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and after the period at the beach. "The method we used to detect the traceable zinc is highly sensitive," explains McCall. "The first detection of traceable zinc from ZnO particles |
in the sunscreens were found in the blood at the end of the second day at the beach and after a total of 4 sunscreen applications, levels continued to increase |
after sunscreen application ceased," she adds. The expert went on to further reveal that the blood and urine samples from the females with the sunscreen with nanoparticles had slightly higher |
levels of traceable zinc than those of the sunscreen with larger particles. However, Dr. McCall concludes by informing this publication that the total amounts of traceable zinc detected from the |
sunscreens were very small when compared with amounts of natural zinc normally present in the human body. SCCS view on the matter.. The EC's Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety recently |
announced it had reviewed its toxicological evidence and found no evidence that ZnO nanoparticles are absorbed through skin and or via the oral route. And concluded that the use of |
zinc oxide nanoparticles, at a concentration up to 25 percent as a UV-filter in sunscreens, “can be considered not to pose a risk of adverse effects in humans after dermal |
application." However, it did note that this did not apply to other applications that might lead to inhalation exposure to zinc oxide nanoparticles, such as sprayable products. “In view of |
Plotting Pre-emptive Strikes As a teacher of literature I am struck by the dearth of literary, historical or philosophical works that celebrate or even sanction pre-emptive strikes. Most great plots in history are scripted in moral favor of the people who have resisted invading or occupying forces. I recall Leonidas, |
the leader of ten thousand Spartans, who withstood King Xerxes’ hundreds of thousands of invading Persians at the narrow pass at Thermopylae. Or I remember Michelangelo’s statue of young David with his slingshot, waiting easy in his naked silence and ready to hurl a stone from his slingshot at the |
heavily armed giant, the braggart Goliath. Both of those figures, one Greek and the other Judaic, feature fighters central to the tradition of Western civics, who are poised in potential energy, ready to fight, but awaiting the right timing. They are icons of readiness. They await with certainty the exact |
time for action. Hamlet’s dilemma, however, is just the opposite of those two heroes. For Hamlet cannot seem to find the right time to act. He vacillates indecisively, even when faced with fairly clear evidence that his uncle had murdered his father. Yet he later says, at a crucial moment |
in his tragic plot, "If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all." The historian and civil libertarian, Bernard DeVoto, thought the last phrase to be the "greatest |
statement in English." Later, in his most sublime tragedy, Shakespeare has King Lear say poignantly, "Ripeness is all." In Shakespeare’s plays there is something of fatefulness in seeking the mature time in which to act. I recall, furthermore, the statue of the Minute Man, lightly armed like David, ready to |
withstand the first shots of the invading Redcoats at Concord Bridge. Does pre-emptive action, in itself, violate the principle of guarded readiness that symbolizes the Concord statue of American liberty? Do Americans act out of character when we are told by our leaders that we must invade before violence is |
expected to be taken against us? Do unto others before they do unto you? Not just the timing of a violent action is the issue. Not simply action, but right action, seems the stake. When you act, where you act, and above all, whether you act, all seem tied up |
in the justice of a violent action. Why do most pre-emptive strikes violate one’s moral sense? An act of pre-emption interrupts the expected sequence of events by turning the tables. It is like the unfairness of jumping in at the head of long a line of patiently waiting ticket buyers. |
A pre-emptive strike first depends for its legitimacy on quickly passing time, on seizing the day, the same sense of urgency as a news show that pre-empts the normal schedule in favor of breaking news. Pre-emptive strikes and breaking news seem to go together. But the planners’ judgment had better |
be extremely important if it is to violate one’s habitual sense of the normal order of things. We hate to be interrupted, especially if we have been waiting patiently for the outcome of an action. This kind of pre-emption bears on the conduct of life, one’s own as well as |
the conduct of our leaders. Was theirs a right action or was it immoral, or was it something in between? Did they manipulate evidence or did they use the preponderance of data available to them at the time? How were they inclined to act? What should we learn from the |
pre-emptive action taken against Iraq? What are the ethics of pre-emptive strikes? What issues surround the timing, the right time, for taking action? What was the larger end or purpose, both the apparent end and the real reason only gradually revealed? How was the plan for pre-emptive strikes plotted or |
scripted? What were the reasons given for taking action now? What were the descriptions of the sorts of things that might happen if we were not to take action? What outcomes seemed probable, and what seemed necessary? These questions will certainly be debated in coming months and years. As a |
teacher I am convinced that education may be devoted to many disciplines, but above all it should prepare us to act rightly for our futures. Readiness is all. One of the purposes of literature, in theory, is to enlighten a future. Indeed the oldest form of interpretation was divination. One |
hoped to interpret the design of things. Cicero said in his essay on divination, "Thus, in the beginning the world was so made that certain signs come before certain events." Shelley said cryptically in his "Defence of Poetry": " Poets are the heirophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of |
the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present." The European social philosophy called phenomenology lays out a "horizon of expectation" as the basis for hermeneutics, the study of interpretation as intentionality. Interpretation is a projection forward, said Martin Heidegger. As he asserted in Being and Ti... |
of existentialism is the future." Ernst Bloch taught that art and literature latently exhibit what he called an "anticipatory illumination" (Vor-schein, "to shine before"). Karl Popper, the philosopher who featured the social science of unexpected consequences, spoke of a "searchlight" metaphor for the very act of know... |
to conjecture forward, to project a light in a dark direction Some works of literature are specifically designed to warn against what might happen in the near future. For instance, Margaret Atwood’s recent sci-fi novel Oryx and Crake warns against bioengineering and global plagues wrought by mad scientists. In Aristotl... |
"Poetics" there is a remarkable definition of literature as being a kind of hypothetical action that bears on future acts: "the poet’s function is to describe, not the thing that has happened, but the kind of thing that might happen, for example, what is possible as being probable or necessary." |
Perhaps most importantly, Aristotle describes a kind of recognition that forestalls, at the last moment, a violent act about to happen that would lead to tragic consequences. His word for that kind of forestalling action that avoids a violent pitfall is anagnorisis. Pre-emptive strikes assume a certain kind of interpre... |
of facts and events that depends upon a point of view of story telling that lays out future events as a kind of projection forward into a future that is not hypothetical but that is fixed like fate. But good writers script whole sequences of expectations that turn out to |
be surprises. Then as possibilities are modified by actualities, the projections forward are corrected by retractions backward. Take the example of Frankenstein. Like Atwood, Mary Shelley was worried about contemporary experiments in the artificial creation of life, such as those of Galvani and Erasmus Darwin. The mad ... |
has succeeded in creating life, but in fleeing from his monster and by avoiding his own responsibility as creator, he has created a serial killer. Nevertheless, having heard the monster’s moving narrative, Victor agrees to construct a female companion. As he assembles the female being, he frets that the female |
has not been party to their social contract: that the pair of beings will leave Europe and hide out in the wilds of America. He fantasizes that the female and her future progeny might not consider themselves bound to the original agreement. This question of binding future generations by a |
dated social contract is Tom Paine’s main argument in The Rights of Man, that future generations are not bound for eternity by their progenitors’ written laws. So Victor passionately dismembers the female monster. Is his interpretation an anagnorisis that avoids a future threat of violence? Or is it a pre-emptive |
violence that forestalls a peaceful future? Was it an action that had come to maturity, or was it premature? Mary Shelley leaves the issue up in the air. Was the Bush team’s interpretation an act of prudence that forestalled the imminent action of Saddam Hussein’s use of weapons of mass |
destruction? Or was it instead a premature violence that forestalled the gradualism of the United Nations’ deferential restraint? Now the country is in a period of interpreting backward, of second guessing, and taking stock. It is not yet clear whether we are concluding a tragedy, where there will only be |
dead bodies all over the stage of events; or whether we can imagine a reconciling comedy, where all the participants can gather in the end at some kind of reconciling feast. What we do know now and always is that any decision to act is based upon imperfect evidence. To |
choose is to select among alternative possibilities. Were the evidence overwhelming, no choice as such would be necessary or indeed possible. The decision would be self evident. Before the invasion the Bush administration overwhelmed us with evidence of nuclear weapons of mass destruction and the insidious technology o... |
in the semblance of our own anthrax fears. It seemed as if we had no choice but to strike then. The weapons issues were coupled with the overwhelming prognostications of imminent attacks on American people, like those that happened on 9/11. All members of the administration spoke as with one |
voice of warning. Now the retractions and extenuations are taking place, and the moral of the narrative shifts with the latest disclosures. Now the script is changing. Now the argument is that Saddam had killed overwhelming numbers of his own people over the years. Was he not an imminent killer |
preparing to massacre Americans? If not, what right does an American president have to pre-empt the role of the United Nations in handling these kinds of massive but vague perils? Did the Bush administration conflate technological readiness to pull the trigger with moral readiness? David stands ready to hurl his |
stone. The Minuteman leans into action, ready to fire in a minute. But the projection of a moral choice about the future should not be confused with the technical projection of a Minuteman missile. The aircraft carriers that converged in battle groups from around the global oceans, the long-range bombers |
re-positioned on perimeter bases, the missiles programmed, all those silent men and women, were mobilized into an enormous potential energy, all leaning into action. The confluence of energies and forces all seemed so overwhelming as inevitable movements that moral choices between alternatives were lost in the univocal... |
world power, its finger already tightening on the trigger. Did the overwhelming technological readiness make the moral reason seem self evident in the mind of the Bush team? The readiness is all mobilization? In Greek tragedies the voice of the chorus provides running commentary on the plot. The chorus asks |
questions and makes assumptions during the action that are sometimes stupid, sometimes insightful, and sometimes wrong. The chorus admits to being puzzled by the actions of their leaders. Did the univocal voice of the administration script a fiction for our consumption? Was the plot a piece of noble propaganda? If |
the script was a fiction, it was not good literature, nor was it good ethics. For though literature may warn about the possibility of a coming event, it doesn’t preach a single course of action as solution. Literature works by indirections, expectations and surprises, oppositions, and multiple voices. Hence Hamlet’s |
indecision; the choice is agonizing. Right now, I am part of the bewildered voice of the chorus who represents the puzzlement of the audience. But once we decide, then we become the voice of judgment, of eventual sanction or condemnation. At the end of a play the chorus may at |
last choose to express future fears and hopes. For instance, I fear that if this pre-emptive strike into Iraq turns into a tragedy, its moral may be T. S. Eliot’s: The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason. from Murder in the |
In July 2004, the Cranfills Gap Independent School District (Cranfills Gap ISD), located in Hamilton County, Texas, was identified as one of 54 school districts in the state meeting the criteria that initiate an Appraisal Standards Review (ASR) of the county appraisal district that served them. In April 2005, the Compt... |
of the Hamilton County Appraisal District (Hamilton CAD). Appraisal Standards Reviews The 78th Legislature, Regular Session, directed the Comptroller's office to conduct appraisal standards reviews of county appraisal districts if the Comptroller's office finds in its annual Property Value Study (PVS) that the appraisa... |
of the following conditions: - the district's values are invalid in the most recent property value study; - the district's values were valid in the two studies preceding the most recent study; and - the district's local value is above 90 percent of the lower threshold of the margin of error. In Texas, public education ... |
combination of state and local funds. Local funding comes from local property taxes. The chief appraiser of each county appraisal district (CAD) determines local property values, and school districts set tax rates that determine the amount of local tax revenue. Appraisal districts, under most circumstances, are require... |
simple terms, is the price for which a property would sell under normal conditions. State funding is based on the total taxable property value within each school district as determined by the PVS. The PVS independently estimates the taxable property value in each school district to ensure that state values reflect mark... |
have approximately the same number of dollars to spend per student, regardless of the school district's property wealth or lack of property wealth. School districts with less taxable property value per student receive more state dollars for each pupil than districts with more value per student. The state's fair distrib... |
findings. By conducting appraisal standards reviews, the Comptroller's office helps school districts to understand the reason for the invalid finding so they can effectively work with the appraisal district to correct the problems and achieve market values. ASRs identify problems and recommend changes in procedures or ... |
appraisal practices, including appraisal planning, appraisal procedures and methodology, and application and adherence to appraisal standards. The Tax Code and Comptroller rules are the major criteria used to measure the appraisal district's performance. The evaluation of the appraisal district's appraisal methods are ... |
in Texas. The Tax Code dictates certain appraisal procedures or standards such as the Uniform Standards for Professional Appraisal Practices (USPAP), specifically Standard 6: Mass Appraisal and Standard 7: Personal Property. Also the International Association of Assessing Officers Standards (IAAO) Standards on Assessme... |
review are to determine why a school district served by the CAD was deemed eligible and to make recommendations to improve appraisal practices so the school district's values can be determined valid in future studies. The review evaluates five broad functional areas of CAD operations: information processing systems, di... |
methodology includes a self-assessment completed by the CAD, staff interviews, reviews of written policies, procedures, plans, financial and management audits, and assessments of manual and automated records systems. As the result of the review process, the Comptroller's office is issuing this report of its findings th... |
is required by law to comply with the recommendations within one year of the release of this report. If the Comptroller determines that the appraisal district board of directors failed to take remedial action within one year after the issuance of the review, the Comptroller shall notify the district judges serving in t... |
of conservators to implement the recommendations. The board of conservators shall exercise supervision and control over the operations of the appraisal district until the Comptroller determines pursuant to the annual property value study, Section 403.302, Government Code, that in the same year the taxable value of each... |
for the school district. The appraisal district shall bear the costs related to the supervision and control of the district by the board of conservators. While the review team found several commendable practices implemented by dedicated and hardworking district employees, Hamilton CAD is facing a number of challenges i... |
of office operations; - documenting procedures; and - enhancing reappraisal tools and appraisal methods. Key Findings and Recommendations Improve the Management Office Operations Expand the detail of the budget presented to the board of directors for adoption to include the benefits for each position and a detailed lis... |
to comply with Section 6.06 of the Tax Code. The budget does not outline each set of benefits associated with each employee position. With 60 percent of the CAD's budget going to salaries, it's important for taxing units to understand where the money is being spent and ensure the district hires sufficient staff to perf... |
to evaluate the chief appraiser, insert a line for the chief appraiser's signature on the evaluation tool and use the newly developed tool to evaluate the chief appraiser annually. The board has not historically evaluated the chief appraiser in writing. After the onsite visit by the review team, the district developed ... |
evaluate the chief appraiser. The chief appraiser had not been evaluated with this tool. Setting annual expectations and evaluating the chief appraiser allows the board to communicate more effectively with the chief appraiser. The district should develop procedures to support the evaluation of the chief appraiser and b... |
comprehensive written policy and procedures manual for district operations. Hamilton CAD lacks well-documented policies and procedures to guide the day-to-day operations of the district in areas such as payroll processing, accounting, purchasing and related functions. Written procedures help guarantee tasks are perform... |
district operations, the district ensures consistency in performing daily functions and the procedures act as an internal control mechanism. Continually update and review the personnel manual against current employment law. Hamilton CAD's personnel manual is currently being updated and is ready for the board of directo... |
with Disabilities Act and the Family Medical Leave Act, among more recent personnel law changes. An updated personnel manual protects management and staff from arbitrary employment practices and guarantees CAD employees are aware of their rights and responsibilities. Enhance Reappraisal Tools and Appraisal Methods Adop... |
the execution of timely and accurate reappraisals. The CAD's reappraisal plan does not outline staffing requirements, a detailed work plan, a budget or how the district's ratio studies will be used in establishing reappraisals. A detailed plan assures management is aware of the process that the district will use in con... |
provides a roadmap for completing the reappraisals. Develop and implement effective appraisal maintenance programs based on ratio studies to identify and correct market value deviations. The 2003 PVS results indicate that Hamilton CAD's appraisal maintenance programs for at least one of its school districts did not ach... |
market, so adjustments can be made. Cranfills Gap ISD's 2003 PVS eligibility was primarily attributed to under valuing rural residences while other property categories were inconsistently valued, or consistently over- or under-valued. Appraisal districts use ratio studies to plan appraisal maintenance programs. The rat... |
market. Frequent ratio studies and the appraisal maintenance that follows enable an appraisal district to keep its values at or near the market. The review team identified commendable practices in Hamilton CAD that other county appraisal districts may do well to review and implement where appropriate. Hamilton CAD back... |
district has an established process for storing daily backed up appraisal data. In the event of a disaster, the district would be able to get back to work quickly because its records are stored offsite and only a small amount of data would be potentially lost. |
I saw some tutorial pages on the internet about how to read files using C++ But I'm kind of confused because there isn't anything in code indicate where the file is from. So I think I need some explanation. It |
will open file in current (working) folder. If you want to open file which is in another folder you may write full path: ofstream ofs("C:\\some_folder\\some_file"); There is version of the constructor (and open() function) which takes std::string, if you use |
them. What you pass is actually the file path, so you can give a full path, or a relative path. If you just specify the filename that is a relative path. Relative paths are relative to the working directory of |
program. If you start your program by double clicking on the executable file the working directory will be the directory where the executable file is located. If you start your program from the command line the working directory will be |
the directory that you set using the cd command. If you start your program from an IDE the working directory is often set to the project directory (not the source directory) but this can differ between IDEs. |
Use the Activities Putting It All Together All the events prior to and during the American Revolutionary War in central New York are interrelated, and these had profound effects on the people who lived there. In these activities, students will compare their lives in their community to what it would be like to live in c... |
explore what it was like to be at the Battle of Oriskany. Activity 1: Where Do I Stand? Ask each student to select one of the historical people who participated at the Battle of Oriskany and create a report in the character of that person about the experience. The report may be written or oral. Once the student has ide... |
portraying and explained why that character was selected, the student should answer the following questions in character: 1. What do you (the person you are roleplaying) believe in? What do you support? 2. What do you oppose? 3. What are your hopes and dreams? 4. What are you feeling before this battle? Are you angry, ... |
worried or anxious about yourself and your family? Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the outcome of the battle? 5. Place yourself in the battle. Where are you located, in the ravine or on the hilltop? What do you see, hear, smell and feel? Who do you see? What are you doing? What are your feelings? Are you afraid... |
mixture? 6. After the battle, how do you feel? Are you worried or anxious about your family? What do you see in your immediate or long-term future? Has your outlook changed? Have your hopes and ambitions changed? Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future? Activity 2: The Lost Battlefield The Oriskany Battlefie... |
the old Military Road is gone, the virgin woodland forest has been clear cut, and exact placements of everyone on the battlefield can not be reproduced. Except for letter and journal entries, some written shortly after the battle and others collected long after the battle (which sometimes are conflicting) there is litt... |
is also little physical evidence available to help researchers evaluate the reliability of these accounts. Students are going to be asked to recreate the Battle of Oriskany. They should keep a written journal or recorded oral log about the investigative and production phases of the project. After students have complete... |
illustrations depicting military clothing and weapons, and completed additional personal research, ask them to complete one of the following activities: 1. As an historical cartographer, find the ravine and high ground, and then draw a map or series of maps of Oriskany battlefield during the battle's different phases. ... |
Battle of Oriskany. 3. As a re-enactor or documentary film-maker, create costumes, re-enact the battle, and videotape the re-enactment. Edit the tape and add voice-over narration for final presentation. Activity 3: In the Grip of Fear Ask the students to produce a written, pictorial, or video report describing a contro... |
many ways and may be their school, sports teams, parent groups, school board, local government, or state government as well as the nation or world. The students will have to use investigative research techniques and questioning strategies to find the answers through review of local newspapers, committee reports, and pe... |
used in Reading 1. Ask them to identify what the controversy is, and then answer the following questions: 1. Is there only one central issue that is causing the controversy, or are there several issues? 2. What was the history of the community before the controversy? Are there events in the past which affect the issue(... |
both sides of the issue? Why have they taken the stand they have taken? 4. What is the general social make-up of the followers of these leaders? Where are they from? In which part of the community do they live? What is their social, political and economic standing? What are their race, ethnicity, and sex? What types of... |
they stand on the issue and why? After the students have completed this activity, have them ask the same questions about the Mohawk Valley civil war and then compare and contrast the contemporary controversy they have studied with the Mohawk Valley civil war. Alternatively, the students may want to compare the controve... |
Pune has an abundance of water from the Khadakwasla dam but its intra-city distribution is extremely uneven. Some areas get as much as 600 litres per capita per day (lpcd) while others get barely 100. This results in enormous quantities of waste water and sewage and despite having an installed |
capacity to treat 599 million litres a day (MLD) of sewage, its two main rivers, the Mula and Mutha, remain severely polluted. This was one of the main outcomes of the workshop to launch CSE's 7th State of India Environment Report, Excreta Matters, in Pune on 8th June. The meet |
was attended by 90 people, including the state Irrigation Department, representatives from the Pune Municipal Corporation, as well as civil society representatives and concerned citizens. |(near to far) Dr Himanshu Kulkarni, Nitya Jacob, Prof Madhav Gadgill and Naresh Zurmure| The Citizens report, which provides a deta... |
profile of 71 cities across India, including Pune, was released by Professor Madhav Gadgill, himself a citizen of Pune and well known ecologist who has held several positions including being member of the Science Advisory Council to the Prime Minister in the late 1980's. The Mula-Mutha River water in Pune |
had deteriorated in quality. Its biological oxygen demand, an indicator of organic pollution, has risen to over 30 mg/l, more than ten times the permissible limits for bathing. Reason: Pune is a classic case of over consumption; the Municipal Corporation is currently supplying water sufficient for the projected populat... |
the year 2050. More water, means more sewage, beyond the quantum its sewage treatment plants can treat. As a result there is greater pollution loads discharged in to the Mula-Mutha, two rivers that confluence within city limits and serve to flush away Pune's excreta. The Pune Municipal Corporation has a |
waterworks capacity to treat and distribute 1292 MLD. It is however currently supplying 1222 MLD of water at a staggering average supply rate of 321 LPCD, more than double the standards set by the Central Public Health and Environmental Engineering Organisation, a technical wing of the Ministry of Urban Development. |
The actuals, after leakages in the piped network, work out to 866 MLD, or 228 LPCD. There is inequity in water supply in the city; hours of water supply vary from less than 2 hours a day to round the clock water supply in some parts of the city. On |
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