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Patterns of biomedical science production in a sub-Saharan research center
© Agnandji et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012
Received: 25 September 2011
Accepted: 26 March 2012
Published: 26 March 2012
Research activities in sub-Saharan Africa may be limited to delegated tasks due to the strong control from Western collaborators, which could lead to scientific production of little value in terms of its impact on social and economic innovation in less developed areas. However, the current contexts of international biomedical research including the development of public-private partnerships and research institutions in Africa suggest that scientific activities are growing in sub-Saharan Africa. This study aims to describe the patterns of clinical research activities at a sub-Saharan biomedical research center.
In-depth interviews were conducted with a core group of researchers at the Medical Research Unit of the Albert Schweitzer Hospital from June 2009 to February 2010 in Lambaréné, Gabon. Scientific activities running at the MRU as well as the implementation of ethical and regulatory standards were covered by the interview sessions.
The framework of clinical research includes transnational studies and research initiated locally. In transnational collaborations, a sub-Saharan research institution may be limited to producing confirmatory and late-stage data with little impact on economic and social innovation. However, ethical and regulatory guidelines are being implemented taking into consideration the local contexts. Similarly, the scientific content of studies designed by researchers at the MRU, if local needs are taken into account, may potentially contribute to a scientific production with long-term value on social and economic innovation in sub-Saharan Africa.
Further research questions and methods in social sciences should comprehensively address the construction of scientific content with the social, economic and cultural contexts surrounding research activities.
Scientific production all over the world follows the pattern of core-periphery relationships in which the contribution of the periphery, including developing regions like sub-Saharan Africa, is marginal and depends on structure and infrastructure accessible through collaborative projects lead by institutions and scientists from core regions in Western Europe and North America. Thus, some authors assume that the practice of science in Africa would provide subsidiary sets of data to strengthen institutions, production and social value in the more developed world and would conversely generate research of only limited generalization and of little impact on the economic and social development of the local communities in peripheral regions [1–3].
So far, numerous studies addressed the questions related to the contribution of peripheral regions to worldwide scientific production. However, most of them use quantitative approaches as dominant methods targeting researchers in the frame of collaborative projects and assess internationally indexed databases. Overall, the results state that the works of African scientists registered in indexed databases are collaborative publications, but they pale in comparison to the rest of the world in terms of proportion and notoriety [4, 5]. Additionally, a corpus of knowledge is generated with little potential for innovation and thus of poor social and economic value [5–7]. All these characteristics call an auxiliary type of scientific production to mind and may have prevented social scientists from focusing on scientific production in sub-Saharan Africa as a complex process with its own structures of centralization. However, numerous biomedical research institutions with a growing number of scientists are located in Africa. They collaborate with local, regional and international partners, which suggests that science is active in these areas. In this paper we describe the patterns of clinical research activities underlined by perceptions of scientists working in a "peripheral" research center in the sub-Saharan Africa region of Lambaréné, Gabon.
The first major stage in the development of the Medical Research Unit (MRU) of the Albert Schweitzer Hospital (HAS) lasted from its creation in 1981 to the end of the eighties. Since 1992, the site has succeeded in broadening its research activities to cover about 35,000 inhabitants living in the poor socio-economic conditions of the main town in Lambaréné and in the villages along the national road number 1 of Gabon.
Within a short period of time, a core group of researchers who live in Lambaréné and work permanently for the MRU has emerged. The core group of scientists interact with main collaborators from the German research institute and university as well as from numerous national, regional and international networks .
Members of the core research staff including investigators and field workers were asked to participate in the in-depth interview sessions. Interviews were conducted from June 2009 to February 2010. The following criteria were considered for the enrolment in the interview sessions. Research members who are experienced in the conduct of New Investigational Product Trials (NIP) and/or basic research, have regular interactions with research participants through study information, informed consent and/or clinical procedures and have a permanent position or intend to pursue a career as researcher or worker in the field of clinical research at the MRU were included in our study.
The scope and the conduct of in-depth interviews
The scientific interests of the MRU focus on clinical trials in which novel drug combinations and vaccines against infectious diseases are being developed. Fundamental sciences such as molecular biology and immunology, which investigate the pathogenesis of infectious diseases are interest as well . In order to succeed, the site has developed opportunities for international grant applications and is engaged in numerous public-private partnerships in which multicenter and transnational drug and vaccine trials are being conducted in Lambaréné. Moreover, the MRU has maintained close collaborations with institutions and scientists from Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Therefore, it is likely that the MRU is dependent on the knowledge and abilities of scientists from wealthy core countries with regard to infrastructure and funding, suggesting that the patterns of core-periphery relationships may apply to the research being conducted at the MRU. The discussion about the abilities of MRU core researchers and the determinants that influence the conduct of clinical research in the social, economic and cultural contexts of Lambaréné was expected to support the understanding of how the scientific work is generated and perceived by the producers in a context of periphery dealing with core collaborators based in rich countries. Then, we postulated the interactions and relationships between scientists and research participants as essential in establishing science in the local contexts of Lambaréné and targeted the information procedures including the realization of informed consent and perception by scientists of the local communities' responses to research activities. The focus on informed consent as a transnational and relational procedure allowed us to discuss its production at transnational and local levels as well as ethical standards as part of the whole process of biomedical science production.
The interview sessions were semi open; the interviewees' speech was the focus, although the interviewer was able to direct on the main topics of the in-depth interview guide used to conduct the sessions. Interviews sessions were conducted in French, recorded, and transcribed for content analysis with regard to the interview guide.
Characteristics of interviewees and patterns of clinical research
Characteristics of study participants
Topics identified by content analysis and discussed in the manuscript
Framework of clinical research
Local contexts of clinical research
Characteristics of study participants in Lambaréné
Independent or academic research
Ethical and regulatory guidelines and rules
The performativity of relationships and networks of research participants. Patient-physician relationships
Participant- investigator relationships
Access to health care as "performative" tool for research purposes
The framework of clinical research
Transnational studies are the most important part of research activities at the Medical Research Unit. The structure of typical transnational research conducted at the MRU includes partnerships and relationships between sponsor, research institutions, scientists in Europe and/or North America and the MRU and its scientists in technically and socio-economically poor conditions of a sub-Saharan Africa country. For instance, the MRU together with research centers in Benin Republic, Mozambique, and Kenya is evaluating antimalarial drugs as an intermittent preventive strategy against malaria in pregnant women on the field. The European partners are two research institutions that are coordinating scientific, technical and financial aspects of the project. The European Developing Countries Trials Partnership (EDCTP), a specialized funding organism of the European Union, funds the project.
In a similar framework of a malaria vaccine trial, a young investigator describes the scope of her work at the MRU: "Our work on the field consists of vaccination, follow-up visits and also to ensure that the data collected are accurate and can be well analyzed and interpreted".
Scientists of the MRU, however, may not be restricted to executing field procedures. They can contribute, for instance, to amending the study protocol and design, a more substantial scientific contribution that later impacts the field procedures, although any amendment should be done according to the rules defined by or with collaborators: "Most of time, the sponsor comes with the study protocol already done. If there are scientific, medical or ethical concerns that are pointed out by us, we have to agree on changes to the protocol with the sponsor". But, the process of protocol amendment seems very well "structured, the study protocol is written in Europe, in the Netherlands for instance, for a multicenter study purpose. Modification and amendment to this protocol cannot be based on our willing without a green light from our collaborators".
Academic or ancillary research
There is an opportunity for studies at the MRU that most of investigators call academic research. Academic research is either an investigator-based initiative of the MRU or an ancillary study to ongoing transnational research. Both are described as MRU's own research especially in terms of cognitive as well as operational contributions. The study idea, design, advocacy within the group, informed consent information, study conduct, data collection, analysis and publication are all carried out within the MRU group. Academic research is perceived as a source of scientific value and personal satisfaction as well as opportunity for career development, although investigators did not clearly state that transnational research is less valuable on an individual level. The links between transnational and academic research have been poorly discussed during our interviews; however, investigators did not claim the independence of their own studies over transnational projects. The study protocol design and the informed consent process are carried out with similar standards, guidelines and procedures for transnational and academic researches.
Guidelines and rules: Ethical and regulatory standards
The International Conference on Harmonization between the regulatory authorities of EU, Japan and USA with pharmaceutical companies has provided the main guidelines for conducting clinical trials around the world. The so-called Good Clinical Practice (ICH-GCP) have been referenced by the MRU's investigators as the main guidelines for performing their activities, although the guidelines of the Council of International Organizations for Medical Sciences (CIOMS) have also been mentioned as dedicated to ethical considerations specific to developing countries. GCP guidelines are considered as the document: "that allows us to claim that we perform as elsewhere although environmental and cultural contexts may generate slight differences"
The coherence between international standards and the national ethical and regulatory framework is perceived as an essential objective on the way to performing valuable science: "The ICH-GCP has identified the stakeholders of research and their individual responsibilities".
"A similar approach should be implemented for our national regulations because research should follow the rules within a country". As noticed by a senior investigator, the other regions worldwide like Europe "have a special bureau for the regulation of clinical trials activities and drug registration". In Africa, biomedical research makes way for regulations which are however being performed according to the following claim of an interviewee: "Local and international regulations should be harmonized to conduct research. Although it is a long journey, Gabon is working to build up ethical and regulatory systems for the management of biomedical research".
The process of informed consent has been identified as the main procedure linking international requirements and local contexts for the purpose of conducting research of high standards.
"The informed consent process would be perceived as a means and strategy which allow a volunteer to be an active participant and to participate in the best way possible".
This view of a senior researcher at the MRU points to the challenges in applying ethical principles to the daily practice in a particular social and economic context. The process of informed consent is based on the widely shared idea to protect the freedom, safety and well-being of human participants during the experimental process: "Over the last 15 years at the MRU, informed consent has been always obtained before any research onset, but now the compliance to the ethical committee requirements is better, although informed consent forms moved from 2 pages to around 10 pages".
The requirements of ethical guidelines and regulatory authorities make some aspects of the informed consent form (ICF) difficult for both investigators and participants. A field worker and investigator have focused on a particular word that makes the process difficult. "Experimental" is a word that scares people and generates misconceptions. On the other hand, it is not possible to avoid this word because of ethical and regulatory requirements; it is perceived as an intention to hide the fact that research is an experiment and different from medical care. However, the requirement of informed consent should not necessarily be perceived as conflicting with views from the stakeholders involving: "Regulatory and ethical sides are overseers; the most active are investigators and participants. Their interactions and relationships in the process would reflect the best possible, the need to have an informed person about the purposes of a proposed research as well as implications before participation".
There is a variety of additional tools and strategies for researchers to deliver the best informed consent to their potential participants, including a community based team, public communication, and concise summaries of the ICFs-leaflets used for the purpose of informing and involving participants actively in the best possible way.
Local contexts and clinical research: Research activities and their impact on community participation
Characteristics of research participants in Lambaréné
Freedom and willingness of members of the local community to participate in research have to emerge from scientific, social, economic and other determinants according to ethical principles as well as from the claims and attitudes of research stakeholders, including researchers at the MRU. A variety of determinants such as lack of education, low income, high disease burden, and limited access to health care has been identified as major factors that influence the community members to enroll in experimental procedures in Lambaréné by the interviewees. Social classes are a possible explanation for the "easiest enrolment" of rural people and economically disadvantaged city dwellers in research. In contrast, middle classes and educated people express more criticism of and reluctance towards research and even medical practices. However, our interviewees had conflicting opinions about the belonging to a particular social class of the research participants.
Social relationships and networks are either the main or the secondary reason for participating in research in Lambaréné according to our interviewees. In this relational system, participation is influenced by relatives, neighbours, the experience made by other research participants as well as the research team. Finally, many researchers have speculated on resources such as the type of communication, access and quality of health care and the role of the relationships and social networks as essential factors in characterizing the research participants in Lambaréné.
Relationships and social networks of research participants: Means to perform the social perception of clinical research
Attempts to summarize the characteristics of research participants and to emphasize the ethical concerns these characteristics generate may lead to the following assumption: in social and economic contexts of sub-Saharan Africa, like Lambaréné, both investigators and participants overstate the patient-physician relationship and enter into the experimental process with misconceptions and misuse of participant-investigator requirements. However, poverty, high burden of diseases, and the lack of or limited access to health care as essential drivers are not yet considered to be isolated motivations for individuals to participate in research. From the investigator's point of view, it is therefore essential to understand the value of a process such as that of informed consent procedure. Is it not just an inoperative process and merely a formality? For all interviewees, the social networks of research participants exist and may be impacted with variable resources such as human interactions, relationships, style of communication, type of study documentation, and access to health system. Relatives, neighbours, and other participants are also identified as important drivers for research participation, but interactions and relationships with the research teams, institution and participation in experimental procedures seem to be the more powerful tools that allow for the emergence of "informed, voluntary and less determined participants". Therefore, there is for most of our interviewees an advantage of conducting research in Lambaréné because the research purposes are shared and better understood than in other cities of Gabon, like "Libreville, Mouila", where no or limited research activities are carried out.
Patient-physician interactions and relationships in the process of participation in research
Availability and access to health care is an essential factor of conducting clinical research in Lambaréné. Health care has been perceived as the central resource and exchangeable good that supports a kind of deal between a participant in need and a researcher who wants to collect data for scientific purposes. Such a deal occurs during interactions in which each party has declared in written form that the entire process is based on the informed consent of the participant. Basically, if information is shared properly, the deal is acceptable. However, there are several factors that may make it harmful. First, the clinical researcher who collects data for scientific purposes is often a physician or nurse seen as caregiver by the participant. There is a continuum of roles and a difficulty to perceive the dividing line between research and routine care procedures for the participants. The burden of diseases and economic constraints influence this perception and the mix-up of research procedures with health care. The issues related to the "deal" have been identified as a major cause of poor-quality science due to the high rate of lack of compliance and withdrawal during the course of the study. On the other hand health-care provision during research on the participants has been perceived as a resource embedded in other resources that sustain the establishment of long term relationships between the research institution and the community. From this perspective, there is no exchange restricted to one item and limited in time. Access to highly qualified health care is promoted, and some researchers consider the research purposes as a continuum of that global health objective.
The rate of people living in Lambaréné and vicinities with a positive view of the MRU and its research activities vary from 40% to 90% according to some interviewees who were asked to provide such estimation. Several reasons may support this broad range. For example, a wide variety of different studies are conducted at the MRU such as Phase I to Phase IV clinical trials, which assess the safety and efficacy of interventions, such as drugs and vaccines. Invasive procedures such as multiple blood sampling and bone marrow sampling are also performed.
The attitude towards research may also be influenced by the specific objectives and procedures of a study. Refusal rate in the same area for the same interventional trial differ significantly in two age categories. For example, parents are reluctant to enroll infants in trials, whereas they have fewer reservations about enrolling older kids. Participation and withdrawal of consent rates have different patterns in the same village for two different trials with different goals and procedures. In a vaccine trial, pressure on the research team to address safety concerns may vary significantly as the trial progresses. At the beginning, the rate of unexpected visits after drug or vaccine administration seems higher than during the course or at the end of the trial. All these cases where suggested by our interviewees as common features of the participants' endeavours related to study specific procedures.
This study reports the current patterns of clinical research activities including the framework structure and the contexts in which activities evolve in a sub-Saharan African center from the perspective of its key scientists and workers. Transnational research carried out through collaborations with mainly Western partners and locally initiated academic studies seem to be distinct types of research conducted at the MRU in Lambaréné, Gabon. In transnational collaborations, from the perspective of the core-periphery model, the scientists at the MRU may be considered as the "field workers" who collect data following the study protocol design and implementation by Western partners . Additionally, the latter take care of the more complicated and demanding tasks such as managing the technical and financial side of the study and monitoring the study procedures to ensure the quality of the scientific production. Because Western partners provide outstanding scientific institutions and scientists as well as technology and financial resources, the main contents and models of scientific activities are elaborated predominantly by them. Thus, studies carried out in Africa may be late stage or confirmatory steps and not directly linked to local economic and social demands. For instance, applications of models elaborated by Western scientists and institutions on the biology and immunology of the malaria parasite in Lambaréné are likely to generate confirmatory data. Such research may be of limited value to the research center itself, which does not necessarily develop the ability to generate the models and is unlikely to stimulate innovation for economic and social development .
Objections may point to the above as a simplistic and partial interpretation of the perceptions of MRU researchers considering the development of clinical research in sub-Saharan Africa over the last decade. Beyond a rigid labour division of central versus peripheral activities, multinational trials can be considered as social organizations that involve human and non- human components with the ultimate goal of scientific production. From this perspective, there may be an opportunity for actors to impact both the natural course of relationships and the scientific contents and surrounding contexts of research activities.
As part of multinational research, international ethical and regulatory standards have been described by our interviewees as means to perform research as elsewhere, i.e. to requirements for generation of accurate and reliable scientific information. Even though there is similarity in scientific content, as it is set up in Western countries and can be applied in Africa, ethical and regulatory rules and processes are being dynamically implemented with regard to economic, social and cultural contexts with the ultimate goal of conducting high-quality research in Lambaréné. The local community's perception of research activities may be reduced to a less biased perception through daily interaction and consistent relationships with the research team, as attested by a possible emergence of participant-investigator relationships in our study setting and elsewhere [9–11].
Academic or ancillary studies are locally designed and conducted by MRU researchers. This type of research may be considered as an initiative to impact the course of the core-periphery relationships leading to scientific research and output that conform to the local long-term economic and social demands. Therefore, implementing international rules and guidelines while taking into account the local contexts as well as the scientific initiatives of local researchers may contribute to the emergence of biomedical institutions and scientists those activities may be more situated by the requirements and benefit of their local contexts. However, the production of science at the MRU has not been shown by researchers to be a dichotomous process of transnational versus local academic research. On the contrary, locally initiated studies are sometimes ancillary to transnational projects. This suggests that although transnational research may potentially reproduce the core-periphery model, it can also sustain the production and emergence of institutions and scientists in a peripheral region, like sub-Saharan Africa, with their own structure of centralization.
The recent development of public-private partnerships for research in sub-Saharan Africa in the context of millennium challenges and the existence of several biomedical research groups in sub-Saharan Africa countries is a new historical context. Here, we are reporting the patterns of research activities in a particular sub-Saharan research institution, namely the Medical Research Unit of Albert Schweitzer Hospital located in Lambaréné, Gabon. From the perspective of the MRU's researchers, transnational collaboration with outstanding Western institutions and scientists could limit the sub-Saharan science to subsidiary and confirmatory activities. However, this transnational collaboration, which implies scientific contents and ethical and regulatory rules, allows sub-Saharan scientists to perform more dynamically situated research and simultaneously impact the local community, its perception of research activities as well as the scientific contents with the potential of positively impacting the economic and social development in the future.
Limiting empirical material to the perceptions of the core researchers and workers at the MRU may be considered a weakness of this paper, seeing as though a single and unique conclusion and statement would be difficult. However, this study has made an important contribution to illuminating the complex and deep patterns of scientific activities and social contexts in sub-Saharan Africa while also taking international contexts into consideration. Importantly, the generation of interesting future research questions is also an important outcome of this study. So far social sciences have mainly assessed the impact and benefit of global interventions on the health-care systems in sub-Saharan Africa and the quantitative patterns of biomedical publications of the African scientists. This study points out the need for additional questions concerning the contents of scientific production as well as their links and potential impact on the long-term economic and social development in sub-Saharan Africa. To do so, we assume the posture, based on our finding, which an integrative approach would focus on specific questions to understand the dynamics of building-up the research institutions, the changes, if any on the elaboration on scientific contents considering the surrounding local economic, social and cultural needs. The methodological implications of such a project would be similar to the scientific frame at the Kenya Medical Research Institute, which considers the ethics of biomedical research in the contexts of sub-Saharan Africa and transnational research as a central process for the acceptability and validity of the global scientific enterprise in poor communities. More social science studies, research teams, and projects located within the clinical research site learning from the daily interactions with the scientists when they doing science [10–12] are needed. Additionally, as suggested by our findings, social and human activities as well as organizations are embedded, which allows one to assume that they should be studied using the paradigm that they affect each other in a dynamic manner [13, 14].
Future research questions including, but not limited to, interactions between transnational and locally designed studies, the impact of ethical and regulatory processes on the contents and the quality of the data generated, emergence of biomedical research structures like MRU and their networks through the study of individual scientists trajectories, the emergence of research participants and the interrelationships of biomedical research and public health would be essential for understanding the contribution of sub-Saharan African regions to scientific production.
We thank the researchers at the MRU. The study was partially funded by the Ärzteprogramm/PAGEL des Deutschen Akademischen Austauschdienstes (DAAD).
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|MicrobiologyBytes: Microbiology Notes: Mycology||Updated: April 18, 2007||Search|
The ability to reproduce asexually is common to almost all fungi.
1. Bud formation in yeasts
In its simplest form asexual reproduction is by budding or binary fission. The onset of the cellular events is accompanied by the nuclear events of mitosis. If you have forgotten these events please check in a basic text book.
The initial events of budding can be seen as the development of a ring of chitin around the point where the bud is about to appear. This reinforces and stabilizes the cell wall. Enzymatic activity and turgor pressure the act to weaken and extrude the cell wall. New cell wall material is incorporated during this phase. Cell contents are forced into the progeny cell, and as the final phase of mitosis ends a cell plate, the point at which a new cell wall will grow inwards from, forms.
Separation of the bud from the parent leaves a scar. When chains of yeast cells do not fully separated this can create a pseudo-mycelium.
Many fungi can reproduce by fragmentation. Any mycelium that is fragmented or disrupted, provided that the fragment contains the equivalent of the peripheral growth zone, can grow into a new colony. Many fungi are sub-cultured using this hyphal fragment technique. All of this weeks practical plates have been inoculated in this way with a cork bore taken from a colonized donor plate. Cut mycelial tips do not regenerate, but branches can form some distance from the damage point.
By far the most important type of asexual reproduction is that of spore formation. Asexual reproduction is extremely important to fungi. It is responsible for the production of large numbers of spores throughout the year. These asexual spores are formed on a phase of the fungal life cycle termed in some texts as the mitosporic, or anamorphic phase. There can be more than one mitosporic state for each species of fungus, and in some cases the mitosporic state of very different species can look very similar. This has contributed to the problems of creating a taxonomy for the fungi that only possess mitosporic states. The sexual stage of the fungus can be termed the teleomorph, and the characteristics of this phase of the life cycle are much more stable and reliable for taxonomic purposes.
The onset of asexual reproduction is controlled by many different things. Some are environmental, like nutrient levels, CO2 levels, light levels. Others can fungi have internal time clocks and sporulate anyway in a preset part of the fungal life cycle designed to spread and maximize colonization during one season.
Chytrids are quite distinct from other fungi as they have extremely simple thalli and motile zoospores. Species within this group are very simple in structure and may only consist of a single cell, perhaps with rhizoids to anchor it on to a substrate.
Asexual reproduction in the chytrids is by the production of motile zoospores, with a single, posterior flagellum, in sporangia (Fig. 2). There will be a film of chytrid reproduction available in the practical.
Figure 2. Holocarpic chytrid
This is a diagram of a holocarpic chytrid, one where the entire thallus consists
of only one cell with rhizoids. These are usually parasitic on aquatic plants or fish.
The fungus 'feeds' from its substrate via its rhizoids. The entire cell contents will
convert to motile zoospores
Zygomycete Asexual Reproduction
Zygomycete fungal mycelium is coenocytic. At the onset of sporulation large amounts of aerial hyphae are produced. The tips of these aerial hyphae fill with cytoplasmic contents, and the nuclei undergo repeated mitosis. Around each of the nuclei cytoplasm and organelles collect, and by the formation of copious vesicles from the Golgi, each nucleus becomes isolated from the next by a plasma membrane. Within the spaces created by this cytoplasmic cleavage, spore walls begin to form, again by the fusion of Golgi vesicles containing cell wall monomers and enzymes with the spore membrane. A sporangium forms. As these events occur so there is considerable water uptake by the forming sporangium, and as the columella forms the structure comes under considerable turgor pressure. The large sporangia can contain up to 100,000 spores (Fig 3).
Fig. 3 Formation of a sporangium
This diagram is redrawn from Brackers original and shows the development of a sporangium through time. As nuclei undergo repeated mitosis so the Golgi produces membrane bound vesicles filled with spore wall building materials. These coalesce around the nuclei to form a spore. Eventually they are released.
Not all sporangia are as large as this, there are many species with smaller, specialized sporangia, called sporangiola, merosporangia and some are almost conidial, forming single spored sporangia that are only distinguished from the conidium of the higher fungi by the possession of a double spore wall. We will look at some of these structures in the practical.
The process of spore formation in most members of the higher fungal groups is again based largely on the formation of aerial mycelium and the differentiation of the hyphal tip. However, unlike the process seen in the Zygomycetes, the process here involves something much more like the budding we see in the yeasts. This is termed a blastic process, which involves the blowing out or blebbing of the hyphal tip wall. The blastic process can involve all wall layers, or there can be a new cell wall synthesized which is extruded from within the old wall. As asexual reproduction is sometimes the only form of reproduction seen in some fungi, we have in the past tried to construct elaborate taxonomic schemes based on spore structure and production. However, as I said earlier, these features are notoriously plastic and such schemes have largely been abandoned. The hypha that creates the sporing (conidiating) tip can be very similar to the normal hyphal tip, or it can be differentiated. The commonest differentiation is the formation of a bottle shaped cell called a phialide, from which the spores are produced. Phialide formation in the Ascomycete fungi:
Not all of these asexual structures are single hyphae. In some groups the conidiophores (the structures that bear the conidia) are aggregated. In the Moniliales all are single with the exception of the aggregations termed coremia or synnema. These produce structures rather like corn-stooks, with many conidia being produced in a mass from the aggregated conidiophores.
Other species of Ascomycetes and Deuteromycetes form their structures within plant tissue, either as parasite and saprophytes. These fungi have evolved more complex asexual sporing structures, probably influenced by the cultural conditions of plant tissue as a substrate. These structures are called the sporodochium. This is a cushion of conidiophores created from a psuedoparenchymatous stroma in plant tissue. The pycnidium is a globose to flask-shaped parenchymatous structure, lined on its inner wall with conidiophores. The acervulus is a flat saucer shaped bed of conidiophores produced under a plant cuticle, which eventually erupt through the cuticle for dispersal.
Sexual reproduction introduces the possibility of variation into a population, and this is why most fungi have a sexual phase. To achieve sexual reproduction it is necessary to have two mating type haploid nuclei (n + n), or a diploid (2n) nucleus. In the case of the two haploid nuclei they must fuse to form a diploid first, but once fused the nuclei undergo meiosis, which is the reduction division that potentially brings about variation in the progeny. These event are followed by the formation of spores, which in most cases are resting spores that can withstand adverse conditions.
Sexual reproduction in the chytridiomycetes:
Sexual reproduction occurs in some members of the chytrids by the production of diploid spores after gametic or somatic fusion of two different mating types. The resulting spore may germinate to produce a diploid vegetative mycelium or it may undergo meiosis to produce a haploid mycelium. The diploid mycelium can also produces resting sporangia in which meiosis occurs, generating haploid zoospores that germinate to produce haploid vegetative mycelium (Fig 6):
Sexual reproduction in the Zygomycetes:
There are two possible nuclear states in the mycelia of this group of fungi. They can have a single type of nucleus in their mycelium, a condition termed termed homothallism, or they can contain the two mating type nuclei within their mycelium, termed heterothallism. If the fungus is homothallic the first event in the onset of sexual reproduction has to be somatic fusion. This is termed conjugation. To achieve such a mating it is necessary to attract each other and an elaborate sequence of cellular and biochemical events have been established for some of these fungi. This signalling involves the secretion of inducer molecules that are responsible for causing the formation of zygophores, modified hyphal tips, and these then grow towards each other long a gradient of hormone. The exact sequence is shown below. Sexual reproduction in the Zygomycetes:
Once in contact the two zygophores fuse, and then the nuclei fuse to form the diploid. Meiosis occurs, producing four haploid nuclei, but three may degenerate. The timing of fusion varies from species to species.
Sexual reproduction in the Ascomycetes:
In this group of fungi there are no specialized organs of hyphal fusion, different mating type mycelia merely fuse with each other to form transient dikaryons, mycelia with two mating type nuclei within it. The dikaryotic mycelium can differentiate to from varying amounts of sterile mycelium around what is to become the fertile tissue of the fruit body. In yeasts, a single, diploid yeast will undergo meiosis, producing four haploid progeny cells, but in more complex fungi there are a sequence of cellular and nucleic events that ensure an organized fertile layer. The events are illustrated below in figure Fig. 8.
Spores are delineated around these nuclei in a process called free cell formation, and as most of the cytoplasm is contained around the nucleus and within the spore wall, all that is left outside is cell sap. These modified hyphae are termed Asci, and the spores that are held within them are termed ascospores. The asci are often found packed tightly with other asci, and between a dense layer of supporting sterile tissue. Often the structure is large enough to be seen with the naked eye.
The asci can be aggregated together in various sorts of fruit body which we will see in the practical, including the, cup fungi (Discomycetes, apothecial), the flask fungi, (Pyrenomycetes, perithecial), the mildews (Plectomycetes cleistothecial) and the fungi with black, crusty stromata (Loculoascomycetes, pseudothecial fungi). There are also the yeasts, Hemiascomycetes,. Their ascospores are normally formed in loose asci and are not actively discharged. We have not looked at these. When they form ascospores in fruit pulps or liquids they are usually liberated by the disintegration of the ascus wall.
Sexual reproduction in the Basidiomycetes:
Basidiomycetes are characterised by the most complex and large structures found in the fungi. They are very rarely produce asexual spores. Much of their life cycle is spent as vegetative mycelium, exploiting complex substrates.
A preliminary requisite for the onset of sexual reproduction is the acquisition of two mating types of nuclei by the fusion of compatible mycelium. This creates a dikaryon where single copies of the two mating type nuclei are held within every hyphal compartment for extended periods of time. Maintenance of the dikaryon requires elaborate septum formation (clamp connections, Fig 10.) during growth and nuclear division.
Onset of sexual spore formation is triggered by environmental conditions and in the larger Basidiomycetes begins with the formation of a fruit body primordium. The primordium expands and differentiates to form the large fruit bodies of mushrooms and toadstools. The mycelium within this structure remains as a dikaryon, diploid formation only occurring within the modified hyphal tip called the basidium. Meiosis occurs within the basidium, and the four products are extruded from the tip of the basidium on sterigma (below). Usually this event occurs across a large area of basidia called a hymenium, or fertile layer. It is usually formed over an extensive sterile layer of tissue like a mushroom gill.
There are three major divisions in the basidiomycetes.
There are two major functions of fungal spores, dispersal and survival. Often these two requirements are met by two different spores formed at different points in a fungus life cycle. Some are survival spores formed in response to adverse abiotic conditions that can include desiccation, high UV, high/low temperatures or starvation. Biotic factors can also induce sporulation including competition, antagonism, and pathogens presence. These spores have thick cell walls, and lots of reserves.
Dissemination spores are spores that are smaller, with thin cell walls, and limited reserves, and will germinate readily when on a suitable substrate. They are formed as part of the active life cycle of the fungus and are often concerned with epidemic spread of a pathogenic species from plant to plant, or with rapid colonization of a substrate.
Spores in general:
By wet weight spores generally contain 25% protein and 20% fat, and they have a low water content relative to vegetative mycelium. Cell walls of spores are generally not fibrillar, but they are multi-layered and often contain melanin and have ornamentations.
Spores contain all normal mycelial organelles. Respiratory reserves include lipids, glycogen, phospholipids and polysaccharides that can include sugar alcohols like Trehalose). Respiration rates in spores are only 1-4% those of vegetative mycelium, but obviously the more reserves a spore has, the longer it will survive.
Dormancy occurs when spores do not immediately germinate after formation. Dormancy is a break in the life cycle. There are two types, endogenous (constitutive) and exogenous (induced). Endogenous dormancy is due to some internal quality of the spore, a barrier to water or nutrient entry, a metabolic block, or an inhibitor. Self inhibition prevents spores from germinating in dense suspensions. It can be by excessive sensitivity to oxygen or carbon dioxide levels, nutrient competition, or most usually due to the presence of inhibitors. These molecules are often active in the 1-10 nanomolar range. These inhibitors have to be leached away before germination takes place.
There can also be physical barriers to germination. In one of the athlete foot fungi, Microsporium gypseum, there is a protein layer around the spore which prevents the uptake of water. This layer is removed by the action of a fungal acid phosphatase enzyme. This enzyme is inhibited by high levels of phosphate, and until phosphate levels in the environment drop the fungus spore does not germinate.
Endogenous (induced) dormancy occurs because of some external condition, and whilst these conditions prevail the spore will not germinate. As soon as the limiting factor is removed the spore germinates.
Table 1. A summary of the characteristics of fungal spores with endogenous and exogenous dormancy:
Displaced from point of origin
Remain at point of origin
Definite launch mechanism
Released by autolysis
Small and thin walled spores
Large and thick walled
Short survival time
Survive for a long time
Germinate readily under suitable conditions
Germinate after a specific stimulus or removal of an inhibitor
Optimal environmental signals trigger the end of dormancy and the onset of germination. Chemical stimuli can trigger germination. This is frequently seen in pathogens where host compounds can act as germination stimulants.
Germination begins with imbibition, the uptake of water, which can cause a 3 to 20 fold increase in size. Spherical growth also accounts for some of the swelling. Eventually polarized growth starts, with the emergence of a germ tube from the spore. The spore wall may be ruptured and a new cell wall covered germ tube emerges, or the spore wall may be softened and the germ tube then emerges.
In between formation of spores and their eventual germination is a phase where spores are disseminated from their point of origin. Many fungi have elaborate mechanisms for getting their spores into the atmosphere which the best medium through which to spread spores. Many spores are very dry and friable, which means they are light enough to be lifted by air currents into the turbulent air above the boundary layer. Others have active spore guns that fire spores up into the atmosphere.
The end result is that over both countryside and towns there is a characteristic air spora. In the countryside this is very typically full of spores from pathogens of agricultural crops, from saprophytes of plant structures and from decaying matter. Species like Penicillium and Cladosporium tend to predominate. In the towns there are fewer agricultural pathogens but there are still hundreds of spores per cubic litre of air. Within homes and workplaces spore numbers can be even higher, and the species distribution tends to differ. In warm, dry areas Aspergillus spp. can become significant members of the air spora.
In normal circumstances these fungal spores pose little or no hazard, our immune systems have evolved with these spores and we are at no risk from them. However, in a population that contains a significant number of individuals that are for whatever reason immuno-compromised, these spores can represent a hazard that as yet has not been quantified. Furthermore, there is increasing evidence to show that inhalation of fungal spores can cause significant allergic responses in atopic individuals. This is an area of very active research.
© MicrobiologyBytes 2009.
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The Arabic Hermes: From Pagan Sage to Prophet of Science
This is the first major study devoted to the early Arabic reception and adaption of the figure of Hermes Trismegistus, the legendary Egyptian sage to whom were ascribed numerous works on astrology, alchemy, talismans, medicine, and philosophy. Before the more famous Renaissance European reception of the ancient Greek Hermetica, the Arabic tradition about Hermes and the works under his name had been developing and flourishing for seven hundred years. The legendary Egyptian Hermes Trismegistus was renowned in Roman antiquity as an ancient sage whose teachings were represented in books of philosophy and occult science. The works in his name, written in Greek by Egyptians living under Roman rule, subsequently circulated in many languages and regions of the Roman and Sasanian Persian empires. After the rise of Arabic as a prestigious language of scholarship in the eighth century, accounts of Hermes identity and Hermetic texts were translated into Arabic along with the hundreds of other works translated from Greek, Middle Persian, and other literary languages of antiquity. Hermetica were in fact among the earliest translations into Arabic, appearing already in the eighth century. This book explains the origins of the Arabic myth of Hermes Trismegistus, its sources, the reasons for its peculiar character, and its varied significance for the traditions of Hermetica in Asia and northern Africa as well as Europe. It shows who pre-modern Arabic scholars thought Hermes was and how they came to that view.
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Hermes the Prophet
Mubaššir ibn Fātik
The Making of the Arabic Hermes
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Abbāsid ābians Abū Mašar Agathodaemon al-Bīrūnī al-Kindī al-Masūdī al-Mubaššir alchemy Alexander Ammon Annianus antediluvian Arabic Hermetic Arabic Hermetica Arabic literature Arabic translation Aramaic Aristotle arrān arrānian arrānian ābians Asclepius astrological attributed to Hermes authors Babylonian Baġdād caliph Christian chronicle chronographic Chwolsohn citations cited context Corpus Hermeticum derived discussion doctrines Dorotheus early edition Egypt Egyptian Empire Enoch evidence Fihrist Fowden Greek Corpus Hermeticum Greek Hermetica Gutas heavenly ascent Hermes Trismegistus Hermetic Hermetic text Hermetists Ibn al-Ibrī Ibn Ğulğul Idrīs Iran Iranian Islam Ismāīlī Jacob of Edessa kings known language late antique later Latin legend Mahé Manetho Manichaeans manuscript mentioned Middle Persian Muḥammad Muslim name Hermes original Ostanes pagans Panodorus passage philosophers Pingree Plato prophet Qurān reference religion Roman Rosenthal sages Šāpūr Sasanian sayings of Hermes scholars Sinān sources story surviving Syncellus Syriac Tardieu tenth century tradition trans translated from Middle vols words
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By destroying the regulatory genes of the AIDS virus HIV-1 using the genome editing system CRISPR/Cas9, a Japanese research group has succeeded in blocking the production of HIV-1 by infected cells.
Human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) infection is a chronic disease affecting more than 35 million people worldwide. The infection can be controlled by antiretroviral therapy (ART), but there is still no complete cure. It is hard to eradicate cells latently infected with HIV-1 in a patient's body because when the virus proliferates, the viral gene is inserted into the chromosomes in the infected cells.
Genome editing methods cut specific parts of genes, allowing us to remove or add sections of the DNA sequence. The recently developed CRISPR/Cas9 system is a promising tool for deactivating the HIV-1 genes that have been incorporated into the chromosomes of infected individuals.
This study targeted two genes that regulate the proliferation of HIV-1, known as tat and rev. Based on genetic information from six major HIV-1 subtypes, the team designed six types of guide RNA (gRNA) that enable specific genome editing using the CRISPR/Cas9 system. They created a lentiviral vector that expresses Cas9 and gRNA. When they introduced this vector to cultured cells that expressed the regulatory gene products Tat and Rev, they succeeded in significantly lowering the expression and functions of both Tat and Rev. The team found no off-target mutations (non-specific genome editing that unintentionally targets the host cell genes), and the expression of Cas9 and gRNA did not affect the survival rate of the cultured cells.
By introducing gRNA and Cas9 to cultured cells with a latent or persistent HIV-1 infection, they were able to markedly suppress cytokine-dependent HIV-1 reactivation in latently infected cells and HIV-1 replication from persistently infected cells. Furthermore, by introducing all six types of gRNA at the same time, they managed to almost completely block virus production from the infected cells.
The research team was led by Associate Professor Masanori Kameoka, Assistant Professor Tomohiro Kotaki (Kobe University Graduate School of Health Sciences) and Youdiil Ophinni (Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine). The findings were published on May 17 in Scientific Reports.
"These results show that the CRISPR/Cas9 system, by targeting the regulatory genes of HIV-1, tat and rev, is a promising method for treating HIV infection" comments Associate Professor Kameoka.
"We now need to investigate how we can selectively introduce a CRISPR/Cas9 system that targets HIV-1 genes into the infected cells of patients. In order to safely and effectively introduce the CRISPR/Cas9 system the vectors must be improved. We hope this research will provide us with useful information in developing a treatment method that can completely cure the HIV-1 infection."
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Urgent !!! who can write music concert report ?akdq8
I need some one to write for me a music concert reportand I need it to be done by 10:00 pm , I have a paper that shows that presents of the concert and all of the concert info and and the rules to write the report in the attachment .
- 6 years ago
- phyllis young SLP Locations
- Dealth Penalty
- Discuss applied psychology'a role in the 1900s to the Industrial-Organization movement.
- FIN515 - Problem set - Week - 5 - Graded - 25/25
- Designing Restaurant Menus
- Executive Proposal
- PROBABILITY AND STATISTICS Final Exam
- WR 121 750 AND 1000 WORDS
- British Literature
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Which Joe gave his name to ‘sloppy joes’? We look at five interesting sandwiches and their lexical origins.
A method of approaching philosophical problems through analysis of the terms in which they are expressed, associated with Anglo-American philosophy of the early 20th century.
- ‘This movement is often known as ‘analytical Marxism’, since its proponents aim to reformulate Marx's insights using the tools and methods of contemporary Anglo-American analytic philosophy and social science.’
- ‘Feminist critiques may have been legitimate for some kinds of analytic philosophy, especially logical positivism, but because analytic philosophy has changed, the objections do not hold for most contemporary work.’
- ‘The misreading of Hegel is standard form in 20th century French philosophy - just as it is in Anglo-American analytic philosophy.’
- ‘This is particularly unusual in twentieth century analytic philosophy, where the approach to philosophical problems is usually more piecemeal.’
- ‘During the 1960s many young philosophers began again to turn to the moral problems of modern society, utilizing the philosophical tools of modern Anglo-American analytic philosophy.’
We take a look at several popular, though confusing, punctuation marks.
From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, discover surprising and intriguing language facts from around the globe.
The definitions of ‘buddy’ and ‘bro’ in the OED have recently been revised. We explore their history and increase in popularity.
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- "Morse function" redirects here. In another context, a "Morse function" can also mean an anharmonic oscillator: see Morse potential
In differential topology, Morse theory enables one to analyze the topology of a manifold by studying differentiable functions on that manifold. According to the basic insights of Marston Morse, a typical differentiable function on a manifold will reflect the topology quite directly. Morse theory allows one to find CW structures and handle decompositions on manifolds and to obtain substantial information about their homology.
Before Morse, Arthur Cayley and James Clerk Maxwell had developed some of the ideas of Morse theory in the context of topography. Morse originally applied his theory to geodesics (critical points of the energy functional on paths). These techniques were used in Raoul Bott's proof of his periodicity theorem.
The analogue of Morse theory for complex manifolds is Picard–Lefschetz theory.
Consider, for purposes of illustration, a mountainous landscape M. If f is the function M → R sending each point to its elevation, then the inverse image of a point in R (a level set) is simply a contour line. Each connected component of a contour line is either a point, a simple closed curve, or a closed curve with a double point. Contour lines may also have points of higher order (triple points, etc.), but these are unstable and may be removed by a slight deformation of the landscape. Double points in contour lines occur at saddle points, or passes. Saddle points are points where the surrounding landscape curves up in one direction and down in the other.
Imagine flooding this landscape with water. Then, the region covered by water when the water reaches an elevation of a is f−1(−∞, a], or the points with elevation less than or equal to a. Consider how the topology of this region changes as the water rises. It appears, intuitively, that it does not change except when a passes the height of a critical point; that is, a point where the gradient of f is 0 (that is the Jacobian matrix acting as a linear map from the tangent space at that point to the tangent space at its image under the map f does not have maximal rank). In other words, it does not change except when the water either (1) starts filling a basin, (2) covers a saddle (a mountain pass), or (3) submerges a peak.
To each of these three types of critical points – basins, passes, and peaks (also called minima, saddles, and maxima) – one associates a number called the index. Intuitively speaking, the index of a critical point b is the number of independent directions around b in which f decreases. Therefore, the indices of basins, passes, and peaks are 0, 1, and 2, respectively. Rigorously, index of a critical point is the dimension of the negative-definite submatrix of the hessian matrix calculated at that point. In case of smooth maps, the hessian matrix turns out to be a diagonal matrix.
Define Ma as f−1(−∞, a]. Leaving the context of topography, one can make a similar analysis of how the topology of Ma changes as a increases when M is a torus oriented as in the image and f is projection on a vertical axis, taking a point to its height above the plane.
Starting from the bottom of the torus, let p, q, r, and s be the four critical points of index 0, 1, 1, and 2, respectively. When a is less than 0, Ma is the empty set. After a passes the level of p, when 0<a<f(q), then Ma is a disk, which is homotopy equivalent to a point (a 0-cell), which has been "attached" to the empty set. Next, when a exceeds the level of q, and f(q)<a<f(r), then Ma is a cylinder, and is homotopy equivalent to a disk with a 1-cell attached (image at left). Once a passes the level of r, and f(r)<a<f(s), then Ma is a torus with a disk removed, which is homotopy equivalent to a cylinder with a 1-cell attached (image at right). Finally, when a is greater than the critical level of s, Ma is a torus. A torus, of course, is the same as a torus with a disk removed with a disk (a 2-cell) attached.
One therefore appears to have the following rule: the topology of Mα does not change except when α passes the height of a critical point, and when α passes the height of a critical point of index γ, a γ-cell is attached to Mα. This does not address the question of what happens when two critical points are at the same height. That situation can be resolved by a slight perturbation of f. In the case of a landscape (or a manifold embedded in Euclidean space), this perturbation might simply be tilting the landscape slightly, or rotating the coordinate system.
This rule, however, is false as stated. To see this, let M = R and let f(x) = x3. Then 0 is a critical point of f, but the topology of Mα does not change when α passes 0. In fact, the concept of index does not make sense. The problem is that the second derivative is also 0 at 0. This kind of situation is called a degenerate critical point. Note that this situation is unstable: by rotating the coordinate system under the graph, the degenerate critical point either is removed or breaks up into two non-degenerate critical points.
For a real-valued smooth function f : M → R on a differentiable manifold M, the points where the differential of f vanishes are called critical points of f and their images under f are called critical values. If at a critical point b, the matrix of second partial derivatives (the Hessian matrix) is non-singular, then b is called a non-degenerate critical point; if the Hessian is singular then b is a degenerate critical point.
For the functions
from R to R, f has a critical point at the origin if b=0, which is non-degenerate if c≠0 (i.e. f is of the form a+cx2+...) and degenerate if c=0 (i.e. f is of the form a+dx3+...). A less trivial example of a degenerate critical point is the origin of the monkey saddle.
The index of a non-degenerate critical point b of f is the dimension of the largest subspace of the tangent space to M at b on which the Hessian is negative definite. This corresponds to the intuitive notion that the index is the number of directions in which f decreases. The degeneracy and index of a critical point are independent of the choice of the local coordinate system used, as shown by Sylvester's Law.
throughout U. Here α is equal to the index of f at b. As a corollary of the Morse lemma, one sees that non-degenerate critical points are isolated. (Regarding an extension to the complex domain see Complex Morse Lemma. For a generalization, see Morse-Palais lemma).
A smooth real-valued function on a manifold M is a Morse function if it has no degenerate critical points. A basic result of Morse theory says that almost all functions are Morse functions. Technically, the Morse functions form an open, dense subset of all smooth functions M → R in the C2 topology. This is sometimes expressed as "a typical function is Morse" or "a generic function is Morse".
As indicated before, we are interested in the question of when the topology of Ma = f−1(−∞, a] changes as a varies. Half of the answer to this question is given by the following theorem.
- Theorem. Suppose f is a smooth real-valued function on M, a < b, f−1[a, b] is compact, and there are no critical values between a and b. Then Ma is diffeomorphic to Mb, and Mb deformation retracts onto Ma.
It is also of interest to know how the topology of Ma changes when a passes a critical point. The following theorem answers that question.
- Theorem. Suppose f is a smooth real-valued function on M and p is a non-degenerate critical point of f of index γ, and that f(p) = q. Suppose f−1[q−ε, q+ε] is compact and contains no critical points besides p. Then Mq+ε is homotopy equivalent to Mq−ε with a γ-cell attached.
These results generalize and formalize the 'rule' stated in the previous section. As was mentioned, the rule as stated is incorrect; these theorems correct it.
Using the two previous results and the fact that there exists a Morse function on any differentiable manifold, one can prove that any differentiable manifold is a CW complex with an n-cell for each critical point of index n. To do this, one needs the technical fact that one can arrange to have a single critical point on each critical level, which is usually proven by using gradient-like vector fields to rearrange the critical points.
Morse theory can be used to prove some strong results on the homology of manifolds. The number of critical points of index γ of f : M → R is equal to the number of γ cells in the CW structure on M obtained from "climbing" f. Using the fact that the alternating sum of the ranks of the homology groups of a topological space is equal to the alternating sum of the ranks of the chain groups from which the homology is computed, then by using the cellular chain groups (see cellular homology) it is clear that the Euler characteristic is equal to the sum
where Cγ is the number of critical points of index γ. Also by cellular homology, the rank of the nth homology group of a CW complex M is less than or equal to the number of n-cells in M. Therefore the rank of the γth homology group,i.e., the Betti number , is less than or equal to the number of critical points of index γ of a Morse function on M. These facts can be strengthened to obtain the Morse inequalities:
In particular, for any
This gives a powerful tool to study manifold topology. Suppose on a closed manifold there exists a Morse function f : M → R with precisely k critical points. In what way does the existence of the function f restrict M? The case k = 2 was studied by Reeb in 1952; Reeb sphere theorem states that M is homeomorphic to a sphere . The case k = 3 is possible only in a small number of low dimensions, and M is homeomorphic to an Eells–Kuiper manifold.
Morse homology is a particularly easy way to understand the homology of smooth manifolds. It is defined using a generic choice of Morse function and Riemannian metric. The basic theorem is that the resulting homology is an invariant of the manifold (i.e., independent of the function and metric) and isomorphic to the singular homology of the manifold; this implies that the Morse and singular Betti numbers agree and gives an immediate proof of the Morse inequalities. An infinite dimensional analog of Morse homology is known as Floer homology.
The notion of a Morse function can be generalized to consider functions that have nondegenerate manifolds of critical points. A Morse–Bott function is a smooth function on a manifold whose critical set is a closed submanifold and whose Hessian is non-degenerate in the normal direction. (Equivalently, the kernel of the Hessian at a critical point equals the tangent space to the critical submanifold.) A Morse function is the special case where the critical manifolds are zero-dimensional (so the Hessian at critical points is non-degenerate in every direction, i.e., has no kernel).
The index is most naturally thought of as a pair
where i− is the dimension of the unstable manifold at a given point of the critical manifold, and i+ is i− plus the dimension of the critical manifold. If the Morse–Bott function is perturbed by a small function on the critical locus, the index of all critical points of the perturbed function on a critical manifold of the unperturbed function will lie between i− and i+).
Morse–Bott functions are useful because generic Morse functions are difficult to work with; the functions one can visualize, and with which one can easily calculate, typically have symmetries. They often lead to positive-dimensional critical manifolds. Raoul Bott used Morse–Bott theory in his original proof of the Bott periodicity theorem.
Round functions are examples of Morse–Bott functions, where the critical sets are (disjoint unions of) circles.
Morse homology can also be formulated for Morse–Bott functions; the differential in Morse–Bott homology is computed by a spectral sequence. Frederic Bourgeois sketched an approach in the course of his work on a Morse–Bott version of symplectic field theory, but this work was never published due to substantial analytic difficulties.
- Digital Morse theory
- Discrete Morse theory
- Jacobi set
- Lagrangian Grassmannian
- Lusternik–Schnirelmann category
- Morse–Smale system
- Sard's lemma
- Stratified Morse theory
- Witten’s Proof of Morse Inequalities by Igor Prokhorenkov
- Bott, Raoul (1988). Morse Theory Indomitable. Publications Mathématiques de l'IHÉS. 68, 99–114.
- Bott, Raoul (1982). Lectures on Morse theory, old and new., Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.) 7, no. 2, 331–358.
- Cayley, Arthur (1859). On Contour and Slope Lines. The Philosophical Magazine 18 (120), 264-268.
- Guest, Martin (2001). arXiv abstract Morse Theory in the 1990's
- Matsumoto, Yukio (2002). An Introduction to Morse Theory
- Maxwell, James Clerk (1870). On Hills and Dales. The Philosophical Magazine 40 (269), 421–427.
- Milnor, John (1963). Morse Theory. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-08008-9. A classic advanced reference in mathematics and mathematical physics.
- Milnor, John (1965). Lectures on the h-Cobordism theorem - scans available here
- Morse, Marston (1934). "The Calculus of Variations in the Large", American Mathematical Society Colloquium Publication 18; New York.
- Matthias Schwarz: Morse Homology, Birkhäuser, 1993.
- Seifert, Herbert & Threlfall, William (1938). Variationsrechnung im Grossen
- Witten, Edward (1982). Supersymmetry and Morse theory. J. Differential Geom. 17 (1982), no. 4, 661–692.
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5.5.1 Calculating quantities of vaccine for a particular supply period
The vaccine needs for a specific storage or supply period (in this case, 12 months or 48 working weeks) can be calculated using the following equation:
qperiod = (qyear ÷ 12) x psupply when the supply period is given in months, or qperiod = (qyear ÷ 48) x psupply when the supply period is given in working weeks. where:
- qperiod = vaccine needs for the period
- qyear = annual vaccine needs
- psupply = supply period (in months or weeks).
You can see an example of vaccine needs calculated in weeks in the following question.
If the number of doses of vaccine required for one year in an imaginary kebele is 2,000, how many doses would be needed for a two-week period?
In this example, the annual vaccine needs qyear = 2,000 and the supply period psupply is 2 weeks.
The vaccine needs for one week would be 2,000 doses ÷ 48 working weeks.
So the vaccine needs for the period (qperiod) of 2 weeks is (2,000 ÷ 48) x 2 = 83 doses.
Therefore, 83 doses would be required for a two-week period in this example.
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Update of the O&O Syspectr Service
After a long period of development, we’re now happy to release the new O&O Syspectr Service. It contains not only a large number of improvements, but extensions and preparations for future features as well. The following is a list of changes:
- New: The image repetition rate and quality of image transfer can now be selected in the Remote Desktop.
- New: Hardware recognition has been extended in the Hardware module.
- New: XEN virtualizations will now be taken into consideration.
- New: O&O Defrag 20.5 is now supported.
- New: Only the agent will be installed when using O&O Defrag, and no longer the entire program environment with user interface.
- Fix: A domain firewall will also be correctly treated on non-domain computers.
- Fix: Installation on a Hyper-V computer will now be correctly recognized.
- Fix: Changes to the subscriptions will no longer result in frequent error notices.
- Fix: An MTP device connected to a USB port will no longer be displayed as unlocked in the USB module.
- Fix: Installation of drivers during a Windows update has been corrected.
- Various minor bug fixes and fine-tuning (e.g. errors in transcription)
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Cyanomethylurea (CAS 5962-7-2) World Market Report 2019
Delivery: E-mail Delivery - PDF
Cyanomethylurea (CAS 5962-7-2) World Market Report 2019 aims at providing comprehensive data on cyanomethylurea market globally and regionally (Europe, Asia, North America, Latin America etc.).
The report includes cyanomethylurea description, covers its application areas, manufacturing methods, patterns. It captures cyanomethylurea market trends, pays close attention to cyanomethylurea manufacturers and names suppliers.
Furthermore, cyanomethylurea prices in regional markets can be found in the report with regards to countries and companies.
In addition to the above the report determines cyanomethylurea consumers.
The research team can provide profound analysis on the following aspects of the market for each chemical product in any country or region:
- current market situation
- capacity and production volumes
- consumption volume and structure
- export and import
- market prices trends
- manufacturing methods and patterns
- feedstock analysis
- market forecast
Thus, Cyanomethylurea (CAS 5962-7-2) World Market Report 2019 can feature:
- Cyanomethylurea ranges, trademarks, analogous products, application areas, manufacturing methods
- present cyanomethylurea market conditions, prices
- cyanomethylurea market forecast, estimations
- cyanomethylurea manufacturers, consumers and traders (including contact details)
1. CYANOMETHYLUREA: GENERAL INFORMATION
1.2. Composition, information on ingredients
1.3. Hazards identification
1.4. Handling and storage
1.5. Toxicological & ecological information
1.6. Transport information
2. CYANOMETHYLUREA END-USE SECTOR, MANUFACTURING
2.1. Production methods
2.2. Application areas
3. CYANOMETHYLUREA MARKET WORLDWIDE. MANUFACTURERS AND SUPPLIERS OF CYANOMETHYLUREA (INCLUDING CONTACT DETAILS).
3.1. Manufacturers of cyanomethylurea
3.1.3. North America
3.2. Suppliers of cyanomethylurea
3.2.3. North America
4. CURRENT CYANOMETHYLUREA MARKET PRICES
4.3. North America
5. CYANOMETHYLUREA CONSUMERS
Please note that Cyanomethylurea (CAS 5962-7-2) World Market Report 2019 is a half ready publication. It only requires updating with the help of new data that are constantly retrieved from various databases and other sources. This updating process takes 3-5 business days after order is placed. Thus, the clients always obtain a revised and updated version of the report. Please also note that such an updating procedure is free of charge. The databases contain information for more than 25,000 different chemicals available but it is impossible to have all reports updated immediately. That is why it takes 3-5 days to update a report after an order is received.
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Below you can find the abstract of the paper I’ll present at the 9th International Conference on Cyber Conflict (CyCon 2017) in Tallinn, Estonia. The paper will be published after the conference.
Organizational Integration has become a key agenda point for policy makers as governments continue to change and create new organizations to address the cyber threat. Passing references on this topic, however, far outnumber systematic treatments. The aim of this paper is to investigate the potential effects of organizational integration of offensive cyber capabilities (OIOCC). I argue that OIOCC may lead to three key benefits: enhance interaction efficiency, stimulate knowledge transfer and improve resource allocation. There are however several negative effects of integration too, which have so far received little attention. OIOCC may lead to an intensification of the cyber security dilemma, increase costs in the long run, and impel – what I call – ‘cyber mission creep’. Though the benefits seem to outweigh the risks, I note that ignoring the potential negative effects may be dangerous – as activity is more likely to go beyond the foreign-policy goals of governments and intrusions are more likely to trigger a disproportionate response by the defender.
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Power Distribution is a system, consisting of a Main Distribution Board (MDB), Sub Main Distribution Boards (SMDBs) and Final Distribution Boards, by which the electrical energy is transmitted via branches to reach the exact end user.
An MDB is a panel or enclosure that houses the fuses, circuit breakers and ground leakage protection units where the electrical energy, which is used to distribute electrical power to numerous individual circuits or consumer points, is taken in from the transformer or an upstream panel. An MDB typically has a single or multiple incoming power sources and includes main circuit breakers and residual current or earth leakage protection devices. A MDB is comprised of a free standing enclosure, a bus bar system, MCCB’s, metering and support equipments and required current transformers. Panels are assembled in a systematic manner such as incomer section and outgoing section.
Key features of Main Distribution Boards offered by AGS:
- Fully type tested assemblies as per IEC 61439-1
- Rated upto 6000A
- Rated operating voltage upto 690V
- Manufactured to Form 2, Form 3 & Form 4 construction
- Type tested for 85kA/1 sec, 50kA/3 sec
- Designed for both withdrawable & fixed versions
- Ample cabling space for easy connections
- Top and bottom cable entry.
- Panels for front or rear access to suit application
- Index of protection : IP 31 & IP 54
- Floor mounting
- Maximum safety & reliability
- Modular system with Customized design to meet end user requirements.
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Instructions for Submitting the Tax Software Provider Registration Form Electronically
The Tax Software Provider Registration Form may now be submitted electronically. Software developers and payroll service providers need to complete the document in its entirety and submit the completed copy to email@example.com. An email confirmation will be sent within 48 hours of receipt of the Agreement. If you have not received an acknowledgement within 48 hours contact firstname.lastname@example.org at (919) 754-2625.
To submit your copy, follow the instructions below:
- Access a copy of Tax Software Provider Registration Form by clicking the link below.
- Complete the fill-in version with the required information.
- Send the completed document to email@example.com.
- File and Pay Taxes
- Find Tax FAQs
- Find Tax Information
- Pay a Bill or Notice
- Request an Installment Agreement
- Understand My Notice
- Collections – Past Due Taxes
- Periodic Review of Existing Rules
- Reports and Statistics
- Resolving Disputes
- Identity Theft
- Individual Income Tax Estimator
- Individual Income Tax Rates
- Sales and Use Tax Rates
- Taxpayer Advocate
- Taxpayer Self-Help
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So this is more of a theoretical question, no dataset or code that I can share. It just came up in a discussion and I was not sure of the answer.
Let's say I have 2 GBM models, model A and B, trained on the same training set, predicting some 0/1 dependent variable. And let's say we have a test set in which we can assess the performance of these two models. Both training and test sets came from the same time period of data collection, just a random split
Now let's assume Model A is much less complicated than model B, maybe 100 trees vs 1000 trees, but the performance gains are minimal, maybe 70 vs 71 AUC on the test set.
My question is, which model here is more sensitive to changes in variable distributions over time? For example, if we are using these 2 models in real time decisions, and a mean of a variable that we use in both models shifts, which model is more likely to be impacted by this?
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May 27 1969 horoscope and zodiac sign meanings.
The following fact sheet will help you better understand the astrological profile of a person born under May 27 1969 horoscope. Few things that can be considered interesting are Gemini sign traits, characteristics by Chinese zodiac animal, best matches in love together with normal compatibilities, famous people born under same zodiac animal and an entertaining analysis of personality descriptors.
Horoscope and zodiac sign meanings
In introduction let's decipher which are the most often referred to connotations of the western zodiac sign linked to this birthday:
- People born on May 27, 1969 are governed by Gemini. This sign is placed between May 21 and June 20.
- The Gemini symbol is considered the Twins.
- The life path number that rules those born on May 27, 1969 is 3.
- This sign has a positive polarity and its most relevant characteristics are enthusiastic and affable, while it is classified as a masculine sign.
- The element linked to Gemini is the Air. The main three characteristics of an individual born under this element are:
- full of positivity
- understanding the importance of networking
- having the ability to address the message in the right format
- The associated modality for Gemini is Mutable. The main three characteristics of people born under this modality are:
- likes almost every change
- deals with unknown situations very well
- very flexible
- Gemini is known as most compatible in love with:
- People born under Gemini are least compatible in love with:
Birthday characteristics interpretation
Below there is a list with 15 behavioral characteristics selected and assessed in a subjective way that best describes the profile of someone born on 27 May 1969, together with a lucky features chart interpretation that aims to the explain the horoscope influence.
Horoscope personality descriptors chart
Little to few resemblance!
Very good resemblance!
Horoscope lucky features chart
May 27 1969 health astrology
Allergic rhinitis which can lead to other diseases such as asthma and sinusitis.
Atopic dermatitis which is a skin disease that makes the skin become extremely itchy and inflamed.
Brain chemistry imbalances that are considered to be one of the first causes to contribute to mental illnesses.
Allergies that are misguided reactions of immune system in response to bodily contact with certain substances.
May 27 1969 zodiac animal and other Chinese connotations
Beside the traditional western astrology there is the Chinese zodiac which has powerful significance derived from the date of birth. It is becoming more and more debated because its accuracy and the prospects that it presents are at least interesting or intriguing. In the following lines are presented key aspects that arise from this culture.
Zodiac animal details
- People born on May 27 1969 are considered to be ruled by the 鷄 Rooster zodiac animal.
- The element for the Rooster symbol is the Yin Earth.
- It is belived that 5, 7 and 8 are lucky numbers for this zodiac animal, while 1, 3 and 9 are considered unlucky.
- Yellow, golden and brown are the lucky colors for this Chinese sign, while white green, are considered avoidable colors.
Chinese zodiac general characteristics
- These are a few general peculiarities that may characterize this zodiac animal:
- details oriented person
- inflexible person
- low self-confident person
- independent person
- A few common traits in love for this sign are:
- excellent care giver
- capable of any effort in making the other one happy
- A few things that can be stated when talking about the social and interpersonal relationship skills of this sign are:
- proves to be communicative
- often available to make any effort in order to make others happy
- right there to help when the case
- proves to be devoted
- This zodiac comes with a few implications on someone's career behavior, among which we can mention:
- likes working by procedures
- considers own carrier a life priority
- is extremly motivated when trying to achieve a goal
- can deal with almost every change or groups
Chinese zodiac compatibilities
- A relationship between the Rooster and the next three zodiac animals may have a happy path:
- A relationship between the Rooster and any of these signs can prove to be a normal one:
- Expectations should not be too large in case of a relationship between the Rooster and any of these signs:
Chinese zodiac career
Possible careers for this zodiac animal would be:
- public relations officer
- administrative support officer
Chinese zodiac health
In terms of the health the Rooster should take into account of a few things:
- keeps healthy because tends to prevent rather than cure
- is in a good shape
- should avoid any vicies
- should try to improve own sleeping schedule
Famous people born with the same zodiac animal
These are a few famous people born in the Rooster year:
- Diane Sawyer
- Matthew McConaughey
- James Marsters
- Jessica Alba
This date's ephemeris
The ephemeris coordinates for May 27 1969 are:
Sidereal time: 16:17:30 UTC
Sun in Gemini at 05° 32'. Moon was in Libra at 04° 52'. Mercury in Gemini at 09° 11'. Venus was in Aries at 21° 58'. Mars in Sagittarius at 11° 32'.
Jupiter was in Virgo at 26° 07'. Saturn in Taurus at 03° 17'. Uranus was in Virgo at 29° 55'. Neptun in Scorpio at 27° 07'. Pluto was in Virgo at 22° 25'.
Other astrology & horoscope facts
Tuesday was the day of the week for May 27 1969.
The soul number that rules the May 27 1969 date is 9.
The celestial longitude interval related to Gemini is 60° to 90°.
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Date: March 5, 2009
Part 750: Invasive Species
Originating Office: Division of Fisheries and Aquatic Resource Conservation
1.1 What is the purpose of this chapter? This chapter establishes policy to help prevent the spread of invasive and non-target species by developing and implementing a quality-control planning process in all Service operations within the Fisheries Program through Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) Plans.
1.2 What is the objective of the policy? This policy helps the Fisheries Program to better protect, secure, and maintain the ecological viability of our nation's fish and wildlife resources by reducing the movement of invasive and non-target species.
1.3 What are invasive and non-target species?
A. Invasive species are alien aquatic and terrestrial organisms whose introduction does or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health (see Executive Order 13112).
B. Non-target species are typically plants or animals, but may also be diseases, pathogens, parasites, or other biological organisms or their products, that we do not intend to move during our activities.
1.4 What is a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) system and what are HACCP plans?
A. A HACCP system is a five-step process to identify, evaluate, control, and document invasive and non-target species, through specific pathways, significant for a wide range of natural resource management applications.
B. HACCP planning is an international standard (ASTM E2590 - 08) for reducing or eliminating the spread of unwanted species during specific processes or practices or in materials or products.
C. We identify critical control points in a HACCP plan. A critical control point is the best point, step, or procedure at which we can prevent or reduce significant hazards to minimum risk within a specific pathway. Potential pathways for invasive and non-target species include:
(1) Activities such as collecting and moving plants or animals, habitat and population enhancement, research, recreation site development and maintenance, and other field work; and
(2) Equipment and material we use for activities, such as cars, trucks, trailers, all-terrain vehicles, boats, aircraft, bulldozers, backhoes, sampling gear (e.g., nets), wading gear, and clothing.
D. During HACCP planning, we focus attention on the critical control points within carefully defined activities where we can most effectively prevent or remove non-target species. A HACCP plan:
(1) Documents the risks of unintended introductions and defines the methods we should use to remove non-target species (for some pathways, risks may outweigh the benefits of a planned activity),
(2) Provides employees with reliable information to help them make consistent management and resource decisions based on identified risks (see section 1.9A(2) and Step 4 the appendix to this chapter),
(3) Builds a logical framework we can use to weigh the risks of spreading invasive and non-target species against management benefits, and
(4) Creates a reference source documenting best management practices and procedures that we can share with other offices and the private sector to reduce risks of species spread through pathways with similar characteristics.
E. In a HACCP plan, you must:
(1) Describe and diagram the activity you plan to perform,
(2) Identify potential hazards,
(3) Analyze the activity and define effective critical control points to reduce hazards, and
(4) Document the effectiveness of the prevention measures. A HACCP plan may not eliminate all hazards, but can minimize risk.
1.5 What is our policy?
A. Our policy is to reduce or prevent the spread of invasive and non-target species by implementing HACCP plans.
B. Relevant staff in Fisheries field stations and offices must:
(1) Become familiar with the principles of HACCP as a quality control planning tool,
(2) Identify how they will apply HACCP planning to their operations,
(3) Implement and document HACCP planning as standard operating procedure so that it is consistent with:
(a) This policy and its purpose,
(b) Guidelines found at the joint Service-University of Texas at Arlington HACCP Web site, and
(c) The Fisheries Program Strategic Plan.
(4) Review and update HACCP plans (see section 1.11).
1.6 What is the scope of this chapter? This chapter:
A. Applies to relevant employees in the Fisheries Program involved in work that could inadvertently spread invasive or non-target species, and
B. Encourages the development and implementation of HACCP plans for Service-funded or sanctioned activities that could inadvertently spread invasive or non-target species (e.g., partner-led activities).
1.7 What is the authority for this chapter? The authority for this chapter is Executive Order 13112, Invasive Species. This Order directs Federal agencies to prevent the spread of invasive species in any work they authorize, fund, or carry out.
1.8 Who is responsible for this policy?
A. The Director is responsible for approving HACCP policy.
B. The Assistant Director – Fisheries and Habitat Conservation is responsible for developing HACCP policy.
C. The Chief, Division of Fisheries and Aquatic Resource Conservation:
(1) Keeps this policy up-to-date, and
(2) Assists Regions and field offices with questions about the planning process.
D. Assistant Regional Directors, Fisheries:
(1) Appoint a Regional Aquatic Invasive Species Coordinator (Regional Coordinator) for their respective Regions,
(2) Encourage the Regional Coordinator to review HACCP plans they receive from Project Leaders and field office supervisors, and
(3) Promote HACCP planning with partners through training, technical assistance, and where appropriate, by encouraging the development and implementation of HACCP plans.
E. Regional Aquatic Invasive Species Coordinators for Fisheries (Regional Coordinators):
(1) Help Project Leaders and field office supervisors determine whether to develop HACCP plans and what should be in them,
(2) Request copies of HACCP plans to review and keep on file, and
(3) Circulate HACCP plans to other relevant Service staff for peer review.
F. Project Leaders and field office supervisors:
(1) Determine which employees are subject to this policy,
(2) Develop HACCP plans for their activities that have the potential to spread invasive or non-target species,
(3) Ensure that their personnel follow the procedures in the HACCP plans,
(4) Provide HACCP plans to their Regional Coordinator, when requested, and
(5) Review and update HACCP plans (see section 1.11).
1.9 How does a Project Leader/supervisor determine when to develop a HACCP plan?
A. The Project Leader/supervisor works with the Regional Coordinator to determine:
(1) The number and extent of HACCP plans needed (they base their decisions on the nature of operations), and
(2) Whether the anticipated benefit of an activity outweighs the risks for introducing and spreading invasive and non-target species. The HACCP plan may not be sufficient to make this decision, potentially prompting the need for a more intensive risk assessment.
B. The Project Leader/supervisor and the Regional Coordinator may determine they need to write a plan for such activities as, but not limited to:
(1) Fish stocking programs or other operations intentionally moving species from one location to another;
(2) Propagation, recovery, restoration, and refugia operations for endangered species;
(3) Fish marking and tagging;
(4) Inventory and monitoring surveys; and
(5) Transportation of equipment, supplies, or people (e.g., transportation of equipment and supplies into and out of habitat restoration sites, or during ground-disturbing maintenance activities).
A. The appendix to this chapter will help you develop your HACCP plans. It provides a template to follow when writing a plan and gives information and advice about what to include in each section.
B. HACCP training is available at the National Conservation Training Center and can be arranged within each Region by working with the Regional Coordinator.
C. Additional information and HACCP planning tools, including a database of completed HACCP plans and announcements of training workshops, are available on the HACCP Web site.
A. At least annually,
B. When you hire new employees who will perform relevant activities,
C. When you discover new species, and
D. When new control technologies are developed.
For information on the content of this chapter, contact the Division of Fisheries and Aquatic Resource Conservation. For more information about this Web page, contact Krista Bibb in the Division of Policy and Directives Management.
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Full database of sexy clubs, couples & singles
Fast access to kinkiest swingers
Are Swingers Clubs Legal in Massena?
Swingers clubs are generally legal in Massena and New York, provided they comply with local regulations and licensing requirements.
How Many People Are Swingers in Massena?
The population of Massena according to US Census Bureau on 2022 year is 10,158 people. Average value of adults population of US is 78%, e.g. adult population of Massena is 7,923 people. The best evidence suggests around 4% of US adults are into non-monogamy (eg swingers). So for the Massena it's gonna be 317 people. 317 people of Massena are potential swingers!
How Many Couples Are Swingers in Massena?
62% of Americans ages 25 to 54 lived with a partner or were married, according to a 2021 Pew Research Center study of 2019 U.S. Census Bureau data. So, continuing our calculations we can learn that 197 of Massena swingers are in couples. That mean there are 98 potential swinging couples in Massena!
How To Find A Swingers Club in Massena?
- Search online for "swingers clubs in Massena."
- Explore swinger websites like Swing Lifestyle or SDC.
- Check social media and forums for local groups.
- Ask friends in the Massena swinger community for recommendations.
- Visit club websites for details and rules.
- Attend Massena swinger events and parties for an introduction.
- Ensure the club is reputable and follows the law
How To Find Local Swingers in Massena?
To find local swingers in Massena:
- Join online Massena swinger communities or apps.
- Attend Massena local swinger events and clubs.
- Network through friends and social gatherings.
- Create online profiles on swinger platforms.
- Always prioritize consent and communication
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via AT Parenting Survival: As parents we make sure our children learn how to read and write – and yet we often assume children will naturally develop skills like kindness and empathy.
You wouldn’t think that you need to be teaching your kid to be kind – but, Like reading and writing – Emotional intelligence doesn’t come naturally to all children.
Some children miss the subtle signs that they are upsetting those around them. Some children have a hard time putting themselves in other people’s shoes. Some children have a hard time knowing how to be kind.
So, how do you help teach your kids to be kind and not turn into a bully?
There are some easy steps to build empathy and kindness in your children.
1. Model kind behavior.
Do you make fun of strangers? Do you talk bad about your relatives or friends when they aren’t there? Do you treat your spouse, pets or even kids in a degrading fashion some times?
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. If you tell your child to be kind, but you are modeling negative, unkind behavior – your words will have little impact on their behavior. Children do as they see – not as you tell them to do. Be a wonderful role model for your child.
Show your child respect when redirecting them or disciplining them. Speak to your spouse with kindness. Your children will learn from your example.
2. Highlight people’s emotions around you.
If your child has a hard time reading social cues, practice a game I like to call “Guess the Feeling.” Sit at a park or a mall and watch people. If you love people watching – this game shouldn’t be too hard.
Find someone showing an extreme emotion – such as excitement, sadness or anger. Ask your child, “What do you think they’re feeling?” Ask them to make up a story about what may be happening.
This helps children identify non-verbal clues as to how others feel and helps them put meaning behind emotions.
3. Reassess how you tease your children – is it demeaning, taunting or degrading?
Some families love to tease each other, but some children can’t take intense teasing. Some parents do not think their teasing is cruel – but if your child reacts by crying and storming off – chances are they are feeling degraded.
Would you want your child to make fun of peers the way you are making fun of them? Some parents might think they are just “toughening up” their children or being playful, but kids will often take it out on their peers.
Children learn how to be playful by the tone their family sets. If mean spirited taunting is acceptable at home – then children will think it is acceptable elsewhere.
4. Point out how their behavior affects those around them.
When your child’s behavior is affecting those around them – point it out. Let your child know how they are affecting others without shaming them.
5. Teach your children the joys of helping others.
Be an example for your children and help strangers, friends and family. Let them know that it feels good to help others – even if you get nothing back. Set up opportunities for you to help others as a family.
Teach your child that even small acts of kindness go along way. Express to your child why you are holding the door for another person, letting someone get in front of you in traffic or helping someone when their hands are full. Explain that it is nice to be helpful, even if the person doesn’t say thank you or appreciate it. You should give to give – not give to get.
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Administering Medications to Your Dog
- Before you leave your veterinarian’s office with a new medication, be sure to address any concerns or questions with your veterinary team.
- It is very important to follow all label directions carefully.
- Do not risk being bitten or otherwise injured while trying to medicate your pet. If you are unable to administer medication, your veterinarian may be able to offer other options.
Understanding the Medication Instructions
The first part of successfully administering medication to your dog is making sure that you understand the instructions for giving the medication. These instructions include route of administration (for example, by mouth, into the ears, or into the eyes), dosing frequency (such as once daily, every 12 hours, or every 8 hours), duration of treatment (for example, 7 days, until gone), and other special considerations (for example, give with food, follow with water).
Sometimes there is flexibility with medication instructions; for example, some medications can be given “as needed,” or a twice-daily dosing schedule may be adaptable to once-daily dosing. However, for other medications, the recommended dosing instructions need to be followed closely. Before you leave your veterinarian’s office with a new medication, be sure to address any concerns regarding the medication with your veterinary team. For example, if your work schedule does not permit dosing every 8 hours, your veterinarian may be able to recommend a different medication that can be given less frequently. Ask about your pet’s expected response to the treatment.
It is very helpful to write a medication schedule for your pet on a calendar, including the date and time that the medication needs to be administered. This will help you to (1) avoid forgetting to give a dose and (2) remember when the course of treatment has been completed. It is also very important to follow all label directions carefully. Improper storage (such as keeping a refrigerated medication at room temperature) can affect the safety and effectiveness of medication. Additionally, it is important to give the medication for the correct length of time. Complications can occur if antibiotics are not given for the full duration of recommended treatment; in addition, some medications, such as corticosteroids, cannot be discontinued without causing illness, so it is very important to give medications as directed. If your pet experiences any medication-related side effects, contact your veterinarian promptly for advice before adjusting a dosage or discontinuing the medication.
If you’ve never given a dog medication before, it can be difficult to know what method will work best. Some dogs take pills very readily if the pill is hidden inside a treat (such as liverwurst, a small piece of soft cheese, peanut butter, or cream cheese) or given with a small amount of canned food. Pills can also be crushed (or capsules broken and emptied) and mixed with a small amount of canned food. However, your dog must eat all of the food right away to ensure receiving the full medication dose. Also, some coated pills and capsules have a bitter taste if the capsule or the coating is removed. If the medication makes the food taste badly, your dog may refuse to eat it. Before choosing one of these options, ask your veterinarian if the medication can be given with food (including dairy foods such as cheese). You will probably know after the first or second dosing whether this method will work.
If you must give your dog a pill directly by mouth, here’s a method that usually works. This technique takes practice and may require more than one attempt to get your dog to swallow the pill. If your dog is not used to having your hands in or near his or her mouth (as with toothbrushing, for example), gradually introduce your dog to this by stroking your dog’s muzzle and chin gently for a few moments. If you think your dog may try to bite you, do not attempt this technique; ask your veterinarian about alternative medication options, such as the following:
- Stand/kneel beside your dog (on his or her right side if you are right-handed)
- Hold the pill between the thumb and index finger of your right hand
- Using your left hand, reach over the top of your dog’s nose and squeeze your thumb and middle finger between your dog’s upper and lower teeth. Your thumb should be on one side of your dog’s mouth and your middle finger on the other side. Try to stay behind the canine teeth (the long, pointy teeth near the front of the mouth). If you’re doing this properly, the sides of the upper lip will curl in as your fingers curl in.
- Once your fingers are inside, gently tilt your dog’s head back to encourage your dog to open his or her mouth.
- Once the mouth is open, use your right index finger and thumb to place the pill near the base of the tongue. Then remove your hands quickly so your dog can swallow.
- Rub your dog’s throat lightly to encourage swallowing. Offering a small amount of water can also help.
Administering Liquid Medication
Some pet owners prefer liquid medication because administering it does not require placing your fingers inside your dog’s mouth. However, your dog may refuse to swallow the liquid and, if your dog is very large, the amount of liquid required may be so large that it is not practical. Here are some tips for administering liquid medication:
- Draw the medication into the dropper or syringe and hold it in your right hand (if you are right-handed).
- Stand/kneel beside your dog (on his or her right side if you are right-handed).
- Place your left hand behind your dog’s head to stabilize it. You can gently stroke the back of the head to distract your dog.
- Using your right hand, insert the tip of the dropper or syringe into the side of your dog’s mouth. Try to stay close to the molars and away from the canine teeth.
- Once the tip is inside, empty the medication into the mouth and release your dog’s head.
- Rub your dog’s throat lightly to encourage swallowing.
If you are unable to administer medications to your dog, here are some suggestions that may help:
- You may need help. If your dog won’t cooperate with receiving medication, ask someone to help you restrain your dog while you control the head and give the medication.
- Do not risk injury. Do not risk being bitten or otherwise injured while trying to medicate your dog. If you are unable to administer medication, call your veterinarian and request advice or assistance.
- Ask your veterinarian if a different formulation is available. Some medications are available in several forms, including pills, liquid given by mouth with an eye dropper or syringe, chewable flavored treats, and transdermal gels (gel that is absorbed into the bloodstream after being applied to the skin). If a formulation doesn’t work for you, ask your veterinarian if there is another option for the medication your pet is receiving.
- Consider asking the pros. Some veterinarians can arrange daily outpatient appointments for a technician or assistant to administer your dog’s medication. If your schedule doesn’t permit this, some veterinarians may be able to board your dog so that medication can be given until the course of treatment has been completed.
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WATER CRYSTAL FORMATION
The hypothesis that water "treated" with intention can affect ice crystals formed from that water was pilot tested under double-blind conditions. A group of approximately 2,000 people in Tokyo focused positive intentions towards water samples located inside an electromagnetically shielded room in California. That group was unaware of similar water samples set aside in a different location as controls. Ice crystals formed from both sets of water samples were blindly identified and photographed by an analyst, and the resulting images were blindly assessed for aesthetic appeal by 100 independent judges. Results indicated that crystals from the treated water were given higher scores for aesthetic appeal than those from the control water (p = 0.001, one-tailed), lending support to the hypothesis.
Authors: Dean Radin, Gail Hayssen, Masaru Emoto and Takashige Kizu
Published in Explore, September/October 2006, Vol. 2, No. 5.
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Translated as ‘padding’, Mulching basically consists of covering the soil between 5 and 10 cm to protect it from frost, the evaporation of water in summer or to avoid the appearance of weeds. Thus avoiding that the ground is exposed to contact with the air. With this we increase the retention of water in the soil, and we protect the crops from sudden changes in temperature.
De esta forma también evitamos la proliferación de malas hierbas y la competencia radicular.
The mulch we offer is of plant origin, having the advantage of enriching the soil as it decomposes, which means an injection of nutrients for the soil, while reducing maintenance work.
The soil microorganisms will decompose the mulch into two components, water and CO2, without leaving toxic residues and we will be avoiding the erosion of our soil.
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Students, faculty, and staff at Middlebury College and Monterey Institute can try out Oxford Language Dictionaries Online through the duration of Language Schools (ending August 16th). Included are:
- Oxford Chinese Dictionary
- Oxford Russian Dictionary
- Oxford German Dictionary
- Oxford Spanish Dictionary
- Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary
- Oxford-Paravia Italian Dictionary
These are all accessible from this link.
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Treatment with tamoxifen leads to an increased risk for thromboembolic events, including stroke, pulmonary embolism, and deep venous thrombosis, as well as endometrial cancer because of its partial estrogenic activity.3 Heart failure is associated with trastuzumab and anthracycline (eg, doxorubicin) treatment. Acute leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome is associated with alkylating agents (cyclophosphamide) and type II topoisomerase inhibitors (including anthracyclines). Radiation of the left chest wall also increases the risk of coronary artery disease. Hand and foot erythema with or without pain is a frequent acute adverse effect of capecitabine (5-fluorouracil) therapy.
- Deep venous thrombosis.
3. Tamoxifen for early breast cancer: an overview of the randomised trials. Early Breast Cancer Trialists Collaborative Group. Lancet 1998;351:145167.
Click here to return to the questions
Seminars in Medical Practice
Hospital Physician Board Review Manuals
Copyright © 2009, Turner White Communications
Updated 1/04/08 kkj
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Do I really need to explain to Andrew Bolt why the “slippery slope” is a logical fallacy?
Some hilarious dumb in Andrewâs attempted defence in todayâs paper of the slippery slope fallacy, sorry, âargumentâ:
When you destroy the traditional idea of a marriage being between a man and a woman, in favour of a union between any two consenting adults, you invite more changes.
Why stop at two? Why not also ârespectâ unions between a man and two women? After all, polygamy has what same sex marriage does not â religious backing in Islam, and historical precedents everywhere.
Yes, this is the slippery slope argument that social âreformersâ sneer at, arguing weâre smart enough to know how much is enough when we start smashing.
Yes, how else to determine where we draw the line? Which is why Bolt now apparently endorses a return to Biblical marriage, where a woman must marry her rapist and the man rules over her.
What, too far? No, sorry. When you destroy the traditional Biblical idea of a marriage being between a Christian man and a Christian woman, in favour of a union between any two consenting adults, you invite more changes. Why stop at atheists? Why not also ârespectâ polygamy?
Only the rules in the Bible stop us falling down the slippery slope. If you let women be treated as equal, then eventually people will marry dogs. Why not? Youâve already abandoned the Bible, the only clear rules on what should be acceptable. And why should non-Christians be allowed to marry? Recognising non-Christian marriage is the first step to allowing people to marry a tree. Once youâve abandoned the Biblical principles, where do you stop?
It couldnât possibly be the case that we can review each development on its merits, and if it has more problems than benefits draw the line there like rational human beings, could it?
Nope. As soon as we let women not marry their rapists, we brought the rest of this on ourselves. And if we donât want to find ourselves being forced to marry a stockpile of Australian uranium on a dock in India, then we must return to those Biblical principles immediately. All non-Christian marriages must be annulled. All divorcees must be forced to go back to living with their first husband. All rapists must be let out of jail and forced to marry their victims.
Because if we don’t, then where will it end?
PS I did like Andrewâs little concession disguised as a dismissal â âThe legal difference between those unions and marriages are usually smallâ. Oh, so you concede that there still are differences before the law in how theyâre treated, do you?
But as long as they donât affect you, you donât mind?
PPS Seriously, I doubt Andrew Bolt is really stupid enough not to understand why the “slippery slope” is a fallacy. Which begs the question, then – why does he run an argument he knows is misleading and false? What is he trying to do? (Note: suggestions on what readers suspect he is trying to do will be tightly moderated, so as to protect our right to speak in these dark times.)
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The Real Facts and Amazing Truths Concerning Black Holes
Why is it that Space is always drawn as a flat surface with a few bends in it? Wouldn’t it be far more 3 dimensional, expanding in all directions, through all dimensions? Is there a different way we can express it that makes more sense? How can we use this information to grow as people, beyond just the simple awareness of Black Holes “out there”, but also Black Holes “in here”, you know? If you like this video, like us on facebook and twitter.
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The Sectarian Card- Shia and Sunni divisions under the spotlight
The “Arab Spring” has seen the masses across the Middle East and North Africa rise up and protest against the various despotic regimes that have plagued the post-colonial set-up in the region. Irrespective of whether the regime was a republic, such as Egypt, or a monarchy, such as Jordan, all of the rulers suffer from a lack of legitimacy; and the people of the region all suffer from similar issues such as corruption, oppressive police states, and unaccountable government.
Amongst the issues, one which has reared its head amongst these protests has been that of sectarianism, both in Syria and Bahrain. In Syria, the ‘Alawī sect rules the country despite only making up less than 20% of the population, while in Bahrain the al-Khalīfa Sunni family rules over a majority Shī’ah population. For this reason, both governments have played the sectarian cards when they have been confronted with protests, in order to galvanise domestic and regional support against the protestors. In origin, neither set of protests are sectarian, but rather are representative of the movement across the region, which has seen the rise of the people against the illegitimate regimes whatever their identity. This is supported by the fact that the Bahraini demonstrations have been widely supported in other countries such as Egypt.
Though the sectarian split exists in Syria, in reality all of the Arab governments support the Assad regime and would prefer that the uprisings are suppressed, and therefore the same sectarian element has not emerged as strongly, even though the ‘Alawī sect is without any doubt considered outside of Islam by both the Sunnī and Shī’ah. Rather, the government has used the excuse that they are the bulwark against “Islamic extremism” and that those opposing them are not representative of the society there.
On the other hand, the Bahraini authority has used forces from the Gulf including Saudi Arabia to suppress its protests, going as far as attacking hospitals and arresting hospital task. The Saudi regime has been very forceful in backing the Bahraini government due to its own fear that protests in the region could spread into Saudi – which is why they have gone as far as to ban any form of demonstration and accounting of the government. It claims that the Bahraini protests are fostered by Iranian support, and so there is a struggle between the two powers going on in Bahrain, similar to the one in Iraq. As a result of these struggles, more sectarianism has been pushed through the media and the clerical classes in Saudi to mobilise opinion against the Bahraini protests, with the excuse that they are Shī’ah disbelievers and therefore the al-Khalīfa family is better.
It is with this background in mind that the following issues will be addressed:
- Why did Shī’ism arise?
- What is the ruling on the Shī’ah? Are they Muslims or not?
- What is the solution for the situation, and is it sectarian in nature? If not – what is it?
Why Did Shī’ism Arise?
The origins of the split between the Shī’ah and Sunnī can be traced back to the time of the Companions (ra) and the subsequent generation. The dispute was political in nature, with those who preferred ‘Alī (ra) to be Khalīfa ahead of the other companions labelled as Shī’atu ‘Alī (‘The faction of ‘Alī’). As positions hardened different beliefs developed, and so Shī’ism came to represent all those who preferred ‘Alī (ra), but included a spectrum – from those who simply had a political preference, to those who believed in the divinity of ‘Alī (ra).
Today, the majority of the Shī’ah belong to the Twelver sect, though there remains other sects such as the Zaydī’s in Yemen.
Both the Sunnī and Shī’ah believe in the necessity of the Khilāfah, and the disagreement relates back to whoshould be the Khalīfah. In answer to this question, the orthodox position is that the Khalīfah is determined by the choice of the ummah, while the Shī’ah disagreed and claimed that the question of leadership was decided by revelation. It is beyond the scope of this article to expand upon this here, but suffice it to say that this question lies at the heart of the disagreement between the parties, and its resolution would resolve all the branch issues in one go by dealing with the fundamental root contention.
The Ruling on the Shī’ah – Muslim?
The first question to be answered is – What makes a Muslim?
Someone enters into Islām with the pronouncement of the shahādatayn – ‘There is no God except Allāh, and that Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) is the Messenger of Allāh.’ Belief in Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) necessitates belief in the Qur’ān as the immutable word of Allāh. Belief in the Qur’ān means to believe in all that came in it, since the Qur’ān has been transmitted through mutawātir (mass transmission negating the possibility of any error) channels. Anything which is confirmed definitely in the Qur’ān as part of the belief, or is known by necessity, are conditions for belief in Islam. Issues which are not known by necessity, or are not definitely concurred upon in the Qur’ān and fall under the realm of ijtihād are areas where it is not permitted to make takfīr (pronunciation of disbelief) of the person who holds the different opinion, though they may be disputed with.
As for that which is confirmed, for example Allāh has said in the Qur’ān:
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا آمِنُوا بِاللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ وَالْكِتَابِ الَّذِي نَزَّلَ عَلَىٰ رَسُولِهِ وَالْكِتَابِ الَّذِي أَنْزَلَ مِنْ قَبْلُ ۚ وَمَنْ يَكْفُرْ بِاللَّهِ وَمَلَائِكَتِهِ وَكُتُبِهِ وَرُسُلِهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرِ فَقَدْ ضَلَّ ضَلَالًا بَعِيدًا
“O you who believe – believe in Allāh and His Messenger, and the Book which He sent to His messenger and the Book which He sent to those who came before him. Anyone who denies Allāh, His Angels, His Books, His Messengers and the Day of Judgement has gone far astray.” (An-Nisaa, 4:136)
The verse makes it clear that belief in Islam is based upon belief in Allāh, the Angels, all the revealed books ending with the Qur’ān, all of His Messengers and the Day of Judgement. Anyone who disbelieves in any of these is outside of the fold of Islam, whatever they may claim.
In this case, someone who claims that the Qur’ān is changed – has gone against these fundamentals of faith and is a disbeliever. Likewise, if someone believes in any person personifying God – like the ‘Alawī consider ‘Alī – then such people are also outside the fold of Islam since they have gone against the first of the shahādatayn.
However, if someone believes in something not known by necessity, or which is disputed, then this does not take them out of the fold of Islam – such as the position that the Qur’ān is the created Word of Allāh, or whether the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did the ascension from Mecca to the Dome of the Rock and up to the heavens in physical body or not.
With this in mind – it should be noted that to make a blank assertion regarding the Shī’ah would be incorrect, due to the fact they accept the shahādatayn, and therefore are considered as part of the Muslim Ummah in origin. Beyond the fundamental beliefs stated previously they have additional beliefs, as there are many different branches which come under the umbrella of the Shī’ah, from those who prefer ‘Alī as Khalīfah over Abū Bakr and ‘Umar (may Allāh be pleased with them all), to those who claim divinity for ‘Alī. Therefore to declare any specific Shī’ah as a disbeliever requires clarification as to their beliefs, with the acceptance that they are in origin Muslims. To declare a specific person outside of Islam in this case would require a proof that they are going against something definitely proven in Islam, and is known by necessity.
Issues which remove a person from Islam
From the issues that would remove a person from Islam, which have been attributed to various sects of the Shī’ah:
- The claim that the Qur’ān was altered or is incomplete in any way
- The claim that the Qur’ān was wrongly revealed to Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم and it was intended for ‘Alī (ra)
- The claim that ‘Alī (ra) is a divine being
- The claim that the companions on masse are not Muslim
Though the above claims have been attributed to some factions of the Shī’ah, they are not agreed upon as the foundation of Shī’ah belief, which means that it is not possible to make a generalisation and rather each person should be discussed separately.
Other issues, such as the cursing of specific individual companions, or the belief that ‘Alī is better than Abū Bakr, do not reach the level of disbelief which removes them from the deen, though is considered extremely reprehensible.
Therefore, in approaching the question of the Shī’ah, it would not be correct to make general assertions; and rather since they have entered into Islam through their belief in the shahādatayn and believe in the fundamental aspects of the Islamic belief, to make a declaration of disbelief requires investigation into that specific individual’s understanding, since the issues mentioned above (1-4) are not universally held by those who ascribe themselves as Shī’ah.
Words of the Classical Scholars Regarding the Shī’ah
To summarise what is coming for those who are not interested in the more detailed discussion and references – Muslim scholars in the past did not do blanket takfīr of the Shī’ah. Rather they accepted them as Muslims in origin and some even accepted to narrate through them. Ibn Taymiyyah, who is often quoted as an authority on the Shī’ah, did not do a blanket takfīr of them, though he was very harsh with respect to their beliefs. Rather he considered them as Muslims who had gone astray. This is with respect to the generality of the Shī’ah.
1. When the Scholars mention that an opinion is Kufr, they did not intend specific takfīr of those who may have held that opinion
This is because someone could hold an opinion that is considered kufr according to one scholar, but it is notkufr according to another, so it is an issue of disagreement. Alternatively, it may be that the person who held that opinion is ignorant of it being an invalid opinion, and so their ignorance prevents them from being labelled as a disbeliever. (In other words, the conditions/preventions of making takfīr are not removed from such a person, and so until they are given the knowledge and understanding, they cannot be declared as outside the fold of Islām.)
As an example, Sheikh ibn Taymiyyah mentioned, in explaining what was meant by the scholars when they declared that ‘whoever declared a particular opinion was a disbeliever’ had to be understood within a context. He stated “rather, what is narrated from each of them is that he does takfīr of whoever said some opinion, and what was intended was that that opinion/word was (in itself) kufr, in order to warn against it [and therefore it was not intended to mean that the person who said it was necessarily a disbeliever]. And if an opinion is kufr, it is not necessary to do takfīr of everyone who says it with ignorance and ta’wīl (interpretation)”
It is necessary to lay that foundation as it is sometimes seen that there are narrations from different scholars doing takfīr of the rāfidah (the more extreme Shī’ah are labelled in the classical texts as the Rāfidah – pl. Rawāfid– and they are mentioned in various places, often citing that they are disbelievers). In other places, narrations regarding the same scholars make it clear that they consider the rāfidah as Muslims, such as through their acceptance to transmit Ahādith (Prophetic narrations) via them. This seeming contradiction has been explained above – that their labelling of the beliefs as disbelief is to warn against them, but that they did not necessarily consider the specific person believing in them or calling for them as a kāfir.
2. Amongst the scholars were those who accepted narrations from the Rāfidah
The following quotes highlight the position of some of the classical scholars in accepting narrations through innovators (and amongst the conditions for the acceptance of a narration are: Islam, and righteousness oradalah). There was a difference opinion amongst the scholars in this issue, and Imām Baghdādi mentioned those who accepted narrations from innovators:
“and from those who accepted this (narrations from innovators) from the jurists was Abū Muhammad ibn Idrīs al-Shāfi’ī who said, ‘and the statement of the people of desires (innovators) is accepted, except for the khātibiyya of the rawāfid due to the fact that they attest and agree to false witnesses’, and it is narrated that this is the opinion of ibn Abī Laylah and Sufyān al-Thawrī and similar to this has been narrated from Qādi Abū Yūsuf”
It can be noticed that the statement makes clear that apart from one group from the rawāfid, Imam al-Shāfi’ī and others mentioned accepted narrations from the Shī’ah generally, meaning that they accepted them as being Muslims and also as being just.
In Ibn Hajr al-Askalāni’s commentary on Ibn Salāh – he mentions:
“The people divided into 3 opinions with respect to narrations from the Rāfidah – the first opinion is total rejection (of narrating from them), the second opinion is total permission (of narrating from them) except for those who lie and fabricate, and the third is a nuanced opinion which accepts the narration of a rāfidī who is known to be trustworthy in what they relate, while rejecting the narration of those who call to their innovation (their Shī’ah beliefs) even if they were considered honest.”
This comment also makes it clear that the rāfidah were not considered as outside of Islām, but rather there was dispute over whether their narrations could be accepted, since their beliefs could be construed as removing the necessary characteristic of trustworthiness (adālah).
Ibn Qayyim also mentioned similar – stating:
“As for the people of innovations who are in agreement with the people of Islām, but they differ with them over some fundamentals, such as the rāfidah, the qadariyyah and the jahmiyyah, and the extreme murji’ah, who are on other than Islām – these and those similar to them can be divided into 3 categories”
He then goes on to mention the categories, with the first category being those who were ignorant, unable to get clarification of the deviancy of their views and were following others. He classed these as Muslims. As for the most harsh category – the third class of people who had had their deviancy explained to them, but they continued to follow their innovations out of partisanship etc. – ibn Qayyim stated that such a person would be considered afāsiq (sinful) at a minimum, and the issue of making takfīr of him was dependent upon ijtihād.
What can be seen from all the quotes above is that the rāfidah were considered as Muslims in origin, with the discussion forming around whether to accept or reject any narrations or witness statements from them.
The Opinion of Ibn Taymiyyah
Ibn Taymiyyah is oft-quoted for his opinions on issues of belief, and is particularly used in regards to the Shī’ah due to his authorship of the book “Minhāj al-Sunnah” which was a comprehensive refutation of the Shī’ah. However, as mentioned previously, he has often been quoted out of context or with lack of understanding to back up the claim that the Rāfidah in their entirety are disbelievers. Amongst his many comments about the Rāfidah in this book are statements such as that they are the most dangerous enemies of the Muslims, that they are greater in disbelief than the Khawārij, that they were the furthest from the deen, and that their beliefs were the most disgusting beliefs. Despite this, a complete reading of ibn Taymiyyah can only lead to the conclusion that even though he was a fierce critic of their beliefs, he did not consider them as outside of Islam and did not make specific takfīr unless specific investigation was made.
a. The Rāfidah are Muslims
As a clear example – he stated:
“And many of the innovating Muslims, from the Rāfidah and Jahmiyyah and others, travelled to the countries of the disbelievers, and many became Muslim at their hands, and benefitted from that, becoming Muslim innovators, which is much better than remaining as disbelievers”
When he was asked about someone preferring the Jews and Christians ahead of the Rāfidah (a good example considering that today some scholars have told the Muslims to be more afraid of Iran than Israel), he replied:
“Everyone who was a believer in that which Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم brought, then he is better than everyone who disbelieved in it, and even if that believer had an aspect of innovation, irrespective of whether it was the innovation of the khawārij or the shī’ah or the murji’ah or the qadariyyah or other than them; the Jew and the Christian are disbelievers and their disbelief is known by necessity from the deen of Islām. And if the innovator considered himself to be in agreement with the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, not against him or disbelieving in him – then even if it was considered that he had committed disbelief, his disbelief is not like the disbelief of the one who lied against the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم”
Ibn Taymiyyah makes it clear that despite the harshness with which he addressed those he considered as deviants holding heretical beliefs, he considered them separate and better than the non-Muslims since they share the same fundamental belief in Islam and therefore are part of the Ummah. In this he makes clear the priorities of where allegiances should lie.
b. Praying behind the Rāfidah
In another section, in response to the question about whether it is necessary to investigate the beliefs of the imām before praying behind him, as part of his response Ibn Taymiyyah states:
“And likewise, if the Imām was appointed by those in positions of rule, and there is no benefit in leaving the prayer behind him (such as setting an example in front of the people), then here it is not upon the person to leave the prayer behind him (you should pray behind him, because the importance of prayer in congregation overrides in this instance praying behind an innovator), rather prayer behind the best imām is better (and not a reason to leave the prayer with this person), and all of this is with respect to the one where sinfulness is apparent from him, or innovation which clearly contradicts the Book and the Sunnah, such as the innovation of the Rāfidah and the Jahmiyya and their likes”
As can be seen in this fatwa, ibn Taymiyyah permitted the prayer behind the Shī’ah if there was no other imām appointed to lead the prayer in the area. In the following section he also criticizes those who would refuse to pray behind the rāfidah in such a situation, claiming that they had fallen into the same way of thinking of the rāfidah – which is to make takfīr of those they disagreed with – alluding to the fact that the people of Sunnah did not maketakfīr of those they disagreed with, even if those they disagreed with made takfīr of them.
c. His opinion regarding the Rāfidah Twelvers (Ithnā ‘ashariyyah – who are the majority of the contemporary Shī’ah in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon)
Ibn Taymiyyah knew about the opinions of the Twelver Shī’ah, and specifically their opinion that they believed that their Imāms were free of sin in the same manner as the Messengers. In commenting upon this, he compared the Twelver Shī’ah to the Ismaīlī Shī’ah:
“The Twelvers are much better than the Ismaīlī’s, because in spite of their ignorance and misguidance, there are some who are Muslims in their heart and outwardly – and they are not hypocrites and infidels, since they are ignorant, misguided and followed their desires. As for their leaders, who know the reality of the hidden agenda of their call, they are hypocrites; and as for the lay people who do not know the hidden agenda, they may be Muslims”
And so here it is plain that ibn Taymiyyah is not making explicit general takfīr of the Twelvers, let alone takfīr of specific individuals from amongst them, since even his general takfīr of their leaders would still be reliant upon the conditions of takfīr being met before ruling upon an individual.
d. Cannot rule on specific Rāfidī individuals as being disbelievers
This issue has already been mentioned previously, but it is worth mentioning the specific opinion of ibn Taymiyyah here as well, to explain what has just been mentioned. When discussing the issue of takfīr of innovators and whether they would spend eternity in hellfire, he makes the statement regarding takfīr of a specificKharijī or Rāfidī:
“But to make takfīr of a specific individual, and to rule that they would spend eternity in hellfire, rests upon fulfilling the conditions of takfīr and eliminating all the issues that would prevent it”
In summary – it would be incorrect to attribute the idea of a general takfīr of the Shī’ah, or the Twelver Shī’ah sect, to Ibn Taymiyyah, or his student Ibn Qayyim as mentioned previously. Rather, it has been shown that Ibn Taymiyyah considered them as Muslims in origin, with specific individuals possibly being ruled as disbelievers after investigation. Rather, he explicitly mentions the position that they can be prayed behind, that good can come from them, and that they are to be preferred ahead of disbelievers.
Modern Scholars who did not make takfīr of the Shī’ah
The list of modern scholars who did not make takfīr of the Shī’ah is too long to mention, rather those who madetakfīr are limited to a few from the Arabian Peninsula and the sub-continent. To mention a few of the specific names who did not make or agree with general takfīr of the Shī’ah – includes the Sheikh al-Azhar al-Shaltūt who gave the fatwa recognising the Jafarī school of thought as a legitimate school, Saudi sheikhs Salmān al-Ouda and Ibn Uthaymīn, Syrian scholar al-Bāni, Sheikh Mustafa Ceric, Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, Sheikh Wahba Al-Zuhayli, Sheikh Ramadan Al-Buti amongst many others.
The Khilāfah is the Solution to remove Sectarianism
The problems of sectarianism have always been used to disunite the Muslim ummah as a whole, and to pit Muslims against each other, keeping them internally divided. This can be witnessed plainly in what is going on in Bahrain at the moment, what has occurred in Iraq recently and what has been happening over Lebanon over the last few decades. This is because the Muslims do not have a united leadership which can represent us globally and project our unity (despite our internal differences – which pale in insignificance compared to the differences between the Ummah of Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم and the rest of the people). The call to democracy in these areas is proven to exacerbate the issues, since democracy is based upon majority votes and following the whims of people, and so politicians often utilise the sectarian card in order to win support and power. This is analogous to the Western politician who uses the immigration card to win support from his own constituents.
As a system, democracy will always fail the minorities – which is why modern democracies have had to cope with this through the addition of constitutional restrictions upon their treatment. A look at the sectarianism that has plagued the Iraqi democracy since its inception, and the problems with the confessional system in Lebanon, highlight that democracy is a totally inadequate solution, which only incites rather than coping with differences. This is a systemic issue linked to the basis of democracy, and cannot be solved by piecemeal solutions such as constitutional limitations.
The correct solution for the Muslim Ummah is to understand that she is one Ummah, despite her differences. Indeed, these differences and others like them are unlikely to ever be resolved completely, and the Muslims lived for centuries under the Khilāfah and various states despite their differences in the details of belief. What is required from the Ummah is to accept their differences and unite upon their fundamentals, and this is represented in the Khilāfah. The Khilāfah system is not dependent upon the whims of the majority and constitutional limitations to protect minorities, rather each human being’s rights under the Khilāfah is guaranteed by the revelation, which is used as the basis of law.
All Muslims, whatever their understanding of Islam, believe in the unity of the Muslims and that this unity should be manifested politically. All Muslims, whatever their belief, also believe in the necessity to implement Islām in all of life’s affairs. All those issues which are personal – such as the prayer, the fasting, and the details of the belief – should be left to the individuals by the Khalīfa, and the Islamic State would not try to impose one unified belief upon the whole of the people. Rather, if someone accepts the shahādatayn and what it entails, they are accepted as a Muslim and will be treated as such. Islām did not come as a totalitarian system to impose every last detail upon its adherents, and one of the mercies of Islām is its capacity for differences and to accept those different ijtihāds.
History has shown us, as with the fitnah at the time of Imām Ahmad, that it is not productive for the Khalifah to try to impose one set of beliefs upon the whole ummah as it simply leads to disunity, resistance and is ultimately futile. It has also shown us that when rulers adopt sectarian positions, thus dividing the ummah, the Muslims as a whole become weaker and open to outside exploitation. Rather the Khilāfah is to adopt the necessary rules and laws from the Sharī’ah that are required in the society such as the hudūd punishments, the levels of taxation and so on, and to leave the personal issues to the individual and his own relationship with Allah, and upon this basis a solid foundation for the unity of the Ummah would be established.
With the Muslims unified under a single leadership to run their affairs according to Islām, such sectarianism as being played out in Bahrain and Syria will be minimised. All Muslims will have recourse to the courts and to be judged according to Islām, and will be left alone with respect to the details of their personal worship. The State will clearly define what is a Muslim and delineate those who fall outside of Islam (such as the ‘Alawī and Ismaīlī sects) and will represent Islām on the international stage, not a particular sect.
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The psychological, social, family and financial issues that affect individuals with frontotemporal dementia are drastically different from those that affect individuals with Alzheimer's type dementia. When dementia occurs earlier in life, issues such as working, teenage children and financial stress are different from the issues dealt with by individuals who are older and most likely retired. Planning for the family's financial security and for the education of children becomes a difficult prospect when an individual is faced with a dementing illness in the prime of his/her working career. The nature of the symptoms themselves are often embarrassing to family members and there may be loss of friends and other sources of social support. Finally, most adult day programs and residential care facilities are not equipped to address the special needs of the younger patient, especially if the behavioral symptoms are difficult to manage. As more is known about the disease, more policy changes may come into effect. Some residential care and adult day programs are recognizing the needs of the younger dementia patient and are beginning to offer services to meet their needs. Before making any decisions, it is best to investigate your options.
Depending on severity, a patient with impaired comportment may not be able to manage their daily activities without supervision. They may be at risk for harming themselves or being victimized because they would not be able to recognize their limitations or use proper judgement. Driving is usually unsafe for persons with this diagnosis.
Fortunately, there are steps that can be taken to provide a secure environment for the diagnosed person and obtain help for family:
- Obtain a psychiatric evaluation from an individual with experience treating people with dementia. Certain medications can help with behavior problems such as agitation and hostility.
- Share information with family and friends. This will help them better understand the patient's behavior and provide an opportunity for them to offer the diagnosed persona and their family some support and respite.
- Encourage the person to attend an early stage support group. Even if the support group is geared toward the person with early Alzheimer's disease, much information will also be relevant to Frontal Lobe Dementia.
- Meet with an attorney or financial consultant. Make sure Durable Power of Attorney forms have been completed for both health care and finances. Give copies to your doctor. An "elderlaw" attorney who is well-versed in these issues is still an appropriate choice to help you draft these documents or you may obtain the forms at many stationary stores and complete them on your own.
- Attend a caregiver support group. Listening to others who are going through similar experiences can be very comforting. They may also aid you in developing new caregiver techniques and learn about different resources within your community.
- Try to remain physically and mentally healthy. Be sure to get regular health check-ups for both the diagnosed person and family. Exercise and eat nutritious meals. Build in time for things that allow you to rejuvenate.
- Obtain a driving evaluation: Contact your local Alzheimer's Association for the driving evaluation program near you.
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How Paper Money Is Made
Since 2003, new designs for denominations of $5‑$100 include security features to make these bills more difficult to counterfeit.
The production of modern U.S. paper money is a complex procedure involving highly trained and skilled craftspeople, specialized equipment, and a combination of time-honored printing techniques merged with sophisticated, cutting edge technology. Recent new designs for denominations of $5-$100 use similar portraits and historical images to previous notes, but include subtle background colors to make the bills more difficult to counterfeit. Security features include a portrait watermark visible when held up to the light, two numeric watermarks on $5 notes, enhanced security thread that glows under an ultraviolet light, micro printing, color-shifting ink that changes color when the note is tilted, and a 3‑D security ribbon on the new $100 bills.
How Paper Money is Made & What it is Made Out Of
There are 7 basic steps to making paper money:
- Special paper and ink
- Offset printing of the subtle background colors
- Intaglio printing to add the portraits, vignettes, numerals and lettering for each unique denomination
- Overprinting of serial numbers and seals
- Cutting and trimming
- Shrink-wrapping and delivery to the Federal Reserve System
Paper and Ink
While most paper used for such items as newspapers and books is primarily made of wood pulp, the currency paper made specifically for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) is composed of 75% cotton and 25% linen – with the security thread and watermark built in. All U.S. paper money features green ink on the backs, while the faces use black ink, color-shifting ink in the lower right corner of $10-$100 notes, and metallic ink for the freedom icons on $10, $20 and $50 bills. The "bell in the inkwell" freedom icon on $100 notes uses color-shifting ink.
For notes of $5 and above with subtle background colors, offset printing is the first stage of production. The colored background design is duplicated on a film negative, and is transferred to a thin steel printing plate with light-sensitive coating through exposure to ultraviolet light. This is called "burning a plate." The background colors are then printed on the BEP's Simultan presses, which are state-of-the-art, high-speed rotary presses. Ink is transferred from the printing plates to rubber "blanket" cylinders, which then transfer the ink to the paper as it passes through the blankets. The printed sheets are dried for 72 hours before continuing.
Intaglio printing is used for the portraits, vignettes, scrollwork, numerals and lettering unique to each denomination. From an Italian word meaning to cut or engrave, "intaglio" refers to the design being skillfully "carved" into steel dies with sharp tools and acids. Some engravers specialize in portraits and vignettes, while others are experts in lettering and script. The images are then combined and transferred to a printing plate through the process of siderography. Engraved plates are mounted on the press and covered with ink. A wiper removes the excess ink, leaving ink only in the recessed image area. Paper is laid atop the plate, and when pressed together, ink from the recessed areas of the plate is pulled onto the paper to create the finished image.
The green engraving on the back of U.S. currency is printed on high-speed, sheet-fed rotary intaglio presses. Back-printed sheets require 72 hours to dry and cure before moving to the face intaglio press, where special cut-out ink rollers transfer different inks to specific portions of the engraved designs. Black ink is used for the border, portrait and Treasury signatures, color-shifting ink for lower right portions of $10 and higher-denomination notes, metallic ink for freedom icons on $10, $20 and $50 bills, and color-shifting ink for the freedom icon on $100 notes.
The letters on a modern serial number from the color series represent the series year, the Federal Reserve Bank to which the note was issued, and a counting device.
The star indicates this sheet replaces one found defective.
An uncut sheet of 32 $1 bills
UOCIS Inspection System
The BEP's Upgraded Offline Currency Inspection System (UOCIS) integrates computers, cameras and sophisticated software to thoroughly analyze and evaluate untrimmed printed sheets. This system ensures proper color registration and ink density, and within 3/10 of a second determines whether a sheet is acceptable or must be rejected. The same equipment trims and cuts the 32-subject sheets in half to create two 16-subject sheets. The sheets then move to the final printing stage accomplished by the BEP's Currency Overprinting Processing Equipment and Packaging (COPE-Pak).
COPE-Pak adds the two serial numbers, black Federal Reserve seal, green Treasury seal, and Federal Reserve identification numbers. Modern serial numbers consist of two prefix letters, eight numerals, and one suffix letter. The first prefix number indicates the series (for example, Series 1999 is designated by the letter B). The second prefix letter indicates the Federal Reserve Bank to which the note was issued. The suffix letter changes every 99,999,999 notes (DG99999999A is followed by DG00000001B).
As sheets pass through the process, they are inspected by the COPE Vision Inspection System (CVIS). If a sheet is identified as defective, it is replaced with a "star" sheet. Serial numbers of notes on star sheets are identical to the notes they replaced, except that a star appears after the serial number in place of the suffix number.
Completed currency sheets are stacked and pass through two guillotine cutters. The first horizontal cut leaves the notes in pairs, while the second vertical cut produces individual finished notes. Bricks of 4,000 notes are shrink-wrapped for delivery to the Federal Reserve System.
- Learn About Coins
- Coin & Currency History U.S. Coins By Type Coin Glossaries Grading Guides
- How to Get Started
- Welcome How to Collect For Beginners Top Questions
- Build a Collection
- Collecting Guides Collector Checklists Release Schedules
- Protect & Display
- Caring For Your Collection Coin Holder Guide Littleton Albums and Folders
- Read News & Articles
- Online Library Collecting Resources & Links Littleton Coin Press Room
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Brand Wasser Schaden
The present research project investigates the essential issues of fire and water damage restoration in the field of timber construction. A sustainable reconstruction of smoke damage as well as the penetration depth of smoke, damage caused by extinguishing water, sooting and the bearing capacity of elements will be developed at lab scale and will then be evaluated on real objects. A data-pool will be generated using data of already realized reconstructions based on how successful they were. These results will be used as a basis for creating a guideline for the project partners.
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Turns your usual treatments into powerful protective agents against blue light radiation and pollutant particles. This revolutionary complex gives you the recommended daily protection against multiple types of pollution that alter and weaken the skin barrier and its microbiota (millions of microorganisms that inhabit your skin and are essential to its youth and beauty).
Net Wt. 1 fl. oz.
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Musk oxen are large hairy mammals living in the Arctic. These animals actually have two types of hair. The guard hairs, which are the ones you can see, are extremely long, and they protect the musk ox from wind, rain, snow, and insects. The hairs underneath, called qiviut, is an insulating winter coat that starts growing in the fall and is shed in the spring. This works as insulation from the cold air.
Most of this animal’s hair is dark brown. On their backs, musk oxen have a lighter patch of hair, called the saddle. They also have horns which start together in the middle of the top of their head. They grow down along the side of the head, then curve up, ending in a point. Both the males and females have horns.
Musk oxen vary in size based on where they live. It is unknown what causes this, and some people suggest that there should be multiple subspecies of these animals. The name musk ox is thought to come from the musky odor males produce during the mating season, but some people do not agree with the origin.
These mammals are huge. They can be as much as 7.5 feet (2.3 m) long, though they are normally closer to 6.9 feet (2.1 m). At the end of this huge body, they have a small 4-inch-long tail (10 cm) that is usually hidden in the long hair. This hair can be up to three feet (91 cm) long! At the shoulder, a musk ox can stand up to 5 feet (151 cm) tall!
The heaviest musk oxen can weigh about as much as the average horse, this being 900 pounds (410 kg). Most of they time they are a lot lighter, closer to 630 pounds (286 kg). Males are typically larger than the females.
Musk oxen are herbivores, but other than that they are not very picky about what they eat. Not that they can be very picky with the lack of variety of plants where they live. In the summer, they will consume grasses, moss, shrubs, flowers, fruit, and almost any leafy plants. During the winter, snow covers most of the ground, making food hard to find. At this time, they often eat roots and stems as well as more nutritious moss and lichen.
Habitat and range
As you can see in the range map below, musk oxen live almost exclusively inside the Arctic Circle, the circle that takes up most of the map. The red shows where these animals live naturally, and the blue is where they have been introduced. In case the weird view of the map threw you off, North America is on the bottom of the map and Russia is on the top. They live in multiple countries in the northern parts of three continents: North America, Asia, and Europe.
As you can probably guess from its range, this animal lives in a very cold habitat. They live north of the arctic tree line, meaning it is so cold in their habitat that trees can’t even grow! Summer is very short here, lasting at most four months. Even these four months of warmth aren’t very warm.
Status and threats
The musk ox is classified as Least Concern by the IUCN Red List. They have three known natural predators, these being polar bears, brown bears, and wolves. These are dangerous predators, but musk oxen have a unique way of protecting themselves.
When predators come, they will form their group into a large circle with the young in the middle. The adults stand guard around the edge with their horns pointing out. This creates an almost impenetrable line of defense. If the threat doesn’t give up soon enough, some of the largest adults may break rank and charge at the enemy, sometimes throwing it with their horns or trampling it. Individually, these creatures don’t have much of a protection, but they are much stronger together.
During the 1800s and 1900s, hunting was a big threat. Musk oxen were hunted then for their meat, skin, horns, and fur. Their defense tactic made them especially vulnerable to hunters with guns, as their large group gave hunters a large target. Hunting regulations have been enacted, so the threat from hunting has severely diminished.
Reproduction and young
Mating season for these animals occurs between July and September. Males fight for dominance in violent clashes. They charge at each other and crash their horns into each other, often bellowing in the process. These fights can sometimes be heard up to one mile (1.6 km) away! Males will repeat these charges up to twelve times before one of them gives up. These fights, though they seem extremely dangerous, are very rarely fatal.
After mating, the females go through an eight to nine month gestation period. A single calf is born between April and June. Within just a few hours, the young are able to join and keep up with the herd. At birth, they weigh about 22 pounds (10 kg), and they grow quickly, gaining a little over one pound (0.5 kg) per day. Despite this quick development, the calf may continue to drink its mother’s milk for an entire year. After three years for the females and about six for the males, the young are ready to reproduce. Females typically only give birth once every three years. Musk oxen can live up to 24 years.
Don’t forget to scroll down and comment your guess about what the next animal is!
- Musk ox – Public domain
- Musk ox range – Wikipedia user: Gringer
- Mystery animal – Wikipedia user: Danleo
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In the hustle and bustle of our daily lives, it's easy to overlook the importance of our well-being. The pursuit of happiness and health often takes a backseat to our professional and personal obligations. However, making a conscious effort to cultivate positive habits can lead to a happier and healthier lifestyle. In this blog post, we'll explore three key habits that have the potential to transform your life, enhancing both your mental and physical well-being.
1. Prioritising Regular Physical Activity
In the age of sedentary jobs and technology-driven leisure, physical activity is more crucial than ever. Engaging in regular exercise doesn't just improve your physical health; it also has a profound impact on your mental well-being. Exercise triggers the release of endorphins—often referred to as "feel-good" hormones—which can elevate your mood and reduce stress and anxiety.
The habit of prioritising regular physical activity can be integrated into your daily routine in various ways. Whether it's a morning jog, a yoga session, a brisk walk during lunch breaks, or a fun dance class, finding an activity you enjoy is key to making exercise a sustainable habit. The goal is not to push yourself to extreme limits but to engage in activities that make you feel invigorated and fulfilled.
Furthermore, exercise can become a social activity that enhances your happiness. Joining fitness groups, sports teams, or exercise classes allows you to connect with like-minded individuals who share your interest in leading a healthier lifestyle. These connections foster a sense of belonging and provide additional motivation to stick to your exercise routine.
2. Nurturing Mindfulness and Gratitude
In our fast-paced world, practicing mindfulness and gratitude can serve as powerful anchors to the present moment. Mindfulness involves being fully present and attentive to your thoughts, feelings, and surroundings. This practice helps you let go of worries about the past or future, leading to reduced stress and an improved sense of well-being.
Cultivating mindfulness doesn't require hours of meditation each day. You can start with just a few minutes of focused breathing or mindful observation. As you become more accustomed to these practices, you'll find it easier to incorporate them into your daily life. Mindfulness can be applied while doing simple tasks like walking, eating, or even working.
Gratitude, on the other hand, involves recognising and appreciating the positive aspects of your life. Regularly acknowledging the things you're grateful for can shift your perspective from focusing on what's lacking to cherishing what you have. Keeping a gratitude journal is a popular way to practice this habit. Each day, jot down a few things you're thankful for—big or small. Over time, this practice can lead to increased feelings of contentment and happiness.
3. Balancing Work and Leisure
In a world where constant connectivity is the norm, finding a balance between work and leisure has become increasingly challenging. However, this balance is crucial for maintaining both your happiness and your overall health. Overworking and neglecting personal time can lead to burnout, stress-related health issues, and a diminished quality of life.
Creating a clear boundary between work and leisure is essential. Set designated working hours and stick to them as closely as possible. Outside of these hours, prioritise activities that bring you joy and relaxation. Engage in hobbies, spend quality time with loved ones, or simply unwind with a good book or a movie. Remember that leisure time is not a luxury—it's a necessity for recharging your mind and body.
Additionally, consider the concept of "digital detox." Constant exposure to screens, emails, and notifications can contribute to stress and anxiety. Designate specific times when you disconnect from technology to fully engage in activities without distractions. Use this time to connect with nature, engage in creative pursuits, or simply enjoy moments of solitude.
Living a happier and healthier lifestyle is within your reach, and it starts with cultivating positive habits. Prioritising regular physical activity, nurturing mindfulness and gratitude, and balancing work and leisure can have a profound impact on your well-being. Remember that these habits don't require drastic changes overnight. Instead, focus on making gradual adjustments to your routine and mindset.
By integrating these habits into your daily life, you're investing in your long-term happiness and health. Remember that self-care is not selfish; it's a necessary foundation for leading a fulfilling and meaningful life. Embrace these habits with an open heart and a willingness to adapt, and you'll find yourself on a journey to a more vibrant and joyful existence.
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WHAT IS THE CORNEA?
The cornea is the clear outer layer of the eye, creating a window which functions to focus and transmit light onto the retina. The cornea itself has five layers and is about half a millimeter thick. The cornea is extremely sensitive, having more nerve endings than anywhere else in the body.
Common Conditions & Treatment
The following is a list of some of the most common corneal conditions and diseases provided for your education by the National Eye Institute.
Preventing corneal disease starts with a healthy lifestyle. Eat a balanced plant-based diet and avoid refined, fatty, and sugary foods. Always avoid smoking and consuming alcohol. Exercise regularly, drink plenty of water, and get adequate sleep. More and more research is proving that a healthy lifestyle will lead to a healthy pair of eyes – visit our Health & Wellness blog for more information!
CONJUNCTIVITIS (Pink Eye)
This disease causes swelling, itching, burning, and redness of the conjunctiva, the protective membrane that lines the eyelids and covers exposed areas of the sclera, or white of the eye. Conjunctivitis is easily spread from person to person. Conjunctivitis can be caused by a bacterial or viral infection, allergy, environmental irritants, contact lens products, eye drops, or eye ointments. At its onset, conjunctivitis is usually painless and does not harm vision. The infection will clear in most cases without requiring medical care. But for some forms of conjunctivitis, treatment will be needed. If treatment is delayed, the infection may worsen and cause corneal inflammation and loss of vision.
Sometimes the cornea is damaged after a foreign object has entered the tissue, such as from a poke in the eye. At other times, bacteria or fungi from a contaminated contact lens can pass onto the cornea. Situations like these can cause painful inflammation and corneal infections called keratitis. These infections can reduce visual clarity, produce corneal discharges, and perhaps erode the cornea. Corneal infections can also lead to corneal scarring, which can impair vision and may require a corneal transplant.
As a general rule, the deeper the corneal infection, the more severe the symptoms and complications. It should be noted that corneal infections, although relatively infrequent, are the most serious complication of contact lens wear. Minor corneal infections are commonly treated with antibacterial eye drops. If the problem is severe, it may require more intensive antibiotic or anti-fungal treatment to eliminate the infection, as well as steroid eye drops to reduce inflammation. Frequent visits to an eye care professional may be necessary for several months to eliminate the problem.
The main symptom of dry eye is usually a scratchy or sandy feeling as if something is in the eye. Other symptoms may include stinging or burning of the eye; episodes of excess tearing that follow periods of very dry sensation; a stringy discharge from the eye; and pain and redness of the eye. Sometimes people with dry eye experience heaviness of the eyelids or blurred, changing, or decreased vision, although loss of vision is uncommon.
Dry eye is caused by an imbalance in the tear film that functions as the lubricant on the outside of our eyes.
Artificial tears, which lubricate the eye, are the principal treatment for dry eye. They are available over-the-counter as eye drops. Sterile ointments are sometimes used at night to help prevent the eye from drying. Using humidifiers, wearing wrap-around glasses when outside, and avoiding outside windy and dry conditions may bring relief.
Fuch’s dystrophy is a slowly progressing disease that usually affects both eyes. Fuchs’ dystrophy occurs when endothelial cells gradually deteriorate. As more endothelial cells are lost over the years, the endothelium becomes less efficient at pumping water out of the stroma. This causes the cornea to swell and distort vision. Eventually, the epithelium also takes on water, resulting in pain and severe visual impairment.
Epithelial swelling damages vision by changing the cornea’s normal curvature, and causing a sight-impairing haze to appear in the tissue. Epithelial swelling will also produce tiny blisters on the corneal surface. When these blisters burst, they are extremely painful.
As the disease worsens, this swelling will remain constant and reduce vision throughout the day.
When the disease interferes with daily activity, a person may need to consider a corneal transplant. Lifestyle Eye Center most commonly performs the latest corneal transplant procedure: Descemet’s membrane endothelial keratoplasty (DMEK).
A corneal dystrophy is a condition in which one or more parts of the cornea lose their normal clarity due to a buildup of cloudy material. There are over 20 corneal dystrophies that affect all parts of the cornea.
Corneal dystrophies affect vision in widely differing ways. Some cause severe visual impairment, while a few cause no vision problems and are discovered during a routine eye examination. Other dystrophies may cause repeated episodes of pain without leading to permanent loss of vision.
Some of the most common corneal dystrophies include Fuchs’ dystrophy, keratoconus, lattice dystrophy, and map-dot-fingerprint dystrophy.
This disorder–a progressive thinning of the cornea–is the most common corneal dystrophy in the U.S., affecting one in every 2,000 Americans. It is more prevalent in teenagers and adults in their 20’s. Keratoconus arises when the middle of the cornea thins and gradually bulges outward, forming a rounded cone shape. This abnormal curvature changes the cornea’s refractive power, producing moderate to severe distortion (astigmatism) and blurriness (nearsightedness) of vision. Keratoconus may also cause swelling and a sight-impairing scarring of the tissue. Studies indicate that Keratoconus stems from one of several possible causes:
1. An inherited corneal abnormality.
2. An eye injury, i.e., excessive eye rubbing or wearing hard contact lenses for many years.
3. Certain eye diseases, such as retinitis pigmentosa, retinopathy of prematurity, and vernal keratoconjunctivitis.
4. Systemic diseases, such as Leber’s congenital amaurosis, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, Down syndrome, and osteogenesis imperfecta.
At first, people can correct their vision with eyeglasses. But as the astigmatism worsens, they must rely on specially fitted contact lenses to reduce the distortion and provide better vision.
Although finding a comfortable contact lens can be an extremely frustrating and difficult process, it is crucial because a poorly fitting lens could further damage the cornea and make wearing a contact lens intolerable.
In most cases, the cornea will stabilize after a few years without ever causing severe vision problems. But in about 10 to 20 percent of people with Keratoconus, the cornea will eventually become too scarred or will not tolerate a contact lens. If either of these problems occur, a corneal transplant may be needed.
A pterygium is a pinkish, triangular-shaped tissue growth on the cornea. Some pterygia grow slowly throughout a person’s life, while others stop growing after a certain point. A pterygium rarely grows so large that it begins to cover the pupil of the eye. Pterygia are more common in sunny climates and in the 20-40 age group. Scientists do not know what causes pterygia to develop. However, since people who have pterygia usually have spent a significant time outdoors, many doctors believe ultraviolet (UV) light from the sun may be a factor.
Because a pterygium is visible, many people want to have it removed for cosmetic reasons. It is usually not too noticeable unless it becomes red and swollen from dust or air pollutants. Lubricants can reduce the redness and provide relief from the chronic irritation.
About 120 million people in the United States wear eyeglasses or contact lenses to correct nearsightedness, farsightedness, or astigmatism. These vision disorders–called refractive errors– affect the cornea and are the most common of all vision problems in this country. Although eyeglasses or contact lenses are safe and effective methods for treating refractive errors, refractive surgeries are becoming an increasingly popular option.
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|Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Liu Weimin's Remarks on the US' Recent Comment on Human Rights and Other Issues|
Q: US Secretary of State Clinton delivered a speech on human rights and online freedom on the eve of the International Human Rights Day, making reference to Liu Xiaobo's case. US Ambassador to China Gary Locke made a similar speech. What is China's comment?
A: The Chinese Government attaches great importance to the basic rights of people of all ethnic groups and protects citizens' freedom of religious belief in accordance with law. It is universally recognized that China has made remarkable achievements in the cause of human rights. We would like to conduct human rights dialogue with the US side on the basis of equality and mutual respect but firmly oppose the US' interference in China's internal affairs under the pretext of human rights issues. We advise the US side to stop pointing the finger at others and reflect more on its own human rights problems.
China is a country under the rule of law and deals with relevant case in accordance with law. The US side has no right to interfere in China's internal affairs and judicial sovereignty.
The Chinese Government attaches importance to the development of the Internet and administers it according to law.
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Digital Twins Form Building Blocks for Smart Cities
The combination of 3D models, simulations and real-time IoT data means smart city digital twins are being tapped to optimize everything from traffic patterns to energy efficiency.
January 4, 2021
Digital twins, a concept rapidly gaining traction as a way to improve product design, create proactive maintenance services and optimize performance of industrial assets, are starting to take shape on an entirely different scale as they become the building blocks for futuristic smart cities.
In a smart city design context, digital twins function as a virtual replica of a city’s assets; think buildings, roads, traffic patterns, lighting systems, mobility solutions, energy and grid capabilities. But it’s not enough to create a 3D representation of these resources.
Just like a product digital twin, a digital twin of a smart city pairs 3D information, spatial modeling of a built environment, simulations and mathematical models of electric and mechanical systems with real-time data feeds from Internet of Things (IoT) platforms such as sensor-integrated buildings and equipment. Smart city digital twins also incorporate other private and public data sources to deliver a living, breathing representation of an urban space.
With a smart city digital twin in hand, utility companies can optimize and create self-sustaining and renewable energy grids, first responders could run what-if scenarios to prepare for emergency scenarios such as fires or floods, and city planners could map out and manage traffic patterns to circumvent congestion and counter the effects of urban sprawl with well-placed vegetation and parks.
Melding the physical and virtual worlds together in a digital twin can help city planners and administrators make better decisions, keep citizens informed and engaged, and be a mechanism for addressing major public health, safety and environmental issues.
For engineers designing components for municipalities of the future—autonomous vehicles, public transit fleets, smart lighting systems or buildings—the smart city digital twin becomes a key part of the development cycle, to inform design requirements and for feedback on how that asset operates under real-world conditions. As smart city architects delve deeper into design and planning, digital twins of core assets will become a requisite as they aim to create a holistic picture.
“[Urban planning clients] are increasingly demanding a digital twin at the design stage that can be connected to the information sources to be used downstream,” explains Michael Jansen, chairman and CEO of Cityzenith, maker of the SmartWorldPro digital twin platform.
“They want a digital twin because they want to explore their energy costs over 10 years—it’s not enough to say we’re going to deliver a good product. They want answers and to be able to run scenarios,” Jansen says. “There’s an ability for the design community to provide evidence-based results using a digital twin and it will be a game changer for the ones that do it better.”
Twinning on the Rise
Whether playing a role in the design of smart cities or smart products, use of digital twin technologies is expanding. The digital twin market is projected to surge from its current market value of approximately $4 billon to over $35 billion by 2026, according to a recent study by market research firm Global Market Insights. Gartner Research estimates that three-quarters of organizations implementing IoT projects already use or plan to use digital twins within a year.
As the concept evolves, Gartner expects organizations to integrate multiple digital twins. For example, as in a power plant where digital twins of each piece of equipment are synced for a composite picture used to analyze overall operations. Similarly, myriad design twins could be connected to create a composite of smart city infrastructure.
Gartner says 61% of companies implementing digital twins have already integrated at least one pair of individual digital twins, and 74% plan to execute on that approach over the next five years.
“The biggest thing we’re looking for with smart cities is how to get systems to interconnect and convert the city into a system of systems,” explains Sean Moser, senior vice president for digital product management for GE Digital’s Grid Software team. Unlike a typical product digital twin, which is focused on mimicking the physics of materials or product behavior, a digital twin in the context of a smart city is about simulating a dynamic system.
“Think of a digital twin simulating the physics of a part or a component, and then a digital representation of a full machine,” Moser says. “The aggregation of these things continues to catenate and becomes encapsulated into a digital twin of a smart city.”
Dassault Systèmes has been actively immersed in a number of pioneering smart city projects. Its 3DEXPERIENCity platform is being used to create Virtual Singapore, a $73 million project to design a 3D city model and collaborative data platform for building a more resilient and sustainable city.
Using tools such as CATIA and SIMULIA, Singapore planners are creating a unified 3D data model that all public agencies, businesses and researchers can leverage for various use cases, from determining the best place to install solar panels, to analyzing pedestrian patterns, to planning buildings with an eye toward minimizing wind tunnels, according to Simon Huffeteau, Dassault’s vice president of Construction, Cities and Territories.
The Dassault tools suite is also helping build the 3DEXPERIENCity Virtual Rennes project, including one use case involving a large-scale visualization aimed at helping planners in the French city optimize green spaces. By capturing detail such as the quantity, type, age and location of trees, the city is creating a virtual twin of the urban canopy.
“A digital twin of a city is not a pure physical digital mockup,” Huffeteau says. “A virtual twin allows you to simulate and represent the complexities of the real world the way it operates on a daily basis.”
Twinning Smart Cities
As interest in digital twins—and digital twins for smart city design, in particular—grows, various vendors are stepping up, in addition to Dassault Systèmes.
Bentley Systems and Microsoft recently announced an expanded alliance to combine Microsoft’s Azure IoT Digital Twins and Azure Maps with Bentley Systems’ iTwins platform, enabling engineers, architects and city planners to work within a city-scale digital twin.
As part of their collaboration, the companies are offering ProjectWise 365, an Azure cloud-based solution for increasing the speed and quality of infrastructure design collaboration. They are also working on integrations that ensure the Bentley iTwins platform can leverage Azure Digital Twins, Azure IoT Hub and Azure Time Series Insights for storing and processing operational data.
Other use cases and smart city digital twin tool sets include:
Climate change and resiliency. Cityzenith is one of the leaders in this space with its SmartWorldPro Version 2 digital twin technology, which aggregates, integrates, analyzes and visualizes smart city project data on a single 3D platform. The platform, currently underpinning more than two dozen building and smart city initiatives around the world, is primarily being adopted to help cities and urban planners deal with the effects of climate change, Jansen says.
“The ability to aggregate data at scale helps them develop climate-resilient strategies at scale,” he says.
For example, as part of New Mexico’s new “smart infrastructure” and its carbon-neutral energy initiative, SmartWorldPro will model the replacement smart energy infrastructure. The country’s fifth largest fossil fuel power is driving a multi-billion-dollar project that includes solar and wind arrays to power the state while generating surplus for trading on energy markets.
Cityzenith’s SmartWorldPro platform is also the information model foundation for Amaravati, a new $6.5 billion smart city capital being developed for the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The digital twin platform will accelerate the development of advanced mobility and traffic monitoring solutions and advanced microclimate and climate change monitoring systems. Multi-nodal IoT sensors, in conjunction with Smart World Pro, provide real-time construction monitoring and environmental and wellness monitoring.
Autonomous vehicles and mobility solutions. Traffic patterns and mobility solutions are big issues in smart city design, and simulations and digital twins can play a significant role. Whether mapping out where smart traffic lights should be installed or creating the safest intersections, digital twins get city planners and mobility solutions designers closer to how things actually look as new technologies and infrastructure come on board, according to Karen Giese, Smart Cities program management for Siemens Mobility and Intelligent Traffic Systems.
Unlike traditional simulation models, which assume perfection in vehicle design and behavior, a digital twin is dynamic, taking in real-time information from sensors, LiDAR and cameras to capture a vehicle’s perspective and providing a level of granularity that hasn’t been seen before.
“The more you can create a digital twin of the environment in which a vehicle ultimately is going to operate, the better you know you’re designing that vehicle to be successful,” Giese says. “You need a digital twin from the chips in the controller to the mechanical and electrical systems to the digital twin of traffic and the city.”
One effort that provides a glimpse of where Siemens is going is its partnership with the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) and Bentley Systems to improve the safety of spectators and drivers at Rally events. Connected vehicle technology, 3D models and simulations created in Simcenter Amesim, artificial intelligence (AI) image classification and sensor networks from Siemens Intelligent Traffic Systems and Siemens PLM Software groups will create a digital twin of select Rally stages and to help detect dangerous locations for spectators. The concepts and lessons learned will eventually be evolved for the next phase: to help improve pedestrian safety in cities, officials say.
Smart utilities and the grid. Another big digital twin application for smart cities involves energy efficiency and optimizing management of the electricity grid. This is an area GE Digital has staked out with a variety of its products and services; as of 2018, the company had 1.2 million digital twins for 300,000 assets ranging from individual pieces of equipment to entire power plants.
In one specific example, GE just released an AI-driven Visual Intelligence platform for utilities that ingests all forms of visual inspection data and executes automated analysis to contextualize data into a digital twin of a utility network. That twin then helps facilitate asset inspection and vegetation management, and allows utility companies to do predictive maintenance to trees and other vegetation that could cause power failures during high winds and storms.
Though much about the smart city digital twins impact urban planners, construction companies and architects, participation from design engineers will eventually become an imperative.
“When you’re an engineer working in a given framework and set of requirements for your product, you are not isolated—there is always a multi-scale element to it,” says Dassault’s Huffeteau. “Being able to connect these elements is clearly part of the vision and future of all virtual twins.”
More Dassault Systèmes Coverage
More GE Digital Coverage
About the Author
Beth Stackpole is a contributing editor to Digital Engineering. Send e-mail about this article to [email protected].Follow DE
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from Nature 520, 411 (23 April 2015) doi:10.1038/520411d
Exploding stars grouped in one family because of their similarities actually form two distinct groups. This may have important cosmic implications because the explosions, called supernovae, are the primary evidence that the Universe’s expansion is accelerating.
Half of type Ia supernovae seem to have similar intrinsic brightnesses when seen in the visible spectrum. But when Peter Milne of the University of Arizona in Tucson and his team analysed data from the Hubble Space Telescope and NASA’s Swift satellite, they found that the supernovae fell into two subfamilies, each brighter than the other in a different part of the ultraviolet spectrum.
The relative abundances of the two subfamilies seem to have changed over the past several billion years, a fact that could complicate their use as markers of cosmic expansion, the authors say.
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VAPT (Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing) is a crucial component of modern cybersecurity practices, and TopCertifier is a trusted provider of VAPT testing and certification consulting services in Brisbane.VAPT involves identifying vulnerabilities and conducting simulated attacks to assess the security of computer systems, networks, and applications.
Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, boasts a growing economy. It excels in industries like mining, construction, education, and research. The city's pleasant climate, entrepreneurial culture, and infrastructure development attract investment and support business growth.
VAPT testing involves two key components: vulnerability assessment and penetration testing . Vulnerability assessment is the process of scanning and evaluating systems, networks, and applications to identify potential vulnerabilities. This assessment helps organizations understand their existing security posture and determine areas that require attention.
Penetration testing, on the other hand, simulates real-world attacks to exploit identified vulnerabilities and assess the effectiveness of an organization's defenses. Penetration testing provides valuable insights into the actual impact of vulnerabilities and assists in understanding the potential risks and consequences.
Industries across the board, including banking, finance, healthcare, e-commerce, information technology, and government sectors, require VAPT services to safeguard their critical data and infrastructure. With the ever-evolving threat landscape, organizations are increasingly concerned about potential security breaches. VAPT Assessments provide organizations in Brisbane with the assurance that their systems have been thoroughly tested and evaluated to identify vulnerabilities and implement effective security measures.
TopCertifier stands out as a reputable consultancy that specializes in VAPT certification services Brisbane, Queensland. Our expert consultants offer comprehensive assessments, utilizing advanced tools and methodologies to identify weaknesses and potential entry points for attackers. By simulating real-world attacks, TopCertifier's VAPT services gauge Initial Assessment: Our experts conduct a thorough assessment of your organization's current cybersecurity practices, infrastructure, and vulnerabilities. This step involves understanding your business processes, IT assets, and potential threats.
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A pissaladière is in effect a Provençal version of the pizza. It consists of a base of bread dough (or sometimes fried slices of bread) with a savoury topping. Nowadays this is usually onions stewed in olive oil, or a mixture of tomatoes and anchovies, or a purée of anchovies and garlic (an anchoïade), all three decorated with black olives, but originally it would have been a mixture of tiny fish, typically the fry of sardines, anchovies, etc., preserved in brine. This was known as pissala (presumably a derivative ultimately of Latin piscis, ‘fish’), and gave its name to the pissaladière. (Despite the striking similarity, there does not appear to be any direct etymological link with Italian pizza.)
Subjects: Cookery, Food, and Drink.
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Although new cases of the deadly strain of e coli that broke out in Germany have dropped significantly, experts say that because the distribution of the contaminated seeds was so incredibly widespread, people will be at risk from the particularly deadly strain of e coli for up to three years or more. No one really knows.
Wired provides a detailed and frightening look at how quickly contaminated seeds can infect the entire global food chain and persist as a threat for years to come.
Investigators think the German e coli outbreak, which sickened thousands and killed dozens, and more recent Egyptian e coli scare are both a result of one immense, 33,000-pound, shipment of fenugreek seeds from Egypt on November 24th, 2009.
Here's how the shipment was distributed:
- 10,500 kg to a single German distributor;
- 3,550 kg to nine other German companies;
- 375 kg to a Spanish company; 250 kg to an Austrian distributor that sold the entire lot to a single Austrian company;
- and 400 kg to a company in England.
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- E Coli Greatest Hits: 5 Recent US Outbreaks
- Deadly European E Coli Cases Now Suspected in US
- North Carolina E Coli Outbreak Linked To State Fair
- European E Coli Death Toll Rises, Cause A Mystery
- German E Coli Death Toll Rises, EU Dubious of German Handling
- Fatal E Coli Outbreak Strikes Germany
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