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This quick and easy home made electrolyte solution will provide basic support for a dehydrated and weak person or pet. If you do not have raw honey or sea salt or rock salt, sugar and table salt will do. However, as far as possible, sticking with organic raw ingredients is recommended.
To 1 quart or 1 litre of pure water, add
- 1 tablespoon of raw unfiltered organic honey
- 1 tablespoon of sea salt or rock saltOptional add ons to make it even more powerful
- 10ml of Colloidal Silver water
- Bach Flower Rescue Remedy – 10 drops
- Half a cup of cooled Rosehips Tea
Shake well in a bottle and store in the fridge. Bring it to room temperature before giving it to your cat.
Give once every two-three hours if the cat or dog isn’t able to drink water on their own. Use a plastic syringe or squirt bottle.
Kittens and puppies: 3 tablespoons
Small and tiny breeds of dogs: 10ml to a quarter of a cup
Medium and Large breeds of dogs: 25ml to half a cup
Horses: A cup every few hours
This solution will start to go off if left in water bowls for more than about 30 minutes.
Coconut water is a natural electrolyte drink. If you can get it, without added preservatives it will work at the same dosage mentioned above. | <urn:uuid:c81b1589-f21c-42c0-9256-0fca3d94efc4> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://holistic-treatment.com/uncategorized/natural-electrolyte-solution-first-aid-weak-dehydrated-person-cat-dog-horse/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570921.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809094531-20220809124531-00272.warc.gz | en | 0.906264 | 296 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Here's the latest on the Gulf oil disaster, now in its 78th day:
Cleanup workers from the Exxon Valdez oil spill warn Gulf workers of the long-term health hazards of exposure.
Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig and the world's largest offshore drilling company, is known for "testing local laws and regulations" in its operations around the world, reports the New York Times. Their record includes charges of human rights abuses, tax fraud, and questionable legal maneuvering, just to name a few.
TPM reports that the National Marine Fisheries Service, which enforces the Endangered Species Act, underestimated the impact an oil spill might have on vulnerable species like sea turtles when it signed off on new Gulf drilling in 2007.
Michelle Obama plans to visit the Gulf sometime soon.
Some owners of BP stations are switching brands (or at least, trying to) as boycotts of the oil company threaten their businesses. "It's either change or go out of business," said Abdel Berry, who owns three BP stations near Detroit.
Religious leaders visit the Gulf, call for better protection of God's creation.
BP is pushing to cap the Gulf gusher by July 27, which happens to be the day the company is expected to report its second-quarter earnings to shareholders.
The Gulf spill site gets Obama-ized.
And in non-oil news:
The Discovery Channel loves sharks, and so does Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). | <urn:uuid:b5da228a-105b-4275-ae55-493297c51be9> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/07/enviro-links-lessons-exxon-valdez-turtles-peril-and-more | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279650.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00429-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948841 | 305 | 1.765625 | 2 |
The OECD Working Party on Security and Privacy in the Digital Economy (SPDE) develops public policy analysis and high level recommendations to help governments and other stakeholders ensure that digital security and privacy protection foster the development of the digital economy.
It gathers policy experts from OECD member and partner governments as well as business, civil society and the Internet technical community to share experience on better approaches to security and privacy in an open and globally interconnected environment. The SPDE reports to the Committee on Digital Economy Policy (CDEP) which itself reports to the OECD Council.
The work of the SPDE:
The SPDE is supported by the OECD Secretariat within the Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation. It meets twice a year in Paris and organises workshops and conferences.
SPDE delegates come from various government bodies with an interest in the economic and social aspects of information security and privacy. Non-governmental stakeholders participate actively in the dialogue through the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD (BIAC), the Civil Society Information Society Advisory Council (CSISAC) and the Internet Technical Advisory Committee (ITAC). The working party has also established relationships with other international and regional organisations such as Council of Europe, Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC TEL and APEC ECSG), ENISA, the International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners, and the Global Privacy Enforcement Network (GPEN).
Back to > Digital economy | <urn:uuid:b6eae6c6-7be4-42bd-aee7-919569c96cee> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.oecd.org/sti/ieconomy/workingpartyonsecurityandprivacyinthedigitaleconomyspde.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571190.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810131127-20220810161127-00070.warc.gz | en | 0.889423 | 296 | 1.984375 | 2 |
Chalkboards are the traditional signs of preference for sellers of fresh fruits and vegetables in Europe's street markets. They say your offerings are fresh and healthy. A chalkboard can convey any message with personality, warmth and style.
History and use of chalkboards:
Chalkboards, prior to the 1950's, had been made primarily out of slate. Slate chalkboards gave way to the porcelain on steel chalkboards that were used in schools in the United States during the baby boom era. Porcelain chalkboards began to fall out of favor in schools in the mid 1990's, as they were replaced by dry erase boards.
Chalk itself is comprised almost entirely of calcium carbonate. The calcium carbonate is ground, reformulated with a few dyes and binders, formed, and baked in kilns to produce the chalk sticks that are currently used on chalkboards. Non-porous porcelain chalkboards can also be used with water based wet erase markers.
While chalkboards are no longer frequently installed in schools, they have become very popular in restaurants, and in retail, particularly in the grocery trade. They are a hallmark in coffee shops, smoothie shops, and other food and restaurant establishments, that have frequently changing menus. Chalkboards provide a personal feel, than more commercial retail signage, and lend themselves to greater artistic expression. Chalkboards are are also more affordable than their alternatives.
Chalkboards are no longer widely distributed, and can be hard to find locally. That is why billyBoards has become a leading internet retailer of chalkboards. | <urn:uuid:d41a3a3e-d4e2-4ad5-aaba-819b39b9dfaf> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.billyboardsmfg.com/chalkboards.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719677.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00560-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974258 | 324 | 2.5 | 2 |
The author of the book: Elizabeth Peters
Format files: PDF, EPUB, TXT, DOCX
The size of the: 31.87 MB
Edition: Robinson Publishing
Date of issue: 6 July 2006
Description of the book "Lion in the Valley":The 1985-96 season promises to be an exceptional one for Egyptologist Amelia Peabody, her dashing husband Emerson and their precocious eight-year-old son Rameses. The much-coveted burial chamber in Dahshoor is theirs for the digging. Yet there is a great evil in the wind that caresses the hot sands sweeping through the bustling streets and marketplaces of Cairo. An expedition cursed by misfortune and the daring moonlit abduction of Rameses alerts Amelia to the presence of her arch-enemy, the Master Criminal. And his is now a personal quest for the most valuable and elusive prize of all: vengeance PDF on the meddling lady archaeologist with the parasol who has sworn to deliver him to justice...Amelia Peabody herself!
Reviews of the Lion in the ValleyThus far in regards to the guide we now have Lion in the Valley feedback customers never have but left the report on the experience, or you cannot see clearly yet. Although, if you have by now read this e-book and you are able to create the findings convincingly ask you to take your time to leave an overview on our website (we could post equally positive and negative evaluations). To put it differently, "freedom involving speech" Many of us completely supported. Your own suggestions to book Lion in the Valley -- different readers is able to make a decision about a e-book. Such help will make us additional Combined!
Elizabeth PetersSadly, at the moment we don't have info on the actual artist Elizabeth Peters. Even so, we will value in case you have any kind of specifics of the idea, and so are ready to provide that. Deliver this to us! We've got all of the look at, and when all the info are usually real, we'll post on our website. It's very important for individuals that most genuine regarding Elizabeth Peters. We thanks upfront to be happy to head to satisfy us all!
Download EBOOK Lion in the Valley for free | <urn:uuid:8254f151-e5ba-473e-8e42-05a949e23dd3> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://clearwalksoft.com/fiction/116547-lion-in-the-valley.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279169.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00210-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911964 | 463 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Summary and Info
This volume contains forty-one selected full-text contributions from the Fourth European Conference on Geostatistics for Environmental Applications, geoENV IV, held in Barcelona, Spain, November 2002. The objective of the editors was to compile a set of papers from which the reader could perceive how geostatistics is applied within the environmental sciences. A few selected theoretical contributions are also included. The papers are organized in the following sections: -Air pollution and satellite images, -Ecology and environment, -Hydrogeology, -Climatology and rainfall, -Oceanography, -Soil science, -Methodology. Applications of geostatistics vary from particle matter analysis, land cover classification, space-time ozone mapping, downscaling of precipitation, contaminant transport in the subsurface, aquifer reclamation, analysis of Iberian hare or phytoplankton abundance, coastal current patterns, to soil pollution by heavy metals or dioxins. At the back of the book nineteen posters presented at the congress are included. The combination of full texts and posters provides a picture of the tendencies that can presently be found in Europe regarding the applications of geostatistics for environmentally related problems. Audience:After four editions the geoENV Congress Series has established itself as a 'must' to all scientists working in the field of geostatistics for environmental applications. Each geoENV congress covers the developments which have occurred during the preceding two years, but always with a highly applied focus. It is precisely this focus on the applications to environmental sciences which makes the geoENV volumes unique and of great interest and practical value to geostatisticians working both in academia and in industry.
Review and Comments
Rate the Book
geoENV IV - Geostatistics for Environmental Applications (Quantitative Geology and Geostatistics) 0 out of 5 stars based on 0 ratings. | <urn:uuid:a2174edc-0ba2-418a-b6cc-090d9ccbde62> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://libdl.ir/book/79120/geoenv-iv-geostatistics-for-environmental-applications-quantitative-geology-and-geostatistics | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282140.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00126-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928652 | 396 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Bishop Lynch High School is working with Essential Partners to offer dialogue training to BL student leaders. The partnership kicked off Oct. 1 with multi-day virtual training sessions for student leaders of the BL Belonging Board, the BL House System and for the inaugural Veritas Board*.
These sessions focused on helping our student leaders learn to express their opinions and hear differing opinions while engaging one another in a respectful manner. Student leaders will, in turn, coach other students on campus in these real-world conversational and connectivity skills.
Jill DeTemple is a religious studies professor and department chair at Southern Methodist University, and she was one of the Essential Partners facilitators for the BL training. Dr. DeTemple taught our Friars to speak and listen with intention, ask curious questions, and converse using reflective and structured techniques.
She was impressed with the students’ immersion in the process and their visions for how dialogue should look at Bishop Lynch.
“At the end of the day, the students want to make sure that the school community is having honest conversations with one another. They really want everyone on campus to have a voice,” said Dr. DeTemple.
Bailey Wiegert is a BL senior and the Siena House chaplain. She attended the dialogue training and found significant benefits to the new skills she acquired.
“The dialogue training is definitely something I will continue to use for the rest of my life. We are the world's next leaders, and this training creates a mature way for us to approach situations like this,” said Bailey.
Watch (and listen) for more on dialogue training and its positive effects on our campus community.
*Next week’s issue of Friar Facts will provide an introduction of the Veritas Board, BL’s new select leadership council.
Faithful to Catholic Tradition and to our Dominican heritage of scholarship and service, Bishop Lynch High School promotes the development of the total person by bringing together a diverse community in a rigorous, college preparatory environment where students are taught to strive for excellence, seek truth, and work for justice in the world. - Founded in 1963 | <urn:uuid:16793fc1-95f4-4826-b030-8fb82901c6ae> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.bishoplynch.org/news-detail?pk=1230583&fromId=200344 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570741.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808001418-20220808031418-00078.warc.gz | en | 0.955492 | 443 | 1.921875 | 2 |
Sudan’s prospects for peace will be considered in a global context at this two-day conference organized by graduate students from The Fletcher School (Tufts University), Kennedy School of Government (Harvard University) and Harvard Law School. The first day will examine the diverse parties and issues driving Sudan’s peacemaking process. The second day will explore the peacebuilding challenges of implementing the peace agreement.
The conference will offer attendees a unique opportunity to engage with professionals in the fields of diplomacy, human rights advocacy, foreign aid, international business, and conflict prevention. Conference participants will be encouraged to consider innovative policies and programs to address the multilayered causes of Sudan’s conflicts in a collective effort to transform Sudan’s ‘paper peace’ into sustainable peace and development.
This event is sponsored in part by the Program on Negotiation. Other sponsors include the Feinstein International Famine Center at Tufts University, and the Institute for Human Security at the Fletcher School. | <urn:uuid:25925fcd-9418-453e-8802-f289ab6defee> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.pon.harvard.edu/events/sudan-at-the-crossroads/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571472.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811133823-20220811163823-00675.warc.gz | en | 0.902908 | 203 | 1.859375 | 2 |
this is the journal for my new layout.
This was the last image of the previous layout!
Learned a lot with this tank lot's of challenges!
Love to keep the neon tetras and the very special apistogramas B. Shishita.
For this layout i'm working with black/red vulcanic rock and some wood...
i'll star a new journal for my medium tank, the place for my bucephalandras!
Here is the setup:
Date: 12 Setembro 2015
Tank: 96L [80x30x40 Vidromoldura]
Cabinet: DIY [carvalho] [White colver by bracaman] + metalic structure by vidromoldura
Light: LED DIY [48W 8 x 6W . 40000 lumen . 6000ºK...
I've been reading very interesting post's about putting water plants 'out of water'.
There are some very good Wabi Kusa here in UKAPS.
Along with my 2 year old son i grab my first aquarium 15 liters, a few stones, soil, plant's and water.
Let's see how it works...Day one: 15|6|2014
I'm Tiago from Portugal.
Here is my system with 2 aquariums (they are connected and share the same water system).
The big One (on the right)
Glass | EHEIM 200l + Stand DIY [100cm x 40cm x 50cm]
Eheim 2211(lift water up to refugium) Eheim 2215 + Eheim 2215
Weipro MX1019 +... | <urn:uuid:6498675e-7e8e-4a3c-ba8c-74d67750040b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.ukaps.org/forum/tags/portugal/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573197.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818124424-20220818154424-00667.warc.gz | en | 0.83535 | 360 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Small changes reduce delay in permanence decisions by over 12 weeks
Topic: Local authority, Permanence
Author: Graeme Simpson, Aberdeen City Council
Graeme Simpson of Aberdeen City Council explains how small tests of change added up to cutting three months of the time it takes to make decisions for children in their care. Working with the Permanence and Care Excellence (PACE) programme, they've implemented a Child's Plan to reduce time taken to produce reports to the Children's Panel, and looked closely at what the data tells them at all stages of the child's journey. | <urn:uuid:e101857b-9052-41d7-af00-38bbd632e8c4> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://celcis.org/knowledge-bank/search-bank/small-changes-reduce-delay-permanence-decisions-over-12-weeks | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570692.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20220807181008-20220807211008-00678.warc.gz | en | 0.932414 | 118 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Human population growth near protected areas often results in detrimental edge effects for apex carnivores, such as the African lion. Urbanization leads to new scenarios of the human–lion conflict, thus understanding ranging patterns close to urban environments is crucial to inform future management strategies. We collected GPS data from 12 collared lions between 2014 and 2018 in Nairobi National Park, which borders the capital city of Kenya, Nairobi city. We estimated home ranges, calculated daily distance traveled and tested for differences between sex, season and pride. Additionally, we investigated how disturbance from Nairobi and surrounding human settlements affected space-use of lions, and tested for differences between sex, season and time of day. Lions showed restricted movements (4.5 km/day) and had small home ranges (49 km2). Male lions had larger ranges than females, but avoidance behavior of disturbed areas was similar. Lions took advantage during times of low human activity, i.e., during the night, to extend ranging behavior in search for resources. Risk for livestock depredation also increased during the wet season when lions roamed longer, more frequently, and deeper into the community lands. We recommend the establishment of buffer zones to maintain a viable lion population and reduced risk for conflict.
Apex carnivores, such as the African lion (Panthera leo Linnaeus, 1758), cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus Schreber, 1775), leopard (Panthera pardus Linnaeus, 1758), and the African wild dog (Lycaon pictus Temminck 1820) show global declines in population numbers (Bauer and Van Der Merwe 2004; Riggio et al. 2013; Woodroffe 2000). The main threats have been defined as habitat destruction, decline of prey populations, and human–carnivore interactions (Riggio et al. 2013; Winterbach et al. 2015). Large carnivores are particularly vulnerable to these causes because they have large home ranges and require extensive, intact habitats to survive (Sillero-Zubiri and Laurenson 2001).
A home range is defined as the area used by an individual animal for its regular activities of food gathering, mating and caring for its young (Burt 1943). Lions generally live in prides, and the home range of an individual may be confined by the pride’s territory (Schaller 1972). Lion home ranges mostly range between 50 and 600 km2 (Loveridge et al. 2009; Tumenta et al. 2013; Tuqa et al. 2014), but can be as large as 2000 km2 in arid environments (Stander 1991). Home range size is mainly dependent on prey density, thus on factors reflecting prey availability, such as environment, season and human presence (Bauer and Iongh 2005; Davidson et al. 2012; Loveridge et al. 2009; Spong 2002; Tuqa et al. 2014). Home ranges of male lions are often larger than those of females and may encompass two or more female prides (Funston et al. 2003; Orsdol et al. 2009). Nomadic males may roam over extensive ranges due to the fact that they avoid the territories of pride males (Funston et al. 2003; Loveridge et al. 2009). Sub-adults that have been forced to become nomadic, usually remain close to the natal territory and may establish a new home range near the natal pride’s territory (Elliot et al. 2014; Funston et al. 2003).
The expansion of home ranges outside protected areas increases the likelihood of contact with people, which may ultimately result in livestock depredation conflicts (Bauer and Iongh 2005; Loveridge et al. 2009; Ogutu and Dublin 2002; Patterson et al. 2004; Tumenta et al. 2013). When native prey migrates away, lions may switch to livestock as an alternative prey source (Valeix et al. 2012). Furthermore, it has been found that lions in pastoralist areas show fine-scale, spatiotemporal avoidance strategies to reduce the risk of encounter humans: Lion spatial distribution and habitat selection shifted in relation to seasonal movements of people and livestock (Schuette et al. 2013), and lions have been observed to approach settlements at times when human activity was lowest (Oriol-Cotterill et al. 2015).
Urbanization has led to new scenarios of human–wildlife interactions and affected predator behavior and distributions (Braczkowski et al. 2015; Hölker et al. 2010; Magle et al. 2014). An understanding of lion ranging patterns in such systems is a requirement for future management strategies of protected areas threatened by urban development. Therefore, we focused our study on lion home ranges and movements in and around the Nairobi National Park (NNP) in Kenya. NNP is a small, partially fenced protected area, surrounded by dense urban and communal settlements from Nairobi city, which is located only 7 km north of NNP. South of NNP are community lands where livestock is abundant. Lions have little space to roam and reports of livestock attacks, retaliatory lion killings, and lions wandering in the city are presently occurring frequently (Kushner 2016; Smith 2012).
We intended to address the following research questions: (i) What is the average home range size of lions in NNP and which factors influence this? (ii) What is the average daily distance traveled by lions in NNP and which factors influence this? (iii) Which habitat is preferred by lions in NNP? (iv) How is the spatial ecology of lions in NNP influenced by disturbance from Nairobi city? (v) How is the spatial ecology of lions in NNP influenced by access to the community lands?
2 Material and methods
2.1 Study area
NNP is located to the south-west of Nairobi city in Kenya (Figure 1). The park was gazetted in 1946 with a surface area of 117 km2 (gazette notice No. 48 of 16th December 1946). It is situated between latitude 1° 20′–1° 26′ S and longitude 36° 50′–36° 58′ E within an altitude ranging between 1533 and 1760 m above sea level (Owino et al. 2011). Annual temperature range is between 13.6 and 25.3 °C (Deshmukh 1985; Muya and Oguge 2000). Kenya has two periods of rainfall, one long wet season from March to May with a mean of 150 mm of rainfall and a short wet season from November to December with a mean of 90 mm of rainfall (Deshmukh 1985).
To separate wildlife from Nairobi city, NNP was partly fenced in 1955 with a chain-link fence and galvanized wire powered by electricity (6 kV) (Foster and Coe 1968; Reid et al. 2008). The southern border is formed by the Mbagathi river and provides open access to the Athi-Kaputiei Plains (AKP), an area of 2200 km2 pastoralist rangeland, hereafter named ‘community lands’ (Reid et al. 2008). This open access is necessary to maintain herbivore migrations during the wet season for feeding and calving. In the dry season, herbivores concentrate around water sources in NNP as the community lands contain no permanent water sources (Reid et al. 2008).
NNP has three distinct vegetation zones (Foster and Coe 1968): (i) The western part of NNP is covered by semi-evergreen forest patches of Croton macrostachys (Hochstetter and Rich, 1850) and Olea africana (Green, 1979) with an open grass glade, occupying 10 km2; (ii) The Athi Basin area is an open grass savannah with monocots like Pennisetum meszzianum (Rich, 1805), Themeda triandra (Forssk, 1775) and Balanites spp (Delile, 1813) trees and egg-shaped Acacia mellifera (Benth, 1842) due to giraffe herbivory. (iii) The Mbagathi River is covered with riverine vegetation dominated by Acacia xanthophloea (Benth, 1842) and A. mellifera. Dwarf woody plants are a result of controlled burning by park management. The different habitat types are presented in Figure 2.
The park is home to four species of the so-called Big Five: lion, leopard, African buffalo (Syncerus caffer (Sparrman, 1779)), and black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis (Linnaeus 1758)). The blue wildebeest (Connochaetes mearnsi (Heller, 1913)), plains zebra (Equus quagga (Boddaert, 1785)) and associated smaller ungulates, such as Grant’s gazelle (granti (Brooke, 1872)), Thomson’s gazelle (Eudorcas thomsonii (Günther, 1884)) and common warthog (Phacochoerus africanus (Gmelin, 1788)) are abundant throughout the park and tend to range into community land during the wet season (Gichohi 1996). Other resident ungulate species include: southern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum simum Burchell, 1817; introduced), common eland (Taurotragus oryx (Pallas, 1766)), kongoni (Alcephalus buselaphus cokii (Günther, 1884)), giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis (Linnaeus, 1758)), impala (Aepyceros melampus (Lichtenstein, 1812)), waterbuck (Kobus ellipsiprymnus (Ogilby, 1833)) and Bohor reedbuck (Redunca bohr Rùppell, 1842)) (Owino et al. 2011). The park is also an important bird area with a high diversity of species.
2.2 Data collection
Between 2014 and 2017, we collared 12 lions (five males and seven females) in NNP, following Tuqa et al. (2014), with Africa Wildlife Tracking (AWT, Pretoria, South Africa), Very High Frequency (VHF) iridium satellite collars (Table 1). The collars recorded date, time, longitude, latitude, altitude, temperature and distance to previous location. We programmed all the collars to record one fix per three hours and data were accessible and downloaded via the AWT website (http://www.awt.co.za). When lions moved outside NNP or when they were suspected to do so, we modified the GPS collars to collect data every 30 min for the analysis of roaming events of lions outside the park.
|2015.08.20||2015.11.14||End of battery power|
|L03||M||2015.02.02||2016.12.30||7706||End of battery power|
|L05||F||Middle||2016.02.02||2017.03.16||3709||End of battery power|
|L06||M||2016.02.02||2017.08.09||4959||End of battery power|
The collar weight was 1.5 kg which was less than 1% of the animal’s weight. We removed collars at the end of battery life or when the animal had an injury. We collared four sub-adult lions from three different prides in January 2017. We monitored sub-adult lions and adjusted collars in November 2017.
2.3 Data analysis and statistics
For our first research question, we estimated annual and seasonal home range size of each collared lion by calculating Minimum Convex Polygons (MCP) and Kernel Density Estimation (KDE) home ranges. MCP creates a polygon by connecting the outer GPS locations, while KDE takes into account density estimations of GPS locations (Powell 2000). We determined the resolution bandwidth with least-squares cross validation for fixed-kernel home ranges (Seaman and Powell 1996). The boundaries of the home range areas were defined as 100% MCP and 95% of KDE, and the core home range as 50% of KDE (Hemson 2003; Powell 2000). We built for each home range estimator (i.e., 50% KDE, 95% DKE and 100% MCP) a mixed effect model (model 1–3), with sex (male/female), season (wet/dry) and pride (northern/middle/southern) as explanatory categorical variables. Bi-annual lion survey sightings were used to allocate lions to the three prides present in NNP. We excluded males from pride home range estimations due to their frequent involvement in pride takeovers.
For our second research question, we calculated the minimum potential daily distance traveled as the Euclidean distance between following GPS fixes within 24 h (Hunter 1998). We build a mixed effect model with daily distance traveled as response variable, and with sex and season as explanatory categorical variables (model 4).
For our third research question, we assigned a vegetation class to each GPS fix to determine the proportion of fixes spent in each habitat type. We determined different habitat types based on vegetation data from the Kenya Wildlife Service’s GIS and Biodiversity Office (2011) (Figure 2). All GPS locations outside the park were excluded since there was no habitat classification available. We used the Manly’s selection index to assess lion habitat preference (Manly et al. 2002). The selection index was measured using the formula: wi = oi/pi, where wi = selection index for vegetation type i; oi = proportion (number) of fixes in vegetation type i; and pi = proportion of vegetation i available in the park. Values above 1.0 indicated preference, while values less than 1.0 indicated avoidance. The standardized index Bi allowed comparisons between habitat types: Bi = wi/(Σni = ŵi). Values below 0.125 (corresponding to 1/number of vegetation types) indicated relative avoidance, while values above indicate relative preference.
For our fourth research question, we investigated how lion space use was affected by human disturbance from Nairobi city and surrounding settlements. We investigated the potential impact of the urban fringe, i.e. the urbanized area along the fence-line, by calculating the nearest distance from each GPS fix inside NNP to the fence-line. We then built a mixed effects model with the lion’s relative distance to the fence-line as response variable, and sex and time of day (Day (05:00 h–23:00 h)/Night (23:00 h–05:00 h)) as explanatory categorical variables (model 5). Levels within the factor time of day were based on hours of high and low human activity, instead of daylight hours (Oriol-Cotterill et al. 2015).
For our last research question, we calculated the nearest distance from each GPS fix outside NNP to the southern park border, the Mbagathi river. We built a mixed effects model with lion’s relative distance outside NNP to the southern park border, with sex, season, and time of day as explanatory categorical variables (model 6). We also analyzed the frequency and duration of roaming events of lions outside the park. Roaming events were defined as the trajectory of GPS fixes outside the park, including the last GPS fix inside the park and the first GPS fix back inside the park. This may represent an overestimation of actual duration, but this was inherent to our study design. Different roaming events were separated by 12 h independence, thus multiple crossing of the southern park border by one individual within 12 h were considered as a single roaming event. We built a mixed effects model with respectively the duration (model 7) and frequency (model 8) of roaming events as response variable, and sex and season as explanatory categorical variables.
We implemented a ‘geo-fence’ around livestock bomas (i.e. livestock enclosures) close to NNP. Geofencing may warn park management and researchers when a lion is in the vicinity of a livestock boma. The collars were programmed such that a short message service (SMS) was received when a collared lion was 500 m from a livestock boma. We counted the number of occasions when SMS notifications were received and the number of times the lion was located outside the park and no SMS notification was received.
We analyzed the GPS data using the Spatial Analyst tool and the Geospatial Modelling Environment software in ArcGIS version 10.2.2 software (Esri, Redlands, CA, USA). We conducted statistical tests in R version 3.0.2 software and we used a significance level of p < 0.05. For the mixed effects models, we performed a Likelihood Ratio Test (LRT) with a Chi-squared test. We used the functions lmer() and glmer() from the package lmerTest (Kuznetsova et al. 2017) to build the mixed effect models and we used the function drop1() for the LRT-test. For each model, we included lion identity and year as random factors. Response variables of model 1–4 met model assumptions of normality and homoscedasticity. For model 5–7, response variables were right-skewed and non-negative continuous, so we assumed a gamma distribution with the negative inverse transformation as link function in order for the data to fit the model. For model 8, the response variable was count data, so we assumed a Poisson distribution with the log transformation as link function.
3.1 Home ranges and movements
Mean annual home range size of lions in NNP was 49.2 ± 22.2 km2 (95% KDE). Annual core home ranges were on average 10.0 ± 5.4 km2 in size, which was around 20% of the 95% KDE home range. Including the 5% outer most GPS fixes resulted in a mean annual home range size of 93.4 ± 43.0 km2 (100% MCP), covering almost 80% of NNP. Mean annual home range size did not differ significantly from seasonal home range size (95% KDE: χ2 = 1.93, df = 1, p-value = 0.165). Pride home ranges are presented in Figure 3.
Seasonal home ranges (95% KDE and 100% MCP) were significantly larger for males compared to females, and differed in size between the three prides (Table 2, Figure 4). In the southern part of NNP, home ranges were smallest and occasionally extended outside NNP into the community lands. No difference in size was found between wet season home ranges and dry season home ranges (Table 2). Core home ranges (50% KDE) remained stable and were not affected by sex, season or pride (Table 2).
|Test statistic||Sex (df = 1)||Season (df = 1)||Pride (df = 1)||Time of day (df = 1)|
Model 1: 50% KDE ∼ Sex + Season + Pride + (1 | ID) + (1 | Year).
Model 2: 95% KDE ∼ Sex + Season + Pride + (1 | ID) + (1 | Year).
Model 3: 100% MCP ∼ Sex + Season + Pride + (1 | ID) + (1 | Year).
Model 4: Daily Distance ∼ Sex + Season + (1 | ID) + (1 | Year).
Model 5: Distance Fence ∼ Sex + Time + (1 | ID) + (1 | Year), family = Gamma.
Model 6: Distance South ∼ Sex + Season + Time + (1 | ID) + (1 | Year), family = Gamma.
Model 7: Duration Roaming ∼ Sex + Season + (1 | ID) + (1 | Year), family = Gamma.
Model 8: Frequency Roaming ∼ Sex + Season + (1 | ID) + (1 | Year), family = Poisson.
Bold face values: The bold values are most significance.
The average daily potential minimum distance traveled by lions in NNP was 4.5 ± 1.3 km. Males traveled significantly larger distances compared to females, with a maximum of 29.9 km traveled in one day by L01 (Table 2). All three pride males were observed to travel from the northern part of the park to the southern section in one day. Daily distance traveled was not affected by season (Table 2).
|Annual home ranges and movements|
|50% KDE (km2)||10.0 ± 5.4||11.9 ± 3.3||8.5 ± 6.1|
|95% KDE (km2)||49.2 ± 22.2||62.1 ± 15.6||39.5 ± 21.5|
|100% MCP (km2)||93.4 ± 43.0||124.4 ± 31.7||70.2 ± 35.0|
|Daily distance (km)||4.5 ± 3.6||5.4 ± 4.1||3.7 ± 2.9|
|Seasonal home ranges and movements|
|All seasons||Wet season||Dry season|
|50% KDE (km2)||8.6 ± 4.9||8.2 ± 5||9.0 ± 4.6|
|95% KDE (km2)||43.7 ± 22.4||42.6 ± 23.9||44.8 ± 20.3|
|100% MCP (km2)||74.4 ± 39.3||76.4 ± 43.1||72.5 ± 34.1|
|Daily distance (km)||4.4 ± 3.6||4.6 ± 3.8||4.3 ± 3.4|
|Pride home ranges|
|50% KDE (km2)||11.9 ± 7.1||9.8 ± 3.6||2.1 ± 1.2|
|95% KDE (km2)||50.9 ± 23.6||45.5 ± 11.1||14.4 ± 5.9|
|100% MCP (km2)||82.9 ± 43.5||81.4 ± 18.2||34.4 ± 11.3|
3.2 Habitat factors
The analysis of habitat selection showed that lions in NNP preferred riverine woodland, followed by bushland and scattered tree grassland. The largest habitat in the park, open grassland, was only slightly preferred by lions in NNP. The habitats that were avoided by lions in NNP were forest and open forest glades, and whistling thorn shrubland, which was the second largest habitat in NNP (Table 4).
|Habitat type||Proportion of NNP||wi||Bi|
|Open forest glades||1.18%||0.495||0.053|
|Scattered tree grassland||10.7%||1.316||0.15|
|Whistling thorn shrubland||23.3%||0.851||0.107|
wi: selection index; values above 1.0 indicate preference; values less than 1.0 indicate avoidance. Bi: standardized selection index, which allowing comparisons; values below 0.125 indicate relative avoidance; values above 0.125 indicate relative preference.
3.3 Human disturbance
Lions inside NNP were located on average 2.34 (±1.38 SD) km away from the fence-line. This distance did not differ between males and females, but lions moved closer to the fence-line at times of low human activity (Figure 4, Table 2).
Between 2014 and 2018, collared lions made 864 roaming events into the community lands, lasting on average 18 (±22) hours per event. The median duration was 9 h. On eight occasions, roaming events lasted for more than five continuous days, with a maximum of 12 days by L05 (Figure 5). The average distance of lion locations outside NNP was 0.47 (±0.76 SD) km away from the southern park border (Mbagathi river), with a maximum of 4.38 km by L06 (Figure 5). The median distance was 0.19 km. Lions roamed further into the community lands in the wet season compared to the dry season, and at night compared to daytime hours (Figure 6, Table 2). No difference in distance from the southern park border was found between males and females (Table 2). The south-eastern sector was found to be the main exit and entry point between NNP and the community lands (Figure 5).
Visualizations of the differences in movement metrics outside NNP are presented in Figure 5.
The geo-fencing of livestock bomas resulted in 472 SMS notifications. On 127 occasions (27%) delays have been reported in receiving the SMS messages when lions approached livestock bomas, and in 53 cases (11%) a false alert was received during the day when the collared lion was still in the park.
Home ranges of prides ranged between 14 and 51 km2 (95% KDE). Lion home ranges in NNP were amongst the smallest recorded for lions throughout Africa, but were comparable in size to lion home ranges in East Africa. In the Amboseli National Park, Kenya, for example, home ranges varied between 24 and 91 km2 95% KDE (Tuqa et al. 2014), and in the Serengeti National Park and the Selous Game Reserve in Tanzania, home ranges were on average 52 km2 (Schaller 1972; Spong 2002). Daily distance traveled was short (4.5 km), which convenes with the small home ranges. For comparison, lions in the Waza National Park, Cameroon, traveled on average 7.5 km per day (Tumenta et al. 2013) and in the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania, lions traveled on average 14.5 km per day (Schaller 1972). The small home ranges and the short daily distances traveled by lions in NNP may be sustained by high prey densities, especially during the dry season (Lesilau 2019). Additionally, neighboring prides and the small size of NNP and its surrounding settlements likely restrict lion movements. The different pride home ranges overlapped with the entirety of NNP, which may suggest insufficient coverage of NNP to sustain this lion population.
Male lions had larger home ranges and traveled longer distances compared to females. Female ranging behavior is configured around the distribution of resources, while that of males is also influenced by the distribution of females (Loveridge et al. 2009). Additionally, females are restricted in movements when caring for their young (Bauer and Iongh 2005; Funston et al. 2003), while males may roam extensively during dispersal or after pride take-overs (Elliot et al. 2014; Loveridge et al. 2009). Despite differences in ranging behavior, no differences were found between males and females concerning roaming events in the community lands. Females with cubs may avoid the risk of infanticide by avoiding pride territories and may shift home ranges outside Protected Areas towards livestock feeding grounds (Bauer and Iongh 2005; Funston et al. 2003; Packer and Pusey 1983).
The absence of seasonal variation in home range size could be a reflection of abundant prey availability and accessibility year round (Bauer and Iongh 2005; Orsdol et al. 2009). Pride home ranges were smaller in the southern section of the park and may suggest higher prey densities in this part. This section also connects to the migratory corridor and some lions were observed to show a shift in home range southwards during the wet season. However, annual range size remained similar to seasonal range sizes, and core ranges did not fluctuate with environmental factors. This suggests relatively stable home ranges. Most lions concentrated their home range in grassland habitat and riverine woodlands, which coincides with their preference for open habitat nearby water sources with cover to ambush prey (Loveridge et al. 2009; Spong 2002). Denser habitats, such as forests and shrublands, were avoided as they may not contain the preferred prey species (Spong 2002), or because of their location near the fence-line.
The urban fringe was generally avoided by lions, likely because of the light-, noise-, and air pollution from Nairobi city. This suggests that a considerable part of NNP is underused due to edge effects. Yet, we noticed that lions moved closer towards the fence-line at times when human disturbance was lower. At these times, lions actively search for resources and patrol territory boundaries (Schaller 1972).
Spatio-temporal avoidance of human activity was also identified along the southern park border. The community lands are privately owned and are progressively being partitioned into small fenced plots (Gichohi 1996). Due to human activity during the day, lions have little space to roam and may prefer to stay in the park. Roaming events mostly occurred at night because of low human disturbance, in combination with cover of darkness (Oriol-Cotterill et al. 2015). Most livestock returned to their bomas in the evening, which reduced depredation risk at night (Lesilau et al. 2018; Tumenta et al. 2013). Additionally, LED flashlights at these bomas work as an effective predator deterrent to protect livestock from predator attacks (Lesilau et al. 2018). Lions never roam far from the park border into the community lands and roaming events within the community land were mostly short distances. On the few occasions roaming events lasted multiple days, individuals were often located just beyond the park border, on the other side of the Mbagathi river, which may include part of their home range. Yet, pastoralists with grazing herds were regularly observed close to the river, thus livestock here is readily accessible and available as an alternative prey source (Valeix et al. 2012).
Seasonal variation in roaming events suggested that, risk for human–lion conflict in the wet season is higher. Lions roamed further, more often, and longer into the community lands compared to the dry season. This observation coincides with previous studies and is likely a reflection of prey migration outside the national park (Tumenta et al. 2013; Valeix et al. 2012). The community lands contain important feeding grounds for both livestock and several large migratory herbivores during the wet season (Gichohi 2003). To fulfill their energetic requirements, lions may rely on roaming events, especially during the wet season, even when seasonal home ranges are similar in size and lie mostly within NNP.
Roaming events could not be identified when they were shorter than the specified GPS interval, which was mostly set at 3 h. Shorter events were likely to happen due to the closeness, proximity of livestock bomas to the park border. This issue could be overcome by the geo-fencing of these bomas. We found that this method was only partially successful. The observed delay in receiving SMS notifications may be due to cloud and/or vegetation cover, inhibiting signal transmission. While improvement of this technology might work as an innovative early-warning system, priority should be focused towards addressing the cause of human–lion conflict.
We conclude that lion spatial ecology in NNP is highly affected by human disturbance. High prey densities inside NNP may allow lions to survive in small home ranges with restricted movements. Urban development around NNP may have resulted in an isolated lion population with little to no gene flow. Lion home ranges are squeezed between the urban fringe in the north, and the community lands in the south. Lions show general avoidance of these areas, but take advantage during times of low human disturbance to extend their ranging behavior into these areas. Especially during the wet season, lions may become partially dependent on roaming events in search for resources. This highlights the importance to protect the migratory corridor in the community lands, but also indicates increased risks for human–lion conflict during the wet season.
Reducing detrimental edge effects could be facilitated by creating buffer zones in the southern border of NNP. Buffer zones may be defined as areas peripheral to a national park, where restrictions are placed upon resource use and where community development measures are undertaken to enhance the conservation value (Martino 2001). Buffer zones as defined above are difficult to establish along the northern park border because of the permanent infrastructures of Nairobi city. However, an expansion of natural habitat may act as an embankment to filter noise-, air- and light pollution from the city and bordering highways. A buffer zone sensu stricto along the southern border would provide more space for lions to roam, while reducing risk for herders to lose livestock. Creating a buffer zone requires land reformation and implies involvement of stakeholders for successful establishment (Martino 2001). We deem this necessary around NNP to maintain a viable lion population in the near future and may restore connectivity with other conservation areas.
This research would not have been possible without the assistance of KWS Rangers, Atif Chunghtai and MSc students enrolled in the NNP lion project.
Author contributions: All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted manuscript and approved submission.
Research funding: The financial support of the Louwes Fund for Water and Food through Leiden University (CML) and the Leo Foundation are also acknowledged.
Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding this article.
Research ethics and best practice: We thank Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) for granting permission to conduct research in NNP.
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© 2021 Francis Lesilau et al., published by De Gruyter, Berlin/Boston
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In what is feeling like the dregs of a never-ending winter, we find ourselves faced with another formidable opponent- PARCC. I am a huge Game of Thrones fan and can’t help but at times feel like we are the residents of The Land of the Long Summer preparing ourselves for the winter that is coming according to those who reign in the North. PARCC is our winter. Just as in Game of Thrones, however, we can look at this as an opportunity to realign ourselves with new opportunities rather than feel doomed.
What exactly is PARCC?
PARCC stands for the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. When stated like that it doesn’t sound so bad right? We all want our kids to be ready for college and careers don’t we? I personally think that the government should look into firing whoever shortened that lovely mouthful of a statement that most of us would readily embrace to the acronym PARCC. I don’t know about you but anything that rhymes with the real word park causes me anxiety (have you ever tried to parallel park 10 times with a screaming child in the backseat? The word park caused flashbacks for me!). Had it been shortened to something like PACCS (partnership for assessment of college and career skills) I’d be able to correlate this to pleasant experiences like packing for trips or packing for college…..I digress.
What does PARCC test?
PARCC is given at every grade level from 3-11. In our elementary schools, students will focus on Language Arts and Math. The math section will focus on using math skills gained at each grade level in problem solving scenarios rather than straight forward math problems. Visit http://parcc.pearson.com/practice-tests/math/ for more information and sample math problems. Students in grades 3-5 will participate in 2 days worth of math during this first administration of the test.
The language arts section is broken into 3 days, with each day consisting of one section. Students will both read for comprehension as well as read to gain information so that they can complete a short research based essay. All sections contain a variety of question types. (see the graphic below for more information on question types)
How are my child’s teachers preparing him/her for this?
Our way of teaching has been undergoing drastic changes over that last few years to prepare our students for these assessments. First of all, we have implemented the Common Core State Standards which are the standards that these assessments are based on. Secondly, our district has been focusing our efforts on increasing rigor in our classrooms by having students delve deeper into subject matter. We have also incorporated technology into our lessons for years not only to prepare students for this assessment but also to help them develop skills that will help them throughout the rest of their school careers and into their adult lives. This year, as PARCC is being implemented for the first time, we have been reviewing how to answer each type of question through lessons incorporated in our classes as well as workshops given to the students by the librarian and technology coordinators. Classroom teachers have been reviewing how to read the questions thoroughly as well as strategies to eliminate known wrong answers.
What can I do to prepare my child?
First and foremost encourage your child to
While this might seem impossible, if we adults can present ourselves as relaxed and calm, the kids will pick up on these cues and relax. Listen, I’m a busy mom, wife, full time teacher, part-time student- I know that this isn’t always easy! If you could limit stressful extras the week your child tests that would help everyone relax a bit. In fact that is everyone’s homework that week- GO HOME AND RELAX!
Encourage a good night’s sleep. The chart below shows the suggested amount of sleep for the children in grades 3-5. If possible encourage lights out and electronics off at a reasonable time to ensure that they are well rested for the coming day.
Have your child eat a HEALTHY breakfast. While Frosted Flakes happen to be my favorite cereal, I know that they aren’t the best option when I need to sit and focus for any period of time. A good breakfast doesn’t have to mean a restaurant quality spread. It could be a bagel and cream cheese, toast and jelly, Cheerios or other cereals low in added sugar, yogurt, oatmeal, or fruit.
Dress your child comfortably. I always encourage my students to wear a light weight sweatshirt (preferably a zip up) in case they get chilly. Sweats or loose comfortable jeans and comfortable shoes will make sitting for extended periods more bearable.
Make sure they come to school prepared! If they need glasses for reading or computer use, please make sure that they have them! There is nothing worse than ending the test with a headache because your eyes ache!
We will provide your child with paper, erasers, and pencils!
Please feel free to contact your child’s teacher or school if you have further questions. All we ask is that every student TRY HIS OR HER BEST! That’s the best anyone can ever do! | <urn:uuid:4a8eadd2-0bff-4bb6-9f77-2824240d0cfc> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://culltivatingmindswithoutlosingmyown.edublogs.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281151.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00112-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958332 | 1,085 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Fact Sheet 2013–3052
Elevation data are essential to a broad range of applications, including forest resources management, wildlife and habitat management, national security, recreation, and many others. For the Commonwealth of Virginia, elevation data are critical for urban and regional planning, natural resources conservation, flood risk management, agriculture and precision farming, resource mining, infrastructure and construction management, and other business uses. Today, high-quality light detection and ranging (lidar) data are the sources for creating elevation models and other elevation datasets. Federal, State, and local agencies work in partnership to (1) replace data, on a national basis, that are (on average) 30 years old and of lower quality and (2) provide coverage where publicly accessible data do not exist. A joint goal of State and Federal partners is to acquire consistent, statewide coverage to support existing and emerging applications enabled by lidar data. The new 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) initiative, managed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), responds to the growing need for high-quality topographic data and a wide range of other three-dimensional representations of the Nation’s natural and constructed features.
First posted August 22, 2013
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Carswell, W.J., Jr., 2013, The 3D Elevation Program—Summary for Virginia: U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2013–3052, 2 p., https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2013/3052/. | <urn:uuid:b07cdd75-f702-4124-ab3c-f91b51336a27> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2013/3052/ | 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 | 0.881186 | 350 | 3.4375 | 3 |
Many school grounds of Adtimari upazila, Lalmonirhat are being used for tobacco drying damn caring the health issues of the children and all who are involved in schools. This was disclosed by ATMA journalist of Lalamonirhat of renowned online newspaper www. banglanews24.com published March 5, 2015.
The report reveals that tobacco leaves are being dried by tobacco farmers despite principals order not to do so. Interesting some of the members of the managing committee are among the tobacco farmers who are making this big disturbance and a threat to public health. The school administrations are helpless and the local UNO is admitting that this is hampering the educational environment of that upazila.
Please read the detailed report:
Besides, Tobacco furnaces are being installed in household premises in Ramu Upazila of Coxs Bazar district. Abdul Kuddus journalist of Prothom Alo, one of the most popular daily newspaper of the country published a report on March 5, 2015.
Many houses in above mentioned upazila are baking tobacco in their household’s premises harming themselves and environment of that area. Please also note that they are mostly using woods from the reserve forest, which are legally not available to cut down. According to the report 12000 acres of land in Coxsbazar is under tobacco cultivation at present.
See the detail report: | <urn:uuid:bd3a0651-a053-4396-8f7f-2d3bd6a9aa15> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://allmedialink.com/school-premises-and-dwelling-grounds-are-using-for-tobacco-leaf-processing/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280242.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00073-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948936 | 280 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Simple Eyelike Sensors Could Make AI Systems More Efficient
(Inside Science) -- A sensor that mimics how the human eye detects light could lead to better vision for autonomous robots and self-driving cars, a new study argues.
Modern electronic cameras are based on sensors that generate an electrical signal whenever light falls on them. In contrast, the roughly 100 million rod and cone cells of the retina -- the light-sensitive layer in the back of the eye -- only transmit signals to the brain in response to a change in light. This makes human eyes significantly more efficient than electronics in terms of both energy and computing power, explained study senior author John Labram, a device physicist at Oregon State University in Corvallis.
Scientists have previously created sensors that imitate the retina. However, these "retinomorphic" electronics involve complex circuits ill-suited for use in mass-produced sensors.
Now Labram and his colleagues have replaced these intricate circuits with a simpler alternative -- light-sensitive materials known as perovskites, which are currently being developed for use in next-generation solar power cells. "Without this recent material breakthrough, we would not have been able to make our sensor," he said.
The core of the new sensor consists of an electrically insulating glass layer coated with the perovskite methylammonium lead iodide. When placed in light, this perovskite changes from highly electrically insulating to highly electrically conducting. The researchers sandwiched these layers between electrodes, and found this sensor had a strong electrical response to light but generated no further signals until the lighting changed.
"This is the first single-pixel sensor that replicates the behavior of biological retina as part of its fundamental design," Labram said. "From an industrial point of view, this could eventually have a huge impact on speed and power consumption."
The sensors could find use in applications involving rapid processing of images, including lidar, facial recognition and autonomous vehicles, said materials scientist Thomas Anthopoulos at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, who did not take part in this research. "The key element of this technology is its simplicity and ability to be integrated with a range of emerging electronics, such as wearable systems, transparent displays and micro displays."
The scientists are now aiming to develop an array of these sensors to record actual visual data, "starting with 10-by-10 resolution," Labram said. They also want to connect their retinomorphic sensors with artificial intelligence systems to "better replicate the way that biological systems process stimuli," he said.
All in all, this work "is part of a larger ongoing effort to make computers more humanlike generally," Labram noted. Traditional computers are designed to carry out computations as sequences of steps, but increasingly scientists are developing so-called neuromorphic processors that are designed to mimic the human brain by performing many computations simultaneously in parallel, he explained.
Just as retinomorphic sensors might prove better than conventional optical sensors, so too might neuromorphic computers one day prove significantly more efficient than conventional computers.
"The human brain consumes around 20 watts of power, and a home PC [personal computer] runs at around 100 watts," Labram said. "This doesn't sound like much, but a single PC cannot do a similar task to the human brain -- for example, real-time learning. This sort of task would require a data center rather than a PC to achieve."
The scientists detailed their findings in a study published in the journal Applied Physics Letters.
Editor's Note: Applied Physics Letters is published by AIP Publishing, which is a is a wholly owned subsidiary of the American Institute of Physics. Inside Science is an editorially independent science news service run out of the American Institute of Physics. | <urn:uuid:53c6069b-a0e3-4da5-968a-d66b00f439bd> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://www.insidescience.org/index.php/news/simple-eyelike-sensors-could-make-ai-systems-more-efficient | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570871.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808183040-20220808213040-00264.warc.gz | en | 0.948341 | 774 | 3.765625 | 4 |
Investigations on particle removal processes in the ALT-II toroidal belt limiter scoop
In a first approximation a pump limiter removes the flux of particles entering the throat with a probability which depends on the conductance between neutraliser plate and pump and the throat conductance. This picture is altered if the recycling of particles at the limiter front and processes inside the throat become important, which is the topic of this study. The relevant processes are ionisation by electron impact and charge exchange, dissociation and finally, at highest fluxes, change of the flow pattern inside the scoop. The result of these processes is expressed as a change of the throat conductance.
Bibliographic Reference: Article: Proceedings of the 20th European Conference on Controlled Fusion and Plasma Physics, Vol. II (1993) pp. 659-662
Record Number: 199311134 / Last updated on: 1994-11-29
Original language: en
Available languages: en | <urn:uuid:37a0c039-c2fa-492d-a9fa-ce047f7e68f2> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://cordis.europa.eu/publication/rcn/199311134_en.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280929.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00420-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.858561 | 196 | 1.703125 | 2 |
The working group, called Distributed Resource Management Application API (DRMAA and pronounced "drama"), will meet for the first time at the Global Grid Forum in Toronto.
DRMAA comprises of major hardware and software players, such as Intel, Sun Microsystems and IBM, and grid computing specialist Platform Computing.
"Our objective is to make it easier for application builders to connect their applications to grids," said John Tollefsrud, co-chair of the working group and a product manager for grid computing at Sun.
Tollefsrud said that the working group will enable applications to be deployed within grids and make it easier for grids to be created on a widespread basis.
DRMAA hopes to have a draft specification ready by the middle of the year.
The notion of grid computing has been garnering an increasing amount of attention from major hardware and software vendors. Sun Microsystems has already unveiled the Technical Compute Portal, a combination of iPlanet, Sun's Grid Engine and Sun Open Network Environment (ONE) technologies that the company said enables customers to build grid infrastructures.
Compaq and IBM have also made moves towards grid computing. | <urn:uuid:2029e431-787c-4c68-b106-c8f8b507369d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240044273/Grid-computing-standards-group-formed | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571745.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812170436-20220812200436-00470.warc.gz | en | 0.941274 | 242 | 1.546875 | 2 |
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Accountants play an increasingly important and diverse role in society today. Traditionally in the United Kingdom accountants are the first port of call for businessmen seeking any form of professional advice or assistance. They undertake a wide range of functions which stretch far beyond their traditional roles of preparing accounts, financial reporting, auditing and tax planning.
Today accountants also offer management consultancy, give corporate finance advice, offer company secretarial services, undertake financial management, give personal finance advice, advise on computer software and act as trustees in bankruptcy, liquidators, administrative receivers and administrators. In numbers accountants dwarf the other professions: roughly ten qualified accountants to every solicitor and a hundred accountants to every barrister.
This major work provides legal practitioners advising accountants and accountants themselves with clear and practical guidance — from non-contentious but vital practice governance issues to the complex issues pertaining to professional negligence. | <urn:uuid:91defae6-e407-440f-b578-82b6ca324ffe> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.wildy.com/isbn/9781858116006/watson-gandy-on-the-law-relating-to-accountants-law-precedents-practice-and-procedure-2nd-ed-hardback-hammicks-legal-publishing | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988717783.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183837-00076-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921249 | 227 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month (SAAPM) is observed every April to raise awareness, garner media attention, generate national momentum for preventing sexual violence, and respond to and eliminate sexual harassment and assault in the Army.
The Army’s 2016 SAAPM commemoration theme is: “Sexual Assault. Sexual Harassment. Not in Our Army.” SAAPM provides an opportunity for Commanders, to engage their whole Sexual Harassment / Assault Response and Prevention (SHARP) Team – Sexual Assault Response Coordinators (SARCs), Unit Victim Advocates (UVAs), healthcare providers, law enforcement and criminal investigators, Staff Judge Advocates (SJAs), Chaplains, and PAO – to collaborate with their communities to plan SAAPM activities.
Through these events we hope to achieve an environment free from the threat of sexual assault; where sexist behaviors and sexual harassment are not condoned, tolerated, or ignored; where bystanders intervene; where victims are supported and feel safe to report crimes; and where Commanders hold offenders appropriately accountable. This dedicated effort will demonstrate our collective strength.
The main SAAPM Objectives are:
- Demonstrate the Army’s alignment with the Department of Defense Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) Strategic Plan’s five lines of effort: Prevention, Investigation, Accountability, Advocacy and Assessment.
- Continue educating key audiences about the Army’s goal of eliminating sexual violence and spreading awareness that sexual violence is a major public health, human rights and social justice issue.
- Support the theme in all SAAPM publicity efforts and events.
- Facilitate a SAAPM observance by developing events and/or activities at all levels.
- Encourage active participation at the individual and grassroots levels.
- Recognize achievements and ongoing initiatives to sustain cultural change, prevent sexual harassment and sexual assault, provide support for victims and hold perpetrators accountable.
To get started, host a SAAPM Day of Action event; highlight the 2016 SAAPM Proclamation, signed by the President and/or an Army Senior Leader, invite a Commander to speak, host a viewing of a film such as “The Effects of Sexual Assault/Sexual Harassment on the Army Profession,” by the Center for the Army Profession and Ethic, a live performance of Got Your Back or organize an interactive, educational forum with local and community resources.
Engage your online community by changing your Command’s Facebook and Twitter profiles and social media messaging to SAAPM and your Day of Action event(s) with photos.
The Army is on the offensive in the fight against sexual assault.
The Chief of Staff of the Army, General Mark Milley’s top three priorities are Readiness, Future Army, and Taking Care of the Troops. All of these priorities focus on the Nation’s most valued asset, our people — Soldiers, Civilians, and their Families.
As a Family, we must speak up for victims and survivors, speak loudly about prevention and work until sexual harassment and assault are eliminated within our ranks.
The Office of the Staff Judge Advocate, 108th Training Command (IET), publishes the results of the following action(s):
- A Staff Sergeant assigned to the 397th Regiment, 95th Training Division, was convicted on 18 September 2015 of one specification of rape. The Soldier was sentenced to seven (7) years confinement, issued a dishonorable discharged, reduced to the grade of E-1 with total forfeitures of pay and allowances.
- A Sergeant First Class assigned to the 323rd Regiment, 98th Training Division was issued a GOMOR on 4 December 2015 and involuntary administrative separation proceedings will be initiated for abusive sexual contact.
- The Army is committed to eliminating incidents of sex related crimes through a comprehensive policy that centers on awareness and prevention, training and education, victim advocacy, response, reporting and follow up. Army policy promotes sensitive care and confidential reporting for victims of sexual assault and accountability for those who commit these crimes. We must all be prepared to act and intervene when something does not seem right. Intervention to prevent sexual harassment and assault, hazing, discrimination or any other crime, misconduct or violation of the Army Values is the standard, and we must all live up to it. | <urn:uuid:685398b4-4b7c-4fa8-868a-556a060937a0> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.thegriffon108.com/sexual-assault-awareness-month/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570921.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809094531-20220809124531-00276.warc.gz | en | 0.922655 | 891 | 2.328125 | 2 |
1. A key was turned in latter days,A blessing to restore--A gift of charity and peace--To earth forevermore.Our Father, we would turn our heartsTo those who seek thy face,Give hope and comfort to the poorIn mem'ry of thy grace.
2. A hand of mercy we'll extend;Thy Son has shown the way.And light and knowledge will attendOur service in his name.O sisters, let us join our hands;We'll humbly seek his face,Assure our hearts before our LordBy deeds of love and praise.
Text: Jan Underwood Pinborough, b. 1954; based on History of the Church, 4:607. (c) 1985 IRIMusic: Charlene A. Newell, b. 1938. (c) 1985 IRI | <urn:uuid:eafc5fa8-be45-49d5-a55e-17e6832a2213> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://www.lds.org/music/library/hymns/a-key-was-turned-in-latter-days-women?lang=eng&country=hk | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720845.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00087-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919196 | 169 | 1.742188 | 2 |
FIN/370, Week 1 assignment.
Finance, or financial management is concerned with the maintenance and creation of economic value or wealth for a business. This includes making and dealing with financial decisions and a focus on creating wealth.
o Efficient market
A market in which the values of securities at any instant in time fully reflect all available information, which results in the market value and the intrinsic value being the same. This concept is used in businesses to perform well for shareholders and to maximize shareholder wealth.
o Primary market
Transactions in securities offered for the first time to potential investors. This type of transaction increased the total stock of financial assets outstanding in the economy.
o Secondary market
The market in which stock previously issued by the firm trades. These transactions contain previously purchased stock during the initial offering and resold by the owner or consumer.
Risk encompasses many terms, such as financial risk, interest rate risk, firm- specific risk, company-unique risk, exchange rate risk, etc. The word risk itself in business means the likely variability associated with expected revenue or income streams.
A certificate or piece of paper that proves ownership of stocks, bonds, and other investments. These certificates may be bearer, meaning they entitle the holder to right under the security, or registered, meaning they entitle the holder to rights only if he or she appears on a security register maintained by the issuer or an intermediary.
Stock is a security issued in the form of shares that represent ownership interests in a company. There are several types of stock such as common stock, adjustable rate preferred stock, convertible preferred stock, cumulative... | <urn:uuid:aeb72d23-b2dc-4786-8b2c-1a5b0971d198> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.studymode.com/essays/Fin370-Week-1-376055.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280763.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00513-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947702 | 327 | 2.484375 | 2 |
Bamboo is a fast growing plant from the subfamily (Bambusoideae) of flowering perennial evergreen plants in the grass family Poaceae.
It is a useful material for construction of buildings and other uses such as flooring, fencing, furniture, utensils, cutting boards, bowls, fabric, scaffolding, etc. Also, shoots (sprouts) of some varieties of bamboo are edible.
Uses[edit | edit source]
Construction[edit | edit source]
Bamboo can be utilized as a building material for scaffolding, bridges, houses and buildings. Bamboo, like wood, is a natural composite material with a high strength-to-weight ratio useful for structures. Bamboo's strength-to-weight ratio is similar to timber, and its strength is generally similar to a strong softwood or hardwood timber.
Bamboos are some of the fastest-growing plants in the world, due to a unique rhizome-dependent system. Certain species of bamboo can grow up to 91 cm within a 24-hour period, or nearly 4 cm/h.
Crafts[edit | edit source]
Bamboo crafts are craft items made from bamboo. A range of items can be handcrafted from bamboo, often needing few or basic tools. Here are some items as examples:
- Bamboo furniture
- Bamboo placemats and coasters
- Bamboo clothing and other bamboo fabric items
- Bamboo toys
- Bamboo bowls and craft boxes
- Bamboo wind chimes
- Bamboo birdfeeders and nesting boxes
- Bamboo lamps and lanterns
- Bamboo craft ladders (for hanging towels and quilts)
- Bamboo clocks
- Bamboo planters or plant containers
- Bamboo instruments
- Bamboo decorations
- Bamboo whistles
- Bamboo candleholders
- Bamboo room and window screens (and window shutters)
- Bamboo garden fountains and water features
- Bamboo baskets
- Bamboo mats
- Bamboo miniature furniture and models
- Bamboo joints for house
- Bamboo demonstration motor
- Bamboo boards for walls
- Bamboo bicycles
Fabric[edit | edit source]
Bamboo fabric is the material made from the bamboo plant. The fabric is made from the pulp of bamboo grass. It's a versatile, soft and long-wearing fabric. As a fabric, bamboo is sustainable from its growth and harvesting through to using and disposing of it.
Other[edit | edit source]
- Many varieties are edible as shoots
- Dried, can be used in construction
- Some varieties have medicinal properties
Non-Traditional Uses[edit | edit source]
What about making a labyrinth out of live bamboo plants ? If you had a cheap enough supply of 24" flexible metal (galvanized sheet metal comes in 4'x8' and 4'x12' sheets) you could lay out the paths, then plant the walls with bamboo. After it gets going well, cover the walks with a non-decomposing mulch. What do you think ? How much metal would you need ?
Sustainability[edit | edit source]
Bamboo is the largest member of the grass family and is considered to be the fastest growing woody plant in the world. It can thrive in a diversity of climates, with much of it being grown in Asia. This fast growth rate of bamboo and its ability to grow in many different areas and climates makes it a sustainable product, harvested quickly and easily replaced. It has enormous versatility when used for the textile industry.
Growth of bamboo minimises carbon dioxide emissions and generates more oxygen than a stand of trees. In addition, bamboo can help prevent soil erosion (it is not uprooted when harvested), helps to slow deforestation (as an alternative source of timber or in place of cotton) and, in general, can be grown without irrigation, thereby saving water.
Species[edit | edit source]
- Chusquea Culeou
- Fargesia Murieliae Simba
- Fargesia Nitida
- Hibanibambusa Tranquillas Shiroshima
- Indocalamus Tesselatus
- Phyllostachys Edulis
- Phyllostachys Heterocycla Pubescens
- Phyllostachys Nigra
- Phyllostachys Viridiglaucescens
- Phyllostachys Vivax Aureocaulis
- Pleioblastus Chino Aureostriatus
- Pleioblastus Distichus
- Pleioblastus Viridistriatus Auricomus
- Pseudosasa Japonica
- Qiongzhuea Tumidinoda
- Sasa Pulmata F. Nebulosa
- Sasa Veitchii
- Shibataea Kumasaca
Buying and Growing Bamboo[edit | edit source]
Bamboos prefer moist and rich soil for best growth. However, many bamboos can tolerate a range of soil and climate conditions, you just need to select the right one. Some bamboos are invasive but there are non-invasive, smaller varieties of bamboo that can be grown in the garden without having them take over. Some of these include:
- Miniature sacred bamboo (Nandina domestica "Nana") - this is a dwarf variety
- Hedge bamboo (B. multiplex) – this variety is great for containers and can also be grown as a hedge
- Giant timber bamboo (Bambusa oldhamii) - this is a good screening plant that can be trained as a hedge
- Buddha's belly bamboo (B. ventricosa) – with the right care, this bamboo can be kept small and non-spreading
There are between 1,020 and 1,070 species of Bamboo worldwide and around 200 of the hardier species are sucessfully grown in the UK and Europe. Almost all of the species sold in the UK are fine for growing outside, all the year round, provided they are situated in a suitable place in the garden. Some like a little shade whilst others like full sun. If you have no room in your flower beds they can be grown in large tubs, providing you have a cool greenhouse or conservatory to keep them from the frost in winter. The leaves can withstand very low temperatures, but the roots cannot. Also when keeping bamboo in containers you must be careful that the soil never dries out, as this can be fatal for the plant.
Bamboo plants can be purchased from a variety of outlets including specialised nurseries (can be expensive, but you are assured of a good healthy specimen), garden centres (usually only a few species available), market stalls (usually a lot cheaper), and occasionally, for just a few pounds each, at Car Boot Sales! I have noticed that this year there are more and more outlets selling bamboo, and consequently the price has at last started to come down. There is no point in buying a large expensive specimen from a specialist bamboo supplier if you just want one of the common species and don't mind waiting a year or two for it to mature. If the species on sale is not named, and cheap enough (only a few pounds) take a chance. As long as it looks healthy it will probably make a good plant, and you can always try to identify it later. Small specimens are sometimes hard to identify until they are a few years old, and a good mature culm is visible. Most small leaf bamboos will tolerate a lot of sun, although Fargesia/Sinarundinaria species like more shade. A good guide with small leaf ones is to observe them when in full hot sun. If the leaves fold up they are probably shade preferering species. If the leaves stay open they probably enjoy full sun. Large leaf species usually prefer some shade.
When buying bamboo plants look for a good healthy specimen. Plants in very small pots 3" or 4" are likely to be recently taken divisions (cuttings) and may not have matured. These take a lot more nurturing than larger established specimens. Look for a plant in a 7" pot or larger. Always try to choose a plant with new shoots emerging from the soil, as this will indicate that they have an established root system. Avoid plant with lots of dead leaves and no new shoots, as these could be last year's divisions which have not quite made it! If possible (and a serious nurseryman will not object to this) tap out the plant from it's pot and examine the root ball. If the plant is pot-bound don't worry, as this is a good sign and shows vigourous growth. A good sign is shoots (rhyzomes) encircling the pot trying to travel or get out; this indicates an established root system. Pot bound plants should of course be replanted into a larger pot (two or three inches larger in diameter should suffice) if you intend to keep them as container specimens. If not they can be planted into a suitable place in your flower bed. They are best repotted in spring or summer (their normal growing period) but should be left in their original pots over the winter.Warning... when you plant a bamboo into your flower bed allow plenty of space for it to spread. A few species are fairly compact, but the majority will spread and try to take over your garden. Don't be put off by this, as they will take several years to become large stands (the name for large areas of bamboo), and can be kept in check by removing the straying shoots and runners each year. Another way of keeping them in check is to plant them in a contained area. A large container (minimum 18" across by 24" deep, with drainage holes in the bottom) can be sunk into the ground, or large concrete drain and sewer pipes (at least a metre deep) can be used. This will confine the plant to a small closely knit clump. A recent innovation in my own garden was to use thick plastic shuttering between and around separate species. Take care to water them regularly in hot summers as they can still dry out.
You don't have to have a large garden to grow bamboo, as Figure 1 shows. This plot is just 10ft wide by 4 ft deep and contains 4 large species at the back and 4 small species at the front, as well as a few small ornamental grasses. The larger species bamboos are separated in the ground by thick plastic dividers, and the smaller species are in pots hidden below the surface of the soil. When, evetually the plants become too big for their individual plots they can have the outer regions cropped and used for divisions for growing on.
Growing From Seed[edit | edit source]
A difficult, but not impossible, excercise. You cannot buy (as far as I know) bamboo seeds in a garden centre or nursery, as they are a bit of a rarety. The Bamboo Society has had a scheme up and running for a year or more now, and members are distributed seed that is sent to the Society from all over the world. I have managed to raise over half a dozen varieties myself, in a cool greenhouse; but they do seem to do best on the proverbial 'kitchen windowsill'. They take several months to get to a few inches high, and several years to make a good plant. It is essential that they are planted as soon as possible after receiving or put into cold storage in the refridgerator if conditions are not suitable due to the climate. The best results are with seed planted in the Spring, but you can get results at any time of the year. I managed to germinate some on the windowsill in November. The germination rate can be very low, from only a few percent, to up to 80 percent, so don't be dissapointed if you only get a few to sprout. If you are interested in this please contact the Bamboo Society, below, join up and get your free supply. All it costs is a supply of S.A.E's for your seeds to be sent to you as soon as they are available. If on the other hand, you live abroad, or in a climate where bamboo is seeding, save the seeds and contact the society. Remember, some bamboo only seeds every 150 years!
For details of the European Bamboo Society (Great Britain), email the Membership Secretary, Colin Ellis at email@example.com
Warning[edit | edit source]
WARNING!!! Bamboo can be very invasive. Even in temperate climates, it can take over a yard in no time at all. I can only image how fast it would grow in the tropics. A solid steel barrier at least 24" tall burried in the ground is one way to stop the spreading. Do not plant uncontained bamboo as a living fence. It will take over your yard, as well as your neighbors'.
See also[edit | edit source]
[edit | edit source]
- Wikipedia: Bamboo
- American Bamboo Society
- http://web.archive.org/web/20190928144557/http://www.americanbamboo.org:80/GeneralInfo.html Very nice general information from the American Bamboo Society
- http://web.archive.org/web/20100529041611/http://attra.ncat.org:80/attra-pub/bamboo.html Bamboo: A Multipurpose Agroforestry Crop
Sources and citations[edit | edit source]
Original Content courtesy of Mike J. Goodall, firstname.lastname@example.org Used with permission | <urn:uuid:8186d6dc-a4cd-4ee1-abe4-a6a06c23e0b6> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.appropedia.org/Bamboo | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573193.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818094131-20220818124131-00477.warc.gz | en | 0.94122 | 2,990 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Bit-tech Make Your Own Raspberry Pi Case Competition
With Mod of the Year
now over, we have a little something for you to beat those post eye-candy blues. Our first modding competition of the year revolves around the Raspberry Pi – if you don’t know what it is, take a look at our extensive review of it here
Why Raspberry Pi? Well, we’re conscious of other competitions or fully-fledged case mods and scratchbuilds being pricy ways to mod; as the Raspberry Pi is so small and doesn't require anything in the way of cooling, it’s the perfect subject for a budget modding competition that everyone can be involved in. For £10 (you can spend more if you wish) you'll be able to pick up all the materials you need and if you’d prefer to work with your own example of this dinky motherboard, they can be had for less than £35.
We’re offering you the chance to win your very own Rasberry Pi Model B. All you have to do is build your own case for the Model B Rev 2. Of course, we’re not just talking about sticking it to a piece of acrylic or cardboard. We want the case to fully-enclose the motherboard and look funky, sleek, crazy or whatever you feel epitomizes the best case for a Raspberry Pi
The only stipulation is that it remains fairly small (see below for the maximum dimensions). This is to keep the cost of entering down – as the Raspberry Pi is so small, a sheet of acrylic or wood to make a case should cost less than £10 so everyone can have a go. Not interested in the Raspberry Pi? Why not join the competition anyway to stretch those modding fingers?
- 1st Place Prize - Raspberry Pi Model B and Raspberry Pi User Guide book by Eben Upton and Gareth Halfacree
- 2nd and 3rd place - Raspberry Pi User Guide book by Eben Upton and Gareth Halfacree
Raspberry Pi board and books donated by Wiley (@WileyTechUK
), publishers of Raspberry Pi User Guide
Click to enlarge
- Competition is now open to everyone wherever you live!
- The maximum dimensions of the case are 150mm x 150mm x 150mm (roughly six inches cubed).
- You need to allow for the various ports to be accessible
- You need to be able to mount the motherboard correctly using the mounting holes (these were added on the latest Rev 2 version)
- You need to create the case from scratch i.e. you can’t use an existing object unless it’s for donor parts
- You need to complete your case and send us an email by the deadline (see deadlines below)
If you’re new to scratchbuilds, acrylic and wood are easy materials to work with but other ideas could include aluminium, casting resin or fiberglass. The choice is yours - you can check out some examples of cases here
and don't forget the numerous guides we have in our forum
How to enter:
Start a project log in the normal way in our forum with ‘Rasberry Pi Competition’ at the beginning of the title eg Rasberry Pi Competition: Your project name
Don’t forget that as usual, if you’re just planning your project, you need to create a thread in the modding forum first. When you've actually started work, drop us a line at firstname.lastname@example.org
and we'll move it to the project log forum for you.
You must complete your case by 30th April, sending us an email with the following information:
- URL link to your project log in bit-tech's project log forum
- A 100-200 word summary of your case (why you chose the design, any special features your case has, are you pleased with it)
- Six photos of the finished case (If you send portrait as well as landscape images, you need to include pairs of each- eg two portrait and four landscape not one of each or three of each)
We'll be featuring projects in regular updates between now and the deadline. The winner will be decided by a community vote shortly after the deadline in our forum. Any questions feel free to email us. | <urn:uuid:32b58413-80c4-4f51-b3bf-64d75f2fb00f> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2013/01/22/bit-tech-raspberry-pi-case-competition/1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281746.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00289-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920039 | 889 | 2.015625 | 2 |
In business, information is crucial for making smart decisions. Most businesses require some type of centralized storage system. Paper logs, filing cabinets, or computer databases are all common types of systems to store business data. Computer databases and servers are becoming more and more popular even in small businesses. The need for computer servers in business is growing; however, choosing a server and a server operating system can be difficult to do. Linux servers provide excellent performance for a low cost.
This article will cover three questions:
1. What is Linux?
2. Which Linux distribution is right for me?
3. How much will a Linux server cost?
What is Linux?
Open Source. Linux is an Open Source operating system based on Unix. “Open Source” means that the source code is publicly available and freely distributed, but it doesn’t mean one can do anything they want with it.1 On the Linux kernel development page, the following description is found:
Linux is a clone of the operating system Unix, written from scratch by Linus Torvalds with assistance from a loosely-knit team of hackers across the Net. It aims towards POSIX and Single UNIX Specification compliance.
It has all the features you would expect in a modern fully-fledged Unix, including true multitasking, virtual memory, shared libraries, demand loading, shared copy-on- write executables, proper memory management, and multistack networking including IPv4 and IPv6.2
History. The beginnings of the modern Linux operating system (or OS) began in August 1991 when a computer scientist student named Linus Torvalds posted on a Usenet group about a project he had been working on. He didn’t think
his hobbyist project would get far, but Linux quickly snowballed into what we have today.3
Linux Today. In the last decade, Linux has changed significantly and is used in many different capacities in today’s world.4
Linux began as a server OS and eventually became a useful desktop OS. Linux is also found in many mobile phones and similar devices.5
As a server OS, Linux powers a large majority of the web with either Apache or Nginx web
server software, which are both open source. Along with Apache and Nginx, a variety of database back ends are used, namely PostgreSQL and MySQL.6 Figure 1 shows the percentage of Unix/Linux servers running websites today. Unix/Linux servers power about two-thirds of all websites on the web today.
Many large companies rely on Linux for business operations. Google, Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, and even McDonald’s are all major companies using Linux.8
Which Linux distribution is right for me?
Flavors. Linux has a variety of “flavors” to choose from. Each distribution has different areas of focus. With so many different options, it can be hard to choose the right one. Figure 2 lists the top ten Linux server distributions available today.
Each of the Linux distributions described in the Figure 2 has a specific purpose. Some work better in certain areas than others. For general server purposes (i.e., hosting a website, database, etc.) almost any distribution will work well.
Ubuntu. Ubuntu is one of the best Linux server OSes around. The operating system is feature- packed and user-friendly. ServerWatch.com describes it as the following:
Ubuntu [is] at the top of almost every Linux- related list…. [T]he Debian-based Ubuntu is in a class by itself. Canonical’s Ubuntu surpasses all other Linux server distributions — from its simple installation to its excellent hardware discovery to its world- class commercial support, Ubuntu leaves the others fumbling in the dusty distance.9
How much will a Linux server cost?
Linux OSes have a lower cost of ownership than Microsoft’s Windows Server, making Linux an attractive prospect for IT professionals. Linux also helps prevent companies from being locked into a specific vendor for software and hardware support.11
Generally, most Linux distributions are free to use with no official technical support. Some Linux distributions are developed by commercial companies (e.g., SUSE Linux Enterprise is developed by Novell, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is developed by Red Hat). Although these may be free to download and install, technical support will be limited unless a tech support subscription fee is paid.12
Most Linux support packages will cost anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars per year, depending on how many processors and cores the server has and what capacity the server is providing (e.g., entry level, virtual datacenter, workstation, etc). Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers both standard and premium subscriptions that range from $799 – 5,400 for a standard subscription, and $1,299 – 8,600 per year.13
Windows Server uses client access licenses (CAL) for various capacities. One must purchase a specified number of CALs for the amount of users needed to access the system. Five CALs can cost as little as $572, but twenty-five CALs cost $3,730 and five hundred CALs cost $81,850.14
Linux can cost as little as nothing or up to a few thousand dollars a year. Depending on the usage situation, Linux can be a cheaper alternative to Windows Server.
Overall Linux provides great solutions for businesses and IT professionals. The OS has a long history of reliability and performance. Linux can be used to fill virtually any server roll with any one of the many OS distribution available. With such low costs, Linux is a great choice for any business.
1. “The Open Source Definition.” The Open Source Initiative. Accessed February 26, 2015. https://opensource.org/osd.
2. Linus Torvalds. “Torvalds/linux.” GitHub. October 28, 2012. Accessed February 26, 2015. https://github.com/torvalds/linux.
3. Brian Proffitt. “What Is Linux: An Overview of the Linux Operating System.” Linux.com. April 3, 2009. Accessed February 26, 2015. https://www.linux.com/learn/new-user- guides/376.
4. Przemyslaw Chmielecki. “Linux Myth. Open Source Software in Information Society.” Varazdin Development and Entrepreneurship Agency (VADEA), Oct 24, 2014. Accessed February 25, 2015. https://search.proquest.com/docview/1621414 396?accountid=4488.
6. “August 2013 Web Server Survey.” Netcraft. August 9, 2013. Accessed February 26, 2015. https://news.netcraft.com/archives/2013/08/09/august-2013-web- server-survey.html.
7. “W3Techs – World Wide Web Technology Surveys.” W3Techs. Accessed March 3, 2015. https://w3techs.com.
8. Avishek Kumar. “30 Big Companies and Devices Running on GNU/Linux.” Tecmint Linux. February 24, 2014. Accessed March 3, 2015. https://www.tecmint.com/big-companies- and-devices-running-on-gnulinux/.
9. Hess Katherine. “The Top 10 Linux Server Distributions.” ServerWatch.com. August 26, 2010. Accessed March 3, 2015. https://www.serverwatch.com/columns/article.php /3900711/The-Top-10-Linux-Server-Distributions.htm.
10. “Search Distributions.” DistroWatch.com. Accessed February 26, 2015. https://distrowatch.com/search.php?category=Server.
11. “Suse Study shows Linux Entrenched in the Enterprise.” Wireless News. August 16, 2013. https://search.proquest.com/docview/1426313452?accountid=448
12. “Red Hat Store.” Redhat.com. Accessed February 26, 2015. https://www.redhat.com/wapps/store/catalog.html.
14. “Savings Using Linux over Windows.” 2X. Accessed March 3, 2015. https://www.2x.com/learn/whitepapers/savings- using-linux/. | <urn:uuid:d3e5d814-4365-4480-a672-1c6b719ba62f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://jamesonricks.com/linux-servers-a-brief-overview/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571090.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809215803-20220810005803-00070.warc.gz | en | 0.900979 | 1,816 | 2.875 | 3 |
Kastler, J. A. Louisiana State University, email@example.com
UPTAKE OF DISSOLVED AND SEDIMENTARY ORGANIC CARBON IN AN ESTUARINE ENVIRONMENT
Utilization of dissolved and sedimentary organic carbon were compared along a salinity gradient in Barataria Bay, Louisiana in February and June 1998. Water collected at freshwater and saltwater stations was filtered and inoculated with water from the same station containing bacteria. This bacteria inoculant was also mixed with solutions containing organic material removed from suspended and deposited sediment collected at the same locations. Bacteria populations increased in all treatments; variations in the amount of growth in a population were related to differences in the source of the organic material, the time of year it was collected and the location from which it was collected. Maximum growth occurred in flasks containing organic material removed from suspended sediment that was collected at the saltwater site. Flasks containing dissolved organic material experienced relatively low growth, but it is likely to be quantitatively more important than sedimentary organic material because of its abundance in the water column. The importance of sedimentary organic material to water column consumers is related to suspended sediment concentration and organic content, as well as the concentration of dissolved organic carbon in the water.
Day: Tuesday, Feb. 2
Time: 09:15 - 09:30am
Location: Eldorado Hotel | <urn:uuid:88553ab0-29a2-4c58-be6e-106cf8c25927> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.aslo.org/meetings/santafe1999/abstracts/SS34TU0915E.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284405.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00039-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955427 | 300 | 2.90625 | 3 |
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The kidneys' functional state is influenced by factors of systemic hemodynamics and left ventricular function. The discovery of mechanisms of renal dysfunction that affect cardiac function has contributed to a fuller picture of these two systems' mutual influence. The common cause of cardiovascular and renal disease is now understood, mainly because of the common pathogenetic mechanisms of both forms of pathology and their mutually aggravating effects.
Source link: https://zenodo.org/record/6684775
* Please keep in mind that all text is summarized by machine, we do not bear any responsibility, and you should always check original source before taking any actions | <urn:uuid:eaa5f7ad-5e88-4ded-a51e-fdc154b03bdd> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://scholar.plex.page/Chronic_Kidney_Disease-Zenodo | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00473.warc.gz | en | 0.933697 | 138 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Researchers at North Carolina State University are turning cockroaches into joystick-controlled cyborgs for use in search and rescue operations. With a wireless interface and tiny electrodes, the scientists say they are attempting to capitalize on the insects’ unique ability to scuttle in and out of the tiniest crevice. The goal is to wire the insect with microphones and/or a tiny camera and send them into disaster zones or collapsed buildings.
The research has been controversial and even people who don’t like cockroaches has objected to it on ethical grounds. But the scientists are dismissing their detractors by saying that what they do causes no pain to the cockroach and is no different then putting stirrup on a horse, something which we have done for thousands of years.
Original story by Ben Gruber for Reuters:
- The BrainGate Project: Paralysed Woman Moves Robot Hand With Her Mind
- NeuroMarketing To Help Advertisers Read Our Minds, Sell Us More Crap We Don’t Need
- Mind Technologies’ Mind Mouse And Master Mind Thought-Controlled Software
- Mind Reading, Thought Control and Neuro Marketing: Is “the Lord of the World” still science fiction? | <urn:uuid:20cf7ec6-81c4-4db9-be0d-c3214dc29d1e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.singularityweblog.com/cyborg-cockroach-wired-for-search-and-rescue/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280718.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00406-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905485 | 250 | 2.203125 | 2 |
In March, Britain’s Daily Telegraph and GB News channel both reported that the National Museum of Wales would be relabelling a replica of the first steam-powered locomotive, unveiled by its Cornish inventor Richard Trevithick in 1804. Trevithick had no links to slavery, but the amendment has apparently been included anyway as part of the museum’s commitment to “decolonizing” its collection. In a statement defending what it described as the addition of “historical context,” the museum said: “Although there might not be direct links between the Trevithick locomotive and the slave trade, we acknowledge the reality that links to slavery are woven into the warp and weft of Welsh society.” The statement continued:
Trade and colonial exploitation were embedded in Wales’ economy and society and were fundamental to Wales’ development as an industrialised nation. As we continue to audit the collection, we will explore how the slave trade linked and fed into the development of the steam and railway infrastructure in Wales.
In a similar vein, back in 2014, MSNBC broadcaster Chris Hayes wrote an article for the Nation in which he drew a rather tenuous connection between human slavery—specifically, the kind practiced in the US prior to 1865—and the use of fossil fuels. Hayes argued that the reluctance of energy companies and their investors to forfeit the financial value of their fossil-fuel assets is analogous to the reluctance of pre-Civil-War southern slaveholders to surrender the financial value of their human “property.” He went on to assert that environmentalists attacking the use of fossil fuels are in a moral and tactical position similar to that of the pre-war Abolitionists.
This whole line of thinking reminds me of a few things:
1) Shortly after obtaining his freedom, former slave Frederick Douglass visited a shipyard in New Bedford, where he observed the cargo being unloaded. In his memoir, My Bondage and My Freedom, Douglass wrote:
In a southern port, twenty or thirty hands would have been employed to do what five or six did here, with the aid of a single ox attached to the end of a fall. Main strength, unassisted by skill, is slavery’s method of labor. An old ox, worth eighty dollars, was doing, in New Bedford, what would have required fifteen thousand dollars worth of human bones and muscles to have performed in a southern port.
2) Sometime around 1900, a young PR man recently hired by General Electric in Schenectady realized he had a problem. He had obtained his job with glowing promises of all the great press coverage he would generate for the company. But now his boss wanted him to place “a terrific front-page story” about a 60,000-kilowatt turbine generator that the company had just sold to Commonwealth Edison. The PR man knew that such a story would only merit a paragraph on the financial pages, so he went to see GE’s legendary research genius Charles Steinmetz for advice. Headlines, he explained, need drama, and “there’s nothing dramatic about a generator.”
Following a quick calculation, Steinmetz determined that this particular machine could perform the physical work of 5.4 million men. The slave population in the US on the eve of the Civil War had been 4.7 million. “I suggest,” Steinmetz told the young PR man, “you send out a story that says we are building a single machine that, through the miracle of electricity, will each day do more work than the combined slave population of the nation at the time of the Civil War.”
3) Owen Young was a farm boy who grew up to become the Chairman of General Electric. Young’s biographer Ida Tarbell offers this description of what life had been like for a farm wife on “wash day” back then:
[Young] drew from his memory a vivid picture of its miseries: the milk coming into the house from the barn; the skimming to be done; the pans and buckets to be washed; the churn waiting attention; the wash boiler on the stove while the wash tub and its back-breaking device, the washboard, stood by; the kitchen full of steam; hungry men at the door anxious to get at the day’s work and one pale, tired, and discouraged woman in the midst of this confusion.
Hayes does not seem to understand—or at least, he was reluctant to recognize—that the benefits of an energy source accrue not only to the companies and individuals who develop and own that energy source, but also to the people of the society at large. The benefits of the coal and oil (and later natural gas) burned to power the turbines made by Owen Young’s company did not go only to the resource owners and to GE and the utility companies, but also to the farm housewives with whom he had grown up.
4) Fanny Kemble (1809–1893) was a famous British actress who was also an avid diarist and a brilliant social observer. In 1830, she became one of the first people to ride on the newly constructed London-to-Manchester railway line. Her escort on the trip was none other than George Stephenson, the self-taught engineer who had been the driving force behind the line’s construction. She noted that the British government had rejected Stephenson’s railroad plans on grounds of unfeasibility, but added:
The Liverpool merchants, whose far-sighted self-interest prompted them to wise liberality, had accepted the risk of George Stephenson’s magnificent experiment, which the committee of inquiry of the House of Commons had rejected for the government. These men, of less intellectual culture than the Parliament members, had the adventurous imagination proper to great speculators, which is the poetry of the counting-house and wharf, and were better able to receive the enthusiastic infection of the great projector’s sanguine hope than the Westminster committee.
She contrasted the character of men such as Stephenson with that of the aristocracy, as represented by Lord Alvanley in particular: “I would rather pass a day with Stephenson than with Lord Alvanley, though the one is a coal-digger by birth, who occasionally murders the King’s English, and the other is the keenest wit and one of the finest gentlemen about town.”
Kemble had a bit of a crush on Stephenson, to whom she referred as “the master of all these marvels, with whom I am most horribly in love.” Nevertheless, industrialization—Trevithick’s locomotive, Stephenson’s railway, and the steam engine itself (which Boris Johnson once called a “doomsday machine”)—enabled self-made men like Stephenson to gain influence they never could have had in a pre-industrial society, and that this reduced the relative power of the Lord Alvanleys. Aristocrats and would-be aristocrats have tended to disapprove of technologies which enable physical and social mobility. The railroads, Lord Wellington fretted, would “encourage the common people to move about needlessly.”
If I had to guess, I’d say the people who run institutions like the National Museum of Wales are generally more like the Alvanelys of the world than the Stephensons (although perhaps without the wit for which Alvanley was renowned). In any event, the historical timeline suggests that the sailing ship, the cannon, and the instruments and mathematics of celestial navigation were more obviously enablers of the slavery and colonial expansion than Trevithick’s locomotive. But such a link fails to combine the anti-racist lesson with an environmentalist one. In fact, the human use of the horse likely did more to aid colonial conquest, since it enabled the use of chariots and mounted cavalry. Not to mention all forms of metalworking, from bronze to steel.
When a society compulsively disrespects its historical accomplishments—when it obsessively seeks to turn every good thing into a bad thing—the outlook for that society is bleak. It destroys social cohesion, and sends the wrong kind of message to actual and potential opponents. The matter of the steam locomotive display in Wales may seem minor, and certainly trivial when compared with the appalling events in Ukraine or the threat of Iranian nuclear weapons. But it is not.
The behavior of the museum administrators in Wales is of a piece with other contemporary symptoms, such as the eagerness within influential circles in the US to embrace the conclusions of the New York Times’s revisionist 1619 project. It is part of the politicization of everything. Science, technology, and art cannot—indeed, must not—be appreciated simply on the grounds of beauty, utility, or truth; everything must be reduced to race, gender, and other academically and media-approved categories of analysis.
Trends such as these have real-world implications, including the growth and decline of nations and their relative power. Writing in 1940, C.S. Lewis, warned about the dangers of what he called the National Repentance Movement, which focused on the need to apologize for Britain’s sins (thought to include the Treaty of Versailles) and to forgive Britain’s enemies.
Certainly, the British State had done many bad things during its long and eventful history—as well as many good things. But the excessive focus on its sins was part of a phenomenon manifested in a 1933 motion debated at the Oxford Union: “This House will under no circumstances fight for King and country.” To the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese, attitudes like these indicated that aggression would not meet much resistance. They also informed a policy of appeasement.
Liberals and progressives (as they call themselves) claim to be greatly concerned with physical sustainability of resources and ecosystems. But they are too eager to undercut the social sustainability of their own societies and the physical infrastructures on which those societies depend, however fond they may be of repeating the word “infrastructure.”
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Improved Automation Complexity - The Future of Customer Service on Twitter?
There’s an interesting pilot program being conducted by Twitter in India, though the full potential of its application may not be immediately evident.
First, a bit of background context - according to a World Health Organization report, the Indian capital Delhi is the most polluted city in the world. In order to tackle this issue, the Indian Government's trialling a new system to reduce pollution called “odd-even” car rationing. Essentially, the scheme will see private cars with number plates ending in odd numbers only permitted to drive on Delhi’s roads on odd dates, while number plates ending in even numbers will be allowed on even dates. The restrictions will be in effect between 8am to 8pm, Monday to Saturday, with the trial scheduled to run for 15 days starting from January 1st, 2016.
It sounds a little extreme, though it’s not unprecedented – Chinese authorities have implemented similar restrictions in Beijing since 2008 (they were originally put in place ahead of the Olympic Games). And given there are currently more than 8.5 million vehicles on Delhi’s roads – with more and more new cars being added to that mass every day – it’s clear to see that something needs to be done, and that it'll likely require large-scale measures like these to address the issue.
The aim of the scheme is to get more people using public transport and lesser polluting methods of travel to get into the city. As such, authorities are expecting a significant influx of people looking to catch trains and buses from January 1st, many of whom will be unfamiliar with the current transport systems – where they need to go, what the most efficient routes are, what time the next train/bus arrives.To help with this, the Delhi Government’s working with Twitter to implement a new public transport information service for those looking for info about their travel options.
To access the information, all you need to do is tweet using the hashtag #PollutionFreeDelhi and include the origin and destination of your trip.
The system then accesses information from Delhi Transport Corporation and provides a complete rundown of your best public transport options, including fare details, traffic situation, and current weather conditions.
Here’s what it looks like in action:
While Twitter doesn’t spell out exactly how the backend system works, it’s clearly automated – responses are delivered within 1-2 minutes, faster than a person could collate and send the data, and the potential scale alone would require some level of programmatic input.
Alternatively, if you don’t want to be broadcasting your travel plans across the Twitter-sphere, you can send a Direct Message to @TransportDelhi and receive the information privately.
And while the system itself is not ground-breaking, and the back-end data process is not overly complex, it does provide some interesting food for thought on the ways in which Twitter can be used for customer service, and the possibilities that extend beyond how brands currently use the platform.
In fact, looking at this application immediately made me think of another technological innovation and how the big players are seeking to use it in similar ways – that innovation being Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Advancing the Conversation
Back in August, Facebook announced their ambitious new AI project for Messenger called ‘M’. M is a virtual assistant, similar to Apple’s voice-activated ‘Siri’, but M works on text-based commands sent to it via message.
Where M moves beyond the normal assistant is in its capacity to learn. M uses the many interactions it facilitates and - with a little help from a team of human assistants - M is developing an intuitive system for response that will, eventually, enable it to carry out increasingly complex tasks on behalf of those requesting help, without the requestor doing anything more than typing in commands. For example, you can ask M to find you cheap flights, book seats based on your historic preferences, and monitor tickets in case of price drops. You can get M to search the internet for a specific product, find the best price, then buy and ship you that product when it’s done so - or monitor auction sites to alert you when items hit their lowest cost. These are just a couple of possible applications, but they give you some idea of the potential of M – an AI system that can utilize the resources of the internet to help you maximize your money and time. And the more you use it, the better it gets.
AI is the next frontier of the tech world, the next big step that will revolutionize the way we do... well, everything. And while such developments also come with a level of concern about what computers with the capacity to learn might mean for humanity, the overarching sense is that AI can be hugely beneficial – imagine systems that can access all the knowledge of the internet in mere seconds, giving you access to complex solutions which you’d have no chance of ascertaining with on your own. This is why Facebook’s working so hard to develop their own AI capabilities, why Google’s doing the same – the company that can crack AI in a meaningful way will open up a whole new range of opportunities that'll quickly extend beyond the realms of what’s currently considered possible.
In this context, it’s interesting to see Twitter using their platform to deliver information, quickly and easily, in an automated way. This is not AI, of course, this is a long way off being able to respond to complex queries and deliver relevant results, but the basic application of this process is similar, and highlights the potential for Twitter to improve their customer service opportunities by offering their capabilities on this front to brands.
The Next Level?
Over the last year, Twitter’s been working to underline the platform’s potential as the customer service tool. In August they released a customer service handbook, outlining the ways in which brands can use Twitter to better service their customer needs. In that document, Twitter highlighted that more than 80% of customer service requests on social are happening on Twitter, with a more than 2.5X increase in the number of Tweets to brands and their customer service usernames in the past two years, showing that people are already turning to Twitter for quick responses from brands.
Twitter also took the shackles off DMs, eliminating restrictions on who can DM whom and the character length of those messages, all designed to better facilitate brand interactions on the platform. Given the popularity of Twitter for this purpose, it makes sense for them to focus on this element as a strength, but the development of systems like M and other measures Facebook’s working on to facilitate more direct communications between brands and customers via message could see Twitter lose ground on this front if it doesn’t innovate, and innovate quickly to keep people coming to their platform for such info.
The Indian transport integration could be something of a template in this regard – what if Twitter were to offer similar functionality to brands where they could create clever, automated response tools that would quickly deliver relevant info to customers on particular products and services? Automation, of course, is a dirty word in some social media circles, but what if that automation went beyond a basic trigger and response system and incorporated a range of more complex query options, like the Delhi Transport system does? You could tweet a brand asking if <store location> has <product> in <size> in stock. You could ask for a quick quote from a hotel by tweeting a specific hashtag with <check-in date> <check-out date>.
These are, again, relatively simple back-end processes – and similar tools are actually in use by some companies – but Twitter’s not doing enough to showcase the potential of such applications, particularly when you consider the amount of people who are already looking to the platform for such info.
While it’s not AI, there are ways that Twitter could utilize tweet data to create systems that would be able to respond with such info based on the most common requests and keywords, and the ability for brands to utilize such tools could be of significant value if there were an easy way for them to establish parameters and rules around how their automated systems would respond to such requests.
Being able to set up an auto-responder that tweets back based on the use of one term is largely not useful - and can even be problematic in that it can seem robotic. But a system based around answering the most common questions your brand's being asked, which can provide complex responses based on several data points at once, that would be of great interest. If Twitter was able to provide the back-end tools used in the Indian transport integration, applicable in a simple format, I suspect there’d be a great many brands who’d take note and look to build them into their own systems. This may be impossible – the query systems required may be highly complex – but IFTTT is able to connect systems using similar, stepped methodology. There are ways to do this that could be of benefit.
It’s not AI, but it could be considered the next best thing in terms of responsiveness, and it might help Twitter keep a hold of their position as a key platform for social customer service.
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ELLIS PARKER BUTLER
BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge 1918
COPYRIGHT, 1913, 1914, AND 1915, BY THE RED BOOK CORPORATION COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY ELLIS PARKER BUTLER
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published September 1918
THE HARD-BOILED EGG 3
THE PET 21
THE EAGLE'S CLAWS 43
THE OUBLIETTE 66
THE UN-BURGLARS 95
THE TWO-CENT STAMP 113
THE CHICKEN 138
THE DRAGON'S EYE 156
THE PROGRESSIVE MURDER 171
THE MISSING MR. MASTER 185
WAFFLES AND MUSTARD 205
THE ANONYMOUS WIGGLE 227
THE HALF OF A THOUSAND 247
DIETZ'S 7462 BESSIE JOHN 266
BURIED BONES 307
PHILO GUBB'S GREATEST CASE 329
"IN THE DETECKATIVE LINE NOTHING SOUNDS FOOLISH" Frontispiece
"THIS SHELL GAME IS EASY ENOUGH WHEN YOU KNOW HOW" 8
MR. WINTERBERRY DID NOT SEEM TO BE CONCEALED AMONG THEM 30
A HEAD SILHOUETTED AGAINST ONE OF THE GLOWING WINDOWS 44
"THESE HERE IS FALSE WHISKERS AND HAIR" 86
"WHO SENT YOU HERE, ANYWAY?" 106
UNDER HIS ARM HE CARRIED A SMALL BUNDLE 108
SHE MADE GESTURES WITH HER HANDS 128
"DETECKATING IS MY AIM AND MY PROFESSION" 138
WITH ANOTHER GROAN WIXY RAISED HIS HANDS 150
"THE 'ONGSOMBLE' OF MY COSTUME IS RUINED" 162
"THERE AIN'T A DAY HE DON'T SHOOT AND HIT ME" 178
THE MISSING MR. MASTER 202
"YOU ARE A MAN, AND BIG AND STRONG AND BRAVE-LIKE" 234
HE PERSPIRES, AND OUT COMES THE CRUEL ADMISSION 252
A MAN WHO LOOKED LIKE NAPOLEON BONAPARTE GONE TO SEED 268
HE WORE A SET OF RED UNDER-CHIN WHISKERS 280
"SHE THINKS IT'S HENRY. SHE'S FIXED UP THE GUEST BEDROOM FOR HIM" 304
"A DETECKATIVE LIKE YOU ARE OUGHTN'T TO NEED TWENTY-FIVE CENTS SO BAD AS THAT" 320
HE WAS FOLLOWED BY A LARGE AND GROWING GROUP INTENT ON WATCHING A DETECTIVE DETECT 340
THE CORRESPONDENCE-SCHOOL DETECTIVE
THE HARD-BOILED EGG
Walking close along the wall, to avoid the creaking floor boards, Philo Gubb, paper-hanger and student of the Rising Sun Detective Agency's Correspondence School of Detecting, tiptoed to the door of the bedroom he shared with the mysterious Mr. Critz. In appearance Mr. Gubb was tall and gaunt, reminding one of a modern Don Quixote or a human flamingo; by nature Mr. Gubb was the gentlest and most simple-minded of men. Now, bending his long, angular body almost double, he placed his eye to a crack in the door panel and stared into the room. Within, just out of the limited area of Mr. Gubb's vision, Roscoe Critz paused in his work and listened carefully. He heard the sharp whistle of Mr. Gubb's breath as it cut against the sharp edge of the crack in the panel, and he knew he was being spied upon. He placed his chubby hands on his knees and smiled at the door, while a red flush of triumph spread over his face.
Through the crack in the door Mr. Gubb could see the top of the washstand beside which Mr. Critz was sitting, but he could not see Mr. Critz. As he stared, however, he saw a plump hand appear and pick up, one by one, the articles lying on the washstand. They were: First, seven or eight half shells of English walnuts; second, a rubber shoe heel out of which a piece had been cut; third, a small rubber ball no larger than a pea; fourth, a paper-bound book; and lastly, a large and glittering brick of yellow gold. As the hand withdrew the golden brick, Mr. Gubb pressed his face closer against the door in his effort to see more, and suddenly the door flew open and Mr. Gubb sprawled on his hands and knees on the worn carpet of the bedroom.
"There, now!" said Mr. Critz. "There, now! Serves you right. Hope you hurt chuself!"
Mr. Gubb arose slowly, like a giraffe, and brushed his knees.
"Why?" he asked.
"Snoopin' an' sneakin' like that!" said Mr. Critz crossly. "Scarin' me to fits, a'most. How'd I know who 'twas? If you want to come in, why don't you come right in, 'stead of snoopin' an' sneakin' an' fallin' in that way?"
As he talked, Mr. Critz replaced the shells and the rubber heel and the rubber pea and the gold-brick on the washstand. He was a plump little man with a shiny bald head and a white goatee. As he talked, he bent his head down, so that he might look above the glasses of his spectacles; and in spite of his pretended anger he looked like nothing so much as a kindly, benevolent old gentleman—the sort of old gentleman that keeps a small store in a small village and sells writing-paper that smells of soap, and candy sticks out of a glass jar with a glass cover.
"How'd I know but what you was a detective?" he asked, in a gentler tone.
"I am," said Mr. Gubb soberly, seating himself on one of the two beds. "I'm putty near a deteckative, as you might say."
"Ding it all!" said Mr. Critz. "Now I got to go and hunt another room. I can't room with no detective."
"Well, now, Mr. Critz," said Mr. Gubb, "I don't want you should feel that way."
"Knowin' you are a detective makes me all nervous," complained Mr. Critz; "and a man in my business has to have a steady hand, don't he?"
"You ain't told me what your business is," said Mr. Gubb.
"You needn't pretend you don't know," said Mr. Critz. "Any detective that saw that stuff on the washstand would know."
"Well, of course," said Mr. Gubb, "I ain't a full deteckative yet. You can't look for me to guess things as quick as a full deteckative would. Of course that brick sort of looks like a gold-brick—"
"It is a gold-brick," said Mr. Critz.
"Yes," said Mr. Gubb. "But—I don't mean no offense, Mr. Critz—from the way you look—I sort of thought—well, that it was a gold-brick you'd bought."
Mr. Critz turned very red.
"Well, what if I did buy it?" he said. "That ain't any reason I can't sell it, is it? Just because a man buys eggs once—or twice—ain't any reason he shouldn't go into the business of egg-selling, is it? Just because I've bought one or two gold-bricks in my day ain't any reason I shouldn't go to sellin' 'em, is it?"
Mr. Gubb stared at Mr. Critz with unconcealed surprise.
"You ain't,—you ain't a con' man, are you, Mr. Critz?" he asked.
"If I ain't yet, that's no sign I ain't goin' to be," said Mr. Critz firmly. "One man has as good a right to try his hand at it as another, especially when a man has had my experience in it. Mr. Gubb, there ain't hardly a con' game I ain't been conned with. I been confidenced long enough; from now on I'm goin' to confidence other folks. That's what I'm goin' to do; and I won't be bothered by no detective livin' in the same room with me. Detectives and con' men don't mix noways! No, sir!"
"Well, sir," said Mr. Gubb, "I can see the sense of that. But you don't need to move right away. I don't aim to start in deteckating in earnest for a couple of months yet. I got a couple of jobs of paper-hanging and decorating to finish up, and I can't start in sleuthing until I get my star, anyway. And I don't get my star until I get one more lesson, and learn it, and send in the examination paper, and five dollars extra for the diploma. Then I'm goin' at it as a reg'lar business. It's a good business. Every day there's more crooks—excuse me, I didn't mean to say that."
"That's all right," said Mr. Critz kindly. "Call a spade a spade. If I ain't a crook yet, I hope to be soon."
"I didn't know how you'd feel about it," explained Mr. Gubb. "Tactfulness is strongly advised into the lessons of the Rising Sun Deteckative Agency Correspondence School of Deteckating—"
"Slocum, Ohio?" asked Mr. Critz quickly. "You didn't see the ad. in the 'Hearthstone and Farmside,' did you?"
"Yes, Slocum, Ohio," said Mr. Gubb, "and that is the paper I saw the ad. into; 'Big Money in Deteckating. Be a Sleuth. We can make you the equal of Sherlock Holmes in twelve lessons.' Why?"
"Well, sir," said Mr. Critz, "that's funny. That ad. was right atop of the one I saw, and I studied quite considerable before I could make up my mind whether 'twould be best for me to be a detective and go out and get square with the fellers that sold me gold-bricks and things by putting them in jail, or to even things up by sending for this book that was advertised right under the 'Rising Sun Correspondence School.' How come I settled to do as I done was that I had a sort of stock to start with, with a fust-class gold-brick, and some green goods I'd bought; and this book only cost a quatter of a dollar. And she's a hummer for a quatter of a dollar! A hummer!"
He pulled the paper-covered book from his pocket and handed it to Mr. Gubb. The title of the book was "The Complete Con' Man, by the King of the Grafters. Price 25 cents."
"That there book," said Mr. Critz proudly, as if he himself had written it, "tells everything a man need to know to work every con' game there is. Once I get it by heart, I won't be afraid to try any of them. Of course, I got to start in small. I can't hope to pull off a wire-tapping game right at the start, because that has to have a gang. You don't know anybody you could recommend for a gang, do you?"
"Not right offhand," said Mr. Gubb thoughtfully.
"If you wasn't goin' into the detective business," said Mr. Critz, "you'd be just the feller for me. You look sort of honest and not as if you was too bright, and that counts a lot. Even in this here simple little shell game I got to have a podner. I got to have a podner I can trust, so I can let him look like he was winnin' money off of me. You see," he explained, moving to the washstand, "this shell game is easy enough when you know how. I put three shells down like this, on a stand, and I put the little rubber pea on the stand, and then I take up the three shells like this, two in one hand and one in the other, and I wave 'em around over the pea, and maybe push the pea around a little, and I say, 'Come on! Come on! The hand is quicker than the eye!' And all of a suddent I put the shells down, and you think the pea is under one of them, like that—"
"I don't think the pea is under one of 'em," said Mr. Gubb. "I seen it roll onto the floor."
"It did roll onto the floor that time," said Mr. Critz apologetically. "It most generally does for me, yet. I ain't got it down to perfection yet. This is the way it ought to work—oh, pshaw! there she goes onto the floor again! Went under the bed that time. Here she is! Now, the way she ought to work is—there she goes again!"
"You got to practice that game a lot before you try it onto folks in public, Mr. Critz," said Mr. Gubb seriously.
"Don't I know that?" said Mr. Critz rather impatiently. "Same as you've got to practice snoopin', Mr. Gubb. Maybe you thought I didn't know you was snoopin' after me wherever I went last night."
"Did you?" asked Mr. Gubb, with surprise plainly written on his face.
"I seen you every moment from nine P.M. till eleven!" said Mr. Critz. "I didn't like it, neither."
"I didn't think to annoy you," apologized Mr. Gubb. "I was practicin' Lesson Four. You wasn't supposed to know I was there at all."
"Well, I don't like it," said Mr. Critz. "'Twas all right last night, for I didn't have nothin' important on hand, but if I'd been workin' up a con' game, the feller I was after would have thought it mighty strange to see a man follerin' me everywhere like that. If you went about it quiet and unobtrusive, I wouldn't mind; but if I'd had a customer on hand and he'd seen you it would make him nervous. He'd think there was a—a crazy man follerin' us."
"I was just practicin'," apologized Mr. Gubb. "It won't be so bad when I get the hang of it. We all got to be beginners sometime."
"I guess so," said Mr. Critz, rearranging the shells and the little rubber pea. "Well, I put the pea down like this, and I dare you to bet which shell she's goin' to be under, and you don't bet, see? So I put the shells down, and you're willin' to bet you see me put the first shell over the pea like this. So you keep your eye on that shell, and I move the shells around like this—"
"She's under the same shell," said Mr. Gubb.
"Well, yes, she is," said Mr. Critz placidly, "but she hadn't ought to be. By rights she ought to sort of ooze out from under whilst I'm movin' the shells around, and I'd ought to sort of catch her in between my fingers and hold her there so you don't see her. Then when you say which shell she's under, she ain't under any shell; she's between my fingers. So when you put down your money I tell you to pick up that shell and there ain't anything under it. And before you can pick up the other shells I pick one up, and let the pea fall on the stand like it had been under that shell all the time. That's the game, only up to now I ain't got the hang of it. She won't ooze out from under, and she won't stick between my fingers, and when she does stick, she won't drop at the right time."
"Except for that, you've got her all right, have you?" asked Mr. Gubb.
"Except for that," said Mr. Critz; "and I'd have that, only my fingers are stubby."
"What was it you thought of having me do if I wasn't a deteckative?" asked Mr. Gubb.
"The work you'd have to do would be capping work," said Mr. Critz. "Capper—that's the professional name for it. You'd guess which shell the ball was under—"
"That would be easy, the way you do it now," said Mr. Gubb.
"I told you I'd got to learn it better, didn't I?" asked Mr. Critz impatiently. "You'd be capper, and you'd guess which shell the pea was under. No matter which you guessed, I'd leave it under that one, so'd you'd win, and you'd win ten dollars every time you bet—but not for keeps. That's why I've got to have an honest capper."
"I can see that," said Mr. Gubb; "but what's the use lettin' me win it if I've got to bring it back?"
"That starts the boobs bettin'," said Mr. Critz. "The boobs see how you look to be winnin', and they want to win too. But they don't. When they bet, I win."
"That ain't a square game," said Mr. Gubb seriously, "is it?"
"A crook ain't expected to be square," said Mr. Critz. "It stands to reason, if a crook wants to be a crook, he's got to be crooked, ain't he?"
"Yes, of course," said Mr. Gubb. "I hadn't looked at it that way."
"As far as I can see," said Mr. Critz, "the more I know how a detective acts, the better off I'll be when I start in doin' real business. Ain't that so? I guess, till I get the hang of things better, I'll stay right here."
"I'm glad to hear you say so, Mr. Critz," said Mr. Gubb with relief. "I like you, and I like your looks, and there's no tellin' who I might get for a roommate next time. I might get some one that wasn't honest."
So it was agreed, and Mr. Critz stood over the washstand and manipulated the little rubber pea and the three shells, while Mr. Gubb sat on the edge of the bed and studied Lesson Eleven of the "Rising Sun Detective Agency's Correspondence School of Detecting."
When, presently, Mr. Critz learned to work the little pea neatly, he urged Mr. Gubb to take the part of capper, and each time Mr. Gubb won he gave him a five-dollar bill. Then Mr. Gubb posed as a "boob" and Mr. Critz won all the money back again, beaming over his spectacle rims, and chuckling again and again until he burst into a fit of coughing that made him red in the face, and did not cease until he had taken a big drink of water out of the wash-pitcher. Never had he seemed more like a kindly old gentleman from behind the candy counter of a small village. He hung over the washstand, manipulating the little rubber pea as if fascinated.
"Ain't it curyus how a feller catches onto a thing like that all to once?" he said after a while. "If it hadn't been that I was so anxious, I might have fooled with that for weeks and weeks and not got anywheres with it. I do wisht you could be my capper a while anyway, until I could get one."
"I need all my time to study," said Mr. Gubb. "It ain't easy to learn deteckating by mail."
"Pshaw, now!" said Mr. Critz. "I'm real sorry! Maybe if I was to pay you for your time and trouble five dollars a night? How say?"
Mr. Gubb considered. "Well, I dunno!" he said slowly. "I sort of hate to take money for doin' a favor like that."
"Now, there ain't no need to feel that way," said Mr. Critz. "Your time's wuth somethin' to me—it's wuth a lot to me to get the hang of this gold-brick game. Once I get the hang of it, it won't be no trouble for me to sell gold-bricks like this one for all the way from a thousand dollars up. I paid fifteen hundred for this one myself, and got it cheap. That's a good profit, for this brick ain't wuth a cent over one hundred dollars, and I know, for I took it to the bank after I bought it, and that's what they was willin' to pay me for it. So it's easy wuth a few dollars for me to have help whilst I'm learnin'. I can easy afford to pay you a few dollars, and to pay a friend of yours the same."
"Well, now," said Mr. Gubb, "I don't know but what I might as well make a little that way as any other. I got a friend—" He stopped short. "You don't aim to sell the gold-brick to him, do you?"
Mr. Critz's eyes opened wide behind their spectacles.
"Land's sakes, no!" he said.
"Well, I got a friend may be willing to help out," said Mr. Gubb. "What'd he have to do?"
"You or him," said Mr. Critz, "would be the 'come-on,' and pretend to buy the brick. And you or him would pretend to help me to sell it. Maybe you better have the brick, because you can look stupid, and the feller that's got the brick has got to look that."
"I can look anyway a'most," said Mr. Gubb with pride.
"Do tell!" said Mr. Critz, and so it was arranged that the first rehearsal of the gold-brick game should take place the next evening, but as Mr. Gubb turned away Mr. Critz deftly slipped something into the student detective's coat pocket.
It was toward noon the next day that Mr. Critz, peering over his spectacles and avoiding as best he could the pails of paste, entered the parlor of the vacant house where Mr. Gubb was at work.
"I just come around," said Mr. Critz, rather reluctantly, "to say you better not say nothing to your friend. I guess that deal's off."
"Pshaw, now!" said Mr. Gubb. "You don't mean so!"
"I don't mean nothing in the way of aspersions, you mind," said Mr. Critz with reluctance, "but I guess we better call it off. Of course, so far as I know, you are all right—"
"I don't know what you're gettin' at," said Mr. Gubb. "Why don't you say it?"
"Well, I been buncoed so often," said Mr. Critz. "Seem's like any one can get money from me any time and any way, and I got to thinkin' it over. I don't know anything about you, do I? And here I am, going to give you a gold-brick that cost me fifteen hundred dollars, and let you go out and wait until I come for it with your friend, and—well, what's to stop you from just goin' away with that brick and never comin' back?"
Mr. Gubb looked at Mr. Critz blankly.
"I've went and told my friend," he said. "He's all ready to start in."
"I hate it, to have to say it," said Mr. Critz, "but when I come to count over them bills I lent you to cap the shell game with, there was a five-dollar one short."
"I know," said Gubb, turning red. "And if you go over there to my coat, you'll find it in my pocket, all ready to hand back to you. I don't know how I come to keep it in my pocket. Must ha' missed it, when I handed you back the rest."
"Well, I had a notion it was that way," said Mr. Critz kindly. "You look like you was honest, Mr. Gubb. But a thousand-dollar gold-brick, that any bank will pay a hundred dollars for—I got to get out of this way of trustin' everybody—"
Mr. Critz was evidently distressed.
"If 'twas anybody else but you," he said with an effort, "I'd make him put up a hundred dollars to cover the cost of a brick like that whilst he had it. There! I've said it, and I guess you're mad!"
"I ain't mad," protested Mr. Gubb, "'long as you're goin' to pay me and Pete, and it's business; I ain't so set against puttin' up what the brick is worth."
Mr. Critz heaved a deep sigh of relief.
"You don't know how good that makes me feel," he said. "I was almost losin' what faith in mankind I had left."
Mr. Gubb ate his frugal evening meals at the Pie Wagon, on Willow Street, just off Main, where, by day, Pie-Wagon Pete dispensed light viands; and Pie-Wagon Pete was the friend he had invited to share Mr. Critz's generosity. The seal of secrecy had been put on Pie-Wagon Pete's lips before Mr. Gubb offered him the opportunity to accept or decline; and when Mr. Gubb stopped for his evening meal, Pie-Wagon Pete—now off duty—was waiting for him. The story of Mr. Critz and his amateur con' business had amused Pie-Wagon Pete. He could hardly believe such utter innocence existed. Perhaps he did not believe it existed, for he had come from the city, and he had had shady companions before he landed in Riverbank. He was a sharp-eyed, red-headed fellow, with a hard fist, and a scar across his face, and when Mr. Gubb had told him of Mr. Critz and his affairs, he had seen an opportunity to shear a country lamb.
"How goes it for to-night, Philo?" he asked Mr. Gubb, taking the stool next to Mr. Gubb, while the night man drew a cup of coffee.
"Quite well," said Mr. Gubb. "Everything is arranged satisfactory. I'm to be on the old house-boat by the wharf-house on the levee at nine, with it." He glanced at the night man's back and lowered his voice. "And Mr. Critz will bring you there."
"Nine, eh?" said Pie-Wagon. "I meet him at your room, do I?"
"You meet him at the Riverbank Hotel at eight-forty-five," said Mr. Gubb. "Like it was the real thing. I'm goin' over to my room now, and give him the money—"
"What money?" asked Pie-Wagon Pete quickly.
"Well, you see," said Mr. Gubb, "he sort of hated to trust the—trust it out of his hands without a deposit. It's the only one he has. So I thought I'd put up a hundred dollars. He's all right—"
"Oh, sure!" said Pie-Wagon. "A hundred dollars, eh?"
He looked at Mr. Gubb, who was eating a piece of apple pie hand-to-mouth fashion, and studied him in a new light.
"One hundred dollars, eh?" he repeated thoughtfully. "You give him a hundred-dollar deposit now and he meets you at nine, and me at eight-forty-five, and the train leaves for Chicago at eight-forty-three, halfway between the house-boat and the hotel! Say, Gubby, what does this old guy look like?"
Mr. Gubb, albeit with a tongue unused to description, delineated Mr. Critz as best he could, and as he proceeded, Pie-Wagon Pete became interested.
"Pinkish, and bald? Top of his head like a hard-boiled egg? He ain't got a scar across his face? The dickens he has! Short and plump, and a reg'lar old nice grandpa? Blue eyes? Say, did he have a coughin' spell and choke red in the face? Well, sir, for a brand-new detective, you've done well. Listen, Jim: Gubby's got the Hard-Boiled Egg!"
The night man almost dropped his cup of coffee.
"Go 'way!" he said. "Old Hard-Boiled? Himself?"
"That's right! And caught him with the goods. Say, listen, Gubby!"
For five minutes Pie-Wagon Pete talked, while Mr. Gubb sat with his mouth wide open.
"See?" said Pie-Wagon at last. "And don't you mention me at all. Don't mention no one. Just say to the Chief: 'And havin' trailed him this far, Mr. Wittaker, and arranged to have him took with the goods, it's up to you?' See? And as soon as you say that, have him send a couple of bulls with you, and if they can do it, they'll nab Old Hard-Boiled just as he takes your cash. And Old Sleuth and Sherlock Holmes won't be in it with you when to-morrow mornin's papers come out. Get it?"
Mr. Gubb got it. When he entered his bedroom, Mr. Critz was waiting for him. It was slightly after eight o'clock; perhaps eight-fifteen. Mr. Critz had what appeared to be the gold-brick neatly wrapped in newspaper, and he looked up with his kindly blue eyes. He had been reading the "Complete Con' Man," and had pushed his spectacles up on his forehead as Mr. Gubb entered.
"I done that brick up for you," he said, indicating it with his hand, "so's it wouldn't glitter whilst you was goin' through the street. If word got passed around there was a gold-brick in town, folks might sort of get suspicious-like. Nice night for goin' out, ain't it? Got a letter from my wife this aft'noon," he chuckled. "She says she hopes I'm doin' well. Sally'd have a fit if she knew what business I was goin' into. Well, time's gettin' along—"
"I brung the money," said Mr. Gubb, drawing it from his pocket.
"Don't seem hardly necess'ry, does it?" said Mr. Critz mildly. "But I s'pose it's just as well. Thankee, Mister Gubb. I'll just pile into my coat—"
Mr. Gubb had picked up the gold-brick, and now he let it fall. Once more the door flew open, but this time it opened for three stalwart policemen, whose revolvers pointed unwaveringly at Mr. Critz. The plump little man gave one glance, and put up his hands.
"All right, boys, you've got me," he said in quite another voice, and allowed them to seize his arms. He paid no attention to the police, but at Mr. Gubb, who was tearing the wrapper from what proved to be but a common vitrified paving-brick, he looked long and hard.
"Say," said Mr. Critz to Mr. Gubb, "I'm the goat. You stung me all right. You worked me to a finish. I thought I knew all of you from Burns down, but you're a new one to me. Who are you, anyway?"
Mr. Gubb looked up.
"Me?" he said with pride. "Why—why—I'm Gubb, the foremost deteckative of Riverbank, Iowa."
On the morning following his capture of the Hard-Boiled Egg, the "Riverbank Eagle" printed two full columns in praise of Detective Gubb and complimented Riverbank on having a superior to Sherlock Holmes in its midst.
"Mr. Philo Gubb," said the "Eagle," "has thus far received only eleven of the twelve lessons from the Rising Sun Detective Agency's Correspondence School of Detecting, and we look for great things from him when he finally receives his diploma and badge. He informed us to-day that he hopes to begin work on the dynamite case soon. With the money he will receive for capturing the Hard-Boiled Egg, Mr. Gubb intends to purchase eighteen complete disguises from the Supply Department of the Rising Sun Detective Agency, Slocum, Ohio. Mr. Gubb wishes us to announce that until the disguises arrive he will continue to do paper-hanging, decorating, and interior painting at reasonable rates."
Unfortunately there were no calls for Mr. Gubb's detective services for some time after he received his disguises and diploma, but while waiting he devoted his spare time to the dynamite mystery, a remarkable case on which many detectives had been working for many weeks. This led only to his being beaten up twice by Joseph Henry, one of the men he shadowed.
The arrival in Riverbank of the World's Monster Combined Shows the day after Mr. Gubb received his diploma seemed to offer an opportunity for his detective talents, as a circus is usually accompanied by crooks, and early in the morning Mr. Gubb donned disguise Number Sixteen, which was catalogued as "Negro Hack-Driver, Complete, $22.00"; but, while looking for crooks while watching the circus unload, his eyes alighted on Syrilla, known as "Half a Ton of Beauty," the Fat Lady of the Side-Show.
As Syrilla descended from the car, aided by the Living Skeleton and the Strong Man, the fair creature wore a low-neck evening gown. Her arms and shoulders were snowy white (except for a peculiar mark on one arm). Not only had Mr. Gubb never seen such white arms and shoulders, but he had never seen so much arm and shoulder on one woman, and from that moment he was deeply and hopelessly in love. Like one hypnotized he followed her to the side-show tent, paid his admission, and stood all day before her platform. He was still there when the tent was taken down that night.
Mr. Gubb was not the only man in Riverbank to fall in love with Syrilla. When the ladies of the Riverbank Social Service League heard that the circus was coming to town they were distressed to think how narrow the intellectual life of the side-show freaks must be and they instructed their Field Secretary, Mr. Horace Winterberry, to go to the side-show and organize the freaks into an Ibsen Literary and Debating Society. This Mr. Winterberry did and the Tasmanian Wild Man was made President, but so deeply did Mr. Winterberry fall in love with Syrilla that he begged Mr. Dorgan, the manager of the side-show, to let him join the side-show, and this Mr. Dorgan did, putting him in a cage as Waw-Waw, the Mexican Hairless Dog-Man, as Mr. Winterberry was exceedingly bald.
At the very next stop made by the circus a strong, heavy-fisted woman entered the side-show and dragged Mr. Winterberry away. This was his wife. Of this the ladies of the Riverbank Social Service League knew nothing, however. They believed Mr. Winterberry had been stolen by the circus and that he was doubtless being forced to learn to swing on a trapeze or ride a bareback horse, and they decided to hire Detective Gubb to find and return him.
At the very moment when the ladies were deciding to retain Mr. Gubb's services the paper-hanger detective was on his way to do a job of paper-hanging, thinking of the fair Syrilla he might never see again, when suddenly he put down the pail of paste he was carrying and grasped the handle of his paste-brush more firmly. He stared with amazement and fright at a remarkable creature that came toward him from a small thicket near the railway tracks. Mr. Gubb's first and correct impression was that this was some remarkable creature escaped from the circus. The horrid thing loping toward him was, indeed, the Tasmanian Wild Man!
As the Wild Man approached, Philo Gubb prepared to defend himself. He was prepared to defend himself to his last drop of blood.
When halfway across the field, the Tasmanian Wild Man glanced back over his shoulder and, as if fearing pursuit, increased his speed and came toward Philo Gubb in great leaps and bounds. The Correspondence School detective waved his paste-brush more frantically than ever. The Tasmanian Wild Man stopped short within six feet of him.
Viewed thus closely, the Wild Man was a sight to curdle the blood. Remnants of chains hung from his wrists and ankles; his long hair was matted about his face; and his finger nails were long and claw-like. His face was daubed with ochre and red, with black rings around the eyes, and the circles within the rings were painted white, giving him an air of wildness possessed by but few wild men. His only garments were a pair of very short trunks and the skin of some wild animal, bound about his body with ropes of horse-hair.
Philo Gubb bent to receive the leap he felt the Tasmanian Wild Man was about to make, but to his surprise the Wild Man held up one hand in token of amity, and with the other removed the matted hair from his head, revealing an under-crop of taffy yellow, neatly parted in the middle and smoothed back carefully.
"I say, old chap," he said in a pleasant and well-bred tone, "stop waving that dangerous-looking weapon at me, will you? My intentions are most kindly, I assure you. Can you inform me where a chap can get a pair of trousers hereabout?"
Philo Gubb's experienced eye saw at once that this creature was less wild than he was painted. He lowered the paste-brush.
"Come into this house," said Philo Gubb. "Inside the house we can discuss pants in calmness."
The Tasmanian Wild Man accepted.
"Now, then," said Philo Gubb, when they were safe in the kitchen. He seated himself on a roll of wall-paper, and the Tasmanian Wild Man, whose real name was Waldo Emerson Snooks, told his brief story.
Upon graduating from Harvard, he had sought employment, offering to furnish entertainment by the evening, reading an essay entitled, "The Comparative Mentality of Ibsen and Emerson, with Sidelights on the Effect of Turnip Diet at Brook Farm," but the agency was unable to get him any engagements. They happened, however, to receive a request from Mr. Dorgan, manager of the side-show, asking for a Tasmanian Wild Man, and Mr. Snooks had taken that job. To his own surprise, he made an excellent Wild Man. He was able to rattle his chains, dash up and down the cage, gnaw the iron bars of the cage, eat raw meat, and howl as no other Tasmanian Wild Man had ever done those things, and all would have been well if an interloper had not entered the side-show.
The interloper was Mr. Winterberry, who had introduced the subject of Ibsen's plays, and in a discussion of them the Tasmanian Wild Man and Mr. Hoxie, the Strong Man, had quarreled, and Mr. Hoxie had threatened to tear Mr. Snooks limb from limb.
"And he would have done so," said the Tasmanian Wild Man with emotion, "if I had not fled. I dare not return. I mean to work my way back to Boston and give up Tasmanian Wild Man-ing as a profession. But I cannot without pants."
"I guess you can't," said Philo Gubb. "In any station of Boston life, pants is expected to be worn."
"So the question is, old chap, where am I to be panted?" said Waldo Emerson Snooks.
"I can't pant you," said Philo Gubb, "but I can overall you."
The late Tasmanian Wild Man was most grateful. When he was dressed in the overalls and had wiped the grease-paint from his face on an old rag, no one would have recognized him.
"And as for thanks," said Philo Gubb, "don't mention it. A deteckative gent is obliged to keep up a set of disguises hitherto unsuspected by the mortal world. This Tasmanian Wild Man outfit will do for a hermit disguise. So you don't owe me no thanks."
As Philo Gubb watched Waldo Emerson Snooks start in the direction of Boston—only some thirteen hundred miles away—he had no idea how soon he would have occasion to use the Tasmanian Wild Man disguise, but hardly had the Wild Man departed than a small boy came to summon Mr. Gubb, and it was with a sense of elation and importance that he appeared before the meeting of the Riverbank Ladies' Social Service League.
"And so," said Mrs. Garthwaite, at the close of the interview, "you understand us, Mr. Gubb?"
"Yes, ma'am," said Philo Gubb. "What you want me to do, is to find Mr. Winterberry, ain't it?"
"Exactly," agreed Mrs. Garthwaite.
"And, when found," said Mr. Gubb, "the said stolen goods is to be returned to you?"
"And the fiends in human form that stole him are to be given the full limit of the law?"
"They certainly deserve it, abducting a nice little gentleman like Mr. Winterberry," said Mrs. Garthwaite.
"They do, indeed," said Philo Gubb, "and they shall be. I would only ask how far you want me to arrest. If the manager of the side-show stole him, my natural and professional deteckative instincts would tell me to arrest the manager; and if the whole side-show stole him I would make bold to arrest the whole side-show; but if the whole circus stole him, am I to arrest the whole circus, and if so ought I to include the menagerie? Ought I to arrest the elephants and the camels?"
"Arrest only those in human form," said Mrs. Garthwaite.
Philo Gubb sat straight and put his hands on his knees.
"In referring to human form, ma'am," he asked, "do you include them oorangootangs and apes?"
"I do," said Mrs. Garthwaite. "Association with criminals has probably inclined their poor minds to criminality."
"Yes, ma'am," said Philo Gubb, rising. "I leave on this case by the first train."
Mr. Gubb hastily packed the Tasmanian garment and six other disguises in a suitcase, put the fourteen dollars given him by Mrs. Garthwaite in his pocket, and hurried to catch the train for Bardville, where the World's Monster Combined Shows were to show the next day. With true detective caution Philo Gubb disguised even this simple act.
Having packed his suitcase, Mr. Gubb wrapped it carefully in manila paper and inserted a laundry ticket under the twine. Thus, any one seeing him might well suppose he was returning from the laundry and not going to Bardville. To make this seem the more likely, he donned his Chinese disguise, Number Seventeen, consisting of a pink, skull-like wig with a long pigtail, a blue jumper, and a yellow complexion. Mr. Gubb rubbed his face with crude ochre powder, and his complexion was a little high, being more the hue of a pumpkin than the true Oriental skin tint. Those he met on his way to the station imagined he was in the last stages of yellow fever, and fled from him hastily.
He reached the station just as the train's wheels began to move; and he was springing up the steps onto the platform of the last car when a hand grasped his arm. He turned his head and saw that the man grasping him was Jonas Medderbrook, one of Riverbank's wealthiest men.
"Gubb! I want you!" shouted Mr. Medderbrook energetically, but Philo Gubb shook off the detaining arm.
"Me no savvy Melican talkee," he jabbered, bunting Mr. Medderbrook off the car step.
Bright and early next morning, Philo Gubb gave himself a healthy coat of tan, with rather high color on his cheek-bones. From his collection of beards and mustaches—carefully tagged from "Number One" to "Number Eighteen" in harmony with the types of disguise mentioned in the twelve lessons of the Rising Sun Detective Agency's Correspondence School of Detecting—he selected mustache Number Eight and inserted the spring wires in his nostrils.
Mustache Number Eight was a long, deadly black mustache with up-curled ends, and when Philo Gubb had donned it he had a most sinister appearance, particularly as he failed to remove the string tag which bore the legend, "Number Eight. Gambler or Card Sharp. Manufactured and Sold by the Rising Sun Detective Agency's Correspondence School of Detecting Supply Bureau." Having put on this mustache, Mr. Gubb took a common splint market-basket from under the bed and placed in it the matted hair of the Tasmanian Wild Man, his make-up materials, a small mirror, two towels, a cake of soap, the Tasmanian Wild Man's animal skin robe, the hair rope, and the abbreviated trunks. He covered these with a newspaper.
The sun was just rising when he reached the railway siding, and hardly had Mr. Gubb arrived when the work of unloading the circus began.
Mr. Gubb—searching for the abducted Mr. Winterberry—sped rapidly from place to place, the string tag on his mustache napping over his shoulder, but he saw no one answering Mrs. Garthwaite's description of Mr. Winterberry. When the tent wagons had departed, the elephants and camels were unloaded, but Mr. Winterberry did not seem to be concealed among them, and the animal cages—which came next—were all tightly closed. There were four or five cars, however, that attracted Philo Gubb's attention, and one in particular made his heart beat rapidly. This car bore the words, "World's Monster Combined Shows Freak Car." And as Mr. Winterberry had gone as a social reform agent to the side-show, Mr. Gubb rightly felt that here if anywhere he would find a clue, and he was doubly agitated since he knew the beautiful Syrilla was doubtless in that car.
Walking around the car, he heard the door at one end open. He crouched under the platform, his ears and eyes on edge. Hardly was he concealed before the head ruffian of the unloading gang approached.
"Mister Dorgan," he said, in quite another tone than he had used to his laborers, "should I fetch that wild man cage to the grounds for you to-day?"
"No," said Dorgan. "What's the use? I don't like an empty cage standing around. Leave it on the car, Jake. Or—hold on! I'll use it. Take it up to the grounds and put it in the side-show as usual. I'll put the Pet in it."
"Are ye foolin'?" asked the loading boss with a grin. "The cage won't know itself, Mister Dorgan, afther holdin' that rip-snortin' Wild Man to be holdin' a cold corpse like the Pet is."
"Never you mind," said Dorgan shortly. "I know my business, Jake. You and I know the Pet is a dead one, but these country yaps don't know it. I might as well make some use of the remains as long as I've got 'em on hand."
"Who you goin' to fool, sweety?" asked a voice, and Mr. Dorgan looked around to see Syrilla, the Fat Lady, standing in the car door.
"Oh, just folks!" said Dorgan, laughing.
"You're goin' to use the Pet," said the Fat Lady reproachfully, "and I don't think it is nice of you. Say what you will, Mr. Dorgan, a corpse is a corpse, and a respectable side-show ain't no place for it. I wish you would take it out in the lot and bury it, like I wanted you to, or throw it in the river and get rid of it. Won't you, dearie?"
"I will not," said Mr. Dorgan firmly. "A corpse may be a corpse, Syrilla, any place but in a circus, but in a circus it is a feature. He's goin' to be one of the Seven Sleepers."
"One of what?" asked Syrilla.
"One of the Seven Sleepers," said Dorgan. "I'm goin' to put him in the cage the Wild Man was in, and I'm goin' to tell the audiences he's asleep. 'He looks dead,' I'll say, 'but I give my word he's only asleep. We offer five thousand dollars,' I'll say, 'to any man, woman, or child that proves contrary than that we have documents provin' that this human bein' in this cage fell asleep in the year 1837 and has been sleepin' ever since. The longest nap on record,' I'll say. That'll fetch a laugh."
"And you don't care, dearie, that I'll be creepy all through the show, do you?" said Syrilla.
"I won't care a hang," said Dorgan.
Mr. Gubb glided noiselessly from under the car and sped away. He had heard enough to know that deviltry was afoot. There was no doubt in his mind that the Pet was the late Mr. Winterberry, for if ever a man deserved to be called "Pet," Mr. Winterberry—according to Mrs. Garthwaite's description—was that man. There was no doubt that Mr. Winterberry had been murdered, and that these heartless wretches meant to make capital of his body. The inference was logical. It was a strong clue, and Mr. Gubb hurried to the circus grounds to study the situation.
"No," said Syrilla tearfully, "you don't care a hang for the nerves of the lady and gent freaks under your care, Mr. Dorgan. It's nothin' to you if repulsion from that corpse-like Pet drags seventy or eighty pounds of fat off of me, for you well know what my contract is—so much a week and so much for each additional pound of fat, and the less fat I am the less you have to add onto your pay-roll. The day the Pet come to the show first I fainted outright and busted down the platform, but little do you care, Mr. Dorgan."
"Don't you worry; you didn't murder him," said Mr. Dorgan.
"He looks so lifelike!" sobbed Syrilla.
"Oh, Hoxie!" shouted Mr. Dorgan.
"Yes, sir?" said the Strong Man, coming to the car door.
"Take Syrilla in and tell the girls to put ice on her head. She's gettin' hysterics again. And when you've told 'em, you go up to the grounds and tell Blake and Skinny to unpack the Petrified Man. Tell 'em I'm goin' to use him again to-day, and if he's lookin' shop-worn, have one of the men go over his complexion and make him look nice and lifelike."
Mr. Dorgan swung off from the car step and walked away.
The Petrified Man had been one of his mistakes. In days past petrified men had been important side-show features and Mr. Dorgan had supposed the time had come to re-introduce them, and he had had an excellent petrified man made of concrete, with steel reinforcements in the legs and arms and a body of hollow tile so that it could stand rough travel.
Unfortunately, the features of the Petrified Man had been entrusted to an artist devoted to the making of clothing dummies. Instead of an Aztec or Cave Dweller cast of countenance, he had given the Petrified Man the simpering features of the wax figures seen in cheap clothing stores. The result was that, instead of gazing at the Petrified Man with awe as a wonder of nature, the audiences laughed at him, and the living freaks dubbed him "the Pet," or, still more rudely, "the Corpse," and when the glass case broke at the end of the week, Mr. Dorgan ordered the Pet packed in a box.
Just now, however, the flight of the Tasmanian Wild Man, and the involuntary departure of Mr. Winterberry at the command of his wife after his short appearance as Waw-Waw, the Mexican Hairless Dog-Man, suggested the new use for the Petrified Man.
When Detective Gubb reached the circus grounds the glaring banners had not yet been erected before the side-show tent, but all the tents except the "big top" were up and all hands were at work on that one, or supposed to be. Two were not. Two of the roughest-looking roustabouts, after glancing here and there, glided into the property tent and concealed themselves behind a pile of blue cases, hampers, and canvas bags. One of them immediately drew from under his coat a small but heavy parcel wrapped in an old rag.
"Say, cul," he said in a coarse voice, "you sure have got a head on you. This here stuff will be just as safe in there as in a bank, see? Gimme the screw-driver."
"'Not to be opened until Chicago,'" said the other gleefully, pointing to the words daubed on one of the blue cases. "But I guess it will be—hey, old pal? I guess so!"
Together they removed the lid of the box, and Detective Gubb, seeking the side-show, crawled under the wall of the property tent just in time to see the two ruffians hurriedly jam their parcel into the case and screw the lid in place again. Mr. Gubb's mustache was now in a diagonal position, but little he cared for that. His eyes were fastened on the countenances of the two roustabouts. The men were easy to remember. One was red-headed and pockmarked and the other was dark and the lobes of his ears were slit, as if some one had at some time forcibly removed a pair of rings from them. Very quietly Philo Gubb wiggled backward out of the tent, but as he did so his eyes caught a word painted on the side of the blue case. It was "Pet"!
Mr. Gubb proceeded to the next tent. Stooping, he peered inside, and what he saw satisfied him that he had found the side-show. Around the inside of the tent men were erecting a blue platform, and on the far side four men were wheeling a tongueless cage into place. A door at the back of the cage swung open and shut as the men moved the cage, but another in front was securely bolted and barred. Mr. Gubb lowered the tent wall and backed away. It was into this cage that the body of Mr. Winterberry was to be put to make a public holiday for yokels! And the murderer was still at large!
Murderer? Murderers! For who were the two rough characters he had seen tampering with the case containing the remains of the Pet? What had they been putting in the case? If not the murderers, they were surely accomplices. Walking like a wary flamingo, Mr. Gubb circled the tent. He saw Mr. Dorgan and Syrilla enter it. Himself hidden in a clump of bushes, he saw Mr. Lonergan, the Living Skeleton; Mr. Hoxie, the Strong Man; Major Ching, the Chinese Giant; General Thumb, the Dwarf; Princess Zozo, the Serpent Charmer; Maggie, the Circassian Girl; and the rest of the side-show employees enter the tent. Then he removed his Number Eight mustache and put it in his pocket, and balanced his mirror against a twig. Mr. Gubb was changing his disguise.
For a while the lady and gentleman freaks stood talking, casting reproachful glances at Mr. Dorgan. Syrilla, with traces of tears on her face, was complaining of the cruel man who insisted that the Pet become part of the show once more and Mr. Dorgan was resisting their reproaches.
"I'm the boss of the show," he said firmly. "I'm goin' to use that cage, and I'm goin' to use the Pet."
"Couldn't you put Orlando in it, and get up a spiel about him?" asked Princess Zozo, whose largest serpent was called Orlando. "If you got him a bottle of cold cream from the make-up tent he'd lie for hours with his dear little nose sniffin' it. He's pashnutly fond of cold cream."
"Well, the public ain't pashnutly fond of seein' a snake smell it," said Mr. Dorgan. "The Pet is goin' into that cage—see?"
"Couldn't you borry an ape from the menagerie?" asked Mr. Lonergan, the Living Skeleton, who was as passionately fond of Syrilla as Orlando was of cold cream. "And have him be the first man-monkey to speak the human language, only he's got a cold and can't talk to-day? You did that once."
"And got roasted by the whole crowd! No, sir, Mr. Lonergan. I can't, and I won't. Bring that case right over here," he added, turning to the four roustabouts who were carrying the blue case into the tent. "Got it open? Good! Now—"
He looked toward the cage and stopped short, his mouth open and his eyes staring. Sitting on his haunches, his fore paws, or hands, hanging down like those of a "begging" dog, a Tasmanian Wild Man stared from between the bars of the cage. The matted hair, the bare legs, the animal skin blanket, the streaks of ochre and red on the face, the black circles around the eyes with the white inside the circles, were those of a real Tasmanian Wild Man, but this Tasmanian Wild Man was tall and thin, almost rivaling Mr. Lonergan in that respect. The thin Roman nose and the blinky eyes, together with the manner of holding the head on one side, suggested a bird—a large and dissipated flamingo, for instance.
Mr. Dorgan stared with his mouth open. He stared so steadily that he even took a telegram from the messenger boy who entered the tent, and signed for it without looking at the address. The messenger boy, too, stopped to stare at the Tasmanian flamingo. The men who had brought the blue case set it down and stared. The freaks gathered in front of the cage and stared.
"What is it?" asked Syrilla in a voice trembling with emotion.
"Say! Where in the U.S.A. did you come from?" asked Mr. Dorgan suddenly. "What in the dickens are you, anyway?"
"I'm a Tasmanian Wild Man," said Mr. Gubb mildly.
"You a Tasmanian Wild Man?" said Mr. Dorgan. "You don't think you look like a Tasmanian Wild Man, do you? Why, you look like—you look like—you look—"
"He looks like an intoxicated pterodactyl," said Mr. Lonergan, who had some knowledge of prehistoric animals,—"only hairier."
"He looks like a human turkey with a piebald face," suggested General Thumb.
"He don't look like nothin'!" said Mr. Dorgan at last. "That's what he looks like. You get out of that cage!" he added sternly to Mr. Gubb. "I don't want nothin' that looks like you nowhere near this show."
"But, Mr. Dorgan, dearie, think how he'd draw crowds," said Syrilla.
"Crowds? Of course he'd draw crowds," said Mr. Dorgan. "But what would I say when I lectured about him? What would I call him? No, he's got to go. Boys," he said to the four roustabouts, two of whom were those Mr. Gubb had seen in the property tent, "throw this feller out of the tent."
"Stop!" said Mr. Gubb, raising one hand. "I will admit I have tried to deceive you: I am not a Tasmanian Wild Man. I am a deteckative!"
"Detective?" said Mr. Dorgan.
"In disguise," said Mr. Gubb modestly. "In the deteckative profession the assuming of disguises is often necessary to the completion of the clarification of a mystery plot."
He pointed down at the Pet, whose newly rouged and powdered face rested smirkingly in the box below the cage.
"I arrest you all," he said, but before he could complete the sentence, the red-headed man and the black-headed man turned and bolted from the tent. Mr. Gubb beat and jerked at the bars of his cage as frantically as Mr. Waldo Emerson Snooks had ever beaten and jerked, but he could not rend them apart.
"Get those two fellers," Mr. Gubb shouted to Mr. Hoxie, and the strong man ran from the tent.
"What's this about arrest?" asked Mr. Dorgan.
"I arrest this whole side-show," said Mr. Gubb, pressing his face between the bars of the cage, "for the murder of that poor, gentle, harmless man now a dead corpse into that blue box there—Mr. Winterberry by name, but called by you by the alias of the 'Pet.'"
"Winterberry?" exclaimed Mr. Dorgan. "That Winterberry? That ain't Winterberry! That's a stone man, a made-to-order concrete man, with hollow tile stomach and reinforced concrete arms and legs. I had him made to order."
"The criminal mind is well equipped with explanations for use in time of stress," said Mr. Gubb. "Lesson Six of the Correspondence School of Deteckating warns the deteckative against explanations of murderers when confronted by the victim. I demand an autopsy onto Mr. Winterberry."
"Autopsy!" exclaimed Mr. Dorgan. "I'll autopsy him for you!"
He grasped one of the Pet's hands and wrenched off one concrete arm. He struck the head with a tent stake and shattered it into crumbling concrete. He jerked the Roman tunic from the body and disclosed the hollow tile stomach.
"Hello!" he said, lifting a rag-wrapped parcel from the interior of the Pet. "What's this?"
When unwrapped it proved to be two dozen silver forks and spoons and a good-sized silver trophy cup.
"'Riverbank Country Club, Duffers' Golf Trophy, 1909?'" Mr. Dorgan read. "'Won by Jonas Medderbrook.' How did that get there?"
"Jonas Medderbrook," said Mr. Gubb, "is a man of my own local town."
"He is, is he?" said Mr. Dorgan. "And what's your name?"
"Gubb," said the detective. "Philo Gubb, Esquire, deteckative and paper-hanger, Riverbank, Iowa."
"Then this is for you," said Mr. Dorgan, and he handed the telegram to Mr. Gubb. The detective opened it and read:—
Gubb, Care of Circus, Bardville, Ia.
My house robbed circus night. Golf cup gone. Game now rotten: never win another. Five hundred dollars reward for return to me.
"You didn't actually come here to find Mr. Winterberry, did you?" asked Syrilla.
Mr. Gubb folded the telegram, raised his matted hair, and tucked the telegram between it and his own hair for safe-keeping.
"When a deteckative starts out to detect," he said calmly, "sometimes he detects one thing and sometimes he detects another. That cup is one of the things I deteckated to-day. And now, if all are willing, I'll step outside and get my pants on. I'll feel better."
"And you'll look better," said Mr. Dorgan. "You couldn't look worse."
"In the course of the deteckative career," said Mr. Gubb, "a gent has to look a lot of different ways, and I thank you for the compliment. The art of disguising the human physiology is difficult. This disguise is but one of many I am frequently called upon to assume."
"Well, if any more are like this one," said Mr. Dorgan with sincerity, "I'm glad I'm not a detective."
Syrilla, however, heaved her several hundred pounds of bosom and cast her eyes toward Mr. Gubb.
"I think detectives are lovely in any disguise," she said, and Mr. Gubb's heart beat wildly.
THE EAGLE'S CLAWS
As Philo Gubb boarded the train for Riverbank after recovering the silver loving-cup from the interior of the petrified man, he cast a regretful glance backward. It was for Syrilla. There was half a ton of her pinky-white beauty, and her placid, cow-like expression touched an echoing chord in Philo Gubb's heart.
Philo felt, however, that his admiration must be hopeless, for Syrilla must earn a salary in keeping with her size, and his income was too irregular and small to keep even a thin wife.
* * * * *
Five hundred dollars was a large reward for a loving-cup that cost not over thirty dollars, it is true, but Mr. Jonas Medderbrook could afford to pay what he chose, and as he was passionately fond of golf and passionately poor at the game, and as this was probably the only golf prize he would ever win, he was justified in paying liberally, especially as this cup was not merely a tankard, but almost large enough to be called a tank.
Detective Gubb hastened to the home of Mr. Medderbrook, but when the door of that palatial house opened, the colored butler told Mr. Gubb that Mr. Medderbrook was at the Golf Club, attending the annual banquet of the Fifty Worst Duffers. Mr. Gubb started for the Golf Club. As he walked he thought of Syrilla, and he was at the gate of the Golf Club before he knew it.
He walked up the path toward the club-house, but when halfway, he stopped short, all his detective instincts aroused. The windows of the club-house glowed with light, and sounds of merriment issued from them, but the cause of Philo Gubb's sudden pause was a head silhouetted against one of the glowing windows. As Mr. Gubb watched, he saw the head disappear in the gloom below the window only to reappear at another window. Mr. Gubb, following the directions as laid down in Lesson Four of the Correspondence Lessons, dropped to his hands and knees and crept silently toward the "Paul Pry." When within a few feet of him, Mr. Gubb seated himself tailor-fashion on the grass.
As Philo sat on the damp grass, the man at the window turned his head, and Mr. Gubb noted with surprise that the stranger had none of the marks of a sodden criminal. The face was that of a respectably benevolent old German-American gentleman. Kindliness and good-nature beamed from its lines; but at the moment the plump little man seemed in trouble.
"Good-evening," said Mr. Gubb. "I presume you are taking an observation of the dinner-party within the inside of the club."
The old gentleman turned sharply.
"Shess!" he said. "I look at der peoples eading and drinking. Alvays I like to see dot. Und sooch goot eaders! Dot man mit der black beard, he vos a schplendid eader!"
Mr. Gubb raised himself to his knees and looked into the dining-room.
"That," he said, "is the Honorable Mr. Jonas Medderbrook, the wealthiest rich man in Riverbank."
"Metterbrook? Mettercrook?" said the old German-American. "Not Chones, eh?"
"Not Jones, to my present personal knowledge at this time," said Philo Gubb.
"Not Chones!" repeated the plumply benevolent-looking German-American. "Dot vos stranche! You vos sure he vos not Chones?"
"I'm quite almost positive upon that point of knowledge," said Philo Gubb, "for I have under my arm a golf cup I am returning back to Mr. Medderbrook to receive five hundred dollars reward from him for."
"So?" queried the stranger. "Fife hunderdt dollars? Und it is his cup?"
"It is," said Philo Gubb. He raised the cup in his hand that the stranger might read the inscription stating that the cup was Jonas Medderbrook's.
The light of the window made the engraving easy to read, but the old German-American first drew from his pocket a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles and adjusted them carefully on his nose. He then took the cup and moved closer to the window and read the inscription.
"Shess! Shess!" he agreed, nodding his head several times, and then he smiled at Mr. Gubb a broadly benevolent smile. "Oxcoose me!" he added, and with gentle deliberation he removed Mr. Gubb's hat. "Shoost a minute, please!" he continued, and with his free hand he felt gently of the top of Mr. Gubb's head. He turned Mr. Gubb's head gently to the right. "So!" he exclaimed: "Dot vos goot!" He raised the cup above his head and brought it down on top of Mr. Gubb's head in the exact spot he had selected. For two moments Mr. Gubb made motions with his hands resembling those of a swimmer, and then he collapsed in a heap. The kindly looking old German-American gentleman, seeing he was quite unconscious, tucked the golf cup under his own arm, and waddled slowly down the path to the club gates.
Ten minutes later a small automobile drove up and young Dr. Anson Briggs hopped out. Mr. Gubb was just getting to his feet, feeling the top of his head with his hand as he did so.
"Here!" said Dr. Briggs. "You must not do that!"
"Why can't I do it?" Mr. Gubb asked crossly. "It is my own personal head, and if I wish to desire to rub it, you are not concerned in the occasion whatever."
"Oh, rub your head if you want to!" exclaimed the doctor. "I say you must not stand up. A man that has just had a fit must not stand up."
"Who had a fit?" asked Philo Gubb.
"You did," said Dr. Briggs. "I am told you had a very bad fit, and fell and knocked your head against the building. You're dazed. Lie down!"
"I prefer to wish to stand erect on my feet," said Mr. Gubb firmly. "Where's my cup?"
"Who told you I was suffering from the symptom of a fit?" demanded Philo Gubb.
"Why, a short, plump little German did," said the doctor. "He sent me here. And he gave me this to give to you."
The doctor held an envelope toward Mr. Gubb, and the detective took it and tore it open. By the light of the window he read:—
Rec'd of J. Jones, golluf cup worth $500. P. H. SCHRECKENHEIM.
Philo Gubb turned to Dr. Briggs.
"I am much obliged for the hastiness with which you came to relieve one you considered to think in trouble, doctor," he said, "but fits are not in my line of sickness, which mainly is dyspeptic to date."
"Now, what is all this?" asked the doctor suspiciously. "What is that letter, anyway?"
"It is a clue," said Philo Gubb, "which, connected with the bump on the top of the cranium of my skull, will, no doubt, land somebody into jail. So good-evening, doctor."
He picked his hat from the lawn, and in his most stately manner walked around the club-house and in at the door.
Inside the club-house, Mr. Gubb asked one of the waiters to call Mr. Medderbrook, and Mr. Medderbrook immediately appeared.
As he came from the dining-room rapidly, the napkin he had had tucked in his neck fell over his shoulder behind him, and Mr. Medderbrook, instead of turning around bent backward until he could pick up the napkin with his teeth, after which he resumed his normal upright position.
"Excuse me, Gubb," he said; "I didn't think what I was doing. Where is the cup?"
The detective explained. He handed Mr. Medderbrook the receipt that had been sent by Mr. Schreckenheim, and the moment Mr. Medderbrook's eyes fell upon it he turned red.
"That infernal Dutchman!" he cried, although Mr. Schreckenheim was not a Dutchman at all, but a German-American. "I'll jail him for this!"
He stopped short.
"Gubb," he said, "did that fellow tell you what his business was?"
"He did not," said Philo Gubb. "He failed to express any mention of it."
"That man," said Mr. Medderbrook bitterly, "is Schreckenheim, the greatest tattoo artist in the world. He is the king of them all. A connoisseur in tattooish art can tell a Schreckenheim as easily as a picture-dealer can tell a Corot. But no matter! Mr. Gubb, you are a detective and I believe what is told detectives is held inviolable. Yes. You—and all Riverbank—see in me an ordinary citizen, wealthy, perhaps, but ordinary. As a matter of fact, I was once"—he looked cautiously around—"I was once a contortionist. I was once the contortionist. And now I am a wealthy man. My wife left me because she said I was stingy, and she took my child—my only daughter. I have never seen either of them since. I have searched high and low, but I cannot find them. Mr. Gubb, I would give the man that finds my daughter—if she is alive—a thousand dollars."
"You don't object to my attempting to try?" said Philo Gubb.
"No," said Mr. Jonas Medderbrook, "but that is not what I wish to explain. In my contortion act, Mr. Gubb, I was obliged to wear the most expensive silk tights. Wiggling on the floor destroys them rapidly. I had a happy thought. I was known as the Man-Serpent. Could I not save all expense of tights by having myself tattooed so that my skin would represent scales? Look."
Mr. Medderbrook pulled up his cuff and showed Mr. Gubb his arm. It was beautifully tattooed in red and blue, like the scales of a cobra.
"The cost," continued Mr. Medderbrook, "was great. Herr Schreckenheim worked continuously on me, and when he reached my manly chest I had a brilliant thought. I would have tattooed upon it an American eagle. Imagine the enthusiasm of an audience when I stood straight, spread my arms and showed that noble emblem of our nation's strength and freedom! I told Herr Schreckenheim and he set to work. When—and the contract price, by the way, for doing that eagle was five hundred dollars—when the eagle was about completed, I said to Herr Schreckenheim, 'Of course you will do no more eagles?'
"'More eagles?' he said questioningly.
"'On other men," I said. 'I want to be the only man with an eagle on my chest.'
"'I am doing an eagle on another man now,' he said.
"I was angry at once. I jumped from the table and threw on my clothes. 'Cheater!' I cried. 'Not another spot or dot shall you make on me! Go! I will never pay you a cent!'
"He was very angry. 'It is a contract!' he cried. 'Five hundred dollars you owe me!'
"'I owe it to you when the job is complete,' I declared. 'That was the contract. Is this job complete? Where are the eagle's claws? I'll never pay you a cent!'
"We had a lot of angry words. He demanded that I give him a chance to put the claws on the eagle. I refused. I said I would never pay. He said he would follow me to the end of the world and collect. He said he would do those eagle claws if he had to do them on my infant daughter. I dared him to touch the child. And now," said Mr. Medderbrook, "he has taken the golf cup I value at five hundred dollars. He has won."
At the mention of the threat regarding the child, Philo Gubb's eyes opened wide, but he kept silence.
"Gubb," said Mr. Medderbrook suddenly, "I'll give you a thousand dollars if you can recover my poor child."
"The deteckative profession is full of complicity of detail," said Mr. Gubb, "and the impossible is quite possible when put in the right hands. The cup—"
"Bother the cup!" said Mr. Medderbrook carelessly. "I want my child—I'll give ten thousand dollars for my child, Gubb."
With difficulty could Philo Gubb restrain his eagerness to depart. He had a clue!
Ordinarily Mr. Gubb would have taken any disguise that seemed to him best suited for the work in hand; but now he was going to see and be seen by Syrilla!
Mr. Gubb ran down the list—Number Seven, Card Sharp; Number Nine, Minister of the Gospel; Number Twelve, Butcher; Number Sixteen, Negro Hack-Driver; Number Seventeen, Chinese Laundryman; Number Twenty, Cowboy.... Philo Gubb paused there. He would be a cowboy, for it was a jaunty disguise—"chaps," sombrero, spurs, buckskin gloves, holsters and pistols, blue shirt, yellow hair, stubby mustache. He donned the complete disguise, put his street garments in a suitcase and viewed himself in his small mirror. He highly approved of the disguise. He touched his cheeks with red to give himself a healthy, outdoor appearance.
Early the next morning, before the earliest merchants had opened their shops, Philo Gubb boarded the train for West Higgins, for it was there the World's Greatest Combined Shows were to appear. The few sleepy passengers did not open their eyes; the conductor, as he took Mr. Gubb's ticket, merely remarked, "Joining the show at West Higgins?" and passed on. Boys were already gathering on the West Higgins station platform when the train pulled in, and they cheered Mr. Gubb, thinking him part of the show. This greatly increased the difficulty of Mr. Gubb's detective work. He had hoped to steal unobserved to the circus grounds, but a dozen small boys immediately attached themselves to him, running before him and whooping with joy.
"Boys," said Mr. Gubb sternly, "I wish you to run away and play elsewhere than in front of me continuously and all the time,"—and they cheered because he had spoken. Only the glad news that the circus trains had reached town finally dragged them reluctantly away. Detective Gubb hurried to the circus grounds. The cook tent was already up, and the grub tent was being put up. Presently the side-show tent was up and the "big top" rising. It was not until nine o'clock, however, that the side-show ladies and gentlemen began to appear, and when they arrived they went at once to the grub tent and seated themselves at the table. From a corner of the "big top's" side wall, Detective Gubb watched them.
"Look there, dearie," said Syrilla suddenly to Princess Zozo, "don't that cowboy look like Mr. Gubb that was at Bardville and got the golf cup?"
"It don't look like him," said Princess Zozo; "it is him. Why don't you ask him to come over and help at the eats? You seemed to like him yesterday."
"I thought he was a real gentlem'nly gentlemun, dearie, if that's what you mean," said Syrilla; and raising her voice she called to Mr. Gubb. For a moment he hesitated, and then he came forward. "We knowed you the minute we seen you, Mr. Gubb. Come and sit in beside me and have some breakfast if you ain't dined. I thought you went home last night. You ain't after no more crim'nals, are you?"
"There are variously many ends to the deteckative business," said Mr. Gubb, as he seated himself beside Syrilla. "I'm upon a most important case at the present time."
Syrilla reached for her fifth boiled potato, and as her arm passed Mr. Gubb's face he thrilled. He had not been mistaken. Upon that arm was a pair of eagle's claws, tattooed in red and blue! How little these had meant to him before, and how much they meant now!
"I presume you don't hardly ever long for a home in one place, Miss Syrilla," he began, with his eye fixed on her arm just above the elbow.
"Well, believe me, dearie," said Syrilla, "you don't want to think that just because I travel with a side-show I don't long for the refinements of a true home just like other folks. Some folks think I'm easy to see through and that I ain't nothin' but fat and appetite, but they've got me down wrong, Mr. Gubb. I was unfortunate in gettin' lost from my father and mother when a babe, but many is the time I've said to Zozo, 'I got a refined strain in my nature.' Haven't I, Zozo?"
"You say it every time we begin to rag you about fallin' in love with every new thin man you see," said Princess Zozo. "You said it last night when we was joshin' you about Mr. Gubb here."
Syrilla colored, but Mr. Gubb thrilled joyously.
"Just the same, dearie," Syrilla said to Princess Zozo, "I've got myself listed right when I say I got a refined nature. I've got all the instincts of a real society lady and sometimes it irks me awful not to be able to let myself loose and bant like—"
"Pant?" asked Mr. Gubb.
"Bant was the word I used, Mr. Gubb," Syrilla replied. "Maybe you wouldn't guess it, lookin' at me shovelin' in the eatables this way, but eatin' food is the croolest thing I have to do. It jars me somethin' terrible. Yes, dearie, what I long for day and night is a chance to take my place in the social stratums I was born for and bant off the fat like other social ladies is doin' right along. I don't eat food because I like it, Mr. Gubb, but because a lady in a profession like mine has got to keep fatted up. My outside may be fat, Mr. Gubb, but I got a soul inside of me as skinny as any fash'nable lady would care to have, and as soon as possible I'm goin' to quit the road and bant off six or seven hundred pounds. Would you believe it possible that I ain't dared to eat a pickle for over seven years, because it might start me on the thinward road?"
"I presume to suppose," said Mr. Gubb politely, "that if you was to be offered a home that was rich with wealth and I was to take you there and place you beside your parental father, you wouldn't refuse?"
Mr. Gubb awaited the reply with eagerness. He tried to remain calm, but in spite of himself he was nervous.
"Watch me!" said Syrilla. "If you could show me a nook like that, you couldn't hold me in this show business with a tent-stake and bull tackle. But that's a rosy dream!"
"You ain't got a locket with the photo' of your mother's picture into it?" asked Mr. Gubb.
"No," said Syrilla. "My pa and ma was unknown to me. I dare say they got sick of hearin' me bawl and left me on a doorstep. The first I knew of things was that I was travelin' with a show, representin' a newborn babe in an incubator machine. I was incubated up to the time I was five years old, and got too long to go in the glass case."
"But some one was your guardian in charge of you, no doubt?" asked Gubb.
"I had forty of them, dearie," said Syrilla. "Whenever money run low, they quit because they couldn't get paid on Saturday night."
"Hah!" said Mr. Gubb. "And does the name Jones bring back the memory of any rememberance to you?"
"No, Mr. Gubb," said Syrilla regretfully, seeing how eager he was. "It don't."
"In that state of the case of things," said Mr. Gubb, "I've got to go over to that wagon-pole and sit down and think awhile. I've got a certain clue I've got to think over and make sure it leads right, and if it does I'll have something important to say to you."
The wagon-pole in question was attached to a canvas wagon near by, and Detective Gubb seated himself on it and thought. The side-show ladies and gentlemen, having finished, entered the side-show tent—with the exception of Syrilla, who remained to finish her meal. She ate a great deal at meals, before meals, and after meals. Mr. Gubb, from his seat on the wagon-pole, looked at Syrilla thoughtfully. He had not the least doubt that Syrilla was the lost daughter of Mr. Jones (or Medderbrook as he now called himself). The German-American tattoo artist had sworn to complete the eagle by putting its claws on Mr. Jones's daughter, if need be, and here were the claws on Syrilla's arm. But, just as it is desirable at times to have a handwriting expert identify a bit of writing, Mr. Gubb felt that if he could prove that the claws tattooed on Syrilla's arm were the work of Mr. Schreckenheim, his case would be complete. He longed for Mr. Schreckenheim's presence, but, lacking that, he had a happy idea. Mr. Enderbury, the tattooed man of the side-show, should be a connoisseur and would perhaps be able to identify the eagle's claws. Leaving Syrilla still eating, Mr. Gubb entered the side-show tent.
Mr. Enderbury, seated on a blue property case, was engaged in biting the entire row of finger nails on his right hand, and a frown creased his brow. He was enwrapped by a long purple bathrobe which tied closely about his neck. As he caught sight of Mr. Gubb, he started slightly and doubled his hand into a fist, but he immediately calmed himself and assumed a nonchalant air. As a matter of fact, Mr. Enderbury led a dog's life. For years he had loved Syrilla devotedly, but he was so bashful he had never dared to confess his love to her, and year after year he saw her smile upon one thin man after another. Now it was Mr. Lonergan; again it was Mr. Winterberry—or it was Mr. Gubb, or Smith, or Jones, or Doe; but for Mr. Enderbury she seemed to have nothing but contempt. Mr. Enderbury had first seen her when she was posing in the infant incubator, and had loved her even then, for he was twenty when she was but five. The coming of a new rival always affected him as the coming of Mr. Gubb had, but for good reason he hated Mr. Gubb worse than any of the others.
"Excuse me for begging your pardon," said Mr. Gubb, "but in the deteckative business questions have to be asked. Have you ever chanced to happen to notice some tattoo work upon the arm of Miss Syrilla of this side-show?"
"I have," said Mr. Enderbury shortly.
"A pair of eagle's claws," said Mr. Gubb. "Can you tell me, from your knowledge and belief, if the work there done was the work of a Mr. Herr Schreckenheim?"
"I can tell you if I want to," said Mr. Enderbury. "What do you want to know for?"
"If those claws are the work of Mr. Herr Schreckenheim," said Mr. Gubb, "I am prepared to offer to Miss Syrilla her daughterly place in a home of wealth at Riverbank, Iowa. If those claws are Schreckenheim claws, Miss Syrilla is the daughter of Mr. Jonas Medderbrook of the said burg, beyond the question of a particle of doubt."
Mr. Enderbury looked at Mr. Gubb with surprise.
"That's non—" he began. "And if Schreckenheim did those claws, you'll take Syrilla away from this show? Forever?" he asked.
"I will," said Philo Gubb, "if she desires to wish to go."
"Then I have nothing whatever to say," said Mr. Enderbury, and he shut his mouth firmly; nor would he say more.
"Do you desire to wish me to understand that they are not the work of Mr. Herr Schreckenheim?" persisted Mr. Gubb.
"I have nothing to say!" said Mr. Enderbury.
"I consider that conclusive circumstantial evidence that they are," said Detective Gubb, and he clanked out of the side-show.
Syrilla was still seated at the grub table, finishing her meal, and Mr. Gubb seated himself opposite her. As delicately as he could, he told of Jonas Medderbrook and his lost daughter, of the home of wealth that awaited that daughter, and finally, of his belief that Syrilla was that daughter. It was clear that Syrilla was quite willing to take up a life of refinement and dieting if she was given an opportunity such as Mr. Gubb was able to offer in the name of Jonas Medderbrook; and, this being so, he questioned her regarding the eagle's claws.
"Mr. Gubb," she said, "I wish to die on the spot if I know how I got them claws tattooed onto me. If you ask me, I'll say it is the mystery of my life. They've been on me since I was a little girl no bigger than—why, who is that?"
Mr. Gubb turned his head quickly, but he was not in time to see a plump, good-natured looking little German-American slip quickly out of sight behind the cook tent. Neither did he see the glitter of the sun on a large silver golf cup the plump German-American carried under his arm; but the German-American had recognized Mr. Gubb, even through his disguise of a cowboy.
"No matter," said Syrilla. "But these claws have been on my arm since I was a wee little girl, Mr. Gubb. I always thought they was a trademark of a hospital."
"I was not knowingly aware that hospitals had trademarks," said Mr. Gubb.
"Maybe they don't," said Syrilla. "But when I was a small child I had an accident and had to be took to a hospital, and it wasn't until after that that anybody saw the eagle's claws on me. I considered that maybe it was like the mark the laundry puts on a handkerchief it has laundered."
"I don't know much about the manners of the ways of hospitals," admitted Mr. Gubb, "and that may be so, but I have another idea. Did you ever hear of Mr. Herr Schreckenheim?"
"Only that Mr. Enderbury is always cross on the days of the month that he gets Mr. Schreckenheim's statements of money due. Mr. Schreckenheim is the man that tattooed Mr. Enderbury so beautiful, but poor Mr. Enderbury has never been able to pay him in full."
Philo Gubb arose.
"I am going to telegraph Mr. Medderbrook to come on to West Higgins immediately by the three P.M. afternoon train," he said, "and you will meet him as your paternal father and arrange to make your home with him as soon as you desire to wish it."
* * * * *
At five o'clock that afternoon, Mr. Medderbrook, escorted by Mr. Gubb, entered the side-show tent. The lady and gentlemen freaks were resting before evening grub, and all were gathered around Syrilla's platform, for the news that she was to leave the show to enter a home of wealth and refinement had spread quickly. Syrilla herself was in tears. Now that the time had come she was loath to part from her kind companions.
"I tell you, Mr. Gubb," Mr. Medderbrook said, as they entered the side-show, "if you have indeed found my daughter you have made me a happy man. You cannot know how lonesome my life has been. Now, which is she?"
"She is the female lady in the pink satin dress on that platform," said Mr. Gubb.
Mr. Medderbrook looked toward Syrilla and gasped.
"Why, that—that's the Fat Woman! That's the Fat Woman of the side-show!" he exclaimed. "I thought—I—why, my daughter wouldn't be a Fat Woman in a side-show!"
"But she is," said Mr. Gubb.
"Great Scott!" exclaimed Mr. Medderbrook.
For years Mr. Medderbrook had retained a memory of his daughter as he had seen her last, a tender babe in long clothes. As he rode toward West Higgins, however, he had thought about his daughter and he had revised his conception of her. She was older now, of course, and he had finally settled the matter by deciding that she would be a dainty slip of a girl—probably a tight-rope walker or one of the toe-dancers in the Grand Spectacle, or perhaps even engaged as the Ten-Thousand-Dollar Beauty. But a Fat Lady! Mr. Medderbrook walked toward Syrilla. Every eye in the tent was upon him. There was utter silence except for Syrilla's happy sobbing.
"Shess!" said a voice suddenly. "You bet I vos here! Und I vant my money! Years I haf been collecding dot bill, und still you owe me. Now I come, and you pay me all vot you owe or I make troubles!"
The voice came from outside the tent, and with surprising agility Detective Gubb dived under the platform and wriggled under the canvas wall.
"I don't owe you a cent!" exclaimed the voice of Mr. Enderbury. "I've paid you for every bit of tattoo I have on me."
"Seven hunderdt dollars vos der contract," cried the voice of Herr Schreckenheim. "Und ten dollars is due me yet. I vant it."
"Well, you'll keep on wanting it," said Mr. Enderbury's voice. "Look here! Look at my chest. There's the eagle you did on me—do you see any claws on it? No, you don't! Well, I'm not going to pay for claws that are not on me. No, sir!"
"Claws? I do some claws on you, don't I, ven I do dot eagle?" asked the German-American.
"Yes, but they're not on me now, are they?" asked Mr. Enderbury, "You can go and collect from the person that has them. What do I care for her now? She's going to quit the circus business. I've paid for all the tattoo that's on me; you go and collect ten dollars for those claws from Syrilla."
"Und how does she get those claws on her?" asked Herr Schreckenheim shrewdly.
"I'll tell you how," said Mr. Enderbury. "You remember when Griggs' & Barton's Circus burned down years ago? Well, Syrilla was burned in that fire—burned on the arm—and they took her to a hospital and her arm wouldn't heal. So somebody had to furnish some skin for a skin-grafting job, and I did it. The piece they took had those claws on it. That's what happened. I gave those eagle's claws to cure her, and I've hung around her all these years like a faithful dog, and she don't care a hang for me, and now she's going away. Go and collect for those claws from her. I haven't got them. She's going to be rich; she can pay you!"
Simultaneously there was an exclamation from Mr. Medderbrook, a cry from Syrilla, and a short, sharp yell from outside the tent. Mr. Gubb entered, spurs first, creeping backward under the canvas. As he backed from under the platform it was observed that he held a shoe—about No. 8 size—in one hand, and that a foot was in the shoe, and the foot on a leg, and the leg on a short, plump, elderly German-American, who yelled as he was dragged into the tent on his back. In one hand of the German-American was a large silver golf cup with a deep dent on one side. As Mr. Gubb arose to his feet, still holding the German-American tattoo artist's foot in his hand, he said:—
"Mr. Medderbrook, the deteckative business is not always completely satisfactory in all kinds of respects, and it looks as if it appeared that the daughter I found for you is somebody else's, but if you will look at the other end of the assaulter and batterer I have in hand, you will see that I have recovered the silver golf cup trophy once again for the second time."
"And that," said Mr. Medderbrook as he took the cup from the German-American's hand, "is remarkable work. The ordinary detective is usually satisfied to recover stolen property once, but you have recovered this cup twice."
"The motto of my deteckative business," said Mr. Gubb modestly, "is 'Perfection, no matter how many times.'"
Mr. Gubb might have said more, but he was interrupted by Princess Zozo, the Snake Charmer, who had walked around Syrilla and unhooked two of the hooks at the top of Syrilla's low-necked gown.
"Look!" she exclaimed, and she pointed to a second pair of eagle's claws tattooed between Syrilla's shoulder blades. Without a word Mr. Medderbrook took five hundred dollars from his purse and handed them to Mr. Schreckenheim.
"That pays you for the cup," he said. And then, turning to Syrilla: "Come to my arms, my long-lost daughter!"
After Syrilla had hugged her father affectionately, Mr. Gubb and the freaks laid him on the ground and, by fanning him vigorously, were able to bring him back to life. Mr. Medderbrook's first act upon opening his eyes was to hold out his hand to Mr. Gubb.
"Thank you, Gubb," he panted. "It's a big price, but I'll keep my word. The ten thousand dollars shall be yours."
"Into ordinary circumstances," said Mr. Gubb gravely, "ten thousand dollars would be a largely big price to pay for recovering back a lost daughter, Mr. Medderbrook, but into the present case it don't amount to more than ten dollars per pound of daughter, which ain't a largely great rate per pound."
The discovery that Syrilla was the daughter of Jonas Medderbrook (born Jones) was a great triumph for Philo Gubb, but while the "Riverbank Eagle" made a great hurrah about it, Philo Gubb was not entirely happy over the matter. Having won a reward of ten thousand dollars for discovering Syrilla and five hundred dollars for recovering Mr. Medderbrook's golf cup, Mr. Gubb might have ventured to tell Syrilla of his love for her but for three reasons.
The first reason was that Mr. Gubb was so bashful that it was impossible for him to speak his love openly and immediately. If Syrilla had returned to Riverbank with her father, Mr. Gubb would have courted her by degrees, or if Syrilla had weighed only two hundred pounds, Mr. Gubb might have had the bravery to propose to her instantly, but she weighed one thousand pounds, and it required five times the bravery to propose to a thousand pounds that was required to propose to two hundred pounds.
The second reason was that Mr. Dorgan, the manager of the side-show, would not release Syrilla from her contract.
"She's a beauty of a Fat Lady," said Mr. Dorgan, "and I've got a five-year contract with her and I'm going to hold her to it."
Mr. Medderbrook and Mr. Gubb would have been quite hopeless when Mr. Dorgan said this if Syrilla had not taken them to one side.
"Listen, dearies," she said, "he's a mean, old brute, but don't you fret! I got a hunch how to make him cancel my contract in a perfectly refined an' ladylike manner. Right now I start in bantin' and dietin' in the scientific-est manner an' the way I can lose three or four hundred pounds when I set out to do it is something grand. It won't be no time at all until I'm thin and wisp-like, an' Mr. Dorgan will be glad to get rid of me."
This information greatly cheered Mr. Gubb. While he admired Syrilla just as she was, a rapid mental calculation assured him that she would still be quite plump at seven hundred pounds and he knew he could love seven tenths of Syrilla more than he could love ten tenths of any other lady in the world.
The third reason had to do with the ten-thousand-dollar reward. When Mr. Gubb and Mr. Medderbrook were proceeding homeward on the train, Mr. Medderbrook brought up the subject of the reward again.
"I'm going to pay you that ten thousand dollars, Gubb," he said, "but I'm going to pay it so it will be worth a lot more than ten thousand dollars to you."
"You are very overly kind," said Mr. Gubb.
"It's because I know you are fond of Syrilla," said Mr. Medderbrook.
Mr. Gubb blushed.
"So I ain't going to give you ten thousand dollars in cash," said Mr. Medderbrook. "I'm going to do a lot better by you than that. I'm going to give you gold-mine stock. The only trouble—"
"Gold-mine stock sounds quite elegantly nice," said Mr. Gubb.
"The only trouble," said Mr. Medderbrook, "is that the gold-mine stock I want to give you is in a block of twenty-five thousand dollars. It's nice stock. It's as neatly engraved as any stock I ever saw, and it is genuine common stock in the Utterly Hopeless Gold-Mine Company."
"The name sounds sort of unhopeful," ventured Mr. Gubb timidly.
"That shows you don't know anything about gold mines," said Mr. Medderbrook cheerfully. "The reason I—the reason the miners gave it that name is because this mine lies right between two of the best gold-mines in Minnesota. One of them is the Utterly Good Gold-Mine, and the other is the Far-From-Hopeless. So when I—so when the miners named this mine they took part of the names of the two others and called this one the Utterly Hopeless. That's the way I—the way it is always done."
"It's very cleverly bright," said Mr. Gubb.
"It's an old trick—I should say an old and approved method," said Mr. Medderbrook. "So what I'm going to do, Mr. Gubb, is to let you in on the ground floor on this mine. It's a chance I wouldn't offer to everybody. This mine hasn't paid out all its money in dividends. I tell you as an actual fact, Mr. Gubb, that so far it hasn't paid out a cent in dividends, not even to the preferred stock. No, sir! And it ain't one of these mines that has been mined until all the gold is mined out of it. No, sir! Not an ounce of gold has ever been taken out of the Utterly Hopeless Mine. Not an ounce."
"It is all there yet!" exclaimed Mr. Gubb.
"All there ever was," said Mr. Medderbrook. "Yes, sir! If you want me to I'll give you a written guarantee that the Utterly Hopeless Mine has never paid a cent in dividends and that not an ounce of gold has ever been taken out of the mine. That shows you I'm square about this. So what I'm going to do," he said impressively, "is to turn over to you a block of twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of Utterly Hopeless Gold-Mine stock and apply the ten thousand dollars I owe you as part of the purchase price. All you need to do then is to pay me the other fifteen thousand dollars as rapidly as you can."
"That's very kindly generous of you," said Mr. Gubb gratefully.
"And that isn't all," said Mr. Medderbrook. "I own every single share of the stock of that mine, Mr. Gubb, and as soon as you get the fifteen thousand dollars paid up I'll advance the price of that stock one hundred per cent! Yes, sir, I'll double the price of the stock, and what you own will be worth fifty thousand dollars!"
There were tears in Philo Gubb's eyes as he grasped Mr. Medderbrook's hand.
"And all I ask," said Mr. Medderbrook, "is that you hustle up and pay that fifteen thousand dollars as quick as you can. So that," he added, "you'll be worth fifty thousand dollars all the sooner."
Upon reaching Riverbank Mr. Medderbrook took Mr. Gubb to his home and turned over to him the stock in the Utterly Hopeless Mine.
"And here," said Mr. Medderbrook, "is a receipt for ten thousand five hundred dollars, and you can give me back that five hundred I paid you for recovering of my golf cup. That's to show you everything is fair and square when you deal with me. Now you owe me only fourteen thousand five hundred dollars."
While Mr. Gubb was handing the five hundred dollars back to Mr. Medderbrook the colored butler entered with a telegram. Mr. Medderbrook tore it open hastily.
"Good news already," he said and handed it to Mr. Gubb. It was from Syrilla and said:—
Be brave. Have lost four ounces already. Kind regards and best love to Mr. Gubb.
With only partial satisfaction Mr. Gubb left Mr. Medderbrook and proceeded downtown. He now had a double incentive for seeking the rewards that fall to detectives, for he had Syrilla to win and the Utterly Hopeless Gold-Mine stock to pay for. He started for the Pie-Wagon, for he was hungry, but on the way certain suspicious actions of Joe Henry (the liveryman who had twice beaten him up while he was working on the dynamiter case), stopped him, and it was much later when he entered the Pie-Wagon.
As Philo Gubb entered, Billy Getz sat on one of the stools and stirred his coffee. He held a dime novel with his other hand, reading; but Pie-Wagon Pete kept an eye on him. He knew Billy Getz and his practical jokes. If unwatched for a moment, the young whipper-snapper might empty the salt into the sugar-bowl, or play some other prank that came under his idea of fun.
Billy Getz was a good example of the spoiled only son. He went in for all the vice there was in town, and to occupy his spare time he planned practical jokes. He was thirty years old, rather bald, had a pale and leathery skin, and a preternaturally serious expression. In his pranks he was aided by the group of young poker-playing, cigarette-smoking fellows known as the "Kidders."
Billy Getz, as he read the last line of the thrilling tale of "The Pale Avengers," tucked the book in his pocket, and looked up and saw Philo Gubb. The hawk-eyes of Billy Getz sparkled.
"Hello, detective!" he cried. "Sit down and have something! You're just the man I've been lookin' for. Was askin' Pete about you not a minute ago—wasn't I, Pete?"
Pie-Wagon Pete nodded.
"Yes, sir," said Billy Getz eagerly, "I've got something right in your line—something big; mighty big—and—say, detective, have you ever read 'The Pale Avengers'?"
"I ain't had that pleasure, Mr. Getz," said Philo Gubb, straddling a stool.
"What's the matter? You're out of breath," said Pie-Wagon.
"I been runnin'," said Philo Gubb. "I had to run a little. Deteckatives have to run at times occasionally."
"You bet they do," said Billy Getz earnestly. "You ain't been after the dynamiters, have you?"
"I am from time to time working upon that case," said Philo Gubb with dignity.
"Well, you be careful. You be mighty careful! We can't afford to lose a man like you," said Billy Getz. "You can't be too careful. Got any of the ghouls yet?"
"Not yet," said Philo Gubb stiffly. "It's a difficult case for one that's just graduated out of a deteckative school. It's like Lesson Nine says—I got to proceed cautiously when workin' in the dark."
"Or they'll get you before you get them," said Billy Getz. "Like in 'The Pale Avengers.' Here, I want you to read this book. It'll teach you some things you don't know about crooks, maybe."
"Thank you," said Philo Gubb, taking the dime novel. "Anything that can help me in my deteckative career is real welcome. I'll read it, Mr. Getz, and—Look out!" he shouted, and in one leap was over the counter and crouching behind it.
Billy Getz turned toward the door, where a short, red-faced man was standing with a pine slab held in his hand. Intense anger glittered in his eyes, and he darted to the counter and, leaning over, brought the slab down on Philo Gubb's back with a resounding whack.
"Here! Here! None o' that stuff in here, Joe," cried Pie-Wagon Pete, grasping the intruder's arm.
"I'll kill him, that's what I'll do!" shouted the intruder. "Snoopin' around my place, and follerin' me up an' down all the time! I told him I wasn't goin' to have him doggin' me an' pesterin' me. I've beat him up twice, an' now I'm goin' to give him the worst lickin' he ever had. Come out of there, you half-baked ostrich, you."
"Now, you stop that," said Pie-Wagon Pete sternly. "You're goin' to be sorry if you beat him up. He don't mean no harm. He's just foolish. He don't know no better. All you got to do is to explain it to him right."
"Explain?" said Joe Henry. "I'd look nice explainin' anything, wouldn't I? Hand him over here, Pete."
"Now, listen," shouted Pie-Wagon Pete angrily. "You ain't everything. I'm your pardner, ain't I? Well, you let me fix this." He winked at Joe Henry. "You let me explain to Mr. Gubb, an' if he ain't satisfied, why—all right."
For a moment Joe Henry studied Pie-Wagon's face, and then he put down the slab.
"All right, you explain," he said ungraciously, and Philo Gubb raised his white face above the counter.
* * * * *
Upon the passage of the State prohibitory law every saloon in Riverbank had been closed and there had been growlings from the saloon element. Five of the leading prohibitionists had received threatening letters and, a few nights later, the houses of four of the five were blown up. Kegs of powder had been placed in the cellar windows of each of the four houses, wrecking them, and the fifth house was saved only because the fuse there was damp. Luckily no one was killed, but that was not the fault of the "dynamiters," as every one called them.
The town and State immediately offered a reward of five thousand dollars for the arrest and conviction of the dynamiters, and detectives flocked to Riverbank. Real detectives came to try for the noble prize. Amateur detectives came in hordes. Citizens who were not detectives at all tried their hands at the work.
For the first few days rumors of the immediate capture of the "ghouls" were flying everywhere, but day followed day and week followed week, and no one was incarcerated. The citizen-detectives went back to their ordinary occupations, the amateur detectives went home, the real detectives were called off on other and more promising jobs, and soon the field was left clear for Philo Gubb.
Not that he made much progress. Each night he hid himself in the dark doorway of Willcox Hall waiting to pick up (Lesson Four, Rule Four) some suspicious-looking person, and having picked him up, he proceeded to trail and shadow him (Lesson Four, Rules Four to Seventeen). Six times—twice by Joe Henry—he was well beaten by those he followed. It became such a nuisance to be followed by Philo Gubb in false mustache or whiskers, that it was a public relief when Billy Getz and other young fellows took upon themselves the duty of being shadowed. With hats pulled over their eyes and coat-collars turned up, they would pass the dark doorway of Willcox Hall, let themselves be picked up, and then lead poor Detective Gubb across rubbish-encumbered vacant lots, over mud flats or among dark lumber piles, only to give him the slip with infinite ease when they tired of the game.
But Philo Gubb was back the next night, waiting in the shadow of the doorway of Willcox Hall. He did not progress very rapidly toward the goal of the reward, but he counted it all good practice. | <urn:uuid:fd5f7e9d-34b3-46e3-9ac6-ea9ddd811e25> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://www.hotfreebooks.com/book/Philo-Gubb-Correspondence-School-Detective-Ellis-Parker-Butler.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573163.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818033705-20220818063705-00074.warc.gz | en | 0.983422 | 25,668 | 1.570313 | 2 |
- How does it work?
- Tumble Dot YAML
- How to change the look and feel
- Adding custom post types
- Using the content variable as a hash
- Helper functions
- Switching themes
How does it work?
tags fields are both optional
(what, tags?). The
post type is
the way in which your content will be displayed. Your
content will be
anything from an image url to a quotation to a rant. If you have the
RedCloth gem installed you can use
textile in your post titles and content.
We are making a bit of an assumption, here: you are familiar with Rails. If not, there is a wealth of amazing Rails documentation out there. Not to mention some very poignant Ruby documentation, as well. Help yourself.
Tumble Dot YAML
If you want to hang out with the default ozimodo theme, by all means. However, note
that there are some out-of-the-box configurable options available to you. Open up
ozimodo/config/tumble.yml and have a look.
name option is set to will be displayed in the header and title of your
tumblelog, as well as in your feeds. Also of interest is the
salt option, used by
ozimodo for cookie authentication. Just make something up, but try to steer clear of the
That Tumbly Look and Feel
ozimodo separates your tumblelog’s rhtml templates and related code from its
own code through the use of Rails’ themes. All your blog specific code
can be found in
When you’re ready to throw your own HTML at ozimodo, these are the files you will need to edit. Their purposes are pretty self explanatory.
This is the important one. Both
list.rhtml call this file
for each post. It sets up the basic divs and layout for a post, including
anchor links, and then calls a
post type (see below) partial.
Check out this file. It’s where you put all your random helpers, ones that have nothing to do with post types (explained below).
At the heart of the tumblelog is the dynamic way in which different types of information are displayed. A quote you post may look much different from a link you post. How do you change the display of existing types and add new ones?
Within your tumblelog’s directory structure are three locations which control how posts are displayed:
In this directory are various
partials with names like
_ruby_code.rhtml. When your tumblelog needs to display the
content of a post, it checks this directory for
_post_type.rhtml and, if it
exists, inserts the post’s content into the local variable
content. It then
renders this mini-template.
If a post has a post type for which no corresponding partial exists, your
tumblelog will use the
_post.rhtml partial as a default. Don’t confuse this
themes/your_tumblelog/tumble/_post.rhtml—there is a big
difference between the two.
To add new post types, simply add new files to the
themes/your_tumblelog/tumble/types/ directory. Follow the naming scheme
and once the file is created a new post type will become available to you in the
Post Type dropdown box when creating a new post.
Simple enough. Keep all your type-specific CSS in this file. The styles contained within will always be available to your post type partials.
If you need to do any complex (or not so complex) logic, or if you plan to share a function between more than one partial, place that code in this helper file. The functions within will always be available to your post type partials. Code for how to display your crazy post types in your Atom feed also goes here.
Post Types with
Sometimes just a
content variable isn’t enough. A quote, for instance, may
typically have two separate value: the quote itself and the originator. What
ozimodo, like an olympic gymnast, is flexible enough to handle these situations
with grace. Going with the quote example, you would add a line to the top of
themes/your_tumblelog/tumble/types/_quote.rhtml telling ozi you want the
content variable to be a hash instead of a string. The line might look like
<%# fields: [quote, author] %>
This is an ERB comment; it
will not be displayed in your rendered HTML and will be ignored by normal Rails
processing. It’s special to ozimodo, though. The line means that instead of
content in your
_quote.rhtml file you will have available both
_quote.rhtml file might then look like this:
<%# fields: [quote, author] %>
<blockquote><%= content.quote %></blockquote><br/>
<% if content.author %>-- <%= content.author %><% end %>
Of course, that’s a simple example. What if you want more control over how the your custom fields are edited on the admin side? Well, you can just tell ozimodo what you want and it will listen. How about, say, an ‘image’ post type?
<%# src: type: text default: http://ozmm.org/images/typed/ alt: text blurb: textarea -%>
<img src="<%= content.src %>" class="type-img" alt="<%= content.alt %>" />
<% unless content.blurb.blank? -%><br/>also: <%= content.blurb -%><% end -%>
That makes sense, right? You can also get fancy with stuff like this:
<%# quote: type: textarea cols: 20 rows: 30 default: Nothing to see here. author: textarea source: type: text size: 20 -%>
Eat your heart out.
Note that any changes to a
fields: directive requires a restart of your web
server, even in development mode.
Instead of mucking up your rhtml templates with important decisions and cache-related code, we’ve placed a lot of code into functions contained within this file.
ozimodo helper functions typically follow a format of
a peak in this file to see what they do, if you are so inclined, and feel free
to use them over and over again in your templates.
Cache It Up
ozimodo automatically uses Rails’ built in page caching to cache your tumblelog.
Make sure that
ozimodo/public/cache is writable to your web server. If your app
is failing for no (apparent) reason in production mode, this may be the
Please note that as of 1.2, caching is by default off. To turn caching on,
ozimodo/config/environments/production.rb and change
config.action_controller.perform_caching = false
config.action_controller.perform_caching = true
ozimodo themes are like baseball cards! Trade them!
As of 1.2, ozimodo themes are entirely self contained. You can download
someone else’s ozimodo tumblelog, slip it into your
themes directory, and
away you go! This also means you can have more than one tumblelog theme
living in the
themes directory. While you can’t run more than one
tumblelog with the same instance of ozimodo, you can swap between themes
Using A Different Theme
Let’s say you’ve downloaded someone else’s ozimodo tumblelog theme and you
want to use it yourself. No problem! To follow along at home, download the
ones zeros major and minors theme from
Unzip it into your
themes directory so it lives alongside the
your_tumblelog directory. Good.
config/tumble.yml and change the ‘themes’ line from
ozmm, which is the directory name of the theme you downloaded. Start
your tumblelog with
ruby script/server. When you visit
http://localhost:3000 you should see the
ozmm.org tumblelog look instead of the default. If it looks
almost right but not quite, try clearing your browser cache.
(Option-Apple-e in Safari)
Okay okay. That’s all there is to it.
Preparing Your Theme For Trading
In only a few steps, your theme can be as portable as the ozmm theme.
- Change the name of your theme directory from
your_tumblelogto something else. Whatever you want.
- Zip it up.
- Trade trade trade!
Remember to change
config/tumble.yml to specify which theme your tumblelog
should be using. Other than that little caveat, it’s all rather elementary, my | <urn:uuid:9a3ae1c4-0c3f-4fa2-b06e-53694e28b2bf> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://ozimodo.rubyforge.org/configure.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279368.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00327-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.807249 | 1,962 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Sri Lanka's former army chief, who was imprisoned after losing an election to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, was released from prison on Monday to thousands of cheering supporters.
As firecrackers erupted in the background, Sarath Fonseka promised to carry on with his challenge to the government.
"I will sacrifice my life to serve the people of this country. My courage will not be shattered even if they detain me for 10 years and I will not stop performing my duty," he said.
He was freed as a result of a pardon issued by Rajapaksa, who signed the officials papers on Saturday.
Fonseka's release came after Foreign Minister G.L. Peiris met with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday in Washington, with the protection of human rights highlighted in their meeting. The U.S. has called Fonseka a political prisoner.
Fonseka had been credited with leading Sri Lanka's army to victory in the country's long and bloody civil war against ethnic Tamil rebels. But he was jailed after challenging Rajapaksa in elections.
He was court-martialed on several charges related to his military service. Fonseka said the cases were a political vendetta to persecute him for daring to run against Rajapaksa. The government denied the accusation.
The court-martial stripped him of his title, medals, pension and other honours, dishonourably discharged him from the army and sentenced him to a 30-month jail term.
In November 2011, he was sentenced to an additional three-year term for allegedly implicating the defense secretary and president's brother Gotabhaya Rajapaksa in war crimes during the civil war.
About 3,000 supporters gathered in front of the prison in Colombo on Monday, cheering and shouting slogans. They blocked traffic on a main road for hours.
Fonseka vowed to continue his struggle to create "a free and fair country" and urged the people to join hands with him in his endeavour.
The details of Fonseka's release – including whether it restores his right to contest elections – were not immediately clear. According to Sri Lankan law, a person convicted of a crime and sentenced to a jail term of at least six months cannot contest elections for seven years. A full pardon could restore those rights.
Fonseka and Rajapaksa had a falling out months after the war ended in May 2009, and their relationship deteriorated further after Fonseka challenged the president in elections.
While in detention, Fonseka won a parliamentary seat on the opposition ticket in April 2010, but was disqualified from holding office after the court-martial.
Sri Lanka has faced growing criticism over alleged rights abuses in the final phase of the civil war. Its ties with Washington have been strained by U.S. sponsorship of a resolution passed by the U.N. Human Rights Council in March to press Sri Lanka to conduct an independent probe into civilian deaths in the final months of fighting.
More than 80,000 people were killed in the conflict, in which ethnic minority Tamils were seeking a separate state, claiming decades of discrimination by the Sinhalese majority. | <urn:uuid:413e99e7-b5be-47cf-a213-a8b53034928b> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.carbonated.tv/news/former-sri-lanka-army-chief-sarath-fonseka-freed-from-prison | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720475.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00354-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981695 | 661 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Psychological Benefits of Pet Ownership
According to the American Pet Product Association (2011), 62% of American households own a pet with yearly spending exceeding $45 billion. There are approximately 77 million dogs and 93 millions cats in the country, clearly indicating that pets are both ubiquitous and important in people’s lives.
Moreover, it is commonly assumed that pets play a significant social role in their owner’s lives and that a dog or cat can alleviate social isolation. Although pets can provide their owners with many direct, material benefits (scaring away burglars, reducing a vermin problem, etc.), there is also some evidence that pets can have positive psychological effects on people as well.
What Research Indicates about Pet Owners
Research shows that of people who have had a heart attack in the past year, pet owners were less likely to die within the next year compared to those who do not own a pet (1% vs. 7% respectively) (Friedman & Thomas, 1995). Medicare patients with pets had fewer physician visits than patients without pets (Siegel, 1990) and HIV-positive men reported less depression than similar men without pets (Siegel, Angulo, Detels, Wesch, & Mullen, 1999).
Another study found that people with severe physical disabilities (e.g.: traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury) who were given a service dog showed improvements in their well-being (e.g.: self-esteem, locus of control) within 6 months while the wait-listed control group did not.
One reason why people might benefit from pet ownership is that pets may represent a source of social support and numerous studies demonstrate that increased social support leads to improved psychological and physical health (e.g.: Uchino, Cacioppo, & Kiecolt-Glaser, 1996). Furthermore, greater social support also improves cardiovascular, endocrine, and immune functioning (Uchino et al., 1996) while poorer social support increases mortality rates (House et al., 1988).
Many owners consider their pets to be “close others” in their lives. 50% of pet owners view their pet “as much a part of the family as any other person in the household”, 30% report that their pet sleeps in their bed with them, and 25% claim that their pet is a better listener than their spouse (Associated Press, 2009, 2010).
It is clear from numerous studies that psychologically close others can improve one’s happiness and well-being, while feeling socially isolated or excluded from others can have negative consequences (Williams, 2007). So, if pets are like close others to their owners, they may provide psychological benefits to the owner just like a close person would.
Recent Studies on Pet Ownership
Three recent studies aimed to find out how and why pet ownership benefits people psychologically. These are their findings:
Everyday people enjoy well-being benefits from pet ownership and these advantages are stronger when the pet also fulfills the owners’ social needs.
- Pet owners often experience greater well-being, self-esteem, and exhibit healthier personality characteristics (e.g.: conscientiousness) and show more positive attachment styles (i.e.: less fearful, less preoccupied).
- Pets that fulfilled their owners’ social needs better were related to less depression, less loneliness, greater self-esteem, and greater happiness in their owners. These benefits were independent of the owner’s human social resources.
- People who derive great benefits from their pets are also closer to other important people in their lives and receive more support from them, not less. This is also known as the complement hypothesis – pets complement other forms of social support rather than compete with them. Pets do not serve as surrogates when other sources of social support are deficient, they serve as additional support.
- Not surprisingly, pets with healthier personalities (e.g.: dogs that are less fearful, more active and less aggressive towards people and other dogs) fulfill their owners’ social needs better.
- In an interesting experiment, some pet owners were deliberately induced to feel lonely and isolated socially. Those participants who thought about their pet following the rejection did not experience reduced social needs fulfillment. In fact, thinking about one’s pet proved just as effective at mitigating the negativity resulting from social rejection as thinking about one’s best friend.
It has been widely known and accepted that pet ownership has many benefits for people both psychologically and physically. Owning a pet can mean experiencing unconditional love, companionship and social connectedness.
These recent studies have further confirmed pets’ role in serving to fulfill their owners’ social needs. Loneliness and social rejection are painful human experiences (MacDonald & Leary, 2005). Sometimes one’s friends and family cannot be present to provide immediate comfort (and sometimes they may be the source of the discomfort to begin with). In order to satisfy their social needs, lonely and rejected individuals may look at photos of loved ones, recall memories of social interactions, watch television, and sing or talk to themselves (Derrick et al., 2009).
Recent research suggests that pets can also contribute to the fulfillment of social needs independently of one’s human social support and predict higher levels of well-being overall. These benefits are not only true for those facing significant life stressors or physical and mental problems, but are generalized for non-clinical populations an everyday people as well.
Psychological Benefits of Pet Ownership References
McConnell, A.R., Brown, C.M., Shoda, T.M., Stayton, L.E., & Martin, C.E. (2011). Friends with benefits: On the positive consequences of pet ownership. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101, 1239-1252.
American Pet Products Association. (2011). APPA national pet owners survey 2011–2012. Retrieved from http://www.americanpetproducts.org.http://www.americanpetproducts.org/press_industrytrends.asp
Friedmann, E., & Thomas, S. A. (1995). Pet ownership, social support, and one-year survival after acute myocardial infarction in the Cardiac Arrhythmia Suppression Trial (CAST). The American Journal of Cardiology, 76, 1213–1217.
Siegel, J. M. (1990). Stressful life events and use of physician services among the elderly: The moderating role of pet ownership. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 1081–1086.
Siegel, J. M., Angulo, F. J., Detels, R., Wesch, J., & Mullen, A. (1999). AIDS diagnosis and depression in the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study: The ameliorating impact of pet ownership. AIDS Care, 11, 157–170.
Uchino, B. N., Cacioppo, J. T., & Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K. (1996). The relationship between social support and physiological processes: A review with emphasis on underlying mechanisms and implications for health. Psychological Bulletin, 119, 488–531.
House, J. S., Landis, K. R., & Umberson, D. (1988, July 29). Social relationships and health. Science, 241, 540–545.
Associated Press. (2009, June 23). The AP-Petside.com poll. Retrieved from http://surveys.ap.org
Associated Press (2010, April 28). The AP-Petside.com poll. Retrieved from http://surveys.ap.org
Williams, K. D. (2007). Ostracism. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 425–452.
MacDonald, G., & Leary, M. R. (2005). Why does social exclusion hurt? The relationship between social and physical pain. Psychological Bulletin, 131, 202–223.
Derrick, J. L., Gabriel, S., & Hugenberg, K. (2009). Social surrogacy: How favored television programs provide the experience of belonging. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 352–362. | <urn:uuid:e64609c2-b2bb-4fc9-b6a6-73dff1990b8a> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.newyorkbehavioralhealth.com/psychological-benefits-of-pet-ownership/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572215.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815235954-20220816025954-00678.warc.gz | en | 0.933625 | 1,699 | 2.828125 | 3 |
The challenge for the Congo Basin Forest and Climate Change Adaptation (CoFCCA) project was to increase both public and policymaker awareness of the contribution of forests to the development of livelihood adaptation strategies and to use forests goods and services in a way that does not jeopardize the resilience of the forests to future climate impacts. This would ensure the continuous provision of these goods and services, which contribute to adaptation, improving food security and reducing poverty.
ETFRN NEWS 50: Forests and Climate Change. Tropenbos International: Wageningen, NL. pp. 93-100 | <urn:uuid:3e114d58-0549-47f1-a886-3731850469ca> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.gov.uk/dfid-research-outputs/adaptation-for-forests-and-communities-in-the-congo-basin | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285289.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00152-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906958 | 118 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Welcome to the Korea Collection of Hamilton Library at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Our collection acquires a wide variety of materials in support of Korean Studies, here at the University. Our collection includes materials in both 한글(Hangul/Korean) and English and covers topics in the Arts, Humanities, Business and Social Sciences fields.
Recent Acquisitions List Updated (September, 2016)
The list of recent acquisitions by the Korea Collection has been updated. You can now find the acquisitions from January 2015 here.
Trial! MBC Archives (September, 2016)
Online media service that provides huge broadcast materials created and collected by MBC since its founding in 1961. There are video of aerial shots and past materials that are hard to get generally as well as video clips and images of broadcast. Try it here.
List of Korean Films Updated (July 18, 2016)
The list of Korean Films has been updated. You can now find the list here.
List of CDs in Asia (May 6, 2015)
The Korea Collection shelves some CDs separately in Asia next to the 4th Fl. Asia Reference Desk. A list of those CDs and their locations can be found here.
North Korea-related Films List (Feb. 9, 2015)
A short list of films with subject matter or material related to North Korea has been added here.
North Korean Journals List (Feb. 2, 2015)
The North Korean Collection page now includes a list of journals and newspapers published in North Korea or containing material related to North Korea. Find that list here.
North Korean Children's Book List (Jan. 30, 2015)
The North Korean Book List has been expanded to include a list of specifically children's book titles. The list can be found here.
North Korean Book List Updated (Jan. 14, 2015)
A list of titles published in North Korea available at Hamilton Library has been added to this guide. The list can be found here.
OneSearch Manoa - New!
OneSearch Manoa is a discovery and delivery tool that allows simultaneous searching of many of the Library's most popular resources including the Hawai`i Voyager online catalog and many digital resources. Click here to learn more.
Contact: pjgo [at] hawaii[dot]edu | <urn:uuid:40aad658-4a4d-4c75-b037-5e777fcf0b70> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://guides.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/kstudies | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719155.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00333-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938408 | 473 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Dual Meet Frequently asked Questions and Answers:
Do you have questions about our first meet? Here are some frequently asked questions that we usually answer - see if it helps you out! If not, feel free to email Coach Chris at firstname.lastname@example.org. He will do his best to answer your questions!
How Does a Swim Meet work?
An "event" at a swim meet consists of a gender, stroke and a distance. For instance, the girls 25-yard freestyle, the boys 25-yard freestyle, the boys 50-yard freestyle, and the girls 50-yard butterfly are four separate events. A 25-yard race is one length of the pool, and a 50-yard race is 2 lengths.
Since there are usually more swimmers entered in each event than there are lanes, there may be several races, or "heats", in each event.
Freestyle Relay: Four swimmers each swim freestyle. However, the distance swum differs by age group.
Medley Relay: Four swimmers participate, each of whom swims a different stroke. The first swimmer swims Backstroke (BA), the second Breaststroke (BR), the third Butterfly (FL), and the fourth Freestyle (FR). An easy way to remember this is: BA, BR, FL, FR are in alphabetical order.
100 IM (individual medley) is an event in which ONE swimmer swims all four strokes in one race: 25 yards of butterfly, 25 yards of backstroke, 25 yards of breaststroke and 25 yards of freestyle, in this order (note that the IM order is different from the medley relay order).
All competition is age-group competition which means that children swim against others of the same age and gender. There are two point-earning or "live" swimmers for each individual event per age group and gender; and there are two point-earning freestyle relays and two point-earning medley relays per age group and gender (except 6 & unders who do not swim the medley relay). Non point-earning individual swimmers and relays are entered into the meet as exhibition as indicated by an "X" in the meet program.
Swimming is both an individual and a team sport. Each swimmer should thrive to better his/her personal times from previous meets. They should also cheer and encourage their teammates because the team score is determined by total number of points, NOT by how many firsts a team wins. Please stress this to your children.
All finishes are judged finishes, which means that, the order of finish is determined by judges, NOT by the times on the watch. Times captured for each event are used only to help the swimmer and coach chart the progress of the swimmer.
What time should I be at the swim meets with my swimmer?
- Please arrive between 4:30 and 4:45 pm to get settled and participate in a meet warm-up.
- Meet warm-up for home meets is from 5:00 – 5:30 pm.
- Meet warm-up for away meets is from 5:30 - 5:55 pm.
- Before arriving at the pool, it is recommended that parents 1) write their child’s name and age group on his/her upper back and 2) write the events/heats/lanes on his/her arm.
- For those swimmers who show up unmarked, a “Sharpie Writer” volunteer will be available to do the remaining “marking”. Marking will either take place before or after warm-up depending if the meet is home or away. If it is a home meet, marking will be done during the 5:30 – 5:55pm time frame. If it is an away meet, we will get our marking done between 5:00 and 5:30pm.
- Meets will start as close to 6 pm as possible (depending on the volunteers, the meet referee, and the weather).
What should I bring to the meet, other than my swimmer?
- Swim suit
- Goggles (good idea to bring a back-up pair as well)
- Swim cap
- 2 Towels (one for use during the meet and one for after the meet)
- Water bottle- it’s hot out there. It’s important to stay hydrated!
- Snacks* – although most pools will have concession stands, it is a good idea to bring healthier options (apples, oranges, granola bars, PB&J, etc.) for your kids as well
- Pen/paper- you may want to write down your swimmer’s times
- Sharpie for marking
- Dry clothes to change into after the meet
- On cool nights, a sweatshirt to help them keep warm
- Chairs for Mom and/or Dad
- Camera/Video Recorder
- Lots of positive energy
Note: Please remember that for HOME meets, snacks must be eaten in the area where the tables are located. Food is not allowed on the SAAC pool deck.
What should my swimmer eat, if anything, before the meet?
1-2 hours before the meet, try to feed your swimmer something with protein and carbohydrates- a popular choice is pasta with chicken or a sandwich. Also make sure that they are drinking water/Gatorade during the morning and hours before the meet!
When will I find out what events my child is swimming?
The weekend before each dual meet, Coach Chris creates the line-up which has to be turned in on Monday mid-day to the other team. He tries to make sure everyone gets to swim individual events and relays. He can usually make changes to the line-up after Monday, but doing so typically has a ripple effect on teammates. For example, he has had to cancel relays in the past due to kids pulling out of the meet at the last minute. Therefore, if you know that your child will not be at a meet that he or she is signed up for, then please re-submit a meet availability form by the Friday before a dual meet or the Monday before County. After this deadline, if you need to make a change due to an emergency, please email Coach Chris at email@example.com. After Monday’s exchange with the opposing team, he will send out the line-up. Please look it over so you will know what events your child is swimming.
How do I make sense of the line-up information you have emailed to me?
The line-up will come as a word document or web file. You will find your child’s information sorted by name. Please refer to the example below.
Swimmer, Jane - Female - Age: 7 - Ind/Rel: 2 / 2
#3 Girls 8&U 100 Medley Relay (2) 1/2 #25 Girls 8&U 25 Free 3/7
#37 Girls 8&U 25 Back 2/5 #67 Girls 8&U 100 Free Relay (1) 1/7
- The first line contains the swimmer’s name and age as well as how many individual and relay events that child is entered to swim in the upcoming meet.
- The numbers that look like fractions (e.g. “1/7”) after the event names indicate the Heat / Lane that your child will be swimming. In the example, the swimmer will be in Heat 1 and Lane 7 for event 67.
- The time to the right of the event is a swimmer’s recorded personal best time for this event. NT stands for No Time, meaning that the swimmer does not have an official time for the stroke/dist.
- For relays, the number in parenthesis “(#)” indicates the leg on the relay your child is swimming.
- In a Medley relay, the order of the strokes are (1) Back, (2) Breast, (3) Fly, (4) Free. So, in this above example, “#3 Girls 8&U 100 Medley Relay (2) 1/2", the (2) indicates that this swimmer will swim BREASTSTROKE in the SECOND leg of the relay.
- In a Free relay, all legs of the relay are freestyle, so in the above example, #67 Girls 8&U 100 Free Relay (1) 1/7, the (1) indicates that this swimmer will freestyle in the FIRST leg of the relay.
Prior to arriving at the meet, please:
Mark your child’s name and age group on their back using a dark-colored Sharpie pen. (Sharpie DOES come off if rubbed with rubbing alcohol or acetone! Your swimmer won’t be tattooed, don’t worry!)
Also, please write your child’s events/heats/lanes on his/her arm, as follows.
The grid on their arm will look like this:
- The first column is “E” for EVENT.
- The second column is “H” for HEAT (if there are 24 kids swimming the 50 Free in an 8-lane pool, then there will be 3 heats).
- The third column is “L” for LANE.
What is the difference between the IM and the Medley Relay?
- IM stands for Individual Medley. It is always swum in the following order: butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle.
- The Medley relay consists of the same strokes, but the order is different. The Medley relay order is backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, freestyle. Note that BA, BR, FL, FR is in alphabetical order.
How long will the meet last?
Three hours is the approximate length of a meet. Warm-ups start at 5 pm for the home team and 5:30 pm for the visiting team. Barring any delays, the meet is supposed to start at 6 and run until about 9 pm. Note: The 6 and unders swim early in the meet and are usually finished by 7:30, so parents, choose your volunteer assignments accordingly.
How will my swimmer know when to report for his/her race?
- Each age-group will have a ‘bullpen,’ and the bullpen parent will help line up the swimmers before each race. The kids need to stay in their age group bullpens for the duration of the meet! It is imperative that swimmers stay in the bullpen area so that the bullpen parents can easily and efficiently find your child. It is unfortunate when a swimmer misses his event because he was not in the right place to be lined up. Age Group Bullpen Parents are not babysitters. Parents need to stay close to their child's bullpen to supervise younger children at the swim meets. The bull-pen parent position is a challenging job; let’s make every effort to make it as easy as we can for our parent volunteers.
- At home swim meets, the Cudas team will sit on the side of the pool closest to the diving board. If your child is not going to sit in the bullpen area, then you are responsible for having your child to the bullpen parent in plenty of time for each of his/her events.
- For safety reasons it is important to keep the kids out of the diving well and shallow end of the pool during the meet.
When will my child get official results/times from the meet?
Official results are sent out the day after the meet. Ribbons are distributed during practice. | <urn:uuid:61c0bc57-15c3-448d-8f64-266bff2647e9> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.emorycommunityswimming.com/SubTabGeneric.jsp?team=usmsgaecs&_stabid_=77564 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280504.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00136-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957437 | 2,452 | 1.882813 | 2 |
May 13, 2014
Baluster Design Ideas
Add Beauty to Stairs With Iron Balusters
The greatest craze in step style during the last decade continues to be the usage of metal balusters, or spindles, coupled with newels and timber handrails. Newels would be the bigger encouraging articles which are located at the start, finish, and becomes of the stairway, offering assistance. If preferred, metal newels are created and certainly will be properly used. Metal stair balusters is quite elaborate or even more easy, with respect to the desired impact.
A few of the products in your house are mainly for design, like rose vases, pictures about the wall (until it acts to hide your container of items), amongst others. A few of the products, about the other-hand, have particular capabilities, but additionally function as design, just like an extremely elaborate hanging (although occasionally not utilized like a supply of lighting nowadays), an attractive reflection, and nearly the remainder of one’s helpful but similarly beneficial contemporary furniture.
When you are buying the entire style of one’s stairway might seem to demand one type of baluster or another, that’ll enable you to filter it along. All of the aspects of a stairway have to combine nicely. Think about the design and style of the present steps, if you should be simply changing the balustrade. If preferred, risers, and stringers, restaining or artwork may be used to change the look of current treads. You’ve got more independence of style inside your selection of metal balusters, if you should be changing the whole stairway.
Wrought iron stair spindles have a stylish, traditional search. The more sophisticated scrollwork models often appear more official. Mathematical models function best with modern or contemporary decoration. Individuals with smaller components might give a Med or nation search, with respect to the style. Custom models may also be produced.
Whether you’re upgrading your whole stairway, or simply changing the balustrade, you’ll discover metal stairway balusters that match the type of your house. Styles with other designs, mathematical designs, along with scrollwork increase the attention-drawing aftereffect of a stairway. Others include turns or little focus components to produce visible curiosity about a far more delicate method.
Typically the most popular method of the look of the balustrade would be to mix contrasting balusters right into a repeating design. This can be a good way to include extravagant styles without frustrating the area. To discover the best outcomes, a maximum of three diverse designs ought to be utilized.
A staircase might be helical, or directly, and sometimes even sectioned having a smaller porch for every department, but these common buildings rely nearly mainly about the supplies employed for the stair components. You will find obviously, the extremely stylish marble stairs of mansions and large mansions, timber for many of suburban houses, concrete or rock for high-rise structures, and undoubtedly metal staircase for many. As the additional step components are constructed of concrete, and so forth, more regularly than not several supplies are combined, as in certain step components could be made from timber. An example is once the actions are constructed of cement, the balusters are constructed of metal, and also the handrail consists of timber. But also for some supplies, like marble, when staircases are now being completed with it like a substance, it’s typically the only real unique substance employed for the stair components. Because the staircase is officially part of the entire framework of the home, the colour employed for the staircases, often strong shades, is usually the colour of the remainder of the home. There are lots of styles and supplies of step components that after mixed create a fantastic number of step methods, you’ll have to think about the common framework of one’s house and undoubtedly, your financial allowance to achieve the step method that’s suited to you (as well as your house). Many building depots possess a number of step components, with obviously, frequently and sensible occasions fairly inexpensive costs.
Something that’s equally (absolutely) helpful objective and visual purpose isn’t precisely furniture, the staircase. As (quite often) the only way in the home in one level to a different, this framework is truly essential for home with several surfaces. Subsequently, for many homes, a staircaseis system is usually occasions straight “offered” insight of the person going to enter the home in the door, this really is possibly the reason many choose for stunning, stylish staircases to create great first thoughts. It’s thus important that the staircase isn’t just extremely powerful and steady (for security reasons) but additionally “grand” in its method, something which would depend not only about the real style of the staircase but obviously, towards the step components used aswell. Recall, actually the tiniest component is essential for your framework to work on its total potential, which moves nicely using the step areas of your regal staircase aswell.
Dunes, container styles and “stomach” bent designs, and destroyed or ripped areas are simply several in the selection of designs that may be discovered. Matching shade and the look of the step, metal balusters may complete a sense that draws together the whole search of the space. They must be selected cautiously in order to not overcome or detract from look, since balusters would be the many numerous section of the balustrade.
Upgrading a stairway escalates the worth of the house and provides looks. The price of steel stairway components is commonly significantly less than for timber, and installment is usually simpler aswell. Combined with appealing, traditional look, and toughness, this makes metal balusters a great option for almost any steps venture. There’s anything for decoration and each design. | <urn:uuid:20f1f755-921d-4109-ba7b-7e3f70517927> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://www.pianoroom.com.au/baluster-design-ideas/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573163.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818033705-20220818063705-00071.warc.gz | en | 0.942205 | 1,213 | 1.5625 | 2 |
This article presents deep seismic-reflection data from an experiment across San Francisco Peninsula in 1995 using large (125 to 500 kg) explosive sources. Shot gathers show a mostly nonreflective upper crust in both the Franciscan and Salinian terranes (juxtaposed across the San Andreas fault), an onset of weak lower-crustal reflectivity beginning at about 6-sec two-way travel time (TWTT) and bright southwest-dipping reflections between 11 and 13 sec TWTT. Previous studies have shown that the Moho in this area is no deeper than 25 km (~8 to 9 sec TWTT). Three-dimensional reflection travel-time modeling of the 11 to 13 sec events from the shot gathers indicates that the bright events may be explained by reflectors 15 to 20 km into the upper mantle, northeast of the San Andreas fault. However, upper mantle reflections from these depths were not observed on marine-reflection profiles collected in San Francisco Bay, nor were they reported from a refraction profile on San Francisco Peninsula. The most consistent interpretation of these events from 2D raytracing and 3D travel-time modeling is that they are out-of-plane reflections from a high-angle (dipping ~70??to the southwest) impedance contrast in the lower crust that corresponds with the surface trace of the Hayward fault. These results suggest that the Hayward fault truncates the horizontal detachment fault suggested to be active beneath San Francisco Bay.
Additional publication details
Seismic-reflection evidence that the hayward fault extends into the lower crust of the San Francisco Bay Area, California | <urn:uuid:6ccb494f-5c80-4877-8722-790607cc0d8e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70020147 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281424.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00338-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.879611 | 324 | 2.609375 | 3 |
"Highly recommended for all academic libraries, including those owning
Comrie or Campbell." - Choice Magazine "Since every article is written by an expert in the respective language, both the texts and the bibliographic selections are very good." - American Reference Books Annual
Facts About the World's Languages explores the structure, history and culture of 191 languages worldwide. The volume is the product of seven years of compilation from the work of nearly 200 world-renowned scholars in linguistics. Each entry is written by one or more recognized experts.
Languages spoken by two million or more people are the focus. Coverage does, however, make exceptions to the rule: such noteworthy ancient languages as Latin, Ancient Greek, Classical Chinese, Akkadian,
Tocharian, Sumerian, Coptic, Ge'ez, Punic, Etruscan, Biblical Hebrew,
Pali, and Sanskrit are included for their importance in early linguistic scholarship and in the development of many other languages.
Additionally, some languages with smaller populations are featured to represent less frequently described language families and to give a broader typological perspective: Nivkh, Creek, Navajo, Cherokee,
Eskimo, Warlpiri, and Arapesh, among them.
Visit http://www.hwwilson.com/print/factslangs_contributors.htm for a complete list of contributors to the volume. Visit http://www.hwwilson.com/print/factslangs_languages.htm for a list of languages covered.
Each of 191 chapters is devoted to a single language, and follows a consistent structure. Headings include:
* Language name: including obsolete or pejorative terms, and the autonym (the name speakers use for their own language).
* Location: where the language is currently spoken, plus where it has spread through migration, colonization, or globalization.
* Family - the deemed "genetic" classification for each family.
* Related languages.
* Dialects - forms that are mutually intelligible, but with varying phonologies, lexicons, and grammatical characteristics.
* Number of speakers - upper and lower estimates.
* Origin and history.
* Orthography and basic phonology - the written symbols and spelling conventions, and inventory and nature of the sound system (with consonant and vowel charts).
* Basic morphology - a detailed overview of word classes for each language and the morphological systems available to them.
* Basic syntax.
* Contact with other languages.
* Common words.
* Selected bibliography - including standard dictionaries and linguistic works for each language. Entries are restricted to works done in
English, unless the documented language does not have a good history of scholarship in the English-speaking community.
Chapters also include a section on Efforts to Preserve, Protect, and
Promote the Language, detailing the history and legacy of preservation programs for "endangered" and officially repressed languages.
The volume also features three indexes:
* Index of Languages by Country
* Index of Languages by Family
* Index of Languages and Alternate Names.
Though linguistics is a highly technical discipline, the volume describes each language in words a student or layperson can comprehend. Technical terms that are indispensable to a thorough understanding of the subject are defined in the volume's glossary.
For more information on Facts About the World's Languages, visit http://www.hwwilson.com/print/factslangs.htm.
Hardcover * 896 pages * August 2001 * 0-8242-0970-2 | <urn:uuid:a62d2b19-a07d-48ad-9e18-a1fd79de07cf> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://linguistlist.org/pubs/books/get-book.cfm?BookID=2568 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281226.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00376-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.89729 | 746 | 3 | 3 |
Northwest Territories – Territorial corporation tax
The lower rate of Northwest Territories income tax is 4%. This lower rate applies to taxable income earned in the Northwest Territories that qualifies for the federal small business deduction.
The higher rate of the Northwest Territories income tax is 11.5%. This rate applies to taxable income earned in the Northwest Territories that does not qualify for the small business deduction.
For more information, see Dual tax rates.
Reporting the tax
You can use Schedule 461, Northwest Territories Corporation Tax Calculation, to help you calculate the Northwest Territories tax before the credits are applied. You do not have to file it with your return. See the schedule for more details.
On line 250 of Schedule 5, Tax Calculation Supplementary – Corporations, enter the amount of tax calculated.
Claiming the credits
The Northwest Territories offer different tax credits. Details of each credit can be found in the following pages and their associated schedules:
Forms and publications
- Schedule 461, Northwest Territories Corporation Tax Calculation
- Schedule 5, Tax Calculation Supplementary – Corporations
- Northwest Territories (territorial site)
- Date modified: | <urn:uuid:f05dbf23-2c0e-4f8b-8a99-abf0c6173c63> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/bsnss/tpcs/crprtns/prv/nt/menu-eng.html | 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 | 0.913887 | 235 | 1.773438 | 2 |
More than 25 per cent of our areas become protective areas. Forest remnants within our fincas are preserved and integrated in these areas. Together with the reforested former pasture land, these protective areas form stepping stones for many rare animal and plant species. The positive influence of our forests on biodiversity is also proven by a study of the Technical University of Munich and a study of the University of Panama. Also, the availability of certified, ecological timber reduces the pressure on the few still existing rainforest areas. Rainforest protection is not possible without the sustainable production of tropical timber. However, the availability of timber from sustainably managed forests in world trade renders the destructive depletion of primary forests redundant.
The greenhouse gas CO2 has a global impact, no matter where on earth it was produced or emitted into the atmosphere. A CO2 emission which is produced in Europe can be compensated by a climate protection project on the other side of the earth. 1.5 ha of ForestFinance forest offsets the lifetime carbon emissions of an average German.
A ForestFinance forest consists of up to seven different exotic tree species and a selection of 50 further native tree species. Contrary to monocultures, mixed cultures do not deplete the soil. Due to the high biodiversity of our mixed forests they are much less affected by pests and diseases than monocultures. In very rare cases we do, however, temporarily opt for monocultures: In Colombia and Vietnam acacia is planted on fallow and pasture land. This tree species is very well suited for reforesting these areas, as it greatly improves the quality of the soil and thus enables us to plant lively mixed forests later on.
Aside from ecological and social benefits our forests also provide natural resources. ForestFinance offers forest products made of wood and cocoa which are 100 per cent retraceable. The RootProof label gives consumers more transparency by showing them exactly where the main product components or the whole product comes from. Our wooden products come from certified forestry. ForestFinance cocoa is produced fairly and the wages paid are above the regional minimum wage.
Child labour is not part of any of our products. ForestFinance supports the EU resolution against child labour in cocoa plantations and works closely with local partners to ensure the strict adherence to the rules of the International Labour Organization (ILO). ForestFinance cocoa forests in Panama are UTZ certified since 2014. As of this year, our cocoa forests in Peru also bear the UTZ label.
ForestFinance forests are not only a supplier of wood and fine cocoa, but also a valuable ecological source of energy, a gene pool for plants and animals and a protected area for water and air. Our ProtectionForest covers an area of about one hundred hectares, which equals 140 football fields. One hectare of this rainforest binds some 188,600 kilograms of CO2; the same amount one German citizen produces in 20 years, on average.
See for yourself how much our ProtectionForest contributes to the protection of people and the climate:
“Although it is not nice to cut a tree, thinnings are sometimes necessary to give the other trees room to grow,” says José Ballestero, a very reliable chain saw operator who is mainly involved in thinnings. He is convinced that the real environmental sinners are the farmers who cut the threes in order to gain pasture land or just to produce fences. | <urn:uuid:8cd03b6d-0d08-414c-9d4b-941e2b91407e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.forestfinance.de/en/about-us/forest/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573193.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818094131-20220818124131-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.942861 | 689 | 2.75 | 3 |
The goal of this lab was to determine the amount of grams of sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) required to produce enough CO2 gas to completely fill the lab and also how many Alka-Seltzer tablets that would equate to. This was done by collecting CO2 gas by inverting a buret and submerging it under water in order to calculate the volume of CO2 released from a fragment of Alka-Seltzer tablet. The main component of Alka-Seltzer is sodium bicarbonate, used to neutralize excess stomach acid during illness through the following reaction that generates CO2: HCO3- + H+(aq) H2CO3(aq) CO2(g) + H2O
An Alka-Seltzer tablet was accurately weighed and recorded using a weighing boat and analytical balance. A fragmented piece between 0.2100g and 0.2800g was also weighed and recorded. 500mL of water was placed in a 600mL beaker. 80mL of water was then mixed with 20mL of 6M HCl in a 150mL beaker to create 1.2M HCl. A 1.5g piece of Alka-Seltzer tablet was then added to the HCl solution. After complete evolution of CO2, gravity filtration was used to catch all of the starch produced from the reaction. The buret was filled with the filtrated solution and the glass tube end of a rubber tube was inserted about 2 inches into the mouth of the buret. While keeping a finger over the buret mouth, the entire buret was quickly inverted and the tubing and mouth completely submerged into the water in the 600mL beaker. The buret was then clamped into place while double checking the buret mouth was under the water level and the rubber tubing was not pinched. The stopcock was then opened extremely slowly until the water level in the buret dropped close to the 50.00mL mark. This level was then recorded.
25mL of the prepared HCl solution was added to a 125mL Erlenmeyer flask, along with a 0.5-1.0g piece of Alka-Seltzer tablet. After complete evolution of CO2, the neck of the flask and rubber stopper were completely dried. The tablet fragment... | <urn:uuid:6fb2d690-acb3-42b6-86aa-bafd8eb585e4> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.studymode.com/essays/How-Much-Co2-Lab-1732314.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285315.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00567-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967338 | 489 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Here is some advice about keeping your immune system boosted.
Our bodies are exposed to many kinds of infection continually. Infections can be bacterial, viral or fungal. They can come into contact with us externally over our skin or enter our bodies and travel within. Some infections are easily resolved, some can require the use of antiseptic creams and antibiotics, anti viral or anti fungal agents. The most important thing is to keep the body’s immune system active and effective to react to whatever infection it is subjected to.
Things you can do to help keep a healthy immune system.
– Get plenty of quality sleep, this is when your body restores and replenishes itself.
– Eat a healthy diet with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables rich in vitamins and minerals.
– Do some regular exercise and get fresh air and sunlight.
– Avoid stress and take time for relaxation techniques.
– Keep skin healthy, take care with hygiene and keep skin intact without lesions where infection can enter. Use emollient creams to regenerate dry skin.
– Avoid internal damage from smoking and alcohol
– Try to keep general health ailments under control e.g. diabetes.
Supplements can help boost your immune system such as food vitamins A, B, C and E, Vitamin D from sunlight and also Zinc. Other things to add to you diet are garlic, lemon, ginger, cinnamon and tumeric.
For feet, healthy immunity can help against athletes foot, fungal nail infection, verruca, warts, cellulitis and sepsis.
So be positive, keep happy and stay healthy. | <urn:uuid:30f1f894-d412-4b3c-8958-efd601b0044a> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://www.steptoes-footcare.co.uk/2020/04/14/tips-to-boost-your-immune-system/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00267.warc.gz | en | 0.912387 | 331 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Yeah, that was an easy pun, but it’s in stride with my opinions on this subject and has a deeper meaning in this essay. Based on discussions I’ve had with various colleagues and friends, I decide to put my viewpoint on display here. Hopefully, it’ll give you and me some clarity. First, though, we need to define terms.
In a Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting context, canon can be defined as imagined world history up to just a moment ago. This can consist of an overarching metaplot, as with White Wolf’s 90s and early 00s World of Darkness games. It can also encompass dozens of smaller stories, as with the Forgotten Realms setting and its embracing of novels as canon. Game setting canon can also include differences from core assumptions, spelled out or not, in a game’s implied setting, as it is in the core 4e D&D game. For instance, Eberron has different deities and styles of magic than those assumed to exist in the D&D game’s implied setting.
Defining differences can make a game world stand apart from its peers. The myriad gods of the Forgotten Realms help make the world seem different. Highly organized kingdoms, complex politics, and large areas of known territory also distinguish it from the core “points of light” assumption. Eberron is similar. It’s not as wild as one might assume the implied world of the central D&D game is. In Eberron, most deities have no physical manifestation in the known universe. Magic is used much like technology might be in a Wild West or Pulp Era setting. In the history of Dark Sun, the primordials defeated the gods, driving them into hiding, imprisonment, or death. Divine power is hard to come by in Dark Sun, to say the least. Misuse of arcane magic led to the ecological collapse of Athas, Dark Sun’s world. With unnatural devastation and the absence of divine power came significant changes to the cosmology.
Differences that really define a campaign setting are cool. They help shape the image of the setting in the minds of the game’s players (including the DM). Such broad strokes also help the players understand mechanical divergences that might be in the setting. For instance, a player in a Dark Sun campaign assumes he or she should play a divine character only if a compelling reason exists as to why the character has access to divine power at all. Most players probably presuppose the divine power source is off limits, but they shouldn’t.
You see, setting changes that mess around with default game elements, such as whole power sources, should avoid absolutism. At least, their creators should avoid absolutes. Rather than writing in a Dark Sun book that you cannot use the divine power source, a designer should teach you how to use the divine power source in out-of-the-box ways that make sense on Athas. (By the way, I’m not saying whether the upcoming Dark Sun campaign setting is absolutist in the use of divine power. This is just an example.) Any given DM can choose an absolute stance for his or her campaign, although even that is less than ideal.
Also less than ideal are trivial changes that fail to define the game world in a meaningful way. The worst among these are absolutes that some designer or novelist added without much thought. Dark Sun setting material from older editions read that kank meat is inedible. So what? Does that small fact help you tell a story set on Athas? Or does it make you, like I did, question why anyone would herd these beasts over the delicious, egg-laying erdlu? Sure, kanks produce an edible honey, but a herder can use everything an erdlu produces, down to beaks and bones. If I lived on Athas, I’d herd erdlus and hunt kanks, or at most, keep small herds of kanks for work and riding.
I’m waxing pedantic there, which is something trivial changes can almost force you to do. Requiring and encouraging detail-oriented attention, especially in a game’s official product line, is far from good for the game. In another instance of this, the older Dark Sun setting had Cleansing Wars in the past, wherein powerful arcanists attempted to wipe certain species from the face of the planet. Taken on its face, this fact is fine. A story of racist sorcerers slaughtering certain folks can make for good history and an excellent basis for current politics and superstitions. But when you start listing races the Cleansing Wars wiped out to the last individual, when that fact is not important to the design or story, you’ve gone too far. Why? Because DMs don’t need to be told they can’t use a particular monster, and players don’t need to be told they can’t play a certain race, just because a novelist or designer arbitrarily decided to wipe out a particular creature.
It’s better to create tension, saying the arcane pogrom targeted gnomes, than to create absence, saying the arcane pogrom wiped gnomes out. In the former case, those who want gnomes in their campaign can have bitter, furtive gnomes that dislike human arcanists. In the latter case, those who want gnomes have to break with the official position on the subject. In both cases, those who want no gnomes can use the historic massacre as an excuse. Which tack is more flexible? Isn’t more flexible better for the game?
As hard as it might be for veteran game tinkerers to believe, it’s difficult for some players, especially new ones, to break free of the official position on a subject. The official position is “the rule,” after all. Taught by the example of those in lofty official positions, newer players might also start to think absolute positions are right and good. I’ve met players who believe these points, who believe that changing what you don’t like about a game is something one does not do. That’s breaking the rules.
To use older Dark Sun material as a reference point again, some of the adventures and the second edition of the setting were less than popular among fans. This was with good reason. At least a couple adventures place novel characters in the central roles they had in the novel. They do the cool stuff while the players and player characters watch or take up secondary roles. Fun, eh? The whole second edition of the setting assumes the Prism Pentad novels have happened—have become part of the canon—and that the world has changed. A number of defining elements from the original setting are gone, because the novel protagonists removed them, usually bloodily. Allowing the novels to interfere with the game material did the fans no favors.
This is one reason why it’s insane to use novels as canon for any game setting. Another is that a roleplaying game is about interacting with an imaginary world as a potentially important imaginary person or as one who directs events set in that world. The game is not about merely consuming someone else’s narration or spectating at historic events. Further, as the number of novels increase, the canon becomes increasingly unwieldy until it’s overwhelming for normal players. Most people avoid playing cumbersome games. Enforcing novels as canon from an official position also, eventually, makes it a nightmare to design game material and write shared-world fiction for that setting.
This was a very real problem that faced the Forgotten Realms setting when the 4e D&D game came on the scene. Keepers of the Forgotten Realms went even further in the past, actually. Just about everything with an official seal on it is canon for the Realms—games, video games, novels, and so on. Now that’s crazy and limiting. However, it could have all been solved by hitting the reset button on the Realms the way Wizards did with Eberron and Dark Sun. Back to 1357 DR, anyone?
Some novels or other non-game setting materials do more or less harm to games that exist alongside them or follow them. The Forgotten Realms setting is indeed a place where thousands of stories can happen. It is more tolerant to canon because of this. On the other hand, Middle Earth really has one ultimate task that needs accomplishing. If you ain’t a member of the Fellowship of the Ring, pal, you’re nobody.
A rich media environment is still good for a game. Novel and such serve the game and their own purpose when they tell what could be or might happen in a game world without enforcing that reality, as canon, on the game. Such stories then become great territory for DM looting, for adventures and NPCs, and player looting, for character concepts and backgrounds. They retain their value as entertainment, as well. No one can stop one DM or another from making a novel’s story canon for his or her game. That’s fine.
The point is, as my friend Stephen Radney-MacFarland liked to point out when I got too serious in some meetings at Wizards of the Coast, we all just make this stuff up. I’m just saying that what the official source makes up and peddles as canon needs to be defining and flexible rather than trivial and absolute. Trivial absolutes are the worst. They’re hard to remember, and often not worth remembering. (Oh, yeah, I can’t use trolls here because the trolls were wiped out in the Cleansing Wars. There goes my adventure idea. Bleh.) They also give those who can remember such trivialities a way to choose against being immersed in the distinctive world an individual DM wants to portray. Sure, that’s jerky, and we should avoid playing with jerks, but it happens. Put simply, trivial canon and absolutes, especially arbitrary ones without guidance on how to make exceptions, just make the game harder to play.
For the record, a lot of game material contains arbitrary absolutes that make the material harder to use. Take any monster that doesn’t play well with others, a prime reason why 4e monster entries try to give you reasons to mix and match. Look for any statement with a never or an always in it. When I edit, I kill such absolutes with wild abandon. I want to avoid making the game harder.
Game world canon can and should make the game better and easier to play. It should be defining rather than trivial. Setting material should teach you how to make a game of your own, instructing you on how to make fitting exceptions even to defining canon. What I’m really saying is that you can portray a unique and interesting game setting, and at the same time, make that setting easy to play. You have to be careful with your canon.
Just don’t point it at me. | <urn:uuid:34cde053-f490-4ce9-8f1f-75a0107f229a> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.critical-hits.com/blog/2010/07/08/canon-fodder/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281162.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00537-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95507 | 2,297 | 1.578125 | 2 |
STAR at UC
A range of first year Health Sciences courses are offered to Year 12 and 13 students through the STAR programme. These courses are designed to provide a challenging and stimulating opportunity for secondary school students and a chance to experience the varied programmes offered at the College of Education, Health and Human Development.
Bachelor of Health Sciences
The Bachelor of Health Sciences is an undergraduate programme that is open to anyone interested in a career in health and public policy, public health, health management, health research and other non-clinical roles.
To enrol in the Bachelor of Health Sciences programme you will need to Apply to Enrol with the University Guide to enrolment.
The Bachelor of Health Sciences follows the University Academic Year with Semester One 2017 beginning Monday 20th February 2017.
Students select their specialty from six majors, designed to provide graduates with specialised skills and knowledge. The Bachelor of Health Sciences brochure (PDF, 395KB)illustrates the core courses you must take for your degree, as well as a number of additional courses you can select to follow your interests and complete the degree requirements. Some courses will have prerequisites (courses you must complete first). For full details of the requirements for each major, see the Bachelor of Health Sciences brochure (PDF, 395KB).
- Environmental Health
You will develop an understanding of risk factors in the natural and built environment, underlying biological processes and the scientific methods used to investigate, monitor, and assess the effects of environmental hazards, such as pollution, unsafe food and infectious diseases on people's health and well being.
- Health Education
You will develop specific health education and pedagogical knowledge that is applicable in a diverse range of settings.
- Māori and Indigenous Health
You will acquire cultural competencies enabling you to use, apply and integrate Māori, bicultural and indigenous knowledge and practices in your chosen health or social services related career.
You will learn to apply psychological research and methods to:
- the promotion and maintenance of health
- the prevention and management of illness
- the identification of psychological factors contributing to physical illness
- the formulation of health policy. improvement of the health care system
- the formulation of health policy.
- Public Health
You will develop knowledge and skills in science and health, experience in critical appraisal and scientific investigation, an understanding of values and ethics in health, and the ability to apply these to improving health and wellbeing through disease prevention, health promotion, and health service planning, delivery, and evaluation. By completing this major you will meet the knowledge components of the generic public health competencies and the health promotion competencies for New Zealand.
- Society and Policy
You will develop:
- an understanding of the sociology of health
- an understanding of policy issues in health technology and health delivery at the local, national and global levels,
- qualitative and quantitative social science research methods skills.
Combinations of these majors can be completed as double majors.
The BHSc at UC is ideal preparation for working in a career in health and public policy, public health, health management, health research and other non-clinical roles. You will gain multidisciplinary skills and insights that are highly valued in the health workforce.
Health Sciences graduates work in settings such as district health boards, government ministries, local government, non-government organisations, Māori provider organisations, hospices, aged residential care, schools, primary care organisations, universities and polytechnics.
The health sector is one of New Zealand’s biggest employers with a wide range of career opportunities. In New Zealand’s increasingly diverse and aging society, health needs and health workforce career opportunities will continue to expand.
The PGDipHealSc, MHealSc and PhD (Health Sciences), will help those who already have clinical or other health related qualifications to extend their knowledge and skills to prepare for new career opportunities. These courses also provide an essential foundation for those seeking non-clinical health sector roles.
For further career information, please go to What can I do with a degree in Health Sciences? | <urn:uuid:991a7005-50f4-4aaa-a459-5f009345f5be> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.education.canterbury.ac.nz/healthsciences/study/healthsciences-undergrad.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280292.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00344-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927736 | 832 | 1.835938 | 2 |
اکتشاف ارتباط نشانه اختلال طیف اوتیسم و رفتارهای کج خلقی
|کد مقاله||سال انتشار||مقاله انگلیسی||ترجمه فارسی||تعداد کلمات|
|31517||2013||7 صفحه PDF||سفارش دهید||محاسبه نشده|
Publisher : Elsevier - Science Direct (الزویر - ساینس دایرکت)
Journal : Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, Volume 7, Issue 9, September 2013, Pages 1068–1074
The purpose of the current study was to investigate the relationship between the presence of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) symptoms and tantrum behaviors in 598 children ranging in age from two to sixteen years old who meet cutoffs for ASD. Diagnostic categories created in the current study were provided by the Autism Spectrum Disorder – Diagnostic Child Version (ASD-DC). Initial analysis replicated previous research revealing significant differences in the expression of tantrum behavior between the ASD, Atypical, and Normal groups. Pearson Bivariate correlations were then computed for each individual's ASD symptom score and their total score on the Tantrum behavior subscale. Follow-up correlations found significant positive correlations between individual's in the Atypical, Normal, and ASD categories and their scores for the Tantrum behavior subscale of the Autism Spectrum Disorders – Comorbidity for Children (ASD-CC). Post hoc analyses revealed that the correlation between ASD symptomology and tantrum behaviors in the Normal group was significantly different when compared to children in the ASD group.
Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) comprise a class of neurodevelopmental disorders first apparent in early childhood, characterized by deficits in socialization, communication, and the presence of repetitive behavior or restricted interests (Matson et al., 1996, Matson and Boisjoli, 2008, Matson et al., 2007 and Matson and Wilkins, 2007). ASDs result in lifelong impairments, resulting in lasting difficulties and a need for support across the lifespan. Early identification and treatment of ASDs portends the best outcomes (Eikeseth, 2009 and Hattier and Matson, 2012). The value and need for such interventions is underscored by numerous comorbid physical conditions (Efstratopoulou et al., 2012, Hattier and Matson, 2012, Lin et al., 2012 and Matson et al., 2011b). Additionally, ASD is a risk factor for psychopathology and a host of learning issues and challenging behaviors (Mashal and Kasirer, 2012, Matson et al., 2012a, Poon, 2012, Smith and Matson, 2010a, Smith and Matson, 2010b and Smith and Matson, 2010c). A litany of challenging behaviors have been reported in the literature including, self-injury, aggression, feeding problems, and property destruction (Matson et al., 2009a, Matson et al., 2012c, Matson and Turygin, 2012 and Medeiros et al., 2012). Among the most debilitating of these challenging behaviors are tantrums, which restraint attempts at normalization and development and impede learning. Tantrum behaviors are those which involve a cluster of behaviors including defiance, oppositional behavior, screaming, crying, aggression, and property destruction, which may be difficult to stop once they have begun (Green, Whitney, & Potegal, 2011). Tantrum behaviors are developmentally appropriate in very young children and commonly observed in typically developing children prior to the development of emotion regulation. However, in typically developing children, when tantrums are excessive or continue into later childhood, they are associated with negative outcomes (Caspi et al., 1987, Green et al., 2011, Stevenson and Goodman, 2001 and Stoolmiller, 2001). Tantrum behaviors are associated with expressions of negative emotions, particularly anger and sadness (Green et al., 2011), and are often characterized by attention, escape, and tangible functions (Matson, Sipes et al., 2011). Tantrums of older children in inpatient settings have been observed to be functionally similar to those of young typically developing children (Potegal, Carlson, Marguiles, Gutkovich, & Wall, 2009). Tantrum behaviors are often observed in children and adults with ASD. Tantrum behaviors in children with ASD may be similar in nature to those observed in typically developing children, but tend to be more severe and persistent in children with ASD. Given the host of communication, socialization, and other deficits these children display, tantrums further compound an already complicated picture. The inability of children with ASD to effectively communicate their needs, or understand and relate to the social cues of others may predispose the child to tantrum behaviors as a means of causing a social response. Tantrums are more common in children with ASD compared to children without autism who have comparable levels of intellectual functioning (Ando & Yoshimura, 1979). However, this cannot be completely accounted for by language deficits. Children with ASD have been found to also exhibit more tantrum behavior compared to children with language deficits. Sipes, Matson, Horovitz, and Shoemaker (2011) found that children with ASD are more likely to exhibit tantrum and conduct problems, but that communication does not function as a moderating variable for these behaviors, but may differentially effect tantrum behavior expression as a function of other variables, including age and functioning. Greater impairments in social skills in children with ASDs are related to greater expression of aggression/destruction and stereotypic behavior (Matson, Neal, Fodstad, & Hess, 2009). The implementation of a social story has been observed to alleviate some tantrum behaviors for children who frequently engaged in tantrum behavior, suggesting that social deficits play a role in the expression of tantrum behavior in this population (Kuttler, Myles, & Carlson, 1998). As deficits in socialization, communication, and the presence of repetitive or stereotyped behaviors may contribute to the presence of behavior problems in children with and without ASD, we investigated whether this occurs within the diagnostic categories that generally relate to the severity and presentation of the disorder. Although the Autism Spectrum Disorder – Diagnostic Child Version (ASD-DC) includes three diagnostic groups; Autistic disorder (AD), Asperger's Syndrome (AS), Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS) for ASDs the current study will only analyze them collectively as a single ASD category. The current categorization was selected due to the impending changes in the ASD category proposed by the DSM-5 ( Beighley et al., in press, Matson et al., 2012b, Mayes et al., 2013 and Wilson et al., in press). The authors hypothesized that as ASD symptomology increases, so does the frequency and severity of tantrum behaviors. The present study examined the relationship between ASD symptom severity and the severity of tantrum behaviors. | <urn:uuid:d00ef2c2-ce4c-4ce6-bb2f-bb530509c5a6> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://isiarticles.com/article/31517 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280504.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00137-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.899999 | 1,537 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Friday, November 13, 2009
A lengthy book of biographical and hagiographical accounts about the first four successors (caliphs) to the Prophet Muhammad as head of the Muslim state following his death in 632 C.E.: Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (632-634 C.E.), 'Umar bin al-Khattab (634-644 C.E.), 'Uthman bin al-'Affan (644-656 C.E.), 'Ali bin Abi Talib (656-661 C.E.). This book represents, generally, the Sunni Muslim view(s) of these individuals. Shi'i Muslims from all sub-divisions of Shi'i Islam believe that 'Ali was the rightful successor to the Prophet and view him as the legitimate religious and temporal leader of the Muslim community of his time, the first Imam. Shi'is reject the legitimacy of the first three caliphs. Sunnis call the four caliphs collectively the "Rashidun" or "Rightly-guided" caliphs. Keep in mind the Sunni-centric bias when reading this book, just as one must keep in mind Shi'i-centric biases when reading Shi'i materials.
Biographies of the Rightly-Guided Caliphs
Biographies of the Rightly-Guided Caliphs (downloadable) | <urn:uuid:d1e6dc90-6652-4ff8-a1ee-bede0a366ac9> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://occident2.blogspot.com/2009/11/sunni-biographieshagiographies-of-first.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280872.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00315-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.896524 | 284 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Oscar-winning “Argo” hasn’t been released in Iran. This doesn’t seem to be particularly hurting Ben Affleck’s film’s box office standing, but nonetheless the Iranian government is targeting the director's pocketbook: due to the film’s “unrealistic portrayal” of Iran, the ayatollahs have decided they want to sue Hollywood.
“We don’t expect anything else from the enemy,” Iran’s Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Mohammad Hosseini said after a screening of the movie in Tehran on Monday evening, the AP reported. Iran’s state TV, PressTV, called the film, which depicts a wily Canadian outsmarting the Iranian government during the 1979 revolution, “politically motivated,” and the semi-official Mehr news agency said Argo was “advertisement for the CIA.”
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, might not know this, but since Hollywood is actually not controlled by any central agency, there isn’t one phone number to call. Whether or not they'll be aiming to sue the studio, the individual producers, the director, the actors, the film assistants, the caterers or all of the above has not been determined.
Not to worry. The Iranian government is reportedly in talks with the French attorney Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, former lawyer for the supposed 20th 9/11 hijacker Zacharias Moussaoui, who is currently serving a life sentence in the U.S., and betrothed (as well as former defender) of Carlos “The Jackal,” the famous Venezuelan terrorist responsible for the 1975 attack on the OPEC headquarters in Vienna. Carlos, whose real name is Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, is serving a life sentence in Paris for the attack, which killed three people.
The Iranian government is not the first self-proclaimed David to launch a slingshot at the supposed Hollywood Goliath. In January, the family of late actor Charles Bronson announced they were filing suit against 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures and Sony Pictures, the Daily Mail reported. The class action was filed to obtain what the family says are hundreds of millions in royalties. In 2000, a woman named Cleanthi Peters sued Universal Studios for $15,000 after she visited the Universal Studios’s Halloween Horror Nights, got “too scared” and suffered “extreme emotional distress.” In 1996, the family of a shooting victim tried to sue director Oliver Stone and Warner Brothers, the studio that produced “Natural Born Killers,” for inspiring two people to go on the crime spree that killed their daughter. The charges were dismissed in 2001.
Bootleg DVD copies of “Argo” have reportedly been experiencing record sales.
PressTV also announced on Tuesday that the Iranian government would be launching the first ever Iranian entertainment channel broadcast in English, which will serve as “window onto Iran’s culture, civilization, and history for the people of the world.” | <urn:uuid:86d7a6cb-8f15-4dc6-b986-a8ec8b1637d7> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.ibtimes.com/iran-wants-sue-hollywood-over-unrealistic-portrayal-country-argo-1120771 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988718866.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183838-00004-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960276 | 657 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Mid autumn festival and mooncake festival will be few days away and I thought besides mooncakes, it might be a good idea to have some osmanthus steamed sponge cake to join the “celebration”. For those who can’t eat mooncake, may be you can consider as a substitute..
Does osmanthus have anything to do with this important Chinese festival? In fact, yes and it is a very important flower as you can inferred from the following description common found in Chinese writings.
During Mid Autumn Festival, Chinese are celebrating by sitting under the osmanthus trees (桂花树下）, appreciate the osmanthus flower （赏桂花）, drinking osmanthus wine or cassia wine（喝桂花东或蜜酒）and osmanthus tea ( 饮桂花茶). In addition, osmanthus blossom in Autumn together with many other beautiful flowers such as chrysanthemum.
Pic Courtesy of: http://www.i-china.org/ewebeditor/uploadfile/20121008113614489.jpg
Of course, we shall not forget an old legend relating to the moon -Wu Gang felling the osmanthus tree (吴刚伐桂. In the moon palace (月宫）where Chang E (嫦娥）stay together with the jade rabbit (玉兔）， Wu Gang was punished by the God to cut a self healing osmanthus tree in the moon palace and whenever he chop the tree, the tree will heal itself. This soon become a phrase in modern Chinese to describe an endless toil with a futile effort.
From the above, one will know the importance of osmanthus flower to the Chinese during the Mid Autumn Festival. What is Osmanthus then? As per Wikipedia,
“Osmanthus /ɒzˈmænθəs/ is a genus of about 30 species of flowering plants in the family Oleaceae. Osmanthus range in size from shrubs to small trees, 2–12 m (7–39 ft) tall. The leaves are opposite, evergreen, and simple, with an entire, serrated or coarsely toothed margin. The flowers are produced in spring, summer or autumn, each flower being about 1 cm long, white, with a four-lobed tubular-based corolla (‘petals’). The flowers grow in small panicles, and in several species have a strong fragrance. The flowers of O. fragrans are used throughout East Asia for their scent and flavor, which is likened to apricot and peach.
In China, osmanthus tea (桂花茶, guìhuāchá) combines sweet osmanthus flowers with black or green tea leaves. Osmanthus wine flavors huangjiu or other rice wines with full osmanthus blossoms and is traditionally consumed during the Mid-Autumn Festival. Traditional Chinese medicine claims that osmanthus tea improves complexion and helps rid the body of excess nitric oxide, a compound linked to the formation of cancer, diabetes, and renal disease “ (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmanthus)
This is a creation of my own and in fact, a simple steamed sponge cake. I have created this recipe purely for the sake of Osmanthus role in Chinese Mid Autumn Festival and also as an alternative for those who can’t take mooncake for a particular reason. Of course, you can always have prepare this cake as a snack.
I have to admit that the flavour is rather weak even though I have put about 2 tablespoons of osmanthus dried flower. I have amended the recipe to steep the osmanthus flower to become osmanthus tea and make the flavour more obvious. However, with or without osmanthus flowers, it is definitely a nice spongy cake for tea snack.。
WHAT IS REQUIRED
Servings: Prepare 10-12 small cupcake size steamed cakes
180 grams of self raising flour
50 grams of milk
115 grams of castor sugar
1 tablespoon of condensed milk (optional)
1 tablespoon of cooking oil (optional)
3 tablespoons of dried osmanthus flower soaked in 25ml of hot water
STEPS OF PREPARATION
Steep 2 tablespoon of dried osmanthus with 25 ml of hot water. Set aside for later use. (in this illustration, I did not steep the flower and hence the fragrance is not obvious).
Beat the egg until foamy, add sugar tablespoon by tablespoon until pale and volume expands. Add the osmanthus tea gradually followed by the condensed milk.
Add the cooking oil (optional) and beat until well combined. Sift in the self raising flour and alternate with milk in 3 stages. Fold until well mixed.
Pour the batter in the cupcake cups and transfer to the steamer tray. Steam the cake under high heat for 15-20 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
Besides eating mooncakes, why not try having some of these healthier osmanthus steamed sponge cake? Before I forget, you can get these dried osmanthus flower rather easily in traditional Chinese medicine stores, bakery shops or shops that sell the tea leaves.
Hope you like the post today. Cheers and have a nice day.
You can also join the FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED FACEBOOK GROUP to see more recipes. Currently there are about 11,500 members sharing various food photos . I am posting my daily home cooked food in the above Facebook Group daily. I would be more than happy if you can post in the Group for the recipes that you tried from my blog.
If you are a Pinterest user and you are interested to have more recipes, you can join or follow this Pinterest Board set up by me where there are more than 2600 recipes worldwide and pinned by various bloggers: FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED PINTEREST BOARD. | <urn:uuid:606515b4-898e-4ccb-b440-6cd3a894c0c0> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://kwgls.wordpress.com/2014/09/04/a-healthier-alternative-for-this-mooncake-festivalosmanthus-steamed-sponge-cake-%E6%A1%82%E8%8A%B1%E8%92%B8%E7%B3%95%EF%BC%89/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285315.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00569-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924584 | 1,312 | 2.40625 | 2 |
We've been hearing a lot about drone deliveries lately. Some people are using it to deliver coffee, while others are using it to deliver your packages on time.
Well, it looks like the Indian foodtech unicorn Zomato is also getting ready to deploy drone deliveries. Yes, the company has taken the leap with its first successful attempt at food delivery via drone.
This was announced by Deepinder Goyal, the founder, and CEO of Zomato. In his tweet, he noted that they're using a fusion of rotary wing and fixed wings on a single drone. According to Zomato's blog post, their fleet can achieve a peak speed of 80kmph with a payload of 5kgs.
We successfully tested a hybrid drone ?️ – fusion of rotary wing and fixed wings on a single drone; covered 5 kms in 10 mins with a peak speed of 80 kmph; with a payload of 5kgs.— Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) June 12, 2019
Exciting times ahead!
For more details – https://t.co/e9qgGQy9ex pic.twitter.com/DbrUCmK2AW
The company also noted that its drones have built-in sensors and an onboard computer to sense and avoid static and dynamic obstacles. So, yes, the drones are enabled for autonomous flights. Apparently, the drones are also capable of taking off vertically like a helicopter and then transiting to an airplane mode to cover the distance. And once it's ready to land, the drone will switch back to helicopter mode. Pretty neat!
This tech, in case you're wondering, has been powered by 'TechEagle', a drone startup which Zomato acquired last year. That being said, Zomato will still need Government's support to make drone deliveries a reality. Currently, the drones, regardless of what kind they are, fall in the grey area in terms of government policy.
Zomato, however, says that they're complying with all the laws. Well, let's see if they manage to get everything together because we really can't wait to get our food delivered on time. | <urn:uuid:8438cf32-71b0-4b07-9bb6-33d4293ca771> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.mensxp.com/technology/hacks/53664-zomato-has-successfully-tested-its-first-delivery-by-drone-finally-our-food-may-come-on-time.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572286.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816090541-20220816120541-00266.warc.gz | en | 0.967059 | 446 | 1.5625 | 2 |
The number of cases of violence in stores and shops rose by nearly 80 per cent last year, according to the British Retail Consortium.
The rise coincided with a £100million increase in shoplifting and fraud across the UK retail sector last year, with significant rises involving phone and internet credit card deals.
The consortium's ninth annual crime survey showed that thieves escaped with £1.8billion worth of goods last year, a slight increase on the previous year, while the total number of thefts rose by 15 per cent.
However, shops also spent less on crime prevention measures, so the total cost of crime to the retail sector actually fell slightly to £2.4billion. The consortium-highlighted concern about rising incidents of violence against staff and a worrying trend for police to be reluctant to respond to calls from shops when staff had arrested thieves.
Violence increased last year to seven cases per 1,000 staff, compared to five cases in 2000.
This amounted to 52 cases of violence per 100 outlets in 2001, compared with 29 in 2000.
In two thirds of cases, shop violence was the result of staff trying to arrest thieves and shoplifters. The remainder were due to a variety of reasons - such as quality of service, disputes over goods, the refund policy of stores and long queues.
The number of instances of verbal abuse of staff also continued to rise, with 10 reported cases per 1,000 people in 2001, compared to seven and six in the previous two years.
The survey noted a rise in robbery - from three incidents per 100 stores in 2000 to six per 100 last year - which included the deaths of two shopkeepers.Reuse content | <urn:uuid:92a2cb8e-45e9-422c-9b91-a1e0aa6b699b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.standard.co.uk/news/shop-staff-face-rise-in-attacks-6299185.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280791.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00355-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962193 | 339 | 1.828125 | 2 |
The Washington Times is reporting that despite IRS officials discovering that more than 1 million Americans had their Social Security numbers stolen by illegal aliens, for some reason IRS officials did not care enough to tell the taxpayers themselves. This disturbing information was released in a report written by the agency’s inspector general.
According to the report, investigators first alerted the IRS to the problem five years ago. But for some reason it’s still not fixed, and a pilot program meant to test a solution was canceled. Thus, most taxpayers don’t learn that their identities have been stolen and their Social Security files may be screwed up.
Sign up to get breaking news alerts from Dennis Michael Lynch.
APPLE ORDERED TO PAY BILLIONS IN UNPAID TAXES | <urn:uuid:fbfa6a0c-31b4-4aa2-a02d-2f7c110eb463> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://dennismichaellynch.com/illegals-steal-1-million-social-security-numbers-irs-says-nothing/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279169.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00220-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962477 | 156 | 1.5 | 2 |
12 04 2016
[April-2016-Updated]Free Downloading Exam 70-410 Dumps for Passing 70-410 Exam from Braindump2go
2016 April New — Microsoft 70-410 Exam Questions and Answers 481q Updated Today in Braindump2go.com
Your network contains an Active Directory domain named contoso.com.
The domain contains a DHCP server named Server1 that runs Windows Server 2012 R2.
You create a DHCP scope named Scope1. The scope has a start address of 192.168.1.10. an
end address of 192.168.1.50, and a subnet mask of 255.255.255.192.
You need to ensure that Scope1 has a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0.
What should you do first?
A. From the DHCP console, modify the properties of Scope1.
B. From the DHCP console, modify the Scope Options of Scope1.
C. From Windows PowerShell. run the Remove-DhcpServerv4Scope cmdlet.
D. From the DHCP console, reconcile Scope1.
RODC comes with a number of features that focus on heightened security with limited functionality to remote office users.
Which of the following are features of RODC?
A. Filtered Attribute Sets
B. Read-Only DNS
C. Unidirectional Replication
D. All of these
Sometimes it’s important to remove an RODC from your forest or domain. However, it’s important that you follow a simple rule whilst removing RODC’s. What is this rule?
A. All RODC’s must be detached before removing a final writable domain controller
B. All writable domain controllers must be removed before RODC’s can be detached
C. Your forest must only consist of RODC’s if you want to remove them
D. There are no rules for removing RODC’s
Complete the missing word from the sentence below that is describing one of the new roles in Server 2012:
By using ___, you can augment an organization’s security strategy by protecting information through persistent usage policies, which remain with the information, no matter where it is moved.
D. AD RMS
You have a server named Server1. that runs Windows Server 2012 R2. Server1 has live network adapters. Three of the network adapters are connected to a network named LAN1. The two other network adapters are connected to a network named LAN2.
You create a network adapter team named Team1 from two of all the adapters connected to LAN1.
You create a network adapter team named Team2 from the two adapters connected to LAN2.
A company policy states that all server IP addresses must he assigned by using a reserved address in DHCP.
You need to identify how many DHCP reservations you must create for Server1.
How many reservations should you identify?
You create an OU named tempusers. you add several test users to that OU.
You want to delete the ou and receive an error.
remove-adorganizationunit -identity “ou=tempusrs, dc=contoso,dc=com” – recursive.
A. Remove all the users from ou
B. Modify the rights to your user account
C. Set the confirm parameters to $true
D. Set the protectfromaccidential deletion to $false
You have a server that runs server core of windows 2012 r2 server. you need to ensure that windows updates are installed only by using manual installation on server1. which 3 steps will you perform.
scregedit.wsf /au 1
net start wuauserv
1) netstop wuauserv
2) scregedit.wsf /au 1
3) net start wuauserv
Your network has ipsec policy configured.
You need to exempt icmp and router discovery traffic from ipsec policy rule in windows firewall.
which command will you use
The Set-NetFirewallSetting cmdlet configures properties that apply to the firewall and IPsec settings, regardless of which network profile is currently in use. This cmdlet allows the administrator to specify global firewall behavior.
Your network contains one Active Directory domain named contoso.com.
You deploy a new virtual machine in microsoft azure and then you run the active directory domain configuration wizard as show in the exhibit. (click the exhibit button).
You need to ensure that all of the users in contoso.com are replicated to the new domain controller in azure.
What should you do?
A. Modify the Deployment Configuration.
B. Set up directory integration.
C. Configuration Azure Active Directory Connect.
D. Select the Domain Name System (DNS) server check box.
2016 New 70-410 Study Materials Recommendation:
1.2016 New 70-347 Dumps PDF and 70-347 VCE Files 481q: http://www.braindump2go.com/70-410.html
2.Microsoft 70-410 Exam Questions and Answers PDF Files from–Google.com | <urn:uuid:ab993101-7db2-4203-baf5-105161e0414d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.redhatdumps.com/april-2016-updatedfree-downloading-exam-70-410-dumps-for-passing-70-410-exam-from-braindump2go.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570879.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809003642-20220809033642-00674.warc.gz | en | 0.788904 | 1,396 | 2.484375 | 2 |
Yesterday I was reminded yet again how big a difference small things make in management. I was speaking with a young woman in a very good mood. She’d just gotten out of work – she has a temporary position at a hotel, greeting guests who are in town for conferences – and at the end of the day her supervisor had told her she was doing a fine job and gave her a small card. The young woman showed me the card. It said:
“We appreciate your outstanding service! Thank you for being so welcoming, thoughtful and friendly to our guests. Please enjoy a slice of pizza & a Pepsi for 75 cents as our thanks.” At the bottom of the card were listed several local eateries where the card could be redeemed.
I sort of wondered why she had to pay 75 cents – why weren’t the pizza and Pepsi free? But no matter. And no matter that the card’s value (let’s assume around here in round numbers a slice of pizza costs $3 and a Pepsi $1) was around $3.25. The young woman couldn’t have been more pleased. The card was the highlight of her day.
Of course the real reason she was so pleased had nothing to do with pizza or Pepsi or saving $3.25 - it was the recognition she received.
It was the simple gesture from her supervisor acknowledging that she was working diligently and doing well. The message was tangible and clearly communicated… and who doesn’t enjoy a slice of pizza?
Over the decades I was involved in more employee surveys than I can recall. But one thing I do recall is that the single issue that came up in literally all of them – a chronic source of employee frustration – was lack of recognition. Employees never felt they were getting enough of it.
This is ironic, because recognition can be so simple and inexpensive – unless you consider $3.25 a major capital outlay – and yet so often overlooked. (Always assuming the recognition is deserved, as recognition that isn’t will do nothing but erode management credibility.)
Having been in management, I well remember why this can happen: You’re busy, you’re frazzled, you have deadlines, too many balls in the air, strategic issues on your mind, and it’s easy to forget that your employees haven’t heard anything positive from you for quite a while. It’s easy to forget about the small stuff.
But when you do take the time, even a modest gesture (pizza and Pepsi, anyone?) can have a surprisingly energizing impact.
She thinks I’m doing a good job, the young woman likely thought when she went home that evening. I’ll show her. Tomorrow I’ll do an even better one.
* * *
This article first appeared at Forbes.com.
Victor is the author of The Type B Manager: Leading Successfully in a Type A World (Prentice Hall Press). | <urn:uuid:406a448e-82aa-4e8d-b50e-8767b5a26f38> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mind-the-manager/201404/the-exceptional-motivational-power-pizza?tr=HdrQuote | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719027.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00303-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977485 | 622 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Tangipahoa voucher program can continue
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal appeals court has ruled that the state can continue its private school tuition voucher program in Tangipahoa Parish, despite the local school board’s claim the program could affect a decades-old desegregation case.
U.S. District Judge Ivan Lemelle in November had blocked the voucher program in Tangipahoa. But a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans issued a stay of the judge’s order. In a ruling Monday, the appeals court said the state has shown it is likely to win an appeal in which it argues that the judge improperly issued an injunction against the voucher program.
The voucher program, approved last year by the Legislature and strongly pushed by Gov. Bobby Jindal, allows the state to pay private school tuition for students attending poorly performing public schools and who are from low- to moderate-income families.
Lemelle ruled that the voucher program frustrates the parish school district’s ability to comply with its federal desegregation order by depriving the district of needed state funds and disrupting the student population projections on which the order is based.
The state had argued that a federal court cannot interfere with a state’s financial decision-making because of state sovereignty granted under the 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The majority’s ruling said that the state was likely to win its argument. The appeals judges noted that the ruling granting a stay would not be binding on the appeals panel that decides the merits.
Still, the majority ruling stated: “A district court is not free to interfere in state spending decisions simply because raising and lowering funding levels may have some incidental impact on a federal decree.”
All three members of the appellate panel agreed that Lemelle should have refrained from ruling in the Tangipahoa Parish case, pending the outcome of a separate challenge to the constitutionality of the voucher program’s funding mechanism. In that case, state District Judge Tim Kelley ruled Nov. 30 that the voucher program’s use of state Minimum Foundation Program funds violates the Louisiana Constitution’s dedication of those funds to public education.
Appeals panel Judge James Dennis said he would have sent the Tangipahoa Parish case back to Lemelle to await a final outcome in the state court case, which will be decided by the state Supreme Court. Circuit Judges Edith Jones and Catharina Haynes, however, stayed Lemelle’s order pending further appeals court action. | <urn:uuid:4d25c54d-8076-4cbf-9bde-90bebf9e71ef> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.daily-review.com/tangipahoa-voucher-program-can-continue | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280730.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00247-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953255 | 534 | 1.609375 | 2 |
It has been the summer's hidden industrial crisis. For 15 weeks, postal deliveries have been disrupted by a growing series of local strikes. Now the dispute is threatening to erupt into the political spotlight. Tomorrow, the Communication Workers Union will confirm that its 160,000 members have voted in favour of national industrial action.
Although talks continue, the temporary truce brokered during the last national strike in 2007 will have shattered and both sides expect escalating strikes during the sensitive period running up to Christmas. Only this time, the growth of private sector rivals threatens to cripple the already weak Royal Mail finances by taking away business in a way never seen before.
For the CWU, it is a dispute over consultation. It accepts the need for change as new sorting technology is brought in to counter the threat of competition, but argues that Royal Mail management ignores its wishes when implementing new working practices. It cites, for example, a decision to replace bicycles with vans in the congested city of Cambridge. It also argues that budget targets mean some postmen are unable to complete their deliveries in the allotted time and are forced into unpaid overtime or faced with disciplinary action.
For the Royal Mail, the dispute is about modernisation and the union's bargaining power in a powerful but waning monopoly business. It has already shed tens of thousands of jobs through voluntary redundancy and natural churn, but feels caught between growing private sector competition, high legacy costs such as a pension fund deficit of more than £3bn, and the requirement to continue operating a fully national delivery service.
But the complicating factor has been the behaviour of the government. Until recently, Lord Mandelson was pushing a bill through parliament that proposed to tackle some of these issues by bringing in private investors to take a minority stake in Royal Mail. He claimed the new investment would speed up modernisation, but also offered to bring much of the pension liability onto the government's books.
Since this plan was derailed by backbench opposition, this separate issue of the pension liability has been left hanging, although an emergency motion was passed at the Labour party conference promising to tackle it. The Tories are also reluctant to address the issue, fearing a backbench rebellion of their own over post office closures.
Instead, the Royal Mail and its unions seem caught in political limbo – neither privatised, nor protected from private competition.
Previously, strikes have forced events despite the threat of rivals poaching business because Royal Mail remains the only big provider of letter deliveries to the door. But now the growing importance of internet deliveries looks to be turning the parcels business into the real battleground.
Not only is this the most profitable part of the business, but Royal Mail had been winning more than 60% of all new business. Now the defection of Amazon and the threat of other big names to start advertising their independence from the Royal Mail threatens to speed up the group's financial decline.
Given that letter volumes are also falling by 10% a year as customers use email instead, the recent return to operating profit (before pension costs) could quickly evaporate – leaving the government responsible for shouldering the cost of the national network.
At the heart of the problem for Royal Mail are long-term trends in the communications industry, which mean more people are finding electronic alternatives while the cost of operating a national delivery network remains fixed. Competition has exacerbated the problem but is unlikely to ever replace the expensive "final-mile" delivery infrastructure entirely.
Meanwhile, the cost of operating post office branches – managed separately but part of the Royal Mail group – has also soared and now requires substantial public subsidy. A reduction in this subsidy was behind the closure of hundreds of branches last year, causing widespread anger, particularly in rural areas.
The Royal Mail believes the only way to make remaining branches and the national delivery network viable in the long term is to invest in the business but feels constrained by its problematic relationships with the union and the government.
Perhaps the only bright spot is its financial services business, which is expected to expand shortly to include bank deposits. Last week, Lord Mandelson promised to build up banking services offered by the Royal Mail through post office branches as an alternative to the troubled private sector banking business. Nevertheless, much of the service is actually offered through an outsourced contract with a private Irish bank, limiting the likelihood of a full return to a state-owned bank. | <urn:uuid:57c7b3d1-1e03-42bc-beba-4a9b87db6b20> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/oct/07/royal-mail-postal-strikes-union | 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 | 0.961561 | 877 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Athena delivers another "vintage" but incredibly enjoyable and informative educational miniseries. Historian Michael Wood hosts, "Legacy: The Origins of Civilization," an early 1990s, five-part miniseries originally produced for public television. Each episode runs nearly an hour in length, but is overflowing with historical facts, stories, both well known and obscure, thoughtful insight and criticism, and a noble attempt to show the connection between differing cultures.
The aspect that is most striking about "Legacy" is the pacing. While Wood is talking for the majority of each program, he isn't merely throwing random fact after random fact at viewers as one would expect from a modern program. He carefully introduces concepts that define civilization through anecdotes that either lead to ideas or key events in the history of a culture; sometimes these anecdotes serve as a segue to a more well known tale that dissolves to the fundamental ideas. For instance in the episode pertaining to China, Wood starts with modern restaurants, leading to an old tale regarding the origins of some mysterious writing. Eventually, Confucius and his philosophies are dominating the focus of the program.
Wood attempts valiantly to show how these important pieces of culture shaped the evolution of the people, cities, and ideas, as well as how many of those pieces of culture have had a global impact. Like any good host, Wood speaks with confidence about his subject, although he can come off as dry at times. This can result in a "tuning out" effect from viewers, which unfortunately hinders their experience of an episode. The focused nature of these episodes really requires the viewers to be active observers and listeners; merely listening to the program in the background will not suffice. Unfortunately, the program loses points as a result. At the end of the day, the program should inspire viewers to pursue interest in the subject, not treat them to a well-produced 100-level college lecture.
Equally deserving of praise and criticism is Wood's allotment of focus on the civilizations. The first two episodes focus on Iraq and India respectively, with religious conflict serving as a thematic link between the two cultures. The series' ability to teach is strongest here with many of the insights and historical facts (at least from my perspective) feeling fresh. On the other hand, I wasn't a fan of both the Aztecs and Mayans being lumped together for a generic episode titled "Central America: The Burden of Time." Likewise, it would have been nice to have more than one episode devoted to Europe or better yet, a look at the Indigenous Australians, whose story I can't recall ever being told by any educational program.
Ultimately, "Legacy" is a worthwhile experience. Wood takes viewers to the places he's talking about, but never turns things into a travelogue or sightseeing show. He's there to give a general feeling for the culture, to see the land and people in plain terms. The concepts he addresses and the alternative approach he employs sets the series apart from the competition. "Legacy" is by no means a perfect series, many of the "modern" references to events are now dated (particularly those to the first Iraq War), but that just adds another layer for the viewer to ponder and think about how much has changed in so little time.
The 1.33:1 original aspect ratio is what one would expect from an early 90's public television special. Stock footage varies in quality, while footage shot for the show shows signs of video transfer. Colors are slightly washed out and detail is weak. Ultimately it doesn't detract from the quality of the programming, but those looking for visual travelogue quality need to look elsewhere.
The English stereo audio track is front heavy with Wood's in-studio narration overpowering. All of Wood's on-location audio varies in quality; when heavy winds are whipping around him, it can be distracting, at times nearly silencing the softly added backing soundtrack and causing some distortion on the higher ends. If Wood finds himself deep in a canyon area, you can hear the change in acoustics, which does set the atmosphere for the location quite effectively.. The majority of the time, it's not that hard to understand what he's trying to say, and only a few audio hiccups (likely a result of the recording equipment) pop in from time to time. English subtitles for the hearing impaired are included as well.
The lone extra on each disc is a collection of text biographies for influential figures in the civilizations featured, titled "When Giants Walked the Earth." The most substantial extra is the small printed viewers guide that Athena kindly adds with all the releases I've seen thus far. It breaks down key points of each episode and leaves viewers with some questions to ponder. For those wanting to take the next step and learn more, a reading guide is included as well.
"Legacy: The Origins of Civilization" serves as a reminder of what educational programming once was and what it should aspire to be today. Michael Wood takes viewers on a nearly five-hour trip through time to find out just what makes a civilization a civilization. The end result is thought provoking, despite being obtuse at times. While the technical presentation is by no means outstanding, if you're looking for a way to learn about other civilizations and their global effects, this is a good place to start. Recommended. | <urn:uuid:1dbf49c0-ede5-4a2c-a9ce-04de1a4dfa93> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/print.php?ID=41555 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285315.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00568-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96604 | 1,096 | 2.046875 | 2 |
If you are not acquainted with Instagram, it is an application that works only with versatile as a photograph sharing project. Clients might download the application and post pictures – untouched or upgraded with channels that give the photographs a retro look – to an open food. Likewise with most informal organizations, clients can take after one another and like and remark on pictures. While one can get to Instagram nourishes through different sites, clients can just include new photographs through the application.
Since dispatching in late 2010, Instagram can guarantee more than 30 million enrolled clients and the enthusiasm of Facebook, which has offered to buy the organization for one billion dollars. Various administrations that permit clients to transform their Instagram photographs into postcards, stickers, and magnets have additionally propelled in the most recent two years, further setting Instagram’s impact in versatile.
As a business offering item or administrations, you might consider how you can utilize Instagram to your advantage. The application is utilized for sharing photos, so normally your first slant is to populate your food with significant photographs and energize likes and remarks. The one test with Instagram is that one can’t connect a photo to another site, so you can’t depend on it for site referrals. You can, notwithstanding, utilize the application to get individuals included in sharing your image.
Instagram clients, similar to Twitter clients, might frequently tag the photographs they transfer. One thought to advance your organization would include challenges where clients can tag a themed photograph as per your challenge rules. Not just have you marked yourself on the system, yet you exhibit the chance to turn into a web sensation as devotees of participants get on the tag and the food.
It’s essential to note that Instagram might be coordinated into Facebook pages and multi-reason Web applications. You can set up an Instagram tab on your Facebook page to pull in pictures with a particular hashtag, and urge clients to tag their photographs so they appear. Individuals who use Hootsuite, for instance, can without much of a stretch offer Instagram photographs through Facebook and Twitter profiles. Present the open door for individuals to share your photographs – it makes for a pleasant challenge that can turn into a web sensation.
As individuals swing more to portable application to convey, your business needs to conceive brand new ideas and use online networking to contact individuals. Play around with Instagram and perceive how it can advantage you.
See more : Increasing Enhancement of Instagram | <urn:uuid:6113316e-0620-4e73-831f-fe197837271e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://devlik.com/2016/03/04/expand-business-through-instagram/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280128.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00392-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931765 | 490 | 1.539063 | 2 |
"Things are going to change, day by day, minute by minute, and we need to just keep our eyes open and ears open and read about it," she says. "Follow routine business practices, the things that you know are right, and you'll be fine."
A Canadian’s Perspective
Putting aside all other concerns, one operator questions how allowing the storage or growing of marijuana might change the operational goals of a self-storage facility. Robert Madsen, president of the U-Lock Mini Storage Group, president of the Vancouver Island Self Storage Association and director of the Canadian Self Storage Association, says allowing tenants to grow marijuana in units for profit would be a "totally different business" from the traditional self-storage profession. "In Canada, the space is strictly for storing items so you are not supposed to operate a business in which there are activities inside the lockers," Madsen says.
Canada has a national medical-marijuana law and, so far, has resisted recreational approval. Since 2001, licensed medical-marijuana patients could grow their own supply or purchase cannabis from small-scale producers. However, the law will soon change. In April, medical marijuana users must purchase directly from operations that have authorization from Health Canada, which is the federal department in charge of the country’s healthcare system.
A Legal Perspective
Self-storage legal expert Jeffrey Greenberger, a partner with the law firm Katz, Greenberger, & Norton LLP in Cincinnati, noted there are multiple issues that raise concerns for industry professionals considering cannabis production and storage. "It would be a business decision that needs to be very well thought through.”
A cannabis operation may actually be a mortgage-agreement violation since marijuana possession is a federal offense, according to Greenberger. "We've agreed to run a self-storage facility, and we've told the bank what the self-storage facility is going to be. And they've said, ‘We're going to lend you this money, and you're not going to allow any hazardous materials, not going to allow any illegal activity, and you're going to take care of our asset and be a good steward.’”
For similar reasons, most insurance companies will not offer coverage in this scenario, Greenberger says. "I don't think the insurance companies have caught up with the idea that if it's legal in a state it might be legal to do in a facility," he said. "As I understand it, they still consider it an illegal activity."
On the pro side, tenants involved with the cannabis industry are assumed to be "good payers," since they often deal in cash, Greenberger notes. Though this may be attractive to struggling self-storage businesses, he cautions operators that large cash transactions come with their own set of problems. "It's a very creative idea for a way to use the facility. But you have to really think it through."
Whether self-storage will be a good fit for the cultivation and storage of cannabis remains to be seen. With marijuana legislation changing state by state and year by year, staying informed will be key to the industry's evolution in management strategies.
Kay Miller Temple is a physician and recent graduate from the master’s program at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. To reach her, e-mail firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:363990c3-9ab4-4fba-8dd2-74b2881a203f> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.insideselfstorage.com/articles/2014/02/the-marijuana-market-selfstorage-operators-should-stay-informed-and-prep-for-changes.aspx?pg=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282935.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00246-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965242 | 698 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Catch "Nitro Fever" with this new twist on a classic game!
Get ready to bend all the rules with this volleyball spinoff! In this action-packed game, players hit, pass, and serve the nitro balls with a downward motion, ensuring they bounce on the ground before crossing over the net. Our NitroBall™ PE game is easy to learn, fun to play, and keeps your students moving!
Volleyball with a Twist
This unique game is essentially an inverted version of volleyball. The net is lower to the ground and the ball needs to bounce off the court before going over the net.
The standard court typically measures 78'L x 36'W. Play begins after a player serves the ball. If the ball doesn't make it over the net, touches a player of the serving team, strikes something other than the net, lands out of bounds, or the server steps out of bounds, the other team earns the serve. The ball must bounce on the court before every strike. Similar to traditional volleyball, no player can hit the ball twice consecutively, and each team gets up to 3 hits when the ball is on its side. This game uses rally scoring, so a team scores a point every time the ball is served. The first team to 21 points wins.
A team earns a point when:
- The ball bounces twice in a row on the opponent's side
- The opponent cannot return the ball within 3 hits
- The opponent hits the ball out of bounds
- The opponent commits a fault or foul
- The ball is not legally returned
- Basic Pack. Includes 2 balls (9" dia), 1 net (32'W x 36"H), a storage bag, and activity instructions.
- Deluxe Pack. Includes everything in the Basic Pack, plus 2 black Intentus Portable Game Standards. | <urn:uuid:b82ce001-fa02-43c2-a18b-d3be311832f0> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://gophersport.com/nitroball-packs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573760.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819191655-20220819221655-00669.warc.gz | en | 0.91895 | 414 | 1.789063 | 2 |
The combustion of fossil fuels drives the world's energy production, but it also emits carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases. In recent years, researchers have worked to cultivate alternative, renewable energy sources, including using algae-based systems. Now, a team reports in ACS' journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research an optimized way of producing biofuel from algae that also removes CO2 emissions from the environment.
Algae-based biorefineries only need nutrients, water, sunlight and CO2 to run. The aim of these systems is to produce cleaner energy in the form of biodiesel, methane or ethanol. However, current configurations are costly both in terms of money and energy. To address this issue, Eusiel Rubio-Castro and colleagues developed a mathematical model to determine the optimal design of an algae-based biorefinery where flue gases from different industrial facilities are used as raw materials.
The team developed a mixed integer non-linear programming (MINLP) model and applied it to a case study in Mexico. Their model determined that using flue gases as a source of CO2 reduced costs associated with the algae-growing stage of the process—the most expensive part—and reduced all other costs by almost 90 percent.
Using water recycled within the biorefining process also reduced fresh water needs by about 83 percent. However, as the technology stands, the researchers say that the costs are still too high to justify an algae-based biorefinery on its own. Instead, they say that producing cleaner, algae-based fuels should be seen as a necessary expense in the global effort to reduce and capture carbon emissions.
Explore further: Renewable fuels from algae boosted by NREL refinery process
More information: Oscar Martín Hernández-Calderón et al. Optimal Design of Distributed Algae-Based Biorefineries Using CO Emissions from Multiple Industrial Plants , Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research (2016). DOI: 10.1021/acs.iecr.5b01684
This work proposes an optimization approach for capturing carbon dioxide from different industrial facilities to yield an algae-based biorefinery. The proposed approach is based on a distributed system to account for the economies of scale and includes site selection for the processing facilities. Additionally, the model considers optimization for the technologies used in the process stages and different technologies to yield several products. The algae oil that is obtained from each facility can be sent to processing hubs located in the same plant and/or to a central processing unit. The objective function is to minimize the total annual cost for the treatment of flue gases, including the capital and operating costs for the different processing stages and the overall transportation costs associated with the system minus the sales of products plus the tax credit for reducing CO2 emissions. The results show several economic benefits. | <urn:uuid:76851577-9870-4fa4-a589-907936544451> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://phys.org/news/2016-02-optimizing-biofuel-production-algae-carbon.html | 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 | 0.937405 | 578 | 3.796875 | 4 |
As cities move towards becoming smarter, much of that activity can be invisible to the human eye. It can be difficult to see how data-driven insights improve municipal operations, but the exception is smart lighting. LED and smart lighting upgrades – from the hue of the light to the strategic timing of lighting events to resulting energy bill savings – can be immediately evident, especially to citizens and residents.
The lighting industry has transformed drastically over the past two decades.
Amanda Dixon, a lighting control expert at Selc, a Xylem Brand, has been working on the front lines of the smart lighting evolution for the past 15 years. She recently shared her insights at a Smart Cities Connect roundtable with city leaders across North America.
For those considering a future upgrade to their smart lighting systems, the following will reveal valuable insight; it details the impact of smart lighting to operations, finances and overall smart city initiatives.
In its 2019 report, “The Benefits of LED & Smart Street Lighting“, the Northeast Group states that “Streetlights are the low hanging fruit for cities not sure where to start.” This comprehensive analysis of the U.S. street lighting market states LEDs have a 45% adoption rate and smart streetlights have a 5% adoption rate.
This points to the fact that these are early days and there is great opportunity, not only for the smart lighting sector and the emerging smart city applications, but also for the benefits that it can produce for cities and utilities, including:
Many utilities are not astute at asset mapping, asset tracking or maintaining inventory. This is not a criticism but rather a reflection on the limitations of traditional technology. In the past, these tasks were all performed manually, with high cost but no obvious return on investment.
In the modern era, smart technology offers embedded tracking, automatic alerts and alarms as well as remote support and maintenance. The cost of a truck roll can now cover the cost of a smart module.
Smart kits on lighting assets offer the ability to control all elements related to light including brightness, color, temperature and timing. This is incredibly relevant to those communities that are committed to dark sky initiatives and/or reducing the impact of municipal lighting on wildlife.
For example, in Florida, the turtle mating season is directly impacted by city street lights. In the past, a season dimming meant crews spent many hours of manual labor at premium cost. With smart lighting controls, this activity can be managed remotely and instantly with minimal cost.
Smart streetlights provide a gateway for cities to attach additional data-collecting sensors for a myriad of use cases including pedestrian counting, air quality monitors and even snow depth sensors, to name a few. Absent of a smart street light platform, these individual use cases run the risk of being siloed and limited in application.
However, when applied strategically and thoughtfully as attached to a smart street lighting system, the integration can yield a powerful, comprehensive, city-wide, smart city approach.
Given all of these benefits, it would be easy to assume that every municipality would be rushing into this new platform. But there are still questions to be answered, most of which were addressed in the Smart Cities Connect Roundtable.
Here are the top concerns of city and utility leaders:
Because technology is moving quickly, there is a hesitancy across city government to invest too early at the risk of needing to “upgrade and replace”. While this is a common concern related to overall next-generation smart technology, lighting systems are unique from a digital perspective. Instead of having to make the investment and take on risk all at once, a more modular approach is possible and encouraged.
An iterative, ‘rolling replacement’ strategy can support a “pay as you go” model where savings from each segment can be applied to the next step.
One panelist wisely stated, “If we don’t have interoperable systems, we don’t have interoperable data” which underlies the true conundrum of smart cities.
While the need and the use cases are evident, the path forward is not always clear. The standards around lighting controls as they apply across other smart platforms are being written in real time.
When looking strictly through the lens of hardware costs, current photocell technology is less than the cost of smart lighting packages; however the returns on the more modern investment far outweigh the traditional approach. This point underscores the ‘smart versus not’ conundrum.
A move to an integrated smart city approach mandates a convergence of departments, metrics and assumed outcomes. When smart city hardware is viewed holistically across energy savings and operational costs, the payback is quick.
For example, the cost of a truck roll to rip and replace an old photocell light far offsets the cost of a smart node as does the energy savings that result from the technology upgrade.
In addition, the life of the fixture is extended by being able to control the wattage and lumen output. But hardware, maintenance and associated costs are tracked differently and separately and herein lies the challenge.
Smart lighting is an invitation for municipalities to be on the cutting edge of the smart city evolution and invite more much-needed collaboration. From data sharing to risk transference, experimenting with an integrated approach is exciting and ground breaking.
City and utility leaders should not shy from making investments and embracing this next phase. This is the opportunity to lead and write the history of modern cities.
From data sharing to cross-department and cross-sector collaboration, smart lighting holds the natural incentives for municipal leaders to work together.
A transition to smart means getting buy-in across different departments to transfer the burden off of the asset owner and disperse it across multilateral use cases. This kind of shared understanding and cost shifting is difficult to quantify and even more difficult to track, but it is a required step for cities to shift into a different form of accountability.
By supporting modernization lighting infrastructure efforts, city and utility leaders can see immediate returns as well as a pathway to future monetization.
Smart lighting can be the pathway to get there. | <urn:uuid:bdc7b99a-f146-4dcb-a753-1f83fc3c74ee> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://blog.sensus.com/smart-lighting-illuminates-the-path-to-smarter-cities/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570765.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808031623-20220808061623-00273.warc.gz | en | 0.941973 | 1,269 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Media teleconference to discuss Dawn Mission
WASHINGTON - NASA has scheduled a media teleconference at 2:30 p.m.
EDT, Tuesday, June 26, in place of the previously planned media science briefing about the Dawn mission. Dawn will explore the two largest objects in the asteroid belt in an effort to answer questions about the formation of our solar system.
Mission managers will discuss several issues that need to be resolved before Dawn's July 7-11 launch window. The briefing participants are:
-- Todd May, deputy associate administrator for programs, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington
-- Jim Adams, deputy director, Planetary Science Division, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington
Media interested in participating in the teleconference should call 888-398-6118. The passcode is "Dawn." Reporters who want to listen only may call 321-867-1220, 1240 or 1260.
+ NASA News Audio | <urn:uuid:18a3d8c6-b8c1-4cc2-aa27-0121cc10c172> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/dawn/main/dawntelecon6-26.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283008.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00080-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.878426 | 194 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Why are the prices of so many commodities rising in an economy that seems to remain quite weak?
The table below summarizes the percent change between January 6 and November 11 in the cash prices of 19 commodities reported in the Wall Street Journal (downloaded via Webstract). The average commodity in this list has appreciated 37% since the start of the year.
A recent paper by Ke Tang and Wei Xiong documents an increasing tendency for commodity prices to move together over the last few years. A decade ago, what happened to oil prices was largely unrelated to movements in most other commodity prices. The graphs below show how the correlations between oil prices and the prices of four representative commodities have increased significantly over time.
Correlation (using a rolling sample beginning one year before indicated date) between returns on oil and specified commodity. Source: Tang and Xiong (2009).
One explanation I often see in the popular press is that movements in commodity prices are driven by changes in the value of the dollar relative to other currencies. However, the magnitude of movements in commodity prices greatly exceeds the size of changes in the exchange rate. For example, the table above shows that since the start of this year oil prices have increased five times as much as the dollar price of a euro; see also Steve Gordon’s graphs. While the depreciation of the dollar is part of the story, most of the explanation must be found elsewhere.
Another important factor is resurging real economic growth outside the United States, which produces pressures for both the dollar to depreciate and the real price of commodities to appreciate. According to this theory, the increasing correlations between commodity prices results from the fact that countries like China are so much more important for the world economy today than they were a decade ago.
A third explanation is that investors are making increasing use of commodities as an investment class. Although Treasury Inflation Protected Securities offer a hedge against an increase in the U.S. consumer price index, they don’t offer protection for foreign investors against depreciation of the dollar. Insofar as increases in the prices of commodities like oil may depress real economic activity, holding commodities as an investment also offers useful diversification against risks to equities. Particularly when interest rates are low, there is an incentive to hoard physical commodities as an investment vehicle.
The paper by Tang and Xiong proposes that the increased use of commodities as a financial investment accounts for the increasing correlation among commodity price changes over time. In support of that claim, they note the growing popularity of investment strategies based on the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index or the Dow Jones Commodity Index. Tang and Xiong document that correlations among commodities included in the indexes have increased faster than those not included. For example, one of the regressions they estimate relates the return on commodity i to equity returns, bond yields, the value of the dollar, and oil prices, where the coefficients are allowed to grow with time at different rates before and after 2004, and with different trends on these coefficients estimated for commodities included in indexes as for those excluded. The figure below shows their estimated time path for the coefficient on oil prices comparing the indexed and non-indexed groups.
Coefficient relating return on average commodity to return on oil as a function of time for commodities included in the GS or DJ indexes (top curve) and those excluded (bottom curve). Source: Tang and Xiong (2009).
For any of the explanations in this third class, one of the important challenges is to reconcile the story of commodity speculation with supply and demand for the underlying physical commodity. If we propose that speculators have driven the price of the commodity up, the physical quantity demanded should decline as a result. In order to be sustained, a coherent speculation-based theory of commodity price appreciation requires increased physical storage of the commodity.
The solid black curve in the figure below plots the typical U.S. crude oil stocks (excluding those held in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) for each week of the year, based on the average over 1990-2007. The red line gives the actual values for 2008, which were significantly below the historical average, particularly in the spring of 2008 when oil prices were rising so dramatically. Those below-normal inventories were one reason I focused on what was going on to the fundamentals of supply and demand in trying to understand the behavior of oil markets in the first half of 2008.
Weekly U.S. crude oil ending stocks, excluding SPR, in thousands of barrels, from EIA. Black line: average over 1990-2007. Red: 2008. Green: 2009.
On the other hand, inventories of crude oil this year, shown in green above, have been substantially above normal, meaning that in the absence of that oil going into storage, we would have expected to see lower oil prices than we currently have.
Copper, nickel and other base metals stockpiled by speculative Chinese investors including pig farmers may be sold when “market sentiment turns,” said Scotia Capital Inc.
A price surge and easy bank credit this year encouraged pig farmers, stock brokers and businessmen to buy copper and nickel for speculation, Liu Na, an analyst with Scotia Capital, wrote in a note dated Aug. 17, citing reports from the state-owned China Central Television….
“These stockpiles are in ‘weak hands’ as speculators have no real use for base metals,” Liu wrote. “When the market sentiment turns, they are very likely to turn into quick sellers, especially when the bank’s money is involved.”
I also found this November 3 story from the Financial Times of interest:
Gold prices continued to rise on Wednesday extending the all-time highs which followed India’s central bank bought 200 tonnes of the precious metal, swapping dollars for bullion as the country’s finance minister warned the economies of the US and Europe had “collapsed”.
India’s decision to exchange $6.7bn for gold equivalent to 8 per cent of world annual mine production sent the strongest signal yet that Asian countries were moving away from the US currency.
Policy-makers in the Federal Reserve have traditionally thought of inflation as a broad movement in all wages and prices, which to some extent is under their control, and viewed changes in relative commodity prices as outside their control. I believe that this is not the correct understanding of the current situation. Concerns about inflation, particularly on the part of foreign dollar-holders, are likely to show up first in the relative prices of internationally traded commodities. Insofar as these relative price changes can be destabilizing in themselves, it cannot be wise for U.S. policy-makers to ignore them. | <urn:uuid:8cffbb4f-c083-4a02-b5bd-bc8b32323100> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://wallstreetpit.com/12128-commodity-inflation-in-a-weak-economy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279189.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00053-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954319 | 1,367 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Terrorism is a brutal and violent practice, but it is also a media phenomenon. Terror is vital news: a dramatic, important story that the public needs to know about and understand. But terrorism also relies on such publicity to disrupt society, provoke fear, and demonstrate power. This problematic relationship predates digital technology. In 1999, American historian Walter Laqueur wrote:
It has been said that journalists are terrorists’ best friends, because they are willing to give terrorist operations maximum exposure. This is not to say that journalists as a group are sympathetic to terrorists, although it may appear so. It simply means that violence is news, whereas peace and harmony are not. The terrorists need the media, and the media find in terrorism all the ingredients of an exciting story.1
So what is the responsibility of journalists, who supply the oxygen of publicity? Journalism that reports, analyzes, and comments upon terror faces a challenge in creating narratives that are accurate, intelligible, and socially responsible. Many of the issues journalists face also relate to wider journalism practices, especially around breaking news and conflict journalism.2
In the last few years, this problem has become more acute and more complicated technically, practically, and ethically with the acceleration of the news cycle and the advent of social media. News events are amplified by social media, which often host the “first draft” of terror coverage. These platforms are specifically targeted by terrorists and referenced by journalists. Yet these companies often have only a short history of dealing with the political and commercial pressures many newsrooms have lived with for decades. The fear is that reporting of terror is becoming too sensationalist and simplistic in the digitally driven rush and that the role of professional journalism has been constrained and diminished. In February 2016, when the White House sought help to counterterror groups, it invited executives from Facebook, Google, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, and Microsoft to come up with ideas to halt the use of the internet by extremists.
This paper seeks to describe this developing situation in the context of changes in the very nature of journalism and news. It identifies trends, problems, and best practices for more constructive journalism about terror. In the first section, the paper will look at the problems facing journalism around terrorism: the increasing speed of the news cycle; new technologies and the limits on resources; the challenge of verification, definition, proportionality; and dealing with spin and propaganda.
The second section explores ways towards better reporting of terror: which systems should be in place; what language journalists should use; how journalists should judge perspective and give context in a fast-moving incident; the responsibilities of the journalist to show empathy, to demonstrate discretion, and to avoid sensationalism; and the possibility of creating narratives that show the relevance of what is happening to different communities and influence policy.
The third section will look at the role of the major platforms, especially Google, Facebook, and Twitter. What impact do they have on audiences? How do they relate to the creation of journalism about terror, especially in disseminating news? Social platforms have become part of the way the public understands and responds to terror events, but their ethical, social, and editorial responsibilities are yet to be determined. The role of the platforms is evolving significantly as they become part of the news flow. How transparent should they be about their algorithms or policies that shape the flow of content? New developments, such as live video, are creating fresh dilemmas.
Journalism has a responsibility to help society cope with the threat, reality, and consequences of terrorism. The role of independent, critical, and trustworthy journalism has never been more important. Yet, the news media has never been under such pressure economically and politically. This paper seeks to add to that pressure with a plea for better reporting. This is not just a moral or academic appeal. Unless journalism responds to the challenges that issues like terror pose, it will become less and less valued. Improving the work of journalists is central to the news media’s survival as a vital part of a modern, democratic society.
This is neither a handbook for journalism about terrorism nor a comprehensive research study. The aim of this paper is to provoke reflection and improve the diversity and quality of journalism. This paper also has a self-conscious bias towards American and European media, partly because of the importance of this issue in the current American and European electoral cycles.
- There is widespread concern that the news media is reporting terror events in a way that can spread fear and confusion. Journalists struggle with the accelerating pace of the news cycle and the complicated and diverse nature of terrorism itself. Especially in the context of breaking news, they have to adapt to the speed and complexity of information flows that are increasingly influenced by the authorities, the digital platforms, and even the terrorists themselves.
- There is a danger that news coverage can provide the publicity the terrorist seeks, as well as add to disinformation through poor verification and lack of context. Such publicity can even be seen to be helping terrorists increase their impact and make their recruitment more effective. The way journalists frame news around terror events can also reinforce prejudices and stereotypes.
- Social media amplifies the communicative scale and impact of terrorism, and it adds to the misinformation and emotional responses to terror events. Journalists using social media as a platform or a source do not always maintain the best editorial standards. Social media has changed the very nature of news around terror, for example, by providing imagery, eyewitness accounts, and live video. But it can also deceive, distort, and distract. Journalists are adapting to this new context, but there are still practical and policy problems in terms of verification and news judgment.
- Digital platforms are now where many people consume news about terrorism. They are influential in filtering information and shaping the flow of news, but they do not have the same ethos or practical capacity and experience as news organizations. They also have not yet come to fully understand their role or accepted their responsibilities in the mediation of terrorism, and are still negotiating their relationship with news media.
- Digital platforms have a special dilemma as open environments that also seek to protect their users from offense. While they provide an immense opportunity for journalists and the public to be better informed and to interact around these events, their algorithms and editing policies are still problematic.
- News media organizations need to have detailed guidelines on all aspects of terrorism coverage. They need to deal with language, significance, and context, as well as accuracy and balance. Coverage needs to be backed up by a self-conscious iterative process that allows journalists to reflect, discuss problems and best practices, and improve. Especially for those organizations that are larger or are multiplatform, these guidelines need to be communicated widely. Coordinated internal systems, including systems such as Slack, should be put in place to make sure best practices are maintained even in breaking news or developing story situations.
- Journalists need to be as transparent as possible with the audience about their sources and the limits of their knowledge. Transparency is key to trust. Social media can be a valid and important source, but it must be verified and put into context.
- News media and digital platforms need to develop better technical and editorial systems for verification and accuracy. This might include using “honest brokers” or other agencies and experts. Fact-checking needs to be central. The principle of “better right rather than first” has to be enforced across all publications or broadcasts on all platforms. Editorial management has to make sure the pressure to be fast does not threaten the audience’s right to be able to trust what is published.
- Journalists need to think harder about the way they are framing stories. The news media logic that determines how important a story is and what scale of treatment it gets is too often driven by herd mentality or repeated formulae. Journalists need to reflect on whether they treat similar stories in different places proportionally, and whether they include diverse voices and informed comments.
- News media should invest in the great opportunities for deeper reporting presented by new technologies. Not just to report faster and to more people, but to create better context and clarity. Data visualization offers the opportunity for more fact-based reporting, for example. New platforms offer creative ways to engage with different demographics. But ultimately, better journalism is about digging deeper and looking further. More constructive narratives that include empathy, resilience, and positive responses to terror should be created as part of the news coverage itself. The social impact of news coverage should be considered, not just audience numbers and the drama of the event.
- The digital platforms need to work more closely with news organizations to improve the production and distribution of trustworthy information and informed debate around terror events. They need to bring in more journalistic expertise to improve their own verification and filtering systems. They should use more “honest broker” organizations and be more transparent about their own systems. Above all, they need to accept their responsibilities as defacto editors of news about terror.
The Problem With Covering Terrorism
By its very nature, terrorism challenges normal narrative frames and processes. The basic facts themselves are often difficult to establish after a terrorist incident, much less analyze: What happened? Who did it? Why? What is the reaction of the authorities and the public? What policy or political change might it provoke? How can we report it without making it more likely to happen again?
This chapter looks at the challenges of covering terror events. Some of these are new problems, created by technological innovation or economic and political factors. Some are longstanding issues that have become much more complex in the digital environment, making good editorial practices more difficult to carry out.
Historical Coverage of Terrorism
Terrorism is always a relative term, and its application has changed over time. Former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once labeled Nelson Mandela’s anti-apartheid African National Congress party as a “terrorist” organization before later going on to urge his release. The American extreme left-wing group the Weathermen, founded in 1969, began as an anti-imperialist group that bombed government buildings and ended up as a counter-cultural cult. The nationalist Irish Republican Army (IRA) was highly organized along military lines which Thatcher also described as terrorist, but with whom she initiated negotiations. Hamas has won elections and has a strong social service network but has also carried out attacks, including suicide bombings on civilians. The American government describes Hamas as terrorist, while others such as Turkey are prepared to treat it as a political actor in the Middle East and give it support.
Because of the term’s subjective nature, some people argue terrorism should not be used at all by journalists. But semantics are only part of the problem. For journalists, part of the challenge has always been how to reflect the perspectives of the authorities and public in their own countries. This is only made more complex with international terrorism and transnational media. For example, this year Turkey was subject to a series of attacks by different groups killing civilians. The way those narratives are framed by Western news media has not been consistent, according to Azzam Tamimi, editor in chief of the London-based Arabic channel Al Hiwar:
Whereas the Islamic State [Daesh] is considered a menace, the PKK and its affiliates are seen as legitimate actors or even freedom fighters. Few Western journalists can resist the temptation to take sides on ideological or cultural basis. The inherited fear or hate of Islam and Muslims usually manifests itself.
Terrorism has always had a symbiotic relationship with news media, one that predates the internet. Journalist and terrorism expert Jason Burke points out that those involved in violent struggle soon realized the opportunity provided by the arrival of mass media:
In 1956, the Algerian political activist and revolutionary Ramdane Abane wondered aloud if it was better to kill 10 enemies in a remote gully “when no one will talk of it” or “a single man in Algiers, which will be noted the next day” by audiences in distant countries who could influence policymakers.
As Burke writes, the same technological advances such as communications satellites which created a globalized media also gave opportunities for expanded publicity for terrorism:
In 1972, members of the Palestinian Black September group attacked Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, the first games to be broadcast live and the first to be the target of a terrorist attack. The cameras inevitably switched their focus from the sports to the ongoing hostage crisis.
The September 11th attacks were, of course, a watershed moment. Observing the attacks unfold in real time was a communal event, shared by tens of millions of people around the world. A report by Annenberg on journalism and terror published two years later recognized the internet had become a significant factor. It points out that the internet allowed the public to “aggregate bits of information” independently and extended “reach” for smaller media organizations. It also notes that “problematic information is now available on non-journalistic sites.”
Al-Qaeda also exemplified the way that terror organizations have become media producers as well as media subjects. Most famously, Osama bin Laden made a series of videos that allowed him to speak through the world’s media. But as Burke has chronicled, from 2005 onwards with the expansion of the internet, the Al-Qaeda network with its widespread, diffuse organization of cells and affiliates prioritized the recording of its activities and the dissemination of its propaganda online. Some of this ended up in mainstream news media, such as the video of the beheading in 2004 of the American contractor Nick Berg in Iraq.
A few years later, the transformative effect of Web 2.0 and the meteoric rise of Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks would utterly reshape that digital context. Although the core editorial concerns of the report would remain, the media landscape in which terror attacks now unfold is on a very different scale.
Terrorism in the age of instant news and social media is a “different beast,” said former BBC Global News Director Richard Sambrook in an interview. He has worked through the last three decades and insists the subject is now more complex:
Twenty years ago reporting terror was simpler. You knew who had done it. A car bomb goes off outside Harrods, and the IRA communicate directly with code words. The police would know. The issues were more straightforward, and you knew who you were dealing with. Now it’s much more complicated. Terrorism is a different beast, and the fact that it is networked or that it is more likely to be indigenous raises a raft of issues.3
ISIS again raises the problem of how journalists define terror events. Acts committed in the name of ISIS don’t always have clear links with the core organization, and claims of responsibility are more tenuous. This amorphous form of terrorism raises the question of what other violent, ideologically motivated attacks on innocent civilians—designed to gain publicity for a cause and to create fear and reaction—fall under the label of terror. The 2016 attack on the gay nightclub in Orlando, the 2015 shootings in San Bernardino, and the 2016 Munich shopping center shooting were all very different kinds of events described as “terrorism” at some point. If we give a name to one incident, why not another?
The Challenging New Context For the Journalist and Audience
Social platforms are increasingly the place where terrorism is reported first. From ISIS beheadings to video from inside the Bataclan Paris nightclub, these sites are a key news player, sometimes shaping coverage.
There has been a fundamental shift, from news media having control over the flow of information to a more distributed set of sources and platforms. The journalist is no longer the primary gatekeeper. Today’s audiences have vastly more immediate and direct access to a greater volume of material and variety of sources online. The public can get information directly from other citizens, the authorities, or even terrorists themselves. The relative ease with which the news media are able to report events quickly and graphically—thanks to digital technology—means that audiences often report they feel overwhelmed and even repulsed by the onslaught of “bad news” events.
Around terror events, live broadcasting, and particularly television, remains the dominant news information source for a majority of the media-consuming public. However, over the last decade, those reports are becoming more reliant on social media. Coverage of the London bombings in 2005 featured grainy mobile phone video of survivors walking away from the wrecked train carriages down underground tunnels. In the wake of that, the BBC set up a user-generated content (UGC) hub specifically to gather and verify content created by citizens for use in its news.4 By the attacks in Mumbai in 2008, journalists were able to find imagery and information from citizen photography sites such as Flickr and the 900 tweets published every minute. Traditional news distribution agencies such as Reuters became clearing houses for UGC. AP appointed its first social media editor in 2012.
In 2016, the first phase of broadcast coverage of the attacks in urban centers such as Paris, Brussels, Munich, and Ankara was dominated by both video and stills harvested from social media. ABC News’s International Managing Editor Jon Williams, who has been making broadcast news for more than 30 years, points out that this is an historical change in the visibility of news events:
Clearly in the 1970s and 80s very often incidents would happen without pictures. In 1996 the only imagery of the IRA Manchester bombing came from CCTV some time after the event. Today there would be any number of people recording that on cellphones and inundating social media with it in real time.5
New technologies also provide opportunities for other kinds of enhanced visual input such as the live Google Map created by one journalist during the Mumbai attacks. The arrival of live video on social networks means that the citizen (as well as the journalist and terrorist) can become a social network broadcaster. As discussed in the second and third sections, this immediate streamed access creates editorial issues for news organizations and ethical problems for the platforms themselves. At the moment, their use around terror incidents is sporadic but becoming more common.
Social media networks also mean terror news intrudes directly into our intimate media sphere. The same profiles we use for personal content or the consumption of entertainment, routine information, and social exchange are now a space filled with dramatic and shocking images and messages. News is increasingly consumed on mobile devices and smartphones, making the news part our personal, socially connected lives. In their interaction with media, it is not surprisingly that people react more personally, emotionally, and instantly than ever before.6
Framing the Narrative: Definitions of “Terrorism”
There is enormous pressure with a major breaking story to come up with a fresh line amidst the surge of information. Audience expectations of instant reportage combined with the increasing market competition add to that need for journalists to work quickly and at the limits of their abilities and resources. This rush to certainty can lead to false leads from mainstream as well as social media. Journalists and audiences inevitably seek to fit terrorist incidents into a pattern. This is exacerbated by group think among journalists, especially on social media. In the race to publish and in the midst of a dangerous situation it is difficult to maintain a critical attitude to those dispensing authoritative information.
One manifestation of this is the expert commentator, who is often chosen as much for their closeness to a TV studio as for their relevant insights. Live broadcasters are developing a language that relativizes its statements: “this is what is being reported,” “this is what we are being told,” “reports on social media suggest.” The danger is the audience does not understand the precise nature of the qualifications involved.
Adding qualifiers such as “appears to be” or “potential” to “terrorism” is highly risky in a breaking news story. “Terrorism” has traditionally been seen as an external threat, such as 9/11, but as the London Bombings of 2005 and many of the incidents of 2016 show, there are “home-grown” terrorists who draw upon international networks as well as “domestic” terrorists with a local or national agenda. Individuals who carry out terror attacks are not necessarily a “lone wolf.” Someone with mental health issues might also be a terrorist. The descriptions are rarely clear. Section two makes the case for greater reflection on terminology and sets out some principles.
One option is to never use the word. Al Jazeera English made it clear that its journalists should not use the term, along with others such as “jihadist.” BBC guidelines do not ban the use of the term, but admit it is problematic:
The word “terrorist” itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding. We should convey to our audience the full consequences of the act by describing what happened. We should use words which specifically describe the perpetrator such as “bomber,” “attacker,” “gunman,” “kidnapper,” “insurgent,” and “militant.” We should not adopt other people’s language as our own; our responsibility is to remain objective and report in ways that enable our audiences to make their own assessments about who is doing what to whom.
This approach has not changed significantly in principle in response to recent developments in terrorism or media technology.
ABC News in America has a similar approach. International Managing Editor Jon Williams says their journalists should not use the word “terrorism” except when quoting other people:
Words matter. We would not have described [the 2016 London Russell Square stabbing] as a “potential terror incident.” We would just describe it as a stabbing and have put it in the context of other incidents. Our modus operandi is to do what it says on the tin. We would wait to see how someone [in authority] characterized it. With the San Bernardino incident our assumption was that with the prevalence of mass shootings in America we should assume it’s just a shooting. It began as a workplace shooting but came into the context of people who had been radicalized but it still requires someone to characterize it as “domestic” terror or “inspired by ISIS.”7
As Sambrook points out, deciding whether to use the word “terror” is only part of the problem:
I think it’s a bit of a cop out to simply say you won’t use the word “terror” or “terrorism.” There are some actions to which that term will apply. I think there is a neat way through this. Simply describe what has happened and report what people have said. Recent incidents have shown how many factors are potentially involved. Is the killer suffering from mental illness, or if he shouts “Alluha Akbar” does that make it a Jihadist? In the end report what has happened and what people say and let the viewer draw their own conclusions 8
Above all, the growth of terrorists ascribing a religious motivation to their actions has raised fresh dangers of associating neutral words such as Islamic or Muslim with terrorism. While the terrorist may make religious claims, there is no reason for journalists to treat that uncritically.
Avoiding Harm: The News Media’s Relationship to Terrorism
Terrorists are now media producers themselves. Anders Breivik was acutely conscious of the role the media would have in promoting his beliefs. He sent a 1,500-word manifesto to more than a thousand people just before his first bomb went off. ISIS has an extensive media production capacity, creating videos and articles that are distributed through highly-developed social media activities. They use the kidnapped British journalist John Cantlie as a subject of their videos and then as a presenter. Much of the material is English-language targeted at potential sympathizers or recruits online internationally. To tell the story of what the terrorist is thinking, saying, and doing it is often useful to use this material. But the danger is that even in a critical context this effectively relays and amplifies the terrorist’s message. As Erica Chenoweth explains:
What’s important is that the imitative effects of mass shootings and terror attacks may not be unrelated to one another. The blurry distinction between what constitutes mass shootings versus acts of terror means that, functionally, those motivated to obtain notoriety or political power through graphic violence may not really care whether their competitors are “terrorists,” “shooters” or something else.
There is always a danger of media giving terrorists details about security operations that help them improve their work. This is particularly relevant in the midst of a terrorist operation. Live video or pictures of a scene may endanger security forces or hamper their work. It is essential that, when the public is at risk, the news media works closely with security officials.
There is also a wider problem that those authorities, especially politicians, frame their commentary on terror events to suit their own interests. Journalists have an obligation to report what powerful people say—but they do not have an obligation to replicate their perspective. As British journalist and former London Times editor Simon Jenkins argues, politicians have their own agendas:
To the media, terrorism is meat and drink. To politicians, it is an opportunity to flex muscles, brandish guns, boast revenge. Talk of war adds ten points to an approval rating. It saved George Bush as it is now saving France’s François Hollande. Counter-terror theory may advise caution and an emphasis on normality. Political necessity counsels the opposite; the trumpets and drums of battle. It requires the terrorist’s deeds to be amplified, headlined, exaggerated to justify a warlike response.
The sheer volume of terror news may make further attacks more likely. Michael Jetter, a professor at the School of Economics and Finance at Universidad EAFIT in Medellín, Colombia argues that increased coverage of terror attacks correlates to an increase in their frequency.9 He also argues that terror tactics that have greater media impact, such as suicide bombings, could lead to their increased popularity. The French political philosopher and expert on the causes of terror Olivier Roy argues that media coverage helps extremist organizations in recruiting and mobilizing terrorists. He says that the framing of terror events by politicians and the media “valorizes the up rootedness of uprooted people” and provides them with a sense of belonging and meaning.
Language is critical because the public make judgments about risk based on the terminology involved. Just because something creates “terror” does not make it a “terrorist” event. This Daily Mail Online headline uses the word “terror’—but the sub-head makes it clear that it was not “terror-related’:
At what point does a “hate crime” such as the Charleston church shooting become categorized as “terrorism”? Breivik had active links with extreme right-wing groups and used his actions to promote his anti-Islamic, anti-liberal ideology. His convictions included “terrorism.” However, in the media, he was most often referred to as a mass murderer or mass killer, not a terrorist. Likewise, Ali Sonboly, the 2016 Munich shooter was described by police as “inspired” by Breivik, but they said the incident was not “terror-related.” Sonboly had been receiving psychiatric treatment, raising the definitional problem around terror and mental health. In considering the mix of motives, it does seem that mainstream media has a propensity to describe events as “terror” if they have some element of jihadist or Islamist ideological ingredient.
Even if a recognized terrorist organization does claim responsibility, journalists may need to fine-tune the language. There was evidence that the 2016 Wurzburg train attacker was “inspired” by ISIS propaganda rather than controlled by them, yet ISIS still claimed it as part of their campaign in Europe. The Ansbach bomber Mohammed Daleel had stronger links to ISIS including a propaganda video he made pledging allegiance to the ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. His preparation for the bombing was more sophisticated and planned. Does that make him more of a terrorist? What significance should journalists have given to the fact that several of this summer’s German attackers were asylum seekers or refugees? As soon as perpetrators are identified with a minority group, the danger is that community will be impugned in a way that does not happen when perpetrators are seen to be from the majority population. In a political environment where in many regions there are tensions over ethnic identity, immigration, and cultural values, it is even more important that the news media does not make unqualified connections between race, religion, and terror acts.
Verification and Transparency
There are some obvious problems created by this new engagement from the audience on terror events. There is a great deal of misleading or false audience-created content, much of it highly reactive and subjective, and there is an increasing number of fake news sites that deliberately spread this content to attract traffic. Social networks are somewhat self-correcting and are moderated, but this can be delayed—by which time falsehoods or false impressions have spread, uncorrected.
A missing student Sunil Tripathi was named on Reddit in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013, leading to a manhunt before police were able to rule him out. But in that four-hour period many journalists disseminated the rumor on their own social media accounts. They appeared to accept a lower standard of verification then they would have done for publication on their regular news channels or sites.
The primary function of journalism is still to get facts right. The volume of social media content and the fact that some of it is inaccurate or misleading should not make professional journalists complacent. News media content is now blended into the audience’s news feeds and audiences often do not discriminate between “amateur” and “official” or journalistic content online. Research shows that on social media people trust their peers as much as the news media (although that includes their peers sharing news media content).10
In this context, it is even more important that the news media distinguish itself by providing reliable information. Statistics show mainstream journalists are still trusted to varying degrees, depending to the medium, the user’s age, and the perceived partisanship of the news brand. One of the key variables is their perception of the accuracy and impartiality of the journalism.11 Verification of facts and the correct expression of “what we know to be true” is under enormous pressure as breaking news accelerates.
As discussed in the next section, editorial guidelines at most major news organizations have since been revised to make it clear that the same standards must apply to gathering material from or posting material on social media.
Better Terror Reporting
This chapter will identify how news organizations are best able to address the challenges set out in reporting on terrorism.
Reshaping the Newsroom
New skills are needed to understand user-generated imagery from social networks, terrorist propaganda on specialist websites (often not English language), government or security communications, expert and academic analysis/research blogs and websites, local, specialist, international, and foreign language news media organizations, aggregators, bots and campaign groups.
Yet a guiding philosophy through this complex network of information should be simple: Only report as facts what you know to be true. We can put aside philosophical debates over truth and focus on the journalistic process of identifying some kind of evidence-related process that gives us the best, most reliable account of who, what, where, when, and why.
The newsroom will always be core to this process: its resources, task management, technologies, skills, and infrastructure. Increasingly the larger broadcasters such as CNN and the BBC are the ones that have extensive online operations with the capacity to cope with the full range of sources and platforms. Legacy newspaper operations such as The Guardian and The New York Times have developed processes such as live blogs where they too are able to exploit and showcase a greater number of sources. At the same time, local news organizations have the advantage of intimately knowing their area, and are often able to keep ahead of their larger rivals as news breaks. Other specialist media, such as the nonprofit Conflict News Twitter account, act as aggregators, filtering information online.
Some news organizations such as The Wall Street Journal and the UK’s ITN have outsourced some of their newsgathering to agencies such as Storyful, which have highly developed expertise in verifying imagery, video, messages, and other data from social networks. “Real-time information discovery company” Dataminr specializes in scouring Twitter and its analytics for breaking stories including the first news alert on the death of Osama bin Laden. Banjo has developed software that allows it to monitor geo-located social media activity globally and provide news alerts to its media partners, including American Sinclair Broadcast Group. These companies often have commercial as well as news media clients and they do not claim to be journalism agencies. But they are engines for online discovery that can spot stories before newsrooms.
First Draft News is another coalition of organizations that provides verification insights, training, information, techniques, and research. There are also individual small-scale operations that focus on particular areas or issues, such as Bellingcat which its founder Elliot Higgins describes as “by and for citizen investigative journalists.” It has developed sophisticated forensic data-analysis tools and techniques to provide deeper information in the wake of events. The European Journalism Centre (EJC) has produced a Verification Handbook that gives detailed guidance on how this can work in emergency situations such as terror attacks.
Organizations such as First Draft and the EJC demonstrate the processes that journalists can adopt if they have the time and will to do so. The key is to have a set of guidelines related to breaking news and terror that can form the basis for newsroom culture, standards, and practice. Different news brands will make their own calculations about how to implement best practices universally across an organization. CNN and BuzzFeed use the internal messaging system Slack, for example, to ensure that all staff on all platforms are getting the same guidance as news breaks.
Getting To the Truth
CNN took a serious reputational hit for its mistake in coverage of the Boston Marathon. Like almost all major news organizations, it has adopted a more effective way of reconciling the competing demands from audiences for instant news and verified information. It now has a more coordinated editorial management structure with digital platforms integrated with broadcast.
The business as well as the ethical case for journalism in a media environment so full of false, partial, or provisional information must be based on trust. Citizens now have social media feeds full of messages, often from peers not professionals, that alert them to breaking terror news. When they click onto the mainstream news media material, they expect something more reliable. Journalists cannot police the internet for truth, but as well as getting their own facts right, journalists can also have a role helping to identify fake or mistaken information on social media. This kind of “myth-busting” helps arrests the spread of false information and can educate the audience in online verification.
“Publish and be damned” is not applicable in the terror context. Samantha Barry, CNN’s Head of Social Media, said in an interview that they are aware of changing expectations of the audience, but they sometimes have to pause before publication to retain trust:
It is really important for CNN to be right not necessarily first. Audiences are more forgiving than other media people when it’s a developing story. There was one example from the Dallas police shooting when police released a video of a suspect. We didn’t put it out on digital and social because we saw questions about whether it was a suspect. The police then rowed back. We get pressure for example, from people tweeting at us when they see something on social media. This happened around the recent evacuation of JFK airport. But we only put out the story when we had something we were comfortable with what we knew for ourselves.12
Newsgathering from social media should abide by the same principles used for any other source. However, the BBC gives additional advice in its guidelines on gathering user-generated content around issues such as copyright, crediting producers, and treating the public with respect and sensitivity. Organizations such as First Draft News also have more detailed advice on verification and the treatment of contributors.
Transparency In Breaking News
News organizations will make individual mistakes of fact, taste, or framing, but it is how you handle the development of breaking news overall that matters. News organizations are desperate for audience attention. Online analytics now provide instant, live statistics on page views, engagement, and traffic, as well as the usual broadcast audience levels and share. Competition is a vital motive for journalism, and especially during breaking news, it drives newsrooms to provide a rapid response as well as more considered context. So increasingly news organizations must develop a credible grammar for provisional narratives. Donald Rumsfeld’s famous aphorism is relevant here:
There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.
Mainly through social media, but sometimes through other news media sources, the audience is now often conscious of the basic facts and “known unknowns” as news breaks, whether via social or traditional media. As Sambrook points out, social media tells people instantly that something has happened, but it cannot always explain what it is:
You get a situation like in Bangkok where we first know that something has happened because people start tweeting and then a bystander starts broadcasting pictures of the aftermath on live on Periscope [Twitter’s live stream tool]. The guy doing it literally didn’t know what he was showing and when he realized he was filming body parts he regretted it.13
As that amateur broadcast went out, viewers were able to comment and the man filming also responded, but while his actions gave the world images of this event, it could not give much insight.
This is now how news is made. There has been some kind of explosion. But we do not know what kind of explosion. One possibility at the front of people’s minds, regardless of statistical probability, is terrorism. But journalism’s key task is to find out what we don’t know.
Journalists covering breaking terror news are adapting their language and being humbler in publicly sharing their ignorance as well as their knowledge—something once unimaginable to newsroom culture. To say that something has not been confirmed is not adequate as a final narrative, but in the early stages of an incident it is as important to identify uncertain information. Authority is enhanced, not diminished, by making sources as clear and precise as possible. A general statement such as “reports on social media” is at the worse vague end of the spectrum, but if the platform and social media account is identified then that helps build a more nuanced picture. This is part of building much-needed media literacy in the audience. Detailed, continual transparency helps promote public understanding of the process of news as well as building trust in its outputs.
News organizations need to be aware that simply by reporting an emerging situation they are signaling that it is of potential significance. “We are getting reports” is not a phrase that should allow editors to suspend their usual judgment. That judgment, though, can now be more openly made.
News media institutions have intellectual and professional capital. It is good to share the caveats and conditions that are applied in the newsroom on screen. With breaking news—especially on a topic so fraught with competing and complex definitions and perspectives as terror—authority is gained not by automatic certainty but by sharing the journey towards understanding.
Using the Right Language
Journalists have to use shortcuts to compress complex realities into formats people can consume quickly. The formula of headlines, edited video, graphics and so on are part of the necessary process of simplification and communication under limited time and space. But with a complex subject like terror, precise language is vital, as Mary Hockaday, the BBC’s controller of World Service English wrote to me in an email:
The recent rapid sequence of events does challenge us about language. Terrorist, the lone wolf, the mentally ill, the loner, ISIS directed, ISIS sympathizer, ISIS inspired…. News events rush past and headlines simplify… but it’s really important we go on striving to be precise, recognize the complexity – of the people and indeed what the policy response needs to be. And use accurate, concrete language when we can rather than generalities.14
Language should be concrete and consistent. In Western media, critics say that with the post-9/11 rise in extreme violence that proclaims itself to have an Islamist motivation, there has been a tendency to reserve the term “terrorism” for only that category:
We used to use terrorist to describe all kinds of people, from Irish Catholic republicans to American Jewish radicals. But since 9/11, we’ve been using it much more swiftly in reference to Islamists. (Adam Ragusea, Slate).
Dylann Roof, the alleged perpetrator of the 2015 Charleston shooting of nine African American churchgoers was accused of a hate crime, not terrorism. Yet he had an ideological agenda and drew upon the ideas of white supremacist groups. Micah Johnson, who shot police officers in Dallas, appeared to have a strong political motive for his actions based on his anger at police shootings of black civilians. The BBC’s Director of Editorial Policy David Jordan warns against applying the term terrorist too widely:
The problem is with the word “terrorist” rather than “terrorism.” When you apply it to an individual you must do it with care and caution. In the case of the Charleston shooter he appeared to have mental health issues and political motives but was not associated with a political group that had the declared aim of using extreme violence against innocent people to achieve a specified goal. As an international news organization we increasingly find governments around the world who want to apply the label “terrorist” to anyone who opposes them and so it is important not to use it without thinking.15
As terrorism becomes more diffuse and the association of a specific act with an organization becomes harder to ascertain it becomes even more important that news organizations compare and contrast the way they use words—not just terrorism itself but also the accompanying adjectives and the assumptions they carry.
Language matters especially when it turns to metaphor. Most famously, the use of the “war on terror” metaphor should act as a warning. Its widespread deployment following the cue from the George W. Bush administration declined as mainstream media understood that actual wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and against ISIS were not working militarily. As one of the UK’s most senior judicial officials, the then Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald made clear just two years after the London Bombings, the military metaphor also boosts the terrorist’s sense of power and ignores other policy options in countering their campaigns:
London is not a battlefield. Those innocents who were murdered on July 7 2005 were not victims of war. And the men who killed them were not, as in their vanity they claimed on their ludicrous videos, “soldiers.” […] We need to be very clear about this. On the streets of London, there is no such thing as a “war on terror,” just as there can be no such things as “war on drugs.” […] The fight against terrorism on the streets of Britain is not a war. It is the prevention of crime, the enforcement of our laws and the winning of justice for those damaged by their infringement.
Labels such as “lone wolf” or “evil” resonate but have little factual meaning. Apart from sensationalizing the perpetrator, they give the sense that the individual was operating in isolation. In fact, it is difficult to find any examples of terrorists not influenced to some degree by the messaging of terror groups even if their actions were not explicitly controlled or directed.
Likewise, the distinction between mental health and terror is rarely clearcut. On the one hand, the application of the label “mental illness” is a useful indicator if supported by some authoritative assessment that helps guide the audience. The London 2016 Russell Square stabber had been receiving treatment in a psychiatric hospital, for example. But it is arguable that anyone who believes in killing innocent people for an ideological cause has a dysfunctional psychology. Mainstream news style guides do not refer to this dilemma specifically. Jordan says this is an area where guidance is still evolving:
The mental health issue regarding terror is a comparatively new problem and we are talking with other standards people to try to create guidelines. But by its nature it is complex. For example, just because someone once had treatment for a mental health problem does not mean that they are still “mentally ill. So as usual, we should avoid vague terms and only report facts.16
Language matters because it conditions the public acceptance, for example, of negotiations with extremist groups as political or military actors.
In the heat of reporting a breaking news incident such as the London Russell Square knife attack, we can see how the news media struggles to cope with these competing demands for categorization as “facts” are emerging. The attacker, Zakaria Bulhan, was arrested immediately after the incident occurred at around 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday August 3, 2016. The story broke quickly, partly through eyewitness accounts on social media. The news media initially reporting it prominently as a “possible” terrorist attack, based on police statements. By 11am the following day, the police were effectively ruling out terror. A random stabbing with one fatality by a person with a mental health problem would have been a story in its own right, but not necessarily the lead on the BBC’s flagship morning radio program Today without the terror connotation. The initial prominence of the story—and its later drop down the running order—is not necessarily a failure of journalism; it reflects the development of the story through time. At 5am as the Today program prepared to air, Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, from the Metropolitan Police, said:
This was a tragic incident resulting in the death of one woman and five others being injured. Early indications suggest that mental health was a factor in this horrific attack. However, we are keeping an open mind regarding the motive and terrorism remains one line of inquiry being explored.
As the editor of the BBC’s morning Today program, Jamie Angus, explains how they assessed a series of factors:
With the benefit of hindsight, we would not have given the story such prominence, but at the time it was right to treat it so seriously even though we did not have absolute confirmation that it was terrorism. When the story broke we got in extra people to prepare our morning report because the 1am statement by the police mentioned terror as a factor and they repeated that later. The genre of the attack was not clear, but it often isn’t a clear distinction between someone who is mentally ill or a Jihadist. Of course, radicalized people are often psychologically vulnerable anyway. The police had also mentioned that he was Norwegian with Somali heritage, which suggested they were considering a terror motive, too. We took our cue from the fact that such a senior officer was still mentioning the possibility of terrorism.17
Much of the pressure to publish live is driven by news breaking on social media first from “non-journalistic” sources. As one producer on a news channel says, the fear of missing out on a story surfacing on social media can lead to the temptation to cover it before significant details are confirmed:
I resisted “breaking” news of a shooting in a Spanish supermarket until we knew more. As it turned out, it was a domestic dispute. We didn’t report it at all. But my boss on the day wanted to break it because people were mentioning it on social media and he felt it “might” be something else.18
But the news media is not a tracking system for online activity. Platforms such as Facebook are increasingly a source for news for the public and can provide a great source of facts and opinion but it is highly selective. All the newsrooms spoken to for this report insist that they apply the same editorial standards to social media as to any other source. As the CNN guidelines state:
Citizen-generated reports are subject to the same strict review process that CNN applies to traditional reporting before they are included in CNN stories.
Working With Social Media
The best news media encourages interaction and listens and responds. Alex Thomson, Chief Correspondent for the UK’s Channel 4 News uses his Twitter feed to show and discuss his journalism as he gathers news. He posts smartphone footage and replies to comments. Other “traditional” international correspondents such as CNN’s Christiane Amanpour have used Facebook Live video to provide a more interactive user experience. Journalists say that while much of the feedback can be bland or unhelpful, it can help give a sense of what the public misunderstands and so encourage journalists to address those gaps.
Correspondents such as the BBC’s Matthew Price say even interacting with people who complain or are confused can be a useful way of understanding what people do not know. By correcting or responding to them you can help that individual but, of course, the message also goes out to the journalist’s wider network:
Covering the refugee crisis live from the field in its early phase, I got many comments saying that these were not real refugees because they were almost all men. So they were “just” economic migrants. I reflected on that and asked the refugees where the women and children were. They pointed out that often the men go ahead to prepare the way for their families. So although the images were of men, many were in effect, travelling ahead of their families. I then made sure to make that point on social media but also in my reporting.19
For Price, even a “mistaken” audience comment on social media can lead to better journalism.
Sometimes the public knows more than the journalist about an aspect of a story. They might have eyewitness accounts, local knowledge, or specialist insights. Social media can provide perspectives and information not available through the usual channels or sources and it can provide them quickly. Tapping into the social media of groups traditionally marginalized by mainstream media helps the journalist and the public understand the context of the extremist individuals who might draw upon those cultures. This could be the online discourse of US “alt right” activists or the social media messaging of youths in Molenbeek, the Brussels district with a high Muslim population where ISIS had text messaged locals. There is increasing evidence that those marginalized communities feel misrepresented by mainstream media. Paying attention to their online voice—albeit not always representative—can add to overall understanding for the journalist and audience.
Editors, too, should take the context of social media into account when making judgments around framing narratives. Just because posts on social media are often confused, misleading, or ill-informed does not mean they should be dismissed. This is especially true now that news coverage itself is subject to constant online critique. The Guardian’s social media editor, Martin Belam, said:
And all the time you’ve got people @-messaging you that you are doing it wrong, or serving an agenda, or displaying bias. With one tweet about the Iranian background of one of the recent attackers, the replies criticized The Guardian for being racist to even mention it, and other people criticized The Guardian for trying to suppress information that he was an ISIS fighter.
But these also raise valid points that can contribute to reflection in the newsroom about the framing of terror narratives.
Avoiding Harm, Relations with Authorities
Reporting on terror events must also be sensitive to security considerations. Journalists have a duty to report as fully as possible but in a terror-related scenario the news media has a responsibility to avoid causing harm. Journalists can legitimately not report facts if doing so would increase risks or hamper a security operation. This means responding to requests from the authorities to not report particular facts or not to show certain images. There should always be a due process within the news organization of making that decision. Ideally, the fact of any decision to restrict reporting should be reported.
During the 2004 school siege in Beslan, Chechnya, the BBC decided to go on a time delay for its live feed because of the danger of showing graphic imagery of hostages including children. During the security operation following the 2015 attacks on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris and the siege of a supermarket where hostages had been taken, the French broadcast regulator issued a notice to domestic newsrooms asking them to show “discretion.” Paris police on the scene told TV crews not to broadcast their officers in action. At the same time broadcasters were regulating themselves. Paris-based BFM TV chose not to broadcast the police rescue operation live. It also did not air an audio interview it recorded with the hostage-takers themselves until after the incident was over. BFM TV journalist Ruth Elkrief said it was a series of decisions they had to make for themselves in the newsroom:
It’s very difficult. We have to move fast. But are we undermining the investigation? Are we being manipulated? We’re asking ourselves these questions constantly. We had several emergency meetings during the day to debate what to do. We’re always checking ourselves.
Transparency about making those judgments helps build the understanding and confidence of the audience. Clearly, journalists cannot give a running commentary on all their editorial decisions, but a similar approach could be adopted to that when embedded with the military during conflicts, as suggested in BBC guidelines:
We should normally say if our reports are censored or monitored or if we withhold information, and explain, wherever possible, the rules under which we are operating.
Journalists have a civic duty to cooperate in the interests of public safety, but this does not mean automatically complying with police or security requests. The seizing of the laptop of BBC journalist Secunder Kermani—who had made contacts with extremists—appeared to challenge in principle the idea that journalists can ever talk to terrorists or their associates.
These judgments are hard at a practical level with breaking news. Journalists now have access to real-time live video and images of alleged participants instantly uploaded on social media. The news media should not wait for guidance before assessing whether using material might cause harm. Showing the outside of a building where an incident is taking place might, for example, give the terrorist information about deployment of security forces. Clear lines of communication with the police are vital. As one senior broadcast journalist said, there can be a moment when the natural desire to cover a breaking story clashes with security imperatives:
During recent shootings in Munich, the local police tweeted several requests that everyone refrain from speculation, and also that people stopped showing live pictures of police positions. We were doing exactly that at the time, taking live agency feeds of heavily armed cops, and staying on air by saying things like “we shouldn’t speculate but …20
For local media especially, the relationship with police can be mutually beneficial. During the Lindt Cafe siege, Channel Seven had remarkable access to police operations because they agreed to give them oversight of their picture feeds. The police were able to use the material to assess what was happening. The broadcasters in turn had to agree not to show sensitive images live, to have a time delay on their broadcast feed, and to keep some material back until the siege was over.
Not Helping the Terrorist
There is also a long-term issue about how detailed media coverage might help terrorists improve their operational effectiveness. As Javier Delgado Rivera has written, thanks to news media reports, terrorists now know how the FBI tracked the network of the San Bernardino shooters with information from their damaged cell phones. They know that French police linked one of the Paris attackers to the Brussels attacks through parking tickets. Perhaps future terrorists will be more careful:
Detailed media reporting on police investigations can inadvertently help attackers avoid past miscalculations and refine their modus operandi. Journalists would argue that their job is to protect society’s right to know. Yet in such exceptional circumstances, editors should ensure that the latest information they feed to their audience is useless to fundamentalists seeking to do harm.
This is especially important as terrorists become increasingly self-radicalized and train themselves partly through the study of previous incidents. Overall, it would be impossible for the news media not to report any circumstantial detail that could help a future terrorist, but as with the reporting of suicide, where journalists refrain from describing methods of self-killing, discretion around the depth of information on methods and countermeasures is possible.
This is part of the bigger issue about proportionality around reporting on terror, according to University of Western Australia Professor Michael Jetter:
The purpose of not reporting suicides fully is to not encourage copycats. What German newspapers are doing is they’re blowing it up so much that everybody who is seeking attention is really given the signal that, “I will be famous.” That is very likely a reason why you see so many more of those things. It’s a scary development and I do think they need to think about how they cover things.
As we have seen there are many reasons that journalists might decide to withhold facts or material. This can vary due to the news brand’s ethos and their audience culture. British broadcasters now rarely show ISIS propaganda videos, although there is no blanket ban. But when ISIS made a video of a four-year-old British child apparently blowing up a car with captives inside, the Sun newspaper ran the image as its front page: “Junior Jihadi” and the New York Post even ran the story with a slide show of “terrorist photos that made us gag.” The coverage was clearly hostile, but it was the kind of publicity ISIS sought. A few months later ISIS released videos showing children executing prisoners. The BBC’s Jordan said they chose not to show the images partly because of the issue of consent with a minor, but also because they did not want to help ISIS:
It was perfectly possible to tell that story without using the pictures. The danger is that by showing it there becomes a kind of diminishing return for the terrorist so the next time they have to create something even more outrageous. Arguably, if people had not published those images in the first instance then ISIS would not have made more. This is partly why we don’t show propaganda videos unless there is a serious news reason to do so.21
The counter argument is that to understand the full horror of terrorism, it is vital to show what they do in full detail. Yet, in a world where just about everything is available online it is difficult to argue that the public is being denied information. In the end, it is a decision that should be thought through by the individual organizations in relation to specific events.
By reporting on a terror event, research suggests that we make another one more likely.22 So it is important that the scale of reporting as well as its content is considered. The drama and danger combined with the ideological threat and human impact create a compelling narrative cocktail. For The Guardian, the 2015 Paris attacks saw more unique visits to its website than any event in its history bar one—the extraordinary story of Britain voting to leave the European Union. The increasing proximity of terror attacks to our everyday lives adds to their fascination and immediacy. The prominence given in terms of duration and visibility of reporting on terrorism sends a strong signal to the audience. Judgment on this is not a science, but journalists need to consider external perspectives as well as the temptation of “going big” on a particular incident.
There was a lively debate in the wake of the Paris and Brussels attacks comparing the coverage of those incidents with similar incidents in places like Beirut and Ankara. These events were reported in the Western media but not to the same extent. Journalists explained that many of the complaints on social media about this were inaccurate and suggested critics were trying to score political points and demonstrate their own ethical virtue. Journalists point out that even when reported, the coverage attracted far less interest from the public. This is partly because overall audiences will always respond more to news that has relevance to their own lives and for a Western audience, the French and Belgian attacks were on people and a society that the majority population could identify with more readily. ABC’s Jon Williams explains:
Our first responsibility is to the audience, and we have a US audience. For them a bomb in Paris is a bigger deal than Baghdad. They visit Paris, they know and care more about France. That’s not to say we don’t cover the Iraq incident but we will generally tell stories that connect with our audience. In the same way an earthquake in Italy is more important than the same deaths in Sumatra because these places speak to Americans in a way that others don’t. It’s different if you are a global broadcaster is like the BBC with a less defined idea of the audience—but our audience is in the USA.23
He also points out that the attacks in Europe this summer were significant because they represented a change in strategy by ISIS. They also raised fresh questions about community relations in those countries and the military/political strategy of governments in domestic and foreign policy areas.
The recent American terror events were also qualitatively different. The San Bernardino attacks were by “home-grown” extremists radicalized by online jihadist propaganda. The Orlando nightclub shooting was claimed by ISIS as inspired by them, although it seems the perpetrator was also driven by homophobia. Likewise, the Dallas police shooting challenged the usual frame of “terror” but it clearly had ideological motives, was connected to extremist groups, and sought to spread fear.
Journalists should always be reflecting on their editorial judgments and the quality of their coverage. Reporting by Western media of the European and American attacks tended to focus more on the victims. It used more emotive, compassionate, and outraged language. It stressed the surprise of the attacks, while the incidents in Lebanon, for example, were framed as just another tragedy in a violent region. More voices and detail from non-Western incidents would help redress the tonal balance, while more foregrounding of the connections with western politics would close the interest gap, too. These are perennial concerns regarding coverage of international stories but the paradox is that it is now much easier to cover distant events in the same way as “domestic” incidents.24The extent of the discrepancy is a matter of editorial choice and effort.
Quality, Context, and Constructive Reporting
Under the pressure of limited time and resources the news media is still a powerful and efficient resource for reporting and understanding complicated and challenging incidents. As the UK Editor of BuzzFeed, Janine Gibson, points out, the large amount of information around these events can paradoxically make creating a clear narrative more difficult:
Perpetrators now leave a much wider information footprint. They leave records of their lives on social media or they make videos and write messages. Friends or witnesses provide a whole load more material to sift through. We just know more about everybody. So the picture we try to build is much more complex and hard to simplify into the usual clichés.25
The audience now expects analysis and context almost simultaneously with reporting of the facts. Social media means that there is an instant explosion of often-erroneous information that presents the journalist with an additional task, that Gibson says BuzzFeed has taken on, along with its breaking news and background coverage:
In a breaking crisis situation, we usually set up a thread for “myth-busting” that will point out fake images or correct false leads and give basic background information. People expect us to do that and they trust us to do it. We ask readers to send us things they find and we will check it out. It’s a kind of media literacy and I think young people in particular feel pride in correcting mistakes seen on social or mainstream media.26
There are individual journalists such as Rukmini Callimachi of The New York Times who write compellingly, critically, and with a large reservoir of knowledge. Her lengthy piece based on an interview with a former ISIS member, for example, provided deep information on its organization, strategy, and training of recruits who then make up its diffuse international network. Research shows that this kind of narrative, using defectors, is effective in giving credible insights into terrorist motives.
Understanding the history helps understand the resultant terror attacks. The Financial Times special feature on ISIS’s dealing in the oil market was an outstanding use of interactive graphics that showed how the terror organization was funding itself and its links with international markets. This kind of background reporting is an essential supplement to the reporting of terror events. As media researcher Arda Bilgen has written, this helps with the “desecuritization” of narratives. Instead of concentrating only on the incident, the victims, and the drama of the disruption of normal life, this kind of objective, fact-based, nonpartisan reporting helps differentiate the various terror types and provide much-needed clarity.
Collectively, news teams now deploy new tools such as data visualization, video with text, and short-form explainers to enhance audience understanding across a wide range of platforms. These platforms, such as Snapchat, can also reach different demographics. “Digitally native” news organizations have been pioneers at finding new styles for gaining attention for these difficult topics. VICE documentaries on ISIS, for example, have gained remarkable access, and their style of less mediated, less formulaic reporting allows the audience a more direct insight into their subject.
Journalism must be independent, critical, and realistic, but there is opportunity for narratives of resistance, solidarity, and compassion. This would also help a fearful or jaded public engage with the issues and generate a more positive discussion about resilience in the face of the threat and a better quality of debate around “solutions,” according to Bilgen:
Implementing certain [editorial] policies that are different than the previous failed policies can facilitate the breaking of that cycle by forcing at least one side of the equation–the media–to act in a more responsible, more conscious, and more cooperative manner. Only then starving the terrorists of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend can become possible and more robust steps can be taken to win the ideological and actual battle against terrorism.
Perhaps most urgently, it would arrest a tendency towards Islamophobia. This is a problem for society, not just the news media. As Mary Hockaday, the BBC’s controller of World Service English, points out, this can be a question of responding to those who are themselves trying to create more constructive narratives around terror:
I thought it was very interesting that the Imams who attended the funeral in Rouen were quite clear they wanted to do it and needed to do it to “show” they are different. They fully understood image matters–and didn’t complain about needing to attend to that. It’s therefore really important that we the media report the voices who appeal to better nature, to peace, who show solidarity, and the people working hard and painstakingly at counter-radicalization. Not because I’m a softy, but because these things are also true and need to be said over and over again to counter the negative.27
One example of solutions-oriented journalism broadcast in the same week as the Brussels attacks was a short news film by the BBC that looked at Mechelen, another Belgian town with a high Muslim population, that seems to have avoided any significant radicalization through a policy of “zero tolerance” policing and outreach policies. It allowed the city mayor to explain his policies in detail and got high viewing figures.
Journalism around terror events also has a role in mediating the emotional impact for the audience. There is an element of useful ritual about the creation of instant shrines at the scene of incidents, the memorial services, and the expressions of condolence. Social media and platforms now play a part in that, with special hashtags or profile flags to show solidarity. By showing this process of grieving, the news media helps communities recover from the trauma. By focusing on the victims rather than the perpetrators, journalists can bring humanity and dignity back into a narrative of destruction and fear. Samantha Barry of CNN explains:
Our audience tells us in a number of ways that they want us to focus on the victims. One of the most powerful pieces we did which achieved unprecedented levels of engagement across all platforms was when Anderson Cooper choked up reading the names of the Orlando victims. We try to be impersonal in how we report, but we are not robots. And the audience needs good news, too. Survivor stories are important as are those stories of personal courage such as the people who went back into the Bataclan nightclub to save their friends.28
Emotion used to be seen as an indulgence in hard news journalism, but when it comes to terrorism it is important to treat it as more than a commodity, especially with the advent of social media. Part of this is acknowledging the emotional impact of terrorist events on the journalist themselves.29 Anderson Cooper’s tears over the Orlando massacre run the risk of appearing too personally involved with the story. But it is possible to include feelings as part of storytelling without diluting factual and critical perspective. BuzzFeed’s Gibson says news organizations should be able to operate in different modes without compromising overall integrity:
With these events we are operating in three dimensions at the same time. We are simultaneously doing the breaking news, the analysis, and we are also sending reporters without a specific deadline to go find out what is going on—not to talk to the police but to talk to people to get the emotion behind the story. To go to vigils to talk to people to get their testimony but also to get the reasons why people were out and about in the wake of the event–seeing it from bottom up.30
Perhaps most important is to ensure that this is inclusive of the wider communities involved, be they the LBGT population of Florida or the Muslims of Europe. Humanizing terror’s victims and their communities may be the best counter-extremist measure media can provide.
Journalism, Terror, and Digital Platforms
This chapter will examine the increasingly important role of platforms such as Facebook, Google, Apple, and Twitter in providing information, connecting to journalism, and framing narratives around terror news events.
The Power of the Platforms
The major platforms are now increasingly the way the Western public accesses news about terror. Twitter, Facebook, Google, and Apple provide the infrastructure for mainstream news media to disseminate their material. Sixty-two percent of Americans now say they get news via social media. Sixty-three percent of American Twitter and Facebook users say they get news from those platforms, with Twitter especially popular for breaking news (59 percent). Facebook also owns the hugely popular social messaging apps Instagram and WhatsApp. Snapchat is increasingly used by news brands like CNN and Vice, who push content to users through Snapchat Discovery.
Platforms also aggregate news stories through Apple News, Google News, and Twitter Moments. They make deals with news organizations to feature journalism, further shaping the dissemination and consumption of news. They are also starting to provide new production tools for journalists such as livestreaming on Facebook and YouTube or through apps such as Twitter’s Periscope. Journalists have lost control over the dissemination of their work. This is a crucial challenge for the news media overall, but the issue is especially acute when it comes to reporting on terror.
The platforms provide an unprecedented resource for the public to upload, access, and share information and commentary around terror events. This is a huge opportunity for journalists to connect with a wider public. But key questions are also raised: Are social media platforms now becoming journalists and publishers by default, if not by design? How should news organizations respond to the increasing influence of platforms around terror events? Facebook is becoming dominant in the mediation of information for the public, which raises all sorts of concerns about monetization, influence, and control over how narratives around terrorist incidents are shaped.
As Guardian Editor Katharine Viner points out, we live in a world of information abundance, a world where “truth” is often harder to establish than before, partly because of social media:
Now, we are caught in a series of confusing battles between opposing forces: between truth and falsehood, fact and rumor, kindness and cruelty; between the few and the many, the connected and the alienated; between the open platform of the web as its architects envisioned it and the gated enclosures of Facebook and other social networks; between an informed public and a misguided mob.
It is in the public interest for these platforms to give people the best of news coverage at critical periods. But will that happen?
Facebook’s role in the dissemination of news is concerning because it is not an open and accountable organization. Recently, a Facebook moderator removed a story by Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten that featured the famous “napalm girl” image of a girl running from an attack during the Vietnam War. It was removed because the image violated the platform’s Community Standards on showing naked children. When Facebook deleted the image, Aftenposten’s editor accused Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg of “an abuse of power”:
I am upset, disappointed – well, in fact even afraid – of what you are about to do to a mainstay of our democratic society.
However, initially, even when the historic context of the image was pointed out along with its importance to the news story, Facebook stood by its stance:
While we recognize that this photo is iconic, it’s difficult to create a distinction between allowing a photograph of a nude child in one instance and not others.
Following a global outcry—including thousands of people posting the image on Facebook—they backed down and said they would review their policy and consult with publishers.
This case was more than a one-off failure of judgment by Facebook. It is a symptom of a systematic, structural problem. CEO Mark Zuckerberg insists that Facebook is “a tech company, not a media company….we build the tools, we do not produce any content.” Yet Facebook aggregates news, and its algorithms and moderation teams influence what news appears in people’s streams. It recently reviewed its procedures in response to fears that human editors on the trending team might have a “liberal” bias. An internal inquiry did not find evidence of bias, but it did make clear that both algorithms and human curators are making judgments in a similar way to how a news organization filters information. Other platforms that curate news content, such as YouTube, face similar issues. They may not call themselves news or media companies, but they are editors of journalism.
This is a pressing policy problem, and the platforms are eager to engage in a dialogue. Tackling this is critical to them partly because it might drag them into regulatory oversight that will limit their control over their own platforms. However, there is a fundamental clash of interests between the publishers and platforms, which makes it hard to establish such policies. News is a good way of getting people to come to their platform, but it is a relatively minor part of their business (more so for Twitter than Facebook). How the platforms deal with this in regard to terrorism is an extreme case of a wider problem, but it brings the issues into sharp focus and reminds us of what is at stake.
The Platforms and Breaking News
When two men murdered off-duty British soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich, London, in 2013, it was a precursor of the attacks of summer 2016 in America and Europe. The attackers used the incident to promote their extremist Islamist ideologies. It provoked a limited anti-Muslim backlash, such as an attack on a mosque, two potential copycat incidents, and at least one white supremacist “revenge” attack. The British government responded by setting up an anti-extremist task force.
As Rigby was being attacked in the street, bystanders were tweeting about it. One person recorded a video of one of the attackers—with blood still on his hands—talking about why he had carried out the killing. A research project by Britain’s Economics and Social Research Council that looked at the Woolwich incident concludes that social media is the place where this kind of news breaks with important implications for “first responders.” The report also says social media is now a key driver of public understanding. This has implications for the authorities, the study states, but also for the platforms, who must consider their role in mediating the public reaction to avoid negative outcomes in terms of both further incidents and community relations.
For mainstream media, this was a test case of how to handle user-generated content in a breaking terror news situation. As The Sun Managing Editor Richard Caseby said:
This was very graphic and disturbing content. Would it only serve as propaganda fueling further outrages? These are difficult moral dilemmas played out against tight deadlines, intense competition, and a desire to be respectful to the dead and their loved ones.
The video first appeared on YouTube in full. News channels such as Sky carried the footage of Michael Adabalajo wielding a machete and ranting at onlookers. ITN obtained exclusive rights to run it on the early evening bulletin, just hours after the incident and before 9 p.m., known in the UK as the “watershed,” after which broadcasters are permitted to air adult content. Those reports, unlike the YouTube footage circulated on social media, were edited and contextualized, and warnings were given. But there were still more than 700 complaints from the public about the various broadcasts, including on radio. The UK’s broadcasting regulator Ofcom cleared the broadcasters and said their use of the material was justified, although it did have concerns about “health warnings” and published repeated guidelines.31
For the platforms, it brought up two issues. Firstly, it was through the platforms that the news broke, raising questions about their responsibility for content uploaded to their networks. Second, the incident raised a problem about the platforms’ reporting of users who post inflammatory material. This second issue emerged during the trial of the second attacker, Michael Adebowale. Adebowale had posted plans for violence on Facebook, and its automated monitoring system had closed some of his accounts. This information was not forwarded to the security services. Facebook was accused of irresponsibility, including by the then UK Prime Minister David Cameron:
If companies know that terrorist acts are being plotted, they have a moral responsibility to act. I cannot think of any reason why they would not tell the authorities.
Facebook’s standard response is that it does not comment on individual accounts but that it does act to remove content that could support terrorism. Like all platforms, it argues that it cannot compromise the privacy of its users.
The three main platforms—Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube—all have broadly similar approaches to dealing with content curation during a terror event. All have codes that make it clear they do not accept content that promotes terrorism, celebrates extreme violence, or promotes hate speech. Twitter’s stance is typical:
We are horrified by the atrocities perpetrated by extremist groups. We condemn the use of Twitter to promote terrorism and the Twitter Rules make it clear that this type of behavior, or any violent threat, is not permitted on our service.
Twitter has taken down over 125,000 accounts since 2015, mainly connected to ISIS. It has increased its moderation teams and use of automated technology such as spam-fighting bots to improve its monitoring. It collaborates with intelligence agencies and has begun a proactive program of outreach to organizations such as the Institute for Strategic Dialogue to support online counter-extremist activities.
As Twitter has stated, these platforms are in a different situation to news organizations. They are open platforms dealing with a vast amount of content that can only be filtered post-publication. They are still developing the systems to manage the problem:
There is no “magic algorithm” for identifying terrorist content on the internet, so global online platforms are forced to make challenging judgment calls based on very limited information and guidance. In spite of these challenges, we will continue to aggressively enforce our Rules in this area, and engage with authorities and other relevant organizations to find solutions to this critical issue and promote powerful counter-speech narratives.
Google says the public assumes there is a technical fix, but in practice the volume and diversity of material (40 hours of video are uploaded every minute to YouTube) make it impossible to automate a perfect system of instant policing of content. Artificial intelligence and machine learning can augment systems of community alerts. But even if a piece of content is noted, a value judgment has to be made about its status and what action to take. Should the material be removed, or a warning added?
This puts the platforms in a bind. YouTube, for instance, wants to hang onto its status as a safe harbor for material that might not be published elsewhere. When video was uploaded of the results of alleged chemical weapons attacks on rebels in Syria, YouTube had to make a judgment about their graphic nature and impact. Much of the material was uploaded by combatants, but YouTube had to make judgments about how authentic or propagandistic it was. YouTube says it generally makes such judgments case by case; in this instance, many mainstream news organizations were then able to use that material from YouTube in their own reporting.
This problem of balancing protection of the audience, security considerations, and social responsibility with privacy and free speech becomes even more acute with the arrival of new tools such as live video streaming from Facebook Live, Twitter Periscope, YouTube, and even Snapchat and Instagram. This affords ordinary citizens the opportunity of broadcasting live. Many people welcome it as an example of the opening up of media. But what happens when a terrorist like Larossi Aballa uses Facebook Live to broadcast himself after murdering a French policeman and his wife, holding their 3-year-old child hostage, broadcasting threats, and promoting ISIS? The Rigby killers relied on witnesses to broadcast them after the incident, but Aballa was live and in control of his own feed. That material was reused by news media but edited and contextualized.
There is a case for allowing virtually unfettered access that gives citizens a direct and immediate, unfiltered voice. Diamond Reynolds filmed the shooting of her boyfriend Philando Castile by a police officer in St. Paul, Minnesota, live on Facebook. The video was watched by millions, shared across social media as well as re-broadcast on news channels and websites. It attracted attention partly because it was the latest in a series of incidents where African Americans were subject to alleged police brutality. In this case, Facebook Live made a systematic injustice visible through the rapid reach of the platforms. Local police contested her version of events, but the live broadcast and the rapid spread of the video meant her narrative had a powerful impact on public perception. It was contextualized to varying degrees when re-used by news organizations, but the narrative was driven to a large extent by Reynolds and her supporters.
News organizations need to consider how to report these broadcasts and what to do with the material. Research shows varying approaches to dealing with this kind of graphic footage, even when not related to terrorism. Should news organizations include direct access to live video as part of their coverage, as they might from an affiliate or a video news agency? In principle, they all resist becoming an unedited, unfiltered platform for live video broadcasts by anyone, with no editorial control.
Emily Bell, Director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia’s Journalism School, points out that this reflects a difference between news organizations and the digital platforms:
When asking news journalists and executives “if you could develop something which let anyone live stream video onto your platform or website, would you?” the answer after some thought was nearly always “no.” For many publishers the risk of even leaving unmoderated comments on a website was great enough, the idea of the world self-reporting under your brand remains anathema. And the platform companies are beginning to understand why.
Media organizations are having to negotiate with the platforms about how to inhabit the same space when these dilemmas arise. Sometimes, they have to act unilaterally. For example, CNN has turned off auto play for video on its own Facebook pages around some terror events and routinely puts up warning slates for potentially disturbing content.
How the Platforms Handle Risk and Responsibility
The platforms are acting to protect users from harmful content, as well as to comply with security considerations. Facebook, for example, deactivated the account of Korryn Gaines (who was later shot and killed) during a standoff with police. A mainstream media organization might well have complied with a similar request. However, it raised questions as to why that particular action was taken, but not others. The perceived inconsistency of the platforms’ policies comes from a lack of clarity and transparency. Twitter has removed ISIS-related material, but it does not always do the same for homophobic or racist tweets. In the wake of the Dallas shooting of police officers, there was a spate of extremist messaging that Twitter struggled to moderate. The company accepts it has a problem:
We know many people believe we have not done enough to curb this type of behavior on Twitter. We agree. We are continuing to invest heavily in improving our tools and enforcement systems to better allow us to identify and take faster action on abuse as it’s happening and prevent repeat offenders. We have been in the process of reviewing our hateful conduct policy to prohibit additional types of abusive behavior and allow more types of reporting.
These platforms insist they are not publishers, let alone journalistic organizations. Their business is built upon providing an easy-access, open channel for the public to communicate. The terms and conditions of use, however, allow them to remove content, including shutting off live video. This is now done according to a set of criteria that are enforced through a combination of automated systems that identify key words, flagging of offensive content by users, and decisions by platform employees to remove or block the content or to put up a warning. This sort of post-publication filtering is not the same process as a journalist selecting material pre-publication.
However, it is editing. It involves making calculations of harm and judgments about taste. Monika Bickert, Facebook’s head of policy, has said the platform does not leave this decision to algorithms. Instead, decisions are made on the basis of what is uploaded and how it is shared. Someone condemning a video of hate speech might not, for example, have his or her account suspended, but someone sharing the same video in a way that incites further hatred might:
Was it somebody who was explicitly condemning violence or raising awareness? Or was it somebody who was celebrating violence or not making clear their intention or mocking a victim of violence?
The obvious, critical difference with a news organization is that platforms do not have control over the content creators as they create and publish material.
Because of their much wider structural role, platforms have agreed to co-operate more extensively with the authorities on counterterrorism than news organizations and journalists often do. In the UK, there is the formal D Notice process that allows authorities to make one-off arrangements with news organizations to delay publication of security-sensitive material. When The Guardian was preparing publication of the Snowden revelations, its Editor Alan Rusbridger had conversations with British intelligence. However, the relationship between the authorities and the news media is always ad hoc and built on the idea of journalistic independence, even hostility. The Guardian ended up with British intelligence officers coming into its newsrooms to destroy hard-drives that carried the classified information. Technology companies have also resisted attempts to allow the authorities more access to their data and to preserve the privacy of their users. But the Snowden revelations suggest that intelligence agencies have been successfully targeting online communications covertly.
Shaping the Narrative: Filter Bubbles and Polarization
It is important for journalists to understand how platforms shape the framing of issues and the public’s response. Posting on social media has a performative element; people say things because they are feeling emotional or signaling a point of view. Especially during the coverage of terror events, the reaction of the online public will be instinctive, and not necessarily representative. That does not mean it should not be noted and taken into account. But the danger of narratives built on social media content or that use social media as a proxy for what people are saying is that it privileges a highly selective sample.
Currently, the platforms’ algorithms are tuned to bring personalized content that heightens engagement. The danger of this approach is that it clearly shapes the distribution of content to what people like, and users may be more likely to see political content they agree with rather than a broad spectrum of opinions. This is particularly relevant to terror events because evidence shows the greatest polarization of opinion online happens with divisive issues around ideology and race. Research on online echo chambers has mixed results. But it does suggest that the polarization of politics is partially reinforced by social media, particularly by certain platforms such as Twitter.
Sometimes this has a positive motivation. After the Paris attacks, Facebook encouraged people to add the French flag to their profiles to demonstrate solidarity with the people of France. That immediately raised the question of whether it would do the same for every country that suffered a terrorist incident. Facebook would prefer this to be done by algorithms that are more powerful, faster, and cheaper than humans. Indeed, it has reportedly shifted further away from human curation on its trending online news streams, partly because of allegations of a liberal human bias. Algorithms are ultimately programmed by humans, but the main work of selection and personalized dissemination of content will be done automatically. This is of particular concern when the subject is political. During the UK’s European Union referendum campaign, the social media activist Tom Steinberg, who founded MySociety, said that he found it almost impossible to find a different view on the issue from his personal opinion on his Facebook feed even when he actively sought a more diverse diet:
The polarization of opinion around terror is also potentially worrisome.
One of the great advantages of the internet was the possibility of connecting to a greater range of sources and perspectives, but the algorithms of search and social counter this. This raises serious questions about the public formation of opinion around terror events, whether minority views will be excluded and a diverse debate on terrorism homogenized. Part of the role of a healthy news media is to provide that wider and deeper perspective and to include challenging as well as reassuring views. The platform algorithms seem to militate against that.
Should Platforms Become More Like Media Organizations?
The platforms are in a difficult place in terms of the competing pressures of corporate self-interest, the demands of their consumers for open access, the public interest involved in supporting good journalism, and fostering secure and cohesive societies. They are relatively young organizations that have grown quickly, and are still accreting institutional knowledge on these issues.
The platforms have accepted they have a public policy role in combatting terrorism. Facebook now has a head of policy for counter-terrorism. They have gone further than most Western news media in allowing themselves to be co-opted into counter-terrorism initiatives. Yet any intervention raises questions. For example, Facebook offered free advertising for accounts that post anti-extremist content. But which ones and how far should it go? The platforms all say this is a developing area, and they are still consulting to see what is most effective and most consistent with the goal of being politically neutral. Platforms like Google argue they are only part of an existing conversation with governments and international bodies. They point out it is not for them to push a counter-narrative as it probably would not be credible or authentic. Instead they see their job as enabling the capacity of others.
The platforms do provide an opportunity for building social solidarity in the wake of these incidents far beyond the ability of news media. In the wake of the Lee Rigby killing, there was widespread reaction on social media expressing shock and disgust at the attacks including from many Muslims. There were also positive social media initiatives that sought to pay respect to the victim. But some reaction was incendiary and anti-Islamic. Some people faced charges for inciting racial hatred on social media. At the height of the European attacks in July 2016, one study recorded 7,000 Islamophobic tweets daily in English, compared to 2,500 in April. More could be done to police these conversations, but as we have seen, there is a limit at the moment to its efficacy. As Martin Innes, the author of a report on social media and terror, warns, this is still a nascent science:
Traditional “big data” science statistical methods can be misleading in terms of how and why events are unfolding after major terrorist incidents, due to the complex conflict and information dynamics. Theory-driven methods of data analysis need to be urgently developed to realize the potential of social media analytics.
British MPs recently criticized the platforms for not doing enough to counter ISIS. The then-Chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, Keith Vaz said:
They must accept that the hundreds of millions in revenues generated from billions of people using their products needs to be accompanied by a greater sense of responsibility and ownership for the impact that extremist material on their sites is having.
However, the platforms say they are already doing much to remove incendiary content. As the radicalization expert Peter Neumann, from London’s Kings College, has pointed out, media is only a part of the extremist strategy:
The vast majority of ISIS recruits that have gone to Syria from Britain and other European countries have been recruited via peer-to-peer interaction, not through the internet alone. Blaming Facebook, Google, or Twitter for this phenomenon is quite simplistic, and I’d even say misleading.
The platforms (and the news media) cannot police these networks alone. There is also a responsibility for the authorities to monitor and engage with social media and to actively counter bad information and to provide reliable, real-time streams of information. Ultimately, the price of open access and exchange on these platforms might be an element of negative and harmful material.
However, just because these issues are complex does not mean platforms cannot adapt their policies and practices. It might be a virtual switch put in place to delay live feeds that contain violence. More “honest-broker” agencies such as Storyful or First Draft might emerge to act as specialist filters around terror events. One suggestion has been platforms like Facebook should hire teams of fact-checkers. Another is they should hire senior journalists to act as editors.
Of course, those last suggestions would make those self-declared tech companies more like news media. But we now inhabit what Andrew Chadwick32 calls a “hybrid media” environment where distinctions are blurred. News organizations have had to change to adapt to social networks, and platforms too must continue to develop the way they behave in the face of breaking news. Companies such as Facebook and Google are already reaching out to journalists and publishers to find ways of working that combine their strengths. Twitter and Facebook, for example, have created a coalition organized by verification agency First Draft with 20 news media organizations to find new ways to filter out fake news. Platforms and the news media both have much to gain in terms of trust by taking the initiative instead of waiting for angry governments to impose solutions that hurt creativity and freedom in the name of security. One only has to glance at more repressive regimes around the world to see the price paid for democracy when reactionary governments restrict any form of media in the name of public safety.
This paper has set out a range of problems in reporting on terrorism that are practical, political, ethical, and structural. This is an evolving issue as both the nature of terrorism and media environment continue to change. This paper has also highlighted good practice and innovation that suggests progress is not just possible, but is already happening. Yet we need a process of self-critical debate both within newsrooms and between the news media and other people involved in these narratives.
The practical problem is of improving accuracy and providing better-informed context. It is particularly difficult with limited resources and rapidly multiplying sources and platforms. The same technologies that give journalists the power to report quicker and more extensively also speed up the news cycle and fill the public sphere with confusing, false, and complex information. Yet verification can be improved by adopting better techniques and insisting on standards across all platforms and under all circumstances. Greater transparency is a key attitudinal change that will help improve the search for truth and build trust.
The political problems are harder to solve. Journalists must understand the way they frame these stories has an impact on individuals, communities, and public policy. The fact news media gives publicity to the terrorist is a problem that cannot be completely resolved. But journalism can be created in ways that reduce the propaganda effect for either the terrorist or the panicked politician. By showing more empathy for the people involved and including more constructive narratives of resilience and understanding, the news media can at least counter the sense of fear and hopelessness terror news can induce.
The technology companies that provide platforms for the public and journalists to discuss and debate terrorism must do much more to improve how they filter and distribute information. There must be a more productive dialogue between the platforms and the news media about how their relationship can work better for the public good. Promoting more “good” journalism would be a start. In the same way the news media has to accept a wider responsibility for effects of reporting on terror, the digital giants must also recognize they are not just data or tech companies. They are part of the creation of narratives and formation of public opinion.
It is important we get this right. Trust in American media has plummeted to new lows. At a time when journalism is facing an economic crisis, we must rebuild the public’s confidence. Consumers have so many alternatives to mainstream news media and so many distractions from journalism overall, we need to prove our worth. Terrorism is a key testing ground. Improving coverage of terrorism is important because violent extremism is a significant issue and symptomatic of wider problems around the world. The case for more intelligent, informed, and socially responsible reporting of terror is not just a moral plea. It is a chance to show journalism remains a vital part of modern society.
- Walter Laqueur. “The New Terrorism: Fanaticism and the Arms of Mass Destruction,” Oxford University Press, 1999, p.44.
- James Rodgers, “Reporting Conflict,” 2012
- Interview with the author, September 2016
- Valerie Blair-Gagnon, “Social Media at BBC News,” 2015
- Interview with the author, September 2016
- Charlie Beckett and Mark Deuze, “On the Role of Emotion in the Future of Journalism,” 2016
- Interview with the author, August 2016
- Interview with the author, September 2016
- Michael Jetter, “Terrorism and the Media,” 2014
- “Digital News Report 2016″
- Phone interview with the author, August 2016
- Interview with the author, August 2016
- Email to the author, August 2016
- Interview with the author, September 2016
- Interview with the author, September 2016
- Interview with the author, September 2016
- Anonymized interview with author August 2016
- Charlie Beckett, “The Value of Networked Journalism,” 2010
- Anonymized interview with the author, August 2016
- Interview with the author, September 2016
- Michael Jetter, “Terrorism and the Media,” 2014
- Interview with the author, August 2016
- Phil Harding, “The Great Global Switch-off”
- Interview with the author, September 2016
- Interview with the author, September 2016
- Email to the author, August 2016
- Interview with the author, August 2016
- Charlie Beckett and Mark Deuze, “On the Role of Emotion in the Future of Journalism,” 2016
- Interview with the author, September 2016
- “Broadcast bulletin,” OFCOM, 2014
- Andrew Chadwick, “Hybrid media systems: politics and power,” 2013 | <urn:uuid:fa718748-ec49-4713-9f51-6e87ad79a47b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/coverage_terrorism_social_media.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572163.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815085006-20220815115006-00673.warc.gz | en | 0.962989 | 20,802 | 2.421875 | 2 |
To ensure your snowblower and other small engines stay working in tip top shape it is important to ensure that repairs and maintenance are done frequently but also that you lubricate your small engine. If you prefer a hands off approach, we can do this for you during your small engine tune up in Ottawa or you can tackle the task of lubricating your snowblower – don’t worry it’s pretty easy.
Grease the axle shafts
It’s important to grease the axle shafts because if you forget to do it then the wheel could be permanently stuck to the axle which is not good.
Moisture and ice-melting agents like salt make contact with your snow blower causing corrosion and rust which will build up over time between the wheel hubs and the axles. Without being periodically cleaned and properly lubricated, they can rust together. If a wheel is permanently fused to its axle, accessing the hardware to remove the bottom cover on the unit will be a very inefficient and unpleasant experience and almost always results in a trip to the hardware store to buy a new snow blower.
The good news is that lubricating the axle shafts is simple. All you have to do is remove each wheel from the axle and check to see if rust is present on the axles. If you find rust then remove it with sandpaper, wipe clean and coat with a thin to medium layer of grease. It is also a good idea to clean and lubricate the axle ends where the snap clips are secured to because just like the wheel and axle, if neglected, the snap clips can also rust to the axle and prevent wheel removal.
Lubricate snow blower tractor components
If you find that some parts aren’t moving such as the shift lever on your snow blower, this could be caused by the components in the snowblower not being lubricated and eventually rusting together.
Your snow blower is designed for the rugged outdoors however your snow blower small engine is not water tight. Moisture from the elements will get into the frame. In order to preserve the mobility of critical moving parts inside the frame you must perform routine maintenance with regular lubrication of these components. Though that part of the machine may seem intimidating, accessing those components is extremely easy. Simply remove the bottom cover from the snow blower and perform the following procedures as directed in your operator’s manual:
- Apply grease to the hex shaft so the friction disc can slide along it easily.
- Apply grease to the gears
- Apply a thin layer of oil to the chain and wipe clean
- Pump grease into the pinion shaft (grease fitting located outside frame)
Lubricate snow blower augers
Bust an auger? Throw a shear bolt? Want to not damage the auger gearcase if you hit a rock? If you said yes to any of those, the augers will need to be lubricated so they can spin freely on the auger shafts.
Applying grease to the augers is easy. Remove the shear bolts from each auger, pump grease into the grease fittings on the auger shaft and manually turn the auger by hand to spread grease along the auger shafts. When complete, reinstall the shear bolts and torque to the specification listed in the operator’s manual.
Following these lubrication tips for your snowblower small engine and you will have a worry free and easy time clearing snow throughout the entire season. If you would like us to perform some routine small engine maintenance or small engine repairs just give us a call and we will be happy to help with all of your small engine needs and servicing in the greater Ottawa region. | <urn:uuid:5866d128-3563-4fce-8848-74e3ba17db44> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.mvsottawa.com/lubricating-your-snow-blower/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572286.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816090541-20220816120541-00274.warc.gz | en | 0.936925 | 764 | 1.773438 | 2 |
It's no secret that Republicans have dominated state politics in the South in recent years. In 2014, Republicans strengthened their position in Southern state legislatures, with only one chamber in the region — the Kentucky House — under Democratic control after the elections.
After the November 2015 victory of Republican Matt Bevin in the Kentucky governor's race, only Virginia and West Virginia have Democratic governors. (Louisiana will have a runoff between Democrat John Bel Edwards and Republican David Vitter on Nov. 21.)
But a Facing South/Institute for Southern Studies analysis finds that Democrats have managed to maintain control of one key area of Southern politics: the mayorships of the South's largest cities.
As in many areas around the country, urban centers are growing in the South while rural counties are losing population. The South's cities are also where some of the most pronounced demographic changes are underway in the region, with urban areas serving as magnets for fast-growing African-American, Asian and Latino communities.
The Facing South/Institute analysis looked at the mayors of the 30 largest cities in 13 Southern states, according to the latest Census numbers. Unsurprisingly, more than half the cities were in the South's two largest states: Texas (11) and Florida (six).
The Institute then looked at the party affiliation of the mayors in the top 30 cities, which together are home to 17 million people. While mayoral races in many states are nonpartisan, the Institute drew on state voter registration records and media reports to determine the party affiliation of city leaders.
The findings show that, when it comes to leading the region's major cities, Democrats have largely succeeded in bucking the Republican trend found in Southern state and federal politics.
In the South's 30 largest cities, 22 mayors are registered Democrats and seven are Republicans. One — Nancy McFarlane in Raleigh, North Carolina — is registered as an independent but has been endorsed by local Democrats.
All but one of the big Southern cities with Republican mayors are in Florida and Texas; GOP Mayor Will Sessoms of Virginia Beach is the lone outlier. While Florida and Virginia are perennial battleground states, Texas remains a Republican stronghold, with no statewide officeholders who are Democrats.
The disconnect between city and state politics points to a growing political divide between the South's expanding urban centers and declining — but still large — rural areas.
Due to how political lines are drawn, the rise of Southern cities with expanding progressive-leaning majorities will have limited impact on the makeup of GOP-controlled state legislatures and Congressional seats. But in states like North Carolina, Democrats will likely aim to maximize voter turnout in cities like Charlotte and Raleigh — and that could impact statewide races like the tight 2016 governor's contest.
Cities can also be important laboratories for progressive policy experimentation. Most states in the South have failed to act on the declining value of the minimum wage, but in 2015, Birmingham, Alabama and Greensboro, North Carolina voted for local wage increases. And in the face of backlash against immigrants in the 2000s, Nashville, Tennessee pioneered a "welcoming" program that has become a national model for supporting newcomers at the local and state level.
But the ability of Democratic-led cities to maneuver in Republican states has its limits. In 2015, state GOP lawmakers across the South introduced local pre-emption bills to hem in localities' ability to implement policies on issues from fracking to paid sick leave to anti-discrimination ordinances for LGBT residents.
As Texas State Sen. Don Huffines, a Republican from Dallas — a city run by a Democratic mayor — told The New York Times after introducing a "super pre-emption bill" in the state legislature, "Local control is not a blank check ... [T]hat's the proper role of the state legislature, to rein them in."
Aidan Coleman assisted with research for this story. | <urn:uuid:165f1da5-e101-4f6d-a6a0-989b3704bdd7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.facingsouth.org/2015/11/urban-oasis-democrats-lead-souths-major-cities | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571993.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814022847-20220814052847-00670.warc.gz | en | 0.941405 | 780 | 2.359375 | 2 |
What is a Wi-Fi Network and How Does it Work?
Connectivity is a major buzzword in the modern world, and this is thanks to its ability to make the world go round. And much of this connectivity is powered by Wi-Fi networks. From homes to schools and onto small businesses, Wi-Fi networks ensure that data transfer is both speedy and efficient. Despite its uniquity, however, not everyone knows exactly what it is and how it works. Luckily, we’re here to fill in any gaps in your knowledge.
What's the difference between Wi-Fi and Internet?
The name given to Wi-Fi is a wonderful slice of simplicity as it’s short for Wireless Fidelity. Most importantly, the first part of this name tells you almost everything you need to know about this tech: there are no wires involved. Networks, of course, immediately conjure up images of endless cables twisting here, there and everywhere. But Wi-Fi foregoes these cables and, instead, embraces a more streamlined design.
Wi-Fi works, in its most basic form, by connecting wireless devices to wireless routers and wireless access points. These connections are both easy to set up and relatively cheap. Wi-Fi relies on wireless adapters which are built into devices such as laptops and smartphones. Within these adapters, data is converted into radio signals and, through an antenna, these radio signals are transmitted to a wireless router. Once these signals arrive at the router, they are decoded and sent to the internet.
So, for example, your laptop would be able to connect to your ISP by connecting to your router, allowing you to connect your laptop to online services. At the heart of every router and Wi-Fi device are a set of standards known as IEEE 802.11, these are used to define all Wi-Fi communications.
What is Wi-Fi Networking?
Wi-Fi networking refers to any form of Wi-Fi network, and a Wi-Fi network can be defined as any internet connection which is used to connect multiple devices through the use of a wireless router. At this point, it’s important to underline the difference between Wi-Fi and the internet. Wi-Fi networks are used to connect with nearby devices, but the internet is a series of global networks which use Internet Protocol to communicate.
Another form of Wi-Fi networking can be found in the form of a wireless local area network (WLAN). These differ slightly from standard Wi-Fi networks and tend to be found in bigger, more tech dependent spaces than homes e.g. schools and small businesses. Linking two or more devices together, a WLAN uses wireless communication to build and maintain a local area network. These networks provide users with enhanced accessibility when it comes to network connectivity. In a school, for example, a user would be able to remain connected to the network no matter which part of the building they were in.
Why do I need a Wi-Fi?
Wi-Fi networks are integral parts of modern life and, thanks to their low costs, are set to remain in place for a significant amount of time. Therefore, if you are looking for a sure-fire way to maintain strong network connections, Wi-Fi represents the perfect solution.
For a more on WIFI Networks, installations and applications, please view our Knowledge Centre articles
If you have problems with your data cabling or WIFI network or if you are considering moving office or changing your office layout, please contact us for a free network survey and quotation
Contact NM Cabling for a free review 01923 888588
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The Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO) administers and enforce federal laws. FHEO is an office under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). It establishes policies that ensure all Americans have equal access to housing of their own choice.
HUD investigates complaints of housing discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability, or familial status. HUD also tries to reconcile the matter with both parties.
If reconciliation fails, HUD then determines whether “reasonable cause” exists to believe that a discriminatory housing practice has taken place. If “reasonable cause” is not found, HUD will dismiss the complaint.
If reasonable cause is found, HUD will issue a charge of discrimination and schedule a hearing before a HUD administrative law judge (ALJ). If either party elects to proceed in federal court, the Department of Justice will pursue the case on behalf of the complainant. The decisions of the ALJ and the federal district court are subject to review by the U.S. Court of Appeals. | <urn:uuid:8ce29e7e-01b2-446a-8e42-9f68cdae94c5> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://civilrights.uslegal.com/fair-housing-enforcement/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571911.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813081639-20220813111639-00467.warc.gz | en | 0.931547 | 216 | 2.609375 | 3 |
- freely available
Metals 2013, 3(1), 49-57; doi:10.3390/met3010049
Abstract: The replication casting process is used for manufacturing open-pore aluminum foams with advanced performances, such as stability and repeatability of foam structure with porosity over 60%. A simple foam structure model based on the interaction between sodium chloride solid particles poorly wetted by melted aluminum, which leads to the formation of air pockets (or “air collars”), is proposed for the permeability of porous material. The equation for the minimum pore radius of replicated aluminum foam is derived. According to the proposed model, the main assumption of the permeability model consists in a concentration of flow resistance in a circular aperture of radius rmin. The permeability of aluminum open-pore foams is measured using transformer oil as the fluid, changing the fractions of initial sodium chloride. Measured values of minimum pore size are close to theoretically predicted ones regardless of the particle shape. The expression for the permeability of replicated aluminum foam derived on the basis of the “bottleneck” model of porous media agrees well with the experimental data. The obtained data can be applied for commercial filter cells and pneumatic silencers.
Open-pore metal sponges offer a wide range of possible applications, such as heat-exchangers, fuel cells, filtering processes, etc. Accordingly, many state-of-the-art technologies are used for obtaining such permeable materials [1,2].
Replication casting can provide the advanced performances such as stability and repeatability of foam structure. Briefly, the process can be described by the following steps. The porous bed of preheated NaCl particles is infiltrated with molten metal. The resulting composite after solidification can be shaped into the desirable form, and then salt is subsequently removed by dissolution in water. Infiltration can be actuated by vacuum suction or under high gas pressure . Sodium chloride can be preheated either in the mold before the infiltration , or separately .
A similar technology was applied commercially by Composite Materials Ltd. (Ekaterinburg, Russia). Here, granular sodium chloride is preheated in a special furnace and is then cast into the mold. Molten aluminum infiltrates the salt bed by vacuum suction. The technology reduces production costs significantly and facilitates the manufacture of a variety of porous cast aluminum items, mainly filter cells and pneumatic silencers.
The main characteristic that determines the dimensions and features (wall thickness, surface area) of porous casting is permeability K in an integrated form of Darcy’s law:
The permeability K is determined by porous medium structure, which is the result of capillary interaction between molten metal and solid salt granules.
Let us assume that NaCl granules are of spherical shape with the uniform radius R. Consequently poor wettability of NaCl by molten aluminum at the contact between nearest NaCl granules leads to the formation of air pockets or “air collars” (Figure 1).
After solidification of the metal and dissolution of NaCl, the porous medium consists of cavities, shaped by parent NaCl granules connected through the air collars (Figure 2). Thereby, the replicated metal foam structure is described by two defined pore sizes: the maximum is equal to 2R and the minimum is equal to 2rmin where rmin is the internal radius of an air collar (see Figure 1).
The shape of the air collar is described by Laplace’s Equation:
Since the radii of the air collar’s curvatures are in mutually perpendicular planes, Laplace’s Equation (2) can be rearranged to:
The angle β (Figure 1) is equal to the wetting angle θ that can be geometrically defined from Figure 1. We have found the length of the segment DB applying Pythagorean theorem to triangle АDB, and the cosine theorem to triangle DОB. Simple algebraic manipulations yield:
The simultaneous solution of Equations (4) and (5) gives the equation for the minimum pore radius of replicated aluminum foam:
We used the model of thermal conductivity of a granular medium in vacuum to predict the permeability of replicated foam. The model shows that the main resistance concentrates at contact spots between grains, which form the minimal pore in the structure of replicated foam. Thereby, the main assumption of the permeability model consists in concentration of flow resistance at circular aperture of radius rmin .
A similar “bottleneck” model was applied to derive the permeability of replicated aluminum foam in .
We can consider the pressure drop ΔPr at this aperture (presented as aperture in a thin plane) by the following expression:
We can divide the porous media into slabs of thickness 2R along the average flow direction.
Because the air collar is located in the zone of contact between grains, the number of apertures of radius rmin for one grain defined as coordination number N, is described by Equation :
Each sphere is in contact with N adjoining spheres, so that the direction of each mutually perpendicular axis corresponds to N/3 contacts and each of the opposite directions along one axis corresponds to N/6 contacts. The physical meaning of this proposition consists in a numerical value of the flow rate vector through one aperture of radius rmin in one slab along the macroscopic flow direction:
The number of spheres contained in one slab is given by:
Let us suppose that isobars are corresponding with planes, perpendicular to the direction of filtration. Then the loss of pressure in each slab is ΔPn, and the flow rate through one slab is equal to the flow rate through the porous medium Q. Therefore, the flow rate through one slab is given by the joint solution of Equations (7), (9) and (10).
We assume a homogeneous distribution of the pressure loss along the flow direction. Then, we calculate the combined loss of pressure through a porous medium (contained l/2R slabs) as:
The solution of Equations (1), (8) and (12) leads to the expression for permeability of replicated aluminum foam:
3. Experimental Procedures and Results
Replicated aluminum foam was produced by the process described in Reference [3,5]. Pure sodium chloride of spherical shape was sieved to obtain the following fractions: 0.32–0.63 mm, 0.63–0.8 mm, 0.8–1.0 mm. Fraction 1.0–1.5 mm had a fragmental shape. Then sodium chloride was heated to 700 °C in an electric furnace and was poured into a metal mold of 80 mm diameter and 140 mm height, preheated to 500 °C. Molten metal (99.95% Al) was poured over the surface of the NaCl bed and then infiltrated with vacuum suction.
The porosity of NaCl bed varied from 50% up to 65% (in case of the compaction by vibration). The gauge DV8009-Kc of the membrane type with an error of 2.5% was used to estimate the pressure vacuum.
The resulting Al-NaCl composite with monolithic Al casting head was extracted from the mold after solidification. The total height of castings ranged from 120 to 140 mm with 20–40 mm metal head. In fact the height of metal head is irrelevant to the determination of the hydrostatic pressure. Samples of one inch diameter and 10 mm height were cut from the bottom part of the composite (10 mm from bottom surface). Sodium chloride was subsequently removed by dissolution in water. The hydrostatic pressure was determined individually for each casting. The contribution of the hydrostatic pressure is in the range of 2% to 14%.
The photomicrograph of the flat surface of replicated foam (Figure 3) was examined by SIAMS (System of Image Analysis and Modeling Structures, SIAMS Ltd., Ekaterinburg, Russia) based on SIMAGIS software for image analysis . The error of pore’s size determination in this case doesn’t exceed 0.5% so it complicates the showing of error bars on the Figure 4.
The aperture radius between the big pores corresponding to the radius of the air collar and the minimum pore radius of replicated aluminum foam was calculated using rmin= ,where S is the average area of 10 apertures in one sample.
Figure 4 shows the results of experimental rmin in comparison with theoretical calculations by Equation (5). Data of capillary interaction of molten aluminum alloys with inorganic salts are given in . According to , the wetting angle θ for system of NaCl and pure aluminum is equal to 140 degrees and the surface tension σ is 945 MJ/m2.
The set up for measuring the permeability of replicated aluminum foam is shown in Figure 5. The liquid (transformer oil of viscosity μo from a standard measuring flask) flowed through the porous sample. The measured value of viscosity of the oil was 0.0216 Pa·s ± 2.5% (at 20 °С). The height of the liquid column changed from h2 to h1 during filtration. Minimum filtration time was equal to 100 s at the highest value of permeability and was measured three times for each experimental condition.
The reduction of the liquid column according to Darcy’s law is given by the Equation (1) in the differential form:
Figure 6 shows experimental results of K observation in comparison with theoretical calculations by Equation (13). The porosity of replicated aluminum foam (1 − Δ) was about 60% in this case. Finally the micrograph of real foam is given in Figure 7. The total instrument’s error did not exceed 3.5% in all experiments.
Measured values of average minimum pore size are close to theoretically predicted ones, regardless of the particle shape. Because of their fragmental shape some particles are interconnected with sharp angle to flat, others with flat to flat angle. Subsequently, the minimum pore size varies over a wide range, but the average value is close to that calculated by Equation (6). Therefore, Equation (6) can be applied easily for the estimation of the minimum pore size of replicated aluminum foam. Equations (6) and (13) are consequently solved. Predictions of Equation (13) are in compliance with experiment (Figure 6), especially for the samples produced at higher pressure drop. We notice significant discrepancy between experimental data and results of theoretical calculations at low pressure drop. The explanation can be found in the impossibility to represent the pore of minimum radius as an aperture in a thin plate. In case of low pressure drop the proportion between minimum and maximum size of pores is more than one quarter, and the flow of liquid is close to the modified Cozeny-Carman formula that connects the permeability with the average capillary radius (K = f (R + rmin)2) . Therefore, the permeability at low pressure drop differs from that calculated by Equation (13). Nevertheless, we use Equation (13) to design porous castings because they are usually produced for industrial applications at higher pressure drop.
The agreement with experiments is found to be very satisfying, especially due to the consecutive application of two models.
A model describing the interaction between solid particles poorly wetted by molten metal with the associated formation of an “air collar” has been developed. The derived expression for the internal radius of the air collar that is equal to the minimum pore radius in replicated aluminum foam, rmin presented in Equation (6), represents experimental data very well (Figure 4).
The expression for the permeability of replicated aluminum foam derived on the basis of the “bottleneck” model of a porous medium also agrees well with the experimental data. The expression can be applied successfully to design porous castings for filtering and noise reduction.
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The direct benefit transfers is scheme expected to rid the system of leakages and will accurately identify the people whom the government wants to help. It empowers the people and anyone concerned about the poor should be in strong favour of the experiment, argues Montek Singh Ahluwalia
The Unique Identitfication Authority of India (UIDAI) and the direct benefit transfer (DBT) are extremely important and innovative experiments that have been undertaken by the government in the recent past. Considering the extent to which these will work, in three to four years from now, people will soon see them as game changers.
The Aadhaar numbers issued by UIDAI have given a huge fillip to the financial inclusion. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has given very clear instructions to banks that the Aadhaar card is a valid Know-Your Customer (KYC) requirement to open a bank account. In places where banks are not physically present, a person can get an account opened after the Banking Correspondent (BC) verifies the Aadhaar number by the fingerprint reader. Of course, there will be cases where BCs are not available. In tribal areas, where 8 per cent of the population resides, it won’t be very easy to have BCs. There will be problems and may be, 0.01 per cent chance of errors in reading the fingerprints. However, from the financial inclusion perspective, we have had a system that was not even 50 per cent effective. So, with the introduction of the Aadhaar-based identity authentication platform, if we move from the under-50 per cent to 90 per cent plus success in financial inclusion, I would call that a huge improvement.
The DBT has already been kicked off in 43 districts and hopefully we would add more districts to the programme. At the moment, we are doing it only for schemes where the cash transfer had been through cheques. Even with cheques, the scope for inefficiency or hassles were huge in the sense that someone has to physically collect a cheque and somebody has to physically give it. What the DBT will do is that it will completely eliminate this intermediary operation. It won’t be a case where someone in authority would say that you go down to the district level to collect student scholarships, for instance. If you know who the children are and where the bank accounts lie, then at the press of a button the money should have been transferred into those accounts in a matter of seconds.
Public Distribution System
The government has said it wants to implement the DBT in an experimental way as a pilot; we need to give the states a lot of flexibility to what they want to do. The Food Security Bill contains an enabling provision that state governments can switch to this mechanism and some of them have explicitly expressed the intention. Now what are the benefits of switching? The most obvious benefit is that today the customer has to depend on the Public Distribution System (PDS) shops for collection of subsidised commodities. Everyone knows that there are leakages and diversions. These problems could be handled precisely by the UIDAI. Before they give subsidised items to people, verify their fingerprinting on the Aadhaar card to ensure that only the right persons are collecting it. This is being tried in East Godavari district in Andhra Pradesh in kerosene distribution. When we used the Aadhaar card as validation mechanism, we found a 40 per cent reduction in the offtake of kerosene.
The UIDAI and DBT experiments are new; these involve risk and you have to be willing to change. If you are not willing to change nothing will happen. Nothing worthwhile in the last 20-years in this country has been accomplished without somebody junking an old model
When subsidised commodities are under the control of a PDS shop, then the customer is at the mercy of the shopowner. The PDS should remain but it should actually be providing goods at an economic cost. The beneficiary should be given the entire difference between the economic cost and the subsidised price. So there will be no incentive for a person running a PDS shop to actually pilfer or divert something out of that system.
Adulteration is a big problem with the PDS now. Suppose if you get a certain amount of supply, say, wheat, for Rs 19 per kg in the market and for Rs 2 at the PDS. It is very easy for the PDS shop to adulterate the wheat with 30-40 per cent and then sell. Customers will still have a product at Rs 2, which is actually worth buying though it may take some time to get rid of the rubbish later on. When the captive PDS is done away with, the problem disappears because you can go to another shop to buy better stuff.
DBT Means empowerment and Systemic Change
The DBT actually gets rid of what is currently a mai-baap sarkar attitude and essentially identifies the people whom the government wants to help. The DBT empowers the people. In a market economy, empowerment is equal to the money in your pocket. Let’s not forget the Amartya Sen’s research findings on Bengal famine. The famine occurred not because there wasn’t enough foodgrain; it occurred because the people did not have the money to buy it. The DBT provides the people an opportunity to transform what I call power relations between a very large number of ultimately weaker section consumers and those who actually have access to the resources that they have been distributed to. If we look at it that way, anyone concerned about the poor should be very strongly in favour of the DBT.
The UIDAI and DBT experiments are new; they involve risk and you have to be willing to change. If you are not willing to change nothing will happen. Nothing worthwhile in the last 20-years in this country has been accomplished without somebody junking an old model. Whenever the system is broke, those running the system always say so. Every year we do critiques of what the ministries do. Typically the ministries say that it is a valid point and they are taking care of it. But the question is, are we doing the system change that is necessary? That debate has not taken place in this country. I hope that with the DBT pilots, it actually will take place. Within one year, it would be possible to judge whether it’s good and do people like it.
Newspapers recently headlined a recent CAG report on MGNREGS highlighting loss of hundreds of billions of rupees. A careful read of the report reveals that the CAG has said only in 8 per cent of the cases there seemed some impropriety. You have to ask yourself that when the government reaches out to such a large number of people, what would you call a measure of success? It is very important to look at the overall picture before arriving at unqualified conclusions. India is large and so are the numbers.
Inclusion is the first magazine dedicated to exploring issues at the intersection of development agendas and digital, financial and social inclusion. The magazine makes complex policy analyses accessible for a diverse audience of policymakers, administrators, civil society and academicians. Grassroots-focused, outcome-oriented analysis is the cornerstone of the work done at Inclusion. | <urn:uuid:92834057-5547-4996-a59f-fac7f34e80db> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://inclusion.in/opinion/2013/04/the-brave-new-world-of-direct-benefit-transfers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573163.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818033705-20220818063705-00077.warc.gz | en | 0.960635 | 1,484 | 2.25 | 2 |
‘Let’s get writing!’
TASK: Look at the bottom of page 32. It’s time to write your own adventure story using everything you have completed in the last two weeks to help. Use your plan from yesterday to help structure your work and aid your ideas. Good luck and we can’t wait to hear them. Maybe you can read your story out loud in our Zoom meeting it we have time.
Remember to give your work a final edit before you finish. Check for spellings, punctuation and sense.
This piece of work needs to be submitted to us at school. This can be done by typing your story and emailing it to us, photographing/scanning your story and emailing it to us or, if you are passing, you could drop it into the school office - please make sure you put your name and class on it though!
We are looking forward to reading your Mission Possible stories! | <urn:uuid:433f3048-456c-4c9d-ae34-cab1b2a46697> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.parkfieldschool.co.uk/english-15/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571584.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812045352-20220812075352-00678.warc.gz | en | 0.937746 | 199 | 1.8125 | 2 |
5 Tips to Stroke Your Cat Like a Pro!
Some cats like nothing more than to curl up on your lap being stroked and, let’s face it, it’s a very pleasurable experience for you too! Lovely soft fur and a gentle purr can make you both feel calm and relaxed.
But not all cats like being stroked, so you shouldn’t take it personally if your kitty prefers to curl up on another chair rather than sit on your lap! Cats can be independent and they can’t always be persuaded to do things that they don’t want to do, but they may just prefer to be stroked in a different way – the trick is to find out where their soft spot is.
5 Tips to Stroke your Cat like a Pro
1. Learn how to recognize when your cat is receptive to attention and would probably like to be stroked.
- Give them the choice and let them be in control – always.
- Offer your hand to your cat and allow them to approach you – they can choose whether they interact with you or not.
- If they are doing something else (e.g. eating) now is not the time to touch them.
- Remember that if they are in their safe place, leave them there undisturbed.
- If they rub against your hand, they are happy to interact….if they don’t, don’t start stroking them
- Take account of their body language and check for signs that it’s time to stop.
- Some cats can become over-aroused by stroking or find the touch overwhelming and may start to bite – it’s time to stop.
- Use soft gentle strokes in the same direction as their fur
2. Understand that, as a general rule, there are no-go places when it comes to stroking your cat:
- Their legs and paws are a definite ‘don’t even think about it!’
- Even when they’re lying on their back, it’s not an invitation for a tummy rub.
- Leave their tail alone! There are too many sensitive areas in this vicinity that they don’t want you to touch, and they use their tails to let you know how they feel.
3. So, that leaves your cat’s head and along their back! There may be a number of reasons why cats are partial to being stroked on their head and along their back:
- Stroking and scratching their head might remind them of being groomed by their mother when they were young.
- It’s a place they can’t reach very well by themselves to either lick or scratch.
- When cats groom themselves, they use their paws to lick and clean their head and face. When you stroke their head, you are mimicking this and they love it!
- Most of a cat’s scent glands are around their head, so by allowing you to stroke around their head, they are marking you as part of their family group – that’s an honour and shows they love you!
4. You’ll know when your cat is lapping up the attention when they are:
- Rubbing against you
- Moving their head to encourage repeat stroking (a nudge!)
- No body tension
- Vertical tail
5. Recognize when your cat is feeling uncomfortable and know when to stop.
- If you pause for a few seconds when stroking your cat and they reinitiate contact, they’re obviously saying ‘more please’. However, if they don’t rub against you, they have probably had enough for now, so it’s time to stop.
Other signs to look for that suggest they aren’t wanting to be touched are:
- tail swishing
- skin twitching over the back
- flattening of the ears
- dilated pupils
- low growl
- walking away and lying down.
Kittens that have been well handled and socialized with humans from a young age are usually more likely to enjoy handling. Your cat is more likely to be receptive to being stroked if they are calm and relaxed; using FELIWAY CLASSIC will help you create an environment where your cat feels serene and happy!
A Kitty's Point of View: What Do Cats Dream About?
Ooooh! Zzzzzz... I do like to curl up in a ball and have a snooze! I can drop off in a lot of ...
9 Signs That Your Cat Rules The House!
Have you come to the realization that you’re not the boss of your own house? Is there a new, feline ... | <urn:uuid:2d9f03bf-c44c-4b96-8e99-636350e573e7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://blog.feliway.com/ca_en/5-tips-to-stroke-your-cat-like-a-pro | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573760.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819191655-20220819221655-00678.warc.gz | en | 0.960048 | 1,013 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Published: 2021-08-09 14:00
Last Updated: 2022-08-16 18:50
There is still time to prevent "runaway climate change" but only if the world implements carbon net zero policies, the EU's vice president in charge of climate action said Monday.
"It's not too late to stem the tide and prevent runaway climate change, but only if we act decisively now and all act together," Frans Timmermans tweeted after the release of an alarming report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
He stressed that the European Union is proposing a sweeping climate plan, unveiled last month, that aims to ditch dependency on fossil fuels to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.
"But this is a global crisis: keeping 1.5 degrees within reach requires net zero emissions worldwide and faster rollout of policies to get there. COP26 must be where the world says 'enough'!," Timmermans tweeted, referring to a global climate conference to take place in November.
"The IPCC climate report shows the immense urgency of acting now to tackle the climate crisis," he added.
The IPCC concluded that the 1.5C temperature goal of the Paris Agreement would likely be breached around 2030 -- a decade earlier than it projected just three years ago. | <urn:uuid:ea002a66-65e0-4063-993c-c70cd4cf78fc> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://en.royanews.tv/news/30339/2021-08-09 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573760.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819191655-20220819221655-00673.warc.gz | en | 0.912121 | 266 | 2.75 | 3 |
History of Nursing
One of the best resources for nursing history….
Search Jone Johnson Lewis' comprehensive set of articles on email@example.com — now Thoughtco.com for great nurses throughout history such as:
Louisa May Alcott
Mary Ann Bickerdyke
A Poem by Clara Barton to honor the nurses serving on the battlefields
The Sanitary Commission of the Civil War
Other articles and Infographics…
- The Role of Men in Nursing Today
- Nursing is Not a Gender (on RNDegrees.net)
- The Evolution of Women in Nursing (a guest article)
Did you know Walt Whitman was a nurse in the Civil War?
Infographic: From Best-RN-To-BSN.com 15 People Who Had the Biggest Impact on Nursing
Infographic: From CollegeAmerica.edu Men in Nursing 5 Facts about Male Nurses
American Association of Men in Nursing | <urn:uuid:deb1fa6e-b136-4c2d-8582-270e121f9319> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://kqdemo.com/History%20of%20Nursing/history_of_nursing.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571692.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812105810-20220812135810-00076.warc.gz | en | 0.859795 | 216 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Yin and yang include two parts of a whole and we discussed this symbol on Day 47. Yang is said to be masculine and Yin is feminine. In psychology, Carl Jung refers to these as anima and animus. As humans, our psyche contains both masculine and feminine elements, but for each of us, one tends to exist in the unconscious. For men, the anima is the unconscious image of the female and for women, the animus is the unconscious image of the male. Jung refers to both anima and animus as archetypes that are part of our basic programming or belief system that we are born with.
The roles that men and women have historically played throughout civilization have been largely influenced by the collective unconscious archetypes of anima and animus. As consciousness evolves, many of the unconscious beliefs held by the collective are being integrated into our consciousness and the result is a more open-minded society as it relates to gender roles. We’ve seen this happening before our very eyes even in just the last few generations.
Yin and yang, masculine and feminine, conscious and unconscious, could be looked at as dualities. Left brain and right brain form another such pair. The right brain is associated with intuition and creativity while the left brain is more quantitative and analytical. In Penney Peirce’s book, Frequency, she notes that a man’s brain has fewer connecting fibers between left and right, while women have many fibers connecting the two. This means that men are more likely to compartmentalize and separate left and right brain functioning. This separation explains so much and is a driving factor in man’s natural tendency towards dualistic thinking. Peirce says:
“Men naturally understand the Divine through separation; their path is to be in the world and not of it. Men’s self-realization is typically based on abstinence from physical ‘temptations,’ contemplation and study, structured ceremony, surrender of personal will to a teacher, and monastic isolation.”
Dudes, I don’t know about you, but this sounds quite familiar to me. Is Peirce saying there is another way? She elaborates that because of the stronger connection women have between hemispheres of the brain they have, “the ability to perceive in a both-and way in which separation from others and the world – even between thought, emotion, and spirit – is inherently difficult.” This also explains some fundamental differences that cause us to think that Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus (John Gray).
All this tells me that if Erich Fromm was right, that separation is the problem of human existence, it might be more challenging for men to overcome than women. History shows us plenty of examples of the truth in this. Yet, bringing awareness of the unconscious into consciousness is the first step. Once we’ve learned to understand ourselves better, we can begin to make changes in ourselves. As more and more of us do that, the world will change too. | <urn:uuid:ff92cc00-57fb-409c-87e2-216de44cbd77> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://frogandlotus.com/day-80-one-teaching-anima-animus/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570977.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809124724-20220809154724-00478.warc.gz | en | 0.965112 | 628 | 2.921875 | 3 |
“Agricola first laid waste the land. Then he displayed to the natives his moderation.”
A core feature of the Obama administration’s plans for victories in Iraq and Afghanistan has been an increased reliance on counterinsurgency, as Americans try to win the hearts and minds of peoples whose countries they’ve invaded. Some critics highlight similarities between Kennedy’s and Obama’s interest in counterinsurgency as a tool to conquer peoples who have historically been difficult, if not impossible, for outside colonial powers to dominate. President Obama’s reliance on old Harvard hands to socially engineer conquest justifies many of these comparisons.
Even counterinsurgency’s lustiest cheerleaders, such as the political scientist David Kilcullen, admit that historical instances of successfully using counterinsurgency for military victories have been extremely rare in the past half-century. But Washington’s counterinsurgency believers share a certain hubris, or vanity, that they are clever enough to overcome this daunting record of historical failure.
While political science was the academic discipline which the wars of the twentieth century drew upon, the asymmetrical wars of the twenty-first century now look toward anthropology with hopes of finding models of culture, or data on specific cultures to be conquered or to be used in counterinsurgency operations. But anthropology is not political science, and anthropologists have different commitments to those who share their lives and vulnerabilities with them.
The counterinsurgency program generating the greatest friction among anthropologists today is Human Terrain Systems (HTS) – a program with over 400 employees, originally operating through private contractors and now in the process of being taken over by the U.S. Army. Human Terrain embeds anthropologists with military units to ease the occupation and conquest of Iraqis and Afghanis – with plans to extend these operations in Africa through expanding units with AFRICOM. Some HTS social scientists are armed, others choose not to. In the last two years, three HTS social scientists have been killed in the course of their work, and HTS member Don Ayala recently pled guilty in U.S. District Court to killing an Afghan (whom Ayala shot in the head-execution style while the victim was detained with his hands cuffed behind him) who had attacked HTS social scientist Paula Loyd.
The anthropologist Montgomery McFate has become the public spokesperson for Human Terrain, and while she has increasingly pulled back from public discussions of the workings and implications of Human Terrain, in reading her early writings on British counterinsurgency operations against the IRA, we find a model of how she (and, it appears, her military sponsors) view anthropology working as a tool for military conquest. Supporters of HTS claim the program uses embedded social scientists to help reduce “kinetic engagements,” or unnecessary violent contacts with the populations they encounter. The idea is to use these social scientists to interact with members of the community, creating relationships to reduce misunderstandings that can lead to unnecessarily violent interactions.
HTS sells itself to the public through remarkably well-organized domestic propaganda campaigns that have seen dozens of uncritical articles on HTS, with personality profiles, as a “peaceful” means of achieving victory.
Today, in Iraq and Afghanistan, anthropologists are being told that they’re needed to make bad situations better. But no matter how anthropological contributions ease and make gentle this conquest and occupation, it will not change the larger neocolonial nature of the larger mission; and most anthropologists are troubled to see their discipline embrace such a politically corrupt cause.
Human Terrain Systems is not some neutral humanitarian project, it is an arm of the U.S. military and is part of the military’s mission to occupy and destroy opposition to U.S. goals and objectives. HTS cannot claim the sort of neutrality claimed by groups like Doctors Without Borders, or the International Committee of the Red Cross. HTS’s goal is a gentler form of domination. Pretending that the military is a humanitarian organization does not make it so, and pretending that HTS is anything other than an arm of the military engaging in a specific form of conquest is sheer dishonesty.
Human Terrain Systems and other counterinsurgency projects raise serious political, ethical and practical problems for anthropologists and other social scientists. Central to anthropologists’ criticisms of the HTS program are concerns that HTS social scientists’ reports can be used by military and intelligence agencies in ways that can make studied populations vulnerable. Safeguards protecting gathered data for use by military or intelligence agencies are absent. The leaked Human Terrain Systems Handbook, available on Wikileaks, clarifies the program’s lack of ethical precautions to protect studied populations. In November of 2007, soon after HTS became public knowledge, the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association denounced HTS for its failure to assure that fundamental principles of anthropological ethics were being followed to assure the safety and protection of people being studied by HTS in the theaters of battle and occupation where HTS operates.
Because of HTS’s obvious ethical problems and the American Anthropological Association’s blunt condemnation of the program, HTS has had a difficult time recruiting qualified anthropologists to work on the program. Most HTS anthropologists have no significant regional fieldwork prior to their employment with the program. Over the last few months, so many managerial problems with HTS have come to light that it is being discontinued as a program run by private contractors, BAE Systems, and, as noted above, plans are underway for the program to be taken over by the Army. Whether or not HTS continues to exist as a program in the future is unclear, but regardless of the program’s future, the military’s appetites for ethnographic information and intelligence for counterinsurgency operations will continue. Because counterinsurgency has become the Obama administration’s alchemical solution for the problems of Iraq and Afghanistan, we should consider the philosophical roots supporting the sickly promise of military victory, not simply stability, through culturally informed counterinsurgency. An examination of some important, ignored roots of the Human Terrain project can shed light on some of the ways that HTS and ethnographically informed counterinsurgency programs fit in with the larger developments in robotically dominated battlefields.
McFate’s “better killing”
While working on her doctorate in anthropology at Yale in the early 1990s, Montgomery McFate undertook fieldwork and library research focusing on the resistance of the Provisional Irish Republican Army and British military counterinsurgency campaigns in Northern Ireland. She was not yet married to stability operations specialist and retired army officer, Sean McFate, and her dissertation appears under her maiden name, Montgomery Carlough. She focused on the 1969-1982 period, and British army changes away from strictly tactical military responses to more culturally callibrated counterinsurgency campaigns during those years. McFate’s research was supported by a mix of fellowships ranging from the National Science Foundation, Mellon, and several Yale-based fellowships directed toward international security issues.
McFate recently explained that her dissertation examined “how cultural narratives, handed down from generation to generation, contributed to war,” and “how people justify violence.” This resume might lead one to assume her research was balanced between the positions of the Irish insurgents and British counterinsurgents. Such an impression would be false. Her dissertation reads as a guide for militaries wanting to stop indigenous insurgent movements.
This was not a cultural study designed to give voice to the concerns of an oppressed people so that others might come to see their internal narrative as valid; it was designed to make those she studied vulnerable to cooptation and defeat.
For her dissertation fieldwork, McFate made multiple trips to Ireland and met with members of the occupying British military and of the Provisional IRA, but when she wrote up her dissertation, she made a conscious decision not only not to identify whom she had spoken with, but also not to directly quote from these interactions. In her dissertation, McFate claimed that her decision not quote from these fieldwork experiences was done for disciplinary ethical reasons.
McFate’s proclaimed concern in 1994 over the ethical protection of research participants is admirable, and stands in stark contrast to Human Terrain’s later disregard of such ethical protections. It remains unknown what happened to her notes and other records from interviews with IRA members, but given McFate’s current work in environments requiring security clearances, such past contacts and records would have raised many questions when she applied for her security clearance. It would be standard operating procedure during a security clearance background investigation to ask about the identity of her 1990s contacts with the Provisional IRA and other groups, as it would be to ask such a clearance applicant for field notes and other such material.
McFate’s early counterinsurgency years provide a significantly less guarded glimpse at her (then) understanding of the promise of anthropology’s role in counterinsurgency. This younger, less prudent McFate avoided the sort of softening language with which she now calls her “mercenaries” of yesteryear “independent military subcontractors”. While she now avoids linking militarized anthropology with killing, in her dissertation days, she more openly asked if “one could conclude that ethnocentrism – bad anthropology – interferes with the conduct of war. But does good anthropology contribute to better killing?” Though an affirmative answer to this rhetorical question is implied, McFate left this question unanswered. McFate today categorically rejects claims that Human Terrain Teams are involved in using anthropology for what she referred to in 1994 as “better killing.” But HTS anthropologist Audrey Roberts recently told the Dallas Morning News that she does not worry that her data may be used by the military when “looking for bad guys to kill.”
McFate’s dissertation identified two counterinsurgency elements requiring anthropological skills. The first involved psychological warfare operations, where cultural readings could be used for defining perceptions of one’s enemy because “creating a mask for the enemy to wear is essential for psychological warfare,” while the second argued that “knowledge of the enemy leads to a refinement in know-
ledge of how best to kill the enemy”.
The desire to understand and re-humanize an enemy and the rationalizations of the enemy’s motivations is at the heart of counterinsurgency operations, and McFate argued these goals hold vital roles for anthropology, writing that:
“The fundamental contradiction between ‘knowing’ your enemy in order to develop effective strategy, and de-humanizing him in order to kill efficiently is a theme to which we will return. Suffice to say, that the dogs of war do have a pedigree, which is often ‘anthropological’ and that counterinsurgency strategy depends not just on practical experience on the battlefield, but on historically derived analogical models of prior conflict. Paraphrasing Lévi-Strauss, enemies are not only good to kill, enemies are good to think.”
Here McFate expressed a desire for PSYOP anthropologists to use anthropological conceptions of cultural relativism to understand how enemies view the world and to use this information to better understand how one’s own actions or use of symbols will be interpreted by enemies. McFate insists on ethnographies of enemies in order to out-think them, because “understanding the possible intentions of the enemy entails being able to think like the enemy; in other words, successful pre-emptive counter moves depend on simulating the strategy of the opponents.”
McFate wanted military forces to understand how their actions have undesired consequences that they cannot understand, unless they learn to see things from within the enemy’s mindset. This approach is often spun by McFate and her supporters as being a desire to use anthropology so that less violence will be used by U.S. forces. But McFate and HTS supporters desire minimal force because they believe it leads to a more efficient occupation, cooption and conquest of enemies, not because they object to occupation, cooption and conquest. This presents serious political problems for most anthropologists, and given anthropology’s often odious past role as a handmaiden to colonialism, these issues easily move from the realm of individual politics to disciplinary politics, and properly raise the attentions of disciplinary professional associations.
Drones and Human Intelligence
Today, reliance on military robotics and drones in Iraq and Afghanistan progresses at a startling rate. In the span of the past six years, the robotic presence in these theaters has increased from a state when there were no military robotic units to today’s total of over 12,000 robotic devices in use, with over 5,000 flying drones in use. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) like the Predator, with a flight range of over 2,000 miles, an ability to remain airborne at high elevations for over 24 hours at a time, advanced optical surveillance capabilities with the remote pilots linked by satellite half the world away, can track and kill humans on the ground. Other earthbound robots like the PackBot and Talon detonate landmines or roadside bombs, while some like Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection System have options of being armed with M-16s and other weapons.
The impact of this tactical shift has radically changed the U.S. military’s ability to track and control occupied and enemy populations. As P.W. Singer shows in Wired For War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century, battlefields and occupations are being revolutionized in ways that are quickly progressing beyond strategists’ ability to understand how these increases in remote tracking, controlling and killing are impacting the cultures they are physically dominating. But, unsurprisingly, increases in robotic-panoptical monitoring and control have negative consequences for American interests, as mechanical manipulation reveals deep divisions between the worlds of machines and humans. To her credit, a decade and a half ago, McFate understood how such dynamics would play out, though her “practical” solution to such dilemmas is mired in irresolvable political and ethical problems for the anthropologists that would become the sensors for the machines dominating these battlefields.
Early-McFate’s most insightful statements concerning military needs for anthropological knowledge focus on high-tech warfare’s inability to decipher or address the human reactions and problems created by warfare. McFate understood that “global positioning systems and cruise missiles won’t pay for your ammunition in Kurdistan. Low-intensity conflict requires human generated intelligence, local knowledge, and mission-oriented tactics. Atavistic modes of intelligence collection – espionage, infiltration – take precedence over more sophisticated techniques in these conditions. Thus, an interesting inversion occurs: as the technological sophistication of the enemy declines, reliance on intelligence derived from human sources (HUMINT) increases.”
McFate was correct. While battlefields become increasingly dominated by high-tech gadgetry and panoptical drones, iris-scanners and computer tracking software, something like the currently attempted Human Terrain Teams will be needed to gather human knowledge on the ground. McFate’s early writings clarify why those designing counterinsurgency campaigns crave anthropological knowledge – and given the economic collapse’s impact on the anthropological job market, I would not preclude the likelihood of some measure of success, especially as these calls for anthropological assistance are increasingly framed in under false flags of “humanitarian assistance” or as reducing lethal engagements.
Nabokov riddles his novel Lolita with references to a form of destiny referred to as “McFate,” which are cruel turns of apparent coincidence that set characters upon paths linking their destinies with larger themes. In Nabokov’s world, the “synchronizing phantom” of McFate arranges what might have been chance events into patterns revealing if not providence, then at least a recurrence of trajectories. In only a partial Nabokovian sense, anthropology’s McFate merges old anthropological and military themes together in ways revealing new uses for anthropology that the core of the discipline will be increasingly unable to control regardless of how offensive these uses are to core anthropological values.
It’s not that anthropology and warfare haven’t merged before; they have fatefully merged in all sorts of ways that have been historically documented. One stark difference is that today’s counterinsurgent abuses of anthropological knowledge occur after the discipline of anthropology has clearly identified such activities as betraying basic ethical standards for protecting the interests and well-being of studied populations. Anthropologists’ professional activites in the Second World War occurred without the existence of professional ethical codes of conduct, and it was a direct result of anthropological misconduct during the Vietnam War that the American Anthropological Association developed its first formalized Code of Ethics in 1971. It insisted that anthropologists’ primary loyalties be to those studied, that research not lead to events harming research participants. There was to be no secret research. There were mandates for voluntary informed consent. That HTS throws up weak sophistic arguments claiming that their involvement in warfare reduces harm changes nothing.
The notion of using anthropologists and other social scientists to gather information, probe and soothe the feelings of those living in these environments, increasingly monitored and controlled by machines, strikes me as an anthropological abomination. Given what we know anthropologically about the complexities of how culture works, it also seems doomed to failure.
Simple notions of mechanical, disarticulated representations of culture can be found in the Army’s new Counterinsurgency Field Manual, in which particular forms of anthropological theory were selected not because they “work” or are intellectually cohesive but because they offer the promise of “managing” the complexities of culture, as if increased sensitivities, greater knowledge, panoptical legibility could be used in a linear fashion to engineer domination. Such notions of culture fit the military’s structural view of the world. It is the false promise of “culture” as a controllable, linear product that drives the COIN Team’s particular construction of “culture.” Within the military, the COIN Team is not alone in this folly: I’ve just finished a critique of the recently leaked Special Forces Advisor Guide (TC-31-73), and found a widespread adoption of dated anthropological notions of culture and personality theories, being selected and used to produce essentialized reductions of entire continents as having a limited set of uniform cultural traits.
What McFate’s writings and those of fellow-counterinsurgency supporters do not address is just how difficult it is for anthropologists, or anyone else, to successfully pull off the sort of massive cultural engineering project, needed for a counterinsurgency-based victory Afghanistan. Those advocating anthropologically informed counterinsurgency are remarkably silent concerning just how difficult it is to bring about engineered culture change. There is no mention of applied anthropology’s failures to get people to do simple things (like recycling, losing weight, reducing behaviors associated with the spread of HIV, etc.) – basic things that are in their own self-interest. These counterinsurgency advocates think they can leverage social structure and hegemonic narratives so that the occupied will internalize their own captivity as “freedom.”
Beyond Human Terrain Systems, the Pentagon and the State Department can come up with other counterinsurgent uses for anthropologists – many of which will not alarm anthropologists in the ways that HTS, with its armed presence, does – but, given the manipulative forms of cultural engineering goals behind these projects, many of the same ethical and political issues are raised by anthropologists’ participation in this work. Anthropologists and others being recruited to try and enact these counterinsurgency dreams risk confusing a supportive role in the wake of military decimation with engaging in humanitarian work. And the reliance of “soft power” on building hospitals, schools, supplying microloans and other agents of apparent gentle persuasions will help bring many liberals into the counterinsurgency fold, but it doesn’t resolve the problems of the larger project, even if the machines seeking our help are armed not with bombs and bullets but with the dolling of needed loans, food, water, health and infrastructure.
DAVID PRICE is a member of the Network of Concerned Anthropologist. He is the author of Anthropological Intelligence: The Deployment and Neglect of American Anthropology in the Second World War, published by Duke University Press, and a contributor to the Network of Concerned Anthropologists’ new book Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual published last month by Prickly Paradigm Press. He can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:9203393b-41ac-4f20-9475-2ecd70b0c538> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/12/01/human-terrain-systems-anthropologists-and-the-war-in-afghanistan/print | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719468.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00528-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948124 | 4,348 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Dark clouds hover as Indian parliament turns 60
(The views expressed in this column are the author’s own and do not represent those of Reuters)
Despite the mounting criticism and steady loss of faith in democratic institutions and the many questions being raised by Indians about the personal integrity of those in public life, it was a proud moment for India when its parliament convened a special session on Sunday to mark the 60th anniversary of the first sitting of the Indian parliament on May 13, 1952. The luminaries at the time included Rajendra Prasad, S. Radhakrishnan, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and B.R. Ambedkar amongst others.
The celebratory speeches by MPs on Sunday cut across party lines and reflected the enormity of what had been achieved — the nurturing of the democratic ethos through the ballot box for six decades — despite the certitude, at the time when the colonial yoke was lifted, that democracy in India was doomed to fail.
Leading the charge was the redoubtable but congenitally imperialistic Winston Churchill who predicted that the natives were not fit to govern themselves and would soon “fall back quite rapidly through the centuries into the barbarism and privations of the Middle Ages”.
The billion-plus Indian glass is perhaps more empty than full and the spectrum of socio-economic and political challenges that need to be addressed, and the accumulated inequities that need to be redressed through the normative democratic principle is indeed daunting.
Sunday’s rich rhetoric captured this flavour with some stellar oratorical performances that were not oblivious to the compulsions of live TV coverage.
While corruption scandals have become par for the course in the current Indian experience — and senior cabinet ministers have been sent to prison — the more recent finger-pointing at the office of the President and the Speaker of the Lok Sabha for being seen to be less virtuous than Calpurnia of old is very disturbing.
Personal conduct in public life going back to the 1950s and 1960s in India recognised certain unwritten boundaries and the accepted norm was that some practices and responses while holding high office were just not ‘right’.
Personal rectitude and probity were expected and respected — in the main — for good reason.
Objective debate leavened by constructive criticism is the hallmark of any democratic structure and the Indian parliament has witnessed a deplorable fall in standards. Individual MPs have credentials that compare with the best in the world but the legislative collective now stands diminished and this southward progress has been noticed with every parliament from the 1980s onwards.
However, the most damaging and potentially corrosive development occurred a few days before the 60th anniversary celebrations and was ironically centred around the visionary father of the Indian Constitution — Ambedkar.
A witty and affectionate cartoon of Ambedkar astride a snail labelled as ‘Constitution’, with Nehru standing behind him holding a whip first appeared in the ‘Shankar’s Weekly’ on August 28, 1949. The pithy message was that the framing of the Constitution was proceeding at a ‘snail’s pace’ — and that Ambedkar and his colleagues had to be prodded to expedite the process. Harmless visuals and far from malicious or insulting to any of the protagonists — including the snail. This image entered textbooks for school children a few years ago and it appeared that this was a non-event as far as the Indian elected representative was concerned.
But all hell broke loose on May 11 in parliament with some irate members flaunting the said textbook and terming the cartoon “insulting” to Ambedkar. Let alone a reasoned debate, since the incident related to the iconic ‘Dalit’ leader, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal quickly announced the removal of the ostensibly insulting cartoon from the textbooks.
Sadly on the eve of its 60th anniversary, the profile of India’s parliament was diminished. But worse was in store.
Some Dalit leaders went ballistic and adopted positions that can only be described as populist and opportunistic. Ambedkar’s own preference for objective debate and a rational approach to contentious matters was jettisoned. Instead prickly, shrill and inflexible intolerance was deified.
The more excitable members of the Republican Panther of India party took the law into their hands and on Saturday vandalised the office of a Pune-based professor — Suhas Palshikar — for having cleared the cartoon for inclusion in the school books.
Was the leadership of the party remorseful of this turn of events? Far from it and went to the other extreme when its leaders justified the Pune vandalism by blandly stating that their colleagues “lost control” because of the “blasphemy” against Ambedkar.
Blasphemy — hello? When did we last hear that word apropos cartoons?
Given the cynical manipulation of the caste and religion-based vote bank in Indian politics, this very malignant and reprehensible sequence of actions beginning with the swift ban on the cartoon has not been condemned or opposed by parliamentarians in the manner that many anguished Indians had expected.
Maybe there will be some corrective in the days ahead. But if such crass appeasement of rowdy behaviour is the norm for the Indian parliament, then Churchill may yet be proved right — after 60 years — and the spirit of Ambedkar irreparably sullied. | <urn:uuid:225ea8b6-9d94-469d-8975-671ee8018deb> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://blogs.reuters.com/india-expertzone/2012/05/13/dark-clouds-hover-as-indian-parliament-turns-60/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280900.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00002-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965819 | 1,137 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Orcadas Base is an Argentine base in Antarctica and the first permanent base in the area defined by the Antarctic Treaty System. It is located on Laurie Island, one of the South Orkney Islands (known as the Orcadas Islands to the Argentines), at 4 meters above sea level and 170 meters from the coastline. The nearest port is Ushuaia, which is 1,502 km away. The base has 11 buildings and four main topics of research: continental glaciology, seismology, sea-ice-zone glaciology (since 1985) and meteorological observations (since 1903).
In 1903 Dr William S. Bruce's Scottish National Antarctic Expedition established Osmond House, a meteorological station on Laurie Island. During the expedition, however, the crew became stuck in the ice and, unable to sail off, were trapped in the station for the winter.
Bruce left the station in December of that year for Buenos Aires to fix the ship, leaving a few men to keep continue the observations.
Since February 22, 1904, Argentina has kept a permanently populated base there, one of six Argentine permanent bases in Argentine Antarctica, and the first permanently inhabited base in Antarctica.
Orcadas was the only base on the islands for 40 years until the British established a small summer base. It also had the first radiotelegraph in the continent (in 1927). The 11 buildings of the base house up to 45 people during the summer, and an average of 14 during winter. | <urn:uuid:2af26b86-a12b-4267-ad5e-97edba062c92> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/orcadas-base/view/yahoo/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280364.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00028-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963481 | 300 | 3.390625 | 3 |
Blue ash, Fraxinus quadrangulata, Oleaceae
Blue ash gets its name from the blue dye obtained from the inner bark. Ash is among the most ancient of words, from proto-Indo-European “os-” leading to Old English “aesc” referring both to ash trees and spears made from the wood of ash.
The botanical name, Fraxinus quadrangulata, is from Latin “four-angled ash” referring to the squarish twigs.
Range: Blue ash is an uncommon midwestern species nearly always found on limestone; most abundant in the Bluegrass and Nashville Basin.
Habitat: Typically an open-grown tree of limestone uplands, in pure stands or mixed with other Venerable Tree species. Moderately intolerant of shade, but seedlings can persist under a canopy and grow if released.
Life History: Blue ash is a long-lived slow-growing tree. Seed production is high, but germination rates are very low, typically less than 7%. Reproduction appears to be difficult for this species in current habitats. Seedlings and saplings can be found in bluffs of the Kentucky River, but are very uncommon on Bluegrass uplands.
Form: Short, stout trunk with rough, irregular crown. Large trees often with ‘stag-head’ dead tops.
Uses: Formerly a prized species for flooring, with darker wood than white ash.
Largest known blue ash: 66″ diameter, 82′ height, 72.5″ crown spread. Jefferson County, KY
Largest Bluegrass blue ash: 66″ diameter, 82′ height, 72.5″ crown spread. Jefferson County, KY
Oldest known blue ash: 249 years, Cynthiana KY.
Hybrids with other ash species are not known to occur. | <urn:uuid:457f1fc6-2c6c-4f79-876f-280afc54211d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://kimmerer.com/trees/blue-ash/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571056.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809155137-20220809185137-00670.warc.gz | en | 0.922343 | 389 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Back in the 1700s, Emperor Joseph The Second was ruler of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire.
This was the most culturally divided of all the major European powers, what is now the Balkans and much of Eastern Europe. Lots of different nationalities and ethnicities, many of whom didn’t like each other. A stormy culture with an equally stormy history, to say the least.
So what did Joseph do to improve things?
He simply wrote a decree, stating that “Every citizen must treat his fellow citizen like a brother.”
So, Joseph, how did that work out for you?
Not very well, it seems. The Balkans still is a turbulent place (remember the Yugoslav civil war in the 1990s? That just one of many examples.). His epitaph reads: “Here lies Joseph II, who failed in all he undertook.”
What does this teach us?
It teaches that great cultures don’t just come from on high, by decree. That nobody loves their fellow employee, just because the CEO (or Emperor) tells to them to.
It’s something that needs to be nurtured organically, from the ground up…something to think about. | <urn:uuid:f2e651bb-3388-4438-aa78-a568e4553372> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.gapingvoid.com/blog/2018/06/18/a-top-down-failure/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570977.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809124724-20220809154724-00475.warc.gz | en | 0.979168 | 253 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Here’s what you can’t do with your aircraft’s tail number. What you can’t do is get all creative to the point where people can’t read it.
‘Cause when you go flat-hatting over San Francisco’s Ferry Building in your aging Piper PA-34-200T Seneca II, you need to have your license plate legible for tout le monde to see. That’s how the system works.
What you can’t do is take away the middle part of the ID numbers leaving all the 0’s, 3’s, 6’s, and 8’s looking alike. That don’t fly.
The turbocharged Piper Seneca II, for the times when your Saratoga can’t get you there fast enough:
Click to expand, not that it will help legibility.
Anyway, people need to know who pilots are for the times they land on the wrong end of the runway ‘n stuff.
D’accord? Oui, d’accord.
Now, Go Forth And Sin No More.
Never an unkind word need be said/
about your life overhead | <urn:uuid:d9e6be4e-bc78-47c1-966a-e8eb4a746e00> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://sfcitizen.com/blog/tag/pa-34/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988718957.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183838-00436-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.797529 | 262 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Port Clements is located 39 km (24 miles) south of Masset
and 62 km (39 miles) north of Skidegate
on the Haida Gwaii-Queen Charlotte Islands. Port Clements is situated
about centre of Graham Island along the east side of a large inlet
called Masset Inlet.
Port Clements started as a centre for the servicing of the logging
camps along Masset Inlet during the early 1900's. Transportation
and supply industries flourished with the expansion of the forest
industry into the Haida Gwaii-Queen Charlottes around Masset Inlet.
Later, after a series of hard economic times, Port Clements started
to prosper as the forest giant MacMillan Bloedel came in after Second
World War. With the rebuilding of world economies there came a high
demand for high-quality Spruce lumber. MacMillan Bloedel operated
a large operation out of Port Clements right up until 1999 when
it changed operation to Weyerhaeuser Canada.
Today the economy still relies on forestry with logging, small mills
and silvaculture industry all present. Eco-Tourism is becoming very
big with Port Clements' proximity to the Yakoun River, the largest
river on Graham Island, plus Naikoon Provincial Park which is located
at Tlell only 20 km (12.5 miles) away.
Places of interest in Port Clements Points include the Port Clements
Museum. Here you can find a beautiful display of artifacts depicting
the early years of Port Clements and the Haida Gwaii-Queen Charlottes
Port Clements will provide you with some of the most beautiful panoramic
ocean scenes around. Make sure you have a camera as the pictures
that you can take, especially from Rainbow Wharf, are incredible.
Stop by the Yakoun River Inn neighbourhood pub for some local people,
good food, waterfront dining and a nice view of Masset Inlet.
Park and Camping Facilities
Located along Bayview Drive, heading towards Juskatla, you will
find Sunset Park. The park has a nice walking trail which includes
a viewing tower for spotting waterfowl along the shoreline. Sunset
Park also has some RV camping facilities here including room for
If you enjoy trying your luck at fishing there are excellent opportunities
both in the salt water and fresh. For river fishing come try either
the Mamin River which flows into Juskatla Inlet near Port Clements
or the Yakoun which flows out of Yakoun Lake near Queen
Charlotte City. Salt water fishing can be found just off Rennell
Sound or out of Masset.
and Coho Salmon
The time for you to come to fish the Mamin River, is for Steelhead
between January to March and for Coho from mid-September to around
mid-October. The Yakoun River has a Coho salmon run from mid-September
through mid-October. The Yakoun River also has rainbow, Dolly Varden,
and cutthroat trout (catch and release) all year round.
To access either Rennell Sound or the Yakoun River you can enter
either from Port Clements or Queen Charlotte City. The roads are
owned by private logging companies so watch for heavy equipment
and please obey any posted safety signs.
Just south-east of Port Clements by 20 km is Tlell and the south-east
tip of Naikoon Provincial Park. Naikoon is a large park on the East
Coast with wilderness camping set along three spectacular beaches
called East, North and South. There is a trail that you follow that
takes you from one end of the beach to the other.
Lake Provincial Park
Located 24 km (15 miles) north from Port Clements towards Masset
is Pure Lake Provincial Park. This is one of the better areas to
go for a swim on Graham Island. There is no campground facility
but Pure Lake has a picnic area with a short walking trail to the
lake for the local swimming hole.
Ferries to Skidegate Landing
To get to Port Clements by vehicle you have to take the BC Ferries
sailing from Prince
Rupert to Skidegate Landing. Once at Skidegate Landing, travel
north on Hwy 16 for 2 km (1.2 miles) to Skidegate, 42 km (26 miles)
to Tlell, then 20 km (12.5 miles) to Port Clements.
There is plane service to Masset Municipal Airport with a daily
flight from Vancouver via Pacific Coastal Airlines. Flights can
also be booked through North Pacific Seaplanes from the Prince Rupert
Seaplane base into Masset Harbour. There are daily flights from
Air Canada Jazz from Vancouver International Airport to Sandspit.
on Port Clements | <urn:uuid:a727d485-af85-4ca8-8d71-8660d2c59424> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://www.ourbc.com/travel_bc/bc_cities/haida_gwaii/port_clements.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571989.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813232744-20220814022744-00466.warc.gz | en | 0.905643 | 1,112 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Linking research to climate action at COP26
To highlight the importance of research in identifying climate solutions, Springer Nature launched Climate Research in Action alongside the climate conference COP26.
Ahead of COP26, President Alok Sharma asked researchers and scientists to enter the public debate on climate change, fill knowledge gaps and help policymakers find climate solutions. Springer Nature rose to the challenge and developed our Climate Research in Action campaign to highlight the importance of multidisciplinary research in finding solutions to climate change.
The campaign included a dedicated microsite with a compilation of important research from across the Nature Portfolio that delegates and policymakers could access freely during the conference. The microsite also featured a timeline of the Ozone Story, on the scientific discovery of a hole in the ozone layer, which was first published in Nature in 1985 and led to the development of the Montreal Protocol in 1987. The campaign received endorsements from international climate action leaders and was accessible via QR code for over 500 passengers travelling to Glasgow via Rail to the COP, an initiative transporting activists and delegates to COP26 by train. | <urn:uuid:4acb95b3-51bf-455d-bbfe-f2fee81404c9> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://sustainablebusiness.springernature.com/2021/environment-managing-our-impacts.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571758.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812200804-20220812230804-00678.warc.gz | en | 0.930013 | 218 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Healthy and naturally glowing skin is the goal for every man and every woman. But beauty of the skin comes from the vitamins in the food we eat. Read which vitamins are recommended for better look of your skin and in what kind of food we can find them.
It is necessary and crucial for maintaining vital tissue of the skin. If you have a lack of Vitamin A, your skin will be dry. Eat adequate intake of this vitamin through food: sweet potatoes, carrots and vegetables. Let them be part of your daily menu. Research shows that in contact with the skin lotions that contain Vitamin A, protects the acne and cause a decrease in wrinkles.
Except in the form of pills, can be found and enter through food: oatmeal, eggs, rice, bananas … B complex consists of vitamins that are necessary for your skin, hair and nails. If you have a deficiency, this can occur hair loss or dermatitis. Creams with B-complex moisturize the skin and make it shine. They also have anti-inflammatory effect and equate tan.
All citrus fruits are packed with vitamin C, and cauliflower, peppers and green vegetables. Vitamin C, besides being a great deal with colds, he is a friend of the skin, in order to create collagen. It helps in reducing wrinkles, improving skin texture and impact protective skin when exposed to sunlight.
This vitamin helps damaged and dry skin. Having for snack almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts and other nuts, eat olives and spinach if you want shiny skin. It will also help to strengthen your hair and restoring its luster. For skin that has burns and scars, it is advisable to rub the place with oil with vitamin E.
Vitamin K is recommended for skin bruised and dark circles around the eyes. Look for creams and lotions that contain this vitamin to prevent wrinkles and loss of skin color. It can be found in vegetables, but it is best when applied topically. | <urn:uuid:75990e88-2f34-415d-975e-235180640f09> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://howtrend.com/5-vitamins-healthier-skin/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279224.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00481-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923075 | 399 | 2.1875 | 2 |
To avoid all confusion: it is not a picture of Suzanne Lenglen on this sheet music cover, but of the French singer Saint-Granier. In 1926 he made a ‘hilarious’ performance imitating Suzanne Lenglen in the Casino de Paris. We don’t know if it was extremely amusing, but his burlesque imitation at least looks kind of funny.
Saint-Granier (Jean de Granier de Cassagnac) was a nobleman from Gascogne who made a career as a journalist, writer, lyricist, singer and actor in Paris.
For a hallucinating experience concentrate on the four dots on Saint-Granier’s nose, count to 40 and then stare at an even area. Slowly, mysteriously and straight from the Roaring Twenties, Saint-Granier will appear before your very eyes! This beats getting drunk.
The charismatic Suzanne Lenglen was named La Divine or the goddess by the French press and was one of the first celebrity athletes. She revolutionised and dominated women’s tennis from the end of the First World War until 1926. She was coached by her Papa and trained by male players on the Côte d’Azur. She played a man’s game, in an aggressive serve-and-volley style and serving overhead. Sometimes, during a tough game, a sip of brandy and a curse would propel Suzanne to victory. It helped her win six Wimbledon singles titles. Moreover during her career she only lost one match.
She was also a flamboyant and graceful player and in spite of her homely face she became a fashion muse. Suzanne Lenglen brought the glamour of the French Riviera to Wimbledon. In 1919 during her first appearance there she made it clear that the jazz age was on its way. Her opponent in the final, the seven-time Wimbledon champion and the title-holder, was dressed in an ankle-lenght skirt, with the shirt fastened at the wrists and neck and a corset underneath. Suzanne Lenglen won (albeit not without a struggle) in a short-sleeved frock reaching to the calves and her hair bobbed.
She would kick her legs high up in the air, not minding at all that one could see her pants or get a glimpse of a bare thigh. Instantly she became the goddess of tennis and an example for all flappers. Her dress code would be copied worldwide on and off the court. She usually made her entrance in a fur or fur-trimmed coat which she even showed off during breaks, regardless of the heat. Underneath she wore flimsy Art-Deco ensembles created by Jean Patou, stockings rolled to the knee held by a cerise garter, and a brightly coloured silk chiffon bandeau on her head.
An excerpt from British Pathé’s ‘How I Play Tennis – By Mlle. Suzanne Lenglen (1925)‘, a 16-minute silent documentary.
Apart from gossipy proposals from dukes, counts, earls and American millionaires, and contrary to tabloid reports of pending engagements with wealthy gentlemen, Suzanne never got married nor engaged. So she wasn’t lucky in love, nor in her later life: she died suddenly when she was only 39 years old.
Suzanne Lenglen was an enthusiastic dancer. She even claimed the fox-trot, the tango and her favourite, the shimmy, were excellent training for tennis. It was maybe this love for dancing together with her graceful acrobatics on the court that inspired Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes. His production Le Train Bleu by Jean Cocteau (scenario) and Darius Milhaud (music) staged a tennis player based on the elegant Mademoiselle Lenglen.
Re-staging of Le Train Bleu by the Paris Opera in 1992. Music by Darius Milhaud. Costumes by Coco Chanel. | <urn:uuid:12cdf5a2-4826-427e-a6c6-2180eeef94d5> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://blog.imagesmusicales.be/category/sports/page/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571198.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810161541-20220810191541-00278.warc.gz | en | 0.966799 | 843 | 1.765625 | 2 |
NASA has released more details in its plan for its Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) including advanced Solar Electric Propulsion. They also announced it has increased the detection of near-Earth asteroids by 65 percent since launching its asteroid initiative three years ago. ARM will test a number of new capabilities needed for future human expeditions to deep space, including to Mars and is expected mid-2020s.
For ARM, a robotic spacecraft will capture a boulder from the surface of a near-Earth asteroid and move it into a stable orbit around the moon for exploration by astronauts, all in support of advancing the nation’s journey to Mars. Before the piece of the asteroid is moved to lunar orbit, NASA will use the opportunity to test planetary defense techniques to help mitigate potential asteroid impact threats in the future. The experience and knowledge acquired through this operation will help NASA develop options to move an asteroid off an Earth-impacting course, if and when that becomes necessary
“The Asteroid Redirect Mission will provide an initial demonstration of several spaceflight capabilities we will need to send astronauts deeper into space, and eventually, to Mars,” said NASA Associate Administrator Robert Lightfoot. “The option to retrieve a boulder from an asteroid will have a direct impact on planning for future human missions to deep space and begin a new era of spaceflight.”
If above video is not working click here
Throughout its mission, the ARM robotic spacecraft will test a number of capabilities needed for future human missions, including advanced Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP), a valuable capability that converts sunlight to electrical power through solar arrays and then uses the resulting power to propel charged atoms to move a spacecraft. This method of propulsion can move massive cargo very efficiently. While slower than conventional chemical rocket propulsion, SEP-powered spacecraft require significantly less propellant and fewer launches to support human exploration missions, which could reduce costs.
I have been watching advanced Solar Electric Propulsion, for some time and cant wait to see it in action, and when you see how many films the world get wiped out by an asteroid or giant ball of space rubbish.
Let me know how you feel on here and in the Facebook group, or on our Facebook page. | <urn:uuid:01c33123-fa5f-4713-ab2b-7f60d03666f0> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://play3r.net/news/nasa-plans-asteroid-redirect-mission/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282935.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00242-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940969 | 449 | 3.15625 | 3 |
I am simultaneously deeply fascinated by and deeply skeptical of strange niche instruments. As fun as a classic Stylophone is, for instance, it's pretty tricky to make decent-sounding music with. Even quirky controllers like Roli Blocks have a hard time finding a foothold in my life. But I still can't resist their allure. So of course when I heard about Orba, the new instrument from Artiphon, I had to check it out.
Artiphon originally made a splash with the Instrument 1, a futuristic-looking MIDI controller that raised well over $1,000,000 on Kickstarter. It took a lot of inspiration from the guitar but incorporated support for MIDI Polyphonic Expression (MPE). While it could seem a little daunting due to its somewhat alien appearance and embrace of (at the time) obscure music tech, it was designed to be approachable. And it largely succeeded. Orba takes that mission of lowering the barriers to music making to extremes.
For one, it's self contained. While you can use it as a MIDI controller with any app or digital audio workstation, it has built-in sounds and a built-in speaker, so you can just pick it up and start jamming. Plus its dedicated modes for playing scales and chords mean you don't need to know theory or have the dexterity of a violin virtuoso to get going. But part of it is also in the design, which is minimal and avoids anything that might scare off the non-musician.
All you have to do is look at Orba to know it's not going to be a traditional music-making experience. It looks like some piece of alien black citrus fruit cut in half. It's half an orb, with eight capacitive touch pads on the top. These are the primary ways you interact with Orba, and they allow you to tap out rhythms, bass lines and leads. But they're not the only ways to interact. There's also a gyroscope and an accelerometer inside that offer gesture control over your music.
Now, the version I saw was still very much in the prototype stage. You'll notice in the photos that the labels aren't printed on the top or sides yet. There is no branding. But even at this stage -- at least three or four months away from release -- it's a pretty solid-feeling device. The shell is made from plastic with glass fiber embedded in it, just like the OP-Z. That gives it a matte texture that's lighter but just as satisfying to hold as a piece of metal.
And I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty surprised by how substantial it felt. After watching the Kickstarter video in which someone uses it to play audible air guitar, I was expecting something cheap and gimmicky. But it is quite thoughtfully designed.
That extends to the rather simple interface. While the model I used was an early prototype, the final version will have clear labels on each of the pads. Holding the center button and pressing those pads will change from percussion to bass to lead or chords. There are even controls on the front for the looper.
Perhaps the most impressive thing about the pads, though, is how they handle velocity. The fact that they're velocity sensitive at all is pretty surprising. I can't think of any other portable instrument that combines velocity sensitivity with capacitive touchpads. And it's incredibly responsive. You can tap out pretty natural-sounding hi-hat patterns and really give your synth leads a sense of dynamics -- especially with certain instruments that respond not only to velocity but also to the amount of contact you're making with the pad for aftertouch.
Even the more seemingly gimmicky ways of interacting with Orba were pretty responsive and intuitive. Shaking it or tilting it to tweak the filter on the synth or add vibrato was pretty natural. (However, you will never catch me strumming the air with it as if it's some sort of oversize guitar pick.) Perhaps most satisfying was using it like a singing bowl by simply running my finger around the outer edge and letting it ring out. In fact, I could easily see myself picking up Orba throughout a particularly stressful day just to soothe myself -- a role currently filled by my Buddha Machine.
According to Mike Butera, the founder and CEO of Artiphon, the physical side of Orba is largely complete. The remaining work is mostly focused on the software, but that's a big part of the equation. Responsive controls and a surprisingly loud speaker are great, but on their own they're not lowering the barrier to music creation. Getting the sounds on board and completing the app are a major next step.
During my demo with Orba, it spent most of its time connected to a computer. The folks at Artiphon have built a new stripped-down synth that can run on the low-power processor inside. But there are still a lot of tweaks being made to the sounds. And the app, which will eventually allow you to load different sound collections, control loop lengths and even choose scales, wasn't ready to be shown off in any capacity yet.
Right now Orba is basically a MIDI controller with a built-in audio interface. But even that is still pretty impressive, especially when paired with the right instruments. At one point Butera fired up a remarkably realistic physically modeled cello. The MPE capabilities of Orba brought the instrument to life in surprising ways. And the fact that the sound was coming out of the palm of my hand was a strange and unexpectedly enjoyable experience. It doesn't hurt that the speaker is pretty decent too. It's not gonna fill an actual performance space, but it's loud enough to make conversation difficult when turned up.
I came to Orba as a bit of a skeptic. I'm not going to say that my hour or so with the device turned me into a believer. But I'm definitely more intrigued than I was before, especially considering its price of $89. That's bordering on impulse-purchase territory and puts it in the same ballpark as the higher end of Teenage Engineering's Pocket Operator lineup.
Orba is probably never going to find itself onstage at MSG being wielded by a pop icon. But as a couch synth or living room instrument, it holds a lot of potential. Because if you have any downtime at all, it's better spent tapping out a rhythm on Orba than it is scrolling through Twitter. | <urn:uuid:66fddae7-7153-4f65-89ce-cbfee863afe8> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.engadget.com/2019-12-19-artiphon-orba-hands-on-kickstarter-musical-instrument-mpe-synth.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571222.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810222056-20220811012056-00675.warc.gz | en | 0.969246 | 1,330 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Hyundai showcased its flying-car concept, developed with Uber Technologies at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas early this year. The company sees pilots from service providers such as Uber initially flying the vehicles, before they become autonomous around 2035.
Over the coming years, the industry and regulators need to tackle questions such as what kind of a pilot license is required and how to eliminate or minimize the probability of accidents. New rules and infrastructure are required to ensure the vehicles do not interfere with plane and helicopter traffic.
Shin said some flying cars may debut as early as 2023, but Hyundai is targeting 2028, when more infrastructure has been built and public awareness is higher. To attract early customers, Hyundai is trying to reduce the vehicles' cost and noise level, while keeping safety as a key focus, he said.
Besides people carriers, Hyundai is working on a variant meant for hauling goods, with a capacity of as much as 300 kilos (660 pounds), Shin said. The company has not decided where to build or first introduce its aerial vehicles.
Airbus SE, Boeing and startups such as Lilium are among the competition.
Vahana, the self-piloting air taxi developed by A3, Airbus's tech-centric Silicon Valley outpost, completed its first test flight in 2018 and Boeing's prototype made its maiden flight in January last year.
XPeng, a Chinese electric-car maker, last month unveiled a prototype that can carry two people and levitate at up to 25 meters.
Hyundai benefits from having a global sales network and units that can provide services and help build out infrastructure for an aerial-vehicle ecosystem, Shin said. The group's businesses include carmaking, auto parts, construction, and logistics.
"Having all these resources available will help open markets for us," Shin said. "We're different from other developers that look at only one aspect of the business."
Automakers also have an edge over planemakers because of their mass-production expertise, Shin said. Typically, Airbus and Boeing each deliver fewer than 1,000 aircraft a year, while automakers can make millions. Production of aerial vehicles is likely to be in the hundreds of thousands, he said.
"We don't want to be the first to the market," Shin said. "We want to be the first with the right product." | <urn:uuid:5ca62125-3068-4a2c-a51f-50e3e3d40cf6> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.autonews.com/cars-concepts/hyundai-confident-flying-cars-steps-plans-full-lineup | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571584.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812045352-20220812075352-00671.warc.gz | en | 0.967789 | 479 | 2.15625 | 2 |
According to a new market research report published by Acute Market Reports, “Global Portable Gas Detection Equipment Market (by Characteristic (Multi-gas Detectors and Single-gas Detectors), by End-use Vertical (Industrial (Oil & Gas, Power Generation, Energy & Mining, Utilities, and Others (Automotive, Marine, etc.)), Residential, Government & Public Safety, and Commercial), by Product Type (Wearable Gas Detectors and Non-wearable Gas Detectors), by Geography (North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World)) – Growth, Future Prospects, and Competitive Landscape, 2018 -2026”, The global market for portable gas detection equipment is expected to expand at CAGR by 5.3 per cent during the forecast period from 2018 to 2026.
Browse the full report at “Portable Gas Detection Equipment Market”
Portable gas detectors are Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) intended to guarantee staff safety from gas risks and to allow portable testing of places, allowing the operator / person to enter an environment beyond the detection perimeter of fixed gas detectors. Most sites globally usually use a combination of mobile and fixed gas detection facilities. However, portable gas detectors remain the preferred variants, particularly at sites where the deployment of fixed gas detection equipment is impractical and cost-effective given the need to detect leakage or presence of gasses in confined spaces. Regulatory compliance and changing legislation, coupled with evolving insurance requirements, drives uptake of portable gas detection equipment across vertical sectors, including oil & gas, energy & mining, power generation, automotive and marine, among others. While the deployment of portable gas detectors was mainly confined to the above-mentioned vertical industry, with technological advances, the demand for portable gas detectors is expected to rise in residential and commercial spaces during the 2018-2026 forecast period. The need for safety from gas risks at the workplace continues the main driver of market growth across distinct end-use sections.
In addition, continuous advances in low-power LED photometric infrared technology to detect hydrocarbon gasses have made gas detection safer and more reliable over the last few years. Progressions in the Lower Explosive Limit infrared sensor technology have caused the implementation of multi-gas detectors that can function for about 2 years without any need for charging. Over the last few years, demand for portable gas detectors, especially those integrated with infrared technology, has witnessed an upsurge due to their superior ability to detect fuel gases, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide and other toxic gases.
Download Free PDF Sample Request: Portable Gas Detection Equipment Market
Some of the leading manufacturers profiled in the study include Honeywell Analytics, RAE Systems Inc, Mine Safety Appliances (MSA) Company, Dragerwerk AG & Co. KGaA, Industrial Scientific Corporation, Sensidyne LP, GE Measurement & Control Solutions, Siemens AG, Detcon Inc., Crowcon Detection Instruments, Ltd., Airtest Technologies Inc., and Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. among others. Focus on developing compact, lightweight, low maintenance, fully configurable and serviceable single and multi-gas detectors is one of the prevalent strategies adopted by manufacturers worldwide.
- Stringent government mandates and legislations to govern market demand
- Growing demand for portable natural gas detectors in residential and ultrasonic gas detectors in industrial applications
Report Scope by Segments
Key segments covered in the report are as follows:
By Characteristic Segment (2016–2026; US$ Bn)
- Multi-gas Detection Equipment
- Single-gas Detection Equipment
By Product Type Segment (2016–2026; US$ Bn)
- Wearable Gas Detectors
- Non-wearable Gas Detectors
By End-use Segment (2016–2026; US$ Bn)
- Oil & Gas
- Power Generation
- Energy & Mining
- Others (Marine, Automotive, etc.)
- Government & Public Safety
By Geography Segment (2016–2026; US$ Bn)
- North America
- Asia Pacific (APAC)
- Middle East & Africa (MEA)
- Latin America | <urn:uuid:c1ddd09e-ade9-4daf-8273-0695c4f9c663> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.mobilecomputingtoday.co.uk/11319/portable-gas-detection-equipment-market-2018-2026-global-industry-size-share-growth-trends-analysis-forecast/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571222.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810222056-20220811012056-00671.warc.gz | en | 0.899563 | 886 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Chinook/Puyallup basket weaver Karen Reed will exhibit baskets, mats and other examples of her art at the Vashon-Maury Island Heritage Museum on Friday, August 22, 1-4pm, and again on Saturday, August 23, 10am-noon and 1-3pm. Her event is the latest in a series on Salish culture, art, archaeology, and history that explore themes of the museum’s current special exhibit, “Vashon Island’s Native People: Navigating Seas of Change.”
Native artists spend as much time respectfully gathering and carefully processing materials as they spend on the process of actually weaving them into baskets and clothing. Karen Reed will display traditional weaving materials such as cattails, sweet grass, bear grass, wild cherry bark, and red cedar bark and roots. She will demonstrate some of the steps involved in preparing cedar bark.
While earning her degree at the University of Washington, Karen received the opportunity to study with her grandmother, Hattie Cross, and Beatrice Black of Taholah. Anna Jefferson taught Karen to gather materials, and many methods of weaving with cedar. The many other teachers with whom she has studied include Bruce Miller, Nettie Jackson, Joey Lavadour, Pat Courtney Gold, Evelyn Vanderhoop, Lisa Telford and Holly Churchill. One of her favorites was Hazel Pete, who “gave from her heart all the knowledge of using different materials and styles to any who would listen,” says Karen.
The Capital Museum in Olympia selected Karen as a master weaver and she has demonstrated basket weaving at many venues, including the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C., Washington State History Museum, The Burke Museum, and Seattle Art Museum. She has also volunteered and taught at Northwest Indian College, the Northwest Native American Basketry Association conferences, the Hazel Pete Basketry Conference, Generations Rising at Evergreen College, the University of Washington, Bruce Miller’s Longhouse at Skykomish, and many other places.
Basketry is an integral part of Karen’s spirit. She believes it is something she was meant to do and that she has a responsibility to pass on the traditions and knowledge of basket making. Through teaching basketry and cultural awareness she works to erase stereotypes of natives and replace them with good feelings and accurate information.
For supporting the exhibit and these programs, the Vashon-Maury Island Heritage Museum thanks the following sponsors: Humanities Washington, 4Culture, Puget Sound Energy, DIG, Beth de Groen/Windermere, Rick’s Diagnostic & Repair Service, The Hardware Store Restaurant, John L. Scott Real Estate, and the Northwest School of Animal Massage. | <urn:uuid:173a7196-82df-46d6-ad6c-ae16ed3416df> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.vashonloop.com/article/traditional-coast-salish-weaving-karen-reed | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282202.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00552-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942485 | 572 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Definition of tittuppy
a. - Given to tittuping; gay; lively; prancing; also, shaky; unsteady. 2
The word "tittuppy" uses 8 letters: I P P T T T U Y.
No direct anagrams for tittuppy found in this word list.
Adding one letter to tittuppy does not form any other word in this word list.Words within tittuppy not shown as it has more than seven letters.
All words formed from tittuppy by changing one letter
Browse words starting with tittuppy by next letter | <urn:uuid:4c03b334-a324-467a-a244-0adb1a998a50> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.morewords.com/word/tittuppy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282140.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00135-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.839113 | 134 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Here is the Way to Protect Your Dry Skin – Healthy skin is something everyone is looking for. We are all concerned about how our skin looks. Whether you are looking to improve dry skin, or simply trying to maintain the existing natural healthy skin, you should be able to achieve a greater understanding of what actually happens with the skin.
Exposure to the sun The stratum corneum is the top of your skin. Makes about 23 layers of flat cells dry skin, this outer layer meets with fat fat, tallow and peptides in the body to form a wall against harmful external agents. For a great future, dry skin, it is best to keep them in perfect condition. Increased exposure to sunlight can destroy and damage. Therefore, put on sunscreen lotions such as sunscreen or a hat, if you are still outdoors. | <urn:uuid:bdd517b2-9fca-4fdc-9901-196e27704d93> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://gerbongmaut.blogspot.com/2011/11/way-to-protect-your-dry-skin.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284411.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00458-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936293 | 166 | 2.34375 | 2 |
Trying youths as adults hurts families and taxpayers, but not crime
If a juvenile court decides today that accused Chardon High School shooter T.J. Lane is competent to stand trial, he could become one of 250,000 youths prosecuted in adult criminal court every year. This practice harms young people, doesn't save taxpayers money, and doesn't reduce crime.
If an Ohio juvenile court decides at a hearing today that he is competent to stand trial, 17-year-old T.J. Lane may become one of 250,000 youths prosecuted in adult criminal court every year.
Mr. Lane is accused of killing three students at Chardon High School and wounding several others in February. This is a tragedy for everyone involved. My deepest sympathies go out to the victims and their families.
The vast majority of youths in adult criminal court, however, are not charged with serious crimes, such as murder or rape. Less than 1 percent of the 2.2 million arrests of youths under 18 every year are for murder charges, and less than 5 percent of cases are for serious, violent crimes, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime report.
Most youth cases that end up in adult court, get there automatically – a result of laws, for instance, that set the age for adult trial at 16 or 17. These youths are not afforded the benefit of any kind of judicial hearing or case review by a juvenile court judge.
This nationwide practice is harmful to young people and can lead to serious, negative, and life-long consequences.
For example, most of these youths live in states where they can be placed in adult jails during pre-trial or in adult prisons if convicted. Inside these facilities, they are the population most at risk for sexual assault, physical abuse, and suicide.
Youths tried in adult criminal courts can also lose access to student financial aid and their right to vote. This makes it more difficult for them to obtain an education, find and hold a job, and participate in the democratic process.
Many public housing authorities deny eligibility for federal housing assistance based on an arrest, regardless of whether it led to a conviction. And most states allow employers to deny jobs to people with adult criminal records, regardless of the age at conviction or how minor the offense.
Prosecuting youths in adult courts does not reduce crime. The inverse is true. Study after study comes to the same conclusion: Trying youth in adult court substantially increases, rather than decreases, the likelihood that a youth will reoffend. These studies have been produced by a diverse group of experts: criminologists, attorneys, and medical professionals.
Handling youths in the juvenile justice system saves taxpayers money in the long run. True, the juvenile justice system, by providing rehabilitative services and other programs, requires higher front-end costs than confining young people in adult institutions. But in the long term, the consequences are far greater, including more crimes and expenses from repeatedly cycling young offenders through the adult criminal justice system.
For example, John Roman, of the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center, found that moving 16- and 17-year-old youths out of the adult criminal justice system into the juvenile one in Connecticut would return about $3 in benefit for every $1 in cost.
Such findings are slowly starting to have an impact. Nearly half the states have begun to re-examine their policies in light of such research, especially about youths who reoffend after going through the adult system.
Over the past five years, nearly 20 states have instituted reforms, mostly reducing the number of kids who are prosecuted in adult court. These reforms have been championed by Republican and Democratic officials alike, and are strongly supported by the public.
The public strongly favors rehabilitation and treatment of youths rather than incarceration, according to the most recent poll by GBA Strategies. And people strongly favor individualized determinations on a case-by-case basis by juvenile court judges rather than automatic prosecution in adult criminal court. Americans also reject the placement of youth in adult jails and prisons.
The US Supreme Court has issued several opinions in recent years that underscore that kids are different than adults, and so should not be treated as adults. States as politically diverse as Illinois, Connecticut, Mississippi, Arizona, and Virginia have initiated reforms. More states must follow.
Liz Ryan is president and CEO of Campaign for Youth Justice. | <urn:uuid:f3f4209f-4355-4019-b552-601cc9c8ada3> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://m.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2012/0502/Trying-youths-as-adults-hurts-families-and-taxpayers-but-not-crime | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280763.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00517-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956353 | 895 | 2.1875 | 2 |
RMB usage in Australia up 248 percent
(31 March 2014 – China) SWIFT’s renminbi (RMB) Tracker revealed that Australia’s RMB payments value increased by 248 percent between February 2013 and February 2014, placing Australia at number six in the world for RMB payments value, excluding China and Hong Kong.
In February 2014, 14.2 percent of payments between Australia and China/Hong Kong were in RMB versus 7.7 percent the previous year and only 1.9 percent in February 2012.
Bill Doran, Head of Oceania for SWIFT, said; "98 percent of these payments in value are institutional, as opposed to payments sent by banks on behalf of their customers, which makes up the remaining 2 percent.
“This is most likely a reflection of the RMB mainly being used for investments and foreign exchange activities, rather than trade settlement.
“Given the strong trade relationship between China and Australia, we expect to see direct customer payments in this country grow as well. There are real benefits for Australian companies to use the RMB,” Doran said.
“Some of these benefits include faster settlement of payment between suppliers and buyers, savings on invoicing costs, reduction of exchange rate risk and reach to more Chinese customers and investors who prefer to trade in their currency."
Doran also pointed out that the recent announcement between the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) and Bank of China (BoC) to establish an RMB Settlement Service in July 2014, meant Australian companies trading with China will be able to pay and receive in RMB for cross-border transactions just as they do with the Australian dollar.
“As a result, we expect to see further growth of RMB usage in Australia.” | <urn:uuid:73f3419f-c88b-4790-9893-0ad076fd7c5b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://east.com.au/publications/banking-news/rmb-usage-in-australia-up-248-percent | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282202.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00552-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970136 | 367 | 1.953125 | 2 |
From the pulpit, I looked out over the standing room only crowd and could feel the electric excitement in Seattle’s St. James Cathedral. It was Sunday night, just before the week of scheduled protests that would rock the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting and the world. We were all gathered for a religious service organized by Jubilee 2000, the grassroots campaign to cancel the debt of the world’s poorest countries. Just before I preached, a text was read from Leviticus 25, which proclaims the biblical jubilee—a periodic economic redistribution in which slaves are set free, land is returned, and debts are forgiven. Jubilee is a call for a regular "leveling" of things, given the human tendency toward over-accumulation by some while others lose ground. The Bible doesn’t propose any blueprint for an economic system, but rather insists that all human economic arrangements be subject to the demands of God’s justice, that great gaps be avoided or rectified, and the poor are not left behind. As I listened to the prophetic scripture being read, I marveled at how it was being used that night—as a relevant contribution to a public discussion on the rules of global trade!
However, the official discussion planned in Seattle was never meant to be public. A quiet and private WTO meeting of a very elite group had been scheduled to determine the rules of the global economy. But the events of the next several days would shout a message heard around the globe—that the talk about how to conduct international trade would no longer be a private conversation. Instead of a small, behind-the-scenes meeting to determine the rules of global trade, a very noisy public debate ensued, asking who makes those rules, who benefits, and who suffers. | <urn:uuid:0be75ecf-4d15-4d5b-877d-4fdf3367d50e> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://sojo.net/magazine/march-april-2000/seattle-changing-rules?quicktabs_web_extras=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988718423.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183838-00270-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966369 | 364 | 1.796875 | 2 |
If bilateral nonpalpable testes, check HCG to see if serum testosterone rises. If it does not, no testicular tissue exists.
New treatment: HCG or leutenizing hormone-releasing hormone as initial treatment, still controversial and more likely to work with bilateral cryptorchidism
Most common treatment: orchidopexy during second year of life with closure of patent processus vaginalis. Place testicle in dartos muscle pouch.
Atrophic testes or found in late puberty – orchiectomy, laparoscopic or open
Prognosis: after orchidopexy, 80-90% of boys with unilateral cryptorchidism are fertile; 50% with bilateral cryptorchidism are fertile
Testosterone and secondary sex characteristics are unaffected | <urn:uuid:c73f14bb-6494-40a3-b6cf-b5b89d70d761> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.hitpages.com/doc/4511906094120960/8/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282202.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00558-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.860387 | 161 | 1.6875 | 2 |
PANAMA CITY – The Panama Canal Authority said Tuesday that it wants to end a standoff over the expansion of the canal by splitting construction costs with an international consortium that has threatened to halt work unless the authority comes up with $1.6 billion in extra funding.
The authority said Tuesday that it would pay $183 million and Grupo Unidos por el Canal would put in $100 million to continue work for at least two more months while a long-term solution is negotiated. The Spanish-led consortium would have to withdraw its threat to halt work on the canal by Jan. 20.
The consortium, which says it has run out of cash to fund construction, said in a statement that the Panama Canal Authority should put in $400 million in order to keep searching for a long-term solution.
The canal’s authority rejected that offer.
“We reiterate our openness and willingness to come up with an amount based on the terms of the contract and considering what was discussed today (Tuesday),” the Panama Canal Authority said in a statement.
The consortium is comprised of Spain’s Sacyr Vallehermoso, Impregilo of Italy, Jan De Nul of Belgium and Constructora Urbana SA of Panama. It says unexpected problems with the quality of material supposed to be used to make cement spawned massive overruns, and blamed the canal authority for carrying out insufficient geological studies before work began.
Tuesday’s meeting was the first between the authority and the consortium. The authority met Monday with Spain’s public works minister, who said the consortium wanted to resolve the dispute within the terms of its contract with the canal administrator.
Neither side said whether they plan to meet again soon.
The claimed cost overrun is roughly half of Grupo Unidos por el Canal’s original $3.2 billion bid to build a third set of locks. Each side has said the other is responsible for the added costs. The canal authority claimed the business consortium was unjustly trying to force it to pay by threatening to halt work.
Panama has estimated the full expansion program will cost $5.2 billion, with the new, wider locks allowing the 50-mile (80-kilometre) canal to handle ships far larger than those that can now navigate the century-old waterway.
Officials have most recently said the work should be finished by June 2015. Officials say the overall expansion work is 72 per cent finished, with the locks themselves at 65 per cent. | <urn:uuid:c2080f8a-8a13-4a4e-8839-25b8b00af3c7> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.canadianbusiness.com/business-news/panama-canal-authority-proposes-negotiated-to-dispute-that-threatened-to-halt-expansion/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284352.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00198-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951314 | 514 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Flammable Storage Cabinet Guidelines
- Do not remove the inner or outer cabinet vent plugs without Environmental Health and
Safety (EHS) approval.
- Do not ventilate or connect the storage cabinet to a vent duct without EHS approval.
- Never cut, modify, or tamper with the construction of the cabinet.
- All cabinets must be UL listed or FM approved.
- Cabinet doors must be fully closed and latched except when accessing the contents.
- Do not store anything on top of the cabinet.
- The cabinet must be connected to a dedicated static ground (not to a receptacle ground)
if liquids are dispensed from inside the cabinet.
- Do not store oxidizers or incompatible chemicals inside the cabinet.
- Do not exceed the stated storage capacity of the cabinet.
- Do not place the cabinet near sources of heat or ignition.
- Do not place the cabinet adjacent to an exit, in a hallway or stairwell, or under | <urn:uuid:aaf01d0a-08e6-448b-9ca8-0108d1cb2370> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.mtu.edu/ehs/documents/flammable-storage/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571950.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813111851-20220813141851-00674.warc.gz | en | 0.82513 | 206 | 1.679688 | 2 |
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