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What will we see if we look at the reality of women in work without following mainstream economic categorizations that gives different values to work, making unpaid care work mostly done by women invisible in their economic model and instead overvalue ‘productive work’? And how come that every where in the world there are manifestations of companies or people exploiting other people and resources?
Feminist Economic Literacy is for all women.
It is a tool for engendering broad public participation in debating and setting economic policy, economic literacy promotes a framework for revealing the structural causes of economic and social problems. It can help us to challenge destructive myths, to create positive policy alternatives, and to enhance community/neighbourhood alternatives.
WIDE+ and in the past WIDE developed a lot of materials to explain our roles in the economies from a feminist perspective with the method of popular education. It consists of tools to make complex ideas understandable and to uncover systemic issues behind what we observe:
- A first set of materials provide analysis and stories of women in the economy and alternatives build by collectives of women.
- A second set of materials can be used for training, recognizing that people learn in different ways. Thus, a variety of participatory tools (drama, role play, small groups, mapping) are included.
Analysis on Alternatives and women in the economy
Tools for feminist economy literacy, by WIDE+ members, Summer 2015 (Spanish and English). This offers a collection of “good-practice tools” that include a variety of methods, training tools, multimedia tools, and research approaches. It is the result of a collaboration between WIDE+ member associations KULU in Denmark, Le Monde selon Les Femmes in Belgium, WIDE Austria, WIDE Switzerland and WIDE-E Spain.
GADNETWORK UK, member of WIDE+, has developed two interesting series with papers (2016-2018):
Economic Alternatives for Gender and Social Justice: Voices and Visions from India and Latin America: “There Are a Thousand Alternatives”, 2011: alternatives India and Latin America
“Neoclassical Economics as a Barrier for Gender Equality in a Human Centred World Economy” – a paper by Irene van Staveren.
Feminist Training and Stories Materials
Feminist Economic Literacy resources collected through the IAFFE e-list in 2018: resourcesfemec_IAFFEelist2018,
WIDE series ‘CASE STUDIES IN WOMEN´S EMPOWERMENT’, published in 2008
This series, originally prepared in the framework of WIDE´s economic literacy project as a tool for use in the context of capacity-building workshops, highlights some struggles and initiatives led by women today in the South, North, East and West. These experiences reveal how women, through these initiatives, have been empowered at many levels. They also show how sometimes spontaneous initiatives have paved the way towards more equality and social justice.
1- A case study from Asia: Textile industry-When cats become tigresses in Thailand!
2- A case study from the Caribbean: Banana Farming in St Vincent& the Grenadines
3- A case study from the EU: Filipino Migrant Domestic Workers fighting for their Rights in the Netherlands
4- A case study from Latin America: The Movement of Agricultural Women in Struggle (MMAL) in Argentina
5- A case study from the EU: The fight of a female worker in the supermarket chain Biedronka in Poland
6- A case study from Africa: Shea butter production in Burkina Faso
7- A case study from the Middle East: Rural women cooperatives challenge patriarchal market institutions in Lebanon
In Search of Economic Alternatives for Gender and Social Justice: Voices from India, published in 2009: “In search of economic alternatives: Voices from India”
Download: Economic Alternatives in India.
‘Banulacht_Looking_at_the_Economy_Through_Womens_Eyes‘, written by Maeve Taylor, Banúlacht 2004.
WIDE economic literacy in Spanish: Las Mujeres en el Mercado
Un Manual Para La Alfabetizacion Popular en Economia, WIDE, 2000.
Market WIDE, The mystery of Market Worship, WIDE, 1998.
WIDE Robinson, Robinson Crusoe and Silas Marner, or Two Stories on the Gendered Monetary Economy, WIDE, 1998.
Production WIDE, How the Cake is Cut: Production and Economic Well-being, WIDE, 1998.
Home Economics WIDE: Home Economics: Developing an Alternative Perspective, WIDE, 1998.
Economic Literacy Resources by Cafra, supported by WIDE in 2005
Beijing against WTO: against the Midwife’s Ring (pdf), Nelcia Robinson;
Corporate-led Liberalisation is Hurting the Poor: A Case of the Fox and the Stork (Fox), Nelcia Robinson;
Poverty and Gender in the Caribbean: Mother the Great Stone Got to Move (Stone) Margarette May Macaulay
Remember the Ladies: Gender and Trade in the Caribbean (Ladies), Sheila V. Stuart
With Cap in Hand: Towards Positive Fulfilment of the Millennium Development Goals (Cap), Nelcia Robinson
The Spider and the Fly: Globalisation and Trade Liberalisation Concentrating Power – Marginalising the Poor (pdf)Shantal Munroe-Knight | <urn:uuid:a215bc44-3413-4bb5-9a80-632e811acea5> | CC-MAIN-2019-35 | https://wideplus.org/resources/resources-feminist-economic-literacy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-35/segments/1566027317339.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20190822172901-20190822194901-00044.warc.gz | en | 0.871631 | 1,140 | 2.6875 | 3 |
A change of speed per unit time is called accerleration, if the speed is increasing the object is accerlerating, if the speed is decreasing the object is decelerating.
The formula for measuring acceleration is:
acceleration = change in speed (or velocity)
- Acceleration is measured in metre per second squared (m/s2)
- A negative acceleration shows the object is decelerting, which means slowing down, it is the opposite of acceleration which is speeding up
Velocity is a vector - this means it has both size (speed) and direction.
When two cars are moving past each other, their relative velocity is:
- the sum of their individual velocities if they are going in opposite directions
- the different of their individual velocties if they are going in the same direction.
The area under a speed-time graph is equal to the distance travelled.
A vehicle may go around a roundabout at a constant speed but it is accelerating. This is because its direction of travel of travel is changing; it's not going in a straight line. The driver needs to apply a force towards the centre of the roundabout to change direction. The gives the vehicle an acceleration directed towards the centre of the roundabout.
- ANY OBJECT MOVING ALONG A CIRCULAR PATH MOVES AT A TANGENT TO THE CIRCLE OR ARC OF A CIRCLE
SPEED - how fast an object travels, speed = distance/time.
ACCELERATION - a measurement of how quickly the speed of a moving object changes.
DISTANCE - a measure of how far something is, measured in units such a metres.
VELOCITY - how fast an object is travelling in a certain direction, velocity = displacement/time.
RELATIVE VELOCITY - vector difference between the velocities of two objects.
FORCE - a push or pull which is able to change the velocity or shape of a body.
STRAIGHT LINE - a line of constant graident. | <urn:uuid:617e6db9-7045-44cd-b951-7f91828fe6dc> | CC-MAIN-2017-13 | https://getrevising.co.uk/revision-cards/changing_speed | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-13/segments/1490218189802.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20170322212949-00106-ip-10-233-31-227.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924561 | 426 | 4.53125 | 5 |
Recently-released official statistics show that last year, there were just over 85,000 people accessing HIV treatment and care in the UK. Ben Lineberger, communication intern at the National AIDS Trust, reports.
Almost all (91%) the people accessing HIV treatment were on antiretroviral treatment (ART) and 95% of those on ART had achieved ‘viral suppression’ – this means HIV can no longer be detected in their blood and they can consider themselves ‘non-infectious’.
So what to conclude from this new, up-to-date picture of HIV in the UK?
In terms of treatment, we are doing really well and have already achieved two of UNAIDS ’90-90-90’ goals with over 90% of diagnosed HIV positive people on treatment and 90% of those on treatment achieving viral suppression.
However, the new diagnoses figures actually show a more complicated picture. In 2014 there were 6,151 new HIV diagnoses in the UK, including the highest number of gay and bisexual men on record at 3,360.
Alongside this, with an estimated 25% of people living with HIV yet to be diagnosed, we are still a long way off the UNAIDS’ final ‘90’ (90% of everyone living with HIV knows their status). And with two out of five diagnoses in 2014 being considered ‘late’, we are still doing something wrong when it comes to getting people into the excellent care that is available.
But ultimately, new diagnoses – and a record number among gay and bisexual men – tell us that we have a long way to go in preventing HIV amongst most-affected groups. Why, then, are we still waiting on the NHS to decide if and when we can have PrEP? As one of the most successful prevention methods on the market today, PrEP is vital to the defeat of HIV. It stands for Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis and is a pill taken once a day, which when taken correctly virtually eliminates the changes of getting HIV.
Of course condom use is still recommended to ensure other STIs aren’t transmitted. But although gay men’s condom use is very high, it’s not 100%, PrEP would remove the fear and anxiety of getting HIV that a lot of gay men face, and would give couples comfort and peace of mind.
To picture how this might work, a good example is San Francisco. The city has made a huge dent in HIV diagnoses over the last three years. Since 2012 when PrEP was introduced, new HIV diagnoses have dropped 30 percent. It’s been available in most of the US since 2012, yet is still not offered in the UK. Instead of failing to reduce the number of people getting HIV, we too could be experiencing a reduction if this additional prevention method was accessible. The UK has made great progress in making ART available to treat HIV for nearly everyone who’s living with it. But this success is being undermined by continuing high levels of new diagnoses. By not offering PrEP to those who need it, the UK is failing all those most at risk of HIV. | <urn:uuid:dafea868-b88d-4240-80ae-9fdf4b4cb315> | CC-MAIN-2018-22 | http://lasttaboo.co.uk/2015/11/25/world-leading-on-treatment-trailing-on-prevention-what-the-hiv-stats-tell-us/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-22/segments/1526794866511.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20180524151157-20180524171157-00366.warc.gz | en | 0.963499 | 649 | 2.546875 | 3 |
COVID 19 is currently in the headlines and is considered a public health emergency. This understandably can make parents and children worried, particularly if they have problems with their immune systems, are taking medicines which suppress their immune systems, or have other chronic illness. While it is true that worldwide it has already caused severe disease and death, the vast majority of people who catch the virus have a mild flu like illness – and many get no symptoms at all. In particular, children seem to get milder disease than adults, and most of the severe illness has been in older people who are already frail or have other long-standing conditions, such as type 2 diabetes, smoking related lung disease and heart disease.
What is COVID19?
COVID19 is caused by a new strain of a family of viruses called coronavirus. As a group, coronaviruses are common across the world. The most common strains are frequent causes of the common cold. Occasionally new strains of coronavirus arise which cause more serious disease in some people. COVID-19 is caused by one of these new strains.
What are the symptoms of COVID19?
Most people start with symptoms of a cold, particularly cough and fever. Those who get is more severely can get shortness of breath, or start to breath more quickly.
What is the treatment?
At present there are no treatments which have been shown to make a difference to the disease, although some medicines which have been used for other virus infections are being researched. If children need to come to hospital, the treatment is much the same as other virus infections affecting the lungs, such as giving oxygen and help with feeding and breathing.
How do people catch COVID19?
Like the common cold, coronavirus (COVID-19) infection is spread by coughs and sneezes, which produce droplets which other people breath in if they are within 2 meters of a person who is infected. It can also be spread by direct contact, such as touching hands, or something which an infected person has touched or is near them when they cough or sneeze. Touching the face, particularly the mouth or nose, after touching something which has been in contact with the virus allows it to get into the airways and lungs.
Is my child at risk?
So far, from the information that we know from places in the world where there have been a lot of cases, children do not seem to get severe disease. So far there have not been any reports of increased risk even in children who have problems with their immune systems, or have other chronic diseases such as asthma, heart disease, cystic fibrosis or type 1 diabetes.
This website gives you more information.
What can I do to protect myself and my child against CoVID19?
You can reduce the risk from all coronaviruses in the same way you can avoid any respiratory infections – with good basic hygiene. The most important part of this is washing your hands regularly. This guide to good hand washing might help:
As much as you can, try to avoid contact with people who have flu like illnesses or are unwell.
At present, there is no vaccine available, but make sure you are up to date with all the regular vaccinations, particularly Hib and pneumococcal vaccines (Prevnar 13).
Should my child / young person go to school?
As of 16 March, the Government advice is that all children and adults in the UK avoid all non-essential contact with people, working from home if possible and avoiding public spaces. Subsequent advice today states that all people aged 0-69, who have an underlying health condition and are instructed to get a flu jab each year should not be in large social gatherings. Therefore, in order to comply with this, even though currently many schools are staying open, children who are on immunosuppressive treatment should not be in large social gatherings, and this includes school environments. In addition, all unnecessary travel should be stopped.
Is it safe to come to hospital?
At the moment there is no reason to be worried about coming to your out-patient appointments or for routine investigations or operations. However, we would ask that anyone with coughs, colds or fever not to come unless they need urgent care, whether or not they have chronic conditions. Sometimes it might be possible to review you over the telephone rather than bringing you up to hospital, and if so, the team looking after you may contact you to arrange this.
It is possible that this advice may change over the next few weeks, but if so, we will contact you to make other arrangements.
If you or your child is unwell and needs to come to hospital, then it is important you come. Staff are well trained in dealing with people who have infections and those who need to be protected from infection, and plans are in place to make the risks of catching COVID while in hospital as small as possible.
What should I do if I think I or my child may have been exposed to COVID19?
If you are concerned that you may have been in contact with someone with COVID19, follow the online guide and advice here:
Or call NHS 24 on 111, especially if you or your child are getting symptoms.
What do I do if I or my child is taking medicines which suppress the immune system?
You should continue all usual medicines, as these are helping to keep you or your child healthy. This is the case even if you start to have a cold or flu-like symptoms, or you are taking steroids. However, if you have a high fever, you should contact NHS24 on 111, and hold off medicines until you get further advice. Within working hours you may also contact your specialist medical team for advice.
New information and advice is being produced all the time, so check with this website
Contact your medical team if you have further questions specific to your or your own child’s care. | <urn:uuid:a1972635-2058-4cf1-8c49-e3d27582eb64> | CC-MAIN-2023-23 | https://www.snac.uk.com/latest/advice-about-covid-19/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224644817.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20230529074001-20230529104001-00374.warc.gz | en | 0.967001 | 1,336 | 3.625 | 4 |
Future of the Clean Development Mechanism in Tackling Climate Change
AbstractUsing a theoretical framework, we explain the impact of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) on emissions in Annex I and non-Annex I countries. We show that on one hand, emissions in the non-Annex I country decline because of abatement sponsored by the Annex I country under the CDM; on the other hand, emissions may increase because (i) the Annex I country increases emissions in its own country, and (ii) the non-Annex I country crowds out the bene ts from the CDM projects by increasing its domestic emissions. For the CDM to be e¤ective in reducing global emissions, we show that partial Certi ed Emissions Reduction credits should be given to the Annex I country that sponsors CDM projects in the non-Annex I country. We also suggest that the CDM Executive Board should not allow the CDM projects to be hosted by non-Annex I countries that are too conscious about their emission levels.
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Bibliographic InfoPaper provided by Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE) in its series SIRE Discussion Papers with number 2010-35.
Date of creation: 2010
Date of revision:
Clean Development Mechanism (CDM); Kyoto Protocol; emission; abatement;
Other versions of this item:
- Geethanjali Selvaretnam & Kannika Thampanishvong, 2008. "Future of the Clean Development Mechanism in tackling climate change," Discussion Paper Series, Department of Economics 200808, Department of Economics, University of St. Andrews.
- D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
- Q51 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Valuation of Environmental Effects
- Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
- Shurojit Chatterji & Sayantan Ghosal, 2009. "Technology, Unilateral Commitments and Cumulative Emissions Reduction," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo, vol. 55(2), pages 286-305, June.
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Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services. | <urn:uuid:6383b967-5e14-47fe-a190-0e3e8d130c93> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://ideas.repec.org/p/edn/sirdps/166.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011202213/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305092002-00092-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.877167 | 807 | 2.6875 | 3 |
For millions of people, summer means an opportunity to hop on a plane and experience new and exciting sights, cultures, and food. It also means getting packed into a giant commercial aircraft and then wondering if you can make it to your next layover without submitting to the anxiety of using the onboard bathroom.
Roughly the size of an apartment pantry, these narrow facilities barely accommodate your outstretched knees; turbulence can make expelling waste a harrowing nightmare. Once you’ve successfully managed to complete the task and flush, what happens next?
Unlike our home toilets, planes can’t rely on water tanks to create passive suction to draw waste from the bowl. In addition to the expense of hauling hundreds of gallons of water, it’s impractical to leave standing water in an environment that shakes its contents like a snow globe. Originally, planes used an electronic pump system that moved waste along with a deodorizing liquid called Anotec. That method worked, but carrying the Anotec was undesirable for the same reasons as storing water: It raised fuel costs and added weight to the aircraft that could have been allocated for passengers. (Not surprisingly, airlines prefer to transport paying customers over blobs of poop.)
Beginning in the 1980s, planes used a pneumatic vacuum to suck liquids and solids down and away from the fixture. Once you hit the flush button, a valve at the bottom of the toilet opens, allowing the vacuum to siphon the contents out. (A nonstick coating similar to Teflon reduces the odds of any residue.) It travels to a storage tank near the back of the plane at high speeds, ready for ground crews to drain it once the airplane lands. The tank is then flushed out using a disinfectant.
If you’re also curious about timing your bathroom visit to avoid people waiting in line while you void, flight attendants say the best time to go is right after the captain turns off the seat belt sign and before drink service begins. | <urn:uuid:cf75b796-1dfa-4499-9dff-2c392133c6ae> | CC-MAIN-2021-43 | https://www.nilexplorer.net/travel-truths-what-really-happens-when-you-flush-a-plane-loo/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-43/segments/1634323585561.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20211023033857-20211023063857-00140.warc.gz | en | 0.940856 | 407 | 2.765625 | 3 |
The HMS St Lawrence was the largest warship ever built on the Great Lakes during the age of sail. During the War of 1812, supply, reinforcement and the movement of troops for attack all depended on the naval control of the lakes. Early in the war the Americans were able to attack York and Fort George with impunity. Because Lake Ontario is effectively landlocked by Niagara in the west and the St Lawrence River rapids in the east, if warships were to operate on the lake, they needed to be built or assembled there.
The size and power of the St Lawrence were a result of the ambition of British naval commodore James Lucas Yeo. He had approval to build a smaller ship, but being far from his commanders in England, he greatly enlarged the ship. The keel was laid on 12 April 1814 at the Point Frederick shipyard in Kingston, Upper Canada. The triple-decker ship of the line was a monster of its time, more powerful even than Lord Nelson's flagship Victory. It eventually carried 112 guns and a crew of 837 officers and seamen, most of whom had to be dispatched from Quebec City. HMS St Lawrence was launched 10 September 1814. In contrast to ocean-going vessels of the time, the ship had a shallow draft and was rather unstable. It was struck by lightning four days after its maiden voyage. Nevertheless, the ship served its purpose. It never saw action because it was such a deterrent.
After the war HMS St Lawrence was decommissioned and its hull used as storage for a local Kingston brewery. Later it was sunk close to shore in Kingston harbour, where it now serves as a popular diving attraction.
See also Ships of the War of 1812. | <urn:uuid:ab6d7ce4-917d-4de5-bba7-caa2dfcbcf8a> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/hms-st-lawrence-british-warship-of-the-war-of-1812 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370496669.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20200330054217-20200330084217-00030.warc.gz | en | 0.984193 | 348 | 3.859375 | 4 |
Written by Mason Vander Lugt, Syracuse University catalog librarian and proprietor of the historical music blog Dinosaur Discs.
The ‘Blue Tail Fly’, or ‘Jim Crack Corn’, dates back to Jan. 1846, the heyday of American minstrelsy. It tells a story of a young slave and his master and reflects some nuance of the race dynamics of the Southern United States before the Civil War. While many minstrel songs whitewash the slaves’ experience by narrating a sentimentality for the land or their masters, “Blue Tail Fly” sneaks in a joke by suggesting that the slave may have intentionally caused his master’s death, or at least been pleased by it after the fact.
The meaning of “Jim (or Jimmy) Crack Corn” has been the subject of much debate, but some suggest it meant that the slave could ‘crack [a bottle of] corn [whiskey]’ (now that the master is gone), or that ‘jimmy’ meant ‘gimme’ and cracked corn, unripe green corn only suited for corn meal porridge. Considering the alternate contemporary line “an’ scratch ‘im with a brier, too”, I like the first interpretation.
For a straightforward history of Dan Emmett and American minstrelsy, check out Hans Nathan’s “Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Negro Minstrelsy“. For a discussion of the complex forces that created minstrelsy, and its extended (and continuing) effects on American culture, see Eric Lott’s “Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class“. | <urn:uuid:af604b18-f45b-4dc6-a6e9-4a75c95ceea0> | CC-MAIN-2016-22 | http://soundbeat.org/2013/02/20/blue-tail-fly/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-22/segments/1464049275764.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20160524002115-00048-ip-10-185-217-139.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918687 | 372 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Common Schools in Craven County, 1850
Title: Common Schools in Craven County
Creator: Lane, John T.
Subject: Education--North Carolina--Craven County
Description: Broadside detailing the progress of the Common Schools of Craven County during the year.
Publisher: Craven County. Board of Superintendents of Common Schools
Date: January 12, 1850.
Format: 1 page.
Coverage: Craven County (N.C.)
Rights: Permission to use this item must be obtained from the New Bern-Craven County Public Library, 400 Johnson Street, New Bern, NC 28560.
Click on image above for a more detailed image.
COMMON SCHOOLS IN CRAVEN COUNTY.
BELOW will be found a table exhibiting the amount that was due each district in this county from the Common School fund on the 1st day of October last. In submitting it, the Board of Superintendents take occasion to remark that while they have some cause to rejoice upon the success of the Common School system in this county, they have sources of deep mortification. While some of our citizens are availing themselves of all the advantages presented to them and are giving their children that education which so justly belongs to them, there are too many who are entirely neglecting it. It is enough to make the heart sick to look at the returns made from some of the School districts and to see how many children are absent from the School. There are parents among us who make daily, every exertion to accumulate property for their off-spring, and yet entirely fail to give them what will be to them immensely of more benefit! What amount of property can pay a man for the want of an education? Let any one ask himself the question, which he
would rather part with--his property or his education, and there is not an individual who would not unhesitatingly prefer the former. That youth is rich, who arrives at manhood with good habits and a liberal education, and he is indeed poor, though possessing any amount of wealth, without them. A majority of the persons who are distinguished in this country, have raised themselves to their present eminence by their own exertions, and the aid of Common Schools. The road to honor and usefulness is closed only to the ignorant and uninformed--so, let us lay the foundation of a good education for our children to build upon, then they may, by proper exertion render themselves useful citizens.
The Board have seen many instances in this County of children possessing a high order of intellect and it is to them a source of deep regret to see it uncultivated. Our State suffers a great loss from this waste of mental treasure.
THE COMMON SCHOOL FUND.
|Number of||1845||1846||1847||1848||1849||Whole Amount||Number of||1845||1846||1847||1848||1849||Whole Amount.|
|District||$ cts||$ cts||$ cts||$ cts||$ cts||District||$ cts||$ cts||$ cts||$ cts||$ cts||$ cts|
By order of the BOARD,
JOHN T. LANE, Chairman.
January 12th, 1850.
Images scanned by John B. Green, III. Text prepared by
Victor T. Jones, Jr.
This page last edited on 19 Aug 09. | <urn:uuid:ca2d15ed-1a9c-4ce3-b5d6-1c6feb351893> | CC-MAIN-2014-15 | http://newbern.cpclib.org/digital/ephemera/schools1850.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-15/segments/1398223211700.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20140423032011-00341-ip-10-147-4-33.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.873069 | 720 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Completing horizontal wells with the plug-and-perf and the ball-and-seat styles of completion has remained one of the most common methods or stimulating tight oil and gas or shale formations across North America. The use of coiled tubing, coupled with a milling bottom hole assembly, is often used to remove these plugs and restrictions after fracturing operations are completed.
The costs associated with the milling operations are often scrutinized by the operators, as they can increase dramatically if the strategy for each aspect of the milling process is poorly designed. Implementing a technical approach to the optimization of treating fluids throughout the entire milling process has resulted in significant improvements in plug milling efficiencies over traditional methods.
Current Industry Practice
Many of the industry rules-of-thumb and best practices have their roots in the jointed pipe drilling and workover world at a time where 99 per cent of all wells worked on were vertical. The physics of cuttings transport in a world where circulation had to stop every time another joint of pipe was added to the drill string dictated what was pumped. Fluid viscosities were raised using polymer gels to suspend the solids long enough to connect the next joint of tubing before circulation could resume.
This method continued to be successful with the advent of horizontal wells since pipe rotation and the turbulence around each tool joint enabled the cuttings which settle out of the flow stream along the long horizontal section to be re-entrained. Even though workover equipment evolved from jointed pipe rigs to coiled tubing units over the next decade, the rules-of-thumb stayed the same. The need for viscosity to support cuttings during pipe connections disappeared, but the gel did not.
The ability to re-entrain cuttings along the horizontal section of the well by pipe rotation was lost (coiled tubing cannot be rotated) so it was replaced by mechanical agitation in the form of wiper trips. In a wiper trip, the bit is regularly pulled back to the heel of the well to fluff up the solids lying on the low side of the well. These conventional methods of plug and ball seat removal often use relatively large amounts of chemical.
Despite the large number of chemicals used to aid in debris removal, the wiper trip is still invariably used to ensure sand and debris created from milling are transported to the vertical section of the well. A wiper is the act of pulling the coiled tubing from the working depth in the horizontal to near the vertical section of the well. This is often done after a prescribed number of plugs or ports have been removed, this can vary from two to five plugs or seats, depending on the experience of the service provider. This is time consuming and significantly reduces the remaining fatigue life of the coiled tubing string.
The performance and repeatability of this conventional method have been lacking since the amount of time and cycled meters needed to perform a mill-out can vary greatly depending on the amount of wiper trips made throughout the operation.
Fluid Rheology Control System (FRCS) Optimized Approach In an effort to reduce the number of stuck pipe incidents, reduce total job time, and reduce chemical consumption, a number of companies during the last 15 years have focused on the optimization of debris removal as it was noted that improving debris transport was the area that could yield the largest increase in milling efficiencies.
Mountain Coil Tubing’s answer to the debris optimization question is the fluid rheology control system (FRCS). The FRCS unit combines a chemical injection system and a field laboratory that is tailored specifically for coiled tubing. The unit aims to improve chemical dosing for coiled tubing operations in three key areas, consistency, verification, and optimization. This allows the unit to create a consistent working fluid, even when re-circulated. By controlling the rheology of the fluid, a specific Reynolds Number to be targeted downhole which allows for the debris to be return to surface without the use of gel or wiper trips.
On a recent six well post-frac bridge plug milling project the FRCS unit was used to increase efficiencies and performance of the operation. Mountain Coil Tubing sent two large conventional 2 3/8” coiled tubing spreads. One FRCS unit with trained fluid technicians was utilized to successful supply both spreads with continuous precision chemical dosing and fluid testing.
The project, targeting the Duvernay formation, contained 245 plugs, with a total of 33,196 m drilled, completed with 5.5” casing from heel to toe, with an average WHP ranging from 25-35 MPa. One well, measuring 5,809 m to TD and containing 54 plugs was successfully milled to PBTD without the use of a wiper trip. This was while averaging 30 minutes per plug, including milling time, and wash time to the next plug as tagged.
A second well, measuring 5,465 m to TD and containing 34 plugs was successfully milled out to PBTD, with a total inwell operating time of only 38 hours. This was while only pumping 29 litres of gel and not performing one wiper trip.
When comparing previous campaigns the client has stated this campaign using Mountain Coil Tubing and FRCS technology was able to mill out twice the number of plugs in half the time, with half the number of cycled meters, and a substantial reduction in chemical costs, resulting in a substantial reduction in the overall CT completions costs. Pull the image from the PDF for this.
The drive to reduce the costs related to coiled tubing milling operations has led to a re-evaluation of current industry practices and its understanding of debris removal in horizontal wellbores. It has been proven that by utilizing the FRCS unit, debris can be successfully removed from the wellbore without relying on gel and wiper trips. It is clear that the implementation of this optimized approach is successful in improving the efficiency, and reducing the costs of mill-out operations.
Focusing on fluid rheology, and the working fluids Reynolds number resulted in a reduction of operating time, chemical consumption, cycled meters and operating time, greatly reducing the overall cost of coiled tubing in well completions. For more information contact Mountain Coil Sales and Engineering. | <urn:uuid:5e31052b-cb3d-453e-bc1f-0a1f101ecd4f> | CC-MAIN-2018-39 | https://www.mountaincoil.com/mountain-coil-tubing-completes-6-well-bridge-plug-mill-out-campaign-in-duvernay-with-frcs-technology/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-39/segments/1537267155817.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20180919024323-20180919044323-00288.warc.gz | en | 0.959427 | 1,296 | 2.734375 | 3 |
It’s hot outside. Really hot.
So hot, the National Weather Service has issued an excessive heat warning for areas of California, specifically the Inland areas through Wednesday, when temperatures could reach 112 degrees.
Desert communities could experience temperatures as hot as 122 degrees.
As residents hunker down to avoid the heat, we asked experts about common heat-related questions, here’s what they said:
1. Do more bugs take refuge indoors when it’s hot?
“Many bugs do seek shelter inside to escape the extreme heat,” said Michael Greaney, co-owner of DM Pest Control in Chino Hills. “There are a ton of bugs that really thrive in the heat as well. This is like a perfect storm though, with the record rain and now the heat it’s going to be a pretty extreme summer.”
Mosquitoes tend to pop up over summer and have the potential to carry West Nile virus.
Vector Control recommends residents remove all standing water around their property, where mosquitoes can lay eggs; avoid spending time outside at dawn or dusk when mosquitoes are most active; wear loose fitting, light colored clothing that covers feet, arms and legs; apply insect repellent containing DEET and make sure doors and windows have tight-fitting screens.
2. Can flights be grounded if temperatures are too hot?
Flights might be delayed due to triple-digit temperatures, but it’s rare, said Capt. Billy Nolen, senior vice president of safety, security and operations for Airlines for America.
Before taking off, a calculation is done taking into consideration the plane’s load, engine and environmental conditions. Temperature is a component of that, Nolen said.
“There are maximum temperatures set by the manufacturer for takeoffs and landings, so there could be instances and usually if runways are small, where you might have a performance degradation and it may not be possible to take off for a certain period of time,” he said.
Airplanes need longer takeoff rolls to get enough lift to take off when it’s very hot, according to Ian Gregor, public affairs manager for the Federal Aviation Administration’s Pacific Division.
“Airlines, not the FAA, decide whether a plane can take off given its weight, the temperature and the available length of runway,” Gregor said, adding that these issues arise from time to time in Phoenix and Las Vegas.
3. Are pregnant women more likely to go into labor?
Pregnant women are not more likely to go into labor during a heat wave, according to Courtney Martin, a doctor of osteopathy, obstetrician-gynecologist at Loma Linda University Health, but they are more susceptible to heat stroke, heat sensitivity and related concerns.
“Because they can get dehydrated easily, this usually causes visits to triage and the hospital because it can cause pre-term contractions (not true labor) and other dehydration related concerns that may require treatment,” Martin said.
It is critical that pregnant women not overdo it on hot days, drink plenty of water, and go into labor and delivery if they have concerns or symptoms of pre-term labor, according to Martin.
“Women who are pregnant do not have the same reserve as when they are not, and may push themselves too hard,” she said.
4. Can driving in triple-digit temperatures lead to car troubles?
Take it easy on the accelerator, said Marty Zuniga, automotive instructor at Universal Technical Institute in Rancho Cucamonga and a 30-year Automotive Service Excellence Certified Master Mechanic.
“Your car is already working harder in the heat,” he said. “Take it easy and follow the speed limit on hot days to avoid overheating.”
Drivers should take cars in for basic maintenance – fluid checks, battery changed, oil replaced, radiator hoses fixed and ensure the air conditioner is functioning, he said.
They should also check tire pressure and have a spare tire, tools and roadside assistance number handy.
5. Can the heat lead to train delays?
While it might never be hot enough to melt steel railroad tracks, a heat wave can cause steel to expand, which could lead to buckling or spots in the rails known as “sun kinks,” according to Union Pacific Railroad officials.
Kinks can lead to derailments, which is why trains often will slow down during hot weather.
According to Metrolink officials, “slow orders,” are issued when the temperature outside reaches 110 degrees, or the rail temperature hits 140 degrees.
In June 2016, during a similar heat wave, Metrolink delayed trains on its San Bernardino and Ventura County lines due to extreme heat.
At this time there are no heat restrictions to the service, according to Scott Johnson, Metrolink spokesman, but staff are monitoring the weather and rail conditions.
“We would certainly encourage Metrolink passengers to continue to monitor social media and our website,” Johnson said. “As the temperatures increase so does the possibility of slow orders or service delays due to the heat.”
Staff Writer Beatriz?Valenzuela contributed to this report. | <urn:uuid:2fda4357-f86e-420b-8da3-f3fe85cc5818> | CC-MAIN-2021-31 | https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/06/20/how-the-heat-wave-could-impact-planes-trains-cars-and-more-4/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-31/segments/1627046154127.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20210731234924-20210801024924-00415.warc.gz | en | 0.938722 | 1,100 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Car manufacturers are continually coming up with new inventions creating new brands of vehicles. Jeeps and trucks have taken center stage in the automotive industry, standing tall with their iconic features.
Have you ever tried to look at the in-depth difference between a truck and a jeep? Chances are, you weren’t in a position to tell the vast difference between the two automobiles.
These two vehicles are built to withstand almost similar travel conditions. Off-road travel and heavy load carrying require either a truck or a jeep.
To help you compare and contrast a Jeep and a truck, enabling you to understand which vehicle to use in specific conditions, we dove into research and have digested it for you in this article. Here we go!
A Deeper Understanding of Jeep and Truck
If you are looking for a vehicle to travel with to even the most remote areas, look no further than a jeep or a truck.
These two vehicles are designed to comfortably slide over obstacles in the rocky regions enabling you to access resources from any part of the world, whether remote or easily accessible via highway.
With either a jeep or a truck, you have an advantage over regular car owners in the sense that you can drive on all types of roads without fear of breakdown or unnegotiable obstacles.
This convenience is facilitated by the unique creation of their transmission systems and all-weather body design. However, a jeep and truck differ in a few features, including the load-carrying capacity.
Generally, jeeps are strong and can tow heavier loads, although the same load cannot fit in the cargo space. On the other hand, trucks have huge cargo spaces, meaning they can carry impressively sizable amounts of luggage and heavy loads.
The jeep’s primary use is off-road travel, in rough terrains, while trucks’ primary use is transporting heavy loads from point A to point B conveniently.
To simplify this concept, when you set out to buy a jeep, your aim would most likely be Overlanding, with the journey being your intended purpose.
If you buy a truck, you make the process of moving heavy loads more comfortable. A truck’s engine provides it with more power to help tow large loads that cannot fit in the truck’s cargo space.
Compared to jeeps, trucks have more comprehensive combustion resulting in more transmission power to be used in performing heavy tasks. On the road, trucks are generally more steady than jeeps.
Naturally, most remote areas have shallow trails making it nearly impossible for trucks to maneuver with ease across these areas. For this reason, most people prefer using jeeps, which are smaller in size and lighter to explore dirt roads.
Analyzing a Pickup Truck
Moving heavy loads has been a challenge for the human species, consequently calling for an invention to solve this problem.
Car manufacturers have therefore resulted in creating heavy engine vehicles with spacious cargo holding backs. Trucks are manufactured in various sizes to help carry loads of different sizes to the desired destinations.
These loads have varying weights meaning the trucks used to transport them don’t need the same engine power. For example, moving two thousand toilet papers demands a bigger cargo space.
The engine power required for this task is less than needed to transport bags of cement that occupy the same room. The design of trucks depends on its business purpose.
Trucks meant for carrying excavation gear will have a design that accommodates the same gear’s loading and unloading. Similarly, trucks meant for water transport will have to be designed to accommodate a tank’s installation on the truck’s back.
The economy’s current state calls for diesel powering of trucks due to the lower diesel selling price than gasoline. However, several countries, including Mexico and Canada, have their medium-sized tracks controlled by fuel motors.
The different purposes of trucks make it necessary for manufacturers to create trucks of various types. The ultra-light trucks are ideal for transporting feather-weight objects.
The light trucks are used to transport relatively light-weight items, while the medium trucks are better suited to transport slightly heavy loads.
The heavy trucks are for carrying heavy loads, and off-road trucks are used mostly for adventure and the pride that comes with driving this road monster.
Other categories of trucks, similarly as a result of their intended purposes, including pickup trucks, power stations, and food trucks for moving food and food products from manufacturers to consumers.
The need for a versatile vehicle to be used for military travel resulted in the creating of a unique vehicle model by the Chrysler bunch.
Soldiers took advantage of this light-weight jeep to transport essential resources, including weapons, medicine, and food across hilly territories through rough roads.
Once people learned of the jeep’s advantages, they quickly accepted it for day to day travel in low accessibility areas.
The American community has assimilated the Jeep into one of their most covered off-road automobile brands. The Jeep has also earned the title Sport Utility Vehicle ( SUV). The easiest way of identifying a driver’s personality is by observing the kind of vehicle he drives.
Jeep lovers are considered outgoing and risk-takers. Driving on hilly grounds without fear and balancing this four-wheel off-road king takes guts to pull off without any causing any damage successfully.
If you want to experience the fun of rough terrain driving, a jeep is undoubtedly your ideal vehicle. This kind of driving has a therapeutic effect on some people and is a standard escape room for jeep enthusiasts.
Selling this vehicle requires top-notch marketing skills to convince a potential buyer to pick a jeep over a truck if both classic 4WD vehicle types have similar price ranges
. For the lovers of group associations, owning a jeep automatically earns you a seat in the Jeep owners club. You will get a chance to enjoy jeep meets for bonding activities such as racing and meal sharing gatherings where you exchange ideas on jeep maintenance and driving techniques.
The Difference Between a Truck and a Jeep
Here are a few things that will help you differentiate between a truck and a jeep.
I refer to the jeep as a truck, but the truck carries the day when it comes to the heavy lifting. You can place as much weight load as possible to the point of overloading, and the truck will still be strong and stable.
A truck has the space to accommodate the weight, unlike the jeep. Secondly, the truck has more power. On the other hand, the jeep has a luggage space but not a whole weight space. Again when you overload the jeep, it becomes unstable.
In this case, they both thrive in rough use. Jeep is designed to work perfectly on the rugged road. Its four-wheel drive helps it through rugged roads. Trucks are designed to work. They will go through rough roads with tones of goods and still maintain it’s stability. With both factors, the experience in the rugged use will be the best.
Now when it comes to off-road experience, the jeep was made for this day. It has added features like more height to ensure it can climb an extra hilly area.
Besides, the jeep offers the chance to remove the doors and the roofing. This makes the adventure all worth it and so much fun. Trucks are work and not the fun vehicle.
They are designed to do what is needed to do. In this case, when it comes to off-road, it won’t do well. But pickups and lorries may try competing with the jeep, but it’s not safe as it will interfere with the stability, and the truck is not designed to perform such a task.
If you are looking for the full experience on the off-road, go for the jeep wrangler. With the advancement, it has on the drivetrain plus all the modifications you can do with it. You are sure to enjoy the trip if you are those people who enjoy the adventure.
In this case, they will both thrive when it comes to on-road. But jeep is specifically designed for the off-road, and the trucks are work vehicles, and in most cases, they will operate on-road.
There are jeeps designed for on-road, and some have the front-wheel-drive only, which means they can only be used on-road. These kinds are efficient when it comes to fuel consumption, unlike the all-wheel drive.
People like to give their things that personal touch that says something about them. When it comes to the jeep, you have a wide range and space of customization.
For example, you can choose to keep the doors and the roof or use a top that you can put and remove when you want.
Jeep is a fun vehicle, and for that reason, they give you the space to have fun with it, and this is one reason which has made it so popular.
Trucks and pick up on the other hand, have very little space to customize. It is assumed their purpose is work and hence no time to play.
Conclusion on jeep vs truck pros and cons
Trucks and jeeps are all-powerful vehicles, and for that reason, people should be careful when driving. Especially with the jeep, which tends to be so much fun, always remember the basic safety rules like the safety belt. | <urn:uuid:e9f62b9c-af03-4086-9f5a-da64ca2c6e9f> | CC-MAIN-2023-23 | https://jeepmodified.com/jeep-vs-truck/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224648322.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20230602040003-20230602070003-00150.warc.gz | en | 0.957466 | 1,975 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Modeling Acoustic Damping Processes
Mufflers are often located in exhaust systems or on heat, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, where their key functionality is to dampen the noise that is emitted from the system. A correct description of the acoustic damping (absorption and attenuation) processes in the muffler is important when designing and modeling these systems.
Modeling the Damping Effect
Damping is generally achieved by a combination of three processes: resonances that trap the acoustic energy at given frequencies, absorption of acoustic energy by different porous and fibrous lining materials, and losses in perforated plates, also known as perforates. COMSOL Multiphysics offers a multitude of techniques to model both the damping in porous materials and the acoustic properties of perforates.
Adding an equivalent fluid model for a porous domain is easy in COMSOL Multiphysics. Simply add a new pressure acoustics model and activate it in the domain with the porous material, then select the fluid model. The “Macroscopic empirical porous models” comprise the Delany-Bazley and the Miki models, while the “Biot equivalents” model is the Johnson-Champoux-Allard (JCA) model in a rigid or limp porous matrix frame configuration.
As with many modeling approaches, several degrees of detail are possible in this type of analysis. You may model the system in great detail, for example, modeling every hole in a perforated plate. This approach may yield detailed results, but it is often impossible in practice due to the computational cost. You can also choose a form of model reduction, meaning you can determine which approximation can be used to simplify the model. For example, this could come in the form of lumping (describing part of your model using characteristics like stiffness, damping, and mass), employing sub-models (using the results from a detailed analysis of a small section of your model as an input into the larger model), or homogenization (consider a heterogeneous domain as a homogeneous domain with certain compensating properties). The typical approach for a porous material, for example, is to describe the wave propagation in a homogenized way, spreading out the losses by using an equivalent fluid model. Similarly, perforated plates are most often modeled using a homogenized transfer impedance approach, where the losses due to the presence of the holes are spread out over the boundary where the holes are located.
Implementing Modeling Types
To implement these types of models in COMSOL Multiphysics, you could use some of the built-in functionality, such as selecting one of the many fluid models or using a perforated plate boundary condition. You also have the flexibility to customize the model based on your needs by defining your preferred equivalent fluid model, defining your own transfer impedance model, or defining your material properties based on measured data you import into COMSOL Multiphysics.
As I mentioned in the beginning of this blog post, a good description of damping materials and perforated plates is important when designing systems containing mufflers. It is also important in application areas other than mufflers, of course. For instance, this is important when modeling wall lining and sound absorption for rooms (absorbers and diffusers), or when modeling the acoustics of a car interior, or a loudspeaker system. In both cases, one has to decide how to treat and model sound propagation through materials such as textiles, foams, and porous materials.
Porous Absorbing Materials
When simulating a system that contains a porous material, you will need to decide on which modeling approach to take, as well as how your material can be described based on that approach. The damping properties of porous and fibrous materials can be included in one of the following forms in COMSOL Multiphysics:
- A surface impedance may be added at the boundary between the air domain and the porous material so that the porous domain itself is not modeled, but only its “boundary” influence is. This impedance can be based on an analytical model or on measured data from an impedance tube measurement, for example.
- The porous domain can be modeled as a fluid with a given attenuation coefficient; this can be, and often is, frequency-dependent. In COMSOL Multiphysics you can enter the attenuation coefficient of a material directly, and this can be entered as an analytical expression or as a frequency-dependent function based on measured material property data you import into COMSOL Multiphysics.
- The porous domain can be modeled as an equivalent fluid: a homogenized model where the porous domain is treated as a “fluid” with damping properties. COMSOL Multiphysics contains many equivalent fluid models, including the well-known Delany-Bazley, Miki, and Johnson-Champoux-Allard (JCA) models.
- Finally, it is possible to use the Poroelastic Waves interface to solve a detailed model for the interaction between the elastic porous matrix and the saturating fluid based on the equations described by Biot’s theory. This interface can be used to model any porous material, and solves for both the displacement of the porous matrix and the pressure in the saturating fluid.
Your choice of an approach from the above list will depend on what data is available for the porous material and on the desired level of detail. Keep in mind that in all cases it is possible to use a sub-model approach. For example, you could create a detailed model of a piece of porous lining and extract the surface impedance, then add that impedance as a boundary condition in a model of the full system.
When perforated plates are present in a muffler system, they typically contain many holes, and it is not generally expedient to model them all in detail. Moreover, in order to get the correct viscous and thermal damping of the acoustic waves (when they pass through the holes) you would need to model the acoustics in the holes using the Thermoacoustic interface, which will increase the computational complexity of the model. The best approach, therefore, is to model a perforated plate using a transfer impedance boundary condition; this boundary condition is available in COMSOL Multiphysics and is based on certain characteristics of your perforations such as plate thickness and hole diameter. See, for example, the Acoustic Muffler with Thermoacoustic Impedance Lumping model. This model also shows how to use a sub-model approach: here a detailed thermoacoustic model of a single hole is used to determine a transfer impedance.
Further Reading and Models
- COMSOL Now
- Today in Science | <urn:uuid:af8b02af-d5bd-43be-908b-ad8a644e3587> | CC-MAIN-2020-40 | https://uk.comsol.com/blogs/modeling-acoustic-damping-processes/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-40/segments/1600402123173.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20200930075754-20200930105754-00726.warc.gz | en | 0.921364 | 1,397 | 3.140625 | 3 |
The first plastic-like substance débuted at the International Exhibition in London in 1869 when Alexander Parkes announced his discovery – ‘Parkesine’ – a plastic mass which could be moulded by machine into an infinite variety of products. Parkes started with ‘collodion’, a mixture of ether, alcohol and natural cellulose derived from cotton. The result was a jelly-like lotion which he hoped to cast into thick slabs. Unfortunately, the chemicals used to make the collodion
were too expensive, his financial backers got cold feet and Parkes’ enterprise went into receivership a few years later.
The search for imitation ivory billiard balls sparked the next big plastic discovery – celluloid. In upstate New York John Wesley Hyatt attempted to surround a wooden ball with collodion, the same mixture that Parkes had used. It was a good idea except that the balls exploded on contact. The solution was to add camphor. That made the new material both malleable and tough. Celluloid was the first ‘thermoplastic’: a substance which when moulded under heat and pressure retains its shape. Hyatt went on to make combs, pins, shirt collars and cuffs from celluloid that was dyed to look like ivory, ebony, mother-of-pearl and tortoiseshell. A few years later, in 1888, George Eastman (of Kodak fame) gave celluloid its greatest boost when he turned it into the first flexible film for photographs and movies.
Leo Baekeland, a Belgian immigrant in New York, discovered the first completely synthetic plastic by applying heat and pressure to a mixture of phenol (from coal tar) and formaldehyde (a wood alcohol distillate). Bakelite was the first plastic derived from fossil fuels. It was also a thermoplastic – once it was ‘set’ its form was fixed. Bakelite is virtually indestructible – shatter-proof, chemically stable and resistant to electricity and heat. It was also incredibly useful and very beautiful. Bakelite became the miracle plastic of the Art Deco age. It was turned into radio cabinets, telephones, billiard balls, fountain pens, combs, electric insulators and counter tops. Later it became an essential ingredient in most of the weapons used in the Second World War. In his later years Leo Baekeland became a fervent peace campaigner and eventually sold his company to chemical giant Union Carbide.
1920 Rayon and cellophane
Louis Berniguet developed rayon, a form of modified cellulose (plant matter), in Paris in 1891. But it was the Swiss engineer, JE Brandenberger, who in 1913 perfected a way of rolling rayon into clear viscose sheets which he called cellophane. DuPont snapped up the patent in 1920. Soon cellophane was launched as the first flexible, moisture-proof packaging – initially used to wrap cigars, cigarettes, chocolates and fancy baked goods. Meanwhile rayon, a cellulose-based synthetic fibre, became the first artificial replacement for silk. Du Pont perfected the fabric in 1926 and it soon became a slinky, luminous fashion favourite. By the mid-1930s over 80 per cent of the dresses sold in the US contained some rayon.
1926 Vinyl (PVC or polyvinyl chloride)
Walden Semon was working at BF Goodrich in Ohio, looking for a way of binding rubber to metal when he discovered polyvinyl chloride. But nothing much happened with PVC until the Second World War when natural rubber was scarce. Vinyl was a durable insulator so it was used instead of rubber to coat electrical wire in both ships and aircraft. PVC is extremely toxic, releasing cancer-causing dioxins and other persistent organic pollutants, both in production and disposal. PVC has been linked to a rare form of liver cancer as well as brain cancer, lung cancer, lymphomas, leukemia and liver cirrhosis – 60 per cent of the PVC molecule comes from chlorine. PVC is used in everything from shower curtains and water pipes to auto parts and luggage. More than 60 per cent of it is used in the construction industry.
1935 Nylon and neoprene
The popularity of bakelite sparked a plastic mania. The German scientist, Herman Staudinger, pioneered polymer chemistry in 1920. But it was DuPont chemist Charles Carrothers whose study of long-chain polyesters unlocked the door to a plastic cornucopia. Carrothers found that inserting different elements (nitrogen, oxygen or chlorine for example) in a chemical chain of hydrogen and carbon created endless ‘polymer’ possibilities. By 1935 he’d come up with a tough, new plastic called Fiber 66, eventually dubbed nylon. Unveiled at the 1939 New York Word’s Fair, nylon stockings soon swept the world. Carrothers and his team also came up with neoprene, the first successful synthetic rubber. But their biggest discovery might have been the revolutionary synthetic textile, polyester, now a backbone of the clothing industry.
At about the same time, two British researchers at ICI, R Gibson and E Fawcett, heating ethylene in a pressurized cooker, stumbled across polyethylene (also called polythene) now one of the most world’s common plastics. It was the first plastic to sell more than a billion pounds a year in the US and more of it is produced yearly than any other kind of plastic. Polyethylene is used for everything from soft drink bottles and milk jugs to grocery bags and storage containers for food.
The post-War years saw an explosion in plastic consumer goods. Polyvinylidene chloride (also known as plastic wrap or cling film) was trumpeted as the modern way to wrap and store food. Plastic (actually vinyl) replaced shellac in the music business when long-playing records were launched in the late 1940s. Meanwhile, in Vermont Earl S Tupper bought some used plastic moulding machines and some polyethylene pellets from DuPont and soon produced his first Tupperware bowls. The rest is history. Sales of Tupper’s miracle kitchenware boomed. In 1959 he sold his company for $16 million, bought himself an island in Central America, and eventually moved to Costa Rica, giving up his US citizenship to avoid taxes.
1950s-60s Plastic mania
The use of plastic skyrocketed as the auto industry moved to the centre of the global economy. In 1955, General Motors unveiled the Corvette, the first car to use plastic in its body panels. Today the average car is 10 per cent plastic. And in Europe the Swiss engineer George de Mestral, intrigued by the burrs in his dog’s coat, eventually came up with a synthetic imitation in 1959. He made it from nylon and called it Velcro from the French words velours (velvet) and crochet (hook). Meanwhile, in the 1960s, New York pop artist Claes Oldenburg fashioned giant hamburgers out of plastic, while in London Mary Quant was designing shiny plastic raincoats.
1970s Toxic fears
With the rise of the environmental movement and the discovery of the deadly impact of DDT and PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), serious concerns were raised about the unknown impact of other potentially deadly industrial chemicals. The work of pioneering environmentalist Rachel Carson led to the banning of DDT in most Western countries in the 1970s. A few years later PCBs were also phased out when they were shown to cause cancer and damage the immune system. PCBs had been widely used in plastics, rubber, paints and dyes since the 1920s. Forty years later both these chemicals are still found throughout the food chain.
1980-2008 Polar fleece and pollution
The end of the 20th century saw a huge growth in hi-tech plastic gadgets. Dr William DeVries installed the first plastic heart in 1982. Super fibres were also developed. These included polar fleece, a warm, quick-drying fabric made from shredded plastic bottles; ‘breathable’ Gore-Tex (a form of Teflon) which became an essential part of outdoor clothing; form-fitting spandex, de rigueur for serous cyclists; and Kevlar, a light-weight material used to make bullet-proof clothing for police and military.
But environmental and public health concerns are growing. Unsightly plastic pollution, gender-bending chemicals like phthalates and bisphenol A (BPA) as well as cancer clusters near industrial plants have sparked an urgent demand for regulation and reform of the chemical industry.
This first appeared in our award-winning magazine - to read more, subscribe from just £7 | <urn:uuid:ef85a63f-8940-4db3-b0be-4b0f127b3bf8> | CC-MAIN-2015-22 | http://newint.org/features/2008/09/01/polymer-revolution/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-22/segments/1432207930866.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20150521113210-00192-ip-10-180-206-219.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961786 | 1,823 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Some historians have recommended that http://topdatingideas.com/top-interracial-dating-sites the at-the-time unprecedented regulations banning “interracial” marriage were originally created by planters as a divide-and-rule tactic following the uprising of European and African indentured servants in cases such as Bacon’s Rebellion. As per to this theory, the ban on mixte marriage was issued to split up the ethnically merged, increasingly “mixed-race” work force into “whites, ” who had been given their freedom, and “blacks, inch who were later treated because slaves rather than as indentured servants. By simply outlawing “interracial” marriage, it became possible to hold these two new groups separated and prevent a brand new rebellion. In line with the UK 2001 census, black British males were around 50% much more likely than dark females to marry outside the house their competition.
These two areas had the highest rates of interracial marriages involving by least an individual black spouse in the United States. The vast majority of these kinds of marriages engaged black men marrying ethnic Mexican women of all ages or first generation Tejanas (Texas-born women of all ages of Mexican descent). Seeing that ethnic Mexicans were regarded as white simply by Texas officials and the U. S. authorities, such marriages had been a infringement of the state’s anti-miscegenation laws and regulations.
The American indian lineages are M2, M6 and U2i, the East Asian kinds are E1, D5a, M7c, and F (E1 and M7c also found only in South East Asia and Madagascar), the European/Middle Eastern ones are U2e, T1, J, L, and I, plus the African types are L1b1, L2a1, L3b, and L3e1. The Great Court ruled that the Alabama anti-miscegenation law did not violate the 14th Amendment towards the United States Make-up. According to the court, both contests were cured equally, mainly because whites and blacks were punished in equal evaluate for breaking the law against interracial marriage and interracial having sex. This opinion was overturned in 1967 in the Caring v. Va case, where the Supreme Court docket led by simply Chief Rights Earl Warren declared anti-miscegenation laws a violation of the Fourteenth Rewrite and therefore unconstitutional.
In addition , many British officers who had American indian wives and Anglo-Indian children in British isles India typically brought all of them over to Great britain in the 19th century. Many population of Réunion Creoles who also are of mixed ancestry and from the majority of the population. Interracial relationships between Euro men and Chinese men with African women, Of india women, China women, Madagascar women were common. In 2005, a genetic review on the racially mixed persons of Réunion found this particular. For maternal (mitochondrial) DNA, the haplogroups are Indian (44%), East Hard anodized cookware (27%), European/Middle Eastern (19%) or Photography equipment (10%).
Indian Chinese ladies (30%) were twice as probably as their male counterparts (15%) to marry someone from a different ethnic group. This summer the Census showed that almost one in 10 people in The uk were either married or perhaps living with someone from another type of ethnic group, with ratios ranging from 85% of mixed-race people to 4% of white people. Inter-ethnic marital life began occurring more often in Britain since the seventeenth century, when the British East India Enterprise began getting over many Indian college students, lascars, servants and workers.
By the later 19th century and early on 20th hundred years, there were about 70, 500 South Asians working on Uk ships, 51, 616 of whom had been lascar seamen working on Uk merchant ships for the Royal Navy blue when Environment War you began. People with To the south Asian fringant fathers and white-colored mothers proven tiny interracial tourists in Britain’s dock areas. The small volume of ethnic minority women in Britain were often outnumbered by “half-caste Indian” daughters born by white mothers and American indian fathers though mixed contest families had been still incredibly unusual in Britain during this period.
Moreover, the release of Islam during the Tang Dynasty inside the 7th hundred years brought an influx of immigrants. Due to the majority of these types of immigrants being male, many intermarried with Chinese females. In 836 Lu Chun was appointed since governor of Canton, and was ashamed to find the Chinese language living with foreigners and intermarrying.
Yet, there is no evidence that anyone in South Texas was charged for violating this regulation. The rates of this interracial marriage dynamic may be traced returning to when dark men came into the Lower Rio Expressivo Valley following your Civil Warfare ended. They married into ethnic Mexican families and joined various other black folks who found sanctuary on the U. S. /Mexico border.
Thousands of Chinese males in the U. S, typically of Cantonese origin from Taishan moved to the Us. Anti-miscegenation regulations in many says prohibited Oriental men out of marrying bright white women. Following your Emancipation Déclaration, many Chinese People in the usa immigrated to the Southern areas, particularly Arkansas, to work with plantations. For instance , in 1880, the 10th US Census of Louisiana alone measured 57% of interracial marriages between these kinds of Chinese to be in his campany black and 43% to be with white women.
Almost 50 years ago census showed 3500 Chinese language men wedded to bright white women and 2900 Chinese women married to white men. A sizable quantity for the early indentured servants inside the British American colonies had been brought above from the Indian subcontinent by British East India Firm. For example , the Bengali groundbreaking Tarak Nath Das’s light American wife, Mary K. Das, was stripped of her American citizenship on her behalf marriage to an “alien ineligible just for citizenship. inches In 1918, there was considerable controversy in Arizona when an Indian player B. The bans in Virginia and Maryland had been established at this time when slavery was not but fully institutionalized. At the time, most forced laborers on the plantations were indentured servants, and so they were mainly European.
From your mid 19th to 20th centuries, various black people and ethnic Mexicans intermarried together in the Lessen Rio Grande Pit in To the south Texas (mostly in Cameron j. County and Hidalga County). In Cameron j. County, 38% of dark-colored people were interracially married (7/18 families) when in Hidalgo County the number was 72% (18/25 families).
Between twenty and 30 % of the Chinese who occupied Mississippi committed black females before 1940. Gates speculated that the intermarriage/relations between migrant Chinese individuals during the 19th century and black, or African-American slaves or ex-slaves may currently have contributed to her cultural genetic make-up. In the mid 1850s, 70 to one hundred and fifty Chinese had been living in New York City and 14 of them wedded Irish women of all ages. In 1906 the New York Times (6 August) reported that three hundred white girls (Irish American) were wedded to Far east men in New York, with many more cohabited. In 1900, based on Liang research, of this 120, 500 men much more than 20 Chinese communities in the United States, this individual estimated that a person out of every 20 or so Chinese men (Cantonese) was married to white women.
Lu enforced separating, banned mixte marriages, and made it illegal with regards to foreigners to own real estate. The 836 law particularly banned Oriental from creating relationships with “dark peoples” or “people of colour”, which was used to describe and also the, such as “Iranians, Sogdians, Middle easterns, Indians, Malays, Sumatrans”, between others. The Melody Dynasty allowed third-generation migrants with official titles to intermarry with Chinese soberano princesses. On 20 Sept 1792, each and every one restrictions concerning interracial marital life were repealed by the Ground-breaking government.
Even if mixed partnerships were not often accepted in British modern culture, there were not any legal constraints against intermarriage during the time. By the mid-19th century, there were a lot more than 40, 1000 Indian seamen, diplomats, college students, soldiers, representatives, tourists, business people and learners arriving(normally temporarily) to The united kingdom. | <urn:uuid:0447478e-169b-4088-b3e0-3ec5d615a823> | CC-MAIN-2021-04 | http://alizadh.blog.af/2020/04/13/interracialdatingcentral-review-apr-2020-serious-dates/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-04/segments/1610703581888.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20210125123120-20210125153120-00419.warc.gz | en | 0.96067 | 1,803 | 2.703125 | 3 |
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19. April 2011 20:27
There's lots of ways to reverse arguments. You can often reverse argument fallacies too. I'm just going to pick one example: The False Dilemma. It's opposite? Dodging the Dilemma.
To recap The False Dilemma: it's when you make it appear as if there's only two options, when in fact there are more. A famous example is Bush's "You're either with us or against us". Conversely, you can deny a real dilemma exists. Here's Julia Gillard, the Prime Minister of Australia:
We can certainly work with industries to transition to a clean-energy economy and in that clean-energy economy there will be more jobs.
Whatever. She's too afraid to say her policy is not a win-win situation. That yes, the immediate effect of a climate tax is to hurt the economy. That there's no magic way around that. That there's a cost now for a benefit later. That gulp, yes, the cost: jobs. She knows the power of soundbites, and knows what a present the truth would be to the opposition if she didn't spin it. So she's dodging the dilemma. Barack Obama loves this pitch. It is however a standard tool in any respectable politician's toolbox. Whatever policy they want to push will have a downside that their opponents can use to frame the policy as a dilemma. The parry is to Dodge the Dilemma as follows:
My opponents are misleading you that having X means we sacrifice Y... That's a false choice... We can have both X and Y.
Dodging the Dilemma ultimately manifests as Having One's Cake and Eating It Too. Here's Obama:
We don't have to choose between a future of spiraling debt and one where we forfeit our investment in our people and our country.
Like so many real world examples of argument fallacies, this has more than one rolled into a single sentence. You'll have to replace "our investment in" with "some advantages for" to kill the glittering strawman. Now, obviously we do have to forfeit some advantages. Whether that's low taxes or social security benefits, something HAS to suffer*. He's dodging the dilemma.
* Later in his speech, Obama actually says his plan can succeed by "spending reductions in the tax code", a ridiculous euphemism for raising taxes (Jon Stewart had a field day with it). | <urn:uuid:2a7d5a54-b667-4fb5-b5cf-7dba7cd17e36> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://blog.takeonit.com/post/Dodging-the-Dilemma.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988722951.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183842-00286-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965607 | 506 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Reconstructed by Marquette University
Like most European medieval structures, it was not built in a single generation but showed the accretions of various periods and architectural styles, a living record in miniature of the history of the little village and of France.
After the French Revolution, when the archives of many of the French churches were lost or destroyed, it gradually fell into ruin and wind-swept dilapidation.
Then, after the First World War, Jacques Couëlle, a brilliant young architect and archeologist from Aix-en-Provence, passed through Chasse and came upon the Chapel which he excitedly referred to as "ce monument absolument unique en son genre." Couëlle attained fame as one of France's leading restorers of ancient buildings, reconstructing a thirteenth century château at Castellaras, restoring an abbey in Spain, and assembling medieval sculptures for the Louvre. Today he has become one of France's most important modern architects, responsible for the developments at Castellaras-le-Neuf on the slopes of the Alpes Maritimes.
In the 1920's Couëlle made meticulously careful architectural drawings of the Chapel at Chasse, taking numerous photographs and measuring and numbering stones. All of these drawings and photographs are stamped with his special seal which is reproduced here:
In 1926 Gertrude Hill Gavin, daughter of James J. Hill, the American railroad
magnate, acquired the Chapel, and it was Couëlle who negotiated its transfer to
her fifty-acre estate at Jericho, Long Island, in the New World.
The Chapel in question must have been built in the fifteenth century, perhaps even before, and was called the Chapelle de St. Martin de Sayssuel . . . this Chapel, dating from the Middle Ages, formed a small edifice which was without doubt used for devotions and for the burial of influential people of the community.Among the many historic memorials in the Chapel he especially noted the tomb-still a part of the sanctuary floor-of Chevalier de Sautereau, a former Chatelain of Chasse, who was "Compagnon d'Armes" of Bayard (1473-1524), the famous French knight "Sans peur et sans reproche" (without fear and without reproach).
Stone-by-stone the Chapel was dismantled and shipped in 1927 to Long Island amidst anxieties lest the French government stop the exportation. These fears were well founded, for shortly thereafter the French "Monuments Historiques" halted shipments of such monuments abroad.
The reconstruction plans for Long Island were made by one of America's leading architects, John Russell Pope, who also planned the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., for Andrew W. Mellon and designed the Frick Mansion in New York, which has since become the Frick Museum.
Added to the Chapel were two important and priceless treasures-duly noted by John Russell Pope on his blueprints-with which numerous legends are associated: the early Gothic altar and the famous Joan of Arc Stone. The stories surrounding the latter are especially interesting. They tell of how Joan of Arc (1412-31) prayed before a statue of Our Lady standing on this stone and at the end of her petition kissed the stone which ever since has been colder than the stones surrounding it. What seems certain is that the niche, of which it is a part, is of the same period as Joan of Arc and as the Chapel.
One of America's most distinguished stained glass artists, Charles J. Connick of Boston, who was responsible for much of the stained glass in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, was commissioned by Mrs. Gavin to design and execute four stained glass windows in the style and colors of the vitraux of The Sainte Chapelle in Paris. He set them in the original stone mullions and traceries from Chasse.
On Long Island the Chapel was attached to an impressive French Renaissance château that Mrs. Gavin also brought stone-by-stone from France.
In 1962 the Gavin estate passed into the possession of Mr. and Mrs. Marc B. Rojtman. Shortly before they were to move in, a fire, which smoldered for sixteen hours, gutted much of the château but almost miraculously spared the Chapel.
The exterior facade of the château, which in the sixteenth century belonged to the royal line of the Dukes of Orléans-Longueville at Melun in France, was saved. This the Rojtman's presented to the Metropolitan Museum where it is scheduled to be installed at the east end of the Medieval Sculpture Hall, where it will survey the Spanish Cathedral Gates of the Hearst Collection and the J. P. Morgan Collection of Medieval Art. For this gift the Metropolitan Museum of Art made the Rojtmans "Fellows in Perpetuity."
In 1964 the Rojtmans presented the Chapel to Marquette and had it dismantled and sent to the campus for the University to reconstruct. They also gave numerous furnishings for the Chapel, including a crucifix, banner, a dozen priedieux, torchères, candlesticks, lectern, missal stand, vestments, and antependium-all of approximately the same period as the Chapel. In addition they presented an early Gothic antique font, probably of the twelfth or early thirteenth century.
The dismantling of the Chapel on Long Island began in June 1964 and took nine months to complete. Each stone was marked in three places: green for the top, red for the bottom, the inside carrying the number of the stone in relation to the others. Eighteen thousand antique terra cotta roof tiles were removed and packed. A fleet of trucks, each truck carrying forty thousand pounds, brought the Chapel stones to Milwaukee, where the first shipment arrived in November 1964. After the material was stored for the winter and the ground was cleared, reconstruction on the campus started in July 1965.
Architectural plans for the reconstruction at Marquette were initiated by the French architect Lucien David and revised and completed by the noted Ernest Bonnamy, a graduate of the French Beaux Arts and a member of the famous firm of Kahn and Jacobs, New York. The rebuilding was done by Siesel Construction Company with the careful supervision and cooperation of Roy H. Dirks of the Office of Campus Planning and Construction.
The principles of reconstruction were those employed at the Cloisters, a division of the Metropolitan Museum of Art at Fort Tryon Park, New York. Several changes were made to adapt the Chapel to the campus: the nave was lengthened, necessitating the addition of several windows; the tomb of Chevalier de Sautereau and the niche were moved to the left and the sacristy to the right-restoring them to their original positions in France-and such modern concessions as in-the-floor electric heating were introduced.
After traveling from Chasse to Long Island and then to Marquette, the Chapel so fittingly dedicated to St. Joan of Arc on May 26, 1966, has come to a new home far from the Rhone River Valley where it stood for over five hundred years.
"It is doubtful," wrote Milton Samuels, Chairman of French and Company, New York, in the official appraisal papers dated April 9, 1964, "if such an historic architectural monument would be permitted to leave France today."
The Chapel is, to our knowledge, the only medieval structure in the entire Western Hemisphere dedicated to its original purpose: Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam.
John Pick (+l981)
See also Contemporary photos of the Chapel on the campus of Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin(not part of this brochure)
Copyright 1966 by Marquette University. Reprinted with Permission | <urn:uuid:5c7e7708-2727-490a-8db9-99e30c32951c> | CC-MAIN-2014-15 | http://www.uwgb.edu/wisfrench/library/wisc/jeanne/index.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-15/segments/1397609535775.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20140416005215-00416-ip-10-147-4-33.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964511 | 1,640 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Ammonia is a colourless gas having a distinct odour. It consists of both nitrogen and hydrogen atoms. It is made naturally in both the human body and nature, such as in air, water, soil, and even in bacteria. Both ammonia and the ammonium ions in the human body are important components of several metabolic processes. The human body produces ammonia when it breaks down foods that consist of protein into ammonia and amino acids. It then converts the ammonia to urea. It also plays a crucial role in manufacturing many different products that we use in our day to day lives.
Ammonium hydroxide, known typically as household ammonia, is an essential ingredient in our day to day household cleaning products. Ammonia makes for the building block for the ammonium nitrate fertilizer. It tends to release nitrogen which is a crucial nutrient in growing plants. In this article, we will learn about the properties of ammonia, liquid ammonia uses and the other uses of ammonia.
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Physical Properties of Ammonia
Let us now discuss the physical properties of ammonia.
Chemical Properties of Ammonia
Let us now learn about the chemical properties of ammonia.
Ammonia is highly soluble in water. The NH3 aqueous solution is a weak base since OH- ions get formed.
NH3 + H20 → N4+ + OH-
Ammonium salts get formed when ammonia reacts with an acid.
ZnS04 + 2NH4OH (g) → Zn(OH)2 + (NH4)2SO4
Uses of Ammonia
Now, let us take a look at the ammonia solution uses, ammonium carbonate uses, and ammonia gas uses.
1. Uses of Ammonia in Fertilizers
Around 90 per cent of the ammonia which is produced tends to get used up in fertilizers to help in sustaining the production of food for the population of the world. When food crops are produced naturally, it depletes the supplies of the soil nutrients. For maintaining the health of the crops, farmers depend on fertilizers for keeping their soils better and productive. Also, fertilizers tend to help in increasing the level of the essential nutrients such as selenium, zinc and boron the food crops.
2. Uses of Ammonia in several Household Cleaning Products
Ammonia is used as an ingredient or on its own in several household products used for cleaning many household surfaces such as sinks, toilets, tubs, tiles, kitchen countertops, etc. Ammonia is effective also in breaking down the stains from vegetable oils, animal fats, or any sorts of household grime or cooking grease. Since ammonia tends to evaporate faster, it is often used to clean glasses and, in turn, help in preventing streaking.
3. Uses of Ammonia in Industries and Manufacturing
Ammonia tends to absorb significant amounts of heat from its surroundings when it is used in the form of a refrigerant and the air-conditioning equipment.
Ammonia is also used in the purification of the water supplies. It also acts as a building block for manufacturing many different kinds of products including fabrics, plastics, dyes, explosives, and pesticides.
Ammonia also has its use in the treatment of wastewater and waste, rubber, cold storages, paper and pulp, and in the industries of food and beverages in the form of a stabilizer, neutraliser, and acts as a nitrogen source. It also has its usage in the manufacturing of several pharmaceuticals. | <urn:uuid:88617733-21e3-405a-a845-e392fac5f21b> | CC-MAIN-2021-43 | https://www.vedantu.com/chemistry/uses-of-ammonia | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-43/segments/1634323585290.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20211019233130-20211020023130-00424.warc.gz | en | 0.949472 | 738 | 3.265625 | 3 |
What Is the Debt-to-GDP Ratio By Country?
Most countries around the world rely on sovereign debt to finance their government and economy. When this debt is used in moderation, it can position an economy to grow more quickly. But too much debt can lead to a number of problems. The debt-to-GDP ratio is designed to help investors determine if a country has too much debt.
The debt-to-GDP ratio itself is an equation with a country's gross debt in the numerator and its gross domestic product (GDP) in the denominator. Therefore, a debt-to-GDP ratio of 1.0 (or 100%) means that a country's debt is equal to its gross domestic product. In general, the debt-to-GDP ratio is used to determine the health of an economy.
Here, we will take a closer look at how to assess a country's debt-to-GDP ratio and other considerations for international investors.
Explanation of a Good Debt-to-GDP Ratio
The debt-to-GDP ratio is a commonly used term among rating agencies, but analyzing the ratio can be a very difficult task. For instance, consider the fact that Japan's 2011 debt-to-GDP ratio is over 200%, but its economy received very little analyst attention, while Greece's is only 160% and many rating agencies were predicting its collapse. The reasons for these differences vary, but can include:
- Buyers of the Debt - A higher debt-to-GDP ratio is acceptable when the buyers of the debt are either domestic investors (citizens) or repeat buyers that have a reason for buying. For instance, Japan's buyers are domestic and the U.S.'s buyer (China) purchases debt to keep a favorable trade balance with its largest consumer.
- Economic Growth - A higher debt-to-GDP ratio is acceptable when an economy is rapidly growing because its future earnings will be able to pay off the debt more quickly. For instance, a country projected to grow 5% next year will automatically see the ratio decline, whereas a country projected to contract will see it grow.
- Plan of Action - Countries with a viable plan to address a high debt-to-GDP ratio may receive some leniency from rating agencies. But those without a plan often face sharp downgrades and criticism. For example, Greece in 2011 did not have a viable plan of action and faced harsh criticism from rating agencies.
Debt-to-GDP Ratio Origins & Solutions
Countries can find themselves burdened with a high debt-to-GDP ratio in many ways, from unexpected slowdowns to predictable demographic changes. Solving these problems requires one of two things that affect the basic debt-to-GDP equation (without print money outright): Cutting spending to reduce debt or encouraging growth to increase gross domestic product.
Here are some common causes of high debt-to-GDP ratios:
- Unexpected Slowdown - Countries that are growing quickly may take on more debt to support that growth, but an unexpected slowdown can result in a sharply higher debt-to-GDP ratio. For instance, Japan's stagnation after its rapid growth in the 1980s resulted in its elevated debt today.
- Demographic Changes - Aging populations can place a burden on social security systems, which may be funded in part by debt. For example, the U.S. Social Security system is partially responsible for its projected increase in public debt and the subsequent predicted rise in its debt-to-GDP ratio.
- Government Spending - Government spending increases can lead to a higher debt-to-GDP ratio (or higher inflation) if they outpace the country's growth rates. For instance, some socialist governments that overtake capitalist predecessors tend to increase their spending and see their debt-to-GDP ratio increase.
Here are some common solutions to a high debt-to-GDP ratio:
- Cut Government Spending - Governments with a high debt-to-GDP ratio can cut spending to reduce their debt burden. However, the trick to successfully cutting spending is not to deter growth and undermine the GDP portion of the equation.
- Encourage Growth - Central banks can encourage growth by cutting interest rates, which (in theory) leads to easier commercial lending. Higher growth increases the GDP end of the equation and lowers the overall debt-to-GDP percentage.
- Increase Tax Income - Governments can increase taxes as a way to pay off debt. But again, the trick is to increase taxes in a way that does not affect GDP growth and undermine the denominator in the equation.
Key Points to Understanding Debt-to-GDP
- The debt-to-GDP ratio is an equation with a country's gross debt in the numerator and its gross domestic product (GDP) in the denominator.
- A high debt-to-GDP ratio isn't necessarily bad, as long as the country's economy is growing, since it's a way to use leverage to enhance long-term growth.
- Countries can run into problems with debt-to-GDP ratios in several ways, including unexpected slowdowns, demographic changes or excessive spending.
- There are several ways to deal with a higher debt-to-GDP ratio, including less government spending, encouraging growth, or increasing tax income. | <urn:uuid:a950f698-1696-4433-b72a-e8e60a8fc940> | CC-MAIN-2019-13 | https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-the-debt-to-gdp-ratio-1978993 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-13/segments/1552912202688.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20190322180106-20190322202106-00406.warc.gz | en | 0.948578 | 1,102 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Algorithmia’s AI Layer Powers the UN Methods Service
Algorithmia is renewing its commitment to global humanitarian efforts by making powerful ML tools available to everyone.
Economic and population data are key elements of planning and decision-making in first-world countries, but access to sophisticated analytic and compute power is limited or non-existent in developing countries.
Meeting the Problem Head On
Working in conjunction with the United Nations Global Platform for Official Statistics, Algorithmia built a repository of algorithms that are readily available to any data scientist of any member state at any time. There are models for predicting economic, environmental, and social trends to enable smarter decision-making for strategies like agricultural planning, flooding probabilities, and curbing deforestation.
The United Nations Global Platform for Official Statistics sought to build the algorithm repository as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs aim to meet global challenges in healthcare, poverty, environmental degradation, and inequality by 2030. The algorithm repository will serve member states to “establish strategies to reuse and adapt algorithms across topics and to build implementations for large volumes of data.” UN Big Data
Building an Algorithm Marketplace for the Developing World
The UN wanted a way to share models with underdeveloped countries to curate economic, environmental, and social data to save lives and improve health and environmental conditions. Using the UN algorithm repository, for example, a developing country could model farmland satellite imagery to predict draughts, urbanization trends, or migration patterns.
Such statistical information can be used in myriad ways by both humanitarian organizations and policy-making, governmental bodies to make smarter resource-allocation decisions, better understand urban planning needs from population data, and even predict migration crop cycles using geospatial imagery.
The UN’s partnership with Algorithmia demonstrates our dedication to leveraging AI and machine learning to seek solutions to global problems. We are so looking forward to empowering the developing world, one algorithm at a time. | <urn:uuid:b48b1b97-c8d7-498d-b85f-bc7a1b07ca88> | CC-MAIN-2021-31 | https://algorithmia.com/blog/we-run-the-worlds-machine-learning-literally | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-31/segments/1627046153521.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20210728025548-20210728055548-00554.warc.gz | en | 0.888267 | 401 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Physical health is an important foundation of mental health. People who are not physically healthy are at an increased risk for developing mental conditions such as depression. People who participate in unhealthy lifestyle practices also have a more difficult time overcoming depressive episodes than healthier people. Their unhealthy lifestyle practices tend to work against many treatment effects. Negative lifestyle factors that can contribute to a depressive episode or drag one out include:
- Abusing drugs and alcohol
- Poor diet, including too much caffeine or sugar
- Lack of exercise
- Poor sleep
- Lack of leisure time as well as fun and recreational activities
Synthetic chemicals, including food additives and preservatives, pesticides, hormones and drugs, genetically modified foods, and industrial byproducts are bombarding our bodies. In this center, we use the term "environmental causes" to describe environmental contributions to depressive disorders. These are present in our environment in the form of air, water and food pollution. Other non-chemical sources of environmental stress include noise pollution, electrical pollution, natural disasters, and other catastrophic environmental events. Some authors consider events like childhood abuse, long-term stress at home or work, coping with the loss of a loved one, or traumatic events as environmental. We classify these types of issues as social and relationship causes of depression.
Although the DSM recognizes the problem of environmental pollutants in depressive disorders, studies are underway to find the exact relationship between environmental factors and depression. It is well known that air and water pollution can have consequences such as cancer and birth defects. Some people believe that the pollution in our environment is also affecting our mental health. For example, "sick building syndrome" is a condition caused by exposure to various poisonous conditions in a "sick building." This is usually an office or other building that has many people working close to each other. Individuals with this condition tend to become very anxious and irritable. They may hyperventilate and develop muscle twitches and cramps and/or have severe breathlessness.
A small body of research suggests that electrical pollution may be linked to mood disorders. Electrical pollution is caused by the low-level electromagnetic fields at intensities generated by the electrical equipment we use in our modern world. Electrical pollution is invisible, silent, odorless, and tasteless. Researchers have found that particular radio wavelengths can promote depression and rage. Larger, more controlled studies are necessary to determine the exact relationship between mood and radio waves.
Natural disasters such as destructive hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes, as well as man-made catastrophic and traumatic events such as terrorist attacks, can contribute to an already vulnerable person's sensitivity to depression. A person with very little sensitivity to becoming depressed can also develop symptoms after they encounter a significant and traumatic environmental trigger such as the destruction of their home by a hurricane.
Our level of exposure to some of these environmental factors is partially under our control. For example, if water quality is bad in your area, you may be able to use an inexpensive water filter. If you believe that your health is being affected by chemical or electrical sensitivity, you may be able to take steps to avoid these substances. | <urn:uuid:97b33c9d-4b34-4ac6-9dd9-282f889a8862> | CC-MAIN-2020-50 | https://www.centersite.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=13012&cn=5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-50/segments/1606141746320.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20201205044004-20201205074004-00090.warc.gz | en | 0.958777 | 631 | 3.5 | 4 |
In recent times it would give the impression that fats and carbohydrates have both gotten a bad rap. First it was fat that was the culprit in all dietary ills, and low fat diets were all the rage. Then the two switched places, with carbohydrates being the bad guys and fat reigning supreme.
Both fats and carbohydrates play an important role in nutrition, and both are vital to a healthy diet. It would be impossible and unwise to remove all fat from the diet, since fat is important for the production of energy, and for carrying valuable fat soluble vitamins like vitamin D, vitamin E and vitamin K, throughout the body. In addition, fat plays a very important role in regulating various bodily functions.
Even though some fat is essential to a healthy body, too much fat can be harmful. Excessive levels of dietary fats have been implicated in heart disease, stroke, high cholesterol levels and even some cancers. Most nutritionists suggest limiting daily fat intake to less than 20% of calories, although taking that level lower than 10% is not recommended.
The type and amount of fat in the diet makes all the difference. A diet high in saturated fats, trans fats and cholesterol has been associated with a variety of ills, including heart disease, stroke and other related diseases. In addition, many long-term chronic problems, such as obesity, are associated with high levels of dietary fats.
Food labels do make the complex process of choosing the right fats somewhat easier. For instance, trans fats will be listed on the ingredient list of foods that include them. In general, trans fats are found mainly in processed foods. When limiting your daily intake of fat and cholesterol, it is good to have an understanding of nutritional labels. This government mandated labels could be a huge help to those who take the time to read and be aware of them.
Carbohydrates are an important part of a healthy diet as well, and carbs are necessary for providing energy and many vital nutrients. Carbohydrates are found in fruits and vegetables, in grains and in milk and dairy products. It is important to choose carbohydrates carefully, however, since not all are equally healthy.
Keeping saturated fats and trans fats to a minimum is important to a healthy diet. Trans fats, which are solid at room temperature, are most often found in highly processed foods like cookies, cakes and other baked goods. In addition, trans fats are often found in fried foods and in salty snacks like potato chips. While these foods are fine in moderation, it is best to avoid large quantities of such snacks.
As with many products, less is often more when it comes to choosing foods rich in carbohydrates. For example, less refined whole grain bread is generally more nutritious than white bread, which has gone through a greater amount of refining. That is because the refining process tends to decrease nutrient content over time.
Of course, there are some elements in the diet that should be limited. Two of these elements are sugar and salt. Most Americans consume too much salt and sugar, and this has led to epidemics of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other ills. Limiting sugar and salt, while choosing good fats and unrefined carbohydrates, is a great way to make the most of the nutritional value of the foods you eat. | <urn:uuid:3be3cfca-17de-4d7d-b63e-6b62286543f6> | CC-MAIN-2019-30 | http://eastwestsushi.gq/understanding-fats-and-carbohydrates.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-30/segments/1563195525974.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20190719032721-20190719054721-00028.warc.gz | en | 0.965127 | 663 | 3.53125 | 4 |
Date of Award
Master of Science (MS)
Food, Nutrition, and Culinary Science
In order to determine blood pressure changes during the football season and the causes of the changes in collegiate football athletes, forty-seven National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) division 1 athletes were recruited to participate in the study. Each participant had a pre-season, mid-season, and post-season blood pressure measurement taken. A questionnaire was completed at the mid- and post-season blood pressure assessments to determine blood pressure knowledge, dietary intake, and physical activity levels. An educational tool was provided in order to encourage knowledge growth regarding general blood pressure knowledge and causes of high blood pressure. Overall, blood pressure levels showed a decrease in both systolic (6.71 ± 12.3 mmHg) and diastolic (1.64 ± 8.71 mmHg) measures from the mid-season to post-season measurements. There were no notable changes in knowledge levels. Some significant positive changes were made in dietary intake, specifically in athletes eating more meals at home and fewer meals at the athletics’ cafeteria, and a decrease in sweet snack intake. Other significant changes took place in physical activity levels, specifically an increase in resistance training. The information gained from the study can be used in the future to improve blood pressure management in elite level college athletes.
Armstron, Sarah, "Examination of Health Related Practices and Knowledge That May Affect Blood Pressure in NCAA Division 1 Collegiate Football Players" (2016). All Theses. 2353. | <urn:uuid:bd22ec91-33bf-4d84-981a-348df6068bd6> | CC-MAIN-2018-17 | https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses/2353/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-17/segments/1524125945624.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20180422154522-20180422174522-00238.warc.gz | en | 0.928778 | 316 | 2.671875 | 3 |
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Students explore the consequences of allowing students to use cell phones and other electronic devices in schools. They draft school policy statements regulating the use of these devices.
3 Views 12 Downloads | <urn:uuid:2fc75f7e-244c-4bd1-b5fb-019149dd282f> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.lessonplanet.com/teachers/calling-plans | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00224-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.864445 | 94 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Humans are said to 'learn' and to 'grow'. This is indicated by the old sayings, "Grow up," and "Act your age." And most humans do manage to remember what they've learned so far in their life, add to it whatever they've learned lately. Putting these things together, they adjust their thoughts, their decisions and actions. They learn, grow and mature.
In writing, characters are said to 'evolve', if the writer is any good.
I'm not sure why a different phrase is used for characters, who are created as representatives of human beings.
I mean, let's look at this. Wherever the story opens, the characters have a personality, and to have that, they have a backstory ... basic life events that have formed them into the 'person' they are. The author is supposed to have that all thought out, even if s/he doesn't actually say any of it in the story.
As the story proceeds, the character is challenged, reacts, learns and adjusts. Woops, I mean, he 'evolves'.
I don't know, to me, 'evolve' means 'become something new'. That sounds like a character who starts at Personality A suddenly makes a complete change to become Personality Z. I have trouble believing people do that, even when that person is a story character.
Person or character, I have a much easier time believing someone starts at Personality A and as a result of the challenge, reaction, learning and adjusting, winds up as Personality A1. A character who does that is much more believable to me.
What do you think? | <urn:uuid:a8b7545b-930a-4a64-99d1-06c6b2ceec23> | CC-MAIN-2017-30 | http://trudysuniverse.blogspot.com/2013/08/evolving-characters.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-30/segments/1500549423785.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20170721142410-20170721162410-00107.warc.gz | en | 0.981516 | 338 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Carbon in our air is also causing another problem for our oceans. The Carbon gets absorbed by sea water and it makes the sea-water more acidic. Since sea creatures make shells from chemicals in the water, a change to the ocean's chemistry makes it difficult for many sea creatures to form shells. Like this coral that we caught in our nets the other day.
Remember meeting Dr. Kunkel yesterday? His believes that lobsters may be effected by ocean acidification.
Would you like to learn more about Ocean Acidification? Click here for a video | <urn:uuid:70fa057f-32f0-4773-80a9-4a3068d9876e> | CC-MAIN-2020-29 | http://www.jacobtanenbaum.com/noaa08/ecosystems/acidification.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-29/segments/1593655890105.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20200706042111-20200706072111-00316.warc.gz | en | 0.941074 | 112 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Abkhazians - Who are they?
(An Express-Sketch) Y.N. VoronovAbkhazia, Apsny – this is a mini-republic on the Black Sea coast of theCaucasus. Its native inhabitants are the Abkhazians – Apsua, representing,although not a numerous but yet a very ancient, active, mountain nationwhose history is a mystery in many ways. Who are they? Where did they comefrom? Whom do the resemble most? What role did they play and are called uponto play today in the world community of people? Science is now alreadygiving fully synonymous and sufficiently instructive answers to these and tomany other questions.Abkhazian – a Lingorelic of the West CaucasiaThe problems of the origin of the Abkhazians and their place in the systemof the nations of the world over two centuries draw the attention ofinvestigators – travellers, ethnographers, historians, linguists,archaeologists, anthropologists and representatives of other humanitariandisciplines. Written pieces of information, from which historians draw theirconclusions, are scanty, and the times they embrace do not go beyond the2000-years boundary from our days on. Archaeology has a firm basis inethnogenetic questions only when there are suitable written sources.Ethnography and anthropology have still narrower possibilities. And here thelanguage plays its decisive role, in whose structure and vocabulary ancientpages of the history of the Abkhazian nation are preserved, the mostimportant information about its sources, the environment of the primary lifeof its people, ties and contacts with other nations, and other interestinginformation.Fame about the many languages of the Caucasian Mountains has long sincespread throughout the world. The ancient Greek geographer Timosfen in hisdays determined the number of nations gathered in Dioscuriada (today Sukhum,the capital of the Republic of Abkhazia) to be 300, while the Romanhistorian Pliniy Sekund left evidence according to which Romans conductedtheir affairs in this city with the aid of 130 translators. Masud an Arabauthor of the 9th century, wrote: “ Only Allah will be able to count thedifferent nations living in the mountains of Caucasia. The mountains ofCaucasia are mountains of languages.” There are few places in the world ableto compete with the Caucasus in the number of languages; and, as a rule,these are usually mountain regions- the Himalaya and Hindu-Kush in Asia, theAndes and Cordillera in America. It is beyond question that the contact ofmultilingual people with the mountainous conditions that maintain manyrelics of the living world, is quickly obliterated in any conditions of flatlands.The Abkhazian language, together with other closely related languages (Abazin,Ubykh, Adygei and Kabardin) form the West-Caucasian (Abkhaz-Adygei) languagegroup, today numbering over 700 000 people and connected with each otheraccording to the following diagram: parent – Abkhaz-Adygei language Ubykh Abazin Abkhazian Adygei KabardinWest-Caucasian languages are characterised by their distinctive structure,and their phonetics system reveals great divergence. Combined vowelspredominate, while there are very few independent vowels – there are 2 inthe Abkhazian language, 2 with stress in the Abazin and 1 in the unstressedsyllable, and 3 in the Ubykh. The number of consonants varies much more: inthe Ubykh language there are 82 consonants, in the Bzyb dialect of theAbkhazian language – 67, in the Adygei – 55, in the Kabardin – 48. P.K.Uslar – the founder of the first Abkhazian alphabet – wrote the followingabout the complications of pronunciation of Abkhazian words: “Not onlyEuropeans but even a native of Caucasia considers Abkhazian pronunciationthe most difficult and least accessible for the non-Abkhazian. This languagemakes a strange impression on the one who hears it for the first time. Youcan say about the Abkhazian language that it reminds you of the buzzing ofinsects”. Up till recent times West-Caucasian languages also preserved aspecial fund of lexicographic elements that functioned in the huntingenvironment (the “forest language” of the Abkhazians, the “hunting” languagein the Adygeis). Linguists succeeded in revealing over 250 of them,inherited from the parent language state of stems and affixes that were fromtime immemorial common for these languages and including appellations ofcosmic phenomena, terms of relationship the name of parts of the body, anumber of animals and plants, personal pronouns, numbers and several verb.Linguists consider the time of the existence of the Abkhaz-Adygei parent-languageto be the 3rd century B.C., i.e., its break-up into three main branches (Abkhazian-Ubykh-Adygei)began approximately 4000 years ago. The well-known Russian linguist N.S.Trubetskoy formed an hypothesis over half a century ago according to whichthe West-Caucasian languages in their origin were related to the East-Caucasianlanguages (Chechen, Ingush, Batsbi, Avar, Lezgin, Dargin, Tabassari, etc.),forming with them a single “North-Caucasian” language family. As it isbecoming ever more obvious, representatives of this family occupied a muchwider territory in ancient times than today. On the one hand, the hypothesison the relationship of the Abkhaz-Adygei languages with the Khat, whosebearers lived 4-5 thousand years ago in Asia Minor, has received wideacknowledgement in modern science. On the other hand, proof has beenestablished about the common roots of the proximity of the modern Nakh-Dagestanlanguages to the extinct languages of the Khurr and the Urart, living 5-3thousand years ago on the territories of the present Armenian uplands andcontiguous regions of East Transcaucasia and Near East. Therefore, the NorthCaucasian languages today represent a special relic of the one timeextensive language community that existed, according to specialists, about 7centuries ago, enveloping the whole Caucasus and wide regions southwards. Inthe thirties-sixties of the 20th century an hypothesis was energeticallypropagated in Soviet science according to which the Abkhaz-Adygei, Chechen-Ingushand Dagestan languages were related to the Kartvel (Georgian) and form asingle “Iberi-Caucasian family” of languages with them; however, thishypothesis has been acknowledged as scientifically groundless today.The people speaking in the parent-Abkhaz-Adygei language, were occupied, asthe data of linguists affirms, with agriculture, animal husbandry, theproduction of various handicrafts and the processing of metal. In favour ofthe idea that the bearers of the parent-language lived approximately in thesame natural conditions in which the present Abkhaz-Adygeis live and shapedwithin the West-Caucasian region is proved by their common lexicon (“sea”, “coast”,“fish”, “mountain (wooded)”, “ice”, “hoarfrost”, “cold”, “frost”, “forest (leaf-hearing)”,“forest (coniferous)”, “silver fox”, “fir”, “beech”, “cornel”, “chestnut”, “wolf”,“bear”, etc.). Toponymical data given by N.Y. Marr, I.A. Javakhisvili, S.N.Janashia, S.D. Inal-ipa, etc., were used for confirmation of this idea.At the same time, successes in lingual reconstruction lately has allowed usto glance even more deeply into the history of the Abkhaz-Adygeis. Today thefact of the distant relationship (in pronunciation) has been established(S.A. Starostin and others) between the North-Caucasian, Sino-Tibetan (Chinese,Tibet, East-Himalayan, etc.) and the Enisei (Kat, etc.) languages, on whosebasis the Sino-Caucasian macrofamily was reconstructed, including themajority of the non-stratum languages of the Old World, bringing out thedepths of relationship with the Indian (Californian, etc.) languages of thesub-American continent. At the same time, language ties have been discovered(through West-Chad languages) between the Nakh-Dagestan languages and theAfro-Eurasian macrofamily that brings up to the epoch of racial formationsand the moment of the origin of Homo Sapiens, with the African ancestral-homelandin the Middle East (about 30 centuries ago), from where their settlement inEurope, in the Caucasus and in East Asia began.In absolute figures, the division of the North-Caucasian languages accordingto the suppositions of linguists, took place somewhere in the 4th centuryB.C. From that time on the Abkhaz-Adygeis could confidently be localised inthe East Black Sea area. The disintegration of the Sino-Caucasianmacrofamily, whose cradle was located to the south of Caucasia, is datedfrom one single hypothetical parent –language, out of which all thepresently known live and dead languages had sprung, is considered beyond theboundaries of the 13th-14th centuries B.C., i.e., to the higher paleolithictimes. In that epoch, as anthropological material proves, discovered inKholodny Grot (Central Abkhazia), the local population was stillcharacterised by mark Negroid features. The constant infiltration of Indo-Europeansfrom the south and north during the following centuries changed in arelevant manner of anthropological image of the local population; however,the languages maintained their amazing archaic and original pure structureand sound, presenting a boundless source of information on the ancienthistory of the nations of the Caucasus.Ecological Recesses in the Ethnogenesis of the Abkhazians
Since man and all his creations are part of the biosphere and landscape ofour Mother Earth an account of appropriate natural peculiarities (reliefs),hydrography, etc. could be of great help in the decision of complexquestions on the lineage of nations. In the given case, it is necessary toturn the attention of the reader to the conserving and differentiating roleof the West-Caucasian ravines and mountain passes in the history of theAbkhaz-Adygeis.In discussing the question of the lineage of the Abkhazians, investigatorshave named two directions that the ancestors of this nation took to theirpresent place of abode: from the North Caucasia, where the Abazins, Adygeisand Kabardins, akin to the Abkhazians, live today, and from the south, fromAsia Minor, by way of Colchis. It is known that language disintegrations arerealised through the intermingling of parts of the bearers of a parent-languageinto the other, geographically isolated regions – ecological recesses (mountains,rivers, etc.). The structure (besides later subdivisions of the Abazins) ofthe West-Caucasian language community is 3-dimensional. That is why itsurmises no less than three stages of emigration, connected with full orpartial departure from the recesses – parent-homeland that had existed inthe 3rd century B.C. Let us glance briefly into the more possible variantsof such emigrations, taking the geographical peculiarities of West Caucasiainto account.In conformance with the first variant, the cradle of the Abkhaz-Adygeisshould have been localised on the northern slopes of West Caucasia, in theTranskuban recess (G.A. Melikishvili, M.D. Lordkipanidze, esc.), from wherein the span up to the 1st century A.D. (and in the opinion of suchenthusiastic authors as P. Ingorokva, also after 16th century A.D.) part ofthe population there intermingled with that of the Black Sea coast area,filling three ecological recesses – the north-west Bzyb mountain range (Zikhs,later Ubykhs) between the Gagra and Aj-Amgra ranges (Abazgs, later bearersof the Bzyb dialect of the Abkhazian language), and the south-eastern of thelast range up to the river Ingur (Apsils and Misimians, later bearers of theTsebeldian and the Abjui dialects of the Abkhazian language). Not having anyother real proof, some investigators strive to find confirmation of thishypothesis in archaeological materials that would prove penetration ofelements of the Maikop and dolmen cultures in the 3rd –first half of the 2ndcenturies B.C. on the territory of the present Great Sochi and north-westernAbkhazia (up to the Kodor), of bearers who hypothetically made room for andassimilated ancient population (the conjectural parent-Kartvel) of theregion. However, seeing as from the second half of the 2nd century B.C. thesouthern cultural sources predominated absolutely in West Caucasia, then thehypothesis about the migration of the forebears of the Abkhazians from thenorth at the turn of our era and, the more so, in the 17th century, isdeprived of any kind of archaeological grounds.The result of the second, southern variant, is that the parent-homeland ofthe Abkhaz-Adygeis was the Colchis ecological recess and the north-easternregions of Asia Minor adjoining it, where already at the turn of the 2nd–1st centuries B.C. supposedly related Adygei-Apsils Kashki-Abeshls lived(O.M: Japaridze, G.A: Melikishvili, V.G. Ardzinba, etc.). In this case it isnecessary to allow for the intermingling (along the coastline through theeast Black Sea area corridor and through the passes) of direct languageforebears of the Adygeis during the 2nd-early 1st century B.C. on thenorthern slopes of West-Caucasia. The ancestors of the Zikhs-Ubykhs thenoccupied the recess between the Gagra range and Tuapse, connecting theneighbouring territories with quite difficult seasonal paths. The parent-Abkhaziantribes as the initial part of the community, continued to live in Colchis,where they were found by authors of ancient times, as Apsils, Abazgs andSanigs. The wide cultural “expansion” from Colchis along the Black Sea coast(up to the modern Gelenjik to East Transcaucasia and to the northern slopesof the Central and West Caucasus reached its apogee in the 9th-7th centuriesB.C. (“Colchis-Koban metallurgical province”). The last important migrationson review were already made through the written sources of a 2000-anniversaryrange of some of the Adygeis migrating to the east (Kabardins) and some ofthe Abkhazians to North Caucasia (Abazins), while a return migration onserious scale was not observed. On the other hand, what was quite indicativewas the migration of the names: the name of Abkhazians – “Abaza” removedfrom the territory of the present Gudauta region (historical Abazgia) ontoan extensive region of North-West Caucasia, while the ancient name of Ubykhs(“Zikhs”) in the developed and late Middle Ages detoned also the Adygeipopulation of the Kuban area.The basic conclusion of the primary biologically conditioned direction ofethnic migrations to West Caucasia from the south-east to the north-west isstressed by the process of historical differentiations of the Kartvel (Georgian)language groups, which is also 3-dimensional. The Kartvel languages belong,together with Indo-European, as well as the Ural, Altai and other Eurasianlanguages in the stratum macrofamily, whose disintegration beganapproximately 12-13 centuries ago. In its turn, the disintegration of theparent-Kartvel language community, existing from the 3rd century B.C., began(according to Morris Svodesh) about the 19th century B.C. through thedivision of the Kartvel-Zan parent language. In spite of this linguistssurmise that the Svan language, longer than other Kartvel languages,remained on a level of basic language. A new segmentation from approximatelythe 8th century B.C. brought about the divisions of the youngest language inthis system, the Zan (Megrelo-Chan). The historical differentiation of theKartvel languages can be expressed in the following diagram:parent-Kartvel language Svan Kartvel Zan Megrel (Chan)
As in the case of the Abkhaz-Adygeis, investigators reconstructed twovariants of migration, which brought about the disintegration of the parent-Kartvelcommunity. The first variant orientates us again to the Colchis ecologicalrecess and offers an examination of its place in the adjoining north easternregion of Asia Minor as a universal Kartvel parent-homeland. For anexplanation of the present existing situation, we have to acknowledge thatthe Svans remained on the territory which was once occupied by bearers ofthe common parent-Kartvel language, and its Kartvel-Zan part on the boundaryof the 3rd –2nd centuries B.C., and migrated, let’s say, to the easternTranscaucasian recess through the present Likh mountain range; there, aftera thousand years one more disintegration took place, resulting in theancestors of the Megrel-Chans returning to the Colchis recess again anddriving the Svans away into the mountains. This sufficiently illogical andso far not provable variant is faced by another, a more grounded one, as itseems, and concludes that the parent-homeland of the Kartvels was not withinthe limits of West Transcaucasia in the north-eastern regions of Asia Minor,from where the region under examination the Svans had migrated to in thebeginning (either directly through the ravine of Chorokh and along theseacoast to present-day Colchis, or, which is more logical, along the Kuragorge and the region of East Transcaucasia adjoining it, and further to thewest). At the start of the 1st century B.C. a disintegration took place ofthe parent-Kart-Zan community and their intermingling to the north along tworoads – the Karts drove the Svans into the mountains north-east of Colchis,and the Zan tribes advanced to the Colchis ecological recess, having driventhe parent-Abkhazians away to the north. Both the common situation (theprimary “parent North-Caucasian” Khurrito-Urart element in Transcaucasia upto the early 1st century B.C., the localisation of the ancient Kartveltribes of Kardu - Kartys, Kulkha-Kolkhovs, Lusha-Lazovs, etc., to the north-easternregions of Asia Minor point to the historical reality of such a variant;significant traces of Kartvel-Indo-European ties, which come only from a non-stratummacrofamily, but which can also explain the locality of the Kartvel parent-homelandin the sphere of action of the Khettsk-Luvi language world, and so on), aswell as the direction of major natural migrations, experiences by thepopulation of the region during the last two centuries. It is indicative inrelation with this that the Svans, between 6th and 11th centuries migratedfrom the upper reaches of the river Rion to the west to the upper reaches ofthe Ingur, and today have reached (in separate groups) the region of Gagraand Sochi. An important linguistic indication on the difficulties ofconnecting the Svans with the ancient population of the Colchis lowlands,whose economy from time immemorial was characterised by an expressiveagricultural-animal husbandry mode of life and a developed metallurgy, isthe absence of terms in the Svan language, common with other Kartvellanguages, connected with a settled agricultural culture, and also thosedenoting “copper-bronze”, “flax”, “iron”, “horse”, etc. It was namely theKarts-Kartvels who, in the 8th-11th centuries of our era, having forced theLikh mountain range, split the Megrel-Chan (Lazs) community, forming on itsterritory the Kart-language Imeretia, Guria and Ajaria. A return migrationof human masses to Colchis on such a scale and with such results was notnoted. What was particularly indicative was that the mentioned migrations ofKartvels to the Colchis recess conceded with the Abkhazian Kingdom of the8th-10th centuries in time, when most favourable conditions had taken shapefor a return migration of the Abkhazians – to the south-east. However, thatdid not happen.All that has been said stresses the validity for the supposition of anadvantageous north-western direction of the natural migratory streams ofpopulation in this region during the ancient era and the Middle Ages. Fromthe moment man had settled in West Caucasia, the southern influencepredominated – from the side of Asia Minor and the Middle East. It was fromthere that in the old, old days, bearers of the parent-Abkhaz-Adygeilanguage had moved to the West Transcaucasian valleys, descendants who likemany other relics of live nature up to this day (thanks, I repeat, to theconservation traits of the mountains) quite firmly maintain their populationhere. The Apsils, who had given the Abkhazians their name (Apsua), and theirdirect descendants – bearers of the Abjui dialect in this chain – compriseone of the most important protective links, taking upon itself for over manycenturies the main burden of opposing assimilatory-migratory influences fromthe south east.The History of the Abkhazians Narrow Territorially and General
Just as the biography of every person is formed as a result of hisinterrelations with people and objects surrounding him, the history of everynation is shaped from facts of its interrelations with neighbouring nations.The history of the Abkhazians is no exception here. The territory they hadsettled on always served as a sort of bridge for them between North Caucasiaand the coast of the Black Sea. The second direction of contact wasdetermined by the sea – from time immemorial ships sailed towards Asia Minorand the Crimea. No small role was also played by the fact that the foundingof the triangle, occupied by the Abkhazians, was open to influence from thesouth-east, from where a lowland road led (“Abkhazian Road”), used by theconquerors and merchants. The economy, politics, culture of the populationof the area took shape in this quite intricate system of contact, reactingsensitively to all outside changes, and restructuring in accordance withthem.It is characteristic for every territory to have its own set ofarchaeological and architectural monuments. An idea of the national cultureis formed through their originality. The linking of natural ancient regionaltraits with concrete modern ethnology received dissemination in a domesticnational-administrative state system, resulting in a situation when articlesand equipment began to be used for the founding of the rights ofrepresentatives of one or another nationality to power over a giventerritory, i.e., items began to be allotted a concrete language (!). In themeanwhile, most of the works made by man are the fruit of diverse attemptsand interactions of multilingual individuals and collectives. Ethnographers(on the example of the North American Indians) have not accidentally notedregularity, according to which accumulation of characteristic substantialsings were observed not in the centre of the settlement of one or anothertribe, but in the region of intertribal ties. The Abkhazians were never anexception in this.From the moment of the settlement of this territory by man during the wholeof the Stone Age, roads were of chief importance along which an infiltrationof groups of people came here from the south-east, pertinent to experiencein working on stone, on an ancient import – the volcanic glass, obsidian. Inthe Bronze Age West Caucasia represented a remote periphery of the AsiaMinor variant of a Middle East cultural community. The Transcaucasian passroads were conductive to the spreading of the monumental tomb-dolmens onboth sides of the Main Ridge. The idea of the dolmen creations, in theopinion of a number of authoritative investigators, was brought into WestCaucasia by sea through the Mediterranean already at the end of the 3rdcentury B.C. In the early Iron Age, besides the influence from Asia Minor,the state of Urarta played a decisive part in the formation of the localmaterial culture. From the 8th century B.C. onwards the influence of theAegean world (through the Hellens) increased. Thanks to the Greeks, citiesand state structures connected with them began to appear on the Caucasianshores. By the 3rd century B.C. the entire lives of the local population,including the mountain valleys, were imbued with the elements of Greekculture. The marketplace in Dioscuriada (Sebastopol, now the capital of theAbkhazian Republic, Sukhum) won world fame. Sources inform us that duringthe Hellenic epoch (3rd –1st centuries B.C.) representatives of up to 300tribes and nations concluded business deals here. Industrial winemakingprogressed, amphoras with the Dioscuriada trade mark were manufactured, andthey even minted their own coins. Ancient Abkhazia on the Black Seapreserved its decisive role in the economy, politics and culture up to theepoch of the Iran and the Arab conquests in Colchis (6th-8th centuriesB.C.), periodically returning to that role also in subsequent times (up tothe beginning of the 20th century).Special significance was acquired by the Transcaucasian pass roads in the6th-8th centuries B.C., thanks to which a branch of the Great Silk Routewent through the territory of Abkhazia, connecting the Mediterranean Seawith India and China. The burial vaults of representatives of the ancientAbkhazian tribes of Apsils and Abazgs contain wide assortments of crockery,arms, items of clothing, adornments, coins, etc., connected by provenancewith dozens of centres of Europe, Asia and Africa and with particularobviousness stressing the predominance of the innovative possibilities ofHer Highness Dame Fashion before all manifestations of traditionalism. Thepass roads played an important role in the establishment of early-feudalAbkhazian Kingdom, when at the end of the 8th century with Byzantineweakening, the Khazar Kingdom took a hand in the matter, including by thattime North Caucasia within its limits. The subsequent history of theAbkhazian Kingdom was again connected with Byzantine, stimulating itsflowering in the 10th century and bearing influence on the life in the areaup to its very decline in the 15th century. From the end of the 11th and upto the mid-13th centuries, the Abkhazian provincial government, onautonomous grounds, entered the composition of the “Kingdom of theAbkhazians and Kartvels”, and later partially (“Upper Abkhazia”) was annexedto Megrelia, its neighbour of the east.The 14th-17th centuries are characterised in the area’s history by a revivaland deepening of the Mediterranean Sea ties. Trading stations of Genoa onthe coastline of Abkhazia played a special part in this, leaving a deeptrace in the local economy, political history and culture. In this periodthe pass roads became enlivened once again, connecting the maritime centreswith North Caucasia and Povolzhje (the Golden Horde), and in multilingualSebastopol (modern Sukhum) the mint began to function again. Imported clayand glass (including the Venetian), crockery, arms sets of belts, adornmentsand other overseas articles began to widespread in local life. It becamecustomary among soldiers in the mountain valleys to wear earrings in one orin both ears (like the European sailors).The increasing Turkish presence weakened towards the end of the 15th century,and then, in general, traditional ties broke off with Europe. The 18thcentury passed under the sign of advantageous influences in the Osman (Ottoman)Empire area, using Abkhazia as their main launching pad in the conquest ofWest Caucasia. In this period firearms, the characteristic Caucasian daggers,a certain cut of dress (Cherkess, Bashlyk, etc.), pipes for smoking, becamewidespread in the region, and an original Abkhazian style of cooking wascreated, inimitably uniting the fruits of overseas countries – corn, beans,pepper, etc. Since 1810 a process of Europeanization began intensively inAbkhazia, in the main through Russia. The Caucasian war turned into ahorrendous misfortune for the Abkhazians and particularly the mahadzhirperiod directly after it (1866-1877), when thousands of Abkhazians wereforced to migrate to Turkey, from where they scattered all over the world.On their hearths, in the second half of the 19th century, appeared thefarmsteads of Greeks, Bulgarians, Armenians, Russians, Ukrainians, Megrels,Germans, Estonians and other emigrants, imparting to the rural area andurban cultures, features of compound and variety.Abkhazia is a country of a vivid language culture, whose sources go back tothe upper paleolithic epoch. Characteristic traits of this culture are theritual hues of the body in multicoloured tattoos, traces to the early IronAge; idolisation of groves, trees, animals, the natural elements, that drewthe attention of the travellers also in those olden times and later in theMiddle Ages; the rite of the second burial in dolmens and jugs; known frommonuments of the Bronze and early Iron Age, and again receiving prevalencein the late Middle Ages in the form of the hanging of the dead from trees;the custom of cremation of the dead and burying them on special publicsquares or in jugs was noted from the early Iron Age and the late epoch ofantiquity; the variety of signs (over 80) of heathen burial customs of theApsils from the 3rd century B.C. to the 7th century A.D.; the place foridolisation of mountain spirits on the passes and on mountain paths, wherevaried offerings accumulated (the tips of arrows and other items) in the11th-15th centuries and later; facts of the revival of heathenish in the18th century and its original and diverse survival in the everyday life ofAbkhazians today.At the same time, Abkhazia is also a country of the oldest OrthodoxChristianity in thCaucasus. Here, already at the end of the 3rd centuryA.D., communities of exiled Christians formed, and in the year 325 thePitiunt Bishop Stratofil placed his signature under protocols of theVselensky Nikeisk Cathedral. Officially, Abkhazians (Apsils, Abazgs, etc.)adopted Christianity in the 6th century during Emperor Justian’s time, whenin the littoral and mountain zone many early-Christian churches were built.From the 4th up to the 10th centuries the Abkhazian church wasadministratively subject to Byzantine (Constantinople, Antioch, etc.), whilethe territory of Abkhazia itself was within the bounds of the Abkhaziankingdom autonomous – the main temples of the 10th century were constructednot in the capital of the kingdom, Kutaisi, but in the zone nearest to thesea and Byzantine, between Pitsunda and Bedia. This status was maintainedalso in the Byzantine occupation period in the 11th century, after which,supposedly, for some time the local church was dependent on the EastCaucasian (Mtskhet) Catholicity and the Alany Metropolitanate. From the mid-13thto the 17th centuries Abkhazian Catholicity preserved its independence,sustaining close ecclesiastical ties with Kartlia, Byzantine, Asia Minor,Syria and Palestine. It is not by chance that it was namely the AntiochPatriarch who arrived in Abkhazia to displace the bishops-slave-traders inthe 17th century, and the Greek written language that predominated undividedup to the 10th century on the territory of Abkhazia and was used oneparallel with the Georgian language from the end of the 10th up to the 16thcentury. In the 19th – early 20th centuries, Christian religion again putforth sufficiently deep roots in this area.Besides the Orthodox religion, Catholicism in its time also played adefinite role. At the beginning of the 14th century, for example, there wasa Catholic episcopal faculty in Sebastopol, and there was also a Catholiccemetery functioning there. The local population became acquainted in the6th century with particulars of the religion of the Iran fire-worshippers.The stone icons in the second half of the 6th-7th centuries have to mitresymbol from Tsebelda on them. Abkhazians came into contact very early withother world religions – Judaism and Islam. Jewish people had settled inlocal cities already in the period of antiquity. Their communities existedin the period of the Middle Ages in Gagra (11th century) and in Sebastopol-Sukhum(14th century). Abkhazians first came into close contact with their Islamicancestors in the first half of the 8th century. A Muslim community existedin Sebastopol-Sukhum at the beginning of the 14th century. The Islaminfluence in the area grew stronger from the end of the 16th century (tombswith inscriptions, names of princes, etc.). In the 18th – beginning of the19th centuries several wooden mosques functioned in Abkhazia, but pigs werestill bred in every village. Survivals of Islam are preserved even today inthe everyday life of the Abkhazians.Abkhazians – Blood-Relatives of All Nations on Earth
The history of man offers a whimsical twining of territorial, economic,language, cultural and psychological reality on which one more importantnation-forming layer is built, connected with the genetics of the humanfactor, on which politicians and the historians hired by them, for somereason prefer not to linger. At the same time, fixation of Negroids in theupper paleolithical strata of Kholodny Grot and a language proximity to theMongoloids directly indicate true genetic ties with representatives of theseancient human races. Today, however, Abkhazians are a clearly expressedEuropean type. This is explained by the constant penetration of bearers of arelevant anthropological type into their territory.Without touching on the compulsory, but badly documented, ties up to theperiod of the written language, I will stop at proof of those epochs whichare already sufficiently elucidated through written and archaeologicalsources. In Gienos (modern Ochamchira), founded over 2500 years ago on theAbkhazian seacoast by the Miletsys, local household utensils were found inhouses of the first settlers, brought in the homes of Greeks by their wives,who willingly welcomed the colonisers into the native environment. Greek-Abkhazianmarriage ties increased in the Hellenic epoch (end of the 4th - 1stcenturies B.C.). In the 1st-3rd centuries A.D., in the course of widepolitical and cultural contacts with Rome, the foundation of an Abkhaz-Italianblood relationship was laid. In the 4th-5th centuries A.D., during theRoman-Byzantine rule (Sebastopol, Pitiunt, etc.), suburbs were erected – thekanabas – in which the demobilised-soldiers lived with their families.Undoubtedly, quite a few men and women of the local population made up hosefamilies. In the 6th century A.D., Prokopi Kesariisky, in relations with theAbazgs – forebears of the Bzyb Abkhazians – stressed forthwith that “theRoman soldiers… long ago” had settled “among them in many ways”. Evidentlysuch settlements were accompanied also by similar marriage ties. Theinterrelations between the garrison and the people of Greek-Roman citiesservicing them and then settling among the inhabitants of the foothills andmountain valleys, often turned into punitive expeditions and pogroms (suchan episode, vividly written by Ksenofont, took place in the outskirts ofTrapezunta at the end of the 5th century B.C.). The result was alwaysviolence and the birth of “war children”. The kidnapping of women bymountain dwellers was common, too. Living jointly for 1200 years on oneterritory with the Greeks could not but leave a serious imprint in thegenetics of the Abkhazians (like their neighbours – Ubykhs, Adygeis, Megrels,etc.), making practically all of them blood relatives with the Hellens.Abkhazian contacts with the North-Caucasian tribes were long and varied, inthe first place (1st-12th centuries A.D.) with the Alanys, the forebears ofpresent-day Ossets. The presence of the Alany element in Abkhazia isdocumented through sources from the 1st to the 2nd century A.D., and in thearchaeological – from the 4th to the 6th century. The result of the Abkhaz-Alanyties was not only the spread of conformable elements of material culture (ceramics,arms, etc.) and the transference of Narty legends, but also in theappearance of many half-breeds who later infused (depending on the situation)into the father’s or the mother’s environment. A definite contribution tothe genetics of the Abkhazians was made in the 6th century by the Persians,through whose actions, pertaining to the Apsil women of the gently, turnedinto catastrophe for the Iranian garrison of Tsibilium in the year 550 A.D.In the 6th century A.D., for the first time in the internal regions ofAbkhazia, the Lazys were formalised in written sources – forebears of thecontemporary Megrels, with whom (marrimonial) relations were particularlyintensive in the contact zone along the Ingur. Infiltration of the Megrelsinto the south-eastern regions of Abkhazia was to have increased from theend of the 19th century, when the Bedia’s episcopacy was founded there,whose rule spread also along the left bank of the Ingur. At the turn of the13th-14th centuries Megrelia annexed the eastern regions of the Abkhazian (Tskhumsk)provincial government up to Anakopia. This battle lasted up to the 17thcentury, when Italian and Georgian sources placed the western politicalboundary of Megrelia at first of Kelasur, then up to the Kodor and, finally,to the Ingur river. In the late Middle Ages, as a result of theassimilationary processes in the territories conquered by the Megrels (“UpperAbkhazia”), an intermingling of the peasants, as a result of church giftsand the endless wars between the Abkhazians and the Megrels, drew them quiteclosely together in the genetic sense. Not so intensive but also resultativewere sporadic contacts between the Kartvels-Georgians (the battle atAnakopia in the 8th century, contacts in the 11th-13th centuries, etc.), andthe Svans. This process continues to this day.Apart from the indicated nations representatives of many other languages andcultures have lived and worked on the territory of Abkhazia during the lasttwo thousand years. Here we should mention Jews, Germans, Armenians, Arabs,Khazars, Turks, Mongols, Italian and even Chinese among them. The firstmention in sources of information, for example, of representatives of Slavtribes, arriving on the territory of Abkhazia, goes back to the middle ofthe 6th century. The roads and blood of Russians and Abkhazians intertwinedclosely also during the period of the neighbouring Tmutarakan and Abkhazianstates, and on the Middle Ages slave-trade roads of the Mediterranean, theBlack Sea area and Povolzhje, during the Cossak forays along the easternBlack Sea shore area. Not only the cultural but also the kinship of theAbkhaz-Russian contacts that took shape in the 19th-20th centuries aresufficiently deep. One expressive example – 27 years after the annexing ofAbkhazia to Russia there were 120 fugitive Russian soldiers who had marriedAbkhazian women and coped with the Abkhazian language in only the onemountain village of Abkhazia – Tsebelda. In that same 19th century theAbkhazian Negroes aroused great interest among those who happened to arrivehere…Class-dynastic marriages were of particular significance in the localhistory of the feudal epoch. A Kartvel woman – the wife of Leon I and aKhazar woman – the mother of Leon II were at the cradle of the Abkhaziankingdom in the 8th century A.D. In the following period, up to the beginningof the 19th century, as a rule, the wives and mothers of local tsars andprinces were Greeks, Ossets, Armenians, Polovchanins, Kartvels, Megrels, etc…but very rarely representatives of the nationality their husbands ruled. Thebride arrived at her new place of residence with a multiple retinue,comprising relatives, girl friends, soldiers, handicraftsmen, and otherkinsmen, who then scattered among the local population and countryside.However, it was not only the many representatives of the newly come nationswho left an imprint in the genetic of the Abkhazians. The latter played atransient role in the formation of the genetics of many nations of Eurasia,especially of the Mediterranean Sea region. And here slave-trade was ofbasic importance. The Black Sea littoral of the Caucasus from timeimmemorial was called the “mine of slavery”. This “mine” was intensivelydeveloped from the 6th century B.C. era up to the 19th century A.D. For 2500years dozens, hundreds and at times thousands of people were annually takenaway from here, mostly young people. During the Hellenic period slave-trademade up an important profitable part of the economy of the natives of thearea – the Geniokhys. In the 6th century A.D. the rulers of Abazgs earnedquite well on the markets of Byzantine by selling emasculated boys fromamong their kinsmen. During this period, as a result of only one raid of thePersians, 40 Abazg boys were collected as hostages and drove to Iran. Slave-tradereached a particularly high scale in the late Middle Ages. At he beginningof the 19th century Keleshbei Chachba (Shervashidze), in discussing pointsof an agreement with Russia, requested the preservation of his right totrade in people. Slave labour from Abkhazia and related territories playedan important role in the economic and cultural blossoming of the Black Seaand Mediterranean areas. Everywhere – from Damascus to Paris – the labour ofCaucasian emigrants was evident: cities were built with their participation,temples and castles erected, roads laid, ships built, and sown lands werewidened… The fate of the slaves was not always tormenting and unfruitful,however. Having settled down all over the civilised world, they forgot theirown language and became familiar with foreign ones, changed their religions,set up families and reared children and grandchildren. Some perished doingbackbreaking work, many became military leaders, while the girls became thewives of magnates and sultans. Today, innumerable descendants of those whohad once been forcibly taken away from the Black Sea coast, including,undoubtedly, Abkhazians, live among the Turks and Arabs. Jews and Greeks,Yugoslavs and Italians, French and Spanish, Iranians and Armenians, Russiansand Tatars, without being aware of their origin. Mahadzhir period made itscontribution to this process, too. Abkhazia – a Country with a 2500-year Statehood
Early-class social relations in Abkhazia were formed already at the end ofthe 3rd-2nd centuries B.C., when an increase of additional productsliberated social forces able to co-operate in the building of monumentalstone tomb-dolmens. The community gentry of the following period weresignificantly represented in the burials of the 8th-6th centuries B.C.,where many bronze and iron items were found, indicating the intensivecontacts with that ancient state of Transcaucasia, Urart, and also with theearly-class formations of Iran, Asia Minor and Balkan, the Kimmeriisk-Seythianworld.Statehood as a system of survival, based on a centralised concentration anddistribution of products, was brought to Abkhazia by the Greeks-Miletsys,who founded here the city-states of Dioscuriada (modern Sukhum), Gienos(modern Ochamchira) already at the beginning of the 6th century B.C. Theseand a number of other maritime centres (Eshera, Pitiunt) were for thefollowing 600 years decisive seats of political life in the area. The“Colchis Kingdom” in the 6th –1st centuries B.C., within whose boundariesthe territory of modern Abkhazia supposedly was, relates to the number ofhistorical myths, designed by scientists and politicians from the end of thethirties of the current century (“epoch of Lavrenty Beria”). At the turn ofthe 4th-3rd centuries B.C. (on the basis of the symbiosis of theHellenisized military-agricultural native summit and “the new aristocracy”in the visage of the trade-handicraft elite of Dioscuriada) in the maritimearea of central Abkhazia a Hellenic state (“kingdom”) sprang up with atyrannical ruling system. At the end of the 2nd century B.C. the examinedterritory was included in the composition of the Pontiisk kingdom ofMitridat VI Eupator. He aided the organisation of the Dioscuriada mint,whose products where current all over the Black Sea area.The oldest early-class states of Abkhazians were the “kingdoms” of Sanigia,Apsilia and Abazgia, noted in sources of information since the 1st centuryA.D. and enveloping the entire territory of the present Republic of Abkhazia.This state was politically dependent on the Roman Emperors, who affirmed thelocal tsars and controlled them through the maritime settlements ofSebastopolis (ancient Dioscuriada) and Pitiunt, where a garrison of Romansoldiers was quartered. After the transfer of the capital of the Empire toConstantinople, the political, economic and cultural Roman-Byzantinepresence in the area was strengthened. In the first half of the 6th centuryA.D., on the eve of the invasion of the Persians and their North-Caucasianallies into Colchis, Byzantine attempted to unite the parent-Abkhaziannationalities (Apsils, Abazgs, Misimians, etc.) and the West Kartvels (Lazks,Svans) within the framework of a vassal buffer formation – the Lazsk kingdom.For two-three decades a situation took shape in Colchis similar to that ofthe mid-20th century – the Abkhazians, on autonomous principles, entered thestate of the western Kartvels – Lazys, which in turn became practically partof Byzantine Empire. After the victory over the Persians, Byzantine sensiblyrejected the “matriarchy” principle and administratively levelled thenationalities living here within the framework of their own imperial borders.During the following 200-odd years the territory of Abkhazia was included inthe eastern Black Sea province of the Empire and was considered to be a partof the “Roman land”.Victory over the Arabs at the walls of Anakopia (modern Novy Afon), the mainfortress of the Abazgs, was conducive to a new unification forming of thewhole of Colchis under the rule of the Byzantine protégé Leon I Abazg. Thenephew of the latter, Leon II, at the end of the 8th century A.D. takingadvantage of a weakening Empire and the strengthening of the Khazar rule,proclaimed his independence and transferred the capital of the Abkhaziankingdom to ancient Kutaisi. The next 200 years were an epoch of blossomingfor the Christian Abkhazian kingdom, keeping allied relations of Byzantine,and gradually absorbing the majority of the east Georgian lands within itspolitical limits. In the 10th century Abkhazia bordered with Armenia on thesouth-east.From the end of the 10th century representatives of the South-GeorgianBagratid family were affirmed on the Abkhazian throne. They did not leaveany telling imprints on the direction and quality of the state policy andits name. “The Kingdom of Abkhazians and Kartvles” acquired a final federalstructure during the time of David IV Stroitel, when the capital of thekingdom was transferred to Semi-Muslim Tiflis. Strictly, Abkhazians, asbefore, presented a clearly expressed autonomous political structure. For abig part of the 11th century it was occupied by Byzantine, and in the12th-13th centuries Tskhumi-Sukhum served as the residence of the rulingprinces Chachba (Shervashidze).The late Middle Ages history (14th-17th centuries) of the Abkhazianprincipality is a chronicle of the desperate struggle of its administrationand people for the preservation of the independence from the Megrel andImereti rulers who repeatedly endured defeat and had to turn to the Kartliantsars (modern East Georgia) for help in suppressing the Abkhazians. Theterritory controlled by the Abkhazian princes now narrowed, now widenedagain, but not once were the demonstrative Georgians or others able toannounce that Abkhazia had ended its autonomous existence. Even the buildingof the biggest defensive-delimitation construction of the Caucasus acrossthe principality during the period of the 30-years Abkhaz-Megrel war – the60-kilometre long Kelasuri (Grand Abkhazian) wall, undertaken during thesecond quarter of the 17th century by the rulers of Megrelia with the aim offortifying “Upper Abkhazia” for themselves, could not subjugate theAbkhazians; they took this menacing obstacle by storm and restored theirancient political and ethnic borders up to the river Ingur.The 17th – beginning of the 19th centuries was a time of growing politicalcontacts with the Osman (Ottoman) Empire, whose government, with the aim ofspreading its influence in the Caucasus, placed its stake namely on Abkhazia,bearing its special position in the region in mind. The Turkish Garrison wasquartered in Sukhum-Kale and Anakopia. At the end of 18th century theAbkhazian principality was headed by Keleshbei Chachba comprising 25000soldiers out of whom 600 were on military galleys, cruising along thecoastline, keeping the inhabitants from Batumi to Gelenjik in constantterror.The far-seeing politician Keleshbei, at the cost of his own life, placed theAbkhazian principality within the bounds of the Russian state (the manifestowas signed by Alexander I in 1810) as an autonomy, which it preserved up to1864. Later Abkhazia was renamed a Sukhum military department, with a directRussian administrative rule. In 1883 the “department” now as a “province”entered the composition of the Kutaisi military region. Cities were built,roads laid, electric stations, schools, libraries, hospitals and theatresconstructed, their own Abkhazian written language was compiled on the basisof Russian graphics, and their own gifted intelligentsia appeared – teachers,literary men, artists, military men, officials. The widowed Empress MariaFyodorovna entered into morganatic marriage with Abkhazian Prince GeorgiChachba. In a special appeal, Emperor Nicholas II in 1907 lifted the “guilt”of the Abkhazians, levelling them in rights with all the citizens in theEmpire.The Abkhazian “hundred” accomplished many heroic exploits on the fronts ofthe First World War. That is how the premises of the national resurrectionof the Abkhazians were formed.In March 1917 a Provisional Government of their own was set up in the Sukhumdistrict. Seven months later the districts entered the federal foundation inthe south-east union of Cossack soldiers, the mountain dwellers of theCaucasus and the free people of the steppe. That is when the declaration onself-government and the constitution founded on this principle were adopted.In June 1918 the Sukhum district was occupied by the Georgian expeditionarydetachments of General Mazniev (Mazniashvili). A year later the name“Abkhazia” was restored, however subsequent attempts for a legalregistration of the Abkhazian “autonomy” within the framework of theGeorgian Democratic Republic were unsuccessful.In March 1921 the Abkhazian “Kiaraz” detachments, supported by units of 9thRed Army, liberated their own area, following which the independence of theAbkhazian SSR was proclaimed. A year later, under pressure of Josiph Stalin,the Abkhazian SSR and the Georgian SSR signed a federal agreement which, in1931, was violated (Stalin was actively aided in this by a native ofAbkhazia, Lavrenty Beria). The result was that Abkhazia, as an autonomousrepublic, was included in the composition of “unitary” Georgia. From thethirties a forced Georgianization of Abkhazia became one of the chieffunctions of the administrative system of Georgia: even during the heat ofbattle with the Nazis (World War II) for the Caucasus, providing forrefugees arriving in Abkhazia from the east was a primary task. To the sameaim was the eviction of the Greeks from there in 1949. About theunfavourable changes for the Abkhazians in the demographic sense in Abkhaziaduring the last 100 years can be ascertained from the following table:
|Years:|| 1886|| 1897|| 1926|| 1939|| 1959|| 1970|| 1989|
|Abkhazians|| 58,963|| 58,697|| 55,918|| 56,197|| 61,193|| 83,097|| 93,267|
|Georgians|| 4,166|| 25,875|| 67,494|| 91,967|| 158,221|| 213,322|| 239,872|
|Russians|| 971|| 5,135|| 20,456|| 60,201|| 86,715|| 79,730|| 74,913|
|Armenians|| 1,049|| 6,552|| 30,048|| 49,705|| 64,400|| 73,000|| 76,541|
|Greeks|| 2,149|| 5,393|| 27,085|| 34,621|| 9,111|| 13,000|| 14,664|
The colonial regime and systematic infringement on the national dignityaroused repeated mass protests and demands on the restoration of the statusof the twenties and of the transfer of Abkhazia into the structure of theRussian Federation. On August 25, 1990 the Supreme Soviet of Abkhaziaadopted a Declaration on the state sovereignty of the Abkhazian SovietSocialist Republic. In March 1991, at the referendum held on the future ofthe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Abkhazia declared for an equalplace in its structure, while Georgia voted for its disintegration.* * *And so, the question: “Abkhazians, who are they?” can be briefly replied tothe following way: Abkhazians are not biologically or historically distinctfrom other people on Earth, comprising an equal part of human society. Butthe special feature of the Abkhazians is in that their language, not changedduring thousand of years, does not recur anywhere else in the world, andespecially in that they preserve the language that has long since died outon related territories of Eurasia … For millions of years nature hasgathered diverse samples of her creations in this reverse spot. These aredeposits of ancient oceans – limestone in whose compactness the deepest andwidest caves in Eurasia are hidden, and the unique flora of over 60varieties of plants that have not been preserved anywhere else, andcontaining the biggest beech and fir trees in the whole world, and theAbkhazian bee with the world’s longest proboscis. In line of these relics isthe Abkhazian language, a lingo relic of West Caucasia. In a moment of theprofound fragility of the socio-economic system of life on an enormous scale,enveloping the territory of the former USSR and its satellite, themultinational population of little Abkhazia courageously overcomes nationalbitterness “brewed” on historical forgetfulness and isolation, trusting inits prayers to God, its geographical position and its good sense, common tomankind, which so far successfully co-operates of our common survival inthis grim and yet so beautiful world.Be happy, Abkhazia!Epilogue to the Second EditionThis work was written to the order of the editorial staff of theinternational annual “Science and Humanity” at the end of 1991. But it waspublished in Sukhum on the eve of the invasion of the Shevardnadzeformations. The greater part of the edition was destroyed by the invadersand the text was subjected to the ignorant criticism in the newspaper“Democratic Abkhazia”.Recognition of all the legislative acts of the former USSR and the GeorgianSSR had became invalid, back with the realities of the civil war in Russiaof 1918-1920, Abkhazia, willing to fill the legal vacuum abolished thecorresponding Stalin’s and Berya’s document of 1931 on the Abkhazia’senjoyment the rights of an autonomous republic within Georgia putting “Thecountry of Apsuaa” (Apsny) beyond the borders of the later.The highest spheres of the world community the disintegration of the USSRhad generated from and the party administrations of Union Republics took nonotice of the former of autonomous formations beyond the Russian Federation.Consequently, the Georgian authorities had faced the problem of “territorialintegrity” with two possible ways: either to recognise the Republic ofGeorgia as a federal state or to conquer again the seceded territory.Having come to power through the blood coup the General-Traitor Shevardnadze,instead of civilised procedures has chosen the second way – by force. With asupport of the UNO and a number of the leading states (USA, Germany, Turkey,Russia) thankful to Shevardnadze for his accomplice of the chaos in the USSR,the later got his “portion” of the Soviet arms and moved his stormers toAbkhazia on 14th August of 1992 for forage and murder.Autumn, winter, spring and summer of 1992-1993 had turned the recentlyflourishing health resort republic – the “All-Union pearl” into the zone oflarge scale ecological catastrophe, having divided the 70 year peacefulAbkhazia into three parts: Gudauta and Gagra regions, blockaded mountainouspart of the Ochamchira region including Tkvarchal and the occupied seasidefrom Sukhum to Ochamchira.Shevardnadze’s envoys – Ioseliani and Kitovany, like locusts had attackedAbkhazia with a licence to shoot suppress and rob the multiethnic populationof Abkhazia, the place, where hundreds were killed, every fiftieth wounded,exiles and every fourth robbed within 8 months.Thousands of civilians were tortured for their convictions, nationalbelonging, weakness of will, being young or old age. The people were beatenup, raped, stabbed, burned out, ignored; gardens and crops destroyed,citizens were forced to loud their belongings into the plunderer’s vehicles;ransom was taken for preservation of the children’s lives and vanished ones.Many villages were wiped off, the city of Sukhum was destroyed and looted aswell. Dozens of architectural monuments were destroyed and disfigured; theAbkhazian State Archives, the Abkhazian Institute of Language Literature andHistory, the Republican Library ruined; the Russian Drama Theatre burned out;museums, institutes, schools, libraries, private archives, factories,undertakings and trade institutions looted; pianos, tape recorders, pictures,mirrors, books and furniture shot through.With the blessings of Shevardnadze the greatest tragedy had happened in theDal Gorge, where on 14th December 1992 the Russian helicopter MI-8 with morethan 60 people on board: 13 pregnant, 28 children and other ones perished.The burnt down bodies were rummaged in search for gold teeth, rings andother “trophies”. Politicians of Russia and other countries have forgiventheir social ally Shevardnadze this very crime too.All this wild rivalry to the Abkhazian land collapsed, because “Abkhazia isnot Georgia”. Abkhazians, Russians, Georgians, Armenians, Greeks and othercitizens of the republic demonstrated a rare tolerance and formed acommunity against the disintegration of the USSR. Shevardnadze’s intellecthas given birth to monsters, subjecting the population of Abkhazia totorments.But Abkhazia is alive. In these difficult conditions shortages theAbkhazians, Armenians, Kabardins, Adygs, Chechens and other representativesof ethnic groups side by side with the Abkhazians resisted the enemydemonstrating heroism and human solidarity to the country in misfortune.Collective of staple products is being organised everywhere. Moral supportof the fighting people of Abkhazia for their freedom and justice isbroadening. There will be a day on this blessed land of Apsny as soon as thealliance arose by there current redivision of the world will be settled downand all over the arc of instability and calamity will be restored from theBalkan to the Pamirs.Epilogue to the English EditionLate in April, 1993, the Parliamentary delegation of the Republic ofAbkhazia (consisting of Mr. S. Lakoba, Mrs. L. Kvarchelia and author himself)visited the UK with the aim to inform the governmental organisations on thesituation in Abkhazia and gave a file in the war communiqué. Meetings wereheld at the British Parliament, Foreign Ministry, the London, Oxford andCambridge Universities, in the Edinburgh and Kilmarnockas well with theparticipation of intergovernmental and human rights organisation. Documentswitnessing the Shevardnadze regime, that runs counter to the main principlesof the Universal Human Rights Declaration were distributed among listeners.During the talks, it was repeatedly pointed out that Abkhazia bear the samerelation to the NATO countries as the UK does; that in the 1st century B.C.both Abkhazia and England were within the borders of the Roman Empire; thatvolunteers speaking diverse languages came into fight in Abkhazia; that theywere on the same mission as the well-known poet Lord Byron, who died for theliberty of Greece; that even in 1862 the Abkhazian delegation held talkswith the Prime-Minister of the UK Mr. Lord Palmerson in London; that in 1919English General Briggs not only recognised, the right of Abkhazians todetermine their fate independently, but set up the British Representation inSukhum, the capital of Abkhazia as well.People everywhere tried to get deep into the matter and offer something tohelp the people of Abkhazia – with kind words, money, medicine and i.e.The year of hostilities made the small coastal republic known to the worldand establish fraternal relationship beyond its bounds with scholars,politicians, scientists, artists, business people and ordinary ones.As an equal member of the UNPO, Abkhazia de facto joined independentpolitical unitys of the world community.Joint efforts of the people of good will, who represent different countriesand the ability to govern had been laid down in the grounds of the Abkhazianstatehood promoted the liberation of Sukhum, capital of Abkhazia, on 27thSeptember 1993 and later reach the river Ingur, that borders neighbouringMingrelia and Georgia with Abkhazia.However the victory did not bring peace to the long-suffering land. Havingfailed to suppress people of Abkhazia, Shevardnadze called his confederatesfrom Russia and UNO for help, some of them ventured to accuse Abkhazia ofthe aggression and occupation of their own capital and territory. Thegovernment of Russia imposed the blockade having deprived the small Abkhaziawith hundred thousands of old people, women and children of electricity,bread, water, medicine, fuel and other means of vital necessity. The Russian-Abkhazianborder on the river Psou was turned into a dirty business to profit at theAbkhazians misfortunes; that is temporary closing of economic structure andpreservation of the conditions of war, criminal and gang’s activity which iscontinuation of the acts of Shevardnadze’s guardsmen in Abkhazia as robbery,violence and killings.The government of Abkhazia together with the citizens of Abkhazia, at theexpense of losses managed to stabilise the situation preventing people fromplunging them into new clashes, convincing the international missions (JEO,USA, Congress, CSCE and i.e.) of the necessity to recognise the Republic ofAbkhazia as an equal party at war, able to join the round table talks. Onthe 30th of November the first round table talks were held in Geneva to findways to establish peace in the region.The negotiations continued in Moscow, Geneva, New York, Sochi. VladislavArdzinba, head of the Republic of Abkhazia visited Switzerland and USA helda briefing at the UN headquarters in Geneva, created a favourable impressionwith his European manners and ways of thinking. In May 1994 in Krasnodar anagreement was signed on Abkhazia’s entry into the association of theRepublics, Krais and Regions of the North Caucasus and the South of Russia.At the end of June the CIS peace-keeping forces were deployed along theAbkhazian-Georgian border on the Ingur River.The Abkhazian side proceed from the very fact of the existence of theindependence from Georgia, the state that emerged after the collapse of theUSSR – the Republic of Abkhazia gained the right to self-government asGeorgia together with the world community declared all the legislative actsand the constitution of the soviet period invalid having done with thejuridical document that included Abkhazia within the bounds of Georgia.The main condition to provide cease fire, in the region is to recognise theright of Abkhazians to hold referendum to determine their own fate and thestatus and ensures the observation of the Universal Human Rights Declarationand other international acts that protect the rights of the states,communities and people. That might has been a position taken by the UNOunder the influence of the doubtful charm of Shevardnadze appraisingAbkhazia as illegitimate within the countries of terrestrial globe, but itdoes not mean that the country is to be eliminated. Abkhazia exists, thisvery fact is to be recognised in accordance with moral and culturalstandards common to all mankind.The English speaking countries today have their particular responsibilityand abilities to get knowledge on the subject, the implementation of whichserve God and the interest of people. | <urn:uuid:8049552d-6091-4548-a310-119067f0f633> | CC-MAIN-2017-26 | https://aheku.net/articles/english/abkhazia/1248 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-26/segments/1498128320476.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20170625083108-20170625103108-00204.warc.gz | en | 0.93875 | 15,098 | 3.265625 | 3 |
"You are here to die!"
|--||Jose Milan Astray, 1920, |
To the recruits for the
Spanish Foreign Legion
- In 1748 the Royal Navy issued its first regulations for officers’ uniforma, the design inspired, according to tradition, by the riding habit of King George II’s lady friend the Duchess of Bedford.
- In December 1944 the 243 divisions in the German Army included 3,624,403 troops, of whom only 43.9-percent were under 30 years of age.
- During World War II an estimated one million soldiers, sailors, and marines availed themselves of the services of prostitutes in the Hotel Street district of Honolulu, a devoted band of patriotic ladies who never numbered more than about 300 at a time.
- At 15, the young Octavius – later the Emperor Augustus – served a an orderly for his great-great Uncle Julius Casear during the latter’s Spanish campaign of 46 B.C.
- President James K. Polk’s seven times great grandfather, Sir John Pollok, was killed during the Battle of Locherbie, in Scotland, in 1593.
- The custom of saluting a warship’s quarterdeck seems to have originated in pagan times, when an altar was placed there, which was replaced by a crucifix with the advent of Christianity, inspiring a custom that become so engrained it survived the removal of the crosses.
- At First Bull Run the commander of the 14th New York Militia, Col. Alfred M. Wood – later later mayor of Brooklyn – was captured by “Old Dick,” a black man serving as a drummer in the 18th Virgnia.
- From his appointment as Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army (September 1, 1939) to his retirement (November 18, 1945), a total of 2,271 days, General of the Army George C. Marshall was on leave just 19 days, about 0.008-percent of his time in command. | <urn:uuid:c7566d0e-a487-4ee2-a4f7-af1877eebd6e> | CC-MAIN-2016-36 | https://strategypage.com/cic/docs/cic120a.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-36/segments/1471983578600.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160823201938-00019-ip-10-153-172-175.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968102 | 417 | 2.90625 | 3 |
For the freshest juice, harvest oranges from your own trees. Although orange trees may be grown outdoors in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 9 through 11, California residents may also confine them to pots in a greenhouse or sunroom. Opt for an unheated greenhouse during the winter for better fruit color, and move them to a sunny and sheltered patio or balcony over the summer months.
Grow orange trees in heavy clay pots, in well-draining cactus and citrus potting soil. Choose types such as blood orange or tiger navel, which are decorative as well as fruitful.
Use pots only slightly larger than the originals when repotting, as orange trees should be kept tightly contained to prevent root disease caused by soggy soil. Plant them so that the graft is several inches above the soil line.
Water orange trees, which prefer acid soil, with rainwater. Boil and cool "hard" tap water, if you must use it instead of rainwater. Reduce watering somewhat in winter, but never let the soil dry out completely.
Fertilize the trees every week in spring and summer with a fertilizer for acid-loving plants. Fertilize only every two weeks in fall and winter, using a low-nitrogen fertilizer, and stop feeding if the temperature falls below 55 degrees F.
Prune as necessary to shape the trees. Remove suckers that appear below the graft and water sprouts (soft and fast-growing shoots).
Place the trees in a shaded location for a couple of weeks after you move them outdoors in the summer. Move them to a sunny but sheltered site after that. Return them to the shade a couple of weeks before carting them back into the greenhouse in the fall.
Wash the trees occasionally when they are outdoors, with a soft spray of water from a hose, to prevent spider mites. Mist them often, when they are in the greenhouse, with a spray bottle and rainwater.
Give the trees cooler temperatures over winter, preferably about 60 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit dropping to 55 at night, for better color in the fruit. Avoid temperatures below 50 degrees, however. Wrap the trees with blankets in an unheated greenhouse if cold weather threatens.
Check the trees often for scale insects when they are indoors. Spray them with a light horticultural oil solution if you see brownish bumps beginning to appear.
Things You Will Need
- Grafted orange trees
- Heavy clay pots
- Cactus and citrus potting soil
- Rainwater or boiled tap water
- Fertilizer for acid-loving plants
- Low-nitrogen fertilizer
- Pruning shears
- Spray bottle
- Light horticultural oil
- Most oranges will bloom in early spring and fruit in the fall or winter, but they can produce blossoms and fruits at the same time.
- Oranges will keep well on the tree, so don't harvest them until you are ready to eat them.
- At cool temperatures, citrus trees are very susceptible to root rot if they are overwatered.
- Brand X Pictures/Brand X Pictures/Getty Images | <urn:uuid:f9bbdf90-7758-4881-abc6-6001b2f48bdd> | CC-MAIN-2018-13 | http://homeguides.sfgate.com/grow-oranges-greenhouse-47947.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-13/segments/1521257647692.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20180321195830-20180321215830-00645.warc.gz | en | 0.922437 | 647 | 3.15625 | 3 |
When first discovered in 1977, these microscopic single-celled organisms were classified as Bacteria. However, later genetic and biochemical analyses showed that they were more closely related to the Eukaryotes (which include humans). The researchers who discovered this, Woese and his colleagues, proposed the addition of the “domain” as a taxonomic level above that of kingdom, with all life classified within one of three domains, now called Bacteria, Eukaryotes, and Archaea. As of 2010 more than 250 species of Archaea had been described, most fitting into one of two groups, Euryarchaeota and Crenarchaeota. Many of these live in extreme environments – places where we once believed no life could exist. | <urn:uuid:2c19461b-cb7a-40c5-b8a7-63f9cc33ad01> | CC-MAIN-2015-35 | http://www.eol.org/data_objects/11290394 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-35/segments/1440644064538.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20150827025424-00242-ip-10-171-96-226.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96999 | 152 | 3.875 | 4 |
Metaphysical poets facts for kids
The metaphysical poets are a group of English poets known for long difficult metaphors. John Donne is perhaps the most famous. Although their work was not popular in some periods, thanks to writers like T. S. Eliot their value to English literature seems mostly recognised these days.
Images for kids
Metaphysical poets Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia. | <urn:uuid:d0d3c587-07f1-4f6b-99d4-e7201c0a5468> | CC-MAIN-2020-34 | https://kids.kiddle.co/Metaphysical_poets | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-34/segments/1596439738653.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20200810072511-20200810102511-00319.warc.gz | en | 0.973569 | 79 | 2.859375 | 3 |
The effects of the acoustic environment of captive pied tamarins.
Fiene is a member of our Behavioural Ecology Research Group.
It is clear that habitat loss and fragmentation are the main driver of species extinction. However, continuous urbanization and increasing anthropogenic pressure also creates an acoustic environment that is much noisier, and markedly different to that of undisturbed areas. Therefore, noise represents a potential stressor that should be considered in animal welfare and conservation planning, not only for wildlife, but also for captive animals that permanently live within anthropogenic settings. Although animals are equipped with behavioural and physiological mechanisms for adapting to day-to-day environmental challenges, chronic stressors, such as a louder, varied, and/or irregular acoustic environment, can negatively affect their health and behaviour. Studying the effects of the acoustic environment in a captive setting, particularly focusing on pied tamarins as a model species - a not only a very sensitive New World primate species that is endangered in the wild, but also one that struggles under captive conditions - will provide useful information about the animals’ responses and ultimately allow us to improve the health, conservation and survival of both wild and captive animals. | <urn:uuid:eb77123b-6b62-40d8-afd4-ae0ff8fdda1a> | CC-MAIN-2023-50 | https://www.aru.ac.uk/people/fiene-steinbrecher | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679103464.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20231211013452-20231211043452-00820.warc.gz | en | 0.93989 | 244 | 3.75 | 4 |
When it comes to saving lives, seconds count. And now, thanks to improving technology, drones are proving to be a game changer in an emergency.
Dozens of people’s lives were saved last year with the help of drones, according to drone maker DJI. The company said from May of 2017 to April of 2018, 65 people were rescued with the help of a drone. DJI reviewed media reports to come up with that number and included documentation in its recent report released this year.
Firefighters, search and rescue teams and other members of law enforcement are using drones to survey an area much faster from the air than people can on the ground.
“During a search and rescue operation we can see body temperature, Romeo Durscher, DJI’s Public Safety Integration Director, said.
Drones carry more than simple cameras. They are now built to send back infrared images.
Aeryon Defense USA, of Denver, has drones that can carry upwards of four pounds of payload. The company sells drones that can be used by police agencies and the military.
"That allows you to hook in a medical kit, radio, food, water (or) ammunition to provide life sustaining equipment," said Mark Holden of Aeryon Defense USA. “We can carry water, enough for one day, food, even ammunition resupplies and some explosives as well.”
The company’s drones can also be programed to single out a person moving in the camera’s view, but ignore a tree blowing in the wind or wildlife.
“This is just the beginning. Everything we do is about taking the load off the end user. We want to replace human functions on the battlefield with a robot,” Holden said.
Drones have helped find a woman with dementia in Randolph County, North Carolina. She had wandered into a nearby field. Drones dropped a life preserver to flood victims in Sichuan, China before rescue crews arrived to save the victims. An infrared camera-equipped drone located a crash victim who became unconscious after leaving his car to get help. A similar camera also was used to locate lost tubers on a river in Vestavia Hills, Alabama.
Technology allows drones to carry more weight than before. In the last one-and-a-half to two years, drone makers have improved how drones fly in difficult weather conditions.
"Search and rescue operations rarely happen on a beautiful, no wind kind of day so we had to design them to withstand the snow, the wind, and the rain,” Durscher said.
They can help save the lives of rescuers too.
"You know what's ahead of you. It can alert you of a big cliff or flooded river,” Durscher said.
Drones used by most rescue agencies run as much as $25,000 to $35,000. | <urn:uuid:8650cf34-f455-45b4-a058-30f8a865fe4b> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://www.ktnv.com/news/national/using-drones-to-save-lives | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233506329.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20230922034112-20230922064112-00613.warc.gz | en | 0.957654 | 598 | 2.625 | 3 |
Technology has always been made to make our lives easier, efficient, faster, and entertaining, making the quality of life a secondary concern for companies sealing it to the public. Regardless of how much technology has changed our daily life, the quality of life has not seemed to have changed very much. Yes, people with painful or deadly conditions can find relief with current day medication, but what about fulfillment. One can say we have better access to information and ideas because of the internet, allowing individuals to research and seek the meaning of life and happiness on their own. Other advancements in everyday life like smartphones, smart TVs, and Smart home devices don’t help people find fulfillment in the same way a long walk in the woods could. Not be cliche, but happiness has always been found within. Coming to the potential of CRISPR and the manipulation of the human genome, I am actually very excited to see what kinds of thing science could with this new tech. My only concern is how it would be advertised to the public, if making a custom baby would be acceptable for parents like the child-to-be as described by Lee Silver (Harris 2016). To do something reckless as performing risky undertested genome alterations for the sake of making a child more attractive, smarter, or athletic is pointless. You are not making someone’s life better by making them genetically different person for true fulfillment has to be earned by everyone. The most frighting thing that could possibly come out of this technology would be the acceptance of the idea that a more genetically perfect person would promote a happier life, for it simply wouldn’t be true in the long run.
When it comes to using CRISPR on humans, the most useful purpose for this technology would be to remove or change inherited dispositions to diseases like cancer, Lou Gehrig disease, or heart disease. Removing suffering would be worth the risk of unknown side effects that may come from this tech, hopefully making the baby born with the CRISPR technology more likely to be consenting. | <urn:uuid:b00f803b-edc5-4cc7-b948-fd0b2e4f0b0c> | CC-MAIN-2019-18 | http://mountainsandminds.org/introdusing-the-rose-gold-ibaby-8-plus/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578770163.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20190426113513-20190426135513-00172.warc.gz | en | 0.959173 | 411 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Archaeologists have discovered 1,500-year-old fossilized feces and have examined the bacteria and fungi residing in it.
Scientists have earlier found that thousands of years ago, different native cultures survived in the Great Antilles, Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic and had prehistoric settlements that are now extinct cultures. But the new findings have provided evidence that supports the earlier hypotheses of cultures living in the Caribbean for more than thousands of years ago.
"Although fossilized feces (coprolites) have frequently been studied, they had never been used as tools to determine ethnicity and distinguish between two extinct cultures. By examining the DNA preserved in coprolites from two ancient indigenous cultures, our group was able to determine the bacterial and fungal populations present in each culture as well as their possible diets," says Jessica Rivera-Perez of the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, who presented the report in American Society for Microbiology.
The fossilized feces were found in Vieques, Puerto Rico along with some hand-made tools and crafts. The existence of two different styles of craftsmanship and some other evidences obtained from the discovery sites, suggested that these artifacts belonged to two distinct cultures.
"The study of the paleomicrobiome of coprolites supports the hypothesis of multiple ancestries and can provide important evidence regarding migration by ancestral cultures and populations of the Caribbean," says Rivera-Perez.
In order to prove the archaeologists hypotheses, Rivera-Perez and her colleagues examined the preserved DNA in coprolites from both Huecoid and Saladoid settlements and compared both bacterial and fungal population in each of the settlements. Some major dissimilarity between the fecal groups was found, which suggested that both the fecal communities had different origins.
The study was conducted jointly with California Polytechnic State University and University of Puerto Rico, San Luis Obispo and was partially funded by the NIH Grant to the University of Puerto Rico (Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement Program).
"One culture excelled in the art of pottery; in fact, their signature use of red and white paint helped identify them as descendants from the Saladoids, originating in Saladero, Venezuela. In contrast, the second culture had exquisite art for crafting semiprecious stones into ornaments, some of which represented the Andean condor. This helped archaeologists identify the Bolivian Andes as possible origins of this Huecoid culture," Rivera-Perez added.
The new findings have revealed more about the ancient cultures and have helped researchers learn about a particular culture's diet and how differed they were from neighboring settlements.
This research was presented in the 2014 General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology held from 17-20 May 2014 in Boston, Massachusetts. | <urn:uuid:62d845e0-909c-43b1-bb2c-54a53458d604> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.ibtimes.co.in/ancient-fossilized-human-feces-provide-evidence-extinct-caribbean-cultures-600869 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988717959.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183837-00125-ip-10-142-188-19.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968632 | 565 | 3.875 | 4 |
UCLA professor Tom Smith (right), who has spent three decades doing research in the Congo, and Kevin Njabo, a Cameroonian biologist who is also an assistant adjunct professor at UCLA.
UCLA professor Tom Smith has conducted research in Cameroon for more than 30 years, and preserving and improving the region is more than a career to him. It’s his life’s work, and now he and a major African institute have created an international partnership that could save the Congo rainforest and transform the troubled Congo Basin.
On June 20, Smith and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) launched the Congo Basin Institute. More than 200 officials including ambassadors, ministers, African scientists, UCLA researchers and representatives of universities from around the world gathered at IITA in Yaoundé, Cameroon for the event.
The Congo Basin Institute at IITA will provide a one-of-a-kind center to address the challenges of food and water security, climate change, biodiversity loss, public health and emerging diseases. Cameroon is a microcosm of the world’s environmental challenges, giving researchers an opportunity to study and test solutions to address deforestation, mining, fast-growing urbanization, poverty, poaching, lack of sanitation and clean water, infectious diseases and more.
“This is a game-changer for the Congo Basin,” said Smith, an evolutionary biologist in the UCLA College and director of the Center for Tropical Research at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.
The new institute is a partnership between UCLA and IITA, one of the world’s largest tropical agriculture agencies with more than 20 stations and campuses across Sub-Saharan Africa. While UCLA has agreements with more than 300 international partners, the Congo Basin Institute is UCLA’s first foreign affiliate, meaning the university will have a permanent presence in Cameroon.
“Many institutes that focus on the developing world are based elsewhere, such as Paris or New York, not in the developing world,” Smith said. “Researchers typically parachute in to address a single issue for five years at most, but once the program ends, the projects are not carried forward. The CBI has tremendous capacity to address Central Africa’s education, environmental and health challenges in a substantive and sustainable fashion, and to build something with a lasting impact.”
The distant Congo Basin affects lives from Cameroon to California. The 1.4 million square miles of Congo rainforest — the second largest in the world after the Amazon — inhales massive amounts of carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere and slowing climate change. All that is threatened by deforestation, Smith said. The region is also home to many emerging and infectious diseases, such as the recent Ebola outbreak that found its way to a hospital in Texas, he added.
The institute seeks to address those and other societal challenges, while also slowing the brain drain of African scientists relocating to more developed economies, Smith said. Currently, only 20 percent of the young scholars who go overseas for higher degrees return.
A five-year test version of the Congo Basin Institute successfully hosted more than 2,000 researchers from 15 countries at the IITA campus, assisting the scientists with obtaining permits, cobbling together grants and more. UCLA students studying conservation biology, public health and medicine are among those who have already had the opportunity to use the site for field research experience and to study tropical diseases. Like Smith, UCLA environmental health professor Hilary Godwin hosts a number of programs there, and also teaches a distance-learning class that takes place simultaneously at UCLA and at IITA in Cameroon. Key to the success of the pilot program and the new institute is Kevin Njabo, a Cameroonian biologist who is also an assistant adjunct professor at UCLA. Njabo was instrumental in working with the Cameroonian government to lead the effort to protect the area and in getting the city of Yaoundé to host the Congo Basin Forest Partnership meeting.
The new Congo Basin Institute aligns with and expands upon UCLA’s Sustainable L.A. Grand Challenge, a university-wide research initiative to develop clean energy, local water solutions, and preserve biodiversity in order to transition the Los Angeles region to 100 percent renewable energy, 100 percent local water and enhanced ecosystem health by 2050.
U.S. Ambassador to Cameroon Michael Hoza met with the organizers June 19 in support of the launch of the institute. The launch event the next day was attended by Essimi Menye, Cameroon’s minister of agriculture and rural development, and ambassadors from other African and European countries. Key representatives from UCLA and IITA also attended, including Mark Gold, UCLA’s associate vice chancellor of the environment and sustainability, and Kenand Namanga Ngongi, vice chair of the IITA Board of Trustees. Also attending were Kevin Reed, UCLA vice chancellor for legal affairs; Kenton Dashiell, IITA deputy director of general partnerships and capacity development, Bernard Vanlauwe, director for IITA’s Central Africa Hub and Rachid Hanna, resident representative, IITA-Cameroon.
The new Congo Basin Institute is expanding the existing IITA campus, and the launch event marked the addition of a GIS (geographic information systems) and remote-sensing laboratory, and a molecular genetics laboratory. The architecture firm Gensler has completed pro-bono designs for green buildings to enlarge the campus with a conference center, a distance-learning center, and lodging for visiting students and researchers. Together, the facilities will enable scientists in Cameroon to develop global-scale solutions related to agriculture, health, human resource development and more, Ngongi said.
“These will impact the lives of millions of people in the Congo Basin and also contribute to the sustainable management of the Congo Basin ecosystem,” Ngongi said.
In addition to providing state-of-the art facilities, the program will assist researchers with permits, finding grants and other logistics. It will be funded with a fee-for-use charge that proved successful in the pilot program. Long-term, Smith has also partnered with the government of Cameroon and several non-governmental organizations in an effort to get a large swath of the Congo protected by the United Nations’ Reduction in Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation program. The REDD program funds alternative land uses for people who might otherwise live off the Congo through poaching or deforestation, but it’s unusual for a professor to lead the charge, Gold said.
“I’ve never heard of a professor creating the largest REDD project in Africa to protect biodiversity and develop an institute like this,” Gold said.
Additional partners in the Congo Basin Institute include the World Agroforestry Center, the Centre Pasteur du Cameroun, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of New Orleans, Drexel University, several Cameroon ministries and universities, and other corporate partners and local and international NGOs, such as the Jane Goodall Institute, and the Center for International Forestry Research.
“The Congo Basin Institute gives UCLA a permanent home in one of the most biodiverse areas of the planet, and an opportunity to save the Congo,” Gold said. “It’s not just about the loss of elephants and gorillas and chimps. To slow climate change, we need to vigorously protect the resources we have that uptake carbon. The future of the Congo is completely tied up in the future of the planet.” | <urn:uuid:2ddbd595-19f7-40aa-b763-48d55c1db097> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla-partners-in-new-congo-basin-institute-a-game-changer-for-environmental-protection | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00172-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934358 | 1,545 | 2.734375 | 3 |
This interdisciplinary research programme draws together scientists from mainly the UK and China with the aim of assessing the sustainability of modern agriculture across China through understanding its regional social-ecological dynamics.
The rapid economic growth in China over the past 20 years has taken huge numbers of people out of poverty but not without an environmental cost. Soil erosion, water pollution, loss of biodiversity and urban haze have all created challenges for environmental management. In the case of agriculture there is some evidence that ecological degradation is even beginning to have a negative impact on food security. Thus, in this long-running project, the aim has been to improve the scientific basis for sustainable agriculture using long social and ecological records to define the key dynamics of agricultural and related systems.
The impact of these findings so far has been mainly in terms of highly rated scientific journals. But in the last couple of years we have organised and run successful workshop sessions in China with environmental managers, surveyed the attitudes of rural farmers to ecological degradation and created a website, with a Chinese version, that now receives over 1000 visits per month. Change in China comes from the top. Our tactic has therefore been to aggregate the findings from scientific study, social survey and official discussions and set them in the context of recent government statements about sustainable management of resources. Our most recent work (currently in review) draws together these findings and lays out explicitly the needs for new policy with regards farmers and farming practises.
Three key elements inform the research: ecosystem services, complex system science and lake sediment records of ecological change. The methodology employed (Dearing et al., 2012) uses lake sediment records across China (Figure 1) to provide proxy records of biophysical processes and conditions in the lake and surrounding catchment, which can also be interpreted as records of regulating ecosystem services. These are compared with official statistical records, land use data and other social documents that provide records of provisioning ecosystem services. The patterns of interaction through time are assessed with respect to external pressures on the system, such as global food prices, national policy, and climate change. Together, this evolutionary perspective of emergent system properties provides evidence for a) system properties such as tipping points, network connectivity, and early warning signals of instability, and b) the roles of political, social and environmental pressures in shaping or driving the system trajectories. The methodology maps on to the science priorities of the IHOPE and PAGES Regional Integration initiatives. To date, the results have led to 13 international research articles, including papers in the high impact journals Global Environmental Change, Nature and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Tipping Points and Early Warning Signals: Two major problems confront landscape mangers in the mountainous areas of south-western China: soil erosion often leading to gullying, and nutrient enrichment of rivers and lakes (Figure 2). In both cases, environmental managers have struggled to reverse the degradation through reforestation and water quality management, respectively. Why are these ecological systems so difficult to restore? Analyses of the slope erosion problems in Yunnan Province show (Dearing, 2008; Dearing et al., 2008; Elvin et al., 2002; Shen et al., 2006) that the problem is a very old one. Lake sediment records show that a tipping point was passed around 1430 BP as population pressure forced minority groups into more marginal farmland. The transition from the first stable state to the current stable, but degraded, state involving the development of widespread and deep gully systems took about 600 years to complete. The lack of success in reducing erosion rates through reforestation programmes is explained, in large part, by the current system existing in, effectively, an irreversible state.
Modern observations since the 1950s indicate that some Chinese lakes have shifted from fairly clear water systems to turbid, eutrophic systems. The tipping points between alternate steady states have been reached as a result of nutrient enrichment from increasing fertilizer usage and sewage that have reduced overall system resilience. Studies of water quality monitoring and lake sediment records suggest (Wang et al., 2012) that such shifts are fold bifurcations with highly nonlinear properties that make current attempts to manage and restore the water quality highly challenging. At lake Erhai, in Yunnan, preserved records of diatom algae show increasing volatility several decades before the tipping point supporting the theory that some classes of tipping points may be anticipated through early warning signals.
Safe and Just Operating Spaces for Regional Development: In this project, the Planetary Boundaries concept has been extended to include social conditions, downscaled and applied to two poor, rural social-ecological systems in China. A new, pragmatic classification for biophysical limits uses our current understanding of complex system science to define the ‘health’ of the system (Dearing et al., 2014). Consequently, recent time-series of regulating services can be analysed and defined with respect to bounded operating spaces. Traffic light colours are used to show ‘safe’, ‘cautious’ or ‘dangerous’ system states with respect to a ‘business-as-usual’ future. This provides scientifically based guidelines for managers and agencies about the current state or health of different ecosystem services. In addition, the guidelines summarise the degree to which social norms are met within the region, using data taken from local official statistical records. A range of development goals are reviewed, such as education, food security, jobs, water access and sanitation. Bringing together ideas of limits on the use of ecosystem processes with the priorities for social development helps to highlight the potential links and, importantly, the potential conflicts between the two. For example, in the two Chinese counties studied the greatest social needs are for improved sanitation and access to clean water yet the state of the natural water systems is already in the ‘dangerous’ zone as a result of, mainly, unregulated agricultural effluent. As increasing rural wealth allows more farmers to switch from cesspit systems to modern facilities there is the need for investment and very careful establishment of centralised sewage and water systems that are effectively decoupled from the natural water bodies that already pose great challenges for management. Application of the methodology to other rural areas in China is in progress.
Poverty Alleviation and Ecosystem Services: This project shows how the analyses of 55 time-series of social, economic and ecological conditions provides an evolutionary perspective for the modern Lower Yangtze region with powerful insights about the sustainability of modern ecosystem services (Zhang et al., 2015). Increasing trends in provisioning ecosystem services within the region over the past 60 years reflect economic growth and successful poverty alleviation but are paralleled by steep losses in a range of regulating ecosystem services mainly since the 1980s (Figure 3). Increasing connectedness across the social and ecological domains after 1985 points to a greater uniformity in the drivers of the rural economy as individual farmers make decisions more aligned with national policy and global economic conditions, rather than demands from local markets. Regime shifts and heightened levels of variability since the 1970s in local ecosystem services indicate progressive loss of resilience across the region. Of special concern are water quality services that have already passed critical transitions in several areas. Viewed collectively, the results suggest that the regional social–ecological system passed a tipping point in the late 1970s and is now in a transient phase heading towards a new steady state. However, the long-term relationship between economic growth and ecological degradation (as Environmental Kuznets curve-type analysis) shows no sign of decoupling as demanded by the need to reverse an unsustainable trajectory (Figure 4). This research has recently been extended (Dearing et al., in manuscript) to try and understand farming behaviours and what changes at local, provincial and national scales would be needed to speed up the decoupling process. Social surveys have been conducted in selected townships of farmer’s perceptions of change, the influences on their decision-making processes, and their plans for the future. The results of that analysis point firmly to the need for more efficient use of water, soils, fertilizer and pesticides: but this can only come through a faster rationalisation of farm (and field sizes) and much greater levels of information/technology transfer to farmers.
Dynamic Syndromes of Social-Ecological Systems: This project, recently funded (2014) by the Chinese Academy of Sciences introduces the new idea of ‘dynamical syndromes’ to describe the general system properties of modern social-ecological/agricultural systems across China so that generalised strategies can be designed for sustainable management. The idea extends the previous definition of global syndromes by extending the timescale of observation to cover all slow and fast processes that influence the contemporary system. By using all available time-series for social, economic and ecological variables, systems are classified and modelled according to long term trajectories, resilience, instabilities and the likelihood of near future collapse over tipping points. There are several key steps:
• Compile and synthesize published and unpublished lake sediment records from China covering the past 60 years (potentially from Tibet, Xinjiang, Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Shanxi, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Hainan, Shandong, Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Heilongjiang, and Jilin Provinces).
• Compile social, economic and climate records for all China’s Provinces since 1949, including GDP, population, poverty level, agricultural production (grains, vegetables, fish, livestock), arable land area.
• Classify Provincial data (statistically and mathematically) according to different types and sets of social-ecological system trajectory for: wealth creation, agricultural outputs and ecological degradation; evidence of past tipping points; metrics for instability and connectedness. Define a number of agricultural social-ecological syndromes with reference locations.
Chavez, V.A., Doncaster, C.P., Dearing, J.A., Wang, R., Huang, J.L., Dyke, J.G. 2013. Detecting regime shifts in artificial ecosystems. Advances in Artificial Life, ECAL 12, 625-632
Dai X., Yu L., Dearing, J.A., Zhang W., Shi Y., Zhang F., Gu C., Boyle, J.F, Coulthard, T.J. and Foster, G.C. 2009. The recent history of hydro-geomorphic processes in the upper Hangbu river system, Anhui Province, China. Geomorphology 106, 363-375. Doi: 10.1016/j.geomorph.2008.11.016
Dearing, J.A. 2008. Landscape change and resilience theory: a palaeoenvironmental assessment from Yunnan, SW China. The Holocene 18, 117-127. doi: 10.1177/0959683607085601
Dearing, J.A., Jones, R.T., Shen, J., Yang, X., Boyle, J.F., Foster, G.C., Crook, D.S. and Elvin, M.J.D. 2008. Using multiple archives to understand past and present climate–human–environment interactions: the lake Erhai catchment, Yunnan Province, China (invited Deevey and Frey Review Article), J. Paleolimnology 40:3-31. 10.1007/s10933-007-9182-2
Dearing, J.A., Wang, R., Zhang, K., Dyke, J.G., Haberl, H., Hossain, M.S., Langdon, P.G., Lenton, T.M., Raworth, K., Brown, S., Carstensen, J., Cole, M.J., Cornell, S.E., Dawson, T.P., Doncaster, C.P., Eigenbrod, F., Flörken, M., Jeffers, E., Mackay, A.S., Nykvist, B., Poppy, G.M. 2014. Safe and just operating spaces for regional social-ecological system. Global Environmental Change 28, 227-238. DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2014.06.012 Open Access
Dearing, J.A., Yang, X., Dong, X., Zhang, E., Chen, X., Langdon, P.G., Zhang, K., Zhang, W. and Dawson, T.P. 2012. Extending the timescale and range of ecosystem services through paleoenvironmental analyses: the example of the lower Yangtze basin. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109, E1111-1120 doi:10.1073/pnas.1118263109 Open Access
Dearing, J.A., Zhang, K., Cao, W.D., Dawson, T.P., Sillitoe, P., and Treves, R. (in review) Chinese agricultural policy, farm responses and ecosystem services since 1950: implications for the future.
Elvin, M., Crook, D.S., Jones, R.T. and Dearing, J.A. 2002. The Impact of Clearance and Irrigation on the Environment in the Lake Erhai Catchment from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century, East Asian Studies, 23, 1-60.
Shen, J., Jones, R.T., Yang, X., Dearing, J.A., Wang, S. 2006. The Holocene vegetation history of Erhai Lake, Yunnan Province southwestern China: The role of climate and human forcings. The Holocene. 16, 265-276 DOI: 10.1191/0959683606h1923rp
Wang, R., Dearing, J.A., Langdon, P.G., Zhang, E., Yang, X., Dakos, V., Scheffer, M. 2012. Flickering gives early warning signals of a critical transition to a eutrophic lake state. Nature 492, 419–422. DOI 10.1038/nature11655
Wang, R., Dearing, J.A., Langdon, P.G., Zhang, E., Yang, X., Dakos, V., Scheffer, M. 2012. Reply to Carstensen, J., Telford, R.J. and Birks, H.J.B. Diatom flickering prior to regime shift. 27 June 2013, Nature 498, E12-E13 doi:10.1038/nature12273
Yan Z., Gu H., Dai Y., Wu X., Dearing, J.A., Zhang, W. and Yu L. 2009. Population, land use and environmental impacts in Shucheng County, Anhui Province, China during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Environment and History 15, 61-78 doi:10.3197/096734009X404662
Zhang, K., Dearing, J.A., Dawson, T.P., Dong, X., Yang, X., Zhang, W. 2015. Poverty alleviation strategies in eastern China lead to critical ecological dynamics, Science of the Total Environment 506–507, 164–181. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.10.096 Open Access
Major collaborators and affiliated institutions
Universities of Southampton (lead researcher John Dearing with Patrick Doncaster, James Dyke, Felix Eigenbrod, Sarwar Hossain, Peter Langdon, Richard Treves, Rong Wang, Simon Willcock, Ke Zhang), Dundee (Terry Dawson), Exeter (Richard Jones), Hertfordshire (Darren Crook) and Durham (Paul Sillitoe)
Anhui Normal University (Weidong Cao), East China Normal University (Yu Lizhong, Dai Xuerong, Weiguo Zhang), Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology (Xuhui Dong, Ji Shen, Yang Xiangdong, Rong Wang, Sumin Wang, Enlou Zhang), and Lanzhou University (Fahu Chen – proposed)
Other major collaborators:
Australia: Australian National University (Mark Elvin –retired).
Austria: Alpen-Adria University Klagenfurt (Helmut Haberl)
Spain: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Vasilis Dakos)
Netherlands: Wageningen University (Marten Scheffer)
UK: Exeter University (Tim Lenton); OXFAM/Oxford University (Kate Raworth).
Professor of Physical Geography
Geography and Environment
University of Southampton
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Residue can be defined as a remainder obtained from a substance after a substantial portion of it is removed. Residues have presence in food products from the deliberate use of drugs or pesticides on animals & plants. That is why we consume residues as well while we eat Veg or non-veg foods and They could affect our body adversely.
The drug residues include the parent compounds and/or their metabolites in any edible portion of the animal or plant product and include associated impurities of the pesticides or drug concerned.
It could be noted here that the chemicals used in agriculture present a real threat to the saleability of animal or plant products if they are contaminated with the chemical residues.
Some of the most common examples of residues are Mercury in fish, sulfonamides in pig products, iodine in milk and chlorinated hydrocarbons in beef.
In harmonization with the international regulations, the Food Safety and Standards (Contaminants, Toxins and Residues) Regulations, 2011, has laid down some guidelines for the permissible intake of residues in food which is obtained from the plant or animal.
As per the FSSAI, The use of any of the following antibiotics and other Pharmacologically Active Substances shall be prohibited in any unit processing sea foods including shrimps, prawns or any other variety of fish and fishery products:
(i) All Nitrofurans including
(xii) Nalidixic acid
(xiv) Aristolochia spp and preparations thereof
(xxiii) Other nitromidazoles
(xxv) Diethylstibestrol (DES)
(xxvi) Sulfanoamide drugs (except approved Sulfadimethoxine, Sulfabromomethazine and Sulfaethoxypyridazine) | <urn:uuid:9c4c2689-85ad-4eae-94be-9b82222d091e> | CC-MAIN-2019-51 | https://foodsafetyhelpline.com/what-are-residues-how-they-become-part-of-food/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-51/segments/1575541307797.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20191215070636-20191215094636-00157.warc.gz | en | 0.822657 | 375 | 3.1875 | 3 |
What are LIFO and FIFO?
Before we get into the discussion of LIFO vs FIFO, let us describe briefly what they are. LIFO and FIFO are two of the ways to manage and account for cost of inventory. They are used to create the Cost of Goods (COGS) part of a company’s income statement.
LIFO stands for Last In First Out and FIFO stands for First In First Out. That means with FIFO the oldest inventory items are recorded as sold first while the LIFO accounting method records the most recently purchased items as sold first. In the choice of LIFO vs FIFO, since the 1970s many companies–especially in the United States–have chosen to use LIFO, mainly because it reduces income taxes during periods of inflation.
Similarities & Differencees
There really aren’t any similarities between LIFO and FIFO. They are basically two different inventory management techniques. One thing that can be said about LIFO and FIFO is that both methods only work if the product remains the same–the only change is the cost of the product. If you need help in deciding LIFO vs FIFO, you need to look at the differences.
LIFO and FIFO affect a company’s earnings in different ways. Let’s start off by looking at one month of balance sheet using the FIFO method. Let’s say that at the beginning of the month you have 30 of a particular product that costs you $20. Then you receive another 50 of the product at a slightly higher price, $21 dollars. After you have your product, an order is placed for 40 of them. With FIFO, you sell all 30 of your starting inventory and 10 from the second group you received. To figure out the cost of sales, you multiply 30 times $20 dollars and add to it 10 times $21. That would be a total of $810.
Now take the same situation and apply the LIFO accounting method. According to LIFO, the order for 40 of your product is filled using only the newest product you received. $21 multiplied by 40 is $840. A difference of 6.5 percent ($30) between the two methods may not seem like much in this example, but when you are talking about moving hundreds or thousands of products a month over the course of a year–it adds up.
LIFO allows you to account for the current cost of your inventory. This is important at tax time during periods of inflation. While FIFO generally results in higher earnings, it also generates higher taxes. The earnings after-tax are lower. With LIFO the earnings, and therefore the taxes, are lower. This results in a higher earning after taxes.
Which One is Right?
If the price of your product remains steady, than FIFO is a good choice. Further discussion of LIFO vs FIFO and which one is right for you first requires a thorough analysis of your business.
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1Weapons and ammunition; armaments: they were subjugated by force of arms [as modifier]: arms exports
Más ejemplos en oraciones
- The leaders of both North and South Korea wished to unite the country by force of arms.
- What kind of war was the French army expecting and how was it intending to use its arms?
- Now after the election we need a big campaign to stop any new expenditure on nuclear arms.
weapons, weaponry, firearms, guns, ordnance, artillery, armaments, munitions, matériel
2Distinctive emblems or devices, originally borne on shields in battle and now forming the heraldic insignia of families, corporations, or countries. See also coat of arms.
a call to arms
- A call to prepare for confrontation: a call to arms to defend against a takeoverMás ejemplos en oraciones
- Instead it seems to act more as the fiery torch that keeps the impressionable, who only cheer for the good guys, ready for the call to arms.
- Patriotism is a call to arms to defend yourself against someone else because they do not think like you.
- It was a tragic end to what started as a call to arms to defend the country's sovereignty, to perform a state duty.
take up arms
- Begin fighting.Oraciones de ejemplo
- Some of the others managed to take up arms and a battle began between those who only hours earlier had been allies.
- The war is southern Sudan erupted in 1983 when black African rebels took up arms to fight Khartoum-based Islamic governments.
- Pointing to one of our articles, he said, ‘Young people are taking up arms and going to fight because you write this kind of stuff.’
- Equipped and ready for war or battle: the Empire now had half a million men under armsMás ejemplos en oraciones
- If you are a state maintaining a million men under arms, in all sorts of places in the world, doing principally peacekeeping functions, you have to ask yourself to what degree this imposes greater cost on our missions.
- Although the country has a defence budget broadly equivalent to that of Switzerland, there are 1.35 million people under arms.
- The ministry, with about 1 million men under arms, is the country's largest armed forces agency.
up in arms (about/over)
- Protesting vigorously about something: teachers are up in arms about new school testsMás ejemplos en oraciones
- Angry residents are up in arms following new proposals to build 14 flats on a former petrol station site in Rawdon.
- Angry residents are up in arms after railway engineering works caused sleepless nights.
- Angry residents are up in arms over a proposal to site a giant mobile phone mast near their homes.
Middle English: from Old French armes, from Latin arma.
For editors and proofreaders
División en sílabas: arms
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You might have seen a tile stove in one of the Swedish houses featured on this blog. These traditional stoves, which are called kakelugn stoves, date back to the eighteenth century. The Kakelugn stove’s was invented when a shortage of wood became a crisis. The winters were colder than normal, and the people at this time needed to get as much heat out of the wood as possible. The problem was that too much wood was being consumed, and the government needed to intervene before the forestry was used up. Carl Johan Cronstedt and Fabian Wrede, had received a government mandate to try to find more fuel efficient solutions, and ended up inventing a fuel efficient tiled stove which burned the wood slower, and retained the heat for hours. Modernized version of the Kakelugnar stoves are being produced by Swedish Camina. Lindholm Kakelugnar also sells stoves in their original design and they have a selection of stoves manufactured from the 1860s to the 1920s.
Image source: Stadshem. | <urn:uuid:bbed992d-6184-4109-bdb3-518ac272d5d5> | CC-MAIN-2017-47 | http://style-files.com/2016/03/11/the-story-behind-the-traditional-swedish-tile-stove/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-47/segments/1510934806422.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20171121185236-20171121205236-00091.warc.gz | en | 0.986442 | 224 | 2.921875 | 3 |
A thorough examination should be completed to include measurement of heterophoria/heterotopia (ocular alignment), vergence amplitudes and /or fixation disparity
, near point of convergence, amplitudes of accommodation, accommodative facility, and assessment of saccadic function.
As previously investigated by other researchers [35-37], we could expand our current analyses based on an objective eye tracker method with additional calculations of fixation disparity
at the end of the vergence step response.
Hoya said that the second is a complete vision examination system with a new method to detect and correct fixation disparity
He was also found to have astigmatism (a rugby ballshaped cornea) and a fixation disparity
, which means he had problems focusing his eyes together.
People with more exo fixation disparity
at 40 cm tend to experience asthenopic complaints and visual fatigue when doing visual near work (Evans, 1997 ; Pickwell, Kaye, & Jenkins, 1991; Scheiman & Wick, 1994; Sheedy & Saladin, 1983).
Similarly, during the eye examination practical, I believe that it is important to perform complete preliminary tests, including motility, and following refraction assess binocular vision with the new prescription using fixation disparity
, or a comparable method if appropriate.
A steady-state error known as fixation disparity
is often present when maintaining vergence in a closed-loop environment (Schor, 1980).
* Check each eye can resolve the fixation disparity
However, sometimes, despite a very thorough refraction and examination using fixation disparity
tests, the cause of what at first appears to be an eye-related problem can be elusive.
With many of the binocular vision tests included with the Thomson Test Chart 2016, optometrists can perform stereopsis tests (although this could be improved), phoria tests and fixation disparity
tests with ease.
Orthoptists do not refract or measure fixation disparity
(sensory fusion) or understand the physiology of normal binocular vision, which is intimately related to the accommodation vergence reflex.
These systems comprise diagnostic programs to assess phorias, fixation disparity
, fusional vergences and suppression, motor fields, pursuits and saccades, while therapeutic programs provide tasks to treat ocular motility, vergence and accommodative disturbances. | <urn:uuid:0c734041-ace0-403a-9cfa-74f6275ced38> | CC-MAIN-2020-05 | https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Fixation+disparity | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-05/segments/1579250605075.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20200121192553-20200121221553-00021.warc.gz | en | 0.916203 | 475 | 2.609375 | 3 |
"This study is the first to evaluate how regular smokers responded to a print ad for Quest cigarettes, a newly developed cigarette marketed as a way to gradually reduce nicotine exposure via smoking cigarettes that are lower in nicotine," said author Caryn Lerman, PhD, Associate Director for Cancer Control and Population Science at the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania, and Professor in Penn's School of Medicine and the Annenberg Public Policy Center.
Quest cigarettes are a brand of low-nicotine cigarettes manufactured by Vector Tobacco, Inc., and currently marketed in eight US states. Quest cigarettes, both regular and menthol, are manufactured with three progressively lower nicotine levels and marketed as allowing smokers to "step-down" nicotine levels to enjoy "nicotine-free smoking." Anti-smoking advocates highlight the long-term health effects like cancer and emphysema that result from a lifetime of smoking or chewing tobacco. These maladies, however, are the result of chemicals in cigarettes other than nicotine. While Quest cigarettes do offer reduced nicotine levels, they do not have progressively less tar and thus, still pose significant health risks. Given evidence that many smokers misinterpret the information contained in marketing campaigns for such "light" cigarettes it is important to understand how smokers perceive this newly marketed low nicotine cigarette.
Lerman led a research team that examined the response of 200 regular smokers to a Quest cigarette print advertisement using a mall intercept survey approach. Participants viewed a single Quest cigarette print advertisement and then were as
Contact: Olivia Fermano
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine | <urn:uuid:78926687-771f-4a88-99ce-6f923651960b> | CC-MAIN-2015-11 | http://news.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news-3/Penn-study-shows-smokers-assume-false-sense-of-safety-from-ads-for-low-nicotine-Quest-cigarettes-5610-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-11/segments/1424936461647.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20150226074101-00267-ip-10-28-5-156.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927624 | 311 | 2.828125 | 3 |
If you believe you have been exposed to HIV and want help to judge your risk, would like advice about HIV testing, or have questions about the effectiveness of condoms or risks associated with specific sexual practices, this is the site for you.
On 16 November, 2007 , the combined National HIV
Epidemiology and Laboratory Consensus Meeting (40 to 50
participants) considered the scientific evidence for defining the
period of time following exposure and infection with HIV and the
generation of detectable antibodies by the infected person, i.e., the
so-called "window period". The following is the consensus
statement that was reached following consideration of the
available information and lengthy discussion.
Studies of the natural history of HIV infection have defined a
period of time following exposure and infection when the infected
person has not yet generated a detectable antibody response.
During this time, current antibody tests cannot detect the presence
of the infection in spite of recent improvements in sensitivity.
Studies to evaluate the length of the window period have
· Often little information is available on the precise time of the
exposure (except in some situations such as occupational
exposure to HIV-infected blood-body fluids due to a needle
stick), the occurrence of infection, or the period of
· A limited number of scientific studies over time have used 1st,
2nd, and 3rd generation HIV antibody tests to determine the
duration of the window period. The increased sensitivity of 3rd
generation tests has reduced the time duration of the window
· The total number of patients studied worldwide in retrospective
blood transfusion-related studies, prospective seroconversion
studies, or as individual case reports probably does not exceed
· There is considerable uncertainty about the nature of the
distribution of window periods given the large amount of
variability in the immune response among infected persons.
· There are no reliable data on whether or not there is a significant
"tail" representing persons with very long window periods,
extending well beyond the estimated mean time to seroconvert.
To date, reports of excessively long incubation periods, have
been refuted and withdrawn by the original authors(2,3).
However, the possibility still exists that a few individuals may
seroconvert well beyond the estimated mean time. The small
number of persons studied created some uncertainty regarding
the mean of the distribution as well.
· There are anecdotal and case reports in the scientific literature
reporting window periods that extend beyond 3 months
following exposures. However, there is usually a lack of
information regarding the viral inoculum, the type of virus, the
type and timing of the exposure, the route of transmission, etc.,
to enable accurate interpretation of these reports.
Newly developing technologies to detect the presence of HIV
directly without reliance on the development of antibodies are not
yet accessible for general use to shorten the window period from
weeks to perhaps days. Until newer technologies are available,
antibody testing will continue to be the principal approach for
diagnosing HIV infection.
The Canadian Medical Association’s statement on the HIV
Window Period has defined it as follows:
"The enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) rarely fails
to detect serum HIV antibodies when they are present. A negative
ELISA indicates that HIV antibodies were not detected. This
means that either the patient is not infected or the patient is in the
"window period" between HIV infection and the beginning of
antibody production. This window period may last up to 6 months,
although 95% of adults will seroconvert (develop HIV antibodies)
within 3 months."(4)
Contained in this FAX issue: (No. of pages: 5) Official page numbers:
CONSENSUS STATEMENT REGARDING THE HIV "WINDOW PERIOD" . . . . . . . . . F-1 213 – 215
SURROGATE MARKERS OF HIV INFECTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-2 215 – 216
INTERIM GUIDELINES FOR THE TREATMENT OF GONOCOCCAL AND CHLAMYDIAL INFECTIONS . F-3 216 – 220
Because they do. The official window period is 3 months but the Elisa tests are highly reliable beginning at 4 weeks. It is always possible that someone could turn positive after 3 months, even 6 months but we all shouldnt worry about that. Dr HHH has continued to state that he has never seen a test turn positive after 6 weeks and that has been supported by other HIV specialists.
The thread you posted to is 5 years old. You may want to start a new thread. 6 weeks is a good indication of your status, but official guidelines still recommend testing at 3 months for a conclusive result.
The Content on this Site is presented in a summary fashion, and is intended to be used for educational and entertainment purposes only. It is not intended to be and should not be interpreted as medical advice or a diagnosis of any health or fitness problem, condition or disease; or a recommendation for a specific test, doctor, care provider, procedure, treatment plan, product, or course of action. Med Help International, Inc. is not a medical or healthcare provider and your use of this Site does not create a doctor / patient relationship. We disclaim all responsibility for the professional qualifications and licensing of, and services provided by, any physician or other health providers posting on or otherwise referred to on this Site and/or any Third Party Site. Never disregard the medical advice of your physician or health professional, or delay in seeking such advice, because of something you read on this Site. We offer this Site AS IS and without any warranties. By using this Site you agree to the following Terms and Conditions. If you think you may have a medical emergency, call your physician or 911 immediately. | <urn:uuid:dec2a022-8051-4ddc-837a-8dc704c4762d> | CC-MAIN-2015-27 | http://www.medhelp.org/posts/HIV-Prevention/updated-on-Window-Period-Worry-Wells-/show/364618 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-27/segments/1435375098059.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20150627031818-00277-ip-10-179-60-89.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915919 | 1,225 | 2.84375 | 3 |
India is all set to celebrate the 28th road safety week with the theme of ‘Safety is gainful, Accident is painful’. The road safety campaign was initiated by the ISS India Health Safety and Environment in order to make people aware about the road safety. The Road Safety Week is observed all over India under the guidance of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, from 11 to 17 January. School and college students play a key role in preventing and minimizing road accident fatalities and injuries and are considered to be the main ambassadors for road safety. Their enthusiastic nature and the leadership qualities will help to make the campaign a great success.
The Institute of Driving Training and Research, Pune report says that road accidents are the biggest killer of younger generation in all the major cities. According to the Ministry of road transport and highways, over one lakh people lose their lives every year in road accidents. Several more are grievously injured and people suffer from injuries like loss of hands or legs. Other effects like mental trauma, stress, loss of memory, etc impact the person for his/her entire life.
The main aim of road safety campaigns is to spread the importance of road safety among people. Recently the Honorable Supreme court of India, while scanning the figures of road accident rate has quoted that ‘India can well avoid the tag of being the accident capital of the world’ by proper enforcement of law. On this context 28th road safety week has become more prominent, and government of India has organised several awareness programs across the country to create awareness among public to improve safety on roads. By road safety campaigns the people are encouraged about safe driving practices on roads. The road safety awareness programmes include demonstration of emergency first aid practices, rules and regulations to be followed on roads in a practical manner on test tracks. The RTO officials will take lectures in schools, colleges to sensitize students on the importance of road safety. People are made aware of safety precautions like to use helmets while driving, to wear seat belt, to follow traffic signals, to have periodic maintenance of vehicles, etc. People are taught about importance of installation of speed governors in cars, trucks, buses, etc which will enable the driver to always keep the vehicle under control.
Exhibitions and awareness camps and enforcement drives to curb road fatalities also will be its part.Various painting and drawing competitions, road safety announcements, exhibitions, road rules test, two wheeler rallies to encourage the use of helmets, debates on road safety, seminar etc are organized. Free medical check up camps and driving training workshops are organized for the drivers to encourage them towards the road safety. Road safety quiz competitions are also organized to promote people about road safety.Traffic safety games including card games, puzzles, board games and etc are organized to educate school children about road safety.
We all know about the major factors of increasing road accident rates in India are over speeding, drunken driving, or plainly recklessness. Among this, over speeding always remains the top reason of accidents. Government has made speed governors mandatory in all vehicles having more than 8 seating capacity including commercial vehicles and school buses with the vision to tackle speeding. Considering the increasing road accident rates and the government efforts to reduce road accidents and fatalities by 50% by 2020, Autograde the pioneers in road safety manufacturing equipment’s including speed governors, has made the initiative to spread the importance of road safety week to public through several social media campaigns. Let us join hands in this road safety week to pave the way for safer roads. | <urn:uuid:0e160e84-33e8-42b4-8b4e-d8e900fc27eb> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | http://www.autograde.in/blog/road-safety-week-2017-time-action/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510903.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20231001141548-20231001171548-00504.warc.gz | en | 0.968843 | 712 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Traces in the landscape
There are more than 3,000 known ancient and cultural remains in Laponia. The oldest are almost 10,000 years old. More than half the ancient remains are hearths, fireplaces – that is to say, traces of goahte tents and settlements.
If you start to take a closer look around you in the landscape you will find traces of people who have been here before us:
A ring of stones is probably a hearth. It has been home to people for a short while. They are almost always close to streams, whose water was used in cooking, and on dry hills and ridges. Sometimes nature is reclaiming it and you only see the stones appearing through twigs and grass.
If you see a number of slightly larger pits in a row on the ground it can be an ancient trapping system. Trapping pits are strategically placed where reindeer or moose passed.
As long as 6,000 years ago they were already being used to trap wild reindeer. The method was probably to drive the animals towards the pits having first built barriers of bushes to steer the animals towards the concealed pits. Trapping pits were in use for thousands of years, but the hunting method was banned in Sweden in 1864.
A pine with good bark
Many of the older pines bear traces of bark stripping. Rectangular marks along the trunk are a sign that the bark has been stripped and used in food. There are many bark stripping sites in the Laponia forests, above all near old trails and dwelling sites where people have always moved about. Bark was mostly taken in early summer when the sap is rising in the trees. The inner bark is then of the best quality and is easiest to take. In the Lule Sámi dialect, June is in fact called Biehtsemánno – pine month.
An old reindeer pasture
You can find enclosed reindeer pastures in the mountains. They also found in the forests but there they are more difficult to detect. A reindeer pasture is a place where the vegetation differs from the surroundings due to reindeer foraging and trampling. If you see a verdant patch in the middle of a swathe of osiers, it is probably a reindeer pasture.
In summer and autumn, the animals were rounded up daily in pastures where the cows were milked. Every family group kept a small herd which they constantly followed year round. Today the reindeer pastures are becoming overgrown since reindeer herding is no longer carried on in that way.
A cultural landscape
If there were no reindeer foraging, neither would certain plants exist here. | <urn:uuid:ab11ea93-c9fe-4b85-a256-418fa9bfab6f> | CC-MAIN-2019-09 | https://laponia.nu/en/life-in-laponia/the-land/traces-in-the-landscape/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-09/segments/1550247512461.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20190222013546-20190222035546-00355.warc.gz | en | 0.976763 | 555 | 3.375 | 3 |
The texts of "Candide" and "Waiting for Godot" do contrast each other in many ways; "Candide's" world is in fact the whole world, whereas in Waiting for Godot the world consists of a small stretch of road by which is a bench and a tree. Therefore one might instantly assume that the two texts, one a novella, and the other a play, are totally different. It is much easier to draw contrasts between the texts than comparisons, but there are some.
The Characterisation in both "Candide" and "Waiting for Godot" is surprisingly similar. The characters of "Candide" and Cacambo in Candide seem to have an almost identical relationship as the one which exists between Vladimir and Estragon. Neither of their relationships is based on friendship, but on differing aspects such as hope, servitude and dependence. But there is an underlying contrast in which we see how "Candide" and Cacambo inevitably get separated at the end of the novella, whereas the relationship between Vladimir and Estragon vacillates frequently, as they go through trials where they fight and reconcile.
Although the other characters seem to bare no further resemblance to any of the characters in Candide. One could maybe draw a comparison between Cunégonde and Godot, as the solution to the main protagonist's problems. But as one can see, Candide gets his, and Vladimir and Estragon clearly don't.
Further comparisons can be drawn from the themes of both texts, these being hope, existence and the existence of a god. Vladimir and estragon are suffering, and essentially, they are waiting for hope, which will hopefully come in the form of "Godot". The theme of hopelessness is set very early on in the play when Estragon states, "nothing to be done", here he was referring to his boot, but essentially it sets the... | <urn:uuid:6db9c91c-a0b0-4ffe-b70e-5b81c5b4475b> | CC-MAIN-2017-17 | http://www.writework.com/essay/points-comparison-and-contrast-do-we-see-between-waiting-g | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917119642.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031159-00390-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966719 | 397 | 2.578125 | 3 |
What Lasts Longer, Grey Fillings or White Fillings?
There are several factors that determine the longevity of a filling. These include the size of the filling, its location and whether it is subjected to high chewing forces. The material used is also an influencing factor.
White composite fillings have existed for a shorter time than grey fillings have. Their lifespan is also shorter than grey fillings. A study conducted in 2001 (Van Nieuwenhuysen) evaluated hundreds of fillings of different materials, and concluded that the average lifespan of composite fillings was 7.8 years, and the one for fillings made of amalgam was 12.8 years. But scientific research will ensure that the composite material used by dentists will last more years and will become more resistant to chewing forces. It is expected that the lifespan of white fillings will increase in years to come.
You must remember that the white composite fillings do not contain mercury, an element considered to be toxic by most dentists. This makes composites increasingly popular when choosing a filling material.
- What might cause you to grind your teeth?
- Can heart disease be related to dental care?
- What Are the Symptoms of Having a Tooth Abscess?
- How does smoking affect oral health?
- How is infective endocarditis related to oral health?
- What Diseases Might Cause You to Have Dry Mouth?
- How can you tell that you are grinding your teeth?
- Should people with high blood pressure take precautions when undergoing dental treatments?
- What Might Happen if You Donít Treat a Tooth Abscess?
- How does smoking affect overall health?
- Should people with angina take precautions when undergoing dental treatments?
- How Can You Tell That You Have Dry Mouth?
- Why is teeth grinding harmful?
- Should people that had a heart attack take precautions when undergoing dental treatments?
- How Can You Treat a Tooth Abscess?
- How can smokers take care of their oral health?
- Should people that suffer from congestive heart failure take special precautions with their dental care?
- How Can You Treat Dry Mouth?
- How can you treat teeth grinding?
- Should people that have had coronary artery bypass surgery take special precautions with their dental care?
- How Can You Prevent a Tooth Abscess?
- Can teeth grinding affect children?
- Should people that have a pacemaker take special precautions with their dental care?
- How Can You Reduce the Effects of Dry Mouth?
- Does Taking Antibiotics Make Your Teeth Darker?
- How Can You Tell that You Have a Tooth Abscess?
- Are Dental X-Rays Safe for Pregnant Women?
- Can Dry Mouth be Harmful?
- When Can Someone Start Playing Sports again after Wisdom Tooth Surgery?
- Does Chewing Gum Help Eliminate Bad Breath?
- When Can You Eat and Drink after a Tooth Filling?
- What Can You Eat after Wisdom Teeth Extraction?
- How Long Does the Numbing from the Dentist Last?
- How Long Do Dissolvable Stitches Last after Having Wisdom Teeth Extracted?
- Is it Absolutely Necessary to Put a Dental Crown on a Tooth That Had a Root Canal?
- At What Age Do Children's Teeth Start Coming out?
- Is Amalgam in Teeth (Grey Fillings) Bad for Your Health?
- How Can You Get Rid of a Tooth Abscess?
- What Is the Total Number of Teeth in the Mouth?
- What Lasts Longer, Grey Fillings or White Fillings?
- Do You Have to Remove Your Retainers when You Eat?
- Is it Painful to Place a Dental Implant in Your Mouth?
- When Can Someone Smoke after a Tooth Extraction?
- How soon after Tooth Extraction Can You Use a Straw?
- Which Is Better Retainers or Braces?
- Can an Abscess Cause a Tooth to Break Apart?
- Can you Drink Alcohol after a Tooth Extraction?
- Is It Normal if Your Gums Bleed when You brush Your Teeth?
- Does Chewing Gum after Eating Help to Remove Dental Plaque?
- How Long Does it Bleed after a Wisdom Tooth Has Been Extracted?
- How Can You Get Rid of an Ulcer or a Canker Sore on Your Tongue?
- Is a Tooth Alive?
- Is there a Relationship between Dental Problems and Overall Health Problems?
- What Can Happen if You Donít Treat a Cavity?
- Is Smoking Bad for Your Teeth? | <urn:uuid:243687b6-7e1b-4937-a9af-720d110a1de9> | CC-MAIN-2014-41 | http://www.studiodentaire.com/questions/en/what-lasts-longer-grey-or-white-fillings.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-41/segments/1412037663467.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20140930004103-00016-ip-10-234-18-248.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.886286 | 973 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Vaccination against rabies of cats - caring for neighbors
Many owners of pets erroneously believe that if their pet does not go out for walks, then he does not need vaccinations. Especially when it comes to cats. Some even refer to village cats, whom no one has vaccinated. But it has long been proven that the opinion is wrong and can cost your animal life, moreover, to seriously damage the health of the family.
The fact that some diseases are transmitted by airborne droplets, and you can bring an infection on your shoes or clothes from the street after contact with a sick animal (visiting, for example). For this, your pet does not need walks at all, you infect it yourself.
There are infections that animals can get infected only after direct contact. Domestic cats are not insured against them either, since they can come into contact in a vet clinic or simply run to the entrance area, etc. The question of whether to do an inoculation against rabies, in this context is simply out of place. Of course, do. In addition to the fact that this disease affects the nervous system and is deadly for the animal, so also for a person it is dangerous no less. Cases when a person could survive after rabies without vaccination, not so much. Almost all infected die. The disease is transmitted through the saliva of a sick animal when it hits the body of a healthy one. Cats are on the list of those who are prone to the disease to the highest degree. It seems that in this context, the vaccination against rabies in cats is a necessary procedure.
The vaccination of animals from various diseases begins at six to eight weeks of age. It all depends on when the kitten is taken away from the mother. The fact that with milk kittens get and immunity. The first vaccination against rabies cat or cat is done only in three months. After a year, a revaccination is done. If the kitten for some reason was vaccinated before three months, then the booster should be given in half a year.
The vaccine against rabies of cats can be of two types. In the first case, a live virus is used, and in the second case it is inactivated. Unlike the first, the second kind of vaccine is carried by animals much easier and has fewer contraindications. For example, a living virus is contraindicated in animals that are infected with leukemia.
It is worth noting and the fact that in each region strict rules and requirements are introduced. Vaccination against rabies of cats is done according to these regulations. In some regions, revaccination is carried out annually, and in some regions - every three years. It is necessary to vaccinate the animal in specialized clinics, where an entry is made to the register of the vaccination made. If you are going to go with your pet on a trip to another region or abroad, you need to worry about vaccination in advance, as the quarantine period lasts for a month, that is before your animal will not be released from the region.
Vaccination against rabies of cats is a banal concern not only for one's animal and oneself, but also for those who are close. | <urn:uuid:48bd21b2-0369-4b5e-9a9d-1de675537112> | CC-MAIN-2018-39 | https://familias21online.com/privivka-ot-beshenstva-koshek-zabota-o-blizhnih/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-39/segments/1537267157203.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20180921131727-20180921152127-00196.warc.gz | en | 0.969174 | 650 | 2.9375 | 3 |
January 14, 2022
Pediatricians reinforce COVID-19 guidance for kids returning to sports and physical activity
Interim guidelines are designed to protect school children and teens from cardiac events
ROCHESTER, NY, January 14, 2022 - As cases of COVID-19 increase among local children, a regional task force focused on the safe reopening of schools is advocating for a potentially life-saving set of guidelines for kids to return to sports and physical education after recovering from COVID-19.
The COVID-19 Return to Exercise After COVID-19 Infection guidance was developed by physicians of the Finger Lakes Reopening Schools Safely Task Force’s Health Workgroup, and based on clinical recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).
The group, convened by Common Ground Health, wants families to know that COVID-19 infection can pose risks to kids and teens’ hearts.
Kids 5 years and older who have moderate or severe symptoms (fever for four or more days, or a week or more of body aches, chills or extreme tiredness) should see a health care provider 10 days after the start of infection to determine if they need to gradually return to play, physical education and sports.
Kids 12 years and older who play intense or competitive sports should also see a health care provider 10 days after the start of infection before returning to intense or competitive sports.
Young people may be referred to a cardiology clinic for further evaluation if they have any concerning cardiac symptoms after COVID-19. Once a child is cleared, they can slowly return to sports, gym and recess, but they should continue to be monitored for cardiac symptoms.
The return to exercise guidance has been in effect for the last year and is intended to:
- inform and educate the community about inflammatory risks to the heart and potential concerning symptoms in specific higher risk groups of children and teens (those with moderate to severe symptoms and youth 12 years and older who participate in competitive, high intensity sports);
- help encourage access to medical assessment for these higher risk groups of children and youth; and
- encourage monitoring of those participating in competitive, high intensity sports as they resume activity.
While isolation periods have been shortened due to the reduced duration of infectivity of Omicron, allowing a full 10-day recovery period before returning to sports, gym or recess is important for the health of these higher risk youth based on current evidence and best practice guidelines from the AAP.
This guidance is not mandated by New York State but is supported by pediatric specialists, primary care providers and primary care practices serving children in our community.
Dr. George Porter, division director of Pediatric Cardiology at UR Medicine/Golisano Children’s Hospital, said: “While most children only experience incidental symptoms post-COVID-19 infection, we don’t want even one child to slip through the cracks. This guidance provides a pathway for us to keep children and teens as safe as possible.”
Dr. Steve Schulz, Rochester Regional Health pediatric medical director, said: “We understand that with so much information circulating on the COVID-19 virus it can be confusing for parents to understand what is best for their own children. If your child has been recently infected and you have questions, reach out to your child’s primary healthcare provider who can help you navigate whether or not your child needs an assessment. Together we will work on a plan that is best for your child.”
Dina Faticone, chief program officer at Common Ground Health, said: “Our local healthcare providers continue to collaborate in unprecedented ways to protect the health of children across our community during this pandemic. These recommendations were developed to ensure kids can get back to what they do best as soon as it is safe to do so – play!”
To learn more, please review the COVID-19 Return to Exercise After COVID-19 Infection infographic for families at commongroundhealth.org/returntoplay published by the Finger Lakes Schools Reopening Task Force.
About Common Ground Health
Founded in 1974, Common Ground is the health research and planning organization for the nine-county Rochester-Finger Lakes region. We bring together leaders from health care, education, business, government and other sectors to find common ground on health challenges. Learn more at www.commongroundhealth.org. | <urn:uuid:424bad58-fa45-4ccd-b02a-6871fbfd37b0> | CC-MAIN-2023-06 | https://www.healthikids.org/blog/returning-to-play-after-a-covid-19-infection-guidance-for-families | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764499966.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20230209112510-20230209142510-00618.warc.gz | en | 0.946961 | 908 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Tax inversion has plagued the US economy. Numerous corporations have done it and others planned on doing it. The topic is not new, but the administration finally managed to something in this regard. What is tax inversion? A corporation maintains its operations in the country where it gains the most benefits, while using legal schemes to pay lower taxes in another country, usually a corporate heaven.
The solution took off in the 1990s, but the latest instrument of tax avoidance has been the subject of recent regulation. Corporations seek mergers with counterparts in countries with lower taxes and move their official headquarters there. On the ground, however, not much changes.
Tax inversion is not illegal, but the public, as well as the administration, are not happy to see how corporations benefit from the US business environment, but avoid paying taxes to support it.
On September 22, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced a couple of measures to prevent companies to pursue tax inversion. Companies seeking tax inversion were using “hopscotch” loans. Basically, the overseas branch of a US company loaned money to the new parent company. According to the new regulation, these loans are now considered dividends and are subjected to taxation.
AbbVie, a drug company, decided to halt the decision to be taken-over by Shire, an Irish company listed in London, because of the latest regulation against tax inversion. The $55 billion takeover would have been the largest tax inversion ever. The company will now analyze the “the fundamental financial benefits of the transaction” before taking a decision.
“At this time, AbbVie’s board of directors has not withdrawn or modified its recommendation to AbbVie stockholders,” the statement read. “Under the conditions of AbbVie’s offer and the terms of the co-operation agreement, if AbbVie’s board of directors was to withdraw or modify its recommendation, the withdrawal or modification alone would not cause a lapse of AbbVie’s offer or terminate the co-operation agreement.”
AbbVie is not the first company planning to avoid taxation through inversion. Burger King plans to acquire the Canadian company Tim Horton with the same reasons in mind. Pfizer wanted to make a deal with the British drug company Astra Zeneca, but they had not reached an agreement. Pfizer’s intentions from earlier this year were so clear that the administration thought it’s time to tackle the issue. | <urn:uuid:ec9e9a3e-ed1f-4720-9428-e9fdaf0ff039> | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | https://www.utahpeoplespost.com/2014/10/abbvie-reconsiders-tax-inversion-deal-as-financial-rules-change/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662604794.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20220526100301-20220526130301-00436.warc.gz | en | 0.968183 | 521 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Part of being a parent is to have the overwhelming urge to protect your child from any harm. You go to painstaking lengths to make sure that your child receives only the best. This may be a little hard to do considering the present scenario where the very things we trust end up harming us in one way or the other. One of the most common respiratory diseases is asthma. The number of people with asthma continues to grow. It is more common in children than in adults. Environmental factors play a key role in the onset of this condition. Here’s how you can protect your child from this incurable disease :
Dust free home
Dust mites are a common cause of asthma in children. They feed off of house dust and moisture in the air. Keeping your home dust free is of utmost importance! There are a lot of cleaners available in the market to choose from but you need to make an informed choice in the matter especially when your little one is crawling all over the place. An untidy place is the breeding ground for all sorts of unwelcome organisms. Pollen is another component of household dust and may cause allergy and asthma. Asthma is associated with exposure to indoor allergens like dust mites, cockroaches, animal dander and mold.
Your common floor cleaner contains a lot of chemicals which are mixed together to wipe out all the germs on your floor and tiles. Although these floor cleaners leave your tiles sparkly clean, they pose a threat to the life of your little ones! The most common ways of consuming these toxins are through inhalation and touch.Babies learn to grow on the floor and if your floor itself is toxic, it will have a negative impact on your baby’s health. The chemicals present in these cleaners like ammonia, phosphates, chlorides and alkylphenol ethoxylates have an adverse and long-term effect on your own health and that of your family. Opting for natural and chemical free cleaners seem to be the best option right now.
Your child’s health and safety is your first priority and we at Tinystep have come with a floor cleaner with just that in mind. The Tinystep floor cleaner is all natural and free from the chemicals and toxins present in regular cleaners.
The ingredients used are vinegar, baking soda and neem extract. It is baby safe, pocket-friendly, pet-friendly and infused with nature’s goodness. We have carefully formulated this natural floor cleaner for your entire family’s well-being.
Click here to order the floor cleaner right away. | <urn:uuid:1415358a-967a-4819-9cda-b45bba4b96f6> | CC-MAIN-2020-05 | https://www.tinystep.in/blog/do-you-know-any-kids-suffering-from-asthma--suggest-these-two-things-now!-xyz?utm_source=direct&utm_medium=recommend&utm_campaign=es&utm_content=10 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-05/segments/1579250608295.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20200123041345-20200123070345-00509.warc.gz | en | 0.946979 | 522 | 2.609375 | 3 |
A Changing Climate Worsens Allergy Symptoms
For some of us, the yellow blossom of a daffodil and opening day at the ballpark are the first signs of spring. For about 40 million Americans, spring also means sneezing and congestion, a box of tissues, and a trip to the doctor. Unfortunately, for these hay fever sufferers, the suffering will likely get worse.
Researchers have found that changes in climate impose additional strains on those with pollen allergies. (Think weeds on Miracle-Gro.)
Three main factors related to climate change fuel increases in allergens. Carbon dioxide, the heat-trapping gas that is the primary cause of our warming planet, increases the growth rate of many plants and increases the amount and potency of pollen. Rising temperatures extend the growing season and the duration of allergy season. And an extended spring season alters the amounts of blooms and fungal spores that are known to exacerbate allergy symptoms.
While this is bad news for allergy sufferers, there is a flip side, too. Weed growth may provide clues on how to improve the production of certain crops.
"One way we have been getting at this is to look at cities as surrogates for climate change. You already have higher temperatures and higher carbon dioxide levels [in cities]. That in itself is a harbinger of things to come," said Lewis Ziska, Ph.D., a weed ecologist at the Agriculture Research Service division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "Spring appears to be coming earlier, and this is affecting the tree pollen, which is a main source of spring hay fever."
Ziska is known for his study of weeds in future warming scenarios (with higher atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide) projected for Earth. Ziska is eager to point out that carbon dioxide is blind: it does not discriminate between the plants that humans generally like (rice, forest trees, wheat) and plants we hate (ragweed, poison ivy). In fact, weeds often outpace the growth of useful plants when extra carbon dioxide is available.
In more than 20 years of study, Ziska has examined plant traits under all sorts of circumstances. He has looked at growth rates, bloom times, pollen production, and other factors under varying air temperatures, carbon dioxide levels, and moisture levels. His experiments on plants in Baltimore, MD, mimic the climate Americans will likely encounter by mid-century if heat-trapping emissions continue unabated: a temperature increase of three to four degrees Fahrenheit and a concentration of heat-trapping gases of 450 parts per million. Baltimore already has higher local emissions from transportation and manufacturing, and higher temperatures due to the urban heat-island effect, compared to rural areas of Maryland.
Ziska found that these conditions can have freakish results. Weeds that grew five and six feet tall in the country had counterparts in the city that were 10 and 20 feet tall. Ragweed, specifically, grew faster, flowered earlier, and produced significantly greater pollen.
In order to understand the importance of changes in carbon dioxide on plant growth, think back to your elementary school science classes. Carbon dioxide is among the four fundamentals needed for plant growth; the others include water, nutrients, and light. Carbon dioxide is so good at producing extra nutrients for some plants, including ones like ragweed that are most problematic for hay fever, that even a small increase will have a big effect.
So, what does this mean for public health? "The influence of climate change on plant behavior exacerbates or adds an additional factor to the number of people suffering from allergy and asthma," Ziska said. The intersection of climate change and health is something that epidemiologists are just beginning to analyze closely, he added.
Left unchecked, rising carbon dioxide levels and further warming pose serious risks for allergy sufferers. While some further warming over the next few decades is locked in, swift and deep reductions in heat-trapping emissions will benefit not only allergy sufferers, but all who are impacted by a changing climate. | <urn:uuid:0488ca89-51af-4956-9738-9e732d00f3d3> | CC-MAIN-2016-30 | http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/impacts/climate-and-allergies.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-30/segments/1469258944256.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160723072904-00021-ip-10-185-27-174.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948319 | 824 | 3.203125 | 3 |
What TO Say
Last week, our son came home off the school bus completely distraught over something that was said on the bus. It took some time to him calm down. While it doesn’t matter who or what was said, the truth is he had real feelings, real worries and a few tears.
As parents, we have all had those moments where we have said, “Just stop crying!” to avoid public humiliation or to eliminate our own personal stress.
The “Happiness Is Here” blog author writes, “Every time you dismiss or minimize your child’s feelings, you actually make your job harder. You very rarely succeed at making them stop anyway, and it’s more likely that they will need more support from you in the future rather than less. If you don’t hear the message they are trying to send you, the messenger just gets louder and louder until you do. Children are looking for empathy and understanding. If they don’t get it, they’ll keep trying. Crying is OK. It’s a very healthy and necessary way for children to express their feelings, and we don’t need to make them stop. By telling them to ‘stop crying’ we send the message that their feelings are not important, not valid, silly, and annoying. If we want our children to learn how to regulate their emotions, and to trust us with their problems and feelings, then we cannot be dismissive of them when they try to do this!”
The truth is we shouldn’t be afraid to see our children cry in public or be worried that other people might be looking at us. We need to acknowledge our children’s fears and tears. The Happiness Is Here blog gives us 10 phrases we can say instead of, “Stop crying!”
• It’s OK to be sad.
• This is really hard for you.
• I am here for you.
• Tell me about it.
• I hear you.
• I bet that was really scary/disappointing/upsetting/sad.
• I will help you work it out.
• I am listening.
• I see that you need some space. I want to be here for you. Let me know when you are ready to talk about it.
• It doesn’t feel fair.
Catherine M. Wallace said, “Listen earnestly to anything your children want to tell you, no matter what. If you don’t listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won’t tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to them all of it has always been big stuff.”
In a world where mental health is huge concern, I can’t help but think we can change behaviors one small step at a time. Let’s show a little more empathy and understanding, starting today.
Carrie Kube is a director for Iowa River Valley Early Childhood Area Board. All thoughts and opinions expressed are that of the author and not the board and/or its community partners. | <urn:uuid:99f254e9-8358-49d7-a208-c2e7791a3fab> | CC-MAIN-2018-09 | http://www.timesrepublican.com/opinion/columnists/2017/10/what-to-say/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-09/segments/1518891813088.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20180220185145-20180220205145-00384.warc.gz | en | 0.967088 | 656 | 2.90625 | 3 |
November 7, 2023
5 ways to give the ER the cold shoulder this winter
- Family Medicine
- Urgent Care
March 19, 2020 | COVID-19
There is still much to learn about COVID-19, but current evidence suggests that the virus may remain viable for hours to days on surfaces made from a variety of materials. Cleaning visibly dirty surfaces followed by disinfection is a best practice measure for the prevention of the virus in households.
As part of your everyday prevention actions against COVID-19, clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces and objects in your home daily. Always wear disposable gloves when cleaning and disinfecting and remember to wash your hands immediately after removing your gloves. Gloves should be discarded after each cleaning.
To clean frequently touched surfaces, use soap and water.
Frequently touched surfaces include:
To disinfect your home, use diluted bleach solutions if appropriate for the surface. Make sure your bleach has not passed its expiration date, and follow the instructions on the label to ensure the safe and effective use of the product. Never mix bleach with ammonia or other cleansers. If the surface is visibly dirty, clean the area first with soap and water and then use a disinfectant.
To make a diluted bleach solution, mix:
Alcohol solutions with at least 70% of alcohol can also be used.
Many products recommend keeping the surface wet for several minutes to ensure germs are killed.
Clean hands often
Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Remember to wash your hands immediately after removing gloves and after contact with an ill person. If soap and water are not readily available and your hands are not visibly dirty, use a hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol. Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands.
Disinfecting your home if someone is sick
If someone in your home becomes sick, in addition to the above-mentioned tips, also follow the below guidelines to help prevent the illness from spreading to others in your family. Choose a room in your home that can be used to separate sick household members from those who are healthy. Identify a separate bathroom for the sick person to use, if possible. The caregiver should consider reducing the cleaning frequency of these rooms to as-needed to avoid unnecessary contact with the ill person. If appropriate, the ill person could clean and disinfect their spaces often including the bathroom after each use if a separate bathroom is not available.
For soft surfaces such as carpet, rugs and drapes, clean the surface using soap and water or with other cleaners appropriate for use on these surfaces. Launder items, if possible, according to the instructions on the label and use the warmest appropriate water setting. Dry items completely.
While laundering clothing, towels, linens and other items, always wear disposable gloves and then wash your hands with soap and water as soon as you remove the gloves. Do not shake dirty laundry—this will help minimize the possibility of dispersing the virus through the air. Laundry from an ill person can be washed with other people’s items. Launder items according to the instructions on the label and use the warmest appropriate water setting. Dry items completely. Do not forget to clean and disinfect clothes hampers according to the guidance above for surfaces. If possible, consider placing a bag liner that is either disposable or can be laundered in the hamper.
Ill people in your household should stay separated from the rest of the family, even during mealtimes. Wash all dishes and utensils using gloves and hot water or use a dishwasher. If you chose to use disposable items, handle these items with gloves. Remember to wash your hands immediately after removing gloves and after contact with an ill person.
If possible, dedicate a lined trash can for the ill person and throw all of their disposable materials in the trash can. When removing the garbage bag and disposing of their trash, wear gloves and wash your hands afterward.
The Live Better Team
November 7, 2023
October 3, 2023
September 26, 2023
July 31, 2023
This information is not intended to replace the advice of a medical professional. You should always consult your doctor before making decisions about your health. | <urn:uuid:288c0a00-3663-44ec-8c6b-c66addde1f10> | CC-MAIN-2023-50 | https://reverehealth.com/live-better/cleaning-guide/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100081.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20231129105306-20231129135306-00734.warc.gz | en | 0.930405 | 876 | 3.28125 | 3 |
“Every path but your own is the path of fate. Keep on your own track, then.” Thoreau
“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.” Emerson
'Self reliance' is a term that means different things to different people. To some it might mean chopping firewood, while to others it might mean financial independence. In rural areas especially, self-reliance has come to mean the ability to grow and store your own food, or perhaps advanced wilderness skills.
All of the aforementioned really are forms of self-reliance. The learning of new skills result in an increased level of independence. During these stressful modern times, this skill set provides security. However, the most important form of self-reliance is not a physical skill.
Critical thinking and the ability to hold on to your unique thoughts in the face of opposition are skills that are essential to to the self-reliant mind, which is in turn essential to a truly self-reliant person. Think of Henry Thoreau and John Muir. Both lived alone in the wilderness according to their own philosophies, and both had many other options. They often serve as inspiration in my own life.
Mental self-reliance is an incredibly broad subject, so I won't attempt to cover it all here. Simply taking responsibility for your actions and your well-being is an important start.
I highly recommend the works of Muir, Thoreau and Emerson if you'd like to learn more, especially during this time of new beginnings.
“Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.” John Muir
To view From The High Country images, click here. | <urn:uuid:b4d76890-0ecd-4c06-8def-61c4293ae1c5> | CC-MAIN-2021-49 | https://www.fromthehighcountry.com/blog/2012/12/on-self-reliance | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-49/segments/1637964363157.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20211205100135-20211205130135-00469.warc.gz | en | 0.974244 | 349 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Flagella, allowing bacteria to move in a fluid environment, attached to the membrane covering the bacteria’s cell surface, and their whiplike movement allows the bacteria to swim quickly from place to place.
These flagella have long been known about, but only in the last 10 years has their structure been observed carefully, to the surprise of the scientific world. Contrary to what had been supposed, the undulation of the flagellum is not the result of a simple mechanism, but of a very complex organic motor.
The bacterium’s flagellum is mechanically similar to electric motors. There are two main movements: a moving rotor and a non-moving stator.
This is an electric motor. Yet it is not located in a household appliance or transport vehicle, but in a bacterium. Thanks to this engine, which bacteria have possessed for millions of years, they operate their organ known as the flagellum (bacterial whip) and thus can swim through the water. The bacterial whip motor was discovered in the 1970s and astonished the scientific world, because it is impossible to account for this irreducibly complex organ, consisting of 250 separate molecules, in terms of the random mechanisms proposed by Darwin.
This organic motor is different from other systems that cause organic movement. The cell does not use the energy stored in it in the form of ATP molecules; it uses energy from acids in its membrane. The inner structure of the motor is highly complex: About 240 different proteins make up the flagellum, and these have been put in place with a perfect mechanical design. Scientists have determined that these proteins send signals that start and stop the flagellum, that their articulations allow movement at the atomic level or set in motion the proteins that attach the flagellum to the cell membrane. Models constructed to make it simpler to understand the motor’s functioning have not been sufficient to explain its complexity.
1.Micro-hair (connection point)
Evolutionists maintain that life arose from a primitive bacterium that appeared by chance. However, the subsequent realization of the complex structure of bacteria definitively refuted this claim.
The flagellum possesses a structure that cannot be simply explained, and its complex structure of bacterium’s flagellum is enough to show the invalidity of the theory of evolution. If there were any deficiency in the number or quality of any of the molecular particles in its makeup, the flagellum could not function and would be useless to the bacterium. The flagellum must have functioned perfectly from the moment it came into existence.
This proves once again that the evolutionist claims of stage-by-stage development in untenable. And so far, no evolutionist biologist has tried to explain the origins of these flagella, which also show the important fact that bacteria, thought by evolutionists to be the “most primitive of life forms”, have an extraordinarily complex structure.
Bathybus haeckelii (Haeckel’s mud)
Although bacteria are very small and singlecelled organisms they have a highly complex structure.
The complex structure of the cell was unknown in Charles Darwin’s day. For that reason, evolutionists of his time imagined that chance and natural phenomena represented a satisfactory answer to the question of how life first came to be.
Darwin suggested that the first cell could come into existence in a small, warm waterhole. The German biologist Ernst Haeckel, one of Darwin’s supporters, examined under the microscope the mud brought up from sea bed by a research vessel and claimed that this was an inanimate substance that turned into living matter. This so-called life-assuming matter is known as Bathybus haeckelii (Haeckel’s mud); and those who first proposed the theory of evolution imagined life to be just such a simple matter.
However, 20th-century technology investigated life down to the very finest detail, revealing that the cell was the most complex system yet discovered. (See also The Miracle in the Cell http://www.harunyahya.com/books/science/miracle_in_cell/miracle_cell_01.php by Harun Yahya.)
1.9 billion-year-old bacteria fossils discovered in Western Ontario in Canada. These fossils are identical to bacteria living today.
Behe, Michael J.
The renowned biochemist Michael J. Behe of Lehigh University is one of the most important figures to advance the idea of irreducible complexity. In his 1996 book Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, Behe investigated the living cell and certain biochemical structures and stated that it was impossible to account for their complexity in terms of evolution.
Prof. Michael J. Behe and his book Darwin’s Black Box.
As a scientist free from the influence of the materialist perspective and who thinks clearly, Professor Behe has no qualms about accepting the existence of a Creator. He describes scientists who refuse to admit the presence of design—in other words, of creation—in living things:
Over the past four decades, modern biochemistry has uncovered the secrets of the cell. . . . It has required tens of thousands of people to dedicate the better parts of their lives to the tedious work of the laboratory. . . .The result of these cumulative efforts to investigate the cell—to investigate life at the molecular level—is a loud, clear, piercing cry of “design!” The result is so unambiguous and so significant that it must be ranked as one of the greatest achievements in the history of science. This triumph of science should evoke cries of “Eureka” from ten thousand throats. . . . Instead, a curious, embarrassed silence surrounds the stark complexity of the cell. Why does the scientific community not greedily embrace its startling discovery? 52
He goes on to define the dilemma: To acknowledge an intelligent design implies acknowledging God’s existence. In these words, Behe declares that the perfect design in living things reveals the existence of God.
Big Bang Theory, the
Given the primitive level of 19th-century science, materialists of the time strongly defended the idea that the universe had been in existence forever—in other words, that it was not created; that there was no design, plan or purpose in the universe and that everything in it was the result of chance. Eventually, however, these claims collapsed in the face of scientific discoveries made in the 20th century.
The fact of the expanding universe, revealed in 1929 by the American astronomer Edwin Hubble, gave birth to a new model of the universe. Since the universe was expanding, then the further back in time one went, the smaller the universe must have been. And if one went back far enough, then the universe must have occupied a single point. Calculations showed that this single point, despite its containing all the matter in the universe, would have had zero volume because of its enormous gravitational pull.
The universe came into being when this single point with zero volume exploded. This explosion was given the nickname of the Big Bang, and the theory came to be known by that same name.
The Big Bang revealed one very important fact: Zero volume meant that the universe had come into being out of nothing. This in turn meant that the universe had a beginning, thus repudiating the materialist hypothesis that the universe had existed forever. Information about the structure of the universe obtained since the 1920s has proved that the universe came into being at a specific time through the Big Bang. In other words, the universe is not eternal, but was created from nothing by God.
But this fact was highly displeasing to many materialist scientists. For instance the British materialist physicist, H.S. Lipson, “reluctantly” admits that creation is a scientific fact:
I think, however, that we must ... admit that the only acceptable explanation is creation. I know that this is anathema to physicists, as indeed it is to me, but we must not reject a theory that we do not like if the experimental evidence supports it. 53
Another important aspect of the Big Bang stems from the order that emerged in the wake of the explosion. When we examine the universe, we see that everything in it—such as its density; its rate of expansion; its gravitational pull, orbits, movements, speed and matter contained by the galaxies; and countless other such details—is constructed with the finest calculations and most delicate balances. Similarly, the way that our Earth and the atmosphere that surrounds it have the ideal structure for supporting life, is another example of this extraordinary design. The slightest deviation in these calculations and balances would have an irrevocably destructive impact on the universe and the Earth.
We know that rather than producing order, explosions give rise to disorder, chaos and destruction. Since the Big Bang was an explosion, one would expect it to have distributed matter randomly throughout space. But following it, no such random distribution occurred. Matter accumulated at particular points in the universe to form galaxies, stars, constellations, the Sun, the Earth and later, all the plants, animals and human beings on it. There is only one explanation for this: Only a conscious intervention directing every moment of the event can give rise to such order in the wake of an explosion on the order of the Big Bang. That is the flawless creation of God, Who created the universe out of nothing and keeps it under His control and dominion at every moment.
Biogenesis View, the
When Darwin wrote his book On the Origin of Species, the scientific world widely accepted the belief that bacteria could form themselves out of inanimate matter. (See also Abiogenesis View, the.) But the fact is that five years after the publication of Darwin’s book, the French biologist Louis Pasteur demolished this belief that represented the cornerstone of evolution.54 Pasteur summarized the conclusions he arrived at as a result of lengthy research and observation:
“The claim that inanimate matter can originate life is buried in history for good.” 55
Pasteur’s opinion that “life can emerge only from life” is described as biogenesis.
For a long time, adherents of the theory of evolution held out against these findings of Pasteur’s. However, as science progressed and increasingly revealed the living cell’s complex structure, the idea that life could form itself spontaneously faced an ever-worsening impasse.
In addition to the fossil record, the insuperable anatomical gulfs between human beings and apes also invalidate the fairy tale of evolution. One of these has to do with walking.
Human beings walk upright, on two legs, using a special movement not encountered in any other living thing. Some mammals may have a restricted ability to move on two legs, such as bears and apes, and stand upright on rare occasions for short periods of time, such as when they wish to reach a food source or scout for danger. But normally they possess a stooped skeleton and walk on four legs.
The human skeleton was created to walk upright. With its stooped posture, short legs and long arms, however, the ape skeleton is suited to walking on four legs. It is impossible for any “intermediate form” between the two to arise, because such a transitional form would be totally inefficient.
However, bipedalism (walking on two legs) did not evolve from the four-legged gait of apes, as evolutionists would have us believe.
First off, bipedalism establishes no evolutionary advantage. An ape’s mode of walking is easier, faster and more efficient than a human’s. Human beings cannot move by leaping from branch to branch like apes, nor run at 125 kilometers/hour (77 miles/hour) like cheetahs. Since they walk on two legs, humans actually move very slowly over the ground, making them one of the most defenseless creatures in nature. According to the logic of evolution, there is therefore no point in apes “evolving” to walking on two legs. On the contrary, according to the survival of the fittest, human beings should have begun walking on four.
Another dilemma facing the evolutionists is that bipedalism is wholly incompatible with Darwin’s model of stage-by-stage development. This model suggested by evolution presupposes some “compound” form of walking, both on four and two legs. Yet in his 1996 computer-assisted research, the British paleoanthropologist Robin Crompton showed that such a compound walking style was impossible. (See Compound walking.) Crompton’s conclusion was that “a living being can either walk upright, or on all fours.” A walking style between these two would be impossible, as it would consume too much energy. Therefore, it is impossible for any semi-bipedal life form to have existed. (See, Origin of walking upright, the.)
Blind Watchmaker Deception, the
Even Richard Dawkins, one of the greatest advocates of evolution, has had to admit the complex order in living things. This order points to an evident fact: that living things are created by God.
Richard Dawkins’ book The Blind Watchmaker
Richard Dawkins became a great proponent of Darwinism with the publication of his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker, in which he tells his readers that: “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.”56 Despite this admission, Dawkins maintains that life evolved spontaneously through chance effects—a process he describes using the analogy of the “blind watchmaker.” According to Dawkins, the watchmaker is not only blind, but also unconscious. It is therefore impossible for the blind watchmaker to see ahead, make plans or harbor any objective in the formation of life.57 Yet on the one hand, Dawkins sets out the complex order in living things, while on the other he seeks to account for this in terms of blind chance.
In a later section of the book he says:
“If a marble statue of the Virgin Mary suddenly waved its hand at us we should treat it as a miracle,” because according to Dawkins, “all our experience and knowledge tells us that marble doesn't behave like that. . . . But if, by sheer coincidence, all the molecules just happened to move in the same direction at the same moment, the hand would move. If they then all reversed direction at the same moment the hand would move back. In this way it is possible for a marble statue to wave at us.” 58
This difficulty in which evolutionists find themselves—having to maintain the impossible and deny an evident fact—sometimes obliges them to propose such strained logic. Desperately striving to deny the evidence of creation that they so plainly observe, evolutionists reveal one important fact: The sole aim of all their efforts made on behalf of the theory of evolution is to deny the manifest existence of God.
As we have seen, such endeavors are always in vain. All scientific evidence reveals the truth of creation, once again proving that God has created living things.
A professor of chemistry at University of New Orleans. Boudreaux regards the theory of evolution as an unscientific claim. On 5 July 1998, he participated in an international conference titled The Collapse of the Theory of Evolution: The Fact of Creation held by the Science and Research Foundation. At that conference, Boudreaux gave an address, Design in Chemistry, in which he referred to the chemical elements essential in order for life to emerge having been set out by way of creation. As he went on to say,
The world we live in, and its natural laws are very precisely set up by the Creator for the benefit of us, humans. 59
Buffon, Comte de
Comte de Buffon
The Comte de Buffon was a French evolutionist and one of the best-known scientists of the 18th century. He served as director of the Royal Zoological gardens in Paris for more than 50 years. To a large extent Darwin based his theory on the works of de Buffon. One can see most of the teachings that Darwin employed in de Buffon’s wide-ranging 44-volume study Histoire Naturelle.
“The Great Chain of Being,” Aristotle’s classification of living things from simple species to complex ones, also known as the Scala naturae, represented the starting point for the evolutionary systems of both de Buffon and Lamarck. The American historian of science D. R. Oldroyd describes this relationship:
In his Histoire Naturelle, Buffon reveals himself as an exponent of the doctrine of the Great Chain of Being, with man being placed at the top of the Chain. . . . Lamarck held a version of the ancient doctrine of the Great Chain of Being. Yet, it was not conceived as a rigid, static structure. By their struggle to meet the requirements of the environment, and with the help of the principle of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, organisms could supposedly work their way up the Chain—from microbe to man, so to speak. . . .Moreover, new creatures were constantly appearing at the bottom of the Chain, arising from inorganic matter through spontaneous generation. . . Ascent of the Chain involved a continuous process of complexification. 60
From that point of view, the concept we refer to as the theory of evolution was actually born with the ancient Greek myth of the Great Chain. There were many evolutionists before Darwin, and the most of their original ideas and so-called proofs were already to be found in the Great Chain of Being. With de Buffon and Lamarck the Great Chain of Being was presented to the scientific world in a new guise, whereupon it came to influence Darwin.
The Burgess Shale region in the Canadian province of British Columbia contains a fossil bed now regarded as one of the most important paleontological discoveries of our time. The fossils in this region belong to very different species and appear suddenly, with no forerunners in earlier strata.
As we know, the theory of evolution maintains that all living species evolved in stages from other species that lived before them. The Burgess Shale fossils and similar paleontological discoveries, however, show that in contrast to this claim, different species actually emerged suddenly on Earth, with no forerunners preceding them.
Marrella: One of the interesting fossils discovered in the Burgess Shale beds
The February 1999 edition of the well-known scientific journal Trends in Genetics expressed this difficulty confronting Darwinism:
It might seem odd that fossils from one small locality, no matter how exciting, should lie at the center of a fierce debate about such broad issues in evolutionary biology. The reason is that animals burst into the fossil record in astonishing profusion during the Cambrian, seemingly from nowhere. Increasingly precise radiometric dating and new fossil discoveries have only sharpened the suddenness and scope of this biological revolution. The magnitude of this change in Earth's biota demands an explanation. Although many hypotheses have been proposed, the general consensus is that none is wholly convincing. 61
A fossil thorn discovered in Burgess Shale
In this context, the journal refers to two famous evolutionist authorities Stephen Jay Gould and Simon Conway Morris. Both have written books in order to account—according to evolutionary theory—for the sudden appearance of species in the Burgess Shale. Gould’s book is titled Wonderful Life, and Morris’s, The Burgess Shale and the Rise of Animals. However, as stressed in Trends in Genetics, neither of these authorities is able in any way to account for either the Burgess Shale fossils or other fossils dating back to the Cambrian Period.
The fact made clear by the fossil record is that living things appeared suddenly on Earth and in perfect forms.
The picture revealed by the Cambrian Period fossils refutes the assumptions of the theory of evolution, while also providing significant evidence that living things were brought into being through a supernatural creation. The evolutionist biologist Douglas Futuyma describes this fact:
Organisms either appeared on the earth fully developed or they did not. If they did not, they must have developed from pre-existing species by some process of modification. If they did appear in a fully developed state, they must indeed have been created by some omnipotent intelligence. 62
Therefore, the fossil records show that living things did not follow a path from the simple to the complex, as evolution maintains, but instead appeared suddenly and perfectly formed. This, in turn, is evidence that life came about not through unconscious natural phenomena, but through a sublime creation. In “The Big Bang of Animal Evolution,” an article published in Scientific American, the evolutionist paleontologist Jeffrey S. Levinton admits as much, albeit reluctantly: “Therefore, something special and very mysterious—some highly “creative force”—existed then [at the Cambrian period].” 63
A Cambrian Period fossil | <urn:uuid:ead3f2cf-bccb-4d61-9727-017e27fffc51> | CC-MAIN-2015-35 | http://www.harunyahya.com/en/books/8268/The_Evolution_Impasse_I/chapter/4878/__b__ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-35/segments/1440644064869.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20150827025424-00284-ip-10-171-96-226.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953173 | 4,354 | 3.921875 | 4 |
"Māori women’s restriction from certain spaces (during menstruation and pregnancy) can be read not as exclusion, sub-ordination, inability and/or disability but as marking their sacredness and importance." (August, p 118)
In early October 2010, I was part of a group of Te Wānanga-o-Raukawa students who visited the taonga Māori collection at Te Papa Tongarewa. As always, several weeks before class, the Wānanga sent us readings and information, including a list of instructions from Te Papa for viewing the taonga. Many of the instructions are about the tapu of the taonga—no kai can be taken into collection rooms, women who are hapū or menstruating are invited to visit at another time, tamariki are not normally allowed, karakia will be said, and there is a wash basin outside. A few days after our visit, the radio news reported that feminists were angry that a pānui like this had been sent to staff from museums planning to visit the collection.
This essay provides an introduction to the issues raised by responses to the Te Papa pānui. I do not address whether I think the pānui from Te Papa solely represents a Māori worldview, that would be a much bigger project. This is a small essay that touches on several very large topics—tapu, the special place of women in te ao Māori, the role of taonga in te ao Māori, and sexism. Clearly, I cannot comprehensively cover any of these topics in such a short essay. Hopefully though, this essay will provide an overview of the issues as I understand them, and direction to better resources.
Some of the reaction to the Te Papa pānui has come from a misunderstanding by Pākehā, and probably by many Māori too, of the importance of women in te ao Māori. August’s 2005 paper (from which I took the opening quote of this essay) Māori women: bodies, spaces, sacredness and mana is particularly relevant. Likewise, the importance of taonga may be misunderstood. Tapsell’s paper The flight of Pareraututu: an investigation of taonga from a tribal perspective gives a thorough explanation of the relevance and use of taonga. The process of colonisation has profoundly affected our thinking about gender and especially the role of women. Many have worked hard to avoid introduced patriarchy becoming ingrained in Māori thinking. Anyone interested in the topic should for a start read Mikaere’s The balance destroyed: The consequences for Māori women of the colonisation of tikanga Māori.
I think most of the uproar around the Te Papa pānui is because it comes from a Māori worldview, and most New Zealanders are unused to being asked to consider cultural norms other than their own. Despite being indigenous to these islands, a Māori worldview and the tikanga that develop from it are foreign to most people now living here. Anyone who does not understand that worldview may find the pānui strange or even challenging. One way to understand a people’s culture is to look at their creation traditions (or religions). Religions aren’t simply handed to people—our tūpuna invented them. We are constantly re-inventing them in ways that keep them relevant, reflecting our values and our environment, so they both shape our culture and worldview and are shaped by them.
"Religions provide basic interpretive stories of who we are, what nature is, where we have come from and where we are going. This comprises a worldview of a society. Religions also suggest how we should treat other humans and how we should relate to nature. These values make up the ethical orientation of a society. Religions thus generate worldviews and ethics which underlie fundamental attitudes and values of different cultures and societies." (Tucker and Grim, p xvi)(This does not mean that the Te Papa pānui is religious. There is a difference between religion and the worldviews, cultures or cultural practices that develop from those religions.)
To understand the Te Papa advisory we need to understand the concept of tapu, and the way it applies to both women and taonga.
TapuThere are two aspects to tapu: the sacredness of each life, and restrictions for protection. Mikaere describes the first aspect,
"No individual stands alone: through the tapu of whakapapa, she or he is linked to other members of the whānau, hapū and iwi... Every person has a sacred connection to Rangi and Papa and to the natural world around them." (Mikaere (a), p 4)Henare calls this 'intrinsic tapu' (Henare, pp 29-30) because everything is always tapu in this sense—we are born tapu and it cannot be removed. Jackson describes this as
the major cohesive force in Māori life(Jackson, p 41).
The second aspect of tapu involves tapu used for political purposes. Henare calls this 'extensions of tapu', because it adds another layer to the intrinsic tapu.
Jackson describes the second aspect,
"In this sense, tapu was a specific restriction which could be placed on a person, an object or a piece of land, and so render it especially sacred as a type of protection or prohibition… The ritual of this process established a sacred protection or rite of prohibition which was secured by the sanction of the gods… the ritual linked the people and the event with an ancestral precedent. Any failure of the protection or breach of the prohibition would be due to human error and would be punished by ancestrally-defined sanctions." (Jackson, pp 41-42)
If it is sometimes necessary to impose restrictions using tapu, then a method must also be necessary to remove those restrictions. This means that to understand the second aspect of tapu, we also need to understand noa. While this meaning of tapu is something set apart as sacred, noa means a safe and unrestricted state—but still with the ‘intrinsic tapu’ intact. Whakanoa is the process of returning something to its normal state by removing the ‘extensions of tapu’.
Women have a significant role in these processes. Understanding that role is necessary to a discussion of Te Papa’s offer to hapū or menstruating women visiting the taonga Māori collection.
Te tapu o te wāhineThe importance of women in Māori creation traditions is immediately obvious to anyone who hasn’t already been blinded by misogyny (as the first ethnographers clearly were). As Mikaere explains:
"A central feature of Māori cosmogony is whakapapa, which binds humanity to the spiritual forces from which the world was created. Vital to the continuation of whakapapa are both the male and female elements. The female reproductive organs and the birthing process assume major significance throughout the creation stories." (Mikaere (b), pp 13-14)From the perspective of whakapapa, there can be nothing more sacred than the birth process. Women therefore have a special importance. Pere points out,
"The first human was a woman. She was not formed by Tane, or any male god. She was from Papatuanuku... My old people said the reason why the first human was a woman is because it is women who give birth to children... All of us have sprung from the very beginning from the womb of a woman." (Pere, p 167)
This does not mean that women are only important for their ability to give birth—but it does mean that our importance is elevated. The power to give life, to give birth to future generations, comes from Papatūānuku, the first mother. Nothing in te ao Māori is more important than ensuring the continuation of whakapapa.
"The story of Hine-nui-te-pō and Māui also encapsulates a theme which features throughout the Māori creation stories: the awesome power of female sexuality. It is implicit in the womb symbolism of Te Kore, Te Pō and in the birth of Papatūānuku and Ranginui's children to Te Ao Mārama. It becomes explicit with the first act of sexual intercourse between Tāne and Hineahuone. And in Māui's encounter with Hine-nui-te-pō, the potency of the female sexual organs is unassailable. The passage through which each of us passes to enter Te Ao Mārama is the same passage through which each of us must pass on our inevitable journey back to Te Pō. The process which brings each of us into being brought the world into being. Our very existence is centred around the sexual power of women." (Mikaere (b), p 23 )
This power allows women to whakanoa, to remove the tapu from people, places or things and make them safe again. As Binney describes:
They drew the dangerous life-destroying elements of tapu into themselves and then sent them back to their point of origin, that is, to the world of gods and the spirit forces(Binney, p 26). Because the tapu is drawn into the whare tangata, only women who are not yet sexually active, or who are past the age of giving birth perform these rituals.
According to Henare,
This is the mana and the tapu of women(Henare, p 20). Jenkins describes it as an indication of the supremacy of women’s spiritual power, because whakanoa allows control over the organisation of rituals (Jenkins, cited in Mikaere (a), p 6). Mikaere explains:
"The power of women to whakanoa is clearly of vital importance, for it establishes their ability to traverse the spiritual boundaries of tapu and noa, thereby nurturing and protecting communities… It is argued that this may be only half of the full picture. It may be that women’s powers in fact allowed movement both to and from the state of tapu – in other words, that women possessed not only the ability to whakanoa, but also the power to whakatapu. (Mikaere (a), p 6)
As Mikaere points out, the language of menstruation, childbirth and mothering demonstrates their significance and centrality—atua means both the ancestor gods and menstrual blood; hapū is both pregnancy and a large political group; whenua is both the placenta and land; whānau is both birth and the extended family; ūkaipō refers to nurturing both in terms of breastfeeding a baby, and in belonging to land (Mikaere (b), p 32; Ministry of Justice, p 183). Protecting this power, and the health of future generations, is at the heart of tikanga around menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth:
manaakitia te hunga e whakawairua mai ana i nga koopu o nga whaea – protect the spiritual essence and life force taking place within the wombs of their mothers(cited in August, p 120). These tikanga include women avoiding urupā and food gathering areas at times when they are menstruating or pregnant.
Te tapu o te taongaThe significance of taonga in tikanga Māori has often been misunderstood and underestimated. Many non-Māori assume that taonga are the same as heirlooms—hardly surprising when my Reed dictionary translates taonga as simply
property, treasure, apparatus, accessory (equipment), thing(Ryan, p 275). Taonga are much more than this and have an important role in tikanga Māori. This cannot be understood from a few words of explanation.
According to Tapsell,
"taonga is a powerful and all-embracing Maori concept that defies explanation by simply providing a list of written examples. For Maori, if an item, object or thing is described as he taonga it immediately elicits a strong emotional response based on ancestral experiences, settings, and circumstances." (Tapsell, p 326)
This can only be understood through what Mikaere has called the ‘whakapapa imperative’ (Mikaere (c), p 3):
"Part and parcel of looking at the world through the prism of whakapapa is the imperative to treasure those physical manifestations and expressions of ancestors that connect us to our origins and enable us to project ourselves with confidence into the future." (Mikaere (c), p 7)
Tapsell talks of three essential elements of taonga—mana, tapu and kōrero (Tapsell, pp 327-329). Taonga possess mana through their associations with tūpuna; this grows over time as the taonga pass through generations, accumulating history. Tapu places restrictions on taonga to protect their mana, and the greater the mana the greater the tapu; this is managed by kaitiaki who both care for the taonga, and ‘perform’ it at appropriate events. The kōrero is the iwi traditions, stories and histories that become attached to the taonga (Royal, p 66). Tapsell considers this the most important element, because the kōrero explains the meaning of the taonga and ensures that the mana and tapu are understood. He compares the kōrero to a cloak that envelops the taonga, and allows it to be treated and performed appropriately. Tapsell argues that the importance of taonga is their ability to collapse time,
allowing descendants to re-live the events of past generations… [which] allows ancestors and descendants to be fused back into a powerful, single genealogical entity(Tapsell, p 330). This is a way that knowledge from tūpuna can be understood by present generations.
All taonga are directly associated with both ancestors and land (Tapsell, p 331). The statement by Mikaere that taonga are physical manifestations of ancestors can be understood in at least two ways—that they are physical objects made with the hands and ideas of our tūpuna, and so represent the mana and tapu of those tūpuna; or, that taonga actually possess the wairua of tūpuna, they are tūpuna. Each of these understandings is true for different taonga. Tapsell explains that wairua is one of the ways taonga may communicate knowledge from tūpuna—experienced as ihi, wehi and wana—even if the kōrero is no longer known (Tapsell, pp 330-331).
Many taonga held in museums have little or no kōrero with them. They may have been given to the museum by people who found them, for example when exploring caves, the coast, or on building sites. Or the kōrero may simply not have been passed on with the taonga.
Colonisation and taongaColonisation is relevant to this discussion in two main ways. The first is that colonisation attempted to destroy the structures of Māori society including mātauranga Māori, and the tikanga based on it. The second is that the coloniser has built a relationship with Māori that is dominating and abusive. The Crown (and many Pākehā New Zealanders) appears blind to the generosity and goodwill that Māori continue to display to them—they are succeeding only in feeding mistrust and resentment among Māori.
Whenever two cultures meet there will be cultural exchange and effects. When one people colonise another, there is a lack of balance in this process. The colonising group expects the people they meet to change, to adopt their culture, and is not prepared to do the same themselves. According to Linda Smith,
"By the nineteenth century colonialism not only meant the imposition of Western authority over indigenous lands, indigenous modes of production and indigenous law and government, but the imposition of Western authority over all aspects of indigenous knowledges, languages and cultures." (Linda Smith, p 64)
This imposition will occur through force, but it will also occur through undermining indigenous authority, and corrupting indigenous knowledge—by selective education and relentless cultural imperialism. As Said explains,
"The power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming and emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism, and constitutes one of the main connections between them." (Said, p xiii)
Imperialism seeks to destroy other cultures, to assimilate those people into the colonising culture. In New Zealand, this involved missionaries and Crown working together. Missionaries were teaching a new religion, and attempting to shame Māori into giving up their beliefs and culture. The Crown supported this work, attempting to suppress any expressions of Māori culture using laws such as the Tohunga Suppression Act, and policies such as stopping Māori children from speaking te reo Māori in school. These attempts were ultimately unsuccessful, but they have had a huge effect—most Māori are more familiar with Pakehā culture than mātauranga Māori. The connections and knowledge of present generations with our tūpuna are weaker than they would have been in the past; and likewise, our connections with and knowledge of our taonga are weaker.
Europeans brought more than imperialism, they also brought death. Within 100 years of European arrival, the Māori population fell from upwards of 200 000 to 42 000 (Durie, pp 29-31; the 200 000 figure is a conservative estimate, other estimates range from 100 000 to 500 000). Pākehā have suggested the Māori population was in decline prior to European arrival. As Mikaere argues though, this pattern of massive mortality in indigenous populations as a consequence of European colonisation was well known by the 1700s:
The Crown understood only too well the consequences of European contact for a previously isolated population such as Māori(Mikaere (d), p 3). High and indiscriminate mortality meant that knowledge, including both mātauranga and tikanga Māori, was not reliably passed from one generation to the next as it had been in the past. Those whānau were then more vulnerable to colonial cultural imperialism, which included individualism and patriarchy.
The Crown was intent on breaking down Māori collectivism in order to get at Māori land. Individualism and individual ownership were enforced in many ways, not least of all through the Native Land Court, which
proved to be an irrepressible agent in the imposition of non-Maori notions of ownership onto ‘Maori land’(Williams, p 56). The crisis created by massive mortality made this task easier. Taonga are closely connected to whenua (Tapsell, p 333), just as land is a tūpuna and cannot be owned neither can taonga (Tapsell, p 362). As Māori relationships with the land were upset, so too were relationships with taonga. Many taonga were transferred with land, while others were sold out of desperation for money when land, the economic base, was gone.
It is important to understand that colonisation is ongoing, and that it has ongoing effects on the relationship between Māori and Pākehā. A Māori worldview has been (literally) demonised, re-interpreted, and this interpretation battered at will. After centuries of abuse, many Māori resent and distrust any actions by the Crown that affect them. And like the violent partner in many abusive relationships, the Crown (and many Pākehā) cannot understand why they are constantly met with this negative attitude. When confronted with Māori cultural expectations, many Pākehā respond with indignation, revealing that cultural imperialism is still operating. The Crown was not successful in cultural genocide, but they did succeed in turning an opportunity for cultural exchange and synergy into a festering cultural division, with one side defensive and willfully ignorant of history, and the other understandably mistrustful and antagonistic.
Colonisation and women
"The process of en-gendering descriptions of the Other has had very real consequences for indigenous women in that the ways in which indigenous women were described, objectified and represented by Europeans in the nineteenth century has left a legacy of marginalisation within indigenous societies as much as within the colonizing society." (Linda Smith, p 46)
Mikaere comprehensively covers this topic (Mikaere (b); also Mikaere (a), (e); Linda Smith; Andrea Smith writing about colonisation in North America), and I have written on it previously and don’t want to re-cover that ground. To summarise this work, tikanga Māori stresses gender balance (as discussed above), and female sexuality is consistently honoured (Mikaere (a), p 9); whereas the colonising culture is fundamentally misogynist (this is indisputable: the colonists came from an explicitly Christian culture where the creation stories are overwhelmingly patriarchal, and the laws that the colonists brought were undeniably misogynist). The introduction of patriarchy has been not just a consequence of colonisation, but also a tool of colonisation (Mikaere (a), Andrea Smith, pp 7-33).
One of the many tragedies of colonisation is that tikanga which have developed to acknowledge the sacredness and importance of women have been interpreted by others as doing the opposite. I regularly hear statements from Pākehā men that Māori culture is inherently sexist (which at the same time implies that Pākehā culture is not). The gendered roles and responsibilities within te ao Māori have been seen by Europeans through a lens of patriarchy.
That Europeans were incapable of recognising female power in Māori society is clear in their interpretation of women as inferior and even evil (eg Best, cited in Mikaere (a), p 12), and female sexuality as distasteful and destructive (eg Biggs and Heuer, both cited in Mikaere (a), p 12). Mikaere discusses the perverse conclusions that ethnographers reached in order to explain the power that Māori associated with women’s sexuality. Best and Jean Smith wrote that
the power of women to whakanoa lay in the ability of their sexual organs to pollute or contaminate tapu by repelling atua(Mikaere (a), p 12), and Best defines tapu to mean unclean when associated with women (Best, cited in Mikaere (a), p 13). None of this is consistent with the beautiful language of menstruation, childbirth and breastfeeding discussed above. But the concepts held in te reo Māori are not accessible to a population that is ignorant of that language, whereas the writings of Pākehā ethnographers are. It is not surprising that many New Zealanders are more familiar with the more accessible, but clearly warped, conclusions of people like Elsdon Best.
Te Papa Taonga Māori CollectionAnd so we return to a discussion of the furore over Te Papa suggesting that menstruating or hapū women arrange another time to visit the taonga Māori collection. In early November, I spoke to Moana Parata, one of the kaitiaki of the collection, and asked for some background to this suggestion (Parata, 2/11/2010).
Moana has been with the taonga Māori collection since she started work at the National Museum in Buckle Street; when the collection moved to Te Papa, she went with them. The collection is maintained according to tikanga Māori. When Moana started at Buckle Street, Bessie Walters and Betty Rewi were kaitiaki of the collection, and were responsible for maintaining the tikanga. Because of the history and tapu of taonga (as described above), the collection is treated as an urupā. Karakia are said in the morning and when leaving, there is no food or drink in the collection rooms, women do not work with the taonga when menstruating or pregnant, and children can only visit with elders. These tikanga have not changed in the time she started working with the collection. There are thousands of taonga in the collection, many of which will never go into the general exhibition area. There are tikanga when taonga go into the public area, which includes asking permission of their people and karakia.
Moana sees the tikanga as a health and safety issue; to her—reflecting a Māori worldview—the tikanga are natural, respectful and keep herself and others safe. Tikanga of the collection are explained to groups before they arrive at Te Papa. Until recently, the explanation has been verbal, giving group organisers the opportunity to ask questions, lessening the chance of misunderstandings and offense. Moana spoke about the difficulty of communicating the tikanga in writing, the problem of explaining the meaning and reasons to people who may know little or nothing of mātauranga Māori. Even with the opportunity to ask questions, people are occasionally angry about the tikanga. This is usually resolved either with more discussion, or when people enter the collection rooms and experience the taonga. Recently, written guidelines have been sent to groups. Moana believes the complaint to the media is as a result of the decision to send the guidelines in writing rather than to discuss them verbally with visitors.
A newspaper successfully stirred up interest by asking a feminist blogger for comment on the guidelines, then printing the story with an outrageous headline (Anger at Te Papa ban on pregnant women), and an outrageous quote (
It’s fair enough for people to engage in their own cultural practices… but the state shouldn’t be imposing those practices on other people). Responses were predictable (each time I read the above quote, I am again shocked by it, and struggle not to write an essay about those few words).
At the heart of the issue is most New Zealanders’ ignorance of both cultural imperialism and Māori culture. I agree with Moana that if the tikanga had been communicated more effectively, there may have been no complaint—but equally if more New Zealanders understood anything of the indigenous culture of these islands, there would have been no need for better communication. If more New Zealanders understood that the reason they know so little of Māori culture is because the Crown has spent a couple of centuries trying to destroy it, they may be more sympathetic to a Māori worldview that they don’t understand. If more New Zealanders understood that representations of Māori culture have been distorted beyond recognition, they may not jump to uncharitable judgments based on what they think they know. And if more New Zealanders understood that respecting a culture means respecting the parts that don’t make sense to them, not just the parts that do, they may come to recognise their own part in cultural imperialism.
ConclusionThis essay glosses over a lot of complicated issues, and I admit it was too ambitious to try to cover all this ground. I have attempted to give some understanding of tapu especially as it relates to women and taonga—but of course none of this can really be understood without already understanding a Māori worldview. And this is the real issue, while Māori must understand a European worldview and law to survive in this land, colonisation has meant that very few people have any understanding of mātauranga Māori, or, in fact, of colonisation. Whenever an issue requires some understanding, whether it be the significance of te reo Māori, or kaitiakitanga, or whatever, the ignorance of most New Zealanders makes dialogue impossible. And thanks again to colonisation, this creates a problem not for those who are ignorant, but for Māori. Māori must repeatedly start from the beginning and attempt to explain their whole culture—this occurs in conversations, the media, court hearings, tribunal hearings. At some point, tauiwi need to take some responsibility for understanding the indigenous culture, and for understanding how their ignorance contributes to cultural imperialism, to Māori perspectives being marginalised and foreign in their own land.
That aside, this essay reminded me of the beauty of the concepts in te reo Māori around women’s reproductive cycles. This reminds me of the necessity to become more fluent in te reo rangatira. As Moana Parata commented,
this is about our reo, because there’s just no such thing as crossing over(Parata, 2/11/2010). The reo holds the mātauranga, and without the mātauranga, the tikanga are only arbitrary rules.
Update: For more (and better) reading on tikanga and menstruation, I recommend Murphy, Ngāhuia (2011) Te Awa Atua, Te Awa Tapu, Te Awa Wahine: An examination of stories, ceremonies and practices regarding menstruation in the pre-colonial Māori world. Master of Arts thesis, University of Waikato
Parata, Moana (2/11/2010) Interview with the author, Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington
August, Wikitoria (2005) “Māori women: Bodies, spaces, sacredness and mana”. New Zealand Geographer 61
Binney, Judith (1986) Ngā Mōrehu: The Survivors. Edited by Judith Binney and Gillian Chaplin. Oxford University Press, Auckland
Durie, Mason (2005) Ngā Tai Matatū: Tides of Māori Endurance. Oxford University Press, Melbourne
Henare, Manuka (1988) Nga Tikanga me nga ritenga o te ao Maori: Standards and foundations of Maori society. Royal Commission on Social Policy 3 (1): Future Directions
Jackson, Moana (1988) The Māori and the Criminal Justice System, A New Perspective: He Whaipaanga Hou, Part II. New Zealand. Department of Justice, Wellington
Mikaere (b), Ani (2003) The Balance Destroyed: The Consequences for Māori Women of the Colonisation of Tikanga Māori. The International Research Institute for Māori and Indigenous Education, (jointly with) Ani Mikaere, Auckland
Mikaere (e), A. (1994) “Maori Women: Caught in the Contradictions of a Colonised Reality” Waikato Law Review 125
New Zealand. Ministry of Justice (2001) He Hīnātore ki te Ao Māori: A Glimpse into the Māori World. Ministry of Justice, Wellington
New Zealand Herald (12/10/2010) “Anger at Te Papa ban on pregnant women”
Pere, Rangimarie Rose (1994) “The Mother Energy” Kaupapa New Zealand: Vision Aotearoa. Edited by Witi Ihimaera. Bridget Williams Books, Wellington
Royal, Charles (2007) Matauranga Māori and Museum Practice: A Discussion Version 4. Te Papa National Services – Te Paerangi. www.mkta.co.nz
Ryan, PM (1997) The Reed Dictionary of Modern Māori. Reed Books
Said, Edward W. (1994) Culture & Imperialism. Vintage, London
Smith, Andrea (2005) Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide. South End Press, Cambridge MA
Smith, Linda Tuhiwai (1999) Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. Zed Books and University of Otago Press, London and Dunedin
Tapsell, Paul (1997) “The flight of Pareraututu: An investigation of taonga from a tribal perspective” Journal of Polynesian Society 106(4)
Tucker, Mary Evelyn and John A.Grim (2001) "Series Foreword" Indigenous Traditions and Ecology: The Interbeing of Cosmology and Community. Edited by John A. Grim. Center for the Study of World religions, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge MA
Williams, David V (1999) Te Kooti Tango Whenua: The Native Land Court 1864-1909. Huia Publishers, Wellington
Mikaere (a), Ani (2000) "Patriarchy as the ultimate divide and rule tactic: The assault on tikanga Māori by Pākehā Law" Paper presented at Mai i te Ata Hāpara conference, Te Wānanga-o-Raukawa, Ōtaki
Mikaere (d), Ani (2008) “Three million strikes and still not out: the crown as the consummate recidivist” Paper presented at the Māori Criminal Justice Colloquium, Te Ao Tara Aitū ki te Ara Maha: From the World of Calamity to the Path of Clarity, Napier
Mikaere (c), Ani (2006) “Whakapapa and Taonga: Connecting the Memory” Paper presented at Te Puna Maumahara: Rōpū Tuku Iho Repositories conference, Te Wānanga-o-Raukawa, Ōtaki | <urn:uuid:697c4612-d2b0-4390-87df-951ce1eb0c77> | CC-MAIN-2024-10 | https://starspangledrodeo.blogspot.com/2011/02/tapu-of-taonga-and-wahine-in-colonised.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947474775.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20240229003536-20240229033536-00453.warc.gz | en | 0.944678 | 7,036 | 2.75 | 3 |
ASK A QUESTION What does ¿Cómo no? mean ?
What does ¿Cómo no? mean ?
a: No voy a la fiesta (I'm not going to the party)
b: ¿Cómo no?!! (Why not? / What do you mean you're not going?)
a: ¿Te gustaría ir al cine? (Would you like to go to the cinema?)
b: Cómo no!! (Of course I would)
a: ¿Cómo no te gusta el chocolate? (How come you don't like chocolate?)
b: Oh! It's too sweet for me...
You mean like: ¡Sí! ¿Cómo no?
Then it would be for when we say in English: Sure! Why not?
It can also be used as sarcasm.
Arrested person: Soy inocente! (I am innocent)
Police Man: Como no! (Of course you are)
Try putting it in the "Translator" and see what you get.
"Como no" can also actually mean "of course". I had heard the phrase a few times before knowing it meant that, and man, how misleading. :p
Yes. You often hear waiters saying it after you've ordered, as a way of saying 'certainly'.
Of course. Yes.
It means "Why not?" in that context. As in "Sure, why not?" (Sí, ¿como no?). | <urn:uuid:893ad749-dbc3-4161-b957-75f116d770df> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.spanishdict.com/answers/126262/what-does-cmo-no-mean- | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719139.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00148-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.780713 | 329 | 2.625 | 3 |
GIS Data Documentation
The SABINS GIS shapefiles contain 2009-2010, 2010-2011, or 2011-2012 school-year data delineating school attendance areas by grade for selected school districts throughout the U.S. The last two characters of any file name designate a grade (i.e., 00 is Kindergarten, 01 is first grade and 12 is twelfth grade).
These data were collected and processed as part SABINS data infrastructure project which was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation (Award # SES-0927794, SES-0921279, SES-1123727) to create geography delineating school attendance boundaries for the largest school districts in the United States and for any school districts for which we could collect state-wide information from a state's Department of Education.
Original source information that were used to create these boundary files were collected in two primary formats:
- GIS data from local school districts, county/municipal GIS offices and private consulting firms
- These agencies used a wide-variety of geography to create these files (e.g., local cadastral or parcel data or digital imagery) and considerable care was taken to ensure that these original files accurately delineated the school catchment areas that a school district intended them to represent.
- Analog data such as narrative/legal descriptions of boundaries, lists of street segments served by each school boundary or paper maps of school attendance boundaries that depicted the boundaries.
- U.S. Census Bureau 2010 TIGER/line features (which consist of streets, hydrography, railways, etc.) were the primary source of information used to digitize analog information. This practice works well as most school attendance boundaries align with streets, railways, water bodies and similar line features included in the 2010 TIGER/line "edges" files.
- In those few cases in which a portion of a school attendance boundary serves both sides a street we use USGS DOQQ imagery to approximate the property lines of parcels.
The data digitized from analog maps and verbal descriptions do not conform to cadastral data, and many of the original GIS files created by school districts also do not conform with cadastral or parcel data.
All school attendance boundaries are "block-rectified" to 2010 TIGER/Line blocks such that the outline of every school attendance area conforms to the edges of census blocks.
Specifically, for the revised boundary files released in April 2013, to assign blocks to school attendance areas, we select all census blocks that belong to a particular school district according to TIGER/Line file attributes. Then, we use the NEAR tool in Esri ArcGIS to assign the selected blocks to school attendance areas for the same school district. If a block associated with a district falls outside all school attendance areas for the district, the NEAR command assigns the census block to the closest school attendance area based on Euclidean distance. This prevents mismatches between TIGER/Line school district definitions and SABINS school attendance areas.
The purpose of block-rectifying school attendance boundaries is to estimate population characteristics residing within school attendance boundaries by using census block data. Because of block rectification, school attendance boundaries cannot be used to identify specific addresses that are served by a school.
Also in the April 2013 release, the MPC added attributes for each school attendance area identifying the counts of Private, Magnet, and Charter schools that fall within an attendance boundary. The IND_COINCI, SPECIAL_CA, IND_OPEN_E, and IND_MULTIP attributes that appeared in previous versions of SABINS files have been dropped.
In many school districts, two or more schools may serve a single school attendance area (a one-area-to-many-schools relationship) or two or more schools may serve overlapping areas (a many-schools-to-many-areas relationship). In all cases, a single SABINS polygon represents an area served uniformly by a unique set of schools.
As a consequence, a single SABINS polygon may be associated with multiple schools, and a single school's attendance area may be comprised of multiple SABINS polygons.
Appropriate uses of the data include thematic mapping in cases in which there is a one-to-one correspondence between a school attendance boundary and the school that serves that boundary.
If these digital data are used in the production of a report or in the compilation of a standalone printed map, then SABINS is to be cited in the report or on the map using the source citation specified here. | <urn:uuid:1ebf9dd4-ae5c-40a1-a4af-241c7e9d865c> | CC-MAIN-2017-13 | http://www.sabinsdata.org/data-documentation/gis-data | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-13/segments/1490218189802.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20170322212949-00427-ip-10-233-31-227.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937795 | 956 | 2.796875 | 3 |
By: Kristin Abt
The Lion-tailed Macaque (Macaca silenus) is an endangered cercopithecine primate native to the Western Ghats region of India, described as one of the primary hotspots of biodiversity in the world (Kumara & Singh, 2004). IUCN (2010) estimates a mere 2,500 mature individuals with a total population size of 4,000 individuals. Furthermore, these monkeys (LTMs) exist in an estimated 47 subpopulations in 7 locations. Their serious status merits continuing intense and collaborative research on their demographics, current pressures, and the effects of habitat fragmentation, which appears to be the primary concern for their long-term survival in the wild.
Ecology and Distribution
These Old World monkeys have cheek pouches with simple stomachs, long, non-prehensile tails, an opposable hallux and pollex, hardened ischial callosities, and close, downward facing nostrils. They are diurnal with complex, matrilineal social systems normally with one adult male and one subadult male to multiple females and their offspring. Males disperse and females display estrus swellings to advertise their reproductive status. They have an average group size of 18 with a range of 7 to 40 individuals (Umapathy & Kumar, 2000b). Compared to other macaque species, Umapathy and Kumar point out that they have a slower life history with females reproducing first at 6.6 years and having a birth rate of 0.31 infants/female/year thereafter. This overall low prolificacy with delayed sexual maturity, long interbirth interval, and low population turnover presents an additional challenge when groups must respond to external survival pressures.
The LTM differs from other macaque species additionally through its primarily arboreal nature. Menon and Poirier (1996) emphasize this characteristic through the documentation of 3 falls and one subsequent death from tree gaps. In places with incontiguous canopy cover, individuals exhibited a strong preference to exert considerable effort to cross large holes in the canopy without descending to the ground. Ramachandran and Joseph (2000) discuss the conservation and sustainability implications of this in that LTMs failed to range into adjacent areas disrupted by fire or eucalypt and teak plantations in order to exhaust nearby resources in neighboring forest fragments.
Individuals are found only in the Western Ghats region in the three states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu and have been studied extensively in such national and private evergreen forests as Silent Valley in the Palghat district (Ramachandran & Joseph, 2000), the Indira Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary in Anamalai Hills (Umapathy & Kumar, 2000a & b), Brahmagiri-Makut and Sirsi-Honnovara (Kumara and Singh 2004), the Puthuthotam Cardamom Forest (Menon & Poirier, 1996), and the Kudremukh Forest Complex (Kumara & Singh, 2008). Within these locations, it has been found that the LTMs prefer habitat primarily between 300m asl – 900m asl (Kumara & Singh, 2008). It is estimated that almost 40% of the remaining population exist as small groups found in isolated, highly fragmented forests in these areas (Umapathy & Kumar, 2000a). As one goes from South to North within their range, group size has been shown to increase (Kumara & Singh, 2004).
Within their habitat, LTMs serve as “one of the most important habitat specialist primates in India” (Ramachandran & Joseph, 2000). Sushma and Singh (2006) found that compared to other arboreal mammals, such as bonnet macaques (Macaca radiata), Nilgiri langurs (Semnopithecus johnii), and the Indian giant squirrel (Ratufa indica), LTMs have the narrowest niche breadth with some overlap with bonnet macaques, which indicates a degree of competition where these animals must coexist. Ramachandran and Joseph (2000) point out that they seldom range outside of their evergreen forest even into the deciduous areas. They also reported that LTMs feed primarily (91%) on plant matter with the remainder consisting of invertebrates, which is a higher amount than other macaque species (Sushma & Singh, 2006). Ramachandran & Joseph (2000) found that they formed significant associations with 6 major tree species, especially Cullenia. These are needed in the proper abundance in order to sustain the primates; however, some flexibility is present. Menon and Poirier (1996) note that, in times of food scarcity, individuals supplement their diet with Artocarpus and Coffea trees in nearby forested plantations. Because they are highly frugivorous and consume large amounts of figs (Sushma & Singh, 2006), they must range significant distances in order to find sufficient food for the group. Fruit, as a seasonal and patchy resource, offers a lot of carbohydrates, but not a good amount of protein. As a result, invertebrates comprise a relatively large amount of their diet in order to provide the necessary nutrition for successful reproduction (Umapathy & Kumar, 2000a). Juveniles spend a significantly larger amount of time feeding on these, suggesting their importance for proper growth and development, as well.
Conservation Threats due to Habitat Fragmentation
When primate groups are found in highly fragmented habitat, this presents serious survival pressures for themselves and for those individuals in neighboring forests without the opportunity for gene flow. McGarigal and Cushman (2002) define habitat fragmentation as a “landscape level process in which a specific habitat is progressively subdivided into smaller and more isolated fragments.” They further discuss how it encompasses a change in landscape composition, structure, and function. Because habitat fragmentation, along with habitat loss, is considered to be one of the main influences causing the incredible mass extinction of species that is currently occurring, studying the effects of this in order to produce urgent and important management strategies is paramount.
Thus far, a number of studies of the LTM have discovered relevant consequences to the habitat fragmentation continually occurring within their range. In reference to the demographics of social groups, the effects of habitat fragmentation have been to significantly change the composition naturally found in contiguous and undisturbed sections of forest. Specifically, Umapathy and Kumar (2000b) found near significance with smaller fragments containing larger group sizes compared to larger fragments. Also, it appears that there is more likely to be two adult males in a social group of a small fragment than the typical one male: multiple females found in larger fragment sizes. Significantly, there is a positive correlation between fragment size and the number of immatures and birth rate. The authors cite possible factors for this as increased predation pressures and resource shortages. Kumara and Singh (2004) classified health of a population by a high overall presence of groups with the modal group size, favorable sex ratio, and a large percentage of immature individuals; therefore, the findings from the previous study provide further support to their criteria as valid to use when investigating the demographics of LTMs in fragmented areas.
Studies have also investigated how vegetation status in relation to level of fragmentation affects these primates. Umapathy and Kumar (2000a) found that individuals spent significantly less time feeding on invertebrates, a key component to their diet, in smaller fragments. Additionally, the least disturbed fragments contained the highest plant abundance. In areas with colonized species, such as mangos and guava, the macaques added these to their diet, which might slightly compensate for the loss in space and flora diversity; however, it could also contribute to human-wildlife conflict. Furthermore, these researchers (2000b) also demonstrated a positive correlation between the quality of vegetation and the amount of fragmentation.
Along with demographic and dietary changes, significant changes occur in disturbed populations with respect to the groups’ overall behaviors and activity patterns. Menon and Poirier (1996) studied individuals in a private forest that experienced selective logging and clearing for planting on the floor and found that the primates used the ground often for ranging and foraging out of necessity, but still much preferred the trees – even when travelling in such a manner presented serious and mortal danger due to the lack of sufficient canopy continuity. They were also forced to cross roads and raid fruit in neighboring plantations, which resulted in human-wildlife conflict and deterrence measures implemented. Furthermore, the individuals needed to increase their time ranging, which seriously impacted their ability to feed and engage in necessary social behaviors. Especially relevant to small, isolated populations is the inability to disperse naturally, which Debinski and Holt (2000) discuss and, consequently, suggest corridors for landscape connectivity, especially for highly mobile animals. Without proper gene flow and the opportunities for appropriate social groups to form, the long-term survival of this species is severely threatened, which is already evidenced by the results of lower numbers of juveniles in these fragmented groups.
In addition to the restriction of available habitat and isolation of existing groups, human-wildlife conflict has placed significant pressure on their survival. Along with plantations cultivated for teak and eucalypt and areas that are clear felled for tea and coffee, humans also use the forest areas for wood gathering, logging, and hunting of the LTMs and other fauna (Kumara & Singh, 2000b; Menon & Poirier, 1996). Fragments also increase the likelihood of the macaques coming into human contact and the likelihood that humans will disturb the forest.
As with so many conservation stories, this one can greatly benefit from increased attention, education, and priority at numerous levels. Over recent years, the LTM has featured less prominently in North American zoo collections despite its endangered status, declining populations, charismatic appearance, and active nature (Association of Zoos and Aquariums, 1998). Additionally, few conservation and education efforts are currently in place to support its population (AZA, 1998). While research into its populations and its behavioral ecology are important to further understand the species, additional efforts to increase gene flow between populations, protect its forest habitat, and address conflicts with agriculture are needed for this macaque species to persist.
Association of Zoos and Aquariums. 1998. Lion-tailed macaque 98 fact sheet. Retrieved February 8, 2011, from Web site: http://www.nagonline.net/Fact%20Sheet%20pdf/AZA%20-%20Lion-Tailed%20Macaque%20 Species%20Survival%20Plan.pdf
Debinski, D. M. and R. D. Holt. 2000. A survey and overview of habitat fragmentation experiments. Conservation Biology 14: 342–355.
IUCN. 2010 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Retrieved February 8, 2011, from Web site: http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/12559
Kumara, H. N. and M. Singh. 2004. Distribution and abundance of primates in rain forests of the Western Ghats, Karnataka, India and the conservation of Macaca silenus. International Journal of Primatology 25: 1001–1018.
Kumara, H. N. and V. R. Singh. 2008. Status of Macaca silenus in the Kudremukh Forest Complex, Karnataka, India. International Journal of Primatology 29: 773–781.
McGarigal, K. and S. A. Cushman. 2002. Comparative evaluation of experimental approaches to the study of habitat fragmentation effects. Ecological Applications 12: 335–345.
Menon, S. and F. E. Poirier. 1996. Lion-tailed Macaques (Macaca silenus) in a disturbed forest fragment: Activity patterns and time budget. International Journal of Primatology 17: 969–985.
Ramachandran, K. K. and G. K. Joseph. 2000. Habitat utilization of lion-tailed macaque (Macaca silenus) in Silent Valley National Park, Kerala, India. Primate Report 58: 17–25.
Sushma, H. S. and M. Singh. 2006. Resource partitioning and interspecific interactions among sympatric rain forest arboreal mammals of the Western Ghats, India. Behavioral Ecology 17: 479–490.
Umapathy, G. and A. Kumar. 2000a. Impacts of the habitat fragmentation on time budget and feeding ecology of lion-tailed macaque (Macaca silenus) in rain forest fragments of Anamalai Hills, South India. Primate Report 58: 67–82.
Umapathy, G. and A. Kumar. 2000b. The demography of the Lion-tailed Macaque (Macaca silenus) in rain forest fragments in the Anamalai Hills, South India. Primates 41: 119–126. | <urn:uuid:44d619e8-c552-49df-914c-ea843be6a1ff> | CC-MAIN-2018-30 | https://primatology.net/2011/02/11/habitat-fragmentations-effect-on-an-endangered-indian-primate-the-lion-tailed-macaque/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-30/segments/1531676593438.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20180722174538-20180722194538-00417.warc.gz | en | 0.916105 | 2,691 | 3.578125 | 4 |
Archived press release
Press & Media
The UK car industry is not doing enough to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from new cars, Friends of the Earth said today in response to new pollution figures from the UK motor industry. The environmental campaign group said that the motor industry must be set mandatory targets for producing cleaner cars. The call is part of Friends of the Earth's The Big Ask climate campaign.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) revealed today that the average carbon dioxide emissions for new cars sold in 2005 was 169.4g/km. This is a long way short of the target that the European motor industry's trade bodies reached with the EU in the mid 1990s to reduce average emissions from new cars. Under the voluntary agreement average emissions should fall to 140 g/km CO2 by 2008. The news will come as a further blow to Government hopes of reducing transport's contribution to climate change. Meeting this target would deliver a substantial part of the hoped for emissions cuts from surface transport .
Friends of the Earth's transport campaigner Tony Bosworth said:
"The UK motor industry is failing to take its environmental responsibilities seriously. It will almost certainly fall way short of the European car manufacturers voluntary target for cutting pollution from new cars. This is why mandatory targets for greener cars are needed."
"Road transport is one of the biggest contributors to UK carbon dioxide emissions. The UK Government must do more to encourage people to buy greener vehicles, and take steps to cut traffic on our roads as part of a determined effort to tackle climate change. It should also give its backing to a new law, as called for by The Big Ask climate campaign, which would require successive governments to make annual reductions in carbon dioxide."
The motor industry's trade bodies reached an agreement with the EU in the mid 1990s to reduce average emissions from new cars sold in member states by improving fuel efficiency. The amount of carbon dioxide produced by a car falls as its fuel efficiency improves.
In 1997, new cars sold in the UK emitted an average of 189.8 grammes of carbon dioxide per kilometre (g/km CO2). Under the agreement average emissions from new cars sold would fall to 140 g/km CO2 by 2008.Performance to date
Year Average CO2 g/km Improvement on previous year
1997 189.8 -
1998 188. 4 0.7%
1999 185.0 1.8%
2000 181.0 2.2%
2001 177.6 1.9%
2002 174.2 1.9%
2003 172.0 1.2%
2004 171.4 0.4%
2005 169.4 1.2%
According to the RL Polk data, the UK has the fourth highest average emissions from new cars in the 15 member states covered by the agreement. The highest average emissions are in Sweden (193.7 g/km CO2) and the lowest in Portugal (145.1 g/km CO2). UK emissions are slightly lower than those in Germany (170.8 g/km CO2) and substantially higher than those in France (151.9 g/km CO2).Why are emissions in the UK not falling faster?
There are two reasons for the slow progress:
- Lack of real incentives for choosing smaller, more fuel-efficient cars
Despite the small changes made in last month's Budget, the incentives for drivers to buy smaller, more fuel-efficient cars remain insufficient. The Chancellor cut Vehicle Excise Duty (VED, or road tax) to zero for the most fuel-efficient cars, emitting less than 100 g/km CO2. However no car meeting these standards is on sale in the UK. VED on new cars emitting more than 225 g/km CO2 was raised to £210 for petrol cars and £215 for diesels. Friends of the Earth had called for a top rate of £600 with £100 gaps between the bands. The colour-coded fuel efficiency labels introduced last year provide useful information but need to be backed by real fiscal incentives.
- Motor industry still building and advertising gas guzzlers
The motor industry appears reluctant to move towards smaller, lighter, more fuel-efficient cars, choosing instead to make cars heavier and more powerful. Analysis by Friends of the Earth of car adverts in national newspapers in the first two weeks of September 2005 (the start of the new `55' registration) showed that over half of all adverts were for cars in the two most polluting VED bands, but only three per cent were for cars in the two least-polluting VED bands.
The current target is for 2008. The motor industry and the European Commission are currently discussing the shape and scale of a possible future target, and an initial announcement is expected later this year. Friends of the Earth believes that a new legally binding target should be set for new cars to emit an average of 120 g/km CO2 by 2012. This can be achieved with existing technology such as advanced lightweight materials, improved drivetrains, hybrid engines and regenerative braking. According to a report for the European Commission, this would cost around 577 Euros per vehicle, although the report also says this could be an over-estimate. However cleaner cars are also cheaper: drivers would save money as they would have to buy less fuel. The pre-tax fuel cost savings during the lifetime of a car could be almost 1000 Euros, and tax saving would increase this substantially .Road transport and climate change
Road transport is responsible for around 20% of total UK emissions of carbon dioxide, the main gas causing climate change. Emissions are rising because traffic is growing faster than fuel efficiency is improving. UK traffic levels have risen some 11 per cent since Labour came to power in 1997. Transport's contribution to total UK emissions is forecast to rise in coming years.
Recent research for the Department for Transport has shown that carbon dioxide emissions from road transport could be cut to 60% below 1990 levels by 2030. The research concluded that both technological improvements and behavioural change will be needed if 60% cuts are to be made. It found that improving the fuel efficiency of cars would make the single biggest contribution to cutting carbon dioxide emissions from road transport.
Reducing transport emissions will be an essential part of making the year-on-year cuts in carbon dioxide emissions that Friends of the Earth believes are needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. The Big Ask, Friends of the Earth's climate campaign is calling on the Government to introduce a climate law that would set a legally binding target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 3% every year, monitored through an annual carbon budget. For more information see www.thebigask.com
DEFRA (2006) `Climate Change: the UK programme 2006' shows that greener cars are projected to save around 2.3 MtC a year by 2010, out of total projected savings from transport of 6.8MtC, including new measures announced in the new programme.
T&E (2005) `No regrets: the cost effectiveness of achieving 120 g/km average CO2 emissions from new cars in Europe by 2012'
Bartlett School for Planning, and Halcrow Group for the Department for Transport (2006) `Looking over the horizon' | <urn:uuid:34e1919d-69f1-4d47-9e0b-bb993522c006> | CC-MAIN-2016-22 | https://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/uk_motor_industry_failing_25042006 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-22/segments/1464052868853.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160524012108-00047-ip-10-185-217-139.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950448 | 1,480 | 2.5625 | 3 |
m is for me!
11 August 2017Add to My Folder
Original article published 3 Sept 2009
Make phonics exciting with treasure hunts and dinosaurs in this first of a new, three-part series offering ideas and activities from Helen Bromley
Looking for letters
Begin by downloading the four free PDFs for the letters S, T, P and A. On each page you will find a large number of a single letter (both upper and lower case), in a variety of fonts and distributed randomly across the page. Look at the letterscape pages with your class and talk about the different ways the letters are represented. Can the children see any letters that are the same? Can they match upper and lower case in the same font? Do they have any favourite fonts?
One engaging way to talk about letter names and sounds is to go on an environmental print search. Explain that you are going on a special treasure hunt. You could also say that the children are going to be detectives. Print off multiple copies of the letterscape pages and give the children marker or highlighter pens. The children can work in pairs or small groups and look for words both in and around the setting – eg, advertising hoardings, street names, or even the name of the school. When they see a letter s, a, t or p in a word, they can circle or highlight a letter on the corresponding letterscape sheet. Using environmental print in this way helps young children to see themselves as readers. It is important that they understand that reading is all around them as well as in books!
You could incorporate the children’s discoveries into an alphabet book, using photos of pieces of environmental print beginning with the different letters that the children have found. | <urn:uuid:1d04d5d4-6592-4908-88cb-98d9221c3658> | CC-MAIN-2017-43 | https://education.scholastic.co.uk/content/8209 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-43/segments/1508187820466.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20171016214209-20171016234209-00241.warc.gz | en | 0.945504 | 352 | 3.96875 | 4 |
Productivity gains resulting from the “internet of things” could add between $10 trillion and $15 trillion to global GDP over the next 20 years, according to a new study from General Electric (GE).
The manufacturing giant reckons the “industrial internet”, as it terms the phenomenon, could find direct application in sectors accounting for more than $32.3 trillion in global economic activity, but expects this figure to reach about $82 trillion – one half of global economic output – by 2025.
As noted in the study, an efficiency improvement of just 1% brought about by the use of the industrial internet would yield terrific gains in a variety of sectors.
In the aviation industry, for instance, a 1% improvement in fuel savings would be worth about $30 billion over the next 15 years, while the same efficiency improvement in the global gas-fired power plant fleet could lead to savings of about $66 billion in fuel consumption.
The global health industry could realize savings of more than $63 billion by reducing process inefficiencies by 1%, but the most eye-catching figure is the $90 billion that GE (Fairfield, USA) believes could be slashed from capital expenditure in upstream oil and gas exploration and development, simply through a 1% improvement in capital utilization.
GE says the savings are possible by combining three elements of the industrial internet: “intelligent machines”, “advanced analytics” and “people at work”.
While the industrial internet starts with the embedding of sensors in an array of machines, it is the collection and analysis of data this process allows that generates much of the savings, with an additional boost provided by connecting people at work or on the move.
Using the example of the aviation industry, GE says that each of the three pieces of rotating equipment in a single jet engine could be instrumented and monitored separately.
With approximately 43,000 commercial jet engines in service, it asks readers to “imagine the efficiencies in engine maintenance, fuel consumption, crew allocation and scheduling when ‘intelligent aircraft’ can communicate with operators”.
GE’s bullishness about the industrial internet is not altogether surprising given its status as probably the world’s biggest maker of machinery across a range of industries.
Nevertheless, it acknowledges that if its vision is to become reality there needs to be a sustained effort in technological innovation, with considerable investments in the deployment of the necessary sensors, instrumentation and user-interface systems.
GE also calls for a robust cyber security system and greater protection of sensitive information and intellectual property, as well as the development of talent and creation of so-called “cross-cutting roles” that combine mechanical and industrial engineering. | <urn:uuid:ab208fc4-7a32-4082-be02-5eab1ad9a38e> | CC-MAIN-2014-23 | http://www.telecomengine.com/print/article/internet-things-give-10-15-trillion-boost-global-economy-ge | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-23/segments/1406510267075.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20140728011747-00154-ip-10-146-231-18.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940078 | 561 | 2.640625 | 3 |
¹²⁹I in Missouri Thyroids
Concentrations of 129I and values of the 129I/127I ratio are reported in one sample of indigenous vegetation and in over forty additional individual thyroids of man, wild deer and beef cattle in Missouri. The results of this and other studies in our laboratory indicate the following order for successively lower values of 129I/127I ratios in the local environment: Rain, wild deer, commercial milk, beef cattle and human. The value of the 129I/127I ratio in the single vegetation sample is intermediate to the mean values in wild deer and commercial milk, but well within the range of values observed in both. These results are consistent with a geochemical cycle in which iodine that is enriched in 129I is transported via air into the central U.S. and then diluted with other iodine—especially mineral iodine that is added to the diets of domesticated animals—as the iodine deposited from air moves through the local ecosystem. Differences in the diets of beef and dairy cattle or differences in the biological life-times of iodine in thyroids and mammae, and hence the degree of equilibration with body iodine, may explain the lower value of the 129I/127I ratio in beef thyroids than in milk.
L. L. Oliver et al., "¹²⁹I in Missouri Thyroids," Health Physics, vol. 42, pp. 425 - 432, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Apr 1982.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1097/00004032-198204000-00003
Keywords and Phrases
Iodine 129; Radioisotope; Radioactive Iodine; Cattle; Endocrine System; Geographic Distribution; Mammal; Normal Human; Radioactive Contamination; Thyroid Gland; United States; Animal; Article; Cattle; Deer; Human; Plant; Thyroid Gland; United States; Animal; Cattle; Deer; Human; Iodine Radioisotopes; Missouri; Plants; Support; U.S. Gov't; Non-P.H.S.; Thyroid Gland
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
Article - Journal
© 1982 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, All rights reserved.
01 Apr 1982 | <urn:uuid:222224d5-332d-48da-bd48-6b9cc11dc56e> | CC-MAIN-2023-23 | https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/chem_facwork/1239/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224657144.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20230610062920-20230610092920-00023.warc.gz | en | 0.840012 | 538 | 3.21875 | 3 |
15 Jul 2019
Invisible Tech and Art
In recent years, museums and art galleries have been making use of “invisible tech”—which is to say, motion sensors, projection mapping, wraparound video screens and more—to create stunning new environments. For instance, the digital art collective Random International’s installation of their “Rain Room” in London’s Barbican Centre in autumn 2012 was a huge success, attracting large crowds and long queues of people wanting to partake of this unique experience. In fact, the installation was so successful that the Emirate of Sharjah decided to buy it and permanently install it in the heart of the desert city, where it’s now a leading tourist attraction
For those who weren’t lucky enough to experience it in person, “Rain Room” is a 100 square-metre space of falling water that reacts to the movements of visitors. Stepping inside, you can hear the sound of water and feel the moisture in the air, yet raindrops never fall on your head. Instead, visitors are turned into choreographers of the weather. Through the clever use of sensors, as you move through the space the rain stops falling from the part of the ceiling directly above you. The technology is invisible, but its effects are anything but.
Another approach is favoured by Japanese digital art collective TeamLab. In 2018, they installed stunning whirlpools of light in both the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, and the inaugural show at the Amos Rex museum, Helsinki. By using projection-mapping techniques and responsive lighting, they’re able to send what looks like water flowing up a building’s walls or down into its floors. And, again, through the use of motion sensors their installations can react to visitors walking through them in real time. TeamLab’s practice is about building beautiful digital landscapes: other recent projects have included projected waterfalls, koi carp ponds and moving forests full of blossoming flowers and butterflies that flap around the audience.
Invisible Tech and Design
However, invisible tech can be used for much more than art installations. It can also be used to design incredible workplaces, entrances, showrooms, retail spaces and so on. After all, many of our offices already have doors that open and lights that turn on according to sensors, so why not take these ideas further and create something that’s truly futuristic?
For instance, the Salesforce Tower in San Francisco has huge fine-pitch LED video walls on the ground floor, wrapping around the elevator lobby entrances. This space is most famous for its award-winning waterfall animation, which really is quite something. However, because it’s a screen, absolutely anything can be shown on it: from videos relating to the building’s branding, to three-dimensional visualisations of data. These kinds of spaces can be updated continuously to reflect a business’s changing needs, or to create reactive workspaces tailored to everybody’s preferences.
Employee experience is more important than ever these days, and sensory technology and design can really enhance this: an environment can be made more calming, or awe-inspiring, or just more on-brand.
Having biophilia in an office is shown to be great for staff morale, so why stop at office plants; why not build a virtual waterfall? And why not add some relaxing soundscapes around it and lower everybody’s stress levels? In today’s day and age, with most of us living and working in cities, we’ve grown increasingly distant from nature. So good design now plays a vital role in restoring our feeling of connection with the natural world, and creating environments that we feel comfortable in and inspired by; and invisible tech is going to play a more and more significant role in this process over the coming years.
“Rain Room,” say Random International, “is the latest in a series of projects that specifically explore the behaviour of the viewer and viewers: pushing people outside their comfort zones, extracting their base auto-responses and playing with intuition. Observing … the experimentation with this world of often barely perceptible behaviour and its simulation is our main driving force.” In other words, imaginative use of technology like this will not only inspire people, but also change the way we feel and behave. We all want meaningful experiences in our lives, and artists and designers skilled in invisible tech will be able to create spaces that really are magical and awe-inspiring.
Share this article | <urn:uuid:c7790a8f-c0a8-436c-a493-9bd318ab0df0> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://spacestor.com/insights/how-invisible-tech-can-create-breathtaking-spaces/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370506477.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20200401223807-20200402013807-00469.warc.gz | en | 0.938403 | 934 | 2.625 | 3 |
You’ve heard the term thrown around the internet and media, affecting one company or another, a council, or even a hospital. But what is Ransomware?
Ransomware is a type of malicious software that sits in the background of your computer and encrypts your valuable files. This can include:
• Important financial data such as accounts or payroll data
• Sensitive business documentation
• Business/personal photos
“The Ransomware ‘CryptoWall 3’ was responsible for an estimated $325 (£224) million in damages in 2015.”
Upon successfully completing the encryption process your files become inaccessible and a message is then displayed on your screen asking to pay for them to become unlocked.
How do I become infected?
Ransomware typically is spread via phishing emails with links / attachments or ‘drive by download’ websites (a website which contains scripts when visited automatically start a download of malicious software).
The 5 stages of Ransomware
Stage 1: Exploitation and Infection
For ransomware to be able to be encrypt contents on a machine. It first needs to be downloaded and triggered. This typically happens via a email containing a malicious attachment or a website that automatically downloads a file to your computer. (Time taken for Stage 1: 0 Seconds )
Stage 2: Delivery and Continuity
At this point the program that actually performs the encryption of files is delivered to the compromised computer. The program then proceeds to ensure it can continue running should it be interrupted by a user logging off. (Time taken for Stage 2: 5 Seconds)
Stage 3: Backup Locations
Now installed, the ransomware both targets and spoils any known local backup files to ensure recovery is not possible via any connected backup means. (Time taken for Stage 3: 10 Seconds)
Stage 4: File Encryption Begins
Once the backup solutions have been taken out of the equation the Ransomware can now communicate with the criminals control server and generate keys to encrypt your data. At this point the encryption of your files begins. (Time taken for Stage 4: 2 to 20 minutes)
Stage 5: User Notification
Now with the encryption of user files complete. The Ransomware displays a notifications on screen and demands payment. (Time taken for Complete Encryption: 22 minutes)
How do I get my data back?
Well the short answer is off-site Backups. Modern day Ransomware specifically targets common backup strategies. Even though there is an option to pay a ransom. There are no guarantees upon paying your data will be released. Just like the bad guy in your favourite action movie. He gets his ransom then asks for more (how rude!).
So what do I do?
Well think about your data.
It’s vital to your business, your staff, clients – all of it. How is it being backed up? Is it even being backed up at all? What would happen if a member of staff inadvertently clicked a link which sent said Ransomware secretly gallivanting across your files making them permanently inaccessible?
Can you afford the downtime?
Ransomware can bring a company to a halt for days whilst data recovery processes are in operation. For an example at the start of 2016 a UK based council was brought to a halt for a week whilst their IT services recovered from a ransomware based attack.
“72 percent of companies are unable to access their files for two days, and 32 per cent for five days, or more.”
• Invest in an offsite backup strategy preferably one with a roll back period allowing you to recover from several days back if needed.
• Invest in a anti-spam solution for an added tier of support from email threats.
• Review and remove unnecessary permissions from users. If you have access to all data then your user account puts all that data at risk.
• Review and invest in a trusted reputable antivirus solution.
• Keep your staff members informed on what to watch out for. Phishing emails and malware are constantly evolving and ultimately these are let in to the system from a single user click.
If you would like further advice on any aspect of Ransomware please don’t hesitate to contact the KBS IT Services Team:
Telephone 02890 370088 | <urn:uuid:6e93e4c3-1d61-4080-af7e-03ef28f80c30> | CC-MAIN-2017-47 | http://www.kbsgroup.co.uk/category/latest-news-from-kbs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-47/segments/1510934805114.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20171118225302-20171119005302-00235.warc.gz | en | 0.926963 | 882 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Alaska Aquaculture Jobs
Aquaculture is a process by which man-made facilities and scientific methods are used to raise marine animals and plants. In Alaska, the majority of aquaculture operations focus on producing hatchery salmon. Today, both commercial and sport fishermen have come to appreciate the work of the aquaculture organizations because hatchery-reared fish account for a good portion of all fish caught.
Hatcheries are generally owned and operated by the state, private nonprofit organizations, or private individuals. State-run operations are overseen by the Commercial Fisheries Division of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
These state hatcheries have placed special emphasis on maintaining natural salmon spawning habitats. On the other hand, certain private nonprofit organizations focus on the pen-rearing of fish, and more traditional salmon raising techniques. Funds to support the nonprofit hatcheries come from two sources: an enhancement tax on fish caught by commercial fishermen, and a cost-recovery program that allows each operation to harvest and sell a certain number of fish each year.
In the most fundamental sense, aquaculturists work to ensure the continued health of salmon runs by maintaining natural habitats, supplementing wild runs with hatchery fish, developing rearing methods which result in larger fish returning to rivers to spawn, and enhancing the physical health of hatchery fish populations.
Aquaculture – or fisheries enhancement – has become a vital part of the fishing industry because so many Alaskans depend on fishing for both income and subsistence. Hatchery fish account for between 15 and 20 percent (depending on the species) of the yearly harvest and have greatly bolstered the overall profitability of the fishing industry.
Fisheries aquaculture is a diverse industry with a variety of job opportunities. As you might surmise, hatcheries play a big role in the whole fishing industry (producing 14 to 20 percent of all fish caught!) and therefore require a good crew in order to run efficiently. In fact, we were told that some of the larger private organizations have a tradition of promoting job availability on college campuses – especially those with fishery programs. During the summer months, hatcheries throughout Alaska need people for a variety of seasonal aquaculture jobs. Descriptions of some of the positions that are generally available to both newcomers and experienced people are given below:
Fish Technician Jobs
Fish technician positions, which are seasonal jobs, are sometimes available to those without related experience and education, but the work is very hard, wet, cold, and often monotonous. Sounds like processing, doesn’t it? Nevertheless, most people find the experience to be both fun and rewarding. Many college students spend their summers working for various aquaculture associations and make good money while learning about the industry. People who have an interest in fisheries should consider doing this work for a summer.
During the summer months of June, July, and August, the majority of aquaculture stations/hatcheries begin a process called “egg take.” Hatcheries may begin egg take as soon as male and female salmon return to their native rivers to spawn. Fish are netted in the river or herded into fish raceways and then killed for both the female’s eggs and the male’s milt (sperm). After this collection, eggs and milt are taken from the fish and combined in an incubator or hatch box. Millions of fertilized eggs will develop into salmon fry (fish up to 1 inch in length), and eventually into smolt. On an average day at the hatchery, workers get up around seven or eight in the morning and are assigned to a station for the day. Quite possibly, you will be a fish killer, fish crowder, fish bonker, or egg rinser. Maybe you’ll be cleaning weirs, sampling smolt to determine their health, or releasing smolt into the ocean. Jobs may change from day to day and vary depending on location.
Privately owned hatcheries and aquaculture operations begin their own salmon harvesting in July. Fish techs may play a role in this “cost-recovery fish harvesting,” which generally utilizes seining and gillnetting methods. The state of Alaska allows private hatcheries to recover some of their operating costs through the harvesting and sale of certain numbers of salmon. Collectively, egg take and cost recovery harvesting provide the most work for seasonal employment candidates, with other seasonal projects providing a small amount of additional work.
Applying for a Job
Most of the aquaculture associations and fisheries enhancement programs listed at the end of this section will begin processing applications and tendering job offers as early as late winter and continue doing so until June. Those who are available to work prior to summer should say so, because there is a need for employees as early as March. During this time, and into April and May, fish tagging, rearing of young salmon, and a lot of detail and maintenance work takes place. Hatchery directors begin to fill temporary and seasonal positions when the first part of June rolls around. Summer applications usually get rolling in June, but we’ve been told that the easiest time to actually get a position is in July and August because fewer people are looking for work and many operations find themselves short on help. How long you work once you are hired is hard to predict. Egg take can last all summer or for less than two months. We spoke with a group of seasonal workers during a recent trip to Alaska, and they had been putting in forty-hour weeks from June until August.
Entry-level fish techs start off with the most mundane work and gradually work into positions of more responsibility and better pay, especially if they return to work the following year. The return rate of hatchery employees is close to 50 percent. We have been told more than once that many of the hatchery crew move from the Lower 48 and permanently relocate in Alaska. Finally, when you do talk to an organization representative you should express your real interest in the work. Preferred applicants are those who would like to study fisheries and explore the industry as a career option.
Compensation for Temporary Employees
Unfortunately, many operations have begun to experience budget cuts, but that doesn’t mean that good-paying jobs are not available. Entry-level seasonal workers can expect to earn Alaska’s minimum wage ($9.75/hour as of January 1, 2016). Overtime pay at time-and-a-half is becoming rare. Returning workers usually begin their second season often get a base pay increase. We asked one hatchery director about overtime and he said, “Look at it this way, you will get paid for every hour you work.” Plan on working at least 40 hours per week for a month or two.
Benefits of aquaculture jobs can be numerous, particularly if you are assigned to work at one of the many remote-site locations. First of all, there’s usually no place to spend what you earn. These remote hatcheries are usually located near a river and close to the ocean in very scenic settings. Often, workers have to be flown in by float plane or brought to the location by boat. Once at the facility, employees are given a shared room in a small bunkhouse or in a large semi-permanent tent. Your daily meals are provided for free and served at a cafeteria by an on-site cook; expect good food, but nothing fancy. Typically, your co-workers will be a biologist, one or two fish culturists, and 10-12 seasonal crew members from all over the country.
If you work for a hatchery located in or near a city, you shouldn’t expect free room or board, but rate of pay and working conditions will be similar.
Please note that pay and benefits may vary slightly from one organization to another. | <urn:uuid:d00bc47c-ee7a-4430-946b-72c144353e7f> | CC-MAIN-2017-09 | http://www.jobmonkey.com/alaska/other_fisheries_jobs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-09/segments/1487501170380.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20170219104610-00237-ip-10-171-10-108.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961299 | 1,621 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Warning to the readers
TAG: archaeoacoustics, hypogeum, Cividale, resonance, ultrasounds, infrasounds, SBRG, SB Research Group, Paolo Debertolis, Valter Maestra
After careful analysis on the recordings made in the last months, some members of SBRG have started a new season of acoustic analysis of the Cividale del Friuli hypogeum.
This consists of various underground spaces below the surface, carved out of the conglomerate with different levels and branches. Its shape looks very rough to a careless eye, but in reality despite the alterations over the centuries, the builders made full use of the shape of the rooms to take advantage of the resonance phenomenon, obtained during prayers mystic songs.
Fig. 1 - Map of the hypogeum of Cividale del Friuli
The underground could have been derived from a natural cavity along the right rocky riverbank of the Natisone river. Aside from the fanciful interpretations mixed with legends, it was hypothesized that during the Celtic age, the Hypogeum was used as a depository for funerary urns, however other researchers believed it was used as a prison during the Roman or Lombard period.
On the other hand, there are three big and disturbing masks carved on its walls in the style of the Celtic tradition, similar to the remains of sculptures found in Celtic graves in France known as têtes coupées. So the niches carved out by other hands along the route are perfectly dry, possibly used at a later date as a mortuary. In respect of the other chambers they are wet so would have been unsuitable for use as a mortuary.
It is assumed that even some of the hypogeum rooms functioned as tanks with water and rites of uncertain origin. However, the true function and origin of this underground structure, which is unique in Friuli, remains a historic mystery. We can be certain that the underground had been remodeled in successive periods, however all the other hypotheses have not been supported by evidence.
The structure is represented by a central higher chamber, which is reached from the surface through a steep ladder that descends in depth. At the beginning of this ladder, you can find the only window that gives you the access to the riverbank of the Natisone, the rest of the structure is totally underground. Three corridors depart from the central chamber, with niches and seats of various heights. Many niches appear to have been dug with a pick and refer to later periods.
Fig. 2 - The stairs leading to the central room (chamber A of the map)
The focus of our research group on this archaeological site was drawn from the theories about the function of this place by Valter Maestra, an independent researcher and historian of ancient civilizations. He drew a parallel with similar existing caves found in Peru, which were used to officiate rites of prayer to Mother Earth. According to this hypothesis, the hypogeum would have the same function as the caves found in Peru, with the aim of contacting the esoteric underworld.
The assumption seemed to us undoubtedly striking and, in parallel with research in archaeo-acoustics recently conducted in the South of England from SBRG. We are aware the resonance phenomenon has been detected in the Maltese underground temples by other researchers, so we wanted to test in the same way this structure.
Fig. 3 - Chamber B of Cividale del Friuli hypogeum has a different shape than C and D chambers. Therefore it is likely it was adjusted in subsequent periods or had another purpose
A few months after the beginning of the research, we have been able to detect the presence of the resonance effect in two chambers C and D (see map), these maintain the original form retaining an arched shape along the top. There is also a small truss on the end wall which seems to have been specially built to tune up the room for a male voice singing or praying.
Fig. 4 - The entrance to chamber C which seems to have retained the original shape and has demonstrated the presence of a conspicuous effect of resonance
Fig. 5 - The logarithmic plot of the effect of resonance in C chamber. The hump between 30KHz and 90KHz is due to increased sensitivity of the Sennheiser microphones at these frequencies, but there is not anomaly in this. No ultrasounds have been found in the Cividale hypogeum so far
The male voice is absolutely necessary to stimulate the resonance phenomenon as the two chambers are tuned to 94 and 102Hz. On several occasions we used a female voice, including a female mezzo-soprano voice however the resonance effect was not reached because below 150Hz it is wholly insufficient to stimulate the structure.
Fig. 6 - The recording devices placed at the entrance of the room C
Fig. 7 - The unilluminated bottom of D chamber with highlighted in red microphones positioned for recording
Fig. 8 - Our collaborator, Dolores Dreosti, who sung using her mezzo-soprano voice for sound analysis of D chamber
The recordings were made with the usual archaeo-acoustics technical protocol of SBRG. Digital Recorder Tascam DR-680 programmed for a 192kHz sampling rate and Sennheiser MKH 3020 microphones, equipped with shielded cables Mogami Gold Edition XLR and gold-plated connectors.
Fig. 9 - The extremely flat response of Sennheiser MKH 3020 microphones with a greater sensitivity in the field of ultrasounds
The experiment took place on various days over the last months and different singers were used to search for the right frequencies for the resonance phenomena. The tracks were examined with two programs for sound analysis: Praat program version 4.2.1 from the University of Toronto and Audacity open-source program version 2.0.2, both for Windows PC.
Fig. 10 - Top: the harmonious appearance of the graph from chamber D, with a male voice stimulating the resonance at 102Hz. Bottom: the detectable graph of D chamber when the voice is female. The dominant feature is around 198Hz, the hole in the low frequency range between 20Hz up to 200Hz is clearly shown in the graph
The resonance sound response is a range of sound that starts from infrasonic up to the frequency of 102Hz for D chamber or 94Hz for C chamber (the tuning by a male voice to create the resonant effect). This is particularly evident when comparing this graph with the graph of the female voice in which a hole appears in the same range of audible frequencies.
Fig. 11 - Chamber E located below the access ladder, had no resonant effect. It is possible this was dug in a later period as its shape is completely different from the other rooms
Fig. 12 - The researchers who participated in the experiment of May 14, 2013
We will publish as soon as possible the final results in an international scientific journal.
Paolo Debertolis – May 19, 2013
This is an original studio file collected in the hypogeum on 13th of May, 2013. It is recommended to listen ONLY through high-fidelity stereo headphones with a wide range of low frequencies, otherwise you can not hear just a little the resonance phenomenon. The file is not altered, but only compressed into .mp3 format because the original file in .wav format with 192kHz sampling rate has more than 200 Megabytes. This file takes about 2 minutes to listen in silence. To download the file (for personal use only and not for distribution) please click here.
A sincere thank you from the SBRG research group to the owners of Cividale del Friuli hypogeum for their helpfulness and kindness in yielding even at night their ancient monument for our experiments. Heartfelt thanks also to Mr. Federico, who patiently gave us the keys of the hypogeum to our researches at all hours of the day.
Translated by Nina Earl | <urn:uuid:ac919e6e-9ade-4a8a-a576-55d675f16f05> | CC-MAIN-2016-36 | http://www.sbresearchgroup.eu/index.php/en/notizie-in-inglese/168-preliminary-results-of-our-research-in-archaeoacoustics-in-cividale-del-friuli-hypogeum-italy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-36/segments/1471982946797.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20160823200906-00215-ip-10-153-172-175.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955929 | 1,651 | 2.9375 | 3 |
image credit: Jim Gordon (Creative Commons); image source; larger image.
The Mystery of the Racing Rocks
What could cause rocks like this--of various sizes--to slide across the desert of Death Valley and leave these long tracks? The force of the wind... the force of moving ice sheets? To find out about these possibilities, visit The Mystery of the Racing Rocks.
Also check out The Sliding Tracks of Racetrack Playa for other explanations and more images.
(This feature was updated on 1/24/2013.)
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Investigation 4 - Erosion
Try Investigation 4 - Erosion for a hands-on simulation of erosion to learn how wind and water change the land. For more information and photographs, see this Kansas State University webpage. | <urn:uuid:bce9f09c-736e-4b0a-9d9d-e5eb871b5dc9> | CC-MAIN-2016-22 | http://www.compadre.org/informal/index.cfm?Issue=100 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-22/segments/1464051151584.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20160524005231-00197-ip-10-185-217-139.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.858806 | 165 | 3.328125 | 3 |
An historic agreement signed in 1973 which obliges artic states to protect their polar bear populations, is forcing countries to take action against climate change to prevent further degradation of polar bear habitats.
The plight of the polar bear has been brought to public attention over the recent decades by the work of organisations such as WWF , who have encouraged people to adopt or sponsor polar bears, and also campaign on the issue.
Now the WWF are urging countries to take action. A meeting has been scheduled at which Canada, Russia, USA, Greenland/Denmark, and Norway will have representatives present. It is the first meeting of the Contracting Parties to the agreement, and WWF are saying that they must take radical steps to halt the effects of climate change as they meet in Tromso, Norway from 17-19 March.
New research from the US Geological Survey and the World Conservation Union reveals that between 13,000 and 16,000 polar bears – that’s two-thirds of the total global population – will be lost in the next 50 years unless the effects of climate change are halted. Artic sea ice, the polar bear’s main habitat, is melting at an alarming rate, and scientists predict the summer sea ice may disappear entirely between 2013 and 2040.
Speaking to MSNBC news, WWF polar bear coordinator Geoff York said: “It is widely accepted that we need to keep the global temperature increase below 2 degrees in order to avoid irreversible climate change. The most important action we can take to help preserve polar bears is to slow the rate of climate change, and ultimately to stop it so that their habitat does not entirely disappear.” | <urn:uuid:7137f5e7-aeba-4050-8161-05b4491afdcd> | CC-MAIN-2017-09 | http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/print/8975 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-09/segments/1487501171781.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20170219104611-00469-ip-10-171-10-108.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949354 | 332 | 3.625 | 4 |
Every neuroscience textbook mentions one very famous patient who was identified by his initials, H.M., up until his death in 2008. Recently, the brain of the most studied amnesic patient in the history of neuroscience, Henry Molaison, has undergone a detailed postmortem analysis that will provide histological and digital 3D insight into a case that profoundly shaped our understanding of human memory.
Molaison blew open the doors of modern neuroscience in 1953 when he had brain surgery at the age of 27 to reduce severe epileptic fits. No one at the time knew that surgically removing certain regions of his brain would result in an inability to remember daily events or recognize hospital staff that took care of him throughout the day. Doctors were perplexed that his personality, language ability, and perceptual skills remained unchanged despite an inability to store information in his long-term memory. His IQ even remained above average 10 months after the operation.
Neuropsychologists, such as Brenda Milner of McGill University, came to understand that Molaison’s near-total amnesia stemmed from removing a region of the brain that’s now understood to be crucial for memory formation, the medial temporal lobe. “The purity and severity of H.M.’s memory impairment, combined with his willingness to participate in testing, made his case study uniquely influential in the field of memory research,” explained University of California San Diego neuroanatomist, Jacapo Annese, and colleagues in a study published in Nature Communications.
In the journal, the researchers report the results of dissecting Molaison’s brain into 2,401 thinner-than-paper slices that were each captured as a digital image before being cryogenically preserved in serial order. The images have been archived and used to create a 3D model of the entire brain, which provides an unprecedentedly detailed atlas of Molaison’s brain and the surgery that affected his memory the way it did. “Our goal was to create a detailed three-dimensional … model of the whole brain from high-resolution anatomical images so that we could revisit, by virtual dissection, [the] surgical procedure and localize the anatomical borders of the lesion in the temporal lobe,” Annese and colleagues explained.
Indeed, this detailed analysis revealed for the first time that part of the so-called orbitofrontal cortex, which is a brain region that’s involved with decision-making, had a small lesion that Annese suspects was inflicted when the original surgery occurred. This insight might be one of many to come thanks to archived series of brain images being of a much higher-resolution than the non-invasive MRI scans that were previously conducted on Molaison. Perhaps, the archive might further explain the nuances of his inability to remember having an exchange with a person he had a proficient conversation with minutes earlier yet still be able to learn a new motor task.
Overall, the authors concluded, “The archive of images will … constitute a permanent digital trace for the case that defined two generations of memory research and that will likely remain as emblematic for neuroscience in the future as it is today.”
Source: Annese J, Schenker-Ahmed N M, Bartsch H, et al. Postmortem examination of patient H.M.’s brain based on histological sectioning and difital 3D reconstruction. Nat Commun. 2014. | <urn:uuid:983ca627-f402-4f17-ad0f-0a6266683d2e> | CC-MAIN-2016-07 | http://www.medicaldaily.com/3d-brain-model-most-studied-amnesiac-henry-molaison-provides-insight-human-memory-268093 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-07/segments/1454701156448.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20160205193916-00006-ip-10-236-182-209.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963751 | 710 | 3.28125 | 3 |
Natural Scoliosis Care Avoids Surgery or Braces
Scoliosis is well-known, but often not well-understood. Essentially, scoliosis is any sideways curvature of the spine: looked at from the side, the spine has a normal S-shaped curve from front to back, but from the back the spine should appear straight. A lateral curve is abnormal and a sign of scoliosis, which can have serious health consequences besides affecting appearance and posture. Early detection is important, and so is finding a natural solution that avoids uncomfortable scoliosis braces and dangerous scoliosis surgery. Read on to learn more.
The cause of scoliosis is often unknown (referred to as “idiopathic scoliosis“), though some cases may be congenital since scoliosis tends to run in families. Although scoliosis usually appears between the ages of 5 and 15, it probably begins earlier and is not detected until a growth spurt makes the curvature more noticeable. Spinal injury from the birth process, leg-length discrepancies, birth defects or genetic factors that have not yet been identified may all be related to scoliosis.
No one knows why girls are more likely to develop scoliosis than boys, but they seem to suffer from scoliosis at a rate at least twice that for boys. And adults can have scoliosis as well: most adult scoliosis is actually idiopathic or congenital scoliosis that went unnoticed or untreated in their adolescence, but some have a type of scoliosis referred to as degenerative scoliosis, which is likely related to osteoarthritis of the spine. Regardless of the scoliosis cause, something can be done to help.
Noticing scoliosis symptoms early is the key to preventing scoliosis from worsening. Signs to look for include:
- One shoulder higher than the other
- One hip higher than the other
- Shoulder blade protruding more on one side
- Uneven waistline
- Uneven shoe wear
- Clothes fitting unevenly
- Leaning to one side
Pain in the legs or back, along with fatigue, are often present – but these are normally disregarded as normal growing pains. If the curve continues to develop, the spine can also become twisted, causing the ribs on one side to become more prominent. In severe cases, scoliosis can also interfere with breathing and other organ functions.
Even if the curvature is not severe enough to affect a child’s general health, it is often a source of embarrassment and results in diminished self-esteem. Even a slight curvature can make a child’s clothes fit improperly or give her posture a decided lean, which can become magnified in the child’s mind and play havoc with her developing body image. A natural approach to scoliosis can help restore your child’s confidence.
Scoliosis treatment varies. Depending on the degree of curvature and the patient’s age, one of three options is generally recommended: do nothing (in cases of mild curvature), wear a scoliosis brace (for mild to moderate curvature when the child is still growing), or undergo scoliosis surgery (in moderate to severe cases).
If the child is nearly done growing and the curve is quite mild, it’s unlikely that it will progress further. But if he or she is still growing, the curve will likely worsen with each subsequent growth spurt. In the “do nothing” scenario, frequent X-rays are typically recommended to make sure the curve is not progressing. Repeated exposure to X-ray radiation is linked to many types of cancers.
Although today’s braces are made of molded polymer materials and worn under the clothes, unlike the bulky metal contraptions of the past, they are still uncomfortable (after all, they’re keeping the spine from moving in the direction it wants to move) and must be worn day and night. And even though they are minimally noticeable, kids believe that “everyone can tell, ” which further compounds their self-esteem problems.
Surgery involves “fusing” vertebrae of the spine together. Metal rods, wires or screws are used to hold the spine in place while the vertebrae are joining, and then are left in the body to hold the spine straight and prevent further curvature. Besides the risks inherent in any invasive procedure, fusing vertebrae together can result in other back problems in the future.
A fourth option is available for treating scoliosis, and it’s totally non-invasive, safe and doesn’t involve braces. Find out more about it here.
A Natural Approach to Scoliosis
Obviously, you want to do whatever’s necessary to protect your child’s health – and you want to help him or her develop a positive body image and good self-esteem. Fortunately, these goals are not mutually exclusive: you can do something about the scoliosis, without resorting to risky surgery or embarrassing braces. Chiropractic has had excellent success with scoliosis, and it’s safe, 100% natural and non-invasive.
You may have tried chiropractic yourself, but never realized it could work for scoliosis. Or you may be new to the idea of chiropractic. Either way, you’ll be happy to learn that chiropractic is safe for your child – even for newborns – and works with the body gently to restore proper alignment, rather than forcing the spine to straighten using steel rods. The application of precise chiropractic adjustments helps restore the spine’s natural alignment, helping the relevant muscles to strengthen and the posture to improve. Results vary and obviously cannot be guaranteed, but stopping the progression of scoliosis curvature and even eliminating the existing curvature are common results with chiropractic!
Chiropractic is a highly regulated, licensed health care field requiring advanced degrees as well as continuing education. Thanks to the following factors, chiropractic is the premier method of alternative health care in the world:
- It’s safe for patients of all ages: newborn to elderly
- It has no side effects or interaction issues
- It works with the body’s own healing abilities
- It’s effective!
And chiropractic is most likely offered by your insurance provider!
Don’t let your child’s scoliosis progress – call a ChooseNatural.com sponsoring chiropractor today to set up a consultation. The doctor will make you and your child feel comfortable, chatting about what’s going on in your child’s life as well as what you’ve both noticed about the scoliosis symptoms. Then he or she will examine your child thoroughly and explain the findings to you, answering any questions along the way and outlining the strategy for approaching your child’s scoliosis. Finally, specific chiropractic adjustments will be applied with the goal of restoring the spine’s normal structure and function.
Our ChooseNatural.com chiropractors are compassionate, caring professionals who understand your concern for your child – as well as your child’s own concerns – and there’s bound to be one near your home, work or school! Don’t wait another day to take action to find out what can be done about your child’s scoliosis.
Click here for a Choose Natural sponsor in your area.
Many people wonder if the backpacks kids carry can cause scoliosis. While there is no conclusive evidence to support this, the fact is that backpacks are dangerous to the development of your child’s spine and musculature. Tightened security measures have prompted many schools to eliminate lockers, forcing children to tote all of their schoolbooks around all day. Follow these backpack safety guidelines to reduce the risk of injury:
|What features are important?||The backpack should have two wide, padded shoulder straps, a waist strap and a padded back. It should be as light as possible to carry the intended load.|
|How should backpacks be worn?||Kids often sling a pack over one shoulder; this is one of the worst things they can do, as it forces the spine into a C-curve. Always wear the pack over both shoulders. The straps should be tightened so that the pack is close to the body and sits about 2″ above the waist. If they’re too loose, the weight of the pack will pull the child backwards, straining the back and the shoulders. The waist strap should be used, as it helps distribute the weight more evenly. And the loaded pack should never weigh more than 10 – 15% of the child’s body weight.|
|What if my child’s books weigh too much?||Try a rolling pack. Rolling packs are similar to rolling luggage in that they roll on wheels while being steered by an attached handle. Rolling packs often have optional straps, so the child can carry the pack when the load is not too great. Even if your child’s load is not excessive, a rolling back is a safer alternative.| | <urn:uuid:d15a7a02-992e-4079-873d-e55bceaa8dde> | CC-MAIN-2017-13 | http://www.choosenatural.com/scoliosis/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-13/segments/1490218189686.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20170322212949-00548-ip-10-233-31-227.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945287 | 1,914 | 3.40625 | 3 |
History of Psychology. Chapter 12 :Gestalt Psychology. 1. The Whole is Different From the Sum of Its Parts. A. The Gestalt revolution 1. in Germany 2. a protest against Wundtian psychology B. Criticisms of Wundt’s approach 1. against elementism
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Chapter 12 :Gestalt Psychology
3. However, the whole is different from the sum of its parts
1. Qualities of experience can not be explained as combination of elementary sensations
2. Perceptions based on something greater than a merging of individual sensations
3. Wertheimer considered von Ehrenfels' work the crucial antecedentAntecedent Influences onGestalt Psychology
B. Organizing principles don’t depend on higher mental processes or past experiences | <urn:uuid:b3837cfc-9e24-4c65-a5d0-256ddec1940b> | CC-MAIN-2018-30 | https://www.slideserve.com/jacob/history-of-psychology | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-30/segments/1531676589902.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20180717203423-20180717223423-00351.warc.gz | en | 0.891447 | 231 | 3.4375 | 3 |
People with Type 2 diabetes are often advised to eat a calorie-controlled diet broken down into five or six small meals over the course of the day. But now a small new study from researchers in the Czech Republic suggests that eating those calories in two large meals each day may be better for controlling blood glucose levels and weight. Roughly 600,000 people in the Czech Republic and 25 million people in the United States have Type 2 diabetes.
Studies in animals have indicated that reducing the frequency of meals may extend lifespan and reduce the risk of chronic diseases, and observational trials in humans have suggested that eating more than three times a day may play a role in overweight and obesity. To clarify the relationship between eating frequency and glucose control and weight in people with Type 2 diabetes, researchers recruited 54 people (29 men and 25 women) to test the effects of two dietary regimens. The participants were all between 30 and 70 years old, overweight or obese, and being treated with oral diabetes medicines; their A1C levels (a measure of glucose control over the previous 2–3 months) ranged from 6% to 11.8%.
The study subjects were randomly assigned to one of two meal plans, one consisting of six small meals a day and the other consisting of two large meals (breakfast and lunch) a day. Both diets had the same nutrient and calorie content (on average, about 1700 calories a day — roughly 500 calories less than the daily recommended amount). All of the participants followed their assigned diet for 12 weeks, then switched to the alternate diet. Various health markers, including liver fat content, beta-cell function (the function of the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas), and insulin sensitivity, were measured during the course of the study.
At the conclusion of the study period, the researchers found that weight, liver fat content, fasting plasma glucose, and C-peptide levels (an indicator of insulin production) had decreased in both groups, but to a greater extent in those following the two-meal regimen. Additionally, levels of fasting plasma glucagon (a hormone that promotes glucose secretion by the liver) had fallen in those eating two meals a day but increased in those eating six meals a day.
“Mostly it has been recommended for people with Type 2 diabetes to eat five or six small meals a day, but in Western societies at least, it turns out that snacks are not healthy, they are high in sugar and fat. So a regimen of frequent eating hasn’t resulted in better control,” noted lead study author Hana Kahleová, MD.
In an interview with Medscape Medical News, the researchers suggested that the practical takeaway of the findings is that “three meals a day is enough; breakfast should be the largest meal of the day, and dinner may be light.”
“The old saying, ‘Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and [dinner] like a pauper’ may indeed hold true,” observed Kahleová.
Because the trial involved only 54 people, larger, longer-term studies are needed to confirm the findings, the researchers note.
For more information, read the article “Breakfast Like a King: 2 Large Meals Benefit Diabetes” or see the study in the journal Diabetologia. And to learn more about maintaining blood glucose control, read “Managing Your Blood Glucose Ups and Downs” by pharmacist Stacy Griffin and certified diabetes educator Diane Ballard. | <urn:uuid:ad18197f-a65d-4d6d-8b10-44c0bd3a5aa2> | CC-MAIN-2021-49 | https://www.diabetesselfmanagement.com/blog/two-large-meals-better-for-blood-sugar-control/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-49/segments/1637964359082.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20211130232232-20211201022232-00547.warc.gz | en | 0.957571 | 724 | 3.265625 | 3 |
Daniel Chester French, N.A.
The Concord Minuteman of 1775
The Concord Minuteman of 1775 and The Lincoln Memorial are two of the great icons of the American experience. Created by Daniel Chester French, N.A. (1850-1931), the original studio plasters of these sculptures would have to be considered among the most historically important pieces in American art and culture.
In 1873-75 French created his first acknowledged masterpiece, The Concord Minuteman of 1775, as an original, and unique, larger than life size, bronze statue that was unveiled on April 14, 1875 at Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts. Having captured the nobility of this symbol of patriotism and the American War for Independence, the farmer who left his plow behind and took up arms to create democracy in America, French forever more was established as one of America’s leading sculptors. In the fervor of the Centennial, it became a part of the iconography of the Republic. Measuring 33 1/2 inches high, the second version of this famous subject was commissioned by the town fathers of Concord in 1889 for the deck of the gunboat, U.S.S. Concord. The first bronze was placed aboard on February 14, 1891.
The Lincoln Memorial maquette is the first conception of this sculpture, created by French in 1915. It was presented to the Presidentially-created Lincoln Memorial Commission to gain the approval and commission of the U.S. Congress for The Lincoln Memorial. All the subsequent stages of the project, including the finished Memorial itself, are adaptations of this original work of art. Please see the attached photograph of French posing with the plaster maquette in front of a larger model. The 20 foot marble statue was formally given to the United States Government on August 9, 1920 and dedicated to the American people on May 30, 1922.
The Concord Minuteman of 1775 – ca. 1889, 33 ½ inches high, bronze, inscribed on the front at base “The Concord Minuteman of 1775” and on the rear at base “Cast From Original Plaster Model FP” and on the right side at base “D.C. French Sc.”
The Lincoln Memorial Maquette – ca. 1915, 10 inches high, bronze, inscribed on the reverse “D.C. French, June 1915” and on the left side at the base “Cast FR Sculptor’s Plaster Maquette F/P”
Existing bronze sculpture castings were produced by the plaster owner from these two original plasters and the molds that he had made in the late 20th Century – six (6) bronzes of The Concord Minuteman of 1775, and thirteen (13) bronzes of The Lincoln Memorial maquette.
For more information and prices, please contact +1 (505) 954-9500. | <urn:uuid:a631880a-5c69-4bd2-8066-ede69408e7cc> | CC-MAIN-2018-17 | http://webster-enterprises.com/webster-collection/the-collection-2/fine-art/sculpture/daniel-chester-french/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-17/segments/1524125947803.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20180425115743-20180425135743-00073.warc.gz | en | 0.95873 | 609 | 2.78125 | 3 |
The Calathea [kăl′ə-thē′ə] “Beauty Star” is a lovely herbaceous perennial flower aptly named due to its attractive foliage.
You may hear Beauty Star referred to as:
- Prayer plant
- Peacock plant
- Zebra plant
The Beauty Star is just one cultivar of Calathea ornata, a species of house plants popular for their striped leaves. Calathea is part of the Marantaceae family, an arrowroot species made up of 530 species of flowers falling into 31 genera.
Calathea plants are native to the lush tropical forests of Brazil in South America. Throughout the US and other non-tropical countries, many nurseries and greenhouses sell Beauty star cultivars as an indoor house plant.
The genus name Calathea comes from the Latin word ‘calathus,’ which translates to a basket. Many natives in the Amazon use Calathea leaves to weave baskets, thatch roofs, and sometimes medicinal purposes.
Calathea Beauty Star Care
Now that you know all the statistical and descriptive information for the Beauty Star, let’s take some time to cover the essential tips you need to know to provide the appropriate care.
Growth and Size
The Calatheas Beauty Star grows between 6” and 36” (3”) high and 6” to 24” (2”) to 26” in width. The plant widens by producing offshoots under the soil.
The leaves of these plants fold up, resembling the process of praying, inspiring the species’ nickname, prayer-plants. In the daytime, the leaves bow down, which allows the leaves to soak up the light. And they move slightly to follow the direction of the sun.
Flowering and Fragrance
The Beauty Star gets its name from its attractive appearance. These plants produce upright, long, narrow leaves that are a glorious dark green shade. Along the leaf’s center, there are light green highlights.
But the stunning effects of the Beauty Star come from the vivid stripes along the leaves’ tops, which can be white, pink, or silver. The underside of Calathea leaves will be a dark, rich purple.
When growing in the wild, these plants produce flowers but they rarely flower when grown in pots indoors. And although beautiful, the Beauty Star does not have a fragrance.
Temperature and Light
Although the Beauty Star is a tropical plant, it cannot tolerate direct sunlight; it needs medium or bright indirect lighting. Constant exposure to the sun’s rays can cause the leaves to bleach out and lose their stripes.
These plants do best indoors in a North-facing window, positioned zero to one foot away. For East to West-facing windows, the plant should be one to five feet away. With Southern windows, place the pot one to ten feet from the glass.
The rays from South-facing windows are the strongest, so you’ll want your plants further back and preferably have trees outside the window to block some of the light.
You’ll also need to control the room’s temperature, keeping it around 60°F to 85°F (between 16°C to 30°C) with high humidity. A sign that the room isn’t humid enough is the tips of your Calathea leaves turn brown.
Adding a room humidifier is a great way to increase humidity for houseplants along with regular misting with a spray bottle.
Feeding and Watering
Beauty stars have complex watering needs – you can’t let the soil dry out between waterings, but they also don’t tolerate extended periods of soaked roots. You have to keep the soil moist.
Experimentation and soil testing are the best ways to figure out your plant’s watering needs and routine. Each plant may differ. You can use a moisture meter, or you can insert your finger two inches into the soil. If it feels damp, don’t water. If you don’t notice any moisture, add some water.
Calatheas should grow in a pot with drainage holes that allow the water to drain from the plant after each watering. You can also use a bottom-watering technique.
Avoid using tap water, which contains harsh minerals. Distilled water works best, but you can also use filtered or rainwater.
Details on the Special Calathea Watering Requirements.
You can use a 10-10-10 NPK (Nitrogen/Phosphorus/Potassium) all-purpose fertilizer monthly during spring and summer (April through October). But be sure not to overfertilize, as it can cause irreparable damage.
Soil & Transplanting
Beauty stars do best in commercial potting soil like African violets or using one part perlite and two parts peat. You can also substitute one part peat with compost. In place of perlite, you can use coco coir, coarse sand, or orchid bark.
Calathea plants do best in soil with a pH between 6.1 and 7.8. Start with a neutral pH around 6.6 to 7.3, and then change the pH as needed, depending on your plant’s growth. Optimal ranges are around 6.5 pH.
Maintenance and Grooming
Beauty Star plants need regular grooming and maintenance to thrive. The leaves do best with a gentle wipe down using a damp, clean cloth to prevent dust from building on the leaves.
Remove yellow or brown leaves, to keep the plant healthy and stay attractive. Regularly mist the leaves around the entire plant to ensure all the leaves retain their moisture and humidity.
Learn more about the most popular Calathea Varieties
How To Propagate Calathea Beauty Star
You can use root divisions for the propagation of Calathea plants. To separate the roots, you pull them apart gently. When you examine the roots, you’ll see the areas best for separating. Place each new piece into a separate pot.
Check out this article for more on How To Propagate Calathea.
Calathea Beauty Star Pests or Diseases
The Beauty Star is a common target for household pests like aphids, mealybugs, slugs, fungus gnats, spider mites, and scale insects.
This species is hardy enough to be resistant to most plant diseases. Weak, young, or malnourished plants may fall victim to diseases like pseudomonas blight, alternaria leaf spot, pseudomonas leaf spot, root rot, cucumber mosaic virus, fusarium, and helminthosporium leaf spot. | <urn:uuid:b4cbdbda-7415-43a4-9cf9-0f8cd8d172eb> | CC-MAIN-2022-49 | https://todayheadline.co/calathea-beauty-star-care-growing-beauty-star-calatheas/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446710218.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20221127073607-20221127103607-00153.warc.gz | en | 0.897954 | 1,405 | 2.75 | 3 |
In a different approach to creating white light several researchers at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Sandia National Laboratories have developed the first solid-state white light-emitting device using quantum dots. In the future, the use of quantum dots as light-emitting phosphors may represent a major application of nanotechnology.
‘Understanding the physics of luminescence at the nanoscale and applying this knowledge to develop quantum dot-based light sources is the focus of this work,’ says Lauren Rohwer, principal investigator. ‘Highly efficient, low-cost quantum dot-based lighting would represent a revolution in lighting technology through nanoscience.’
The approach is based on encapsulating semiconductor quantum dots and engineering their surfaces so they efficiently emit visible light when excited by near-ultraviolet (UV) light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The quantum dots strongly absorb light in the near UV range and re-emit visible light that has its colour determined by both their size and surface chemistry.
This nanophosphor-based device is quite different from an alternative approach based upon growth of blue, green, and red emitting semiconductor materials that requires careful mixing of the those primary colours to produce white illumination. Efficiently extracting all three colours in such a device requires costly chip designs, which likely cannot compete with conventional fluorescent lighting but can be attractive for more specialised lighting applications.
Rohwer and the quantum dot team – Jess Wilcoxon, Stephen Woessner, Billie Abrams, Steven Thoma, and Arturo Sanchez – started on the project two-and-a-half years ago. Subsequently, their research has advanced significantly, including recently reaching a major milestone of creating white and blue lighting devices using encapsulated quantum dots.
‘This accomplishment brings quantum dot technology from the laboratory demonstration phase to a packaged component,’ Rohwer says.
LEDs for solid-state lighting typically emit in the near UV to the blue part of the spectrum, around 380-420 nanometers. Conventional phosphors used in fluorescent lighting are not ideal for solid state lighting because they have poor absorption for these energies. So researchers worldwide have been investigating other chemical compounds for their suitability as phosphors for solid state lighting.
Quantum dots represent a new approach. The nanometer-size quantum dots are synthesised in a solvent containing surfactants as stabilisers. The small size of the quantum dots – much smaller than the wavelength of visible light – eliminates all light scattering and the associated optical losses. Optical backscattering losses using larger conventional phosphors reduce the package efficiency by as much as 50 percent.
Nanophosphors based upon quantum dots have two significant advantages over the use of conventional bulk phosphor powders. First, while the optical properties of conventional bulk phosphor powders are determined solely by the phosphor’s chemical composition, in quantum dots the optical properties such as light absorbance are determined by the size of the dot. Changing the size produces dramatic changes in colour. The small dot size also means that, typically, over 70 percent of the atoms are at surface sites so that chemical changes at these sites allow tuning of the light-emitting properties of the dots, permitting the emission of multiple colours from a single size dot.
‘This provides two additional ways to tune the optical properties in addition to chemical composition of the quantum dot material itself,’ Wilcoxon says.
For the quantum dots to be used for lighting, they need to be encapsulated, usually in epoxy or silicone.
‘Doing this we had to take care not to alter the surface chemistry of the quantum dots in transition from solvent to encapsulant,’ says Thoma, who worked on the encapsulation portion of the project.
Quantum dot phosphors are integrated with a commercial LED chip that emits in the near ultraviolet at 400 nanometers by encapsulating the chip with a dot-filled epoxy, creating a dome. The quantum dots in the dome absorb the invisible 400 nanometer light from the LED and reemit it in the visible region – a principle similar to that used in fluorescent lighting.
However, a key technical issue in the encapsulation process had to be solved first. When altering the environment of the dots from a solvent to an encapsulant, the quantum dots would ‘clump up’ or agglomerate, causing them to lose their light-emitting properties. By attaching the quantum dots to the ‘backbone’ of the encapsulating polymer they are close, but not touching. This allows for an increase in efficiency from 10-20 percent to an amazing 60 percent, Thoma says.
To date, the Sandia’s quantum dot devices have largely been composed of cadmium sulphide. Cadmium is a toxic heavy metal similar to lead so alternative nanophosphor materials are desired. Fortunately, quantum dot phosphors can also be made from other types of materials, including non-toxic nanosize silicon or germanium semiconductors with light-emitting ions like manganese on the quantum dot surface.
‘Silicon, which is abundant, cheap, and non-toxic, would be an ideal material,’ says Woessner. ‘The scientific insights gained through the team’s success with cadmium sulphide quantum dots will enable this next step in nanophosphor development.’
In the next year the researchers will increase the concentration of the quantum dots in the encapsulant to obtain further increases in light output while extending the understanding of quantum dot electronic interactions at high concentrations. | <urn:uuid:63e32bf3-265d-44e7-bd73-531199886336> | CC-MAIN-2021-21 | https://www.theengineer.co.uk/quantum-dots-illuminate-solid-state-lighting/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-21/segments/1620243989693.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20210512100748-20210512130748-00233.warc.gz | en | 0.920905 | 1,167 | 3.4375 | 3 |
by Swami Krishnananda
Until now, we have been passing through the foundational doctrine of the Upanishads – namely, the nature of the Ultimate Reality. What is there, finally? In several ways we have been told that whatever is there, finally, can be only a single Reality and it cannot be more than one. This concept was corroborated by a famous mantra that I quoted from the Rig Veda Samhita – ekam sat: "Existence is one only." The Ultimate Being is Existence. Being and Existence mean the same thing. That which exists cannot be more than one.
Everything has to exist, in some form or the other. Trees exist, stones exist, you exist, I exist, mountains exist, stars exist – all things exist. Existence is a common factor underlying every modification thereof as name and form. Whatever be the variety that is perceivable, all this variety is, at its root, an existence of something. Something has to exist, whatever that something be. The Real cannot be non-existent, because even the concept of non-existence would be impossible unless it is related to the existence of the concept itself. So the Upanishads say: "This Existence is supreme, complete, universal, all-pervading, the only Being." Because It is all-pervading and filling all space, very large in its extent, it is called Brahman. That which fills, That which swells, That which expands, That which is everywhere and is all things – That is the plenum, the completeness, the fullness of Reality; and That is called Brahman in the Sanskrit language. Brahma-vid apnoti param (Tait. 2.1.1), says the Taittiriya Upanishad: "Whoever realises this Brahman attains to the Supreme Felicity." It is so because of the fact that when anyone contacts Pure Existence, that contact is equal to the contact of all things. It is like touching the very bottom of the sea of Reality. Hence, Brahman is All-Existence. The knowing of it is of paramount importance.
The Upanishads highlight various ways and means of attaining this Supreme Brahman. The principal method prescribed is direct inward communion with that Reality. Direct inward communion is called meditation. Deep thought, profound thinking and a fundamental, basic feeling for it – longing for it, and getting oneself convinced about one's non-difference from it because of its being All-Existence – is the great meditational technique of the Upanishads. Inasmuch as this meditation is nothing but the affirmation of the knowledge of the universal existence of Brahman, it is also called jnana, the path of wisdom. The meditation of the Upanishads is the affirmation of the wisdom of the nature of Brahman. Whoever knows this Brahman attains the Supreme Being. Brahma-vid apnoti param, tad eshabhyukta, satyam jnanam anantam brahma (Tait. 2.1.1). How do we define this Brahman? Satyam jnanam anantam: This is the name of the Supreme Being. It is Pure Existence, satyam, Ultimate Truth. It is Omniscience, All-Knowledge, so it is called jnanam. It is everywhere, infinite; therefore, it is called anantam. What is Brahman? Satyam jnanam anantam brahma.
Yo veda nihitam guhayam parame vyoman so'snute sarvan kaman saha brahmana vipascita (Tait. 2.1.1). This is an oracle in the second section of the Taittiriya Upanishad which gives us the secret of the final attainment of bliss and freedom. This satyam jnanam anantam brahma, this Supreme Truth-Knowledge-Bliss-Infinity is, of course, as has been mentioned before, everywhere. It is also hidden deeply in the cave of your own heart – nihitam guhayam. Guha is the cave, the deepest recess of your own being. That is verily this Ultimate Being. You have to be very cautious in not allowing this thought to slip out at any time – namely, your deepest recess of existence cannot be outside the deepest recess of the cosmos. The all-encompassing nature of Brahman also envelops your basic being.
When this universal Brahman is conceived as the deepest reality of an individual, it is called the Atman – the essential Self of anything. It is the essential Self and not the physical, not the mental, not even the causal sheath of your personality; all of these, as you know very well, get negated in another condition of your being – namely, deep sleep. The analysis of deep sleep is a master key to open the gates of the secret of your own existence. Neither the body, nor the mind, nor this so-called ignorant sheath can be considered as your own reality. Blissful sleep cannot be a condition of ignorance, because the experience of bliss has to go together with a kind of consciousness of that experience. This essential Being of yours indicates the character of the Universal Reality also. It is a sense of freedom and bliss that you enjoy when you come in contact with It. Do you not feel free and happy when you go into a state of deep sleep? Can the freedom and the happiness of sleep be compared with any other pleasure of this world? Even a king who cannot sleep for days together would ask for the boon of being able to sleep for some days, rather than having a vast, material kingdom. To go into your own Self is the best achievement, the highest attainment, whereas to go outside yourself, however far beyond you may go, is that much the worse for you. Knowledge of the Self is knowledge of the Absolute. Atma-jnana is also Brahma-jnana. The knowledge of the deepest in you is also the knowledge of the essential secret of the universe. So, whoever knows that supreme satyam jnanam anantam, Truth-Knowledge-Infinity, as hidden in the cave of one's own heart, directly comes in contact with that satyam jnanam anantam brahma. Simultaneously, you begin to feel a bliss of contact with all things. Saha brahmana vipascita so'nute sarvan kaman: "All desires get fulfilled there in an instant."
In this world, to fulfil different desires, you have to employ different means. There, a single means is enough to give you the happiness of everything – not one thing after the other, successively, but simultaneously, instantaneously. In your current state, if you have one pleasure, you cannot have another pleasure at the same time, and if you want to have a third kind of pleasure, the first two must go. Thus, you cannot have varieties of pleasure at the same time because of the conditioning factor introduced by the sense organs in such experience. Your senses do not give you simultaneous knowledge of anything. When one thing is happening, another thing is forgotten. But in the contact of Brahman, there is simultaneous knowledge of all things. At one stroke everything is known, and everything is enjoyed also. It is impossible for us mortals, thinking through the sense organs and through this body, to imagine what it could be to enjoy all things at the same time.
It is not merely possessing a kingdom; that also may look like a happiness which is sudden and simultaneous. A king who is the ruler of this whole world may imagine that he has simultaneous happiness of the entire kingdom of the earth. "The entire earth is mine," the king may feel. But the entire earth stands outside the king. The experiencing consciousness of the king does not hold under his grip or possession this vast earth that he considers as the means of his satisfaction. So the king's happiness is a futile, imaginary pleasure; really, he does not possess the world. The world stands outside. If the object of experience stands outside the experience, the experience cannot be regarded as complete. Unless the object of experience enters into you and becomes part and parcel of your own existence, you will not be able to enjoy that object. All objects cause anxiety in the mind because they stand outside the experiencing consciousness. Even if you have a heap of gold in the grip of your palm, it cannot cause you happiness. It will only cause anxieties of different types – such as how to keep it, how to use it, how to protect it, how not to lose it, and how to see that it is not leading you to bereavement. The possessor of gold and silver is filled with anxieties, and that person cannot sleep well. Even a king cannot sleep well because of the fear of attack from sources that are external to him. To be secure under conditions which are totally external to yourself is hard, indeed, to imagine.
Brahman experience is not an object of contact; it is an identity. The object is the experiencing consciousness itself. The content of awareness becomes the awareness; existence and consciousness merge into each other. Sat becomes chit, chit becomes sat. It is not actually one thing becoming another thing; the one thing is the other thing. Existence is nothing but the consciousness of existence. When you say that you exist, you are at the same time affirming that you are conscious that you exist. You are not merely existing, minus the consciousness of existence. It is not an appendage that is added on to existence in the form of consciousness. Consciousness is not a quality or an attribute of existence, like the greenness of a leaf or the redness of a flower – nothing of the kind. You cannot consider consciousness to be connected to existence; it is existence. Actually, existence-consciousness means consciousness which is – or existence which is aware of its existence. In that state, which is called Brahman-knowledge or Brahman-experience, there is simultaneous experience of all things. There is all-existence, a simultaneous knowledge of all things – omniscience, a simultaneous taneous enjoyment of all things, and perfect freedom. It is perfect freedom because there is nothing to obstruct your freedom in that state. Here, in this world, whatever freedom you may have is limited by the existence of other things in this world. Your freedom is limited by the freedom of another person and, therefore, your freedom is limited to that extent. You cannot have unlimited freedom in this world. But That (Brahman) is unlimited freedom. It is unlimited because anantam brahma: "Infinite is Brahman."
Now you have, as students of this great doctrine of the Upanishads, questions of various types: "What is this world? We understand what you are saying. Now, what is this world that we are seeing in front of us? How are we to reconcile this perceived world with that Great Thing that you are speaking of?" The cosmological scheme that follows in the very same Upanishad after this statement about the absoluteness of Brahman gives us a brief idea as to how we have to set in harmony the nature of this perceived world with the eternal existence of Brahman.
Tasmat va etasmat atmana akasas sambhutah (Tait. 2.1.1): "From this Universal Atman, space emanated" – as it were. This is something hard for us to conceive at the present moment. Space is actually the negation of the infinity of Brahman. Infinity does not mean extension or dimension – but space is extension, dimension, distance. So, immediately a contradiction is introduced at the very beginning of the concept of creation. God is negated, as it were, for various reasons, the moment creation is conceived, one reason being that the creation appears as an external manifestation, whereas God – Brahman – is the Universal Existence. We know the difference between universality and externality. The moment there is the concept of space, there is also automatically introduced into it the concept of time. We cannot separate space and time. Duration and extension go together. Actually, according to modern findings at least, space and time are not dead appearances, lifeless presentations before us. For us, to our common perception, spatial extension may look like a lifeless dimension which does not speak, which does not think, which has nothing to say. Time also seems to be some kind of movement which has no brain to think; it is like a machine moving like a bulldozer in some direction. This is what we may think with our paltry, inadequate knowledge of what space and time are. Space and time are not dead things; they are basic vibrations of the cosmos. Motion goes together with space-time. Not only according to modern scientific terminology, but also in the ancient thought of the Agama and Tantra, one may say that the concept of space-time goes together with motion, force.
A tremendous vibration, an uncanny force is generated the moment there is the beginning of what we call creation. It is a central point that begins to vibrate – bindu, as it is called in the Agama Shastra. Bindu is a point. It is not a point which is geometrical, which has a nucleus; it is a cosmic point, a centre which is everywhere with a circumference nowhere, as people generally say. It is a point that is everywhere, which is inconceivable to ordinary thought. It is a tremendous vibratory centre. Modern astronomy also seems to be hinging on this point when it concludes there was a 'big bang' when creation took place – a splitting of the cosmic atom. The atom should not be considered as a little particle; it is a cosmic centre. The entire space-time arrangement is one point, like an egg – brahmanda, as it is called. A globular structure is easy to conceive, and so we call it an 'anda', a kind of egg – a cosmic egg. Tadandam abhavat haimam sahasramsh samaprabham (Manu 1.9) says the Manusmriti: "Even millions of suns cannot be equal in brilliance to that cosmic spot." Therefore, it is not a point as we can geometrically imagine. It is an inconceivable point.
The Universal cannot be thought by the mind and, therefore, that cosmic point also cannot be really thought of. Astronomers call it the cosmic atom. But the word 'atom' has such peculiar suggestiveness to our thinking mind that often we are likely to slip into the thought of it being a little, small thing. The smallness and the bigness question does not arise there. In that condition, we cannot say what is small and what is big. "Who is a tall man?" If I ask you this, whom will you bring? "Bring a short man." These are all relative terms. In comparison with a tall man, someone may look short, etc. So there is no such thing as a tall man or a short man, a long shirt or a short shirt; they are comparative words. So, too, we cannot say what kind of atom it was. Therefore, they call it brahmanda; and it split, we are told, into two halves. What kind of halves they are is not very clear. The subject and the object, can we say? The Cosmic Subject and the Cosmic Object can be two halves of the cosmic egg – or we may say it is the Cosmic Awareness meeting with the Cosmic Object, which is material in its nature. The materiality of the object follows automatically from its segregation from the perceiving consciousness. The concept of matter also has to be very carefully noted. Here, in this condition, 'matter' actually means a hard stone or granite or a brick; it is also a vibration. The Samkhya definition of prakriti, in its highest condition, is not in the form of a solid object but a vibratory condition of a tripartite nature – sattva, rajas and tamas. Certain Upanishads analogically tell us that these two halves of the cosmic egg are something like the two halves of a split pea. The pea is one whole, but it has two halves.
Everything in the world has a subjective side and an objective side. I conceive of myself as a subject and, for some other reason, I also conceive of myself as an object. The impact that is produced upon me by conditions that are not me may make me feel that I am an object, but the impact that I produce on the external conditions may make me feel that I am a subject. That which exists outside my perceiving consciousness may make me conceive of myself as a subject of perception, but the presence of such an object for itself will appear as an object. This dualism, cosmically introduced at the very beginning of things, is the subject of all the religious doctrines of creation, wherever one may go in this world. God created the world, somehow. This 'somehow' brings in this peculiarity of the externalisation of God's Universality. "The Supreme Purusha sacrificed Himself as this cosmos," says the Purusha Sukta. The supreme alienation of the Universal into the supreme externality is called creation. God alienated Himself, as it were, in the form of this large, vast, perceived world. He has become this vast world. I mentioned to you previously the difficulty arising out of using such words as 'becoming', 'transforming', etc. I will not go into that subject once again. These words have to be understood in their proper connotation and signification.
Tasmat va etasmat atmana akasas sambhutah (Tait. 2.1.1): This fundamental cosmic space-time-motion, or vibration, became more and more gross in the form of wind – vayu. Actually, the word 'vayu' used here should not be taken in the sense of what we breathe through the nostrils. It is, again, a vibration of a vital nature, which we call prana. An energy manifested itself; cosmic energy emanated, as it were, from this basic vibratory centre which is the space-time-motion complex, to put it in a modern, intelligible style. The solidification, condensation and more and more externalisation of the preceding one in the succeeding stage is actually the process of the coming of what is called the elements. From space, or akasha, arose vayu; from vayu, or air, came friction – heat, or fire; from there came the liquefied form, water; and then came the solid form of the earth.
Tasmad va etasmad atmana akasa sambhutah, akasad vayuh, vayor agnih, agner apah, adbhyah prthivi, prthivya osadhayah (Tait. 2.1.1): "All vegetation started from the earth." Osadhibhyo annam: The diet that we consume is nothing but the vegetation growing on earth. Annat purushah: Our personality is an adumbration, solidification, concretisation, clarification – whatever we may call it – of the food that we eat. In the personality of the human being we find in a miniature form all that has come cosmically down to the earth, right from the Supreme Brahman – satyam jnanam anantam brahma. So the universe is called brahmanda and the individual is called pindanda. The macrocosm is the universe, and the microcosm, or the individual, is a cross-section of the macrocosm. All that is in the universe you will find in yourself. You are a miniature of creation. If you know yourself, you know the whole world. This is why it is said, "Know thyself and be free." Nobody says "Go outside and know things." It will not serve your purpose. Know yourself and all things are known, because you are the nearest thing that can be contacted and the nearest thing containing all things that are the furthest and the remotest. Therefore, the Ultimate Reality is also called the nearest and the furthest. Tad dure tad vad antike (Isa 5): "Very far is It" – in terms of the spatio-temporal expanse of creation; "Very near is It" – as the Self of your own existence.
The miniature individual, as I mentioned, has all the layers of the universe. These are the physicality of the lowest earth, the vibratory form of the prana, the mental creation or the mentation, the power of thought, which is reflected in the process of creation from the Ultimate Being Itself, and a peculiar negation that we experience in our own self in the form of the ultimate causality of sleep, which is comparable to the negation that was referred to just now in the form of the manifestation of space-time-motion. This individualised microcosmic representation of the cosmic layers is seen individually as a series of what is called the koshas, or the coverings of the consciousness in us. We may, in a way, say the whole universe is a covering up over Brahman.
The cosmic sheaths can be conceived, and they are really conceived many a time when we speak of Brahman becoming Ishvara, Ishvara becoming Hiranyagarbha, Hiranyagarbha becoming Virat, and so on. These sheaths in us – the physical, vital, mental, intellectual and causal – are the inverted forms of the otherwise-vertical, we may say, forms of the cosmic sheaths which are in the form of the five elements – earth, water, fire, air and ether, going upwards from below. The Ultimate satyam jnanam anantam is negated, as it were, in this creation, because the Universal being is absent in all that is external. The word 'external' contradicts anything that can be considered as universal. In a way, God is denied in this world. We cannot see God anywhere; we see only particulars and spread-out things which are external in nature. Nevertheless, as the Isavasya Upanishad warns us, the so-called negated, abolished existence of the Supreme Reality is also hiddenly present as the Atman behind the earth, the Atman behind water, fire, air and ether. There is an Atman even behind space and time. Various degrees of the manifestation of universality can be seen in the operation of the five elements. The Universal is least manifest in the earth, more manifest in water, still more in fire, still more in air and still more in space, so that space looks almost universal, but yet it is not universal because it is externalised.
In a similar manner, in our own personality also, there is a degree of the manifestation of externality and materiality. The physical body is the most material and the most external, visible thing among other things. Very hard substance is this physical body and very external; we can see it with the eyes. The internal externalities are not so easily contactable, but yet are conceivable and observable through analysis. The so-called physicality and externality of the body is made to feel its existence, its very life itself, by the movement of a vibration inside, called prana shakti. When the prana operates through the cells of the body, we feel that the body is alive; every little fingertip, every toe is alive. It is alive, so-called, because of the prana pervading every part of the body. If the prana is withdrawn, there is paralytic stroke or even death of that particular part. If the prana is entirely withdrawn, the so-called living body becomes a corpse. It becomes dead matter – matter per se.
So our individuality, as a symbol of conscious existence, is a contribution; it comes from the prana, the vital energy that is operating within this body. But the prana is operating because of the thoughts of the mind. We can direct the prana, or the energy, in different directions by the concentration of thought of the mind. If the mind thinks only of one particular thing, the pranic energy is directed to that particular thing only. Little children look beautiful because of the equal distribution of pranic energy in their bodies. They do not have sensory desires projected through any particular organ. As the child grows and grows, he becomes less beautiful to look at because the senses begin to appropriate much of the pranic energy for their own individual operation. The senses become more and more active when we grow into adults or old men. But a little child is beautiful. Whether it is a king's child or a beggar's child, one cannot make a distinction; little children are so nice!
Therefore, the prana enlivens this body, but is itself conditioned by the thoughts of the mind, and the mind is a name that we give to an indeterminate way of thinking. "Something is there." When we feel that something is there, but we do not actually know what is there, we are just indeterminately thinking. But when we are sure that something of a specific type is there – "Oh, I see. It is a tree. It is a lamppost. It is a human being" – this determined identification of the nature of a thing which was indeterminately thought by the mind is the work of the intellect, reason, or buddhi, as it is called. These layers are very clear now: the physical, the vital, the mental and the intellectual.
There is another thing that is totally indeterminate, and that is the condition of our experiences in deep sleep. It is a potential of all future experience and a repository of all past experiences. It clouds consciousness to such an extent that in deep sleep, when it is preponderating, we cannot even think. Thus, in this individuality of ours, in this microcosm that we are, there is a miniature representation of the cosmic creative process. As the peels of the onion constitute the onion, so these sheaths constitute our personality and even the cosmic creative process.
This is, briefly, what I can tell you about the essential teaching of one of the sections of the Taittiriya Upanishad, which tells us three things. The first teaching is that the Ultimate Reality is Existence-Knowledge-Bliss, and it is hidden in the cave of the heart of every individual – knowing which, one becomes all things and enjoys perfect freedom and bliss. The second teaching is that all things that we call the universal manifestation emanate from this Supreme Being only. The third teaching is that we, as individuals, are also part and parcel of this creation and we have in us a miniature representation of everything that is manifest cosmically. For the time being, this is enough for you as far as the Taittiriya Upanishad is concerned.
The Mandukya Upanishad goes deeper into this teaching of the Taittiriya Upanishad by an analysis of the states of consciousness that seem to be involved in the categorisation of the sheaths. The involvement of the basic Atman-consciousness in us, in the sheaths – gradationally – becomes experience, which is waking, dreaming and deep sleep – jagrat, swapna andsushupti. | <urn:uuid:d0050fb7-dc18-4ad0-8c3c-5cea48c916c3> | CC-MAIN-2013-48 | http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/upanishad/upan_06.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-48/segments/1386163037568/warc/CC-MAIN-20131204131717-00073-ip-10-33-133-15.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955726 | 5,731 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Baby hears for the first time – level 3
It’s enough to bring tears to any eye – this is the moment a baby hears his mother’s voice for the first time. Little Elijah Cook smiled when he heard his mum’s voice after he was fitted with his very first pair of hearing aids, aged nine weeks.
The touching moment was uploaded by his mother onto YouTube and has since become a viral sensation clocking up over a million views.
Elijah was born on the 2nd January and failed all his newborn hearing tests. He was then referred to a special program at a children’s hospital in Minneapolis and fitted with hearing aids.
Since having his aid fitted, Elijah has been cooing regularly at his family. This, of course, has been music to his mother’s ears.
Difficult words: fit (install/fix something into place), hearing aid (a thing in the ear which helps people hear), touching (to make you feel something), viral (spreading fast), sensation (something very popular), clock up (to reach a particular number), coo (to make small sounds), music to a person’s ears (it sounds very nice to that person).
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- Answer the question under today’s news and write the answer in the comments. | <urn:uuid:e947003c-97d4-47b1-b2ba-420a92f450d2> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/baby-hears-for-the-first-time-level-3/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233506528.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20230923194908-20230923224908-00718.warc.gz | en | 0.97112 | 453 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Whether the motive is profit (cyber crime and cyberespionage), making a statement (cybernuisance), or national interest (cyberwarfare), hackers have multiple types of cyber security threats at their disposal.
While there are many unique threats, organizations often fall victim to one of several common threat types. Here is a list of what many experts consider the most common threats and what you can do to prevent or mitigate the threat.
|Malware and Bots|
- Ransomware is the number one method of malware attack. It works by encrypting your data, holding it hostage for payment.
- Socially engineered malware tricks users into downloading the malware by accident, for example by clicking on a rogue website or downloading what seems to be free software.
- Malware can also be used to attack computer networks and websites in a botnet attack. Compromised systems are then used to overwhelm the organization’s resources, preventing access and use in a distributed denial of service.
- Most ransomware attacks result in encrypted files that are virtually impossible to decrypt, so the best defense against ransomware is a backup. It’s also critical that you periodically test your backup and restore processes to ensure they will work if needed.
- Socially engineered malware can be combatted with user education and ongoing awareness programs. Teach employees what such an attack looks like so they can avoid the risk.
|Phishing and Spear Phishing Attacks|
- Phishing attacks are usually comprised of a malicious email attachment or an email with an embedded, malicious link. Spear phishing refers to the process of sending emails ostensibly from a known or trusted sender to induce targeted individuals to reveal confidential information.
- Phishing emails often use a sense of urgency, feature a slew of grammatical and spelling errors, and ask for personal or credit information or logon credentials.
- User education is the best defense against phishing attacks. Education efforts should be ongoing in order to ensure employees are aware of the latest scams. One way to do this is through periodic phishing simulations to test awareness and provide additional coaching for those who take the bait.
- Organizations should also limit Admin rights to those who need this elevated access.
- As a countermeasure to attacks that target logon credentials, organizations should use two-factor authentication (2FA) methods to move beyond a simple name and password combination that can be easily hacked.
|Social Media Threats|
- Social media threats usually arrive as a rogue friend or application install request. Accepting such a request can translate into access to your social media account. Corporate hackers love exploiting corporate social media accounts for the embarrassment factor to glean passwords that might be shared between the social media site and the corporate network.
- Educate users about the types of potential social media threats, the danger of sharing corporate passwords, and the importance of reporting hijacked social media accounts in a timely manner.
|Advanced Persistent Threats|
- To thwart APT attacks, organizations should ensure they understand the legitimate network traffic patterns and can alert on unexpected traffic flows. By tracking flows, you can identify proper traffic patterns and intervene in the cases of abnormal patterns.
- Among 874 incidents, as reported by companies to the Ponemon Institute for its 2016 Cost of Data Breach Study, 568 were caused by employee or contractor negligence; 85 by outsiders using stolen credentials; and 191 by malicious employees and criminals.
- Many types of attacks – such as phishing scams – prey on the negligent insider. Insiders often inadvertently open the door to phishing emails that can do either immediate damage or linger in the form of an advanced persistent threat.
- The malicious insider can take advantage of access to corporate secrets, customer information, and more – selling this information on the DarkNet.
- Ongoing user education is the best defense against the negligent insider.
- To battle malicious insiders, organizations should use monitoring software to listen for suspicious activity such as large file downloads, file attachments sent to personal email accounts, login activity at odd hours, and access to data beyond that required for a worker’s job.
The Future of Work and Security: 5 Predictions for 2018
Information Security Trends for 2017 and 2018 | <urn:uuid:540b9253-e0df-4768-81d0-389b821f599d> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://itsecuritycentral.teramind.co/2017/11/14/types-of-cyber-security-threats-and-what-you-can-do-about-them/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371805747.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20200407183818-20200407214318-00439.warc.gz | en | 0.916085 | 860 | 2.875 | 3 |
Place – Rann of kutch | State – Gujarat | Country – India
Gujarat Tourism | Gujarat Tourist Places | Gujarat Travel Guide
Rann of kutch Tourism | Rann of kutch Tourist Places | Rann of kutch Travel Guide
About Rann of kutch
In the Thar desert of the Kutch district of Gujarat, India, the Grand Rann of Kutch is a salt marsh. It is about 7,500 km2 and is considered to be one of the world’s biggest salt deserts. The Kutchi people lived in this area.
The Rann of Kutch is found primarily in the indigenous state of Gujarat and is named after Kutch district. Any sections go to the Sindh province of Pakistan. The term “salt marsh” means Rann.
The Rann of Kutch extends over 26,000 km2 (10,000 square miles). The bigger portion of the Rann is the Great Rann of Kutch. It ranges east and west, to the north the Thar Desert and to the south the low mountains. In southern Pakistan, the Indus River Delta lies to the west. South east of the Great Rann, the Little Rann of Kutch stretches south to the Gulf of Kutch.
The Luni, Bhuki, Bharud, Nara, Kharod, Banas, Saraswati, Rupen, Bambhan, and Makhu are the major rivers that flow from Rajasthan and Gujarat into the Rann of Kuth. At the Western end of the Great Rann is situated Kori Creek and Sir Creek, tidal creeks that are part of the Delta of the Indus River.
The region is usually flat and very near to the sea level. During monsoon, much of the Rann floods every year. There are sandy highlands called bets or medaks, two to three meters higher than the flood. Trees and shrubs increase on the bets and establish wildlife refuges during yearly floods
The Rann of Kutch is a remarkable place to visit Gujarat. It is also known as the Great Rann of Kutch. Most of it is a greatest salt desert in the world, covering about 10,000 km2 (3,800 square miles). More incredible is that during India’s biggest monsoon season, the salt desert is submerged. This is a massive stretch of packed white salt for the remaining eight months of the year. Here’s all you need to come.
The huge, dry span of the Great Rann of Kutch is on the top of the Kutch district, north of the Tropic of Krebrown Cancer (you’ll pass and see the sign). The border between India and Pakistan forms the northern frontier.
The best way to the Great Rann is through Bhuj. Dhordo was built by the Gujarat government as the gateway to the Rann, about an hour and a half north of Bhuj. The salt desert’s edge is Dhordo.
Best Time to Visit Rann of Kutch
In October every year, the Rann starts to dry up and continuously transforms into the bleak and unreal desert of salt. Towards March is the tourist season. Near to the end of March lodging and don’t reopen until November. In March you will be in the tourist season in order to escape the crowd and experience more comfortably. But in April and May, during a day trip from Bhuj, you can still visit the salt desert. But during the day, it’s really sunny. In addition, there is a shortage of basic tourism facilities (food, water and toilets). However, you’ll get a lot of the salt desert for yourself!
Only in the early morning or evening is it best to go out into the desert, or else the salt will shut up. You will take a camel safari in the desert with moonlight. The full moon is the most enchanting time of the month.
Permits for Visiting the Rann of Kutch
Due to its proximity to the Pakistani border, the Rann of Kutch is a vulnerable region. A permit to enter the salt desert is also mandatory. This is done on the way to the village of Bhirandiyara (famous for mawa, milk sweet), about 55 kilometers from Bhuj. For an adult, it costs 100 rupees, for a small child six to 12 years of age 50 rupees, for an automobile 25 rupees and for a vehicle 50 rupees. A photocopy of your ID and the original are needed. Remember that the checkpoint will only be opened late at 11 a.m. and not during the off-season. Indian residents can now procure permits online here, as an option.
At the entrance to the salt desert at the Army Checkpoint about 45 minutes after Bhirandiyara village, you must apply the authorization.
Where to Stay
Staying in Dhordo or near Hodka is most comfortable.
Gateway to the Rann Resort in Dhordo is the most common choice. It consists of characteristic, traditionalement handmade Kutchi bhungas (mud huts). Tariffs begin at 4,500 rupees per night for double air-conditioning.
Tourist accommodation is also built in Gujarat, the Toran Rann Resort, in front of the military checkpoint in the salt desert entrance. This resort is nearer the desert, but it’s not especially picturesque. Accommodations in Bhunga are 4,500 to 5,500 rupees per night plus tax. Included are breakfast and dinner.
Shaam-e-Sarhad (Sunset on the Border) Village Resort in Hodka is another suggested choice. The resort belongs to local people and is governed. You are permitted to stay in green mud tents or traditional bhungas (3,400 rupees per night for doubles, including food) (4,800 rupees per night for a double, including meals). Both toilets and running water have been fastened, but only buckets provide hot water. There are also cottages for couples. A highlight are trips to local artist cities.
The Rann Utsav
The Rann Ustav Festival, which starts in early November, lasting to the end of February, is held in Gujarat Tourism. Near the Gateway of the Rann Resort in Dhordo a tent city with hundreds of luxurious tents, food and crafts stalls are built for the visitors. Tours to nearby attractions are included in the package price. Camel card trips, ATV rides, para-engine games, rifle shooting and amusement areas for children, spas and cultural events were included in the activities offered. Unfortunately, in recent years the festival has been increasingly sold, contributing to contamination and waste in the city.
Other Ways to See the Rann of Kutch
Kalo Dungar (Black Hill) provides panoramic views from 463 meters above the sea level if you want to see Kutch’s Rann from a particular viewpoint. This is the highest point in Kutch and the Pakistani border is visible all the way across. The village of Khavda, 25 km away and some 70km (44 miles) from Bhuj, accessible via Kalo Dungar. In this village there are craftsmen, including ajrakh block printing from Pakistan who specialize in block printing. The easiest way to take your own transport is to rarely take public transport. Another beautiful view of the Rann of Kutch is the Old Fort Lakhpat (140 km from Bhuj).
How to Reach Rann of Kutch
By Air :
Daily flights connect Kutch Airport in Bhuj with the rest of the world. You can easily reach your destination by bus or taxi from the airport.
By Rail :
Your best bet is to get to Kutch through the railway station in Bhuj. You could conveniently hire taxis while in Bhuj or board a bus.
By Road :
State transport and private bus services from most of Gujarat’s major cities and some even from Rajasthan to Kutch are available. You can also rent taxis easily. You can also drive and use national road 8A to enter Kutch as the best route you can take.
Places to Visit in Gujarat, Tourist Places in Gujarat, Sightseeing and Attractions in Gujarat
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Fort Canning Gate
The Gate of Fort Canning and the adjoining wall is all that remains of a fort which was built on the hill between 1859 and 1861. In 1867, the fort had seven 68 pound guns, eight 8 inch guns, two 13 inch mortars and several 14 pounder cannonades.
Fort Canning is a small hill in the southeast portion of Singapore, within the Central Business District. The hill was known as Bukit Larangan prior to the arrival of Stamford Raffles in 1819, which means "Forbidden Hill" in Malay. The local settlers back then believed it was the site of palaces built by their ancestral kings. The Keramat Iskandar Shah at the foot of the hill was believed to be the resting place of the last Malay king of the island.
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Rose Ausländer was born 11 May 1901, and died 3 January 1988.
Rose Ausländer Quotes
- Be who you are. / Give what you have.
- Behind my cheerfulness / breathes the grief / Behind the grief / stands my amazement / beyond cheerfulness and grief / and beyond all / what was / what is and / what will be.
- My Fatherland is dead / they have buried it / in fire / I live / in my Motherland / Word.
Rose Ausländer was a Jewish German and English language poet. She spent part of World War II in the ghetto of Czernowitz. She was given American citizenship in 1948. After the trauma of persecution, she wrote in English and only resumed writing in German in 1956. She is the author of Hints.
Source for Image
Please click here for our Literary Birthday Calendar | <urn:uuid:38fa3b76-2ba6-4f66-8ddd-04431df46351> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://www.writerswrite.co.za/literary-birthday-11-may-rose-auslander/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320304261.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20220123111431-20220123141431-00150.warc.gz | en | 0.940107 | 185 | 2.640625 | 3 |
How and why humans punish is a fascinating behavioral question, and a vital one in as punishment-happy a society as the United States. Even though we tend to see punishment as meted out by the state, it’s the result of individual choices — whether it’s jurors deciding to convict someone or voters voting for tough-on-crime politicians who then push for harsher sentences. A new brain-imaging study in Nature Neuroscience adds a couple of interesting building blocks to our emerging understanding of the neuroscience of human punishment.
For the study, the researched analyzed the brains of 30 volunteers as they were "read a series of brief scenarios that described how the actions of a protagonist named John brought harm to either Steve or Mary," as the press release puts it. Two aspects of the story were switched up for experimental purposes: First, in some versions the harm done to Steve or Mary was described in a particularly gruesome manner, while in others it was related in a straightforward way. Second, in some versions it was made clear that John was fully at fault for the action in question, while in others the story read like it was an accident. The participants were then asked how much they would punish John for what he had done.
There are two noteworthy findings here: First, the more graphically the carnage was described, the greater the punishment. That means that, in theory, the same judge might give Defendant A more prison time than Defendant B, even if the crimes are identical, simply because of the existence of photos or video of the crime in question. (Defense attorneys, take note.)
Except, that is, when it’s clear the harm was accidental: "[T]his higher punishment level only applied when the participants considered the resulting harm to be intentional. When they considered it to be unintentional, the way it was described didn’t have any effect."
I’ve written before about how the brain isn’t monolithic — it’s got a lot of moving parts, some of which occasionally override or clash with one another. So while it’s certainly an oversimplification of the cognitive processes at work here, I sort of like the idea of a "higher court" in your brain telling its "lower courts" not to get too worked up over some gruesome imagery: "Dude, I know — it’s horrible what happened. But we can’t go overboard on this, because it was clearly an accident."
Read more posts by Jesse Singal | <urn:uuid:83e2d010-2668-4406-bdce-879e0ce3877d> | CC-MAIN-2017-17 | https://ttmna.wordpress.com/2014/08/04/this-is-your-brain-on-punishment/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917120001.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031200-00256-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968807 | 512 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Specificity is king, and it should be at the front and center of any legitimate training discussion.
When it comes to training, we all want to be efficient in order to maximize our time. The most important concept in training is specificity. While it can be a tongue twister of a word, it will help enhance performance in your desired discipline.
Specificity is the act of training your body in a way that is specific to your demands. For athletes just starting out, it’s important to know that running makes you a better runner, cycling makes you a better cyclist, and climbing makes you a better climber. While there is a time and place for cross-training, performing your discipline is what will make you the best version of yourself.
It is critical that every athlete look at their sport in a way that identifies the demands that will be placed on their body. As you dive deeper into your sport, it then becomes necessary to understand the demands needed to excel in your field. For example, while running will make both a sprinter and marathoner better, they will have different training plans due to their specific needs. Once this understanding takes place, each athlete can begin to fine tune their training.
One of the best questions you can ask yourself is, how long is my event? Determining the length of your event will identify what energy system you will be targeting. Train the right system and you will be building performance. Train the wrong system and you may be wasting your time.
Once you have determined the primary energy system of your event, you have a great starting point on what you need to maximize. It is also important to know that while sprinters need to be great at sprinting, they can’t only sprint all year. There are other foundational blocks to their training that will ultimately help their ability to sprint when the time is right. This is where the concept of periodization comes into play. While we want sprinters to be at their best for key events, it is best to utilize other training principles along the way to build their sprint even higher.
Here are a few examples of athletes and the demands they must train for.
The last piece to the puzzle is the competition environment. Is the competition at sea level or altitude? Is the average temperature for the competition hot, mild, or cold? Does the finish of the cycling race finish with a climb or sprint? Is the rock wall limestone or sandstone? All of these factors are specific and can be focused on during training to help maximize your results. The more time you take as an athlete to understand what is needed from your body, the more informed you can be when designing your training plan.
Ultimately, you need to be performing your sport to get better at it. While it would be great if you could become the best runner in the world by rowing, this isn’t how the body operates. The body needs to learn how to produce energy and power within specific movements. By understanding the demands your sport places on you and training to maximize you abilities, you will become a better athlete faster. Here at COROS we want to help you explore perfection. Train appropriately and go crush your next event! | <urn:uuid:fabf10a6-9b5b-4103-b209-a30f80885f14> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://coroscom.wpcomstaging.com/specificity-your-guide-to-peak-performance/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233505362.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20230921073711-20230921103711-00635.warc.gz | en | 0.964808 | 653 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Good gamblers and other studies
The scientific world does not need to prove the manifestations of excitement in representatives of the species homo sapiens. A person himself proves his addiction to gambling in practice, losing millions of dollars. But what is the attitude to gambling in the rest of the animal world?
A very interesting study was conducted at the max Planck Institute for psycholinguistics. In the main scientific education of Germany in Berlin tested for the ability to play monkeys. The primates were offered a choice: take a small fruit, which they will get exactly, or try their luck.
The trick was that if the Primate chose the “gambling” option, it would lose the opportunity to get a small fruit. At the same time, knowing that there is a big one, he agreed to pass the tests. Scientists put out three plates, under one of which they hid this largest fruit, mixed the dishes and offered to choose. What was the disappointment of the first monkey, who did not solve the complex combination? After all, she has also lost the very small fruit that she would also have liked to eat.
To make sure that some monkeys, like humans, are subject to excessive excitement, and others are not so much, the researchers complicated the experiment. Now they asked primates who had already passed the test to choose between a small and large fruit 2 times. In the first case, all 3 cups hid a large fruit, in the second case, one of them was turned over.
Thus, the monkeys, mindful of their mistake, did not hesitate to grab the “tit in the hand” if all three cups were upside down. However, when one of the cups was turned over, the monkeys realized that their chances had increased, and they gave up the small fruit in favor of a lottery drawing the big one.
What about animal reactions?
A little later, in Oxford and McGill University, scientists using animal reactions were able to prove that gambling is not always harmful to humans. While some psychiatrists pointed out the importance of losing material and moral values, others pointed to their acquisition during the game. However, not in all cases. The main result of research was the statement that gambling does not increase stress, but on the contrary, removes it.
Who is Kyle Ziller?
Kyle Ziller, a student at the famous Cornell University, recently experimentally proved that winning a large number of hands in poker leads to more losses than winning a smaller number of hands. According to this study, the actual self-esteem after multiple small wins is less profitable than the rare, but accurate participation in the drawings of large banks.
What about loss of concentration?
One of the main factors that influence an unsuccessful online casino game is the constant loss of concentration due to external stimuli. Customers can devote themselves to casino games almost everywhere thanks to modern mobile devices. It has even reached the point that recent research has shown that on average, 10% of the time people spend on the Internet is spent playing online games. Perhaps social networks already have a serious competitor.
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Managing online gambling processes correctly is the most important way to earn a high amount… | <urn:uuid:62f82fc4-a994-4ebb-9195-16d237e2ea04> | CC-MAIN-2020-40 | https://globaltourist.io/good-gamblers-and-other-studies/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-40/segments/1600400221382.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20200924230319-20200925020319-00553.warc.gz | en | 0.969092 | 809 | 2.65625 | 3 |
BY KOMAL SINGH AT LEXCLIQ
Untouchability Needs to be Vanished
If we see the definition of untouchability a somewhat narrow sense would include all instances in which a person was stigmatised as unclean or polluting or inferior because of its origin or membership in a particular group. Where he is subjected to invidious treatment because of difference in religion or membership of a lower caste or different caste.
The caste system in India involves ‘ rank and gradation‘, which makes the rights and privileges of the higher caste, becomes the disabilities of the lower caste particular the untouchables.
The manifestation of caste is based on the notion of purity which goes beyond the physical contact and is applied to a larger set of social norms. The notion of ‘purity and pollution’ are ideas that, despite the spread of Education and advent of modern lifestyle, tends to stick and prey on our religious and social insecurities .
Despite of Constitutional provision for prohibition of untouchability in Article 17, there are many states in India in rural and urban like UP, MP, Bihar, Rajasthan etc where untouchability still exist, which is one of saddest part in 21st Century to know.
This really affects people in complete way as Mental, Physical and Work related Career ways. The youth of our country suffers such discriminatory treatment in their day to day lives by upper caste and even when it comes to their Education they are neglected in rural and urbans. It does not dispair the innocent children which are being treated so neglected that as if its their fault they got birth in such family. Women’s are suffered in their daily basis activities being of lower caste and untouchables by upper caste women which treat badly when it comes to getting water from village Wells or getting household food ingredients as they are being given at last after everyone.
This is high time now that it should be stopped. For this we youth ana everyone being together have to take initiative for prohibition of untouchability from our country India, which is known for its brotherhood, humanity , respect and value for each other in everything. Even Government has to take initiative by creating awareness such as organising workshops, programmes, posters and educate peoples on “fair and equal treatment to all”. | <urn:uuid:a43840b2-f6f6-44c2-8d96-f63a3bc33479> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://lexcliq.com/untouchability-needs-to-be-vanished-by-komal-singh-lexcliq/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030335054.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20220927162620-20220927192620-00676.warc.gz | en | 0.967337 | 471 | 2.9375 | 3 |
My post on Drawing with Kids using the Monart method really seemed to strike a chord. It has been one of my more popular posts lately, both in terms of comments and readership.
The kids and I have continued with the Monart method outlined in Mona Brookes’ book, Drawing with Children, with several small lessons and drawing sessions each week. Sometimes we sit down and do a formal lesson (actually just part of an official lesson since they are rather long—we’re making each stretch out over a week or two) and sometimes we just have a super informal joint drawing session (although elements from the more formal lessons have a way of sneaking in…).
Between the two, there is definitely more of an emphasis on drawing in our house!
Maia and I are now well into lesson 2, but I’m going to backtrack in this post and share the rest of lesson 1 with you as well as answer some of your questions.
I know that some of you are following along with your own kids, and that many of you purchased copies of Drawing with Children since my last post! My plan is to share our experience with the book and provide the tools and inspiration for you to help your kids learn specific drawing skills, if you are interested.
Also, while I’ve decided to start with Mona Brooks’ book, I will incorporate other ideas, methods, exercises, and books throughout.
I want to address one concern that some of you have regarding creativity with the Monart Method.
Some parents are concerned that by teaching specific skills and especially using some of the copying techniques that Mona Brooks suggests, that their children’s creativity will be stunted. I have to admit that this was a concern of mine for a while, as well.
However, after reading and thinking, this is what has swayed me to Mona Brookes’ ideas on drawing with kids:
- Mona asserts in her book that giving children the tools to draw accurately actually gives children the confidence and skills to portray what they see and to share their creative ideas with the world.
- Kids who have these drawing skills are more likely to continue to draw and to do art beyond age 8 (the age that many kids stop drawing because of lack of skills, confidence, and the de-emphasis in schools on art in the later grades).
- It is completely normal for kids to use their accurate drawing skills in one situation yet use symbols and stick figures for quick and creative drawing play. Kids know the difference and one doesn’t interfere with the other.
Each lesson is begun with a warm up exercise that involves drawing the 5 shapes and lines (dots, circles, straight lines, curved lines, and angles) in various combinations and patterns.
And, unlike the first skills level test that involved copying the shape combos exactly, these are very free form and everyone’s version is completely unique and creative!
The warm up drawing exercises go something like this:
- Choose two fine-tipped markers and draw three straight lines on the paper, in any direction, starting and stopping at the edge of the page.
- Choose three broad-tipped markers and draw five dots of any size, with at least two of the dots intersecting lines.
- Choose one broad-tipped marker and draw an angle line starting and ending at the edge of the paper.
- Choose a fine-tipped marker and fill in at least two of the empty spaces with a pattern of straight lines.
Maia and I have been LOVING this part! As has her friend Stella, who joined us for one of the exercises. And even Daphne has really gotten into it.
Once we do a warm up exercise, we segue into one of the drawing lessons. This first one was a simple bird.
Now, the drawing lessons are very step-by-step, which can feel wonderful to someone who doesn’t feel like they have a clue how to draw, or can possibly feel a little stifling to someone who is experienced at drawing and confident in their skills.
I think it’s important to remember the main point of Drawing with Children here, which is to learn:
- Ways to connect specific shapes and lines into a recognizable figure.
- Show a child how to draw something, such as a bird, that they can then replicate so that they “own” that drawing in a way and have the confidence to recreate it.
- Provide the basic steps to draw something that can be built off of and provide the basis for variation.
- As children learn the step-by-step instructions for drawing a few different specific things, I think they’ll start owning the whole process and that the drawing skills for these specific items will start to spill over into other items and areas until they are using those skills to draw anything they like, any way they like.
Maia, who has plenty of self-confidence (usually) and a 7-year-old’s sense of humor, scratched out her first “by the book” bird and decided to create a silly bird with a very long beak, tiny body, a cherry on top, singing “ainty dainty doodle,” and eating a banana, all the while still following the drawing instructions as written.
I don’t think I need to worry about her feeling stifled by drawing instructions any time soon.
My own bird drawing seems somewhat tame in comparison. :)
How about you? Have you tried any of the drawing exercises in Drawing with Children (or another drawing book)? What do you think?
Follow along on the Drawing with Kids series:
- Drawing with Kids using the Monart Method
- Drawing with Kids :: Birds (Monart Method Lesson 1)
- Drawing with Kids :: Lions! (Monart Method Lesson 2)
- Drawing Lessons for Kids with the Monart Method :: Revisited
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The excavation of underground openings generally causes damage to the rock in the vicinity of the openings. The dominant causes of irreversible rock deformations are damage process and plastic flow. Most of the existing elastic-plastic models employed in the analysis and design of rock structures only consider the plastic flow and ignore the full damage process. The common plastic models to simulate the rock failure, does not model the rock realistically and often the important issues such as stiffness degradation, softening, and significant differences in rock response under tensile and compressive loadings are ignored. Therefore, developments of realistic damage models are essential in the design process of rock structures. In this paper, the basic concepts of continuum damage mechanics are outlined. In the definition of rock damage yield function, many authors considered only the tensile microcracking (mode I). Since quasi brittle materials such as rock degrade under shear microcracking (mode Π), separate positive and negative damage yield functions are introduced. The proposed damage yield functions are formulated in the framework of a damage model which was coded in C++ environment and implemented into the commercial code UDEC. Accordingly, the proposed model was applied to the simulation of brittle rocks behavior. The uniaxial compressive testing of a brittle rock was simulated numerically and numerical findings were compared against experimental data and analytical solution. The analysis results show a very good match between numerical, experimental data, and analytical solution especially in the post-elastic region. | <urn:uuid:0d23045e-4d1b-4420-abe0-a9d434875341> | CC-MAIN-2020-34 | https://research.nu.edu.kz/en/publications/an-investigation-of-brittle-rocks-failure-mechanism-based-on-the- | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-34/segments/1596439739046.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20200813132415-20200813162415-00518.warc.gz | en | 0.940062 | 291 | 2.671875 | 3 |
The Polynesians first settled American Samoa and its small group of islands some 3,000 years ago. In 1722 they were discovered by Jacob Roggeveen, a Dutch explorer.
In 1900 it became an unorganized U.S. territory, and in fact, it's today the only U.S. territory located south of the Equator.
While there is a strong American influence in the islands, American Samoans proudly retain their cultural heritage.
The local economy revolves around the long-established fishing industry, U.S. government jobs, and the ever increasing tourism business.
Samoa, a neighboring independent country, shares the same culture, and much of the same history.
As an unorganized U.S. territory, and in fact, the only U.S. territory located south of the Equator, American Samoa's flag is symbolic of that association, as it features the red, white and blue of the U.S. Stars and Stripes, as well as an American bald eagle.
Note: Lengths and widths are point-to-point, straight-line measurements from a Mercator map projection, and will vary some using other map projections
Located in the South Pacific Ocean, American Samoa is made up of 5 main islands, and 2 coral atolls.
These rugged islands (fringed by reefs) have narrow coastal plains, and all are volcanic in origin.
ATTRACTIONS: (a few major)
The beautiful city of Pago Pago (the capital) has a magnificent harbor ringed by densely forested mountains. The outer islands are widely considered some of the most beautiful in the South Pacific.
Tropical conditions throughout the year with two distinct seasons.
During the rainy season (December to April), temps rise to 90 degrees and heavy rainfall on a daily basis is the norm. Hot temperatures are usually moderated by the Pacific Ocean trade winds.
May through November is cooler and drier with highs in the 80s. Evenings are cool and often breezy. | <urn:uuid:76d18ee0-db21-4954-8e4b-e9454a6e3981> | CC-MAIN-2020-34 | https://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/oceania/as.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-34/segments/1596439735963.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20200805153603-20200805183603-00564.warc.gz | en | 0.963987 | 421 | 3.203125 | 3 |
While Texas, Oklahoma’s neighbor to the south, boasted a booming ELL student population of over 700,000, Oklahoma had a more modest tally of 35,300 ELL students in its K-12 public school programs, according to 2007-2008 school year data released by the National Clearinghouse for English Acquisition (NCELA). This number indicates a minimal increase of 6.7 percent for immigrant arrivals compared to the prior decade. The most commonly spoken languages in Oklahoma, after English, are Spanish, Vietnamese, Russian, North American Indian languages, and Chinese.
Job Prospects for Oklahoma ESL Educators
The U.S. Department of Education Office of Postsecondary Education’s Teacher Shortage Areas Nationwide Listing shows that, while Oklahoma has reported shortages of qualified educators in English, Spanish, and Foreign Languages in recent years, it has never (as of 2013) registered having a shortage of ESL or bilingual educators.
However, these statistics are not the full picture of what is happening in Oklahoma education. While immigrant numbers are comparatively low, prompting less demand for ELL programming, the state is experiencing an overall shortage in qualified educators. In response to this issue, the Oklahoma SDE established the Oklahoma Education Workforce Shortage Task Force in 2013. Overall, ESL and bilingual specialists have fewer opportunities in Oklahoma than elsewhere (notably Texas), but the future will bring greater need for general educators as well as for those in the TESOL-related fields of elementary education, language arts, reading, literacy programming, English, and foreign languages.
Where to Look for Oklahoma ESL Teaching Jobs
- Teach Oklahoma is the official SDE website, featuring employment opportunities as well as information about certification and state-approved preparation programs.
- The Oklahoma State School Boards Association maintains a Job Listings Web page with links to openings in the state’s public school districts.
TESOL Teacher Resources in Oklahoma
- OKTESOL, or Oklahoma Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, is comprised of professionals and pre-professionals in ESL, EFL, and bilingual education.
- The Future Teachers Scholarship Program is geared for Oklahoma residents with qualifying GPAs and test scores who are dedicated to working in a teacher shortage area in Oklahoma public schools for three consecutive years.
- Teach Oklahoma provides an overview of state certification requirements and current job openings in Oklahoma’s K-12 public schools.
- OSDE’s Title III-A, Limited English Proficient and Immigrant Web page outlines the department policies and statistics regarding ELLs in its public school systems.
- While it does not have a website, the Oklahoma Association for Bilingual Education maintains a page on Facebook. | <urn:uuid:6380c69e-3924-4025-9c12-6819b8bf90d9> | CC-MAIN-2019-04 | https://www.mastersinesl.org/jobs/oklahoma/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-04/segments/1547583656897.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20190116052151-20190116074151-00148.warc.gz | en | 0.931672 | 552 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Much of the Southern United States was destroyed during the Civil war. Farms and plantations were burned down and their crops destroyed. Also, many people had Confederate money which was now worthless and the local governments were in disarray. The South needed to be rebuilt.
The rebuilding of the South after the Civil War is called the Reconstruction. The Reconstruction lasted from 1865 to 1877. The purpose of the Reconstruction was to help the South become a part of the Union again. Federal troops occupied much of the South during the Reconstruction to insure that laws were followed and that another uprising did not occur.
Broad Street Charleston, South Carolina by Unknown
To Punish the South or Not
Many people wanted the South to be punished for trying to leave the Union. Other people, however, wanted to forgive the South and let the healing of the nation begin.
Lincoln's Plan for Reconstruction
Abraham Lincoln wanted to be lenient to the South and make it easy for southern states to rejoin the Union. He said that any southerner who took an oath to the Union would be given a pardon. He also said that if 10% of the voters in a state supported the Union, then a state could be readmitted. Under Lincoln's plan, any state that was readmitted must make slavery illegal as part of their constitution.
President Lincoln was assassinated at the end of the Civil War, however, and never had the chance to implement his Reconstruction plan. When Andrew Johnson became president, he was from the South and wanted to be even more lenient to the Confederate States than Lincoln. Congress, however, disagreed and began to pass harsher laws for the Southern states.
In an effort to get around laws passed by Congress, many southern states began to pass Black Codes. These were laws that prevented black people from voting, going to school, owning land, and even getting jobs. These laws caused a lot of conflict between the North and the South as they tried to reunite after the Civil War.
New Amendments to the Constitution
To help with the Reconstruction and to protect the rights of all people, three amendments were added to the US Constitution:
13th Amendment - Outlawed slavery
14th Amendment - Said that black people were citizens of the United States and that all people were protected equally by the law.
15th Amendment - Gave all male citizens the right to vote regardless of race.
Rejoining the Union
New governments were formed in the South starting in 1865. The first state to be readmitted to the Union was Tennessee in 1866. The last state was Georgia in 1870. As part of being readmitted to the Union, states had to ratify the new amendments to the Constitution.
Help from the Union
The Union did a lot to help the South during the Reconstruction. They rebuilt roads, got farms running again, and built schools for poor and black children. Eventually the economy in the South began to recover.
Some northerners moved to the South during the Reconstruction to try and make money off of the rebuilding. They were often called carpetbaggers because they sometimes carried their belongings in luggage called carpetbags. The Southerners didn't like that the Northerners were moving in and trying to get rich off of their troubles.
The End of the Reconstruction
The Reconstruction officially ended under the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877. He removed the federal troops from the South and the state governments took over. Unfortunately, many of the changes to equal rights were immediately reversed.
Interesting Facts about the Reconstruction
White Southerners who joined the Republican Party and helped with the Reconstruction were called scalawags.
The Reconstruction Act of 1867 divided the South into five military districts ran by the army.
President Andrew Johnson granted pardons to many Confederate leaders. He also vetoed a number of Reconstruction laws passed by Congress. He vetoed so many laws his nickname became the "Veto President".
In order to fight against the Black Codes, the federal government set up Freedman's Bureaus to help black people and to set up schools that black children could attend. | <urn:uuid:bc64f4bc-97ba-419d-8b72-891dfb8d3513> | CC-MAIN-2021-25 | https://www.ducksters.com/history/civil_war/reconstruction.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-25/segments/1623487612537.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20210614135913-20210614165913-00563.warc.gz | en | 0.985254 | 833 | 4 | 4 |
These images illustrate the difference between a daylight view of the two standard typefaces used on highway signs and the nighttime view with halation, as seen by an older driver, when high brightness sign materials are used.
Current freeway guide signs are based on a fixed measurement system adopted in 1958 (left). The example shown has over 31 measurements with great variation from sign to sign based on content. The new Proportion Based Grid System with Clearview Type System (right) optimizes the readability of the panel. Layout is based on only nine dimensions that are all a proportion of the primary legend. As size of the primary legend changes based on road speed and motorists viewing requirements, the panel can be adapted accordingly.
BEFORE: an old road sign.
AFTER: a new road sign with Proportion Based Grid System and the Clearview Type System. | <urn:uuid:ad89fccf-a6d2-4295-8c37-34e89760700a> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.studio360.org/story/110141-design-real-world/slideshow/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011294162/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305092134-00097-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930863 | 172 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Take the Mic: Finding creative ways to build school spirit during remote learning
How do you build school spirit when students are learning from home?
That’s been on the mind of 16-year-old Isaac Velazquez, a junior at Franklin Pierce High School in the Midland area of unincorporated Pierce County.
Sports have been a traditional way for the school to come together, but the pandemic forced delays for many sports seasons, including football and basketball. Isaac plays on both of those teams, and he’s also secretary of his school’s Associated Student Body, which aims to foster school spirit.
One way he and the other ASB leaders have been building a sense of community in this unprecedented school year is by making virtual assembly videos celebrating students’ different cultures – from Filipino to Native American to Hispanic. Isaac said it gives students something to share when they might feel isolated.
“We’re trying to bring peace to our students and make sure they have an escape,” Isaac said. He shared his story for KNKX’s Take the Mic youth voices series.
Isaac, whose father came to the U.S. from Michoacán, Mexico, helped make the Hispanic Heritage Month video. He said students at the school, whose population is almost 30 percent Hispanic or Latino, have responded well.
“Being able to see students who are appreciative of what we put together has really brought a smile to my face as well as other people,” he said.
Listen to the audio above to hear his full story.
We’d like to hear from more teens and kids about their lives right now – hard times, joyful times and everything in between. For more information on how to submit a story for the Take the Mic series, click here. | <urn:uuid:966fe967-138e-4ebc-888f-dbbc61f364ea> | CC-MAIN-2021-43 | https://www.knkx.org/youth-education/2020-12-14/take-the-mic-finding-creative-ways-to-build-school-spirit-during-remote-learning | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-43/segments/1634323585242.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20211019043325-20211019073325-00580.warc.gz | en | 0.973997 | 377 | 2.546875 | 3 |
If you’re in management, much of your job consists of creating the conditions under which people in the organization can do good work. You work to understand what makes it hard for them to be productive, and help them clear those hurdles. It should interest you, therefore, to know of a challenge that likely affects a percentage of your colleagues, but is rarely acknowledged: face blindness.
Formally called prosopagnosia, face blindness is a cognitive condition characterized by the inability to recognize other people from their faces alone. The condition can be so severe that it affects the recognition of close family members and friends, or even one’s own face. People with face blindness do not have a general lack of knowledge about other people, and can immediately recall what they know about a person once they have realized their identity.
Traditionally face blindness has been reported in a small number of people following brain injury, yet in the last decade it has been revealed that as many as one in 50 people have a developmental form of the condition. These people have never experienced a brain injury or other developmental disorder, and have normal vision. Their difficulties with face recognition seem to extend back to early childhood, and some evidence suggests the condition runs in families.
Some well-known people have been forthcoming about having the condition – such as the neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks, the artist Chuck Close, and the business investor Duncan Bannatyne – but public awareness of it remains quite low. Thus, most unaffected people take their face recognition skills for granted and it does not occur to them that someone might struggle with this process. Meanwhile, while many with face blindness find ways to cope, many others experience feelings of anxiety, embarrassment, and guilt when they fail to recognize familiar people. Indeed, even those who know themselves to be face blind often choose not to disclose their condition publicly. They might instead simply avoid personal, social, and occupational situations where they would be required to recognize the faces of familiar others.
Begin to imagine the experience of face blindness, and it quickly becomes evident how some workplaces make the challenges greater. For instance, although a person with face blindness may often be able to compensate for their difficulties in office environments where each individual has a fixed position behind a particular desk, they may struggle to recognize colleagues when encountered in an unexpected or generic location, such as at the coffee machine. The use of “hot-desking” is particularly challenging, since it foils most of the compensatory strategies the face blind use to avoid embarrassing misidentification errors. Many face blind people also struggle in meetings, as seating arrangements are seldom pre-planned and location cannot be used as a cue to recognition. Finally, difficulties are exacerbated in occupations where there are fewer non-facial cues to recognition. Think, for example, of workplaces where uniforms are worn. For that matter, men’s business suits offer few distinguishing characteristics to aid person recognition.
Face blindness can also bring about difficulties in interactions with clients. Many people with face blindness worry that they will appear rude, disinterested, or incompetent if they fail to recognize a client upon a second meeting, and believe this may directly influence their performance at work and consequently opportunities for progression or promotion. Some face blind people use clever compensatory strategies to address this issue, such as arriving particularly early for meetings so the client has to approach them, rather than vice versa. However, such strategies are not fool-proof and can still lead to embarrassing failures of identification.
Put all this together and it seems evident that a manager attuned to an individual’s face blindness could make a positive difference to that person’s performance. There hasn’t yet been much research directly focused on the effects of face blindness in the workplace, but one study concluded that the occupational difficulties are potentially as great as those posed by stuttering and dyslexia – conditions for which specific assistance is available.
It is a problem, therefore, that many face blind people are reluctant to disclose their condition at work. This is mostly for fear that employers will not have heard of or understand the condition, or that they will be held back from interactions with key clients and will not be considered for promotion or managerial roles. While laws (such as the Equality Act in the UK) are in place to punish such discrimination, many people fear that low public and professional awareness of face blindness will nevertheless act against them, and, regardless, that even an understanding employer could not assist them with their difficulties.
The fact is that several actions can be taken to assist a face blind colleague. In office environments, free-standing name plates can be displayed on workspaces, and also taken along to meetings to assist with recognition. Colleagues can be advised not to take offence if the person fails to recognize them, and to establish at the start of a conversation that their identity is known. When a face blind employee is required to meet clients or externally-based colleagues away from the office, they may benefit from the presence of another staff member to quietly assist with identifications and introductions.
Finally, it is important to note that, even if a person with face blindness is succeeding in a workplace and does not experience the anxiety and negative consequences described above, there may yet be strong reasons for the condition to be acknowledged. However well an employee copes with their face blindness, in some settings the inability to recognize a face raises health and safety considerations, and it is important that employers think through these implications. Likewise, there are settings in which, if a person’s face blindness were widely disclosed , it might put them at risk – perhaps because they come into contact with vulnerable or potentially threatening populations.
Regardless of the setting, a face blind person should feel able to disclose his or her condition to an employer. There can then be a carefully considered decision about how widely to share this information – and, regardless of disclosure, certain measures can be taken to assist the individual. All of this will happen more as awareness of the condition rises, and managers learn to recognize challenges that have always existed, but to which most of them have been blind. | <urn:uuid:b7a0ea7c-b538-46fc-9bb5-fb0015d715c3> | CC-MAIN-2019-04 | https://hbr.org/2014/08/2-of-your-coworkers-have-face-blindness | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-04/segments/1547584415432.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20190123213748-20190123235748-00308.warc.gz | en | 0.971395 | 1,244 | 3.421875 | 3 |
The question, “What is a Saint?” arose recently, for a description of a saintly person was encountered. That description was really a listing of what discouraged happiness in a saintly person. It went something like this: “discourage happiness due to wealth and family, possessions, marriage and sexuality, or material longevity“. That gave me pause. I had to stop and think, What is a saint? And so this website has come about.
I suppose there are many things you can say about saints. I’d like to open a window not just to the plaster saints, halos and statues, but also to the saints and saintly people from other religions. Why shouldn’t great saints, (or the sant tradition in Northern India), mystics and muslim pirs be excluded from consideration as saints? Don’t they inspire people too?
So there is my first conclusion about saints. They inspire.
Saints come from all traditions. Most of the well known saints come from the Christian faith. Hinduism has saints also: think of the guru’s who are entombed alive, and continue to guide their devotees when the body no longer exists. In the north of India, there is the Sant tradition, which includes men and women, poets and philosophers. We might also consider gurus from the Sikh tradition. Would you call them saintly people, the ten gurus of Sikhism? Then we might look to those who died for their faith, martyrs. Pope John Paul II made hundreds of saints; he simply proclaimed them martrys for the faith, and that was it!
Martyrdom was a little more serious than a simple proclamation: St Thomas More, Henry VII’s Chancellor, was executed for refusing to take the oath of supremacy of the Crown in the relationship between the kingdom and the church in England. Martin Luther is another well known dissenter, as was the more modern Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was shot at the altar while celebrating the rites of the Christian Church.
There are others we might consider saints: the great artists Michaelangelo and Rembrandt. Others might include Fra Angelico, and the great composer Johann Sebastian Bach. Poets and pilgrims are also mentioned as saintly persons. What is the character of a saintly person, a spiritual beacon? What attracts us to them?
We might say they are role models of duty, devotion and discipline. Many people are termed saintly for they bear their lot in life without complaining; said to be long-suffering. Some are said to be exemplars: they set an example to follow in adherence to faith and practice of devotion. Some might aver that saintly persons are people who found that self-effulgent light, within, without, and shared the pathway to the light for others to follow. Thomas à Kempis and his work, Imitation of Christ is one such example followed through the ages. The Sufi mystic Kabir and his poems are honoured by Sikhs and Hindus.
Pilgrimages to Shrines of Saints are common in many religions. Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, and people of the Jewish faith all go on pilgrimages. Pilgrimages are an exercise of faith; people go to the shrine or temple, in order to obtain spiritual benefits. One ancient pilgrimage has recently been promoted as a film, starring Martin Sheen. This is called The Way. Thomas Avery is an American ophthalmologist who goes to France following the death of his adult son, Daniel, killed in the Pyrenees during a storm while walking the Camino de Santiago (the Way of St. James), a Catholic pilgrimage route to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain. Tom’s purpose is initially to retrieve his son’s body. However, in a combination of grief and homage to his son, Tom decides to walk the ancient spiritual trail where his son died, taking Daniel’s ashes with him.
Pilgrimages and yatras aside, we might say that saints are departed individuals of recognised sanctity who are venerated in a religious environment. Death of the saint is no barrier to communion with or veneration of the saint. The saint may be said to have restored the image and likeness of God, and to be in the company of the Divine (or closely united) and whose intercession or benefices or teachings has efficacious results. This might relate to one or another aspect of any saint in any religious tradition. Saints inspire. You might say that they give us a “hand up” on the ladder of divine ascent, as do saintly persons.
Some of the material herein has had a previous incarnation: Spiritual Stars of the Golden Age. The Spiritual Stars have moved home six times since their inception in 2001. And more saints, pirs and heroes of humanity have been added since then. Let’s hope that this website inspires you to look deeply into the lives of saints and saintly persons, for your inspiration!
You may browse the articles in the Saint’s category here, or choose from below:
List of Saints for a New Era
4,139 total views, no views today | <urn:uuid:19294a33-554e-4846-8c25-d1eeaee9cef2> | CC-MAIN-2019-51 | http://saieditor.com/?paged=5&cat=49 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-51/segments/1575540481076.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20191205141605-20191205165605-00207.warc.gz | en | 0.970446 | 1,076 | 2.5625 | 3 |
People transfer money across borders for a variety of reasons. You may have family in another country, and need to send them money. Or you may be making an overseas investment. It is also possible that you are trying to make a transfer as part of a business transaction. Or you are simply planning on travelling, and of course you need to take funds with you.
Whatever the reason, however, you need to be aware that taking money into or out of a country involves following due procedure. The transfer of money into and out of your country is governed by exchange control legislation, which changes from time to time but which has as its basic principle the prevention of large sums of money leaving the country, in order to protect the domestic economy.
This does not mean that it is impossible to get money out of your country. Also, you shouldn’t have any fears about moving money into the country. But it does mean that you have to stick to what the law wants you to do. Failure to follow the law when making your transfer could make things very difficult for you at a later stage. | <urn:uuid:c80ea63e-b40f-478f-be1e-f18ad092af6f> | CC-MAIN-2020-10 | https://moneytransfers.com/starting-out | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-10/segments/1581875143455.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20200217235417-20200218025417-00389.warc.gz | en | 0.984872 | 221 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Educating people about technology can be a tough thing. There is a great deal of misinformation out there about what the most effective and reliable educational training methods are, what forms of multimedia are best suited for use with young children and so on. Despite all of this, it is very important to educate people about technology and introduce them to the newest technologies that will most likely become popular in the future.
The first step to making the best of the technological literacy movement is to make sure that any kind of educational program you implement takes place from the perspective of educating people about technology. For example, it is absurd to try to teach the concept of the Internet to high school students. High school students already know how to use the Internet, and they will not learn about the Internet at school if their only educational experience comes from teachers who have never seen a website or visited a Web site. Educating people about technology means having an educational program based around technology from the very beginning.
Technology is quite integrated into many people’s lives. Some people can walk into a room and immediately know something about technology – they have probably seen a Web site or heard a voice saying something about technology – and they can also explain to other people in a simple way why that technology is what they use in their everyday lives. Unfortunately, not all people have this level of technological literacy. This is why many people find themselves intimidated by technology when they are very young.
It is very important to develop a basic level of technological literacy in order to build a healthy respect for technology in everyday life. Without such an understanding people will not be able to distinguish between the good things that come from technology – things like the Internet, for example – and the bad things that result from inappropriate and dangerous use of technology. As a result, people who are not properly educating themselves about technology tend to see the world through the eyes of technology, rather than from a more holistic perspective. Educating people about technology therefore plays an important role in developing a more balanced public policy towards technology.
Educating the public about technology
Educating the public about technology and its importance is important. Technology is growing at an extraordinary rate, and many people are not well-versed in the way it works or in what it does. Educators must use all forms of digital media to explain to the public the value of using computers and other technologies in everyday life.
The best educators will be able to incorporate a variety of non-traditional tools into their classes, including computer based games, e-books, and other non-traditional teaching tools. Technology is here to stay, and educators who don’t incorporate it into their classes will find themselves out of business in the near future.
Digital literacy and technology
Digital literacy is a key concept in the education of technology. Digital literacy is the ability to use technology to effectively learn and use information. By developing and implementing a series of activities designed to teach digital literacy, we can ensure that students develop the competencies necessary to successfully navigate the world of technology. We already see many schools introducing and promoting digital literacy initiatives in the classroom. There is a need for more school districts to embrace these practices as they play an important role in the public’s understanding of the digital economy.
In order to promote digital literacy in our society, it is essential for teachers to teach and apply techniques that promote digital inclusion. Digital inclusion refers to the ability to participate effectively and positively in online communities. A teacher must be able to demonstrate an understanding of online social networks and how they work. Likewise, a student must be able to demonstrate an understanding of online technologies. Teaching and applying digital skills help develop digital readiness because it encourages students to take responsibility for their online interactions.
Educating adults about technology
With advances in technology, adults are now more likely to be involved with technology than their younger counterparts. This is not a surprise as society has changed over the years and children are now more likely to be online than they were when the Internet was created. Adults that have never owned a computer or access to the Internet before are suddenly coming face-to-face with the world of technology. It is important for adults to learn how to use technology. When this is done properly adults can have a wonderful experience with technology and children will see an adult using technology for the first time.
There are many reasons why people should teach adults about technology. One reason is that the younger generation does not pay attention to technology and children are lagging behind. Another reason is that the younger generations do know how to use technology, but they are afraid to try it out because of the negative consequences that they might run into. Technology can also be exciting and children should have an interest in it. If the technology the adults learn works well then they may develop a passion for it and become passionate about it.
An online technology education can help adults learn about technology and how it works. Many adults think they already know a lot about technology. They either have learned things from television shows or from friends. Technology can be confusing for adults who do not know where to start. When adults learn about technology, they can figure out how to use it and learn about all of the different pieces that make up the technology they need to use.
Online technology education is beneficial in that adults can set up websites that adults can visit. These websites can talk about their own hobbies or talk about technology that they are interested in. When adults talk about their knowledge of technology, they can share it with other adults online and get help from others who are also interested in learning more about technology.
Technology is very important to many people. It helps them communicate with others, learn about new things, and keep up with what is going on in their lives. Technology education can help many people go on to accomplish their goals in life. Adults need to know more about technology if they are going to be successful in their career and in their life. The more adults know about technology the more likely they will be able to use it effectively for their benefit.
The Internet is full of information about technology. By finding great sites that talk about technology, adults can learn more about the things that they would like to use technology for. This can be very helpful to people who do not always have time to find the right information about a certain technology. Online technology education is beneficial because it is easy for adults to use. There are no distractions in the way when adults visit these types of sites. Once they know what technology is they can use it to their advantage and learn more about it.
Educating children about technology
Educating children about technology is one of the key elements of early childhood education. Every child loves to use the internet and many already know how to do so. The internet offers teachers and children alike with information and resources that can only enrich their learning. Technology keeps on improving and the benefits of the internet are too numerous and too varied to list. Educating children about technology is a crucial part of the curriculum.
One element of education that cannot be without its own form of advocacy is the online world. Online resources and educational materials are vital to support students need to advance from the early stages of learning. Without such support students may easily become disinterested and even lose interest in learning, something education experts fear can have dire consequences. Educating children about technology must therefore be done from a non-judgmental, supportive and non-intrusive approach. This may seem like a difficult task but it is essential for the future of education.
As we move into the twenty-first century, we must focus on how to incorporate technology into our daily lives. We cannot sit our kids down and have a conversation about the perils and dangers of online safety while they use the computer in their bedrooms. We cannot explain to them why it is not good to use technology. What we can do is teach them the basics of online safety, and how to implement these principals in their own lives, and then let them decide what they want to do with technology as they get older.
In recent years, K-12 education has come to include many opportunities for kids to learn about technology. After all, the popularity of laptops, iPods, and cell phones with cameras has dramatically increased the time people can interact on a daily basis. Unfortunately, there are also some problems associated with integrating technology into the educational system.
Some experts argue that incorporating technology into schools could actually have the opposite effect – that the “tech savvy” kid might actually become more dependent on his or her gadgets than their computer skills. To address this concern, education specialists have developed many helpful curriculums and activities designed to foster a love of technology and help kids develop an appreciation for it.
For example, primary school educators have developed a variety of grade books that incorporate technology into the curriculum. In particular, many grade books have been created or co-designed by teachers who work with parents and other professionals to help kids understand and use the technologies that they are introduced to. This approach goes beyond simple incorporation and promotes the idea that using technology will enhance education rather than detract from it.
In primary and high school, the process of integrating technology into lessons has also been heavily influenced by developments in the open educational resources field. There are now several online websites that allow users to perform research and interact with other students on the same platform. These online research tools are being used by both teachers and students to supplement traditional coursework and raise the bar on how high schools are able to use and incorporate new technologies into their studies.
By creating and maintaining an online community for high school students to explore the world around them and communicate with each other, these online resources have expanded the range of activities available to high schools and expanded their appreciation for technology. In fact, many schools now use these open educational resources to build the foundation for a new, digitally aware student.
What is Technophobia?
Technophobia, also called technical phobia, is an excessive or irrational fear of complicated machines or technologies, specifically computers and electronic gadgets. Unlike fear or panic, which is typically characterised by extreme unease, anxiety, or fear, which are emotions of intense fear and apprehension, which are reactions to actual physical danger, technological phobia is an unreasonable or excessive fear of advanced technology or machines. A common symptom of technophobia is experiencing intense anxiety when exposed to even the smallest symptoms of technological innovations or the use of this machinery. Other symptoms of this condition include a general sense of embarrassment when exposed to technologically superior people or objects.
Many patients who suffer from this phobia have difficulty accepting or tolerating the presence of computers or other technologically advanced items in their lives, so the first line of treatment is usually in therapy or education. Therapists and education specialists teach the patient to accept the presence of technology in their everyday life in order to function properly. Once the patient learns to accept the presence of computers or other new technology in their daily lives, they are better prepared to face their fears and anxieties about using technology, and will likely be able to live a more normal life despite their technophobia.
Education is one of the most effective forms of treatment for this particular fear because it allows a person to explore and understand their fears and how they affect their lives. A therapist will usually teach the patient how to deal with their fear of using computers or using technology in general. The therapist may also present options for dealing with technophobia if it is severe and provide tips for staying productive even while living with this phobia. Education may also provide information about the different ways in which advanced technology affects our lives, including how it can be used to increase productivity and reduce costs. This information may help the patient to learn how to overcome their technophobia and use technology in a productive manner.
Adapting to technological change
Technological change often brings with it a variety of welcome advantages. The adoption of new information and communication technologies, for example, brought massive increases in the speed of communications. In addition, the ability to quickly and easily obtain and use information brought a sharp reduction in the cost of information. Also, the ability to produce and disseminate information at a lower cost made this technology far more affordable for most people. These changes, however, also brought along with them some very real concerns, most notably the potential loss of some of the traditional values that have made the nation what it is.
Technological change, whether good or bad, oftentimes results in a backlash against the people whose values may have gotten under way during the transition period. This is especially true when the majority of the population is still largely unaware of the changing technology or how to deal with it.
This is not to say that the people who are affected by the technology do not have the right to object to changes they do not understand. It is, however, the responsibility of those in power – generally, the corporations that are most responsible for the way things are done – to explain their technology to the general public, especially to those who are least familiar with it.
When a technological change results in a decrease in the availability of goods and services that are deemed to be essential to the economic viability of a society, the people who suffered a decline in their standard of living notice a decline in their standard of living. The people, in turn, generally blame the people who were capable of doing the most “taunting” of work and still find employment (they are the ones who have jobs).
Thus begins the long-term conflict between the economic system that has created the need for technological innovation and those people who actually create and profit from that innovation. It is this long-term conflict between those who value the new economy and the people who are threatened by it that shape the culture of the coming new economy.
Those who live in communities that have been hit hard by these changes and are feeling the strain of them are not immune to having the culture of the new economy forced upon them. In fact, the new economy’s culture will force people to reevaluate not only their own personal standards of living but the needs of their communities as well.
People must decide whether or not they can tolerate the kinds of leisure activities that were considered luxuries for them in the past. They must decide if they can adapt to life within a society that is more populated by elderly and disabled people, while also having to cope with new needs and demands brought about by the new economy.
Those who resist change and live within the communities that are being transformed by it may end up being the exception rather than the norm. Those who accept these changes, however, may face stiff resistance from people who resent the change. Those who accept the transformation may end up being the minority, at least within their communities. Those who are fearful of change may end up being the majority.
When people are asked if they need different types of housing accommodations, the answer is usually yes. When these accommodations are explained to the elderly and disabled, many are surprised to discover that they need these accommodations. It isn’t that these people need different types of housing accommodations that is the problem. Rather, they find it hard to imagine living in a community where they cannot freely move around. Living in such a community requires that people adapt to the way that society has changed.
Adapting to technological change and a new way of life may be a challenge, and some may find it nearly impossible.
In business, adaptation means dealing with change – the more change you are able to adapt to, the more successful you will be. But how do you know what kind of change to adapt to? One way of knowing what kind of change to adapt to is to think about what kind of change you have already adapted to and how successful you have been in dealing with that change. For instance, if your company has adapted to online marketing, have you been successful in doing so? Have you been able to leverage the advances in technology to increase your customer base and improve your profitability?
The other way of looking at adapting to technological change is to think about the new technologies that are being introduced and developed. What kind of impact do they have on your company? What are the ways in which you can embrace new technologies and make them part of your business culture? Some of the changes in technology that have had the most profound impacts on business have been the introduction of the internet and the mobility associated with it. These two technologies have dramatically altered how companies interact with each other and the ways in which they do business.
The way in which you interact with customers and prospects has changed dramatically thanks to new technologies. If you want to ensure that your business is successful in adapting to technological change, then you need to think about the impact that new technologies are having on your business. To adapt to this impact, you will have to invest in the latest technology – whether that is social media content management, or any other form of online technology. You also need to make sure that your employees understand the impact that the technology is having on your business and how they can adapt to it.
Definition: A learning system designed for formalised teaching but with the assistance of electronic resources and active participation is called E-Learning. “Quoted by Tech Business News“
E-Learning can also be termed a structured network enabled exchange of knowledge and skills, and in this case, education is delivered to many different recipients at different or the same time. The benefits of e-learning are greater time management, improved comprehension and retention of content, as well as an increased level of participation from the learners. The disadvantages are that the systems need to have the appropriate technological support, such as synchronized communication devices, digital signage, video-conferencing etc.
E-Learning systems has emerged out of several related developments in information technology. This includes multimedia technologies (which include but are not limited to, televisions, audio cassettes, computers, etc.) and computers, which have become an integral part of life. Another development that came up was the software engineering, which focused on ensuring that e-learning systems could adopt the right technology in the best possible manner.
Another emerging field was Web Development, which took the idea of E-Learning one step further. It makes use of Web 2.0 technologies such as flash, Shockwave, Java, etc., to create applications and sites for educational purposes.
The use of multimedia resources makes E-Learning more interesting than a traditional classroom education. Since most of the learners interact through their visual senses, the visual content of an E-Learning course is more engaging and attractive than that of a conventional classroom course. This makes E-Learning an excellent choice for people who are very visual oriented. The Web based interactive features of e-learning also make it much easier for learners to get absorbed with what they are doing, thus making their learning experience a more pleasant one.
Advantages of technology in education
Technology in education is one of the greatest advantages that we can ever get in this world. With the development of computers and internet, it’s no longer a question of teaching and learning. Instead, students can now learn whenever and wherever they want to. The advent of the Internet has made distance education possible which means you don’t have to travel all over the place just to get to class. No longer do students need to be at a certain time of day or even week for a lecture or a class. They can now learn any time of the day or night, at their own pace.
There are many advantages of technology in education. For example, it helps improve student performance in terms of learning, retention and motivation. Online technology makes use of various communication tools such as email, instant messaging and chat rooms to help students learn faster. There are websites that help parents monitor their children’s activities in online schools. Teachers can now use online resources such as web calendars, lesson plans and notes to plan lessons. This makes the whole process more organised and easier to track progress of students.
Advantages of technology in education
- It will provide a better interactive experience during the learning and teaching process.
- Provides access to an unlimited source of current information and data.
- Teaches adults and children digital literacy.
- Reduces educational and resource costs.
- Helps students to become more Engaged
- Helps to retain information.
- Encourages Collaboration
- Prepares students and young people for the future
Technology in education allows teachers and educators to access and prepare students for a classroom setting. With the help of technology, teachers can get instant feedback on whether a student is doing the right thing during a lesson. Moreover, they can prepare students well by providing tips and ideas to help them enhance their skills and knowledge. Technology in education also provides teachers with the materials they need such as worksheets, reference books and other supplies needed for a lesson. This way, they do not need to go buy these items individually and waste their money.
Disadvantages of technology in education
There are many Disadvantages of technology in education that we should be aware of. First, with so many students studying online, the traditional classroom environment is gradually being replaced by technology-based learning, which is better suited for social interaction. Second, computer technology makes it easy for students to learn material at home at anytime and from anywhere. Third, there is now a tendency for students to become ‘plugged in’ to other social media sites. Although this is good for their personal growth, it can also negatively affect the way they learn.
The disadvantages of technology in education are less visible when they overshadow or play a minor role in a lesson. One of the most common disadvantages is the lack of time that is given to students to absorb and properly process the information that is provided to them. Although technology enables teachers to present lessons more efficiently and in a more interactive manner, time is not the biggest factor that influences the lesson. A lot of time is given to presentation and retelling of facts, memories and activities. Teachers are expected to be able to convey their message clearly and efficiently through pictures and diagrams.
List of the Disadvantages of Technology in Education
- It can cause distraction to students.
- It could cause students to engage in unreliable resources for learning.
- It can disconnect students and young people from face-to-face relationships.
- It can make it easier to cheat.
- It could put some students and children at a disadvantage.
The disadvantage of technology options in education is more apparent when students are left to their own devices to learn and their own devices to execute what the teacher says. They are not given the opportunity to use technology options such as a teacher resource room, internet access or a text book. Also, they may be prevented from interacting with other students. With these circumstances, it is pretty obvious that teachers who choose to use technology options in their classrooms need to compensate for these disadvantages by providing a more interactive experience for their students.
The need to educate people about technology has become more pronounced due to the increased usage of technology in everyday life. Computers, microwaves, television sets and other forms of technology are so ubiquitous that we hardly think twice about the things that we use. Often we take for granted the impact that these technologies have had on our lives and on the world as a whole. We need to be reminded often of the positive effects that technology can have on society and on our lives, and we should constantly develop new strategies for educating people about technology. | <urn:uuid:870a6865-7dd6-4503-af96-1c57bce90258> | CC-MAIN-2021-39 | https://www.techbusinessnews.com.au/educating-people-about-technology/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-39/segments/1631780057882.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20210926144658-20210926174658-00352.warc.gz | en | 0.966949 | 4,780 | 3.453125 | 3 |
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