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by Denyse O'Leary
Australian philosopher David Stove (1927-1994), not a religious man and no defender of any type of creationism, wrote a book Darwinian Fairytales (Avebury Press, 1995), which is part of the Avebury Series in Philosophy. The series of essays (chapters) that shows clearly why the principal neo-Darwinian concepts of kin selection and inclusive fitness simply do not conform to the available evidence - certainly not for humans, and probably not for many other life forms. This series of blogs briefly introduces the topics covered in the 11 chapters of the book, with some other links, as available. This is a brief comment on Chapter 2 of 11, "Where Darwin First Went Wrong About Man."
Stove begins Chapter 2 by pointing out that evolution theory was unpopular in the early 19th century for several reasons. It had become associated with the Enlightenment which, in the hands of political radicals, had ended in the Reign of Terror and then Napoleon. At any rate, Darwin avoided the risk of a "swarm of murderous associates" (p. 15) who publicly associated themselves with evolution by saying nothing about humans in Origin of Species (1959). This was not because he and other Darwinians did not want to include humans; their most prize project was a fully naturalistic account of human origins and development. But Darwin prudently waited until Descent of Man (1871), by which time the political landscape had very much changed.
The other problem, of course, was that evolution had never been directly observed and no plausible mechanism had been proposed for it. Stove notes, "It is on this principle that you would doubt my word, if I were to tell you (for example) that electrical storms follow me wherever I go."
Darwin found a plausible mechanism for natural selection in Malthus's theory that population increases geometrically, but the food supply only arithmetically, and thus numbers are kept in check by starvation. In that case, the fittest slight variations in every population would survive and breed, and by slight progressive changes, form new species. Thus, contrary to widespread popular folklore, Darwin did not invent the idea of evolution. He borrowed from Malthus a plausible mechanism.
But. Stove asks, is the mechanism correct? Is it true that population always exceeds the food supply (which both Malthus's description and Darwin's mechanism of natural selection would require)?
Some life forms do reproduce up to the limit of their food supply. But that certainly isn't true of domestic pets or agricultural animals, he notes (p. 22). Darwinians can say that these are exceptions to the rule, of course, because they are under human management, but here is the difficulty: Then they cannot go on to claim that humans are part of the scheme of natural selection. They can have it either way but not both. Stove notes,
It is by no means true, then, even of all animal populations, that they are always as large, or are rapidly tending to become as large, as the available food would permit. For populations of pines, cod, and countless other specie, it is no doubt a useful approximation to the truth, to say that they always blindly and quickly multiply up to the numbers that there is food to support. But by the time one gets to man, it is a grotesque travesty of the truth to say this. Human life is full of opportunities for reproduction which the supply of food would permit, but which are not taken in fact. (p. 25)
Human society most emphatically does not have all the children it can, and there is no reason to believe that it ever did, except possibly under "revenge of the cradle" ideologies, but that is not an impersonal Darwinian process, it is conscious strategy.
Now recall that
1. The question here is not about whether evolution occurs, but to what extent Darwin's proposed mechanism actually provides an accurate account of it.
2. In Darwin's theory, reproducing up to the level of the food supply produces competition and triggers the mechanism of natural selection.
3. If many creatures do not show the tendency Darwin supposed, then his mechanism does not bear nearly the explanatory weight he proposed for it.
This is true regardless of the number of US federal judges or education organizations that endorse Darwin's theory, and quite apart from the question of whether another theory has yet been proposed that explains the matter better.
Stove goes into considerable detail about the many mechanisms in human societies, past and present, that limit population growth, everything from priestly celibacy to abortion. He notes
There could not possibly be such a thing as religious sexual asceticism, of course, in our species any more than in any other, if the Malthus–Darwin principle were true. But that, again, is just too bad for the principle. The simple fact of the matter is that large and enduring religious communities, committed to complete sexual abstinence, and largely (at least) practiscing it, are a constantly recurring feature of human history. (p. 27)
One might add that the Roman Catholic Church, one of the largest and most successful religious institutions in history is unshakeably committed to the unDarwinian strategy of demanding celibacy of its brightest and best.
Now, evolutionary psychologists have sometimes argued that that's how the Catholic Church's clergy help the reproduction of others. But all such arguments, whether phrased in terms of "religious genes," "religious memes," or whatever, are simply impostures. These impostures are intended to talk around the evident failure of human society to conform to Darwin's/Malthus's theory. If we are not talking about a priest's own squalling babies with his real genes (as in nucleotides), we are not talking about Darwinian or neo-Darwinian evolution.
(Of course, if someone wants to propose a historical theory of the evolution of religious organizations, showing how clerical celibacy may contribute to their success, the world's their oyster. But that is NOT the theory that began with Darwin's reading of Malthus, and has nothing to do with it.)
Stove ends by pointing out that Darwin's theory, despite being the best currently available*, was badly wrong about man (which is ironic because that was precisely what Malthus had hoped to account for). And Darwin too.
In Chapter 3, "But What About War, Pestilence, and All That" Stove addresses the question of why Darwin (and Malthus) systematically neglected the importance of checks on population growth other than food, and tries to understand why.
*Stove does not take the view, widely urged on us all, that we must come up with a better theory before we are allowed doubts about the current one.
Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).
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Evolution has become a favorite topic of the news media recently, but for some reason, they never seem to get the story straight. The staff at Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture started this Blog to set the record straight and make sure you knew "the rest of the story".
A blogger from New England offers his intelligent reasoning.
We are a group of individuals, coming from diverse backgrounds and not speaking for any organization, who have found common ground around teleological concepts, including intelligent design. We think these concepts have real potential to generate insights about our reality that are being drowned out by political advocacy from both sides. We hope this blog will provide a small voice that helps rectify this situation.
Website dedicated to comparing scenes from the "Inherit the Wind" movie with factual information from actual Scopes Trial. View 37 clips from the movie and decide for yourself if this movie is more fact or fiction.
Don Cicchetti blogs on: Culture, Music, Faith, Intelligent Design, Guitar, Audio
Australian biologist Stephen E. Jones maintains one of the best origins "quote" databases around. He is meticulous about accuracy and working from original sources.
Most guys going through midlife crisis buy a convertible. Austrialian Stephen E. Jones went back to college to get a biology degree and is now a proponent of ID and common ancestry.
Complete zipped downloadable pdf copy of David Stove's devastating, and yet hard-to-find, critique of neo-Darwinism entitled "Darwinian Fairytales"
Intelligent Design The Future is a multiple contributor weblog whose participants include the nation's leading design scientists and theorists: biochemist Michael Behe, mathematician William Dembski, astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, philosophers of science Stephen Meyer, and Jay Richards, philosopher of biology Paul Nelson, molecular biologist Jonathan Wells, and science writer Jonathan Witt. Posts will focus primarily on the intellectual issues at stake in the debate over intelligent design, rather than its implications for education or public policy.
A Philosopher's Journey: Political and cultural reflections of John Mark N. Reynolds. Dr. Reynolds is Director of the Torrey Honors Institute at | <urn:uuid:45fa6f05-9cc6-4630-bd31-9722cb85dfad> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/2/2006/04/03/lstrongglemgdarwinian_fairy_tales_l_emg_8 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999654440/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060734-00088-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953585 | 1,969 | 2.65625 | 3 |
The texture, flavor, and aroma of grapes are what will pull you towards it many health benefits. It’s been a part of this world for over 8,000 years when the first grapevines were seen in the Middle East. There are all kinds of grapes you could think of; red, green, purple, and seedless grapes. (Jen Reviews)
If not consumed as fresh fruits, or as a whole, they’re transformed into grape jellies, jams, wines, and raisins. Such a versatile fruit must have surprising health benefits to boast of, right? Over the past years, science has proven that consumption of grapes can do you good, beyond what you could have possibly imagined. It helps with the prevention of heart diseases, metabolic syndrome, cancer, and gastrointestinal diseases.
1. The Resveratrol Compound in Grapes Enhance the Body’s Immune System
Grapes contain natural antioxidants to a high degree. These antioxidants are beneficial for supporting and protecting your body against unwanted immune damage. Such immune damage makes you a liability for various diseases including cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and liver damage.
According to the study, the resveratrol paired with vitamin D present in grapes has a telling impact on the body’s immune function. It reduces inflammation, fights bacteria, and defends against harmful cancer cells and heart disease.
The most fundamental role of an immune system is to provide support for metabolic activities while protecting against damaged cells from reproducing quickly.
The vitamin D and resveratrol antioxidant in grapes suggest better defense against the spread of chronic diseases and impaired cells. It even helps heal wounds and infections faster.
Key Takeaway: Grapes contain a good amount of resveratrol antioxidants that work well with vitamin D to provide protection against many diseases. The daily consumption of grapes will help you fight infections, recover from injuries and diseases faster, and overall transform your health back to normal. They dramatically strengthen the immune system.
2. The Daily Consumption of Grapes Inhibit the Risk of Developing Heart Diseases
Heart diseases such as atherosclerosis are characterized by the hardening and thinning of the artery muscles.
Factors such as high cholesterol levels, heart attack, stroke, smoking, and high blood pressure cause the narrowing of the blood vessels responsible for carrying blood from the heart to other parts of the body.
It can cause plaque buildup in the arteries, and if left untreated for a long time, it could lead to permanent blockages.
A simple study on healthy individuals claimed that people over the age of 50 were most likely to be diagnosed with this heart disease. That said, the in the initial stages, there are hardly any symptoms to determine the cause and treatment.
Which is why you need something strong and healthy to combat this disease before it happens to you. The polyphenols present in grapes are powerful antioxidants that inhibit oxidation, inflammation, and platelet aggregation in the body.
They’re good nutrients for proper activation of proteins in the body that restrict cell damage.
Key Takeaway: Grapes are loaded with nutritive polyphenols that can improve your cardiovascular health. Studies show that grape eaters have a lower risk of developing atherosclerosis, which is a harmful cardiovascular disease.
3. Eating Grapes Regularly Prevents Age-Associated Memory Loss
Cognitive fitness is as important as physical fitness, especially for adults. While you go outside for a walk or a run everyday to prevent age-related physical breakdowns, a healthy diet is one of the best ways to remain focused as you get older.
Fruits high in unsaturated fats, low in cholesterol, and contain powerful antioxidants such as resveratrol have a potential of preventing age-related memory loss.
Resveratrol is good for the heart, as I’ve already discussed above, but a lesser known fact is that it’s beneficial for the hippocampus of the brain. The hippocampus is responsible for memory, mood, and learning abilities of the brain. And while age-related memory loss is a part of many aging disorders for older adults, anything that has a positive effect on cognitive ability is a good thing.
This antioxidant significantly improves your chances of resisting Alzheimer’s disease as you get older. It improves blood flow and prevents excessive inflammation in the memory centre of the brain (that is the hippocampus).
Key Takeaway: A study conducted on aged rats showed that resveratrol-rich diets showed both memory improvement and spatial learning enhancement within 25 months of treatment. Hence, it can improve overall memory loss disabilities for people embracing the old age streak.
4. Grapes Fruit Juice May Protect You From Type 2 Diabetes
If you didn’t already know, not all fruit juices are good for diabetic patients. The consumption of only a few fruit juices lower the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, while some indicate a higher risk.
To determine which fruits’ juice is beneficial for people struggling with type 2 diabetes, BMJ conducted a simple study. The main outcome was determined by studying women with type 2 diabetes. It varied from whole fruit consumption of bananas, grapes, raisins, strawberries, apples, pears, and many other fruits.
As a result, the studies suggested that great consumption of grapes, blueberries, and apples are linked to a lower risk of type 2 diabetes.
Grapes contain anthocyanins, polyphenols, flavonoids, and resveratrol that are good compounds for preventing type 2 diabetes in healthy individuals. They regulate proper blood sugar balance, they lower the glucose index value in the body, and stimulate optimal cholesterol levels. All of which are ideal for preventing chronic diabetic diseases.
Key Takeaway: The overproduction of glucose leads to type 2 diabetes. This is caused by lack of exercise, unhealthy food habits, and high cholesterol levels in the body. Grapes help correct such a characteristic. Consuming greater amounts of grapes fruit juice is associated with a lower risk of developing diabetes, especially type 2 diabetes in patients.
5. The Flavonoids in Grapes Reduce Cell Damage Caused by Ultraviolet Radiation
Ultraviolet radiation is a significant agent of skin cancer and other symptoms of skin cell damage. Although UV rays are supposedly good for vitamin D and endorphins proliferation in the skin cells, they do carry dangerous risks.
The type of flavonoids present in grapes have showed positive effects on UV-damaged skin cells. Grapes also contain phenolic acids such as gallic acid which increases its protective property to prevent skin cancer and other skin disorders.
UV radiation leads to DNA damage, malignancy, and pigmentary changes. That said, genetic factors also contribute to the severity of skin diseases including skin cancer.
As you already know, skin is the most primary and the largest organ of your body. It possesses two significant layers: epidermis and dermis. Any damage to even one of these layers can cause serious environmentally-induced skin disorders.
Key Takeaway: Grape eaters have a much lower risk of suffering from skin damage caused by harmful UV rays. It appears that the flavonoids present in grapes have a positive effect on the prevention and treatment of skin cancer and other harmful skin diseases.
6. Grapes are the Biggest Source of Vitamin K for Optimal Bone Health
Grapes can combat severe vitamin K deficiency, which is also important for boosting the function of bones in the body. If you often suffer from bone fractures, joint pains, and weakness, you have low bone mineral density.
You need dietary vitamin K in your daily diet to lower age-related and induced bone damage. Diseases such as osteoporosis arise from vitamin K and calcium deficiency. So along with your routine nutritive foods, grapes are extremely powerful for good bone health.
A study published on the positive effects of vitamin K on the human body showed that women who consumed 110mg were 30% less likely to suffer from bone fracture or hip break than those who didn’t consume any or very little vitamin K.
The amount of vitamin K you consume affects your body’s ability to strengthen and boost bone health and performance.
Key Takeaway: Vitamin K intake helps prevent bone damage dramatically. It is incredibly nutritious for protecting the bones from fracture, breaks, and other bone conditions like osteoporosis. Eating grapes regularly has a significant impact on improving bone mineral density.
7. Grapes Have Metabolic Syndrome-Fighting Properties
Metabolic syndrome interferes with the body’s normal functioning, causing cardiovascular diseases like coronary heart disease, diabetes, and even a sudden heart attack.
The symptoms of metabolic syndrome include unexplained obesity, a high cholesterol level, high glucose level, high blood pressure, and fatigue. Factors such as unhealthy lifestyle choice greatly affect the proliferation of this syndrome.
To decrease the risk of developing metabolic syndrome, grape intake in very necessary. It protects against the damages of metabolic syndrome on different organs of the body.
The polyphenols have a positive effect on the liver, kidneys, heart, and fat tissues of the body. All of these parts are greatly affected by the metabolic syndrome.
A study conducted on obesity-prone rats explained that a higher intake of grapes on a day-to-day basis showed critical improvement in preventing metabolic syndrome and other organ dysfunction.
In a span of 90 days, the study concluded that a grape-rich diet on obesity-prone rats showed drastic improvement in antioxidant defense and anti-inflammatory response. Especially for preventing liver damage and heart failure, this is principally important.
Key Takeaway: High doses of grapes appear to alleviate metabolic syndrome symptoms in people with a higher risk of developing immune disorders. In a study conducted on rats over a span of 90 days, increase in grape intake proved beneficial for reducing inflammation and oxidative stress that gave birth to metabolic syndrome.
8. Various Polyphenols in Grapes Reduce Oxidative Stress
Oxidative stress are caused by many factors such as inflammation, environmentally-induced stress, genetic factors, and age-related disorders.
For proper cellular regulation and anti-inflammatory effects, reduced levels of oxidative stress is essential. In addition to medical treatment, a natural medicine such as healthy fruits work well to prevent the ever-increasing symptoms of oxidative stress in the body.
Other than lifestyle and genetic factors, a major cause of oxidative stress is advanced age. It can cause a wide number of chronic diseases including diabetes, cognitive disabilities, heart diseases, and metabolic syndrome.
Grapes are rich in antioxidants including polyphenols, carotenoids, and flavonoids essential for anti-inflammatory effect. It protects the body from highly reactive oxygen species. These species damage new cells and increase the number of old and damaged cells in the body. This could also lead to apoptotic cell death and mitochondrial damage.
You want to protect yourself from pathogens and harmful toxic chemicals, both of us have detrimental effects.
Key Takeaway: Factors that significantly increase oxidative stress in the body can be treated and controlled with the help of grapes. They contain powerful antioxidants that are essential for the prevention of chronic diseases characterized by oxidative stress. It supports the body’s immune system and may reduce the risk of developing age-related disorders.
9. Grapes Contain Dietary Fiber and Other Powerful Compounds to Relieve Constipation
Grapes are one of the most effective fruits to eat to fight constipation. They contain dietary fiber, organic acid, cellulose, and sugar.
On the whole, increasing your dietary fiber intake has many health benefits, including reducing cholesterol levels, preventing hypertension, reflux disease, and lowering blood pressure.
Gastrointestinal disorders often arise from symptoms such as chronic constipation. This can occur due to lack of fiber intake and lack of water intake. Grapes are dense in both nutrients required to treat and eliminate constipation.
That said, grapes are considered a laxative food because of the combination of antioxidants, fiber, and other nutrients it contains. Laxatives are natural remedies for people with irregular bowel movements. So proper grape consumption on a daily basis is most beneficial along with regular exercise.
Chronic constipation is a very uncomfortable condition that often leads to bowel obstruction and hard feces. Chronic constipation is linked with other severe diseases including kidney disease and colorectal cancer.
Key Takeaway: Grapes contain dietary fiber and powerful nutrients which have positive effects on your digestive system. It also helps relieve constipation, which is the symptom of bowel obstruction and weak metabolic functioning. People who eat a grape-rich diet show improvements in passing stools without any difficulty.
10. Grapes Can Kill Harmful Cancer Cells
Did you ever wonder why people drink red wine in moderation as a natural health remedy? Extracted from grape, it contains a powerful compound called resveratrol which has a positive effect on killing cancer cells.
To block cancer cells from proliferating, the body needs to block protein from feeding the damaged cells. The resveratrol compound is responsible for proper regulation of protein in the cells.
That said, the anti-inflammatory properties of grapes creates a less oxidative environment, making it difficult for the cancer cells to reproduce and damage other healthy cells in the body.
Grapes also contain special phytonutrients such as catechins, stilbenes, and proanthocyanidins which have positive cancer-fighting effects.
Studies have already established that resveratrol reduces inflammation in the body, curing heart diseases, autoimmune disorders, and other chronic diseases caused by oxidative stress. Grapes help fight prostate cancer, bowel cancer, and colon cancer. It also restricts tumor growth in the brain or bone.
Key Takeaway: Grapes contain compounds that help fight cancer more effectively. They are anti-cancer agents that cause cancer cells to rapidly deteriorate rather than spread throughout the body. Combined with therapy, consuming grapes or grape juice on a regular basis has anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer benefits.
11. The Essential Polyphenols in Grapes Can Improve Blood Pressure
High blood pressure is a risk factor that causes cardiovascular diseases and hypertension. According to studies, a change in diet is a significant factor in preventing and treating hypertension in individuals.
The intake of polyphenols shows a modifiable improvement in patients with high blood pressure. It protects the body against cardiovascular diseases, hence reducing our body’s inflammation and tendency to fight against free radical damage.
It regulates proper cerebral blood flow levels and it also targets the brain for improving vascular health and stimulation.
Polyphenols are great contributors to blood pressure stimulation. They control excessive inflammation in the body which helps alleviating high blood pressure symptoms of hypertension. Keeping in mind that a spike in high blood pressure could lead to sudden heart stroke or plaque buildup restricting proper blood flow from the heart to different organs of the body.
There’s a direct association between the biological and chemical properties of polyphenols to regulate anti-hypertensive and anti-inflammatory functions. It increases and enhances optimal blood coagulation factors.
Key Takeaway: A grape-rich diet can reduce the rate of high blood pressure in adults. It increases the body’s ability to fight against hypertension and other cardiovascular diseases, especially in people who have a high blood pressure problems. | <urn:uuid:6aa490a1-e8ba-4f37-a52e-3a72becf3bea> | CC-MAIN-2021-17 | http://cdn2.nogarlicnoonions.com/11-health-benefits-of-grapes-according-to-science/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-17/segments/1618038065492.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20210411204008-20210411234008-00480.warc.gz | en | 0.931059 | 3,159 | 3 | 3 |
One of ten meters from the shopping center and suffers memory loss and confusion before 60 years. They are people like you and me. They simply do not have the knowledge to prevent brain decline with age.
Because we can not see our brain, we tend to take for granted. We spend more time and effort to take care of our teeth. But bad teeth can be easily fixed brains are irreplaceable. There is general consensus among neurologists that once symptoms appear brain degeneration, current treatments are ineffective. Beware of yourself.
Recent science shows clearly that almost everyone starts to develop in the brain decrease of approximately 35 years, with a loss of consciousness. Five aspects that are measurable loss in 40 years: loss of memory, loss of balance, decreased motor control, slowing the brain and reduced spatial discrimination. These problems slow but steady progress.
Cognitive impairment with aging has increased to about 11 million people in the United States alone. The incidence began to increase rapidly in 1960, and has doubled since 1980 to become the sixth leading cause of death among Americans today. Is expected to increase another 50% in 2025. Act now, decisively, to prevent it from happening to you or your family.
The first step to save your brain is now measuring cognitive ability. Scientists have learned to measure some of the cognitive functions that decline by a normal amount for each decade of age. These are called biomarkers of brain aging. These are now used to assess the biological age of the brain, compared to their chronological age.
One of the easiest tests to do is balance. To maintain balance, the brain combines multiple sensory signals and sends thousands of integrated signals in the brain and body every second. A good balance is a function of primary brain for many skills. But most people do not even think about it, and quickly lose their balance with age.
Here’s a simple test you can do at home to measure the biological age of your brain to maintain balance. Try it without shoes. Choose an open area of the carpet so that if you lose your balance, can not hurt. Standing on one leg, arms slightly bent, as if running. When you feel your balance is good, close your eyes. Standing on one leg with eyes closed while counting to 30 slowly, or the time a person for 30 seconds. Do not move the foot upwards.
If you have to move your foot is down, or loses balance and the need to put the other foot down again. After three practice trials, three-time and closed the average time that you were able to be in balance with eyes. Then perform the test with the other leg. Good balance gives the time of 20 seconds or more. | <urn:uuid:84c52ad1-629e-4b19-ab8f-6da29c7a0ca0> | CC-MAIN-2018-09 | http://fluorineplus.com/prevent-memory-loss-do-not-expect-to-save-your-mind/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-09/segments/1518891814002.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20180222041853-20180222061853-00047.warc.gz | en | 0.962222 | 542 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Dinolingo Curriculum, Lesson Plan
Updated: Nov 26 2023
- Dinolingo offers an expansive range of 50 languages, encompassing over 35,000 activities. Our content vary across languages, with some featuring a higher number of activities than others.
- We offer over 100 lessons in most of our language courses, with a new lesson added every two weeks. We are currently progressing through Level 5 (see below).
1. Level 1 (Available in All Languages)
- 25 Units: 266 Activities
Dinolingo's initial level introduces 200 of the most fundamental words and phrases. Our language learning program is carefully designed to reflect the innate learning patterns of children. Recognizing that young learners naturally start with straightforward words and concise sentences, Therefore we begin by teaching words that are easy for children to grasp, such as 'cat', 'dog', 'mom', 'dad', 'milk', 'water', 'nose', 'hair', etc, which are more likely to engage their interest. Moreover, each level of our program is infused with a captivating element of animal themes, 'birds', 'sea animals', 'zoo animals', farm animals', 'insects', etc. further enriching the educational journey for our young learners.
From the outset, children are also exposed to basic sentences like 'hello', 'how are you', 'good', 'goodbye', 'what is this', and 'this is a...', etc. While it's understood that they may not immediately grasp these constructions, the power of repetition plays a crucial role. With consistent exposure, they gradually assimilate these simple sentences, reinforcing their language skills through repeated practice and engagement.
- Level 1B (Available in select Premium Languages)
- 3 Units: 52 Activities.
As we progress to teaching the alphabet, we seamlessly integrate it with captivating elements and vivid visuals that delight and engage young learners. In this focused segment, we carefully introduce each letter of the language individually, ensuring a thorough and engaging experience. It's important to note that this alphabet-centric part of our program is offered selectively, tailored to specific languages. The uniqueness of this section lies in its customization for each language, acknowledging that each alphabet has its distinct characteristics and nuances. This tailored approach ensures that the learning experience is both effective and enjoyable, catering specifically to the unique alphabet system of each language.
We recognize that the journey of learning the alphabet usually begins when children are around four or five years old in many countries. With this understanding, we respect and accommodate the decision of parents with younger children who might prefer to skip this section of our program. At the same time, we are aware that this alphabet-focused segment is particularly popular among teachers.
- Level 2 (Available in Premium and Deluxe Languages)
- 47 Units: 729 Activities.
In our subsequent level, the emphasis is entirely on expanding vocabulary. This stage teaches nearly 750 words across 47 distinct lessons, designed to be exceptionally straightforward and user-friendly. The key to success in this level is repetition; it's structured to reinforce learning through regular practice, making it an effective and approachable way for learners to significantly broaden their linguistic repertoire.
- Level 3 (Available in Premium and Deluxe Languages)
- 13 Units: 52 Activities.
Level 3 marks a progressive shift towards more advanced learning, specifically tailored for children who are ready to engage with their language training at a higher level, including essential reading skills. This level delves deeper into everyday conversations and greetings, teaching phrases such as 'What is your name?', 'How old are you?', 'Where are you?', "Who are you?' etc.
A standout feature of this level is the inclusion of audiobooks, richly illustrated with colorful dinosaurs embarking on adventures within their own homes and environments. These stories are crafted to mirror the family lifestyles of animated dinosaurs, providing an engaging and relatable context for children to learn and enjoy. This immersive approach helps in making the learning process both educational and entertaining.
- Level 4 (Available in Premium Languages)
- 10 Units: 40 Activities.
In the following level of our program, our beloved dinosaur characters, Terry and Rexy, revisit the words introduced in the first level but with a twist – this time, they are incorporated into more structured sentences. This level also features a captivating collection of audiobooks and videos, accompanied by colorful and entertaining music, designed specifically to capture and hold children's attention.
This stage offers children an opportunity to refresh and reinforce their understanding of the vocabulary they encountered initially. The engaging multimedia elements not only make the learning process more enjoyable but also aid in solidifying their grasp of the language through varied and dynamic modes of presentation. It's an effective way to deepen their knowledge while keeping them engaged and entertained.
- Level 5 (Available in Premium and Deluxe Languages)
- 24 Units: 96 Activities. —-> in progress.
In the next phase of our program, we utilize a combination of engaging videos, audiobooks, and interactive games to smoothly guide children into the basics of reading. This is achieved through the exploration of globally renowned stories and fables. Our methodology prioritizes simplicity and conciseness, featuring only clear, straightforward sentences. This approach is intentionally crafted to avoid overloading young learners with complex or protracted sentence structures. By focusing on brevity and clarity, we aim to create an inviting and manageable learning environment. This strategy ensures that children's first steps into reading are not only educational but also enjoyable and easily graspable.
- Level 6 (Premium and Deluxe Languages)
- 10 Units: Unit 121 to 134.
- Level 7 (Premium and Deluxe Languages)
- 7 Units: Unit 135 to 141.
- Level 8 (Premium Languages)
- 10 / 20 Units: Language learning songs
- Level 9 (Premium and Deluxe Languages)
- 30 Units: Language Specific Stories | <urn:uuid:e6ed5943-1569-42d8-a639-e51eee6248cc> | CC-MAIN-2023-50 | https://help.dinolingo.com/article/442-what-is-the-content-of-dinolingo | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100452.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20231202203800-20231202233800-00305.warc.gz | en | 0.923719 | 1,209 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Philosophy is fascinating, but puzzling topic as it concerns plenty of complexities. Best assignment help providers comprehend your preference for significant concepts. They supply all the support you require with the philosophy works while easing you of the problems composing those notes. Philosophy stands for the “love of wisdom”. It comprises an all-embracing approach that contains visions connected to the behavior of the people. The queries of philosophy are confusing and may leave you abandoned and complicated.
Different components of philosophy
Philosophy can be split into multiple departments; the main department of philosophy are:
· Metaphysics is the study of what is real, it negotiates with the basic queries of existence. It seeks to respond to challenging queries like, what is the nature of truth? How the world exists? Was the universe made? Etc.
· Epistemology deals with the idea of knowledge, how we understand, and what we can learn. Epistemology means the science of knowledge. It is involved via the data and its dimensions and regulations. Epistemology queries the importance of learning, the method via which we get details, the part of our knowledge, and the manner we hold this data.
· Logic is the department of philosophy that examines reasoning. It instructs us on how to distinguish between good and bad logic and how to make accurate statements. It desires responses to queries like, what is the proper reason? How can you differentiate between a fine statement and a bad statement?
· Ethics, understood as ethical philosophy, is normally referred to as the study of values. It desires to manage queries regarding how we should live our life, how we describe appropriate manners, and what we suggest by the fine life.
Topics covered in philosophy assignment help.
There are some other topics in philosophy where assignment helpers can provide guidance.
· Philosophy of education
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· Reasonable prices: assignment offers you affordable assignment help, they know the requirements of the learners and therefore they supply pocket-friendly service without compromising on the quality of the work. You just have to ask do my assignment and you will get the service immediately | <urn:uuid:11070a52-e4f1-4d98-ad49-4d37cf6e7fee> | CC-MAIN-2024-10 | https://magazinediary.com/why-do-students-require-top-quality-philosophy-assignment-help-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947476452.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20240304133241-20240304163241-00202.warc.gz | en | 0.920292 | 748 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Have you ever chosen organic milk over regular milk thinking that the former is the healthier choice? How about organic cookies? Bananas?
Of course, you have. We all have. But what are we really buying into? Is a product healthier just because it has a label that says "organic"? Is it worth the higher price tag?
By definition, organic means that there has been an approved method of farming and production of a food or food product. Companies that label their products as organic cannot use synthetic additives or preservatives in production, nor can they use antibiotics or hormones. The USDA approves these methods; and if 95 percent or more of the product is organically made, then it is worthy of the USDA Certified Organic Seal.
The truth is that we don't really know if organic food is healthier than conventional, non-organic food. There have been inconsistent results in the research comparing the nutrient density of organic foods with that of conventional foods. No conclusive long-term studies have been conducted on the link between traditional food intake and negative health effects such as increased cancer risk.
The one thing that we do know is that organic food is perceived as healthier. If you ask anyone which is healthier, organic or conventional, they will say organic. It does sound like a healthier word. Or, perhaps, we have fallen for clever marketing.
I do know that just because a product says organic doesn’t mean it’s always a healthy choice. Take organic chocolate chip cookies, for example. They are just as high, if not higher, in saturated fat, added sugar and calories than conventional cookies are. They cost at least twice as much when you buy organic, and the box contains fewer cookies! Are cookies really considered healthy in the first place?
Whether or not organic is the healthier way to go is still up for debates, but one thing’s for sure: whole foods are healthier than processed foods. The good news is that the purchase of whole foods compared to that of packaged foods is on the rise. This means that people are buying into the basic principle that eating whole foods as much as possible while limiting processed foods is the path to overall good nutrition and overall superior health! | <urn:uuid:9dfae9b9-0a05-4089-ad86-745b796c11b1> | CC-MAIN-2018-47 | https://www.nutriliving.com/blog/is-organic-food-healthier | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-47/segments/1542039749562.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20181121173523-20181121195523-00073.warc.gz | en | 0.97142 | 446 | 2.546875 | 3 |
The End of the Campaign
Late in May heavy rains swelled the Chickahominy so that communication between the two wings of McClellan's army became precarious. On May 31, Johnston moved against the left wing (on the south side of the river), where the lines extended to Fair Oaks, a railroad station c.6 mi (9 km) east of Richmond. In the ensuing battle of Fair Oaks, or Seven Pines (May 31–June 1, 1862), the Confederate attack, led by James Longstreet, was badly executed. With the help of some divisions of the 2d corps, which managed to cross the river, the Union left wing held its ground. Johnston, severely wounded on May 31, was succeeded on June 1 by Gen. Robert E. Lee, who withdrew the Army of Northern Virginia to Richmond. Lee's subsequent counteroffensive in the Seven Days battles led to McClellan's withdrawal and the close of the campaign. Union forces did not again come so close to Richmond until 1864.
Sections in this article:
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: U.S. History | <urn:uuid:dd5d862e-efba-4e6f-83b2-21c88dbcd475> | CC-MAIN-2016-18 | http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/history/peninsular-campaign-the-end-campaign.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-18/segments/1461860121985.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20160428161521-00056-ip-10-239-7-51.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958327 | 249 | 3.59375 | 4 |
State authorities and hospital officials have discovered serious structural weaknesses at more than a dozen hospital buildings, but they have taken few steps to notify the public about the facilities or require a detailed inventory of hundreds of other potentially dangerous sites.
More than a dozen hospital buildings in the Bay Area and Southern California face the highest-known chances of crumbling during an earthquake, based on a complex mash-up of each building’s structural strength, distance from a fault line and expected ground motion, California Watch has learned.
While the problem of hospital safety has been widely debated, few people know how little California is doing to detect its riskiest hospital buildings. Regulators do not require hospital owners to determine a collapse risk for every building they own, making it impossible to know which should be fixed first.
The state is focused on nearly 700 hospital buildings that were identified in the 1990s as potentially dangerous. Public health officials can revoke a hospital’s license – effectively shutting down the facility – if it doesn’t retrofit, replace or remove patients from those buildings by 2013 or 2015.
But with this mandate looming, state authorities have determined the collapse risks for only 90 of the nearly 700 structures. Among those potentially dangerous buildings, 14 carry collapse risks of nearly 10 to 32 percent, far higher than the score officials consider reasonably safe – which is set at 1.2 percent.
Public officials and hospital authorities expect dozens of hospitals to miss their deadlines to shore up or evacuate key buildings. Even so, the state is unlikely to order a mass shutdown of hospitals, a scenario some deem just as life-threatening as a quake.
The state doesn’t force hospitals to determine their collapse risks – the process is voluntary. The lack of an authoritative inventory of the riskiest buildings concerns people who work in these facilities.
“Those are odds we don’t want to mess with,” said Stephanie Roberson, legislative advocate for the California Nurses Association, which has opposed extending the seismic safety deadline for hospitals. “It’s our patients that are at risk in these facilities.”
Hospital buildings with high collapse risks include those at Kindred Hospital in San Leandro and the California Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles. The collapse risk is 20 percent for the original building at Hollywood Community Hospital in Hollywood based on a 6.4 magnitude quake, according to analyses completed in 2008 and 2009.
When calculating a collapse risk score, the state accounts for the strongest-likely quake that could erupt from the closest fault to each hospital building. Seismologists predict that California will almost certainly see a 6.7-magnitude or stronger quake within 30 years.
With the threat of a major quake always looming in California, the state’s hospitals face an expensive building tab, once estimated at more than $110 billion.
The California Hospital Association has been outspoken about the problem, saying the retrofitting requirements under the 1994 mandate are built around arbitrary deadlines. Last year, the group helped push through a deadline extension until 2020 for hospitals under financial hardship – but without consideration of collapse risk.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed efforts to extend the deadline this year.
Four decades of laws
The death of three hospital patients at Olive View Medical Center in the San Fernando Valley during the 1971 Sylmar earthquake spurred lawmakers to pass landmark seismic safety legislation.
The magnitude 6.7 Northridge quake in 1994 inspired an even more stringent law that set deadlines for hazardous hospital buildings. Structural engineers – using the best technology at the time – concluded that 1,100 buildings were at risk for collapse and needed to meet seismic safety deadlines, which were then set for 2008.
The goal, though, seemed increasingly impossible, given the enormous costs. To winnow the list of highest-risk hospitals, state officials turned to newer technology: a program called HAZUS that used information about a hospital’s structure and ground motion to produce a “collapse risk” score.
In 2007, Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers passed a law allowing hospitals with a low enough score to be placed in a lower-risk category and see their seismic safety deadlines moved to 2030.
Charles Kircher, a Mountain View structural engineer who helped develop HAZUS for California, said the program accounts for likely ground acceleration near the hospital, a building’s range of motion during a quake and how well its frame might withstand the shaking.
When those factors are taken into account, the program spits out a collapse risk score. And for the six-story main building at Citrus Valley Medical Center’s Queen of the Valley campus in West Covina, the program produced one of the highest collapse risks in the state – 30 percent in the event of a 7.1 magnitude quake.
Kircher reviewed a state record provided by California Watch and said the “deadly sins” present at the Queen of the Valley campus in West Covina, for example, include a first floor that may not support the upper five stories and a structure that’s likely to shake unevenly in a quake.
“They definitely should do something about this building,” Kircher said.
A spokeswoman for Citrus Valley’s Queen of the Valley campus said hospital administrators are working with a structural engineer to determine what work is needed. The hospital has not submitted upgrade plans to state authorities.
By Oct. 1, state officials had received construction plans for six of the 14 hospital buildings that face a 10 to 32 percent collapse risk, records show.
Chain has high-risk buildings
Kindred Healthcare owns two of the three hospitals with the highest-known collapse risks in the state: a hospital in San Leandro with a 24 percent collapse risk in a magnitude 7.3 quake and Kindred Hospital in Ontario with a 32 percent collapse risk in a magnitude 7.2 quake. Its Los Angeles main hospital building has a score of 13 percent.
The firm’s 91-bed Ontario hospital has the highest-known collapse risk in the state, at 32 percent. The facility also had a profit margin that exceeded that of most California hospitals in 2008.
The hospital posted a 20 percent profit, far more than the average 3 percent profit for California hospitals that year, according to reports by state hospital finance authorities. Although the facility is required to report its financials to the state, it has no mandate to warn patients or staff of the precise risk its hospitals pose.
“If I had known (the collapse risk) when dad was there last summer I probably would have worried about it the entire time,” Cheryl Nakao of Walnut Grove wrote in an e-mail to California Watch. She said her father stayed in the Ontario facility for three weeks.
Anita Cook was a clerk and technician at Kindred’s 99-bed San Leandro facility, where patients tend to stay for 50 days, state records show. Cook worked for 16 years at the four-story hilltop building. It has a 24 percent collapse risk, the third-highest known risk in the state.
“That’s terrible,” said Cook, who expressed concern that she had not been trained in how to help patients in case of a quake.
She said she went out of her way to dance for patients on birthdays or call them “handsome” and “diva” to cheer them up. State hospital authorities and hospital management, she said, should take the same care in ensuring that staff know how to help save lives in case of a quake.
“(Management) gets paid to protect patients,” Cook said. She was fired this month for what she described as outspoken advocacy for patients and staff.
Kindred Hospital San Francisco Bay Area issued a statement saying it does not discuss internal personnel issues but noted that it reviews emergency plans during orientation with new employees.
The company also emphasized that it does look out for staff. A May presentation to investors said Kindred’s management philosophy includes “taking care of our people” and focusing “on quality and customer service.”
The company plans to meet all seismic safety deadlines by 2013, according to a statement sent to California Watch. Kindred officials said they have spent $3.5 million in engineering and construction for the upgrades.
This story was edited by Robert Salladay.
California Watch, the state’s largest investigative reporting team, is a project of the independent, nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting. Contact the reporter at firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:4e25b310-879d-4c45-bc01-37ee0cab6600> | CC-MAIN-2022-27 | https://www.calhealthreport.org/2010/11/07/state-doing-little-to-track-hospitals-with-severe-seismic-safety-risks/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-27/segments/1656103624904.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20220629054527-20220629084527-00742.warc.gz | en | 0.956514 | 1,755 | 2.734375 | 3 |
The Lake Champlain Maritime Museum (LCMM) is running a Field School for the Basin Harbor Shipwreck in late May through June, 2017.
A field school experience is a critical component for anyone interested in learning about underwater archaeology. The Lake Champlain Maritime Museum (LCMM) is hosting a rigorous three-week program that offers a mix of both instruction and hands-on underwater archaeological research. The diving sessions will teach practical underwater skills using both traditional documentation techniques and cutting-edge technology on an historic shipwreck. Through additional lecture, students will have the opportunity to study legal issues in archaeology, to learn about local history, and to participate in artifact conservation.
The site to be worked on is an 89-foot unknown wooden vessel located in Basin Harbor. Beyond the wooden hull remains, artifacts found on site include glass bottles, iron spikes and other iron fasteners. The identity and time period of the wreck are still unknown. Come help us solve the mysteries of the Basin Harbor wreck!
Students must be SCUBA-certified
Students must have dive insurance
Students must have current CPR and First Aid certifications
For more information and applications, go here. | <urn:uuid:44379210-06d5-4554-84f1-a1144dc955c3> | CC-MAIN-2019-09 | http://archaeology.blogspot.com/2017/02/underwater-archaeology-field-school-in.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-09/segments/1550247492825.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20190219203410-20190219225410-00282.warc.gz | en | 0.937883 | 238 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Australia to release South Ocean robot probe
It will be the largest investment yet by Australian scientists in monitoring the engine room of global climate, the Southern Ocean's Antarctic circumpolar current, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) said in a statement.
"We can for the first time observe what is happening beneath the surface of the Southern Ocean on a routine basis," said oceanographer Steve Rintoul, programme leader of the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) programme. The waters between Australia and Antarctica are notorious for the strongest winds and largest waves on Earth, he said.
The floats will be deployed in a region that ships "tend to avoid," allowing scientists to observe "changes in the Southern Ocean affecting climate and marine life," he said.
Rintoul told the Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans conference the floats would be deployed to the edge of the Antarctic sea ice, starting in late 2003. The Australian effort joins programmes by the United States, Japan and some European nations to monitor circumpolar current and measure future climate change.
The robot floats, costing A$30,000 ($18,000) each, drift with currents to sample the ocean to a depth of two kilometres (1.25 miles) every 10 days. Temperature and salinity profiles measured by the floats are relayed to land via satellite.
Partners in Australia's CRC include the Australian Antarctic Division, University of Tasmania, CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology. | <urn:uuid:51f61e21-80f9-4439-b6b0-56d37976b5fe> | CC-MAIN-2017-09 | http://planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/19541/story.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-09/segments/1487501174157.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20170219104614-00348-ip-10-171-10-108.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900882 | 300 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Amoebic dysentery is caused by a specific parasite. You may develop amoebic dysentery if you:
- Put something in your mouth that has touched the stool of an infected person.
- Swallow water or food that has been contaminated with the parasite.
- Touch cysts (eggs) from contaminated surfaces and bring them to your mouth
Factors that may increase your chance of amoebic dysentery include:
- Living in or traveling to developing countries, places that have poor sanitary conditions, or tropical or subtropical areas
- Living in institutions with poor sanitary conditions
- Household contact with infected person
- Having anal sexual intercourse
Most people with the parasite do not have symptoms. Symptoms may include:
- Loose /watery stools or constipation
- Bloody stools
- Constant feeling you need to move your bowels
- Weight loss
- Stomach pain
- Pain on your right, upper side (if you have the parasite in your liver)
Your doctor will ask about your symptoms and medical history. A physical exam will be done.
Your doctor will need tests of your bodily fluids and waste products. This can be done with:
- Blood tests
- Stool samples
Images may need to be taken of your bodily structures, especially your liver. This can be done with:
Talk with your doctor about the best treatment plan for you. Treatment options include the following:
Several antibiotics are available to treat amoebic dysentery or liver infection. Probiotics may also be helpful to reduce the symptoms.
To help reduce your chances amoebic dysentery, take the following steps when traveling to a country that has poor sanitary conditions:
- Drink only bottled water or water that has been boiled for at least one minute
- Do not eat fresh fruit or vegetables that you do not peel yourself
- Do not eat or drink unpasteurized milk, cheese, or dairy products
- Do not eat or drink anything sold by street vendors
- Wash your hands frequently with soap and water. Use hand sanitizers if soap and water are not available.
- People carrying the parasite may need to be treated to avoid spreading it to others.
- Reviewer: Michael Woods, MD
- Review Date: 02/2015 -
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If you can’t wait until tomorrow to celebrate Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday, just call someone in Darwin, Australia. That northern Australian city, nine and a half hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time – near Darwin’s birthplace of Shrewsbury, England – has already begun celebrating the 200th birthday of its namesake.
It’s a bit unclear when Darwin – population 120,900 – got its name. Here’s the story, as best we can tell: The first Westerners who paid a visit to the area, which was and still is home to the Aboriginal group the Larrakia, were the Dutch in the 1660s. They were busy mapping the coast and didn't bestow the spot with a name.
Fast-forward to 1836. Darwin returns from his journey around the world, which included stops along the southern side of Australia on the HMS Beagle. The next year, the Beagle set out on a surveying expedition with the same captain, John Clements Wickham, and admiral, John Lort Stokes. In September 1839, they spotted the harbor, which Wickham and Stokes decided to dub Darwin Harbor in honor of their former traveling companion.
Perhaps owing to the lack of a British population at that point, the name didn't evolve to cover the land around it. In 1869, ten years after the publication of On The Origin of Species, a surveyor named George Goyder launched a tiny settlement (of about 135) at Port Darwin and called it Palmerston–in honor of England's then-Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston.
But Wickham and Stokes were vindicated in 1911, when the area became part of the British Commonwealth, and the city was officially named Darwin. (Today, there is an adjacent town called Palmerston, which is about a fifth the size of Darwin.)
To celebrate in this, the biggest in – and capital city of – the Northern Territory, there's slated to be an Ozzie Darwin Pow-wow. Throughout the country, other cities and towns will be celebrating with their own events, including a public Darwin Day barbecue in Melbourne (though it's BYO food and drink, so you can hold the kangaroo meat if you want).
Darwin is across the continent from the bushfires that have so devastated Victoria*. But it has weathered its fair share of hardships, including a World War II bombing raid and 1974’s deadly Cyclone Tracy, which had some of the most violent winds the continent has ever felt.
There are of course other places that bear the naturalist's name. Among them: Darwin Sound (along the Beagle Channel by Tierra del Fuego), Mount Darwin in the Andes, and the Northern Territory's own Charles Darwin University and Charles Darwin National Park.
See our in-depth report wishing Darwin a happy birthday for more stories and background.
Image credit: Flickr/Giselleai
* Erratum: (2/12/09): This sentence was changed after publication. It originally stated that the fires were in New South Wales. | <urn:uuid:53af50f8-6ac3-45dc-8c17-bb3e95b6137c> | CC-MAIN-2016-07 | http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/news-blog/an-australian-city-named-for-darwin-2009-02-11/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-07/segments/1454701149548.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160205193909-00187-ip-10-236-182-209.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962115 | 642 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Sarah Gilbert hopes new Barbie doll made in her likeness inspires kids
Prof. Sarah Gilbert, the Oxford scientist who led the design of the Covid vaccine, says she hopes a new Barbie doll made in her likeness will inspire children — especially little girls — all over the world to take up science.
In past years, Barbie has been criticised for being invariably “blonde and curvy” but the one Gilbert contemplated in her office with wry amusement shows her attired in a blue trouser suit, white blouse, black glasses and black shoes.
For Gilbert, who took less than 12 months to design the life-saving vaccine (and agree to collaborate with AstraZeneca and the Serum Institute of India), it’s been quite a year. She and co-author Catherine Green have told the vaccine story in a book, Vaxxers: The Inside Story of the Oxford AstraZeneca Vaccine and the Race Against the Virus.
She been given a Damehood, a high British honour, and received an emotional standing ovation at Wimbledon when spectators found out she was seated in Centre Court.
Gilbert’s reaction to the Barbie doll is surprisingly positive.
The 59-year-old professor said she initially found the gesture “very strange” but hoped it would inspire young girls to work in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem).
“I am passionate about inspiring the next generation of girls into Stem careers and hope that children who see my Barbie will realise how vital careers in science are to help the world around us,” she said.
“My wish is that my doll will show children careers they may not be aware of, like a vaccinologist.”
Lisa McKnight, senior vice-president and global head of Barbie and dolls at Mattel, commented: “Barbie recognises that all frontline workers have made tremendous sacrifices when confronting the pandemic and the challenges it heightened. To shine a light on their efforts, we are sharing their stories … to inspire the next generation to take after these heroes and give back.”
As well as the likeness of Gilbert, the toy company has created models in honour of five other women working in Stem around the world.
They include US healthcare workers Amy O’Sullivan and Audrey Cruz; Canadian doctor and campaigner Chika Stacy Oriuwa; Brazilian biomedical researcher Jaqueline Goes de Jesus; and Dr Kirby White, an Australian medic who co-created a reusable gown for frontline staff.
Barbie was launched by Mattel in 1959 as a fashion doll, the creation of American businesswoman Ruth Handler.
From the start, some complained that “the blonde, plastic doll conveyed an unrealistic body image to girls”.
A standard Barbie doll is 11.5 inches tall, giving a height of 5 feet 9 inches at 1/6 scale. Barbie’s vital statistics have been estimated at 36 inches (chest), 18 inches (waist) and 33 inches (hips).
But Mattel has tried to move with the times.
The Economist, for example, emphasised the importance of Barbie to children’s imagination: “From her early days as a teenage fashion model, Barbie has appeared as an astronaut, surgeon, Olympic athlete, downhill skier, aerobics instructor, TV news reporter, vet, rock star, doctor, army officer, air force pilot, summit diplomat.”, rap musician, presidential candidate (party undefined), baseball player, scuba diver, lifeguard, fire-fighter, engineer, dentist, and many more....When Barbie first burst into the toy shops, just
as the 1960s were breaking, the doll market consisted mostly of babies, designed for girls to cradle, rock and feed. By creating a doll with adult features, Mattel enabled girls to become anything they want.” | <urn:uuid:e6b32ea1-0cb7-4f93-8203-8d5b76f211f8> | CC-MAIN-2022-49 | https://www.telegraphindia.com/world/oxford-scientist-who-led-the-design-of-the-covid-vaccine-says-she-hopes-a-new-barbie-doll-made-in-her-likeness-will-inspire-children/cid/1825303 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446710218.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20221127073607-20221127103607-00020.warc.gz | en | 0.947412 | 799 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Dystonia 16 is one of many forms of dystonia, which is a group of conditions characterized by involuntary movements, twisting (torsion) and tensing of various muscles, and unusual positioning of affected body parts. Dystonia 16 can appear at any age from infancy through adulthood, although it most often begins in childhood.
The signs and symptoms of dystonia 16 vary among people with the condition. In many affected individuals, the disorder first affects muscles in one or both arms or legs. Tensing (contraction) of the muscles often sets the affected limb in an abnormal position, which may be painful and can lead to difficulty performing tasks, such as walking. In others, muscles in the neck are affected first, causing the head to be pulled backward and positioned with the chin in the air (retrocollis).
In dystonia 16, muscles of the jaw, lips, and tongue are also commonly affected (oromandibular dystonia), causing difficulty opening and closing the mouth and problems with swallowing and speech. Speech can also be affected by involuntary tensing of the muscles that control the vocal cords (laryngeal dystonia), resulting in a quiet, breathy voice or an inability to speak clearly. Dystonia 16 gradually gets worse, eventually involving muscles in most parts of the body.
Some people with dystonia 16 develop a pattern of movement abnormalities known as parkinsonism. These abnormalities include unusually slow movement (bradykinesia), muscle rigidity, tremors, and an inability to hold the body upright and balanced (postural instability). In dystonia 16, parkinsonism is relatively mild if it develops at all.
The signs and symptoms of dystonia 16 usually do not get better when treated with drugs that are typically used for movement disorders.
Dystonias are estimated to affect 250,000 people in the United States. Dystonia 16 is a rare form of dystonia; its prevalence is unknown.
Dystonia 16 is caused by mutations in the PRKRA gene, which provides instructions for making a protein called PACT. The PACT protein helps control a cell's response to stress, such as exposure to viruses, damaging molecules called free radicals, or other toxic substances. When a cell is under stress, the PACT protein turns on signals that reduce protein production, which helps protect cells from damage. These signals can ultimately lead to self-destruction (apoptosis) of the cell if it remains under stress.
PRKRA gene mutations result in production of abnormal PACT proteins. The pattern of signals stimulated by these abnormal proteins in response to stress is altered, which increases the rate at which cell death occurs. Researchers suspect that the excessive loss of cells in certain regions of the brain impairs the brain's ability to control muscles and movement, resulting in the features of dystonia 16. It is unclear why brain cells are particularly affected by PRKRA gene mutations.
Dystonia 16 is usually inherited in an autosomal recessive pattern, which means both copies of the PRKRA gene in each cell have mutations. In most of these cases, both parents of an affected individual carry one copy of the mutated gene, but they typically do not show signs and symptoms of the condition. In some cases, one mutation is inherited from an unaffected parent and the other is a new (de novo) mutation in the gene that occurs during the formation of reproductive cells (eggs or sperm) in the other parent or in early embryonic development.
Some studies suggest that dystonia 16 can be inherited in an autosomal dominant pattern, which means that one copy of the altered gene in each cell is sufficient to cause the disorder.
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During holiday in Bali, you probably see statues that wear a cloth with a white and black square-pattern cloth, which it often makes you wonder about what the meaning is.
As it is known, Balinese people has many unique culture and art, which every of the part contains a deep philosophy and meaning as this Balinese white and black square cloth.
The following are some little known facts about the unique cloth you should must know.
Philosophy of Rwa Bhineda, Like Yin-Yang
The Balinese white and black square pattern symbolizes a philosophy of Rwa Bhineda that means the balance of the nature or a representation of the two differences or contradictory traits, as “black and white” mean “right and wrong” or “good and bad”.
Its meaning is very similar to Yin-Yang in Ancient Chinese philosophy, which also means two traits that are related and opposite.
Clothes Motive for Statues, Shrines, Sacred Objects
The white and black square pattern is also often used as a motive of cloth for decorating statues, shrines, and sacred objects particularly in temple area.
Besides that, the motive is also applied for Tedung – the Balinese traditional umbrella that’s a holy attribute for religious ritual and ceremony.
Some Big Trees Also Wrapped By Cloth With This Motive
On the side of the road particularly in rural area, the white and black square-pattern cloth wraps around big trees, namely: Banyan, Tamarind, and others trees especially in temple or grave area
The cloth symbolizes that big trees are considered sacred (called “Tenget” in Balinese language) and has a magical power by local people.
Also Used As Motive For Clothes of Pecalang
The white and black square pattern is also often used for the outer cloth (called saput) that wrap around waist to ankle for the Pecalang - a local security officers of an administrative village in Bali.
The pecalang usually wear clothes with the white and black square pattern when during big religious event, such as: Melasti, Piodalan, and so on. They do duty of controlling traffic
So, above are 4 little known facts about Balinese white and black square cloth. Hope this information is helpful! | <urn:uuid:31f3c13f-f22e-4f38-a203-c7946f799cb0> | CC-MAIN-2020-45 | https://www.uluwatubali.com/blog/4-little-known-facts-about-balinese-white-and-black-square-cloth.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-45/segments/1603107865665.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20201023204939-20201023234939-00318.warc.gz | en | 0.951557 | 487 | 2.5625 | 3 |
1. to deal or bargain with another or others, as in the preparation of a treaty or contract or in preliminaries to a business deal. verb (used with object), negotiated, negotiating.
2. to arrange for or bring about by discussion and settlement of terms: to negotiate a loan.
3. to manage; transact; conduct: He negotiated an important business deal.
4. to move through, around, or over in a satisfactory manner: to negotiate a diffic
"governments can be negotiate in faiths."
"people can be negotiate in faiths."
"companies can be negotiate in values."
"people can be negotiate with owners."
"parties can be negotiate beyond deadlines."
This list can help you learn new vocabulary more quickly and be able explore other words more easily. | <urn:uuid:585309a9-abcb-4c06-acf2-f2cd23a9976f> | CC-MAIN-2017-17 | http://listofadjectives.net/adjective-negotiate-definition-and-examples | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917125074.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031205-00042-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928173 | 167 | 2.765625 | 3 |
The word “antioxidant” is regularly thrown about in the health and beauty industry, but what does it really mean and why are antioxidants so important for our health? Antioxidants are compounds that prevent oxidative damage to our cells by scavenging free radicals. Such damage causes accelerated ageing to our cells and organs, literally rusting our bodies and creating the catalyst for diseases. It is the same natural oxidative process that turns a chopped apple brown when left in the air.
Free radicals are atoms or groups of atoms with an odd number of electrons, and are formed when oxygen interacts with particular molecules. Once they are formed, these extremely reactive radicals can spark a chain reaction, which damages important cell structures such as DNA and cell membranes. When a cell’s DNA changes, the cell mutates, grows abnormally and reproduces at a faster rate. Cell function is greatly hampered or cells may even die. However, oxidation is an entirely normal process, which naturally happens during cellular functions. Free radicals are produced from cigarettes, excessive alcohol, fried foods, environmental pollution, pesticides and even vigorous exercise. Unfortunately, these toxins are far too common in our modern world, much more so than 200 years ago. Over time, if the body cannot stop repeated free radical attacks, the damage can lead to a range of chronic diseases, including cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease.
To protect itself from such damage, the body has an antioxidant defence system in place. The human body has a variety of enzymes that prevent damage brought about by specific types of free radicals. The amount of antioxidant enzymes, in addition to the levels of dietary antioxidants such as beta-carotene, determines a mammal’s lifespan. Humans have higher levels of antioxidants within our cells and that is the reason why we live longer than cats, dogs, and other animals. Dietary antioxidants reduce the risk of getting cancer, heart disease and numerous other diseases related to ageing, including arthritis and cataracts.
Each type of antioxidant works either to prevent the chain reaction or stop it after it’s started. Mother Nature has cleverly provided thousands of different antioxidants in various amounts in fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds, and legumes. The primary vitamin antioxidants are vitamin E, beta-carotene and vitamin C. As the body cannot make these, it’s really important that they’re regularly supplied in the diet through wide range of nutritious foods.
Vitamin E is a chain-breaking antioxidant and a fat-soluble vitamin found in nuts, seeds, vegetable and fish oils, whole grains such as wheat germ, and apricots. Beta-carotene is the precursor to vitamin A and is found in spinach, carrots, broccoli, squash, kale, cantaloupe, kiwis, sweet potatoes and strawberries. Vitamin C stops the damaging chain reaction before it begins, and is a water-soluble vitamin in citrus fruits, bell peppers, cabbage, spinach, broccoli, berries, kiwis and melon. Green tea is a particularly wonderful source of protective flavonoids.
Generally, the most colourful plant foods have the highest content of complex antioxidants and each type operates in different tissues of the body. That is why I wholeheartedly recommend that everyone strives to eat as many vibrantly coloured fruits and veggies as possible each day, as well as seeds, nuts, gluten-free grains and legumes. Seven to ten servings per day of fresh, whole and unprocessed fruits and vegetables, or even more, will massively benefit your health, preserve your looks, and long-term fight against the host of degenerative diseases so prevalent in the Western world. | <urn:uuid:2e48ef00-4db0-4537-b458-dde3ae42566e> | CC-MAIN-2018-09 | https://www.rosannadavisonnutrition.com/the-importance-of-antioxidants/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-09/segments/1518891814393.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20180223035527-20180223055527-00141.warc.gz | en | 0.935566 | 753 | 3.53125 | 4 |
Did you know eastern Australia is home to the world's longest known chain of continental volcanoes?
The 2,000 kilometre chain covers from the Whitsundays in North Queensland to near Melbourne in central Victoria.
"We realised that the same hotspot had caused volcanoes in the Whitsundays and the central Victoria region, and also some rare features in New South Wales, roughly halfway between them," said Dr Davies, from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences.
A volcanic plug in Cape Hillsborough National Park, Queensland [Image credit: Mike Griinke]
"The track is nearly three times the length of the famous Yellowstone hotspot track on the North American continent.”
ANU’s research reveals that a hidden hotspot once churned beneath the surface, connecting the string of volcanoes into a superchain.
It’s hoped that the discovery may help scientists reconstruct the past movements of continents from other hotspots.
Dr. Rhodri Davies with volcanic rock [Image credit: Stuart Hay, ANU] | <urn:uuid:cb110c66-bf76-4deb-86fd-cc184164e629> | CC-MAIN-2018-22 | http://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/nature/volcano-superchain-discovered-in-australia.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-22/segments/1526794864790.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20180522131652-20180522151652-00448.warc.gz | en | 0.932129 | 217 | 3.40625 | 3 |
Most people have heard that people from the U.S. can’t buy property in Mexico. This isn’t entirely true. In fact the only real regulations are on the near the border and coast. These areas are known as the “restricted zone”. The “restricted zone” is the area within 100 kilometers of any Mexican border and within 50 miles of any Mexican coastline.
Originally the “restricted zone” was created to protect Mexico from foreign invasion. The idea was to keep any foreigner from owning land that could be used to bring in troops and launch an attack on Mexico. This was written into the Mexican Constitution in article 27. The constitution was signed in 1917 and made a lot of changes to who could own property.
From briefly reading over this section of the Mexican constitution from 1917, it looks like it took a lot of land away from people. It changed the concept of land ownership to one where the government actually owns all the land and even though they sell it to individuals for use, the government can get it back if they want it. From what I’ve seen this doesn’t happen often and when it does it is similar to what happens in the U.S. when they put in a highway through an area that used to be private property–the government has to pay a reasonable price for the land.
Other than the “restricted zone” foreigners can own land subject to Mexican law. Just because you are a U.S. citizen doesn’t mean the land becomes U.S. property. It is treated just like a Mexican citizen owned it.
If you are looking to buy land in Mexico keep in mind that you real estate is not regulated in Mexico. There is no type of real estate license required. Anyone can sell real estate and there isn’t any type of code of ethics that they all agree with. You will want to work with someone trust worthy.
If you want to buy land in the “restricted zone” there are ways to do it. The Mexican government knows that selling the costal areas is a great way to bring in money not just for the sale of the property but for the local economy. Foreigners coming to Mexico and spending money are a great way for the country to profit financially. However since the law about the “restricted zone” is written into the constitution it would be very difficult to change.
The Mexican government came up with a work around. You can create a legal entity in Mexico and use it to buy the land. Since the land is owned by a Mexican entity, this fulfills the constitutional requirements. If this entity is a trust, a foreigner can be named as the beneficiary. The trust is administered by a Mexican bank which is obligated to act on the behalf of the beneficiary of the trust.
These types of trusts are called fideicomiso and last for 50 years. While the land is in the trust it can be sold, inherited, etc. In the last year of the trust, it can be renewed for an additional 50 years. This can go on indefinitely.
Legal transaction involving the property must be done through the Mexican bank that holds the trust because the bank actually holds the title to the property.
Many people think the trust is a type of lease because it lasts for 50 years. At one point I think the closest thing to owning Mexican coastal land was to lease it for 100 years. The current method of creating a trust seems to work around the lease situation and provide more control for the foreigner wanting to own land in the “restricted zone”.
It is also possible to create a Mexican corporation that is foreign owned and that corporation can buy land in the “restricted zone”. However the corporation can only by land that is not for residential use and there are other restrictions on what the land can be used for. It appears that if you created a corporation and bought a shop that had living quarters above it, you might be able to live in above your shop, but I’m not sure.
If you are looking to buy land in Mexico make sure you find someone who you can trust who can help you through the process. Law change and just because something is legal to do doesn’t mean it is the easiest way to go about purchasing property. | <urn:uuid:eca85463-9d3d-41bf-84b9-6866cb23466f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mexico501.com/buying-land-in-mexico-as-a-foreigner/52/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00169-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976364 | 885 | 2.671875 | 3 |
I need to relate a current event news article to the overall theme of Chapter TWO. Any suggestions of any kind of current events? Thanks!!
Answers 1Add Yours
Chapter 2 has the early makings of an attempt to form a democracy. Ralph tries to introduce rules for order. Every boy should have a chance to speak, discuss...I think establishing a democratic government in a country that has never had one might be an example. Take, for example, Afghanistan where democracy is being tried with very mixed results. Ralph's attempt at this also meets with mixed results. | <urn:uuid:8754931d-b3ce-437e-aa3c-071aa6a5cbd7> | CC-MAIN-2016-50 | http://www.gradesaver.com/lord-of-the-flies/q-and-a/what-current-event-can-you-associate-with-the-theme-of-chapter-2-88601 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-50/segments/1480698543316.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20161202170903-00113-ip-10-31-129-80.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966789 | 116 | 2.734375 | 3 |
On World Tourism Day, Pandemic Hits Industry Hard
With world tourism reeling from the deleterious effects of the coronavirus pandemic, the United Nations is marking World Tourism Day on Sunday. Figures from UNWTO, its tourism body, show that upwards of 120 million direct-tourism jobs are at risk due to the pandemic, while data from the UN Conference on Trade and Development forecasts a loss of up to 2.8% of the global GDP, which could surpass $2 trillion. According to a statement from the UN, some 90% of its World Heritage Sites are closed to the public, “putting humanity’s cultural heritage at risk in all parts of the world.” Sites in the Middle East include Egypt’s pyramids, the Old City of Jerusalem, Jordan’s Petra, Palmyra in Syria and Lebanon’s Baalbek. The crisis is also posing a threat to wildlife and nature conservation efforts, which are supported by tourism revenues. With livelihoods at risk in and around protected areas, cases of poaching and looting are also expected to rise. | <urn:uuid:84266751-ca81-4593-9285-f2322bc36f48> | CC-MAIN-2021-43 | https://themedialine.org/headlines/on-world-tourism-day-pandemic-hitting-industry-hard/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-43/segments/1634323588153.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20211027115745-20211027145745-00107.warc.gz | en | 0.938139 | 226 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Zen of dating age chinese dating difference
While there may be a kernel of historical truth to them, all of the accounts of Huineng’s life (particularly as recorded in the .The earliest mention of Huineng comes from an inscription for a memorial pagoda in Faxing monastery dated 676.The focus of an immense body of lore that grew over the centuries, Huineng’s life mirrors the fortunes of Chan itself – a provincial Chinese version of Buddhism that rose to become a major religious and cultural force throughout East Asia.
We have many sources of information on him but most were written long after his lifetime.
Huineng’s discussion of the themes of inherent enlightenment, sudden awakening, and the non-dual nature of wisdom (Sanskrit: that Huineng lays out the classic story of Chan’s origins.
According to this account, Chan began with the historical Buddha, Sakyamuni, and his famous “Flower Sermon.” One day the Buddha took his seat before his assembled monks and, instead of speaking, remained silent while holding a single flower aloft in his hand.
Of those assembled, only one disciple Mahakashyapa (Sanskrit: “Great Kashyapa”), understood the meaning of the Buddha’s actions.
The Buddha publicly recognized Mahakashyapa’s realization and he, in turn, passed the wordless teaching along to his disciples. | <urn:uuid:7e6e3328-4731-4f00-9f13-2d2895e00765> | CC-MAIN-2018-34 | http://yateti.zel-grad.ru/zen-of-dating-117.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-34/segments/1534221217901.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20180820234831-20180821014831-00543.warc.gz | en | 0.957087 | 307 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Serial music is a further development of Arnold Schönberg's twelve-tone technique and is composed according to strict rules. The composition technique is based on the attempt to build up as many properties of the music as possible, such as tone duration, pitch and volume, on series of numbers or proportions. This idea of a musique pure arises from the desire to produce music with the greatest possible clarity, free from redundancy, indeterminacy and the arbitrariness of personal taste.
Serialism became historically possible through the preparatory work of Arnold Schönberg and Anton Webern , representatives of the so-called Second Viennese School , who already rearranged pitches and interval structures according to their own rules. However, while in their twelve-tone music only the pitch course is defined as a series, with serial music the parameters of tone duration , volume and timbre (which - especially in piano music - also include articulation or variety ) are quantified and recorded in series in a predetermined proportion.
The first composition that comes close to these rules is Olivier Messiaen's piano piece Mode de valeurs et d'intensités - to which subsequent generations usually refer - in which he not only describes the pitches, but also the duration and strength of the tone and the articulation organized by series- like modes (hence the title), which, however, allowed a higher degree of compositional freedom. Messiaen himself said, however, that he had already used the same techniques for the piano work Cantéyodjaya a few weeks before the composition of this work .
Contrary to a widespread assumption, serial music (or more precisely: music composed using serial techniques) does not make sense for the construction principles to be audible. Rather, the pre-organization serves similar purposes as the musical theory of earlier times, namely to avoid certain constellations that are perceived as wrong. In classical music, for example , these were parallel fifths , in Schönberg the ban on octaves, in serial music the avoidance of tonal structures or regular rhythms. The “meaning” of this music is as far removed from the production process as the “meaning” of a Bach chorale is from the rules of the regular four-part voice. Therefore, criticisms that see a problem in the fact that:
- the reception is based on the limited memory capacity of human short-term memory (20 sec. capacity to retain new information), which makes it impossible to hear through the complex musical structures. Now, on the one hand, it has been empirically proven that an average listener can neither recognize nor remember the themes of the three theme groups in the main movement (that is nine themes in the exposition alone), and that the material-immanent listening as a cognitive achievement is not given overall . On the other hand, the material level is not to be equated with the design level.
- the interpretation due to the apparently limited accuracy of the instrumental and vocal parts prevents the over-exact information given by the composer from being reproduced with sufficient precision. Here, recent history has shown that the difficulties that are considered insurmountable can be solved by the next generation at the latest - similar to the difficulties that Liszt's piano etudes were once considered to be "superhuman" have long since become an examination task for ordinary conservatory degrees.
- the use of rules and the operation with tables of numbers lead to "paper music" free of any musicality. At least in the case of the important representatives of serial music, the rules on which the music is based (with very few exceptions) did not completely determine the work, but left the composer's musical invention and design free.
The forcing of material shaping led to electronic music , which is no longer subject to the limitations of traditional instruments in any way.
The key works of serial composition technique are: Pierre Boulez ' Structures for 2 pianos, Karlheinz Stockhausen's Kontra-Punkt for ensemble and groups for three orchestras. The most important representatives of serial music include:
- Karlheinz Stockhausen
- Karel Goeyvaerts
- Luigi Nono
- Pierre Boulez
- Luciano Berio
- Gottfried Michael Koenig
There is a possibility of confusion due to the use of English . There serial music often describes the twelve-tone technique in the sense of Schönberg, while serial music is called total serialism . In German usage, there is also a confusion of terms with not serial, but repetitive composition techniques (see Minimal Music ) (example), probably in the wrong analogy to serial art and its techniques.
- György Ligeti : Pierre Boulez. Decision and automation in Structure Ia. In: The series. Information about serial music. 4, 1958, , pp. 38-63.
- Rudolf Heinemann: Investigations into the reception of serial music (= Cologne contributions to music research 43, ). Bosse, Regensburg 1967 (also: Cologne, Univ., Diss., 1966).
- Hans Vogt : New Music since 1945. Reclam, Stuttgart 1972, ISBN 3-15-010203-0 , pp. 24-30.
- Dominik Sedivy: Serial Composition and Tonality. An Introduction to the Music of Hauer and Steinbauer. Edited by Günther Friesinger and Helmut Neumann. edition mono / monochrom , Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-902796-03-5 .
- Matthias Schmidt : Serial music. In: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon . Online edition, Vienna 2002 ff., ISBN 3-7001-3077-5 ; Print edition: Volume 4, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-7001-3046-5 .
- Serial music - text by Rudolf Frisius.
- On the terminology in the change in the history of composition - text on serial music by Rudolf Frisius.
- Aspects of the serial at Stockhausen - text by Karlheinz Essl jun.
- .... serial music. The crickets chirp. ... - DIE ZEIT No. 45, 2013, features section, accessed on September 24, 2014. | <urn:uuid:cdb6c1f3-8b1f-4da7-b659-adfed8268739> | CC-MAIN-2023-06 | https://de.zxc.wiki/wiki/Serielle_Musik | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764500339.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20230206113934-20230206143934-00733.warc.gz | en | 0.905939 | 1,349 | 3.703125 | 4 |
US to specify target for emissions cuts, at talks on global warming
A Senate bill's target for emission cuts is akin to level US is likely to offer in Copenhagen. Ahead of the global warming talks, other nations have been waiting to see US target.
Among other goals, the legislation aims to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions across the US economy by 3 percent below 2005 levels by 2012, 20 percent by 2020, 42 percent by 2030, and 83 percent by 2050.
"We don't want to get out ahead or be at odds with what can be produced with legislation," said a senior administration official Monday. "So whatever number we put on the table will be with reference to what we think can come out of the legislative process."
These levels fall short of those embraced in the negotiating blueprint that countries drew up at global climate talks in Bali two years ago. That blueprint envisions developed countries cutting greenhouse-gas emissions by a collective 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, and by 80 to 95 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Developing-country emissions would have to represent a "substantial deviation" from business as usual, rather than hew to specific emissions cuts.
Those figures represent the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's assessment of what needs to be done if world leaders choose to cap global warming at roughly 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.
The move represents the Obama administration's effort to try wield the key "to unlocking different aspects of the negotiations," says Sarah Ladislaw, a climate-change specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Among them: aid to developing countries for adaptation and to give them the wherewithal to afford the technologies they will need to meet any commitments.
Developing countries have been insisting that developed countries aim high in terms of cutting emissions – a sore point that led a group of African negotiators to briefly walk out on pre-Copenhagen talks in Barcelona earlier this month.
For months, Ms. Ladislaw says, the rest of the world has been waiting to hear what emissions targets the US is willing to put on the table.
Europe already has indicated it is striving to reduce EU emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 – and it has expressed a willingness to increase those cuts to 30 percent by then if other industrial countries adopt ambitious plans of their own. China has promised very ambitious goals for reducing its economy's energy intensity but as yet has presented no numbers. Russia has said it is willing to aim for 15 to 20 percent reductions over 2005 levels (which are now some 34 percent below 1990 levels, by some accounts). Japan has offered up a 25 percent cut below 1990 levels by 2020. Several other major developing countries also have put forward plans to slow the growth rate in their emissions.
While the numbers implied by the US Senate bill fall short of the aspirations set out in the Bali "road map" guiding the run-up to the Copenhagen meeting, this latest indication from the White house aims to show that the US is willing to take steps comparable with those of other industrial countries – provided Congress actually enacts a climate-energy bill.
Even with a Senate bill still a work in progress, "if you're the administration, you can go and tell a credible story that you have a plan" to reach the 2050 goals, says Andrew Deutz, a senior policy adviser for the Nature Conservancy. "Most of the countries coming to Copenhagen will come with new announcements. They'll all make contingent commitments. But this is really a positive negotiating dynamic."
Normally, the talks appear to be a race to the bottom, says Dr. Deutz, who has observed these talks since the first one in 1995. Instead, he continues, "we're seeing a race to the top. Everybody's trying to challenge everybody else to do more. That has a positive, ratcheting-up up effect in the negotiations. I find that to be really encouraging."
US negotiators include many people who took part in the effort to craft the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. They are acutely aware of the futility of negotiating a treaty that stands no chance of clearing the US Senate for ratification.
In the run-up to Monday's "on background" announcement from the White House, US negotiators had been pointing to the Senate bill whenever other countries brought up the subject of US emission-cutting goals. Now they have a somewhat more official pronouncement to work with.
The most international negotiators are hoping for now from Copenhagen is a political agreement on the main points in a new global warming treaty. Legal details would be left to work out later, either at a mid-2010 resumption of December's "recessed" talks or at the next ministerial-level talks in Mexico City in December 2010.
Meanwhile, the US Senate is not expected to act on its legislation – let alone reconcile it with the House version, which passed earlier this year – until early 2010. That makes the announcement risky for the US, says Ladislaw. If the final bill contains reduction targets that are lower than those in the current Senate legislation, the administration could be seen as failing to meet its political commitments – even if they were offered conditionally.
Still, "this is a game of inches," Ladislaw says. Echoing points of other analysts in recent days, she adds, the process "is closer to making concrete progress than it ever has been."
The process looks very incremental, even glacial, "in the court of public opinion," she explains. But if negotiators can reach political agreements on the main points, "it's a whole new negotiating environment," she says.
Follow us on Twitter. | <urn:uuid:d21d75ce-3700-484a-9a19-5086bbb4b8d6> | CC-MAIN-2018-26 | https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2009/1123/us-to-specify-target-for-emissions-cuts-at-talks-on-global-warming | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-26/segments/1529267863830.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20180620163310-20180620183310-00410.warc.gz | en | 0.953654 | 1,158 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Understandably with the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, there continues to be a lot of discussion around minimising the transmission of SARS-CoV-2. As the dark nights draw in and temperatures plummet however, pathogens like Norovirus are widely expected to resurface, placing healthcare facilities under greater pressure and increasing the risk to those most vulnerable.
As we’re all too aware, Norovirus is a stomach bug that causes vomiting and diarrhoea. For many people it can be very unpleasant, but often goes away after a couple of days. For many others however it can be far more serious.
Norovirus affects over 700 million people worldwide per year, killing about 219,000 and resulting in an estimated £2.8 billion in health care costs.1 The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted how easily viruses can be transmitted from person to person, with hospitals bracing themselves for the annual wave of cases that materialise every winter.
How does Norovirus spread?
Norovirus can spread very easily through:
- Close contact with someone with Norovirus
- Touching surfaces or objects that have the virus on them, then touching your mouth
- Eating food that's been prepared or handled by someone with Norovirus
How to prevent Norovirus
The NHS website aims to educate people about preventing Norovirus, highlighting that alcohol hand gels do not kill Norovirus. Washing your hands frequently with soap and water is the best way to stop it spreading. In instances where hand washing isn’t available, using a wipe to clean your hands has been proven to remove over 99% of contamination, helping to minimise the risk of transmission.2
Surface cleaning & disinfection is also an effective way of stopping the spread. Various studies have shown that contaminated surfaces are an established route of transmission for high-risk pathogens, including Norovirus.3 Improved environmental hygiene can reduce the number of people acquiring harmful microorganisms, making choosing the right product important.4
Getting it right
Effective surface disinfection requires a combination of appropriate product and practice. Multiple human factors can affect cleaning and disinfection outcomes, with some observational studies noting that high-touch surfaces are sometimes only briefly wiped, sometimes for as little as 1-2 seconds.5
Using the right amount of wipes for the right amount of time is critical to achieving effective surface disinfection. A recent study found that a wipe’s effectiveness was significantly greater when only a 1-2ft2 area was wiped, as opposed to when an 8 ft2 area was wiped with a single wipe.6
It is vitally important to take advantage of the resources available and our experienced team are on hand to provide advice and training for you and your teams to help ensure effective surface cleaning and disinfection practices, helping to minimise the risk of cross-infection.
As an established brand within healthcare sector for over 35 years, Azo™ encompasses a full product portfolio which can be tailored for general purpose to specialist cleaning and disinfecting; including medical areas. The Azo™ range is extensively used in hospitals, nursing homes, pharmacies, laboratories, dental and GP surgeries to help reduce contamination and the risk of infection.
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- Bartsch S.M. et al. (2016) Global Economic Burden of Norovirus Gastroenteritis. PLoS ONE 11(4): e0151219. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0151219.
- Vernacare (2020) Conti wet wipes bacteria removal testing, Tested to BS EN 1500:2013.
- Otter, J.A. et al. (2016) Transmission of SARS and MERS coronaviruses and influenza virus in healthcare settings: the possible role of dry surface contamination. Journal of Hospital Infection. 92 235e250
- Garvey et al. (2018) Wiping out MRSA: effect of introducing a universal disinfection wipe in a large UK teaching hospital. Antimicrobial Resistance & Infection Control.;7(1).
- West, et al. (2018) Surface area wiped, product type, and target strain impact bactericidal efficacy of ready-to-use disinfectant towelettes. Antimicrobial Resistance & Infection Control;7:122.
- Boyce, J, M. (2020) A review of wipes used to disinfect hard surfaces in health care facilities. American Journal of Infection Control. | <urn:uuid:39bc4a4e-76a3-4850-9dfe-d64b936ea6aa> | CC-MAIN-2021-31 | https://www.vernacare.com/news-hub/blog/posts/2020/september/norovirus-2020-let-s-not-forget-about-the-winter-vomiting-bug/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-31/segments/1627046151760.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20210725174608-20210725204608-00208.warc.gz | en | 0.908856 | 930 | 3.984375 | 4 |
Pigments are coloured materials got from earths, rocks, plants, or chemicals, dissolved in water and then dried into a powder in the form of cakes or tablets. When water is added, the powdered pigment becomes liquid again. The pigment is applied to white paper or white card by brush or cloth or cotton wool, and allowed to dry. Unlike painting in oil-based pigments (coloured materials dissolved in oil), a watercolour cannot be painted over without spoiling the colour, whose purity depends on the white backing below. Therefore each area of a watercolour painting is painted only once, and looks fresh and original rather than worked over. Watercolour painting is often used in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese paintings. Fingerpainting with watercolours came from China. | <urn:uuid:c446d6b7-347c-461c-acb8-209ef6194e89> | CC-MAIN-2013-48 | http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watercolour | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-48/segments/1386163065934/warc/CC-MAIN-20131204131745-00073-ip-10-33-133-15.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964997 | 157 | 3.296875 | 3 |
The Bible says that it was the devil (or Satan) in the form of a serpent who temped Adam and Eve to sin and brought about their fall. But this raises an important question: Why did God create a ‘bad’ devil (meaning ‘adversary’) to corrupt His good creation?
Lucifer – The Shining One
In fact, the Bible says that God created a powerful, intelligent, and beautiful spirit who was chief among all angels. His name was Lucifer (meaning ‘Shining One’) – and he was very good. But Lucifer also had a will with which he could freely choose. A passage in Isaiah 14 records the choice he had:
How you have fallen from heaven,
morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
you who once laid low the nations!
You said in your heart,
“I will ascend to the heavens;
I will raise my throne
above the stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
on the utmost heights of the North.
I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.” (Isaiah 14:12-14)
Lucifer, like Adam, faced a decision. He could accept that God was God or he could choose to be his own ‘god’. His repeated “I wills” show that he chose to defy God and declare himself to be ‘Most High’. A passage in Ezekiel gives a parallel description of the fall of Lucifer:
You were in Eden, the garden of God.
… I ordained and anointed you
as the mighty angelic guardian.
You had access to the holy mountain of God
and walked among the stones of fire.
“You were blameless in all you did
from the day you were created
until the day evil was found in you.
… and you sinned.
So I banished you in disgrace
from the mountain of God.
I expelled you, O mighty guardian,
from your place among the stones of fire.
Your heart was filled with pride
because of all your beauty.
Your wisdom was corrupted
by your love of splendor.
So I threw you to the ground. (Ezekiel 28:13-17)
Lucifer’s beauty, wisdom and power – all the good things created in him by God – led to pride. His pride led to his rebellion, but he never lost any of his power and abilities. He is now leading a cosmic revolt against his Creator to see who will be God. His strategy was to enlist mankind to join him – by tempting them to the same choice that he made – to love themselves, become independent from God, and defy Him. The heart of the test of Adam’s will was the same as Lucifer’s; it was just presented differently. They both chose to be ‘god’ to themselves.
Satan – working through others
The passage in Isaiah is directed to the ‘King of Babylon’ and the Ezekiel passage is addressed to the ‘King of Tyre’. But from the descriptions given, it is clear that no human is addressed. The “I wills” in Isaiah describe someone who was thrown to the earth in punishment for wanting to place his throne above the throne of God. The passage in Ezekiel addresses an ‘angelic guardian’ who once moved in Eden and the ‘mountain of God’. Satan (or Lucifer) often puts himself behind or through someone else. In Genesis he speaks through the serpent. In Isaiah he rules through the King of Babylon, and in Ezekiel he possesses the King of Tyre.
Why did Lucifer revolt against God?
But why did Lucifer want to challenge the all-powerful and all-knowing Creator? Part of being ‘smart’ is to know whether or not you can defeat your opponent. Lucifer may have power, but that would still be insufficient to defeat His Creator. Why lose everything for something he could not win? I would think that a ‘smart’ angel would have recognized his limitations against God – and hold back his revolt. So why didn’t he? This question puzzled me for many years.
Then I realized that Lucifer could only believe that God was His all-powerful Creator by faith – the same as for us. The Bible suggests that angels were created in creation week. For example, a passage in Job tells us:
Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm. He said…
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand….
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy? (Job 38:1-7)
Imagine that Lucifer was created and became conscious in creation week, somewhere in the universe. All he knows is that now he exists and is self-aware, and also that there is another Being who claims that He has created Lucifer and the universe. But how does Lucifer know that this claim is true? Perhaps, this so-called creator had popped into existence in the stars just before Lucifer popped into existence. And because this ‘creator’ arrived earlier on the scene, he was (perhaps) more powerful and (perhaps) more knowledgeable than Lucifer – but then again perhaps not. Perhaps both he and the ‘creator’ just popped into existence simultaneously. Lucifer could only accept God’s Word to him that He had created him, and that God himself was eternal and infinite. But in his pride he chose to believe his fantasy instead.
Maybe it seems doubtful that Lucifer would believe that both he and God (and the other angels) just ‘popped’ into existence. But this is the same basic idea behind the latest thinking in modern cosmology. There was a cosmic fluctuation of nothing, and then out of this fluctuation arose the universe – that is the essence of modern cosmology theories. Fundamentally, everyone – from Lucifer to Richard Dawkins & Stephen Hawkings to you & me – must decide by faith whether the universe is self-contained or was created and sustained by a Creator God.
In other words, seeing is not believing. Lucifer had seen and talked with God. But he still had to accept ‘by faith’ that God had created him. Many people say that if God would just ‘appear’ to them, then they would believe. But in the Bible many people saw and heard God – but still did not take Him at His word. The issue was whether they would accept and trust His Word about Himself and themselves. From Adam & Eve, to Cain & Abel, to Noah, to the Egyptians at the first Passover, to the Israelite crossing of the Red Sea and to those who saw the miracles of Jesus – ‘seeing’ never resulted in trust. The fall of Lucifer is consistent with this.
What is the Devil doing today?
So according to the Bible, God did not make a ‘bad devil’, but created a powerful and intelligent angelic being. Through pride he has led a revolt against God – and in doing so was corrupted, while still keeping his original splendor. You, I and all of mankind have become part of the battleground in this contest between God and his ‘adversary’ (devil). The strategy of the devil is not to wear sinister black cloaks like ‘Black Riders’ in the Lord of the Rings and put evil curses on us. Instead he seeks to deceive us from the redemption that God had promised at the beginning of time through Abraham, through Moses, and then accomplished in the death and resurrection of Jesus. As the Bible says:
Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. (2 Corinthians 11:14-15)
Because Satan and his servants can masquerade as ‘light’ we are more easily tricked. Perhaps this is why the Gospel always seems to run against our instincts and against all cultures. | <urn:uuid:0f53f5f4-b378-4cdc-91d5-1c2df9209819> | CC-MAIN-2021-21 | https://esl.eternallife.site/category/uncategorized/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-21/segments/1620243989819.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20210518094809-20210518124809-00059.warc.gz | en | 0.981791 | 1,702 | 2.625 | 3 |
What's it all about?
Learn about the organisation that helps millions of people around the world each year. The feature covers:
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Have you tried The Week Junior in your school yet?
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Try it for free in your school, order your free copy today! | <urn:uuid:9c820be4-f205-4e6d-85a8-f1c3526f015f> | CC-MAIN-2021-25 | https://schools.theweekjunior.co.uk/united-nations | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-25/segments/1623487633444.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20210617192319-20210617222319-00440.warc.gz | en | 0.951087 | 186 | 2.625 | 3 |
The FACTS define the Business Rules ...
1. What are the 'Things of Interest' in the Scope to be modelled ...
2. How are these 'Things of Interest' related ? ...
CHESS CLUBS can have many MEMBERS.
A PLAYER can have one and only one RANKING.
CHESS CLUBS can host many TOURNAMENTS.
TOURNAMENTS can also be sponsored by organisations,(such as Newspapers or Federations),
which are not CHESS CLUBS.
Many TOURNAMENTS occur every year.
PLAYERS can participate in zero or many TOURNAMENTS.
A PLAYER can be a MEMBER in only one CHESS CLUBS at any one time.
A TOURNAMENT can have many PLAYERS.
A TOURNAMENT can have zero or many MATCHES between two participating PLAYERS.
3. What do we know about the 'Things of Interest' ? ...
A CHESS CLUB is identified by a unique ID, and has a Name, Address and Other Details.
A PLAYER is identified by a unique ID, and has a Name, Address and Other Details.
A TOURNAMENT is identified by a unique Code, and has a Name, Sponsor, Start Date and End Date.
A TOURNAMENT can have zero, one or many SPONSORS. | <urn:uuid:62dca9a2-17a7-49f7-b5b1-f99e32d04009> | CC-MAIN-2014-23 | http://www.databaseanswers.org/data_models/chess_tournaments/facts.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-23/segments/1405997894275.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20140722025814-00171-ip-10-33-131-23.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93693 | 295 | 2.875 | 3 |
Q: We planted Kentucky Wonder pole beans in April. They are climbing up the support poles nicely but they have been blooming for over two weeks with no sign of beans!
A: Bean flower drop is related to fertilization but not in a way you might think. The bloom drop is common when the flowers are exposed to temperatures above 90 degrees for several days. Flowers exposed to sunshine in the afternoon are more likely to drop than those shaded by leaves. Although over-fertilizing can lead to flower drop, under-fertilizing leads to thinner leaf cover and less shade for flowers. If you see that many flowers are exposed to a lot of sunshine, fertilize with houseplant food to get more leaves and wait for temperatures to drop a bit. | <urn:uuid:2041cd03-b7ab-47d0-bdb8-77531b91a9c0> | CC-MAIN-2015-40 | http://www.walterreeves.com/gardening-q-and-a/kentucky-wonder-pole-beans-no-beans/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-40/segments/1443736672441.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20151001215752-00247-ip-10-137-6-227.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964272 | 156 | 2.59375 | 3 |
2007Number of visits: 2391
African countries attained independence in the 1960s on the basis of a broad social contract between the nationalists who inherited state power from the colonial authorities and the general populace whose support was instrumental to the success of the independence struggle. At the centre of the contract was a commitment by the nationalists to an across-the-board improvement in the lives and well-being of the populace in ways which also overcame the discriminatory restrictions that underpinned colonial social policy and opened new opportunities for social advancement. The health and educational sectors occupied a pride of place in the early investments which post-colonial governments made in the social sectors; overall, those sectors witnessed an all-round expansion in the period up to the end of the 1970s. As it pertains specifically to the health sector, the primary accent was placed on developing the infrastructure for the provision of “modern” medicine to the bulk of the populace. From the primary health centres that were created to the bigger, mostly urban-based general hospitals and specialist medical centres, the expansion of the “modern” health sector was treated as a tangible goal of independence to which public investments were poured. At the same time, attention was given to training of health personnel – nurses, midwives and doctors – both locally and abroad to staff the medical establishments which governments set up.
For the period up to the middle of the 1980s, most of the public medical centres that were established functioned relatively well: They were well-provisioned in most senses, including the drugs and personnel they needed to render services to the citizenry. Governmental financial subventions to meet their operational expenses were also regular even if not always sufficient. In turn, public medical establishments generally enjoyed the confidence of the public and were often the first choice of most patients on account of the quality of their services and the equipment at the disposal of their staff members. This picture was, however, to begin to change rapidly from the mid-1980s onwards when, in the wake of the economic crises which African countries one after the other began to undergo, the health sector suffered severe setbacks from which it still has not recovered. Apart from the severe cut-backs in the budgetary allocations by governments under severe pressure to balance their budget, the sector was to witness a mass exodus of qualified personnel on account of a variety of factors. The brain drain from the public health sector was fuelled by the sharp deterioration of the physical infrastructure and equipment base of most health institutions; the severe shortages of drugs and other supplies that became a way of life; the deterioration in the remuneration of public heath staff; and overall environment of work that discouraged professional excellence. As if the exodus of staff was not enough, governments were also to carry out retrenchment exercises as part of their public sector reform programmes crafted within the framework of IMF/World Bank structural adjustment. The adjustment framework also became the platform through which so-called cost-sharing/cost recovery policies were introduced from the 1980s onwards, policies which, taken with the deterioration in the public health system, acted as a disincentive for continued popular access to and use of the services of the public health institutions.
The crises of public health provisioning acted as a spur for the emergence and/or expansion of private health services underpinned by a market logic. Private health provisioning has undergone a significant growth and expansion not just in terms of numbers but also with regard to the levels and complexity of services offered. In addition to local private providers – many of them former or serving employees of the public health system who have not joined the brain drain (yet) – there is also a steady stream of private international providers entering into the local health sector to offer general and specialist services. In many cases, the private providers depend on moonlighting public heath sector personnel in order to sustain some of their services. Alongside the development of private health provisioning has been a growth in the private health insurance market. The emergence and expansion of the private health system also signalled the formal arrival of a highly stratified health structure in most African countries whereby the working poor either had to make do with the public heath system such as it exists or seek other popular alternatives through “traditional” medicine while the richer members of society shifted their patronage to private providers. Available evidence suggests that this stratification is reflective of broader processes of deepening social inequality in Africa associated with the marketisation drive that has underpinned much of public policy over the last two and half decades.
Participants in the 2007 session of the CODESRIA Institute on Health, Politics and Society will be encouraged to explore the various dimensions of contemporary private health provisioning in Africa. What are its origins and what is the nature of the private health sector? Who are the private health providers? What patterns of locally-driven private health provisioning are emerging? How is the growing international trade in health services that is being promoted by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) refracted into the development of the local private health market in Africa? What kinds of public policy frames exist for the functioning of private health centres, how are the centres regulated and to what effect? Who are the takers of private health services with particular reference to social class and gender? Are there correlations between income and/or gender, for example, in the consumption of health services in an increasingly stratified social context? In addition to the social geography of private health provisioning, what does the physical distribution of the private health institutions tell us about its physical geography? What connections exist between private health providers and private suppliers of health insurance? On what foundations (ideological and/or otherwise) are the claims of quality in private health provisioning based and is there any merit to them? How have the private health institutions, by their sheer existence, affected what is left of the public health system? In the health-seeking behaviour of the populace, how are the available private, public and “traditional” health services negotiated? The range and variety of research and policy issues associated with the on-going expansion of private health provisioning is endless and various multidisciplinary entry points are required for the achievement of a balanced and holistic understanding. Prospective participants in the Institute are invited to address themselves to these different entry points and other related aspects of research on health system governance in Africa.
Can I just say what a relief to find someone who actually knows what theyre talking about on the internet. You definitely know how to bring an issue to light and make it important. More people need to read this and understand this side of the story. I cant believe youre not more popular because you definitely have the gift.usados hyundaikFRQ7qOdYX42AxsawXhh | <urn:uuid:54d5c91c-91e6-41f9-a677-d3fc678e3dd1> | CC-MAIN-2017-22 | http://codesria.org/spip.php?article288 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-22/segments/1495463615105.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20170530124450-20170530144450-00105.warc.gz | en | 0.969256 | 1,366 | 2.84375 | 3 |
A Wonderful Messenger: Nitric Oxide
What do air pollution, a Nobel Prize and a hormone have in common? The answer is "nitric oxide." In chemistry textbooks, nitric oxide is defined as a colorless, poisonous gas that comes into being by the oxygenation of nitrogen. It is a "simple" molecule shown by the chemical formula, "NO" (it is a molecule made up of one nitrogen atom and one oxygen atom). Both nitrogen and oxygen are familiar elements. One of the first things we learn in high school is that the air we breathe is composed of 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen.
When we say nitric oxide is "simple," we only refer to the simplicity of its chemical composition. With regard to its importance to human life, intense research over the past twenty years has shown that this molecule performs a basic function in communication among cells. The result of scientific work in this field has revealed that nitric oxide is a hormone produced naturally in the human body. It is a chemical messenger that plays a strategic role in the regulation of the vital functioning of the nervous system, circulatory system, immune system, respiratory system and reproductive system.
Poisonous nitric oxide is a gas that causes air pollution and acid rain, destroys the ozone layer and the ecological environment. This gas is produced by the burning of nitrogen and is found in great quantities in car exhaust. Until recently, only this aspect of NO was known. It was believed that, apart from its threat to human health, it had no function. Even the discovery by research that the NO was a hormone was disregarded in scientific circles. Generally, the first reaction to this discovery was disbelief.
But, within a short time, the results of research have awakened great interest in the scientific community; as evidence of this, the December 1992 issue of the well known scientific periodical Science called nitric oxide the "molecule of the year."74
With increased work in this field of scientific research, nitric oxide has gained great recognition; it has become known as the "magic gas," the "wonderful molecule" and the "secret messenger."
Robert Furchgott, Louis Ignarro and Ferid Murad, who demonstrated the role of nitric oxide in the process of cellular communication, received the 1998 Nobel Prize in Medicine. In the Nobel Foundation press release, it was noted that the prize was awarded to these professors for discoveries made relative to the NO messenger molecule, and it was pointed out that this discovery had elicited an avalanche of research activities in many different laboratories around the world.75Special research in the field of cellular communication has brought several other awards to the same researchers from the Nobel foundation.
In fact, in the last ten years, there has been an explosion in the amount of research done on NO; foundations have been established in the name of Nitric Oxide; periodicals have been published; according to the Nitric Oxide Society records, there are more than 32,000 scientific papers dealing with this remarkable molecule.76
Dr. Salvador Monsada, known for his work on nitric oxide, said that NO has changed the generally accepted thinking about cell-to-cell interaction, and that it has turned upside down some ideas about this matter.77Dr. John Cooke, of Stanford University, has characterized this research as "a great discovery" that is going to have "tremendous ramifications in American medicine—in medicine throughout the world."78
Of course, the basic point is how these developments have squeezed evolutionists into a corner. As in every scientific advance, new discoveries concerning nitric oxide have created a nightmare for evolutionists because there is no way that the wonderful operations in the human body caused by this molecule, 0.0000000001 meter (one billionth of a meter) in size could be explained in terms of chance. Nitric oxide is one of the numberless signs of God's perfect creation.
Evolutionist circles are relentlessly determined to deny God and blind to every marvelous proof of creation from atoms to galaxies. The attitude of their print media towards NO is that these articles, written with a claim to being scientific, praise nitric oxide immensely and present it like a hero or a superman. Because evolutionists deny the Creator of nitric oxide, they almost divinize this molecule and speak as if it performed all its marvelous operations by its own will and intelligence.
Evolutionists fall into their own trap because, this distorted point of view is no different from divinizing a bee because it gives honey, a tree because it gives fruit, or the sun because it gives light to the world. The same way of thinking would lead one to praise a beautiful painting without mentioning the painter or giving him praise. Every person must choose one of the two roads: either he will believe in God as it says in the Qur'an "That is God, your Lord. There is no god but Him, the Creator of everything…" (Qur'an, 6: 102) or he will divinize atoms, molecules, cells and a countless number of animate and inanimate things.
The nitric oxide messenger molecule is only one of the countless blessings that the Almighty God of eternal mercy has created and given to our service. In this century in which we live, it is one of the many wonders of creation that has come to light in the micro-universe. Throughout the section, you will read about the expert design of this molecule that performs its operations on our behalf in a significant number of the 100 trillion (100,000,000,000,000) cells in our bodies.
Design in Our Blood Vessels
Let us begin our investigation of nitric oxide where it was first discovered—the blood vessels. The blood vessels, together with the heart and the blood, form the circulatory system. Our blood vessels are like an immense highway system that goes to every part of our bodies. Its total length is more than 100,000 kilometers. A simple calculation helps us to better understand the importance of this number: if all the arteries, veins, and capillaries in the human body were placed end to end, they could stretch around the earth nearly two and a half times.79
And the blood vessel system in our bodies is incomparably more complex than the highway system in a developed country such as America. Highways are built with a particular width and, according to the density of traffic at different times of day, the number of lanes does not increase or decrease. However, the inner diameter of our blood vessels is not fixed; they narrow and dilate according to our activities and thus play an important role in the adjustment of blood pressure. So, thanks to this wonderful system, the changing needs in different areas of our bodies are met automatically. It is because of this flawless system that the blood vessels dilate to respond to an increased need for blood, and constrict after we receive a wound to reduce bleeding.
How do the blood vessels know when to dilate and when to constrict? The answer to this question is very important for human life. It is clear that a slight error that may happen at any point in the 100,000-kilometer long network of blood vessels will ineluctably have negative consequences.
Until ten years ago, scientists suspected that some very complex operations occurred in the blood vessels, but they were unable to answer the questions posed above. Research has revealed the existence of a chemical messenger—the nitric oxide molecule. It is this molecule that gives instructions for the blood vessels to dilate.
Now, let us examine more closely the wonderful installations deep in our blood vessels that produce nitric oxide.
With an electron microscope, the blood vessels appear to be huge in reverse proportion to their smallness. For example, ten capillary vessels arranged side by side are only the size of a human hair. The inner walls of these tiny blood vessels are covered with a tissue that is made up of the smooth muscle cells; the dilation and contraction of the blood vessels happens as a result of the movement of this tissue. The muscle cells do not make direct contact with the blood because a membranous layer exists between the blood and the muscle cells—the endothelium.
By aligning themselves side by side like the links of a chain, endothelium cells form the endothelial layer. Until the 1980's, it was believed that these cells had no function worthy of attention other than facilitating blood flow in the vessels. We now understand that one of the many responsibilities of the endothelium cells is the production of the nitric oxide messenger.
The endothelium cells are factories that produce nitric oxide molecules. These factories in the blood vessels are just one millionth of a meter in size. The chemical products of this microscopic factory, nitric oxide messenger molecules, are also just one millionth of a meter in size. To help us imagine this measurement, the magnification required to see a NO molecule as grape-sized with the naked eye would magnify a tennis ball to the same size as the world.80
The Short Life Story of the Messenger NO
Every nitric oxide molecule lasts about 10 seconds. It is designed to communicate its message within this short time to the relevant recipients and do this perfectly without fail. The messenger NO molecules secreted by the endothelium cells are dispersed with great speed in every direction. Those which are directed towards the smooth muscle cells enter the membrane of these cells. The smooth muscle cell membrane acts as a selector giving entry to the NO it recognizes. Without wasting any time, the NO molecule that enters the smooth muscle cells finds a special enzyme called GC and communicates its vitally important message. As a result, a series of complex chemical reactions occur within the cell.
What we have called a messenger is a molecule, 0.000000001 meter in size, containing only two atoms. These tiny molecules act as mail deliverers finding the GC enzyme that is the recipient of the message they carry. There are thousands of different enzymes performing different functions inside cells. Despite this, the message is delivered every time to the right address, that is, to the correct enzyme. Moreover, messenger molecules have a very limited life span, but they never make a mistake in timing. The molecules that carry the messages do not have a compass or similar device to show them the direction, but they never lose their way.
The speed with which the nitric oxide molecule performs its function can be compared to modern communication by e-mail. NO acts just like an electronic postal system, sending many messages at high speed to their destinations.
When GC enzyme in the smooth muscle cells receives the message brought by NO, it begins its activity. The duty of this worker enzyme is to turn the GTP, the energy-carrying molecules, into cGMP. The many reactions that occur between these stages are still unknown.
To put it in most simplest terms, at the end of the activity of the enzymes, the concentration of calcium in the muscle cell diminishes, causing a separation in the fibers and the relaxing of the muscle cells. As a result of this, the vessels dilate. In short, the message carried by the nitric oxide molecule has a vital importance in the adjustment of the pressure in the vessels, and what is explained here is only one of the millions of complex communication operations that go on every moment in our bodies.
How is it that NO molecules that have no intelligence or consciousness know the perfect systems that world-renowned professors can still not fathom? And how is it that they know, to the last second, when they must begin their activity and when they must end it? How is it that, as soon as it is produced, as if it had received a command from somewhere, it is able to deliver high-speed messages to the right address, exactly on time and without fail?
NO cannot perform these wonderful operations by itself. This molecule, like millions of other molecules in nature, is the work of a flawless creation, and it is a demonstration of God's limitless power and knowledge.
The Messenger in Sperm
Another very important function performed on our behalf by this molecule occurs in the first moment of our lives. First, we must notice when we say "the first moment of our lives," we do not mean the moment we were born. The first moment of our lives is the first moment of the one cell that formed us, when the sperm united with the egg.
When the sperm and the egg meet, a number of incredibly complex chemical operations begin, and as a result, an embryo is formed. But, among the many details that are still unknown, there is an important point that can be summarized in the words of Professor David Epel who said, "Since the turn of the century, people have wondered exactly how sperm-egg contact initiates development."81
The research carried out to find the answer to this question has shown that the messenger carried by NO initiates the wonderful process in the mother's womb. Inside the sperm there is an enzyme called Nitric Oxide Synthase (NOS). This enzyme begins to produce NO a few seconds before fertilization with perfect timing. When union occurs, the nitric oxide molecules in the sperm are dispersed within the egg; thirty seconds later, the calcium in the egg is activated and, the multiplication mechanism in the first cell goes into operation. The wonderful organization within this first cell is not yet fully understood. It is interesting for us to notice that, if there were an insufficiency in the nitric oxide molecule, communication between the sperm and the egg would not be established. Science came to understand this fact only in the year 2000; this shows us again that nitric oxide was created by God and appointed by Him to perform its functions.
Face to Face With Bacteria and Viruses
Earlier we mentioned that, although nitric oxide carries vital messages, it is also a poisonous molecule. So, the role of NO in the immune system is related to its poisonous qualities. This molecule is secreted by macrophages, which are important in the body's immune system. Recall that macrophages are microorganisms 0.01 of a millimeter in size. By a process called phagocytosis, they remove (swallow) bacteria and molecules, which are dangerous for our bodies. When a macrophage meets germs or bacteria that cause sickness, it surrounds them; afterwards, the bacteria that are embraced on every side by the macrophages are subjected to a bombardment of nitric oxide. In this way, nitric oxide molecules start a reaction to destroy the bacteria. Certainly, the cooperation between nitric oxide and macrophages is one of the countless proofs of the harmonious creation.
The NO molecules have another interesting role in the immune system. Research has shown that NO renders the "protease" enzyme found in some viruses ineffective. This enzyme breaks down big proteins into small parts that are used in the production of new viruses. NO puts this enzyme out of operation, preventing the virus from multiplying.
Tiny molecules find other molecules in a body that they have never before encountered and know very well how to neutralize their effects. In this way, people can be rescued from great dangers that they were not even aware of. It is very clear that all this order and connection among molecules cannot be the result of chance. God, the Lord of the universe, has given the NO molecules their function and created them with their special qualities.
Research in this field continues, and it is thought that, in the near future, scientists will be able to use nitric oxide in the fight against cancer. Each new bit of information that comes to light will show once again that this molecule is a product of extraordinary design.
Every day, the nitric oxide molecule is subject of new research, and the results of this research amaze even scientists. What is known at this point is that this messenger molecule is produced in various cells throughout our whole body, and that it has important functions in many bodily operations. In order to understand how utterly astonishing the activities of this molecule are, put yourself for a moment in the place of NO and imagine that you are undertaking its duties.
No matter how much of an expert you are, you must confess that you would not be able to do what this molecule does, even with the help of the most advanced computers and laboratories.
Certainly, the nitric oxide messenger molecule has been created by God Who has "created everything and determined it most exactly…" (Qur'an, 25: 2) Although this molecule has no sense organs, intelligence, consciousness, education or technical training, the fact that it can regulate the operations of cells, make and carry out on its own initiative delicate and necessary decisions relative to the human body, comes from God's superior and incomparable design.
All this information has been obtained during the last decade of the twentieth century as a result of intense research by scientists who are considered authorities in this field. Certainly, all the things unknown about NO cannot be brought to light just by the work of individual researchers; there are other factors that must be considered. States and international foundations have spent enormous amounts of money on scientific work in this field and have established laboratories with tools that are the product of the latest technology.
Certainly, the fact that the wonders of creation contained in this messenger molecule have been discovered only after so much work and effort is another demonstration of the superior knowledge of God. | <urn:uuid:4e5d26fb-fcf1-4dfb-bd28-8ab47942b464> | CC-MAIN-2017-17 | http://www.harunyahya.com/en/books/987/The_Miracle_Of_Hormones/chapter/3728/A_wonderful_messenger_Nitric_oxide | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917120878.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031200-00339-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960387 | 3,567 | 3.40625 | 3 |
Extremity metastatic disease
Extremity metastatic disease is a type of cancer that develops in the extremities of the body. It affects the arm and leg bones like the humerus. Accordingly, the cancer is called upper extremity cancer or lower extremity cancer.
Cancer starts when the other parts of the body like the lungs, breasts, or prostrate develop cancer. Then the tumor spreads to nearby extremities or the spine. This process is known as metastasis.
Cancers initiate in the lungs, liver, kidneys, thyroid, prostate which later spread to bones. Treatment is available for the cancers that occur at these places. However, after they spread to bones, it becomes difficult to restrict cancer.
Moreover, upon their expansion to bones, these tumors make the bones weak. Due to this, fractures may occur. Thus, it becomes necessary to limit the growth of tumors at a suitable time.
The main cause for this cancer is the metastasis of the cancerous cells to limb bones. The cancers originate at a different place and then affect the bones. Formation of lesions or degradation of bones occurs during this process.
Pain: Pain is the most common symptom of an extremity metastatic disease. This pain results due to the weakening of the bone at the place of the tumor. Thus, experiencing pain in the extremities is by far the most common sign.
Fractures: Bones can break quite easily due to this cancer. This leads to the fracture of your bones, even from a minor injury.
Anemia: Areas like arms, long bones of the leg are responsible for the formation of blood cells. This is because of the presence of bone marrow which contains blood cell forming machines. One type of cell produces Red blood cells, which are necessary for carrying oxygen to tissues in the body. Therefore, damage to the extremities can result in anemia.
How your doctor detects the tumor?
The detection and examination of this tumor will begin with the physical examination. Before the imaging tests, a doctor will look into your medical history.
He/She will ask for a family history of this cancer, whether or not you are smoking, and your dieting habits. Then the doctor will look for lesions or swelling in the area of the tumor.
After a thorough physical examination, your doctor will order other tests. These tests help to confirm the malignancy. These tests will help find if the tumor is malignant or non-malignant. A destructive bone lesion is present in case of a malignant one.
However, a nonmalignant tumor can cause other conditions like hyperparathyroidism (the increasing activity of the parathyroid gland and osteoporosis (dissolving of bones). Different tests help in the confirmation of these.
Among imaging tests, an x-ray is highly useful. This helps your doctor detect the location of your tumor and the damage. However, for confirming the actual size and other details like the complexity of the tumor, your doctor will order other tests.
These tests include Computed tomography (CT) scan, Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan, or a bone scan.
An MRI is done when you lie still and flat on a plain surface. Then, this surface will take you inside an MRI machine that has a tube shape. To create a detailed, 3-D image inside your body, it uses radio waves and a magnetic field.
Similar to the MRI, your doctor may also perform a CT scan. It connects with a computer and takes pictures.
A bone scan is also good at most times. During this test, the injection of a tiny amount of radioactive dye is given intravenously. These tumors appear as a “hot spot” at the place where the tumor is present when they uptake the radioactive material.
To confirm the diagnosis of extremity metastatic cancer, a biopsy is the ultimate answer. In a biopsy, your doctor takes a sample of tissue from the tumor and examines it under a microscope.
Before the operation with a needle, your doctor will give you anesthesia locally. Your doctor may use a needle to insert into your extremities or remove a part surgically.
The treatment of the tumor depends upon the extent of the disease and size. Your doctor may try to first relieve your pain by various mechanisms. Preserving the function of the area is also a priority for the patient. Thus, your doctor will try his/her best to treat the tumor in a way that doesn’t affect the function of extremities.
To reduce the size of lesions in your bones, your doctor may use bisphosphonates. This is because they are quite helpful in degrading the lesions. Similarly, to reduce the pain, your doctor may use external beam radiation therapy (XRT) as well.
Besides this, this helps to stop the metastasis of the tumor to other parts of the extremities. Your doctor may also use radiation therapy if the tumor is small or present in the area where surgery is not possible. This weakens the tumor and restricts its expansion to other parts.
Surgery is the last and ultimate option. If the tumor doesn’t stop the growth or has spread to a larger area, surgery may rescue you. Further, the type of surgery varies depending upon whether the tumor is present in the upper or lower extremities.
After removing the tumor by surgery, your doctor may order the periodical radiation therapies to kill the remaining tumor cells, if any. Also, before surgery, you may need to undergo a preparative phase.
Coping and support
When you get diagnosed with extremity metastatic cancer, it could be frightening for you as well as your family. You may learn to cope with the uncertainty and distress related to cancer with time. You need to follow these instructions until then;
Call on for medical support:
Various things are going to help you. The knowledge and understanding of a medical social worker, or any other mental health professional will help you in understanding your cancer.
If your child or other family member suffers from cancer, you need to ask health care professionals for advice. They will provide you with options for medical health support as well as emotional and social support.
In addition to this, you can check various online services that will provide you support to combat cancer.
- Gain more knowledge about extremity metastatic cancer to make decisions about control and care:
Ask your doctor about various treatment options related to extremity metastatic cancer. Little knowledge is dangerous. Therefore, more confidence in understanding and making decisions about treatment options will be there with you. So you should always learn more about the disease.
Ask the health care team for guidance if your child has cancer. Get more and more information for appropriately caring for the patient.
Be close to your friends and family:
A close and strong relationship with your family and friends will help you deal with extremity metastatic cancer.
You need practical support, moral support from your friends and relatives. Someone should be there for you to look after the family. Emotional support from them is going to matter most. A healthy and happy person will ultimately efficiently fight the disease.
Prepare for your appointment
You are likely to start making an appointment with your primary care doctor if some signs and symptoms worry you. Ask for a referral to an experienced specialist if your doctor suspects extremity metastatic cancer.
A team of specialists typically can treat extremity metastatic cancer. For instance;
Orthopedic surgeons or orthopedic oncologists who have specialization in operating bone cancers.
Doctors who have a specialization in treating cancers with systemic medications or chemotherapy.
Pathologists diagnose the specific type of cancer by analyzing a tissue.
Rehabilitation specialists who after surgery help in the recovery of a tumor.
What you should expect from your doctor:
You will face several questions from your doctor. You should be ready to answer to give more time to your doctor to address them. Your doctor may ask;
What signs and symptoms concern you more?
Have your symptoms been occasional or continuous?
When did you start to notice the symptoms?
The severity of your symptoms?
Is there anything that improves your symptoms?
Is there anything that worsens your symptoms?
Do you have any family or personal history of cancer? | <urn:uuid:cd8c299c-9103-4af0-b782-b612a96c835c> | CC-MAIN-2022-49 | https://agileortho.in/diseasesconditionson/extremity-metastatic-disease/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446710711.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20221129200438-20221129230438-00236.warc.gz | en | 0.935819 | 1,718 | 3.375 | 3 |
Individual differences |
Methods | Statistics | Clinical | Educational | Industrial | Professional items | World psychology |
Biological: Behavioural genetics · Evolutionary psychology · Neuroanatomy · Neurochemistry · Neuroendocrinology · Neuroscience · Psychoneuroimmunology · Physiological Psychology · Psychopharmacology (Index, Outline)
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has been employed to investigate the functional anatomy of empathy. These studies have shown that observing another person's emotional state activates parts of the neuronal network involved in processing that same state in oneself, whether it is disgust, touch, or pain. The study of the neural underpinnings of empathy has received increased interest following the target paper published by Preston and Frans de Waal, following the discovery of mirror neurons in monkeys that fire both when the creature watches another perform an action as well as when they themselves perform it. In their paper, they argued that attended perception of the object's state automatically activates neural representations, and that this activation automatically primes or generates the associated autonomic and somatic responses, unless inhibited. This mechanism is similar to the common coding theory between perception and action.
In Bower (2005) the function of these mirror cells was further investigated. They may be related to awareness of the goal-directedness of actions. These neurons "may be responsible for understanding the intention of action in other people," Kiyoshi Nakahara and Yasushi Miyashita, both of the University of Tokyo School of Medicine said in a note which accompanies the Bower action.
Dapretto et al. (2006) found that, as opposed to normally developing children, high-functioning children with autism showed no mirror neuron activity in the brain's inferior frontal gyrus (pars opercularis) while imitating and observing emotional expressions. The authors suggest this supports the hypothesis that a dysfunctional mirror neuron system may underlie the social deficits observed in autism.
Components of circuitry involved in empathy may also be dysfunctional in psychopathy (Tunstall N., Fahy T. and McGuire P. in: Guide to Neuroimaging in Psychiatry, Eds. Fu C et al, Martin Dunitz: London 2003).
- ↑ Keysers, C. & Gazzola, V. (2009). Expanding the mirror: vicarious activity for actions, emotions and sensations. Curr Opinion Neurobiol, 2009
- ↑ Decety, J., & Moriguchi, Y. (2007). The empathic brain and its dysfunction in psychiatric populations: implications for intervention across different clinical conditions. BioPsychoSocial Medicine, 1, 22-65.
- ↑ Wicker, B. et al. (2003). Both of us disgusted in my insula: the common neural basis of seeing and feeling disgust. Neuron, 40, 655-664.
- ↑ Keysers, C. et al. (2004). A touching sight: SII/PV activation during the observation and experience of touch, Neuron, 42:335-46
- ↑ Blakemore, S.-J., et al. (2005). Somatosensory activations during the observation of touch and a case of vision-touch synaesthesia. Brain, 128, 1571-1583.
- ↑ Morrison, I., Lloyd, D., di Pellegrino, G., & Roberts, N. (2004). Vicarious responses to pain in anterior cingulate cortex: is empathy a multisensory issue? Cognitive & Affective Behavioral Neuroscience, 4, 270-278.
- ↑ Jackson, P.L., Meltzoff, A.N., & Decety, J. (2005). How do we perceive the pain of others: A window into the neural processes involved in empathy. NeuroImage, 24, 771-779.
- ↑ Lamm, C., Batson, C.D., & Decety, J. (2007). The neural substrate of human empathy: effects of perspective-taking and cognitive appraisal. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19, 42-58.
- ↑ Singer, T., et al. (2004). Empathy for pain involves the affective but not the sensory components of pain. Science, 303, 1157-1161.
- ↑ Preston, S., & de Waal, F. (2002). Empathy: Its ultimate and proximate bases. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25, 1-72.
- Batson, C.D. (2009). These things called empathy: eight related but distinct phenomena. In J. Decety & W. Ickes (Eds.), The Social Neuroscience of Empathy (pp. 3-15). Cambridge: MIT press. | <urn:uuid:2f26f134-2096-475f-a8ad-56717acb0196> | CC-MAIN-2015-22 | http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Neuroscience_of_empathy?oldid=124461 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-22/segments/1432207928965.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20150521113208-00111-ip-10-180-206-219.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.818702 | 974 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Mediation is an informal, voluntary process in which a mediator facilitates negotiations between disputing parties. The mediator's role is to help the parties find a mutually acceptable solution to the dispute.
In mediation the parties control:
- who the mediator will be;
- when the mediation will occur; and
- how the dispute will be resolved.
In addition, mediation can be faster and less expensive than arbitration or litigation. If the parties agree to mediate, they will not give up any right to arbitrate or litigate if they cannot reach a satisfactory settlement.
FINRA's mediation program has achieved an 80% success rate — parties who mediate in the forum resolve four out of every five cases. | <urn:uuid:cfaf7168-fd5d-4365-9873-9fdb693893d3> | CC-MAIN-2015-48 | http://www.finra.org/arbitration-and-mediation/mediation-overview | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-48/segments/1448398447881.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20151124205407-00211-ip-10-71-132-137.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918308 | 147 | 2.78125 | 3 |
A technique for the early detection of a deadly superbug as been discovered by a team of UK-led scientists.
A research team, led by the University of Sunderland, has announced that it has found a way of detecting the potentially fatal bacterium pseudomonas aeruginosa within 24 to 48 hours of infection.
Patients with cystic fibrosis are particularly susceptible to the infection, but patients with immune defects are also at risk, such as those with Aids, cancer or severe burns.
According to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in the USA, pseudomonas aeruginosa accounts for 10.1% of all hospital infections.
Professor Paul Groundwater, who led the research, said: “This superbug has a massive impact on people who are immunocompromised, for example patients with severe burns, cancer and AIDS.
“It is calculated that 28% of people who have undergone transplant surgery are infected by pseudomonas aeruginosa.
“The bacteria infect the fluid on the lungs of cystic fibrosis sufferers. It also infects patients in intensive care units. It is really difficult to treat, and hospital staff need to know very quickly.”
Prof Groundwater explained that with their new diagnostic method, a non-coloured compound reacts with an enzyme in pseudomonas aeruginosa, which then produces a very distinctive purple colour to indicate the presence of the bacteria.
He said the technique works on 99% of the strains of the superbug.
Copyright © PA Business 2008 | <urn:uuid:b6f6b2f5-db23-4b13-995d-653db954e2e5> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://hospitalpharmacyeurope.com/news/editors-pick/superbug-detection-technique-found/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233511220.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20231003192425-20231003222425-00674.warc.gz | en | 0.947241 | 324 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Detroit, MI (BlackNews.com) –- The young adult novel, The Magic Pencil, explores the nuances of language many African Americans may use when communicating within varying situations. This practice — known as code-switching — is not unique to African Americans but it has attracted much attention and discussion in the academic world of late.
Karen E. Dabney has taken this subject and crafted a compelling and entertaining story revolving around an inquisitive boy, a mysterious girl and a magic pencil.
In the story the children speak naturally to one another using Standard English, when necessary or desired, while demonstrating their ability to switch back and forth with little effort. The result is a gentle education for those who have preconceived notions regarding the users of African American Vernacular English (AAVE), also known as “Ebonics”.
AAVE has a long history that began when the first enslaved Africans were brought to the United States. They had to develop ways to communicate verbally with each other due to speaking differing dialects and languages. This task, coupled with learning how to communicate with the white slave owners, required skill and patience. The result of the style with which the average enslaved person spoke displayed a new language complete with its own rules and consistencies.
The AAVE one hears today around the country is basically the same as its roots.
Readers of The Magic Pencil will come to understand that the characters who continually use AAVE are not any less intelligent than those who speak Standard English. This discovery is important in that it lifts the self-esteem of youth who may struggle with the latter’s correct usage.
They will find vindication while reading about others who live full lives and verbally share their feelings in what may be the reader’s home/first language.
Important lessons are also to be found in The Magic Pencil. The story imparts means and methods youth may employ to successfully navigate through the pitfalls they may encounter in life. Self-determination and reliance are fostered. The attainment of knowledge is lauded.
Ms. Dabney has created an important and magnetically didactic read!
For more information visit www.dabsandcompany.com
May 2, 2014 //
May 2, 2014 //
On January 12, 2010 a 7.0 magnitude earthquake killed approximately 230,000 people in Haiti and left... | <urn:uuid:02ecfcec-3246-48d3-bfde-6148ad37d9ee> | CC-MAIN-2015-22 | http://communityjournal.net/young-adult-novel-addresses-and-explains-the-use-of-african-american-vernacular-english/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-22/segments/1432207930443.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20150521113210-00237-ip-10-180-206-219.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949419 | 485 | 2.921875 | 3 |
“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact.
Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”
That quote really got me thinking…
How many times have I put my truth onto others and judged them harshly when their truth didn’t align with mine? How often do I speak as though my opinion is a fact of the world? How often do I hear other people’s opinions as facts and take them personally if they’re not the same as my opinions?
Language can be tricky sometimes. We go around assuming that English is English, and therefore every word must mean the same thing to everyone…but I argue: that’s generally not the case. Consider this simple example:
“Is it cold outside?”
A seemingly straight-forward question, right? Well, maybe if it’s -200 degrees F, everyone on the planet would agree: it’s cold outside. But what if it’s 58 degrees F out? I doubt there’d be a comparable consensus at that temperature. I know my brother’s definition of cold is about 10 degrees lower than the point when I’m already saying I’m freezing…
But here we are, anyways, going around in the world assuming we all mean the same things when we say certain words, and then getting confused when misunderstandings occur. Or worse, judging others when their truths/definitions-of-certain-words don’t line up with ours.
“Oh, that’s expensive.”
What number makes something “expensive,” exactly? And when is it a relevant definition? If I say $10 for a gallon of milk is expensive — that’s different from saying $10 is expensive for a 5-bedroom house on 5 acres of land. Not only is the word relative between different people, but it even changes definitions within the same person’s vocabulary, depending on the frame of reference.
My point [opinion] is this: Don’t let language trick you into treating something as an absolute fact or truth when it’s actually just an opinion or perspective, whether yours or someone else’s.
No, I’m not suggesting you go around qualifying everything you ever say with an “in my opinion…” or “I believe…” etc. because I think it’s safe to assume that everything you’re saying is your opinion.
I’m just cautioning you against believing that your opinion or perspective is THE opinion or perspective of the world. I’ve caught myself doing this several times a day [yes, several is another relative word!], and I’m tired of it. I’m sick of sitting around in negative judgment of others, holding my self & my values as right and judging others as wrong for having different opinions/perspectives from me. In those moments, all I’m doing is spewing negative judge-y energy into the world from my high horse. Ick. Enough is enough.
If you’re with me, let’s decide to rise above our negative judgments and choose to acknowledge everyone on their own paths with love and grace. Let’s accept that people have different opinions, different perspectives…different truths. And let’s get curious about their whys, instead of judging them for being different from us!
The more we seek to understand others, the more we’ll understand ourselves, and the more we’ll see we’re all connected. 🙂
PS – Here is a list of relative terms/phrases that are often mis-used as absolutes: Cold. Hot. Big. Small. Fat. Skinny. Good. Bad. Expensive. Cheap. Beautiful. Ugly. Valuable. Expendable. Important. Funny. Appropriate. Polite. Rude. A lot. A little. Easy. Hard. Fast. Slow. Awesome. Terrible. Fun. Boring. Nice. Not nice. Delicious. Gross. Young. Old. New. | <urn:uuid:f1e8271b-f0f3-40ac-94f4-a819594c8171> | CC-MAIN-2017-51 | https://nicolestrack.wordpress.com/2015/06/09/your-truth-my-truth-the-truth/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-51/segments/1512948512054.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20171211014442-20171211034442-00712.warc.gz | en | 0.928819 | 868 | 2.546875 | 3 |
It is the largest species of owl. The weight of adults ranges from 1.55 to 2.80 kg for males and 1.75 to 4.20 kg for females in the northern areas.
The eagle owl can turn its head 270 degrees.
Has the massive forms with rounded wings, short tail and large head; frontal eyes with yellow-orange iris are topped by long tufts.
The plumage is brown streaked and striped of blackish at the top and brownish yellow with dark streaks and dense vermicolature inferiorly.
The eagle owl spends most of his life around its nest that can be in in a tree, in a crack in the rocks or in a branch near the trunk; almost never on the ground. Il lives mainly in forests located in rocky terrain; more rarely it lives in the plains, and almost never in the city (of course with parks and trees) where manages to hide in cracks in the walls.
The eagle owl nests between March and April, by placing the nests in the cracks of the rocks or in basins already created.
The breeding males defend the territory against conspecifics indicating its presence with the regular issue of singing in the twilight hours.
The female lays on terraces of rock walls or nests built by birds of prey or corvids 2-3 white eggs from the rough shell (rarely up to 4) hatching 34-36 days; small owls remain at the nest for 5-6 weeks and then wander around for another 20-30 days, depending on adults for the procurement of food. The chicks are protected by a grey mouse plumage.
Feeding:It feeds mainly on small mammals (such as hares and rabbits), but also preys of the size of the fox and cubs deer.It hunts other birds including raptors and especially roosters and pheasants.Like other owls swallows small or medium sized preys; non-digestible parts (bones, feathers, hairs, chitinous parts of insects) are rejected in the form of "wads" of elongated shape with a diameter of 3-4 cm. | <urn:uuid:c0298455-a4ea-475a-96d7-41e7059c9da9> | CC-MAIN-2021-25 | http://www.emporiodeglianimali.it/scheda/82/eng-eagle-owl.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-25/segments/1623487626122.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20210616220531-20210617010531-00227.warc.gz | en | 0.944115 | 442 | 2.984375 | 3 |
As a guinea pig owner, it’s important to know how to properly care for your furry friend during the warmer summer months.
The change in weather can bring about a few challenges, such as maintaining the right temperature, providing enough water, and ensuring a comfortable living environment.
Fear not! With a little bit of knowledge and preparation, you can keep your guinea pig happy and healthy all summer long.
This guide discusses how to keep your guinea pig safe and healthy in summer.
How to Care for Your Guinea Pig in Summer – Understanding Guinea Pig’s Summer Needs
Guinea pigs are sensitive to high temperatures, and they can suffer from heatstroke if not properly cared for during the summer months.
To keep your guinea pig comfortable, maintain the room temperature between 65°F and 75°F (18°C and 24°C). If it’s too hot in your home, consider using fans, air conditioning, or moving your guinea pig to a cooler area.
Additionally, provide a few cool surfaces in their cage that your guinea pig can lay on to help regulate their body temperatures, such as ceramic tiles or a freezer pack wrapped in a towel.
Staying hydrated is crucial for your guinea pig’s health during the summer. Make sure to provide fresh, clean water daily and check the water bottle regularly for any malfunctions.
Be aware that your guinea pig’s water consumption may increase during hot weather, so monitor the water levels and refill as needed.
You can also offer your guinea pig water-rich vegetables, such as cucumber or bell pepper, to help them stay hydrated and maintain a balanced diet.
If you have the option of allowing your guinea pig to spend time outdoors, it’s important to create a safe environment.
Provide a secure, shaded area for them to explore and retreat from the sunlight. Ensure the outdoor temperature is within the comfortable range for your guinea pig and avoid placing them outside during the hottest parts of the day.
Remember that predators and parasites are more active during the summer months. Keep a close eye on your guinea pig when they are outside, and consider using a protective enclosure or playpen to keep them safe from harm.
Creating a Comfortable Living Environment
Proper Ventilation and Cooling
As stated above, air circulation with a fan can help your cavy but make sure it’s not pointed directly at your guinea pig.
Additionally, consider placing a few frozen water bottles wrapped in a towel around the enclosure, which will help keep the temperature down.
Shade Areas and Hiding Spots
Guinea pigs enjoy having hiding spots to retreat to when they feel stressed or overwhelmed. During summer, these hiding spots also serve as crucial shade areas to help protect your pet from the sun.
Make sure to provide ample hiding spots in their enclosure, such as small cardboard boxes or plastic hidey houses. You can also use pieces of fleece suspended from the cage to create a cool canopy.
Use Appropriate Bedding Materials
Choosing the right bedding materials is essential for keeping your guinea pig comfortable in the summer heat. Some recommended options are:
- Paper-based bedding: It’s highly absorbent and helps wick away moisture, keeping your guinea pig cool and dry.
- Fleece: Excellent for providing a soft, cozy surface while also wicking away moisture.
- Aspen shavings: This type of wood shaving is safe for guinea pigs and can help keep the cage dry.
Avoid using pine or cedar shavings, as they can cause respiratory issues in guinea pigs. Remember to change the bedding often, especially in the summer, to maintain a fresh, clean, and comfortable environment for your pet.
Also Read: How to Cool Down Guinea Pigs
Feeding and Hydration Tips
Monitoring Water Supply
As the temperature rises, guinea pigs, like all animals, require more water to prevent dehydration.
Keep an eye on the water level in their bottle and make sure it’s topped up daily. Also, ensure that the water remains clean and fresh by changing it every day.
Offering Fresh Fruits and Vegetables
To help keep your guinea pig cool and healthy, offer them a delicious selection of fresh fruits and vegetables.
These can provide necessary vitamins and minerals, as well as an enjoyable change from their usual diet. In the summer, some great choices for your guinea pig include watermelon, cucumber, and bell peppers.
Don’t forget to remove the seeds from fruits and clean the produce thoroughly before offering it to your furry friend.
- Watermelon: Rich in water content and vitamins.
- Cucumber: A hydrating, low-calorie snack.
- Bell peppers: High in vitamin C, an essential nutrient for guinea pigs.
Recognizing Signs of Dehydration
Keeping an eye out for signs of dehydration in your guinea pig is crucial, especially during the summer months.
Some common symptoms include lethargy, sunken eyes, poor appetite, and excessive thirst. If you notice any of these signs in your guinea pig, it’s essential to take immediate action to ensure their well-being.
- Provide clean, fresh water.
- Offer water-rich fruits and vegetables.
- Monitor their behavior and improvement.
Remember, the key to keeping your guinea pig healthy and happy in the summer months is proper hydration, a balanced diet, and vigilant observation of their overall well-being.
Grooming and Healthcare
Proper Fur Maintenance
Proper fur maintenance is essential for your guinea pig’s health and well-being. Keep in mind that guinea pigs’ grooming needs vary depending on their fur type.
For short-haired guinea pigs, grooming can be done once a week using a soft brush to remove loose hair. On the other hand, long-haired breeds may require more extensive grooming, which can involve daily brushing to prevent tangles and mats from forming.
Also Read: Do Guinea Pigs Need Baths?
Helpful grooming tools:
- Soft bristle brush
- Metal comb
- Small, blunt-tipped scissors
Skin Care and Sunblock
Guinea pigs are susceptible to sunburn, especially during the hot summer months. Protect your guinea pig by providing ample shade and applying a pet-safe sunblock to areas with thin fur, such as the ears and nose.
Also, keep their cage clean and dry to prevent skin irritations.
Tips for skin care:
- Use pet-safe sunblock for sensitive areas
- Provide a shaded area for your guinea pig to rest
- Check for signs of skin irritations or infections
Regular Health Checks
Regular health checks should be performed to ensure your guinea pig stays healthy during the summer months.
This includes monitoring their weight, checking their teeth, and observing their behavior. It’s also essential to keep an eye out for signs of heat stress, such as panting, lethargy, or loss of appetite. With proper care and attention, your guinea pig can enjoy a happy and healthy summer.
Regular health check guidelines:
- Monitor weight
- Check teeth for overgrowth or misalignment
- Watch for signs of heat stress
Frequently Asked Questions
What are some signs of overheating in guinea pigs?
Guinea pigs can show signs of overheating, such as panting, drooling, weakness, and even seizures. Always monitor your guinea pig’s behavior and appearance during hot weather to ensure their well-being.
How can I help my guinea pig stay cool in hot weather?
To help your guinea pig stay cool, provide them with a well-ventilated living space and keep it out of direct sunlight. You can also offer them a ceramic tile or frozen water bottle wrapped in a towel for them to lie against. Make sure they have plenty of fresh water to stay hydrated.
Are there any cooling products specifically for guinea pigs?
Yes, there are cooling products specifically designed for guinea pigs such as cooling mats and fans that are safe for small animals. These can help to maintain a comfortable living environment for your pet during the warmer months.
At what temperature should I be concerned for my guinea pig’s comfort?
Guinea pigs tend to be comfortable in temperatures between 65°F (18°C) and 75°F (24°C). If the temperature exceeds 80°F (27°C), it’s essential to take steps to help your guinea pig stay cool and avoid overheating.
Can I take my guinea pig outside during summertime?
Yes, you can take your guinea pig outside during summertime, but always keep a close eye on them.
Make sure they have access to shade, fresh water, and a secure area to keep them safe from predators. Avoid putting them in direct sunlight or hot surfaces.
How do I address my guinea pig’s behavior during heat cycles?
Guinea pig behavior can be influenced by heat cycles known as estrus. Female guinea pigs are more likely to display different behavior during this time, including restlessness or irritability.
Be patient with your pet, and if your guinea pig is living with others, closely monitor their interactions to ensure there is no aggression between them. If the behavior becomes concerning, consult your veterinarian for advice. | <urn:uuid:99e7fb05-40a5-47af-b15b-3989c7cab8c5> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://guineapigsite.com/how-to-care-for-your-guinea-pig-in-summer/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510219.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20230926175325-20230926205325-00304.warc.gz | en | 0.923778 | 1,986 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Two new exhibits at the Freer Gallery explore the riches of the Japanese art collections and reveal how pieces of everyday life make appearances in works of art. Together, “Arts of Japan: Edo Aviary and Poetic License: Making Old Worlds New” show how artists of the Edo period (1603 to 1868) were influenced by a growing field of natural history, as well as evolving literary traditions and practices.
Selections from the exhibits, depicting some of these elegant representations of birds and bards, are featured here.
The Edo period (Edo was the former name of today’s Tokyo) was remarkably peaceful and stable. Japan was largely closed off to the rest of the world during this period. Though isolated, the country was still able to foster local cultures and take advantage of the new printing technologies. Everything from poetry to popular literature was printed and circulated and artists, in turn, incorporated themes of the day into their works.
One scene (below) referenced the well-known Tale of Genji, the 11th-century novel by lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu. The story follows an emperor’s son and his romantic life after he is given “commoner status” for political reasons.
Poetry was also popular at the time, and few poets were more popular than Ono no Komachi, renowned for her beauty during her lifetime in the ninth century.
Another one of the six great poets of the ninth century, Ariwara no Narihira was of noble blood but scandals kept him from higher rank.
In part, the spread of Neo-Confucianism during the Edo period allowed for a more secular point of view. Interest in the natural world was informed not just from a spiritual realm but also from a more scientific understanding.
Curator James Ulak says, “The rooster was thought to embody the Five Virtues: martial spirit, literary accomplishment, loyalty, courage and virtue. The 18th century, in particular, witnessed a number of Japanese painters issuing quite spectacular renderings of these creatures.”
In the case of artist Kishi Ganku, however, the rooster become a tool for social critique. Ulak says this painting from Ganku, “offers the artist’s characteristically jaded view of an icon held in high esteem.” By transforming the rooster into “an elongated and threatening creature,” Ganku suggests something ominous about the esteemed bird. “The most telling episode in the composition is the feeding process; a hen passes a dragonfly to a ravenous chick. The dragonfly’s eyes imply horror and this brilliant, minuscule touch conveys Ganku’s skill at suggesting the darker side of the ostentatiously regal.”
Other artists, like Yamaoto Baiitsu, used birds to captures scenes of the changing seasons.
More exotic birds also populated Edo period paintings. Parrots, for example, were rare in real life but found their way to paintings. The birds were first imported for the Imperial Court around the ninth century, according to the British Museum. They remained rare during the Edo period but could be found at entertainment stalls in some cities.
”Arts of Japan: Edo Aviary and Poetic License” both run through August 4, 2013 at the Freer Gallery. | <urn:uuid:683406e0-3851-427f-addb-24e7140fdac4> | CC-MAIN-2017-22 | http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/birds-and-bards-beautiful-japanese-images-from-the-edo-period-21581994/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-22/segments/1495463607046.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20170522190443-20170522210443-00104.warc.gz | en | 0.964432 | 711 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Yesterday, Elections Canada released a study on the problem of youthful apathy on voting day. The study suggests that "young Canadians don't vote because politicians aren't able to connect to the issues that matter to them." That conclusion isn't all that surprising. But when you dig down into the numbers, things get interesting:
The study also selected several specific groups of youth — aboriginals, the disabled, unemployed, ethnic and youth in rural areas — to determine why they said they voted in lower numbers than the general population.
In the case of the unemployed and aboriginals, which includes First Nations and Inuit groups, only 42 per cent of those surveyed said they voted. About 55 per cent of those with disabilities and 61 per cent of ethnic youth asked said they voted.
Put simply, those who could be helped most by government don't vote, perhaps because they have figured out that government -- at least as it is presently constituted -- has no intention of helping them.
And, even more importantly, knowledge of Canada's current political landscape is a good predictor of who will and who will not vote:
Political knowledge and interest were major factors the study suggests affect the likelihood someone will vote. Only 28 per cent of youth who aren't interested in politics voted, compared to 88 per cent who said they were interested in politics and did vote.
All of this suggests that progressive parties have to take voter education seriously. After the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, political activists in the United States fanned out across the country. Their mission was simple: to get out the vote.They obviously did not solve all their nation's problems. But the United States has its first African-American president.
There is a lesson there. Things will only change in Canada when the opposition parties find new ways to communicate with the young, the disaffected and the marginalized. | <urn:uuid:b968d218-a339-454e-95bb-84cf61126978> | CC-MAIN-2015-22 | http://nor-re.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-generation-gap.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-22/segments/1432207928078.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20150521113208-00115-ip-10-180-206-219.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98164 | 378 | 2.96875 | 3 |
Pass-Over: Remembering Jesus
by Nellie Ponce
It is that time of the year again: Passover and Resurrection season. Most Christians celebrate Jesus death and resurrection but few understand how the biblical celebration of Passover applies to them. Passover is more than just another Jewish holiday. It is a commanded time of remembrance and celebration established by God in Exodus chapter 12. It is followed by a 7day festival called the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Passover was and is the holiest time of year for those of the Jewish faith and for those who honor God’s command to observe it.
“So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance…And you shall observe this thing as an ordinance for you and your sons forever.” Exodus 12:14,24
God said they would observe the Passover celebration FOREVER. Not until the Messiah came but forever. God knew that His people would quickly forget how He delivered them from the Egyptians. He knew that in their humanity they would need to be reminded of His goodness, His power and His love. Maybe you are saying, “I hear you, but what is Passover? How does it apply to me as a believer in Jesus Christ?”
Passover is a celebration of how God delivered the Israelites out of Egypt, which He called “the house of slavery” (Exodus 13:14). The Israelites had been crying out to God for a long time to deliver them and He had heard them. The Egyptians had enslaved them for over 400 years. Through Moses, God gave them specific orders for their deliverance. God was planning a great escape for His people! These were His instructions:
- Kill a lamb without blemish.
- Smear the blood on the doorposts and on the lintel (top of the door).
- The meat must be roasted (not boiled or raw) and eaten that night – all leftovers must be destroyed the following morning.
- Eat unleavened bread (no yeast) and bitter herbs with the meat.
- They must eat it in haste, fully clothed and staff in hand.
“And thus you shall eat it: with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.” Exodus 12:11-13 NKJV
The blood was a sign for God’s people. God was going to bring judgement upon the Egyptians and did not want His people included in that judgement. The only way death would not touch them was if God saw the blood. That is why it is called “Passover”. The Hebrew word for Passover according to Strong’s KJV concordance is defined as “a pretermission, that is exemption.”Pretermission is defined as letting someone pass without notice and to disregard. God exempted His people from judgement and death because He saw the blood on their doorposts. That evening God dealt with their enemies and gave them a new life of freedom!
This story and yearly celebration is powerful because it points to Jesus our Passover Lamb (1 Corinthians 5:7, John 1:29). Jesus fulfilled every part of Passover – the lamb, the blood and the bread. Because of His blood, God’s judgement passes over our lives. We have sin and failure within us and actually deserve death like the Egyptians. But, God made a way for us like He did the Israelites. According to Romans 3:23, all of us have sinned against God and fell short of His glory! There is hope for all those who believe in Jesus, receive His forgiveness and are cleansed by His blood !
A few years ago God spoke to me and said, “When I see you, I see my Son bleeding in His beautiful crimson blood and there is no shame.” When God sees us He sees the blood. He sees Jesus. We must realize that God did not throw away Passover when Jesus died for us, He fulfilled it. Jesus Himself celebrated Passover with His disciples right before He died (Matthew 26:17-19) and gave them some very clear instructions similar to those in Exodus 12.
“Then He said to them, ‘With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.’ Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, ‘Take this and divide it among yourselves; for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.’ And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.’” Luke 22:15-20 NKJV
- Break bread and eat: it is His body
- Drink the wine (or juice): it is His blood
God commanded them to eat the unleavened bread and to place the blood on the doorposts. Jesus our Passover Lamb says to eat the bread and drink the cup in REMEMBRANCE of Him. We call this communion. God established Passover so His people would REMEMBER how He had vanquished their enemies. All of this is for us to remember Him – His power, His love and His mercy! Passover and communion are not just traditions to be upheld but holy celebrations to evoke praise for all God has done in our lives.
In our humanity and brokenness we forget the many different breakthroughs God has done in our lives. We grow discouraged when we meet new trials and enemies. In the darkness, in the battle we wonder if God will come through. I believe God established Passover and communion so that when we walk through trouble we would remember who He is: our loving Savior, Warrior and Friend! He wants us to know He can do it again. We can trust the One who gave it all because He loved us (John 3:16).
Have you forgotten all God has done for you and what Jesus’ blood means for your life? Today I encourage you to celebrate Passover and Jesus’ Resurrection with fellow believers! Think about all He has done in your life and simply worship! You will be encouraged and revived. At Yielded Vessels Ministries we hold a yearly Passover Seder where we eat, play games, pray and worship together to commemorate all God has done for His people! We rejoice in His deliverance and thank God for passing over our sin. We deserve judgement but He gave us mercy. That is love. That is what Passover is all about! For more info on our Passover Seder visit our facebook page!
Yielded Vessels Ministries
May 20, 2021
December 06, 2020
October 23, 2020 | <urn:uuid:db10998f-658d-4013-b162-7dbab309cabc> | CC-MAIN-2021-49 | https://yieldedvesselsministries.org/pass-over-remembering-jesus/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-49/segments/1637964363418.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20211207201422-20211207231422-00553.warc.gz | en | 0.967873 | 1,607 | 3.203125 | 3 |
- Page ID
1. A sample of 0.50 moles of gas is placed in a container of volume of 2.5 L. What is the pressure of the gas in torr if the gas is at 25oC? P = 4.89 atm = 3719 torr
2. A sample of gas is placed in a container at 25oC and 2 atm of pressure. If the temperature is raised to 50oC, what is the new pressure? P = 2.17 atm
3. At 1 atm of pressure water boils at 100oC, if the sample was placed under 2 atm of pressure, what would be the temperature? (This would be like a pressure cooker).
T = 746 K = 473oC = 883oF
4. At what temperature would water boil if the pressure is 600 torr? (Use information from problem 3: this shows why food doesn't cook well at higher elevations)
T = 294 K = 21.5oC = 70.7oF
5. Calculate the volume of 40.6 g of F2 at STP. V = 23.9 L
6. A sample of 2.0 moles of hydrogen gas is placed in a container with a volume of 10.4 L. What is the pressure of the gas in torr if the gas is at 25oC? P = 4.70 atm = 3576
7. The tire pressure is 32 psi. What is the pressure in torr if 1 atm = 14.7 psi?
P = 1654 torr
8. A gas is placed in a balloon with a volume of 3.0 L at 28oC and 900 torr. What would be the new volume for the gas if placed under STP? V = 3.2 L
9. How many moles of gas would occupy a volume of 14 L at a pressure of 700 torr and a temperature of 30oC? n = 0.52 mol
10. Calculate the volume of 24.0 g of HCl at STP. V = 14.8 L
11. What is the volume of one mole of acetylene gas at STP? V =22.414 L
12. What is the volume of 0.75 mol of gas at 72oC and 2 atm? V = 10.6 L
13. After eating beans, a student collects a sample of gas at 0.97 atm and 26oC which occupies a volume of 3.5 L, calculate its volume at STP. V = 3.1 L
14. Ammonia (NH3) is placed in 1.5 L flask at 25oC. If the pressure of the gas is 0.899 atm, what is the density? d = 0.626 g/L
15. A mixture of Ar and CO gases is collected over water at 28oC and an atmospheric pressure of 1.05 atm. If the partial pressure of Ar is 600 torr, what is the partial pressure of CO? (vapor pressure of water at 28oC is 28.3 mmHg) PCO = 0.223 atm
16. Determine the partial pressures of each of the gases in the following mixture: 17.04 g NH3, 40.36 g Ne and 19.00 g F2. The gases are at 1.5 atm of pressure.
PNH3 = 0.428 atm; PNe = 0.857 atm; PF2 = 0.2124 atm
17. Potassium chlorate decomposes under heat as follows:
2 KClO3 (s) -------> 2 KCl (s) + 3 O2 (g)
The oxygen gas is collected over water at 25oC. The volume of gas is 560 mL measured at 1 atm. Calculate the number of grams of KClO3 used in the reaction. (vapor pressure of water = 0.0313 atm) nO2 = 0.022 mol; 1.81 g KClO3 | <urn:uuid:c2e8e582-e77d-42cf-9ad8-d99ea525fc45> | CC-MAIN-2023-14 | https://chem.libretexts.org/Ancillary_Materials/Worksheets/Worksheets%3A_General_Chemistry/Worksheets%3A_General_Chemistry_(Traditional)/Gas_Laws_1_(Worksheet)/Solutions | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296949097.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20230330035241-20230330065241-00694.warc.gz | en | 0.918902 | 866 | 3.75 | 4 |
Embedded Blended Learning Within an Algebra Classroom: A Multimedia Capture Experiment
SMC Affiliated Work
Kalmanovitz School of Education
Journal of Computer Assisted Learning
This two-group, pretest-posttest, quasi-experimental study compared secondary students' learning of Algebra II materials over a 4-week period when identical instruction by the same teacher was delivered through either embedded blended learning (treatment group; n = 32) or a live-lecture classroom (control group; n = 24). For both groups, instruction was delivered in a normal classroom setting. A math test and a student survey were used to measure students' learning of Algebra II and satisfaction with the instruction. Students in the treatment group showed significantly greater gains in Algebra II test scores and evaluated their learning experiences significantly more positively than did the control group. The great majority (80%) of students in the treatment group preferred the embedded blended learning over traditional live lectures for future learning of math. Students' responses to open-ended survey questions suggested that students in the treatment group appreciated the: (a) ability to control the pace of instruction; (b) new role of the classroom teacher; (c) lack of distraction in the blended learning environment; and (d) accessibility of the embedded multimedia lessons outside the classroom. This study suggests that screen-capture instructional technology can be used towards establishing a teacher-based, embedded blended learning environment within a secondary algebraic classroom.
Smith, Jim G., and Suzuki, Sawako, “Embedded Blended Learning within an Algebra Classroom: A Multimedia Capture Experiment.” Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 31.2 (April 2015). Doi:10.1111/jcal.12083
Smith, Jim G. and Suzuki, Sawako. Embedded Blended Learning Within an Algebra Classroom: A Multimedia Capture Experiment (2015). Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. 31 (2), 133-147. 10.1111/jcal.12083 [article]. https://digitalcommons.stmarys-ca.edu/school-education-faculty-works/157 | <urn:uuid:57541797-9376-404d-b7d9-df510553f913> | CC-MAIN-2018-47 | https://digitalcommons.stmarys-ca.edu/school-education-faculty-works/157/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-47/segments/1542039746110.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20181119192035-20181119214035-00459.warc.gz | en | 0.872403 | 440 | 2.625 | 3 |
Do you understand the difference between emotions and feelings? You might think they are synonymous, but this is not the case. Emotions are physical and common to all human beings and many animals. Feelings are mental projections associated with an emotion – and the way they manifest are very personal.
By understanding the difference between these two words, you can change behaviours that are deeply rooted in yourself. You can break out of an unhealthy cycle of emotions and feelings that might stop you from living a more peaceful and happier life. You will become more understandable and it will be easier for you to take things into perspective in any conflict with other people.
In the subcortical regions (early structures) of vertebrate animals – the deepest parts of our brains – we find a small link to our past: the amygdala. It is associated with emotional responses to external stimuli. Among other things, it was designed to prepare our bodies to fight or to flee at the sign of a danger by triggering biochemical reactions in our bodies. The way our amygdala operates is no different from that of monkeys, rats and some other mammals.
When the amygdalae are damaged, for example, one loses the ability to discern emotions, particularly fear and anger when expressed in another’s face or intoned in another’s voice. We respond quickly to emotions, sometimes so unconsciously that we end up doing or saying things so fast that we don’t have enough time to think.
The human neocortex is visibly bigger and more folded than that of other animals. We have developed the front part of our cerebral cortex, the frontal lobes and the association areas, which are responsible for synthesizing and integrating sensory information. In the frontal lobes we also analyse the past and prepare for the future. Based on the information received from the senses, we make decisions and reflect upon them. To sum up, the frontal cortex is involved in executive functions and the expression of personality. The enlarged frontal cortex in humans can modulate emotional impulses generated in the amygdalae. This is where feelings emerge.
Emotions are common to us all as well as other species (for example, we can emotionally interact with dogs). Emotions manifest in the body and can be measured (blood pressure, oxygen and glucose flow, facial expressions, body language, etc.). Emotions are printed on our DNA and have been useful in order to keep us protected from dangerous situations, where survival was necessary. Our emotional responses can prepare our legs to run, our arms to fight; they can freeze our whole body to make sure that a “predator” does not notice us. At the same time, strong and chaotic emotions can be detrimental to our physical and mental health.
Emotions have been useful to increase our wakefulness and the resulting alertness and attention, creating for sexual excitement in order to reproduce, and avoiding unwanted situations. Emotions interact with different areas of our brain, especially our hippocampus (where long-term memory is stored). That’s why emotional memories are usually difficult to break (trauma, for example).
Our emotional patterns are reflected externally in events. For example, if we are unaware of the fear, anger or disgust we carry, the outer world will manifest itself in a way that we are attracted by and/or we attract other people carrying the same patterns as we do. Have you noticed that?
Basically, emotions are: fear (freeze, run), anger (react, fight), arousal (reproduce, attract), disgust (avoid).
Feelings are a thought process; they reflect our personal associations to emotions – the other side of the coin, in a sense. Feelings take place in the neocortical brain and represent mental projections or reactions to our emotions. Because feelings are mental and individual, they cannot be measured.
Emotions, when analysed and judged, initiate feelings and feelings in turn can trigger emotions – a never ending cycle. This may result in a downward spiral of confused, negative memories and thoughts, which causes additional emotional response. For example, recalling a bad memory might trigger an emotion in which the whole body feels uneasy. Emotions are temporary, but the feelings that they bring can be stored in the memory and persist for a long time. The mind can revive that body sensation from time to time.
The more we feel, analyse, judge and rationalise, the more we feed the “emotional body”.
Have you ever felt strong sensations in your body due to the discomfort of meeting a certain person again? This is an example of your feelings triggering an emotional response. Most of the time, these processes are subconscious and, since we are unaware of them, we suffer for reasons we do not understand. I call this “fabricated emotion”.
Feelings can be diverse. Feeling happy, for example, can trigger arousal (as well as arousal can trigger happiness). Feeling tired, sad or irritated can trigger anger. Feeling insecure, jealous, or guilty can trigger fear, anger, or disgust.
Accepting and letting go
The way we give attention to our emotions is extremely important. There’s nothing else we can do but accept the sensations in our bodies without feeding any thoughts that immediately come into our minds. Understanding the difference between responding and reacting is important if we wish to change the way we behave. In life, there are things we can change and other things we have absolutely no control over, but serenity or suffering are a voluntary choice. The same conditions experienced without suffering by one person can mean absolute misery to another.
A practical exercise to observe our emotions and feelings:
– Feel the energy of the emotion as it manifests in the physical body.
– Take a few deep breaths – this will slow down your brainwaves.
Before you react to an emotion:
– Ask yourself:
– What’s going on inside me (body/mind) at this moment?
– Is this thought/feeling creating the body sensation or is the emotion being reflected as a feeling in the mind? In order words, is it a fabricated emotion, or an actual one?
– If there is a conflict between what your body feels and what your mind feels, the body is telling you the truth and the mind is trying to create stories to protect you.
– Observe the feeling associated with that emotion
– Don’t identify with it; observe how the mind is quick in creating a voice, saying “I am feeling.” The more you identify with your thinking, feelings and judgments, the stronger your emotional response will be. You are boosting it even more with your mind.
– Don’t judge, or overanalyse it, don’t make stories out of it; observe the body sensation and the mind’s voice as it is.
– If you mind tries to step in and rationalize the situation, come back to your breath
– Don’t suppress it, just watch as it passes by.
By practicing this, we are bringing light into our consciousness; we become more aware of unconscious patterns and learn not to react when our feelings fabricate emotions. We will no longer get frustrated when things don’t go the way we expected, or get angry at people or situations. By being aware of our feelings and how they trigger emotions, and how to sense our emotions without identifying with them and turning into feelings and thoughts – thus creating resistance and shaping an “emotional body” – we practice acceptance and gratitude. We view these challenging moments as opportunities for growth. In the end, what counts is just the way we decide to respond to the outer world. Either we give our feelings mental and physical energy by reacting to them, or we discipline ourselves to respond to them properly, staying focused and grounded in our being. | <urn:uuid:f41e36e1-7d8f-4001-8005-9c37974497c6> | CC-MAIN-2019-39 | https://bjj-yoga.com/2018/06/24/understanding-the-difference-between-emotions-and-feelings/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-39/segments/1568514572436.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20190915215643-20190916001643-00480.warc.gz | en | 0.933869 | 1,603 | 4.09375 | 4 |
Smart toothbrushes have been gaining popularity in recent years with the majority of the market share going to Oral-B’s Genius X and Philips Sonicare DiamondClean Smart range. Oral-B is set to build on the success of the Genius X by raising the bar even higher with their most advanced toothbrush yet – the Oral-B iO.
Why you need an Artificial Intelligence toothbrush
Can Mouth Tech Improve Your Oral Health?
Just to be clear, it is possible to give your teeth a perfectly good clean with a regular manual toothbrush. However, despite your best intentions, it is quite likely your teeth cleaning habits are not nearly as effective as you might think.
If you were to film yourself as you brush your teeth, you may be surprised to see just how random your brushing technique really is! Bad teeth cleaning habits learned early in our childhood can continue throughout our lifetimes resulting in eventual gum disease and tooth loss.
Besides teeth cleaning with a poor technique, there are other brushing mistakes that can impact on oral health. Research has shown that people tend to overestimate how long they brush their teeth. Although dentists recommend that each teeth cleaning session should last at least 2 minutes, studies suggest that many people are more likely to brush for just 45 to 60 seconds. A shorter teeth brushing session will remove less plaque and distribute less toothpaste throughout the mouth resulting in an inferior clean.
Another common error is to brush with too much physical force. Toothbrush abrasion – scraping away precious teeth enamel, and gum recession – damaging fragile gum tissue, are two common problems associated with brushing too aggressively.
Research and statistics show that tooth decay and gum disease, caused by poorly managed oral hygiene, are two of the most common health conditions around the globe. But this 30-year study showed just how effective a proper oral health routine can be in reducing the chances of tooth decay and gum disease.
When Oral-B set about designing the iO the concept was to create a toothbrush that could correct for all the shortcomings in a person’s teeth brushing performance. They re-imagined the electric toothbrush as a means to re-educate users on how to give their teeth a perfect clean.
Oral-B has spent decades experimenting with toothbrush cleaning motions, bristle hardness, angles, and configurations. By combining their vast knowledge of toothbrush characteristics with more recent Bluetooth and artificial intelligence technology, Oral-B believes that with the iO, they have finally created the ultimate plaque removal tool.
Frictionless magnetic Drive
The first core difference between the iO and other Oral-B toothbrushes is that the conventional drive has been replaced with a more efficient linear magnetic drive system. Some of the older Oral B models have more primitive drive gearing that can make them annoyingly noisy in operation. A frictionless magnetic drive should make the iO smoother and quieter than all the previous models.
7 Cleaning Modes
The iO features 7 cleaning modes in total which is one more than any previous Oral-B model.
Each mode is comprised of variations in cleaning head intensity, motion, and time. By adjusting these three characteristics Oral-B have created specialized programs like whitening, deep clean, and gum health to deal with those aspects of oral health.
Redefined Cleaning Head
Although Oral-B has redesigned the cleaning head on the iO they have remained faithful to the tried and tested oscillating-rotating-pulsating motion that has proven to be so effective at removing plaque.
The head itself features reinforced tuft-to-tuft bristles that are angled to help remove more plaque from hard-to-reach areas.
The design of the cleaning head imitates the cup-shaped professional tools used by dentists to clean and polish teeth.
The only effective way to remove plaque is by disrupting it with a combination of movement and friction. Oral B describes the motion on the iO as 3D cleaning because of the 3 directional movements of the brush head.
The iO features a pressure sensor similar to previous generations of Oral-B brushes. In fact, the technology looks exactly the same as the system in the Genius toothbrush.
The concept of the pressure sensor is very simple, if you apply too much force to your teeth during a cleaning session, the warning light on the neck of the handle will illuminate to advise you to ease off the pressure. This feature was introduced as a reaction to consumer fears that a powerful electric toothbrush could potentially wear away teeth enamel and gum tissue. Although there is no credible evidence to suggest that electric toothbrushes are any more destructive to teeth and gum tissue than manual brushes, a pressure control system as featured on the iO toothbrush is a most welcome safeguard.
2 Minute Timer
Dentists agree that everyone should brush their teeth for a minimum of 2 minutes twice a day.
One of the biggest drawbacks of using a manual toothbrush is that you have no way of knowing exactly how long you have been brushing your teeth. As trivial as this may sound, research has shown that many people overestimate how long they spend brushing their teeth and as a result, they don’t give their teeth the 2 minutes of valuable time required to keep them clean.
Most good electric toothbrushes feature a built-in timer, Oral-B has gone one step further by combining the timer with the iO’s interactive screen to give real-time feedback in the form of a smiley face or frowny face depending on how well you have brushed.
The Oral-B iO is the first toothbrush to use an interactive smart display to give positive reinforcement messages to the user on their teeth cleaning performance.
Removing bacterial plaque efficiently from your teeth is the route-one method to avoid dental disease. While most people think they are doing a pretty good job of cleaning their teeth, the statistical evidence shows that a large percentage of the population is suffering from gum disease related to poor oral care.
To help people push themselves to achieve a better level of oral health the Oral B iO toothbrush offers on-screen encouragement by way of a smile and frown face emoji.
When Philips Sonicare released the DiamondClean toothbrush back in 2011, its innovative wireless charging glass caught the attention of gadget-lovers. Although Oral B has been producing high-end toothbrushes for many years It has taken some time for them to introduce something similar. Finally, the iO will ship with a magnetic charging system that will appeal to the style-conscious consumers.
If you are going to spend hundreds of dollars on a toothbrush, you will definitely expect to get a decent case included for your money.
The iO does come complete with this sturdy, hardtop travel case that includes space for one cleaning head.
Most of the value of a smart electric toothbrush comes from the Bluetooth connection between the toothbrush and the mobile app. The app that Oral-B has designed for the iO toothbrush gives you in-depth feedback on your toothbrushing sessions.
The most telling reference data acquired by the app during teeth brushing sessions is the information detailing the teeth that have not been properly cleaned by the brush.
The machine learning code installed in the iO toothbrush tracks the cleaning head as it moves across the front, rear, and biting surfaces of the teeth.
The app will analyze data from 16 different mouth zones and guide you towards the areas that are being missed so you can achieve a perfect clean every time.
The practical reason to buy a $200 smart toothbrush like the iO lies in its ability to identify the areas of your mouth that you are not brushing properly.
Critics may be quick to dismiss the built-in artificial intelligence technology as pure gimmickry but nothing could be further from the truth. The 3D AI tracking of the iO toothbrush can analyze 16 separate teeth surface areas to determine if they are being cleaned adequately or if plaque is being allowed to harden into tartar.
Having the ability to actually see the zones of the mouth that are being missed by the toothbrush and then correcting your technique in realtime could be the difference between suffering from tooth decay and gum disease and living your life with a healthy mouth. | <urn:uuid:0c26d76d-4014-4412-9433-a1b7272d3e53> | CC-MAIN-2020-34 | https://www.mouthpower.org/toothbrushes/electric-toothbrushes/oral-b-io-electric-toothbrush-review/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-34/segments/1596439739134.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20200814011517-20200814041517-00333.warc.gz | en | 0.954451 | 1,686 | 2.96875 | 3 |
What is Ménière's disease?
Ménière's disease is a balance disorder caused by an abnormality found in a section of the inner ear called the labyrinth.
There are an estimated 615,000 people in the U.S. who have Ménière's disease, with 45,500 new cases diagnosed each year.
What causes Ménière's disease?
The labyrinth contains the organs of balance and hearing. It is made up of two parts:
The membranous labyrinth is encased in bone and contains a fluid called endolymph.
When the head moves, the endolymph also moves, which causes nerve receptors in the membranous labyrinth to signal the brain about the body's motion.
Endolymph buildup in the labyrinth can interfere with the normal balance and hearing signals between the inner ear and the brain, resulting in Ménière's disease.
What are the symptoms of Ménière's disease?
The following are the most common symptoms of Ménière's disease. However, each individual may experience symptoms differently. Symptoms can occur suddenly, and may happen daily or infrequently.
The most debilitating symptom is vertigo, which is a severe spinning sensation that can cause:
Other symptoms may include:
Tinnitus. A ringing in the ears.
Loss of hearing
Pressure in the affected ear
Loss of balance
The symptoms of Ménière's disease may resemble other conditions or medical problems. Always consult your health care provider for a diagnosis.
Diagnosis of Ménière's disease
In addition to a complete medical history and physical examination, the health care provider may request:
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. An MRI is done to determine if a tumor is present.
Electrocochleography. This test measures electrical activity of the inner ear.
Treatment for Ménière's disease
Specific treatment for Ménière's disease will be determined by your health care provider based on:
Your age, overall health, and medical history
Extent of the disease
Your tolerance for specific medications, procedures, or therapies
Expectations for the course of the disease
Your opinion or preference
Treatment may include:
Surgery. Several types of surgery are effective for treating the balance problems of Ménière's disease.
Medication. Medications may be given to control allergies, reduce fluid retention, reduce dizziness, or improve the blood circulation in the inner ear.
Change in diet. Eliminating caffeine, chocolate, alcohol, and salt may reduce the frequency and intensity of symptoms.
Behavior therapies. Reducing stress may lessen the severity of the disease symptoms. | <urn:uuid:4da31e34-310c-4d34-92cf-d21913033c46> | CC-MAIN-2018-30 | http://entcolumbia.org/staywell/document.php?id=33645 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-30/segments/1531676591831.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20180720193850-20180720213850-00100.warc.gz | en | 0.921262 | 553 | 3.390625 | 3 |
Language sets the scene:
Language use in the story has a significant factor in setting up the punch line (おち) of this story. The listener is not only listening to them asking about one another’s house, but also listening to them use polite speech. Polite speech isn’t usually used among friends or siblings. The use of polite speech by breaking social speech customs helps to better set up and surprise the audience with the punch line.
Directions in Japan:
Directions in Japan are rarely given with street names because street names can be confusing, ambiguous or hidden. Instead, landmarks and street blocks are often used to give detailed directions to a destination. Although, with the advent of recent technology and GPS devices becoming more commonplace, the need for this type of directions has somewhat changed. However, you can still expect to receive directions to a destination in the same way as the story, without street names. | <urn:uuid:c768a7de-e67d-4ed2-8ffa-5a8275411ca4> | CC-MAIN-2018-05 | http://rakugogaku.com/?page_id=716 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-05/segments/1516084889736.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20180120221621-20180121001621-00337.warc.gz | en | 0.946315 | 190 | 3.703125 | 4 |
America long ago committed to providing for the basic needs of all its citizens, constructing a so-called safety net of government programs to catch those unable to support themselves. But an effective safety net must be positioned at the right height — safely above the rock-hard floor yet still well below the tightrope. The value of the baseline government benefits provided to someone not working must be significantly lower than the income that person could earn in an entry-level job. That “income gap” creates the economic incentive to work in the first place, ensuring that all who are able will strive to climb back up and into the labor force.
Unfortunately, a combination of macroeconomic trends and counterproductive policy choices has significantly eroded the incentive to work. Wages for low-skilled and entry-level positions have stagnated, while many of the positions that would have afforded a middle-class lifestyle have vanished entirely. At the same time, the safety net has grown to encompass an ever wider panoply of benefits that have become ever more expensive as health-care and education costs have exploded. This system of benefits, obviously requiring careful design and management, has neither. Countless programs are delivered through an alphabet soup of agencies, leaving no holistic anti-poverty approach and no one accountable for measuring or maintaining a meaningful income gap.
#ad#The results are as predictable as they are depressing. Labor-force participation is at a 35-year low overall, and an all-time low for men. (If participation were as high as it was before the recession, today’s unemployment rate would be above 11 percent.) There are 2 million fewer Americans working than there were before the recession but 2 million more Americans receiving disability payments. The number of food-stamp recipients has climbed by more than 25 percent since the recession ended, and more than 100 million Americans now receive some form of food assistance each year. The War on Poverty is in its 50th year, and yet the poverty rate today is as high as any previously recorded — and 30 percent higher than it was in the 1970s.
Conservatives, whether genuinely awakened to the severity of America’s poverty crisis or merely chastened by the disastrous aftermath of Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” remarks, are at least taking notice. Representative Paul Ryan held House Budget Committee hearings on the issue. Proposals to reform existing programs, create new ones, increase spending, or decrease spending are flying from all sides. None of these ideas are likely to succeed unless they are built atop a new framework, one that establishes a benefit-delivery system capable of clearly separating those who work from those who do not, and one that maintains a substantial income gap between the two.
By some measures, the War on Poverty has already succeeded. If the goal is simply to guarantee that every American has access to food, providing an average of more than $3,000 of food stamps each year to households in need is a nearly unqualified victory. If the goal is access to medical care, a Medicaid program spending an average of $7,000 each year for a family of three represents extraordinary progress. Indeed, counting the full range of federal benefits as “income” to low-income households leads to a substantial reduction in the poverty rate.
But simply transferring enough resources to someone so that he is no longer “poor” treats only the symptom; it does not move him toward self-sufficiency or a foothold at the bottom of an economic ladder that could lead to better opportunities. To the contrary, it hinders that process. Therein lies the paradox at the heart of anti-poverty policy. Every dollar spent to reduce the suffering of an impoverished person reduces the incentive for that person to improve his own condition by earning an income — not only because the need has become less pressing, but also because the system will in fact punish him for any success by taking the dollar away once he earns one of his own. The “handout” is locked in perpetual battle with the “hand up.”
One could say, “So what?” Why not just spend the money to ensure everyone’s needs are met, and let work be its own reward? For one, fiscal constraints preclude the possibility of further expanding benefits for the further-expanded pool of beneficiaries that this approach would attract. But even if one were prepared to undertake the taxation and redistribution necessary to implement such a policy, the result would undermine societal values of individual responsibility and self-reliance and impede the upward economic mobility that is possible only for those who enter the work force in the first place. Thus the conservative emphasis on work requirements and other incentives to move people into jobs. And thus the effectiveness of welfare reform in the 1990s, one of the great conservative policy successes of recent decades.
But welfare reform was actually quite limited, replacing the traditional Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with the new, work-focused Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). TANF is not even among the top five federal anti-poverty programs in either expenditures or enrollees. Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, commonly referred to as “food stamps”), the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), Supplemental Security Income (SSI, commonly referred to as “disability”), and even Pell Grants for higher education are larger. And when all the spending is added up, the results are stunning.
#page#The Cato Institute added up the annual expenditures for all federal, state, and local anti-poverty programs (defined as programs whose eligibility is dependent on income level) and arrived at a total of $1 trillion. (That total excludes Medicare and Social Security, which amount to more than $1 trillion in additional spending each year. It also excludes the onset of the Affordable Care Act, which will expand Medicaid and provide more than $100 billion in annual insurance subsidies.) To understand the magnitude of that $1 trillion in spending, consider that it could provide each of the nearly 50 million Americans living in poverty with an annual cash payment of more than $20,000. A single mother with two children could receive more than $60,000. Median household income in this country is only $52,000.
Of course, not every dollar of the $1 trillion is spent on Americans living below the poverty line. A significant share of Medicaid spending also goes to support long-term care for the elderly. So Cato went one step further and looked at the full package of benefits a welfare-eligible single mother with two children could receive in each state. In most states the value of a package of welfare benefits exceeded earnings from a minimum-wage job. In half of all states, the benefit package brought the family up to at least 80 percent of the state’s median salary.
#ad#The issue here is not whether taxpayers are spending “too much” on support for lower-income families. The issue is not even whether welfare benefits are “better” than entry-level jobs. The problem is that with such high baseline benefit levels — benefits that fall away as the recipient begins to earn income — the income gap is too low. The lowest-income households end up facing what in effect are extraordinarily high marginal tax rates, meaning they receive far too little additional take-home income for each dollar they earn and thus face relatively little incentive to earn any income at all.
The Congressional Budget Office reviewed the impact of key federal programs and found that a hypothetical single mother with one child would have $20,000 of disposable income if she earned $0 in wages, but less than $30,000 of disposable income if she earned $30,000 in wages. From her perspective, she receives less than $10,000 in reward for her $30,000 of work — the equivalent of a 70 percent tax rate. Gary Alexander, Pennsylvania’s secretary of public welfare, found that taking into account his state’s benefits as well resulted in an even starker picture: There a hypothetical single mother with no earnings might receive $45,000 in benefits, a total amount of take-home income comparable to what she could expect with a $50,000 salary.
Recent trends only compound the problem. Society’s definition of a minimum standard of living is expanding to include higher education, health coverage for everything from birth control to the most advanced therapies, and even cell phones and broadband Internet access. Ensuring that every American has access to these things is an admirable goal, but if every American is entitled to them, then those who work hard to earn a middle-class living will find themselves doing little better than those who do not work at all.
At the same time as expectations rise, the standard of living offered by low-skilled work continues to decline. In 1970, the average income for a male with a high-school degree amounted to more than double the poverty line for a family of four. In 1990, it exceeded the poverty line by only 60 percent. Today it clears the threshold by only 30 percent. For entry-level positions specifically, those numbers drop even lower. Entry-level jobs are often just steppingstones to better opportunities for workers who develop skills and a track record of performance. But that upward mobility requires that the initial leap into the work force be made. Without a sufficient income gap, it may never be.
As the range of potential benefits expands and the attractiveness of entry-level work declines, maintaining an income gap that favors work and encourages labor-force participation becomes more challenging and more important. Unfortunately, the current anti-poverty infrastructure makes it nearly impossible.
The system through which $1 trillion flows each year from taxpayers to beneficiaries appears designed to stifle reform, increase spending, expand bureaucracy, and avoid accountability.
#page#The core assistance programs were created through different pieces of legislation and are administered by different agencies, with different eligibility requirements, incentives, and procedures. Medicaid is an entitlement program within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Disability operates within the Social Security Administration. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) controls food stamps through legislation incorporated into the farm bill; the Department of Housing and Urban Development controls housing assistance; and the Department of Education controls education programs. Unemployment insurance relies on a hybrid state- and federally financed trust fund, administered by the states, with oversight from the Department of Labor, backstopped by additional federal funds. The IRS administers the Earned Income and Child Tax credits through the tax code. And so on and so forth for dozens of smaller programs, from the School Breakfast Program to the Weatherization Assistance Program.
#ad#Implementation is sometimes but not always assigned to the states, sometimes but not always with matching state funds, sometimes but not always with state-established income thresholds. From the states’ perspective, little can be done but to replicate the structure of an array of federal programs and play by the perverse rules set from above. The tangle of strings attached to each program prevents any harmonization or consolidation among programs. Matching funds reward higher spending in some instances, while block grants attempt to curtail spending in others. State-level programs get layered on top of federal programs rather than integrated with them efficiently. Individuals end up facing wildly different incentives depending on their specific circumstances, sometimes encountering so-called income cliffs where small increases in their earnings will disqualify them from benefits and leave them worse off than before.
For policymakers, the system defies analysis, let alone substantive reform. The USDA is an illustrative microcosm: Last year the agency spent $114 billion on 15 different nutritional programs, each with a separate legislative authorization. In June, its inspector general’s office expressed concern that the agency “may be duplicating its efforts by providing total benefits that exceed 100 percent of daily nutritional needs,” explaining that the agency “has not fully assessed its food safety net as a whole to determine the impact of providing potentially overlapping nutritional benefits through multiple programs.” Now multiply the absurdity across more than 100 different programs spanning numerous agencies and objectives.
No one even considers how best to allocate funds across types of assistance or types of beneficiaries. Rising health-care costs drive Medicaid spending higher, crowding out funding for other types of programs regardless of whether a marginal dollar is best spent on health care. Thirty-five billion dollars goes annually to Pell Grants subsidizing higher education — a worthy and politically unassailable effort, but one that prioritizes those with the brightest futures (and with access to already-subsidized public universities and already-subsidized loans) over those with fewer skills and opportunities.
Year after year the entrenched bureaucracies of separate agencies shovel their separate funds down separate chutes, each striving to secure the largest possible shovel for next year by establishing just how acute is the need for its program. None are required to show the reduction in demand for their services that actual success would entail. Here comes another year, there goes another trillion dollars, and the poverty rate is unchanged.
A better social safety net is only one piece of the anti-poverty puzzle. Economic policies need to create greater demand for workers. Immigration policies need to control the supply. Better investments in areas from education to infrastructure to policing need to offer greater opportunity for economic mobility. But if labor-force participation is crucial to easing poverty, structuring the $1 trillion of annual spending on the safety net to advance rather than interfere with that goal seems a sensible place to start.
An effective anti-poverty program requires reform in two ways: first, restructuring the funding system to give state-level policymakers the incentives and authorities they will need if substantive reforms are to succeed; second, sharply dividing programs designed to provide a safety net for those not working from programs designed to increase the incomes of those who are working, coupled with reestablishing an income gap by increasing the relative generosity of the latter.
The restructuring process should begin with an acknowledgment that the federal government is well situated for only one of its present tasks: collecting and distributing funds. Rather than have numerous federal agencies each administer numerous programs, the federal government would ideally have a single agency apply a formula, establish the year’s lump-sum payment for each state, and transfer the funds. Call it the Flex Fund. States happy with the existing funding allocations and program structures could continue to apply the funding as they do today. But states with better ideas — even radically different ones — would be free to pursue them.
The Flex Fund sounds like a block grant, but it is not the type of program-by-program block grant typically proposed as a pretext for capping the growth of costs. To the contrary, the funding formula would be pegged to the size of the population in need and would grow at the same rate as the poverty threshold itself — a figure that already factors in growth in cost of living for the relevant household. But with the dividing lines between programs erased, states would have genuine and complete flexibility over resource allocation as opposed to the faux flexibility of applying for waiver after waiver or delivering the federal Section 8 housing-voucher program “however you want.”
#page#Why should the states have control? First, because states are already largely responsible for implementing individual programs and delivering benefits. For all the reasons that, as the federal government realizes, states can best perform those tasks, so too can they best structure the programs and allocate funds across them. States have different populations, different economic circumstances, and different political preferences, making the state a unit better suited to establish these types of policies. State policymakers and administrators are also attuned to the real-life challenges of implementing policy in a way that their Washington counterparts never will be.
Second, and relatedly, good policymaking requires a decision-maker to have control. As a practical matter, substantive reforms cannot occur today because no one has the power to implement them. Combining funding streams creates an initial point of control, while devolving that control to the state level consolidates the full range of spending and implementation authorities. As a matter of institutional design, that consolidation also increases the likelihood of constructive reform by increasing accountability and eliminating unfunded mandates from above or efforts to game the system from below.
#ad#Third, where the federal government has floundered for decades, state-level experimentation is the more promising path forward. Not every state will pursue innovative reforms — indeed many will not — but innovation will occur. Welfare reform, like it or not, was inspired by state-level innovation enabled by waivers from federal welfare requirements. President Obama’s health-care reform, like it or not, was inspired by state-level innovation enabled by waivers from federal Medicaid requirements. There will be successes and failures, and policymakers might not always learn the right lessons from them. But over time — decades, even — the testing ground in the states will yield an evolution of approaches far superior to the stagnant federal landscape of today.
The Flex Fund itself is an important reform, with the potential to improve the performance of today’s programs and to produce further innovation. But just as important are the subsequent reforms it could launch in the direction of reestablishing an income gap.
There are several paths one might take to increase the value of an entry-level job relative to the value of welfare benefits. One could simply refuse to give benefits to those who do not work, but that approach ignores both the political realities of what American society is committed to providing and the everyday realities of millions of Americans who struggle to find or keep a job. Proposals to impose work requirements on food stamps sound like easy fixes but imply that America could or should strip a significant number of people of their access to food. One might also question the wisdom of striving for a system in which people with jobs not only need food stamps but are indeed the program’s only constituency.
At the other extreme, one could focus on expanding support for workers, either by allowing them to retain the benefits that they currently lose as their income increases or else by adding new and more generous supplements to their income. The expense of such an approach would be enormous, especially as it would kick the problem farther up the income scale: If welfare benefits alone can provide income approaching the level of today’s median income, then low-skilled workers would have to be supported at or above today’s median income, which would mean that today’s median earners would suddenly need support as well. In the current and foreseeable budget environment, such an approach is as unrealistic as cutting off support to those not working.
Striking a feasible balance requires a finely calibrated set of benefits that would make some progress on both sides of the ledger. The goal should be to create two separate sets of low-income programs — a state-administered safety net for those who are not working and a direct federal wage subsidy for those who are. Benefit types and levels should be adjusted between the two in an effort to reestablish an income gap.
An adjustment in benefit types offers the best opportunity to incentivize work without slashing benefits or increasing spending. Two families — one whose head of household works, one whose head of household does not — may both need $3,000 worth of nutritional support. But if the non-working household receives the $3,000 in food stamps while the working household receives it as cash via a wage subsidy, the latter might feel substantially better off. While the Affordable Care Act draws an arbitrary line, providing Medicaid to those below 138 percent of the poverty line and a subsidy for private insurance to those above 138 percent of the poverty line, the benefit could instead be provided as Medicaid for those who do not work and, for those who do work, as additional cash provided via wage subsidy.
These types of reforms would only produce further complexity given today’s policy structure, but substitute a Flex Fund and they become more straightforward. For example, more than 40 percent of food-stamp recipients live in households with earned income. If $50 billion, equivalent to 40 percent of what is spent today on USDA nutrition programs, were shifted out of the Flex Fund and into a doubling of a still-federal EITC, there would be no change in anti-poverty spending, but for working households a greater share would come in the form of a subsidized wage instead of an in-kind benefit.
Taking a similar approach in other benefit categories could continue to expand the EITC dramatically. Reforming the credit itself to make it a direct-to-the-worker wage subsidy would further clarify its incentives and amplify its impact. The infrastructure for such a subsidy already exists, of course — it is called the payroll tax, which reduces the take-home pay of every worker, on every dollar earned in every paycheck, up to a specified income level. The wage subsidy would function as a reverse payroll tax, increasing the effective wage associated with a given job in a predictable and transparent way. The effect in many ways would mirror a substantial increase in the minimum wage. But whereas a price control would tend to decrease the size of the labor force, a subsidy would tend to increase it. And whereas higher wages paid by employers tend to increase prices for consumers — affecting most the lower-income population the policy is intended to help — a subsidy-supported higher wage is funded disproportionately by the higher-income tax base.
States, via their federal Flex Fund dollars, their own programs, and their public–private partnerships, would be responsible for crafting a safety net to provide basic support for those outside the labor force. The federal government, via direct wage subsidies held apart from the Flex Fund, would ensure that anyone entering the labor force found significant advantages in doing so. The income gap would be easily quantifiable, and if necessary it could be expanded by shifting additional resources out of the Flex Fund and into the wage subsidy — not a reduction in support for the poor, only a shift in who receives what share. On this foundation, efforts to attack the causes of poverty and to improve the effectiveness of anti-poverty programs might actually succeed.
– Oren Cass was the domestic-policy director of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. This article originally appeared in the October 14, 2013, issue of National Review. | <urn:uuid:4db440b9-e12f-43cf-b797-da6b426a3509> | CC-MAIN-2019-39 | https://www.nationalreview.com/2014/01/height-net-oren-cass/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-39/segments/1568514572964.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20190916220318-20190917002318-00187.warc.gz | en | 0.958236 | 4,563 | 2.59375 | 3 |
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the Universe.” –Carl Sagan
The Universe is a lot like an extremely intricate cake. We view it today as a snapshot in time, now that it’s complete.
We can view the whole thing from one point of view, determined by where we happened to be located. But we can also look intricately inside certain sections of it, so long as we have the right tools.
But if we truly want to understand it, rather than to just describe it, we need to know how the cake was made. And this doesn’t merely mean that we need to know that it’s got cake, filling, icing and frosting.
It means we need to know all of the ingredients, and how they came to assemble, step-by-step, the cake you wind up with in the end.
If we understand this properly, we should be able to come up with a perfect recipe to reproduce this cake, and both experiments and simulations should reliably reproduce a cake that looks, smells and tastes exactly like the model cake we were studying.
And this is exactly what the field of cosmology — my field, for what it’s worth — sets out to do.
Our Universe has been incredibly well-studied over the past century, and we now know — down to a very intricate level of detail — what it looks like. We know how galaxies are distributed throughout the Universe: how they clump and cluster together in groups, clusters, superclusters and along filaments.
The thing is, we also have a whole slew of other observations about the Universe, including (but not limited to) the Cosmic Microwave Background, observations of colliding galaxy clusters, the brightnesses of distant Type Ia supernovae, measurements of the abundances of the light elements, the Hubble expansion of the Universe, the age restrictions on stars, galaxies and globular clusters, the isotropy and homogeneity of the Universe on large scales, and the observed flatness and uniform temperature and density properties across billions and billions of light years.
If we really understood what was going on with the Universe, we’d be able to take our best understanding of the laws of physics, start with some initial conditions, and run a simulation that resulted in a Universe that — aside from some normal statistical variations — is indistinguishable, cosmologically, from the Universe we observe.
Now, there’s only one way we’ve ever found that gives us a “cake” that looks like our Universe:
- A Big Bang cosmology that’s governed by General Relativity,
- where the energy density of the Universe is equal to the critical density,
- with roughly 4.5% of that energy density composed of normal matter (protons, neutrons and electrons),
- a small (~0.01%) amount of energy density in the form of radiation (photons),
- another small (less than 1% but maybe as much as 0.3%) amount in the form of neutrinos,
- with a large chunk (around 22%) in the form of dark matter
- and the rest (maybe 73%) in the form of dark energy.
Additionally, a number of remaining puzzles (flatness, horizon, spectral index) are solved by adding inflation as a way to set up the Big Bang.
The thing is, that’s it.
The cake looks amazing, but there are still a few things that you’d prefer to be tweaked. There are a few details that don’t quite match about structure formation on small scales (like, individual galaxies and smaller). There are some possible issues with the ages of some of the oldest globular clusters (that may appear to be as old as, if not a few percent older than, the age of the Universe). And… that’s really it.
In other words, we’ve got an amazing cake that matches up, but perhaps it’s a little too bitter and not quite sweet enough for the most discriminating of tastes. We’d like the cake to be a little better.
There are alternative models that come out all the time that fix this problem. They are sweet enough. They aren’t too bitter, either.
The big problem is this: they aren’t cakes.
It’s tantalizing and controversial to make a contention like Do We Really Need Dark Matter? But it’s a lie, and a poor lie at that. You can’t solve one minor problem at the expense of six or seven major ones, and that’s what every alternative that’s ever been proposed to dark matter does, including the latest one.
Yes, we don’t have all the answers, and other than knowing a whole host of properties of dark matter (energy density, interacts gravitationally, no strong or electromagnetic interactions, highly restricted self-interactions and cross-sections, etc.), we aren’t entirely sure what it is. But the simple fact of the matter is this: as far as we’ve been able to determine, we can’t have the Universe we live in without it.
The next time someone proposes an alternative to dark matter, remember to hold it up to this level of scrutiny: can you reproduce the Universe — including the CMB, the observed expansion rate, the large-scale structure, and the abundances of the light elements, just to name a few — without it? If the answer is yes, then you do, in fact, have an amazing breakthrough! But without it, you’re just trading a minor problem for multiple catastrophic ones.
As I said earlier today: You can complain that the Dark Matter cake isn’t sweet enough, but a bowl of sugar is no substitute. | <urn:uuid:ebd0628c-2226-4e4d-a1eb-de3a28ea2412> | CC-MAIN-2015-40 | http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2012/12/07/yes-we-really-really-need-dark-matter/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-40/segments/1443736677918.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20151001215757-00008-ip-10-137-6-227.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944077 | 1,226 | 2.96875 | 3 |
| The Eastern United States and Eastern Asia share many
common genera of plants, and the forests of these regions often seem to be mirror images of each other. This has led biologists, biogeographers, and paleobotanists to postulate that these two regions once shared a common flora, and that shift in continental positions led to the evolution of two separate but similar floras. The Five Colleges have long had a connections with Asia. William Clark of UMass (then the Massachusetts Agricultural College) was one of the first Western agricultural experts to visit and teach in Sapporo in the newly accessible Japan in 1877. Exceptionally old trees of Japanese origin dot the UMass campus and the Pioneer Valley, a living legacy of his travels.
Smith botanists continue this Asian collecting tradition, having in this decade done field work in Taiwan, the Philippines, the People's Republic
of China, and South Korea. Hardier material from these collecting trips will join other plants of Asian origin that thrive so well on the Smith campus.
|This fall, the Botanic Garden is digging around its Asian roots and will feature a number of events that highlight the superb Asian flora and its usage by Asian peoples. We will continue to hold our annual Chrysanthemum Show, featuring mums trained in the Japanese style, but are planning to add a few new twists. The newly refurbished Japanese Garden and Tea House and surrounding garden will be the site of some special events, and our speakers will delve into floral subjects of the Far East. Check the calendar of events on page 15 to make sure you don't miss anything.
Smith students have been working hard to make significant contributions to many aspects of Botanic Garden-related work and projects. In addition to renovation of the Japanese Garden and Tea Hut, students developed interpretive materials and publications. Jennifer Woo '98 worked as an interdisciplinary Special Studies student. Using her knowledge and ideas in both computer graphics and biology, Jennifer created an engaging color-illustrated guide to the Fern House and fern collections. Ask for a copy on your next visit to the Conservatory. Brita Dempsey '00, Student Intern, developed interpretive signage for the conservatory, rock garden, and herbaceous garden. The signs are designed to provide information for visitors who are not part of a tour, and further enhance the educational aspect of the gardens and conservatory. They cover a wide range of topics from ethnobotany to the functions of xerophytic plants and include diagrams and photographs. The Fern House sign, which has been in place since February, has attracted many positive comments. Be sure to look for these new signs. Mary Hopkins '98 spent the spring semester as a Special Studies student investigating research into nitrogen cycling in orchard and other sylvan environments. This is an important area of work for managed landscapes of all sorts, both ornamental and agricultural, and will be even more critical as we face compounding water management issues in the next few decades. Mary's work was extremely interesting, and she has been accepted at Cornell University to pursue a Masters of Science degree with one of the top scientists in this field.
Lissa Harris '98 joined the staff of the Botanic Garden last fall as a curatorial intern and has brought all the records of new accessions up to date. Filling in on a temporary basis while the garden is without an Assistant Director/Curator, she has
updated inventories of various collections and developed computerized maps of the President's gardens. Lissa has discovered, in her year at the Botanic Garden, that curation is a never-ending process, since the living landscape of a garden or arboretum (and even a glasshouse) is always shifting.
Emalu-Hina Dancil '01 of Hawaii was the summer assistant at the Lyman Conservatory. She quickly earned the respect of the staff for her industrious work habits and sunny demeanor. Emalu assisted staff with the production of chrysanthemums for the Fall Mum Show and rapidly learned the intricacies of plant propagation, producing seedlings and rooted cuttings for the Spring Plant Sale.
The Smith College summer internship program at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew continues successfully and energetically. This past May, Penelope Stranc '99 and Hannah Thornton '99 traveled to Kew to spend the summer working in conservation genetics research. This program allows the students to learn cutting edge techniques and make real contributions to breaking work in plant conservation genetics under the expert tutelage of Drs. Mark Chase and Michael Fay in the Jodrell Laboratory. We will look forward to their report to the Friends Committee on their individual projects.
|previous page||next page| | <urn:uuid:25673b93-67d8-4e47-83bf-488dbe7527b5> | CC-MAIN-2015-27 | http://www.smith.edu/garden/Newsletter/nlp3fall98.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-27/segments/1435375096706.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20150627031816-00240-ip-10-179-60-89.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939574 | 966 | 2.625 | 3 |
E. Cobham Brewer 18101897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
or rather Zeus (1 syl.) A statue by Phidias, and reckoned one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Pausanias (vii. 2) says when the sculptor placed it in the temple at Elis, he prayed the god to indicate whether he was satisfied with it, and immediately a thunderbolt fell on the floor of the temple without doing the slightest harm.
The statue was made of ivory and gold, and though seated on a throne, was 60 feet in height. The left hand rested on a sceptre, and the right palm held a statue of Victory in solid gold. The robes were of gold, and so were the four lions which supported the footstool. The throne was of cedar, embellished with ebony, ivory, gold, and precious stones. (See MINERVA.)
It was placed in the temple at Elis B.C. 433, was removed to Constantinople, and perished in the great fire of A.D. 475, It was completed in 4 years, and of course the materials were supplied by the Government of Elis.
The Homer of Sculptors died in prison, having been incarcerated on the trumpery charge of having introduced on a shield of one of his statues a portrait of himself. | <urn:uuid:e07ff56d-cb2d-47f2-900c-e3d72eaab8b9> | CC-MAIN-2016-50 | http://bartleby.com/81/12426.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-50/segments/1480698541361.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20161202170901-00286-ip-10-31-129-80.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98114 | 284 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Many theories have been offered as to The Thing which separates man from animals. Perhaps this is just an example that proves that what most makes us human is our ability to disagree. Animals may oppose what you want but it seems to be based on a pre-programmed instinct. Man is able to say, “I heard what you said, I realize you’re very bright and all…I’ve decided to go with a different approach” or,”Based on what I’ve been hearing and seeing I’m going to have to decline your advice...” Or there's a whole differet style one can adapt to convey disagreement.
The urge to say this is strong, so when there was no-one else to say it to, man and woman said this to G-d Himself. We’ve all heard the story as a kids’ story: “There’s one magic tree that’s going to make you like G-d if you eat from it.” Hmmm. They eat from it. Why? Because the snake told them to.
The Abarbanel makes a cogent argument for the idea that the snake did not speak. In this understanding, Chavah had an inkling, an urge, the urge to use her own judgement. She intellectualized G-d’s command, proudly theorized that it made sense for health reasons. Then she saw the snake rubbing up against the tree – and he didn’t die, his health wasn't hurt in any way, he didn’t even develop a rash. In her mind she dialogues with the snake; his actions are tantamount to his telling her that if he can touch it then it goes to show that the tree is safe. So it must be OK to eat. Makes sense, except that G-d said not to do it.
The prohibition of eating from the tree was not due to any power of the tree itself, but rooted in the power of disobedience. Once you disobey G-d based on your own opinion, then you start to think that you’re like G-d and that you can choose freely based on what you think. In the end Adam and Chava had to be reminded that mankind is unique in that we are given commands by G-d. The snake wasn’t punished, Adam and Chava were. And as part of what they needed, the snake was made to be more clearly different than man. (Note that in the list of what changes for the snake there is no mention of his not being able to speak in the future – a strong indication that he never spoke at all).
Since I learned this approach from Rabbi Yitzchak Twersky, I think about it a lot. It comes up all the time, that in subtle and not so subtle ways we ( I ) choose our (my) own judgement and suggest that we (I) know better thanG-d. Rabbi Twersky often applies this concept to later chapters in the Torah.
Breishit is not only the Torah’s beginning, but the Torah’s foundation. The Ramban suggests that the theme of Breishit is responsibility, thus there are several stories of getting a place in this world and then losing that place as a result of disobedience. In slightly different terminology from the Ramban, Rabbi Twersky suggests the theme which teaches us that if we know what’s good for us (literally) then we’ll listen to G-d. And that we must resist the temptation of our basic instincts that tell us that we know better.
When Korach and company challenge Moshe, Moshe replies that the proof that these men have rebelled against G-d will be that the earth will open its mouth and swallow them. The Medrash Lekach Tov comments that the earth will open it’s mouth “in the same way that it opened its mouth in the days of Kayin and Hevel.” These are the only two contexts in the Torah in which the phrase “patzta et piha” is used in regard to the “adama.” Both Kayin and Korach challenge the spiritual leadership role of another. In both stories jealousy leads to anger, then death. Also, in both cases (as is often so throughout Tanach) there is a tension between the one chosen as the bechor with seniority, and the one chosen by G-d.
The end of perek yud chet of Korach deals with the gifts allotted to the chosen kohanim. The words mincha, cheilev and bechor combine and form a motif. These three words constitute the bulk of the simple statement describing Hevel's action: VeHevel Heivi gam Hu MiBechorot Tzono UMeiChelbeihen, VaYisha Hashem El Hevel Ve'El Minchato. Hevel's was ahead of his time, foreshadowing the Mishkan and its Reiach Nichoach - ever pleasant scent - with his offering. Kayin destroyed Hevel's potential and promise.
The Mishkan was another chance at setting things right. Once again there is an attempt to block the opportunity: Korach threatens the make-up of the Jewish People with the Mishkan and the Kohein at its center. The Torah refers to Korach's group as Mishkan Kohein, because he had a plan to usurp not only Moshe, but the holiness of the Jewish People as exemplified by the Mishkan. Finally, it is made clear that Hevel's profound understanding of a korban is entrusted to the Aharon and his descendants.
May we all be blessed to trust G-d and to respect and embrace holiness. | <urn:uuid:52cfdf79-97a7-4be7-948f-75dd47ea13a9> | CC-MAIN-2017-43 | http://parshapost.blogspot.com/2008/06/korah.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-43/segments/1508187822145.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20171017163022-20171017183022-00718.warc.gz | en | 0.970197 | 1,215 | 2.515625 | 3 |
In my many travels to sub-Saharan Africa, a frequent question on the lips of policymakers is the following: “Sure, we know that growth has not been inclusive enough and poverty remains high in most of our countries, but what exactly can we do to make growth more inclusive?” This is an important question that the latest edition of the Regional Economic Outlook for sub-Saharan Africa takes a stab at.
It is well known by now that growth in sub-Saharan Africa for the past 15 years or so has on average been quite strong. What is less well known perhaps is that a number of human development indicators such as infant and maternal mortality, primary school enrollment and completion rates, have also improved (see Chart 1).
Although one can quibble as to whether the strong growth performance is the main driving force for this favorable outcome, it is fairly evident to me, as a former finance minister, that if you don’t have strong growth, you cannot have the necessary revenue to fund clinics and schools, and pay qualified nurses and teachers.
I am not saying that progress in these areas is great; it’s not. Many countries will not be able to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, especially that of halving poverty. Thus the fruits of the strong growth have not been shared in a large number of countries.
In other words, growth has not been as inclusive as it can be in many cases. Countries can do more to help lift more people out of poverty. Targeted policies can make a difference.
To illustrate what I am saying, take the examples of Mozambique and Vietnam. Both countries are star performers that delivered remarkably similar growth in GDP per capita over extended periods. Both countries emerged from prolonged, devastating wars and transitioned from centrally planned economies. There the similarities stop.
As Chart 2 shows, Vietnam managed to more than halve its poverty between 1992 and 2004. Sure, Mozambique made considerable progress, but fell well short of what Vietnam achieved.
So what explains this stark difference? In two words: “structural transformation.” Our analysis underscores two ways in which the transformation was achieved in Vietnam.
- First, there were sustained increases in agricultural productivity in both staple crops such as rice and cash crops such as coffee. As shown in Chart 3, total factor productivity in the agricultural sector in Vietnam improved by 50 percent compared with less than 15 percent in Mozambique over period of 15 years.
- And second, there was significant generation of employment outside the agricultural sector, especially in low-skill manufacturing and services (see Chart 4).
The slower progress in poverty reduction in Mozambique is due to the fact that the country’s high economic growth to a large extent emanates from the so-called “mega-projects”—aluminum smelters, coal mines, and such. But these projects typically don’t employ that many people as they are capital intensive.
Although such projects clearly add to the welfare of the population by contributing to fiscal revenues that help fund public services, including in health and education, they need to be complemented with policies that support an increase in the labor productivity of as many persons as possible.
Bang for buck
Going back to my starting point, which policies then have the biggest bang for the buck in terms of making growth more successful in increasing overall labor productivity, especially at the lowest skill levels, to help reduce poverty?
First, it is necessary to maintain macroeconomic, financial, and social stability without which sustained improvements in income and social indicators are simply not possible.
Second, governments should create the physical infrastructure and incentive structure that can allow the economy to create more productive jobs.
By 2020 more than a third of the working-age population in sub-Saharan Africa will be below the age of 25. Absorbing all these people into productive activities is crucial to avoiding social tensions and political instability. This may require supporting household enterprises, which currently operate largely in agriculture and services, so that they can increase their productivity. For better or worse, this is where most of the people in sub-Saharan Africa are—around 60–70 percent of the population.
Finally, financial inclusion can play a crucial role in fostering more inclusive growth, and allowing more people to escape poverty, notably by promoting savings and removing financing obstacles to entrepreneurial activities. Recent empirical evidence suggests that lowering transaction costs for the poor, such as mobile money transfers, facilitates financial inclusion more rapidly than creating specialized financial institutions.
To sum up, I do believe that much more can be done to reduce poverty and make growth more inclusive in sub-Saharan Africa. It’s not only a moral imperative; it’s a savvy political move, and, above all, a necessary economic one: shared growth is more likely to be stronger and more durable.
Filed under: Africa, Economic outlook, Economic research, Emerging Markets, Employment, growth, IMF, Inequality, International Monetary Fund, Low-income countries Tagged: | agriculture, Mozambique, poverty, Regional Economic Outlook: Sub-Saharan Africa, structural reform, Sub-Saharan Africa, United Nations, Vietnam | <urn:uuid:b2ed148c-c371-4217-b244-a3276c536589> | CC-MAIN-2015-27 | http://blog-imfdirect.imf.org/2014/05/08/targeted-policies-mean-true-transformation-in-africa/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-27/segments/1435375097512.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20150627031817-00063-ip-10-179-60-89.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950367 | 1,052 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Nanoparticle protects oil in foods from oxidation, spoilage
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Using a nanoparticle from corn, a Purdue University scientist has found a way to lengthen the shelf life of many food products and sustain their health benefits.
Yuan Yao, an assistant professor of food science, has successfully modified the phytoglycogen nanoparticle, a starchlike substance that makes up nearly 30 percent of the dry mass of some sweet corn. The modification allows the nanoparticle to attach to oils and emulsify them while also acting as a barrier to oxidation, which causes food to become rancid. His findings were published in the early online version of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
Oxidation destabilizes oil droplets in emulsified food, degrading and changing the chemical structure of the oil and causing it to go bad. This oxidation happens in a wide range of products, shortening their shelf lives.
"This can be widely used in the food industry, cosmetics and nutritional supplements, any system in which the oxidation of lipids is a concern," Yao said. "The shelf life of a product can be low and the quality of the food can become bad because of the oxidation of the lipids."
In fish oils, for example, the lipid oxidation degrades Omega-3 fatty acids, which are essential in infant development and are thought to help with chronic inflammatory and heart diseases in adults.
Yao was able to modify the surface of phytoglycogen nanoparticle to make it behave like an emulsifier, creating phytoglycogen octenyl succinate, or PG-OS. PG-OS is thicker and denser than commonly used emulsifiers, creating a better defense from oxygen, free radical and metal ions, which cause lipid oxidation.
According to Yao's study, PG-OS nanoparticles with e-polylysine significantly increased the amount of time it took for oxidation to ruin the oil droplets, in some cases doubling the shelf life of the model product. Shelf life was tested by warming the emulsifiers and checking for chemical reactions that signal oxidation has occurred.
Yao has filed a provisional patent application for the technology. The Whistler Center for Carbohydrate Research in Purdue's Department of Food Science funded the research.
Writer: Brian Wallheimer, 765-496-2050, email@example.com
Source: Yuan Yao, 765-494-6317, firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:40b83daa-05d3-4546-970b-08dfdf8f207b> | CC-MAIN-2015-48 | http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/research/2009/091208YaoNanoparticles.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-48/segments/1448398449793.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20151124205409-00102-ip-10-71-132-137.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936542 | 519 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Why Sadism Is Not the Dark, Violent Trait We Think It Is
Ever see someone get visibly flustered because of something you said and derive a sick kind of pleasure from their pain? Or ever fantasize about wanting to bang someone’s head against a wall in a fit of rage? Both of these impulses — although depicting a range of harm — can fit under the sadism spectrum, defined as a collection of behaviors in which a person experiences pleasure and enjoyment from (causing) another person physical, psychological or emotional suffering. Yes, it’s sick — but also kind of normal.
Be it a friend with a propensity to be an emotional bully, a gamer with an affinity for violent video games, or internet trolls who derive pleasure from hating on a social media user — these are “everyday sadists,” University of British Columbia psychology professor, Delroy L. Paulhus, tells the New York Times.
Paulhus is one of the primary scientists in the field studying sadism as part of a series of “misanthropic” traits in human beings that enable them to hurt those around them, called the “Dark Tetrad.” These include narcissism (characterized as having higher than normal levels of admiration for oneself), Machiavellianism (characterized by tendencies to manipulate, deceive and exploit others to achieve one’s own goals), psychopathy (characterized by a lack of empathy) and sadism. But, sadism has many traits that overlap with other elements of the dark tetrad, such as a lack of empathy that enables the person with sadistic tendencies to hurt another, or to consider their own amusement of more value than the hurt or humiliation they may cause someone else. So, how does one identify their uniquely sadistic traits, outside of other dark and cruel tendencies they might have?
Related on The Swaddle:
Scientists have devised several handy questions, the answers to which can be ranked on a range, that determine the extent of an individual’s sadism. The most common is the Short Sadistic Impulse Scale (SSIS) devised by University of College Cork psychologist Aisling O’Meara and team in 2011. The 10-point questionnaire reads:
- I enjoy seeing people hurt.
- I would enjoy hurting someone physically, sexually, or emotionally.
- Hurting people would be exciting.
- I have hurt people for my own enjoyment.
- People would enjoy hurting others if they gave it a go.
- I have fantasies that involve hurting people.
- I have hurt people because I could.
- I wouldn’t intentionally hurt anyone.
- I have humiliated others to keep them in line.
- Sometimes I get so angry I want to hurt people.
Depending on how an individual rates themselves on these questions, they can be diagnosed with Sadistic Personality Disorder (SDP), as coined by the American Psychiatric Association in an effort to separate sadism from other traits. It’s characterized by “an individual’s pattern of cruel, harsh, aggressive, intimidating, humiliating, and demeaning behavior,” and is an area of personality science that still needs further investigation.
Sadistic aggression and inclination are, to date, poorly understood phenomena, with scientists regularly having their preconceived biases regarding sadists reversed through scientific study. For example, a 2018 study published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin shows that while people with sadistic personality traits might enjoy hurting people, ultimately they report feeling worse after committing the act of aggression. The finding is connected to how aggression affects the brain — initially the aggressive individual finds acting on the sensation pleasurable, but eventually the act detracts from mood, according to lead author and Virginia Commonwealth University professor David Chester.
One way to have the sadist realize the negative association associated with inflicting aggression sooner is to “break the link” between inflicting pain and deriving pleasure from it, according to Chester. Another way is to have clinicians convince sadists their acts are not harming their victims as much as they think, which “may undercut the pleasure of the aggressive act,” Chester writes for Psychology Today. “By reducing sadistic pleasure, we may also reduce the pain they inflict on others.” | <urn:uuid:2bc61708-1d67-4995-8200-a2dd5af02860> | CC-MAIN-2020-29 | https://theswaddle.com/why-sadism-is-not-the-dark-violent-trait-we-think-it-is/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-29/segments/1593655899931.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20200709100539-20200709130539-00442.warc.gz | en | 0.954464 | 885 | 2.75 | 3 |
So last year I did a little segment on learning the lesser known languages and I did cover a bit on Nunavut Inuktitut. And now, here is a post dedicated to the wonders of this poly-synthetic language.
Many people have heard of this language because of its alleged diversity of words to mean snow and ice. While it seems as fascinating as the hundreds of Sami words to mean reindeer, Nunavut Inuktitut has about a dozen basic words to describe snow and ice, while many other words are like Lego creations, using different blocks to build different words that can translate to something related to snow. So some of the basic words for snow and ice are:
qanik – snow falling
aputi- snow on the ground
pukak – crystalline snow on the ground
aniu – snow used to make water
siku – generic ice
nilak – freshwater ice for drinking
qinu – slushy ice by the sea
It is interesting to see how a constant exposure to the Arctic climate and terrain can lead to the Inuit devising various words for such snow and ice. After all, all languages tend to find an easy way to say what they need to say. Snow and ice which can be used for survival, pose as a hazard or a quick description of the snow/ice’s appearance would tend to receive different terms. One can argue that illusaq literally means “what can become a house” but to the communities living in Arctic climates, where snow is everywhere, “what can become a house” would usually be snow that is rigid and movable enough to be made into bricks to make a house. Similarly, maujaq, literally meaning “something in which one sinks”, when used in the Arctic context, would usually mean snow in which one sinks, or very soft snow on the ground.
The main beauty of Nunavut Inuktitut lies in its highly poly-synthetic and agglutinative nature. Remember the basic words for snow and ice? Suffixes and prefixes can be added to basic words like these to give additional meaning, creating a word that would normally translate into a phrase in most languages. Consider words like qanittaq, from qanik+taq, to mean freshly fallen snow, and sikuaq, siku+aq, to mean a skim of ice. You can see how Nunavut Inuktitut builds words like Lego blocks.
As agglutinating stuff together continues, entire sentences in English can be translated into what seems to be a single word in Nunavut Inuktitut. Consider this word in the South Qikiqtaaluk dialect:
pulaarvimiittuuk (The two of them are in the living room)
Okay, let’s break it down into its basic components.
pulaarvi(k) + miit + tuuk
Pulaarvik means “living room”, miit is a locative particle, and tuuk is a suffix to mean two of them. Now put them all together and you’ve got a sentence! Now let’s see another word, now having four components:
titirarvigijanga (She writes to him)
Titiraq means “to write”, vik is a marker to indicate a receiver of the action, gi is a special particle attached to some roots, and janga is a suffix to mean he/she/it [verb] him/her/it.
Another unique part of this Eskimo-Aleutic language is the use of the Inuktitut Abugida, a writing system where vowels change according to which direction a character is flipped. For example, the letter ᑲ /ka/, when mirrored longitudinally, reads ᑯ /ku/, and when it is flipped vertically, it reads ᑭ /ki/. A long vowel is indicated by a dot above the character (ᑳ /kaa/), and a consonant without a vowel is minimised like ᒃ /k/.
All in all, Nunavut Inuktitut is a fascinating language to learn, and I hope you’re interested to know more about this wonderful language.
Bonus point: The Inuit have their own throat singing, but more competitive in nature than Tuvan throat singing. It is typically sung in duets between women to see who can outlast the other. The video below shows you what Inuit throat singing looks like. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading this post! | <urn:uuid:84a07691-d254-440e-b54a-b4c490bcdb4f> | CC-MAIN-2017-34 | https://thelanguagecloset.wordpress.com/2017/05/28/intermission-the-beauty-of-nunavut-inuktitut/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-34/segments/1502886102307.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20170816144701-20170816164701-00270.warc.gz | en | 0.942825 | 979 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Crawl spaces present some unique challenges. Moisture control or moisture management is almost always required to prevent growth of mold, prevent objectionable odors, prevent structural degradation and to make the space usable. A crawl space must be kept dry! How do they get wet? I'll just mention a few of the most common ways. Ground water tables may be high. They will likely vary with the rainfall, but if they rise and flood the crawl space at any time, problems will result. Drainage problems are common. These may include, improper ground slope, landscaping, roof drainage, anything that holds or diverts water into these areas. Warm moist air entering either of these spaces will deposit its load of moisture on the cool surfaces it finds there. Fans and venting only make matters worse! What can be done? There is often no single answer to moisture problems in a crawl space. A multi-pronged approach must often be taken. Moisture control or management is key. For a crawl space: An impermeable barrier must be installed, to prevent moisture from entering the crawl space. This is refered to as "crawl space encapsulation.
In addition drains along with a sump pump are sometimes required to properly remove the ground water from the crawl space. A properly sized dehumidifier ( Portables do not usually have the capacity to maintain proper humidity levels) is required in some cases to take care of maintaining the proper humidity levels 24/7.
Exterior drainage issues must also be addressed.
The crawl space may require additional modifications other than those mentioned, to prevent moisture from entering. The point is moisture must be controlled and managed. If proper moisture management is not implemented, extensive damage to the structure can result. Issues with mold and structural degradation due to materials failing when they become wet (such as insulation and drywall) will occur.
We can provide the moisture management system you need.Call Us!
Note the standing water. Mold growth on the floor joist and subfloor is certain to occur.
The mold and rot are clearly visible in this picture. Note the absence of an impermeable vapor barrier.
Take a look at the thumbnails below. Compare you crawl space to the ones pictured. | <urn:uuid:1f0b9f06-f783-41ad-b200-47581d04dfa2> | CC-MAIN-2018-22 | http://abd-services.com/crawlspacesolutions.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-22/segments/1526794864558.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20180521220041-20180522000041-00161.warc.gz | en | 0.906242 | 457 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Henry VIII ruled England for 36 years, presiding over sweeping changes that brought his nation into the Protestant Reformation. He famously married a series of six wives in his search for political alliance, marital bliss and a healthy male heir. His desire to annul his first marriage without papal approval led to the creation of a separate Church of England. Of his marriages, two ended in annulment, two in natural deaths and two with his wives’ beheadings for adultery and treason. His children Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I would each take their turn as England’s monarch.
Henry was born in Greenwich, England, on June 28, 1491, the second son of Henry VII, the first English ruler from the House of Tudor. While his older brother Arthur was being prepared for the throne, Henry was steered toward a church career, with a broad education in theology, music, languages, poetry and sports.
As a young man, Henry displayed an admirable degree of intellectual curiosity, religious devotion and athletic achievement. One observer described a youth who “speaks good French, Latin and Spanish; is very religious; heard three masses daily when he hunted ... He is extremely fond of hunting, and never takes that diversion without tiring eight or ten horses ... He is also fond of tennis.”.
Catherine of Aragon
Henry’s brother and heir apparent Arthur had been betrothed since age 2 to Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of the Spanish rulers Ferdinand and Isabella. In November of 1501, the teenage couple were married.
Months later, however, Arthur died of a sudden illness. Henry became next in line for the throne and in 1503 was betrothed to his brother’s widow.
Henry VIII took the throne in 1509 at age 17, and married Catherine of Aragon six weeks later. Over the next 15 years, while Henry fought three wars with France, Catherine bore him three sons and three daughters, all but one of whom died in infancy. The sole survivor was Mary (later Mary I), born in 1516.
Henry as Monarch
Henry was an active king ruling over a prosperous realm in those years, and a leader in the English Renaissance. He lorded over a festive court while hunting, jousting, writing and playing music.
Henry issued a book-length attack on Martin Luther’s church reforms that earned him the title “Defender of the Faith” from Pope Leo X (a somewhat ironic accolade, given his eventual break with Roman Catholicism).
He made a significant investment in the Royal Navy, increasing its size from a mere 5 ships up to 53. But the lack of a male heir—especially after he fathered a healthy illegitimate son, Henry FitzRoy, in 1519—gnawed at the young king.
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By the 1520s, Henry had become infatuated with Anne Boleyn, a young woman in his wife’s entourage. He also worried that his marriage to Catherine had been cursed by God because of the Old Testament ban on marrying the widow of one’s brother. The king decided to seek a papal annulment that would free him to remarry.
With the assistance of his powerful adviser Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Henry petitioned Pope Clement VII but was rebuffed due to pressure from Catherine’s nephew, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Wolsey was forced from power for his failure and died in 1530 awaiting trial for treason.
With the backing of the British Parliament—led in large part by Thomas Cromwell, Henry's chief adviser—and the English clergy, Henry ultimately decided that he didn’t need the pope’s permission to rule on issues affecting the Church of England. In 1533 Henry and Anne Boleyn were married, and their daughter Elizabeth was born.
These actions linked Henry to the growing Reformation movement then sweeping northern Europe — they also earned him the enmity of Pope Clement VII. In response, the Vatican had Henry excommunicated in 1533.
Nonetheless, Henry’s other daughter Mary was declared illegitimate, and Elizabeth was named his rightful heir. Then, during the dissolution of the monasteries, England’s monasteries were closed and in most cases sold off to add to Henry’s wealth
In January of 1536 Henry was knocked off his horse and injured during a jousting tournament. When news of his accident reached the pregnant Anne, she miscarried, delivering a stillborn son. Henry then spurned her, turning his affections to another woman of his court, Jane Seymour.
Within six months, Henry had Anne executed for treason and incest. He then married Jane, who quickly gave him a son (the future Edward VI), although she died 12 days after giving birth.
Anne of Cleves
Henry’s fourth marriage bore similarities to his first. Anne of Cleves was a political bride, chosen to cement an alliance with her brother, the ruler of a Protestant duchy in Germany. The marriage only lasted a few days before Henry had it annulled. He then married Catherine Howard, but two years later she too was beheaded for treason and adultery.
In the last years of his reign Henry grew moody, suspicious and famously obese, hobbled by personal intrigues and by the persistent leg wound from his jousting injury. His final marriage, to the widow Catherine Parr in 1543, saw his reconciliation with Mary and Elizabeth, who were restored to the line of succession.
READ MORE: Who Were the Six Wives of Henry VIII?
Death and Legacy
Henry VIII died at age 55 on January 28, 1547. His 9-year-old son Edward VI succeeded him as king but died six years later. Mary I spent her five-year reign steering England back into the Catholic fold, but Elizabeth I, the longest-reigning of the Tudor monarchs, restored her father’s Protestant religious reforms.
Henry VIII (r.1509-1547). The Royal Family.
Facts about Henry VIII. Royal Museums Greenwich.
Henry VIII: Renaissance Prince or Terrible Tudor? Who Was the Real Henry VIII? Historic Royal Palaces.
Henry VIII, King of England (1491-1547). Royal Collection Trust. | <urn:uuid:4830c2a7-71a4-4085-9fe3-215a090fead5> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://roots.history.com/topics/british-history/henry-viii | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030335303.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20220929003121-20220929033121-00643.warc.gz | en | 0.98098 | 1,323 | 3.40625 | 3 |
The Sons of Fenrir: Hati and Skoll
When the Great Wolf, Fenris, began to run amuck, he first went back to the place where he was born. Tyr and the other Aesir had tried to keep him from going back to the Iron Wood, but one day he escaped and fled to his birthplace, and was reunited with his mother Angrboda, and his werewolf half-siblings. It is not known what happened to him there, save that when he left, his maddened devouring rage had begun in earnest, and a wolf-woman of the Jarnvidur had borne two wolf-pups, the very image of their father. In another account, the mother of Hati and Skoll was Angrboda herself, by Fenris her son, but we may never know the truth of this. Skoll's name means "treachery" in Old Norse, while Hati's name means "Hater". Hati is also sometimes given two different last names - Hróðvitnisson (Son of Rage) and Managarm (Moon-hound).
When Fenris was chained, Hati and Skoll were the only ones who came to defend him. Loki and Angrboda themselves did not interfere, knowing the necessity of the binding, but his young sons tumbled forth in a vain attempt to free their father. Instead, they were captured by the Aesir, and Odin put them to use, bespelling them as he had bespelled the Great Snake. Sunna and Mani had often been known to dawdle or change their course, which meant that the days and nights were not always dependable and on time. Mani was especially bad at this, as he liked to look down on what was happening, and the adventures played out below his feet enchanted and delayed him. There had been complaints about this from many mouths, and so Odin put the two wolves into the sky as a way to make the chariots run on time, as it were. Skoll was bespelled to chase Sunna's chariot as a dog herds sheep, keeping it to its path, and Hati (also known as Hati Hridvitisson, and Managarm) was similarly charged with herding Mani's dog-cart.
While they do not spend all of their time in the sky - when the Sun and Moon are on time and stick to their schedules, the wolves can run free on the earth below - if either sky-etin is late, they are lifted into the sky to do their job. Skoll is the quieter of the two, and says little; he does not love the involuntary nature of his job, although he gets some fun out of racing Sunna, but he is aware that it is a better deal than the one that befell his father. Hati is more outgoing and more moody; he veers from cheery mischief to wrath, and deeply resents the spell that pulls him so often to the sky. Both are aware that if Ragnarok comes, they will be able to chase and kill Sunna and Mani, and free themselves from Odin's spell, and they look forward to that day.
Artwork by Gracie Gra. | <urn:uuid:710ecf5b-01ec-4119-8039-676320b77942> | CC-MAIN-2014-49 | http://www.northernpaganism.org/shrines/fenrir/writing/the-sons-of-fenrir-hati-and-skoll.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-49/segments/1416400378429.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20141119123258-00130-ip-10-235-23-156.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.991941 | 670 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Financial history is fascinating. History offers nearly endless lessons from which we can learn, if we would only but study them. Of all the examples of financial history I have studied, one of the events that I have pondered the most was the Dutch purchase of Manhattan Island in 1626 from the Lenape Indians. Peter Schaghen was the first to record the Dutch purchase of Manhattan Island in 1626 from the Lenape Indians for the equivalent of 60 Guilders, or roughly $24. Most of what has been written emphasizes that in retrospect $24 is a pittance to pay for the vast and now hugely successful Manhattan. Was it really? I believe that there is much more to this story. This week’s Trends and Tail Risks does the math to lay bare the deep challenges to successfully growing long term wealth.
The Power - and Illusiveness - of Long Term Compounding
One of the questions that almost no one has asked is this: what would that $24 be worth today? A simple spreadsheet calculation below shows that $24 compounded at an 8% return per year yields a staggering $223 trillion today! This number is not only far greater than the value of all Manhattan real estate but is larger than the value of all the financial assets on the planet today – and all this potential wealth from a humble $24 back in 1626. Eight percent after all does not seem to be a herculean assumption. Why isn’t the world richer by far since clearly small amounts over time can compound so prodigiously? What happened to all that potential wealth? Are there lessons we can learn from the Lenapes, who seemingly once held untold future riches in their hands?
The Lenapes themselves would face many challenges that would have been impossible to foresee, such as a smallpox epidemic in the 1640s, a disease that had never been encountered before in the New World. Many Lenapes allied with the English to fight against the Americans during the American Revolutionary War, which was a time of great devastation even for the victors when the US suffered its worst ever bout of inflation. Continued expansion of US settlements and the repeated failure of the US Government to honor its treaties with the Lenapes would push the Lenapes further across the country into ever dwindling reserves. All of this of course all took place on the same North American continent which witnessed some of the most explosive and sustained economic growth that the world has ever seen.
Winning by Not Losing
The importance of caution is the greatest lesson we draw from financial history. When I say caution I mean the unyielding imperative to anticipate and navigate successful periods of extreme capital destruction and unexpected catastrophe.
We, like most investors, have benefited from the recent all time highs that many equities in the US are enjoying and welcome these strong markets. Never have we lost our focus on avoiding the pitfalls that have claimed so much of the world’s potential wealth. This focus drives our constant monitoring of potential threats. When we survey the world today we find a number of emerging tail risks to closely watch. We can find rising financial nationalism in Hungary as the national legislature retroactively abrogates foreign currency denominated mortgages going back 10 years. Will the ripples from this legislation subside quickly or continue to threaten poorly capitalized banks across Europe? Might the unfolding decline of many Portuguese banks threaten to re-open a new chapter in the ongoing European banking and sovereign debt crisis? How will the Fed’s goal of unwinding its unprecedented Quantitative Easing impact the markets? Each day we face a new set of challenges in the market but we always remember the lessons of history, that investors’ long term returns can be dominated by the simple fact of winning by not losing.• | <urn:uuid:6affa127-45ce-4183-a1e7-6daaf5074020> | CC-MAIN-2020-10 | http://blog.capitalwealthadvisors.com/trends-tail-risks/2014/07/the-power-and-illusiveness-of-long-term-compounding | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-10/segments/1581875148850.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20200229083813-20200229113813-00162.warc.gz | en | 0.958023 | 758 | 3.25 | 3 |
Horticulture Vs. Agriculture
Many people have a difficult time understanding the differences between horticulture and agriculture. This may occur because some agricultural strategies cross over into horticultural strategies. Linguistically the term agriculture comes from the combination of the Latin words agri (field) and cultura (cultivation). Horticulture comes from the combination of the Latin words hortus (garden) and cultura. Cultivating a field vs. cultivating a garden. We can see the implications of agriculture’s mono-cropping primary succession plant obsession in its very origin. We can also see the implications of horticulture’s diversity of plants and smaller-scale style through its origins.
The real determining factor involves the results of how the strategy affects the land; does it create more biodiversity or less? Does it strengthen the biological community or weaken it? It seems like a good idea to create a list of horticultural and agricultural strategies and reveal how and why you can use them to create more life, or misuse them to create less.
Agriculture uses strategies of cultivation such as transplanting, seeding, tilling, burning, pruning, fertilizing, selective harvesting, crop-rotation, etc. But the main difference between agriculture and horticulture involves agriculture’s focus on using these tools to create one habitat; the meadow or “field.” Horticulture uses the same strategies of cultivation to promote ecological succession and diversity of landscapes. Let’s go through and find out for ourselves.
Catastrophe; Burning Vs. Tilling
When I hear the word “tilling,” the classic image of a farmer and his plow pop into my head. I can see the deep trenches it has cut into the land in pretty rows. I can smell the sweetness of the upturned earth. Tilling works as an artificial catastrophe. Burning also works as a catastrophe but frequent, small-scale burns return nutrients to the soil without killing roots of desired species, eliminates succession and prevents large-scale fires from occurring.
Soil Aeration; Sticks Vs. Steel
Gophers and moles dig holes and aerate the soil. Even foragers use digging sticks for forage roots, tubers and rhizomes. This breaks up the earth making it easier for the roots to grow as well as aerates the soil. The plow on the other hand, goes too deep and destroys the mycorrhizal network of fungi that distributes nutrients to plants. It also aerates the soil, but it goes too deep and causing the soil to dry too much, which leads to soil loss and erosion.
Irrigation; Sticks Vs. Stone
Beavers build small scale dams with sticks that create flood plains, wetlands and marshes that provide habitat for aquatic life. Humans too have replicated this on a small scale. Civilization builds insanely large dams of stone that destroy the rivers life by draining too much water and drying it out.
Any squirrel will tell you; if you want to ensure that you have more to eat year after year, plant a few more seeds than you’ll dig up to eat during the winter.
Transplanting looks the same as seeding to me. Do you consider a seed a plant? What about seeds that germinate into plants and than grow through rhizome? Some willow trees can loose a branch, only to have that branch drift down stream and grow into a whole new plant! Wait, would you consider it new if it came from a pre-existing tree? Do they share the same soul? Have I gone too deep for a chapter about horticulture and agriculture?
Fertilizing; Poop vs. Petrol
Shit. We all do it. Poop turns into fertilizer. Controlled burns also work as fertilizer by quickly breaking down dead wood and making their nutrients bio-available. Agriculturalists just import nutrients from other areas, and in the case of oil, from under the ground!
Foragers and horticulturalists also used burning to keep down insect populations. Civilization uses toxic chemicals that poison not only bugs, but the ground, the water, the birds, and our own bodies.
Pruning & Coppicing;
Beaver pruning stimulates willows, cottonwood and aspen to regrow bushier the next spring. Black bears break branches. Hunter-gatherers prune trees too, to encourage larder yields and materials for making tools like baskets.
Horticulturalists don’t use this technique. It exists uniquely to agriculturalists. Probably the larger symptom of control and domestication. No weeds in my field!
Selective Harvesting; Strength Vs. Weakness
Every animal uses this technique. Wolves thin out the sick and week deer. Sometimes you take the weak so the strong survive. Sometimes you eat the strong so your poop will fertilize the seed. Selective harvesting shows us that systems evolve to work in cooperation; if we look closely we can see the outcome of our decisions. Domestication also works as a form of selective harvesting, only rather than strengthen the plant or animal it weakens it. I go more into this aspect in Domestication Vs. Rewilding.
Aside from building strength through selective harvesting, seasonal rotation of lands and food sources, and even yearly rotations allows an area to restore itself from the temporary impacts of the harvest.
Many people also make the assumption that people who practice horticulture long enough eventually begin to practice agriculture. I’d like to suggest the perceived continuum from foraging to agriculture does not exist. I’d like to suggest that a continuum between foragers and horticultural peoples exists, but agriculture appears as a completely different beast. It goes against the fundamental restorative principles that shape the continuum between foraging and horticulture. Therefore, although it uses mostly intensified horticultural practices, it disregards the most basic ecological principles.
Foragers, Hunter-gatherers and Horticulturalists used (and still in some places use today) the methods above to build soil, create varying habitats of succession, creating more ecotones and increasing biodiversity. Agriculture does not do that at all. If a continuum existed, we would see a decrease in biodiversity in each new phase of the continuum. Because we don’t see this, we can guess that agriculture sits outside of that subsistence continuum as a completely different beast all-together.
I would like to note that many people use the term agriculture too loosely. Terms like “sustainable agriculture,” make no sense linguistically and from the word’s origin. We need to remember to differentiate between agriculture (the field/mono-crop) and horticulture (the garden of forest succession) if we want to see how to live sustainably.
The next difficult part obviously involves how to translate this knowledge to practical use. The question remains; how can we change our subsistence strategies from agriculturaling-supermarkets to horticulturing/hunting/gathering villages? How can we go from stupid-civilized-urban-dweller to rewilding-horticultural-hunter-gatherer-hot-shot? | <urn:uuid:5e86fa97-8583-4785-b10d-395c8eeac787> | CC-MAIN-2016-30 | http://www.urbanscout.org/horticulture-vs-agriculture/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-30/segments/1469258918071.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20160723072838-00011-ip-10-185-27-174.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920212 | 1,488 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Computers & Writing Systems
Unicode Character Properties Excel Workbook
Unicode 7.0 workbook is now available.
We have taken various files from the Unicode Character Database (UCD) and put them into an Excel workbook. The files in the UCD have been designed to be machine-readable. One result of this is that they are not as readable to humans. This is especially true of the original UCD file, UnicodeData.txt. By putting the content into an Excel workbook, the information can be presented in a much more readable way. Moreover, Excel provides some useful functionality that isn't available when reading the files in a text editor. In particular, by using Excel's AutoFilter feature, it becomes easy to do things such as showing only characters with compatibility decompositions, or characters with a canonical combining class of 220, or characters that have "WITH HOOK" in their name.
The content of different files have been placed into separate sheets in the workbook. There are also sheets that provide documentation such as the meanings of various codes used for certain properties (for instance, the values used in the General Category field of UnicodeData).
For some of the files, some minor changes have been made in how the content is organised as an aid to readability. For instance, a column for representative glyphs has been added to UnicodeData. None of the property values has been changed, however.
We have added representative glyphs to the sheet for the UnicodeData file. You will need to find appropriate fonts with which to format the cells containing each character. In some cases, leading spaces may have been added so that combining marks would be more likely to display.
For Unicode 6.1, Blocks.txt was added.
For Unicode 4.1, Scripts.txt was added.
For Unicode 4.0 and later, the contents of the following UCD files are included:
For Unicode 3.2 and earlier version, only the contents of UnicodeData.txt is included.
UNICODE, INC. LICENSE AGREEMENT - DATA FILES AND SOFTWARE
Unicode Data Files include all data files under the directories http://www.unicode.org/Public/, http://www.unicode.org/reports/, and http://www.unicode.org/cldr/data/. Unicode Data Files do not include PDF online code charts under the directory http://www.unicode.org/Public/. Software includes any source code published in the Unicode Standard or under the directories http://www.unicode.org/Public/, http://www.unicode.org/reports/ and http://www.unicode.org/cldr/data/.
NOTICE TO USER: Carefully read the following legal agreement. BY DOWNLOADING, INSTALLING, COPYING OR OTHERWISE USING UNICODE INC.'S DATA FILES ("DATA FILES"), AND/OR SOFTWARE ("SOFTWARE"), YOU UNEQUIVOCALLY ACCEPT, AND AGREE TO BE BOUND BY, ALL OF THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS AGREEMENT. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE, DO NOT DOWNLOAD, INSTALL, COPY, DISTRIBUTE OR USE THE DATA FILES OR SOFTWARE.
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Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of the Unicode data files and any associated documentation (the "Data Files") or Unicode software and any associated documentation (the "Software") to deal in the Data Files or Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, and/or sell copies of the Data Files or Software, and to permit persons to whom the Data Files or Software are furnished to do so, provided that (a) the above copyright notice(s) and this permission notice appear with all copies of the Data Files or Software, (b) both the above copyright notice(s) and this permission notice appear in associated documentation, and (c) there is clear notice in each modified Data File or in the Software as well as in the documentation associated with the Data File(s) or Software that the data or software has been modified.
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Except as contained in this notice, the name of a copyright holder shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the sale, use or other dealings in these Data Files or Software without prior written authorization of the copyright holder.
(with Corrigendum #8)
© 2003-2019 SIL International, all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted elsewhere on this page. | <urn:uuid:280f0c7d-5072-4158-9ddf-85eddcf9e88e> | CC-MAIN-2019-39 | http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=ExcelUnicodeData&_sc=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-39/segments/1568514572744.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20190916135948-20190916161948-00098.warc.gz | en | 0.83892 | 1,138 | 2.609375 | 3 |
MONTREAL, Canada — When Prince Harry recently bought a pair of fur boots for his latest squeeze, tabloids and gossip sites joked that he’d wanted to make sure she didn’t get “cold feet.”
In literal terms, at least, Sean McCormick, who grew up wearing the traditional mukluk boots to school, can attest to their warmth.
It’s been a decade and a half since McCormick, a member of the Canadian Metis aboriginal group, set up Manitobah Mukluks, sparking a global fashion craze, with fans like Kate Moss and Paris Hilton.
It all started from a trading post, where he sold fur and leather to native women who would make the boots. Today, he employs about 100 people at his Winnipeg production site.
McCormick is considered one of Canada’s leading aboriginal entrepreneurs. At a time when Idle No More, a Canadian indigenous rights movement featuring protests, campaigns and hunger strikes, has drawn attention to the socio-economic hardships suffered by native peoples, a quieter phenomenon of rising aboriginal entrepreneurship has been taking hold.
“It’s exponential,” said JP Gladu, president of the Toronto-based Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business. “Native people are participating in the economy in a bigger way,” he said.
It’s a trend illustrated by the 2006 census, the most recent figures available, which pegs the growth rate for aboriginal entrepreneurship at five times that of Canadians overall. Today, there are more than 37,000 aboriginal business owners, an 85 percent increase from the 1996 census.
These figures fly in the face of common narratives about Canada’s native population, as a dysfunctional people plagued with chronic unemployment, substance abuse issues and high suicide rates — facts of life in many of the country’s isolated reserves.
“Entrepreneurship is a vehicle that can move communities from that to a place of health and prosperity,” said Gladu.
Education and technology have played a part in opening up opportunities. But a major driver has been the rise in land rights claims.
As the commodities boom continues apace, companies are finding they have to negotiate access to public land that would traditionally have been considered native territory. In some cases, native groups have taken their battle to the courts, winning land and compensation.
The Osoyoos Indian Band in British Columbia is a striking example of a native community taking charge of its destiny. In 1998, it won $12 million in land claims, using the money, combined with outside investments, to open an award-winning winery, a golf course, a hotel, an RV park and a construction company. Profits have been reinvested in the community, to build a school, a health center and other services.
It’s a major step for a community that used to cross the US border to Washington state to eke out a living in the orchards.
Chief Clarence Louie acknowledges that the tribe’s location, in British Columbia’s sunny grape-growing region, played in its favor. "Most of it is location. A lot of reserves are fly-in communities. You can only get there by ice roads. They’re hampered by location,” he said.
In Louie’s view, self-reliance among Canada’s native groups is the way forward.
“There are a handful of First Nations [native groups] in every province doing what we’re doing, breaking away, becoming more independent because they’re participating in the economy,” he said. “Canada’s natives need business focus. They need to start making the economy their No. 1 issue, the same as white people.”
Idle No More has created a lot of awareness about native issues, says Louie. But real change will only come when reserves become more autonomous.
In many cases, federally funded band councils — the governing bodies on reserves — are the main source of work, with most residents caught in the welfare trap. The government, he says, needs to invest more in economic development measures that encourage entrepreneurship rather than social spending that keeps native communities locked into cycles of dependency.
More from GlobalPost: Can a Canadian save the Catholic Church?
For Shain Jackson, owner of Spirit Works, doing business is about keeping native culture alive. A member of the Coast Salish nation, he launched the wooden crafts company after five years practicing as a land claims lawyer, representing native groups.
“Going into the aboriginal art world wasn’t something I fell into. Aboriginal art is the No. 1 means of how we’re going to reinvigorate and recapture our cultures,” he said.
“There are a lot more native entrepreneurs around, certainly a lot more than I noticed when I was younger,” he said. “From my point of view, I hope it’s related to something that’s sustainable and promotes our world view, as opposed to people taking advantage of the extraction of their own land and culture.”
It’s a sentiment that McCormick shares. He’s still in touch with the women who made the mukluks he would sell back in the old days. Today, as well as his commercial line, he is still selling their hand-made boots, with 100 percent of the proceeds going directly back into their pockets.
“I borrowed these designs we make commercially. Now I want to be part of the solution and give people the money they deserve for them,” he said.
The company is now launching a program aimed at teaching old-fashioned mukluk-making to younger generations in remote northern communities, as well as providing stipends for young people to further their education.
“When I was growing up, entrepreneurship just wasn’t on my radar,” he said. “A lot of kids out there have the perfect skillset and mentality for business, but the attitude is: It’s not for us, it’s for someone else.
“My take on it is that our communities across Canada are over-represented in all kinds of social problems … We need more feel-good factor in these communities, without shying away from the real issues.” | <urn:uuid:69639108-3397-4128-a93d-5377d863eb43> | CC-MAIN-2019-39 | https://www.pri.org/stories/2013-03-19/good-news-about-canadas-native-groups-change | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-39/segments/1568514572934.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20190916200355-20190916222355-00058.warc.gz | en | 0.965561 | 1,322 | 2.59375 | 3 |
In 1998, Mongolia was an independent nation located in East Asia with a population of around 2.5 million people. The economy was largely based on its mining industry, with some agriculture and other services also contributing significantly. The government was a parliamentary democracy with strong emphasis on civil rights and freedoms. In terms of infrastructure, Mongolia had access to roads and railways as well as telecommunications networks. Health care was fairly good in most parts of the country, though access to basic medical services was still limited in some rural areas. Education levels were quite low compared to other countries in the region due to limited investment into public education as well as private universities. Additionally, its unique cultural heritage and abundance of natural resources made it a hotspot for international tourism in the late 1990s. All in all, Mongolia’s potential for growth and development were evident despite its many challenges in 1998 thanks to its strong economic foundation and governmental stability. See dentistrymyth for Mongolia in the year of 2015.
Mongolia. In April, Prime Minister Mendsaikhany Enkhsaikhan resigned following a settlement within the bourgeois government coalition and was replaced by Tsahiagijyn Elbegdordj. One of his first steps was to merge a bankrupt state bank with a privately owned bank. This led to the ex-Communist Party of the Mongolian Revolutionary Party boycotting the parliament for eight weeks. The party claimed that the merger was against the Constitution and that government members had personal interests in the private bank. In July, Elbegdordj’s government was cast in a distrustful vote.
According to Countryaah, the capital of Mongolia is Ulaanbaatar. The government crisis developed into a power struggle between socialist President Natsagiyn Bagabandi and the expedition government. Bagabandi rejected a number of proposals for new prime minister and the government said no to the presidential candidates. The crisis mood deepened when the Minister of Infrastructure, Sanjaas邦rengyn Zorig, was assassinated in October.
During the government crisis, the country’s economic situation deteriorated. The deficit in the trade balance increased rapidly, due to both the drop in copper prices and the abolition of import duties in 1997.
Only in December was the death toll broken when the capital, Ulaanbaatar’s 41-year-old mayor Janlavyn Narantsatsralt, could be appointed prime minister.
- Abbreviationfinder: What does MNG stand for in geography? Here, this 3 letter acronym refers to the country of Mongolia.
Extremely continental climate with cold and dry winters and warm summers with plenty of rainfall. In Ulan Bator, the average January temperatures are -25.6 ° C, those in July are 16 ° C. The precipitation amounts to 205mm per year. Natural resources.
Genghis Khan created a giant kingdom
Eight hundred years ago, a mighty kingdom was born on the steppes of Mongolia, unmatched in world history. Its sphere of influence extended from Southeast Asia to Poland and Hungary and from the Yellow Sea to the gates of Moscow. The state was divided into four major regions: southern Russia, i.e. Orda, Persia, Central Asia, and East Asia, from which the Mongols were native, and to which were also annexed the states located in what is now China. The creator of the greatness of the Mongol Empire was the Genghis Khan, who was able to unite groups of nomads who moved apart and fought against each other. After the death of Kaan in 1227, his four sons and numerous grandsons continued a policy of warlike conquest. Grandpa’s devout wish to conquer China was fulfilled by a grandson named Kublai. He moved the Mongolian capital, Karakorum, to what is now Beijing and gave it the name Khanbalik. Our perception of Kublai Khan is largely based on Marco Polo’s travelogue. It is believed that this Venetian merchant spent twenty years in the court of Kaan and served as his ambassador in various parts of the great kingdom.
How, then, did the best million people succeed in conquering all of Asia-wide and its great cities, such as Samarkand or Baghdad, and flooding all the way to the gates of Vienna? The success of the Mongols was based on excellent riding and fighting skills, a great messaging system, and the cruel reputation that preceded them. The surrender was spared, but the opponents were destroyed until the last man – often until the last woman and child. However, the merchants were left untouched and during the Mongol Empire, Pax Mongolica prevailed, a time of peace that also allowed flowers of different religions to flow freely. Originally practicing shamanistic natural religions, the Mongols converted in some parts of the great kingdom to Buddhists, while in others to Muslims or Christian Nestorians. | <urn:uuid:3660c267-5d1e-47ec-8a13-f717c6ad5bd3> | CC-MAIN-2023-23 | https://www.constructmaterials.com/mongolia.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224646181.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20230530230622-20230531020622-00041.warc.gz | en | 0.974135 | 1,007 | 3.140625 | 3 |
The long necks of the biggest dinosaurs that ever lived can have been elevated high ~ all, a brand-new study currently suggests.
You are watching: Dinosaur with long neck that eats plants
The sauropod dinosaurs, which included titans such as Brachiosaurus, Diplodocus, and also Apatosaurus (once well-known as Brontosaurus), are popular for the very long necks they usually sported. The an extensive neck expanded the animal"s reach for grabbing food.
However, it has recently proven controversial regarding whether sauropods actually ever held your heads up high to dine ~ above hard-to-reach leaves since of all the energy needed to pump blood to together heights. Many researchers, because that instance, carry out agree that Apatosaurus and also Diplodocus likely kept your necks short while grazing.
Now, at least for few of these sauropods, research says the goliaths did indeed organize their heads up high.
Andreas Christian, a practical morphologist in ~ the university of Flensburg in Germany, investigated Euhelopus zdanskyi, a moderately sized sauropod that lived during the at an early stage Cretaceous sometime between 130 million and also 112 million year ago. It was estimated to weigh part 8,400 pounds (3,800 kilograms) and also roughly 36 to 39 feet (11 to 12 meters) in length from nose reminder to tail tip.
The neck and also head of Euhelopus together were believed to have weighed 460 pounds (210 kg), and also the distance from the base of the neck come the snout stretched about 15 feet (4.6 m). After ~ calculating the emphasize the cartilage in ~ its neck joints must have actually felt provided this weight and also length, Christian uncovered the most most likely pose it adopted was somewhat favor a giraffe"s — a virtually straight neck skinny at about 45 levels from the ground the would have taken tiny work come raise up vertically for a few minutes.
Although pump blood to together heights calls for a the majority of energy, Christian found this confirmed cost-effective if food was spread out out, together the energy gained from being able come forage ~ above hard-to-get lofty leaves would certainly be much less than if castle otherwise had to move their massive bulks long ranges to feed. Similar findings held true for Brachiosaurus.
"Distribution that food was necessary for the optimal feeding strategy," Christian said. Different sauropods may have actually used their necks in different ways depending on the type of vegetation lock were most used come feeding on, he added.
Christian thorough his findings virtual June 2 in the newspaper Biology Letters.
See more: Does Taking Laxatives Make You Lose Weight Loss, Laxative Abuse
Charles Q. Choi is a contributing writer for Live Science and Space.com. He covers all things human origins and also astronomy and also physics, animals and also general science topics. Charles has a grasp of Arts level from the college of Missouri-Columbia, institution of Journalism and also a Bachelor that Arts level from the university of south Florida. Charles has visited every continent top top Earth, drinking rancid yak butter tea in Lhasa, snorkeling v sea lions in the Galapagos and also even climb an iceberg in Antarctica. | <urn:uuid:23fb20ae-f690-49c1-ad76-02376fa4d14e> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://gendergeek.org/dinosaur-with-long-neck-that-eats-plants/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320300533.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20220117091246-20220117121246-00527.warc.gz | en | 0.962679 | 684 | 3.59375 | 4 |
- Accurately assess the proportion of youth who openly identify as LGB (lesbian, gay or bisexual) within child welfare systems nationwide
- Describe the characteristics and risk factors for these youth
- Determine if LGB system involved youth had different placement, stability and permanency outcomes than their non-LGB peers
- Determine if LGB system involved youth had different health and mental health outcomes than their non-LGB peers
- Synthesize this information to inform recommendations concerning how to best address the safety, permanency and mental health needs of LGB youth within child welfare system nationwide.
Overall our results show that approximately 15.5% of youth within child welfare identify as LGB, indicating that these youth are over-represented within the national child welfare population. Of the total population of youth in child welfare identifying as LGB, 62 % of these youth are youth of color. In addition our results indicate that LGB youth in child welfare experience adverse mental health outcomes at much higher rates than their non-LGB peers, including clinical depression, clinically significant trauma and substance abuse. A comprehensive report of our methodology, findings, and recommendations for system improvements can be accessed here (insert link to provider survey with picture of cover). | <urn:uuid:5d97ac8f-5338-4746-b5be-12db5539f4e9> | CC-MAIN-2021-04 | https://uh.edu/socialwork/New_research/lesbian-gay-and-bisexual-lgb-youth-childwelfare/study-aims-and-findings/index.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-04/segments/1610703517559.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20210119011203-20210119041203-00042.warc.gz | en | 0.943464 | 253 | 3.3125 | 3 |
July has been filled with exciting headlines for STEM subjects. Here’s a summary of some of our favorite stories for the month.
Scientists from York University have found a new solution to combat a certain species of toxic grass fungus: moose and reindeer saliva! As plants evolve defense mechanisms like thorns or poisonous berries, scientists wondered how moose were able to eat grass that harbored toxic fungus in such large quantities without showing symptoms of illness. The team of scientists collected samples of moose and reindeer saliva and smeared them onto samples of grass that carried toxic fungus. Results showed that the saliva inhibits fungal growth within 12-36 hours. Read article.
The heavy drought in California means trouble for locals, who have resorted to extreme measures, like punishing those who water their lawns to often, in an effort to conserve water. The effect of the extreme drought affects more than Californians, though. Those of us who enjoy avocados, almonds, walnuts or any of the other 250 plus agricultural commodities produced in California will be seeing a steep increase in prices as the drought continues to impact agriculture. Watch video.
3D printing is having a huge moment in STEM as scientists find a multitude of ways for their application. An 12-year-old boy who lost both his arms during a bomb explosion in Sudan is benefitting from this new technology as a 3D printer recently created a new robotic arm that allows him to regain some of his mobility. Read article.
New reports show that an exploding asteroid that injured more than 1,000 people with flying glass and debris in Chelyabinsk, Russia last year collided with another asteroid about 290 million years ago before the asteroid chunk headed towards Earth. Scientist believe that the asteroids struck each other at a speed of 3,000 mph. Blasts from the asteroid destroyed buildings as it exploded with a force nearly 30 times as powerful as the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima. Read article.
No matter where you turn, you can’t get away from technology. This is now literally the case, as a new Indian company has created a shoe equipped with an app and Google maps to help guide the wearer to the right place. The shoe and insole is connected to a smartphone via Bluetooth, and it vibrates to let you know if when should turn left or right. Read article.
Powerful winds are nothing new for the residents in “Tornado Alley”, the colloquial term for the area in the U.S. where tornadoes hit hard and often. For those looking to harness wind energy, those strong winds may have an upside, particularly as wind turbines continue to pop up as a source of generating renewable energy. Read article.
So there, various STEM subject lovers. We’ve got you covered! | <urn:uuid:a7d23d4b-d801-49d7-833c-8cd38aa5fc2c> | CC-MAIN-2018-22 | https://stem-worksblog.com/2014/07/31/july-2014-recap-exciting-stem-news-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-22/segments/1526794864624.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20180522034402-20180522054402-00457.warc.gz | en | 0.956932 | 571 | 2.890625 | 3 |
The first five years of life offer a critical window for learning, with rapid brain development that does not occur at any other time. Many children, especially from low-income families, are not read to from birth. Children who grow up without sufficient exposure to language arrive at school without basic literacy skills, and often struggle with reading in early grades.
Each year, Reach Out and Read® serves 4 million children across all 50 states, focusing on those in low-income families. As of January 2013, 6.5 million books have been given out by 12,000 medical providers, at 5,000 program sites in all 50 states and D.C.
Learn more about this evidence-based intervention. | <urn:uuid:4dbfa2f8-f387-450d-a8c5-1607b20c4d53> | CC-MAIN-2020-40 | https://www.aap-oc.org/initiatives/reach-out-and-read/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-40/segments/1600402088830.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20200929190110-20200929220110-00065.warc.gz | en | 0.957418 | 142 | 3.046875 | 3 |
One of my favorite ways to talk about regulation with my son and to give him insight into new self-regulation skills is to read books.
Books are such a powerful tool for parents — they are a way to connect, a way to calm down, and a way to teach life lessons. I’ve listed some of our favorites below.
The first list includes books that directly teach children about self-control strategies and are great to help children reflect on their own ability to self-regulate in various situations.
The second list below includes books that teach children to breathe through emotions, to be able to pause before acting, to be mindful of their bodies and more. Through the methods of mindfulness, children can learn self-awareness and self-calming strategies that will become life-long skills for handling stress and emotions.
And finally, the last list below includes fun picture books that show characters in laughable and relatable situations. Kids will want to read these books over and over, and maybe they will learn a few self-regulation skills along the way.
Best Books That Teach Regulation Strategies To Kids
1.What Were You Thinking? A Story about Learning to Control Impulses – This book follows a day in the life of Braden, a 3rd grader who is learning how to control his impulses. Braden wants to be funny and blurts out things he shouldn’t, reacts to things he believes to be unfair without thinking, and eats a bunch of cupcakes without thinking about who or what they might be for. Luckily, Braden has some pretty understanding adults in his life who give him some tips on how to start controlling his impulses: Stop, Think and decide if your actions will make the situation Better or Worse.
This book opens a lot of opportunities to talk about -self-regulation in the school setting. Things like when you can be funny when you should be serious, how to react to situations when you are angry, and thinking through issues.
My son especially likes the Better or Worse? question, this is something he says to himself often and I believe helps him think through the consequences of his actions before he acts. If you like this book, there are a few others by the same author which address the executive function skill of flexible thinking: Of Course, It’s a Big Deal and My Day is Ruined!
2. What Should Danny Do? – This book also goes through several choices a boy named Danny makes over the course of his week. He loves soccer, superheroes, and ninjas and he has his very own superpower –The power to choose!
The reader gets the power to choose in this book too. The story follows along in a “choose your own adventure” style. Your child gets to help Danny make decisions and sometimes those decisions lead to good outcomes and sometimes not.
The first time we read it, my son made the “right” decisions. It was pretty obvious which the better choices would be. Then he wanted to go back and pick some of the poor choices. This shows kids how actions and choices have consequences.
Many of the consequences are natural and encourage empathetic thinking, but some of them don’t fit perfectly with a positive/gentle parenting style. That was okay for us, my son seemed to understand that those were Danny’s consequences and his consequences wouldn’t necessarily be the same. Overall, he got the idea that your choices lead to certain outcomes.
Where the book really shines is when Danny makes good choices and is proud of his day and also when Danny doesn’t make good choices, the passages where his parents reinforce the power to choose. For example, Danny’s Dad says: “I heard your day wasn’t so good, Danny…Every superhero makes mistakes, and that’s okay. But the best superheroes learn from their mistakes and use their Power to Choose Wisely.”
I recommend this book — the concept of choosing your adventure is great and the overall tone of the message is positive. Just be aware that if you follow positive/gentle parenting, some of the consequences (going to your room, no chocolate for a week) are “punishment” consequences.
There is a new book in this series that follows Danny throughout a day a school: What Should Danny Do? School Day
3. How to Be a Super-Hero Called Self-Control – Following along on the super-hero theme, this book features a hero called self-control who teaches children (aged 4-7 years) how to handle difficult feelings like anxiety, frustration, and anger. The back of the book has resources for parents. There is a book by the same author older children (aged 7- 14 years) too, The Kids’ Guide to Staying Awesome and In Control: Simple Stuff to Help Children Regulate their Emotions and Senses
4. What To Do When You Are Mad: A Workbook for Kids- If your child struggles to regulate big emotions like anger or has a big temper, this workbook is for them. This workbook helps kids mindfully identify signs of anger in their body, how to vent their anger in healthy ways, and how to use their angry energy to solve problems. Based on self0regulation theory, this is a great book to learn how to work through big mad emotions.
Best Books About Mindfulness for Kids
Mindfulness is the ultimate self-regulation tool. If we can help our children become aware of how their bodies react when stressed and how to calm that stress and the chatter of the mind we are giving them a skill that will use for life. In fact, developmental psychologists have found that mindfulness training has been shown to increase attentional self-regulation in children.
These books capture the essence of paying attention to the inside and living in the moment. We often focus on teaching our children to pay attention to what’s going on around them, but really first they must be able to tune in to themselves. This is the first step in mindfulness.
5. My Magic Breath – What a gorgeous book this is! I love this book which teaches children to breathe out their thoughts and feelings right onto the pages of the book. This book introduces the concept as breathing as a way to recenter oneself when thoughts and feelings race through your mind. “Do you have a magic breath? When you are worried, or nervous, or sad, take a deep breath. Now let it go. Did that help you feel better? See? It’s magic!” Learning to mindfully take a breath when our thoughts and emotions are out of control is a core self-regulation strategy. Once you have read this book with your kids a few times, the next time they are upset, say — “Let’s find your magic breath!”
6. A World of Pausabilities: An Exercise in Mindfulness – Written by Psychologist Frank J. Sileo, Ph.D., this book is a wonderful introduction to mindfulness for children. Children do tend to live in the moment — but like the rest of us, they spend much of there time racing from one activity to the next, never pausing to enjoy something. This book will help your child and your family find some quiet moments in the day — and with it some calm. Learning to pause is an essential component of self-regulation — and it is important to teach our children this skill at times when they are not upset, which is exactly what this book encourages children to do, to learn to pause just like they would learn to play an instrument or ride a bicycle.
7. The Lemonade Hurricane – A Story of Mindfulness and Meditation – This book takes mindfulness one step further, it shows how it can be a calming influence. From the synopsis: “Henry is a lot of fun when he’s not storming through the house, so Emma decides to teach him how to be still. By showing him how to sit, bow, and breathe, Emma is able to calm the hurricane within Henry.” This book is a good one to help teach kids a balance between go, go, go and stopping and resting themselves and their minds.
8. Mindful Bea and the Worry Tree – This is a brand new book that hasn’t been released yet at the time I am writing this post. I am excited about this book because mindfulness is a great tool for children with anxiety. In this book, Bea gets herself all worked up before the start of a birthday party, but after stepping outside in her backyard and breathing mindfully and doing visulations, she able to calm down and join the party. I love that Bea has a worry tree, research shows that being in nature helps calm the mind. This book will be a good tool for parents of children with worries.
9. I am Peace: A Book of Mindfulness – This is a sweet book that teaches children the steps of mindfulness and the beauty of living in the here and the now in a gentle story-book fashion. In the back, there is also a guided meditation for kids that is a nice before bed activity, especially for children with stress or worries. It is a good one to have on the bookshelf that you can pull out when your child has had a trying or stressful day
10. Breathe and Be: A Book of Mindfulness Poems – This is also a wonderful book to read when you and your child need calmness and relaxation, “What am I thinking? What comes and goes in my mind? I watch my thoughts. They swim by like little fish. They shine blue, green, red, yellow… there is a quiet place inside my head like an egg hidden in a nest. A place I go when the world is loud.” This book teaches the steps of mindfulness, breathing, being aware of thoughts and letting them go by, refocusing on the breath, and finding your own quiet place. This is true for emotions as well.
11. A Quiet Place – This book is a relaxing one to read at the end of a hectic day. It is about finding your own quiet place — by the shore, by the pond, on a mountain, in the snow — or maybe the one just inside of you. This is a great book for showing your child that everyone has a quiet place inside themselves. Teaching your child that they can go to that quiet place is a giving them the gift of peacefulness.
12. My Incredible Talking Body – This book teaches children the first step in being mindful — awareness of the body and how emotions feel physically. “It tells me I am sleepy when my eyes are droopy and I just can’t stop yawning.” The book goes through the feelings of hungry, thirsty, sleepy, angry, sad, scared and calm. “When I am calm, my muscles feel relaxed like my arms and legs have turned into spaghetti noodles. My breathing is slow and deep like when I blow up a balloon.” The book also discussed how to return to calm after feeling anger or sadness and give strategies for calming down. Learning to listen to the body is a good first step in mindful awareness and emotion regulation.
13. Mind Bubbles: Exploring Mindfulness With Kids – I love books that give kids a concrete example of how to deal with abstract thoughts and feelings. This book teaches children how to focus on their breath while letting thoughts, feelings, and worries pop away like bubbles. “Mind bubbles may float around for
14. Mindfulness for Vikings: Inspirational Quotes and Pictures Encouraging a Happy Stress-Free Life for Adults and Kids – This one is a little different, but I love it. These are more things and inspirational sayings to think about during mindful moments. It encourages living in the moment — being mindful and appreciating the little things. Being able to be quiet enough to appreciate those things. “Even the little moments are big moments.”
15. The Mindfulness for Kids Mandala Drawing Book – Research shows that coloring mandalas induces a meditative state and decreases anxiety in college-aged students. This coloring book for kids introduces mandalas and the concept of mindfulness while coloring or drawing. Then the book goes through different types of patterns and provides grids so children can draw their own mandalas. Using art as a self-regulation tool is a great life-skill. I would recommend this book for kids 8 through 12.
Best Picture Books About Self-Control for Kids (or lack of self-control!)
These last books are all stories — pictures books with stories that illustrate how regulation happens (or doesn’t happen) in many kinds of situations. Your child will be able to identify with the characters as they overcome frustration, problem-solve, resist impulses, and wait for something worth waiting for.
16. Nanette’s Baguette – This Mo Willem’s rhyming book follows Nanette on her first time being responsible to “get the baguette.” But will she be able to resist the baguette? It is warm, it smells wonderful!!! You will love the twist ending of this book that shows that sometimes it’s okay to give in to our impulses and enjoy. Learning to regulate is not just about suppressing, but also about being able to enhance emotions, savor life — to know when to be able to let go a little.
17. Waiting is Not Easy – Another great Mo Willems books, this time with Piggy and Gerald. Waiting is not easy and your kids will be able to relate to Gerald’s discomfort while waiting. But, they will also learn that some things are worth waiting for…
18. The Most Magnificent Thing – Oh to know what you want to do, to be able to picture it exactly how you want it in your head and not be able to build it. This is a feeling our kids are all too familiar with as they are gaining coordination and skills. The main character in this book gets frustrated when her invention doesn’t come out– she fumes!! But then, she goes for a walk. She begins to feel different, she calms down. Then she is able to think more clearly again. Will she be able to go back and look at her work with fresh eyes?
What a life-skill! To be able to take a break and go back and try again. This book teaches kids that things don’t always happen on the first try, that you can get emotional, but you can regulate that, take a break and persevere.
19. Argle Fox – This is a great book about overcoming the big feelings of frustration and trying again and again. The story is captivating to young children, written with a sense of anticipation. The story highlights big emotions, critical thinking, creativity, and perseverance. Kids will be able to relate very well to Argyle fox’s frustration and rejoice when he comes up with a solution at last.
20. Remy the Rhino Learns Patience – Remy is a grumpy Rhino and is irritated by all of the other animals. He angrily tries to get his own way and one day makes a mistake. Will anyone come to his aid? Children will see that anger makes Remy’s predicament worse and if he can relax, he might discover a way to solve his problem and make a friend!
21. The Very Impatient Caterpillar – The librarian read this to my son’s 1st class on a recent field trip and the kids loved it! This is a highly relatable story about a caterpillar who cannot wait to become a butterfly. Literally, CAN NOT WAIT. Perfect to read before any situation in which your child will have to learn
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Not only does the sea promote good physical health, it can drastically improve your mental well being too. Certainly, the waves and smell of the salt air are great for relaxation. But the beach itself provides some subtle health benefits. So, what are they?
Soaking in Sea Minerals
Swimming in the sea gives you a full body workout, improves circulation, and increases your immune system function. Studies have shown that the vitamins, minerals, and amino acids in seawater are detoxifying and help to pull impurities from the body and skin. Salt water can also inhibit bacterial growth and skin infections.
Did you know Magnesium is the eighth most abundant mineral on earth, and the third most abundant in sea water? More importantly, it is the fourth most abundant mineral in the human body and it is necessary in over 300 reactions within the body.
Every single cell in the human body demands adequate magnesium to function, or it will perish. Strong bones and teeth, balanced hormones, a healthy nervous and cardiovascular system, well functioning detoxification pathways and much more depend upon cellular magnesium sufficiency. Soft tissue containing the highest concentrations of magnesium in the body include the brain and the heart—two organs that produce a large amount of electrical activity, and which can be especially vulnerable to magnesium insufficiency.”
Filling our lungs with Sea Air
Ocean air has health benefits too. The negative ions in sea air accelerate your ability to absorb oxygen, and balance your seratonin levels, a body chemical linked with mood and stress. Which is why you feel more alert, relaxed and energised after a beach holiday.
Other studies have shown that inhaling salty air improved lung function in people with a diagnosis of cystic fibrosis. Hay fever sufferers may benefit from a few hearty gusts of sea air, too. Onshore breezes can blow away pollen-laden air.
Vitamin D Vitality
That warm feeling of sun soaked skin is akin to holidays spent in exotic places. Many people might believe it’s bad but let’s look at some alternative thinking.
There are many health benefits of vitamin D including maintaining healthy bones and teeth and the immune system. It can also greatly improve your mental well being as a lack of it can increase chances of depression. To produce enough vitamin D for the day, your skin would need to be exposed, without sunscreen for around 20 minutes.
In many cases we (sometimes literally) cut off our noses to spite our face when it comes to the sun. One study at the Oslo University Hospital in Norway found that the benefits of sun exposure far surpassed any risk:
“It can be estimated that increased sun exposure to the Norwegian population might at worst result in 200-300 more CMM deaths per year. But it would elevate the vitamin D status by about 25 nmol/l (nanomoles per liter). This might result in 4,000 fewer internal cancers and about 3,000 fewer cancer deaths overall.” This alone, weighs out the pros vs cons quite considerably don’t you think?
Other studies have found links between low-vitamin D levels and Parkinson’s Disease, bone disease, blood clots, diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure. A recent study even found that regular sun exposure helped women to live longer. Yet another study found that regular sun exposure could cut breast cancer risk in half!
Have you heard of Earthing?
The sand between your toes can be a great feeling. Not only this but there’s a theory that our bodies are meant to come into contact with the Earth regularly. Direct contact with the earth can even out this positive charge and return the body to a neutral state.
Our bodies and cells have electrical energy. With the high prevalence of Electromagnetic waves, Wi-Fi and mobile phones, many of us have high amounts of positive electrons built up in our bodies.
Throughout history, humans have spent time outdoors much more than we do in modern times. From walking on the ground barefoot, to gardening or tilling the soil, humans have always touched the earth… until recently.
You may find you sleep better on a beach vacation after walking in the sand or being in the ocean. The sand and salt water are both naturally conductive materials and help ground the body and remove excess positive electrons. For the same basic reason that we ground electrical outlets to avoid the build up of excess positive charge, our bodies need the same ground effect.”
Here’s a report that goes into more scientific detail about grounding/earthing.
We may not all be able to spend all year round at the beach but day trips and holidays can be just enough to revitalise and rejuvenate. So, when are you next going to the beach? | <urn:uuid:6a408d96-5765-4264-8328-41b48b014999> | CC-MAIN-2019-26 | https://atmosphereresorts.com/beach-life-benefits/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-26/segments/1560627998580.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20190617203228-20190617225228-00488.warc.gz | en | 0.93082 | 975 | 2.84375 | 3 |
It seems like a nice idea, and as far as my imagination's concerned, a revival of Australia's prehistoric interior rainforests would be a dream come true, but we will never be able to restore all the species that were wiped out along with those forests - they're gone forever. Even if we could deal with human damage, and replace
the type of ecosystem lost when Aborigines arrived and started hunting and burning (not to mention the effects of later migrations), we're never going to be able to restore things to their original state, to undo
what's happened - and at this stage, in the futile attempt to do so, we'd be signing a death warrant for those species that have adapted to the desert environment. We should be doing our utmost to wipe out recently introduced species, but beyond that, it's far from feasible - and if we do seriously attempt such a project at some stage, the first step would still be to wipe out those species, which is proving difficult enough as it is - right now, I don't think there's any sense in seriously considering anything more. That said, I think the first step in such a grand project would be to gradually plant trees in towards the desert, which would mean planting them out from forested areas, which would mean sacrificing what little arable land we have to an attempt at manipulating the environment, which likely won't achieve the desired ends.
The fact is, though, that most of this would be trying to negate not only human impact, but millions of years of natural changes. You'd be fighting against the morphology and position of the continent, as well as global weather patterns and likely a number of other factors, too. I really can't see it happening outside of fiction - by the way, if anybody knows any good writing on the topic (of Australia's ancient rainforests, of such an environment never having been lost, of such an environment being restored, etc.), I'd be very interested in it.
Natural Influences Human Influences
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Food Allergies: "What Would Darwin Say?"
A long and fascinating article in the New York Times Magazine this past weekend describes a hopeful new approach for "desensitizing" sufferers of food allergies, a skyrocketing problem of course ("The Allergy Buster"). Along the way, writer Melanie Thernstrom cites a good question posed by a Stanford researcher.
Food allergies are nonsensical. "Why would evolution have us be allergic to the things that sustain us?" [Dr. Kari] Nadeau asks. "What would Darwin say?"There follows a lucid summary of the mechanism that results in an allergic reaction. Then this:
Having a parent or a sibling with allergies (food or environmental) increases the risk that a child will have food allergies. One study of identical twins has led researchers to believe that food allergies are about 70 percent genetic in origin and 30 percent environmental.More:
If allergies are primarily genetic, though, how could their incidence have risen so quickly? The traditional model of genetic change involves natural selection operating through a slow process of mutation, generation by generation, that, furthermore, results in traits that increase survival -- not cause sudden death.
Epidemiologically, food allergies parallel the steep rise of other contemporary epidemics like asthma, diabetes and autoimmune diseases -- a phenomenon for which there has been no convincing explanation. Emerging evidence suggests that food allergies, however, fall in the province of the new field of epigenetics: the science of how the environment can alter the genetic inheritance one generation passes on to the next. One focus of Nadeau's lab [at Stanford University School of Medicine] is studying whether the toxins found in pollution, pesticides or tobacco smoke damage the genes in ways that make children more likely to have allergies and the intimately related disease of asthma.
Nadeau herself is aligned with the school of thought that speculates that the cause of food allergies could be "some element of interaction between genes and the environment -- air pollution, tobacco smoke, chemicals in water or the food you eat. We are ingesting the proteins that are causing the allergies in a very different form and immune environment than when primitive man did."Neo-Darwinism has taken it for granted that genetic mutation sifted by natural selection is all-important in explaining evolutionary developments, for better or worse, and that should presumably include a development such as the precipitous rise of food allergies. The phenomenon is a reminder, then, of the limits of Darwinian explanations. Beyond genetics there is epigenetics.
We've reflected on the implications of this for the intelligent design debate on many occasions. | <urn:uuid:abb20031-e5e1-4feb-b1be-f4ca9c79eaa6> | CC-MAIN-2016-07 | http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/03/food_allergies_069971.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-07/segments/1454701161942.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20160205193921-00067-ip-10-236-182-209.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933205 | 530 | 2.65625 | 3 |
On March 28, 2013, San Augustine made history – again.
Texas’ first lady Anita Perry stood on the courthouse steps and declared this historic East Texas town a Texas Main Street City. The ceremony marked the town for preservation and the 84th member of the state organization of towns across Texas whose revitalization will be funded by the Texas Historical Commission.
The announcement also means the small town will retain its quality of life as well as help preserve its history for coming generations. The designation is one of three for the state so far this year. Other towns designated for the program include Cuero and Childress.
The Texas Main Street revitalization program was formed in Texas more than 30 years ago and operates through the Texas Historical Commission. The nod from the Texas Historical Commission means new hopes for growth to Main Street manager Tracy Cox.
“We are looking forward to revitalizing our downtown area, one of the oldest and historic in the state,” she said. “We hope the designation will help us preserve our history while assisting with the redevelopment of our city.”
Perry presented the city with architectural renderings of what downtown San Augustine could look like, depicting the renovations of old buildings, including the one where Sam Houston first opened a law office in the 1830s.
The history of San Augustine runs deep. It is the county seat of San Augustine County. The railroad runs through the small town that sits 32 miles east of Nacogdoches. It was first inhabited in the 1540s by the Indians. Another 150 years would pass before the French traders would arrive and set up a village.
The town was active in the Texas Revolution but in 1836, when Houston was elected to lead the Texan forces at San Augustine, it was all but abandoned during the battle of Runaway Scrape. Citizens returned home after the battle of San Jacinto was won. It began to grow and in 1837, the city incorporated and the townspeople elected a sheriff, a clerk, a judge, a surveyor and a coroner.
Time has taken its toll on some of the old buildings, with many of them dating back to those early town days. With the city being named by Perry as a Texas Main Street City, new growth and prosperity could be just around the corner. Mayor Leroy Hughes has high hopes for just that.
“We can do things that are in accordance to the things that we want, just like larger cities can,” he said.
With the most recent courthouse renovations, the city plans to expand the improvements to all of main street and downtown. Cox said the support the city will receive from the designation as a Texas Main Street City will help make that happen. “Businesses are A-1, number one important,” she said. “They will be here to support us to make changes in the buildings.”
In the past 30 years, according to the historical commission website, the Texas Main Street City program has helped generate $2.6 billion in economic reinvestment and helped create more than 7,400 jobs. The communities, towns and cities that are a part of the program are diverse and range from the very smallest to large urban areas. The population in the selected cities is more than 2.5 million.
The program is designed to partner with organization-based plans for successful preservation that lends to a healthy downtown environment, promoting and helping to sustain new and existing businesses.
With the unique physical assets of downtown San Augustine, its heritage and current preservation efforts, the renovations and revitalization will help revamp and restore the current historical structures, and will work to update the charm and appeal that the city’s downtown area offers.
As the changes occur, the economic restructuring will also become evident in San Augustine. Through proper leadership, the program will help develop new markets of opportunity and find new uses for those old historical buildings. When that occurs, the residents of San Augustine can expect to see new growth and a better economy in this proud, historical Texas Main Street City.
For more information about the designation as a Texas Main Street City, visit www.thc.state.tx.us/preserve/projects-and-programs/texas-main-street. For information on what is happening in San Augustine, visit www.sanaugustinetx.com/. | <urn:uuid:b13df048-a9d6-42d4-8057-a8371476bec7> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://texasforestcountryliving.com/san-augustine/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320303717.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20220121222643-20220122012643-00146.warc.gz | en | 0.96418 | 891 | 2.5625 | 3 |
The otoplasty, also known as ear surgery, is an aesthetic surgery whose objective is to modify and correct the shape, position or size of the ears.
The reasons for having this surgery can be varied:
- When the patient is not happy with the size, shape or position of their ears.
- Correct a deformity due to a congenital defect.
- Correct a deformity due to an injury or accident.
The specific technique used in each case may vary depending on the specific problem to be corrected. Among these, the most frequent otoplasty is the one that corrects the prominent or protruding ears.
Who can undergo ear surgery?
This surgery can be performed both in adults of any age, as in children from 4 or 5 years (when the ear is fully formed). In the case of children, the age of these patients is usually between 4 and 15 years.
What is the otoplasty procedure?
The procedure is always performed in the operating room with the necessary conditions and equipment to ensure maximum safety during the procedure. The technique used will vary depending on the specific problem to be corrected, but the necessary incisions are always made so that they are the least visible as possible, either on the back of the ears or on the inner folds. In this way the scars of the surgery will be hidden and will not be visible.
Once the incisions have been made to access, the surgeon will make the necessary corrections: remove excess cartilage and skin, fold the cartilage until it is placed in its correct position and fixing it with internal points, etc…
After the procedure, the surgeon will use additional points to close the incisions.
How long is the surgery? And the postoperative?
The time that surgery usually lasts is between 1 and 2 hours long, although in more complex cases it could last a little longer. It is an outpatient procedure that does not require hospitalization, the patient can usually return home after a few hours of rest after surgery.
Once the surgery is finished, a bandage is placed over the ears during the first few days to help protect them and keep them in their new position. During these first days it is common for the patient to feel some discomfort and mild pain in the ears, which are reduced with analgesics, as the specialist will indicate after surgery.
A few days later, the doctor will remove the bandage and check that everything is fine.
Normally, after about 5 or 7 days the patient can return to his daily routine and/or work.
Type of anesthesia used
The type of anesthesia used depends on the age of the patient: to perform this surgery, local anesthesia is usually used with sedation when the patient is an adult or older child, but in the case where the patient is a small child, it is performed under general anesthesia.
Are the results permanent? When is the final result visible?
Yes. After surgery the results are permanent. In addition, the result of ear surgery or otoplasty is visible immediately. Although a touch-up is rarely necessary, if at any time you are not satisfied with the results, it is possible to perform a touch-up in a subsequent revision surgery.
Otoplasty or ear surgery at Vithas Xanit International Hospital
If you are thinking of having an otoplasty, in the Plastic and Cosmetic Surgery Unit at Vithas Xanit International Hospital we have the best specialists, who together with the latest technology and minimally invasive techniques allow us to offer you the best possible results in your ear surgery. Contact us for more information or make an appointment. | <urn:uuid:a33f6989-6c37-4788-831c-37a72755dfcd> | CC-MAIN-2020-24 | https://www.xanitmedicaltourism.com/otoplasty-frequently-asked-questions/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-24/segments/1590348511950.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20200606062649-20200606092649-00200.warc.gz | en | 0.951273 | 744 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Syria is a republic ruled by the authoritarian regime of President Bashar al-Asad. The president makes key decisions with counsel from a small number of security advisors, ministers, and senior members of the ruling Baath (Arab Socialist Renaissance) Party. The constitution mandates the primacy of Baath Party leaders in state institutions and society. President Asad and party leaders dominate all three branches of government. A 2007 yes-or-no referendum that was neither free nor fair by international standards confirmed Asad as president for his second seven-year term. Parliamentary elections held in May were also neither free nor fair by international standards and several opposition groups boycotted them.
Although the government symbolically lifted the emergency law in April, it conducted frequent police and military operations against the civilian population. The Asad regime continued to use indiscriminate and deadly force to quell protests, including military assaults on cities and residential areas throughout the country. For example, beginning in mid-April, the regime attacked civilians in funeral processions, breadlines, schools, places of worship, and hospitals throughout the country, asserting these were rebel safe-havens. In August, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), the regime shelled 10 breadlines and bombed the main hospital in Aleppo. The regime maintained the use of deadly force against its citizens in continued violation of international human rights and humanitarian law and its agreement to a November 2011 Arab League plan to engage in reforms and cease killing civilians. More than 576,000 refugees registered with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in neighboring states and North Africa, and more than 2.5 million were displaced internally. A UN study concluded more than 60,000 persons had died since the beginning of the crisis in March 2011. Their data, drawn from Syrian-based documentation organizations, showed the number of deaths increased from approximately 1,000 per month in summer 2011 to an average of more than 5,000 per month as of July. They also reported the greatest number of reported killings occurred in Homs (12,560), rural areas surrounding Damascus (10,862) and Idlib (7,686), followed by Aleppo (6,188), Daraa (6,034), and Hama (5,080).
The most egregious human rights problems during the year were the regime’s massive, countrywide attacks and strategic use of citizen killings to intimidate and control; specific targeting of activists and their families; and using civilians, including children, as human shields. The government denied citizens’ rights to change their government peacefully. The government denied citizens the right to practice freedom of speech, mobility, association, access to legal representation, and medical assistance.
Other serious problems included kidnappings and disappearances; killing of protesters, bystanders, journalists, and medical professionals; torture and abuse, including of women and children; the use of rape and assault; poor prison and detention center conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; denial of fair public trial; arbitrary interference with privacy; and lack of press, Internet, and academic freedom. The government increasingly restricted nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in practice, especially those that attempted to work on civil society and democracy. The regime consistently limited access by medical organizations to those most in need. The government continued to restrict freedoms of religion and movement. There was no progress on laws combating trafficking in persons. Violence and societal discrimination against women and minorities continued, and workers’ rights remained restricted.
Impunity was pervasive and deeply embedded, as the government did not attempt to punish, arrest, or prosecute officials who violated human rights. The regime often sheltered those in its ranks who committed human rights abuses. Corruption was rampant throughout the government, and the judiciary lacked independence.
According to reports from international media and human rights organizations, armed opposition groups engaged in abuses, including kidnapping, detention, car bombings, summary execution and torture of security force members, government supporters, and persons identified as progovernment militia members, as well as forced evacuations from homes based on sectarian identity. | <urn:uuid:7978e2a5-59b4-4f38-8446-0388efc2fe21> | CC-MAIN-2015-35 | http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2012/nea/204383.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-35/segments/1440645220976.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20150827031340-00075-ip-10-171-96-226.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966569 | 819 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Lesson 1 (from Chapter 1)
The novel begins with Kira, a teenage girl, watching over her mother's dead body in the Field of Leaving. This grim opening serves as a catalyst for future events in the story. The objective of this lesson is to explore the beliefs and traditions surrounding death in Kira's society and how they affect the characters in the story.
1. Class Discussion: As a class, discuss funeral arrangements commonly made in modern society. Compare and contrast modern funeral traditions with the funeral traditions of Kira's society. What might be the reasons that family members wait in the Field of Leaving with their departed relatives? Why might young children like Matt not be allowed in the Field of Leaving?
2. Group Activity: When grieving, family members often gather together to comfort one another. Kira is obviously alone in her time of grief. Even her uncle, who is also...
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The effect on orca whales being held in captivity is not the greatest, and the history between humans and the whales that are held in captivity is also not very good. It is a subject that many scientists are working together to learn about. Even though the orcas help to educate kids by doing live shows and by helping the kids understand that they need to save the orca whales that are endangered, orcas should not be held in captivity because many accidents have happened between humans and the captive orcas and it is not good for their health. Another name for the orca whales is the scientific name, “orcinus orca”, or the name that you probably hear most often which is “killer whale”. These killer whales have been known for attacking humans, …show more content…
Some killer whales also develop infections and the whales are not healthy because they are not fed a healthy diet like they would eat in the ocean.
Captive orcinus orcas live in a relatively small space compared to their natural habitat. An orca would have to swim back and forth in it’s tank many times each day to equal the amount of miles it would swim in the ocean daily. Due to all the problems with killer whales being held in captivity, the whales experience a much shorter lifespan in captivity compared to their lifespan in the wild. Also all whales that have been held in captivity cannot be released back into their natural habitat because they may not be able to find their pod and they will not have the skills needed to survive.
Although there are many problems, there are also many solutions to save the killer whales that are being held captive.The death of the female trainer at SeaWorld in 2010 caused by Tilikum dragging her into the pool by her ponytail and torturing her caused a lot of controversy. That is when SeaWorld announced that the trainers would no longer interact with the orcas in the water during live Shamu shows. Although the trainers would no longer interact they would still continue doing the live shows. SeaWorld decided to put a wall between the trainers and the massive whales so that they can feed them without being put at a risk to be in danger. This action was the start of making SeaWorld a better place and the start to many other solutions that
One major reason why orcas should not be held in captivity is because orcas are a family oriented type species. Orcas are extremely social animals. Orcas are very close to their family. For example, when SeaWorld orca catchers came to capture orcas in the year 1977, John Crowe, one of the orca catcher’s, said, “When we took the baby orcas and left the adults, the adults huddled in a circle and made noises to the baby orcas that were being taken away.” He also stated, “We dropped the net to let the other adult orcas go, but they stayed and huddled around the boat.” When killer whales are in captivity, they are not with their family. They are involuntary forced to live with other orcas from a different family and are
Orca whales have been in difficult circumstances ever since the first orca was captured in 1961. The first orca captured lived two days in captivity then died and the reported cause of dead was pneumonia. Many things come to mind when people think an orca is in captivity. Many people tend to believe they are being treated, they will enjoy life more, and they will live longer due to the fact they are receiving food and care. These statements are told to spectators at seaworld, marineland and many other water parks around the globe. The facts disagree with these statements. Orca are very friendly animals, there have been no recorded attacks of orcas hurting any human being in the wild. Most of them will come up to fishers boats and be
The latest data show that orcas are more than three times as likely to die at any age in captivity as they are in the wild. This translates into a shorter life span and is probably the result of several factors. First, orcas in captivity are out of shape; they are the equivalent of couch potatoes, as the largest orca tank in the world is less than one ten-thousandth
“All whales in captivity have a bad life. They’re all emotionally destroyed. They’re all psychologically traumatized. So they’re ticking time bombs.” This is a statement by Lori Marino from the documentary, Blackfish. Many statements like this one are common and believed to be true due to the proof that the documentary provides. There are many incidents that prove Orcas, also known as Killer Whales, are harmed in captivity and that their trainers are often harmed because of this, too. Orcas should not be kept in captivity since it is harmful to both Orcas and humans.
At SeaWorld, animals have access to 24/7 veterinary care, so they should be healthier than their wild counterparts, but that is not the case. Many factors determine the overall well-being of an animal, so the average lifespan of an animal remains a crucial factor. In orcas, this remains one of the biggest differences between captive and wild whales. The lifespan of an orca drastically reduces in places like SeaWorld, because they live in captivity. Scientists expect wild female orcas to reach 100 years of age, and wild male orcas to live roughly between fifty and sixty years of age. On the other hand, all captive orcas live approximately thirty years (Blackfish). When living in captivity, an orcas lifespan decreases by twenty
The conditions that the captured killer whales are forced to live in are not acceptable replacements for the wildlife habitats that they have been ripped from. All the enclosures that the orcas are kept in do not provide an adequate amount of space that the animal requires. The size of an orca in relation to the size of the tanks they are forced to live in is comparable to the
Some people argue that keeping orcas in captivity is not a problem, yet they do not realize some of the limitations and dangers orcas suffer when kept in captivity. One reason is that these unpredictable, thirty-foot long creatures are usually kept in a tank that is too small for them, compared to the ocean where they can swim freely. In captivity, space is limited. According to one expert, “orcas can swim up to 100 miles per day- a phenomenal amount, in comparison to the exercise they receive in captivity” (Cronin). While in captivity, an orca has to keep swimming in circles or float, unable to exercise adequately in a confined space. The small tanks also prevent orcas from living in their natural group sizes, or pods. “In the wild, killer whales typically travel in pods of between five and 30” (Melissa). In captivity, fewer than five whales are kept together, an imbalance that makes the whales more aggressive towards one another. This can lead to dangerous, territorial situations in which captive
“If you love something, set it free.” This is a quote that has circulated for years, and nowhere else is it more applicable than in SeaWorld’s parks. Trainers and corporate alike claim a deep love for the animals they keep captive, but in recent years, the topic of holding orca whales in captivity has become more controversial than ever before. The CNN documentary “Blackfish” brought the conditions Seaworld provides for its orcas to the public eye in a way that had not been done before, which led to much public outrage. The containment of orca whales for educational and entertainment purposes has, in almost every way, been brought into question. Ranging from the physical and psychological damages they experience, the issues in their family structures, and the dangers that their human trainers experience, orca whales are not fit to be kept in captivity.
I believe that orcas should not be held in captivity because orcas are very intelligent animals that should not be held in small tanks, also captivity can cause health concerns, lastly seaworld taking orcas from families. For the last couple of years many people might have heard many stories of captive orcas suffering health problems, being taken away from their families and you might of even hear of killer whales eating their trainers. One of the most famous whales is a whale in captivity named tilikum. Tilikum has been involved in three deaths during his time in captivity. To learn more about tilikum keep reading.
Orca whales should not be in captivity because of health issues they face in captivity. Some people believe orcas should be in captivity because they are safe from hunters. Also data on breeding and reproduction can be collected which is impossible to get in the wild. However, orcas live unhealthy, shorter lives in captivity. According to the article (“Should Orca Whales Be Kept in Captivity”) it states, “Orca whales in the wild have a lifespan equal to that of a human. In
There is so much we can learn from Orcas in captivity. Biologists have limited understanding about killer whales in the wild. We cannot observe them 24/7 and we cannot live in their environment. Being with these mammals up-close could give us some clues about how they interact with each other. This would include physical behavior, their dialect, and how their families work together. These are things we would never have to chance to do with the killer whales in their natural habitat. (Teen Inc., 2010) However, when a whale is placed in captivity it is stripped of its ability to communicate with the whales in its pod. In essence it would be like placing someone in a completely different culture with no means of communicating with anyone around them. Imagine the stress of not being able to communicate any needs or feelings with those around you.
For example, killer whales are supposed live up to an average of 80 years (for both males and females) only live to about 10-20 years old, says SeaWorldofHurt. Also, the sea animals are all stuck in way too small cages which makes them annoyed. This makes the animals dangerous to the workers there, for example, a documentary, Blackfish says that an orca named Tilikum killed 3 workers. SeaWorldofHurt says,”The film exposes Seaworld’s horrific capture of young orcas from the families in the ocean, the misery of their life confinement to tiny tanks, and how this cruelty has led the frustrated orca Tilikum,to kill 3 human beings, although orcas in the wild would have never hurt a human.” This shows that the only reason the orca was attacking was because he wasn’t released into the wild.
Get out of line and take a stand to stop the unjustified capture of killer whales. Orcas, also known as killer whales, have been imprisoned, against their will, for years. Evidence proves many Orcas are inhumanly captured, from the ocean, for the sheer pleasure of human entertainment and profit. Irrefutably, these majestic, intelligent, marine creatures belong in one place, and one place only, the ocean. Clearly, documentation proves, these magnificent mammals do not thrive in captivity, become irritated, and have injured or killed hundreds of humans.
Since 1961, Killer whales have been held captive in a tank for entertainment. Helpless whales get captured from their families and get forced to live in artificial social groupings. At least 56 orcas have been captured and are currently held in captive. 23 of them were captured from the wild, and 33 were captive born. At least 163 orcas have died in captivity, not including the 30 miscarriages held in captivity. As you can tell, killer whales have a great negative impact when their in captive.
People say that keeping orca’s in captivities is not a problem, yet they do not realize that, orcas are also human beings. There are several reasons, why keeping these thirty-feet long creatures, in captivities is a problem. One of them, which are the tank, which is too small, compared to ocean where they can swim freely. One the other side, in captivities, the space is limited. Comparatively, to how they swim out in the wild “orcas can swim up to 100 miles per day- a phenomenal amount, in comparison to the exercise they receive in captivity”(Cronin). While being in captivity, orca has to keep swimming in circles or floats. Out “In the wild, killer whales typically travel in pods of between five and 30”(Melissa). In captivities there are only few whales, so it makes them more aggressive toward one another. This sometimes can be lead to danger by killing each other for fighting to gain power of the tank. | <urn:uuid:d12fa3a6-d471-4d46-897d-d228b589aa53> | CC-MAIN-2024-10 | https://www.bartleby.com/essay/The-Effect-On-Orca-Whales-P3UUBNF65KYP | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707948223038.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20240305060427-20240305090427-00523.warc.gz | en | 0.975784 | 2,642 | 2.875 | 3 |
Christian stories for children are a great way to teach how kids around the world live. Children love hearing about the daily lives of their peers who live internationally.
Our Christian stories for children present topics like:
You’ll read first-hand accounts from children living in desperate circumstances. These stories will show how children can be content even when life is difficult.
Christian stories for children are a practical way to instill compassion for the issue of worldwide poverty. This magazine will make it possible for you to share accurate and first-hand stories from children around the globe.
See what sponsored kids play at their Compassion centers!
Read more >
Step inside bedrooms of kids around the world! What do you see?
Surf’s up! These kids in Brazil are making waves.
These Compassion-sponsored kids don’t need a lot of toys to be happy or have fun.
Check out their favorites >
Edwin, an elephant keeper in Kenya, was in Compassion’s program when he was little. See how he cares for God’s creatures!
These kids in the Philippines used to swim across a dangerous river just to get to school. Now a canoe helps them start their journey.
It’s important for children in the developing world to learn skills so they can earn money when they’re older.
The story of Ku, a bird who was born without feathers and can't fly, was adapted from an ancient Mexican fable.
Read this fable >
How much do you know about school in Brazil? Photos show you what a day is like for 8-year-old Emidio, from the moment he wakes up to the time he gets ready for bed.
Learn more about life in Brazil >
Read how doctors helped fix Fatao’s heart.
These kids were bullied and teased — just because they are different. But they found help.
Check out some instruments that children play at Compassion centers around the world.
With toilets, sinks and showers, bathrooms meet a lot of important needs. But many kids who live in poverty don’t have bathrooms.
Learn more >
Health care is not available to many of the poorest children around the world, but Compassion-sponsored kids get the care they need.
Take a look! >
Meet a girl in the Philippines who loves to teach — especially about Jesus.
Malaria is a disease that kills children living in poverty in Africa. But it's a disease that can easily be prevented.
Learn more about malaria >
School is an important part of God's plan for kids. Read the prayers of five Compassion-sponsored children.
Read powerful prayers
from kids >
For the poorest kids in many countries, getting to school is hard. But they can still have fun crowding onto boats and bikes.
Learn more about how kids get to school around the world >
See what life is like for students in countries such as India, Kenya and the Philippines.
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A trustworthy organization since 1952
Yes, I would recommend Compassion to a friend.
"I have enjoyed sponsoring two children over the last 15 years. I do not have daughters; but I feel that in Heaven,
I will have a special relationship with these young women that I helped to sponsor. I am blessed to be part of what
God is doing through Compassion."
Facts About Our Program
mothers & babies in our program
mothers came to know Christ through Compassion
Facts About Child Birth in Poverty
"I would like my baby to study and to dedicate her life to God."
Compassion has been a trusted charity since 1952.
Numerous financial accountability groups and accrediting agencies have recognized Compassion for superior integrity.
"partnering with god to raise up a leader in el salvador
has been one of my greatest joys." -- brianne
Your donation to the Where Most Needed fund will help Compassion better serve children in extreme poverty.
"Thanks for fixing my heart!" - Fatao, a Compassion-assisted child from Burkina Faso | <urn:uuid:73d0d8d0-7590-4b2b-abe2-02e66dd02cf9> | CC-MAIN-2015-06 | http://www.compassion.com/christian-stories-for-children.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-06/segments/1422115862207.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20150124161102-00100-ip-10-180-212-252.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942548 | 979 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Myopia is also known as nearsightedness. People who have this condition struggle to see things that are far away from them.
Children with myopia often have worsening vision as they get older. Here is some insight into the condition and treatment options. These proactive measures may limit progression by 45 to 60 percent.
Children with myopia have slightly oval-shaped eyes. The eyes are long from the front to the back.
Their corneas curve more than average, making it difficult to see far away. Children with myopia may have a higher risk of glaucoma or cataracts as adults.
Some research suggests children who spend several hours per day using screens may be more likely to have myopia. Myopia is irreversible. Eye doctors use varying methods to improve distance sight and slow the progression of this condition.
Take children to see an eye doctor for vision exams starting at 6 months old. They should have exams at age 3 and before entering kindergarten.
Many parents and guardians learn their children have vision trouble once they start school. Eye doctors will prescribe glasses for kids who have myopia. Wearing glasses can improve distance vision, but your child’s prescription will likely worsen over time.
Eye doctors may prescribe low-dose atropine eye drops to dilate the pupils slightly. Children can take small doses of the prescription eye drops daily for several years to slow myopia development.
People ages 5 to 18 can take this medication at night before bed. It may cause redness or irritation, but the side effects are limited when children take the medication at night. Low doses of atropine may prevent the eye from lengthening.
Ortho-K is a specialized contact lens. Children can wear them overnight to flatten the cornea.
Using these lenses nightly can reshape the cornea so the eye is shorter during the day. The lens may reduce myopia from worsening if worn every night.
The eye returns to its longer length when the child stops regularly wearing the ortho-k contact lenses. Children may struggle to get used to wearing Ortho-k contact lenses.
The lenses are customized and require multiple trips to the eye doctor to ensure they fit correctly. Like all contacts, orthokeratology has a risk of infection.
Peripheral defocus contacts are multifocal lenses. They contain different prescription strengths in one lens.
The center of the lens prevents trouble seeing far away. The peripheral parts of the lenses blur the wearer’s side vision.
Children with myopia often experience prescription changes as they develop. Wearing these lenses may slow myopia by limiting eye growth.
MiSight®️ 1 day lenses are one type of FDA-approved peripheral defocus contact. The lenses are single-use, daily wear contacts prescribed for children ages 8-12.
These lenses can improve quality of life by making it easier to complete activities without needing to wear glasses. Some young people prefer contacts because they feel more confident without their glasses.
Parents and guardians should talk with their child’s optometrist about whether contact lenses are a good fit. Some children can insert them on their own with no problems, while others may need more help.
Looking for myopia treatment options for your child? Schedule an appointment at Colorado Eye Center with locations in Boulder, Broomfield, Eastlake, Louisville, Parker and Thornton today to discuss how our expert optometrists can help!
1692 30th Street
Boulder, CO 80301
9835 S. Parker Road
Parker, CO 80134
12450 York Street
Thornton, CO 80241 | <urn:uuid:ac977d12-4423-418a-881f-7070345a0778> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.coloradoeyecenter.com/services/myopia-management/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030334596.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20220925193816-20220925223816-00783.warc.gz | en | 0.930667 | 744 | 3.34375 | 3 |
An Egyptian panel of experts has approved using radar to search for a hidden chamber in King Tutankhamun's tomb, which may be the burial place of Queen Nefertiti, an official said Thursday.
Archaeologists have never discovered the mummy of the legendary beauty, but renowned British archaeologist Nicholas Reeves said in a recent study that her tomb could be in a secret chamber adjoining Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of Kings at Luxor, southern Egypt.
Reeves, who was in Luxor in September to probe his theory, believes one door of Tutankhamun's tomb could conceal the burial place of Nefertiti.
"The committee of experts has given its approval for using radars," Mushira Mussa, antiquities ministry spokeswoman told AFP.
"But we are still awaiting clearance from security services, and some time in November we may start searching" Tutankhamun's tomb, she said.
According to Reeves, professor of archeology at the University of Arizona, Tutankhamun, who died unexpectedly, was buried hurriedly in an underground chamber probably not intended for him.
His death would have forced priests to reopen Nefertiti's tomb 10 years after her death because the young pharaoh's own mausoleum had not yet been built.
But Minister of Antiquities Mamduh al-Damati believes that such a chamber, if found adjoining Tutankhamun's tomb, may contain Kiya, a wife of the pharaoh Akhenaten, or his daughter Merytaten.
Nefertiti played a major political and religious role in the 14th century BC. She actively supported her husband Akhenaten, the pharaoh who temporarily converted ancient Egypt to monotheism by imposing the single cult of sun god Aton.
Damati and Reeves hope that sophisticated radar equipment will reveal the existence of another funerary chamber in the heart of Tutankhamun's tomb, which the minister says would be the "discovery of the century".
The final resting place of boy king Tutankhamun, who died in 1324 BC after just nine years on the throne, was discovered by another British Egyptologist, Howard Carter, in 1922.
Explore further: British archaeologist aims to pinpoint Nefertiti's tomb | <urn:uuid:47bc805e-dcf1-4f62-b8e7-d9901b8811b7> | CC-MAIN-2018-47 | https://phys.org/news/2015-10-egypt-panel-radar-nefertiti-tomb.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-47/segments/1542039742567.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20181115054518-20181115080518-00488.warc.gz | en | 0.960446 | 472 | 2.640625 | 3 |
1930’s – The Decade of Depression
Despite the 1930’s being remembered for “The Great Depression”, it’s important to remember that a lot of good came out of this decade as well. If you can remember back to 1930, you can say you were alive when the planet Pluto (yes, there was a time when Pluto was still considered a planet) was discovered, the Empire State Building was completed, and the cheeseburger was invented. The 1930’s saw the release of the first full-length animated cartoon, “Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, and DC’s Superman first appeared in comic books. Perhaps the most significant breakthrough of the 1930’s that has carried through to today, however, was the invention of air conditioning.
Hope found that the black and white era photos from this shoot posed their own unique challenges. Within the confines of black and white, she completely lacked the element of mood as we’ve grown accustomed to in our color saturated world. By carefully studying other photos from these generations, she was able to differentiate between the black and white decades by adjusting contrast, levels, and brightness in order to closely mirror the look that the cameras from these decades would have captured. The lower level of detail and lack of color in these first few portraits came with its advantages too. For example, she didn’t have a fascinator available to her for this 1930’s picture, so the white hair piece in it is actually made out of tissue paper, something she may not have been able to get away with in a more modern photo in high resolution.
1940’s – A World at War, Again
The 1940’s, dominated by World War II, were easily among the darkest time periods in human history. Through this decade, humanity as a whole was tested. Even in the midst of the tragedy, incredible stories such as those of Anne Frank, Oscar Schindler, and others proved once again that there was still good in this world. Aside from the somberness of the war, the 1940’s had positive notes as well. The world was given the microwave oven, the first computer, the ball point pen, and a major fashion innovation some readers may be familiar with called, simply, the T-shirt.
In an interview with PopMalt, Hope spoke of the challenges she faced with this project, especially when it came to recreating looks from the past without the bias of modern day beauty standards. She wanted to move away from what society told her about beauty in an effort to not only resurrect old-fashioned beauty, but to actually take time to consider what made women from each decade beautiful. Hope also said she now has a new respect for women who had to do the finger wave hairstyle and draw on their own eyebrows on a regular basis.
1950’s – The Decade of Rock ‘n’ Roll
The 1950’s came with their fair share of diversity. In the entertainment world, Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe’s careers began, Disneyland opened, LEGO bricks were invented, Charles Schulz created Charlie Brown and the “Peanuts” cartoon, and Dr. Suess released “The Cat in the Hat”. DNA was discovered, NASA was founded, color TV was invented, and color photography began to be introduced.
It may have been hard to spot if 50’s photos were all in black and white, but if there’s one thing that defines this decade, it was red lipstick in full color. For this photograph, Hope tried to mimic the vintage look of color-retouched movie posters from this decade. She also noted in her research that the 50’s were a time of big smiles and happy faces, moreso than most of the other decades. Thanks to her long distance relationship, her boyfriend got the experience of video chatting with her (and laughing at her) while she was dolled up for many of these photo shoots. Being a big 50’s guy himself, it didn’t surprise her that her 50’s photo was his favorite. | <urn:uuid:a1de0771-4b39-42f7-ac10-fe5c8d9c8d0d> | CC-MAIN-2018-51 | https://www.popmalt.com/fashion-photographers-decade-photo-study/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-51/segments/1544376825512.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20181214092734-20181214114234-00573.warc.gz | en | 0.978702 | 863 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Microbial culture of sputum
What is this test?
This test detects and identifies bacteria from a culture of sputum. This test is used to help diagnose possible bacterial causes of respiratory tract infections such as community acquired pneumonia.
What are related tests?
- Microbial culture of sputum
- Gram stain, sputum
Why do I need this test?
Laboratory tests may be done for many reasons. Tests are performed for routine health screenings or if a disease or toxicity is suspected. Lab tests may be used to determine if a medical condition is improving or worsening. Lab tests may also be used to measure the success or failure of a medication or treatment plan. Lab tests may be ordered for professional or legal reasons. You may need this test if you have:
- Acute chest syndrome
- Acute exacerbation of pulmonary cystic fibrosis
- Aspiration pneumonitis
- Community acquired pneumonia
When and how often should I have this test?
When and how often laboratory tests are done may depend on many factors. The timing of laboratory tests may rely on the results or completion of other tests, procedures, or treatments. Lab tests may be performed immediately in an emergency, or tests may be delayed as a condition is treated or monitored. A test may be suggested or become necessary when certain signs or symptoms appear.
Due to changes in the way your body naturally functions through the course of a day, lab tests may need to be performed at a certain time of day. If you have prepared for a test by changing your food or fluid intake, lab tests may be timed in accordance with those changes. Timing of tests may be based on increased and decreased levels of medications, drugs or other substances in the body.
The age or gender of the person being tested may affect when and how often a lab test is required. Chronic or progressive conditions may need ongoing monitoring through the use of lab tests. Conditions that worsen and improve may also need frequent monitoring. Certain tests may be repeated to obtain a series of results, or tests may need to be repeated to confirm or disprove results. Timing and frequency of lab tests may vary if they are performed for professional or legal reasons.
You will need to provide an early morning sputum sample for this test.
How should I get ready for the test?
Before a sputum sample is collected, you may be asked to drink more fluids. Drinking more fluids may help you produce a sputum sample.
For this test, a sputum sample is obtained before taking an antibiotic. Tell your healthcare worker if you are taking any medications at the time of the test.
How is the test done?
Sputum is mucus that is secreted by the airways and lungs. To collect a sample of sputum, you may be asked to cough forcefully, and spit out sputum into a container. If you are unable to produce a sputum sample, you may need to have the sample induced. To induce a sputum sample, a healthcare worker will prepare a solution in a nebulizer for you to inhale. You will be asked to inhale the solution over a period of time, which may last up to 20 minutes. You will then be asked to cough and spit out sputum into a container.
How will the test feel?
The amount of discomfort you feel will depend on many factors, including your sensitivity to pain. Communicate how you are feeling with the person doing the test. Inform the person doing the test if you feel that you cannot continue with the test.
Generally, collection of a sputum sample is not painful. If the sample is induced, the coughing may be uncomfortable.
What should I do after the test?
After a sputum sample is collected, call the healthcare worker if you experience a new onset of pain in your throat, trouble swallowing, or if you are coughing up blood.
What are the risks?
Sputum: If you are unable to produce a sputum sample on your own, it may need to be induced. Risks with collection of an induced sputum cell sample include minor damage to the throat and trachea. The person doing this test may need to perform it more than once. Talk to your healthcare worker if you have any concerns about the risks of giving a sputum sample.
What are normal results for this test?
Laboratory test results may vary depending on your age, gender, health history, the method used for the test, and many other factors. If your results are different from the results suggested below, this may not mean that you have a disease. Contact your healthcare worker if you have any questions. The following is considered to be a normal result for this test:
Adults and Children: Negative
What follow up should I do after this test?
Ask your healthcare worker how you will be informed of the test results. You may be asked to call for results, schedule an appointment to discuss results, or notified of results by mail. Follow up care varies depending on many factors related to your test. Sometimes there is no follow up after you have been notified of test results. At other times follow up may be suggested or necessary. Some examples of follow up care include changes to medication or treatment plans, referral to a specialist, more or less frequent monitoring, and additional tests or procedures. Talk with your healthcare worker about any concerns or questions you have regarding follow up care or instructions.
Where can I get more information?
- American Lung Association - www.lung.org
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - http://www.cdc.gov
Tietz NW (Ed): Clinical Guide to Laboratory Tests, 3rd ed. W. B. Saunders, Philadelphia, PA, 1995.
Garcia-Vazquez E, Marcos MA, Mensa J, et al: Assessment of the usefulness of sputum culture for diagnosis of community-acquired pneumonia using the PORT predictive scoring system. Arch Intern Med 2004; 164(16):1807-1811.
Mandell LA, Bartlett JG, Dowell SF, et al: Update of practice guidelines for the management of community-acquired pneumonia in immunocompetent adults. Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA).. Clin Infect Dis 2003; 37:1405-1433.
Cunha BA: Community-acquired pneumonia. Diagnostic and therapeutic approach. Med Clin North Am 2001; 85(1):43-77.
Whitby M, Kristinsson KG, & Brown M: Assessment of rapid methods of pneumococcal antigen detection in routine sputum bacteriology. J Clin Pathol 1985; 38(3):341-344.
Tebbutt GM & Coleman DJ: Evaluation of some methods for the laboratory examination of sputum. J Clin Pathol 1978; 31(8):724-729.
Henry JB: Clinical Diagnosis and Management by Laboratory Methods, 20th ed. Saunders, 2001.
Last Updated: 11/4/2014 | <urn:uuid:7f027e26-dc7b-4d94-8de8-f06e58396da6> | CC-MAIN-2015-32 | http://www.allinahealth.org/CCS/doc/Consumer_Lab/49/150415.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-32/segments/1438042990609.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20150728002310-00058-ip-10-236-191-2.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918978 | 1,462 | 2.796875 | 3 |
50 Useful Phrases for Discussions in English
Being able to use only ten of these fifty phrases can improve your English by helping you communicate more effectively.
This post will give you fifty phrases that you can use when participating in a discussion in English. These phrases can be used when discussing both light and more serious topics.
These fifty useful phrases are divided into nine categories based on their function. To skip directly to one of the categories, click on the link, and it will take you to that section.
The categories include useful phrases for:
- When you need more time to think
- Asking for help or inviting others to talk
- When you want clarification
- Adding information and making connections
- Telling what you heard
- Disagreeing politely
- Revising or showing a change in your thinking
- When you don’t want to answer a question
Often, when learning a language, we remain silent when we aren’t sure what to say or how to say it. This can make having a conversation difficult and awkward. Luckily, there are phrases you can use to keep the conversation moving along and to show that you are a good listener.
If you really want to improve your English communication and speaking skills, try to begin using English in a functional and natural way. I recommend these 5 Practical English Questions for beginners and even intermediate students who want to increase their vocabulary while conversing in English. Once you are able to use those accurately, these fifty useful phrases will take your discussion skills to the next level.
50 Useful Phrases
1. When you need more time to think, you can say:
- I’m not sure. What about you?
- I need to think about it. What do you think?
- I have to think about that. What are your thoughts?
Using the phrases above is a completely natural way to maintain the flow of a conversation and avoid awkward silences. They can be used when having a general discussion or when negotiating during a business meeting. Negotiations require collaboration, and asking about other people’s opinions is a good place to begin. In business negotiations, you can omit I’m not sure to appear more confident. Another expression you can use in negotiations is What do you propose?
Using the above phrases can decrease embarrassment and build confidence as they result in successful communication. Also, as you listen to what others have to say, ideas are likely to come to you, and then you can use a phrase from number four below to add information or make a connection to what someone else said.
2. When you want help or want others to talk, say:
- Can you help explain?
- That’s interesting. Tell us more.
- Can anyone give an example?
- Can someone think of an example?
If you are not a talkative person or do not want to be the center of attention, you can develop the skill of encouraging others to talk. You can be an important part of the conversation by including others and inviting them to contribute. You can listen more than you speak, but you can still participate and express interest by asking others to add to the discussion.
Of course, talkative types should also develop this skill and be careful not to hog the conversation.
To hog something is to take, keep, use, or do something in a way that prevents others from having, using, or doing it.
—Adapted from the Merriam-Webster Learner’s Dictionary
3. When you want clarification, say:
- I have a question…
- What do you mean by…?
- In other words, …. , right?
- So, you’re saying…
- You mean…? (+ Is that right?)
- I wonder if / what / how…
If you are not sure you understand something someone has said, it is important to communicate this in a beneficial way. If you do not understand, there is a good chance that other people listening also do not understand. Using one of these phrases is a great way to show that you are listening and that you care about what the speaker has to say.
Asking for clarification doesn’t make you look stupid. It makes you look smart!
4. To add information and make connections, say:
- I’d like to add…
- That reminds me of…
- That’s related to…
- Another example is…
- I can relate to that because…
- Going back to what ___________ said…
- Adding to what ___________ said…
- What ___________ said made me think (of)…
Good conversations are organic. This means they develop naturally in a continuous process. What one person says leads to something else. This continues on and on as people add more information and continue to ask new questions. To do this, you have to listen well.
5. Useful phrases for telling what you heard:
- A told me…
- B said (that)…
- C told me (that)…
- I heard someone say (that)…
- Someone said…
This is basic reported speech. You might remember something that someone else said that relates to the topic you are discussing. Sharing it is a great way to add to the conversation. It is also another way to show that you are a good listener.
People like good listeners. While nodding and using eye contact and rejoinders show you are listening, using reported speech shows that you listen to and remember what others say.
For more information on reported speech, check out my affiliate’s post Reported Speech (Part 1) – Statements. The information there is free, but if you decide to purchase one of their courses or e-books, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products and services that I trust and wish I had created myself.
Good listeners are not completely silent listeners.
6. Useful phrases to show you agree:
- That’s a good point.
- I (totally) agree.
- I completely agree.
- That’s right.
- That’s (so) true.
- I couldn’t agree more.
When having a conversation, we often nod our head to show that we are listening. Nodding your head does not always mean that you agree. It just shows the speaker that you are following what they are saying. To show agreement, use one of the above phrases. If you want to hear these used by native speakers in context, I highly recommend YouGlish. I’ve entered absolutely into the search, but you can enter any word or phrase you are curious about. Of course, absolutely can be used in different ways, but you’ll hear it used to show agreement in some of the thousands of examples on YouGlish.
7. Useful phrases to disagree politely:
- Actually, I think…
- That’s a good point, but…
- That’s interesting, but I think…
- I see/know what you mean, but…
- Yes, but (on the other hand)…
- I know what you’re saying, but…
- I see it differently because…
- There is some truth to what you’re saying, but…
Believe it or not, disagreeing can be fun and exciting. However, it is important to do it respectfully and politely. To do this, first acknowledge the other person’s view. Then you can share your opinion. It’s also important to keep a calm tone. If you begin to get too emotional or upset, it might be best to agree to disagree and steer the conversation in another direction.
It’s also important to note that many of these phrases can be used to introduce another viewpoint even when you agree with what someone has said. This skill can be used when engaging in dialogues to explore ideas and concepts. Acknowledging and considering other viewpoints helps us develop our own thinking and opinions.
To agree to disagree is to agree not to argue anymore about a difference of opinion.
—Merriam-Webster Learner’s Dictionary
8. To revise or show a change in your thinking:
- I used to think…, but now I think…
- I see___________ differently now because…
- I view _____________ differently now because…
- Actually, I’ve changed my mind. I no longer think… / I now think…
If you are open-minded, curious, and love to learn and explore ideas, you may find that a discussion changes the way you view something. This is a core aspect of learning. If we think we know everything and have all of the answers, we may not be open to new ideas that can lead to growth. By exploring ideas through discussions with people who have had different experiences or who view the world differently than you, your thinking about something might develop and change. If it does, the four phrases above will be useful.
9. Useful phrases for when you don’t want to answer:
- I’d rather not say.
- I’d prefer not to say.
- So, ___________ was saying…
- I’ll tell you later.
You don’t have to answer every question someone asks you. It can be awkward to encounter a situation where you are uncomfortable answering a question. Respectful people will respect your right to privacy when you use one of the phrases above. Don’t waste your time talking to people who don’t respect you. The last two expressions on the list are indirect ways to avoid a question. One redirects the conversation. The other shifts the focus away from you. Don’t worry, you don’t really have to tell anyone later. If someone says this, they might be willing to tell you later or they might just be indirectly avoiding a question. It depends on the context and situation.
In addition to these 50 useful phrases, continue to use other practical English expressions like the ones below when you don’t understand a word, idea, or what someone said.
Useful Practical English Phrases
- What does __________ mean?
- Could you give me an example?
- How do you say ___________ in English/Korean?
- Could you repeat that?
- What’s the difference between _________ and ___________? or How are they different/similar?
To learn more about these five practical English phrases, read Five Practical Questions to Help Increase Understanding next.
Never stop learning! | <urn:uuid:6824e34c-d8ce-4204-aa90-b1a7c77e4bb9> | CC-MAIN-2021-25 | https://www.apoven.com/50-useful-english-discussion-phrases/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-25/segments/1623487630081.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20210625085140-20210625115140-00258.warc.gz | en | 0.941614 | 2,242 | 2.703125 | 3 |
WRIGHT, D., 2012. Scrunch, growze, or chobble?: investigating regional variation in sound symbolism in the Survey of English Dialects. Working Paper. Leeds: University of Leeds.
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This paper draws on data extracted from Upton et al.’s (1994) Survey of English Dialects: The Dictionary and Grammar in investigating the regional distribution across England of sound symbolic phonesthemes, that is, word-initial consonant clusters which appear to carry with them a non-arbitrary relationship between sound and meaning. Using such empirical data and employing systematic quantitative analysis, this study avoids the criticism often aimed at sound symbolism research that evidence is speculative and anecdotal. In operating on the intersection between sound symbolism and dialectology, the research here addresses a field currently understudied due to the scholarly attention paid to the morphological status of phonesthemes and their universality across languages. The results suggest that phonesthemes are to some extent subject to regional variation, indicating that certain phonesthemes are more common in some areas of England than alternatives which appear to carry the same sound-meaning relationship, often producing clear distributional patterns. In turn, these patterns are discussed, and explanations offered, in light of existing dialectological and variationist theoretical constructs. The significance of these findings underlines the contribution that such exploration can make to both the sound symbolism and dialectology fields, as well as highlighting the continuing opportunities for innovative research offered by the Survey of English Dialects material.
|Item Type:||Working paper|
|Publisher:||University of Leeds|
|Place of Publication:||Leeds|
|Divisions:||Schools > School of Arts and Humanities|
|Depositing User:||EPrints Services|
|Date Added:||09 Oct 2015 10:29|
|Last Modified:||19 Oct 2015 14:32|
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India is both the home of 4% of the world’s billionaires and 16% of the world’s billions living on less than $2 a day. The latter represents a portion of the population who are illiterate and without education. In rural India, only 20% of children graduate from high school. Access to quality education is abysmal: many cannot afford private education yet public education is plagued with problems of teacher absenteeism, lack of supplies, and ineffective approaches to learning. Given the facts, is there a way to extend quality education with an ultimate goal of improving the livelihoods of that 16%?
In response to problems in government schools, which are slowly undergoing reform processes, certain organizations are building affordable quality private schools for the poor. But regulations in India such as the requirement that schools must be nonprofits make scaling difficult to create a greater impact.
Hippocampus Learning Centres (HLC) is a Karnataka-based education company with a unique scalable model that can improve education for rural children at a monthly cost of Rs 60-100 (USD 1-2) per child per month. They build learning centres to run after school programs for children in kindergarten and levels (grade) 1-4. The goal is to provide supplemental education to help children succeed in school.
As a result of such a program, it was found that students were improving on their educational assessments. Kindergarten through level 4 represents the foundation to a child’s educational path and is highly correlated to future earning capacity, which is the reason HLC focuses on early-stage education.
HLC is able to keep costs low by renting rooms in villages at reasonable cost and hiring unemployed locals, typically high school graduate female teachers. Classrooms are equipped with furniture, books, and toys. HLC keeps school fees low and generates positive cash flow to keep schools running.
With a functioning business model, HLC is attracting investor attention. In February, startup investor Unitus Seed Fund launched with an investment in HLC that aims to reach 100 villages, 5,000 children, and employ 300 women – doubling their current capacity.
Last week, Lok Capital, a venture capital firm with a focus on the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) market, and Acumen Fund, a social venture capital investor, announced an investment of Rs 7 crore (USD 1.2 million) to the company. This money will serve to expand the school over the next two academic years.
Social Enterprise Buzz is a media company dedicated to covering social enterprise news from around the world. We publish a range of stories from startups to entrepreneurship, innovation, and finance, which showcase business making the world a better place. Read more. | <urn:uuid:aa96109b-0cd5-4b8f-b91c-b4061e008cfd> | CC-MAIN-2016-36 | http://www.socialenterprisebuzz.com/2012/05/21/hippocampus-learning-centres/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-36/segments/1471982293195.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20160823195813-00043-ip-10-153-172-175.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96211 | 551 | 2.625 | 3 |
June is the sixth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars.
The second of four months to have a length of 30 days, and the third of five months to have a length of less than 31 days.
In the Northern Hemisphere, the beginning of the meteorological summer begins on 1 June and the beginning of the traditional summer is 21 June. In the Southern Hemisphere, meteorological winter begins on 1 June and traditional winter begins on 21 June.
June contains the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, the day with the most daylight hours, and the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, the day with the fewest daylight hours (excluding polar regions in both cases).
June in the Northern Hemisphere is the seasonal equivalent to December in the Southern Hemisphere and vice versa.
It is named after Juno, the Roman goddess of youth and protection. Her name (Latin Iūnō) comes from the root word for “young” (Iuuen) and goes back to the idea of vital energy and fertility.
Another etymology for the origin of June explains the month’s name with the Latin word for youth: June was dedicated to Iuventas, the young, while May was for the Maiores, the elders. Both explanations work equally well, as Juno is the goddess of youth.
Midsummer means the middle of summer. It is celebrated either on the summer solstice (June 20, 21, or 22) or St John’s Day on June 24. Midsummer is mainly celebrated in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland (the Nordic countries), and Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania (the Baltic countries).
In Scandinavia, Midsummer is also called Midsommar or Sankt Hans after the Christian martyr Saint John the Baptist. The Christian Church celebrates his day on June 24, exactly six months before Christmas. St John is said to “prepare the way for Christ,” as the sunlight decreases after Midsummer and increases after Christmas.
June 1 is World Milk Day – Today’s the day to enjoy a cold glass of milk. If cow’s milk isn’t your thing, there are many dairy alternatives available to you in the grocery store, including almond milk, oat milk, cashew milk, and more. You can even upgrade your sip with a bit of chocolate syrup for a glass of classic chocolate milk.
June 3 is National Egg Day – Eggs are super versatile—whether you like them scrambled, hard-boiled, soft boiled, fried, poached, or baked, there are a slew of delicious recipes for you out there. Today, celebrate the humble egg with your favorite recipe, like breakfast tacos, egg salad, a quiche, or even your favorite brownies (hey, eggs are an ingredient!).
June 4 is National Donut Day – Everyone’s favorite breakfast treat has a dedicated day of celebration on the first Friday of June each year. There are many flavors of donuts to satisfy your sweet tooth—whether you prefer a classic glazed, a savory bacon donut, or one with sprinkles on top, today’s the day to enjoy. Pick up a dozen to share and get ready to become the most popular person in the office.
June 7 is National Chocolate Ice Cream Day – Ice cream is a quintessential warm-weather treat. To celebrate National Chocolate Ice Cream Day, grab your favorite cocoa-flavored cold treat and enjoy it outside for a mid-day break—just be sure to finish it before it melts.
June 10 is National Iced Tea Day – Nothing says summer like a big pitcher of freshly brewed iced tea that’s jam-packed with sliced lemons. Whether you prefer the classic flavor of unsweetened iced tea, an iced lemongrass tea, or every Southerner’s sugar-laden favorite, sweet tea, today’s the day to make this your beverage of choice.
June 14 is Flag Day – On June 14, 1777, the United States adopted the American flag. Since then, it has become a symbol of freedom, endurance, and patriotism recognized around the globe. Hang a flag inside or outside of your home to commemorate Flag Day.
June 21 is National Smoothie Day – On a hot day, not much can beat an ice-cold smoothie. Blend up a sip for National Smoothie Day featuring your favorite fruits and veggies (mix-ins like yogurt or peanut butter work, too), and enjoy the refreshing beverage outdoors.
June 22 is National Onion Rings Day – Covering a food in batter and deep-frying it usually ends up being a delicious hit—and that’s especially true for onions. In honor of National Onion Rings Day, try making your own onion rings at home (it’s easier than you’d think) with a classic beer batter recipe. If all else fails, you can always hit up your local pub for a deep-fried basket.
The Full Moon in June is called the Strawberry Full Moon after the fruits that grow in the Northern Hemisphere around this time of the year.
Certain meteor showers take place in June. The Arietids takes place May 22 to July 2 each year, and peaks on June 7. The Beta Taurids June 5 to July 18. The June Bootids take place roughly between 26 June and 2 July each year.
In the United States, the given name June skyrocketed in popularity in the early twentieth century. In 1925, it was the 39th most popular name for a baby girl … a place held by the name Hannah today.
June’s birthstones are pearl, alexandrite and moonstone.
The birth flowers are rose and honeysuckle.
The zodiac signs for the month of June are Gemini and Cancer. | <urn:uuid:ea17ccb7-886d-48bd-af2f-ddf0f65df8db> | CC-MAIN-2024-10 | https://justfunfacts.com/interesting-facts-about-june/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947474853.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20240229202522-20240229232522-00094.warc.gz | en | 0.946821 | 1,209 | 3.234375 | 3 |
Casabianca - Summary and Central Idea - English 10th
Summary and Central Idea from Chapter No 18 "Casabianca" for class 10th, X, Matric Class
Casabianca was posted on the deck. The chieftain, who was his father, had ordered him not to leave the deck without his permission. The ship caught fire. The flames started rolling on towards the deck. Casabianca kept asking for permission to leave the deck. However, he did not know that his father lay unconscious. He did not leave the deck and sacrificed his life in carrying out his duties. Casabianca shows the true spirit of a brave soldier
A brave and disciplined soldier fulfils his duty. He never runs away from the battle field. He is ready to die in carrying out his duties. | <urn:uuid:e8465ff6-dd77-4f05-b6ed-6204a0e8123f> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://adamjeecoaching.blogspot.com/2014/09/casabianca-summary-and-central-idea-english-10th.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285244.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00247-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986391 | 169 | 2.734375 | 3 |
When people describe a job that’s not difficult, they sometimes contrast it with one of two tasks considered the most challenging in the world: rocket science or brain surgery. With millions of brain surgeries occurring each year, you’re more likely to require the services of a brain surgeon than a rocket scientist.
Is brain surgery a serious and delicate procedure that presents risks? Yes, but thanks to advances in technology and medicine, as well as the skills and training of today’s neurosurgeons and their surgical teams, 21st-century brain surgery can provide safe, reliable treatment for a wide range of neurological conditions.
The Brain and Its Role
The brain may appear as if it’s a single organ, but as the most complex area of your body, it consists of many parts — including billions of nerve cells, called neurons — working together to control some of the most important functions of the body, including:
- Your five senses (hearing, taste, sight, touch, smell)
The brain also sends messages throughout your body through a network of nerves (the nervous system) that extends from your brain through your spinal cord down your backbone.
Conditions Requiring Brain Surgery
Not only are there many parts that make up the brain, there are many conditions that can affect those parts. Some of these conditions are common and don’t require surgery (or really any treatment at all) but can become serious enough that surgery is an option.
These conditions include:
- Injury: If you hit your head from an accident, fall, or other kind of contact, your brain can be damaged, causing changes in mood or mental function. This injury is usually called a traumatic brain injury (TBI), and a concussion is a kind of TBI that causes the head and brain to move back and forth rapidly, adding extra pressure on the brain.
- Abscess: This is a pus-filled infection in the brain that may require surgical drainage.
- Aneurysm: A weakened part of an artery may start to swell with blood. This can occur in any artery of your body, but if it occurs in the brain and bursts (ruptures), it can cause bleeding in the brain (hematoma) or a stroke. (See those conditions below.)
- Cancer (and noncancerous tumors): There are several kinds of tumors that can appear inside the brain. If the tumor cells grow uncontrollably and spread to other parts of the body, the tumor is considered malignant or cancerous. But even a noncancerous (or benign) tumor can be problematic and potentially cause symptoms.. Surgery is often a treatment option.
- Encephalitis: This is an inflammation of brain tissue that causes the brain to swell.
- Epilepsy: This is a condition that causes seizures. Surgery can help determine the cause, and provide treatment to reduce the frequency of those seizures.
- Headache: If your headache is extremely painful and constant, and it’s related to an irritated nerve, surgery could provide relief.
- Hematoma: This term means any bleeding outside the blood vessels; a bruise (a “black and blue” mark) you can see on your skin is an example. Inside the brain, a hematoma is a very serious condition that can occur in different areas of the brain due to a variety of causes. Brain hematomas can put pressure on the brain and can cause unconsciousness or death.
- Hydrocephalus: This is when cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) builds up in the hollow places inside the brain (ventricles), increasing pressure on the brain.
- Nerve disorders: There are many conditions related to nerve degeneration (when nerves slowly or suddenly stop functioning). These conditions can be inherited (genetic) or have no known cause, or they may be caused by injury or a tumor, or behaviors such as alcoholism. These conditions affect different parts of your brain function, and include Alzheimer’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease), Huntington’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease.
- Stroke: This happens when the brain’s blood supply is interrupted or reduced. The cells in the brain tissue that don’t receive oxygen and nutrients can die quickly.
Types of Brain Surgery
Brain surgery can be performed several different ways, based on the condition being treated. These approaches include:
- Biopsy: A sample of abnormal brain tissue is removed with an incision or a needle, and then examined by a pathologist.
- Craniotomy: A piece of the skull is temporarily removed so the surgeon can access the brain to treat conditions including tumors, blood clots, and elevated pressure.
- Deep brain stimulation (DBS): A treatment for movement disorders, electrodes are implanted into certain brain areas to generate electrical impulses that control abnormal brain activity.
- Endoscopy: This technique involves threading an endoscope — a thin tube with a light and camera on the end, and through which tools are used — through the mouth, nose, or small incisions in the skull to access or remove brain tissue.
- Posterior fossa decompression: This a treatment for a Chiari malformation, when part of the brain at the back of the skull bulges through a normal opening where the joins the spinal canal putting pressure on parts of the brain and spinal cord. The surgeon removes a small section of bone in the back of the skull, relieving pressure by giving the brain more room.
- Thrombectomy and cerebral aneurysm repair: The surgeon guides surgical instruments such as a catheter or thin wires through a large blood vessel in the patient’s groin to reach the brain vessels, using contrast dye to identify the problematic blood vessel without opening up the skull. The procedure is most commonly used on patients with a blood clot in a brain artery, a cerebral aneurysm (a weakened and bulging area in an artery wall) or a ruptured aneurysm that causes bleeding into the brain.
Risks of Brain Surgery
As is the case with any surgery, brain surgery — while safer than ever — still has risks. Your surgeon will discuss whether you are a candidate for brain surgery (based on several factors related to your condition, age, and medical history) and potential risks of the specific procedure.
Contact M. Neil Woodall, MD, Today
Should you require brain surgery, having a skilled surgeon to lead the procedure is critical. Dr. Woodall’s skill and experience — and quality of overall care — ensure you can receive the safe treatment you require for your brain condition. Contact our office today. | <urn:uuid:9c276410-9797-4e03-85ab-3a67f2b6c35f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://woodallbrainandspine.com/specialized-skills/brain-surgery/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571538.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812014923-20220812044923-00348.warc.gz | en | 0.926823 | 1,402 | 3.171875 | 3 |
Le Serpent Rouge: the Lost Relic of St-Germain-des-Prés
Philippe de Chérisey's most enigmatic work, Le Serpent Rouge, ends with a mysterious collage of peculiar old articles. We believe that this is why its contents have never been properly critiqued and why people have refrained from attributing any real significance to it.
In this, Part II of our thesis, we propose a unique theory, whose intellectual origin takes us to Spain, circa 543 AD; to the land of the Visigoths. Here, we learn that the Merovingian King, Childebert I, having penetrated deep into Spain, would return to Paris in possession of two relics: a cross of gold and the tunic of St Vincent, taken from the city of Saragossa. Around 550 AD, the Bishop of Paris, St Germain, anxious to provide these relics with a suitably appropriate home worthy of their magnificence, had convinced Childebert I and his wife to relinquish an area of land, upon which lay the foundations of an ancient temple dedicated to Isis. The monarch then financed the construction of the basilica of St Vincent and Ste Croix here, and this later became known as the Abbey of St-Germain-des-Prés.
If we question the veracity of the abbey's history, as recounted by de Chérisey, the link between the abbey, Spain and the affair of Rennes-le-Château becomes even more tenuous. This is nothing more than an impression, however, because the two previous proposals are perfectly accurate: let there be no mistake, the events described in the collages of Le Serpent Rouge are based on a solid historical foundation, which suggests that there really is a hidden link between the Rennes-le-Château affair, the intrigues that occurred in Girona and the founding of the Abbey of St-Germain-des-Prés.
Private chapel next to the Villa Bethania and statuary in Rennes le Chateau Church
As we attempt to lift a corner of the veil that covers this mystery, we must, first and foremost, return to its beginnings, with the Spanish trail left by de Chérisey in Le Serpent Rouge.
Joseph Lavallée, writing about this episode in his work Espagne, tells us that:
“Theudis the Ostrogoth had barely ascended to the throne, when he had to sustain a war against the Franks. Childebert had brought back too rich a spoil from his first expedition to Spain not to want to try a second time. He crossed the Pyrenees and, having ravaged the country, came to besiege Saragossa. He pushed the town so hard that the city's residents, believing that they did not have enough manpower to defend themselves, implored for heavenly help. The men, barefoot and covered with sackcloth, bore aloft funerary torches; the women, dressed in white, with their hair loose, made several turns around the city ramparts, carrying in procession the tunic and the relics of St Vincent. The Frankish King, surprised at the sight, at first thought it was a question of some magical conjuration. But a Spanish prisoner explained to him how, through the intercession of St Vincent, who had already performed many miracles, they were calling down the wrath of God against his majesty. In these times of ignorance, it was easy for the mind to be convinced by superstitious impressions and either Childebert was frightened by the fear of divine punishment, or he was swayed by other considerations, like fearing to see his army impoverished by the Goths who occupied the country, because he suddenly made a treaty with the people and demanded that they yield to him the tunic of St Vincent. He then headed back northwards through France, carrying the revered remains. [...] Childebert, on returning to Paris, erected a church and an abbey in memory of the events in Spain. This ensemble, once known under the title of ‘St Vincent and Ste Croix’, was later dedicated to St Germain, its first bishop."
Auguste Vitu seems to concur with the opinion expressed by Gislemar and proceeds to distinguish the first relic from the second. He also names Saragossa as the place of origin of the tunic of St Vincent and Toledo as the place of origin of the golden cross. We read in Paris: 450 Original Drawings from Nature:
"The church and monastery of St-Germain-des-Prés was dated, just like the cathedral of Notre Dame in the Cité and the collegiate church of St-Germain l'Auxerrois on the right bank, to the earliest epochs of the Merovingian monarchy; that is to say, to the time of Childebert I and Ultrogothe, his wife, who reigned in Paris from 511 to 558. Childebert, returning from an expedition against the Visigoths, brought back from Spain, as trophies of his victory, the tunic of St Vincent, a cross of gold and jewels captured in Toledo, along with vases that were believed to have belonged to Solomon. By the advice of St Germain, the Bishop of Paris, he built a church and monastery at the western end of the gardens attached to the palace of the Thermes to receive and house the holy relics. On the very day of Childebert's death in 558, St Germain dedicated the new church under the title St Vincent and Ste Croix, and he himself was buried there after his death in 576."
The Pax Symbol
The Serpentine Rod of Moses
Next, we will examine the location Childebert I intended for this cross, the basilica of St Vincent and Ste Croix in Paris. Long before the Abbey of Saint Denis, the royal necropolis of the Merovingian dynasty was situated in the Basilica of St Vincent and Ste Croix. Childebert I was the first to be buried there and his tomb was located in the place that came to be known as the ‘assembly of monks’. It is in this spot that the gold cross of Toledo was most probably kept. In fact, it seems to have played a significant role in the Merovingian funeral rites and worship of the dead, their ‘Culte des Morts’, because, according to what we are told, the bodies of Chilperic I, Clotaire II and Fredegund, as well as other less illustrious personages, were placed into a rather crowded ‘assembly of monks’, in order to benefit from the emanations of the precious relic. We must note that the importance of this object in the Cult of the Dead seems to distinguish it from the rod of Moses. Additionally, there are many instances where the Arians and, generally, the Manicheans had incorporated into their symbolism of the Cult of the Dead (during their recycling of Christianity) certain biblical elements, whose authenticity is indisputable.
Returning to the gold cross, it seems that Childebert I had entrusted the relic into the care of the monks of St Symphorien d'Autun, who followed the Rule of St Anthony and the Rule of St Basil, and whose congregation provided the abbey with its illustrious founder, St Germain (496-576). We can assume that the object in question remained there for a short while, concealed in the basilica, before it was removed to a safer place.
St Narcissus of the Flies
St Narcissus set high up into a church wall, Girona
'Venantius Fortunatus Reading His Poems to Radegonda VI', Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1862)
Radegonde enters monastic life
Due to his relative obscurity in more modern times, Fortunat’s work was not translated until the 19th century. Charles Nisard, who carried out the translation, gives us the impression that Fortunat is alluding to some strange mystery within the Merovingian line. He appears to have received the mission to portray, at the same time, a more Christian image of the sentiment of his masters, while digging deep into Virgilian sources, in order to paint, through the medium of his poems, a picture of a Merovingian Arcadia.
What an amazing person this poet must have been to strive to Romanise the Frankish aristocracy, and to use ‘Arcadian motives to honour and extol’ Merovingian society, even borrowing the virtues of these powerful people! After reading the poems, we come away with the inexplicable feeling that Bishop Germain and others made Fortunat put all his art into supporting the improbable Trojan origin of the Merovingians (as his friend Gregory of Tours also did). But, if Fortunat sings the praises of a Merovingian Arcadia, it is without doubt because the golden cross, returned from Toledo and given to St Germain, had once belonged to Constantine and thus could justify the imperial ambitions of the Merovingian dynasty; ambitions which continued into the Carolingian age.
The Life of Fortunat, Secret Meetings and the New Orpheus
Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus, to reference his full Latin name, was born in Italy around 530 AD. This profusion of names gave conjecture to some that he might have been from old Roman stock, given that this form of naming was the custom in distinguishing the ‘patricians’ from the ‘plebeians’. Other commentators assume, to the contrary, that he had added the names of Venantius and Fortunatus to his family name in reference to two saints; one originally from Bourges in Gaul, the other a martyr of the Church of Aquileia. According to Joseph Liruti, Fortunat's famous biographer, the name of his father and the original surname of his family was ‘Titius’. This is more or less what he assumes on the basis of Section 6 of Book XI of Fortunat's Miscellaneous Poems, in which the author says he had a sister named Titiana. Liruti also explains to us that among the Romans it was convenient to name daughters after their father.
The Legend of St Martin
Fortunat departed the comfort of Ravenna and travelled via Padua, Treviso and Germany to Gaul. His journey is faithfully reported in his letter to Gregory of Tours. Less well documented are the links between Fortunat and the Merovingians, particularly Sigebert and Radegonde. We are told that when he crossed the border into Italy, Fortunat received, at the request of Sigebert, a protector in the shape of Count Sigoalde. This presupposes that Fortunat's journey, although at first conceived with the sole purpose of visiting the tomb of St Martin of Tours, had also provided him with the opportunity to be of service to the Merovingians. Fortunat seems, indeed, to have come to Gaul at their request and hospitality.
Did Fortunat hold the key to a dark mystery or did he simply add to the Merovingian legacy? Nobody knows for sure, but from this moment on his behaviour became very strange. Fortunat was close to the Merovingian power base, which appeared to be in possession of a dynastic secret of some sort or another, and in a relatively short period of time he became a significant figure in their tradition. He also built a whole mythos around the Merovingians by referencing the golden cross of Toledo and by resurrecting Roman & Greek myths, like that of Orpheus. Criss-crossing Gaul, Fortunat described himself as a new Orpheus, initiated in the secrets of Hades, and in the process established the Merovingian dynasty as Constantine's successors.
'Orpheus and Eurydice on the Banks of the Styx' 1878
John Roddam Spencer Stanhope
Celebrated in Girona, the cult of St Narcissus seems to have spread quite early on to Bavarian Augsburg, where it was intimately linked to the Cult of St Afra. This is a unique religion, common to Catalonia and Bavaria, and although, in fact, there is no commonality between these two regions, it would seem that we should acknowledge an underlying Arian sub-stratum as the basis for some strange but demonstrable similarities between the two cities.
The commemorative tomb of St Afra can be found opposite the tomb of St Narcissus, both of which are situated in the church of St Felix in Girona. This tomb, though empty, signals, by its presence, that the towns of Girona and Augsburg are bound by a very ancient secret. Although in Germany, Augsburg appears to be the inheritor of the spirituality and religious secrets of Girona and Spanish Catalonia. The poet, Fortunat, became a link; a channel between his own epoch and the Gnostic and heretical heritage of Constantine. Many centuries later, a cult developed in Spain, and more specifically in Girona, dedicated to the ‘IHSV’ (‘in hoc signo vinces’) symbol of Constantine.
Fortunat had previously published in Augsburg certain "talismans" which represented this symbol. It is for this reason (or for other, more obscure reasons) that Fortunat held a singular place of honour among the saints of Augsburg. Furthermore, we know of the existence of a fresco in the town in which he is represented, accompanied by this inscription: ‘Saint Fortunat, Italian priest, later Bishop of Poitiers’.
The poet, Fortunat, lived in the sixth century and, although not Catalan by birth, is said to have maintained a pious devotion for St Narcissus. During his trip to Germany he visited the places where the saint had lived and, anxious to preserve and commemorate her missionary efforts, proceeded to write about the conversion, suffering and death of St Afra. In Augsburg, he visited the saint’s ashes and was accepted by the city’s most powerful men, due in part to his well-known scientific prowess. However, while Fortunat routinely impressed the great minds of his time, it seems that the modern world has all but forgotten his name. Nevertheless, we will examine the forgotten scholar and the remarkable status he held at this critical time in our story.
Fortunat was introduced into the court of Sigebert, the son of Clotaire I, King of the Franks and King of Austrasia, and he was able to capitalise on his talents as a poet; although he appears more clumsy and coarse when compared to the Latin writers, being born at a time when the spirits had become darker and more gauche and no longer shone with any of the genius they had once held. However, this fact notwithstanding, he made a great impression on Sigebert. The latter had seen him enter Gaul and, having invited him to Metz for his wedding to Brunhild, daughter of Athanagild, the King of Spain had the pleasure of witnessing Fortunat celebrate this union with a Latin poem which portrayed the newlyweds as a new Venus and Achilles. It was with such fawning and general toadying that Fortunat managed to inveigle himself into the private lives of the Merovingian kings. As a result of his esteemed position, he became one of two witnesses (the other being Gregory of Tours, who was his confidant) from that barbarous period and became the enigmatic arbiter of the strange bargains and secret meetings between St Germain, the Bishop of Paris, holder of the gold cross of Toledo, and Queen Radegonde and a procession of Merovingian potentates.
A curiosity indeed, this golden cross, which is said to have been fashioned by King Solomon's own hand and is thought to have been accompanied by precious vases or chalices of gold inlaid with precious stones. We must, however, curb our enthusiasm, because it would be wrong to entertain the idea that this cross of gold, to the exclusion of any other hypothesis, was a relic of Solomon's temple; the only one that has ever come to light. It would have been very strange indeed, had Solomon fashioned a conventional gold cross. Indeed, it is unclear how a ‘Latin’ or ‘Greek’ cross, or any other traditional type of cross, would have ever found its way into the temple of Solomon, given that the cross was a notable object of torture in antiquity. In the same way, we need to establish an exact parallel between this cross and the rod of Moses, upon which was hung a serpent of brass, although there is apparently some cause for confusion here.
Indeed, we cannot exclude the hypothesis that the gold cross of Toledo once had a formal relationship with the staff of Moses, according to some contemporary scholars, or, alternatively, that it was a creation of Solomon. Nevertheless, it is possible that the golden cross retrieved by Childebert I from Toledo, capital of the Visigoths of Spain, could have come from the temple of Jerusalem, whose treasure had been carefully preserved in Rome before the Visigoths plundered the city in 410 AD. Although we must exercise caution when considering that this object may be of Jewish origin, it is paradoxical to note that the uncanny similarity, both in appearance as well as provenance, between it and the rod of Moses, enables us to conclude two things that are more or less certain:
(i) that the object had a ‘serpentine’ aspect or form; that is to say, it was a kind of very unusual cross, closer to the shape of a caduceus, without actually being one; and
(ii) that it comes from the sack of Rome, from where the Visigoths would have taken it in order to bring it back to Toledo, their capital.
These elements, as contradictory as they appear in the opinion of many researchers, would suggest that this cross was only partially made of gold and it would have featured the symbol of Constantine the Great, the famous PAX, but in an archaic and non-Christianised form, since this was prior to the monarch's conversion. This object, a kind of sceptre-tiara, which belonged to Constantine, is the origin of the maxim: en touto nika, ‘par ce signe, tu vaincras’ (‘by this sign thou shalt conquer’). This point remains unsubstantiated, however, and may only be confirmed by the discovery of new information; documents which could, in fact, enable us to trace the cross and the traditions associated with it.
It was not uncommon in these times for Nordic tribes to wreak havoc on the region. These Nordic invaders could, in a day, reduce a once opulent and rich land into a wilderness, strewn with ashes and ruins. And so, the abbey was burnt in 861 by Viking invaders. We must again remind ourselves, by reading Louis-Sebastien Mercier's Tableau de Paris, of the brutal way in which these barbarians behaved when destroying the abbey. Certainly, this author has an immoderate taste for divine Greek thought and his fine pen strokes, far from regarding the vandalism to be that of the Vikings, attribute the impoverished arts and degradation of the area too easily to the coarseness of the Merovingians; and here we cannot resist quoting some of his ‘great words’:
"The Normans have looted, burned and ransacked the church and abbey of St-Germain-des-Prés several times; there now remain but empty graves and uncertain inscriptions. What is left of the ancient sculpture affords us an idea of the most revolting barbarity: the Christian religion was never pleasant, even from its inception; it is evident, too, in the debris of past centuries; ....unfortunate and bizarre centuries, marked by everything that error and ignorance have in the way of shame and disaster.
Those who are interested in visiting the tombs of Childebert and Altrogotte [Ultrogoth], of Chilperic and of Fredegund, his wife, can still do so. Chilperic's inscriptions beg the living not to remove his remains from the place where they rested; a prayer which seems to have been addressed with reference to these Northern bandits, who swooped down upon the realm and upon the abbey. [...] Former names without splendour, sad sarcophagi stripped bare, dark sombre images of no interest, made by a hard and coarse chisel; these are the antiquities that fill the churches. The genius of man seems overwhelmed by the empire of terror and man's trembling hand now only remembers how to trace dismal and monotonous images."
This is a sad picture indeed of the ravages perpetrated by the Vikings, who seemed to have found an effective way of stamping their indelible mark on the entire century. We can easily understand that the golden cross would have been quickly moved and that its trail was lost just as quickly as it had appeared, thanks to Childebert's Spanish expeditions. But if any trace of this cruciform talisman seemed to have been lost during the Merovingian age, Venance Fortunat has shone a light in the darkness, enabling us to pick up its trail.
Fortunat, the Underrated Cantor of a Merovingian Arcadia: From Girona to St-Germain-des-Prés
Leaving Girona and continuing to St-Germain-des-Prés, there is a trail which cannot be ignored, as it contains many clues, seemingly pregnant with intriguing promises. It is a solitary road, in truth, but we need to take it, as it is the only witness to a time and era that seems to be devoid of history, without a scribe to record it and populated only by its ghosts.
The trail begins in the collegiate church of St Felix in Girona. This edifice houses, in a massive sarcophagus within a chapel, the remains of St Narcissus. Here was preserved the tomb of the saint, famous for his acts of healing, but even more well-known for the incredible tale of the flies, which are said to have swarmed out of his tomb and whose venom decimated the army of Philip the Bold in 1286. It is this St Narcissus of Girona, who, having lived around the third century, preached as far as Germany, where his influence spread from Augsburg throughout the rest of Bavaria.
If this barbaric century has left us with an impression of Fortunat’s renown, the same cannot be said of his fatherland or the places he frequented. In Book IV of the Life of Saint Martin we learn, effectively from Fortunat's own lips, that he was born in Duplavilis. Located on the outskirts of Treviso in Italy, this place was, according to Joseph Liruti, a small but peaceful country estate owned by Fortunat's parents, who were citizens of the city of Aquileia. They had retreated there to escape the unrest perpetrated by the ravaging hordes of Attila. It is therefore natural that Fortunat was taught and baptised in Aquileia by the Bishop Paulinus, who was, seemingly, one of several confidants of the family.
Fortunat remained in Aquileia until the age of 28, when Paulinus initiated him into the secret doctrines, brought from Egypt by Rufinus of Aquileia, which prompted Fortunat to consider embracing monastic life. It appears, however, that this displeased Fortunat, who, far from agreeing to enter the monastery of Rufinus, chose to perfect his studies in the city of Ravenna. He settled there and, as we are told by one of his earliest biographers, Paul Diacre, he was "fed and trained [...] in the study of grammar, rhetoric, metre and rhythm [so that he became] very clever”.
It is generally agreed that Fortunat practised law in Ravenna and enjoyed a fine reputation of achievement and success. Christopher Brower seems, however, not to hold Fortunat in such high esteem and believes that Fortunat had only a veneer of education, concealing a man who was not as well read as he appeared. It is true that Honorius had, in 404 AD, promoted Ravenna to the rank of the western empire's capital city and, because of this, many learned men taught there. However, with the fall of the empire in 476 and the Ostrogoths’ (one of two branches of Goths - the other being the Visigoths) conquest of the territory, the ignorant, rude invaders once again mingled with the beauty of the ancient spirit.
It was around the time that Fortunat was concluding his studies that a very curious event occurred, which left an indelible mark on his life and greatly influenced his destiny. While in Ravenna, he and his friend, Felix (who went on to become the Bishop of Treviso), were afflicted with an eye disease which, apart from causing serious burns, gave him terrible anxiety attacks and a painful fever. Convinced that he would lose his vision permanently and fearful of becoming the living image of Tobit, the old blind man of biblical legend, he ran, dragging his friend with him, into the basilica of the martyred Saints John and Paul. Here, he noticed an altar dedicated to St Martin, the apostle of the Gauls. As he relates, it was here that a miracle occurred and the two young men found their sight restored:
"Under the highest vault of the basilica of Paul and John we see on the wall a picture of St Martin, a painting that deserves to attract attention by the charm of its colours alone. Under the feet of the saint the artist had created an opening, where there was a lamp, whose flame swam in a glass urn. And this is where I ran to one day, a prey to cruel suffering, dispirited to feel my eyes closed to the light. Hardly had they touched the blessed oil, when the mist of fire that burned my face vanished and the beneficent unction instantly snatched my pain away."
Fortunat and Felix, marvelling at their recovery, as complete as it was sudden, came to hold St Martin in the utmost esteem and, while Felix limited his gratitude to prayer and sincere devotion, Fortunat, driven by an ardent zeal, visited the burial place of the saint and vowed to dedicate himself entirely to him. According to Christopher Brower, Fortunat then left Italy; before the Lombards invaded the district of Treviso and shortly before Sigebert’s marriage to Brunhild in 565, the fifth year of Sigebert’s reign.
We have here, contained in this academic recitation, the essential core of the thesis developed by de Chérisey in the final collage of Le Serpent Rouge. Equally historic is his reference to a temple of Isis, whose scattered ruins served as the foundation for the new abbey. Louis-Sébastien Mercier, in fact, relates in Le Tableau de Paris that the elders of his time regretted "...greatly, a statue of the goddess Isis, which, because of its antiquity, had been left standing at the main gate of the Abbey of St-Germain-des-Prés". The statue, a unique testament to past ages, could not escape a deadly fate, because “in 1514 a good woman took this figure to be that of the Virgin Mary and went there to burn a handful of candles”. The Abbé of St-Germain, in a righteous rage, had the statue "torn to pieces, to prevent idolatry" and had put up in its place "a large cross, which is still there to this day".
Regarding the content of the collage, we are presented with a number of interesting statements and seemingly historical facts. But if it is up to us to establish the accuracy of de Chérisey's statements, we must also focus our attention on the two relics, which he stresses are important and which, having been brought from Spain, would have provided the inspiration for constructing the abbey of ‘St Vincent and Ste Croix’ in Paris (today known as St-Germain-des-Prés). According to de Chérisey’s collage, Childebert I, whose soul was suddenly seized with a great liking for the sacred relics of the pious Vincent, returned to Paris, having obtained the tunic of St Vincent from the inhabitants of Saragossa. Thus, the temple of St-Germain-des-Prés was primarily intended "to house the sacred relic and, dedicated to St Vincent, it also received the name of Holy Cross in memory, we are told, of a cross of gold that the King had also brought back from Spain, which was reputed to have belonged to Solomon”.
If we are to confirm the accuracy of de Chérisey's sources, we must underscore the fact that the work lacks clarity and is rather ambiguous. There is an uncertainty as to the origin of the second relic - the golden cross - which one supposes, on first reading, to have come from Saragossa, along with the tunic of St Vincent. It is an easy mistake to make, especially as the historical texts describing the event are often incomplete. To fill this gap we have J A Dulaure of the Society of Antiquaries of France, who reports that Gislemar, the biographer of the first abbé of St Vincent and Ste Croix (St-Germain-des-Prés), gives us a brief description of the treasures removed from Spain by Childebert I. Gislemar tells us that the King "took a cross of gold from the church of Toledo, enriched with precious stones (which was allegedly made by King Solomon), along with thirty chalices, fifteen patens and twenty containers to house the Gospels. Childebert I, being a pious and devoted man, did not appropriate these objects for himself; instead he distributed them amongst the churches. He had one such church built in a suburb of Paris and designed its ground plan in the shape of a cross, like the one he had brought back from Toledo, which he presented to the church, along with several priceless ornaments”.
Isaac Ben Jacob | <urn:uuid:6fa42091-adc4-4ebe-a573-50042219ae91> | CC-MAIN-2022-49 | https://www.isaacbenjacob.com/wasberengeraspypart2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446711074.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20221206060908-20221206090908-00565.warc.gz | en | 0.975586 | 6,417 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Why a jaw crusher
Jaw crushers are primary crushers. It is a machine for crushing rocks and other hard and abrasive materials,such as granite, minerals or recycled concrete, usually for industrial use. The crushing device is composed ofa fixed plate anda swivel plate called the jaw between which the rock is trapped and crushed. An engine and belt transmit the movement to an eccentric shaft that drives the jaw by rotation. A spring brings this jaw back to let the crushed materials gradually descend into the crusher. When the materials are small enough, they fall into the space between the two jaws of the crusher. The crusher breaks the rock into small stones that are used particularly for the manufacturing of concrete for construction and roads.
Jaw crushers use rudimentary and reliable technologythat does not require a lot of maintenance or technical skills. They are the most popular crushers in the world. Jaw crushers are particularly suitable when the main objective is to reduce large blocks into smaller pieces that can then be processed by other machines.
- Low maintenance and operating costs because few moving parts
- Reduces raw material to about 150 mm
- Not suitable for small material requirements (less than 150 mm). If a smaller size is required, it can be used in combination with other crushers.
- Not suitable for handling clay or metal mixed with rock. | <urn:uuid:299449c6-8728-4e72-8857-42042f4c87e5> | CC-MAIN-2020-10 | https://voghel.com/en/equipment/crushers/jaw-crushers?lang=en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-10/segments/1581875146665.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20200227063824-20200227093824-00169.warc.gz | en | 0.936079 | 277 | 3.359375 | 3 |
Ice core samples used for climate change research melted after freezer failure
Detail image of an ice core segment. Photo: University of Alberta/John Ulan
Chinta Puxley, The Canadian Press
Published Friday, April 7, 2017 1:12AM EDT
EDMONTON - A freezer malfunction at the University of Alberta has melted some of the world's largest collection of Canadian Arctic ice core samples.
The university says about 12 per cent of the collection was damaged when temperature in the storage freezer soared to 40 C over the weekend. The ice samples were immediately moved to a working freezer on Sunday but the damage was already done.
Andrew Sharman, vice-president of facilities and operations, said the freezer's cooling system malfunctioned and the monitoring system also failed due to a computer glitch.
"The loss of any ice core sample is deeply concerning to the University of Alberta and to our research teams, who plan to use this ice to answer important questions about climate change and our planet's history," he said in a statement.
"With the assistance of our service provider, the affected freezer has been restored, an investigation is ongoing, and we are working to ensure this does not happen again."
The ice core samples - little cylinders taken from the drilling down metres below the surface in the circumpolar regions - were painstakingly transported in January from the Geological Survey of Canada's Ice Core Research Laboratory in Ottawa.
They represent more than 80,000 years of climate change and some of the samples date back to the last ice age. The collection includes 12 ice cores drilled in five different locations and represents the only ice cores in the world from the Canadian Arctic.
Glaciologist Martin Sharp says the loss is a major disappointment.
"When you lose part of an ice core, you lose part of the record of past climates, past environments - an archive of the history of our atmosphere," he said in a release. "You just don't have easy access to information about those past time periods."
Even though the incident did not completely destroy any of the cores, Sharp said the melted water from one sample can contaminate others nearby, making it virtually impossible to analyze. That will rule out some of the research planned, he said.
"But not all research we do involves analysis of entire cores," Sharp said. "We may have to reconsider some of the work we planned to do, but the work can and will continue - and nearly 90 per cent of the archive is still intact."
The university was granted permission to house the ice collection in 2014 and moved the samples across the country in a specially designed freezer truck. The cores were in a container chilled to -30 C which also had a built-in temperature monitoring system. The system was fitted with a GPS system that sent text messages every hour with the unit's location and temperature.
The samples were moved into a walk-in freezer March 24. | <urn:uuid:aa86884a-d6fc-41f5-82c2-7e6943bb998d> | CC-MAIN-2019-04 | https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/ice-core-samples-used-for-climate-change-research-melted-after-freezer-failure-1.3358623 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-04/segments/1547583743003.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20190120224955-20190121010955-00597.warc.gz | en | 0.965494 | 593 | 2.875 | 3 |
By: Rhonda Nemri
We hold on to things that are valuable to us. The means of those things can stick with us forever, or they can be reconstructed into things we don’t want to be a part of. Our identity is shaped throughout our lives. Identity is everything to us. However, what happens when you want to reject the identity that has been ascribed to you since you were born? Culture plays a huge role in our lives, whether we like it or not, it is and always will be around us. As Simone de Beauvoir stated:
“One is not born, but rather becomes a woman. No biological psychological, or economic fate determines the figure that the human female presents in society; it is civilization as a whole that produces this creature, intermediate between male and eunuch, which is described as feminine” (The Second Sex 267).
Biologically women are seen as the child bearers, but socially, we our females, wives, mothers, and the other. Culture is not only based on whether you belong to an ethnic background, culture is the definition of your life through social, morals, values, norms, etc. We all have some sort of norms that we go by, whether it is norms we learn from family, friends, our careers,or societal norms. I will discuss the double-standard in general and then apply it to the Middle Eastern culture, how the double standard affects women today, and what it’s like being a Middle Eastern feminist in a male dominated culture.
One might think, “well the double standard occurs in all different kinds of cultures, including the American culture.” Yes, this is very true and sadly it does exist everywhere. As much as we can say women are equal to men; they work, go to school, they get to vote, etc. However, there are still societal issues that deal with a women that stops her from really indulging in the things she wants to do in her life and not what society wants her to do. The double-standard, is a standard that when comparing a man and woman, there are things that women can’t do, or get judged on because they are a woman, while the man is free to do whatever he likes without society pressuring him or judging him on his actions. We live in a socially constructed society, where men make the money, run the household, pay the bills, and there is no real biological factor for him other than procreating with a woman.
One of my favorite quotes by Simone de Beauvoir has a similar approach to the double-standard. “Man is defined as a human being and a woman as a female-whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male” (Brainy Quotes, 2012). In other words, anytime a woman wants to step outside the box, in a socially-disruptive society, then she is acting like a man and not ladylike. In my personal experience, whenever I had an opinion of some sort or show any anger, I was told “all of a sudden you want to speak up and act like a man.” In this patriarchal society that has been constructed on the bases that men are in control, it is hard for women to match up to a man. Women don’t want to be men; we just want to be recognized as equals to men. When growing up girls have always been told to act nice, sweet, pretty, play with dolls and act ladylike, while the boy is a rough, dirty, acts out, and should like cars and play with firetrucks. Anytime this girl acts like a boy she is considered what society calls a “tomboy.” If I were to ever play sports or act rough, then I was automatically considered a tomboy, but could never be androgynous, because girls should always act feminine and not both feminine and masculine.
A woman is to be looked at as honorable and no flaws or faults, where a man can have as many faults as he can and not be ridiculed the same way a woman has. Men having hectic sexual relations with many women make a man to be honored and accepted within the society. However if a woman were to do the same thing, then she is dirty, used, and will never be an honorable woman. Hardly ever men’s irresponsible actions destroy his social image: he is forgiven easily. A woman’s image at the same time is fragile and can easily get destroyed. This is painfully true, especially in my culture.
Metaphorically speaking, in the Middle Eastern culture, a women is very fragile and if she breaks she cannot be fixed.She is just like a glass fixture. Therefore, if she does anything wrong she is doomed. In the Middle East, honor is on a high pedestal. This does go for both men and women, however if a man and a woman were to do the same exact mistake, the woman will be scrutinized and is dishonorable because she is a woman. Just recently, I read in an article about a woman in Morocco, who was raped by a man, despite the fact she was sexually abused, her family forcefully pushed her to marry the man who raped her. She had no choice, but because she dishonored her family the only thing left to do was marry him or be killed. Unfortunately, she committed suicide because of the fact that she was about to have a forced marriage. The problem with this is, the man would be let free if he were to marry her, while the woman is forced in a marriage because of something she had no control over. The word honor has been misused. It has become something where if a woman does anything to dishonor her family, she is then the shame of the family. While the man is allowed to be aggressive or sexually aggressive because it is the “man’s nature” to be this way.
The Middle Eastern culture has a set of norms, values and morals. A lot of Middle Eastern countries encompass Islamic doctrines. Christian Arabs have used this religion as their foundations for cultural norms. From my personal experience, not all are this way, however most Arab families have strict tendencies and close knit traditions. Religious and cultural values have a big impact on the Middle Eastern heritage.
A woman in this culture has a set of duties that she must fulfill in her life. This in-tales marriage and having children. She is also expected to be married by the ages of 18-24. If she is not married by this time, then something must be wrong with her. It is easy for her to be judged because she is not married. Often you may hear “No man will want her if she is old”, “She will not be able to have kids if she marries old”. But because it has been socially constructed that women must marry and bear children, then she must follow this. If these norms are not met then something is wrong with her. When I reflect on my life, I know that being married at a young age does not make me a woman. Because women in my family married before 25, this means I should too. I know that what I have chosen is not based off of my inabilities to be married or find someone. It is because I know that I want to fulfill my destiny by accomplishing my wants and not everyone else’s wants.
Men have their moments of being pushed to marriage, however not for the same reasons. When a man gets married it is so that he can come home to house that is clean with his wife standing there waiting to greet him at the door with dinner ready on the table. This doesn’t mean I have to do this, however, these are the reasons why many men are pushed to get married, so that their mothers can stop taking care of them, and their wife can. A man can get married at 35 and this is normal, while a woman who gets married at 35 is not accepted.
Even though this is occurring in other cultures including the American culture, in the Middle Eastern culture, marriage for a woman, is the definition of being a “real” woman. It is not until marriage that she is able to be rationale, make decisions, and go out when she wants to. Even though this type of freedom is given to her, she is still under the patriarchy when she marries her husband. Once she leaves her parents home, her parents are no longer responsible for her, and the decisions that she makes. It is now the husbands duty to take “care” of her. When we look back at the marriage process, for hundreds of years it is always respectful to ask for the woman’s hand in marriage. The groom to be must go to the father, and then when the wedding day comes it is the father who is giving his daughter away (hardly the mother). She goes from one patriarchy to the other.
There is this community of women who are married, who feel that they have something in common with each other. Whereas the single woman in the background has no idea how to wash dishes, make dinner, or make decisions of their own because she is not married. The sad part about all of this is that these are woman who think this way, because they have internalize the patriarchal ways of knowing as their own ways of knowing, and have rejected their own view of the world. These women only add to the double-standard that society already creates.
The double-standard affects women because society has created this standard for how woman should act and be. If we continue to perpetuate these standards, then how is it that women are gaining rights and freedom? Why must a women be dishonorable if she is at fault? She is not allowed to make mistakes, while the man is able to make mistakes and it’s okay. We should be allowed to both be able to make mistakes and learn from them, and not be tormented and scrutinized for our mistakes. Yes woman can be doctors, lawyers, professors, etc. However, these women in these jobs are still discriminated against and still are in this box where they should act a certain way. Even though we are in these prestigious jobs, these jobs STILL pays us (women) less than a man.
Me being a Middle Eastern feminist has created issues for some. Because I do not follow the socially constructed ways a woman should be, then I am wrong. A lot of times I would be talking to people from my culture and the moment they find out I am a feminist, they have their opinions (which is fine) however they try to warn me to be careful when I speak up because if I do it the wrong way then I am acting masculine. This is the problem, and not only is this coming from men it comes from women also. I need to act feminine, so that I can find a man and get married. Because since I am a feminist, then it is going to be harder for me to be accepted. But why wouldn’t a man want a women who thinks, is intellectual, and wants to be free from anything that oppresses her? It is the fact of being empowered, and strong to face those who have little to no confidence in you.Yes, it is hard for my family to understand my motives, but it is only hard for them because they are only used to what they know, and what they want to know. Don’t get me wrong, I am respectful, open-minded to other views, caring, and loving. But, being a feminist shouldn’t be an issue, being a feminist made me a better, open-minded, accepting of others views, and empowered person. One needs to be open minded and not controlling of others lives. If women do not speak up whether they are middle eastern or any other culture, then they will always be stuck in what society wants them to do, rather than women deciding what they want to do. Since the Middle Eastern culture is rather dominated by men, it is always harder for me to reach those men to understand what I believe in. Since I am a woman, then I do not know what I am talking about. I believe that I have not rejected my culture completely, however I have rejected the ways that this culture thinks what is best for me. I do enjoy the music, poets, family gathering, food, etc., however this is not whats making me reject the culture, it is the socially constructed norms that I reject.
*Note: Anything italicized in this blog is taken from an article I wrote that is published in the Communication journal called Pastels (Purdue University Calumet). I will give you the website of the Pastels to read the full article on the double-standard and also other articles written in this journal. http://pastelsjournal.org/third-volume/
Please take a look at these websites that offer many author’s on Feminism in the Middle East.
http://www.cddc.vt.edu/feminism/jor.html Feminism in Jordan
http://www.cddc.vt.edu/feminism/egy.html Feminism in Egypt
http://www.cddc.vt.edu/feminism/pal.html Feminism in Palestine
http://www.cddc.vt.edu/feminism/ira.html Feminism in Iran
http://www.cddc.vt.edu/feminism/isr.html Feminism in Israel
http://www.cddc.vt.edu/feminism/sau.html Feminism in Saudi Arabia
http://www.cddc.vt.edu/feminism/leb.html Feminism in Lebanon | <urn:uuid:2c6af5f2-7d0f-4ba2-bbe6-04df27a81bb0> | CC-MAIN-2018-26 | https://feministtalk.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/middle-eastern-culture-feminist-views/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-26/segments/1529267863886.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20180620202232-20180620222232-00198.warc.gz | en | 0.978575 | 2,853 | 2.609375 | 3 |
The Greene Land Trust is dedicated to helping to protect the many places that make Greene County such a special place. Scenic vistas that inspired the Hudson River school of painters, agricultural lands that are an important part of our heritage; mountains and valleys that have attracted visitors for generations, habitat for an abundance of wild things and open spaces that offer recreation opportunities for us and future generation; all of these deserve our care and our concern.
Why Protecting Land is Important
For many of us, saving the places that enrich our lives is reason enough to support conservation. But much more is at stake. Ensuring that our natural areas are preserved is critical to the quality of the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat.
For the landowner, permanent land protection, such as conservation easements, can be desirable for many reasons including protecting the land’s agricultural value or productivity, ensuring that family lands remain intact for future generations, reducing estate taxes, and helping to balance open space and development in their communities.
Community Economic Benefits of Protecting Land
There are documented local economic benefits of conserving and managing open space. A Cost of Services Analysis for Coxsackie completed in 2007 revealed that open space required $0.20 in service for every $1.00 paid in taxes. In contrast, residential land use costs $1.23 in the Town and $1.28 in the Village of Coxsackie for every $1.00 of tax collected from these properties. Further local economic benefits of open spaces are realized as outdoor recreation expenditures, including those associated with hiking and bird watching, which continue to be an important part of what brings visitors to Greene County. In addition, the community receives “environmental services” from open spaces. These services include the natural protection of water quality and the increase of stormwater infiltration by vegetation, thereby reducing the threat of downstream flooding and thus reducing costs associated with mitigating these problems.
How the Greene Land Trust Works to Protect Land
The Trust works with public and private landowners to protect natural and related cultural resources for future generations using a variety of tools and incentives.
A conservation easement is an agreement between a land owner and a land trust or government agency. The easement permanently restricts the uses of the land in order to protect its conservation values. For that reason a conservation easement is sometimes called a conservation restriction.
With a conservation easement you continue to own and use your land. You can sell it or pass it on to heirs. However, the restrictions that were agreed to in the Conservation Easement are binding on all future owners. The land trust is responsible for making sure that the terms of the easement are upheld.
Under certain circumstances, donating an easement may result in a federal income tax deduction. In New York State it might also qualify for an State income tax credit. More information about conservation easements is available from the Land Trust Alliance, an organization representing more than 1600 land trusts. More About Conservation Easements.
Other Methods for Land Protection
Donation of land for conservation:
If you choose to donate your land, the Greene Land Trust will work with you to identify the best arrangement. The Greene Land Trust might retain ownership of the property as a permanent preserve (if it is certain that the Greene Land Trust has the financial resources to provide stewardship of the property) or the Greene Land Trust may transfer the property to a suitable owner, such as a government agency. The full market value of land donated to a nonprofit land trust is tax deductible as a charitable gift.
Bargain sale of land:
In a bargain sale, the landowner sells land to a land trust for less than its fair market value. This not only makes the land more affordable for the land trust, but also provides cash to the landowner, avoids some capital gains taxes, and entitles the landowner to a charitable income tax deduction based on the difference between the land’s fair market value and its sale price.
Resale of land:
If you need to sell your land, but don’t want to see it altered by development, you can work with the Land Trust to place a conservation easement on the land before it goes on the market.
Further information on land protection across the country...
Click here to visit the Land Trust Alliance, a national non-profit representative of over 1,600 land trusts nationwide, for more information about other conservation methods, fact sheets and other useful publications. The Greene Land Trust is a member of the Land Trust Alliance. | <urn:uuid:ce40e38b-d157-4fca-bfd0-de805402274a> | CC-MAIN-2020-05 | https://greenelandtrust.org/protecting-land | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-05/segments/1579250628549.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20200125011232-20200125040232-00007.warc.gz | en | 0.935812 | 930 | 2.71875 | 3 |
We covered a lot on debugging and testing in this chapter. You learned several techniques on how to test your application. You learned how to build and run tests on your development box and on emulators or real devices. Appium is really awesome if you spend time to build coverage of all your code. For the most part, the tests are fairly cross platform with minor changes to the field types.
In addition, we covered how to actually debug your application, which can be very important when attempting to figure out why something isn't working as expected.
If you are looking for a specific file or what it does, remember to check out all the locations listed in Chapter 2, The Project Structure. This chapter can help greatly when you are trying to figure out where to stick something in a new project.
When you are in need of a cool feature, don't forget to check out all the cool plugins and the sites where you can find them. It is normally better to reuse other tested code than to build your... | <urn:uuid:cc69f470-4bf4-45f8-ab5d-e39ebed8554d> | CC-MAIN-2023-50 | https://subscription.packtpub.com/book/mobile/9781785888656/7/ch07lvl1sec55/summary | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100540.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20231205010358-20231205040358-00822.warc.gz | en | 0.960314 | 205 | 2.921875 | 3 |
by Yitshak Katzenelson
Translated by Miriam Leberstein
Cry out from every grain of sand, from under every stone
from all the dust, the flames, from every wisp of smoke.
It is your blood, your life's blood, the marrow of your bones;
it is your body and your soul cry out, cry loudly out.
Cry out from inside the beasts of the forest, the fish in the river
(From, The Poem of the Murdered Jewish Folk)
Translated by Pamela Russ
Nowy Dwor is one of the oldest cities in Poland. It was built in 1333. It lies between the Vistula and the Narew rivers. For these reasons, the city was recognized as being strongly strategic in its location and important to its surroundings.
For geographic reasons, the Modlin Fortress was built in the area of Nowy Dwor, at a distance of one and a half kilometers from the town. In 1812, as Napoleon was headed towards Moscow, he waged a battle in Nowy Dwor and spent the night in the village of Bogumyn (three kilometers from Nowy Dwor). The resistance in 1861 and 1863 left its imprint on the town.
During each evacuation, the Jews suffered terribly, with many lives being lost as well as many possessions. The First World War also records many tragic pages about the sufferings of the Jews in Nowy Dwor who had to leave the town six times. With each evacuation, people's lives and much of their material lives were lost.
When Poland became independent, the town began to forge its way towards development. It finally acquired canals, lights, and planted gardens. It thus became a larger town with many prospects.
The general number of people, according to statistics, was 12,600, of which 8,200 were Jews. In the state council, there were eleven Jewish councilmen, three aldermen, and in those times the assistant mayor was also a Jew named Rudowicki. The annual budget reached 100,000 zlotys.
The leader of the municipality was Reb Reuven Leyb Neufeld, a very cultured man with a very refined character. During the World War, he was very much on top of the situation with his humanitarianism, bringing everyone help, and saving many victims from Russian executioners.
The following schools were in the town: A Hebrew Tarbut school, L. Mundlak; a Bundist school, Medem. In all the schools, there were Yiddish, Hebrew, and Polish books, and some in other foreign languages, totaling 15,000 items.
Zionist, Revisionist, Mizrachi, Agudah, Poalei Zion, Bund, and Communist.
The town had the following economic institutions that formed a labor-financial framework:
a bank, two loan funds, a workman's guild. The adjacent region, along with Nowy Dwor, shared a Jewish workers' union and a small merchants' union.
Business and industry belonged to the Jews. These enterprises were, for example, factories of crockery, sales of produce, and running sawmills and flour mills. The development of the factories in those times moved so quickly in the town that the Jewish workers created their own professional machinery. The base for Jewish business was the Modlin Fortress. All necessary things and all supplies were transacted there by the Jews.
In 1934, the first footsteps of anti-Semitism appeared. In Nowy Dwor there were about 6,000 German colonists who had their own ample resources.
Until the outbreak of the war, the Jews fought difficult battles with anti-Semitism in business and in other economic areas. There were also rebellions that the mayor Czeslow Psedjewski had to quell. He was a very just man, of good character, and thanks to his energy and influence, these uprisings did not grow into major revolutions.
On September 1, 1939, the first German airplanes were already near the sawmills where the first victims fell. Because of this commotion, the Jewish residents left the town and headed towards Warsaw. During the month of these bombings, there were many victims. In Warsaw, there were 500 victims, and in Nowy Dwor itself, there were more than 30 deaths.
Once the Germans took over Warsaw, many Jews returned to Nowy Dwor, but this return was tragic because three quarters of the town was destroyed and the better houses that remained were requisitioned for the German colonists. The poorer houses were left for the Jews, wasted houses, where it was impossible to live.
The first decree that was passed was that Jews were forbidden to open stores. In December 1939, the German government passed an order to register all the Jews, and that showed a total of 2,800 people. And then, at the end of December, the representatives of the city Nachum Neufeld and Boruch Tik were summoned and informed that within four days the Jews would have to leave the city. At the same time, they began to requisition materials, furniture, bed linen, and whatever little else the Jews had left in their possession. They also imprisoned 20 people. Six of these died in concentration camps. They thought up all kinds of tortures for them, performed executions, and the agonies were horrific.
On one of those four days (it was a bitterly cold day), they collected all the holy seforim (religious books) into the center of the marketplace and then assembled all the Jews there. They cut the women's hair with knives, and used that to tie together all the seforim, then told Altshtayn, a Jew, that he should set the seforim on fire. When he didn't follow their orders, they beat him so terribly that he died on the spot. At this auto-da-fé, the Jews had to sing Hatikva, dance, beat themselves, and then jump into the fire. In this bloody scene, they told one religious Jew to beat his son, and when they saw that this father and son were hitting each other too gently, the Germans showed them how to do it right, so that the father and son were sick from this for many months thereafter.
On December 28, they took over the libraries of Harav Neufeld and Nachum Neufeld that were kept in the Fortress of Modlin, , and then they gave each Jewish worker a can of kerosene and told them that within an hour there should not be even a trace of ashes left of these books. Then they killed two of these Jews and robbed three others because they were taking too long to complete the task.
On January 15, after locking Nowy Dwor into the Reich, only poor people remained in the city, and of those about 20 men were arrested, and they were forced to produce 20,000 zlotys. Those who were arrested were taken by cargo truck to Legionowo. Because of the arrest, Benyomin Pinker died of fear. He was an Orthodox community activist. The prisoners in Legionowa were left without food and they were beaten mercilessly until they lost consciousness. A tailor, Abramczyk, was beaten to death. When the Jews had accumulated the stipulated amount of money, these prisoners were released. Some of them ran off to Warsaw and some of them stayed in the Reich, in Nowy Dwor, and are there until today.
With this I end the description of my tragic home town.
Friday, on the morning of September 1, our town was shaken up by the shuddering of the houses and windows. Everyone got out of their beds to find out what was happening. Groups of people gathered and one told the other how in his house the cabinets were shaking, and the other said how his glasses rattled. Very quickly, everyone figured out that a bomb had fallen near the Narew River. One person was seriously wounded and two lightly wounded from the fallout.
Later, I met our mayor and he told me that he had been trying to telephone the town's governor but was unable to reach him. At about 7:30, he received the first telephone message that Germany had declared war on Poland.
Our city lies near the Modlin Fortress and the declaration of war caused a huge panic. That same day, Friday, the well-to-do people packed their things and left the city. I accompanied a friend of mine to the train station. He had been called up to the army. There was a terrible panic. Mothers, women, and children accompanied their husbands, sons, and parents, and parted from one another with tears in their eyes.
By two o'clock in the afternoon, we had endured the first air fights between Polish and German airplanes. There was a frightful tumult. Some were packing; some were running to the shelters. Each step was taken amid great chaos. At eleven o'clock at night I was summoned to the military office and I was given the job of supervising the train line from the Modlin station to the station of our town.
On Shabbos, September 2, we saw trains loaded with evacuated people going from Gdynia and other cities near the border. We also saw the first wounded being taken to Warsaw. Everyone was leaving the city, only a few families remained. A lot of Polish military moved in. The homes of all those who had left the town were ransacked and the Jewish stores were looted.
The front was moving closer. The roads filled with military and civilians. There were people who were packed into their wagons, hurrying to get to Warsaw. At the same time, there were people on the road who were trying to run away from the city. Airplanes arrived, escorting those who were running with shooting and machine guns. I also left the city and arrived in Warsaw on September 7 in the morning. There was a terrible panic there and thousands of young people with backpacks were leaving the city.
At the first opportunity to return home, everyone ran back, but by then no one could recognize the city. The trade center burned to the ground. The entire Warsaw Street, Neufeld's sawmill and flour mill, Winogradow's crockery factory, the Beis Midrash, the shul everything was burned down. There were hundreds of Jewish victims wounded in shootings and from bombs.
Four families settled in one house. A new hell began for the Jews. The thugs went from house to house and everything that there was became requisitioned and was taken. They took clothing, bed linen, furniture, let alone all kinds of other materials, and so on. Also, they began to snatch up people for work, and it was impossible to leave the house because as of six in the morning they would go into Jewish houses and grab out the men for work. The majority of the work they assigned was to clean toilets with bare hands, and meanwhile workers were beaten over the head with iron bars.
Again, we ran, and this time it is to cross the border. We sold our last things for pennies, just to have some money.
Party leaders and the youth were running away, and those who stayed began to modify their lives to these conditions.
Once, the town became terrified when there was an influx of unknown Jews. These Jews had been chased out of Sierpc from across the Narew, and because Nowy Dwor is the first city past the Reich's border, they told the Jews that they could stay here. They settled the Jews in Jewish homes for the night and brought help for them along with all the necessities. These Jews were hardly able to spend the night and recover, when the police went from house to house, taking all these strangers to the marketplace and then beat them. Whoever tried to bring these people food or drink was also detained there and beaten.
The night that was yet to come was even more terrible. At 12 midnight, the town was wrapped in darkness, and again a few thousand Jews were collected from other cities and brought in. They didn't leave these people alone, and they were kept under the open sky all night. There was a terrible frost and a lot of snow. The screams of mothers and children tore into the town. I was shocked by this horrific scene that I saw from my window. Under the whips of the soldiers there were a few thousand Jews who were being forced to sing all kinds of songs. I heard strains of Hatikva, Ovinu Malkeinu (prayer recited on Yom Kippur), and so on. That's how they kept them until six in the morning, and then they beat them again.
Friday, September 1, six in the morning, the first bomb fell. There were many wounded and dead.
Sunday the 3rd, daytime, an air assault over the station and Modlin Fortress. Dead and wounded.
Tuesday the 5th, fleeing the city took on massive proportion. The rich and the poor alike were leaving.
Wednesday, the 13th, firebombs kept falling. The center of the town disappeared in the fire.
Wednesday the 27th, the day of Yom Kippur, firebombs and grenades kept falling. The Beis Medrash was burned down. The shul was destroyed by grenades. There were scores of dead and wounded.
Shabbos, September 30, the German military captured the Modlin Fortress and Nowy Dwor.
The people began to return to Nowy Dwor on October 3rd. At that time, people would be snatched up for work every day, both from their homes and from the streets. Mostly, people would be grabbed out of the lines at the bakery. The relations between the Jews and the Poles were not good. At that time the entire building of the shul and the mikva (ritual bath) was taken over. Also, some of the Jewish houses were taken.
December 9, there were arrests of Jews, about twenty plus men. They were beaten brutally while under arrest.
Sunday, December 10, it was announced with drums that the Jewish people had to pay the magistrate 50,000 Gilden. In the interim, the mayor demanded payment of 15,000 Gilden. At that same time, a group of Jewish workers was returning home from working on the bridge, and a Jew of about 70 years old was shot. The monies that were demanded created such a panic that this provoked the greatest flight of the Jewish population.
At the beginning of the year 1940, the famous auto-da-fé took place in broad daylight, and all the Torah scrolls that were found were burned.
At the beginning of spring 1940, some individuals began returning to Nowy Dwor, and then a terrible tragedy occurred 19 men and two women were taken away. Until today, there is no trace of them.
by A. Goldbroch and W. Shliamowicz
Translated by Pamela Russ
German troops entered Nowy Dwor on the second day of Sukos. The following day, the Gestapo arrived and immediately started destroying Jewish houses and property. This destruction continued for a few days, during which time the Gestapo shot two Jews, while a third miraculously survived and suffered severe beating. The Gestapo's actions had a huge effect on the Jewish population. They began to abandon the town in great numbers and fled to the devastated city of Warsaw, which was already packed with refugees from surrounding towns, including Nowy Dwor. The number of Jews remaining dwindled to very few.
The inhumanities continued. Soon, at the end of November 1939, forty Jews were arrested, including Chaim Abramczyk, Chaim Gorecki, and Yisroel Yakov Biak. Wendt, the appointed city mayor, a local Folksdeutsche (an ethnic German-resident of pre-war Poland), brought them from nearby Modlin where they had tried to hide. During the days that followed, the prisoners endured merciless beatings and many different methods of torture, such as having fingernails and hair torn out, being forced to drink quantities of castor oil, and having to eat their own excrement. Chaim Abramczyk died soon after as a result of this mistreatment. In addition to all these terrible sufferings, the German authorities imposed an additional contribution (ransom) of 50,000 zlotys (to release the prisoners).
A short time later, the Gestapo dragged out all the Torah scrolls from the shul in order to burn them. The burning ceremony took place in the middle of the marketplace. The Jews, including the bookbinder Alman and other elderly Jews, were forced to dance around this fire of Torah scrolls.
Not long after this, the order was given that all Jews must obtain German identification papers. When the Jews arrived at the Magistrat (City Hall) to acquire the documents, the Folksdeutsche police arrested a few of them. They were taken to the police station where they were tortured and forced to drink castor oil and eat spoiled and rotten food. The German police amused themselves by watching the unfortunate Jews complain of stomach cramps and then soil themselves. The Germans continued to laugh at the victims and beat them, then eventually threw them out. Among these victims were Mayer Kleister and Shmaja Puterman.
After this incident, Jews, including those had returned to Nowy Dwor, again began to flee to Warsaw.
Because of the horrible conditions in Warsaw, where hundreds of Jews died in the streets from hunger, the runaways began to return to Nowy Dwor. Once the Gestapo noticed this, they ordered Jews to register. The Gestapo headquarters at that time occupied the house of Myer Mundlak, not far from the Polish cemetery. In this place, the most horrific acts of torture were performed. The Gestapo selected 41 Jews from those who had returned from Warsaw. These people were sent to an unknown destination and were never heard from again. Among these unfortunates were the families of Chaim Bur, Yankel Kleister, Moshe Aaron Eidelsberg, Dovid Itkowicz and Yankel, the husband of Chava Tyk.
During entire year of 1940, all Jews were compelled to make themselves available for forced labor on a daily basis. The Germans were not satisfied only with imposing extremely hard work, so they persisted in their beatings and tortures.
At the beginning of 1941, the Germans established the Nowy Dwor ghetto in the poorest part of town, known as the Piaskes (the dogs' place[kennel]). The ghetto was enclosed with a barbed wire fence, with only one guarded gate for traffic in and out. On orders from the Gestapo …
… the ghetto inmates elected a Judenrat (Jewish Council) with a Jewish elder. Rothstein (the power station cashier) became the head of this institution. A Jewish ghetto police was also established under the control of the Gestapo. The Judenrat was ordered to supply 400 Jews daily for forced labor in Modlin, where they had to carry heavy bundles of barbed wire and they were often beaten for slowing down even slightly or for not filling the exaggerated quota requirements. For their work, they were fed an insignificant amount -- 100 grams of bread and a liter of watery soup for a full day's work.
The head of the Judenrat, Rothstein, could not watch the hunger and pain of his townspeople, and so he resigned from his position as Jewish elder in the ghetto. He was replaced by Yosef Gershon (Nieszkele's son) and his assistants: Herman Abramowycz, Yisroel Tiszler (Skrobak), Nachman Reichman (Ktunte's son), Yankel Baranek (the new police chief), Shlomo Sosinski (Hershel Morde's youngest son) and Chaim Dachfan (Jacek's son). These men began working and co-operating with the German Gestapo, to their fullest capacity.
The ration cards distributed by the Judenrat were for minimal amounts of food, so the hunger became unbearable. The ghetto population was forced to seek ways of smuggling in basic life provisions from the outside. This smuggling involved sneaking in and out through holes in the ghetto's barbed wire and putting one's life in danger. During one of these attempts by eight Jews driven by hunger, they were captured and hanged in the ghetto on the same day. Ghetto Jews had to act as executioners in the presence of the entire population of the ghetto. For three whole days, the unfortunate martyrs remained on the gallows. Among those captured was the oldest son of Jehoshua Weiskopf (the grube Rochel's grandson). The mother of the young man wanted to save her older son by substituting her youngest son for him. She was convinced that they would free a minor. But this was to no avail: the young boy was hanged along with the others.
Shortly after this incident, six more ghetto residents managed to get out under the barbed wire, with the purpose of obtaining food for their starved families. Two were caught and immediately shot dead: the two grandsons of Moishe Henoch Gertner Avrohom and Boruch Gutkind. A few weeks later, a man by the name of Kirsztein (probably the son of Hershel Kirsztein) was shot under the same circumstances.
During that same time, the ghetto would be randomly riddled with bullets by members of the Gestapo. This game always resulted in many deaths and many wounded.
In May, 1941, the Gestapo decided that there were too many people living in the ghetto and they began a new set of horrific acts. By decree, all Jews had to leave their homes and assemble with all their belongings for disinfection. Naked women and men were forced to march to the Vistula River and were kept there until late in the evening. Their clothing was disinfected and returned to them before they were marched home, but all other belongings were stolen.
That same night, at approximately 2 AM, the ghetto's residents were awakened by the sound of sirens and gunfire, and all were forced to leave the ghetto. They had to leave through the only gate, where they passed through a gauntlet consisting of two rows of Gestapo agents who beat them mercilessly. About 4,000 Jews were assembled in the Nowy Dwor marketplace. Some 750 of them were selected for work and those remaining were sent to Pomiechowa.
The camp in Pomiechowa was a death camp for Jews and was located about five kilometers from the Narew River. There were many underground bunkers in the surrounding area (storage facilities for the old Modlin Fortress) that were hastily converted for this purpose. The S.A. troops (German Sturm Abteilung) packed the men, women, and children into the bunkers, leaving no space to move. The S.A. entertained themselves by selecting the youngest and prettiest girls, raping them, and then silencing them with a bullet.
The main task of the inmates in the Pomiechowa camp was to dig mass graves for themselves. Permission to bring food from the ghetto was given only about two weeks later. When the field kitchen arrived in the camp with hot soup, all the starving Jews rushed toward it, and while pushing and shoving to get some, overturned the pot. The spilled soup formed a muddy puddle. This did not stop some of the hungry prisoners who threw themselves on the ground and licked the muddy soup. Similar incidents occurred every time they brought water, and many Jews were trampled to death that way, including one of Szymanowicz's grandchildren. The German guards enjoyed watching these scenes that were a result of hunger and thirst, and laughed as they watched.
As a result of these conditions, illness started spreading through the camp. Typhoid affected almost everyone. Instead of providing medical help, the Gestapo used to shoot 50 of the weak and sick every day. Once, when the Gestapo made a mistake and killed only 48, they quickly took two more, Leibish Soszynski (Pupek) from Nowy Dwor and Nisen Mirabel from the town of Zakroczyn.
After these shootings, very often they buried not only the dead, but also those who were wounded but still alive. This could usually be verified the next day by the inmates who, after a fresh round of shooting, had to dig new graves in the same execution place. These inmates used to say that the old and barely covered graves often seemed disturbed as the top layers of soil had been scattered in the struggle made by those victims who had been buried alive and were trying to escape. It is said that among those half dead and buried were Yankel Karasz (Betzalel the glazier's son), Mendel Kornstein ( or Szweiger), Avrohom Szymanowicz (Abraham Pinje's son) and his wife Rivka, Avrohom Hersh Gothelf (the barber), and Moshe Kirsztein (or Moshe Lepek).
When anyone from the Nowy Dwor ghetto tried to bring some food to his relatives in the Pomiechowa camp, he would be shot on the spot. This was the case of Zelig Top (or Szczerb), a 12-year-old boy. After he was shot, his parents were forced to bury him. A great number of Nowy Dwor Jews perished in the Pomiechowa camp in the same way under these conditions.
Soon after the typhoid epidemic spread and affected the S.A. guards as well, an order arrived to liquidate the Pomiechowa camp. The liquidation proceeded as follows: first, the sick were murdered, then the healthy inmates were placed into freight cars, and to increase their misery during transport, they were treated to poisoned sausages. The transport travelled at night and the destination was the town of Legionowo. The S.A. prepared a big welcoming celebration for the inmates: a burning fire through which each of the Jews from the transport had to run. This resulted in many being burned to death. These included Balcze Tarnegol (Itche the baker's daughter) and Sara Gladomosc (Moshe Mordche's wife). Many had already died from the poisoned food on the way. Only a very small number of inmates managed to survive their move to the Warsaw ghetto. This concluded the bloody chapter of the Pomiechowa camp.
Meanwhile, in the Nowy Dwor ghetto, the death-machine continued working without stopping. When the 750 Jews who were selected for work returned from the market to the ghetto, they found a mass of dead bodies, the result of the attack and shootings that had taken place during the earlier forced assembly in the square. Twenty-eight bodies with gunshot and knife wounds lay in front of homes and in the streets. Among these were the whole Gershon family (Nieskele's), Yechiel Prag and Aron Stolcman with his brother-in- law. During the burial of the 28 bodies, an S.S. man approached the gravedigger and asked Aaron Leyb Knecht, How many dead are there? When he replied, 28, the S.S. man shot him as the 29th.
A decree was issued by the German government that the population of the Nowy Dwor ghetto could not exceed 750 Jews; anyone over that number was to be shot immediately. Responsibility for adhering to this decree was placed on the Judenrat.
The decree was rescinded not too many weeks later and it was undertaken to enlarge the ghetto in order to absorb the surviving Jews of the ghettos Wysegrad, Czerwinsk, Zakroczyn and other small ghettos that had already been liquidated in the surrounding area. The Nowy Dwor Jews in the Warsaw ghetto exploited this opportunity to smuggle themselves back into their home ghetto. The sudden influx of so many new arrivals led to horrendous chaos and indescribable hunger. People had to sleep in the streets for lack of housing and a raging typhoid epidemic led to an exceedingly high death rate. With complete disregard for everything that was happening, the Gestapo insisted on doubling the number of workers that were sent daily to the Modlin port.
The year 1942 began with a new evil decree: Now women also had to report for the same forced labor that the men did. All the women were sent to Modlin to load bundles of barbed wire. This work was done under the worst conditions. The number of Jews required for this task increased daily; many were forced to report for work in Modlin just after completing a full day's work in some other place. On one occasion, 42 Jews were taken away to one such work group. These people were forced to strip naked, they were beaten murderously, and they remained naked as they carried out their tasks with the barbed wire for the entire day. One very discouraged Jew from Zakroczyn, by the name of Gosh, couldn't tolerate this work any longer. He jumped into the Narew River and drowned. The remaining 41 had to finish the assigned job. Afterward, they were made to dig a large hole in the ground. Twenty-nine of them were shot immediately and thrown into the freshly-prepared hole, including Mordechai Matuszok, Shaya Moshe Olszynka and a son-in-law of Mordche Joskowicz. Eleven survivors managed to be hidden by Yechezkel Szwarc, and they sneaked back into the ghetto during the night, completely naked. Terrible scenes followed in the ghetto among the relatives of those who were shot.
Soon, the evacuation from the Nowy Dwor ghetto began in earnest, one after another.
November 1942 - the first evacuation. The German S.A. surrounded the ghetto and it was now completely locked up. The order was given that all those unable to work, the sick and the very young, should assemble in the ghetto square. All those assembled were immediately herded to the train station, loaded into closed cattle cars, and taken to Auschwitz.
A week later - the second evacuation. The Judenrat was ordered by the Gestapo immediately to assemble all families with more than two children, as well as widows and orphans, in the ghetto square. The final outcome was the same as for the first group: transport to Auschwitz.
And then came the day of the liquidation of the Nowy Dwor ghetto, December 12, 1942.
At seven o'clock in the morning, the ghetto was overrun by a large number of Schutz Polizei (Security Police) and S.A. troops, all shooting rifles and handguns to evoke panic among the residents. All the Jews were chased out of their homes and assembled in the ghetto square where they were grouped in rows of five. Money and any valuables had to be surrendered under threat of death. Despite this, the Germans also engaged in various death games. I am one of these with whom they are playing games, co-author Abraham Goldberg writes. I am dragged away to a house on a side street and completely stripped. The guard presses his revolver to my head and miraculously I was not shot. After enduring many acts of cruelty, the residents of the Nowy Dwor ghetto were marched to the railroad station, packed into cattle cars, and sent to the death place of the majority of Nowy Dwor Jews Auschwitz.
December 14, 1942, the last transport with the remaining Jews of the Nowy Dwor ghetto arrived in Auschwitz. As soon as the approximately 2,000 Jews disembarked, 600 of the strongest looking ones were selected to stay and work in Auschwitz.
Those remaining, men, women, and children, were taken to the extermination camp Brzezynka. The six hundred new inmates in Auschwitz immediately learned of the fate of the previous Nowy Dwor transports from the old inmates how the Nowy Dwor inmates from the first and second transports were murdered. And from this they already knew what awaited them in this new transport in this new extermination camp of Brzezynka.
At this time, Auschwitz did not have any crematoria, only large gas chambers. Every gas chamber would be densely packed with two hundred people, and each of them given a piece of soap and a towel to give the impression that they were going to bathe. The moment they were packed into the gas chambers, another group of two hundred was already prepared, waiting outside. The gassed bodies were thrown into pits, then they were doused with benzene and burned under the open sky. So went one group after another. Those waiting their turn could see the smoke after the gassing, and because of that there were horrific scenes of hysteria, people screaming, and then outbreaks of madness. We witnessed all these horrible occurrences with our own eyes. That was the scene in the extermination at that time and that's how our loved ones lost their lives in the Brzezinka, Auschwitz, and other death camps. The first thing that happened to the 600 who were selected for work in the Auschwitz was a change of clothing. All civilian clothing was exchanged for prisoners' clothing, and shoes for wooden clogs like those worn in Holland. Inmates were forced to conduct various exercises in these uncomfortable wooden sandals under the eyes of the guards who handed out all kinds of physical punishments. At the roundups the S.S. guards used every opportunity to threaten that they would get rid of all the Jews, and meanwhile the Jews had to work hard. Despite the sub-zero winter conditions and indescribable hunger, the prisoners were forced to perform hard work from sunrise to sundown. Tens and hundreds died daily under these conditions.
There were four working crematoria in Auschwitz. All the burning work there was carried out by Jewish prisoners, under constant threat of death. Included in this group of workers were also the former residents of Nowy Dwor: Gutman, Bronstein, Yechezkel Gutkind, Yosef Szydlo, Sholom Cudiker, Yehoshua Baranek, Josef Shul, Nachmen Helfenbein, Matis Shliamowicz, the brothers Guzhik, the brother-in-law of Moshe Lokiecz Avrohom and his brother Efroim, and Szepsel Grossman (the only survivor of the aforementioned inmates). They all continued this work in the crematoria until 1944.
The crematorium workers (known as death commandos') were completely isolated from other camp inmates and were constantly watched, under penalty of death themselves. In spite of this strict isolation, they tried to organize uprisings in the camp. The first such attempt to organize an uprising in the camp did not work, but after that the death commandos organized an uprising in the actual crematoria, and this time it was successful.
In utmost secrecy, they set out explosives around the crematoria. The sadistic Kapos of the commandos were thrown into the ovens before the explosions. Then came the explosions.
After the destruction of the crematoria, the prisoners of the death commandos managed to cut the electrically-charged wire fences using improvised pliers, and they escaped to freedom through the walls. The surprised guards in the towers surrounding the camp immediately opened fire, sounded the alarm, and started to pursue the escapees. German reinforcements arrived almost immediately and a grave battle was fought at a cost of some two hundred lives, including the above mentioned Nowy Dwor group.
The captured prisoners were returned to the camp under the repaired electrified barbed wire, and the number of guards in the watchtowers increased.
We stayed in Auschwitz until January 18, 1945. During the two years of 1944 and 1945, we continued to suffer, and lived with the memory of the uprising. According to the details that we found out later, the explosives used to destroy the crematoria had been smuggled in by the women inmates who worked outside the camp and were in secret contact with the men of the death commandos. Four of the women prisoners were hanged.
On January 18, 1945, in order to escape the approaching Soviet Army, the transport of prisoners to other camps in Germany began. During this evacuation, many Jews died, among them almost all of the Nowy Dwor Jews who had been in Auschwitz.
The Walled Ghetto
by Sender Blank, Haifa
Translated by Pamela Russ
Until the Establishment of the Ghetto
Right at the beginning of the war, with the German invasion of Poland, Nowy Dwor suffered terribly on account of its military location with strategic bases near the city.
The well-known Modlin Fortress near Nowy Dwor was able to hold out its own defense one day longer than the residential city of Warsaw. The day after Warsaw surrendered, Nowy Dwor still had to endure bombing by German airplanes. At that time, about twenty souls perished in the cellar of Blatt's house. Among these victims were: Mendel Koczalski (the grain producer) and his wife, Hershel Zakhajm with his wife and sister-in-law the mother of Hershel Dubnikow, Miryam Laya.
A large part of the Nowy Dwor population went over to Warsaw very soon after the outbreak of the war on account of the persistent air assaults on the Modlin Fortress. The Nowy Dwor people experienced terrible times. Soon after the military operations terminated, many of those from Nowy Dwor returned to their homes. But just a few days after their return, everyone was already able to see what the future held for them.
The local Folksdeutsche became the governors of the city. These were known criminals, the Wendt brothers. They began their vengeful acts on the Jews …. saying: The Jews have lived too well until now… There was already no thought of a Jewish store being open, and they began snatching men for work, particularly for heavy work which the Jews were not accustomed to doing. Large work brigades of Jews were assigned to repair the bridge across the Narew. The bridge had been destroyed by a Nazi bomb. In the Modlin port (stocznia Modlinska [Modlin dockyard]), the Jews had to do the dirtiest work in their service to the German soldiers. Their situation was unbearable, and some of the youth found a way to cross the border to the Soviet side.
A rumor spread at that time that it was mainly the men who would suffer and whose lives were in danger. So, the women were able to be less frightened. Because of the situation for the men, the women urged their husbands to go to Russia while they would remain alone in the town and take care of their belongings. Many of the youth who could have escaped to the Soviet side remained in town out of loyalty to their parents and families.
It was the ones with more means that were the first to leave. The merchants began secretly to move their goods into Warsaw and find housing there, figuring that the war would last another few months. Meanwhile, we'll use up some of the money, was the thinking. And that's how we survived the war.
Only a small number of Jews remained in Nowy Dwor at that time the laborers and the general workers those who said: I've always worked, so I'll continue to work. There also remained those who did not have the means to rent housing in Warsaw nor the finances to survive. Within a short time, only several hundred Jews were left in Nowy Dwor.
These Jews that were left had to do the worst forced labor. The Polaks [sic] and Germans robbed them of everything and took over all the Jewish stores and workshops. What hit hard were the arbitrary laws that were soon heavily enforced …
… stating that Jews had to sew onto their left breast and on the right shoulder yellow patches of shame that were ten centimeters wide; that Jews were forbidden to walk on the sidewalks but could only walk on the curb; that the Jew must remove his hat before each German; and all Jewish institutions shuls, study halls (Beis Medrash), and ritual baths must be destroyed so that there should be no trace of anything Jewish. The Jewish population was very demoralized by this. Out of shame, each person tried to avoid the other. The humiliation was unbearable. But slowly, people began to become accustomed to Hitler's orders and never-ending decrees.
In December 1939, there was an auto-da-fé. They collected all the Torah scrolls and Jewish books (seforim), and then on a frigid day, they assembled all the Jewish men into the market square, women and children too. All the men were forced to don prayer shawls (taleisim), and the ceremony began, as Mendel Frankel was given the honor of setting fire to the Torah scrolls and Jewish books. The Germans standing around began to laugh: Here, the Jewish God is burning! And everyone was forced to dance around the fire and sing the songs that the Nazis with their rubber clubs forced the Jews to sing beginning with Hatikva and then moving to other songs with an anti-Semitic theme.
The ceremony would certainly have ended with many Jewish victims if not for the coincidence that at that very moment an officer from the Modlin Fortress just happened to go by. When he saw this gruesome scene, how the Jews were running through the fire and singing, he ordered them to stop. Everyone left the market square and returned to their homes.
Each day, the situation worsened, and each night became more terrifying. The Nazis began nightly surprise attacks looting, destroying, fighting, and then escaping. This again pushed the remaining Jews to run away from the city. Some went to Warsaw, some to Legionowo where it was still calmer. The Jews suffered a lot more in Nowy Dwor because it was a base with a large military presence, gendarmes, and Gestapo units.
Later, when the General Government was established in Warsaw, and the point at eight kilometers past Nowy Dwor was designated as the border of the Third Reich a new plague began, the border guard, with a whole new set of miseries. The entire city was full of thousands of Nazis in all kinds of uniforms and in all colors, but for us Jews, it was all one color….
One night in January 1940, the local Folksdeutschen, under the command of the mayor Wendt, undertook a mass arrest of Jews, and also imprisoned in the kozeh (the Nowy Dwor prison) about thirty Jews. Among them was Chaim Abramczyk the tailor, and Chaim Gurecki the barber. They murderously beat those who were arrested. Two days after the arrest, a contribution of 50,000 zlotys was demanded of the city as a ransom for the prisoners, with the threat of all of them being shot if the monies were not raised on time.
How would they raise such a colossal sum of money? At that time, there was no one left who had that kind of money. There were only paupers left in town because these were the people who did not have the means to escape to Warsaw. The situation was very tense, and the Jews started to collect their last possessions. Some brought their wedding rings, a watch, or their last few coins, and with those, they made their way to Warsaw, to the former Nowy Dwor residents of means, to seek help. Within a week, they were able to put together a part of the necessary monies and a delegation went to negotiate with the Nazi hoodlums, to try to appease them with this sum of money. But only after heavy pleading were they successful in having the prisoners released, in a state of being half dead and hardly resembling anything human. Those who were freed immediately left Nowy Dwor.
In those days, when the number of Nowy Dwor Jews was getting smaller and smaller, they issued an order that everyone had to get German passes …
… and they were to be sealed with a fingerprint. Those who were still there got these passes, but those who had already left did not, and so lost their rights as Nowy Dwor citizens.
Meanwhile, the situation for the Nowy Dwor Jews in Warsaw began to worsen, particularly for those who were impoverished. Among the 70 relief kitchens for the needy in Warsaw, there was also a kitchen for the Jews of Nowy Dwor, located at Mile 16 and run by Nachum Neufeld and Menashe Koczalski. Every day, they served a lunch of thin soup, but even this didn't last long. At the end of March, this kitchen was shut down because the Nazis didn't want to give any aid to Jews. The Joint organization tried to have the kitchens opened again, but they were no longer active. Many of the Nowy Dwor Jews were forced to return to Nowy Dwor because of their difficult living conditions, despite the hardships they would suffer en route.
Those who returned went back to their old homes, or some of them stayed together in rooms, and some individual family members went to Russia. There was still some food left in Nowy Dwor, so that their hunger could be stilled, whereas in Warsaw bread was already just a dream.
There were two means for the Jews to have some earnings in Nowy Dwor at that time: by working for the municipality in Rotsztajn's work brigade for 60 pfennigs a day; or by smuggling foodstuffs on the roads from Nowy Dwor to Legionowo and Warsaw, and from Nowy Dwor to Plonsk and Zakrocyn. Understandably, smuggling brought in more earnings, but it was a lot more dangerous. Still, many risked their lives because they could not exist on the 60 pfennigs, so there was nothing to lose.
Social life for the Jews came to complete halt. No one lived normal lives. There was no way out and one could only dream of a better tomorrow when all this abnormality would end and we would be able to renew the destroyed Jewish life.
At the beginning of 1941, all the Folksdeutschen and the major military units were removed from Nowy Dwor. Life for the Jews became a little easier. The entire administration was given over into the hands of the Reich Germans. They didn't conduct any personal business with anyone as did the earlier governors, the Folksdeutschen, but they imposed the Nazi direction without any leeway and with total harshness.
In the summer of 1941, when the Germans were preparing to take over Russia, they also imposed new forced labor in Nowy Dwor for which they took all the local Jews. About six kilometers past Modlin, on the road to Plonsk, they began to build huge airfields with all its necessary facilities and roads. Thousands of workers were mobilized for this work, as were all the Jews of Nowy Dwor. I was among them.
Higher wages were paid for this work, and because of that the smuggling business as a means of income stopped for a time. Many were busy with this work that lasted four months. But suddenly, in June, an order was issued that all Jews must move together into one place, in a ghetto. Very soon they began to set up a wooden fence to mark off the living space for the Jews. This began with the gravel from Moishe Berman's house until the shul, skipping Wyl's house at gruber Rochel's and back lengthwise until Berman's house. Two gates, to enter and leave, were set up. One was by Eta Baile Rajchman, and the other on the second side near Berman's house.
By June 17, 1941, all the Jews had to leave their homes in town and go into the cage, or the ghetto. It was here that the terrible chapter of Nazi terror really began.
In the Nowy Dwor Ghetto
As soon as we walked through the walls of the ghetto, everyone felt as if they were in a prison. The gates were organized and guarded by the Germans. The crowding of such a huge number of people into such a small area, and with the worst living conditions, resulted in only a small number of people going to work in those first few days. Also, the work of building the airfields almost stopped after we entered the ghetto. Only a few Jews, I being one of them, had the good fortune of still working at a better job. And that's how I was able to leave the ghetto every day. There was terrible panic in the ghetto, as we could see the chaos and decline of our lives. There were no prospects for any earnings, and for the first few days no food was brought into the ghetto. It appeared that the Jews were brought here to slowly be annihilated.
A few days later there was somewhat of a change, and suddenly it became too good…. The Germans informed us that an independent Jewish institution had to be set up in the ghetto, to be called the Judenrat. A building was completely emptied to allow for all the departments and offices for a Jewish elder, secretary, treasurer, and other smaller positions. A Jewish police force was also set up, and as the commandant for this, the Germans nominated the well-known criminal figure Shloime Morde. As for the Jewish elder, the Germans decided on Rotsztajn, since he had always been working with municipal issues. He was a very respectable person and because of that, in fact, he was not able to retain this position. The second well-known underworld figure from Nowy Dwor, Yisroel Skrobak, who was a friend of the famous Nazi Wendt, was given the position of supervisor over all the provisions for the ghetto. Thanks to this job, he earned a lot of money at the expense of the exhausted and starved Jews. He opened a bakery in Cohen's former bakery, and also a grocery in the grocery that formerly belonged to Eta Baila Rajchman, and he began to take in his criminal profits.
Slowly, to all those in the ghetto who reported themselves, he began to give a daily ration of 330 grams of bread that was baked from ground chestnuts with an added little bit of corn meal. But really, for the purpose of baking this bread, the Germans gave 80% corn meal and 20% chestnut flour, but this crook made the bread as he wanted to. The bread was very bitter, but we ate it because we had no choice. With these conditions of hunger, even this was good.
It's not worth talking about the distribution of other foodstuffs. They were really at a pitiful minimum, at 500 grams of black flour a month. It was Sone Helfenbajn who distributed the meat. And for each person there was 120 grams of horse meat per month. And even this was sometimes not provided. For the additional products, we paid the government price and whoever had the means got other products from the smugglers at a totally different price, such as two Marks for a kilo of bread.
It was the Jewish police that guarded the gate. The constant guarding of the gate was a job given to Chaim Jaczek, who diligently followed German orders.
When the war between Germany and Russia broke out, the Jews danced for joy and kissed each other in the streets. People hoped and were certain that their problems would be over and that in about a week's time everyone would be liberated, even though the front was still a few hundred kilometers distance. But the disappointment was enormous when after about three days they found out that the Germans were actually advancing. The news of the huge victories of the German armies at the Russian front hit us all …
… like a thunderbolt. Final hopes vanished, and the entire ghetto was enveloped in depression. There were about 3,000 Jews in the ghetto at that time.
There was a special hospital for the Jewish sick in the ghetto, with Jewish nurses, and it was under the medical direction of the well-known Polish surgeon Dzhurawski, who did a lot for the Jews.
A short while after going into the ghetto, there was an outbreak of a typhus epidemic. Because of the cramped and unsanitary conditions, more than half the ghetto population contracted typhus and many died. Yosek Gershon (Nieskele's) showed great devotion to those in the hospital through his tireless work with the masses of sick people.
The Germans were worried that the typhus epidemic should not carry over to the military, and so they ordered an Aktzia to counter the typhus a parowka (Turkish bath) in the ghetto; all the clothing and items would have to go through a steaming process with a special machine that was brought into the ghetto for this purpose. Also, it was set up that all the residents of the ghetto would have to go through forced bathing as well.
One cannot forget that specific morning when all the Jews were assembled men, women, and children, and they were all taken to bathe in the Vistula River. Men and women were forced to bathe together, chased by the German guards with truncheons in hand. That's when we witnessed the real German culture. Many became sick from the offensiveness and humiliation.
The Aktzia in the Ghetto
On July 6, we heard loud commotions in the ghetto. Soon everyone was awake and saw what was happening. An Aktzia was about to take place. The entire ghetto was surrounded by SS, Gestapo, policemen, and other accursed people. The gate to the market square was opened and an order was given that within ten minutes the entire ghetto must be emptied. Whoever remained behind would be shot. The terror and chaos were indescribable. Everyone left his bed and ran to the gate. There we were greeted by the SS and their huge dogs that were lined up on both sides of the gate, all the way to the market square.
Many died from the beatings even before they reached the market. The Gestapo entered the ghetto and whoever they saw, they stabbed to death with their knives. Little children whom the mothers could not grab quickly enough were thrown out the windows. The entire ghetto was swimming in a river of blood. Arms and legs were strewn like rocks across the roads. Later, all these bodies were collected onto boards and taken out to the Jewish cemetery. Upon order, the gravedigger buried all these bodies in a communal grave, and when he was done, they shot him as well and threw him into the same grave.
The Aktzia in the market square took more than four hours. The goal here was to select 750 Jews of the 3,000, that would remain in the ghetto. A selection took place, and all those who had smuggled themselves into the ghetto and did not have a German pass with their fingerprints were separated. They also removed all the elderly people.
It was only those who had worked in the military who had the good fortune to remain behind the younger men and women. My wife and I were among those fortunate 750 people.
At eight in the morning, the Aktzia was over, and more than 2,000 people were taken away in the direction of the Modlin road, but where they were going no one knew. For us, the fortunate ones, as the Gestapo referred to us, we overheard that the selected 750 would be allowed to live in the ghetto and that all those beyond the 750 limit would be shot.
Under the watch of the SS and their huge dogs, we were taken back the same way, back to the ghetto.
It's hard to describe the mood of those Jews who returned to the ghetto. Only segments of families came back, and the trembling and crying continued all day. Everyone in his pain wanted to know where they had taken his dear ones.
In the Pomiechowa Forts
The following day, we found out that all those who had been evacuated were in the Pomiechowa forts along with other Jews from Plonsk, Zakroczyn, Nazielsk, and other places. The total was 6,000 Jews. All of them were put into underground bunkers, 600 men at a time, where each person had only a place to sit on the hard floor, not even enough room to stretch out his legs to sleep or rest.
The first few days, before we knew where all these Jews had been taken, they received no food or drink. Only after great efforts and pleading did we receive permission to take some food and water to them. We rented a wagon and everyone gave whatever they could to their families. It was terrible for those who had no family in the ghetto and no one to send them a little food. Occasionally, the Judenrat send some food to these helpless people, but this help was too insignificant.
The conditions in the filthy, putrid underground bunkers brought on terrible epidemics, and each day the Nazis emptied these bunkers of the very sick and those who had been shot. It was the Jewish police that guarded these underground bunkers, and at the head was Mailechel who later became well known (he was the Gerer's son-in-law and a former Communist), who ran his life by the price of money and gold. And if he wasn't compensated with gold or with a gold watch, then he would take you to bunker #16, from which Jews were taken out daily and shot.
The terrible things that this underworld degenerate did to his own brothers would have continued for who knows how long if the Plonsk Jews would not have suffered from him as well. Ramek, the oldest of the Plonsk Judenrat, began to deal with Mailechel. Ramek was a very loyal and refined person who knew all the important Nazis and major public figures. Through all kinds of avenues, he was able to snatch the underworld figure and policeman Mailechel out of their hands and immediately bring him right into the Plonsk ghetto into the Judenrat court. The Judenrat in Plonsk felt that acting as usual and taking the life of a person like Mailech who caused the deaths of scores of Jews through shooting or hanging, would be too easy. So, the Judenrat decided to give each Jew the opportunity to take revenge, and then add their final touch to put an end to Mailechel. Hundreds of Jews assembled either to slap or punch this murderous villain. In just a short time, before the very eyes of the Plonsk Jews, the beaten Mailechel ended his ugly life.
The situation in the Pomiechowa camp became even more terrible, and each day, the people became weaker and weaker. Everyone was caught up in an epidemic, and daily there were reports of scores of deaths and shooting victims. Fate did not allow the Jews in the camp any peace. Jewish delegations tried to soften the hearts of the Nazi rulers, pleading for them to release the Jews, or at least to send them to another camp to better conditions. After weeks of negotiations and interventions, the liquidation of the Pomiechowa camp began.
After the Liquidation of the Pomiechowa Camp
Following an order, all the farmers, along with their wagons and horses, were mobilized to transport all those from Pomiechowa across the border …
… eight kilometers past Nowy Dwor. All those from the Pomiechowa camp were accused of belonging to the General Government and illegally having smuggled themselves into Nowy Dwor that belonged to the Third Reich.
Transporting these Pomiechowa Jews took half the night and continued until morning. At that point, they were in such a state that they were hardly able to stand on their feet, and then they were forced to run. When the entire transport arrived at Legionowo (Jablona), then a fire was started on order of the Nazis, and everything on the wagons had to be thrown in the hay, and all the other items, with the reasoning that all those who had come from Pomiechowa carried contagious sicknesses and their belongings had to be disinfected. The fire, in which all their things were burned, spread all the way to the crowd of people. Those who were stronger tried to run, but many of the weak and sick were consumed by the flames. At that point, Balcze Tarnegol, the sister of Shloime Karsowicz, was one of those who were killed in the fire.
A terrible situation threatened the ghetto after the Pomiechowa camp was liquidated, particularly for the representatives of the Judenrat. Following the orders of the Gestapo, the number of people permitted in the ghetto was limited to 750. But those from the Pomiechowa camp, who were dragging themselves around sick and depleted after being transported between the Jablona fields and forests after weeks of wandering, had no other choice but to risk their lives by smuggling themselves across the border and into Nowy Dwor into the ghetto, where they still had family and friends. At the fence and gate of the ghetto, there was fighting day and night between those who had returned and the Jewish police who obeyed all the German orders and didn't allow these Jews to enter the ghetto.
In spite of the resistance by the police, many were successful (with the help of some bribing …) in entering the ghetto. But one of the results of this situation was that the elder of the Judenrat, Rotsztajn, went to the German government and asked to be relieved from his position because he didn't want to participate in this business of fighting with the Jews, his own brothers, who wanted to enter the ghetto in order to save their lives.
The Germans freed Rotsztajn from his duties and he was replaced by Yosef Gershon, a young man of about twenty years old. The Jewish police was also fortified and Yankel Baranek became the commandant, a former Bundist and later an ugly criminal. Shloime Morde was delegated as his assistant along with several other assistants of this type. Also, the Judenrat was restructured. Herman Abramowicz (Moishe Kosower's son-in-law) was appointed secretary; as political liaison there was Yisroel Skrobak, and there began a draconian governance according to German orders: A prison was set up near the Judenrat in the ghetto, and anyone who violated any of the laws was immediately locked up and later given over into the hands of the Gestapo. None of these prisoners ever came back.
The death penalty was imposed in cases where a little flour, butter, eggs, or meat was found on a Jew; in cases where one was caught smuggling, or if caught trying to cross the border.
The carpenters in the ghetto, according to the orders of the Gestapo, had to finish building seven scaffolds, and each week the Gestapo celebrated hangings with festivities. On that day, they found out who had not followed the rules. After receiving the order, all the Jews assembled at the set hour of execution in the assembly place of the Judenrat where the hangings took place, so that everyone could see how the Jews were hanged. The Gestapo behaved in a more humanitarian fashion towards the women who were not hanged. The women were shot instead.
The first execution by hanging took place after they caught seven young boys, and among them …
… a thirteen-year-old boy who had smuggled in eight kilos of corn meal. Smuggling at that time was the only means of having any earnings and people were prepared to risk their lives, because otherwise they would die of hunger.
The trickery and challenges increased daily. Betzalel Mordik (the son of Mendel Grafek) was imprisoned because his stepbrother, a young boy of 12, was caught on the Aryan side, so the blame was placed on him. After a month in the Nowy Dwor prison, he was sent to a death camp and two weeks later, they already heard that he was no longer among the living. Without any notice, Yisroel Bogacz and Chaim Yaczek were arrested because of their former connection to a well-known party. They were detained for a month in the ghetto prison, then they too were shipped off to a death camp, and traces of them were lost there.
At a control search, even though the ghetto was asleep after ten at night, Yechezkel Ronczke was caught, and they did with him as they did with all the others first they kept him in the Nowy Dwor prison and then sent him to his death.
Sending people away was then considered a lighter punishment than a hanging in the ghetto that took place in front of parents, wives, and children, particularly since it was traditional to leave the body hanging for twenty-four hours and only with the permission of the Gestapo were these bodies brought for burial in a mass grave that was sparsely covered with a thin layer of earth measuring five to ten centimeters. This ditch remained open since it also frequently served as a dump for garbage from the ghetto. The garbage was thrown over the bodies. Everyone walked around in fear that at any moment he could be the next victim and experience his own death in this same manner.
The Gestapo with Tomasz and Shaffer at the head, both of them hideous thugs, came often to the ghetto. Their appearance alone caused everyone to hide in great turmoil and panic. These two made their visits several times a day and each time caused terror.
With the expulsion of the Jews from Wyszogrod, half of them were sent over to Nowy Dwor and the other half to Czerwinsk. They extended the area of the ghetto to accommodate these numbers, stretching to the railroad line, and the Jewish government was expanded by adding several officers and policemen.
The Jews in the ghetto had to do forced labor. Everyone had to work three days a week without payment. Neither the German government nor the Judenrat were concerned about how these people secured the means to live.
The majority worked in the Modlin port. It was a miracle to survive a day's work there and to come home in one piece. The entire Modlin dockyard was covered with German soldiers who were wounded on the Russian front and had come here to recuperate after leaving the hospital. They were all embittered, many were invalids, and they would spew all their rage onto the Jews, saying that the Jews caused the war. Jews, they said, were communists and helped Russia be victorious, and so on. They took revenge on the Jews through their [forced] labor, and all the Jews wished their own deaths rather than to do the work of loading and unloading rusted wires that were sent to the front lines.
Every morning the Jewish and German police came into houses to search for and seize people for work. This alone took hours because they searched every hiding place because the Jews wanted to avoid working in the Modlin hell. In many instances, those who were found hiding were shot on the spot.
One morning, about 9AM, after the searches and the snatching, the Gestapo and policemen appeared unannounced and grabbed …
… 50 skilled people from the ghetto. The elder from the Judenrat, Gershon, delivered them directly into the hands of the commandant of the dockyard. These people were set up as a separate work team under the supervision of the most notorious of abusers. They had to do double the work and they were beaten incessantly. They were chased into the Vistula River near the dockyard, they got soaked, and blood ran off them like water. Twenty-one of the fifty managed to mix with other work groups, and the other twenty-nine were tortured all day long. After their work, they had to dig a ditch near the Vistula, into which they were thrown after being shot. Among the twenty-nine that were shot they found Mordechai Matusak, Yehoshua Moishe Olshinko (Bendit's son), and Fishel Lewinsztajn.
It's difficult to imagine that specific evening in the ghetto the panic and the fits of the women when they saw the frightful condition in which the men returned. Parents and children ran to the leaders of the Judenrat, and particularly to the elder of the Judenrat, Gershon. His house was demolished and everyone was screaming: Give us back our fathers, our sons, our husbands! But these men were already all dead. Eventually, the screams quieted down, and the following day the Jews from the ghetto once again had to go to work and leave behind the painful life of the ghetto.
The First and Final Evacuation
From July 1942, with the first evacuation of the Warsaw Jews to Treblinka, they began to sense in the Nowy Dwor ghetto that the end was near. They spoke of Treblinka every day. Children already knew to say that in Treblinka there is a large frying pan where they roast all the people.
At that time, the Germans didn't want the Jews to suspect what awaited them. They wanted us to live with the illusion that we would survive, so that we would work diligently. In order to create this illusion they began bringing into the ghetto a lot of potatoes during the winter. They also brought several wagonloads of coal and all kinds of foodstuffs. It somehow became too good, just as for a sick person before his death. But we understood what the Germans were doing here, and despite all these benevolent gestures, with broken spirits, we always followed the events in Warsaw.
Soon there was a report that completely unsettled everyone the evacuation of the ghetto in Legionowo. On the eighth day of Sukos, at 4AM, the Legionowo ghetto was overtaken by Ukrainian bands of thugs. Many Jews were killed on the spot, and the majority were taken to Treblinka. About one hundred people managed to hide, and the following day, those who managed to save themselves tried to smuggle across the border and enter the Nowy Dwor ghetto. Here they met with strong resistance by the Jewish police who arrested them all and locked them in the Judenrat prison in order to give them over into the hands of the Gestapo.
Some of the relatives of these prisoners went to the Judenrat to Herren Gershon and Skrobak, begging for help and release from prison. My sister and brother and Anzho Pitulska were among those released. The criminals from the Judenrat delivered 38 men, women, and children into the hands of the Gestapo. All of these were taken by wagon over to the border's watch guard and then they were all shot and thrown into a pit that they themselves had been forced to dig. After that, the clothing of these 38 people was given over to the Judenrat. That's how the thugs from the Judenrat consistently led innocent people to their death and then were able to make use of the clothing that belonged to these murdered Jews. Yankel Baranek decked himself out in a leather jacket, and Shloime …
… Morde in a nice pair of boots. Also, the other policemen benefited from all these fine things that were soaked with the blood of the Jewish victims.
On October 26, 1942, the ghetto was completely surrounded by scores of S.A. men and the gates were locked. It soon became clear that the evacuation was to begin. Chaos increased from moment to moment. People were saying goodbye to their families, children were crying, women were fainting, and the panic continued for several hours until the German police came forward with an explanation, saying that for now there would be no evacuation, but on order of the higher ups in the government all the ghettoes in the Third Reich had to be locked and guarded and no one could leave until further notice.
Later it was discovered that from the moment the ghetto was surrounded by S.A. men, the sweeping extermination of the Jews in the entire Third Reich had begun. The terms of how to make everything free of Jews (Judenrein) were set on December 20, and because Nowy Dwor was the last border point of the Third Reich, we were among the last ones to be sent for extermination. Because of that, those who were in the Nowy Dwor ghetto had to live with the sentence of death hanging over their heads for six weeks.
Twice a week we saw a train filled with Jews go by. These were the Jews from the ghettos of Mlawa, Prosnicz, Checkanow, Nazielsk, and other towns. On October 28, all the Jews from the ghetto of Czerwinsk were brought to the Nowy Dwor ghetto, a transport of about 2,600 Jews. The crowding in the ghetto became intolerable, with about five or six families in one room. That's how we were choked until the evacuation three weeks later.
On November 15, it was officially announced that the Nowy Dwor ghetto would be evacuated in three groups: The first at the end of November, when they would take all the elderly, women, and children, meaning all those who were not fit to work; and the other two groups would be evacuated in December.
On November 16, an order was given by the German police that all the money, gold, and silver that was in everyone's possession had to be brought to the Judenrat within two days, where a special delegate from the German government would take charge of all these things. If they would find money, gold, or silver on any person after those two days, he would be hanged. That's how they took away the last pennies and belongings from the Jews. On their own initiative, the thugs from the Judenrat implemented strict searches in order to be able to give the last few belongings as a gift to the German police who promised to do these criminals a favor by sending them along with their families to the Warsaw ghetto or to work in Czestochowa.
November 20 brought the first terrible announcement of the evacuation. The first victims were those from the Jewish poor. The Judenrat had to bring forward 2,000 people, and 40 elderly, along with those who didn't have husbands or whose children could not work. Now there was a new means for the Judenrat to undertake making even more money through bribery. Whoever gave them a lot of money stayed home, and in his place another person was sent, meaning someone who couldn't pay.
The misery in the ghetto after the first group left is difficult to imagine. The way the Judenrat dealt with human lives and monies preyed frightfully on everyone's spirit. The tension in the ghetto grew stronger and it took another two weeks until the evacuation of the second group took place December 9.
During the second evacuation there were episodes where they wanted to remove individual members of families, so the entire family voluntarily came forward so as not to be separated.
One Sunday, December 12, the order was given that all Jews, without exception, had to leave the ghetto. So, Nowy Dwor became Judenrein. The searches took place, they looked for money …
… for gold, and after that we were all chased to the train station where we were herded into the wagons.
According to a prior agreement with the German police, the members of the Judenrat and their families 42 people were moved into the last wagon, and when the train passed Warsaw the car was removed and all those chosen, the Judenrat people, entered the Warsaw ghetto. With this ended the tragic page of history of the Nowy Dwor ghetto.
The entire transport of Nowy Dwor Jews was taken to Birkenau which was five kilometers from Auschwitz. A special assembly point was located there for incoming transports. At that time, there were already four crematoria in operation all day and all night. We soon learned of the activities of this place, how they acted with the new arrivals. The healthy and capable people were sent to a special camp where they were put through a disinfection process, tattooed with numbers on their arms, and then after a designated time in quarantine, three weeks later they were sent to work.
The others the elderly, frail, women, and children, all of them without exception, were sent to a different place, bathing rooms that were equipped with all the amenities, even mirrors on the walls, and there they were murdered by a poisonous gas.
During the night between December 13 and 14, flames tore through the chimneys of the Birkenau ovens and the ashes of innocent victims, the Jews of the Nowy Dwor ghetto, were carried across God's world.
Also, the small group that was assigned to the work force did not have a better fate. The majority of them died very soon from hard labor, frost, and hunger.
Today, if one wants to determine how many Jews survived of those who lived in the Nowy Dwor ghetto, you can probably say about 30 people. Not all the cities had such a tragic ending. Only those Jews of Nowy Dwor who escaped to Russia in 1939 managed to save themselves, or those who were carried by the storm into the far corners of the earth.
By A. Pinker
Among others: Matis Shliamowicz, Moishe Feldman, Asher Raszkes, Mosak and his son
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Updated 03 Mar 2016 by JH | <urn:uuid:d704b5f9-7559-4689-9ec9-7581a65e4cec> | CC-MAIN-2021-17 | https://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/Nowy_dwor/now315.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-17/segments/1618038077843.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20210414155517-20210414185517-00514.warc.gz | en | 0.98818 | 16,278 | 2.984375 | 3 |
We talk a lot about the benefits of shredding and recycling your documentation. It’s secure, environmentally friendly and a great way to keep up with green initiatives. But have you ever thought about what happens to your computer and IT equipment when you no longer need it? When you just throw it away, it ends up in a landfill site or incinerator, adding to the 3,140,000 tons of e-waste we produce each year. But just because you have no use for a computer anymore, doesn’t mean it can’t be useful to someone else. Not to mention the security risks that come with throwing away hard drives full of personal, confidential information. So how does recycling your IT help protect your business and the environment?
Why Recycle IT Equipment?
Think about how much information is stored on your hard drive. Every file you’ve ever saved, every search you’ve ever made and every password you’ve ever typed. Even your deleted files are still there, buried deep in the memory banks of your computer. If you just threw all of that away, you could be putting it straight in the hands of criminals, who will use it to defraud your business, steal from you or even impersonate you and your company. Recycling your computer equipment starts with destroying it – breaking it down into pieces so small that they cannot be reassembled, so you can be sure that your data is safe.
It’s also a way your business can contribute to a cleaner environment. Computer equipment recycling and refurbishing is an important part of an organisation’s sustainable waste strategy. Businesses are encouraged to dispose of their IT equipment in an environmentally responsible way – in other words, recycling. There are even governmental regulations in place to deal with hazardous electronics (think the WEEE directive) and multiple ways of disposing of other electronics safely. These can then be reused and turned into new equipment, replacing the need for even more natural resources.
How Is IT Equipment Recycled?
Fortunately, IT equipment is relatively easy to recycle, if slightly time consuming. When full machines like laptops, servers or PC’s are sent for recycling, they are first picked apart and stripped of all the useful whole components, like motherboards and microchips. One everything has been salvaged, the rest of the machine can then be fed through an industrial grade shredder, like ours. The resulting shreds are a mixture of materials, and these are sent to a recycling plant, who separate them out using large magnets and other sorting devices. This way the plastics can all be sent to be melted and repurposed, the metals can be sorted and sent away and the glass can be broken down and melted to make new glass.
If you don’t have a full machine to recycle, but instead a hard drive to destroy, we can help you there. Many people choose to sell on their old computers for parts, removing the hard drives first so they aren’t giving away any data. This approach is great for data security, but essentially leaves you with a hunk of metal and no use for it. If this happens, you can bring the hard drive to our secure shredding facilities, to be shredded and recycled into new computer parts.
What Can Be Recycled?
The good news is – almost anything. Most parts of a basic computer set up and IT system can be recycled, from monitors and PCs to servers and laptops. Even peripherals such as printers, scanners, telephones, mice, keyboards and hard drives. Some types of computing equipment will need particular expertise to recycle, like PCs, which tend to have a lot of heavy metal in their circuitry. From these elements, recycling teams can salvage plastic, ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals, electronic boards, glass and even gold.
Of course, you may not need to recycle your IT systems that often, so you may not know exactly what you need to do, or who you need to talk to. For more information on shredding and recycling your computer and IT equipment, or advice on what to do next, get in touch with us today. | <urn:uuid:10e36816-c655-4267-8df9-29968bc6e5ec> | CC-MAIN-2019-04 | https://www.hungryshredder.co.uk/recycling-your-it-what-why-and-how/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-04/segments/1547583807724.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20190121193154-20190121215154-00514.warc.gz | en | 0.945217 | 854 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Powellite: Gemstone Information
Powellite is CaMoO4 and is isostructural with scheelite with which it forms a series. Powellite occurs as transparent to translucent straw yellow, greenish yellow, greenish blue or blue dipyramidal crystals of the tetragonal system; the lustre is characteristically greasy or subadamantine and the hardness 3.5–4. The SG is near 4.23 and the RI of the ordinary and extraordinary rays is 1.974 and 1.984, uniaxial positive.Under both forms of UV, specimens may fluoresce yellowish white to golden yellow. Powellite occurs as an uncommon secondary mineral in the oxidation zone of molybdenum-bearing hydrothermal mineral deposits. Facetable material is rare as crystals are usually small but some specimens from the Isle Royal, Calumet and Hecla mines, Houghton County, Michigan, USA, have been fashioned. Notable crystals are found at Pandulena Hill, Nasik, Maharashtra, India. | <urn:uuid:bdcaec31-34bf-4c16-9562-60978ba4d087> | CC-MAIN-2017-51 | https://gemfame.com/powellite-gemstone-information/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-51/segments/1512948517181.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20171212134318-20171212154318-00112.warc.gz | en | 0.898862 | 222 | 2.59375 | 3 |
As a teacher or school personnel, you need to see organising as a necessity. Organised classrooms pave the way for mental clarity for both teachers and students, as they leave little to no visual stimulation and distraction. Classroom organisation also helps the class finish activities faster, as everyone can find and keep materials more quickly.
However, organising a classroom can sometimes prove easier said than done. So, you want to have a classroom organisation strategy that’s easy and simple enough to initiate, and even easier to follow through. Your strategy should also help you maximise classroom storage effectively.
Here are some classroom organisation tips that will help you maintain a classroom that’s both neat and conducive for effective and safe learning.
1. Label everything
An oldie but always a goodie, this is the most basic organisation tip you should never forget. It will be easier for everyone in the class to find and store items where they should be kept when you put labels on everything. If you’re feeling extra, you can also colour-code the labels to make bins, jars or other containers easier to sort and locate.
2. Bins are your best friend
Bins are a teacher’s best friend when it comes to organising the classroom. They come in a wide range of sizes, colours, and shapes, making sorting so much easier. You can get bins small enough for pens and crayons, and you can also get some that are huge enough for bigger supplies. You can get bins of the same kind to add a sense of uniformity. These bins can also be placed on shelves, somehow substituting as drawers.
3. Trolleys for items shared by the class and moved around often
Having a trolley in the classroom can make distributing and cleaning up items and supplies faster and easier. Imagine having to walk back and forth to get and collect items, or carrying around a heavy bin. Wouldn’t you prefer just pushing or pulling around a trolley?
4. Make a checklist that everyone can easily follow
It’s one thing to initiate a classroom organisation strategy, but it’s another to keep up with it. So, it might help to make an organisation checklist for every station in the classroom. Every day, everyone should make sure that items and supplies are put in their correct storage as specified in the checklist. Sooner or later, the entire class will already have a mental note of where things should go. This will also help in developing routines.
5. Individual storage for each student
Of course, every student has their own set of supplies. They should have individual space for their items. You can let them have their organisation style so they can also apply their ideas. You can, of course, lend assistance when they ask you for help or give suggestions if you think they’re having a hard time organising their cubbyhole. By letting kids organise their things, you are also teaching them the value of responsibility.
6. Clean up your desk
Finally, it all starts with your desk. It will be challenging to find the motivation to organise the entire classroom if your work area itself is not organised. Furthermore, as a teacher, you should set a good example.
Organising the Classroom is More Fun When Everyone’s Involved
Classroom organisation will only feel like a chore if you’re the only one doing everything. You can make it a fun part of the learning and bonding experience if you enlist the help of your students. You might be surprised at how willing they are to help. | <urn:uuid:68a3a77c-0470-425b-9b12-07ef4e77ac75> | CC-MAIN-2022-27 | https://www.fsagames.com/top-6-classroom-organization-tips-and-ideas/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-27/segments/1656103036176.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20220625220543-20220626010543-00533.warc.gz | en | 0.955506 | 732 | 2.71875 | 3 |
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