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Assignment 4: Ethical Considerations
Assume that you work for a company that sells televisions. Your boss has directed you to create a report on the informed-consent process for a telephone survey regarding TVs.
As part of the report, you need to create the content section that contains approximately 10 steps, a sample introduction, and a sample conclusion. Then, answer the following questions:
Submit your answers in a three- to four-page Microsoft Word document.
this is the answer | <urn:uuid:3ba68fa8-d896-4064-8f76-3d9ac8a93b5f> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://www.studentlance.com/solution/bus-3059-business-analysis-week-1-assignment-4-ethical-considerations | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720380.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00056-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928755 | 102 | 1.953125 | 2 |
Here the dream ended, and I awoke.
It was broad daylight. The sun shone brilliantly, the sky was cloudless. I looked at my watch; it had stopped. Shortly afterwards I heard the hall clock strike six.
My dream was vividly impressed on my memory, especially the latter part of it. Was it a warning of coming events, foreshadowed in the wild visions of sleep? But to what purpose could this dream, or indeed any dream, tend? Why had it remained incomplete, failing to show me the visionary consequences of my visionary actions? What superstition to ask! What a waste of attention to bestow it on such a trifle as a dream!
Still, this trifle had produced one abiding result. I knew it not then; but I know it now. As I looked out on the reviving, re-assuring sunlight, it was easy enough for me to dismiss as ridiculous from my mind, or rather from my conscience, the tendency to see in the two shadowy forms of my dream, the types of two real living beings, whose names almost trembled into utterance on my lips; but I could not also dismiss from my heart the love-images which that dream had set up there for the worship of the senses. Those results of the night still remained within me, growing and strengthening with every minute.
If I had been told beforehand how the mere sight of the morning would reanimate and embolden me, I should have scouted the prediction as too outrageous for consideration; yet so it was. The moody and boding reflections, the fear and struggle of the hours of darkness were gone with the daylight. The love-thoughts of Margaret alone remained, and now remained unquestioned and unopposed. Were my convictions of a few hours since, like the night-mists that fade before returning sunshine? I knew not. But I was young; and each new morning is as much the new life of youth, as the new life of Nature.
So I left my study and went out. Consequences might come how they would, and when they would; I thought of them no more. It seemed as if I had cast off every melancholy thought, in leaving my room; as if my heart had sprung up more elastic than ever, after the burden that had been laid on it during the night. Enjoyment for the present, hope for the future, and chance and fortune to trust in to the very last! This was my creed, as I walked into the street, determined to see Margaret again, and to tell her of my love before the day was out. In the exhilaration of the fresh air and the gay sunshine, I turned my steps towards Hollyoake Square, almost as light-hearted as a boy let loose from school, joyously repeating Shakespeare’s lines as I went:
“Hope is a lover’s
staff; walk hence with that,
And manage it against despairing thoughts.” | <urn:uuid:cf20ef8d-7e14-4d3e-ae19-a45721971a68> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/4605/33.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279933.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00117-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982648 | 612 | 1.953125 | 2 |
When Coretta Scott King discovered that the press pool covering the funeral of her husband included no black photographers, she let it known that if Moneta J. Sleet Jr. was not allowed into the church, she would let no photographers into the church.
Sleet’s photo of Bernice King tearfully clasping her mother inside the Ebenezer Baptist Church, where her father had been the pastor for the last eight years won a Pulitzer Prize, making Sleet the first African American journalist to win that award. He remembered that emotion-fraught moment, five days after Dr. King was shot dead:
“I looked over and saw Mrs. King consoling her daughter. I was photographing the child as she was fidgeting on her mama’s lap. Professionally, I was doing what I had been trained to do, and I was glad of that because I was very involved emotionally. If I hadn’t been there working, I would have been off crying like everybody else.”
Sleet had known the Kings for over a decade, since 1956, when he photographed the couple with another daughter on the steps of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. He even travelled with Dr. King when the latter went to Stockholm to collect his Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
The photo was titled Deep Sorrow by Sleet and was first featured in Ebony Magazine, for which he captured Dr. King and other leading African American celebrities of his day – from Muhammad Ali to Stevie Wonder. He accompanied Vice President Richard M. Nixon’s tour of newly independent Africa nations, and took a famous photo of Kwame Nkrumah on Ghana’s independence day. Before King’s funeral brought him the Pulitzer, he had been at another forlorn occasion when he also photographed Betty Shabazz at the funeral of her slain husband, Malcolm X. His Pulitzer also transcended photography: he was the first black man to win the prize (after poet Gwendolyn Brooks in 1950 who was the first African American to win), and the first black person to win the Pulitzer for journalism. | <urn:uuid:a00c9a5f-d236-4569-a794-f051815f45fd> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/tag/martin-luther-king/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572221.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816060335-20220816090335-00069.warc.gz | en | 0.98688 | 440 | 2.484375 | 2 |
In South Africa, the government and the South African Revenue Services (SARS) have tax laws to help people who are retired and/or living on pensions.
These changes to the law will apply for the 2019/2020 tax season.
People who are older than 65 can now receive more interest on any money that have invested such as from a pension fund.
People under the age of 65 do not have to pay tax on any amount up to R23 800 per tax year. This is called an interest exemption.
For people over the age of 65, the exemption applies to an even larger amount. If you are in this age group, you will not have to pay tax on interest earned on any amount up to R34 500 per tax year.
People who are under the age of 65 do not have to pay tax if they earn anything less that R78 150 a year. This amount is called a tax threshold.
For people who are over the age of 65 – the news is even better. You will not have to pay tax unless you earn R122 300 or above per tax year or more. This means you can earn an income of up to R10 191 a month completely tax-free.
Furthermore, for people who are 75 years and older, you will not have to pay any tax unless you earn R136 750 or above per year or R11 395 or above per month.
Anyone over the age of 65 will also be given a larger tax credit for certain medical expenses. These expenses include medical aid contributions and any costs that were not paid for by a medical aid and which you therefore had to pay for yourself.
A tax credit is when SARS will not make you pay tax on money spent for certain reasons – like for medical treatment or medicine.
SARS will work out the exact percentage of credit you will get according to what your medical expenses were.
So if you are one of the elders of our nation, remember Legal&Tax Services is your caring and expert companion for all tax topics!
If you are/were member of a pension fund, you will receive a payment of one third of the fund value in cash as a lump sum payment. The first R500 000 may be tax free, depending whether any lump sums payments were made previously.
Carefully consider what you want to do with this lump sum payment. If you choose to rather take a smaller lump sum, and a bigger amount as a monthly pension, there may be tax implications. Similarly if you purchase an additional monthly annuity, or invest the money and earn interest.
Provident fund payments work slightly different on retirement – either the full amount in the fund will be paid out as a lump sum payment, or a portion, depending on when the age of 55 was reached. This lump sum will also have the exemption of R500 000, plus the contributions you made to the fund up to 28 February 2017. The same as with a pension fund, the tax free amount will depend on whether any previous withdrawals were made before retirement.
A lot of people are very healthy when they, and continue working, either part time or full time. They will therefore receive a salary, and a monthly pension.
There is also cases where pensioners receive a monthly pension and an annuity, or their pension and a pension from a deceased spouse’s employer. Some pension funds invest at different investment providers, which will generate a separate IRP5 from each investment – effectively the tax man sees this as more than one employer.
In all of these cases each employer will only deduct monthly tax in accordance to the tax tables on that single income only – which may fall under the taxable limit. It is important to remember that for income tax purposes SARS adds all income sources together on the annual assessment, and when this is done the taxable income may exceed the applicable limit.
This may leave a pensioner with a tax deficit – an amount owing to SARS on assessment.
The second important issue to remember is that an annual tax return must be submitted to SARS as soon as there are two or more income sources, irrespective of the amounts earned.
A tax companion by your side
This article is not intended to provide financial advice. Speak to your financial advisor to understand how any investments may impact on you, given your specific circumstances. | <urn:uuid:e1066051-86b9-4a5e-bbe6-c39c9f15d375> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.legalandtax.co.za/money-hub/tax-for-gogo-and-gramps | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00466.warc.gz | en | 0.970833 | 889 | 2.140625 | 2 |
There are many health benefits to owning a dog – both emotionally and physically. Here are the top 5 ways dogs contribute to your happiness and physical well being.
Dogs are amazing pets and even better friends. From the moment that you welcome a furry friend into your home and life they will instantly become like family – and the most loyal of family members. Plus on top of all the love and licks they offer, being around dogs and puppies can be good for your health.
I’ve written about this topic in my bestselling longevity book, Life is Long. Here’s a quick summary of the health benefits to owning a dog or being around puppies.
When you’re done reading this list of health benefits, you’re going to want to get some fun treats for your dog at a local Petco or Time for Paws pet shop. Or you might even want to splurge on dog friendly furniture – because there’s lots of reasons to appreciate your dog.
Dogs are sort of like furry therapy.
In fact one of the great things about getting a dog (other than their sweet little faces and cuddly fur) is their stress busting benefits.
Dogs have a wonderful way of reducing our stress levels. And if you are like most adults, you will be glad of this assistance!
Plus petting a pet has also been researched to elevate oxytocin (linked to happiness and relaxation).
Finally…pets are so gosh darn cute. Just looking at their cute little faces will make you smile and forget about your troubles!
If you have a young child, getting a puppy can be a wonderful way to help them improve their emotional development skills in their younger years.
Owning a dog can help a child build their confidence and social skills – because they will always be meeting new people when out walking their dog.
Plus owning a dog can help a child to develop skills such as hand eye coordination when playing fetch with their new friend.
A study was done a few years back which took a look at people who visit the doctors. Guess what? When the people in this study got a dog, their doctor’s visits were reduced by 50%.
Plus, it has also been shown that owning a dog can reduce the recovery time after a heart attack due to reducing the blood pressure of the owner.
After all, you can’t come home at the end of the day and decide to sit inside and avoid exercise. Your puppy will need a walk out in the park to keep them healthy.
Walking a dog also helps people to stay social – because pets are people magnets and can lead to friendly conversations.
As soon as you step out of the house with a puppy you will get to meet many people – who all want to meet your dog. This will include other dog owners – as well as people who just want to say hello to your furry friend.
You will soon have a whole host of new friends (both on two legs and four legs) who you will see almost every day on your walks.
Best of all, you get double the health benefits walking a dog. | <urn:uuid:2833a55c-ba98-4e1f-b66b-caf258625260> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.notsalmon.com/2015/06/19/health-benefits-of-pets/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573533.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818215509-20220819005509-00270.warc.gz | en | 0.972485 | 647 | 2.28125 | 2 |
SPS releases revised masking, learning schedule plan for 2020-21 year
Students enrolled in Springfield Public Schools have two options this fall: Switch to full-time virtual instruction or receive two days of in-person instruction each week — with the other three days virtual — as part of a hybrid model.
The state's largest district, citing the global pandemic and an increase in local COVID-19 cases, abandoned an initial plan to offer families a full-time in-person option, at least for the first quarter of the school year.
A final reentry plan, released Thursday, will also require all employees and students — from preschool to grade 12 — to wear masks on school property with rare exceptions. It was shaped in consultation with the Springfield-Greene County Health Department.
Superintendent John Jungmann said the 2020-21 year will start, as planned, Aug. 24 but revised its plan in order to scale back how many students and staff are in a school or classroom on any given day.
"We believe it is appropriate to take more of a slow measured approach to reopening schools," he said.
"We understand that no plan is perfect for every family or every staff member but considering the situation of our community, we believe this is the best decision at this time to get school restarted."
Starting Thursday, families can select one of two learning options for fall. The deadline to switch to full-time virtual learning is Friday, July 31:
- Option 1: In-person learning will blend seated and virtual instruction. The in-person classes will be Monday and Tuesday for students whose last names start with A-K and Thursday and Friday for students whose last names start with L-Z.
- Option 2: Full-time virtual instruction, at home, five days a week.
The full-time virtual option is not available for the following "choice" or magnet programs: WOLF, Academy of Exploration, Academy of Fine and Performing Arts, the International Baccalaureate programs and Springfield Scholars.
Gifted education, however, will be fully virtual.
Jungmann said a recent district survey indicated 10 percent of families, if not more, will choose the full-time virtual option.
He said the goal of the hybrid model is to reduce in-person class sizes and daily school capacity by at least half.
Students will either attend Monday and Tuesday or Thursday and Friday, based on the first letter of their last names.
"Wednesday will be all virtual across the system so that we can do a deep clean of every facility before we bring in that second cohort," he said.
Jean Grabeel, director of health services for the district, said many lessons have been learned during the pandemic including the importance of masking, social distancing, hand-washing and staying home if sick.
She said the hybrid model, which cuts class sizes, will make social distancing easier.
"This is the safe way for us to enter back into the system in a slow, measured way," she said. "We are in constant communication and planning with the health department."
Jungmann said the summer program illustrated that it was easier to keep students apart and safe with fewer students in classrooms.
"Teachers can do that better with 10 kids than 40 kids," he said. "As kids come in, they can do wellness checks, they can monitor their behaviors, they can work on hand-washing and sanitization practices more regularly with a smaller group of kids."
No assemblies or large gatherings will be held. Visitors will be limited and parents will not be able to eat lunch with children at school or attend classroom parties.
This week, in preparation for the release of the final plan, the News-Leader asked a series of questions. Here are the answers:
Who has to wear masks to school?
In the final back-to-school plan, the district is requiring masking for all employees and students, regardless of age. An earlier proposal exempted students under age 12 from covering their nose and mouth.
"We are going to expand to all students and all staff," Jungmann said. "We need to take the most aggressive approach to students and staff safety."
Grabeel, who oversees nurses and health issues for the entire district, said masking was nearly universal during the in-person summer program, Explore.
"Kids are wearing masks. They have been coming to school with masks on, whether or not it is required," she said. "There has been a concern of some of 'Will students wear a mask or not' and they do. And they have been happy to wear them."
With documentation from a medical provider, the district may grant exceptions to the masking rule.
Masks will not be required when students are eating and drinking, at recess, in physical education classes or when social distancing is possible.
Can families opt for virtual mid-fall?
Families must notify the district of a switch to full-time virtual by July 31 and they are expected to stick with that option through the end of the first semester.
"We are going to ask them to commit to either the seated option for first semester or the virtual option for first semester and then we will staff accordingly," he said.
At the end of 2020, the district plans to ask parents if they want to change their option for the spring semester, which starts Jan. 6.
Jungmann said the district is committed to the hybrid model, giving students two days of in-person instruction each week, through the end of the first quarter, which is Oct. 10. At that point, the district will decide if more in-person days will be added.
"At the end of the first quarter, we'll make a decision if we're able to expand the number of seated days or if we need to hold steady," he said. "There is also the potential at any time in the first quarter, or anytime during the school year, that we may have to flip to full virtual — for a campus, for a grade level, for a classroom."
Why not go full virtual?
This week, large districts in Missouri including Hazelwood, announced plans to start with online-only classes.
Jungmann said the Springfield district offered in-person classes through Explore for elementary and middle school students in July. About 2,700 students signed up.
"We learned over the summer that we can do it. We had over 2,000 kids in our schools, interacting with our teachers," he said. "The feedback we've had from teachers is that it has worked well, we've put good precautions in place and we've had opportunities to engage with our kids."
He added: "Our families want that, our kids want that and our teachers want that."
There have been COVID-19 cases reported at some, but not all, Explore locations.
A case closed Rountree for a couple of weeks. Other cases spurred the district to halt the in-person conditioning for football players at Glendale High School, as well as a wraparound program that offered activities before and after Explore, at two schools.
"We have learned through the summer that we can do a seated environment in a safe way and we should try to do that for those that want that," he said. "But we are not going to force it on everyone from day one."
How does this affect busing?
Starting Thursday, parents of students who are eligible for busing will be asked to fill out an online registration form. It must be complete by July 31.
"The good news is we will still run our routes but they will be much less full," Jungmann said.
Students must live far enough away from the school they are zoned to attend in order to be eligible for busing. This fall, eligibility starts at one mile for elementary, 1.5 miles for middle school and three miles for high school. The district expanded a pilot program this fall to add busing for preschool.
To limit bus ridership, families who are able to drive their kids to and from school are asked to do so during the fall semester.
Masks will be required on school buses. Students will also be encouraged to spread out to provide social distancing.
Will the changes require fewer staff?
Jungmann said the district does not anticipate shedding any jobs during the pandemic, but roles may change.
In early August, after parents' deadline to pick a virtual or hybrid instruction model, the district plans to identify staff that will be assigned to the full-time virtual model.
"We need all 4,000 of our SPS team members more than ever before. We are going to need them to be nimble with us as their roles and responsibilities are going to shift," he said. "When it comes to the staffing expectation, we don't have a need for any less staff. Our buildings are still going to be open five days a week. We are still going to be running buses. We are still going to be feeding students."
How will meals be available
Students will still be able to access school meals on weekdays, if they are learning at home or at school.
"We will continue to offer meal service five days a week for every one of our kids, whether they choose virtual or seated," Jungmann said.
He said students will eat breakfast and lunch at school during the two days of in-person instruction. The details on how to get meals to families during virtual learning days are still being worked out.
"We'll be working on what is the best solution. Do we send them home with meals for the other days or do we still have pick-up locations for them?" he said. "Our food service will be taking feedback from parents on the best way."
Will child care be available?
For families that opt for the hybrid model, with two days of in-person instruction a week, there is no plan currently for offering child care through the district, at this point, for the other three days.
Jungmann acknowledged this will be one of the biggest challenges for families.
"We don't have the staff to reallocate (to child care) because we are going to be focused on making sure we have safe learning environments and virtual learning environments for all of our students," he said. "We will promoting the need for this and working with our community partners ... to see what kind of wraparound services we can provide for families."
Claudette Riley is the education reporter for the News-Leader. Email news tips to firstname.lastname@example.org and consider supporting vital local journalism by subscribing. Learn more by visiting News-Leader.com/subscribe. | <urn:uuid:ee9f086b-c61e-41d4-8c6d-623f0b619396> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.houmatoday.com/story/news/education/2020/07/23/springfield-public-school-2020-year-revised-masking-schedule-plan/5490876002/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573760.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819191655-20220819221655-00668.warc.gz | en | 0.970072 | 2,217 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Motion Solution Advancements In Wheeled Robotics
Engineers and scientists expect in the coming years that robots will be an integral part of our lives with a presence in everything including farming, hospitals, maintenance, construction and even in our homes. They will potentially replace humans in many industries, especially those where precision is necessary. Robots will complete tasks that are difficult to perform correctly by human labor or will replace humans in conditions that are deemed to be hazardous. In many of these industries, applications will be strongly focused on wheel driven robots.
Wheeled robots navigate on the ground using motorized wheels to propel themselves. This design is simpler than using treads or legs, and by using wheels they are easier to design, build and program for movement in flat, not-so-rugged terrain. Wheeled robots are popular among the consumer market because their differential steering provides low cost and simplicity. Robots can have any number of wheels, but three wheels are sufficient for static and dynamic balance. Additional wheels can add balance, however, additional mechanisms will be required to keep all the wheels on the ground, especially when the terrain is not flat. The motion solution is comprised of motors coupled with gearboxes driving the wheels which increases the torque capacity for better drivability.
This article describes the market need and demand, application requirement, selection criteria, technological advantages and future advancements in robotics.
MARKET NEED AND DEMAND
There is a tremendous demand for robots to be used in hospitals for infection control, medical services, medical waste delivery, biochemical specimen delivery and general medical tasks. The demand is increased multifold with the current COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. Another growing market is in the aerospace and defense (A&D) industry, where robots play a crucial role in surveillance and military operations. An upcoming market is pipeline inspection (e.g. in underwater systems) where the pipelines are inspected by driving robots where images are taken to help identify cracks or faults in the infrastructure. The key requirements faced with the products used in these applications are:
|•||Compact and lightweight|
|•||High durability (Long life)|
|•||Low noise (Hospital and A&D)|
|•||High efficiency and low current consumption|
(Figure 1)Typical products used in robots are brushed or brushless DC motors, coupled with compact planetary gearboxes. The requirement may differ slightly from application to application, but typical specifications of motion solutions are:
|•||Motor: Coreless Brushed DC / Brushless DC Motor|
|•||Gearbox Configuration: Planetary – 2/3 Stage, 30:1 to 120:1 Ratio|
|•||Packaging Size: < 40mm diameter|
|•||Gearbox Output Torque: 4 to 8 Nm|
|•||Gearbox Output Speed – 50 to 150 rpm|
Selecting a motor and gearing is a critical task when designing a robot for applications. The key aspects to focus on are illustrated in Figure 2.
The first step in selecting a motor and gearbox is to determine the operating and maximum conditions that the product will see. The most critical factor in the design and selection of a motor + gearbox is to confirm the required speed and torque experienced at the wheel output.
It is easier to first determine the output torque required and then work backwards to find your motor and gearing. The torque on the wheel should be determined based on robot acceleration, wheel diameter, carrying capacity (should be enough to pull the entire robot if some actuators fail or wheels are slipping), climbing the minimum slope, or overcoming obstacles. The friction and efficiency also should be considered for arriving at the final torque.
After determining how much torque you need, the next step is to determine the speed that the wheel needs to rotate. First, determine the desired speed of the wheel (i.e. final output) and then you are ready to choose the motors and gearing. The robot manufacturer generally finalizes the speed at which the robot is supposed to drive and the wheel diameter determines the required speed at the wheel output.
After you know the basic performance characteristics of the motor you need, the next step is to make sure the motor stack (encoder + brake + motor + gearing) fits in your robot and can be packaged cleanly. The encoder allows you to measure how much the motor shaft turns, and the brake system helps to hold the torque and provides dynamic stopping in the event of an emergency. There are different types of encoders and brakes used in robotics.
The operating voltage is used for powering the motor. Typically, the higher the voltage, the higher the speed capability of the motor. You can look at the voltage constant (back EMF constant) from the motor datasheet to determine how fast the motor will rotate per volt.
This is often not an issue, but if your motor stack is enclosed you want to make sure it does not overheat. The temperature range for the gearbox is of concern which can affect lubrication life and deteriorates the performance over time.
You need to know the mass of the load to determine the torque for motor selection. A mass estimate (or even better, an actual mass) is critical for choosing a motor. If you are designing based on a mass estimate, you should apply a safety margin of approximately 25%. You can look at the torque constant from the motor datasheet to figure out how much torque output you will get per amp.
It can sometimes be tempting to build gear boxes from scratch since they may be less expensive. However, if you take the time to design, assemble, and test the new gear, it is often more economical to get the gearbox from a standard catalog.
Precision / Accuracy / Efficiency
How much lag can you afford in your gearing? Often in wheel motors you can handle a little less precision and accuracy. These gear motors are used in various terrains and torque profiles and since all applications do not demand high performance (like lower noise / vibration), low precision can be tolerated. However, in a robotic arm or instrument you often need low backlash systems that are more precise and accurate.
Reliability and Noise
In most applications, higher reliability is the driving factor, and the motor stack must survive the required working points. In some critical applications like surveillance robots, low noise is a major driving factor, in addition to the higher reliability, so the motor and gearbox needs to meet both requirements.
Let’s look at an example. For a wheeled robotic application, a product specification for the motion solution is designed by Portescap with the following details:
|•||Motor Details: - Brushed DC 35 GLT|
|•||Main Gearbox: - Planetary Gearbox, 3 Stage, Spur, 99.8 Total Gearbox Ratio|
Many wheeled robots use differential steering which uses separately driven wheels for movement. A better balanced design is with a 4-wheel drive robot which comes with 2 pairs of powered wheels. Each pair can turn in the same direction. If the pairs do not run at the same speed, the robot will move slowly and cannot drive straight. An optimum design has a differential steering mechanism similar to those used in a car which allows the robot to turn left or right’ this only needs one motor. Another common configuration of robots uses motors that drive wheels independently instead of differential steering, in this case, separate motors are required to drive each wheel.
The overall specifications of the solution are defined as:
|•||Packaging: - 32 mm dia x 115 mm length|
|•||Gearbox Output Torque Capacity: 8 Nm|
|•||Gearbox Output speed: 80 rpm|
|•||Life Expectancy: - 1000 Hrs|
|•||Maximum Temperature: - 125 deg C|
A Portescap product has the advantage in terms of smaller packaging, higher torque-carrying capacity, and higher durability which can be adapted for multiple wheeled robotic applications.(Figure 3)
FUTURE ADVANCEMENTS IN WHEELED ROBOTICS
The major drawback of wheeled robots is that they cannot navigate well over rocky terrain, sharp declines or areas with low friction. Demand for development of a single robot which can negotiate these limitations is increasing day-by-day. This requires changes in the mechanism of robots such as tracks (differential drive), skid steer 4-wheel, differential drive 2 wheels + passive caster(s). This adds more complexity and requires a detailed study with an impact on cost.
Without a major change in the overall architecture, focused needs are given to optimizing the motion solution. This article highlights the improvements in motion solutions that can benefit the wheeled robot’s performance in terms of durability, efficiency and low noise:
|•||Newer Bearing Solutions - Needle roller bearing (Figure 4)–avoids scuffing failures and provides smooth rotation of planet gears on planet pins|
|•||Optimum Gearbox - Gear teeth combination with lower torsional forces to have low noise (Figure 5)|
|•||Advanced FEA based analysis – This helps to identify potential failures and eliminate them in early stage of design (Figure 6)|
|•||Advanced Acoustic Simulation - to predict noise and allow the optimization of the design for critical applications where noise is the primary focus (Figure 7).| | <urn:uuid:97005800-29e2-4762-9488-f796d1629a9c> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.portescap.com/en/newsroom/2021/11/motion-solution-advancements-in-wheeled-robotics | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573118.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817213446-20220818003446-00677.warc.gz | en | 0.90634 | 1,970 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Thomas Fleming: What Michele Bachmann Should Have Said About SlaveryRoundup: Historians' Take
Mr. Fleming, author of "Liberty! The American Revolution" (Viking, 1997), among many other books, is a past president of the Society of American Historians.
Congresswoman and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann created a stir recently by insisting on television that America's Founding Fathers "worked day and night" to abolish slavery. When asked to identify one of them and say what he did on behalf of this noble cause, the only name she produced was John Quincy Adams. He was all of 9 years old when his father, John Adams, persuaded the Continental Congress to vote for independence in 1776.
Ms. Bachmann's historical gaffe notwithstanding, there is surely a legitimate question here: Was slavery a day and night preoccupation of America's top leaders during the founding era—1775 to 1800? Dismaying as it may be to many admirers of our revolutionary past, the correct response is: no.
Survival was the issue that preoccupied the Founders and their followers during the eight-year struggle against imperial Britain's mighty fleet and army. When victory dawned in the 1780s, a new worry became paramount. Gen. George Washington summed it up in a terse sentence in a letter to another Virginian: "I see one head gradually turning into thirteen."
The divisions and quarrels between the 13 former colonies were making the future of the new nation a very dubious proposition. The cost of the Revolutionary War had reduced the Continental Congress under the Articles of Confederation to an often derisive joke. Without the power to tax, its paper money deteriorated into worthlessness. A bankrupt Congress could not persuade, much less coerce, any state to do anything it regarded as not in its best interest....
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- Donald Trump Is Wrong on Mosul Attack, Military Experts Say
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- Max Boot wants to know “what the hell happened to my Republican Party?" | <urn:uuid:56195fb9-4d02-4aff-978c-a5b78f9e1e17> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/140704 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719215.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00199-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954596 | 553 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Gillibrand Announces Proposal To Expand Pandemic EBT Program During Visit To Feedmore WNY
Amidst Growing Hunger Crisis Caused By COVID-19, Gillibrand Calls For Increased Investment In SNAP Benefits In Addition To Extending P-EBT To Keep New Yorkers Fed
Today, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand visitedFeedMore WNY Falconer Distribution Center to discuss the need to expand the Pandemic EBT (P-EBT) program as millions of New Yorkers struggle with food insecurity due to the pandemic. The Pandemic EBT Program provides nutritional resources to families who have lost access to free or reduced-price school meals due to school closures caused by the pandemic. In Chautauqua County, more than half of K through 12 students receive free or reduced-price school lunches and with school reopenings uncertain, these families are in need of support to put food on the table. To address the growing uncertainty of school reopenings, Senator Gillibrand is proposing new legislation to extend the P-EBT program and expand eligibility to ensure all children have access to nutritious meals throughout the COVID-19 crisis.
“In this time of great need we cannot allow hungry children to slip through the cracks. More than 20 million children rely on free and reduced-price school meals and we cannot allow the P-EBT program to expire amidst the uncertainty of this next school year,” said Senator Gillibrand. “As the number of families facing food insecurity continues to grow, strengthening both P-EBT and the SNAP programs would provide a vital lifeline. Keeping Americans fed should not be a partisan issue and I will continue reaching across the aisle so that these critical proposals can be included in the next relief package.”
“Millions of children have missed school meals and critical nutrition programs amid school closures due to COVID-19. For many of these children, their school meals were their only source of nutrition that day. According to a recent Feeding America study, more than 79,000 children in FeedMore WNY’s service area will be at risk of hunger this year due to the pandemic. Unfortunately, we do not anticipate the increased need for food assistance to recede any time soon,” said Tara A. Ellis, president and CEO of FeedMore WNY. “FeedMore WNY is grateful for the support of Senator Gillibrand, in recognizing that children are our future and we must do everything we can to ensure that they have the nutritious food they need and deserve.”
“Extending Pandemic benefits to replace missed school meals is essential to allowing kids to stay healthy and be ready to learn in any environment, including a virtual classroom. Healthy food is foundational to learning. The Senator’s bill is caring and trauma-informed and supports children in concrete ways during these unpredictable times. CCA lends its full support,” said John Haley Director of Food Security at Connecting Communities in Action.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Senator Gillibrand has fought for the P-EBT program to feed nearly 2.1 million eligible children in New York State. While the program has been successful in feeding hungry children across the state, its authorization is set to expire in September, despite the uncertainty of whether schools will reopen this fall. Gillibrand’s proposal would extend the P-EBT program through the upcoming school year to ensure students have access to meals even if in person learning is disrupted. The proposed legislation would make the P-EBT program more responsive to these disruptions so that eligible students who miss any meals at school will receive benefits. Additionally, eligibility for P-EBT would extend to meet the growing needs of food insecure families.
In addition to the extension of the P-EBT program, Senator Gillibrand is continuing to push for an increase in maximum SNAP benefits by 15% and expanded eligibility for the SNAP program so that more Americans have more options to put nutritious food on the table. Before the coronavirus crisis began, SNAP was providing food assistance to 38 million Americans and more than 41% of SNAP recipients were in families with children. In New York 13% of rural families depend on SNAP while 15% of those in metro areas rely on the program. Although the need for SNAP has drastically increased as many Americans have lost their jobs and are struggling to put food on the table, an increase or expansion of the program has not been included in previous coronavirus response packages. Senator Gillibrand’s proposals will not only increase SNAP benefits for each family, they will expand eligibility by removing harmful barriers to access, and they will put food on the table for families in need.
Next Article Previous Article | <urn:uuid:8cecc149-a76e-4dc9-907c-ec099cf2403d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.gillibrand.senate.gov/news/press/release/gillibrand-announces-proposal-to-expand-pandemic-ebt-program-during-visit-to-feedmore-wny | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570868.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808152744-20220808182744-00069.warc.gz | en | 0.959499 | 974 | 1.859375 | 2 |
On the 3rd December one of the largest mobile communities Mobile Nations has given its users an opportunity to make a commitment to cryptocurrency movement by paying with bitcoin. The buyers’ response to this moment is positive.
In 2011 Mobile Nations has arisen from Smartphone Experts online retailer of mobile accessories as means of unification of mobile communities belonging to the latter. The Mobile Nations includes Android Central, Windows Phone Central, iMore and CrackBerry with each one responsible for the smarts operating under the according system. The community is claimed to have reached over 15 million unique visitors worldwide:
“…we like to think of Mobile Nations as the United Nations of mobile - independently each community stands strong on its own, built upon its own core group of mobile experts and enthusiasts.”
Although customers are able to relieve their bitcoin wallets in all of the four shops, so far only 0.004% of all purchases were made via this new option. On the good side, those who pay with digital currency tend to make much bigger orders. According to Kevin Michaluk, who is occupying the position of chief media officer in Mobile Nations, the single largest order in December was actually paid for with bitcoins.
Michaluk also states that their customers have been asking for such an option for the last six months. Having always been open to their users, Mobile Nations had no other choice but to grant them their wish these winter holidays.
The whole cryptocurrency implementation process is said to have been easy enough for the tech team to make it happen in just a few days. Now, for the end-user it’s as easy as clicking the right button.
So what’s it going to be? A one small step for Mobile Nations, but a strong push for the bitcoin on its way to masses! | <urn:uuid:c03f2d56-f904-4c25-89c7-7e7bc5490a16> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin_payments_are_gaining_momentum_on_mobile_nations | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280483.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00295-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968716 | 364 | 1.664063 | 2 |
The availability of generic drugs could decrease, and their costs may rise, due to a new US Supreme Court ruling that makes it more difficult for small companies to challenge anticompetitive practices by well-financed patent holders. For >50 years, the courts have held it to be automatically illegal for the owners of a patented product to force their customers to also buy a second product. In relaxing those restrictions on antitrust violations known as "tying arrangements," the high court ruled that plaintiffs must prove that the patent holder has "monopoly power" before such restrictions can be considered illegal.
Although the case before the Supreme Court involved ink for industrial printers, legal experts believe the precedent could affect patent litigation involving many other products, including pharmaceuticals.
The Oncology Care Pharmacist in Health-System Pharmacy
According to the National Cancer Institute, almost 40% of men and women will be given a diagnosis of some form of cancer in their lifetime.
News from the year's biggest meetings
Clinical features with downloadable PDFs | <urn:uuid:e9e651ca-00a8-4e93-8fbf-d5546a550347> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.pharmacytimes.com/publications/issue/2006/2006-04/2006-04-5431 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280899.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00575-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962023 | 207 | 2.125 | 2 |
Gambling is a great way to responsibly have some fun and unwind, but, sometimes, it can be a good idea to step away from wagering games for a while, especially if you are struggling with serious problems, regardless if these problems are related to gambling or not.
It is very dangerous to use gambling to overlook your personal problems, as it can affect all areas of your life including personal relationships, occupational successes and financial sustainability. You must always play casino games keeping in mind that these are exactly that: games and these cannot take over more than they should in your life. Like other forms of addiction, compulsive gambling is a chronic condition that can, potentially, ruin your life if left untreated. So, do you have a compulsive gambling problem? Let’s take a look at some of the warning signs for which to watch, as they could mean that you should take a step back from gambling and seek help before it’s too late.
While a single incident of over-spending at the tables is certainly a problem, the most serious symptoms for which to look stem from a pathological compulsion to gamble. Compulsive gambling is a progressive behavior disorder in which an individual has an uncontrollable urge to gamble. Just as a person with an unhealthy addiction to alcohol or illegal substances, compulsive gamblers get a unique effect, or high, from gambling that, otherwise, goes unfulfilled. In many cases, these individuals can lead themselves into financial ruin, as they irrationally believe that gambling is the solution to all of their financial issues. Ultimately, while most compulsive gamblers exhibit similar warning signs of their addiction, the truth is that gambling becomes a problem when it begins to negatively impact the gambler’s life.
Most times, a person with a gambling addiction struggles to see what’s very clear to outsiders. If someone close to you is struggling with an emotional dependence on gambling that needs to be addressed, it can be extremely helpful to honestly and openly talk about the problem while providing them with advice and feedback. Avoid preaching or taking a broad approach; instead, focus your advice on specific incidents that directly relate to the individual. While there is absolutely no way to force the gambler to stop, you can appeal to them in a caring and personal way and try to help them through their struggles. If you need help, don’t try to do it alone. Addiction issues can be extremely difficult to overcome, so the assistance of a professional could be a massive benefit.
In order for a person with a compulsive gambling problem to truly recover, he or she will need to see the effects of his or her addiction. While it can be difficult to watch loved ones suffer, it’s imperative that compulsive gamblers deal with the consequences of their problems, as it will, hopefully, drive them towards a motivation to change.
Gambling addiction, much like other types of addiction, is a serious, progressive disease. Before you step into the casino, it is important to evaluate your own emotional bankroll. While there is nothing wrong with a relaxing, fun gambling trip, always ensure that you are in control of your own actions. If you believe you may be struggling from a gambling problem, it may be a good idea to take a step back and seek help. | <urn:uuid:ef2c48bc-08d3-493a-ad5a-03745641910b> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://www.coolcat-casino.com/entertainment/is-your-emotional-bankroll-stable-enough.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719041.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00168-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958796 | 675 | 1.789063 | 2 |
The AFT launched its national campaign to reclaim the promise of high-quality public services during a March 13 visit to Kansas, which, like too many other states, has slashed taxes for corporations and the wealthy while cutting and privatizing public services.
"We are fighting back against policies that are just plain bad for Americans and fighting forward with a vision for America in which we reclaim the promise of public services for strong communities," says AFT Secretary-Treasurer Lorretta Johnson.
Johnson, along with Lisa Ochs, president of the Kansas Organization of State Employees, visited with state employees in Wichita, who told them of problems since the state slashed billions of dollars in tax revenue and privatized and cut services to the public, including inexperienced and/or inaccessible contractors and too few workers to meet the needs of the public, the result being their inability to provide the highest quality of services.
"We are seeing austerity budgets passed in state after state, cutting essential programs and services as well as the people who provide these services," Johnson says. "This is government on the cheap. This is not an approach to government that supports the common good."
The strength of our communities and our way of life depend on public services that work for all Americans, she says. The services are essential to improve neighborhoods, protect families and provide an environment for economic vitality. "Public services are under attack by those who demand and pursue austerity, polarization, privatization and deprofessionalization," Johnson adds.
The AFT's campaign to reclaim the promise of high-quality public services is about fighting for first-rate public services that support communities and keep them safe, healthy and vibrant, and ensuring that communities' tax dollars are properly invested back into the community and the resources are used responsibly and safely. It also is about making sure that public employees are well-prepared and supported to provide their communities the quality services they deserve.
Ochs notes the unfairness of Kansas' funding policies, especially in light of the recent Kansas Supreme Court ruling that state school spending is unconstitutionally inadequate. "While the state has provided generous tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy, state employees have not gotten a raise in eight years, kids are being denied a fully funded education, and officials are trying to pit state employees against educators for whatever bread crumbs exist," she says.
[AFT press release/AFT photo] | <urn:uuid:e21feaf6-a19c-4039-867c-fac5e1fde373> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://psaric.ri.aft.org/news/reclaiming-promise-push-focuses-public-services | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281424.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00328-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976078 | 489 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Cultural constructs : the representation of femininity in the novels of Emma Tennant, Margaret Elphinstone, and Janice Galloway
This thesis proffers a detailed study, not an overview or a survey, of three contemporary Scottish women writers and six novels; moreover, the thesis attempts to decentre the Anglocentric British literary establishment. The primary theoretical approach drawn on in the analysis is feminism; the tenets of postcolonialism, poststructuralism, postmodernism, and the avant-garde are also integrated. Original and unpublished comments taken from personal interviews conducted with Tennant, Elphinstone, and Galloway are interwoven with textual interpretation throughout the thesis; this detailed new information confirms the critical conclusions drawn in all six novels. Chapter One reviews the field of Scottish literature and identifies a variety of critical approaches to the study of Scottish literature. At the same time, the review of literature defines a gap in the current field of research in Scottish literature and, in particular, Scottish women's writing. The chapter offers alternate critical approaches to Scottish literature and concludes with a brief overview of the six novels which make-up the thesis. Chapters Two, Three, and four offer in-depth examinations of Emma Tennant's novels The Bad Sister, Sisters and Strangers: A Mortal Tale, and Faustine. The analysis explores how Tennant exposes the way in which ideology and cultural institutions condition and limit women's access to positive female roles and self-hood. The discussion reveals how social discourses and the media construct women as powerless subjects who are often compelled to collude with their 'oppression'. An investigation into narrative techniques like orality and intertextuality discloses how Tennant calls into question the very nature of literature and how her writing offers a feminist postmodern challenge to conventional representations of womenhood and femininity in literature. | <urn:uuid:f7e7a824-b6cd-4425-91e4-0ad5484e9be0> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.343534 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282926.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00393-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928797 | 375 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Updated on 2nd October 2013
More details about the baby cruiser developed by Harley-Davidson have been revealed in a report published by Autocar India. The small Harley-Davidson cruiser will be powered by a 750cc engine and not a 500cc engine as we had reported earlier. It is expected to be a fuel-injected four-stroke V-twin engine with liquid cooling on offer delivering about 53 BHP of peak power and a healthy dose of torque. A 5-speed transmission with the universal one-down, rest-up shift pattern will transmit the power to the rear wheel via a Harley-Davidson specialty toothed-belt system.
The small engine will not sound any different from the other cruisers in the Harley-Davidson range though, it will still have the typical thump associated with HD bikes. The bike will be easier to handle, will be pretty quick and a top speed in the 150 KMPH regio is expected. The riding posture on the new cruiser will mimic it’s larger cousins, suspension settings will encourage long rides. Braking duties will be handled by single discs front and rear.
We will keep you posted on more news about the new small Harley-Davidson cruiser as it emerges, keep tuned in to Car Blog India.
Updated on 10th September 2013
Just a few days back, premium motorbike maker Harley-Davidson had announced that it is developing an entry level 500cc cruiser. The announcement confirmed the spy-shots of a mysterious bike(s) doing the rounds around NCR, which seemed to sport the bike makers signature design. Various photographs and videos of the Harley-Davidson 500cc cruiser testing have been shot on the Gurgaon-Faridabad highway since June 2013. This time, equipped with the official announcement by the company, it is not difficult to guess what these mysterious bikes are all about.
Although the bikes bore no logos, the test mules were without any camouflage. The Harley-Davidson design worn by these mules made the story pretty much obvious. Have a closer look at the front forks and the alloy wheel pattern, and you know it all that an upcoming H-D cruiser is in its final stages of launch.
The company has not given much details of the new bike apart from the engine displacement (500cc). So, we did a bit of guesswork and believe that the bike may give the power output of about 40 BHP. Looks like the baby H-D cruiser will be no slouch. Reports also suggest that the cruiser has got the characteristic H-D thump too.
From the reports hovering around, it seems that the bike could be manufactured either in India or Brazil. Considering that the tests are being conducted in India, chances are very high that Harley-Davidson’s Indian production facilities at Bawal, Haryana may be used for rolling out the 500cc bike. The launch would most probably be held sometime in 2014 and we believe that it should be priced around Rs. 4 Lakh thanks to it being locally assembled.
Let us know your thoughts on the baby Harley-Davidson cruiser in comments section below. | <urn:uuid:39c30ccb-c0a1-44af-aa67-0521ec0743f8> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.carblogindia.com/harley-davidson-500cc-cruiser/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279189.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00056-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959988 | 649 | 1.8125 | 2 |
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Home Medway News Article
A man who swam the width of the River Medway on yesterday evening (Sunday) has prompted a safety warning from the Coastguard.
The Medway Coastguard team were called out at about 7.20pm after reports a man was in difficulty in the river near the Command House pub in Chatham.
A 999 call was made by someone who reported an inebriated man was attempting to swim across the river.
The Medway Coastguard team and the Sheerness RNLI inshore Lifeboat were sent to the scene but when they arrived discovered the man had reached the other side and had got out of the water near businesses at Riverside, on Medway City Estate.
Richard Rodgers, deputy station officer for the Medway Coastguard team, said: “We dispatched team members to both sides of the river at Chatham and at Strood.
“We could see someone had entered the water as there were muddy footprints from the steps leading into the river at the Command House, but we couldn’t see any coming back out, so they had not returned to the Chatham side.
“The team who were on the other side of the river at Strood made some inquiries with some fishermen there who told them they had seen a guy get out of the water and get into a waiting car which then drove off.
“The message is clear, the River Medway is tidal and can be very dangerous.
“People can easily get caught by the under current, so don’t go into the river at all.”
Click here for more news from Medway.
Click here for more news from around the county. | <urn:uuid:9c4494f9-f5e7-446a-8182-eb7934f68acc> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.kentonline.co.uk/medway/news/man-swims-width-of-river-17793/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280718.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00401-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981775 | 404 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Caring for your Bearded Dragon
Are you thinking of purchasing a bearded dragon as a pet? If you are, you will find the Bearded Dragon care sheet below very usefull. It provides you with inofmation on how to take care our your new pet including sections about housing, lighting, temperature and the diet of a Bearded Dragon. Some general information on how to select a good dragon is also included.
Bearded Dragons - Care Sheet
These gentle beasts are from Australia but are now readily available due to their willingness to breed in captivity. Bearded Dragons make a wonderful pet for both beginners and advanced reptile keepers. Due to their docile nature and relative small size (usually 16-20 inches) they have become quite popular in recent years. These beautiful creatures are highly recommended for families with small children also due to their seeming love for attention.
Choosing your Bearded Dragon
When you decide to buy a Bearded Dragon, whether from a breeder or Pet store, look it over carefully. Some things you should notice right away is how alert and active the Dragon is, you don't want a Beardie that can't lift it's head or looks lethargic. When you walk up to the enclosure the Beardies should be watching you with interest and should have bright and alert eyes. You also want to check them for sores, burns, external parasites or any deformities. Make sure there is no pus or other gunk built up in the eyes, nose or mouth area also. Many Beardies will be missing toes or bits of their tail, this will not cause them any discomfort as long as the wound looks healed and shows no sign of infection. One of the most important things in my eyes is to look at the size of the Beardie. I do not recommend Beardies under 6 inches in total length. Baby Beardies can be very fragile and more apt to become ill or overly stressed. It much easier to care for a more developed Bearded Dragon.
Young Beardies under 10 inches in length can be housed in a 20gal long aquarium. This will last them for a few months only though as they grow quickly. Adult Dragons should be housed in nothing smaller than a 40gal breeder tank. I prefer using 55gal aquariums due to the extra length it gives them to run and they are easily found at most Pet stores. Screen lids should be used for the top of any aquarium style cages you use. Do not use glass, plexiglass or wood to cover your cages. This will not allow enough air circulation and will also trap humidity in the cage. Screen tops allow air flow, allow your lighting and heat sources to work correctly and also allow humidity to escape.
Bearded Dragons require full spectrum lighting for 12-14 hours a day. I happen to use the Reptisun 5.0 or 8.0 fluorescent bulbs. There is also other brands available such as the Reptiglo or lumichrome bulbs. These fluorescent bulbs should stretch the length of your Beardies enclosure and your B.D. should be able to come within 6-8 inches of the light. The UV light should be placed over the cage and not directed through the glass , glass will deflect the UV rays. Follow the directions on the package of the bulb for replacement frequency.
Heating and temps
To produce heat and a basking spot in your enclosure you can use either a ceramic heat emitter, a reptile basking light(red, blue or white) or just a plain old household light bulb. The best fixture for any of these choices is a porcelain dome light fixture. This type of fixture is a must with a ceramic heat emitter due to the amount of heat they produce. The temperature for this basking spot you created should be around 110f for juveniles and can be around 95f for adults. Although I don't recommend any temps above 110f, within a few degrees of these basking temps will be sufficient.
The cool side of the enclosure should be around 85f during the day. Once again within a few degrees of this temp is just fine.
Nighttime temperatures can fall as low as 65f. It is fairly easy to keep your night temps above this even in the winter. If you can't keep your temps above this you may want to consider buying an under tank heater (UTH) for nighttime use. Using this just during the evening hours will help create a warm spot for your Dragon to sleep. DO NOT use heat rocks as these can cause serious burns on your animal's underside.
A thermometer on the "hot side" and one on the "cool side" will make sure that your temps are in the range they should be in.
For baby to juvenile Bearded Dragons I prefer and recommend either newspaper, paper towels, butcher paper or reptile carpet. These choices are cheap, easy to clean and hold no health risks to your animal. If using reptile carpet the stuff that looks and feels like grass is the best. The felt kind has little loops of fabric that may catch the nails of your Dragon and cause injury. DO NOT use sand, shavings or any other loose substrate for baby to juvenile Beardies. They can be very clumsy eaters and they are also very curious and like to taste everything. Any kind of loose substrate holds serious health risks to your Beardie. If they eat a loose substrate they can become impacted, which is a blocking of the intestines, and die.
For adult Dragons I prefer either the grass repti carpet or playsand. Washed playsand is much cheaper than all those fancy colored reptile sands and looks just as good. You can buy this playsand at most larger Hardware stores for under $4 for 50lbs.
Crushed walnut shell is dangerous and should only be used to clean up oil spills. This substrate is NOT digestible and if too much of it is eaten it will cause impaction. I have seen this occur first hand with reptiles ranging from lizards to tortoise. Stay away from this product please.
Feeding and diet
Bearded Dragons are omnivorous, meaning that they eat both animal and plant matter. Any and all food items that your Bearded Dragons eat should be no bigger than the space between their eyes. If the food items are bigger than the space between their eyes it can cause impaction and/or hind leg paralysis. Either way your Beardie will suffer horribly.
Baby and juvenile Beardies should be offered appropriately sized crickets two-three times a day. Offer as many as your Beardie will eat in a 5-10 minute time frame. When your Beardie stops eating, stop offering. Young Bearded Dragons can eat anywhere from 20-60 small crickets a day. Your Beardie should also be given fresh greens daily. Spraying the greens with water will help them last longer and will also help keep your Beardie hydrated.
Sub-adult to adult Beardies only need to eat prey items once a day along with fresh greens. Once they are this age you can also offer them Locusts, Cockroaches, Mealworms, Waxworms, Zophobas worms, Silkworms, Butterworms, Red worms, Earthworms and just about any other worm available. All these should be used as treats though with crickets and greens being the stable part of your Dragons diet. DO NOT feed your Beardie insects that you have caught in your backyard. These bugs could have parasites that could be passed on to your Beardie or they could have been exposed to poisons that could kill your Beardie. Lightning bugs can also kill your Beardie so it is much safer to stay away from wild caught insects.
Prey items should be dusted once a day with a calcium/vitamin D3 supplement such as Rep-cal makes. All prey items should be dusted once a week with a multivitamin supplement such as Herptivite, also made by Rep-cal.
Any uneaten prey items should be removed from your Dragons enclosure.
There is a wide variety of greens that are available that are good for your Beardie. Dandelion greens, Collard greens, Mustard greens, Bok choy, Kale, Turnip greens, Escarole and Chicory are among the easiest to find and the best to use. If the greens you are wondering about say Lettuce anywhere in the name avoid them. Most types of lettuce are composed mostly of water and hold little or no nutritional value. With the wide variety of other greens out there it is better and easier to just avoid any type of lettuce. Spinach should also be avoided as calcium binds to it and will not be digested by your animal.
A wide variety of vegetables can also be offered to your Beardie. Butternut squash, Yellow squash, Spaghetti squash, Acorn squash, all other varieties of squash, Green beans, Parsnips, Sweet potato, Snow peas and Carrots. Carrots should only be used as a treat though due to the high amounts of vitamin A. Any food with high amounts of vitamin A should be avoided as reptiles do not absorb a lot of vitamin A. Feeding your Beardie a lot foods such as Carrots will end up in a condition called Vitamin A toxicity which is deadly. Squashes will either have to be cooked or micro-waved before feeding them to your Beardie. This will soften them up and they can then be minced and eaten easier.
Fruits can also be used, just avoid any citrus fruit such as oranges and grape fruit.
Fresh water should be offered daily in a shallow bowl. This water bowl should be disinfected once a week to avoid any bacterial build up. Many Beardie may not drink from a water bowl so you may have to drip the water slowly onto your Beardies snout. Wiggling your finger in the water may also get their attention. Beardies like things that move so creating ripples in the water may get their attention.
Bathing your Beardie once a week will help keep them hydrated and will also aid in shedding. Bath water should be warm on your wrist and not hot , much like bath water for a small child. Make the water only as deep as your Beardies chest or half way up their front arms. I usually just fill the tub until the water reaches the second knuckle on my index finger for my adults and the first knuckle for the juveniles. Never leave your Beardie unattended in the bath, accidents only take a second to happen. It's also a god idea to disinfect your tub when the bath is over because Beardies will often defecate in the water.
I use a 1/4 cup of bleach mixed with a gallon of water. This is done easiest in an old, clean, milk container. After mixing the bleach and water I then fill a spray bottle with the mixture. This makes it easy to cover the entire surface of what you are cleaning and leaves a container full for when your spray bottle is empty. All surfaces that get feces on them should be disinfected, including water bowls, food bowls and cages. This is how I disinfect all my cages, cage accessories and the tub after bathing.
Spray the entire surface of what you are cleaning until it is soaked. Then let it sit for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes scrub the surface with a rag making sure any old food or feces is removed. Rinse all surfaces repeatedly until you can no longer smell bleach. If you still smell bleach rinse again.
Hand washing is very important when owning any reptile. Washing your hands before and after handling your Beardie will help keep you and your new pet healthy. If you wash your hands before handling you reduce the risk of passing anything on to your Dragon. Washing your hands after handling greatly reduce the risk of you contracting salmonella. The risks of getting this are very slim to begin with but hand washing will even further reduce the risks. Your chances of contracting salmonella from the food you eat are greater than your chances of getting it from your Beardie so don't fret.
Before deciding on buying a Bearded dragon you should consider a few things. One, do you have a qualified Herp Vet in your area that will be able to care for your new pet if it get's sick? Newly aquired Bearded Dragons should always have a fecal sample tested for parasites and a general health checkup. It is also a good idea to have them retested for parasites once a year.
Two, are you going to be able to afford to feed, house and care for this pet during it's life? Bearded Dragons will eat like ravenous beasts when young and will cost you a lot of money. The UV light they require also need to be replaced around every six months, which is also going to cost a bit of money. Let's not forget trips to the Vet, these may also add up over the years of your Beardies life.
This care sheet is made up from what I have learned from years of research and keeping these animals. This does not mean that this is the "Beardie Bible" and the only way to keep and care for them. You are the one that ultimately decides how to properly care for your pet. Please feel free to print and use this care sheet.
You are responsible for the life of your pets. If they are sick get them to a Vet. If they are hungry feed them. Animal abuse is a felony in many states and you should remember that.
Written and composed by
(not a Vet)
Please do not reproduce in whole or in part for purposes other then personal use without permission from the author:
The following information is courtesy of:
http://www.beardeddragon.org A FREE Online Resource
Please visit them for more information on the Bearded Dragon
If you enjoyed information on our Draconian site, please link to us. | <urn:uuid:4831d3b2-c590-4558-be39-37728afd10d8> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.draconian.com/dragons/bearded-dragon-care.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719908.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00159-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951831 | 2,861 | 2.125 | 2 |
All forms of play are important to children of all ages for their development and enjoyment. Starting from birth up until teenage years children will learn through play and the importance couldn’t be more enhanced.
The first challenging play opportunity usually proposed to children is during their nursery years. The play garden within nurseries is an important aspect and should be approached with experience and knowledge.
Here at Creative Play we have a team of very knowledgeable advisors who can guide you on the correct play equipment that would be preferred by your requirements and difficulty levels.
One of the favoured forms of play at this age is imaginative play. One of the best things about being a child is the imagination they can create and scenarios they love to play!
With this in mind, Creative Play have developed a huge range of role play products to engage children in the outdoor playground environment. Not only do our products promote imaginative play they also help improve mobility, balance and co-ordination.
We have highlighted 8 of our top products within the range, read more to find out how we can help children develop whilst having fun!
Sail the open seas in our Galleon! An eye-catching piece of equipment designed to encourage physical and imaginative play as children work together to create new and exciting scenarios, whilst developing key social, communicative and imaginative skills. Perfect as part of a role play area or as a stand-alone product.
Timber Playhouse Arc
This quaint little playhouse adds a touch of fantasy to any playground! Shaped like a ‘Hobbit House’, it offers a cosy and relaxing environment for children to socialise while remaining sheltered from the elements. With an artificial grass covering on the roof, the Timber Playhouse Arc adds a natural aesthetic to the playground environment.
Our Teepee is ideal for younger children giving them the opportunity to develop their adventurous side providing great imaginative fun! This piece is perfect for linking with other pieces of equipment to build on a fun playground environment.
This eye-catching little train is guaranteed to keep the little ones entertained for hours! Suitable for indoor and outdoor play due to its compact size, it’s designed to encourage children to develop their social and imaginative skills as they engage in creative role play with their peers.
Timber Playhouse Construction Site
Let’s get building! Our Timber Playhouse – Construction Site is all about unleashing creativity and encouraging imaginative play outdoors. Children can collaborate and work together to create their own playhouse – boosting confidence and communication skills.
The Shop Front is ideal for encouraging imaginative play. Children can role-play as shopkeeper or customers – and enjoying plenty of social interaction in the process. Our Play boards and Wall Panels have been designed to feed their minds, encourage social skills and co-operation.
Motor Play Panel
With the Motor Play Panel, motoring fun comes to the playground with steering wheel, ignition key, movable gearstick, mirrors and windscreen. Plenty of scope for social and imaginative play. This can be used as stand-alone items or combined to form either a pod of activity.
Den Making Teepee
Our Den Making Teepee is a great addition to our range. It is ideal for younger children giving them the opportunity to develop their adventurous side allowing for lots of imaginative fun! This piece is perfect for linking with other pieces of equipment to build on a fun playground environment.
We have many more products in our Role Play Voyager range so check out them out here
If you are looking to develop your outdoor area, contact us today. As previously mentioned we have a team of experienced advisers waiting to assist you and take you that one step closer to the play area you’ve always wanted! | <urn:uuid:4f4a77a1-7433-4eaa-81cf-b9b11ba4e064> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://creativeplayuk.com/inspire-imaginative-play-play-garden/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572870.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817062258-20220817092258-00669.warc.gz | en | 0.942483 | 770 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Enter any integer as an input. After that we perform various operations like modulus and division to reverse the number and check whether the given integer is palindrome or not. Hence we generate the output accordingly.
Here is the source code of the Java Program to Reverse a Number & Check if it is a Palindrome. The Java program is successfully compiled and run on a Windows system. The program output is also shown below.
public class Palindrome
public static void main(String args)
int n, m, a = 0,x;
Scanner s = new Scanner(System.in);
System.out.print("Enter any number:");
n = s.nextInt();
m = n;
while(n > 0)
x = n % 10;
a = a * 10 + x;
n = n / 10;
if(a == m)
System.out.println("Given number "+m+" is Palindrome");
System.out.println("Given number "+m+" is Not Palindrome");
$ javac Palindrome.java $ java Palindrome Enter any number:121 Given number 121 is Palindrome Enter any number:145 Given number 145 is Not Palindrome
Sanfoundry Global Education & Learning Series – 1000 Java Programs. | <urn:uuid:1f29a7ab-aa3f-4c56-8b22-1b2ac6de43fe> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.sanfoundry.com/java-program-reverse-number-check-palindrome/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285289.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00147-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.663086 | 280 | 3.6875 | 4 |
2012 Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights - Morocco
|Publisher||International Trade Union Confederation|
|Publication Date||6 June 2012|
|Cite as||International Trade Union Confederation, 2012 Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights - Morocco, 6 June 2012, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/4fd8893428.html [accessed 24 January 2017]|
|Disclaimer||This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.|
ILO Core Conventions Ratified:
29 (Forced Labour (1930))
98 (Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining (1949))
100 (Equal Remuneration for Work of Equal Value (1951))
105 (Abolition of Forced Labour (1957))
111 (Discrimination in Employment and Occupation (1958))
138 (Minimum Age for Employment (1973))
182 (Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (1999))
Reported Violations – 2012
Documented violations – actual number of cases may be higher
Trade union freedoms are heavily curtailed in practice. The sudden spread of temporary work, export processing zones and sub-contracting makes organising very difficult. The number of strikes has steadily increased and they are often repressed by employers and the authorities.
In the wake of the Arab Spring, the 20th February movement, bringing together youths, cyber activists and Islamists, came out onto the streets to demand an end to corruption, greater social justice and constitutional reforms. The regime reacted by repressing the demonstrations, sometimes very severely. King Mohammed VI helped calm the unrest slightly by promising reforms. A revised Constitution was adopted by referendum in July and legislative elections in November were won by the Islamists of the Justice and Development Party. In April, 15 people died in a terrorist attack in a café in Marrakech.
Trade union rights in law
Although constitutional guarantees for freedom of association are in place, it is restricted by provisions in the Labour Code. Certain categories of workers are not allowed to form trade unions, including public servants, members of the judiciary, domestic workers and agricultural workers, and all union officials must be of Moroccan nationality.
Collective bargaining is confined to the most representative union, which must represent at least 35% of the total number of employees at the enterprise level. Despite the fact that the right to strike is guaranteed in the Constitution, employers are permitted to seek criminal prosecution of any strikers who hold a sit-in, damage property or carry out active picketing.
Link to additional detailed information regarding the legislation on the ITUC website here
Export processing zones expanding as unions face major challenges:
Organising in Morocco's export processing zones is very difficult. The zones are spreading rapidly across several regions and sectors of activity in Morocco. The biggest project is the transformation of the port at Tangiers into an international logistics hub. Activities in the zones are diversifying, and now cover the service sector (call centres, off-shore banking, information technology etc.) car manufacturing and aeronautics.
Trade union access to the zones is heavily restricted, making freedom of association almost impossible in practice.
Workers are too scared to form trade unions, for fear of losing their jobs.
The labour inspection service claims there are few problems concerning the respect of workers' rights in the zones but gives no statistics to back up this claim.
New translation: Strikes the only resort:
The number of strikes continued to rise in 2011. Even when taking into account the wave of protests linked to the Arab Spring, this rise is testament to the lack of social dialogue at enterprise level, and the employers' contempt for the legitimate demands of their workers, few of whom have union representation (6% of the working population and about 20 national trade union federations). Although social dialogue does exist at the national level, the trade union battle is often frowned on by public opinion, as was seen during strikes by workers in the justice system, local authorities or education in 2011. Yet striking is often the only means workers have to make themselves heard.
It is easy for employers to ignore the Labour Code thanks to the very weak labour inspection system. There are only 12 collective agreements which, like other legal provisions, are rarely respected. Yet the authorities and employers are quick to invoke legal restrictions when it comes to the right to strike or laws about disrupting the operations of the workplace to penalise strikers.
The main national trade union centres, including the three affiliated to the ITUC, have repeatedly denounced violations of freedom of association, for example at the National Agency for the Regulation of Telecommunications (ANRA), Maroc Telecom, Royal Air Maroc, Domaines Agricoles, Autoroutes du Maroc, to mention just a few cases, but such violations are widespread across every sector of activity.
Mass dismissal of temporary workers who tried to form a union: In April, 92 workers on temporary contracts at the Autoroutes du Maroc (Marocco Motorways ADM) Bouskoura operations centre were dismissed for trying to set up a trade union to seek recognition as ADM employees. The 900 mobile agents and toll collectors at all the operations centre across the country are employed through seven temporary employment agencies and many are not registered in the social security system. For several months, ADM refused to negotiate with the rebellious workers on the pretext that they were not ADM employees. After a strike was called on 19 July, management finally deigned to meet them and on 1 August, signed an agreement with the union, the Syndicat des employés des centres d'exploitation d'ADM, affiliated to the national centre the Union marocaine du travail (UMT). In the agreement ADM promised to take all necessary measures to oblige the temporary employment agencies to respect the Labour Code in full and to reinstate the 92 workers.
Call centre dismisses two trade unionists: On 1 April, in response to the creation of a trade union at the Rabat de Webhelp-Maroc site, management dismissed the treasurer of the new organisation, affiliated to the national centre the Confédération démocratique du travail (CDT), and then dismissed the general secretary on 18 April. Management also called in the police to question another member of the union.
Heavy prison terms for two CDT leaders: On 26 May Seddik Kabbouri and Mahjoub Chenou, both leaders of the local branch of the Confédération démocratique du travail (CDT) national centre and community activists, were arrested while taking part in a rally outside the Bouarfa court in solidarity with nine young activists on trial there for their participation in a demonstration on 18 May. The demonstration was in protest at the rising cost of living and to call for social justice and had been harshly repressed by police. On 26 July Seddik Kabbouri was given a two month prison sentence. Mahjoub Chenou and the other activists were handed 18-month terms.
Trade union victory at the docks despite tenacious employer opposition: On 12 August, dockers at the Eurogate Tangiers Mediterranean port held a 24 hour warning strike in response to management's refusal to even meet the union, let alone take on board their demands for improved pay and working conditions. Meetings took place between trade unionists from the transport section of the Union marocaine du travail (UMT) national centre and management, but the trade union's demands were not really taken seriously, leading to further paralysis at the Eurogate terminal on 18 September. Finally, on 16 November, after nine hours of negotiations, the employer agreed to recognise trade union rights and to negotiate a collective agreement with the dockers' representatives by the end of 2012. The Eurogate terminal is in the Tangiers export processing zone, next to APM Terminals, a giant in the sector, where an employer-union agreement was signed in February after several strikes. In both cases the unions were supported by the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) within the framework of its Global Network Terminals (GNT) campaign.
Harassment and sanctions at Royal Air Maroc: The day after a sit-in on 13 February at Casablanca airport that did not disrupt air traffic, five members of the local office of the Royal Air Maroc (RAM) union affiliated to the national trade union federation Union générale des travailleurs du Maroc (UGTM-RAM), including the General Secretary, were suspended from their posts. The human resources manager reversed the decision however on 15 February. At the beginning of March, RAM entered into another trial of strength with the flight crew of Atlas Blue, a low cost subsidiary, where more precarious contracts had been imposed, in violation of labour legislation. UGTM members had already been targeted by the employer in 2010 (see the 2011 edition of the Survey). | <urn:uuid:f8c5c2b3-1eb4-416b-92e7-e4ac6a7ac034> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.refworld.org/country,,,,MAR,456d621e2,4fd8893428,0.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285001.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00304-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943553 | 1,871 | 2 | 2 |
Malaysia still shy about condoms31st May 2007
Malaysian officials say they are reluctant openly to promote condom use for HIV/AIDS prevention purposes because they do not want to be seen as encouraging promiscuity.
Speaking on the subject of International AIDS Memorial Day, health minister Jalal Halil Khalil said condom campaigns were best handed to non-government groups like the Malaysian AIDS Council and its 37 affiliates.
Malaysia is currently home to around 75,000 people living with HIV. 70% of these inject drugs, according to the New Straits Times.
However, infection rates among women are on the rise, as is transmission of the virus during heterosexual sex, suggesting that current AIDS prevention strategies should be widened from drug users, sex workers and men who have sex with men.
Khalil said Malaysia is an Islamic country, and the government had to tread with care. He said giving information to all levels of society was necessary, although whether that information would change people's behaviour was unclear.
Datuk Zaman Khan, a trustee of the Malaysian AIDS Foundation, said he agreed that promoting condom use was the best method of controlling the spread of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. He said there were "so many taboos in this country," but that premarital sex happened anyway.
Adeeba Kamarulzaman, president of the Malaysian AIDS Council, said ideal behaviour would involve people waiting until they were in a long-term monogamous relationship to become sexually active. But such ideals, she said, were not always reflected in real life. "We have to match that with pragmatism," she said, emphasising the need to persuade young people to protect themselves and to protect public health.
Health officials have warned that nearly 300,000 Malaysian residents could become HIV-positive by 2015 unless increased efforts are made to reduce the spread of the virus.
The health ministry says virus is spreading quickly among intravenous drug users, women, fishermen, truck drivers and factory workers.
Last year, the government launched a five-year national strategic plan to reduce HIV transmission, including increased access to drug substitution therapy and needle-exchange programs among drug users, and free antiretrovirals for women and children at government clinics.
But three people die daily from AIDS-related illnesses nationwide, and officials fear the impact of HIV could reverse the country's development.
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Title: Malaysia still shy about condoms
Author: Luisetta Mudie
Article Id: 3006
Date Added: 31st May 2007 | <urn:uuid:cd0aec32-597a-459b-8121-3fded3110095> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.healthcare-today.co.uk/news/malaysia-still-shy-about-condoms/3006/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280221.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00232-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972316 | 557 | 1.867188 | 2 |
The shallow-marine Eocene Sogucak Limestone and Oligocene Ceylan Formation were studied in the northern and eastern parts of the Thrace Basin with detailed biometric analysis of the full spectrum of larger benthic foraminifera (mainly nummulitids and orthophragmines). This allows us to establish a high-resolution biostratigraphy in the context of the shallow benthic zonation (with SBZ zones) of the Tethyan Palaeogene since larger foraminiferal assemblages show a very strong Western Tethyan affinity. Only two species (Heterostegina armenica and Orbitoclypeus haynesi) are unknown so far to the west of the Thrace Basin. The age of particular larger foraminiferal sites is determined based on (i) the occurrence and developmental stage of different species of Heterostegina (H. armenica hacimasliensis n. ssp. is introduced here), (ii) the presence/absence of giant Nummulites, (iii) the presence/absence of Spiroclypeus, (iv) the developmental stage of reticulate Nummulites, (v) the occurrence and developmental stage of orthophragmines, (vi) the occurrence of particular Operculina and radiate Nummulites. Six larger foraminiferal horizons could be established. They correspond to (i) the vicinity of the early/late Bartonian boundary (SBZ 17/18), (ii) the middle late Bartonian (SBZ 18B), (iii) the latest Bartonian (SBZ 18C), (iv) the early Priabonian (SBZ 19), (v) the late Priabonian (SBZ 20) and (vi) the early Rupelian (SBZ 21). Three main shallow-water depositional environments could be recognized in both the late Bartonian and Priabonian: two of them took place in the middle shelf; one with low and another with high water-energy (back-bank and Nummulites-bank facies) whereas the third one refers to the outer shelf (fore-bank facies). Biostratigraphical and palaeoenvironmental observations allow us to reconstruct three subregions in the northern and eastern parts of the Thrace Basin with different depositional histories: (i) The eastern part of the territory, with an Istanbul Zone basement was flooded at the beginning of the middle late Bartonian (SBZ 18B), but the carbonate platform was drowned in the latest Bartonian (SBZ 18C). (ii) The Catalca block, lying on the Istranca Massif, formed a palaeohigh in whose peripheries a similar depositional history to for the former sub-region can be reconstructed, although the central part was transgressed only in the late Priabonian and was not drowned at all. (iii) The northern margin of the recent Thrace Basin (also lying on the Istranca Massif) was flooded only in the latest Bartonian (SBZ 18C) or in the early Priabonian (SBZ 19) and the Priabonian carbonate platform had only partly and shallowly been drowned. This subregion very probably formed the real northern margin of the whole Thrace Basin in the Palaeogene. | <urn:uuid:b118a13d-64d3-4edf-b433-fde19b9fa5a8> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://avesis.itu.edu.tr/yayin/daaca47b-2eed-4bad-bd7e-e9665d27d999/stratigraphy-and-larger-foraminifera-of-the-middle-eocene-to-lower-oligocene-shallow-marine-units-in-the-northern-and-eastern-parts-of-the-thrace-basin-nw-turkey | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00477.warc.gz | en | 0.905832 | 705 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Here's the proposal in a nutshell:
'The Kids are Alright (so give 'em the stage)'
Unless you are 15 years old in 2010, you have no idea what it's like to be 15 years old in 2010.
One of the most frustrating things about the education profession is the scant amount of time we spend listening to the ideas and reflections of the students we teach when it comes to the realities of what it feels like to be taught and to learn. We can talk amongst ourselves all we like about 'leadership' and 'educational tools' and 'best practices', but over and over again it's the voice of the students themselves -- the ones with the biggest stake in the debate -- that goes missing from the discussion.
So let's do something different with this keynote: Let's hear from the kids. Let's hear from the real experts: the students. Let's hear from kids who have no nostalgia for an analogue past. Let's hear from the idealists. Let's hear from the ones whose career and profession don't depend on scoring a keynote.
The kids are alright. Let's give 'em the stage.
Reflecting on what it is that I do everyday and what so many of you do everyday, I can't think of a better opportunity to really use the ISTE stage for something worthwhile than to hand it over to the students.
So often at these conferences, I feel like we talk about kids like they are mice in a lab.
Well, I say we shake up the conference scene and let the mice sing.
If you are with me on this, go ahead and vote here on ISTE's site. | <urn:uuid:9a0d7c57-8154-4705-a11b-6ec44fb6c495> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://teachpaperless.blogspot.com/2009/10/kids-are-alright-so-give-em-stage.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279224.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00475-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962135 | 341 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Instruments · · Bagpipes
· · Woodwinds
· · Recorders
· · Strings
· · Bowed Psaltery
Spanish bagpipes or Gaita Gallicia
The Galician gaita has a conical chanter and a bass drone (ronco) with a second octave. It may have one or two additional drones playing the tonic and dominant notes. Three keys are traditional: D (gaita grileira, lit. "cricket bagpipe"), C, and Bb. Galician pipe bands playing these instruments have become popular in recent years.The playing of close harmony (thirds and sixths) with two gaitas of the same key is a typical Galician gaita style. The term gaita may refer to a variety of different pipes, shawms, recorders, flutes and clarinets in different areas of Spain and Portugal.
The instrument was common and popular by the 15th century, followed by a decline until the 19th century renaissance of the instrument. The early 20th century saw another decline. Then, beginning in around the 1970s, a roots revival heralded another upsurge in popularity, popularised in no slight degree by the well loved Carlos Nunes.
Traditional use of the pipes include both solo performances or with a snare-drum known as tamboril (a wooden natural-skinned drum with gut snares), and the bombo, a bass drum.
Galician bagpipes come in three main varieties, though there are exceptions and unique instruments. These include the tumbal (B-flat), grileira (D) and redonda (C).
The player inflates the bag, often made of rubber, using his mouth through a tube fitted with a non-return valve. Air is driven into the chanter (Galician: punteiro) with the left arm controlling the pressure inside the bag. The chanter has a double reed similar to a shawm or oboe, and a conical bore with seven finger-holes on the front. The bass drone (ronco or roncon) is situated on the player's left shoulder and is pitched two octaves below the key note of the chanter; it has a single reed. Some bagpipes have up to two more drones, including the ronquillo or ronquilla, which sticks out from the bag and plays an octave above the ronco, or the smaller chilln. These two extra drones are located next to the right arm of the player.
The finger-holes include three for the left hand and four for the right, as well as one at the back for the left thumb. The chanter's tonic is played with the top six holes and the thumb hole covered by fingers. Starting at the bottom and (in the Galician fingering pattern) progressively opening holes creates the diatonic scale. Using techniques like cross-fingering and half-holding, the chromatic scale can be created. With extra pressure on the bag, the reed can be played in a second octave, thus giving range of an octave and a half from tonic to top note. It is also possible to close the tone hole with the little finger of the right hand, thus creating a semitone below the tonic.
Mike's set are made from boxwood with the traditional bag in the national colours of red and yellow.
The bagpipes depicted here are Bob's Flemish bagpipes used by REBEC in their louder sets of rennaissance dance tunes to contrast with Bob's songs. The drones are tied into a common stock as opposed to the Spanish and Highland pipes where the dromnes are tied into individual stocks. The form and size of the instrument varied from area to area, but the principle of chanter, drone(s) and the bag was in most cases common elements. An early engraving of the German "Sackpfeife" (bagpipe) appears in Martin Agricola's Musica instrumentalis deudsch (1529), which shows two drones, probably of different length, probably for different tuning. This form seems to have established itself as the most popular one for a long time and was adopted by the Dutch/Flemish musicians, as it is evident from numerous Dutch and Flemish paintings showing pipers, especially from the 17th century.
In Michael Praetorius' Syntagma musicum, II ("Theatrum instrumentorum", 1618-19) we find detailed descriptions and illustrations of various old German bagpipes, of which the Schäferpfeife (shepherd's pipe, called "Sackpfeife" by Agricola and Sebastian Virdung in his Musica getutscht, 1511) was the one most widely spread in the Netherlands as well as over entire northern Europe up to the 18th century.
Well-known examples of Dutch and Flemish bagpipes can be observed in Pieter Brueghel the Elder's cheerful pictures of peasants' weddings and dances.
Brueghel was probably the first and certainly the most renowned of contemporary genre painters who depicted bagpipers, both in paintings and etchings. His instruments still serve as models for many bagpipe makers today. Bob's pipes are made by Victor Nerrynx and based on the pipes in Breughal's paintings.
The Northumbrian smallpipes (also known as the Northumbrian pipes) are bellows-blown bagpipes from the North East of England. In a survey of the bagpipes in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford University, the organologist Anthony Baines wrote: It is perhaps the most civilized of the bagpipes, making no attempt to go farther than the traditional bagpipe music of melody over drone, but refining this music to the last degree.
The instrument consists of one chanter (generally with keys) and usually four drones. The cylindrically-bored chanter has a number of metal keys, most commonly seven, but chanters with a range of over two octaves can be made which require seventeen or more keys, all played with either the right hand thumb or left little finger. There is no overblowing employed to get this two octave range, so the keys are therefore necessary, together with the length of the chanter, for obtaining the two octaves.
The Northumbrian smallpipe's chanter having a completely closed end, combined with the unusually tight fingering style (each note is played by lifting only one finger or opening one key) means that traditional Northumbrian piping is staccato in style. Because the bores are so narrow, (typically about 4.3 millimetres for the chanter), the sound is far quieter than most other bagpipes.
The pipes depicted here were made by David Burleigh of Morpeth in Northumberland. | <urn:uuid:774b8256-4496-4035-ab34-4e1b98699732> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://www.rebecmusic.com/index.php?page=17 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570767.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808061828-20220808091828-00469.warc.gz | en | 0.952771 | 1,504 | 3.046875 | 3 |
CORE is dedicated to understanding and optimally managing the chronic disease of obesity and measuring the effects of weight loss on health, quality of life and survival (Mission Statement 2011). It is an international leader in the study of bariatric surgery. Our research aims to better understand obesity, obesity-related diseases (including psychosocial conditions) and to identify optimal methods for the safe, cost-effective, long-term management of this disease.
CORE is unique in applying a multidisciplinary approach to the study of obesity. It integrates a clinical obesity management program with strengths in medicine, surgery, psychology, epidemiology, public health and professional and community education. Through this integration, CORE is expertly placed to measure the health consequences of obesity and has the capacity to evaluate the health benefits of weight loss.
Centre for Obesity Research and Education (CORE) is a part of the Central Clinical School.
About the centre
The Centre for Obesity Research and Education
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Melbourne Vic 3004
P: +61 3 9903 0725
F: +61 3 9903 0717 | <urn:uuid:1fd1c032-2a9e-4b8c-aae8-e4b797986a51> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.core.monash.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281419.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00482-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902327 | 232 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Driving along Throckmorton street off route 9 in central New Jersey, one sees the railroad tracks appearing almost out of nowhere, side by side with the road, out of the shrubbery and trees that have grown like a hood around it.
The immigrant workers of Freehold Borough call it La Vía—the Way; for years they have walked along these tracks from neighboring areas to the center of town to gather and look for work. You see them walking or sitting along the embankment—Hispanic* men, weather-beaten and carrying backpacks, distinguishable now from pre-pandemic days by blue surgical masks donned to protect against COVID-19. In the early 2000s when they first began to make their presence felt, Freehold’s Hispanic laborers congregated in the town’s unofficial ‘muster zone,’ a shady patch alongside the tracks where workers waited to be picked up by contractors and anyone else hiring day labor. These days, they cluster in the parking lot of a 6/12 convenience store that abuts the railroad, or outside the bus station and the Rita’s Ices adjacent to it. The gathering places have shifted over time, but workers continue to flock to Freehold, some laying down roots, others passing through. After 9/11 and the passing of the Homeland Security Act, and as the border between the U.S. and Mexico becomes increasingly impermeable, many who would otherwise have returned home have stayed.
Freehold Borough—famous as Bruce Springsteen’s childhood home—is a tiny, historic town with a revolutionary past. A sign along the railroad on Throckmorton street commemorates the Battle of Monmouth, fought nearby in June 1778. One parallel street away from the 6/12 where the workers gather, is Main street and a picturesque downtown, with classical columns and the plaza at the Hall of Records on one end. Leaving the center of town, the street opens onto a neighborhood of pretty Victorian homes with restored sidings and wide-open porches and hanging flower baskets. In the 90s, Freehold became a hub for immigrant farm labor. By 2010, nearly half of its 12,000 residents were undocumented Hispanic workers and their families. Their numbers have only risen since then, crowded into the town’s barely 2-square mile radius.
Like elsewhere in the country, the pandemic shattered the fragile ecosystem of daily wage work in Freehold, subjecting its undocumented community to extreme loss of work and income. Shortly after March 14, when New Jersey declared a state of emergency in response to the pandemic, the local food pantry scrambled to meet a spike in need. Their work came to a premature halt when an infection was traced on-site. Rita Dentino, executive director of Casa Freehold, a grassroots advocacy and immigrant labor rights group, got a call asking for help. Would they take over food distribution until the food pantry could re-open? Even before the phone call, Dentino and her volunteers had begun drumming up efforts to meet food needs for the workers it serves. Now their offices became a food distribution center overnight. Town officials stepped in to provide an outdoor tent. The mayor paid a visit. Markers were placed on the ground six feet apart to meet social distancing requirements. Donations began coming in, and volunteers began dispatching 200 ‘survival boxes’ a week.
The pandemic put the town’s administration and Casa Freehold in the rare position of forming an alliance for purposes of contact tracing and food distribution—a critical development given a history of clashing over immigrant labor issues. Dentino leveraged the situation. She asked the town for permission to hang a banner with “Casa Freehold” emblazoned across it outside the tent. Featuring a painting of an immigrant worker in front of the Statue of Liberty, and the words ‘the job dignifies the man,’ the sign is visible from the street, placing the group and the workers they represent squarely in the public eye.
Dignity and jobs are not the only things that have been lost in Freehold, and lack of food is not the only looming health threat. Studies have established that low-income communities and communities of color are at persistently higher risk of falling severely ill from the coronavirus due to poor access to health benefits and economic challenges. The virus’ impact in Freehold is similarly disproportionate—by June, 72% of the town’s 404 positive cases self-reported as Latino/Hispanic. While the town addressed the community’s most urgent needs during the lockdown by distributing free food and household supplies, and providing access to free hospital care for qualifying COVID-19 patients, the inequities that the pandemic exposed also raised the question of how far Freehold’s daily wage workers have come in their struggle for legitimacy—in the legal void they occupy as undocumented immigrants, this is hard to measure.
The quarantine had been in place for two months when I visited Dentino on a warm spring afternoon in her office on Jackson Street.
Volunteers were entering and leaving at a staggered pace, trying to remain efficient while observing social distancing. A retired schoolteacher in a Knights of Columbus shirt and a couple of high schoolers moved boxes containing supplies, and a lean old man with a flowing white beard in a loose shirt and necklace, whom Dentino called her ‘invisible angel’, unloaded pizza cartons from his car. Volunteers milled around the tent, arranging donations on tables. She waved me into the front office where she was on the phone with a pharmacist, trying to organize a prescription for Federico, a 66-year-old Mexican car upholsterer who worked landscaping jobs in the area. He had just been released from CentraState Medical Center after treatment for COVID-19. His bill had come to over $460; Dentino was able to get him an alternate drug that was being offered free for the month. A young Guatemalan man, Wagner Menendez, came over to pick up food and deliveries to be taken to Federico’s apartment-–a converted single family home-–where he was quarantining in the single room he rents, like many day laborers in town who do not have a family here. Deliveries are typically left outside the front door, and another resident in the building picks them up and leaves them outside the quarantined patient’s door.
Dentino handed Wagner cash to buy the medicines. A state-financed program covers most uninsured patients treated for COVID-19 at CentraState, but not the cost of prescriptions, for which Casa Freehold uses funds raised through grants awarded by non-profits like the New Jersey Pandemic Relief Fund and relief gift cards issued by worker rights groups like the National Domestic Workers Alliance. One of the first things she did when Federico called to tell her he was sick, was to ask if he had enough money on his phone. “Their phones are their lifelines,” she told me, to communicate with their families, with employers, and to reach out for medical help, even more so for quarantining workers. Federico told Dentino that being in his room was making him claustrophobic; it was hard for him to be indoors. He was used to working outdoors—so she messaged him pictures of the outdoors. “Try to imagine you’re going on a walk,” she told him, “and I’ll send you pictures of the walk.”
“When you get to Trump’s election and all the xenophobia, it’s a flashpoint.”
At 75, Rita Dentino speaks with a musical lilt. Short haired and freckled, she grew up in nearby Ocean Township outside Asbury Park and calls herself an ‘American mutt’. Fluent in Spanish, she is the grandmother of a 4-year-old with whom she has been FaceTiming, post-COVID. She used to volunteer in a Central Jersey activist group formed in response to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but eventually joined an offshoot that aligned with Freehold’s Hispanic laborers.
Casa Freehold grew out of an ad-hoc coalition between an immigrant rights group formed by residents of Monmouth county and ‘Journaleros De Freehold,’ (Day Laborers of Freehold), led by Alejandro Abarca, a worker from Mexico. In the early 2000s, word got around that workers were available for hire at low wages in Freehold’s muster zone, making it a destination for contractors and workers alike. This irked some townsfolk who pressed the town council to prevent them from gathering. Things came to a head in 2003 when Freehold’s incumbent mayor, Michael Wilson, campaigned on an anti-immigrant platform, pushing for random home inspections that forced day laborers to stop looking for work. When protests and efforts to negotiate with the council failed, the laborers joined hands with supporting organizations and filed a federal lawsuit against the Borough of Freehold. The laborers won.
The court ruling permitted the men to return to the muster zone without fear of being ticketed by local police for loitering and panhandling. The laborers voted to pay a dollar a day from their daily wages to raise funds for a hiring center and related costs. “I was there every morning at 6,” said Dentino. “We would gather under a tree.” She took over when Abarca returned to Mexico in 2007 and remains unpaid.
“It’s not a new practice by any means,” said Scott Smith, an attorney who grew up in the area and does pro-bono work for Casa Freehold, about day laborers gathering for work in Central Jersey’s town centers. Thirty years ago, he was a high schooler and remembers that land around Freehold in Monmouth County was primarily agricultural. “We all worked on these farms, but all the planting and harvesting was done by teams of skilled Mexican farmworkers and they wouldn’t let us touch anything,” he laughed. “We got to do nothing; just scut work. They would come up from across the border, work the harvest season, and go back home.” The practice was widely accepted when the labor market was strong, until the 2008 recession, after which the level of animosity began to increase. “When you get to Trump’s election and all the xenophobia, it’s a flashpoint.”
“They didn’t allow black men to stand there like that, and I don’t know why nobody didn’t take it to court. Or do anything for black people.”
Migrant farm labor has long been a commodity in and around Freehold, made available by ethnic groups to white farmers. From the 40s through the 60s, farm workers were mostly African Americans who moved in from Florida and Texas during the great migration from the South and Mexicans brought in through the federal government’s Braceros program. Norma Randolph is eight-six, African American, was born and raised in Freehold borough, and has lived here all her life, attending Court Street elementary school when it was segregated. As a young girl, she remembers seeing black families from the South living in makeshift camps when they came to work in the farms around Freehold, and entire families sleeping under canvas tarpaulins in the back of their trucks. The civil rights movement led to an exodus of black farm workers. Seasonal workers continued to arrive from Mexico through the 80s. By the early 2000s, their numbers had grown, and many were settling in Freehold Borough for its walkability and availability of housing.
Randolph is a member of the Baptist congregation at the only local church that opened their doors to the day laborers when the lawsuit against the town was in process, enabling Casa Freehold to set up a temporary worker center in their fellowship hall. “The borough didn’t let them sit or stand on Throckmorton…,” Ms. Randolph said about the workers gathering ‘on the side of the road’. “They had to move the workers all the way down towards Englishtown. I saw that for myself, and that went on for a couple of years, until our church took them in.”
In the 70s and 80s, she said, it was no different for black men gathering in the center of Freehold Borough than it was later for Hispanic men. “They didn’t allow black men to stand there like that, and I don’t know why nobody didn’t take it to court. Or do anything for black people. If you think they could sit on the curbs or anything like that, no no no. You couldn’t see black men gathering on Throckmorton street then. The cop would come along and say, let’s go, let’s go…”
…In ’65 tension was running high at my high school
There was a lot of fights ‘tween the black and white
There was nothing you could do
Two cars at a light on a Saturday night
In the back seat there was a gun
Words were passed, then a shotgun blast
Troubled times had come to my hometown….
Now Main Street’s whitewashed windows and vacant stores
Seems like there ain’t nobody wants to come down here no more
They’re closing down the textile mill across the railroad tracks
Foreman says “These jobs are going, boys
And they ain’t coming back
To your hometown.”– Lyrics from Bruce Springsteen’s song ‘My Hometown’.
In 2004, finally entitled by the court ruling to gather for work, the workers who assembled outdoors under the trees in the muster zone got on La Lista—a list that regulated them to take turns at jobs and not outbid each other. Names on the list were called three times a day, at six, eight, and ten a.m. rain or shine, by Dentino, who trained laborers to take on the task of organizing their cohort. She said that the practice of calling the list was abandoned when workers began infighting. One of the organizers, a landscaper, was ‘worn out’ by men falsely accusing him of stealing the one-dollar donations that went into a bank account to provide for future expenses.
Councilwoman Annette Jordan spoke tentatively about the town’s relationship with its immigrant workers in the years since the lawsuit. “It’s been tough for the Latino population to assimilate but it is slowly changing,” said Jordan, recalling what she saw in 1998 when her son was in school. “The faces of his classmates were getting browner. Now we’re coming up to the second generation and that also changes the flow.” Explaining Freehold’s white residents’ initial hostility towards the laborers and their efforts to adjust to the demographic changes, she concluded, “It’s a learning curve. It’s not that we’ve come so far, we’ve come a long way.” She views immigrant laborers as essential workers but establishing a gathering space for them in Freehold is not a priority for local administration. “I’ve been on the council for two years, and that’s not something we’ve talked about,” she said. She pointed out that racial problems weren’t new to town and mentioned Springsteen’s song ‘My Hometown’, in which he sings wistfully about moving out of Freehold because of racial tensions and economic decline in the 60s, a song that Norma Randolph scoffed at, as fiercely as she scoffed at Springsteen himself. According to Randolph, he cut his teeth as a singer in his teens, performing with black kids in the African American community center on Broad Street but did ‘nothing’ for the black people who supported him. “I’m the one who has wrote him,” she said, “and he knows exactly who I am.”
In February, sensing a crisis, Angelica Espinal-Garcia, a board-member at Casa Freehold and health educator employed by Freehold’s Department of Health, began conducting information sessions about the novel coronavirus in Casa Freehold’s office and local churches.
In late March and April, as cases began to rise, she found herself becoming a liaison between the town’s Hispanic residents and the health department. Responding to calls from workers experiencing symptoms, she directed them to screening and triage at the community clinic, and began advising concerned employers and ‘encargados’—middlemen who rent apartments to workers who live in shared spaces—about what she called the most frustrating aspect of her work, assuaging stigma around the virus in the community. Since encargados are not the actual homeowners, they charge high rents—as much as $500 per room—and can take over their renters’ lives, even holding their mail until the rent is paid. Workers are afraid to come out and self-identify, she said, “they’re afraid of the police, of being fired.”
The CARES Act, the government’s bailout to aid families affected by the pandemic, has failed low-income, undocumented immigrant populations, and according to its critics was designed to do so. Most egregiously, it has excluded tax-paying undocumented immigrants, many of who have children who are American citizens. Alicia Valeriano is one of them.
“I’ve lived here 20 years. I didn’t get anything.”
Valeriano, 43, has been paying taxes using an ITIN (Individual Tax Identification Number) for 18 of the 20 years she has lived in Freehold, since arriving from Mexico City. ITINs let undocumented workers pay taxes on their earnings, but do not entitle them to social security benefits. She spoke to me in the drawing room of a small, immaculately kept house she rents in Freehold Borough, where she lives with her husband, a day laborer, and their three children. Her youngest two were born in the United States and are therefore U.S. citizens. “I have these two children; they have to eat too, but we are left out. I am disappointed. I’ve lived here 20 years. I didn’t get anything,” she said, referring to the CARES act, which bypassed her family completely, for the sole reason that she is undocumented. The effect of the pandemic on workers like her is even more far-reaching. Valeriano has been saving for years to buy a house. She had a down payment ready and was approved for a mortgage taken in her nephew and daughter’s names. Her oldest daughter is a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status. When the emergency was declared, her realtor told her their lenders would not proceed unless she could show stronger credit. At her request, I did not call her real estate agent to confirm this.
Three months later, she called her real estate agent again, to suggest that the mortgage be taken in her name, not her daughter’s. She was told that the rules had changed. The lender now worked only with clients who had social security numbers; since Valeriano is undocumented that wasn’t an option.
Valeriano’s husband contracted the virus in March and was unable to work for two months. Once he was well enough, he returned to the parking lot of the 6/12 to look for work, but without much success. Most day laborers in Freehold have seen employment decline from daily jobs to two days a week or less, with no income during the first weeks of the lockdown. According to Dentino, work slows down in the winter months, and usually begins to pick up in March. The lockdown extended the day laborers’ dry period through the end of May. Added to this is the endemic problem of wage theft that plagues undocumented workers. Eleazar, a kitchen worker who took time off during the lockdown because of falling sick with the virus, says he lost over $500 in wages that were owed to him. While it is against the law for employers to hire undocumented workers, once they have done so, they are legally obligated to pay them for the work they do. Even so, Eleazar was fearful of filing a complaint and exposing his undocumented status. He felt his only alternative was to find a new job.
“I came here with no education. All of us Hispanics are like that. This is such an important theme for us. It separates us from Americans. They go to school, they’re educated, they have knowledge. You can’t compare us, because we’re two different things.” – Hernan, day laborer
“We’re working to push the government to recognize the essentiality of these workers,” said Dentino, “this bailout is the most Draconian, racist move I’ve ever seen. Our immigrant workers are those who make it possible for people to quarantine themselves, from people who mow your lawn to warehouse workers.” But a bill to bailout undocumented taxpayers has yet to pass in the state senate. Its equivalent on the federal level, the House’s HEROES act, is expected to face fierce opposition in the Senate.
On the ground, Casa Freehold has tried to educate workers to insist that contractors provide PPE and respect social distancing rules when transporting them—a single van that would ordinarily be packed with men should carry only one or two. This is difficult, with workers struggling to pay for food and rent. Governor Phil Murphy’s temporary anti-eviction order is currently in place, but as with all federal pandemic support to date, undocumented laborers are not benefiting . “Rent forgiveness does not apply to these workers; the bailout does not go all the way to the bottom. I’ve never seen that,” said Dentino. A worker from nearby Lakewood who came home from the hospital after recovering from COVID-19 was told to move out within a week by his encargado, who feared that he would infect other tenants. Casa Freehold intervened to prevent the eviction.
Evictions have not been limited to removal from apartments. On May 19th, during the pandemic, Dentino was in a Zoom meeting that was cut short when an attorney representing Hector Garcia Mendoza, a day laborer from Freehold, received a phone call alerting her that he was being deported to Mexico. Mendoza was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in March, soon after the emergency was declared. He had since become one of four plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit demanding the release of all detainees at an ICE-operated detention center in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on the grounds that conditions in the center placed its inmates at high risk of contracting the virus. Two months later, without informing his attorneys and despite an emergency stay order, Mendoza was flown from Newark to Laredo, Texas. From there he was deported to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, a region notorious for gangs and narco activity, in what his attorneys say is a retaliatory act by ICE.
Immediately after he was deported, the Freehold Borough police emphatically denied any role in Mendoza’s arrest by ICE, even though he was arrested as he left the Freehold police station. He had been charged for stealing copper pipe and was released the same day. This led to accusations that the local police did tip off ICE, and the town was hit with weekly phone-zapping campaigns by activists and intense media scrutiny. A few weeks later, it came to light that Mendoza and another man were released from the police station that day, and that the Freehold Borough police did indeed tip-off ICE, but about the second man, who had a criminal record. ICE picked up both men. The campaign to close Jersey’s COVID-hit prisons temporarily became a campaign to find Mendoza, with advocates contacting prisons and detention centers near the Laredo-U.S. border, on the off-chance that he might have been detained if he tried to cross back into the States. As I write these words, he is still missing.
Councilwoman Annette Jordan attended a Casa Freehold volunteer meeting in July via Zoom. She and Dentino have discussed Jordan becoming a liaison for the town with Casa Freehold. According to a volunteer who was present at the meeting, and Dentino herself, the conversation got heated when Mendoza’s arrest by ICE came up. Dentino asked for Jordan’s cooperation in securing a written policy from the local police on what situations would prompt a call to ICE. Jordan deflected the questions. An email sent to her asking for a comment on the meeting was unanswered. A phone call placed to Captain Ronnie Steppat from the Freehold Borough Police, asking if his department had a policy about contacting ICE was not returned.
The pandemic sent Freehold’s Hispanic workers into a brief but scattered retreat from ICE, from renters and from the public eye, leaving them more isolated than before. The shadowy spaces they usually occupy were no longer available, in restaurant kitchens and in warehouses, and in gardens and backyards, where they vanish into the anonymity of their work. Though the threat of deportation changes with each administration—ICE operates with impunity under Trump but more deportations of undocumented immigrants occurred during the Obama Administration—the economic opportunities in the United States continue to outweigh the risks. The pandemic has been simply one more test of their mettle.
In a press release issued by Casa Freehold in 2006, after the laborers’ legal victory against the town, Dentino expressed the hope that the local community would find a place for its workers to gather, adding this: “We are saddened that the lawsuit was necessary.”
Fourteen years later there remains no town sanctioned site for its immigrant labor force to assemble. On a Sunday morning in late May, Dentino met me at the 6/12, Freehold’s unofficial muster zone for day laborers. The 6/12 opens early and is a natural stop for workers walking along the railroad in the early mornings for coffee and freshly made empanadas that are served from the store’s tiny kitchen.
Distributing cloth masks to the men waiting for work, Dentino chatted with the men she knew, and introduced herself to those she did not.
“They won’t come to me,” she said, knowingly, “I go to them.” She insisted they wear the masks; some humored her, others nodded and walked on. Dentino and I watched as a car pulled in and a group of young men scrambled into it, the promise of paid work outweighing the threat of the virus.
I stepped into the 6/12 to ask its owner, Manjeet Singh Minhas—’Manny’ to the workers—how he felt about his premises becoming a de-facto safe space for day laborers. “I’m an immigrant myself,” said Singh, a dark-skinned, middle-aged man from the state of Punjab, in northern India, “I don’t have a problem.”
Singh permits the men to gather inside his store when the weather is bad, which irritates some Freehold residents. “I’m not responsible if people are offended by them,” said Singh. A Google reviewer complained that a laborer did not hold the door open. He shrugged, “Why should he?” The men wire money from his store, often on a monthly basis, to their families back home. Singh observed that since the pandemic, the number of men coming in to do so has dropped. In April and May, many came in to collect money that their families wired to them, instead. He’s never seen this happen on such a scale. “They work hard. They’re here every morning.” he said, gesturing to the parking lot but alluding also to the laborers’ lack of financial and social mobility, “they’re not going anywhere.”
*While the word ‘LatinX’ is preferred in many circles, the writer chose to use the term ‘Hispanic’ to describe the workers in the story because this term best reflects how they refer to themselves.
Mario R*., Day Laborer
Mario (52), a day laborer and landscaper, is from Puebla, Mexico. “I am afraid of the water,” he said, shyly, with an apologetic smile, about his decision to avoid crossing to the US via the Rio Grande. He crossed over through the desert instead, in 2006, and arrived in Tucson, Arizona. A cousin had told him about plentiful work in Freehold. He arrived here by car after a journey of five days and five nights with other immigrants.
He spoke to me from the backyard of the house where he rents a single room. There were patches of mint and an evergreen pruned to a perfect spiral. He brought it home one day in his wheelbarrow, when a client did not want it anymore. “It was too pretty to throw away,” he said. He keeps his tools—the wheelbarrow and other implements—against a wall, beside the patch of herbs and flowers he tends.
Since the lockdown, his work has dropped to one or two days a week. Before the pandemic, he was able to wire up to $400 a month to his family in Puebla. This April he sent them 100$, in May, 150$. The pandemic has scared away even regular clients. No longer do they give him a ride in their vehicles to their houses; twice now, he has biked one hour each way to jobs in nearby towns.
In 2019, he was walking home from Casa Freehold when local police stopped him without cause and asked his name. When he hesitated to immediately disclose it, they took him to the police station, from where he called Rita Dentino, executive director of Casa Freehold and an old friend. She went to the police station immediately and filed a complaint with the ACLU. Mario, who has no criminal record, was released without either party pressing charges.
The pandemic has forced Mario to consider returning to Mexico within a year. He is simply not able to make ends meet. “I am tired,” he said. He has a wife, eight children and grandchildren back home. He plans to leave when he has earned enough to buy a plane ticket home. “This country is beautiful. But for immigrants, it’s not easy.” Tears sprang into his eyes. “The people are listening to the president, and so they say, ‘Mexicans are no good.’ Sometimes I am scared.”
Alicia Valeriano, Shift Supervisor/Pharmacy worker
Alicia Valeriano, 43, is from Mexico City. She was working almost 80 hours every week at three different jobs: waitressing, painting tiles, and as a cashier. In addition, she is pursuing a GED. She lost both her part time jobs during the lockdown, but still has 40 hours of work weekly as a permanent employee at a major pharmaceutical chain. She has worked hard and saved money for as long as she can remember. Alicia laughed, recalling how she got her first job exactly a day after she arrived in the States, working at the travel agency she had dropped into to make a phone call to her mother in Mexico City.
She and her husband have three children, two of whom were born in the US, making them American citizens. Despite her excellent record as a taxpayer, and her children’s legal status as American citizens, her family did not qualify for financial relief under the federal government’s CARES Act. The act has been widely criticized for excluding taxpaying undocumented immigrants and their families.
Valeriano met us in a small, tidy house she rents, complete with a backyard and a hammock and two cats. Her embrace of the American life is complete; she has learnt English and has been saving to buy a home. Her husband, a day laborer, was infected with COVID-19, and lost two months of work. Before the pandemic, Valeriano had only to worry about providing dinner for her children. Now, on a single income, she provides breakfast and lunch to the children, meals they previously received in school.
“The children see that you’re nervous about the money. They see you walking back and forth, and they notice it,” she said.
Though the CARES act hurt her, nothing has disappointed Valeriano more than having to postpone her dream of buying a home. The pandemic played a role in this. Valeriano had a down payment ready and was approved for a mortgage taken in her nephew and her 23-year old daughter’s names; her daughter is a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status. When the lockdown occurred, her realtor told her their lenders would not proceed unless she could show stronger credit. In June, Valeriano called her realtor again. She was ready to put down a larger down payment and take the loan in her name now. But the realtor had news for her: the rules had changed since the pandemic, and the lender was no longer working with buyers who did not have social security numbers. Valeriano is soft-spoken and reserved, and in her quiet voice, insisted to me over the phone, that she was disappointed but not deterred. “I’m not going to let anyone come between me and my dream,” she said. “I’m going to find a way to buy a house.”
*Oscar M., Day Laborer
Oscar, 45, arrived in Freehold in 2007 from Mexico City. In 2019, he began working independently; prior to this he worked for various construction crews. “I always liked my job, the people I worked with liked my work. I wanted to depend on myself, since I am good at what I do,” he told us. Until the lockdown, his old clients called him, and he would receive referrals from friends. Early in March, he began feeling ill and had trouble breathing. A week later, feeling very weak, he went to CentraState Hospital in Freehold, where he was diagnosed with COVID-19. He was admitted and kept in isolation. He has type-2 diabetes which put him at higher risk for severe illness from the virus. He learnt about the lockdown and the surge of the pandemic in New Jersey from television screens in hospital. He was intubated and released two weeks later upon recovery. Soon after, his wife, a domestic worker who cleans houses in Lakewood (many of the Orthodox Jewish community’s homes in Lakewood are cleaned by Freehold’s Hispanic women), also caught COVID-19. Her symptoms were milder, and she recovered at home.
“It was very sad; I didn’t know what to think. I thought I wasn’t going to make it. I had no strength left after I was released from the hospital,” he said. He is thankful that his wife continued working when he was in hospital. Between her earnings and their savings, they are able to support their family. Undocumented workers who pay taxes receive an ITIN (Individual Taxpayer Identification Number)—similar to a social security number. Oscar said that he has an ITIN number and has been paying taxes for two years now, with his wife; he thought he would receive a refund from the IRS but did not. He suspects that his tax consultant duped them.
Since returning from hospital, he worked for one week, and made enough to cover the family’s rent. He hopes that work will get busier. Meanwhile, the hospital bills are coming in, some with a notice of delinquency. “One is 1500/-,” he said and shook his head. He hopes to pay them off in installments.
Of America and his life here, he said, “It is a country with a lot of work, but the work doesn’t come to you. You have to look for it, and when you got work, you can go out and enjoy with your family.”
He crossed over to the US over 8 days in 2007, walking through the desert, leaving his wife at the time and two children behind in Mexico City. His daughter was 12 and his son, 10. He has not seen them since. Oscar hopes to secure a work permit through the U visa that his wife (this is his second marriage) has applied for, to be able to visit his grown children and return to the family he has in Freehold.
Though his 4-year-old son and 3 stepchildren are American citizens, his family was among those excluded from the CARES Act.
Angelica Espinal-Garcia, MPH, MCHES, Health Educator
As news of the novel coronavirus began to spread in February, Angelica Espinal-Garcia (36), a health educator for Freehold’s department of health and president of the board of Casa Freehold, began holding information sessions at local churches and in the offices of Casa Freehold on Jackson Street. “There was a lot of interest,” she said, “I felt that people were looking for me.” She advised them on what symptoms to look for, and what precautions to take, using guidance from the CDC, before the pandemic was declared a national emergency. Now, she is a liaison with the Hispanic community, helping them navigate the health care system when they call her or Casa Freehold with questions about the virus.
Her previous job at a large apartment leasing agency in town had already made Angelica a familiar figure to locals. “I try to listen,” she said, “so they can tell me. Trust is very valuable in the Hispanic community.” At the end of the initial surge of cases in Freehold Borough however, Angelica found herself dealing with a unique situation among workers who had recovered from COVID-19. Social stigma and fear within the community was preventing them from returning to their jobs and their living quarters as employers and the middlemen who rent to them—the ‘encargados’—required assurance that the workers were not contagious. “I get calls all the time,” she said, from desperate workers. She reaches out to their encargados. “Your renters are not the only people you can get it (the virus) from,” she tells them. “We’re Hispanic, we should support each other.”
Angelica is from Honduras. Her parents separated and her mother left for the US to escape political violence when Angelica was seven. Angelica’s grandmother raised her. She arrived in the US when she was 16 on a petition from her father, who is a citizen. Now an American citizen herself, Angelica was able to sponsor her siblings. They arrived in New Jersey in October 2019 and her mother was re-united with her daughter, Angelica’s stepsister, after 29 years.
“When I see inequities in the health system, to be honest, I see my parents, because I have seen them struggle,” she said. “I feel I’m doing the right job. Just talking to the patients’ co-workers, and to their encargados. They’re scared, they want to get the people out of the house if they tested positive. I feel I’m making a difference. I have seen good outcomes. In public health a lot of our work is backstage, but I do see an impact.”
*Federico M., Day Laborer
Federico (66), has been in Freehold since 2008. He is from Puebla, Mexico, where he upholstered car interiors. Despite the perils of crossing the border, Federico is among many migrants who travel back and forth between the US and Mexico, staying for years at a time. He came to West Virginia in 1998 and returned to Mexico after two years. In 2008 he arrived in Freehold because of the promise of plentiful work. The second trip through the Sonoran Desert lasted five days and was a brush with death for Federico. “My legs gave out,” he said. His food and water ran out and he fell behind, unable to stand up and join the other men. His smuggler or ‘coyote’ came back for him with water and medicines that gave him the energy to walk. He was told to follow a trail of garbage and items shed by those who came before him—or risk getting lost. He crossed over into the States somewhere east of the border with Tijuana.
Federico worked a factory job with a plastic manufacturer for several years before switching to groundskeeping at the raceway in Englishtown, a few miles away from Freehold. The raceway usually closes in the winter months. Now, with the pandemic, it remains closed and Federico has not worked since March.
In mid-March he was infected by the virus and checked into CentraState Medical Center in Freehold, where he was intubated and treated. The nurses pitched in to pay for his taxi-ride home when he was released from hospital. Casa Freehold arranged for funds to pay for his medicines and delivered food outside in the house where he quarantined.
News travels fast in a town as small as Freehold, and it was not long before word spread among fellow workers that Federico had been sick. “After they know you have COVID, they don’t want to have anything to do with you,” he said. Leaving the hospital with no prospects for work, no home to go to, and no money to send his family was a moment of reckoning. At the end of this year, Federico plans to return to Puebla. He has, after all, fulfilled his dream of building a house for his wife and four children, and has paid for their education. “I feel like a cat with nine lives. I got two chances at life—once in the desert, and now after COVID,” he said. “Going home to Mexico will give me another chance to live, another start.”
*Gregoria R., Domestic worker/ House cleaner
Gregoria (52), a domestic worker, left Puebla, Mexico, in 1992 for the US. She came directly to Freehold after crossing the border, to join her father who was already there, working as a day laborer. Her first job was at a greenhouse in Colt’s Neck, then as a busgirl at a local restaurant.
In her first months in Freehold, she walked around town, hustling for work. “I could not speak much English,” she said, “but when I met people I asked—you need me?” She worked for 10 years in the dry-cleaning business, keeping 8-hour days, 6 days a week, operating pressing machines for men’s shirts in very hot conditions. She quit when she developed chronic pains in her neck and back.
Since 2010, Gregoria has been cleaning homes for the Orthodox Jewish Community in Lakewood, New Jersey, south of Freehold. The number of Hispanic women who clean houses in Lakewood is so high that Casa Freehold offers classes on how to work in observant Jewish households. Before the pandemic, Gregoria was able to work 5 days a week, cleaning 2-3 houses a day. When news of the virus began to spread, some employers began asking her as she came into their houses if she was sick or experiencing symptoms. In March, when the lockdown began, they called and told her to stay home. “I lost all my former employers,” she said, “They just don’t call me.” Feeling desperate, she texted an old employer, asking if she could come back. With her help, Gregoria returned to work in the first week of June. Unlike before COVID-19, now she has no guarantee of a schedule.
Gregoria raises her two school-age daughters in the second-floor apartment of a tiny house on Court Street. Sixth-grader Mari translated for us. Gregoria was able to pay rent for April, but not May. Governor Murphy’s anti-eviction order protects renters who lapsed on rent during the lockdown, but the rent is not forgiven. “I feel stressed all the time—there is stress in my head,” she said. She takes a bus to Lakewood and back, paying $3.80 for a ticket each way. She and the other women from Freehold walk from house to house, earning an hourly wage between $10 and $14.
I later found out that Gregoria’s husband was deported to Mexico on charges of domestic violence. Casa Freehold intervened on her behalf to file a ‘U’ visa, which is awarded to victims of domestic violence. In 2011, on the date she was to appear in court, Gregoria went to work, missing the single appointment that could have put her on a path to citizenship. She is not alone in this. Many undocumented immigrants are overwhelmed or simply frightened to choose between putting a day’s wages on the table and showing up in court to speak for themselves. Does she regret it? I asked. “Yes,” she nodded, “but I didn’t understand at that time how important it was, and I had the pressure of working to pay my bills.” Wistfully, she added, “Now I know.”
*Eleazar H., Kitchen worker
Eleazar (45), is from Oaxaca, Mexico. He has worked in the same restaurant on Main Street in downtown Freehold since 2004. It has had several different owners over the 16 years, and Eleazar reeled off the names of some of the dishes he’s learned—American, Italian and Indian. Though he could earn more as a day laborer, he prefers the security of kitchen work. He got his first and only raise six years ago, from $250 a week to $550.
In 2016, the restaurant changed hands again. Eleazar’s new employers paid his wages a week late, so that he was always short one week of pay. Employers of undocumented workers often withhold wages in the form of a “deposit” that is actually a bond intended to keep workers loyal. When the lockdown occurred Eleazar asked for his deposit to tide over the month of March. He was refused. Still, he went back to work on take-out orders. A week and a half later, feeling feverish and cold, he went to a doctor to get tested for COVID-19. The test came back positive and he began treatment. He has since recovered, but he suffered malaise and panic, with sleepless nights spent pacing outside the basement apartment he shares with two friends.
In June, after two months at home without pay, he got a call from the chef at the restaurant. The restaurant was re-opening, the chef said, but Eleazar needed to prove that his “body was clean” before he could come back to work. He asked Eleazar to get tested again. By now, with help from Angelica Espinal-Garcia, a health educator, Eleazar refused to get re-tested. There was no guarantee that the results would be negative, even though he had recovered: “No more, I told him, no more.” He wasn’t coming back; he told the surprised chef. He was more than a cook at the restaurant; he was their handy-man, plumber—an all-in-one guy—but his wages never reflected this except for occasional extra cash.
Eleazar is now working a new job at a restaurant in Manalapan and paying off bills for his treatment. Of an additional $700 his employers owed him in back pay, he was paid $250. The wage theft that Eleazar experienced for years came to a head during the pandemic. It forced him to find new work, yet it could happen all over again.
*Last names have been omitted, to protect the identities of these individuals. | <urn:uuid:7b89c4c1-4e13-4d1e-8ae0-39678114af8f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://newestamericans.com/essential-until-expendable/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00266.warc.gz | en | 0.983299 | 10,274 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Decades ago, the stereotype personal image of a successful person was a one wearing a business suit and working in a pristine office inside a tall office building. He drives to work in a nice car. His staff greets him in the morning, and his secretary reminds him of his daily meetings. All day, he checks out his computer, calls clients and partners to strike deals, or determines a strategy to improve the company’s growth. At times, he goes out of his office to meet business partners over lunch or travel to another side of the world to monitor a company branch.
Typical corporate work does have its own disadvantages. Obviously, one has to spend time and money in commuting or driving to the workplace. Also, at work, one is always at the behest of superiors, which can cause friction, resentment, and feelings of modern “slavery.” To maintain a positive working environment, the person needs to adjust to the whim, character, and attitude of each of his teammates and managers. Finally, there are deadlines to beat, reports to be made, and managers to impress. All these and other factors can cause stress, disillusion, and resentment.
Today, there is now another option to pave one’s way to success, and that is by establishing a home business. As its name implies, it is an enterprise which is run from one’s own home.
If you are a person who is sick of having a corporate career, then having your own home business may be the perfect option for you. Consider the advantages:
* No more commuting or driving from your home to work. That means you save on time, money, and gas.
* No more dress codes. Are you uncomfortable wearing a coat and tie or a corporate blouse? Well, having a home business solves that; you can wear anything you’re comfortable with! There’s a bonus: you don’t have to spend on new business attire anymore.
* You can save money! You don’t have to buy food for lunch because you have it in your own fridge. You don’t have to head to the coffee shop because you can make your own coffee at home.
* You can make your office the way you want it. Do you want to make your office purple? Do you want an office decorated with flowers? For sure, you can’t modify your working space in a corporate office, But you certainly can customize your office at home.
* No one to boss you around. You are your own boss! You are the author of your own success.
* You enjoy utmost flexibility. You establish your own schedule. You can “take a leave” whenever you want, with no one hindering you.
* There’s no need to fill up forms and documents to do anything.
* You can spend time with your family. Just think: at home, you can work on a project while keeping watch over the baby. During breaks, you can simply head to the kitchen and cook something for lunch.
* Without a boss who is constantly breathing on your back or officemates whom you can’t stand working with, you experience less stress.
* Home business gives you a chance to work while you travel. Simply bring a netbook or a laptop during your sojourn, and plug it in a place that has an Internet connection. That’s the best of both worlds, right?
Go for home business now! | <urn:uuid:740777ca-3ed0-4096-ad03-a3d5fd912259> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://dandgpropertyservices.com/working-at-home-carving-your-own-career/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572304.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816120802-20220816150802-00466.warc.gz | en | 0.968967 | 722 | 2.03125 | 2 |
If you look around your house, there are a variety of different drains that need to be kept clean so that they work properly. We have the training and equipment to handle any kind of drain clearing challenge, including:
Kitchen drains. Grease, soap and food waste can take their toll, making your drains clog and run more slowly over time.
Shower drains. Water should drain almost immediately when you’re showering and in just a few minutes after a bath. If it is draining slowly, your shower trap and drainpipe is probably clogged with soap and other residue.
Bath room sink drains. Slow draining and clogging are often a result of toothpaste, soap and grime. If you lose something down the sink drain, don’t run any more water. Call us and we should be able to retrieve the lost item without too much difficulty.
Toilet drains. A clogged toilet is often caused by attempting to flush facial tissue, baby wipes or other products that don’t disintegrate the way toilet paper does. And in the case of young children you may have a toy or sock in the works. Fortunately, we can clear the obstruction with our drain clearing service and give your toilet drain a thorough cleaning at the same time.
Main sewerage pipeworks. All your household drains lead into your main sewer line, which connects to a public sewer line or septic tank. The clogging culprit here may well be water-seeking roots that can actually break through the line and clog the drains. We can carry out remedial drain clearing works and make good recommendations for further action as required. Often proactive regular maintenance of drains can prevent long term damage and save in overall costs.
For all your drains maintenance and repairs, give Derek Scally Plumbing a call. No job is too big or too small ! | <urn:uuid:bb8d9846-34fa-471b-913a-8d43d78587cb> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://derekscallyplumbing.ie/heating-plumbing-services/drain-clearing | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571950.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813111851-20220813141851-00676.warc.gz | en | 0.944046 | 379 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Yeltsin’s legacy – 10 years on
His successor – Russia’s current and then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin – took over the country with a 5-year-old bloodletting conflict in the Caucasus, a stagnating economy and an uncertain attitude coming from the West.
A decade on, Russia has changed in many ways. What has stayed and what hass gone? And what foundations which were laid during the Yeltsin era proved to be useful nowadays?
The 1990’s, during which Boris Yeltsin served both of his presidential terms, have been described in many different ways – from chaotic and turbulent to liberal and reformist. But if there was one description fitting best – those were the times of hope for post-Soviet Russia. Hope for a new, better life and for new, democratic values.
One of those was practically immediately felt in the mass media sphere. The number of TV channels, newspapers and radio stations increased dramatically, compared to Soviet times. Such a thing as an opposition press also established itself. Vitaliy Yaroshevskiy, now deputy editor-in-chief of the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, says that even though the media wasn’t completely free back then, it was still the first step towards the free press. And the hands of journalists were practically loose in 1990s, as they could say whatever they felt.
“We – as opposition press – had much easier access to government officials for interviews than now. We were open in criticizing Yeltsin for starting the war in Chechnya. He had been lambasted all the time by the press, but, surprisingly, he had been saying that he would protect us – journalists. None of those are present nowadays,” Yaroshevskiy says.
One of Russia’s best-known employees – journalist Anna Politkovskaya – was killed on the doorstep of her apartment in November 2006. That – along with more journalists who have died in the line of duty since Yeltsin’s era – has made many media workers think that their work has become dangerous in Russia. Just as many foreign media lashed out at Russian leadership for what they described as “strangling the freedom of the press”. However, well-known journalist Nikolay Svanidze – who headed one of Russia’s major TV stations in the 1990s – speaks of another danger, also gravely serious according to him – which was typical for the post-Soviet media in Yeltsin’s Russia:
“Most of the media back then was controlled by wealthy tycoons – or oligarchs. They often put their financial interests above those of their audience; they embarked on media wars against each other and – at times – collaborated against the Kremlin. They had so much influence that they even forced decisions to change governments. It’s scary to think of what else they could have done. Such dangerous dependence of the media on interests of oligarchs was ceased by Putin”.
Yeltsin’s radical economic policies were – and still are – heavily criticized. Shock therapy policy and privatization were meant to transit the country to market economy, but, in the end, left the country running poor. However, Yevgeny Yasin, the former Russian Minister for the Economy under Boris Yeltsin and currently a research director at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, says there was no way to avoid pain in the transit period.
"The reforms were absolutely urgent and needed. Yes, they could be pursued slightly milder, but that wouldn’t change the overall perception of them in the society. Any person, who was close to those decisions and understood what was actually happening in the country, would tell you the same thing. The reforms first provided the country with free market and private property and then gave all the necessary impulses for the development of market economy, which exists until now – tax system, budget system, banks and so on."
However, these very changes led to many entrepreneurs becoming extremely wealthy in a very short period of time, earning themselves a collective name – oligarchs. As the country was striving towards a market economy, it was extremely easy for them – with their connections, that is – to get just about every sphere of industry and production under their control. At times, not in a very legal way – some of them were criminal bosses who achieved vast wealth by acquiring state assets very cheaply. At the same time, Yasin says, oligarchs are always there at the stage of the primary accumulation of capital.
“At such periods, the so-called oligarchs are inevitable. When people get opportunities to accumulate capital and get rent in the bottlenecks of the undeveloped emerging market economy, it inevitably leads to the drastic stratification of society. As a matter of fact, if you want your economy to be based on private capital, not on the state one, the capital needs to be concentrated in order to then pass over to the investment phase of development. That means, though, that very few individuals get enormously rich, the rest of the population are not able to exploit the situation and either remain on their level or get poorer, not willing to risk and not knowing how to run businesses.”
The overwhelming majority of ordinary people, though, are no experts in economic theory, so when Yeltsin’s second presidential term was coming to a close, the oligarchs became extremely unpopular with the Russian public. Many blamed them for the economic turmoil. Moreover, the oligarchs’ influence was so strong in the country that, some say, it was oligarchs who brought Yeltsin – who by then barely stood any chance of being re-elected – to power again in 1996.
High inflation in early 1990’s, the financial turmoil of 1998, bloodshed in Chechnya – when Putin came to power, Russia’s economy was in tatters. In a rather short space of time, though, Putin managed to distance big business away from politics and re-structure the economy, and Russia has started experiencing vast economic growth. In 1999, the country’s GDP stood at US$300 billion, a decade later, it is 5 times that. According to economist Yevgeny Yasin, it is to a certain extent thanks to the continuation of Yeltsin’s economic policy.
“One of the main goals of Putin’s governance is political stabilization, which always was and still is a vital condition for further economic development. Secondly, Putin actually kept continuity of Yeltsin’s economic course, maintaining the same liberal rhetoric and keeping many liberally-oriented figures, such as German Gref or Aleksey Kudrin on the key governing positions,” believes Yasin.
Another difference of the two eras was the foreign policy. Analysts admit that the international goals of Yeltsin and Putin have been the same: to resurrect Russia as a major player in the international arena after a period of major concessions to the West in the 1990s. It is only the methods which differed. While Yeltsin pushed for Moscow’s recognition as an important voice in global decision-making by entering different organizations like the G8 and the UN Security Council (a possibility of Russia joining NATO was also discussed back then), there has been very little progress towards membership in alliances of any sort since 1999.
Political analyst and Editor-in-Chief of the “Russia in Global Affairs” magazine Fedor Lukyanov sums it up:
“During Putin’s presidency, Russia has returned as a serious international force. It is being reckoned with and it is being listened to. But I would say that Yeltsin’s foreign policy was a little bit more effective in terms of price-quality comparison. He managed to achieve big success with much fewer resources”.
Many of the successes at the international level took place alongside serious domestic tensions. The splash of criminal and terrorist activity in Chechnya in the 1990s was a serious threat to Russia’s integrity with some parts of the country thinking of going AWOL.
But political analyst Vyacheslav Nikonov says that threats of separatism thrived from malfunctioning legislation in the 1990s:
“The Chechen separatist movement was sending shockwaves across the country. Besides, a third of all laws in the regions were not correspondent with the federal law. Apart from ending the war in Chechnya, Putin also introduced a system of presidential envoys into Russia’s regions and now legal differences amount to only 2 percent nationwide. This, to a large extent, kept the country in one piece”.
After all, 10 years is not too long a period to make ultimate judgments both about Yeltsin himself and about his era. Historians and analysts still vary markedly in their comparisons of Yeltsin’s Russia and what came after.
However, despite all the ebbs and flows of his era that historians speak of, many agree: Russia’s first president definitely laid the foundations for many advantages that the country enjoys nowadays. Even if they were not something he planned or expected.
Boris Yeltsin passed away on April 23rd, 2007. Tens of thousands flocked to Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow to bid their farewells.
Aleksey Yaroshevsky, RT | <urn:uuid:0d5d7360-ac8c-4917-874e-0ee044d4ff27> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.rt.com/politics/yeltsin-resignation-legacy-president/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281162.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00531-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977011 | 1,939 | 2.296875 | 2 |
SAVE TIME PLANNING & EASILY MONITOR STUDENT PROGRESS WITH PREMIUM MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUIZES
Business Expansion - Mergers & Takeovers - Digital Worksheet
Study time: 30m
This worksheet is designed to consolidate the knowledge students have gained by watching the video. The resource is available as an editable Powerpoint or a PDF and is perfect for posting to Google Classroom or Microsoft Teams. | <urn:uuid:d8bbd7fe-795c-4ea7-84d2-dee673901510> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.bizzwizard.co.uk/course/mergersandtakeovers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571097.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810010059-20220810040059-00274.warc.gz | en | 0.826642 | 110 | 1.6875 | 2 |
252.02 Removal of Existing Rigid Pavement
252.03 Correction of Subgrade
252.04 Placement of Asphalt Concrete
252.05 Method of Measurement
252.06 Basis of Payment
252.01 Description. This work consists of the full depth removal of existing rigid pavement in areas exhibiting deterioration, correcting the subgrade, placing and compacting asphalt concrete, and restoring the shoulders.
Thoroughly and uniformly compact the first lift and all intermediate lifts using suitable mechanical compaction equipment operated over the entire replacement area.
Compact the final lift using a Type I pneumatic tire roller that conforms to 401.13. Make at least 18 passes over all points on the entire surface of the repair area. A pass is defined as one movement of the roller over the surface of the patch. As the rolling progresses, add additional patching material, as necessary, to produce a smooth surface flush with the existing pavement surface.
Continuously compact each lift while the material is in a workable condition throughout the depth of the lift.
Maintain the repairs flush with the existing pavement surface by adding and compacting or by removing asphalt concrete in a manner satisfactory to the Engineer. If the Contract includes the resurfacing of the existing pavement, maintain the repairs flush with the existing pavement surface until the pavement is resurfaced.
Seal the surface of the repaired area to prevent raveling by applying approved 702.04 asphalt material, RS-1, RS-2, CRS-1, or CRS-2, with a squeegee. Evenly apply 703.06 sand cover aggregate according to 407.07.
After completing repairs, restore the existing shoulders to the condition that existed prior to the repair work.
252.05 Method of Measurement. The Department will measure the quantity of Full Depth Rigid Pavement Removal and Flexible Replacement by the number of square yards (square meters) of rigid pavement repaired in the complete and accepted work, calculated using the dimensions established by the Engineer.
The Department will measure the quantity of Full Depth Pavement Sawing by the number of feet (meters) of full depth saw cuts in the complete and accepted work.
252.06 Basis of Payment. Payment is full compensation for furnishing all materials, including paint, removing pavement, correcting the subgrade, placing flexible pavement, sealing, and restoring the shoulders and for all labor, equipment, and incidentals necessary to complete this work.
The Department will not pay for removal, disposal, and replacement of pavement damaged adjacent to the repair area.
The Department will pay for accepted quantities at the contract prices as follows:
Item unit Description
Yard Full Depth Rigid
(Square Meter) Removal and Flexible Replacement
252 Foot (Meter) Full Depth Pavement Sawing | <urn:uuid:c05a91d4-de22-48ae-90ff-a83f7d4b56d5> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.dot.state.oh.us/Divisions/ConstructionMgt/OnlineDocs/Specifications/2005CMS/250/252.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279650.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00438-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.882457 | 577 | 1.632813 | 2 |
(CNN) -- Libyans opposed to longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi vowed to hit the streets again Sunday, saying a violent crackdown by security forces since demonstrations began last week has energized their ranks.
Benghazi, the North African nation's second-largest city and hub of its eastern province, was home to some of the bloodiest clashes Saturday. Still, an anti-government demonstrator there said that despite having been barraged for days by tear gas and bullets, many of his colleagues slept overnight outside the city's courthouse and planned another rally at 1 p.m. Sunday.
"There are a lot of people getting killed for their freedom," the man, who was not identified for safety reasons, told CNN early Sunday. "Our goal is simple: We want Gadhafi to leave. We want freedom. ... We want democracy."
The man, a technology expert who has set up cameras airing live online video streams around Benghazi, estimated that the numbers of anti-government demonstrators in the city has grown 20% since the protests began Tuesday.
Another protester in Misratah, a city about 250 km (155 miles) east of Tripoli, said that roughly 1,300 remained on the streets there through the night and into the morning Sunday, burning pictures of Gadhafi and calling for an end to his rule.
CNN could not independently confirm information on the escalating unrest in Libya, the most isolated nation in the region, though it has interviewed numerous witnesses by phone. The government has not responded to repeated requests from CNN for access to the country and maintains tight control over communications.
Instead, a report from Libya's state-run JANA news agency blames "acts of sabotage and burning" on outsiders aiming to undermine the nation's stability, security and unity. The report claims that the unrest has been fomented in Libya as well as Tunisia, Morocco, Sudan, Egypt, Lebanon and Iran by an Israeli-led network of covert operatives.
Since Wednesday, authorities have arrested "dozens of foreign members of this network who were trained on starting clashes," the JANA story said, adding that the outsiders were of Tunisian, Egyptian, Sudanese, Turkish, Palestinian and Syrian descent.
Meanwhile, the toll from the unrest continued to mount Saturday. While Human Rights Watch, citing interviews with hospital staff and witnesses, reported 84 deaths since Tuesday, the total number is unknown and couldn't be independently confirmed by CNN.
Medical sources at Misratah Medical Complex said that at least three died and 70 were wounded in clashes Saturday between security forces and anti-government protesters. Three of those injured are in critical condition, the sources said.
A doctor treating the injured in Benghazi's Al Jala hospital said that at least 30 people died Saturday, most from gunshot wounds to the head. Hovering helicopters fired into the crowds and the hospital was receiving a steady stream of injured people, said the doctor, who CNN is also not identifying for security reasons.
His count did not include casualties from a clash between the protesters on the funeral march and soldiers at a military camp. Soldiers there fired tear gas and guns; the protesters hurled rocks and at least two hand grenades, witnesses said.
"The situation is critical right now," said the doctor. "The city is effectively under siege."
Lt. Col. Mohammed al-Majbari, who helped lead Libyan military forces in Benghazi before deciding early this week to join the opposition, claimed that government forces, aided by mercenaries from other African countries, "caused a massacre."
"It is time for freedom," al-Majbari said. "(Gadhafi) is not a human being. A Libyan would never do this to his people. He is a dictator."
Several eyewitnesses told CNN that cars of riflemen drove past protesters, indiscriminately firing at them.
A Libyan woman supportive of the protesters, who was not identified to protect her safety, told CNN that army soldiers on Saturday initially claimed solidarity with the demonstrators, only to reverse their tack and open fire on the crowd.
"The soldiers ... said, 'We are with you.' We believed them," she said. "After that, they started shooting the people. Why? Why did they lie?"
Other eyewitnesses told CNN that anti-government demonstrators used a bulldozer Saturday to tear down part of a wall at Alfadeel Abu-Omar military camp, and were fired upon as they retreated. Many were hit by mortar and automatic weapon fire, the witnesses said.
"We are peaceful people," the technology expert said early Sunday from Benghazi. "They are killing unarmed civilians."
Others in Libya reported similar protests in the cities of al-Baida, Ajdabiya and significantly in Misratah -- an indication that the demonstrations centered in the east were spreading west.
Anti-government protesters leaving noon prayers Saturday at Misratah's Al-Sheikh mosque were confronted by pro-Gadhafi demonstrators, two witnesses told CNN. Security forces stepped in, firing tear gas to disperse the crowds.
After the anti-government group moved to another square, security forces fired into the crowd, one protester said.
A protester, identified only as Moftah, told CNN that Libyans, inspired by the toppling of dictators in neighboring Egypt and Tunisia, had simply had enough of Gadhafi.
"He will tell you that his secret police are everywhere," Moftah said. "It's time to break this fear barrier. We reach a point that we don't care anymore."
A Libyan source in exile, who has knowledge of events inside the country, said Saturday that the government was bringing in special military units. He said anti-Gadhafi factions now "control" increasing parts of eastern Libya, aided by "police and security forces there (who) also belong to tribes."
To counter that, the government is using "military squads of African origin," the source said, voicing the same claim made by Majbari. "They are not restricted or bound by tribal ties," and can therefore be better counted on to suppress the opposition.
"Violence in the east will escalate because of the tribal mentality of revenge," the source said, claiming reports of violence there had already fueled sporadic demonstrations in western Libya.
Gadhafi's regime, however, has sought to portray a different picture of events.
Having previously aired extensive footage of pro-Gadhafi rallies in Tripoli, a Libyan state television program on Saturday described the anti-government protests as acts of sabotage.
The report claimed that hospitals, banks, courthouses, prisons, security centers and military police headquarters had been burned, showing videos of buildings on fire and the aftermath of destroyed and scorched locales.
The anchor said that security forces had managed to arrest dozens of people, claiming they were part of a foreign network of agitators trained to spark clashes and create chaos. The official Jamahiriya News Agency also reported that Gadhafi had spoken in recent days with fellow leaders from Guinea, Liberia and Yemen.
The government also sent out, via text, a tacit warning against "the inappropriate use of telecommunications services (that) contradict our religion ... our customs ... and our traditions." Internet service in Libya shut down Friday evening, though it was more available by Sunday.
The government's firm grip on power heightened the concerns of a woman from Benghazi, who urged U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders to help the Libyan people in the face of the government crackdown.
"We have no freedom here," she said. "I speak to all the world, to America, to Mr. Obama: Please help us. We (did) nothing. We want to live a good life."
CNN's Moni Basu, Amir Ahmed, Yousuf Basil, Greg Botelho, Salma Abdelaziz, Zain Verjee and Anderson Cooper contributed to this report. | <urn:uuid:a40f6bd5-4b69-46e5-841c-eef8fff892ff> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/02/19/libya.protests/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282926.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00396-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975501 | 1,619 | 1.539063 | 2 |
During Caroline Kennedy's childhood, poetry was a family affair. Her father, President John F. Kennedy, had admired Robert Frost enough to give him a prominent place at his inauguration, and her mother, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, had loved poetry since her own childhood, keeping a scrapbook of poems she had copied out by hand.
This piece first ran in Printers Row Journal, delivered to Printers Row members with the Sunday Chicago Tribune and by digital edition via email. Click here to learn about joining Printers Row.
At birthdays and holidays, Caroline and her brother, John, were required to pick out a poem, copy and illustrate it, which their mother would add to the scrapbook. Sometimes the children would memorize the poems, which got them extra points with their mom; John particularly loved poems about battles and bravery, such as Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade," and naughty bits of doggerel, such as "Careless Willie":
Careless Willie with a thirst for gore
Nailed his sister to the door.
Mother cried with humor quaint
"Careful, Willie, don't spoil the paint!"
Not long ago, coming across that Mother's Day offering in the scrapbook — which she now keeps, and has her own children add to — Caroline Kennedy broke into a fit of giggles. "Of course this completely sums up our relationship," she tells a packed audience at a recent book tour stop at North Central College's Pfeiffer Hall in Naperville. "It made me laugh so hard when I found it, because I just couldn't believe he'd gotten away with that."
In "Poems to Learn by Heart," her new anthology of 100 poems for children of all ages, with illustrations by Jon J Muth (with whom she collaborated on an earlier volume, the 2005 best-seller "A Family of Poems"), Kennedy is extending her cherished family tradition by encouraging young readers to memorize and recite the poems in the book. They include poems of identity, family, friendship and love, with a wide chronological range from Ovid and Bible passages to works by contemporary poets such as Rita Dove and Billy Collins.
There are rhymed poems and free-verse poems, "girl" poems and "boy" poems, the latter including Yusef Komunyakaa's "Slam, Dunk, & Hook" and Ernest Lawrence Thayer's "Casey at the Bat." The poems also vary wildly in terms of thematic weight, from light lyrics about fairies and other magical creatures, such as W.H. Auden's "Song of the Ogres" and Ogden Nash's "The Tale of Custard the Dragon," to far heavier texts about war and atrocity, including Abraham Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" (broken into poetic lines by Kennedy herself) and Martin Niemöller's "First They Came for the Jews," with its grim references to the Holocaust.
"Poetry was very much a part of my family life and experience that was passed down to me," Kennedy says over a double-shot cappuccino at the Four Seasons in Chicago the day of the Naperville event. "Poems to Learn By Heart," she says, is part of a trajectory that began with the publication of "The Best-Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis" in 2001. "After her death, I felt like people were not focusing on the most important things about her, which were her love of literature and ideas," Kennedy recalls. "That's really what made her who she was, much more than her style or her fashion."
As a child, Jackie Bouvier had spent Wednesday afternoons after school with her grandfather, reading and reciting poetry — an experience echoed by Caroline Kennedy on visits to her grandmother, Rose Kennedy, who would pepper her and her brother with questions about American history and ask them to recite Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride." Caroline couldn't recite the lengthy poem, but her "Uncle Teddy" — the late U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts — could and often did, in later years showing up at his niece's book signings and offering to regale the crowd with his booming rendition of Revere's midnight ride.
"I found when I went out to talk about poetry that so many people had had that same experience of poetry as part of their family life," she says. "They had shared poems with older relatives, and had them passed down. It was something that had fallen out of fashion, but people remembered it so fondly that I felt it would be nice to bring it back."
Sitting onstage at Pfeiffer Hall, Kennedy pays rapt attention as 15 students — all girls, conspicuously — as they bravely recite poems from the book, most without referring to the texts. (She smiles encouragingly when one little girl forgets her lines and, mortified, is forced to borrow a copy of the anthology to read from.) "I can't believe how well you recited those poems," Kennedy tells the girls when she gets her own moment at the podium. "I can't believe you learned them all by heart."
Memorization, she explains at the hotel, "gives you a chance to know the poem really well. I'm not saying you have to memorize the entire poem — I mean, I'm not checking — but if you do, you have it with you always, and it enriches your whole experience."
So, Ms. Kennedy: You've had your coffee, now it's time for a pop quiz.
Recite, please, a poem — any poem — from memory.
She launches without hesitation into the first poem she ever memorized, by Edna St. Vincent Millay:
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light.
And so it does.
Of course, not everyone can pick a group of poems, get it published and watch it shoot up the best-seller lists. Almost no one can, in fact, in an era when poetry's profile in the public consciousness is considerably lower than it was in the heyday of Robert Frost. As Kennedy is quick to point out, the art form is making something of a comeback among the young, in communal forms such as poetry slams and open-mic readings, and as part of the Poetry Out Loud program, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, in which some 400,000 American students memorize and recite poems competitively. (The night after Kennedy's Naperville event, local participants in Poetry Out Loud performed for her at a second book tour stop in Highland Park.)
Still, it's unlikely that thousands of people and dozens of news photographers and TV cameras would show up, as they did in Naperville and other stops on her tour, if it weren't for her famous name and her place in one of the most storied families in American history.
"The success of these books has to do with poetry, of course, but also with history — her history, our history — and both of those things are there to be preserved," says Muth, 53, whose beautiful watercolor paintings illustrate the book, in a phone interview. "She's really my generation's Kennedy, and she deserves kudos for using that quality to bring poetry to the attention of a larger audience. She really believes in poetry, which is quite a nice thing to be around."
Kennedy's belief in poetry, it turns out, is not just a matter of beloved family history. It's also an outgrowth of her work over the last decade with the high school students participating in DreamYard, an after-school poetry workshop in the Bronx, New York City's poorest borough. In the program, teenagers read, write and recite their own poems, often tackling daunting topics such as poverty and violence. Watching them, Kennedy has seen close up the potentially transformative power of poetry.
"I think we have a crisis with literacy in this country, and I think our job as parents, as adults, as a community is to surround kids with words and ideas that can spark their imaginations and get them learning and reading and expressing themselves and finding their own voice," she says. "In the Bronx, I've been so impressed by these kids and their passion, the topics and the length of the poems they could perform. Kids — especially kids from different cultural backgrounds — really learn to listen to each other when they're performing or reciting a poem they've written.
"I've seen teachers bring a classroom together with poetry, and when the kids get older and start writing their own poems, they write about really tough issues going on in their lives and their families. I think writing and performing these poems gives them a sense that they are somebody, somebody with a voice.
"It happens most dramatically with kids who are really shy. Not every shy kid will find his or her voice through poetry, but many do, because these kids I work with have all told me that. It's really given them a whole new community of people interested in the same things they are, and it made them want to go on and read and learn more."
As part of one workshop project, for example, the students discovered that the rate of HIV/AIDS in the Bronx was as high as that in Africa. In response, they partnered with a local hospital and held an open-mic poetry slam, offering HIV testing to all who attended.
"Poetry makes them realize," Kennedy says, "that they can use language to stand up for themselves."
When it was time to pick the poems for the new anthology, Kennedy asked several of the workshop participants to help in the selection process.
"As a result, there are more funny poems in here, and more poems about monsters and fairies and elves, than I probably would have thought at first," she says with a smile. "And they liked poems about friendship, and funny poems about school. But there are also some very serious poems in the book, including a group poem they wrote themselves that's very political, very strong."
That poem is "Voices Rising," by five poets from the DreamYard Prep Slam Team, which takes up a four-page spread in the anthology. It angrily laments, among other things, police brutality, the Black Friday Massacre, and the plight of hungry children around the world whose struggles are "taken out of the newspaper / and replaced by articles reporting A-Rod's scandal with steroids. / By celebrity weight gains and break-ups." "Listen," the poem demands,
Can you spare me your eardrum?
Keep your change.
I don't want your money.
Just your heart.
It's hard to know, of course, whether the poets' plea will be answered. Poetry is a tough sell in this world of, yes, A-Rod and tabloid stories about celebrity weight gain. Even Caroline Kennedy must realize that she's swimming upstream?
"That's true," she says. "But, you know" — and here, for once, her voice takes on that famous Kennedy steel — "it's easy to swim downstream."
Kevin Nance is a Chicago-based freelance journalist.
"Poems to Learn by Heart"
Selected by Caroline Kennedy, with paintings by Jon J Muth, Disney/Hyperion Books, 192 pages, $19.99 | <urn:uuid:6f1835df-4230-4e0f-a230-83753df4d5f8> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.orlandosentinel.com/ct-prj-0428-caroline-kennedy-poems-learn-by-heart-20130426-story.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282926.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00396-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98163 | 2,371 | 2.03125 | 2 |
I have analyzed the filter in question both in practice and in simulation (with LTspice)
The calculations I performed to determine the high and low cutoff frequency and the resonance frequency are as follows:
- fres = 1/2pi * sqrt(LC)
- fch = R/2pi * L
- fcl = 1/2pi * RC
From these, I obtained:
- fres = ~10kHz
- fch = ~238kHz
- fcl = ~106Hz
The results I obtained coincide with those recorded during the practical test, but not in the simulated one.
Below the trend measured at the node between the inductor and the resistor:
Now I'm wondering why it behaves this way. Also, since this is a passive filter, shouldn't the maximum gain be 0 dB? | <urn:uuid:8472c4ab-6cd2-40c4-b61f-ed3c9b3b9a59> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/601288/simulating-an-rlc-bandpass-filter-with-ltspice | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572215.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815235954-20220816025954-00671.warc.gz | en | 0.971376 | 172 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Trap to restrict boat at sea — a form of traffic control (8)
I believe the answer is:
'trap' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both acts as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'to restrict boat at sea a form of traffic control' is the wordplay.
'to restrict' means one lot of letters goes inside another (inserted letters are restricted or contained).
'at sea' is an anagram indicator.
'a form of traffic control' becomes 'cage' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'boat' anagrammed gives 'bota'.
'bota' going inside 'cage' is 'CABOTAGE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for cabotage that I've seen is " navigation in coastal waters".) | <urn:uuid:6e20601b-263c-44ee-8331-456d4715db83> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://crosswordgenius.com/clue/trap-to-restrict-boat-at-sea-a-form-of-traffic-control | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571989.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813232744-20220814022744-00469.warc.gz | en | 0.938638 | 213 | 2.21875 | 2 |
In the present days, people with deformed teeth prefer Invisalign consultation before approaching treatment with metal braces. It is because it is right for your oral health, stops bad breath, and can clean your aligners after eating and drinking. Here, we have discussed some Invisalign tips and tricks to make your smile journey with a flawless smile.
Follow theses Invisalign Tips :
Check these tips in step by step manner…
Invisalign Online Consultation
Virtual consultation is the smart way to request an appointment for your child for Invisalign pediatric dentistry or adults. When you request an appointment, they keep patient info safely online. Later you can take a dental office tour while in real-time Invisalign consultation with your Invisalign certified restorative dentistry doctor. You can fix an Invisalign treatment consultation appointment online at any time.
Cure Major Orthodontic Issues First
Invisalign treatment does not involve sedation dentistry and a dental emergency. It is advisable to correct underbite issues as an orthodontic patient first and come for Invisalign treatment after 6-months. It can be a dental implant or any oral max facial surgery. This will help you to undergo Invisalign treatment as per the FDA-approved orthodontic procedure in modern dentistry. When you visit the Invisalign dental office, they do ask about your previous dental health history. It will help you if you mention you have undergone any orthodontic treatment to your dentist.
Safe Handling of Invisalign Aligners
Invisalign is a cost when you compare it with traditional braces. Therefore, you must handle aligners safely while clean your teeth. It is advisable not to use any removal tool while using your previous set of aligners if necessary to wear. It will help you if you clean your aligners with permitted dental care paste and a soft brush. It will remove any food particles present inside the invisible braces and on your teeth while in Invisalign treatment. You have to change the replacement set of aligners as suggested by your doctor.
Clean and Brush Daily
Aligner cleaning will be your daily task to keep away from bad breath. It is advisable to remove your invisible braces while brushing and flossing. It will help to maintain your aligners clean. It will help you if you are brushing your teeth after every meal you take daily while in Invisalign treatment. It is because it is necessary to take care of your complete dental health while in teeth correction treatment with Invisalign. It will avoid tooth decay. Moreover, it will keep your teeth neat and clean as you wear invisible braces for more than 20- hours daily. It will help you if you keep your trays clean.
Dental Aesthetic Care
You might choose Invisalign for beauty purposes, as you may not wish to wear a traditional brace. Hence, you can keep your teeth clean and look good without tartar and gingivitis. However, Invisalign dental procedure allows teeth whitening. It makes the beauty-conscious people have a flawless smile under his or her dental treatment. It is advisable to wear your aligners by whitening your teeth monthly once. It is because Invisalign is clear teeth brace, which is made out of methylene diphenyl diisocyanate or rigid polyurethane. It is a plastic-type material, which is clear and transparent. Hence, whitening your teeth will make you feel good while smiling. However, do such aesthetic works from a modern dental clinic.
Never Skip Dental Consultation
A patient with deformed teeth will require visiting the Invisalign dental office as per his or her doctor’s advice. It can be for the time to adjust and make a new Invisalign tray. It is because; you might need to wear more than one brace monthly. You can see your teeth move within the first few days of wearing them. If you skip your next consultation, your treatment time will extend.
Food and Drinks with Invisalign
Brushing your teeth is essential after any food and drinks you take. Hence, carry a bath accessory kit with you if you travel or go out of your home daily. Invisalign allows you to drink normal water without removing Invisalign clear braces. Yet, it is advisable to remove them when you drink hot beverages, cold drinks, and smoothies.
Read Dental Consumer Forums
Invisalign tips are best to get from dental consumer forums online. You can also check in the Invisalign smile gallery. It is because; they are from real-time dental patients. They underwent the Invisalign procedure and found it better than availing traditional dental treatment.
It will help you if you clean your teeth daily. This is because; you must not get cavities or any other dental issues while undergoing Invisalign treatment. If your oral health is good, you can seek faster teeth straightening results.
Access your Smile
Invisalign is with smile journey. It will help you if you take before and after Invisalign treatment photos apart from your dentist does. It will help you to see the difference and access yourself. It is because; Invisalign is an evidence-based dental procedure. The FDA approves this in modern orthodontic treatment. It will help others if you come under the Invisalign smile gallery.
I hope these Invisalign tips helpful for you… | <urn:uuid:3f4fbf9d-ae15-4c47-83d9-504d7b8b133d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://invisaligngeek.com/invisalign-tips | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570879.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809003642-20220809033642-00669.warc.gz | en | 0.909484 | 1,145 | 1.585938 | 2 |
They’re different, they’re edgy, and more often than not you’ll find them sipping on a craft beer or Fairtrade organic coffee made on almond milk. But what is a hipster really, and how can you spot one near you?
The Hipster subculture (yes, it is a subculture) is generally made up of millennials living in urban areas. It is a broad tern that covers a melting pot of styles, tastes, careers, and behaviours that differ from what is considered to be the norm.
They have a certain kind of postmodern aesthetic about them, and when the contemporary wave of hipsters emerged, pastiche and irony were at the forefront of the lifestyle. Often, they would take up a hobby or style simply because it would be ‘ironic’ to do something out of the ordinary while the majority were following the mainstream trends.
Hipster-ism is associated with alternative/indie music, op-shop or ‘vintage’ clothes, organic/vegetarian/vegan diets, and progressive political views that make up the Hipster’s lifestyle; but to make it even more complicated, the tastes in music can vary into anything from heavy metal Generally they have a decent disposable income, and are relatively affluent young people living in trendy gentrified parts of cities.
“While mainstream society of the 2000s (decade) had been busying itself with reality television, dance music, and locating the whereabouts of Britney Spears’s underpants, an uprising was quietly and conscientiously taking place behind the scenes. Long-forgotten styles of clothing, beer, cigarettes and music were becoming popular again. Retro was cool, the environment was precious and old was the new ‘new’. Kids wanted to wear Sylvia Plath’s cardigans and Buddy Holly’s glasses — they revelled in the irony of making something so nerdy so cool. They wanted to live sustainably and eat organic gluten-free grains. Above all, they wanted to be recognised for being different — to diverge from the mainstream and carve a cultural niche all for themselves”.
Members of the hipster subculture won’t normally identify as being a hipster – just to make everything more confusing – due to the pretentious stereotypes surrounding hipsters and their alternative lifestyles.
In the past, Hipsters have been referred to as bohemians or ‘artsy east village types’ – referring to the neighbourhood in New York. However, the term Hipster sort of reflects the fact that these people are very urban, rather than a bohemian hippy in a camper van.
Increasingly common ‘Hipster accessories’ you can look for to identify a Hipster are an old-style fixed gear bicycle, records and turntables, beards, and thrift store style clothing (this may be from a thrift store, or be made by the Hipster themselves).
Common trends for Hipsters can include, but are not limited to, veganism, knitting, urban beekeeping, taxidermy, slam poetry, or any activity with a fairly niche following.
Tips to avoid razor burn
So where do the beards fit in? Having a beard has been a popular Hipster thing for a while now, and some men have even been known to get beard transplants if they can’t grow enough of their own facial hair. However, there is some debate on whether the beard is on the way out after Hipster and model Joel Alexander spoke out, saying that he struggled to book jobs when he has a full ‘Hipster beard’.
So, Hipsters are now shaving off their beards, and many are citing the ‘evolution of the Hipster’. Yes, they are moving onto a new subculture where they are known as a ‘Yuccie’ – young urban creative. A Yuccie is a descendant of the Hipster, who has a hipster lifestyle, but can also exist in a corporate setting (which is not always beard-friendly). Thus, Hipsters have taken up the shears for an evolution of not-so-epic proportions. | <urn:uuid:acaa8b66-1a7b-456a-8e5e-4aed64dc31de> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.canstarblue.com.au/health-beauty/grooming/electric-shavers/hipsters-explained/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00468-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960893 | 879 | 2.078125 | 2 |
New tics may also begin as imitations of normally occurring events, such as mimicking a dog barking. How
these particular triggers come to
form enduring symptoms is a matter for
In some cases, neuropsychiatric disorders, such as tic disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder, have been shown to develop after streptococcal infection. No precise mechanism for this connection has been determined, although it appears to be related to the autoimmune system. | <urn:uuid:4ae98617-933e-4a6c-9d36-feda12829f2c> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://healthquestions.medhelp.org/how-long-does-it-take-for-risperidone-to-work | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280504.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00142-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958332 | 92 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Narrator: Kate Reading
#1 in a series
A Study in Scarlet Women is, in essence, a gender-flipped Sherlock Holmes story. Right there, I wanted to read it. The premise of this novel is that Charlotte Holmes is a brilliant woman and has no interest whatsoever in marriage. She’s told her father so and they made a deal - if she makes a genuine effort to find a suitor and let him make her fall in love with him and she still doesn’t want to get married, when she is 25, he will pay for the education she needs to set up shop as the headmistress of a girls’ boarding school. Charlotte holds up her end of the bargain; her father does not. So she takes matters into her own hands and has an affair with a married man, thus ruining her reputation and rendering her unfit for marriage.
Yay, idiotic Victorian morality! She has no intention, either, of being imprisoned at their family’s country estate forever, so she runs away to London where she intends to support herself as a typist. Eventually she meets Mrs Watson, who hires her as her companion. Mrs Watson convinces Charlotte to take on clients as an investigator, pretending to be the sister of the bedridden man, Sherlock Holmes.
The ruse works and Charlotte is able to support herself quite well by solving mysteries. She is called in on one case that strikes close to home when suspicion falls on her sister, Livia, who had publicly accused the mother of Charlotte’s lover of ruining her sister’s life, and hours later, the woman was dead. When two other people die mysteriously, Charlotte and an Inspector Treadles work together to solve the mystery and figure out how the victims were connected.
I enjoyed seeing a gender-flipped Sherlock. Charlotte is a woman who knows what she wants and makes plans to get it. She has good body image and isn’t worried about being stick thin. These are all good things about this novel. There are a lot of strong and independent women, even being set in Victorian London. I think that the mystery itself took too long to set up and get to, though, and once we got to it, was unnecessarily convoluted. It was hard to keep everyone straight and the ending was really complicated. I read a ton of mysteries and am really good at keeping track of who’s who and it still confused the hell out of me. I felt that the book’s strength was in the character development, which was excellent for nearly every character we meet. Though I didn’t feel the mystery part of the plot was terribly well done, the rest made up for it and I am still looking forward to reading the rest of the books in this series.
© Kristen McQuinn
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Michelle Williams Reveals Depression: 10 Other Celebrities Who Have Suffered From Depression
Michelle Williams, one-third of Destiny's Child, revealed in an interview to the Associated Press that she has battled moderate depression for years and that she has fought against it without the use of medication.
Williams, who is gearing up for nationwide tour of the show "Fela!", said that she began suffering from depression at 15 or 16 years old.
"We're taught, 'Just go to church and pray about it. The Lord is going to heal you.' Well, in the meantime, I believe God-gifted people, physicians, doctors, therapists -- that's your healing. Take advantage of it," Williams said.
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The singer, who is also putting out a new solo album, is talking about this fight now so others will get the help that they would need.
Williams also discussed the upcoming Destiny's Child greatest hits album including a new track titled "Nuclear," the group's first new song in eight years.
"Stacking those harmonies on top of each other gave me goose bumps. We were like, 'We still sound good together.' Duh! The bond will never die. We're always going to be close," she said.
There has been some talk that the group may make a surprise appearance together during Beyoncé's Super Bowl halftime show.
"Who knows?" she said. "We make sure not to go too long without doing something."
Williams gives advice to those who are suffering through depression.
"Go see a professional so that they can assess you. It's Ok if you're going through something. Depression is not Ok, but it is Ok to go get help."
Here's a list of 10 other celebrities who have suffered from depression.
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Home price gains bring sellers off the sidelines
- Article by: ELLIOT SPAGAT
- Associated Press
- June 30, 2013 - 9:15 AM
SAN DIEGO — Robert and Emerald Oravec were itching to sell their condominium late last year to move closer to a favorite surfing spot, but they were stuck. They owed the bank $194,000 and figured the most they could get was $180,000.
When they put their San Diego home up for sale a few months later, they fielded five offers within two weeks. It sold for $260,000 in May, allowing them to invest profits in a new home that's more than twice the size on a large lot and 40 minutes closer to the surfing beach.
"We're stoked," said Robert, 50, a facilities engineer at Solar Turbines Inc., a maker of gas turbines that has employed him for the last 22 years. "It was better to be patient and wait it out."
Soaring prices are leaving fewer homeowners owing more money than their properties are worth, bringing them off the sidelines of the nation's surging housing market and offering relief to buyers who are frustrated by bidding wars. As more homes are put up for sale, price increases are expected to moderate.
Mark Fleming, chief economist at real estate data provider CoreLogic Inc., calls it "a virtuous circle."
"The fact that house prices have increased so dramatically ... has unlocked a lot of that pent-up supply," said Fleming, whose firm found that markets with the largest percentage of "underwater" or "upside down" mortgages often have the lowest supply of homes for sale.
From January to March, 19.8 percent of the nation's mortgaged homes were underwater, down from 23.7 percent a year earlier and 25 percent during the same period of 2011, according to CoreLogic. Gains spread across the country, though regions that rose high and crashed hard remained saddled with homeowners who bought near the peak.
Nevada had a nation-high 45.4 percent of mortgages underwater, followed by Florida at 38.1 percent, Michigan at 32 percent and Arizona at 31.4 percent. Montana had a nation-low 5.6 percent.
Among major metropolitan areas, Tampa Bay had a nation-high 41.1 percent of mortgaged homes underwater, followed by Miami at 40.7 percent. Dallas had a nation-low 8.3 percent.
San Diego, at 19.5 percent, was slightly better than the national rate and California's 21.3 percent. The region's median home sale price hit $406,500 in May, up 21.3 percent from a year earlier amid brisk sales, according to DataQuick.
Housing inventories remain unusually low. There was a 5.2-month supply of existing, single-family homes for sale in May, compared to 6.4 months a year earlier, according to the National Association of Realtors. California had only a 2.6-month supply, compared to 3.6 months a year earlier and well below the six months that is considered a balanced market.
San Diego broker Colleen Cotter began knocking on doors this year after scouring property records to find homeowners who didn't owe money. If someone answers, she makes an all-cash bid on behalf of investors who don't even visit.
Nearly one of three homes sold in Southern California is paid for in cash, putting borrowers at a disadvantage. Some buyers write sellers about how they would cherish a home, hoping to spark a personal connection.
Josh Martin, 26, discovered homes he and wife considered buying had changed hands less than a year earlier at much lower prices. The first-time homebuyers lost nine bids since August— many to cash buyers — until finally landing a home in May for $250,000 in the San Diego suburb of Chula Vista.
"It was very stressful because the prices just kept going up," said Martin, who recently left the Marine Corps. "Our lease was about to end and we didn't want to sign another year."
Economists expect many homeowners will continue to resist selling because they think they can profit more by waiting.
Nancy Randazzo, a 38-year-old public school teacher who owes about $240,000 on an Anaheim condominium that she bought for $335,000 in 2005, figures she might be able to sell for what she owes but wants to rent to Disneyland tourists. One potential snag is that she and her fiancee would need to find a place to buy.
"Prices are going up so fast that I don't know if I can," she said.
The huge price increases produced an unexpected retirement gift for Larry and Diane Plaster, who were resigned in January to selling their San Diego home for less than they owed the bank, known as a short sale. They owed $352,000 but accepted an offer for $290,000.
Their bank rejected the deal four months later, leading the couple to put the home up for sale again. On the second attempt, they took an all-cash offer of $380,000, yielding a windfall of $6,500 after broker fees and closing costs. The Plasters, who live on Social Security income, fulfilled a dream of moving to a geodesic dome they built in Janesville, 130 miles north of Lake Tahoe.
The former Catholic social service workers were so angry when Chase rejected the short sale that they closed their account after more than 40 years.
"Now I guess I should send them a thank-you note," said Diane, 66.
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Known for his classic and elegant images, fashion photographer Herb Ritts was able to capture the purity of his subjects without the fuss that clouds many fashion photographs. With a methodology that resembled Greek sculpture understated, clean and graphic Ritts' black-and-white images made him a favorite within the Hollywood set and the fashion industry. Ritts started his post-college career by working at his family's furniture business, but it was an impromptu photo shoot on the side of the road that led him to pursue his artistic passion. It was the late '70s, and Ritts was traveling with his good friend, budding actor Richard Gere, when they got a flat tire. Ritts shot some photos of Gere while they waited, and eventually sold them to various national magazines. From there, Ritts started photographing celebrities for various publications such as the iconic image of Cindy Crawford pretending to shave k.d. lang on the cover of Vanity Fair as well as shooting the cover art for Madonna's album, True Blue, and Olivia Newton-John's Physical. Ritts seamlessly transitioned into fashion editorial, contributing to Vogue for more than 15 years. He even shot two covers for TIME, including the August 2000 issue featuring an exclusive with Tiger Woods. Ritts' love of photography eventually led him to take on the film world; Ritts directed music videos for everyone from Madonna to Michael Jackson artists that are just as passionate, talented and inspiring as he was, and continues to be.
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Elucidation of the physiological roles of human dipeptidyl peptidase III
Proteolytic enzymes (peptidases) participate in and regulate an increasing number of important cellular processes by specifically cleaving their target proteins. Although structurally and biochemically very well characterized, many peptidases still lack information about their specific substrates and physiological roles.
Dipeptidyl peptidase III (DPP III) is the cytosolic metallopeptidase that is well characterized at the structural and enzymatic level, however its physiological roles are still largely unknown. DPP III peptidase activity towards four to ten amino acid long oligopeptides indicates its role in the terminal stages of protein turnover, while its activity, and affinity towards certain biologically active peptides indicates its role in the pain modulation, blood pressure control, and inflammation.
Furthermore, its involvement in the oxidative stress response through the interaction with Keap1 protein has been well documented. However, none of the proposed roles of DPP III have been proven, yet, and there are indications that it might also have other roles in the cell physiology. Its proposed role in Nrf2/Keap1 pathway, taken together with its overexpression in tumor tissues of several different tumor types, indicate that it might be a biomarker of certain types of cancer or even the target for anticancer therapy.
The aim of this project is to elucidate the physiological roles, and disease relevance of DPP III by determining its interactors through the combined use of different molecular biology approaches. We plan to use yeast two-hybrid method to identify novel interacting partners of DPP III, and mass spectrometry interactome analysis to identify protein complexes DPP III takes part in.
We plan to confirm the interactions found by Y2H and MS approach by several low-throughput methods. Finding DPP III interactors would enable us to identify other signaling pathways DPP III might be involved in. We will also test if any of newly identified DPP III interacting proteins are also DPP III substrates. Apart from gaining new insights into physiology of DPP III, this project will also enable transfer of technology and knowledge to the Ruđer Bošković Institute, which will have a positive impact on our future research efforts, and represent the first step towards procuring continuous research funding from EU funds.
Koraljka Husnjak, PhD
Institute of Biochemistry II, Goethe University School of Medicine, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
- Marija Abramić, PhD, IRB, LBPMM
- Zrinka Karačić, mag. chem., IRB, LBPMM
- Ana Tomašić Paić, PhD, IRB, LBPMM
- Snježana Jurić, PhD, IRB, LBPMM
- Akmaral Kussayeva, PhD, LBPMM, IRB
- Sara Matić, MSc, LBPMM, IRB
- Iva Pavlović, PhD, LBPMM, IRB
Activities on the Project
Mihaela Matovina visited dr. Koraljka Husnjak Laboratory at the Institute of Biochemistry II, Medical School of Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, from October 2nd to 22nd 2016. During the visit, she performed Y2H experiments aimed at determining DPP III protein interaction partners on the whole proteome scale.
Zrinka Karačić, Ana Tomašić Paić and Mihaela Matovina participated at 3rd DPP III Minisymposium on February 10th, 2017 in Graz, Austria. Mihaela Matovina presented the poster entitled „Methodology of DPP III interactome analysis“.
Koraljka Husnjak visited Ruđer Bošković Institute on April 13, 2017. At that time, we discussed the execution of the work plan, and Koraljka Husnjak prepared mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) from DPP III wt and knock-out (KO) embryos at developmental stage E13.5. We will use those cell lines for the experiments in collaboration with the Laboratory for for mitochondrial bioenergetics and diabetes from RBI and our collaborators from the Institute of Biochemistry of Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria. | <urn:uuid:5a62fa26-3fc9-4af1-b1c6-e1d6cd2a7647> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.irb.hr/eng/Divisions/Division-of-Organic-Chemistry-and-Biochemistry/Laboratory-for-Protein-Biochemistry-and-Molecular-Modelling/Projects/Elucidation-of-the-physiological-roles-of-human-dipeptidyl-peptidase-III | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570921.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809094531-20220809124531-00266.warc.gz | en | 0.915115 | 941 | 1.546875 | 2 |
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The posterior inclination of the tibial plateau, which is referred to as posterior tibial slope, is determined routinely on lateral radiographs. However, radiographically, it is not always possible to reliably recognize the lateral plateau, making a separate assessment of the medial and lateral plateaus difficult. We propose a technique to measure the plateaus separately by defining a tibial longitudinal axis on a conventional MRI. The medial plateau posterior tibial slope obtained from radiographs was compared with MR images in 100 consecutive patients with knee pain when ligament or meniscal injury was assumed. The posterior tibial slope on MRI correlated with those on radiographs. The mean posterior tibial slope was 3.4° smaller on MRI compared with radiographs (4.8° ± 2.4° versus 8.2° ± 2.8°, respectively). The reproducibility was slightly better on radiographs than MRI (± 0.9° versus ± 1.4°). Twenty-one of the 100 cases had more than a 5° difference (range, −8.7° to 8.9°) between the medial and lateral plateaus. The proposed technique allows measurement of the posterior tibial slope of the medial and lateral plateaus on a standard knee MRI. By using this novel measurement technique, a reliable assessment of the medial and lateral tibial plateaus is possible.
Level of Evidence: Level III, diagnostic study. See the Guidelines for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.
Stability of the knee is provided by ligamentous and bony structures [7, 15, 18, 32, 47]. The posterior inclination of the tibial plateau, or posterior tibial slope (PTS), is a bony factor contributing to anteroposterior (AP) stability [5, 10, 17, 21, 44]. It linearly relates to the amount of anterior tibial translation [10–13]. An increased PTS has been associated with an increased incidence of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture . The medial and lateral PTS are not necessarily identical in one given knee and differences of as much as 27° have been reported in cadaveric studies [16, 19, 27, 29]. A recent study recommended separate assessment of the medial and lateral plateau PTS because patients with ACL rupture were seen to have a greater slope on the lateral plateau . In arthroplasty, the natural PTS should not be modified during implantation of a unicompartmental knee prosthesis nor during high tibial osteotomy [4, 9, 24, 39]. In TKA, an inappropriate cutting angle of the PTS results in polyethylene wear, component loosening, and posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) strain [1, 23, 44, 46, 48].
The PTS is defined on a lateral radiograph by the angle between perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the bone and tangent to the medial and the lateral plateaus [16, 29]. Although the biomechanical importance of the PTS is known, assessment on a lateral radiograph is not satisfactory . Various longitudinal axes [6, 29, 39] have been defined and the mean angle is reportedly between 4° and 14° [16, 39]. A high error in measurement resulting from a rotated tibia during lateral radiograph imaging may be misleading . The lateral PTS has been considered an important anatomic reference landmark and guide for restoration of the natural PTS in TKA [20, 31], but discrimination between the plateaus is difficult with radiography [10, 16, 30] and methods using three-dimensional computed reconstructions are time-consuming and complex [20, 31]. In literature reviews [16, 39], only four [19, 33, 35, 50] of 20 studies report values for both plateaus and only one study measured the PTS for both plateaus on MRI. One recent study measured the differences between the medial and lateral PTS on MRI in patients with ACL rupture, but an additional radiograph was needed for the longitudinal axis determination . On MRI, the discrimination between medial and lateral plateaus is simple, which is important for research questions and may be introduced to knee surgery if operative methods account for the differences observed in tibial plateau anatomy [16, 19, 20, 27]. For revision surgery resulting from malunion after a tibial plateau fracture [41, 43] or reconstruction after tumor resection , a separate assessment is important. However, on conventional MRI scans of the knee, only the proximal tibia is observed and determination of the longitudinal axis is not possible.
We developed a novel method to determine the longitudinal axis, and using that axis presumed the PTS could be determined on conventional MRI at least as reproducibly as on a true lateral radiograph. We therefore correlated the PTS measured on MRI using the novel definition of the longitudinal axis with that on a lateral radiograph using a standard definition of the longitudinal axis. We then compared the reproducibility between both methods. Finally, we established the PTS difference between the medial and lateral plateaus on MRI.
We selected 100 consecutive patients (52 women, 42 ± 18.6 years; 48 men, 45 ± 16.7 years) with a true lateral radiograph and MRI of the same knee. Patients had the radiographs and MRIs for nontraumatic or traumatic knee pain when ligament or meniscal injury was suspected. Patients were excluded if the femoral condyles observed on lateral radiographs were separated greater than 5 mm in caudal, cranial, and AP directions. Patients with an acute fracture and with tumors also were excluded from further investigation.
We (RH, SS) used the method described by Dejour and Bonin for lateral radiographs to determine the medial plateau PTS using the proximal tibial anatomic axis and a tangent to the uppermost anterior and posterior edges of the medial plateau.
MRIs were obtained with the following parameters: T1, coronal plane, slice thickness: 3 mm for 170 × 138 mm, TE: 14–16 ms, TR: 450 ms; intermediate weighted sagittal plane, slice thickness: 3 mm for 180 × 143 mm, TE: 15, TR: 2700. The sagittal MRI slices were set manually by the radiologist orthogonal to a line connecting the posterior femoral condyles. On MRI, the measurement was done in three steps. Step one consisted of choosing the central sagittal image (Fig. 1) in which the tibial attachment of the PCL (1), the intercondylar eminence (2), and the anterior and posterior tibial cortices appeared in a concave shape (3). Step two consisted of positioning one cranial and one caudal circle in the tibial head. The circles were applied with computer software (pro vision web 4.1.0; Cerner Corporation, Kansas City, MO), which provided an infinite number of diameters and free positioning. All measurements were positioned as an overlay and remained in a fixed position on the complete image series (Fig. 1). The cranial circle had to touch the anterior, posterior, and cranial tibial cortex bone and the caudal circle had to touch the anterior and posterior cortex border. In cases with vague borders between the cortex and the medullary canal, the middle of the transition zone between a definitive black cortex and a light gray medullary canal was chosen. To set a standardized relative distance between the circles, the center of the caudal circle was positioned on the circumference of the cranial circle. The MRI-longitudinal axis was defined by a line that connected the centers of these two circles (Fig. 1). Step three consisted of identifying the MRI showing the mediolateral center of the medial plateau (Fig. 2). On this image, a tangent to the medial plateau connecting the uppermost superior-anterior and posterior cortex edges was drawn. The slope of the medial plateau was defined by the orthogonal to the MRI-longitudinal axis and the tangent to the medial plateau. The lateral plateau PTS was measured accordingly in the mediolateral center of the lateral plateau by a tangent to the uppermost even part between the superior-anterior and posterior cortices (Fig. 3). Observations were made by two independent observers (SS, RH) and one observer (RH) measured twice 2 weeks apart to assess the interobserver and intraobserver reproducibility. All images were retrieved from our PACS system; measurements were performed digitally with orthopaedic measurement software (pro vision web 4.1.0; Cerner Corporation).
We computed the mean and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) and standard deviation (±) for all angles. To describe the correlation between the MRI-longitudinal axis and the lateral radiograph standard axes, we used the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of three separate measurements between the posterior slope of the medial plateau on MRI and on lateral radiographs. We also used the ICC to compare the intraobserver and interobserver reproducibility of both methods. We then calculated the mean difference between the medial plateau PTS on lateral radiographs and MRI. A prediction expression for conversion of a lateral radiograph to an MRI value was calculated from a linear regression between lateral radiograph and MRI measurements. To compare the reliability of one measurement between a lateral radiograph and MRI, we used the typical error (TE) suggested by Hopkins . That error is closely related to the limits of agreement described by Bland and Altman , accepted as a method to assess reliability of a measurement. The advantages of the TE include its simple conversion into a variance and its self-explanatory appearance because it shows the variation in the values of repeated measurements . To assess differences in the interobserver and intraobserver variability between the lateral radiographs and MRI we used the Wilcoxon matched pairs test. To compare the medial and lateral PTS on MRI, the difference was assessed with a Student’s t-test for equal variances. The mean difference, its standard deviation, and the range of differences between the medial and lateral plateaus were compared. We used JMP v 6.0.0 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC) and SPSS 14.0.0 (SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL) for our analyses. We used JMP for all statistic calculations except for the ICC, which was calculated with SPSS.
The medial plateau PTS on the lateral radiograph correlated (ICC, 0.73) with those on MRI (Fig. 4). The average medial PTS was 4.8° on MRI (CI, 4.3°–5.2°) and 8.2° on lateral radiographs (CI, 7.7°–8.8°). By average, it was 3.4° smaller (CI, 3.1°–3.8°; p < 0.0001) on MRI than that on lateral radiographs (Table 1). However, we computed a predictive equation relating the measurement on lateral radiographs to that on MRI: lateral radiograph = MRI*0.88 + 4.3 with r2 = 0.60.
The reproducibility on lateral radiographs was better (intraobserver/interobserver p = 0.0037/0.00004) than for MRI. The TE or the variation of repeated measurements was lower on radiographs than on MRI (interobserver lateral radiograph, ± 0.9° versus MRI, ± 1.4°; intraobserver lateral radiograph, ± 1° versus MRI, ± 1.2°). The ICCs for the interobserver were 0.77 for MRI and 0.89 for lateral radiographs; the ICCs for the intraobserver were 0.80 for MRI and 0.89 for lateral radiographs.
On MRI, the mean difference between the medial and lateral plateau PTS was −0.43° ± 3.7° (p = 0.248; range, −8.7° to +8.9°). In 46 of the 100 patients, the difference was less than 2.5°. In 21 patients, we observed a difference greater than 5° between the medial and lateral plateaus (Fig. 5).
Despite the influence of the PTS on knee biomechanics, the assessment in clinical routine work is insufficient because the medial and lateral PTS are difficult to discriminate on a lateral radiograph [16, 26, 29, 30]. Numerous authors claimed the need for separate assessment of both plateaus as a result of large differences observed in cadaveric and radiologic studies [27, 30, 33, 45, 49]. Such differences may be involved in the pathomechanics of ACL rupture . We defined the PTS on conventional MRI and validated the method by correlating the results with the standard method on radiographs. The reproducibility of the PTS on MRI and the radiography were compared. Finally, we assessed the medial and lateral PTS with MRI to validate reported differences.
A limiting factor of this study is section planes on MRI must be parallel to the anatomic axis in the coronal plane. During the imaging process, this parallelism is manually approximated by the radiologist. Therefore, the error that results from this variation cannot be quantified in this study. Nevertheless, a high correlation between the medial PTS on radiographs and MRI indicates the error resulting from this variability seems low. A correlation of 0.73 between lateral radiographs and MRI indicates good to fair similarity between the methods . Finally, the lateral radiograph measurement is based on one image, whereas on MRI, several images can be assessed in consecutive steps. As a result, the reproducibility was to some extent better on a radiograph than with MRI. However, the typical error of measurement on MRI was only slightly higher than on lateral radiographs. The cost and time consumption of a routine knee MRI is approximately five times greater than for a lateral radiograph based on the accounting data of our clinic. For routine knee arthroplasties or tibial osteotomies, MRI is not needed. It is unclear whether future surgical methods or common practice will account for research data regarding PTS differences. In unicondylar reconstruction of the tibial plateau resulting from malunion after fracture or allograft substitution after tumor resection, a separate assessment of the PTS can support preoperative planning [1, 2, 38, 41–43]. However, a more appropriate assessment of both plateaus is the basis for the linkage of research questions concerning PTS differences and disease patterns and to better understand the biomechanics of the knee.
Various models for PTS measurement on conventional lateral radiographs have been described [10, 16, 22, 29, 36, 40], however it is still imprecise . As a consequence of superimposition, the lateral tibial plateau is difficult to identify and separate assessment of the plateaus is not reliably possible on lateral radiographs [16, 26, 29, 30]. When the tibia is rotated during radiography and the xray beam is not truly lateral to the bone, the error of measurement may increase to 13° . Because different longitudinal axis definitions have been used on radiographs in various studies, the reported mean PTS ranges from 4° to 14° [16, 39]. Of these, we chose the longitudinal axis defined by Dejour and Bonnin because it is independent from the morphometry variables such as age, gender, weight, and height, all of which may influence the longitudinal axis position with some definitions . For this longitudinal axis, a medial plateau PTS ranging from 9.2° to 10.7° and an error of ± 1° has been described [6, 28, 29, 33, 34]. This is consistent with our results, although the mean was 1° less than the published range. On MRI, a separate assessment of the tibial plateau can be done easily because the medial and lateral plateaus are visible on separate images. With this proposed method for MRI-longitudinal axis definition, only the proximal part of the tibia is needed and therefore the measurement can be performed in clinical routine MRI. The average PTS was 4.8° ± 2.4° for the medial and 5.0° ± 3.6° for the lateral plateau on MRI, whereas the radiographic measurement had a mean value of 8.2° ± 2.8°. The data show a high correlation between MRI and lateral radiograph measurements. On MRI, the average medial PTS was 3.4° smaller than on a true lateral radiograph in the same knee. We hypothesize the connection of the centers of two circles, which are proximal to the tibial tubercle, result in an MRI-longitudinal axis that is rotated clockwise in comparison to the anatomic longitudinal axis. This axis rotation on MRI can be interpreted as constantly related to the longitudinal axis on a radiograph which is shown by the correlation of the PTS on MRI and radiographs found in this study. We therefore consider that a direct conversion between the PTS on MRI and radiographs is possible. This may be supportive in clinical routine work when therapeutic decisions are made on both methods. Matsuda et al. described the PTS on MRI with an average value of 10.7° (range, 5°–15.5°) for the medial plateau and 7.2° (range, 0°–14.5°) for the lateral plateau in 27 patients . In our study, the average medial and lateral PTS were smaller by 43% and 30%, respectively. This may be a result of the short proximal tibial bone imaged on a conventional MRI because in contrast to the method presented here, Matsuda et al. scanned the entire tibia from the tibial plateau to the ankle. Such a method is impractical for routine clinical imaging. An MRI scan that images the full length of the tibial bone can produce so-called plane distortions . This leads to a bent appearance of long bones, thereby inhibiting correct assessment of a longitudinal axis. To ultimately address this issue, cadaver bones would need to be scanned by MRI.
We believe the reproducibility of the novel MRI measurement method is acceptable for clinical routine work. Considering a maximum error of 13° documented for the PTS measurement on lateral radiographs, a typical error of ± 1.4° for the interobserver and ± 1.2° for the intraobserver reproducibility on MRI is more accurate than lateral radiographs . Although the determination of the MRI-PTS is more complex than on a radiograph, it offers the opportunity for separate assessment of the tibial plateaus.
Numerous studies of the proximal tibia suggest the PTS of the medial and lateral plateaus are different [8, 19, 20, 27, 30, 31, 45, 49]. Grunewald manually measured the PTS of both plateaus in 117 tibiae . The medial and lateral PTS of each tibia were published in his study and we were able to calculate the differences between the plateaus. We found a standard deviation of differences between the medial and lateral plateau of ± 5.6° with a maximal difference of 27° . Our data showed no difference in the mean PTS between the medial and lateral plateaus, but it showed a high variability with a standard deviation of differences of ± 3.7° between the medial and lateral plateaus. This variation was lower than described by Grunewald, but the maximal difference was still 8.9°, and 21% had a medial-lateral difference that exceeded 5°. Differences between medial and lateral plateaus also have been reported by Jenny et al. for the meniscal slope . According to the bony slope, the meniscal slope has been defined with a tangent line to the most anterior or posterior part of the medial or lateral meniscosynovial border . Jenny et al. reported the bony and meniscal slope of the medial plateau is highly correlated, but there was no correlation for the lateral plateau or between the medial and lateral meniscal slopes in the same knee. They reported the meniscal slope to be almost perpendicular to the tibial axis and the maximal difference between them was 16°. The authors concluded the design of a polyethylene inlay in unicondylar knee arthroplasty would better reproduce the meniscal than the bony slope . With MRI, the meniscal slope also can be assessed, which is not possible in vivo with standard lateral radiographs.
Our data suggest the PTS can be measured reliably with the proposed method. It can help to better assess the different tibial slopes and thereby contribute to a better understanding of knee biomechanics. In knee surgery, it may become essential when the PTS of the plateaus have to be corrected separately such as subsequent to malunion after fracture. It is applicable on conventional MRI scans used in clinical routine work, which at the same time allows for reliable assessment of the medial and lateral plateaus separately.
We thank the Department of Radiology of Balgrist University Hospital for providing image data for this study. We particularly thank C. Pfirrmann, MD, and M. Zanetti, MD, for their support with radiologic questions.
Each author certifies that he or she has no commercial associations (eg, consultancies, stock ownership, equity interest, patent/licensing arrangements, etc) that might pose a conflict of interest in connection with the submitted article.
Each author certifies that his or her institution has approved or waived approval for the human protocol for this investigation and that all investigations were conducted in conformity with ethical principles of research. | <urn:uuid:9a0ca39f-d66b-4ed0-b0c2-bbc21ea7290d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://pubmedcentralcanada.ca/pmcc/articles/PMC2706341/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280899.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00576-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924504 | 4,468 | 2.15625 | 2 |
Considering that on 1 July 2020 Germany will assume its six-months presidency of the Council of the European Union, the CivilM+ Platform urges the German government to use this time to give a new impetus to the resolution of the armed conflict in Donbas. Restoring peace in the region is essential for security, political stability and human rights protection throughout Europe.
We fully support the necessity to fight the Covid-19 pandemic and to implement the anti-crisis measures which Germany has announced to be a priority of its presidency of the EU Council. Other issues on the agenda, such as climate policy, migration policy, relations with the United Kingdom and digital transformation are equally important.
We are convinced that the resolution of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict should stand alongside these important points in the programme of the German Presidency of the EU Council. In particular, Germany should remain an active mediator in the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. Its authority, expertise and influence in these countries, as well as in the EU, should be used to promote peace and restore Ukrainian borders on the basis of international law.
We have observed with concern the escalation of hostilities in May 2020 and the sharp increase in civilian casualties. Given the unstable security situation, as well as the growing tension in the Minsk process, we are sure that the support and clear position of the European Union can at least deter the parties from démarches, political blackmailing and threatening to leave the negotiation process. In the best possible scenario, German presidency should set a new tone for a constructive dialogue and a search for solutions for the peaceful resolution of the armed conflict.
We, the representatives of civil society of Ukraine, Russia and the EU suggest certain specific measures that we consider necessary: continuation of sanctions against the Russian Federation, pressure on Russia to ensure unhindered access of independent monitors to the territory under the control “L/DNR”, consultations with the Government of Ukraine on ratifying the Rome Statute, developing a concept for a Ukrainian model of transitional justice, combating impunity, harmonizing national criminal legislation with international law.
With regard to Eastern European policy in general, we support the continuation and strengthening of the EU’s Eastern Partnership programme. We suggest that a high-level EU meeting is organized under the German presidency to agree on further EU steps to end the war and to support the region affected by the conflict, with the participation of representatives of Ukrainian and international civil society.
Realizing that significant resources of the EU budget will be spent to overcome the consequences of the pandemic, we believe it would still be expedient to foresee the necessary funds into the EU’s seven-year medium-term budget to promote the Eastern Partnership. Germany already has a successful federal programme that supports cooperation of the civil society of the EU with partners in Ukraine and other countries of the Eastern Partnership. We recommend that Germany, within the framework of its presidency, advocates for the further establishment of such programmes, both at the EU level and in its member-states. Such programmes will give a new impulse for the democratic transformation in the region.
For our part, the members of the CivilM+ Platform stand ready to participate in the development of socio-political measures to overcome the consequences of the armed conflict in Ukraine and beyond. We will also continue sharing expertise and the information directly from the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine, as well as on political processes in Russia and Ukraine. In addition, we are ready to support the investigation of war crimes and human rights violations, to develop dialogue and peacebuilding initiatives, to accompany international negotiations on Donbas and to promote public participation in reconstruction of the region and overcoming the consequences of the pandemic.
We are convinced that the European Union’s consolidated action in resolving the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is an important prerequisite for establishing and maintaining sustainable peace, rule of law, democracy and human rights throughout the Eastern Partnership region. We believe that Germany possesses a unique potential to promote these values while holding the presidency of the EU Council.
Centre for Civil Liberties, Ukraine
Centre of Public Initiatives ‘Ideas for Change’, Ukraine
‘Country of Free People’, Ukraine
Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, Ukraine
Luhansk Oblast Human Rights Center ‘Alternatyva’, Ukraine
Truth Hounds, Ukraine
Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, Ukraine
‘Citizen and Army’, Russia
DRA e.V., Germany
Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly (HCA), France
Human Rights Centre ‘Memorial’, Russia
International Human Rights Federation FIDH, France
MEMORIAL Deutschland e.V., Germany
Samuel Goda, Slovak Foreign Policy Association (SFPA), expert of the CivilM+ Platform
The international CivilM+ platform was established in 2017. It unites 19 organizations and three independent experts from Ukraine, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia and France. Within the CivilM+ network, they contribute to the peaceful resolution of the conflict in Donbas. In particular, they inform their governments and communities about the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine, implement projects in the spheres of peacebuilding, transitional justice, dialogue and human rights.
For more information, please contact the Platform Secretariat: Yulia Erner, coordinator – firstname.lastname@example.org.
With media-requests, please contact Iryna Yakovlieva, communications coordinator – email@example.com | <urn:uuid:f320f52b-e1ae-43fc-803f-9b8f3e6b2288> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.austausch.org/news-details/germanys-presidency-of-the-eu-council-a-chance-for-an-all-european-strategy-to-resolve-the-armed-conflict-in-eastern-ukraine/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573193.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818094131-20220818124131-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.904824 | 1,147 | 1.734375 | 2 |
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In 2005, the Atlanta Braves won their unprecedented 14th straight National League East title. And behind this success has been the genius of John Schuerholz, whose anti-Moneyball philosophies kept the Braves among the elite teams in baseball for over a decade. Now, Schuerholz pulls back the curtain for the first time, revealing everything from how the Braves traded for Barry Bonds in the early 90s to dealing with John Rockers hateful comments in 1999 to losing pitchers Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine to the recent acquisition of superstar Tim Hudson, and, against all odds, how he helped keep the Braves at the top of the baseball mountain. Offering a remarkable and candid view inside one of the most incredible minds in all sports, BUILT TO WIN will make baseball fans worldwide look at the game in a whole new way.
Table of Contents
Barry Bonds a Brave---Briefly
Gentlemen, Start Your Moneyball Arguments
A Rotation for the Ages
The Diary of a Major League Deal
Dog Bites Man! Teacher Quits for Less Money!
Building a Winning Organization
Leadership: Good People, Good Listening, Enthusiasm | <urn:uuid:3fac47a0-f420-4eb6-b38a-148f58015e25> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.ecampus.com/built-win-inside-stories-leadership/bk/9780446578684 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280483.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00299-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.874146 | 312 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Michelle Obama, the First Lady of US introduced a new campaign focusing on education for girls around the world at the Global Citizen Festival in New York City.
Obama's new campaign, 62 Million Girls, is designed to heighten global awareness that millions of girls around the world are not receiving an education.
Obama appeared in a video on Saturday at the event starring Hollywood names like BeyoncA, Hugh Jackman and others and spoke about the 62 Million Girls campaign in front of a feverish audience in Central Park, New York.
She said she's travelled the world and met with young women who have not had a chance to receive an education.
She said "I see myself in these girls. I see my daughters in these girls. ... For me this is truly a moral issue." She asked the audience to tweet photos of themselves with the hashtag #62MillionGirls and say what you learned in school. Obama said she learned how to "speak up" in school. She said the photos will "show the power of education."
"We are helping adolescent girls worldwide go to school," Obama added.
The First Lady went on to stress the seriousness of the 62 Million Girls campaign as she earned a loud applause for the crowd. "Right now 62 million girls are not in school... they deserve the same chances to get an education as my daughters and your daughters," she said. | <urn:uuid:0f94281f-f2c0-488f-8af8-11b88aa7620a> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.careerindia.com/news/michelle-obama-launches-campaign-focusing-on-girls-education-015779.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279410.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00167-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973121 | 280 | 1.859375 | 2 |
Whether they impact flavor, appearance, nutrition, freshness, or texture, food ingredients have been used for centuries for a variety of purposes. But the names of those ingredients or how they are described can make a big difference in whether we buy a particular food—or pass it by.
A new survey by the International Food Information Council (IFIC) is revealing just how big a role ingredients play in the food attitudes and purchasing habits of American consumers. The survey, “From ‘Chemical-Sounding’ to ‘Clean’: Consumer Perspectives on Food Ingredients,” shows that our interest is strong, “clean” is popular and health is paramount.
Nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of adults say the ingredients in a food or beverage have at least a moderate influence on what they buy.
When we are shopping, the product itself is overwhelmingly where we look for information about the ingredients: 62 percent consult the ingredients list and 52 percent look at front-of-package information. Other sources of information trail far behind, including the websites or social media accounts of brands/companies (20 percent), family or friends (16 percent), and QR codes on packages (8 percent).
But the calculus changes somewhat when Americans seek more general information about food ingredients, with 20 percent saying family and friends are their top source, followed by websites or social media accounts of brands/companies (19 percent), the top articles shown after an online search (18 percent), their personal health care provider (16 percent), and websites or social media accounts of U.S. government agencies (15 percent). Only 4 percent of Americans cite food/nutrition social media influencers or bloggers as their top source of food ingredient information.
Not only is the influence of ingredients on purchasing decisions high, but consumer attentiveness is also growing, with 62 percent of respondents saying they are paying more attention to ingredient lists now than they did five years ago.
The survey also found pluralities of consumer support for the benefits of preservatives: 42 percent agree that adding preservatives to foods is a way to help reduce food waste (21 percent disagree) and 39 percent agree that adding an ingredient to a food would be positive if it extended shelf life (23 percent disagreed).
The words “natural” and “artificial” elicited a strong reaction when it comes to food choices. About half (48 percent) of Americans say they seek out natural flavors at least some of the time, 41 percent seek out natural sweeteners, 40 percent seek out natural preservatives, and 35 percent seek out colors from natural sources. In contrast, artificial flavors, colors, sweeteners, and preservatives were sought out by only about one in 10 consumers, with approximately half saying they avoid each of them at least some of the time.
Survey respondents were also asked about their attitudes toward and definitions of “clean” ingredients and clean eating.
Nearly 2 in 3 survey takers (64 percent) say they try to choose foods made with clean ingredients. When these consumers were asked how they define clean ingredients, “not artificial or synthetic” was the top choice of 22 percent, while 16 percent chose “organic,” 15 percent chose “fresh,” 14 percent cited “something they know is nutritious,” and another 14 percent selected “natural.” At the bottom of the list, 6 percent cited the following options as their top choice: something with a familiar or recognizable name, something that doesn’t have a chemical-sounding name, and something with a name they can pronounce.
Similarly, consumers were asked about clean eating. Nearly half (46 percent) consider themselves to be clean eaters—with 21 percent ranking “eating foods that aren’t highly processed” as their top definition of the term (nearly half, 49 percent, ranked this in their top three). Another 14 percent of self-described clean eaters defined it as eating foods found in the fresh produce section, 13 percent as eating organic foods, 11 percent as eating foods with simple ingredients lists, and 9 percent defined it as eating foods with ingredients they just consider to be “clean.”
Emphasis on health
So why do Americans choose to eat “clean”? In a word, it’s “health.”
Of those who choose foods and beverages with clean ingredients, 25 percent said their top motivation for doing so was seeking out health benefits from foods and beverages with clean ingredients, while 21 percent are looking to avoid the possible harmful effects of chemical-sounding ingredients, 18 percent who most want to avoid the possible harmful effects of unfamiliar ingredients, 18 percent who want to be familiar with what goes into the foods and beverages they choose, and 17 percent who think foods and beverages with clean ingredients are more nutritious.
Health-related factors also dominated the list of reasons consumers avoid ingredients with chemical-sounding names: 26 percent chose general health concerns for themselves as the top reason, 20 percent chose general health concerns for their family, 13 percent cited cancer, 8 percent cited that the ingredients were unfamiliar to them, 7 percent chose digestive issues and 7 percent cited environmental concerns. Concerns around ingredient sensitivities (6 percent), food allergies (5 percent), and foodborne illness (5 percent) ranked just slightly lower.
Survey results were derived from online interviews of 1,054 Americans ages 18+, conducted May 6–10, 2021. The results were weighted to ensure proportionate results. | <urn:uuid:e6249d04-dc38-4ebf-96c6-e2c285972ffb> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.snackandbakery.com/articles/97013-consumers-show-strong-interest-in-food-ingredients-clean-is-in-chemical-sounding-is-out | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00467.warc.gz | en | 0.945885 | 1,142 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Gestational diabetes is a type of diabetes that affects women during pregnancy. Diabetes is a condition caused by too much glucose (sugar) in the blood.
Normally, the amount of glucose in the blood is controlled by a hormone called insulin. However, during pregnancy, some women have slightly higher than normal levels of glucose in their blood and their body cannot produce enough insulin to transport it all into the cells. This means that the level of glucose in the blood rises.
Types of diabetes
Gestational diabetes is diabetes that is first diagnosed during pregnancy. There are two other types of diabetes:
- type 1 diabetes - when the body produces no insulin at all (often referred to as insulin-dependent diabetes, juvenile diabetes or early-onset diabetes)
- type 2 diabetes - when the body doesn't produce enough insulin or the body's cells do not react to insulin (insulin resistance)
See the relevant links above for women who already had diabetes before they became pregnant.
How common is gestational diabetes?
It is estimated that two to five in every 100 women giving birth has diabetes. Most of these women have gestational diabetes, and some have type 1 or type 2 diabetes.
It is estimated that gestational diabetes affects 12% of pregnant women.
Gestational diabetes can often be controlled with diet and exercise. One or two women in every 10 with gestational diabetes will require medication to control their blood glucose levels (see Gestational diabetes - treatment).
If gestational diabetes is not detected and controlled, it can increase the risk of birth complications, such as shoulder dystocia (when the baby's shoulder gets stuck during the birth). It can also lead to babies being large for their gestational age. See Gestational diabetes - complications for more information about the risks of this condition.
In most cases, gestational diabetes develops in the second or third trimester (from week 14 of the pregnancy to the birth) and disappears after the baby is born. However, women who develop gestational diabetes are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes later in life.
Gestational diabetes is usually diagnosed during routine screening (see Gestational diabetes - diagnosis) before it causes any symptoms. But often, gestational diabetes will not cause any symptoms at all.
However, high blood glucose (hyperglycaemia) can cause some symptoms, including:
- being thirsty
- having a dry mouth
- needing to urinate frequently
- recurrent infections, such as thrush (a yeast infection)
- blurred vision
Diabetes is caused by too much glucose (sugar) in the blood. The amount of glucose in the blood is controlled by a hormone called insulin, which is produced by the pancreas (a gland behind the stomach).
When you eat, your digestive system breaks down food and the nutrients are absorbed into your bloodstream. Normally, insulin is produced to take any glucose out of your blood and move it into your cells. The glucose in your cells is then broken down to produce energy.
During pregnancy, your body produces a number of hormones (chemicals), such as oestrogen and progesterone. These hormones make your body insulin-resistant, which means that your cells respond less well to insulin and the level of glucose in your blood remains high.
The purpose of this hormonal effect is to allow the extra glucose and nutrients in your blood to pass to the foetus (unborn baby) so it can grow.
In order to cope with the increased amount of glucose in your blood, your body should produce more insulin. However, some women have slightly higher than normal levels of glucose in their blood and their body cannot produce enough insulin to transport it all into the cells. This is known as gestational diabetes.
You may be at increased risk of gestational diabetes if:
- your body mass index (BMI) is more than 25
- you have previously had a baby who weighed 4.5kg (10lbs) or more at birth - the medical term for a birth weight of more than 4kg (8.8lbs) is macrosomic
- you had gestational diabetes in a previous pregnancy
- you have a family history of diabetes - for example, one of your parents has diabetes
- your family origins are South Asian (specifically India, Pakistan or Bangladesh), black Caribbean or Middle Eastern (specifically Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Lebanon or Egypt)
Every pregnant woman should be offered a screening test for gestational diabetes. Screening identifies apparently healthy people who may be at increased risk of a condition, such as diabetes. You can then be offered information, further tests and treatment to reduce the risk of complications from that condition.
You may be screened for gestational diabetes at your booking appointment. This is usually a long antenatal appointment with your midwife or GP, which takes place around weeks 8-12 of your pregnancy. See Pregnancy Care for more information about your care during pregnancy.
At this time, your GP or midwife will find out if you are at increased risk of gestational diabetes. They will do this by asking about any risk factors that may affect you, such as whether you have a family history of diabetes. See Gestational diabetes - causes for a full list of the risk factors you will be asked about.
If any one of these risk factors applies to you, you will be offered a test for gestational diabetes.
Gestational diabetes is detected by using an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) or a random blood glucose test. These test the amount of glucose (sugar) in a sample of blood taken from a vein in your arm.
A random glucose blood test may involve having one or several samples of blood tested to see if your blood glucose levels are as expected, or if they vary widely.
For an OGTT, a sample of your blood will be tested, then you will be given a glucose drink. Another sample of blood will then be taken every half an hour for two hours, to see how your body is dealing with the glucose.
If you do not have gestational diabetes, you may be asked to return to have another blood test around weeks 24-28.
If you do have gestational diabetes, you will be given advice about how to control and monitor your blood glucose levels
Previous gestational diabetes
If you have had gestational diabetes in a previous pregnancy but the oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) does not detect it at your booking appointment, you may be instructed in how to self-monitor your blood glucose.
This is usually done by pricking the end of your finger and testing a drop of the blood. See testing your glucose levels for more information on how to do this.
Alternatively, you may be asked to return for another OGTT at around:
- weeks 16-18 of the pregnancy
- week 28 of the pregnancy
The schedule of these appointments may vary depending on the procedures in your area.
If you have gestational diabetes, you will be advised about monitoring and controlling your blood glucose (sugar) levels.
For at least 8 out of 10 women, changing your diet and increasing the amount of exercise you do will be enough to control your gestational diabetes. One or two women in every 10 will need medication.
In addition, you will be taught how to monitor your blood glucose, and your unborn baby will be closely monitored.
Monitoring blood glucose
Your GP or midwife will discuss with you how to test your own blood glucose levels. They will also explain to you how blood glucose is measured, and what level you should be aiming for.
Blood glucose levels are usually measured in terms of the amount of millimoles of glucose in one litre of blood. A millimole is a measurement that defines the concentration of glucose in your blood. The measurement is expressed as millimoles per litre, or mmol/l for short.
Your individual mmol/l target will be set for you. This may include a target for your:
- fasting blood glucose (after you have not eaten for around eight hours - normally first thing in the morning)
- postprandial blood glucose (about one hour after you have eaten)
You will be advised when and how often you need to test your blood glucose. You may need to test your fasting blood glucose and your blood glucose after every meal throughout your pregnancy. If your diabetes is being treated with insulin (see below, under Medications), you may need to test your blood glucose before going to bed at night.
You may be advised to change your diet to control your gestational diabetes. In some cases, you may be referred to a dietitian (a healthcare professional who specialises in nutrition) to advise you about a special diet.
Some dietary advice that you may be given is explained below.
You may be advised to choose lean (not fatty) proteins, such as fish. Eat two portions of fish a week, one of which should be oily fish, such as sardines or mackerel. There are some type of fish you should avoid, for example, eating too much tuna.
Aim to eat a balance of polyunsaturated fats and monounsaturated fats. Small amounts of unsaturated fat will keep your immune system (the body's defence system) healthy and can reduce cholesterol levels (cholesterol is a fatty substance that can build up in your blood and seriously affect your health).
Foods that contain unsaturated fat include:
- nuts and seeds
- sunflower, olive and vegetable oil
- spreads that are made from sunflower, olive and vegetable oils
Low GI carbohydrates
You may be advised to choose carbohydrates with a low glycaemic index (GI). The GI ranks food based on how they affect blood sugar levels. Low GI foods are absorbed into the bloodstream slowly, keeping blood sugar levels more stable. High GI foods are absorbed quickly and cause blood sugar levels to rise.
Examples of low GI carbohydrates include:
- pasta made from durum wheat
- sweet potatoes
If your body mass index (BMI) was more than 27 before you became pregnant, you may be advised to reduce the amount of calories in your diet.
Your GP or midwife will advise you how many calories you should eat a day, and the safest way to cut out calories from your diet.
Physical activity lowers your blood glucose level, so regular exercise can be an effective way to treat gestational diabetes. Your GP or midwife will advise you about the safest way to exercise during pregnancy.
If your body mass index (BMI) was more than 27 before you became pregnant, you may be advised to take moderate exercise for at least 150 minutes (2 hours and 30 minutes) every week. This can be any activity that gets you slightly out of breath and raises your heart rate, such as cycling or fast walking.
You can use the healthy weight calculator to work out your BMI - but remember to use your pre-pregnancy weight.
If diet and exercise have not effectively controlled your gestational diabetes after around two weeks, you may be prescribed medication. The timing may vary depending on your glucose levels.
You may also be prescribed medication if an ultrasound scan (when high-frequency sound waves are used to create an image of your womb) suggests that your unborn baby is large for their age.
There are several different types of medication available, and the choice will depend on:
- what will most effectively control your blood glucose
- what is acceptable to you
Possible medicines include:
- rapid-acting insulin analogues (aspart or lispro)
- oral hypoglycaemic agents (metformin or glibenclamide) are used on rare occasions
These are explained in more detail below. These medicines will be stopped immediately after the birth of your baby.
If you are insulin resistant (your body does not respond to insulin), you may need to have insulin injections to ensure that your body has enough insulin to lower your blood glucose levels.
Insulin must be injected because if you swallowed it, the enzymes (proteins that speed up and control chemical reactions in the body) in your stomach would digest it like a food, and it would not be effective. If you need insulin injections, you will be shown:
- how and when to inject yourself
- how to store your insulin and dispose of your needles properly
Insulin comes in several different preparations. You may be prescribed:
- regular insulin - this is normally injected before meals and lasts up to eight hours
- rapid-acting insulin analogues (aspart or lispro) - these are normally injected before or just after meals; they work quickly but do not last very long
These are safe to use during pregnancy. However, you will need to monitor your blood glucose closely. If you are being treated with insulin, you will need to check your:
- blood glucose before going to bed at night
- fasting blood glucose (after you have not eaten for around eight hours - normally first thing in the morning)
- blood glucose about one hour after every meal
If your blood glucose falls too low, you may have hypoglycaemia (see the box, left).
Oral hypoglycaemic agents
In very rare cases you may be prescribed oral hypoglycaemic agents alongside or instead of insulin. These are medicines that you swallow to lower the level of glucose in your blood. The two that can be used during pregnancy are:
- glibenclamide (from week 11 of the pregnancy)
Both metformin and glibenclamide can cause side effects, including:
- nausea (feeling sick)
- diarrhoea (passing loose, watery stools)
As with insulin, if you are using glibenclamide you may be at risk of hypoglycaemia (see box, left). This does not usually happen with metformin.
For a full list of side effects, see the patient information leaflet that comes with your medicine.
Monitoring your unborn baby
If you have gestational diabetes, your unborn baby may be at risk of complications, such as being large for their age. Because of this, you may be offered extra antenatal appointments so that your baby can be closely monitored during your pregnancy.
Appointments you may be offered include:
- an ultrasound scan around weeks 18-20 of your pregnancy to check your unborn baby's heart for any signs of abnormalities (if your gestational diabetes is diagnosed late into your pregnancy you may not be offered this scan)
- an ultrasound scan at weeks 28, 32, 36 and every week from week 38 of the pregnancy to monitor your baby's growth and the amount of amniotic fluid (the fluid that surrounds them in the womb)
- tests of your baby's wellbeing every week from week 38 of the pregnancy; for example, monitoring your baby's heart rate
If you have gestational diabetes and your baby is growing at a normal rate, you may be offered the chance to start labour (the process of giving birth) after week 38 of pregnancy.
This can be done by inducing labour. This is when labour is started artificially by inserting a pessary (tablet) or gel into your vagina, or by a hormone drip into your arm.
You can wait for labour to start naturally as long as it is safe to do so.
If your baby is large for its gestational age (macrosomic), then your GP or midwife should discuss the birth options with you.
You should be advised to give birth at a hospital where healthcare professional trained in resuscitating newborn babies are available 24 hours a day.
During labour and the birth, your blood glucose will be measured every hour and kept at 4 to 7 mmol/l. Around two to four hours after the birth, your newborn baby's blood glucose will also be measured.
You should have the oral glucose tolerance test repeated 6 to 12 weeks after delivery of your baby. You are at a long term risk of developing diabetes and so you should continue to follow a healthy lifestyle with regular testing for diabetes
After you have given birth, any medication you were on to control your blood glucose will be stopped. Your blood glucose level will be tested to make sure that it has returned to normal.
Your weight and waist measurement may be monitored and you should be given advice about diet and exercise.
You should be aware of the symptoms of high blood glucose (hyperglycaemia), which could be a sign your diabetes has returned. These are:
- increased thirst
- the need to urinate frequently
Your fasting blood glucose will be measured (after you have not eaten for eight hours – normally first thing in the morning) at your six-week postnatal check.
This will then be measured once a year to make sure you do not develop diabetes.
Hypoglycaemia is an abnormally low level of glucose in the blood. You may be at risk of hypoglycaemia if you are using medication to control your gestational diabetes.
Be informed of the risks of hypoglycaemia, and learn how to recognise the symptoms, such as:
- feeling hungry
- trembling or shakiness
- anxiety or irritability
- going pale
If hypoglycaemia is not treated it may lead to unconsciousness because there is not enough glucose for the brain to function normally.
The immediate treatment of hypoglycaemia is to have some sugary food or drink, such as:
- glucose tablets
- fruit juice
You may be given a concentrated glucose solution (drink) to keep on hand in case you have hypoglycaemia.
See the Health A-Z topic about Hypoglycaemia for more information.
Gestational diabetes can cause complications for both you and your baby. If your blood glucose (sugar) level is effectively controlled throughout your pregnancy, you will reduce the risk of these complications.
Gestational diabetes may increase the risk of:
- pre-eclampsia - a condition that causes high blood pressure in pregnant women
- placental abruption - the placenta (the organ that links the pregnant woman's blood supply to her unborn baby's) starts to come away from the wall of the womb (uterus)
- needing to induce labour - when medication is used to start labour artificially
- premature birth (see below)
- macrosomia (see below)
- trauma during the birth - to yourself and your baby
- neonatal hypoglycaemia - your newborn baby has low blood glucose, which can cause poor feeding, blue-tinged skin and irritability
- perinatal death - the death of your baby around the time of the birth
Gestational diabetes can cause premature birth (your baby being born before week 37 of the pregnancy). This can lead to further complications for your baby, such as:
- respiratory distress syndrome - your baby's lungs are not fully developed and cannot provide enough oxygen to the rest of their body
- jaundice - your baby's skin turns yellow when a waste product called bilirubin builds up in the blood
Gestational diabetes increases the risk of your baby being large for its gestational age, i.e. weighing more than 4kg (8.8lbs). This is known as macrosomia.
Macrosomia occurs during the pregnancy because the excess glucose in the mother's blood is passed to the foetus (unborn baby). This causes the foetus to produce insulin (a hormone) that allows glucose to enter the cells, which results in growth.
Macrosomia can lead to a condition called shoulder dystocia. This is when your baby's head passes through your vagina, but your baby's shoulder gets stuck behind your pelvic bone (the ring of bone that supports your upper body, also called the hip bones).
Shoulder dystocia can be dangerous as your baby may not be able to breathe while they are stuck. It is estimated to affect 1 in 200 births. For more information, see the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists: shoulder dystocia.
After having gestational diabetes, you are around seven times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than women who have had a normal pregnancy.
Type 2 diabetes is when your body does not produce enough insulin, or the body's cells do not react to the insulin (insulin resistance). See the Health A-Z topic about Type 2 diabetes for more information about this condition.
Therefore, it is very important that your blood glucose is monitored after the birth to ensure that it returns to normal.
Your baby may also be at greater risk of developing these conditions in later life:
- obesity (having a body mass index of more than 30)
After having gestational diabetes, you are at increased risk of having gestational diabetes in any future pregnancies.
It is very important to speak to your GP if you are planning another pregnancy. They may arrange for you to monitor your own blood glucose from the early stage of your pregnancy. For more information on diagnosing and monitoring high blood glucose
You can monitor your own blood glucose levels using a simple finger prick test.
Finger prick testing
This is what you will need to do it independently:
- blood testing strips
- blood glucose meter
- finger pricking device
- blood glucose monitoring diary
- sharps box for disposal of sharps
These are available from your GP or hospital.
- Before doing a finger prick test, make sure you have all your equipment in a clean dry place.
- Wash your hands and rinse well with warm water (dirty hands can contaminate a blood sample and give an inaccurate result).
- Choose your finger and massage it to improve blood circulation.
- Pricking the fleshy part of your finger can hurt. Instead prick the side of the finger away from the thumb. Squeeze your finger gently to obtain a drop of blood.
- Apply the drop of blood to the testing strip. The meter will automatically read the result.
- Note the result in your diary. | <urn:uuid:e15eaad3-40d2-479d-b545-b44539e144e9> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.hse.ie/eng/health/az/D/Diabetes,-gestational/Symptoms-of-gestational-diabetes.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282202.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00555-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938373 | 4,565 | 3.6875 | 4 |
Someone recently told me that we get our kids' education for free in America; the least we can do is buy the hard-working teacher a gift during the holidays.
Sorry, America. I have no problem paying my taxes to support the teachers (and that "free" education); but there's no rule that every family has to buy their child's teacher a gift.
We've all met some really bad teachers in our day. The one who sat in the front of the room rolling a "stress ball" in her hands while she assigned the kids busy work and the one who read Friday's test to the kids on Thursdays -- enabling them to just memorize the correct answers beforehand -- come to mind. If my child had a teacher like that, I'd be counting the days until June, not ponying up my hard-earned cash for a present.
Add on top of that the complaints abounding on Facebook from parents who don't know how to come up with the cash for the "class gift" put together by a parent who apparently has both more time and disposable income than the rest of the families in her child's class. They don't want to contribute, and I don't think they should.
I wondered if I was just being a grinch, so I checked with etiquette expert Faye Rogaski, founder of socialsklz:-) tools to thrive in the modern world, to see if there was a hard and fast rule for gifting teachers. She says it's just fine to skip the crappy ceramic apple.
"The holidays are about thoughtfulness, kindness, and giving," says Rogaski. Especially in light of a tight economy, parents shouldn't be guilted into "kindness" for anyone -- least of all a person their kid just met in September based on a random lottery created by the school district.
"We’re living in a time where not everyone has the means to spend on gifts and tips, and the holidays is not a time to overspend and put yourself in a precarious position financially," Rogaski says.
Which doesn't mean you can't put yourself out there if your child has an extraordinary educator (mine does!). Write a letter to the teacher and have your child write a letter or paint them a picture -- they're both free. Make cookies; it's extremely cheap and they can be passed off by the teacher at a holiday party if it's not a flavor they enjoy.
Rogaski advises, "This is a wonderful opportunity to teach your child that giving is enjoyable and doesn’t necessarily have to be in the form of an expensive present."
And parents, if you just can't resist going over the top, Rogaski has a tip for you too: "If you are giving a gift to a teacher, be mindful that others may not be doing so. Give the gift during a time when class isn’t in session or leave it in a subtle spot as a surprise."
Will you be spending on the teacher this year?
Image via Corey Leopold/Flickr | <urn:uuid:7b27a9f8-56c9-43ed-b8e3-3925dd3d5a71> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://thestir.cafemom.com/big_kid/113396/Buying_Presents_for_the_Teacher | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279489.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00018-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976022 | 633 | 1.703125 | 2 |
In the beginning, Dr. John Gottman’s research was devoted to the discovery of reliable patterns in observational data. He wanted to see if there were indeed patterns of behavior, or sequences of interactions, that could discriminate happy from unhappy couples. It was not at all clear that these patterns existed. Dr. Gottman and his colleagues began developing the math for sequential analysis, which now is a well developed methodology. They began discovering consistent sequences that differentiated happily married from unhappily married couples, which Dr. Gottman wrote about in a book called Marital Interactions: Experimental Investigations.
In the 1970’s, systematic observation of couples started in the Gottman lab. Psychology at that time was having a great deal of difficulty establishing reliable patterns in the personality of one individual. Advice suggested that psychologists should not study couples, because the unreliability in studying one person might be squared in studying two people. That advice was wrong. Dr. Gottman showed that there was tremendous regularity in a couple over time.
In a series of research studies, Dr. Gottman developed new observational coding systems with his colleagues, and the lab applied brand new methods for studying sequences of interaction. They built a device called a “talk table,” in which people could interact and also rate how positive or negative their intentions were and how positive or negative were the impacts of the messages they received.
In 1975, Robert Levenson and John Gottman teamed up to combine the study of emotion with psycho-physiological measurement and a video-recall method that gave them rating dial measures of how people felt during conflict. They discovered Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen’s Facial Affect Coding System (FACS), and Dr. Gottman subsequently developed the Specific Affect Coding System (SPAFF).
Dr. Gottman began applying time-series analysis to the analysis of interaction data. He wrote a book on time-series analysis to explain these methods to psychologists, and developed some new methods for analyzing dominance and bidirectionality with his colleagues. In 1980, Dr. Gottman and Levenson received their first grant together and began attempting to replicate their observations from their first study.
The Gottman lab at the University of Illinois also studied the linkages between marital interaction, parenting, and children’s social development (with Lynn Katz), and later at the University of Washington involved studying these linkages with infants (with Alyson Shapiro). Learn more about the research on parenting.
Gottman and Levenson discovered that couples interaction had enormous stability over time (about 80% stability in conflict discussions separated by 3 years). They also discovered that most relationship problems (69%) never get resolved but are “perpetual” problems based on personality differences between partners. Learn more about the research on marriage and couples.
In seven longitudinal studies, one with violent couples (with Neil Jacobson), the predictions replicated. They could predict whether a couple would divorce with an average of over 90% accuracy, across studies using the ratio of positive to negative SPAFF codes, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Criticism, Defensiveness, Contempt, and Stonewalling), physiology, the rating dial, and an interview they devised called the Oral History Interview.
In 1986, John Gottman and his colleagues built an apartment laboratory at the University of Washington that was dubbed the “Love Lab” by the media. This is where they discovered the basis of friendship and intimacy and its relation to conflict in their Bids and Turning Coding System. With that work they discovered how couples create and maintain friendship and intimacy and how it’s related to conflict.
When 14-year longitudinal data became available Levenson & Gottman discovered a second dysfunctional pattern, emotional disengagement. It was marked by the absence of positive affect during conflict (no interest, affection, humor, or empathy). Now they could predict not only if a couple would divorce, but when. Couples who had the Four Horsemen divorced an average of 5.6 years after the wedding, while emotionally disengaged couples divorced an average of 16.2 years after the wedding.
Levenson and Gottman also conducted a 12-year study of gay and lesbian couples, work they published in two papers in the Journal of Homosexuality. Learn more about the research on same-sex couples.
In 1994, Dr. Gottman began working with his wife, clinical psychologist Dr. Julie Schwartz-Gottman, developing the Sound Relationship House (SRH) theory and interventions based on John’s research. Together, they designed both proximal and distal change studies. In a proximal change study, one intervenes briefly with interventions designed only to make the 2nd of two conflict discussions less divorce prone. In one of these studies they discovered that a 20-minute break in which couples stopped talking and just reading magazines (as their heart rates returned to baseline) dramatically changed the discussion so that people had access to their sense of humor and affection.
In 1996, Drs. Julie and John Gottman co-founded The Gottman Institute to bring this research to the world. We are committed to an ongoing program of research that increases the understanding of relationships and adds to the development of interventions that have been carefully evaluated. Read more about our mission. | <urn:uuid:a24f4e8e-9ccc-4476-926e-afb25f4cfc80> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.gottman.com/about/research/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280587.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00566-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96603 | 1,090 | 3.03125 | 3 |
|Reference : Unpredictable photocatalytic ability of H2-reduced rutile-TiO2 xerogel in the degrada...|
|Scientific congresses and symposiums : Poster|
|Physical, chemical, mathematical & earth Sciences : Chemistry|
Engineering, computing & technology : Chemical engineering
Engineering, computing & technology : Materials science & engineering
|Unpredictable photocatalytic ability of H2-reduced rutile-TiO2 xerogel in the degradation of dye-pollutants under UV and visible light irradiation|
|Páez Martínez, Carlos [Université de Liège - ULg > Département de chimie appliquée > Génie chimique - Génie catalytique >]|
|Lambert, Stéphanie [Université de Liège - ULg > Département de chimie appliquée > Génie chimique - Génie catalytique >]|
|Poelman, Dirk [Ghent University > Department of Solid State Sciences > LumiLab > >]|
|Pirard, Jean-Paul [Université de Liège - ULg > Département de chimie appliquée > Génie chimique - Génie catalytique >]|
|Heinrichs, Benoît [Université de Liège - ULg > Département de chimie appliquée > Génie chimique - Nanomatériaux et interfaces >]|
|International Symposium on Advanced Complex Inorganic Nanomaterials, ACIN 2011|
|11-14 September 2011|
|[en] Photocatalytic degradation of organic and inorganic pollutants on the TiO2 semiconductor has been extensively studied as a way to solve environmental problems relating to wastewater and polluted air. Anatase and rutile are the most commonly used crystalline structures of TiO2, with anatase showing a higher photocatalytic activity attributed to its higher specific surface area and its favourable band gap energy (Eg). However, its high band gap (Eg = 3.2 eV) implies the use of UV light (lambda ≤ 380 nm) to inject electrons into the conduction band (TiO2(e-CB)) and to leave holes in the valence band (TiO2(h+VB)). Although the low band gap energy of rutile-TiO2 (Eg = 3.02 eV) allows rutile to potentially absorb more solar energy than anatase, the anatase-to-rutile phase transition leads to the collapse of the TiO2 specific surface area, which may result in a decrease in the photocatalytic activity of rutile. Low specific surface area and therefore poor absorption properties lead to strong limitations in exploring the photo-efficiency of rutile. Nevertheless, rutile has been proved to be comparable to anatase in its photoelectrochemical properties when used in dye-sensitized solar cells.
In the present study, a new process for the reduction of rutile-TiO2 xerogel under hydrogen flow was developed to enhance the photocatalytic activity of TiO2 materials synthesized by the sol-gel process. So a series of H2-reduced TiO2 xerogels of low specific surface area was prepared by hydrolysis and condensation of tetraisopropoxy titanium(IV) in 2-methoxyethanol. The gels were dried under vacuum, calcined in air at different temperatures (400°C, 500°C and 700°C) and finally reduced in H2 at 400 °C. The materials were characterized by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), FT-IR spectroscopy and UV/Visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. The texture was determined by nitrogen adsorption-desorption measurements. The effects of the calcination/reduction treatments on the adsorption of methylene blue (MB) in aqueous solution and on the photocatalytic degradation of MB and crystal violet (CV) under UV and visible light irradiation were also evaluated.
Results showed predictable modifications in the physico-chemical properties caused by the annealing of TiO2 xerogel at high calcination temperature (700 °C), such as a total anatase-to-rutile phase transition and a considerable loss of specific surface area from 260 to 2 m2 g-1. However, the higher degree of reduction exhibited by the rutile-TiO2 lattice led to unpredictable photocatalytic activity for the dye conversion under UV and visible light irradiation: the loss of specific surface area of the rutile-TiO2 sample was compensated by the increase in the affinity of this sample for the dye. Under UV light irradiation, the rutile-TiO2 xerogel obtained after a calcination at 700 °C showed a similar level of photoactivity as the one obtained with anatase-TiO2 xerogels obtained by calcination at 400 °C and 500 °C. Under visible light, unlike anatase-TiO2 xerogels, the rutile-TiO2 xerogel showed a higher dye photoconversion rate per external surface area (40 times higher) than the commercial TiO2 Degussa P25.
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All documents in ORBi are protected by a user license. | <urn:uuid:7ac8b423-3aa8-44e1-8626-339e8fed1a6b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://orbi.ulg.ac.be/handle/2268/119313 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285315.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00573-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.815655 | 1,188 | 1.890625 | 2 |
Over 30 years after the introduction of minicomputers and more than 20 years after the introduction of microcomputers, the mainframe remains an important category. Total worldwide revenues of large-scale computer processors (or mainframes) amounted to $16 billion in 1997 compared to $16.2 billion in 1982. But because total demand grew from $38 billion to $183 billion, mainframes’ share of the total computer market dropped considerably, from 42% to about 9%.
He argues that new products and services tend to satisfy new wants rather than immediately displacing existing goods. He says that this complicates issues of macroeconomic theory and policy.
The new want machine, which has an excellent record, does not however create jobs at exactly the same rate as increases in efficiency and outsourcing, or cyclical downturns, causes traditional industries to shed them...
No one can predict when new industries will start adding jobs faster than old industries shed them. Standard macro-economic policies cannot speed things up. Tax cuts and easy money might stimulate ‘old’ economy demand for automobiles and housing, but they cannot overcome the unwillingness of U.S. consumers to use Short Messaging Services on their cell phones.
Thanks to Timothy Taylor in the Journal of Economic Perspectives for the pointer. The Summer 2005 issue of that journal is filled with articles on institutional economics, behavioral economics, and freakonomics. For those of us who believe that the mathematical paradigm has gone well past the point of diminishing returns, this journal seems to offer a better way forward. | <urn:uuid:d3495540-3386-4cc1-90a7-4e547bef0099> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2005/09/creative_nondes.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720238.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00190-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929468 | 314 | 2.375 | 2 |
The benefits of environmental protection are many. Pollution is an obvious problem that affects all areas of life. In addition to the health risks posed by polluted food, this pollution can also harm the environment. People also have a moral obligation to protect the environment, as it fulfills their natural compulsion to protect themselves. The biodiversity of the world is an important part of the ecosystem that sustains human life. This diversity includes animals living on the earth, plants, forests, grasslands, and tundra. The loss of these environments will have a devastating impact on the human population and the environment.
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The benefits of environmental protection can be spread throughout the economy as environmental costs and benefits become more apparent. In addition, the marginal costs of environmental protection will become more readily affordable as pollution control and regulation increases in the regulated industries. Thus, a broader audience can benefit from the increased profits from environmentally-friendly products. As a result, regulation is justified economically when the benefits outweigh the costs. However, true negative cost-benefit analysis is difficult to conduct, and therefore, many environmental policies will fail to achieve the expected benefits.
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The benefits of environmental protection are obvious, but they cannot be quantified in a way that can be used to justify environmental spending. One of the most common ways to quantify the benefits of environmental protection is through a cost-benefit analysis. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the costs of pollution reductions can save the lives of more than seven million people each year. In 2006, the National Center for Environmental Economics estimated the cost of a statistical human life at $7.4 billion. In the process, the United States has become one of the largest contributors to global warming. This is because deforestation adds more carbon to the atmosphere, which causes it to get hotter. Conversely, trees absorb carbon dioxide, making the Earth cooler and the atmosphere hotter.
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If You Need More Information’s check This Link: dailybulletin.org | <urn:uuid:f5dc590c-faa3-4bbd-8766-5cd4036897d5> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://imoch.org/the-benefits-of-environmental-protection/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570765.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808031623-20220808061623-00269.warc.gz | en | 0.919829 | 649 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Design Squad Nation; Musical Bike
SD Master of Episode 106: Musical Bike
More material is available from this program at the WGBH Archive. If you are a researcher interested in accessing the collection at WGBH, please email email@example.com.
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- Design Squad Nation
- Musical Bike
- Program Number
- Series Description
This series, hosted by professional engineers Judy Lee and Adam Vollmer, is about making kids' dreams come true through engineering. As engineers Judy and Adam use their know-how to help kids across the country and around the world design and build creations.
Premiering on PBS in January 2011, DESIGN SQUAD NATION is a 10-part series of TV shows and video blogs that build on the success of the award-winning PBS reality competition series DESIGN SQUAD to get kids excited about engineering. DESIGN SQUAD NATION is high-energy, high-drama reality TV led by Judy and Adam, two professional engineers who work with kids around the world to make their wishes come true through engineering. From creating a park for skaters at the White Mountain Apache Reservation in Arizona to building a playground in a rural village in Nicaragua's northern mountains, the goal of DESIGN SQUAD NATION is to inspire viewers to take on their own hands-on engineering activities. Series release date: 1/26/2011
- Program Description
Original Episode Number: 406
Judy and Adam meet Beatriz in her hometown of Emeryville, California to help her combine her passion for music and bike building. Working at The Crucible—a non-profit educational foundry and metal fabrication shop—they design and build a pedal-powered bike organ for Beatriz to unveil at her high school block party.
Engineering Content: Engineering is creative, rewarding, and connects to a broad range of careers (including those that are music related); technological designs have constraints. Science Content: Sound; Simple Machines; Force; Pressure
- Asset Type
- Media Type
- Chicago: “Design Squad Nation; Musical Bike,” 12/22/2010, WGBH Media Library & Archives, accessed January 21, 2017, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_39CD7C9378924BC4A2128B8BACB3A6EC.
- MLA: “Design Squad Nation; Musical Bike.” 12/22/2010. WGBH Media Library & Archives. Web. January 21, 2017. <http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_39CD7C9378924BC4A2128B8BACB3A6EC>.
- APA: Design Squad Nation; Musical Bike. Boston, MA: WGBH Media Library & Archives. Retrieved from http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_39CD7C9378924BC4A2128B8BACB3A6EC | <urn:uuid:ed365eb3-d025-4fd6-ac53-1d2218e38bb8> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_39CD7C9378924BC4A2128B8BACB3A6EC | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280929.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00423-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.892923 | 651 | 1.671875 | 2 |
As Professor Harsh V Pant noted in his end of year review for South Asia @ LSE, 2016 has been a year of dramatic changes in South Asia in the area of security and foreign policy. Our expert contributors analysed new trends and unfolding events throughout the year – below is a round-up of the most popular articles.
Following the Uri attack in September there have been calls for India to do away with the Indus Waters Treaty, the agreement which governs India and Pakistan’s use of water from the Indus rivers system. Drawing on his own research, Daniel Haines outlines the history of the Treaty, why it has been a source of contention since its conception and why scrapping it in the wake of recent tensions would be a mistake.
India has expressed its concerns about The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) but it does not have to power to stall the project between its neighbours. In this light Tridivesh Singh Maini writes that strategic actors in India would be well advised to take a longer-term view of the potential benefits of CPEC, although he acknowledges that current political climate makes it hard to contemplate strengthening India-Pakistan economic ties in the immediate future.
Following Prime Minister Modi’s comments about Balochistan in his independence day speech, Ashok Swain warns that open support for Baloch separatists will not solve the Kashmir conflict. What is more, he writes that by threatening its neighbour’s territorial integrity India risks alienating key allies, and in the worst case scenario intervention could result in a nuclear conflict which would threaten the lives and livelihoods of millions.
As the Taliban increase the tempo of violence in Afghanistan they face new competition from the rising Wilayat Khorasan
The recent attack on the Hazara Shiite community was claimed by ISIS, revealing the growing penetration of its Afghan affiliate Wilayat Khorasan. In this article, Sajjan Gohel discusses the significance of the latest attack, outlines the origins of Wilayat Khorasan and discusses the escalating rivalry between the new group and the Afghan Taliban.
Although Indian PM Narendra Modi’s electoral campaign has attracted endless analysis, his diaspora engagement remains relatively understudied. But Saanya Gulati writes that his speeches to Indians living abroad offer a useful case study on nation branding. She offers examples of how consistent messaging has been packaged for different audiences, and explores the rationale behind cultivating these audiences.
You can catch up with all this year’s Security and Foreign Policy articles via the archives here.
Cover image: The confluence of the rivers Zanskar and Indus. Credit: Pradeep Kumbhashi CC BY-NC 2.0
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the South Asia @ LSE blog, nor of the London School of Economics. Please read our comments policy before posting. | <urn:uuid:f46db4a4-76ec-4f98-812b-e6ee4c5b4408> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2016/12/31/2016-in-review-top-5-posts-on-security-and-foreign-policy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571911.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813081639-20220813111639-00475.warc.gz | en | 0.943584 | 590 | 1.703125 | 2 |
By Taylor Seely | Arizona Republic
Buckeye, Arizona was founded in 1888. But it wasn’t always called Buckeye. So how did it get that name? And does it have anything to do with Ohio?
This week’s episode of Valley 101, a podcast from the Arizona Republic and azcentral.com, dives into those questions
Guiding us through the journey are:
- Jackie Meck, the soon-to-be former mayor of Buckeye.
- Deanna Kupcik, president and CEO of Buckeye Valley Chamber of Commerce.
- Levi Beard, former Vice Mayor and owner of Absolute Screen Printing in Buckeye. | <urn:uuid:b26cac60-f15b-4a71-9cee-004a203f298b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://roselawgroupreporter.com/2020/11/does-buckeyes-name-have-anything-to-do-with-ohio-podcast/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571210.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810191850-20220810221850-00467.warc.gz | en | 0.957206 | 139 | 1.789063 | 2 |
The Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty welcomes today’s ruling by the Kentucky Supreme Court requiring the commonwealth to follow the law before any more defendants are executed.
Earlier this week Attorney General Jack Conway irresponsibly asked for three men to be executed while the highest court in the state was still deciding whether Kentucky’s lethal injection protocol was in compliance with the law.
The court ruled it was not. It’s ruling will indefinitely stay executions in Kentucky, including for the three men who Conway sought death warrants for earlier in the week (Ralph Baze Jr., Robert Foley, and Gregory Wilson).
“When a state and its elected officials ignore the rule of law, it undermines the credibility of our entire justice system,” said Rev. Patrick Delahanty, chair of KCADP.
“For the chief law enforcement officer of the commonwealth to request these death warrants before the court’s decision indicates how broken the death penalty system is in this state. The only way to correct this seriously flawed policy is to abandon it and repeal the law that allows the killing of prisoners.”
The Supreme Court of Kentucky’s verdict in Thomas C. Bowling, Ralph Baze, and Brian Keith Moore v. Kentucky Department of Corrections is available at its website. | <urn:uuid:dadf0d8a-7ad8-472a-b57f-610c9b178442> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://kcadp.org/2009/11/25/kentucky-supreme-court-rules-lethal-injection-protocol-not-legal/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281450.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00175-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940872 | 269 | 1.773438 | 2 |
There are dozens of urban legends about alcohol consumption. Will homemade booze make you go blind? Does liquor-then-beer really put you in the clear? Can you build up your alcohol tolerance, or are you born a suffering lightweight?
Author and cocktail historian Brian D. Hoefling has teamed up with Argentinean-born illustrator Leandro Castelao to create a book that answers these important questions while looking like a mod mid-century guidebook. Instead of regurgitating the same wives’ tales and legends we’ve all heard before, Distilled Knowledge: The Science Behind Drinking’s Greatest Myths, Legends, and Unanswered Questions finds the science to back up the truths and discredit the lies. The book covers major topics like fermentation, distillation, and preparation, but most barflies will find themselves lingering in the last chapter, devoted to the effects of alcohol on the human body.
Related Post: Sam Calagione’s Off-Centered Leadership
In that final chapter, Hoefling covers alcohol’s relationship with sleep, sex, memory and more. Perhaps most eloquently, the author explains why drinking alcohol makes you feel good. He uses plain, conversational language while invoking the necessary scientific terms when necessary. For example, the statement “alcohol uses a natural, indirect pathway to trigger the same sensors that heavy duty painkillers do” is followed up by references to cannabinoid receptors and an explanation of disinhibition.
Castelao’s illustrations and infographics help convey the most important themes while still being lighthearted and fun. A favorite is the X/Y graph plotting blood alcohol content with what could happen to your body on a busy night out, which is smartly accented with unbalanced, vomiting and ultimately unconscious stick men. The quirky art style evokes a simple, playful throwback to vintage icon design and branding.
Distilled Knowledge: The Science Behind Drinking’s Greatest Myths, Legends, and Unanswered Questions is available now through Abbeville Press. | <urn:uuid:8ed47131-eca6-4309-ad12-9039c97484ed> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.themanual.com/food-and-drink/think-while-you-drink-with-distilled-knowledge/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720000.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00024-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.899883 | 418 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Menopause symptoms vary from person to person but a common problem is hot flushes. They can be during the day or night, but commonly both. Some people feel very hot, others find themselves sweating. Add in changes in mood, dry skin, constipation and random aches and pains, and it can be a very uncomfortable time.
Fortunately, there is help available! There have been a number of clinical trials showing that acupuncture is beneficial in helping hot flushes. Night sweating, aches and pains can also be helped with acupuncture. Dry skin and constipation can be helped with changes in diet as well as supplements in stubborn cases.
Hot flushes are caused by a hormonal imbalance. However, certain foods and drinks can either trigger hot flushes or make them worse. I generally recommend that my clients avoid coffee and try switching to either green tea or certain herbal teas such as peppermint tea. There also foods which are beneficial for people going through the menopause and certain supplements which are better than others (more on supplements in a future blog post).
If you are looking for a treatment for menopausal symptoms, please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions or to book an appointment. | <urn:uuid:d812a670-25eb-48ae-bbc5-50b21f10b1ff> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.valeriesaltacupuncture.co.uk/menopause | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573197.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818124424-20220818154424-00672.warc.gz | en | 0.965432 | 249 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Ahead of COP-15, African Bishops Urge Commitment to Protecting the Earth
By Fredrick Nzwili – Catholic bishops in Africa called for increased protection of the earth and its resources and warned of a “disturbing warming of the climate system.”
The bishops – under the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar – said the earth is suffering due to irresponsible use, abuse and depletion of its resources.
As a result, nature and biodiversity are disappearing faster than any other time in history, the bishops said, adding that vulnerable and poor communities, which contribute least to the crisis, suffer the worst impact.
“We join the global civil society’s calls for no more biodiversity collapse and for nations to commit to protect half of the earth, 50% by 2030, to avoid the worst effects of dangerous climate crisis,” said the statement signed by South African Bishop Sithembele Sipuka, vice president of the symposium.
The bishops presented the statement June 21 at a preparatory meeting for the Dec. 5-17 U.N. Biodiversity Conference (COP-15) in Montreal.
Ahead of the meeting, the bishops want governments in the global North — the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases — to meet financial commitments to help create a safe and resilient world. They also want the protection of the rights of Indigenous peoples and their inclusion in the biodiversity and climate discourse.
“Indigenous communities are some of the first to experience the adverse effects of the climate crisis due to their close relationship with the environment and their long-practised roles as being guardians of God’s creation,” said Bishop Sipuka. “However, these communities are often dismissed because they are believed to represent just a tiny fraction of the world’s population.”
According to the bishops, the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline, a nearly 1448km project stretching from western Uganda to the Indian Ocean port of Tanga, Tanzania, should be stopped. Environmental experts warn that, if built, the pipeline would displace communities, endanger wildlife and worsen the climate crisis.
While highlighting the destruction of Congo Basin rainforest, the bishops said destroying the remaining forests or polluting the oceans removed critical carbon sinks, which help to avert the effects of the climate crisis.
The Congo Basin – the second-largest tropical rainforest after the Amazon – is dubbed the second lung of the earth. The bishops said the basin is under threat from illegal logging, land grabbing, industrial agriculture and conflict.
- Pope: Desire for Eternal Youth is Delusional - August 10, 2022
- African Bishops Lament Inability to Stop People from Leaving - August 10, 2022
- Vatican reports R55 million deficit was significantly less than expected - August 10, 2022 | <urn:uuid:5b5798a6-98db-494c-8f2f-ab493472c8c8> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.scross.co.za/2022/06/ahead-of-cop-15-african-bishops-urge-commitment-to-protecting-the-earth/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571198.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810161541-20220810191541-00269.warc.gz | en | 0.94007 | 580 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Herbarium Sheet Detail
NTBG Plant Name:
January 29, 1991
David H. Lorence 2012
David H. Lorence, K. R. Wood, Kerin Lilleeng-Rosenberger
Lihue-Koloa Forest Reserve; Wahiawa Mtns, windward crest of ridge between Hulua and Kahili;
Common small shrub; leaves semi-glossy medium green above, glossy pale green below; younger stems tinged reddish; inflorescence branches tinged reddish; corolla tube greenish-white, lobes pale green.
stunted vegetation on sheer rock face.
Date of Last Update:
April 26, 2022
<< Return to Search Results | New Search | <urn:uuid:66d7b411-1f6a-42e6-98c5-e35411c6c38d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://ntbg.org/database/herbarium/detail/PTBG1000073304 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571097.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810010059-20220810040059-00271.warc.gz | en | 0.705835 | 210 | 1.679688 | 2 |
March 31, 2004
Robert E. Gropp, Ph.D., Senior Public Policy Representative
Adrienne J. Froelich, Ph.D., Director of Public Policy
Richard T. O'Grady, Ph.D., Executive Director
American Institute of Biological Sciences
1444 Eye Street, NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20005
202-628-1500; Fax 202-628-1509, www.aibs.org
United States Geological Survey
Fiscal Year 2005 Budget Request
The American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) requests that Congress appropriate at least $1 billion in Fiscal Year 2005 funding for the United States Geological Survey (USGS). This funding level would restore cuts to important science programs proposed by the administration, provide a modest but much needed inflation adjustment, and allow implementation of important new science and information dissemination initiatives.
The USGS provides independent, high-quality data, information, research support and assessments needed by federal, state, local and tribal policymakers, resource and emergency managers, engineers and planners, researchers and educators and the public. Because of the agency's combination of biological, geographical, geological, and hydrological research programs, USGS scientists utilize cutting-edge interdisciplinary research techniques to answer significant questions about earth processes that impact human quality of life.
United States Geological Survey scientists do not work in isolation. Through the agency's nearly 400 offices located in every state and partnerships with over 2,000 federal, state, local, tribal, and private organizations, the USGS has built the capacity to draw on additional research expertise. For example, through the cooperative research units program USGS scientists are stationed on university campuses. This proximity to academic researchers helps bring additional intellectual and technical resources to bear on the natural resource problems USGS seeks to understand. The value of cooperative research units extends beyond their immediate research productivity, however. Cooperative research units are an essential component of our national education and training infrastructure. These research units enable future natural resource managers to gain the skills and experience government agencies need. Furthermore, cooperative research units are one of USGS' mechanisms for providing data and technical assistance to decision-makers.
Natural resource managers require reliable, relevant, and timely information. The USGS Biological Informatics Program through initiatives such as the National Biological Information Infrastructure is another example of how the agency is meeting the needs of the resource management community. The Biological Informatics Program develops and applies innovative technologies and practices to the management of biological data, information, and knowledge resulting from research, thereby increasing the value of that research to scientists, planners, decision-makers, educators, students, and the public. Increased funding for the USGS would enable the Biological Informatics Program to continue on-going activities and begin to implement new initiatives that the resource management and research communities have identified as important for addressing national priorities.
Other USGS biological research programs gather important data and information that academic, private sector, or other government scientists do not collect. For instance, a clear national priority is the prevention and mitigation of future losses resulting from non-native species invading new environments. USGS research is helping guide our understanding of how invasive species, such as the zebra mussel, brown tree snake, or tamarisk, colonize new environments. Decision-makers, whether working for the National Park Service or a hydroelectric utility, utilize USGS science to develop action plans for combating invasive species.
Infrastructure is vital to science. Increasingly, coordinated networks of databases and data gathering instruments are required to answer the questions that public policymakers and scientists are asking. For example, environmental toxicologists or ecosystem scientists may use real-time data from the USGS network of streamgages to learn how quickly a pollutant travels through a watershed, impacts downstream fisheries, or enters a community's drinking water supply. An emerging need is for increased federal investment in natural history collections such as museums and herbaria. These institutions contain irreplaceable collections of the genetic diversity of our nation; information that helps to answer questions about invasive species, or how species have responded to changing environmental conditions. Unfortunately, much of this information is not accessible. With an increased investment in USGS science programs, agency personnel and their partners could begin to develop new technology that enables scientists to better utilize this valuable information.
In the FY 2005 appropriation, Congress can also support USGS science by ensuring that adequate funds are provided to cover "uncontrollable costs," items such as salary and benefit increases. The Department of the Interior FY 2005 budget request does not adequately address these expenses. The Department of the Interior's budget indicates that $17.2 million is needed to cover these expenses. Unfortunately, only $9.1 million has been requested. If the $17.2 million needed is not appropriated, program managers may be forced to curtail important work in order to meet these commitments.
Thank you for your thoughtful consideration of this request.
The American Institute of Biological Sciences is an umbrella organization whose individual and organizational membership spans the breadth of applied and basic biological sciences. AIBS is dedicated to advancing biological research and education for the welfare of society. AIBS seeks to facilitate communication and interactions among biologists, professional biological societies, biological and other scientific disciplines, as well as to serve and advance the interests of biology in the broader scientific community and in other components of society. | <urn:uuid:73b50323-6fd5-4350-a914-fc1e89db7815> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.aibs.org/position-statements/20040331_housetestimony.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280410.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00455-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909166 | 1,087 | 2.515625 | 3 |
|Slaves on a sugar cane plantation in Jamaica "cutting the grass"...|
My commitment to "keep of the grass" was clinched during a conversation I had last week at Base Camp with National Geographic "Explorer of the Year" Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner -- the first woman to summit all 14 of the earth's highest mountain peaks without supplementary oxygen.
The conversation included her husband and frequent climbing partner Ralf Dujmovits as well as John Francis, vice president for research, conservation, and exploration at the National Geographic Society. And it revolved around the question "what is the best diet for explorers who routinely go into extreme conditions?".
Don't get me wrong -- the conversation didn't take place in extreme conditions, it took place at the National Geographic Headquarters "Base Camp" in Washington DC, a far more comfortable location for discussion than the base camps Gerlinde usually hangs out in for weeks in the Himalayas or other daunting mountain ranges. But it included discussion of my own visit to Everest Base Camp last spring and my recent trip to the base of Mera Peak in Nepal, and the difference I felt this year when I decided to eliminate sugar and starch from my diet, and last year when I trudged up the Khumbu valley toward Mount Everest trying to rely on the daily and generous provision of Mars bars, Snickers and Bounty bars offered to help us get that "quick boost" of energy that sugar is supposed to supply.
My observation was that without the carbs this year the trek up to 5500 meters was immeasurably easier than last year, even though the route in the Hinku valley, with steeper daily ascents and descents, and nights in cold snow bedecked tents instead of the the relative shelter and warmth of the tea lodges in the Khumbu, was technically more difficult.
Gerlinde and Ralf and John confirmed this observation. Gerlinde said "when you are climbing the highest mountains in the world, pushing your body to the limit, blood sugar swings become your enemy. You quickly face exhaustion. Starches, sugars, carbohydrates, they are the worst thing. When we climb we focus on eating protein. The body turns it into the necessary glucose for the brain and body to work most efficiently but it also keeps muscle from being lost."
Ralf chimed in, "We train and train before we climb and we would go onto the expedition with very strong, big muscles, but we noticed that when we returned we were always thin as a rail, having lost a lot of muscle mass. This is because your body digests itself when you are undergoing intense exercise and it consumes muscle protein before turning to your fat reserves. But by increasing the protein in our diets and eliminating the starches and sugars we find we can keep our muscles."
Gerlinde said, "we start the treks with a diet high in protein and fat and very low in carbohydrates, but we noticed that at high altitude Ralf was getting bad headaches. It turned out that fat requires a lot of oxygen to burn and above 3000 meters the oxygen gets thinner and thinner. By 8000 meters there is almost no oxygen at all and fat in the diet becomes a problem. So while we normally will not worry about the fat content of our diet, we have to eliminate it for the high points of the expedition. But in general the secret is getting rid of as much carbohydrate as possible, and that means no breads and potatoes, and certainly no sugared drinks or candy bars..."
Ah.... candy bars. In years past I packed my backpack with choclate bars -- Bounty bars, with their coconut filling, are among my favorite. I rationalized it by parroting the same lousy advice I had gotten from my Gym teachers in high school, "when you are doing strenuous sports, you need the jolt of energy they provide and it is okay, because you are working out so hard you'll burn it all up anyway..."
Explorers as well as athletes are beginning to understand, through accumulated experience, that the less sugar they dump in their bloodstream, the more steady their energy feels.
Taking it to the Ends of the Earth
This year, from day 1, I gritted my teeth and politely refused the bowl of candybars offered each morning. At the end of the day, after a hard, breathless, bone aching, muscle burning climb, when I lay in my tent, illuminated by my Solar CITIES aluminum tab torch, I would often discover a Snickers bar sitting in the side pocket, surreptitiously popped in there by a caring guide wanting to ensure that I didn't wake up with hunger pangs when the exhaustion let up. Or was it one of my colleagues, trying to test my resolve and lead me into temptation? I would hold the ever more delicious seeming chocolate before me in the dim glow of my aluminum can flashlight and read the label, dreaming of how good it would taste. Sugar, cornsyrup, modified cornstarch, dextrose, sugar, sugar... and though I knew that nobody would ever know or care if I ate it or not, I would put it back in the pack and tell myself "you can do this, if you just hang on, the cravings will surely go away."
Of course I had a precedent. At Harvard in early 1980s, as a Biological Anthropology undergraduate, I had won a prize with a paper I wrote called "Of Man and Meat: Nutritional Imperialism and its effects on aboriginal cultures". Reading classics like Weston Price's "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" and William Dufty's "Sugar Blues" I had decided, since I wanted to spend my year after college at the Harvard Research site at Gunung Palung mountain in Borneo, that I would go on what I called a "hunter-gatherer diet". I vowed at the beginning of my junior year that I would eliminate all "non-nutritional cash crops" from my diet, including not just alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea, and sugar, but all refined and processed carbohydrates and oils. I did continue to eat grains, but only "whole grains".
The experiment lasted for 2 years, right through graduation, until I left for the jungle, and I felt better than I ever had in my life. I also invited a girlfriend on the diet who had been plagued by weight problems. At 5 foot 2 inches she dropped from 150 chunky pounds to a svelt 112 while I maintained the 150 pounds appropriate for my 5 foot 9 inch mesomorphic frame. It was 1985 and I had proven to myself the value of what people now call the "Paleolithic Diet".
John Francis confirmed for me that his experience on the Paleo Diet had given him similarly good results, despite the fact that he was on it for a much shorter period of time.
Still, when I was doing that experiment, I was a mere 21 years of age. When everybody else was suddenly getting old enough to drink I was eliminating the excess calories but I was still young enough that it was hard to say whether the unflaggable energy that got me through Harvard and into the deepest rainforests of Indonesia came from this extreme diet or mere youthful vigor.
During the lead up to my last Nepal expedition I had somehow turned 50, and, apart from 2 years as a vegetarian and 7 months as a Vegan, had spent the intervening years eating all manner of junk food (for more than a decade, while working as a teacher in the ghettos of L.A. and as a grad student at UCLA, I practically lived on the Mcdonald's dollar value meals!). I had gone from my college weight of 150 to a hamster cheeked, pot bellied 180. It was getting to be discouraging to look at my reflection--- I kept checking each day to see if the man in the mirror was really me and if he might be induced to change his ways. I needed to find out if the hunter-gatherer diet would really work for those of us on the near side of the midpoint to the century mark.
Summiting the peaks and valleys of the diet roller coaster
Three things encouraged my decision to go radical again.
The first was the announcement that I would be having a baby girl in October. I started thinking about my desire to see her graduate from college, realizing I will be at least 72 when that happens. Another was my fathers ailing health as a man dependent on glucophage pills and a cocktail of medicines to deal with his type 2 diabetes -- I wanted to be able to act as a role model and ally to encourage him to give up the sugar that is killing him so he can live to see my 4 year old son and my new daughter at the very least grow old enough to appreciate his genius, his kindness, and his treasure trove of fun and exciting information about film and circus history -- particularly Disney lore -- which are his fields of expertise. The third was the desire to prove something I had started in Guatemala in the year 2000 when I lived for almost a month on nothing but Maya breadnuts, avocados and lemons from our rainforest research site. I wanted to show that we can live happily and successfully without the agriculture that is currently destroying our planet's complex ecologies.
I had a precedent that gave me courage: my UCLA colleague Angel Orozco, a Guatemalan friend with whom I had formed an NGO to promote agroforestry at the end of the 1990s and with whom I had lived at the Los Angeles Eco-village, had embarked on the hunter gatherer diet during the years I was overseas and hadn't seen him. I remembered him as a heavy, round faced, large framed man; he was always my "big friend Angel". When I finally got together with him to deliver a speech about my work with biogas as one solution to deforestation, I had to be reintroduced to him. He sat smiling at me through my entire speech while I wondered, "why isn't my friend Angel here at my talk? He said he would be..."
At the end of my talk this tall, thin, muscular, thin faced and handsome man who had been smiling shook my hand and said, "I am Angel. I'm so glad you didn't recognize me". The transformation was astonishing. He said, "I didn't go on any weight loss program or take any pills, I just did what we had discussed years ago in the rain forests of my homeland -- I adopted a strict hunter gatherer diet. But to do so, I abandoned all vestiges of food from agricultural economies -- no sugar, no corn, no wheat, no rice, no oats, no barley.. "
"Sounds like you're avoiding all the grasses" I told him, impressed.
The problem with the Poaceae
On our long bus rides from Mexico City to the Peten Rainforests of his homeland, Angel and I used to discuss archeologist Dennis Puleston's idea that the Maya couldn't have based their lowland civilization on corn because of its destructive impact the grass we call "maize" has on tropical soils. We used to reflect that in general the planting of agricultural grasses is among the most destructive practices we humans have been engaged in for the past millenia. My Master's Thesis focused on "tree cereals" that, through agroforestry, could replace the "weed cereals" that society depends on.
Working in horticulture at the Los Angeles Zoo for 4 years I had come to regard human reliance on the family Graminae/Poaceae as one of the biggest mistakes our species ever made.
Think about it -- there are approximately 463 plant families on the face of the earth (experts estimates vary slightly but all are close to this number). But the lion's share of the plants upon which civilization has come to depend belong to only one of them: the grass family. This includes sugar cane, wheat, rice, corn (maize), oats, barley, sorghum, and millet. When you look at our supermarket shelves almost every product is a product of the top 4 -- wheat, rice, corn and sugar. Corn syrup and sugar make up the bulk of the beverage section. And vast areas of the landscape are being transformed to a monocrop monocot factory to feed our hunger for these few members of this one family. The devastation grass family cultivation and processing has on entire cultures was recently brought home to me while working with Maasai leader Kakenya Nataiya in Kenya, where the entire Maasai way of life is threatened by the transformation of the traditional grazing lands into sugar cane plantations. Where once there were thousands of species interacting with the Maasai and their cattle, what some people naively called a "grassland savannah" is now become a true grassland -- home ot only one species of plant, the grass called Saccharum officinarum in the Poaceae.
It would be as if the Rockefellers or the Kennedy's made up 3/4 of the world's population. When one family comes to dominate culture and commerce in an age of diminishing biodiversity, the prospects for maintaining a healthy ecosystem become nil to nothing.
So the quest to maintain a healthy body suddenly became linked to the more vital quest to maintain a healthy planet for our children and grand-children.
As a National Geographic Emerging Explorer, dedicated to preserving our environment, and reasonably expected to walk our talk the decision became natural. I decided to adopt a new and very rigorous diet to complement the one I was on back at Harvard before my first Borneo expedition. It would be a diet I would maintain not just when out exploring, but every day, at home and in the field. It would be a diet that, through its complete dismissal of our "daily bread", would complement my desire to eschew the "non-nutritional cash crops" that destroy health and local economies. It would be a diet that I will continue for the rest of my life to model for my son and daughter as they grow to appreciate their role in this marvelous and fragile blue planet three rocks from the sun. It is a diet that served me very very well on my last expedition with Alton Byers and Chris Rainier and Anrita Sherpa to explore "last mile technology" in some of the remotest places on earth. It is a diet I have decided to bring home, out of the cold and into my own kitchen. I have decided from now on that I will...
KEEP OFF THE GRASS.
As with most explorations, we'll have to wait and see what we discover... | <urn:uuid:7047eec1-d255-4d38-96ca-9da412d31325> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://solarcities.blogspot.com/2012/06/keep-off-grass-diet-for-emerging.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720238.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00189-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972838 | 3,025 | 2.109375 | 2 |
A comprehensive study on the health needs of Filipino migrant workers has won the inaugural APEC Healthy Women Healthy Economies award. The award was launched this year by APEC host economy Chile to raise awareness and promote the health of women in the Asia-Pacific.
“Winning this is very meaningful to me and to my economy. It is a very important way to recognize the research on overseas Filipino workers,” said Dr Veronica Ramirez, Assistant Professor at the University of Asia and the Pacific in the Philippines and author of the winning study. Because overseas Filipino workers make enormous contributions to both the Philippines and to their host economies, “we need policies (on how) we can keep them healthy,” she added.
The award ceremony followed a presentation by the three finalists at the APEC Women and the Economy Forum, taking place from 30 September to 5 October in La Serena, Chile.
The work of the prize finalists reflect the diversity of challenges facing women in the Asia-Pacific. The difficulties of juggling work and childcare were highlighted by the research of Paula Poblete from Chile, while the study of Dr Hong Jiang from China’s Fudan University advocated for childbirth procedures that enable women to recover with less pain and trauma.
Women make up half of the region’s workforce yet often lack adequate healthcare compared to men. For example, the Healthy Women Healthy Economies Policy toolkit reports that twice as many women in the region who suffer heart attacks die within a year, compared to men. Poor health can limit women’s opportunities to thrive.
Judges chose Dr Ramirez’s research partly because it highlighted the role of migrant workers, who are often integral to many APEC economies. Carolina Cuevas, Chair of the APEC Policy Partnership for Women and the Economy, or PPWE, who chaired the 2019 Prize Committee, commends all the finalists for their contributions.
“The diversity we see in the finalists is a great representation of the diversity in our APEC economies. Far from being an impediment, these differences often allow us to look at problems from different perspectives,” said Cuevas, who also serves as Undersecretary for Chile’s Ministry of Women and Gender Equity. “This in turn helps us to solve issues more efficiently. We all have something to learn from these research papers.”
Undersecretary Cuevas reminded the audience that economies and societies benefit when women are healthy and participating fully in the workforce. When female participation in the labor force is optimal, the GDP of economies expand – by 5 percent for the United States and by 9 percent for Japan, according to the International Monetary Fund. Recognizing that women are critical for achieving inclusive growth, host economy Chile has elevated women’s economic empowerment as a key priority for APEC.
The Healthy Women Healthy Economies Prize, supported by leading science and technology company Merck, sought research that uses sex-disaggregated data to help decision-makers develop more evidence-based policies related to women’s health.
“Data that shows how policies impact men and women differently can help usher in reforms that improve women’s health and ultimately their economic empowerment,” said Randall Bradford, Head of Human Resources Merck Healthcare. “Better health for women, families, and communities improve the way we do business, and consequently, the regional economy.”
The winning entry receives USD 20,000 and the two runners-up receive USD 5,000 each.
Since its inception in 2014, the APEC Healthy Women, Healthy Economies initiative has improved women’s health through public-private partnerships. One key outcome has been the cross-sector collaboration in creating the Healthy Women, Healthy Economies Policy Toolkit – a compendium of the issues, actions, and implementing elements for improving women’s health across five areas. The areas are: workplace health and safety; health awareness and access; sexual and reproductive health; gender-based violence; and work/life balance.
For more information on the work of the finalists and on applying for the 2020 Prize, please visit the APEC Healthy Women Healthy Economies website.
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For further details, please contact: | <urn:uuid:a6247c14-ec91-4eba-9a94-f1eb237ae4c2> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.apec.org/Press/News-Releases/2019/1002_HWHE | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570879.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808213349-20220809003349-00475.warc.gz | en | 0.94769 | 864 | 1.820313 | 2 |
What can wet woodlands do for our urban environment?
In June 2016, as part of the Natural Course project, City of Trees created a wet woodland in the heart of Salford to help improve the failing water quality of the Worsley Brook. A year on and the wet woodland is now thriving with greenery and wildlife is returning to the area.
Just metres from the M60, the former council tree nursery, known as the Cleavleys Nursery, was feeling the strain from the diffuse pollution running off from the motorway into the nearby brook. The discharge from the motorway, combined with runoff from agricultural land upstream was running directly into a tributary of Worsley Brook, contributing to WFD ‘failure’ on the basis of sediment inputs and ammonia levels.
Wet woodlands are an important part of urban ecosystems and create vital wildlife habitats. Even dead wood associated with water provides a specialised habitat, not found in dry woodlands. These habitats support craneflies and other insects, creating an ideal food source for bats and other priority species, such as willow tit. The space itself can also be socially important, particularly in urban areas, providing recreational opportunities and human connections to the natural world.
It is believed that the green infrastructure within the wet woodland will help slow the flow of the water, allowing deposition of metals and sediments, and allowing more time for attenuation of pollutants by biodegradation, before running into the brook. By enabling space for streams and brooks to meander through, wet woodlands can also play an important role in reducing the risk of flooding and drought.
Data collected from this wet woodland over time will be used as an example of how wet woodlands can help alleviate pollutant load and flood risk in other urban areas of the UK.
The site continues to be monitored by the University of Salford and volunteers are playing a part in removing invasive species from the area to help revegetate the bare soil and provide new habitats.
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Project update: Rostherne Mere wetlands… one year on. | <urn:uuid:af4c5fb2-5925-4e34-9186-2df9752f8766> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://naturalcourse.co.uk/2017/05/25/wet-woodland-urban-environment/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572021.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814083156-20220814113156-00073.warc.gz | en | 0.930755 | 480 | 3.5 | 4 |
Growth Management Act legislation would allow small counties to ‘opt out’
WNPA Olympia News Bureau — Among a slew of legislative proposals introduced this session focusing on Washington’s Growth Management Act (GMA), two, which would allow counties with smaller populations to opt out of full planning under the act, were approved by committees and advance in their respective chambers for further consideration.
Senate Bill 5636, sponsored by Sen. John Smith (R-7th District, Colville) and HB 1224, sponsored by Rep. Joel Kretz (R-7th District, Wauconda), would allow counties with less than 20,000 residents to remove themselves from the GMA requirements.
Four counties would qualify under population limit provisions in the two bills: Ferry, Pend Oreille, Columbia and Garfield.
Both bills were introduced in order to address the alleged burdens the GMA places on rural areas throughout the state that experience little fluctuation in population and economic growth from year to year.
Proponents of both measures believe that local government officials should have greater control over their planning and land use policies rather than leaving oversight to the seven-person, governor-appointed state Growth Management Hearings Board (GMHB).
“This measure is important because it’s about preserving and protecting local community viability and giving small counties the right and flexibility to save money and make decisions that would produce the best economic and environmental outcomes for their community,” said Smith. “It is time to unleash the strength of character and innovation that has been sequestered in our rural counties for far too long.”
The GMA is a land-use planning measure that outlines 14 goals that attempt to employ environmentally friendly means to managing population growth. Requirements include identifying urban growth areas, protecting natural resource lands and composing critical area plans, among others.
Counties planning under the GMA that violate its requirements are subject to appeals often brought either by conservation groups, other organizations or individuals. Appeals, called petitions of review, are brought to the GMHB, at which time the board decides if a county is in or out of compliance with GMA standards.
Thirty petitions of review against counties were filed with the GMHB in 2012. Only two cases found counties in non-compliance, according to the board’s data. Several appeals made in 2012 remain under review. From 2005 to 2012, nearly 40 percent of the petitions of review filed found counties non-compliant.
While the bill is intended to help counties and cities that claim they have suffered economically as a result of complying with the GMA, conservation groups say that the act is necessary to assure land-planning reflects the interests of both economic development and environmental preservation.
“The Growth Management Act asks our communities to think holistically about the future, to think about housing, job opportunities, economic development, the environment,” said April Putney of FutureWise, a conservation-interest group.
“All of these things, in conjunction with each other, is strong policy whether you are a really large community, small community or how fast you’re growing,” she said.
Proponents of the bills observed, however, that regulation required by the GMA thwarts economic development and reforms must be made to make the law more business-friendly.
Pend Oreille County Commissioner Karen Skoog argued that small border counties such as hers, in the northeast corner adjacent to Idaho and with only about 13,000 residents, risk businesses bleeding into other states, thus adversely affecting the counties’ economies. Allowing these counties to remove themselves from the GMA would lessen some of the regulations that drive businesses out of Washington, said Skoog.
“The mandates and requirements of the GMA create a crippling and cumbersome bureaucratic process for smaller counties,” Smith said.
Rep. David Taylor (R-15th District, Moxee), who is responsible for crafting several House bills that would have significantly limited the scope of the GMA, predicts that within 18 months of the removal of the law, Washington would experience a significant increase in economic development.
While some fear that allowing these counties to back away from GMA requirements would stall conservation efforts, Taylor maintained that because of the many overlapping environmental policies in the state, it would be excessive to think that local governments do not have the capacity to responsibly plan for their counties and cities.
“It’s a duplicative law that serves no purpose other than to provide nongovernmental organizations the opportunity to cost local taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars,” he said.
Washington has six other land-planning and management laws on the books, including the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA), the Shoreline Management Act and the Planning Enabling Act, which authorizes counties to manage land development under the given guidelines in the law. The Planning Enabling Act was enacted in 1959.
Several county officials, including Ferry County Commissioner Brad Miller, have said that even if they chose to opt out of the GMA as provided by the proposed measures, they would continue to plan with the same basic principles of economic and environmental viability.
Ferry County’s population is about 7,600 and hasn’t changed in more than 100 years, said Miller. So, the question has been raised by lawmakers and county officials as to why communities with such low growth as that in Ferry County should be subjected to the same rules dictated by the GMA as apply to the larger, more urban counties.
“I have a hard time believing that all of growth management’s requirements and issues are really necessary in some of the smaller counties that aren’t urban at all,” said Rep. Dean Takko (D-19th District, Longview), one of the sponsor’s of the House bill.
“I’m not anti-growth-management,” he said. “I just think there are places where it makes sense and places where it doesn’t.”
Some, however, would like to do away with the GMA entirely. Taylor, for example, said that the law fails to give due deference to local leaders and has grown so large in scope from its original intent that it has turned into a financial bane for counties, cities, businesses and taxpayers.
“What was supposed to be a bottom-up planning process driven by citizens and with substantial deference given to local decision makers turned into a bottom-down, state-mandated, one-size-fits-all program that just simply doesn’t work,” said Taylor.
The Moxee representative is disappointed with, among other GMA-related issues, the cost the appeals process places on counties and the bureaucratic make-up of the GMHB, which he said has very little accountability to the people the law affects.
Though Taylor has signed onto several GMA-related bills, he says legislation that isolates only part of the problem won’t address what he expressed as the myriad onerous regulations the act imposes.
“The piecemeal fix just isn’t going to work,” he said.
Taylor sponsored a bill that would have eliminated the GMA but it failed to receive the nod from Chairman Takko of the House Local Government Committee before policy legislation cut-off Feb 22.
On Jan. 18, private citizens and interest groups testified against the GMA during a work session hosted by members of the House Local Government Committee. While their grievances with the law varied, most agreed that the law has outgrown its original scope.
Glen Morgan, property-rights director with the Freedom Foundation said, “If the road to hell is paved with good intentions then the GMA has become a freeway.”
Still others would simply like the GMA process to be audited. Since its 1991 passage into law, the GMA has never been officially reviewed for its effect on local economies and its success in meeting the 14 goals outlined in the act.
While testimony on the GMA was overwhelmingly in opposition to it, representatives from conservation groups maintained that the law as it stands now is an efficient means to protect the environment without treading on private-property rights.
Both Putney and Darcy Nonemacher of the Washington Environmental Council have testified against numerous bills this session that would, if passed, limit the GMA. The two agree that the bills introduces unduly restrict the intention of the law.
“[SB 5636 and HB 1224] undermines the existing purpose of the law to provide clear and consistent objectives that everybody is trying to reach,” said Nonemacher.
Putney agreed and said that limiting the law would actually defy the will of Washingtonians as they supported the formation of the GMA.
“[The GMA was created] because Washingtonians refused to believe that the natural legacy had to be sacrificed for economic prosperity,” she said.
SB 5636 was approved Feb. 18 by the Senate Government Operations Committee on a party-line 4-3 vote. HB 1224 was approved by a 5-3 bipartisan vote in the House Local Government Committee Friday (Feb. 22). | <urn:uuid:974cb467-df06-44ef-880b-017414266c78> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://edmondsbeacon.villagesoup.com/p/growth-management-act-legislation-would-allow-small-counties-to-opt-out/968040 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281424.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00327-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968295 | 1,896 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Caroline Loewenstein reports on the recent economicy literacy meeting run by Economy.
On the 8th October 2018 about 80 people met at The Chartered Accountants Hall in the City of London for the economic literacy Summit 2018 run by “Economy”. The speakers included Andy Haldane (Chief Economist at the Bank of England), Rachel Reeves MP (Chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee), Steve Frampton MBE (President of the Association of Colleges), Jonathan Baggeley (Chief Executive PSHE Association) and Liz Moore (Chief Executive of the Association for Citizenship Teaching). Professional economics teachers appeared to be notable by their absence.
“Economy” is an offshoot of “Rethinking Economics” which is an organisation (originally led by students) that seeks to broaden the economics education experience of students studying economics at university. It argues that even at university level many students are taught neo-classical theory as though it is fact and that critical thought is not encouraged in classes or in the examination system. Students involved in the movement also felt that their courses paid scant attention to modern economic issues, such as the causes of the financial crash, inequality and poverty. They argued that their courses were instead dominated by the use of highly complex mathematical models with little attention being given to the validity of the often dubious assumptions underpinning them. “Economy” is also concerned that the general lack of understanding of economics in the population as a whole is undermining democracy and is also damaging individuals’ ability to reach their full potential.
We must all have experienced watching television news and seeing people interviewed on the street giving their opinions on economic issues with clearly no real understanding of either the issue or the fact that their ability to discuss it is very limited. There are clearly many other people who are only too aware that they have no or little understanding of economics and see it as something inaccessible and of no real relevance to themselves. We have also all heard, with feelings of great frustration, politicians coming up with phrases such as “government budgets are just like household budgets” and the “UK is still the fifth richest in the world” and then hearing them repeated again and again because people are not equipped to think about such statements critically and politicians can therefore use them to gain popularity. The organisation “Economy” exists in order to tackle the problem of economic illiteracy and to equip as many people as possible with a basic understanding of economics and the tools that they need to critically examine the messages that they get through social and other media. More specifically their aims include enabling people to:
- Question economic data and the way politicians and the media discuss economic issues
- See how different groups in society (for example racial, socio-economic, gender) are affected differently by economic policies and how membership of such groups affects an individual’s opportunities in an economy
- Identify ways in which they can, as individuals or as part of groups, influence the economy.
- Some research has been carried out to support and inform the organisation’s endeavours. The findings include:
- 39% of respondents felt that they could define “GDP” and 30% “quantitative easing”. (Those who have experience of teaching economics are likely to think that the proportion of the population who can actually define these terms is somewhat lower).
- 60% identify as having had no economics education. (This means that 40% have had some economics education which seems a surprisingly high figure).
- Those without an economics education see economists as people who are disconnected from reality and therefore do not trust economists
- 75% think that economics education should be included in the school curriculum.
- Only 12% of adults think that the media and politicians talk about economics in a way that is understandable.
“Economy” has so far sought to achieve its aims through putting materials on its website, providing crash courses in economics and working with schools to increase the economics content of the curriculum.
On the website (www.ecnmy.org) there is a constantly increasing number of articles that seek to explain headline economic issues and make them comprehensible to all. The articles are on a wide variety of topics, for example “China and America’s trade war just got even bigger”, “What we know about a no-deal Brexit” and “The government deficit is lower than it’s been in a long time. Is this good news?”.
So far four pilot crash courses in economics have been run. The courses are six to ten sessions long, each session lasting two hours. The courses consist of a mixture of individual and group activities, discussion topics and visual materials. All materials aim to be relevant to the participants and use jargon free language. The idea is to enable participants to appreciate how a knowledge of economics can be applied to their daily lives. During the day we heard from two facilitators and two participants of these crash courses and it was clear that the courses had been delivered using a variety of engaging group activities that were designed to raise awareness of economic issues and the impact they may have on individuals and society as a whole.
“Economy” has worked in schools with children and young people from a wide range of age groups from 4 year olds to year 12 students. Some of this work has formed part of the research into how people feel about economics and some of it has involved delivering courses over an eight week period to year 8 and year 12 students in two schools. A 12 week extra-curricular programme has also been developed for year 9 and year 12 students. The hope is that by giving year 9 students an interest in the subject, more of them will choose to study economics at GCSE and during the day we met some year 10 students who had chosen to do this. Most state schools, however, do not offer economics at this level and with the current constraints facing them at the moment it seems unlikely that this situation will change significantly in the near future.
“Economy” is also working towards increasing the economics content of Citizenship and PSHE courses. Currently the main emphasis of the economics part of many PSHE courses is financial literacy. There is no intention of replacing this but rather broadening what is offered to include the skills that students need to understand their own roles within the economy and to critically assess economic statements that they encounter through social and other media.
The aims of “economy” are ambitious and the amount that it has achieved since it was first established in 2015 is impressive. There does not appear to be, however, much hard evidence of the degree to which participants understanding and skills have actually improved; most of the evidence appears to be just the opinions of the participants on their own progress. The use of the materials in the classroom is also probably limited if they are not being delivered by a professional economics educator. Another problem is that to actually achieve a significant increase in economic literacy in schools, let alone in the population as a whole, is likely to be difficult in today’s cash-strapped education system. It is also a matter of priorities both in schools and for government education policy. Schools believe economic and financial education is important but do not see it as a priority among competing demands on curriculum time and resources. The government has again failed to make the E in PSHE statutory. The current Ofsted framework does not even look at personal development as a whole, let alone economic and financial literacy (although the current HMCI gives some hope that the emphasis may be shifting away from the domination of examination performance to wider measures of achievement and preparing young people for life).
However, the more of us who share the vision of an economically literate population and are willing to contribute to the cause, the more likely it is to actually come about. A valuable contribution could clearly be made by teachers with substantial experience of teaching economics in schools. Opportunities for contributing can be found on www.ecnmy.org.
Sources and further reading
Fischer, L. and Hasell,J. (2017) Rethinking Economics. Routledge.
Earle, J., Moran,C. and Ward-Perkins, Z. (2017) The Econonocracy: On the Perils of Leaving Economics to the Experts. Penguin.
Caroline Loewenstein is the former Head of Economics at Strode’s College, Egham. | <urn:uuid:9e94e63f-c4f5-4f40-b757-3b70cac58342> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://ebea.org.uk/archive/economic-literacy-for-everyone-summit-2018 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571222.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810222056-20220811012056-00672.warc.gz | en | 0.969683 | 1,735 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Great Southern Bioblitz 2022
Posted by SASTA on 13 Apr 2022
Great Southern Bioblitz 2022 - Increasing biodiversity awareness through Citizen Science The 'Great Southern BioBlitz', or 'GSB' for short, was established in 2020 by the not-for-profit team at Ferox australis, as an international... more...
Commissioner's Digital Challenge
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The 2022 Commissioner’s Digital Challenge is open! The ‘Commissioner’s Digital Challenge’ is a free recurring year-round digital challenge designed to engage children in learning foundational digital skills. The initiative came about after the... more...
MOD Schools Design Challenge - What is invisible that shouldn't be?
Posted by SASTA on 23 Feb 2022
MOD. is committed to fostering the participation of young people in each of our exhibitions. As part of our exhibition INVISIBILITY (February – November 2022), we are inviting secondary school students to contribute... more...
VSSEC CanSat Program
Posted by SASTA on 22 Oct 2021
The CanSat project will give students practical experience in electronics, computer programming, remote sensing and data analysis. This project introduces students to the Engineering Design Process, uses Project Based Leaning and allows students... more...
Bush Blitz TeachLive - coming to SA!!
Posted by SASTA on 27 Jul 2021
Bush Blitz is Australia’s largest nature discovery project involving specialist taxonomists, indigenous communities, rangers and landowners, teachers, students and BHP employees. Through a partnership between the Australian Government (through Parks Australia and the... more... | <urn:uuid:a0c6df95-d582-438a-94a4-9c46d4099dfe> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.sasta.asn.au/school-projects | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572127.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815024523-20220815054523-00269.warc.gz | en | 0.896685 | 343 | 1.9375 | 2 |
The Motley Fool Discussion Boards
Retirement Discussions / Retired Fools
|Subject: Re: Science Quiz||Date: 1/7/2014 12:25 AM|
|Author: bighairymike||Number: 18916 of 20172|
I got all 13 but I am a bit of a science nerd.
Question 12 of 13
What gas do most scientists believe causes temperatures in the atmosphere to rise?
I answered CO2 knowing that is what they were looking for but the correct answer (water vapor) is not among the choices offered. You could also argue hydrogen is the most responsible since that is what the sun is using for fuel to heat our entire solar system including earths atmosphere.
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Summary and Info
Critically acclaimed since its inception, "Advances in Librarianship" continues to be the essential reference source for developments in the field of libraries and library science. Articles published in the serial have won national prizes, such as the Blackwell North America Scholarship Award for the outstanding 1994 monograph, article, or original paper in the field of acquisitions, collection, development, and related areas of resource development. All areas of public, college, university, primary and secondary schools, and special libraries are given up-to-date, critical analysis by experts engaged in the practice of librarianship, in teaching, and in research.
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Advances in Librarianship, Volume 29 (Advances in Librarianship) 0 out of 5 stars based on 0 ratings. | <urn:uuid:ac7ec2cc-e9b8-4a4c-acd6-eeb3eef2211b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://libdl.ir/book/187623/advances-in-librarianship-volume-29-advances-in-librarianship | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280763.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00516-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939793 | 169 | 1.960938 | 2 |
Calling all who love, and are fascinated by, flavour and live in or near London. The London Gastronomy Seminars, convened by a small group of passionate believers in fine flavours, led by wine and food writer Francis Percival, Neal's Yard cheese buyer Bronwen Percival and flavour scientist Dr Rachel Edwards-Stuart, has just set up its new website and organised its first public event on the subject of flavour extraction. See the website for more on the covenors and what they are aiming to do via a new series of public lectures.
Tickets are now available for the first public lecture, on the subject of flavour extraction. The keynote speaker will be Hervé This, the famous physical chemist at the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) in Paris who has 'achieved international renown for his part (along with the late Nicholas Kurti) in developing molecular gastronomy as an academic discipline'. The other speakers are Tony Conigliaro, owner of the bar at 69 Colebrooke Row and one of the UK's pioneering drinks creators; and John Forbes, a chemist with over 30 years experience in the analysis and isolation of natural molecules from essential oils for flavour and perfumery use.
I went to an informal preview of this event and found it absolutely fascinating, not just because of the subject matter but also because there was such a great mix of people working in diverse sectors of the food and drinks industry.
When Mon 30 Nov, 6.30 pm
Where Senate House, University of London
Tickets £10 via the Gastronomy Seminars' ticket page | <urn:uuid:52bbdc70-4b96-4064-a35c-63236c8ec910> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/london-gastronomy-seminars-launches | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279169.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00211-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935492 | 333 | 1.507813 | 2 |
The Laboratory Inspection Program administers all materials testing laboratories that perform testing activities for the department. Compliance to test procedures and equipment requirements are included in the inspection.
All independent, contractor, materials supplier, government and other testing laboratories desiring to perform testing activities for ADOT must submit to an inspection as specified in the System for the Evaluation of Testing Laboratories directive.
The inspection considers those elements of service that the respective laboratory proposes to offer to the department. A List of Test Procedures for which inspection coverage is offered is available for review. This requirement includes laboratories submitting asphaltic concrete mix designs and those performing acceptance and referee testing for the department. The QA section will inspect only laboratories that are involved, or seeking involvement, in an activity related to the design or construction of an ADOT project.
Equipment and procedural inspections are normally conducted simultaneously; however, circumstances may dictate independent inspections. The inspection formats will generally conform to the techniques employed by AMRL and CCRL, as appropriate. The inspectors will present a summary of their findings and identify deficiencies requiring corrective action at an informal exit review where any deficiencies discovered can be discussed openly. It is requested that the laboratory manager and supervising engineer be present at the exit review.
A written inspection report will be issued by the QA section to the laboratory that has been inspected. The laboratory must provide the QA engineer with satisfactory responses to the noted deficiencies within 30 days of the report issuance. The responses must provide satisfactory evidence that all significant deficiencies were corrected or that corrective action is in progress. The laboratory's inspection and responses will be considered when evaluating ADOT eligibility.
Documents and Links | <urn:uuid:7d3dfcf5-cbfa-4562-ba50-59eac434336b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.azdot.gov/business/engineering-and-construction/construction-and-materials/laboratory-inspection-program | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280504.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00146-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942328 | 328 | 1.710938 | 2 |
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(subsequent edit: I understand the games quoted in the OP had more limited movement options meaning this probably isn't the method used, but I'll leave it here as an example of games like Doom and Wolfstein. Also see @2br-2b's answer with video which explains it well)
Starting at left of observer's field of view, cast a 'ray' out in 2D. This is a position in the 3D space in front of observer, let's imagine at waist height, starting at the observer's position and moving forward until it hits something eg the side of a wall. Imagine firing a ray horizontally at your left-most peripheral vision.
At the point where it hits a wall: we know the position on the wall that it strikes, meaning we know which part of our wall image should be shown.
The 2D-> 3D bit:
Get a vertical sliver of the wall image from top to bottom and plonk that on the screen view, scaled to the distance from the observer. Ie from a 2D position we get all of the wall top to bottom for that spot, but just that one vertical sliver.
Now do the same for the the next position (ie not quite leftmost field of view).
Each time you get a whole vertical slice of the image of the wall, so there's no idea of "up and down". The limitations are something like..
- The height of the wall is usually constant unless some extra programming is added to take that into account (actually this would be pretty easy but might slow things down with extra calculation)
- The corners in walls are always vertical on the screen, not angled/tilted.
- So the player can't 'look up' - ie the horizontal angle of their view can't be anything other than .. um .. horizontal, although it'd be possible to 'jump' the wall corners are still vertical on screen.
- The walls are usually in a maze made of right-angled wall corners, because a diagonal wall would show up in 'steps'. This might not matter if the ray angle increments is small enough though.
To explain further: my HTML/JS version of this placed a DIV at the point where the ray strikes a wall.
The screen x-position of the DIV is the ray angle I'm running at the moment (which angle out of the 120 degrees).
The screen Y position is always cented vertically.
The height is determined by how far away that wall strike was (=original height / distance away * a zoom factor).
The DIV is as wide as I've divided the ray angle increment up by and the height is determined by how far away the strike is.
The image to fill the Div is grabbed from a static wall image, the x position being how far along the wall the strike occurred, and scaled to fit the DIV.
I hope I've explained it well enough to understand!
I expect there are other methods and this might not be a definitive "this is how they all worked" but it's one way of doing it. | <urn:uuid:5fdacfd5-539d-432b-9416-9306642acfb7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/200573/how-did-early-2d-first-person-rpgs-render-a-3d-maze | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571993.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814022847-20220814052847-00676.warc.gz | en | 0.946022 | 748 | 2.203125 | 2 |
"Soon will We show them our signs in the (furthest) regions and in their own souls……..” (Qur’an,41:53).
There is one tested method of knowing Allah; and that is "through His creation” – the Worlds and the Man. Let us begin with our self.
We do not know the nature of soul. Still we have to admit that there is something which is the source of "life” In the same way, though we cannot ‘know’ the Creator, we have to admit that there is a God who has created the universe.
We know that the soul is the ruler of our body. If any limb of ours refuses to obey the commands of the soul, it is not a reflection on the strength of the soul. It is considered the defect of the limb itself. Likewise, the God is the master and ruler of the universe; and if anybody refuses to obey the commandments of Allah, the authority of Allah can never be doubted. It will be a sign that the disobedient person is sick spiritually.
We know that soul is connected with our body; but we do not know where it is. The life is everywhere in our body; but if a limb of a man is amputated, we cannot say that so much portion of the soul also has been cut off. Thus, we see, the life everywhere and still we cannot say that it is here or is there. In the same manner, we know that Allah is everywhere; but we cannot say. "He is here” or "He is there”. We cannot point towards Him; we cannot correlate Him with any place.
Whenever we want to do any work, our limbs simply obey the unspoken command of the soul, without any need to tell them in so many words. In the same way whenever God wants anything to happen it just happens, without any need on the part of God to say "Be this” of "Be that” Therefore, we understand that the words used in scriptures that "God says and the thing happens” is just a way of expressing the idea that as soon as Allah wishes something, it happens immediately.
We do not see the soul; still we believe in it. Man believes in such creation which are beyond his senses. Strangely enough, there are some people who do not believe in the Creator, just because He is beyond their senses!
God has shown His signs in our self. Perhaps these points were in the mind of Amir-ul-mumeneen Ali when he said: "Whoever knew his soul, knew his Lord”.
Sinlessness of Prophets
"And We sent not an apostle but to be obeyed according to the will of God”. (Qur’an, 4:64)
God sent so many prophets and apostles to lead their people on right path. Some of them were sent to a small group; others to large communities or countries. In the end the Prophet of Islam was sent to the whole mankind.
The prophets were to be obeyed; their examples were to be followed. It required a very high degree of respect and prestige in the eyes of the would be followers. But could a prophet command a genuine respect if his own character was not without blemish? How could his community believe that his claim of prophethood was based on truth? After all, a man who had committed sins in past, could again commit another sin – that of false pretension. So, to carry on the work of God, the prophets must have been sinless, and free from mistakes.
This capability to refrain from sins is called ‘Ismat’ in Islam. And the Muslims accept that all the prophets were sinless.
Of course, some stories are told about some of the prophets which are not edifying, to say the least. But we know how the passage of time starts legends about historical personalities; and how human mind works out the details; and how every generation wants to justify its own morality (perverted or otherwise) by pretending that it is what was done by more wise men (in this case, the prophets). As a result of this mental exercise, the followers succeed in creating a not-very-lovely picture of their prophets – just to satisfy their own troubled conscience.
For example, this week a certain ‘man of religion’ (who lives in a country which has just now legalized a perverted sexual act) did suggest that his prophet also might have indulged in that kind of perversion. He did not mind tarnishing the name of his prophet if this could ease the burden of shame and guilt from his conscience!
So, be careful when you are told stories of sins of other prophets. Human nature does not change. People, even the followers, nave been attributing nasty behaviors to the prophets of God since a very very long time.
One of the unique achievements of Islam is the fact that Muslims never upgraded the Holy Prophet of Islam to godhood. It speaks eloquently of the humility and selflessness of Muhammad (s.a.w.), who easily could have been acknowledged (had he only wished so) as a deity in those days when people were used to worship human beings; and especially so when people were so much impressed by his matchless character and unparalleled conduct that a mere hint would have been enough to make him a god.
He did not want the people to take him as other than a man. He never gave any room in any of his utterances which would in the least mislead the people to raise him to godhood.
We know how easily a ‘son of man’ can be construed to be a god if he is metaphorically spoken of as a ‘son of God’. Muhammad avoided all such metaphorical references about himself. He always proclaimed all power, knowledge and glory for the true God. He always presented himself as a servant of Allah who did nothing but the will of his Lord. The frankness with which he always presented himself to the world entitled him to the title ‘The Plain Preacher’. As he has been addressed by Allah in the Holy Qur’an. He presented the truth in its pristine purity and originality without any misleading ambiguity.
By: Allamah Sayyid Sa'eed Akhtar Rizvi | <urn:uuid:fb85dc5b-f37c-4094-bc65-8525b8f2835c> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.rohama.org/en/content/660 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282926.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00397-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9809 | 1,312 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Definitions for unreasonableʌnˈri zə nə bəl, -ˈriz nə-
This page provides all possible meanings and translations of the word unreasonable
not reasonable; not showing good judgment
excessive, inordinate, undue, unreasonable(adj)
beyond normal limits
"excessive charges"; "a book of inordinate length"; "his dress stops just short of undue elegance"; "unreasonable demands"
not reasonable; irrational; immoderate; exorbitant
Chambers 20th Century Dictionary
un-rē′zn-a-bl, adj. not agreeable to reason: exceeding the bounds of reason, immoderate: not influenced by reason.—ns. Unrea′son, lack of reason; Unrea′sonableness, the state or quality of being unreasonable: exorbitance.—adv. Unrea′sonably, in an unreasonable manner: excessively.—adjs. Unrea′soned, not argued out; Unrea′soning, not reasoning.—adv. Unrea′soningly.—Abbot of Unreason (see Misrule).
The numerical value of unreasonable in Chaldean Numerology is: 9
The numerical value of unreasonable in Pythagorean Numerology is: 1
Sample Sentences & Example Usage
It's irresponsible and unreasonable.
Our concerns are not outlandish or unreasonable.
Reasonable jurors could find that conduct unreasonable.
That law to me is unconstitutional, unreasonable and stupid.
Not compromising isn't the same thing as being unreasonable.
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Translations for unreasonable
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"unreasonable." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2017. Web. 16 Jan. 2017. <http://www.definitions.net/definition/unreasonable>. | <urn:uuid:6d25ba01-e7c8-4aac-9e5d-c0ae523df0e6> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.definitions.net/definition/unreasonable | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279410.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00171-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.718293 | 453 | 2.28125 | 2 |
4-H GROWS TRUE LEADERS!!
Every child has the potential to be a true leader. However, kids today say they are missing experiences that grow the life skills they need skills like confidence, responsibility, independence and compassion. In 4‑H, we believe in the power of young people, and want to provide them with opportunities needed to grow the skills they need to lead. We want to grow more True Leaders.
National 4‑H Council is excited to launch the Grow True Leaders Campaign to empower this generation of youth with encouragement and real opportunities to lead.
As the presidential elections spotlight the topic of leadership, we will give young people across the nation a forum to put their voices into positive action and to rally the nation in growing a generation of more true leaders.
The Grow True Leaders Campaign will engage young people and rally the nation to provide more youth with hands-on, youth development experiences that are proven to grow life skills, where they can learn by doing, grow from failure, express their ideas and use their influence to drive positive outcomes.
The campaign will also provide a forum for adults to champion the positive in today’s youth, recognize more youth as true leaders, and support 4‑H in providing more opportunities for youth to grow the skills they need to lead.
1. Rally with us by joining our #TrueLeaders
2. Thunderclap to share a positive message celebrating the good things kids do
3. Shout-Out using hashtag #TrueLeaders on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, sharing with others the great things kids are doing in your community
Help more kids get the opportunities in life and the recognition they deserve. Join 4‑H in shouting out True Leaders! | <urn:uuid:c90d5b95-fcc7-4461-aa73-7919d03f4a5a> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.wood.ext.wvu.edu/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988718957.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183838-00437-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937506 | 350 | 1.617188 | 2 |
I am just getting started with programming, in fact I am a total beginner. My question is this: what programing language or tools do you use to build a web based application, for example google calendar, essentially I am interested in what you use to build this type of system and not the type of programming that just makes a basic web page. Secondly, what would you use if you were trying to build a traditional application that you would download? I guess I am looking towards xcode right now, but just wanted some direction. Oh yea, and ideally it would be functional on both Apple based OS and Microsoft. Thanks for the help. | <urn:uuid:24f18377-43bf-4d73-a867-48573e7fb46e> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/easy-programming-question.286077/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720941.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00519-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968204 | 129 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Aztlan and Viet Nam
Chicano and Chicana Experiences of the War
By (author) George Mariscal
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Aztlan and Viet Nam by George Mariscal
Book DescriptionShowcasing over sixty short stories, poems, speeches, and articles, "Aztlan and Viet Nam" is the first anthology of Mexican American writings about the U.S. war in Southeast Asia. The words are startlingly frank, moving, and immensely powerful, as they call to our attention an important and neglected part of U.S. history. Gathered from many little-known sources, the works reflect both the soldiers' experience and the antiwar movement at home. Taken together, they illustrate the contradictions faced by the traditionally patriotic Mexican American community, and show us the war and the grassroots opposition to it from a new perspective - one that goes beyond the familiar dichotomy of black and white America. George Mariscal offers critical introductions and provides historical background by identifying specific issues which have not been widely discussed in relation to the war, noting, for example, the potential for Chicano soldiers to recognize their own ethnic and class identities in those of the Vietnamese people. Drawing upon interviews with key participants in the National Chicano Moratorium Committee, Mariscal analyzes the antiwar movement, the Catholic Church, traditional Mexican American groups, and an emerging feminist consciousness among Chicanas. Also included are personal accounts: Norma Elia Cantu's remembrance of her brother who died in combat, Barbara Renaud Gonzalez's evocative poem about Chicanas on the homefront, Alberto Rios' and Naomi Helena Quinonez's moving poetry about the Wall, and the recollections of Abelardo Delgado and others on the August 29, 1970 Moratorium.
Buy Aztlan and Viet Nam book by George Mariscal from Australia's Online Bookstore, Boomerang Books.
Book DetailsISBN: 9780520214057
(229mm x 152mm x 19mm)
Imprint: University of California Press
Publisher: University of California Press
Publish Date: 1-Mar-1999
Country of Publication: United States
Books By Author George Mariscal
Contradictory Subjects, Hardback (September 1991)» View all books by George Mariscal
This ambitious book attempts to rehistoricize the Golden Age of Spain (ca. 1550-1680) by placing literary production in its socio-cultural context. Drawing on theories of cultural materialism and making use of historical analysis, George Mariscal...
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Author Biography - George Mariscal
George Mariscal is Associate Professor of Literature at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of the award-winning Contradictory Subjects: Quevedo, Cervantes, and Seventeenth-Century Spanish Culture (1991). The grandson of Mexican immigrants, he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1968 and served the following year in Viet Nam.
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For every $20 you spend on books, you will receive $1 in Boomerang Bucks loyalty dollars. You can use your Boomerang Bucks as a credit towards a future purchase from Boomerang Books. Note that you must be a Member (free to sign up) and that conditions do apply. | <urn:uuid:0a543125-c651-49ee-b1c6-579f3ea5935a> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.boomerangbooks.com.au/Aztlan-and-Viet-Nam/George-Mariscal/book_9780520214057.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279189.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00057-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.881333 | 999 | 2.140625 | 2 |
We all know that we’re supposed to clean and maintain our gutters, but do we know why?
Clean gutters quickly channel rain water from your roof, through the down spouts, and safely out away from your home and foundation. When leaves, twigs, and other debris begin to build up in your gutters, water flow begins to slow down, sometimes stopping all together.
When the rain comes, gutters begin to overflow, dumping rain water down the side of your home and right onto your foundation. This can lead to basement leaks, dampness, and mold. Water could also travel down behind your siding and leak in through the wall.
Clean gutters also help in the winter. When gutters are full of debris they hold standing water. In the winter, this freezes over, allowing ice to build up. Just the sheer weight of the ice can rip gutters and siding off the side of the house. Even worse, ice can back up under the shingles, causing leaks and interior damage.
So the moral of the story? Clean your gutters! Don’t want to do it yourself? Don’t worry, we can do it for you. Call us now to schedule your appointment! | <urn:uuid:9a72b511-34db-45c8-876e-3f7f5ea55569> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://americanstandardroofing.com/clean-those-gutters/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572286.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816090541-20220816120541-00278.warc.gz | en | 0.944164 | 257 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Toward geologically consistent production forecasts.
Capturing the impact of interpretation and geological features on reservoir production leads to improved models which are easier to history-match, and which yield forecasts you can trust. With SKUA-GOCAD™, reservoir engineers create simulation models that more accurately capture the interpreted structure and stratigraphy of the reservoir, its compartmentalization, its petrophysical content, and therefore its connectivity.
SKUA-GOCAD provides an environment to facilitate the propagation of uncertainty, from seismic and geological interpretation and modeling to production profiles. Users can efficiently launch and analyze multiple flow simulation scenarios to understand their reservoir potential and associated development risks.
SKUA-GOCAD for Reservoir Engineers includes:
SKUA Flow Simulation Grids
One of the main goals of SKUA-GOCAD is to provide reservoir engineers with the best possible grids for flow simulation. First, SKUA-GOCAD enables the creation of 3D corner-point geometry structured grids that honor the interpreted structure and stratigraphy of the reservoir, with no unwarranted simplifications of the fault system and unconformities. This ensures that geoscientists and engineers refer to the same representation of the underlying geology. Second, SKUA-GOCAD enables the construction of grid cells that are optimal for flow simulation processes, limiting numerical errors. SKUA Flow Simulation Grids accurately bring geology into production forecasts.
SKUA-GOCAD LGR and Upscaling
Transferring petrophysical properties from a fine-scale geological model to a flow simulation model, typically at a coarser resolution, is a fundamental step of any reservoir modeling workflow. It can be a slow and tedious process that must be done with care to ensure that the volumes and connectivity established in the geological model are propagated to the flow simulation model. With its unique 3D approach, the SKUA-GOCAD LGR and Upscaling module
facilitates accurate and fast upscaling operations between grids of different resolutions.
SKUA-GOCAD Fracture Modeling
Paradigm provides a complete set of tools for characterizing a fractured reservoir. The SKUA Stratigraphy
module offers a unique way to rapidly compute 3D fracture-related attributes, including the probability of fracture occurrences based on structural deformation. Combined with seismically-derived seismic attributes computed using Paradigm EarthStudy 360®
, structural restoration attributes computed using SKUA Restoration (Kine3D®
), and well analysis from Geolog® Facimage
, they provide the input to SKUA-GOCAD Fracture Modeling
, which uses fracture density and orientation information to generate geologically-constrained, discrete fracture networks (DFN) and compute effective fracture flow properties.
SKUA-GOCAD and Flow Simulation
Informed reserve estimates are based on accurate production forecasts that can only be obtained if they are based on accurate, static, and dynamic descriptions of the reservoir. This, in turn, is dependent on the joint efforts and knowledge of reservoir geologists who construct the geological model and reservoir engineers who perform the flow simulation of that model. For the most part, these two processes have been completely separate. Using SKUA-GOCAD (respective pre- and post-processing modules for flow simulation), reservoir geologists and reservoir engineers effectively bridge that gap, leading to full collaboration and a complete audit trail, while efficiently investigating alternative geological and development scenarios. | <urn:uuid:9524f891-13e5-44dd-a25a-6285b76cb880> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://pdgm.com/products/skua-gocad/reservoir-engineering/?lang=ru-ru | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281331.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00227-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.899458 | 705 | 2.21875 | 2 |
As the picture above illustrates (I think), in science class, we used to learn about potential energy and kinetic energy. The basic idea (as best as I can remember) is that potential energy is energy gaining and kinetic energy is energy releasing. In leadership, we have to have a solid flow of both.
We have to constantly be looking for ways to build energy in our organization. We have to find ways to build anticipation and excitement. This has to be done constantly.
We also have to have energy releasing. In order for our organization to grow and be healthy, there needs to be energy. People need to be excited about not only what could happen, but what is happening. People have to feel the energy building and then be excited about how it’s going to release.
How do you build energy in your organization?
How do you keep a healthy flow of both?
Just something for thought… | <urn:uuid:53708490-7268-4e3c-b6e8-6c3938624eed> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://jonathanpearson.net/2009/02/04/leadership-lesson-from-science-class/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282202.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00556-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975068 | 187 | 2.09375 | 2 |
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FOOD AND FEEDING
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adult males aggression Altmann animals apes baboons baby Barro Colorado behavior birds birth breeding bushbabies calls cebus cent Chapter child chimpanzees chimps communication competition correlates Courtesy depends diet dominance environment estrus evolved feeding females FIGURE food supply foraging fruit galago gelada genes gibbon Gombe Gombe Stream Goodall gorilla grooming guenon habitat hamadryas hamadryas baboons hanuman hanuman langurs harem home range howlers Hrdy human individual indri infanticide infants insects Japanese macaques juvenile K-selected Kibale lactation language langur lar gibbon learning mammals mangabey mantled howler marmosets mate mature means monogamous mother multimale nest new-world monkeys objects offspring old-world monkeys orangutan patterns play population predators prey primates prosimians rain forest red colobus reproductive rhesus ringtailed lemurs season seems sexual siamang sifaka signs species squirrel monkeys stage sticks strepsirhines structure Struhsaker survive tamarins territorial tion titi tool tree troop vervet wild young | <urn:uuid:5feba59f-0109-4a3c-a6dd-16d8f800eb5b> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://books.google.ca/books?id=RkYgAQAAIAAJ&q=species&dq=related:ISBN8124101035&source=gbs_word_cloud_r&hl=en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719566.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00261-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.673492 | 277 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Water hammer in steam systems: cause and effect
Heat transfer systems in almost any form – hot water, high temperature oil and steam – require careful design and operation because of the temperatures and pressures involved. Generally speaking, steam systems are at their safest when condensate is efficiently removed. Proper steam system design, installation, operation and maintenance significantly decrease the potential for destru...
Heat transfer systems in almost any form %%MDASSML%% hot water, high temperature oil and steam %%MDASSML%% require careful design and operation because of the temperatures and pressures involved. Generally speaking, steam systems are at their safest when condensate is efficiently removed. Proper steam system design, installation, operation and maintenance significantly decrease the potential for destructive events, such as those caused by water hammer.
What is water hammer?
Water hammer occurs when water, accelerated by steam pressure or a low-pressure void, is suddenly stopped by impact on a valve or fitting, such as bend or tee, or on a pipe surface. Water velocities can be much higher than the normal steam velocity in the pipe, especially when the water hammer is occurring at startup. When these velocities are destroyed by impact, the kinetic energy in the water is converted into pressure energy, and a pressure shock is applied to the obstruction.
In mild cases, there is noise and perhaps movement of the pipe. More severe cases lead to fracture of the pipe or fittings with almost explosive effect and consequent escape of live steam at the fracture. Fracturing of pipes or steam system components can propel fragments that can cause injury or loss of life.
There are two types of water hammer: a steam-flow-driven water hammer and condensate-induced water hammer. A steam-flow-driven water hammer is an impact event, where a slug of rapidly moving water strikes a stationary object. The exchange of momentum creates a pressure of perhaps a few hundred psi in the impact area.
A condensate-induced water hammer is the more powerful of the two types. It is a rapid condensation event that occurs when a steam pocket, being totally surrounded by cooler condensate, collapses into a liquid state. Depending on the pressures and temperatures involved, the reduction in volume may be by a factor of several hundred to well over a thousand, and the resulting low-pressure void allows the pressurized surrounding condensate to rush in, resulting in a tremendous collision. This in turn generates a severe over-pressurization that can easily exceed 1,000 psi. Gaskets, fittings and valves %%MDASSML%% virtually any piping component %%MDASSML%% are susceptible to failure, often with tragic consequences.
Common places to look for both types of water hammer are steam mains, steam tracing lines and air heating coils.
Causes of water hammer
Condensate buildup is common to both types of water hammer. It can be caused by boiler carry-over depositing large amounts of boiler water into the steam main, overwhelming the steam traps. Or backflow from the condensate main can be driven by deaerator pressure and perhaps flash steam through malfunctioning steam traps or check valves. Even reduced trap capacity caused by low steam main pressure conditions can result in backflow from condensate mains.
An element necessary to steam-driven water hammer is steam flow, usually from some sort of nearby steam load producing the force that drives the slug.
For condensate-induced water hammer, necessary elements are:
steam condensation, during which a trapped pocket of steam condenses in pooled condensate
a pressure drop (perhaps combined with steam process control valves opening), which can lead to a vacuum being created
Reducing the risks
Operators can reduce their risk of water hammer by preventing or resolving steam system design issues.
1 . Drainage: Avoid water hammer completely by taking steps to ensure that water (condensate) is drained away before it accumulates in sufficient quantity to be picked up by the steam. Provide proper drainage; do not simply deal with it by installing components with high pressure ratings or capacities. Components with generous “safety factors” do not necessarily ensure safe and effective steam main drainage.
2 . Steam quality: Improve steam quality, keeping steam as dry as possible at all times. Install steam-conditioning stations upstream of meters and any other critical steam system components.
3 . Steam velocities: Do not allow steam velocities to become excessive as a result of system modifications. The higher the velocity, the higher the force of impact during a steam flow-driven event.
4 . Boiler and steam supply: In larger systems, consider installing an automatic valve in the steam supply line, arranged so that the valve stays closed until a reasonable pressure is attained in the boiler. The valve can then be set to gradually open, allowing flow, temperature and pressure in the distribution system to reach equilibrium slowly. Install a backpressure control valve on the steam main to prevent the pressure within the boiler itself from being drawn down due to some sort of upset condition.
5 . Steam traps: Make sure the steam traps used are of correct type and capacity. Type can depend on the startup methods used. If operational procedures change, different types of steam traps may be needed. If in doubt, call in a steam system expert. Check steam traps regularly and maintain them properly. Never fall below a minimum pressure differential across a steam trap. Always pipe steam main isolation valves with a steam trap to allow drainage of condensate that may form while the valve is closed. Design target unit piping to include bypass systems that allow gradual heating and pressurization on startup.
6 . Piping: Correct any occurrences of pipe sagging and missing, wet or damaged insulation that could cause condensate accumulation and exceed steam traps’ capacities.
7 . Air heating coils: These units must accommodate both condensate removal and air venting to prevent water hammer. In “horizontal” coils, the tubes should not be horizontal but should have a slight fall from inlet to outlet so that condensate does not collect in pools but drains naturally. Steam inlets to “horizontal” headers may be at one end or at mid length, but with vertical headers the steam inlet is preferably near the top.
Coils with a center inlet connection make it more difficult to ensure that air is pushed from the top tubes; the steam tends to short-circuit past these tubes to the condensate header. Automatic air venting of the top condensate header of these coils is essential. With other layouts, an assessment must be made of the most likely part of the unit in which air and non-condensable gases will collect. If this is at the natural condensate drain point, then the trap must have superior air venting capability. A float-thermostatic type is the first choice. A vacuum breaker should be installed in the steam supply pipe between the temperature control valve and the coil inlet.
Avoiding water hammer in practice
Water hammer can also be avoided by preventing or resolving certain operational issues:
1 . Dangerous mix: High-pressure steam in contact with sub-cooled condensate is an unstable and potentially explosive mixture.
2 . Cooled condensate: Do not allow steam to be admitted into a line that is suspected of containing sub-cooled condensate.
3 . Boilers: Make sure that the boilers operate correctly under all load conditions, without foaming or carryover.
4 . Steam pressure: Be careful when the pressure in the steam main is low or zero. Because of the lift after the drip traps, flooding will occur even with some pressure in the steam main. Be especially careful during startup, when boiler goes down and when process loads overwhelm steam capacity.
5 . Startup and shutdown: These are critical operations. Never allow a steam system to shut down or restart without operator involvement. In larger systems, use a supervised startup procedure. Open manual drain valves, such as the ones on the bottom of the drip pockets or the blowdown valves off the strainers until the steam main has enough pressure for the steam traps to take over. In any but the smallest plants, the flow of steam from the boiler into the cold pipes at startup, while the boiler pressure is still only a few psi, will lead to excessive carryover of boiler water with the steam. Such carryover can be enough to overload separators in the steam takeoff, where these are fitted.
6 . Malfunctioning steam traps: If a trap is found to be failed closed, temporarily set the strainer blowdown valve partially opened to allow condensate to bleed. If a trap is found to be failed open, it should not be valved shut—this would allow condensate to build up in the steam main. Be sure to implement a program of regular steam trap testing to maintain the highest level of trap performance.
7 . Air heating coil operation: Stalling is the most common cause of heating coil problems. Stalling occurs when pressure within the steam space falls under part load conditions. If pressure falls to the level that condensate flow to the traps ceases, the system “stalls.” As condensate backs up into the coil, waterlogging problems of hammering, temperature stratification, corrosion and freeze-up begin. A waterlogged coil should gradually drain itself freely to a downstream trap and, from the trap, by gravity to a vented receiver and return pump. If it doesn’t, suspect a missing or malfunctioning vacuum break on the coil. A better strategy is to use an automatic pump trap, the newest technology combining the benefits of a float trap with those of a pressure powered pump to ensure effective drainage of condensate from the steam space, no matter the pressure.
Water hammer event forensics
A West Coast petrochemicals plant experienced a steam system incident that resulted in an instantaneous fracture and total separation of a 10-inch gate valve. The back half of the valve, along with the attached blind flange, was launched from the pipework and landed approximately 50 feet away on the asphalt driveway.
The total plant-wide steam load was in excess of 200,000 lb/hr. The valve was located at the end of a 150-psi steam main located on the roof of a process building. A float and thermostatic steam trap was located close to the 10-inch gate valve. Condensate from the drip traps in most cases had a few feet of lift to the return main. The boiler pressure reportedly dropped for unknown reasons. The pressure seemingly decreased to as low as 30 to 35 psi, then was being increased slowly. It was at this point in time that the event occurred.
The deaerator pressure was about 5 psi at the time of this survey. The float and thermostatic steam trap located close to the 10-inch gate valve was found to be damaged; whether the damage actually occurred during the same event that ruptured the gate valve is impossible to determine. However, the combined evidence of the damaged gate valve and the steam trap float point to water hammer as the most likely culprit. The questions would then be: a) what type of water hammer, and b) why did it occur.
As a point of information, 10-inch schedule 40 pipe is capable of about 70,000 lb/hr without incurring excessive velocities and pressure drop; 12-inch, about 100,000. Higher velocities will increase capacities by about 50% and pressure drops by more than 100%.
If the event were caused by steam-driven water hammer, then some sort of steam load should have been nearby. This was not the case. Additionally, the magnitude of the damage incurred would point to condensate-induced water hammer. Two factors would be necessary: a condensation-induced vacuum and condensate. The drop in the steam system pressure may have some bearing here, leading to a vacuum being created. Under the low-pressure conditions, the steam traps’ capacity could have decreased to the point where no condensate would drain from the main. Low pressure together with condensate system backpressure could have combined to cause condensate flow back into the steam main.
The case clearly illustrates that it is often impossible to determine with any certainty the actual cause or causes of damage in the wake of a water hammer event. If you suspect an impending water hammer condition in your steam system, you should undertake a careful review of the remediation suggestions presented. If any doubt remains, engage a qualified steam system engineer to conduct an audit of design and operational factors. | <urn:uuid:7fbb2ebb-6c4d-470b-8d81-b1a1c625b673> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.controleng.com/single-article/water-hammer-in-steam-systems-cause-and-effect/0bed7aeb050ce0e4480e1efeeff5671d.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719646.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00127-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947964 | 2,594 | 2.984375 | 3 |
The World to Come: From Christian Past to Global Future by Lloyd Geering
Lloyd Geering is a Presbyterian minister and former Professor of Old Testament Studies at theological colleges in Brisbane and Dunedia, and Professor of Religious Studies at Victorian University in Wellington, New Zealand. He is author of Tomorrow's God (1994), The World to Come (1999) and Christianity Without God (2002). Published by Polebridge Press, 1999, Santa Rosa, California and by Bridget Williams Books Ltd, Wellington, New Zealand, 1999. This material was edited for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie Brock.
Chapter 10: Humanity at War with the Planet
Ever since humans began to emerge from their pre-human ancestry (maybe around two million years ago), the species learned to accommodate itself to the natural environment. Humans, like all other earthly creatures, evolved in a symbiotic relationship with the world around them, living at the mercy of natural forces. In their slowly developing, language-based culture, our far distant ancestors gained some understanding of the ways of nature and they developed beliefs, myths and rituals to acknowledge their absolute dependence on the earth, which supplied all the essentials of life.
As our forebears came to name the particular forces of nature as unseen spirits and/or gods, they showed them the utmost respect. The gods of nature were the chief objects of their worship and veneration. Dependent upon these ‘spiritual forces’, the early humans knew they were not free to do whatever they liked on the earth. On the contrary, they developed practices to protect and sustain the various sources of their food supply. To early humans, the earth was revered in personal terms, and often regarded as their Mother.
This relationship between humans and nature lasted for many centuries, until the Axial Period 1 introduced some radical changes. These were most pronounced in the monotheistic culture which arose in ancient Israel and which diverged eventually into Judaism, Christianity and Islam. As polytheism turned to monotheism, the focus of attention shifted from the earth to the sky. In mythological terms it was a shift in worship from the Earth Mother to the Sky Father. The Israelite prophet Hosea reflected this when he portrayed the divine Heavenly Father complaining that the people of Israel ‘did not know that it was I who gave them the grain and the wine and the oil and lavished upon them the silver and the gold’ -- gifts which they in their ignorance attributed to Baal (one of the Canaanite gods of nature).2
The monotheistic cultural traditions have long interpreted this ancient struggle between the old nature religions and the worship of the One who ruled from the heavens as a struggle between idolatry and the truth, in which the latter ultimately prevailed. But banishing the gods of nature had the effect of desacralizing the earth. Christians, even more than Jews and Muslims, came to regard the earth as a fallen world and contrasted it with the wholly spiritual world of heaven. Christian monasticism encouraged the faithful to withdraw from the materialistic world with its earthly attractions and prepare themselves for their ultimate destiny in the heavenly realms.
Western culture has been slowly relinquishing this dualistic view of reality and learning to value the physical world -- the only world of which we have first-hand experience. Yet that traditional dualism left a deposit of attitudes which we have yet to overcome, and whose consequences we have only begun to acknowledge in the twentieth century. For one thing, monotheism’s rejection of the gods of nature badly upset the prevailing gender balance. In polytheism, the Sky Father was a somewhat distant figure, complemented by the Earth Mother, with whom humans had the closer relationship. When the one and only deity affirmed by Israel banished the Earth Mother and the other gods of nature (both male and female), the Sky Father was left supreme. As the term Heavenly Father suggests, this God inherited many of the characteristics of the primitive Sky Father, such as unlimited power and the male macho image -- manifested in storms and thunderbolts. The elimination of the Earth Mother effectively downgraded the earth in favor of heaven. And as a result, women and female characteristics were downgraded, and a superior place for men was established in society. When the divine male gender reigns supreme in the heavenly places as the Almighty, so the human male gender dominates the earth. Thus the monotheistic traditions became strongly patriarchal and the feminine virtues were devalued.
The first expression of pure monotheism in Israelite thought is found as late as the sixth century BCE, in the words of an unknown prophet. In the latter part of the Book of Isaiah he wrote: ‘I am the Lord and there is no other. Apart from me there is no god.’3 About the same time (according to most modern scholars) the opening chapter of Genesis was composed in its present form. In this creation story, humankind was made in the image of this all-powerful Creator, able likewise to subdue the earth and exercise dominion over every living creature that lives upon it. Although this later biblical myth specifically stated, ‘God created mankind in his own image male and female he created them,’4 God continued to be described in male terms. It was natural, therefore, for the mediaeval theologian Aquinas to conclude that women are simply unfinished males.
This biblical tradition went deep into the collective consciousness of the western world, causing people to believe that the earth was expressly made for the use of humankind, with the male gender in authority. People felt free to exploit the earth and its resources for their own ends. In no century more than the twentieth has this exploitation been so widespread. James Gaius Watt, a committed Christian and Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of the Interior, argued that developers should have access to controlled parks and natural resources, with this reasoning:
The earth is merely a temporary way station on the road to eternal life. It is unimportant except as a place of testing to get into heaven. In this evil and dangerous world, one’s duty is to pass through unspotted by the surrounding corruption. The earth was put here by the Lord for his people to subdue and to use for profitable purposes on the way to the hereafter.
While this view may be considered extreme, it was nevertheless consistent with traditional Christian teaching -- and indeed expressed popular (although ill-considered) Christian thought. As recently as 1952, a theologian of world renown, Emil Brunner (1889 - 1966). wrote:
Because man, and man alone, has been created in the image of God, and for communion with the Creator, therefore he may and should make the earth subject to himself, and should have dominion over all other creatures . . . Man is only capable of realizing his divine destiny when be rises above Nature and looks at it from a distance [emphasis added] 5
This attitude towards the natural world is now facing strong criticism. However, this same attitude may well be the reason why empirical science first evolved in western civilization. Some philosophers and scientists have claimed that empirical science could only develop where there was nothing sacred about the earth, leaving humans free to experiment with it. In Christian teaching, not only were there no gods of nature to take vengeance on humans who interfered with their domain, but also humans already had dominion over the earth, granted by the one and only God.
Empirical science gave rise to modern technology, and this has been not only a justified source of pride but also welcomed by people in many different cultures. Few are willing to dispense with the technology on which human life has now come to depend. But from the far distant past, when primitive humans discovered how to make fire and invent tools, up until the recent present, nothing that humans did through their technology made much difference to the forces of nature. It is only in the twentieth century that human forces have become sufficiently magnified as to be comparable with natural forces. We may not yet be able to control the weather, but our collective activities now have subtle but serious effects on weather patterns. Our extravagant use of the earth’s resources is now turning to wasteful exploitation, and our human activities are causing many other species to become extinct.
During the last two decades an ever-increasing number of books have been published, warning that a frightening nemesis is now appearing on the horizon as a result of our changing relationship with the earth. They started with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1966); later came titles such as The Fate of the Earth by Jonathan Schell (1982), The Dream of the Earth by Thomas Berry (1988), Earth in the Balance by Al Gore (1993), and The Sacred Balance by David Suzuki (1997). We are being awakened to the fact that not all of our technological and other achievements necessarily promote the long-term wellbeing of the human race. We find that the rise of modern culture in the Christian west, followed by its rapid spread around the world, has been both a blessing and a curse.
The Christian west, including monotheism, is now meeting moral criticism, from within the western culture. Arnold Toynbee in 1973 wrote:
Some of the major maladies of the present day world -- in particular the recklessly extravagant consumption of nature’s irreplaceable treasures, and the pollution of those of them that man has not already devoured -- can be traced back to a religious cause, and this cause is the rise of monotheism . . . Monotheism, as enunciated in the book of Genesis, has removed the age-old restraint that was once placed on man’s greed by his awe. Man’s greedy impulse to exploit nature used to be held in check by his pious worship of nature.6
Similarly the Lutheran theologian Jürgen Moltmann said:
It was the Western ‘religion of modern times’ that freed the way for the secularization of nature. At the end of civilization’s long history, the ancient view about the harmony between the forces of nature has been destroyed -- destroyed by modern monotheism on the one hand, and by scientific mechanism on the other. Modern monotheism has robbed nature of its divine mystery and has broken its spell.7
Toynbee’s growing concern about the future of humankind led him, after spending a lifetime studying human history, to devote the last book of his career to Mankind and Mother Earth. As he observed: ‘We now stand at a turning-point in the history of the biosphere and in the shorter history of one of its products, mankind . . . Man is the first species of living being in our biosphere that has acquired the power to wreck the biosphere and, in wrecking it, to liquidate himself.’ 8
The word biosphere has come into common use only in the twentieth century. It was coined by Austrian scientist Edouard Suess in 1875 to refer to the thin film of life around the earth between the hydrosphere and the atmosphere, and penetrating them both; in this are found all earthly living creatures, great and small. Teilhard de Chardin used the word to draw attention to the unity of all planetary life, and to the complex and awe-inspiring ways in which the myriad living species within the biosphere interrelate both with one another and with their environment.
The increasing use of such terms as biosphere illustrates a radical shift taking place in our understanding of the world, a shift which may be described as a move from atomism to holism. Atomism (which goes all the way back to Democritus, who coined the term atom) assumes that physical reality consists of tiny indestructible parts or atoms, and that by analyzing an object into smaller and smaller parts one can learn all there is to know about it. Analysis of this kind has been very fruitful in modern chemistry and physics. But there is much that this sort of analysis misses, and may even destroy, in the search for knowledge. The term ‘holism’ was coined in 1926 by J.C. Smuts to refer to the tendency of nature to produce wholes from ordered groups of units. We now know that, in the phenomenon of life, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. To understand life in general, including the many particular forms of it within the biosphere, we must study it holistically.
All living creatures are organisms or living systems, the essential components of which are carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen. These are, in themselves, lifeless and inert. A system is alive if it obtains energy and other substances from its environment, returns wastes to that environment, and maintains the conditions necessary for the process to continue. All living organisms not only possess an internal living system but also constitute with their environment a larger living system, which could be called a ‘life field’. The holistic approach, which examines physical reality in ever-greater wholes, has thus told us that all forms of life are dependent on systems. Even the biosphere of the earth itself is dependent on the energy drawn from the sun.
The continuing life of each species depends upon the preservation of a delicate balance between the organism and the environment which supports it. Each organism contains self-regulating mechanisms which help to preserve that balance. We can understand this best by thinking of the organism we know best -- the human being. We have long been used to thinking of ourselves as wholes rather than as aggregations of parts. Indeed, it is only modern physiology that has fully identified the various organs or sub-systems which exist within the human body. When one or more of those systems has its balance disturbed and can no longer function (as, say, in diabetes) our health (literally, our ‘wholeness’) suffers. We become ill and, if the balance cannot be restored, we die.
The earth has provided certain basic conditions which must be met by all earthly creatures if they are to survive as a species. Humans have evolved within those parameters. Our respiratory system fits both the nature and the proportions of the gases found in the atmosphere. Our bodies, which are 80 per cent water, fit the earth’s water supply. The ozone layer protects us from the sun’s harmful radioactivity. Our muscles and bone structure have evolved to meet the conditions of the earth’s mass. For humans to be healthy they must be able to breathe fresh air, drink clean water, eat adequate food, and live in an environment not too different from that in which they became human. The more the environment changes from that in which a species has evolved, the more the health and behavior of that species will show maladjustment. Its health will deteriorate and then it will die. We humans will always be earthlings, along with all other earthly creatures. Our existence remains earth-related.
To acknowledge the reality of living systems, and especially the ultimate system which links all systems of earthly life, the word eco-sphere is now often preferred to the earlier word biosphere. A full appreciation of the whole eco-system has led some, such as James Lovelock with the Gaia hypothesis, to describe the earth itself in terms of an organism, of which the biosphere is the living skin in the same way as bark is the living skin of the tree. His term Gaia is the name for Mother Earth derived from ancient Greek mythology.9
At the very time we humans have been learning more about the ecology of all planetary life, we have been discovering to our horror how much we are now upsetting the delicate balances in the living systems of the ecosphere. Humanity has had no intention of ‘wrecking the biosphere’, to use Toynbee’s words. While there is an unfortunate streak in the human psyche that delights in destruction (as vandalism ancient and modern shows), the current damage to the eco-sphere is quite unintentional and occurs partly out of ignorance. The eco-sphere is suffering chiefly through our sudden expansion in numbers and our rapidly growing technology -- and the first of these is serving to exacerbate the second.
The impact of the population explosion on a finite world has already been discussed in Chapter 9. It is also shifting balances within humanity itself. The racial composition of the world’s population is altering rapidly, for the population increase is occurring mainly among the non-white races. For example, in 1950 the population of Africa was only half that of Europe, but by 2025 it could be three times that of Europe. In the 30 years before 2025, Nigeria’s population could jump from 113 to 301 million, Kenya’s from 25 to 77 million, Tanzania’s from 27 to 84 million and Zaire’s from 36 to 99 million. The population explosion is also changing the economic balances, for it is the nations that are already economically poor, and in many cases saddled with massive international debt, that will bear the burden of feeding between two and three times as many more mouths than they do at present.
The fast-increasing population also upsets the ecological balance between various species and their source of sustenance, by putting added strain on the natural resources of the earth. Humans, in order to live, are interfering with the food chains which have evolved over time, and are depriving many other creatures as well as ourselves of sustenance. All food for human consumption, and for many other species as well comes either directly or indirectly from four biological systems: croplands, grasslands, forests and fisheries. Each of these is being seriously depleted at the same time as the human population is rapidly growing. It was estimated in the 1970s that, from the time human agriculture began to develop some 10,000 years ago, one half of the earth’s food-producing soil had disappeared and a third of the remainder would be lost in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Because of the clearing of pasture and forest lands for agriculture. vast amounts of topsoil are being swept down into the ocean and lost for the future. The United States alone is said to lose four to six billion tons annually.
Further, and even more seriously for the eco-sphere, the human population explosion is upsetting the balance which has long existed among earthly creatures. All species have evolved in a state of interdependence with one another and with their total environment. Humans now dominate the surface of the earth as never before. Human expansion into previously uninhabited areas has disturbed, and in many cases already destroyed, the natural habitat of other species. Species are becoming extinct much more rapidly.
The delicate balances in the planetary eco-system are also being upset by technology, much of which has been specifically developed to meet the needs of a greatly increased population. Human technology began, of course, many thousands of years ago and took a great step forward with the rise of agriculture. Yet, for a very long period, human technology was basically of the same order as (and not greatly more advanced than) the simple technology which other higher animals had developed and operated largely by instinct. The difference between the spinning of a spider’s web (for example) and human technology is that the latter came to depend increasingly on human thought -- or what Teilhard de Chardin called the evolution of the noosphere. This he saw as the thin sphere of creative and self-conscious human thought within the biosphere. Teilhard de Chardin identified the arrival of the noosphere as a transition in the evolutionary process just as far-reaching as the evolution of life out of a non-living planet. The philosopher Karl Popper, using a different model, referred to the total product of noogenesis as World 3, a non-physical but very real world of objective knowledge created by human thought.10
Human knowledge has been slowly accumulating over many millennia and has been transmitted from generation to generation; its practical application constitutes human technology. In the last 200 years there has been an explosion in (World 3) knowledge. This partly contributed to population growth, in that we had a better understanding of human health. But it has also greatly expanded human technology. The ratio between the forces of nature and human forces has significantly changed.
Population pressures and human technology are together adversely affecting the natural conditions of the surface of the planet in the following ways:
• We are polluting air and water, the two most basic commodities on which human existence depends.
• We are increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, causing changing climatic conditions and global warming. This in turn raises ocean levels sufficiently to endanger the habitation of those living near sea-level.
• We are depleting the ozone layer, which protects us from the harmful effects of the sun’s radiation. This not only increases the incidence of malignant cancers but can also bring about unforeseen genetic changes.
• We are destroying the rainforests, increasing the deserts and, as noted above, washing the topsoil into the sea. (The earth’s forests are shrinking by 17 million hectares per year.)
• We are making massive demands on the earth’s natural resources and rapidly exhausting many of its non-renewable deposits.
• Our increasing competition for the fruits of the earth, coupled with the quite unequal use of the earth’s limited resources, is building up explosive tensions within the human species.
• The complexity of our growing interdependence in the global village makes the global economy exceedingly fragile.
Modern secular prophets (such as the writers referred to above) are telling us about the early warning signals of a living earth feeling the pressure of the activities of one species. What has evolved over millions of years we are now in the act of destroying in a few decades, either knowingly or unknowingly. And this is the result of what may be called the humanization of the earth. Some of these prophets are so pessimistic that they ask whether it is possible for some five to eight billion people to change the direction of our global life in the relatively short time available.
Others are more hopeful and see no reason why, with human ingenuity and further technology, we should not be able to reverse the dangerous policies we have set in motion. We have, for example, already taken some measures to deal with one of the probable causes of the growing holes in the ozone layer, and to reverse the destruction of European forests by acid rain. Thus, the more optimistic of the modern prophets (like their ancient counterparts) are far from saying that doom is inevitable. Jonathan Schell ends his book The Fate of the Earth by pointing to the choice humankind must make between the path that leads to death and the path that leads to life. His words are reminiscent of the words of Moses: ‘I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil . . . Therefore choose life.’
But do enough people even see this choice between life and death? Plenty of critics dismiss these prophetic voices as ‘doom merchants’, who grossly exaggerate the warning signs and too readily ignore the capacity of human ingenuity to cope with threats. When Rachel Carson dared to suggest in Silent Spring that synthetic pesticides did more harm than good, her book was dismissed as so much hogwash. Carson’s allegations have since been confirmed as legitimate, with the result that many pesticides are now banned and organic farming is expanding fast.
It is not difficult to discover that the critics are usually people in the affluent west whose wealth, business interests and economic policies are dependent upon the technology doing the damage. Those who flatly dismiss the warning bells appear to be largely driven by self-interest, and so they shut their eyes to the consequences of their commitments just as surely as the Christian fundamentalists turn from the evidence that points to the end of the Christian era.
Even more serious is the fact that resistance to environmental issues is built into the economic policy underlying capitalism itself -- an economic policy which, since the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, has been widely adopted around the globe. Its first maxim is that a nation’s wellbeing depends upon the wealth produced by its industry, technology and economic development. The second maxim is that this wealth can be measured by its per capita Gross National Product (GNP). The third maxim is that to maximize a nation’s well-being it must maximize its economic growth. Thus annual economic growth is commonly being used as a criterion to measure the success or failure of political policies. Modern economic orthodoxy regards these maxims not only as basic to capitalism but also as normal for the way humans relate to the natural world. As Edward Goldsmith says:
The modern discipline of economics is based on the assumption that the destructive economic system which is operative today is normal . . . it does not occur to many academics that what they take to be normal is highly atypical of humanity’s total experience on this planet . . . They are like biologists who have only seen cancerous tissue and understandably mistake it for a healthy tissue.1
It is not surprising therefore that these maxims are coming under attack. Herman Daly, one-time economist with the World Bank, collaborated with theologian John Cobb to publish in 1989 For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment and a Sustainable Future. They argued that the standard system of profit-and-loss accounting used by economists is deeply flawed. For example, many solar-powered energy systems are currently considered uneconomic when compared with those dependent on coal, oil or uranium; but if the full costs of production, consumption of a non-renewable resource, waste disposal and damage to environment are all taken into account, they could begin to look relatively inexpensive. Similarly, they argue, the accounting system used for the calculation of GNP can seriously mislead. However useful GNP may be for short-term planning, it gives false expectations about the long term, because it regards a national economy as a self-contained system which can be divorced from its surroundings. A national economy needs to be treated as a sub-system of the larger eco-system on which it is dependent, for it is drawing upon raw materials (some of which are irreplaceable), it is producing waste products (which have to be deposited somewhere) and it may be causing some damage to the eco-system. Thus any calculation of GNP is false if it does not subtract the negative impact caused by these other factors. When these subtractions are made, ‘positive’ economic growth may well turn out to be negative in fact.
Daly and Cobb argued that, to get a balanced picture of the current state of human well-being on the planet, we need to see that state in terms of the whole eco-system and not just in terms of one of its sub-systems. They set about constructing an alternative way of measuring economic growth, one that took account of the whole system. They called it the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW). Then they applied it to the American economy. Judged by the standard GNP statistics, the US per capita income had increased in real value by 25 per cent since 1976; but, using the ISEW, they found that over the same period the economic wellbeing of Americans had actually declined by 10 per cent.
At a time when humans have become emancipated from the many social and religious restrictions of the past, including what our forebears thought to be the dictates of the Heavenly Father, we find ourselves becoming increasingly dependent on another set of forces. The eco-sphere itself has now become the God ‘in whom we live and move and have our being’ (to use the words of Acts 17:28), and the warning voices referred to above are its prophets. Indeed, the giving of our full attention to the needs of the eco-system (call it Mother Earth, Gaia or Nature, if you wish) is in many ways replacing the dutiful obedience which humans were expected to show to the Heavenly Father in traditional monotheism. The basic Christian doctrine of sin, which stressed that humanity exists in a tragic state of alienation from the God who created it in his own image, is being replaced by the discovery that humanity is currently in a state of war with the planet which has brought it forth.
Leading theologian Jürgen Moltmann has said:
What we need above all [if modem society is to have any future] is a new respect for nature, and a new reverence for the life of all created things . . . for it was the Western ‘religion of modern times’ that freed the way for the secularization of nature. At the end of civilization’s long history, the ancient view about the harmony between the forces of nature has been destroyed -- destroyed by modern monotheism on the one hand, and by scientific mechanism on the other.12
The question of how humans are to return to a state of harmony with the forces of nature is a daunting one. Those in the affluent countries who are in a position to appreciate the whole picture and respond positively are often blinded to the consequences of their countries’ policies because everything around them seems to be in good heart. Most of them have never been so well off financially and materially. It is very tempting, and much more reassuring, simply to dismiss today’s prophets of doom as scare-mongers. This negative response has been likened to the refusal of the passengers on the Titanic to take seriously the announcement that the boat would sink within an hour and a half. The people in undeveloped countries who are already suffering the results of the imminent nemesis are often powerless to obtain information, or to act on it. In any case, their immediate concern is often where the next meal is coming from.
Thus an appreciation of the damage we are doing to the earth has been slow to surface in modern human consciousness. Most people are so taken up with personal and local affairs of the moment that they are almost completely unaware of the larger picture. It is for such reasons that the more pessimistic prophets believe we have collectively, but unintentionally, set in motion a global movement that we have no means of stopping. To surrender in despair to what may appear to be inevitable will simply hasten the possible disasters. Yet some of these may have to occur before we are jolted out of our complacency. Just what these may be, we shall now explore.
1. See Preface
2. Hosea 2:11.
3. Isaiah 45:5, 6, 4, 18, 23.
4. Genesis 1:27. The priestly creation myth Genesis 1-2:4a is now commonly regarded as reflecting a later cultural period than the Yahwistic creation myth, Genesis 2:4b-3:24, which the ancient compilers of the Pentateuch placed after it.
5. Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, pp. 67-68.
6. Arnold Toynbee, ‘The Genesis of Pollution’, Horizon (New York, American Heritage), Summer 1973, p. 7.
7. Johann-Baptist Metz and Jürgen Moltmann ,Faith and the Future, p. 71.
8. Arnold Toynbee, Mankind and Mother Earth, p. 17.
9. James Lovelock, The Ages of Gaia; A Biography of Our Living Earth.
10. For a fuller description of World 3. see the author’s Tomorrow’s God, pp. 63-71.
11. Edward Goldsmith, The Way: An Ecological World-View, p. xiii.
12. Metz and Moltmann, op. cit., p. 176. | <urn:uuid:8b04ef35-92f0-4116-aed4-58275f9283aa> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=2735&C=2468 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280929.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00429-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963 | 6,513 | 2.6875 | 3 |
The moon was formed nearly 100 million years after the start of the solar system, a study released this week indicates.
Researchers came to the conclusion after analyzing the growth of Earth-like planets such as Mercury, Venus and Mars. Using their growth history from 259 simulations, they found that Earth was affected after a Mars-sized object hit it to create the moon. To find when this happened, researchers created a “geologic clock” that gave a range of when the moon was formed in relation to the beginning of the solar system.
"We were excited to find a 'clock' for the formation time of the Moon that didn't rely on radiometric dating methods. This correlation just jumped out of the simulations and held in each set of old simulations we looked at," Seth Jacobson of the Observatory de la Cote d'Azur in Nice, France, and lead author of the study published in Nature said in a statement.
The clock is the first to not rely on radioactive dating but to use independent and direct measurements to determine the moon's age. The method involved the relationship between Earth’s crust and its affinity for combining with iron, an element that came after the last giant impact, National Geographic reports.
The new study contradicts past findings that have suggested Earth experienced several impacts with the last credited with forming the moon. New findings say the moon was formed 4.5 billion years ago by a Mars-size object named Theiaand.
Researchers took into consideration the amount of iron material accreted onto Earth after the moon-forming impact. If the impact was late, the amount would be small and vice versa. Since only small amounts of iridium, platinum and other iron elements were found on Earth’s mantle, this suggested the event that formed the moon took place later than previously thought.
"A late moon-forming event, as suggested by our work, is very consistent with an identical Earth and moon," Jacobson told Space.com.
Other findings suggested the event was fast and more energetic, another sign that it took place later.
"Older disks tend to be dynamically more active, since there are fewer bodies left in the disk to distribute energy amongst," Jacobson said.
The implications for the study are vast, not only suggesting the moon and Earth formed together but that planets like Mars was formed just a few million years after the solar system came into being. While some questions may be answered, there are still many more stones left unturned.
"This means that Earth and Mars formed over dramatically different timescales, with Mars forming much faster than the Earth," Jacobson said. "How can this be? Is it just a matter of size? Location? What about Mercury and Venus? Did they grow on similar timescales to the Earth or on timescales more similar to Mars? I think these are some of the really important questions that we, as a community of planetary scientists, will be addressing in the future." | <urn:uuid:0769fab7-6b5a-4b07-9ccc-da55b7e5562b> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.ibtimes.com/moons-age-found-geologic-clock-credits-mars-sized-theia-formation-earths-only-satellite-1566633 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721387.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00447-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973414 | 606 | 4.34375 | 4 |
Polydicyclopentadiene Aerogels Grafted with PMMA: I. Molecular and Interparticle Crosslinking
Polydicyclopentadiene (pDCPD) is a polymer of emerging technological significance from separations to armor. It is a paradigm of ring opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) and some of its remarkable properties (e.g., strength) have been attributed to crosslinking of the pendant cyclopentenes. pDCPD should be an ideal candidate for strong nanoporous solids (aerogels), however, excessive swelling of the wet-gels precursors in toluene (up to 200% v/v), followed by de-swelling and severe deformation in acetone, renders the resulting aerogels unusable. Based on spectroscopic evidence (IR, solid state 13C NMR and several liquid 1H NMR controls), only 4-5% of the pendant cyclopentene double bonds of pDCPD are engaged in crosslinking, via Wagener-type olefin coupling. Deformation was rectified via free radical polymerization of methylmethacrylate (MMA) in the pores of pDCPD wet-gels. The uptake of PMMA was varied in the 13-28% w/w range by varying the concentration of MMA. Evidence (e.g., differential scanning calorimetry) though suggests that PMMA remains a linear polymer, hence the pDCPD/PMMA network resist deformation, not because of molecular-level crosslinking, but due to a synergism related to the nano-topology of the two components (see next paper of this issue). With cylindrical monoliths available, the nature of the interparticle chemical bonding in pDCPD/PMMA aerogels was probed top-down with thermal conductivity and compression testing, using linear-polynorbornene (pNB) aerogels as a control system. The latter, with no pendant cyclopentenes, has no chance for interpolymer chain crosslinking. The solid thermal conduction and stiffness of pDCPD/PMMA and pNB aerogels scale similarly, pointing to a common mechanism for interparticle bonding. That was assigned to cross-metathesis, effectively extending the polymer chains of one nanoparticle into another, and was reflected on very high polydispersities (8-13). © 2013 The Royal Society of Chemistry.
D. Mohite et al., "Polydicyclopentadiene Aerogels Grafted with PMMA: I. Molecular and Interparticle Crosslinking," Soft Matter, Royal Society of Chemistry, Jan 2013.
The definitive version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/c2sm26931g
Article - Journal
© 2013 Royal Society of Chemistry, All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:9275d0c5-0be5-4691-ab0f-103c583c2e79> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://scholarsmine.mst.edu/chem_facwork/419/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281331.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00221-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.85693 | 609 | 1.6875 | 2 |
What Is NCB In Motor Vehicle Insurance?
What is NCB in motor vehicle insurance?Buying motor insurance has become mandatory in India and you must have a valid insurance policy if you want to drive on Indian roads. However, most car owners consider buying insurance as an added expense. Those who have existing policies, on which they’ve not filed claims, believe that this expense can be avoided. However, it is always advisable to find a way in which your insurance premiums can be reduced considerably. One simple way to reduce your insurance premium is to encash your no claim bonus. Here is a detailed guide on NCB.
What is NCB in insurance?NCB full form in insurance stands for a no-claims bonus. A no claims bonus is mainly a reward provided by insurance companies to policyholders for making no claims during the policy term. For instance, if your policy duration is from August 2019 – July 2020 and you do not file any claims in the calendar year, you become eligible for a no claims bonus. The insurance company provides this bonus in the form of a discount on the insurance premium. The NCB thus helps you save a reasonable sum of money on your premium payments every year.
How does NCB work?What NCB means in insurance? Let’s understand how it works. For every claim-free year, you receive a discount on your insurance premium. The discount percentage increases with every passing, claim-free year. For instance, if you don’t file an insurance claim in the first year of buying the policy, you become eligible for a discount of up to 20%. The discount increases to 25% the following year again if you’ve not filed any claims at all until you can get a 50% discount on insurance premiums for five continuous, claim-free years. The below table can help you understand the NCB discount ratio against the number of claim-free years
Here’s How the NCB discount works
|Age of the Car insurance Policy||Approximate No claims bonus percentage|
|After 1 year of no claims||20% off on insurance premiums|
|After 2 continuous years of no claims||25% off on insurance premiums|
|After 3 continuous years of no claims||35% off on insurance premiums|
|After 4 continuous years of no claims||45% off on insurance premiums|
|After 5 continuous years of no claims||50% off on insurance premiums|
Typically, most insurance providers follow the same modus operandi as mentioned above, while offering the NCB insurance benefit.
Example highlighting how NCB worksHere’s an example to help understand how to calculate NCB for car insurance: Let’s say Mr. Kumar owns a Maruti Suzuki SX4 car and has purchased a comprehensive car insurance policy for which he is charged and an annual insurance premium of ₹20,000. Mr. Kumar is a safe driver, and he has not filed any insurance claims in the first year since purchasing the policy. In this case, his insurance provider will offer him an annual discount of 20% on his insurance premium. He will thus need to pay a reduced insurance premium of ₹16,000 if he renews his insurance policy before the expiration date. In the following years, his premium reduces further, until he becomes eligible for a maximum discount of 50% on insurance premiums, having to pay ₹10,000 only. He can avail this discount despite the fact that the market value of his car steadily depreciates with every passing year. However, to avail this maximum discount, he must ensure that he does not file any claims for five consecutive years.
Essential facts you should know about NCBNow that you understand what NCB means in insurance, let us take a look at some of the crucial facts surrounding this benefit.
1. The NCB discount applies to the policyholder and not the vehicle insured
The NCB benefit is essentially a reward offered to policyholders for not enchasing their insurance policies. This is why the discount is also applicable to the policyholder and not to the vehicle per se. As such, if you decide to sell your old car and purchase a new one, you can transfer the NCB to your new vehicle. So long as you are listed as the owner of the new car, you can transfer the NCB to your new vehicle and avail the discounts that go with it.
2. Transfers are valid even if you choose a new insurance provider
When you buy a new car, you have the option of changing your insurance provider without forfeiting your bonus. So, if you wish to port your insurance policy, you can do so easily. Just get in touch with the insurance provider to check the procedure for transferring the plan and the accumulated no-claims bonus. However, you need to provide proof to the new insurance provider that you have not filed any claims, and your existing provider can help you with the same.
3. You can avail the NCB upon policy renewal
The insurance company sends you written correspondence when your insurance policy is due for renewal. In this document, they will mention the terms of renewal and the no-claim bonus that you can get upon renewing the policy. The discount is valid only upon renewal and therefore, you will not be eligible to claim it mid-way through your policy.
4. You cannot claim NCB benefits in a third-party insurance policy
Another noteworthy fact to remember is that NCB benefits are not provided on the third-party limited liability insurance policies, primarily because the premiums charged against third party policies are already significantly low. This benefit is only provided to policyholders who have invested in comprehensive policies, collision polices or own damage policies.
5. You cannot avail NCB benefits if you do not renew your policy on time
To avail the NCB insurance, it is necessary to ensure that you renew your insurance policy before it expires – typically 30 to 45 days before the policy expiration date. If you are unable to renew the policy before expiration, you will have to forfeit the no-claim bonus, completely, irrespective of how much you have accumulated. Moreover, you also have to pay a fine or penalty if you decide to renew the same insurance policy, after it has lapsed.
The no-claim bonus is indeed a great facility through which you can steadily reduce your payable insurance premiums. Not only does it promote massive savings, but it also encourages car owners to practice safe driving. At PINC Insurance, our team helps you with all your insurance needs – from buying the right policy as per your budget to filing claims and checking your no-claims bonus eligibility. | <urn:uuid:28178d18-ee3b-4f1d-a13f-bb48df86eefd> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.pincinsurance.com/blog/ncb-insurance | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571472.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811133823-20220811163823-00676.warc.gz | en | 0.950978 | 1,369 | 1.84375 | 2 |
The Hoover Institution has been doing some polling in California; the full results are not out yet, but there was an interesting preview in yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle. What is unique about Hoover’s survey is that they are interviewing voters in person and actually showing them the paper ballot with all 135 names. All other polling that has been reported is the usual telephone variety, and you can’t read 135 names over the phone. So the pollsters have just been reading the top five names and adding an “other” category. In the telephone polling that has been published, the “other” responses have been vey few. For example, among likely voters in the recent USA Today poll, “others” garnered only 1%.
But when the Hoover people have been showing voters the paper ballot with all 135 names on it, 14% have been voting for someone other than the top five candidates. That’s a huge difference that could be important if the race turns out to be close. Intuitively, I would think that Schwarzenegger and Bustamente voters would defect to “other” candidates in roughly equal proportions, but that’s entirely speculative.
In other recall news, Arianna Huffington says she is considering dropping out of the race and throwing her support to Bustamante.
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“Arise and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.” Winston Churchill
“Proclaim Liberty throughout All the land unto All the Inhabitants Thereof.” Inscription on the Liberty Bell | <urn:uuid:94ad45e1-a6ad-4604-b817-4e9d8c5291de> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2003/09/004691.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988722951.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183842-00211-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937216 | 369 | 1.578125 | 2 |
In the 1997 space article, I found myself agreeing with a lot of what he had to say (recall that 1997 was the year of Mars Pathfinder and NASA's period of "fast, cheap, and out of control" unmanned spacecraft, which clearly influenced some of his comments). For example, the case for continuing the shuttle and space station programs was not especially compelling (though they would go on for 12+ more years, even surviving a second shuttle disaster). But there are a lot of interesting things in the solar system, and with our rapidly advancing technologies and (eventual) ability to do things in space much more cheaply, places like Mars and Europa could (eventually) be well-worth exploring, though searching for freeze-dried fish orbiting in the vicinity of Europa is perhaps not the best strategy for finding life there (the Europafish would have been ejected by energetic objects crashing through the ice to Europa's hidden ocean - admittedly not a high-probability event). Warm-blooded plants and Mars plants that grow their own green-houses - if nature hasn't evolved them, we could (eventually) genetically engineer them. Maybe even really big ones to use as human shelters on Mars (greenhouse trees!).
Dyson ends up talking about harvesting comets and colonizing the Kuiper Belt - a pretty far-out notion indeed (though not as far as the Oort Cloud Housing Developments). I kept using the word "eventually" in the above discussion. Dyson's key point in all this is the need to be realistic about the goals and the timing. He says, "When emigration from Earth to a planet or a comet becomes cheap enough for ordinary people to afford, people will emigrate." But regardless of what Apollo accomplished in 10 years, the time scale for human expansion into the greater solar system is probably more like hundreds than tens of years.
No law of physics or biology forbids cheap travel and settlement all over the solar system and beyond. But it is impossible to predict how long this will take. Predictions of the dates of future achievements are notoriously fallible. My guess is that the era of cheap unmanned missions will be the next fifty years, and the era of cheap manned missions will start sometime late in the twenty-first century. The time these things will take depends on unforeseeable accidents of history and politics. My date for the beginning of cheap manned exploration and settlement is based on a historical analogy: from Columbus's first voyage across the Atlantic to the settlement of the Pilgrims in Massachusetts was 128 years. So I am guessing that in 2085, 128 years after the launch of the first Sputnik, the private settlement of pilgrims all over the solar system will begin.
This is where I'm afraid he may be right, though it's possible that accelerating technologies and/or one or more major global crises (man the lifeboats!) will speed things up a bit. But I still think it's right to aggressively pursue manned and unmanned space flight now, perhaps with more of it given over to the commercial side. As I wrote in 2007 in a discussion of John Barnes' "Kaleidoscope Century" SF series:
But space (private, public, whatever) could be part of a solution, could be a tool or a lifeboat or even a source of major help for this troubled Earth. Someday we may need every kind of tool we can get, and when we do, we will be glad for whatever preparation we have made in learning to live somewhere other than here. I don't expect everyone to get inspired by it - my most hopeful scenario for educational outreach is that a handful of kids get excited about learning something, get themselves educated, and start to tie a few knots for the flimsy rope bridge we are building toward the future, even while some other kids are playing with matches, trying to light the ropes on fire. And maybe some of the ropes are actually carbon nanotubes stretching thousands of kilometers into the sky.The process of building and living for months aboard the ISS may seem expensive now, but if we ever do have a major crisis in which the survival of our species requires getting a small fraction of us off the planet in a hurry, we will be grateful for this experience when we are hollowing out our first asteroid and building our first housing project on Mars. | <urn:uuid:b544f8bc-ed45-4214-a11b-aa01b39b2162> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://flyingsinger.blogspot.com/2009/10/warm-blooded-plants-and-freeze-dried.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280504.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00138-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959299 | 884 | 2.671875 | 3 |
What are 5 advantages of technology?
Here are some advantages of technology in our lives:Ease of Access to Information.
The World Wide Web, abbreviated as www has made the world a social village.
Ease of Mobility.
Better Communication Means.
Innovation In Many Fields.
Better Learning Techniques.More items….
What are the advantages of technology?
The best advantage of any technology is that it increases the efficiency of a business process. We can perform more tasks in less time. From shared drives to emails, communication, coordination, execution and implementation of a lot of business processes has become swift and hassle-free, all thanks to technology.
What are the benefits of technology to the society?
7 Positive Impacts of Technology on Today’s Society Effective Transportation. Cars have become so ubiquitous in the world that many individuals can’t even imagine life without them. … Fast, Far-Flung Communication. … Better Goods and Services. … Streamlined Systems. … Meaningful Exchanges. … Longer Lives. … Improved Media.
What are the disadvantages of latest technology?
17 Digital Technology DisadvantagesData Security.Crime and Terrorism.Complexity.Privacy Concerns.Social Disconnect.Work Overload.Digital Media Manipulation.Job Insecurity.More items…•
Why is technology bad for us?
Experts have found that in addition to making our lives more convenient, but there’s a negative side to technology — it can be addicting and it can hurt our communication skills. Extended screen time can result in health ramifications like insomnia, eyestrain, and increased anxiety and depression.
Is technology good or bad?
It isn’t completely a bad thing, but it isn’t necessarily a good thing either. So here’s the good, bad and the ugly of technology and what it says about us. Good: … Technology even provides education for people with the ability to complete college via online courses. | <urn:uuid:6f307d67-8c6d-4756-bf05-d95797f58580> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://alllivesmattermusicfest.com/qa/what-are-the-benefits-of-new-technology.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570913.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809064307-20220809094307-00078.warc.gz | en | 0.885895 | 436 | 2.375 | 2 |
Have you ever considered what motivates you to exercise? Keep in mind that not all physical activities may fit your "fitness personali1y." If you're finding it difficult to be physically active for 30 minutes a day on 5 or more days of the week, you may want to figure out which activities are best for you. Take this quiz from the American Institute for Cancer Research to help you identify your "fitness personali1y."
To find your score, give yourself points as follows:
a = 1 point;
b = 2 points;
c = 3 points
If you scored:
6 - 9 points - you're a Self-Motivator!
10 - 14 points - you're a Team Player!
15-18 points - you're Spontaneous!
Self-Motivators: You like structure and organization but may find yourself losing interest in your usual activities. Try adding something new to your routine. Communi1y Health Improvement offers programs that teach adults how to use step counters to monitor physical activi1y or exercise bands to build strength. For more information, call 851-3222.
Team Players: To you, exercise is a way to socialize. Try signing up for an exercise class, forming a walking group, or joining a sports team or league like bowling or tennis. You and a group of friends can form a team to increase your minutes of physical activi1y in Shape Up PA Fitness Challenge. To learn more about this new and exciting fitness initiative, call 1-888-4454559.
Spontaneous Types: You love freedom. A call from a friend to take a hike or a walk to the store for an unexpected item may be what motivates you to be active. These activities are good, but be sure to include a variety of moderate intensity activities on 5 or more days of the week.
This search will provide you with WellSpan Medical Group and Northern Lancaster County (Ephrata) Medical Group primary care physicians and specialists. If we don’t have a WellSpan Medical Group physician to meet your criteria, the search will expand to include community physicians who partner with WellSpan Medical Group physicians through the WellSpan Provider Network or provide care to patients on the Medical Staffs of WellSpan’s Hospitals.×
Use your MyWellSpan patient portal any time to view available appointments, and pick the date and time that best suits your schedule.
If you don't have a WellSpan primary care provider and would like to schedule a new patient appointment with a provider who is accepting patients, just log into your MyWellSpan account, and go to the Appointment Center section. As you progress through the scheduling process, you will be able to see the offices that are accepting new patients in relation to your zip code. If you are not enrolled in MyWellSpan, go to https://my.wellspan.org, call 1-866-638-1842 or speak with a member of the staff at a participating facility to sign up. New patient scheduling not available at all practices/programs.
If you already have a relationship with a WellSpan practice, simply log into your account, and go to the Appointment Center section. As you progress through the scheduling process, you will be able to schedule an appointment with any provider or practice that already counts you as a patient. Online scheduling varies by practice/program.× | <urn:uuid:3a7efab2-eba8-45b2-9896-728208bee481> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://www.wellspan.org/about-wellspan/wellspan-in-the-community/community-health-wellness/other-resources/fitness-personality-quiz/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719079.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00035-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926466 | 712 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Downy Mildew is a group of fungus-like diseases that are often confused with botrytis, Powdery Mildew and other foliage diseases. Downy Mildew often starts with white to bluish-white, fluffy growth on the undersides of the leaves, and yellow spots on the tops of the leaves. As the infected area dies, it can turn yellow to brown, purplish, reddish-black or bleached white, and the fluffy growth turns grayish. The spots or lesions are angular (black spot forms round areas surrounded by a yellow ring) delineated by leaf veins. Infected branches may become distorted, drop their leaves and die. On impatiens (flowering plants), leaves and flowers drop, leaving green stems, which eventually collapse and die. Roses can also be quickly defoliated, looking like they have been sprayed with an herbicide. This disease is difficult to control. | <urn:uuid:3a7278be-fd4a-464a-a703-6c7f92417c39> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://natria.bioadvanced.com/solution-center/problem-solver/rose-flower/sticky-substance-or-mold-leaves/downy-mildew | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571056.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809155137-20220809185137-00668.warc.gz | en | 0.96455 | 186 | 3.234375 | 3 |
With wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords on hand to watch, the space shuttle Endeavour is poised to give the work week a roaring and historic start Monday morning, overcoming wiring problems that grounded it last month.
Giffords' arrival Sunday afternoon included a quick fly-by of Endeavour on the launch pad, ready to go.
"Gabrielle is excited for tomorrow's launch. Do you plan to see history in the making?" her staff tweeted.
NASA officials said conditions, from weather to technical issues, couldn't look much better for the scheduled 8:56 a.m. (1256 GMT) launch Monday.
Giffords, traveling on a NASA jet with the family of pilot Gregory Johnson, arrived shortly after the protective structure that surrounds Endeavour was moved out of the way a milestone in launch preparations that allows fueling to begin late Sunday night.
NASA was so ready to get the flight off the ground that they moved the protective scaffolding 15 minutes earlier than planned.
There was only a 30 percent chance of a weather delay, mostly because of crosswinds.
The conditions were far different from last month's futile launch attempt. The protective cover wasn't removed for five hours because of storms, and the launch was scrubbed because of an electrical problem.
NASA is expecting slightly smaller crowds, 400,000 people instead of 750,000 people, for the second attempt. The media horde is also slightly thinned — even though the April attempt was on the same day as the royal wedding — but includes television anchors such as Katie Couric of CBS, said NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs.
With the story of Giffords remarkable recovery from the January shooting having been the focus of media attention in April, now more people are paying attention to the other parts of Endeavour's planned 16-day mission. The shuttle's main goal is to haul a $2 billion astronomy and physics experiment to the international space station.
$2 Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer
The shuttle's blastoff will also be watched by more than the usual number of physicists. That's because Endeavour will be carrying up a $2 billion particle physics detector known as the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, or AMS.
The AMS will be mounted onto the International Space Station, where, for a decade, it will collect cosmic rays — charged particles that zoom through space.
The AMS was designed to search for primordial antimatter created during the Big Bang, and the mysterious dark matter that makes up much of our universe.
One human being in particular is behind this project: Nobel Prize-winning physicist Samuel Ting of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who has been pushing to make it happen for more than 16 years.
After NASA agreed to launch this detector, Ting went out and raised money to build it with the help of hundreds of researchers in more than a dozen countries.
Ting did not give up even in the wake of the space shuttle Columbia disaster, when NASA officials said that things had changed and they had to cancel this flight. And in the end, NASA reinstated the flight.
Ting said no one knows what this instrument might discover.
"I mean, if you find what you predicted, it's not interesting," he said in an April interview. "The interesting thing is to destroy the current idea, to find something new."
This is also the next to last flight for the 30-year-old space shuttle fleet. And it is the final flight of the shuttle Endeavour, NASA's youngest orbiter, which has flown 116.4 million miles in 24 previous flights.
Giffords was wounded in the head in a mass shooting in January in her Tucson, Arizona, district that killed six people. Doctors have cleared her to travel to see the launch. She came for the April attempt, flew back to Houston to resume her rehabilitation work and even had dinner out with her husband.
President Obama and his family were among those who traveled to Kennedy Space Center last month hoping to see a launch. He met with the astronauts and visited with Giffords, but won't return Monday.
NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce contributed to this report, which includes material from The Associated Press Copyright 2011 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/. | <urn:uuid:88ce4a44-5694-48e1-ac28-688a088a8c58> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://weku.fm/post/endeavour-ready-go-giffords-arrives-watch | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284405.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00032-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967726 | 890 | 2 | 2 |
Do general indexes mask sectoral efficiencies?: A multiple variance ratio assessment of Middle Eastern equity markets
Purpose - The purpose of the paper is to attempt to shed light on whether the use of general indexes may mask sectoral efficiencies by investigating the random walk (RW) and weak-form efficiency (WFE) hypotheses in the equity markets of Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Design/methodology/approach - The paper applies the multiple variance ratio test and the runs test to each equity market's weekly general and sectoral indexes. Findings - The paper provides evidence of inconsistencies in three of the five analyzed equity markets when testing the RW hypothesis and in four of the five analyzed markets when testing the WFE hypothesis. Originality/value - The findings in this paper provide empirical evidence supporting the use of sectoral indexes in lieu of general indexes in equity market analyses. These results have important financial and policy implications and would be of interest to investors, financial managers, and policy makers.
- Management & Marketing [24 items ] | <urn:uuid:d4cbf236-f935-4b04-98f8-af167498ba9f> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://qspace.qu.edu.qa/handle/10576/10588 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279915.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00272-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.844586 | 214 | 1.59375 | 2 |
This leaflet gives a brief overview of itching when no cause can be found for the itch. Various other leaflets discuss conditions where the cause of the itch is known, such as eczema or urticaria.
What is itch?
Itching (pruritus) is a symptom that can be caused by a large number of conditions. Sometimes itching is caused by a skin condition, such as eczema or hives. You would usually have a rash to see if this is the case. Other times, itching is caused by a more general illness, such as jaundice or chronic kidney disease. Itching is also common in pregnancy. Sometimes you itch in a specific place. Itch of the back passage (anus) and itch of the external sex organs of a woman (her vulva) are common, for example, and have various causes. These conditions are also known as pruritus ani and pruritus vulvae. See separate leaflets called (Itchy Bottom (Pruritus Ani) and Itchy Vulva (Pruritus Vulvae) for more details.
However, in many cases no cause is found for an itch. This article deals only with itch that is not due to any underlying skin or medical condition. This is called itch of unknown cause.
If you are not sure why you are itching, you should see your doctor. If no cause for an itch is obvious, then your doctor may suggest some blood tests to see if there is an underlying cause for the itch. However, in many cases, the tests are normal and the cause remains a mystery.
Itching can occur over your entire body or just in one area. It can be very unpleasant and uncomfortable.
One possible factor is that in some people with itch of unknown cause, their skin may be drier than average, which may contribute to the itch. Itch of unknown cause is most common in older people whose skin tends to be drier than that of younger people. Itch tends to be worse at night and may be made worse by bathing. Any part of the skin may be affected.
What are the treatments for itching of unknown cause?
The following may help to improve your itching:
- Keep your nails short to limit any damage done to your skin by scratching. As much as possible try not to scratch. It is thought that scratching can make itch worse and you may get into an 'itch-scratch' vicious cycle. (That is, you itch more because you scratch, so you scratch more because you itch more ... and so on.)
- Keep cool as much as possible. Some people find having cool (or lukewarm) baths or showers soothing.
- Avoid irritants such as soaps, bubble bath and detergents. Cotton clothes are usually preferable to woollen clothes.
- Moisturisers (emollients). Dry skin may be making the itch worse. Moisturisers are useful to keep the skin supple and moist. They can be applied once a day or several times a day if your skin becomes very dry. Water and soap dry out the skin as they wash away the natural skin oils. Therefore, the most important time to use moisturisers is after a bath or shower. Moisturisers work by providing a replacement for these body oils and keeping the skin moist. Numerous moisturisers are available as creams, ointments and bath/shower additives, and also to use instead of soap. It may be worth trying out a few to see which is the most suitable. These can be bought over-the-counter or different ones are available on prescription from your doctor. Use them liberally, as often as needed.
- Antihistamine medication is sometimes tried. Antihistamines are useful for some skin conditions that cause itch such as urticaria. However, they do not help with all types of itch. For itch of unknown cause they may have little effect. Some antihistamines also tend to make you drowsy. However, these types of antihistamines may be worth trying at bedtime if itch is troublesome at night. An example is chlorphenamine. Your doctor or pharmacist can advise you further.
- Relaxation techniques can be beneficial for some people. A brain-training treatment called cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) may also be helpful. This helps you to break the itch-scratch cycle.
- Certain antidepressants. These may occasionally be prescribed when itching is very distressing. They work by helping to tone down the chemicals in the brain which make you feel an itch and want to scratch.
The amount of discomfort from itch can vary from person to person, and in its frequency in the same person . A referral to a skin specialist may be advised if your itching persists or is severe. There are different treatments which are being investigated in clinical trials which may be available in the future.
Dr Tim Kenny
Dr Mary Harding
Dr Hannah Gronow | <urn:uuid:e422126b-cf5b-4b98-a039-9723198bc98a> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://patient.info/in/health/itching-leaflet | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280065.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00542-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958716 | 1,015 | 2.96875 | 3 |
古脊椎动物学报 ›› 2001, Vol. 39 ›› Issue (01): 67-71.
• 古脊椎动物学报 •
LIU Jun, WU Xiao-Chun, LI Jing-Ling
Abstract: Several skeletons of fossil reptiles were collected for the first time from the Tongchuan Formation, Sangbi, Yonghe County, Shanxi Province in 1992. It represents the uppermost occurrence of terrestrial reptiles known from the Triassic of China.
Our study on the local stratigraphy suggests that the fossils are from the upper part of Member II of the Tongchuan Formation. A preliminary study of the fossils indicates that they are monospecific and represent a previously unknown arehosauriform.
李锦玲. 华北铜川组爬行动物化石的首次发现及其地层意义[J]. 古脊椎动物学报, 2001, 39(01): 67-71.
LIU Jun, WU Xiao-Chun, LI Jing-Ling. THE FIRST REPTILLE FROM THE TONGCHUAN FORMATION ANF ITS STRATIGRAPHICAL SIGNIFICANCE[J]. Vertebrata Palasiatica, 2001, 39(01): 67-71. | <urn:uuid:4aed2e6e-097b-4977-9636-46b7269b90a3> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://www.vertpala.ac.cn/CN/Y2001/V39/I01/67 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571502.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811194507-20220811224507-00077.warc.gz | en | 0.650426 | 504 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Thirsty for Strong Instructional Practice?
Do you notice the energy and motivation your students bring to class discussions and activities wane when it’s time for them to write an assignment? Do you get bored reading the same thing from student to student and even semester to semester? Using an assignment menu can reinvigorate both you and your students.
Take a SIP of this: Assignment Menus Based on Bloom’s Taxonomy*
Providing a menu of assignments for students to choose from allows them to pursue their learning in ways that interests them and highlight their skills. The result is an increase in motivation, students spending more time on assignments, and a sense that they are respected by their professor, among other things. One way to create a menu of assignments is to divide tasks based on the level of thinking they require. Bloom’s Taxonomy provides a framework for organizing learner skills and abilities along a continuum from lower to higher level thinking.
To create an assignment menu based on Bloom’s Taxonomy:
Begin by determining your instructional objective(s). What tasks will support their ability to meet your goals for their learning?
Identify a few tasks that will allow the students to engage with the content based on levels of cognitive processes from lower order thinking skills to higher order thinking skills. The graphic below can help. Here are some examples:
Knowledge: recalling information
- List the concepts
- Match the concepts with their descriptions
- Create a quiz on the concepts, with an answer sheet
Comprehension: understanding concepts
- Describe the concepts
- Find clip art or other images that represent each of the concepts
- Give examples of each of the concepts
Application: using concepts in a new context
- Create a plan for the possible implementation of a concept
- Apply the concept and describe the outcome
- Identify the possible costs and benefits of applying the concept
Analysis: tease apart the various elements of a concept
- Make a table illustrating the similarities and differences of each concept
- Simplify each concept into its most basic elements
- Describe the most important features of each concept
Synthesis: assemble the parts of the concept in a new way, integrating new information
- Create a model using the concepts
- Blend two concepts to form a new one
- Design a real-world application for the concept
Evaluation: determine and justify opinions on the concept
- Debate the effectiveness of the application of the concept
- Defend the use of the concept with support
- Evaluate the costs and benefits of the application of the concept
There are a couple of ways you can use an assignment menu. First, you can assign a certain number of points to each task and allow students to select their assignments requiring that their choices add up to a predetermined number of points. Tasks that require higher level thinking are worth more points than lower level thinking. Tasks requiring more time should be worth more than those requiring less time.
Alternatively, you can have students choose one task from each level of thinking, so that everyone begins the exploration of a concept at the knowledge and comprehension levels and then works their way up to analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
This process can be daunting, so it is reasonable to begin by identifying possible options and adding to them over the course of several semesters. Alternatively, you can use just a few of the learning levels as appropriate for the content. Often, students will come to you with their own suggestions. You can add these suggestions to your list of possible tasks so the options in your list will grow each semester.
Still Thirsty? Take another SIP of Assignment Menus Based on Thinking Skills
Iowa State Center for Excellence for Learning and Teaching has a super interactive media tool on applying Bloom’s Taxonomy in assignment design.
Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching: Bloom’s Taxonomy has a super explanation of the taxonomy.
*Bloom’s Taxonomy has been revised. The original version is presented here intentionally as the author believes it is more applicable to teaching and learning in higher education. | <urn:uuid:1b6fef97-b925-4d8a-a33c-3c1e71e949d7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://sites.msudenver.edu/sips/sip-3-2-assignment-menus/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573744.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819161440-20220819191440-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.928339 | 843 | 3.890625 | 4 |
The Oracle CURRENT_TIMESTAMP function will give you the current time with all details. It returns the current timestamp with time zone for the current session's time zone. This is similar to the Oracle SYSTIMESTAMP function, but the precision to which the TIMESTAMP is returned can be specified. (If no precision is specified, the default is 6.)
SELECT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP FROM DUAL;
You may also want to see the entries for SYSTIMESTAMP and LOCALTIMESTAMP, plus the Timestamp Data Type Demos.
Related Code Snippets:
- Current_timestamp - The current_timestamp function returns the current date and time in the time z... | <urn:uuid:3aae038f-40ef-42ad-9fe5-e3987e04ac34> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://psoug.org/definition/CURRENT_TIMESTAMP.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988718309.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183838-00406-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.708445 | 151 | 2.328125 | 2 |
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