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Here is a fantabulous two-step method for writing a great novel —
Step 1: Pick an awesome protagonist.
Step 2: Get him or her into and out of a whole heap of trouble.
Step 3: There is no step 3 — it’s a two-step process. The end.
Anyway, the real life and times of Thomas Edison works as a great example of this formula.
First off, Tom is born a really sickly kid.
Bad news, huh?
Not really. His mom, who has already been through the hellish untimely deaths of three of her children, decides to homeschool the little guy. She builds him a science lab in their basement.
All of those infections in the age before antibiotics makes little Tom very hard of hearing.
Not really, according to the man himself. He often credited his deafness for his ability to think and work for long hours without distraction.
As a teen, Tom works for the railroad. He builds a lab in an old boxcar, which works out just fine until he spills some chemicals and torches the place. He is fired.
No, YAY! Because he is fired from his old job, Tom is dumped off at the next train station. There he saves the station master’s 2-year-old son from being squashed by a freight train. The station master is so grateful, that he teaches Tom how to work a telegraph so that he’ll always be gainfully employed.
Tom works as a telegraph operator, but being scientifically minded he just can’t help himself — he decides to perfect the system. Tom develops the quadruplex telegraph and offers it to Western Union. He’s thinking that he would love to get $2000 for it, but when they ask him how much he wants, he can’t seem to form the words.
Okay, I know you’re on to this little game by now, so it won’t surprise you to learn that Western Union offered him $40,000 on the spot... And those are 1869 dollars.
After Tom puts his eyeballs back into their sockets, he uses the cash to build his dream lab. Now I could say that the rest is history, but that would be horribly cliché, and you’re thinking it anyway, so I’ll just stop.
PROMPT: Try the two-step on your novel today. No dance moves required. And always, always, always remember this while you’re putting those words to the page…
Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.
~Thomas A. Edison | <urn:uuid:40a14fb1-dd3e-4233-9d15-f04e9a71a1ed> | CC-MAIN-2017-30 | http://themindselbow.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-two-step.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-30/segments/1500549424296.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20170723082652-20170723102652-00469.warc.gz | en | 0.97535 | 566 | 2.671875 | 3 |
At the Tudor and early Stuart royal courts, the careers of influential politicians and courtiers often depended on the preferences of the monarchs: being in the king’s good graces often mattered as much or more for advancements than ability and training. The personality and quirks of the rulers affected many aspects of a courtier’s life, including what today might be considered the most private: their sex lives. When King James I died in 1625, ambitious persons jostling for positions in the formation of Charles’s court would soon learn that the son had different tastes from the father, and expected different behaviors from those around him. While James mostly ignored or tacitly accepted the philandering of his courtiers as long as they kept up a modicum of discretion, Charles was not so forgiving. Under his reign, courtiers soon learned that they had to “keep their virginities,” or “at least lose them not avowedly,” as one courtier wryly remarked. If Charles found out, offenders could face serious consequences.
Sex outside of marriage constituted a criminal offense during the early Stuart period. Crimes like adultery and fornication were punishable by both secular and ecclesiastical courts. Adulterers could be imprisoned, whipped, put in the stocks, fined, and forced to do public penance. The nobility tended to be largely shielded from the strong arm of the law of church and state: it was rare that members of the elite were legally charged with sexual offenses. That did not mean that they could not face consequences for their actions: men and women serving at the royal courts were instead punished directly by the monarch.
Coming to England after the austere period of the ageing and ill Queen Elizabeth, Scottish King James and his queen introduced a rather boisterous courtly culture. Their celebrations gave the court a reputation for debauchery, although historians have often overemphasized it in the past. James’ courtiers did not necessarily engage in more instances of illicit sex, but the king’s reaction to them certainly signaled a relaxing of the strictness and severity Elizabeth had enforced. Where Elizabeth had both imprisoned and exiled courtiers who engaged in illicit sex, James tended to look the other way, as long as those involved had not committed additional crimes. Men like William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, experienced the differences first hand. In Elizabeth’s reign, Pembroke impregnated one of the Queen’s maids of honor and then refused to marry her. He was imprisoned for a time, and then exiled from court for the remainder of the reign. In James’s reign, Pembroke returned to court, and to royal favor. Although he had an affair with his first cousin, the writer Mary Wroth, and even had two children with her, he suffered no negative consequences at James’s court as a result.
King Charles, a highly principled and stubborn man, firmly believed that he, his family, and his court should serve as a model for his subjects, and reflect the benign –but absolute – rule of the patriarch and sovereign. Charles introduced a strict court protocol, limiting access only to those who had the proper credentials, and organizing his days in minute details. Passions, drunkenness, and sexual improprieties should be banished from an orderly court, in Charles’s view. Sir Henry Jermyn, Queen Henrietta Maria’s Vice Chamberlain, would learn the consequences of testing King Charles’s lack of understanding for sexual missteps. When Eleanor Villiers, a maid of honor, found herself pregnant, Charles set about to investigate what had happened. Eleanor told the king that Jermyn was the father of her unborn child. Jermyn admitted to the unlawful sexual relations, but, like Pembroke a generation earlier, refused to marry her. Also like Pembroke at the Elizabethan court, Jermyn found himself behind bars for several months. Then, he had to leave England altogether for two years, before Charles begrudgingly allowed him back, largely as a result of the queen’s lobbying for his cause. Eleanor had to leave court and never returned.
Interestingly, the king appears to have made an exception for his favorite, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, who had also been the last great favorite (and probably lover) of King James. Buckingham was a well-known womanizer, who even managed to convince Charles to appoint his mistress as a lady-in-waiting to the reluctant queen. Charles accepted Buckingham’s behavior mostly because he was the king’s closest friend and unshakeable ally. During the three years between his ascension to the throne and Buckingham’s assassination in 1628, Charles always stood by his friend, even at great political and financial cost.
Charles’s acceptance of Buckingham’s peccadilloes did not extend to the duke’s sister-in-law, Frances Coke Villiers. She was the wife of John Villiers, Viscount Purbeck, Buckingham’s elder brother. After her husband succumbed to mental illness, Lady Purbeck took a lover and gave birth to a son. The scandal broke at the very end of King James’s reign. While James, true to form, initially hesitated to punish Lady Purbeck, an outraged Buckingham insisted. The ill and dying James eventually acquiesced, and an investigation began. After James’s death, Buckingham, now aided by an equally outraged King Charles, worked to punish and shame his wayward sister-in-law. He would find it surprisingly difficult, as Lady Purbeck simply refused to accept her punishment. After Buckingham’s premature death, Charles continued to pursue her, and she continued to refuse to acquiesce. Charles was a stubborn man: once he had his mind set on a matter, he rarely changed it. He strongly disliked illicit sex, but he disliked challenges to his authority even more. The equally stubborn Lady Purbeck managed to do both, albeit at great cost.
Featured image credit: 16:58 Hampton Court Palace by brian gillman. CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons. | <urn:uuid:44570039-18be-4f06-9dbc-248aca489b57> | CC-MAIN-2021-31 | https://blog.oup.com/2017/05/love-sex-madness-scandal-stuarts/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-31/segments/1627046153531.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20210728060744-20210728090744-00513.warc.gz | en | 0.978485 | 1,278 | 3.453125 | 3 |
Episode 111 is all about Malawisaurus, a titanosaur that lived in Malawi in Africa, during the Early Cretaceous.
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In this episode, we discuss:
- The dinosaur of the day: Malawisaurus
- Name means “Malawi lizard”
- Sauropod, titanosaur, that lived in Malawi in Africa, during the Early Cretaceous
- Named for the country of Malawi, plus saurus (Greek for lizard)
- Louis L. Jacobs, D. A. Winkler, W.R. Downs, and E.M. Gomani named Malawisaurus in 1993
- Sidney H. Haughton described Malawisaurus in 1928 but classified it as a species of Gigantosaurus (now an invalid name for a diplodocid, known as Tornieria)
- Another synonym is Janenschia (used to be a Gigantosaurus species, Gigantosaurus robustus, that became Tornieria robustus, but was found in 1991 to be distinct from Tornieria, and became known as Janenschia robustus)
- Not the same as Janenschia because Malawi fossils come from older rocks than Janenschia
- Type species is Malawisaurus dixeyi
- In 2005, Elizabeth Gomani wrote Sauropod Dinosaurs from the Early Cretaceous of Malawi, Africa, and wrote about Malawisaurus
- Malawisaurus is one of the few titanosaurs where skull material has been found
- Found cranial elements, cervical vertebrae, dorsal vertebrae, a sacrum, caudal vertebrae, chevrons, and dermal armor
- Had a short, high skull
- Small for a sauropod, about 52 ft (16 m) long
- Possibly had osteoderms on its skin, may have formed basic armor to protect it
- Titanosaurs are a group of sauropods, very large herbivores, that lived during the last 30 million years of the Mesozoic Era. Some titanosaur species are the largest land-living animals discovered, but in many cases, scientists have found incomplete fossils
- The name Titanosaur came from the Titans of Ancient Greek mythology
- The family, Titanosauridae, was named after Titanosaurus, an incomplete fossil (only a partial femur and two incomplete caudal vertebrae) found by Richard Lydekker in 1877. Some scientists think there is not enough information for Titanosauridae to be a genus
- Titanosaurs were the last group of sauropods. They lived about 90 to 66 million years ago and were the dominant herbivores. They replaced other sauropods, like diplodocids and brachiosaurids
- Titanosaur fossils have been found on all continents, including Antarctica. The most titanosaurs lived in the southern continents, which was then part of the supercontinent Gondwana.
- Compared to other sauropods, Titanosaurs had small heads. Their heads were also wide, with large nostrils, and crests formed by nasal bones
- Fun fact: Ontogeny relates to developmental changes in an animal, whereas phylogeny relates to evolutionary changes. There is a theory called the “recapitulation theory,” which for 100s of years has been used to equate embryonic development to a sort of mini-evolution, i.e., a human fetus looks not only looks like a fish because we evolved from fish, but literally passes through a fish stage. It’s not true, but it is a good way to remember what ontogeny and phylogeny mean.
This episode was brought to you by:
Artemesia Publishing. They not only publish award-winning dinosaur books, but also “coloring puzzles” which can be put together and then colored using markers, crayons, or colored pencils. You can get more information at apbooks.net and you can purchase the “coloring puzzles” at http://www.paleoartisans.com/Catalog/fuseaction/ListProducts/classid/152603. | <urn:uuid:8d066fae-51f8-46eb-a1ed-72f2e34fda96> | CC-MAIN-2017-17 | http://iknowdino.com/know-dino-podcast-show-notes-malawisaurus-episode-111/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917123102.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031203-00240-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947436 | 930 | 3.234375 | 3 |
It's that time of year again! The holidays are just around the corner. If you're raising a bilingual child, it also seems like an unproductive time for language learning. You're busy with orchestrating the perfect "winter wonderland" at home and carrying out all of the family traditions. Grandma's visiting and you're taking off work. Who has the time to sit down for language lessons? Even if you do have the time, who wants to do book work while Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is on? The kids are out of school for most of the month, after all! Why make them study during their break?
Hold your horses. Even during the season of cheer, your kiddos shouldn't "pause" their language learning efforts. We know that kids lose some (alright, a lot) of the progress they made during the school year over the summer. Kids lose two months worth of reading skills and computational math skills over the summer. As for that Spanish class? You can forget about it. Literally. But, what's the difference when your kids are off in December as opposed to the two month break that most kids in North America get from June to September?
Although experts at the college-level agree that it's not as significant as the "summer dump," it's still worth it to continue learning into the winter to avoid a total information brain freeze. From Thanksgiving to New Years, your child will have a lot of down-time. There are lots of simple things you can do to keep their mind engaged in language learning over the holidays.
Here are a few fun ideas that will help keep your children's' minds active this winter:
Foreign Language Journaling
Depending on the age of your child, encouraging them to keep a physical journal over the break actually helps retain and improve the skills learned in school. Inspire their creativity with response prompts in both English and their target language. To gain their interest, suggest prompts related to the season at hand. For elementary students, here's 77 prompts to inspire their winter writing.
Journaling in another language is actually a great way to advance in it. There's a well documented link between handwriting and knowledge acquisition. Some college professors ban electronic note taking for this reason. There's also the freedom to make mistakes without being made fun of; a common anxiety among those who wish to speak another language. Encourage them to practice their new language, reminding them that a journal is a safe place to express themselves without fear of having their mistakes overanalyzed.
According to experts, reading is the number one action students should take in order to avoid a mental deep-freeze. If they're too young to take the initiative themselves, you can read with and to them to reap the benefits. Encouraging your child to read over the holidays is one of the easiest ways to keep them engaged, as books are accessible through local libraries, create meaningful interactions with the family, and are portable for holiday travels. Getting lost in a good story is also just plain fun!
To encourage language learning, you can purchase (or borrow) dual language books, which allow your child to read a story in both languages side-by-side. Dual language books are available in many languages and improve language acquisition and vocabulary in bilingual children. There are even some available for free on Trilingual Mama's website.
It's not just beneficial for learning another language, either. According to a study done at the University of Calgary, the introduction of dual-language books into classrooms improved overall literacy skills.
Cultural Field Trips
Field trips shouldn't just be left to the school. A recent study from the University of Arkansas indicated that students learn more about a subject when exposed to it on a field trip versus the classroom. In particular, the empathy and cultural understanding of disadvantaged students was shown to improve after being taken on field trips. Since field trips offer an opportunity to expose children to different cultures, they're an excellent way to foster bilingualism. We know that language isn't just about conjugation, nor is culture all about tradition. Culture influences language and vice versa. Consider visiting a museum or other cultural exhibit with your children during the holiday season, like a local Hispanic heritage museum.
Multicultural Holiday Traditions
This time of year is an excellent one for cultural immersion, as every culture has its own holiday traditions. Attend a festival, or guide your child in an activity that relates to the traditions of another culture. If you're teaching your child Spanish, consider attending a Posada party. If they're learning Russian, participate in the New Year's tradition of Father Frost and discuss the similarities and differences between Father Frost and Santa Claus. This will get your child fired up about another culture - something that's important for success in another language.
At Little Pim, we offer amazing products that will help your young child learn a new language. Consider beating those winter woes by starting your child on one of our 12 language programs today. | <urn:uuid:3cfaf91f-696e-46c0-89fa-01cea25776e9> | CC-MAIN-2018-47 | https://www.littlepim.com/blog/dont-put-breaks-bilingualism-holiday-season | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-47/segments/1542039742117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20181114150002-20181114172002-00238.warc.gz | en | 0.9624 | 1,018 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Citrus trees, just like all plants, require fertilizers to ensure maximum fruit yields. They are a generous flowering plant in the rue family. They produce a wide range of fruits like oranges, lemons, pomelos, limes, and grapefruits.
For a start, you need to use the right fertilizer type. The best way is to consider a specially formulated citrus fertilizer. Citrus fruits are heavy feeders and require nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K).
We strongly recommend 16-4-8 fertilizer which provides all the needed nutrients and macronutrients. Some of the required micronutrients are boron, sulfur, iron, copper, manganese, and magnesium.
But knowing the right fertilizer is one thing. You need to know when to fertilize and how to fertilize the trees. | <urn:uuid:59229483-5ccd-43f0-abb2-c21700d273b1> | CC-MAIN-2023-50 | https://gardeningliving.org/2022/08/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100769.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20231208180539-20231208210539-00861.warc.gz | en | 0.874608 | 179 | 3.015625 | 3 |
If meat is printed in your kitchen rather than butchered in a slaughterhouse, is it vegan? This is one of many questions raised by a conceptual appliance which uses solar energy and a 3D bioprinter to make the most efficient and delectable meat this side of Utopia. Designed by German design students Sarah Mautsch and Aaron Abentheuer, the Cultivator is a tool intended to provide flavor and nutrition for carnivorous consumers while reducing the environmental costs of meat production.
The Cultivator was envisioned as a home appliance for the middle class, which Mautsch and Abentheuer assume will be eating less meat in the future. As meat presumedly becomes a smaller part of the typical diet, the Cultivator serves as a simple source for meat in moderation. However, the finished product would not be derived from any living creature but instead bioprinted from an advanced 3D printer. The Cultivator’s product would not necessarily manifest in the shape of a chicken wing or fish fillet. As future food often is, the bioprinted meat would take the form of an arbitrary shape, such as a cube or rectangle. In the future, form is futile. What matters in this design is the delivery of proper nutrients and flavor.
Livestock production accounts for 14.5 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions, a number that would significantly drop if the Cultivator reached a mass market. The land required for raising livestock would also be freed for other uses. Going the extra mile, the self-sufficient Cultivator is powered by solar energy, minimizing its environmental impact to near nothing. The pursuit of bioprinting organs is already yielding promising results and the artificial production of other organic matter like meat is not far behind. While the Cultivator is only a conceptual prototype, it may herald a new era of bioprinting burgers for lunch and synthetic steak for dinner.
Images via DesignCurial | <urn:uuid:243498c1-a42e-44ed-a736-e04fb3427375> | CC-MAIN-2017-13 | http://inhabitat.com/the-cultivator-lets-you-bioprint-your-own-meat-at-home/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-13/segments/1490218190754.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20170322212950-00542-ip-10-233-31-227.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945049 | 404 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Member blog: Tantalising Treats and Sugary Sweets - The State of Scotland's Childhood Obesity Epidemic
04 March 2020
A beloved cartoon character on a cereal packet, a fast food shop that gives children toys when they eat there, an ad on television showing fountains of chocolate and the temptation of a mobile game overriding that of kicking a football around. Stimulation from all sides is encouraging the 5-year-old mind to consume more and more and more.
How is it any surprise, therefore, that 22% of Scottish children aged 4-5 are at risk of overweight or obesity? How is it still overlooked that one in three children in the UK will be obese by the age of 9?
At the RCPCH Scotland we place childhood obesity at the forefront of the issues surrounding child health and wellbeing. In light of the publication of our State of Child Health 2020 report today, it could not be clearer that we need to properly manage this ever-growing problem.
Childhood obesity can affect a child’s health, causing high blood pressure, respiratory issues and type 2 diabetes. It can also have long-term effects, as obese children are more likely to become obese adults.
Tackling the Issue
Obesity may be an epidemic, but this doesn’t mean that we can’t begin to chip away at it by implementing new legislation which encourages a healthy lifestyle for children.
For a start, we must focus on limiting advertising which encourages impressionable audiences to consume unhealthy foods. Adverts particularly aimed at children paint sugary and fatty foods as desirable, adding catchphrases and songs and bright colours to capture their attention. RCPCH Scotland is in support of a 9pm watershed for broadcasting restrictions across the UK on advertising of unhealthy foods, particularly in products high in fat, sugar and salt.
Obesity can lead to inactivity which only fosters more weight gain. Opportunities for exercise need to be made accessible and enjoyable for children. RCPCH seeks a measure of quality of physical education within schools and an increase in sports and leisure facilities for children and young people in Scotland. Exercise is a key factor in reducing obesity, alongside healthy eating, and encouraging exercise from an early age is vital to creating a healthy generation.
Another important factor in childhood obesity is accessibility to fast food. Fast food is cheap, easy and flavourful, not to mention it often lures children in with toys and endless adverts. It is essential, therefore, that children have limited exposure to fast food restaurants. RCPCH recommends a 400-metre ban of fast food outlets from areas that children are likely to regularly attend.
We can’t talk about childhood obesity and not mention the inequality between children from affluent and those from poorer families; children from the most deprived families in Scotland are 1.7 times more likely to be overweight. Action must be taken to overcome inequalities in order to ensure that all can afford healthier food and therefore lead healthier lives.
Boldly addressing childhood obesity and implementing policy that encourage healthier lifestyle choices will pave the way to improve weight outcomes for children in Scotland. Tackling obesity in children is the first step for tackling obesity for all.
Contact: Louise Slorance, RCPCH Scotland
www.rcpch.ac.uk | Follow us on Twitter @RCPCHScotland | <urn:uuid:565aec43-8c48-4b47-84b2-d8ec72b8cabb> | CC-MAIN-2023-14 | https://www.scottishobesityalliance.org/news-blogs-soa/member-blog-tantalising-treats-and-sugary-sweets-the-state-of-scotlands-childhood-obesity-epidemic/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296949009.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20230329151629-20230329181629-00596.warc.gz | en | 0.946185 | 687 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Date: August 12, 1976
Creator: Hall, James
Description: The U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 112 (1973), and Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179, which held generally that a State could no longer prohibit abortions in the first 6 months of pregnancy, caused several House and Senate members to move for an abortion prohibition effectuated by congressional action. To this end, proposed bills and constitutional amendments have been introduced in both Houses. Rather than having settled the abortion question conclusively, the Supreme Court decisions have kindled a national protest movement.
Contributing Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department | <urn:uuid:09138128-0219-4bfd-9dbd-5caf56c7c519> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://digital.library.unt.edu/explore/collections/CRSR/browse/?q=%22abortion%22&fq=untl_decade%3A1970-1979&t=dc_subject | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697442043/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094402-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931567 | 138 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Learner's definition of MIXED
always used before a noun
made of different kinds of things mixed together or combined
including or involving people of different races or religions
They live in a mixed neighborhood.
She's of mixed African and European ancestry.
children of mixed race/races
people of mixed racial origin/ancestry
a racially mixed couple
including or involving people of both sexes
◊ When people are in mixed company, they are with both men and women.
both good and bad, favorable and unfavorable, etc.
The play received mixed reviews. = The play's reviews were mixed. [=some critics liked the play, while other critics did not]
His decision got a mixed reaction from the family.
The experiment got mixed results.
◊ When people have mixed emotions or mixed feelings about something, they have both good and bad thoughts or feelings about it.
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This week, history was made as the Rosetta mission’s Philae lander touched down on the surface of 67P/Churnyumov-Gerasimenko. Days before this momentous event took place, the science team presented some staggering pictures of the comet at a planetary conference in Tucson, Arizona, where guests were treated to the first color images taken by the spacecraft’s high-resolution camera.
Unfortunately for millions of space enthusiasts around the world, none of these exciting images were released to the public. In addition, much of the images taken of the comet over the past few months as Rosetta closed in on it have similarly not been released. This has led to demands for more openness, which in turn has focused attention on ESA’s image and data release policy.
Allowing scientists to withhold data for some period of time is not uncommon in planetary science. According to Jim Green, the director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, a 6-month grace period is typical for principal investigator-led spacecraft. However, NASA headquarters can also insist that the principal investigator release data for key media events.
This has certainly been the case where the Curiosity and other Mars rover missions were concerned, not to mention the Cassini-Huygens mission. On many occasions, NASA chose to release images to the public almost immediately after they were obtained.
However, ESA has a different structure than NASA. It relies much more on contributions from member-states, whereas NASA pays for most of its instruments directly. Rosetta’s main mission camera – the Optical, Spectroscopic, and Infrared Remote Imaging System (OSIRIS) – was developed by a consortium of institutes led by the Max-Planck-Institute for Solar System Research. As a result, ESA has less control over how information obtained by this specific camera is disseminated.
Journalist Eric Hand recently covered this imagery release dilemma in an article in Science, revealing that even scientists at Darmstadt, Germany this week — the location of ESA’s mission control for Philae’s landing — had not seen the science images that were being shared at the Planetary Science conference. Project scientist Matt Taylor was reduced to learning about the new results by looking at Twitter feeds on his phone.
Hand quoted Taylor as saying the decision when to publicly release images is a “tightrope” walk. And Hand also said some “ESA officials are worried that the principal investigators for the spacecraft’s 11 instruments are not releasing enough information, and many members of the international community feel the same way.”
Back in July, ESA responded to these calls for more information with a press release, in which they claimed that an “open-data” policy is not the norm for either ESA or NASA. Responding to the examples of the Mars rovers and Cassini-Huygens, which have been cited by critics for more openness, ESA countered with the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray observatory, the MESSENGER mission to Mercury, and even some NASA Mars orbiters.
In these cases, they claimed, the data obtained was subject to a “proprietary period”, which also pertains to data from ESA’s Mars Express, XMM-Newton, and Rosetta missions. This period, they said, is typically 6-12 months, and “gives exclusive access to the scientists who built the instruments or to scientists who made a winning proposal to make certain observations.”
Nevertheless, there is still some criticism by those who think that releasing more images would be a positive gesture and not compromise any ESA scientist’s ability to conduct research.
As space blogger Daniel Fischer said in response to the ESA press release, “Who is writing scientific papers already about the distant nucleus that is just turning into a shape? And on the weekly schedule a sampling of these images is coming out anyway, with a few days delay… Presenting the approach images, say, one per day and with only hours delay would thus not endanger any priorities but instead give the eager public a unique chance to ‘join the ride’, just as they can with Cassini or the Mars rovers.”
In particular, a lot of criticism has been focused on the OSIRIS camera team, led by principal investigator Holger Sierks. Days before the Philae Lander put down on the comet, Cumbrian Sky:an amateur astronomer, space educator and image processor – wrote the following on his space blog
[The OSIRIS team’s] attitude towards the public, the media, and ESA itself has been one of arrogant contempt, and I have no doubt at all that their selfish behaviour has damaged the mission and the reputation and public image ESA. Their initial arguments that they had to keep images back to allow them to do their research no longer hold up now. They must have taken many hundreds of jaw droppingly detailed images by now, the images everyone has been looking forward to ever since ROSETTA launched a decade ago, so could easily release dozens of images which pose no risk to their work or careers, but they have released only a handful, and those have been the least-detailed, least-remarkable images they could find.
However, in Hand’s Science article, Sierks said that he feels the OSIRIS team has already provided a fair amount of data to the public. Currently, about one image is released a week – a rate that seems to Sierks to be more than adequate given that they are superior to anything before seen in terms of comet research.
Furthermore, Sierks claimed that other researchers, unaffiliated with the Rosetta team, have submitted papers based on these released images, while his team has been consumed with the daily task of planning the mission. After working on OSIRIS since 1997, Sierks feels that his team should get the first shot at using the data.
This echoes ESA’s July press release, which expressed support for their science teams to have first-crack any data obtained by their instruments. “Because no-one has ever been to 67P/C-G before,” it stated, “each new piece of data from Rosetta has the potential for a scientific discovery. It’s only fair that the instrument science teams have the first chance to make and assess those discoveries.”
The same press release also defended ESA’s decision not to release information from the navigation cameras more freely – which they do have control over. Citing overlap, they indicated that they want to “avoid undermining the priority of the OSIRIS team.”
Prior to Rosetta’s launch in 2004, an embargo of 6 months was set for all the instrument teams. ESA scientists have pointed out that mission documents also stipulate that instrument teams provide “adequate support” to ESA management in its communication efforts.
Mark McCaughrean, an ESA senior science adviser at ESTEC, is one official that believes these support requirements are not being met. He was quoted by Eric Hand in Science as saying, “I believe that [the OSIRIS camera team’s support] has by no means been adequate, and they believe it has,” he says. “But they hold the images, and it’s a completely asymmetric relationship.”
Luckily, ESA has released images of the surface of 67P and what it looked like for the Philae Lander and as it made its descent towards the comet. Additionally, stunning imagery from Rosetta’s navigation camera were recently released. In the coming days and weeks, we can certainly hope that plenty of more interesting images and exciting finds will be coming, courtesy of the Rosetta mission and its many contributors. | <urn:uuid:63e1c536-3ee1-4a56-a269-07c755240fc8> | CC-MAIN-2018-13 | https://www.universetoday.com/116208/concerns-over-esas-data-release-policy-amidst-rosetta-comet-landing/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-13/segments/1521257648431.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20180323180932-20180323200932-00537.warc.gz | en | 0.968759 | 1,622 | 2.828125 | 3 |
According to a new study by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), the best way be put near the front of the line to receive food stamps is to have at least one Illegal Alien in the family. The study demonstrates that, at times, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) – also known as food stamps – provides benefits to families with an illegal or other ineligible alien wage earner in it, while denying benefits to a family identical in every way, except that it was totally composed of U.S. citizens.
There are two groups of aliens who fit into the ineligible category:
- Illegal aliens (or, for the liberals who don’t like the term illegal; “criminally trespassing aliens”), and
- People who are in the country legally, but have had a green card for less than five years.
Though the 2002 Farm Bill passed by Congress defined food stamp eligibility and does not include those two groups, their states have declared them eligible for benefits, anyway.
Food stamps is a program for low-income people and families, so obviously there are set family income limits based on the number of people in the family. “No family of three, for instance, with a gross income of more than $2,177 a month is routinely eligible for benefits.”
(…) in most states — under some circumstances — families including an employed ineligible alien can secure food stamps when an all-citizen family of the same size and with the same income would be denied the benefits.
Let’s say that the all-citizen family consisted of three people, employed father, stay-at-home mother, and a small child. Dad makes $2,400 a month. The family’s income is too high for food stamps since the maximum monthly income is $2,177 for a family of three.
Then next door there is a mixed family, also three people, with the father being the only worker, also earning $2,400 a month. The difference is that the father is an ineligible alien and so, under many states’ regulations, one-third of the family’s income is ignored (prorated is the word in SNAP circles), leaving the family with a nominal income of $1,600 a month that allows the family to get a food stamps allotment, but only for the two citizens, not for all three in the family.
The family with the illegal immigrant father gets smaller benefits than if it was an eligible family of three below the $2,177 income line, but unlike the family composed of all citizens, they are getting something. This “proration” method of determining income is totally unfair to U.S. citizens and eligible green card holders as it is biased against those who are here legally.
Incidentally, this strange arrangement only benefits the better-off families including ineligibles; in the case of a family of three it would allow mixed families with incomes of more than $30,000 a year to receive benefits. Proration does not create opportunities to receive benefits for really low income mixed families, as they are eligible already. A further irony is that politicians have accepted this bias in favor of a population that not only includes no voters, it includes very few people who will vote in the next five to 10 years.
Out of the 53 U.S. states and territories, only six do not follow the proration method described above. Each of those six – Arizona, Guam, Massachusetts, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Utah – has a Republican governor.
CIS estimates that $1,407,600,000 a year is spent on food stamps to illegal and other ineligible aliens, so, perhaps, that is a great place to start entitlement reform. According to the study’s author, “no other governmental program prorates income in this way, nor, to my knowledge, does any other program actively discriminate in favor of ineligible aliens.”
But, even one program mishandling our tax dollars by distributing safety net programs incorrectly is one too many
There are two different actions that can be taken to fix the proration issue; one action is necessary in the set of five states and Guam that do not use proration, the other in all the other states and territories.
If one lives within the five states (Arizona, Massachusetts, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Utah), all of which have an anti-proration posture, the only thing to do is to make sure that your county follows your state’s rules on this point. A visit to the local SNAP office, or a phone call to a senior food stamps eligibility worker will be needed to make sure that the anti-proration policy is in effect locally. If it isn’t, complain to the state government.
If one lives in the rest of the United States, i.e., in states that follow the pro-proration policies, one can lobby the state’s governor, or the state’s legislature to cause the state to move away from the proration posture. Routinely such decisions are made in the executive branch, but if the governor and his people remain adamant that ineligible aliens should receive more benefits than citizens, then an act of the legislature could solve the problem.
In some cases, particularly where there is a Republican governor, a question posed to him at a press conference might solve the problem; it could be worded as follows:
Governor: As you may or may not know, the state administration, in the food stamps program, has taken a bizarre position that it is easier for families with illegal aliens as the wage earners to get food stamps than for all-citizen families. In these cases the wages of illegal aliens are not fully counted when food stamps eligibility is calculated, while the citizen’s wages are always counted. Do you support this overt bias against citizen families? Your office can change the policy.
Chances are the governor does not have a clue about the subject, but he or she may call the appropriate cabinet member and change may ensue.
Thus, state legislators, the governors, and the state house press might be contacted in an effort to eliminate this strange, anti-citizen governmental program.
A final thought: The subject would make an excellent graduate school thesis topic. | <urn:uuid:979dd267-edb3-4fd5-80e0-4099ada4bc96> | CC-MAIN-2017-17 | http://lidblog.com/its-easier-for-illegal-immigrants-to-get-food-stamps-than-citizens/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917123270.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031203-00120-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966647 | 1,315 | 2.90625 | 3 |
I asked Anita, the lovely teacher who taught her art students how to cross-stitch, to write a little something about how she became inspired to do the project with her classes. Below is her account of the project. I hope you enjoy it!
I remember going to Tribeca late last summer to see a group show. Iviva and Jon collaborated on an embroidered graffiti piece that I couldn’t wait to see (FiberGraf). What a pleasure. Jon and Iviva’s piece was awesome, and Jen’s brochure of pleasantries blew me away.
Our 7th grade Humanities teacher approached me at some point about collaborating on some lessons, Colonial American ART. I went to the American Folk Art Museum [to view the] Women Only: Folk Art by Female Hands [exhibit] to see what I could learn. Bingo! Embroidery (and cross stitching) was used during colonial times up until about 1900 to educate girls to read, write, learn lessons and manners, etc. At some point, I visited the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, CT to see With Needle and Brush: Schoolgirl Embroidery from the Connecticut River Valley. Incredible!
I envisioned our project but had no idea how to cross stitch. As a tinkerer, I tried to learn on my own. When I brought my meager attempts to Fiber Notions, a nearby shop, Kat politely told me I was doing it wrong and then coached me on how to do it correctly. I fell in love with the materials and stitching.
Rocky start. Exploration. The seventh graders experimented with various materials for stitching (screen, tape, wire, yarn, etc.). It was pretty raw and they struggled. I thought this would help teach the students to respect the materials/process as we moved through the project.
PROJECT CHALLENGE: Cross stitch a lesson you are currently trying to learn onto cotton Aida cloth. Students were free to choose their message, font, colors, etc. Extra creativity points would be given to those who worked in a foreign language. Community points went to students who helped others. Ultimately, we awarded craftsmanship points to those whose back was neatly stitched (but this was not an initial focus). The project would require organization, persistence, tons of handwork, math and language skills, and still integrate with the Humanities curriculum.
Selecting a meaningful lesson was difficult for many of the students. I chose the message “Wear Helmet” because at the time I wasn’t very good about wearing my bike helmet for safety. I fell off a foot scooter last summer going down a fairly large hill. My head hit the pavement and I was cut up all over. I think the students paid attention to me at this point because they were staring at a three-inch scar on my left shoulder from the fall. I distributed Jen’s brochure. The response was WOW. Eventually nearly every one selected a great, personal message.
At this point, most of the students were addicted to cross stitching. Many were coming to the studio on the hour for more thread. Some who had never excelled in ART were enjoying themselves. Others struggled. We would tear out their work and begin again. The foreign language element really made the project more interesting and, in some cases, far more difficult. Spanish was fine. French, Gaelic, and Italian were just a matter of getting the text proofed and then selecting a font before one began stitching.
But Arabic, Korean, Mandarin; this was another matter. First we had to be sure the translation was correct. Then we printed out the characters and translated them onto graph paper to determine the stitches. This was crazy—and my favorite part!! Lucara challenged me to do my “Wear Helmet” in Mandarin. I abandoned my English and began again. It took persistence but I too was addicted. Olivia suggested I make a First Aid Kit with my cross stitch. Extra creativity points for her!
Kids would send their work with questions to me during study hall—through another student. This was fine for the most part, unless you were Aishah. She would send me her cloth (with her message in Arabic) and a note, “I need help.” Well I don’t know Arabic and without a pattern—or Aishah—I could not help. She laughed when I explained this to her. After we ripped her work out for the third time, I sent Jen an email explaining how hard Aishah was trying. Jen wrote back. I read the reply to the class and watched Aishah. In that moment, I think she learned the power of ART. Here she was inspiring someone she didn’t even know through her artwork, just as Jen’s work had inspired me. It was a memorable day.
We worked and worked. Slowly but surely, the students began to absorb the messages they were stitching. Many of the boys did incredible pieces—and the backs of their work are meticulous! Two girls squabbled regularly in class. One cross stitched “I’m Sorry,” and they would toss it back and forth at each other during class. I felt like I was in a movie.
There are a million stories in these projects just as in every great work of ART. I hope viewers enjoy these pieces—maybe half as much as we do!!
Artist in Residence
Brooklyn school [School name omitted for student privacy]
Thank you so much for writing this great account of the project Anita! Tomorrow, the first of 19 posts chalk-full of amazing students’ creations!
On another note: Kickstarter reached it’s goal today!!! We are over the $300 mark, with another 54 days to go! Anyone can still back the project and receive a reward, so please do visit the site here, and continue spreading the word! As always, thank you! | <urn:uuid:7faa8faf-18cf-48ef-afaa-e1a914577d86> | CC-MAIN-2020-05 | https://beniceproject.com/tag/cross-stitch/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-05/segments/1579250589861.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20200117152059-20200117180059-00441.warc.gz | en | 0.982548 | 1,235 | 2.53125 | 3 |
(Polar molecules, Non-polar molecules, etc.)
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This is because when there is a lone pair, the lone pair occupies a larger space and causes electron-electron repulsion, forcing all the other regions of electron density closer to each other and farther away from the lone pair. This is why the bond angle in molecules with a lone pair is slightly less than without a lone pair.
Lone pairs create a strong electron-electron repulsion which pushes all other atoms closer to together. For example, if you had a trigonal pyramidal with a lone pair at the top, it would push the atoms that are part of the structure closer together, creating a smaller bond angle between the atoms.
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests | <urn:uuid:c271d72d-72ec-4695-a5a1-3ebcbd8118ab> | CC-MAIN-2020-34 | https://lavelle.chem.ucla.edu/forum/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=51634&p=188211 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-34/segments/1596439740679.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20200815035250-20200815065250-00131.warc.gz | en | 0.885108 | 170 | 3.578125 | 4 |
Animals can't tell us when they're experiencing pain, so we have to rely on other cues to help treat their discomfort. But it is often difficult to tell how much an animal is suffering. The sheep, for instance, is the most inscrutable of animals. However, scientists have figured out a way to understand sheep facial expressions using artificial intelligence.
On this week's episode, Dr. Marwa Mahmoud from the University of Cambridge joins us to discuss her recent study, "Estimating Sheep Pain Level Using Facial Action Unit Detection." Marwa and her colleague's at Cambridge's Computer Laboratory developed an automated system using machine learning algorithms to detect and assess when a sheep is in pain. We discuss some details of her work, how she became interested in studying sheep facial expression to measure pain, and her future goals for this project.
For sheep, severe pain is commonly associated with diseases such as mastitis or foot rot, which causes the foot to rot and is extremely painful. Sheep within large flocks are often prone to both of these diseases, and early detection would lead to faster treatment and pain reduction. However, the sheep as prey species have adapted to hide the visible signs of pain or sickness to prevent being targeted by predators. Hence, it can be challenging for their owners to get insight into the sheep's emotional state. An automated system to detect pain could be a handy tool for farmers, who could take the affected sheep to receive a diagnosis and early treatment from their veterinarian.
The newly developed system identifies different parts of a sheep's face, evaluating the face with a standardized measuring tool created by veterinary scientists to recognize and measure pain. The Sheep Pain Facial Expression Scale (SPFES) was developed in 2016 by Dr. Krista McLennan, a former postdoc at the University of Cambridge, to gauge a sheep's pain levels by looking its facial expressions. The scale defines five major changes that occur when a sheep is in pain: their cheek muscles tighten, eyes are narrower, ears fold forwards, lips pull down and back, and their nostrils take on a "V" shape. The SPFES then scores the extent of each changed characteristic on a scale of 1 to 10 to measure the severity of pain. Although the SPFES has been reported to show high accuracy, training people to correctly use the tool can be time-consuming, and reliance on individual perceptions can change case to case, resulting in inconsistent scores.
A dataset consisting of roughly 500 photographs of sheep undergoing treatment for pain-related conditions was used to train the model, by labeling each image with five features: nose, left ear, right ear, left eye, right eye. Within the images, they then classified characteristics of the ears, nose, and eyes into nine facial "action units" (AUs), which were assigned a pain level. (AUs are further described in the episode, so tune in!)Early test results showed that it is capable of estimating pain levels with about 80% degree of accuracy, which means that the system is learning. However, in order to make the system more robust and applicable to other animals, they would need much larger datasets.
If you're able to be in Minneapolis, MN on August 23rd or 24th, consider attending Farcon. Get your tickets today via https://farcon2017.eventbrite.com. | <urn:uuid:d051a5ca-bf11-41f6-80b7-ccd42461e43a> | CC-MAIN-2017-30 | https://dataskeptic.com/blog/episodes/2017/estimating-sheep-pain-with-facial-recognition | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-30/segments/1500549425751.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20170726022311-20170726042311-00266.warc.gz | en | 0.965992 | 680 | 3.625 | 4 |
Biodiversity, gender and climate change
Climate change influences the rich variety of life on earth, and even small changes in climatic conditions can have extensive consequences for biodiversity. A number of climate change impacts on biodiversity have already been observed and are expected to increase in the future: species shifting habitats, changes in distribution and life cycles, reproduction timings and growing seasons for plants, as well as the development of new physical traits. Due to the drastic effects of rapid climate change, many species will be unable to adapt. Addtionally, the effects of human interference in ecosystems – such as over-harvesting, pollution and the introduction of invasive species – reduce the resilience of ecosystems and thereby render the environment more vulnerable to the threats of climate change.
The gendered division of labour influences the way resources are used and where the benefits of these resources flow. Men’s and women’s different roles in family and community in terms of labour, property rights and decision-making processes generate different knowledge and skills in relation to biodiversity and ecosystems. Rural populations living in poverty in the Global South depend on natural resources to meet 90% of their needs. Further, about 80% of the world’s population depends upon traditional medicine to meet basic health needs.
In many places, women’s traditional role as household managers relies on biodiversity. Women’s responsibilities in relation to food and medicine, housing material and livestock are dependant on local natural resources. Women collect plants and animals to feed their families, provide medical treatment and supplement the family income. This requires specific knowledge about natural resources – for example, information about which species of plants and animals are edible, what they can be used for, how they should be prepared, and where and when to find them. Thus, women can be particularly affected when biodiversity is destabilized as a result of climate change.
Successfully conserving biodiversity depends upon the active involvement of local and indigenous communities and on promoting gender equity, as different studies have shown. Projects that integrate both of these factors are not only more effective and balanced; they also strengthen the social formation of communities.
Groups such as Diverse Women for Diversity have coined the term "biopiracy" to describe the extracting, patenting and selling of women’s local knowledge for the benefit of industry and research institutions. Processes that involve and enhance cycles of exploitation, commercialization, biodiversity deprivation and poverty undermine women’s knowledge and status. The access to and control over resources thereby linked to women's struggle for autonomy and sovereignty.
Men and women have different needs, interests, knowledge, and behaviour that shape conservation initiatives. This is an important aspect to consider when designing projects, conducting appraisals, allocating budgets, and analyzing sensitive indicators to evaluate project performance.
Due to widespread traditional gender discrimination, women’s experiences have been excluded from decision making and most representational venues. Accordingly, women’s knowledge and skills in managing natural resources and biodiversity are poorly considered and represented in the public domain / in democratic processes.
Unlike the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol, the Convention on Biological Diversity mentions women’s roles. Nevertheless, its implementation requires a greater focus on gender.
Greater recognition must be given to the role of women in natural resource use, management and conservation.
There is a need to include women in all efforts to conserve biodiversity. The importance of the knowledge possessed by women, including their right to use local plants and other natural resources, must be recognised. How can we prevent such knowledge – which is currently largely unrecorded and unrecognized – from being lost?
In the context of climate change, women’s biodiversity knowledge becomes even more vital as it may hold keys to adaptation and survival.
We need to raise awarenes about the potential wealth of women’s contributions in all forums and institutions dealing with biodiversity. Conservation efforts need to draw on the principles of social justice, equity and equality. | <urn:uuid:9859ba08-e608-438a-9cbc-046164b4c363> | CC-MAIN-2019-18 | https://gendercc.net/gender-climate/biodiversity.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578596541.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20190423074936-20190423100936-00097.warc.gz | en | 0.937699 | 807 | 3.859375 | 4 |
Researchers at Mayo Clinic have found patients who use gastric suppression medications are at a higher risk for recurrent Clostridium difficile (C-diff) infection. C-diff is a bacterium that can cause symptoms ranging from diarrhea to life-threatening inflammation of the colon. The study is published in JAMA Internal Medicine.
“In our study, we found that use of gastric acid suppression medications are associated with a statistically significant increased risk of development of recurrent C-diff in patients with a prior episode of C-diff,” says Sahil Khanna, M.B.B.S., a gastroenterologist at Mayo Clinic and senior author of the study.
Dr. Khanna says gastric suppression medications studied include proton pump inhibitors, such as omeprazole, and histamine 2 blockers, such as ranitidine, which are commonly prescribed and consumed over-the-counter medications for gastroesophageal reflux disease, peptic ulcer disease or dyspepsia.
In a systematic review and meta-analysis of 16 studies with 7,703 patients with C-diff, 1,525 developed recurrent C-diff. The rate of recurrent C-diff in patients with gastric suppression was 22.1 percent, compared to 17.3 percent in patients without gastric acid suppression.
Dr. Khanna urges caution in interpreting these findings due to variables not considered in the study, such as the underlying reason why the gastric acid suppressant was needed. However, he says the findings suggest that patients with C-diff who receive gastric acid suppressants may be at increased risk of C-diff recurrence. “It may be reasonable to re-evaluate the need for these medications in patients with C-diff,” Dr. Khanna says.
- Treating recurrent C. diff with freeze-dried FMT: An interview with Dr Herbert DuPont
- Syphilis outbreak reported in Oklahoma City, linked to ‘specific social network’
- Europe measles update: Romania outbreak now 3800 cases
- Vaccine exemptions: Measles outbreaks can be cut in half by strengthening exemption policies for children | <urn:uuid:c76fbbcc-e4ef-43d1-ae5f-69a26f20a37f> | CC-MAIN-2022-49 | http://outbreaknewstoday.com/recurrent-c-diff-risk-increases-use-gastric-suppression-medications-study-97722/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446706291.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20221126112341-20221126142341-00402.warc.gz | en | 0.934625 | 448 | 2.671875 | 3 |
One of the best Songkran Parades in Thailand is held in Phra Pradaeng District in Samut Prakan Province. It is traditional for the Mon people in this region to release birds and fish during Songkran in order to make merit for themselves. Many of the townspeople dress up in their best clothes and then parade through the town to Wat Proteket Chettharam.
Many people in the parade either carry bowls of fish or bird cages. They take them to the temple where they then release them back into the wild. In this picture you can see the Samut Prakan Governor together with other government officials and the winners of the Miss Songkran Beauty Contest.
These days people don’t just release wild animals during Songkran. They will often do it when they go to visit a temple or on their birthday. They believe that by releasing the birds and fish that they are saving a life. However, what they often forget is that these creatures were captured just for them to make merit. So, this sin cancels out any merit they try to make!
Abbots of some temples have started to ban people from selling birds and fish for this purpose. However, the tradition for this dates back to the days of the Buddha. There was once a novice monk, who on hearing from his abbot that he was going to die within seven days, decided to travel back to his home to say goodbye to his parents. Along the way he saw some fish which had been stranded in a puddle. So, using his robe he carefully carried them to a nearby river and set them free.
Next he came across some birds that were caught in a trap. As it would have been a sin to “steal” these birds he decided to sit and pray for their welfare. Shortly later a gust of wind dislodged the trap and set them free. He then continued on his way to his parents. Several weeks passed and he did not die. So, he went back to his abbot and asked him why. They decided that he was saved by his meritorious acts of freeing the birds and fish. | <urn:uuid:24e1b39d-7923-4c3d-8e33-ae31a354989d> | CC-MAIN-2021-39 | https://paknam.com/blogs/releasing-fish-and-birds-at-songkran/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-39/segments/1631780057584.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20210924231621-20210925021621-00343.warc.gz | en | 0.991429 | 442 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Design of the Universe Reveals God
In my previous post I gave a few evidences for the design in the universe. Scientists have discovered over 100 factors in the universe that if there is one small change, life on earth is impossible. In my final posting for this series I will share a few more.
- The sun must be the right color. Photosynthesis depends on a star that is roughly yellow in color. Photosynthesis is most effective with a sun that has a surface temperature of 5400°, like our sun. Stars a little bluer or a little redder won’t fuel photosynthesis so you won’t get plants for animals to eat.
- Solar luminosity must be precise. The earth is very delicately balanced between a runaway greenhouse (Venus) and a runaway freeze-up (Mars). If we are talking about Venus then we have a greenhouse problem. If you increase the temperature slightly, more water vapor is released into the atmosphere. This increases the greenhouse effect, increasing the temperature causing more water vapor to be released. On the other hand, if we are talking about a planet like Mars the issue is freezing up. The lower the temperature the more ice forms. Ice reflects the sun’s radiation, continuing to lower the temperature, causing more ice to form, reflecting more radiation, causing more freeze-up. Life is impossible on Venus and Mars. However, what we find in the relationship between the sun and the earth is this incredible balance between too hot and too cold. Here’s how the balance works. The sun gets hotter as it ages. Over 3.8 billion years ago when life was allegedly introduced to this earth it lowered the earth’s temperature. Earth’s atmosphere is changed as a result of the introduction of life. The decreasing temperature caused by life being introduced in growing stages of complexity, exactly counterbalances the increase in luminosity of the sun. The sun gets hotter and hotter, but the earth gets cooler and cooler. A decrease in CO2 and water vapor means a decrease in temperature, the opposite of a greenhouse effect. Again we see what appears to be incredible design.
- The earth’s rotation period must be right. If you slow it down, the nights and days are too long, creating temperature extremes. If you speed it up (Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus are all rapid rotators), wind storms would be extreme (1000 mph. on Jupiter).
- The tilt of our axis must be precise. The earth’s axis is tilted 23°. If it was straight up and down the equator would be hotter and the poles colder, disrupting the climate. A greater tilt would expose the pole to the sun all the time (like Neptune).
What are the chances natural processes could produce even one planet in the entire universe capable of producing life? There are two parts to this problem. First, you have the problem of getting the right planet so that life is possible (remember over 100 factors have to be perfect), and second you have the problem of life assembling by chance (life coming from non-life). Harold Morowitz did the calculations on the simplest possible living system. He concluded there was less than 1 chance in 10138,000to have the perfect planet for life and for life to come from non-life. In other words it is statistically impossible for life to arise from chance. If it’s statistically impossible that life could have happened by chance, it is statistically certain it was the result of intelligent design, because there are only two options.
Could you present Kalaam Cosmological argument, similar to how I did it with my son and his girlfriend, drawing it up on a napkin? Start by thinking of Genesis 1:1; “In the beginningGod created the heavens and the earth.” Either the universe had a beginning or it was eternal. Science says it had a beginning evidenced by the big bang and 2nd law of thermodynamics; the Bible agrees. Secondly, was the beginning cause or uncaused? Uncaused means the universe came into existence from nothing. The only reasonable answer is it was caused, and the Bible agrees “…God created.” Finally, was the cause personal or impersonal? A first cause cannot be impersonal; it has to be personal. All thoughts, mind, reasoning, must come from a personal creator. Again the Bible aligns with science and states God is the personal creator.
Finally, you can point to all the obvious design of the universe. A person has to exercise incredible faith to believe the earth was positioned perfectly for life exist and that life could arrive from non-life; the odds against that position are incredible. Point out how the sun has to be the right age for the perfect temperature, it has to be yellow, the rotation of the earth has to be perfect, and the tilt has to be perfect. Mention there are over 100 factors that have to be flawless in order for life to exist on earth. The case for God is logical, reasonable, and easily the odds on favorite. To not believe in God is to exercise irrational blind faith.
My hope is this series has first and foremost strengthened your faith, that we have the evidence for our beliefs. I have used these arguments and they stand up in the real world. If someone disagrees with you, they have to present counter arguments. Science continues to struggle with answers to the problem of the origin of life and the origin of the universe. If you do share with a non-Christian, just remember the Holy Spirit loves to use good arguments to drive people to their knees. Lovingly present the truth and let God worry about the results.
- Craig, WL, “Reasonable Faith,” Crossway Books, 1984
- Ross, Hugh, “The Creator and the Cosmos,” NavPress, 1993
- Gregory Koukl “ABC-Why I’m Not an Evolutionist” 1999 www.str.org
Gregory Koukl “ABC-Why I’m Not an Evolutionist” 1999 www.str.org
Looking for something?
Or visit the Site Map | <urn:uuid:8c360d44-adea-4dbf-aa83-0ca4e8e6e486> | CC-MAIN-2019-18 | https://biblicalworldviewacademy.org/establishing-god-as-creator-part-21/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578528523.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20190420040932-20190420062932-00427.warc.gz | en | 0.939457 | 1,269 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Gallbladder pain is a type of abdominal pain that may feel sharp or crampy, explains Everyday Health. It may begin as a dull ache and build in intensity, and may become severe. The pain may radiate to the back in the area of the right shoulder blade.Continue Reading
Additional characteristics of gallbladder pain include abdominal fullness, heartburn and gassiness, nausea and vomiting, shaking chills and abdominal tenderness, according to Everyday Health. The pain may be worse after eating a fatty or greasy meal, and may increase with deep breathing. In more severe cases, jaundice can develop, and a person's skin may be clay-colored.
Gallbladder pain is most often caused by an inflammation of the gallbladder itself, called cholecystitis, or by gallstones which form in the bladder and can block the bile duct, notes eMedicineHealth. Inflammation of the pancreas, called pancreatits, biliary colic and ascending cholangitis are other causes, adds MedicineNet.com.
Narcotic pain medications may be used to treat acute attacks of gallbladder pain, according to MedicineNet.com. Those who have only had one or two attacks may elect no further treatment other than watchful monitoring of their condition. For those with more frequent attacks of gallbladder pain, surgery is done to remove the gallbladder entirely. Surgery is typically done laparoscopically, though some patients require open surgery. A prognosis is good once the gallbladder is removed.Learn more about Gastrointestinal Issues | <urn:uuid:fc5f1d13-fe65-48df-981e-46ee6319c69a> | CC-MAIN-2017-39 | https://www.reference.com/health/gallbladder-pain-3a1e89f9b7804041 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-39/segments/1505818690029.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20170924134120-20170924154120-00709.warc.gz | en | 0.935158 | 331 | 2.90625 | 3 |
The appendix chapter discusses the use of innovative, cross-disciplinary methods for understanding how people make home. In particular, the chapter explores the methodological possibilities or combining sociological and architectural methods on place and the home including evaluation processes from architectural theory alongside biographical and walk-along interviews from the social sciences. The approach discussed here is situated within the methodological turn to visual methods, material methods and sensory approaches to the home. The chapter moves outside disciplinary boundaries in order to discuss home in new ways, from a range of perspectives. It finally argues that this book’s novel cross-disciplinary approach broadens understandings of home, by bringing attention to the unspoken dimensions of architecture and embodied elements of home that are central to home-making. Also, the chapter provides a detailed account of the way in which the methods were designed and used in the Claremont Court study, in order to provide readers with practical methodological guidance for their own work. | <urn:uuid:ec71c2fc-2537-4f65-b3f2-ca8fcdd28d3a> | CC-MAIN-2018-39 | https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781351041690/chapters/10.4324%2F9781351041706-11 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-39/segments/1537267161661.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20180925143000-20180925163400-00185.warc.gz | en | 0.936014 | 188 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Right to Protest and Organize
Throughout the world individuals face harassment and imprisonment as a result of peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression.
Workers also face intimidation for excersizing their right to organize and bargain collectively.
People have the right to organize peaceful protests and demonstrate free from intimidation, unnecessary or excessive force, and the threat of prosecution and detention.
The internet has opened up new possibilities for individuals and groups to organize. Yet, the internet is also a new frontier where freedom of expression is being challenged. Authorities are now cracking down on dissent by restricting internet access and mobile phone services.
Under international law, all workers have a human right to organize and to bargain collectively. These rights are an essential foundation to the realization of other rights, and are enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, as well as conventions adopted by the International Labor Organization.
Amnesty International stands in solidarity with those peacefully exercising their right to organize. | <urn:uuid:0d828646-0c6a-4fd8-9cd9-154fa54e3a56> | CC-MAIN-2015-18 | http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/censorship-and-free-speech/right-to-organize | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-18/segments/1429246636255.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20150417045716-00233-ip-10-235-10-82.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919841 | 232 | 2.859375 | 3 |
A recent meta-analysis by Roberts, Walton and Viechtbauer published in Psychological Bulletin demonstrate that personality traits change over time. Some things that change over time includes our social interactions, they find, as well as our emotional stability. It would be most interesting to see how these findings relate to our normal sense of self, i.e. our feeling that we are the same person over time.
Here is the abstract:
Patterns of mean-level change in personality traits across the life course: a meta-analysis of longitudinal studies.
Roberts BW, Walton KE, Viechtbauer W in Psychol Bull. 2006 Jan ; 132(1): 1-25
The present study used meta-analytic techniques (number of samples = 92) to determine the patterns of mean-level change in personality traits across the life course. Results showed that people increase in measures of social dominance (a facet of extraversion), conscientiousness, and emotional stability, especially in young adulthood (age 20 to 40). In contrast, people increase on measures of social vitality (a 2nd facet of extraversion) and openness in adolescence but then decrease in both of these domains in old age. Agreeableness changed only in old age. Of the 6 trait categories, 4 demonstrated significant change in middle and old age. Gender and attrition had minimal effects on change, whereas longer studies and studies based on younger cohorts showed greater change. ((c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). | <urn:uuid:a13b000a-1f6f-4fff-9274-415a169f9185> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://brainethics.wordpress.com/2006/02/07/self-and-personality-stability-in-ageing/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910195 | 299 | 2.515625 | 3 |
By Alex Jones
OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD photos capture the voyage of a space probe which travelled FOUR BILLION MILES before crashing into a comet in one of the most important scientific journeys of this century.
Jaw-dropping photos taken by the Rosetta Space Probe allow the viewer to transport themselves into the emptiness of Space and explore one of the universe’s most peculiar celestial bodies – the comet.
Incredible otherworldly images include a snapshot of Earth and its finely balanced atmosphere, a satellite selfie featuring the Rosetta Probe and its ultimate resting place Comet 67P, and stunning trails of sunlit dust tailing behind the comet which scientists hope will unlock the secret of how life evolved on Earth.
The dramatic pictures are included in Comet: Photographs from the Rosetta Space Probe, an exquisite book which details the remarkable interstellar voyage of the European Space Agency’s Rosetta Probe.
The probe made history in 2014 when it became the first manmade machine to orbit a comet and land a module on its surface.
Its mission – to find clues to the origins of our solar system and the emergence of life on Earth.
“2019 is the fifteenth anniversary of the Rosetta’s launch,” explains a spokesperson for Thames & Hudson, the publishers behind the cosmic collection.
“Following a ten-year voyage and a journey spanning millions of kilometres through our solar system, the Rosetta entered the comet’s orbit on 6 August 2014. Its lander, Philae – a miniature science laboratory – landed directly on Comet 67P’s surface and, thanks to the highly developed optical technology – the OSIRIS system – captured captivating and incredibly detailed images of the celestial bodies it encountered on its mission.
“This triumph of scientific endeavour brought back a raft of incredible new photographs, the best of which are featured here.
“The book is built around the various phases in Rosetta’s journey: leaving Earth, breaching its atmosphere and watching the lights of home recede; skirting the Moon and coming close to Mars; plunging into the cosmos’ starry void and approaching the comet; and, finally, landing on Comet 67P. The images range from shots of the Earth receding into the distance, to fly-by images of Mars and the asteroid built and the four-kilometre-wide comet itself.”
The comet, known as ’67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko’, or just 67P for short, orbits Jupiter at a rate of once every six-and-a-half years.
It was named after the two Soviet astronomers who discovered it in 1969, and measures around 2.7 by 2.5 miles at its longest and widest points.
Rosetta reached 67P in 2014 after a spiralling trip through the cosmos before it crash landed into the comet in September in 2016 after it had completed its recon mission.
New details from the probe’s readings are still coming to light today as scientists sift through Rosetta’s stunning imagery.
Jean-Pierre Bibring is a French astrophysicist and Head of Scientific Operations on Philae, Rosetta’s lander.
In the book’s introduction, Bibring explains why the Rosetta’s ambitious endeavour was so significant for humanity.
“Rosetta and Philae are playing a key role in the revolution triggered by the space exploration of the solar system, and to our vision of planetary worlds,” he said.
“Reassessment of major existing paradigms are taking place, with in particular, the plurality of worlds being replaced by their diversity: what drives their distinct evolutions? Is cosmic evolution following the increased complexification of matter, within which life constitutes an advanced stage, a mandatory step, or is life a specific feature of a specific evolution, that of the Earth, in a specific system, namely, the Solar System? Above and beyond the unprecedented beauty of the images they took of a comet, Rosetta and Philae also raise fundamental new issues that challenge our very origins.”
Comet: Photographs from the Rosetta Space Probe, published by Thames & Hudson, will be released at the end of the month. Pre-order here. | <urn:uuid:691de8d5-b168-404f-9a8b-6f52a772c31e> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://mediadrumworld.com/2019/05/09/crashing-into-comets/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585371637684.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20200406133533-20200406164033-00000.warc.gz | en | 0.911207 | 887 | 3.3125 | 3 |
On this day in 1951, Univac 1, the world’s first commercial computer was delivered to the United States Census Bureau. Until the microcomputer revolution in the 1980s, the Univac 1 provided the archetype for the general public’s idea of what a computer looked like—big, brooding, complicated, and covered in countless flashing lights. Later generations of hackers called these lights “blinkenlights.” Blinkenlights once came in handy, by letting engineers see the state of various subsystems as the computer worked in real time–and letting visitors know that here was a big powerful computer.
Blinkenlights have turned up in countless movies, lurking in the lairs of James Bond villains, or heralding the destruction of mankind in movies like Colossus and Wargames. In general, computers have long since become too fast for blinkenlight displays to be of much use in debugging problems, but both movie makers and computer enthusiasts have had a hard time letting go of these iconic symbols of computer power—the Jurassic Park movie is a classic example their combined efforts, where a Connection Machine supercomputer ripples with red LED blinkenlights. The Connection Machine used tens of thousands of processors working in parallel, and ostensibly the red lights were used to check on the status of processors and run various diagnostics, but everyone in the business knew the lights were really just there to look awesome. | <urn:uuid:c9396bb3-c1d1-4db7-8271-cd0f59051bce> | CC-MAIN-2014-35 | http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/sciencenotfiction/tag/univac-i/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-35/segments/1408500832052.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20140820021352-00343-ip-10-180-136-8.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951186 | 287 | 3.453125 | 3 |
First published in Double Helix Network News, Winter 2001, Rev. April 2014
Elbow dysplasia (ED) may be the most unrecognized common health issue in Australian Shepherds. Affected dogs may only show lameness occasionally, something easy to dismiss as a minor injury in an active breed. A few affected dogs may not show signs at all. But testing results from Europe, where elbow exams are as standard as those for hips, makes it clear that this disease is much more frequent in Aussies than most breeders in North America are aware. In addition, having elbow dysplasia is a risk factor for also having hip dysplasia; the more serious the condition the higher the risk. The wise owner should consider it whenever he encounters an unexplained case of front-end lameness in one of his dogs. Breeders should make elbow screening part of their standard health screening practices.
ED is not a single disease, but rather a set of related defects that are grouped under the term “elbow dysplasia.” If your dog is diagnosed with ED, it may have any of the following:
- Fragmented medial Coronoid Process (FCP) – a prominence of the ulna at the elbow becomes separated from the bone below it. This is the most common ED defect. Roughly 60% of dogs with FCP will also have OCD (see below).
- Ununited Anconceal Process (UAP) – a prominence at the upper (elbow) end of the ulna is completely or partially detached from the rest of the bone. This occurs because the bone growth center between the process and the rest of the bone fails to join the pieces together. This normally happens around 4-5 months of age. In some cases UAP may be due to injury.
- Osteochondritis Desicans (OCD, also called osteochondrosis) – an area of cartilage fails to mature and becomes separated from the underlying tissue. It may be partially attached, like a flap, or become free-floating in the joint. (OCD can also occur in other joints than the elbow.)
Some dogs diagnosed with incomplete ossification of the humeral chondile are deemed to have elbow dysplasia. The condition arises in the cartilagenous growth plate at the elbow end of the humerus, the bone above the elbow joint when the growth plate fails to harden as it matures. This particular problem seems to be restricted to Spaniel breeds and is probably not be a concern for Aussie breeders.
The inheritance of elbow dysplasia is complex and no specific genes have yet been indicated. Unaffected parents can have affected offspring and if affected animals are bred together the offspring may not be affected. It is also possible that some or all of these conditions may be inherited independently though the frequency of the FCP/OCD connection indicates some relationship between them at least in a significant number of cases. OCD is also felt to be the same disease no matter what joint it occurs in, therefore breeders should keep shoulder OCD cases in mind in relation to ED until science gives us better genetic information than is available at present.
The defects are most common in large, heavy-boned or fast-growing breeds, so it is possible that the disease may be to some degree secondary to body morph (which is itself inherited) but not all large, heavy-boned or fast-growing dogs get ED. All of the ED defects are developmental in nature, arising from something going wrong during the growth of the bones that join at the elbow. Environmental factors play a part in shaping the growing puppy, but skeletal development is governed by the action of genes. Given that ED is more common in some breeds than others and in some families of dogs within a breed, an inherited cause should be assumed.
OCD, FCP and UAP all cause stiffness, stilted gait or lameness, usually while the dog is under a year of age and sometimes as young as 4 months. The affected joint will be swollen and painful. There may be atrophy of nearby muscles. The disease is often bilateral; occasionally one elbow may show signs before the other.
Untreated, the joint will degenerate, resulting in diminished range of motion and chronic pain. For the sake of the dog, early surgical treatment accompanied by weight reduction and restriction of activity is recommended. Some type of medication may be necessary. It should be noted that while husbandry practices may impact the severity of ED, it cannot be prevented or cured by diet, restriction of exercise and the like. Affected dogs remain affected and will pass ED genes on to their offspring if bred.
Diagnosis of ED is usually confirmed by x-ray of the affected joint. In very young dogs, the bone changes may not yet be visible in an x-ray so it is recommended that the procedure be repeated in 4-6 weeks to see if there is evidence of change to support an ED diagnosis. If x-rays still fail to reveal a cause for lameness, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or arthroscopy may be necessary.
Not all ED affected dogs will have clinical disease, so screening of apparently normal Aussies in ED families is very important. Screening of these dogs is vital to prevent the disease from becoming more widespread in the breed.
In North America the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals (OFA_ evaluates a lateral flexed view of each elbow. In this side-on view the elbow is flexed as much as possible. The x-rays are reviewed by board-certified veterinary radiologists and the elbows will be graded normal or dysplastic. They do not distinguish between the type of defect present (FCP, UAP or OCD.) If dysplastic, they are further graded I, II or III based on the amount of joint damage with III being worst. If the animal is 2 years or older, they will issue a numbered certificate which will also be reported to the appropriate breed club. OFA’s registry is “semi-open.” It will release information about affected dogs with the owner’s express permission to do so, however since it charges the same fee on all submissions, most people with affected dogs do not choose to spend the extra money and the results never reach OFA’s database.
European elbow evaluations are based on the findings of the International Elbow Working Group (IEWG), a group of veterinary radiologists and surgeons, geneticists and dog breeders who have developed a screening protocol to facilitate international exchange of data. It has proven effective for control of ED. They originally accepted the same single view as OFA, but beginning in 2001 they required two views, Lateral flexed and craniocaudal. The latter is taken with the joint extended and viewed from the top. IEWG does not feel a single view is adequate for diagnosis in all cases. European scoring systems are numerical, ranging from 0 to 5, with 0 being ED-free and scores of 1 – 5 indicating the severaity of the condition with 5 being worst. Dogs must be at least one year of age at time of screening.
ED is a disregarded risk in Aussies. It is crippling to the affected dog with correction requiring expensive surgery. Because of this, regular screening of breeding stock should become the norm. (It is a requirement for certification with the Canine Health Information Center – CHIC.) Affected dogs should not be bred. First-step relatives (parents, full and half siblings) should be bred only to mates screened clear of ED who do not have family history of HD. With more diligent screening practices we can limit the impact of this disease on the breed. | <urn:uuid:09edabd2-9fc2-4865-ace7-90c91c6d62ae> | CC-MAIN-2017-22 | http://www.ashgi.org/home-page/genetics-info/bones-joints/elbow-dysplasia | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-22/segments/1495463607846.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20170524131951-20170524151951-00287.warc.gz | en | 0.955692 | 1,590 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Building From 29/5/1886
The first bridge crossing the river here was constructed in wood and opened in November 1729. Badly damaged by a boat in 1870 it was repaired but then completely replaced, with the stone structure we have today, in 1886, designed by Joseph Bazalgette, and sited a little further upstream from the old, replacing an aqueduct that was there. The picture shows the old wooden bridge in 1875. The new bridge was widened twice: 1909 and 1934.
In 1795 Mary Wollstonecraft, in distress at her unfaithful common-law husband, threw herself from the bridge, and was rescued.
Bonus fact: it is the only bridge in Britain with a church at each end, both medieval in origin - St Mary's Putney and All Saints Fulham. This comes from Wikipedia and we quote it as a claim to be challenged, by bridge-church proximity experts. | <urn:uuid:200f32e1-c244-467c-81f7-3fdad488bd9f> | CC-MAIN-2020-05 | https://www.londonremembers.com/subjects/putney-bridge | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-05/segments/1579250609478.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20200123071220-20200123100220-00272.warc.gz | en | 0.975957 | 192 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Skip to comments.Mass limit on Nemesis
Posted on 08/03/2006 9:24:16 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
We assume that if the sun has a companion, it has a period of 27 Myr corresponding to the periodicity seen in cometary impacts on earth. Based on this assumption, it is seen that the inner Lagrangian point of the interaction between the Sun and its companion is in the Oort cloud. From this we calculate the mass distance relation for the companion. We then compute the expected apparent magnitude (visible and J band) for the companion using the models of Burrows... We then compare this with the catalogue completeness of optical and infrared catalogues to show that the sun cannot have a companion of mass greater than 44 M jup (0.042 M)... We estimate the error in this limit as follows. Since the periodicity in the geological records is 27 million years, the sum of the perihelion and aphelion distance must be 180,000 AU from Kepler's laws approximated for a low mass companion. Hence, if the object is in a highly elliptical orbit, the farthest the object can be, is 180,000 AU from the Sun. If the object is presently at its aphelion distance, then the apparent brightness will be a factor of 4 less than the value calculated here, effectively increasing the apparent magnitude by 1.5... Lopatnikov et al... estimate the Oort cloud mass to be about 300 earth masses (about 0.95 M jup), while in more recent work of Weissman... estimates the Oort cloud mass to be about 38 earth masses (0.12 M jup). We note that this mass will be distributed through the entire Oort cloud. So, its influence on the orbit of a companion of > 40 M jup... can be neglected safely.
(Excerpt) Read more at ncra.tifr.res.in ...
The other day I was looking for something newer (read in a magazine) and found this.
It possible that the Sun has a "dark" companion out there. Majority of the stars in the Galaxy are members of a binary group.
That's just what they're trying to figure out here. Nemesis was suggested not long after the emergence of the Alvarez model, and while there have been some limited attempts to look for such a body, it hasn't been systematic or thorough. The recent article I mentioned above has a nice discussion of this.
It a great article.
[Raup originally proposed the idea in a 1984 with University of Chicago colleague Dr. J. John Sepkoski]Nemesis, the Sun's companion star, 1983-presentThis hypothetical "death companion" of the Sun was suggested in 1985 by Daniel P. Whitmire and John J. Matese, Univ of Southern Louisiana. It has even received a name: Nemesis. One awkward fact of the Nemesis hypothesis is that there is no evidence whatever of a companion star of the Sun. It need not be very bright or very massive, a star much smaller and dimmer than the Sun would suffice, even a brown or a black dwarf (a planet-like body insufficiently massive to start "burning hydrogen" like a star). It is possible that this star already exists in one of the catalogues of dim stars without anyone having noted something peculiar, namely the enormous apparent motion of that star against the background of more distant stars (i.e. its parallax). If it should be found, few will doubt that it is the primary cause of periodic mass extinctions on Earth...However, since the examination of the entire sky in the far IR by IRAS with no "Nemesis" found, the existence of "Nemesis" is not very likely.
The Nine Planets
I agree with you. There has not been any evidence of it. There still teaching it though in astronomy classes.
this is neat:
Glosary [sic] from Astronomy knowledge base
Yes, alas, the bits of solar system debris which smack into the Earth once in a while seem to be drawn from the NEOs. There is no real pattern to it, at all, no cycle. Eugene Shoemaker thought that the apparent cycle was due to the solar system's circuit around the galactic axis, that somewhere there was a bunch of crud we'd pass through. The question I'd have is, why doesn't that bunch of crud also make the circuit? I don't think E.S. thought that through very well.
Eugene Shoemaker though was a great astromomer. It is ashame that he did not have the chance to walk on the Moon.
I think his wife wound up an astronomer; he was a professional geologist, but Barbara and Eugene, with David Levy, owe their fame to the SL-9 impacts on Jupiter.
AFAIC, periodicity in impact-caused extinctions are just a way to make catastrophe behave itself by being less random and more predictable. It's possible that the Sun has a companion, but if so, such a massive quasi-planet would have swept the outer solar system clear of debris a very long time ago.Nemesis: Does the Sun Have a 'Companion'?Richard A. Muller... a physicist at University of California at Berkeley... [has] ideas... generally rooted in solid science and genius extrapolation... But Muller's biggest idea is a real Nemesis. Or so he claims. Like a thorn in the side of mainstream researchers, Muller's Nemesis theory -- that our Sun has a companion star responsible for recurring episodes of wholesale death and destruction here on Earth -- seems to reemerge periodically like microbes after a mass extinction. It's a theory that has many detractors. And it's a theory that has been beaten down and left for dead in the minds of most scientists... Muller's idea for Nemesis came to him 1983. Luis Alvarez, then an emeritus professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley, and his son Walter had recently put forth the theory that a giant impact had wiped out the dinosaurs... Around the same time, two other researchers had suggested yet another controversial idea, that mass extinctions occurred at regular intervals -- every 26 million years or so. Scientists immediately folded the ideas into a new and breathtaking possibility: Impacts by space rocks were causing massive global species destruction every 26 million years.
by Robert Roy Britt
03 April 2001
Unlike the paleontological record, the [geomagnetic] reversal record is fairly clean, at least for the past 165 million years of geologic time. About 300 complete reversals have been found in this interval, most well dated. There are smoe very long-term trends in the number of reversals per million years, and these have been known and accepted for many years -- even though there are no good explanations for them... I was encouraged to find a recent paper claiming periodicity in the number of reversals through time... J.G. Negi and R.K. Tiwari... concluded that there is a 32-million-year periodicity... a French group, headed by A. Mazaud, claimed a 15-million-year periodicity positioned in time such that every other pulse was a bit stronger and fell approximately at one of our extinctions... On the other hand, the problem had been looked at by a number of other geophysicists over the years... They had been unable to reject a hypothesis of randomness... I found an impressive 30-million-year periodicity that matched the extinction periodicity fairly well... Nature... neither accepted nor rejected the paper but returned it to me (with the reviews) to revise and resubmit. At the same time, I was invited to suggest the names of six additional reviewers. [pp 183-185]Dr. David RaupFor a while, I thought mass extinctions were merely instances of chance coincidence of independent species extinctions. That clearly was wrong... I have come to the view that large-body impact is responsible for far more extinctions that we appreciate -- perhaps including those pulses of extinction that usually define stratigraphic stages. Maybe even zones? ...For periodic extinction, I know of 13 complete re-analyses of the Sepkoski data that have been published by independent investigators. Of these, five found our periodicity to be significant whereas eight found no significant periodicity. Had these studies used the new genus-level data, I suspect periodicity would have fared better. In any event, the periodicity of extinction must, I think, remain an open question until we have either more data or data of a completely different kind... I believe they really are periodic but I cannot prove it. One problem is that in time-series analysis, one can establish a departure from randomness rather easily but proving a particular periodicity within that is nearly impossible... The extinction record has been analyzed about as thoroughly as possible and searches for Nemesis have failed to find the companion star... I think periodicity is on the back burner but not forgotten -- any more than continental drift was forgotten.
interviewed by Steve Brusatte
Dino Land Paleontology
I wasn’t looking for this oldie at this time, and had forgotten it (I don’t have the heart to look at the number of posts I’ve made on FR, or the number of topics I’ve started on FR), but it pertains to Raup and the periodic mass extinction thing. :’)
The grad student that did his periodicity research died very young, a shame. It confirmed my theory that gradualist's suck.
The idea of periodicity is really just a way to try to get catastrophes — which happen at random intervals — to behave themselves under uniformitarian gradualist paradigm. That’s probably why it didn’t catch on with *anyone*. :’)
Heh... I looked, it’s there on the shelf, wild! And it was filed next to the Officer and Page book (picked that up off remainder) which purports to prove that the dinos COULD NOT AND DID NOT go extinct as a result of an impact. :’) I moved it over one with a Gribbin book as a buffer.
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Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works. | <urn:uuid:cbf5681a-33db-4f11-8764-c18a20781233> | CC-MAIN-2016-07 | http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1677507/posts | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-07/segments/1454701168998.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20160205193928-00210-ip-10-236-182-209.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952201 | 2,209 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Nvidia’s most recent graphics cards have increasingly relied on Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) 3 to find their value. GPUs like the RTX 4070 Ti and RTX 4060 Ti aren’t impressive on their own, but factor DLSS 3 into the buying decision, and they start to become attractive. If you look at Nvidia’s overall strategy for this generation of chips, it looks like the company has started selling DLSS, not graphics cards.
It’s not hard to see why DLSS 3 is so important. It makes the impossible possible, like path tracing in Cyberpunk 2077, and it helps multiply frame rates far beyond what should be possible in games like Portal RTX. But now that we finally have DLSS 3 in more games and the party trick status has faded away, I’ve left Frame Generation off in most games. Here’s why.
First, it’s important to explain how DLSS 3 works. It comprises two components. DLSS Super Resolution is the image reconstruction technique we’ve come to know and love over the past several years. DLSS 3 adds Frame Generation as well, which is exclusive to RTX 40-series graphics cards and helps GPUs like the RTX 4070 stand out from the crowd.
Frame Generation is the interesting bit. It works by comparing two sequential frames in a game and creating a field of motion. It tracks particles, reflections, shadows, lighting, and everything in-between, then brings that all together to calculate a new frame. When combined with DLSS Super Resolution, as Nvidia points out, it makes the tech capable of generating seven out of every eight pixels you see. That’s mighty impressive.
If you break down this process, though, it’s clear to see that there’s a problem. That generated frame is basically a “dumb” frame. It’s just a picture, completely devoid of what you’re doing in the game or the inputs you’re entering. All it has to go on is the frame that came before and the frame that will come after. You can think about Frame Generation like an ultrafast AI image generator that’s taking your previous and next frame into account. Critically, it doesn’t react to your inputs.
This creates extra latency. As a thought experiment, imagine you’re running a game at 30 frames per second (fps). That means there’s 33.3 milliseconds between each frame, so if you take an action, you’ll have to wait 33.3ms to see it reflected in the game (there’s more latency elsewhere in the PC, but let’s ignore that for now). This is why, especially if you’re accustomed to playing games at 60 fps or higher on PC, it can feel like you’re playing in slow-motion at 30 fps.
Let’s bring in DLSS Frame Generation. Ignoring some overhead that’s necessary for calculating each frame, it would theoretically double your frame rate to 60 fps by generating every other frame. That’s how Frame Generation works. Remember half of those frames are dumb, though. You’re getting the appearance of 60 fps, but only the responsiveness of 30 fps. And that’s the critical issue with DLSS 3.
Nvidia attempts to offset this problem with its latency-reducing Reflex tech. This basically syncs up the CPU and GPU so that frames are rendered as soon as they’re ready, eliminating the typical render queue that sits in-between the two components. Reflex ensures your real frames arrive as fast as possible, so the impact of your fake frames doesn’t feel as large.
Nvidia likes to point out the experience of all three components working in tandem — Reflex, Frame Generation, and Super Resolution all improving responsiveness and smoothness as a singular unit. That’s just the problem, though; they aren’t a single unit. In games that support all three, you’re free to use Super Resolution and Reflex on their own, which will always result in lower latency compared to turning on Frame Generation.
This is a much more potent combo for actually increasing your frame rate, too. Super Resolution is simply enhancing detail on images that are actually rendered by your graphics card. In the same situation as above, if Super Resolution took you from 30 fps to 60 fps, you’d actually be getting the responsiveness of 60 fps.
The dynamic between Super Resolution and Frame Generation became clear when I started playing Diablo 4. Like most other games with DLSS 3 support, I jumped into the graphics menu and flipped on Frame Generation, and instead of Super Resolution, I opted for Nvidia’s Deep Learning Anti-Aliasing (DLAA). The game was smooth, but something felt off.
Everything I did felt just a hair behind my input. It wasn’t a problem at first, but as I started climbing levels and taking on harder content, the tight rotation of abilities and attacks I needed to execute (along with a healthy dose of network lag) didn’t feel right. I turned off Frame Generation, turned on Super Resolution instead, and suddenly it felt right.
This wasn’t the first time I experienced the occasional sluggishness of DLSS 3, but it was put on full display in the fast-paced environment of Diablo 4. It’s also problematic in Marvel’s Spider-Man and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, especially if you’re trying to tackle the higher difficulties of the games. Returnal can feel off as well, given how quickly you need to dodge around screen.
The story here isn’t that DLSS 3 is bad and you should turn it off, though. DLSS 3 is very impressive, and there’s a reason I say I leave it off in “most” games. I wouldn’t be able to comfortably play Portal RTX without the tech, and Cyberpunk 2077‘s path tracing mode owes its life almost exclusively to DLSS 3. That’s not to mention games like Hogwarts Legacy and A Plague Tale: Requiem, where a hair of extra latency is worth a performance and visual upgrade.
However, Nvidia has billed DLSS 3 as some sort of performance multiplier across games, and although it can improve the smoothness of your games, it also comes with some reasonable trade-offs. And unfortunately, the situations where you need DLSS 3 the most are also the situations where it shows the most problems.
For instance, with the RTX 4060, you’ll get about 67 fps in Cyberpunk 2077 with the Ultra RT preset at 1440p and DLSS 3 enabled. As we’ve covered, you’re actually feeling the latency of about 33 fps, though. DLSS 3 enhances already good performance. It doesn’t fully make up for poor performance, unlike Super Resolution.
This is important to point out, especially with the backlash some of Nvidia’s recent GPUs have received. Nearly all of Nvidia’s current-gen GPUs have carried DLSS 3 as a badge of honor, making up for lackluster generational improvements. It’s absolutely fair to factor DLSS 3 into a buying decision, but you should weigh it against the raw performance of the graphics card. The DLSS 3 performance number you see in a chart doesn’t tell the full story. In the case of a game like Cyberpunk 2077, you may believe you can reasonably play the game at over 60 fps with maxed-out ray tracing, but the feeling of actually playing at that frame rate isn’t even close.
Personally, I use DLSS Super Resolution and Reflex together when I can, usually skipping out on the Frame Generation option unless it’s an extreme circumstance like Portal RTX. It’s true that Frame Generation is a shortcut to much higher performance, but it also carries all of the caveats that shortcuts normally do.
As I’ve covered, there are plenty of situations where DLSS 3 makes sense and can vastly improve your gaming experience. But it still can’t overcome the experience of better raw performance out of your graphics card, which is a very important factor to keep in mind. There has been a lot of marketing hype around DLSS 3, and for as much of that is earned, there are still trade-offs you need to contend with.
- This ‘Swiss Army Knife’ app transformed how I play PC games
- Nvidia’s DLSS 3.5 update is what ray tracing always wanted to be
- I review gaming laptops professionally — these are the only two you should buy in 2023
- Is a game poorly optimized, or just demanding? They’re not the same thing
- This Starfield mod adds Nvidia’s DLSS 3 — for free | <urn:uuid:07931475-d079-4d0b-ae27-f743a01bf634> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/why-i-leave-dlss-3-off-in-games/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510100.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20230925215547-20230926005547-00504.warc.gz | en | 0.937046 | 1,861 | 2.53125 | 3 |
I have an Excel worksheet with column B showing the start dates for tasks and column C showing the due dates, which are always seven days later. How can I enter the due dates automatically?
First format the two columns: Select them and choose Format | Cells, then the Number tab. In the Category list, choose Date. In the Type list, choose the format you want. Next, assuming you want the first entry in row 2, go to Cell C2 and enter the formula
This tells Excel that if B2 is blank, C2 should remain blank, but that otherwise, C2 should equal B2 plus seven days. Copy this formula into as many more cells in column C as you need to use. Now, when you enter a start date in column B, Excel will automatically calculate the due date in column C. | <urn:uuid:d0334f6f-d1d2-42a8-bfb3-054f3d9d57f8> | CC-MAIN-2015-22 | http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,33102,00.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-22/segments/1432207929272.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20150521113209-00213-ip-10-180-206-219.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.884537 | 170 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Use multiple voices in text to speech narration
Make your voiceovers more interesting for listeners by including several voices. This can break the monotony, and help you create interesting dialogues, text to speech radio ads, or interviews easily.
There is no need to record the script for each voice separately and then stitch up different parts. With Narakeet, you can easily use multiple voices in the same script.
- Use the voice stage direction to switch to a new voice
- Switch to a new language or accent by selecting a native text to speech generator
- Switch back to the original voice, or alternate between voices
- Normalize voice volume
Use the voice stage direction to switch to a new voice
You can easily change the active text to speech reader by including a
voice stage direction. Just start a new line with the word “voice” in brackets, add a colon and then specify the voice that should continue reading.
Stage directions only work if they are in a separate paragraph, so make sure to leave at least one blank line between the stage direction and the text.
For example, the following script starts with the primary voice chosen for the audio file, but then switches to Victoria for the second part.
To understand this topic better, we've invited our resident financial expert, Victoria. Victoria, what do you think about this problem? (voice: Victoria) That's a very complex issue, of course. I think people should be cautious and ensure they do not take on risks unnecessarily.
By the way, there are lots of other stage directions you can use to control different aspects of the text to speech synthesis.
Switch to a new language or accent by selecting a native text to speech generator
You can also use this trick to switch to a completely new language. For example, the script below will switch to French by using Celine, a French speaking voice.
(voice: Charles) Hello, it's so nice of you to join us. (voice: Celine) Ravi de vous rencontrer.
Switch back to the original voice, or alternate between voices
The voice stage direction applies to all the text that follows it, not just to a single paragraph. You can use it as many times as you like in the script, to switch to a different reader. This can be very useful for interviews, or for language lessons. For example, the following script will switch alternatively between Matt, who reads English, and Celine, who reads French.
(voice: Matt) House (voice: Celine) La maison (voice: Matt) Dog (voice: Celine) Le chien (voice: Matt) Cat (voice: Celine) Le chat
Normalize voice volume
When using several text to speech voices in the same scene or script, it is usually a good idea to normalize the voice volume, so that the audio sounds consistent. Narakeet makes it easy to normalize the volume of realistic text to speech voices. Check out our lesson on How to normalize voice over volume for more information. | <urn:uuid:bc0f776a-53ed-4595-9319-a135ec170b4b> | CC-MAIN-2022-49 | https://www.narakeet.com/docs/how-to/use-multiple-voices-in-text-to-speech.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446710503.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20221128102824-20221128132824-00719.warc.gz | en | 0.911629 | 630 | 2.65625 | 3 |
About the Poem
Edward Thomas wrote the poem Rain in 1916 (when was in training as a World War I soldier) which appeared in the collection Poems in 1917, shortly after the death of the poet at the Battle of Arras. It contemplates the loneliness of life as well as the inevitability of death.
- Here, in the poem entitled Rain, the poet Edward Thomas introduces a speaker who lies awake as well as alone at night-time. He is listening to a “wild rain” outside
- It is noteworthy that the speaker shows sympathy for all the living as well as the dead under the storm. But, he feels lonely as well detached from human love
- Contrary to that, the speaker feels “the love of death” or a peaceful acceptance of his own mortality
The speaker of the poem Rain by Edward Thomas says that there is nothing here but (only) (I) stormy midnight rain which is falling on his drab hut, as well as (II) loneliness; simultaneously, he once again realizes that someday he will die. When he will die, he will not be capable of hearing the rain or even thanking it for rinsing him clearer than he has felt since he was born into his lonely life.
According to the speaker, dead people in the rain are fortunate. But, he is praying that none of them whom he used to love is dying right now; or: (I) lying sleepless, as well as (II) alone as they listen to the rainfall.
He hopes that they are not in difficulty or pain. Its reason is that they listen or feel the same kind of sympathy the speaker does among the living as well as the dead-feeling similar to the cold water which flows among stiff, broken, motionless stalks.
Or, feeling as the speaker himself feels that the stormy rain has washed away all love except the love of death. In case, love is the right word for what one feels toward something unique or perfect as well as (as the storm reminds him) inevitable.
Edward Thomas’ Poem Rain Analysis
The poem entitled Rain by Edward Thomas is a short poem of just 18 lines contained within one stanza of the text. This war poet chooses not to make use of a consistent rhyming pattern. But, there is not only a metrical pattern but a great deal of repetition as well.
- As far as the lines of Rain are concerned; they are known for mostly conforming to iambic pentameter, which is also the most popular of rhythmic schemes. In other words, they (lines) contain or include five sets of beats; the first is an unstressed one whereas the second is stressed
- In this way, Edward Thomas’ choice to use the aforementioned pattern is helpful in emphasizing the sound of rain beating the roof of the hut the speaker is sheltering in. It provides the readers of this poem a greater sense of their own
- Apart from the meter, the readers are suggested to take note of the utilization of the word “rain” throughout the poem (whole 18 lines). Because it appears 8 times in this poetic piece
- Moreover, a reader can easily trace the repetition at the endings of particular lines as well
- The poet uses the words such as “death”, “dead”, as well as “die” in order to create a link to the major theme of the poem
There are moments as well. Here, individual lines rhyme with those not immediately preceding or following them that is seen in the end words (I) “sympathy”, as well as (II) “me”.
Ques: When did Edward Thomas write the poem entitled Rain ?
Ans: Edward Thomas wrote the poem Rain early in 1916. He composed this poem in hit 51at the Hare Hall camp in Romford. It once again is based on a description in his notebooks, this time of a downpour in the year 1911 along the Icknield Way.
Ques: What does the poem entitled Rain mean ?
Ans: The poem Rain by Edward Thomas is about his experience of:
Sitting in a hut all night alone
Listening to the rain falling
Meditating on his death as well as on the fates of his fellow soldiers in World War I
Ques: What are the themes of Rain by Edward Thomas ?
Ans: “The Inevitability as well as Relief of Death” and “Solitude, Sympathy, as well as Alienation” are the themes of Rain. | <urn:uuid:2ff16bde-805b-463e-ab09-f8059ae978a8> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://literaturearticles.com/rain-poem-by-edward-thomas-analysis/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030335514.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20221001003954-20221001033954-00625.warc.gz | en | 0.977622 | 960 | 3.15625 | 3 |
See-through Brains Ready for Study
In recent years, generating see-through tissue — a process called optical clearing — has become a goal for many researchers in life sciences because of its potential to reveal complex structural details of our bodies, organs, and cells — both healthy and diseased — when combined with advanced microscopy imaging techniques. Previous methods were limited because the transparency process itself can damage the structures under study.
The new technique developed by Miyawaki's team creates transparent brain samples that can be stored in Sca/eS solution for more than a year without damage. Internal structures maintain their original shape and brains are firm enough to permit the micron-thick slicing necessary for more detailed analyses.
"The key ingredient of our new formula is sorbitol, a common sugar alcohol," explains Miyawaki. "By combining sorbitol in the right proportion with urea, we could create transparent brains with minimal tissue damage, that can handle both fluorescent and immunohistochemical labelling techniques, and is even effective in older animals."
The team has devised several variations of the technique that can be used together. One of these variations allowed them to generate multicolour high-resolution 3D images of amyloid beta plaques in older mice from a genetic mouse model of Alzheimer's disease developed at the RIKEN BSI by Takaomi Saido team.
After showing how Sca/eS treatment can preserve tissue, the researchers put the technique to practical use by visualising in 3D the mysterious "diffuse" plaques seen in the postmortem brains of Alzheimer's disease patients that are typically undetectable using 2D imaging. Contrary to current assumptions, the diffuse plaques proved not to be isolated, but showed extensive association with microglia (mobile cells that surround and protect neurons).
The researchers also examined the 3D positions of active microglial cells and amyloid beta plaques. While some scientists suggest that active microglial cells are located near plaques, a detailed 3D reconstruction and analysis using Sca/eS clearing showed that association with active microglial cells occurs early in plaque development, but not in later stages of the disease after the plaques have accumulated.
"Clearing tissue with Sca/eS followed by 3D microscopy has clear advantages over 2D stereology or immunohistochemistry," Miyawaki points out. "Our technique will be useful not only for visualising plaques in Alzheimer's disease, but also for examining normal neural circuits and pinpointing structural changes that characterise other brain diseases."
Source and image credit: RIKEN
Published on : Fri, 18 Sep 2015
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Sectra PACS is designed for a high production environment with stability and usability in focus. Highlights include functions to speed up oncology workflows such as anatomical linking and support for reviewing complex multiparametric MRI studies such...
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Mobile Excellence Featuring advanced imaging technology incorporated in compact hardware, the HM70A with Plus is the right choice for physicians and sonographers who want to deliver excellence in patient care and clinical efficiency wherever they go... | <urn:uuid:eab9ff93-23ec-4e69-ad6b-d0d182f4c026> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://healthmanagement.org/c/imaging/news/see-through-brains-ready-for-study | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719542.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00396-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93126 | 756 | 3.171875 | 3 |
Playing by the Same Rules:
Discipline of Charter School Students with Disabilities
Earlier this year, the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the Civil Rights Project published a report entitled, “Charter Schools, Civil Rights and School Discipline: A Comprehensive Review.” The authors reviewed comprehensive data on charter school discipline practices, and their findings included a determination that charter schools, on the whole, disciplined students with disabilities at higher rates than their non-disabled peers.
Many parents of children with disabilities seek out charter schools as a public alternative to their local school district. Parents of charter school students should keep in mind that charter schools must adhere to the same state and federal laws about educating children with disabilities, including the discipline protections of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”).
The following are potential red flags for parents of charter school students to watch out for which can be signs that the rights of a child with a disability have been violated:
- A charter school asking a student with disabilities to dis-enroll from the charter or face expulsion. Sometimes charter schools will do this under the auspices of preserving the student’s record; however, it can sometimes be a way for the school to avoid conducting a manifestation determination review or to “counsel out a student” whose behaviors are a manifestation of his or her disability.
- Statements by charter school personnel that “we don’t have to follow the same rules as public schools.” Charter schools do, in fact, have to follow the law, and in the case of children with disabilities, charter schools must follow the IDEA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (“Section 504”). This includes holding a manifestation determination review when a student with disabilities is removed from school for more than ten days in the same school year and not disciplining a child for manifestations of his or her disability.
- Claims that charter schools do not have to follow a 504 Plan or IEP because they have a zero tolerance policy. Setting aside the general education implications of zero tolerance policies, parents of charter school students with disabilities should know that IDEA discipline protections trump the charter school’s discipline policy – no matter what its level of “tolerance.”
- Statements by charter school personnel that “we don’t offer that service here.” Charter schools, like public school districts, have to provide those services that a child with disabilities needs to receive a free, appropriate public education, and if the charter school does not have a service the child needs, the school must find a placement for the student with disabilities that can meet his or her needs.
No matter where your child with a disability attends school, parents should remain alert and engaged in the education process both for the general benefit of their child’s development but also to ensure that his or her rights are respected. If you are concerned that your charter school student’s rights have been violated, call our office for a free consultation. | <urn:uuid:681b6faf-6fe4-4c18-8aa2-bb4de241ef4a> | CC-MAIN-2019-18 | http://mcandrewslaw.com/publications-and-presentations/articles/playing-by-the-same-rules-discipline-of-charter-school-students-with-disabilities/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578526923.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20190419001419-20190419022531-00056.warc.gz | en | 0.964513 | 619 | 2.734375 | 3 |
On this day in economic and business history...
The savings and loan crisis of the 1980s had many causes, and like most financial meltdowns, it also had many attempted solutions. One of the earliest attempted solutions for this bubbling catastrophe was the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act (FIRREA), signed into law by President George H. W. Bush on Aug. 9, 1989. The act established the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC), and also put in place several changes to the financial-industry regulatory regime of the United States that would play a part in the subprime mortgage crisis two decades later.
The RTC wound up serving as janitor to the garbage-filled savings-and-loan industry. From its establishment to the final gasps of the crisis in 1995, the RTC wound up 747 thrift banks with assets totaling $394 billion. This was the lion's share of the total cost and impact of the crisis, which began in 1986 and which saw a total of 1,043 thrifts with $519 billion in assets fail by 1995. The RTC was initially funded with $50 billion, but this proved inadequate to handle the huge wave of thrift failures it was forced to deal with in 1989 and 1990. By 1995, the RTC's funding had been more than doubled to $105 billion, but this was only a part of the estimated $153 billion total cost of the crisis to American interests, both public and private. Taxpayers wound up footing $124 billion in bailout cleanup costs that were never recouped.
The remainder of FIRREA focused on tightening up the regulatory structure surrounding the affected sectors. Thrifts had been allowed to play somewhat fast and loose with their accounting thanks to a series of ill-devised regulatory gimmicks, ultimately pushed aside by FIRREA's adoption of stricter compliance requirements. The savings-and-loan industry was also taken under the protection of the FDIC, safeguarding depositor funds while imposing another set of regulatory requirements.
FIRREA also established the Federal Housing Finance Board (FHFB) to regulate the lending infrastructure behind Fannie Mae (NASDAQOTH:FNMA) and Freddie Mac (NASDAQOTH:FMCC). This may have been its greatest legislative failing -- the FHFB was eliminated as a government agency and replaced by the Federal Housing Finance Agency when it became apparent that it had not adequately regulated the spread of subprime mortgages.
Other reforms implemented by this legislation also aimed to regulate the real estate industry, and since part of these reforms included real estate appraisals (which soared beyond all common sense in the prelude to the subprime meltdown), we can only conclude that FIRREA was an abject failure in its efforts to keep that sector of the economy on sound footing over the long term. However, it did keep the economy from falling apart due to savings-and-loan collapses in the 1990s -- the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES:^DJI), despite suffering a brief decline due to the Iraq War, was 12% higher two years after FIRREA became law, and a decade later it had grown an incredible 300% as the longest bull market in history reached its peak.
Despite its housing-related deficiencies, FIRREA has again become useful in the aftermath of the subprime meltdown. The Justice Department has made repeated use of FIRREA's Section 951 to seek extra penalties against those who commit certain crimes "affecting a federally insured financial institution." Many of these post-crash legal efforts have involved bank-initiated mortgages backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.
The industrial side of internal combustion
Rudolf Diesel received a patent for the internal combustion engine that still bears his name on Aug. 9, 1898. This award legitimized Diesel's work to improve the fuel efficiencies of early internal combustion technology, which by this point was dominated by gasoline-driven engines pioneered by Karl Benz and other 19th-century automotive inventors. EDN's historical-moments blog notes the advances Diesel's engine made over its competition:
Diesel focused on his knowledge that as much as 90% of the energy available in fuel is wasted in a steam engine. After experimenting with a Carnot Cycle engine, Diesel worked on his design for a compression-ignition engine where fuel was injected at the end of compression and the fuel was ignited by the high temperature resulting from compression. ...
The diesel engine required a heavier, more robust construction than a gasoline engine at the time. Diesel engines ran more fuel efficiently than gasoline engines because of much higher compression ratios and longer duration of combustion.
Diesel soon established the Consolidated Diesel Manufacturing Company to capitalize on his invention, but he did not live to see diesel engines enter widespread industrial and commercial use. It was not until the formation of Cummins (NYSE:CMI) in 1919 -- six years after Diesel's death -- and the establishment of Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) in 1925 (and its switch to diesel engines in 1931) that diesel manufacturers began to gain a lasting foothold. The annual worldwide market for diesel engines is now fast approaching $200 billion, but these efficient engines are no longer confined to industrial use. Nearly 10 million "clean diesel" vehicles were sold worldwide in 2012.
The Motley Fool recommends Cummins. The Motley Fool owns shares of Cummins. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. | <urn:uuid:ec35570a-1401-4aa4-9096-96838ffab5b5> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/08/09/the-forgotten-150-billion-banking-bailout.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719192.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00044-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969895 | 1,150 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Texas Cooperative Extension
Text and images copyright © Richard Duble.
Kentucky bluegrass is native to practically all of Europe, northern Asia
and the mountains of Algeria and Morocco. Although the species is spread
over all of the cool, humid parts of the U.S., it is not native to North
America. Apparently the early colonists brought seed of Kentucky bluegrass
to this country in mixtures with other grasses.
In the southern U.S., Kentucky bluegrass is limited to the transition zone from North Carolina, through much of Tennessee, northern Arkansas to the panhandle of Texas and Oklahoma. In the western states, Kentucky bluegrass is grown with irrigation.
Description. Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis) grows 18 to 24 inches tall and is readily identified by its boat-shaped leaf tip. It spreads by rhizomes and tillers and forms a dense sod. New shoots (rhizomes and tillers) are produced primarily in the spring and late summer. Most shoots produced in the spring remain vegetative. Shoots produced in late summer often terminate in an infloresence the following spring. The lifetime of a Kentucky bluegrass shoot that terminates in an infloresence ends soon after the seeds mature. During late spring and summer, the shoots of Kentucky bluegrass grow in an erect, or upright, position; whereas, in early spring and fall they become more decumbent. This pattern of growth is a response to day length rather than temperature. During long days shoots grow upright; during short days they become decumbent. Daylength also influences the number of shoots that develop. Significantly more shoots are produced during the short days of early spring than during long summer days.
The length of time between the appearance of new leaves on Kentucky bluegrass ranges from about 10 days in the spring to 22 days in the summer and fall. During winter months few new leaves are produced on Kentucky bluegrass in northern climates. In the transition zone, new leaves and shoots are produced year round.
Leaf blades of Kentucky bluegrass remain green for 10 to 12 days during the growing season and the typical shoot has 3 to 4 green leaves, at any one time. In comparison, bermudagrass typically has 5 to 7 green leaves per shoot and new leaves appear at 7 to 10 day intervals during the growing season.
Leaf blades on Kentucky bluegrass are about 3 to 4 inches in length during late spring and summer. Those that appear in late summer and fall become progressively shorter. Leaves appearing in spring and early summer are also quite erect; whereas, leaf blades become more decumbent in late summer and fall. Both of these traits, leaf blade length and leaf angle, are also typical of warm season grasses. Leaf length responds to daylength and peaks in summer, then becomes progressively shorter in late summer and fall.
In Kentucky bluegrass, some shoots turn downward and develop into rhizomes beneath the soil. These rhizomes appear from the axils of leaves, the base of which may be above or just below the surface of the soil. Most rhizomes, however, develop beneath the soil surface as branch shoots of other rhizomes. Rhizomes may branch several times during the year.
Rhizomes of Kentucky bluegrass develop most frequently in early summer as leaf growth begins to decline. During this season, high nitrogen fertilization and close mowing retard the development of rhizomes. Factors which favor photosynthesis such as long days, high temperatures and high light intensities promote rhizome development. Likewise, factors that promote leaf growth such as high nitrogen fertilization retard rhizome development in Kentucky bluegrass.
When environmental conditions are favorable, spring and early summer, the growing point at the tip of rhizomes usually turns upward and continues growth as an above ground shoot. The lifetime of individual rhizomes commonly extends through two growing seasons. The total lifetime of a rhizome and its terminal shoot is usually less than two years.
Carbohydrate accumulation in rhizomes peak in late fall when above ground growth of Kentucky bluegrass slows. As temperatures become favorable for growth in the spring, these carbohydrate reserves become available for development of new shoot growth. Factors that reduce carbohydrate accumulation in the fall include high nitrogen fertilization and close mowing.
Roots of Kentucky bluegrass develop from the underground nodes of rhizomes and from the basal nodes of above ground shoots, the crown. Roots also develop at the terminal nodes of rhizomes that emerge above the soil as shoots.
Root growth is greatest in fall and spring and slows dramatically in summer. Root growth of Kentucky bluegrass peaks at soil temperatures of 60°F and declines sharply as temperatures rise above 70°F. Root growth practically ceases at temperatures above 80°F.
High nitrogen fertilization and close, frequent mowing greatly decrease root growth in Kentucky bluegrass.
Varieties. Over 100 cultivars (varieties) of Kentucky bluegrass have been developed during the past 25 years. Some varieties tolerate southern climates better than others (Adelphi, Baron, Fylking, Glade, Midnight, Ram I, Vantage, Victa and Warrens A-34), some have moderate shade tolerance (Bristol, Glade, Nugget and Touchdown), and some tolerate closer mowing (Adelphi, Bristol, Ram I and Touchdown). Select a blend of about 3 varieties for planting in the transition zone to increase your opportunity for success. Many of these grasses differ in their degree of susceptibility to leaf spot diseases and Fusarium blight, both being troublesome in the transition zone. A blend of several varieties will usually appear superior to a single variety since all varieties are usually not affected by adverse conditions at the same time or to the same degree.
Propagation. Where bluegrass is established from seed, plant 2 to 3 pounds per 1,000 sq. ft. of lawn. Lower seeding rates require much longer to develop a cover, particularly where seed are broadcast over the soil surface. Where seed are drilled into the top inch of soil, lower seeding rates can be used. Kentucky bluegrass can be seeded year round, but best results are obtained in the spring and fall. New seedings require light, frequent watering (2 to 3 times per day for the first 2 weeks). After seedling emergence, watering frequency can be reduced.
Management. Begin mowing young grass when it grows above a 2-inch cutting height. Either rotary or reel type mowers may be used but blades must be sharp and reels properly adjusted to prevent pulling up young seedlings. The initial cutting should be at a 2-inch height. Subsequent mowings should be frequent enough so that no more than one-third of the leaf is removed at each mowing. At a 2-inch mowing height the grass needs mowing before it reaches 3 inches. Weekly mowing is usually satisfactory at the 2-inch mowing height. At lower mowing heights more frequent mowing is required. Some of the improved bluegrass varieties such as Fylking, Ram I and Touchdown tolerate mowing heights below 1 inch. However, weaker stands of Kentucky bluegrass result when mowing height is below 1 inch. Also, at mowing heights below 1 inch annual bluegrass and crabgrass invade a bluegrass turf. At mowing heights above 1° inches weeds are much less of a problem.
Compared to the warm season grasses, Kentucky bluegrass has a high water requirement. As much as 2 inches of water per week are needed to keep bluegrass green and growing during summer months in the transition zone. Ideally this amount of water would be applied in one day to wet the entire rootzone of the turf. However, the effective rootzone is often too shallow to hold that amount of water. No less than ° inch of water should be applied on any single day to promote deeper rooting of the bluegrass turf.
Where bluegrass is allowed to go dormant during drought periods, as little as ° inch of water every 2 to 3 weeks will keep the crowns of the grass alive. Then, after rainfall or significant irrigation the grass will quickly recover. The drought resistance of Kentucky bluegrass is generally underestimated. Bluegrass can survive several months without significant rainfall or irrigation.
Nitrogen requirements of Kentucky bluegrass are much higher during the establishment year than during subsequent years. The grass will respond to 5 to 6 pounds of nitrogen the first year; whereas, 2 to 3 pounds are adequate for maintenance after the first year. During summer months Kentucky bluegrass will burn if too much soluble nitrogen is applied at one time or if it is not watered in immediately after application. No more than ° pound of soluble nitrogen per 1,000 sq. ft. should be applied in one application. Slow release nitrogen sources can be applied in larger amounts and less frequently.
In alkaline soils Kentucky bluegrass often develops iron chlorosis, a yellowing between the veins of young actively growing leaves. Color can be quickly restored with a foliar application of ferrous sulfate at 2 oz. per 1,000 sq. ft. or another iron source at recommended rates. Iron chlorosis is aggravated by high levels of phosphorus in the soil. Where iron chlorosis is a problem, phosphorus fertilization should be kept to a minimum.
Weed, Pest and Disease Management. Annual bluegrass (P. annua), crabgrass, dandelions and clover are major weed problems in Kentucky bluegrass turf. The annual grasses can be effectively controlled with timely applications of preemerge herbicides. The broadleaved weeds are effectively controlled with hormone type herbicides.
Insects including white grubs, billbugs and sod webworms can destroy plantings of bluegrass. Insect populations should be monitored so that timely insecticide applications can be made. Pest management in this manner is much more cost effective than either routine insecticide applications or replanting large areas of bluegrass turf.
Major diseases of bluegrass turf in the transition zone include Fusarium, Helminthosporium leaf spot diseases, rust and powdery mildew. Selecting blends of Kentucky bluegrass with different degrees of resistance to these diseases is one means of control. Overseeding bluegrass turf with perennial ryegrass or planting mixtures of bluegrass and ryegrass provides a good suppresion of Fusarium blight, a disease which causes a bleaching of leaves and severe rotting of roots. | <urn:uuid:59393665-b5d1-401e-98d5-9a5dff3b76a0> | CC-MAIN-2015-48 | http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/archives/parsons/turf/publications/Bluegrass.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-48/segments/1448398467979.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20151124205427-00337-ip-10-71-132-137.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944192 | 2,146 | 3.65625 | 4 |
A supervisor at a small hospital wants to ensure that the number of errors in the hospital's medical records remains in control. The supervisor records the total number of medical records that are filed each day and the number of records that are incomplete or inaccurate (defectives).
The average subgroup size is more than 2500. Because of the large number of records, the supervisor uses a P chart diagnostic test to test for overdispersion.
The ratio of observed variation to expected variation is 184.3%. This value indicates overdispersion because it is greater than the upper confidence limit of 129.4%. Overdispersion can cause points on a traditional P chart to appear to be out of control when they are not. To adjust for overdispersion, the supervisor should use a Laney P' chart to monitor defective records instead of a traditional P chart. | <urn:uuid:294838d9-f008-4fde-9e5b-c97cd44a06e6> | CC-MAIN-2023-14 | https://support.minitab.com/en-us/minitab/21/help-and-how-to/quality-and-process-improvement/control-charts/how-to/attributes-charts/p-chart-diagnostic/before-you-start/example/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296945183.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20230323194025-20230323224025-00728.warc.gz | en | 0.906643 | 176 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Dogs get sick and injured just like humans.
Owners have to be prepared to care for their dogs should anything happen, as well as be capable of providing the proper health care for them.
This goes beyond the regular vet visit, as owners have to be adamantly checking and providing precautionary measures to prevent injury or illness in the first place.
The Sussex Spaniel is an overall fairly healthy breed considering the breed developed from a tiny gene pool.
The Sussex, as with all dog breeds, has some genetic health conditions that they are more prone to than others.
The most serious and potentially life threatening is PDH canine pyruvate dehydrogenase and cardiac problems. Heart problems include pulmonic stenosis, patent ductus arteriosus (PDA), and tetralogy of Fallot.
It is Important to take these possible health issues into consideration before getting this breed and choose a breeder who tests, whenever possible their breeding dogs and does not breed dogs with known problems.
Canine Pyruvate Dehydrogenase is characterized by intolerance to exercise and possible collapse after exercising. Limiting exercise to strolls on a leash and some dietary restrictions may help.
affected dogs have a shortened life expectancy due to heart and lung
complications. There is a DNA now available for breeders to
use and the Sussex Spaniel Parent Club is working hard to eliminate this disease in their dogs.
Tetralogy of Fallot –a group of four heart defects that are present at birth and includes pulmonic stenosis, right ventricular outflow stenosis, ventricular septal defect, and an overriding of the aorta which means that the aorta overlaps the wall between the 2 ventricles of the heart.
A very complicated but extremely rare problem that is evident in young dogs under 6 months.
Some of the symptoms include exercise intolerance, shortness of breath, and blue mucous membranes.
Veterinarians can detect a heart murmur. Most puppies do not live long with this problem.
Hip dysplasia is a genetic disease that causes mild to severe changes to the hip joint.
The ball portion of the femur does not properly align with the socket part of the hip so the normal smooth movement of the hip joint is impaired causing pain, inflammation and arthritis.
This is a
very common problem in large dogs and in many smaller dogs as well. While there is an estimated 42% frequency in the Sussex Spaniel, serious complications tend to be rare.
Pulmonary Stenosis or right ventricular outflow tract obstruction is a common heart problem in some breeds of dogs and is present at birth.
The Pulmonary valve in the heart is unusually narrow and results in congestive heart failure from a very young age and then sudden death.
Very mild cases do not show symptoms for years. In severe cases, symptoms include weakness, exercise intolerance, fainting, pale mucus membranes and a cough.
Patent Ductus Arteriosis an inherited disorder of the heart where the ductus arteriosis fails to close. The ductus arteriosus is a fetal blood vessel that connects the aorta to the pulmonary artery.
After the puppy is born, this blood vessel closes but if it remains open or patent, fetal blood flow puts extra volumes of blood into the lungs causing problems for the heart.
It is first detected as a heart murmur and without surgery, to correct the problem, death occurs due to congestive heart failure.
Hypothyroidism is a common disease that occurs in many different breeds and is the result of a low production of thyroid hormones.
When not enough thyroid hormones are produced, dogs tend to gain weight, suffer from hair loss and skin problems.
A simple blood test can confirm the problem and daily medication can be given to eliminating much of the problem.
While this is considered a Sussex Spaniel Health Concern, it could easily be listed as a problem in virtually every dog breed.
It's always important to find a reputable breeder when purchasing any purebred dog. It is less of an effort with this breed, however, as they are relatively rare.
A good breeder will know the breed in and out, as well as be capable of answering most questions about them. | <urn:uuid:b40f42d9-569b-48fb-a760-abae447a932c> | CC-MAIN-2018-51 | https://www.dog-breeds-expert.com/sussex-spaniel-health.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-51/segments/1544376828501.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20181217091227-20181217113227-00154.warc.gz | en | 0.940993 | 883 | 3.015625 | 3 |
There is a Difference Between “I Don’t Know” and “I Don’t Remember”
A client or witness needs to be thoroughly familiarized with what it means to forget as opposed to not knowing something. If one says, “I don’t know,” something, it means it was never in their brain. “I don’t remember,” on the other hand, means that the information was once in their brain, but cannot be retrieved. At the time of trial, an, “I don’t know,” will be utilized to show that your client is lying. When in doubt, a client should answer, “I don’t recall,” or “I don’t remember,” as opposed to, “I don’t know.” If a client does not remember, you can salvage their testimony by either refreshing recollection under Indiana Rule of Evidence 612, or the information can be established as past recollection recorded under Indiana Rule of Evidence 803(5). These provisions are discussed below in greater detail.
Indiana Evidence Rule 612(a) provides: “If, while testifying, a witness uses a writing or object to refresh the witness’s memory, an adverse party is entitled to have the writing or object produced at the trial, hearing, or deposition in which the witness is testifying.” Although this evidence rule contemplates the use of writings to refresh a witness’s memory, it “does not address the method by which the witness’s memory may be refreshed.” Thompson v. State, 728 N.E.2d 155, 160 (Ind.2000) (quoting 13 Robert Lowell Miller, Jr., Indiana Practice § 612.101, at 225 (2d ed.1995)), reh’g denied. In Thompson, the Indiana Supreme Court outlined the proper procedure for refreshing a witness’s recollection as follows:
The witness must first state that he does not recall the information sought by the questioner. The witness should be directed to look at the writing, and be asked whether that examination has refreshed his memory. If the witness answers negatively, the examiner must find another route to extracting the testimony or stop the line of questioning.
Thompson, 728 N.E.2d at 160 (quoting Miller § 612.101 at 226). In Thompson, the Court recognized that Indiana Evidence Rule 612 does not suggest, much less require, that a writing used to refresh a witness’s memory have been prepared by the witness. Id. at 160-61.
Indiana Evidence Rule 803(5) provides that the following is not excluded by the hearsay rule:
Recorded Recollection. A memorandum or record concerning a matter about which a witness once had knowledge but now has insufficient recollection to enable the witness to testify fully and accurately, shown to have been made or adopted by the witness when the matter was fresh in the witness’s memory and to reflect that knowledge correctly. If admitted, the memorandum or record may be read into evidence, but may not itself be received as an exhibit unless offered by an adverse party.
Federal Rule of Evidence 612 provides that: if a witness uses a writing to refresh memory for the purpose of testifying, either-(1) while testifying, or (2) before testifying … an adverse party is entitled to have the writing produced at the hearing, to inspect it, to cross-examine the witness thereon, and to introduce in evidence those portions which relate to the testimony of the witness. If it is claimed that the writing has matters not related to the subject matter of the testimony the court shall examine the writing in camera, excise any portions not so related, and order delivery of the remainder to the party entitled thereto.
Rule 612 is applicable to depositions and deposition testimony by operation of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(c), which governs depositions upon oral examination. See Federal Rule Civil Procedure 30(c) which provides that “[e]xamination and cross-examination of witnesses [during depositions] may proceed as permitted at the trial under the provisions of the Federal Rules of Evidence except Rules 103 and 615”.
If used the document to refresh his recollection, the Court must still decide whether the “writing contains matters not related to the subject matter of the testimony.” Id.
Posted on July 29, 2015, in Evidence, Trial Advocacy and tagged Evidence; Rule 612; Rule 803(5); Refreshing Recollection;Past Recollection Recorded, testimony, Trial. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment. | <urn:uuid:bcf5703a-0942-4436-a551-77f8c49e7470> | CC-MAIN-2018-47 | https://the-barristers-toolbox.com/2015/07/29/there-is-a-difference-between-i-dont-know-and-i-dont-remember/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-47/segments/1542039743007.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20181116091028-20181116112342-00055.warc.gz | en | 0.943665 | 976 | 2.515625 | 3 |
AUFSESS: 91347 Bavaria, Upper Franconia (Gerz, Peters).
LOCATION OF CEMETERY: Follow Brunnerweg uphill; cemetery about 500 yds on the left.
IN USE: From 1722 until 1937 (last burial).
NUMBER OF GRAVESTONES: 143. (Oldest datable gravestone 1735).
- Numerous individual gravestone photographs and general cemetery views in Alemannia Judiaca.
- In Schwierz - refer to Sources below.
- Michael Trüger: Der jüdische Friedhof in Aufsess, publ. by Der Landesverband der Israelit. Kultusgemeinden in Bayern. 14. Jahrgang Nr. 79 in April 1999 page 20 Abstract.
- Report (in German) of visit by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) to the cemetery in 2001.
- Tthis cemetery was initially also used by the Jewish community in Hollfeld and Bayreuth until they had established their own cemeteries. From 1902 onwards, the Jewish community in Heiligenstadt also buried their Dead here.
- A gated wire mesh fence originally surrounded this cemetery, later eplaced by a concrete wall and an iron gate.
- The cemetery, now owned by the Israelischen Kultusgemeine in Bayern is being kept in quite good condition by the city of Aufsess.
SOURCE: Alemannia Judaica and Schwierz, pages 204-205 (LBI).
(Researched and translated from German July 2009).
Last Updated on Friday, 17 July 2009 23:18 | <urn:uuid:2b2bef7b-e185-4314-8ff1-928419bc1bb4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iajgsjewishcemeteryproject.org/bayern-bavaria/aufsess.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708145189/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124225-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.874278 | 349 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Blood Pressure and Procrastination
Procrastinators are people who tend to put things off. Procrastinators often find that deadlines help them focus to get things done. I am a procrastinator and have to work to make sure that I don’t miss deadlines and that putting things off doesn’t adversely affect my life. While I enjoy the rush of a challenging deadline and finishing a project under pressure, there still is that pressure. I often find myself thinking that ‘next time’ I will do things differently. I strike a balance by having projects completed, but just not taking the action to submit them until a deadline prevails.
So, I was reading an article recently on blood pressure that made me think about patients and healthcare providers who procrastinate. While many patients will immediately take care of a health issue, there will be others – the procrastinators – who put things off. I’m not sure that the rush is quite the same when the challenging deadline is avoiding a fatal event, but that can be the literal ‘dead’line.
Blood pressure has been a prominent health measure for many years. Many people know their blood pressure, and some have high blood pressure. You can check your blood pressure at many pharmacies and grocery stores. The higher number, the systolic blood pressure, represents the pressure on blood vessels as the heart contracts; the lower diastolic number represents the pressure as the heart relaxes and fills with blood before the next pumping heartbeat. Pharmacists are usually available to talk with you about blood pressure and hypertension medications.
There has been some discussion over the years as to what constitutes the “best” blood pressure and at what level blood pressure should be treated. A blood pressure of 120/80 is considered normal. Blood pressures up to 140 systolic or 90 diastolic are considered pre-hypertension and may not be treated. If you have an underlying condition, such as diabetes, that might predispose you to heart problems, your physician might set a lower goal for your blood pressure.
The issue for procrastinators may be how long you can get away with putting off treating high blood pressure; when is the ‘deadline’ for treating hypertension?
An interesting paper from Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston published earlier this year in the British Medical Journal helped answer this question. Almost 90,000 adults were followed to determine the relation between their delay in starting or increasing blood pressure treatment, scheduling or delaying a follow-up visit and their risk of a cardiovascular event (like a heart attack, stroke, heart failure, or peripheral vascular disease) or death.
While earlier treatment is preferred, the study found that the large increases in the number of heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular events occurred in patients who delayed treating systolic blood pressures above 150 for more than about 6 weeks or who delayed their follow-up visit (to make sure their blood pressure was controlled) longer than about 3 months. The results confirm the importance of not procrastinating care when you have high blood pressure. (1)
Many procrastinators are great people, although we can be aggravating to those who don’t understand us. Whether you’re a procrastinator or not, you can check your blood pressure at many pharmacies and grocery stores, and can talk to your pharmacist about it. If your blood pressure is high, you now have a deadline to work towards: see your physician within 6 weeks and follow up within 3 months after your visit.
We don’t want to lose any of you! | <urn:uuid:a1b38c81-b64b-426e-8e5b-109e3343e762> | CC-MAIN-2023-23 | https://easydrugcard.com/healthy-living-tips-blog/medical-conditions/blood-pressure-dont-delay-getting-checked/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224648635.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20230602104352-20230602134352-00395.warc.gz | en | 0.944802 | 793 | 2.53125 | 3 |
What is today’s most popular English dictionary? Why most people are using Oxford English Dictionary?
When most people think about a dictionary, they think of Webster’s. However, there is a dictionary that well outrun Webster’s, and no matter how good Webster’s is, it cannot touch the Oxford English Dictionary. This is the most through, expansive dictionary the world has ever known and it is forever changing to keep up with the times. So, if you want the best and most popular English dictionary, don’t waste your time; go directly to the source which is the Oxford English Dictionary.
Dictionaries are the backbone of all languages; they tell us the meaning of words and help us to learn a wider vocabulary than we ever thought possible. Although it may sound strange to some, there are those who actually read dictionaries as they would other books in an attempt to broaden their knowledge of their language. This may sound like an odd choice of reading material, but reading a dictionary tells us a very real tale; that of the English language. For many people, this is just as interesting as any fictional book! One of the world’s best dictionaries is the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). This dictionary is more widely published than any other in the world. Not only does it give us definitions, it also provides the pronunciation, meaning, and history behind over 600,000 words. Being published more than 150 years ago, this dictionary is considered a historical text. Currently it is being revised, as it occasionally is, to reflect the changes that have that have come about in the English language.
The OED is a handy tool for writers. Words are like magic, and for writers this magic can come in many forms. It can sometimes be difficult to choose our word; especially when we are looking for the right words to convey a feeling they wish to get across to their readers. The OED can give writers a wealth of information dealing with meanings, synonyms, styles and much more. It can also be helpful when they need to be historically correct in order to keep their words matched with the settings they are being used for. (Example, a civil war period piece.) The OED helps writers better understand how the English language has been used and how it is still being used. It gives them the knowledge they need to put their words to paper and make them stand out in the intended way. If what they are looking for is verbs, the OED tells them which ones are most commonly used. This can help in choosing one that is popular, or steer them away from the commonly used ones in order to find something more unusual and defining. The same information can be found on nouns and adjectives as well. Everything a writer needs is at their fingertips when using the OED. This is one of the things that make it a tool that is special to writers and the world. As far as specialized dictionaries go, it is at the top of the list. | <urn:uuid:7247b44c-42ee-4948-b3f5-856d661bd386> | CC-MAIN-2019-13 | http://www.languages.info/2013/02/27/why-most-people-are-using-oxford-english-dictionary/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-13/segments/1552912201953.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20190319093341-20190319115341-00548.warc.gz | en | 0.969507 | 613 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Summary: Tackling the claim that FOSS discourages women (common way to discredit a movement or individuals) using real research
OVER the years we have challenged many attempts to demonise FOSS by claiming that it was hostile towards women. This is actually a dishonest attack on FOSS, which narrows down a computer science (or more broadly, science) issue and tries to ascribe it just to the segment of collaborative and freely-shared software.
Over the past few days there have been numerous articles [1-4] that shed light on the gender gaps and where they can be found, why, and how to measure it. It is not a FOSS issue. It’s a real issue, but it is not a FOSS issue. It’s just a convenient way to try to attack FOSS, just like feminism or chauvinism have both become a very effective mechanism for attacking/discrediting individuals. Anna Troberg (pictured above) should know this. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
Tuesday was [Ada Lovelace] day and to recognize it SparkFun posted an article about women in their workforce and the STEM initiative. [Ada Lovelace] is credited with forging a path for women in mathematics and computing. The STEM acronym represents a movement to get more of America’s students into Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics fields in order to keep up with the rest of the developed world.
A map from UNESCO provides a very rough picture of “the gender gap in science” around the globe, showing large swaths of relative equality in parts of South America and Central Asia, and great inequality in countries including India, France, Germany, and Japan.
One hundred images form a stunning new photographic exhibition that demonstrates the role played by imaging across many areas of science.
The show reveals many aspects of Nature not usually visible to the naked eye.
The Royal Photographic Society is hosting the event alongside the Science and Technology Facilities Council. | <urn:uuid:db600899-2e03-4a61-a2d4-1ac8ff088171> | CC-MAIN-2014-52 | http://techrights.org/2013/10/18/gender-gap-and-foss/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-52/segments/1418802772398.133/warc/CC-MAIN-20141217075252-00105-ip-10-231-17-201.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946969 | 414 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Matrix isolation infrared spectroscopy
Studies in the gas phase offer the potential for the most precise, detailed infrared spectroscopic measurements. However because of the high chemical reactivity of transient molecules, it is difficult to obtain gas-phase infrared spectra of them. Nevertheless, the well known advantages of Fourier transform infrared measurements, coupled with sophisticated digital data handling procedures, have permitted the acquisition of gas-phase survey spectra for a number of transient molecules. Diode lasers and other laser-based techniques with limited tunability have been used to obtain high resolution spectra of individual vibrational transitions of these species.
The application of matrix isolation sampling for the stabilization and spectroscopic study of reaction intermediates has recently been reviewed (see below). Because nitrogen and the rare gases are transparent through the entire infrared spectral region, matrix isolation measurements provide a potentially valuable survey tool. In these matrices, infrared absorptions are typically sharp, with half band widths between 0.1 cm-1 and 1 cm-1. Rotational structure is, with few exceptions, quenched. Multiple trapping sites occur, often resulting in the appearance of several absoption maxima — usually one or two of which predominate — over a range of a few cm-1.
Matrix shifts for covalently bonded molecules trapped in solid neon or argon often are quite small. A comparison of positions of the ground-state vibrational fundamentals of over two hundred diatomic molecules observed in the gas phase and in nitrogen and rare-gas matrices has shown that, typically, the smallest matrix shift occurs for neon matrix observations, with successively greater matrix shifts for the heavier rare gases and for nitrogen. Except for very weakly bonded molecules and for the alkali metal and Group IIIa halides, matrix shifts of most diatomic molecules isolated in solid argon are smaller than 2%. Similar conclusions resulted from a comparison of neon- and argon-matrix shifts for the ground-state vibrational fundamentals of larger molecules. The generalization that matrix interactions are minimal for neon and that they increase as the mass of the rare gas is increased and become even more important for nitrogen and most other small molecule matrices is supported by experimental observations on larger molecules, as well. The figure on the right compares the observed matrix shifts for the ground-state fundamental vibrations of transient molecules trapped in solid neon and argon. For neon matrices, the maximum in the distribution lies near 0.0%, and for argon matrices, near 0.2%. For both neon and argon matrices, fewer than one-tenth of the matrix shifts are greater than 1%.
For more information, see the following review: The spectroscopy of molecular reaction intermediates trapped in the solid rare gases.
100 Bureau Drive, M/S 8441 | <urn:uuid:7b44cb62-8716-419c-ac17-7fc29ede447b> | CC-MAIN-2014-35 | http://www.nist.gov/pml/div685/grp03/molecular_matrix.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-35/segments/1408500829916.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20140820021349-00091-ip-10-180-136-8.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912884 | 570 | 2.75 | 3 |
The enemies of Yahweh and His people like to claim that the ancient dispersed Israelites — those who broke away after the Exodus plus the millions deported by the Assyrians and then the Babylonians — just disappeared and are lost to history. Vanished without a trace. And they say this with a straight face. Or they conjecture fabulous tales such as that the Lost Tribes jumped onto boats and sailed for the Americans, intermixed with the natives, and faded away. Or that they scuttled south to Subsaharan Africa or trekked east to the Himalayas and Asiatic nations where they intermarried and lost their Israelite identity.
Anything and everything except that the Israelites went west and became the Europeans, most certainly did not fade away and are, in fact, with us today as the white race. No, the enemies of Christ can’t have that. In fact, they shriek and howl that any mention that the Israelites became the white Europeans is “whitewashing” history, is hate speech, and is vile racism. These same forces seek to legally punish and silence those who insist on views that do not fit their agenda.
But what is the truth? Did the descendants of Jacob become high-yellow negroes in the African jungles? Or interbreed with brown Indians in the Americas? Or blend themselves with the Asiatic hordes? And if they did do these things, what then became of Yahweh’s promises that Abraham would be the father of many nations? That kings would come of him? That through his white Israelite descendants, the whole (Adamic) earth would be blessed? Was God so powerless that the Israelites just slipped through His fingers like sand and disappeared, the whiteness of their race mixed out of existence and lost forever? His promises made null and void?
But that’s what the enemies of God say happened. In addition, they want us to believe that the rag-tag group of Edomites left in Judah in 70 AD are the true Israelites and not cursed Canaanite wandering merchants. That’s just another lie to cover over the falsehood that the dispersed Israelites disappeared. These lies have so successfully permeated our culture and churches that it can be difficult to open our minds to a different version of history. But when we do, we see that these absurdities do not hold up to objective scrutiny. To find the truth, we need to search the Scriptures. Does the Bible tell us that the dispersed Israelites disappeared from history? Or does it do just the opposite? Does it tell us where they went geographically and where we might find them today? In order to discover the truth, we’re going to examine what the Bible says and how secular historians support the Scriptural accounts.
The short answer is that the Bible does indeed paint a clear picture that Europe would be the Israelites’ new home. Scripture says that the Israelites would migrate to the north and to the west, which points us towards the direction of Europe. Whilst the Bible does not explicitly say, “Then the Israelites went to Europe” (in fact, Europe was not even called Europe in the days of the prophets and the deportations), it does essentially say this. It gives us this information when we study the prophets and match their accounts with ancient historical and geographical records. One prophet, Jeremiah, even addressed the deported Israelites who were already living in the lands that would become Europe.
In previous Proofs, we’ve shown that ancient Greek and Roman histories tell us about the migrations of the Israelites into Europe. To briefly recap, these histories recount the early Danaans’ migrations into Greece soon after the Exodus from Egypt. Their arrival in Greece was later followed by the Dorian invasions and conquests of Greece. Centuries later, the Trojans also settled in Greece and later became the Romans. From the coasts of Israel, the Phoenicians colonized much of Europe. The Cimmerians, the Saca, and the Scythians all originated from the deported Israelites and migrated to Europe. The Gallic and Germanic tribes emerged from these migrating Israelites. Although the names of the Israelites changed over time, the people remained the same. History clearly shows us that the Israelites ended up in Europe.
In addition, in earlier Proofs, we’ve shown that the Bible states that the Israelites would be dispersed from the lands of Canaan as chastisement for their sins. But Yahweh never forsakes His people. He promised that at a later time to come down as a man to redeem them and that His apostles would preach His Gospel to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (who were scattered across the lands of Europe). This mission would result in the regathering of Yahweh’s people into one people, the white Christian Europeans or Christendom.
With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at what Yahweh’s prophets said.
When King David ruled over the Kingdom of Israel, Yahweh promised him that one day the children of Israel would have a new homeland far away from the accursed Caananites. The lands of Canaan were never meant to be the permanent home of Israel. In fact, Canaan was far too small for the multitudes that the descendants of Israel would become. Let us remember that the whole earth is the Lord’s (Ps. 24:1) and Yahweh can settle His people wherever He chooses.
The prophet Nathan was standing in Jerusalem as he spoke this prophecy to David regarding the Israelite’s destiny. “Moreover I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own, and move no more; neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them any more, as beforetime” 2 Samuel 7:10 KJV.
Palestine never was “a place of their own” because the Israelites never fully drove out the Canaanites. As a result, they shared the land with these accursed people and were corrupted by them away from Yahweh’s laws. To have a place of their own, the Israelites would need to find a land uninhabited or not assigned by Yahweh to any other Adamic nation. In Genesis 10, we learn that the land was divided amongst the Adamic nations (we’ll cover these assignments in a later Proof). But for now, it’s important to note that most of Europe was not assigned to any Genesis 10 nation. It would seem that Yahweh had reserved this region in order to assign it to the Israelites later.
We see the division of lands in Deuteronomy. “When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel” Deut. 32:8 KJV. This is referring back to the time after Noah and his family left the ark. Yahweh then divided the lands amongst Noah’s sons and their descendants. In other words, He divided the lands among the children of Israel who were alive at that time and those who were yet to come.
How were the lands divided? In Genesis 10, we’re given a list of the Adamic nations that descended from Noah. It doesn’t explicitly tell us where they ended up, but we can work that out by correlating history with the names given. We covered this more fully in Proof 8, but here’s a quick summary. Generally, Shem’s descendants built nations in the Middle East. Japheth’s descendants spread out to the west, east, and north. Ham’s descendants went southward. You’ll notice that large swathes of Europe were left unassigned. That was for a reason. As we go through the prophets, it will become clear Europe was the true home Yahweh planned for the Israelites.
As for the lands of Canaan, we were just passing through.
We should begin with the timeline and background of Jeremiah’s ministry, which likely began around 627 BC. He preached in Jerusalem to the kings of Judah a hundred years or so after the Assyrians had crushed the Northern Kingdom in 722 BC and taken millions of Israelites into captivity. Around 701 BC, the Assyrians also invaded the Southern Kingdom and deported large swathes of Israelites. Members of all twelve tribes were deported by the Assyrians, not just the ten tribes. It’s a common mistake to think that Judah and Benjamin were not in the Assyrian deportations. Some of Benjamin and Judah were deported, yes, but many remained in and around the undefeated Jerusalem. Since Jerusalem was the capital city, it could have had millions of inhabitants. After the invasions, Jerusalem began to repopulate and revive the Southern Kingdom of Judah. It was to these people that Jeremiah preached repentance.
However, Yahweh had not forgotten the Israelites who had already been dispersed by the Assyrians. Jeremiah speaks to them in several prophecies. These prophecies show that the deported Israelites had gone north and west and were on their way into Europe.
The Assyrian Empire had collapsed by 612 BC. Its capital, Nineveh, was destroyed by a confederation of numerous tribes and provinces formerly under Assyrian control. Jeremiah warned the kings of Judah to repent or face deportation, yet — ironically, perhaps — shortly after his pronouncements, Assyria got wiped off the map. No doubt the Judeans assumed their deportation would have come through the Assyrians. Perhaps they were lulled into thinking that they were safe from deportation now that Assyria was now gone and out of the picture. If so, this was a false sense of security. We know from history that Judah was later conquered and deported by Babylon. Babylon rose up after Assyria and claimed much of the former Assyrian Empire’s territory for itself, becoming the Babylonian Empire. The Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar set his eyes on Jerusalem.
We’ll pass over most of Jeremiah’s prophecies and address them in a later Proof. Here we’ll focus specifically on his prophecies that prove Israelites were migrating northward. In Jeremiah Chapter 3, Jeremiah was told to look to the north and make pronunciations. He wasn’t told to look to the south, the east, or the west. He was to speak to the Israelites in the north. In these pronouncements, Yahweh said He was chastising the deported Israelites in the north, but He also beckoned them to return to His commandments, promising that He would not be angry forever. These words were directed to the Cimmerians/Scythians, the Israelites who migrated north out of Assyria. “Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, ‘Return, thou backsliding Israel,’ saith the Lord, ‘and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful,’ saith the Lord, ‘and I will not keep anger forever’” Jeremiah 3:12 KJV.
Then in verse 18, Jeremiah prophesied that Yahweh would bring the houses of Israel and Judah, the two separate kingdoms, back together. They would once again become one people. Yahweh spoke of them being located in “the land of the north.” Furthermore, He refers to a land given as an inheritance to their forefathers, a land that obviously was not Palestine. “In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers” Jeremiah 3:18 KJV.
It’s important to note the timing here. This prophecy was given before the Babylon invasions and the captivity of Jerusalem. Yet even at this early date, we see that this land in the north was the intended inheritance that Yahweh had given to the ancestors of the Israelites. In other words, land to the north (Europe) was always the plan of Yahweh for His people.
But that’s not all. In Chapter 31, Jeremiah prophesied that Yahweh would gather the Israelites from the north AND from the coasts of the earth together under Christ. Be sure to note that “earth” does not mean what we moderns imagine it to mean; it is not the entire world. It merely means lands. Here Yahweh is referring to the coastlands of Europe where earlier migrations of Israelites had settled. He promised to merge those Israelites of the coastlands with the Israelites who migrated north after the Assyrian invasions. “Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travaileth with child together: a great company shall return thither” Jeremiah 31:8 KJV.
This promise is reaffirmed a few verses later when Yahweh declares to the isles far off that He will gather scattered Israel together. Which isles (can be translated coastlands) is He addressing? They must be the coastlands of the Mediterranean and Europe. “Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, ‘He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock’” Jeremiah 31:10 KJV.
We can historically trace the fulfillment of this prophecy. Earlier waves of migrating Israelites had built the Greek and Roman civilizations. Christ’s apostles brought the Gospel to them. Later the Germanic tribes which originated in the Assyrian deportations invaded and gradually conquered the Roman Empire. They also accepted Christianity. Thus the prophecy was fulfilled. The two houses were reunited as Christian Europeans. Yahweh merged the lost sheep of the house of Israel under himself as Christ. All the Israelites, all twelve tribes in Europe, were united again under Christianity.
Isaiah’s ministry started around 729 BC, so he lived over one hundred years before Jeremiah. He was also a prophet in Jerusalem. Isaiah spoke to two different groups of Israelites: Chapters 1-40 focused on the Kingdom of Israel and the impending Assyrian invasion and Chapters 41-66 addressed the already scattered Israelites (who had spread abroad even before any deportations). Isaiah warned about the impending Assyrian invasions if the remaining Israelites didn’t repent. He also spoke about coastlands in the west, which can only be the European coastlands. By delivering the pronouncements of Yahweh to the Israelites living in the coastlands, Isaiah proves that God’s people were never confined to one geographical area. Ever since the Exodus and even before that, they’d been spreading far and wide and toward Europe.
In Chapter 11, Isaiah declares that Yahweh would gather the Israelites from all the places they had passed through, and He would regather them together as one people. Obviously, this is referring to Yahweh coming down as Christ and sending his Gospel to the dispersed Israelites. “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea” Isaiah 11:11 KJV.
Who exactly is being addressed here? It wasn’t the people living in those locations at that time. Isaiah was addressing the remnant of God’s people who had already left those places. They had passed through all the places named but would eventually end up in the land Yahweh had designated for them. Passing through Egypt and through Assyria refers to the Israelites who had been in captivity. The actual locations of Pathros (Upper Egypt), Elam (Persia), Shinar (Babylon’s more ancient name), and Hamath (Northern Syria) were places where Israelites had lived. Yahweh declared that their new promised home would be to the west, which is in Europe. “But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the ships of the other tribes [Philistines] toward the west; they shall spoil them of the east together: they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab; and the children of Ammon shall obey them” Isaiah 11:14 KJV.
These Israelites were to end up in the west. That was their prophetic destiny. In some translations, “shoulders” is “ships.” The Philistines just mean other tribes. Then they “spoil the east.” What does that mean? History tells us. In time, Greece and Rome — both founded by dispersed Israelites — did rise up in military might and conquered many territories in the east. So the Israelites did “spoil the east.” Regardless, the Israelites weren’t destined to live in the south or east. They were always destined to go north and west into Europe.
Later in Isaiah Chapter 41, Yahweh speaks to the dispersed Israelites living in the coastlands. First, He tells the Israelites to renew their strength. As dispersed people without a motherland, the migrating Israelites would indeed need to renew their strength. That would happen over the next few centuries as the Israelites grew strong and became the center of the civilized world in Greece and Rome. So Yahweh certainly did strengthen them. “Keep silence before me, O islands [coastlands]; and let the people renew their strength: let them come near; then let them speak: let us come near together to judgment” Isaiah 41:1. Then the prophecy declares that Christ, “the righteous man,” would be raised up in lands to the east of these coastlands. Palestine is to the east of Europe. “ Who raised up the righteous man from the east, called him to his foot, gave the nations before him, and made him rule over kings? He gave them as the dust to his sword, and as driven stubble to his bow” Isaiah 41:2.
Ancient historical records affirm that the dispersed Israelites did indeed live in these coastlands. The Scythians populated the coastlands all around the Black Sea and Crimea after the Assyrian deportations. Other early migrations of the Israelites centered around the Aegean Sea and coasts of Medditerean.
Hosea is one of the shorter minor prophets but he makes several definitive prophecies about where the Israelites would end up. He made it clear the Israelites were to the west, in Europe. In Chapter 11, Hosea prophesied that when Christ came, the Israelites would obey Yahweh’s commandments. Christ would roar like a lion, and the children would tremble from the west. This can only be talking about the dispersed Israelites in Europe who heard Christ’s gospel and once again came to fear Yahweh as their ancestors had done and to keep His commandments. They were the lost sheep of the house of Israel returning to the Shepherd’s fold. From the perspective of Hosea, the west would be Europe. “They shall walk after the Lord: he shall roar like a lion: when he shall roar, then the children shall tremble from the west” Hosea 11:10 KJV.
Hosea mentions Egypt and Assyria, which are allegories for the enslavement and deportations of the Israelites. So these people in the west went through either one or both of the captivities, so it’s clear they must be the Israelites. No other people went through these captivities. Yahweh promised to place the enslaved and deported in their own houses, meaning the chosen lands for the Israelites within Europe. “They shall tremble as a bird out of Egypt, and as a dove out of the land of Assyria: and I will place them in their houses…” Hosea 11:11 KJV. Yahweh included all the Israelites, those who had left the main body of Israelites around the Exodus period, and those dispersed in the Assyrian deportations. Yahweh did not forget any of them.
We’ve shown three prophets making it clear that Europe was the destination of the Israelites. Now let’s have a look at the Apocrypha, specifically 2nd Esdras. Esdras is a complicated book, but it’s arguably the book that’s clearest about the Israelites going to Europe. Esdras is actually a compilation of several books attributed to the prophet Esdras (also spelled Ezras). Different Bible translators and denominations have split up these books in different ways, some into four separate books of Esdras, some even up to six. Here we’ll be focusing on the 2nd Esdras, as it is called in the KJV. The book numbering may add a layer of confusion depending on which Bible version you use. The 2nd book of Esdras could be called 3rd, 4th, 5th, or even 6th Esdras in the various versions.
Originally, 2nd Esdras was included in the Bible throughout numerous medieval translations (11th-16th century). The King James Version came out in the early 17th century and “trimmed” Esdras, cutting it down to just one book (1st Esdras). In some translations, the 2nd Esdras which the KJV removed is called the 3rd or 4th Esdras. In this 2nd Esdras, an important account is given of the Israelites migrating to a new land called Arsareth.
“And whereas thou sawest that he gathered another peaceable multitude unto him; those are the ten tribes, which were carried away prisoners out of their own land in the time of Osea the king, whom Salmanasar the king of Assyria led away captive, and he carried them over the waters, and so came they into another land. But they took this counsel amongst themselves, that they would leave the multitude of the heathen, and go forth into a farther country, where never mankind dwelt, that they might there keep their statutes, which they never kept in their own land. And they entered the Euphrates by the narrow passages of the river. For the most High then shown signs for them, and held still the flood, till they were passed over. For through that country there was a great way to go, namely, of a year and a half: and the same region is called Arsareth” 2 Esdras 13:39-45.
Where is this region called Arsareth? On the plains of Hungary, there is a river called Sareth which flows from the Ukraine, through Romania, and into the Danube River, very close to the Danube Delta and the Black Sea. The River Sareth still bears that name to this day (the Siret in Romanian, Szeret in Hungarian, Серет in Ukrainian). You’ll notice on the map that the River Sareth is next to a huge mountain range to the left. As we’ve mentioned before, Ar in Hebrew means “high-point, mountain, hill-top.” So the two words combined together “Ar-sareth” are likely referring to the mountain range by the River Sareth in modern Romania.
The river is named Siret, but in German it is still named the Sareth.
Ancient historical records recount that the first place the Cimmerians arrived in Europe, after going over the Caucasus Mountains, was the planes of Hungary. Once again we see that the historical accounts and biblical records match up. A portion of the dispersed Israelites did travel this route into Europe.
Furthermore, Esdras’ account stated that the Israelites were migrating to an uninhabited place, where “no human beings had lived.” Esdras would have written around 458 BC and we can compare his words to what Herodotus the historian wrote around 450 BC. Herodotus stated that north of the Daube was uninhabited at his time due to the severe cold in the winters (Arsareth/Hungary were north of the Danube). However, Herodotus did say that one tribe of people did live there, a recent colony from the cities of the Medes. Medes had been one of the primary locations the Israelites were deported to by the Assyrians, so this colony was likely Israelites. Other historians also noted that north of the Danube was far too cold in the winters. Interestingly, there seems to have been a general warming period from then on. It’s almost as if Yahweh was keeping these lands in reserve for his people, the Israelites.
The Israelites had been deported across the Assyrian Empire, including the city of the Medes. Eventually, the Israelites overcame the Medes, and then in alliance with the Babylonians and Medes destroyed Nineveh, the capital city of Assyria, thus bringing down the Assyrian Empire. This is when some Israelites (called Cimmerians and Scythians) migrated west to Lydia and then into Greece, whilst others traveled over the Caucasus mountains to Arsareth. With wave after wave of migrating Israelites behind them, these people needed to keep moving because if they stayed in the Arserot area, there wouldn’t be enough land for everyone. So many moved into what would become Poland and Germany.
For our purposes, it’s significant that along the route from the Caucasus mountains to Hungary lie southern Ukraine and most notably the Crimea. The name Crimea originated from Cimmerians, who were called Cimmeria. Historians identify the Crimea as an early “Greco-Scythian” state, again showing that the Cimmerians and Scythians were the same people. It was an independent kingdom from around 500-100 BC. But later it was conquered by the Romans and incorporated into the Roman Empire. The area was renamed the Kingdom of the Cimmerian Bosporus (Βασίλειον τοῦ Κιμμερικοῦ Βοσπόρου). This shows the Cimmerians did indeed travel along this route.
We can easily see why the 2nd Esdras was removed from the “official” Bible. Any white person reading this material would quickly realize that the Israelites really did migrate into Europe. It’s obvious. This is not whitewashed history. It’s not hate speech or vile racism. It’s not a fairy tale. This is the account — the history — of what actually happened. History clearly matches up with the prophecies we’ve covered that the Israelites would be heading to the north and to the west, which is of course Europe.
So there you go. This is what the Bible and history tell us. We can know with all certainty that the Israelites became the white Christian Europeans. They did not go to Africa, the Himalayas, or the Americas. When confronted with the lie that the ancient Israelites disappeared from history, keep in mind that if we can show that both the Bible and history line up with the same narrative — that the Israelites went to Europe — then we have stopped the mouths of our critics. They will always try to deny and erase white history, but we will show that in doing so, they are denying the Bible as well. The Bible does not lie, but the enemies of God do. Do not let His enemies steal our history from you. The Israelites went to Europe and became Europeans and we, their descendants, are the true Israelites. | <urn:uuid:50dacc59-6669-4cfe-bb5c-bb06349d2f13> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://truthvids.net/100-proofs-the-israelites-were-white-part-6/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320304835.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20220125130117-20220125160117-00092.warc.gz | en | 0.975511 | 5,915 | 2.53125 | 3 |
How do you write a historiography?
- Step 1: Find a topic. There are several useful strategies for coming up with a topic.
- Step 2: Develop an annotated bibliography. Once you have a topic, start looking for works on your subject.
- Step 3: Evaluation of Authors’ stances.
- Step 4: Write your historiography.
How is it different from historiography?
Answer and Explanation: History is the study of the past. Historiography is the study of historical writing.
Why there is no such exact history?
Answer: Because history is stories about the past, not the past itself. But since no one was there to write it down, and he was eaten by a sabre toothed tiger thereafter, there are not written or archaeological records to substantiate the story, it appears in no history.
Who said history is science no less no?
J. B. Bury
What are the 4 characteristics of modern historiography?
The characteristics of modern historiography are: (i) Rationality: Being a modern era, the research is scientific and unbiased. (ii) Proof Reading: Finding sources is now easy with the modern technology. (iii) Growth of Knowledge: With new researches, the field of historiography has become a vast subject.
How does point of view affect history?
Perspective is the ‘point of view’ from which the creator of a source described historical events. Every person sees and understands events differently depending on their age, gender, social position, beliefs and values. Even modern historians have their own perspectives which can influence how they interpret the past.
Does history tell the truth?
For instance, no historian or historical source reveals the full and unvarnished truth, so memory is a fallible guide. Most people’s definition of history is fairly simple. It’s “what-really-happened-in-the-past.” But professional historians know that the reality of history is hardly so unproblematical.
How do you write a historiography essay?
Like all interpretive and argumentative essays, a historiographical essay should have an introduction defining its subject and offering a preview of the following argument, and it should end with a conclusion in which you look back over what you have said, summarize your most important findings, and leave the reader …
Is it possible to come up with an absolute truth?
Absolute truth is something that is true at all times and in all places. One way or another, these are all truths because they are logically true. Absolute truths are discovered, not invented.
What do you mean by historiography?
Historiography, the writing of history, especially the writing of history based on the critical examination of sources, the selection of particular details from the authentic materials in those sources, and the synthesis of those details into a narrative that stands the test of critical examination. | <urn:uuid:616978f7-3d0f-4ad1-b5ac-b0f9111e159c> | CC-MAIN-2023-50 | https://somme2016.org/how-to/how-do-you-write-a-historiography/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100551.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20231205105136-20231205135136-00698.warc.gz | en | 0.928961 | 620 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Old Post Office - Old Post Office information and pictures
The Old Post Office
was a brand new, Romanesque style structure in, 1899 when it was completed and designed by architect, Willougby J. Edbrooke, to house the offices of both the United States
, as well as the Washington DC
post offices. Soon thereafter, both post offices moved their offices to different locations, and the Post Office building became known as the Old Post Office. Unfortunately, for Edbrooke, the Romanesque style began to lose favor, as the Beau-Arts style of architecture became popular in the early twentieth century, and many criticized the design, and called for the building’s demolition.
- The Old Post Office was all set to be demolished, a mere fifteen years after it was built, when the hard times of the Great Depression forced the City of Washington, to delay those plans due to lack of funds. Over the years, the Old Post Office became run down, and neglected, and in the 1970s, there was talk once again, of demolishing the building. However, it was instead, made a Historic Landmark and later refurbished, in the 1980s, into the Old Post Office Pavilion, to house, retail shops, a food court and office space.
- Architect, Willougby J. Edbrooke, admired the Romanesque style of architecture, made popular by architect, Henry Hobson Richardson in the late 1880s, in his design of Boston’s Trinity Church. The Old Post Office is a classic example of the Richardsonian Romanesque style, making liberal use of Romanesque, rounded arches, parapets, a tower and stone walls, with brick masonry. At 12 stories high, it was the tallest office building at the time, in Washington DC.
The central, rounded, 375 foot (114 m), clock tower, is the most popular feature of the Old Post Office, with an observation deck affording magnificent views of the city. The Old Post Office Tower also features a collection of the changing Bells of Congress. Guided tours are available to view the tower.
Where is the Old Post Office: 1100 Pennsylvania Ave NW
How to get to the Old Post Office: Subway to Federal Triangle Station (blue, orange lines)
Please help us build a better site. Add your comments about Old Post Office here | <urn:uuid:4487d8bb-1047-4a0c-ae5b-fc267c265c59> | CC-MAIN-2021-49 | http://gothereguide.com/old+post+office+washington-place/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-49/segments/1637964363598.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20211208205849-20211208235849-00562.warc.gz | en | 0.966816 | 503 | 3.046875 | 3 |
After three years of droughts, Cape Town, South Africa, has set Day Zero—the day the town runs out of water—for April 21, 2018. Cape...
As surface water supplies become increasingly polluted and difficult to treat, the use of groundwater continues to increase. Every day, more than 77 billion gal of water are withdrawn from aquifers for a variety of uses including human consumption.
Worldwide, groundwater makes up 95% of available freshwater, and nearly half of the U.S. population receives all or part of its drinking water from the ground, according to the National Ground Water Association. Small community water treatment plant operators, limited in the resources and finances necessary to meet the stringent and ever-changing U.S. EPA surface water treatment rule, are leading the way toward increased use of groundwater.
Groundwater is an under-utilized commodity that is both renewable and reliable. Deep-drilled wells can recharge themselves, providing a steady supply of water that will not fluctuate with atmospheric changes. As groundwater moves downward to aquifers, however, it dissolves minerals it contacts. Those dissolved minerals give groundwater its chemical character and quality. Some undesirable qualities, such as dissolved iron, manganese or sulfides, can cause aesthetic problems such as staining or odor. Other compounds like arsenic, cyanide or nitrites can have serious health implications.
In small community water treatment systems, ozone is increasingly being used as a chemical oxidant in the early stages of water treatment to oxidize organic and inorganic contaminants. Ozone works faster than any other oxidant currently used in water treatment and results in the formation of fewer undesirable byproducts. Many organics will be completely oxidized, while inorganics readily precipitate for simple filtration. The oxidation of organic compounds can lead to many benefits including color and odor removal, and taste and algae control.
If membrane filtration is used as the primary treatment option, partial oxidation of organics can result in microflocculation, aiding filtration of compounds that can lead to THM formation.
Pretreatment with ozone will enhance feedwater quality to filtration membranes, allowing for longer filter life and superior product water.
1. When properly utilized, ozone provides many advantages.
2. Ozone can be utilized in various applications.
3. Ozone has been proven to be effective in treating various compounds.
As the search for an ideal groundwater treatment method continues, more companies are discovering the benefits of ozone. Ozone is one of the strongest and most common oxidants being used for in situ chemical oxidation, a treatment method in use since the early 1990s. Low cost and speed of reaction are the two main advantages leading many to apply ozone as a preliminary conditioning, primary treatment or final polishing technique. | <urn:uuid:d9dbcbe1-bc70-41c4-866a-217ad94bfa28> | CC-MAIN-2018-05 | https://www.wqpmag.com/search-ideal-groundwater-treatment | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-05/segments/1516084888077.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20180119164824-20180119184824-00054.warc.gz | en | 0.943855 | 572 | 3.65625 | 4 |
Above Long-nosed Potoroo, recorded in 2018 by Jemma Cripps (DELWP) as part of a forest biodiversity program.
The Victorian Biodiversity Atlas (VBA) is the foundation dataset of Victorian native species.
The VBA includes a dynamic list of all species found in Victoria and provides information on conservation status, distribution and monitoring data. Currently there are nearly eight million records of species distribution and abundance collated from many different data providers.
The VBA species occurrence information is the primary dataset that feeds into the biodiversity tools – such as modelled distribution – used in DELWP’s everyday decision making, showing where wildlife is now and how it has changed over time.
You can use the atlas to search and map species and check for threatened species in your area. Sharing your observations in the VBA helps us to measure progress towards meeting Biodiversity 2037’s targets. Adding your records to the VBA is a way of influencing a range of government investment, regulation and management decisions on biodiversity.
A mobile, simplified version of the atlas, called VBA Go, is available for recording general observations.
For more details, videos and help guides go to www.environment.vic.gov.au and search for Victorian Biodiversity Atlas or email email@example.com
In 2019, Landcare and Landcare Australia are celebrating a national 30-year anniversary. Landcare has played a leading role in changing Australia’s approach to sustainable agricultural practices, environmental protection, land and water conservation, biodiversity and landscape restoration, while connecting communities.
In recognition of the incredible work that has been achieved during the past three decades, Landcare Australia is collecting stories that demonstrate the Landcare ethos. These stories will be used in publications, social media and public relations to showcase and share how Landcare has shaped Australia and why it is integral to our country’s future.
If you have a story about a Landcare project or person that has made – and continues to make – a difference to our natural environment and local community, we’d love to hear it!
Submissions close 21 June 2019. Go to www.landcareaustralia.org.au and search for 30-years anniversary story to submit. | <urn:uuid:4ee7b4ac-bafc-4c98-a0d7-42478d139fe9> | CC-MAIN-2023-50 | https://www.landcarevic.org.au/landcare-magazine/winter-2019/in-brief-3/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100287.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20231201120231-20231201150231-00884.warc.gz | en | 0.924337 | 476 | 2.90625 | 3 |
BROWARD COUNTY, Florida -- In the 1970s, nearly 2 million tires were tossed into the ocean in hopes of creating an artificial reef. Now, a study is under way to see if the tires can be removed since they are actually damaging the coral reefs.
The Broward County Environmental Protection Department is partnering with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, U.S. Navy Salvage Divers and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Marine Debris Program, to conduct a pilot project to remove the waste tires from the coast.
The tires cover 36 acres of the Osborne Reef off Broward County. The reef is 7,000 feet offshore of Sunrise Boulevard at a depth of 65 feet.
Osborne Reef is an artificial reef made out of concrete jacks arranged in a 50-foot diameter circle surrounded by the extensive tire field.
The pilot project will collect sample tires to determine how the tires can be collected and disposed of properly.
The Navy, along with the U.S. Army, will also conduct a feasibility analysis to determine how the cleanup of the tire pile could serve as a training opportunity for military divers and watercraft operations.
Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of UnderwaterTimes.com, its staff or its advertisers. | <urn:uuid:368bd5ee-7252-4017-bd96-f71faf4f1b6e> | CC-MAIN-2014-49 | http://www.underwatertimes.com/news.php?article_id=36210951740 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-49/segments/1416931010631.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20141125155650-00148-ip-10-235-23-156.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942911 | 257 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Greater Warner Tabernacle AME Zion Church
Backstory and Context
Belonging to the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (AME Zion), founded in 1795, this Knoxville congregation was formed in 1845. It was known as the "freedom church" for its role in abolitionism. The church was a station long the Underground Railroad.
Originally located on Fuller St., the land was given to the congregation by a wealthy German man whose name now seems to be lost in history. The original church and congregation's name was Warner Church. Presumably, 'Warner' could be the name of their benefactor. An actual church building would not be built until the late 1800s. Unfortunately this first church was destroyed in a fire in 1908. A second church was completed two years later.
In 1967, the congregation moved from Fuller to Speedway Circle and changed their name to Speedway Circle AME Zion. In 1969, they changed the name again to Greater Warner Tabernacle AME Zion.
The church would move again in 1987 to McCalla Ave and into the then McCalla Ave. Baptist church. McCalla Ave. is now Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. | <urn:uuid:69cda37f-e3dd-44a6-ab41-d33baa4b4791> | CC-MAIN-2021-31 | https://www.theclio.com/entry/15820 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-31/segments/1627046154089.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20210731105716-20210731135716-00418.warc.gz | en | 0.972466 | 238 | 2.875 | 3 |
So we had a glimpse of what thousands of robotic creatures linked together in harmonic teamwork looked like last year, but certainly didn't expect the European Union to go and drop £1,850,000 ($3,482,810) to make this kind of thing a serious endeavor. Nonetheless, an EU-sponsored 42-month research program into so-called swarm bots is set to commence next month, and will be led by Dr. Marco Dorigo of the University Libre de Bruxelles. The primary focus (aside from instilling an imminent fear of global robotic dominance) is to create a small army of specialized robots that can successfully "adapt to live in buildings," and help us common folk out while they're at it. The project will focus on 60 "dynamically connected autonomous 'bots," known collectively as a Swarmanoid, that consists of eye-bots, hand-bots, and foot-bots. While the names are fairly self-explanatory, eye-bots will handle the vision aspect while grappled onto ceilings, conveying the info to hand-bots (wall climbers and grabbers) and foot-bots (ground terrain specialists). Ultimately, the research team would like to see the bots solve certain "problems" by relying solely on one another's skill sets, and while we are admittedly frightened at what that really means, we'll just cross our fingers that the humans will still be the ones in control 3.5 years from now.
[Via Robot Gossip] | <urn:uuid:ad25a18f-48e8-46e4-992f-12980392d215> | CC-MAIN-2017-30 | https://www.engadget.com/2006/09/30/swarmanoid-robot-project-foreshadows-certain-robotic-takeover/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-30/segments/1500549424247.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20170723042657-20170723062657-00514.warc.gz | en | 0.953062 | 307 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Smart contracts are one of PLATINCOIN’s key technologies. They enable hundreds of thousands of our users around the world to generate passive income, maintain projects on Platin Hero and buy goods on PlatinDeal.
In this article, we will not only discuss how smart contracts work, but also look at some possible ways of how they can be applied.
Smart contracts consist of software code that sets the terms of certain deals. There may be two or more parties to such a contract. It works automatically, as the conditions set in the contract are triggered. This is its main resemblance to a conventional contract.
In addition, as in an ordinary contract, the parties agree to comply with the terms, and their agreement is voluntary, and the object of the contract may be the provision of an asset or service. The difference is that a smart contract exists not on paper, but in the form of lines of code that is executed thanks to the launch of the program. However, legally “smart” and conventional contracts are far from equal.
Who invented smart contracts?
In the early 90-ties of the XX century, the American scholar Nick Szabo proposed a new programmatic stage in the development of treaty law. He thought that cryptography protocols could prove useful for conducting commerce through the Internet. Due to implementing electronic security protocols, “smart contracts” could become even more secure than traditional contracts.
Nick Szabo emphasized that the name of the contracts is in no way related to artificial intelligence. Rather, they are similar in principle to a vending machine issuing a glass of sparkling water or small goods in exchange for a coin. Prior to the creation of blockchain technology, such contracts were only a speculative concept. Their rapid development took place only in the first and second decades of the twenty-first century. There are already several specific programming languages designed exclusively for writing smart contracts.
How smart contracts work
As mentioned above, these contracts are code executed automatically. It has input and output data, which can also be financial transactions. BITCOIN already has the ability to write such contracts, but the script code of the first digital currency is very limited in this regard.
The creation of the next digital currency, Ethereum, was a revolutionary breakthrough. It is considered revolutionary because it supports software scripts with Turing completeness. Simply put, Ethereum allows you to operate loops, conditions and other tools that are available in all programming languages. This ability, in turn, gives the possibility to realize a huge number of smart contracts.
Thanks to Ethereum, decentralized applications (Dapp) have emerged. They are all managed by a single protocol, and the blockchain of that cryptocurrency is used as their basis. The fulfilment of these conditions set by the algorithm is a “smart contract”, which can function without human involvement.
Pros of smart contracts
In some simple cases, they can already replace lawyers and notaries. Their use eliminates the impact of the human factor while costing significantly less. Data on the blockchain can be accessed from anywhere, only access to the internet is needed. At the same time, cryptography securely protects your data against any interference by a third party. The blockchain itself is stored in a distributed form on many machines on the network.
In addition to being quick and secure, smart contracts are valued for running in an automatic mode. They may be entered into by both natural and legal persons. This reduces the number of middlemen involved in the transaction, and, consequently, the necessary cost of money and time.
Cons of smart contracts
The cons of smart contracts derive from their pros. The program code must be audited so that the parties to the contract are confident of its correct operation. Another drawback is the fundamental immutability of the blockchain that sets too rigid terms of the deal which can no longer be changed. Also, it looks like we won’t see the widespread adoption of smart contracts in conjunction with IoT (Internet of things) devices in the near future.
How do I write a smart contract?
Today, many cryptocurrencies already support smart contracts, but Ethereum is the main one. It uses the built-in programming language Solidity, which has a lot in common with C++. Smart contracts are also written in the less common programming language Serpent. Contracts are compiled inside EVM (Ethereum Virtual machine). They are done decentralized, on all machines in the network, and therefore quite slowly. VIRTUAL gas, which is bought for the Ethereum cryptocurrency, is charged as a fee for the operation.
Applications of smart contracts
If you’re not a technician, you can skip this section. Experienced cryptocurrency users will be interested to learn that smart contracts are based on replicated records and performing hash counts via Merkle tree roots. Thus, the “task of Byzantine generals”, an essential part of modern public-key cryptography, is solved quickly and efficiently. Simply put, each peer-to-peer node independently verifies the operation of other nodes so that they cannot engage in malicious collusion.
Applications of smart contracts
The scope of smart contracts is incredibly wide and potentially covers all applications of conventional paper contracts. From now on, payments (e.g. payroll payments) can be programmed to work automatically. The process of registering and changing ownership of any intellectual or physical property can be simplified.
The energy industry is actively developing the use of such contracts for automatic transactions for the supply of electricity. After all, not only people and organizations but also devices and even sensors can enter into smart contracts. The way for automated rental of any property, such as auto or real estate, with automatic payment of the lease in cryptocurrency, is opening up. The principle of smart contracts allows to create new ways of their regular application in economic and social life. | <urn:uuid:f6a123f3-6287-4702-849a-ace4b2be9069> | CC-MAIN-2021-43 | https://blog.platincoin.com/technologies/kak-rabotajut-umnye-kontrakty/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-43/segments/1634323585302.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20211020024111-20211020054111-00130.warc.gz | en | 0.950152 | 1,176 | 3.015625 | 3 |
The side of one Story City yard looks like it’s decorated with interesting yard art. But, the pieces are actually providing power to part of the family’s home. The creator is still in middle school.
Tanner Johnson says, “Basically, this is the powerhouse of the whole turbine.”
The Roland/Story City Middle School student started working on a wind turbine two years ago for his 6th grade science project. Now, it’s part of his 8th grade science project that he’ll use to compete in the State of Iowa Science Fair at the end of March.
He says he got the inspiration to work with renewable energy by watching crews put up a 900 kilowatt turbine, just north of his home. He says, “I spent the whole weekend just watching, my parents watching me run over with binoculars checking up north.”
His dad, Jeff Johnson, says, “He’s always been into taking apart things and seeing how things work.”
Johnson says he isn’t surprised his son is tackling renewable energy. In addition to the turbine, Tanner added solar panels to the family’s home. Johnson says, “It’s not too obtrusive. He wants to put the wind turbine on the roof. I’m not so sure about that.”
Johnson says the wind turbine produces power for the family’s home. He says, “Right now, it’s about 200 watts, but on a good windy day, I can get over 200.” Johnson says it’s not a big amount, but it will cut about $200 off the family’s energy bill in a year. He says it only cost $140 to build the turbine. He also created a converter to turn the turbine’s energy into useful power inside the home.
He says, “My main goal would be to power most of the house with it.”
For now, the middle school student will keep tinkering with his current turbine, along with everything else it takes to finish eighth grade.
The State of Iowa Science Fair is March 30th and 31st at Hilton Coliseum in Ames. | <urn:uuid:a0851338-50f7-432c-a819-02c37382fd58> | CC-MAIN-2014-35 | http://whotv.com/2012/03/07/student-power-8th-grader-builds-wind-turbine/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-35/segments/1409535922871.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20140901014522-00449-ip-10-180-136-8.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964939 | 467 | 2.75 | 3 |
While working on his doctoral degree in medical engineering and medical physics at Harvard University, Vadim Backman thought hard about becoming a medical doctor, but he decided instead to pursue a research career and come to Northwestern. Now medicine and society stand to benefit enormously from that decision.
Colon cancer, the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the country, will be the loser.
Backman, professor of biomedical engineering, his former graduate student Young Kim (GMcC02, 05), now a student in the Feinberg School of Medicine, and their colleagues have developed a promising method for the early detection of colon cancer. Their optical technique, which takes advantage of certain light-scattering effects, can detect abnormal changes in cells lining the colon long before those changes can be seen under a microscope, and even before polyps form.
The colon cancer–screening test is currently in clinical trials at Evanston Hospital in collaboration with Hemant Roy (FSM89), a gastroenterologist with Evanston Northwestern Healthcare. Funded by the National Institutes of Health, the study will have nearly 3,000 participants by the time it ends in three years.
More than 50,000 people die each year in the United States of colon cancer. The disease, however, is easily treated if detected early. Most precancerous lesions appear as polyps, which can be removed during a colonoscopy.
Annual colonoscopies are recommended starting at age 50, but many people avoid the test because of the bowel preparation required. Another reality is that if the approximately 75 million Americans now over 50 actually had the test done, with each colonoscopy costing at least $1,000, the health care system couldn’t handle the financial burden.
“Our hope is that similar to how the routine Pap smear drastically reduced deaths from cervical cancer, this new technology could do the same when it comes to colon cancer,” says Backman. He anticipates their test will cost under $200 and would be used by a physician as part of a routine checkup.
The extraordinarily sensitive technique involves a simple fiber-optic probe the size of a pen being inserted into the rectum. Light shines on the tissue and scatters, and some of it bounces back to sensors in the probe. A computer analyzes the pattern of light scattering, looking for the “fingerprint” of carcinogenesis in the nanoarchitecture of the cells.
“If you have a precancerous lesion in one part of the colon,” explains Backman, “even tissue that looks normal and is located far from the lesion or polyp will have molecular and other kinds of changes. It’s the biological phenomenon called the ‘field effect.’ No one can detect these changes earlier than we can.”
The clinical study is being conducted with patients already slated to get a colonoscopy. More than 500 patients have undergone the new test, which takes only five minutes, followed by a traditional colonoscopy.
The results have been excellent: Backman’s method identified with 100 percent accuracy each person who had a polyp. Some people were singled out who turned out not to have polyps, but that could mean those people need to be watched closely. All those marked as negative had no polyps. — M.F. | <urn:uuid:7c4d7369-0015-4d99-b1a9-3e97abc2a0a1> | CC-MAIN-2016-36 | http://www.northwestern.edu/magazine/winter2006/cover/cover/sidebar1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-36/segments/1471982932823.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20160823200852-00207-ip-10-153-172-175.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964532 | 688 | 3.140625 | 3 |
Holidays and Holy Days
By Mark D. Roberts
If I were to tell you that Charles Dickens wrote a story about a solitary, crotchety old man who despised both people and Christmas until some supernatural visitors came to him on Christmas Eve and taught him to have a new perspective on life, you'd probably yawn and say, "Yes, of course, Ebenezer Scrooge." But if I were to tell you I wasn't thinking of Ebenezer Scrooge at all, but rather of Gabriel Grub, you might be a bit surprised. So go ahead and be surprised, if you wish, because what I'm saying is true.
In 1836, seven years before he wrote A Christmas Carol, Dickens published a short story as Chapter 29 of The Pickwick Papers. "The Story of the Goblins who stole a Sexton" narrates the strange experiences of Gabriel Grub, the sexton (caretaker and gravedigger) for a church in a rural village, and a literary cousin of Ebenezer Scrooge. According to Dickens, Gabriel Grub was "an ill-conditioned, cross-grained, surly fellow -- a morose and lonely man, who consorted with nobody but himself." He had "a deep scowl of malice and ill-humor." Sounds like Scrooge, doesn't he?
One Christmas Eve Grub decided to go to the churchyard to dig a grave. As he walked through the streets of his village, he watched people making preparations for Christmas parties -- parties he wouldn't even think to attend, should he have been invited. When he saw children playing games, Grub amused himself with the thought of "measles, scarlet fever, thrush, whooping-cough, and a good many other sources of consolations besides." If his neighbors offered him a Christmas greeting, Grub returned "a short, sullen growl," not "Humbug!" but its preverbal precursor. When a young lad was singing a Christmas song in the street, Gabriel Grub cornered the boy and "rapped him over the head with his lantern five or six times." As he began digging a grave, Grub cheered himself with this thought: "A coffin at Christmas! A Christmas box! Ho! ho! ho!"
But then Gabriel Grub received a surprise visitor, a grinning goblin who taunted him with clever dialogue. Soon this goblin was joined by "a whole troop of goblins" who captured Grub and dragged him down into the earth. Grub found himself in a cavern with the first goblin, the "king of goblins," and his band. They proceeded to show him a series of scenes that were magically projected in the end of the cavern. The first scene was of a poor family: many children and their mother. The children rejoiced when their father joined them. But then the scene shifted to a bedroom, in which "the fairest and youngest child lay dying." "Even as the sexton looked upon him with an interest he had never felt or known before, the little boy died." Yet the family had assurance that their little one was in "happy Heaven." (The similarity between this scene and that of Bob Cratchit's family in A Christmas Carol is striking.)
After the magic scene was finished, the goblins beat Gabriel Grub, and then showed him another ghostly video. This sequence of viewings and beatings happened many times over, and "many a lesson it taught to Gabriel Grub." "He saw that men who worked hard, and earned their scanty bread with lives of labor, were cheerful and happy . . . because they bore within their own bosoms the materials of happiness, contentment, and peace." On the other hand, Gabriel Grub "saw that men like himself, who snarled at the mirth and cheerfulness of others, were the foulest weeds on the fair surface of the earth, and setting all the good of the world against the evil, he came to the conclusion that it was a very decent and respectable sort of world after all." At this point he fell asleep, only to awake in the churchyard on Christmas morning. | <urn:uuid:189b3dd4-6663-40eb-b733-17e5cbaa326d> | CC-MAIN-2016-50 | http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Transforming-Scrooge | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-50/segments/1480698542765.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20161202170902-00239-ip-10-31-129-80.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981813 | 863 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Covid Risk More Than Doubles 90 Days After 2nd Pfizer Jab, Israeli Study Find
The study involved 80,000 adults who had been vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Researchers from the Leumit Health Services in Israel and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that the virus risk more than doubled and continued to increase as far as six months out.
They now say that booster shots are needed in order to sustain long-term protection from covid.
The Mail Online reports: What’s more,the percentage of tests coming back positive for COVID-19 quadrupled from 2.4 percent at least 90 days later to 10.6 percent at least 150 days later.
The finding add more evidence that, while the Pfizer vaccines provides strong protection in the initial weeks, booster shots are likely needed to sustain long-term protection from Covid.
Israel was one of the first countries to roll out use of Pfizer’s Covid vaccine in December 2020 and the U.S. was not far behind.
The Middle Eastern country experienced a resurgence in cases in September while infections are creeping up now in the U.S.
This has led many experts to fear that immunity from the standard two-dose regimen wanes over time.
Researchers say determining the risk of infection as more time elapses since dose two can lead to important information about the optimal timing of a third dose.
For the study, published in The BMJ, the team looked at the electronic health records of 80,057 adults in Israel.
All of the adults were fully vaccinated with the Pfizer shot and had no history of a prior COVID-19 infection. | <urn:uuid:f09ad6c3-d941-4e24-8088-eca31d438b13> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://ysb.co.nz/covid-risk-more-than-doubles/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320303747.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20220122043216-20220122073216-00224.warc.gz | en | 0.948147 | 354 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Sun Power (Jun, 1935)
SCIENTISTS for some years have been conducting surveys on the sun’s radiation, to see how it fluctuates. A daily and seasonal variation is found, separate and distinct from the seasons caused by the earth’s own motion. In the dry, cloudless regions where this is done, practically the whole intensity of the sun is received through dry, thin air; and objects placed “in the sun” become very hot. Accordingly, these men, like Dr. Abbot, of the Smithsonian Institution, or the Russian scientists working in Turkestan, have built conveniences to utilize a little of the surplus energy they are working on, for heating water, cooking, etc. The Tashkend, Central Asia, group, recently published in Russian magazines a proposal for utilizing the sun’s rays at low cost— not for electric power, but for heating rooms, cooking, and providing hot water. Tanks, with black surfaces, properly insulated, and turned full toward the sun, will heat water almost to boiling.
It is interesting to compare the proposed solar heaters, revolving to face the sun, with a project of, supposedly, the year 2660, which appeared twenty-four years ago in a novel written by the Editor of this magazine, and entitled “Ralph 124C 41 + .” The illustration, part of which is reproduced here, shows a field of sun-power devices, rotating to face the sun, in a field electrically rid of fog and moisture. | <urn:uuid:4f6a4faf-d607-408c-a14d-129b605f096f> | CC-MAIN-2020-40 | http://blog.modernmechanix.com/sun-power/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-40/segments/1600401624636.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20200929025239-20200929055239-00756.warc.gz | en | 0.955326 | 317 | 3.484375 | 3 |
Choose Point of View
Step 1. Choose a scene and the two characters to work with. The scene you choose could be one of you have already written or one that you are planning but haven’t written yet. In either case, this exercise will help you sort through the decision about the best “point of view” for your story.
Step 2. Read the “Point of View” section in Chapter 2 of your textbook before you tackle this assignment.
Step 3. Write the scene from Character A’s point of view using first person.
Step 4. Write the same scene from Character B’s point of view using the third person.
Step 5. After you finish writing your scene from two points of view, take a minute to analyze what you have on hand. Which point of view works best? Maybe you will stick with the point of view you started with. Fine! Or maybe you will decide to switch to another point of view.
Here’s a thought. Some stories are told by an omniscient narrator. As your text puts it, this kind of narrator “gets into everyone’s mind in turn.” Maybe you will decide to go with an omniscient narrator, in which case, you could use both points of view.
Submit your sample of two different points of view of the same scene.
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Use the order calculator below and get started! Contact our live support team for any assistance or inquiry.[order_calculator] | <urn:uuid:ac4b2601-25a9-4afa-8cad-0f76a3945566> | CC-MAIN-2024-10 | https://www.premiumresearchwriters.com/choose-a-scene-and-the-two-characters-to-work-with-the-scene-you-choose-could-be-one-of-you-have-already-written-or-one-that-you-are-planning-but-havent-written-yet-in-either-case-this-exercise-w/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947474690.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20240228012542-20240228042542-00534.warc.gz | en | 0.932054 | 388 | 3.265625 | 3 |
In current designs of parabolic trough collectors for concentrating solar power plants, the absorber tube is manufactured in segments that are individually insulated with glass vacuum jackets. During the lifetime of a power plant, some segments lose vacuum and thereafter suffer from significant convective heat loss. An alternative to this design is to use a vacuum pump to actively maintain low pressure in a long section of absorber with a continuous vacuum jacket. A detailed thermal model of such a configuration is needed to inform design efforts for such a receiver. This paper describes a combined conduction, convection, and radiation heat transfer model for a receiver that includes the effects of nonuniform solar flux on the absorber tube and vacuum jacket as well as detailed analysis of conduction through the rarefied gas in the annular gap inside the vacuum jacket. The model is implemented in commercial CFD software coupled to a Monte Carlo ray-tracing code. The results of simulations performed for a two-dimensional cross-section of a receiver are reported for various conditions. The parameters for the model are chosen to match the current generation of parabolic trough receivers, and the simulation results correspond well with experimental measurements.
Numerical Analysis of Heat Loss From a Parabolic Trough Absorber Tube With Active Vacuum System
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Roesle, M., Coskun, V., and Steinfeld, A. (July 28, 2011). "Numerical Analysis of Heat Loss From a Parabolic Trough Absorber Tube With Active Vacuum System." ASME. J. Sol. Energy Eng. August 2011; 133(3): 031015. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4004276
Download citation file: | <urn:uuid:55f2e7d8-ba84-4e6d-9112-964624820c12> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/solarenergyengineering/article-abstract/133/3/031015/456251/Numerical-Analysis-of-Heat-Loss-From-a-Parabolic?redirectedFrom=PDF | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337853.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20221006155805-20221006185805-00563.warc.gz | en | 0.90225 | 374 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center
Maryland Senna (Cassia marilandica)
- Family: Caesalpinia (Caesalpiniaceae)
- Flowering: July-August.
- Field Marks: This Cassia differs from other species with large leaflets by its usually short-hairy fruits and its sessile dark gland on the leaf stalk.
- Habitat: Wet meadows, roadside ditches.
- Habit: Perennial herbs with a thickened root.
- Stems: Upright, branched or unbranched, usually smooth, up to 4 feet tall.
- Leaves: Alternate, pinnately compound with 4-10 pairs of leaflets, the leaflets oblong to elliptic, rounded or pointed at the tip, rounded at the base, smooth, up to 2 inches long, up to 1/2 inch wide; leaf stalks bearing a dark, sessile gland near its base.
- Flowers: Several in short, axillary racemes, yellow, up to 1 inch across.
- Sepals: 5, united below into a short tube, up to 1/3 inch across.
- Petals: 5, free from each other, slightly unequal in size, about 1/2 inch long.
- Stamens: 10, but only 7 of them fertile, producing pollen.
- Pistils: Ovary superior, hairy.
- Fruits: Pods slightly curved, smooth or usually short-hairy, up to 4 inches long, up to 1/2 inch wide; seeds thick.
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Return to Species List -- Group 6
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Tip: Both the lawyer and the executor are entitled to fees from an estate. In addition, there will be court costs, appraiser’s fees, and may be other expenses.
Many people have heard they should avoid probate,
but few understand what probate is and how the process works.
What Is Probate?
Probate is the legal process that wraps up a person’s legal and financial affairs after their death. During the probate process a person’s property is identified, cataloged, and appraised. In addition, probate makes certain any outstanding debts and taxes are paid. It can be a complex process, filled with very
specific legal requirements.
For example, if someone dies without a valid will, the probate court sees that the deceased person’s assets are distributed according to the laws of the state.
If someone dies with a valid will, the probate court is charged with ensuring the deceased person’s assets are distributed according to their wishes.
Probate can take a long time — anywhere from a few months to more than a year. If there is a will, and one or more of the heirs chooses to contest the document, the process can take a lot longer.1
Probate can be expensive. Even though probate costs are capped in some states — they may reach 5% or more of the estate’s value. That’s calculated on the gross value of the estate — before taxes, debts, and other expenses are paid. And if the probate process is challenged, the legal costs can rise.2
Finally, probate takes place in a public court. That makes everything a matter of public record; there is no privacy. Anyone who wants to can find out exactly what was left behind (and how much each of a deceased person’s heirs received) and can review the court records for the deceased person’s estate.
Fast Fact: Sounds like Latin. The word “probate” comes from the Latin verb “probatum” which means “to prove.” Thus, when a will is probated, its validity is “proved” before a court, which then orders the terms of the will to be followed.
Those who have concerns for their heirs’ privacy may want to take steps to manage the probate process.
Every estate passes through probate following the owner's death. Probate can be a public process that exposes all your assets, or it can be managed to include as little information as possible. When preparing your estate documents, consider how you want the courts to handle your personal finances after your passing.
Property That Avoids Probate
Some assets can be structured so they may not have to go through probate. Here’s a partial list:
- Property held in a trust
- Jointly held property (but not common property)
- Death benefits from insurance policies (unless payable to the estate)
- Property given away before you die
- Assets in a pay-on-death account
- Retirement accounts with a named beneficiary
1,2. Nolo.com, 2015
The content is developed from sources believed to be providing accurate information. The information in this material is not intended as tax or legal advice. It may not be used for the purpose of avoiding any federal tax penalties. Please consult legal or tax professionals for specific information regarding your individual situation. This material was developed and produced by FMG Suite to provide information on a topic that may be of interest. FMG Suite is not affiliated with the named broker-dealer, state- or SEC-registered investment advisory firm. The opinions expressed and material provided are for general information, and should not be considered a solicitation for the purchase or sale of any security. Copyright 2016 FMG Suite. | <urn:uuid:759d2a20-63c4-4ee5-ac39-743f149ae7a4> | CC-MAIN-2016-22 | http://www.investwithwestern.com/resource-center/estate/problems-with-probate | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-22/segments/1464049273667.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160524002113-00166-ip-10-185-217-139.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941217 | 796 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Ants come in a variety of species, each with its own unique traits from where they nest, to how far they will forage for food, their destructive abilities, as well as other physical and reproductive differences.
Brought here accidently from South America, fire ants have made themselves at home around the United States and here in Utah. Fire ants are omnivores that will eat almost any type of animal or plant material, including other insects, ground animals, seedlings, plant bulbs, young trees, fruits and grass. When foraging for food, the worker ants will loop within 100 feet of the nest. Worker ants consume food in the field. They keep some for themselves in one stomach and store the rest in another stomach, which will be shared with the rest of the colony by regurgitation.
Much more aggressive than other ant species, stepping on a mound can result in a frenzy of angry ants that will sting if given the opportunity. Alpine uses a number of ecologically safe ways to eliminate the Queen and the rest of the colony.
Members of the insect order Hymenoptera, carpenter ants can be a nuisance as well as cause damage to wood in and around homes. carpenters ants utilize cavities in wood, particularly in decaying condition. The worker ants are sterile and do not have wings. Higher up in the social structure are the winged reproductive ants. These ants are often mistaken for termites. Carpenter ants have a narrower waist and straighter antennae than termites. Unlike termites, carpenter ants do not eat the wood. Most of the wood damage done by carpenter ants is caused by tunneling through wood in search of new nesting areas. A thorough inspection of all possible nesting locations and wall voids will help to determine the direction they travel, leading to the nest site.
Call Now 801-300-2979 | <urn:uuid:46e7fea0-3742-46db-9d4f-3d7e28f750df> | CC-MAIN-2013-48 | http://www.alpinepestutah.com/ants.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-48/segments/1386163996785/warc/CC-MAIN-20131204133316-00040-ip-10-33-133-15.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944634 | 380 | 3.4375 | 3 |
What Is The Role Of Cybersecurity In Processing High-End Payments
Cybersecurity plays a vital role in processing payments. The global COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the use of digital technologies and payment channels for high-end industries. At the same time, this has led to a growth in cyberattacks. Luckily, industries focused on high-end customers want to deliver only the best service possible, including a high level of security. Today we’ll talk about how these companies process their payments, and how cryptocurrency can be effectively used to create a robust and secure payment system.
State-of-the-art crypto security measures
Cryptocurrencies are quickly becoming the standard, and high-end clients often want to pay for services with crypto. Today people can book a private jet charter with crypto, invest in assets, and even buy jewelry. Although cryptocurrencies give users more privacy and anonymity, vendors must tackle specific security concerns.
1. Private key generation
Private keys are used for crypto payments, to prove the ownership of an address or sign transactions. Large numbers are generated randomly and given to rightful owners. These keys help users authorize any financial transaction.
Most payment services add mandatory private keys or include isolated key generation for payments to ensure real users are spending their money.
2. Secure key storage
Keys are stored both digitally and physically to ensure the role of cybersecurity. They are also encrypted to ensure nobody can access them and share them secretly. Secure payment processors also generate backup keys and store these as well.
3. Secure practices for key and wallet use
Maintaining a secure wallet and key usage is critical for overall safety for the role of cybersecurity. Payment processors use secure practices like generating new addresses for each transaction, setting mandatory signatures for wallet spending, checking backgrounds and identifications of key holders, and storing authority keys at multiple locations.
Strong data encryption methods
One of the common issues with online payments is the sensitive data that is open to interception. That’s why companies and payment processors need to set data encryption in place, to ensure noone can steal sensitive payment data.
The two most commonly used encryptions for payments are SSL and TLS.
SSL is short for Secure Sockets Layer, and this protocol authenticates, secures, and encrypts online communications. TLS is short for Transport Layer Security, a new protocol that is supposed to replace SSL.
There’s an ongoing battle between SSL vs TLS and which is better, but both offer robust security. They start secure communications with a “handshake,” as two parties connect while exchanging a public key. During communication, parties create keys that encrypt and decrypt the information in the exchange process.
Then, these protocols ensure that the parties communicating are who they claim to be, and that the data sent isn’t changed in any way.
Payment tokenization is one of the most secure systems for payments considering the role of cybersecurity. This process includes swapping sensitive data with a token that is basically useless data. These payment tokens are a group of unique numbers that act as a secure identifier.
They replace the card’s PAN in real-time, used in payment environments or predefined domains. Simply put, tokenized payments use tokens during transactions. They don’t transmit PAN during the transaction, making it more secure.
However, tokenization can replace all payment information, including cardholder information and card numbers. When a customer makes a payment, the data is tokenized by a token service and sent to the bank.
The bank uses the token to request authorization from the card company used for the payment. The bank holds the information in a secure vault, and the transaction is verified and completed when the token is supplied. Tokenization offers many advantages to customers and companies, making transactions secure and reliable.
3D Secure protocol and the role of cybersecurity practices
The 3D Secure protocol is a payment card authentication mechanism and has important role for cybersecurity in payments. 3D Secure asks all payers to validate their transactions with a PIN code when active. This infrastructure connects and acts as a secure gateway between the cardholder, the payment receiver, and the 3DS platform.
When a customer makes a payment, they are redirected to an additional page where they must enter a PIN or a password. At the same time, the bank generates a unique, randomized PIN, and sends it to the payer via email or SMS.
With this PIN, users can complete the transaction safely. All major card providers have used the 3D Secure protocol for decades, and the latest version, “EMV 3DS,” increases authorization and improves security. Payment providers manage authentication flows and apply adequate exemptions to low-risk, low-value, and recurring payments.
Ongoing assessment by experts
Thousands of companies worldwide suffer from online attacks. Some of the largest companies have suffered terrible breaches, and that’s why it’s no longer enough for organizations to handle their security systems internally.
Offering secure online payments is an ongoing process that requires constant work. Cybersecurity keeps changing as new attacks emerge, system vulnerabilities are discovered, and new technologies are introduced.
Organizations hire cybersecurity experts that can assess their systems by:
- Finding system vulnerabilities
- Improving employee awareness
- Creating cybersecurity strategies
- Checking compliances
- Providing complete cybersecurity reports.
Serious companies perform regular cybersecurity assessments to protect their business, employees, and customers. Automation has allowed companies to provide a smooth experience to their customers, but this means more digital processes and more opportunities for data leaks, and that’s why cybersecurity experts are more in demand than ever.
Conclusion on the role of cybersecurity in payments
As a customer, you should be looking for businesses that invest in cybersecurity because this reflects back to your online security — and protects your assets. At the same time, you need to protect your information as a payer, and use safe payment methods like voice payments, ACH payments, credit cards, and crypto-wallets.
Avoid sharing sensitive information with anyone, and choose reputable vendors with a spotless track record.
Magdalena Polka is a Business Solution Designer and an Information Technology / Project Management consultant and author with over 15 years of software development, management and project management experience. | <urn:uuid:826b92c7-c9a8-4a2f-a819-b7dd07820dc0> | CC-MAIN-2023-14 | https://www.projectcubicle.com/what-is-the-role-of-cybersecurity-in-processing-high-end-payments/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296943809.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20230322114226-20230322144226-00011.warc.gz | en | 0.934416 | 1,288 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Imagine an offshore oil rig surrounded by large fields of red seaweed floating just below the surface. About six times each year, the rig is partially converted to a seaweed processing facility—the seaweed is harvested, liquefied and processed into ethanol, oil or natural gas, and then transported to the shore for distribution. Or perhaps some oil rigs are retired from fossil fuel service completely and retrofitted for servicing seaweed and other renewable, sustainable energy sources instead. Fantasy, or reality? At the present time, neither option is possible, but the founders of India-based Sea6 Energy envision that within the next decade, symbiotic relationships between seaweed farms and offshore oil rigs are entirely feasible, and they want to be the first to do it.
Forming a Plan
In 2010, a small group of alumni from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras created Sea6 Energy with the specific goal of creating a solution to meet growing fuel demand in India by utilizing algae to produce biofuels in the most sustainable fashion possible.
Seaweed was not the first choice, however. Before the group zeroed in on seaweed, and red seaweed specifically, they explored the option of using microalgae as a feedstock. That approach was discounted after they determined that large scale production of microalgae-to-biofuels in a sustainable fashion would require the input of more energy than it would produce. Wastewater-based energy generation could be a viable area for microalgae, but because it’s a niche market for development, that option lacked the potential to provide the massive amounts of fuel required to displace a portion of India’s fuel demand.
The researchers concluded that algae just wasn’t the answer for their problem. They found this especially disappointing because India doesn’t have a land base comparable to the U.S. and Brazil available for ethanol production, and they believed aquatic-based biofuel production would be the fix. After exhausting the microalgae options, the group nearly called off the operation. “Then, one afternoon over a cup of coffee, we said, ‘Hey, nature has already solved this problem. It’s called seaweed,’” says Shrikumar Suryanarayan, chairman of Sea6 Energy. “They sit in the sea, they grab nutrients from the water that are passing by, they grow to be large, so harvesting is not a problem. The only thing we discovered is that, as much as we wanted to, we couldn’t find a seaweed that was doing what microalgae do—produce oil.”
Seaweed does, however, produce carbohydrates, similar to land plants. The galactose polymer produced in seaweed is a six-carbon sugar (hence the company name Sea6, for marine six-carbon sugars) and therefore offered the potential for biofuel conversion. The researchers set out to explore cultivation processes and the biochemistry that would convert it to fuel. They determined that not only would it be possible to use seaweed for ethanol but the process could be carried out in such a way that food versus fuel debates and fresh water usage concerns would be nonissues. “That’s what made us all so excited about this whole project,” Suryanarayan says.
Technical, Logistical Aspects
Once seaweed became the feedstock of choice, Sea6 officials narrowed down the selection even further to focus on red seaweed, which grows very well in tropical waters and has been cultivated and processed for use as a food additive for many years. Other companies, such as Bio Architecture Lab Inc., are focusing their operations on seaweed types that flourish in temperate climates, but Sea6 opted for a tropical strain because it better suits India’s climate, and because the growth area can be extended to encompass a huge area. Suryanarayan estimates that red seaweed could be grown anywhere plus or minus 20 degrees from the equator with the right cultivation technology.
While red seaweed has been farmed for many years, the technology used to cultivate the plant has restricted its growth potential to areas of calm, shallow waters, of which there are few. Therefore, Sea6 Energy set out to develop new technology that would enable the seaweed to be cultivated in rougher, deeper waters, enabling large-scale farms to provide feedstock for substantial biofuel production. The team developed proprietary structures that could be used to establish seaweed farms on the ocean surface “over the horizon” in deep, rough waters, such as the waters surrounding oil rigs, and also nearer to the shore. The cultivation technology developed by Sea6 Energy is also expected to improve the productivity of seaweed farmers by making it possible for them to harvest much more product in the same amount of time and by opening up the opportunity to establish farms in areas that would otherwise be inaccessible. According to Sea6 Energy CEO Sayash Kumar, improving the cultivation process means that India’s current seaweed farming labor force of about 1,000 people could be greatly expanded. “What we are envisioning is that if we can take the seaweed and make biofuel out of it, we could create potential employment in all the coastal communities of India,” he says. “That’s close to one million people.”
Developing technology to establish adequate supplies of feedstock is an all-important step, but how do you break it down and convert it to ethanol? Further, how do you accomplish this in a seawater environment so as not to require unnecessary use of fresh water?
Converting the seaweed’s galactose polymers to galactose for future fermentation would require specialized enzymes. And that is precisely why the company approached global enzyme engineering firm Novozymes for assistance. Novozymes is one of the world’s largest suppliers of enzymes for ethanol production and has taken an active role in the development of second-generation ethanol production. According to GS Krishnan, regional president-India, Novozymes South Asia, the company viewed the collaboration with Sea6 Energy as an opportunity to contribute technical expertise and further the international effort to scale second-generation production. In February, Novozymes announced a one-year exploratory research agreement with Sea6 Energy to develop the conversion process. “We see great synergies among our companies and through our collective efforts and technical know-how, we are hopeful of developing a viable technology to make biofuels from seaweed,” Krishnan says.
Seaweed offers many attractive qualities as a feedstock, including its potential for high yields. Suryanarayan says that while 50 tons per hectare is a typical yield for land plants, red seaweed has been proven to produce twice that amount. Also, seaweed has no lignin, which has been the bane of researchers worldwide who have dedicated years to breaking it down in order to access the fermentable sugars in land-based plants. But that doesn’t mean that converting seaweed to fermentable sugars is easier, unfortunately. Instead of lignin, seaweed offers researchers another challenge—carrageenan, which is also the substance extracted from seaweed for food additive applications. “Compared to land-based carbohydrate polymers, which mostly consist of glucose and xylose, the carrageenan is a highly sulfated galactose polymer which might/might not cause difficulties in processing,” Krishnan says. Bakers yeast offers one possible solution, he says, but the conversion time is slow.
Sea6 Energy’s noble decision to embrace the salt water environment presents another set of challenges, because the enzymes must be able to convert the seaweed to sugar in salt water. It’s a difficult task, but as Suryanarayan points out, “Seaweed is already full of sea water, so what’s the point of washing it off?”
While Sea6 Energy continues to develop its cultivation technology, Novozymes will also tackle the economics of scaling up the technology developed between the two companies. Specifically, Krishnan says his company will focus on developing a low-cost hydrolysis method that can simultaneously extract sugars from seaweed and free them from the polymers for fermentation. A flexible bioprocessing method has a clear advantage over other methods, he says, because it will allow for each step of the conversion process to be individually optimized. “The process conditions will be highly flexible, taking advantage of the optimal conditions for the degradation of the carrageenan to galactose, optimizing pH, temperature and enzyme performance,” he says. The fermentation step could possibly be conducted separately as well, which would allow the producer to optimize fermentation conditions. “This provides much more freedom to optimize and develop the next generation of enzymes as the process matures,” he says.
Farms of the Future
While biofuel production tends to require substantial amounts of feedstock, because seaweed is high-yielding, Sea6 Energy and Novozymes expect that only a nominal portion of the sea will be used to sustain seaweed farms. “It’s not like we’re going to have to cover up the entire sea,” Suryanarayan says. In early trials, Sea6 Energy has produced 250 liters (about 66 gallons) of ethanol per ton of seaweed. Considering that red seaweed has been proven to yield 100 tons per hectare and can be harvested up to six times each year, the company believes it will most definitely be possible to grow and harvest the amount of feedstock necessary to produce ethanol at a commercial scale. Additionally, Suryanarayan says Novozymes wasted no time in performing a life-cycle analysis for large-scale seaweed farming operations and, while there is still work to be done to quantify the data, the initial results are promising. He likens the potential for large, offshore seaweed farms to a desert oasis—creating a haven for wildlife, for example, where there wasn’t one before. Once they are ready to expand the farming operations, the build-out could be achieved quite rapidly. Kumar suggests that seaweed farming operations could multiply by 1,000-fold in just one year.
The research partnership between Novozymes and Sea6 Energy will expire early next year, but both parties are optimistic that tremendous progress can be made during the next several months and that the agreement may be extended past one year. Krishnan stresses that the research and development is still in the early stages and says a pilot plant will not be built until the conversion process is fully developed. Sea6 Energy hopes that by the end of the first year, Novozymes will have guided the way toward enzymes that can be used for the final product, or identified versions that will lead to that. Sea6 Energy tentatively expects to establish a demonstration-scale facility in three to four years. “At the moment, we are sufficiently encouraged by the results we see [and] feel that we are on the right track,” Kumar says. “Probably we will extend the partnership at the end of the year, but that final decision remains to be seen. On the ground, it’s as good as it gets so far.”
Author: Kris Bevill
Associate Editor, Ethanol Producer Magazine | <urn:uuid:fdb8b5f3-1140-4438-aaf1-2438e7bec306> | CC-MAIN-2015-06 | http://www.ethanolproducer.com/articles/8778/offshore-ethanol | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-06/segments/1422115863825.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20150124161103-00227-ip-10-180-212-252.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956141 | 2,355 | 3 | 3 |
Every Cape Cod style home from Vermont Modular starts in The Plant where it is carefully built by skilled craftsmen using only the highest quality building materials.
Did you know that lumber is inspected for moisture content before it is accepted at the plant? If a shipment of lumber, or for that matter any material, is found to be inferior it is refused and sent back to be replaced with the highest quality material. A quality-built home must start with quality material. By the way, how can your lumber be within moisture specifications if it sits outside in the rain? Or in the snow? How would that be possible?
Look at today’s photograph and you will see one of the modules that will comprise half of the second floor. See the “Dog-House Dormer” in the roof that is so popular with today’s Cape Style Homes.
The roof that you are looking at was highly engineered as an 85# Snow Load roof. That means that each square foot of roof surface is strong enough to support 85 pounds of snow or well in excess of Ten Tons of weight. Talk about strong! Is the roof of your house thoroughly engineered?
Different species of lumber along with various sizes all have different Tensile Strengths. There is far more to building a roof system than nailing lumber together. What species of lumber? What size lumber? How many pieces of lumber and how far apart are they? What is the moisture content of the lumber? See, there is a lot to it that local Stick Builders simply do not know.
Wouldn’t you rather have a modular home?
Call us today to start the conversation. (802) 985-5855 | <urn:uuid:01c2425a-e697-4783-9b96-a5278fd2c71d> | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | https://www.vermontmodularhomes.com/blog/2020/quality-building-products | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662539049.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20220521080921-20220521110921-00635.warc.gz | en | 0.958985 | 349 | 2.671875 | 3 |
“The wheel of climate action turns slowly, but in Paris it has turned. This deal puts the fossil-fuel industry on the wrong side of history.” Kumi Naidoo
Artists Project Earth are in Paris! Our house band Rhythms Del Mundo is performing their new album, Oceans, live on Monday 7th December at COP21, to help raise awareness of climate change and ocean conservation. In the meantime, forget #EarthToParis – Herbie Girardet, Trustee of Artists Project Earth (APE), is writing blogs direct from Paris to Earth! Read them all here.
12th December 2015 – COP Out?
So we have a deal – the Paris Agreement. It is a landmark time for followers and wellwishers of climate change and meetings of the United Nations Climate Change Conferences of the Parties (COPs) over the years.
The world has been put to rights, and all is well after all. Or is it?
First of all, the agreement is better – much better – than nothing. It was an enormous task to get 195 nations to come together to sign an agreement on climate change – all 29 pages of it. After 21 COPs a remarkable consensus has now been reached, acknowledging that climate change is occurring, that it is man-made, and that the world needs to come together to deal with it. And meanwhile most of the world’s climate sceptics seem to be hiding in the bushes. Phew!
But before we get too ecstatic, let sober reflection prevail: a critical point is that whilst all the world’s countries have signed on the dotted line, the world’s companies have not. The stark reality is that, by and large, it is companies that run the world, rather than governments. “It’s the market, stupid!” And whilst some governments have been making policies to regulate their behaviour, companies like doing things their way – in their own financial interest, and that of their bosses and shareholders.
As long as fossil fuel energy is cheaper than renewables; oil, gas and coal will be dispensed by the energy companies, and burned by us all in vast quantities. In Paris the world’s governments were not brave enough to commit to measures to keep corporations in check – for example a global tax on carbon that would fully cover the enormous climate externalities of fossil fuel burning. The Paris Agreement only contains vague statements about shifting government subsidies – currently around $5 trillion a year – from fossil fuels to renewables. Now just a small percentage of that would speed up solar, wind and marine energy, and energy storage, wouldn’t it! But meanwhile countries such as China, India and Indonesia are still investing massively in coal powered electricity generation, and gas guzzling cars are being produced in record numbers.
“The Paris Agreement only contains vague statements about shifting government subsidies – currently around $5 trillion a year – from fossil fuels to renewables.”
And then there is the critical issue that in developing countries billions of people are still striving to escape poverty, and rightly so. But usually this means moving from a rural village to a city where there is access to energy and the chance of a little bit of affluence. AT COP21 there was no challenge to rapid urbanisation in developing countries, and its massive implications regarding energy and resource use. As I have stated before, a villager in India, China, Vietnam or Indonesia becoming an urban dweller will typically increase her/his resource consumption fourfold. There is no prescription in the Paris Agreement about the implications of this, and whether ‘another way’ is possible.
“AT COP21 there was no challenge to rapid urbanisation in developing countries, and its massive implications regarding energy and resource use.”
Whilst $100 billion are to be paid annually towards climate loss and damage suffered by poorer countries – in the form of droughts, floods and sea level rises – much more financial support is needed to ensure that they are not left to pay the price of a climate crisis that is not of their making. $100 billion does not look anything like a full global tax on the externalities of fossil fuel burning.
Critically, the Paris Agreement enshrines no legal obligation for countries to cut their emissions, but at least it includes a five-yearly global stocktake to assess each country’s contributions.
COPout 21? Not quite. The world community now agrees that we have a major problem that needs to be addressed creatively, even vigorously. Greenpeace International executive director Kumi Naidoo has made this useful observation: “The wheel of climate action turns slowly, but in Paris it has turned. This deal puts the fossil-fuel industry on the wrong side of history.”.
You can take climate action today by downloading all or part of Rhythms Del Mundo’s pre-release of their new album, Oceans. With some of the world’s greatest artists, funds raised from this album go directly toward climate change and ocean conservation projects worldwide via Artists Project Earth. | <urn:uuid:076ceae3-0615-408a-b2c9-696256ee6cc1> | CC-MAIN-2018-47 | http://apeuk.org/cop-21-copout-corporate-responsibility-landmark-agreement/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-47/segments/1542039746171.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20181119233342-20181120015342-00511.warc.gz | en | 0.956659 | 1,049 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Report warns of acute water shortages in Himalayan regionJune 28th, 2010 - 5:20 pm ICT by IANS
Singapore, June 28 (DPA) Himalayan river basins in China, Bangladesh, India and Nepal will face a massive water depletion within 20 years, leading to a decline in food and mass migration, a research group warned Monday.
Due to natural reasons like glacial melting, the four countries would lose almost 275 billion cubic metres of annual renewable water in the next two decades, more than the total amount of available water in Nepal at present, India-based Strategic Foresight Group said in a report.
“What we are looking at here is a major catastrophe … going to happen in 20, 25 years,” the group’s president, Sundeep Waslekar, told a seminar at the Singapore International Water Week.
Water scarcity and effects like desertification and soil erosion would bring rice and wheat yields in China and India down by as much as 50 percent by 2050, the report said.
“China and India alone will need to import more than 200 to 300 million tonnes of wheat and rice,” it said.
“This will create a havoc in the global food market … for people everywhere, because the prices will go up substantially,” Waslekar said.
Water depletion in the river basins would displace millions of people in the four countries by 2050, he said.
“We are looking towards a disaster of more than 100 million migrants,” he said, “and conflicts within and between countries.”
The report called for more cooperation between the four nations in the management of the river basins.
The basins of the rivers, including the Yellow River and the Yangtze in China and the Ganges in India, are home to 1.3 billion people.
- No 'huge deficit' in Ganges flow - Sep 05, 2011
- China diverts river water to ease drought - May 19, 2011
- China to build four super dams on Jinsha river - Jun 22, 2011
- Chinese families adopt alligators - Apr 12, 2012
- Melting Himalayan glaciers to have varying impact on river basins - Jun 13, 2010
- China fears worst flood in 12 years - Jul 15, 2010
- Bihar to set up dolphin conservation task force - Apr 21, 2011
- Drought affects 35 million in China - May 30, 2011
- Climate change will imperil food supply in Asia - Jun 18, 2010
- China prepares for flood season - May 29, 2012
- World Bank cites Andhra water project for food security - Aug 31, 2010
- Global meet in China to discuss desertification - Jun 14, 2011
- China's longest river faces worst drought since 1961 - May 23, 2011
- Bihar task force report on Ganga dolphins soon - Jul 20, 2011
- Asia's first dolphin research centre to come up in Bihar - Apr 15, 2012
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Ensuring sustainable development
The term sustainable development is often misunderstood and some in the past have criticized it as being too vague.
“I know that this term is obligatory, but I find it also absurd, or rather so vague that says nothing.” Philosopher Luc Ferry
“The term is more charming than meaningful.” Philosopher Luc Ferry
The fact that this is a continuously evolving complex area that touches upon many interdisciplinary subjects makes it difficult to define. The United Nations Brundtland Report released in 1987 defined sustainable development as “development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Basically this first attempt to define sustainable development focuses on the interlinkages between economic development, environmental degradation and population pressure. Since then the idea on sustainability has been evolving. The United Nations 2005 World Summit Outcome Document defines the concept of sustainable development as “interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars” of economic development, socio-political development, and environmental development. The concept revolves on the relationship of these three pillars. Accordingly sustainable development should be socially and environmentally bearable, economically and environmentally viable and socially and economically equitable. There are indigenous peoples who are arguing through various international forums on the need to add a fourth pillar to sustainable development; cultural diversity. UNESCO’s “The Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity” of 2001 further elaborates this concept by stating that “cultural diversity is as necessary for humankind as biodiversity is for nature”. It states that “culture is one of the roots of development understood not simply in terms of economic growth, but also as a means to achieve a more satisfactory intellectual, emotional, moral and spiritual existence”. Cultural diversity has quickly become another policy area of sustainable development.
Sustainable development is about managing economic, social and natural capitals. The general idea is about attaining continuous growth in a manner that protects resources, society and the environment although this sounds a bit paradoxical. Can development in one of these three areas be achieved without any significant impact on the others? Can progress be made on all three pillars in development projects?
The emphasis within the scope of sustainability itself cannot be the same in developed and developing countries. To be more specific for instance, the urging need of developing countries and their priorities are more leaned towards economic development and the priorities of those developed may be on social and environmental sustainability. So we should not expect all countries to have similar approaches and similar priorities on all three pillars of sustainable development even though these three are highly interrelated. Numerous books are written on the subject of sustainable development and most of them do not address Africa’s special needs.
John Baden, chairman of the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment, writes: “In economy as in ecology, the interdependence rule applies, isolated actions are impossible.” In reality, economic growth cannot be achieved without having any impact on society and the environment; the environment cannot be entirely protected without having any kind of impact on the economy and society; and there is no social development without any effect on the economy and the environment. Sustainable development is a concept with breadth and multiple dimensions that can be a maze of both complexity and contradiction.
Measurability is another controversial aspect of sustainable development. There is no one single indicator that measures sustainability. Joy E. Hecht in his paper: Can Indicators and Accounts Really Measure Sustainability? Consideration for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, underlined that measurability in sustainable development remained a challenge. He writes: “While much discussion and effort has gone into sustainability indicators, none of the resulting systems clearly tells us whether our society is sustainable. At best they can tell us that we are heading in the wrong direction, or that our current activities are not sustainable. More often they simply draw our attention to the existence of problems, doing little to tell us the origin of those problems and nothing to tell us how to solve them.” Others assume that the only way to make sustainability tangible is to have a set of well defined and harmonised indicators. And suggest that indicators should be identified and adjusted through empirical observations. Again it is essential to have a clear-cut understanding of the African context and take it into consideration in this practice.
The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) launched the first Sustainable Development Report on Africa (SDRA) in the 2004 – 2005 biennium. The SDRA is intended to help as a medium for assessing and monitoring sustainable development in Africa and among other things it is meant to promote a balanced integration of the three pillars of sustainable development which are economic, social and environmental. The second issue, SDRA-2 theme’s was Five-Years Review the Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD+5). The objective of this report was to provide the reader with an overview of Africa’s advancement in its implementation of the sustainable development agenda and to prompt action on the part of the various stakeholders, including governments, civil society, private sector and development partners, with the goal of accelerating progress towards meeting the continent’s sustainable development goals. The report touches on different thematic areas and reveals key findings including the challenges and constraints experienced during the implementation. The different aspects of sustainable development are covered in the report, even though all the relevant issues are not discussed in an exhaustive manner. That was not the goal of this report. However it provides pertinent information on the different aspects of sustainable development. The different thematic areas assessed in the report are sustainable development governance which includes peace, security and human rights; poverty eradication and socially sustainable development; sustainable consumption and production; natural resource base of economic and social development; the means of implementation and harnessing the interlinkages. Many key and relevant issues are covered under this report.
This kind of structured report and analytical work will help analyse the gap between the goals set and what’s actually achieved, hence allowing continuous improvement to be made in institutions and to policies and strategies to ensure sustainability. The three strategic pillars mentioned above are highly interrelated. The importance of having a contextually balanced and conscience approach cannot be stressed enough. In depth awareness of the African context of sustainable development is also vital.
According to the SDRA, the challenges faced in some countries on the continent and in some particular areas are constraints in the area of data collection. The report repeatedly underlined the need to strengthen the statistical capacity of countries to collect data that is essential for analysis and monitoring the progresses made.
African leaders committed themselves to NEPADs programme, and the results agenda of the MDGs, the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) including other national and sectoral development plans. The NEPAD initiative and results agenda require the use of better statistics to have clear systematic measures and reports on the achievements of outputs, outcomes and impact of development policies. The African Centre for Statistics (ACS) is a division in the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. Among its mandate, is the responsibility to building statistical capacity and support member States, sub regional and regional organizations in the production of quality statistics. The Reference Regional Strategic Framework (RRSF) was developed to help build the capacity of national statistical offices in Africa after the UNECA repositioned itself in 2006. Since then the UNECA and its ACS division have been providing guidance to African countries on how to improve their statistics and increase their use in the critical areas of policy and decision making. Though many countries took advantage of such supports and made a dramatic improvement over the past five years, very limited progresses were made in some countries. The collection of data unique to sustainability, should also be given due attention. Countries should base their analysis and decisions on quality data.
The concept of sustainability has been vigorously challenged and still raises criticism at different levels. A number of intellectuals fiercely oppose it, arguing that the concept only helps the capitalists and some question the motive and purpose of sustainability. And others commented on the population control agenda that they believe to be at the root of this concept.
“Sustainable development is a policy approach that has gained quite a lot of popularity in recent years, especially in international circles. By attaching a specific interpretation to sustainability, population control policies have become the overriding approach to development, thus becoming the primary tool used to “promote” economic development in developing countries and to protect the environment.” Maria Sophia Aguirre
Some argue that the real purpose of sustainable development is to contain and limit economic development in developing countries, and in so doing control population growth. Joan Veon, a businesswoman and international reporter, posits that:
“Sustainable development has continued to evolve as that of protecting the world’s resources while its true agenda is to control the world’s resources. It should be noted that Agenda 21 sets up the global infrastructure needed to manage, count, and control all of the world’s assets.”
The other dispute comes from single focus groups such as environmental and human right activists. These single focus groups are merely concerned about one or two pillars of sustainable development and fail to recognize that sustainability requires interdisciplinary approach. Many lobbyists groups and NGOs campaign against nearly every development projects in the developing world. This is quickly becoming a trend, in most cases creating unnecessary pressure and tension. Recent economic progresses and international cooperation, especially Africa’s partnership with China, are allowing the constructions of new infrastructure. Gradually countries are building their Social Overhead Capital (SOC). This will in turn help them to attract more foreign investment. Many African countries are currently building hydropower dams and they see them as sources of clean energy.
One of the top ten economic performers in Africa is Ethiopia. It is currently building five hydropower dams and has recently launched a new project on the Blue Nile River that when operating at full capacity will produce 5,250 Megawatt. Western NGOs have been campaigning against some of the dams on environmental or human rights grounds. Over four hundred NGOs led by Survival International this month signed a petition against one of its nearly completed hydropower project, the Gibe III that is expected to generate 1,800 Megawatt. They say that 200,000 Ethiopians who rely on fishing and farming may become dependent on aid to survive if the dam goes ahead. The government argues that all the necessary studies where made and that the impact on both the society and environment is negligible. Here it is important to bring things into perspective. Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries and has been growing at a rapid rate of 10 plus percent a year for the past seven years and the demand for power is growing at an even higher rate every year. Chronic power shortages were common for the past few years in the country and have hindered investments. The government had to take decisive measures to put a halt to this energy problem that threatened to slow down the countries growth. And the country is trying to transform its agriculture driven economy to an industry driven economy in the coming five years. The country’s prime minister called those who are campaigning against the hydropower dam projects in Africa as “borderline criminals” who are helping to keep Africans poor.
“These people will not allow the disturbance of butterflies even if this means millions of people have to be subjected to the deadliest killer disease of all; poverty. I am not a believer in conspiracy theories but, if I were I would conclude that these people want Africa to remain as it is with all its misery and poverty so they can come and visit nature in its pristine state in winter every so often.” Meles Zenawi Prime Minister of Ethiopia
The important question will be: How can we proceed in the area of sustainable development?
Again economic development is at the core of sustainable development for developing countries. So the activities in these countries are and will continue to be driven by their hunger for economic growth. But this should not mean that social sustainability and environmental sustainability are going to be ignored. In fact, many African countries are making meaningful social and environmental advancements (development) and have not neglected the work in these areas.
There is a need for better consciousness on social and environmental issues and generally on sustainability. Government should continue fostering greater cooperation between the different stakeholders, including governments, civil society, private sector and development partners. Projects should be given careful thoughts, should be well analysed and the impact on society and environment weighed meticulously. However developing countries should not be crippled on grounds of ensuring sustainable development. What should be rather scrutinized is whether countries are undertaking the most socially and environmentally sustainable alternative possible to economic development. Given the resources, the economic condition of a particular country and its need to address development issues; is this project the best possible option as far as social and environmental sustainability is concerned. And a more cost benefit approach should be used as an alternative to evaluate sustainability. Sonia Bueno a Cuban-born researcher and entrepreneur made a very interesting suggestion in her essay: Transforming the Water and Waste Water Infrastructure into an Efficient, Portable and Sustainable System. In this essay she suggests an alternative approach that is based upon an integral, long-term cost-benefit relationship as a measure and monitoring tool for the sustainability of project, activity and enterprise. Under this concept the aim is to evaluate sustainable development by following the principles of conservation and increment of value rather than simply restricting any kind of impact on environment or society.
It is needless to say that developing countries should remain conscious about the social and environmental impact their economic activities might have. Whatever economic activities they undertake, whether it is building infrastructures and industries or running them, using energy, mining, achieving food security or speeding up urbanization, they should make cautious assessments to ensure better results in social and environmental sustainability. International cooperation and strategic partnerships should be developed further and for this to happen mutual understanding on the African context of sustainability is crucial. Ultimately the world has to learn to depend less on single focus whistle-blowers and make a carefully weighed and balanced judgement based on multidiscipline information.
The MDGs, NEPAD programme and Development
The achievement of the millennium development goals (MDGs) is critical for the realization of what some call the renaissance of Africa. The MDGs drawn from the United Nations millennium declaration at the millennium summit in 2000 provide a common framework for combating poverty, ensuring sustainable development and promote peace and security. It consists of eight goals thought to help break the vicious circle of poverty and put underdeveloped countries on a path of sustainable growth and development.
These eight goals: Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger; Achieving universal primary education; Promoting gender equality and empowering women; Reducing child mortality; Improving maternal health; Combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases; Ensuring environmental sustainability; and Developing a global partnership for development, were more or less ideas in one of Jeffery Sachs’ famous books. Jeffery Sachs was the special adviser to the former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. As the matter of fact anybody who read Jeffery Sachs book “The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Times” can easily identify his foot prints in the MDGs. In this book Sachs discuss about a plan that can help eradicate extreme poverty around the world by 2025 by focusing on the one billion poorest people around the globe caught in a poverty trap of disease, physical isolation, environmental challenges, political instability, and lack of access to basic required needs such as capital, technology, medicine, and education. He also shatters some persistent myths about poor people and shows how developing nations can do more to help themselves.
William Easterly in his book The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Effort to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good, sternly argues:
“The West spent $2.3 trillion in foreign aid over the last five decades and still had not managed to get 12 cent medicines to children to prevent half of all malaria deaths. The West spent $2.3 trillion and still had not managed to get $4 bed nets to poor families. The West spent $2.3 trillion and still had not managed to get $3 to each new mother to prevent five million child deaths.”
Easterly sharply criticizes Western large scale-planning that may seem appealing to market fundamentalist who call for market solutions to solve the problems associated with poverty and is one of the outspoken economist cynical about imposing the “Washington Consensus”. Easterly a University Economics professor is also a former World Bank economist. The way forward for him is to examine each culture individually and offer aid specific to local conditions.
Another economist, whose ideas are widely seen to be competing with those of Jeffery Sachs, is Paul Collier the author of “The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done about It”. Collier also focuses on the bottom billion. He reveals that fifty failed states; home to the one billion poorest people on earth, pose the most fundamental challenges of the developing world and pinpoints a set of solution that can help tackle the long standing issues. Collier analyzes the causes of failure identifying a set of traps that entangle such countries, including civil wars, reliance on extraction and export of natural resources, and bad governance. He wrote: “Standard solutions do not work, aid is often ineffective, and globalization can actually make matters even worse driving development to rich countries”. According to him what the bottom need is a bold new plan backed by the G8. He argues that the group of eight has to adopt policies, new laws against corruption, new international charters and even conduct carefully “calibrated” military interventions. Even though some of his suggestions sound extreme and impractical in the eyes of today’s international politics, he pointed out some key points in his analysis.
All three renowned economist mentioned above have wealth of experience and are people in touch with the realities in the developing world. And there intellectual works are based on great amount of statistics. Some see there views as different contradicting approaches in the battle against poverty but these are not competing ideas but rather very useful ideas complementing each other that can serve as general frameworks to be later on customized according to the need and context of each developing country. Looking at the progress of the MDGs, it is important to understand and recognize that in principle, we are in the right path in the stratified combat against the vicious circle of poverty. But there is an old expression that says the devil is in the details. That’s where in depth knowledge, analytical skills and great flexibility is required. How well can African nations develop strategies and policies within these broad frameworks to effectively achieve the goals? In other words the main question is: How can it be achieved?
The three economists mentioned above have a number of things in common and that includes their dissatisfaction with the approach used by the West for years.
Encouraged by the level of political commitment shown on the MDGs, African leaders embraced the call for global partnership to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger and in 2001 the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) was established. NEPAD programme is an all African initiative coherent with the MDGs. Most importantly it is owned and managed by Africans. Briefly described by the NEPAD Secretariat itself; “NEPAD is a pledge made by African leaders, based on a common vision and strong and shared conviction, that they have urging responsibilities to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger and to place their countries on a path of sustainable growth and development.” (Statement taken from: NEPAD in Brief)
Colonialism, the cold war, the world economic system and years of failed policies and ideologies exacerbated poverty and fuelled conflicts on the continent of Africa. In most cases post-colonial Africa inherited weak states and dysfunctional economies. Furthermore many African leaders lacked the political will required to take their countries out of poverty and Africa remained marginalized from the world economic and political scenes for decades. The battle of the two dominant ideologies during the cold war was another negative factor that further aggravated poverty and instability. For centuries Africa’s role in the global economy was limited to providing cheap labour and raw materials. Although the continent is rich in natural resources, these resources were largely misused and have been sources of conflicts in the majority of the cases.
After African countries gained their independence in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s they had only two options. And that was to follow capitalism or socialism; ideologies that were never meant for African nations. In fact the same is true for many other theories, ideologies and other economic philosophies. The problem was further exacerbated by the cold war as the two super powers tried to extend their ideological territories. The great divide created during the cold war has affected open mindedness on policy issues. Especially the US or more generally the West’s flexibility and its will to entertain other ideas have been seriously affected. And many international institutions and even some African intellectuals failed under their influence. The West including America has invested a great deal of money and tried to change the world for the better. There was no lack of good intensions. But it was done under a confined mind set. Many people are still in that cold war driven mentality even though they are not conscious about it. They are more ideological than pragmatic. Some American intellectuals should be conscious that views and ideas outside Capitalism are not necessarily Communism. At the same token the developing world was numbed by the deafening propaganda from the socialist camp. This has to change and is gradually changing.
TIME Magazine columnist Alex Perry in his essay; Lions on the Prowl: By confronting their problems, Africans have earned the right to dream great dreams, writes about how Africans have started addressing African problems. In this essay Perry discusses how Africa’s economic growth is rising steadily and the growing opportunities for investment. He wrote: “It isn’t in comparison with its past that Africa is doing well. It’s in comparison with the feted stars of the new economy.” In a paragraph that depicts the current political and economic environment he wrote: “But when the global elite meet in Davos, they might take a moment, stop thinking about China and the European sovereign debt crisis and the democratic sclerosis in the US, and think about the continent that often gets left out when great matters of globalization are discussed.” And in another paragraph he adds: “The benefits of globalization, long something of a conviction at Davos will mean something really mean something – when they are extended not just to Asia’s but to everyone.”(Quotations from: TIME January 31, 2011 issue)
French President Nicolas Sarkozy who assumed the EU’s rotating presidency seems to be committed to put a halt to Africa’s marginalization from the world political and economic arenas. The President visited Addis Ababa during the 16th Ordinary Session of the African Union Commission. He expressed his support for Africa to have a more active role in the United Nations Security Council, the IMF and the World Bank. In an interview to Capital (an Ethiopian News Paper) the French ambassador to Ethiopia Jean-Christophe Belliard says: “The French President is coming with new ideas, and if there is one outcome we want to see, it is Africa having a better say in world affairs, a fair representation of Africa in the UN Security council, a fair representation of Africa in the IMF, the World Bank, G8 and G20. France wants Africa to be heard and represented, not on ad-hoc basis but regularly.”
The fact that this view is rapidly gaining momentum is encouraging for Africa. But on the other hand it is essential for Africans to improve in the area of policy making and analytical thinking. Open debates on policy issues, is critical and can help Africans refine their skill in this area. It is only then the continent will take advantage of such political settings.
NEPAD provides a framework for sustainable development. The Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI) recognizes that achieving sustainable economic growth and development requires creating enabling environment at all levels. The plan calls on international development partners to support the continent’s effort to foster peace, security and stability, conflict resolution and prevention, democratization, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, gender equality and good governance. These were identified by African leaders as the necessary conditions required for ensuring sustainable growth and development. The NEPAD Secretariat has continued to offer intellectual leadership and technical and policy support in the priority areas for which it was established. Africa has made a significant leap over the last few years in the areas of agriculture and food security, good governance, capacity development, gender, infrastructure development, education and health, science and technology, trade and markets access; environment and climate change. The NEPAD Secretariat works closely with the African Regional Communities (REC). The RECs are responsible for the implementation of development programme but the NEPAD secretariat coordinates and mobilises resources. NEPAD is doing a very good job in this area. However NEPAD’s planned integration into the African Union is a great concern. NEPAD may be drowned in the bigger bureaucracy of the African Union and become less effective. Africa should proceed with caution and carefully consider the terms of the integration. However if successful the integration will make political leadership more convenient and help reduce redundancy.
The MDG Report 2009 (MDGR 2009): Assessing Progress in Africa toward the Millennium development Goals indicated that the progress towards achieving the MDGs was on course despite the food crisis, fuel crisis, and the global financial and economic crisis that started in the year 2008. The report also underlined the need to scale up the much-needed development assistance by development partners if gains are to be safeguarded and future achievements secured.
Even though from the very first beginning some development partners failed to increase aid and development assistance as pledged, international cooperation has brought the MDGs a long way in Africa. China’s development assistance and vendor financing including the technology transfer it brings along, GTZ’s (now GIZ) work on capacity building, infrastructure, good governance and its partnership with Africa in the area of peace and security, US assistance and increased aid on HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis, European Union attempts to eradicate poverty by encouraging trade and providing aid for MDGs and fostering them, are among the different areas of global cooperation. Development partners and international institutions are becoming more and more effective by focusing mainly on technical assistance. The African Union, NEPAD, the African Development Bank and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa are providing intellectual leadership and strategic framework for Africa. UN agencies, funds and programmes, NGOs and other IGOs (Inter-governmental Organizations) are engaged in the more technical areas of implementation.
The recent economic crisis presents challenges in achieving the MDGs. G8 countries struggled to meet pledges made for development assistance. And the situation can get even worst with most of developed countries deep in deficit. European countries are taking drastic austerity measures and the Euro zone is in profound crisis. Some argue that governments have spent a lot of money treating the symptoms of a huge economic disaster and are left with virtually nothing to deal with the main issues. And they predict that the tough times are only ahead. Hence developed countries may not be in the position to maintain the level of development assistance.
Look at the trillions of dollars spent in aid. What was actually achieved? Many argue that development aid from the West has done very little good and that African leaders have become heavily dependent on it that they have become reluctant in bringing development. They argue that aid money is rarely used for the right purpose and has rarely reached the intended recipients and that it has been only serving the corrupt. This is a legitimate observation. But the most important question is why? It is mainly because of the way aid was provided. And this is not a matter of personal opinion but of factual assertions with relevant data. Africans heavily depended on off-the-shelf policies from the West and were indifferent to answer the demand of their people. There was no African initiative in the efforts made to lift Africa from its poverty and the path followed for decades was more or less fruitless. It is true that Africa should learn to be less dependent on foreign aid. And there should be a mechanism to ensure that aid is used for the right purpose and ensure accountability and transparency. There are some progresses in this aspect as well.
The need for efficiency and adequate utilization of scares resources is becoming more critical than ever. Given the current economic situation, development partners may or may not be able to live up to Africa’s expectations when it comes to aid. Africa should improve on the way it uses and mobilize resources. Improvement in efficiency of resource utilization including cracking down on corruption, prioritising different development activities based on their importance and supply only the necessary fund and cutting the cost of less important activities, reducing non-productive consumption and mobilizing local resources seem the way forward for Africa. The economic growth that many African countries have managed to produce over the last few years should boast further economic development and sustainability on the continent. But this can only happen if Africans can cut on their non-productive consumptions and reinvest the wealth or the capital gained. Fostering savings and subsequently being able to mobilize these resources and channelling them to the right development activities should be given due consideration. The other critical area for securing resources for development is in the area of tax collection. If government can effectively collect taxes in a timely manner, it will certainly help secure more resources.
The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) has a division working on strategic frameworks in the area of regional integration, trade and international negotiation, infrastructure and natural resources development. The division in charge previously known as the NEPAD and Regional Integration Department (NRID) now the Regional integration, Infrastructure and Trade Division (RIITD) is responsible for the development of natural resources in Africa. Its task is essentially to do analytical works and provide intellectual leadership for the achievement of NEPAD goals on regional integration, trade and infrastructure. During his visit to Addis Ababa, Australian Foreign minister Kevin Rudd pledged that his country will work with Africa in the area of mining and Energy. Australia has a vast experience in this area. And the cooperation will allow Africans develop new regulations and enhance the existing ones to maximize benefits from natural resource. The Foreign minister promised that his country will be working closely with the African Union to bring new breakthroughs in this area. For a continent where most countries heavily rely on natural resources for economic growth, the need for leadership and cooperation in mining and energy is vital. Ensuring that African countries get the right benefits from these resources should be one of the top priorities.
Six countries in the list of top ten world countries ranking, based on the average annual decline in the poverty rate are African countries. These are namely Gambia, Mali, Senegal, Ethiopia, The Central African Republic, and Guinea. The economist notes that there were challenges in the area of funding as development partners struggle to fulfil pledges made to support and accelerate development and that the global financial crisis made it even more challenging. However, it is also important to note that meeting the MDGs and NEPAD targets is not limited to spending more money. The economist made some important remarks; “the top performers in Africa got successful in cutting poverty not by spending public money but by encouraging rapid economic growth.” That’s where effective policy making, strategy formulation and implementation come in the picture. Meeting the targets is not a matter of merely spending large sum of money it goes beyond that. It is also about stimulating the economy in the right way.
There are also other views. The Economist Magazine (issue: September 25th 2010) wrote that in ten years, the living conditions of the poor have been improving – but not necessarily because of the UN’s goals. Than how were the reductions in enfant mortality, and increased maternal health and literacy were achieved in Africa? How is Africa making progress in combating HIV/Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis? How is the continent achieving an annual economic growth average of 5.5%? If there are any valid arguments about how these are being achieved without the MDGs, then they should be made public. But we haven’t seen one yet and the ones already made are a bit ambiguous. The United Nations has defended the MDGs and its secretary general Ban Ki-Moon, called the MDGs “a milestone in international cooperation”.
“The United Nations reckons that in 2008 over a quarter of children in the developing world were underweight, a sixth of people lacked access to safe drinking water, and just under half used in sanitary toilets or none at all. But while these figures are disquieting, a smaller fraction of people were affected than was the case two decades ago. So such data also indicate the world’s progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of targets adopted by world leaders at the UN ten years ago.”(The economist)
The MDGs and NEPAD programme are in fact taking Africa forward.
Whether African countries decide to follow balanced or unbalanced growth strategy or focus on food security by improving the productivity of the subsistent farmer and encouraging large scale corporate farming, or/and focus on land management, insuring environmental sustainability, human capacity building and develop their social overhead Capital (SOC); they have to come up with some real-time feasible plan that has taken their particular situation into consideration. Doing so requires having broader perspectives and being more practical. African intellectual leadership and the increased level of African initiative have played a decisive role in the current development achievements. Again Africa should continue building its capacity in the area of policy making. Western partnership in empowering Africans in this area is critical. When attempts to further involve Africa in international affairs yield fruit, we can expect that development will be even more accelerated.
Issues related to development, sustainability and peace are of cyclical nature. If there is no development there is nothing to sustain. If there is no sustainable development there is no peace. And if there is no peace there is not going to be some meaningful development. So the question is how do we sustain development? The next part of the African Road Map Series will focus on Sustainability. | <urn:uuid:8c7cf7a6-6df5-4037-8e15-21f13fdaf4f8> | CC-MAIN-2014-42 | http://africanpolicyargument.wordpress.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-42/segments/1413558066654.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20141017150106-00228-ip-10-16-133-185.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95352 | 7,045 | 3.265625 | 3 |
How Candide Found Cunegonde and the Old Woman Again
WHILE CANDIDE, THE Baron, Pangloss, Martin, and Cacambo were relating their several adventures, were reasoning on the contingent or non-contingent events of the universe, disputing on effects and causes, on moral and physical evil, on liberty and necessity, and on the consolations a slave may feel even on a Turkish galley, they arrived at the house of the Transylvanian prince on the banks of the Propontis. The first objects which met their sight were Cunegonde and the old woman hanging towels out to dry.
The Baron paled at this sight. The tender, loving Candide, seeing his beautiful Cunegonde browned, with bloodshot eyes, withered neck, wrinkled cheeks, and rough, red arms, recoiled three paces, seized with horror, and then advanced out of good manners. She embraced Candide and her brother; they embraced the old woman, and Candide ransomed them both.
There was a small farm in the neighborhood which the old woman proposed to Candide to make a shift with till the company could be provided for in a better manner. Cunegonde did not know she had grown ugly, for nobody had told her of it; and she reminded Candide of his promise in so positive a tone that the good man dared not refuse her. He therefore intimated to the Baron that he intended marrying his sister.
“I will not suffer,” said the Baron, "such meanness on her part, and such insolence on yours; I will never be reproached with this scandalous thing; my sister's children would never be able to enter the church in Germany. No, my sister shall only marry a baron of the empire.”
Cunegonde flung herself at his feet, and bathed them with her tears; still he was inflexible.
“Thou foolish fellow,” said Candide; “I have delivered thee out of the galleys, I have paid thy ransom, and thy sister's also; she was a scullion, and is very ugly, yet I am so condescending as to marry her; and dost thou pretend to oppose the match? I should kill thee again, were I only to consult my anger.”
“Thou mayest kill me again,” said the Baron, “but thou shalt not marry my sister, at least whilst I am living.”
— Sinead, Owl Eyes Contributor
The verb "condescending" means to look down upon or to treat someone with great disdain. Here, Voltaire uses it to mean that Candide has lowered himself by offering to marry Cunegonde even though she's ugly. In this line, we can clearly see the limits of Candide's goodness: he thinks of marrying Cunegonde as an act of kindness, which paradoxically makes it very cruel. | <urn:uuid:40e6cc0d-b269-4397-8f7b-9952f0549f53> | CC-MAIN-2020-40 | https://www.owleyes.org/text/candide/read/chapter-xxix-candide-found-cunegonde | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-40/segments/1600402131412.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20201001112433-20201001142433-00790.warc.gz | en | 0.970742 | 629 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Conflict is what drives your characters down the plot. It’s what boosts your story into being a world within itself. The nice thing about creating conflict is that it can virtually be anything. The trick to make it exciting and riveting is rather simple, too. To create a substantial conflict, you must first determine what your protagonist wants. Once you have that, you need to ask yourself: What prevents my character from getting what they want? It’s that simple.
Let’s say that Character X really wants to go to a concert. That is his goal. But, the concert is halfway across the US, and he doesn’t have the means to get there. These would be pretty big obstacles for him to over come. This is the conflict of the story. This is what the entire plot is based on. This leads us through the rising action and takes us right up to the climax.
However, be sure that your conflicts are actually conflicts and not just tension. For example, Rita just bought new shoes, fell down, and scuffed them–this isn’t conflict. It would be conflict if Rita just bought new shoes for her friend’s birthday, fell down, and the shoes landed in a puddle and she didn’t have the funds to buy more and must figure out another perfect gift. Conflict has to incite action from your characters. It must drive them forwards into the plot. If it doesn’t, it’s not conflict.
There are also different kinds of conflict. There are four standar types of conflict:
Protagonist vs. Antagonist
This is your mano a mano type of conflict between two characters. Your character has a want, a goal (like going to a concert), and another character stands in the way of your character’s goal (like parents who forbid your character from going to the concert.) In this type of conflict, you get to not only create a memorable protagonist, but you also get to develop a memorable antagonist as well.
Protagonist vs. Nature
This is the story about a character vs. a natural disaster, living off of the land, or even against animals. Take The Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell for example. Karana’s main struggle living on the island alone is that she must defend herself from a pack of wild dogs–the same pack that killed her brother, leaving her the only human on the island. She must also survive by taking on the traditionally male roles of hunting and providing for the herself as well as the female roles of making clothing and cooking.
Protagonist vs. Society
This is the story of a protagonist vs. a larger, collective body of people. Some examples of this type of conflict can be found in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and also in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. This is the story in which the protagonist rebells against society and must deal with the consequences if they wish to keep their stance. This type of conflict is helpful if you want to write a story about societal issues that are either well known or not.
Protagonist vs. Self
This type of story takes place all inside your protagonist’s head. This type of conflict can be seen in many stream-of-consciousness writing such as William Faulkner’s Barn Burning or Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. There are plenty of outside forces at work, but the story itself if focused on how the character reacts to these forces.
As you write your story, don’t be alarmed if you find bits and pieces from all of these in your writing. Diversifying your types of conflict can and will enrich your writing and help the reader stay interested in following your characters through their problems. Just be sure that you don’t go overboard to the point that the reader is lost when it comes to what type of conflict the story is about.
Thanks for reading! | <urn:uuid:97ee51b3-f309-48b6-bf9c-3ca47bb2e5b3> | CC-MAIN-2017-34 | https://whispererofwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/02/creating-and-maintaining-conflict/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-34/segments/1502886103891.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20170817170613-20170817190613-00687.warc.gz | en | 0.96304 | 823 | 2.859375 | 3 |
In the days following the earthquake in Japan, members of the US business community pledged more than $240 million to aid response and recovery efforts. Their challenge was to figure out how to dispense that money to the projects and people who needed it most. To help them visualize the scope of the disaster and identify the areas that were most affected, we worked with the Business Civic Leadership Center to develop an interactive map of the aftershocks felt at more than magnitude 5.0 in the days after the initial 9.0 quake.
Interactive maps like this are great for communicating a lot of information quickly and putting information in context — in this case, the impact of an earthquake that happened halfway around the world. With the increasing availability of open data sets and new mapping technologies, it’s now much easier — and cheaper — to build maps like this.
We built this map using the open-source map design studio TileMill, a free tool that we’ve written about before that allows you to create custom maps using your own data, and open data released by the United States Geological Survey.
Below is a walk-through of how we built this map and details on how you can build your own interactive map using open data and TileMill.
Finding the Data
The U.S. Geological Survey publishes data feeds of recent earthquake readings in a variety of formats. The feeds are geocoded so you can plot the epicenters of each report using longitude and latitude coordinates. For this map, we converted the RSS feed of 5.0-plus magnitude earthquakes over seven days to a shapefile and used TileMill to style the data and add interactivity. You could also download the KML feeds and load them into TileMill directly.
In addition to the point-based epicenter data, we used shapefile data of the Shakemap from the initial earthquake, which shows the ground movement and intensity of shaking caused by a seismic event. This layer provides greater context to the impact felt around the epicenter points.
Building the Map
We used TileMill to design the map and apply an interactive “hover” layer, which allows you to show information when you mouse over a point on the map — in this case, the epicenter of an aftershock. Below is a look at the editing interface in TileMill. For more on how interactivity works in TileMill, check out this blog post from Bonnie.
We then rendered the map to MBTiles, which is an open-file format for storing lots of map tiles and interactivity information in one file. MBTiles can be hosted on the web or displayed offline on mobile devices like the iPad. For this map, we used TileStream Hosting to host the map online. It has an embed feature that let us embed the map on an otherwise static HTML page. The embed code is also publicly available, so others can embed your map on their own site. Check out this article on O’Reilly Radar for an example of this in action. You can make your own embed of this map by clicking on “embed” here.
Adding Advanced Interactivity
Now when you hover over a point on the embedded map, instead of the usual popup, the corresponding element in the timeline expands. This lets users see the relationship between time, space and magnitude an in intuitive way. All the code to make this work is available in the page — just “view source” to check it out.
Updated 5/19/11: This post was updated to attribute fundraising efforts to the business community at large.Related | <urn:uuid:86d25040-9745-48ee-bdb7-e609e9199f5e> | CC-MAIN-2014-42 | http://www.pbs.org/idealab/2011/05/mapping-the-japan-earthquake-to-help-recovery-efforts132/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-42/segments/1413507452492.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20141017005732-00218-ip-10-16-133-185.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.896727 | 733 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Revolutions of 1848 in the Italian states
|Revolutions of 1848 in the Italian states|
|Part of the Revolutions of 1848 and the First Italian War of Independence|
San Martino della Battaglia by Vittorio Bressanin (1870–1873)
Kingdom of Sicily|
Provisional Government of Milan
Republic of San Marco
Kingdom of Sardinia
Kingdom of Two Sicilies
Grand Duchy of Tuscany
|Commanders and leaders|
The 1848 Revolutions in the Italian states, part of the wider Revolutions of 1848 in Europe, were organized revolts in the states of the Italian peninsula and Sicily, led by intellectuals and agitators who desired a liberal government. As Italian nationalists they sought to eliminate reactionary Austrian control. During this time, Italy was not a unified country, and was divided into many states, which, in Northern Italy, were ruled by the Austrian Empire. A desire to be independent from foreign rule, and the conservative leadership of the Austrians, led Italian revolutionaries to stage revolution in order to drive out the Austrians. The revolution was led by the state of the Kingdom of Sardinia. Some uprisings in the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, particularly in Milan, forced the Austrian General Radetzky to retreat to the Quadrilatero (Quadrilateral) fortresses.
King Charles Albert, who ruled Piedmont-Sardinia from 1831 to 1849, aspired to unite Italy with the endorsement of Pope Pius IX, head of the Papal States, which comprised then vast territories in the center of the Italian peninsula. He declared war on Austria in March 1848 and launched a full-out attack on the Quadrilateral. Lacking allies, Charles Albert was no match for the Austrian army and was defeated at the Battle of Custoza on 24 July 1848. He signed a truce and withdrew his forces from Lombardy, and thus Austria remained dominant in a divided Italy until the Second Italian War of Independence.
After witnessing the liberal friendly events that were occurring in Rome, the people of other states started to demand similar treatment. It commenced on 12 January in Sicily, where the people began to demand a Provisional Government, separate from the government of the mainland. King Ferdinand II tried to resist these changes, however a full-fledged revolt erupted in Sicily, a revolt also erupted in Salerno and Naples. These revolts drove Ferdinand and his men out of Sicily, and forced him to allow a provisional government to be constituted.
Notwithstanding the events in Rome and Naples, the states still were under a conservative rule. Italians in Lombardo-Veneto could not enjoy these freedoms. The Austrian Empire of this region had tightened their grip on the people by further oppressing them with harsher taxes. Tax gatherers were sent out along with the 100,000 man army standing in place, and letting their presence be known.
These revolts in Sicily helped to spark revolts in the northern Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia. Revolutions in the Lombardy city of Milan forced about 20,000 of an Austrian General Radetsky's troops to withdraw from the city. Eventually General Radetsky was forced to completely withdraw his troops from the two states, however, due to his expertise, he was able to keep the Quadrilateral fortresses of Verona, Peschiera, Legnano and Mantua. Through his skillful tactics he brought his men that had been withdrawn into the key forts. Meanwhile, the Italian insurgents were encouraged when news of Prince Metternich abdicating in Vienna spread out, but were unable to completely eradicate Radetsky's troops. Also, by this time Charles Albert of Piedmont had published a liberal constitution for Piedmont.
In the Quadrilateral General Radetsky and his men were plotting a counterattack in order to regain their lost ground. However, they were interrupted by Charles Albert of Sardinia, the King of Sardinia, who had by then taken the forefront of the attack, and had launched an attack against the Quadrilateral. Charles charged the fortress from all sides aided by 25,000 reinforcements, who came in assistance of their fellow citizens. While journeying to the fortress preparing for the attack, Charles garnered the support of princes of other states. His fellow princes responded by sending reinforcements to his aid: Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany sent 8,000, Pope Pius contributed 10,000, and Ferdinand II sent 16,050 men on the advice of general Guglielmo Pepe. They attacked the fortresses and on 3 May 1848 succeeded in winning the battle of Goito and capturing the fortress of Peschiera.
At that point, Pope Pius IX became nervous about defeating the Austrian empire and withdrew his troops, citing that he could not endorse a war between two Catholic nations. King Ferdinand of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies also called his soldiers back and retired his troops. However, some of them did not comply with the order and continued on under the guidance of Generals Pepe, Durando and Giovanni. A year later, Charles launched another attack, but, due to the lack of troops, he was defeated in the Battle of Novara.
Despite the fact that Pius had abandoned the war against the Austrians, many of his people had still fought alongside Charles Albert. The people of Rome rebelled against Pius' government and assassinated Pellegrino Rossi, Pius' minister. Pope Pius IX then fled to the fortress of Gaeta, under the protection of King Ferdinand II. In February 1849, he was joined by Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany who had to flee from there because of another insurrection. Piedmont was also lost to the Austrians in 1849 and Charles Albert had to abdicate leaving his son, Victor Emanuel II, to rule.
In Rome, the authority that did take over passed popular legislation to eliminate burdensome taxes and give work to the unemployed. Giuseppe Garibaldi and Giuseppe Mazzini came to build a "Rome of the People," and the short-lived Roman Republic was proclaimed. The Republic succeeded in inspiring the people to build an independent Italian nation. It also attempted to improve economically the lives of the underserved by giving some of the Church's large landholdings to poor peasants. It also made prison and insane asylum reforms, gave freedom to the press, provided secular education, but shied away from the "Right to Work", having seen this fail in France.
However, the many reforms instituted by the new Republic combined with its lowering of taxes brought about monetary problems which the Republic then compounded by simply printing more money. Runaway price inflation doomed the economy of the Republic. In addition sending troops to defend the Piedmont from Austrian forces put Rome at risk of attack from Austria. However, Pope Pius appealed to Napoleon III for help. The French President saw this as an opportunity to gain Catholic support. The French army arrived by sea under the command of general Charles Oudinot, and, despite an early loss to Garibaldi, the French, with the help of the Austrians, eventually defeated the Roman Republic. On July 12, 1849 Pope Pius IX was escorted back into town and ruled under French protection until 1870.
- Priscilla Robertson, Revolutions of 1848: A Social History (1952) pp 311-401
- "Italian Unification". Library Thinkquest. Archived from the original on 7 March 2009. Retrieved 27 October 2010.
- Denis Mack Smith, Mazzini (1996) pp 49-76
- Rafaeli de Cesare, Last Days of Papal Rome 1850-1870, Houghton Mifflin, 1909, p. 28.
- De Mattei, Roberto. Pius IX (2004)
- Ginsborg, Paul. "Peasants and Revolutionaries in Venice and the Veneto, 1848," Historical Journal, Sep 1974, Vol. 17 Issue 3, pp 503–550 in JSTOR
- Ginsborg, Paul. Daniele Manin and the Venetian Revolution of 1848-49 (1979)
- Rapport, Michael. 1848: Year of Revolution (2010) pp 79–93
- Robertson, Priscilla. Revolutions of 1848: A Social History (1952) pp 311–401 ISBN 0-691-00756-X
- Smith, Denis Mack. Mazzini (1996) excerpt and text search | <urn:uuid:585cd847-68bf-4ef0-981e-85d5fe1d2949> | CC-MAIN-2022-49 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1848_in_the_Italian_states | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446710710.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20221129164449-20221129194449-00624.warc.gz | en | 0.965978 | 1,896 | 3.6875 | 4 |
Research is continually showing the benefits of eating a diet high in cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and cabbage. These veggies have been proven to prevent all sorts of cancer, including breast cancer. The way in which the active compounds in cruciferous vegetables inhibit breast cancer cells has been largely unknown. Now a study at UC Santa Barbara has shown why they are so effective.
Breast cancer is currently the second leading cause of cancer deaths in women. Consuming too many dead foods that don’t offer anything of value to the body is one of the root causes. Adding cruciferous vegetables to the diet can fight this epidemic form of cancer.
Olga Azarenko, a graduate student at UCSB who worked on the team said, “These vegetables contain compounds called isothiocyanates which we believe to be responsible for the cancer-preventive and anti-carcinogenic activities in these vegetables. Broccoli and broccoli sprouts have the highest amount of the isothiocyanates.
“Our paper focuses on the anti-cancer activity of one of these compounds, called sulforaphane, or SFN,” Azarenko added. “It has already been shown to reduce the incidence and rate of chemically induced mammary tumors in animals. It inhibits the growth of cultured human breast cancer cells, leading to cell death.”
Isothiocyanate have the power to actually make changes on a genetic level. They can activate some genes that fight cancer and switch off others that fuel tumors.
Cruciferous vegetables prevent all sorts of cancer. One study of 50,000 men studied how different fruits and vegetables prevented bladder cancer. No significant associations were found between bladder cancer and the consumption of:
– Total fruits and vegetables
– Fruits only
– Vegetables only
– Yellow vegetables
– Green leafy vegetables
However, there was a 51 percent risk reduction for bladder cancer in those consuming more than 5 servings of cruciferous vegetables a week versus those consuming less than one a week.
Another study of 1000 men revealed that men who consumed 3 or more servings of cruciferous vegetables per week had a 41 percent reduced risk of prostate cancer compared to those that consumed only one or less a week.
Other studies have shown that broccoli sprouts are a natural sunscreen, protecting against skin cancer.
If everyone in the world ate at least 5 servings of cruciferous vegetables per week, we would see major shifts in health. Cruciferous vegetables are incredibly easy to add into the diet. Finely chopping raw broccoli and Brussels sprouts and sprinkling them over food will help them easily blend into other flavors. Adding broccoli sprouts is another way to get the incredible benefits of isothiocyanates.
Found at http://www.naturalnews.com/025441.html | <urn:uuid:5f248db0-315c-426a-979b-94a7f14e5214> | CC-MAIN-2023-06 | https://www.bewellbuzz.com/wellness-buzz/cruciferous-vegetables-proven-prevent-breast-cancer/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764500983.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20230208222635-20230209012635-00336.warc.gz | en | 0.944938 | 592 | 3.265625 | 3 |
A great online resource for medieval manuscripts is the Digital Scriptorium, now based at Columbia University. This very comprehensive site now includes manuscripts from Columbia, Harvard, the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, the University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, and other libraries. Manuscripts from the Free Library of Philadelphia will be available at the Digital Scriptorium in the future. The Scriptorium has detailed descriptions and images of thousands of manuscripts, and more are being added all the time. For the study of manuscripts across many different repositories, this is an essential resource.
One of the very finest collections of manuscripts in the world is located at the Pierpont Morgan Library & Museum. You can also search the Morgan's "Corsair" catalog for full descriptions of bibles, Books of Hours, and other manuscript genres.
Many libraries around the world with manuscript collections have developed their own digital catalogs. One of the greatest collections, assembled over many centuries, is at the British Library. The catalog is easy to search and has very good images.
You can also view about 1,000 images from the fine collection at the University of Oxford's Bodleian Library.
Not a scholarly catalog, but a wonderful gathering of images from manuscripts in French collections can be found at Enluminures. Images are arranged thematically, so you can view many scenes of knightly combat, Nativities, etc., in very good digital images. Please note that the text is in French only.
In 2001, an exhibition of illuminated manuscripts titled "Leaves of Gold: Illuminated Manuscripts from Philadelphia Collections" appeared at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The online version of the exhibition has many beautiful manuscripts, as well as useful explanatory material on how manuscripts were made and used.
The Labyrinth site at Georgetown University has a rich selection of Latin texts and other resources for medieval studies.
There is a vast quantity of scholarly literature on the manuscript book. Here are a few universally respected works that are both informative and enjoyable to read.
Christopher de Hamel. A History of Illuminated Manuscripts. This is the book to read for a thorough, scholarly, but accessible introduction to manuscript studies. Widely used in introductory courses.
Michelle Brown. Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts: A guide to technical terms. A thorough explanation of essential terms in the field. Also accessible online through the British Library Website, but still worth buying if you're studying or working with manuscripts.
Michelle Brown. A Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600. The letter forms used in manuscripts went through many complicated changes over the centuries; their study is called paleography, and this is an excellent introduction. | <urn:uuid:5054e4fd-fd86-49e7-923a-0723c28ff7d7> | CC-MAIN-2019-18 | https://libwww.freelibrary.org/digital/feature/medieval/resources | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578532948.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20190421235818-20190422021818-00453.warc.gz | en | 0.939106 | 549 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Post- tania | Nursing homework help
Respond to your colleagues by recommending strategies to overcome the challenges your colleagues have identified. Support your recommendation with evidence-based literature and/or your own experiences with clients.
Cognitive behavior therapy involves talk therapy and has proven to be an effective approach to deal with various issues related to for example mental issues. Cognitive behavior therapy is different in group and family settings. In groups, more than one patient is involved for treatment and they usually not related (Fehr, 2014). Group psychotherapy helps people who would like to improve their ability to cope with problems. While in individual therapy the therapist meets with only the patients and families, in group therapy the meeting is with a whole group and one or more therapists. Group therapy helps people learn about themselves and improve their interpersonal relationships. In such context various therapeutic factors are offered which include the development of socialization techniques, imparting information, altruism, imitative behavior, universality, instillation of hope, among others. The therapy is effective in addressing such issues as depression, obesity, panic, work in specific populations, and eating disorders. However, cooperation becomes an issue and the individuals may quit. In family settings, individuals that are closely related come together for treatment and support (Dattilio, & Epstein, 2016). This may involve the family members supporting. In search context communication skill and collaboration becomes effective. Also, confidence is built while at the same time improving cohesion and support.
An example of group therapy was seen when a group of people with different goals and issues came together for training and the approaches used were different from those in family settings. Group therapy can benefit many different people, from those having difficulties with interpersonal relationships as adolescents with self-esteem problem and depression, for example, group therapy teaches socialization skills needed to help function in environments outside the home. Several teens slide into isolation and loneliness due to their emotional and social issues. Group therapy activities are designed to help them realize that they are not alone in facing these challenges. Besides, it helps them realize the value of emotional support that facilitates healing. Mindful speaking is a great therapeutic activity that focuses on communication and mindfulness in participants. These two skills are essential for the management of emotions in teens. This activity allows team members to know each other’s strengths and ways to inculcate them. Positive responses from each other will also help them heal. Another example is seen from a single parent who supported his son who had a separation anxiety disorder. through the proper training of the boy and the parent, they obtained positive outcomes.
Some of the challenges that may be encountered include lack of cohesion due to limited engagement and even collaboration. This challenge is often common in most group therapies due to differences among the members and leadership related issues. There is also the difficulty in meeting the intended goals due to the complexity of schedules and the issues to be addressed. This is associated with time clashes among the individuals and the varying degrees of issues among the individuals. An example was seen when a 21 male participant refused to engage in a group session because he did not feel safe sharing any information with other strangers. This further resulted in extending the session as more time was spent in trying to make the participant more comfortable. Group therapy offers the opportunity to both receive support from others and to give support to others. Both of these notions are important in treatment. Receiving support from others is part of the bonding or therapeutic alliance that occurs in groups, whereas giving support to others allows for growth and learning.Group therapy provides a broad safety net for individuals who may otherwise be hesitant to discuss their feelings.
Dattilio, F. M., & Epstein, N. B. (2016). The cognitive-behavioral couple and family therapy.
Fehr, S. S. (2014). Introduction to group therapy: A practical guide (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Sage publishing. (2020). Case studies | Online resources. Retrieved from https://study.sagepub.com/cac7/student-resources/chapter-6/case-studies
Scheid linger, S. (1955). The concept of identification in group psychotherapy. American Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 9, 661-672. | <urn:uuid:53b14e73-f8fa-44e7-a3da-ceca04cf9284> | CC-MAIN-2023-14 | https://nerdytermpapers.com/post-tania-nursing-homework-help/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296943746.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20230321193811-20230321223811-00284.warc.gz | en | 0.956253 | 869 | 3.78125 | 4 |
The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia
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Aichi Kokuki K.K. (Aichi Aircraft Co Ltd) was Japan's fourth leading
manufacturer of aircraft.
It was originally founded as the Aichi Tokei Denki K.K. (Aichi Clock
and Electric Co Ltd) which began producing seaplanes for the Navy in
1920. The company initially drew heavily on German expertise, particularly from
the Heinkel Company. Aircraft manufacture was transferred to the newly
organized Aichi Kokuki K.K. in March 1943.
During the war years, airframes were manufactured at the Funakata
and Eiyoku plants while engines
were manufactured at the Atsuta plant.
All were in or near Nagoya. The
principal aircraft manufactured by Aichi were the D3A Val, D4Y Judy, E16A Paul, and B7A Grace and the principle engine
manufactured was the license-built Daimler-Benz DB 601, known in
Japanese service as the Ha-40
or the Atsuta (after the name of the factory.)
In late 1944, Aichi responded to the threat of air attack by moving airframe production to Ogaki and to an underground factory at Seto just east of Nagoya, while engine production was relocated to the Tsu Naval Air Station and an underground factory to its southwest.
From 1941 to 1945, Aichi produced a total of 3627 airframes, of which practically all (3611) were combat aircraft. During the same time period, Aichi produced 1783 aircraft engines.
The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia © 2007, 2009 by Kent G. Budge. Index
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Click Image to Enlarge
“In 2005, we needed to make 20 million holes. This year and next, we’ll need to make 40 million holes.” That, reportedly, is how one engineer at a major jet engine manufacturer sized up his company’s hole-making challenge. Every jet engine manufacturer must be feeling the same pressure.
Holes in jet engine components are critical because these holes provide the internal cooling airflow that prevents the parts from overheating during engine operation. The more effectively these holes do their job, the better the jet engine performs. Making these holes efficiently and economically will be essential for the new generation of lightweight, low noise, fuel-efficient jet engines to succeed. One of the most promising technologies for making these holes is electrical discharge machining (EDM).
Jet engine designers have discovered that they need to increase the number of these holes, locate them more strategically in the part and give them a special shape that diffuses airflow for greater transfer of heat. The intended result is a jet engine that can safely operate at a higher temperature for better fuel economy and lower emissions. This means that jet engine manufacturers will need a reliable process that can make these holes quickly and accurately, reach hard-to-access areas of part geometry and form the holes to a complex exit profile.
EDM holds so much promise for this application because of its ability to make small, deep holes into hard materials at high speeds is well established. Lately, the major hurdle has been coping with the industry requirement to form the exit portal of these holes to a specific shape. The shape is designed to spread airflow over a greater surface area so that heat can be removed more efficiently. Engineers are devoting considerable attention to the precise shape of this type of “diffuser hole” to maximize cooling.
A machine that can drill these holes and create the diffuser shape in a two-step, one-setup EDM process has been developed by Beaumont Machine (Milford, Ohio). After drilling a series of deep, round “metering holes” that penetrate the part, the machine returns with a solid electrode for electrical discharge machining the diffuser portion of the hole. According to Ed Beaumont, company president, the key is the machine’s ability to accurately reposition the solid electrode at the mouth of the drilled hole. Because the machine is equipped with high-resolution glass scales in each of its six axes, he says that the machine is capable of 2-micron (0.00008-inch) positioning accuracy and 1-micron (0.00004-inch) repeatability.
Drilling Comes First
The first step is to drill the metering holes, which permit a precise amount of air to exit the part. Because the rate of airflow through jet engine parts must be highly controlled, the size and location of these holes is carefully tested during the design phase to achieve the exact, metered flow of air.
Fast hole drilling with EDM uses a long, hollow electrode of brass alloy. Electrodes typically have two or more internal channels. According to Mr. Beaumont, jet engine components usually receive metering holes from 0.017 to 0.030 inch in diameter. Because hole size must include a spark gap of 0.001 inch around the electrode, hole making for jet engine components typically involves electrodes from 0.015 to 0.028 inch in diameter.
Drilling rates for EDM are quite fast. Mr. Beaumont says that a 1-mm hole can penetrate 0.5 inch of Inconel in about 20 seconds. Drilling a 0.020-inch hole through 3/8 inch of a single-crystal alloy may take 15 seconds. The exact times will depend on a variety of factors.
However, drilling speed is only one factor in aerospace applications. Multi-axis CNC positioning and automation are also important for minimizing drilling cycle times. On the Beaumont FH-Series of fast-hole EDM models, workpiece positioning is accomplished by moving five axes simultaneously. These machines have a configuration resembling a vertical machining center. Ballscrew-driven linear axes in the base of the machine provide X and Y motion. Two rotary tables swivel and tilt the workpiece in the B and C axes. (Models for large land-based power generation components can be configured with a tilting spindle head for greater clearance.) The rotating spindle travels up and down on a column-mounted W axis. All axes move at a top speed of 400 ipm.
For hole drilling, the spindle rotates the electrode at speeds as high as 3,000 rpm, but for machining the diffuser hole, the spindle can also operate in a CNC-controlled indexing mode as a separate V axis.
In addition, an optional on-board Fanuc LR Mate 200 robot contributes a high degree of automation.
After a part is mounted on a positioning fixture and loaded into the machine, the robot retrieves a wireless probe from the carousel and clamps onto the spindle for a routine that verifies orientation of the workpiece and compensates for any detected variation in size resulting from inconsistencies in the casting process. After the robot replaces the probe, it retrieves an electrode guide from the same carousel, and using its two-sided grippers, exchanges it with the guide in a clamping unit on the actuator. This clamping unit simply holds the guide in place directly above the workpiece. Guides are matched to the size of the electrode and have a tapered entry at the top so that the electrode will feed in properly.
Hole-drilling electrodes in their holders are stored in the same carousel with the guides. The robot loads and unloads electrodes in the spindle, using the double-sided gripper to exchange them. Because a fresh electrode is 24 inches long and is rather flexible, the robot slides its gripper fingers down the electrode after loading to steady it.
Next, a special stabilizer swings out automatically from the side of the actuator. The stabilizer has a set of grippers at the top and a rest bar at the bottom. The presence of the stabilizer prevents the electrode from whipsawing when it is rotated at high speeds during the hole-drilling process. The stabilizer is programmed to release the electrode and swing out of the way automatically when the infeed of the spindle would interfere.
After feeding the electrode into the guide, the spindle rotates the electrode and forces deionized water through it up to 2,000 psi. When the electrode is energized, it begins drilling into the workpiece. An automatic detection system senses when the electrode breaks through the other side and prevents the electrode from contacting any surface opposite the exit, such as the back wall of a cavity or other part feature. When the hole is complete, the electrode retracts and the part is repositioned for the next hole cycle.
Shaping The Diffuser
After drilling a series of metered holes, the robot retrieves a solid, rod-like electrode for shaping the diffuser holes, installs it into the spindle and threads it into the guide. The machine then moves into the CNC dressing process. This dressing unit is an enclosure that contains a programmable grinding head that shapes the tip of the electrode. This tip, in turn, erodes the corresponding shape at the mouth of a completed metering hole.
Many diffuser holes require a flared, cone-shaped profile, but according to Mr. Beaumont, jet engine manufacturers are developing more complex contours. As a result, the dressing unit must be able to grind the electrode to a precise geometry.
After dressing the tip, the machine moves into position and starts the diffuser EDM process. For some geometries, the spindle operates as a programmable rotary axis, indexing the electrode in conjunction with simultaneous axis motion.
Typically, the company provides a turnkey solution for manufacturers of jet engine components. This includes custom fixtures designed for each family of components. These fixtures orient and locate the part off-line. An integrated workholding system provides the interface for transferring fixtures from the bench to the machine.
Not A Hole Popper
Although they have similarities to “hole popper” machines primarily designed to make start holes for wire EDM, fast-hole EDM systems for jet engine components are a different class of machine tool, says Mr. Beaumont. “The aerospace industry is looking for automated systems that are capable of producing highly engineered hole shapes on an around-the-clock basis,” he says. This requires simultaneous five-axis motion, probing, robotic automation, breakthrough detection and, most importantly, integrated diffuser-hole machining.
Although there is an operator learning curve associated with technology of this sophistication, Mr. Beaumont believes that this hole-making challenge represents a significant opportunity for aerospace contractors. “I see a trend toward even larger numbers of
holes for jet engine components in the years ahead. We have to ramp up now,” he concludes. | <urn:uuid:ff32110d-9231-45d9-80be-02469c903e23> | CC-MAIN-2014-15 | http://www.mmsonline.com/articles/aerospace-hole-making-takes-shape | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-15/segments/1397609538824.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20140416005218-00471-ip-10-147-4-33.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916784 | 1,876 | 2.96875 | 3 |
Source: NBC News
Fewer U.S. men got prostate biopsies and surgery after new recommendations steered most men away from routine prostate cancer screening, researchers reported Wednesday.
Their findings add to a growing body of research that's adding to the debate about prostate cancer screening and often leaving men and their doctors more confused than informed. At issue is whether screening the general population of men for their second leading cause of cancer death does more harm than good.
The latest report, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association's JAMA Surgery, shows the new guidelines have indeed cut back on the number of procedures that men are undergoing.
"Practice has followed the guidelines," said Dr. Jim Hu, a urologic oncologist at NewYork-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine who helped lead the research team.
But Hu and his colleagues say they are worried that some men with dangerous cancers may be slipping through the cracks and argue that the highly controversial recommendations may have gone too far.
Hu's team was following up on 2012 guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) that recommended against using a blood test called a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test to check most healthy men for prostate cancer.
Prostate cancer is very common, showing up in 240,000 U.S. men every year. It kills about 27,000 a year.
So the PSA test used to be a rite of passage for many men as they entered middle age. But the USPSTF said the test found very few men with prostate cancer who needed treatment, and caused men to be needlessly treated for slow-growing prostate tumors that never would have harmed them. Sometimes that treatment meant side effects, from impotence to incontinence.
It was an extremely controversial recommendation. USPSTF advisories guide health insurance reimbursement and often guide practice.
The American Cancer Society supports the USPSTF's approach to screening. But the American Urological Association doesn't.
The AUA doesn't recommend that men up to age 54 get routine PSA screening, but it says men aged 55 to 69 should consider it. Studies show that routine PSA testing saves about one life for every 1,000 men screened.
"This is a controversial issue. I think it's also politically charged," Hu told NBC News.
"I think the answer is education, and let patients decide what's best for them."
The battle is being fought out in the medical journals, with high-profile urologists and oncologists performing studies aimed at proving their points. For instance, in July, Dr. Edward Schaeffer, chair of urology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, raised a ruckus with a study showing cases of aggressive prostate cancer were on the rise.
Hu said it is too soon to say whether some men with dangerous cancer may have missed out on treatment.
"Given that lead time associated with PSA screening is estimated at 5 to 7 years and the indolent nature of prostate cancer, a resultant increase in prostate cancer-specific mortality would likely remain undetectable for another decade," they wrote.
And it's possible some of the drop in biopsies could be due to better methods, such as the use of MRI scans, to see if the prostate looks like it has tumors on it.
The decrease in radical surgery could have come because of non-surgical methods to treat prostate cancer, such as radiation, as well as an approach called active surveillance, which delays treatment until the cancer shows signs of worsening.
"The greatest benefit of screening appears to be in men ages 55 to 69 years," the AUA says. "The AUA continues to support a man's right to be tested for prostate cancer -- and to have his insurance pay for it, if medically necessary."
Hu and colleagues looked at records from about 10 percent of practicing urologists for their study.
They found a nearly 29 percent drop in the number of biopsies done for prostate cancer since 2012. A biopsy is a small sample of tissue taken to be examined for evidence of cancer. They're usually done for prostate cancer if a man has some evidence of risk, such as an enlarged prostate, a lump or an irregular blood test called a PSA test.
And the number of radical prostatectomies dropped by 16 percent.
That suggests the USPSTF has achieved its goal of reducing the number of men treated for prostate cancer, Hu said. But he doesn't believe that is necessarily a good thing.
But Hu thinks the USPSTF recommendations went too far.
"I am not trying to paint them as the evil empire. I think they were well-intentioned," he said.
Hu also thinks a report that came out earlier this year suggesting that the recommendations have led to more men developing advanced cancers goes too far the other way.
Dr. Raj Pruthi, a urologist at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who was not involved in the study, agreed.
"The trends of a reduction in screening, a decrease in diagnoses, and an increase in advanced disease create a natural concern that we may indeed have turned back the clock in the care of patients with prostate cancer," Pruthi wrote in a commentary on the study.
The USPSTF is reconsidering its guidelines on prostate cancer screening now, but has not said when revised guidelines will come out.
"My hope is they will reconsider the scope of the evidence," Hu said. | <urn:uuid:22cee429-0824-49e2-b4b3-cb14bc827a10> | CC-MAIN-2016-50 | http://www.epochmenshealth.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-50/segments/1480698541214.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20161202170901-00482-ip-10-31-129-80.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973553 | 1,145 | 2.546875 | 3 |
scale insect, any member of several families of insects (order Homoptera) that have a body covered by a protective waxy shell, often resembling scales or cottony cushions. The waxy covering is secreted by the insect after it settles on the plant where it will feed. Depending on the family, this scale may be hard and either smooth or sculptured, or it may be waxy and either smooth or filamentous. The eggs are always protected in that they are either embedded in a mass of waxy filaments or sheltered beneath the female’s body or the scale she secretes. Upon hatching, the immature scales, known as crawlers, disperse over the plant before selecting a location where they will feed.
Adult females are wingless and have reduced legs and antennae, whereas the males have one pair of delicate wings, well-developed legs and antennae, and no mouthparts. Each species of scale insect is restricted in its range of host plants. Scale insects may attack roots, bark, leaves, twigs, or fruits of plants. Serious plant pests are the San Jose scale, the oystershell scale, the scurfy scale, and the purple and red scale of citrus. Other species—including the cochineal insect, the lac insect, and the ground pearls—have some commercial value. See Chinese wax; cottony-cushion scale; ground pearl; oystershell scale; San Jose scale; scurfy scale. | <urn:uuid:466dc638-2cad-4075-a951-b8ed847932d2> | CC-MAIN-2015-22 | http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/526364/scale-insect | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-22/segments/1432207929023.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20150521113209-00341-ip-10-180-206-219.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928539 | 303 | 3.671875 | 4 |
Sweden has made such large gains in building up renewable energy capacity that analysts believe the Nordic country will meet one of its 2030 targets this year, thanks largely to wind power.
In 2012, Sweden pledged, along with Norway, to increase electricity production from renewable energy sources by 28.4 terawatt hours (TWh) by 2020. Last year, Sweden upped the ante once again with the aim of adding a further 18 TWh by 2030.
Taking into account already installed capacity, particularly wind turbines, and planned investments, Sweden’s Energy Agency estimated that production could top 19 TWh by the end of this year.
Energy expert Markus Selin explained that “after the decision on the increase in ambition was reached, a lot of investment decisions have been taken and many wind turbines are set to be completed in the coming years”.
Sweden’s power ambitions are impressive compared with the rest of Europe. A 2020 EU target of 20% renewable energy and a 49% national target illustrate the country’s progress compared with other countries, as Sweden already topped 50% back in 2015.
The government has also set a 50% energy efficiency target for 2030, outstripping a recently brokered EU-wide target, which will only impose an overall 32.5% on the member states.
Last week, the European Commission opened a public consultation on a long-term climate plan, which is meant to put the EU’s economy on a pathway that will make meeting the targets of the Paris Agreement possible.
The Commission is now obligated to come up with mid-century options for a net-zero emissions strategy and may take pointers from Sweden, which wants to achieve that by 2045.
In June, NGO Climate Action Network Europe ranked the EU member states by their climate action efforts and Sweden placed second in a list where no country was awarded the top spot.
CAN insisted that no European country is doing enough to fight climate change or cut carbon emissions but acknowledged that Sweden, Portugal, France and the Netherlands are the “leaders of the pack”.
The umbrella organisation reserved particular criticism for Estonia, Ireland and Poland. | <urn:uuid:3f1316cf-7beb-47b5-b183-1e650eb0257c> | CC-MAIN-2020-05 | https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/swedes-set-to-smash-renewable-target-12-years-early/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-05/segments/1579250594333.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20200119064802-20200119092802-00268.warc.gz | en | 0.959923 | 441 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Isn’t it fascinating that the Qur’an already knew about this entomological science, nearly two thousand years before it was “discovered,” by scientists. Here is the Qur’anic verse where it tells us that Ants communicate:
“Until, when they came upon the valley of the ants, an ant said (for females قالت), “O ants, enter your homes so that you do not be crushed by Solomon and his soldiers while they do not feel it.” (-Qur’an 27:18)
But that’s not all. How did an illiterate nomadic Arab from Arabia in the 7th Century AD, have known anything about the science of entomology?
Muhammad was absolutely spot on, when he stated that it was only the female ants who had to flee underground, because it’s only the male ants who have wings.
The Arabic used in this verse is Kalat (قالت), which means female. Kala (قال) is male.
This is by far not the only scientific breakthrough found in the Qur’an.
The Qur’an was a almost two thousand years ahead of its time.
Here is a scientific article about how Ants do indeed communicate using sound: | <urn:uuid:affd20c2-cf66-4320-9c9f-5d66641c1671> | CC-MAIN-2019-51 | https://hiracumorah.org/2019/08/17/the-miracle-of-the-talking-ants-in-the-quran/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-51/segments/1575541281438.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20191214150439-20191214174439-00145.warc.gz | en | 0.963524 | 275 | 2.75 | 3 |
Origin of rare children cancer MRT discovered by Wellcome Sanger Institute, along with two potential treatments
The first proof of the origin of a rare and aggressive childhood cancer has been uncovered by Wellcome Sanger Institute researchers and their collaborators, along with two potential treatments.
Only four to five cases of malignant rhabdoid tumour (MRT) are recorded each year in the UK. It is one of the childhood cancers with the poorest outcomes, with no reliably effective treatment.
The rarity of MRT, and its aggressive nature, has made clinical trials exceptionally difficult and its origin has remained unknown until now.
A soft tissue cancer, it predominantly affects infants. While these tumours can arise in any part of the body, they typically form in the kidney and brain.
Sanger scientists, working with the Princess Máxima Center for Pediatric Oncology in the Netherlands, and collaborators, found MRT arises from developmental cells in the neural crest whose maturation is blocked by a genetic defect.
Two drugs that could be used to overcome the block and resume normal development were also identified.
Dr Sam Behjati, co-lead author of the study from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said: “We began our inquiry into the origins of malignant rhabdoid tumours in late 2019, so we have gone from hypothesis to discovery of origin to possible treatments for the disease in just over a year.
“This was possible due to all the leading-edge tools available to us, from organoid technology to single-cell mRNA sequencing to drug screen databases.
“I hope this study will serve as the blueprint for discovering the origin of other childhood cancers and, ultimately, lead to better outcomes for children affected by these awful diseases.”
Sanger scientists carried out whole genome sequencing on two cases of MRT, alongside corresponding normal tissues. Phylogenetic analyses of the somatic mutations in the diseased and healthy tissue were then performed to ‘reconstruct’ the timeline of normal and abnormal development.
This showed MRT develops from progenitor cells on their way to becoming Schwann cells - a cell type found in the temporary group of stem cells known as the neural crest - due to a mutation in the SMARCB1 gene.
The mutation blocked the normal development of these cells, which can then go on to form MRT.
Researchers at the Princess Máxima Center inserted the intact SMARCB1 gene into MRT organoids - artificial tumours grown in the laboratory from the patients’ original tumours.
This successfully overcame the maturation block..
Single-cell mRNA analyses and predictions from these experiments enabled two existing medicines to be identified that overcome the maturation block.
Dr Jarno Drost, co-lead author of the study from the Princess Máxima Center for Pediatric Oncology, said: “To be able to identify where malignant rhabdoid tumour (MRT) comes from for the first time is an important step in being able to treat this disease, but to confirm that it is possible to overcome the genetic flaw that can cause these tumours is incredibly exciting. The fact that two drugs already exist that we think can be used to treat the disease gives us hope that we can improve outcomes for children diagnosed with MRT.”
Professor Richard Grundy, chair of the Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group, said: “It is fantastic to see this collaborative research bearing highly translatable outcomes in a childhood cancer with a currently poor prognosis.
“It emphasises the significant benefit of a National Tumour banking system, that allows collection of rarer tumours and in turn, the best use of such precious tissue through agreement of the CCLG Biological Studies committee that oversees this resource.
“For this to result in such a meaningful outcome gives new hope to children with malignant rhabdoid tumour (MRT).”
Sign up to our free weekly newsletter for a digest of the latest Cambridge science direct to your inbox | <urn:uuid:27506614-8991-43dd-8a3c-4f51ad6f0b7a> | CC-MAIN-2021-17 | https://www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk/news/origin-of-rare-children-cancer-mrt-discovered-by-wellcome-sa-9159689/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-17/segments/1618038077818.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20210414125133-20210414155133-00450.warc.gz | en | 0.940771 | 844 | 2.953125 | 3 |
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Niobe(nī`ōbē), in Greek mythology, queen of Thebes, wife of Amphion and daughter of Tantalus. The mother of six sons and six daughters, she boasted of her fruitfulness, saying that Leto had only two children. Apollo and Artemis, angry at this insult to their mother, killed all Niobe's children. Crying inconsolably, she fled to Mt. Sipylus. There Zeus turned her into a stone image that wept perpetually.
Niobe(religion, spiritualism, and occult)
Niobe, asteroid 71 (the 71st asteroid to be discovered, on August 13, 1861), is approximately 106 kilometers in diameter and has an orbital period of 4.6 years. There were two mythological Niobes. One was the first mortal woman loved by Zeus. The other was a woman who was inordinately proud of her many children and ridiculed the goddess Leto about her children. In revenge, Leto had all of Niobe’s children slain, upon which witnessing, Niobe turned to stone. According to Martha Lang-Wescott, the asteroid Niobe indicates inordinate pride in children, creativity, fertility, or virility, which leads to humbling experiences or sorrow. Niobe’s key words are “humility” and “fertility.” Jacob Schwartz gives this asteroid’s astrological significance as “humbling lessons from a source of pride or creativity.”
in ancient Greek mythology, the daughter of Tantalus and the wife of Amphion, king of Thebes. Niobe’s boasting of her numerous progeny (seven sons and seven daughters, according to Euripides) insulted Leto (Latona), the mother of Apollo and Artemis. To avenge the insult to their mother, Apollo and Artemis slew the children of Niobe (the Niobids) with their arrows. Niobe, who turned to stone from grief, was carried to the summit of Mount Sipylus in Asia Minor, where she was condemned eternally to shed tears for her murdered children. There were numerous reworkings of the Niobe myth in classical literature (such as Ovid’s Metamorphoses, book 6) and art (sculpture of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., preserved in Roman copies). | <urn:uuid:4a26f73a-2972-46e0-bfad-50aa340ca70c> | CC-MAIN-2019-26 | http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Niobe | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-26/segments/1560627998513.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20190617163111-20190617185111-00385.warc.gz | en | 0.956955 | 501 | 3.09375 | 3 |
As crowds of visitors have been reliving an artificial version of ancient Pompeii at the British Museum, the real Pompeii is suffering visibly from age, climate change, and institutional neglect. Aside from a well-worn path tailored to the compressed itineraries of cruise-ship operators and packaged bus tours, much of the site is inaccessible. Many of the city’s side streets are blocked, as are significant stretches of its main thoroughfare, the Via dell’Abbondanza. At best, a handful of houses are open to visitors.
Pompeii is not only the graveyard of an ancient Roman city; it is also, and especially, the graveyard of modern good intentions, of layer upon layer of projects that started out in a fanfare of high hopes and died with barely a whimper for lack of funding. The campaign known as Pompeii Viva—“Living Pompeii”—was launched in 2010 by the then-Commissioner for Pompeii, Marcello Fiori; it fizzled out in 2012 and Fiori is now under indictment for corruption. A fading sign on one of the scaffolded houses on Via dell’Abbondanza still declares:
Pompeii is a living city! A city that produces wine from its own fertile vines and food from its own gardens. Pompeii is the daughter and victim of a tragedy; that of its destruction by the eruption of Vesuvius, which took place in 79 A.D. And yet we, moved by the plaster casts of the victims, are happy to be able to observe, admire and come to know what remains of a Roman city.
In 2011, the building behind this sign was bustling with restorers at work. In 2013 it stands silent and inaccessible. Pompeii is a living city, but much of what lives there is vegetable, reptile, bird, or insect. For centuries now, budgets have petered out with a change of government or the end of some short-term project, and far too much of the money that should in theory go to protecting Pompeii—the site, even in its degraded condition, generates more tourist revenues than almost any other monument in Italy—has instead lined the pockets of people who seem intent on milking it dry.
One of the saddest projects was an attempt to help the stray dogs who populate the site. 132,000 euros were allocated to the Project (C)ave Canem to draw up a census of the dogs, sterilize them, guarantee them veterinary care, and encourage their adoption. 55 dogs were listed on the census, 26 were adopted, a handful of doghouses were scattered around the site, and most of the money was allegedly embezzled by the aforementioned official, Marcello Fiori. No one has the heart to take down the tattered sign that says “Adopt Melager” with the face of a winsome pup. Meanwhile, the population of stray dogs has soared; people abandon them here because they know that the animals will be cared for—but not as well as they should be.
To make matters a great deal worse, for the past two decades, the government of Italy, largely under the guidance of Silvio Berlusconi, has cut back spending on culture and education to the point where Pompeii has been falling down faster than anyone can repair it. The recent “restoration” of the theatre turned the ancient structure into a functional modern performance space by cementing over the original stones. Now, at last, the government of Enrico Letta has passed a law that guarantees funds for the latest restoration campaign, the “Great Pompeii Project” (“Grande Progetto Pompei”), but the damage to be repaired is formidable.
Some of this destruction is inevitable. Pompeii was so well preserved because it lay buried for seventeen centuries. Having its extraordinary ruins unearthed has meant exposing them to the normal processes of aging that all cities face—wind, rain, plants, animals, gravity, entropy, chaos—without the normal defenses that homeowners provide by caring for the places they inhabit. Furthermore, Pompeii was not by any means an intact city when Vesuvius destroyed it in the year 79. A devastating earthquake had already struck the region in 62, and many of its buildings were still under reconstruction when the volcano erupted in a rain of pumice pebbles. There were earthquakes after the eruption, too, as the emptied mountain settled back down for another few centuries of inactivity. Thus the soil of Pompeii has preserved not a city interrupted in the course of normal life, but one caught in a state of total panic, and whose buildings had already been severely damaged.
In the eighteenth century, when barefoot men dug away with shovels and barefoot women carried off the soil in baskets, only a limited area of Pompeii could be cleared at any one time, or even over the course of decades. But the advent of earth-moving machines in the twentieth century meant that the pace of digging accelerated as fast as curiosity could carry it. By now, it is obvious that archaeologists have exposed more than they can reasonably maintain, but curiosity about what lies beneath the soil and eagerness to test new methods of excavation are irresistible lures to unbury still more and leave the maintenance to someone else.
Nor has earth-moving equipment been the only plague visited on Pompeii by twentieth-century technology. During World War II, the Allies dropped 156 bombs in the area around the site, in the misguided belief that German troops were hiding out among the ruins. The little onsite museum set into the city gate at Porta Marina was blasted away by a direct hit and many other buildings were partially pulverized.
But human ingenuity has yet to match the force of Nature. The earthquake that struck the inland mountains of Irpinia in 1980 shook the Bay of Naples as well, causing a wall of Pompeii’s famous House of the Vettii to buckle. In recent years, climate change has brought unprecedented amounts of rain, eroding structures already weakened by the temblor of 1980. Two ancient buildings have collapsed altogether (one, ironically, was largely a modern reconstruction). The buildings that remain open take the full brunt of 2.5 million pairs of feet tramping through them every year, not to mention the skin and clothing rubbing up against ancient walls, wiping away traces of paint and stucco, and the deliberate damage: graffiti, vandalism.
What can be done to stop this decay? On a geological time scale, not much. On a human scale, a great deal. In Massimo Bray, Italy finally has a Minister of Culture and Tourism who means business (one of his predecessors, Sandro Bondi, was mostly known for his soupy poems in praise of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi). There is reason to hope that the waste and neglect that have brought the buried city to its present calamity will stop, at least to some extent, with a more responsible Italian government in charge and a new preservation law on the books.
In a real sense, however, Pompeii belongs to the world, and has belonged to the world ever since excavations opened in 1748 and Grand Tourists began flocking to the site in search of sun, antiquity, beauty, and themselves. An endless parade of luminaries has wandered down its basalt-paved streets: Mozart, Madame de Staël, Mark Twain, Dickens, Picasso, Renoir, Crown Prince Hirohito, Le Corbusier, Sigmund Freud. Who knows what course modern culture would have taken if these people had never paused beneath the slopes of Vesuvius to ponder human evanescence?
Even today, for all Pompeii’s official neglect, there is never a lack of sights to see and the setting can still be incomparably beautiful: shaded by umbrella pines, scented by flowers, cooled by a sea breeze, with a background twitter of birds and buzz of bumblebees. Ancient gardens and vineyards have been replanted with the same varieties of grape—piedirosso and scascinosa—that grew in this fertile volcanic soil two thousand years ago. The juice stands at the site’s various exits, festooned with oranges and plump, sweet Amalfi lemons, dispense the best possible remedy for thirst and fatigue. The stray dogs that trot alongside the tour groups or lie stretched out in the sun are friendly souls, even if signs warn against petting them.
The best favor that we ordinary mortals can do for Pompeii is to visit and linger overnight, following in the tracks of earlier admirers like Théophile Gautier and Wilhelm Jensen, authors of two charming novellas about Pompeii, Arria Marcella (1852) and Gradiva (1903), which mingle ancient and modern with gentle irony. The new Pompeii that surrounds the site is not simply a tourist town: it has a remarkable story of its own. Its founder, Bartolo Longo, was a nineteenth-century lawyer and philanthropist who created a religious sanctuary outfitted with the infrastructure of an ideal modern city, complete with workers’ houses, a telegraph office, an observatory for Vesuvius, a spa, and a shrine to the Madonna. The people who inhabit this living city are suffering the blows to the reputation of the city of the dead; hotel owners report that tourism has declined to a worrying extent. By giving Pompeii a chance here and now, we can help the ancient city live on in the future. | <urn:uuid:0b810e83-a677-4148-b014-44a21cd91c7e> | CC-MAIN-2016-40 | http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2013/10/22/pompeii-wrong-way/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-40/segments/1474738663202.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20160924173743-00093-ip-10-143-35-109.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964344 | 1,979 | 2.859375 | 3 |
As feminism has gotten more popular and mainstream, some anti-feminists have also unfortunately become very vocal and hostile. And although "feminism" may not be looked upon as a dirty word quite as much these days, but an awful lot of derogatory terms used toward feminists are still alive and well. Most feminists have heard them, and many have even been called them — both of which show that feminism is as necessary now as ever. When a culture is rife with negative terms for people who advocate for gender equality, that's a sign that an unfortunate number of people still believe in gender inequality.
The persistent belief in negative stereotypes about feminists might continue for any number of reasons. Some people may be attached to traditional gender role; others may feel guilty about being on the privileged side of things; and still others may hold misconceptions about feminism — for example, that feminism hurts men (even though its goal is to liberate people of all genders) or that only women can be feminists (anyone can be a feminist).
Another source of negative beliefs about feminists is the anti-feminist propaganda people see used everywhere from the news media to social media, much of which uses terms like these ones. They may not all seem harmful, but they ultimately hold back not only perceptions of feminism but also the movement itself.
When people learn I'm a feminist, they'll sometimes say something like, "You're not one of those radical feminists, are you?" I personally don't think this word should be an insult. "Radical" is sometimes used to mean "extreme" or even "violent," but in the context of feminism, it means "dealing with roots." Radical feminism seeks to get to the root causes of gender inequality. People may disagree on what these causes are — some may say it's the class system, for example, while some may say it's the gender binary — but regardless, what it means is that feminism doesn't just mean giving women rights; it means restructuring society. And there's nothing extreme or violent about that.
Similar to "radical," "militant" is sometimes used to connote an aggressive feminist. In addition to dismissing feminist ideas as extreme, it also plays into the stereotype that feminists are a) masculine and b) angry. Being angry about gender inequality is actually very justified (and just a reminder that there's nothing wrong with presenting or being masculine, just as there's nothing wrong with presenting or being feminine), but the stereotype of the militant feminist would have it that we're all just screaming at everybody for no reason. It's an incredibly convenient way to avoid considering that we may be worth listening to.
It's difficult to advocate for gender equality without somebody trying to make it about men, by saying "not all men" mistreat women (we know), by asking why we aren't paying attention to men's issues (we are), or by claiming that feminists hate men. These types of complaints detract from the real issue — that our system of gender oppresses people of all genders, particularly women and gender minorities — and invalidates feminists who are talking about very real injustices they've experienced. Feminists do not hate men; they hate the patriarchy (which, by the way, hurts men, too).
4. "Social Justice Warrior"
When I first heard this term, I thought it was positive. Who would have a problem with people fighting for social justice? But, apparently, that's a bad thing to some people. The term "social justice warrior" is used to stereotype people who are advocating for any social cause, including feminism, as irrational and obsessed with looking for evidence of inequality, as if it's not already there. But it is. People accused of being social justice warriors aren't just making things up; they're calling attention to problems that others may not observe because of their privilege.
5. "PC Police"
"Political correctness" has gotten a bad reputation. People who advocate the use of sensitive language are frequently accused of being the "PC police," as if they're trying to get other people in trouble. But that's not the goal. The goal is to create spaces where people of all identities feel heard and validated, and our language as it stands creates spaces where certain perspectives are valued above others. Calling feminists the "PC police," like any of these terms, is a way to detract from the fact that they might actually have a point — and that's why these terms are both so powerful and so harmful.
Images: Giphy (2) | <urn:uuid:9b211950-8744-46f1-aa42-48bcaa8b6834> | CC-MAIN-2020-34 | https://www.bustle.com/articles/185035-5-derogatory-terms-used-toward-feminists-and-why-they-prove-feminism-is-all-the-more | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-34/segments/1596439735882.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20200804191142-20200804221142-00525.warc.gz | en | 0.97456 | 919 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Two researchers at Princeton University have caused a stir far
beyond academic circles by predicting the imminent demise of
of the social network's growth to a viral event-literally viral,
such as a severe outbreak of the flu.
Facebook grew like a virus and it will die just like a virus, they
conclude, raging ahead until it reaches maximum global impact, and
then starting a long, speedy slide towards oblivion.
In fact, they conclude, Facebook has already peaked. It entered its
decline phase after 2012, and it will lose 80% of its user base
between 2015 and 2017.
Their conclusion is in part based on a comparison of Facebook's arc
to that of one of its predecessors in social media, MySpace.
The once-hot MySpace was created in 2003, and was purchased by
) in 2005 for $580 million. It hit its peak in 2008, not
incidentally the same year that the newer Facebook emerged as a
serious rival. The long slide down of MySpace soon began. News
Corp. sold it in 2011 for $35 million.
The Princeton researchers were able to track the rise and fall of
MySpace against some publicly available data:
(NASDAQ:GOOG ) Trends, the historical record of search queries
entered at Google.com by users around the globe.
It fit. That is, the number of search queries about MySpace rose
and fell in a pattern that mimicked the rapid rise and abrupt fall
of the site itself.
So, where does the flu come in? The literal virus metaphor works
The researchers found that Google Trends data was equally accurate
at predicting the course of an outbreak of the flu. The need for
information about the flu follows the same cycle as the flu itself.
Interest in the subject spreads infectiously among friends and
family, expands outwards in ever-expanding circles, reaches a peak
and then begins to subside.
If you're a Facebook investor, this could make a terrifying amount
Here are three simple ways that you can tell the difference between
Facebook and a bad case of the flu, or for that matter between
Facebook and MySpace.
You might have some of your own differences in mind, as Facebook
prepares for its next quarterly earnings report, due on Jan. 29.
1. Sheer Numbers Don't Matter
It's true. Facebook is at or near its peak in terms of total
It has 1.2 billion monthly active users. That's more than 1 in 7 of
the people on the planet.
In terms of media reach, that is beyond the wildest imaginations of
pre-Internet publishers. It was certainly beyond the imaginations
of the creators of MySpace, and they got to about 78 million.
But it doesn't mean a thing, as a business, unless Facebook
continues to improve the ways it monetizes that audience, breaking
it down into an infinite number of valuable demographic segments to
sell to advertisers.
That's what we'll all be looking for on earnings day. How
successfully is Facebook selling that audience to advertisers?
2. Google Trends Can't Track Facebook
Keeping an eye on Google Trends is an excellent way to find out how
interested people are in the flu, or Justin Bieber, or this year's
Budweiser Super Bowl ad.
It doesn't have a thing to do with Facebook, though.
Nobody needs to go to Google to enter the search term "Facebook."
It would be like going to dictionary.com to look up the word "toe."
We all know what one of those is, and we don't need help to find an
In 2005, when MySpace was young and hip, maybe newbies needed to
look it up, just to find out what all the chatter was about. Or
because that's how they found sites on the Web then. Who remembers?
In any case, there are apps for that now, and that's how Facebook
users get to it, unless they click on a bookmark. Either works.
3. This Is No Ordinary Virus
Facebook is not the flu, it's the Black Death. Once someone close
to you has been infected, there's just no escaping it.
The Princeton study draws on the dynamics that govern the spread of
an infectious disease. People join a social network because the
people they want to associate with are there.
They stay for the same reason. And their list of friends gets
broader, and their Timeline gets deeper, and the Facebook habit
If Facebook is nearing its saturation point in terms of membership
growth, that is a strength. Everybody is there because everybody is
Every day, some users get tired of it and drop off the Facebook
radar, and others jump back in, to post a new picture of the kids,
or share an amusing story, or just to see what's up.
As the Princeton study points out, even the worst flu epidemic runs
its course, as did the Black Death, or bubonic plague, in the
The only thing that can cure Facebook is something better.
That's what Facebook's leadership has to watch out for every day.
The new kid who has a clever idea. It doesn't even have to be all
that clever. It may be something that someone at Facebook already
thought of, but it's been delayed on account of bureaucracy.
And then a new, stronger virus will emerge, and Facebook will enter
that long downward phase.
F5 Networks, Citrix: Two Cloud Stocks to Keep
Google to Hold ISPs' Feet to the Fire
Facebook's News Feed Follies: Come Back, Lil | <urn:uuid:0f5fb006-2de9-4e2c-96c8-555875434696> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.nasdaq.com/article/3-ways-facebook-differs-from-a-bad-case-of-the-flu-cm320722 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988718278.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183838-00335-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943022 | 1,188 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Is it fine to write “void main()” or “main()” in C/C++?
is not and never has been C++, nor has it even been C. See the ISO C++ standard 3.6.1 or the ISO C standard 188.8.131.52.1. A conforming implementation accepts
A conforming implementation may provide more versions of main(), but they must all have return type int. The int returned by main() is a way for a program to return a value to “the system” that invokes it. On systems that don’t provide such a facility the return value is ignored, but that doesn’t make “void main()” legal C++ or legal C. Even if your compiler accepts “void main()” avoid it, or risk being considered ignorant by C and C++ programmers.
In C++, main() need not contain an explicit return statement. In that case, the value returned is 0, meaning successful execution.
Note also that neither ISO C++ nor C99 allows you to leave the type out of a declaration. That is, in contrast to C89 and ARM C++, “int” is not assumed where a type is missing in a declaration.
The above code has no error. If you write the whole error-free main() function without a return statement at the end then the compiler automatically adds a return statement with proper datatype at the end of the program.
To summarize the above, it is never a good idea to use “void main()” or just “main()” as it doesn’t confirm standards. It may be allowed by some compilers though.
Please write comments if you find anything incorrect, or you want to share more information about the topic discussed above | <urn:uuid:0546c0cf-4383-4267-9f6f-3f14a4795465> | CC-MAIN-2021-39 | https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/fine-write-void-main-cc/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-39/segments/1631780057615.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20210925082018-20210925112018-00254.warc.gz | en | 0.849824 | 384 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Maths is Fun and Easy
Parents and Children hardly believe this!
The problem is we are taught Maths in a way which complicates the basic process of learning itself. That is why Maths is considered as one of the toughest subjects to learn across all ages. My work here is an attempt to simplify learning Maths and spread awareness of Vedic Mathematics.
I used to get calls from parents and children from different locations to teach Vedic Maths. This is my attempt to bring knowledge to their doorsteps. And the good part is they can learn any time and from any place.
What is Vedic Maths?
Veda in Sanskrit means Knowledge. Vedic Maths is an ancient system of Mathematics, practiced in India over 2000 years old. This was forgotten until it was rediscovered in the 20th century by Swami Bharati Krishna Tirthaji. It’s a gift to the modern world. The base of Vedic Maths is a system of 16 Sutras (formulae) and 15 sub-Sutras (sub-formulae). The rules are in words and are very useful in solving problems in a unique and simplified manner. The beauty of Vedic methods are:
- Simple, Creative and Flexible
- Easy to understand and Fun to learn
- Short and Speedy
- Appeals to everyone
- Removes Finger Counting
- Well suited for Competitive Exams
- Can be used for problems involved in Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Calculus
In short, the calculations can be done in 2-3 lines and even mentally, thus saving time, space and energy.
In a matter of few decades since Swami Bharati Krishna Tirthaji rediscovered Vedic Maths, it has developed into a system of Mental Mathematics and a faster way of calculating tough problems.
I will take you on a journey, if followed sincerely, will help you master techniques of Vedic Maths in a short time and will change your life forever.
Have you ever thought of how easy below calculations are?
Did we study in our school days to solve them without pen and paper, solve them in our minds and in less than 1 minute?
Why not give a try!
- 1000 – 647 =
- 10000 – 57 =
- 54 + 46 =
- 8 x 7 =
- 309 x 102 =
- 88 x 98 =
- 103 x 104 =
- 752 x 948 =
- 32 x 38 =
- 61 x 91 =
If you have trouble in solving these questions, and you want to learn more about Vedic Maths, its rules and methods in detail, then this site is for you.
You will find all the topics related to Vedic Maths in VM Courses. | <urn:uuid:83b6a262-9f99-4a7c-a33b-5664bb73d76c> | CC-MAIN-2020-40 | https://vedicmaths4all.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-40/segments/1600400211096.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20200923144247-20200923174247-00771.warc.gz | en | 0.946883 | 579 | 3 | 3 |
Chinese New Year in 2019 is on Tuesday, the 5th of February.
According to the Chinese 12-year animal zodiac cycle, the Chinese year beginning in 2019 is the year of the Pig. Each Chinese zodiac year begins on Chinese New Year's Day.
Pig years are believed to be the most unlucky for people born in previous years of the Pig.
Chinese New Year, also known as the "Spring Festival" in modern Mainland China, is China's most important traditional festival, celebrated at the turn of the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar, which consists of both Gregorian and lunar-solar calendar systems. Chinese New Year can begin anytime between late January and mid-February.
China's Spring Festival public holiday starts on the Chinese New Year, and lasts for 7 days.
|This illustration was the second page of the story and I picture our "young literary graduate" there. I'll give a bit more information at the story's end.|
|Now a reveal: The head is papier mache at http://art-of-patience.blogspot.com/2012/01/vegetarian-boars-head.html|
My copy of the story is in Adele M. Fielde's Chinese Fairy Tales which was a 1912 reissue of her earlier 1893 Chinese Nights' Entertainment, which only added a new Introduction where she states "This book reveals the Chinese mind as it was when untouched by foreign influences." It's prophetic that she closed her introduction with this statement:
As we look at the twenty-first century that continues to be true.What lies in the future for a persistent nation possessing these characteristics, or what influence such people are to have on the destinies of the other three quarters of the human race, is a problem that in this twentieth century is presented to every serious mind.
|Adele M. Fielde (March 30, 1839 – February 23, 1916)|
|See a very brief article about the protest at the National Museum of American History website|
Wikipedia's article about Fielde is brief and neither of today's books are mentioned, but she was a fascinating woman prominent in the women's suffrage movement dying shortly before passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. (I can just picture her in the afterlife loving this woman's protest at the White House on 1917, a year after Fielde's death!)
Wikipedia does mention her missionary work and there's more on that at Boston University's School of Theology "History of Missiology" blog. Surprisingly that article tells at first she "did not fit in with the Baptist missionary community. Her dancing, card-playing, and associations with the diplomatic community resulted in her dismissal from the mission." She was later reinstated and went back for 20 very influential years. The article mentions all her books and even includes her "Journal of American Folklore" article on “The Character of Chinese Folk-Tales.”
Thinking about her twenty years in China, it's interesting that her books of Chinese tales are dedicated "To THE WOMEN OF FAR CATHAY Who were my beloved companions in serious work and in needed recreation" -- for such a serious woman, she managed to add to our recreation.
|All illustrations in the books are by anonymous Chinese illustrators|
|Photo by Jarred Craig on Unsplash|
|Public Domain Day|
2019 is the first year since 1998 in which the majority of media from a previous year enters the public domain after the expiration of its copyright term. 2019 is also the first year in this annual process, where 1923 work become public domain that year, then 1924 works in 2020, and so on forward.
Under the Copyright Term Extension Act, books, films, and other works published in the United States in 1923 will enter the public domain in 2019. Additionally, unpublished works whose authors died in 1948 will enter the public domain. Foreign works from 1923 that were never published in the United States may be in the public domain as well. This is the first time since January 1, 1998, that a new group of works will enter the public domain in the United States. From now on, works governed by the Copyright Act of 1909 will enter the public domain at the end of the 95th calendar year from publication. For example, 1924 works will enter the public domain on January 1, 2020, 1925 works in 2021, and so forth.
The article gives additional information, including about foreign works and authors works that had time added after their deaths.
Please check other entries in "Keeping the Public Domain" here for sources of Public Domain stories to read. For January 1, 2019 I'm celebrating the return of works entering the Public Domain in the United States. | <urn:uuid:aff08f8d-e639-4f06-afe5-0da0cc9c2292> | CC-MAIN-2019-43 | http://www.storytellingresearchlois.com/2018/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-43/segments/1570986693979.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20191019114429-20191019141929-00442.warc.gz | en | 0.961312 | 967 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) is a type of lymphoma characterized by Reed-Sternberg cells and often associated with systemic symptoms. While not considered an AIDS-defining malignancy, it is one of the more common non-AIDS-defining cancers. Most cases of HIV-associated HD are associated with Epstein-Barr virus. HD in persons infected with HIV tends to involve relatively unfavorable subtypes (mixed cellularity and lymphocyte), to be relatively more aggressive, and to more frequently exhibit extranodal involvement. Many of the cases of HIV-associated HD occur in patients with only moderate immunosuppression. Also, unlike most AIDS-related non-Hodgkin lymphoma, the incidence of HIV-associated HD has not decreased with the widespread use of HAART. In the era of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) the same regimens employed in HIV-negative patients with HL can be used in HIV setting with similar results.
|Title of host publication||Cancers in People with HIV and AIDS: Progress and Challenges|
|Publisher||Springer New York|
|Number of pages||9|
|ISBN (Print)||9781493908592, 1493908588, 9781493908585|
|Publication status||Published - Mar 1 2014|
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Immunology and Microbiology(all) | <urn:uuid:3ebd717b-b4e9-443f-af5c-d1b5920234da> | CC-MAIN-2021-10 | https://moh-it.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/hodgkin-lymphoma-in-patients-with-hiv-infection | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-10/segments/1614178373241.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20210305183324-20210305213324-00555.warc.gz | en | 0.868618 | 295 | 2.578125 | 3 |
When tabloids grow sweaty over potential invasions of giant, banana-dwelling foreign spiders with poisonous machine guns for eyes, you know to take the spine-pinching news with a bucket of salt.
But trust us when we tell you that there is a creature conquest on the way, and it’s far more chilling than a bunch of overgrown insects.
According to scientists, the number of cephalopods in the sea – namely squids, octopuses and cuttlefish – is rising at an unprecedented rate, and nobody has any idea why.
In a piece of analysis published today by Current Biology, scientists are trying to get a grip on a problem which could soon see octopuses gain advantage on land and declare all-out war on the human race (our opinion, not theirs - but we’re sure they’d come to the same conclusion, anyway.)
“The consistency was the biggest surprise,” said lead study author Zoë Doubleday of the University of Adelaide. “Cephalopods are notoriously variable, and population abundance can fluctuate wildly, both within and among species.”
In fact, it was a particular fluctuation which led to the new study. Years ago, the giant Australian cuttlefish suffered a sudden population crash, “almost disappearing completely”. Doubleday and her team decided to look at the boom-bust cycles across the cephalopod populations to see if there are any patterns.
But as most of the ocean’s inhabitants diminish, squids and octopuses continue to spread their inevitably horrific seed. Why? Doubleday and her co-authors are still investigating, but they put it down to environmental conditions getting them in the mood. “Cephalopods tend to boom and bust - they’re called the weeds of the sea. If environmental conditions are good, they can rapidly exploit those conditions because they grow so fast.”
And why are the environmental conditions good? Glad you asked, reader. One reason might be that humans are killing cephalopod competitors: predatory fish.
Global warming could also be playing a role, so if climate-change denier Donald Trump actually does make it into office, there’s a good chance that octopuses will be climbing out of your sinks and shower heads on the daily (this is not, strictly talking, true – but it makes just as much sense as any of his arguments against global warming.)
But we don’t have to worry about octopus-infested beaches just yet – because they could defeat the problem themselves. “They’re highly cannibalistic - they might start eating each other if they overgrow,” Doubleday said.
Somehow, that just terrifies us more. And what’s more, we’re not risking it. All hail the cephalo-Gods. May you creep us out for all eternity. | <urn:uuid:d8e87526-5cea-43a1-945c-b3d0c529fb8f> | CC-MAIN-2018-22 | https://www.shortlist.com/news/octopuses-are-taking-over-our-seas-and-yes-its-time-to-panic/54760 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-22/segments/1526794869272.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20180527151021-20180527171021-00379.warc.gz | en | 0.951602 | 623 | 2.765625 | 3 |
As used in this article, the following terms shall have the meaning ascribed to them, unless the context otherwise requires:
1. “Coastal area” shall mean (a) the state's coastal waters, and (b) the adjacent shorelands, including landlocked waters and subterranean waters, to the extent such coastal waters and adjacent lands are strongly influenced by each other including, but not limited to, islands, wetlands, beaches, dunes, barrier islands, cliffs, bluffs, inter-tidal estuaries and erosion prone areas. The coastal area extends to the limit of the state's jurisdiction on the water side and inland only to encompass those shorelands, the uses of which have a direct and significant impact on the coastal waters. The coastal area boundaries are as shown on the coastal area map on file in the office of the secretary of state as required in section nine hundred fourteen of this article.
2. “Coastal area boundaries” shall mean the boundaries prepared by the secretary of state pursuant to section forty-seven of chapter four hundred sixty-four of the laws of nineteen hundred seventy-five. 1
3. “Coastal waters” means lakes Erie and Ontario, the St. Lawrence and Niagara rivers, the Hudson river south of the federal dam at Troy, the East river, the Harlem river, the Kill von Kull and Arthur Kill, Long Island sound and the Atlantic ocean, and their connecting water bodies, bays, harbors, shallows and marshes.
4. “Inland waterways” shall mean (a) the state's major inland lakes consisting of lakes Baldwin, Ballston, Big Tupper, Black, Campfire, Canadarago, Canandaigua, Carmel, Cayuga, Champlain, Charles, Chateaugay, Chautauqua, Conesus, Cranberry, East Caroga, Echo (in the county of Westchester), George, Glencoma, Great Sacandaga, Honeoye, Indian, Kentwood, Keuka, Little Wolf (in the county of Franklin), Lincolndale, Long, Lost (in the county of Putnam), Mirror, MacGregor, Mahopac, Neatahwanta, Nimham, Northville, Oneida, Onondaga, Ossi, Otisco, Otsego, Owasco, Palmer, Peach, Placid, Purdys, Putnam, Raquette, Ronkonkoma, Sacandaga, Saratoga, Schroon, Secor, Seneca, Shenorock, Skaneateles, Silver (in the county of Wyoming), Sagamore, Saranac, Seven Hills, Tibet, and Tonetta, Teakettle Spout, West Caroga and Wixon, Simon (in the county of Franklin) and the Fulton chain of lakes; (b) the state's major rivers comprised of the Allegheny, Ausable, Battenkill, Black, Boquet, Bronx, Canisteo, Chaumont (including Chaumont bay), Chemung, Chenango, Cohocton, Delaware, Deer, Genesee, Grasse, Great Chazy, Hoosic, Hudson north of the federal dam at Troy, Indian, Little (in the Adirondack park), Little Ausable, Little Salmon (including north and south branches), Mad, Mettowee, Mohawk, Oswegatchie, Oswego, Pocantico, Racquette, Sacandaga, Salmon, Saranac, Saw Mill, Schroon, Susquehanna, Tenmile, Tioga, Tioughnioga, Wallkill and Buffalo rivers, and the north and middle branches of the Moose river; (c) the state's major creeks comprised of the 18 Mile Creek located in Erie county, Chittenango Creek, Bash Bish and Kinderhook Creek located in Columbia county, Kinderhook Creek located in Rensselaer county, Basher Kill, Bushkill, Cattaraugus, Cayadutta, Cincinnati, East Kill, Esopus (including upper and lower branches), Fish (including east and west branches), Gooseberry, Great Valley, Kennyetto, Little Sandy, Onondaga, Peekskill Hollow, Roeliff Jansen Kill, Rondout, Sandy, Schoharie, Shawangunk Kill, South Sandy, Oatka, Tonawanda, West Kill, Scajaquada, Wappinger, Webatuck, Wassaic, Black Creek located in Monroe county, Black Creek located in Genesee and Wyoming counties, Ellicott Creek located in Erie county, Wynantskill, Claverack, Taghkanic, Agawamuck, Wyomanock, and Nanticoke, and Ley Creek and Butternut Creek located in Onondaga county; (d) the Barge Canal System as defined in section two of the canal law ; and (e) the adjacent shorelands to the extent that such inland waters and adjacent lands are strongly influenced by each other including, but not limited to, islands, wetlands, beaches, dunes, barrier islands, cliffs, bluffs and erosion prone areas.
5. “State agency” means any department, bureau, commission, board, public authority or other agency of the state, including any public benefit corporation any member of which is appointed by the governor.
6. “Comprehensive harbor management plan” shall mean a plan to address the problems of conflict, congestion and competition for space in the use of harbors, surface waters and underwater lands of the state within a city, town or village or abounding a city, town or village to a distance of fifteen hundred feet from shore. A harbor management plan must consider regional needs and, where applicable, must consider the competing needs of commercial shipping and recreational boating, commercial and recreational fishing and shellfishing, aquaculture and waste management, mineral extraction, dredging, public access, recreation, habitat and other natural resource protection, water quality, open space, aesthetic values and common law riparian or littoral rights, and the public interest in such lands underwater.
7. “Water dependent use” means an activity which can only be conducted on, in, over or adjacent to a water body because such activity requires direct access to that water body, and which involves, as an integral part of such activity, the use of the water.
FindLaw Codes are provided courtesy of Thomson Reuters Westlaw, the industry-leading online legal research system. For more detailed codes research information, including annotations and citations, please visit Westlaw.
FindLaw Codes may not reflect the most recent version of the law in your jurisdiction. Please verify the status of the code you are researching with the state legislature or via Westlaw before relying on it for your legal needs. | <urn:uuid:d7dab610-0972-42d1-94b5-2b7cc6e54751> | CC-MAIN-2020-45 | https://codes.findlaw.com/ny/executive-law/exc-sect-911.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-45/segments/1603107879537.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20201022111909-20201022141909-00194.warc.gz | en | 0.891516 | 1,423 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Saint Catherine of Bologna
From Visionaries, Mystics and Stigmatists
Perhaps, one of the greatest Miracles is the incorrupt body of our Saint, seated on a regal throne in a Chapel to the left of the main altar in the Church of Corpus Domini in Bologna. It remains intact, never having decomposed for over five hundred years!
In the beginning, after they realized they could not place her body in the grave, four nuns would carry Saint Catherine’s body to the parlor on a wooden stretcher, every time visitors came to view the body, or the faithful wanted to venerate the Saint. This went on for twelve years! Then the nuns decided that the faithful could view her better if she were seated on a chair. To their amazement, her body which had lost none of its suppleness, rigor mortis never having set in, became stiff, and the nuns could not place her in the chair. It was only when the Abbess ordered her, did Catherine, out of obedience, sit unaided in the chair and in the same position she can be found to this day.
Our Saint wanted to be where all the people of God could venerate her easily, and so she appeared to one of the nuns of the Monastery of Corpus Domini and told her she wanted a Chapel built close to the outer church. Previously, she had been in a Chapel inside the Monastery.
From the very beginning, Saint Catherine’s Miracles and fame have brought people from all parts of the world, not only the simple faith-filled believers who fill and enrich our beautiful Church, but also future Saints, Kings and Queens and scholars. Among the first to come was Queen Isabel of Naples, Italy, who arriving in her regal finery, venerated our Saint and then left her ring as a token of her affection. She was followed by Popes (one of whom was Pope Clement VII), Cardinals (including St. Charles Borromeo who gifted her with a precious vestment), Emperors, Princes and all kinds of personages.
Pope Clement VII granted the nuns permission to say the Office and celebrate Holy Mass in honor of Saint Catherine on March 9th which became her Feast Day. He inscribed her name in the Martyrology of Saints of the Roman Catholic Church. He was followed by other Popes who have granted indulgences and privileges to pilgrims coming to the Sacred place to venerate the saint. The process for her Canonization was started in 1669 and was solemnly concluded on Trinity Sunday, the 22nd of May, 1712 when Pope Clement IX proclaimed to the whole world, to the whole Roman Catholic Church that we had a Saint!
The first time we went to visit Saint Catherine, it was out of holy curiosity; her body was incorrupt! But when we got there, we discovered a very powerful Saint who became very personal to us. We have loved her since 1977, the first time we brought our grandson, all of ten years old, to Europe with us. We hope reading about her that you will turn to her and get to know her with your head and heart, as we have. We love you!
For more Visionaries, Mystics and Stigmatists like Catherine of Bologna click here
Every mortal sin is a sin against God.
make amends, restitution
a substance emanating from tar – used for waterproofing and covering roofs
refer to chapter on St. Catherine of Genoa
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The pandemic has affected us in the worst ways possible and there are certain categories of people who have been hit the hardest. Yes, I am talking about the frontline and medical healthcare workers who put their lives on the line to save the lives of the common people. They have been through this rough phase all by themselves. There was always a risk of getting infected and also infecting the near and dear ones. The effect of the pandemic adds to the trauma of the healthcare workers, and this can lead to several other problems and severe health conditions.
The Trauma Is Real And Showing
A survey was conducted, which confirmed that more than half of the total health care workers in the United States of America reported about mental trauma and stress that they experienced in the workplace. Most of the cases belonged to the times of the pandemic. The mental trauma is very obvious with the things gradually unfolding in the country. The number of new Covid-19 cases bombarded the United States of America last year. There were not enough hospital beds to accommodate the patients. The hospitals and medical healthcare facilities were overwhelmed, and the doctors had to make the tough choice on who should be saved. This would have been definitely the hardest decision of them all. How were doctors made responsible for who lives and who dies?
A study and survey conducted among 26,000 healthcare workers around the country brought forward the fact that more than 53% of them had been subjected to mental health conditions. The mental health conditions included depression, anxiety and Post-traumatic stress disorder. More than 32% of the cases were related to depression and next in line for anxiety. All this stress and mental trauma could leave long-lasting effects. This kind of trauma also leads to suicidal ideation in almost 8.4%of the medical and frontline workers. We could only imagine the stress and trauma that they might have undergone to take steps to such an extent. This was an online survey that was conducted during the months of March and April. The people who were most affected by such mental stress basically belonged to the age of 29 years or younger. The survey also included people from different sexual orientations. The main reasons behind the survey was to find the different repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Most of the participants of the survey said that they worked directly to the Covid-19 response and attended to the patients hit by the pandemic. Most of them had a 41 hour work week which continued unless the pandemic was under a little control. Not just the patients but the frontline healthcare workers have also been through a lot. Many of them also lost their battles to the virus when they were infected in due course of their discharge of duty.
The study said that, “ The pressure increased the symptoms and severity of the mental conditions such as PTSD and depression. Doctors were working more than 41 hours a week which adds to the pressure.” Those who lodged long hours of work, treating patients infected with the virus and those of them who were unable to take time off were more likely to report any kind of mental trauma and stress. The survey was actually very restricted and the experiences of only the prior two weeks was asked from the participating health care doctors.
With this, it is very clear that there is not only one but several repercussions that are showing because of the coronavirus pandemic. It will take time for all of us to overcome this trauma.
- Increased Risk Of Death For People Who Snore!Report - August 17, 2022
- The Metabolism Of Sugar In Cancer Is Surprising - August 17, 2022
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What we do Meet the breeds Sheep watchlist Castlemilk Moorit Key Characteristics A hardy breed although shelter is appreciated, especially during lambing. Anecdotal evidence suggests the breed is resistant to flystrike and footrot. However this is no substitute for good husbandry and diligence. Ewes produce lambs well into old age. They produce small, lively lambs and have few lambing problems. Ewes are excellent mothers and very protective. With good management a lambing percentage of around 160-170% can be achieved. History In the early part of the twentieth century, the late Sir Jock Buchanan-Jardine began a breeding programme on his Castlemilk Estate in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. Using Manx Loaghtan, moorit Shetland and the wild Mouflon he developed a breed specifically to beautify his parkland and provide fine, kemp free moorit coloured wool to clothe his workers. Following his death in 1970 the flock was mostly culled. However, a few ewes and two rams were saved in two small groups. All today’s Castlemilk Moorits are descended from these two groups. Appearance The breed is small although one of the larger primitive breeds of lowland sheep. Ewes weigh around 40kg and rams, 55kg. A long legged, agile breed with great presence. The head is clean with ewes exhibiting two uniform and wide spread horns whilst rams carry heavy, evenly spiralled horns that avoid the cheeks. The sheep exhibits definite white mouflon markings especially “spectacles”, lower jaw, belly and leg patches and a white rump. Uses The fleece has little or no kemp and is highly prized by hand spinners. Staple length- 4-7cm. Fleece weight- 1kg. Quality- 48s-50s. Pure bred sheep are slow to mature but as shearlings produce a high quality, fine grained lean meat of superb flavour. Did you know? The Castlemilk Moorit Sheep Society has worked hard to identify all the remaining founder lines and have worked together with their members to secure a sound genetic future for their breed. Breed Societies Combined Flock BookCastlemilk Moorit Sheep Society. | <urn:uuid:a61829bc-b6d6-434b-82f1-8de1b9f48f73> | CC-MAIN-2021-04 | https://www.rbst.org.uk/castlemilk-moorit | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-04/segments/1610703518201.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20210119072933-20210119102933-00305.warc.gz | en | 0.963677 | 473 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Augusta in Richmond County, Georgia — The American South (South Atlantic)
St. James United Methodist Church
The white marble monument across the street was erected by a St. James Sunday School class in memory of those who had lost their lives in the Civil War. 24 church members’ and 261 other Augustans’ names are inscribed on the monument. The cenotaph was unveiled on December 31, 1873.
The building adjacent to the church was built in 1916 as the parsonage. It was renamed the “Ministry Building” in 1981.
President Eisenhower worshipped here on January 3, 1954.
Emma S. Lester, an early missionary to China wrote in the history of the church this statement: “May St. James shine as a beacon light for centuries to come, and when the summons come that time shall be no more, may the beams from her light ever to the portals of heaven.”
Location. 33° 28.233′ N, 81° 57.5′ W. Marker is in Augusta, Georgia, in Richmond County. Marker is on Greene Street 0.1 miles east of 5th Street, on the right when traveling west. Touch for map. Marker is at or near this postal address: 439 Greene Street, Augusta GA 30901, United States of America.
Other nearby markers. At least 8 other markers are within walking distance of this marker. Veterans of All Wars (about 400 feet away, measured in a direct line); Birthplace of the Augusta Chronicle (about 700 feet away); The “Haunted” Pillar of the Lower Market (approx. 0.2 miles away); Bicentennial Augusta, Ga (approx. 0.2 miles away); The Signer's Monument (approx. 0.2 miles away); Richmond County (approx. 0.2 miles away); Army National Guard (approx. ¼ mile away); The First Academy of Richmond County (approx. ¼ mile away). Touch for a list and map of all markers in Augusta.
Categories. • Antebellum South, US • Churches & Religion • War, US Civil •
Credits. This page was last revised on June 16, 2016. This page originally submitted on October 7, 2009, by David Seibert of Sandy Springs, Georgia. This page has been viewed 2,008 times since then and 187 times this year. Photos: 1. submitted on October 7, 2009, by David Seibert of Sandy Springs, Georgia. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. submitted on May 18, 2010, by Mike Stroud of Bluffton, South Carolina. • Craig Swain was the editor who published this page. | <urn:uuid:98bbb631-458a-4763-8936-9d4954189f02> | CC-MAIN-2017-47 | https://www.hmdb.org/Marker.asp?Marker=23079 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-47/segments/1510934808254.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20171124142303-20171124162303-00020.warc.gz | en | 0.946966 | 567 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Sorghum Biochemistry: An Industrial Perspective explores the many uses for sorghum in industry and biofuels. Not only does it offer a detailed understanding of the physical and biochemical qualities of the grain, it also takes an in-depth look at the role sorghum plays in such industries as brewing and ethanol production and the mechanics of post-harvest processing and value addition. Sorghum has long been an important staple in Africa and Asia, but its value goes far beyond its uses in human and animal consumption. Sorghum is also used in many industries, including waxes, packing material, wall board, ethanol, beverages, and brewing, and one variety called sweet sorghum has also been used as a bioenergy crop. Sorghum Biochemistry: An Industrial Perspective offers a closer look at how the grain is used in such a variety of ways, and how we can continue to optimize its potential. | <urn:uuid:57db0c8c-cf5e-429f-a55e-a6c8db2ba810> | CC-MAIN-2019-04 | https://www.ibs.it/sorghum-biochemistry-industrial-perspective-libro-inglese-vari/e/9780128031575 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-04/segments/1547583661083.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20190119014031-20190119040031-00309.warc.gz | en | 0.946574 | 188 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Are you having trouble locating resources for RL3.9 (Point of View)?? For this standard, I really could NOT find any suitable materials to teach this new standard in third grade. Most teachers quickly think that point of view means identify first or third person speaker. Not the case! Now, the standard has the students identify the points of view of different characters or the author AND identify their OWN point of view.
With that in mind I developed a PowerPoint that essentially does that. Using well known fairy tales, I had 2 characters from each fairy tale explain their points of view. Then I had the students identify their own point of view.
The Powerpoint includes several slides with examples on how to understand what point of view is based on a character's attitude, beliefs, experiences and values:
- Attitude is the way you feel or think about something or someone. It affects the way you behave and the way others see you. Sometimes these can be seen as character traits.
- Beliefs are the things that you believe to be true or good or right. They can be ideas, a person or a behavior. Beliefs can change. You can add new ones or discard old ones.
- Experiences are the things you see and do in your life. It is also the things that happen to you in your life. Narrow your focus to the topic when selecting experiences.
- Values are the people, things or behaviors you hold important in your life. These are the things you will fight for! Values can change. You can add new ones or discard old ones.
Below is an animated GIF (just hit play) of part of the Powerpoint I developed (the GIF does not show any animation or sound effects which are included in the powerpoint). It shows the process I took the students through with one of the fairy tales.
If you are interested in seeing a preview of the entire product, please visit my store:
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Education Grant Benefits and Opportunities
Grants are distinctly different from both scholarships and student loans in that they are free gift money—so unlike student loans that must be repaid—and primarily need-based, compared to traditionally merit-based scholarships. Grants may be divided into the following searchable categories:
- Degree Level
Common sources for grant funding:
- Federal and state governments
- Colleges and universities
- Public and private organizations
The federal government is putting more money into the hands of college students than ever before and much of the impetus behind it is the No Child Left Behind Act. The measures help to assure that more primary and secondary schools are held accountable for making sure kids get the attention and education they deserve without prejudices. Which means a much higher percentage of high school students are earning diplomas. More students stand a chance of attending college when the right financial and social resources are available to them along with educators with the know-how and experience to guide them to the right academic and career choices.
The following federal grant programs offer hundreds of thousands of students the necessary assistance that makes college affordable:
- The Pell Grant, in existence since 1972, remains one of the staples of federal funding for millions of low-income students. This fundamental grant program is somewhat at the mercy of the federal government’s budgetary and political whims, but nevertheless remains a valuable source of funding for impoverished undergraduate students.
- The Academic Competitiveness (AC) Grant is available to undergraduate freshman and sophomores with outstanding academic records and with demonstrated aptitudes for leadership and service. Qualifying candidates must also be Pell Grant eligible.
- The National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent Grant (SMART Grant) picks up where the Academic Competitiveness Grant leaves off - with $4,000 awards to undergraduate juniors or seniors studying computer science, engineering, mathematics, or sciences. Applicants must be eligible for and receiving the Pell Grant.
Grants for Girls
For generations women were disregarded on most college campuses. Many educators argue that women are in general not as engaged on a coeducational campus as they are on a women's campus. Private women's colleges have continued to thrive thanks to the generosity of corps of alumnae, innovative curricula, and expanded programs such as athletics that round out a more complete educational experience.
Grant Programs that are designed for Women, promote their participation in underrepresented degree programs such as the sciences, mathematics and business. The American Competitiveness Initiative is designed to introduce and prepare future generations of students at primary and secondary levels to be more assertive in subjects like math and science. But for now big corporations and professional organizations emphasize grants and scholarships that reward those students studying in underrepresented professions. One of the most influential organizations, the American Association of University Women, offers an outstanding array of grants to minority and disadvantaged women looking to return to college, or pursue a degree for the first time.
Popular Student-Specific Grants
There is little limit on the types of students seeking college grant money. However we have created some loose categories that successfully embrace significant populations of students. The most popular Grants that are Student-Specific are:
- Low-income and disadvantaged
- Graduate and doctoral
- High school and undergraduate
There is no reason a student should be denied a college education because of lack of money. Many federal, state, college or private organizations subsidize awards for those that they feel are the most in need of support or assistance.
Graduate and Doctoral Students
Many types ofgrant programs for Grad Students and Doctoral Candidates are available from colleges and universities and private organizations. Colleges and universities are quite competitive in offering grant awards to the right candidates. In some instances grants support most of a doctoral student's research and living expenses.
Grad students who must travel to participate in studies abroad, take part in research, or professional conferences may discover a slew of small grants administered by professional organizations or college travel grants designed to cover such auxiliary expenses.
Popular undergraduate grants range from general grant programs that provide monetary incentive to low-income and disadvantaged students to specialized grants in Math and Engineering, for example (SMET subjects). There are huge opportunities here for females, too. High school students enrolling in college; do not overlook your college’s grant hand-outs. Most smaller, private colleges are quite generous when it comes to kicking in funds to augment financial aid. They are more interested in attracting quality students regardless of financial ability to pay.
Considering the fact that scores of professional organizations have active educational funds that help foster their fields of interest, it's no wonder that it is just as easy to shop for grants based on subject or field of interest. Corporations spend millions of dollars offering internships, fellowships, scholarships and grants intended to attract academically driven and talented students to their corporate folds.
High Need Fields Grant Giving
There are fields of study that draw considerable funding from sources in large part due to challenging shortages. The fields with the most significant shortages drive the biggest supply of grants:
- Healthcare, especially nursing | <urn:uuid:31daeeda-b738-4d5f-93f5-438a6b2a7430> | CC-MAIN-2018-43 | http://evertonamericact.com/Page.asp?n=59918&org=EvertonAmericaCT.com | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-43/segments/1539583510998.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20181017044446-20181017065946-00318.warc.gz | en | 0.949295 | 1,030 | 2.546875 | 3 |
NEUROTECHNOLOGY has long been a favourite of science-fiction writers. In “Neuromancer”, a wildly inventive book by William Gibson written in 1984, people can use neural implants to jack into the sensory experiences of others. The idea of a neural lace, a mesh that grows into the brain, was conceived by Iain M. Banks in his “Culture” series of novels. “The Terminal Man” by Michael Crichton, published in 1972, imagines the effects of a brain implant on someone who is convinced that machines are taking over from humans. (Spoiler: not good.)
Where the sci-fi genre led, philosophers are now starting to follow. In Howard Chizeck’s lab at the University of Washington, researchers are working on an implanted device to administer deep-brain stimulation (DBS) in order to treat a common movement disorder called essential tremor. Conventionally, DBS stimulation is always on, wasting energy and depriving the patient of a sense of control. The lab’s ethicist, Tim Brown, a doctoral student of philosophy, says that some DBS patients suffer a sense of alienation and complain of feeling like a robot.
To change that, the team at the University of Washington is using neuronal activity associated with intentional movements as a trigger for turning the device on. But the researchers also want to enable patients to use a conscious thought process to override these settings. That is more useful than it might sound: stimulation currents for essential tremor can cause side-effects like distorted speech, so someone about to give a presentation, say, might wish to shake rather than slur his words.
Giving humans more options of this sort will be essential if some of the bolder visions for brain-computer interfaces are to be realised. Hannah Maslen from the University of Oxford is another ethicist who works on a BCI project, in this case a neural speech prosthesis being developed by a consortium of European researchers. One of her jobs is to think through the distinctions between inner speech and public speech: people need a dependable mechanism for separating out what they want to say from what they think.
That is only one of many ethical questions that the sci-fi versions of brain-computer interfaces bring up. What protection will BCIs offer against neural hacking? Who owns neural data, including information that is gathered for research purposes now but may be decipherable in detail at some point in the future? Where does accountability lie if a user does something wrong? And if brain implants are performed not for therapeutic purposes but to augment people’s abilities, will that make the world an even more unequal place?
From potential to action
For some, these sorts of questions cannot be asked too early: more than any other new technology, BCIs may redefine what it means to be human. For others, they are premature. “The societal-justice problem of who gets access to enhanced memory or vision is a question for the next decades, not years,” says Thomas Cochrane, a neurologist and director of neuroethics at the Centre for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School.
Brain-computer interfaces may redefine what it means to be human
In truth, both arguments are right. It is hard to find anyone who argues that visions of whole-brain implants and AI-human symbiosis are impossible to realise; but harder still to find anyone who thinks something so revolutionary will happen in the near future. This report has looked at some of the technological difficulties associated with taking BCIs out of the lab and into the mainstream. But these are not the only obstacles in the way of “brain mouses” and telekinesis.
The development path to the eventual, otherworldly destination envisaged by organisations like Neuralink and Kernel is extremely long and uncertain. The money and patience of rich individuals like Elon Musk and Bryan Johnson can help, but in reality each leg of the journey needs a commercial pathway.
Companies such as CTRL-Labs and Neurable may well open the door to consumer applications fairly quickly. But for invasive technologies, commercialisation will initially depend on therapeutic applications. That means overcoming a host of hurdles, from managing clinical trials to changing doctors’ attitudes. Frank Fischer, the boss of NeuroPace, has successfully negotiated regulatory approval for his company’s epilepsy treatment, but it has been a long, hard road. “If we tried to raise money today knowing the results ahead of time, it would have been impossible to get funded,” he says.
Start with regulation. Neural interfaces are not drugs but medical devices, which means that clinical trials can be completed with just a handful of patients for proof-of-principle trials, and just a couple of hundred for the trials that come after that. Even so, ensuring a supply of patients for experiments with invasive interfaces presents practical difficulties. There is only one good supply of these human guinea pigs: epilepsy patients who have proved unresponsive to drugs and need surgery. These patients have already had craniotomies and electrodes implanted so that doctors can monitor them and pinpoint the focal points of their seizures; while these patients are in hospital waiting for seizures to happen, researchers swoop in with requests of their own. But the supply of volunteers is limited. Where exactly the electrodes are placed depends on clinical needs, not researchers’ wishes. And because patients are often deliberately sleep-deprived in order to hasten seizures, their capacity to carry out anything but simple cognitive tasks is limited.
When it comes to safety, new technologies entail lengthier approval processes. Harvard’s Dr Lieber says that his neural mesh requires a new sterilisation protocol to be agreed with America’s Food and Drug Administration. Researchers have to deal with the question of how well devices will last in the brain over very long periods. The Wyss Centre has an accelerated-ageing facility that exposes electrodes to hydrogen peroxide, in a process that mimics the brain’s immune response to foreign objects; seven days’ exposure in the lab is equivalent to seven years in the brain.
The regulators are not the only people who have to be won over. Health insurers (or other gatekeepers in single-payer systems) need to be persuaded that the devices offer value for money. The Wyss Centre, which aims to bow out of projects before devices are certified for manufacturing, plans with this in mind. One of the applications it is working on is for tinnitus, a persistent internal noise in the ears of sufferers which is often caused by overactivity in the auditory cortex. The idea is to provide an implant which gives users feedback on their cortical activity so that they can learn to suppress any excess. Looking ahead to negotiations with insurers, the Wyss is trying to demonstrate the effectiveness of its implant by including a control group of people whose tinnitus is being treated with cognitive behavioural therapy.
That still leaves two other groups to persuade. Doctors need to be convinced that the risks of opening up the skull are justified. Mr Fischer says that educating physicians proved harder than expected. “The neurology community does not find it natural to think about device therapy,” he says.
Most important, patients will have to want the devices. This is partly a question of whether they are prepared to have brain surgery. The precedents of once-rare, now-routine procedures such as laser eye and cosmetic surgery suggest that invasiveness alone need not stop brain implants from catching on. More than 150,000 people have had electrodes implanted for deep-brain stimulation to help them control Parkinson’s disease. But it is also a matter of functionality: plenty of amputees, for example, prefer simple metal hooks to prosthetic arms because they are more reliable.
Waiting for Neuromancer
These are all good reasons to be cautious about the prospects for BCIs. But there are also reasons to think that the field is poised for a great leap forward. Ed Boyden, a neuroscientist at MIT who made his name as one of the people behind optogenetics, points out that innovations are often serendipitous—from Alexander Fleming’s chance discovery of penicillin to the role of yogurt-makers in the development of CRISPR, a gene-editing technique. The trick, he says, is to engineer the chances that serendipity will occur, which means pursuing lots of paths at once.
That is exactly what is now being done with BCIs. Scientific efforts to understand and map the brain are shedding ever more light on how its activity can be harnessed by a BCI and providing ever more data for algorithms to learn from. Firms like CTRL-Labs and Neurable are already listening to some of the more accessible neural signals, be it from the peripheral nervous system or from outside the skull. NeuroPace’s closed-loop epilepsy system creates a regulatory precedent that others can follow.
Above all, researchers are working hard on a wide range of new implants for sending and receiving signals to and from the brain. That is where outfits like Kernel and Neuralink are focused in the short term. Mr Musk’s four-year schedule for creating a BCI for clinical use is too ambitious for full clinical trials to be concluded, but it is much more realistic for pilot trials. This is also the rough timeframe to which DARPA is working with its implantables programme. With these and other efforts running concurrently, serendipity has become more likely.
Once a really good, portable, patient-friendly BCI is available, it is not hard to think of medical conditions that affect a large number of people and could potentially justify surgery. More than 50m people worldwide suffer from epilepsy, and 40% of those do not respond to medication. Depression affects more than 300m people worldwide; many of them might benefit from a BCI that monitored the brain for biomarkers of such mental disorders and delivered appropriate stimulation. The quality of life of many older people suffering from dysphagia (difficulty in swallowing) could be improved by a device that helped them swallow whenever they wanted to. “A closed-loop system for recording from a brain and responding in a medically useful way is not a small market,” says Dr Hochberg.
That may still bring to mind the aphorism of Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley grandee, about having been promised flying cars and getting 140 characters. There is a large gap between dreamy talk of symbiosis with AI, or infrared eyesight, and taking years to build a better brain implant for medical purposes. But if a device to deliver a real-time, high-resolution, long-lasting picture of neural activity can be engineered, that gap will shrink spectacularly.
Drs Anikeeva, Chizeck and Fetz are all members of the Centre for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering, a research hub headquartered at the University of Washington and funded by America's National Science Foundation.
This article appeared in the Technology Quarterly section of the print edition under the headline "Grey matter, red tape" | <urn:uuid:e449d463-fde0-4bc9-8019-ed8fa394edac> | CC-MAIN-2020-40 | https://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2018/01/04/in-search-of-serendipity | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-40/segments/1600400198213.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20200920125718-20200920155718-00279.warc.gz | en | 0.95572 | 2,279 | 2.78125 | 3 |
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