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Imaginative, lively, and brimming with ideas, children’s author Beatrix Potter reflected the longings, sorrows, and dreams of an entire age. She was raised in London, affording her a close, contemporary view of English politics, but she frequently holidayed in Scotland and the Lake District of Cumbria, giving her writings and illustrations that northern Scottish feel that was so fashionable during the Victorian years. Eventually, she moved to the Lake District, wrote her fairy tales, and raised sheep. Her search for order, stability, natural beauty, and Englishness represents a larger Victorian struggle to hang on to truth in a spinning world. Yet, she remained largely undecorated, shunning publicity, and admired the humble and quiet life. This is why her stories are so original and timeless. They speak of preservation, morality, and beauty. To understand Beatrix Potter is to discover Victorianism through the genre of fairy tale. On July 28, 1866, Helen Beatrix Potter was born in South Kensington, London at 2 Bolton Gardens. Her parents Rupert and Helen Potter called her Beatrix or “B” so as to avoid confusing Beatrix with her mother. The Potter family was a higher-middle class family, having inherited Lancaster cotton fortunes. Being on the higher end of the Victorian middle class, Beatrix was low enough to understand the rising middle class, but high enough to live a life of ease and discovery. The most invigorating time of the Potter calendar was the summer holidays in Scotland and the Cumbrian Lake District. However back in London, Beatrix was left to the guardianship of a nursemaid, and her parents hardly nurtured her with much needed attention. Instead, Beatrix became withdrawn, lonely, and shy. Her secluded life allowed her to improve private hobbies such as drawing and listening to the Celtic fairy stories of her Scottish Highland nurse Miss McKenzie. These stories inspired her imagination, and she admitted in her dairy on November 17, 1896, “I remember I used to half believe and wholly play with fairies when I was a child” (Potter, “The Journal,” 435). Her brother Bertram was the closest and only friend of her youth, and their relationship was complementary. Bertram, who later himself became an artist, encouraged Beatrix to pursue what he saw as her visual talents, and under the eye of her governess Miss Hammond, Beatrix experimented with art. She also enjoyed reading. Sir Walter Scott’s Waverly Novels, recounting the adventures of the Scottish Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, became enduring favorites. Beatrix and Bertram shared a love for natural history, and spent countless hours dissecting animals and enjoying the beauty of the outdoors. During the summer holidays Beatrix would draw animals, flowers, and fungi. Fungi stirred her imagination, “I think one of my pleasantest memories of Esthwaite is sitting on Oatmeal Crag on a Sunday afternoon, where there is a sort of table of rock with a dip, with the lane and fields and oak copse like in a trough below my feet, and all the little tiny fungus people singing and bobbing and dancing in the grass and under the leaves all down below, like the whistling that some people cannot hear of stray mice and bats, and I sitting up above and knowing something about them” (435). Indeed, her love for fungi eventually became a ten year scientific endeavor of meticulously painting images of fungi for botanic study. Potter’s parents finally caught on to her talents, and hired Miss Cameron to hone Potter’s skills. Miss Cameron trained Potter for five years in perspective, freehand, model, and some water-color flower painting. In Potter’s opinion, taking twelve lessons in oil painting from Lady Eastlake stifled her artistry in water-color and her more individual experimentation. However, her father was a photographer for the famous Pre-Raphaelite painter Sir John Millais, who encouraged her to draw. The Pre-Raphaelite influence on Potter was invaluable, and one painting she spends time in her journals describing is Millais’s An Idyll of 1745, for which her father took background photographs to help Millais establish the scene. From 1881-1897, Potter kept an encrypted journal to stop her mother from reading it. In it, she not only recounts her artistic aspirations, but also her keen suspicions of London politicians. Potter was by no means just a dreamy artist under the spell of Romanticism. Her artistry and life was guarded by the moral and stable foundations of Victorian Christian culture. As such, she looked at the world through an ethical lens, and viewed much of politics as an unsteadying of English life. On the negative, her humor, especially in her early years, was almost cynically sarcastic, and bordered on the petty. Prime Minister Gladstone in particular became an outlet for her unbalanced criticism. She disliked him because he rocked the boat, and lacked firmness when dealing with the Irish riots. Far from being just unrestrained and revolutionary, Gladstone’s reforms are largely considered some of the greatest in English political history. However, Potter gets at the heart of politics when she points out the dangers of any one man’s influence on the people of England. More than his actual policies, Potter’s difficulty with Gladstone was his sense of exulted status that became detrimental to the people. She wrote in her journal in 1885, “In future day people will not be able to realize how completely England has been under the thumb of that shifting, incapable old man. May it never again be so completely in any one man’s power for good or ill” (162)! Gladstone was certainly not “incapable,” but he was only popular because of his power to change things. This power Potter pointed out in 1884 is dangerous, “It strikes me that that august body, and indeed the House of Commons itself, is regarded with very little respect by the country at large. Gladstone has got hold of power, and I suppose will stick to it till he dies, unless the opposition unite better. A certain class who owe everything to Mr. Gladstone, or who hope to get something from him, stick to him. The commoners take that side because they hope from his promises to obtain more power. If you offer a thing, commonly considered pleasant and desirable, to any person, he will be likely to take it, though he might not have asked for it. Changes are to be treated with the greatest caution, and only granted when really desired and needed. It is nonsense to say the country longs unconsciously for the Radical reforms that are turning up now. They are simply baits. I say nothing about their merits or de-merits, but simply that there is no feeling in the country like that which animated sober, quiet men at the time of the Reform Bill or repeal of the Corn Laws. Doubtless times have changed, but Englishmen are still Englishmen, and if they want a thing they will ask for it” (97). Wow, this almost sounds like Edmond Burke! Imagine writing in 1884 that policy is bait to extend power. Change is a frightful thing which ought to be handled with absolute delicacy. Her love for a stable England is very similar to Burke’s understanding of liberty. She knew that politics was about compromise; “Radicals furious because old Gladstone is trying to make terms with the Tories. There is no doubt what has driven him into his senses, it is the Egyptian difficulty. He is going to get the Franchise Bill through as best he can, retire to the House of Lords, and leave the Tories to make the best of twenty millions deficit” (119). Although Potter’s ideas about individual policies may have been contradictory in some places, her love for order and skepticism for political change was constant. As such, she admired government that took a hard line against socialism and the Irish riots and explosions of the 1880s: “A new and most wicked warfare has been attempted by the American Socialists. They sent some barrels to Germany full of potatoes infected by the Colorado beetle. It is feared some packages may have got in unnoticed. They fear there is great risk of a terrible riot in Newry quarry. What on earth is come over our Government? They permit Parnell’s people to meet to denounce them and snub the loyal Orange men. It is a most serious business. If there is bloodshed tomorrow, and orangemen are arrested, the Conservatives will stand by them. The Grand Old Man [Gladstone] will of course do the opposite, will the Liberals follow him? Will things ever come to a head in this Irish question, which involves the Land question, socialism, law and order? The times are as stirring as those which Lord Macaulay described in the Siege of Londonderry, as interesting events are going on in Ireland, but we have on mind clear and wide enough to take it in. In the same way there is as much strange and wild, though times and manners have changed. As wonderful a book as Rob Roy might be written if there was a Scott. There are plenty of odd originals, and dark intrigues, but there is no great colourist to paint them… Rioting at Newry was not serious, for which merciful fact small thanks were due to Gladstone whose timid policy was justly derided by the Nationalists” (91). Very much like Locke, Potter saw the English Government lax in its duty to protect order and private property (she mentioned land particularly). Her view of private land was explicate, “The government does nothing. Reports of riots in Leicester and Nottingham. Rioters at Birmingham are going to Chamberlain. I wish he would openly take the part of Hyndman and Co and be involved in their condemnation. He is with them in spirit. Land is as much personal property as plate or carriages” (182). However, she was well rounded enough to notice the flaws of the Conservatives, “I don’t know what will come to this country soon, it is going at a tremendous speed. I think and hope that this extension of the Franchise may not be as bad as the Conservatives fear. No doubt if the labourers get power they will be greedy at first, but I think the sentiments of the lower-classes in the country are rather conservative on the whole, very loyal and tenacious of England’s honour. Still, landed property is not a particularly secure possession at present. It is middlemen who have pushed up, that are such mischievous radicals, like Chamberlain” (90). Even though the Conservatives and Tories had faults, Potter respected their attention to order and disliked the demagogical method of the Radicals: “The nominations begin today. I believe the Tories will get in. I hope so, though I am a Whig, anything is better that the Radicals. I think even if the Liberals win, it will be by so small a majority that the present Government will not be disturbed. Lord Salisbury is advancing in public opinion. Mr. Gladstone has certainly made less impression in Midlothian than on the last occasion. There is a theory that he will retire in a few weeks, because he will be so mortified at having lost his hold on the people. It certainly does seem as if the Liberal tyranny was being shaken when one hears it said of one of the Manchester candidates, ‘so and so would have no chance if he was not a Tory” (161-162). Potter’s personal ties with the Whigs did not interrupt her panoramic view of English politics. She grants Gladstone leeway only when he takes on a more humble disposition, “Gladstone: first great speech, showed great falling off in his power of voice, part was spoken in a conversational tone, and part was read” (199). However, Potter’s unabated scrutiny of the world and her wit that always pointed out the hypocritical in others took her pen boldly to even controversial topics of the day: “I never have believed in those MacClarens and their radicalism, and young Mrs. MacClaren, I have always looked upon with the greatest contempt. She divided her time between women’s rights and the fashions. She is a most extravagant person, and yet they say it is a sin to be rich. Old Duncan MacClaren and Poachin are both completely self-made. The former a canny, exceedingly close old Scotchman came into Edinburgh from the Western Highlands as a shepherd boy, barefoot. His wife Priscilla, violent women’s rights, is sister to Mr. Bright, who has rather fallen off from them owing to the said women’s rights question, as also with the Cobden girls” (100). Potter’s dislike for socialism, Irish violence, and political hypocrisy can be summed up with a statement from her journal in 1885. She was looking for stability on the eve of the modern world, “In the evening the state of things was this. The Borough elections were virtually over. As a matter of figures, the Parties were even, but morally the Conservatives had a great victory. Whatever may be the verdict of the Counties, the educated classes have declared firmly for sense and order” (164). Politics was by no means a fringe issue for Potter, it reflected a larger battle to conserve that which was good. The sense of personal insecurity in the face of civil unrest provoked her to unite her political views with the literary fascinations of her youth; “Cluny McPherson is just dead at the age of eighty. He is the grandson of the Chief who was out in the ’45 [the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion]. I should have thought it was longer ago, not that we have moved on so far in some things since then. I can’t help thinking that the state of society, as regards personal safety, has rather gone back lately” (125). A woman with many facets, Potter’s cynical nature did not dim her sense of sympathy. If politics was a war to preserve, then life was the experience of preservation. Indeed, when she lost a father figure Mr. Gaskell she decried the sense of change and lamented the event as a symbol of her lost youth: “Oh how plainly I see it again. He is sitting comfortably in the warm sunshine on the doorstep at Dalquise, in his grey coat and old felt hat. The newspaper lies on his knees, suddenly he looks up with his gentle smile. There are sounds of pounding footsteps. The blue-bottles whizz off the path. A little girl in a print frock and striped stockings bounds to his side and offers him a bunch of meadowsweet. He just says, ‘thank you, dear’, and puts his arm round her. The bees hum round the flowers, the air is laden with the smell of roses, Sandy lies in his accustomed place against the doorstep. Now and then a party of swallows cross the lawn and over the house, screaming shrilly, and the deep low of the cattle comes answering one another across the valley, borne on the summer breeze which sweeps down through the woods from the heathery moors. Shall I really never see him again? But he is gone with almost every other, home is gone for me, the little girl does not bound about now, and live in fairyland, and occasionally wonder in a curious, carefree manner, as of something not concerning her nature, what life means, and whether she shall ever feel sorrow. It is all gone, and he is resting quietly with our fathers. I have begun the dark journey of life. Will it go on as darkly as it has begun? Oh that I might go through life as blamelessly as he” (93-94)! With Mr. Gaskell’s passing came the responsibility to honor him by living in his footsteps. Potter’s maturity at the age of eighteen is truly marvelous. Regarding the balance between adulthood and childhood she later wrote at the age of thirty, “retain the spirit-world of childhood, tempered and balanced by knowledge and common-sense,… fear no longer the terror that flieth by night, yet… feel truly and understand a little, a very little, of the story of life” (435). She was destined to become a children’s author. At the urging of her brother, Potter sent some of her drawings to the greeting card company Hildesheimer and Faulkner, which requested that she send more. Her old friend from Wray Church in the Cumbrian Lake District, Rev. Rawnsley also cheered her publishing on. While twenty seven, Potter began writing stories into letters with illustrations, and sent them to children of one of her old governesses when they were ill with scarlet fever. The Tale of Peter Rabbit, The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, and The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy Winkle were some of her letters. Eventually, Potter asked to borrow these letters back in order to make them into books. She sent them to Frederick Warne and Company, and Norman Warne helped her publish them. Norman began courting Potter in his own right, and the two became engaged in 1905 against the wishes of Potter’s parents. However, Norman died just a few months after the engagement. Now was Potter’s time to retreat from a life of pain, excitement, and action. Finally finding a quiet life, she purchased Hill Top farm with her book money in her old fantastical summer holiday location of the Cumbrian Lake District near the village of Near Sawrey. Here, she began breeding sheep in the quiet of the English countryside. Consequently, this life provoked her sense of scenery, and she continued writing stories for Frederick Warne and Company, with scenic illustrations inspired by the magnificence of her humble country living. Her “little books” are about what she had earlier called “the story of life.” They speak of the preservation of what is good, and reflect timeless Victorian truths. Everyone knows this one. The main theme here is obedience to parents. It is particularly striking that Potter would write about obeying parents when she herself suffered from a lack of parental attention. Parental authority intrinsically necessitates the duty of respect and obedience. When one forgets one’s duty, ill comes of it. This story is about decorum and, like Peter Rabbit, respect for authority. Squirrel Nutkin’s unrestrained cheek and ill-mannered riddles in the face of the prestigious owl Old Brown with no motive other than to resist and break away from restraint only gets him into trouble. Nutkin ends up barely keeping his life and losing his tail, which he had always boasted in. With the absence of a happy ending, this story was probably meant to be startling to children. In fact, one of Potter’s young readers C.S. Lewis claimed Squirrel Nutkin had inspired him as a child. This inspiration would carry on into what is presently perhaps the most popular children’s series in the world, The Chronicles of Narnia. Tailor tells the story of a poor tailor who falls ill with a fever while making a coat for the mayor of Gloucester’s Christmas wedding. Mice finish the coat for him, and the tailor is able to work with the mice to rise above his poverty. Perhaps Potter’s most fanciful opening for any of her stories is the opening of Tailor. I remember being entranced as a young child with these lines; “In a time of swords and periwigs and full-skirted coats with flowered lappets – when gentlemen wore ruffles, and gold-laced waistcoats of paduasoy and taffeta – there lived a tailor in Gloucester” (Potter, “The Complete Tales” 39). It was as if a spell of silver rain laced my imagination. I’ll never forget the feeling of these words. Tailor was Potter’s personal favorite of all her writings. It is perhaps Potter’s only great fairy tale, and embodies all of what the Victorians would see as both fanciful and practical. In Tailor, Romanticism and Realism are complements, and mesh harmoniously. Here, Potter looks back in typical Romantic fashion to the 18th century as an inspiration for ethereal finery and chivalric manners. Potter’s perception of decorum takes on an elegance in Tailor that far surpasses Nutkin. However, like a Realist and similar to a Dickens novel, Potter’s main character is a poor Tailor who has only his wares to remind him of the unreached life of civility. He is selfless, knows nothing of self pity, and enjoys his humble life with a gentle and grateful spirit. Potter’s love for the quiet life shines through the tailor’s humility and endearing nature. Fancy and practicality meet in the celebration of Christmas. Dickens had inadvertently bridged the gap between Romanticism and Realism for Victorians with A Christmas Carol, which once again revived in England the fascination as well as the service of Christmas. Potter takes the Victorian concept of Christmas to a whole new level by embedding it in a fairy tale. Her lightness of theme springs ahead of the heaviness of rhetoric in Dickens. By conforming to the genres of her day, Potter transformed them to an unprecedented height of beauty and grace. She was imparting morality to children without a hint of being overbearing. The moral of service and duty to one another becomes precious when placed within a delicate fairy story. Tailor deserves a place among the greatest fairy tales of all time. It demonstrates Potter’s mastery for placing the truths of Victorianism into a tale. Tiggy-Winkle is my personal favorite of all Potter’s books. I admire its unadorned sense of beauty and friendship. Whereas, Tailor is ethereal in its delivery, Tiggy-Winkle is softer, more sublime, and closer to the mortal heart. It’s a story about a farm girl Lucie who is befriended by a washerwoman named Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle. Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle invites Lucie to tea, takes her along to deliver the clean laundry, and finally disappears into the hillside. Generosity and industriousness are the virtues of this story. Potter makes these points so gently that the reader also walks away with a sense of longing intrigue. Tiggy-Winkle certainly has a feel for the northern countryside. The story that romanticizes the English countryside more that any of Potter’s other stories is Pigling Bland. Pigling Bland, while going to market, only wishes that he “could have a little garden and grow potatoes” (291). He befriends a lady and escapes to the county line from Cumbria into Westmorland, where he can retire to a life of gardening. Defining English Victorian life for children, Potter created a myth of freedom and quietness in Pigling Bland. Potter defines freedom as escaping every force to coerce one into an unstable life and finding a place of peace. Whether inspired by Potter or not, Tolkien later situates this English virtue of quietness into his Hobbiton. Pigling Bland is not only Potter’s life story, but also the story of English rural life as a whole. Certainly Potter was imparting wisdom in her novels, but she was doing so with the bloom of her rosy pen. She proved that Romantic ideals could and should work alongside stable ethics. Her stories aren’t just entertainment, they embody what she wrote in her journal in 1896; “retain the spirit-world of childhood, tempered and balanced by knowledge and common-sense,… fear no longer the terror that flieth by night, yet… feel truly and understand a little, a very little, of the story of life” (Potter, “The Journal” 435). This statement can essentially sum up Victorianism. Living, writing, and raising sheep in her retreat, Potter shunned publicity and in 1912 married a local solicitor, William Heelis, who shared her love for the country. In 1909 she bought another farm named Castle Farm. By the time of her death on December 22, 1943, she had acquired four thousand acres. Tragically, she gave all of it to the National Trust when she passed on. This last move was somewhat contradictory to her ideas, given her thoughts on private property; “Land is as much personal property as plate or carriages” (182). Perhaps her fear for the devastation of the English countryside in the context of “progress” took her to a hypocritical extreme. However, her works still stand as a light into the Victorian era for generations of readers. Potter, Beatrix. The Journal of Beatrix Potter 1881-1897. Trans. Leslie Linder. New York: Viking Penguin Inc., Frederick Warne & Co., 1989. Print. Potter, Beatrix. The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter. New York: Viking Penguin Inc., Frederick Warne & Co., 1989. Print. Image of Beatrix Potter1 from Wikipedia Image of Tale of peter rabbit 12 from Wikipedia Image of Squirrel Nutkin Mr Brown from Wikipedia Image of Tailor of gloucester mice from Wikipedia Image of Mrs Tiggy Winkle and Lucie from Wikipedia Image of Pigling Bland pg 31 from Wikipedia	100,976
- matter, material, articles, or activities of a specified or indeterminate kind that are being referred to, indicated, or implied: a pickup truck picked the stuff up \| a girl who’s good at the technical stuff. - a person’s belongings, equipment, or baggage: he took his stuff and went. - Brit. informal, dated worthless or foolish ideas, speech, or writing; rubbish: [ as exclamation ] : stuff and nonsense! - informal drink or drugs. - (one’s stuff) things in which one is knowledgeable and experienced; one’s area of expertise: he knows his stuff and can really write. - the basic constituents or characteristics of something or someone: Healey was made of sterner stuff \| such a trip was the stuff of his dreams. - Brit. dated woolen fabric, especially as distinct from silk, cotton, and linen: [ as modifier ] : her dark stuff gown. - N. Amer. (in sports) spin given to a ball to make it vary its course. - Baseball a pitcher’s ability to produce spin on a ball or control the speed of delivery of a pitch. verb [ with obj. ] - fill (a receptacle or space) tightly with something: an old teapot stuffed full of cash \| figurative : his head has been stuffed with myths and taboos. - informal force or cram (something) tightly into a receptacle or space: he stuffed a thick wad of cash into his jacket pocket. - informal hastily or clumsily push (something) into a space: Sadie took the coin and stuffed it in her coat pocket. - fill (the cavity of an item of food) with a savory or sweet mixture, especially before cooking: chicken stuffed with mushrooms and breadcrumbs. - informal fill (oneself) with large amounts of food: he stuffed himself with potato chips. - (be stuffed up) (of a person) have one’s nose blocked up with mucus as a result of a cold. - fill out the skin of (a dead animal) with material to restore the original shape and appearance: he took the bird to a taxidermist to be stuffed \| (as adj. stuffed) : a stuffed parrot. - informal fill (envelopes) with identical copies of printed matter: they spent the whole time in a back room stuffing envelopes. - N. Amer. place bogus votes in (a ballot box). - Brit. vulgar slang (of a man) have sexual intercourse with (someone). - Brit. informal defeat heavily in sport: Town got stuffed every week. - [ usu. in imperative ] Brit. informal used to express indifference toward or rejection of (something): stuff the diet!	169,007
NASA is using 3D printing to build engine parts for its next-generation Space Launch System. Shown here is the first test piece produced on the M2 Cusing Machine at the Marshall Space Flight Center. (Source: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center/Andy Hardin) Jack, as mentioned below, these are very different app and technology areas. Here's a manufacturing publication article (plus comments) about industrial AM increasing the use of metals and how different these uses, and technology, are from the maker movement level of machines and materials: http://www.manufacturing-executive.com/thread/2532 And here's a DN article about industrial 3D printing with non-plastic materials: http://www.designnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=252293 There are others listed at the bottom of this current article. Greg, I agree. Using 3D printers to make rocket components is quite intriguing. I know the testing of these components are probably more stringent than with conventional manufactured parts. I know the Maker community would love to have access to one of these machines in their Makerspace! Lou, thanks for weighing in on this one: I was curious to see what you'd say. Cabe, the stuff you've seen is probably on the consumer and prototype level 3D materials and processes, which mostly use metal, not plastic. Both materials and processes are, of course, quite different for industrial and aerospace uses, and for high-end automotive. I've heard of several stories like yours of unacceptable parts coming from vendors in the non-industrial network. It's important to know where the wall is between the two app areas. Having NASA involved will probably speed the maturing of the 3-D printing process, since they always demand the very most reliable parts, and usually there is much less urgency about reducing costs. That is a vital difference between the space program and much of the junk produced for the "consumer" market, which has the primary target of minimum production cost. When lowest price is the prime directive and sole target, quality and reliability usually suffer. So the NASA use of 3-D printing will help gain understanding of how to produce better quality. I am impressed with the fact that some of the process is good enough to put it inconsideration. Of course the space program is a very logical area, since the production quantities are fairly small, which makes the creation of tooling for each part much less economical. It will be interesting to see what benefits are delivered by the NASA involvement now. I think you are bringing up a non-issue. The whole point of the article was that NASA was evaluating the process. Having worked this industry I can assure you that the custom built machine, not the ones you may have used, will be thoroughly tested as will the process. If it can't be made to work it will be dropped. But given the payback if it can be made to work it will probably be pursued. I have printed structural plastic parts that are still around today. Like any process for producing parts the engineer has to work with the process and not expect it to perform/behave like some other process. I feel confident that this additive manufacturing process will evolve further just as it has over the last several years. Who knows what process development will be incorporated into parts like these to make them a viable alternative in the harsh environments of rocket propulsion systems. Nice to see the innovation that this technology is fostering. Inspired by the hooks a parasitic worm uses to penetrate its host's intestines, the Karp Lab has invented a flexible adhesive patch covered with microneedles that adheres well to wet, soft tissues, but doesn't cause damage when removed. Researchers at the Missouri University of Science & Technology have designed a new nanoscale material that can transmit light faster than the 186,000 miles per second it usually takes to travel through air. It has often been said that as California goes, so goes the nation. This spring, the state's wind power is setting energy generation records and solar energy generation is expected to rise sharply during the second half of 2013. A quick look into the merger of two powerhouse 3D printing OEMs and the new leader in rapid prototyping solutions, Stratasys. The industrial revolution is now led by 3D printing and engineers are given the opportunity to fully maximize their design capabilities, reduce their time-to-market and functionally test prototypes cheaper, faster and easier. Bruce Bradshaw, Director of Marketing in North America, will explore the large product offering and variety of materials that will help CAD designers articulate their product design with actual, physical prototypes. This broadcast will dive deep into technical information including application specific stories from real world customers and their experiences with 3D printing. 3D Printing is	175,422
The word panchakarma is composed of two words, ‘pancha’ and ‘karma’. Pancha means five and karma means ‘action’. In this context karma represents therapeutic procedure or treatment given by a physician. Thus, Panchakarma means the five kinds of therapeutic procedures or treatments. This includes therapeutic emesis (vamana), therapeutic purgation (virechana), therapeutic enema (basti) with decoction (niruha), enema with unctuous substances (anuvasana) and trans-nasal drug administration (nasya). These procedures are intended to maintain equilibrium in body by expelling the excessively aggravated dosha outside through nearest external route. [Chakrapani on Cha.Sa.Sutra Sthana 2/15] [Su.Sa.Chikitsa Sthana 33/3]. These are indicated as seasonal regimen for preservation of health and prevention of diseases. [Cha.Sa.Sutra Sthana 7/45-50] \|Section/Chapter/topic\|\|Chikitsa / Panchakarma\| \|Authors\|\|Aneesh E.G., Deole Y.S.\| \|Reviewed by\|\|Basisht G.\| \|Affiliations\|\|Charak Samhita Research, Training and Development Centre, I.P.G.T.& R.A., Jamnagar\| \|Publisher\|\|Charak Samhita Research, Training and Development Centre, I.T.R.A., Jamnagar, India\| \|Date of first publication:\|\|June 25, 2020\| - Shodhana: It literally means purification. It is the procedure by which excessively aggravated dosha are expelled out from the body. [A.H.Sutra Sthana 14/5] - Virechana: It literally means specifically dragging outside. At some places, this term is applied to denote evacuation of dosha through upward (mouth) and downward (anus) directions. [Cha.Sa.[[Kalpa Sthana 1/4]. Mostly this term is used to denote therapeutic purgation only. - Therapeutic emesis (Vamana) - Therapeutic purgation (Virechana) - Trans nasal drug administration(Nasya) - Therapeutic enema with decoction (Niruha basti) - Therapeutic enema with unctuous substances (Anuvasana basti) - Bloodletting (Raktamoksha) Inclusion of bloodletting (raktamokshana) in panchakarma There are differences in opinions about inclusion of bloodletting (raktamokshana) in five purification procedures. The total number remains five only as they combine two types of enema (unctuous and non-unctuous) in single procedure. [A.H.Sutra Sthana 14/5] However, this inclusion is not supported by Charak as it does not fulfill the inclusion criteria with fundamental principles of purification. The reasons are as below: - Panchakarma are intended to expel out dosha only. Blood (rakta) is a body component under category of dhatu, not dosha. - The principles of purification state to take aggravated dosha from periphery (shakha) to gut (koshtha) by preparatory procedures. Then the dosha is removed through nearest external opening of body. In case of bloodletting, the dosha in periphery are removed through artificial opening created by using some instrument. - Panchakarma procedures are intended towards generalized purification of whole body with additional benefits on mind and senses. However, raktamokshan mostly shows limited local benefits on purification of rakta dhatu. Principles of panchakarma The following principles are applied in panchakarma procedures: - The procedure is intended to correct imbalance in body physiology. It shall remove excessively aggravated dosha and bring them to normal state. - The procedure is performed only in a state of excess aggravation (bahu dosha) and natural tendency to get removed (utklesha) through nearest natural orifice. - If the dosha are in dormant state (leena dosha), then procedure is performed after bringing them to gut (koshtha) from periphery (shakha). The following factors lead to movement of dosha from periphery to gut. [Cha.Sa.Sutra Sthana 28/33] - Aggravation of dosha (vriddhi) - Liquefaction of dosha (vishyandana) - Suppuration of dosha (paka) - Clearing the body channels (srotoshodhana) - Pacification of vata (vayunigraha) General protocol for conducting panchakarma For safe and effective administration, each procedure is conducted in the following three steps: - Preparation of patient (Purvakarma) - Main procedure (Pradhanakarma) - Post therapy regimen (Pashchatkarma) Preparation of patient(Purvakarma) This includes the therapies prior to a panchakarma procedure. These are mainly intended for bringing dosha in gut. The general therapies are as below: - Deepana: This is initiation and stimulation of process of digestion and metabolism - Pachana: This is enhancing process of digestion specially the undigested and poorly metabolized substances (ama) - Snehana: This is oleation therapy or lubrication in the form of internal administration and external application of unctuous substances - Swedana: This is sudation or fomentation These procedures are done to detach dosha from their sites of vitiation, expedite their movement and bring them to gut to get expelled out. Through these procedures, the doshas are liquefied and moved towards gut. This helps in removing obstruction in the body channels and pacifying vatadosha for its normal movements. The medicines and time span for these preparatory procedures varies according to type of procedure and biological condition of patient or individual undergoing treatment. Main procedure (Pradhana karma) The main procedure is performed based upon the disease conditions, site of dosha vitiation and nearest route to expel it. If a healthy person is following these procedures for preservation of health, then the general sequence includes therapeutic emesis, followed by purgation, unctuous enema, enema with decoction, trans-nasal drug administration. For management of disease, one or more procedures are performed till dosha equilibrium is achieved. Specific parameters based on end-results of dosha state (antiki), number of episodes (vegiki) and clinical features observed (laingiki) are observed during each procedure to assess efficacy of therapy. Post therapy regimen(Pashchat karma) Specific regimen (samsarjana krama) is indicated after completion of the main procedure. The strength is weakened due to expulsion of dosha outside. Therefore, in order to regain the strength of body and correct digestion, certain guidelines in diet and lifestyle must be followed. Mainly two factors are considered before implementing panchakarma. - State of dosha - Suitability and strength of person/patient. This includes co-morbidities too. State of dosha - Dosha should be in excessive aggravated state. [Cha.Sa.Sutra Sthana 16/13-16] - Excessive vitiation of either kapha, pitta,rakta and wastes (mala). - Affliction and obstruction of Vatadosha. [Cha.Sa.Sutra Sthana 22/19] The state of excess aggravation of dosha is observed by following clinical features: Indigestion, anorexia, corpulence, anemia, heaviness, exhaustion, eruption of pimples and wheals (bumps or itchy sores), pruritis, sluggishness, indolence, weakness, foul smell of the body, lassitude, precipitation (utklesha) of kapha and pitta, sleeplessness or excessive drowsiness, impotency, impediment to intelligence, inauspicious dreams, and loss of strength and complexion inspite of taking nourishing diet and correct therapy. [Cha.Sa.Sutra Sthana 16/13-15] The person should have good strength in order to withstand the purificatory procedures. [Cha.Sa.Sutra Sthana 22/19] - If the dosha are not in aggravated state or are in dormant state - If dosha are deep-seated inside the body channels (srotas) or tissues (dhatu) - If the strength of the person is less - If the seasonal condition is not favorable (unless in emergency) - If the patient suffers from diseases of thigh (urustambha) - If the patient is not willing to undergo treatment Importance of Panchakarma - Panchakarma are indicated for purification of body, mind and senses. It helps to maintain equilibrium of body components. It is an important part in seasonal regimen for preservation of health. It eradicates diseases from their roots. Therefore, prevention of disease occurrence and recurrence is possible through panchakarma. These are preferred over pacification therapies (shamana) where recurrence is possible. [Cha.Sa.Sutra Sthana 16/20] - Purification results in improvement in functioning of agni (factors responsible for digestion and metabolism), clarity of sense organs, mind, intellect, strength and virility [Cha.Sa.Sutra Sthana 16/17-19] - Panchakarma are pre-requisite for rejuvenation ([[rasayana]) therapy. In order to get the complete benefit of rejuvenation, purification is essential. [Su.Sa.Chikitsa Sthana 27/3] Importance in preservation of health and prevention of disease The dosha have a natural tendency to get aggravated in specific seasons due to environmental conditions. If the aggravated dosha are removed properly by following seasonal regimen, then diseases can be prevented and equilibrium of health can be maintained. [Cha.Sa.Sutra Sthana 7/46] For example, vata dosha is aggravated in early rainy season. If it is managed through administration of therapeutic enema (basti) in that season, then diseases due to vata dosha can be prevented. It is the best treatment to normalize vata. [Cha.Sa.Siddhi Sthana 1/40] Suitable seasons for purification therapy in healthy individuals Following panchakarma procedures are indicated in seasonal regimen to preserve health. [Cha.Sa.Sutra Sthana]7/46] [Cha.Sa.Siddhi Sthana 6/5-6] \|Season\|\|Month in Indian subcontinent\|\|Naturally aggravated dosha\|\|Prescribed therapy for purification\| \|Early rains (Pravrit)\|\|Mid June to Mid August\|\|Vata\|\|Therapeutic enema (basti)\| \|Autumn (Sharad)\|\|Mid October to Mid December\|\|Pitta\|\|Therapeutic purgation (virechana)\| \|Spring (Vasant)\|\|Mid February to Mid April\|\|Kapha\|\|Therapeutic emesis (vamana)\| Trans-nasal administration in low dose (pratimarsha nasya) is advised as a part of daily regimen to preserve health. It has preventive and protective effect against the diseases of head and neck region. [Su.Sa.Chikitsa Sthana 40/52] The time of trans-nasal administration varies according to season. Importance in management of disease Panchakarma are indicated in management of all diseases in which the dosha are excessively aggravated and need to be removed from body. [Cha.Sa.Vimana Sthana 3/44] Panchakarma are administered in acute exacerbated conditions of diseases like skin diseases (kushtha) [Cha.Sa.Chikitsa Sthana 7], erysipelas(visarpa)[Cha.Sa.Chikitsa Sthana 21], diseases of three vital organs -heart, brain and kidney (tri marma)[Cha.Sa.Chikitsa Sthana 26]. These therapies are effective in management of chronic diseases by removing toxins like ama. Panchakarma therapies like unctuous enema (anuvasana) are utilized for restoration of health. Panchakarma is helpful in the prevention of diseases, preservation and promotion of health. Cautions in administration of panchakarma The only contra-indication for panchakarma is urustambha (diseases of thigh). [Cha.Sa.Chikitsa Sthana 27/20-22] In this condition, only drying therapies (rukshana) are indicated. Improper administration of panchakarma procedures can lead to diseases like skin disorders [Cha.Sa.Chikitsa Sthana 7/6], diseases of digestion (grahani) [Cha.Sa.Chikitsa Sthana 15/43], disease due to vata vitiation [Cha.Sa.Chikitsa Sthana 28/15]. Excessive or inadequate administration of panchakarma also leads to complications. [Cha.Sa.Siddhi Sthana Therefore, the panchakarma shall be administered cautiously after considering all suitable factors. Otherwise it may fail to give expected results and cause complications. [Cha.Sa.Siddhi Sthana 1/59] Panchakarma are popularly known as detoxification therapies, cleansing therapies, purification therapies or elimination therapies in healthcare society today. Various modifications of these procedures are in vogue. Some scholars classify panchakarma in two categories. 1. Classical and 2. Traditional 1. Classical panchakarma therapies are followed as described in classics. 2. Traditional panchakarma therapies are modified and sophisticated external oleation and sudation therapies based on classics. These are widely publicized as Keraliya panchakarma. Some practitioners consider pouring medicated liquid on head (shiraseka), whole body (kaya seka), application of processed rice in bolus (shashtikashalipindasweda), as paste on body (anna lepa), application of herbal paste on head (shirolepa) as keraliya panchakarma. These therapies gained global recognition due to their efficacy and practices in resorts and spas. However, the fundamental principles of panchakarma therapies shall always be followed to achieve maximum benefit. Research studies show efficacy of panchakarma therapies in management of diseases. - Research has shown that it reduces risk factors for heart disease and decreases blood levels of fat-soluble toxins such as polychlorinated biphenyls and agrochemicals by about 50%. - External and internal purification therapy is found to be effective in reducing the symptoms of blistering skin disease (visphotakushtha) within a short duration with a long lasting effect. - Panchakarma followed by internal medications showed amelioration of motor, sensory and sphincter deficits in case of Guillain Barre syndrome. - Panchakarma along with internal medications showed improvement in growth and development and also reduces spasticity in spastic cerebral palsy. - The quality of life of patients can be improved through panchakarma procedures especially in case of skin disorders. - In neurodegenerative conditions like supranuclear palsy Ayurvedic treatment modalities including panchakarma is found effective in causing symptomatic improvements. List of theses done There are total 121 research works done on various procedures of panchakarma in last 17 years since 2001 to 2018 at Institute for post graduate teaching and research in Ayurveda, Jamnagar. The following table shows number of research works done on each procedure: \|Serial NO.\|\|Name of procedure\|\|Number of research works\| Following list shows theses works done with emphasis on general aspects of panchakarma. - Chaturvedi GN (1959): A study of panchakarma therapy vis-a-vis its physio-pathological basis.Department of Kayachikitsa, I.P.G.T. & R.A. Jamnagar - Vasant Sohanlal (1960): Panchakarma shastram. Department of Kayachikitsa, I.P.G.T. & R.A. Jamnagar - Parashar BN (1965): Sodhanam dosha nirghatanam. Department of Kayachikitsa, I.P.G.T. & R.A. Jamnagar - Selote SB (1962): Elimination therapy.Department of Kayachikitsa, I.P.G.T. & R.A. Jamnagar - Ramu MG (1966): Diseases of raktavaha srotasa and shodhana therapy.Department of Kayachikitsa, I.P.G.T. & R.A. Jamnagar - Arunachalam S (1969): Sanshodhana sanshamana chikitsa in agnimandya. Department of Kayachikitsa, I.P.G.T. & R.A. Jamnagar - Pilapitiya U (1969): Sanshodhana and sanshamanachikitsa in amlapitta.Department of Kayachikitsa, I.P.G.T. & R.A. Jamnagar - Vidya Shekar MS (1971): Shodhanaupakrama for tridosha.Department of Kayachikitsa, I.P.G.T. & R.A. Jamnagar - Misha SK (1988): A clinical study on the role of shodhana in the management of vicharchika.Department of Kayachikitsa, I.P.G.T. & R.A. Jamnagar - Moradia Ghanshyam (1990): A comparative study on the role of shodhana and shaman therapies of gridhrasi (sciatica).Department of Kayachikitsa, I.P.G.T. & R.A. Jamnagar - ManoranjanSahu (2002): A critical study on aetiopathogenesis of Gridhrasi and its management with Rasna Guggulu along with shodhana therapy.Department of Kayachikitsa, I.P.G.T. & R.A. Jamnagar - Nakum Sudha K (2003): Comparative study of the role of Shamana (Rasayana) and Shodhana therapy in Vicharchika. Department of Kayachikitsa, I.P.G.T. & R.A. Jamnagar Apamarga Tanduliya Adhyaya, Snehadhyaya, Swedadhyaya, Upakalpaniya Adhyaya, Chikitsaprabhritiya Adhyaya, Kalpana Siddhi, Panchakarmiya Siddhi, Bastisutriyam Siddhi, Snehavyapat Siddhi, Netrabastivyapat Siddhi, Vamana Virechana Vyapat Siddhi, Bastivyapat Siddhi, Prasrita Yogiyam Siddhi, Trimarmiya Siddhi, Basti Siddhi, Phalamatra Siddhi, Uttar Basti Siddhi Vamana Virechana Basti Nasya Raktamoksha Snehana Swedana List of references The list of references for Panchakarma in Charak Samhita can be seen here Send us your suggestions and feedback on this page. - ↑ Monier-Williams, Monier-Williams Sanskrit- English Dictionary, 1st edition; Oxford University Press, Karman, Page 258 - ↑ Sharma H., Chandola H.M., Singh G., Basisht G. Utilization of Ayurveda in health care: an approach for prevention, health promotion, and treatment of disease. Part 1 – Ayurveda in primary health care. J Altern Complement Med. 2007;13(9):1011–1019. - ↑ Patil Vasant. Principles and Practice of Panchakarma.Ilkal, India: Atreya Ayurveda publications,2011.pg.7. - ↑ Sharma HM, Nidich SI, Sands D, Smith DE. Improvement in cardiovascular risk factors through Panchakarma purification procedures. J Res Educ Indian Med 1993;12:2–13. - ↑ Herron RE, Fagan JB. Lipophil-mediated reduction of toxicants in humans: An evaluation of an Ayurvedic detoxification procedure. Altern Ther Health Med 2002;8:40–51. - ↑ Aiswarya IV, Parameswaran Namboothiri K, Anandaraman PV. Effect of multi-modality Ayurvedic treatment in a case of Visphota kushta. J Ayurveda Integr Med. 2019 Jul - Sep;10(3):207-213. doi: 10.1016/j.jaim.2018.06.005. - ↑ Basavaraj R Tubaki, Shruti Tarapure. Ayurveda management of Gullian Barre syndrome: A case report. J Ayurveda Integr Med. 2020 Jan - Mar;11(1):73-77. doi: 10.1016/j.jaim.2018.08.004. Epub 2019 Jan 18 - ↑ Sagar M Bhinde, Kalpana S Patel et al. Management of Spactic cerebral palsy through multiple Ayurveda treatment modalities. Ayu. 2014 Oct-Dec; 35(4): 462–466. doi: 10.4103/0974-8520.159044 - ↑ Harish Deshpande, Shivkumar et al. Assessment of quality of life in patients with skin disorders undergoing Ayurvedic Panchakarma (biopurification) as management. J Evid Based Complementary Altern Med. 2016 Jul;21(3):215-20. doi: 10.1177/2156587215615026. Epub 2015 Nov 12. - ↑ Nitin Jindal, Manoj K et al. Efficacy of Ayurvedic treatment using Panchakarma combined with balance exercises for disability and balance in progressive supranuclear palsy. Anc Sci Life. 2012 Jul;32(1):54-8. doi: 10.4103/0257-7941.113793.	187,765
The ingredient of 714-X claimed by supporters to have anticancer activity is camphor that has been chemically modified by the addition of an extra nitrogen atom. Pharmacological and Biological Treatment Learn about other non-traditional therapies sometimes touted to treat cancer, including shark cartilage, laetrile, and homeopathy. Antineoplaston therapy is a complementary/alternative cancer treatment that involves using a group of synthetic chemicals called antineoplastons intended to protect the body from disease. Apitherapy refers to the use of various products of the common honeybee in alternative remedies. Bovine cartilage is promoted as a dietary supplement for the treatment of cancer, osteoporosis, and other conditions. The cartilage is extracted from various parts of a cow, but usually comes from the trachea (windpipe). A dark liquid, the exact makeup of Cancell® is unknown and may have changed over time and varied between manufacturers. In cell therapy, processed tissue from the organs, embryos, or fetuses of animals such as sheep or cows is injected into patients. Chelation therapy most often involves the injection of ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA), a chemical that binds, or chelates, heavy metals, including iron, lead, mercury, cadmium, and zinc. Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) is part of an enzyme complex that affects certain chemical reactions in the body. Use of Coley toxins is an early form of immunotherapy, a method of treatment in which a person receives substances designed to boost the immune system and help the body fight off diseases such as cancer. Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) is a steroid hormone produced by the adrenal gland. It is a mixture of the drugs somatostatin and bromocriptine, as well as vitamins, melatonin, and sometimes low doses of chemotherapy drugs or other substances combined in varying amounts. Dichloracetic acid and sodium dichloroacetate are man-made chemicals that have not been found in nature. Dimethyl sulfoxide, or DMSO, is an industrial solvent that is a by-product of making paper. Enzyme therapy involves taking enzyme supplements as an alternative form of cancer treatment. Enzymes are natural proteins that stimulate and accelerate many biological reactions in the body. Gamma linolenic acid (GLA) is an omega-6 unsaturated fatty acid made in the human body from other essential fatty acids. The Greek Cancer Cure consists of a blood test reportedly used to diagnose cancer and intravenous therapy designed to cure the disease. Homeopathic remedies are water-based or alcohol-based solutions containing tiny amounts of naturally occurring plants, minerals, animal products, or chemicals. Hydrazine sulfate is a chemical commonly used in industrial processes, such as rare metal refining and the making of rocket fuel, rust-prevention products, and insecticides. Immuno-augmentative therapy (IAT) consists of daily injections of a protein mixture made from human blood with the goal of helping the patient's immune system to attack the cancer. Inosine pranobex is a drug that may mimic the actions of immune-stimulating hormones made in the thymus gland. Insulin potentiation therapy (IPT) refers to the use of insulin along with lower doses of chemotherapy to treat cancer. An analysis by several federal agencies found Krebiozen to contain mineral oil and a form of creatine. Creatine is a substance that occurs naturally in the human body and is sold as a dietary supplement. Laetrile is a chemically modified form of amygdalin, a naturally-occurring substance found mainly in the kernels of apricots, peaches, and almonds. Lipoic acid is an antioxidant found in certain foods, including red meat, spinach, broccoli, potatoes, yams, carrots, beets, and yeast. It is also made in small amounts in the human body. Liver flushes are recommended by alternative medicine practitioners to detoxify or drive "harmful chemicals and germs" out of the liver and gallbladder. Livingston-Wheeler therapy was an alternative cancer method that included vaccines, antibiotics, vitamin and mineral supplements, digestive enzymes, cleansing enemas, support group therapy, and a vegetarian diet. Mangosteen is a tropical fruit native to Southeast Asia that is touted for its antioxidants, especially xanthones, a type of chemical in certain plants. Melatonin is a hormone produced naturally by the pineal gland-- a pea-sized gland located just beneath the center of the brain-- in response to darkness. Oxygen therapy introduces substances into the body that are supposed to release oxygen. The extra oxygen is believed to increase the body's ability to destroy disease-causing cells. Poly-MVA is a liquid dietary supplement that contains various minerals, B complex vitamins, palladium, and amino acids and lipoic acid (see Lipoic Acid, and B Vitamins). The "MVA" stands for minerals, vitamins, and amino acids. Pregnenolone is a steroid the body makes as a precursor to other steroid hormones. Some practitioners of alternative medicine who treat cancer using unproven and unapproved therapies -- especially those who market their treatment as a "cure" -- have moved across the Mexican border, where they are still able to attract US patients. It is a chemical therapy that varies for every patient but can include a chemical formula made of varying amounts of lipid alcohols, caffeine, zinc, lithium, and iron or a formula that contains fatty acids, selenium, magnesium, and sulfur. Sea cucumbers are marine animals that have a soft body with the shape and texture of a cucumber. Shark cartilage is extracted from the heads and fins of sharks. Shark liver oil is taken from the liver of cold-water sharks. Urotherapy is an alternative method that involves the use of a patient's own urine to treat cancer.	92,655
Kairouan, also known as Kirwan or al-Qayrawan, is the capital of the Kairouan Governorate in Tunisia. Referred to as the Islamic Cultural Capital, it is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The city was founded by the Arabs around 670. In the period of Caliph Mu'awiya, it became an important centre for Islamic and Quranic learning, and thus attracting a large number of Muslims from various parts of the world, next only to Mecca and Medina. The holy Mosque of Uqba is situated in the city. In 2003, the city had about 150,000 inhabitants. The numerical value of kairouan in Chaldean Numerology is: 7 The numerical value of kairouan in Pythagorean Numerology is: 9 Images & Illustrations of kairouan Find a translation for the kairouan definition in other languages: Select another language:	214,549
You can inspire creative thinking....writing...drama... and improve oracy skills as you discuss the illustrations. Trent College, Nottingham A faun's tale Salvias, the unkempt and hairy faun, was lost. After being banished from faun-land, for tricking the king and embarrassing him in front of the kingdom of centaurs, he decided to take refuge in the enchanted forest. The forest was well known for its dark magic. The few that ventured inside had never returned. When dusk settled, Salvias decided to sleep. He searched for a clearing in the forest, and just when he thought that he would never find an emptly clearing, he came across a beautiful-looking glade. It seemed to sparkle in the moon-light. Its magical beauty gave the sleepy faun no choice but to rest his head. Although the faun was aware that the place was full of dark magic, he was too tired to care about it, and slept. He slept, lost in his wildest dreams, for what seemed to be an eternity. He couldn't, however, tell if the noise was a dream. This mysterious noise had always been there like the birds in their nests. It was an ever present voice, speaking to him. He never listened close enough to hear what the voice said, but, it sounded as if the persion, or creature, was wise. Maybe it was a voice telling him how to escape his dreams? When he tried to listen to its low rumble, his dreams were also calling for him, louder and clearer. Sometimes he forgot he was dreaming. The voice spoke louder than ever before. It spoke with meaning, as if, for the first time it was agitated with Salvias. Now it really wanted him to get out of this dream world. Suddenly the dream world had erupted into chaos. His minds very creations being destroyed before his eyes. The earth trembled, the sea roared and mountains became fiery pits of magma...... Written by a group of 12 and 13 year old children 'The students (year 7) and I have had such fun with Gazoonkas in our English lessons. Clearly, working with Gazoonkas stimulates extraordinary opportunities to develop refreshing narrative characters that have helped my students formulate the most intriguing plots. I would recommend highly the use of Gazoonkas in English lessons. The possibilities for creativity in writing, drama, art, poetry, language skill lessons are endless. It is so easy to adapt lessons, within the national curriculum, using these fascinating Mr Liam Webster, Assistant Head, Trent College, Nottinghamshire, UK Crazies Hill School, Berkshire. "Our day with Fran Webster was a magical experience. The children wee fascinated with Fran's story of how the Gazoonkas came into existence through her doodling, and thought her artwork truly amazing. The children were inspired to draw some fabulous Gazoonkas of their own and to write stories full of excitement and imagination. This has been a wonderful way to promote creative writing and ilustration across the whole school." Eileen Holmes, Headteacher. 'Imagination is more important than knowledge'. Albert Einstein 'Creativity is intelligence having fun.' 'Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in th world' PAREIDOLIA, in a nutshell, is the ability to see faces, or other things, where there isn't one. In his notebooks, Leonardo da Vinci wrote of pareidolia as a device for painters, writing "if you look at any walls spotted with various stains.... if you are about to invent some scene you will be able to see in it a resemblance to various different landscapes adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, wide valleys and various groups of hills. You will also be able to see divers, combats and figures in quick movement, and strange expressions of faces, and outlandish costumes, and an infinite number of things which you can then reduce into separate and well conceived forms." These imaginings, or seeings, with the aid of drawing, become my Gazoonkas Fran Webster's Art More of my work can be viewed on Redbubble. and on my face book art page and frantuckster on Instagram	196,209
TIPS ON BECOMING A WELCOMING CONGREGATION Treat each person and all people as unique individuals, as Christ in your midst, with gifts to bring the community, making each of us and the community richer, not as a person narrowly defined by any one characteristic. TIPS ON LANGUAGE About 10% of the population identifies as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender... don't assume that just because they haven't told you, they aren't there. Even in a non-threatening environment, some may choose to keep this information private. However, you may increase their comfort level by showing your support in your use of language when you write and speak: - Words like "significant other" or "partner" are more inclusive than "husband" "wife" or "spouse." Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender people, just like heterosexual people, use a variety of terms to define themselves and to refer to their "other half" ... if you are unsure how to refer to someone's partner, ask! - Instead of asking if a newcomer is married, ask if they are "in a relationship.” - Families are great, but please don't make single people feel like second-class citizens. - Avoid assumptions based on appearance... stereotyping is just that: attributing characteristics to a group simplistically and uncritically, often with the assumption that those characteristics are rooted in biological differences. Real people should not be stereotyped, not everybody fits commonly-held stereotypes, and not everybody who fits a stereotype description is "carrying the card." - Don't make homophobic comments or jokes, and don’t laugh at, ignore or condone them. And make it clear to your staff, vestry, etc., that they are inappropriate. - Avoid or reduce the use of pronouns and gender-specific language that limits... instead begin using "inclusive” or “expansive" language to describe God and the Trinity, as well as loving relationships on earth. God need not just be He or She, Father or Lord. God can also be named, as God or as Nurturer, Creator, Parent, Yahweh, Great Spirit, etc. or as Father and Mother. - Talk about LGBT welcome and safety as justice issues and how they are affecting the church. Keep your congregation informed about what your congregation, diocese and The Episcopal Church are doing. TIPS ON IMAGES The spoken word is one thing, but a LGBT person may make a decision about your church before ever reaching or entering the door. Sadly, past experience has taught us that the potential for an un-welcoming and traumatic experience is great. LGBT people tend to do a lot more "shopping around" for a safe and welcoming congregation than a heterosexual person might. If I researched your church, what assumptions might I make based on what I saw or found? - If I come to your church, will I see people who look like me? Web sites, publications and visual presentations at the church should reflect people and relationships of all kinds. Look around: is everyone in a "traditional family" or do you have "families by choice," single people, same-sex partners, single parent families, and families of mixed ethnicity? Make sure your marketing reflects the full spectrum of who makes up your congregation, and maybe those who are missing! - Some corporations have adopted a "safe space" program to let LGBT people know in a subtle way that they are in a supportive, non-judgmental environment. The "Safe Space" symbol is an inverted pink triangle (an international symbol of positive gay identity) inside a green circle, which symbolizes acceptance. You could use something similar, or a rainbow flag sticker, to express your welcoming intention. - Consider becoming a Believe Out Loud Episcopal Congregation. The OASIS is working with other groups both inside and outside the Episcopal Church to promote Believe Out Loud, a campaign of welcome for congregations. Learn more here. - Both THE OASIS and INTEGRITY have letter-sized certificates available for supportive congregations. Displaying these in your narthex is a wonderful way to let LGBT people know they are welcome. Another option is for your web site and/or bulletin to display The OASIS or INTEGRITY logo, just as you would incorporate a wheelchair as an indication of disability accessibility. - June is Pride Month in the United States. Some congregations have shown their support of their LGBT members and the broader LGBT community by displaying the rainbow flag during Pride Month if they don’t fly it at other times. TIPS ON PREPARATION If you are going to say you are welcoming, be prepared to prove it. If a LGBT person came to you in crisis or just needing to talk, would you know what to say or do? - Things can be tough for lesbian and gay people, but bisexual, transgender and intersex people are sometimes even more misunderstood. Take some time to learn about issues and get past assumptions. The OASIS has links to numerous resources that can help you learn. - Have resources available. Look up and bookmark on your computer local community groups that could help a person make friends or obtain services. Know what you are up against. Laws in most states are discriminatory against LGBT relationships. If a person's partner is hospitalized, they may encounter difficulty or resistance to their making decisions for or even seeing their loved one (in New Jersey this is illegal). Could they count on you as an advocate? - There are counselors, lawyers and other professionals who have specific experience in the LGBT community. Learn who they are in case you encounter a situation that is more than you're ready to handle. Intentionally develop relationships with LGBT people and/or agencies, such as THE OASIS, who can serve as helpful resources for you.	157,147
Here at Ignite Nutrition, many of our patients describe feeling held back by their digestive symptoms. Some of the most frustrating symptoms for our patients are urgency and diarrhea, as they feel they can’t leave the house or participate in social events due to unpredictable bowel habits. Nutrition for Bile Acid Diarrhea Chronic diarrhea can occur for a variety of reasons, one being something called bile acid diarrhea (often called bile acid malabsorption) or ‘BAD’ for short. Although you may not have heard of this before, BAD is a common cause of diarrhea. However, with symptoms so similar to conditions like IBS or IBD, it can often be tricky to diagnose. Today we will be reviewing the details of bile acid diarrhea – what it is, how it’s diagnosed, and what you should know about managing this condition long-term. Let’s get started! What is Bile Acid Diarrhea? BAD is diarrhea that results from poor absorption of bile acids, which are important molecules that help to digest and absorb fat and nutrients from our food. Every human body is designed to release bile acids when we eat. These bile acids aid in absorbing fat and fat soluble vitamins like vitamins A, E, D, & K (to name a few). This process occurs in the small intestine, which is the primary site of digestion and absorption. From there, about 97% of the bile acids we produce get reabsorbed in the terminal ileum (the very end of the small intestine). The body recycles these bile acids so that they can be used again and again. Isn’t the human body SO efficient? Bile acid diarrhea occurs when bile acids do not get reabsorbed at the terminal ileum and instead continue on to the colon, causing irritation and excess water secretions that lead to loose stool. This can happen for a variety of reasons. Primary Bile Acid Diarrhea For some patients with BAD, they actually produce too much bile for their body to absorb all at once, meaning excess bile acids slip through to the colon, causing BAD. Secondary Bile Acid Diarrhea For others, absorption of bile at the terminal ileum is not efficient. This is often secondary to another condition that has caused previous damage to the small intestine such as inflammatory bowel disease, previous bowel surgeries, celiac disease, or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO). However, for certain patients, BAD can also occur without a known cause – this is called ‘idiopathic bile acid diarrhea’. Symptoms of Bile Acid Diarrhea Unsurprisingly, the most common symptom of bile acid diarrhea is well, diarrhea. It IS right there in the title. However, there is generally more to it than that. Key characteristics of BAD include: - Watery, loose diarrhea – often stool is pale in colour, greasy, malodorous and/or difficult to flush - Bowel urgency & frequent bowel movements - Fecal incontinence - Excess gas - Abdominal pain (typically in the lower abdomen) Bile Acid Diarrhea vs. Irritable Bowel Syndrome Both BAD and diarrhea-dominant IBS (IBS-D) have very similar and overlapping symptoms, making it difficult to diagnose the cause of diarrhea in many patients. It is also thought that many IBS-D patients may actually have both diagnoses. In fact, some studies report up to half of individuals with IBS-D or functional diarrhea have bile acid diarrhea! At Ignite Nutrition, we work with a lot of patients who have been diagnosed with IBS-D. In doing so, we sometimes see patients who also show signs of BAD that may have been overlooked during the diagnostic process. There is no doubt that these two conditions can be VERY difficult to separate during screening – so how is BAD diagnosed? Diagnosing Bile Acid Diarrhea When an individual presents with chronic diarrhea and urgency, their family doctor will refer them to a gastroenterologist who will perform a series of tests to rule out specific gut disorders. If there are risk factors and as appropriate, a gastroenterologist will conduct a colonoscopy to identify whether that person has inflammatory bowel disease, celiac disease, or colon cancer – however, many times conditions can be ruled out with blood work and assessment. If the results of your test come back clear, but you’re experiencing diarrhea and abdominal pain, the most common diagnosis is irritable bowel syndrome – which makes sense given the symptoms, and can be managed with nutrition intervention. But what happens when nutrition interventions, like the low FODMAP diet, don’t work? We often see patients diagnosed with IBS-D that work with us on nutrition management of IBS, and STILL have significant diarrhea, even despite being disciplined with the low FODMAP diet and managing their stress. As we work through their food and symptom journals, we can see a correlative pattern with high fat foods, and worsening of diarrhea. This is a common sign that there may be more going on! To scientifically diagnose bile acid diarrhea, a fecal sample can be taken and analyzed to measure the amount of bile acids in a person’s stool. However, this procedure often isn’t available outside of research facilities. Instead, BAD is most often therapeutically diagnosed by administering a bile acid sequestrant drug and monitoring how an individual responds to the therapy. If a patient’s symptoms improve with the pharmacological therapy, we can observationally say that they have bile acid diarrhea. Management of Bile Acid Diarrhea As mentioned above, the most reliable therapy for BAD is a type of medication called bile acid sequestrant drugs. The most common of these in Canada is called cholestyramine, which is a powder medication that binds to unabsorbed bile acids in the colon. By doing so, it makes them osmotically inactive, meaning they can no longer pull excess water into the bowels and cause diarrhea. As a plus, cholestyramine may also help to lower cholesterol in the blood through the same mechanisms – binding fat and cholesterol molecules that usually get re-absorbed and recycled! It is important to work closely with your medical team to determine the proper dose of cholestyramine for you, as the amount needed can vary depending on the person, the severity of your symptoms, and even what you eat. Can Diet Impact Bile Acid Diarrhea? Bile acid sequestrant drugs are the main treatment for BAD, but diet and lifestyle changes can also greatly reduce incidence of bile acid diarrhea. At the end of the day, the best management strategies for BAD include a combination of BOTH medical therapy and nutrition therapy! Dietary considerations for managing BAD include: Consuming high soluble fibre foods and/or soluble fibre supplements such as psyllium husk – Fibre supplements act as a natural bile acid binder, helping to reduce the amount of water being pulled into the bowel. Consuming a diet low in poorly absorbed and highly fermentable carbohydrates – Many of our patients do have IBS-D overlapping with their BAD, and see great success following a low FODMAP or modified low FODMAP diet to reduce excess gas and fluid in the gut. This likely has to do with some FODMAP’s speeding up digestion, giving bile acids less of a chance to absorb, leading to worsening symptoms. Reducing fat in the diet – When we consume less fat, we don’t release as many bile acids to absorb and breakdown that fat. In turn, the result is fewer symptoms associated with poor bile acid reabsorption. Eating small, frequent meals as opposed to large meals – Smaller portions also require fewer bile acids and therefore cause less episodes of diarrhea. If you have recurrent diarrhea and urgency, discuss it with your family physician and ensure you get properly screened for gut disorders that may be contributing to your symptoms. If you have not worked with a gastroenterologist, consider talking with your family doctor about being referred. Additionally, talk to a dietitian about how you can start to improve your chronic diarrhea through dietary strategies. A trained gut health dietitian can also help to identify signs of bile acid diarrhea if you feel this could be part of your story. Work with one of our Calgary-based registered dietitians today.	133,463
Boost The Chance Of Having A Baby - 3rd April 2016 For those who dream of being parents, pregnancy problems can be tremendously frustrating and disappointing. In recent decades, scientists have developed a wide range of approaches to help struggling couples have healthy babies. And NIH-funded studies are continuing to search for even better ways to overcome the challenges of infertility. Infertility is a fairly common condition. It affects about 1 in 10 couples who are trying to have a baby. Infertility can be traced to the man in about a third of these cases and to the woman in another third. The rest of the time, the difficulties lie with both partners or no cause can be found. “Although there are many known causes of infertility, there are still some cases of fertility impairments that we don’t understand,” says NIH’s Dr. Louis V. DePaolo, an expert in fertility research. “We’re constantly discovering new molecules that are vital to the fertility-regulating process.” By learning more about these molecules and other factors, scientists hope to find new and improved ways to prevent or treat infertility. Knowing the underlying causes of infertility is important because it can help couples choose the best therapy. “Since there are many causes, a treatment that works for one person might not be the best choice for another,” DePaolo says. The most common treatments today are surgery or medication. Fertility troubles can arise in any of the steps needed for a successful pregnancy. To get pregnant, a woman’s body must first release an egg from one of her ovaries, a process called ovulation. The man’s sperm then has to join with, or “fertilize,” the egg. The egg must then travel through a passageway known as the fallopian tube and head toward the woman’s uterus (womb). The fertilized egg must then attach to the inside of the uterus (implantation). Infertility can be related to a man if there are problems with the number, shape, or movement of sperm. These glitches can make it hard for the sperm to fertilize the egg. About 1 in 5 infertile men have sperm troubles because of a hormone imbalance, which can sometimes be corrected with medication. “Another common identifiable cause of male infertility occurs when a man has large veins around the testicle, which makes the whole scrotum warmer than it should be. The heat decreases the production and quality of sperm,” says Dr. Peter N. Schlegel, who specializes in treating male infertility at Cornell University. This condition, called varicoceles, is usually harmless, but it can be corrected with surgery if it’s causing infertility. Surgery can also help to remove blockages that prevent sperm release. “There are also genetic causes of low sperm production, which are probably more common than we can identify, because we don’t yet understand all the causes of male infertility,” Schlegel says. For women, the most common cause of infertility has to do with ovulation problems, which affect about 40% of women who have pregnancy trouble. “Ovulatory problems occur when a woman ovulates irregularly or not at all,” says Dr. Linda Giudice, a reproductive health expert at the University of California, San Francisco. “Causes can include stress-related lack of or irregular periods, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), advanced maternal age, and a variety of other possible factors, like hormone issues that can interrupt normal ovulation.” Other common causes of female infertility include blocked fallopian tubes or conditions that affect the health of the egg or its implantation after fertilization. In the United States, older maternal age is a growing contributor to fertility problems. About 1 in 5 women nationwide now have their first child after age 35. Once a woman reaches this age, fertility complications arise in about 1 of every 3 couples trying to have a baby. Studies suggest that after age 30, a woman’s chances of getting pregnant decrease every year, especially after age 37. “One of the biggest challenges in infertility treatment is related to advanced maternal age, when the egg quality and egg numbers decrease,” Giudice says. “For older women, treatment can usually help to achieve ovulation, but the problem usually lies in not having good-quality eggs.” Aging not only reduces the likelihood of having a baby. It also raises the chances of miscarriage or having a child with certain health problems. High-risk pregnancies are also more likely as women get older. In some cases, infertility can be corrected through lifestyle changes, such as losing weight or stopping tobacco use. If this doesn’t work, doctors may recommend medication, surgery, artificial insemination (in which a woman is injected with specially prepared sperm), or assisted reproductive technology, which is usually the most expensive and complex option. Assisted reproductive technology includes different methods for fertilizing eggs, usually outside of the body. Giudice and her colleagues are among many NIH-supported scientists studying the pregnancy process. “We’re examining what happens during certain stages of egg development, what happens when women are of advanced maternal age or when they have a condition called endometriosis, which affects egg quality and the lining of the uterus and its receptiveness to implantation,” Giudice says. Schlegel and his coworkers are among those focusing on the underlying causes of male infertility. “We’re looking at factors called micro-RNAs, which are small bits of genetic material that are made by the body to help regulate how a wide variety of body parts work, including the areas of the testicle involved in sperm production,” Schlegel says. “We’re also looking at other genetic causes of infertility and ways to improve or create sperm for men who can’t make them.” For couples who have tried to have a baby without success, experts recommend seeking medical help after at least a year of trying if the woman is younger than 35, or after 6 months if the women is age 35 or older. It’s also a good idea for couples to talk with a health care provider before even trying to get pregnant. “If you’re planning to start a family, your health before you begin trying is very important,” DePaolo says. “By being healthy, you have a better chance of being able to conceive within a normal amount of time, and you’re more likely to have healthy offspring as well.” Source: NIH News In Health?	132,656
THIS DAY IN VIRGINIA HISTORY Click image for larger view. September 05, 1956 Lester Banks Testified Before the General Assembly on School Segregation In this radio broadcast, William Lester Banks (1911–1986), executive secretary for the Virginia State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), testified at a General Assembly hearing on public school integration. Banks stated that the Virginia NAACP opposed all plans that obstructed desegregation. In 1956 Senator Harry Flood Byrd (1887–1966) promoted a policy of Massive Resistance to prevent public school desegregation after the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision. That September the General Assembly passed legislation severely impeding the NAACP's legal maneuvering for integration. The NAACP filed lawsuits in response, and Virginia's Massive Resistance laws were eventually declared unconstitutional. 09-05-1956_Lester_Banks-clip.mp3Listen to Lester Banks Testified Before the General Assembly on School Segregation (Transcription)	112,422
Rural -land owner resources Rural areas, like small acreages and crop fields, make up a little over half of the landscape in Polk County. These rural areas are an important part of our local communities and they often have a close relationship with creeks, drainage, and rainfall. To assist rural areas, Polk County relies on several key partners including the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Polk Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD). Both NRCS and Polk SWCD provide a series of resources including programs to assist landowners and farmers with the construction of conservation practices such as ponds, grassed waterways, and terraces along with management practices such as no-till, cover crops, and nutrient management. Rural acreage owners will also find programs to assist with prairie establishments, windbreaks, and woodland management. Polk SWCD and the NRCS resources and staff are available by stopping into the USDA Service Center located at 1513 N Ankeny Blvd. Ste. 3, Ankeny, IA 50023 or by phone at 515-964-1883 ext. 3 Additional information can also be found by following the links below:	159,834
One Million COVID-19 Survivors Worldwide: More than 1 million people around the world have recovered from COVID-19, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University. Around 154,000 people in the United States have recovered from the deadly virus. Although people who recover from a viral infection often build up an immunity to later contracting the same disease, it remains unclear whether this is the case for COVID-19. The World Health Organization said last week that one-time infection of the coronavirus has not yet been proven to result in immunity. RELATED: Persons With Blood Type-O Are More Resistant To COVID-19 The U.S. currently has the most confirmed COVID-19 cases of any nation, with more than 1 million. It was just less than a month ago when the disease crossed the 1 million case threshold worldwide. Globally, there are more than 3.27 million confirmed cases. Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, France and Germany have each reported more than 160,000 COVID-19 cases. Deaths caused by the coronavirus total around 235,000 globally. In the U.S., more than 60,000 people have died because of the coronavirus. New York City and surrounding areas have been hard-hit by COVID-19: More than 18,000 people have died in the country’s largest city. Other hot spots range from Cook County, Illinois, to Wayne County, Michigan. The U.S. hit a milestone in testing this week, surpassing 6 million tests administered.	103,089
Cystinuria was originally classified according to urinary excretion of cystine and dibasic amino acids in obligate carriers. In this classification, parents of affected children were assessed as having either normal (type I), moderate (type III), or significant (type II) increases in cystine excretion. A newer classification is based on genotype: Type A patients have homozygous mutations in the gene SLC3A1 and type B patients have homozygous mutations in SLC7A9. These genes encode proteins that together form a heterodimer responsible for cystine and dibasic amino acid transport in the proximal tubule. Cystinuria should not be confused with cystinosis ( see Hereditary Fanconi syndrome Hereditary Fanconi syndrome Fanconi syndrome consists of multiple defects in renal proximal tubular reabsorption, causing glucosuria, phosphaturia, generalized aminoaciduria, and bicarbonate wasting. It may be hereditary... read more ). Pathophysiology of Cystinuria The primary defect results in diminished renal proximal tubular reabsorption of cystine and increased urinary cystine concentration. Cystine is poorly soluble in acidic urine, so when its urinary concentration exceeds its solubility, crystals precipitate and cystine kidney stones Urinary Calculi Urinary calculi are solid particles in the urinary system. They may cause pain, nausea, vomiting, hematuria, and, possibly, chills and fever due to secondary infection. Diagnosis is based on... read more form. Males are generally affected more than females. Resorption of other dibasic amino acids (lysine, ornithine, arginine) is also impaired but causes no problems because these amino acids have an alternative transport system separate from that shared with cystine. Furthermore, they are more soluble than cystine in urine, and their increased excretion does not result in crystal or stone formation. Their absorption (and that of cystine) is also decreased in the small bowel. Symptoms and Signs of Cystinuria Symptoms of cystinuria, most commonly renal colic, may occur in infants but usually appear between ages 10 and 30. Urinary tract infection and chronic kidney disease due to urinary tract obstruction Obstructive Uropathy Obstructive uropathy is structural or functional hindrance of normal urine flow, sometimes leading to renal dysfunction (obstructive nephropathy). Symptoms, less likely in chronic obstruction... read more may develop. Diagnosis of Cystinuria Analysis of collected kidney stones Microscopic examination of urinary sediment Measurement of urinary cystine excretion Radiopaque cystine stones form in the renal pelvis or bladder. Staghorn stones are common. Cystine may appear in the urine as yellow-brown hexagonal crystals, which are diagnostic. Excessive cystine in the urine may be detected with the nitroprusside cyanide test. Quantitative cystine excretion is typically > 400 mg/day in cystinuria (normal is < 30 mg/day). Treatment of Cystinuria High fluid intake Alkalinization of the urine Dietary sodium restriction Dietary animal protein restriction (when possible) End-stage renal disease Chronic Kidney Disease Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is long-standing, progressive deterioration of renal function. Symptoms develop slowly and in advanced stages include anorexia, nausea, vomiting, stomatitis, dysgeusia... read more may develop. Decreasing urinary cystine concentration below about 250 to 300 mg/L (1 to 1.25 mmol/L) decreases renal toxicity and can allow clearance of cystine in solution. This decrease is accomplished by increasing urine volume with fluid intake sufficient to provide a urine flow rate of 1.5 to 2 L/m2/day, which could require fluid intake as high as 2 to 4 L/day (1 Treatment references Cystinuria is an inherited defect of the renal tubules in which reabsorption of cystine (the homodimer of the amino acid cysteine) is impaired, urinary excretion is increased, and cystine stones... read more ). Hydration is particularly important at night when urinary volume and pH drop. Alkalinization of the urine to pH > 7.0 with potassium citrate or potassium bicarbonate 1 mEq/kg orally 3 to 4 times a day and in some cases acetazolamide 5 mg/kg (up to 250 mg) orally at bedtime increases the solubility of cystine significantly. Mild restrictions of dietary sodium (100 mEq/day) and animal protein (0.8 to 1.0 g/kg/day) may help reduce cystine excretion. When high fluid intake and alkalinization do not reduce stone formation, other oral drugs may be tried. Penicillamine (7.5 mg/kg 4 times a day in young children and 125 mg to 0.5 g 4 times a day in older children) improves cystine solubility, but toxicity limits its usefulness. About half of all patients develop some toxic manifestation, such as fever, rash, arthralgias, or, less commonly, nephrotic syndrome Overview of Nephrotic Syndrome Nephrotic syndrome is urinary excretion of > 3 g of protein/day due to a glomerular disorder plus edema and hypoalbuminemia. It is more common among children and has both primary and secondary... read more , pancytopenia, or a lupus-like reaction. Pyridoxine supplements (50 mg once/day) should be given with penicillamine. Tiopronin (100 to 300 mg 4 times a day) can be used instead of penicillamine to treat some children because it has a lower frequency of adverse effects. Captopril (0.3 mg/kg 3 times a day) is not as effective as penicillamine but is less toxic. Close monitoring of response to therapy is very important. Animal models (eg, gene knockout mice) are currently being used toward the development of novel therapies for cystinosis (2 Treatment references Cystinuria is an inherited defect of the renal tubules in which reabsorption of cystine (the homodimer of the amino acid cysteine) is impaired, urinary excretion is increased, and cystine stones... read more ). Clinical trials are currently being done to explore the efficacy of several interventions, including bucillamine, tolvaptan, and alpha-lipoic acid. 1. Claes DJ, Jackson E: Cystinuria: Mechanisms and management. Pediatr Nephrol 27(11):2031–2038, 2012. doi: 10.1007/s00467-011-2092-6 2. Sahota A, Tischfield JA, Goldfarb DS, et al: Cystinuria: Genetic aspects, mouse models, and a new approach to therapy. Urolithiasis 47(1):57–66, 2019. doi: 10.1007/s00240-018-1101-7 Defective urinary resorption of cystine increases urinary cystine levels, leading to cystine kidney stones and sometimes chronic kidney disease. Yellow-brown hexagonal crystals in the urine are pathognomonic; quantitative cystine excretion is typically > 400 mg/day. Treat with increased fluid intake to give urine output of 1.5 to 2 L/m2/day, and alkalinize urine with potassium citrate or potassium bicarbonate. Restrict dietary sodium and animal protein. Drugs such as penicillamine, tiopronin, or captopril may be necessary, but adverse effects are a concern. Drugs Mentioned In This Article \|Drug Name\|\|Select Trade\| \|Arginine, Nutricia SHS L-Arginine, R-Gene\| \|NIPRIDE RTU , Nitropress\| \|Citrolith , Urocit-K\| \|Effer-K, K Plus Care ET , Klor-Con EF, Klorvess, K-Lyte, K-Lyte DS, K-Vescent\| \|Diamox, Diamox Sequels\| \|Cuprimine, Depen, D-PENAMINE\| \|Thiola, Thiola EC\|	17,242
What Are Blockchain DApps, And Do They Have A Future In 2023? Most have overlooked this new technology’s most intriguing feature: the blockchain. The underlying technology of cryptocurrencies is blockchain. However, its capabilities go far beyond digital currency and include all technologies. Dapps are blockchain-based applications that execute code for a specific function or purpose. As with any desktop or mobile application, they have a front-end interface that enables users to click, scroll, enter text into text fields, and submit data or content for a specific purpose. From the user’s perspective, decentralized applications (dapps) are identical to traditional applications such as Instagram, except that they use blockchain technology to record data associated with users’ cryptocurrency wallets. There are dapps for every purpose, including financial applications such as DeFi protocols that allow users to exchange one currency for another and creative applications such as marketplaces for non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Using smart contracts, Dapps automate the planning, execution, and settlement of transactions. However, developers of decentralized applications (dapps) continue to present user agreements and policies. What is a dApp? On a decentralized network, “dApps” are developed using a frontend user interface and backend code (smart contracts) (e.g. a website). A frontend user interface is quite common, despite not being required for decentralized applications. A Blockchain dApp Development may appear to the average user as just another web-based software application, but it fully leverages the benefits of the blockchain protocol. Even though dApps can be developed using a variety of blockchain protocols, such as IPFS and peer-to-peer networks, Ethereum is by far the most popular platform for hosting dApps. How are dapps hosted? A Dapp is composed of smart contracts. We have converted the smart contract into a bytecode to transmit to the blockchains. This bytecode is added to the block like a transaction, after which this transaction is added to the league, and miners mine this block. Then, blockchain-based decentralized applications will be accessible. This decentralized application now has a physical address as a result. Similar to a wallet’s address. People can also communicate with this decentralized application via this address. To host this application, multiple nodes are employed. I am referring to any node that serves as both a miner and a validator. We can communicate with the specific bytes in this blockchain address using a full node. Getting Started With dApps on Ethereum dApps are a new way of thinking about creating Internet applications. Whether users develop dApps or interact with them, they must conduct sufficient research before beginning. To access any application on a blockchain network, users will be required to use both a public and private key. This “digital key” often replaces a conventional username and password. Users of dApps must download a digital wallet (e.g., Metamask) and acquire ETH (the currency used to pay transaction fees on Ethereum). A wallet will enable users to connect to the network, and ETH will allow them to pay any transaction fees incurred when using various dApps. The capabilities of decentralized networks are being tested by many decentralized applications (dApps), which are still in the early stages of development. But many dApps have already significantly penetrated the market, especially in the infrastructure, gaming, and financial industries. The services provided by the financial industry have significantly improved since the blockchain technology was introduced. By introducing more people to cryptocurrencies, dApps, which use cryptocurrencies as the native medium of exchange, could dramatically increase the mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies. Given the buzz surrounding the DeFi (decentralized finance) industry, DeFi applications—specifically decentralized exchanges, or DEXs—are among the first interactions people have with dApps. What are the ideal applications for dapps? Finance is the best application for decentralized applications. Decentralized finance, or “DeFi”, is currently all the rage in the Ethereum community. In essence, people use a decentralized approach to implement financial applications. For example, MakerDAO utilises stable coins in a decentralized manner. Token lending and borrowing are not governed by a single entity that can freeze accounts, halt sound coin transactions, or otherwise interfere with decentralized financial applications such as Compound Finance. Since this is decentralized, it is possible to borrow tokens from other users without their consent. It is possible to add tickets to the smart contract. Other users may borrow this token from us, but they must provide collateral. Numerous developers are shifting financial applications from centralised to decentralized systems. They are developing programmable insurance and investments. Many individuals are currently submitting applications for collateral loans. Therefore, it depends on reputation. It is a very exciting time. Financial applications are the best use case for blockchain. There are, of course, additional use cases, such as supply chains and decentralized identity. The best use case is financial applications. How is a decentralized application designed and constructed? Naturally, a smart contract is needed when creating decentralized applications. The smart contract must be made, and adequate security must be guaranteed. As a result, people employ an outside auditor to review the smart contract. We can develop a user interface or decentralized application to communicate with the smart contract once it is safe enough to be deployed. A web application is typically the most popular user interface for interacting with smart contacts. People who already own a browser can use a plugin to communicate with smart contracts. The MetaMask plugins will show up when we launch the web applications to inform the user that these are decentralized applications. Once logged in, you can communicate normally. You can confirm your intent to spend ethers with the seller if you want to buy a digital collectable. How do you develop your Twitter-like decentralized applications? In my books, I develop Twitter-like blockchain applications. A tweet is unquestionably a brief message. This short message can be stored directly in the blockchain, so we don’t need to keep it on IPFS. Because I use Python to build decentralized applications, this is comparable to a desktop application. This desktop application communicates with the Viper-written smart contract on the blockchain. When we tweet, that tweet becomes part of the transaction, which becomes part of the block, which is mined in the blockchain and is permanently stored there, as opposed to a tweet that has been posted on Twitter, which may be censored or blocked for several reasons. As a result, this censorship-resistant Twitter blockchain application is very intriguing. What skills must a blockchain developer possess to create dapps? Numerous organisations offer the top Defi development services. You may choose your entrance. We have provided all of their specifics. Enhanced Defi dApp development places you atop the cryptocurrency industry. However, there is no need for concern, allowing an affordable dApp to be carved. Top of the month Resources4 months ago Top 50 Best Invoicing and Estimate Apps for iPhone and iPad Resources2 months ago TOP 135 Niche Sites to Submit a Guest Post for Free in 2023 News1 month ago 17 Best sites to Buy YouTube Views in 2023 (Real & Safe) Resources12 months ago How to Restore WhatsApp Backup from Google Drive to iPhone?	124,844
Benefits of Resistance Training • Increases strength and lean body mass. • Increases basal metabolic rate (BMR). • Decreases total and LDL cholesterol levels. • Decreases resting heart rate and blood pressure. • Reduces coronary artery disease and type 2 diabetes. Resistance training is an effective way to help the body maintain muscle tissue during weight loss. The more muscle tissue you have on your body, the higher your BMR will be — which means you’ll burn more calories throughout the day, even when you’re resting. Weight training is also a great way to control blood sugar levels in type 2 diabetes or at risk for diabetes. • Helps maintain bone density. Resistance training can help prevent or delay age-related muscle and strength loss, a significant risk factor for osteoporosis. In addition to being weight-bearing exercise, resistance training helps enhance the muscles’ ability to absorb calcium. And when you have more muscle tissue, your body uses calcium more effectively to support that extra tissue. • Improves balance and coordination in older adults. It becomes harder to stay balanced while standing on one leg as we get older, a key measure of physical fitness. However, researchers from the University of Illinois found that low-intensity resistance training twice a week for eight weeks improved older adults’ balance by nearly 20 percent compared with people who didn’t teach. • Decreases symptoms of depression and anxiety. A review of 12 studies found that resistance training was more effective than aerobic exercise or no exercise at all in treating symptoms of depression and anxiety. One possible explanation: Studies show it leads to an increase in norepinephrine, a powerful brain chemical that acts as both a neurotransmitter and hormone which may improve mood. Resistance training can also help combat symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome by improving mitochondrial function. In one study, only four days of strength training twice per week significantly reduced symptoms such as fatigue, muscle aches, and difficulty concentrating. • Helps fight osteoporosis. This is especially important for people with low bone density stemming from autoimmune diseases such as arthritis since it helps strengthen bones and muscles. • Improves sleep quality. Resistance training lowers the stress hormone cortisol and reduces muscle tension, which can help you fall asleep faster and improve sleep quality. • Enhances metabolism. When combined with a healthy diet that includes whole foods, resistance training can teach your body to burn more fat for energy instead of storing it. Disadvantages of resistance training: 1. Increased risk of injuries: when you lift weights, your muscles contract and stretch more than usual, so small tears begin to form in the muscle tissue during the process. The muscle tissue then begins to heal, causing a noticeable increase in size. However, suppose you do not use these muscles regularly. In that case, they will become weaker, which creates a higher risk of injury if you were to repeat the activity (this is why athletes require extensive conditioning and training before participating in sports and games). 2. Muscle fatigue: Muscles need energy for contraction, which comes from either aerobic or anaerobic pathways. With resistance training, repeated efforts at high intensity eventually lead to muscle fatigue because it takes more time for the body to replenish these energy substrates. 3. Weight gain: while resistance training can lead to fat loss, some people use it intending to gain weight (usually muscle). This is difficult for most people because you need to eat more than burn off to gain weight, but this does not mean that you should be eating junk food all day long. Instead, a healthy balanced diet rich in complex carbohydrates, lean protein, and good fats will go a long way in helping you achieve your fitness goals. 4. Resistance training may increase blood pressure: although this is relative, resistance training increases blood pressure. Therefore, you should consult your physician before beginning an exercise program involving resistance training if you have high blood pressure. On the other hand, studies show that resistance training has a beneficial effect on blood pressure, so even people with high blood pressure can benefit. 5. Muscles need recovery time: the adage “use it or lose it” also applies to muscle tissue. Your muscles need about 48 hours to recover following a workout fully. Still, suppose you continue to train every day. In that case, your muscles will not have enough time to repair themselves, and this leads to overtraining, which can lead to severe consequences including fatigue, loss of strength, loss of coordination, increased risk of injury, particularly in the joints and bones, decreased flexibility, feeling depressed about exercise (“I don’t want to exercise”), etc.… 6. Resistance training may be boring!: there’s no question that excessive endurance training is boring too, but it seems that most people find resistance training boring. However, there are many ways to make resistance training more enjoyable: mixing up the exercises you perform, challenging yourself with heavier weights or more repetitions, changing things up at regular intervals, etc.… 7. Resistance Training can be potentially dangerous: this is true for any physical activity, but it’s important to remember that injury happens when you are least prepared for it. This means that if you are not using good form while performing an exercise, mainly compound exercises such as the bench press or squat, these injuries can become a reality. Also, if your physician has advised against certain types of physical activity due to health reasons, then it might not be a good idea to do them. 8. Resistance training does not improve flexibility: for the most part, resistance training only improves strength and muscle metabolism but not flexibility. Flexibility can be enhanced via other types of physical activity such as stretching or aerobic conditioning exercises. However, resistance training has been shown to increase range of motion which is why it’s handy for people with arthritis who are usually less flexible than their healthy counterparts. 9. Resistance Training may make you feel tired: this may sound counterintuitive because exercise, in general, increases your energy levels. Still, it’s important to remember that although resistance training doesn’t have adverse effects on your cardiovascular system, it will likely leave you feeling exhausted because the muscles need time to recover after a workout, just like any other body part, including the heart! 10. Resistance Training can increase bone mineral density: although it’s important to stress that resistance training alone will not prevent osteoporosis, it has been shown that resistance training increases bone mineral density and helps prevent osteoporosis. 11. Resistance Training may decrease performance: during certain types of endurance training, studies have shown that resistance training reduces VO2max, indicating aerobic fitness. Still, this reduction in performance is slight if done for less than six weeks, so don’t worry about your maximum strength decreasing after a few sessions. This slight reduction in aerobic capacity can be beneficial if you are trying to improve body composition. It allows you to perform at higher levels during the final sprints when losing body fat! 12. Resistance Training is best when combined with endurance training: there is no doubt that combining the two types of exercise can be highly effective for inducing overall fitness improvements in previously sedentary individuals. Although they should not be performed on back-to-back days, it’s perfectly OK to complete resistance training on Mondays and an endurance workout on Tuesdays, for example! 13. Resistance Training will make you big and bulky: you will NOT turn into a massive bodybuilder by lifting weights unless you take steroids or something similar. It’s simply not possible because men already have much more testosterone than women. Hence, it’s almost impossible to achieve the same effects of using artificial testosterone, which causes men to become large even if they are relatively non-weight-bearing activities such as swimming! 14. Resistance and endurance training cannot be combined during the same workout: this is entirely false. Although you should not lift weighty weights during aerobic conditioning or sprint workouts, there is no reason why you can’t do a circuit combining, say squats, pull-ups, and pushups, for example! 15. Resistance Training will make women bulky: as I mentioned before, this is NOT possible even if you train like a man because men have much more testosterone than women, which allows them to bulk up faster than women by lifting small amounts. Of weight! The only exception to this is when women take steroids, but these are extremely dangerous unless medically prescribed, so remember that resistance training will only improve your body composition muscle to fat ratio) with no risk of building bulky muscles unless you take the steroids mentioned above.	27,863
3 March 2015 The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed 3 March – the anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) – as World Wildlife Day. On this second observance of the Day, the UN system, its Member States and a wide range of partners from around the world are highlighting the simple yet firm message that “It’s time to get serious about wildlife crime”. Illegal trade in wildlife has become a sophisticated transnational form of crime, comparable to other pernicious examples, such as trafficking of drugs, humans, counterfeit items and oil. It is driven by rising demand, and is often facilitated by corruption and weak governance. There is strong evidence of the increased involvement of organized crime networks and non-State armed groups. Illegal wildlife trade undermines the rule of law and threatens national security; it degrades ecosystems and is a major obstacle to the efforts of rural communities and indigenous peoples striving to sustainably manage their natural resources. Combatting this crime is not only essential for conservation efforts and sustainable development, it will contribute to achieving peace and security in troubled regions where conflicts are fuelled by these illegal activities. Getting serious about wildlife crime means enrolling the support of all sections of society involved in the production and consumption of wildlife products, which are widely used as medicines, food, building materials, furniture, cosmetics, clothing and accessories. Law enforcement efforts must be supported by the wider community. Businesses and the general public in all countries can play a major role by, for example, refusing to buy or auction illegal ivory and rhinoceros horn, and insisting that products from the world’s oceans and tropical forests have been legally obtained and sustainably sourced. On this World Wildlife Day, I urge all consumers, suppliers and governments to treat crimes against wildlife as a threat to our sustainable future. It’s time to get serious about wildlife crime.	88,960
No Products in the Cart Let’s admit! Owning a dog is not an easy task at all. It’s true that they make our lives better, however, in certain moments you can start feeling helpless by knowing that your pooch suffers from a condition called Hyperkeratosis. It’s certainly not so thrilling to see a dog’s nose or paws covered with crusts or excessive hair. Besides, it presents an aesthetic condition, hyperkeratosis might develop a number of other health problems. Hyperkeratosis in dogs presents a disease that affects nose and paws. It occurs when a body produces too much keratin. Keratin is a structural protein of everyone’s body and is meritorious for hair production. Hyperkeratosis is followed by ugly-looking crusts on a dog’s nose and hair on its paw pads. As we all know, dog paw pads are hairless and present the only place where they can sweat. A healthy dog’s paw pads should have a smooth and shiny texture. However, when they become rugged and start to develop crusts and short hair, it’s time to react! Other symptoms are a dog’s inability to walk straight, accumulated scar tissue, excessive dryness, and infection of the nails. Dogs’ noses are their main tools for exploring the world. The nose skin should stay wet and smooth so a pooch could pick up the smelled scents. When the nose becomes affected by hyperkeratosis, it becomes dry, cracked and develops crusts and blisters. The exact reason for this type of condition is still undetermined. However, there are dog breeds that are more prone to developing because it has been inherited through genes. Some of the breeds that have a higher tendency to suffer from this condition are bully breeds, Labrador Retriever, and Golden Retriever. Another reason for the occurrence of hyperkeratosis may be the parasite called Leishmaniasis. This parasite is usually transmitted by sandflies. One sandfly can infect 9 of 10 dogs. This kind of disease is the trigger for a dog’s hyperkeratosis. It’s the type of Morbili virus that affects unvaccinated puppies. Unfortunately, canine distemper can’t be treated. It’s equal to measles in people however, in dog’s case, it’s followed by hyperkeratosis as well. When the cells of a dog’s immune system attack its own cells, the skin becomes thin and develop blisters. This kind of blisters are very painful, so that’s why is advisable to perform a biopsy to determine the root of the problem. Zinc is one of the most important chemical elements of everyone’s body. It’s worthy not only for human’s but also for a dog’s skin. Therefore, it’s very important to feed your furry friend with food rich in Zinc. Zinc strengthens the skin and keeps it healthy and young. It’s highly advisable to take your dog to the vet from the first spotted symptoms of hyperkeratosis. Although it might sound easy to solve, crusts may grow into a problem and develop an infection. A cracked skin where a crust has just fallen off presents the perfect place for bacterial growth. Therefore, your vet should take a detailed examination in order to determine the reason for its occurrence. Another solution is always preferable since it’s all natural and can’t have any side effects. The good news is that this illness can be prevented by regular soothing your dog’s paw pads and nose skin. Using natural ingredients such as marigold that presents a natural healer, and chamomile, that is famous for its calming effects, will never go wrong. Flora4Pet Natural Dog Dry Nose & Skin healing oil can be used daily and will help the hyperkeratosis ‘spikes’ to fall off to reveal a healthy and moist nose underneath. For treating a dog’s paws affected by hyperkeratosis in a natural way, we recommend you using Flora4Pet Skin & Cracked dog paw healing balm. It will help in removing crusts, dry and flaky skin and in healing cuts and wounds as well.	204,218
Mold can worsen asthma and trigger allergies and is a health risk for people with weakened immune systems. However, it can be removed safely by following some guidelines. What You Should Know - Remove mold as soon as possible. It grows on wet sheetrock, ceiling tiles, paint, wallpaper, carpeting, wood, clothing, furniture and other materials. - Although there are many types of mold, the process to remove it is the same for all. - When removing mold or dust from your home, it is very important that you wear an N95 dust mask, for sale at supply, home improvement and hardware stores. Learn more about wearing the N95 mask [En Español] Русский]. What You Should Do - Inspect your home thoroughly for mold. - Protect yourself by wearing the right gear, including an N95 dust mask [En Español] Русский], when disturbing mold or dust. - Isolate wet, moldy areas, and repair work from living areas with plastic sheeting or other barriers. - Remove any standing water and ventilate the work area. - Remove wet, moldy materials. - Reduce dust by wetting down dried surfaces and material before removing and disposing. - Scrub off mold from metal, glass, solid wood, concrete and other hard surfaces with soapy water. - Disinfect surfaces with a dilute bleach solution: one cup of bleach per two gallons of water. Never mix bleach with ammonia or detergents that contain ammonia. The mixture produces dangerous gas. - Dry out your home completely before replacing walls and flooring . Use dehumidifiers and heating to remove moisture. Open windows and use fans to help dry and ventilate spaces. - Consider hiring a contractor for help if mold growth and damage is extensive. See Tips for Hiring a Contractor. Note: Asbestos may be found in insulation materials around old pipes and boilers. If you are not sure if the damaged insulation or other building materials contain asbestos, do not remove it yourself. Contact a licensed asbestos contractor. Detailed Tips on Removing Mold back to top back to top	106,670
Antibodies bind specifically to unique antigens, but they can still have interactions not involving the antigen-binding domain that produce background signal. These off-target interactions include the Fc region of the antibody binding to Fc receptors or other cellular components, as well as interactions of the antibody’s conjugate (such as a fluorophore) with proteins and molecules in the cell or sample. Isotype control antibodies match the host species and class of the test antibody but are generated against irrelevant antigens not present in cells or samples of interest, and are therefore useful for characterizing background signal caused by off-target binding. The diagram below summarizes important features to consider when choosing the right isotype control. Use the following table to browse isotypes by host species and antibody class. The isotype must have the same conjugate as the test antibody. Additionally, the protein concentration and fluorophore:protein ratio (if the conjugate is a fluorophore) must match. The isotype and test antibody must be from the same host species and of the same class (i.e. mouse IgG2b), which impacts how it interacts with Fc receptors or other cell components. The only difference between the isotype and test antibody should be antigen specificty: isotype controls do not specifically bind to any antigens present in cells/samples of interest.	190,232
This genre was developed by Serkan Yürekli. Colour some cells to create a single contiguous shape. The shape can't have any 2 by 2 coloured areas. The clues in the grid tell you how many consecutive cells around it have to be coloured. If there's more than one digit in a cell, the groups of cells have to be seperated by at least one empty cell. Cells with clues remain empty.	1,393
These publications are received in a variety of formats including electronic, print, and microfiche. Many government documents can be found in the LAPL Catalog and are searchable by author, title, or keyword. Once located in the catalog, the subject department where the actual document can be viewed is indicated. You'll find that most government documents can be found in the following subject departments: Business & Economics; Social Science, Philosophy & Religion; Science, Technology & Patents; and History & Genealogy. Additionally, selected documents are available from LAPL Databases and the LAPL Web Pages lists. Databases are available at LAPL’s Central Library and Branches, and in some cases from personal computers with an LAPL library card. Web Pages are available from any computer with Internet access. The Federal government is dedicated to moving its publications to electronic format. As a result, many documents are available on the Internet. Use the gateways to locate your information. - Catalog of U.S. Government Publications - The Federal government’s own catalog to its publications both in print and online. - Migration of information from GPO Access to Fdsys (Federal Digital System) should be complete in 2010, and will manage government information from all three branches, and ensure public access even as technology changes.. - GPO Bookstore - The Government Printing Office has an online store where you can purchase many of its items. - Library of Congress - U.S. Government library of resources useful to the Congress and the American people - A service of the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications, the federated search engine searches (over 53 initial Federal Government databases to date) to retrieve reports, articles, and citations. - NARA - U.S. National Archives and Records Administration - Archive of documents created by the U.S. Government important for legal or historical reasons to be kept forever. - This is Firstgov for science and is a gateway to science and technical topics. - Ben’s Guide - The Federal Government’s website to finding information for students and teachers from K-12. - The Federal Government's official portal to web sites. THREE BRANCHES OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT - Legislative information provided by the Library of Congress. - U.S. Courts - Supreme Court, Courts of Appeals, District Courts, Bankruptcy Courts information provided by the Office of the United States Courts. - White House - Executive branch information provided by the Executive Office of the President. SELECTED FEDERAL WEBSITES BY TOPIC If you need further assistance in finding what you are looking for, call the Library's infoNow reference service at (213) 228‑7272 or ask a librarian at the reference desk in any Central Library subject department.	46,507
The bridge-opening celebration began on May 27, 1937 and lasted for one week. The day before vehicle traffic was allowed, 200,000 people crossed either on foot or on roller skates.On opening day, Mayor Angelo Rossi and other officials rode the ferry to Marin, then crossed the bridge in a motorcade past three ceremonial “barriers”, the last a blockade of beauty queens who required Joseph Strauss to present the bridge to the Highway District before allowing him to pass. An official song, “There’s a Silver Moon on the Golden Gate”, was chosen to commemorate the event. Strauss wrote a poem that is now on the Golden Gate Bridge entitled “The Mighty Task is Done.” The next day, President Roosevelt pushed a button in Washington, D.C. signaling the official start of vehicle traffic over the Bridge at noon. As the celebration got out of hand there was a small riot in the uptown Polk Gulch area. Weeks of civil and cultural activities called “the Fiesta” followed. A statue of Strauss was moved in 1955 to a site near the bridge. In May 1987, as part of the 50th anniversary celebration, the Golden Gate Bridge district again closed the bridge to automobile traffic and allowed pedestrians to cross the bridge. However, this celebration attracted 750,000 to 1,000,000 people, and ineffective crowd control meant the bridge became congested with roughly 300,000 people, causing the center span of the bridge to flatten out under the weight.Although the bridge is designed to flex in that way under heavy loads, and was estimated not to have exceeded 40% of the yielding stress of the suspension cables,bridge officials stated that uncontrolled pedestrian access was not being considered as part of the 75th anniversary on Sunday, May 27, 2012,because of the additional law enforcement costs required “since 9/11”. Until 1964, the Golden Gate Bridge had the longest suspension bridge main span in the world, at 4,200 feet (1,300 m). Since 1964 its main span length has been surpassed by ten bridges; it now has the second-longest main span in the United States, after the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York City. The total length of the Golden Gate Bridge from abutment to abutment is 8,981 feet (2,737 m). The Golden Gate Bridge’s clearance above high water averages 220 feet (67 m) while its towers, at 746 feet (227 m) above the water, were the world’s tallest on a suspension bridge until 1998 when bridges in Denmark and Japan were completed.	37,072
Acupuncture Related Research- Key Issues and Concerns In this scientific era tested results, proof that something is effective, is often valued over the first-hand experience. Western research relies upon standardized protocol and isolating variables, so as to obtain reliable results. This is a legitimate and understandable approach when desiring concrete and repeatable outcomes. However, when utilizing this method to test the validity of acupuncture, this approach can create erroneous and misleading results. One of the strengths of acupuncture lies in its ability to individualize treatments. Asian medicine views the person as a whole and does not isolate symptoms when treating. Since every person with a specific syndrome will have a different pattern diagnostic, it is inappropriate to give the same treatment. Why? because the internal cause of a disease is unique to the individual. We aren’t all the same. It gives misleading results when acupuncture related research standardizes treatments for specific ailments. This approach essentially turns acupuncture protocols into a Western medicine approach to treatment; in which, just like a prescription medicine that would be given for a specific ailment, a certain acupuncture protocol is given. Although research done in this way has shown some positive results for acupuncture treatments, it is still an incorrect way to approach acupuncture treatment protocols. An aspect of what makes acupuncture and Asian medicine such a powerful tool is because of its ability to custom fit treatments to the individual’s needs. Since the individualized treatment is not measurable or repeatable amongst a group, it is hard to fit traditional acupuncture into the Western scientific approach. It is kind of like trying to fit a circular peg into a square hole. When standardized regiments are given, there is the possibility that the treatments will be inappropriate to the specific individuals in a study. This is especially true if an individual is very weak. If an aggressive treatment protocol is utilized on a weak patient, it can further aggravate their syndrome. Therefore, standardized protocols should be used with discretion. Since there is an ethical concern in mistreating a patient, research done with set protocols should be examined closely before implemented. When acupuncture treatments are standardized, significant diagnostic tools, such as tongue and pulse diagnosis are not utilized. These tools are viewed by most practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine as an essential aspect of providing a correct treatment that is tailored to fit the individual. Also, some acupuncture research has tested for therapeutic results utilizing incorrect procedures and/or lengths of treatment. There have been a number of studies that have tested a single point only, rather than a group of points as is traditionally done. Also, many studies have administered acupuncture treatments for 15 minutes or less and/or only given one treatment rather than a group of treatments. This length of time and amount of treatments may not be enough to elicit a true therapeutic result. These are significant issues that need to be addressed within the acupuncture related research that is currently being done because an incorrect treatment has the potential to give false and misleading results. I have recently heard about some research that has allowed the acupuncturists to do a differential diagnosis and individualized treatment for each patient within the research project. This approach offers a more adequate representation of the effectiveness of acupuncture and though it has a weakness in repeatability and isolating variables amongst a group, it can offer greater reliability of results as to the efficacy of acupuncture. It is my hope that, in the years to come, acupuncture related research will make it a standard practice to allow for differential diagnosis and correct treatment protocols. Yasmin Spencer LAc, DAOM, Dipl. OM 427 F Street, Eureka, CA 95501 - Five Branches University education	119,608
Although many people used to eating meat, poultry and dairy products, it is becoming common to exclude animal products from one’s diet. People often mention health benefits, sympathy for the animals or sometimes even weight loss as their primary reasons for going vegetarian/vegan. However, as more and more natural disasters occur, it has become clear there are more pressing reasons for considering the lifestyle change: 1. According to the Worldwatch Institute, more than half of all global greenhouse gas emissions result from animal agriculture. 2. Raising animals for food is “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global,” says a representative from the United Nations. 3. According to a study conducted by the University of Chicago, going vegan has an insanely positive effect on carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, For comparison, switching from a normal car to a Prius reduces said emissions by circa one ton, while going vegan prevents 1.5 tons from entering the atmosphere. 4. A study done in 2008 in Germany found a carnivore is responsible for seven times more greenhouse gas emissions than an herbivore. 5. Military “Meatless Mondays” – an entire army already pledged last year to eat vegetarian one day per week. Norway, belonging to the highly globally aware Scandinavia, is making serious efforts in reducing its carbon footprint. If an entire military can withhold from eating animal products for the sake of the environment – even for just one day – then everyone else should be able to, also. 6. As a bonus, one’s health improves together with the world’s. Numerous studies exist that show the long-term benefits of omitting animal products from one’s diet, including more energy, better skin and an overall stronger body. Just a few decades ago, making the change would be considered a fuss: not enough resources were available to fully complement an animal-free diet. Today, numerous supplements and alternatives are sold worldwide, easily accessible and with a pleasant taste. Perhaps going vegan right away could be a bit difficult, but at least sampling vegetarianism might be a good start for those concerned with the health of the planet. – Natalia Isaeva Sources: PETA, Earth Save, Daily Caller Photo: Vegan Soapbox	97,102
Authored by Andre van Heerden In the early 13th century, France, Paris and the lands under the direct rule of the king were in a bad way. The powerful position of Provost of Paris was always given to the highest bidder, and this had led to blatant corruption, a breakdown in the criminal justice system, social anarchy, and an exodus of unhappy peasants and middle-class citizens. The economic consequences were disastrous. Then Louis IX came to the throne. He stopped the sale of the provost’s position and made sure that men of ability and character were appointed to all official posts. Justice was made accessible to rich and poor alike, and those who broke the law were punished regardless of social status. Unreasonable taxes were removed, and the vibrancy of economic life was restored. Within a short time, people started returning to Paris and it grew rapidly to become the foremost city in France. That simple example reveals the inextricable link between integrity and leadership. Time and again, history shows that each is the measure and condition of the other. The Definition of Integrity Integrity is a word widely used but narrowly understood. Most people think of it as honesty, being as good as your word. Certainly, truthfulness is an aspect of integrity, but it only arises as a consequence of what integrity actually is. To integrate is to assimilate or to make something a fully functional part of the whole, while disintegrate means to break up, collapse, or fall apart. So integrity is unity, wholeness, completeness, harmony, being everything someone or something is meant to be. It means having no inconsistencies or contradictions. READ ALSO: WHAT PRICE INTEGRITY Consider the humble banjo – each part, the body, the vellum, the neck, the tuning pegs, the strings, must function properly for the instrument to do what it is supposed to do. Any malfunction detracts from its integrity. And the same is true of the banjo player – being tone-deaf, injured, unpracticed, drunk, or simply uncooperative, would compromise his integrity in that role, and the integrity of any group he was part of would be similarly undermined. So integrity is ultimately the fulfillment of the promise implicit in the name we give to things. If I was a lawyer, I would have to fulfill the promise implicit in that term by having the necessary qualifications, the on-going personal development, the high professional standards, the utmost respect for the law and the community I serve, and so on. Any corruption or distortion of those qualifications would undermine my integrity as a lawyer. The Moral Dimension of Integrity The moral dimension of integrity emerges naturally from this understanding. Human beings, as Aristotle said, are rational animals. The purpose of rational minds is to know the truth, and we know the truth and the goodness of things by knowing their meaning and purpose. our integrity demands that we seek harmony rather than discord among fellow human beings We know, for example, that it is not good for a banjo to be used as a baseball bat. And we know, in the case of human beings, that it is not good for a person to be used as a slave or to be destroyed by drugs. We are the only animals that can be held morally accountable for what we do, because through intellect we know truth and goodness, and freedom lets us choose between true and false, and good and evil. Moreover, we are social animals who only find fulfillment in relationships with other people – so our integrity demands that we seek harmony rather than discord among fellow human beings. READ ALSO: WHAT IS RESPONSIBLE LEADERSHIP Philosopher Alasdair McIntyre emphasizes that we are “dependent, rational animals” who develop self-knowledge only through relationships. This makes honesty indispensable in ensuring we avoid self-deception and the many psychological deformities that flow from it. Leadership, Honesty & Integrity Of course, the lie is at the heart of human misery and is inextricably bound up with the violence endemic in society. That is why honesty is so important an aspect of integrity. Sadly, the lack of integrity, both personal and corporate, in the contemporary world is a clear sign of an absence of leadership. But, again, we need to define our terms, and the definition of leadership is also problematic. Many academics suggest that there is no clear definition of leadership, but how on earth can they then discuss it, or issue proclamations on how to practice it? We all recognize leadership when we see it, and we define the reality, not some convenient personal fancy. Leadership arose with the need for justice, which itself means much more than the narrow legal concept the word evokes in most people’s minds. And for all the well-meaning efforts of modern thinkers like John Rawls, the definition of justice provided by Plato remains the most cogent. Justice is giving each person what is due to him or her. Now despite the cacophony of cant from ideologues, what is due to each person is less controversial than many suppose. Classical philosophy and modern science agree that human fulfillment requires: - freedom to be the best one can be, - education in the sense of a constantly expanding knowledge of the world and the growth of virtuous character, - security of person and possessions, and - the support of benevolent relationships and community. Justice in this sense would promote a society in which all people were inspired and enabled to achieve their full potential, working in harmony to achieve the best for the whole community. And isn’t this precisely what leaders should strive for in, say, a football team, an orchestra, or the workplace? Any stifling of potential, in an individual, amounts to degrading the potential of the group, the company, or the nation. Integrity and Justice This recalls the ancient and enduring conundrum of the One and the Many. Which takes precedence – the individual or the group? Integrity and justice emphasize the natural symbiosis. The flourishing of the one is dependent on the flourishing of the many, just as the flourishing of the many depends on the flourishing of the one. Interestingly, our understanding of justice aligns with our definition of integrity. And together, integrity and justice make plain what leadership is – inspiring people to be the best they can be in working together for the good of all. Managers and politicians who reject this, preferring the Machiavellian expedients of intimidation, deceit, and exploitation are not leaders, but misleaders, people of the lie, the enemies of integrity and justice. Inspiring people to be the best they can be in working together for the good of all demands, by definition, vision, and virtue in a leader. Vision looks to a better future in which the good of all is achieved, while virtue – practical wisdom, courage, self-control, justice, faith, hope, and love – equips the leader for the challenge. In the final analysis, integrity and leadership are indeed inseparable; in fact, leadership is integrity in action, upholding justice, inspiring harmony, seeking fulfillment – for all people, because each and every one of us is potential in search of fulfillment.	157,750
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This term Captain General (actually "General Captain") started to appear in the 14th century, with the meaning of commander in Chief of an army (or fleet) in the field, probably the first usage of the term General in military settings. A popular term in the 16th and 17th centuries, but with various meanings depending on the country, it became less and less used in the 18th century, usually substituted by full Generals or Field Marshals; and after the end of the Napoleonic Wars it had but disappeared in most European countries, except Spain and former colonies. Republic of Venice There it meant the commander in chief of the fleet in war times. It is at least documented since 1370 and was used up to the end of the republic (late 18th century) From 30 June 1513 – 22 October 1513, Catherine of Aragon held the titles Governor of the Realm and Captain General of the King's Forces as Queen Regent of England. First attested in the 1520s as the title for the permanent Commander in Chief of the Armies. Though commonly used in the 17th century, in the 18th century, the office was held by Duke of Marlborough (1702 to 1711, and again 1714 to 1717), and the Duke of Ormonde, 1711 to 1714. The Hanoverian dynasty allowed the title to lapse, only reviving the position for the Duke of York, 1799 to 1809, after which it was abolished in Hanover. The rank remains in Scottish use of the Royal Company of Archers. The title appeared, as in some other countries, linked to the head of state in his military capacity. The last were the King of England up to the mid 19th century, and his prior replacement the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell. New South Wales From 1787, the Governor of New South Wales has been also granted the title of Captain-General. In Rhode Island, the Governor holds two different military titles. According to Article IX, section 3 of the Rhode Island Constitution, the Governor holds the titles of "captain-general" and "Commander-in-Chief" Maurice of Nassau received the title of "Captain General of the Union" and "Admiral General" in 1587, which became hereditary - like the Stadtholder title, to the Orange-Nassau family, until taken away by the States General in 1786. By the late 15th century, the title, besides the usual meaning of Commander In Chief in the Field, was also linked to the highest commander of specialized military branches (artillery, royal guards, ...), usually signaling the independence of that particular corps. No later than the fall of Granada (1492) the title was conferred also to officers with full jurisdiction of every person subject to fuero militar in a certain territorial circumscription. Those officers usually also acted as commanders for the troops and military establishments in their area, and as time passed, those duties (and the title) were mostly united in the highest civilian authority of the area. The military post of Captain General as highest territorial commander lasted in Spain till the early 1980s. In the late 17th or very early 18th century, a personal rank of Captain General was created in the Spanish Army (and Navy) as the highest rank in the hierarchy, not unlike the Marechal de France. When wearing uniform, the Kings used captain general insignia. Perhaps the best-known holder of the rank for Americans was Valeriano Weyler, Governor General of Cuba in 1896-97 during the period preceding the Spanish-American War. Briefly abolished by the Second Spanish Republic, it was restored by/for Francisco Franco in 1938. In 1999, the rank was reserved to the reigning monarch. Since its restoration in 1938, only Franco, Juan Carlos I (1975), Agustín Muñoz Grandes (1956) and Camilo Alonso Vega (1972) were promoted while on active duty, being the rest of the (scarce) promotions either posthumous or to retired officers. The evolution of the title in the Spanish Navy is parallel to that of the army. During the 16th and 17th century the two main naval captain general posts were Capitán-General de la Armada de la Mar Oceana and Capitán-General de Galeras, roughly CIC for the Atlantic and the Mediterranean respectively. A peculiar usage of the term Captain General arose in the Spanish Navy of the 16th century. A Capitán-General (General Captain) was appointed by the king as the leader of a fleet (although the term 'squadron' is more appropriate, as most galleon fleets rarely consisted of more than a dozen vessels, not counting escorted merchantmen), with full jurisdictional powers. The fleet second-in-command was the 'almirante' (admiral), an officer appointed by the capitan-general and responsible for the seaworthiness of the squadron. One Captain-General that sailed under the Spanish flag that is now well known was Ferdinand Magellan, leader of the first fleet to sail around the world. Given, in 1508, to the commander-in-chief of the Ordenanças - the Territorial Army of the Crown. During the Portuguese Restoration War, after 1640, the "Captain-General of the Arms of the Kingdom", become the commander-in-chief of the Portuguese Army, under the direct authority of the War Council and the King. In 1762 the captain-general was substituted by the marechal-general - fieldmarshall-general. Like in the Army, the Capitão-General da Armada Real (Captain-General of the Royal Navy) was the commander-in-chief of the Portuguese Navy in the 17th and 18th centuries. The title has been only sporadically used in France. During the 17th century, and for a short while, a rank between Lieutenant General and Marshal of France of this denomination was created. The king of France was the Captain General of the Army, but was represented in the field by Lieutenant Generals who commanded in his absence. Kingdom of Bavaria Current usage as a military rank and dignity In the modern British Army, and the armies of various Commonwealth nations, the term Captain General is used generally when describing the ceremonial head of the artillery corps. As such, HM The Queen is the Captain General of the Honourable Artillery Company, Royal Regiment of Artillery, Royal Canadian Artillery, Royal Australian Artillery and Royal New Zealand Artillery. The Queen is also Captain General of the Royal New Zealand Armoured Corps. In Bolivia, the head of state for the duration of his tenure has the rank and dignity of Captain General as head of the Armed forces, even if he is a civilian If the Commander in Chief of the Army and the Head of State are reunited in the same person, he is promoted to the permanent military rank of Capitan General. It has only happened three times in Chile's history (Bernardo O'Higgins, Ramon Freire and Augusto Pinochet Ugarte). Current electoral provisions (as of 2008) forbid the Commander in Chief becoming President. Spanish Armed Forces In Spain, the title Captain General (capitán general) is the highest military rank, since 1999 reserved for the king. Assimilated to a NATO OF-11 rank (OF-10 till that year). The term "captain general" can also be used to translate Spanish capitán general or Portuguese capitão-mor, administrative titles used in the Spanish Empire and the Portuguese Empire, especially in the Americas. Each was in charge of a captaincy. In the Spanish Empire and Latin America In the Portuguese Empire Capitão-mor (plural capitães-mores), sometimes also capitão-donatário, was the hereditary title and office given by the Portuguese Crown to noblemen granted the rule of captaincies in the territories of the Portuguese Empire, most importantly in Terra de Santa Cruz (modern Brazil). They held absolute powers in their lands, subject only to the Crown, and were given the task of settling and colonizing their respective domains. In Brazil, most of these settlements failed, and their nominal dominions were actually haphazardly settled by colonists and Jesuit Reductions, and ultimately the land was incorporated first into the only succeeding capitanias, São Vicente and Pernambuco, which then became the Viceroyalty of Brazil and the Viceroyalty of Grão-Pará. The absolute power of the Capitães-Mor was continued, in Brazil, by the tradition of Coronelism that endures to this day in the northeast of that nation. In the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, "Captain-General" is the highest rank of the Ever Victorious Army of Seanchan, excepting only the rank of Marshal-General, which may be temporarily assigned to a Captain-General given the command of a war. In addition, Captain-General is also the title of both the leader of the Queen's Guard of Andor and the head of the Green Ajah of the Aes Sedai. In the BattleTech universe, Captain-General is the title of the military and political leader of the Free Worlds League. Since the 25th century, Captain-Generals have been members of the Marik family. \|\|Constructs such as ibid., loc. cit. and idem are discouraged by Wikipedia's style guide for footnotes, as they are easily broken. Please improve this article by replacing them with named references (quick guide), or an abbreviated title. (July 2010)\| - ^ http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/resources/transcripts/nsw2_doc_1787.pdf - ^ http://www.rilin.state.ri.us/RiConstitution/C09.html - ^ "Spanish Galleon: 1530 - 1690" by Angus Konstam, copyright 2004 Osprey Publishing, Ltd. - ^ London Gazette Issue 39509 published on the 4 April 1952. Page 1 of 4 - ^ Ibid. - ^ London Gazette Issue 39864 published on the 26 May 1953. Page 1 of 2 - ^ London Gazette Issue 39866 published on the 26 May 1953. Page 1 of 4 - ^ Ibid. - ^ Royal Company of Archers on the Official Website of the British Monarchy - Captain General of the Church - Captaincy, an administrative division in the Spanish and Portuguese colonial empires, governed by a captain general. - General, a description of the various general officer ranks, including the full general which is the successor to captain general. - List of senior officers of the British Army - Queen Elizabeth II's honorary military positions	164,724
I. Imperial Manila IN America, the founding fathers couldn’t decide on a national capital, and the decision threatened to break apart the brand-new republic. In exasperation, even desperation, the competing sides decided they would have their president, George Washington, make the decision. Washington decided on a place near his plantation home. The new capital would be created from land donated by the states, and named, much to Washington’s delight, after himself. It would be ruled by Congress and indeed, it still rules the roost. Two years ago on a visit, someone asked me to sign a petition to the US Congress for self-government for DC. But I’m a Filipino, I told the American –and he replied, as a foreigner you have as much rights as a Washingtonian –which means, none, so sign. And so, Washington, D.C. was born. Since then, a change in government has often meant a change in capital: even the Russians tried replacing Moscow with St. Petersburg; the Meiji restoration moved the capital from Kyoto to Tokyo; and the end of colonial rule has often inspired dreams of a new capital to reflect new nationhood. The Australians replaced Sydney with Canberra; the Brazilians replaced Rio de Janeiro with Brasilia. In Malaysia, Putrajaya is Mahathir’s version of Quezon City, meant to replace Kuala Lumpur. In the early years of the Spanish period Cebu was the main colonial base until Legaspi established Manila in June of 1571. Manila was made the capital of the colony a few years later in 1595. In 1639 there was a move to transfer the capital to Cavite because of Manila’s vulnerability to Muslim and Chinese attack and Cavite’s less swampy land and abundance of building materials. But this did not push through. For the next three centuries or so Manila, or rather Intramuros, remained the political, administrative and social center of the country. This center was spatially defined by the Plaza Mayor (now the Plaza de Roma) and the important buildings around it, like the Cathedral de Manila, the Ayutamiento and other government edifices laid out according to King Philip II’s “Law of the Indies.” This urban code set the pattern to be used in all of Spain’s colonies. This ‘Plaza Complex’ is still evident in countless towns and cities in the Philippines. When the Americans came they decided that Intramuros was not big enough, nor appropriate for their new colony. They called in the famous architect and planner, Daniel Burnham, to design the new capital. This he did in grand fashion using Washington D.C. as a model. The national civic center was placed outside the old walls in the open field called Bagumbayan. Burnham planned a large capitol building surrounded by supporting government offices in a formal setting that was close to a mirror image of Washington’s. The ‘mall’ is now our Luneta, or Rizal Park. Only the Agriculture and Finance Buildings were built of the original civic group. The National Library was also built in the 1920’s but turned into the Legislative Building in lieu of the Capitol that could not get built because of budgetary cuts. Burnham gave the matter of the waterfront prime importance saying in his report: “Manila possesses the greatest resources for recreations and refreshments in its river and its ocean bay. Whatever portions of either have been given up to private use should be reclaimed where possible, and such portions as are still under public control should be developed and forever maintained for the use and enjoyment of the people.” Burnham proposed a parkway along Manila bay extending from the Luneta southward all the way to Cavite. This was to be a 250’ wide boulevard – “with roadways, tramways, bridle paths, rich plantations, and broad sidewalks and should be made available to all classes of people.” Burnham further recommended – shaded drives along the Pasig all the way to Ft. McKinley, which we now know as Fort Bonifacio, and beyond as part of the park and parkway system. Burnham ended his report, waxing lyrical “possessing the bay of Naples, the winding river of Paris, and the canals of Venice, Manila has before it an opportunity unique in the history of modern times, the opportunity to create a unified city equal to the greatest of the Western World with the unparalleled and priceless addition of a tropical setting.” He knew how to write a sales pitch. The implementation of the Burnham plan fell to a succession of American engineers and architects who had to deal with an alternately tight-fisted then generous, legislature. It is to the work of these men, and brilliant Filipino architects like Antonio Toledo and Juan Arellano, that we owe some of the most beautiful public buildings ever erected, anywhere: the pre-war Legislative Building (who’s shoddily reconstructed successor, the National Museum Building, still pleases the eye), the Manila Post Office (marred as it is today with the hideous “Philpost” logo painted on its upper story), and the Agrifina Circle structures. By 1928 a major revision of the plan was undertaken. A committee led by Manuel Mañosa, Sr. and Juan Arellano produced a Zoning Plan for Manila based on the original Burnham Plan. This was printed and distributed free to the public for feedback. (This predates today’s “stakeholder consultations” by a good sixty years.) The final drawings and documents were recommended for approval in 1933 and eventually became the basis for Manila’s first zoning ordinances. Burnham’s Manila plan was prepared for a city with a maximum population of 800,000 people. The population of the city of Manila was only 285,000 in 1918, but it grew at 5.6 percent per year to more than 600,000 in 1939. At that rate, Manila would have been filled to capacity. But then in the 1930’s just as the the Commonwealth government had finally built the Burnham Plan’s seaside drive –named Dewey Boulevard and now known to us as Roxas Boulevard- and finally finished the Post Office Building, the Finance and Agriculture Buildings, it decided to scrap the Burnham Plan and replace it with a new metropolis elsewhere. One of the main reasons given was that the proposed National Capitol to be built in the vicinity of the present-day Quirino Grandstand was too susceptible to naval bombardment. But the main reason was one as old as Washington –a nation was due to restore its independence and it wanted to proclaim independence from imperial Manila. The failure that’s Quezon City, when we return. II. Quezon’s City From the very start the plans to create what was first referred to as Balintawak City, but which was later baptized Quezon City by Narciso Ramos (President Ramos’s father) and Ramon Mitra, Sr., who knew Quezon would be as delighted by the name as Washington was in his time, was bedeviled by controversy, not the least of which was due to skepticism over the fiscal wisdom of the plan. Nevertheless, the project pushed through. In the summer of 1939 President Quezon contacted William Parsons and asked him to choose a new site for and then to design a new Philippine Capitol. Parsons arrived in June of 1939 and eventually chose Diliman as the new capitol site. He also managed to produce a master plan for the new University of the Philippines. Unfortunately he died in December of that year. Harry Frost, Parsons’ former partner took over and joined Juan Arellano and A. D. Williams in the Planning Commission. A fourth member of the team, landscape architect Louis P. Croft joined them as advisor on planning and park design. The plan for Quezon City was an expansion of the original City Beautiful pattern set by Daniel Burnham for Manila. The major elements of a grand civic center, parks and parkways and the strong axial/geometric patterns for building groups and opens spaces are evident. The elliptical circle was the focal point of a grand quadrangle defined by the geographically named avenues and reached by a grand boulevard (also named after Quezon of course) connecting it to the very center of old Manila via the –naturally- Quezon Bridge. The circle was to house the new legislative complex, a magnificent group of buildings with the halls of Senate and the House. On either side of North and East Avenues were to be the executive and judiciary complexes of the national government. All of these complexes were set in landscaped sites and surrounded by public parks and open spaces. The new National Capital City complex was thus defined with the three branches of government connected and framed by the Diliman Qaudrangle. The foundations for the new legislative building in the circle were being laid when World War II broke out. The new Capital had to wait. In 1945 peace came but the death of Quezon, full independence and new planning concerns caused major changes in the original plan of 1941. In 1946 newly elected President Manuel Roxas created a Capital Site Committee to look at other possible sites. The old capitol site was not deemed defensible enough from military attack nor the area large enough to accommodate a projected population of several million souls. Sixteen other sites were evaluated (including Tagaytay, Baguio and Iloilo) but the raised elevation of Novaliches was finally chosen. The original Diliman area was thus enlarged to include the Novaliches watershed to the North all the way to Wack Wack in the south. In the meanwhile the elliptical circle was turned to a memorial to Quezon. The 400 hectares of the Diliman quadrangle was allocated by the commission as the city’s central park. This central park was to contain the national botanic garden, the national zoo, athletic grounds, a grand stadium and even a golf course. The park was to be the main component of a comprehensive city-wide park and parkway system. This system would have included another 80-hectare park in the north, various parks and greenbelts along creeks and rivers, numerous playgrounds and athletic fields. Finally, there was to be a major greenbelt all along the Marikina and San Mateo valley – to contain urban sprawl, preserve the agricultural land and protect the city’s watershed areas. All fantastic plans …but what happened? In one word (to quote architect and planner Dr. Geronimo Manahan) it was Greed. Land speculation led to the inability of government to consolidate enough land for housing and parks. In the 1950s the original quadrangle area was cut in half. The West and South triangles were sold off to housing developments. Only 200 hectares were left for the central park but lack of funds caused the park to remain unbuilt. In the 1960s the remaining land was cut up even further to accommodate the Philippine Science High School. Finally in the 1970s what remained was parceled off to various government offices and institutions like the mint, the lung and kidney center, the BIR and the NIA. What was left of the original 400 hectares is now just 25 hectares of the Quezon Memorial circle and the Parks and Wildlife Center. The city has lost its only chance for a proper and adequately sized central park (New York, which had less people than Metro Manila today, has close to 500 hectares of Central Park). None of the intended parks and parkway system was ever built. Only a few of the playgrounds were ever constructed. In essence, the Frost Plan was revived under the National Planning Commission first headed by Croft then later by Harvard-trained Anselmo Alquinto. The plan was revised in 1947, 1949 and finally in 1956. The civic center under these revisions was to be moved northeast from the elliptical circle to a 158 hectare area called Constitution Hill. The three branches of government and support offices were laid in a formal layout reminiscent of the UP plan. In the middle was to be a 20 hectare Plaza of the Republic. The whole complex was to be connected to Manila by an East-West parkway called Republic Avenue. That plan was submitted and approved by President Quirino in 1949 but it would take close to thirty years before the Batasan Pambansa was completed in 1978. The rest of the complex remains unrealized and is today threatened by continuing parcelization by government offices, encroachment from informal settlers (squatters) and bureaucratic neglect. There was a very human reason for this bureaucratic neglect. The American government gave money for the rebuilding of the Legislative Building on one condition –it would be located in its old home along P. Burgos Drive in Manila. To their delight, when Congress moved back in, they realized they were conveniently located near night club row, which had developed along Dewey (now Roxas) Boulevard. It would take Martial Law and a dictatorship to pry the legislature away from nightclub row and move them to Quezon City. But bureaucrats don’t have the options of congressmen, so in the 1950s to Quezon City moved government offices and civil service families built their homes there. President Marcos was of two minds when he first created Metro Manila and then moved the capital back to Manila in 1976. He seemed torn between a new City of Man, and old Manila. He had turned to plans for a cultural center dating back to the Magsaysay administration and built the CCP before martial law. The CCP complex and the adjacent reclaimed area became the focus of a proposal in the early 1970s to lay out the area as the NGC with Malacañan Palace transferred to a feng shui-friendlier location. A loop LRT line could connect the entire CCP/NGC complex and the other new districts in the reclamation area with the existing LRT line, the rest of the metropolis and the proposed extension to Cavite. We got the first part of the MRT, but then Mrs. Marcos kept building all over the map: health facilities in Quezon City; finance facilities in Manila; sports facilities in Pasig: was it to be Manila or Metro Manila? The Marcoses never made up their mind. It was too convenient to avoid a center of government, because by dispersing government, it concentrated it in Malacanang. So today, we have the President and the Supreme Court in Manila, the Senate in Pasay, the House of Representatives in Quezon City, and a national capital that’s a dot in government maps and not much else in reality. But what’s the alternative? President Ramos suggested Fort Bonifacio. President Arroyo at one time wanted Clark. More on these proposals, with our guest when we return. With talk of a concerted, if unofficial, move to transform either Subic or Clark into the administrative capital of the Philippines, our officials and the public would do well to look at grand -and failed- attempts at capital-building in the Philippines. The result is that neither Manila nor Quezon City, the once and present capitals of the country, have ever been properly or thoroughly planned, which leaves our country almost uniquely bereft of a rationally-planned and executed capital city among the countries of the region and even the world. The truth is that both Quezon and Manila Cities, for national capital purposes, are both dead, and that the time may indeed have come for a new plan for a new capital in a new place. A new national capital is always a great means for spurring economic growth and decongesting an existing metropolis; it is also an act of faith in the future and a way of resolving the past. We’ve been independent for sixty years, but still lack a national capital. This says much about our lingering incapacity to manage our own destiny.	66,671
Posted 14 March 2005. Plant Health Progress. Walnuts’ Secret Defense Explored Agricultural Research Service Washington, D.C. (March 9, 2005) - With their rich taste and pleasing crunchiness, it's no wonder that walnuts are one of America's favorite tree nuts. But walnuts, like several other kinds of crops, are vulnerable to attack by fungi called Aspergillus flavus and A. parasiticus. Both species can produce a natural compound called aflatoxin, which is thought to be carcinogenic. Though inspections ensure that the walnuts that make their way from orchards to the home are free of harmful levels of aflatoxin, Agricultural Research Service scientists in Albany, California, want to do more to combat the fungi. For example, they've compared the A. flavus resistance of nearly a dozen leading kinds of English walnuts -- the kind most widely marketed in the United States -- and two species of black walnuts, which are less widely grown because their thicker shells are harder to open. These laboratory experiments, led by ARS research chemist Russell J. Molyneux of the agency's Western Regional Research Center at Albany, showed that a popularly grown walnut known as Tulare was remarkably resistant to Aspergillus. Molyneux did the work with chemist Noreen E. Mahoney at the Albany laboratory and with University of California, Davis, collaborator Jim McKenna. Davis researchers Charles A. Leslie and Gale H. McGranahan also participated. Tulare's secret defense? It's gallic acid, found only in the nutmeat's thin skin, or pellicle, according to Molyneux. Tulare walnuts contained one-and-one-half to two times more gallic acid than, for instance, Chico walnuts, the most Aspergillus-susceptible of the walnuts that the researchers tested. Earlier, scientists elsewhere had shown that gallic acid has antimicrobial effects. But Molyneux's team is likely the first to show that a crop susceptible to an aflatoxin-producing Aspergillus can actually prevent the Aspergillus from producing aflatoxin. The work, published in 2003, paved the way for current Albany studies to discover how gallic acid undermines Aspergillus. Read more about the research in the March issue of Agricultural Research magazine. ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research agency.	170,335
Nutra-Sorb BIO-CARB Soil Food A HIGH QUALITY CROP BEGINS WITH A BIOLOGICALLY ACTIVE SOIL FOOD WEB All the bacteria, fungi, algae, protozoa, and other organisms that produce crop sustaining nutrients, antibiotics, thatch decomposers, hormones, root growth substances, natural fungicides, and activities that improve the soil are known as “The Soil Food Web”. ENERGY FOOD FOR THE SOIL FOOD WEB BioCarb Soil Food is rich in natural minerals, carbon, vitamins, polysaccarides and soluble proteins that are rich energy sources for supporting and increasing the soil food web. Beneficial microbes increase faster at the expense of pathogenic microbes when there is an abundant energy supply. RESULTS YOU CAN SEE Try an application on off-color foliage. Off-color foliage is usually an indication of poor root zones. Treated soil results in a sharp spike of beneficial root-zone microbes that is evidenced by improved foliage color. APPLICATION OPPORTUNITIES: SEED TREATMENT, IN THE DRILL, POP-UP FERTILIZERS, LIQUID FERTILIZERS, HERBICIDE, INSECTICIDES, FOLIAR NUTRIENTS. There are many windows of opportunity for the crop to benefit from BioCarb. The more applications to the soil, the richer it will become. Seed treatments will have a safe, fertile area for germination; root zones are enriched when included in the drill or with pop-up fertilizer; acts as a sticker when used with herbicides and insecticides; foliage takes on a darker green when applied with foliar nutrients.	156,861
Subject: English Language Learners Grade Level(s): K – 12 Measures Growth: No The Aprenda 3 is a Spanish-language assessment modeled after the Stanford Achievement Test 10th edition. It is designed to measure achievement in ELA, math, science and social studies for Spanish-speaking students. With passages by authors of Spanish-language children's literature in the United States, Mexico, Spain, Puerto Rico, and Central and South America, the test is intended to be culturally inclusive and of particular relevance for Spanish-speaking students. No reviews yet. Write a review.	168,665
Black history month may be over, but a poster prominently displayed in a McDonald's near my neighborhood tells us we should be observing it every day of the year. One way of doing so might be to recall that blacks used to make up most of the workers at the fast-food palace. Today, most are Hispanic immigrants. Nevertheless, there are other ways of observing black history, and one may be arriving at your children's school as soon as next year. With help from the taxpayers by way of the National Endowment for the Humanities, some 24 "scholars" have concocted a curriculum for American schools that will focus on what is now called in some quarters the "Black Holocaust" and, according to a Cybercast News Service report last month, "on issues like slavery reparations that are typically not addressed by kids' textbooks." The program "may be incorporated into the curriculum of public schools across the nation as early as September 2003." Of course, there are several good reasons why most textbooks don't deal with "issues like slavery reparations." Among them are But for some, who think racial propaganda is just the ticket for public school curricula, reparations, white guilt and the supposed "genocide" of blacks by whites are just what most children, black and white, need to have their brains washed in. The designers of the curriculum are two black teachers from Milwaukee, Dennis Smith and Yolanda Farmer, and their project, as CNS reports, relies "on federal grant money from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to support their educational efforts." Ostensibly, the curriculum is supposed to teach black kids all about their roots in Africa, including from which tribe they are descended. Mr. Smith has already figured out his own "roots" and learned that they go "back to a 'great empire' in Africa that existed more than 400 years ago." One rather suspects that Mr. Smith will soon discover that his ancestors were the emperors of the "great empire," but in any case, the "roots" stuff is largely a cover for another, hidden agenda. "Smith said there is a greater lesson for kids, both black and white, in performing such genealogical research," and that purpose is as follows, as Mr. Smith explains it: "Civilization itself started in Africa and it worked its way to this part of the world, but most African-Americans as well as white Americans don't know that. No matter how much we try to disprove that reality, it always comes back to the fact that civilization did start in Africa and then spread out throughout the rest of the planet." Mr. Smith acknowledges that "his curriculum would rely on African-American historical resources and artifacts provided by the Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee." The Black Holocaust Museum, he explains, "is our history, just like slavery is our history, just like hip-hop, just like the Temptations or Elvis Presley. All of that is part of African-American history. African kids have to know and take ownership of that history, as well as white American kids must know African-American history." The Black Holocaust Museum itself, according to its own website, "was founded to educate the general public of the injustices suffered by people of African Heritage in America, and to provide visitors with an opportunity to rethink their assumptions about race and racism." What Mr. Smith wants to teach, of course, is nothing more than racial brainwashing, complete with bad grammar and intended to drill into the noggins of innocent white children how their own ancestors were genocidal killers, how and why they should spend their lives wallowing in guilt about it, and how and why blacks—the heirs of "great empires" no one else has ever heard of—should reclaim their imperial heritage by manipulating the government, the schools and anyone foolish enough to let them get away with it. Mr. Smith also appears eager to swipe a bit from white history. Pathetically, Elvis Presley seems to be about the best he can think of to steal. Courses like the one that Mr. Smith and his colleagues have come up with are hardly new. But now, with the help of the federal government through the NEH and probably the Education Department, they can reasonably expect to impose their phony history and racial power trip throughout the nation's school system. It ought to tell us something that hardly anyone seems to have known about this gigantic anti-white binge and even fewer—in the Republican House, the Republican Senate or the Republican White House—seem to have raised any objection to it. COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC. [Sam Francis [email him] is a nationally syndicated columnist. A selection of his columns, America Extinguished: Mass Immigration And The Disintegration Of American Culture, is now available from Americans For Immigration Control.]	167,227
Holliday structure, the most important intermediate in recombination is also known as Holliday junction or half chiasma. The first molecular model of the genetic exchange that occurs between homologous chromosomes during recombination was proposed by Robert Holliday. This Holliday model involves several steps. First the homologous chromosomes are both nicked at identical location. Then the strands from one side of the nicks invade the homologous chromosomes, base pairing with no complementary strands. The invading strands are next covalently linked to the original strands at the nick site, forming what is called a Holliday junction. The Holliday junction migrates away from the original nick site, a process called branch migration. As it does so, the DNA strands are swapped between the chromosomes. This creates heteroduplex regions on both chromosomes, where man made or bases sequence differences between homologous chromosomes result in a region of DNA with a low percentage of mismatched base pairs. The length of branch migration may vary, but some point breaks are made in the DNA that end migration and resolves the entangled DNA strands into two separate chromosomes. There are two ways that breaks can be made; one results in recombinant chromosomes. If the crossed strands are cleaved by endonucleases, the after ligation within the chromosomes there will be two the chromosomes there will be two non recombinant chromosome with short heteroduplex regions. Alternatively if one rotates on DNA helix 180 0, a process called isomerisation, we can visualise how un crossed strands can be broken. After the uncrossed strands are cleaved by an endonucleases, ligation can produce recombinant chromosomes with short heteroduplex regions	135,048
It is situated in the boundaries of Paleopolis ancient city and the Monastery of Agioi Theodoroi. It’s a Doric order, limestone structure with 8 pillars in the façade and 17 on its sides, characterized as one of the greatest temples of ancient Corfu. The reason is mostly about the pediment which adorned the western side of the temple. It is the oldest surviving stone pediment and has gigantic proportions (11,5m. x 4m.). Today it is exhibited in the Archaeological Museum of Paleopolis - Mon Repos Estate. The pediment depicts the representation of goddess Artemis on a mythical creature, named Gorgon. Gorgon was a Medusa with snakes as hair and wings at her back. She had the ability to turn humans to stone when they looked at her. The scene consists of Gorgon in the center while her face is turned to the spectator being surrounded by her children, Chryssaor and Pegasus, two lion- panthers and two scenes of Titans’ battle.	204,184
Did you know the average American consumes about 57 pounds of added sugar each year? To provide some perspective, that is about 17 teaspoons each day, where the American Heart Association only recommends six teaspoons each day. Since the consumption of added sugar is so far from the recommended amount, it is not hard to see why negative side effects, like heart disease, are being seen increasing at alarming rates across the board. Today we look at the link between sugar and the risk for heart disease. To get more information on treating cardiovascular diseases, contact the experts at Beverly Hills Vein Center today. The Correlation Between Sugar and an Increased Risk for Heart Disease We know that Americans who consume too much sugar have an increased risk for heart disease, but what is the correlation between the two? Harvard Health Publishing recently cited a study where those whose caloric intake of added sugar was between 17-21% had a 38% higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease. From these findings, researchers have concluded that there is a direct correlation between the two; the higher the intake of added sugar, the higher the risk is for heart disease. How Much Sugar Is Safe to Consume? In short, there is no formal recommended amount because sugar is not a requirement in a healthy diet. However, instead of immediately trying to cut it out altogether, it may be beneficial to start by taking a better look at where your sugar intake is coming from. For example, fruits and vegetables contain natural sugar while also providing your body with fiber, minerals, and antioxidants. Therefore, it is much healthier to curb your sweet tooth by grabbing a handful of strawberries over a bowl of ice cream. There are also healthier sugar alternatives, like honey, coconut sugar, stevia, and maple syrup. Focusing on being mindful of the sugar you are consuming can help reduce your intake without sacrificing the sweeter things in life. Eliminating Added Sugar In addition to incorporating healthier substitutes, it helps to eliminate products with lots of added sugar. For many, this includes items like: - Coffee creamers - Ice cream - Fast food - Sports drinks While this is an excellent place to start, it can be even more advantageous to first learn about the nutrition labels and what they mean. Especially since marketing can be misleading, and sometimes the salad options have even more sugar than the burger! Keep an eye out for grams of sugar, ingredients like corn syrup, and recommended serving sizes. Other Preventative Measures of Heart Disease There is no way around it; sugar is a leading factor in an increased risk of heart disease. Reducing the amount of added sugars in your diet is the best preventative measure. Another recommended approach is to schedule regular visits to a cardiologist. They can ensure that everything is normal and there are no red flags to address. For more information on scheduling a visit to the experts at Beverly Hills Vein Center, visit their website. The health of your heart is vital, and there is no time like to present to make it a priority. The first step is acknowledging the direct correlation between sugar and an increased risk of heart disease. From there, it is important to take the following steps. - Look into where the added sugar is coming from in your own diet. - Choose healthier alternatives. - Make a conscious effort to read the nutrition labels. To get more information on maintaining a healthy heart or scheduling a visit with the team at Beverly Hills Vein Center, contact us today.	52,457
Building Better Skull Models For Ancient Carnivores by AMNH on “Traditionally, when we looked at a fossilized skull with pointy piercing teeth and sharp slicing blades, we assumed that it was primarily a meat eater, but that simplistic line of thinking doesn’t always hold true,” said John J. Flynn, the Museum’s Frick Curator of Fossil Mammals and a co-author on the new work published today in the journal PLOS ONE. “We’ve found that diet can be linked to a number of factors—skull size, biomechanical attributes, and often, most importantly, the species’ position in the tree of life.” Dr. Flynn and Z. Jack Tseng, a National Science Foundation and Frick Postdoctoral Fellow in the Museum’s Division of Paleontology, looked at the relationship between skull shape and function of five different modern carnivore species: “hypercarnivores” like wolves and leopards whose diet is more than 70 percent meat and more omnivorous “generalists” such as mongooses, skunks, and raccoons. The initial modeling, which mapped bite force against the stiffness of the animal’s skull, yielded a surprise. “Animals with the same diets and biomechanical demands, like wolves and leopards—both hypercarnivores—were not linking together,” Dr. Tseng said. “Instead, we saw a strong signal driven mostly by ancestry, where, for example, the leopard and the mongoose bind together because they’re more closely related in an evolutionary context, although they have very different dietary preferences and feeding strategies.” But once Tseng and Flynn accounted for the strong effects of ancestry and skull size on the models, hypercarnivores and generalists still could be distinguished based on biomechanics, in particular by looking at where along the tooth row the skull is strongest. The skulls of heavy meat eaters tend to be stiff near the front teeth for hunting, and the back teeth for crushing bones and slicing meat. In contrast, generalist skulls get slightly stiffer from the front row of teeth to the back row. With an improved shape-function computer model in hand, Flynn and Tseng applied the research to a pair of extinct species: Thinocyon velox, a predatory mammal that was part of the now-extinct Creodont group, and Oodectes herpestoides, an early fossil predecessor of modern carnivores. The results suggested that T. velox likely had a unique hypercarnivorous feeding style that emphasized prey capture with its front teeth and powerful slicing and crushing with its back teeth, while O. herpestoides was a generalist. “Beyond feeding adaptations of extinct species, we also want to decipher how adaptations evolved using reconstructed ancestors of living and fossil forms,” Tseng said. “We are applying similar types of skull shape and biomechanical analyses to reconstructed hypothetical ancestor skulls of Carnivora and their relatives to map out and better understand the long history of feeding adaptation of living top predators.”	194,866
A recumbent bicycle is a bike that places the rider in a laid-back reclining position. Most recumbent riders choose this type of design for ergonomic reasons; the rider’s weight is distributed comfortably over a larger area, supported by back and buttocks. Most recumbent models also have an aerodynamic advantage; the reclined, legs-forward position of the rider’s body presents a smaller frontal profile. Recumbents are available in a wide range of configurations, including: long to short wheelbase; large, small, or a mix of wheel sizes; overseat, underseat, or no-hands steering. Recumbents can be categorized by their wheelbase, wheel sizes, steering system, faired or unfaired, and front-wheel or rear-wheel drive. Bacchetta Corsa, a short wheelbase high racerLong wheelbase (LWB) models have the pedals located between the front and rear wheels; short wheelbase (SWB) models have the pedals in front of the front wheel; compact long wheelbase (CLWB) models have the pedals either very close to the front wheel or above it. Within these categories are variations, intermediate types, and even convertible designs (LWB to CLWB) – there is no “standard” recumbent. The rear wheel of a recumbent is usually behind the rider and may be any size, from around 16 inches (410 mm) to the 700c of an upright racing cycle. The front wheel is commonly smaller than the rear, although a number of recumbents feature dual 26-inch (ISO 559), ISO 571 (650c), or ISO 622 (700c) wheels. Notable among these are “highracers”, such as the Bacchetta Corsa and Strada or Volae Team, or the “LWB-style” RANS Stratus XP. Larger wheels generally have lower rolling resistance but a higher profile leading to higher air resistance. Highracer aficionados also claim that they are more stable, and although bicycle stability increases with the height of the center of gravity above the ground, the wide variety of recumbent designs makes such generalizations unreliable. Another advantage of both wheels being the same size is that the bike requires only one size of inner tube. The pivoting-boom front-wheel drive Flevobike racer with 700c wheels (NL) Cruzbike Silvio (2009) A pivot-boom, front wheel-drive, 700C road bike (with rear rack).The most common arrangement is probably an ISO 559 (26-inch) rear wheel and an ISO 406 (20-inch) front wheel. The small front wheel and large rear wheel combination is used to keep the pedals and front wheel clear of each other, avoiding the problem called “heel strike” (where the rider’s heels catch the wheel in tight turns). A pivoting-boom front-wheel drive (PBFWD) configuration also overcomes heel strike since the pedals and front wheel turn together. PBFWD bikes may have dual 26-inch (660 mm) wheels or larger. Recumbent Tour Cycling A superb source of information on recumbent tour cycling is the bikepaths.org website. Its owner, Charles DiBella has been bicycle touring independently with a Lightning Stealth recumbent for over ten years. On the website he aims to provide in-depth resource on recumbent bikes and tries his best to answer questions, and welcomes open dialog to discuss anything related to recumbent bikes or bicycle touring in general.	24,570
How gift giving relates to tradition and religion, what are its implications to consumer behavior, how the nature of the relationship between the recipient and gift giver becomes reflected in the act of gift-giving, are some of the questions which this panel will address. While gift-giving practices are among the most universal patterns of reciprocity and exchange in any cultural setting, Japan is among the most quoted examples of a society in which gift practices follow extremely complex etiquettes of exchange and wrapping, as well as of the opening (or not) of the objects donated. Some history and folklore literature trace the development of these practices back to early moments in which people discovered the practice of offering the best parts of their game to supernatural beings or deities. In Japan, humanities literature pictures back the origin in the canonization of the Shinto religion. The human donated to the kami in the hope that he could influence the course of reality. From this to clientelism and political corruption the step is not too long. Today, gift-giving plays a big part in most of the important events of the social life of the individual in Japan. How this relates to tradition and religion, what are the implications of gift-giving practices to consumer behavior and to the business world in general, and how the nature of the relationship between the recipient and gift giver becomes reflected in the act of gift-giving, are some of the most relevant questions which this panel will address.	151,303
The apparent ‘decline’ of standards in American television drama due to the intervention of the major Hollywood film studios in television was a major subject of discussion in the Fifties. Christopher Anderson writes that this was ‘one of the most well-rehearsed narratives’ centred on a struggle for the hearts and minds of the viewing public (Anderson, 1994: 13). The New York Times’ long-serving television editor Jack Gould complained in 1952 that filmed shows for television were often of poor quality and rudimentary acting. By contrast live television drama offered the immediacy of the theatre for television audiences – even if there were occasional fluffs or awkward camera movements. Despite its commercial roots, television could educate and entertain in the spirit of public service. To regard it as an extension of the neighbourhood cinema is therefore to misunderstand its function (Gould, 1952: X17). Five years later Kenneth McGowan’s article ‘Screen Wonders of the Past – And to Come?’ paid tribute to the rapid advances in technology that had radically improved the quality of television: notably lighter cameras, more sophisticated sound equipment, and the development of magnetic tape rather than the kinescope. In addition to technological improvements, the quality of film and television could increasingly only be sustained through good stories with ‘true characters’ – the kind of style considered characteristic of live television drama (McGowan, 1957: 393). Although this narrative made good copy for the newspapers, it took no account of the major studios’ efforts to create filmed television drama series through subsidiary companies, and thereby initiate a fledgling convergence culture. In 1949 and 1950, two articles appeared under Samuel Goldwyn’s moniker announcing the dawn of a new collaboration between television, film and independent producers that would demonstrate how ‘it will take brains instead of just money to make pictures [….] this will be hard on a great many people who have been enjoying a free ride on the Hollywood carousel, but it will be a fine thing for motion pictures as a whole’ (qtd. in Anderson, 1994: 24–5). Television would serve as a means of product improvement by purging the film industry of products that seemed routine. Leaving aside the self-interested purpose behind Goldwyn’s arguments (the articles were obviously designed to attract fledgling independent producers), we can understand why there was such a need for new material. In a fast-changing media environment creative workers had to be adaptable; unconstrained by any commitment to a specific mediatic form. Within five years journalists such as Thomas Pryor proclaimed that the film and television industries had cemented a happy union (Pryor, 1955: X5). Another article proclaimed that ‘Hollywood, once so fearful of television, today is riding the crest of a video-inspired boom […] the West Coast center of the show business will provide at least ten times as much entertainment for national television audiences as for motion picture audiences’ (Gould, 1955: 1). Independent producers had the chance to create quickly filmed genre productions with their origins in the B-Movie and subsequently distribute them for syndication, where the endless repeats ensured regular profits (Davis, 1999: 195–7). The convergence between television and film gave birth to what Davis terms the MFTVM (Made-from-TV-Movies) (Davis, 1999: 198), where familiar television programmes spawned into feature films. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were brought together in The Long Long Trailer (1953), while Dragnet (1951–9), The Lone Ranger (1949–57) and Our Miss Brooks (1952–6) also spawned film versions in the subsequent five years. The marriage between film and television flourished as the decade progressed. In 1951 George Reeves starred in Superman and the Mole Men, which functioned as a pilot for the forthcoming television series The Adventures of Superman. In the same year four films starring Guy Madison as Wild Bill Hickok (including Six Gun Decision), each comprising two episodes of the first television season, premiered in 1951. Making MFTVMs was an ideal opportunity for independent producers to exploit new ways of making money through distribution while cutting production budgets. The focus of attention was not just on popular serials: film producers also looked to transform live teleplays into MFTVMs. Anthology series such as Studio One (CBS, 1946–58) and the Philco Television Playhouse (NBC, 1948–54) fulfilled a similar function as the Lux Radio Theater (NBC, CBS, 1934–55), or its sister show the Lux Video Theater (1950–7). Each season of approximately thirty shows comprised a mix of classics, new plays, and thrillers, designed to appeal to middle-class audiences as well as those appreciating ‘educational, or instructive material’ (Miner, 1949: 2). This definition of ‘quality television’ is very much a product of its time. As the theorist Robert J. Thompson has observed, quality television in the contemporary mediascape can be defined negatively; it is not standard televisual fare designed for general viewing (1997: 12). It is equated with ‘excellence’ or ‘superiority’, in terms of script, production values and casting. For Miner and his fellow-executives quality television required them to render the best possible texts – Broadway hits, new plays, and adaptations of American and European classics – accessible to all viewers in an uncomplicated manner. Consistently high ratings proved the enduring popularity of the anthology series, but they were conceived in the spirit of public service for commercial television, designed to educate as well as entertain. Attention was chiefly focused on the characters’ reactions by means of vertical rather than horizontal shot-compositions, with the frame containing different levels of action. Viewers had to keep their wits about them to follow the narrative. Such strategies were dictated by budgetary constraints: anthology series directors customarily worked with a maximum of three cameras, and were given three days to block their productions plus one and a half days of rehearsal before the live broadcasts. As the decade unfolded, so the anthology series attracted an increasing amount of criticism, despite its public service remit. In 1955 Frank W. Wadsworth opined that most telecasts were ‘all exposition, plays in which the resolution, if it occurs at all, is hasty and startling in its inappropriateness’ (1955: 118). With filmed series occupying a place in national television schedules, viewers were no longer so willing to excuse the customary awkwardness of live television. Nonetheless, there were several productions that were recognised as quality fare. Paddy Chayefsky’s Marty was broadcast live on Philco Television Playhouse on 24 May 1953 with a cast led by Rod Steiger. The author recalled two years later how he created ‘the most ordinary love story in the world’, involving ‘the kind of people I know’ (Chayefsky, 1955: 7). Recognised by critics and audiences alike as a landmark production in American television history, the play attracted the attention of Hecht-Lancaster, an independent production company comprised of Burt Lancaster and Harold Hecht, whose previous films included Vera Cruz (1954) with Lancaster and Gary Cooper. Although Chayefsky’s play was filmed for just over $340,000, it was planned as a quality project that not only had Lancaster’s star image attached to it but retained three of the television cast – Esther Minciotti, Augusta Ciolli, and Joe Mantel – with the addition of Ernest Borgnine instead of Steiger. The cinematic and televisual worlds were brought together in an MFTVM that employed a visual style heavily influenced by Italian neo-realistic cinema (Balio, 1987: 150). Yet here we must be careful in defining the cinematic ‘quality’ of the film version of Marty, which was understood slightly differently as compared to the television play. While viewers could be attracted to the star, the supporting cast and the photography, the production as a whole cost only $340,000 – more upmarket than a B-Movie, but one that involved minimum financial risk for the producers. Yet it was still highly popular, capturing the zeitgeist of being an immigrant in mid-Fifties America, working hard for little financial gain. Reviewers praised the gritty locations, with Joseph LaShelle’s photography emphasising the confines of Marty’s working-class world (Holloway, 1955: 3). Marty netted four Oscars including the three top awards for Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Director, with the fourth going to Chayefsky for Best Adapted Screenplay. Describing the film of Marty as a remake of the television broadcast underestimates its significance as the product of an era of convergence when the standoff between the film and television industries had largely evaporated, and creative workers began to move seamlessly between the two media. Delbert Mann and screenwriter Chayefsky were responsible both for the film and television versions of Marty. While the MFTVM of Marty sustained the basic framework of the televisual text, it added new levels of meaning to the source-text with its cast changes, an altered script lengthened from 58 to 90 or 94 minutes, Kaufman’s black-and-white photography, and the presence of Lancaster as co-producer. It is a prime example of an intermedial text, understood as a form of exchange taking place between media (Rajewsky, 2005: 46) – a narrow form of transformation, perhaps, with its antecedents in literary studies (Rajewsky, 2005: 50); but by the mid-Fifties this process had become characteristic of the emergent convergence culture as the film studios enjoyed a two-way exchange of properties with the television networks. For the remainder of this article I want to look at another example of a quality television play transformed into a low-budget MFTVM – Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men. The broadcast aired live in the Studio One strand on 20 September 1954 in a three-act form incorporating two commercial breaks. The MFTVM, released just over two and a half years later, was filmed in New York at Fox’s Movietone studio and on location with a script lengthened by Rose from one hour into just over ninety minutes. As with Marty, producer/star Henry Fonda and director Sidney Lumet (himself a graduate of the television anthology series) emphasised different aspects of quality compared to the television version. Invisible elements (such as public service appeal) were replaced by visual and aesthetic strategies – a strong cast led by Fonda with reliable character actors such as Ed Begley, Lee J. Cobb, and E. G. Marshall – combined with Boris Kaufman’s versatile photography within a confined studio space. Thematic points were made through astute camerawork focusing on the actors’ gestures and facial expressions, augmented by sparse sound-effects, strategies more characteristic of radio drama than cinema films. This textual analysis feeds into my conclusion: by drawing on Constantine Verevis’s ideas, I argue that any intermedial transformation, past or present, has to take account of the interplay between textual, industrial and historical issues characteristic of media convergence and its products (Verevis, 2016: n. pag.). Most anthology series, including Studio One, used live television to create the illusion of ‘a continuous flow of events’ taking place in front of the viewers, ‘always bringing us what we want to see, bringing further information’ (Stasheff and Bretz, 1956: 269). Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner – who, like Sidney Lumet, eventually moved into films – the MFTVM Twelve Angry Men begins with an establishing shot of all twelve jurors listening to the judge’s voice off screen telling them to ‘deliberate honestly and thoughtfully’ (Rose, 1977: 1). As he speaks, the camera focuses on each juror in turn: they fold their arms and look vaguely bored as if their forthcoming deliberations represent nothing more than a formality before the guilty verdict will be announced. When the end of the 12-person line has been reached, the camera jerks upwards to a shot of the courtroom roof, giving the cast the chance to move to the jury-room set where the remainder of the action will take place. This is followed by a close-up of the door (with the legend ‘Room 288A’), and a shot of the jury passing a static camera on their way to sit down. When they have all filed into the room, Schaffner employs another establishing shot of the camera looking down on the group involved in the forthcoming action. The interplay of close-ups and establishing shots constitutes a visual equivalent to the short story designed to set the scene and introduce the characters to viewers. The individual jurors’ traits are quickly delineated, ranging from the eager-to-please attitude of Juror #5 (Lee Phillips) and the belligerent Juror #10 (Edward Arnold), who feels that no one should ‘believe that kid, knowing what he is. Listen. I’ve lived among ‘em all my live. You can’t believe a word they say. I mean, they’re born liars’ (Rose, 1977: 8). As he speaks, he rises from his chair and paces around the long wooden table with a camera persistently tracking his movement. We understand his love of grandstanding, trying to verbally browbeat the jury into accepting his opinions. In spatial terms, the sight of Juror #10 standing up while the others remain seated indicates that Twelve Angry Men is at heart a drama about power, its uses and abuses. A jury has been appointed to pronounce on an accused person, yet it should achieve a decision through consensus not coercion. The jurors’ deliberations are interrupted through a series of visual coups de théâtre. The murder-weapon is brought in for scrutiny, prompting Juror #4 (Walter Abel) to ask Juror #8 (Robert Cummings) whether they are supposed to accept ‘a pretty incredible coincidence’ that the knife used to stab the victim might not have belonged to the accused. Juror #8 reaches into his pocket and brings out a second knife, which he thrusts into the table. Schaffner instantly cuts to a tight close-up of the knife followed by a medium shot of the eleven jurors huddled together within the frame as they start up from their chairs and stare at it. Two members exchange quizzical looks and suck their pencils. This moment alters the flow of the drama: hitherto no one has been willing to accept Juror #8’s skepticism about the accused’s guilt, but now they are not so sure. The atmosphere becomes more and more strained with each juror contributing their views without listening to others. Through a series of quick close-ups interspersed with a group shot of all twelve men, Schaffner shows how desperate they have become to reach a verdict: Juror #3’s (Franchot Tone’s) grim expression sums up the prevailing mood. The first act concludes with a climax in which each juror writes his decision down on a piece of paper. They sit silently round the table: we can hear nothing except the rustling of their papers and the faint honking of car-horns outside the building. Life goes on as normal outside, but that does not detract from the severity of the jury’s task. The second act employs shot/reverse shot patterns to illuminate the central conflict of viewpoints between Juror #8 and Juror #3. Juror #8 stands his ground while Juror #3 paces earnestly around the room, a camera following him all the while. Juror #3’s gestures are extravagant – hands placed on hips, moving threateningly towards Juror #8, his finger outstretched in a pointing motion – while Juror #8 stands motionless in a corner, listening but not reacting to Juror #3’s arguments. Juror #3’s voice rises to a shriek as he senses that no one actually listens to him; as he speaks, the camera zooms into a close-up of his face bathed in perspiration. This is followed by reaction-shots from Jurors #8 and #10, as if they cannot quite believe what they have just seen and heard. We now understand that the jury’s deliberations no longer centre on the accused but have been transformed into a conflict between liberal and neoconservative perspectives. As Juror #8 paces up and down in an attempt to calculate the distance covered by the old man from his bedroom to the door (and thereby question the validity of the prosecution’s evidence), the room falls deathly quiet. The camera tracks his feet, followed by a close-up of the building plan. There is a short pause, followed by an aerial shot of the group muttering ‘twenty-eight seconds’, as they realise just how long it took for the old man to get to his front door. Maybe he did not actually see the murderer, but imagined it. This plot twist proves too much for Juror #3, who stands toe-to-toe with Juror #8, ready to strike him at the earliest possible opportunity. The other jurors restrain him as the act concludes. The final act unfolds with a degree of inevitability as more and more jurors switch sides, leaving Jurors #10 and #3 isolated. Juror #10 embarks on a racist diatribe against ‘those people’ (nonwhites) who ‘think different. They act different. Well, for instance, they don’t need any big excuse to kill someone’ (Rose, 1977: 51). As he occupies the centre of the frame, we witness the other jurors in the background walking slowly away from him towards the water-cooler at the corner of the room. They form an orderly queue, their heads turned away from Juror #10, as Juror #10’s voice becomes shriller and shriller in the hope of eliciting a response. At length Juror #9 (Joseph Sweeney) crosses the room and forces Juror #10 to sit down, exclaiming as he does so: ‘You’re a sick man’ (Rose, 1977: 52). Totally alone, Juror #10 is framed in a close-up, feeling his neck and smoothing his hair in an attempt to preserve a degree of sangfroid. After a while he turns away from the camera as if unable to endure its penetrating gaze. As the action draws to a close, Juror #3 understands the futility of his position, even though remaining unwilling (or unable) to alter it. In another close-up we see his left hand beginning to shake with emotion as he speaks in a strangled croak to Juror #8: ‘You’re not going to intimidate me’ (Rose, 1977: 55). The visual irony is obvious: palpably intimidated, with the camera pursuing him like a hunter stalking its prey, Juror #3 seeks refuge at the corner of the room and demands: ‘Somebody say something’ (Rose, 1977: 58). No response ensues; Schaffner cuts to a close-up of the back of Juror #3’s head as he exclaims: ‘All right. “Not guilty”’ (Rose, 1977: 59) and sits down, wringing his hands as he does so. The action shifts to another group shot: Juror #3 smoothes his hair (just as Juror #10 had done earlier), while Juror #8 retreats to a corner of the room. Everyone exits slowly in single file; just before Juror #3 leaves, he pulls the second knife out of the table and lays it down flat, signalling that it has no further part to play in the determination of the verdict. The third act is visually more economical than the previous two acts as the action proceeds by means of a combination of tracking shots and close-ups. This strategy might seem both awkward and repetitious, especially as there is no accompanying soundtrack to occupy our attention, save for the sound of traffic outside the room. Nonetheless, Schaffner achieves his desired effect of focusing attention on gesture, tone, and intonation as indicators of the strain experienced by all twelve jurors. Writing in the New York Times on 17 December 1954 nearly two months after the television broadcast, Gould recognised Twelve Angry Men as one of that season’s ‘superior dramatic works’, thereby supporting his earlier claim for live television drama’s superiority to its filmed equivalent (Gould, 1954: 44). Twelve Angry Men received official recognition in the form of an Emmy award, as did Robert Cummings for his performance as Juror #8. Despite the appeal of this production and others like it, the future of live drama anthology series was particularly bleak. The invention of magnetic tape gave creative workers the freedom to rehearse longer, while fluffs during the performance could be easily eliminated through retakes. Public service notions of quality products broadcast weekly fell out of favour as the major networks shifted their sphere of operation from New York to Hollywood and focused on making maximum profits at minimal expenditure through film series and syndication. By the end of the decade the anthology series had become extinct, consigned to the so-called ‘Golden Age’ of television during its formative years. Nonetheless, the film version answers Gould and McGowan’s criticisms that MFTVMs could not achieve the kind of quality standards associated with live television, albeit in different ways. It is manifestly a ‘value added’ project, drawing on memories of the television version’s success while foregrounding its commercial potential as a star vehicle. The focus of attention centres on individual performances as well as the relationship between characters. Director Lumet employs a cinematic grammar comprised of tracking shots showing the jurors introducing themselves to one another in an outwardly relaxed atmosphere. The foreman (Martin Balsam) calls them to order, and through a series of close-ups we are made instantly aware of the conflict of views involving Juror #8 (Fonda) and the remainder of the group. Another close-up shows Juror #10 (Begley) blowing his cheeks out in frustration as he exclaims: ‘Boy-oh-boy! There’s always one!’ (Rose, 1977: 7). Kaufman photographs the film’s first third from above, rendering the actors insignificant in relation to what appears to be a vast jury-room, except for those moments when Juror #3 (Cobb) gets up from his chair and stands threateningly over his fellow-jurors as he tries to browbeat them into accepting his views. The only juror who refuses to listen is Juror #8, who stands in a corner with his back to the camera. The mise-en-scène is at once reminiscent of, yet different from, the television version: the close-ups emphasise the central conflict of views that drives the action forward and ultimately persuades individual jurors to change their minds. As the jurors’ arguments become more intense, so the camera shifts downwards to photograph the actors at eye level: we now feel slightly imprisoned among people experiencing increasing mental strain. Juror #9 (Joseph Sweeney, reprising his role from the television version) speaks, and as Lumet zooms into a tight close-up we hear muffled coughs, as if no one can really be bothered to listen to him. Lumet cuts back to a brief shot of the group, and returns to another close-up of Juror #9’s expression. Unlike Juror #3 he remains calm while presenting his views; and it is this quality that persuades Juror #5 (Jack Klugman) to change his opinions. All hell breaks loose: criticisms are vociferously expressed, while Juror #7 (Jack Warden) storms out into the adjoining bathroom as he realises that he will not be able to go to the ball-game that evening. The sequence lasts no more than two minutes, but the flurry of action denotes an increasing sense of desperation. No one really knows whether the accused is guilty or innocent any more. The sense of increasing claustrophobia did a lot to raise the tension of the last part of the MFTVM. The camera position alters during the sequence where Juror #4 (E. G. Marshall) is being quizzed by Juror #8 about his immediate memories of the past. As the questions become more insistent (‘And you weren’t under any emotional strain, were you?’ [Rose, 1977: 46]), so the camera moves closer and closer towards Juror #4’s face as he mops his brow while vainly trying to find convincing answers. His countenance occupies the bulk of the frame, but the threatening presence of the ceiling at the rear emphasises his feeling of claustrophobia. He delivers the line ‘No, I wasn’t’ with a sigh of relief, as if somehow glad to acknowledge the truth, even though this will inevitably result in him changing his verdict on the accused from guilty to not guilty (Rose, 1977: 46). The technique of photographing the cast from below eye level proves especially effective in the staging of Juror #10’s racist comments and the reaction they generate among the other jurors. Lumet keeps Juror #10 in long shot while he denounces those nonwhites who ‘don’t need any big excuse to kill someone’ (Rose, 1977: 51). The camera dollies in slowly, keeping Juror #10 in focus, with the ceiling visible once more at the rear of the frame. Juror #4 silences him; as he does so Lumet cuts to a shot of Juror #8 stressing the importance of keeping personal prejudice out of the discussion (Rose, 1977: 53). This sequence emphasises the importance of Juror #8’s liberalism (that will dictate the eventual outcome), while suggesting that Juror #10 is a victim of intolerance. Unable to see beyond his naïvely racist views, he condemns himself to isolation. We hear the rain splashing against the jury-room windows; even the weather, it seems, has turned against the jurors. The action continues in a series of tight close-ups emphasising the increasing sense of desperation: the jurors’ faces fill the frames in a manner totally at odds with the more detached atmosphere of the film’s opening sequence. Juror #3’s resistance crumbles; his voice rises to a crescendo as he turns through one hundred and eighty degrees to face the remaining jury members. He points an accusing finger at Juror #8, pulls out a pocket book and throws it on the floor. Lumet cuts to a close-up of a black-and-white photograph of two children that falls out; Juror #3 bends down, tears it into small pieces and breaks down in tears. In the background a mournful melody (by Kenyon Hopkins) ushers in the final sequence where the jurors leave, save for Juror #8 who comes up to Juror #3, helps the stricken juror on with his coat and escorts him tenderly out of the room. This moment reveals how the MFTVM incorporates ‘value added’ elements absent from the television version. Schaffner leaves us unaware as to why Juror #3 changes his mind; nor does Juror #8 offer any answers. By contrast, I would argue that the film’s sentimental ending has been created for commercial reasons as producer Fonda wanted to emphasise Juror #8’s basic compassion, which was a specific facet of his star image. We should acknowledge the distributors’ – United Artists – suggestion to create a happier ending so as to enhance the production’s box-office possibilities following an unfavorable set of preview reactions (Lumet, 1995: 215). What can we learn about convergence cultures and their significance through an analysis of two productions from an earlier period, made 60 years ago? We should understand that media convergence is nothing new – even in the pre-internet era media outlets were collaborating to produce different artist products, even though the subject matter might be the same. Convergence culture also has a particular effect on viewing tastes, as Henry Jenkins suggests: ‘Our lives, relationships, memories, fantasies, desires also flow across media channels [….] When people take media into their own hands, the results can be wonderfully creative; they can also be bad news for all involved’ (Jenkins, 2006: 17). I want to suggest that both Lancaster and Fonda, as independent producers, were aware of the ways in which filmgoers in the Fifties might take Marty and Twelve Angry Men into their own hands and understand the stinging criticisms of contemporary life – the tendency to marginalise the immigrant, the reluctance to stand up and be counted in group situations, the desire to punish so-called criminals without taking all the evidence into account. At the same they were aware of the importance of reworking their source-texts through different approaches to quality. They established a form of what Jenkins describes as ‘synergy’ (Jenkins, 2006: 19) by coordinating Hollywood distributors, television writers and directors and performers with experience in both media. So far this article has shied away from one of the major analytical strategies characteristic of adaptation scholars with an interest in the media: to compare source and target texts and evaluate them according to notions of ‘fidelity’. This is a seductive method, and one that has dominated adaptation studies ever since the publication of George Bluestone’s Novels into Film (Bluestone, 1957). Fidelity issues certainly play a significant part in the MFTVM adaptation of Twelve Angry Men: the entire action unfolds in one room on a hot and sultry afternoon in New York, and the action largely takes place in real time, just like the television version. There are strong cinematographic parallels between the two versions in their deployment of close-ups focusing on the characters’ increasing emotional tension. Yet this process of comparison seems rather empty without an analysis of context. Deborah Cartmell’s excellent book Adaptations in the Sound Era (2015) evokes Hollywood’s earliest attempts at media convergence when the advent of talking pictures encouraged producers to scour Broadway for the latest hits and transport them wholesale eastwards, where they would be speedily shot and distributed. Relying on theatrical successes was an indicator of quality, as well as proving financially profitable (in some instances, at least), and even though such products might have been considered primitive by critics audiences flocked to them, as they could actually hear the words, something which they had never previously experienced (Cartmell, 2015: 18). This view had little currency a quarter a century later as the film industry tried to win back their lost audiences by offering visual experiences that television could not match. Three decades later those same producers took advantage of a more pluralist media landscape to find potential properties for filming, including television and radio as well as the theatre. By doing so they formulated new convergence cultures, with the emphasis placed less on sound and more on photography and performances. How do the products of the late Fifties compare with inter- or transmedial products of the millennium? Constantine Verevis offers a series of hypotheses by which we might better understand the significance of these more recent products. They are intermedial, transcending the boundaries suggested by the term ‘remake’ and branching out into new areas (‘reboots’, perhaps). Post-millennial transmedial texts are transnational, concentrating on the relationship between global centres and margins. They are also post-authorial, challenging our notions of originality and foregrounding reproducibility instead, while being characterised by profusion and simultaneity; they do not supplant the source-text but exist alongside it, offering alternative constructions of the same plot (Verevis, 2016: n. pag.). I would argue that Twelve Angry Men is equally intermedial; the MFTVM is not a remake of the television version, but a meditation on it, a rethinking of the basic plot that exhibits its own approaches to quality. While both texts are certainly not transnational, they can be considered as valuable products of a rapidly changing period in American television and cinematic history. Unlike contemporary transmedial texts, the MFTVM and the television versions of Twelve Angry Men foregrounded the author: with scripts written by Reginald Rose, a veteran television writer whose previous credits included the teleplay Crime in the Streets (1955) (plus the MFTVM version ), and seven previous episodes in the Studio One anthology series. Perhaps it was Rose’s determination to provide two different versions of Twelve Angry Men that created a sense of profusion and simultaneity: the MFTVM should be approached as a separate text, a riff on the television version. The two versions of Twelve Angry Men thus offer fascinating examples of change and continuity within the media landscape, which help us to rethink convergence culture in the pre-Internet era. The MFTVM version of Twelve Angry Men did not do as well as Fonda had hoped, but nonetheless attracted a fan community in local art houses. By 1961 Pauline Kael emphasised its appeal to educated audiences who found: … true reassurance when the modern-designed movie also has modern design built into the theme […] Ask an educated man what he thought of Twelve Angry Men and more likely than not he will reply, “That movie made some good points”, or “it got important ideas across”. His assumption is that it carried those ideas, which also happen to be his ideas, to the masses. Actually it didn’t [….] It isn’t often that professional people can see themselves on the screen as the hero – in this case the Lincolnesque architect of the future – and how they love it! (Kael, 1961: 8–9) Compare her comments with those of Worthington Miner – cited above – who believed that anthology series should exert mass appeal, although mostly watched by the middle class. Within a decade audiences had fragmented, both in the cinema and on television, so that it became possible to draw distinctions between mass and art house audiences. On the other hand, the fact that the two versions of Twelve Angry Men exhibit certain parallels with millennial remakes, according to Verevis’ proposals, suggests that convergence cultures both shift and yet remain remarkably similar over time. If we investigate such similarities and differences we can discover the institutional practices and historical circumstances that shaped the ways in which media products are structured, marketed and received. What this article has also suggested is another convergence between adaptation studies and media studies. While textual analyses are valuable in themselves, they need to be viewed as products of a media landscape that remains perpetually fluid. Digital technology has forced us to rethink concepts such as authorship and originality, both of which lay at the heart of adaptation studies in the past. Nearly six decades ago, the advent of television prompted creative workers to move away from the straight remake and create intermedial versions of familiar source-texts that resist the familiar source/target text mode of analytical comparison. This requires further research into the histories of particular genres in specific contexts, but the outcomes are far more rewarding. The author has no competing interests to declare. C Anderson, (1994). Hollywood TV: The Studio System in the Fifties. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. T Balio, (1987). United Artists: The Company that Changed the Film Industry II (1951–78). Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. G Bluestone, (1957). Novels into Film. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. D Cartmell, (2015). Adaptations in the Sound Era 1927–37. New York: Bloomsbury. P Chayefsky, (1955). Two Choices of Material. Television Plays, : 6. B Davis, (1999). Made from TV Movies: Turning 1950s Television into Films. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 29 (2) : 197. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01439680902890670 J Gould, (1952). A Plea for Live Video. New York Times, December 7 1952 : X17. J Gould, (1954). Television in Review: Reginald Rose Gets ‘A’ for Attempt but ‘D’ for Drama in 12.32 a.m. on CBS. New York Times, December 17 1954 : X4. J Gould, (1955). TV Films Boom Hollywood into its Greatest Prosperity. Variety, July 3 1955 : 1. R Holloway, (1955). Marty. Variety, March 23 1955 : 2. H Jenkins, (2006). Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press. P Kael, (1961). Fantasies of the Art-House Audience. Sight and Sound 31 (1) : 8. S Lumet, (1995). Making Movies. New York: Knopf. K McGowan, (1957). Screen Wonders of the Past – And to Come?. Quarterly of Film, Radio and Television 11 (4) : 381. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1209998 W Miner, (1949). Training for Television In: Washington DC: Library of Congress. T Pryor, (1955). Hollywood Tie-Up. New York Times, April 17 1955 : X5. I D Rajewsky, (2005). Intermediality, Intertextuality, and Remediation: A Literary Perspective on Intermediality. Intermediality 6 : 43. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7202/1005505 R Rose, (1955/1977). Twelve Angry Men. Rev. ed. London: Samuel French. E Stasheff, B Rudy, (1956). The Television Program. New York: Hill and Wang. R J Thompson, (1997). Television’s Second Golden Age: From Hill Street Blues to ER. London: Continuum. C Verevis, (2016). The Cinematic Return. Film Criticism 40 (1) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/fc.13761232.0040.134 n. pag. F W Wadsworth, (1955). The TV Plays of Paddy Chayefsky. Quarterly of Film, Radio, and Television 10 (2) : 109. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1209875	83,296
Sleep is a valuable commodity these days. For many reasons, some of us struggle with sleep. There are the obstacles, like work or family, that prevent us from getting enough hours of sleep. However, there’s the issue of quality of sleep, with many of us waking feeling even more exhausted than when we went to bed. This can be frustrating on many levels. Sleep is essential for energy and overall health, and there’s nothing more difficult than knowing what to do to solve problems in your life, like a lack of energy and being unable to do it. Good sleep allows you to replenish your energy reserves, improves your ability to learn, memory, creativity, and mood. Sleep is also important for your physical health and supports a healthy immune system. So, how to get better sleep? In this article, we’ll discuss what good sleep is, proven tips for better sleep, why quality sleep is important, and how to have an energized morning. What is “Good” Sleep? Simply put, good sleep results in you feeling refreshed and energized the next morning. According to the government, adults need about 7 hours of sleep on a regular schedule. The National Sleep Foundation recommends 7-9 hours a night for most adults. However, this is just an average, and people’s need for sleep varies between individuals. Factors like genetics, schedules, and daily physical activity could lead to needing more or less sleep. You probably have a good idea of how much sleep you need. But if not, tracking the amount of sleep you get and how you feel the next morning for a week or two will provide useful information about how much sleep is ideal for you. Sleeping is an intricate bodily function that affects your whole body. There are four stages to sleep. There’s light sleep (stages 1 and 2), deep sleep (stage 3), and REM sleep, which is stage 4. Healthy sleeping involves the body cycling through these stages several times a night. When this happens, our bodies can perform the important tasks of repairing and restoring our bodies and minds. Good sleep is uninterrupted, consistently scheduled, and in line with your natural body rhythms. Studies have shown that uninterrupted or continuous sleep is just as important as how long you sleep. Proven Tips for Better Sleep Here are some tips for better sleep. Try starting with one or two, gradual changes are more easily sustained. - Have a regular bedtime. Research has shown in animal studies shifting your sleep schedule hurts your sleep quality. - Limit light exposure while sleeping. You can do this with blackout curtains or by aligning your sleeping schedule closer to the rising and setting of the sun. Of course, that’s not practical for everyone, but know that light exposure triggers feeling awake. - Use nutritional supplements like valerian root, which is an herbal sedative, and melatonin, which makes the body feel sleepy. Valerian root also supports feeling calm and reduces anxiety, which can make it hard to fall asleep. Seattle Gummy Company (SGC) makes a delicious, sugar-free Slumber Shot gummy that contains calming herbs like valerian and sleep supporter melatonin. - Try not to eat a couple of hours before bedtime. But don’t go to bed hungry either. You don’t want to stuff yourself, since digestion can interfere with good sleep, but so can hunger pains. - Support your sleep by making your bedroom as relaxed and serene as possible. - Try not to nap, or limit naps during the day, especially closer to bedtime. Importance of Quality Sleep Here are some reasons why healthy sleep is vital. - A regular bedtime is connected to lower risks for serious health conditions, like obesity and diabetes. - Learning ability is improved. - Healthy sleep boosts creative thinking. - Mood is enhanced by healthy sleep. - Your immune system is supported by enough sleep. - It’s easier to eat healthy foods after having good sleep. - To have energy in the morning and throughout the day. - To have mental energy and clarity during the day. Tips for an Energized Morning Here are a few easy ways to improve the quality of your mornings. - Get some sun. Open the windows, step outside, or take a walk to get some sun. Light triggers biological processes that make you feel awake. - A study has shown that the best time to take caffeine is about three hours after you wake up. Caffeine stimulates the release of cortisol. You naturally experience a spike in cortisol about 30 minutes after you wake up. By delaying your caffeine intake, you allow your cortisol levels to drop before raising them again with caffeine. An easy way to get your morning caffeine quickly is with an SGC Mocca Shot. These high-energy gummies come packed with 200 mg of caffeine (equivalent to two cups of coffee!) and brain-boosting B vitamins and Chinese herb, ginkgo biloba. - Do some exercise in the morning. Physical activity gets your blood pumping, which clears away mental cobwebs and increases your energy for the rest of the day. Morning exercise will also increase your level of alertness as well.	28,551
The America Reads Challenge is a national initiative designed to address the fact that 40 percent of our country’s fourth graders read below level. This initiative, announced by President Clinton in 1996 and initially spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Education, aims to help every child read well and independently by the end of third grade. The America Reads Challenge asks every American to identify what role he or she can play – professionally and personally – to help achieve this goal. In response to President Clinton’s Challenge, Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS), Miami Dade College, the University of Miami, Florida International University, St. Thomas University, and Barry University joined forces to form the South Florida America Reads Coalition. Since its inception, other local colleges and universities have joined the coalition. Each college and university has committed Federal Work-Study funds to hire and place students as reading tutors. The M-DCPS Division of Language Arts and Reading developed a nationally recognized tutoring curriculum (Miami-Reads Tutorial Project). In addition, the department assists in coordinating training sessions and supporting all site personnel and college student tutors. The Miami-Reads Tutorial is a research based, one-on-one curriculum that targets first graders and provides individualized, 30-minute, tutoring sessions, two to three times a week. If you are interested in becoming an America Reads tutor, please contact: Rolanda Roxana Schand America Reads College-wide Cooridnator, Institute for Civic Engagement and Democracy (iCED) Miami Dade College – Homestead Campus Rm: A 108 Office: (305) 237- 5222 Fax: (305) 237-5156	155,317
Many solutions to climate change aim to reduce the amount of CO2 that is produced and released into the atmosphere. However, carbon capture, utilization and storage or sequestration (CCUS), often referred to as “carbon capture,” as its name suggests, actually removes carbon from the atmosphere. So, if we can simply remove CO2 from the atmosphere, why don’t we install these devices on every street corner and reverse the damage we’ve done? As you’ve probably guessed, the solution isn’t as simple as that. What is Carbon Capture? CCUS is a technology that comes in many forms but has two primary functions: capture CO2 directly out of the atmosphere or as it is produced in facilities. The captured carbon is then permanently stored underground or is used in other processes, such as the production of concrete and low-carbon synthetic fuels. This technology dates back to 1938 when it was first proposed, and the first large-scale project launched in 1972. Today, less than 30 commercial facilities are operating around the world, and most of these projects are in North America. Despite billions of dollars invested into CCUS, the industry has seen limited growth, while discussions about the technology’s value in fighting climate change are littered with skepticism. Even still, many countries around the world are continuing to invest in carbon capture technology and incorporating it into their net-zero strategies. Barriers to Growth for Carbon Capture Unfortunately, dozens of technical, economic, social, and political barriers restrict carbon capture technology’s potential. To list a few of many examples: - The immense costs, infrastructure and land required to implement this technology present an insurmountable logistical challenge. - Given the technical challenges of implementing CCUS systems, experts fear they cannot be scaled up in time to meet carbon reduction goals. - Companies can continue to burn fossil fuels as they rely on CCUS, prolonging the transition to clean energy. - Pipelines required to transport CO2 raise questions about health hazards and environmental risks. There are plenty of arguments against CCUS, but does this mean the billions of dollars invested into this technology have been wasted? Strategy is Key The fight against climate change has made it undoubtedly clear that we need a diverse range of solutions to solve humanity’s greatest challenge. As discussed in a previous EnvironBuzz publication, net zero must be achieved through a balance of reduced carbon emissions and carbon offsets. Though CCUS didn’t turn out to be the solution the world had hoped for, it will likely still play a vital role in reducing global emissions. Global carbon emissions are made up of both avoidable and unavoidable CO2. In other words, some sectors cannot be completely decarbonized. The cement industry is one example. Even if cement plants were powered with 100% renewable energy, cement itself is a product of a chemical reaction that produces CO2. Unfortunately, the rapid rate of urban expansion and lack of alternatives means that carbon emissions from this industry are not going away anytime soon, threatening the world’s progress towards net-zero. Carbon capture and storage can fill this gap where other advancements, such as ‘green’ cement, have yet to become a viable solution. The reality is that CCUS works, and its ability to capture CO2 has been proven. Though the carbon capture industry has yet to grow to the level where it can dominate the climate movement, in unison with other solutions, global net-zero goals can be achieved. Burrows, L. (2018, June 7). Team plans industrial-scale carbon removal plant. Harvard University. Retrieved February 1, 2023, from https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/06/seas-david-keith-has-a-plan-to-slash-costs-of-co2-capture/ Center for International Environmental Law. (2021). Confronting the myth of carbon-free fossil fuels. Retrieved February 2, 2023, from https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Confronting-the-Myth-of-Carbon-Free-Fossil-Fuels.pdf International Energy Agency. (2022). Cement. IEA. Retrieved February 1, 2023, from https://www.iea.org/reports/cement International Energy Agency. (2021, May). Net zero by 2050. IEA. Retrieved February 1, 2023, from https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050 Natural Resources Canada. (2023, January 9). Carbon Management Strategy (formerly known as the Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage Strategy). Government of Canada. Retrieved February 1, 2023, from https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/climate-change/canadas-green-future/carbon-capture-utilization-and-storage-strategy/23721 Varanasi, A. \|S. (2019, September 27). You asked: Does carbon capture technology actually work? Columbia Climate School. Retrieved February 1, 2023, from https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2019/09/27/carbon-capture-technology/#:~:text=The%20first%20carbon%20capture%20plant,Sleipner%2C%20in%20the%20North%20Sea. Viebahn, P., & Chappin, E. (2018). Scrutinising the gap between the expected and actual deployment of carbon capture and storage—a bibliometric analysis. Energies, 11(9), 2319. https://doi.org/10.3390/en11092319	161,569
UNITED STATES (www.incnow.tv) -- 2011 resulted in a record low birth rate for the United States. At a rate of 12.7 per 1,000 people, the birth rate is at the lowest ever reported for the nation. In a report published in the March 2013 issue of Pediatrics by Brady Hamilton PhD, of the CDC in Atlanta, and colleagues at the agency and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, 3,953,593 babies were born in the U.S., which is 1% fewer than in 2010 and 4% fewer than in 2009. General fertility rates fell by 1% as well hit a record low of 63.2. This rate is defined as the number of birth per 1,000 women ages 15 through 44. The birth rate among teens (15-19) fell by 8% which established the rate at a historic low of 31.3 birth per 1,000 women. This is down 49% from 1991, which was the most recent peak in teen birth rates. Rates fell for 20- to 29-year-old's and rose for women 35 through 44. What are your thoughts CLICK HERE to leave us a "Your2Cents” comment. © Copyright 2013 A Granite Broadcasting Station. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.	72,876
- MORE ON VITALITY "The language is endangered, as it is beginning to lose child speakers... Of the roughly thirty-five communities where Dupaningan Agta people live, the language is no longer learned by children in five... Even in places where children know Dupaningan, those children often reply in Ilokano when spoken to in Dupaningan... without drastic change, the Dupaningan Agta language will die out within the next few generations." - OTHER LANGUAGES USED BY THE COMMUNITY - LANGUAGE CONTEXT COMMENTS "Every Dupaningan speaker is completely bilingual in Ilokano." - Scripts (Writing system) - More on Orthography "SIL in Bolos Point has taught a handful of Dupaningan to read and write in their own language, and these people in turn have taught much of the rest of the community, so that Bolos Point has the highest literacy rate of any Dupaningan Agta community."	41,947
Beams of protons were colliding with each other inside the Large Hadron Collider on Tuesday, for the first time since the world's most powerful particle accelerator was shut down for repairs and upgrades two years ago. Europe's CERN particle physics center said the collisions resumed at a relatively low level — 450 billion electron volts per beam, or 450 GeV, for a total energy of 900 GeV. At the end of its previous run, the LHC was smashing protons at energies of 8 trillion electron volts, or 8 TeV, and CERN plans to have it hit 13 TeV by the end of the year. Data from the LHC confirmed the existence of the Higgs boson in 2012, providing the last puzzle piece for the Standard Model, a theory that describes how fundamental subatomic particles should work together. It's one of the most successful theories in physics, but thousands of researchers are hoping that the LHC's next run will taken them into new territory beyond the Standard Model. Flash Interactive: Inside the Big Bang Machine To get the $10 billion LHC ready for its ramp-up, the 17-mile-round (27-kilometer-round) underground superconducting ring was closed down in early 2013. Engineers replaced the interconnections between the LHC's powerful magnets to make sure they could stand up to the higher power levels. A month ago, CERN resumed circulating proton beams around the magnet ring, but the team held off on having the beams collide until Tuesday. Proton-on-proton collisions were delivered to all four of the LHC's detectors — ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb. CERN said the shots will be used to fine-tune the detectors. "Each low-energy collision sends showers of particles flying through an experiment's many layers," CERN explained in Tuesday's statement. "The experimental teams can use this data to check their subdetectors and ensure they fire in the correct place at the precise instant that a particle passes." CERN said the LHC's operations team was about halfway through an eight-week schedule to prepare the beams for the full-scale scientific run. The collision energy will be raised to 13 TeV over the next month or so, and scientific data will be taken starting in early June. World's Most Complex Machine Gets Ready for More Atom-SmashingMarch 11, 201502:23 Gallery: Biggest Particle Smasher Gets an Overhaul One of the objectives will be to follow up on the Higgs boson's detection with more detailed measurements of its characteristics. But the research teams will also look for evidence of exotic phenomena ranging from dark matter particles to microscopic black holes and extra dimensions. Back in February, ATLAS physicist Beate Heinemann told reporters that the evidence could emerge as soon as August or September. But Matt Strassler, a theoretical physicist who's a visiting professor at Harvard University, says it could take much longer to nail down a definitive discovery of dark matter particles. "It requires several fortunate things to happen in a row," Strassler wrote in a preview of the LHC's upcoming scientific campaign, "so while it's not impossible, don't hold your breath. More likely, if it happens, it will take quite a while, perhaps decades." Theoretical physicist Matt Strassler will discuss the prospects for discoveries at the LHC with NBC News' Alan Boyle on Wednesday's installment of "Virtually Speaking Science," an hourlong talk show airing at 8 p.m. ET via BlogTalkRadio. You can also watch the show as part of a live virtual audience in the Exploratorium's Second Life auditorium. If you miss the live show, never fear: You can always catch up with the podcast in BlogTalkRadio's archive or on iTunes. April's show featured a discussion about private-sector spaceflight with Virgin Galactic's Will Pomerantz.	50,477
As the state works toward sharply lowering its limit on arsenic in drinking water by mid-2021, recent testing data shows dozens of public water systems will likely be out of compliance with that new standard. New Hampshire is only the second state, after New Jersey, where lawmakers have approved a lower arsenic standard of 5 parts per billion. That’s half of the current federal default of 10 ppb. Arsenic exposure has long been linked to bladder, lung and skin cancer, and more recent science shows it can also elevate risks of cardiovascular, developmental and birth problems. Paul Susca of the drinking water bureau at the state Department of Environmental Services says this is a big reason that regulators and legislators sought to lower the state’s arsenic limit. “The current federal standard of 10 [ppb] is just not sufficiently protective of public health – that was our finding,” Susca says. Sampling data between 2015 and 2017, newly analyzed in the nonprofit Environmental Working Group’s Tap Water Database, showed around 70 New Hampshire water systems with arsenic levels above 5 ppb, which would put them out of compliance with the new standard. They include the water utilities for Rollinsford, Colebrook and Epping, each of which serves more than 1,000 customers. Those systems did not immediately respond to requests for comment. (Scroll down to search for your utility in the 2015 to 2017 testing results analyzed by EWG.) Susca says more recent sampling this year and last puts even more systems in the new noncompliant range - at least 120 total. That’s on top of nearly 200 that already have to treat for arsenic under the current higher standard. Susca says regulators began this month to plan the rulemaking process for lowering the arsenic limit, in hopes of finalizing it by next spring and implementing it by July 2021. As part of that, he says officials are reaching out to potentially affected water systems about how they’ll reduce their arsenic levels when the new limit takes effect. “For those that are already treating, mostly it will involve just changing the [arsenic-absorbing] treatment medium more frequently,” Susca says. “And that can be pretty costly.” A 2018 state report estimated that compliance with a 5 ppb standard would cost all public water systems a total of just under a million dollars. The report said small systems, especially those serving fewer than 1,000 people, would likely incur the greatest costs. "We're going to be encouraging systems to be proactive about this," Susca says. New Hampshire has high levels of naturally occurring arsenic in its groundwater due to the makeup of its bedrock, especially in the Southeastern part of the state. Research says this may be one reason the state has some of the highest cancer rates in the country. A UNH study cited in DES's 2018 analysis says halving the state’s arsenic standard would help avoid dozens of cancer cases. The standard will not apply to private wells, which aren’t subject to testing requirements. But Susca says an estimated 30 percent of private well water supplies contain arsenic above 5 ppb – so he says those well users are also encouraged to comply with the new law. A 2014 Dartmouth study found that nearly 40,000 New Hampshire households, or more than 90,000 residents, were drinking private well water with an arsenic level above 5 ppb. The arsenic change will come on the heels of a more controversial drinking water reform – the introduction of four, strict new limits on PFAS chemicals. These and the arsenic standard are some of the only enforceable drinking water limits where the state has split from federal regulations. But Susca says the PFAS standards are different, in part, because they aren’t already subject to any testing or treatment requirements – unlike arsenic. That means systems found to have elevated levels of PFAS will more likely have to make new investments. The PFAS standards have been in effect less than a month, meaning systems are just beginning the testing to see if their average PFAS levels will be elevated over the next year. Those standards are already being challenged in court. Critics have cited, in part, the detailed cost-benefit analysis performed in 2018 for the new arsenic standard. They say a similar study should have been used to justify the new PFAS rules. The state has argued that’s not required. It also would have been far more challenging for PFAS, where the science is newer and less settled than it is for arsenic.	163,213
Constipation is a common problem in cats and in a severe form called “megacolon,” the large intestine actually becomes enlarged and filled with hard fecal material. What are constipation and megacolon? Constipation actually refers to a condition in which the time it takes for the ingested food to travel through the digestive system is prolonged. As a result, the feces are usually dry and hard. The term “obstipation” refers to prolonged constipation. In some cats, megacolon develops, in which the large intestine becomes enlarged and filled with hard fecal material. What causes megacolon? There are multiple causes of constipation and megacolon. In almost two-thirds of the cases, the condition is termed “idiopathic megacolon” because the cause cannot be found, however, it is thought to be due to an abnormality in the smooth muscle of the large intestine. Other causes include a narrowing of the pelvic area (often due to pelvic fractures), nerve injury, or spinal cord deformities seen especially in Manx cats. Much more rare causes include cancer and inflammation. What are the risk factors for constipation and megacolon in the cat? Constipation and megacolon may be seen in cats of any age, breed and gender, however they are more commonly seen in middle-age cats and domestic shorthair cats. Male cats appear to be twice as likely to develop these conditions when compared to female cats. Some feel that a sedentary lifestyle may contribute to the development of constipation and ultimately megacolon. Obesity may adversely affect the course of the disease. What are the symptoms of constipation and megacolon in cats? The symptoms found in cats with constipation and megacolon depend upon the severity of the condition. In almost all cases, the owner will notice the stool is reduced or absent and is hard and dry. The cat may be found straining in the litter box. Some cats will spend long periods of time simply standing in the litter box or may continue to return to the litter box to try to defecate. The cat may defecate outside of the litter box. If there’s severe straining, mucous or blood may be passed. Occasionally a cat will develop diarrhea because the feces are irritating the intestine. The cat may vomit, and even vomit while he is straining to pass stool. As the condition becomes more severe, the appetite may be decreased and weight loss is often noted. Ultimately, the cat may become lethargic and dehydrated. If the cat has pelvic or nerve injuries, urinary incontinence may be seen. How are constipation and megacolon diagnosed? The diagnosis of constipation and megacolon are usually based on the history as well as results of a physical examination, including a complete neurological exam. A complete blood count (CBC), chemistry panel, and urinalysis are performed to rule out other health problems. Usually a thyroid test is recommended as well. Abdominal radiographs (x-rays) are evaluated to identify predisposing factors such as a narrowing of the pelvis or foreign bodies within the intestine. A barium series may be recommended, as well as a colonoscopy, which would require anesthesia. How are constipation and megacolon treated? The treatment of constipation and megacolon will depend upon the severity of the condition. Simple constipation may resolve on its own with time. Mild constipation generally responds to a diet change in which more fiber is added to the diet. This may be accomplished by switching the cat to a commercial diet with increased fiber, or alternatively, adding psyllium, wheat bran, or pumpkin to each meal. It’s very important that cats drink more water when they are on these diets. Suppositories may also be used. If the constipation becomes more severe or recurs, the cat usually needs to be hospitalized so the dehydration can be corrected. The cat may require several anesthesias as he receives enemas to remove the hardened fecal material. Enemas should only be given by a veterinarian, and sodium phosphate enemas (such as Fleet brand) should never be used as they can be deadly to cats. Usually, the cat will be started on an oral medication called “cisapride,” which is given to stimulate the movement of food through the digestive tract. It’s not available as a commercial product, but is available by prescription through compounding pharmacies. Cisapride is in a class of medications called “colonic prokinetic agents.” Other drugs in this class include ranitidine and nizatidine. Another medication called “lactulose” may also be administered. Lactulose is a type of laxative and also softens the stool. If the cat does not respond to this treatment, other laxatives may be tried. In addition, a diet that is highly digestible and will result in less fecal material should be used instead of the fiber-supplemented diet. High fiber diets should not be used in cats with chronic constipation or megacolon; instead all-meat diets are recommended. Many cats diagnosed with megacolon do not respond adequately, and surgery is the only option. A colectomy, or removal of the colon is performed. In general, the prognosis is favorable, although some cats may experience diarrhea for weeks to months after the surgery. For cats with abnormal narrowing of the pelvis, surgery can be performed to make the pelvic opening wider.	33,171
by Anne M Stark for LLNL Los Angeles CA (SPX) Dec 07, 2011 By focusing proton beams using high-intensity lasers, a team of scientists have discovered a new way to heat material and create new states of matter in the laboratory. Researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California, San Diego; Los Alamos National Laboratory; Hemoltz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf of Germany; Technische Universitat Darmstadt of Germany, and General Atomics of San Diego unveiled new findings about how proton beams can be used in myriad applications. Using the Trident sub-picosecond laser at Los Alamos, the team generated and focused a proton beam using a cone-shaped target. The protons were found to have unexpectedly curved trajectories due to the large electric fields in the beam. A sheath electric field also channeled the proton beam through the cone tip, substantially improving the beam focus. "These results agree well with our particle simulations and provide the physics basis for many future applications," said Mark Foord, one of the LLNL scientists on the team. Other Livermore researchers include lead author Teresa Bartal (also a UCSD Ph.D student and Lawrence scholar), Claudio Bellei, Michael Key, Pravesh Patel, Drew Higginson and Harry McLean. The research appears in the Dec. 4 issue of the journal, Nature Physics. Bartal said the experiments provide a new understanding of the physics involved in proton focusing, which affects how proton beams can be used in the future - from heating material to creating new types of matter that couldn't be made by any other means, to medical applications and insights into planetary science. "The ability to generate high-intensity well-focused proton beams can open the door to new regimes in high-energy density science," Bartal said. One example includes focusing a proton beam on a solid density or compressed material creating millions of atmospheres of pressure, allowing the study of the properties of warm dense matter found in the interior of giant planets such as Jupiter. The UCSD team was led by Farhat Beg of Jacobs School of Engineering and several of his students participated in this experiment. "This work has given a new direction to the conventional thinking of proton beam focusing in short-pulse laser matter interaction," Beg said. "Surely it will impact heating of pre-compressed materials to temperatures observed at the core of the sun and any future applications in proton oncology using high-intensity lasers." Laser-produced proton beams also are making an impact on medical applications such as isotope production for positron emission tomography (PET) and proton oncology. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Space Technology News - Applications and Research Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login. Thinner thermal insulation Freising, Germany (SPX) Dec 06, 2011 Insulation panels that are both thin and effective are expensive. At present these high-end products are built into energy-saving refrigerators. Innovative components and production techniques are now set to sink the costs - so that private home-builders can also benefit from the new technology. In Germany, the rising cost of heating has sparked a renovation boom. In order to lower energy ... read more \|The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2012 - Space Media Network. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement\|	151,252
Signup for the Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice. \|A. Wilson: Removing the Curse of the Cross\| \|By Dr. Andrew Wilson, Associate Professor of Biblical Studies, Unification Theological Seminary, Barrytown, USA\| \|Sunday, May 18, 2003\| Address to the Middle East Peace Initiative Genuine and lasting peace requires moving beyond secularism to build a society in which people of different religions can talk together about God and affirm common values about God. The major focus of my life’s work has been to seek these universal values. I wrote World Scripture: A Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts (Paragon House, 1991), attempting to identify values shared among many faiths. In surveying the sacred writings of the world’s religions on more than 150 topics, I found that they agree more than 80 percent of the time. Whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu or Taoist, ethics and attitudes towards life, death, and ultimate reality are surprisingly similar. This will not be surprising to anyone who believes in the One God who reveals aspects of Himself through all true religion. Recognition of the universality of religious and moral values can surely help knit together the human family. Nevertheless, there remains the fact that religions continue to deny and disparage each other’s treasured objects of faith. Christians reject the salvific value of the Law. Jews deny Jesus. Their central narratives recount stories of conflict and contests of competing worldviews. Hence, while we can affirm common ground—a good first step—it does not get to the nub of the problem. Judaism, Christianity and Islam were each born in the fires of conflict and rejection by the dominant religion of the age. The historical conflicts present at their founding have congealed as permanent religious attitudes towards the other religion, cast as the faithless infidel. Theological disagreements have persisted, becoming core articles of faith. Nevertheless, whether we are Jew, Christian or Muslim, we have one God as our Father. As any par-ent would, God would want us to resolve these conflicts. On this occasion, we Christians and Jews find ourselves sitting together like two families at our children’s wedding. We want to get along with our new in-laws, so we make pleasantries and stay on our best behavior. Yet underneath there are thoughts left unspoken, of dirty linen and unpleasant memories. We remember only a few generations ago when our families would not even speak to one another, so deep was the pain and hurt. Today I invite us to take a daring step and look squarely at the core of the Jewish-Christian divide. "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord" (Isaiah 1:18), and perhaps we can break through to a new level of reconciliation and mutual respect. I do not seek the conversion of anyone, Jew or Christian. On the contrary, I seek the way by which Jews and Christians can give genuine respect to each other’s faiths, respect that has been lacking until now. Given the sensitive nature of this topic, I beg that you will forgive any offense these remarks may cause. The Jewish-Christian Divide Christians readily affirm that their God is the same God as the God of the Jews—the God of Abraham. Yet they have a different understanding of God, in particular about the way God has acted in history centering on the person of Jesus of Nazareth. From a Christian viewpoint, God’s purpose in estab-lishing the Jewish people was to have them receive the messiah. Jesus of Nazareth came as the messiah, but the Jews did not receive him. As a result, Christianity was born as new religion to carry on where Judaism left off. Christians regard Jews as having a defective doctrine of God, since they deny the truth that God made Himself more accessible to humanity by incarnating as Jesus Christ. Therefore—and I will be perfectly frank—while in polite company they may praise Judaism as a great religion, in their heart of hearts many Christians look down upon the Jews, as Rev. Billy Graham did when he reportedly made disparaging remarks in an unguarded conversation with U.S. President Nixon. New Testament teachings are quite definitive as to the stubborn disbelief of the Jews. Moreover, a people who would cling so tenaciously to the sin of denying Jesus Christ would surely also be prone to base attitudes in other areas of life: hence the Jew’s sup-posed greed and venality. Jews, for their part, regard the religious path of Torah as entirely adequate. They are offended by Christian misrepresentations of their religion, which are found scattered about the New Testament. They do not see any superiority in Jesus’ ethics over that of the best rabbis. Jews don't believe that Jesus was any kind of messiah. After all, Jesus never accom-plished what the messiah is supposed to do: liberate Israel from Roman oppression, bring back the Jews from exile to the Holy Land, and establish world peace. The world after Jesus was still filled with violence and oppression, and for Jews it grew much worse. Ask most Jews what they honestly think about Jesus, and you will find a deep bitterness. Jesus was the starting point for the painful history of Christian anti-Semitism. Centuries of Christian violence against Jews: mob violence, pillaging, rape, confinement to ghettos, forcible abduction of children to be baptized as Christians, expulsions from many nations and finally the Holocaust, have poisoned the minds of Jews from being able to appreciate the goodness of Jesus Christ. Christian anti-Semitism, and the resulting Jewish resentment of Christianity, remains a spiritual weight, the congealed pain of tens of millions of people who lived and died through that persecution. It is a continuing factor in hindering the Jewish-Christian relationship. Christians ask Jews, "Do you really have to reject Jesus? Look at what a wonderful man Jesus was!" Jews cannot even begin to answer this question without feelings of rage: "How dare you Christians ask us to believe in Jesus! You never stop trying to convert us! Leave us alone, and let us live our lives in peace!" The 2,000-year history of conflict between Judaism and Christianity has made rejection of Jesus the very essence of a Jew’s religious identity. Today, Christians are repenting for anti-Semitism. They see it as their own failing to live up the teachings of Jesus, who preached forgiveness and love. They recognize it as their problem, a horri-ble sin and a blot on Christian history. Mere coexistence among religions is not a sure foundation for peace. Peace must be based upon reconstituting the family of Abraham, with genuine love and respect for one another. This will require repentance for the mistakes of the past. We want to overcome the pain of the past and establish a heart-felt, emotional bond of love, because in the Kingdom of God all religions are siblings in God’s family. Repentance should be a mutual process, but in practice the relationship between Jews and Christians is asymmetrical. Jews feel a deeper sense of victimization and oppression than do Christians. As in the relationship between Blacks and Whites, people don’t speak about Black racism in the same way that they speak of White racism; racism by definition comes from the powerful. The victimized group needs to experience the comfort of the more powerful side making amends before it can move. Conversely, the side that feels more confident of its blessings and of God's love has the emotional resources to initiate reconciliation. Christianity has begun the process of repenting for its anti-Semitic past. This repentance is taking place on two levels: First there is repentance over historical wrongs, such as the Holocaust. The second level is self-reflection on doctrine, to determine what teachings, if any, led Christians to commit such historical wrongs. Today this self-examination is penetrating even as far as the New Testament itself. The Shadow of the Cross By any reckoning, the central New Testament doctrine containing a taint of anti-Jewish animus is the crucifixion. In this regard, the Catholic writer James Carroll’s best-selling textbook, Constantine's Sword (Houghton-Mifflin, 2001) offers a serious critique of the Christian doctrine of the cross. He begins with the celebrated incident of the giant, 12-foot cross at Auschwitz, erected by Catholic nuns, at which many Jews have taken offense. What to Christians is a symbol of Christ’s triumph over death is to Jews a desecration of a cemetery containing more than a million Jewish dead. Seeing that Christianity’s singular focus on the crucifixion of Jesus is most responsible for anti-Semitism, Carroll calls on Christians to de-emphasize the cross. Specifically: The cross divides Christian from Jew, because it contains a shadow side. By focusing Christian faith entirely on the death of Jesus, it points the finger of condemnation at his killers. Christian mobs were always most likely to rampage in Jewish neighbor-hoods around Easter. The cross is a symbol of judgment—one is either standing with Christians who are ransomed by the blood of the cross or standing with the Jews and Romans who mocked Jesus on the cross. It thus symbolizes the conflict out of which Christianity began, when the church stood over against all other religions. The cross is a symbol of hegemony. Under Constantine, it was a symbol of Christ triumphant over the pagans. Later, emblazoned on the shields of the Crusaders, it became a hated symbol of Christian power to the Muslims. The cross was only elevated as the central Christian symbol in the days of Constantine. The earliest Christians, who would have regarded it as an instrument of execution, did not use it. They were more interested in the person, life and teachings of Jesus. Hence in the catacombs Jesus is symbolized by the fish and the chi-rho. Christian soteriology need not be dependent on the cross. Jesus’ life can be seen as redemptive in itself. Jesus’ forgiveness and love of his enemies can be seen as redemptive. The resurrection can be seen as the locus of redemption. I would agree with Carroll, and ask Christians whether they are well served by focusing on the cross as the central element of their faith. No one can deny that the passion and crucifixion of Jesus was the high point of the drama of salvation. The conflict is certainly dramatic; yet it leaves the lasting impression of a conflicted humanity, a portion of which remains at odds with God’s purposes. There is no conflict in God. Yet whenever Christians remember Jesus on the cross, they cannot help but also remember the Jews and Romans who were responsible for putting him there. By emphasizing the act of rejecting and crucifying Jesus Christ, the cross sets up a high wall between those who accept Jesus and those who do not. While it is glorious to bask in the redemption of the cross, it is quite another thing for those who are condemned in its shadow. Yet Jesus came for everyone, especially the lost sheep. While on the cross, he forgave his enemies who put him there. With his resurrection from the grave, Jesus said "Yes," overcoming all those who would say "No" to the will of God. He visited and taught his despondent disciples, giving the faithless Peter another chance. I believe that Jesus, who came to tear down all the walls between peoples, has been pained to see new walls of religious intolerance erected at his death—especially the wall between Christians and the Jews, his own flesh and blood. Christians are beginning to ask the question: did God truly intend that Jesus be hung on the cross and killed? What if the Jews of 2,000 years ago had believed in Jesus, would they have allowed him to be crucified? Surely God did not prepare Israel with painstaking care for 2,000 years only to have them reject the messiah when he came. Jesus called on the people to believe in him. If the people had believed, they would have honored Jesus as a Jew. Jesus’ followers would not have needed to erect a separate religion called Christianity. As Rev. Moon teaches, God never intended for Jesus to face the circumstances of the cross. His intention was for Jesus to build God's kingdom on the foundation of acceptance and support by the people to whom he came. Rather, the cross dashed God’s hopes and frustrated Jesus’ desire to establish God’s kingdom on earth during his lifetime. Only when his circumstances became intolerable did Jesus determine to go the way of the cross. The salvation it brought was the best that Jesus could salvage out of a bad situation. Jesus’ life displayed God's saving and reconciling love. His love was so true that he was willing to lay down his life for a people who didn't accept him, who were ignorant of who he was or what he came to do. Yet on the way to the cross he lamented, "Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hid from your eyes." (Luke 19:42, RSV) Jesus’ heart was to fulfill God’s great will to establish one worldwide nation of God. He meant to accomplish this by peaceful means. Thus, in asking Christians to take down the cross, Rev. Moon is calling the churches to focus on Jesus’ original purpose and fulfill the peace he came to bring. The Christian clergy who are here today have taken down the cross from their churches. Particularly the African-American clergy are beginning to recognize the injustice in what Jesus suffered, oppression all too familiar to their people who endured lynchings and the slave-master’s whip. As they do, the conventional glorification of the cross rings hollow. They also stand in solidarity with the Jews and their suffering. None of it is justifiable; none of it was God’s will. These clergy are learning the true heart of Jesus, who came to bring peace and not division. Today when religious conflict threatens humanity’s survival, they are stepping forward as Christians who follow Jesus’ example in loving their enemies, above all the Jews who are of the Lord’s flesh and blood. This is not some cheap compromise or cosmetic change. It is not an action taken to appease Judaism. Rather, taking down the cross is to glimpse the living Christ. It is like lifting a veil that has obscured the Spirit of God. (2 Corinthians 3:16) When they take down the cross, these clergy discover a deeper relationship with the living Christ than anything they had known by fixing their faith on the crucified Lord. They are fixing their faith on God’s will and God’s original purpose in sending the messiah, which is to reconcile the human family to God. This is the core of the Christian message: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son." (John 3:16) God does not love only Christians; He cares for all people. This message cries out poignantly from the bloodstained stones of the Holy Land, for those who have ears to hear. Jesus the Jewish Messiah As mentioned above, the Jewish understand the messiah to be the one who establishes the Kingdom of God as a socio-political reality on earth. Jesus on the cross, who offers salvation in spirit to an unredeemed world, did not satisfy the Jewish criteria for the messiah. This is a key reason why Jews do not take Christian messianic claims for Jesus seriously. God had been educating Israel to expect a messiah who would build the Kingdom of God; therefore, faithful Jews can only recognize the messiah in his mode of glory. The messiah is not supposed to die on the cross and leave the world in a shambles; that is why Paul called the cross a "stumbling block" to the Jews. (1 Corinthinas 1:23) Moreover, Christianity arose in the shadow of the cross, after Easter. As its doctrines developed, they appealed not to Jews, but to pagans in the Roman world who were looking for a relationship with God—in other words, for salvation. (Jews already have a relationship with God through the covenant.) Hence Christianity took shape as a separate religion, with such un-Jewish doctrines as redemption by the blood of the cross, the divinity of Christ, and the Trinity. The pages of the New Testament are full of misrepresentations of Judaism as the apostles sought to foster faith in their distinctive community and guard it from pressures to "Judaize." Christianity prospered as it made the transition into a Gentile world and jettisoned most of its Jewish roots. Christianity evolved, separated from Judaism by the cross, to become something non-Jewish. Yet if we consider the possibility that Jesus’ orig-inal mission was not to die on the cross, then a remarkable convergence becomes possible. Maybe Jesus came to fulfill all the messianic promises that God made to the Jews, but only on the condition that the people accepted him and worked with him to do so. A look at the life of Moses and his travails in leading the people through the wilderness to the Promised Land certainly confirms the notion that a divinely appointed liberator needs the people’s support. Few Jews feel it is emotionally safe to consider the possibility that Jesus came as the messiah to the Jews. As a Jew myself, I know that the internal source of the fury behind the Jewish "No" to Jesus lies in the deep resentment Jews feel against Christianity for its centuries of anti-Semitism. Yet today, with Christian repentance easing the sting of anti-Semitism, it may be possible for Jews to recon-sider the life of the greatest Jew who ever lived. Maimonides recognized Jesus of Nazareth as the greatest son of Judaism, the world teacher who brought light and a great civilizing and spiritual influence to the entire world. Not many Jews would say that today, but I believe the Jewish establishment ought to go there. The Jewish "No" to Jesus is the obverse of the Christian cross. It is the perpetuation of a vulgar human conflict from the first century C.E. involving people of dubious merit. Those who condemned Jesus were not the great lights of Judaism, not Hillel or Akiba, but quislings like the high priest Caiaphas, who sought to maintain the peace of Roman rule and who said, "It is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people." (John 11:50) Yet their unconsidered judgment became hardened and fixed as a perpetual religious attitude. Most Christians today recognize that it is illegitimate to hold all Jews responsible for the actions of a few self-interested and corrupt leaders 2,000 years ago who condemned Jesus and handed him over to the Romans. By the same token, Jews today need not feel bound to follow those same leaders in their condemnation. Harmony among the Abrahamic faiths, who all assert the same God, requires that each religion view the core revelations of the others in good faith. God, who is the source of all religion, does not give contradictory messages. Therefore, in the interests of peace, I believe Jews should be open to consider-ing the possibility that God chose Jesus of Nazareth to undertake a messianic mission. This is the step not yet taken in interreligious dialogue. Today I challenge the Jewish community to make that step. For a Jew to take seriously the messianic claim for Jesus of Nazareth does not mean converting to Christianity. After all, Muslims call Jesus "messiah"—in their own terms. This proposal hinges on letting each religion work within its particular understandings of the meaning of the word "messiah." The clergy here today are decoupling a Christian understanding of Jesus’ messianic mission from the particular circumstances of the cross. They are approach-ing Jesus from the point of view of his life and teachings as recorded in the Gospels. Likewise, Jews can appropriate Jesus utilizing the resources of Jewish tradition. A number of Jewish scholars are already declaring that Jews might begin to appreciate "Rabbi Jesus," a teacher with a profound understanding of Torah and a practitioner of tikkun [a Hebrew word often translated as repairing the world]. Lifting the Curse of the Cross When Jesus was nailed to the cross 2,000 years ago on Calvary, those nails also fixed an historical wall dividing Judaism from Christianity. Christian faith in the crucified Christ has been utterly foreign to Judaism. At the same time, as Christianity rede-fined the meaning of messiah in light of the cross, it denigrated Jewish messianic hopes as worldly and materialistic. To break down that dividing wall, the cross must come down first. Until then, the cross remains a curse (Galatians 3:13), an insuperable obstacle to resolving the conflict between these brother religions. Judaism and Christianity each has a road to travel if they are to arrive at a place beyond the cross where they can embrace their brother, where they can be reconciled from the bottom of their hearts. Today, as Christians are taking down the cross, they can begin to see a new image of Jesus of Nazareth as he lived on earth. He was a Jew! Can Jews likewise recognize him as one of their own? Can there come a time when Jews appreciate Jesus as a righteous Jew, as a teacher and rabbi whose words recorded in the Sermon on the Mount are in accord with the best teachings of the sages? Can there come a time when Jews regard the crucifixion of Jesus as a tragic event in the history of their people, similar to the persecution and slay-ing of the prophets at the hands of unrighteous kings? Can there come a time when Jews and Christians look upon the death of Jesus with a heart of sorrow, seeing in his tragic death the frustration of God’s hopes and the beginning of two millennia of painful separation and mistrust among God’s children? Can there come a time when Jews and Christians together mourn Jesus’ death on the cross, mourn that a man sent by God on a divine errand could not fully complete the messianic mission to build the Kingdom of Heaven in his day? Can they observe those events with repentance, considering whether they would have had the wisdom to recognize him had he appeared in their midst? When that day of repentance and reconciliation arrives, it will heal the historical rift between Judaism and Christianity, and lift the curse of the cross.	137,681
They may look like mini-torpedoes, yet exclusively serve peaceful purposes. The payload of the two-metre-long yellow diving robots consists of modern electronics, sensors and high-performance batteries. With these devices the marine scientists can collect selective measurements from the ocean interior while staying ashore themselves. Moreover, the gliders not only transmit the data in real time, but they can be reached by the scientists via satellite telephone and programmed with new mission parameters. As such the new robots represent an important supplement to previous marine sensor platforms. "Ten year ago we started to explore the ocean systematically with profiling drifters. Today more than 3000 of these devices constantly provide data from the ocean interior," explains Professor Torsten Kanzow, oceanographer at IFM-GEOMAR. This highly successful programme has one major disadvantage: the pathways of the drifters cannot be controlled. "The new gliders have no direct motor, either. But with their small wings they move forward like sailplanes under water," says Dr. Gerd Krahmann, a colleague of Professor Kanzow. In a zigzag movement, the glider cycles between a maximum depth of 1000 metres and the sea surface. "By telephone we can 'talk' to the glider and upload a new course everytime it comes up," explains Krahmann. A glider can carry out autonomous missions for weeks or even months. Every glider is equipped with instruments to measure temperature, salinity, oxygen and chlorophyll content as well as the turbidity of the sea water. The IFM-GEOMAR has been the first institute in Europe to be committed to the new technology. "We tested different devices and we had to learn the hard way, too," oceanographer Dr. Johannes Karstensen says. "This way we have been able to contribute to the glider development, and now we have gathered knowledge required for successful glider operations," he adds. Within the context of a special investment IFM-GEOMAR was able to obtain six new gliders adding to a total of nine altogether, which is the biggest fleet of that kind in Europe. Manufacturer of the IFM-GEOMAR-gliders is the Teledyne Webb Research Inc. in the USA. A very successful mission using a single glider took place between August and October 2009 in the Atlantic Ocean, south of the Cape Verde Islands. The robot carried out measurements along a more than 1000 kilometres long track autonomously, before it was recovered by the German research vessel METEOR. The data collected are accessible online at http://gliderweb.ifm-geomar.de/html/ifm03_depl05_frame.html. Now, for the first time the scientists in Kiel prepare a whole fleet of gliders for a concerted mission. After final tests the robots will be released mid-March 2010 at about 60 nautical miles north-east of the Cape Verde Island of Sao Vicente. For two months they will investigate physical and biogeochemical quantities of the Atlantic Ocean around the oceanographic long-term observatory TENATSO. Goals of the experiment lead jointly by Prof. Torsten Kanzow, Prof. Julie LaRoche (marine biology) and Prof. Arne Körtzinger (marine chemistry) are to get new insights into water circulation and stratification as well as their impact on chemical and biological processes. With the glider swarm the scientists can sample a complete "sea-volume" and not just a single point or a single cross-section in the ocean. The gliders will be remotely controlled from a control centre at the IFM-GEOMAR in Kiel. "This technology enables us to observe the upper layers of the ocean much more effectively and thus much less expensive than previously," says Prof. Dr. Martin Visbeck, Deputy Director of the IFM-GEOMAR and Head of the research division Ocean Circulation and Climate Dynamics.	1,122
A hug is a universal medicine, it is how we handshake from the heart. -Anonymous For decades we’ve known that babies won’t thrive without physical holding and affection. There is little that will comfort and settle small children as the warm embrace of their family. Yet it is still not uncommon for parents to stop hugging their kids as they reach puberty. And for many adults, the amount of physical nurturing we receive declines as we age, even as medical studies confirm that the health benefits of physical touch extend throughout our lives. We lose touch with each other early in our adult lives as our needs for physical affection are confused with our emerging sexuality. Our discomfort and lack of understanding about our sexuality inadvertently colors our capacity to connect even in something as benign as a hug. I listened with both shock and grief as my 13-year-old daughter shared how she was warned at school with a PDA for hugging her boyfriend. “You can’t hug for more than 2 seconds,” she said. Much of our mistrust of physical affection is learned and the rigid personal boundary space we establish in response often only serves to later prevent our earnest desires to connect. Virgina Satir, who was often referred to as the mother of family therapy, determined that “We need four hugs a day for survival. We need eight hugs a day for maintenance. We need twelve hugs a day for growth.” Her presumption is backed by research, which consistently demonstrates that our emotional wellbeing is deeply impacted by the physical love we experience and that touch and hugging are primary vehicles in the brain’s development of basic positive emotions. According to Linda Blair, a clinical psychologist at Bath University, “Touch affects the cerebellar brain system, an area of the brain where basic positive emotions such as trust and affection probably come from.” Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.	40,506
Every year locals from Golden Bay on the prime of New Zealand’s South Island know to anticipate a whale beaching at a slim strip of sand curving into the Prepare dinner Strait, often called Farewell Spit. Ben Collins seems to be at what makes the world so lethal. Every year, in accordance with the conservation group Project Jonah, round 300 dolphins and whales turn out to be stranded in New Zealand. Many of those incidents happen at Farewell Spit, a skinny arc of sand on the prime of the South Island which separates a shallow bay from the open ocean. Final week, greater than 400 pilot whales grew to become stranded on this 5km-long (three mile-long) stretch and, whereas some had been saved by conservation officers and volunteers in a determined rescue effort, most died. The beachings happen in the summertime months, in accordance with Gary Riordan, who’s 62 and has lived within the space for many of his life. “It just about occurs yearly,” says Mr Riordan, who runs a beachside camp floor not removed from the place they usually turn out to be stranded. “There’s a number of theories on the market as to why it occurs, however on the finish of the day I believe there’s 4 or 5 hotspots the place they strand [in New Zealand], and the one factor all of them have in frequent is shallow water.” “So far as usually goes: It is just about seasonal, at all times round January or February. It is one thing that the locals anticipate yearly about this time.” Joanna Wheaton, who additionally lives within the space, mentioned she was pleasantly shocked there wasn’t a mass stranding in 2016. “Farewell Spit is a novel pure lure for them,” she says. In February 2015 about 200 pilot whales – which, regardless of their identify, are literally members of the dolphin household – beached not removed from the cafe the place she works. No less than half of them died. “It is at all times the identical species, pilot whales, and the identical excessive tide scenario on the interior seaside,” she says. Dr Rochelle Constantine, a marine biologist on the College of Auckland, additionally says the shallow water round Farewell Spit is what causes the whales to seaside. “Farewell Spit, geographically, is kind of an fascinating place,” she says. “It spans round in a broad arc. On both facet is massive bay and the open ocean. “There is a sequence of actually massive sand banks all by means of there within the bay, and it simply steadily turns into increasingly more shallow,” Dr Constantine says. As a result of the water turns into shallower steadily, the whales could not be capable to detect the change utilizing echo-location, in the identical method they’d a sudden rise in gradient, she says. “They’ll echo-locate, but it surely’s [a problem with] the sign that they get bounced again. It is a mixture of this mild gradient and the tender sand. They in all probability aren’t detecting that they’re swimming into increasingly more shallow water.” By the point they do realise, it is usually too late. The tide has already begun to expire. Farewell Spit is particularly lethal because it sits, like a hook, proper within the pilot whales’ path. “They’ll swim straight into Golden Bay and the embrace of the Farewell Spit. It is simply geographically a really tough spot,” Dr Constantine says. Whereas the shallow water and its impact on echolocation is the almost definitely cause the animals turn out to be stranded at Farewell Spit, Dr Constantine says pilot whales even have robust social bonds, and this might clarify why such massive numbers turn out to be caught, or return as soon as rescuers re-float them. “I’ve attended a good few strandings and what’s highlighted is how variable all of them are,” she says. “We do know that as a result of they’re fairly strongly socially-bonded, they are going to hang around with one another, however to be trustworthy, each stranding is totally different. Generally they only muck up and do not get the appropriate cues, and different instances its as a result of they’re strongly bonded to [stranded] people within the group.” “We predict there’s some confusion happening in every stranding, however discovering a cause is commonly troublesome,” she says. Scientists do not know for positive why they commonly seaside in January or February, although Dr Constantine mentioned it might be due to feeding patterns and adjustments in ocean temperature which see extra whales passing by means of the Prepare dinner Strait at the moment of yr. “These are fairly laborious issues to measure as scientists, as a result of the truth is we do not usually see pilot whales on this space till they’re about to strand. They aren’t actually coastal.” “We actually do not know a lot in regards to the actions of pilot whales in New Zealand. It might be merely they don’t seem to be round at different instances of the yr.” Based on the New Zealand Division of Conservation, the biggest recorded stranding was an estimated 1,000 pilot whales on the Chatham Islands, one other stranding hotspot, in 1918.	75,344
Thread priority in java A thread is a part or entity of a process that is scheduled for execution. As we know java is a multithreading language which means JVM allow an application to have multiple thread running concurrently.. Threading in Java Threading concept is very important in Java Programing language. A thread is a sequential path of code execution within a program. And each thread has its own local variables, program counter and lifetime..	199,571
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.”	107,076
There’s been a lot of talk about the plight of the bees this year, particularly relating to pesticides, so we thought we’d to take a look at the beeconomics behind the buzz (10 punpoints). The decline in global honeybee populations has been well documented in the last 10-15 years. Honeybees and other wild pollinators have become subject to a range of debilitating factors including starvation/poor nutrition, loss of habitat, invasive species, disease and – causing quite a commotion in the last few months – there is growing evidence pointing to the impact of a group of insecticides called neonicotinoids (also known as neonics) on bee behaviour, productivity and mortality. Neonics are a systemic pesticide, which means they are added to crops as a seed treatment and grow with the plant to gain maximum coverage, including within its pollen and nectar. Last year, two key studies were published in the journal Science, one found that nonlethal exposure to the neonicotinoid thiamethoxam adversely affected the homing ability of honeybees causing high mortality, whilst another discovered that bumble-bee colonies exposed to field-realistic levels of imidacloprid (another neonicotinoid) suffered an 85% reduction in the production of new queens. Last month, a study published in The Journal of Experimental Biology found that bees exposed to imidacloprid were less likely to form a long-term memory – pretty important if you need to find your way back to a good source of nectar or pollen and communicate its location to your fellow workers. Research published in Nature last month suggested that exposure to the neonicotinoids imidacloprid and clothianidin is damaging honeybees’ brains. Ouch. Of course, all this isn’t just bad news for the bees and honey-lovers, it’s a problem for all of us – approximately one third of global crop production relies on animal pollinators. The contribution of pollinators to the global economy is estimated at €153bn. A report released by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in January prompted the European Commission to call for a two-year suspension of the use of three neonicotinoid pesticides (clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam) on crops attractive to pollinators. The proposed ban failed to gain a majority last month. Germany – where Bayer CropScience, the largest neonicotinoid producer is based – and the UK both abstained from the vote. In a speech to the National Farmers Union in February, UK environment secretary, Owen Paterson, said “I have asked the Commission to consider all the evidence and to wait for the results of our field trials, rather than rushing to a decision based on lab tests alone.” Unfortunately, field trials conducted by The Food and Environment Agency (FERA – Defra’s research wing) were compromised due to residues of neonics being found in pollen and nectar at the control site as well as other ‘fundamental flaws.’ Herein lies the problem: Paterson argues that more field-based evidence is required before the UK can support a ban, yet it is unlikely this evidence will be forthcoming due to the difficulty of finding appropriate control sites completely free of the insecticides in question. MPs of the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) released a report last month criticising the government’s approach stating that “where the available scientific evidence is either incomplete or contradictory, Defra must apply the precautionary principle rather than maintaining the status quo while waiting for further evidence.” The EAC argues that neonics are not essential to UK agriculture (with the possible exception of oilseed rape) whereas pollinators provide a valuable service and are crucial to maintaining biodiversity in the UK. Unsurprisingly, Bayer CropScience and Syngenta (another neonicotinoid manufacturer), have strongly defended their products and dismissed lab-based studies as unrepresentative of conditions in the field, warning that any “disproportionate action” would have “an enormous economic impact throughout the whole food-chain.” The agrochemical industry have produced their own studies on the safety of neonics (these are a requirement prior to product registration with the EC) but are unable to release them into the public domain for ‘commercial reasons’. A Humboldt Forum for Food and Agriculture report (financed by Bayer and Syngenta) has estimated that if neonics were no longer available, the impact on the EU economy could be up to €4.5bn. The report and its dedicated website are at best misleading. The headline figures are calculated with the assumption that all neonics in any application were to be taken off the shelf. However, the proposed ban specifically excludes winter cereals and crops not attractive to bees, such as sugar beet. Ironically, given its mandate, the British Beekeeping Association (BBKA) has also come out against the ban arguing that it “does not wish to see any action taken that may in itself cause damage to pollinators for example by the inevitable re-adoption by farmers of older superseded and more hazardous chemical agents being re-employed in crop protection.” This is not the first time the BBKA has surprised its members by adopting what appears to be a counter-intuitive policy. In 2009 the organisation endorsed four Bayer insecticides in return for donations without consulting its membership. The EAC report dismissed concerns that a ban would necessarily lead to re-adoption of potentially more harmful substances arguing this could be prevented by moving away from excessive use of chemical pesticides and utilising integrated pest-management techniques. A YouGov poll in February revealed that almost three-quarters of the UK public were in favour of the proposed ban. Over 2.5 million people have signed an Avaaz petition calling for the EU to “Ban Bee Poison.” Thirteen member states were in favour of the ban at the last vote. France and Italy have already implemented suspensions of some neonicotinoids. If the European Commission takes the decision to the appeals committee and there is no clear majority once again, it has the power to enforce the ban under its own authority. But what’s the story in Brazil? (we hear you cry). Well, last year the Brazilian environment agency commissioned new studies into the residue content of imidacloprid and two other insecticides on seven selected crops: cotton, coffee, sugar cane, citrus, melons, corn and soybeans as well as semi-field-based investigations into the corresponding impact on bees. The results are yet to come in. One positive to highlight is that Brazil is so large that there are still vast swathes of land that have not been impacted by agriculture, allowing the country to maintain its position as the world leader in organic honey production. Even if the evidence pointing the finger at neonics is not entirely conclusive, it is substantial enough to cause concern. Bees are already having a tough time of it in Europe and any action that can serve to aid their survival has to be more important than any short-term economic impact. The long-term environmental and economic cost of losing our pollinators far outweighs any losses incurred through implementing this ban. Is the pesticide problem bugging you too? (2 punpoints) Here’s a link to the Avaaz petition.	6,595
History \| THE SOUTH BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR A309 \| 2935 \| Stowe 2:30-3:45P TR BH310 A portion of the above section reserved for majors For more than 150 years, Americans have been fascinated by-and have argued about-the distinctiveness of the South within the nation. In what ways has the South had a different past? In what ways is its history an "American story?" This course will look at the history of the South from the early 1800s to the Civil War, looking at classic "southern" themes: regional identity, race, slavery, the Old South legend, and the coming of war. We will be reading works of history as well as original sources. There will be a mid-term and a final exam, and two 10-page papers.	22,285
Why don’t public schools use the Montessori Method? I ask myself this question almost every day. Not a day goes by that I don’t hear a teacher in a traditional school frustrated by a problem that could be eliminated, or at least lessened, if the whole school went Montessori. The three main complaints that I hear from my peers are: - All the children are working at different levels! I can’t teach them all in a group! - They need to be touching and doing things! Just sitting here reading from a text book doesn’t work for most of them. - They need more than just reading and math. They need science, social studies art, music, and history. Then I go to a mandatory in-service where they give us the “newest” information in educational research. What are the things that they talk about? DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION – adapting the instruction to the level and needs of each individual student FLEXIBLE GROUPINGS – organizing instructional groups according to the level of instruction that each child needs, but the groups aren’t static. As information is mastered, or more time needed, the children are moved to another more appropriate group MULTI-MODALITY INSTRUCTION- teaching the concept in many different ways INTEGRATED INSTRUCTION – integrating science, history, social studies, and geography into the core curriculum. ASSESSMENT – constantly assessing the mastery and academic needs of the students DIRECT INSTRUCTION – isolating a concept and directly teaching it REALIA – bringing the actual thing or a close facsimile of what you are teaching about into the classroom, or them to it, whenever possible. ” That sounds an awful like Montessori”, I think to myself. “If the whole school went Montessori we would not only eliminate the main frustrations of the teachers, but would fulfill the district’s expectations as well.” So I open my mouth, and everybody’s eyes glaze over. People start tapping pencils, feet shuffle, and someone in a very polite yet condescending tone says something like, ‘Yes, Montessori works well for YOUR students, but most children have needs that can’t be met by THAT environment.’ “What environment?” I think to myself. ” The one that they just lectured to me about for the last 8 hours? And what children? My ADHD little boys who before they were in Montessori were constantly in the office because they couldn’t sit at a desk all day long? My extremely bright children who were above the scripted lessons and tired of being handed MORE busy work to keep them quiet while the teachers focused on the average and low students in hopes that the school’s test scores would raise? My severely learning disabled students who weren’t learning because the scripted program was going to fast for them. My lower income learners who need more experience with materials, heck more experiences period, to make up for what is lacking in their home environment? My second language students, who need more social interaction and experience speaking in English than the half an hour of ELD instruction a day that our program allows? When I calm down, I try to analyze exactly where the problem is, and this is what I have determined. MISUNDERSTANDING OF THE MONTESSORI PHILOSOPHY – Most educators don’t really know what Montessori is, even though they think they do. Some might have read a chapter in a book on Montessori education, but that is the extent of their knowledge. When faced with someone asking why the public schools don’t go Montessori, they have to reach back into their memory and try to remember what they learned about it. What usually sticks out in their minds is “All the children are doing different things” or “the children get to choose their own work”. Then depending on their age, they either think “chaos” or ‘”70′s educational reform!” and tell you that it can’t work. POORLY IMPLEMENTED MONTESSORI PROGRAMS – People try to start Montessori schools without fully trained staff members. They figure that the staff will get more training in future years as the program grows. Then they don’t implement the Montessori Method completely and therefore it doesn’t work well. CAN’T MAKE THE PARADIGM SHIFT- There’s a great book call The Teaching Gap by. Stigler and Hiebert. In it they compare and contrast different educational systems (Mainly Germany, Japan, and the US). Throughout the book their major assertion is that the reason children statistically perform higher on standardized tests outside the US is that the teachers’ perception of how children learn and therefore how the classrooms and lessons are set up, is completely different. They actually state that no educational program or text book will work better than any other in the United States if we don’t change our views on HOW we teach. They then go into great detail on how teaching is a cultural activity and that although the standards, textbooks, and programs change, our results in the long run rarely do. They believe that this is because although the program has changed, our way of imparting material hasn’t. They then state that changing the way we impart knowledge is hard since we usually know of no other way than the way we were taught ourselves. In fact, since most teachers have never been out of the US, they not only aren’t open to other educational systems, they don’t believe that they exist. Although they weren’t talking about Montessori education and philosophy exactly, I’m sure you can see how their hypothesis and research are applicable to your question NOT TRUSTING CHILDREN – Non-Montessorians often ask, “How are the children going to learn if you aren’t teaching them?” They mistakenly believe that we put children in a room with a bunch of toys and say, “Make choices and learn.” Nothing is further from the truth, but it’s hard to change someone’s mind once some well meaning person tells them that Montessorians believe that children learn solely from the environment and other children, and that they believe that children should have the freedom to make choices. Many people also believe that the only time children learn is when the teacher directly tells them the information and then makes them reproduce it, usually on a worksheet. In fact it is the Montessori classroom’s lack of worksheets that seems to worry people the most. In traditional education, especially when people are worried that their students will not pass the tests, copious amounts of worksheets are used in the classroom setting. It is believed that these worksheets ensure practice, focus, and reinforcement that keeps students busy during work time while the teacher is working with a reading or math group. People worry that without the worksheet as proof, the teacher will not know for sure that the child was actually working. In Montessori, we don’t give copious amounts of paperwork, instead use materials that do the same thing; reinforce concepts that students need to work on. In addition we use science, social studies, history and geography to reinforce the mandated standards. There are worksheets and tests in our public program, but they come later, after the child has a deep understanding of the material and now needs to apply it abstractly. When I explain this, some people seem intrigued, but most others say something along the lines of, ‘How do you know that the children are actually working and aren’t just playing with the materials?’ Although I understand the concern about the lack of worksheets, I know that the lack of worksheets really isn’t what worries most people. Plenty of non-Montessori teachers do not use copious amounts of worksheets. The real problem is with the fact that the children are all doing different things. In a more traditional classroom setting when the children are working with materials, they are all working on the same concept. People assume that it is easy to walk around, or even scan with your eyes and see who is working and who isn’t. The worry for non-Montessorians is that when all the children are doing different things, the Montessori teacher will not be able to pick out who’s fooling around and not working. To be honest, that is another valid concern. Yet, when a well trained teacher is running the classroom, this is not a problem. The teacher knows how each of those materials is supposed to be used, and a child misusing one stands out just as clearly as if they were all using the same material or doing the same worksheet. NOT TRUSTING THE TEACHERS- One day I was sitting in an in-service listening to a woman talk about how on the day of the * month the children were learning the * sound and so you needed to use the * story. I asked, “What if Jose is really excited. His father gave him a book and he has brought it to school to share. Couldn’t I use that book to teach the concept?” To which the presenter responded, “Do you really believe that you are capable of reviewing text and determining how to use it as an academic tool? These stories have been reviewed by a group of educational specialists. You need to leave the curriculum development to the specialists and focus on your job which is implementing the curriculum.” In other words, “We don’t believe that you are capable of looking at a children’s book and finding all of the “long A words”. Therefore, sit down, shut up and read from the teacher’s manual.” It is true; there are teachers out there who can’t find all the long A words in a child’s book, but there are just as many, if not more, who can. Moreover, there are great teachers out there, and even more people who could be great teachers if we just gave them the right background, skills and environment. But people can’t see that. For example, I was talking to a group of administrators one day, (not in my district), when one informed me that the only reason Montessori worked for me was because I was smart and a good teacher. I thanked them for the complement and replied. “But there are many smart and good teachers. If my abilities were the only reason my students were doing well, then the Montessori scores wouldn’t be 20 to 30 points higher than the rest of my district’s scores.” They were at a loss for words. Let’s face it; it is easier to come up with reasons, no matter how inaccurate they are, as to why Montessori won’t work then to put all the time, money and energy into making the switch. Furthermore, there’s the belief that most teachers aren’t smart and capable enough to run a Montessori classroom. How upsetting. A friend who was a high ranking officer in the Israeli army once told me, “Bureaucracy is based on the belief that a stupid person can do more harm than a smart person can do good.” I sadly find this to be what the average person believes when it comes to teachers. It’s one of the reasons we have No Child Left Behind and it’s why people believe that Montessori can’t work in the public system. They believe that it’s more important to control the “bad teachers” than to allow the good teachers to teach. As one administrator said to me once, ‘Why should your students have access to all these things when the others don’t?	127,780
This preview has intentionally blurred sections. Sign up to view the full version.View Full Document Unformatted text preview: on the second day, everyone sends his two pieces of information two islands further on; on the third day, four islands further on; and on the fourth day, eight islands further on. For example, the pirate on island 8 would send his various pieces of information to islands 9, then 10, then 1, and finally 5. Why does this work? Since the scheme is the same for all the participants, we only need to see that the first piece of information is universally distributed. Look at island i , and write i-1 as a sum of powers of 2. The powers appearing will tell you how the message got from island 1. For example, if i = 6, write 5 = 4 + 1; the message from 1 arrived at island 6 by going first to island 2 via a single island flight, followed by a four island flight. Exactly the same procedure solves the problem for 12 mutineeers. this page.... View Full Document This note was uploaded on 03/01/2010 for the course MATH 301 taught by Professor Albertodelgado during the Spring '10 term at Bradley. - Spring '10	186,231
A multidisciplinary team of students at Florida International University has created a virtual reality experience based on Bankside in the age of William Shakespeare. The I-CAVE, short for Integrated Computer Augmented Virtual Environment, is a new facility composed of five 9-by-5 foot, high-resolution screens arranged in a hexagonal pattern. Visitors are given goggles and a remote control to navigate a virtual world. The first project at the I-ICAVE is Shakespeare's London circa 1598, featuring the Globe Theatre on Bankside. "The goal of the project is to recreate the experience of what it must have been like to see a play in Shakespeare's era," said David Frisch, the project manager. Frisch says Shakespeare's Bankside was a lot like today's Las Vegas. "It was loud. It could get rowdy and crazy, and people would throw tomatoes at performers during plays." The students decided that their cast of characters – including a Spanish merchant, vagabond, prostitute and "snobbish English man" – would consist of 2D cut-outs taken from early modern works of art.	201,608
Dr. Subhahish.Das (Associate Prof. of Pathology,(In-Charge Blood Bank),Sri Devaraj Urs Medical College, Tamaka, Kolar.) Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV causes the acquired immuno deficiency syndrome(AIDS) has become pandemic. According to WHO estimation,- in Asia about 1 in 250 adults is infected with the virus . Mandatory screening of all donors for such infections have significantly reduced the problem; but not completely eliminated such risk because the donor may be at the window period or lack sufficient response so that our tool can detect the response. The risk of such infection is clearly higher in recipients of blood obtained from commercial source compared to blood from volunteer donors. The first case of HIV infection in India was reported in Tamil Nadu in 1986 and the first case of Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was diagnosed in Bombay in 1987 . Number of people infected with HIV is growing faster in India. HIV-AIDS presents an unusual challenge. Unlike other diseases, it selectively and disproportionately affects two groups-young adults who are in their prime reproductive and economically productive years, and the very poor and economically marginalized populations. Diagnosis of HIV infection remains a challenge. There are unresolved ethical & technical issues around voluntary counseling and testing. Availability of highly active antiretroviral therapy is not an issue since antiretroviral drugs are manufactured in the country and exported elsewhere, but their affordability and the feasibility of monitoring patients taking the drugs are in question. Poverty creates conditions ripe for HIV transmission. Economic growth has caused rapid urbanization in India, with large urban slum populations composed of migrants, manual laborers'& child laborers. Currently 260 million persons in India live below the poverty line. Those with low incomes cannot afford to buy condoms or treatment for STDs. Poor families send their young women into prostitution to make ends meet. Untreated STDs increase the risk of HIV transmission, as these infections cause mucosal ulceration with an easy entry for HIV. HIV testing is offered by government institutions and by private hospital-based or independent clinical laboratories. There is no national information grid that collects HIV testing information from clinical laboratories in the private sector, so prevalence estimated are based solely on the sentinel surveillance mechanism. The sentinel surveillance systems uses anonymous unlinked sample screening for HIV antibodies to estimate prevalence of HIV in various states and population groups. Surveys are conducted annually, and survey sites include sexually transmitted disease (STD) clinics, antenatal clinics, sited that target IDUs, and those that target men who have sex with men. The virus is spreading rapidly along India's coasts and inward to all parts of the country, both rural and urban. The epidemic varies widely among regions, a reflection of the country's great diversity. A survey of randomly selected households in Tamil Nadu found that 2.1% of the adult population living in the countryside had HIV infection compared with 0.7% of the urban population. In the northeastern State of Manipur, HIV has already reached epidemic proportions among IDUs. In 1989 the Government of India declared a ban on the acceptance of blood from professional blood donors- individuals who accept a monetary compensation in return for donating blood. However, this ordinance has not been entirely effective. Although blood banks refuse to transact commercially with these donors, the friends and relatives of those who require blood transfusion regularly bring these donors to blood banks, declaring them voluntary donors or close relatives. There are many social precursors for the rapid spread of HIV in the country, including inability to talk openly and learn about sex and sexuality, pressures from family to give birth to an heir and an implicit threat to the marriage when a woman is unable to become a mother, the high prevalence and acceptability of domestic violence against women, the moral double standard imposed on men and women, and the lower status of women in general. The pressure to be a mother is so intense that when a woman has to choose between being HIV- sero negative but with out children and possible conception with possible HIV infection, she often chooses the latter. According to the data supplied by National AIDS Control Organization (NACO), New Delhi surveillance of the HIV cases in India as on 31st August 2006 are as follows: sexual (85.34%), perinatal (3.80%), transfusion of blood and blood products (2.05%), injectable drug users (2.34%) and other unknown reasons (6.46%). In the year 1999, 8% of the AIDS cases were due to transfusion of infected blood and blood products. According to a survey of NACO carried out in the year 2001, this number reduced to 2.99%, in the year 2004 the number was further reduced to 2.43% and in the year 2006 it further dropped to 2.05%. There is a remarkable steady decrease in the incidence of transmission of HIV infection through transfusion of blood and blood products from 8% to 2.05% in last 7 years. This might be the result of extensive testing of the blood before transfusion, bans on professional donors as well as awareness programs conducted by government, non-government organizations (NGO) and media to improve the awareness about spread of HIV infection among general population. Good awareness about HIV infection amongst the donors is required to increase safe blood donor pool. The awareness is supposed to be more in repeat voluntary blood donors rather than first time donors, because the former group has a better knowledge due to frequent contact with blood centers and related importance of transmissible diseases. The risk of transfusion transmitted AIDS (TTA) infection decreased by 30% per year decreased from December 1987. Safety in the blood supply can be attributed to changes in the donor pool, including increasing numbers of tested repeat donors and their awareness regarding this disease. Health counseling is a new concept in India. Patients here are much less proactive in seeking health care than in developed countries. In the context of HIV-test counseling, the process of building a risk inventory involves discussing the sexual lifestyle of the client. This falls into the realm of taboo. Worse, high-risk behavior is viewed as morally wrong; hence, few visit the voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) centers . At the other end of the spectrum are health care facilities that test without consent. HIV testing is performed either as part of a differential diagnosis or, in the case of surgical candidates, to provide reassurance for surgeons. Hospitals are widely known to refuse to perform any invasive procedures on persons with HIV infections. Hence the majority of HIV testing in India is not accompanied by pretest or posttest counseling . One major issue for any person undergoing an HIV test is realizing that his or her test is neither anonymous nor confidential with scant regard for the privacy that such clients are entitled to, laboratories readily provide test results over the telephone or share them with families and workplace supervisors. The majority of the laboratories in India do not take part in quality-assurance and quality-control exercise for HIV testing, and poor techniques are commonplace. HIV test results are often inaccurate for several reasons: test kits are used after the expiration dates; kits are not stored at the correct temperature; electricity is shut down at night; air-conditioning for the testing equipments is erratic; poor-quality water is used; and tubes, tips, and other equipments are often recycled. With makeshift laboratories that have scant respect for quality control or assurance, patients cannot necessarily be sure of their test results, especially when these laboratories do not provide patients with an opportunity to discuss their lifestyle and risk histories with a counselor who could help them place the result within that context. Many clinicians use plasma HIV RNA testing to monitor HIV infection; however, inexpensive assays with faster turnaround time are needed in resource-limited settings. The p 24 antigen level is of potential, but has not been validated as a prognostic tool . A spate of antiretroviral drugs, evolving incrementally but rapidly and being approved at a brisk pace, has changed the treatment horizon. However, these drugs were not within reach of even middle-class Indians until recently, and they are still inaccessible to most. Although antiretrovirals do not offer a definitive cure, the appropriate use of these drugs in combination has demonstrated a significant decrease in mortality and substantial clinical improvements and has helped individuals lead healthier, longer lives and enjoy a better quality of life. The exploding epidemic in India calls for radical and courageous steps, and a departure from previous public health planning. We need to remind ourselves of the enormous task at hand: the establishment of quality- assured HIV testing centers, expansion of clinical facilities that provide HIV care, increased access to drugs with attendant laboratory facilities, and enhanced psychosocial support for those living with or affected by HIV.	197,958
Think of the last time you walked into a theater. Do you remember the initial feeling you had when the curtain rose? Were you tense, happy, scared, excited, or relaxed? Believe it or not, the lighting probably set the tone for the remainder of the theater experience you had. In fact, psychological studies have shown us that color and lighting has a huge impact on our mood and overall well-being and that lighting experts have been using this knowledge for years to enhance our theater experience. Let’s take a closer look at the impact of lighting design. At any given moment our senses are collecting hundreds of pieces of information about our environment. The colors, smells, sights, temperature, feel, and so many more components go into how we interact with or feel about the world around us. The same goes for our experiences in the theater. Imagine you walk into a theater where there are dark shadows that cover the stage, shabby furnishings scattered around, and actors that are dressed in ragged clothing. Your initial impression may be one of concern, fear, or curiosity. Imagine the same theater, this time with bright lighting, colorful backgrounds, and actors who are singing happily. Your sensory input has dramatically changed, right? That is how the theater can use colors and light to change how theatergoers experience the show. Direction of Light One aspect that lighting design experts have to consider when setting a mood on a stage is the direction of the light. For example, if the lighting team is trying to create a scene with tension they may want direct light from above to shine on the main action on the stage while darkening the rest of the area. Another example would be creating low or dim lighting to add a sense of mystery, privacy, or intimacy. Lighting the walls, ceiling, and props can give a sense of spaciousness as well as direct your attention to the portion of the stage where the action is the greatest. The Type of Lighting Theatergoers know that the lighting team can create all sorts of emotions depending upon the type of light they use. For example, a spotlight can draw your attention right to the main action during a monologue to important action that is occurring on stage. Colored filters can be used with this lamp to change the overall mood as well. A floodlight gives a wide area where action can occur on the stage. A strobe is a flashing light, that is used for special effects. It’s often used to give the effect of old movies. It produces a jerky effect on the movements of actors when used on its own. Lights can be useful for defining different locations on the stage, creating mood and atmosphere, highlighting key moments of action, and directing the audience’s focus. Lighting can denote the time of year or day and can also be used in an abstract or symbolic way, such as using a red light to symbolize danger or passion. How does your theater use lighting? Give us some tips in the comments.	160,268
Located in southwest Sichuan province of China, is the home to more than 30% of the world's highly endangered Giant Pandas and is among the most important sites for the captive breeding of these pandas. Outside of the tropical rainforests, it is among the botanically richest sites of the world, and is home to between 5,000 and 6,000 species of flora. Great Wall of China Mutianyuis a section of the Great Wall of China located in Huairou County 70km northeast of Beijing. The Mutianyu section of the Great Wall is connected with Jiankouin to the west and Lianhuachiand Jinshanlingin to the east. As one of the best-preserved parts of the Great Wall, the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall used to serve as the northern barrier defending the capital and the imperial tombs.	32,960
This is little understood, but importantThose who don't think renewable energy will amount to much usually have a few arguments. Price used to be a big one, but the costs per watt for wind and solar has come down so much in the past few decades that this is becoming less of an issue. According to a new report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), wind power is now the cheapest electricity to produce in both Germany and the UK, and that's without government subsidies, and it became the cheapest electricity in the U.S. last year, including subsidies. Solar has gotten there too in some places, especially with some subsidies, and it's only a matter of time before it gets there without subsidies (which aren't the problem that some claim, if we remember how much support fossil fuels have gotten and still get). The trend is clear: The efficiency of wind turbines and solar panels is going up, and their prices are going down. The next big argument is intermittency. This article isn't about that, so I won't go into detail, but let's just say that there are many ways to mitigate the problem: Grid-scale storage is coming down in price (from the Tesla Energy batteries to grid-scale liquid metal batteries), someday we'll have millions of electric cars with vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology that act as a kind of giant distributed battery (people will get paid to rent out a few percents of their batteries to absorb grid variations), interconnected smart grids will be able to shift energy from regions where there's a surplus of sun and wind to those where there's a deficit, dynamic pricing will help demand stay closer to supply, etc. All very interesting stuff, but let's move to the next point, which is probably the least understood. Then we come to the real Achilles' heel of renewable energy: their relatively low capacity factor. What this means in practice is that if you build a solar system with a capacity of 100 megawatts, in practice it won't produce energy at that level all the time. So you might get 100 MW out of it when the sun is out, but at night or on cloudy days, you don't. If you average it all, you might only get a 20% capacity factor. But don't worry, when we look at the cost of 1kWh of wind or solar, we're talking about actually produced energy, so the capacity factor is embedded in that price. The reason why this matters so much has to do with one of the big strengths of wind and solar: Once the wind turbines or the solar panels are installed and paid for, the power produced has basically a marginal cost very close to zero. It's very hard for a grid operator or power company to say no to free power once it has access to it, so that clean energy takes precedence on more expensive power from coal and natural gas plants. As Bloomberg explains: "It’s a self-reinforcing cycle. As more renewables are installed, coal and natural gas plants are used less. As coal and gas are used less, the cost of using them to generate electricity goes up. As the cost of coal and gas power rises, more renewables will be installed." The table above shows how the capacity factors of coal and natural gas are starting to be affected, while wind and solar are starting to do better because bigger and taller wind turbines catch more wind and more solar is being installed in the U.S. Southwest where sunny days are more frequent. It's kind of like a flywheel, and the more solar panels we install, the more wind turbines are built, the faster it spins. At some point, doesn't make any sense to run fossil fuels on sunny or windy days, and overall capacity factors go down enough that prices are simply not competitive with storage, and rather than build new natural gas plants, utilities will simply buy more renewables combined with storage.	30,371
Balancing Human and Non-Human Interests: The Contractual Model The concept of a social contract, pioneered during the European Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, has guided the organization of most Western societies ever since. The idea is based upon the sacrifice of some freedom and independence on the part of the individual in order to work in partnership with others for survival. The social contract model has traditionally been applied only to humans, to the exclusion of all other forms of life. But might this concept pro-vide an effective framework in which to recast the human relationship with non-human beings? With all forms of animal abuse, environmental degradation, and the wanton exploitation of sen-tient life for our own purposes becoming more pervasive, it is time for a new way of looking at our essential connection with non-human beings and of conceptualizing their interests and our duties towards them. This paper explores various ideas about the extension of contracts beyond the human realm and argues that some form of the contractual model can be effectively applied to the human-animal relationship a way that benefits humans and non-humans alike in the long term. Jean-Jacques Rousseau published the definitive work on the concept of a social contract in 1762.* He argues that the contract, by which individuals agree to work together for the benefit of the whole, is the ideal method of organization for human society. A contract is necessitated by the need of people to combine forces in order to survive and counteract natural self-interest. While it may not allow individuals the freedom they would have had in a “state of nature,”* it ensures that the sum total of freedom is protected. "In entering into civil society, people sacrifice the physical freedom of being able to do whatever they please, but they gain the civil freedom of being able to think and act rationally and morally. Rousseau believes that only by entering into the social contract can we become fully human."* Rousseau refers to the combined entity formed by individuals in a contract as a “sovereign,” but is not meant to be confused with a governing body.* In modern terms, it can be more accurately called a “body politic.” The sovereign has no duties towards its members, like a person has no duties to his or her fingers and toes, but since its very existence depends upon their agreement, hurting its subjects hurts it as well. The contract gives each subject duties towards his or her fellows and to the sovereign, but does not necessarily confer duties upon its subjects with regards to those who have not agreed to the contract and, in the case of non-human animals and small children, those unable to do so. Rousseau, quoted indirectly, uses animals as an analogy to refer to show the “civilizing” effects of the social contract. "The freedom we have in the state of nature is the freedom of animals: unconstrained and irrational. By entering into civil society we learn to re-strain our instincts and to act rationally."* Given that the effectiveness of Rousseau’s idea of the social contract in regulating one’s behavior towards others seems contingent on concerned parties being able to agree to the con-tract, is it absurd to think in terms of a contractual framework for our relationship with other ani-mals? Philosophers and political scientists have argued both sides of this question vociferously. One philosopher, Mary Midgley, submits that social contract theory overlooks a wide variety of entities with which people interact, such as “animals, the environment, the biosphere, inanimate objects, children, the insane, and even oneself."* In her view, the contract model is outdated, based on seventeenth-century notions of “ultimate, solitary, independent individuals,” and is in need of reworking. Her interpretation suggests that Rousseau’s model cannot afford rights to non-humans, lunatics and young children, but can only suggest duties to them to the extent that a superior being has duties to an inferior one. John Locke, who shared some of Rousseau’s politi-cal ideas, cited the book of Psalms in arguing that “the earth and all inferior creatures be common to all men.”* She did, however, acknowledge non-contractual duties towards “inferior” beings: “[Man] has not liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any creature in his possession, but where some nobler use than its bare preservation calls for it.”* Midgley’s argument for the redefinition of the contractual model hinges on self-interest. “When we talk about rights and duties, we are actually relating our actions and their consequences back to ourselves, and the effect they will have on ourselves—no matter what part of the physical world we are referring to, human or otherwise. If we neglect to care for our children, they may die, and we are the ultimate losers [in terms of not being able to perpetuate our species].”* Thus, are we, as humans, con-cerned about the rights of natural entities merely because our survival is contingent on theirs? In other words, do non-human entities, or even children and the mentally ill, have any inherent worth? Ben Mepham answers that non-human animals, farmed animals in particular, are owed respect both because of their intrinsic value and because of their utility and meaning to us. He sees the need for a paradigm shift based on “changes in our objective understanding” that estab-lish “beyond any reasonable doubt, the genetic continuity of human and non-human species.”* While Mepham leaves open the question of whether this begs a redefinition of the term “animal” or the term “person,” he points out that humans and other sentient beings are not substantially different “in ethically relevant respects.” He disputes the claim that we have a duty to use animals, but justifies the continued use of animals in agriculture because they provide “nutri-tious, appetizing food,” because they are vital to “sustainable farming systems,” and because they are significant to many economies and cultures.* For Mepham, domestication is mutually beneficial for human and non-human, and farmed animals are too important to human culture for our symbiotic relationship with them to come to the abrupt end envisioned by some animal rights activists. Although the current factory farm system may be efficient in theory and practice, Mepham argues that it must be abolished because it is unjust, and that we rework our “partner-ship” with farmed animals on a contractual basis. This new contract would be notional, rather than a physical document or universal pledge, and would establish “an arrangement by which animals continue to provide benefits to humans and the environment, but themselves live out better lives than they would in the wild.”* According to Mepham, in exchange for providing us with their flesh, milk and eggs (and for having to be killed prematurely), we agree to provide farmed animals with "better" lives than they would have undomesticated. The only issue is by whose definition are their domesticated lives better? If non-human animals could choose whether to live in the wild, having to provide for themselves and fend off predators, or to live under the care and protection of human beings, which would they prefer? We can never know with certainty the animal’s point of view. However, farmed animals and pets have been living under human auspices for so long that most of them would be incapable of surviving in an unprotected environment. Thus, in the short term, it is up to us to continue to provide for these animals, and it makes sense that we use the idea of a contract as a way of conceptualizing our responsibility to give back to them what they have (willfully or unwillfully) given to us. Although it may not be “agreed to” by one party, a notional contract gives us the sense of the animal’s interests and how they are to be balanced with human interests involving the use and enjoyment of the food, clothing, companionship and social significance they provide. In a pertinent essay for the journal Parabola, Barry Lopez points to the need for continued attention to the philosophy behind our relationship with other animals in Western industrialized societies.* He states, “our relationships with animals were once contractual--prin-cipled agreements, founded in a spirit of reciprocity, mythic in their pervasiveness.” In other words, the concept of a contract with non-human animals was something well-known to earlier societies but lost in the process of industrialization and the scientific revolution. Lopez’s wording, “spirit of reciprocity,” also seems to indicate that the animals were thought of as willing partners in the agreement. This point may be elaborated to postulate that non-industrialized cultures did (and do) have a better sense of non-human interests, by virtue of having greater daily contact with other creatures and an appreciation of a “coherent and shared landscape.”* This entails a deep sense of mystery, awe, and wonder. Lopez points specifically to these practical and spiritual ties to animals as the ways in which Western culture has failed, letting the contract with non-humans lapse beyond repair. Lopez describes the point at which the original contract failed to serve Westerners: Lopez suggests that by “tearing up” the age-old contracts because the other party seemed to get in the way of the inevitable march of progress, we have falsified our existence, making it shallow and hollow, divesting it of the significance of acting within a wider context. The path to the end of the abusive treatment of animals that horrifies us, says Lopez, is the re-establisment of an atmosphere of mutual respect between human and non-human animals, and of a sense of awe and wonder at the complexities of animals’ lives.* Randy Malamud’s essay focusing on the animal poetry of indigenous Mesoamerican people touches also on a central concept that shapes Western perceptions of the human-animal relationship.* He draws on Laurie A. Frost’s view of the social contract to explain why widen-ing our social framework beyond the human community is essential to the full realization of our own humanity: By noting that, in Genesis, Adam’s naming of the animals was an expression of his dominion over them, Malamud connects the way each culture talks about non-human animals to the way they are treated and regarded by those people. Which raises the question: does the widening of our social contract to include non-humans require a sea change in the way we talk to and about them? Malamud furthers this position to say that forming a relationship with another, even another human being, requires imagination in order “to extend [one’s] sense of self by grant-ing, creating, or recognizing the selfhood of another.”* Thus, since the formation of a contract requires recognizing the non-human animal’s interests, which in turn means acknowledging the animal’s “selfhood,” the contractual model, by nature, requires an extension of the human imagi-nation. As Malamud clearly illustrates, one way this is done is through poetry. “[A]nimal poe-try may embody a displaced realm of contemporary Western intellectual/aesthetic spirituality -- one that, like Mesoamerican spirituality, emanates from the natural world that exceeds the merely human realm.”* In many Mesoamerican cultures, a deep spiritual respect for the natural world and a belief in animal souls are instilled in children even before birth. For these people, the human communi-ty exists, and is given significance, only within the context of the greater-than-human world. In this respect, humans are parties to a sort of a contract defined by the powers of nature that existed before us and would exist without us. Western societies, however, tend to diminish the importance of other beings, according them with only shallow significance, considering deeper understandings of other animals to be childish. “Politically, aesthetically, and sociologically, animals are perpetually subaltern. For [Mesoamericans], animal souls are real, immediate. They live out, at the core of their belief system, a valorization of animal life.”* Given a wider cosmological lens through which to assess the matter of contracts with non-human entities, could the question be better framed not in terms of us making a new con-tract with other animals, but in terms of us recommitting ourselves to nature’s contract, so to speak? Some would argue that, since we are physically part of nature, all our endeavors and crea-tions are “natural.” Although this may describe a certain physical reality, there can be no question that industrialization has compromised the Earth and separated Western humans from the rest of the living community. A new paradigm is called for, but accomplishing such a drama-tic reorientation is, I believe, a very long-term project that our species should begin to undertake. The gradual process by which such a shift is to be affected, however, does not address the immediate problems of animal and environmental exploitation that are slowly but surely contributing to the downfall of our species. Thus it is helpful, in the short term, to think in terms of a contract negotiated between us and them, in which their interests are represented to the best of our ability. This mode of conceptualization frames the necessary change in attitudes in a Western sociopolitical context, making it more accessible and understandable to more people in the predominant societies of the world. Even if it does not constitute a firm set of actions to be taken to ease the suffering of our fellow beings, it would serve its purpose simply as a guide towards rethinking our obligations to the creatures with whom we share this world. Ewins, Rory. "Beyond the Social Contract: On Mary Midgley's 'Duties Concerning Islands'. " May 1989. Accessed at http://speedysnail.com/theory Lopez, Barry. "Renegotiating the Contracts." Parabola, Vol. 8, No. 2: 14-19. Malamud, Randy. "Poetic Animals and Animal Souls" Society and Animals, vol. 6, no. 3 (1998). Mepham, Ben. "A Notional Ethical Contract with Farm Animals in a Sustainable Global Food System." Royal Geographical Society. London. 18 January 2005. "The Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Study Guide." 2005. Accessed at http://www.sparknotes.com	121,119
An Introduction to JDBC used. When the mouse was located over the document, a window was displayed with the title of the document. Sometimes, more than one document can have the same frequency of occurrence of a keyword. In such cases the window displays multiple titles of documents. The color of the circle changes to white to indicate the document where the mouse is located. There is also an option to click on a box in the window to retrieve the text corresponding to the document in a This article gives the basics of working with JDBC under Linux. We described the design of JDBC, installation of JDBC for Mysql, and example code to retrieve/store data. Metadata statements can be used to interrogate the structure of a database and its tables. Finally, we looked at an example the use of a search engine with JDBC and Java. Viewing the results from a Java applet made the users' task more interesting than through a CGI program.	69,462
It is no surprise to me that we have cancer and many other diseases on the rise these days. Our food chain is broken and much of the foods we consume are proceessed and loaded with chemicals that over time will negatively affect our health. I would much rather be able to prevent a disease than have to react to it. I believe the best way we can prevent cancer and disease from happening is to make sure you are taking care of your body through the correct nutrition and exercise each day. It is difficult to get all of the nutrition we need through the food we eat each day and that is why it is important to supplement our diet with the correct supplementation. There are many supplements on the market but most are synthetic and not recognized by our bodies. Zija is made from Moringa Oleifera, which is one of the most nutrient rich plants to ever be discovered and is loaded with nutrients that our bodies can absorb and recognize. That is why many people are experiencing incredible benefits with Zija products. Be proactive and not reactive with your health. Got Zija! (NaturalNews) Diet, pollution and modern living conditions have been implicated as the factors responsible for cancer, concluded researchers, after analysing the remains of almost 1,000 individuals from ancient Egypt and Greece. The investigation, conducted by a team from Manchester University, looked into medical literature of the time for descriptions of cancer symptoms as well as examining today’s remains for signs of the disease. They did, for the first time, manage to identify cancer in one Egyptian mummy but this remained the only example in their widespread search. With this in mind, the scientists concluded that cancer was even rarer than previously thought. Professor Rosalie David, who led the study, said: “In industrialised societies, cancer is second only to cardiovascular disease as a cause of death. In ancient times, it was extremely rare. There is nothing in the natural environment that can cause cancer. So it has to be a man-made disease, down to pollution and changes to our diet and lifestyle.” The research team painstakingly pieced together the development of cancer over the last 3,000 years, much longer than several other scientific papers. They found that cancer only began to emerge as a common disease in the 1700s, and its rate of occurrence dramatically rose during the 20th century. Some critics attempted to dismiss the findings, arguing that individuals in ancient societies did not live long enough to develop cancer. However, the doctors dismissed this suggestion, noting that the ancient Egyptians enjoyed a long life expectancy and lived long enough to develop other chronic disease like atherosclerosis and osteoporosis. As may be expected, there was no comment from any of the major cancer charities. This mini-industry, which has been regularly accused of existing only to serve the drug companies that contribute so heavily towards their income, has consistently distanced itself from research that supports the concept of preventing cancer. Instead, these charities maintain focus only on more advanced and more lucrative ways to manage the condition. Dr Rachel Thompson of the World Cancer Research Fund instead spoke out about the study: ‘This research makes for very interesting reading. About one in three people in the UK will get cancer so it is fairly commonplace in the modern world. Scientists now say a healthy diet, regular physical activity and maintaining a healthy weight can prevent about a third of the most common cancers so perhaps our ancestors’ lifestyle reduced their risk from cancer.’ The conclusion from this research backs the logic offered by many nutritional therapists across the globe; they have continually stated that cancer is an expression of an individual’s environment and is also totally preventable, too. Despite the position of many so-called cancer charities, it remains inconceivable that nutrient deficiencies and the choking influence of man-made toxins would not have some sort of effect on the mechanics of the body. This data suggests the effect may be even more than we had imagined. Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/030363_cancer_origins.html#ixzz17CEsMo7d Filed under: Zija Benefits \| Tagged: Cancer, Disease, Moringa Oleifera \| 1 Comment »	9,360
Last Tuesday's Times reports on a study by Vanderbilt University researchers suggesting that interactive television can actually be good for children's development. Earlier research showed that 3-5 year olds who watched Blues Clues "score better on tests of problem solving than those who haven’t watched the show." What about younger children? It turns out that live interaction between babies and an adult is best for babies' learning, and only a few babies learn from traditional or "Television 1.0"-type interactions. However, the Vanderbilt research "... showed that 24-month-olds are more apt to use information relayed by video if they consider the person on the screen to be someone they can talk to." TV 2.0 anyone? September 5, 2006 Health / Mental Health & Behavior: When Toddlers Turn on the TV and Actually Learn By LISA GUERNSEY Should babies and toddlers be exposed to television at all? Is there any chance that they could actually learn from the screen? Young Children's Use of Video as a Source of Socially Relevant Information Georgene L. Troseth, Megan M. Saylor, and Allison H. Archer Volume 77, Number 3. Page 786 - May/June 2006	66,303
Climate impacts on the ocean are making the Sustainable Development Goals a moving target travelling away from us Gerald G. Singh, Nathalie Hilmi, Joey R. Bernhardt, Andres M. Cisneros Montemayor, Madeline Cashion, Yoshitaka Ota, Sevil Acar, Jason M. Brown, Richard Cottrell, Salpie Djoundourian, Pedro C. González-Espinosa, Vicky Lam, Nadine Marshall, Barbara Neumann, Nicolas Pascal, Gabriel Reygondeau, Joacim Rocklӧv, Alain Safa, Laura R. Virto, William Cheung Singh, Gerald G., Nathalie Hilmi, Joey R. Bernhardt, Andres M. Cisneros Montemayor, Madeline Cashion, Yoshitaka Ota, Sevil Acar, et al. “Climate Impacts on the Ocean Are Making the Sustainable Development Goals a Moving Target Travelling Away from Us.” Edited by Natalie Ban. People and Nature 1, no. 3 (September 2019): 317–30. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.26. 1. Climate change is impacting marine ecosystems and their goods and services in diverse ways, which can directly hinder our ability to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), set out under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 2. Through expert elicitation and a literature review, we find that most climate change effects have a wide variety of negative consequences across marine ecosystem services, though most studies have highlighted impacts from warming and consequences of marine species. 3. Climate change is expected to negatively influence marine ecosystem services through global stressors—such as ocean warming and acidification—but also by amplifying local and regional stressors such as freshwater runoff and pollution load. 4. Experts indicated that all SDGs would be overwhelmingly negatively affected by these climate impacts on marine ecosystem services, with eliminating hunger being among the most directly negatively affected SDG. 5. Despite these challenges, the SDGs aiming to transform our consumption and production practices and develop clean energy systems are found to be least affected by marine climate impacts. These findings represent a strategic point of entry for countries to achieve sustainable development, given that these two goals are relatively robust to climate impacts and that they are important pre‐requisite for other SDGs. 6. Our results suggest that climate change impacts on marine ecosystems are set to make the SDGs a moving target travelling away from us. Effective and urgent action towards sustainable development, including mitigating and adapting to climate impacts on marine systems are important to achieve the SDGs, but the longer this action stalls the more distant these goals will become. See related content: - Explore the site by related topics: Climate Change, SDGs	134,491
MRSA is a super virus or super bug MRSA is the name given to a strain of “Super Bug” as it has been termed by the field of medical researchers. The full name of the MRSA virus is the Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Auereus. It is this virus, which is responsible for a deadly infection that is known as Staph infection. What have given nightmares to the people of the medical fraternity are the nature of this infection and the extreme character of this virus itself. What is cause for concern is the fact that the staph bacteria that is the cause of the staph infection, is something that is commonly found in nearly a fourth of the adult population. This bacterium is found in places on our skin and inside our nose as well of a person and, the body’s natural immune system is deftly able to take care of that. In case there are open wounds or cuts on the skin, they may penetrate and dig deeper inside, however they usually result in something that is similar to pimple and there is no cause for concern. The worry lies when the carrier is a young child or an older person, because their body’s natural immune system is weaker compared to a mature adult. In the previous two categories the staph bacteria if able to make way inside the body will wrack havoc by annihilating the amino acid compounds and the question of what is MRSA staph infection, Starts showing through as serious infection. What looks simple can turn fatal What is of serious concern is the fact that firstly the MRSA bacteria is unaffected by the normal Methicillin treatment and can pose a tremendous health hazard for a normal person. The situation becomes grave when this Staph Bacteria enters the system of a person, wrecks havoc on the immune system of the person and generally brings downs the health, creating a highly vulnerable condition for that person. The initial visibility of this infection may only show itself as appearance of red pimple or insect bite like marks on the skin of the person. As time passes, this will turn into something similar to an abscess or pustule and then the only possibl If timely action is not taken through surgical procedures then the question of what is MRSA staph infection assumes sinister proportions. The reason for that is that this deadly virus could make its way into vital internal organs of the affected person. Such a situation will cause a great weakening of their normal immune system and could result in the loss of lives. In simple words, the possibility of the MRSA infection turning into something that can lead to death is a real possibility. It is common for MRSA or Staph infection to be treated with either Penicillin or Methicillin in the initial stages, nevertheless it seems that this MRSA virus has become quite resistant to the best of antibiotics we have. So now that you know what is MRSA staph infection, you can be careful and take care of yourself from such nasty infections.	170,323
When I began learning about the web, the new language only some people were talking was XHTML. It sounded interesting to me, but I was afraid it was not that widely supported as HTML. I was proven wrong, but theoretically I was right, I discovered the last few months :-). Hmm, actually I was not right, I didn't even knew what XHTML was about. I also thought that XSL (I didn't knew about it, I only knew it existed, I didn't know for example that there were two versions...) was the replacement for CSS. Now I understand (probably because I read a lot about, since then) they can be used together with superb results, like Dave shows us. The problem was back then that I (and Arthur) thought that XHTML was right between HTML and XML, we were so wrong... Arthur didn't want to use it. If we were going to do it right, we had to choose right for XML for structure and XSL for styling our documents. Why using XHTML is evil (most common arguments): text/html, makes a browser treats it, as it was invalid (AKA tag-soup) HTML. application/xhtml+xmlmakes it downloadable in the most common used browser (do you want to know it's name?) and that is certainly not what we want! Probably there are more thought, or more thought through arguments, try Hickson's Sending XHTML as text/html Considered Harmful, for example. BTW, make some time to check the rest of that directory; he also has some nice words for XSLT and XSL-FO :-). But that is not the point. There are problems with XHTML; we are currently sending it as tag-soup (though there are ways to avoid such a problem). In short: authoring XHTML is maybe not the most valid way of building websites, though it is the way that makes it easy to create them. XHTML has clear rules, you may not omit the body elements, like you may do in HTML4.01 Strict. For example: delete.me.uk. You have to close every single element. You must quote your attribute values. You must write in lower case. You can also use XHTML within other XML languages using namespaces. Some people think/thought that XHTML also doesn't allow you to design like you did in '95, but that is just plain stupid. You may design like you did back then. The HTML4 flavors are exactly the same as the XHTML1.0 flavors. Only the syntax differs a bit. It is of course not correct if you still design like you did in '95 (should be a bit later, like '98, but this reads better) or '00, but it is possible, that is a fact. I think I missed some points, like I always do, when I am writing an entry. The advantages zlog gave: XML is good because... are the ones I agree with. About the MIME nonsense: Just make sure it is valid! Validate it once a week (or month), check multiple pages and so on. Just make sure I can hack into your site add a little script that serves it as application/xhtml+xml towards Mozilla and I can still browse through everything. Over 5 years when our out of date websites are going to be archived, you will be glad you choose for XML and not for SGHML (=HTML), since those who have chosen the right markup language can easily archive everything with the ease of XML tools! I was a little bit lazy regarding minzweb, and I am facing problems with my hosting company. But it is not dead! In de wereld van regelmatig updaten komt er wel eens een foutje in je pagina. Gelukkig ging het hier alleen om een niet geldig karakter, vanwege het kopieren van een titel van een externe fout. Waardoor het geheel niet tot een crash leidde in betere browsers. Mijn pagina werkt incorrect in elke browser, alhoewel IE wel het toppunt is. The Matrix heeft een plaats op mijn site, als je vindt van niet, begin dan een eigen weblog, waar hij niet in voorkomt.	196,821
The virus attacks and encrypts any recordsdata on mounted disks and shared networks. Once the information are compromised, it’s almost inconceivable to retrieve it back as a outcome of their complexity. Still evolving Clop Ransomware was discovered by Michael Gillespie on eight February 2019. For this installment, we’re looking at 10 of the Worst Computer Viruses of all time. This only takes 22 minutes for this perilous virus to spread by way of four completely different manners like server vulnerabilities, e-mail, file transfer and shared folders. When a computing gadget is infected with a virus Sasser, a1seodirectory.com a pop-up window will seem informing that the system will start everlasting shutdown in 1 minute. The popup is recognized as Sasserwhich is brief for Local Security Authority Subsystem Service . It infects computer systems using flaws in the OS to create a botnet. The effects of the virus have been widespread as while the exploit was already patched, many computers haven’t updated. This led to greater than 1,000,000 infections, taking out important infrastructures, such as airways, information agencies, public transportation, hospitals, public transport, etc. Jaschen was tried as a minor and received a 21 month suspended sentence. Set up automated updates on your important apps and antivirus/anti-malware packages. Most persons are only utilizing basic antivirus software and possibly another cybersecurity instruments to protect themselves. But the reality is that virtually all antivirus programs don’t keep you 100 percent protected against new malware — you’re doubtless still weak to the newest virus threats. SQL Slammer is a pc worm that generated random IP addresses and despatched itself to those addresses. The slowdown was caused by the collapse of quite a few routers, burdened by extremely excessive outbound site visitors from contaminated servers. This type of laptop virus sits on a computer and awaits instructions from a Command & Control server. Once this virus receives these directions, Notes writes it uses every computer to carry out an attack on one other device. This kind of virus has grown considerably in profitability with the steady improve in the cryptocurrency’s worth. Downloading issues free of charge is tempting, but might usually contain malware or adware as a bonus. Be very cautious on torrent sites, particularly ones you’ve never heard about. When visiting sure web sites, you might get pop-up alerts that declare to have found malware or viruses on your laptop. In fact, don’t click on on any pop-ups, as they will more usually than not install malware or adware. The an infection affected more than 1 million computer systems, with $2.6 billion in damages. The hacker will begin by contacting an organization or service provider and pretend to be a specific individual. Cybersecurity consultants consider that Conficker was created by Ukrainian hackers, as it was programmed to not attack computers with a Ukrainian keyboard. An estimated 2 million computers were contaminated, with roughly $37 billion in damages. Instead, Zeus Gameover can bypass centralized servers and create unbiased serversto send sensitive info. A Boot Sector virus is one the primordial virus types and was used when computer systems had been booted by way of the utilization of floppy disks. “Brain” was such a virus and led to the booting of a pc from a remote memory location that allowed the attacker to access the OS of the system.	47,190
Main Article Content It has been found that nutrition does not provide the necessary quantities of some important trace elements, including iron and zinc. Iron is an essential element for all living organisms. It has a key role in the transport of oxygen and as a cofactor in many enzymes. Zinc is a component of more than 200 enzymes involved in the synthesis of proteins and DNA and is needed for the metabolism of growth factors. Enriching bread with mineral substances is a very good approach to overcoming the deficit and achieving adequate levels of intake. Different sources are used for this purpose, but there has been a growing interest in seaweed in recent years. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of 2 and 4% Spirulina powder supplement on the iron and zinc content of bread made from wheat flour type 500. To determine the iron and zinc content, a highly sensitive ICP-AES method is used. Enrichment with 2% and 4% Spirulina plantesis has been found to increase the amount of zinc in wheat bread respectively to 6.36 ± 0.64 mg/kg and 6.77 ± 0.68 mg/kg, whereas its content in the control sample is 5.99 ± 0.49 mg/kg. The amount of iron in the enriched samples reached 15.9 ± 1.59 mg/kg with the addition of 2% Spirulina plantensis and 24.7 ± 2.48 mg/kg with the addition of 4%, while in the control sample of bread was 7.22 ± 0.58 mg/kg. The addition of Spirulina platensis algae to wheat bread increases its biological value and helps to achieve iron and zinc content amounts close to the recommended daily intake levels. Barakat E., Nemaat M., El-Kewaisny, Salama A. Chemical and Nutritional Evaluation of Fortified Biscuits with Dried Spirulina Algae. Food and Dairy Sci., Mansoura Univ ,2016, 7 (3): 167–77. www.journalijar.com/uploads/387_IJAR-18106.pdf Belay A. The Potential Application of Spirulina (Arthrospira) as a Nutritional and Therapeutic Supplement in Health Management. The Journal of the American Nutraceutical Association, 2002, 5(2), pp. 27-48. http://www.macoc.fr/resources/The+Journal+of+the+American+Nutraceutical+ Association+vol+5+spring+2002+Spiruline.pdf Burcu A., Avşaroğlu E., Işık O., Özyurt G., Kafkas E., Etyemez M., Uslu L. Nutritional and Physicochemical Characteristics of Bread Enriched with Microalgae Spirulina Platensis. Journal of Engineering Research and Application, 2016, 6(124): 2248–962230. http://www.ijera.com/papers/Vol6_issue12/Part-4/E612043038.pdf Cabrita A, Maia, M. R. G, Oliveira, H. M, Sousa-Pinto, I., Almeida, A. A, Pinto, E., & Fonseca, A. J. M. Tracing seaweeds as mineral sources for farm-animals. Journal of applied phycology, 2016, 28(5), 3135-3150. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-016-0839-y Demirözü B., Saldamlı I., Gürsela B., Uçak A., Çetınyokuş F., Yüzbaşıa N. Determination of Some Metals Which Are Important for Food Quality Control in Bread. Journal of Cereal Science, 2003, 37(2): 171–77. https://doi.org/10.1006/jcrs.2002.0491 Ebuehi, O., Owolabi O., Ikanone C., Amabibi I., Ajekwu A. Organoleptic, Minerals and Vitamins’ Evaluation of Some Nigerian Breads, Nigerian Food Journal, 2007, 25(2). http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/nifoj.v25i2.50846 Fradique M, Batista AP, Nunes MC, Gouveia L, Bandarra NM, Raymundo A. Incorporation of Chlorella Vulgaris and Spirulina Maxima Biomass in Pasta Products. Part 1: Preparation and Evaluation. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 2010, 90(10): 1656–64. https://doi.org/10.1002/jsfa.3999 Gandy J., Madden A., Holdsworth M. Oxford Handbook of Nutrition and Dietetics. Oxford University Press, 2012, Print ISBN-13: 9780199585823 https://doi.org/10.1093/med/9780199585823.001.0001 García-Casal M, Pereira A, Leets I, Ramírez J, Quiroga M. High Iron Content and Bioavailability in Humans from Four Species of Marine Algae. The Journal of Nutrition, 2007, 137(12): 2691–95.https://doi.org/10.1093/jn/137.12.2691 García-Casal M., Ramírez J., Leets I., Pereira A., Quiroga M. 2009. Antioxidant Capacity, Polyphenol Content and Iron Bioavailability from Algae (Ulva Sp., Sargassum Sp. and Porphyra Sp.) in Human Subjects. British Journal of Nutrition, 2009, 101(01): https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007114508994757 Gibson R. Zinc: The Missing Link in Combating Micronutrient Malnutrition in Developing Countries. The Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 2006, 65(1): 51–60. https://doi.org/10.1079/PNS2005474 Habib M., Parvin M., Huntington T., Hasan M. A review on culture, production and use of spirulina as food for humans and feeds for domestic animals. FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Circular. No. 1034. Rome, FAO. 2008. 33p. ISBNs 9789251061060, www.fao.org/3/a-i0424e.pdf Joshi, S., Bera M. and Panesar P. Extrusion Cooking of Maize/Spirulina Mixture. Journal of Food Processing and Preservation, 2014, 38: 655-664. https://doi.org/10.1111/jfpp.12015 McLean E., Cogswell M., Egli I., Wojdyla D. Worldwide Prevalence of Anaemia, WHO Vitamin and Mineral Nutrition Information System, 1993–2005. Public Health Nutrition, 2009, 12(04): 444. 3).https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980008002401 Minh N. Effect of Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, Spirulina and Preservative Supplementation to Sweet Bread Quality in Bakery. International journal of multidisciplinary research and development, 2014, 1(4): 36–44. http://www.allsubjectjournal.com/archives/2014/vol1/issue4/70 Mohammed S., MussaliI A., Mohsen A., Gahri A. Nutritive Value of Commonly Consumed Bread in Yemen. E-Journal of Chemistry, 2009, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 437-444. https://doi.org/10.1155/2009/975960. Prasad S. Impact of the Discovery of Human Zinc Deficiency on Health. Journal of trace elements in medicine and biology : organ of the Society for Minerals and Trace Elements (GMS), 2014, 28(4): 357–63.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtemb.2014.09.002 Saharan V. and Jood S. Nutritional Composition of Spirulina Platensis Powder and its Acceptability in Food Products. International Journal of Advanced Research, 2017, 5(6): 2295–2300.http://dx.doi.org/10.21474/IJAR01/4671 Salgueiro M., Zubillaga M., Lysionek A., Caro R., Weill R., Boccio J. The Role of Zinc in the Growth and Development of Children. Nutrition (Burbank, Los Angeles County, Calif.,) 2002, 18(6): 510–19.https://doi.org/10.1016/S0899-9007(01)00812-7 Tokuşoglu, O., and Unal M. Biomass Nutrient Profiles of Three Microalgae: Spirulina Platensis, Chlorella Vulgaris, and Isochrisis Galbana. Journal of Food Science, 2003, 68(4): 1144–48.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2621.2003.tb09615.x Vonshak A. Spirulina Platensis (Arthrospira) : Physiology, Cell-Biology, and Biotechnology. CRC Press, 1997, p.223, ISBN 9781482272970 www.bashanfoundation.org/contributions/Vonshak-A/1997-.Vonshak-S.pdf Wolfgang M. and Sandstead H. Zinc Requirements and the Risks and Benefits of Zinc Supplementation. Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology 20(1): 3–18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtemb.2006.01.006 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Copyright Licensing Agency Institutions based in the EU with a valid photocopying and/or digital license with the Copyright Licensing Agency may copy excerpts from books and journals published by the Academic Publishing House of UFT Plovdiv under the terms of their license. Copyright Clearance Center Institutions based in the US with a valid photocopying and/or digital license with the Copyright Clearance Center may copy excerpts from books and journals published by the Academic Publishing House of UFT Plovdiv under the terms of their license. Other Territories: Please contact your local reproduction rights organization. If you have any questions about the permitted uses of a specific article, please contact us. Permissions Department of Academic Publishing House of UFT Plovdiv Plovdiv 4002, 26 Maritsa Blvd., Bulgaria Tel.: +359 (32) 603-687 Fax: +359 (32) 644-102	58,886
This course introduces fundamental ecological concepts and explores the interactions between all living things, including humans, and our environment. Students learn about the biosphere, major biomes, ecosystems, chemical cycles, and the role of living things in ecosystems. In addition to learning about environmental problems, students explore practical alternatives for protecting the environment and moving toward a sustainable future. More and more, the broad subject of environmental science needs to be considered on a global scale, and this course helps to increase students’ awareness of global environmental issues, as well as their role in their environment, both local and global. Students are encouraged to think deeply about the issues discussed and their responsibilities as citizens of the Earth. The interdisciplinary nature of environmental science is reinforced throughout the course. The following books are included with this course: - Oak Meadow Environmental Science Coursebook - Environmental Science: Your World, Your Turn, Pearson - A Sand County Almanac, by Aldo Leopold View samples of our high school curriculum here. High School Teacher Manuals are available only for families who use our curriculum independently (non-enrolled). Enrolled students and families should contact their Oak Meadow teacher directly for questions regarding course work.	60,003
Sunburnt Country: The History and Future of Climate Change in Australia Melbourne University Press, $34.99 More than half a century ago, the French historian Ferdinand Braudel issued a challenge to historians, arguing the time had come to look past the business of nations and empires and their narratives of progress, and instead engage with what he termed the longue duree. Likening the social time of traditional history to "a surface disturbance" or "waves stirred up by the powerful movement of tides", he argued the time had come to try to explore what he called geographical time, in the hope of divining the deeper currents that flow through human affairs, shaping them across generations, centuries, even millennia. As the historian Tom Griffiths has observed, Braudel's formulation has taken on new urgency in recent years. As our impact on the planet has grown the division between geological time and human time has collapsed, demanding we recognise the radical interconnectedness of processes, phenomena, even ideas we would once have regarded as separate. As temperatures rise and icecaps melt, it is no longer possible to pretend the business of our everyday lives and their dependence upon cheap energy does not have planetary implications, or that the planet's changing climate will not affect us personally and collectively. For Griffiths this realisation demands new kinds of history capable of connecting these different time scales, and of revealing the ways in which the planetary and the personal intermingle. Joelle Gergis is a climate scientist rather than a historian, but I suspect her new book, Sunburnt Country, is precisely the sort of book Griffiths has in mind. Situated at the intersection of history and science, it explores the mechanisms that underpin the extreme variability of the Australian climate and the ways in which they have shaped our past and will affect our future. Gergis is well-placed to provide this analysis. A researcher in the University of Melbourne's School of Earth Sciences, she has been intimately involved in the Australian contribution to the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, leading the Working Group charged with improving understanding of Australasian climate variability. More recently she led the landmark South-Eastern Australian Climate Reconstruction Project (SEARCH), for which she and her colleagues were awarded the 2014 Eureka Prize for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Scientific Research, and earlier this year she was selected as a lead author for the Sixth IPCC Report, due to be released in 2021. Sunburnt Country draws heavily upon all these undertakings, but perhaps most particularly upon the SEARCH Project that sought to develop a detailed reconstruction of the Australian climate by drawing upon a range of historical and scientific sources. The difficulties associated with such an undertaking are not difficult to divine. Systematic weather records are a relatively recent innovation. Although colonial newspapers often published records of temperature and rainfall and various private citizens maintained personal records, it was not until the establishment of the government observatories in Sydney and Melbourne that any official record-keeping really began, and not until the creation of the Bureau of Meteorology soon after Federation that this process began to take place at a national level. In recent years researchers such as Linden Ashcroft have made huge strides in collating and calibrating these records, giving us access to detailed records of weather conditions that extend back to 1860. For information on conditions prior to that we are reliant upon other, less systematic sources. Sometimes these sources are scientific: one of the book's best moments concerns Gergis' accidental rediscovery of the weather journal of First Fleet astronomer William Dawes, long thought lost, a typically meticulous document that provides a record of the conditions experienced by the colony from September 1788 until Dawes' unhappy departure in December 1791. Likewise many newspapers contain regular updates on the state of water supplies, crops and livestock capable of supplementing the measurements taken by early settlers. This information is supplemented further by the accounts of those who were there, although as Gergis is careful to stress, such accounts of weather conditions are often highly problematic and imprecise. Memory is fallible, and people's impressions are subjective, tending to elide similar extremes in previous years and to exaggerate the severity of whatever is being experienced at present. Used in combination these sources reveal a society that has been shaped by the extremes of its climate since its storm-buffeted inception. Over and over again severe droughts and floods have made farming difficult and unreliable, while bushfire and flood have exacted terrible tolls many times. Sometimes it is the statistics that tell the story – the description of a 15.2-metre wall of water washing down the Stanley River Gorge during Queensland's Black February floods in 1893, or the 35 people killed when the railway bridge at Indooroopilly collapsed later that day. But more often it is the voices of those who were there – poor Watkin Tench complaining the north-westerly wind was "like the blast of a heated oven", on a brutally hot day in December 1790, or William Stanley Jevons describing the floods on the Hawkesbury in 1801: "Five or six persons were drowned. Cries for help, and reports of muskets, the signals of distress, were heard both day and night, and added greatly to the confusion of a scene which was throughout strange and terrible … An immense expanse of which the eye cannot in many directions discover the limits, everywhere interspersed with growing timber and crowded with poultry, pigs, horses, cattle, stacks, and houses, having frequently men and women clinging to them for protection and shrieking out in agony or despair for assistance." The vividness of these voices also points to one of Sunburnt Country's weaknesses, which is its lack of engagement with Aboriginal knowledge about climactic cycles. To an extent this is a function of the book's conception and its reliance upon documentary and scientific sources, but still, it is difficult not to wish for a more comprehensive discussion of Aboriginal demarcations of the seasons, the links between them and the cycles of Aboriginal society, or even the dizzying notion that the story traditions of many Aboriginal cultures stretch back more than 10,000 years, encoding information about the freezing conditions that prevailed during the last Ice Age, and the inundation of coastal regions that followed the ice's retreat. In the end, though, it is not Sunburnt Country's portrait of the past that is most compelling, but its glimpse of our future, in which the climactic extremes that have shaped our past are set to intensify, bringing with them higher temperatures, longer and more frequent heatwaves, more severe flooding, increasingly catastrophic bushfires and hastening environmental breakdown of the sort already being experienced on the Great Barrier Reef and elsewhere. It is no longer necessary to imagine what this future will be like: the record temperatures of the past few summers or the storms that struck the east coast in 2016, sweeping away beaches and houses in Sydney offer a taste of what is to come, while the heartbreaking bleaching events that wiped out half the coral on the Great Barrier Reef in 2016-2017 make the implications for other species inescapable. Amitav Ghosh has written of what he calls the great derangement, his term for our culture's willed denial of the catastrophe that is overtaking us. The reasons for that denial are both complex and extremely simple: as Gergis declares at one point the real issue with climate science has never been its "data or methods but rather its implied threat to the status quo". Yet there is no doubt at least part of the problem lies in our inability to connect the future we are making to our understanding of the world as it has always been. By unpicking the complexities of our past climate and showing us how they relate to our future Sunburnt Country does just that. Joelle Geris is a guest at Sydney Writers' Festival, swf.org.au James Bradley's novel about climate change, Clade, is published by Hamish Hamilton.	193,989
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition - n. The act or process of one that packs. - n. The processing and packaging of manufactured products, especially food products. - n. A material used to prevent leakage or seepage, as around a pipe joint. - n. The insertion of gauze or other material into a body cavity or wound for therapeutic purposes. - n. The material so used; a pack. Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia - n. Any material used for filling an empty space, closing a joint, and the like; stuffing, as the filling of a piston or a well-tube. - n. In printing, the fabric used on printing-presses between the iron platen or cylinder and the sheet to be printed. A soft packing is a blanket of wool or rubber cloth, which equalizes the impression. A hard packing is made of glazed millboard or of smooth hard paper, which prevents indentation. - n. In masonry, small stones embedded in mortar, employed to fill up the vacant spaces in the middle of walls; rubble. - n. The act of bringing together or manipulating to serve one's own purposes. See pack, transitive verb, 8. - n. A system of packing in which metal is used, as metallic rings for piston-packing. Such rings are either so cast as to be elastic, or they are divided into segments and fitted with springs to press them against the interior of the cylinder so as to form a steam-tight contact. - n. Tubes of lead or other soft metal filled with some vegetable material, such as hemp or cotton. The ends of the tubes are either forced or soldered together. - n. Collusion; trickery; cheating. - n. In halma, the stage of the game in which the player gets his men in order on the side of the board farthest from him. - n. In shipbuilding, the pieces of wood used to fill up the space between the bilgeways and the bottom of the ship. A large number of long wooden wedges are placed transversely between the packing and bilgeways, and the weight of the vessel is transferred from the building-blocks to the packing before launching the vessel by driving in the wedges. - n. In telephony, the crowding together or caking of the particles of carbon in a microphonic transmitter, whereby the sensitiveness of the instrument is impaired. - v. present participle of pack. - n. The action of the verb. - n. As a concrete noun. GNU Webster's 1913 - n. The act or process of one who packs. - n. (Mach.) Any material used to pack, fill up, or make close. A substance or piece used to make a joint impervious. - n. A thin layer, or sheet, of yielding or elastic material inserted between the surfaces of a flange joint. - n. The substance in a stuffing box, through which a piston rod slides. - n. A yielding ring, as of metal, which surrounds a piston and maintains a tight fit, as inside a cylinder, etc. - n. (Masonry), Rare in the U. S. Same as Filling. - n. obsolete A trick; collusion. - n. any material used especially to protect something - n. the enclosure of something in a package or box - n. carrying something in a pack on the back - From pack (partly from the verb, partly from the noun) + -ing. (Wiktionary) “Another important point in packing is to keep food from becoming soggy in the box.” “The phrase packing the Court—always pejorative, imputing one-sidedness—burst on the scene in 1936 in criticism of President Franklin Roosevelt’s plan to appoint a new Supreme Court justice every time one of the “nine old men” a phrase coined by the columnists Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen reached the age of seventy and refused to step down.” “The couple said they are going to begin packing their belongings.” “It teaches them caution, such as in packing one's own parachute.” “Court-packing is not particularly difficult as a matter oflaw.” “In the next week or so we will begin packing up our offices.” “I was not careful enough in packing it in the car, and when my husband opened the back door, its package fell out and it broke!” “The furniture as you can see all came wrapped in packing foam and when the desks and cabinets were finally arranged we had one gigantic mountain of fun.” “She needs to spend any money she may have left in packing up her campaign.” “The senator that was sent packing from the Senate?” These user-created lists contain the word ‘packing’. Annoying, little, things. In a single word. A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up. includes words of the "Prodcom list" Amusingly-named mechanical and electrical parts to be found in a particular warehouse in Newfoundland Listening to this as an audio book for the second time. Tim O'Brien uses simple words and phrases to great effect. Very few unfamilar and big words . The writing style reminds me of words from Joh... I think the title says it all. All about boarding life. There is a mixture of positive and negative. Looking for tweets for packing.	108,649
In the August issue of the Observer, I wrote a cri de coeur (I can’t pronouce that phrase but it works) on climate change denial in Texas, posted online this week. The response from some of our readers was interesting, and it’s one that I hear more frequently from progressive-leaning folks: Climate change is real, it’s caused by humans, but it’s too late to do anything about it, therefore all we can do is adapt. I don’t subscribe to the view that it’s ‘too late’ to avoid what you might term “extreme” climate change, mainly because I tend to rely on the mainstream views of climate scientists. But it is very much true that some warming is inevitable. In fact, over the last century the planet has heated 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit over land. Because of past and present inaction, more climate change is ‘in the pipeline’ and is inevitable. The reality of some degree of climate change, and its myriad consequences, does militate for adaptation. Plenty of nations and some American states get that, and are making plans now. What about Texas? Texas Climate News, which is a well-reported, just-the-facts-ma’am publication sponsored by the Houston Advanced Research Center offers a perfect example of the head-in-the-sand approach prevalent here: The ongoing development of Galveston’s low-lying West End even as beach erosion, subsidence and sea-level rise conspire against it. I wrote a lengthy story on this topic back in 2007. It seems not much has changed. After navigating the complexities of Galveston building codes, builders like Mullican, who specializes in large, beachfront residences, believe their structures are capable of standing up to hurricanes, the rising sea and erosion. “All these fearmongers that are saying we shouldn’t build here, we shouldn’t build there, the water is coming up. To me, it’s Chicken Little,” said Mullican. “We can build timeless buildings and deal with what comes.” Scientists studying the Texas coast have taken a different stance. John Anderson, a Rice University oceanographer, suggests a fundamental shift of development must take place. Growth, he says, should move from the West End to the East End Flats – a large, unpopulated area on the eastern side of the island, currently owned by the federal government and used to store dredging material. Near Galveston’s historic downtown, the East End Flats is protected by the island’s famous seawall and did not flood during Hurricane Ike, unlike the West End. This represents, to some extent, an old coastal conflict: the retreatists vs. the stand-your-grounders, those who would bend to Mother Nature and those who would defy her. But what’s different now is both the scale and speed of the challenge. While Galveston, famously, is vulnerable to hurricanes and beach erosion, inexorably rising oceans pose an existential threat. How do you build a “timeless” condominium capable of withstanding not just the occasional Hurricane Ike (or worse), but several feet of sea-level rise? And, more important, should you? The eastern third of the Texas coast has some of the highest relative rates of sea-level rise (rising oceans plus sinking land) and beach erosion in the nation. The beach is retreating on the western end of Galveston at a healthy clip of three to six feet per year. Tide gage records at Galveston’s Pier 21, dating to 1908, show that the Gulf has risen about 6.4 millimeters per year over the last century. That may not sound like much, but even if that rate holds steady (a very unlikely scenario), Galveston is facing another foot of sea-level rise by 2050, and almost two feet by 2100. A more likely scenario, given the thermal expansion of the oceans due to more heat and melting ice sheets and glaciers, is possibly on the order of several feet by the end of the century, according to many scientists using the most current data. In 2009, scientists with the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies in Corpus Christi studied the impact of sea-level rise on the Galveston Bay region for the Environmental Defense Fund. They considered several scenarios. At just .69 meters (2.3 feet), a conservative estimate for 2100 according to the authors, 78 percent of the households in Galveston, Harris and Chambers counties would be displaced from their homes and the area would rack up $9.3 billion in economic losses. At 1.5 meters (4.9 feet), 93 percent of households would be displaced and $12.4 billion of losses would be incurred. This is not a message that many want to hear, including supposedly science-driven state agencies. Recall that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality went so far as to censor Rice’s John Anderson last year, when he turned in a book chapter that discussed the latest science on sea-level rise. What folks like John Anderson are promoting is, in a sense, much less naive than continuing business-as-usual: refocusing the location and character of development to allow for an orderly accommodation of nature. In 2010, the Rice School of Architecture imagined how Galveston could reinvent itself, and not just survive but thrive, in the face of a grim future. The students came up with some wild stuff. Meanwhile, the developers chafe at what they see as onerous regulations holding them back. The primary tool for development policy on Galveston Island is flood insurance rate maps created by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Rate maps determine which areas are most likely to flood and who must have flood insurance. The city government uses the rate maps to regulate building in flood prone areas, and banks use them to determine who must have insurance before they lend money, according to FEMA. Building specifications are guided by the International Building Code and residential codes. The City of Galveston does add amendments that are stricter than those standard codes. Mullican believes the current regulations are too stiff and the cause of Galveston’s slow, post-Ike recovery. Ike caused more than $20 billion in damage and lowered the island’s population by several thousand. The population has not yet rebounded. “The city of Galveston has been primarily responsible for the lack of growth on Galveston Island, not the fear of building and not nature itself,” said Mullican. “It is the city of Galveston that is preventing us from standing back up and rebuilding this city because of all the restriction and the delays.” There is, of course, an economic case to be made for laissez-faire in the aftermath of a disaster. But, then, what about the long-term accounting for costs? Who pays to protect an island besieged by the seas? Since Hurricane Ike, there’s been talk in Galveston of building the Ike Dike, a massive public works project that would require New Deal-style funding and chutzpah to carry out. Some folks point to The Netherlands as a nation that’s used ingenuity and engineering miracles to turn back the seas. But if you think the United States, in this current area of tea partying and austerity madness, is capable of that then I’ve got some oceanfront property in Arizona I’d like to sell you.	9,659
(Legacy information not on the exam anymore, but helps provide a firm foundation) Configuring RIP is pretty easy and consists of the following two steps: - Enable RIP globally using the router rip global configuration command. This command will bring you to the routing configuration mode as shown below: - Tell the router which networks to advertise using the network <network> command in the routing configuration mode as shown below: Remember that the network command is used to tell the router that connected routes you want to advertise. Any routes learned from other routers will automatically be advertised out. Since RIPv1 is being used, the network command will accept classful networks only. As soon as the network command is given, RIP will begin sending out updates as well as processing updates received from neighbors. The network shown in Figure 5-2 will be used for the rest of the RIP sections. Now that you know how RIP works and how to configure it, let us configure the network shown in Figure 5-2 to see effect of RIP on the routing table. For this example, we will enable RIP on RouterA, RouterB and RouterD only. RouterC will be configured in one of the sections ahead. The configuration required on the three routers is shown below: Figure 5-2 RIP example Now take a look at the routing table on each of the three routers to see the effect: In the above output, note the lines that start with R. The R signifies that these routes were learned from RIP. In output from RouterA, notice that the route to 192.168.4.0/24 network was learned from RIP. The 120/2 in the line shows that the administrative distance of the route is 120 (default RIP AD) and that the destination network is two hops away. The next hop towards 192.168.4.0/24 is 192.168.2.2, which is RouterB. Similarly you will notice that each router now knows about every subnet in the network. You may have noticed that compared to static or default routing, configuring RIP was easier and faster. Now when there is a change in the network, the routing table will automatically get updated across the network. RIP version 2 (RIPv2) RIPv1 was one of the earliest routing protocols and was very popular back when it was created. With evolution in networking standards, RIP was found lacking in many places. Hence RIPv2 was developed in 1993 and standardized under RFC 2453. While RIPv2 is also a distance-vector routing protocols and fundamentally similar to RIPv1, there are some difference in the way it works. Table 5-1 shows the differences between RIPv1 and RIPv2. Table 5-1 Differences between RIPv1 and RIPv2 \|It is a classful protocol and does not send subnet masks in routing updates\|\|Is a classless protocol and sends subnet masks in routing updates\| \|Uses broadcast to communicate with neighbors\|\|Uses multicast to communicate with peers. Multicast address 220.127.116.11 is used.\| \|RIPv1 does not support authentication\|\|RIPv2 supports authentication\| \|Does not support VLSM\|\|Supports VLSM\| Remember that apart from the differences given in Table 5-1, RIPv2 is similar to RIPv1 with a maximum hop count of 15 and same timers as RIPv1. It also implements the same loop prevention techniques as RIPv1. The configuration for RIPv2 is same as RIPv1 but requires the addition of version 2 command in the routing configuration mode. RouterA, RouterB and RouterD from our previous example can be configured to use RIPv2 as shown below: Take a look at the routing tables of these routers after the change: You will notice that the routing table output is same irrespective of the RIP version used. The output will only differ between the two protocols if the default mask is not used for the given class. In such a case, you will notice that when RIPv2 is used, the subnet mask is correctly seen on the neighbor while in case of RIPv1 the neighbor assumes the default subnet mask. To show this difference in the routing table, I temporarily added a 192.168.20.0/25 network on RouterA and advertised it using RIPv1. The output of the routing table from RouterB is shown below: In the above output notice that the route to 192.168.20.0 network has a mask of /24 instead of /25. When the version was changed to 2, notice the routing table output on RouterB: Notice that the mask for the 192.168.20.0 is correct displayed at /25 when RIPv2 was used. Stopping RIP updates on an Interface As soon as RIP is enabled, it will start sending and receiving updates on interfaces. Many situations require you to stop RIP from sending updates out an interface. An example of such a situation is when an interface connects to the Internet. You do not want your routing updates to go out to the Internet. In such situations, you can use the passive-interface interface command in the routing configuration mode to stop RIP from sending updates out that interface. This command stop RIP from sending updates but it will continue to receive updates on that interface. In our example network, we do not need to send RIP updates out interface fa0/0 on RouterA and interface fa0/1 on RouterD. We can stop updates going of of these interfaces using the following commands: Remember that we did not configure RouterC earlier? Let us configure RouterC to run RIP across both its networks as shown below: After the above configuration, the routing table on RouterC looks as shown below: The output above is similar to what was seen in RouterB. So why did we not configure RotuerC earlier? Take a look at the routing table of RouterA after we enabled RIP on RouterC: In the above output notice that RouterA’s routing table has two paths listed to 192.168.4.0/24 and 192.168.3.0/24. Similarly, RouterD has two paths listed for 192.168.1.0/24 and 192.168.2.0/24 as shown below: To explain this behavior, consider what happened when RouterC started advertising its routes to RouterA and RouterD. Till that point, RouterA has only one way to reach 192.168.3.0/24 and 192.168.4.0/24 with hop counts of 1 and 2 respectively. When RouterC advertised its routes to RouterA, it also advertised the networks 192.168.3.0/24 and 192.168.4.0/24 with hop counts of 1 and 2. At this stage, RouterA has two paths to the same destination and both paths have the same metric. As you already know, when a routing protocol has multiple paths to a destination it compares the metric to decide which path to use. In this same we have two equal cost paths. When a routing protocol has two or more equal cost paths, it will use both the paths and the traffic will be load balanced across both the paths. Hence in the above outputs you see two paths for the destination networks. RIP can load balance between 4 equal cost paths by default. The older codes of Cisco IOS support load balancing across a maximum of 6 equal cost paths while the newer codes support load balancing across a maximum of 16 equal cost paths. You can change the default value of 4 using the maximum-paths number under the routing configuration mode.	157,509
The World Top 20 Education Poll provides annual international rankings of the top 20 education systems out of 260 nations. Each country’s ranking is based on five educational levels: early-childhood enrollment rates, Elementary Math, Science and Reading scores, Middle-School Math, Science and Reading scores, High School Graduation rates, and College Graduation rates. Each level consists of ranking the top 20 countries by giving a country 20 points for a first place rank, 19 for a second place rank, and so on down to 1 point for a twenty rank. The data is then used to produce the nation’s ranking from a statistical average based on a combined score from all 5 levels. The poll’s statistical data is compiled from 6 international organizations – the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the United Nation’s Economic and Social Council (UNESOC), The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and Progess in International Reading Study (PIRLS). And then send to each countries Ministry of Education Department to assure the data is accurate. The World Top 20 Education Poll mission is to serve as a single body to oversee every child is afford the opportunity to reach their full potential; by working with nations to strengthen their education system. The poll’s creator, the New Jersey Minority Educational Development (NJMED) organization, is also the programmer for the 100% Graduation Rate Program, which works with hardest to reach student population, at-risk minority males, in the United States. The 100% Graduation Rate Program raised high school graduation’s by 49% in one of the U.S. poorest and most violence cities, Camden, New Jersey, from 1996 to 2006.	78,621
On This Day - 30 October 1918 Theatre definitions: Western Front comprises the Franco-German-Belgian front and any military action in Great Britain, Switzerland, Scandinavia and Holland. Eastern Front comprises the German-Russian, Austro-Russian and Austro-Romanian fronts. Southern Front comprises the Austro-Italian and Balkan (including Bulgaro-Romanian) fronts, and Dardanelles. Asiatic and Egyptian Theatres comprises Egypt, Tripoli, the Sudan, Asia Minor (including Transcaucasia), Arabia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Persia, Afghanistan, Turkestan, China, India, etc. Naval and Overseas Operations comprises operations on the seas (except where carried out in combination with troops on land) and in Colonial and Overseas theatres, America, etc. Political, etc. comprises political and internal events in all countries, including Notes, speeches, diplomatic, financial, economic and domestic matters. Source: Chronology of the War (1914-18, London; copyright expired) Over 30,000 prisoners taken in Flanders during past month. Region above Valenciennes flooded by Germans. Mannheim bombed by British. Serbs reach Danube east of Semendria and occupy and Pozharevats. Italian advance continues between Upper Brenta and sea; 33,000 prisoners. Severe fighting at Grappa. Fiume surrendered to the Croats by the Hungarians. Asiatic and Egyptian Theatres Turkish Army on Tigris surrenders to British. Serious influenza epidemic in London; 2,200 deaths last week. Hungarian Republic proclaimed: Count Hadik Prime Minister. German Note to U.S.A. received sating Armistice terms are being awaited. National Council of Fiume proclaims independence of city and desires union with Italy. Armistice between Turkey and Entente Powers signed at Mudros.	159,837
W. I., Dictionariolum Quadruplex (1638) Dictionariolvm Qvadrvplex: or A foure-fold Dictionarie for the use and benefit of Grammar-Schollers Bilingual and polyglot dictionaries, glossaries, and vocabularies Four Latin-English dictionaries: of Latin words identical except in declension; Latin words sounding alike but differing in a letter; Latin words similar but not the same in sound and differing in a letter; and Latin words differing in a syllable Ian Lancashire, Editor. Content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. We welcome your comments and questions.	89,202
\|VK Cup 2017 - Round 3\| Test data generation is not an easy task! Often, generating big random test cases is not enough to ensure thorough testing of solutions for correctness. For example, consider a problem from an old Codeforces round. Its input format looks roughly as follows: The first line contains a single integer n (1 ≤ n ≤ maxn) — the size of the set. The second line contains n distinct integers a1, a2, ..., an (1 ≤ ai ≤ maxa) — the elements of the set in increasing order. If you don't pay attention to the problem solution, it looks fairly easy to generate a good test case for this problem. Let n = maxn, take random distinct ai from 1 to maxa, sort them... Soon you understand that it's not that easy. Here is the actual problem solution. Let g be the greatest common divisor of a1, a2, ..., an. Let x = an / g - n. Then the correct solution outputs "Alice" if x is odd, and "Bob" if x is even. Consider two wrong solutions to this problem which differ from the correct one only in the formula for calculating x. The first wrong solution calculates x as x = an / g (without subtracting n). The second wrong solution calculates x as x = an - n (without dividing by g). A test case is interesting if it makes both wrong solutions output an incorrect answer. Given maxn, maxa and q, find the number of interesting test cases satisfying the constraints, and output it modulo q. The only line contains three integers maxn, maxa and q (1 ≤ maxn ≤ 30 000; maxn ≤ maxa ≤ 109; 104 ≤ q ≤ 105 + 129). Output a single integer — the number of test cases which satisfy the constraints and make both wrong solutions output an incorrect answer, modulo q. 3 6 100000 6 21 100129 58 787788 50216 In the first example, interesting test cases look as follows: 1 1 1 3 2 4 6 2 4 6	30,725
$10.00 Strategies of Decision Making Eight Elements of Thought and Reasoning The Eight Elements of Thought and the Eight Elements of reasoning both have eight parts, but there are really only four. For example, Point of View and Assumptions are two aspects of the same thing. Re-organize the eight elements of thought and reasoning into four categories. Briefly describe each category. Include the characteristics of the original eight elements in your descriptions. - This tutorial was purchased 3 times and rated No Rating by students like you. - Posted on Jan. 14, 2013 at 09:48:09AM thought and reasoning.docx (13K) (Preview)	211,158
There’s supposedly nothing in nature more beautiful than a coral reef. The delicate underwater structures provide the planet with some of its most diverse ecosystems. Because of their importance there are dozens of groups out there working hard to protect these amazing valuable resources. The beauty of the coral reef has inspired Christine and Margaret Wertheim to curate a crochet reef called the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef. By mixing math, science and crafting (which, lets be honest, requires good math skills) the Australian sisters have created a wonderful work that has inspired others to get involved. This work isn’t for beginners though. The math involved is complex and uses no patterns. Instead, it uses hyperbolic crochet techniques that allow crafters to make complex forms. Cornell University mathematician Daina Taimina first used knitting techniques to make her model but discovered that crochet was the way to go. Taimina and colleague David W Henderson have an online tutorial for anyone willing to give it a go. Currently, the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef is showing at the Science Gallery in Dublin’s Trinity College. It’ll stay there until June 11. In October (from October 16 to April 17, 2011) it will move to Washington DC’s Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Next time you spot a woman crafting in public, just remember, she might be doing complex mathematics, not just making something cute.	1,994
In a world where kids are interacting with technology and media for more than 7 and-a-half hours a day, researchers are now unpacking how that immersion is shaping the way kids think, read, write, and research. Yes, spending life in front of big screens and small screens is rewiring our kids intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. In this seminar, Walt Mueller will guide you into an introductory understanding of the fascinating and frightening world of growing data on kids and technology, along with practical strategies and responses you can employ with the kids you know and love. The Digital Brain utilizes audio and video clips throughout the presentation. Presented in 2-3 hours, The Digital Brain is suitable for an evening seminar. Other formats are available and offered for conferences, seminars, retreats, meetings and community programs. To discuss schedule variations and honorariums, please contact the CPYU office.	208,714
The most frequent tasks that you perform on your PC is creating, moving or deleting Files. Let's look at various options for File Management. To manage your files, you can either use - Terminal (Command Line Interface - CLI) - File manager (Graphical User Interface -GUI) In this tutorial, you will learn- - Why learn Command Line Interface? - Launching the CLI on Ubuntu - Present working Directory (pwd) - Changing Directories (cd) - Navigating to home directory (cd ~) - Moving to root directory (cd /) - Navigating through multiple directories - Moving up one directory level (cd ..) - Relative and Absolute Paths Click here if the video is not accessible Why learn Command Line Interface? Even though the world is moving to GUI based systems, CLI has its specific uses and is widely used in scripting and server administration. Let's look at it some compelling uses - - Comparatively, Commands offer more options & are flexible. Piping and stdin/stdout are immensely powerful are not available in GUI - Some configurations in GUI are up to 5 screens deep while in a CLI it's just a single command - Moving, renaming 1000's of the file in GUI will be time-consuming (Using Control /Shift to select multiple files), while in CLI, using regular expressions so can do the same task with a single command. - CLI load fast and do not consume RAM compared to GUI. In crunch scenarios this matters. Both GUI and CLI have their specific uses. For example, in GUI, performance monitoring graphs give instant visual feedback on system health, while seeing hundreds of lines of logs in CLI is an eyesore. You must learn to use both GUI(File Manager) and CLI (Terminal) GUI of a Linux based OS is similar to any other OS. Hence, we will focus on CLI and learn some useful commands. Launching the CLI on Ubuntu There are 2 ways to launch the terminal. 1) Go to the Dash and type terminal 2) Or you can press CTRL + Alt + T to launch the Terminal Once you launch the CLI (Terminal), you would find something as guru99@VirtualBox(see image) written on it. 1) The first part of this line is the name of the user (bob, tom, ubuntu, home...) 2) The second part is the computer name or the host name. The hostname helps identify a computer over the network. In a server environment, host-name becomes important. 3) The ':' is a simple separator 4) The tilde '~' sign shows that the user in working in the home directory. If you change the directory, this sign will vanish. In the above illustration, we have moved from the /home directory to /bin using the 'cd' command. The ~ sign does not display while working in /bin directory. It appears while moving back to the home directory. 5) The '$' sign suggests that you are working as a regular user in Linux. While working as a root user, '#' is displayed. Present Working Directory The directory that you are currently browsing is called the Present working directory. You log on to the home directory when you boot your PC. If you want to determine the directory you are presently working on, use the command - pwd command stands for print working directory Above figure shows that /home/guru99 is the directory we are currently working on. If you want to change your current directory use the 'cd' command. Consider the following example. Here, we moved from directory /tmp to /bin to /usr and then back to /tmp. Navigating to home directory If you want to navigate to the home directory, then type cd. You can also use the cd ~ command. Moving to root directory The root of the file system in Linux is denoted by '/'. Similar to 'c:\' in Windows. Note: In Windows, you use backward slash "\" while in UNIX/Linux, forward slash is used "/" Type 'cd /' to move to the root directory. TIP: Do not forget space between cd and /. Otherwise, you will get an error. Navigating through multiple directories You can navigate through multiple directories at the same time by specifying its complete path. Example: If you want to move the /cpu directory under /dev, we do not need to break this operation in two parts. Instead, we can type '/dev/cpu' to reach the directory directly. Moving up one directory level For navigating up one directory level, try. Here by using the 'cd ..' command, we have moved up one directory from '/dev/cpu' to '/dev'. Then by again using the same command, we have jumped from '/dev' to '/' root directory. Relative and Absolute Paths A path in computing is the address of a file or folder. Example - In Windows There are two kinds of paths: 1. Absolute Path: Let's say you have to browse the images stored in the Pictures directory of the home folder 'guru99'. The absolute file path of Pictures directory /home/guru99/Pictures To navigate to this directory, you can use the command. This is called absolute path as you are specifying the full path to reach the file. 2. Relative Path: The Relative path comes in handy when you have to browse another subdirectory within a given directory. It saves you from the effort to type complete paths all the time. Suppose you are currently in your Home directory. You want to navigate to the Downloads directory. You do no need to type the absolute path Instead, you can simply type 'cd Downloads' and you would navigate to the Downloads directory as you are already present within the '/home/guru99' directory. This way you do not have to specify the complete path to reach a specific location within the same directory in the file system. - To manage your files, you can use either the GUI(File manager) or the CLI(Terminal) in Linux. Both have its relative advantages. In the tutorial series, we will focus on the CLI aka the Terminal - You can launch the terminal from the dashboard or use the shortcut key Cntrl + Alt + T - The pwd command gives the present working directory. - You can use the cd command to change directories - Absolute path is complete address of a file or directory - Relative path is relative location of a file of directory with respect to current directory - Relative path help avoid typing complete paths all the time. cd or cd ~ Navigate to HOME directory Move one level up To change to a particular directory Move to the root directory	31,294
This week’s quiz is based on information in this video, “Clubroot in Canola” Manitoba Agriculture announced this week it has discovered a clubroot pathotype in South Central Manitoba that is able to overcome the first generation clubroot resistance. The article includes a ‘recipe’ to help growers limit clubroot damage in canola. A lot of canola crops across Western Canada need a couple of weeks before all seeds are physiologically mature. With the frost risk rising with each passing day, farmers wonder if they should hurry up and cut that crop – even if cutting it green means a big sacrifice of yield. Canola harvested at 12.5% moisture (tough) or 15% moisture (damp) may not last long in storage before spoilage begins. How long it lasts is hard to predict. Here are answers to some common questions. While doing harvest disease scouting, why not do a plant count at the same time? Compare final plant populations for each canola crops to its days to maturity, evenness, harvestability and yield to determine your favourite plant density this year. Canola Watch is a free, unbiased, timely and research focused weekly newsletter from the Canola Council of Canada Crop Production Team You can subscribe to Canola Watch and search all the articles on the Canola Watch website	188,994
It’s in the works at a lab at Eindhoven University in the Netherlands: meat made in a Petri dish. Mark Post is multiplying stem cells extracted from a single cow (still alive), until they make muscle cells, which are then juiced up by a separate growth process of fatty cells. Dr. Post is hoping to satisfy the world’s rapidly growing rate of meat consumption without all the animal slaughter. Though his project is expensive dollar-wise’the burger he plans to produce by October will cost about $300,000’Dr. Post’s creation may help to alleviate the extreme costs to the environment and millions of animals slaughtered every year for human consumption (about 30% of the world’s viable land is used for raising animals). So if Dr. Post can make burgers in the confines of a tiny Petri dish without killing an animal, the question will be: will animal rights activists and vegetarians start biting down on a new kind of “meat”? And more importantly, will millions or billions of omnivores do so? Photo courtesy of Ron Dollete	186,537
Monday, March 8, 2010 Monday, March 1, 2010 Charles Joseph Minard was a mathematician, a civil engineer, and a pioneer in the field of information graphics; his most famous work is the above chart, which he created in 1869. It tells the tale of Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812: The width of the line represents the size of the Grande Armée from the crossing of the Niemen river to the deserted streets of Moscow and back, with temperatures during the return trip plotted along the bottom. At its peak, the Grand Armée numbered 690,000 men (422,000 at the start of this invasion), and was the largest army assembled to that point in European history.	28,793
The Grey Teal is almost all grey-brown. Each feather of the body is edged with buff, except on the rump. The chin and throat are white, the bill is dark green and the eye is red. The secondary wing feathers have glossy blue-black patch, broadly bordered and tipped with white. In flight, a large white wedge is visible on the underwing. The Grey Teal is one of the smaller Australian ducks. Measures between 40–60 cm in length. The male and females weigh roughly around the same 800g–1.2 kg. Gray Teals usually eat water plants stems, seeds, and insects. They are found in New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands. The Grey Teal nests near freshwater lakes and marshes, usually on the ground, but also in tree holes or rabbit burrows.	216,109
The best of EcoWatch, right in your inbox. Sign up for our email newsletter! Earthjustice released a white paper and interactive map on Feb. 23 showing the locations and reported baseline emissions from 1,753 industrial power plants across the U.S. Industrial power plants are in‐house power plants that burn conventional fuels like coal, biomass and oil. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently under court order to step in and protect public health from these sources of toxic air pollution. “Many people don’t know that major industrial operations often have their own personal power plants, which have not been subject to EPA clean air standards,” said Earthjustice staff attorney Jim Pew. “People who live near industrial power plants pay a disproportionate cost in increased cancer risk, heart attacks, asthma and other respiratory illness. Americans have the right to know where these plants are located and the pollutants they emit. Now they can get this information easily online.” Though they are usually smaller than power plants that sell electricity to the public, industrial power plants released millions of pounds of toxic air pollutants like mercury, lead, benzene and acid gases in 2010 alone. Earthjustice has worked for more than a decade to reduce health threats from pollution caused by industrial power plants—also known as industrial boilers. In February 2011, under a court-ordered deadline, the EPA issued Clean Air Act emission standards for industrial power plants. In December 2011, EPA issue a revised proposal and plans to finalize an updated standard by mid-2012. These standards (often referred to as the "Boiler MACT" rule) will bring IPPs into Clean Air Act compliance like any other power plant, saving thousands of lives each year and preventing widespread sickness, suffering and premature death, especially in communities that need the help most. The white paper, The Toxic Air Burden from Industrial Power Plants, includes: - Health impacts of selected pollutants - Top 20 states for boiler emissions of mercury, lead, chromium, hydrochloric acid, PM2.5 (soot) - Top 20 facilities for these pollutants - Ranking of states with the most industrial boilers - An explanation of the research methods The interactive map shows where these facilities are located from coast-to-coast. Read the white paper and use the interactive map by clicking here. For more information, click here.	96,222
European definition of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine (PRM) is an independent medical specialty concerned with the promotion of physical and cognitive functioning, activities (including behaviour), participation (including quality of life) and modifying personal and environmental factors. It is thus responsible for the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation management of people with disabling medical conditions and comorbidity across all ages. Specialists in PRM have a holistic approach to people with acute and chronic conditions, examples of which are musculo-skeletal and neurological disorders, amputations, pelvic organ dysfunction, cardio-respiratory insufficiency and the disability due to chronic pain and cancer. PRM specialists work in various facilities from acute care units to community settings. They use specific diagnostic assessment tools and carry out treatments including pharmacological, physical, technical, educational and vocational interventions. Because of their comprehensive training, they are best placed to be responsible for the activities of multi-professional teams in order to achieve optimal outcomes.” Validated in Antalya (October 2003) D8908 ter European Resolution "In all integrated Rehabilitation Teams the responsibility for diagnosis and treatment can only belong to a medical practitioner competent in Rehabilitation. He or she alone can take responsibility for modifying the prescribed or alter its administration, taking account of the advise and suggestions proposed by the other members of the team, through their professional relationship with the patient, at the regular team meetings. In all cases, the final decision and responsibility rest entirely with the competent medical practitioner in medical charge." Approved unanimously by the executive committee of the UEMS, in BRUSSELS the 28 April 1989 Approved by the General Assembly of the "Standing committee of European Doctors" in 1990 Why is PRM such an attractive specialty ? PRM is a comprehensive specialty - Concerned with all ages of life - With a holistic medical approach, including social & environmental factors - Dealing with varied and complex pathologies (spanning sports injuries to chronic progressive disease, eg. multiple sclerosis) - Based on biomechanics, neurobiology, effort biology, human sciences,information technologies... PRM Specialists play a core role inside health teams and networks Multidisciplinary consultation: - Neurological rehabilitation, brain injury, stroke - Musculoskeletal medicine - Spine : scoliosis, low back pain - Sports Medicine and Traumatology Medico-technical structures for in and out patients - Functional assessment - Orthotics and prosthetics - Comprehensive rehabilitation, including technological Rehabilitation networks for outpatients - Social, vocational and community links Modern tools in rehabilitation assessment - Gait, posture and movement analysis - Kinematics and kinetic measurement - Urodynamic evaluation - Effort assessment and training - Impact of impairment evaluation on functioning and quality of life Humanity and Efficiency - PRM goals are individually set for each patient - Give hope to all « lifetime events » - Return sportsmen and women to competitive levels of fitness following injury - Optimize a disabled child functional potential - Use information technology in disablement PRM is International ! - A fully recognized specialty across the World: in Europe, USA, Canada, South America and in Asia - Scientific journals and international congresses PRM is an enjoyable specialty ! - Great demand in most European countries - Flexible working conditions - An opportunity to be involved in varied clinical activities and to expand cultural horizons… - Contacts with different professionals: scientists, sociologists, architects, engineers, patients associations… - International exchanges and projects...	163,334
Teaching Beginning Writers - Grades: PreK–K Teaching writing to young children is a daunting task, one that takes a lot of preparation and patience. It’s important to help your students strike a balance between risk taking, confidence and pride when writing. In fact, there are a number of things you can do to foster successful writers in your classroom. I like to start my school year by assessing the print that’s visible on the walls. I try to be “print rich” without posting too much as it can be visually distracting for students. One of the standards that I always have hanging is a large illustrated alphabet poster depicting upper and lower case letters. This poster hangs in the meeting area so it can be referred to throughout the day. On the opposite wall is the alphabet arranged in a line. For this I used alphabet cards from our handwriting program, Handwriting Without Tears. To each letter I attached the same illustrations that are featured in the poster. While the poster is still visible from the writing area, I want to optimize the chance that my students will make use of these aides. I provide further assistance by placing alphabet cards on the tables. I place them back-to-back in plastic stands so students need only look up to find the letters they need. These work more efficiently then alphabet strips that students need to pick up or uncover during their writing. Another chart that often makes its way to various walls, depending on where students are working, is a name chart. It features small color photographs of students along with their names. The students are listed in alphabetical order. This chart allows easy reference for students to identify beginning sounds, as well as small words and word chunks. In general my students use invented spelling, but as the year progresses I hang sight words under the corresponding letters of the alphabet on the alphabet line. This provides one more convenient reference for students. I stick to the top 25 and add any that seem to be popular in class. I also add “__ing” after teaching a lesson on it being a piece of a word and not a word in itself. This is often difficult for children to understand so I draw a line in front of it to remind them of the root word. Keeping in mind I teach kindergarten, my students use blank paper for their writing. There is usually a line or fold to distinguish where the writing and drawing will take place. For the drawing they use colored pencils. I find students have a fair amount of control over them and there is no ink to bleed through the paper. For the actual writing, I supply golf pencils. Smaller pencils like these help to promote the proper pencil grip. Cups are provided for dull pencils to be placed in. That allows me to sharpen them later and not disturb students with a noisy sharpener. One last helpful aide is a “spaceman,” a tongue depressor that has a spaceman drawn upon it. Students place the spaceman after the word they’ve written, creating a space before they continue with the next word. These come in quite handy for children who have trouble judging the space needed or simply remembering to include a space. With all of these tools in place, my students are able to find success as they set out on new writing adventures. And because the classroom is organized to promote writing, I’m better able to teach and meet with students on an individual basis.	135,060
Macular degeneration (MD) is one of the most common eye disorders affecting older Americans. In fact, an estimated 13 million Americans are impacted by MD, which is more people than both glaucoma and cataracts combined. MD is also the leading cause of blindness in people over the age of 55, with a new case diagnosed every three minutes. One of the best ways to prevent MD from developing is by getting a comprehensive eye exam. Because this particular eye disease occurs when there are changes to the macula (the part of the retina found inside the back layer of the eye), early detection is key. Unfortunately, the majority of age-related MD cases are considered the “dry” form, for which there is no cure or treatment. Wet macular degeneration, albeit less common, may be treated with laser procedures and medication injections if caught early on. Symptoms of Age-Related Macular Degeneration Individuals may display the following symptoms of age-related macular degeneration in the early stages: - Gradual loss of ability to focus on objects and see clearly - Distorted shape of objects - Straight lines appear crooked or wavy - Loss of clear color vision - Dark area in the center of vision If you are suffering from any of the above, there’s a chance you may have macular degeneration. Please call First Eye Care right away and make an appointment with one of our optometrists. Unfortunately, central vision loss that is associated with macular degeneration cannot be restored. However, we do have numerous low-vision options - such as telescopic and microscopic lenses - that can maximize your remaining vision. While macular degeneration can affect anyone, the following risk factors may increase your chance of developing the disease: - High-saturated fat diets - Lack of antioxidants, such as vitamin C, vitamin E, and lutein - Lack of exercise - Gene mutations or variations - Presence of age-related macular degeneration in one eye - Eye color (people with light-colored eyes are more likely to develop the dry type of MD) - High blood pressure - Prolonged sun exposure At First Eye Care, we believe in not only educating our patients, but doing everything we can to help them achieve optimal vision health and wellness. The eyes are so important to our daily lives, and our team is here to help you address any concerns and catch any potentially damaging conditions before it’s too late. Our services are affordable, and our people care about you, which is the most important part. We have three convenient locations in Hurst, Keller, and Roanoke. Please visit one of these for more information on macular degeneration, or to schedule an appointment for a comprehensive eye exam.	201,343
Many issues affect personal finance. Some issues are wholly controllable. Others may not be. To take personal finance to the next level, scrutinize financial areas that are easily controlled and those that may not be controllable. How individuals manage their finances requires a thorough inventory of spending and saving habits. Kirk Chewning on how to Take Your Personal Finance to the Next Level Charting a Course to the Next Level Keeping track of spending and saving is essential to taking your personal finances to the next level. One analogy is a perfect example of how to track spending and savings: A wealthy man teaches his son to write every penny spent and saved in two columns every day. At the end of each week, he asked his son to total the two columns to see whether his savings exceeded his spending. While many may not wish to keep a daily record of their spending and saving habits, a weekly financial assessment is a practice that provides keen insight into spending and saving habits. From this point, it’s easy to decide whether spending was based on “want” or “need.” The difficulties many individuals face with poor savings habits are the inability to distinguish the difference between spending on necessities and spending on luxuries. Educate Yourself Financially The more an individual learns about managing their finances and sources of income and expenses, the more likely they are to take their personal finance to the next level. There are many ways to increase knowledge of finances. Today, there are numerous venues and study courses that effectively broaden knowledge of personal financial management. Some of these venues and study courses are highly affordable and extremely worthwhile. Don’t Fear Personal Financial Management Many people don’t recognize the true issue in taking their personal finances to the next level: fear. Armed with a broader education of money management, investing, risk and spending wisely, fear is greatly diminished. It’s also important to study the habits of those who have successfully taken their personal finances to the next level. Take note of the types of financial consultants who guide individuals into greater success with finances. Steps to Take Your Personal Finances to the Next Level The basic steps to take finances to the next level include: . Self-control over spending and saving . Inventory spending habits . Regular tracking of finances . Continuous financial education . Study habits of financially successful people . Seek consulting assistance from reputable financial consultants.	93,192
If there is one monument that symbolizes “La Gloire,” or the glory of France, it is this giant triumphal arch. Crowning the Champs-Élysées, this mighty archway both celebrates the military victories of the French army and memorializes the sacrifices of its soldiers. Over time, it has become an icon of the Republic and a setting for some of its most emotional moments: the laying in state of the coffin of Victor Hugo in 1885, the burial in 1921 of the ashes of an unknown soldier who fought in World War I, and General de Gaulle’s pregnant pause under the arch before striding down the Champs-Élysées before the cheering crowds after the Liberation in 1944. It took a certain amount of chutzpah to come up with the idea to build such a shrine, and sure enough, it was Napoleon who instigated it. In 1806, still glowing after his stunning victory at Austerlitz, the Emperor decided to erect a monument to the Imperial Army, along the lines of a Roman triumphal arch. The architect chosen was Jean-François Chalgrin, who drew inspiration from Rome’s Arch of Titus, though he abandoned the columns and made Napoleon’s arch a whopping 50m (163 ft.) high and 45m (147 ft.) wide, the largest of its type on the planet. Unfortunately, the defeat at Waterloo put an end to the Empire before the arch was finished and construction came to an abrupt halt. It wasn’t until 1823 that building got going again; it was finally finished in 1836 by Louis-Philippe. The arch is covered with bas-reliefs and sculptures, the most famous of which is the enormous Depart of the Volunteers of 1792, better known as the Marseillaise, by François Rude, showing winged, female Liberty leading the charge of Revolutionary soldiers. Just above is one of the many smaller panels detailing Napoleonic battles—in this case, Aboukir—wherein the emperor trods victoriously over the Ottomans. At the base of the arch is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, over which a flame is relit every evening at 6:30pm. The inscription, added after WWI, reads ICI REPOSE UN SOLDAT FRANÇAIS MORT POUR LA PATRIE, 1914–1918 (“Here lies a French soldier who died for his country”). Don’t even think about crossing the traffic circle; instead take the underpass near the Champs-Élysées Métro entrance. You can visit the area under the arch free of charge, but if you want to enjoy the view from the rooftop terrace, you have to pay. You also have to climb 284 stairs to get there (only the very young, the very old, and those with disabilities get to use the elevator). Though you are not as high up as the viewing platforms on the Eiffel Tower, the panorama is quite impressive. Directly below, 12 boulevards radiate from the star-shaped intersection (hence the moniker “Etoile”), and out front is the long sweep of the Champs-Élysées, ending at the obelisk of the Place de la Concorde, behind which lurks the Louvre. You can pick out many of the most famous monuments, including Sacré-Coeur and the Eiffel Tower; to the west are the skyscrapers of La Défense, including the huge, hollowed-out Grande Arche, a modern version of the one you are standing on. The viewing terrace is closed in bad weather.	11,025
How to Best Improve Your Lentivirus Titer If you’re planning on using lentivirus for your next experiment, chances are you’re wondering how much virus to use. For in vitro work, multiplicity of infection (MOI) is the theoretical number of virus particles applied per target cell. That is to say, if you have 1 million cells and you want an MOI of 5, you need 5 million lentivirus particles for your transduction. Once you have a rough idea of the number of virus particles required, you can calculate the volume and titer of virus needed to achieve your target MOI. At this stage however, researchers new to gene therapy work often run into problems. Having calculated an ideal amount of lentivirus for their experiments, they discover that the yield from their lentivirus production is too low. This usually leads to repeated attempts to produce more virus, leading to further frustration – colleagues and commercial providers routinely achieve high titers! Why can’t I? Don’t Panic When It Goes Wrong! Before you embark on endless rounds of optimization (a different transfection reagent, new cells, etc.), put your pipette down and listen up! It’s quite likely that a low lentivirus titer is not down to you being an incompetent lab chimp. There are several factors controlling lentivirus titer to varying degrees. What Factors Control Lentivirus Titer? 293 Producer Cells First up, be nice to your 293 producer cells: - There’s no concrete limit to the number of times you can passage your cells before you see a drop in virus titer, but the cells must be healthy and actively dividing. - Clumpy cultures with lots of senescent cells won’t yield good titers. - Always do a test transfection of your cells before attempting virus production. If your transfection efficiency is poor there’s no point continuing with virus production. New cell stocks are needed! It’s best to split your cells the day before transfection, to make sure they are happy and healthy. Optimal cell confluency at the time of transfection depends on your chosen transfection agent. Lentivirus particles are sensitive to changes in pH, so adding HEPES buffer to the culture media can protect the virus from pH extremes. For efficient virus production, you need to get all of your plasmids inside the maximum number of cells, so it goes without saying that you need the best possible transfection efficiency. There are many different commercial and non-commercial transfection reagents available. Bear in mind that if you need to prep lentivirus regularly, commercial transfection kits can be an expensive option. Cheap chemical reagents like calcium phosphate and polyethylenimine (PEI) work well and are cost-effective. There’s some evidence (mostly anecdotal) that certain transfection reagents result in higher virus titers. Interpret these results with caution, as there is no real consensus on the best reagent to use. If you are new to the field, you can certainly compare transfection reagents, but don’t spend months on this step. If you are getting good cell transfection then it’s probably best to stick with what you’re using. Your lentivirus plasmids don’t have to be purified using a specific method. No matter what your professor claims was the done thing back in 1998, you don’t need to use super pure endotoxin-free kits or cesium chloride! Just ensure that your plasmid is of good quality and a reasonable concentration (over 100 ng/µl). Again, it’s not worth obsessing over this step. It’s actually possible to make virus from ordinary miniprep DNA, although you may see a drop in titer. As far as packaging plasmids go, the main rule is not to use a 3rd generation plasmid to make a 2nd generation lentivirus. Second generation transfer plasmids require the presence of the HIV-1 tat protein, which has been removed from 3rd generation systems. There’s some evidence that 2nd generation plasmids may produce higher titers when used to package a 3rd generation transfer plasmid, but the difference (if any) is probably negligible (1). Lentivirus Transfer Plasmid The transfer plasmid contains your transgene (or shRNA, gRNA, non-coding sequence etc.) of interest. This plasmid also contains HIV-1 long terminal repeat (LTR) sequences, essential for virus production. Plasmid Design and Construction - Before you commence virus production, check your plasmid using sequencing and/or restriction digestion to make sure no recombination or deletions have occurred. Lentiviral plasmids are prone to mutations in some bacterial strains – use a recA- strain (e.g. Stbl3, SURE2) if possible. Trying to make virus using a damaged transfer plasmid is pretty much doomed to fail. Check out this article for tips on choosing the right bacterial strain. - When designing your transfer plasmid, do not include a polyA sequence directly after your transgene. The 3′ HIV-1 LTR already contains a polyA sequence; so inserting another one will reduce plasmid stability and virus titer. - There’s also published evidence that the use of multiple promoters in lentiviral plasmids results in ‘promoter interference’ (2). This means that one or both promoters adversely affect expression from the other. This phenomenon can decrease transgene expression and potentially virus titer. Transfer Plasmid Effects on Virus Titer Now that you have healthy cells, a good transfection reagent and the right packaging plasmid, you’re ready to make virus! But now we come to the most important factor in virus production: the transfer plasmid itself. All lentiviral transfer plasmids are not created equal. One of the main factors influencing virus titer is the length of the sequence between the two HIV-1 LTRs. Yield decreases steadily and predictably as the packaging sequence gets longer. For example, if your transfer plasmid contains a short promoter driving a small transgene such as a fluorescent protein, you are quite likely to see good titers. In contrast, if you are trying to make virus using a transfer plasmid with several transgenes, multiple promoters and elements such as IRES and WPRE sequences, your virus titer will be much lower. Different transgenes can also affect titer. Bacterial proteins such as Cas9 and Channelrhodopsin appear to be poorly tolerated by 293 producer cells, adversely affecting virus production. It’s difficult to overstate how important the transfer plasmid is to the success of your lentivirus production. It is not uncommon to see greater than 50-fold differences in titer between different virus batches made at the same time using the same reagents but with different transfer plasmids. Figure 1 below illustrates the variations in lentivirus titer that can occur depending on the transfer plasmid. Figure 1: Lentivirus expressing GFP used to infect 293T cells. Fluorescence microscopy used to illustrate how various factors affect lentiviral titer and transgene expression Therefore, promoter choice can also cause titer variations depending on how you assess transduction. Fluorescence-independent methods such as drug selection, qPCR and RT-qPCR can be used instead but they are usually more expensive and labor intensive. Photo 1B illustrates an issue that can confound your virus titer calculations. Fluorescence microscopy is a quick, simple and cheap way to measure transduction, but protein expression levels will influence your calculations. For example, fluorescent protein expression may be reduced by as much as 80% if the encoding gene is placed downstream of an IRES sequence. In this situation, you may have plenty of virus transduction but if the fluorescence signal is weak, you risk underestimating virus titer. FACS is generally more sensitive than microscopy but weak fluorescence can still cause underestimation of titer. The take home message here is to avoid focusing on small tweaks that result in you spending excess time and money unnecessarily. The transfer plasmid is usually the biggest factor controlling titer so there’s not much point obsessing over optimizing steps resulting in a 10% improvement in titer if your transfer plasmid is reducing yields by 50%. Before beginning virus production, plan your experiments and calculate how much virus you need. In vitro experiments often don’t require very concentrated virus, so there’s no point aiming for very high titers if you don’t actually need them. Bigger isn’t always better! Obviously it’s best to have good transfection levels but your cells probably won’t thrive if you bombard them with an MOI of 1000. Be realistic. If your virus preps just aren’t producing enough for your planned experiments, consider re-cloning or redesigning your transfer plasmid. It may seem like an unnecessary detour but it could save you time, money and sanity in the end! - Dull T, Zufferey R, Kelly M, Mandel RJ, Nguyen M, Trono D, Naldini L. (1998).A third-generation lentivirus vector with a conditional packaging system. J Virol. 72(11):8463-71. - Uchida N, Hanawa H, Yamamoto M, Shimada (2013). The Chicken Hypersensitivity Site 4 Core Insulator Blocks Promoter Interference in Lentiviral Vectors. Hum Gene Ther Methods. 2013 Apr; 24(2): 117–124. Leave a Comment You must be logged in to post a comment. Thanks for your excellent article. I have been constantly searching the internet for something like it and am thrilled to find something so fresh out of the oven! The last part about titer totally confirms my suspicion all along. Some promoters just don’t work well in certain type of cells, e.g. CMV promoter in neurons or oligodendrocytes and no matter how much virus you throw at the cells, you will not see much expression, if any at all. In fact, I’m suspecting too much virus can kill cells, as we have seen with oligodendrocytes. Choosing the right promoter is of critical importance for good transduction .	45,709
[NEW DELHI] An Indian research team has produced salt from a leafless shrub that grows in salty soil on the Indian coast. The researchers hope that their research will lead to a market for plant-derived salt, which contains micronutrients that are not found in standard salt that is mined or extracted from seawater. “This is the first time that salt has been produced from a vegetable source, and we have filed an international patent,” says Pushpito Ghosh, director of India's Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute (CSMCRI) in Gujarat, where the research was conducted. Most plants are intolerant to salt, but some can grow under high saline conditions. CSMCRI scientists investigated one such species, Salicornia brachiata, which accumulates salt within its tissue, and developed a process for extracting salt from the plant. Ghosh says that his group is now trying to assess the commercial potential of 'vegetable salt' as a health product. Samples have been sent to companies overseas and “preliminary feedback is encouraging”, he says. The researchers also suggest that their discovery could help in the commercial development of wasteland with salty soils.“The finding that the plant can also be a source of nutritive salt has made large-scale saline soil cultivation an attractive proposition from the point of eco-restoration and making money from wasteland,” says Ghosh.	58,156
What is chiropractic? Chiropractic is based on the scientific fact that your nervous system controls the function of every cell, tissue, organ and system of your body. Your nervous system consists of your brain, spinal cord and millions of nerves. While your brain is protected by the skull, your spinal cord is protected by the vertebra – the 24 moveable bones of the spine. Many everyday activities can cause these spinal bones to shift from their normal position. Improper position or motion of the vertebra can rub, irritate, pinch or choke delicate nerves. This causes pain, can limit range of motion, and also affects tissues, organs and functions controlled by these nerves. Long term malposition of the vertebra can affect the muscles supporting the spine, weakening them, tightening them, or in severe cases, causing muscle atrophy. This is a major cause of muscle pain and spasms anywhere from the neck to the lower back. Chiropractors are doctors who identify these abnormalities (referred to as subluxations) and are trained to correct them through “adjustments.” Performing an adjustment is an individualized, hands-on process. The patient is positioned on a chiropractic table and the doctor gently manipulates the body to return individual spinal bones to their proper motion and position. Your doctor has studied many techniques for adjusting and chooses the style that will be most effective for you, taking into account your age, severity of the problem, lifestyle, surgeries, and all the other factors that affect your particular case. Chiropractic is safe! Chiropractic adjustments are safer than long term use of NSAIDS and narcotic pain relievers or surgery. This has been demonstrated in dozens of research studies. Despite the high level of safety and effectiveness of chiropractic care there will sometimes be patients who do need to be referred to a surgeon. At Calhoun Chiropractic we never hesitate to recommend the best course of action to you. Does chiropractic hurt? Since we are making changes to your body you will feel that change. It is similar to starting a new exercise program – you may feel a little sore, but this feeling quickly dissipates. Many patients experience no discomfort at all, and instead walk out of the office with immediate relief. When is the right time for chiropractic care? Ideally, taking care of your spine with chiropractic would start in childhood and continue through old age. That’s because regular adjustments maintain proper alignment of the vertebra, increasing overall function of the muscles and organs and preventing problems before they have an opportunity to develop into a painful condition. Most people are unfamiliar with the concept of using regular chiropractic care to maintain the health of their spine and only seek treatment when the problem has progressed to the point of pain. If you fall into this category the best time to see us is as soon as you begin to notice that something is “not right.” Pain and even mild discomfort are signals that subluxation may be taking place. Over time subluxations can affect not just the bones and nerves, but also the discs – the soft padded cartilage between the spinal bones. Subluxations can cause degenerative disc disease, torn discs, bulging discs, ruptured discs, bone spurs, and even spinal fusion. The worst thing to do is assume back or neck pain will go away by itself. Although you may experience times when your pain lessens, the subluxation is still there and needs to be corrected. For this reason, it’s important to come in as soon as you notice discomfort. How many treatments will I need? Adjusting the spine to alleviate pain that has already occurred is not an instant process. Chiropractic care requires a commitment to multiple visits. The number of visits depends entirely on your individual situation and the Doctor’s evaluation. The doctor’s job is to identify all the areas that need to be addressed, which may extend beyond the source of the pain, and then to use their experience to estimate of the number of treatments you will need. Your treatment plan may shorten or lengthen as the doctor witnesses how well your body responds to adjustments. will be customized to suit your problem. Ongoing monthly or quarterly appointments will benefit your spine, maintain your results and help prevent further issues. What can I do to help myself? Unfortunately you can’t adjust yourself! But you can assist the body’s natural healing ability by learning proper body mechanics – how to sit, lift, stand up, get in and out of a car, etc. We will help educate you on proper movement habits so that you can maintain the benefits of chiropractic between adjustments. Proper rest is a key factor – sleep is the body’s opportunity to focus on cellular repair, and adequate amounts of sleep will give your body maximum time to perform repairs. Lastly, proper nutrition is a must. Just like any machinery our bodies are designed to utilize only certain types of raw materials – fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains and healthy meats. So use this time to cut down on soda, sugar and hidden sugars, fast food, and highly processed packaged foods. Special note about newborns: Coming through the birth canal can be tough on a baby’s skeleton. Infants are resilient and “bounce back,” but once mom and baby are ready, a quick trip to the chiropractor is a good idea. Dr. Calhoun can check your newborn and very gently coax tiny vertebrae into place. Starting your baby out with good spinal alignment can stave off many issues in the future.	209,931
Depending on where you live, you may have seen the skies light up with fireworks over the weekend. But this week we will see a different kind of (non-political) light show: the Northern Taurid meteor shower. While it technically started in October, the shower will peak this week, particularly tomorrow and Thursday (11 and 12 November), and will likely include visible fireballs in the sky. Here’s how to spot them. When is the Northern Taurid meteor shower? Although the Northern Taurid meteor shower has been ongoing since October, it will be most visible on November 11 and 12, so set your phone reminders right away. The view will be the best this week because Earth will pass through the densest part of a comet’s debris stream, Bill Cooke Jr., head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office, told CNN. And the fireballs? The image of fireballs in the sky looks a bit scary – though not out of place in 2020 – but the ones we’ll see this week are far away, safe to see, and won’t hurt anyone, Cooke told CNN. We can expect to see approximately five fireballs every hour on November 11 and 12. one in the sky, although that’s probably not the best way to point out this astrological phenomenon. So how do you know if you’ve seen a fireball? Fireballs are very bright meteors – brighter than Venus (which is the brightest thing in the sky after the moon) – and usually last a second or two. Normal meteors, on the other hand, vanish after about half a second, Robert Lunsford, resident coordinator of the American Meteor Society’s fireball report, told CNN. How to watch meteors and fireballs To increase your chances of seeing nature’s light show this week, head to a location with limited light pollution. The meteor shower will be most visible between midnight and just before sunrise (in your local time). The moon will be out during downpours, but it will only shine around 15%, so it could be worse. The Northern Taurid meteor shower lasts until December 10, after which the Geminid meteor shower arrives, peaking in mid-December.	150,648
NATIONAL ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER HEALTH SURVEY The 2004-05 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey (NATSIHS) is currently in the field. The survey will collect information from approximately 11,000 Indigenous persons on health status, risk factors, health related actions and other social and demographic characteristics. The survey aims to collect information to inform policy development and debate in both health and population health. Survey information will also enable comparisons with the non-Indigenous population and the exploration of linkages between health and population characteristics. Enumeration will conclude in July 2005, with initial results to be released early 2006. For further information contact Mark Lound on (02) 6252 5781, email firstname.lastname@example.org. This page last updated 30 May 2007	52,599

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