood and that is especially informative for multidimensional concepts.
The new global Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Index introduced in this report bridges insights from gender and development indices with those from peace and security indices. The index incorporates three basic dimensions of well- being—inclusion (economic, social, political); justice (formal laws and informal discrimination); and security (at the family, community, and societal levels)—and captures and quantifies them through 11 indicators.
It ranks 153 countries—covering more than 98 percent of the world’s population—along these three dimensions in a way that focuses attention on key achievements and major shortcomings.
It reflects a shared vision that countries are more peaceful and prosperous when women are accorded full and equal rights and opportunity.
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The normal heart is composed of two ventricles that circulate blood through the pulmonary and systemic capillary beds in series, providing a means of delivering oxygen and nutrients to the tissues and removing carbon dioxide and metabolic waste. Deoxygenated blood is received in the right atrium and pumped from the right ventricle through the pulmonary capillary bed, where carbon dioxide is exchanged for oxygen in the alveoli. Pulmonary venous return to the left atrium is circulated through the systemic capillary bed by the left ventricle (Figure 1-1).
The normal heart. (Modified, with permission, from Mohrman DE, Heller LJ. Cardiovascular Physiology. 7th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill; 2010.)
The term “cardiac cycle” refers to the events that occur in 1 heartbeat. By convention, the cycle is said to begin with the onset of systole. Notably, the events in the right and left heart occur in parallel, in the same sequence and at roughly the same time, although at different pressures. These events are tied to the electrical activities of the heart in a process described as electromechanical coupling. Figure 1-2 depicts the events of the cardiac cycle, including the surface electrocardiogram (ECG) and intracardiac pressures and volumes.
The Wiggers diagram depicts the events taking place during the cardiac cycle. (Modified, with permission, from Mohrman DE, Heller LJ. Cardiovascular Physiology. 7th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill; 2010.)
In diastole, the ventricles fill with blood, which occurs in two phases. In the first phase, the ventricle fills passively as the ventricular myocardium relaxes and blood is drawn into the ventricles through the atrioventricular (AV) valves as the pressure in the ventricle drops below that of the atria. Next, depolarization of the sinus node, located in the superior portion of the right atrium, initiates atrial contraction. On the surface ECG, atrial systole inscribes a P wave. As the atria contract, additional blood is pumped into the ventricles—the second phase of diastole. Meanwhile, the wave of depolarization travels along the atrial wall toward the ventricles. It ultimately reaches the AV node near the medial aspect of the tricuspid valve. The AV node funnels the impulse into the bundle of His, which rapidly conducts the impulse into the ventricles.
On the surface ECG, ventricular depolarization results in the inscription of the QRS complex. As the ventricles start to contract, the ventricular pressure begins to rise, and the AV valves close when the pressure in the ventricle exceeds that of the atria. A period called isovolumetric contraction follows, as the ventricular pressure increases without a change in volume, as both the AV valves and the semilunar valves are closed. As the pressure in the ventricles ...
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The McCarthy-Kennicott area is a mostly private island surrounded by the vast Wrangell–St. Elias National Park . This was once an incredibly important copper mining area, but today it contains Alaska ’s most famous almost-ghost towns. Access to the area is via the McCarthy Road , which leads from the town of Chitina to the Kennicott River.
Located within Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve, the historic Kennecott Mine contains picturesque old buildings right alongside Kennicott Glacier, with the pinnacles of snowcapped mountains ringing the horizon.
Prospectors discovered rich copper deposits at Kennecott Mine in 1900, and at its peak the mine employed some 600 workers. (Note: Because of a typographic error when the mine was established, the mine, town, and company names are spelled Kennecott, while the glacier, river, and valley are generally spelled Kennicott.)
The mines, in their nearly 30 years of operation, extracted $220 million in rich ore, nearly 70 percent copper, with a little silver and gold on the side. The Alaska Syndicate—owned by J. P. Morgan and Daniel Guggenheim—held the controlling interest. They also owned the Copper River and Northwestern Railway, which freighted the ore to tidewater, plus the Alaska Steamship Co., which shipped the ore to Tacoma, Washington.
The mines shut down in 1938 when world copper prices dropped and the cost of production became prohibitive. After the mine’s closure, the buildings were abandoned and gradually deteriorated. Today, these dark red buildings are in varying states of disrepair. Along with 3,000 acres of surrounding land, they were purchased by the Park Service in 1998, and the agency is spending millions of dollars to stabilize and rebuild the buildings.
You can walk through the beautifully restored structures, or take a guided tour through ones still being worked on.
Regional visitors centers have a useful free visitors guide to the area, or find the same information online (www.mccarthy-kennicott.com/vg ). Also check out the Wrangell Mountains Center (www.wrangells.org ), a McCarthy-based organization dedicated to environmental education and research.
It’s a rough ride to McCarthy, but you can save wear and tear on your car with a van ride from Backcountry Connection (907/822-5292, www.kennicottshuttle.com , daily mid-May–mid-Sept.). The round-trip cost is $139 from Glennallen or Chitina if you come in and go out on different days, and $99 round-trip if you’re crazy enough to try this in one day. Call at least two months ahead for reservations in July since the vans are often full. They also have a fly-drive option for $200 round-trip that includes a flight from Glennallen to McCarthy combined with a van ride in the other direction.
Wrangell Mountain Air (907/554-4411 or 800/478-1160, www.wrangellmountainair.com ) has scheduled service several times a day connecting Chitina with McCarthy ($115 one way), plus a variety of flightseeing trips from McCarthy, starting with a $95 half-hour glacier tour. They also operate a shuttle bus ($5 one way) between the footbridge, McCarthy, and Kennicott on an hourly basis all summer.
A one-man operation run by the affable Gary Green since 1988, McCarthy Air (907/554-4440 or 800/245-6909, www.mccarthyair2.com ) does flightseeing and backcountry drop-offs; Green is one of the most experienced pilots in the region.
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We’re going to show you how to calculate a quartile in R. This is particularly useful when you’re doing exploratory analysis and reporting, especially if you’re analyzing data which may not be normally distributed.
We’re going to use the r quantile function; this utility is part of base R (so you don’t need to import any libraries) and can be adapted to generate a variety of “rank based” statistics about your sample.
To calculate a quartile in R, set the percentile as parameter of the quantile function. You can use many of the other features of the quantile function which we described in our guide on how to calculate percentile in R.
In the example below, we’re going to use a single line of code to get the quartiles of a distribution using R.
# quartile in R example > test = c(9,9,8,9,10,9,3,5,6,8,9,10,11,12,13,11,10) # get quartile in r code (single line) > quantile(test, prob=c(.25,.5,.75)) 25% 50% 75% 8 9 10
You can also use the summary function to generate the same information.
# quartile in R example - summary function > test = c(9,9,8,9,10,9,3,5,6,8,9,10,11,12,13,11,10) > summary(test) Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max. 3.000 8.000 9.000 8.941 10.000 13.000
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- Alternative Agriculture – The debate over genetically engineered crops rages on, but other technologies offer new hope for sustainable farming.
- The Genes of Parkinsons Disease – Parkinson’s cases with genetic origins are shedding light on the cellular mechanisms of the disease, bringing researchers closer to a cause — and perhaps a cure
- New nanomaterials unlock new electronic and energy technologies – A new way of splitting layered materials to give atom thin "nanosheets" has been discovered. This has led to a range of novel two-dimensional nanomaterials with chemical and electronic properties that have the potential to enable new electronic and energy storage technologies.
- Scripps Research scientists develop powerful new methodology for stabilizing proteins – A team of scientists at The Scripps Research Institute has discovered a new way to stabilize proteins — the workhorse biological macromolecules found in all organisms. Proteins serve as the functional basis of many types of biologic drugs used to treat everything from arthritis, anemia, and diabetes to cancer.
- ‘Tall order’ sunlight-to-hydrogen system works, neutron analysis confirms – Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a biohybrid photoconversion system — based on the interaction of photosynthetic plant proteins with synthetic polymers — that can convert visible light into hydrogen fuel.
Robert Slinn refluxes the chemistry news and extracts a goodly yield for Reactive Reports in his regular column: Slinn Pickings.
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Thinking Cap is about work in progress in the world of ideas.
“Behavioral and neural correlates of delay of gratification 40 years later” by B. J. Casey, Walter Mischel and 12 other collaborators in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Casey is director of the Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology at Weill Cornell Medical College, and Dr. Mischel, a psychologist, is Niven Professor of Humane Letters at Columbia University.
The Experiment: For nearly four decades the marshmallow test has fascinated researchers, educators and parents. In this famous experiment Dr. Mischel probed four-year-olds’ self-control by offering them one marshmallow now or two 15 minutes later. When Dr. Mischel caught up with the preschoolers years later, those who exhibited more self-control in the experiment turned out to be less likely to abuse drugs, and more successful in relationships, work, and handling stress as adults than their eat-it-now counterparts. Dr. Mischel, Dr. Casey, the lead author, and their team of collaborators wanted to take a closer look at just what was happening in the brains of these subjects.
They rounded up 59 of the more than 500 original participants — now in their mid-40s — to retake the test, and then scanned the brains of 26 of them using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Dr. Mischel had proposed that a “cool” system rooted in the conscious control circuitry in the brain and a “hot” system centered in the region devoted to desire and emotions were both involved in self-control. The question was whether people who quickly grabbed for the marshmallow — the “low delayers” — would have less activity in the right prefrontal cortex (cognitive control) and more in the ventral striatum (where positive rewards are processed), compared with the “high delayers.” Aware that sweets might not be as much of a lure to adults, Dr. Casey used happy, neutral and fearful faces to stand in for positive and negative social cues in order to examine the neural networks used in delaying gratification.
The Results: As in the earlier experiments, the researchers found that the children who were less able to resist temptation at 4 years of age were also less able to damp down their positive response to the happy faces 40 years later. More interesting was that the prefrontal cortex of the high delayers was in full swing during the trial while the low delayers showed an uptick in activity in the ventral striatum — an area also linked to addiction. The more alluring the object, the tougher it was for an individual “to suppress thoughts and actions, such that control systems may be ‘hijacked’ ” by the brain’s emotional responses. “This is the first time we have located the specific brain areas related to delayed gratification. This could have major implications in the treatment of obesity and addictions,” Dr. Casey said.
She did note, however, that while the resisters were better at exercising their willpower and systematically plotting out how to get more in the long run, the tendency to gratify desires more immediately was not necessarily a negative trait. They could be more likely to be “explorers, risk takers, pioneers.”
What do you think? Is it possible to develop and improve your self-control? Would you rather have a marshmallow or a smiley face? Post a comment below.
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Welcome to Second Grade!
Now is the time to help your child learn the basics. As your child moves through second grade, expect him/her to show an interest in books, to begin reading independently and to rely less on adults for help.
As a parent or guardian, you are your child's first teacher. You play an important role in helping your child meet the high academic expectations that Saint Paul has set for all children.
Think of the work your second grader is doing to meet these expectations as "stepping stones." If your child can successfully do the work expected in second grade programs now, he or she will be ready for the challenges of third grade.
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functions of myth, as defined by Joseph Campbell. Specifically, it will explain Campbell's four functions of myth, and show how they are demonstrated in Native American Hopi culture. The Hopis of Northern Arizona epitomize the four functions of myth in their culture and society. Their society is based on myth, religion, and spiritual celebration, and they have held on to these myths when many other tribes have turned away from their spiritual and mythical past. The Hopis myths relate to the earth, the natural world surrounding them, and their dependence on this natural world for their survival. They understand the importance of myth in a healthy society, and because of this, they have one of the longest-lived Native societies in the desert Southwest.
FOUR FUNCTIONS OF MYTH
Joseph Campbell wrote heavily about myth, reality, and how important myth is in our culture and society. Myths and stories have long been the way Native American cultures preserve their history and pass it down from generation to generation, and the Hopis of Northern Arizona are no exception. Their myths nearly all relate to what is most important in their lives - the land around them, and their dependence on it for their sustenance and well being. Joseph Campbell's four functions of myth are demonstrated in their stories of creation, hope, and life.
Campbell defines his four functions of myth this way:
The first is the mystical function...realizing what a wonder the universe is, and what a wonder you are, and experiencing awe before this mystery. The second is a cosmological dimension, the dimension with which science is concerned -- showing you what the shape of the universe is, but showing it in such a way that the mystery again comes through. The third function is the sociological one -- supporting and validating a certain social order. And here's where the myths vary enormously from place to place. It is this sociological function of myth that has taken over in our world -- and it is out of date. But there is a fourth function of myth, and this is the one that I think everyone must try today to relate to -- and that is the pedagogical function, of how to live a human lifetime under any circumstances. Myths can teach you that (Campbell 31).
What does Campbell's definition really mean? Campbell's four functions of myth bring the reader right into the reality of myth, and how it really does apply to our day-to-day lives. Do discover myth every day, we simply must open ourselves up to the wonder in each of us, and the absolute wonder of our world. You cannot help but be awed when you begin to see the wonder around you. The shape of the universe is ever changing, but it created all of us, and that is wondrous and mythical at the same time. Some people believe myths are outdated, but as Campbell shows in the fourth function, they can allow us to live a more meaningful and authentic life every day if we recognize the importance they play in life, in survival, and in hope for the future. The Hopis recognize these four functions of myth, which is why their oral history is so important to them. To understand the Hopi myths, and their importance in their lives, is to understand just how myth can sustain and nurture every one of us. As Campbell wrote in an anthology on myth, "Man, apparently, cannot maintain himself in the universe without belief in some arrangement of the general inheritance of myth. In fact, the fullness of his life would even seem to stand in a direct ratio to the depth and range, not of his rational thought, but of his local mythology" (Murray 20). As such, myth has always existed, myths tend to take on certain commonalities, and this is directly related to Campbell's four functions. Certain myths, such as that of creation, tend to show up again and again, despite cultural and geographical differences, and there are many similarities between these myths. Not only does this relate to the wonder of the universe, and the need to explain its creation, it relates to the sociological need to hand down stories from generation to generation, and the need we have to understand our lives, and give them more meaning by understanding our world. Campbell notes,
People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive (Campbell 1).
The Hopis understand this need to feel alive at all times, and that is one reason they perpetuate their myths. Myth has existed for thousands of years in just about every culture, so it is nothing new to the Hopis. As one Hopi chronicler notes, "To Hopi audiences, the events portrayed in these narratives once constituted true, factual history, regardless of whether they were perceived as rational-possible or irrational-impossible. They served the Hopis to reinforce the bonds of ethnic and cultural identity and to create a sense of continuity" (Lomatuway'Ma, Lomatuway'Ma and Namingha x). Clearly, these myths and narratives demonstrate the four functions of myth - they create wonderment, allow the culture to continue, are tied to the sociological beliefs and perpetuation of the tribe, and they allow the tribe to be continually aware of the authentic meaning of their history in their day-to-day lives. According to the Hopi author, these myths:
tend to anchor the present generations in a meaningful, significant past, functioning as eternal and ideal models for human behavior and goals. They can teach moral lessons to children and adults alike, communicating cultural messages and representing the community's philosophical positions to its own members through a revered vehicle of tradition (Lomatuway'Ma, Lomatuway'Ma and Namingha x).
The Hopi Indians live in the high desert of Northern Arizona on a series of mesas they call simply, First Mesa, Second Mesa, and Third Mesa. Many of their towns have been continually inhabited longer than any other Native American society, and many of those towns still exist on the mesas today. The Hopis live by growing crops that are totally dependent on summertime desert rains, and so much of their mythology revolves around the agricultural season and its nuances. They are also artisans, and much of their most notable art is directly related to their myths. They carve kachina dolls out of cottonwood, and dress and paint them elaborately to match the descriptions of the gods and goddesses in their myths. The kachinas also participate in many Hopi dances, which are held throughout the summer and winter to appease the gods and bring rain to the crops. The dancers portraying the kachinas dress in elaborate costumes with headdresses, and match the clothing and painting of the dolls. "Fundamentally the Kachinas are happy and helpful spirits from the beneficent underworld. In ceremonies they are represented by masked human figures, but as spirits they play an important unseen part in the life of the Hopis" (O'Kane 185).
As another author who studied the Hopis extensively noted,
The rituals are intricate. They have been handed down from generation to generation, each detail memorized by those who take part. They are accompanied by erection of appropriate altars in the kivas, by sand paintings, by pageants, and by chants sung in a traditional sequence of notes and phrases. Although the appropriate priests and members of societies perform a ceremony, the people are expected to participate in spirit and to share in the experiences and the benefits (O'Kane 181).
Thus, the Hopis have translated their myths into celebrations and ceremonies that sustain the community and give it hope and a cause for celebrating the wonderment of the natural world around them. One ceremony that is incredibly important to the Hopi mythology is the Snake Dance, which is a prayer for rain to the gods. Many preliminary ceremonies take place before the major dance, and during this time, snakes are gathered for use during the dance. The dance is open to visitors, but no cameras are allowed, as the Hopis view the ceremony as exceedingly personal.
The reason for the use of snakes throughout this prayer for rain is to be found in Hopi mythology and beliefs. The Hopis believe that the prayers for rain must have a sure and unfailing way to reach the underworld, where the spirits dwell who can send rain. They must be carried by messengers who live beneath the earth and who are familiar with that region. Snakes live in the ground and therefore are chosen to serve as the messengers
The priests in the ceremony carry the snakes in their mouths as they circle a central plaza in the village where the ceremony is performed. After several…
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Childhood is a time of incredible growth and intellectual development, but it is also a times of curiosity and fanciful dreams and passions. For many people, the dreams that are cultivated in childhood go on to become lifelong passions and professions. For other people, early passions, like a love of animals and horses, help to develop attachments and life skills that can be transferred into other areas as life goes on. Essentially, anything a child develops a healthy attachment to, like a beloved dog or horse, can help in their development as a caring and responsible person
Girls and Horses
There has always been a strong bond between little girls and horses, and it’s a connection that has long been celebrated in literature, in stories like “International Velvet” and many more. Even psychologists have remarked on the strong bond many girls have with horses, and the thought is that falling in love with a horse is a safe way for a girl to express the many complex feelings and passions she experiences growing up.
Many parents take note of the bond that children feel towards horses and consider the pros and cons of actually buying one. Though buying a horse is obviously a major financial commitment, there’s no question that taking responsibility for the care of a horse can be a great learning experience for a child. Taking care of cleaning a stall and feeding and grooming a horse can deepen the bond a young person has for the animal, and can make the joyful experience of riding even more meaningful. There’s definitely a strong argument in favor of horse ownership for the whole family, but the wise move is to get a horse insurance quote before making a purchase.
Anyone who has spent time around a horse knows how beautiful and soulful these majestic animals can be. Yes, owning a horse is a big responsibility, but it can be an incredibly rewarding experience as well.…Read More
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4 May 2011 Senior United Nations officials today stressed the need to promote the participation of women in decision-making, noting that democracy and gender equality are interlinked and mutually reinforcing.
“While women’s political participation improves democracy, the reverse is also true: democracy is an incubator for gender equality,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his remarks at a roundtable held at UN Headquarters on gender equality and democracy.
“It provides public space for discussion of human rights and women’s empowerment. It enables women’s groups to mobilize. It makes it easier for women to realize their political, civil, economic and social rights.”
He told participants at the event, which included representatives from various UN departments and entities, as well as the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, that one need look no further than the daily headlines to see the timeliness of today’s gathering.
“Women were among those who marched in Côte d’Ivoire to uphold the democratic will of the people – with several of them killed for making that stand,” said Mr. Ban. “In Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere, women have been among those in the vanguard demanding change, rights, dignity, and opportunity.”
Noting gender inequality in decision-making remains a great impediment to democracy, the Secretary-General said more must be done to address the gender gap in democratic participation.
“Certainly there has been important progress. More women, in more countries, are taking their place in parliament,” he stated.
“Yet fewer than 10 per cent of countries have female heads of State or government. Fewer than 30 countries have reached the target of 30 per cent women in national parliaments.”
He also cited the need to treat gender equality as an explicit goal of democracy-building, not as an “add-on,” stating that experience shows that democratic ideals of inclusiveness, accountability and transparency cannot be achieved without laws, policies, measures and practices that address inequalities.
The UN is more involved in democracy-building than ever before, Mr. Ban pointed out. Many UN departments, funds and programmes have expanded their democracy programming, and the establishment of UN Women has added “another strong actor” to the arena.
“Across the constellations of entities and activity, we need a stronger gender perspective going forward. Our responsibility is to ensure that our democracy assistance is gender responsive.”
Helen Clark, the Administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), told the gathering that democratic governance cannot be fully achieved without the full participation and inclusion of women.
“Without the full participation of women in decision-making processes and debates about policy priorities and options, issues of great importance to women will either be neglected, or the way in which they are addressed will be sub-optimal and uninformed by women’s perspectives,” she stated.
Helping countries to strengthen their democratic institutions is an important aspect of the work of UNDP, which is the UN system’s lead provider of technical assistance to elections. From 2008 to 2010 alone, it provided electoral assistance to 64 countries and territories, and it is currently working with more than 120 countries on public administration reform and/or strengthening governance.
“To be judged successful, all this work must contribute to empowering women and pursuing gender equality,” said Miss Clark. “We need to see more women elected, voting, involved in participatory processes generally, and well represented in public administrations.”
She noted that there are a number of proven ways to increase women’s voice and participation in decision-making, including implementing quotas or reserved seat systems, and ensuring that women know how election processes work and about campaign methods and financing.
Some 50 countries have now legislated for quotas in electoral and political party laws, and hundreds of political parties have adopted quotas as a voluntary measure.
“Quotas are the single, most effective, and quickest measure for increasing the numbers of women in elected office,” the UN development chief stated.
News Tracker: past stories on this issue
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plans and participating in drills are essential emergency preparedness
activities. Taking steps to be financially prepared for an emergency
is a critical activity in any planning effort.
Emergency Financial First Aid Kit (EFFAK), a joint publication
Hope, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency,
contains information for you to prepare now for a financial emergency.
The guide includes information on obtaining insurance, planning tips and
resources to help you manage your finances, and accessing important
records to help you recover more quickly should you be affected by a
alerts and warning apps can make it easier than ever for families,
businesses, and individuals to effectively prepare for and recover from
disasters. Visit the Ready Campaign’s Get Tech
Ready page for tips, such as:
to receive preparedness tips from the Federal Emergency Management
Agency’s (FEMA) text
message program: text PREPARE to 43362 (4FEMA).
the FEMA App to
access disaster preparedness tips, obtain weather alerts for up to five
locations, and look for open Disaster Recovery Centers along with open shelters.
your important documents such as personal and financial records on a
secure flash or jump drive that you can keep readily available.
happen quickly; it is important to recognize whether or not you live in
an area prone to flash flooding and how you can prepare in advance.
Weather Service, the causes of flash flooding include heavy
rain, ice or debris jams, and levee or dam failure. These floods exhibit
a rapid rise of water over low-lying areas. In some cases, flooding may
even occur away from where heavy rain initially fell.
tips from Ready.gov
to make sure you, your family, and your home are prepared for a flash
reader recognizes that the federal government provides links and
informational data on various disaster preparedness resources and events
and does not endorse any non-federal events, entities, organizations,
services, or products. Please let us know about other events and services
for individual and community preparedness that could be included in future
newslettersby contacting firstname.lastname@example.org.
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Our Notes & References
Pushkin on one sheet: an excellent copy preserved as a single folded broadsheet, unstitched and unopened, including the printed wrappers. This is the second edition, published the same year as the first.
This unfinished narrative poem, written in 1822, had appeared in ‘Polarania zvezda’ [Pole Star] for 1825; it was inspired by the Russian folk play ‘The Boat’.
“The Boat is clearly a dramatic version of the songs celebrating the seventeenth-century outlaw Stepan Razin. Its cast features a band of outlaws on a boat on the Volga. A stranger appears and tells his story: he and his brother were highwaymen; they were caught and put in prison; his brother died there but he escaped, having killed a prison guard. The stranger is welcomed with open arms. The next scene shows the outlaws sacking the estate of a rich landowner. The action is repeatedly interrupted by the singing of robber songs. The main stage effect is created by the actors’ sitting on the floor and making the motions of rowing a boat. “The Boat”, like the epic songs on the same subject, is explicit in its sympathy for the outlaws and in its hatred for landowners and government authorities” (Victor Terras).
Robert Eden Martin (b. 1940; American lawyer and noted collector of Russian, British and American literature works).
Kilgour 881; Smirnov-Sok., Pushkin 10
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An eastern Iowa state park that’s more than nine decades old could become the state’s first-ever park to be designated as a National Historic District.
Dennis Murphy, park manager of Wapsipinicon State Park in Anamosa, says the park contains a host of unique features, plus, it was created entirely by inmate labor.
“Back in 1920, the men’s reformatory was going to log some of the woods from a local farmer but the citizens of Anamosa didn’t want it to happen,” Murphy says. “They got together, raised $20,000 and purchased the land from this lady and then turned around and just donated it right to the state.”
It marked the first time in Iowa history, Murphy says, that community residents made such a donation for the creation of a state park. Inmates from the state prison in Anamosa were put to work in converting the forest into a beautiful public park. Their handiwork is still very evident.
“All the roads were laid out by the prisons, we have two stone arch limestone bridges that are still intact,” Murphy says. “We have an old dam that was used to feed into the swimming pool that was down there. The swimming area is not there but we still have the limestone walls and the dam is still in place.”
The 400-acre park contains a host of stunning features, including limestone bluffs, long hiking trails and caves to explore. Among them is Horse Thief Cave, which legend says was once a camp for two horse thieves. Murphy says there are also 11 archaeological sites in the park that date back more than five-thousand years.
There’s also the restored Hale Bridge, already on the National Registry of Historic Places. This bowstring bridge, placed by helicopter, is the only three-span bridge left in Iowa.
For all of these reasons, Murphy says the Jones County Historic Preservation Commission is pursuing the National Historic District designation. With that, the state could apply for federal grants to restore some of the park’s facilities.
“Most of the times you hear of the historic districts as being in the cities, for their downtowns, for the squares because that’s where everything was,” Murphy says. “This is actually the whole park wanting to be designated. It was one of the first ever to be donated and it was done by inmate labor to develop it.”
Wapsipinicon State Park, named for the river that runs through it, would be Iowa’s first state park designated as a National Historic District and among the first in the nation. Murphy says the application process is underway and the title may come in 2014.
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In Software Engineering, we chant the term of validation and verification a lot between the software team members. Actually, it is used across the software project phases and I think there is a misconception in understanding the two terminologies and when to use them.
Ruby on Rails framework has great automated testing tools for unit, integration testing and others as well. this post will not discuss these tools, you should be familiar with them already.
I’m sharing here a task to help you prepare your test environment and run Rspec task without the need to run every command to run your test
Black box testing is generally used when the tester has limited knowledge of the system under test or when access to source code is not available. Within the security test arena, black box testing is normally associated with activities that occur during the pre-deployment test phase (system test) or on a periodic basis after the system has been deployed.
Black box security tests are conducted to identify and resolve potential security vulnerabilities before deployment or to periodically identify and resolve security issues within deployed systems. They can also be used as a “badness-ometer” [McGraw 04] to give an organization some idea of how bad the security of their system is. From a business perspective, organizations conduct black box security tests to conform to regulatory requirements, protect confidentially and proprietary information and protect the organization’s brand and reputation.
Fortunately, a significant number of black box test tools focus on application security related issues. These tools concentrate on security-related issues including but not limited to:Read more
What is white box testing?
White box testing and analysis, by contrast with “black box” testing and analysis, that are mainly performed on the source code. Also known as glass box, structural, clear box, and open box testing.
White box analysis and tests include:
It is known as “code review,” static analysis analyses source code before it is compiled, to detect coding errors, insecure coding constructs, and other indicators of security vulnerabilities or weaknesses that are detectable at the source code level. Static analyses can be manual or automated. In a manual analysis, the reviewer inspects the source code without the assistance of tools.Read more
When to perform Software security analysis and tests?
Most of the software security practitioners would agree that the common practice of postponing security analysis and tests after the software implementation phase and even after it has been deployed (i.e., during its acceptance phase), makes it extremely difficult to address in a cost-effective, timely manner any vulnerabilities and weaknesses discovered during the analysis and testing process.Read more
In the Software industry, Most of the clients have a main requirement which is
“We want the system to be secured”.
Security is a non-functional property of the system, the main goal for securing the system to make this system dependable. So, we can depend on this system and it can perform its excepted functions as required and specified.
Therefore, it is mandatory to run the security testing procedures to ensure that we can depend on this system, but we need also to consider some functional requirements on writing requirements specifications document that help to obtain this goal.Read more
What did they say about Software security testing?
“Over 70 percent of security vulnerabilities exist at the application layer, not the network layer” Gartner.
“Hacking has moved from a hobbyist pursuit with a goal of notoriety to a criminal pursuit with a goal of money” Counterpane Internet Security.
“64 percent of developers are not confident in their ability to write secure applications” Microsoft Developer Research.
“Losses arising from vulnerable web applications are significant and expensive – up to $60 billion annually”IDC/IBM Systems Sciences Institute.
“If 50 percent of software vulnerabilities were removed prior to production use, enterprise configuration management and incident response costs would be reduced by 75 percent each.”Gartner.
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For the cattle drivers who followed the thousands of hungry miners, adventurers and entrepreneurs pouring into the Klondike at the turn of the 20th century, cattle drives were a means to an end, and the end was profit.
Yukon historian (and News columnist) Michael Gates’ book “Dalton’s Gold Rush Trail” is a wonderful source of stories and accounts of these dangerous, exhausting and sometimes unsuccessful drives. By Gates’s count there were more than 100 cattle drives into the Yukon using four different routes. He has done a rough calculation and reckons that in 1898 about one-third of the gold recovered by miners was spent on beef.
Willis Thorp, a butcher from Juneau, Alaska, was the first person to drive cattle from the coast into the interior in 1896, lured by the potential market among the growing mining communities at Forty Mile and Circle, Alaska. He started with 40 to 60 steer at Haines Mission, swam the cattle up the Chilkat River, and was chased off the trail by Jack Dalton near Klukwan village. Thorp and his party of 10 men cut their own trail over the mountains to Kusawa Lake, then travelled overland on a track to the Yukon River, landing just below Five Finger Rapids with all but four steer intact. They travelled down the Yukon River to the mouth of the Klondike, and stopped there. Hundreds of miners had set up camp; the first trickle of what would soon become a flood. Thorp sold most of his meat at Dawson for $16,000, and took the rest to Forty Mile.
One ten-pound piece of meat made it up to Circle, Alaska, where it was displayed in a window at the trading post and then auctioned off as a fundraiser for a new hospital. The meat brought in bids as high as $35 per pound, the story was published in papers throughout Canada and the United States, and the cattle stampede to the Yukon was on.
The Klondike cattle drives originated from as far south as New Mexico and as far east as P.E.I., arriving by rail or sea at the coast then over the Dalton Trail or the White Pass.
As Gates notes, timing was everything. Cattle drivers had to start their journey in spring after the snow had melted. They would graze the animals along the way, and either slaughter the animals when the weather was cool enough to preserve the meat or arrive in Dawson with live animals. No route was safe from hazards: mosquitos, swamps, quicksand, poisonous feed or none at all, river crossings, spring blizzards and fall whiteouts, lack of food for horses and men, disease, lameness and death.
Norman Lee’s diaries, published in the small volume “The Klondike Cattle Drive” (1960), are a fine account of the misfortunes and occasional triumphs encountered on the trail. After an often heartbreaking, four-month journey, during which he seems to have kept his sense of humour, Lee arrived at Teslin Lake where he slaughtered and butchered his cattle and loaded them on to scows headed for Dawson. Halfway down the lake a squall erupted, the scows broke apart and nearly all the beef was lost. Lee made his way slowly back to the Chilcotin empty-handed.
Some drives were very successful, including those led by Ed Fearon of Saskatchewan in 1887, Pat Burns of Calgary (whom Gates describes as a “cattle baron”), E. Pearson, the Tuxford Brothers from Saskatchewan, Jack Dalton himself and by H.L. Miller, who brought first cattle, then pigs and then turkeys to Dawson.
Drivers following the Dalton Trail (550 kilometres from Pyramid Harbor to Fort Selkirk) would arrive at the Yukon River north of Five Finger Rapids, build scows and rafts and send their cattle down to Dawson. Or they would butcher at Slaughterhouse Slough, a makeshift slaughtering yard near Fort Selkirk, and hope the weather would stay cold, but not so cold the river froze up. More than one driver lost his meat to the freeze-up.
Once in Dawson, meat was sold to butcher shops, to restaurants and to individuals, at prices ranging from 75 cents to $2.50 a pound, depending on how saturated the market was. In 1898-99 there was also a lucrative trade in selling wild game — Tappan Adney, a reporter for Harper’s Magazine and a great chronicler of the Gold Rush, describes a hunt he went on with Chief Isaac and his people, the “Tro-chu-tin” (Tr’ondek Hwech’in) during which the party harvested 32 moose, selling some of the meat to miners for $1.25 to $1.50 per pound.
Once the White Pass & Yukon Route railway was established in 1900, live animals or meat could be transported by rail and river, and the cattle drives to the Klondike fell off and so did the trade in game. There was little incentive, too, for farmers in the growing agricultural industry to raise livestock for any table but their own. Jack Dalton drove his last herd of 200 cattle in 1906, transporting it from Skagway by rail, to Dawson by scow, from there to Circle, Alaska and from there to Fairbanks. Similarly, cattle destined for Dawson would travel by rail to Whitehorse and scow to Dawson, and the local papers would report on their progress.
In what Gates calls an interesting postscript to the story of cattle drives into the Yukon, T.C. Richards, who managed the P. Burns and Co. butcher store in Whitehorse, successfully drove a herd of cattle to Mayo and then to the mining camps at Keno in the early 1920s. It was a tough haul. The wranglers were two weeks on the trail from Fort Selkirk to Mayo, four head were lost in a snowstorm, there was no feed, and the cattle broke into the wranglers’ supplies and ate everything but their tea. The wranglers survived on rabbits and tea for the remainder of the journey. Richards did manage to sell a quantity of meat to the United Keno Hill Mining Company, so the venture was not a complete disaster.
Southern beef, pork and turkey arrive in the Yukon today via the Alaska Highway, but Yukon farmers are developing a healthy market for locally grown meat. In 2011, the last census year for which there is data, 13 farms reported that there were 213 cattle and calves in the Yukon. Data from this year’s census has yet to be published, but will likely show an increase in those numbers. Yukon’s cattle sector is growing steadily thanks to an expansion of Yukon-based abattoir facilities and retail opportunities. At a time like this, it is amazing to look back at the risky efforts of the wranglers who first brought cattle into the territory during the Klondike Gold Rush era.
This article is part of a series commissioned by the Yukon Agricultural Association and funded by Growing Forward 2, an initiative of the governments of Canada and Yukon.
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In the not too distant future, a water treatment module carried in the bed of a pickup truck could be the best and cheapest water purification system on the planet. For just $30, it would purify a million gallons of polluted water. Luke Daly, founder of Ferrate Treatment Technologies in Orlando, FL, has taken a chemical compound discovered almost 300 years ago, and invented a technology that could be critical to global wellbeing in the 21st century.
Ferrates are iron-based compounds that have been called “the most powerful oxidants in nature.” They destroy bacteria and viruses, attack residual drugs, and attract other chemicals, including dissolved metals. The treated water contains no residual chlorine and exceeds today’s water quality standards. Although more than 450 scientific papers have been written discussing the benefits of ferrates, Daly was the first to design a practical, cost-effective technology that could potentially improve the health and living conditions of billions of people.
The sticking point, according to Daly, has been the high cost of manufacturing and commercialization. Even well-capitalized firms have failed to find a solution. The problem stems from the highly reactive and unstable nature of ferrates, which makes them difficult to store and transport, and ultimately too expensive for practical use on a broad scale.
Daly’s firm attacked the problem by designing a portable treatment module that could manufacture the ferrates on site. By eliminating storage and transport, it was able to reduce overall costs by 90 percent. It took more than nine years of trial and error, redesign, testing, permitting, and jumping through government hoops before the technology was perfected and the company was authorized to sell drinking water to the public.
The Wall Street Journal has recognized Ferrate Treatment Technologies as one of the “Best and Brightest” new companies, Forbes magazine named it a “Technology Pioneer,” and a recent write up in The Economist gave it a favorable nod. The global demand for clean drinking water will be critical in the coming decades. This inexpensive, portable, and environmentally friendly technology is well on its way to helping the world meet one of its most basic challenges.
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A term, which comes up very often when one reads about the Higgs, are radiative corrections. The thing hiding behind this name is also very essential in both my own work, and in particle physics in general. So what is it?
Again, the name is historic. There are two parts in it, referring to radiation and to correction. It describes something one comes across when one wants to calculate very precisely something in quantum physics.
When we sit down to calculate something in theoretical quantum physics, we have many methods available. A prominent one is perturbation theory. The basic idea of perturbation theory is to first solve a simpler problem, and then add the real problem in small pieces, until one has the full answer.
Usually, when you starts to calculate something with perturbation theory in quantum physics, you assume that the quantum effects are, in a certain sense, small. A nice starting point is then to neglect quantum physics completely, and do just the ordinary non-quantum, often called classical, part. To represent such a calculation, we have developed a very nice way using pictures. I will talk about this soon. Here, it is only necessary to say that the picture of this level of calculation looks like a (very, very symbolic) tree. Therefore, this simplest approximation is also known as tree-level.
Of course, neglecting quantum effects is not a very good description of nature. Indeed, we would not be able to build the computer on which I write this blog entry, if we would not take quantum effects into account. Or have the Internet, which transports it to you. In perturbation theory we add these quantum contributions now piece by piece, in order of increasing 'quantumness'. This can be mathematically very well formulated what this means, but this is not so important here.
If the quantum contributions are small, these pieces are just small corrections to the tree-level result. So, here comes the first part of the topic, the correction.
When people did this in the early days of quantum mechanics, in the 1920ies, the major challenge was to describe atoms. In atoms, most quantum corrections involve that the electron of an atom radiates a photon or captures a photon radiated from somewhere else. Thus, the quantum corrections where due to radiation, and hence the name radiative corrections, even if quantum corrections would be more precise. But, as always, not the best name sticks, and hence we are stuck with radiative corrections for quantum corrections.
Today, our problems have become quite different from atoms. But still, if we calculate a quantum correction in perturbation theory, we call it a radiative correction. In fact, by now we have adapted the term even when what we calculate is no small correction at all, but may be the most important part. Even if we use other methods than perturbation theory. Then, the name radiative correction is just the difference between the classical result and the quantum result. You see, there is no limit to the abuse of notation by physicists.
Indeed, calculating radiative corrections for different particles is a central part of my research. More or less every day, I either compute such radiative corrections, or develop new techniques to do so. When I finally arrive at an expression for the radiative correction, I can do two things with them. Either I can try to understand from the mathematical structure of the radiative corrections what are the properties of the particles. For example, what is its mass. Or how strongly does it interact with other particles. Or I can combine the radiative corrections for several particles or interactions to determine a new quantity. These can be quite complicated. Recently, one of the things I have done was to use the radiative corrections of gluons to calculate the temperature of the phase transition of QCD. There, I have seen that at a certain temperature the radiative correction to the behavior of gluons change drastically. From this, I could infer that a phase transition happened.
So you see, this term, being used so imprecisely, is actually an everyday thing in my life as a theoretician.
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didates for the convention. The Southern Marsellaise was sung, as the banner of the Southern Confederacy was raised, amid reiterated and prolonged cheers for South Carolina and Louisiana.
December 26. A resolution offered in the South Carolina convention, that the Governor be requested to communicate to the convention in "secret session," any information he possesses in reference to the condition of Forts Moultrie and Sumter, and Castle Pinckney, the number of guns in each, the number of workmen and kind of labor employed, the number of soldiers in each, and what additions, if any, have been made since the 20th inst.; also, if any assurance has been given that the forts will not be reinforced, and if so, to what extent; also, what police or other regulations have been made, if any, in reference to the defences of the harbor of Charleston, the coast and State.
Major Anderson transferred the United States garrison at Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, leaving only a small guard in Fort Moultrie.
Only one short week had passed since the signing of the "secession ordinance," and the joyous excitement conseqent thereupon had scarcely begun to subside, when the city was startled with the intelligence of the evacuation of Fort Moultrie.
The wildest excitement seized the people, and in the fire of their indignation they denounced Major Anderson in the most bitter terms, and their rage knew no bounds at this, what they deemed, overt act on the part of the gallant commander. The military were ordered out, and the convention went into "secret session." Troops were tendered to the Governor from different portions of Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.
December 28. The "Palmetto flag" was raised over the Custom House and Post-office at Charleston, S. C.
At five o'clock in the evening the "Palmetto flag
was raised at Castle Pinckney, and a military force went over and took possession of Fort Moultrie.
Castle Pinckney and Fort Moultrie were held by about twelve men, who peaceably surrendered to the State troops.
The "Federal flag was saluted with thirty-two guns as it descended, and the "Palmetto flag" with one gun as it was run up.
A large and enthusiastic secession meeting was held at Richmond, Va.
One hundred guns were fired in Wilmington, N. C., on the twenty-eighth, over the secession of South Carolina, and we are informed that, in less than twenty minutes after the firing commenced, every vessel in port, with the exception of one, run up the "stars and stripes."
In a Troy, N. Y., paper we find a letter, dated December 28, from General Wool, stating that the "Waterveliet Arsenal" was exclusively under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of War, and that on the ninth of that month (December) ten thousand muskets were sold, by order of Secretary Floyd, to S. B. Lamar, of Savannah, Georgia, and were shipped from the arsenal on the fourteenth inst. The price was two dollars and a half for each musket.
An immense Union meeting was held at Memphis, Tenn. It was addressed by Hon. Neil S. Brown, and others.
Governor Hicks again refused to convene the legislature of Maryland.
In reply to a friendly letter from Capt. John Contee, of Prince George's County, urging him to call an extra session of the legislature, he says:
"I have no party attachments or prejudices that conflict with my love for the Union, or that can influence me in the endeavor to discharge my duty faithfully to my native State. I have long since decided to put aside party feel
ings and prejudices, and do everything in my power to preserve and perpetuate the Union of the States and the happiness of millions depending upon it.
"We cannot shut our eyes to the fearful peril of the hour. We know that a dark cloud overshadows the land, threatening the destruction of the institutions we have been taught to revere, and under which we have grown to be a great nation. We know that reckless and designing men are endeavoring to precipitate a dissolution of the Union before the people shall have time for the reflection so imperatively demanded by the vast interests involved in the threatened separation, whether that separation shall be peaceful or bloody. There must be time to weigh well all the consequences before we proceed to destroy the government bequeathed to us by our fathers; and we should wait to see if there is not still enough wisdom, virtue, and patriotism in Congress and the country, to give the people time for the sober second thought.'
"It seems to me, from the hot haste with which some of the Southern States are pressing a dissolution, that their leading men appear to act deliberately, believing that the people would not sustain them in their reckless course if they had time to weigh the consequences, nor act without one more appeal to the people of the North. Does it not seem strange that we have only now realized the great wrong done the Southern States by the personal liberty bills enacted by the North? We know that these laws have been upon the statute-books of many of these States for years, and that until now they have never been considered a sufficient cause to justify the South in dissolving the Union."
After expressing the wish that these personal liberty laws might be repealed at once, and the rights of the South, guaranteed by the Constitution, respected and enforced, he closes by saying:
"The time has indeed come when we must all look the
danger full in the face; when patriotism, the memories of the past, and the hopes of the future, imperatively demand that we should use every exertion compatible with honor to prevent the United States of America from disappearing from among the nations of the world.
"I shall be the last one to object to a withdrawal of our State from a confederacy that denies to us the enjoyment of our undoubted rights; but believing that neither her honor or her interests will suffer by a proper and just delay, I cannot assist in placing her in a position from which we may hereafter wish to recede. But I assure you that whenever, in my judgment, the necessity for assembling that body in 'extra session' shall arise, I shall not shrink from the responsibility.
"I have the honor to be your obedient servant, "THOMAS W. HICKS."
Not a protest I heeded, nor Cass's note,
DECEMBER 29. Secretary Floyd resigned. December 30. Sunday. South Carolina troops took possession of the arsenal at Charleston; military preparations were actively progressing; volunteers were of fering their services from other States, among whom were many army and navy officers. Colonel Walter Gwynn, a graduate of West Point, and an old United States army officer, accepted the command of a military company in Columbia, S. C.
Shipment of arms to the South.
The steamship Montgomery, which arrived at Savannah on the 26th of November, had on board 180 boxes of Sharp's patent carbines, 1,800 in all, and 40,000 conical ball cartridges, for the State of Georgia.
The Baton Rouge (La.) Gazette states that a telegram was received at the arsenal there, from the war department at Washington, on the 22d of December, ordering the sale of two thousand five hundred guns, for $2.50 each, to Governor Pettus, of Mississippi.
On the twenty-eighth of December we find there were sent, by order of Secretary Floyd, from the Alleghany Arsenal to Ship Island, near the Balize, mouth of Mississippi,— 21 ten-inch columbiads, 128 pounders.
21 eight-inch 4 iron guns,
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No doubt, researchers are always reminding us how climate change is playing a heavy hand in the drastic changes occurred in the northern hemisphere forests, where cold-loving pines and firs are being oppressed out by more adaptable species.
The state of Minnesota is experiencing a significant overhaul of its forest populations, where trees like the American basswood, black cherry, red maple, sugar maple, and white oak are becoming increasingly prevalent, whereas the region’s more characteristic species like the white spruce and balsam fir tree fight to acclimatize to increasing temperature and wet winter storms, the Nature World News reported recently.
But, Marc Abrams, a researcher from Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences is disputing on the fact that the climate is significantly a secondary factor involved in forests overhaul, especially in the eastern United States forests. He further insisted that these forests are still struggling to recover from the state of ‘disequilibrium’ which occurred in the late 1800s and early 1900s from the clear-cutting and burning of large scale forests.
Moreover, Abrams stated in his recent statement, “After analyzing the historical developments in the Eastern forests, the disturbances (both natural and man-caused) are much more momentous than any other change in the climate.”
He further stated that, “Over the course of past 50 years, most of the environmental researchers have concentrated on the impacts of climate change. In some models, though, the impacts of the climate change seems not been as profound as in others, particularly in the eastern Unites States forests.”
Abrams compared pre-settlement – original land survey data along with the present vegetation conditions in the eastern US, in a recent study published in the journal Global Change Biology.
Shockingly, it revealed that the “change” experience by the eastern forests be similar to the still ongoing turbulent results of European disturbances on what was once a balanced forest system.
Meanwhile, Abrams added that this doesn’t mean that the climate isn’t having its own influences. It’s just that, “land-use change often trumped the impacts of a warming climate, and this needs greater recognition in climate change discussions, scenarios and model interpretations.”
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The DOUBLE data type is used to store double-precision floating-point numbers.
DOUBLE [ PRECISION ]
The DOUBLE data type holds a double-precision floating point number. An approximate numeric data type, it is subject to rounding errors after arithmetic operations. The approximate nature of DOUBLE values means that queries using equalities should generally be avoided when comparing DOUBLE values.
DOUBLE values require 8 bytes of storage.
The range of values is -1.79769313486231e+308 to 1.79769313486231e+308, with numbers close to zero as small as 2.22507385850721e-308. Values held as DOUBLE are accurate to 15 significant digits, but may be subject to round-off error beyond the fifteenth digit.
SQL/2003 Compatible with SQL/2003.
|Send feedback about this page via email or DocCommentXchange||Copyright © 2008, iAnywhere Solutions, Inc. - SQL Anywhere 11.0.0|
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WHO declares new outbreak of Ebola in Congo
Friday, May 12, 2017
Between December 2013 and January 2015, the largest outbreak of Ebola hit West Africa and killed more than 11,000 people. Thankfully, in May of 2015, Liberia was declared Ebola-free. Sierra Leone and Guinea followed later that year, and the epidemic was finally over by the beginning of 2016.
Now, it seems the virus has returned with today's announcement from the World Health Organization that a new Ebola outbreak has been identified in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This news has emerged after three recent deaths, one of which has tested positive for the virus, and from confirmation of nine individuals who had hemorrhagic fever around April 22 in the Bas-Uele province.
"It is in a very remote zone, very forested, so we are a little lucky. We always take this very seriously," said Eric Kabambi, WHO's Congo spokesperson.
Ebola is a virus with symptoms that include sudden fever, intense weakness, muscle pain and a sore throat. It can also cause vomiting, diarrhea and in some cases external bleeding. Without preventative measures, the virus can spread quickly between people — causing a two-day to three-week incubation period — and is fatal in up to 90 percent of cases.
The disease was first identified in 1976 and is contracted by close contact with infected animals, such as chimpanzees, fruit bats and forest antelope. It then spreads through human contact by blood or bodily fluids, or through contact with contaminated environments.
Though there has been an experimental Ebola vaccine with 300,000 doses available, the global vaccine alliance GAVI has said they can only be used if the outbreak is on the verge of becoming a pandemic. That said, Congo's health minister has urged people not to panic.
With about 70 percent of the population having little to no access to healthcare, this new strain of Ebola cases will test one of the world's least-equipped healthcare systems. The Democratic Republic of the Congo last suffered an Ebola outbreak in 2014, resulting in 49 deaths.
"It will be great when all of these countries are officially declared free of Ebola," Dr. Craig Spencer said in 2015. "But in many ways the hard work really starts at that point. A transition to a post-Ebola healthcare system is going to be an incredibly difficult and fragile task. Healthcare must include prevention and treatment for a wide range of illnesses, and nutritional support to help the body heal."
According to WHO representative Dr. Allarangar Yokouide, the first teams of specialists are due to arrive to the affected areas today or Saturday.
"The area in Likati is difficult to access, but the work of tracing contacts is very crucial to stopping the epidemic in its tracks," he said to The Associated Press.
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a state park in Monroe County, Michigan. It is located on the southern shore of Lake Erie and includes Sterling State Park Marina. In 1996 it was designated as a National Natural Landmark. The park’s wetlands provide habitat for many species of flora and fauna, including six endangered plants and animals.
William C. Sterling was a founder and president of Buick Motor Company, which later became General Motors Corporation. He donated to the citizens of Monroe this land that he had known since childhood, originally as a US Naval Reserve training area from 1941–1944 during World War II. The federal government deeded the property back to Michigan after the war with restrictions on development because it is part of an Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) and an Area of Particular Concern (APC), which includes the following rare, threatened or endangered species: bald eagle, peregrine falcon, piping plover, Karner blue butterfly, eastern prickly pear cactus, and Hines emerald dragonfly. The property also contains four plant species on Michigan’s Special Places list.
The park was acquired by the State in 1943 for use as a training area during World War II. William C. Sterling deeded much of his estate to form this park when he died in 1966; it opened in 1968.
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In popular belief, the Amethyst offers protection against drunkenness - for the Greek word 'amethystos' means 'not intoxicated' in translation.
The amethyst has its hardness (7), its moderate refraction and its weight in common with the other quartzes, but the crystal structure is different, and it is most unconventional. The construction is stratified, as a result of which areas and lamellae of varying colour intensity often come about.
Some Amethysts are pale almost to colourlessness in daylight. The reason for this has not yet been discovered, but it is possible to re-colour them by means of radium radiation. The fact that these stones can lose their colour makes it obvious that Amethyst jewellery should not be worn while sunbathing, in a solarium or in a discotheque with black light. Sudden changes of temperature can also be harmful to the stone
The deposits with the greatest economic significance are in various states in southern Brazil and in neighbouring Uruguay. The third major export country is Madagascar. However, this gemstone is spread all over the world. Good specimens were found in Aztec graves, though the deposits from which they were extracted are no longer known today. On the Canadian side of Lake Superior in North America, there is a place named Amethyst Harbor. The violet quartz is found there in ample quantities, though rarely in gemstone quality. The fame of Idar-Oberstein, the German gemstone centre, is based on domestic amethyst finds. In earlier times, raw material was delivered there from the Zillertal Alps. When these nearby deposits ceased to yield, the old cutters' tradition was able to be preserved thanks to supplies organised by German emigrés in South America. Russian amethysts, which were mainly mined in winter in the Urals, were once famous for their particularly beautiful colour, which shone magnificently even in artificial light. In Tibet there were amethyst rosaries, for there the gemstone was dedicated to Buddha and was said to promote clarity of mind. In Sri Lanka, stones which have rolled down on their own are found in debris.
The South American deposits in particular, which were not discovered until the nineteenth century, brought down the price of the violet gemstone. The Amethyst bracelet of Queen Charlotte of England, which was so famous at the beginning of the 18th century, its value being estimated at 2000 pounds sterling at that time, was apparently worth only 100 pounds 200 years later. However, the price has a close relationship with the quality, and the quality varies immensely. Most of the material from Brazil is light-coloured, a tender purple. In Madagascar, it is generally red or violet hues which are found. Uruguay supplies the most beautiful and the deepest colour, but it is mostly blemished. Thus immaculate stones of the finest violet still fetch carat prices of well over a hundred Euros. Mounted with diamond braid trimming, as has been the custom for some 100 years, enchanting pieces of jewellery are thus created. No wonder that people find it worth going to the trouble of producing imitations and synthetics.
In ancient times, Amethyst was already being engraved and cut into sculptured forms, witness the bust of Trajan which Napoleon captured in Berlin. Amethyst quartz, banded with whitish layers, is particularly good to work with, though it is only ever either translucent or opaque or somewhere in between. In earlier times, people liked to drink wine from Amethyst cups, which brings us back to the stone's protective function against alcoholism. According to the ancient Greek saga, Diana turned a nymph whom Bacchus loved into an Amethyst; hence the term Bacchus stone
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Some examples of Amethyst Earrings and Necklaces that we have made are shown below. Please click on the "Online Shop" button below to review.
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Human flight has become a tired fact of modern life. At any given moment, roughly 5,000 airplanes crisscross the skies above the United States alone, amounting to an estimated 64 million commercial and private takeoffs every year [source: NATCA]. Consider the rest of the world's flight activity, and the grand total is incalculable.
It is easy to take the physics of flight for granted, as well as the ways in which we exploit them to achieve flight. We often glimpse a plane in the sky with no greater understanding of the principles involved than a caveman.
How do these heavy machines take to the air? To answer that question, we have to enter the world of fluid mechanics.
Physicists classify both liquids and gases as fluids, based on how they flow. Even though air, water and pancake syrup may seem like very different substances, they all conform to the same set of mathematical relationships. In fact, basic aerodynamic tests are sometimes performed underwater. To put it simply, a salmon essentially flies through the sea, and a pelican swims through the air.
The core of the matter is this: Even a clear sky isn't empty. Our atmosphere is a massive fluid layer, and the right application of physics makes it possible for humans to traverse it.
In this article, we'll walk through the basic principles of aviation and the various forces at work in any given flight.
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There is likely no bigger accomplishment in medicine and public health that has saved so many lives and prevented so much misery over the decades as the introduction of vaccines.
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines vaccine as follows: a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism, and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe, its toxins or one of its surface proteins. The agent stimulates the body’s immune system to recognize the agent as foreign, destroy it, and “remember” it, so that the immune system can more easily recognize and destroy any of these microorganisms that it later encounters.
Below are five communicable diseases that were once rampant in the United States until the introduction of a vaccine against that particular disease. Let’s look at these five diseases–then and now.
The first measles vaccine was licensed for use in the US in 1963. An average of 549,000 measles cases and 495 measles deaths were reported annually in the decade prior to the live measles vaccine.
In 1989, a second-dose vaccination schedule was recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP).
By 2000, endemic measles was declared “eliminated” from the United States.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), from 2001-2011, 911 measles cases were reported. The median number of measles cases reported per year was 62 (range: 37-220 cases/year).
The majority of measles cases were unvaccinated (65%) or had unknown vaccination status (20%). Of the 911 reported measles cases, 372 (40%) were importations (on average 34 importations/year), 239 (26%) were epidemiologically linked to these importations, 190 (21%) either had virologic evidence of importation or had been linked to those cases with virologic evidence of importation, and 110 (12%) had unknown source.
The first 11 months of 2014 saw 610 measles cases in 24 states. The federal health agency notes that the majority of the people who got measles are unvaccinated and travelers continue to import measles into the country.
Before pertussis vaccines became widely available in the 1940s, about 200,000 children got sick with it each year in the US and about 9,000 died as a result of the infection. Now we see about 10,000–40,000 cases reported each year and unfortunately about 10–20 deaths, according to CDC numbers.
Since the early 1980s, there has been an overall trend of an increase in reported pertussis cases. Pertussis is naturally cyclic in nature, with peaks in disease every 3-5 years. But for the past 20-30 years, we’ve seen the peaks getting higher and overall case counts going up.
Waning immunity of the pertussis vaccine is a main reason for this phenomenon. The CDC explains:
When it comes to waning immunity, it seems that the acellular pertussis vaccine (DTaP) we use now may not protect for as long as the whole cell vaccine (DTP) we used to use. Throughout the 1990s, the US switched from using DTP to using DTaP for infants and children. Whole cell vaccines are associated with higher rates of minor and temporary side effects such as fever and pain and swelling at the injection site. Rare but serious neurologic adverse reactions including chronic neurological problems rarely occurred among children who had recently received whole cell vaccines. While studies have had inconsistent results that the vaccine could cause chronic neurological problems, public concern in the US and other countries led to a concerted effort to develop a vaccine with improved safety. Due to these concerns, along with the availability of a safe and effective acellular vaccine, the US switched to acellular pertussis vaccines.
The horrible disease, diphtheria, was once a major cause of illness and death in children.
The U.S. recorded 206,000 cases of diphtheria in 1921, resulting in 15,520 deaths. Before there was treatment (diphtheria antitoxin and antibiotics) for diphtheria, up to half of the people who got the disease died from it.
In the past decade, there were less than five cases of diphtheria in the U.S. reported to CDC. However, since the disease is still seen in many countries around the world, maintaining vaccination status is key when traveling abroad (for diphtheria and other vaccine preventable diseases).
Polio is a disease that struck fear into the hearts of Americans just more than a half-century ago. Images of children in an “iron lung” or those with horrible defomities was enough to scare any parent.
Polio also affected many famous Americans including actor Alan Alda, “Tarzan” Johnny Weissmuller and of course, former US President Franklin D Roosevelt.
Author and professor Gareth Williams writes in his book, Paralyzed with Fear, In 1949, the US Surgeon General, Leonard Scheele warned that this would be the nation’s worst year yet for polio and that the future looked even grimmer. He was right on both counts: 1949 saw 42,000 Americans paralyzed and 2,700 deaths from polio, rising in 1952 to 58,000 paralyzed and 3,000 fatalities.
Following introduction of vaccines—specifically, trivalent inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) in 1955 and trivalent oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) in 1963—the number of polio cases fell rapidly to less than 100 in the 1960s and fewer than 10 in the 1970s, according to the CDC.
Polio has been eliminated from the United States thanks to widespread polio vaccination in this country. This means that there is no year-round transmission of poliovirus in the United States. Since 1979 no cases of polio have originated in the United States.
Before the U.S. mumps vaccination program started in 1967, about 186,000 cases were reported each year. That has decreased some 99% since the introduction of vaccines. From January 1 to November 29, 2014, 1,078 people in the United States have been reported to have mumps.
Despite the incredible numbers and success due to mumps vaccination, the CDC does acknowledge it’s shortcomings: Although the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine is very effective, protection against mumps is not complete. Two doses of measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine are 88% effective at protecting against mumps; one dose is 78% effective.
The numbers are remarkable and really speak for itself.
For more infectious disease news and information, visit and “like” the Infectious Disease News Facebook page
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Dietary Supplement Basics
What is a Dietary Supplement ?
A dietary supplement is a product intended for ingestion that contains a “dietary ingredient” intended to add further nutritional value to (supplement) the diet. A “dietary ingredient” may be one, or any combination, of the following substances:
an herb or other botanical
an amino acid
a dietary substance for use by people to supplement the diet by increasing the total dietary intake
a concentrate, metabolite, constituent, or extract
Dietary supplements may be found in many forms such as tablets, capsules, softgels, gelcaps, liquids, or powders. Some dietary supplements can help ensure that you get an adequate dietary intake of essential nutrients; others may help you reduce your risk of disease.
What is The Difference Between a Dietary Supplement and a Food ?
Conventional foods are foods that are not dietary supplements. A dietary supplement is a product taken by mouth that is intended to supplement the diet and that contains one or more “dietary ingredients.” The “dietary ingredients” in these products may include
herbs or other botanicals
other substances found in the human diet, such as enzymes
Dietary supplements must be labeled as such and must not be represented for use as a conventional food or as the sole item of a meal or the diet. One way to distinguish dietary supplements from conventional foods is by looking at the nutrition information on the label of the product. Conventional foods must have a “Nutrition Facts” panel on their labels, but dietary supplements must have a “Supplement Facts” panel.
Are dietary supplements approved by FDA?
Dietary supplement manufacturers and distributors are not required to obtain approval from FDA before marketing dietary supplements. Before a firm markets any dietary supplement, the firm is responsible for ensuring that:
the products it manufactures or distributes are safe
any claims made about the products are not false or misleading
the products comply with the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and FDA regulations in all other respects
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In this lesson we will see how to create an email account using an online service.
E-mail is a standard way of sending messages to a person or business over the internet. In order to send and receive email we need an email account.
Use the buttons below to navigate through the lesson
Many online services exist that provide free email. Some of the most popular include Gmail from Google, Hotmail from Microsoft and Yahoo mail from Yahoo.
In this lesson we will create a Gmail account, but you can choose any online service you like: they all have a similar process.
Navigate to www.gmail.com (or the webpage for the service you choose).
Find the ‘create account’ link and click upon it:
Now we need to fill in our details:
Enter your name and other details.
When you choose a username this will be your email address, so you must pick a name that nobody else has used before. Sometimes this means you have to add numbers at the end of your name to make sure you have a unique name! The email service will usually suggest alternatives if the name you would like has been taken.
When choosing a password be sure to make it secure: include capital letters, numbers and symbols, and make sure it is as long as possible. And – of course – make sure you can remember it, as you will need this password to use your email!
Sometimes you need to solve a little puzzle to prove that you are human. This is to prevent malicious people from creating too many email accounts using automated systems. For example in this case I have to read a number and type it in – a task that is simple for a human but complicated for a computer.
After you click Next the email service will usually confirm your details.
Then you will be logged into your new email account, and it is ready to use.
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Is customer-based water conservation a drop in the bucket in Southern Nevada?
Reduced precipitation from climate change and disputes over Colorado River water rights loom over Nevada’s water supply, but the agency that oversees it says officials can manage the uncertainty with a boost from new conservation programs and legislative mandates.
The Southern Nevada’s Water Authority’s (SNWA) Joint Water Conservation Plan was approved by the board’s seven member agencies in December, after significant updates to the conservation formula and strategies for 2019 through August 2024, when the five-year plan will be updated.
“Beginning in 2000 and continuing today, the Colorado River Basin has experienced drought conditions that quickly developed into the worst drought in the basin’s recorded history,” the plan says.
But the water authority maintains that it is on track to sustain its 2.1 million customers through the years when the water supply is unpredictable or below projections.
“Despite those additional half a million people moving to the valley, we are actually physically depleting the Colorado river by 25 percent less than we were in 2000,” said Colby Pellegrino, water resources director for the authority.
While Southern Nevada’s water stores are shrinking, its population is among the fastest-growing in the nation. A Census Bureau report published in April ranked Clark County the second-fastest growing county in the U.S. — an increase of about 48,000 people between 2017 and 2018.
Lake Mead stores about 90 percent of Southern Nevada’s water supply. Locals and visitors who observe the growing “bathtub ring” — the discolored band of rock above the lake’s surface marking where the higher water level used to be — might wonder: Will the region be able to sustain the trends in population growth?
In August, the Bureau of Reclamation announced that Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico would be required to “give up” portions of each state’s respective Colorado River allotment, to ensure that water won’t run out if the drought continues or worsens. These contributions take the form of Intentionally Created Surplus or “ICS” credits — water that is considered to be part of the state’s annual allotment of Colorado River, but remains unused and is returned or “banked” in Lake Mead for times of federally declared drought.
According to the SNWA conservation plan, “banked resources” are being used flexibly to meet demands and offset any future reductions in water supply, meaning water that has gone unused in previous years count toward the supply of available water, in times of drought. Because Southern Nevada uses approximately 80 percent of its allotment and has been banking the rest over recent years, authorities say that the region has enough saved up to get through the 2020 drought cuts without affecting water deliveries to customers.
The conservation plan reports that the water authority has banked approximately two million acre feet as surplus credits (ICS) through 2018, more than enough to cover the 8,000 acre-feet contribution that federal water managers required Nevada to put into the waning river.
By racking up ICS credits and setting consumption goal of 105 gallons per capita per day (GPCD) by 2035, the water authority hopes to be able to sustainably service more people with less water in the coming years.
Every drop counts
Updates to the conservation plan come after the Legislature approved AB163 earlier this year, a bill requiring utility companies to increase efficiency standards for plumbing fixtures in new construction. Because of these new provisions, the water authority’s member agencies will work on decreasing the number of gallons per flush or per minute by as much as 32 percent starting next year, when the bill becomes effective.
“The water authority has stressed that anything that enters our plumbing system can be recycled. But I think we hit an agreement with this bill that we want to encourage recycling indoor use as well,” Democratic Assemblyman Howard Watts said earlier this month. “This is to make sure every part of the state is being efficient with our water resources.”
Watts, who introduced AB163 during the 2019 legislative session, said that the new law aims to codify what the water authority and its member agencies already are measuring and to make that information available and accessible to the public.
According to the water authority, almost 100 percent of indoor water use in Southern Nevada is recycled back into Lake Mead. The bill says that the Legislature-approved plumbing fixtures will apply for newly constructed units and be implemented through local legislation that directs water agencies to use only approved fixtures and phase out older, less efficient ones.
“We do not play a role in our customers upgrading toilets, urinals, shower heads and faucets,” said Pellegrino, the water resources director for SNWA. “[The efficiency standards] are prescribed by the Legislature [and] that legislation directs the governing municipalities to adopt them into their codes and regulations so that products [that do not meet the new standards] are no longer sold and installed within the Las Vegas Valley.”
To further curb water waste, the water authority said that its member agencies have been ramping up more punitive fees for high water users since 2017. Currently, repeat violators are assessed water waste fees on their water bills beginning as high at $80.
According to the water authority’s estimates, since 2002, Southern Nevada jurisdictions have conducted more than 222,000 water waste investigations and assessed more than $2 million in fees to water wasters. This year, more than 14,000 investigations were completed, of which 1,377 resulted in a fine.
Water authority officials attribute the low incidence of fines to customers’ willingness to change their behavior once they are made aware of profligate consumption.
To work toward meeting the new efficiency standards, the water authority has started piloting smart leak detectors to customers who apply for the rebate coupon, which gives 50 percent off the cost of the detection device, up to $200. The devices connect with smartphones and provide customers with emergency notifications regarding leaks or other irregular water usage occurrences.
Pellegrino said that the devices, which have been distributed to 100 customers over the course of this year, are still in a small-scale “pilot” phase. More testing will be necessary to break down the cost-benefit and conservation impact of customers using the devices.
Measuring consumption and conservation
The water authority uses gallons per capita per day (GPCD) as one of its main conservation metrics and has updated the GPCD formula from previous years to account for “return flows,” or water that is recycled back into the Colorado River. Per the Joint Water Conservation Plan, the water authority has started subtracting recycled water from total water diverted, before dividing by the number of customers.
Gallons per capita per day is generally a measurement of gallons of water use per person. Traditionally it is calculated by total water diverted divided by the customer population. To put that in perspective, one toilet flush typically consumes about 1.5 gallons, and one minute of running a showerhead or tap consumes 2.5 gallons.
With the new GPCD formula, the water authority shows a decline from 1998 to 2018, from 189 to 113 GPCD — a net 40 percent reduction in water use per customer per day. The water authority is hovering around the 105 GPCD benchmark goal stated in the conservation plan. The decline has not been steady, however.
Because GPCD accounts for population growth, it can be an effective metric to measure changes in water-use efficiency over time. As of 2017, the water authority’s service population was more than 2.1 million customers, and its water use is accounted for separately from park service jurisdictions, the Bureau of Reclamation or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The resort category composes about six percent of the authority’s water consumption. Those customers in particular welcome on average 40 million annual visitors to swim in their pools, enjoy giant water shows choreographed to music and use facilities and all the associated laundry services. According to Bronson Mack, spokesman for the SNWA, water consumption by these 40 million visitors can be classified as indoor “non-consumptive” or recycled use.
Las Vegas and other municipalities tend to calculate GPCD differently based on factors like climate, demographics, water-use accounting practices and economic conditions.
“In terms of total Colorado Basin supplies, subtracting return flows is the best way to account for a community’s water use, because that water is available for reuse by others,” said John Fleck, director of the University of New Mexico Water Resources Program. “Best practices in water accounting always try to account for return flows. That’s easier to do for Las Vegas, where you can measure the flows in Las Vegas Wash, and harder on farms, where drainage water percolates into shallow aquifers or via drains to a river.”
On the other hand, Michael Cohen from the Pacific Institute says that the change in the GPCD formula might make it harder for the water authority to compare its conservation efforts with other municipalities that share the Colorado River.
“It’s an apples to oranges comparison by the way they’ve done it,” Cohen said in an interview with The Nevada Independent. “Conventionally, agencies calculate GPCD as total water deliveries divided by total service area population. Subtracting return flows from the delivery volume dramatically reduces reported GPCD and means that value is not comparable to GPCD reported by other water agencies.”
Cohen added that the change in formula showed that there are still “shifting terms” and conservation metrics, and that the federal government generally does not keep a record of different regions’ conservation data, for comparison.
Mack says that adjusting outdoor irrigation timers is the most important strategy when it comes to conserving water. Some of the most common types of water waste discovered by appraisals include outdoor leaks and not following time-of-day and seasonal watering schedules, as prescribed by the water authority.
While enforcement and penalties fall to member agencies, the water authority assists by mailing notices to “high water users” and offering on-site appraisals to these residential customers. According to Mack, as of last year, the water authority completed 190 on-site appraisals and is beginning to see an average water savings of 35,000 gallons per home per year.
“These savings are really the result of customers changing water use practices and behavior, rather than retrofitting fixtures or implementing other permanent water-saving measures like removing grass,” Mack said.
What about charging more for water, to create conservation incentives for customers, especially those who are considered to be “high water use”?
The Las Vegas Valley Water District, the water authority’s largest member agency serving 400,000 customers, has been modifying its tiered-rate structure since 1990, increasing the number of tiers over the years so that customers that use more generally pay more. But critics have said that a letter in the mail or a few more dollars on the next bill are a slap on the wrist for wealthy communities and their homeowners associations in urban developments such as Anthem and Summerlin in Las Vegas.
Watts served on a citizens advisory committee for the Las Vegas Valley Water District in 2016 and 2017, where he weighed in on the utility’s tiered rate system.
“When it comes to how water is paid for, Southern Nevada does not have the steepest tiered rates. And tiered rates are a conservation mechanism — increasing the price of water is a good way to send a signal to folks to be more efficient with that resource,” Watts said. “I asked that folks look into creating a new tier targeted at the most profligate water wasters, to be punitive, to get their water waste in line and to help fund other conservation programs like rebates. And that, ultimately, hasn’t moved forward.”
In terms of financing water resources and infrastructure, Clark County commissioners in July made permanent a quarter-cent sales tax that some critics say subsidizes the price of water to the benefit of the hotel industry. The water authority’s general manager, John Entsminger, said the revenue would be used for infrastructure projects.
“I do believe that the sales tax is generally a regressive measure,” Watts said, meaning it disproportionately hurts poorer residents. “I wouldn’t say tourists aren’t contributing at all. Of course, whenever they’re coming and spending on food and drink and goods at malls, they are contributing to the sales tax in Nevada.”
Climate change, population growth and water use by other delivery agencies who share Southern Nevada’s water stores make Southern Nevadans hold tight to the adage, “In the West, whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting.” Regardless of who pays for it, Southern Nevadans have a shared investment in regional conservation efforts, and want to make sure revenues and efforts expended are setting them up for a sustainable future — a conceivable reality, based on conservation data.
“Southern Nevada has been under its Colorado River entitlement year after year after year despite significant population growth,” Cohen said. “I guess there’s the point that population could exceed available water supply. But, certainly looking at the trend line, I would say they’ve done a very good job getting the math under control and living within their available water supply.”
Daniel Rothberg contributed to this story.
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At its inception, Jazz was met with quite the resistance from much older audiences who didn’t understand the sound and feared it would negatively influence the younger generation. Much of this fear was founded on deeply held racist views. Jazz originated from the African American community and was inspired by the afro American
traditional folk music like the blues, and spirituals. It conveyed the very essence of what it meant to be black.
However, as is typical of music, the genre transcended its origins and spread like wildfire across the Americas. Just when it seemed like the resistance had been successful, other forms of Jazz began to material from the original genre. Leading the charge was bebop also known as hip Jazz bob and a multitude of jazz labels have sprung up since.
The History of Hip Jazz Bob.
The Bebop style of Jazz began in the 1940s and was characterized by rapid tempos and complex chord plays by expert string instrumentalists. It emerged from a need for youth to have a form of Jazz that was not as danceable as the regular upbeat swing style. They wanted to be able to create various forms that were much more mellow and more fit for easy listening.
Musical Styles and Influences of Bebob.
As bebob gradually rose to prominence, several personalities helped shape its form and define it to the world. Emerging from the swing era, it was carried by several bands, most particularly the Count Basie orchestra. This band had a profound influence on Charlie Parker, an alto saxophone player, whose musical style was heavily influenced by swing and would go on to perform and be recognized as a bebob powerhouse like many of the bebop greats of the time such as trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, pianists bud Powell and Mary Lou Williams as well as drummers like Kenney Clarke and Art Blakey. Bebob is distinguished by its classic use of a mixture of saxophones, trumpets, pianos, double bass, and percussions.
Preserving Jazz Culture and Styles.
Because of how quickly musical styles evolve, many genres often get forgotten or intentionally phased out by mainstream music machines in favor of more current, trendy, and bankable styles. The memory of these iconic genres is often kept alive by enthusiasts and people who are nostalgic for the past. In a bid to ensure that the varying forms of Jazz that have emerged over the last century are preserved and easily accessible to whoever desires them, 1201 music, a Jazz music label was created by Achim Neumann. Its goal is to create a fine catalog of Jazz music over time that will be preserved and made available to anyone interested. The fine collection – Hip Jazz Bop album was carefully curated and features the works of Jazz greats, Howard McGhee, Jimmy Cobbs, G. Tucker, and Junior Mance all playing instruments they are famous for.
Every attempt to silence the epic rise and evolution of Jazz music has failed miserably and thankfully so. Today, the world enjoys it in all its forms. Jazz pioneers and proponents have helped solidify the existence of this exquisite musical style and have given the world a gift that will continue to give for ages to come.
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Just in case you haven’t noticed, an ongoing trend in American society is conservation. This means using less, recycling more, and being mindful of what you choose to purchase. The trend can be seen in everything to the resurgence of cloth diapers for babies to windmills supplying electrical power.
Conservation has also been a selling point to environmentally-minded consumers on windshield repair service. You could confidently tell someone that by having their windshield repaired instead of replaced, they were keeping 25 pounds of laminated glass out of their local landfill.
The reason that laminated glass was not recycled was because it is too costly to separate the glass from the poly-vinyl butyral, or PVB. It was simply cheaper to throw them away. Well now a company called JN Phillips Auto Glass has developed a technology that allows for more efficient recycling of windshields and has branded it the GreenShieldSM Windshield Recycling Program.
According to the JN Phillips website, the recycled PVB is used in industrial adhesive applications and the glass is used in fiberglass and even concrete blocks with more applications on the horizon.
So what does this mean to you, the windshield repair technician? Currently, the recycling service is not offered on a national basis. And just like the days when windshields could not be recycled, windshield repair is still less expensive, faster, and restores a windshield to its original strength.
So while the advantages of windshield repair over windshield replacement remain the same, the auto glass industry is changing. No longer will all 600-million pounds of windshields end up in landfills across the country every year. And that’s a good thing.
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Gamma ray bursts pose one of the greatest mysteries of modern astronomy. About once per day, the sky above our heads lights up with a flash practically invisible to the naked eye but yet very spectacular: a burst of gamma rays. These are perhaps the most violent events in the universe but at present, we don't even know what causes them. This programme outlines how ESA's Integral gamma ray observatory will to be launched on 17 October 2002 will hunt for gamma rays. It includes recordings made at scientific institutes in Denmark and Switzerland. The programme comprises of an A-roll with split track and English commentary and is complemented by a B-Roll with clean international sound.
The video includes:
00:30 The Gamma Ray Bursts: Gamma ray bursts pose one of the greatest mysteries of modern astronomy. Animation and images of different flashes. Gammy ray burst are extremely distant and must be caused by tremendous explosions. Among the different possible hypnotises it could be caused by exceptional violent Hyper nova, or the merger of Neutron Stars or black holes . Very beautiful images.
01:45 Together with NASA’s gamma burst ray SWIFT spacecraft, to be launch in 2003, Integral will finally shed light on the gamma ray burst mystery .
01:54 Integral spacecraft illustration, of the instruments on Integral.
01:56 The Joint European X-Ray Monitor (JEM-X) is one of four instruments on ESA's INTEGRAL mission. It plays a crucial role in the detection and identification of the cosmic gamma-ray sources.
02:36 In Copenhagen at the Danish Space Research Institute, Niels Lund has been working on the JEM-X since the mid-nineties.
02:50 Niels Lund interview on why JEM-X is needed.
03:29 Explanation on how does JEM-X works.
03:43 Niels Lund continue explaining how JEM-X will work. He continues on some of the conditions in space for observation.
05:44 Some explanation on the loss of data.
05:55 The research centre for Integral is the Integral Scientific Data Centre (ISDC), Versoix, in Switzerland. The centre will be the interface between the Integral scientific data and the scientists and researchers worldwide.
06:30 Thierry Courvoisier, Head of Integral Science Data Centre, explains what will be observing by Integral.
07:30 Images of gamma ray bursts which could help understand the form and evolution of the universe.
07:58 Niels Lund explains why he is doing his work.
08:11 The end
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Consider the mythic imagination – what is it, who has it, why should we care about it?
Campbell believed that we, as humans in the modern world, re-create the myths and legends of antiquity in our daily lives. He saw this as a way of unlocking or releasing our human potential, whether for personal or public reasons. Human beings have been telling stories for millennia, as spoken tales, art drawn on cave walls, and later written down as text. These stories are called by various names: folktales, fairy stories, legends, fables and parables, myths. It’s a slippery task to identify the differences among these forms – obviously there are a lot of overlaps, with generous dollops of the magical, the supernatural, and the superhuman.
Folktales are usually stories that have been passed down orally from generation to generation. Often we don’t know the original author – some stories, for example, might have been created around the fire by a group instead of a single person. Often there are many versions of any given tale, some very similar while others may have only one or two characters in common and take place in totally different settings. The work of Katharine Briggs is your gateway to British folktales, if you want to dig further. Even more fascinating, at least to me, are the Japanese tales of shapeshifting, such as haunting encounters with the fox wife and the crane wife.
Folktales may have begun life based on a specific event, but they get changed almost every time they are told, even in the mouth of the same runesinger. Typically, the bases of these folkloric events happened so long ago we no longer have a record of what the actual story triggers even were. As time passes, the story loses its tenuous connection to reality so that the message or moral of the story becomes more important than the event from which it sprang. When that happens, it becomes a fable or a parable.
Next: legends and myths. Stay tuned!
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