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Is there any meaning or grammatical difference between the following sentences? -Flying is safer than driving. -Flying is safer than to drive.Are both patterns true?
I can see your confusion. In terms of meaning, they both convey the same point. However, I would say that the second sentence is wrong. I say this, because there is a lack of consistency. Because you use "flying," it should be balanced by "driving." If you used "to fly", then you could use "to drive." So, here is the sentence with "to fly."
"To fly is safer than to drive."
In short, be consistent. If you want to use the gerund, then use the gerund. If you want to use the infinitive, use the infinitive.
I don't see a difference in the meaning of the two sentences, but there is a clear grammatical difference.
The first sentence "Flying is safer than driving" uses two gerunds (the "-ing" words in this sentence that are acting like nouns) whereas the second sentence has only one gerund and ends in an infinitive phrase ("to drive").
I much prefer the first sentence over the second because the first has good parallelism and the second does not. See the link below for information on parallel constructions. | <urn:uuid:847840d3-a812-4516-bad8-27209a800e5d> | CC-MAIN-2018-13 | https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/there-any-meaning-grammatical-difference-between-130915 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-13/segments/1521257649095.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20180323220107-20180324000107-00289.warc.gz | en | 0.96605 | 275 | 2.78125 | 3 |
The Rainbow snakehead (Channa bleheri) is a cute little Channa that rarely exceeds 20 cm in length. It is native to the Upper Assam region in India where it plays an integral part in local folklore and religious traditions. The Assam region is also where you will find a rich assortment of other Snakeheads, such as Channa barca, Channa marulius, Channa orientalis, Channa punctata, Channa striatus and Channa stewartii. Channa bleheri is named after famous fish expert Heiko Bleher. Channa bleheri is not considered endangered and it has a minimum population doubling time of less than 15 months.
The Rainbow snakehead has a cigar shaped body decorated with beautiful shades of brilliant orange and vivid blue. The ventral fins sport a bright tiger pattern while the dorsal fins are blue with orange edges. This fish have no problem surviving in oxygen depleted waters since it can use its labyrinth organ to breathe oxygen directly from the air.
Rainbow Snakehead picture.
Picture added by AC tropical Fish. Copyright www.jjphoto.dk
Keeping a Rainbow snakehead
Even though this species stay small compared to many other snakehead species, it should never be crammed into a small aquarium since it needs plenty of space to swim around in. Unlike many other fishes, Channa bleheri actually appreciates a well lit aquarium. The water should be hard and alkaline (alkaline = a pH-value above 7.0). The Rainbow snakehead is normally kept in a species aquarium since it feeds on other fishes, but some aquarists have managed to keep Rainbow snakehead with big Botias, Barbs and Bushfish.
Rainbow snakehead reproduction
In the wild, Channa bleheri has been seen performing a courting behavior similar to that exhibited by many large Gourami species. The eggs are released inside a cave or similar and the male will guard eggs as well as fry.
Channa sp. 'Blue Assam' (Rainbow snakehead 'blue')
Every now and then, fish stores will offer a Snakehead labeled Rainbow snakehead 'blue' for sale. The truth is however that no one knows for sure if this is actually a blue variety of Channa bleheri, a separate species or a blue variety of some other Channa species living in the same region. It is therefore better to refer to it as Channa sp. 'Blue Assam' until it has been properly investigated and classified.
Channa sp. 'Blue Assam' reproduction
A few reports exist of Channa sp. 'Blue Assam' spawning in captivity. Unlike Channa bleheri, the actual spawning has taken place in open water and the cave has only been used during initial courting. | <urn:uuid:2662093d-f469-4c73-8fad-e8b6115c9aa3> | CC-MAIN-2018-47 | http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/predatory/channableheri.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-47/segments/1542039742483.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20181115033911-20181115055911-00170.warc.gz | en | 0.932854 | 574 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Types of Attention
Types of Attention
Attention is your brain function that allocates cognitive processing resources to focus on information or stimuli. It deals with how you mentally process specific information present in your environment that you are experiencing through your five senses.
Your attention span is your ability to keep your mind focused on something through careful observing or listening. It can be just momentarily such as turning around after hearing a loud noise, or it may be for a sustained period of time such as playing a video game.
Attention is often the beginning to other cognitive functions. You first must pay attention to something before you can process it for meaning and understanding.
Types of Attention
There are several types of attention that you use during the course of your daily activities. The type of attention you use will vary depending on your need and circumstances.
- Does the task need your undivided attention?
- Do you need to concentrate on one thing while ignoring other things that may be going on at the same time?
- Do you have to do two activities at the same time?
Depending on your needs and circumstances you may employ one of the following four types of attention.
Sustained attention is the ability to focus on one specific task for a continuous amount of time without being distracted.
Selective attention is the ability to select from many factors or stimuli and to focus on only the one that you want while filtering out other distractions.
Alternating attention is the ability to switch your focus back and forth between tasks that require different cognitive demands.
Divided attention is the ability to process two or more responses or react to two or more different demands simultaneously. Divided attention is often referred to as multi-tasking.
Categorizing Types of Attention
The first two types (sustained and selective) are needed when you have to focus on one thing at a time.
Sustained attention is used when you need to focus on one specific task or activity for a long period of time (playing a video game).
Selective attention is used to focus on one activity in the midst of many activities (listening to a friend at a loud party).
The other two types of attention (alternating and divided) are needed when a person has to focus on multiple things at once.
Alternating attention is used to alternate back and forth between tasks or activities (reading a recipe and preparing a meal).
Divided attention is used to complete two or more tasks simultaneously (talking on the phone while surfing the web)
Types of Attention Explained
Sustained attention is the ability to focus on one specific task for a continuous amount of time without being distracted. Sustained attention is probably what you think of when you hear the words “attention”, “focus”, “concentration”, or “vigilance.” You use sustained attention when you continuously maintain focus on one task or concentrate on an activity for a prolonged period of time without getting distracted. Examples of sustained attention may include listening to lecture, reading a book, playing a video, or fixing a car.
It can be challenging to maintain this type of attention for a significant amount of time without becoming distracted. Therefore, your level of sustained attention will often vary. You may be intensely focused one minute and then your attention may begin to lapse. However, a key aspect of sustained attention is the ability to re-focus on the task after a distraction arises.
Selective attention is the ability to select from the various factors or stimuli that are present and to focus on only the one that you want. Every day, you are constantly exposed to a number of environmental factors or stimuli, but your brain naturally responds by selecting a particular aspect or factor to focus on. Selective attention basically allows you to be able to “select” what you want to pay attention to. You may need to use selective attention when attending a loud party and you are focusing on one person’s voice, or if you are trying to study in a noisy room.
When employing selective attention you are able to avoid distractions from both external (e.g. noise) and internal (e.g. thoughts) influences. If you are good at selective attention, you are good at ignoring distractions. You are able to maintain a specified level of performance in the presence of distracting stimuli.
Alternating attention is the ability of mental flexibility that allows you to shift your focus of attention and move between tasks having different cognitive requirements. It is alternating your attention back and forth between two different tasks that require the use of different areas your brain.
You probably use alternating attention almost all the time. You constantly need to make sudden changes on your activities or actions which requires your attention to shift. You may use alternating attention when reading a recipe (learning) and then performing the tasks of recipe (doing). It could also be alternating between unrelated tasks such as cooking while helping your child with her homework.
Divided attention is the ability to process two or more responses or react to two or more different demands simultaneously. It is often referred to as multi-tasking. Basically, dividing your attention between two or more tasks.
Examples of divided attention include checking email while listening in a meeting, talking with friends while making dinner, or talking on the phone while getting dressed.
Unlike alternating attention, when you are using divided attention, you do not change from one task to another completely different task. Instead, you attempt to perform them at the same time. So you are really splitting your attention, instead of alternating it. Therefore, you are only really focusing part of attention on each task.
Although divided attention is thought of as the ability to focus on two or more stimuli or activities at the same time, it is humanly impossible to concentrate on two different tasks simultaneously. Your brain can only process one task at a time. So you are really not “focused” on one task at a time, you are really continuously alternating your attention between tasks. That is why it is so difficult and dangerous to text and drive or talk and drive.
You are able to use divided attention successfully because of muscle memory and/or habit. It allows you to perform two or more tasks seemingly simultaneously such as reading music and playing an instrument, talking to a person while typing, or driving your car while listening to the radio. However, you are really not focusing on hand positions when playing the instrument or concentrating on the individual acts of driving. You are able to do the task without conscious effort or actually paying attention.
Types of memory | <urn:uuid:46c2780c-57b7-4150-92b1-328bbbb9a586> | CC-MAIN-2019-43 | http://thepeakperformancecenter.com/educational-learning/learning/process/obtaining/types-of-attention/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-43/segments/1570986677230.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20191017222820-20191018010320-00113.warc.gz | en | 0.955066 | 1,343 | 3.703125 | 4 |
Ik heb de witte water-lelie lief,
daar die zo blank is en zo stil haar kroon
uitplooit in 't licht.
Rijzend uit donker-koele vijvergrond,
heeft zij het licht gevonden en ontsloot
toen blij het gouden hart.
Nu rust zij peinzend op het watervlak
en wenst niet meer...
Listen to this poem in Dutch.
Voiced by: Lex van Itterson
This poem in 60 seconds
Frederik van Eeden was fascinated by water lilies. The flowers frequently occur in his poetry, adorn the covers of his works and Van Eeden even named his house after one. The reason why the water lily was so dear to him was because he recognized perfection, peace, and purity in the flower. It was the water lily that taught Van Eeden how to achieve this, which was not by restlessly undertaking new activities like he often did. Imperturbable, the stalk of the water lily arises from the mud. For Van Eeden, this was of symbolic significance: peace and purity are achieved from within, through reflection and meditation.
Want to know more? On this website you can listen to the poem, discover its author and find out what the poem means to the people of Leiden.
Frederik van Eeden
Haarlem 1860 - Bussum 1932
Psychiatrist, poet, writer and good Samaritan: Frederik van Eeden was it all. Since the late nineteenth century, Van Eeden was part of the intellectual elite in the Netherlands. He often found his inspiration abroad. In France, he became familiar with psychotherapy and in England, he learned about socialism. His love for nature, art and science is rooted in his youth.
While he studied medicine, Van Eeden had already become a known writer. He was editor of several leading journals in which he published essays, fiction and poetry. These works were often published as a novel or poetry collection later on. When he started working as a psychiatrist, he kept on writing and publishing his works.
As a student, Frederik van Eeden became a part of de Tachtigers: a group of young writers in the nineteenth century who opposed literature and poetry of previous generations. Eventually, he went in a direction of his own. He founded the self-sustaining community Walden, which was inspired by Henry Thoreau’s eponymous novel, and became fascinated by spirituality and religion. Even contemporaries perceived Van Eeden as eccentric and unworldly.
Click here to watch moving image of Van Eeden, two years before his death in 1932
What is this poem about?
In De waterlelie (The water-lily), Frederik van Eeden describes his quest for perfection. In the writing process, he probably thought about the perfect, flawless relationship with women. However, there are critics who posit that the water lily symbolizes the soul and that the poem is about personal development. The lesson within the poem at least is clear: perfection comes about by ridding itself of the mud, in other words, desires, passions and urges. This is an internal struggle.
It is telling that this poem eventually was printed in the poetry collection Van de passieloze lelie ('Of the passion-less lily', 1901). According to Van Eeden, perfection was ‘without passion’, controlled. He was inspired by Eastern philosophies such as Buddhism, which states that all suffering originates from desire and that one can transcend through self-knowledge.
In 1886, after his graduation, Frederik van Eeden married Martha van Vloten and settled as a psychiatrist in Bussem. Around this time he repeatedly wrote about water lilies, which caused this to be dubbed as his “water lily-period”. It is likely that he wrote this poem following his review of the novel Een liefde ('A love') by Lodewijk van Deyssel was written. According to Van Eeden, Van Deyssel was too crude about sex. Love, reasoned Van Eeden was not about ‘low’ urges such as sex and passion, but the ‘higher’ ones. He explained this by drawing a comparison between this and the water lily:
‘You know the large white water-lily, do you not? If I lay at the bank and look at them - then I know that they have risen from the cool dark of the pond, searching for light. Now if someone goes to these flowers in order to own them - and he grasps them at the stalks in the water, and he pulls them towards himself, it causes them to break with a soft snap - and a long, brown stalk will appear, slack, wet and numb, - then it strikes me as if I saw a sweet, pure woman pull a long intestine from her fair body.’
Fact or fiction
An early version of this poem can be found in the margin of the play Winfried which Van Eeden was working on in 1887. In the plot, a benefactor helps a prostitute as she ‘rises from the mud’ and becomes respectable again. Van Eeden based the tale on his own experience, as he had helped a prostitute get her life back on track in Paris. The poem originates from a period in which Frederik van Eeden wondered about his relation to women and sex.
Share your story
Does this poem hold a special place in your heart? For example, do you remember when you first read the poem? Or did you come across it someplace unexpected? Let us know at firstname.lastname@example.org! We would love to add your story to our website.
Frederik van Eeden in Leiden
Photo: Anoesjka Minnaard
De waterlelie (The water-lily) can be found on Valkenhorst since 1994. This wall poem was the first to be painted on top of an illustration. “We’ve added a lily since the wall was immense and the poem only contains a few lines”, said Jan Willem Bruins, who had painted the poem on the wall. Unfortunately, a word is missing in the second line. Between the words; “blank” and “en”, the word “is” is missing. This has not yet been fixed because the flat upon which the poem is painted is rather tall. In 2000, this poem became the source of inspiration for four other poems in this area (the Slaaghwijk).
In 1951, a Leiden street was named after him: Frederik van Eedenstraat. Around that period, national appreciation grew for Van Eeden and several streets in the Netherlands were named after him.
Frederik van Eeden and the Tachtigers
During his student days, Frederik van Eeden was part of the Tachtigers ('those of the Eighties'), a group of young writers and poets. The group opposed previous generations, who believed that art had to contribute to society. For example, literature was supposed to encourage the solidarity or inspire to living a virtuous life. The Tachtigers pleaded for “art for art’s sake”; art did not have to be useful.
Frederik van Eeden was editor of De Nieuwe Gids ('The New Guide'), the magazine of the Tachtigers but after his studies, he chose to go in a different direction. His former kindred spirits maintained that art was something personal. Willem Kloos, who was also part of the Tachtigers, pleaded once that literature was “the most individual expression of the most individual emotion.” Van Eeden actually continuously searched for that which connected people. At a later age, he joined the Catholic Church.
Frederik van Eeden’s De waterlelie is a song of praise about a great, ecstatic, nearly unworldly perfection.
- Inspired by Socialism, Van Eeden founded the socialist agricultural colony Walden in 1898. With the help of his mother, who donated money and later granted him several loans, the community was established in Bussem. He named the house in which he lived The Lily. Inhabitants of Walden were intellectuals, farmers, and psychiatric patients of Van Eeden. In 1907, nine years after Walden was founded, the colony went bankrupt because of corporate mismanagement and embezzlement by the inhabitants.
- Did Van Eeden come up with this poem himself? In 1887, the period when Van Eeden wrote De waterlelie (The water-lily), he was the editor-in-chief of De Nieuwe Gids ('The New Guide'). In this magazine, the eponymous poem by Elize Knuttel-Fabius was discussed in a crushing manner. There are notable similarities between the poems; as you can read for yourself;
Lonely on her slender stem
A pure white lily is dreaming
In a motionless pond
At her feet the green covered,
Murky, overgrown mash.
Sometimes, the somber silence
Of the nightly hours is broken,
The rustling of a fallen leaf,
Is heard from the darkened banks
Shuffling lizard and toad.
But the white water-lily
Sways musingly on her stalk,
Glancing at the sky’s beau,
In her calyx, pristinely pure,
The moon casts her silver glow.
Translation: Demi van de Wetering
I love the white, white water-lily,
it is so pale, its crown unfolds
so quietly in the light.
Rising from the cool dark of the pond,
it has found the light and opened up
its golden heart with joy.
Now, lost in thought, it rests on the surface,
its longing gone...
Translation: James Broadway
Ich hab die weiße Wasserlilie lieb
weil sie so weiß ist und so still die Krone
faltet aus im Licht.
Steigend hinauf aus dunkel-kühlem Grund
hat sie das Licht gefunden und öffnete
erfreut das goldne Herz.
Nun ruht sie sinnend auf der Wasserfläche
und wünscht nichts mehr...
Vertaling: Jakob Hoepelman
This entry was written by Het Taalmuseum. The translation into English is by Demi van de Wetering. The following sources were consulted:
- Biography of Van Eeden at socialhistory.org
- Jan Fontijn, 'Biografie en psychoanalyse: op zoek naar het karakter van Frederik van Eeden’, at ntvg.nl.
- Claes, Paul, ‘De waterlelie van Frederik van Eeden; een intertextuele lezing’, Spektator 1987, via DBNL.nl.
- Biography of Frederik van Eeden at Literatuurmuseum.nl
- Endt, O., Het festijn van tachtig (1990), via DBNL.nl | <urn:uuid:9239ea9e-b9ca-4da7-9f54-20308e1c53ce> | CC-MAIN-2020-34 | https://muurgedichten.nl/en/muurgedicht/de-waterlelie-1887 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-34/segments/1596439737178.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20200807113613-20200807143613-00242.warc.gz | en | 0.938218 | 2,412 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Pearson Test of English
The language levels used in the PTE are aligned with the Common European Framework.
An international computer-based academic English language test that measures test takers' language ability for universities, higher education institutions, government departments and other organizations requiring academic-level English. The test measures the Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing ability of test takers who are non-native speakers of English and who want to study at institutions where English is the main language of instruction.
Consist of two parts: a written paper and an oral test. The written paper tests listening, reading comprehension and writing skills and is marked by external examiners in the UK. The oral test is assessed by trained local examiners and is sent to the UK for moderation.
PTE Young Learners
Designed to be interesting and fun for children and to make a child’s first experience of learning English, memorable and motivating. Children are tested on their ability to use structures and functions in realistic contexts; and on their ability to use language to carry out specific communicative tasks.
More information may be found at Pearson Test of English. | <urn:uuid:9c4b93b2-65eb-4971-83f4-cdcb50a5aa63> | CC-MAIN-2015-11 | https://www.englishclub.com/esl-exams/pearson-test-english.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-11/segments/1424936463608.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20150226074103-00117-ip-10-28-5-156.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935157 | 231 | 3.28125 | 3 |
Temporal range: Early Cretaceous,
|Holotype of Yixianornis grabaui, Paleozoological Museum of China|
Songlingornithidae is a family of basal euornitheans from the Early Cretaceous of China. All known specimens come from the Jiufotang Formation and the Yixian Formation, dating to the early Barremian and Aptian ages, 125–120 million years ago.
The family Songlingornithidae was first named by Hou in 1997 to contain the type genus, Songlingornis. Clarke et al. (2006) was the first to find a close relationship between Songlingornis and the "yanornithids".
The name was originally coined to reflect a close relationship between the two supposedly similar (but poorly preserved) genera Songlingornis and Chaoyangia. However, subsequent studies found that Chaoyangia was probably not closely related to Songlingornis. Instead, Songlingornis was found to be closely related to another group which had been given the name Yanornithidae—the name Songlingornithidae, having been named first, took precedence. Some later studies have also placed the hongshanornithids in this group. At least one study has found the Late Cretaceous Mongolian avialan Hollanda to be a member of the group as well.
A 2020 study by Wang et al. failed to recover a monophyletic Songlingornithidae, instead finding Yanornis to form a clade with the newly described genera Abitusavis and Similiyanornis, for which the name Yanornithidae was used:
- Hou, (1997). Mesozoic Birds of China. Taiwan Provincial Feng Huang Ku Bird Park. Taiwan: Nan Tou. 228 pp.
- Clarke, Zhou and Zhang, (2006). "Insight into the evolution of avian flight from a new clade of Early Cretaceous ornithurines from China and the morphology of Yixianornis grabaui." Journal of Anatomy, 208: 287-308.
- O'Connor, J.K. and Zhou Z. (2012). "A redescription of Chaoyangia beishanensis (Aves) and a comprehensive phylogeny of Mesozoic birds." Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, (advance online publication). doi:10.1080/14772019.2012.690455
- Zhou, S.; Zhou, Z.; O'Connor, J. (2013). "A new piscivorous ornithuromorph from the Jehol Biota". Historical Biology: 1. doi:10.1080/08912963.2013.819504.
- O’Connor, J. K.; Zhang, Y.; Chiappe, L. M.; Meng, Q.; Quanguo, L.; Di, L. (2013). "A new enantiornithine from the Yixian Formation with the first recognized avian enamel specialization". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 33: 1. doi:10.1080/02724634.2012.719176.
- Mayr, G. (2017). "Pectoral girdle morphology of Mesozoic birds and the evolution of the avian supracoracoideus muscle". Journal of Ornithology. 158 (3): 859–867. doi:10.1007/s10336-017-1451-x.
- Wang, M.; Li, Z.; Liu, Q.; Zhou, Z. (2020). "Two new Early Cretaceous ornithuromorph birds provide insights into the taxonomy and divergence of Yanornithidae (Aves: Ornithothoraces)". Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. 18 (21): 1805–1827. doi:10.1080/14772019.2020.1836050. | <urn:uuid:34465a37-6914-4fa4-b551-0da6e27aa2e3> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://wiki.privacytools.io/wiki/Yanornithidae?lang=en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233509023.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20230925151539-20230925181539-00173.warc.gz | en | 0.731838 | 1,030 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Measuring the Earth
Who was the first person to measure the size of the Earth?
For more than 2000 years men have known that the world is a great ball, but, although Eratosthenes measured its size about 200 B.C. , some people still thought it was flat, and in Europe Galileo (1564-1642 was abused and persecuted for saying that the world went round the sun, rather than that the sun revolved round it. We must remember the importance of not for getting the truths discovered by those who lived before us, perhaps many, many years ago. Are you today as clever as Eratosthenes was more than 2000 years ago? Before I describe how he measured the earth, I want you to understand the geometry he used for his calculations. If you already do understand what follows you must forgive me, but first glance at the next four paragraphs to make sure. Eratosthenes knew that two parallel lines were always the same distance apart, and that the corresponding angles they made with any other line through them would always be equal. In Fig. 1 AB and CD are parallel and the corresponding angles marked C 1 and C 2 are equal. If two lines are parallel the corresponding angles made by another line crossing them are always equal.
About latitude and longitude here
How is the circumference of the Earth measured?
Eratosthenes also knew that any straight line from the center of a circle comes out through the circumferencer at right angles to the tangent at the point where it comes out. A right angle, I am sure you know, is 90 degrees. Any straight line from the center of a circle to its circumference is called a radius? and Eratosthenes also knew that a radius produced would point to the zenith of the place where it cut the circumference. If you are standing upright on a level piece of the earth, your legs point to the center of the about moon
earth and your body from feet to head points to the zenith of the place where you are standing. You have almost certainly heard that there are 360⁰ degrees (the symbol for degree is) in a circle. Have you ever wondered why 360 and not some more easy number like 100? The reason has to do with the time it takes the earth to revolve round the sun, roughly 3651 days, and long ago men thought the earth revolved 1 ° each day. So now we use of the word ‘degree’ as a measure of the circumference of a circle or of the angle where two straight lines meet. The angle at O between AO and CO in Fig. 2 is 90 ° (what is called a right angle) or a quarter of the circle.
Now we can describe how Eratos thenes measured the earth. He lived in Egypt and he noticed that the sun was in the zenith at Aswan at noon on a certain day. On the same date at the same time he measured the angle bet ween the sun’s rays and the zenith (called the zenith distance of the sun) at Alexandria . He thus got a figure like this
You may ask why the lines pointing to the sun from Aswan and Alexandria look parallel. They should, of course, meet at the sun, but the sun is so far off that by the time its rays reach the earth they are so nearly parallel that we may take them to be so. If you look at Fig. 4, you can see that in position S, the sun’s rays are nowhere nearly parallel, but in position N they are more nearly so. Now the sun is so far off that we cannot draw a figure on a sheet of paper that would show the earth and its relative size and distance from the sun, but you can imagine that as N gets further and further away the sun’s rays would become more and more nearly parallel. You may also ask how Erastosthenes measured the zenith distance of the sun at Alexandria. If the sun is visible you can measure its zenith distance
like this. Put a pole upright on a level bit of ground and mark where the end of its shadow falls at noon . The angle marked a ° is
the zenith distance of the sun. . How do you measure this angle and how do you know it gives the zenith distance of the sun? This involves a bit more geometry and if you know it already only glance through the next two paragraphs. You would have to make a drawing of the pole and shadow to scale, that is, if the pole is one meter high above the ground, draw a line to represent it 10 cm. long. Then at right angles draw another line to the same scale (that is
divide its actual length by 10), then measure Za (the sign for angle is 2) with a protractor, the instrument used for measuring angles. Za is the same as the zenith distance of the sun because it is vertically opposite to it and verti cally opposite angles are equal. If you know how to prove this, leave out the next paragraph.
In Fig. 6 OP is the pole pointing to the zenith, OS is the shadow and SP points to the sun. Ze between the zenith and the sun’s rays is the zenith distance of the sun. Now Lc plus ZP make a straight line, or 180 degrees and ZP plus La make another straight
line. We get therefore what is called an equation: Lc + ZP = LP + LC Take LP from both sides of the equation and the remainders Lc and La are equal. These are known as vertically opposite angles. This chapter is getting rather long. So let us get back to Eratosthenes, and look again at Fig. 3. He had measured the zenith distance of the sun at Alexandria (aº). He knew that the smaller angle shown at the earth’s center corresponded to the zenith dis tance at Alexandria because the sun’s rays were parallel, therefore, it equalized aº. He also measured the distance from
Aswan to Alexandria; let us call it x kilometers and do a little Algebra. ‘If aº equals x kilometers then 1 ° equals xſa kilometers 360x:. 360 ° equal kilometers a We have turned a into 1 by dividing it by a and so must do the same to x to keep the equations true. According to Eratosthenes’ measu rements and calculation the world was about 40,000 kilometers round, and he was not far out. | <urn:uuid:553ec221-fa3e-4b99-880b-9deda95c5b12> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://trendyever7.com/measuring-the-earth/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233511717.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20231005012006-20231005042006-00502.warc.gz | en | 0.960999 | 1,374 | 3.953125 | 4 |
More than 10% of the UK’s population suffer from headaches. They are the most frequent reason people seek medical advice. Most migraine sufferers have their first attack in their early 20’s and three times as many women as men suffer from migraines.
How many types of headaches are there?
There are over 20 varieties of headaches, but the most severe are migraines and cluster headaches.
What causes these headaches?
The most common cause of migraine is a change to the blood vessels in the head, but it is still not known exactly why this occurs. Acute migraine attacks could be triggered by the same bacteria that are linked with stomach and duodenal ulcers. Migraines could result from the immune response to the infection.
The cause of cluster headaches is still unknown, but it is understood that the problem is due to the blood flow in the body.
What are the symptoms?
Migraines come on at intervals, with no pain in between attacks. The headache may last for hours or days and may start with symptoms such as visual, hearing and smell disturbances, known as a predroma. It may also start with or continue on to throbbing pain on one side of the head. Nausea and vomiting may also be present.
Cluster headaches usually affect men over 40, occurring suddenly several times in one day but do not last very long. Alcohol and tobacco can bring them on.
Chiropractic is not, like aspirin, a temporary headache treatment. If headaches persist, the Chiropractor will find where the source of the pain is and reduce the recurrence.
Painless Chiropractic manipulation of the neck, muscle strengthening and stretching exercises are performed and self-help advice is given to sufferers. Patients who commence treatment with a Chiropractor and obtain positive results may need to continue with Chiropractic care until underlying mechanical problems are corrected, understanding that some long-standing problems will take longer.
Relaxation could be more effective that pills for “tension” headaches. Sufferers may consider having lessons in relaxation techniques.
Drugs are only effective in reducing the pain of attacks and rarely reduce their frequency.
Some people find dietary changes help with headaches, this may be effective especially if it is combined with treatment to the neck, which can be the cause of headaches.
Substances to try and avoid
Behaviours to try and avoid
- Make sure that you do not sleep on your front as this causes your neck and spine to twist.
- If you tend to wake up on your front, place a pillow on either side of you before sleeping to help you avoid turning onto your front.
- Cut out the ‘trigger’ foods, in the table above, one at a time until you find which ones are aggravating the problem.
- Relax in a quiet environment.
In the event of an attack:
- lie down and try to sleep
- drink lots of water (2-3 glasses should suffice)
- put your feet in cold water or something cold
Call us now on 020 8442 0008 and ask about our Limited Time, Half Price offer. | <urn:uuid:60eaba04-ee05-4759-bfdf-42ef754a6402> | CC-MAIN-2018-17 | http://chiropractornorthlondon.co.uk/migraines | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-17/segments/1524125945793.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20180423050940-20180423070940-00450.warc.gz | en | 0.948603 | 659 | 2.796875 | 3 |
A 2017 comprehensive study of salmon, steelhead and trout in California showed that half of the steelhead and salmon populations native to the Klamath River are in danger of extinction within the next 50 years. Removing the four aging hydroelectric dams from the river would significantly improve ecological and geomorphic conditions throughout the Klamath watershed and play a key role in returning these fish to stable population levels.
Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to veto a bill passed by California lawmakers that would have allowed the state to impose strict endangered species protections and water pumping restrictions for the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
Newsom’s intentions, confirmed by his spokesman on Saturday, comes less than 24 hours after state lawmakers passed the sweeping legislation. | <urn:uuid:41180996-9f2c-4b62-a08c-a71a2c5c8b64> | CC-MAIN-2020-40 | https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/2019/09/14/?arcf=cat:15+14 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-40/segments/1600402131986.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20201001174918-20201001204918-00094.warc.gz | en | 0.939047 | 149 | 3 | 3 |
Water of sufficient quality and quantity are among the essential elements for sustaining production of Alaska's valuable fish and wildlife resources in rivers, lakes, estuaries, and wetlands. The department’s Statewide Aquatic Resources Unit (SARCU) provides scientific expertise, core personnel, data collection and analyses to make recommendations for sustaining fish and wildlife production sustaining fish and wildlife production, including waterway access, consistent with state, federal, and local law.
Most hydroelectric projects in Alaska are licensed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). FERC licenses determine how to allocate river flows between energy generation and other beneficial uses recognized by the Federal Power Act as well as other applicable laws. SARCU participates in the entire FERC licensing process, coordinating and providing comments and technical expertise to FERC and the project applicant. SARCU also plays an important role in assisting the applicant in the design of study plans for collecting data on fish, wildlife, and water resources in the project area. The department is also involved in permitting hydroelectric projects.
Alaska Clean Water Actions (ACWA)
The Alaska Clean Water Actions Program (ACWA) brings Alaska’s resource agencies together to characterize Alaska's waters in a holistic manner; sharing data, expertise and other information. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game collaborates with the Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Environmental Conservation to maintain the ACWA's database of priority waters and identified stewardship actions. The three state resource agencies also conduct an annual joint matched-solicitation for water quality projects that will restore, protect, or conserve water quality, water quantity, and aquatic habitat on identified waters. | <urn:uuid:67ec22b2-e83d-4999-a88f-4c3975c9f18f> | CC-MAIN-2017-43 | http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=habitatoversight.watersprograms | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-43/segments/1508187824543.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20171021024136-20171021044136-00169.warc.gz | en | 0.911512 | 335 | 2.828125 | 3 |
OSCE examinations are used worldwide as a critical part of medical student assessment, yet there is often little preparation for them provided by medical schools. The Unofficial Guide to Passing OSCEs is intended to fill this gap. It includes over 100 scenarios, covering medical history taking, clinical examination, practical skills, communication skills, plus specialties, meaning that everything is covered in one place. To bring the cases to life, over 300 full color clinical photos are included, including patients with features of important diseases. It also includes clear outlines of how to relay the assessment of a patient to an examiner or to other doctors on a ward round, and model answers to common questions put to students/junior doctors in OSCEs. This book has relevance beyond examinations, for post graduate further education and as a day-to-day reference for professionals.
Follows on from the huge success of The Unofficial Guide to Passing OSCEs. It contains step-by-step illustrated guides to over 50 core practical skills, with over 200 high quality images of the actual procedures being performed. Accompanying mark schemes, and typical exam questions are included to simulate real life assessment.
This book teaches systematic X Ray analysis, starting with X Rays and multiple choice questions, forcing students to think as they would in real life clinical scenarios. Large high quality images are used, both annotated and non annotated versions to reinforce learning. Based on the Royal College of Radiologist core undergraduate curriculum. | <urn:uuid:e086a743-64e7-4ecd-a571-7a008b6992e8> | CC-MAIN-2019-13 | http://artdary.net/pdf/the-unofficial-guide-to-passing-osces-unofficial-guides-to-medicine/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-13/segments/1552912205163.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20190326115319-20190326141319-00519.warc.gz | en | 0.949651 | 298 | 2.578125 | 3 |
EDITORIAL NOTE: This blog post was originally published on the Huffington Post.
One-hundred sixty-five years ago this week on July 19-20 1848, 300 women and men met in Seneca Falls, New York, to discuss "the social, civil and religious condition and rights of Woman." The gathering, called the Seneca Falls Convention, produced one of the nation's most important historical documents advocating women's rights - the monumental "Declaration of Sentiments" - planting the seed for the fight for women's suffrage in America, and indirectly for the formation of the League of Women Voters, which would later champion the issue.
Written primarily by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the Declaration of Sentiments parodies the Declaration of Independence, which Congress had passed over 70 years earlier. But instead of arguing for America's freedom from the "tyranny" of British control, the Declaration of Sentiments argues for women's freedom from the "tyranny" of patriarchy. Whereas the Founding Fathers wrote in the Declaration of Independence that it is self-evident that "all men are created equal," the Declaration of Sentiments boldly asserts that "all men and women" are equal. The document points out the "patient sufferance" not of "men" or "mankind," but of American women, who were oppressed by an undemocratic government that failed to allow them to possess property rights, speak in public, file for divorce, manage their own wages and attend college.
To continue reading, please visit Huffington Post. | <urn:uuid:332645cf-5560-494d-a00b-ce555b40c825> | CC-MAIN-2017-43 | http://lwv.org/blog/165-years-seneca-falls-continuing-organize-equality | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-43/segments/1508187824820.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20171021152723-20171021172723-00592.warc.gz | en | 0.95524 | 313 | 4 | 4 |
Huntington disease essay example
Essays on huntingtons disease the classic signs of huntington disease are progressive chorea essay example (3) historical essay (3. Huntington’s disease – an overview on studybaycom - other, essay - bena | 100004180. #12 which of the following numbers could be the probability of an event 15, 0, = ,0 #34 more genetics in problem 33, we learned that for some diseases, such as sickle-cell anemia, an individual will get the disease only if he or. Huntington's disease is for example, individuals with the disease have information about current clinical trials related to huntington disease may be. The biology extended essay guide from ib should focus on biological aspects of the disease rather than on diagnosis and treatment (for example, culturing. Bowen's disease brachial plexus huntington disease hyperaldosteronism hyperhidrosis hyperostosis others rare diseases or genetic conditions with. Huntington essay submitted by: mr9394 paradigm: 1)a pattern or a typical example or archetype 2) huntington's disease huntington disease huntington's disease.
Huntington’s disease is a hereditary condition in which your brain’s nerve cells gradually break down it can cause physical and psychological symptoms. List of diseases this is a list of where multiple names are in common use for the same disease huntington's disease hypermetropia hyperopia. Huntington's disease (hd) is an inherited disorder that causes brain cells, called neurons, to die in various areas of the brain, including those that help to control voluntary (intentional) movement. Analytical summaries nancy wexler’s mother died of huntington’s disease her dilemma is an extreme example of the kind thousands of americans will face.
Huntington’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that usually develops in middle to late adult life brain-imaging tests (for example, mri or ct scans) electroencephalogram (if an individual has experienced seizures) can help identify areas of the brain that are not working. Since the huntington’s study group first identified the mutation responsible for huntington’s disease (hd) in 1993 for example, huntingtin appears. The latest huntington's disease research from prestigious universities and journals throughout the world. Huntington's disease is a devastating and progressive neurological disorder that resu lts primarily from degeneration of nerve cells deep in the center of the brain the condition was first described by george huntington, a physician in new york, in 1872 even then, the physician recognized the all.
What are examples of diseases huntington's poly cystic ovary sickle cell anemia etc but heart disease is an example of a chronic disease. Genetic mapping of cystic fibrosis and huntington's this is not an example of the work written by our professional essay mapping huntington's disease (hd. Compare/contrast alzheimers disease and huntingtons disease alzheimers disease essay huntington disease email this page to a friendshare on.
Huntington disease essay example
Life with someone who has huntington’s disease is difficult to say the least, but what if the victim of this disease is in denial how does this affect the person afflicted and how does it affect the family and friends who are closest to them. Free essay: huntington’s disease huntington’s disease is a fatal inherited disorder characterized by slow gradual personality changes, dementia, and. Category: essays research papers title: huntingtons disease title: length color rating : huntingtons disease essay - huntington's disease huntington's disease, or huntngton's chorea, is a genetic disease that causes selective neural cell death, which results in chorea, or irregular, jerking movements of the limbs caused by involuntary muscle.
When we hear about alzheimer's disease we automatically think of buy essay college essay critical essay custom essay essay paper essay writing example essay. Free essay: the use of dna to treat disease in recent the use of dna in forensics essay example huntington's disease essay huntington's disease a. Essay on huntington's disease 520 words | 3 pages huntington's disease huntington's disease is an autosomal dominant disorder, which is found on the # 4 chromosome. Quiz 2a key directions: after reading the essay below huntington’s disease is a very distressing illness that can be defined according to its genetic. In conclusion huntingtons disease is a essay uploaded by genetics research assignment studnet example - huntington's disease 25 pages.
Tourette syndrome (ts) for a person to be diagnosed with ts, he or she must: (for example, huntington disease or postviral encephalitis. Huntington's disease is a type of dementia, related to alzheimer's disease learn about huntington's disease causes, genetic aspects, signs and symptoms and treatment and get support resources. Huntington’s disease is a hereditary disorder affecting the central nervous system find essay examples genetics: huntington's disease - research paper example. Huntingtons disease submitted by the following is an example of a situation that is happening more than we care to think huntington’s disease is a. Huntington’s disease is a neurogenetic disorder this one good example is telling a child that he or she may possibly grow up to contract huntington’s disease. | <urn:uuid:8f786206-1706-48fa-a6ad-21c704bf82b1> | CC-MAIN-2018-43 | http://alhomeworkgfbi.infra-sauny.info/huntington-disease-essay-example.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-43/segments/1539583515375.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20181022180558-20181022202058-00333.warc.gz | en | 0.91667 | 1,124 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Bendigo is a large regional city in Victoria, Australia, population 100,000 (making it the 3rd largest settlement in the state). Bendigo is located some 140 km (105 miles, 1.5 hrs drive) north-north-west of Melbourne.
It is a beautiful city with grand Victorian architecture, more opulent than that generally seen in country Australia. This is as a result of the Gold Rush.
Bendigo grew to a bustling town during the Gold Rush Era of the 1850s. The wealth created during this period resulted many fine Victorian era buildings in the down town and surrounding areas. This type of architecture is not common to most country towns in Australia.
An influx of people from the city has brought the population of Bendigo to just over 100,000. Even so it still retains a friendly country atmosphere.
The town has more sunny days per year than Queensland. Being north of the Great Dividing Range, it has also far less rain than Melbourne. Summers are hot and dry, up to 40 degrees Celsius or more on some days. Winters tend to be mild; with lowest temperatures around -5 degrees Celsius overnight and around 15 during the day.
Sheep, cattle, fruit, wine and cereal crops are the most common products of the area. Gold is being discovered again in large quantities at deeper levels in the old mines with new technology.
Before European settlement the are was occupied by the clans of the Dja Dja Wrung people. They were regarded by other tribes as being a superior people, not only because of their rich hunting grounds but because from their area came a greenstone rock for their stone axes. Early Europeans described the Dja Dja Wrung as a strong, physically well-developed people and not belligerent. Nevertheless the early years of European settlement in the Mount Alexander area were bloodied by many clashes between intruder and dispossessed.
Major Mitchell passed through the area in 1836. Following his discovery, the first squatters arrived in 1840 to establish vast sheep runs. Bendigo Creek was part of the Mount Alexander or Ravenswood sheep run.
It is generaly acknowledged that Mrs John Kennedy and Mrs Patrick Farrell, wives of workmen on the Ravenswood run, found gold at ‘The Rocks’ - now an identified location that can be visited at the junction of Bendigo Creek and Maple Street.
The first ‘rush’ took place in November 1851 when miners at Castlemaine (Forest Creek) heard of the new discovery. Alluvial gold was found in the area of its first discovery (present day Golden Square) and then the miners followed the gold down the creek to what is now Epsom and up the creek to the present suburb of Kangaroo Flat. Further discoveries were soon made in the tributary creeks at Eaglehawk and Diamond Hill.
As a result of the rush of people to the area, the Gold Commissioner’s Office, the Police Barracks and the courts were erected on Camp Hill, now the present Rosalind Park in central Bendigo. The “diggers”, as the miners were called, numbered as high as thirty thousand and came from all over the world; from England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland – along with Germans, Italians, Swiss, French and Americans. The Chinese population reached many thousands in the early gold rush period but their numbers dropped rapidly as the nineteenth century progressed.
Bendigo quickly grew from a “city of tents” to become a substantial city with great public buildings. The first hospital was built in 1853 and the first town plan was developed by 1854. A municipality emerged and the first Town Hall was commissioned in 1859.
Bendigo was connected to Melbourne by telegraph in 1857 and it was from here that the first message reporting the deaths of Burke and Wills was sent in 1861. Frequent Cobb & Co coaches ran to Melbourne until the railway reached Bendigo in 1862.
In the following decade it made the transition from small mining town to large and wealthy city, and becoming established as a key centre for surrounding settlements.
Water supply was always a problem in Bendigo. This was partly solved with a system harnessing the waters of the Coliban River, designed by engineer Joseph Brady. Water first flowed through the viaduct in 1877.
Architect William Charles Vahland left a major mark on Bendigo during this period. He is credited as innovating what was the most popular residential design of the period, low cost cottages with verandahs decorated in iron lace which became a popular style right across Victoria. He transformed the Bendigo Town Hall between 1878 to 1886 into a grand building and designed more than eighty more public and private buildings, including the Alexandra Fountain, the Masonic Temple (now the Capital Theatre) and the Mechanics Institute and School of Mines (now the Bendigo Regional Institute of TAFE), 'Fortuna Villa' in Golden Square, (which was the home of 'Quartz King' George Lansell), the Law Courts, former Post Office and the expanded Shamrock Hotel in Pall Mall.
A tram network began in 1890 and was used for public transport.
Bendigo is just over one and half hours drive north of Melbourne on the Calder Freeway (Highway). The freeway is now all dual carriageway. The final stretch of the Calder duplication project opened to traffic on 20th April 2009.
If you are coming from Sydney, take the Shepparton exit from the Hume Freeway, and then follow the signs from Shepparton to Bendigo.
While Bendigo does have a small airport, it will likely be much more convenient to fly into Melbourne. From there, hire a car and take the M79 (Calder Freeway) which starts just by the airport. If you do not wish to drive, take the Skybus into Southern Cross Station and get the train to Bendigo. Alternatively take the shuttle direct to Bendigo from the airport.
Bendigo is served by trains which run from Melbourne's Southern Cross Station into the south of Bendigo. These usually run about once an hour. The journey takes approximately two hours from Melbourne. As the route is used by many commuters trains may be more crowded in the early morning and late afternoon/early evening on week days. From the station, most of the CBD is within walking distance. Alternatively buses run into the centre of the city and other parts of Bendigo from the station. In addition to the main station, the trains also often stop at the outer Bendigo station of Kangaroo flat. It is unlikely to be a better option than the main station due to having less connecting public transport and little of interest in that area.
Vline also operates a coach twice daily from Adelaide direct to Bendigo.
Bendigo has a local bus service. Services on some routes may be infrequent on weekends, sometimes as little as once an hour. There is also a tourist hop-on/hop-off tram running up and down the main street.
Parking is metered in most parts of downtown. Expect to pay about $1 per hour for parking, and to have parking limits of 1-2 hours in the city centre. Because of these restrictions parking is generally easy in the city centre. Parking is free on Saturdays however time limits do still apply. You can also find free parking at some larger shopping centres.
Pottery from The Bendigo Pottery.
The Shamrock Hotel provides luxury accommodation.
Bendigo is generally a safe city, although like anywhere it is important to take common sense safety precautions.
Bendigo is an ideal place from which to explore the Goldfields region of Victoria. From Bendigo you can visit neighboring Castlemaine and Heathcote. The train from Bendigo to Melbourne stops in Castlemaine. It takes approximately 25 minutes to reach Castlemaine by train | <urn:uuid:49a67405-0778-46eb-9a5a-8ebc7ec26f54> | CC-MAIN-2017-30 | http://wikitravel.org/wiki/en/index.php?title=Bendigo&oldid=2171815 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-30/segments/1500549425254.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20170725142515-20170725162515-00269.warc.gz | en | 0.970059 | 1,625 | 3 | 3 |
The article by doctoral researcher Juho Karhu was published in February, 2019, in Optics Letters. The article described a new method for measuring radioactive methane.
"The new method is an optical one based on spectroscopy. Previously, radioactive methane has been measured with accelerator mass spectrometry, involving expensive and huge machines. Optical measuring could be a cheaper and more agile method," Karhu says.
Method - Karhu - Absorption - Materials - Ie
The method created by Karhu is based on the absorption of materials, i.e. how the material retains light at different wavelengths. By measuring how much the material absorbs, we can deduce how much it contains different components.
In his research, Karhu analysed which wavelength the light source used should have in order to measure radioactive methane. This is a first step towards a functioning measurement device.
Methods - Carbon - Dioxide - Precision
Optical methods have been used before to measure radioactive carbon dioxide. So far, we have not reached the same precision with optical...
Wake Up To Breaking News! | <urn:uuid:63aa6a30-8119-414f-b55a-7d8dd9f2b1e3> | CC-MAIN-2019-43 | https://longroom.com/discussion/1414101/new-measurement-method-for-radioactive-methane | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-43/segments/1570986660067.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20191015155056-20191015182556-00403.warc.gz | en | 0.947014 | 222 | 3.765625 | 4 |
HIV clinical trials in Australia
Researchers in California and Australia have developed a gene therapy called OZ1. This therapy works by making CD4+ T-cells resistant to HIV infection. Results from previous and current clinical trials suggest that OZ1 is safe and has modest effectiveness. However, OZ1 is important in other ways, which we explain later in our report.
Researchers began their project by finding a virus to carry the genes they chose for therapy. The virus they selected was one that caused leukemia in mice. However, they removed the cancer-causing genes and inserted genes that did the following:
- cause CD4+ cells to make an enzyme that cuts up a specific part of HIV’s genetic material; as a result, in cells treated with OZ1, HIV is unable to cause infection.
Researchers recruited 74 participants whose average profile at the start of the study was as follows:
- 92% male, 8% female
- age – 37 years
- CD4+ count – 700 cells
- viral load – less than 400 copies
- all participants were taking HAART
Researchers randomly assigned participants to one of two groups, as follows:
- OZ1 – 38 volunteers
- placebo – 36 volunteers
Researchers removed blood from the study volunteers and filtered out some bone marrow stem cells, identified as CD34+. They then infused the filtered blood back into participants. CD34+ bone marrow stem cells can develop into any one of a wide range of cells used by the immune system, including CD4+ cells.
The stem cells were collected and cultured and then infected with the weakened mouse virus that carried genes to help make them resist HIV infection. After they were infected, the stem cells were stimulated to produce more CD34+ cells for several days.
These cells were then infused back into participants based on their weight—5 million cells per kg of body weight. For instance, a person who weighed 70 kg would have received 350 million CD34+ cells. Each person received a single infusion of cells. On average, about 54% of the cells infused contained OZ1 genes.
Participants in the placebo group also received CD34+ cell infusions but without protective OZ1 genes.
Participants were highly motivated and able to undertake the 45 visits to study clinics over two years—a requirement of the study. HAART was interrupted during the study to assess the impact of uncontrolled HIV infection on the gene-enhanced cells.
Four weeks after infusion, technicians detected HIV-resistant cells from blood cells in 94% of people in the OZ1 group. One year after the infusion, this figure fell to 12% and two years after the infusion it fell to 7%.
The Patients Voice in HIV/AIDS Clinical Trial Participation: What motivates the willingness of HIV infected people to take part in HIV/AIDS clinical trials?
Book (LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing)
BMC Medical Research Methodology at the 35th Annual Conference of the .. — BMC Pediatrics
The conference will focus on issues such as design and analysis of clinical trials, methods in biostatistics and development of clinical prediction models.
What is a clinical trial in the context of HIV/AIDS?
'Clinical trial' is often mentioned in HIV/AIDS prevention studies. You will also find mentions of terms like: clinical management of STI (sexually transmitted infecions) and HIV.
A clinical trial is a special kind of research performed to test a new or experiemental drug or therapy on a population.
In terms of HIV, to run a clinical trial, the researchers recruit a group of HIV positive patients. The researchers will randomly assign trial participants to either the experimental therapy or the gold-standard therapy as placebo (contrary to popular belief, placebo is NEVER no treatment in such trials). The randomization process of choice is called double-blind randomized trial, meaning the neither patient nor the research observer knows what the patient is taking … | <urn:uuid:21fe3a5c-0c2e-42b5-b618-7e825d1dba29> | CC-MAIN-2018-30 | http://clinicaltrialsupplyasia.com/HivClinicalTrials/hiv-clinical-trials-in-australia | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-30/segments/1531676591683.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20180720135213-20180720155213-00193.warc.gz | en | 0.955424 | 814 | 3.15625 | 3 |
I have written numerous posting on the benefits of the Khan Academy as well as the positive attributes of a "flipped classroom" The Khan Academy now has mapped all of the common core math standards. Within each standard are links to instructional videos and practice exercises.
Students may use these videos and exercises to review topics covered in class, or to view lessons ahead of their teacher in order to establish prior knowledge. This may also be a great resource for a student who needs to build foundation skills in a particular area.
(Image Credit: http://dumais.us/newtown/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/math_intervention.jpg) | <urn:uuid:4a03a54e-e15a-4059-b073-ea407beaef4a> | CC-MAIN-2017-30 | http://www.edunology.com/2013/01/math-interventions-with-khan-academy.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-30/segments/1500549423903.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20170722062617-20170722082617-00392.warc.gz | en | 0.936114 | 137 | 2.671875 | 3 |
On January 1st of this year, I began a project marking the 400th year since the first people were brought against their will to the North American mainland from Africa. I urge you to join this project by subscribing to my blog. You will receive weekly blogs that use lessons from 400 years of systemic racism and white supremacy to encourage and guide anti-racism work, particularly by those who acknowledge that they benefit from such systemic racism.
I seek 400 people to take the following pledge: “To mark 400 years of racial oppression in colonial America and the United States, I pledge to confront systemic racism more directly and take concrete steps to repair the harm done.” I will then collect examples of such direct and concrete steps, share them on a website I am building, along with an annotated list of 400 books, articles, or videos that I recommend you explore to support your commitment to anti-racism work.This project will be guided most by the writings of people of color, particularly authors who were enslaved and their descendants. I will focus mainly on how racism in the United States has hurt Africans brought to this land and their descendants, but acknowledge that non-whites from Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East are often brutal victims of racism. I hope my particular focus will help deconstruct systemic racism that affects many people, as well as open up more space to deal with other forms of oppression based on gender, identity, orientation, country of origin, economic privilege, religion, and more.
I am focusing on history in part because many people of color tell me that they are tired of both being the victims of racism and asked to solve racism. Many people of color have already shared their wisdom in countless writings from slave narratives to peer reviewed articles to award winning historical works. I want to tap that deep resource through this project.
If you want to share questions or comments immediately, you can email me at HughTM@gmail.com. If you subscribe to my blog through this link, http://eepurl.com/gdeHJb, you will be updated as to construction of a website along with forums for broader conversation. Join me in trying to become more aware, intentional, and committed to the work of anti-racism.
Hugh Taft-Morales is the Ethical Culture Leader of the Baltimore and Philadelphia Ethical Societies. Hugh graduated from Yale University in 1979 and earned a Masters in Philosophy from University of Kent at Canterbury. He taught philosophy and history for twenty-five years in Washington, DC, after which he transitioned into Ethical Culture Leadership. This is his independent project—as much a learning experience as a modest effort to help others become more committed to, and effective in, anti-racism work. | <urn:uuid:f5c4c251-2fe9-407f-bf40-75b13f4baf44> | CC-MAIN-2021-10 | https://aeu.org/2019/02/the-400-years-project/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-10/segments/1614178367790.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20210303200206-20210303230206-00446.warc.gz | en | 0.972782 | 561 | 2.625 | 3 |
(AM‑44: dp. 950; l. 187'10"; b. 35'6"; dr. 9'9-" (mean); s. 14 k.; cl. Lapwing)
The common wild duck, Anas platyrhynches, of either sex, of the Northern Hemisphere. The domestic ducks are descended from it.
The first Mallard (AM‑44) was laid down by Staten Island Shipbuilding Co., New York, N.Y., 25 May 1918; launched 17 December 1918; sponsored by Mrs. Harry R. Brayton, wife of the commanding officer at commissioning; and commissioned 25 June 1919, Lt. (jg.) Harry R. Brayton in command.
Assigned to the Atlantic Fleet, Mallard conducted minesweep duties in the 3d Naval District through the next 9 years. Transferred to submarine rescue operations following conversion at Boston Navy Yard June to December 1928, Mallard was redesignated ASR‑4 on 12 September 1929. From January to March 1929 she joined S‑4 (SS‑109) in experimental maneuvers off Key West, Fla.
The next year Mallard sailed for Coco Solo, her new home port, for patrol off Panama, where she remained throughout World War II attached to Submarine Squadron 3. During that time she performed target‑towing and diver‑training services for ships of the fleet.
In May 1946 she sailed for the east coast, arriving New York Navy Yard to be decommissioned 10 December and stripped. On 22 May 1947 Mallard was used as a target ship and sunk by torpedo fire from Piper (SS‑409). | <urn:uuid:71be375f-740c-44bd-bbd1-421283afa5aa> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/m/mallard-i.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320303884.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20220122194730-20220122224730-00372.warc.gz | en | 0.955356 | 336 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Tired of gnats around the kitchen sink? Or just feeling adventurous? Grow carnivorous plants and never struggle with flies again. 1. ...
Tired of gnats around the kitchen sink? Or just feeling adventurous? Grow carnivorous plants and never struggle with flies again.
How they make the kill: The fuzzy stems of sundews (Drosera) are coated in drops of dew, which are actually digestive enzymes that attract and dissolve prey.
Keep them happy: As houseplants, they need bright light and warm (above 40°) temps. Your best bet is a sunny windowsill. Pot them in a mixture of ½ peat moss and ½ sand or 2 parts peat moss to 1 part perlite. Set the container in a deep tray, and keep the tray filled with (collected rain, distilled, reverse osmosis, or de-ionized) water.
2. Monkey cups
How they make the kill: Native to nutrient poor soils, monkey cups have dangling pouches that capture and dissolve insects for food. Monkey are known to drink from them, hence the name.
Keep them happy: Grow monkey cups in 3 parts sphagnum moss to one part of a course material, such as perlite, orchid bark, pumice, or lava rock. Their pendulous nature makes them ideal for hanging baskets. Be sure the container has drainage. Unlike most other carnivorous plants, they don’t like sitting in water at all times, so be sure to let the plant drain freely. Keep them in a spot with bright indirect light.
3. Venus flytraps
How they make the kill: When the plant’s trigger hairs inside are touched, its elegant eyelashes turn into teeth that snap shut—even emitting a slight electrical current as they close.
Keep them happy: Plant flytraps (Dionaea muscipulain) a mix of 1 part horticultural sand to 1 part peat moss. Just like sundews, place containers of flytraps in trays, and keep the soil wet year round with (collected rain, distilled, reverse osmosis, or de-ionized) water. Flytraps will thrive in a sunny window.
4. Pitcher plants
How they make the kill: The elegant long throats on these pitcher plants (Sarracenia) have a deadly purpose: to swallow bugs after luring them in with a liquid in the top flaps. “Bugs get so drunk off the nectar that you can just watch them fall right in,” says Rob Co, a Northern California carnivorous-plant collector. “Look inside a pitcher plants and you’ll see downward hairs that prevent anyone from crawling back out.
Keep them happy: Grow pitchers in a mix of 2 parts peat moss to one part perlite; or one part peat to one part sand. Use the tray method, listed above (with the same types of distilled water), and keep these guys moist! They cannot get enough water. Or, for that matter, sunshine. Keep them in your sunniest window. | <urn:uuid:1cf72db5-44db-4ade-93e6-383657b5bbbe> | CC-MAIN-2019-04 | https://www.sunset.com/garden/4-fly-eating-plants-to-grow-indoors-and-how-to-keep-them-happy/?amp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-04/segments/1547583662863.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20190119074836-20190119100836-00279.warc.gz | en | 0.91313 | 650 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Whenever an electronic device gets shipped it will contain a varying degree of protective packaging. By far the most common form of this packaging is Styrofoam due to its ability to protect an object from bumps and falls while being very light and easily molded. The major problem with Styrofoam is that it requires petrol to create, and while we only use pieces of it for a few weeks at most its lifetime is counted in thousands of years.
Eben Bayer has appeared as a TED speaker showing us there is an alternative to Styrofoam that does exactly the same job, but will easily compost in your back yard after use.
The new protective material is called EcoCradle and uses Mycelium which comes from mushrooms. Mycelium is a growing organism when given fuel to do so, and forms as interwoven fibers which can be shape-controlled by placing them in a mold. The fuel used to allow the mycelium to grow is natural waste products such as seed husks. The end result is packaging that uses waste materials and is itself biodegradable.
While this may be the first time you have heard about EcoCradle it is already in use by a few manufacturers. It can be moulded into any required shape and takes around 5 days to grow. After that it just replaces that piece of Styrofoam in the box and the end user can throw it in their garden after use where it will quickly degrade.
When Styrofoam was first invented it was a fantastic new packaging product and has ensured millions of products reach our homes in perfect working order. This is especially true of monitors when CRT displays were our only option.
Now we realize the impact such materials have on our environment and an alternative needs to be found. EcoCradle sounds perfect because not only is it biodegradeable, it uses waste products from other industries when being formed. Because of that it forms a dual purpose of dealing with waste while creating no waste itself.
The difficulty now is going mass-market with EcoCradle. Jumping from a few manufacturers to replacing Styrofoam on the market is going to take a lot of investment and large facilities setup around the world. The good news is that process has at least started and now it should be only a matter of time before it becomes an easy alternative. | <urn:uuid:6014f891-1d62-4aa6-b4eb-196d74b6e0fc> | CC-MAIN-2017-47 | https://www.geek.com/news/ecocradle-in-the-future-our-gadgets-will-come-packaged-in-mushrooms-1291879/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-47/segments/1510934806832.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20171123123458-20171123143458-00112.warc.gz | en | 0.972087 | 480 | 2.890625 | 3 |
The following is a text describing Chicago. Read it carefully, and then answer the questions that follow.
Chicago is the third most populous city in the United States after New York City and Los Angeles. With 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in both the U.S. state of Illinois and the American Midwest. Its metropolitan area, sometimes called Chicagoland, which generally means the city and its suburbs combined together, is home to 9.5 million people and is the third-largest in the the United States.
Chicago is located in northeastern Illinois on the southwestern shores of Lake Michigan. The city lies beside huge freshwater Lake Michigan, and two rivers—the Chicago River in downtown and the Calumet River in the industrial far South Side—flow entirely or partially through Chicago.
Today, the city is an international hub for finance, commerce, industry, technology, telecommunications, and transportation. It also has the largest number of U.S. highways, and railroad freight entering its region.
The city has many nicknames, which reflect the impressions and opinions about historical and contemporary Chicago. The best-known include the “Windy City” and “Second City.”
The city lies within the humid continental climate zone, and experiences four distinct seasons. Summers are hot and humid, with a July daily average of 75.8 °F (24.3 °C). In a normal summer, temperatures exceed 90 °F (32 °C) on 21 days. Winters are cold and snowy with few sunny days, and the normal January high is just below freezing. Spring and autumn are mild seasons with low humidity.
1. The first paragraph of the text describes Chicago in terms of its … .
2. We know that the term Chicagoland refers to … .
A. the city
B. downtown area
C. the suburbs
D. business center
E. the city and the suburbs
3. Chicagoland has … residents.
A. 2.7 million
B. 9.5 million
C. 6 million
D. 11 million
E. 3 million
4. The Chicago river is located … .
A. in the city center
B. in the south side
C. in the suburbs
D. near Lake Michigan
E. in the metropolitan area
5. Which seasons do you think people would probably like best?
A. summer and winter
B. summer and spring
C. spring and winter
D. autumn and winter
E. autumn and spring
6. The phrase ‘the most populous’ in paragraph 1 means … .
A. having the largest number of peopple
B. having only a few number of people
C. having the busiest people
D. having the most popular people
E. having a large number of people
7. The text above is called a descriptive text mainly because it … .
A. uses the simple present tense
B. tells about Chicago
C. focuses on one topic
D. describes what Chicago is like
E. gives us knowledge | <urn:uuid:3f3f5729-4685-4412-9fce-cf5624d9cf9f> | CC-MAIN-2022-49 | https://englishforsma.com/exercise-1-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446711114.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20221206192947-20221206222947-00208.warc.gz | en | 0.941213 | 673 | 3.234375 | 3 |
Jake Slobe | March 15, 2017
Mega-droughts. Long-lasting heat waves. Flooded coastal cities. These are the weather scenarios for 2050 from a series of imaginary, yet realistic, reports from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) that predict a future of warmer, wetter and more extreme weather.
WMO released four series of future weather reports in 2014 and 2015 to highlight the need for action to minimize the risks of extreme weather and climate events. Series 4 was launched in advance of the Paris conference on the Climate Change Convention in November 2015, Series 3 supported the Third World Conference on Disaster risk Reduction held in Sendai, Series 2 was launched in December 2014 during the Lima conference on the Climate Change Convention, and Series 1 was launched in September 2014 to support the UN Secretary-General’s call for action at the UN Climate Summit.
Three of the station’s best-known personalities—Sam Champion, Jim Cantore and Stephanie Abrams—each contribute to segments that imagine a world besieged by the kind of extreme weather scientists expect to see a lot more of by midcentury.
Climate reporter Andrew Freedman said about the video forecast:
“This Weather Channel video of a weather forecast in 2050 may be the most compelling climate advocacy vid I’ve seen. It represents an aggressive, almost advocacy-oriented, move on the part of The Weather Channel, which began covering climate change more routinely during the past two years after virtually ignoring it entirely for several years.”
What they created are only possible scenarios and not true forecasts. Nevertheless, they are based on the most up-to-date climate science, and they paint a compelling picture of what life could look like on a warmer planet. The events dramatized in both pieces are entirely in keeping with what climate scientists expect to see as human-spewed carbon continues to saturate the atmosphere.
You can watch all the videos here. | <urn:uuid:4f77f92c-87d5-42b3-9f6c-c2a550a77c00> | CC-MAIN-2019-22 | https://iowaenvironmentalfocus.org/2017/03/15/the-weather-channel-gives-a-forecast-from-the-year-2050/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-22/segments/1558232256887.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20190522163302-20190522185302-00420.warc.gz | en | 0.946996 | 397 | 2.96875 | 3 |
Definition of awl in English:
A small pointed tool used for piercing holes, especially in leather.
- Start your screw hole with an awl by tapping gently with a hammer or a soft-face mallet.
- The awl cuts a tidy hole in the leather that will close up tight around the thread as it is sewn, leaving a watertight stitch.
- Once the cabinets are marked lightly in pencil, use an awl or a center punch to create an indentation at the desired spot.
Words that rhyme with awlall, appal (US appall), Bacall, ball, bawl, befall, Bengal, brawl, call, caul, crawl, Donegal, drawl, drywall, enthral (US enthrall), fall, forestall, gall, Galle, Gaul, hall, haul, maul, miaul, miscall, Montreal, Naipaul, Nepal, orle, pall, Paul, pawl, Saul, schorl, scrawl, seawall, Senegal, shawl, small, sprawl, squall, stall, stonewall, tall, thrall, trawl, wall, waul, wherewithal, withal, yawl
Definition of awl in:
- British & World English dictionary
What do you find interesting about this word or phrase?
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Most popular in the UK
Most popular in Canada
Most popular in Australia
Most popular in Malaysia
Most popular in Pakistan | <urn:uuid:a05bac5c-8527-4d81-be3b-57b9e37d7045> | CC-MAIN-2015-06 | http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/awl | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-06/segments/1422115858583.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20150124161058-00241-ip-10-180-212-252.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.840977 | 331 | 2.765625 | 3 |
We usually take this for granted, but it follows from the definition of the indefinite integral. The indefinite integral is such that its derivative is the function between the curvy integral symbol and the dx. In this case the function is the constant a.
So, to prove this integral we simply have to derive the function we have to the right of the equal sign. We obviously get the function a. To prove that any indefinite integral, we simply have to derive the right side of the equation. If we get the function inside the integral, it means we got it right. | <urn:uuid:838b8e39-c1c2-431d-97ca-c3da8e69fb9e> | CC-MAIN-2019-18 | http://www.intuitive-calculus.com/prove-an-integral.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578528523.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20190420040932-20190420062932-00530.warc.gz | en | 0.904648 | 115 | 2.8125 | 3 |
|Written by||George Bernard Shaw|
|Date premiered||9 December, 1892, Independent Theatre Society,|
|Place premiered||Royalty Theatre|
|Subject||An idealistic doctor finds his principles compromised|
|Wikisource has original text related to this article:|
Widowers' Houses (1892) was the first play by Nobel Prize in literature winner George Bernard Shaw to be staged. It premièred on 9 December 1892 at the Royalty Theatre, under the auspices of the Independent Theatre Society — a subscription club, formed to escape the Lord Chamberlain's Office censorship.
- Harry Trench
- William Cokaine
- Mr. Sartorius
The play comprises three acts:
In Act I a poor but aristocratic young doctor named Harry Trench and his friend William Cokane are vacationing at Remagen on the Rhine. There, they encounter fellow travelers: Mr Sartorius, a self-made businessman, and his daughter Blanche. Harry and Blanche fall in love and become engaged.
Act II opens with everyone back at home in London: Sartorius, is talking to Mr Lickcheese, whom he employs as a rent-collector, reveals himself to be a slumlord. He discharges Lickcheese for dealing too leniently with tenants. Trench and Cokane arrive to visit, but when Trench discovers that Sartorius makes his money by renting slum housing to the poor, he is disgusted and refuses to allow Blanche to accept money from her father after they are married and insists they must live on Harry's small income. They break up over this, after a bitter argument. Sartorius reveals that Trench's income depends on interest from mortgaged tenements and, therefore, is as dirty as the money made by Sartorius, but the lovers do not reconcile: Blanche utterly rejects Harry because of her wounded feelings.
In Act III, Trench, Cokane and Lickcheese return to Sartorius' house to plan a shady business venture (Trench, disillusioned and coarsened by knowing his income is tainted by its source, no longer takes the moral high-ground). In the final scene, notable for its erotic tension, Harry and Blanche reunite.
Creation and publication
The play had originally been written in 1885, as a collaboration with William Archer; but the two fell out and this first attempt was abandoned. Shaw reorganised his fragments, and added a third act for the production, at the invitation of Jakub Grein.
This is one of three plays Shaw published as Plays Unpleasant in 1898; they were termed "unpleasant" because they were intended, not to entertain their audiences—as traditional Victorian theatre was expected to—but to raise awareness of social problems and to censure exploitation of the laboring class by the unproductive rich. The other plays in the group are The Philanderer and Mrs Warren's Profession.
The play was first performed at the Royalty Theatre by the Independent Theatre Society, on 9 December, 1892. The lead role was taken by W. J. Robertson.
It was performed at the Shaw Festival, 2003
On 3 July 2011, a radio adaptation directed by Martin Jarvis was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 starring Ian McKellen as Sartorius, Charles Dance as William Cokane, Honeysuckle Weeks as Blanche, Dan Stevens as Harry Trench and Tim Pigott-Smith as Lickcheese.
- Styan, J Modern Drama in Theory and Practice: Realism and Naturalism pp. 57 (Cambridge University Press, 1981) ISBN 0-521-29628-5
- Widowers' Houses on Open Library at the Internet Archive
- Widowers' Houses public domain audiobook at LibriVox | <urn:uuid:638dde09-f4e6-424a-af04-576ba9608d8e> | CC-MAIN-2015-32 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widower%27s_Houses | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-32/segments/1438044271733.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20150728004431-00027-ip-10-236-191-2.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950675 | 792 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Polyphenols (/ - /,) are a large family of naturally occurring organic compounds characterized by multiples of phenol units. They are abundant in plants and structurally diverse. Polyphenols include flavonoids, tannic acid, and ellagitannin, some of which have been used historically as dyes and for tanning garments.
The name derives from the Ancient Greek word πολύς (polus, meaning "many, much") and the word phenol which refers to a chemical structure formed by attaching to an aromatic benzenoid (phenyl) ring to a hydroxyl (-OH) group as is found in alcohols (hence the -ol suffix). The term polyphenol has been in use at least since 1894.
The term polyphenol is not well defined, but it is generally agreed that they are natural products "having a polyphenol structure (i.e., several hydroxyl groups on aromatic rings)" including four principal classes: "phenolic acids, flavonoids, stilbenes, and lignans".
- Flavonoids include flavones, flavonols, flavanols, flavanones, isoflavones, proanthocyanidins, and anthocyanins. Particularly abundant flavanoids in foods are catechin (tea, fruits), hesperetin (citrus fruits), cyanidin (red fruits and berries), daidzein (soybean), proanthocyanidins (apple, grape, cocoa), and quercetin (onion, tea, apples).
- Phenolic acid include caffeic acid
- Lignans are polyphenols derived from phenylalanine found in Flax seed and other cereals.
In terms of properties, the WBSSH describes the polyphenols thusly:
- generally moderately water-soluble compounds
- with molecular weight of 500–4000 Da
- with >12 phenolic hydroxyl groups
- with 5–7 aromatic rings per 1000 Da
In terms of structures, the WBSSH recognizes two structural family that have these properties:
According to Stéphane Quideau, the term "polyphenol" refers to compounds derived from the shikimate/phenylpropanoid and/or the polyketide pathway, featuring more than one phenolic unit and deprived of nitrogen-based functions.
Ellagic acid, a molecule at the core of naturally occurring phenolic compounds of varying sizes, is itself not a polyphenol by the WBSSH definition, but is by the Quideau definition. The raspberry ellagitannin, on the other hand, with its 14 gallic acid moieties (most in ellagic acid-type components), and more than 40 phenolic hydroxyl groups, meets the criteria of both definitions of a polyphenol. Other examples of compounds that fall under both the WBSSH and Quideau definitions include the black tea theaflavin-3-gallate shown below, and the hydrolyzable tannin, tannic acid.
Polyphenols are often larger molecules (macromolecules). Their upper molecular weight limit is about 800 daltons, which allows for the possibility to rapidly diffuse across cell membranes so that they can reach intracellular sites of action or remain as pigments once the cell senesces. Hence, many larger polyphenols are biosynthesized in-situ from smaller polyphenols to non-hydrolyzable tannins and remain undiscovered in the plant matrix. Most polyphenols contain repeating phenolic moieties of pyrocatechol, resorcinol, pyrogallol, and phloroglucinol connected by esters (hydrolyzable tannins) or more stable C-C bonds (nonhydrolyzable condensed tannins). Proanthocyanidins are mostly polymeric units of catechin and epicatechin.
Extraction of polyphenols can be performed using a solvent like water, hot water, methanol, methanol/formic acid, methanol/water/acetic or formic acid. Liquid–liquid extraction can be also performed or countercurrent chromatography. Solid phase extraction can also be made on C18 sorbent cartridges. Other techniques are ultrasonic extraction, heat reflux extraction, microwave-assisted extraction, critical carbon dioxide, pressurized liquid extraction or use of ethanol in an immersion extractor. The extraction conditions (temperature, extraction time, ratio of solvent to raw material, solvent and concentrations) have to be optimized.
Mainly found in the fruit skins and seeds, high levels of polyphenols may reflect only the measured extractable polyphenol (EPP) content of a fruit which may also contain non-extractable polyphenols. Black tea contains high amounts of polyphenol and makes up for 20% of its weight.
Phosphomolybdic acid is used as a reagent for staining phenolics in thin layer chromatography. Polyphenols can be studied by spectroscopy, especially in the ultraviolet domain, by fractionation or paper chromatography. They can also be analysed by chemical characterisation.
Instrumental chemistry analyses include separation by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), and especially by reversed-phase liquid chromatography (RPLC), can be coupled to mass spectrometry. Purified compounds can be identified by the means of nuclear magnetic resonance.
The DMACA reagent is an histological dye specific to polyphenols used in microscopy analyses. The autofluorescence of polyphenols can also be used, especially for localisation of lignin and suberin. Where fluorescence of the molecules themselves is insufficient for visualization by light microscopy, DPBA (diphenylboric acid 2-aminoethyl ester, also referred to as Naturstoff reagent A) has traditionally been used, at least in plant science, to enhance the fluorescence signal.
Polyphenolic content can be quantified separation/isolation by volumetric titration. An oxidizing agent, permanganate, is used to oxidize known concentrations of a standard tannin solution, producing a standard curve. The tannin content of the unknown is then expressed as equivalents of the appropriate hydrolyzable or condensed tannin.
Some methods for quantification of total polyphenol content are based on colorimetric measurements. Some tests are relatively specific to polyphenols (for instance the Porter's assay). Total phenols (or antioxidant effect) can be measured using the Folin-Ciocalteu reaction. Results are typically expressed as gallic acid equivalents. Polyphenols are seldom evaluated by antibody technologies.
Other tests measure the antioxidant capacity of a fraction. Some make use of the ABTS radical cation which is reactive towards most antioxidants including phenolics, thiols and vitamin C. During this reaction, the blue ABTS radical cation is converted back to its colorless neutral form. The reaction may be monitored spectrophotometrically. This assay is often referred to as the Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC) assay. The reactivity of the various antioxidants tested are compared to that of Trolox, which is a vitamin E analog.
Other antioxidant capacity assays which use Trolox as a standard include the diphenylpicrylhydrazyl (DPPH), oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC), ferric reducing ability of plasma (FRAP) assays or inhibition of copper-catalyzed in vitro human low-density lipoprotein oxidation.
Quantitation results produced by the mean of diode array detector–coupled HPLC are generally given as relative rather than absolute values as there is a lack of commercially available standards for all polyphenolic molecules.
Some polyphenols are traditionally used as dyes. For instance, in the Indian subcontinent, the pomegranate peel, high in tannins and other polyphenols, or its juice, is employed in the dyeing of non-synthetic fabrics.
Polyphenols, especially tannins, were used traditionally for tanning leather and today also as precursors in green chemistry notably to produce plastics or resins by polymerisation with or without the use of formaldehyde or adhesives for particleboards. The aims are generally to make use of plant residues from grape, olive (called pomaces) or pecan shells left after processing.
Polyphenols are thought to play diverse roles in the ecology of plants. These functions include:
- Release and suppression of growth hormones such as auxin.
- UV screens to protect against ionizing radiation and to provide coloration (plant pigments).
- Deterrence of herbivores (sensory properties).
- Prevention of microbial infections (phytoalexins).
- Signaling molecules in ripening and other growth processes.
Occurrence in nature
The most abundant polyphenols are the condensed tannins, found in virtually all families of plants. Larger polyphenols are often concentrated in leaf tissue, the epidermis, bark layers, flowers and fruits but also play important roles in the decomposition of forest litter, and nutrient cycles in forest ecology. Absolute concentrations of total phenols in plant tissues differ widely depending on the literature source, type of polyphenols and assay; they are in the range of 1–25% total natural phenols and polyphenols, calculated with reference to the dry green leaf mass.
Polyphenols are also found in animals. In arthropods such as insects and crustaceans polyphenols play a role in epicuticle hardening (sclerotization). The hardening of the cuticle is due to the presence of a polyphenol oxidase. In crustaceans, there is a second oxidase activity leading to cuticle pigmentation. There is apparently no polyphenol tanning occurring in arachnids cuticle.
Biosynthesis and metabolism
Polyphenols incorporate smaller parts and building blocks from simpler natural phenols, which originate from the phenylpropanoid pathway for the phenolic acids or the shikimic acid pathway for gallotannins and analogs. Flavonoids and caffeic acid derivatives are biosynthesized from phenylalanine and malonyl-CoA. Complex gallotannins develop through the in-vitro oxidation of 1,2,3,4,6-pentagalloylglucose or dimerization processes resulting in hydrolyzable tannins. For anthocyanidins, precursors of the condensed tannin biosynthesis, dihydroflavonol reductase and leucoanthocyanidin reductase (LAR) are crucial enzymes with subsequent addition of catechin and epicatechin moieties for larger, non-hydrolyzable tannins.
Polyphenol oxidase (PPO) is an enzyme that catalyses the oxidation of o-diphenols to produce o-quinones. It is the rapid polymerisation of o-quinones to produce black, brown or red polyphenolic pigments that causes fruit browning. In insects, PPO is involved in cuticle hardening.
Occurrence in food
Polyphenols comprise up to 0.2–0.3% fresh weight for many fruits, grapes, and berries. Consuming common servings of wine, chocolate, legumes or tea may also contribute to about one gram of intake per day. According to a 2005 review on polyphenols:
The most important food sources are commodities widely consumed in large quantities such as fruit and vegetables, green tea, black tea, red wine, coffee, chocolate, olives, and extra virgin olive oil. Herbs and spices, nuts and algae are also potentially significant for supplying certain polyphenols. Some polyphenols are specific to particular food (flavanones in citrus fruit, isoflavones in soya, phloridzin in apples); whereas others, such as quercetin, are found in all plant products such as fruit, vegetables, cereals, leguminous plants, tea, and wine.
Some polyphenols are considered antinutrients – compounds that interfere with the absorption of essential nutrients – especially iron and other metal ions, which may bind to digestive enzymes and other proteins, particularly in ruminants.
In a comparison of cooking methods, phenolic and carotenoid levels in vegetables were retained better by steaming compared to frying. Polyphenols in wine, beer and various nonalcoholic juice beverages can be removed using finings, substances that are usually added at or near the completion of the processing of brewing.
A review published in 2005 found that astringency increases and bitterness decreases with the mean degree of polymerization. For water-soluble polyphenols, molecular weights between 500 and 3000 were reported to be required for protein precipitation. However, smaller molecules might still have astringent qualities likely due to the formation of unprecipitated complexes with proteins or cross-linking of proteins with simple phenols that have 1,2-dihydroxy or 1,2,3-trihydroxy groups. Flavonoid configurations can also cause significant differences in sensory properties, e.g. epicatechin is more bitter and astringent than its chiral isomer catechin. In contrast, hydroxycinnamic acids do not have astringent qualities, but are bitter.
Potential health effects
Although health effects may be attributed to polyphenols in food, the extensive metabolism of polyphenols in the intestine and liver, and their undefined fate as metabolites which are rapidly excreted in urine, prevents definition of their biological effects. Because the metabolism of polyphenols cannot be assessed in vivo, there are no Dietary Reference Intake (DRI) levels established or recommended.
In the US, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued labeling guidance to manufacturers that polyphenols cannot be mentioned as antioxidant nutrients unless physiological evidence exists to verify such a qualification and a DRI value has been established. Furthermore, since purported health claims for specific polyphenol-enriched foods remain unproven, health statements about polyphenols on product labels are prohibited by the FDA and the EFSA. However, during the 21st century, the EFSA recognized certain health claims of specific polyphenol products, such as cocoa and olive oil.
Compared with the effects of polyphenols in vitro, the possible functions in vivo remain unknown due to 1) the absence of validated in vivo biomarkers; 2) long-term studies failing to demonstrate effects with a mechanism of action, sensitivity and specificity or efficacy; and 3) invalid applications of high, unphysiological test concentrations in the in vitro studies, which are subsequently irrelevant for the design of in vivo experiments.
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Animals Play for Fun
Animal play is certainly adaptive ["Kids' Game or Animal Instinct? For Humans, Birds, Even Tai Shan, Frolicking Is a Tool for Survival," Metro, July 2]. But animals don't study evolution; they play for fun. As with food, sex or comfort, the anticipation of good feelings is a key motivator for play.
Besides mammals and birds, there is also evidence for play in reptiles, fish and even invertebrates. Captive octopuses given a Lego block were more likely to play with it -- pulling, pushing or towing it and passing it from one arm to another -- if they were recently fed, suggesting that it was recreational.
Animals' capacity for pleasure should inform our treatment of them. When we crowd pigs and chickens on factory farms or keep rats and mice in barren laboratory cages, we deprive them of opportunities to enjoy life.
for Responsible Medicine | <urn:uuid:63b31b9a-742d-4b26-a3e1-fa38a8acfce6> | CC-MAIN-2017-43 | http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/09/AR2006070900556.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-43/segments/1508187824733.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20171021095939-20171021115939-00200.warc.gz | en | 0.94985 | 190 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Strictly using our orthopedic acupuncture methods, we can quickly get a suffering athlete out of pain.
However, after that pain—what we do next—can make all the difference. After an athlete of ours has gone through treatment, they are at a vulnerable phase, and if not treated correctly can easily re-injure themselves.
At this point in treatment, their are not working optimally at 100 percent just yet, with their muscles “turned off”. Critically, these muscles need to go through yet another stage to get them back on again to function as effectively as possible.
Deeper Look at the Turn-Off Point
Before we find that on-switch, let’s look into what happens in the off-stage:
- Competitive Plasticity connects directly to the state the muscles are in. If the athlete is not able to perform a particular skill or use this set of neuronal connections at this point, their brains will re-purpose them to use for something
If your athlete has hurt him or herself, the brain will stop using that muscle and decrease range of motion to allow it to heal, which can explain why during an athlete’s ankle sprain, the joint’s movement is very limited.
- Damage to the Proprioceptive System may also cause the ‘turn off’ of the muscle. Proprioception is the term used to describe an athlete’s awareness of their body and its movement.
This ability in an athlete (or anyone else for that matter) can be hindered or impaired when that particular ligament or tendon in the joint is injured. Since the proprioceptors are generally located in this area, this can cause an unstable sensation in the joint.
If your athlete is suffering from an ankle sprain, the damage to the ligament’s neurotendinous spindle can cause even more problems ahh the origin and insertion point of the skeletal muscle fibers and tendons of the skeletal muscle—which will lead to the giving out of the joint.
Conclusive Data and Its Connection
This damage is not just a theory.
Through multiple studies, it was concluded that an alteration of proprioception occurs in patients or athletes who have ankle injuries or unstable ankles. The have found that impairment in the proprioception can lead up the kinetic change from ankles to knees, hips, and lower backs.
This weakness and turn-off point can be treated through orthopedic techniques. However, just as will be explained in this article, the distal methods or press tacks are often found to be much more effective.
What Are Press Needles?
These intra-dermal needles can help make that relationship work between acupuncture treatment and exercise all at once. While the patient or athlete may be having trouble with a particular movement or exercise, press needles can be implemented to help with the mild pain or lack of proprioceptive awareness.
Although press tacks increase skin sensitivity, which can supplement feedback and improve it’s important to note, however, that it has been proven to successfully work only in people that have a dysfunction.
When Are They Effective?
With an athlete’s busy schedule, it’s hard to find the time to lay on the table for traditional style treatment. However, with the combination of press tacks, tape, and other aids, you can get them game-ready without hindering performance whatsoever.
How Do They Work?
By implementing the insertion of the press needles during exercise at specific points, the proprioceptive system of the athlete will have added input. This can help remove all the type of obstructions that may be occurring at different channels which leads to discomfort.
While using the press needles, you need to also be aware of the patient’s level of discomfort or pain. If they are experiencing too much, it’s normally a sign that the exercise is too difficult or painful for the injury.
The needles are also responsible for improving the movement of qi and blood in the jing luo. It has a direct impact on movement patterns.
A Deeper Look
In understanding the functional role of proprioception, it is crucial to be able to distinguish this proprioception from the athlete’s tactile senses.
The tactile senses are information drawn from the skin’s mechanoreceptors. The information being sent off can include pain, temperature, and movement, helping the become much more aware of their surroundings.
The need to distinguish between this and proprioception is important—and also very difficult to do. The concepts are very similar to one another because both of them contribute to the movement of a person, his or her accuracy in that movements, consistency, and force adjustment in their power.
They are even more connected because tactile feedback actually is used in proprioceptive feedback—through augmentation of estimating movement distances—which makes them even more intertwined.
Regardless of their similarities, however, it is important to note that there is a distinct difference in two organs: proprioceptors and mechanoreceptors.
Making The Comparison
The two organs, in these functions, seem to work as allies.
The propriocetors are the primary source of information. They are found in the tendon ligaments, joint capsules, and the muscles.
The mechanoreceptors secondary source of this necessary data for your body can be found through the deep skin fascia layers and the skin’s tactile sensation.
While making the comparison, you cannot avoid the impacting role the location of the muscle and joint plays on the body. The relationship between proprioceptive perceptions also tends to differ depending on the area of the body.
For example, highly ligamentous and sensitive skin of the hand will use a different proportion and magnitude of proprioceptive input than an area like the hip will.
The areas of the ligament, joint capsules, and skin also receive the most input while they are stretched to the end of their individual range of motion, where tension is rather high.
The muscles spindles, on the other hand, are measured equally across the entire range of motion.
Implementation in Our Practice
If you want to improve the proprioceptive system, you have two ways
- Enhance sensitivity of the proprioceptors
- Enhance neurophysiological efficiency of signal conversion and transmission.
In other words, we can either increase the signal or find a way to make the path more effective.
Our ultimate goal being to overcome our central nervous system limited attention capacity. To move away from motor and movement skills and into cognitive demands like anticipating movements. Through treatment, your patient or athlete will also spend much less energy on the actual motion in their body and can use it to evaluate the playing field.
This can help an athlete anticipate injury (before it happens) because they are then much more observant and aware of their surroundings during play and less on what they are physically doing.
Boosting the signal, increase the muscle stiffness which increases ligament and tendon output or skin sensitivity with press tacks and tape. To help improve the pathway, we simply need to use the neural pathways with practice.
A closer look:
Patients or athletes who generally have good proprioception do not tend to benefit from patellar taping. However, when taking a closer look at the healthy subjects with poor proprioceptive ability, patellar taping actually provided proprioceptive enhancement as measured through active and passive ankle reproduction.
Although further studies are needed to investigate the effect of patellar taping on the proprioceptive status of patients with patellofemoral pain syndrome, the data thus far is deemed promising.
Contrary to popular belief, a balance training strategy does not improve proprioception. It instead focuses on the Central Nervous System’s ability to control neuromuscular and musculoskeletal factors. It improve the muscle and skill of balancing.
Done correctly, balance training is deemed crucial in patients who need to control slow to moderately fast, conscious and reactive movements in a closed loop. A single leg stance can be improved greatly through this type of training.
Unfortunately, balance training will not help with postural reflex against an unexpected disturbance since it simply isn’t fast enough.
For example, during an impact movement like running, an athlete’s ground reaction force will happen within less than the first 50 milliseconds. Although this seems extremely fast, it is a large enough span of time for the ankle to invert at a dangerous angle and cause injury.
The balance or proprioceptive system reacts at a slow rate of 100 milliseconds in response to external imbalances. There is no way that a healthy system can respond in time to prevent this sort of injury. This is why for performance and injury prevention we need athletes increase focus on enviromental factors.
If you are working a healthy individual, a much better strategy is simply to focus on the presentation of that injurious joint position instead of the aftermath reaction from the proprioceptive system.
This anticipatory present of correct joint alignment and protective muscle stiffness is the correct strategy in this situation.
A deeper look in the strategy would focus instead on teaching proper body mechanics and movement patterns to the athlete while in motion. This little details—like proper body alignment—will help in transferring the athlete’s center of gravity and weight down to the hip, knee, and ankle. This is important for safety during direction change while running.
In addition to balance training, plyometrics can also be used, which helps train the neuromuscular system to hold proper muscle tension—in the stretch-shortening cycle—and with body mechanics.
Avoiding Athlete Joint Injuries
To help an athlete avoid getting injured, we, as professionals, need to establish adequate motor behavior in our patient.
We can do this through two theories:
- The Motor Program-based Theory: This is a Top Down theory. In this theory, the CNS will store motor programs and be trained to retrieve them when necessary. With this method training is often through repetition.
- The Dynamic Pattern Theory: this is a Bottom up theory. In this theory, movement coordination is instantly controlled based on the information that is relayed in the environment. Here we can emphasize the interaction between the patient and his or her CNS reaction to the environment. With this training method use balance beams, resistance bands or obstacles .This sort of sensory information force a learning response.
For an effective training program, you should really have both theories integrated within. It should involve repetition of skills, improving memory-based motor functions, and changing of the sensory environment, which can help stimulate dynamic patterning.
Treating An Athlete’s Injury
For an effective treatment program post-injury, balance training not only improves balance after the injury occurs but can also reduce the rate of repetitive injury from happening.
If your athlete or patient cannot find balance or incorporate a stable structure into their movement while not moving—during movement will be that much harder.
A Closer Look At Balance
Balance is achieved and maintained by a complex set of Peripheral Receptors.
These include sensory input from a few things, including:
- Vision (sight)
- Somatosensory (touch)
- Vestibular System (motion)
This means that a balance program can affect a few very important concepts in an athlete’s performance.
When taking an even closer look at balance, you will find that an athlete’s ankles, toes, wrists, and fingers are the most active and dominate muscles commonly used. Within these joints, there are multiple articulating structures that allow for small adjustments throughout movement.
An athlete’s core is also very active during balance exercises but is only focusing on stability during more gross movements.
A Closer Look At Balance Programs
While going through the balance program, the exercise can progress as the athlete or patient improves through:
- Eyes open, which allows for the three systems to function.
- Eyes closed, which allows for the two systems—touch and motion—to function.
- Eyes closed with head movement, which allows for one system—touch—to function.
For beginners, exercises should be performed successfully first with their eyes open, then again with their eyes closed. If the exercise cannot be done with their eyes open, it is advised to not progress on to the next step.
Head motion should only be used for advanced athletes.
For a quality exercise program, progression should start from the core, then head to the knees and elbows—activating the shoulder and hips—then the hands and feet—which should then activate the forearm and calves.
Training Healthy Athletes
Working with a healthy athlete can lead to a whole new challenge.
Although balance training can fix broken proprioception or help improve unstable back and ankles in athletes, it does not improve the proprioceptive system in healthy patients.
This means that a healthy athlete will get very little out of traditional balance training when simply looking into injury prevention.
Instead, look into creating an ideal learning environment for the CNS.
This means that an exercise program should distinctively train different motor skills with adequately changing task goals and visual environment.
This training should help a healthy athlete’s CNS overcome its limited attentional capacity by adequately imposing multiple task demands.
A Closer Look
Researchers suggest that skill-focused attention is important during the initial stage of motor learning, but then becomes counterproductive for the experienced individual.
Researches have also noted that multiple task training—for example, motor and cognitive demands—were more effective for performance developments of experienced athletes.
After athletes have perfected a movement or skill, the limiting factor to advancement is how quickly they can interpret their environment. Can they read their opponent while playing? Can they look down the field for an opening or weakness while still moving?
This is focused on the concept of cognitive demands. | <urn:uuid:5f24c3e1-5b8b-44e2-ac9f-620c90925dec> | CC-MAIN-2019-26 | https://valleyhealthclinic.com/proprioception-in-sports-acupuncture/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-26/segments/1560627999261.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20190620145650-20190620171650-00091.warc.gz | en | 0.948467 | 2,877 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Anson Jones Valedictory Speech, February 19, 1846
During his second stint as president of the Republic of Texas (1840-1844), Sam Houston and his secretary of state, Anson Jones, continued to try to manuever the foreign policy of Texas to secure annexation by the United States. After the harsh Mexican treatment of prisoners taken from the Santa Fe and Mier expeditions, there was widespread popular support in the United States for annexation. Mexico threatened to go to war with the United States if annexation became a reality. Cannily, Jones tilted towards an alliance with the British, connected with the cotton trade, to force the hand of annexationists in the U.S.
Jones, the "architect of annexation," succeeded Houston as president in 1844. The annexation of Texas became a major issue in the 1844 U.S. presidential campaign, with the annexationist candidate, James K. Polk, winning by a large margin. As a result, Congress passed an annexation resolution on Februrary 28, 1845, giving Texas until January 1, 1846, to decide whether to accept the terms. The terms of the annexation were generous. Texas could enter the U.S. as a slave state rather than a territory, keep her public lands, and divide into as many as four additional states. A special session of the Texas Congress met in Austin on July 4, 1845, and voted to accept annexation, then submitted the question and a new state constitution to a popular vote. The result was overwhelming. Texas was admitted as a state on December 29, 1845.
On Februrary 19, 1846, in a ceremony in front of the Capitol, the Lone Star flag of the Republic of Texas was lowered, and the flag of the United States was raised above. President Jones gave his valedictory address. A chapter in Texas history had ended, and a new one had begun.
Webmaster's note: Because of the very large size of the Executive Record Book from which the images below were taken, not all of the text could be imaged clearly. The fading that is seen on the images is not present on the original document.
Executive Record Book, Anson Jones, December 9, 1844 - September 28, 1845, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission.
Journal of the Senate, First & Second Legislature, 1848, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission. | <urn:uuid:c010ff5f-ec34-4d63-a057-8a6e758ef54e> | CC-MAIN-2019-09 | https://www.tsl.texas.gov/treasures/earlystate/nomore-1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-09/segments/1550247481122.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20190216210606-20190216232606-00519.warc.gz | en | 0.972479 | 508 | 3.796875 | 4 |
According to a report from the OECD’s International Transport Forum, efficiency gains from larger ships have been steadily declining – and further increases in maximum container ship size could increase the overall cost of transporting goods.
Containerisation was a key enabler of the expansion of world trade and economic globalisation in the 20th century. Subsequent increases in the size and capacity of container ships drove down transportation costs yet further, while high oil prices placed emphasis on fuel efficiencies.
However, with the latest ‘mega-ships’, economies of scale may have reached their peak. Bigger ships deliver economies of scale at sea, but they also involve greater costs associated with cargo handling, additional investment in ports (dredging channels, strengthening quays, larger cranes), and greater concentration of risk – with implications for insurance.
The OECD report looked into the impacts of ships with a capacity in excess of 18,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) and found cost savings from bigger container ships are decreasing. Increasing ship size from 8’500 to 15’000 TEU saved approximately $80 per container, while increasing from 15’000 to 19’000 saves $40. Of these savings, over half is attributable to the optimised engines, rather than capacity, of the latest mega-ships.
The report suggests ‘cascading effects’ of mega-ship adoption could in fact result in dis-economies: mega-ships deployed on shorter routes – such as the Transatlantic trade line, which is one-third the distance of the Far East North Europe trade line, would require reducing time in port by a third in order to realise projected savings – which may be unrealistic. It suggests these dis-economies may significantly erode the benefits of up-sizing.
The latest generation of mega-ships may compound what has been an overcapacity problem for the shipping industry since 2007-8. Supply of container capacity currently exceeds demand by 20%, a situation that some analysts predict will persist until 2019 creating profitability problems for the industry. | <urn:uuid:973b9910-ce17-4c2a-af4e-33cfbc71fc76> | CC-MAIN-2021-49 | https://www.thefuturescentre.org/signal/economies-of-scale-in-container-shipping-may-have-peaked/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-49/segments/1637964358560.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20211128134516-20211128164516-00568.warc.gz | en | 0.940261 | 422 | 3.109375 | 3 |
This recording, featuring Beck and a 160 musicians, was conceived by director/producer Chris Milk as a way to capture a fully immersive sound and vision experience. It uses binaural recording in its attempt to do so.
The goal of binaural recording is to create an immersive, 3D sound experience. Unlike normal stereo recordings which use directional microphones to capture sound coming towards them, binaural recordings use two 360 degree microphones positioned to replicate the human ear as closely as possible. Your ears are able to capture sound from all around you, so why shouldn’t the microphones we use for recording sound be able to do the same?
The 360 degree microphones are placed either within, or at the entrance to a dummy head to serve as proxies for human ears. The dummy head not only gives an accurate representation of the geometry of the ears, but is also able to recreate how sound waves interact with the contours of the entire human head. By using omni-directional microphones in this arrangement a spatially correct stereo image of an event can be captured more accurately than any other recording method. For basic binaural recordings, it’s possible to fit an actual human head with omni-directional mics to capture sound, with the microphones worn in a similar fashion to in-ear headphones.
The effect works best for live recordings where the sound sources are situated in different locations. A binaural recording of a single acoustic guitarist is unlikely to produce particularly exciting results as there is only a single sound source in a single position; there is no contrast in where the sound is originating from. Recordings like Chris Milk’s project, where the music is being played by musicians positioned in a circle with the dummy head and mics centrally located offer a much larger degree of 3D imaging due to the variety of audio sources in different positions.
The 3D effect of binaural recordings is only possible when using headphones due to the way the signals are received by the brain. When binaural recordings are played through speakers, the left and right channels are mixed before they reach the ears and the brain subsequently can’t infer the subtle directional cues. Most speakers will retain a degree of left/right separation, however any kind of immersive effect will be lost. With headphones, the sound is being directly channeled into the ears, with no opportunity for signals to get mixed.
This is part of the reason binaural recording is not the standard recording method for the vast majority of music - played through speakers, there is almost no discernable difference to normal stereo recordings. The other main reason binaural recording is not commonly used is due to the practicalities of the recording method in comparison to modern studio practices. Most modern recording studios will create songs by recording individual tracks for each element of the song, then mixing the tracks together in post-production. In order to achieve the best effect in binaural recording, songs would have to be performed in one take, with all of the parts captured simultaneously, making it more complicated for sound engineers to mix and master tracks in post-production.
Luckily, if binaural recording is something you’re interested in, there is a large community of enthusiasts and a collection of high quality binaural recordings available online. From soundscape recordings which recreate scenes from daily life through to live music recordings similar to Beck and Chris Milk’s experiment, there’s more and more binaural content appearing all the time. Great places to start include Jaxov’s Top 10 Binaural Recordings, and BBC Radio One’s Lucy Rose session from March 2013, from there, Google is your friend, so put in your headphones and enjoy! | <urn:uuid:005f8b38-65c0-433a-88e7-d623b1799644> | CC-MAIN-2023-06 | https://www.rha-audio.com/intl/blog/an-introduction-to-binaural-recording | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764500303.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20230206015710-20230206045710-00107.warc.gz | en | 0.95062 | 761 | 2.546875 | 3 |
American History Dictionary A Z
A selection of articles related to american history dictionary a z.
Original articles from our library related to the American History Dictionary A Z. See Table of Contents for further available material (downloadable resources) on American History Dictionary A Z.
- Indian History Rewritten
- The Indian civilisation, considered to be the product of clash and subsequent inter mixture of the white-skinned civilised invaders and the dark savages native to India, has been rightly questioned in recent years, and the mischievously fabricated history of...
History & Anthropology >> Indic / Vedic
- The Truth Behind the History of the Necronomicon
- I don't think there are many people out there who haven't heard of the Necronomicon and the dreadful things connected with it. We've all heard the theories about how it is a Satanist tool; actual copies of the book are bound in human skin and how you risk...
Deities & Heros >> Chthulu
- Hypnosis: A Selected Bibliography
- Index of bibliography sections Selected Periodicals (14 entries) Edited Overviews of General Theories of Hypnosis (5 entries) Specific Topics Related to Research into Hypnosis. General single-author overviews, non-special-state views, social andexperimental...
Parapsychology >> Hypnosis
- A History Of Dreaming - From Ancient Egypt To Modern Day
- Dreams have been an important part of the human experince since time immemorial. Fragments of the earliest books come from Egypt, where dreams were considered to be the messages sent from the gods. The Egyptians divided their dreams into three categories: 1....
Parapsychology >> Dreams
- History of the Egyptian Religion, part I: Early Dynastic Period
- I - Predynastic - Early Dynastic Period. The temples were in essence the *Home of the God* and thus a place where only Pharaoh as the Son of God and those he appointed as his deputies, could meet with the god. This goes all the way back to Archaic and...
Religions >> Egyptian
- History of Egyptian Medicine and Philosophy
- When medical knowledge past is considered, lack of aseptic technique, pain-killing drugs and antibiotics are an accepted part of our modern legend of these ancient healing practices. You will find that none of this is true when it comes to Ancient Egypt....
Religions >> Egyptian
American History Dictionary A Z is described in multiple online sources, as addition to our editors' articles, see section below for printable documents, American History Dictionary A Z books and related discussion.
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American History Dictionary A Z Topics
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uta flight 772 | <urn:uuid:fddba7c5-8feb-486f-b83b-5e3be9ca55e3> | CC-MAIN-2016-36 | http://www.realmagick.com/american-history-dictionary-a-z/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-36/segments/1471982292151.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160823195812-00046-ip-10-153-172-175.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.883184 | 629 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Cancun’s packaged image of paradise is a dynamic and constantly flowing contestation of identity and livelihood for those involved in the service sector. Indigeneity is used as spectacle, prop, and entertainment in the tourism industry and is especially popular in mass tourism zones like Cancun. Circulation of not only bodies, but theory surrounding authenticity and indigeneity, are all represented in the hyper-commodification that defines mass tourism. Cancun uses transnational connections for marketing of space, goods, and people that are in a constant state of circulation. Looking at the rise of the tourism industry in Cancun processually leads us to explore this moment of mistrust between movements between the United States and Mexico. Violence throughout the border between these countries leads to fear that mass media instills in its audiences. How are these emerging attitudes of fear affecting mass tourism in Mexico? What are the effects of mass tourism on its locality? Using a transnational framework helps to decode complex structures of circulation in Cancun’s mass tourism industry.
Vassallo-Oby, Christine, "Circulation and Consumption: Transnational Mass Tourism in Cancun, Mexico" (2010). Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies Faculty Scholarship. 28. | <urn:uuid:d52fcfdc-d449-4add-a87a-8264f8e6d545> | CC-MAIN-2017-47 | https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/lacs_fac_scholar/28/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-47/segments/1510934806832.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20171123123458-20171123143458-00389.warc.gz | en | 0.912287 | 261 | 2.5625 | 3 |
It’s official: plastic is one of the biggest environmental polluters of our time. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, between 5 and 13 million tonnes of the non-biodegradable material leaks into our planet’s oceans each year. If things keep going at our current rate, by 2050 our oceans will contain more of the stubborn stuff by weight than fish. Plastic has even officially entered the fossil records!
Big global campaigns, like those by WWF and Greenpeace, have woken the world up to the plastic crisis. Since then, many of us are trying to do better on our plastic consumption. Swapping out plastic straws for metal or bamboo versions, stashing reusable containers into our handbags and remembering our water bottle is (with a bit of trial and error) becoming part of our daily routines. In recent years, the beauty industry has even moved away from plastic microbeads in cleansers, exfoliants and toothpastes when it was discovered just how much they were polluting our seas.
But one invisible contributor to plastic pollution you’ve likely overlooked? Your clothes.
Image by Louise McCurdy & Alex Bamford
Plastic clothes, polluted oceans
News flash: synthetic fibres in fashion made from fabrics like polyester, nylon and acrylic are all made from plastic elements. Each time you wash them, they release teeny tiny plastic fibres called microplastics. These particles are so small, not longer than five millimetres and with diameters measured in micrometres (1000 micrometres make up a millimetre), they are impossible to detect. Starting from our washing machines, they make their way into local waterways and eventually end up in oceans.
It’s estimated that over a third (35%) of all microplastics released into the world’s oceans are from synthetic textiles. And it’s an issue we can’t continue to ignore. Especially given the fact that since the 1990s, synthetic fibre production has been on the rise.
What are microplastics?
These minuscule pieces of plastic are the remnant of larger debris. Bottles, straws and also, clothes continually break down into smaller pieces over time. They’re not just dangerous to all the beautiful animals that live in our oceans (many of them mistake them as tiny particles of food), but they’re also harmful to humans; they come back to us through the produce we eat.
“It’s estimated that over a third (35%) of all microplastics released into the world’s oceans are from synthetic textiles.” – UNEP (2016)
Estimates vary, but it’s said that a single load of laundry could release anything up to 700,000 (calculation by Napper & Thompson 2016) of these microscopic plastic fibres. Given the fact that microplastics have been found in the depths of our oceans, in ice in the Arctic and even in our food, this isn’t just a filtration problem but a big fashion problem too.
Why materials matter
It’s important that the fabrics fashion brands choose to produce with — and the ones we continue to wear and demand — aren’t doing more harm than good. Polyester, one of the most commonly used textiles (and the fabric darling of the fast-fashion industry) is a big contributor to microplastic pollution. However, brands continue to produce with it because it’s cheap, cost-effective and easy to mark up.
And microplastics from our clothes are just a slice of the plastic pollution pie. The fashion industry really needs to address the other forms of plastic it puts out into the world. There’s the packaging our online orders get delivered in, the plastic hangers in stores, the thousands of plastic garment bags being used to transport clothes overseas for photoshoots and fashion weeks. We could go on but, you get the drift.
So, what CAN we do about it?
At the moment there’s no perfect fix. While there’s a host of great natural fibre alternatives on the rise, technological advances in fabrics and washing machines are still happening and will take time to become mainstream.
In theory, giving up synthetic fabrics and choosing natural is a good start, but it’s not realistic for everyone. Synthetics are the most affordable (hello Boohoo, ASOS and Missguided). So in comparison, sustainable options seem too expensive. Also, overproducing natural fabrics isn’t the answer either — all fibres have some sort of environmental impact.
What we can do is be more thoughtful about how we wash our clothes, and there’s now cool companies like Guppyfriend to help us do it. The German company has created a self-cleaning washing bag that filters out even the tiniest microfibres released during our wash. Simply pop your synthetic clothes into a bag, close it up and put it with the rest of your items. Afterwards, you can collect any fibres that have gathered in the bag and recycle them. We’d love to see more brands promoting innovations like Guppyfriend, and educate shoppers about responsible ways to care for clothes.
Research also shows that fabrics woven tighter and with longer fibres shed less over time. That means it’s also the responsibility of fashion brands, current and future, to use and promote more eco-friendly materials. Better textile design is the future.
What’s certain? What we wear matters. And while we wait for innovative solutions, there are small steps we can take to be more thoughtful. Buying less, not buying new polyester and even washing only when needed are just a few small but significant steps towards tackling fashion’s (not so micro) waste problem.
With a background in fashion and textiles, Durva is an ardent photographer and advocate of social justice. She enjoys writing about fashion, socio-political issues within sustainability and partakes in the occasional 'who wore it better' banter on Diet Prada. | <urn:uuid:dcc03f63-b967-40a9-b54f-54c5bebd12e9> | CC-MAIN-2023-50 | https://zerrin.com/fashions-not-so-micro-problem-microplastics/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100308.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20231201215122-20231202005122-00136.warc.gz | en | 0.940417 | 1,260 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Gas Flaring: The Burning Issue
Global gas flaring–the burning of natural gas associated with oil extraction processes–remains stubbornly high. We examine the determinants of gas flaring in three prominent cases: Russia and Nigeria as the two largest emitters of flare gas, and the United States as a rapidly expanding newcomer to the club.
When you drill for oil, you also get gas. In an ideal world this associated gas would be sold to consumers, or it would be used to generate power and then resold as electricity. But this requires costly investment into pipelines, power plants, and other infrastructure. Therefore, in practice, some oil producers opt to sell the oil and burn the gas. This is known as gas flaring. Every year, approximately 140-150 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas is flared into the atmosphere. According to calculations by the World Bank, that’s equivalent to three quarters of Russia’s gas exports, or almost one third of the European Union’s gas consumption.
Figure 1: Volume of gas flared (left axis) and equivalent CO2 emissions (right axis). Source: World Bank data, recalculated by authors from BCM to MMT.
Gas flaring is regrettable from an economic viewpoint because a valuable resource is wasted. It is even more regrettable from an environmental perspective because 140-150 bcm of flared natural gas translates into 270-290 million tons of C02 emissions per year. Accounting for roughly 1% of global carbon emissions, gas flaring is only a minor contributor to climate change. Even so, the practice is highly deplorable because no economic wealth and/or human welfare is generated in the process.
While global gas flaring has declined, albeit modestly, in recent years, the trend seems rather weak and far from irreversible. Gas flaring fell by around 20% from 2005 to 2010, only to increase again from 138 bcm in 2010 to 140 bcm in 2011 (the latest year for which data is currently available). Be that as it may, the total amount of gas flared globally remains broadly in line with 1994 levels.
So what explains the continued prevalence of gas flaring in recent years? Of the top-five flaring countries, let us examine Russia and Nigeria as the two largest emitters of flare gas, plus the United States as a newcomer to the group of the world’s largest emitters (the US is now the fifth largest flaring country, after Iran and Iraq, having displaced Algeria in 2011).
Gas flaring is an embarrassment to Russian leaders. As the then President Dmitry Medvedev stated on 12 November 2009,
“One of the most glaring examples of ineffective energy resource use is the flaring of gas extracted alongside oil. This pollutes the environment and sends tens of billions of rubles up in smoke.”
Political will to tackle gas flaring has contributed to a significant decline in Russian flaring volumes since 2005. Nevertheless, Russia continues to flare more gas than any other country in the world.
A first reason for this has to do with the geography of Russian oil and gas resources. Russia holds the world’s second largest natural gas and ninth largest crude oil reserves, but most of its oil and gas fields are in remote and hard-to-access areas. Additionally, these fields are often very far away from one another. As a result, long pipelines are needed for access to both domestic and international markets. So when the resource exploited is oil, building an additional pipeline for associated gas, or a gas firing power plant plus power lines, often makes little or no commercial sense.
Vintage photo of gas flare in the Siberian taiga. Source: Copper Kettle.
Another reason is straightforward economics. Due to the easy availability of natural gas and an explicit policy of subsidization, domestic gas prices are extremely low in Russia. Since commercializing associated gas tends to be more expensive than producing natural gas, flaring it is often the cheapest option. Pipelines are indeed expensive to construct. According to an estimate by the Russian investment company Finam, in Siberia a kilometre of pipeline costs about $1.5 million. Unsurprisingly, infrastructural investment to exploit associated gas has generally been outpaced by growth in oil production.
A third reason has to do with market structure. The decentralization of the Russian petroleum sector in the 1990s fractured existing links between oil producers and gas processing companies. Since then, oil producers have found themselves increasingly detached from gas collection, transportation, and utilization networks. Unsurprisingly, this sharp division has increased the incentive to flare rather than to produce.
Fourth and finally, the market structure of the Russian energy sector is anti-competitive: Gazprom, the majority state-owned natural gas company, holds a clear monopoly over the national gas transportation network. So, while in theory one might expect international market prices to set an incentive for the commercialization of associated gas, an oil producer looking to do this would first have to negotiate a fee for the utilization of the pipeline. Needless to say, many Russian oil producers decide that it makes better economic sense to simply flare their gas and sell their oil.
Starting from a very high baseline, gas flaring has more than halved in Nigeria since 1996. Despite this, Nigeria remains the second largest flaring country in the world and emits around $1.8 billion worth of gas annually. But what is more surprising than the eye-popping economic loss is the fact that so much gas is wasted despite the country’s rampant energy poverty: The entire Nigerian population uses little more grid power than the area immediately surrounding Tokyo’s Narita airport.
Like Russia, Nigeria has significant hydrocarbon resources. But these are far more accessible, with most of them located in the Niger Delta. So why is the outcome—wasteful gas flaring—identical, despite dissimilar geographical circumstances?
Satellite picture of gas flares in the Niger Delta. Source: NOAA.
The answer is that Nigeria is deeply afflicted by what economists call the resource curse: countries with a rich resource endowment are often less well governed, have lower growth rates, and are less socially developed than resource-poor countries. In the Nigerian case, one manifestation of the resource curse is seen in poor national governance: the Nigerian administration is often more concerned to cater to demands from international buyers of commodities (mainly oil) than to meet the needs of its citizens (for example, providing affordable gas-fired power).
This is not to deny that, due to extensive consumption subsidies, Nigeria still has one of the lowest pump prices for gasoline in Africa (44 US cent per liter in 2010/11). And this is only the official price. The effective price for illegal fuel, such as oil stolen from pipelines in the Niger delta, is likely to be even lower. Even so, many of Nigeria’s impoverished citizens are still not able to afford oil, and instead rely on biomass. Most businesses and those Nigerians who are wealthy enough to do so burn diesel or petrol on privately owned generators, rather than opting for gas which is relatively expensive and difficult to handle. Given the sorry state of public utilities, private diesel generators are the workhorses of Nigerian power generation.
In short, a critical lack of political goodwill and institutional capacity prevents gas from being harnessed in a way that might benefit and improve the welfare of the population. But fuel poverty in an oil and gas-rich country like Nigeria is just one of the ironies of the resource curse. Weak institutions and poor governance also make Nigeria less attractive as a destination for foreign direct investment and as a source of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) for international markets. In July 2013, for instance, Nigeria’s maritime security agency blocked all LNG exports for 17 days, despite the fact that the blockade had been declared illegal by a federal court.
Lastly, although flaring has been legally banned in Nigeria since 1984, measures to enforce the ban have been lackluster. NGOs and environmental organizations, for instance, point towards the fact that fines for flaring are much too low per cubic meter to deter companies from burning gas. Under such circumstances, there is little incentive for entrepreneurs to make the huge infrastructural investments required for the commercialization of gas. Gas flaring, in this context, makes perfect sense from a business point of view. It’s simply one aspect of Nigeria’s dysfunctional petroleum sector, which is rife with distributional inequality and tragic energy wastage.
The amount of gas flared in the United States has more than doubled since 2000, primarily due to growing flaring volumes in Wyoming and, most recently, North Dakota. Together, Wyoming and North Dakota now account for more than half of the gas flared in the United States. This is despite the fact that the US is the biggest market for natural gas in the world, with its domestic consumption amounting to over a fifth of global demand. So what explains this increasing gas wastage in America?
As in the Russian case, the key drivers are basic economics and resource geography. Mainly due to the shale gas boom, the US overtook Russia in 2009 as the world’s biggest producer of natural gas. The gas glut in the US has depressed domestic prices, making the commercialization of associated gas relatively less attractive. So, as in the Russian case, it is usually more cost effective to flare than to produce.
The other key reason is resource geography. Infrastructure to transport, process, and utilize associated gas has not grown in line with US oil production. The most striking example of this comes from North Dakota. Flaring there increased sevenfold over the past decade (2000-2010) and more than doubled from 2010 to 2011 (the latest year for which data is available), mainly due to increasing tight oil production. In fact, North Dakota advanced from being the ninth largest state producer of oil in 2006 to the second largest state producer in 2012 (after Texas and before Alaska).
Table 1: Gas vented and flared in key jurisdictions, million cubic feet. Source: EIA.
Much like in Russia, long and expensive pipelines would be required to transport associated gas to the primary domestic consumption markets (California, Florida, Louisiana, and so on), which are all very far from North Dakota. Aside from the sheer cost involved, it would take many years if not decades to build the infrastructure necessary to commercialize gas from places like North Dakota.
Nighttime view of North Dakota. Source: NASA Earth Observatory.
An additional problem is that the tight oil industry is highly fugacious. To put it bluntly, a lot of holes are drilled over a vast area during a short period of time, because production is subject to a high depletion rate. As a result, the industry moves on swiftly from one play to the next. The pattern is fairly unpredictable, and this means that US tight oil production is a moving target. Therefore, planning the appropriate infrastructure for the commercialization of associated gas is a tall order.
To explore the determinants of gas flaring, we have outlined three prominent cases: Russia and Nigeria as the top two flaring countries in the world, and the US as a rapidly expanding newcomer to the flaring club.
The specific economic, geographical, and institutional reasons that underpin flaring are quite diverse. Sometimes, as in Russia, associated gas from oil fields is hardly needed locally and markets can rely on cheaper gas from dedicated gas fields. Sometimes, as in Nigeria, economic underdevelopment and dysfunctional institutions lead to a situation where the local economy cannot absorb associated gas, while traders can source their liquefied natural gas more cheaply and more efficiently from other countries. Sometimes, as in the United States, a sudden glut makes it difficult to immediately commercialize flare gas from remote regions.
Ultimately, the underlying cause is always the same: an oversupply of associated gas in a place or at a time where the demand for gas is too low and commercialization is too difficult. This points us back to the wider phenomenon of the resource curse: especially in developing countries, resource abundance is often not a blessing but a curse. While the resource curse is largely about socioeconomic development and institutions, fuel abundance comes with serious environmental challenges, especially when we consider climate change, and it often confines countries to carbon intensive developmental pathways —what Friedrichs and Inderwildi call the carbon curse.
Datasets on gas flaring are subject to significant variation, due to inconsistencies in estimation methodology and shortcomings in measurement. As the safest bet, our analysis is largely based on the latest data from the World Bank. The World Bank data is based on measurements by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which relies on satellite observations. A supplementary flaring database is available from the Energy Information Administration.
Julia S.P. Loe and Olga Ladehaug (2012) Reducing gas flaring in Russia: gloomy outlook in times of economic insecurity, Energy Policy 50: 507–517.
See Aminu Hassan and Reza Kouhy (2013) Gas flaring in Nigeria: analysis of changes in its consequent carbon emission and reporting, Accounting Forum 37 (2).
Xian Rice (2013) Nigeria maritime agency extends gas blockade, Financial Times, 9 July 2013.
Jörg Friedrichs and Oliver Inderwildi (2013) The carbon curse: Are fuel rich economies doomed to high CO2 intensities?, Energy Policy 62, forthcoming.
What do you think? Leave a comment below.
Sign up for regular Resilience bulletins direct to your email. | <urn:uuid:14a0a7f1-51d2-4bb0-9dd5-337f8aa4ccfd> | CC-MAIN-2014-15 | http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-09-03/gas-flaring-the-burning-issue | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-15/segments/1398223206672.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20140423032006-00652-ip-10-147-4-33.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943915 | 2,775 | 3.234375 | 3 |
Is our sun fundamentally different from other "sun-like" stars? This question highlights an ongoing controversy about whether our nearest star is unique or, in fact, an "ordinary star."
Now, an international collaboration of solar physicists thinks it has an answer. Although the sun is very special to Earth and all of the planets in the solar system, it isn't unique; indeed, it is driven by the same internal mechanisms as other stars, the researchers said in a statement highlighting the findings of a new study.
In the study , which will be published in the July 14 edition of the journal Science but was released online today (July 13), a group of researchers led by Antoine Strugarek, of the University of Montreal, examined the driving mechanisms behind the solar cycle. Over an average period of 11 years, the sun waxes and wanes between intense magnetic activity followed by extended periods of magnetic calm. At peak activity, the sun becomes covered in sunspots — a sign that its magnetic field is stressed. [The Sun's Wrath: Worst Solar Storms in History]
At so-called "solar maximum," solar storms are commonplace, triggering many solar flares and coronal mass ejections, where plasma from the sun's atmosphere explodes into space. These phenomena are collectively known as "space weather" and can have damaging effects on unprotected satellites in Earth's orbit, cause communications blackouts and even overload power grids on the ground.
Understanding the sun's magnetic cycle is, therefore, of utmost importance to space-weather forecasters hoping to better prepare our high-technology society for the potentially expensive damage that powerful solar storms could cause.
Using a 3D computer simulation, the researchers modeled the sun's internal dynamo, which is the physical process that generates the sun's magnetic field. Located in the uppermost 30 percent of the sun's interior — a region called the convection zone — powerful flows of solar plasma (very hot gases composed of charged particles, called ions) dominate. As this turbulent soup of hot material flows, it creates powerful electric currents that, in turn, generate magnetic fields (via the "dynamo effect"), which float to the sun's photosphere and into the sun's corona (the sun's multimillion-degree atmosphere) and create the root of space weather.
Until now, there's been some mystery surrounding how the sun's internal dynamo controls the solar cycle. Also, when observing the cycles of other stars that look like the sun in our galaxy, astronomers have noticed that the cycles are different, according to the statement. And therein lies a conundrum: If our sun is exhibiting different cyclical behavior than other sun-like stars, is our sun's cycle driven by a fundamentally different mechanism?
By carrying out simulations of stellar magnetic fields, the researchers determined that a star's magnetic cycle is controlled by the relationship between luminosity and rate of rotation. This relationship is known as the "Rossby number." When plotting the luminosities and rotation rates for a selection of sun-like stars, the researchers noticed that their cycles were inversely proportional to this number. In other words, as the Rossby number increases, a star's cycle period decreases — and the sun follows this trend even though its cycle might be wildly different from those of other stars.
So, the sun is just like other sun-like stars, the researchers concluded; although these stars may be different, their cycles are driven by their internal dynamos.
Follow Ian O'Neill @astroengine . Follow us @Spacedotcom , Facebook and Google+ . Original article on Space.com . | <urn:uuid:85839aab-7f89-45b4-b043-31670d3bd8ee> | CC-MAIN-2018-22 | http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017/07/13/sun-might-be-ordinary-star-after-all.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-22/segments/1526794867092.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20180525121739-20180525141739-00361.warc.gz | en | 0.939437 | 737 | 4.125 | 4 |
We share our stories with our friends, family, and strangers on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. We talk about vacations, holiday get-togethers, office projects, and travel mishaps. We don’t dump statistics on our social media sites. Why? Because our stories carry emotion that connects us with people and drives a point deeper and deeper into our psyche.
We tell ourselves stories about why we do what we do; about why we act the way we act; about what we said and why we said it; about how something should be done or not done. The stories that go on in our head prove positively that stories are a natural mode of communication.
So it should be natural that we tell others our stories as a means to influence them on the job. When tragedy strikes, the media doesn’t just report how many people died, the impact on the Richter scale or the economy, and the inches of snow, rain, or flooding. Instead, reporters find the people stories. They put a face to the tragedy by telling you of the single guy who jumped from the safety of his boat to save a drowning two-year-old whose parents, unable to swim, stood on the swollen river’s shore screaming for help.
But storytelling is not just about sensationalism. Storytelling makes leadership possible. A leader without the ability to tell a great story has lost the platform and power to persuade.
Researchers have discovered that even judges and seasoned attorneys prefer story briefs to logo briefs (those built totally on logical argument). An empirical study on the power of story determined that stories are persuasive to experienced lawyers and judges because they evoke emotional responses that make legal claims of the parties more credible and elicit empathy in their judicial thinking.
Structure is to storytelling what framing is to a house. Without it, you just have a heap of supplies on a vacant lot.
Think back to your high-school or college English classes. Your professor defined a story this way: “A hero struggles to overcome obstacles to reach an important goal.” Keep these tips in mind as you start to build your personal or business stories:
That is, don’t tell your audience about the movie. Put them in the movie theater, and let them see the movie. Recreate the scenes.
Anything or anyone can be a hero in the story: Your organization, a product, a location, your client, a passerby. Make sure your audience can identify with your hero.
Don’t always try to be the hero or heroine in your own stories or talk about your successes. Audiences relate more often and learn more from “failure” stories.
Give your hero a goal or challenge to overcome. Add struggles. The hero must overcome struggles or obstacles to master the challenge or meet the goal.
Use dialogue to let listeners hear the characters talk to each other. Be interactive in the telling. Use analogies, metaphors, and props and add some humor–self-effacing humor is best.
Refer back to a line from earlier in your story that will continue to drive home your message. Bringing this line to mind again makes the story feel like it’s come full circle for listeners and clarifies the takeaway.
End with a resolution that motivates your listeners to action.
Master this basic skill of story-telling as a first step to move people emotionally–to buy your product, to become a strategic partner, to increase productivity, to change a habit, to cast your vision.
Tell it and they will engage.
—Dianna Booher, CEO of Booher Research and an expert in leadership communications, is the author of 46 books, published in 26 languages, with nearly 4 million copies sold. Her latest book,What More Can I Say: Why Communication Fails and What to Do About It, is available at local and online bookstores and www.BooherResearch.com. | <urn:uuid:bbd736ed-a065-4de0-8a7b-54ff6191b873> | CC-MAIN-2018-30 | https://www.fastcompany.com/3040709/7-tips-for-great-storytelling-as-a-leader | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-30/segments/1531676589270.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20180716115452-20180716135452-00376.warc.gz | en | 0.940752 | 806 | 2.65625 | 3 |
A new report calls attention to cancer in people with mental illness, suggesting that healthcare system and societal factors are just as critical as individual lifestyle factors– linked to smoking and obesity–that lead to health disparities among this group.
Reports indicate that nearly one in five adults (18.6%) suffered some form of any mental illness in the last year, and almost 10 million U.S. adults (4.1% of the population) had a serious mental illness (such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder) in the past year. Despite the high prevalence of mental illness among adults, widespread recognition of the significant health disparities experienced by this population has occurred only in the last decade. People with mental illness die decades earlier compared with the general population, with most of the disparity the result of preventable and treatable chronic conditions, including cancer.
Individual lifestyle factors, such as smoking or limited adherence to treatment, are often cited as highly significant issues in shaping cancer risk among persons with mental illness. However, existing societal factors are also crucial contributors to this increased risk.
In the new report, researchers led by Lara C. Weinstein, MD, MPH of Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, conducted a review summarizing existing literature on cancer prevention, screening, and treatment for people with mental illness.
They found that although multiple interventions are being developed and tested to address tobacco dependence and obesity in these populations, the evidence for effectiveness remains limited, and essentially all prevention interventions focus at the individual level.
Approaches that focus solely on “individual-level interventions have been criticized by some as ‘blaming the victim’ and can be particularly problematic for marginalized and stigmatized populations, such as those with experiences of mental illness, because they often fail to acknowledge the overwhelming environmental and societal barriers to good health,†write the authors.
The review provides a summary of key recommendations for medical clinicians to improve cancer prevention screening and treatment in people with mental illness. Those include:
- Address obesity among all people with mental illness, and strongly consider metformin for weight loss in people with schizophrenia and obesity or rapid weight gain
Actively address tobacco use and dependence in all people with mental illness, and consider bupropion and varenicline in psychiatrically stable patients
Provide a community health worker or peer counselor to help patients navigate the screening and treatment process
Increase awareness of cancer screening in mental health service providers
Consciously avoid the tendency to attribute physical symptoms that may indicate cancer to the patient’s mental illness
Involve staff from community-based social support, who often have long-term relationships with patients, early in the diagnostic and treatment process
Engage people with mental illness in end-of-life treatment decisions
“We hope this review draws attention to the limitations of the current health care system to improve cancer control in this marginalized population,†said Dr. Weinstein. “Improving cancer prevention and control efforts in people with mental illness will require fully integrating medical and behavioral health care in settings that commonly provide services to this population, such as community mental health care sites, community service centers, and supportive housing, so that health interventions are brought to people’s doorsteps, reducing the access and engagement barriers that are contributing to existing disparities.â€
American Cancer Society | <urn:uuid:a4887ded-60aa-4761-b220-aaa26c128486> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://healthmedicinet.com/review-provides-recommendations-to-improve-cancer-screening-treatment-in-people-with-mental-illness/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510358.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20230928031105-20230928061105-00039.warc.gz | en | 0.945669 | 700 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Global warming is heating the Arctic at a record pace, driving broad environmental changes across the planet, including extreme storms in the United States and Europe, a major US scientific report said Tuesday.
Persistent heat records have assaulted the fragile Arctic for each of the past five years -- a record-long warming streak, said the 2018 Arctic Report Card, released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The mounting heat in the north is upsetting typical weather patterns, a trend that "coincides" with severe winter storms in the eastern United States and an extreme cold snap in Europe in March, it said.
"Continued warming of the Arctic atmosphere and ocean are driving broad change in the environmental system in predicted and, also, unexpected ways," warned the report.
"New and rapidly emerging threats are taking form and highlighting the level of uncertainty in the breadth of environmental change that is to come."
Emily Osborne, program manager of NOAA's Arctic Research Program, told reporters the Arctic "is experiencing the most unprecedented transition in human history."
The report was released at the American Geophysical Union's annual conference in Washington, just weeks after another damning climate assessment by federal scientists which US President Donald Trump dismissed, saying he did not "believe" it.
Asked by reporters if he had personally briefed Trump on the latest Arctic findings, NOAA acting administrator Timothy Gallaudet said he had not, but he insisted that NOAA has the White House's support when it comes to scientific research.
- Temperature records -
Arctic air temperatures for the past five years, from 2014 to 2018, "have exceeded all previous records since 1900," when record-keeping began, said the peer-reviewed report compiled by 81 scientists working for governments and academia in 12 nations.
This warming trend "is unlike any other period on record," it said.
During the latest period studied, October 2017 through September 2018, annual average temperature in the Arctic was 3.1 Fahrenheit (1.7 Celsius) higher than the 1981–2010 average.
"The year 2018 was the second warmest year on record in the Arctic since 1900 (after 2016)," it said.
The Arctic also saw the second-lowest overall sea-ice coverage and the lowest recorded winter ice in the Bering Sea.
Another key measure of ice cover is its age, and the old, thick kind is rapidly disappearing across the Arctic.
Last year, old ice made up less than one percent of the ice pack.
Over the past 33 years, very old Arctic ice has declined by 95 percent.
- Jet stream -
The Arctic continues to heat up at twice the rate of the rest of the planet, but the effects are far from isolated, and are now spilling over into the mid-latitudes.
That's because a warmer Arctic reduces the north-south temperature difference, which provides the main fuel for the polar jet stream, or a river of strong wind, at levels where jet aircraft fly, NOAA said.
In this warming environment, the jet stream has become wavier, a pattern that "allows warm air to penetrate farther north and cold air to plunge farther south, compared to when the jet is strong and relatively straight," said the report.
Scientist now see evidence that this changing jet stream may be sparking extreme storms.
Examples include "the heat wave at the North Pole in autumn 2017, a swarm of severe winter storms in the eastern United States in 2018, and the extreme cold outbreak in Europe in March 2018 known as the 'Beast from the East.'"
- Reindeer, marine life -
Meanwhile, warmer Arctic temperatures are wreaking havoc on the Arctic ecosystem, decimating reindeer and caribou populations, allowing harmful algae blooms to move northward and sickening marine life, said the report, now in its 13th year.
"Considerable concentrations of algal toxins have been found in the tissues of Arctic clams, seals, walrus, and whales and other marine organisms," it said.
Even though melting ice has freed up more land for grazing, herds of caribou and wild reindeer across the Arctic tundra have declined by 56 percent over the last two decades, cutting populations from 4.7 million to 2.1 million.
"The long-term warming trend may be taking a toll on some of the Arctic's most majestic animals," said Howard Epstein, professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia.
Scientists attribute the decline to increased frequency of drought, which affects quality of the tundra, and longer and hotter summers which can lead to more parasites.
Another new focus of the report involved the emerging threat of marine microplastics, which scientists have discovered are accumulating in the Arctic at higher concentrations than anywhere else in the world.
"This pollution -- from plastics produced and discarded in more populated areas of the world -- is likely traveling with ocean currents to the Arctic," said Karen Frey, professor of geography at Clark University.
Microplastic contamination has increased over the last decade, and is a concern because seabirds and marine life can ingest debris, sickening them and interfering with a key food and income source for people who consume them, she said. | <urn:uuid:3e92762d-f378-4731-a637-0691c75d68c2> | CC-MAIN-2020-34 | https://sg.news.yahoo.com/amphtml/arctics-record-warming-driving-broad-change-environment-study-152047598.html?__twitter_impression=true | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-34/segments/1596439737172.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20200807083754-20200807113754-00130.warc.gz | en | 0.950739 | 1,061 | 3.578125 | 4 |
What does learning smell like? More than likely— it smells like peppermint. According to the Essential Oils Desk Reference, peppermint oil can be used to “boost energy, creativity and learning skills.” So it might be a good idea to infuse a whiff of peppermint into your child’s next study session. Peppermint smells great and there are many fun ways to tap into peppermint power: peppermint mints, peppermint scented stickers, and peppermint scented pencils, to name just a few options.
Using scent to increase learning skills is a practice that has been receiving increased attention over the years. In “Using Smell to Help You Study” published by Best Colleges Online, it is recommended that students spray a pencil “with a certain cologne or perfume that your noise not accustomed to smelling and regularly smell that scent as you study,” so your brain associates your study material with that scent. Then, when you sniff that scented pencil during a classroom exam, the scent will trigger your memory to recall what you studied when that scent was in the room. To learn more, you can read the article in its entirety here: Best Colleges Online
Scratch-and-sniff stickers are a great way to utilize the power of scent to motivate students and they are an ideal way to maximize your child’s sense of smell during study sessions. If you are curious and want to learn more about how scratch-and-sniff scented products work, you can visit this site:
Just as foul odours detract from the learning process, it is also true that positive smells and particular scents enhance your child’s learning process. Think about it. Is the scent of inspiration filling the air in your child’s study room? | <urn:uuid:c75389ab-2252-4e64-b865-080399c1b4f5> | CC-MAIN-2017-51 | https://blog.greatlittlerewards.co.uk/2013/06/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-51/segments/1512948563083.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20171215021156-20171215041156-00322.warc.gz | en | 0.941411 | 369 | 2.765625 | 3 |
What Is Payload Capacity?
Payload capacity is the manufacturer-determined maximum amount of cargo weight that can be safely added to a vehicle. A “payload” could be anything from two tons worth of old tires to three passengers and their luggage.
A simple equation to determine Payload Capacity is:
PAYLOAD CAPACITY = GROSS VEHICLE WEIGHT RATING (GVWR) (-) CURB WEIGHT
KEY TAKEAWAYS PAYLOAD CAPACITY
- The amount of cargo weight that can be safely added to a vehicle.
- Can be found in manufacturer specs or from dealership.
- Payload Capacity = GVWR – Curb Weight
- Don’t forget to include passenger weight in payload capacity.
Calculating Payload Capacity
The simplest way to find a vehicle’s payload capacity is to review the specs in the owner’s manual or obtain the information directly from the dealership. To determine the payload capacity on one’s own, it’s key to understand the meaning of Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) and Curb Weight.
- Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) is the maximum loaded weight of a vehicle. The maximum loaded weight includes the weight of the vehicle itself (the curb weight) and any payload.
- Curb Weight is how much the vehicle weighs when empty, which includes a full tank of gas and topped off fluids but no passengers or cargo.
To determine the payload capacity, subtract the Curb Weight from GVWR. If a truck’s curb GVWR is 10,000 pounds and the curb weight is 4,000 pounds, the vehicle’s payload capacity will be 6,000 pounds.
*Important Note about Payload Capacity*: When determining payload capacity always include the weight of the passengers and additional cargo. Four passengers each averaging 150 pounds can add 600 pounds to your payload capacity that can easily be forgotten.
Dangers of Exceeding Payload Capacity
Surpassing the manufacturer’s payload capacity can compromise critical functions of the vehicle such as steering, handling and braking. It can also increase the chance of a roll over. It’s always safer to operate well under your payload capacity as it can be easy to miscalculate the cargo weight or forget about additional passengers in the vehicle.
Warning signs that vehicle is overloaded Napa Online:
– Steering will feel heavier
– Vehicle becomes difficult to control
– Bottom of vehicle scrapes the ground
What are the dangers of exceeding the payload capacity?
– The added pressure on the shocks, suspension system and wheels will make it more difficult to control the truck leading to accidents
– Increased risk of tire blowout
– Sudden movement of cargo could cause a rollover
– Swaying can cause loss of vehicle control
– Transmission blowout
Understanding the Difference Between Payload Capacity vs Towing Capacity
What Is Towing Capacity?
Towing capacity refers to the maximum weight that a vehicle can tow after factoring in the weight of the vehicle and the payload. To get a clearer picture on what Towing Capacity means it is important to understand a few more key terms to add to GVWR and Curb Weight:
- Tongue Weight is the downward force that the tongue of the trailer exerts on the hitch that is connected to the vehicle. An acceptable tongue weight for any trailer is somewhere between 9 to 15 percent of the gross trailer weight (GTW).
- Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW) is the combined weight of the vehicle and all passengers and cargo pieces in total. This number refers to a vehicle’s weight at any given point in time.
- Gross Combined Weight Rating (GCWR) includes the weight of the vehicle, passengers, cargo, and trailer with a load. The GCWR number is your maximum allowed total combined weight with the trailer attached.
How To Determine Towing Capacity?
Towing capacity can be determined by using the following steps:
- Determine Curb Weight of the vehicle
- Add the weight of passengers, fuel, and cargo to the Curb Weight.
- Subtract this number from your vehicle’s GCWR
- This is your max towing capacity.
* Check to make sure the hitch can also handle this weight.
- Vehicle’s Curb Weight is 8,000 pounds. Passenger, Fuel and Cargo is 3,000 = Total 11,000 pounds
- Vehicle’s GCWR is 16,000 pound
- 16,000 pounds – 11,000 pounds = 5,000 pounds Tow Capacity
Related RV Terms
For related RV terminology, please reference the RV definitions below:
- Travel Trailer: A non-motorized compact home on wheels that you can tow behind your personal vehicle.
- Hitch: the primary connector between a tow vehicle and trailer.
- Sway: when a trailer moves side to side behind the tow vehicle.
- GARW (Gross Axle Weight Rating): The maximum weight that the front and rear axles can withstand on a vehicle. This will include two ratings: The FR rating for the front axles and the RR rating for the rear axles. | <urn:uuid:d66b5f09-fc83-4cf2-a2d9-394680f1fa28> | CC-MAIN-2021-43 | https://beginrv.com/payload-capacity-definition/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-43/segments/1634323585281.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20211019202148-20211019232148-00103.warc.gz | en | 0.908072 | 1,083 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Create a Communicative Language Classroom
15 Communicative Activities to Build Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking Skills
After completing this form, you will receive an email with a link to the pdf.
Understanding and communication are two major goals for language learners, so it's no surprise that many language teachers prefer teaching through communicative activities. But it takes time and creativity to create a successful communicative classroom. This method requires spontaneity and a variety of engaging activities and exercises.
In this eBook, we'll walk you through some of our favorite communicative activities, tested and perfected by a 20-year language teaching veteran, including:
- 4 reading activities
- 3 writing activities
- 3 listening activities
- 5 speaking activities | <urn:uuid:1e232ced-520f-495d-9303-46973a14928b> | CC-MAIN-2017-22 | http://www.transparent.com/ebooks/create-a-communicative-language-classroom.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-22/segments/1495463613738.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20170530011338-20170530031338-00111.warc.gz | en | 0.937414 | 151 | 3.359375 | 3 |
WEDNESDAY, July 25, 2012 (HealthDay News) -- Air pollution may aggravate breathing problems among athletes with asthma or a related condition known as exercise-induced bronchoconstriction at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, an allergists' group warns.
"It has been well documented that elite athletes in the Olympics have an increased prevalence of [exercise-induced bronchoconstriction]," Dr. William Silvers, a member of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology's Sports Medicine Committee, said in an academy news release. "They may not have suspected it, since they don't have chronic asthma but rather a narrowing of the airways that comes specifically with exercise."
Also known as exercise-induced asthma, exercise-induced bronchoconstriction affects one in six Olympic athletes and about 20 percent of elite athletes.
The condition causes otherwise healthy people to experience symptoms -- such as coughing, wheezing, chest tightness and shortness of breath -- during or after exercise.
Air pollution can worsen these symptoms, the experts warned. Pollutants, including ozone, sulfur dioxide and nitric oxide, can inflame the airways of sensitive people and bring on an asthma attack.
Symptoms of the exercise-induced respiratory problems can start within 5 to 20 minutes of beginning physical activity, but more commonly, symptoms develop after physical activity has ended.
"Whether you are a professional athlete or a backyard enthusiast, understanding warning signs, staying hydrated and knowing when to use your medication can help control asthma and keep you from sitting on the sidelines," Silvers said.
Exercise-induced bronchoconstriction can be treated with prescription asthma medications, including inhaled corticosteroids to prevent symptoms from occurring and "rescue" medications, such as albuterol, which relax and open the airways. Olympic anti-doping regulations have recently changed to allow the use of some inhaled asthma medications that were previously banned, according to the release.
The summer Olympics will run from Friday, July 27 through Sunday, Aug. 12.
The Natural Resources Defense Council has more about air pollution and asthma. | <urn:uuid:28383e09-8506-423c-94e9-3f4e886304da> | CC-MAIN-2019-39 | https://consumer.healthday.com/respiratory-and-allergy-information-2/asthma-news-47/london-smog-may-be-tough-on-olympians-666888.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-39/segments/1568514573476.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20190919101533-20190919123533-00105.warc.gz | en | 0.960187 | 443 | 2.59375 | 3 |
I recently completed the Creative Commons Certificate for Librarians course. Most of the assessment pieces and learning resources I developed as part of the course will be shared here. The Creative Commons Certificate resources are open and available here.
Assignment – Unit 5:
Create a video, slide presentation, poster, or infographic (or choose another medium), designed specifically for patrons of your library, in which you describe Open Access and Open Educational Resources. At a minimum, include:
- a definition of Open Access,
- a definition of Open Educational Resources,
- a description of the relationship between OA and OER,
- a description of why Open Access is important for faculty and students, and
- a description of why Open Educational Resources are important for faculty and students.
This assessment was particularly useful as I feel that being a strong and knowledgeable advocate for OA and OERs is very important to me both professional and personally. My everyday work involves the constant updating and improvement of AIRS, which at its core is an OER designed to help both QUT Higher Degree Research Students and the wider HDR community build their skills and understanding around research, publishing, data management and many other aspects of higher degree research. This project helped me understand some of the finer points around the importance of OA and OER and has given me a a great deal of useful information to share with others when I discuss both topics.
Assignment – Unit 4:
For this assignment, create an instructional artifact (a video, flyer, another type of document, audio file, slide presentation, etc.) in which you describe a collection and a remix / adapted work / derivative work.
Your assignment should include:
- A description of a collection
- A description of a remix / adapted work / derivative work
- A collection that you create, which includes two existing CC-licensed works.
- A sample attribution statement for the collection that adheres to licensing expectations for collections
This week, my assignment focused on exploring how Creative Commons licensed works can be shared, collected, adapted and remixed. This was a particularly useful learning experience because understanding how to use Creative Commons licensed works in learning objects and OERs is a large and growing part of my work. This week we also learned a bit more about licence elements, notably NoDerivatives (ND). It was great to engage in discussion about when ND might be useful, particularly within the library/higher education context.
The assignment for this week was made using PowerPoint. I thought this would be the best format as it lends itself to mixing images with larger amounts of text than perhaps might be easy to digest in a long infographic.
Assignment – Unit 3: Anatomy of a CC Licence
Create a video, slide presentation, or infographic (or choose another medium) in which you describe the Creative Commons licenses as well as how and when they might be useful to your institutions’ work. At a minimum, include a description of:
- the three layers of the CC licenses,
- the four license elements and the icons that represent them
- the six Creative Commons licenses,
- how the CC licenses affect exceptions and limitations to copyright, and
- how the CC licenses affect works in the public domain.
After playing around with some PowerPoint slides earlier in the week with a view to turning them into a video with narration, I ran into some road blocks which robbed me of the time I’d usually put aside for the CC course. With that in mind, I decided that I’d have a better chance of getting things done on time if I made an infographic, so I returned to Piktochart!
This project was a great educational exercise for me – reading and writing about the different layers and elements of the licences while making my infographic really solidified things for me. Show casing the six different CC licences was also handy for cementing this unit’s contents in my mind. I feel much more confident talking about CC licences now and the discussions that I had with my course mates on Canvas were also really illuminating. This week was great!
Assessment – Unit 2: Copyright Law
Assignment 2 task: Create a video, slide presentation, or infographic (or choose another medium) in which you describe the basics of copyright law as covered in Module 2. Make an effort to create something that would be useful and interesting to someone else.
I decided to use Piktochart again for this assignment because I had found it so easy and intuitive to use last time. I decided to put an Australian focus on my work, so that I could learn more about copyright in the Australian context. I figured this would be most helpful to me in my day to day work. I also tried to include some interesting information under the ‘did you know?’ headings to bring some interest to the topic. Upon reflection, I think a video may have been a more useful resource for this assignment as my infographic is quite long as there was a great deal of information to cover for this assignment. This might give me the push I need to try and learn how to make an interesting video for my future projects!
Assessment – Unit 1: What is Creative Commons?
Assignment 1 task: Create a video, slide presentation, podcast, wikibook content, an infographic in which you describe the key historical events leading up to the launch of Creative Commons and the state of Creative Commons today. Rather than a disconnected list, create a narrative (tell a story) that ties events and people together. Try to create something that would be useful and interesting to someone who just heard about Creative Commons and wants to learn more.
I decided to use Piktochart to create a simple infographic to tell the story of Creative Commons. I had never used Piktochart before, but my supervisor and I had been talking about learning how to use it and/or Canva for a report we have coming up so I thought I’d use this opportunity to try it out. I decided to create a very simple infographic, I didn’t want the key message to be distracted from by lots of different colours or images. In the end, I chose a few simple icons, black text of varying sizes and an orange background.
The assignment itself was a nice introduction to the history of Creative Commons and an enjoyable task. | <urn:uuid:13d6d941-8478-41bb-ab0b-880a7bc09a03> | CC-MAIN-2020-10 | https://kylieburgess.info/creative-commons-certificate/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-10/segments/1581875146066.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20200225110721-20200225140721-00517.warc.gz | en | 0.95638 | 1,296 | 2.625 | 3 |
The third day of watching the Red-headed Woodpecker brings new insight. Sharp eyes and fast wings help the lone bird catch large insects on the wing, bringing them back to the street light pole for consumption. The bird’s flight through the air is quite manic and incredibly fast as it chases its aerial prey.
The second day of watching the Red-headed Woodpecker was marked by terrible lighting as winter clouds brought an unhelpful darkness to the neighborhood that made photography a challenge. On the other hand, the Woodpecker revealed he has a private drinking reservoir in this oak tree knothole filled with water from recent rains.
Years of hoping to find a Red-headed Woodpecker entailing searching remote pinewoods leading to a couple of long distance glimpses paid off in the strangest way when a friend pointed out that there was a Red-headed Woodpecker living practically downtown. I had my doubts but when I drove to its location I could easily see the bird before I had even parked! Sure enough, it’s an urban bird with a cavity in a rather ramshackle streetlight pole. Good enough for […]
A small group of Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area (ORCA) volunteers paid a Sunday visit to the Archbold Biological Station near the exotically named town of Venus that lies up along the Lake Wales Ridge that runs down central Florida. Established in 1941, the Station owns 8,840-acres of relict sandy dunes, scrub habitat, pine flatwoods, and a small lake. The Station’s stated goal is to research “population ecology and conservation biology, emphasizing ecological changes over local and regional scales, and demographic […]
Categories: Nature • Tags: Archbold Biological Station, Coral Bean, Dragonfly, Eastern Meadowlark, Erythrina herbacea, fire tower, Florida, Florida scrub, Florida Scrub-Jay, grasshopper, Meadowlark, Mockingbird, Northern Mockingbird, ORCA, Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area, Red Hill, Red-headed Woodpecker, scrub, Scrub-Jay, sugar sand, Venus, Vero Beach | <urn:uuid:74747263-c521-432d-83b0-afd64c618512> | CC-MAIN-2020-10 | https://rangetracking.com/tag/red-headed-woodpecker/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-10/segments/1581875146160.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20200225202625-20200225232625-00371.warc.gz | en | 0.931841 | 445 | 2.640625 | 3 |
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Dispersants are often used in oil spill responses because they may mitigate the environmental impacts of the spill by moving the oil from the water surface into the water column enhancing its biodegradation. While this process helps reduce the likelihood of oil exposure to marine wildlife such as seabirds and marine mammals, aquatic toxicity on marine communities from the dispersant and the chemically dispersed oil needs to be considered more carefully.
Scientists at Research Planning, Inc. and HDR Ecosystem Management evaluated the standard toxicity testing data used to inform dispersant decisions and published a critical review of their findings in the scientific journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry in March 2014. The authors found issues with the current practices, and lead author Adriana Bejarano notes, "Despite concerted efforts by the spill response community to propose and promote discussions on better laboratory practices, studies are still performed without consideration of such recommendations." Laboratory tests frequently used by decision makers do not adequately replicate the conditions in the field, such as sea state and weather, nor do they necessarily consider exposure durations (short-term vs. standard exposure) and concentrations (steady concentrations vs. spiked concentrations).
Bejarano's goal was to bring to light some of the common misconceptions and challenges in existing data, and to encourage decision makers to consider data quality when making decisions on the use of dispersants. "Data comparability is difficult because of the mixed messages coming from the scientific literature. Many believe that dispersants make oil more toxic, when in reality existing data generally do not support these claims. Being critical would be beneficial to the entire decision-making process." | <urn:uuid:59d9860a-0dcb-4b99-a566-8b7d43c89fa4> | CC-MAIN-2019-22 | https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-03/soet-odd030614.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-22/segments/1558232256494.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20190521162634-20190521184634-00150.warc.gz | en | 0.932595 | 331 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Glossary of Terms
Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 – definition from AIDSinfo – http://aidsinfo.nih.gov
1. The retrovirus isolated and recognized as the etiologic (i.e., causing or contributing to the cause of a disease) agent of AIDS. HIV-1 is classified as a lentivirus in a subgroup of retroviruses.
2. The genetic material of a retrovirus such as HIV is the RNA itself. HIV inserts its own RNA into the host cell's DNA, preventing the host cell from carrying out its natural functions and turning it into an HIV factory.
Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 2 – definition from AIDSinfo – http://aidsinfo.nih.gov
A virus closely related to HIV-1 that has also been found to cause AIDS. It was first isolated in West Africa. Although HIV-1 and HIV-2 are similar in their viral structure, modes of transmission, and resulting opportunistic infections, they have differed in their geographic patterns of infection.
HIV Disease - definition from AIDSinfo – http://aidsinfo.nih.gov
During the initial infection with HIV, when the virus comes in contact with the mucosal surface and finds susceptible T cells, the first site at which there is truly massive production of the virus is lymphoid tissue. This leads to a burst of massive viremia, with wide dissemination of the virus to lymphoid organs. The resulting immune response to suppress the virus is only partially successful and some virus escape. Eventually, this results in high viral turnover that leads to destruction of the immune system. HIV disease is, therefore, characterized by a gradual deterioration of immune functions. During the course of infection, crucial immune cells, called CD4+ T cells, are disabled and killed, and their numbers progressively decline. See Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome; Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1.
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome – definition from AIDSinfo – http://aidsinfo.nih.gov
The most severe manifestation of infection with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lists numerous opportunistic infections and cancers that, in the presence of HIV infection, constitute an AIDS diagnosis. In 1993, CDC expanded the criteria for an AIDS diagnosis in adults and adolescents to include CD4+ T- cell count at or below 200 cells per microliter in the presence of HIV infection. In persons (age 5 and older) with normally functioning immune systems, CD4+ T- cell counts usually range from 500 - 1,500 cells per microliter. Persons living with AIDS often have infections of the lungs, brain, eyes, and other organs, and frequently suffer debilitating weight loss, diarrhea, and a type of cancer called Kaposi's Sarcoma. | <urn:uuid:89e3bf03-5853-48e0-a46e-752caf276395> | CC-MAIN-2016-40 | http://www.med.unc.edu/aging/elderhiv/glossary.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-40/segments/1474738662018.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20160924173742-00183-ip-10-143-35-109.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923324 | 583 | 3.59375 | 4 |
Date: April 30, 2012
Creator: Morrison, Wayne M. & Tang, Rachel
Description: Over the past few years, the Chinese government has implemented a number of policies to tighten its control over the production and export of "rare earths"-a unique group of 17 metal elements on the periodic table that exhibit a range of special properties, such as magnetism, luminescence, and strength. Rare earths are important to a number of high technology industries, including renewable energy and various defense systems. This report examines the economic and trade implications of China's rare earth policies for the United States.
Contributing Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department | <urn:uuid:fc76ee1f-760a-4977-baf6-52c60a368c19> | CC-MAIN-2015-06 | http://digital.library.unt.edu/explore/collections/CRSR/browse/?q=%22natural+resources%22&fq=str_location_country%3AChina&t=dc_subject&sort=added_d | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-06/segments/1422118108509.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20150124164828-00037-ip-10-180-212-252.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.887191 | 135 | 2.625 | 3 |
|Logical Fallacy of Isolated Examples|
Logical Fallacy of Isolated Examples
The logical fallacy of isolated examples is one of the many smokescreens that are used to cover the fact that the reasoning is based on one of the three fallacies of Agrippa's trilemma. Whenever a logical fallacy is committed, the fallacy has its roots in Agrippa's trilemma. All human thought (without Divine revelation) is based on one of three unhappy possibilities. These three possibilities are infinite regress, circular reasoning, or axiomatic thinking. This problem is known as Agrippa's trilemma. Some have claimed that only logic and math can be known without Divine revelation; however, that is not true. There is no reason to trust either logic or math without Divine revelation. Science is also limited to the pragmatic because of the weakness on human reasoning, which is known as Agrippa's trilemma.
The logical fallacy of isolated examples occurs when non-typical or non-representative examples are used to 'prove' a general claim. This is associated with hasty generalization. Giving some of the facts but leaving out pertinent facts that would change the conclusion.
Examples of The Fallacy of Isolation
In any group, there are some hypocrites. In the view of some people, those who don't agree with them bear greater scrutiny. However, it is irrational to generalize from isolated examples.
Cherry-picking data to date rocks and fossils.
Fighting any disclosure of the problems that evolution has when indoctrinating students in evolution.
Last updated: Sep, 2014
Toons & Vids
Logical Fallacy of Misused Statistics
Misunderstanding the Nature of Statistics / Innumeracy
Logical Fallacy of Bad Statistical Data
Logical Fallacy of Biased Statistical Method
Logical Fallacy of Biased Statistical Calculation
Logical Fallacy of Biased Conclusion from Statistics
Logical Fallacy of Biased Reporting of Statistics
Logical Fallacy of Biased Statistics / Biased Statistics / Loaded Sample / Prejudiced Statistics / Prejudiced sample / Loaded Statistics / Biased Induction / Biased Generalization / Unrepresentative Sample / Unrepresentative Generalization
Logical Fallacy of Generalizing from a Hypostatization
Logical Fallacy of Error in Sampling
Logical Fallacy of Avoiding Specific Numbers
Logical Fallacy of Fake Precision / Over Precision / False Precision / Misplaced Precision / Spurious Accuracy
Logical Fallacy of Self-Selected Biased Sample
Logical Fallacy of Comparing Two Things Statistically that are not Technically Comparable / Statistical Apples and Oranges
Logical Fallacy of Ludus / Ludic Fallacy
Logical Fallacy of Fishing for Data / Data Dredging / Data Fishing / Data Snooping / Equation Fitting
Logical Fallacy of Base Rate Neglect / Base Rate Fallacy / Neglecting Base Rates / Base Rate Bias / Prosecutor's Fallacy
Logical Fallacy of Isolated Examples
Logical Fallacy of Hasty Generalization / False Generalization / Glittering Generalities
Logical Fallacy of Argument from Small Numbers / Small Sample Size Bias
General Rule Fallacy
Logical Fallacy of Specificity
Logical Fallacy of Overwhelming Exception
Logical Fallacy of Stereotyping
Logical Fallacy of Dicto Simpliciter / Sweeping Generalization
Gambler's Fallacy / The Monte Carlo Fallacy / The Doctrine The Maturity of Chances / Hot Hand Fallacy
Logical Fallacy of Appeal to Possibility / Appeal to Probability
Logical Fallacy of Appeal to Infinite Possibilities
Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy
Misuse of Averages Fallacy
Answer to Critic
Appeal to Possibility
Argument to the Future
Love Between a Man and Woman
Righteousness & Holiness
Proof by Atheism
Scriptures About Marriage
The Reason for Rejecting Truth
Witness on the Internet
Flaky Human Reasoning
How Do You Know?
The Real Purpose of the Church
The Real Purpose of Life
From Glory to Glory
REAL Faith--What it IS & IS NOT
REAL Love--What it IS & IS NOT
How to be Led by God
How to Witness
Wisdom: Righteousness & Reality
Holiness & Mind/Soul
Redemption: Free From Sin
Stories Versus Revelation
Circular Reasoning-Who is Guilty?
How Can We Know Anything?
Mind Designed to Relate to God
Answers for the Confused
Fossil Record Says: "Creation"
Avoid These Pitfalls
Public School's Religion
Public School Failures | <urn:uuid:ed888111-755b-4cee-9a9a-cf0c5f89f4f2> | CC-MAIN-2018-26 | http://seekfind.net/Logical_Fallacy_of_Isolated_Examples.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-26/segments/1529267863407.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20180620011502-20180620031502-00379.warc.gz | en | 0.807361 | 993 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Cognition is the process or act of knowing and able to make some judgment about it. It is very broad which include a complicated mental process encompassing functions like perception, memory, learning, and problem solving. Cognition includes more than few elements or processes which all work to describe the manner by which knowledge is built up and also how judgments of people are made. The elements related to these processes are: perceiving, recognizing, reasoning, problem solving, conceptualizing, learning, memory, and language (Scienceclarified, 2008).
The individual's ability to comprehend or the cognition ability is necessary for a scientific understanding what human behavior is all about. According to the investigations of various experts, mental processes like association, recall process, and understanding about language are based on the physical relations or interactions of people with their environment, instead of the body which supports the mind; it is basically viewing the body as a support system for a mind. Cognitive structures advance from perception and action like a software (Turing, 1950) which can run on different hardware systems. Human mind can manipulate abstract symbols based on the interactions of people around via his sensory organs as well as greatly coordinated effectors.
Wilson (2002) has six various claims about cognition: 1) cognition is situated; 2) cognition is time pressure ...Show more | <urn:uuid:029633f9-e6d4-455a-ba0d-4ecf0a5c14ad> | CC-MAIN-2017-43 | https://studentshare.net/psychology/308212-cognition-and-emotions | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-43/segments/1508187824226.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20171020154441-20171020174441-00272.warc.gz | en | 0.96515 | 266 | 3.59375 | 4 |
Under the terms of the Armistice German U-boats began to arrive at Harwich on the east coast of England for their surrender to the Allies. A total of 176 were eventually handed over. The following day 70 ships of the German High Seas Fleet left port and were met by the light cruiser Cardiff. They were led to the rendezvous with over 370 ships of the British Grand Fleet and other allied navies where they were escorted into the Firth of Forth in Scotland. Between the 25th and 27th November the German fleet was moved to Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands (photograph above right). | <urn:uuid:1ae30823-2678-41a1-bb20-5dd291adc1ac> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://anzac-22nd-battalion.com/2018/11/20/20th-nov-1918-german-navy-begin-their-surrender/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337595.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20221005073953-20221005103953-00224.warc.gz | en | 0.989523 | 125 | 2.515625 | 3 |
North Hennepin Community College
Website Content Contributions
Ocean Gyre Circulation and Patterns of Global Primary Productivity part of Cutting Edge:Courses:Oceanography:Activities
This teaching activity provides a visual framework for understanding the relationship/connection between ocean gyre circulation and primary productivity. Students demonstrate their own understanding of surface ...
Learn more about this review process.
Using Field Observations and Field Experiences to Teach GeoscienceAn Illustrated Community Discussion part of Cutting Edge:Geoscience in the Field:Field Experiences:Posters
This course enhances science literacy by emphasizing the repeated practice of making observations, posing questions & developing hypotheses around a narrowly focused aspect of Minnesota Geology. Students ...
Megan Jones part of Cutting Edge:Enhance Your Teaching:Affective Domain:Workshop 07:Workshop Participants
Department of Geology, North Hennepin Community College What are the key issues related to the role of the affective domain in teaching geoscience that you would like to engage at the workshop? Recognition and ...
Other Contribution (1)
Physical Geology Lecture and Lab at North Hennepin Community College part of Math You Need:Implementations
This page is designed to provide a guide to a planned implementation of The Math You Need, When You Need It. It will change as the implementation proceeds at this institution. Please check back regularly for ...
4 activities reviewed | <urn:uuid:149c9f26-756f-4c7e-adc0-5ec065026302> | CC-MAIN-2016-30 | http://serc.carleton.edu/person/1782.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-30/segments/1469257831770.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20160723071031-00030-ip-10-185-27-174.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.835582 | 293 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Ryle, A., 2003. History and Use of the SDR. Reformulation, Autumn, pp.18-21.
CAT is a general therapy, which aims at influencing the highly complex system that is a person or self-system. CAT therapists and their patients create descriptions, which are part of work developing self-reflection. Therapists avoid collusion by not reciprocating and reinforcing dysfunctional roles (the CAT model of transference and counter transference). CAT depends on an adequately complex but memorable and useable way of describing what we are trying to influence. In any therapy concepts are needed to guide acts and comments of the therapist. In CAT the aim is also to provide the patient with new ways of understanding and managing themselves. Tools of this kind are a distinguishing feature of mankind. Physical tools extend physical power. Conceptual tools have a similar function with regard to mental powers. CAT therapy tools are signs for thinking about dysfunctional, unreflected upon procedures.
Vygotsky helps us to understand this process in his account of the internalisation of more complex high-level understandings via shared activity and signs. Once internalised, signs convey meanings, which may operate without reflection and are hence not easily challenged. However, procedural knowledge can be reflected on given the access to appropriate signs. Change involves both conceptual and experiential means to evoke understanding and insight. These are not alternatives; conceptual understanding can make it safer to access feelings, felt experience and new concepts, and to try new behaviours.
SDRs, which now take a more or less conventional form, serve to guide therapist and patient on the therapy journey. Their creation and use provide a coherent account of roles, mood, emotion, acts of thinking, feeling and doing that otherwise feel chaotic and meaningless.
EXAMPLE. Reciprocal Role descriptions are often more powerful than are the Traps, Dilemmas and Snags of early CAT. Both forms may be combined as in the following letter and sequential diagram. “Early in your life you seemed to have learnt that relationships involve critical rejection to which the response is either uncared for guilty, striving or rebellion (RRP and dilemma). When you strive and even achieve, however, you critically reject yourself (SELF MANAGEMENT RRP SELF ATTACKING) and disallow your success (SNAG) and when you rebel you get rejected (INTERPERSONAL RRP). These patterns of relating leave you with a pattern for closeness, which is expressed in three alternative ways (DILEMMA AND SEQUENCES):
The SDR also suggests how the therapy relationship may develop and what responses you may seek or provoke from me; thus striving and trying to please me in therapy may generate the snag and self-rejection. I may be seen to be critical, provoking rebellion and the fear/certainty of my abandonment may prevent engagement in the therapy, or I may be idealised”.
The theme of this paper is to trace the evolution of this kind of diagram.
Diagrams were tools for thinking which grew out of practice and influence practice. We describe what we can see and deduce from this, but we only see what we can describe. There are different forms of description. Bruner (1986) made the distinction between narrative, which makes experience comprehensible, and paradigmatic descriptions, which provide consistency, verifiability and abstraction. SDRs are paradigmatic; they provide a model of what the patient goes on doing.
CAT initially involved verbal descriptions of dysfunctional, seemingly non-revisable, patterns. Traps, Dilemmas and Snags are more complex descriptions than those of conflicts, irrational beliefs or non-functional behaviours. They include the context and events, knowledge, beliefs and values, acts and consequences, including the responses of others. The advantages are that they are sequential and draw attention to antecedents and consequences.
Two influences lead to the focus on Reciprocal Role Procedures (RRPs). One was psychoanalytical Object Relations theory; the other was the development, many years later, of the Dyad Repertory Grid (Ryle and Lunghi 1970). Mapping the results of the latter provided a visual display of relationship patterns. The Dilemmas, Traps and Snags models emphasised circularity and the self-reinforcing nature of procedures (Map1, Ryle 2002, Fig 6:1 Pg 88). The advantage of these diagrams was the way in which they showed how negative self-reinforcement worked. They were also easy to memorise.
Simple sequential loops could start anywhere but in time it became customary to describe the origin in a core and to show how procedures issuing from the core led back to reinforce it, thus continuing to emphasise the circularity of the original model. The concept of core was, however, unclear. The early diagrams put in a core subjective state or statement of core pain at the centre, seeing this experience as being the source of unsuccessful procedures, following Mann’s emphasis on the patient’s chronically endured pain (Map 2, Ryle 1990, Fig 5.6 Pg 112 ). Situations reminiscent of the original pain could provoke the procedures, which historically had failed to resolve it. In clinical settings alternative modes (exits) could be explored.
The use of the word Core to describe the descriptive centre of the diagram and the deeply felt experience of the patient was liable to be confusing as the developmental and structural understandings of CAT theory placed emphasis on the RRP as the basic unit of description. A clarification was proposed. The core of the diagram was a theoretical abstraction summarising the RRPs evident in the patient’s acts and experiences. Each role described there was likely to be expressed in action and experience, and these were described on the procedural loops
When the diagram’s core was described in terms of core pain it was easy to identify with the child/victim roles and miss the adult derived harming roles. By making the RRPs the centre of the diagram, therapists were alerted to all possible role enactments. In (Map 3,Ryle and Beard 1993, Pg 249) we can see that the diagram is circular and emanates from a core RRP. The advantage of this is that it locates key events and symptoms.
Increasing experience with patients with Borderline Personality Disorder presented difficulties to therapists trying to devise diagrams. This was resolved by the recognition that such patients operate discontinuously. Diagrams were drawn with separate cores, initially most often the ‘Broken Egg’ diagram (Map 4 and Map 5, Ryle 1990, Pg 106-107), which alerted therapists to recognise separate alternating self-systems (that which you have no model of, you do not easily see). Procedural loops could be left out for simplicity.
BDP is seen to involve partial dissociation between alternative RRPs. These original, usually Abusing – Abused RRPs, may be re-enacted, but often, faced with evident repetitions, dissociations to alternative, less forbidden patterns may occur (e.g. zombie states, compliant, soldiering on states etc.)
In (Map 6, Ryle 2002, Pg 115) it is possible to see three cores and the implicit flashpoint where dissociation is assumed to have originally occurred; the actual, anticipated or perceived repeat of unmanageable experiences may provoke state switches. The value in supervision is in helping the therapist to locate the flashpoints and to recognise the range of states manifest at different times. The idea of the flashpoint is indicated when the move into unmanageable feelings connected to earlier unmet needs is manifest in the sessions. The diagram allows rapid recognition of the individual’s alternative states.
How many cores can be incorporated into a sequence? Leiman’s dialogic sequences can be analysed in terms of shifts between a range of RRPs, rather than through the use of procedural loops. The latter offer a more generalised picture but imply a constant RRP, whereas in practice both changes within self states (role reversals, response shifts) and between self-states may occur with bewildering rapidity – ‘whirlpooling' (Ryle 1997).
It is important to be clear about the distinction between the concepts of states and self-states. A state is a subjective experience; a mood with associated memories, ways of acting and relating etc., such states are always associated with a role, played in relation to another, or to an internalised other. A self-state is an abstraction, our understanding of the structure in Borderline Personality. BPD diagrams describe the RRPs of the different self-states. They are not schemas located in the head, generating procedures. They are our generalisations derived from detailed observations and reports of what the person goes on feeling and doing in relation to others and to the self.
Despite the standardisation of conventions in the making of maps they still remain flexible tools, ones that are designed for use by patients, therapists and in work with other staff. An example of anorexia, its symptoms, acts and staff responses, can be the basis for care planning, staff supervision and all manner of contextual reformulation.
Dawn Bennett and Glenys Parry have shown the accuracy of SSSDs by comparing them with standard analyses of therapy sessions (Bennett and Parry 1998). John Bristow has made a study of patient – therapist pairs (Bristow 1997). He showed that patients could be initially shocked, but then helped. Their active involvement with the diagram’s construction and its perceived accuracy was correlated with outcome. Both the therapist’s ability to experience feeling and to stand back was associated with diagram use.
The history of the development of SDRs is an important part of the history of CAT. This reflects a two way process. Modifications in SDR technique allowed new aspects of patients to be recognised and thought about e.g. multiple cores and BPD; theoretical ideas influence the SDRs e.g. emphasis on reciprocity and dialogue. Working with patients to construct diagrams with awareness of the central importance of the RRP as a unit and of the dialogic structure whereby every act or statement is directed at another or internalised other, provides CAT therapists with a powerful awareness of their professional role. It is important to remember that there is a need to generalise and summarise. The task is to record the complexity of the individual but to do so in general terms (for example not including relationships with specific others on the diagram) and then to reduce the complexity to create a working tool. Bakhtin said “there is no last word” and we can be sure the development of diagrams has not reached a final conclusion.
Bennett, D. and Parry, G. (1998) The accuracy of reformulation in cognitive analytical therapy a validation study. Psychotherapy Research, 8, 402-422.
Bristow, J. (1997) An exploratory study of the effect of the SDR on the outcome of CAT. Some conditions associated with affectiveness. Unpublished research paper.
Bruner, J. (1990) Acts of Meaning. Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press.
Ryle, A. (1990) Cognitive Analytical Therapy: Active Participation in Change. Chichester: Wiley.
Ryle, A. (1997) Cognitive Analytical Therapy and Borderline Personality Disorder: The Model and the Method. Chichester: Wiley.
Ryle, A. and Kerr, I.B. (2002) Introducing Cognitive Analytic Therapy. Principles and Practice. Chichester: Wiley
Ryle, A. and Beard, H. (1993) British Journal and Medical Psychology, 66, 249. Available in Volume of the collected CAT papers put together by Mark Dunn.
Ryle, A. and Lunghi, M. (1970) The dyad grid: a modification of repertory grid technique. British Journal of Psychiatry, 118, 323-327
The Development of the Sequential Diagrammatic Reformulation
Parkinson, R., 2008. The Development of the Sequential Diagrammatic Reformulation. Reformulation, Summer, pp.33-37.
Sequential Diagrams, Reflections and Suggested Revisions
Ryle, A., 1998. Sequential Diagrams, Reflections and Suggested Revisions. Reformulation, ACAT News Autumn, p.x.
States Characterisation Procedure (SCP) for supporting the reformulation of patients with borderline/dissociative features
Ryle, A., 2007. States Characterisation Procedure (SCP) for supporting the reformulation of patients with borderline/dissociative features. Reformulation, Winter, pp.9-11.
The Special Needs Project (CAT For Borderline Patients)
Ryle, A., 1995. The Special Needs Project (CAT For Borderline Patients). Reformulation, ACAT News Winter, p.x.
ACATnews: A Fellow Scandinavian's Experience of the CAT Conference in Finland
Burns-Ludgren, E., 2003. ACATnews: A Fellow Scandinavian's Experience of the CAT Conference in Finland. Reformulation, Autumn, p.8.
ACATnews: Impressions from the International CAT Conference in Finland, June 2003
Curran, A. and B. Kerr, I., 2003. ACATnews: Impressions from the International CAT Conference in Finland, June 2003. Reformulation, Autumn, p.7.
Developing a Language for the Psychotherapy of Later Life
Hepple, J., 2003. Developing a Language for the Psychotherapy of Later Life. Reformulation, Autumn, pp.10-12.
Letters to the Editors: Agenda for Change and Psychotherapy
Nield, C., 2003. Letters to the Editors: Agenda for Change and Psychotherapy. Reformulation, Autumn, p.3.
Letters to the Editors: Association of Adult Psychotherapists (AAP)
Webster, M., 2003. Letters to the Editors: Association of Adult Psychotherapists (AAP). Reformulation, Autumn, pp.3-4.
Letters to the Editors: Dissertations and Reformulation
Toye, J., 2003. Letters to the Editors: Dissertations and Reformulation. Reformulation, Autumn, p.4.
Letters to the Editors: Psychoanalytic Perspective on Perversion Reformulated
Denman, C., 2003. Letters to the Editors: Psychoanalytic Perspective on Perversion Reformulated. Reformulation, Autumn, pp.4-5.
Using and Understanding of Primary Process Thinking in CAT
Sacks, M., 2003. Using and Understanding of Primary Process Thinking in CAT. Reformulation, Autumn, pp.30-32.
This site has recently been updated to be Mobile Friendly. We are working through the pages to check everything is working properly. If you spot a problem please email email@example.com and we'll look into it. Thank you. | <urn:uuid:57512d5b-64dc-487d-a013-8c68c49314d0> | CC-MAIN-2019-13 | https://www.acat.me.uk/reformulation.php?issue_id=17&article_id=201 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-13/segments/1552912203168.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20190324022143-20190324044143-00545.warc.gz | en | 0.920763 | 3,110 | 3 | 3 |
The Main Circuit Breaker
This is the switch that goes on and off to control the flow of current. So if there is an overload due to a short circuit or because too many appliances are running simultaneously, the corresponding circuit breaker automatically trips to shut off the flow of current.Standard breakers can be further subdivided into the following two categories:
- Single-Pole Breaker These single switches are typically between 15-20 amps, are commonly found in most circuit breakers and can handle up to 120 volts.
- Double-Pole Breaker These pole breakers are available in different amperages and can handle 240 volts. Double-pole breakers are designed for large home appliances like air conditioners, water heaters, washing machines and stoves.
Arc Fault Circuit Interrupters
These are special purpose circuit breakers designed for additional safety against electric fires and electrocution. Sub-Panels – sub-panels are small breaker boxes designed to handle more circuits when you don’t have the space to accommodate new circuits.
The two rows in the main circuit breaker panel connect to hot bus bars. This is where the current flows from the main breaker to the branching circuits and reaches the outlet. | <urn:uuid:fdb6a426-19bc-4363-91fb-6d64b2c728ac> | CC-MAIN-2023-06 | https://www.browneshomecenter.com/hardware/electrical/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764500074.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20230203185547-20230203215547-00315.warc.gz | en | 0.903939 | 250 | 3.8125 | 4 |
Targeting Amyloid to Stop HIV
Compound makes it harder for viral particles to stick to body’s cells
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Joanna Touger Olsen
Amyloid protein structures are best known for the troubles they pose in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. Now researchers are trying to exploit their presence in a very different place – in semen – to find a new way to stop HIV.
Scientists have created a substance that targets amyloid structures in semen and have used it to weaken the ability of HIV to infect the body’s immune cells in the laboratory. The experimental compound, originally designed to help Alzheimer’s patients by disrupting the actions of amyloid in the brain, make it much more likely that HIV particles will simply slide past human immune cells instead of gaining a foothold for infection during sexual intercourse.
The work by scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center, in collaboration with chemists at the University of California at San Diego, offers a new lead in the effort to develop a microbicide to prevent HIV transmission from one person to another. The findings were published online recently in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
Stephen Dewhurst, Ph.D.
The focus of the work is an amyloid structure that was discovered in semen three years ago by German researchers. The structure, known as SEVI for Semen-derived Enhancer of Viral Infection, enhances infection by sticking both to HIV particles and to the immune cells that HIV infects. It’s a middle man in the infection process – one that researchers believe is a powerful driver of HIV’s ability to infect a person during heterosexual intercourse. SEVI has offered a new target to researchers trying to stop the virus.
“HIV viral particles are tiny and adrift amid a sea of semen and cervical mucus during sexual intercourse,” said Stephen Dewhurst, Ph.D., the microbiologist who heads the team. “The virus must sink quickly in this fluid to have the opportunity to contact the cells that it infects.That’s what SEVI allows it to do – to literally stick around.”
So Dewhurst teamed with Jerry Yang, Ph.D., a chemist at UCSD who previously created a compound designed to minimize the harmful interactions of amyloid with other proteins and lipids in the brain. Yang created a molecule called BTA-EG6 which fits in between the individual small proteins that cluster to form SEVI and blocks SEVI’s interactions with both the virus and the target immune cells. One key to the chemistry is the compound ethylene glycol – the central component of anti-freeze – which makes it particularly difficult for SEVI to stick to the virus or to cells.
Electron micrograph of a SEVI amyloid structure
“The compound drives a wedge between SEVI and both HIV particles and human cells, making it difficult for SEVI to interact with either. It’s like surrounding SEVI with air bags so it can’t bring HIV and the body’s cells together,” said Dewhurst. “Jerry Yang is the one who came up with this, and it’s ingenious.”
In experiments led by first author Joanna Touger Olsen, an M.D./Ph.D. student in the Dewhurst laboratory, the presence of SEVI boosted the ability of HIV to infect cells dramatically, roughly three to six times what it was without SEVI. When the non-stick compound was added, that advantage was muted, and rates of infection dropped nearly to levels when SEVI was absent. The investigators say the results must be interpreted cautiously, though, as the influence of factors such as the strain of HIV and the human cell line used in the study need to be looked at further.
“Other scientists have tried to lower the rate of HIV infection by targeting the virus or the cells it infects,” said Yang. “What we do is target the mediator between the virus and the cells. By neutralizing SEVI, we prevent at least one way for HIV to attach to the cells.”
Jerry Yang, Ph.D.
The findings come on the heels of work announced by other researchers this summer about a microbicide based on the anti-retroviral agent tenofovir. That compound, when applied by women before and after sex, reduced their risk of contracting HIV by 39 percent.
“Recent studies have shown for the first time that a topical microbicide gel can protect women from HIV-1 infection,” said Dewhurst. “This is a huge step forward but not a perfect solution. We need to figure out ways to further improve protection – and our studies suggest one way of doing so. It may be possible to produce a next-generation microbicide that includes both an antiviral agent, as has been used in the past, and an agent that targets SEVI. We’re very excited about exploring this idea.”
Yang’s molecule offers an advantage over most microbicides under study: It doesn’t cause inflammation in cervical cells. That’s a particular advantage because the cells that drive such inflammation are among precisely the cells that HIV infects.
Other authors of the paper from Rochester are laboratory technician Caitlin Brown; Todd Doran, graduate student in Chemistry; Bradley Nilsson, Ph.D., assistant professor of Chemistry; and Rajesh Srivastava, Ph.D., assistant professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology. At UCSD, the team in addition to Yang included Christina Capule and Mark Rubinshtein. The work was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. | <urn:uuid:17e88b4c-6493-4ebc-98ca-b8a72e9aaa7d> | CC-MAIN-2017-34 | https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/news/story/2989/targeting-amyloid-to-stop-hiv.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-34/segments/1502886104631.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20170818082911-20170818102911-00117.warc.gz | en | 0.95241 | 1,191 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Geospatial Mapping Technology
Find programs and mentors near you with CYSTEM (Check it out!)
Are You Into It?
If you know where you are and where you are going Geospatial Mapping (GPS/GIS) should be on your map. Make your own maps and find your way using the technology and software that puts the world at your fingertips.
- Develop an interest and understanding of global positioning and global information systems.
- Develop problem solving and logical reasoning skills.
- Improve communication and teamwork skills by working the way scientists and engineers do - in teams.
- Develop responsible attitudes about science and technology and how they relate to the real world and people’s lives.
- Gain experience in problem solving and decision-making using science process skills.
- Develop knowledge and skills related to geospatial mapping technologies.
Here’s what you can do all year!
Starting Out Basic / Level 1
- Learn how to use a compass or a GPS unit.
- Discover all the ways interactive maps and GPS units are used to help us learn about and navigate our world.
Learning More Intermediate / Level 2
- Route your trail on foot or on a bicycle using a compass or GPS unit
- Learn how to create an interactive GIS map and how to record and use GPS data.
- Make and maintain a local geocache.
Expanding Horizons Advanced / Level 3
- Teach others how to know where they are going using a GPS unit or map and compass.
- Use mapping technologies to map an important resource in your community and publish it on the Web.
Take It Further
Project Hot Sheet
- Geospatial Mapping (pdf)
Fair Exhibit Tip Sheets
Tip sheets are used by judges to evaluate your exhibit. Use them to help make the best presentation of your work. Choose a tip sheet based on your project's intended purpose.
If your project:
- Is intended to inform its audience about a topic—use Poster Exhibit Tip Sheet (pdf)
- Represents an engineering solution to a problem—use Engineering Exhibit Tip Sheet (pdf)
- Represents a scientific investigation of a question—use Scientific Investigation Tip Sheet (pdf)
- Uses technology to accomplish a task or render a service—use Using Technology Tip Sheet (pdf)
Exhibit Evaluation Form (pdf)
Other Opportunities to Explore:
- Attend Iowa 4-H Youth Conference and participate in workshops, motivational speakers and a community service project, bringing ideas back to your community.
- Is it county fair time? Consider taking an exhibit, a piece of your project learning to the fair for judging and to show off what you’ve learned throughout the year. It might get selected to go to the Iowa State Fair.
- Use mapping as a way to visualize and interpret data you collected as part of a research project. Enter your project in a local science fair or the State Science + Technology Fair of Iowa.
- Contact your local ISU Extension Office for other local workshops, activities, and events related to Geospatial mapping technology.
- Meet others interested in GPS/GIS. Check out camps at the Iowa 4-H Center.
- Interested in a college education in the area of Global Information Technology (GIS) or engineering related to the field? Schedule a visit with Iowa State University to explore those majors.
Step It Up
Pass it on! Now that you know how, share it with others. Here are ideas to get you started.
- Give a presentation on geospatial mapping and how it is used on your community
Complete a Service-Learning project
Create an online map of an important community resource such as child care centers or tourist attractions and work with your city to make it available through their website
- Teach others how to use a GPS application
- Develop a workshop to teach others about geocaching
- Agriculture & Natural Resources
- Creative Arts
- Family & Consumer Sciences
- Personal Development
- Science Technology Engineering & Math
- Project Helpers
Check out GPS Kits through your County Extension Office
Geospatial – Exploring Spaces, Going Places
Publications and kits available through your County Extension Office
- Make a poster on how to use a GPS unit.
- Create a display about geocaching.
- Put together a notebook about how your community is using GPS/GIS.
Create a GIS map of a resource in your community and enter it as an exhibit. Such as:
Identify historical locations in your
- Find coordinates of emergency planning locations, restaurants, or auto-mechanic shops
- Your school grounds, neighborhood, farm, or town
- Traffic patterns of cars, livestock or wildlife movements
- Be creative and develop your own map
Contact your city, county, or parks and recreation officials about a project that would help them | <urn:uuid:c2eaed58-11dd-4274-8076-237f19250802> | CC-MAIN-2015-22 | http://www.extension.iastate.edu/4h/projects/geospatial-mapping-technology | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-22/segments/1432207929422.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20150521113209-00307-ip-10-180-206-219.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.866434 | 1,004 | 3.59375 | 4 |
When caring for newborn budgies, it is important to let the parents do the job that nature has had them doing for generations. There are some things you can watch for and do to make sure your chicks are healthy and well-socialized, such as teach them good hygiene, cleanliness and socialization.
When baby budgies are born, they are blind and naked. When providing any care for them, make sure to keep their delicate eyes out of direct light and keep the nesting box they were born in insulated from the elements. There should be sufficient airflow for the newborn chicks and the adult birds, but they should not be subject to excess wind or moisture for the sake of their health. This is less of a concern when the chicks are developed around four weeks of age and they venture out of the nesting box of their own accord.
Hygiene and Cleanliness
Most momma budgies are good about keeping their young ones clean, but it is always a good idea to make sure your little chicks' feet and beaks are kept free of buildup and debris. The buildup of dirt on their feet can lead to infections and problems walking, while the buildup of food or grime in the beak area can lead to malformed beak and other health concerns. If you must handle the chicks before they are 2 weeks old, try to touch them as little as possible. This will help their mother stay bonded to them because they will smell like her, not human hands.
Socialization and Behavior
If you want your budgies to be pets, it is necessary to socialize them properly and get them used to human touch and interaction. This can begin as soon as the chicks are fully developed, but not before if you intend your budgies to stay in the nesting box with their parents. If the budgie does not recognize the chick because he smells like humans, she will reject the chick and will no longer care for him. Start off with 10 minutes a day per chick, increasing the time once a week by a few minutes as each chick allows.
One of the most important stages of a baby budgie's life is when the adult budgies leave the nesting box and stop feeding the little ones. In a healthy, well-developed budgie this will mean leaving the box in search of food. If for some reason one of your chicks does not, you can remove him from the box and encourage him to join the rest of his siblings in exploring the world. At this point the budgie should continue to grow and mature until he is an adult without much human interference.
- Budgies: A Guide to Caring for Your Parakeet (Complete Care Made Easy; Angela Davids
- The Essential Parakeet; BS Siino, R Stockdate
Hemera Technologies/PhotoObjects.net/Getty Images
Based in Lexington, Ky., Christina Root has worked as a blogger, writer and freelance consultant since 2009. As a mother, animal lover, natural alternative medicine enthusiast and a student of all things, she loves learning and sharing with others. | <urn:uuid:c9f2433f-c3c0-498a-b95f-d5915f812f8f> | CC-MAIN-2021-17 | https://animals.mom.com/care-baby-budgies-9246.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-17/segments/1618039379601.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20210420060507-20210420090507-00479.warc.gz | en | 0.963744 | 630 | 2.96875 | 3 |
by Daniel T. Weaver
Thanksgiving Day 1893 was not a happy time for many people in Amsterdam. The Panic of 1893 was a financial crisis which lasted four years and had a negative impact on the city. Many newspapers blamed the crisis on free trade or the removal of tariffs on American goods. The city of Amsterdam was used as an object lesson for the “blighting effects” of “the tariff wreckers.” In an account in the Amsterdam Daily Democrat published the day after Thanksgiving, Amsterdam was described as a city where “Nearly every mill is shut down. Thousands of men and women, who a year ago were employed, are on the the brink of want. A recent Amsterdam dispatch declares that the Aid and Benevolent society is attempting to care for several thousand destitute families. People daily go from house to house begging for food. Local trade is at a standstill. Various charitable organizations are making constant appeals for help. Numbers are deserting the town.”
That Amsterdam’s population suffered because of the Panic of 1893 can be seen in its population growth during the era. From 1880 to 1890, the city grew from 9,486 to 17,336 inhabitants, an 83.1% growth. From 1890 to 1900, Amsterdam only grew from 17,336 to 20,929 inhabitants, a 20.1% growth.
Not everyone in Amsterdam was suffering, however. An item in the November 21 Democrat stated that “A number from this city intend to witness the Yale-Princeton football game at New York Thanksgiving day. A few football lovers also expect to be at the Yale-Harvard game at Springfield Saturday.”
Even though football had been around for nearly two decades, the Yale-Princeton game attracted unprecedented news coverage, bringing a reaction from the New York Herald which editorialized, “Thanksgiving Day is no longer a solemn festival to God for mercies given. It is a holiday granted by the State and the Nation to see a game of football. The kicker now is king and the people bow down to him. The gory nosed tackler, hero of a hundred scrimmages and half as many wrecked wedges, is the idol of the hour.”
Thanksgiving was not an official national holiday in Amsterdam’s early days and football had not been invented. Thanksgiving Day was observed, however, and it centered around faith. The Thanksgiving of 1822 turned out to be a very dark day, not in an economic sense as in 1893, but in a physical sense. The temperature had fallen to zero the night before and it began to snow heavily. There was so much snow that the country people could not make it into Amsterdam’s Presbyterian Church at the corner of Market and Main where the former Key Bank building stands vacant. Villagers however made their way to the church. Cloud cover and thick snow made the church so gloomy, Tommy Allen and Deacon Gabriel Manny, owner and operator of the Old Manny Inn, “lighted the tallow lamp and the dips.”
The story of the 1822 Thanksgiving appeared in an 1893 issue of the Democrat. The writer stated the 1822 Thanksgiving “was known through out the valley as the Dark Thanksgiving.” Only a couple days in American history were darker than that one. One of them was a day in May 1780 in the Northeast when candles were needed at noon, and people thought the end of the world had come. The cause was later determined to be a combination of smoke from forest fires, thick fog and cloud cover.
Thanksgiving Day of 2014 was one I won’t forget. The Mohawk Valley experienced the fifth worst November storm since records were kept. The snowfall we received on November 27 set a record for that day. It was the only White Thanksgiving I can remember in my lifetime. There was nearly a foot of snow on the ground, and our power had gone out. Breads and pies had already been baked, but the turkey, mashed potatoes, carrots and other foods had not been cooked.
We were expecting more than a dozen people at our house. Around 11:00 a.m. I suggested we might have to have an alternative dinner, like order take-out pizza. Fortunately, the power came back on at 11:30. We got everything in the oven and managed to sit down for our Thanksgiving dinner around 7:00 p.m. That was the last Thanksgiving we were all together as my father-in-law died the next year.
There is nothing wrong with football, but for me it’s faith and family that makes Thanksgiving such a great holiday.
If you enjoyed this article, consider supporting albaNY apple on Patreon for as little as $1 a month. You can cancel anytime.
An earlier version of this article appeared in the Recorder when owned by Mcleary Media LLC. | <urn:uuid:ba34a5cd-9087-4daa-bfda-d24c6746db0e> | CC-MAIN-2020-24 | https://albanyapple.com/2019/11/28/thanksgiving-day-1822-1893-2014-in-amsterdam-ny-history/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-24/segments/1590347394756.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20200527141855-20200527171855-00017.warc.gz | en | 0.9819 | 1,000 | 2.828125 | 3 |
External Web sites
- CIA - The World Factbook - Saudi Arabia
- CRW Flags - Flag of Saudi Arabia
- Iloveindia.com - Saudi Arabia
- Jewish Virtual Library - Saudi Arabia
- Lonely Planet - Saudi Arabia
- Maps of World - Saudi Arabia
- National Geographic - Travel and Cultures - Saudi Arabia
- Official Site of The Embassy of The Saudi Arabia in Tokyo
Britannica Web sites
Articles from Britannica encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.
- Saudi Arabia - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
Saudi Arabia is the largest country in the Middle East. It is also the largest producer of oil in the world. Saudi Arabia contains the two holiest cities in the religion of Islam. Its capital is Riyadh.
- Saudi Arabia - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia occupies four fifths of the Arabian Peninsula. It is separated from Egypt, The Sudan, and Eritrea by the Red Sea to the west; from Iran by the Persian Gulf to the east; and from Bahrain by the Gulf of Bahrain, also to the east. It shares land boundaries with seven other Arab countries: Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait to the north; the Republic of Yemen and Oman to the south; and the United Arab Emirates and Qatar to the east. The alignment of its boundary with the United Arab Emirates is disputed. The capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia is Riyadh. (See also Arabia.) Area 830,000 square miles (2,149,690 square kilometers). Population (2013 est.) 30,033,000. | <urn:uuid:49699f21-a137-4e06-bfcc-203b9bb44802> | CC-MAIN-2014-49 | http://www.britannica.com/topic/525348/websites | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-49/segments/1416931014369.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20141125155654-00045-ip-10-235-23-156.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.847132 | 333 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Excerpt from Turbine's Lorebook's entry on the first age:
- First, and shortest by far, of the Four Ages chronicled by Tolkien. Unlike the Second and Third Ages, there is no detailed chronicle of the events of the First Age, and so dates must be inferred from references in the text - hence many dates in this Age (including the year in which it ended) are necessarily approximate.
- The First Age began with the return of the Noldor to Middle-earth, the first rising of the Moon and the Sun, and the awakening of the first Men. It ended with the destruction of Beleriand and the final defeat of Morgoth. The end of the First Age was marked by the return of many of the Noldor, accompanied also by many Sindarin Elves, into the West to dwell on Tol Eressëa.
The First Age is the setting for the books The Silmarillion and The Children of Húrin and is considered Ancient History with respect to the time period for the Lord of The Rings Online game.
- First Age of the Children of Ilúvatar] From Wikipedia | <urn:uuid:1fcbf606-d06e-4116-bf52-0598196603a0> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/First_Age | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279410.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00139-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940913 | 235 | 2.640625 | 3 |
A Shovel of Dirt
How do you live your life?
How you see life?
When you are in the trial of life, what do you do?
People are not ready to here your misfortune stories but what you did that they can learn from.
For instance, if I failed a test during the first phase and worked out a strategy to avoid the failure of the second one, I believe I can help those facing such challenge by giving them ideas on what I did.
Therefore,I want you to read this short educative but inspiring story.
One day a farmer’s donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally, he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway; it just wasn’t worth it to retrieve the donkey.
He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone’s amazement he quieted down.
A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well. He was astonished at what he saw. With each shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up.
As the farmer’s neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and happily trotted off!
From this story, I want you to know that:
- Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up.
- Each of our troubles is a steppingstone. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up.
Remember the five simple rules to be happy:
- Free your heart from hatred – Forgive.
- Free your mind from worries – Most never happens.
- Live simply and appreciate what you have.*
- Give more.
- Expect less from people but more from yourself.
You have two choices… smile and close this page, or pass this along to someone else to share the lesson.
God bless us on this journey we call life… | <urn:uuid:af3209b5-7fa3-469a-b1ca-5ee32d382973> | CC-MAIN-2018-26 | https://thegreatvalue.wordpress.com/2017/04/08/a-shovel-of-dirt/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-26/segments/1529267862248.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20180619095641-20180619115641-00021.warc.gz | en | 0.975132 | 516 | 2.78125 | 3 |
If you have been trying to get pregnant and have not been able to, it’s time to have a pelvic ultrasound. Information gained during a pelvic ultrasound can tell you what the problem may be. The uterus is a pear-shaped organ that sits on top of the vagina. Embryos attach to the inside (also known as the uterine cavity) of the uterus and grow. A pelvic ultrasound may tell you if you have a growth inside your cavity that is affecting the ability of a pregnancy to either attach and/or grow.
With a pelvic ultrasound, we can potentially see abnormalities of the uterine lining, uterine cavity, and the muscle or body of the uterus. While a pelvic ultrasound can help us investigate the uterus and uterine cavity, sometimes we may not be able to see inside the uterine cavity unless we first fill the uterus with fluid. Imagine a collapsed balloon. You won’t be able to see if there is something blocking the inside the balloon unless you try and blow the balloon up first. Along the same lines, if there is a blockage or abnormality inside the uterine cavity, we will be able to see it better if we fill the cavity first. In addition to the routine pelvic ultrasound, we can assess the uterine cavity with a saline infusion sonogram, or water ultrasound. Both of these procedures can be done in the office.
Fibroids are very common noncancerous growths and depending on their size or location, may cause problems with conceiving. As a result, evaluating the uterus and uterine cavity with a pelvic ultrasound and/or saline infusion sonogram can help us identify fibroids affecting the uterus and uterine cavity. A uterine polyp is a noncancerous growth of the uterine lining inside the uterine cavity that can also affect your chances of achieving a pregnancy. One common sign of a fibroid or polyp inside the cavity is spotting in between menstrual cycles.
The pelvic ultrasound is also be used to look at your ovaries and can also give your doctor an idea of your ovarian aging. Abnormal growths or tumors of the ovary are easily seen on an ultrasound. In addition, your doctor can count the number of follicles (cysts that potentially contain an egg) on each ovary that she sees and use this information to pick the appropriate treatment and infertility drug doses for you should you need help with fertility treatments for getting pregnant. Finally, the pelvic ultrasound can also determine if you have a fluid-filled fallopian tube, or hydrosalpinx. If there is fluid in the fallopian tube, this can affect fertiization of the egg by the sperm, thus preventing a successful pregnancy.
When you are in a fertility treatment cycle we will use the pelvic ultrasound to look at your uterus and obtain a measurement of the thickness of the tissue that lines the uterine cavity, or uterine lining. Your lining changes thickness and appearance as your menstrual cycle progresses and as you undergo fertility treatments. If your lining isn’t thick enough, this may be a sign that additional testing needs to be done.
The image below is an example of what a woman’s uterine lining would look like right before ovulation.
We will also look at your ovaries in order to measure the size of your follicles during fertility treatments. Depending on the type of treatment your are having, we may want you to have one mature follicle or many more. A mature follicle means that it is ready to ovulate and produce an egg. This image seen below is of an ovary. You can see black circles which represent follicles. When a follicle is close to 2 cm, we think that the egg inside the follicle is mature.
• Do I have any fibroids or polyps?
• What is my antral follicle count? Assessing the antral follicle count allows us to evaluate a your ovarian reserve, or supply of eggs for the future. This only measures the quantity of eggs available.
• What is the thickness of my uterine lining? Is this what is expected for this time in my cycle?
• How many mature follicles do I have? Or, how many eggs do you expect me to ovulate?
• Is this what you expected to see on ultrasound today? Why or why not?
Every fertility clinic operates differently. There may be many people involved with your care, whether or not you are undergoing fertility treatments. It is best that you personally keep track of your care so that you are equally as involved with your treatment planning as your doctors and nurses.
Dr. Aimee, also known as the “Egg Whisperer,” is one of America’s most famous Fertility Doctors. Her success rate at baby-making is what gives future parents hope when all hope is lost. She’s had a hand in creating thousands of happy healthy babies. Dr. Aimee is a Harvard-educated board certified OBGYN, specializing in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility; but it’s her “Egg Freezing Parties” that put her in the limelight and made her a media darling. She has been featured in magazines like People and Marie Claire, and has been featured on the Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS Morning, Fox Network, along with a number of local and international newscasts. In her off-time, Dr. Aimee is a Mom to four rambunctious young kids aged 8 and under. Her goal is to teach everyone how to become fertility aware and #GetAheadOfInfertilityShe is a native of the Bay Area. She is a graduate of UCLA School of Medicine. After completing her residency in Obstetrics & Gynecology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, she completed a fellowship in Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility at University of Michigan. She also completed a Masters in Public Health in Health Management and Policy at University of Michigan.Dr. Aimee has presented her research at the national meetings of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, Endocrine Society and American College of Ob/Gyn. Her research has been published in several journals including Fertility and Sterility, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, Obstetrics and Gynecology and Menopause. Dr. Aimee co-authored book chapters on ultrasonography and male infertility with national leaders in the field of reproductive endocrinology.Dr. Aimee is a fellow of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She is board certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology and continues to contribute to research in the field of reproductive endocrinology and infertility.You can email her directly at: firstname.lastname@example.org
Check out the products for TTC through parenthood in the Babies After 35 Amazon shop, online courses and other services that come "Dr. Clark-approved"!Check out my favorite things | <urn:uuid:adadc24e-ca27-4bc7-a500-2be996263cc3> | CC-MAIN-2023-50 | https://www.babiesafter35.com/articles/when-do-i-need-a-pelvic-ultrasound | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100705.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20231207221604-20231208011604-00256.warc.gz | en | 0.948652 | 1,443 | 2.875 | 3 |
While this study didn't look specifically at BPA health effects, it did focus on better understanding how our bodies metabolize the hormone-mimicking chemical once it's present. This breakdown process helps remove BPA from our bodies.
The new animal study, published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, found BPA is readily absorbed through the tiny blood vessels under the tongue, meaning the BPA in canned food and drinks, and stray BPA on our fingers from handling thermal cash-register receipts, could be readily absorbed into the bloodstream, bypassing the gut where it's more quickly broken down into a less dangerous form.
"It stays in free form longer—it stays estrogenic longer," explains Laura Vandenberg, PhD, postdoctoral fellow of regenerative and developmental biology at Tufts University.
BPA has and has been linked to all types of health problems, including breast cancer, obesity, poor dental health, and behavioral problems in children, among other ills. The results of this research, Vandenberg says, also raise concerns about BPA-containing dental sealants, which could be leaching directly into the bloodstream.
This study is different from others because it more closely mimics real-life exposure. Usually in lab studies investigating potentially toxic chemicals, scientists use a tube to deliver the chemical directly into a lab animal's stomach. Researchers know that when BPA is sent directly to the gut and broken down, it takes about a full day to get rid of it. It's unclear how long it remains in the body when it's absorbed directly into the bloodstream via the mouth.
"The problem is we're continuously exposed," Vandenberg explains. "Also, the problem with how we study metabolism in animals is that we look at single doses of chemicals and see how long long it takes to leave the body. But you and I are getting constant doses. It will probably have peaks but never go away in body."
In fact, we don't know all of the sources of BPA yet. "This chemical has been incorporated into so many consumer products, and when that happens, companies don't put a sign on it that says, 'Now with more BPA,'" Vandenberg says.
Companies generally aren't very direct when it comes to identifying BPA in packaging or other products. In fact, scientists were the ones to ID BPA in things like thermal reciept paper, cigarette butts, and even in some personal care products.
How to reduce your exposure to BPA:
• Keep receipts out of your mouth and wash your hands after handling them. The European Food Safety Authority recently said at least 15 percent of BPA exposure could be coming from things other than canned foods, including thermal paper.
• Opt for fresh or frozen foods instead of canned food.
• Don't trust BPA-free labels. A recent study found the most common BPA replacement, BPS, disrupts hormones, too.
• Avoid plastic food and drink packaging. Some #7 plastics contain BPA. Never heat food in plastic in the microwave or dishwasher—it can accelerate leaching.
For more reasons to get BPA out of your life, read 5 Weird Things BPA Is Doing to Your Body. | <urn:uuid:677a47f7-c494-43de-9d9d-63d4bc5d40d3> | CC-MAIN-2016-07 | http://www.rodalewellness.com/health/how-body-absorbs-bpa | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-07/segments/1454701166739.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20160205193926-00010-ip-10-236-182-209.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948935 | 659 | 3.46875 | 3 |
Monday, January 18, 2010
Treinta Años del Mariel Cuba
Estampida de un pueblo por
1980 = 2010
This article has been nominated to be checked for its neutrality. Discussion of this nomination can be found on the talk page. (July 2008)
Cuban refugees arriving in crowded boats during the Mariel boatlift crisis.
The Mariel boatlift was a mass exodus of Cubans who departed from Cuba's Mariel Harbor for the United States between April 15 and October 31, 1980.
The event was precipitated by a sharp downturn in the Cuban economy which led to internal tensions on the island and a bid by up to 10,000 Cubans to gain asylum in the Peruvian embassy.
The Cuban government subsequently announced that anyone who wanted to leave could do so, and an exodus by boat started shortly afterwards. The exodus was organized by Cuban-Americans with the agreement of Cuban president Fidel Castro. The exodus started to have negative political implications for U.S. president Jimmy Carter when it was discovered that a number of the exiles had been released from Cuban jails and mental health facilities.
The Mariel boatlift was ended by mutual agreement | <urn:uuid:69be8f9a-587e-4413-af76-0b8f02e84098> | CC-MAIN-2017-13 | http://luyano-cuba.blogspot.com/2010/01/treinta-anos-del-mariel-cuba_18.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-13/segments/1490218189083.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20170322212949-00511-ip-10-233-31-227.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980555 | 243 | 3.53125 | 4 |
Original Research ARTICLE
Testing Projected Climate Change Conditions on the Endoconidiophora polonica / Norway spruce Pathosystem Shows Fungal Strain Specific Effects
- 1Department of Forest Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
- 2Department of Microbiology and Plant Pathology, Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
- 3Department of Virology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
- 4Natural Resources Institute Finland, Läyliäinen, Finland
Climate changes, exemplified by increased temperatures and CO2 concentration, pose a global threat to forest health. Of particular concern are pests and pathogens, with a warming climate altering their distributions and evolutionary capacity, while impairing the ability of some plants to respond to infections. Progress in understanding and mitigating such effects is currently hindered by a lack of empirical research. Norway spruce (Picea abies) is one of the most economically important tree species in northern Europe, and is considered highly vulnerable to changes in climate. It is commonly infected by the fungus Endoconidiophora polonica, and we hypothesized that damage caused to trees will increase under future climate change predictions. To test this hypothesis an in vivo greenhouse experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of a changed growing environment on E. polonica infected Norway spruce seedlings, comparing ambient conditions to predicted temperatures and CO2 levels in Finland for the years 2030 and 2100. In total, 450 seedlings were randomized amongst the three treatments, with 25 seedlings from each allocated to inoculation with one of five different fungal strains or mock-inoculation. Seedlings were monitored throughout the thermal growing season for mortality, and lesion length and depth indices were measured at the experiment conclusion. Disease severity (mortality and lesions) was consistently greater in fungal-inoculated than mock-inoculated seedlings. However, substantial differences were observed among fungal strains in response to climate scenarios. For example, although overall seedling mortality was highest under the most distant (and severe) climate change expectations, of the two fungal strains with the highest mortality counts (referred to as F4 and F5), one produced greater mortality under the 2030 and 2100 scenarios than ambient conditions, whereas climate scenario had no effect on the other. This study contributes to a limited body of empirical research on the effects of projected climate changes on forestry pathosystems, and is the first to investigate interactions between Norway spruce and E. polonica. The results indicate the potential for future climate changes to alter the impact of forest pathogens with implications for productivity, while highlighting the need for a strain-specific level of understanding of the disease agents.
Human-related disturbances including climate change and globalization pose novel threats to global forest health (Gauthier et al., 2015; Trumbore et al., 2015; Wingfield et al., 2015; Ghelardini et al., 2016). Although forests can adapt to tolerate and recover from some level of disturbance, adaptation processes are currently undermined by the rate of climate change (Julkunen-Tiitto et al., 2015; Trumbore et al., 2015). Pathogens and pests represent some of the most important threats to forest health where climate change is occurring (Ayres and Lombardero, 2000; Allen et al., 2010; Wingfield et al., 2015; Ghelardini et al., 2016). These factors are recognized as an increasing concern worldwide, but an understanding of how systems will respond to climate change, and the associated need to enact mitigation strategies, is hindered by a lack of empirical research.
Warmer temperatures, elevated CO2 levels and longer growing seasons favor many pathogens through enhanced growth rate, reproduction, survival and accelerated evolution (Chakraborty and Datta, 2003; Roy et al., 2004; Chakraborty, 2013). Climate change can also influence plant resistance and tolerance to pests and pathogens (Jamiesen et al., 2012). For instance, research addressing the effects of drought stress on forest ecosystems has indicated the potential for exacerbated epidemics under climate change (Allen et al., 2010; Jactel et al., 2012). Damage caused by pests and pathogens is generally expected to increase under future climate change scenarios (Coakley et al., 1999; Ayres and Lombardero, 2000; Allen et al., 2010; Björkman and Niemelä, 2015), and is supported by model-based simulations (Brasier, 1996; Jönsson et al., 2009; Marini et al., 2012) and some experimental research (Karnosky et al., 2002; Percy et al., 2002; Chakraborty and Datta, 2003; Mitchell et al., 2003; Roy et al., 2004; Váry et al., 2015). Other studies have identified reduced or no effect of climate change on plant diseases (Chakraborty et al., 1998; Coakley et al., 1999; Roy et al., 2004). These effects vary geographically and are often species and strain specific (Coakley et al., 1999; Sallé et al., 2005; Garret et al., 2006), highlighting the need for systems-based research.
Boreal forests in Northern Europe are particularly vulnerable, where predictions for future climate changes are amongst the most severe (Jylhä et al., 2004; Field et al., 2014). Overall, elevated temperatures and atmospheric CO2 concentrations are expected to favor tree growth and increase forestry productivity (Bergh et al., 2003; Kellomäki et al., 2008). However, some tree species are sensitive to warming temperatures and drought stress, which could lead to major shifts in tree species distributions (Bonan, 2008; Hanewinkel et al., 2011; Lévesque et al., 2013; Field et al., 2014). An iconic example is the Norway spruce (Picea abies), which is one of the most economically important forestry tree species in Europe. This species is considered particularly vulnerable to climate change, as it appears to have a limited capacity to adjust to warming-induced drought conditions (Kellomäki et al., 2008; Lévesque et al., 2013) and increased CO2 levels (Sallas et al., 2003; Kroner and Way, 2016). Predicted climate changes are likely to decrease its southern range abundance, with consequent negative impacts on economic potential in some regions (Kellomäki et al., 2008; Lévesque et al., 2013).
One of the most important pests of Norway spruce in Europe is the Eurasian spruce bark beetle (Ips typographus). Like many insect species, the bark beetle is highly responsive to changes in temperature (Björkman and Niemelä, 2015), and a warming climate has already had observable effects on its development and voltinism (Jönsson et al., 2009; Økland et al., 2015). The beetle has a symbiotic association with several fungi for which it serves as a vector (Wingfield et al., 1993; Seifert et al., 2013). The most pathogenic fungus associated with the Eurasian spruce bark beetle is Endoconidiophora polonica, which is capable of killing mature Norway spruce trees (Christiansen and Horntvedt, 1983; Solheim, 1988; Krokene and Solheim, 1998; Kirisits and Offenthaler, 2002). It is not known how projected climate changes will influence the effects of E. polonica on tree health or its ability to facilitate colonization by the bark beetle.
The aim of this study was to experimentally test in vivo the effects of a changed growing environment on E. polonica infected Norway spruce seedlings, comparing current ambient conditions (for the year 2015) to projected temperature and CO2 levels for the years 2030 and 2100 in Finland (Jylhä et al., 2004, 2009). Previous research has demonstrated that seedlings provide an effective model for larger tree health within this system (Krokene and Solheim, 1998; Repe et al., 2015). Due to the general inability of this tree species to adjust to environmental changes, we hypothesized that disease severity on seedlings would be greater under predicted future climate change scenarios than current ambient conditions.
Materials and Methods
A total of 450 (2-year-old) Norway spruce seedlings (Fin Forelia Oy, Nurmijärvi) originating from Imatra, Southern Finland (61° 09′ N, 28° 048′ E) were used. Average seedling height at the beginning of the experiment was 40 cm. Seedlings were potted into plastic trays of 36 cells (Plantek 36 F), each 64 mm × 64 mm × 90 mm (depth), filled with fertilized peat (Vapo peat for forest trees). Plant density in the trays was 240 plants/m2. All seedlings were maintained in a greenhouse (mean temperature 14.8°C) for 1 week and then transferred to treatment conditions (see below), where they were acclimatized for ∼4 weeks prior to fungal inoculations.
The experiment was conducted during the 2015 thermal growing season (between 9 June and 28 October) at the Haapastensyrjä field station of the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) in southern Finland. This area is characterized by a semi-continental climate. During the experimental period, the mean daily temperature ranged from 4 to 15°C, consistent with long-term averages. The exception occurred in August – September, which was approximately 1.5°C warmer than the long-term mean (Finnish Meteorological Institute, 2016). The average ambient CO2 level was 402 ppm (at the SMEAR II station (61°51′N, 24°17′E, 4.2 m a.s.l.) (Junninen et al., 2009). The field station is equipped with a commercial climate control system LCC-1200 linked to LCC-1240 using SuperLink v.3.5 software (DGT-Volmatic, Odense, Denmark) to monitor and/or control, e.g., the temperatures and CO2 levels outside and inside the greenhouse compartments at intervals of 1 min.
For the experiment, the 450 spruce seedlings were block randomized (in trays) amongst three treatments: (1) outside temperature +1°C + elevated CO2, (2) outside temperature +4°C + elevated CO2, and (3) outside/ambient temperature and CO2 conditions. One hundred and fifty seedlings were allocated to each treatment. These temperatures are based on climate predictions for southern Finland for the years 2030 (+1°C) and 2100 (+4°C) (Jylhä et al., 2004, 2009). CO2 levels were set at 550 ppm, consistent with low range predictions.
The two temperature-controlled seedling groups were maintained in separate compartments of a large greenhouse, where the DGT-Volmatic system monitored outside temperatures and increased the greenhouse room temperatures accordingly. The control seedlings were maintained alongside the greenhouse, and were thus subject to very similar conditions to those in the climate scenario treatment groups (including natural day length, with temperature and CO2 levels the notable exceptions). However, we cannot exclude the possibility that other potential differences, such as light intensity and quality (Ballaré, 2014), influenced seedling resistance to the fungal infections. Each seedling was inoculated with one of five E. polonica strains (Supplementary Table S1), or mock-inoculated (25 seedlings per fungal strain/treatment). The inoculation experiment started at the beginning of July and was concluded 12 weeks later, in October 2015, to encompass the thermal growing season in the region. During the experiment, seedlings were watered as required to maintain moist soil (usually three times a week). No additional fertilization was given. The trays were rotated every 3 weeks to minimize potential effects due to their positioning.
Endoconidiophora polonica strains were isolated from adult European spruce bark beetles (I. typographus) and their phoretic mites collected from outbreak regions of Finland and neighboring Russia (Linnakoski, 2011; Linnakoski et al., 2016). For the purposes of this study, fungal strains are designated F1 – F5, and further described in Supplementary Table S1. Strains were plated on 2% Malt Extract Agar (MEA; 20 g BactoTM Malt extract and 20 g Difco BactoTM agar from Becton, Dickinson and Company, Sparks, MD, United States, and 1000 ml of MQ-water) in 9 cm Petri dishes. Cultures were grown in an incubator at 25°C for 1 week prior to being used for the inoculations.
Seedling inoculations were made approximately half way up the stems (on the 1st-year shoot) by cutting a bark flap (3 × 4 mm) with a sterile scalpel (Figure 1A). An inoculum of approximately the same size was cut from the actively growing outer zone of the culture plate, and placed onto the wound with the mycelial surface facing the exposed sapwood region. The inoculum site was then covered with the bark flap and sealed with Parafilm to prevent contamination and desiccation. The Parafilm was removed 2 weeks later. Mock-inoculations were made in the same way, but using sterile 2% MEA as inoculum. All inoculations were performed by the same person (RL) to increase uniformity.
FIGURE 1. Lesion indices on the seedling stem in relation to the inoculation: (A) inoculation point (B) necrotic lesion on the outer bark (bark lesion), (C) necrotic lesion along the sapwood surface (sapwood lesion), and (D) lesion depth.
Seedling height was measured at the beginning and end of the experiment (to the nearest 0.5 cm) and seedlings were monitored for mortality at monthly intervals (four monitoring occasions throughout the experiment). Mortality was defined as discoloration of all needles above the inoculation point, consistent with previous studies (Krokene and Solheim, 1998; Jankowiak, 2006). At the conclusion of the experiment, the full length of the necrotic lesion on the outer bark (Figure 1B) was measured with an electronic caliper (to the nearest 0.01 mm), and the bark was peeled back to expose the sapwood (xylem). The full length of the necrotic lesion along the sapwood surface (Figure 1C) was measured in the same way. The stem was then cut in half at the upper edge of the inoculation site, and the stem diameter and lesion depth (Figure 1D) were measured.
To verify infections, re-isolations were made from 25 randomly selected inoculated seedlings from each treatment (in total 75 seedlings) at the conclusion of the experiment by cutting small sapwood samples from around the inoculation sites. These samples were plated on 2% MEA, incubated at 25°C, and inspected for fungal growth for up to 2 weeks.
General linear mixed models (GLMM) were constructed to evaluate the effects of the climate change scenarios on bark and sapwood lesion lengths and depth at the experiment conclusion. Due to inherent imprecision in measuring lesion length/depth in dead wood, seedlings that died throughout the experiment (53 seedlings) were excluded from the analyses. Significant outliers were removed (Grubb’s test, P < 0.05) and data were natural log transformed (lesion lengths) to approximate normality. Initial explanatory variables for the bark and sapwood lesion length models were seedling height at the onset of the experiment (continuous variable), climate change scenario, fungal inoculation strain (both categorical variables), and all interactions. Seedling tray number (categorical), position in the tray (three categories; rows/columns ranging from the outside to the interior) and the intercept were set as random factors. The same model was conducted for lesion depth, with seedling height replaced by stem diameter. Since the lesions of mock-inoculated seedlings very rarely extended inward from the inoculation point (only two very minor cases were identified), these data were removed from the analyses. All models were sequentially reduced, whereby non-significant interaction terms were removed if their removal did not increase AIC by > 2 units (Littell et al., 2006). Model comparisons were made using the maximum likelihood (ML) method and final values were obtained using restricted maximum likelihood (REML). Model assumptions were visually checked from the residual distribution.
To facilitate interpretation of a three-way interaction between seedling height at the onset of the experiment, fungal strain and climate change scenario in the sapwood lesion length model (Fclimate scenario × fungal strain × beg_height 10,357 = 1.81, P = 0.057), a mixed model was constructed with sapwood lesion length explained by height at the onset of the experiment. Tray number, position in the tray and the intercept were again set as random factors. The residuals of this model were then used as the response variable in a linear mixed model in which sapwood lesion length was explained by fungal strain, climate change scenario and their interaction, as per the methods described above.
Due to the low overall proportion of seedling deaths, the interactive effects of climate change scenario and fungal strain on mortality levels could not be evaluated using a linear model approach. Instead chi-squared tests were used for pair-wise comparisons of mortality counts between the three climate change scenarios (summing all fungal strains). Generalized linear mixed models, with a binary distribution and logit link function, were constructed to separately evaluate the effects of climate change scenario on mortality at the end of the experiment (dichotomous outcome; alive or dead) for seedlings inoculated with the two fungal strains that produced the greatest number of dead seedlings (F4 and F5). Again seedling tray number, position in the tray and the intercept were included as random factors. Chi-squared tests were used to compare within-strain mortality counts between climate change scenarios for the other fungal strains, excluding mock-inoculations, which had no mortality.
Pearson correlation tests were used to assess the relationship between outer bark and xylem sapwood lesion length, lesion depth and seedling mortality. For these comparisons, the estimated marginal means of bark and sapwood lesion length (from the seedling height adjusted model) and lesion depth for each climate change scenario/strain combination were compared against each other and the respective group seedling mortality counts. Statistical analyses were conducted using SAS version 9.3 (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, United States).
Total seedling mortality during the experiment was 12% (53/450), and ranged from 0% in the mock-inoculated group to 25% of seedlings inoculated with fungal strains F4 and F5 (Figures 2A,B). Ninety-two percentage of seedling mortality occurred during the initial 2 months of the experiment. More seedling deaths occurred under the 2100 climate change scenario than under ambient conditions (26 versus 9 deaths; χ2 value = 9.35, P = 0.002; Figure 2A). No significant difference was detected between the 2030 and 2100 climate change scenarios (χ2 value = 1.70, P = 0.192).
FIGURE 2. Seedling mortality counts at the experiment conclusion: (A) all fungal strains combined, and (B) differences between fungal strain as identified in generalized linear models (strains F4 and F5) and chi-squared tests (strains F1, F2, and F3). Different letters above counts represent statistically significant (P < 0.05) differences among climate change scenarios.
For seedlings inoculated with fungal strain F5, mortality varied based on the climate change scenario (Table 1 and Figure 2B). More deaths occurred in seedlings assigned to the 2100 (pair-wise difference P = 0.011) and 2030 (P = 0.050) climate change scenarios than ambient conditions. No difference was detected between 2030 and 2100 climate change scenarios. Conversely, no variation in seedling mortality occurred under climate change scenarios using the F4 fungal strain (Table 1 and Figure 2B). For strain F1, mortality was greater in the 2100 climate change scenario than ambient conditions (Fisher’s exact test, two-sided P = 0.022), but did not vary between 2030 and 2100 or between ambient conditions and the 2030 climate change scenario. No mortality differences were detected between climate change scenarios for seedlings inoculated with strains F2 or F3 (Figure 2B).
TABLE 1. Most parsimonious models to explain response variables (general and generalized linear mixed models).
Bark lesion length (Table 1 and Figure 3A), sapwood lesion length (Figure 3B) and lesion depth (Figure 3C) all varied based on the interaction between climate change scenario and the fungal strain. A suite of within-strain differences in lesion length and depth due to climate change scenarios were identified, which are indicated in the figures. Lesion depth increased with seedling diameter (Table 1). Bark and sapwood lesion lengths were greater across all fungal strains than with mock-inoculations (statistical comparison was not possible for lesion depth, as lesions from mock-inoculations rarely extended into the sapwood). Mean sapwood lesion length (35.60 mm, range 4.9 – 139.4 mm) was longer than the mean bark lesion length (13.7 mm, range 4.5 – 36.0 mm).
FIGURE 3. Estimated marginal means (error bars depict 95% confidence intervals) of seedling lesions at the experiment conclusion in relation to climate scenarios and fungal strain: (A) bark lesion length, (B) sapwood lesion length (adjusted by seedling height at the onset of the experiment and therefore an index relative to each other; see Materials and Methods), and (C) lesion depth. Different letters above error bars represent statistically significant (P < 0.05) within-strain differences.
Both bark (r = 0.54, P = 0.022) and sapwood (r = 0.60, P = 0.009; Figure 4) lesion lengths were positively correlated with seedling mortality counts, while lesion depth was not. Bark and sapwood lesion length were not correlated with each other (Pearson correlation coefficient 0.92, P < 0.001). The depth and bark or sapwood lesion lengths were not correlated.
FIGURE 4. Relationship between sapwood lesion length index (estimated marginal means) and seedling mortality counts (overall correlation r = 0.60, P = 0.009). Each point represents the mortality count/mean sapwood lesion length for each strain/treatment group combination. Note that sapwood lesion length is an index adjusted by seedling height at the beginning of the experiment.
Minimal seedling growth occurred during the experimental period with no growth recorded for 243 of 450 seedlings (growth range 0 to 2 cm). E. polonica was successfully re-isolated from 74 of the 75 tested seedlings at the experiment conclusion.
Results of this study show that outcomes of fungal infections may vary between current environmental conditions and future climate change predictions in the Norway spruce – E. polonica pathosystem. While the most distant and severe projections were the most detrimental to tree health overall, this trend masked substantial between-strain variation in responses to the projected climate scenarios. This is the first experimental evaluation of climate change effects on this pathosystem, and indicates potential implications for future forestry productivity in northern Europe.
All of the fungal strains used in this study were pathogenic, and able to induce greater seedling damage than the mock-inoculations. Most fungal strains were from the same locality (Linnakoski et al., 2016), and the among-strains differences in response to climate change scenarios (e.g., the mortality differences between strains F4 and F5; Figure 2B), are thus consistent with previous observations that E. polonica populations can include strains of varying aggressiveness (Krokene and Solheim, 1998; Lieutier et al., 2003; Sallé et al., 2005). The bark beetle vector is able to disperse over long distances (Nilssen, 1984; Forsse and Solbreck, 1985), and thereby accumulate fungal assemblages from diverse geographical areas. However, this finding highlights problems associated with generalizing results across and within pathogen and host species, and thus the need for targeted system-based research.
Although potential new phenotypic and genetic markers have been developed, methods to accurately measure tree resistance/susceptibility and fungal pathogenicity remain challenging (Kovalchuk et al., 2013; Krokene et al., 2013). Presently, measurements of necrosis length are the most commonly used markers (Christiansen and Horntvedt, 1983; Horntvedt et al., 1983; Solheim, 1988; Krokene and Solheim, 1998; Kirisits and Offenthaler, 2002). In this study, the lesion length indices were effective general predictors for seedling mortality, with sapwood lesion length the most accurate. By also evaluating mortality, which was facilitated by the high seedling numbers, we uncovered substantial within-strain discordance between the lesion indices and mortality counts. For example, the mortality count was greater under the 2100 climate scenario than ambient conditions for seedlings infected with fungi F5, but none of the lesion indices differed between the two climate scenarios. These results thus indicate a need for caution when extrapolating lesion indices as more general outcomes of plant health. From a practical point of view, mortality occurred in 25% of seedlings inoculated with fungal strain F5 (compared to 0% without fungal infection). Twenty-five percentage of stand loss alone will have severe economic implications, and we found that mortality levels approached 50% under the 2100 climate scenario (Figure 2B).
Previous research showing the inability of Norway spruce to respond to environmental changes (Sallas et al., 2003; Kellomäki et al., 2008; Lévesque et al., 2013; Kroner and Way, 2016) suggests that seedling resistance (rather than fungal aggressiveness) primarily mediate the observed effects of climate scenarios on seedling health. However, this hypothesis calls for future targeted research addressing indices of plant immunity. Although conifers have highly evolved defense mechanisms against herbivores and pathogens (Krokene et al., 2013), several climate change factors are likely to contribute to plant stress and thereby impair their defenses (Julkunen-Tiitto et al., 2015). Previous studies have investigated the potential impact of elevated temperature and CO2 levels on the carbon based (phenolics and terpenoids) defense chemistry of Norway spruce (Sallas et al., 2003; Julkunen-Tiitto et al., 2015), indicating that climatic factors are likely to induce changes in the phenolic and monoterpene concentrations.
Norway spruce genotypes (clones) vary in their resistance to fungal infections (Swedjemark and Stenlid, 1997; Keriö et al., 2015; Lundén et al., 2015). Outbred seedlings were used for the present study, representing the natural genetic diversity that is currently employed in boreal forestry practices. Monocultures of resistant clones would provide a possible solution to combat specific infection risk. However, the subsequent lack of genetic diversity would also introduce other risks to tree health, specifically the ability to respond to unanticipated environmental perturbations such as droughts and other infections (Wingfield et al., 2015).
Forestry is a major economic industry in northern Europe. Much research has addressed the effects of projected climate changes on tree species distributions and their productivity (Kellomäki et al., 2008; Lévesque et al., 2013), while the potential impacts of pests and pathogens have received far less attention. Our results highlight the need to incorporate disease effects into future forestry planning. They suggest that predicted climate changes have the potential to alter the damage caused to Norway spruce by the fungus E. polonica, but that such effects can vary markedly among fungal strains. However, we acknowledge the multifaceted effects of climate change on plant-pathogen interactions. Factors such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs), gaseous emissions and radiation may have important influences (Niinemets et al., 2013), and we encourage further empirical research on this topic.
RL, MW, PP, and FA designed the experiment. RL collected the data. KF contributed to parts of the data collection and conducted the statistical analyses. MW, PP, and FA contributed reagents, materials and analysis tools. RL and KF drafted the manuscript; MW, PP, and FA were involved in the results interpretation and finalization of the manuscript. All authors listed have made substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.
This study was financially supported by the University of Helsinki (RL), the Tree Protection Co-operative Programme (TPCP) and the THRIP initiative of the Department of Trade and Industry (RL, MW), South Africa. KF is financially supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation.
Conflict of Interest Statement
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
We thank the technical staff at the Haapastensyrjä field station of the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) for their assistance in maintaining the seedlings.
The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpls.2017.00883/full#supplementary-material
Allen, C. D., Macalady, A. K., Chenchouni, H., Bachelet, D., McDowell, N., Vennetier, M., et al. (2010). A global overview of drought and heat-induced tree mortality reveals emerging climate change risks for forests. For. Ecol. Manage. 259, 660–684. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2009.09.001
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Julkunen-Tiitto, R., Nybakken, L., Randriamanana, T., and Virjamo, V. (2015). “Boreal woody species resistance,” in Climate Change and Insect Pests, eds C. Björkman and P. Niemelä (Wallingford: CABI), 54–73. doi: 10.1079/9781780643786.0054
Junninen, H., Lauri, A., Keronen, P., Aalto, P., Hiltunen, V., Hari, P., et al. (2009). Smart-SMEAR: on-line data exploration and visualization tool for SMEAR stations. Boreal Environ. Res. 14, 447–457.
Jylhä, K., Ruosteenoja, K., Räisänen, J., Venäläinen, A., Tuomenvirta, H., Ruokolainen, L., et al. (2009). The Changing Climate in Finland: Estimates for Adaptation Studies. ACCLIM Project Report 2009. Helsinki: Finnish Meteorological Institute.
Karnosky, D. F., Percy, K. E., Xiang, B., Callan, B., Noormets, A., Mankovska, B., et al. (2002). Interacting elevated CO2 and tropospheric O3 predisposes aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) to infection by rust (Melampsora medusa f. sp. tremuloidae). Glob. Change Biol. 8, 329–338. doi: 10.1046/j.1354-1013.2002.00479.x
Kellomäki, S., Peltola, H., Nuutinen, T., Korhonen, K. T., and Strandman, H. (2008). Sensitivity of managed boreal forests in Finland to climate change, with implications for adaptive management. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci. 363, 2341–2351. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2007.2204
Keriö, S., Niemi, S., Haapanen, M., Daniel, G., and Asiegbu, F. O. (2015). Infection of Picea abies clones with a homokaryotic isolate of Heterobasidion parviporum under field conditions. Can. J. For. Res. 45, 226–234. doi: 10.1139/cjfr-2014-0247
Kirisits, T., and Offenthaler, I. (2002). Xylem sap flow of Norway spruce after inoculation with the blue-stain fungus Ceratocystis polonica. Plant Pathol. 51, 359–364. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-3059.2002.00722.x
Kovalchuk, A., Keriö, S., Jaber, E., Oghenekaro, A., Raffaello, T., and Asiegbu, F. O. (2013). Antimicrobial defences and resistance of forest trees: challenges and perspectives in a genomic era. Annu. Rev. Phytopathol. 51, 221–244. doi: 10.1146/annurev-phyto-082712-102307
Krokene, P., Fossdal, C. G., Nagy, N. E., and Solheim, H. (2013). “Conifer defense against insects and fungi,” in Ophiostomatoid Fungi: Expanding Frontiers, eds K. A. Seifert, Z. W. de Beer, and M. J. Wingfield (Utrecht: CBS Press), 141–153.
Krokene, P., and Solheim, H. (1998). Assessing the virulence of four bark beetle-associated bluestain fungi using Norway spruce seedlings. Plant Pathol. 47, 537–540. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-3059.1998.00268.x
Kroner, Y., and Way, D. A. (2016). Carbon fluxes acclimate more strongly to elevated growth temperatures than to elevated CO2 concentrations in a northern conifer. Glob. Change Biol. 22, 2913–2928. doi: 10.1111/gcb.13215
Lévesque, M., Saurer, M., Siegwolf, R., Eilmann, B., Brang, P., Bugmann, H., et al. (2013). Drought response of five conifer species under contrasting water availability suggests high vulnerability of Norway spruce and European larch. Glob. Change Biol. 19, 3184–3199. doi: 10.1111/gcb.12268
Lieutier, F., Brignolas, F., Sauvard, D., Yart, A., Galet, C., Brunet, M., et al. (2003). Intra- and inter-provenance variability in phloem phenols of Picea abies and relationship to a bark beetle-associated fungus. Tree Physiol. 23, 247–256. doi: 10.1093/treephys/23.4.247
Linnakoski, R. (2011). Bark Beetle-Associated Fungi in Fennoscandia with Special Emphasis on Species of Ophiostoma and Grosmannia. Dissertationes Forestales 119. Ph.D. thesis, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu. doi: 10.14214/df.119
Linnakoski, R., Mahilainen, S., Harrington, A., Vanhanen, H., Eriksson, M., Mehtätalo, L., et al. (2016). Seasonal succession of fungi associated with Ips typographus beetles and their phoretic mites in an outbreak region of Finland. PLoS ONE 11:e0155622. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0155622
Lundén, N. K., Danielsson, M., Durling, M. B., Ihrmark, K., Nemesio, G. M., Stenlid, J., et al. (2015). Transcriptional responses associated with virulence and defence in the interaction between Heterobasidion annosum s.s. and Norway spruce. PLoS ONE 10:e0131182. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0131182
Marini, L., Ayres, M. P., Battisti, A., and Faccoli, M. (2012). Climate affects severity and altitudinal distribution of outbreaks in an eruptive bark beetle. Clim. Change 115, 327–341. doi: 10.1007/s10584-012-0463-z
Mitchell, C. E., Reich, P. B., Tilman, D., and Groth, J. V. (2003). Effects of elevated CO2, nitrogen deposition, and decreased species diversity on foliar fungal plant disease. Glob. Change Biol. 9, 438–451. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2486.2003.00602.x
Niinemets,Ü., Kännaste, A., and Copolovici, L. (2013). Quantitative patterns between plant volatile emissions induced by biotic stresses and the degree of damage. Front. Plant. Sci. 4:262. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2013.00262
Økland, B., Nethener, S., and Marini, L. (2015). “The Eurasian spruce bark beetle: the role of climate,” in Climate Change and Insect Pests, eds C. Björkman and P. Niemelä (Wallingford: CABI), 202–219. doi: 10.1079/9781780643786.0202
Percy, K. E., Awmack, C. S., Lindroth, R. L., Kubiske, M. E., Kopper, B. J., Isebrands, J. G., et al. (2002). Altered performance of forest pests under atmospheres enriched by CO2 and O3. Nature 420, 403–407. doi: 10.1038/nature01028
Sallas, L., Luomala, E. M., Utriainen, J., Kainulainen, P., and Holopainen, J. K. (2003). Contrasting effects of elevated carbon dioxide concentration and temperature on Rubisco activity, chlorophyll fluorescence, needle ultrastructure and secondary metabolites in conifer seedlings. Tree Physiol. 23, 97–108. doi: 10.1093/treephys/23.2.97
Sallé, A., Monclus, R., Yart, A., Garcia, J., Romary, P., and Lieutier, F. (2005). Fungal flora associated with Ips typographus: frequency, virulence, and ability to stimulate the host defence reaction in relation to insect population levels. Can. J. For. Res. 35, 365–373. doi: 10.1139/x04-186
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Váry, Z., Mullins, E., McElwain, J. C., and Doohan, F. M. (2015). The severity of wheat diseases increases when plants and pathogens are acclimatized to elevated carbon dioxide. Glob. Change Biol. 21, 2661–2669. doi: 10.1111/gcb.12899
Keywords: blue stain fungi, carbon dioxide, climate change, Endoconidiophora polonica, forest pathogen, in vivo, pathogenicity, Picea abies
Citation: Linnakoski R, Forbes KM, Wingfield MJ, Pulkkinen P and Asiegbu FO (2017) Testing Projected Climate Change Conditions on the Endoconidiophora polonica / Norway spruce Pathosystem Shows Fungal Strain Specific Effects. Front. Plant Sci. 8:883. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2017.00883
Received: 13 December 2016; Accepted: 11 May 2017;
Published: 26 May 2017.
Edited by:Essaid Ait Barka, University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne, France
Reviewed by:Aurelio Ciancio, Consiglio Nazionale Delle Ricerche (CNR), Italy
Madhaiyan Munusamy, Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, Singapore
Copyright © 2017 Linnakoski, Forbes, Wingfield, Pulkkinen and Asiegbu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Riikka Linnakoski, firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:9245c224-1c6e-4e88-909c-b4ebc21597cd> | CC-MAIN-2018-30 | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2017.00883/full | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-30/segments/1531676591719.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20180720174340-20180720194340-00180.warc.gz | en | 0.88693 | 9,934 | 2.5625 | 3 |
. Isaac Jogues, John DeBrebeuf, and their Companions. The littles quickly became fascinated by the life of Saint Jogues. The remaining day’s lessons quickly changed focus to that of the St. Jogues. I posted some resources here.
Isaac Jogues was one of the French Jesuits who came from France in the seventeenth century to bring the gift of Baptism and the Faith to the Indians in the New World. It would be hard to find in all the lives of the saints a story more filled with danger, terror and blazing love than that of these Jesuits.It was snack time before we knew it but no one wanted to stop our discussion about the heroic martyr. We did some more reading about the Indians that St. Jogues evangelized, the Huron Indians. The Hurons were an Iroquois tribe of some thirty-five thousand Indians. We learned, among many interesting facts, that the Huron Indian’s primary food was corn. The corn was often altered with what the Hurons had available to them, meat, fruit, or beans. That gave Sweetie and Sparkle the idea that we should make something out of blueberries. Papi had cake on his mind since he is working on the letter C. Our
Although agriculture was important in the economy of the Huron, it was not the only source of subsistence. Berries, particularly strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries, were plentiful. Fruits were fried for winter use, to be used as preserves for the sick, to give taste to sagmite, and to put into the small cakes that were baked in the ashes. ~ An Ethnography of the Huron Indians, 1615-1649
Sparkles helped me scour online for a gluten-free blueberry cake recipe. We found our inspiration from the one and only, Paula Deen. She shared a delectable treat, Pineapple Blueberry Crunch Cake.
The girls checked the pantry as I listed the ingredients and Papi prepped the cooking station. We had everything on hand!
Some slight modification were made and the girls went to work. (The boys were sidetracked by an invitation from Papa and Nana to go purchase new shoes.)
In His JOY, | <urn:uuid:38d64cbd-5257-4341-9a07-79a0dd6b620b> | CC-MAIN-2017-34 | http://joyfilledfamily.blogspot.com/2012/09/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-34/segments/1502886104634.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20170818102246-20170818122246-00521.warc.gz | en | 0.981128 | 479 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Half Time Age 5 to 11 Challenge Level: What questions would you like to ask? Ram divided 15 pennies among four small bags. Heads and Feet Age 5 to 7 Challenge Level: Buzzy Bee Age 5 to 7 Challenge Level: What numbers of total spots can you make? This group activity will encourage you to share calculation strategies and to think about which strategy might be the most efficient.
Shut the Box Age 5 to 7 Challenge Level: Use the cards to gather all the information you need. In this calculation, the box represents a missing digit. Cuisenaire Counting Age 5 to 7 Challenge Level: Crossed Ends Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:
These activities lend themselves to being tackled in this way. Four bags contain a large number of 1s, 3s, 5s and 7s.
This investigates one particular property of number by looking closely at an example of adding two odd numbers together.
Button-up Age 5 to 7 Challenge Level: In this square, look at the green square which contains the numbers 2, 3, 12 and Arrange three 1s, three 2s and three 3s in this square so that every row, column and diagonal adds to the same total. Can you choose sets of numbers to collect so that you spin six numbers belonging to your sets in as few spins as possible?
Working Systematically at KS1 :
Ahmed is making rods using different numbers of cubes. My coat has three buttons. Can you put the numbers in the V shape so that both ‘arms’ have the same total? Maths Story Time Age 3 to 5 Telling a story to provoke mathematical discussion, language and reasoning.
Can you find 2 butterflies to go on each flower so that the numbers on each pair of butterflies adds to the same number as the kd1 on the flower? Register for our mailing list. What happens with different starting numbers? What Js1 It Be?
The Puzzling Sweet Shop
What can’t you make? Age 5 to 7 Challenge Level: Age 5 to 11 Challenge Level: How many different triangles can you draw on the dotty grid which each have one dot in the middle?
Adding and Taking Away. How could he have put them into three piles so that the total in each pile was 15? Register for our mailing list.
Register addifion our mailing list.
Problem Solving :
This group activity will encourage you to share calculation strategies and to think about which strategy might be the probem efficient. What different shapes do they make if each part lies in the small squares of a 4 by 4 square? Working Backwards at KS1.
Are there any left over each time? Which rod is twice the length of his first rod?
Number Pyramids Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level: Can you use the information to find out which cards I have used? Follow the clues to find the mystery number.
Sweets are given out to party-goers in a particular way. She stopped for a rest after writing seventeen digits.
Use your logical-thinking skills to deduce how much Dan’s crisps and ice-cream cost altogether. Which way should you go to collect the most spells? | <urn:uuid:9f0d6d9d-f827-428c-a8cc-94d159bf7cfc> | CC-MAIN-2020-24 | http://chatswing.info/nrich-problem-solving-ks1-addition-48/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-24/segments/1590347402885.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20200529085930-20200529115930-00272.warc.gz | en | 0.919457 | 655 | 3.515625 | 4 |
80 years ago today, (July 27, 1940 to be exact) Bugs Bunny made his debut. Created by Leon Schlesinger Productions (later Warner Bros. Cartoons)
Bugs is an anthropomorphic gray and white rabbit or hare who is famous for his flippant, rousing personality. He is also characterized by a Brooklyn accent, his portrayal as a trickster, and his catch phrase “Eh…What’s up, doc?”. Due to Bugs’ popularity during the golden age of American animation, he became not only an American cultural icon and the official mascot of Warner Bros. Entertainment, but also one of the most recognizable characters in the world. He can thus be seen in the older Warner Bros. company logos.
Since his debut, Bugs appeared in more than 150 cartoons produced between 1940 and 1964. He has also starred in feature films, compilations, TV series, music records, comics, video games, award shows, amusement park rides, and commercials. He has also appeared in more films than any other cartoon character, is the 9th most-portrayed film personality in the world, and has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Here is a scene from one of my favorite shorts of his where he takes on The Crusher
Here is Bugs Leading Them Hillbillies in a painful Square Dance (another favorite of mine)
And Finally here he is trying to outwit The Tazmanian Devil
So here’s to many more years of laughs with one of the greatest from Animation’s Golden Age | <urn:uuid:13fe2678-5d3d-4330-b51a-350b95eafdbf> | CC-MAIN-2021-43 | http://throughdanielslens.xepher.net/2020/07/27/blurb-bugs-bunny-turns-80/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-43/segments/1634323588526.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20211028193601-20211028223601-00340.warc.gz | en | 0.976147 | 325 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Essay Topic 1
Discuss the three principles of autonomy, community, and order to determine whether or not Williams is effective in showing how they interact, conflict, and interlock.
Essay Topic 2
Discuss the three features of American jurisprudence and determine how they influence race and rights.
Essay Topic 3
Discuss Williams' view on private property and slavery, focusing on the examples of private contract rights presented.
Essay Topic 4
Examine Williams' view on capitalism and how it impacts both the rich and poor.
Essay Topic 5
Examine Williams' experience with Benetton and discuss the situation in relation to race and rights.
Essay Topic 6
Examine Williams' experience with the law review and determine whether the law review had the right to edit the piece. Discuss the ramifications of the law review's decision.
Essay Topic 7
Define and discuss affirmative action and examine how it expresses values.
Essay Topic 8
Discuss the segregationist instinct and why Williams...
This section contains 464 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) | <urn:uuid:e27851be-496d-4117-a724-9d0525667eca> | CC-MAIN-2017-09 | http://www.bookrags.com/lessonplan/the-alchemy-of-race-and-rights/essaytopics.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-09/segments/1487501170884.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20170219104610-00354-ip-10-171-10-108.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.84669 | 229 | 3.125 | 3 |
2. What are children’s rights?
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child marked a turning point, recognising worldwide that children are not only subjects of protection but also holders of civil and political rights.
Maud de Beur-Buquicchio,
Deputy Secretary General, Council of Europe1
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) provides an ideal approach for children to learn about their human rights. Because it specifies human rights especially relevant to children, everyone, but especially children, parents and adults who work with children, should be familiar with this important component of the international human rights framework. Compasito frames children’s rights within the broader context of human rights as a whole and seeks to help children understand that along with all other members of the human family, they too are rights-holders.
The UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989 after nearly a decade of compromise and negotiation among member states and wide consultations with NGOs. Since then more countries have ratified the so called Children’s Convention than any other human rights treaty and with fewer reservations, which are formal exceptions taken to parts with which a state may not agree.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (also called the Children’s Convention) defines a child as anyone below the age of eighteen and affirms the child as fully possessed of human rights. It contains 54 articles of children’s rights that can be divided into three general categories, sometimes known as the ‘three Ps’:
- Protection, guaranteeing the safety of children and covering specific issues such as abuse, neglect, and exploitation;
- Provision, covering the special needs of children such as education and health care;
- Participation, recognising the child’s evolving capacity to make decisions and participate in society as he or she approaches maturity.
The Convention contains several groundbreaking approaches to human rights. Children’s right to participation constitutes an area not previously addressed in the UDHR (1948) or the Declaration on the Rights of the Child (1959). Another innovation of the Convention is the use of the pronouns he and she rather than the generic he to include both males and females.
The Convention strongly emphasizes the primacy and importance of the role, authority and responsibility of the child’s family. It affirms the child’s right not only to the language and culture of the family, but also to have that language and culture respected. The Convention also exhorts the state to support families are not able to provide an adequate standard of living for their children.
While acknowledging the importance of family to a child’s well-being, the Children’s Convention also recognizes children as right-bearing individuals, guaranteeing them, as appropriate to their evolving capacity, the right to identity, to privacy, to information, to thought, conscience, and religion, to expression, and to association.
The Convention has had enormous worldwide impact. It has intensified the child-rights efforts of UN agencies such as UNICEF and the International Labour Organisation (ILO); it has affected subsequent child-rights treaties (e.g. Hague Convention on Inter country Adoption, which speaks of a child’s right to a family rather than a family’s right to a child, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities); it has focused international movements to stamp out pervasive forms of child abuse such as child prostitution and child soldiers, both of which are now the subjects of optional protocols (amendments to the CRC).
Children’s rights in the CRC reflect four general principles:
- Non-discrimination (Article 2): All rights apply to all children without exception. The state has an obligation to protect children from any form of discrimination.
- The child’s best interest (Article 3): The determining factor in all actions dealing with any child should be his or her best interest. In all cases, the best interests of the child take precedence over the interests of the adults concerned (e.g. parents, teachers, guardians). However, the question of how to decide on the best interests of the child remains difficult to determine and open to discussion.
- The rights to life, survival and development (Article 6): the right of the child to life is inherent, and it is the state’s obligation to ensure the child’s survival and development. This means that children cannot be subject to the death sentence or to termination of life.
- Respect for the views of the child (Article 12): The child has the right to express an opinion and to have that opinion taken into account in any matter affecting him or her.
QUESTION: The child’s best interest is a fundamental principle of the Children’s Convention. However, who decides what is best for a child? What happens when parents, teachers, authorities or the child have conflicting opinions about what is ‘best’ for the child?
The Children’s Convention is a powerful instrument, which by its very nature engages young people in an examination of their own rights. It is also an effective tool to assist people of all ages in identifying the complex responsibilities that go with ensuring these rights for children. Using the convention in this way will teach children how to advocate on their own behalf.
Like all human rights treaties, the Convention on the Rights of the Child contains articles that establish how governments’ compliance with the treaty will be monitored. Part II, Articles 42-45, of the Convention sets up these procedures and requirements:
- It requires that governments make the rights in the Convention widely known to both adults and children (Article 42);
- It establishes the Committee on the Rights of the Child, an body of independent experts that monitors implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by its State parties (Article 43);
- It requires states to report every five years on their efforts to implement the Convention (Article 44).
- It encourages international cooperation in the implementation of the Convention, especially with specialized UN agencies such as UNICEF (Article 45).
These mandatory reports, usually prepared by a government agency specializing in children’s issues, indicate who is not enjoying which rights, identify the constraints and obstacles to realising the rights and what the government intends to do to overcome these challenges. The report is presented to the Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva, where the Office of the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights is based, which reviews it and makes recommendations for future action.
QUESTION: What government agency prepares the report on implementation of the Children’s Convention in your country? How do they acquire their information?
QUESTION: Has your country reported regularly on its implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child?
The monitoring and reporting process also provides an opportunity for civil society institutions, NGOs, specialist agencies, children and young people, and other people dealing with children, to participate actively. They may produce an alternative or shadow report that challenges government claims or raises issues that may have been missed in the official report.2
QUESTION: Have alternative or shadow reports been submitted from your country? If so, who made them? On what issues did they differ from the government?
Monitoring children’s rights
The UN often appoints an expert to serve as a Special Rapporteur to gather information on a critical issue or country. In response to international concern about the growing commercial sexual exploitation and the sale of children, in 1990 the UN General Assembly created the mandate for a rapporteur to gather information and report on the sale of children, child pornography and child prostitution.
A number of non-governmental organisations also monitor how the Children’s Convention is being implemented. Some of these are large international children’s advocacy organisations such as Save the Children and Child Rights Information Network (CRIN). Others operate at the regional and national levels. In Europe, for example, the European Network of Ombudsmen for Children (ENOC) investigates, criticises and publicises administrative actions that might be violating the CRC. The ombudsman can intervene separately from legal representatives, parents or guardians to represent the child’s rights in a variety of civil or criminal cases where children are directly or indirectly involved. The Network includes representatives from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Lithuania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Norway, Portugal, the Russian Federation, Spain, Sweden and Wales.3
Civil society, children, teachers, parents and other agencies can play a major role in awareness raising and lobbying for action to promote child rights. To ensure that everyone who works with children as well as children themselves are aware of these rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child should be available in school libraries and read and discussed in classrooms and with parents.
One of the most important ways to promote the Convention is through systematic human rights education, beginning in the early years of childhood. Every child has a right to know his or her rights and those of others!
- Eide, Asbjørn and Alfredsson, Guthmundur, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A common standard of achievement: Martinus Nijhof, 1999.
- Franklin, Bob, Handbook of Children’s Rights: Routledge, 2001.
- Hodgkin, Rachel and Newell, Peter, Implementation Handbook for the Convention on the Rights of the Child: UNICEF, 2002.
- Amnesty International:
- Children’s Rights Information Network:
- Council of Europe:
- Democracy and Human Rights Education in Europe:
- European Children’s Network (EURONET):
- European Network of Ombudspersons for Children:
- Human Rights Watch:
- United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights:
1 Speech made at the Conference on International Justice for Children, 17 September 2007.
2 Action for the Rights of Children (ARC), CD by UNICEF & Save the Children Alliance, 2003.
3 See www.ombudsnet.org | <urn:uuid:5d06fe6d-a981-4750-9a00-4da136814602> | CC-MAIN-2017-47 | http://www.eycb.coe.int/compasito/chapter_1/2_wha.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-47/segments/1510934805809.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20171119210640-20171119230640-00282.warc.gz | en | 0.935371 | 2,070 | 4.46875 | 4 |
|Williams, L - UNIV OF CALIF|
Submitted to: Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Conference Proceedings
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: November 19, 2004
Publication Date: June 1, 2005
Citation: Williams, L.E., Ayars, J.E. 2005. Water use of thompson seedless grapevines as affected by the application of gibberellic acid (ga3) and trunk girdling - practices to increase berry size. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Conference Proceedings. Vol. 129, pgs. 85-94. Interpretive Summary: The increased demand for water outside of agriculture has prompted studies on perennial crops to determine crop water use and the effect of agronomic practices on crop water use. This study determined the effect on water use by Thompson Seedless grapes that were girdled and sprayed with gibberellic acid or just girdled. The water use was determined using a large weighing lysimeter located at the Kearney Agricultural Center in the San Joaquin Valley of California. Water use was reduced by the girdling and the use of gibberellic acid compared to the non-girdled vines. The Kc value of the girdled vines was reduced compared to the non-girdled vines which will result in a lower water use when applied to an irrigation schedule. It was also determined that the Kc value does not decrease late in the season if the crop is fully watered and pests are controlled. There are opportunities to reduce water use by the careful management of irrigation following harvest but these will require additional study.
Technical Abstract: Seasonal water use of Thompson Seedless grapes was determined with a large weighing lysimeter in the San Joaquin Valley of California from 1994 to 1996. During the first year of the study , the vines growing within the lysimeter were treated as would be done to produce fruit for use as table grapes; the application of gibberellic acid and trunk girdling a berry set. Both practice will increase berry size of this seedless cultivar. In 1995, the vines in the lysimeter were only girdled at berry set, no application of gibberellic acid at that time. Reference crop evapotranspiration between March 15th and the end of October averaged 1124 mm across the 3 years. Water use shortly after the vines were girdled in 1994 increased as would be expected for non-girdled grapevines while in 1995 water use after girdling decreased for a period of approximately 4 weeks. Once the girdles healed in 1995 water use increased to values similar to those of the previous years. The crop coefficient (Kc) subsequent to girdling in 1994 remained constant for a period of 4 weeks while the Kc decreased after girdling in 1995. The Kc increased after the girdles healed both years and remained at a value of approximately 0.9 until the end of October. In 1996, the vines in the lysimeter received none of the treatments used in the previous 2 years. The seasonal water use and maximum daily water use in 1996 of the vines in the lysimeter were greater than in 1994 and 1995. Water use in vines was equivalent 838, 708, and 936 mm from March 15 until the end of October while the reference ET was 1136,1060, and 1176 during the same period in 1994, 1995, and 1996, respectively. At full canopy in 1996 the Kc leveled off at a value of 1.1 and remained such until the end of October. The results indicate that girdling the trunks of grapevines can affect water use when compared to non-girdled grapevines. Additionally, the Kc of this perennial horticultural crop does not decrease after harvest on later in the season if the vines are fully irrigated and insect pests are controlled. | <urn:uuid:274bb2b6-763a-4581-9d79-17ff45771500> | CC-MAIN-2015-06 | http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?seq_no_115=182670 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-06/segments/1422120394037.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20150124172634-00204-ip-10-180-212-252.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959695 | 817 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Your child’s main job is to be in school. By supporting your child’s attendance at school, studying hard and spending time with peers, you are expressing your conviction that your child can live a normal life. Depending on the demands of treatment and how much school your child has missed, it is possible that there will be catch-up work to do. In some cases, it might be most efficient to work with a home tutor for a few weeks. However, if your child is eager to return to school, help after school or over weekends might be best. In some cases, older students may choose to lose a semester when significant amounts of work have been missed. However, if possible, it is better to allow students to stay with their class by catching up during the summer, if necessary.
Keeping up can be challenging when treatment-related health problems occur. Not uncommonly, illnesses or unexpected hospitalizations can disrupt progress. Although disappointing and even disheartening, there are ways your child can keep up with schoolwork during treatment.
- Arrange additional tutoring
- Request an extra copy of all textbooks to keep at home rather than carrying them back and forth and so they are available if your child is absent
- Contact the teacher about modifying your child’s timeline for handing in homework
- Request that your child only take exams when he or she is caught up with the class. Helping your child stay on track toward his or her vocational aspirations is the goal of returning to school.
Children with disabilities (including cancer) have the right to a free, appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment. This can include music and art classes, advanced placement classes or just the same 3rd grade education his or her classmates are getting. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a federal civil rights act that says that your child has a right to an Individualized Educational program (IEP). This includes an assessment and a plan for your child to get an appropriate education. (For more detailed information, see Learning Problems During or After Treatment) | <urn:uuid:57c96e60-f81b-40ee-8f92-8d9510884e3f> | CC-MAIN-2015-48 | http://curesearch.org/Academics | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-48/segments/1448398449145.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20151124205409-00188-ip-10-71-132-137.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967929 | 423 | 3 | 3 |
Scientists who use high-altitude scientific balloons have high hopes for their instruments in the future. Although the floating behemoths that carry their instruments far into the stratosphere can stay aloft for days on end, data collection typically happens during the night when starlight can be detected. The instruments that operate during the day are limited in their field of view due to overbearing sunlight.
An engineer at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility (WFF), located on Virginia's Eastern Shore, is working on a low-cost, off-the-shelf solution to overcome the challenges of collecting data in daylight.
Under WFF's Balloon Program, engineer Scott Heatwole and his team are developing a precision attitude sensor or star tracker that would be able to locate points of reference, or in other words, stars, during daylight hours. These points of reference serve as landmarks that help orient the instrument so that it can find the target of interest.
The star tracker is being developed specifically for the Wallops Arc Second Pointer (WASP), which would use the star tracker's data to point a balloon-borne scientific payload with incredible accuracy and stability. Currently, WASP usually employs the commonly used ST5000 star tracker. However, this device cannot image in the daytime even at 120,000 feet where scientific balloons operate. Though relatively dark at those altitudes, the scattering of sunlight off the atmosphere can overwhelm the starlight in most star cameras.
"A precision attitude sensor capable of working in the daylight would extend science operations through the day which would significantly increase the amount of science collected," Heatwole said. "Currently, the only precision attitude sensor available in daytime is a sun sensor, and this isn't ideal because it provides only two axes of attitude and is not precise over a range of targets across the sky."
Although others have developed custom star trackers that enable around-the-clock science gathering, no one has pulled together an inexpensive, ready-to-go package that includes cameras, computers, and the algorithms necessary to process data and eliminate excess visible light in real time. "That's what we're trying to do," Heatwole said, adding that his daytime star tracker consists of a commercial firewire camera attached to a lens and baffle that help filter out visible light, allowing it to sense points of reference in the near-infrared wavelength bands.
In 2014, a prototype of the device flew on two WASP missions. The first, the flight of the HyperSpectral Imager for Climate Science (HySICS) collected radiance data as WASP pointed the instrument toward the Earth, the sun, and the Moon. The goal was to see what the star tracker saw at 120,000 feet.
The second WASP mission, launched a couple months later in October, carried the Observatory for Planetary Investigations from the Stratosphere (OPIS). Its mission was to gather time measurements of Jupiter's atmospheric structure -- a challenge for the new star tracker because the gas giant is a bright object.
"Our algorithm didn't work as we had hoped," Heatwole said, adding that it did not filter out the excess light as expected.
Heatwole, however, is unfazed. Over the coming months, he plans to fine-tune the algorithms to eliminate the extra light experienced during the OPIS mission and then retest the technology during a sounding rocket flight this summer and additional WASP missions in 2016 and 2017.
"We're trying to increase the capabilities of WASP," Heatwole explained. "No company is going to go out and build this. No one is going to develop an off-the-shelf, low-cost daytime star tracker and put all the components in one package. WASP requires an attitude sensor that is capable in the daytime. That's what we hope to create."
For more Goddard technology news, visit:
Lori Keesey | EurekAlert!
First results of NSTX-U research operations
26.10.2016 | DOE/Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
Scientists discover particles similar to Majorana fermions
25.10.2016 | Chinese Academy of Sciences Headquarters
Ultrafast lasers have introduced new possibilities in engraving ultrafine structures, and scientists are now also investigating how to use them to etch microstructures into thin glass. There are possible applications in analytics (lab on a chip) and especially in electronics and the consumer sector, where great interest has been shown.
This new method was born of a surprising phenomenon: irradiating glass in a particular way with an ultrafast laser has the effect of making the glass up to a...
Terahertz excitation of selected crystal vibrations leads to an effective magnetic field that drives coherent spin motion
Controlling functional properties by light is one of the grand goals in modern condensed matter physics and materials science. A new study now demonstrates how...
Researchers from the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) at the University of Waterloo led the development of a new extensible wiring technique capable of controlling superconducting quantum bits, representing a significant step towards to the realization of a scalable quantum computer.
"The quantum socket is a wiring method that uses three-dimensional wires based on spring-loaded pins to address individual qubits," said Jeremy Béjanin, a PhD...
In a paper in Scientific Reports, a research team at Worcester Polytechnic Institute describes a novel light-activated phenomenon that could become the basis for applications as diverse as microscopic robotic grippers and more efficient solar cells.
A research team at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) has developed a revolutionary, light-activated semiconductor nanocomposite material that can be used...
By forcefully embedding two silicon atoms in a diamond matrix, Sandia researchers have demonstrated for the first time on a single chip all the components needed to create a quantum bridge to link quantum computers together.
"People have already built small quantum computers," says Sandia researcher Ryan Camacho. "Maybe the first useful one won't be a single giant quantum computer...
14.10.2016 | Event News
14.10.2016 | Event News
12.10.2016 | Event News
27.10.2016 | Life Sciences
27.10.2016 | Life Sciences
26.10.2016 | Power and Electrical Engineering | <urn:uuid:f2abe4e6-c127-4f33-82d8-f85f935999da> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/physics-astronomy/nasa-engineer-advances-new-daytime-star-tracker.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721174.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00024-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932803 | 1,295 | 3.671875 | 4 |
By Alexandra Villalobos
During the early 1930s a man named Elmer Doolin drove his Model T Ford around San Antonio selling five-cent bags of corn chips and earning about two dollars profit per day. Elmer Doolin, along with his parents, Charles and Daisy, and his brother, Earl, began the manufacture, sale, and popularization of the corn chips that would later bear the famous name of Fritos.
As manager of the Highland Park Confectionary, which sold ice cream and other snacks, Elmer Doolin was on the lookout for a new product. In 1932, Doolin ordered a sandwich and a bag of corn chips at a small San Antonio café and learned that the producer of the chips, eager to return to Mexico, was willing to sell the business. Doolin purchased the recipe, thirty-nine retail accounts, and the only equipment, an adapted potato ricer, for one hundred dollars.
The four Doolins began making these early Fritos in the kitchen of their home at 1416 Roosevelt Avenue. During the day, Elmer searched for high-quality corn, hand-washing it and grinding it. At night, after the family would hand-roll, thin, and deep-fry the dough made from that corn, they would pack it in five-cent bags, which Elmer would go sell throughout San Antonio the following day. The family could produce approximately ten pounds of Fritos in an hour.
Soon, however, the demand for the tasty corn chips rose, and the family had to move production to the garage and, later, to a duplex next-door to their house. Elmer and his brother Earl, who, as both secretary and vice president of the company, controlled the engineering and production of the chips, invented and patented a number a machines that helped dramatically increase production, such as a press that utilized a hammer to cut the Fritos into correctly sized strips. By 1933, such mechanization allowed the Doolins to produce almost one hundred pounds of Fritos an hour.
Later that year, the Doolins relocated their company headquarters from San Antonio to Exchange Park in Dallas because of the advantageous central location and material supply. Under the Doolin family, The Frito Company opened the first research and development lab of the food industry and established new products such as “Ta-Tos” (originally named Fritatos Potato Chips), introduced in 1935, and “Fluffs” (later called Baken-ets Fried Pork Skins), introduced in 1939. Elmer and Earl further continued the advancement of production machinery by creating automatic presses and improved cooking vats for the rapidly growing company. Because of Elmer’s and his family’s efforts, in eight years, the meager corn chip business that had been purchased for one hundred dollars employed hundreds of people and was well on its way to becoming one of the leading salty snack companies in the world.
Associated Press. “OBITUARY: Earl Bernard Doolin, Frito Co. founder.” San Antonio Express News. 4 April 1992. 21 Nov. 2006 <http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=832232811&sid=2&Fmt=3&clientId =34251&RQT=309&VName=PQD>
Frito-Lay Inc. Company Timeline. 23 Nov. 2006
Frito-Lay Inc. Frito-Lay History. 20 Nov. 2006 <http://www.fritolay.com/fl/flstore/cgi-bin/comp_hist.htm>
Lemann, Nicholas. “The Frito.” TexasMonthly.com. May 1982. 22 Nov. 2006 <http://www.texasmonthly.com/ranch/readme/frito.php>
New York Times. “Earl Doolin, 86, Dies; Co-Founded Frito Co.” The New York Times. 9 April 1992. 21 Nov. 2006 <http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=964761271&sid=3&Fmt=3&clientId=34251&RQT=309&VName=PQD>
The Handbook of Texas Online. Frito-Lay Corporation. 20 Nov. 2006 <http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/FF/diffs.html>
Worley’s San Antonio (Texas) City Directory, 1932, San Antonio, p. 329. | <urn:uuid:5e372df3-9b0f-40d8-9f8b-aa69471d2972> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.uiw.edu/sanantonio/FritosintheHand.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280319.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00552-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93552 | 970 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Meaning of Hado Name , Hado name definition, origin of Hado name, What Does Hado Mean and History? Popularity of name Hado, Is there name in the Bible/Torah/Quran? Analysis, gender of Hado, Hado Name Statistics, Acrostic Poem About Hado other details;
- 1 Hado Name Meaning
- 2 Origin of Hado Name
- 3 Gender of Hado
- 4 Hado Name Analysis
- 5 Hado Name Statistics
- 6 What is the Numerology of Hado ?
- 7 Characteristics of Hado
- 8 Popularity of Hado name
- 9 Acrostic Poem About Hado
- 10 Is there Hado name in the Bible/Torah/Quran?
- 11 Famous People Named Hado
- 12 Similar Names Hado
- 13 Is Hado name fit for baby name ?
Hado Name Meaning
What Does Hado Mean and History? A form of Hayden, which is from a surname from the Old English heg, meaning “hay” and denu, meaning “valley”.
Origin of Hado Name
Gender of Hado
Hado Name Analysis
Analysis of Hado Name Fearless , High ability of Persuasion , Successful in Business , Humble
Hado Name Statistics
- Color of Hado name: Blue
- Number of letters of Hado: 4
Analysis for each letter;
H : Witty
A : Thoughtful
D : Naughty
O : Dignified
What is the Numerology of Hado ?
Numerology offers an insight into the personality by assigning numeric values to the letters contained in names.
H : 8
A : 1
D : 4
O : 15
Total = 28
Characteristics of Hado
Numerology Analysis; Hardworking , Logical , Splendid , Ambitious
Popularity of Hado name
Unknonwn or hasn’t added any information.
Acrostic Poem About Hado
Honorable, full of virtue
Alluring, so attractive
Determined, able to stay the course
Oomph, you have a magnetic draw
Is there Acrostic poem for the name Hado ? Send us will publish.
Is there Hado name in the Bible/Torah/Quran?
Hado name hasn’t been found in the Bible/Torah/Quran
Famous People Named Hado
Our research results for the name of Hado (Hado name meaning, Origin of Hado, Pronounced etc. ) is fit name.You can give to your baby with complacency.
Similar Names Hado
Is Hado name fit for baby name ?
Our research results for the name of Hado is fit name.You can give to your baby with complacency. | <urn:uuid:1c368651-b72e-4192-aa74-18e0e1332fbb> | CC-MAIN-2023-50 | https://www.meaningofnamen.com/hado/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100476.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20231202235258-20231203025258-00125.warc.gz | en | 0.742168 | 610 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Exercise increases productivity
Rather than depleting your motivation, as one might think, exercise ultimately boosts your energy level. A recent study published in the Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine found that workers who exercised at least 2 & ½ hours per week out performed all other employees, even when they worked less hours on the job. In other words, if you feel you are behind schedule – stop what you’re doing and exercise. This study found that exercise boosts productivity in real time and decreases time needed off work due to illness. Stop running behind by actually going for a run.
Got a worried mind?
Did you know that exercise is the best and safest way to balance your brain chemicals? The research is startling – exercise helps tremendously with many social and mental problems in contemporary society – including depression, addiction, aggression, Alzheimer’s, dementia, ADD, insecurity, learning challenges, anxiety and stress. The list goes on. Regular activity is so successful that many psychologists are now prescribing exercise as part of their treatment therapy. The bottom line is that we all need to exercise, not just for our bodies, but for our minds. Talk to your spouse, your friend or family member, and schedule regular exercise together. You’ll soon find yourself looking forward to the daily peace of mind and joy this time brings.
Scientist now know what makes us die. The culprit is a tiny strand on your chromosome called a telomere. Your telomeres shorten just a little bit every time your cells divide. Once your telomeres are gone, your cells die and, so do you unfortunately. Think of a telomere a little bit like a candle, when there’s nothing left to burn, the light goes out. Your telomere length is determined by two things: your genes and your activity level. The best way to increase your telomere length and, hence your life, is to exercise. It is believed that regular exercise can add as much as a decade to your life. You want to live longer? Push your body to your limit.
Bigger brainsExercise does two important things to the brain that will make you more creative: 1st – Exercise gets rid of brain waste and brain fog. Over time, toxins and harmful chemicals build up in our brain’s highways just like they do in the rest of the body. Exercise cleans up these toxins and clears the traffic jams from these mental highways. 2nd, exercise actually builds more avenues in the brain. The protein called BDNF, which stimulates brain growth, is secreted when you exercise. This protein builds pathways – think of them as new streets and roads between separate places and ideas, thus increasing creativity and your ability to multitask. You want to be the one with the brilliant but unexpected solution in your next meeting? Hit the gym.
Dr. Sam Yoder, D.C.
Chiropractor in Campbellsville, KY | <urn:uuid:2adf8c31-bbc1-4cb7-8cdb-9ac8dfae2e2d> | CC-MAIN-2019-04 | http://blog.campbellsvillechiropractic.com/2012/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-04/segments/1547583722261.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20190120143527-20190120165527-00603.warc.gz | en | 0.949768 | 600 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Introduction to the Gospel According to Mark
Table of Contents
- General Info
- Brief Survey
- Key Verses
- Author, Date and Recipients
- Historical Background
- Themes, Purpose & Theology
- Interpretation Hints and Challenges
The book’s title comes from the name of the author, John Mark, although it could easily have been called "the Gospel According to Peter". Mark was a close associate of the Apostle Peter, from who he received an account of the actions and teachings of Jesus. According to the early church fathers, Mark accurately preserved the preaching and teaching of Peter, then arranged and shaped this material to form the Gospel under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Thus, the book receives its apostolic authority from its Petrine origin.
Mark’s Gospel is a concise, straightforward, action-oriented account of the life of Jesus the Messiah. It focuses more on what Jesus did than on what he taught. Because of Mark’s focus on the account of Jesus’ passion (his suffering, death, and resurrection), his Gospel has been called "a passion narrative with an extended introduction". This book was probably the first canonical Gospel written (approximately 30 years after the death and resurrection of the Christ) and possibly served as a source for the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. See our Introduction to the Gospels for additional information on its relationship with the other synoptic books.
[TOC] [Top of Page]
The Gospel of Mark is a fast-paced story of selected teachings and activities in the life of Jesus the Messiah with emphasis on His actions. Mark skips Jesus’ genealogy and begins with His ministry in Galilee, which includes His baptism, temptation, calling of his disciples, teachings, and miracles to authenticate His authority (ch 1-3). Even at this early stage, there arose controversies and opposition to His ministry. The next few chapters chronicle additional teachings and miracles, along with growing antagonism, resulting in His departure from Galilee.
The turning point comes in chapter 8 and 9, with the Transformation and Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi that Jesus is the Messiah. J esus and the disciples then travel to Jerusalem, in and around which the events throughout the remainder of the book takes place. During the Passion Week, we witness Jesus Triumphal Entry, His teachings and activities associated with Jerusalem including the failure by the majority of Israel to recognize Jesus as their Messiah, escalating controversies with the Jewish leaders, and concluding with the prediction of Jerusalem’s destruction and the second coming of the Son of Man (ch 11-13). In the final section, Mark narrates the trial, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus (ch 14-16).
[TOC] [Top of Page]
The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. (1:1)
At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased." (1:0-11)
"Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." At once they left their nets and followed him. (1:17-18)
Then he [Jesus] called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? (8:34-36)
People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." (10:13-15)
"The most important one [Commandment]," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." (12:29-31)
But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. (16:4-6)
He [Jesus] said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. (16:15-16)
[TOC] [Top of Page]
Author, Date and Recipients
In most Bibles, all four Gospels are introduced by the title, "The Gospel According to …" which assigns them to a specific author; however, these titles are not part of the original manuscripts. Thus, although the Gospel of Mark contains no direct internal evidence concerning its author, early church references unanimously attributed its writing to John Mark. John Mark is not to be confused with the Apostle John, but the John who was also called Mark (Ac 12:12,25, 15:37) and was the cousin of Barnabas (Col 4:10). The earliest known reference comes from Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis (c 120-140 AD), who quotes earlier sources testifying that Mark was a close associate of the Apostle Peter, from whom he received the events and teaching of Jesus, accurately preserved the material, and composed the book. These statements are also confirmed by the early church historian Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History. Internal evidence does confirm the author to be Jewish and bilingual since he explains Jewish customs to his Gentile readers and intersperses several Aramaic phrases within the Greek text. John Mark was a Jew who was raised in Jerusalem (Ac 12:12), so he would certainly know Aramaic (the common native language) and the Jewish customs.
John Mark accompanied Paul and Barnabas on the first missionary journey, but deserted them and returned home to Jerusalem, causing a rift between himself and Paul. Mark later regained Paul’s favor and confidence, becoming a valued companion toward the end of Paul’s life (2Ti 4:11).
Date and Location
The suggested date for the writing of Mark’s Gospel varies from the early 50s to the late 60s AD. Scholars are primarily divided into two camps, those arguing for an early date of the mid to late 50s or possibly early 60s, and those contending for a later date in the mid to late 60s. A major factor in the debate is whether or not Mark was written first, then used as a source by Matthew and Luke in the writing of their gospels.
Luke probably wrote Acts during Paul’s first Roman imprisonment about 62 AD, so Luke’s gospel would have been written before that (Ac 1:1), placing the Gospel of Mark even earlier, probably in the mid to late 50s. This date is consistent with the early church tradition that places Peter in Rome in the early to mid 50s. Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History (c 325 AD) that, "in the same reign of Claudius [Roman Emperor who died in 54 AD] the Providence of the universe... guided to Rome the great and mighty Peter... preaching the gospel" Eusebius also records that Peter’s audience sought out Peter’s follower Mark, and exhorted him to leave them a written statement of his verbal teaching..; "nor did they cease until they had persuaded him, and so became the cause of the Scripture called the Gospel of Mark". Eusebius also quotes Clement of Alexandria, who lived in the late 2nd century, making similar statements. In addition, the Anti-Marcionite Prologue to Mark (also late 2nd century) places the writing during Peter's lifetime, stating that Mark "wrote this gospel in parts of Italy. When Peter heard this, he approved and affirmed it by his own authority for the reading of the church."
Scholars who propose a mid to late 60s date for Mark’s gospel maintain either a later date for Luke and Acts, or that Luke was written independently from Mark. Support for this position is found in a statement from the writings of the late 2nd century church father Irenaeus (Against Heresies) that, "After their [Peter and Paul's] departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter". According to tradition, Peter was martyred about 64 AD, so if Peter's "departure" refers to his death, then according to Irenaeus, the Gospel of Mark would have been written after 64, the year Peter died. Then again, "hand down to us" may not refer to the actual writing of mark’s gospel, but to when it was received by the church. Likewise, "their departure" could simply be speaking of Peter and Paul's departure from Rome, instead of their death.
Our conclusion is that the earlier dates are the most likely, but the later dates are certainly possible. See the "Author and Date" and "Synoptics" chapters of Introduction to the Gospels for additional information.
According to tradition, the Gospel of Mark was written to the church at Rome. Internal evidence such as explanation of Jewish customs, translation of Aramaic words, and a special interest in persecution suggest an audience of Roman believers, or at least Gentile believers. Perhaps the strongest evidence is Mark’s use of some Latin words rather than the equivalent Greek words used by Matthew and Luke.
[TOC] [Top of Page]
See the Historical Background for the Gospels.
[TOC] [Top of Page]
Mark’s gospel spans the time period from the beginning of John the Baptist’s ministry (~28-30 AD) though His post resurrection appearances (30 or 33 AD).
|~ 6-4 BC||Birth of Jesus|
|~ 26 AD||Beginning of John the Baptist's ministry|
|~ 28 AD||Jesus baptized by John the Baptist and begins His ministry|
|30 or 33 (1)||Last Supper (Passover), Passion Week, Jesus’ Crucifixion and Resurrection|
|~ 35||Paul's Conversion|
|~ 46-48||Mark accompanies Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey|
|~ 49-50||The Council at Jerusalem|
|~ 49-51||Barnabas takes Mark on his Cypress missionary journey|
|~ 51-55||Mark meets with Peter in Rome|
|~ 55-60||Gospel of Mark written|
|~ 60-62||Mark serves as Paul's delegate to Asia while Paul is imprisoned in Rome|
|~ 60-63||Peter writes his First Epistle, Mark is with him|
|~ 64-67||Peter martyred in Rome|
|~ 65-69||Gospel of Mark written (late date theory)|
|70||Destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem|
(1) These dates are either one or the other (Nisan 14 Passover falling between Thursday sundown to Friday sundown on the Jewish calendar). The earlier date is the most popular, but there are good evidences and arguments to support either date.
~ Dates are approximated.
[TOC] [Top of Page]
Themes, Purpose and Theology
Prior to the writing of the Gospels, the traditions were circulated orally and safeguarded under the supervision of the eyewitnesses and ministers of the word of God (Lk 1:2). As these eyewitnesses began to die, it became important to record the gospel traditions in writing to accurately preserve the accounts of Jesus’ life and teachings for succeeding generations. According to tradition, Mark penned Peter’s depiction of these truths at the request of the church in Rome.
The main purpose and theme is stated in the opening verse of the Gospel, that is, to tell the story of Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God, the Suffering Servant and the promised Messiah. These promises occurred throughout the Hebrew Scriptures (our Old Testament), as both the prophets and the angels intensely looked forward and longed to see the Messiah, the God-Man (1Pe 1:10-12), and now Mark records their fulfillment. He also explains many Jewish customs so that his Gentile readers may have a better understanding that the coming of Jesus is the result of God’s promises to Israel and, by extension, the entire world. In addition to the author, many other witnesses to Jesus’ divine status are included, such as the demons (1:34, 3:11, 5:7), the Roman centurion at the cross (15:39), Jesus Himself (12:6, 13:32, 14:61-62) and even God the Father (1:11, 9:7).
A related major theme in Mark is the "Mystery of the Kingdom", on which he places a much greater emphasis than the other Gospel authors. The arrival of God’s Kingdom in accordance with the OT promises is central to Jesus’ message that people need to repent and believe the gospel (1:14-15). Yet, in His early ministry, we constantly see Jesus telling those He healed or raised from the dead not to reveal His true identity as the Messiah. This would have prompted undue excitement among the populous and provoked a swift response from the Roman authorities before His appointed time to die. The greatness of Jesus however, could not be hidden. Those who experienced his healing could not help but proclaim what he had done. Thus, later in His ministry, Jesus often had to go into seclusion in order to instruct and prepare His disciples for the events to come.
Passion Week, which includes the death and resurrection of Jesus, is the main focus of the latter part of the book, and is indeed, the focal point of Christianity itself. Due to the author’s attention to these events, the Gospel of Mark has often been called "a passion narrative with an extended introduction". Mark points out that the death of Jesus was a necessary part of God’s plan (8:31, 9:12, 14:21-49), that Jesus came into the world to save sinners by giving His life as a ransom for many (10:45) by vicariously and sacrificially pouring out His blood to establish the new covenant (14:24).
Finally, because of what has been done for us, Mark emphasizes the importance of Christian discipleship (1:12-13, 3:22,30, 8:34-38, 10:33-34,45, 13:8-13) through our relationship with Jesus. In humble service, we are to take up our cross and follow Jesus, which will often result in self-denial and suffering (8:34-38, 9:35-37, 10:35-45), but we are also promised salvation (13:13) and spiritual blessings (10:29-30).
[TOC] [Top of Page]
Interpretation Hints and Challenges
All Scripture within Mark’s Gospel should be interpreted within the context of the opening verse, in which Mark provides us with the main key to understanding his Gospel, that it is all about the gospel [good news] of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (1:1). This does not mean that there isn’t much to learn about other topics such as John the Baptist, the disciples, salvation and other doctrines, but each of these subjects must be understood in light of Jesus’ true identity, the Son of God who is fully God and fully man.
The Gospel of Mark should also be interpreted in the context of the other Gospels, then within the primary themes of the New Testament as a whole which, in turn, must be understood as emerging from the OT background of God’s dealing with mankind, and many of His promises being fulfilled. When reading Mark (or any other book of the Bible), we should seek first the intent of the author by careful investigation of the context, and the historical and cultural background of his writing, keeping in mind that there is both a human author and divine Author of Scripture.
Mark’s Gospel has been called a "docudrama", consisting of certain events, conversations, sermons and events which are either representative of Jesus’ life and teachings, or unique events such as the crucifixion and resurrection. Mark also adds his own introductions, explanations, comments and summaries to the mix. His material was purposely selected to present the mission and ministry of Jesus within God’s ultimate plan, rather than to portray biographical data about Jesus in the modern sense.
For the most part, Mark should be interpreted according to the rules of genre governing gospels and narratives. The author often uses the Greek present tense to give a sense of immediacy to the narratives. The book is a very fast-paced narrative containing stories of heroism, controversies, testimonies, miracles, crowd reactions, parables, proverbs and much more. In addition, Mark frequently sandwiches one story within another story. In most of these cases, he reveals meaningful connections between separate events, so we should consider the surrounding story when interpreting the interior one. In chapter 11 for example, we interpret the cleansing of the Temple as a symbolic act of judgment in light of the surrounding story of the cursing of the fig tree. Finally, we can identify with many of the characters in the narratives and often even imagine ourselves as participating in some of the stories.
See Interpretation Hints for the Gospels for more information.
[TOC] [Top of Page]
The overall structure of Mark is divided geographically. The first nine chapters narrate events of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee and the surrounding areas. In chapter 10, Jesus and the disciples travel from Galilee to Jerusalem, where the last chapters of the book (11–16) take place.
|1:1 - 1:13||The Beginning of Jesus' Ministry; His Baptism & Temptation|
|1:14 - 2:12||Jesus' Early Galilean Ministry; Calling of First Disciples; First Miracles (Demonstration of His Authority)|
|2:13 - 3:35||Initial Opposition and Controversies to the Ministry|
|4:1 - 4:34||Parables of the Kingdom|
|4:35 - 5:43||Additional Miracles|
|6:1 - 8:26||Growing Opposition to Jesus' Ministry; Execution of John the Baptist; Jesus Walks on Water; Feeding of the Five Thousand and other Miracles; Withdrawal from Galilee|
|8:27 - 9:32||Peter's Confession of the Messiah; The Transfiguration; Jesus Foretells His Death|
|9:33 - 10:52||Jesus Teaches and Prepares His Disciples|
|11:1 - 15:47||The Passion of the Christ (the Last Week); The Triumphal Entry; Clearing of the Temple; Final Controversies with Jewish Leaders; Signs of the End of the Age; Passover; Institution of the Lord's Supper; Peter's Denial; The Arrest, Trial, Crucifixion and Burial of Jesus|
|16:1 - 16:20||The Resurrection, Appearances and Ascension of Jesus|
[TOC] [Top of Page] | <urn:uuid:16d201ca-6112-42d9-8f7d-085ed880b94a> | CC-MAIN-2017-34 | http://www.addeigloriam.org/bible-intro/nt-gospels/bible-intro-mark.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-34/segments/1502886109157.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20170821152953-20170821172953-00212.warc.gz | en | 0.961635 | 4,245 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Effective Business Writing
Writing effectively means your message is unambiguous and your reader knows what to do next. Effective business writing is clear, concise and courteous.
- Use an objective sentence
Give your reason for writing in your first sentence so your reader immediately understands why you're writing. (See Writing a business letter for examples.)
- Keep sentences grammatically simple
If you're writing to an international audience, minimize the risk of misunderstandings by avoiding complicated constructions such as "not only, but..." or "in spite of the fact that..."
If in doubt, use simple word order principles when you write, such as the SVOMPT principle:
Subject Verb Object (Manner Place Time)
"I am writing to confirm our meeting on Tuesday at 3pm."
Write short sentences, with one idea in each sentence. Avoid using too many commas or brackets / parentheses, which can make your sentences over-long.
- Don't write with over-formal words
Use general business words rather than old-fashioned formal words. For example, avoid "above-mentioned" (use "above"); "herewith" and "hereby" (you can normally delete these without changing the meaning of the sentence); and "hitherto" (use "up to now").
- Check your writing before you send it
Check your spelling and make sure your punctuation is correct. Avoid shortening words too much (wld; pls etc), as this can make your reader spend time trying to understand what you want to say.
Make sure, too, that you've answered any questions fully and that the information is complete.
Concise business writing
- Plan what want to write before you start writing.
Put your points into paragraphs before you start, so that you only write what's relevant and you can avoid repeating the same ideas.
- Find shorter ways of expressing yourself
You can often express your ideas with modal verbs (might, could, would etc) instead of using longer phrases.
Here are some ways you can use modals instead of longer phrases:
It is likely to / There is the likelihood that = We may / We might / it may / it might
It is unlikely to happen = It might not happen
There is a necessity to / It is necessary to = We must / We have to
For ability = can / can't
There is a possibility that = We can / We could
- Edit out unnecessary words
Replace wordy phrases by single words where possible.
"as of the date of" = from
"by means of" = by
"at this moment in time" = now
"for the purpose of" = for
"so as to" = so
"in the event that" = if
"further to" = following
Avoid words that add no meaning. For example, "very" can usually be deleted without changing the meaning. For example, you can write "expensive" instead of "very expensive" without losing any extra meaning. Other words that can generally be deleted to make your writing more concise are "really" and "absolutely".
- Write using verbs rather than noun clauses
Verbs give your business writing more impact than heavy-sounding noun phrases. For example, use "discuss" instead of "have a discussion".
Other examples of this are "have a meeting" (meet), "give consideration to" (consider) and "be of concern to" (concern)
- Avoid cliches
Cliches make you sound unimaginative. Examples of cliches are "to all intents and purposes", "to think outside the box" and "to push the envelope". If you have made a plan before you write so that you only include relevant information, then you don't need to add cliches to "pad" out your message.
How to write courteously
Being polite is not just a question of remembering to use please or thank you. It's also about the tone you use when you write. To make sure that your writing is polite, put yourself in your reader's shoes to anticipate what you reader will think when they read your letter or email,. Could your message be interpreted differently to your intended meaning? Does it sound rude or unhelpful?
- Acknowledge letters and emails
If someone has taken the time and trouble to write to you, it's only polite to reply within a day or so. If you can't answer the person within this time frame, write something short to let them know you will answer more fully later.
"Thanks for your email. I'll get back to you within the next day / tomorrow / next week."
If you're going on holiday and will be away for more than a few days, consider setting up an autoresponder to reply automatically to emails.
- Thank someone for their work or input
If someone has put in time to quote for a project or to give you some information, make sure you thank them. Making someone feel appreciated means that they are more likely to want to do business with you in the future.
"I'm sorry you didn't get the project, but thanks for your work."
"Thank you for finding me the information about X. I really appreciate your help."
- Show you care
Even if you cannot help a person, avoid sounding unfriendly or direct.
"We are sorry to inform you that we are no longer manufacturing this item."
"We would like to apologize for this misunderstanding."
Introduce bad news to soften the impact:
"Unfortunately, the company has decided to close its offices in New York."
"We regret to inform you that your application has been unsuccessful."
- Write using polite phrases
Avoid making demands with phrases like I want. Instead write:
"I would like some information on your range of printers."
"I would be grateful for some information on your range of printers."
"I would appreciate your help with an order."
- Be tentative rather than dogmatic.
Make suggestions and requests rather than giving orders, such as "Perhaps you could consider..." or "Could you let us know your ideas on..." and keep negotiations open by using would rather than is / are. For example, "These prices would be too low" rather than "Your prices are too low".
- Use past forms to put distance between you and the other person and to make you sound less definite.
"We were hoping for..." (rather than "We are hoping for...")
"We wanted to know..." (rather than "We want to know...")
- Be neutral rather than confrontational
Reduce the impact of a criticism by replacing a negative adjective by 'not very' + positive adjective.
Write "Your customer service representatives are not very polite" instead of "Your customer service representatives are rude."
Use words with a positive focus instead of a negative focus.
"issue" or "matter" (instead of "problem")
"inconvenience" / "inconvenient" (rather than "difficulty" or "difficult")
"misunderstanding" (rather than "argument")
"sensitive" (to describe an issue that you would rather not discuss)
"unfortunate" or "disappointing" (rather than "bad")
Minimize problems by using qualifiers such as "rather", "a little", "somewhat" or "a slight".
"We have a problem with the account" becomes "We have a slight problem with the account."
- Avoid "you"
Change the focus of the sentence to avoid sounding as if you are accusing the reader. Instead of writing "you", write "there" or "we".
"You made a mistake" becomes "There seems to be a mistake."
"You said" becomes "We understood."
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Thank you for your link that make me more understand writting. I think pratice pratice! | <urn:uuid:83084e1b-40a0-47c2-b2d5-99aa9cec97a6> | CC-MAIN-2018-05 | http://www.english-at-home.com/business/effective-business-writing/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-05/segments/1516084891750.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20180123052242-20180123072242-00275.warc.gz | en | 0.949527 | 1,713 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Growing flowers underwater has always been a challenge because many aquatic plants require specific environmental conditions to flower and maintain flowering. If you own an Anubias plant, you are in luck because this plant is hardy, keeps nitrate levels under control, and is even capable of flowering underwater!
The Anubias family of plants is a large and diverse group of aquatic and semi-aquatic flowering, fern-like perennials native to Africa. Today, they can be found in your local fish store, or even online!
All healthy anubias have smooth waxy leaves which are typically shaped like an arrow or lance head. The leaves range in color from dark green to black, bronze, pinkish-red, and even light purple. There are roughly 82 species of Anubia with many subspecies, varieties, and cultivars.
Though many of these species are capable of surviving underwater, most anubias bloom above water level. For this reason, hobbyists often play “tricks” on their plants to induce flowering underwater. Read on to learn more!
Anubias Flower – Guide To Flowering Underwater
Ready to induce your Anubia into flowering? You’re in luck! This step-by-step guide will teach you how to successfully induce your submerged plant into flowering for the first time.
Step 1: Get Rid Of Some Leaves
The first step in the process involves getting rid of all your plant’s leaves except for about 5-6 per rhizome. This is done because it takes a lot of energy to make flowers bud. Leaves, as one would expect, get in the way of this process as they also require a lot of energy.
To remove the leaves, simply tear them off by hand. They’ll come off easily and you shouldn’t be surprised if a few of the leaf nodes snap off in the process. Remember to leave a few regular leaves behind for photosynthesis! As mentioned previously, 5-6 leaves per rhizome should more than suffice.
Step 2: Expose The Rhizome
Next, you should expose the rhizomes by removing some of the substrates so that there are no rocks hiding them below. During flower bud formation, the stalk will grow upwards and may be damaged if it comes in contact with anything at or below substrate level.
We recommend using a fluorite substrate, laterite substrate, or a dirt-eco-complete substrate as these are easy to remove without disturbing the roots too much. Using harder substrates like smooth gravel or aquatic soil is not recommended because it may damage the rhizomes when you try to scoop them out for this process.
Step 3: Stop Fertilizing
It may sound counterintuitive to stop fertilizing your aquarium plant as you wish to produce flowers but it’s true. When plants are exposed to a lower level of nutrients, they channel all their energy towards the development of flowers to ensure the survival of their species. This is why you should stop all fertilization when inducing flowering.
You can remove your plant from any liquid fertilizer solution or simply cut back on the dosage if using a solid tablet form of fertilizer. The best course of action is to not fertilize your plant at all and allow it to go through this process on its own.
Step 4: Bleach The Rhizomes
Next, you have to bleach all your rhizomes except for one, which will become the flowering plant. Do your best to select one that has at least 5-6 nodes from which you can propagate new plants. Remove all other rhizomes from the aquarium and bleach for 1 hour. This is done to sterilize the rhizomes in case any of them are carrying diseases you don’t want to spread to your flowering plant.
Aquarists commonly use a product called Clorox, which contains sodium hypochlorite. Create a solution consisting of 1 part bleach and 10 parts water, and submerge the rhizomes for 1 hour. After, that rinse them until the water runs clear and place them in your aquarium with the remaining unbleached rhizome.
Step 5: Cut Back On Lighting
Now that you have a few leaves left, it’s time to cut back on the lighting. In order for flowers to form there must be a distinct difference between night and day, as is found in nature.
Cut the lighting back to about 0.5 watt per gallon (1 watt per 4 liters). If you’re using a higher than normal wattage for your aquarium, keep the light on longer and/or raise it up closer to the plant’s leaves. Be cautious with this step, as you do not want to burn your plant or lose any leaves. Keep an eye on your plant and if the leaves begin to burn, remove the light immediately!
Step 6: Cut Back On Water Flow
After a few days of cutting back on your lighting schedule, you should make another change to help induce flowering. Flowering is brought about in nature with sudden changes, so it’s best to mimic this change here as well. Stop all water flow through the plant by making sure no air bubbles enter the aquarium when your filters are on.
If you want to be totally hands-off with this process, simply disconnect the airline tubing that runs to your powerheads or airstones. Be sure to adjust your timers so that your filters turn off at the same time your lights do. By stopping the flow of water through your Anubias, you are simulating a dry season, so the plant will do the rest of the work for you!
Step 7: Be Patient
Patience is the key to this entire process, so remain calm and don’t expect anything drastic to happen overnight. It may take several weeks to a month for your plant to send up its flower spike and there’s no way of knowing which day it will happen. This is the same with many species of plants that produce flowers, so do not be surprised if this happens.
Once your Anubias has started putting energy into its flower spike, it’s important to leave it alone. It will not get any taller and it won’t grow new leaves once flowering begins, so enjoy this rare sight and let nature take its course!
Use Soft Water
One of the keys to success in flowering underwater is to have very soft water that has no detectable KH or GH. This is because Anubias is a true aquatic and requires this type of water in order to reproduce and flower underwater.
Simulate Seasonal Changes
If you have extremely low NO3 or PO4 readings in your tank, this can also help induce flowering as it simulates natural seasonal changes in the wild. To do so, keep NO3 and PO4 at 0ppm and use an RO/DI unit to remove any trace of these elements from your water.
Maintain An Ideal Water Temperature
For best results, keep the tank’s temperature between 77-82°F (25-28°C). The Anubia is a tropical plant that flowers in warmer water. Simulating these water conditions in your tank can send a signal to your plant to start flowering!
We hope this article taught you everything you needed to know about causing flowering underwater with Anubias and that you’ll be able to use this information to flower your own plants as well!
If you enjoyed this article, do share it with a fellow enthusiast, or drop us a comment to say hi. Your support means the world to us.
Until next time, we wish you good luck and good fishkeeping! | <urn:uuid:3f5986a1-3a28-4699-80f7-cbc10ab8adaa> | CC-MAIN-2023-06 | https://www.tankarium.com/anubias-flower/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764500273.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20230205161658-20230205191658-00795.warc.gz | en | 0.941464 | 1,591 | 3.0625 | 3 |
|Bare Wire Diameter||.003''|
|Overall Dimension||.007'' x .0035''|
|Temperature Range||-50° to +300°C|
|Accuracy||0.1°C in the range of 0-50°C|
|Response Time||4 milliseconds|
Type T Thermocouple Wire
0.1°C accuracy in the following sizes: 30ga, 36ga, 40ga, 44ga
Most thermocouple wire used in the manufacture of sensors is "Special Limits" wire which, to meet NIST standards, must be accurate to 0.5°C in the range 0-50°C. This means that even with most sophisticated electronics, the best possible accuracy for the system is 0.5°C. | <urn:uuid:a27403e9-0ae2-40ac-a9d9-772e93b1dbcd> | CC-MAIN-2022-49 | https://physitemp.com/precthermowire_p221 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446711016.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20221205100449-20221205130449-00615.warc.gz | en | 0.77923 | 204 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Bridgewater is 258.7 miles, or 4 hrs and 9 minutes from Boston MA.
Geography of Massachusetts
Massachusets is the 8th smallest state in the United States with an area of 10,555 square miles (27,340 km2). It is bordered to the north by New Hampshire and Vermont, to the west by New York, to the south by Connecticut and Rhode Island, and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. Massachusetts is the most populous New England state.
Massachusetts is nicknamed "the Bay State" because of several large bays, which distinctly shape its coast: Massachusetts Bay and Cape Cod Bay, to the east; Buzzards Bay, to the south; and several cities and towns on the Massachusetts–Rhode Island border sit adjacent to Mount Hope Bay. At the southeastern corner of the state is a large, sandy, arm-shaped peninsula, Cape Cod. The islands Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket lie south of Cape Cod, across Nantucket Sound. Central Massachusetts features rolling, rocky hills, while Western Massachusetts encompasses a fertile valley and mountains surrounding the Connecticut River, as well as the Berkshire Mountains.
West Bridgewater, Massachusetts
New England (//) is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. New England is bordered by New York State to the west, Long Island Sound to the south, the Atlantic Ocean and the Canadian province of New Brunswick to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the north.
In one of the earliest English settlements in North America, Pilgrims from England first settled in New England in 1620, to form Plymouth Colony. Ten years later, the Puritans settled north of Plymouth Colony in Boston, thus forming Massachusetts Bay Colony. Over the next 126 years, New England fought in four French and Indian Wars, until the British defeated the French and their native allies in North America.
West Bridgewater is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 6,916 at the 2010 census.
Plymouth County, Massachusetts
Bridgewater is a city located in Plymouth County, in the state of Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the town's population was 26,563. Bridgewater is located approximately 25 miles (40 km) south of the Boston, Massachusetts, and approximately 35 miles east of Providence, Rhode Island. It is named after Bridgwater, Somerset, England.
Bridgewater High School
Plymouth County is a county located in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. As of the 2010 census, the population was 494,919. Its county seats are Plymouth and Brockton. In 1685 the County was created by the Plymouth General Court, the legislature of Plymouth Colony, predating its annexation by the Massachusetts Bay Colony. | <urn:uuid:661c3086-f707-4609-9083-b7d031e26df2> | CC-MAIN-2014-52 | http://answerparty.com/question/answer/how-far-away-is-bridgewater-new-jersey-from-boston-massachusetts | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-52/segments/1418802775394.157/warc/CC-MAIN-20141217075255-00052-ip-10-231-17-201.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948923 | 595 | 3.234375 | 3 |
Amber Value, Price, and Jewelry Information
Amber is the hardened resin of ancient pine trees. This organic substance is perhaps most well known for the incredible inclusions of insects and plant matter that can be found within it. People have been making jewelry from amber for over 10,000 years, which could make it the first gem material ever used. Our fascination with amber continues today. It's fairly common, easy to work, and a constant wonder to the eyes. Amber's most common colors are yellow, orange, and brown in various shades. Pieces with green, blue, or violet tints due to extreme fluorescence are rare. Amber also has a wide range of transparency. The transparent material is used almost exclusively for jewelry. Amber is often used for beads (tumble polished or faceted), pendants, earrings, and rings. The opaque material is frequently carved into artistic ornaments and inlays and practical objects such as pipe stems and umbrella handles. Amber is also burned as incense and used as an ingredient in perfumes.
The highest values go to those pieces with clearly visible insect inclusions, light colors, and clarity. Since the movie, Jurassic Park, the most popular inclusions are mosquitos. Inclusions of plant material, while of great interest to scientists, add little to the value of jewelry. (These inclusions are often too small to be recognized easily). Very large amber pieces are extremely rare. Good quality material is seldom used for anything but jewelry.
The International Gem Society (IGS) has a list of businesses offering gemstone appraisal services.
|Refractive Index||1.540 - 1.545, usually 1.540|
|Colors||Yellow, brown, whitish yellow, reddish, cream color, orange shades. Rarely blue, greenish, violetish.|
|Hardness||2 - 2.5|
|Specific Gravity||1.05 to 1.096, usually 1.08.|
|Luminescence||Yellow in SW (Texas); bluish white or greenish in LW. Baltic amber may fluoresce grayish blue in SW. Insert in X-Rays. Sicilian amber is noted for its fluorescence.|
|Formula||Approximately C10H16O+ H2S. A mixture of hydrocarbons plus resins, succinic acid, and oils.|
|Etymology||From the Arabic anbar.|
|Occurrence||In sedimentary deposits and on shorelines, due to waves and currents bringing material up from offshore beds.|
|Inclusions||See "Identifying Characteristics" below.|
Amber is an amorphous (non-crystalline) mixture of organic compounds, including hydrocarbons, resins, succinic acid, and oils. Most of this substance comes from the preserved resin of the pine species Pinus succinifera. However, other ancient tree species have also produced the material. Amber has been preserved for at least 30 million years. Preserved resin younger than that is known as copal (which is also a term used for organic gem material from the copal tree). Although amber is commonly referred to as fossilized resin, it’s not a fossil in the strictest sense. Most fossils begin when an animal or plant is buried in the earth. Over millennia, the organic material in fossils is slowly replaced with elements from the mineral kingdom. In contrast, amber’s organic elements haven’t been replaced. Instead, the resin has undergone a chemical transformation into a polymer, a natural plastic.
Amber is often confused with copal. These are very similar materials with nearly identical origins. The principal difference is age. Copal is just a few hundred thousand years old.
Pressed amber or ambroid is created by fusing smaller bits of amber under heat and great pressure. Amber softens at about 150° C and melts at 250-300°C.
Amber is classed into various types. The sea type is found undersea. The pit variety is dug up from the earth, especially from the Baltic region. Other types are clear, massive, fancy, cloudy, frothy, fatty, and bone.
Amber is noted for its inclusions, which are chiefly insects, pollen, leaves, and other organic debris. These bits were trapped in the sticky fluid that oozed from still-living pine trees millions of years ago. These inclusions offer a remarkable view of life in those times. In some of the finer specimens, whole termite colonies have been trapped. The chambers of these structures, created with webbing, are still visible. Nursery chambers still contain egg sacks. Besides termites and mosquitos, many varieties of beetles, spiders, mites, and other insects can be found. Sometimes, a single piece can contain many kinds of these organic inclusions.
Star spangles, flattened starburst shapes, are another type of inclusion. These internal fractures radiate from a central point and are caused by stress. While quite attractive, most are human induced. Hence, they don’t fetch the same value as a good-quality insect.
Amber Testing Techniques
Ancient techniques for identifying amber are still useful today. If rubbed vigorously on a piece of wool, the real deal will generate a static charge strong enough to pick up a small piece of ash. When it’s warm enough, it also gives off a distinctive, pleasant scent. These techniques may distinguish the genuine material from plastic imitations (and entertain inquisitive children).
A specific gravity (SG) test can also help weed out the plastic imitations. A handy homemade testing liquid can be concocted by boiling water and adding as much salt as you can dissolve in it. This will have a density of about 1.13. Amber, with a SG of 1.08, will float in this solution. Most plastics will sink. However, a few plastics have a density as low as 1.05. Many can have a lower SG than amber if they have air bubbles inside. So, if your sample sinks, you can be sure it’s not amber. If it floats, you need to conduct more tests.
Amber and plastic can share many visual characteristics. They can both have a refractive index (RI) of 1.540, so an RI reading is not definitive.
The next step is likely a hot point test. This is a destructive test, but if conducted with care, it can leave no visible marks. First, find a place on your specimen where a mark would be as unobtrusive as possible. (For example, on the bottom, an edge, or an area with existing scratches). Next, heat the tip of a needle until it glows red. Touch the selected spot just enough to release a tiny whiff of smoke. Now comes the hard part. Smell the smoke. If it’s genuine, it will smell like fine incense. If it’s plastic, it will smell chemical and offensive. (This is another reason to make your test on as small a scale as possible).
Distinguishing amber from copal is difficult. They share the same RI, SG, and most other properties. Copal will fluoresce whiter. That is a judgment call based on having seen a sufficient number of samples to recognize the difference. If you’re unable to make the distinction based on fluorescence, you’ll have to resort to a destructive test. On an inconspicuous area of the specimen, place a drop of acetone. Let it sit for three seconds, then wipe it off. Copal will have the surface damaged by the acetone. Amber will show little or no change from the brief exposure.
All destructive tests should be conducted only by professional gemologists.
Amber can be distinguished from ambroid with a microscope examination. Amber often darkens with age to a fine red-brown color. Ambroid, however, may turn white with age.
Plastic and glass pieces are sometimes used as simulants.
- The Baltic Sea Region, including Poland, Germany, and Russia: Most of the world’s amber comes from a region formerly known as East Prussia and now known as the Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian enclave.
- Sicily: Material may be opalescent blue or green.
- United Kingdom: rarely found
- Norway; Denmark; Romania
- Myanmar: brownish yellow and brown varieties: also colorless, pale yellow, and orange.
- Lebanon: scarce, from very old deposits.
- Dominican Republic: Mined from sedimentary rocks. Yellow, orange, and red colors. This material often contains well-preserved insects and sometimes displays a strong blueish tone in reflected light.
- Chiapas, Southern Mexico: produces golden yellow material.
- Cedar Lake, Manitoba, Canada.
- Point Barrow, Alaska.
Fragments are normally less than half a pound, but pieces weighing several pounds have been found.
Avoid rough handling, heat, and chemicals. Amber can be partially dissolved by solvents, alcohol, etc. Never use mechanical cleaning systems. A damp cloth and warm-water detergent is recommended. Consult our jewelry cleaning guide and gemstone cleaning guide for more advice. | <urn:uuid:002dfa1d-b3a8-4ae1-b907-44587d3c548e> | CC-MAIN-2017-34 | https://www.gemsociety.org/article/amber-jewelry-and-gemstone-information/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-34/segments/1502886105455.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20170819143637-20170819163637-00037.warc.gz | en | 0.928993 | 1,921 | 2.921875 | 3 |
About Lion Dance
The lion dance has a continuous history of over one thousand years, and its origins may reach back more than two thousand years. Many stories surround the lion dance and its origins. One of the more popular ones is that an Emperor of China had a dream where a creature resembling a lion saved his life from evil spirits. When he woke he declared the lion a symbol of good fortune. However, since lions are not native to China, artisans had no idea what they look like. As a result, they fashioned an animal with the attributes of other fortunate creatures: the dragon, the phoenix and the dog.
There is perhaps no art that encompasses Chinese culture, history and philosophy more comprehensively than lion dance. Over its long history, lion dance has incorporated elements of Chinese opera, classics of Chinese literature, Taoist, Buddhist and Confucian philosophies, Five Element theory, all sorts of varieties of symbolism from Chinese (and most specifically Cantonese) society, and Chinese martial arts.
The lion dance is now an integral part of not just Chinese culture, but of many Southeast Asian cultures such as Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese. In fact, the most famous teams are probably from Malaysia.
There are many aspects to lion dance today, and lion dance has performed a number of different roles over history. For instance, lion dance was used to raise money and facilitate communication by revolutionaries attempting to overthrow the Ch'ing, or Manchu, Dynasty. Today, a lion dance can perform many types of purposes, including ceremonial, entertaining, competitive or some combination.
The lion dance is used in ceremonies ranging from the more formal and solemn to the more informal and joyous. Either way, the lion's purpose is to bring good fortune and to drive away any malevolent spirits that might be hanging around. The lion is almost always associated with auspicious acts and events, and must obey certain rules of propriety. These types of events can include house and business blessings, weddings, and other joyous occasions. Lion dance is used to open up a New Year, so it is commonly seen in Chinatowns throughout the country during Chinese New Year celebrations.
A lion dance can also be used to tell a story and simply entertain. Often, there are one or more other characters who interact with the lion, and in fact there can be more than one lion in a performance. These stories are always uplifting and resolved positively, in keeping with the positive nature of the lion. There is no such thing as a lion dance tragedy! Finally, there are various forms of lion dance competition. Malaysia in recent years has dominated this sport, which is often performed on poles reaching up to 12 feet high.
A lion dance typically revolves around a cheng, or puzzle. The cheng sets up the challenge that the lion has to solve according to rules and protocols of lion dance. Often, the chengs have specific purposes or meanings. For instance, "Auspious Lion Welcomes the Bride" is for bringing blessings upon a marriage and "Drunken Lion" celebrates the togetherness of strong friendship. Some chengs are designed to rid the sponsor of bad fortune as well. Sometimes chengs are just performed for entertainment outside of their particular meanings. In any case, there are hundreds of chengs and sometimes new ones are even created. Often different props such as swords, daggers and spears are used. Additionally, tight ropes, benches, tables and other items may be used as barriers or pllatforms for the lion. There are a lot of variations, and each team may have a little bit different ways of solving a cheng. So lion dance isn't just one stanrdard routine. There are many different lion dance performances and styles you may see that are different of each other. The important thing is that protocols are followed and the chengs are solved correctly.
Typically, lion dance teams are either associated with a kung fu school or are independent. They have also been associated with benevolent associations and other groups as well. Good lion dance depends upon strong stances and foot work and athleticism. This is why kung fu training is an integral part of good lion dance training. Lions also require the development of tsan, or spirit, as well as endurance which is why many kung fu schools use lion dance to enhance their kung fu training, as we do here at Steel Dragon.Gong Lung Sing Si Deui... the Steel Dragon Lion Dance Team
The Gong Lung Sing Si Deui training requires Ying Jow Kuen kung fu training as a basis, and then lion dance, tumbling and drumming. The kung fu training provides much of the basis for the lion dance. Strength, flexibility and endurance are developed as well as awareness and the ability to work as a team.
We currently perform blessings and other ceremonial performances as well as the more generally entertaining lion dance routines. While we do not currently compete, it is we expect to start sometime down the road.
We perform a number of different cheng, are are always working on new ones. Some of the chengs we do include "Auspicious Lion Welcomes the Bride", "Drunken Lion", "Five Elements", "Fierce Tiger Gazes at the Moon" and "Blossoms Opening in Four Seasons". If you have a specific cheng and purpose for which you need a lion dance, please let us know.
For more information on booking a lion dance see "Booking" and our currently scheduled and confirmed performances see "Performance Schedule".
Assistance starting Gong Lung Sing Si Deui generously provided by the Sprout Fund | <urn:uuid:1ec586f2-baba-4c12-81de-9d9b8b4cc19a> | CC-MAIN-2019-18 | http://steel-dragon.org/lion-dance.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578582736.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20190422215211-20190423001211-00228.warc.gz | en | 0.958992 | 1,149 | 3.125 | 3 |
AS WELL as beating ourselves up about inadvertently altering the weather and climate, it's time to start worrying about deliberate attempts to change the weather. That's the conclusion of a report about to be released by the US National Academy of Sciences.
Just a handful of research programmes worldwide are investigating the effects of modifying the weather. Despite this, those plagued by water shortages or extreme weather are taking matters into their own hands: schemes to enhance rain or suppress hail, for example, are under way in more than 24 countries.
The NAS wants the US to start funding programmes to find out whether weather modification works, and what impact it is likely to have on larger-scale climate and weather patterns.
To continue reading this article, subscribe to receive access to all of newscientist.com, including 20 years of archive content. | <urn:uuid:f27c30b5-88b5-4572-aa7e-7895aeac87fa> | CC-MAIN-2014-42 | http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18024200.800-brewing-a-storm.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-42/segments/1414119648891.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20141024030048-00050-ip-10-16-133-185.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956305 | 166 | 2.90625 | 3 |
UK government welfare cuts over the past decade have left families in England without enough food to eat, in a breach of the government’s duty to ensure adequate food
The 115-page report, “Nothing Left in the Cupboards: Austerity, Welfare Cuts, and the Right to Food in the UK,” examines how deep, austerity-motivated cuts to the welfare system, exacerbated by the introduction of the Universal Credit system and other changes, have left many families with children in England going hungry and dependent on food aid from charities.
Many of these families are single-parent households led by women. Human Rights Watch found that the UK government is failing to meet its duty under human rights law to ensure the right to adequate food.
Kartik Raj, Western Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch, said:
“The way the UK government has handled its reduction in welfare spending has left parents unable to feed their children in the fifth-largest economy in the world.
“The UK government should ensure everyone’s right to food rather than expecting charities to step in and fill the gap.”
Human Rights Watch focused on three areas in England with high deprivation levels in Hull, Cambridgeshire, and Oxford. Human Rights Watch conducted 126 interviews, including with families affected by food poverty, volunteers, and staff in food banks and pantries, and community center and school staff; analysed official data and statistics; and reviewed information from the UK government and local authorities.
“Often, I have nothing left at the end of the week,” said a 23-year-old mother from Hull with a 4-year-old daughter who was unable to find employment that fit with her daughter’s school schedule, and relied on a low-cost community pantry which redistributes surplus food from supermarkets.
“When you’re a single mum there are very few jobs you can do that let you drop your child to school in the morning, then go to work and be back at 2.30 to pick them up. I skip meals, so my daughter can eat.”
Human Rights Watch found three factors that have driven the surge in hunger in England.
First, successive governments since 2010 have slashed welfare spending in the name of austerity, with support to families and children disproportionately hit. A Human Rights Watch analysis of public spending data shows that between 2010 and 2018 public welfare to assist children and families fell by 44%, far outstripping cuts in many other areas of government expenditure.
Moreover, the government has capped benefits for families, introduced an arbitrary and discriminatory two-child limit, and for the past four years has frozen annual increases to welfare payments despite rising food prices and inflation.
Second, the government is rolling out a major change to the welfare system, known as Universal Credit, that has exacerbated the hunger crisis by delaying access to initial payments, leaving welfare recipients often waiting weeks without receiving funds. The program also has a punitive system of imposing “sanctions” – withholding payments from welfare recipients – who fail to meet strict targets to prove that they have or are seeking work that are often impossible for people, especially single parents, to meet.
Third, the UK government has largely ignored and failed to act on growing evidence of a stark deterioration in the standard of living for the country’s poorest residents, including skyrocketing food bank use, and multiple reports from school officials that many more children are arriving at school hungry and unable to concentrate.
In one group meeting with seven young mothers claiming benefits, four said they were afraid that if they admitted going hungry and openly asked for food aid they could be considered unable to support their children and might lose custody.
The government has recently taken some steps to cushion the blow of some of its hardest-hitting policies. It has removed the two-child limit on welfare payments for children born before April 2017, although it remains in place for families with third children born since then. It has belatedly agreed to begin measuring food insecurity nationwide. And it is providing limited funding for breakfasts and school meals outside the school year in some deprived areas.
But it has yet to fully acknowledge its own responsibility, and the direct impact of many of its policies, for the hunger crisis or to take adequate steps to address it. In particular, the UK government has done little to address the significant structural problems with welfare policy that leave families unable to put food on the table, Human Rights Watch found.
The UK government’s failure to adequately address the growing hunger problem affecting the poorest parts of the population is a result of concrete policy choices to scale back the welfare state, Human Rights Watch said.
The UK government has a duty under international human rights law to ensure the right to adequate food. That means making sure people can afford food, and providing food via assistance programs or a safety net if people are unable to properly feed themselves.
By failing to do this, the government is violating the rights of people in the UK who are going hungry.
Successive UK governments though have failed to treat the right to food as an equivalent to other human rights, in particular giving people whose right to food has been violated an effective remedy against the government. The UK government should recognize the right to food in domestic law, Human Rights Watch said.
It should fully repeal the two-child limit, end delays in accessing payments under Universal Credit, and ensure that benefit payments keep pace with inflation, including the rising cost of food. The UK government should also develop an anti-hunger strategy, including a legal requirement to measure food insecurity and to report the results to parliament.
Raj further commented:
“Standing aside and relying on charities to pick up the pieces of its cruel and harmful policies is unacceptable. The UK government needs to take urgent and concerted action to ensure that its poorest residents aren’t forced to go hungry.”
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Must Read >> UK government publish report on increasing crack use | <urn:uuid:4f814f77-eb47-4a27-a495-0c83c51a0dc2> | CC-MAIN-2019-26 | https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/uk-government-welfare-cuts/65377/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-26/segments/1560627999838.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20190625112522-20190625134522-00144.warc.gz | en | 0.966056 | 1,247 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Each car was charged, stored and then tested in the same mild weather conditions, with the weight of an average driver and passenger on board. The climate control was set to 21deg C in every car and the headlights were left on throughout the test drive.
Where applicable, the cars were driven in ‘Normal’ mode, with minimum interference from regenerative braking, at What Car?’s 19.4-mile test track. A Racelogic Route Profiler ensured consistent driving styles along the route, which comprised simulations of stop-start traffic, rural roads and motorways.
Cars with batteries that accepted more than 60kWh in the initial phase of testing were driven along the route twice, while those with batteries that took more than 100kWh conducted three passes. After the driving phase, the testers measured the amount of energy required to refill the batteries, and were able to calculate each car’s 'Real Range' from the overall results.
The Kona EV had a Real Range of 259 miles, six more than the Jaguar I-Pace in second place.
See below for a rundown of the results, from the cars with the lowest 'Real Range' to those with the highest. For a more detailed breakdown of the test results, click on the link. | <urn:uuid:5fd3b7e1-be6f-4f6a-a44b-9c1f6dce65b7> | CC-MAIN-2019-22 | https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/hyundais-electric-cars-offer-best-real-world-range | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-22/segments/1558232256586.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20190521222812-20190522004812-00486.warc.gz | en | 0.973339 | 265 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Plain English Summary
Background and study aims
Cryoglobulinemia is a medical condition in which abnormal cryoglobulin proteins in the blood cause problems such as inflammation of blood vessels (vasculitis). It is associated with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. There is evidence that antiviral treatment with interferon or with interferon plus ribavirin is effective. On the other hand, standard immunosuppressive treatments may lead to severe complications in HCV-positive patients. Thus, less toxic treatments are needed. Based on early results, rituximab may be a safe and effective alternative to standard immunosuppression. The aim of this study is to compare rituximab treatment with the best available treatment for type II mixed cryoglobulinemia.
Who can participate?
Patients aged 18-80 with type II cryoglobulinemic vasculitis, HCV-related or unrelated
What does the study involve?
Participants are randomly allocated to receive either conventional treatment or rituximab treatment. Conventional treatment is chosen by the clinician for the individual patient, and can include treatment with glucocorticoid, azathioprine or cyclophosphamide medications or plasmapheresis, a procedure where the blood is filtered to remove the cryoglobulins. Participants are followed up over 24 months: weekly from day 0 to day 28, monthly up to month 6, then every 2 months up to month 24. A general physical examination is performed, and vital signs (pulse rate, blood pressure and temperature) are taken.
What are the possible benefits and risks of participating?
As the study involves patients who require immunosuppressive treatment, possible benefits include the possibility to cure their vasculitis with a less toxic and more effective treatment. Rituximab can cause an infusion related reaction involving fever, chills or rigors. Other commonly reported reactions include nausea, urticaria (hives), fatigue, headache, itching, bronchospasm, dyspnoea (breathlessness), sensation of tongue or throat swelling, rhinitis (inflammation of the inside of the nose), vomiting, hypotension (low blood pressure) and flushing. While in most patients these reactions are mild to moderate in severity, there have been reports of severe reactions in lymphoma patients. Patients who experience a severe reaction should have their infusion interrupted immediately and should receive aggressive treatment. The infusion should not be restarted before all the symptoms have disappeared. Further treatment of patients after complete resolution of signs and symptoms has rarely resulted in a repeated reaction.
Where is the study run from?
The study involves different Italian centers led by University of Udine (Italy)
When is the study starting and how long is it expected to run for?
March 2004 to December 2008
Who is funding the study?
University of Udine (Italy)
Who is the main contact?
Prof. Salvatore De Vita
Prof Salvatore De Vita
University of Udine
Clinic of Rheumatology
Piazzale Santa Maria della Misericordia 15
Anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody therapy for type II mixed cryoglobulinemia syndrome versus best available treatment: a phase III controlled study
Type II mixed cryoglobulinemia (MC) or MC syndrome is a systemic vasculitis prevalently mediated by immune-complexes, and associated with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and B-cell lymphoproliferation. Despite the bone marrow pathologic findings often suggesting an indolent B-cell malignancy, type II MC is definitely a non-neoplastic disorder, as finally demonstrated by molecular analyses of B-cell clonal expansion in extensively characterized patients with long-term follow-up.
B-cell expansion and lymphoproliferation occur in target organs of HCV infection. There is evidence of an antigen-driven proliferation of rheumatoid factor (RF) - positive clones, with a restricted immunoglobulin gene usage, leading to cryoglobulin production. Future studies should clarify the preferential and persistent expansion of such RF-positive clones in the course of HCV infection if compared to other chronic inflammatory/infectious conditions. Since only a fraction of patients with HCV infection have positive serum cryoglobulins or develop MC syndrome, additional mechanisms, virus-or host-related, are implicated. Recent studies were focused on insertions or deletions in HCV gene (HVR1-E2 region), HLA genetic predisposition, C4 deficiency, anti-endothelium and anti-alpha enolase antibodies, T-helper 2 profile and cytokines. Finally, serum cryoglobulins and RF usually persists even after the negativization of HCV RNA with the antiviral therapy. Since RF-positive B-cells may be stimulated by immune complexes containing quite different antigens, HCV infection might be crucial for the induction of MC, while not for the survival of RF-positive clones, which might prove pathogenetically relevant also in the lack of HCV persistence.
In the lack of such information, the treatment of HCV-associated MC remains difficult, and strategies should be necessarily focused both on the viral trigger (when present) and on downstream pathogenetic events.
There is general clinical evidence that effective antiviral treatment with interferon (old studies) or with interferon plus ribavirin (recent studies) is often accompanied by clinical efficacy, but results may differ in the different systemic features. Thus, even if antiviral therapy has a strong rationale and represents a cornerstone for the treatment of MC, additional pathobiologic events should be dissected and targeted for the different organ manifestations. Furthermore, antiviral therapy may be ineffective, counterindicated or not tolerated, and finally does not allow a rapid improvement in progressive or life threatening MC manifestations.
On the other hand, standard immunosuppressive approaches may lead to severe complications in HCV-positive MC patients, including major infections, cytopenias, enhancement of viral replication, and may have direct oncogenetic properties. Thus, less toxic approaches are needed.
University of Udine Ethics Committee, 13/10/2003, ref: 6/2003
Randomised controlled multicenter non-blinded phase III study
Primary study design
Secondary study design
Randomised controlled trial
Patient information sheet
Not available in web format, please use the contact details to request a patient information sheet
Mixed cryoglobulinemia HCV- related or unrelated
NON-Rituximab (RTX) GROUP (conventional treatment, i.e., as chosen by the expert clinician in that individual patient among the following):
1. Glucocorticoids (maximal initial dose of 1 mg/kg/day of prednisone equivalents) with or without preceding 6-methylprednisolone pulses (500 to 1000 mg/day for 3 consecutive days), with subsequent reduction of the glucocorticoid dosage in the following months.
2. Azathioprine or cyclophosphamide, orally at 1-2 mg/kg/day, with or without glucocorticoids (as in point 1); if response was observed, azathioprine or cyclophosphamide might be suspended after the end of month +6 after randomization, and then reintroduced if clinical relapse occurred (as it occurs in the current clinical practice).
3. Plasmapheresis, with or without glucocorticoids (as in point 1); if response was observed, plasmapheresis could be suspended after the end of month +6 after randomization, and then reintroduced if clinical relapse occurred (current clinical practice). At least two plasmapheretic procedures per week were required in the first month after randomization, with subsequent reductions according to the response observed and to local protocols.
Rituximab (RTX) GROUP:
RTX 1 g intravenously on days 0 and 14, with premedication with 100 mg of methylprednisolone intravenously, paracetamol 1000 mg orally, and clorpheniramine maleate 10 mg intravenously, before each infusion. Only glucocorticoids were allowed as concomitant treatment, at the same dose given before randomization if already administered, or lower; if introduced with RTX, only low doses (≤ 0.1 mg/kg/day of prednisone equivalents) were allowed. In case of clinical disease relapse in this Group, retreatment with RTX, at the same schedule, was permitted in case of previous response to RTX.
Patients failing treatment in non-RTX Group could be switched to RTX in an open-label extension manner (RTX-switch Group).
Patients were randomized to treatment stratified for the following three disease manifestations:
1. Skin ulcers
2. Active glomerulonephritis (assessed by renal biopsy)
3. Peripheral neuropathy (assessed by electromyography); sensory: evolving or with severe pain unresponsive or insufficiently managed with analgesics and gabapentin or pregabalin; motor: of any type and duration).
Patients with two or three of these clinical manifestations simultaneously present were randomized within the group where the accrual of patients was lower.
Primary outcome measures
The proportion of patients surviving on treatment at the end and 12 months after randomization, i.e., after a follow-up considered sufficient to assess both the efficacy and safety of treatment.
Efficacy and safety issues were in fact considered equally relevant in the long term, and a single end point integrating both of them was then chosen. Survival of treatment was statistically higher in RTX Group in comparison to non-RTX Group (conventional treatment).
Secondary outcome measures
1. The proportion of patients surviving on treatment at the end month +24, i.e., to evaluate the long-term efficacy and safety of treatment
2. The proportion of patients surviving on treatment at the end month +6, i.e., to evaluate the short-term efficacy and safety of treatment
3. The proportion of patients surviving on treatment at the end month +3, i.e., to evaluate the very early efficacy and safety of treatment
4. Superiority of RTX to decrease the global disease activity, as defined by the Birmingham Vasculitis Activity Score (BVAS)
5. Superiority of RTX for response in the single CV manifestations considered in the randomization scheme.
6. Efficacy of RTX in patients where conventional treatment had failed
7. Duration of response to RTX and efficacy of retreatment
8. Assessment of the profile of side effects of RTX, both in the short and the long term
Overall trial start date
Overall trial end date
Participant inclusion criteria
1. Patients with CV with type II cryoglobulins
2. HCV related or unrelated, classified according to published criteria
3. With positive serum cryoglobulins
4. Suffered from severe active CV manifestations, i.e., skin ulcers, active glomerulonephritis, or worsening or refractory peripheral neuropathy
5. In patients with HCV-related CV, study inclusion implied that antiviral therapy with interferon plus ribavirin had failed, had been poorly tolerated, or was considered contraindicated
6. Patients aged 18-80 years
7. Negative for antibodies against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B virus core antigen, and for hepatitis B virus surface antigen
Target number of participants
Participant exclusion criteria
1. Active CV manifestations with immediate risk for patient survival
2. Acute renal failure or rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis
3. Severe concomitant uncontrolled illness CV-unrelated
4. Active or recurrent infections
5. History of cancer (except for CV-related indolent B-cell lymphoproliferation in the bone marrow, not requiring treatment)
6. Alcohol or drug abuse
7. Serum creatinin > 4 mg/dl
8. AST or ALT > 3 times the upper limit of normal
9. Haemoglobin < 8 g/dl
10. Neutrophils < 1000/mmc or total leukocytes < 1500/mmc
11. Platelets < 40.000/mmc
12. History of severe allergic reactions to monoclonal antibodies
13. Pregnancy (if reproductive potential, an accepted birth control method was required)
14. Previous treatment with RTX
15. Previous failure of all the following:
15.1. High dose glucocorticoids
15.2. Plasma exchange
Recruitment start date
Recruitment end date
Countries of recruitment
Trial participating centre
University of Udine
Funding Body Type
private sector organisation
Funding Body Subtype
Results and Publications
Publication and dissemination plan
Not provided at time of registration
Intention to publish date
Participant level data
Not provided at time of registration
Results - basic reporting | <urn:uuid:fb549735-f6c2-4090-80dc-e23b013303c6> | CC-MAIN-2018-09 | http://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN55287110 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-09/segments/1518891811243.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20180218003946-20180218023946-00499.warc.gz | en | 0.884526 | 2,742 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Discipline: Ecology Environmental and Earth Sciences
Shaquetta Johnson - Jackson State University
Co-Author(s): Thomas Harmon and Angel Fernandez Bou, University of California, Merced, CA
Atta cephalotes is a common leaf cutter ant (LCA) species dominating the Neotropics. LCA employ a complex foraging system to furnish their fungal gardens with vegetation. The fungi are essential for development of the ants’ larvae and their own sustenance. While serving the colony, LCA foraging and fungi cultivation also significantly impacts carbon cycling in the Neotropics, and potentially beyond. Research has focused on events associated with the ants foraging behavior, including reasons for the ants “hitchhikíng” on larger ants’ leaf fragments and the rhythmic foraging behavior. The primary focus of this project was to establish the vegetation input to the Atta colony and how rainfall influences their daily foraging patterns. Understanding the characteristics and amounts of vegetation entering the nests will help to establish how efficient the Atta must be to successfully furnish their fungal gardens, and what the potential carbon emissions are from those nests. By testing a fairly new method, we were able to establish ratios of vegetation collected at many trails at a nesting site of La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica, with respect to rainfall. In order to calculate the average amount of vegetation collected at a single nesting site, we measured the velocity of ants, dry weight of vegetation, and day versus night foraging and established a formula representing the total vegetation collected over a particular time period with and without rainfall. Velocity measurements of the Atta cephalotes were compared utilizing histograms and a Tukey test revealed a significant difference with and without rainfall (p = 0.015). The dry weight of the vegetation over several days were also compared, but no significant difference between the dry mass was observed. Day versus night foraging was compared utilizing quartiles and line graphs to demonstrate the peaks of activity in a 24 hour cycle. Using the vegetation dry weight and ant velocity measurements, we estimated that the ants were carrying approximately 43 kg/month of vegetation to their nest. Future research involves understanding the effects of rainfall on foraging behavior and vegetation collection in more detail, developing an annual estimate (testing for seasonal variations), and connecting vegetation inputs with carbon dioxide emissions from the nest.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): I would like to thank my family, peers, and professor/advisor Terrence Wright at Jackson State University for supporting my endeavors to pursue an intense, biological research experience. I would also like to thank my research partner, REU students, and La Selva staff and community for their encouragement and genuine company throughout my time at the station. In particular, I would like to thank my mentor, Thomas Harmon, and his graduate student, Angel Fernandez-Bou, for their guidance and for challenging me to gain more knowledge while performing my research project. Last but certainly not least, I would like to thank the Organization for Tropical Studies for this experience of a lifetime, NSF, and LSAMP for providing the funding for this experience.
Faculty Advisor: Thomas Harmon, firstname.lastname@example.org
Role: I participated in the actual field study of taking measurements of the velocity of the ants, analyzing the data from the overnight sampling videos of the ants foraging activity, and assisting with measuring CO2 fluxes in the soil to determine the relevance of input versus output at the testing site. | <urn:uuid:b27666f9-0a3a-45ce-abf2-c107e1f974cc> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://emerging-researchers.org/projects/12641/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571056.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809155137-20220809185137-00503.warc.gz | en | 0.947552 | 717 | 3.15625 | 3 |
fixed the car." >> did you catch the misplaced modifier? "leaking oil" refers to the car, not the mechanic. >> when i say "leaking oil, comma, the mechanic fixed the car," it sounds like the mechanic is the person who's leaking oil, when, in fact, it's the car, not the mechanic, that's leaking oil. >> the sentence should read, "leaking oil, the car was fixed by the mechanic." >> oh! oh, yeah, of course! >> the key is to use common sense. as a rule of thumb, the modifier should be next to the word it's modifying. so, put those modifiers in their place. for example -- reporting for "tkn," i'm christina. >> in "speak of the week," it's your turn to tell us what you think. >> experts say we need to eat a certain amount of fruits and vegetables every day. they call this the "recommended number of servings." the question is, are you eating the recommended amount? | <urn:uuid:a22b5d27-c6a5-4da1-8eec-18f1bf8a6811> | CC-MAIN-2014-41 | http://archive.org/details/KRON_20130824_213000_Teen_Kids_News?q=america | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-41/segments/1412037663372.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20140930004103-00236-ip-10-234-18-248.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977469 | 212 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Lackey Claim Law and Legal Definition
Lackey claim refers to a prisoner’s legal claim asserting that imprisonment on death row for a prolonged period is cruel and unusual punishment. Lackey claim was developed from the case, Lackey v. Texas, 520 U.S. 1183 (U.S. 1997). A Lackey claim is not a new concept and thus it does not meet the novelty exception to the abuse-of-the-writ doctrine.It is not necessary that a Lackey claim becomes ripe only after a certain number of years or as the final hour of execution nears. It can be asserted when there is steady and predictable passage of time because the passage of time strengthens any Lackey claim. However, a successful Lackey claim has the effect of rendering a particular death sentence as invalid.
The following is an example of a case law defining Lackey claim:
Lackey claim refers to a constitutional challenge against carrying out of a death sentence on the grounds that years on death row make the ultimate punishment cruel and unusual. [Johnson v. Bredesen, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 111510 (M.D. Tenn. Nov. 30, 2009)]. | <urn:uuid:1a70f474-8490-4834-be83-58904775785d> | CC-MAIN-2021-17 | https://definitions.uslegal.com/l/lackey-claim/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-17/segments/1618038098638.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20210417011815-20210417041815-00621.warc.gz | en | 0.923232 | 249 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Through my work as a psychologist, psychotherapist and life coach, I’ve come to appreciate that empathy is the most powerful force in building and keeping strong relationships.
Developing empathy in children means providing a set of social skills that allow them to better understand themselves and others, in order to form close and intimate relationships, be mindful of other people, and be ready to act kindly.
Table of Contents
- What does it mean to empathize with someone?
- Why should we help our children develop empathy?
- 1. Model how to feel empathy for others.
- 2. Talk about multiple perspectives.
- 3. Practice self-control and assertive communication.
- 4. Help children practice empathy daily.
- 5. Read fiction books together and talk about the experience of the characters.
- 6. Teach them to pay attention to and understand their emotions.
- 7. Engage in pretend play and fictional scenarios.
- 8. Have a weekly “kindness day” when you do something for each other or others.
- 9. Teach listening skills.
- 10. Praise spontaneous acts of kindness.
- 11. Help kids find a role model that is empathetic.
- 12. Help kids understand more than just words.
- 13. Teach what empathy is not.
- 14. Encourage kids to turn empathy into concrete actions.
- 15. Be creative in facilitating empathy.
- What we give to others, usually finds a way to reach back to us.
What does it mean to empathize with someone?
Empathy is to understand what another person feels like in a certain situation or to understand what you would feel like if you were to switch places with them.
To empathize, you need to be able to put your own perspective on hold and, for the time being, connect with another person’s feelings.
For example, it is to understand and connect with the grief of a friend, even if you personally haven’t experienced such loss.
Or, it is to understand why your child is mad at you for not coming to their recital, even though you know that you could not have left an important meeting.
Why should we help our children develop empathy?
Empathy helps us build relationships with other people. It encourages sharing and understanding of others in a way that is perceived as genuine and sincere. Empathy helps us build meaningful connections with others.
Research says that more empathetic children tend to be more willing to help, support, and be kind to others. They also tend to be less aggressive and more social.
Empathetic children can also understand shyness and aggression better, as they seem to be more socially sensitive. Through empathy, they can better understand the reasons behind their own behaviors and the behaviors of others.
Empathy is also related to leadership and effectiveness. Recent research has found that empathetic entrepreneurs are more successful at motivating and leading their employees and helping their employees cope with workplace stresses.
At the same time, they’re better at identifying their customers’ needs and enjoy higher customer satisfaction. They also tend to be more innovative than leaders who are not empathetic (maybe because they are ready to open their minds to different perspectives!).
Empathy is crucial, so here are 15 tips on how you can help your kids develop empathy.
1. Model how to feel empathy for others.
Kids may not understand your words, but they can see your actions. This is why “walking the talk” is one of the most powerful ways to develop empathy in children. Take every opportunity to show empathy and kindness to others in front of your children.
Children learn best from personal experiences. Seeing what you are doing for them and others will shape their behavior, as they are likely to start imitating it. — seeing what you are doing in a relationship with them.
So, when your child is feeling down, approach them with readiness to understand their perspective. Empathy is not about evaluating the reasons for which someone feels something but rather being able to connect to the feeling of another person.
Instead of saying, “You shouldn’t be crying because of that,” try saying, “I can see how sad this makes you feel and I am sorry you are feeling this way.”
When your kids are happy, acknowledge their emotion and share it with them. “Oh, it’s so wonderful to see you smiling so much!” It’s important that the empathy you show to other people, you show in your relationship with your child, as well.
It’s also important to understand how your own levels of empathy affect your parenting strategies. Some research shows that lack of empathy is related to the use of negative and ignoring parenting strategies.
What’s important is that we are willing to understand the behaviors that we may not approve of. You’re acknowledging that the feelings are true for your child.
2. Talk about multiple perspectives.
There’s always more than just one side to the story, but kids are likely to think about their own perspective first (especially when they are still very young, up to the age of four).
Understanding another person’s perspective requires cognitive ability to step out of your own shoes and look at a situation differently.
You can help your children start to grasp this idea by taking one obvious situation, thing, or a fact that does not necessarily include them (it’s always easier to start with a situation in which there’s less of a personal bias) and show them how it looks for different people.
For example: What it feels like to have lots of toys and what it feels like to have none. Or what it feels like to live in a home and what it feels like to live on the streets.
Then help your child relate the situation to their own personal experience. “What would you feel like if we couldn’t afford these toys that you have?”
3. Practice self-control and assertive communication.
Understanding and expressing one’s emotions constructively is one of the most valuable social skills. Self-control does not mean holding back your reaction and pushing it away but making an effort to understand where it comes from and working through it.
By being able to better understand and communicate your emotions, you can better approach other people’s feelings. You won’t fall in the trap of being stuck only considering your own.
For example, a child feels angry. They may express it by screaming and shouting or throwing things away. Help them to calm down by taking them out of the situation, setting boundaries how they can react, or instructing them to breathe in and out until they are calm again.
When calm is restored, help them vocalize and verbalize the source of their anger and facilitate an awareness of how they expressed their anger.
“You were very angry today. When you are angry, you can say some really mean things. What happened? What was the problem?”
Hear them out. Ask them to think about alternatives: “Have you asked your friend to give you the toy back?” Or, “Maybe you could have taken turns playing with the toy.” Or, “What if you just found another toy to play with? He would have stopped playing with yours later.”
And use this opportunity to reflect on how others were feeling in this situation: “Your friend didn’t know this would make you upset.” Or, “I was starting to feel like there’s nothing I could do to calm you down.”
4. Help children practice empathy daily.
Being able to step into another person’s shoes and understand how they feel is a skill that takes practice. It requires reaching a part of us that has the capacity to relate to another person’s experience.
This is why it is important to use as many opportunities as possible to practice empathy.
Showing interest in how people are feeling (asking, “How are you?” or, “Is Jane feeling better?”) and offering your help to others that may need it (“Is there something I can do for you? Or, “I could help you clean the yard.”) are two very important acts of empathy and kindness to practice daily.
5. Read fiction books together and talk about the experience of the characters.
A study showed that reading fiction positively influences the empathy of the reader if the reader is “emotionally transported” into the story.
] So, if the reader is trying to really understand what the situation looks like from the perspective of different characters, reading can be a significant influence.
It’s not only important to read but to aim to see and understand the perspective of different characters. Books can, indeed, help you experience emotions and thoughts in a way you feel may never occur to you.
At the same time, characters may be going through the same situations you are — or experience emotions that resemble yours — and are, therefore, able to offer you some ideas on how to cope.
Here are some examples of the questions you can use in discussing the books you or your child reads:
“What is the biggest challenge for this character?”
“How does the character feel about it?”
“Have you ever been in a situation that’s similar to the one of a character?”
“What would you do if you were?”
“How do you think you would feel?”
“If you were to talk to the character, what kind of advice would you give him or her?”
“What do you think this character expects or needs from people?”
“How do you think this character would react if they got a chance to talk to you?”
The questions should invite your kids to put themselves in the shoes of a character.
Allow kids to choose books that make sense to them. You may give them suggestions, but try not to impose the choice. Scholastic has some useful tips on how to help them “P.I.C.K.” the books that are right for them.
Family book nights are also a great idea, especially if you start with this habit early on. It’s an opportunity for all of you to bond and discuss important topics that show up in the books.
6. Teach them to pay attention to and understand their emotions.
One way to teach kids to pay attention to and understand their emotions is to be more mindful of the words that you use to ask questions and talk about your or other people’s behavior. When your child is not feeling well, they don’t automatically link that to a certain emotion.
They focus on the behavior that derives from this feeling of discomfort or tension they have. Help your child verbalize it: “I took the toy you were playing with and you are angry. You feel anger because I did something you didn’t want me to do.”
This doesn’t mean that you won’t set boundaries: “I understand that you are angry because of this. Still, it is not okay to scream at me.”
Helping children understand the context or situations in which they feel a certain way can help them connect with others who happen to be in a similar position. For example, when somebody else has their toy taken away, a child can recognize that “they too feel very angry when somebody takes something from them.”
I found this great website, Inclusion Lab, with descriptions of some group activities for developing empathy in children. If your child likes to play on electronics, Commonsense.org offers recommendations for games that can help kids better understand themselves and others.
7. Engage in pretend play and fictional scenarios.
“What would you do if you saw another child alone, crying on the street?”
“What if” questions guide children to start thinking about ways to be empathetic and kind in situations they may have never experienced. The situation can seem more real if you role play or use toys for pretend play.
One of the famous psychotherapy approaches — psychodrama — uses this strategy of setting the scene and playing a role of one or more people to help clients reach a better understanding of themselves and others.
Drama classes can be quite useful for kids to experience stepping into the shoes of a certain character. If we are to believe in their acting, they need to be able to convey how the characters really feel. To do this, they need to better understand what their character cares about.
8. Have a weekly “kindness day” when you do something for each other or others.
There are traditions that celebrate empathy that you can start with your family, such as instituting “kindness days,” when you all agree to do something for each other or other people.
This is a good time to appreciate someone, to acknowledge their struggles or efforts, to help them celebrate their success, or help them work through difficulties — which are all forms of empathy.
It’s a day when you don’t think about yourself, but, instead, think of the needs of people you care for or are learning to care for.
Check out the Random Acts of Kindness website for inspiration. There you will find many simple, low-effort, yet wonderful ideas on how to be kind to each other and your community (and so much more).
9. Teach listening skills.
Empathy usually starts with understanding, and understanding usually starts with listening. This is why listening skills are important for developing empathy.
Even when you struggle to connect with another person’s experience, your willingness to carefully listen to their story and ask questions to better understand what they are saying can open your mind to new ways to connect.
How can parents teach listening skills?
First, be ready to model them by listening to your children. When you are not sure what they mean, make sure you ask them: “I am not sure I understand. Can you explain it to me again?” Make it a family rule to listen to one another. And when you listen, truly listen and engage. “So, you were drawing today. Do you want to show us what you’ve been drawing?”
Second, talk about listening skills. For example: “When you listen to another person, you don’t look at your phone or talk to someone else; you look at that person and try to really hear what they are saying.”
10. Praise spontaneous acts of kindness.
Children sometimes spontaneously do nice things for others. Your praise can reinforce behavior you perceive as kind and empathetic. But, should you praise behavior or personality?
If you focus on specific behaviors, you are making it easier for children to attach a concrete action to a desirable social value — kindness, empathy, care.
The effect of their behavior is easier to remember and recall. Also, it teaches the importance of choice and taking responsibility for your choices, as behaviors are thought to be the result of intention and choice.
“The way you shared your candy with John was really nice of you.”
Praising personality, according to a number of experts, can help kids develop a moral identity.
] Thinking of yourself as a “helper” guides you to act according to your role — helping others. “You are a generous, kind, and empathetic child.”
11. Help kids find a role model that is empathetic.
Kids look up to their role models — fictional or real. So, help children find those role models that promote empathy. You can also bring up examples of how the role models they already have are empathetic, kind, and supportive of others in different situations. This means you need to learn more about the people your child looks up to.
Kids sometimes adopt their role models following our example, looking at who we look up to. Emphasize that not all role models need to be famous and influential — they can be everyday people who do kind things for each other.
12. Help kids understand more than just words.
Paying attention to non-verbal cues — the way they talk, their posture, their facial expression, the pauses they make, the dynamics of their speech — is just as important as listening to the words someone is saying.
Detecting these subtle cues of how another person is feeling can help you understand ways to approach them.
This may sound like a complicated skill, even for adults. However, kids communicate non-verbally long before they start using words. Use the advantage of the time proximity of that non-verbal period.
Help your child connect behaviors to emotions: “Oh, he is crying. He must be sad about something.” Or, “She’s standing in the corner and not talking to others. She may be a bit shy. Do you want to go talk to her?”
Understood.org has some really good tips on how to help children understand social cues. Click here to read more.
13. Teach what empathy is not.
Empathy is not trying to silver-line other people’s problems, for example. It’s not saying, “I am so sorry, that must be hard for you,” and walking away either. It’s about being with another person, trying to truly understand what she’s thinking or feeling, and supporting her through it.
Here is a wonderful animated movie based on the lecture of Brené Brown on empathy — what it is and what it is not. I highly suggest you watch it (with your children, if possible):
14. Encourage kids to turn empathy into concrete actions.
Feeling the way other people do is just the beginning of what showing empathy is really about. The action that follows the feeling is where change happens. Sometimes, the very act of showing a person that you are there with them and really understand how they feel is enough.
However, in many cases, what you end up doing matters even more.
Help kids understand that, in the end, the choices you make matter.
If their friend is going through a difficult period, being empathetic is not just about saying, “Oh, I understand why you’re so sad.” It’s also about making sure you check up on them, offer to play with them, invite them over, or send them a text to let them know they are on your mind.
Also, it’s important to teach children that, even if you cannot fully understand how someone’s feeling, the act of kindness still matters.
15. Be creative in facilitating empathy.
There are so many sources that you can use to help your children better understand what empathy is all about. Music and videos are great examples.
I use an animated video, called “For the birds,” with very young children (ages 3-5) to help them understand how important it is to include everyone when playing together and to celebrate differences, instead of mocking each other for them:
There are many great resources, depending on the age of your child. See what inspires them the most.
Here are some of my personal (and most favorite) suggestions:
Putting yourself in Someone Else’s Shoes
Heartwarming Thai Commercial
To The Good Samaritans In Our Lives
What we give to others, usually finds a way to reach back to us.
Empathy drives us to do kind things for each other. A child who is empathetic is unlikely to bully someone. An empathetic child is likely to have more friends to turn to when they are in trouble. They are likely to help another child who’s struggling and advocate for them if needed.
An empathetic child will also understand your actions as a parent more, even when don’t agree with them. An empathetic child is able to stop and think about others with the purpose of finding a way to make the world a better place.
The greatest value is that empathy promotes relationships in which we care about each other.
- Findlay, L. C., Girardi, A., & Coplan, R. J. (2006). Links between empathy, social behavior, and social understanding in early childhood. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 21(3), 347-359.
- Humphrey, R. H. (2013). The benefits of emotional intelligence and empathy to entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship Research Journal, 3(3), 287-294.
- Brems, C., & Sohl, M. A. (1995). The role of empathy in parenting strategy choices. Family Relations, 189-194.
- Bal, P. M., & Veltkamp, M. (2013). How does fiction reading influence empathy? An experimental investigation on the role of emotional transportation. PloS one, 8(1), e55341.
- Bryan, C. J., Master, A., & Walton, G. M. (2014). “Helping” versus “being a helper”: Invoking the self to increase helping in young children. Child Development, 85(5), 1836-1842. | <urn:uuid:a2c6e3b1-5777-43db-bbf6-cf7ea36feef9> | CC-MAIN-2021-17 | https://parentingpod.com/teaching-kids-empathy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-17/segments/1618038069133.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20210412175257-20210412205257-00130.warc.gz | en | 0.958139 | 4,496 | 4.0625 | 4 |
TROTSKY LEAVES NEW YORK TO COMPLETE THE REVOLUTION
You will have a revolution, a terrible revolution. What course it takes will depend much on what Mr. Rockefeller tells Mr. Hague to do. Mr. Rockefeller is a symbol of the American ruling class and Mr. Hague is a symbol of its political tools.
Leon Trotsky, in New York Times, December 13, 1938. (Hague was a New Jersey politician)
In 1916, the year preceding the Russian Revolution, internationalist Leon Trotsky was expelled from France, officially because of his participation in the Zimmerwald conference but also no doubt because of inflammatory articles written for Nashe Slovo, a Russian-language newspaper printed in Paris. In September 1916 Trotsky was politely escorted across the Spanish border by French police. A few days later Madrid police arrested the internationalist and lodged him in a "first-class cell" at a charge of one-and-one-haft pesetas per day. Subsequently Trotsky was taken to Cadiz, then to Barcelona finally to be placed on board the Spanish Transatlantic Company steamer Monserrat. Trotsky and family crossed the Atlantic Ocean and landed in New York on January 13, 1917.
Other Trotskyites also made their way westward across the Atlantic. Indeed, one Trotskyite group acquired sufficient immediate influence in Mexico to write the Constitution of Querétaro for the revolutionary 1917 Carranza government, giving Mexico the dubious distinction of being the first government in the world to adopt a Soviet-type constitution.
How did Trotsky, who knew only German and Russian, survive in capitalist America? According to his autobiography, My Life, "My only profession in New York was that of a revolutionary socialist." In other words, Trotsky wrote occasional articles for Novy Mir, the New York Russian socialist journal. Yet we know that the Trotsky family apartment in New York had a refrigerator and a telephone, and, according to Trotsky, that the family occasionally traveled in a chauffeured limousine. This mode of living puzzled the two young Trotsky boys. When they went into a tearoom, the boys would anxiously demand of their mother, "Why doesn't the chauffeur come in?"1 The stylish living standard is also at odds with Trotsky's reported income. The only funds that Trotsky admits receiving in 1916 and 1917 are $310, and, said Trotsky, "I distributed the $310 among five emigrants who were returning to Russia." Yet Trotsky had paid for a first-class cell in Spain, the Trotsky family had traveled across Europe to the United States, they had acquired an excellent apartment in New York — paying rent three months in advance — and they had use of a chauffeured limousine. All this on the earnings of an impoverished revolutionary for a few articles for the low-circulation Russian-language newspaper Nashe Slovo in Paris and Novy Mir in New York!
Joseph Nedava estimates Trotsky's 1917 income at $12.00 per week, "supplemented by some lecture fees."2 Trotsky was in New York in 1917 for three months, from January to March, so that makes $144.00 in income from Novy Mir and, say, another $100.00 in lecture fees, for a total of $244.00. Of this $244.00 Trotsky was able to give away $310.00 to his friends, pay for the New York apartment, provide for his family — and find the $10,000 that was taken from him in April 1917 by Canadian authorities in Halifax. Trotsky claims that those who said he had other sources of income are "slanderers" spreading "stupid calumnies" and "lies," but unless Trotsky was playing the horses at the Jamaica racetrack, it can't be done. Obviously Trotsky had an unreported source of income.
What was that source? In The Road to Safety, author Arthur Willert says Trotsky earned a living by working as an electrician for Fox Film Studios. Other writers have cited other occupations, but there is no evidence that Trotsky occupied himself for remuneration otherwise than by writing and speaking.
Most investigation has centered on the verifiable fact that when Trotsky left New York in 1917 for Petrograd, to organize the Bolshevik phase of the revolution, he left with $10,000. In 1919 the U.S. Senate Overman Committee investigated Bolshevik propaganda and German money in the United States and incidentally touched on the source of Trotsky's $10,000. Examination of Colonel Hurban, Washington attaché to the Czech legation, by the Overman Committee yielded the following:
COL. HURBAN: Trotsky, perhaps, took money from Germany, but Trotsky will deny it. Lenin would not deny it. Miliukov proved that he got $10,000 from some Germans while he was in America. Miliukov had the proof, but he denied it. Trotsky did, although Miliukov had the proof.
SENATOR OVERMAN: It was charged that Trotsky got $10,000 here.
COL. HURBAN: I do not remember how much it was, but I know it was a question between him and Miliukov.
SENATOR OVERMAN: Miliukov proved it, did he?
COL. HURBAN: Yes, sir.
SENATOR OVERMAN: Do you know where he got it from?
COL. HURBAN: I remember it was $10,000; but it is no matter. I will speak about their propaganda. The German Government knew Russia better than anybody, and they knew that with the help of those people they could destroy the Russian army.
(At 5:45 o'clock p.m. the subcommittee adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, February 19, at 10:30 o'clock a.m.)3
It is quite remarkable that the committee adjourned abruptly before the source of Trotsky's funds could be placed into the Senate record. When questioning resumed the next day, Trotsky and his $10,000 were no longer of interest to the Overman Committee. We shall later develop evidence concerning the financing of German and revolutionary activities in the United States by New York financial houses; the origins of Trotsky's $10,000 will then come into focus.
An amount of $10,000 of German origin is also mentioned in the official British telegram to Canadian naval authorities in Halifax, who requested that Trotsky and party en route to the revolution be taken off the S.S. Kristianiafjord (see page 28). We also learn from a British Directorate of Intelligence report4 that Gregory Weinstein, who in 1919 was to become a prominent member of the Soviet Bureau in New York, collected funds for Trotsky in New York. These funds originated in Germany and were channeled through the Volks-zeitung, a German daily newspaper in New York and subsidized by the German government.
While Trotsky's funds are officially reported as German, Trotsky was actively engaged in American politics immediately prior to leaving New York for Russia and the revolution. On March 5, 1917, American newspapers headlined the increasing possibility of war with Germany; the same evening Trotsky proposed a resolution at the meeting of the New York County Socialist Party "pledging Socialists to encourage strikes and resist recruiting in the event of war with Germany."5 Leon Trotsky was called by the New York Times "an exiled Russian revolutionist." Louis C. Fraina, who cosponsored the Trotsky resolution, later — under an alias — wrote an uncritical book on the Morgan financial empire entitled House of Morgan.6 The Trotsky-Fraina proposal was opposed by the Morris Hillquit faction, and the Socialist Party subsequently voted opposition to the resolution.7
More than a week later, on March 16, at the time of the deposition of the tsar, Leon Trotsky was interviewed in the offices of Novy Mir.. The interview contained a prophetic statement on the Russian revolution:
"... the committee which has taken the place of the deposed Ministry in Russia did not represent the interests or the aims of the revolutionists, that it would probably be shortlived and step down in favor of men who would be more sure to carry forward the democratization of Russia."8
The "men who would be more sure to carry forward the democratization of Russia," that is, the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks, were then in exile abroad and needed first to return to Russia. The temporary "committee" was therefore dubbed the Provisional Government, a title, it should be noted, that was used from the start of the revolution in March and not applied ex post facto by historians.
WOODROW WILSON AND A PASSPORT FOR TROTSKY
President Woodrow Wilson was the fairy godmother who provided Trotsky with a passport to return to Russia to "carry forward" the revolution. This American passport was accompanied by a Russian entry permit and a British transit visa. Jennings C. Wise, in Woodrow Wilson: Disciple of Revolution, makes the pertinent comment, "Historians must never forget that Woodrow Wilson, despite the efforts of the British police, made it possible for Leon Trotsky to enter Russia with an American passport."
President Wilson facilitated Trotsky's passage to Russia at the same time careful State Department bureaucrats, concerned about such revolutionaries entering Russia, were unilaterally attempting to tighten up passport procedures. The Stockholm legation cabled the State Department on June 13, 1917, just after Trotsky crossed the Finnish-Russian border, "Legation confidentially informed Russian, English and French passport offices at Russian frontier, Tornea, considerably worried by passage of suspicious persons bearing American passports."9
To this cable the State Department replied, on the same day, "Department is exercising special care in issuance of passports for Russia"; the department also authorized expenditures by the legation to establish a passport-control office in Stockholm and to hire an "absolutely dependable American citizen" for employment on control work.10 But the bird had flown the coop. Menshevik Trotsky with Lenin's Bolsheviks were already in Russia preparing to "carry forward" the revolution. The passport net erected caught only more legitimate birds. For example, on June 26, 1917, Herman Bernstein, a reputable New York newspaperman on his way to Petrograd to represent the New York Herald, was held at the border and refused entry to Russia. Somewhat tardily, in mid-August 1917 the Russian embassy in Washington requested the State Department (and State agreed) to "prevent the entry into Russia of criminals and anarchists... numbers of whom have already gone to Russia."11
Consequently, by virtue of preferential treatment for Trotsky, when the S.S. Kristianiafjord left New York on March 26, 1917, Trotsky was aboard and holding a U.S. passport — and in company with other Trotskyire revolutionaries, Wall Street financiers, American Communists, and other interesting persons, few of whom had embarked for legitimate business. This mixed bag of passengers has been described by Lincoln Steffens, the American Communist:
The passenger list was long and mysterious. Trotsky was in the steerage with a group of revolutionaries; there was a Japanese revolutionist in my cabin. There were a lot of Dutch hurrying home from Java, the only innocent people aboard. The rest were war messengers, two from Wall Street to Germany....12
Notably, Lincoln Steffens was on board en route to Russia at the specific invitation of Charles Richard Crane, a backer and a former chairman of the Democratic Party's finance committee. Charles Crane, vice president of the Crane Company, had organized the Westinghouse Company in Russia, was a member of the Root mission to Russia, and had made no fewer than twenty-three visits to Russia between 1890 and 1930. Richard Crane, his son, was confidential assistant to then Secretary of State Robert Lansing. According to the former ambassador to Germany William Dodd, Crane "did much to bring on the Kerensky revolution which gave way to Communism."13 And so Steffens' comments in his diary about conversations aboard the S.S. Kristianiafjord are highly pertinent:" . . . all agree that the revolution is in its first phase only, that it must grow. Crane and Russian radicals on the ship think we shall be in Petrograd for the re-revolution.14
Crane returned to the United States when the Bolshevik Revolution (that is, "the re-revolution") had been completed and, although a private citizen, was given firsthand reports of the progress of the Bolshevik Revolution as cables were received at the State Department. For example, one memorandum, dated December 11, 1917, is entitled "Copy of report on Maximalist uprising for Mr Crane." It originated with Maddin Summers, U.S. consul general in Moscow, and the covering letter from Summers reads in part:
I have the honor to enclose herewith a copy of same [above report] with the request that it be sent for the confidential information of Mr. Charles R. Crane. It is assumed that the Department will have no objection to Mr. Crane seeing the report ....15
In brief, the unlikely and puzzling picture that emerges is that Charles Crane, a friend and backer of Woodrow Wilson and a prominent financier and politician, had a known role in the "first" revolution and traveled to Russia in mid-1917 in company with the American Communist Lincoln Steffens, who was in touch with both Woodrow Wilson and Trotsky. The latter in turn was carrying a passport issued at the orders of Wilson and $10,000 from supposed German sources. On his return to the U.S. after the "re-revolution," Crane was granted access to official documents concerning consolidation of the Bolshevik regime: This is a pattern of interlocking — if puzzling — events that warrants further investigation and suggests, though without at this point providing evidence, some link between the financier Crane and the revolutionary Trotsky.
CANADIAN GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS ON TROTSKY'S RELEASE16
Documents on Trotsky's brief stay in Canadian custody are now de-classified and available from the Canadian government archives. According to these archives, Trotsky was removed by Canadian and British naval personnel from the S.S. Kristianiafjord at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on April 3, 1917, listed as a German prisoner of war, and interned at the Amherst, Nova Scotia, internment station for German prisoners. Mrs. Trotsky, the two Trotsky boys, and five other men described as "Russian Socialists" were also taken off and interned. Their names are recorded by the Canadian files as: Nickita Muchin, Leiba Fisheleff, Konstantin Romanchanco, Gregor Teheodnovski, Gerchon Melintchansky and Leon Bronstein Trotsky (all spellings from original Canadian documents).
Canadian Army form LB-l, under serial number 1098 (including thumb prints), was completed for Trotsky, with a description as follows: "37 years old, a political exile, occupation journalist, born in Gromskty, Chuson, Russia, Russian citizen." The form was signed by Leon Trotsky and his full name given as Leon Bromstein (sic) Trotsky.
The Trotsky party was removed from the S.S. Kristianiafjord under official instructions received by cablegram of March 29, 1917, London, presumably originating in the Admiralty with the naval control officer, Halifax. The cablegram reported that the Trotsky party was on the "Christianiafjord" (sic) and should be "taken off and retained pending instructions." The reason given to the naval control officer at Halifax was that "these are Russian Socialists leaving for purposes of starting revolution against present Russian government for which Trotsky is reported to have 10,000 dollars subscribed by Socialists and Germans."
On April 1, 1917, the naval control officer, Captain O. M. Makins, sent a confidential memorandum to the general officer commanding at Halifax, to the effect that he had "examined all Russian passengers" aboard the S.S. Kristianiafjord and found six men in the second-class section: "They are all avowed Socialists, and though professing a desire to help the new Russian Govt., might well be in league with German Socialists in America, and quite likely to be a great hindrance to the Govt. in Russia just at present." Captain Makins added that he was going to remove the group, as well as Trotsky's wife and two sons, in order to intern them at Halifax. A copy of this report was forwarded from Halifax to the chief of the General Staff in Ottawa on April 2, 1917.
The next document in the Canadian files is dated April 7, from the chief of the General Staff, Ottawa, to the director of internment operations, and acknowledges a previous letter (not in the files) about the internment of Russian socialists at Amherst, Nova Scotia: ". . . in this connection, have to inform you of the receipt of a long telegram yesterday from the Russian Consul General, MONTREAL, protesting against the arrest of these men as they were in possession of passports issued by the Russian Consul General, NEW YORK, U.S.A."
The reply to this Montreal telegram was to the effect that the men were interned "on suspicion of being German," and would be released only upon definite proof of their nationality and loyalty to the Allies. No telegrams from the Russian consul general in New York are in the Canadian files, and it is known that this office was reluctant to issue Russian passports to Russian political exiles. However, there is a telegram in the files from a New York attorney, N. Aleinikoff, to R. M. Coulter, then deputy postmaster general of Canada. The postmaster general's office in Canada had no connection with either internment of prisoners of war or military activities. Accordingly, this telegram was in the nature of a personal, nonofficial intervention. It reads:
DR. R. M. COULTER, Postmaster Genl. OTTAWA Russian political exiles returning to Russia detained Halifax interned Amherst camp. Kindly investigate and advise cause of the detention and names of all detained. Trust as champion of freedom you will intercede on their behalf. Please wire collect. NICHOLAS ALEINIKOFF
On April 11, Coulter wired Aleinikoff, "Telegram received. Writing you this afternoon. You should receive it tomorrow evening. R. M. Coulter." This telegram was sent by the Canadian Pacific Railway Telegraph but charged to the Canadian Post Office Department. Normally a private business telegram would be charged to the recipient and this was not official business. The follow-up Coulter letter to Aleinikoff is interesting because, after confirming that the Trotsky party was held at Amherst, it states that they were suspected of propaganda against the present Russian government and "are supposed to be agents of Germany." Coulter then adds," . . . they are not what they represent themselves to be"; the Trotsky group is "...not detained by Canada, but by the Imperial authorities." After assuring Aleinikoff that the detainees would be made comfortable, Coulter adds that any information "in their favour" would be transmitted to the military authorities. The general impression of the letter is that while Coulter is sympathetic and fully aware of Trotsky's pro-German links, he is unwilling to get involved. On April 11 Arthur Wolf of 134 East Broadway, New York, sent a telegram to Coulter. Though sent from New York, this telegram, after being acknowledged, was also charged to the Canadian Post Office Department.
Coulter's reactions, however, reflect more than the detached sympathy evident in his letter to Aleinikoff. They must be considered in the light of the fact that these letters in behalf of Trotsky came from two American residents of New York City and involved a Canadian or Imperial military matter of international importance. Further, Coulter, as deputy postmaster general, was a Canadian government official of some standing. Ponder, for a moment, what would happen to someone who similarly intervened in United States affairs! In the Trotsky affair we have two American residents corresponding with a Canadian deputy postmaster general in order to intervene in behalf of an interned Russian revolutionary.
Coulter's subsequent action also suggests something more than casual intervention. After Coulter acknowledged the Aleinikoff and Wolf telegrams, he wrote to Major General Willoughby Gwatkin of the Department of Militia and Defense in Ottawa — a man of significant influence in the Canadian military — and attached copies of the Aleinikoff and Wolf telegrams:
These men have been hostile to Russia because of the way the Jews have been treated, and are now strongly in favor of the present Administration, so far as I know. Both are responsible men. Both are reputable men, and I am sending their telegrams to you for what they may be worth, and so that you may represent them to the English authorities if you deem it wise.
Obviously Coulter knows — or intimates that he knows — a great deal about Aleinikoff and Wolf. His letter was in effect a character reference, and aimed at the root of the internment problem — London. Gwatkin was well known in London, and in fact was on loan to Canada from the War Office in London.17
Aleinikoff then sent a letter to Coulter to thank him
most heartily for the interest you have taken in the fate of the Russian Political Exiles .... You know me, esteemed Dr. Coulter, and you also know my devotion to the cause of Russian freedom .... Happily I know Mr. Trotsky, Mr. Melnichahnsky, and Mr. Chudnowsky . . . intimately.
It might be noted as an aside that if Aleinikoff knew Trotsky "intimately," then he would also probably be aware that Trotsky had declared his intention to return to Russia to overthrow the Provisional Government and institute the "re-revolution." On receipt of Aleinikoff's letter, Coulter immediately (April 16) forwarded it to Major General Gwatkin, adding that he became acquainted with Aleinikoff "in connection with Departmental action on United States papers in the Russian language" and that Aleinikoff was working "on the same lines as Mr. Wolf . . . who was an escaped prisoner from Siberia."
Previously, on April 14, Gwatkin sent a memorandum to his naval counterpart on the Canadian Military Interdepartmental Committee repeating that the internees were Russian socialists with "10,000 dollars subscribed by socialists and Germans." The concluding paragraph stated: "On the other hand there are those who declare that an act of high-handed injustice has been done." Then on April 16, Vice Admiral C. E. Kingsmill, director of the Naval Service, took Gwatkin's intervention at face value. In a letter to Captain Makins, the naval control officer at Halifax, he stated, "The Militia authorities request that a decision as to their (that is, the six Russians) disposal may be hastened." A copy of this instruction was relayed to Gwatkin who in turn informed Deputy Postmaster General Coulter. Three days later Gwatkin applied pressure. In a memorandum of April 20 to the naval secretary, he wrote, "Can you say, please, whether or not the Naval Control Office has given a decision?"
On the same day (April 20) Captain Makins wrote Admiral Kingsmill explaining his reasons for removing Trotsky; he refused to be pressured into making a decision, stating, "I will cable to the Admiralty informing them that the Militia authorities are requesting an early decision as to their disposal." However, the next day, April 21, Gwatkin wrote Coulter: "Our friends the Russian socialists are to be released; and arrangements are being made for their passage to Europe." The order to Makins for Trotsky's release originated in the Admiralty, London. Coulter acknowledged the information, "which will please our New York correspondents immensely."
While we can, on the one hand, conclude that Coulter and Gwatkin were intensely interested in the release of Trotsky, we do not, on the other hand, know why. There was little in the career of either Deputy Postmaster General Coulter or Major General Gwatkin that would explain an urge to release the Menshevik Leon Trotsky.
Dr. Robert Miller Coulter was a medical doctor of Scottish and Irish parents, a liberal, a Freemason, and an Odd Fellow. He was appointed deputy postmaster general of Canada in 1897. His sole claim to fame derived from being a delegate to the Universal Postal Union Convention in 1906 and a delegate to New Zealand and Australia in 1908 for the "All Red" project. All Red had nothing to do with Red revolutionaries; it was only a plan for all-red or all-British fast steamships between Great Britain, Canada, and Australia.
Major General Willoughby Gwatkin stemmed from a long British military tradition (Cambridge and then Staff College). A specialist in mobilization, he served in Canada from 1905 to 1918. Given only the documents in the Canadian files, we can but conclude that their intervention in behalf of Trotsky is a mystery.
CANADIAN MILITARY INTELLIGENCE VIEWS TROTSKY
We can approach the Trotsky release case from another angle: Canadian intelligence. Lieutenant Colonel John Bayne MacLean, a prominent Canadian publisher and businessman, founder and president of MacLean Publishing Company, Toronto, operated numerous Canadian trade journals, including the Financial Post. MacLean also had a long-time association with Canadian Army Intelligence.18
In 1918 Colonel MacLean wrote for his own MacLean's magazine an article entitled "Why Did We Let Trotsky Go? How Canada Lost an Opportunity to Shorten the War."19 The article contained detailed and unusual information about Leon Trotsky, although the last half of the piece wanders off into space remarking about barely related matters. We have two clues to the authenticity of the information. First, Colonel MacLean was a man of integrity with excellent connections in Canadian government intelligence. Second, government records since released by Canada, Great Britain, and the United States confirm MacLean's statement to a significant degree. Some MacLean statements remain to be confirmed, but information available in the early 1970s is not necessarily inconsistent with Colonel MacLean's article.
MacLean's opening argument is that "some Canadian politicians or officials were chiefly responsible for the prolongation of the war [World War I], for the great loss of life, the wounds and sufferings of the winter of 1917 and the great drives of 1918."
Further, states MacLean, these persons were (in 1919)doing everything possible to prevent Parliament and the Canadian people from getting the related facts. Official reports, including those of Sir Douglas Haig, demonstrate that but for the Russian break in 1917 the war would have been over a year earlier, and that "the man chiefly responsible for the defection of Russia was Trotsky... acting under German instructions."
Who was Trotsky? According to MacLean, Trotsky was not Russian, but German. Odd as this assertion may appear it does coincide with other scraps of intelligence information: to wit, that Trotsky spoke better German than Russian, and that he was the Russian executive of the German "Black Bond." According to MacLean, Trotsky in August 1914 had been "ostentatiously" expelled from Berlin;20 he finally arrived in the United States where he organized Russian revolutionaries, as well as revolutionaries in Western Canada, who "were largely Germans and Austrians traveling as Russians." MacLean continues:
Originally the British found through Russian associates that Kerensky,21 Lenin and some lesser leaders were practically in German pay as early as 1915 and they uncovered in 1916 the connections with Trotsky then living in New York. From that time he was closely watched by... the Bomb Squad. In the early part of 1916 a German official sailed for New York. British Intelligence officials accompanied him. He was held up at Halifax; but on their instruction he was passed on with profuse apologies for the necessary delay. After much manoeuvering he arrived in a dirty little newspaper office in the slums and there found Trotsky, to whom he bore important instructions. From June 1916, until they passed him on [to] the British, the N.Y. Bomb Squad never lost touch with Trotsky. They discovered that his real name was Braunstein and that he was a German, not a Russian.22
Such German activity in neutral countries is confirmed in a State Department report (316-9-764-9) describing organization of Russian refugees for revolutionary purposes.
Continuing, MacLean states that Trotsky and four associates sailed on the "S.S. Christiania" (sic), and on April 3 reported to "Captain Making" (sic) and were taken off the ship at Halifax under the direction of Lieutenant Jones. (Actually a party of nine, including six men, were taken off the S.S. Kristianiafjord. The name of the naval control officer at Halifax was Captain O. M. Makins, R.N. The name of the officer who removed the Trotsky party from the ship is not in the Canadian government documents; Trotsky said it was "Machen.") Again, according to MacLean, Trotsky's money came "from German sources in New York." Also:
generally the explanation given is that the release was done at the request of Kerensky but months before this British officers and one Canadian serving in Russia, who could speak the Russian language, reported to London and Washington that Kerensky was in German service.23
Trotsky was released "at the request of the British Embassy at Washington . . . [which] acted on the request of the U.S. State Department, who were acting for someone else." Canadian officials "were instructed to inform the press that Trotsky was an American citizen travelling on an American passport; that his release was specially demanded by the Washington State Department." Moreover, writes MacLean, in Ottawa "Trotsky had, and continues to have, strong underground influence. There his power was so great that orders were issued that he must be given every consideration."
The theme of MacLean's reporting is, quite evidently, that Trotsky had intimate relations with, and probably worked for, the German General Staff. While such relations have been established regarding Lenin — to the extent that Lenin was subsidized and his return to Russia facilitated by the Germans — it appears certain that Trotsky was similarly aided. The $10,000 Trotsky fund in New York was from German sources, and a recently declassified document in the U.S. State Department files reads as follows:
March 9, 1918 to: American Consul, Vladivostok from Polk, Acting Secretary of State, Washington D.C.
For your confidential information and prompt attention: Following is substance of message of January twelfth from Von Schanz of German Imperial Bank to Trotsky, quote Consent imperial bank to appropriation from credit general staff of five million roubles for sending assistant chief naval commissioner Kudrisheff to Far East.
This message suggests some liaison between Trotsky and the Germans in January 1918, a time when Trotsky was proposing an alliance with the West. The State Department does not give the provenance of the telegram, only that it originated with the War College Staff. The State Department did treat the message as authentic and acted on the basis of assumed authenticity. It is consistent with the general theme of Colonel MacLean's article.
TROTSKY'S INTENTIONS AND OBJECTIVES
Consequently, we can derive the following sequence of events: Trotsky traveled from New York to Petrograd on a passport supplied by the intervention of Woodrow Wilson, and with the declared intention to "carry forward" the revolution. The British government was the immediate source of Trotsky's release from Canadian custody in April 1917, but there may well have been "pressures." Lincoln Steffens, an American Communist, acted as a link between Wilson and Charles R. Crane and between Crane and Trotsky. Further, while Crane had no official position, his son Richard was confidential assistant to Secretary of State Robert Lansing, and Crane senior was provided with prompt and detailed reports on the progress of the Bolshevik Revolution. Moreover, Ambassador William Dodd (U.S. ambassador to Germany in the Hitler era) said that Crane had an active role in the Kerensky phase of the revolution; the Steffens letters confirm that Crane saw the Kerensky phase as only one step in a continuing revolution.
The interesting point, however, is not so much the communication among dissimilar persons like Crane, Steffens, Trotsky, and Woodrow Wilson as the existence of at least a measure of agreement on the procedure to be followed — that is, the Provisional Government was seen as "provisional," and the "re-revolution" was to follow.
On the other side of the coin, interpretation of Trotsky's intentions should be cautious: he was adept at double games. Official documentation clearly demonstrates contradictory actions. For example, the Division of Far Eastern Affairs in the U.S. State Department received on March 23, 1918, two reports stemming from Trotsky; one is inconsistent with the other. One report, dated March 20 and from Moscow, originated in the Russian newspaper Russkoe Slovo. The report cited an interview with Trotsky in which he stated that any alliance with the United States was impossible:
The Russia of the Soviet cannot align itself... with capitalistic America for this would be a betrayal It is possible that Americans seek such an rapprochement with us, driven by its antagonism towards Japan, but in any case there can be no question of an alliance by us of any nature with a bourgeoisie nation.24
The other report, also originating in Moscow, is a message dated March 17, 1918, three days earlier, and from Ambassador Francis: "Trotsky requests five American officers as inspectors of army being organized for defense also requests railroad operating men and equipment."25
This request to the U.S. is of course inconsistent with rejection of an "alliance."
Before we leave Trotsky some mention should be made of the Stalinist show trials of the 1930s and, in particular, the 1938 accusations and trial of the "Anti-Soviet bloc of rightists and Trotskyites." These forced parodies of the judicial process, almost unanimously rejected in the West, may throw light on Trotsky's intentions.
The crux of the Stalinist accusation was that Trotskyites were paid agents of international capitalism. K. G. Rakovsky, one of the 1938 defendants, said, or was induced to say, "We were the vanguard of foreign aggression, of international fascism, and not only in the USSR but also in Spain, China, throughout the world." The summation of the "court" contains the statement, "There is not a single man in the world who brought so much sorrow and misfortune to people as Trotsky. He is the vilest agent of fascism .... "26
Now while this may be no more than verbal insults routinely traded among the international Communists of the 1930s and 40s, it is also notable that the threads behind the self-accusation are consistent with the evidence in this chapter. And further, as we shall see later, Trotsky was able to generate support among international capitalists, who, incidentally, were also supporters of Mussolini and Hitler.27
So long as we see all international revolutionaries and all international capitalists as implacable enemies of one another, then we miss a crucial point — that there has indeed been some operational cooperation between international capitalists, including fascists. And there is no a priori reason why we should reject Trotsky as a part of this alliance.
This tentative, limited reassessment will be brought into sharp focus when we review the story o£ Michael Gruzenberg, the chief Bolshevik agent in Scandinavia who under the alias of Alexander Gumberg was also a confidential adviser to the Chase National Bank in New York and later to Floyd Odium of Atlas Corporation. This dual role was known to and accepted by both the Soviets and his American employers. The Gruzenberg story is a case history of international revolution allied with international capitalism.
Colonel MacLean's observations that Trotsky had "strong underground influence" and that his "power was so great that orders were issued that he must be given every consideration" are not at all inconsistent with the Coulter-Gwatkin intervention in Trotsky's behalf; or, for that matter, with those later occurrences, the Stalinist accusations in the Trotskyite show trials of the 1930s. Nor are they inconsistent with the Gruzenberg case. On the other hand, the only known direct link between Trotsky and international banking is through his cousin Abram Givatovzo, who was a private banker in Kiev before the Russian Revolution and in Stockholm after the revolution. While Givatovzo professed antibolshevism, he was in fact acting in behalf of the Soviets in 1918 in currency transactions.28
Is it possible an international web (:an be spun from these events? First there's Trotsky, a Russian internationalist revolutionary with German connections who sparks assistance from two supposed supporters of Prince Lvov's government in Russia (Aleinikoff and Wolf, Russians resident in New York). These two ignite the action of a liberal Canadian deputy postmaster general, who in turn intercedes with a prominent British Army major general on the Canadian military staff. These are all verifiable links.
In brief, allegiances may not always be what they are called, or appear. We can, however, surmise that Trotsky, Aleinikoff, Wolf, Coulter, and Gwatkin in acting for a common limited objective also had some common higher goal than national allegiance or political label. To emphasize, there is no absolute proof that this is so. It is, at the moment, only a logical supposition from the facts. A loyalty higher than that forged by a common immediate goal need have been no more than that of friendship, although that strains the imagination when we ponder such a polyglot combination. It may also have been promoted by other motives. The picture is yet incomplete.
1Leon Trotsky, My Life (New York: Scribner's, 1930), chap. 22.
2Joseph Nedava, Trotsky and the Jews (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1972), p. 163.
3United States, Senate, Brewing and Liquor Interests and German and Bolshevik Propaganda (Subcommittee on the Judiciary), 65th Cong., 1919.
4Special Report No. 5, The Russian Soviet Bureau in the United States, July 14, 1919, Scotland House, London S.W.I. Copy in U.S. State Dept. Decimal File, 316-23-1145.
5New York Times, March 5, 1917.
6Lewis Corey, House of Morgan: A Social Biography of the Masters of Money (New York: G. W. Watt, 1930).
7Morris Hillquit. (formerly Hillkowitz) had been defense attorney for Johann Most, alter the assassination of President McKinley, and in 1917 was a leader of the New York Socialist Party. In the 1920s Hillquit established himself in the New York banking world by becoming a director of, and attorney for, the International Union Bank. Under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Hillquit helped draw up the NRA codes for the garment industry.
8New York Times, March 16, 1917.
9U.S. State Dept. Decimal File, 316-85-1002.
12Lincoln Steffens, Autobiography (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1931), p. 764. Steffens was the "go-between" for Crane and Woodrow Wilson.
13William Edward Dodd, Ambassador Dodd's Diary, 1933-1938 (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1941), pp. 42-43.
14Lincoln Steffens, The Letters of Lincoln Steffens (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1941), p. 396.
15U.S. State Dept. Decimal File, 861.00/1026.
16This section is based on Canadian government records.
17Gwatkin's memoramada in the Canadian government files are not signed, but initialed with a cryptic mark or symbol. The mark has been identified as Gwatkin's because one Gwatkin letter (that o[ April 21) with that cryptic mark was acknowledged.
18H.J. Morgan, Canadian Men and Women of the Times, 1912, 2 vols. (Toronto: W. Briggs, 1898-1912).
19June 1919, pp. 66a-666. Toronto Public Library has a copy; the issue of MacLean's in which Colonel MacLean's article appeared is not easy to find and a frill summary is provided below.
20See also Trotsky, My Life, p. 236.
21See Appendix 3.
22According to his own account, Trotsky did not arrive in the U.S. until January 1917. Trotsky's real name was Bronstein; he invented the name "Trotsky." "Bronstein" is German and "Trotsky" is Polish rather than Russian. His first name is usually given as "Leon"; however, Trotsky's first book, which was published in Geneva, has the initial "N," not "L."
23See Appendix 3; this document was obtained in 1971 from the British Foreign Office but apparently was known to MacLean.
24U.S. State Dept. Decimal File, 861.00/1351.
25U.S. State Dept. Decimal File, 861.00/1341.
26Report of Court Proceedings in the Case of the Anti-Soviet "Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites" Heard Before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR (Moscow: People's Commissariat of Justice of the USSR, 1938), p. 293.
27See p. 174. Thomas Lamont of the Morgans was an early supporter of Mussolini.
28See p. 122. | <urn:uuid:16be9d1e-bf88-410c-847d-87ac149ceab2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/bolshevik_revolution/chapter_02.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00084-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969022 | 8,719 | 2.890625 | 3 |
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The more I examine the universe, and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the Universe in some sense must have known we were coming. — Freeman Dyson
Fine-Tuning and Pointers to God
Fine-tuning refers to the surprising precision of nature’s physical constants and the beginning state of the universe. Both of these features converge as potential pointers to a Creator. To explain the present state of the universe, scientific theories require that the physical constants of nature — like the strength of gravity — and the beginning state of the Universe — like its density — have extremely precise values. The slightest variation from their actual values results in an early universe that never becomes capable of hosting life. For this reason, the universe seems finely-tuned for life. This observation is referred to as the anthropic principle, a term whose definition has taken many variations over the years.3
Constants of Nature
The fine-tuning of the universe is seen most clearly in the values of the constants of nature. There are many such constants, the best known of which specify the strength of the four forces of nature: the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, the electromagnetic force, and gravity. If these forces took on even slightly different strengths, the consequences for life would be devastating.4 Two of these in particular, the strong and electromagnetic forces, are responsible for the unusually efficient production of carbon, the element upon which all known life is based. The forces cooperate in such a way as to create a coincidental match up of energy levels, which enables the production of carbon from the fusing of three helium atoms. For three helium atoms to collide and create carbon is very unlikely, however, because under normal circumstances, the energies would not match up perfectly, and the three helium atoms would come apart before they had time to fuse into carbon. It takes a little extra time to deal with the energy mismatch. But, if there is a statistically unusual match of the energies, then the process is much faster. The slightest change to either the strong or electromagnetic forces would alter the energy levels, resulting in greatly reduced production of carbon and an ultimately uninhabitable universe. In the 1950s, Cambridge University astronomer Fred Hoyle recognized the precision of the energy match up, called carbon resonance, and made the following observation:
Read Karl Giberson’s Science and the Sacred entry The Road Less Traveled for more on the fine-tuning of the physical constants.
A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.5
To read the full article on BioLogos, click here. | <urn:uuid:3ab29d26-ffb4-4b0d-b150-958f47d32b3f> | CC-MAIN-2017-13 | http://ldsmag.com/what-is-the-fine-tuning-of-the-universe-and-how-does-it-serve-as-a-pointer-to-god/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-13/segments/1490218186353.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20170322212946-00340-ip-10-233-31-227.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944993 | 597 | 3.359375 | 3 |
No, I’m not predicting from computer models where the results are largely predetermined by the inputs and assumptions of the programmers (1). I’m just noting a possibility based on simple observation of centuries of data. When Sol grows quiet for extended periods, the Earth grows colder:
The sun is almost completely blank. The main driver of all weather and climate, the entity which occupies 99.86% of all of the mass in our solar system, the great ball of fire in the sky has gone quiet again during what is likely to be the weakest sunspot cycle in more than a century. The sun’s X-ray output has flatlined in recent days and NOAA forecasters estimate a scant 1% chance of strong flares in the next 24 hours. Not since cycle 14 peaked in February 1906 has there been a solar cycle with fewer sunspots. We are currently more than six years into Solar Cycle 24 and the current nearly blank sun may signal the end of the solar maximum phase. Solar cycle 24 began after an unusually deep solar minimum that lasted from 2007 to 2009 which included more spotless days on the sun compared to any minimum in almost a century.
The article notes that declining solar activity doesn’t mean no solar storms that can disrupt communications — some very strong ones happen on the down-slope, so to speak. But, what we’re concerned with here is the possible effect on Earth’s climate. As you know if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, I’m of the school that holds the Sun far more responsible for Earth’s changing climate than any amount of carbon dioxide we’ve pumped into the atmosphere in the last century of so. And I believe the evidence supports that much more than it does the catastrophic man-caused climate change
theology theory. From later in the article, here’s what happened the last time the Sun had a quiescent period of this magnitude or larger:
Finally, if history is a guide, it is safe to say that weak solar activity for a prolonged period of time can have a cooling impact on global temperatures in the troposphere which is the bottom-most layer of Earth’s atmosphere – and where we all live. There have been two notable historical periods with decades-long episodes of low solar activity. The first period is known as the “Maunder Minimum”, named after the solar astronomer Edward Maunder, and it lasted from around 1645 to 1715. The second one is referred to as the “Dalton Minimum”, named for the English meteorologist John Dalton, and it lasted from about 1790 to 1830 (below). Both of these historical periods coincided with colder-than-normal global temperatures in an era now referred to by many scientists as the “Little Ice Age”. In addition, research studies in just the past couple of decades have found a complicated relationship between solar activity, cosmic rays, and clouds on Earth. This research suggests that in times of low solar activity where solar winds are typically weak; more cosmic rays reach the Earth’s atmosphere which, in turn, has been found to lead to an increase in certain types of clouds that can act to cool the Earth.
The highlighted portion refers to the work of Henrik Svensmark and others to study the relation between solar activity, cosmic rays, and cloud formation on Earth, the last of which is a regulator of temperature Early experimental results have lent credibility to this hypothesis, and I think we’ll eventually find that such natural cycles are the real reason for climate change on Earth, and not a trace gas that’s been raised to the level of an all-powerful demon.
(1) That’s the UN IPCC’s job. | <urn:uuid:c6b454a5-0a58-4d7c-bb44-c502b6b5e825> | CC-MAIN-2017-22 | https://pubsecrets.wordpress.com/2015/05/03/our-quiet-sun-long-term-cooling-on-the-way/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-22/segments/1495463609605.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20170528062748-20170528082748-00055.warc.gz | en | 0.946827 | 780 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Posted on 10 April 2014
Invaders such as the killer shrimp, zebra mussel and American signal crayfish have already caused extensive environmental damage and millions of pounds of economic costs.
The new research involving researchers from the University of York working with scientists at the University of Leeds and the Centre for Environment Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) found that the cleaning habits of anglers and canoeists could be a key part of the problem.
Co-author Professor Piran White, of the Environment Department at the University of York, said: “As well as damaging the ecology of streams and rivers, invasive species can also have a major impact on the economy. The clogging of water pipes by zebra mussels costs the water industry over £550,000 per year, and, for the UK economy as a whole, the cost of invasive species is estimated at almost £2 billion.”
The study, based on a survey of more than 1,500 water sports enthusiasts across the UK, found that 64 per cent of anglers and 79 per cent of canoeists used their equipment in more than one waterway in a fortnight.
A significant proportion of those people (12 per cent of anglers and 50 per cent of canoeists) said they did not clean or dry their kit before moving to the new waters.
Dr Alison Dunn, Reader in Evolutionary Ecology in the University of Leeds’ Faculty of Biological Sciences, said: “This is really alarming because some of the most dangerous invasive species can easily survive in damp equipment.
“The killer shrimp, for instance can live in a fold of a wetsuit or an angling net for about 15 days. Once it gets into the new water system, it is voracious. It will take bites out of things and leave them uneaten, killing when it doesn’t need to eat. The native shrimp is replaced, food stocks vital to other species are depleted and the ecosystems can be devastated.”
In 2011, the Government, in partnership with a large number of environmental NGO’s, launched a “Check, Clean, Dry” campaign to try to address the issue by encouraging water users to clean their gear before moving to new sites. While there has been significant support for the campaign, the study shows that there is still some way to go to further reduce the risk.
It also shows a risk of direct importation of new species from abroad. Eight per cent of anglers and 28 per cent of canoeists reported using their equipment overseas without cleaning or drying it on their return.
Lead researcher, Lucy Anderson of the University of Leeds’ Faculty of Biological Sciences, said: “There are 4 million anglers and more than 400,000 boat owners in the UK and the frequency with which people are using their equipment at different sites suggests that they may be an important pathway for invasive species. Once invasive species establish in rivers and lakes, they’re almost impossible to eradicate, so preventing their introduction and further spread in the first place is the best way that we have of controlling them.”
The “Check, Clean, Dry” campaign asks water sports participants to:
Co-author Dr Paul Stebbing of Cefas said: “The killer shrimp is not the only invader capable of ‘hitchhiking’ into new ecosystems on water sports equipment. The signal crayfish, which has been laying waste to native white-clawed crayfish populations, persists between three and seven days. Some invasive viruses and diseases can survive well over a month.”
The research was conducted by researchers at the University of Leeds, University of York, and the Government’s Centre for Environment Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas). It was funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and Cefas. | <urn:uuid:bc8d5d83-1260-43c7-8689-c8dddb10f66a> | CC-MAIN-2020-34 | https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2014/research/invasive-species/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-34/segments/1596439738727.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20200811025355-20200811055355-00348.warc.gz | en | 0.947891 | 803 | 3.15625 | 3 |
An iconic African American author and a winner of Nobel and Pulitzer prizes, Toni Morrison came from a black
working-class family. She studied humanities at Howard and Cornell Universities and taught literature at Princeton University. Through her novels and other writings, including Beloved, The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, Paradise, and
Love, she primarily represented African American experience. Her captivating and poetic storytelling has enriched the
field of literature worldwide forever.
"I tell my students, ‘When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else."
- Toni Morrison (Feb 18, 1931 - Aug 5, 2019)
Explore "Toni Morrison" in the CMU Libraries' Collections
Toni Morrison, Towering Novelist of the Black Experience, Dies at 88 - The New York Times, August 6, 2019
The Essential Toni Morrison Reader - The New York Times, August 6, 2019
The Toni Morrison Society | <urn:uuid:a681798c-d113-41fc-91eb-f5f0b92400d5> | CC-MAIN-2020-24 | https://www.cmich.edu/library/Pages/Toni-Morrison.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-24/segments/1590347406785.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20200529214634-20200530004634-00055.warc.gz | en | 0.93213 | 230 | 3.34375 | 3 |
Top tips for keeping that much loved Christmas plant alive. We've tested a plant sensor and mixed it up with some good old gardening knowledge...
It’s time for some modern day Robin Hoods.
I can still remember the blackberry harvest in the south of England. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Lanes and lanes of hedgerows weighed down by ripe fruits. I would get off my bike and creep round the back of the bushes where I couldn’t be seen from the road, and then I would eat until the juices were dribbling down my chin and I was full to bursting point.
I’m sure my story isn’t uncommon. Although most people who do this are about 8. I was 22.
It’s not just in the countryside where you can benefit from free fruit. There is a surprising amount of fruit hidden amongst our towns and cities that simply goes to waste. In recognition of this, urban harvesting groups from Germany to the US are getting together to make community members aware of locally available food resources. Some groups harvest fruit for themselves, others are modern-day Robin Hoods who collect the fruit and distribute it to those who need it the most.
Urban harvesting has the potential to meet real need in the recession-hit UK, where about 3 million people are malnourished at any time, and where demand for foodbanks nearly tripled last year - 913,138 people were given emergency food in 2013-14. The good news is that there are already some great urban harvesting projects in existence, including:
- The London Orchard Project is identifying and mapping existing fruit trees in the capital (as well as setting up new community orchards) – including a project working with a Transition Town group to set up Hackney Harvest.
- Grow Sheffield volunteers harvest fruit from across the city and distribute it to the local community, with the aim of reconnecting communities with their local food resources. They also plant fruit trees and offer workshops on everything from grafting to chutney making.
- Abundance Manchester picks surplus and unwanted fruit from gardens and unwanted trees around South Manchester and redistributes it to local groups and communities.
It’s time to get out from behind the bushes, wash your hands of the blackberry juice and start redistributing our cities’ fruity wealth to those who need it most. | <urn:uuid:8a76396b-f463-44cd-8657-0daa107b5899> | CC-MAIN-2021-17 | https://www.99roots.com/en/magazine/the-secret-blackberryer-a48787 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-17/segments/1618039544239.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20210421130234-20210421160234-00160.warc.gz | en | 0.961184 | 494 | 2.625 | 3 |
In both leftwing and dissident circles the idea prevails that capitalism is synonymous with greed and grounded in the lower instincts of man. Max Weber criticized “this naïve idea of capitalism” over a century ago. “Unlimited greed for gain,” he explained, “is not in the least identical with capitalism, and is still less its spirit.” To the contrary: “capitalism may even be identical with the restraint, or at least a rational tempering, of this irrational impulse.” Modern Capitalism is about “the pursuit of profit” in a rational, honest, fair, impartial, industrious, and frugal way. Merchants, loans of all kinds, foreign trade, colonial entrepreneurs, financiers, large scale speculators, have “existed everywhere” — in “Babylon, Hellas, India, China, Rome”. But it was only in modern times that the Occident developed “a very different form of capitalism which has appeared nowhere else”: the rational pursuit of gain through an ethos of impartial fairness and trust.
The German Max Weber made this argument in his famous but not well understood essay, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, first published in 1904. To this day the left and the dissident right have remained under the influence of Karl Marx’s argument that capitalism makes humans rapacious and concerned only with their own interests in a zero sum system of exchanges. Weber saw this new capitalistic ethos primarily among Protestants.
He saw in Protestant capitalists a new type of personality no longer interested in the “undisciplined” acquisition of wealth “without reserve and as an uncontrolled impulse.” Protestantism brought “order into the conduct” of capitalists, “a cool self control and frugality,” freed “from the power of irrational impulses”. Weber highlighted Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography as an exemplary expression of this new type of character. The virtues Franklin used to develop his character included temperance, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, chastity, moderation, and humility. These are the ideal virtues of the new capitalism created by Europeans.
It was not enough that the ideas of Marx about capitalism came to prevail in Western culture. In the 1940s a new idea was added: the market capitalism invented by modern Europeans was uniquely “greedy” whereas the markets of traditional cultures were “reciprocative” and redistributive”. This argument was articulated by the Jewish Hungarian Karl Polanyi in his widely read book, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (1944). When I was a student this was required reading in both undergrad and grad courses. The argument Polanyi made was endearingly attractive: “no economy ever existed that, even principle, was controlled by markets” prior to the rise of “self-sustaining markets” in Europe controlled by an independent class of merchants concerned only with profit maximization. The allocation of resources and goods in all societies before “the great transformation” was characterized by reciprocative and redistributive principles. There were no “self-regulating markets” operating according to profit-seeking principles with prices determined by the “free” interaction of supply and demand. The self-interested, income-maximizing Homo economicus was a modern European historical phenomenon.
Before modern Europeans came along, the economies of the world were similarly “embedded” in non-economic institutions, kinship, religious, and political institutions. Production for use and according to culturally specific principles dictated economic decision-making rather than “production for exchange” in which all things are for sale, including land and labor, and in which monetary gain is the chief aim.
Polanyi’s claims provoked a long debate, the so-called formalist–substantivist debate. I followed this debate, and, like almost every other academic, I sided with the substantive school. The formalist school seemed mean-spirited and unsocial with its argument that throughout history markets were driven by the maximization of utility in a world of scarcity which dictates finding the most efficient method of production to maximize returns and satisfy the natural human preference for gain. I preferred the substantive school argument that scarcity was a product of the maldistribution of resources and that people in the past were naturally humanitarian and socialistic with their “reciprocative” and “redistributive” markets.
Henrich’s Weberian Argument
Although Henrich does not mention Polanyi, and does not say much about Weber’s views on modern occidental capitalism, chapter 9, “Of Commerce and Cooperation,” can be read as a quasi-Weberian critique of Polanyi and the generally accepted Marxist view that modern European capitalism is based on greed and dishonest exchange. On the basis of ethnographic studies and behavioral experiments conducted with people from 27 societies across the globe, hunter-gatherers, herders, subsistence farmers, slash-and-burn horticulturalists, and wage laborers, Henrich shows that the motivations of those who are less integrated to market economies are actually more selfish and less concerned with fairness and equality. People from more market-integrated societies, with self-regulating markets, are more inclined to care about trust, fairness, and cooperation with members of their society at large and with strangers. Individuals can’t succeed in a self-regulating market unless they acquire a reputation for “impartial fairness, honesty, and cooperation with acquaintances, strangers, and anonymous others because it’s these qualities that will help them attract the most customers as well as the best business partners, employees, students, and clients”.
Individuals operating in markets “embedded” to kin-based institutions (in which trade occurs within a “densely interwoven network of interpersonal relationships”) are not inclined to be trustful, fair, and honest in their dealings with those outside these networks. Until the West saw the birth of impersonal competitive markets, trade across societies was controlled by merchant diasporas “linked by clan ties…and personal relationships”. The property was corporately owned by the clan, and rights over profits were dependent on ancestry and kin-based status. Only in the West do we see the rise of markets based on principles of fairness and impersonal trust.
Asian Kin-Based Markets
Henrich’s Weberian argument seriously undermines as well the currently popular multiculturalist argument, made by the two Jewish academics A.G. Frank and Kenneth Pomeranz, that as late as 1750/1820 China/Asia was more advanced economically than Europe with its highly productive agriculture and its extensive international networks of trade and larger urban centers. What matters is not the size of urban centers and international trade networks, but whether these markets were based on principles of fairness and trust, impersonal forms of credit, insurance, and long term agreements, rather than on “interpersonal relationships and kin-based institutions”. Market networks in Asia and the Islamic world remained rooted in a “different cultural psychology and family organization”. The Asian markets were ultimately controlled by large extended families, clan ties, interpersonal agreements.
It was very different in Europe. With the imposition of the Church’s family program from the early middle ages onwards, the prohibitions against polygamy, cousin marriage, and clan ownership of property, coupled with the promotion of monogamy, neolocal residence, and individual ownership, Europeans were increasingly able to break away from kin-based relations and norms, choose their own friends, spouses, business partners, create their own voluntary associations, move freely into newly created chartered towns with their professional guilds, universities, and other associations, all rooted in a different individualistic psychology. Much has been made about Marco Polo’s excitement over the larger urban centers in China, but Henrich effectively shows that the rate of urbanization in Europe was accelerating from 1000 to 1800 (the number of people living in cities of over 10,000 increased 20 times) whereas China’s urbanization rate “remained relatively constant”. The freeing of individuals from kinship ties resulted in a sustained increased in residential and relational mobility across Europe.
While the cities of Asia remained structured by kin-based relationships, the chartered towns of Europe were a new phenomenon in history, based on representative institutions and open to people from all walks of life. Henrich provides data showing that those urban centers that were exposed to the Church’s family program (due to the presence of nearby bishoprics) grew and developed representative forms of governments faster. The inhabitants of these chartered towns, the merchants, artisans, and shopkeepers, were not “enmeshed in patrilineal, polygynous clans”. Therefore, their success did not depend on kin-based connections, but on “their reputation for impartial honesty and fairness, and on their industriousness, patience, precision, and punctuality”.
It has long been known that the medieval cities of Europe were fundamentally different from the otherwise larger cities of Asia, and even from the cities of ancient Greece and Rome, in their enjoyment of corporate autonomy, constitutional charters, and the presence of multiple self-governing associations, and a bourgeoisie that was politically autonomous from nonurban feudal lords and state authorities. But credit is due to Henrich for explaining that the ultimate roots of these unique cities lay in the fact that its inhabitants were rooted in a different type of family institution and a different cultural psychology.
The WEIRDness of Roman Law and Aristotle
Henrich mentions briefly the rise of universities as voluntary associations, and observes that about 50 such universities could be found in Europe by 1500, “all competing for students and professors”. The very first voluntary university was formed in Bologna by a group of law students who came from elsewhere, “in the wake of the rediscovery of the Justinian Code of Roman civil law in the 11th century”. These universities “trained lawyers, theologians, and other professionals in writing, logic, oratory as well as in math, music, and astronomy”. The professionals trained in these universities were “increasingly capable of deducing abstract principles from the mishmash of existing customs or laws and then formulating well-structured regulations and policies for their urban communities”. Europe would go on to develop new forms of commercial and contract law, which “other complex societies like China didn’t substantially develop until the 19th century, despite being more sophisticated in other forms of law and philosophy”.
Henrich does not tell us what were the more sophisticated forms of law and philosophy China had already developed. China never developed a concept of natural law and every major philosophical idea in China’s history occurred within the same Confucian outlook they articulated back in ancient times, with “new ideas” consisting of different interpretations and mixtures of this outlook with Taoism and Buddhism. What Henrich should have added, or asked, is why a Justinian Code of Roman civil law written many centuries before in the sixth century, in Byzantium when kinship ties were very strong, became so useful for the WEIRD development of voluntary associations in Europe based on new forms of commercial and contract law? Since the Justinian Code was based on Roman law, the question is: how did Romans (with their supposedly non-WEIRD psychology) develop a legal system characterized by a high degree of logical consistency in the classification of different types of law, the definition of terms, the formulation of specific rules, and in the way questions and answers from jurists were systematically collected?
Some time ago Paul Vinogradoff posed a similar question in his influential book, Roman Law in Medieval Europe (1909). Why Europeans were so receptive to Roman law throughout the period from the eleventh to the eighteenth centuries?
Within the whole range of history there is no more momentous and puzzling problem than that concerned with the fate of Roman law after the downfall of the Roman State. How is it that a system shaped to meet certain conditions not only survived those conditions but has retained its vitality even to the present day, when political and social surroundings are entirely altered? Why is it still deemed necessary for the beginner in jurisprudence to read manuals compiled for Roman students who lived more than 1,500 years ago? How did it come about that the Germans, instead of working out their legal system in accordance with national precedents and with the requirements of their own country, broke away from their historical jurisprudence to submit to the yoke of bygone doctrines of a foreign empire?
The answer can be found in Henrich’s own argument — so long as we recognize that the Romans (and ancient Greeks) were already showing WEIRD traits, and that in the case of the Romans this was heavily reflected in their legal thinking. After the dissolution of their kinship groups, the Germanic peoples found Roman law to be congenial for the organization of their emerging voluntary associations. This is not to detract from the ways in which medievalists, as Henrich says in another chapter, went beyond the Roman preoccupation with consistency in the application of their laws, in search of “syntheses rooted in a set of fundamental principles, axioms, or rights” (404). What Henrich leaves out is the importance of Aristotle’s logic in the development of legal principles and axioms in the Middle Ages and in the teaching of the key disciplines of logic and theology in the universities.
As R.W. Southern observed in his much praised book, The Making of the Middle Ages (1953), “the digestion of Aristotle’s logic was the greatest intellectual task of the period from the end of the tenth to the end of the twelfth century”. The translations of the Categories and On Interpretation had already been accomplished by Boethius in 510–12 when the Church’s family program had barely started. Boethius transmitted to Europe, before the full recovery of Aristotle’s work in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the analytical art of “classifying the objects external to the mind”. He taught them (via this ancient thinker) how to think analytically with “the terms genus and species, differentia, property and accident, and to apply these conceptions in argument and discussion”. He found in Aristotle’s Categories examples of what Henrich identifies as the rather peculiar tendency of WEIRD people to detach objects from context and think in terms of abstract rules and universal categories, such as quantity, quality, relation, position, place, time, state, and action.
Henrich’s Historical Model
In Henrich’s theoretical model, kinship/family is the supreme variable, the major cultural force shaping human psychology and the deep structures of history. Kinship/family is the first institution, the longest surviving institution, within which humans are socialized from birth, around which most human relationships are formed, and out of which most institutions in history have originated. European thinkers noticed the crucial importance of kinship the moment they began to study early societies. This is why kinship is the central concept in the discipline of anthropology, a field that seeks to understand human nature by analyzing the earliest societies.
It is hard for Westerners socialized in WEIRD societies, where families have been nuclearized and a wide network of other institutions have been created independently of kinship ties, to appreciate the cardinal importance of kinship, even as they appreciate how significant the family remains in the ontogenetic development of humans. Westerners prefer to talk about the role of ideas, Malthusian demographic pressures, modes of production, technology, war, and religion. But Henrich, by combining his anthropological background/ethnographic field studies with cognitive/cultural psychology, and the rise of the West debate, has managed to uncover how the very absence of kinship relationships in the West since the Middle Ages fundamentally shaped the psychology of whites in a direction that led to the rise of the modern world.
As I indicated in an earlier commentary, “intergroup competition” is an important variable in Henrich’s model, a force that pressures humans to improve or “scale up” their kinship relationships or their kin-based institutions, and their “voluntary” institutions. Throughout most of history, kinship ties were extended, intensified, and altered to meet the pressures of external competitors. He takes it as a given of nature, as part of the struggle for survival, that humans, kinship groups, societies and civilizations, compete with each other. We will see in the next commentary how he views commercial competition as a “taming” or “domestication” of intergroup conflict.
Other factors play a role in Henrich’s model. Voluntary or informal institutions, made possible by the dissolution of kinship groups, act as agents in their own right nurturing a WEIRDer population. Henrich also recognizes how religious beliefs and ecological/geographical factors can “shape our social psychology in important ways”. In an earlier commentary we went over his observation that different types of farming growing out of different ecological settings (irrigation/wet rice farming versus rain fed farming) can affect the intensities of kinship ties. Chinese and Indians who came from areas where rice cultivation and irrigation had long prevailed tend to be less individualistic, more inclined to conform to the existing social norms, and less analytical.
Once you define humans as a “cultural species” it stands to reason that a wide variety of other cultural factors besides kinship will play some role in Henrich’s model. While human behavior is “anchored” in genetics, humans are different from other species precisely because they have a genetic capacity to learn and accumulate knowledge. Culture can alter the brains, hormones, motivations, and personalities of humans. Not everything identified as a “cultural factor” is bound to change the psychology of humans. Henrich identifies kinship, the absence of kinship, and the creation of monogamous nuclear families, as the most powerful cultural forces because these institutions are intrinsic to the ontogenetic maturation of humans, and the social relationships and norms they rely upon to construct their societies.
The spread of high rates of literacy, initiated by the rise of the WEIRD Protestant religion, has also affected the neurology of the brain, improved verbal memory and analytical thinking. Henrich observes at one point that “any factors that increase individuals’ geographic or relational mobility can tilt their psychology in particular ways”. By “relational mobility” he means the establishment of ties with people outside one’s kin-group. Individuals with weaker family ties are more likely to move geographically, and this migration reinforces WEIRD traits, weakens the in-group vs. outgroup distinction. He does not quite say that the sheer act of moving to another place and interacting with “strangers” alters the psychology of humans. His emphasis is on how the demolition of Europe’s kin based institutions increased residential and relational mobility and how this reinforced WEIRD behaviors.
Consciousness of Consciousness
In any case, and this is the point I am trying to conclude with, in the last paragraphs of chapter 9 he suggests that western Europeans were more prepared psychologically to interact with foreigners and establish impersonal contracts in a less in-group oriented way because they “had a geographical edge over many parts of the world in developing trade and commerce: this region possesses an unusually large number of natural ports and navigable waterways as well as inland seas in both the north (Baltic) and the south (Mediterranean). This geographic preparedness would have catalyzed the process of market integration.” Now, since we have seen that Europeans were already proto-WEIRD in ancient times, one has to wonder if there were certain environmental factors in Europe inducing Europeans to be more mobile and less kinship oriented.
Kevin MacDonald believes that the colder climes of northern Europe selected for monogamous relationships and individualist behaviors. It is not clear that the same environmental argument can be made about the origins of monogamy in ancient Greece. I observed in a previous commentary that monogamy in ancient Greece and Rome was culturally mandated, rather than environmentally selected. This does not mean we should ignore the many other ways in which the incredibly diverse ecology of Europe selected for different physical and behavioral traits. I wrote in Uniqueness about how the environment of Europe nurtured a people with a “pioneering spirit”.
But in the end the focus should be on the rise of self-conscious reason, how Europeans freed themselves from the grip of nature, and how the mind came to have communion with itself and thus became increasingly free, conscious of its consciousness, an ‘I’ for itself over against what is external, which means that one can’t explain European culture in terms of forces completely alien to this emancipated consciousness. It looks like Europeans became conscious of their consciousness in ancient times, building their institutions in a more intentionally conscious manner, culturally mandating monogamy, creating city states based on the new identity of citizenship to overcome tribal loyalties. Consciousness was freed to generate new forms of art, philosophies, architectural styles, and sciences, in truly creative ways, with an autonomous logic of their own, not explainable in terms of natural selection and “unintentional” actions. It is within this realm of free consciousness that Europeans fundamentally contrasted themselves from all the peoples of the world. | <urn:uuid:1f2c2be4-120d-4ecf-8075-6fc389a64104> | CC-MAIN-2022-49 | https://www.eurocanadians.ca/2021/03/whites-invented-capitalism-based-on-impartial-fairness-trust-11.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446710926.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20221203075717-20221203105717-00590.warc.gz | en | 0.958697 | 4,512 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Let’s begin with the obvious: kids like to climb, and run, and get their hands on anything that could (and probably will) break. They like to explore and imagine, create and destroy and create again.
Thankfully, a movement in the world of Education has begun to account for this reality (see:Ken Robinson’s seminal 2007 TedTalk), to leave behind the antiquated schema that children are little adults, and to engage students’ creativity, energy, and need for expression – a task often complicated by the physical constraints of a traditional classroom.
When designing a classroom, architects are keenly aware of the importance of the physical conditions of a learning environment (temperature, crowding, even permeability to the community) on a child’s psyche. However, as much as we depend upon studies to help us design the “correct” environment, what we ultimately need is a practical, playful perspective that understands what excites and engages children.
We need a source of inspiration. To look at spaces that welcome interaction with the environment and encourage the free reign of energy and imagination. We need the playground.
A child is visually stimulated by a playground off the bat; from color to scale, the playground has been designed with his interest in mind. Not so shockingly, schools often incorporate color and familiar images to similarly appeal to their students’ sensibilities (most notedly in the Aadharshila Vatika School in India). However, I would suggest that the visual layout of a playground, not just the color palette, has more to offer us as a point of inspiration. Take the sculptural playground of ANNABAU. Like most playgrounds, it has a variety of activities for kids to play on; however, ANNABU’s uses a loop-like structure that dips and rises as kids climb along it, allowing the space to be seen and understood as a continuous sequence of ordered activities.
Similarly, many contemporary classroom designs create activity areas, differentiated by interest or learning mode (visual, experimental, individual, group, etc). We can see this type of flexible lay-out in the Discovery Charter School in Newark, New Jersey, a one-room school. Much like a playground, the room is described as a ‘vast scenario’ of students and teachers, separated into different workstations by colors, movable tables, and low partitions.
However, in large schools where the noisy one-room model wouldn’t suffice, a different type of structure needs to be considered. The loop is the perfect contender to connect these spaces with well-organized, open pathways that give children the freedom to move from one to the other, consciously aware of the expected sequence, while being supervised by their teachers .
This was the idea behind the oval-shaped Fuji Kindergarten in Tokyo, Japan, which was designed to “allow children to mix and move around at will.” The pedagogy of learning modules perfectly lends itself to the structure of the loop, or oval as in the case of the Fuji school; in this way the school day is spatially understood as a circuit of activities that gives children flexibility of movement and the sensation of play.
Taking Risks and Making Nooks
The ANNABAU playground aside, most playgrounds contain high-reaching structures that provide a thrilling challenge to young climbers. As Mary Gutmann, architectural history professor at City College, notes in a New York Times article: “The intention is to fall. You don’t want to make the environment so safe that it’s not challenging.”
The playground offers an environment where falling is encouraged, but getting back up expected. It is an environment of risk and recovery, the active climb followed by the moment of rest.
I would imagine that any school would find a climbing structure in the classroom to be problematic (to say the least). However, few would disagree that the classroom of the future should encourage a risk-taking attitude (prerequisite for creative thinking). Moreover, it should also account for the child’s need not just to climb, but to experience the moment of reflective rest that follows.
You may have noticed that most playgrounds also offer tunnels and hidden spaces: the kinds of places where children retreat from the world and let their imaginations run wild. In their article “Landscape for Learning,” Louis Torelli, M.S.Ed. and Charles Durrett, Architect, maintain that children need to occasionally separate from the group and have the sensation of solitude, and suggest that “private and semi-private environments are critical to the development of the young child’s self-concept and personal identity.”
While a tunnel may be impractical for the classroom, if we juxtapose these two elements of a child’s psychology – the desire to climb and the need for retreat – another type of structural solution emerges: the lofted nook.
While breakaway spaces are fairly common in classroom designs, the Seven Fountains School in South Africa has designed ‘creativity’ spaces that are lofted – to much acclaim (the school was awarded an Award of Excellence by the South African Institute of Architects and selected as one of the Exemplary Educational Facilities of 2011 by the OECD, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).
70ºN Arkitektur‘s Kindergarten design (featured in the picture above) provides adjustable, climbable playing walls that create intimate reading nooks and lofted mezzanines. Here we see two solutions to the challenges of the modern, multifunctional classroom, solutions that – critically – take into account a child’s perspective.
By examining the physical space of the playground, we open ourselves up to designing a school grounded in the principles of play: a space unrestricted by the expectations of adults, where children interact with the world on their own terms. If the goal of a 21st century education is to activate creativity, then the school designs of the future should look to the playground to create, not landscapes for learning, but playscapes .
“Reimagining the Classroom: Opportunities to Link Recent Advances in Pedagogy to Physical Settings.” The McGraw Hill Research Foundation. http://mcgraw-hillresearchfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Reimagining_the_Classroom_DeGregoriFINAL.pdf>
“Classroom Design and How It Influences Behavior.” Early Childhood News.
“Best Practices in Educational Facilities Investments: Fuji Kindergarten, Tachikawa, Tokyo, Japan.” Centre for Effective Learning Environments (CELE).
Shattuck, Kathryn. “For Youngsters, Leaps and Boundaries.” The New York Times.
Durrett, Charles and Louis Torelli. “LANDSCAPE FOR LEARNING: THE IMPACT OF CLASSROOM DESIGN ON INFANTS AND TODDLERS.” Spaces for Children. | <urn:uuid:e8970a31-cf73-4f33-b541-7aa65dfd1252> | CC-MAIN-2016-30 | http://www.archdaily.com/214274/forming-playscapes-what-schools-can-learn-from-playgrounds/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-30/segments/1469257828286.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20160723071028-00283-ip-10-185-27-174.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94621 | 1,463 | 2.546875 | 3 |
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