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For those of you who are following the apparently very controversial article “Oral Motor Exercises” and all of the comments, here’s a follow-up I received today from Dr. Lof. Here are his comments specifically related to oral motor exercises as they are used with children who have been diagnosed with apraxia, and of course, a few of my own comments.
Hope this helps.
So? What does this mean for you if your child has been diagnosed with apraxia? Children have to practice SPEECH, not movements without any sound or movements with just a sound (such as “p” for /p/)?to be able to learn to talk.
Dr. Lof’s mention of working at the syllable level means that sounds aren’t practiced alone, or in isolation, as your SLP might say. Most early interventionists and pediatric SLPs use this approach since we work on WORDS in the context of daily activities or play. Sometimes SLPs (myself included) will cue the sound?in isolation, or by itself, to be sure the child is capable of producing the sound as well as to heighten a child’s awareness of the sound.
Your SLP might also use verbal, visual, or tactile sound cues such saying “Use your popper sound” for /p/ while pointing to her lips, or your “throaty” sound for /k/ while touching under your child’s neck. Again, this kind of practice should be very limited (no more than a couple of repetitions) and shouldn’t be the focus of the session since we’re talking about toddlers and young preschoolers here! Individual speech sounds should be placed in words pretty quickly so that the sounds make sense AND so that you don’t lose a child’s attention in this process. Cognitively, most children aren’t ready for intensely focused sound production practice until after 3.
Sound practice for children with apraxia isn’t recommended since it’s the SEQUENCING of sounds that usually causes the problems with intelligibility. He or she may be able to say the sound alone perfectly, but then it falls apart in the word or phrase. Practicing the individual sound over and over is often pointless since this is not the real problem. Let me also reiterate one more HUGE principle that I’ll emphasize yet again. If your child is really young and his LANGUAGE skills (vocabulary size, phrase length, using words to ask for things and respond to you, etc…) are?NOT age-appropriate, all of these speech or sound issues should take a back seat to helping him learn to be an effective communicator. The time to address all of the specific sound errors is AFTER his language skills are well on their way to matching those of his same-age peers. Focus on WORDS and COMMUNICATION. Intelligibility will come, but it won’t matter anyway if he has nothing to say! Laura | <urn:uuid:9e393ba1-2270-4fe9-9b2b-50f1e52f2b1c> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://teachmetotalk.com/2008/09/15/oral-motor-exercises-and-childhood-apraxia-of-speech/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281492.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00301-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957507 | 636 | 2.59375 | 3 |
|“Trains never disappear.” – Neil DeGrasse Tyson|
Long before I ever met Will Davis, I heard the story of the train that vanished. The train went in one end of a tunnel but never came out the other side, so everyone has their own theory, and until some explanation is given each is as valid as the next. Perhaps I’ve been among the patients too long and some of the crazy has rubbed off on me during my stay here, but I’m convinced I’ve finally figured it out.
Picture for a moment an ant sealed inside a paper cube, surrounded on six sides by impenetrable white walls. Now to the ant there seems to be no way out, no perceivable way in its mind for the borders to be breached. The interior of the box is all there is. However to we higher dimensional beings the solution appears so obvious, so simple: just step outside of the cube and it’d be fine, free to step back inside any time it wished. Now let’s extrapolate that one step further and think of ourselves trapped within the boundaries of time and space, prisoners of the present. Would it not be possible to imagine that stepping outside of these restricting parameters could be as simple as the ant escaping its box? My theory is just that. That this is what happened to the train which in 1869, shortly after the pounding of the golden spike, vanished with over one hundred passengers aboard. The ant escaped the cube.
The key to it all, in my mind, is the rock the tunnel was cut through. Though the project was much too far along to cease construction, it was noted that within the core of the rock there were strange magnetic occurrences. Workers grew sick and complained of pains, some even suffered strokes or brain hemorrhages after prolonged shifts. There were numerous accounts of metals moving on their own, and even one death as the result of a worker being in the way when a large hammer and some spikes seemed to propel themselves off the ground and pinned the man against a rock wall. At the time most workers attributed these occurrences to ghosts but grumbled to one another it was somehow the foreman’s fault.
There were more than a fair number of grievances and several more injuries – most unreported – but jobs were not easy to come by and most every man on the crew had hungry mouths depending on them. Eventually they punched through the other side of the rock and the rest of the job laying tracks, while physically draining, was easy in comparison. Though some of the men were drifters, – and it was not unheard of for one or two to simply not show up one day – a total of fifty laborers vanished without a trace constructing what came to be known as The Gateway. Stranger still, most of these men were reported to have shown up for a shift and went into the tunnel, but never appeared again back at the worker’s camps, some leaving behind what few possessions they’d clung too. An old man appeared in the tunnel one day, and was raving about other worlds and warned all the men to flee before the Owl came for them. This facility wasn’t up and running then but he was sent somewhere very similar. The tales reached far beyond the labor camps and before long the place had quite the reputation.
While the gateway was far enough away from heavily populated areas, occasionally a drifter would wander across it or a group of kids would dare one of their own to cross through the pitch black passageway. For though the tunnel was planned to cut straight through, it was long and bent quite a bit in the middle. Warped to the point where, looking in from either end, you could see no light at the end of the tunnel. Most children who accepted the dare made it part of the way through and ran back, while a brave few made it through to the other side, shaken but fine otherwise. Liam Davis was not so fortunate.
Liam always tagged along with his older brother William and his friends. Despite Will’s protests, their mother’s insistence always won out. Liam was sworn to secrecy hundreds of times and tattling was discouraged with threats, ranging from simple beatings to disgusting middle-aged torture techniques, most of which Liam was convinced his brother learned just to impress his friends. After Liam remained silent following an accidental fire the boys started with cigarettes, Will had to know he didn’t need to scare Liam in order to keep him quiet. Yet each time he joined the older boys there were gruesome new acts described in detail, should he dare to fall out of line. Liam knew his brother was harmless and suspected likewise of his friends. He didn’t really mind being their verbal punching bag, was just pleased to be included.
His friends got used to the tag along, but of course they still preferred when they could get away without Will’s younger brother. On the day Liam entered the Gateway, he caught Will along with his friends Charles and Teddy – two boys who looked like Laurel and Hardy, or a before and after weight loss photo – attempting to push the car from the house before starting it. While this technique worked without alarming the boy’s mother, it was not as successful when it came to young Liam. He caught up to them as they neared the main road a quarter mile from Will and Liam’s home.
Come on! Every time, Teddy said.
Go to the house, Liam, said Will.
No, listen, I –
Not this time, just go back.
Why? Liam asked, smiling. What are you guys doing?
Something too dangerous for brats and I aint takin another whoopin cause you got a scratch.
Fine, you’ll just get beat for leaving me, and for taking the car.
She knows about the car, Will lied. Plus I can handle those whoopins if it comes to it. If I hurt mommas little baby though? Hell, I may as well just put a fire out with my bare ass.
Teddy and Charles laughed but the two brothers remained staring at one another, speaking wordlessly as only siblings can. Whatever silent communication took place worked in Liam’s favor, for the next moment Will did a total about-face. This was the usual routine and was no surprise to his two companions.
Fine but you do whatever I say and I mean it, Will said. You speak when spoken to and if you breathe a word to momma, I’ll cutcha belly open, hook your guts up to a crank and slowly pull out your insides.
Charles and Teddy laughed again, adding their own unimaginative torture techniques. Liam couldn’t stop smiling as he climbed into the car and took off with the three older boys. He rubbed the coin he wore around his neck and thought of driving with their father.
The tunnel wasn’t too far from the Davis property and in just over an hour they were approaching the massive stone monolith the Gateway cut through. The rock the tracks went through were gargantuan, a mountain of stone which resembled a sleeping giant. The Gateway’s dark opening was large enough to swallow freight trains but it appeared as no more than a mole upon the face of a Titan. Knowing the amount of stone bearing down over you was one of the things which made the long walk in the dark so terrifying. The road met the tracks a ways away from the tunnel, so the boys parked the car as far off to the side as they could and closed the remaining distance on foot.
The closer the boy’s got to the mouth of the Gateway the slower their footsteps became. The eagerness which Liam felt coming off the older boys in waves as they jumped from the car gave way to something he was less familiar with, fear.
What is this place, anyways? Liam asked his brother.
He knew what it was of course, had heard all the same tales and spook stories the other boys had but thought talking about it might help. Had the topic of discussion been anything else he may well have been correct.
It’s called the Gateway. Some fools claim hell lies in the middle, others say that it’s actually heaven and you can see the light of angels. I even heard a story once that the devil himself waits in there, dancing with the dead, and if you see them you have to join in.
It’s the truth, said Teddy defensively. My brother told me so.
Charles and Will laughed and a half second later Liam joined in.
Okay, said Liam, so what do you think is really in there?
I don’t know. Wager it’s nothing but a train tunnel. Haven’t been in it yet though, have I?
So we’re really going in there?!
Yes, we’re really going in, Will said, gesturing to Charles, Teddy and himself.
Aw, come on. God, I swear –
But I never –
No! Not even a chance. Just be lucky we let you come.
Besides, Charles said, somebody has to stay back and be on train lookout, that’s the most important job.
No it’s not.
Hell it ain’t, son. You don’t shout a warning our way and we’ll all get smashed in the dark. Then there goes your ride home. So keep a real good eye towards the east there, and if you see so much as a sliver of what might be smoke, you shout. You better yell loud too, otherwise I swear I’ll haunt your ass.
And miss dancing with the devil?
Charles laughed a little. He’ll have to wait for pretty old me.
Wait though, couldn’t you two just watch while the other goes?
Shut up, Liam.
They walked the last stretch without talking and then the four of them stood in silence. A different silence followed Liam’s next question.
So, who’s first?
After a short time Will pulled a small piece of chalk from his pocket, twirling it between his fingers as he spoke.
Alright, so we each go in alone, as far as we can, and when you decide to head back you just take this and make a mark on the wall. I’ll do a triangle, Charles you do a circle and Teddy you make an 8. Whoever gets the farthest gets the rest of that whiskey, fair?
They all nodded in agreement, even Liam. The boy thought how there was no real way to see who’d gone the farthest. Despite needing a lantern to check, somebody could simply walk thirty feet in where they couldn’t be seen and sit a spell, until they got up and returned claiming they’d ventured the furthest. The incentive wasn’t all that special either. None of it truly mattered though, since any time one of the boys managed to snag any liquor or tobacco or anything else, they all shared it. All but Liam, of course.
So he played his part, keeping watch for the rare sight of a train approaching and one by one Charles, Teddy, and lastly Will took their turns venturing as deep as they dared into the abyss. As far as who actually went the longest distance from the entrance they couldn’t know for sure, but Will took the most time by far and none of the others dared challenge his honesty. The other two returned at a brisk pace but when Will at last emerged he was jogging and his forehead and top were drenched in sweat, his eyes frantic. As he caught his breath and drank some water, Will kept looking back towards the darkness. Teddy seemed excited and inquired in serious tones if he saw the devil or angel lights or ghosts, while Charles just stood there waiting. Liam cut through the noise with the right question.
So, how far did you get?
The worry faded some from Will’s eyes as he began to brag of how deep he’d ventured.
Towards the end I kept expecting to come out the other side, but I never even saw the light. The dark fools you into thinking you’ve walked farther than you have. That, or somehow it’s bigger on the inside.
Did you see my mark, asked Teddy?
Yeah, he laughed, about ten steps in. And Charles, yours wasn’t that far past his. Must say I was a little let down, could still see both of your marks from the glow of the entrance. Hell, Liam probably would’ve gone farther than you two cowards.
Coward was a step too far for Teddy, who got defensive when you said his hair looked bad.
Fine, Teddy said, let’s find out then. Go ahead, Liam, show us cowards how the big Davis men do it. Just try not to run away like ya daddy did. At the mention of his father, Liam fingered the smooth coin around his neck.
Will could throw every curse and insult your way and you knew you were fine but when he went silent, that was when you knew to worry. Liam recognized that deadly silence and ignored the slight.
Let me go, Will. I bet I can beat him, just watch.
Will just shook his head and kept staring at Teddy, who was doing his best to keep staring right back.
Come on, Will. Just let the kid do it, Charles said. Like you said, we didn’t make it too far so it’ not likely he’s gonna.
Maybe you didn’t get that far but I swear –
Shut up Teddy, it don’t matter. So I’m saying, Will, even if he makes it near our marks without running back here like a baby first – which I doubt – he’ll still be right back like we was. Besides, somebody’s gotta check to make sure you ain’t just bullshitting us, right, and now we got a volunteer. So go ahead little man, show us how it’s done.
Liam was so eager to bolt into the dark he almost leapt at Charles’s words, but he knew enough to look to his brother for final say on any and all things.
Will finally moved his gaze from Teddy. Yeah, alright fine. Just make it quick and if you hear anything, anything that even sounds like us yelling, you run back here fast as you can. Ya hear me?
Liam nodded, smiling. Finally, he would be able to prove himself. The boy’s smile was infectious and Will couldn’t help but return it. He mussed his brother’s hair and punched him lightly in the arm.
Okay, just hurry it up and hey, you mind me now, don’t go too far. You ain’t got nothing to prove to nobody, especially not assholes like these. Hear me?
Here ya go then, be careful, or it’s my ass. And if I have to take one more whooping cause of you, I’ll cut you open, squeeze out your balls and suffocate you with your own little sack.
Liam took the piece of chalk from his older brother and headed towards the dark. He turned back and asked, Is that a real one? Can you really suffocate somebody with their sack?
The other two were laughing but Will just smiled and said, Take care or we’ll have to find out.
Liam’s smile held until the shadows consumed him, then little by little eagerness and determination gave way to fear.
Though Liam was alone in that tunnel, his brother knew every detail of his venture. When finally he opened up to me and shared this tale, I knew he spoke the truth, I only wish I understood how he could know. I have heard of twin’s having psychic links, and there is of course much in this world we do not yet understand. At first I suspected it was more wish fulfillment for closure on the part of William, rather than anything supernatural or magical. Then again, I am a man without a brother, and perhaps it is that simple. It has been decades since the day they entered that tunnel on a dare, but Will’s account of his brother’s trek remains unchanged. I put it down here now as he has always told it.
The further he walked, the darker it became, until the empty space seemed to shrink and he felt the unseen walls closing in around him. The Gateway was the same size all the way through, he knew this and kept reminding himself of it. But when fear takes hold what we know doesn’t always matter, and despite his inner reassurances he felt more and more claustrophobic with each step. The air was noticeably cooler and the smell of desert flowers faded slowly. He resisted the urge to look back. It was like the ‘don’t look down’ advice which was supposed to help with heights. Liam knew if he looked back and saw how far he was from any light that he would either freeze or flee.
On he went into the dark and as blackness embraced him, visions bloomed in his mind; Visions of crazy old men and killers crouched, cloaked in shadows, waiting. From the formless, formed subterranean monsters with oversized teeth and grotesque claws, hungry for children, and the darker it became the clearer these terrors were. Vivid images seemed to populate the void. Liam’s pace slowed a bit and he began wincing with each half step that he took, fully expecting to bump into a butcher or some hairy sharp-toothed reptile so large it had to crouch to fit in the tall cavern. He could see it so clear, bent over with its yellow teeth dripping saliva and its nose shifting and twitching as it gathered the scents of its oncoming meal. He could almost smell it.
To help assure himself the tunnel wasn’t shrinking he reached his shaking hand out and placed it against the rock wall as he went. To drive the phantasmagoric images from his mind he began reciting a little mantra from a story his mother used to tell him. It was his favorite because it had a story within the story. In the tale, there is a young man who must travel through the dark cursed woods alone in order to retrieve medicine that would save his dying mother. The boy heard tales all his life of the wicked things which live beyond the village, knew it is common knowledge that there were creatures lurking all around him as he went. The woods above were so thick they blocked out the moonlight, and the lamp he brought with him contained so little fuel that he was forced to travel with it off, save for occasions when he absolutely must illuminate the abyss swirling around him. With each step in the dark, the familiar noises of branches breaking and leaves crunching underfoot all became more alien and threatening to his ears, filling his mind with visions of all the horrid predators standing just before him. To keep his mind occupied, the young boy began repeating words his mother taught him from an ancient story. A tale of a brave dragon slayer, who himself used the words to draw strength as he approached the mouth of the dragon’s lair. The memory of these timeless words caused Liam to stand up just a little straighter as he repeated them in his own mind.
Don’t fear shadows in your track, walk on through them, don’t look back. Again and again and again he repeated these words. The words echoed so loud in his head that they began escaping his mouth in mumbled whispers. Just as they had empowered the young man, and the dragon slayer before him, now little Liam Davis too drew strength from them. He walked on with renewed confidence, as he heard the words in his head pounding like a war drum pushing him onwards, a beacon shining in him, fending off the dark. He almost wanted to bump into whatever vile creature would dare block his path. Almost. The fear, though diminished, was of course still there. It whispered of threats and imminent doom but this treacherous worm was drowned out by the words reverberating in his mind like a battle cry.
Refusing to look back towards the light enabled Liam’s eyes to adjust quickly and the in that void, silhouettes of stone appeared clearer for what they were. Only a short walk into the tunnel he knew victory was his, as he passed first one then another small chalk mark on the rock wall, the white seeming to glow against the dark stone. Smiling, he went on, thinking how pathetic it was that that was as far as Charles had made it, he hadn’t expected much from Teddy. He felt grateful that he knew the story, that he possessed the words which kept him strong. How wonderful it is that make-believe can help us to deal with the unreal. Then and there Liam made up his mind; he would pass his brother’s mark as well and keep on, maybe all the way to the other side. The dark ahead looked endless, it seemed to go on forever, but he knew that it couldn’t last. He’d learned earlier than most that nothing is forever.
He got far enough that the rock felt cooler against his palm. The gateway held an aroma of dust and remnants of smoke, which he presumed must’ve been coal residue on the ceiling. The only noises in the dark were the shifting of the earth and rocks beneath his steps and the sound of his breathing. Louder than both of these, louder than the booming silence, was the drone of words beating away with a driving rhythm. Don’t fear shadows in your track, walk on through them, don’t look back. The words seemed to serve as some mystical incantation and he felt as though he had the strength to face anything. Had his father known the words from the old tale, he wondered? Surely not, for if his dad possessed the type of strength he felt now he would never have ‘run like a coward from his responsibilities’ as their mother liked to put it.
If only adults took the time and told each other stories, the way they do for children, perhaps they’d be stronger and maybe the world would be a better place. Everybody knows kids are braver than adults. The connection seems natural enough between diminishing courage that comes with aging and the depletion of stories. Stories make us stronger. Liam told himself that he cared dearly about the world being a better place and all, but the truth he felt inside was he’d watch the world burn if it meant he’d have a dad again.
Even with his eyes adjusted as well as they were, it was so dark he nearly walked right past the large white triangle mark his brother left. He wondered why Will would have turned back here, and why he’d ran all the way back. He turned and squinted his eyes, and realized there was only a fingernail sliver of light left, resembling cracked door with the sun behind it. Liam figured he had to be at least halfway through the Gateway, if not farther and the thought of actually making it all the way through to the other side was such an intoxicating idea he didn’t see how he had much of a choice at all. The endless glory, the eternal bragging rights, never having to defend tagging along again, it was all a bit too much to resist. There was a small worry of why he could not yet see light from the other side, for even though the long tunnel curved it was not by so much that this far in he should still see only dark ahead. He walked on. As he gazed forward into the abyss he felt it gazing back into him and thought he spied a ring of day light, as though some disc or perfectly spherical boulder blocked out all but a hint of the light. Unable to make sense of such a strange site, the boy shook his head to clear it away and then once again saw only a mesh of shadow. With the words to fuel him and the wall to guide him, Liam headed on past his brother’s mark further into the darkness, searching for daylight in shadows.
A pain started in his belly and then spread to his head. He repeated the words louder and louder until he was screaming them out in his mind, and though they made him feel brave they did nothing to soothe him and his nausea increased, until he fell to one knee. When he looked up again the dark shimmered before him. Liam always wore a flattened coin around his neck, a remnant from a trip with his father to the train tracks near their place. After Liam was caught too close to the tracks, his father showed him what a train could do to metal, warning his boy to keep bones and skin far away from the tracks. The piece of metal began to lift off Liam’s neck as though it were being pulled towards the shimmer, then just as quickly as it had appeared the shimmer in the darkness faded and the coin fell back against his chest. It felt much colder than it had just a few moments before. Liam still felt ill but noticed the sensation slowly fading.
The voices of his brother and mother and even his father competed in his mind, telling him it was time to stop, time to go home, that enough was enough and it was okay to head back now. After briefly considering turning back he decided to press on, feeling positive he’d almost certainly never venture this far into the Gateway again. Already he was feeling great regret at having gone as far as he had, fearing he wouldn’t have enough time to make it back should he hear a warning. If it came to it he would run for the other side and hope for the best. Mostly he felt bad thinking of Will, sure his brother must be worrying and doing his best to hide it in front of his friends, and that odd shimmer…but he pushed those thoughts from his mind and focused only on the words…don’t look back, don’t fear shadows in your tracks, walk on through them, and don’t look back. Don’t look back. Don’t. Look. Back.
The sound frightened him for a moment before he recognized it was as the sound of his own voice, and realized he was mumbling the words aloud again. They felt good on his tongue and he repeated them over again, chanting them a little louder and then a little louder still, until they were as steady as his breathing. It sounded as though he spoke them in defiance, as though it were some sacred script or a series of forbidden curse words known only by the few allowed to speak them. Words passed down from the ancients in many languages long dead, containing a mystical protective power. The boy pictured a soft glow around him in the dark, a shield against the encroaching abyss.
He was so focused on his chant and so deep into the heart of the Gateway that he did not at first even notice the noises from behind him, confusing them with the voices in his mind. Even after he recognized them for what they were he struggled to make them out. It sounded like wild howling animals warning of a predators approach. Then Will’s strong voice cut through Charles and Teddy’s screams and the single syllable word was clear.
Train, Will was shouting. Train! Train!
The word paralyzed his body but sent his mind into overdrive. He tried to focus as a thousand thoughts raced inside his head, colliding into one another, shattering into a million more. How far was he into the tunnel? There was no real way to gauge. Did he have time to make it back before the train entered or was it safer to bolt for the other side of the tunnel? There was no light in either direction now, but there did seem to be a faint shimmer in the dark behind him. Again he heard the faint echo of voices warning of a train. This time the word had the opposite effect and freed him of his motionless state. He shouted back through the dark.
Which way? Yet as soon as the words were out of his mouth, Liam realized how ridiculous they were. Will and the others had no way of knowing how deep he’d gone, so couldn’t very well suggest which direction he should run in. Will did answer however, with the same message he had been yelling.
Train! Run! This time however the calls were much clearer and louder and more frantic. Come on!
The voice was again slightly louder and clearer. Then it hit him, Will was coming after him. He hadn’t moved fast enough and now because of his hesitation, they might both die. He thought of how the coin looked before and after its encounter with a train. Knowing Will was in peril sparked his mobility and he took off running in the direction of his brother’s voice, keeping his right fingers in contact with the wall to guide him as he went.
Go back, I’m coming!
Will just kept shouting train though and didn’t seem to hear him. The sound of his warnings grew ever closer until they were just around the bend. Liam picked up his pace and ran as fast as he could, he took his hand from the wall and tripped almost immediately over one of the wood beams the tracks were laid over, falling hard.
Liam’s necklace began to lift off his chest again. He looked up as he got to his feet and saw his brother’s silhouette growing larger as he neared. Upon realizing he could see at all again drove a spike of fear into his heart as he was certain the light in the tunnel was from the train entering the Gateway, and that it was too late. Then he heard the train’s whistle and could tell from the sound that it was still a ways off.
The soft glow was the shimmer he had seen a glint of before, a little brighter now than it was at first. Liam could see through it, but despite its transparency he could still see the thing itself, like a window pane or a soap bubble. It was beautiful, like faint water colors painting over glass. Colors swirled in it and formed fragments of unfocused scenes before dissipating again. Will reached the spot on the other side of the strange wavering light and stopped. The brothers stood there sharing the briefest moment of wonder before the shimmer, like the fragile soap bubble it resembled seemed to pop out of existence, leaving the boys in darkness once more. Liam put his arm out and when nothing happened, ran through the spot where the thing had been and hugged his brother.
Let’s go, come on, Liam said.
What…what the hell was –?
The rails were vibrating harder, Liam found his brother’s hand in the dark and shouted, Come on! They could barely hear the other two boys screaming over the repeated train whistles. They started to run again towards the sound of their voices. That was when the light from the train’s headlight filled the tunnel as it entered the Gateway. They stopped and Will tightened his grip on his younger brother’s hand as Liam spoke both their thoughts out loud.
There’s no time.
Once in a book Liam read, there was a man who was trapped in a train tunnel just like them with a train approaching. In the story, the man is able to find a crevice in the rock and squeezed into it as the train sped past close enough to fray his clothes. It was all Liam could think of and a story helped him once already that day.
Quick find a space in the wall.
What?! Are you crazy?! Let’s go, Will said. We gotta run the other way. Go!
Liam tried to pull his hand away but Will tightened his grip and said, I’m serious, run the other way now or I’ll –
Shut up, we can’t! We can’t outrun a train.
He ripped his hand from Will’s strong grasp and began feeling along the cool rock for their only chance. The walls were far from smooth and along his trek he’d felt more than few large divots and hoped he could find one big enough for both of them, or else two where they could each squeeze in. Frantically he rubbed his hands over one wall.
Help me. Feel for big dips.
Will started feeling along the opposite wall. They had to scream to be heard and could no longer hear the voices outside at all, only the pounding of the train and its whistle screeching at them. It sounded like a thousand elephants led by a howling banshee. The rails were shaking so hard it caused the boys’ teeth to rattle.
Here! Over here, hurry, hurry!
Will followed his brother’s voice, waving his hands about until he found his shoulder. The moment he touched him, Liam grabbed him by the arms and pushed him back against the rocks, into a spot just large enough for him to squeeze into alone. He went to move but his younger brother shoved him back again.
Stay, he said, sounding as if he was reprimanding a dog.
They were screaming to be heard over the train as Will tried to argue. But you-
There’s…other one…ight…ere…e fine.
Those were the only fragments Will made out before the light of the train lit up his brother’s face, revealing a look of determination and fury, but no trace of fear. Liam nodded at him and Will returned the nod. Then Liam was gone, once again feeling along the wall. Will leaned his head out slightly and saw his brother’s lips moving as he moved his hands all over the rock, as if searching for some switch to a hidden entrance. The train was barreling towards them; the sound of it echoing in the tunnel forced Will to cover his ears.
Will thought the light from the train suddenly reflected off a surface just beyond Liam, who with his focus on the wall failed to notice it. Will yelled something but couldn’t even feel the vibration of his own voice, let alone hear it. The shimmer was back and much brighter and Liam was moving closer and closer to it, only inches away when he looked back towards his brother and the approaching train. Will pointed and Liam turned and saw the shimmer, and tilted his head as he gazed into it. Then he turned, smiling, the look of fury and determination replaced by that strange infectious grin. He spared one last look at Will and shouted something to his brother. The he smiled again, turned and walked through the light and disappeared into the shimmer. For a moment after, it appeared to burn much brighter, forcing him to look away. Then his brother and the shimmer were both gone. A bare track illuminated by the train’s light.
Before Will even had time to react to what he’d just seen or shout his brother’s name the train shot past him like a black bolt of lightning and the thunder followed. He pressed himself hard against the wall as the iron monster roared past. The train screamed in his face and Will couldn’t help howling back at it. He stood there pressed against the stone, screaming as loud as he could and not hearing it. As the end of the train passed, there was another brilliant flash of light where the shimmer manifested, and then it was gone. The train vanished around the bend and its sound slowly diminished until a still silence returned to the Gateway. Will stood in shock, wedged in the crevice his brother had found for him, his ears ringing. After a moment he dared to lean his head out again and looked where his brother last stood, and saw only nothingness. He ran to where his brother had walked into the light and felt around in the air but nothing seemed different, except that he felt slightly nauseous. He collapsed to the floor, panicking, and began to weep, crying out his brother’s name again and again and again. His voice gave out long before he did.
After both refused to go in unless the other came along, Teddy and Charles walked into the dark tunnel entrance. They called out for Will and Liam but received no response. A little deeper in they heard muffled crying and followed it to find Will, crouched in the fetal position, rocking back and forth. He was mumbling to himself nonsensically and repeating something they couldn’t recognize at first. After searching and failing to find Liam, they assumed the worst. They pulled Will to his feet and led him back towards the light.
When at last they managed to get him to speak a few words it was a cold monotone which escaped his lips. In his poor mind state, Will made the not-so-advisable decision to share with his friends exactly what he had experienced. This was also the first time he detailed word for word what Liam had experienced on his own, saying he could feel what he felt and see what he saw. Both boys figured Will had seen his brother crushed by the train and gone mad. Water was all they had to offer him in the way of consolation.
Not another word was spoken by any of them as they led him back through the desert to the parked car and drove home. To their surprise there was no protest. Will sat unblinking, eyes fixed on nothing and that was how he remained for three more days before he would even take a sip of water on his own. Despite his mother’s pleading, demanding and physical assaults he did not waiver. He was a living statue for days.
During that first week people searched best they could based on what Teddy and Charles told them. After combing the tunnel however, no traces of Liam were ever found, not one drop of blood or scrap of clothing. It was at this point that the two boys’ stories changed. Teddy told anybody who’d listen the crazy tale Will shared with them after they pulled him from the Gateway, tossing in plenty of embellishments, as if the real story weren’t fantastical enough. Charles on the other hand seemed unable to recall any part of the story. He stated only that Will was rambling when they pulled him from the tunnel but that he hadn’t paid much mind to it. He never spoke again about what happened that day and ignored anybody who asked.
To everyone’s surprise it was Will himself who stated that despite its flaws, Teddy’s account was the more accurate version. Will would do anything to find his brother, so despite Charles’s warning of what would happen, he went on and on to anybody who would listen. One day a man came to town just to hear the tale from the source firsthand. The man, it turned out, was the owner of the train which passed through the Gateway that day and was attempting to decipher a mysterious disappearance of his own. The very last train car did not arrive with the rest of the locomotive. They back-tracked the whole route but after finding no sign of it anywhere wondered how a train car vanished without a trace. After hearing about the missing boy, the man thought perhaps there was a connection. Remembering the second flash of light in the tunnel, Will sat up and listened more intently as the train’s owner described how the car connector appeared to have been severed clean through, another impossibility. It was this new development which turned Will’s despair to hope. If it opened again shortly after, then perhaps the shimmer inside the Gateway wasn’t closed forever, as he feared. Will clung to that hope. They never found any clues of what might have happened and after only a few days, trains were once again passing through the Gateway. For Will, every time he heard a distant train he imagined bulls trampling through a graveyard.
Eventually nearly everybody in the southwest knew ‘Poor Will’s story’ but let him be, mostly out of pity for his loss. The boy becoming a man couldn’t work and more than once was hauled out of the Gateway, where he was chasing trains into the tunnel and ‘trying to find the opening’. Whatever happened to his brother nobody knew for sure, but one thing was certain, that whatever happened Will never stopped blaming himself for it and never gave up his search.
About a year after Liam – and the caboose – disappeared, the passenger train with just over a hundred people aboard was seen by two ranch hands entering the Gateway. The train never came out the other side. No remains were ever found. It to date is still the only recorded incidence of a train just vanishing. The families and the public were terrified at first and infuriated once they learned the previous incident, involving a child. As a result the Gateway was decommissioned and both entrances were blown and sealed off.
Aside from the few who knew him well, most folks assumed Will would be glad nobody else would be hurt, but instead he threw a fit when he heard the news, pleading that if they did have to close it off, to do it with him inside so he would at least have a chance of seeing his brother again. The man who came to town the first time remembered Will, and it was during the damage control for the passenger tragedy that he was placed into hospitalization, after a generous donation was made to those charged with determining whether somebody was dangerous crazy or just the normal kind. He lost his mother in the years between Liam vanishing and the passenger car following suit, so without family or any real money he didn’t have much of a chance of ever getting out. And once they saw such a harmless sweet man locked up so easily, everybody followed Charles’s lead and made an effort to forget his crazy story altogether. When the passenger train – and the passengers – never turned up, there were whispers of Will being right. Unfortunately, alone in his quarters here, Will never heard them.
When I checked myself in here it was mainly for financial reasons but also because I was feeling a little overwhelmed and thought a rest would help. Will had already been here for decades and had attempted several breakouts, including one on his 65th birthday, but by the time I got here he seemed resigned to his fate. He wasn’t as keen on being alone as he used to be, but not so many people knew it. We both played a good game of chess and were well read. Once I revealed I was usually in possession of some liquor, we became friends. I paid attention to him and didn’t drool or piss myself, so I had a one up on a good number of the competition. Nor did I rudely talk to myself while he was speaking. I listened.
One late night over a game and some whiskey, I asked how somebody like him ended up in there, so he told me. I started crying when he finished, couldn’t help myself. He asked if I believed him and I told him that of course I did. He wasn’t a liar. I knew him well enough by then to know that much. I offered my help.
What could you do? he asked.
So I told him. I can get you out of here. You don’t belong here anymore than I do.
He smiled and told me he was probably too old for a jail break, old Indian.
I couldn’t help but smile back. Nothing so fun, I’m afraid.
After a long pause he seemed to understand my offer was genuine and I saw a glimmer of reserved hope return to his tired eyes. He asked if I could really help him, and I told him that I really could.
Owning a hospital has more perks than just free room and board, I said.
We left the building together in the morning and ate blueberry pancakes from an old diner near the hospital that I knew well. A place called Coffee Cantata. Over breakfast, as he enjoyed his first cup of coffee, Will’s uneasiness wore off a little bit at a time until he seemed to accept this was not just some cruel jape. We discussed what came next and for Will it was a pretty single minded effort. There was only one thing he still seemed to care about, Liam.
Despite his eagerness and insistence that we just grab some sledgehammers, pickaxes and torches and head for the Gateway at once, I convinced him we needed to be better prepared.
I checked into the status of the place but also looked into which metals are magnetic, what types of rock the tunnel was cut through and several other factors I thought would prove important or at least interesting. Most fascinating though was the impact and geology records for that area.
The second night after leaving the hospital, I caught Will trying to sneak out with my car keys. I asked him why he was in such a rush, that surely after all these years he could wait a few more days. Will revealed he had a reoccurring nightmare. He told me that he’s had it ever since they sealed off the Gateway, decades prior.
In the nightmare, it is always midnight and Liam returns as the shimmer returns, Will said. He appears the same age as when he vanished, still wearing that flattened metal coin around his neck. Only seconds have passed where he went while decades passed here. Liam looks ecstatic to be back, but once the shimmer fades he is left again in the darkness of a moonless night, all alone. He manages to make it first to one end of the tunnel and then the other, only to find his escape blocked off, and with a boy’s strength and no tools he’s got no hope of breaking free. He calls for me at each sealed passageway. As he walks, the time he avoided catches up with him and he ages years at a time. He used to repeat this rhyme our mom taught him, annoyed the hell out of me and finally he got tired of me making fun of him for it – he only said it when he got scared, you see – so he stopped saying it all the time. Even after he stopped, though, I would catch him late at night in the dark whispering it sometimes in bed. He just kept repeating it over and over in the dream, as he walked and turned from a scared young boy to a hopeless old ghost he repeated that rhyme, each time his voice growing more strained. He just kept on with that old rhyme…Don’t fear shadows in your track. Walk right through them, don’t look back.
I sent a team ahead of us without telling Will, to clear away rubble and report what they found. The image of his brother trapped and withered with age, alone in the dark catacombs was haunting. They didn’t find anything – of course they didn’t. I just needed to be sure. I just needed to know that whatever we found there, it wouldn’t be that.
We came prepared to wait. Plenty of food and water, and more than enough light. It was still well over a week before the shimmer reappeared, just after midnight. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was peeing outside the tunnel, looking up at the moonless sky and admiring the Pleiades, when I heard Will call for me and I came running with my light in hand, though I had no need of it. The shimmer was exactly as he’d described it and illuminated the tunnel with light from inside itself. Will looked at me and the smile on his face transformed him back into the young boy who, though his body remained, vanished along with his younger brother, all those years before. He was elated and looked angelic bathed in the light of the real gateway.
We have to go, come on. It doesn’t stay open for long.
I…I don’t…it’s so beautiful.
He turned back towards it, and after a second tilted his head slightly as the colors seemed to form some type of fuzzy landscape image. He turned back to me and I saw a tear in his eye as he said thank you. Then he laughed a little and walked through the shimmer. I wanted to follow him, but I didn’t. It wasn’t that I had anything keeping me here. I just never was one for riding my bike with my eyes closed, or swimming at night, if that makes any sense. But the second after I saw him vanish I knew I wanted to go and needed to move right then if I wanted to make it. I didn’t move though, I just stood there and watched the shimmer flash out, leaving the tunnel lit only by the pathetic light in my hand, the brilliance of the real gateway muted once more.
I don’t want to say how long I’ve been here waiting, it’s a little embarrassing, but some things are worth waiting for. What I will say is that I wanted there to be some record, of what really happened to Liam and Will Davis, and perhaps what happened to me, if I’m lucky enough to get a second chance.
I don’t know for sure that the shimmer will open again, but if it does, wherever it leads, I hope that it’s as beautiful as I imagine, I hope that if I tilt my head slightly that the image comes into focus for me, and I hope I get to see my friend again. I hope. | <urn:uuid:73bdb37a-6488-4aca-96a9-2ddac696e756> | CC-MAIN-2015-40 | https://th3scribbl3r.wordpress.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-40/segments/1443736672923.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20151001215752-00160-ip-10-137-6-227.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988721 | 10,363 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Curious Encounters: Voyaging, Collecting, and Making Knowledge in the Long Eighteenth Century
With contributions from historians, literary critics, and geographers, Curious Encounters uncovers a rich history of global voyaging, collecting, and scientific exploration in the long eighteenth century. Leaving behind grand narratives of discovery, these essays collectively restore a degree of symmetry and contingency to our understanding of encounters between European and Indigenous people. To do this the essays consider diverse agents of historical change, both human and inanimate: commodities, curiosities, texts, animals, and specimens moved through their own global circuits of knowledge and power. The voyages and collections rediscovered here do not move from a European center to a distant periphery, nor do they position European authorities as the central agents of this early era of globalization. Long distance voyagers from Greenland to the Ottoman Empire crossed paths with French, British, Polynesian, and Spanish travelers across the world, trading objects and knowledge for diverse ends. The dynamic contact zones of these curious encounters include the ice floes of the Arctic, the sociable spaces of the tea table, the hybrid material texts and objects in imperial archives, and the collections belonging to key figures of the Enlightenment, including Sir Hans Sloane and James Petiver.
- Series: UCLA Clark Memorial Library Series
- Division: Scholarly Publishing
- World Rights
- Page Count: 256 pages
- Illustrations: 15
- Dimensions: 6.0in x 0.0in x 9.0in
"This book establishes the ‘new geographies of knowledge and power’ that transformed British culture, and those that eighteenth-century explorers encountered, read, and misread. Eighteenth-century specialists, those interested in British cultural history, and literature on voyaging and colonization will appreciate Curious Encounters."
Richard C. Taylor, Department of English, East Carolina University
"Featuring an impressive list of contributors, the main purpose of Curious Encounters is a laudable one: to disseminate knowledge about early travellers and discoveries in less-trodden areas of the world."
Donald W. Nichol, Department of English, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Author InformationAdriana Craciun is the Emma MacLachlan Metcalf Chair of Humanities at Boston University.
Mary Terrall is a professor in the Department of History at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Table of contents
ADRIANA CRACIUN AND MARY TERRALL
1 The British Way of Tea: Tea as an Object of Knowledge between Britain and China, 1690–1730
2 Evliya Çelebi, Explorer on Horseback: Knowledge Gathering by a Seventeenth-Century Ottoman
3 Indigenous Voyaging, Authorship, and Discovery
4 The World in a Nicknackatory: Encounters and Exchanges in Hans Sloane’s Collection
MILES OGBORN AND VICTORIA PICKERING
5 A Slaving Surgeon’s Collection: The Pursuit of Natural History through the British Slave Trade to Spanish America
KATHLEEN S. MURPHY
6 From the Monumental to Minutiae: Serializing Polynesian Barkcloths in Eighteenth-Century Britain
7 Formal Encounters: Education, Evangelization, and the Reproduction of Custom in Seventeenth-Century Peru
8 Stadial Environmental History in the Voyage Narratives of George and John Reinhold Forster
Subjects and Courses | <urn:uuid:4377ba08-da8e-43da-af42-4bac1809ca4d> | CC-MAIN-2019-22 | https://utorontopress.com/ca/curious-encounters-2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-22/segments/1558232261326.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20190527045622-20190527071622-00442.warc.gz | en | 0.839384 | 724 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Common Mistakes in Python
In this post, you will learn how to work with common mistakes so that you can use that same knowledge and thus evolve.
||When the displayed variable is not defined|
||When indentation is not done correctly|
||When a string is not finalized (closed)|
||When a function is not closed correctly and not only|
variable = 'I\'m a string.' print(variablee) # NameError: name 'variablee' is not defined def function(): print('I\'m part of this function.') # IndentationError: expected an indented block print('I\'m also a string.)' # SyntaxError: EOL while scanning string literal print('We are all a string.' # SyntaxError: invalid syntax | <urn:uuid:a2a5ff89-fcff-4c45-876b-583ba0d10e27> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://nelsonsilvadev.com/blog/20211013/common-mistakes-in-python/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320301264.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20220119064554-20220119094554-00192.warc.gz | en | 0.732003 | 171 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Winter in many places can be a long and dark season. In the absence of sunlight one day does not seem all that different from the next or the previous.
Winter in many cultures is viewed as an ending, death, or bleak, frigid darkness. Poetically, we speak about our winter years as we grow old. Yet, in Hebrew winter does not carry this connotation. In Job 29:4, we read:
כַּאֲשֶׁר הָיִיתִי, בִּימֵי חָרְפִּי
“As I was in the days of my youth.”
The word translated “youth” is חֹרֶף/choreph, meaning autumn and winter, the picture of a gathered crop, but also youth. Why?
Winter in Hebrew isn’t considered a time of ending or, metaphorically, death; but of renewal, growth, and preparation. Life is still happening, and new life is developing beneath that snowy frozen ground; life, we cannot as of yet see, but is still active.
Whatever your condition this winter season, as difficult and different as it is this year, meditate on scriptures of renewal, and know that He is renewing you even while you appear frozen in place. Focus not on death or growing old, but on renewal.
II Corinthians 4:16
II Corinthians 5:17
Be well. Shalom. | <urn:uuid:b45bc059-d7ae-44a6-9c23-92ddce4c6163> | CC-MAIN-2022-27 | https://themountainmensch.com/2021/02/09/the-winter-of-life/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-27/segments/1656103669266.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20220630062154-20220630092154-00362.warc.gz | en | 0.94792 | 364 | 2.734375 | 3 |
“Elizabeth: The Golden Age,” a new film about Queen Elizabeth opens today in theaters. There is nothing new, however, about the way British Catholics are depicted compared to their Protestant counterparts.
According to the New York Times, the portrayal of the “Catholic-led holy war” waged by Spain’s King Philip II against Elizabeth, “with its ominous monks and Latin chants, reeks of ‘The Da Vinci Code.’” And the National Catholic Register’s critic reports that the flick shows that “everything bad, evil and corrupt in the world ultimately is the bitter fruit of…Catholicism.” In contrast, Protestantism represents “conscience, religious freedom, and of course heroic resistance to Catholic oppression.”
Such bigotry against Catholicism is rather old-fashioned. The notion that Catholics are conspiratorial, socially backward and not to be trusted by their enlightened, Protestant neighbors was abandoned long ago by many across the pond. It is far from dead, however. Even now, in the twenty-first century, neither a Catholic nor anyone married to a Catholic may hold the throne in the United Kingdom. This is one of the lingering effects of Elizabeth’s reign. | <urn:uuid:e5c7749f-a1d3-4b73-abc3-7fd87609825d> | CC-MAIN-2021-17 | https://www.catholicleague.org/same-old-bigotry-in-elizabeth-the-golden-age/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-17/segments/1618038088731.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20210416065116-20210416095116-00599.warc.gz | en | 0.956653 | 254 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Cavities are decay growing from inside your tooth. It eats away at the pulp of your tooth, and can even eat through the hardest substance in the human body - tooth enamel.
If you have a cavity, the easiest way to treat it is by having your dentist remove the cavity, then fill it. This restores your tooth and lets your tooth be safe. However, your tooth will continue to decay if you don't get it treated properly.
When a Cavity is Left Untreated
At first, cavities start off small. They are literally too small for a dentist to notice when they first get started. They take time to grow. The cleaner you keep your mouth, the longer they usually take to grow. After some time, they are able to be seen, either by a manual examination or on an x-ray. This is usually when a cavity gets treated with a filling.
If that cavity is left alone, it will continue to grow. It will invade any space it can while it grows, and it doesn't have any type of concern about what types of tissues it pushes into. This can leave your tooth to become hollowed out and prone to fracture. Plus, it can also put a lot of bacteria right next to your gums, leading to gum disease.
Eventually, a cavity will consume the entire tooth. The tooth will break, and it will not be able to be salvaged. This won't be a painless process, and it will leave you in pain as you go. You never want this to happen to any of your teeth.
Talk to your dentist if you suspect you have a cavity. They will take a look and let you know what treatment option will work best for you. Typically, this simply means getting a filling, but sometimes it means a root canal.
If you have any questions or would like to schedule an appointment, please call us at (503) 968-6101 today. | <urn:uuid:3d2e6c63-8a89-4d56-9c13-9366fbdb1dbe> | CC-MAIN-2018-05 | http://totalhealthdental.com/index.asp?N=BLOG-40450-2017.8.15-The-Dangers-of-Not-Treating-a-Cavity&C=1006&P=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-05/segments/1516084891980.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20180123151545-20180123171545-00523.warc.gz | en | 0.970906 | 398 | 2.828125 | 3 |
If you can’t find what you’re looking for, feel free to reach out to email@example.com
We are planting trees together with our partners Eden Reforestation Projects and WeForest in Kenya, Mozambique and Zambia. Our tree planting partners plants native species trees only. They never plant or introduce any invasive species at any of their project sites. Our projects in these countries include various species.
In Kenya and Mozambique, the main focus is on mangrove trees for now. Research indicates that mangroves sequester carbon at a rate two to four times greater than mature tropical forests. Mangroves also contain the highest carbon density of all terrestrial ecosystems. Furthermore, it is known that mangroves play an important role in coastal ecosystems, and are renowned for an array of ecosystem services, including fisheries and fibre production, sediment regulation, and storm/tsunami protection.
In Zambia, the main restoration approach here is Assisted Natural Regeneration. This involves protecting and nurturing wild tree seedlings. This process is carried out all year round and serves to promote the natural succession of the forest.
‘Trees are the lungs of the earth’, you’ve probably heard that before – and for a reason. That’s because trees help the planet breathe by turning carbon dioxide into clean, pure oxygen. In addition to that trees and forests around the world also act like the planet’s air conditioning system and keep the planet cool. Global tree restoration is considered as one of the most effective carbon drawdown solutions to date.
The main species we plant through our partner, Eden Reforestation Projects, are mangroves. The name ‘mangroves’ refers to approximately 110 tree species that are able to survive in saline or brackish water and are found in intertidal zones along tropical and subtropical coasts around the world. Each mangrove tree planted removes over 308kg of CO2 over its 25-year lifespan, or 12 kg of CO2 per tree per year. Importantly, investment in mangrove protection and restoration is key to helping developing countries meeting their National Determined Contributions of the Paris Agreement.
We value the importance and impact of tree planting but are nonetheless conservative in the amount of CO2 sequestration that we attribute to our trees. Although 300 kilograms of CO2 per tree is scientifically defendable, we calculate 125 kilograms per tree. This is related due to the fact that trees first new to fully grow before to become truely effective and because our tree planting projects are not verified. Certification of carbon compensation is important as it creates a measurable impact, but we feel that the actual impact of a project is what matters most. Although these planting projects are not certified for now, the impact of these projects is huge. Next to the fact that trees do capture big amounts of CO2, the tree planting projects also present a great benefit to local communities. Our planting partners utilize an “Employ to Plant” methodology to benefit the members in these local communities. Through steady employment, impoverished villagers can begin to afford daily necessities such as food, shelter, clothing, and medicine.
Our partners hire local villagers to grow, plant, and guard to maturity native species forest on a massive scale. Their “employ to plant methodology” results in a multiplication of positive socio-economic and environment measures. In this way, they alleviate extreme poverty within the impacted community. This also ensures that the villagers have an economic incentive to ensure the wellbeing of the reforestation project. They also have a sense of “ownership” over the trees and restored forest and they protect it with great care.
If a project is certified this means that voluntary carbon credits have been issued. A carbon credit is a certificate representing one metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent that is either prevented from being emitted into the atmosphere (emissions avoidance/reduction) or removed from the atmosphere as the result of a carbon-reduction project. For a carbon-reduction project to generate carbon credits, it needs to demonstrate that the achieved emission reductions or carbon dioxide removals are real, measurable, permanent, additional, independently verified, and unique. Additionally, it is important that appropriate safeguards are in place to ensure projects comprehensively address and mitigate all potential environmental and social risks.
If a project meets these criteria—as specified by independent standards such as Gold Standard and Verified Carbon Standard (VCS)—credits can be issued. The impact of a carbon credit can only be claimed—that is, counted toward a climate commitment—once the credit has been retired (cancelled in a registry), after which it can no longer be sold.1 In the case of our users, Regreener retires the credits their behalf.
For example, in case of a renewable energy project, the amount calculated is the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that the climate protection project reduces or avoids. If the renewable energy project avoids the emission of 100.000 metric tonnes of CO2, 100.000 credits are issued for this project. Once issued, these certificates can be traded on carbon markets. Once certificates are bought, these can be retired. A retired credit can never be traded again. Retiring a credit means taking it off the market. Therefore, the party that retires a certificate can claim the amount of CO2 (in metric tonnes) compensated through these certificates.
Before we invest in a certain project by buying and retiring carbon credits, we discuss the relevant project with one of our Climate Science Advisors, which are experts with a background in climate and environmental science.
Gold Standard was established in 2003 by WWF and other international NGOs to ensure projects that reduced carbon emissions featured the highest levels of environmental integrity and also contributed to sustainable development. Gold Standard is a standard and logo certification mark program for non-governmental emission reductions projects in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), the Voluntary Carbon Market and other climate and development interventions. It is published and administered by the Gold Standard Foundation, a non-profit foundation headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. It was designed with an intent to ensure that carbon credits are real and verifiable and that projects make measurable contributions to sustainable development.
Gold Standard is considered the most rigorous climate standard by many NGOs, including WWF and the David Suzuki Foundation. Gold Standard verified projects provide additional social and community benefits in addition to high quality carbon offsetting. Gold Standard-certified projects have created over $20.5 billion in shared value for climate action and sustainable development.
Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) was founded in 2005 by environmental and business leaders who saw the need for greater quality assurance in voluntary carbon markets. VCS now serves as a secretariat for the various standards they develop and programs they manage, as well as an incubator of new ideas that can generate meaningful environmental and social value at scale. VCS is a global leader helping to tackle the world’s most intractable environmental and social challenges by developing and managing standards that help the private sector, countries, and civil society achieve ambitious sustainable development and climate action goals. The VCS Program is the world’s most widely used voluntary greenhouse gas (GHG) program. Over 1,600 certified Verra VCS projects have collectively reduced or removed more than 500 million tonnes of carbon and other GHG emissions from the atmosphere.
The impact and quality of a carbon-reducing project is measured by a third-party that certifies the project to international standards. These standards ensure that the projects are what we say they are: real, permanent and truely green. The third-party will monitor the project to ensure it delivers to its promises.
Additionally, these certification bodies also employ third parties to audit the projects to completely remove any conflict of interest in the reporting. The are different standards, but we have choosen to pick the best projects out there through Gold Standard and Verra Carbon Standard (VCS).
Based on the data from Eden Reforestation Projects (our tree planting partner), the survival rate of the trees we plant is well over 80 percent.
The great thing about mangrove trees is that between years three and five these trees begin to produce their own propagules (baby mangrove trees). This results in a proliferation of natural regeneration. Multiple studies demonstrate the initial survival rate combined with natural regeneration results in a luxuriant impact ranging between 150-500 percent.
On a personal or business level, you can keep track of your impact in your profile. In here you can find detailed information about the projects you have supported.
On community level we publish monthly updates on our Financials page. We believe transparency is key and believe leaving a full paper trail of what we do and why we do it is the way to is the right thing to do.
We publish certificates of how many tonnes of CO2 (‘carbon credits’) were prevented from entering the atmosphere or removed from it. The standards of these projects are certified by Gold Standard and Verra Carbon Standard. Additionally we publish donations receipts related to our rainforest protection program that we have established with our partner Rainforest Partnership. As for the trees planted, you can see the corresponding proofs of purchase from our tree planting partners, Eden Projects Projec and WeForest.
If our community grows big enough: yes! In the fight against climate change, every step in the right direction is important. Human behavior has a huge impact on climate change. We don’t say this to point a finger here, but it is up to us as mankind to undo the damage that was done by us. Billions of people across the world are worried about the direction we are heading. If lots of people join our platform to compensate their carbon footprint, whilst becoming more conscious of their footprints’ impact, this will make a huge difference. As a matter of fact: this will alter the course we’re on. It is important to say that even a gigantic Regreener community alone won’t cut it though. This initiative will not stop climate change or undo all damage that has been done. However, we do sincerely believe that our community will make a difference. We need joint action, and all green initiatives are helpful. If you want to do your part, please sign up now!
In addition to directly funding CO2-reducing projects such as tree planting and green energy projects, we feel that innovation has a big role to play in accelerating the process of reaching our goals. More efficient ways to plant trees and a data-driven approach to (common) progress are examples of what can make a huge positive impact. Therefore our aim is to be an innovative company that works on solving the challenges we face by doing research, developing new tools and supporting innovation throughout the ecosystem services sector.
No, Regreener is not a non-profit organisation but a sustainable commercial company. Being a non-profit organisation comes with certain (financial) limitations. Although Regreener is a sustainable commercial company, we are otherwise operating like a charity, by picking the best elements that serve our cause: publicly publishing financial information, customer revenue data, and impact data. Also, our margin of 25% is up there with the best charities. As it is our mission to have as big as an impact as possible, having a self-sustaining business model is the most efficient way of running our business. We want to be as streamlined and efficient as possible, being able to scale and attract top talent to reach our goals: regreen the world and fight climate change.
We are not a charity, but a sustainable commercial company. So, you might wonder what our business model looks like. This is what happens to your money after you subscribe to our platform:
Step 1: After receiving your money, we pay VAT (value-added tax) to the government. On your invoice, you can see that 21% VAT is added to the purchase price. This 21% is paid to the tax authorities immediately. What’s left after paying the VAT is our revenue.
Step 2: 75% of our revenue goes into our climate change fighting projects and relevant transaction costs. This part of our revenue is called the Regreener Climate Fund. Through this fund we support some of the best climate change fighting projects out there. We plant trees, support anti-deforestation groups and invest in green energy and renewables. These projects compensate your carbon footprint. In your profile, you can see how much impact you have had so far by supporting these climate change solutions. Your profile shows the amount of trees planted and the CO2 that is compensated on your behalf. Your impact is visible and measurable, and the way your money is spent is transparent. We also publish proof of our tree planting, our carbon certificates and the donations that were made on behalf of the Regreener community. Therefore, the impact of the entire Regreener Community is transparent as well.
Step 3:The other 25% of our revenue is used to to run Regreener and to grow our platform. This part is used for things like transaction fees, team member compensation, hosting, licenses, marketing, IT & software, accounting, office rent and office costs. As it is our goal to create a big Regreener community, it is unavoidable that we make these costs. We want to create a community that has the power to really make a change. That’s why we need to spread the word. For that, just like any other company, we need people and resources.
You can spread the word by telling everyone around you about your experience with Regreener, and you can help up by leaving a (positive) review on Trustpilot. Furthermore, feel free to share your profile on your social media using the sharing options in your profile.
To calculate a baseline footprint, which we use for our monthly plans and one-time contributions we use multiple data sets:
- Data from the World Bank which reports CO2 and other greenhouse emissions that occur in your country.
- Data from the Global Carbon Project which reports emissions embedded in imports from overseas. We combine these imported emissions with the country of residence emissions.
On top of that we add an extra 10% to ensure that each member is becoming climate positive by offsetting more than their footprint.
At the moment, we are busy creating a personalized footprint calculator, which will provide our users with a precize estimate or their actual footprint. However, creating and optimizing a good and reliable calculator takes time. If you wish to receive updates on the footprint calculator and the geolocation, please sign up to our newsletter by using the sign-up function at the bottom of this page. If you already wish to calculate your carbon footprint now, we recommend the WWF Footprint Calculator.
The two factors responsible for this difference in prices are VAT (value-added tax) and commuter traffic.
Prices for personal plans are including 21% VAT. The VAT is paid to the tax authorities in whole. The prices voor business are exluding VAT, because businesses can reclaim the VAT they pay at the relevant tax authority. Therefore, VAT is irrelevant for businesses.
So, when we compare the personal and business prices including VAT, the prices for businesses are in fact higher than the prices for personal plans. These prices differ because of commuter traffic. We feel that carbon emissions as a result of commuter traffic should be compensated by the employer, not the employee. That’s why, for businesses, commuter traffic is included in the average carbon footprint calculations, and prices are a bit higher. | <urn:uuid:919edd39-8861-4120-9be6-3d8e9f4ddfc0> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://regreener.eu/faq/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337680.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20221005234659-20221006024659-00439.warc.gz | en | 0.944975 | 3,183 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Rapid advancements in the field of electronics promise a new and more competent future to humanity by enlightening all aspects of life. From the era of the late 19th century when the first bulk amount of electricity developed to 2017, where electricity is considered to be a basic need for people, electronics and electrical industry have come a long way.
In simple words, electricity is a great boon for modern science and modern people as well. Today, imagining a life without electricity is completely impossible. In the last couple of years, the application of electricity also has drastically changed, and in the recent era, electricity is a must for various industries including:
Every single applications and operation of engineering and technical activities solely depend on the employment of electricity. From building certain materials to welding, an engineering workshop needs electrical energy in each and every step of the operation.
- Communication & Transportation:
Without electricity, services related to transportation and communications are impossible to operate. Though some battery and solar-fuelled machinery have been introduced in the last few years, electricity is still counted as the backbone of such industries.
Modern healthcare system firmly depends on electricity. Though advancements in technology privileged us with various healthcare machinery and tools, without electricity, they all seem to be good for nothing. | <urn:uuid:ad7895a5-7b51-46a7-bab1-bdf14298c154> | CC-MAIN-2018-22 | http://www.gojicollective.co.uk/3-leading-industries-electricity-backbone/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-22/segments/1526794864558.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20180521220041-20180522000041-00352.warc.gz | en | 0.95307 | 254 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Reducing the Carbon Footprint
The explosive growth of Wireless technology is leading to considerable social and lifestyle changes. Power consumption is a key aspect in Wireless technologies, not just from a user perspective, but also in reducing the Carbon footprint. Power Efficiency needs to be factored from Conceptualization to implementation and cannot be introduced as an afterthought. Power efficiency needs to be addressed in both Algorithm and implementation. Algorithmic innovation from Scheduling to Power Amplifier efficiency improvement can considerably reduce Power usage. Implementation techniques including the right HW-SW Partition can further aid power reduction.
Digital Pre Distortion
BigCat Wireless has considerable and in-depth expertise to create and deploy a DPD solution for 4G/5G. A case study to illustrate the adaptaion performance based on mesaurements (post attenuation) is illustrated in the pictures below. | <urn:uuid:09034c6d-4f8c-4e5e-b074-341143fc2856> | CC-MAIN-2020-50 | https://www.bigcatwireless.com/power-efficiency | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-50/segments/1606141191692.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20201127103102-20201127133102-00642.warc.gz | en | 0.924801 | 176 | 2.625 | 3 |
Lesson 6-1 Hemocrit
The hematocrit or the packed-cell volume is the percentage of the total volume of red blood cells in relation to the total volume of whole blood. The term "hematocrit" is derived from two Greek words: Hemato, meaning blood; and Krites, meaning to judge (then reduced to crit, meaning to separate). The procedure is performed by filling a capillary tube with blood and centrifuging at a constant speed for a constant period of time. The packet cell volume is then measured. The hematocrit can also be determined by automated sequential analyzers but is usually a calculated value.
The hematocrit is the most useful single index for determining the degree of anemia or polycythemia. It can be the most accurate (2-4 percent error) of all hematological determinations. In contrast, the direct red blood cell chamber count has a percent error of 8-10 percent. The hematocrit is, therefore, preferable to the red blood cell count as a screening test for anemia. The values for the hematocrit closely parallel the values for the hemoglobin and red blood cell count.
A capillary tube is filled with whole blood by capillary action to within one to two cm of the end. The unfilled end is sealed and the tube is centrifuged. After centrifugation, the capillary tube is placed in a reading device and the hematocrit value determined.
(1) If anticoagulated venous blood is the specimen, fill a plain capillary tube with blood. If blood without anticoagulant is used, fill a heparinized capillary tube with the blood specimen. A heparinized capillary tube is identified by red line on the tube specimen. A heparinized capillary tube is identified by a red line on the tube.
(2) Allow blood to enter two capillary tubes until they are approximately 2/3 filled with blood. Air bubbles denote poor technique, but do not affect the results of the test.
(3) Seal the unfilled ends of the tubes with clay.
(4) Place the two hematocrit tubes in the radial grooves of the centrifuge head exactly opposite each other, with the sealed end away from the center of the centrifuge.(5) Screw the flat centrifuge head cover in place.
(6) Centrifuge at 10,000 rpm for 5 minutes.
(7) Remove the hematocrit tubes as soon as the centrifuge has stopped spinning. Determine the hematocrit values with the aid of a microhematocrit reader. Results should agree within +1 percent. If they do not, repeat the procedure.
| NOTE: Since there are a variety of readers available, it is necessary that the technician carefully follow the directions of the manufacturer for the particular device utilized. |
c. Sources of Error.
(1) Inadequate mixing of the blood prior to sampling.
(2) Improper sealing of the capillary tube causes the blood to blow out of the capillary tube during centrifugation.
(3) Capillary tubes must be properly identified. Numbered holders for capillary tubes are available. Place the tubes in slots on the holder and record the numbers on the laboratory request slip.
(4) Improper centrifugation leads to varied results. For good quality control, maintain prescribed centrifuge speed and time. (5) Misreading the red cell level by including the buffy coat causes elevated values.
(1) The microhematocrit technique is advantageous because of speed, and because only a small quantity of blood is necessary for the determination. An additional advantage is the ease with which this procedure is adapted to infants and small children. The microhematocrit technique requires only a simple capillary puncture whereas in the Wintrobe method venous blood must be used. Another advantage is the use of disposable capillary tubes.
(2) If the microhematocrits cannot be read promptly, the capillary tubes must be properly identified and placed in a vertical position. Slanting of the cell layer will occur if tubes are left in a horizontal position for more than 30 minutes.(3) Hematocrit results may also be obtained or computed through use of an automated cell counter. Hematocrit calculated on the automated hematology analyzer is calculated from the determination of MCV and RBCs. The computation makes no allowance for the trapped plasma that always occurs to some degree in manual packing procedures.
e. Normal Values.
(1) Birth: 45 to 60 percent.
(2) Male: 40 to 52 percent.
(3) Female: 36 to 48 percent. | <urn:uuid:42c1cef8-3379-432d-af26-594186a5770c> | CC-MAIN-2018-17 | http://www.free-ed.net/free-ed/Courses/06%20MedHealth/MD%20Series/MD0853/Hematology.asp?iNum=0601 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-17/segments/1524125945448.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20180421203546-20180421223546-00329.warc.gz | en | 0.897435 | 989 | 3.96875 | 4 |
TOKYO — One must accept a risk of radiation exposure when flying in and out of Narita International Airport, the busiest airport in Japan, just east of Tokyo, but perhaps not for the reason you are thinking.
Fukushima Daiichi, the tsunami-damaged nuclear reactor site about 150 miles (241 kilometers) to the north, as the foolish crow flies, continues to leak trace amounts of radiation. Radioactive iodine-131 made it into the water supply here last month. But most, as physics would have it, has since decayed into stable xenon.
So, few in this Tokyo region have been exposed to radiation levels as high as someone just hopping off a plane. The international flyer receives a dose of about 0.10 millisievert, or the amount of ionizing radiation in two dental X-rays, from the sun's radioactive cosmic rays. That means that folks who left Tokyo because of the threat at Fukushima likely received more radiation on the airplane flight than they would have if they had stayed at home. [Mysterious Radiation May Strike Airline Passengers]
Such is the irony of nuclear energy, so potentially dangerous yet so much remarkably safer than most other energy sources, namely coal and other fossil fuels.
Dirty, dirty coal
As bad as Japan's nuclear emergency could have gotten, it would never be as bad as burning coal. Coal is fantastically dangerous, responsible for far more than 1 million deaths per year, according to the World Health Organization.
Start with the coal miners, thousands of whom die from mine collapses and thousands more from various lung diseases. Next, add the hundreds of thousands of deaths in the public from breathing coal's gaseous and particulate pollution, mostly from respiratory and heart disease.
Next, add the untold deaths and disabilities resulting from mercury in coal entering into the food chain. Then add the millions of acres of land, river and lake destroyed by mining waste.
Some of China's citizens worried about a radioactive wind blowing over from Japan, but coal-burning power plants from China are causing far more health problems for both China and Japan.
Coal even releases more radioactive material than nuclear energy — 100 times more per the same amount of energy produced, according to Dana Christensen of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), as reported in Scientific American in 2007.
According to WHO statistics, there are at least 4,025 deaths from coal for every single death from nuclear power. Switch to "clean" natural gas? That's still 100 times deadlier than nuclear energy. Oil is 900 times deadlier.
Not many are expected to die from the Fukushima Daiichi accident.
The U.S. DOE predicts a yearly dose of about 2,000 millirems for some people living northwest of the nuclear facility within 19 miles (31 kilometers), which could slightly increase their cancer risk if they haven't left the area. But Japanese health authorities were quick to warn the public not to eat certain local foods with harmful levels of radioactivity, namely milk and spinach; people living within 12 miles (19 km) of the nuclear facility have been evacuated as a precaution; more are expected to be evacuated; and radiation levels continue to fall daily.
Reduce, reuse, recycle
Not that nuclear energy is safe. This is a comparative exercise. Part of the reason why nuclear energy is safer is that we store the radioactive waste in drums with the assumption that maybe in a hundred years or so we'll figure out how to render it non-radioactive.
But here and now, nuclear energy's problems are clear. The area around Fukushima Daiichi will be a ghost town for generations. Even if it is deemed safe, no one will eat the food from there, given other choices. No one will want to work or go to school there, given other choices. The livelihood of tens of thousands of Japanese people has been forever ruined.
In fact, all energy sources are harmful when factoring in a human population of about 7 billion. Wind turbines are noisy and chop up birds and bats, after all. The true environmental mantra always has been to consume less, to be more energy-efficient.
One would think that Japan has learned this lesson. But aside from the rolling blackouts in Tokyo — done for supply-and-demand reasons, not conservation — nothing seems to be cutting back on the vast energy consumption that enables the glow from thousands of pachinko parlors to obfuscate every star from the night sky above this fair city.
The Japanese do have one perspective straight: While international news coverage remains focused on the day-to-day trials at Fukushima Daiichi, most of the local news here concerns the approximately 300,000 displaced survivors of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and the death toll that might exceed 25,000.
The site of rotting human bodies, as well as fish, cattle, dogs and cats amongst unspeakable destruction, is a profound reminder that natural catastrophes, in but a few minutes, can dwarf any catastrophe that foolish humans can produce. [In Photos: Rescued Pets in Japan]
(Note to reader: I couldn't bring any potassium iodine to Japan even if I wanted, because the west coast of America has stockpiled the entire commercial supply, god love 'em, ensuring that anyone who would need it wouldn't get it.)
Christopher Wanjek is the author of the books "Bad Medicine" and "Food At Work." His column, Bad Medicine, appears regularly on LiveScience. | <urn:uuid:e5ddce8b-26a4-4373-8791-0d463fbfe5fd> | CC-MAIN-2019-47 | https://www.livescience.com/13876-nuclear-energy-dangers-coal.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-47/segments/1573496672170.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20191122222322-20191123011322-00170.warc.gz | en | 0.950356 | 1,127 | 3.390625 | 3 |
The World to Come
It's an individual Jew's ultimate reward, but the nature of the World to Come has always been disputed.
Excerpted and reprinted with permission from The Jewish Religion: A Companion, published by Oxford University Press.
The World to Come usually refers to one of three things: the way the world will be in the End of Days when the righteous are resurrected; a world of immortal souls that will follow the age of resurrection; or a heavenly world enjoyed by righteous souls immediately after death (i.e. prior to the End of Days). However, believing that the World to Come refers to one of these does not necessarily entail a negative belief in the others.
There is considerable ambiguity regarding the meaning of the rabbinic doctrine of the World to Come (Heb. Olam Ha‑Ba) and its relation to the resurrection of the dead. In the Middle Ages, Maimonides is alone in identifying the World to Come with the immortality of the soul [a "period" that follows the age of resurrection], while Nahmanides is emphatic that it refers to this world, which will be renewed, after the resurrection.
For instance, the Mishnah (Sanhedrin 10:1) states that one who denies the resurrection will have no share in the World to Come, upon which the Talmud (Sanhedrin 90a) comments that this severe punishment is meted out to him on the principle of measure for measure; since he denies the resurrection it is only just that he does not rise at the resurrection. In this passage, at least, the World to Come is identified with the resurrection, though it is not absolutely certain that the Mishnah itself identifies the two so closely.
In later Jewish thought the World to Come becomes a generic term for the Hereafter.
The Mishnah quoted begins with the words: "All Israel has a share in the World to Come" but then continues that some Israelites, for example, those who deny the resurrection or that the Torah is from Heaven, do not have a share in the World to Come.
In the Tosefta (Sanhedrin 13:2) there is a debate between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua on whether the World to Come is reserved for Jews or whether this blissful state is the reward of Gentiles as well. Rabbi Joshua holds that "the righteous of all peoples have a share in the World to Come" and this became the official view of Judaism.
The other‑worldly thrust is evident in the whole of Jewish thought until the modern period. Of the numerous rabbinic teachings about the World to Come, the following are typical of this thrust.
The Mishnah (Bava Metzia 2:11) rules that if a man's father and his teacher have lost something, he should first try to restore the article lost by his teacher, since a father brings his child into this world whereas a teacher of the Torah brings his students to the World to Come. In Ethics of the Fathers (4:16) it is said that this world is like a vestibule before the World to Come. "Prepare yourself in the vestibule, that you may enter into the hall of the palace."
Yet the statement of the second-century teacher, Rabbi Jacob, also in Ethics of the Fathers (4:17) acts against a too‑hasty claim that according to the Rabbis this world is only a preparation or school for the World to Come and has no intrinsic good. Rabbi Jacob's famous teaching reads: "Better is one hour of repentance and good deeds in this world than the whole life of the World to Come; and better is one hour of blissfulness of spirit in the World to Come than the whole life of this world."
Significant in this connection is the saying of Rav (relied on by Maimonides for his identification of the World to Come with spiritual bliss of the soul rather than the resurrection): "In the World to Come there is no eating nor drinking nor propagation nor business nor jealousy nor hatred nor competition, but the righteous sit with their crowns on their heads feasting on the brightness of the Shekhinah" (Berakhot 17a). Yet the Jerusalem Talmud (Kiddushin 4:12) quotes the same teacher, Rav, who is so eloquent on the purely spiritual nature of bliss in the Hereafter, as saying that in the World toCome a man will be obliged to give an account and a reckoning before the judgment seat of God for every legitimate pleasure he denied himself in this world.
Very striking, too, is the saying (Berakhot 57b) that three things afford a foretaste in miniature of the bliss of the World to Come: the Sabbath, sexual intercourse, and a sunny day, although the Gemara is doubtful whether sexual intercourse should be included since it results in weakness of the body.
In the light of the above it is difficult to give an unqualified reply to the question of whether Judaism is a this‑worldly or all other‑worldly religion. Risking a generalization, it can be said that the other‑worldly thrust predominates in times of oppression and the this‑worldly in times of prosperity.
The Purpose of This World is to Get to the Next
Moses Hayyim Luzzatto's The Path of the Upright, compiled in the eighteenth century, is typical of the other‑worldly approach. Luzzatto begins his guide to holy living with these words:
"It is the foundation of saintliness and the perfect worship of God for a man to realize what constitutes his duty in his world and to which aim he is required to direct all his endeavors throughout his life. Now our Sages, of blessed memory, have taught us that man was created only to find delight in the Lord and to bask in the radiance of His Shekhinah for this is the true happiness and the greatest of all possible delights. The real place in which such delight can be attained is the World to Come, for this has been prepared to this very purpose. But the way to attain to this desired goal is this world. This world, the Sages remark, is like a vestibule before the World to Come. The means by which man reaches this goal are the precepts God, blessed be He, has commanded us and the place in which the precepts are to be carried out is only in this world. Man is put here in order to earn with the means at his command the place that has been prepared for him in the World to Come."
Luzzatto concludes this section of his work by saying that man is tempted in this life both by prosperity and by adversity and adds: "If he is valorous and wins the battle from every side, he becomes the perfect man who will have the merit of becoming attached to his Creator. Then he will emerge from the vestibule of this world to enjoy the Light of Life."
Luzzatto here seems to identify the World to Come, partly at least, with the fate of the soul after death [i.e. heaven, Gan Eden], though it is clear from the work as a whole that Luzzatto believes in the final resurrection.
A Hasidic View
In Hasidism and the Musar movement, the World to Come is conceived of partly in terms of spiritual bliss of the soul after the death of the body. It is not that the doctrine of resurrection is denied in these movements, but it is treated as a mystery so far beyond human apprehension that speculation on it is futile. Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady follows the intellectual thrust of the Habad movement, of which he was the founder, when he writes (at the beginning of his Likkutey Torah):
"It is well known that the concept 'the World to Come' means that souls enjoy the radiance of the Shekhinah and this delight that the soul enjoys is nothing other than comprehension of the divine. For we know from experience that there is no enjoyment and no delight whatsoever unless the thing enjoyed has been grasped in the mind. It follows that delight in the divine must first become substantial and have a separate identity in the process of the soul's enjoyment before the soul can enjoy it."
The idea is also found in Hasidic works that the saints can enjoy the bliss of the World to Come even while on earth. […]
Reform Judaism, following to some extent Philo and Maimonides, does preserve the concept [of the World to Come] but identifies the World to Come with the immortality of the soul.
Conservative Judaism, too, generally follows the Reform line, though both Reform and Conservative Judaism tend to veer towards the naturalistic understanding of the doctrine. This cannot be stated too categorically, however, and many Reform and Conservative Jews still accept the doctrine of the World to Come in its traditional formulation, at least in terms of the immortality of the soul.
Some of the Orthodox as well place the emphasis on the immortality of the soul but, if it is possible to speak of the official Orthodox position in these matters, it obviously includes the resurrection of the dead after the age of the Messiah in its doctrine of the World to Come.
Did you like this article? MyJewishLearning is a not-for-profit organization. | <urn:uuid:2dd10cb8-1218-437f-aa7c-aa160a86b49e> | CC-MAIN-2014-41 | http://myjewishlearning.com/beliefs/Theology/Afterlife_and_Messiah/Life_After_Death/World_to_Come.shtml?p=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-41/segments/1410657136963.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20140914011216-00112-ip-10-234-18-248.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962831 | 1,910 | 2.9375 | 3 |
John R. Christy, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, and Alabama's state climatologist, is an expert on Earth's recent temperature history, as derived from microwave sensors on polar-orbiting satellites. Though he has contributed since the early 1990s to reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—the large collaboration of scientists that regularly assesses global warming for the United Nations—Christy considers the expert consensus overstated and unduly alarmist.
IEEE Spectrum: Tell us please about your work on the world's temperature and its significance.
John Christy: Since 1978, we've been able to monitor the bulk atmospheric temperature, which tells you whether heat has been accumulating or not. What we've found is an upward trend over 31 years of about 13/100 of a degree Celsius per decade. But you also see typical ups and downs: During the first two decades, temperatures were fairly flat, and increases were below the three-decade average. But with the big 1997 El Niño, there was a shift upward, and after that, temperatures were flat again but above average.
Spectrum: How does this record from microwave satellite observations differ from the temperature record compiled from other sources?
JC: Readings taken at the surface show 0.16 or 0.17 degrees of warming per decade—a bit more than the microwave readings. That may not seem such a great difference, but climate models indicate that if greenhouse gases are causing this warming, the upper atmosphere ought to be warming by about 1.2 times that of the surface, not less.
Spectrum: Is this discrepancy at the heart of your issues with what's often described as the "consensus temperature record"? Professors at the University of East Anglia, in the UK, have played a big role in establishing that record, and I see that in their hacked e-mail, you are one of the individuals who was mentioned most frequently in a negative way.
JC: They rely on readings from surface thermometers, but those have often been affected by developments like urbanization and deforestation, so they are not a precise proxy for what's going on in the atmosphere, where greenhouse gases are supposed to have their largest effect.
Spectrum: What has been the relationship between the East Anglia researchers and Britain's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research? (Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher set up Hadley two decades ago, locating it with Britain's prestigious Meteorological Office, to be a world authority on all matters having to do with climate change.)
JC: I was a visiting scientist at Hadley for two summers and got to see firsthand how they work together with East Anglia. At the end of the month, East Anglia's Phil Jones would send the land data to Hadley, which would take a critical look and combine that with their sea-surface data, and then the two teams would release what would be known as the HadCRU (for East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit) temperature data set.
Spectrum: So what's described as the "consensus temperature history" is, in effect, the Hadley-East Anglia history?
Spectrum: I'm sure you don't want to speak for whoever hacked into East Anglia's e-mail, but is it a fair guess that East Anglia was picked precisely because of its key role in establishing the consensus temperature record?
JC: Actually, the mail may not have been hacked. Evidently, it was compiled to comply with a Freedom of Information request, and that folder may have been released as an inside job or inadvertently.
Spectrum: Had Freedom of Information requests been lodged because of concerns that inconvenient data were being concealed or dissenting views suppressed?
JC: What's disturbing in the mail is the resistance to share fundamental data with the outside community. That raised a lot of suspicions and red flags, and now we see that those suspicions were well justified.
Spectrum: The e-mail scandal obviously raises basic questions about the culture and ethics of science as it was being practiced at East Anglia, but tell me this: In what you've seen, is there any evidence that the temperature record was seriously distorted, or is there evidence of outright fraud?
JC: When it comes to the record of surface temperatures that Phil Jones led, I don't think it's going to change very much. More serious is the paleoclimate reconstruction from tree rings and so on. Here there was an attempt to give an impression of a time series that the underlying data did not support.
Spectrum: So the temperature record for the past few decades is fairly intact, but the record going back, say, a thousand years may now be open to dispute?
JC: That's right.
Spectrum: From ice cores, we have a pretty accurate temperature record going back about a million years. So why are the recent decades and the past thousand years so singularly controversial?
JC: Well, the key here is that we want to know just how warm it was during the medieval warm period. If it was warmer then than now, natural variability would seem to be a legitimate reason for current warming.
Spectrum: Do you agree with MIT's Richard Lindzen that we are now just bouncing back from the "little ice age" that lasted from the 15th century to the 19th century?
JC: For the most part, yes.
Spectrum: Dr. Christy, you and I seem to be almost exact contemporaries, having graduated from college at the end of the sixties. But I see you only got your Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences in 1987. May I ask what you were doing in the intervening years?
JC: I was very much involved in missionary work, and I taught physics and chemistry for two years in Africa. That experience informed a lot of what I do and think today. I saw firsthand what it means to have energy and what it means to not have it. Without energy, life is brutal and short.
Spectrum: We often hear the religious-minded speak about our responsibility to be stewards of the earth. What do you think about that?
JC: It sounds like you're on the side of the angels when you say you want to save the planet. But if you're talking about preventing energy from expanding in the Third World, you're condemning people to perpetual poverty. What's more, it's economic development that creates the cleanest environments we have. You don't find clean rivers or clean air in the poorest countries. | <urn:uuid:c80da451-041e-423a-8a94-f5fbe6ea95e3> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/environment/a-critical-perspective-on-climategate | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280791.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00265-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969651 | 1,338 | 3.578125 | 4 |
43 - Positive Discipline Ch. 4 - 6
Post date: May 26, 2016 2:07:56 PM
Counselor Notes 43
December 17, 2015
Positive Discipline Chapters 4 - 6
For this edition of the Counselor Notes, I am going to give some of the highlights of Positive Discipline’s chapters 4 through 6.
Chapter 4: A New Look At Misbehavior
This is one of the longer chapters in the book – and one of the most important. We act in accordance with our perceptions. If we perceive a situation accurately we are more like to react in ways that address a problem rather than make it worse.
Dr. Nelsen breaks children’s problematic behavior down into four mistaken goals with the corresponding mistaken beliefs:
1. Undue Attention – The mistaken belief: I belong only when I have your attention.
2. Misguided Power – The mistaken belief: I belong only when I’m the boss, or at least when I don’t let you boss me.
3. Revenge – The mistaken belief: I don’t belong, but at least I can hurt back.
4. Assumed Inadequacy – The mistaken belief: It is impossible to belong. I give up.
Dr. Nelsen gives a chart on these mistaken goals, how to identify them, and how to appropriately respond. I have previously provided the chart in Counselor Notes #35 (Goals of Misbehavior). It is posted on my web page which can be accessed from the school’s web site. (Go to http://wes.hcss.org/then under “Parents and Students” select Counselor. Previous issues of the notes are on the right hand side. Click on the small “View More” near the bottom right hand side of the page and then scroll down the page.)
Dr. Nelsen provides a lot more detail in her book and I encourage parents to study it. The approach may sound easy, but it is not so simple to gleam from merely reviewing a chart. (And it is important to accurately perceive the child’s goal!)
Chapter 5: Beware of Logical Consequences
Logical / natural consequences are what logically / naturally happens when adults don’t step in. (EX: You go outside on a cold day without a coat, you get cold. You don’t treat your friends right, they don’t remain your friends.) In this chapter, Dr. Nelsen makes a number of important points:
“… most logical consequences are poorly designed punishments.” (p. 98)
“Some children decide not to repeat the behavior that caused the punishment, but they do so because of fear and intimidation, not because they have adopted principles regarding right and wrong.” (p. 98)
“… adults may think they are winning many discipline battles. However they have inevitably lost the discipline war when children are inspired to get even, avoid detection, or conform out of fear or a sense of worthlessness.” (p. 99)
Dr. Nelsen acknowledges that when uses correctly logical consequences can be effective with children at times. She does advise to be sure it isn’t just punishment in disguise and to avoid the “I told you so” type comments. (She also notes that there are times you can’t use them. An example would be you don’t use natural consequences to teach a child not to play in the street.)
From Dr. Nelsen’s point of view, parents who make the “I told you so” type comments “…actually lessens the learning that can occur from experiencing natural consequences because a child stops processing the experience and focuses on absorbing or defending against the blame, shame, and pain.” (p. 101)
Chapter 6: Focusing on Solutions
“Positive discipline focuses on teaching children what to do because they have been invited to think through the situation and use some basic guidelines, such as respect and helpfulness, to find solutions. They are active participants in the process, not passive (and often resistant) receivers. Children start making better behavior choices because it makes sense to them and because it feels good to be treated with respect and to treat others with respect.” (p. 122)
The theme for focusing on solutions is: What is the problem and what is the solution? Children are excellent problem solvers and have many creative ideas for helpful solutions when adults take time for training and allow many opportunities for them to use their problem-solving skills.” (p. 123)
Dr. Nelsen promotes solutions to issues being: related, respectful, reasonable, and helpful. She cautions against using things that are more harmful than helpful.
Though not a big supporter of using time-out, Dr. Nelsen does advocate for cooling off periods when called for. One does a much better job generating helpful solutions to problems when they are in a frame of mind that can actually think clearly. (A highly frustrated, aggravated or despondent frame of mind is not going to be much use in generating helpful solutions.)
In helping children explore the consequences of their choices, Dr. Nelsen is not one to ask they child “Why?” That is seen as too accusatory and creating defensiveness. Instead she advocates parents be in the proper frame of mind (i.e. not upset), not having an agenda, and using “curiosity questions” to help the child process situations. Some of her suggested curiosity questions are:
· What were you trying to accomplish?
· How do you feel about what happened?
· What do you think caused it to happen?
· What did you learn from this?
· How can you use in the future what you learned?
· What ideas do you have for a solution now?
I do hope parents will consider picking up Dr. Nelsen’s book (or some other parenting book of your choosing). Parenting isn’t easy and just trying to do it (or in some cases, avoid doing it) the way your parents did you may not necessarily be the best approach for these times.
When all these school days are past, your children have “left the nest”, and you get a chance to reflect back on your life, what more important thing will you have done than the proper raising of your child/children? May you look back on your efforts knowing that you did your very best. Dr. Nelsen’s book can help you achieve that.
Those that want to visit Dr. Nelsen’s web page may find it at :http://www.positivediscipline.com/
Doug Muha Ed.S.
Waverly Elementary School
P.S. Disney is about to release “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” to an eager public. I look forward to seeing it myself. The reason I bring it up at all is this movie is rated PG-13. For those that may have forgotten, PG-13 means “parents strongly cautioned” against letting elementary school age children see the movie as “some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.” Please note that again some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.
Just because the country is caught up in anticipation of the movie and merchandise from the movie is already all over the store shelves, doesn’t mean that elementary school age children should be seeing it! (And what should we make of those the market things to elementary school age children – or younger – from movies that parents are “strongly cautioned” against letting the child see?)
Who is going to protect the innocence of childhood if not their parents? | <urn:uuid:3bb62a13-86a9-4a5f-991e-dc6c06cb8e62> | CC-MAIN-2024-10 | https://wes.hcss.org/faculty/counselor/counselor-notes/43-positivedisciplinech4-6 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947476532.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20240304200958-20240304230958-00119.warc.gz | en | 0.945655 | 1,618 | 2.515625 | 3 |
An important goal of education is to impart the universally recognized moral values to the individual and integrate these with the ethnic-specific eco-centric values, cultural norms, and worldview. When this is not done, a gap between the education system and the society results. This gap is often a result of using a language other than the language of the society as the medium of instruction. The curriculum, syllabus, teaching methodology and content of the lessons not suited to the genius of the society contribute to this gap that leads to an increase in the school dropout rate among the minority linguistic and less-privileged communities in India. A nation that is inherently multilingual, multiethnic and culturally pluralistic must meet this challenge if the rulers wish to deliver justice to all.2. RECONCILIATION BETWEEN ETHNIC-SPECIFIC LANGUAGES AND LANGUAGE OF WIDER COMMUNICATION
The Gudalur valley, in the Nilgiri district of South India, is situated in the trijunction hill tracts bordering the three Indian states of Kerala, Karnataka and Tamilnadu. This place is the home for five tribal communities, namely, the PaNiyaas, the MuLLukuRumbaas, the BeTTakuRumbaas, the KaaTTunaayakkaas, and the IruLaas. These ethnic communities speak their respective languages in their homes, namely, PaNiya, MuLLukuRumba, BeTTakuRumba, KaaTTunaayakka, and IruLa. In addition, a sizable number of non-tribal populations living in and around Gudalur speak Tamil, Malayalam, and Kannada.
In their contacts with the outside world, they recognize the implicit low status they and their parents are accorded, probably because of their low economic status. This sociolinguistic situation seems to contribute to a psychological setback for these children. They are not afforded any help to develop smooth switch over from their home language to the language of wider communication, that is, Tamil.
Despite such a handicap, the children do acquire some spoken Tamil because of their parental contacts outside their home domain. Lesser the parental contact with the outside world (there are many families who never have an opportunity to venture out) weaker is their skill in comprehending and using the language of wider communication. However, even in this bleak situation, tribal children could develop some competence in Tamil because of the close cognate relationship between the preliterate tongues and Tamil. Their competence, if any, is restricted to a smattering of spoken Tamil.
When they are enrolled in the local school, they are required to learn a different type of Tamil: written Tamil that is rather distinct from spoken Tamil. The rules of conversion between the two are easier for children whose mother tongue or language of childhood experience is Tamil. Tribal children have great difficulty in recognizing, mastering and using these rules of conversion.
The initial knowledge of spoken Tamil these tribal children have is totally inadequate to learn the formal variety of Tamil in school. So, a child coming from a preliterate society (tribal community) is learning Tamil only as a second language in his school. In this context, tribal children experience a total psychological setback in the social environment as well as in the school environment.
This setback has certain consequences for their personality development. Tribal children withdraw themselves more heavily from outside world contact than Tamil speaking children. They become least interested in going to school. They develop non-cooperative behavior and attitude and become less communicative. Because there is no proper parental and social guidance to overcome such consequences, tribal children often enrolled in the school system much after the normal age for school admission. Parents seem to wait until their children are capable of handling the school on their own in some sense. Dropout rate is much higher because of total incompatibility between the students and the use of language in the textbooks, language used by the teachers in the school, and the contents of the text that are often not eco-friendly. In other words, the contents of the textbooks do not have any relationship to the tribal children. In Gudalur Taluk, there are around 20,000 tribal persons living in fairly remote areas, spread over an area of approximately 740 square kilometers. The literacy rate in these areas is as low as 5%.
3. BUILD A STRONG NATION BY LOVING NEIGHBORSI've been personally disturbed by this alarming situation for nearly twenty-five years. My doctoral dissertation was on Urali people living in the areas adjacent to the tri-junction tribal belt. I've spelt out some of my concerns in my earlier article (See Language in India, 1:1, March 2001, http://www.languageinindia.com). While I enjoy describing the structures of various languages, I also have a desire to use such information in a practical way to help people. We must love our neighbors as ourselves. My desire has been to help these tribal people not only to acquire literacy but also to retain it and use it effectively for the betterment of their lives through effective communication. So, we at the Central Institute of Indian Languages joined hands with the Linguistics Departments of Annamalai, Bharathiar, and Tamil Universities to develop a format for a pre-school textbook in collaboration with two non-governmental voluntary organizations, ACCORD and Gudalur Adivaasi MunneRRa Sangam.
4. A FORMAT FOR A PRE-SCHOOL TRIBAL LANGUAGE TEXTBOOK
The format had the following objectives:
Though the PaNiya pre-primary textbook is to be framed in such a way that it can reduce the psychological mismatch between the tribal community and the education system. It should take advantage of the cognate or genetic relationship between PaNiya language and the language of wider communication, Tamil.5. FOUR STAGES OF IMPLEMENTATION
Keeping in mind the objectives listed above, the pre-primer on PaNiya was prepared and launched in four stages.
Stage-I Materials production and curriculum formulation:
Four important steps were followed in this stage:
Language analysis and script formation
Linguists, educationists and tribal resource persons reviewed the already available grammars on PaNiya. A suitable script for the language was devised using the Tamil script. This PaNiya script is very close to the script used in the language of wider communication, namely, Tami. Only a few modifications were found necessary. For instance, modifications were found necessary to represent certain voiced consonants that are not distinctly represented in the Tamil script. For example, PaNiya language have voiced consonant phonemes such as /b, d, D, and g/ that cannot be represented with the available letters of Tamil. In such instances, the appropriate letters that represent similar sounds in Tamil are taken as a base, and the shape of the Tamil letters is modified to assume a new sound value. Hence in PaNiya, for the sounds /b, d, D, and g/ the modified letters are /b, d, D, and g/ respectively. The voiceless sounds /p, t, T, and k/ are represented in PaNiya by the equivalent Tamil letters p, t, T, and k, but their corresponding voiced sounds are represented through a modification of the voiceless base letters of Tamil. The sound /j/ is represented by the Grantha character /j/.
This step for the preparation of a tribal language primer is very important because of the following reasons. If meaningful sound units are not represented orthographically, it will be very difficult for the teachers as well as for the students to teach and pronounce the letters properly. Adoption of the basic dominant language script is encouraged because the tribal children have automatic accessibility to the dominant language script through the signboards and other public writings available in their environment. Hence, it is very helpful if we adopt the dominant language script with relevant modifications if necessary so that the transfer of the tribal language script to the dominant language script in future will be smooth and will involve less strain for the children.
Selection of the ecofriendly themes
The ecosystem in which the tribal children are born and brought up was studied in detail to provide the relevant content and context to the lessons. We aimed at linking the proposed curriculum with the environment of the child. The major eco-friendly themes selected for treatment in the textbook are rain, animals, sounds, forest and garden, works and handicrafts, etc. Aspects of science, arts, numeracy, literacy, etc, are taught using the eco-friendly themes.
This kind of learning creates opportunities to understand their own environment, and to increase the learners' spirit of enquiry. It increases the ability to interact with others, and to raise questions and provide answers on through self-effort. It helps the learners to be more creative and productive in their learning process.
Broadly speaking, each selected theme comprises of the following components: A language component, a science component, craft activities, pre-numeracy and numeracy components, and art activities.
Functioning of each unit
The content took the form of a song, folk tale, a riddle or a proverb drawn from the environment and the culture of PaNiya community. For example, while introducing the theme of rain, it is first introduced through a song, story, proverb or discussion. The teacher then finds out from the children all that they already know about the topic and then teaches the children all the other aspects that they would like to know and learn about. The teacher is expected to use different ways and methods to expose the children to the various aspects of the topic. Some of the methods recommended for adoption include collecting materials from the environment, observing different situations, interacting with others in the community, working as a group in the class, experimenting and working out solutions silently and so on.
In this process, the teacher introduces the words at the spoken level. The very same words will be used with specific reference to script learning as the activities move forward. With a lot of emphasis on associating words with relevant meaningful activities, children become familiar with these words that will be used for script learning. Hence, reading or writing letters and words become much easier, and through activities these are repeated adequately help internalize the words. Additional activities to help reading and writing have been included in such a way that the children see them not as a separate activity but as something within the idea of the topic. Hence, the method of teaching is essentially to start with what the child knows, what he/she is already familiar with. The learning begins from there.
Involving the community during the preparation of the textbook
PaNiya tribal persons were identified and selected from different age groups living in and around Gudalur. These individuals were actively involved in community work and in the community co-operative society. They were told that they would be engaged in the preparation of a suitable textbook in their language for the benefit of PaNiya children. They are the authors of the textbook and we are there only to help them achieve this task for their children's sake.
A second category of individuals helped the authors of the textbook to capture the old language forms, concepts, folktales, beliefs etc. They were asked to identify the new language forms and concepts that have entered their speech as a result of their expanding contacts with the Tamil speaking communities they have come into contact. They were encouraged to evolve an approximate standard PaNiya speech form that can be used in the textbook so that the textbook would be comprehensible to people from all the PaNiya villages.
Although it was not easy to explain these ideas, the PaNiya participants quickly understood the purpose of the workshop. Through a process of trial and error, we were able to arrive at the sound sequences, words, grammaticality of the sentences, concepts, folk tales, songs etc. that can fit in the themes selected. The lessons were written with appropriate eco-friendly visuals.
Presentation of the text
Each theme was allotted eight pages. Bottom portion of every page presents clear instructions to the teacher as to how he or she should handle the theme. For instance, when the theme related to garden is being handled, the teacher should start with giving the song/story from the culture and cover all the five learning components, namely, language learning component, science component, craft activities, pre-numeracy and numeracy components, and art activities. While covering the above said components, as per the instructions presented in the text, the teachers are expected to do the following.
STAGE-II Printing the textbook.
Care was taken that the size of the book was considerably bigger. The letters are reasonably bigger. All the themes-related pictures are as far as possible presented in multiple natural colors.
STAGE-III Training the teachers.
Once the textbooks were available in print, the teachers were given an orientation about the book and how they use the textbook in their classes. This was a very important step because the attitude of the teacher and how he presents the textbook to PaNiya children will greatly impact the outcome of learning. Non-tribal teachers were motivated to know the tribal culture and their language. Also, they were informed about the type of preparation they should make before going to the class because activities in the class involve collection of many materials that are necessary to present and teach the themes. Also, sufficient thought must be given to class organization, anticipating problem situations, unexpected questions, etc. Only then will it be possible for the teacher to reach out to every single child in an effective way. During the training period all the ethnic-specific stories and songs that have to be used to introduce a theme were given separately with tips for proper pronunciation and intonation. In addition to this training, the teachers were taught to acquaint themselves with and analyze and evaluate the teaching methods adopted here and to solve problems that they may come across in the classroom. Provision also was made so that this teacher training would be an on going process, as the teachers were new to this kind of teaching. They might encounter many problems and need constant reinforcement. Moreover, as feed back from teachers, students and the community begin to come in, many aspects of this enterprise may change and teachers may need to be constantly put through refresher courses.
STAGE-IV Introduction of the textbook in the schools.
The textbook was introduced in several schools of Gudalur through Gudalur Adivaasi MunneRRa Sangam. As a result there was total involvement of the community in the project.
6. EVALUATION AND INFERENCE
During the process of preparation of the pre-primary reader, we had involved many PaNiya community people and had incorporated all their names as the authors of the book. This involvement of PaNiya individuals in the preparation of the textbook made a tremendous impact on the community as a whole. The community recommended a title for the textbook after discussion among themselves. The name suggested by the community is PaTTola, which means guardian spirit. As per the folk tradition, the name paTTola is a sanctified name because it means the guardian spirit of the ethnic community as whole, individual members of the community and the guardian spirit of their dwelling place. This readiness to adopt this textbook as their own and to give it a name that fits in well with their own ethos shows the extent of community involvement. Subsequently at every stage starting from releasing the book to teaching it in the schools, the society's involvement was total. For instance, there was a mass movement initiated from within the community for bringing the children to school for studying their own language. Even the adult illiterates were impressed and convinced to get themselves educated in the written form of their own language that would subsequently make them literates in the dominant language of the area. | <urn:uuid:8c4b48a5-cf4d-4a4d-893d-bc1127ba4c14> | CC-MAIN-2016-07 | http://www.languageinindia.com/may2001/paniya2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-07/segments/1454701165697.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20160205193925-00302-ip-10-236-182-209.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962417 | 3,269 | 3.515625 | 4 |
- Open Access
The prevalence of antimicrobial resistance in clinical isolates from Gulf Corporation Council countries
Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control volume 1, Article number: 26 (2012)
The burden of antimicrobial resistance worldwide is substantial and is likely to grow. Many factors play a role in the emergence of resistance. These resistance mechanisms may be encoded on transferable genes, which facilitate the spread of resistance between bacterial strains of the same and/or different species. Other resistance mechanisms may be due to alterations in the chromosomal DNA which enables the bacteria to withstand the environment and multiply. Many, if not most, of the Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) countries do not have clear guidelines for antimicrobial use, and lack policies for restricting and auditing antimicrobial prescriptions.
The aim of this study is to review the prevalence of antibiotic resistance in GCC countries and explore the reasons for antibiotic resistance in the region.
The PubMed database was searched using the following key words: antimicrobial resistance, antibiotic stewardship, prevalence, epidemiology, mechanism of resistance, and GCC country (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and United Arab Emirates).
From January1990 through April 2011, there were 45 articles published reviewing antibiotic resistance in the GCC countries. Among all the GCC countries, 37,295 bacterial isolates were studied for antimicrobial resistance. The most prevalent microorganism was Escherichia coli (10,073/44%), followed by Klebsiella pneumoniae (4,709/20%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (4,287/18.7%), MRSA (1,216/5.4%), Acinetobacter (1,061/5%), with C. difficile and Enterococcus representing less than 1%.
In the last 2 decades, E. coli followed by Klebsiella pneumoniae were the most prevalent reported microorganisms by GCC countries with resistance data.
The burden of antimicrobial resistance worldwide is substantial and is likely to grow . Furthermore, many factors play a role in the emergence of resistance such as from poor utilization of antimicrobial agents, transmission of resistant bacteria from patient to patient and from Health-care workers (HCWs) to patients and vice versa, lack of guidelines for appropriate and judicious use of antimicrobial agents and lack of easy-to-use auditing tools for restriction. In addition, there is clear misuse of antimicrobial agents in the animal industry, and most agents are the same agents used in humans. Further, there are few antimicrobial agents in the pipeline of production, leaving clinicians with minimal tools to combat these infections. All these factors, together, have led to the inevitable emergence and rise of resistance.
Bacteria develop antimicrobial resistance through many mechanisms including mutations in penicillin binding proteins, efflux mechanisms, alterations in outer membrane proteins and the production of hydrolyzing enzymes such as extended spectrum β lactamase (ESBL) and carbapenemases . These resistance mechanisms may be encoded on transferable genes which facilitate the spread between bacteria of the same species and between different species. Other resistance mechanisms may be due to alterations in the chromosomal DNA which enables the bacteria to withstand the harsh environment and multiply.
Many, if not most, of the Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) countries do not have clear guidelines for antimicrobial use and lack policies for restricting and auditing antimicrobial prescriptions. There are no guidelines for the use of antimicrobials in the animal industries either. Thus, it is not surprising that antimicrobial resistance has emerged in these countries . There are few reports studying prevalence rates of resistance among the different pathogens and mechanisms of resistance at the national level.
The aim of this study is to review the prevalence of antibiotic resistance in GCC countries and explore the reasons for antibiotic resistance in the region.
The PubMed database was searched using the following key words: antimicrobial resistance, antibiotic stewardship, prevalence, epidemiology, mechanism of resistance, and GCC country (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and United Arab Emirates). Specific organisms were searched for Gram negative bacteria: Acinetobacter, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Escherichia coli, and for Gram positive bacteria: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococci (VRE) and Clostridium difficile (C. difficile). To identify the resistance mechanisms, these studies followed routine laboratory diagnostics and surveillance testing.
Statistical data were generated and analyzed using the statistical software SPSS version 19. Descriptive statistics were calculated and the weighted mean was estimated using the estimated marginal mean function in SPSS. Data were expressed as number (n) and percentage (%); Table 1. Records of the total numbers of clinical isolates were grouped based on their country and species according to their gram staining classification; Table 2. Data were represented as total number of isolates (n) and their percentage (%).
Between 1990 and April 2011, there were 45 articles published reviewing antibiotic resistance in GCC countries. Eleven articles were excluded because of their low number of isolates (n < 100) [35–45]. Thirty four articles were analyzed as they contained national data. Among all the GCC countries, 37,295 bacterial isolates were studied for antimicrobial resistance. The isolates were distributed as follows: Bahrain (2,841/7.6%), Kuwait (20,339/54.5%), Oman (882/2.4%), Qatar (570/1.5%), Saudi Arabia (12,174/32.6%) and UAE (491/1.3%); Figure 1.
The most prevalent microorganism was Escherichia coli (10073, 44%), followed by Klebsiella pneumoniae (4,709: 20%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (4,287/18.7%), MRSA (1,216: 5.4%), Acinetobacter (1,061/5%), with C. difficile and Enterococcus representing less than 1%.
Some national isolates showed high resistance than others. In Qatar, Khan, Elshafie et al. 2010, reported the occurrence of resistant Gram-negative organisms in 63.1% of bacteremia patients (n = 452) with the following prevalences: ESBL-resistant E coli (34%), followed by Klebsiella spp. (39/13.7%) and finally Pseudomonas aeruginosa (7.4%) . Shigidi and his group found that Staphylococcus was most prevalent (29%), followed by E coli (9%) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa was the least resistant with only 3% prevalence among dialysis patients in 2010 . Their results, however, should be considered with caution because they tested relatively low number of cases (n = 118). A trend of MRSA infection in the burn center of the Sultanate of Oman was reported . ESBL phenotypes were detected in more than 21% of the total isolates indicating their correlation with the resistance.
The geographical distributions of the resistance isolates during (1990–2011) in the gulf region were shown in Figure 1. The most prevalent reported microorganism with resistance data reported by GCC countries in the last 2 decades was E. coli, followed by Klebsiella pneumoniae and others. Multiple ESBL genes were identified, however, no carbapenamases were present and thus further work to identify the mechanism of resistance, such as c-di-GMP and others, is required. Many hospitals within the Kingdom have identified carbapenem resistance among enterobacteriaceae, and Oman has reported NDM-1 in Klebsiella isolates in 2010. From our experience at KAMC in Riyadh, a 1000 bed hospital, we have identified for the first time carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae which led to an outbreak stemming from the adult ICU .
The emergence of antimicrobial resistance in GCC countries might have occurred for several reasons. One is the readily available broad spectrum antibiotics, such as 3rd and 4th generation cephalosporins, quinolones and carbapenems in the healthcare settings. Most GCC countries lack the presence of antimicrobial stewardship programs, especially in the inpatient setting where broad spectrum antimicrobial agents are used. Most hospitals’ architectural designs are old and many harbor 2 and 4 bedded rooms, which do not allow for proper isolation of infected and colonized patients with multi-drug resistant organisms. There a lack of strong infection control programs, properly trained infectious disease specialists and clinical pharmacists in the field of infectious diseases. In advanced healthcare systems, integrated computerized programs allowing for the restriction of antimicrobial agents and providing decision-assisted physician orders have proven to be helpful in controlling the use of antibiotics. Such alternatives may be expensive and not suitable for all healthcare settings. Further, highly skilled and dedicated information technology personnel are needed to support these systems. Finally, the lack of clinical pharmacists and infectious disease specialists may be a major contributor to the current emergence of resistance. Multidisciplinary teams including: infectious diseases, intensivists, surgeons, pulmonologists and emergency room specialists and clinical pharmacists may be needed to enhance utilization of antibiotics and play an important role in recommending the appropriate antimicrobial regimens and proper guidance on treatment and de-escalation.
WHO: World Health Day – 7 April 2011"Antimicrobial resistance: no action today, no cure tomorrow". In Book World Health Day – 7 April 2011"Antimicrobial resistance: no action today, no cure tomorrow" (Editor ed.^eds.). City; 2011.
Paterson DL, Bonomo RA: Extended-spectrum beta-lactamases: a clinical update. Clin Microbiol Rev. 2005, 18: 657-686. 10.1128/CMR.18.4.657-686.2005.
Memish ZA, Ahmed QA, Arabi YM, Shibl AM, Niederman MS: Microbiology of community-acquired pneumonia in the Gulf Corporation Council states. J Chemother. 2007, 19 (Suppl 1): 17-23.
Bindayna KM, Senok AC, Jamsheer AE: Prevalence of extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing Enterobacteriaceae in Bahrain. J Infect Public Health. 2009, 2: 129-135. 10.1016/j.jiph.2009.04.005.
Udo EE, Panigrahi D, Jamsheer AE: Molecular typing of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus isolated in a Bahrain hospital. Med Princ Pract. 2008, 17: 308-314. 10.1159/000129611.
Wallace MR, Johnson AP, Daniel M, Malde M, Yousif AA: Sequential emergence of multi-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae in Bahrain. J Hosp Infect. 1995, 31: 247-252. 10.1016/0195-6701(95)90203-1.
Shigidi MM, Fituri OM, Chandy SK, Asim M, Al Malki HA, Rashed AH: Microbial spectrum and outcome of peritoneal dialysis related peritonitis in Qatar. Saudi J Kidney Dis Transpl. 2010, 21: 168-173.
Al Benwan K, Al Sweih N, Rotimi VO: Etiology and antibiotic susceptibility patterns of community- and hospital-acquired urinary tract infections in a general hospital in Kuwait. Med Princ Pract. 2010, 19: 440-446. 10.1159/000320301.
Dashti AA, Jadaon MM, Amyes SG: Retrospective study of an outbreak in a Kuwaiti hospital of multidrug-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae possessing the new SHV-112 extended-spectrum beta-lactamase. J Chemother. 2010, 22: 335-338.
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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
MA: acquisition, analysis and interpretation of data; drafting the manuscript. HB: analysis and interpretation of data; drafting the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Aly, M., Balkhy, H.H. The prevalence of antimicrobial resistance in clinical isolates from Gulf Corporation Council countries. Antimicrob Resist Infect Control 1, 26 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1186/2047-2994-1-26
- (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and United Arab Emirates) Gram negative
- Gram positive
- Resistance mechanisms
- Molecular typing | <urn:uuid:93bb2544-10a3-44a6-9f9a-006d50c65526> | CC-MAIN-2020-50 | https://aricjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2047-2994-1-26 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-50/segments/1606141205147.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20201130035203-20201130065203-00422.warc.gz | en | 0.790115 | 5,084 | 2.65625 | 3 |
A vaccine against Covid-19 could be widely available by September following successful testing on monkeys.
Six rhesus macaque monkeys received a dose of the vaccine developed by Oxford University scientists and remain infection-free four weeks after being exposed to the virus during the trial at Montana University, reports The New York Times.
No sign of Covid-19 was uncovered after the vaccine was given.
A new vaccine trial involving more than 6,000 participants will now begin at the end of next month in an effort to show it is safe and effective, reports MirrorOnline.
If this is successful, the new vaccine would be granted emergency approval by authorities and lead to 'millions' of doses available by September, it is claimed.
Lead researcher Dr Vincent Munster for the National Institutes of Health's Rocky Mountain Laboratory said the species of monkey used is "the closest thing we have to humans".
There is no guarantee the vaccine will be successful on humans but Dr Munster plans to submit his research to a peer-reviewed journal.
As many as 100 potential Covid-19 candidate vaccines are now under development and at least five of these are in preliminary testing on humans during Phase 1 clinical trials.
Last week, the first human trial in Europe of a coronavirus vaccine started in Oxford.
Two volunteers were injected, the first of more than 800 people recruited for the study.
Italy's ReiThera, Germany's Leukocare and Belgium's Univercells said they were working together on a potential shot and aimed to start trials in a few months.
Britain's GSK and France's Sanofi last week announced a similar agreement to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, with trials starting in the second half of the year.
Mylan NV, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and Amneal Pharmaceuticals Inc are also increasing production of their own versions of malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, which is being tested in multiple clinical trials against the coronavirus.
Novartis and Bayer AG have said they will donate their own versions of that drug. | <urn:uuid:873ec375-d2f7-4f69-9d40-a88932029c16> | CC-MAIN-2021-49 | https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/covid-19-vaccine-could-ready-4084106 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-49/segments/1637964358078.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20211127013935-20211127043935-00401.warc.gz | en | 0.966934 | 422 | 2.78125 | 3 |
NASA has been talked about a lot this last month for their Pluto and Pluto related discovers, and now they are in the news once again but now it is because of their Kepler mission, not their New Horizons mission, however the news is probably even more exciting.
As the 1,030 confirmed planet discovery (4,696 planet candidates have been discovered) by the Kepler mission is the newly discovered Kepler-452b, which NASA say is the first near-Earth-size planet in the “habitable zone”, which joins another 11 previously discovered and smaller habitable zone candidate planets.
“We can think of Kepler-452b as an older, bigger cousin to Earth, providing an opportunity to understand and reflect upon Earth’s evolving environment,” said Jon Jenkins, Kepler data analysis lead at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, who led the team that discovered Kepler-452b. “It’s awe-inspiring to consider that this planet has spent 6 billion years in the habitable zone of its star; longer than Earth. That’s substantial opportunity for life to arise, should all the necessary ingredients and conditions for life exist on this planet.”
Despite called it near to Earth’s size, Kepler-452b is actually 60 percent larger in diameter than Earth, but despite this its 385-day orbit is just 5 per cent longer than Earth’s, however the planet is also 5 per cent farther from its parent star, Kepler-452. NASA says that Kepler-452 is 6 billion years old, which is 1.5 billion years older than our sun, but has the same temperature, 20 per cent brighter and has a 10 per cent larger diameter.
As of yet Kepler-452b’s mass or composition hasn’t been revealed, but NASA says that by using previous research they can safely assume that it will be rocky.
The entire Kepler-452 system is 1,400 light years away from the constellation Cygnus.
You can find out more about this discovery and more of the discoveries by the Kepler mission at the source link below.
Source: NASA (Kepler) | <urn:uuid:c9d6d8db-97cb-4cc7-a114-fa1ff9dd5629> | CC-MAIN-2017-51 | https://technutty.co.uk/nasas-kepler-misson-discovers-the-cousin-earth-id=57823 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-51/segments/1512948567042.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20171215060102-20171215080102-00155.warc.gz | en | 0.939368 | 448 | 3.5 | 4 |
Definitions for recent
Here are all the possible meanings and translations of the word recent.
Holocene, Holocene epoch, Recent, Recent epochadjective
approximately the last 10,000 years
"recent graduates"; "a recent addition to the house"; "recent buds on the apple trees"
of the immediate past or just previous to the present time
"a late development"; "their late quarrel"; "his recent trip to Africa"; "in recent months"; "a recent issue of the journal"
Having happened a short while ago.
Up-to-date; not old-fashioned or dated.
Etymology: Latin recens ("fresh"), related to Greek καινός ("new").
Samuel Johnson's Dictionary
Etymology: recens, Latin.
The ancients were of opinion, that those parts, where Egypt now is, were formerly sea, and that a considerable portion of that country was recent, and formed out of the mud discharged into the neighbouring sea by the Nile. John Woodward.
Among all the great and worthy persons, whereof the memory remaineth, either ancient or recent, there is not one that hath been transported to the mad degree of love. Francis Bacon.
Urg’d on by want, and recent from the storms,
The brackish ouze his manly grace deforms. Alexander Pope.
of late origin, existence, or occurrence; lately come; not of remote date, antiquated style, or the like; not already known, familiar, worn out, trite, etc.; fresh; novel; new; modern; as, recent news
of or pertaining to the present or existing epoch; as, recent shells
Etymology: [L. recens, -entis: cf. F. rcent.]
Chambers 20th Century Dictionary
rē′sent, adj. of late origin or occurrence: fresh: modern: (geol.) belonging to the present geological period.—adv. Rē′cently.—n. Rē′centness. [Fr.,—L. recens, recentis.]
British National Corpus
Spoken Corpus Frequency
Rank popularity for the word 'recent' in Spoken Corpus Frequency: #574
Written Corpus Frequency
Rank popularity for the word 'recent' in Written Corpus Frequency: #1804
Rank popularity for the word 'recent' in Adjectives Frequency: #69
The numerical value of recent in Chaldean Numerology is: 6
The numerical value of recent in Pythagorean Numerology is: 2
Recent bond market performance reflects institutional investors' view that the rate cut cycle is coming to an end.
We are encouraged by recent actions taken by The IRS to suspend more automated notices and pleased to know that The IRS is listening and acting. Taxpayers, practitioners and The IRS will benefit from reducing unnecessary contact, such as erroneous notices or warnings of levy, and provide much-needed relief during an already stressful and overwhelming tax season.
The Ax-1 mission is very different from what you may have heard of in some of the recent — especially suborbital — missions. We are not space tourists, i think there's an important role for space tourism, but it is not what Axiom is about.
The broader reaction to our recent results announcement has ... demonstrated to Gavin and me that there is a need for a change of leadership to deliver this strategy.
Luminus applauds Valaris' recent moves to augment the Board, and we are pleased to have reached a comprehensive agreement with Valaris.
Popularity rank by frequency of use
Translations for recent
From our Multilingual Translation Dictionary
- الأخيرة, جديد, أخيرArabic
- fresc, recentCatalan, Valencian
- nylig, friskDanish
- kürzlich, neu, jüngstGerman
- lasta, lastatempaEsperanto
- hiljutine, äsjaneEstonian
- تازه, اخیرPersian
- äskeinen, tuoreFinnish
- farskWestern Frisian
- resanHaitian Creole
- nem régiHungarian
- baru sajaIndonesian
- recènteLuxembourgish, Letzeburgesch
- niedawny, ostatni, świeżyPolish
- недавни, nedavni, nov, новSerbo-Croatian
- เร็วๆ นี้Thai
- débayaUyghur, Uighur
- gần đâyVietnamese
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"recent." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2022. Web. 7 Dec. 2022. <https://www.definitions.net/definition/recent>. | <urn:uuid:b8a3fd18-75ef-4603-9381-90bbd760d1aa> | CC-MAIN-2022-49 | https://www.definitions.net/definition/recent | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446711232.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20221208014204-20221208044204-00864.warc.gz | en | 0.751639 | 2,096 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Newspapers have reported on a prosthetic brain implant with the potential to help treat people with memory loss. This device is being developed with funding from DARPA (the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency) to help soldiers with memory loss, but the news reports say that it could also be used to treat people with dementia. Here we look at the research behind the headlines in more detail.
What is this brain implant and how could it work?
People with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia often have problems with their short-term memory. While they may be able to recall events from long ago, they can struggle to remember things that happened yesterday. This is because they have damage to an area of the brain called the hippocampus, which plays an essential role in the creation of new memories.
When we make a memory, our senses such as sight, sound and touch generate electrical signals which are processed in the hippocampus and passed out into other areas of the brain for long-term storage. In theory, this implant would work by allowing the signals to bypass the damaged hippocampus and be processed artificially into a signal that can be committed to memory.
What research has been done?
Over the last decade, researchers in the US have made electrical recordings from the animal hippocampus and used it to model the complex processes that occur when a new memory is formed. They were then able to deliver electrical signals generated by the model back in to the brain of primates and found it could enhance their memory performance.
Human memories are much more complicated than those of rodents and primates. In their latest work the researchers have recorded from the brains of 9 people and used it to develop a computer model of how the human hippocampus forms memories. The next steps will be to design an implant device that can send electrical signals into the human brain and test it in people with a damaged hippocampus.
What does it mean for people with dementia?
In recent years there has been much interest in brain implants for people with paralysis to help them to regain movement, but this is the first time we’ve heard about implants being developed to help restore memory. Whilst it is exciting that such cutting edge techniques are being applied to the problem of memory loss, it is important to realise that this research is still in its infancy and there is still a great deal that we don’t understand about memory formation.
It will take at least a decade or more for these implants to be further developed and tested in people with damage to their hippocampus. If the implants were found to work for people with dementia, they would only treat memory symptoms and not other symptoms of dementia such as visual disturbances or changes in behaviour, which are caused by damage to other areas of the brain. The implants would not cure dementia nor would they stop the condition from progressing. | <urn:uuid:32fd4dd6-3e8a-4243-b69d-8a075602147a> | CC-MAIN-2017-13 | https://blog.alzheimers.org.uk/research/science-behind-the-headlines-brain-implant-could-help-people-with-memory-loss/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-13/segments/1490218189403.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20170322212949-00510-ip-10-233-31-227.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971307 | 566 | 3.46875 | 3 |
Encephalophone: An Electronic Stethoscope for the Brain
Brain waves from normal and diseased persons can be made to produce distinctive sounds. Physicians can use the instrument for examination and research. An audio carrier of 1700 cycles frequency modulated by the .5 to 40 cycle brain waves is the basis of design. An experimental system has been assembled and the various sound patterns have been listened to from healthy and diseased persons. Modern technology could provide a pocket model for clinical use.
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This paper costs $20 for non-members, $5 for AES members and is free for E-Library subscribers. | <urn:uuid:7b88982a-4cb9-4a24-af13-54f98e862bf9> | CC-MAIN-2014-35 | http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=1335 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-35/segments/1409535921869.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20140901014521-00016-ip-10-180-136-8.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946969 | 175 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Presentation on theme: "Indonesia Supreme Court Indonesia Constitutional Court Legal Aid System in Indonesia by Erna Ratnaningsih."— Presentation transcript:
Indonesia Supreme Court Indonesia Constitutional Court Legal Aid System in Indonesia by Erna Ratnaningsih
Country General Information Indonesia is the fourth largest country on the earth. Indonesia comprises over 17,000 Islands. Population of Indonesia is 237,5 million. More than 28 Million live below poverty line. 300 ethnic group. Gross National Income $ 3,563 per capita. 30,000 advocates.
A Short History of Legal Aid in Indonesia In the colonial period, legal services for the poor were provided by lawyers only for the death penalty cases. Tjandra Naya is social organization who provided legal aid for Chinese people in 1950’s. The first legal aid program which organized by Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) in 1970’s. Legal Consultant Bureaues from Faculty of Law. The variety of legal aid programs : 1. Legal advice. 2. Law reform. 3. Advocacy work. 4. Community legal education.
YLBHI and it’s 16 branch offices has been using a structural legal aid framework and approach which means legal aid as a tool to reform law and political structure that repress the marginalized and the disadvantaged. The initiative emerged to have legal aid based on the number of cases of the poor who cannot be provided by legal aid institutions as they only have limited advocates and branch offices in the Indonesia. The advocacy of legal aid Act had been started since 2003 by preparing academic draft of a bill and drfat of legal aid bull. The Legal Aid Bill was passed in 2011, it becomes the foundation of the state to ensure citizen rights as stated in Indonesian Constitution to get access to justice and equality before the law.
YLBHI’s Methode Handling Cases Empowering People in Their Communities Researc h Public Policy
Empowering People in Their Communities Advocacy Activities The Activities of YLBHI-LBH
The Structure of Indonesia Legal Aid System The Ministry of Justice and Human Rights appointed one of it’s body namely the National Law Development Agency (BPHN) as the implementer of legal aid in Indonesia. The minister has duties to : 1. formulate and set policy to organize the Legal Aid; 2. help prepare and establish legal aid standards in accordance with the principles of legal aid provisions; 3. prepare a Legal Aid budget plan; 4. manage the Legal Aid budget effectively, efficiently, transparently and accountably; and 5. prepare and submit reports on the legal aid organization to the House of Representatives at the end of each fiscal year.
Legal aid providers are legal aid institutes or community organizations that provide legal aid services who have accreditation from BPHN. There are 310 legal aid providers who have accreditation from BPHN. The legal aid providers also have obligation to : a. report to the Minister on legal aid programs; b. report any expenditure of the state budget that is used for the provision of legal aid. c. provide education and training of legal aid for lawyers, paralegals, lecturers, law students. d. maintain confidentiality of data, information, and/or information obtained from the Legal Aid Recipient relating to the matters being dealt with, unless otherwise stipulated by the Law; and e. provide a Legal Aid to the Legal Aid Recipient in accordance with the terms and procedures specified in this Law until the case is completed, unless there are legitimate reasons.
Eligibility Criteria and Merits Test The definition of the concept of the poor under article 5 of Indonesia Legal Aid Act states : (1)Recipients of Legal Aid as referred to in Article 4 paragraph (1) includes any person or a group of poor people who cannot meet the basic right appropriately and independently. (2)Basic rights referred to in paragraph (1) includes the right to food, clothing, health services, education services, employment and enterprise, and/or housing. The beneficiary of legal aid must meet the following condition to obtain free legal services such as : : a. submit a written application containing at least the identity of the applicant and a brief description of the case based on which a Legal Aid is requested; b. submit documents pertaining to the case; and c. attach this letter of information certifying that he/she is poor from the head of village or any other official having equal level at the Legal Aid applicant's residence.
Scope of Legal Aid Services The variety of legal aid services : criminal, civil and administrative cases. Litigation cases through assistance and/or representation from the investigation stage, prosecution stage; assistance and/or representation in the process of examination in the court; assistance and/or representation of the legal aid aid provider in the state administrative court. The non-litigation legal aid includes activities of legal information dissemination, legal consultation, cases investigation electronically or non-electronically, legal research, mediation, negotiation, community empowerment, assistance outside of the court and or legal drafting. The assistance can be given by the lawyers, paralegal, lecturers and students of the law faculty within the accredited and verified legal aid organisation’s coverage.
Legal Aid Budget and Payment of Legal Aid The source of legal aid funding : 1. The State Budget (APBN) 2. The regional budget (APBD). 3. Other source may include grant, donation and other untied and legal source of funding is permitted. Legal Aid budget in 2013 = IDR 40,3 billion (USD 358,333). Legal Aid budget in 2014 = IDR 50 billion (USD 416,666). The allocation of the legal aid budget do not cover operational cost of legal aid providers but only for the cases. One case for criminal and civil law in the court is IDR 5 million (USD 416). The system of management funds is a reimbursement.
Paralegals In the history of legal aid in Indonesia, the role of paralegals is important to help poor people get justice. They are limited number of advocates who provide legal aid services for the poor so paralegals can help the community to solve their legal problems in their regions. Paralegals solve legal problem in the community, if the case is too complex Paralegals will communicate and coordinate with lawyer. Paralegals can not represent poor people in the court, but they can help lawyers to find the evidences. Their role in legal aid services become strong as the Legal Aid Act is the first regulation which recognizes the legal aid paralegal's role in providing legal aid to the poor.
Challenging for the Implementation of Legal Aid Act The purpose of the Legal Aid Act is to ensure poor people get access to justice through free legal aid services. It is also the implementation of constitutional rights of every citizen to treat equal before the law. One of the conclusions regarding the availability of adequate legal representation for the poor from UNDP Research such as: 1. Most of legal aid providers locate in big cities especially Java and Sumatra. 2. Legal aid providers still find difficulty to provide their services as the wide of working area and the geographic problems. 3. Limited lawyers, lack of funding, do not have legal status in the legal aid providers. 4. The reimbursements system makes only limited poor people can get free legal services as legal aid provider do not have money for operational cost of cases.
BPHN identified several obstacles to implement Legal Aid Act namely: 1. The dissemination of legal aid providers are imbalanced with the location of the poor. 2. Legal aid providers do not have experience to report fund from the State. 3. Many of society and law enforcement officials who do not know Legal Aid Act. 4. Limited number of Advocates. The programs of BPHN to solve the problems : 1. BPHN will help legal aid providers to get a legal status; 2. Making synergy and cooperation with the Supreme Court to handle cases of the poor. 3. Data base synchronization with other institution to defines poverty. 4. Road map of legal assistance. 5. MoU between BPHN and the Indonesian Advocates Association. 6. Socialization program of Legal Aid Act. | <urn:uuid:9be54904-b789-463c-9791-c5f0bce66ccd> | CC-MAIN-2017-22 | http://slideplayer.com/slide/4342788/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-22/segments/1495463609404.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20170528004908-20170528024908-00014.warc.gz | en | 0.93174 | 1,676 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Facebook was started by Mark Zuckerberg as a social networking site for Harvard undergraduates in 2004. Facebook then expanded to other colleges and universities. For a period of time, users required an "edu" email address to join. Users would join a "network" with its own subdomain (for example, the University of Pennsylvania is at upenn.facebook.com) that related to their university affiliation.
The concept of a network is important for the privacy experience of a facebook user because one can usually set their privacy controls to allow access to anyone, to their friends, or to members of their networks. On February of 2006, Facebook began allowing high school students and members of some large companies to join, still all in their respective networks. In September of 2006, Facebook began to allow anyone to join by associating themselves with a network for an employer or a geographic location such as city.
In October of 2007 Microsoft purchased a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook for 240 million dollars. That deal valued Facebook at 15 billion dollars. Facebook provides a website with current statistical snapshot of its user base. In December of 2007, Facebook had 58 million users. At the 15 billion value, this means 258 dollars per user.
- EPIC Sues FTC for Release of Facebook's Audits: EPIC has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to obtain the release of the unredacted Facebook Assessments from the FTC. The FTC Consent Order. required Facebook to provide to the FTC biennial assessments conducted by an independent auditor. In March, EPIC filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the 2013, 2015, 2017 Facebook Assessments and related records. EPIC's FOIA request drew attention to a version of the 2017 report available at the FTC website. But that version is heavily redacted. EPIC is suing now for the release of unredacted report. EPIC has an extensive open government practice and has previously obtained records from many federal agencies. The case is EPIC v. FTC, No. 18-942 (D.D.C. filed April 20, 2018). (Apr. 20, 2018)
- EPIC Obtains Partial Release of 2017 Facebook Audit: EPIC has obtained a redacted version of the 2017 Facebook Assessment required by the 2012 Federal Trade Commission Consent Order. The Order required Facebook to conduct biennial assessments from a third-party auditor of Facebook's privacy and security practices. In March, EPIC filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the 2013, 2015, and 2017 Facebook Assessments as well as related records. The 2017 Facebook Assessment, prepared by PwC, stated that "Facebook's privacy controls were operating with sufficient effectiveness" to protect the privacy of users. This assessment was prepared after Cambridge Analytica harvested the personal data of 87 million Facebook users. In a statement to Congress for the Facebook hearings last week, EPIC noted that FTC Commissioners represented that the Consent Order protected the privacy of hundreds of millions of Facebook users in the United States and Europe. (Apr. 20, 2018)
- Senator Blumenthal Calls On FTC To Enforce Consent Order Against Facebook + (Apr. 20, 2018)
- Latin American Consumer Groups Urge Facebook to Comply with GDPR in All Countries + (Apr. 19, 2018)
- European Court of Justice Receives Key Questions on Future of EU-US Personal Data Transfers + (Apr. 12, 2018)
- Zuckerberg Confirms Global Compliance with GDPR + (Apr. 11, 2018)
- US and European Consumer Groups Urge Mark Zuckerberg to Comply with GDPR in All Countries + (Apr. 9, 2018)
- EPIC Provides U.S. Report for Privacy Experts Meeting + (Apr. 9, 2018)
- EPIC Urges Senate to Focus on FTC Consent Order with Facebook + (Apr. 9, 2018)
- EPIC Comments to UN Highlight Privacy Flaws in US Surveillance, Consumer Protection + (Apr. 6, 2018)
- UPDATE - EPIC, Consumer Groups Urge FTC to Investigate Facebook's Use of Facial Recognition + (Apr. 6, 2018)
- EPIC, Consumer Groups to Urge Federal Trade Commission to Investigate Facebook's Use of Facial Recognition + (Apr. 5, 2018)
- EPIC, Coalition Call On Facebook to Stop Electioneering + (Mar. 28, 2018)
- State AGs Launch Facebook Investigation + (Mar. 26, 2018)
- FTC Confirms Investigation Into Facebook about 2011 Consent Order + (Mar. 26, 2018)
- EPIC FOIAs FTC, Seeks Facebook's Privacy Assessments + (Mar. 20, 2018)
- EPIC, Consumer Groups Urge FTC To Investigate Facebook + (Mar. 20, 2018)
- Facebook "Breach" Highlights Failure of FTC to Enforce Consent Orders + (Mar. 19, 2018)
- U.K. Blocks WhatsApp From Transferring Data to Facebook + (Mar. 14, 2018)
- Axios Poll: Public Wants Big Tech Regulated + (Feb. 28, 2018)
- Court Rules that Users have Standing to Sue Facebook about Facial Recognition + (Feb. 27, 2018)
- EPIC Challenges Facebook Privacy Settlement + (Feb. 2, 2018)
- EPIC Joins Consumer and Health Groups, Urges Facebook to Scrap 'Messenger Kids' + (Jan. 30, 2018)
- European Court of Justice Grants Standing to Privacy Advocate But Bars Class Action under Austrian Law + (Jan. 30, 2018)
- European Court Adviser Says Facebook Privacy Class Action Barred + (Nov. 15, 2017)
- European Privacy Experts Press WhatsApp on Data Practices + (Oct. 27, 2017)
- EPIC Urges FTC To Strengthen Privacy Settlement With Uber + (Sep. 15, 2017)
- EPIC Urges Public Comments on FTC Settlement with Uber + (Sep. 6, 2017)
- Following EPIC Complaint, Uber Agrees To Stop Tracking Riders + (Aug. 29, 2017)
- After EPIC Privacy Complaint, Uber Settles with FTC + (Aug. 15, 2017)
- News Report: FTC to Act on EPIC's Uber Complaint + (Jun. 15, 2017)
- German Court Blocks Facebook's Efforts to Obtain WhatsApp User Data + (Apr. 27, 2017)
- European Privacy Officials Raise Concerns About US Immigration Executive Order + (Feb. 22, 2017)
- UK Information Commissioner Suspends WhatsApp Data Transfer to Facebook + (Nov. 8, 2016)
- Supreme Court Won't Review Privacy Violations by Facebook, Google + (Oct. 4, 2016)
- Germany Prohibits WhatsApp Data Transfer to Facebook + (Sep. 27, 2016)
- European Commission Begins Investigation of WhatsApp Privacy About-Face + (Sep. 13, 2016)
- EPIC, CDD Charge WhatsApp Policy Change Unlawful, Urge FTC to Act + (Aug. 29, 2016)
- Facebook to Collect WhatsApp User Data, Violating FTC Order and Privacy Promises + (Aug. 25, 2016)
- Federal Court Upholds Photo Tagging Suit Against Facebook + (May. 8, 2016)
- Court Upholds Facebook Settlement, Allows Continued Use of Kids' Images in Ads + (Jan. 14, 2016)
- FTC Issues Enforcement Policy Statement on Deceptive "Native" Advertising + (Dec. 22, 2015)
- European Court of Justice Hears Case Challenging "Safe Harbor" Agreement and NSA Spying + (Mar. 24, 2015)
- EPIC Files Comments with FTC on Merger Review and Consumer Privacy + (Mar. 18, 2015)
- With New Policy Changes, Facebook Tracks Users Across the Web + (Feb. 4, 2015)
- Senators Challenge Verizon's Secret Mobile Tracking Program + (Jan. 30, 2015)
- Post-Snowden, Social Media Users Concerned About Access to Personal Data + (Nov. 13, 2014)
- European Facebook Users Privacy Lawsuit Moves Forward + (Aug. 26, 2014)
- EPIC, Consumer Groups Challenge Facebook on Web Snooping + (Jul. 29, 2014)
- Following EPIC Complaint, Senator Seeks Investigation of Facebook User Manipulation Study + (Jul. 17, 2014)
- EPIC Challenges Facebook's Manipulation of Users, Files FTC Complaint + (Jul. 3, 2014)
- FTC Releases 2014 Data Security Update, But Enforcement Questions Remain + (Jul. 1, 2014)
- Facebook to Profile User Browsing, May Violate FTC Consent Order + (Jun. 12, 2014)
- Privacy Case Moves Forward Against Facebook and Zynga + (May. 9, 2014)
- Facebook Introduces New Privacy Features + (May. 1, 2014)
- EPIC Obtains Documents About FTC's Facebook Investigation + (Apr. 16, 2014)
- Federal Trade Commission Backs Users in Facebook Privacy Case + (Mar. 21, 2014)
- Facebook Removes Crucial Privacy Setting for Users’ Names + (Oct. 11, 2013)
- Pressure Mounts on Facebook to Withdraw Proposed Changes, New Scrutiny of "Faceprints" + (Sep. 13, 2013)
- EPIC, Privacy Groups, Urge FTC to Block Facebook Policy Changes + (Sep. 5, 2013)
- EPIC Pursues Public Release of Facebook and MySpace Privacy Reports + (Apr. 26, 2013)
- Court Denies Appeal in Cy Pres Matter Over Objection that Settlement Fails to Provide Relief to Class Members + (Feb. 28, 2013)
- Instagram Retreats on Changes to Terms of Service, Cites User Opposition + (Dec. 21, 2012)
- Instagram Privacy Change Raises Legal Questions + (Dec. 18, 2012)
- Facebook Updates Privacy Controls, Removes Profiles Safeguard + (Dec. 13, 2012)
- EPIC Urges Vote for EXISTING Facebook Documents + (Dec. 4, 2012)
- Privacy Groups Ask Facebook to Withdraw Proposed Changes + (Nov. 26, 2012)
- Consumer Groups Ask FTC to Investigate Facebook-Datalogix Data-Matching Arrangement + (Sep. 27, 2012)
- Facebook Ceases Facial Recognition in European Union + (Sep. 21, 2012)
- Judge Rejects Settlement in Facebook "Sponsored Stories" Case + (Aug. 21, 2012)
- FTC Finalizes Settlement with Facebook + (Aug. 10, 2012)
- Judge Skeptical of Facebook Settlement + (Aug. 3, 2012)
- Illinois Becomes Third State to Prohibit Employers from Demanding Facebook Information + (Aug. 2, 2012)
- EPIC Objects to Facebook Settlement, Cites Failure to Benefit Class Members + (Jul. 13, 2012)
- EPIC Calls On FTC to Investigate Facebook Email Changes + (Jun. 27, 2012)
- Facebook Acquires Facial Recognition Company Face.com + (Jun. 20, 2012)
- Facebook Users Force Vote on Privacy Changes + (May. 22, 2012)
- Following Maryland, Congress and California Consider Bills Banning Employers From Asking for Facebook Passwords + (May. 1, 2012)
- Facebook Asks for Feedback after Policy Changes + (Apr. 23, 2012)
- Facebook Offers Revised “Download Your Information” Option + (Apr. 12, 2012)
- Maryland Passes Bill Banning Employers from Demanding Facebook Information + (Apr. 11, 2012)
- Senators Call for Investigation into Employer Demands for Facebook Passwords + (Mar. 26, 2012)
- Facebook Policy Changes Raises Questions About Compliance with 2011 Consent Order + (Mar. 23, 2012)
- Pew Study: Social Media Users Active in Protecting Privacy + (Feb. 27, 2012)
- EPIC Calls for Moratorium on Facial Recognition Technology + (Feb. 1, 2012)
- EPIC Urges FTC Investigation into Facebook Timeline + (Dec. 28, 2011)
- EPIC Submits Comments on FTC Facebook Privacy Settlement + (Dec. 28, 2011)
- EPIC Sues DHS Over Covert Surveillance of Facebook and Twitter + (Dec. 20, 2011)
- Facebook Timeline Changes User Privacy Settings. Again. + (Dec. 15, 2011)
- EPIC Launches Campaign Urging Public Comment on Facebook Privacy Settlement + (Dec. 13, 2011)
- Federal Trade Commission Announces Settlement in EPIC Facebook Privacy Complaint + (Nov. 29, 2011)
- Federal Trade Commission to Announce Settlement in EPIC Facebook Privacy Complaint + (Nov. 29, 2011)
- FTC Publishes Performance Report + (Nov. 22, 2011)
- WSJ: Facebook Close to Settlement with FTC over EPIC Complaint + (Nov. 10, 2011)
- Congress, #KWTK Presses Facebook to Disclose Secret Profiles + (Oct. 31, 2011)
- Sen. Rockefeller Requests FTC Report on Facial Recognition Technology + (Oct. 20, 2011)
- EPIC-Led Coalition Calls for FTC Facebook Investigation + (Sep. 29, 2011)
- FTC Announces Workshop on Facial Recognition Technology + (Sep. 20, 2011)
- Facebook Makes Some Changes, Privacy Complaints Still Pending + (Aug. 29, 2011)
- Facebook Makes Changes to Facial Recognition; Still Relying on Opt-Out + (Jul. 27, 2011)
- Congressman Markey Commends EPIC, Privacy Groups for Filing Facebook Complaint + (Jun. 14, 2011)
- EPIC Files Complaint, Urges Investigation of Facebook's Facial Recognition Techniques + (Jun. 10, 2011)
- Facebook Resumes Plan to Disclose User Home Addresses and Mobile Phone Numbers + (Mar. 2, 2011)
- Facebook Enables Full-Session Encryption + (Feb. 7, 2011)
- Congressman Barton and Markey Challenge Facebook on Disclosure of Home Addresses, Mobile Phone Numbers + (Feb. 2, 2011)
- Facebook Drops Plan to Disclose Users' Home Addresses and Personal Phone Numbers + (Jan. 18, 2011)
- Congressmen Question Facebook About Latest Privacy Breach + (Oct. 20, 2010)
- Facebook Uses RFID to Track Users' Locations for Advertising Promotion + (Aug. 25, 2010)
- Facebook "Places" Embeds Privacy Risks, Complicated and Ephemeral Opt-Out Unfair to Users + (Aug. 19, 2010)
- EPIC to Urge Congress to Strengthen Privacy Laws for Facebook Users + (Jul. 28, 2010)
- Facebook Scores Low on Consumer Satisfaction + (Jul. 22, 2010)
- Federal Trade Commission Takes Action Against Twitter, Social Network Service Settles Charges It Deceived Consumers + (Jun. 24, 2010)
- Privacy Conference Attendees Set Out Social Networking Bill of Rights + (Jun. 23, 2010)
- EPIC, Privacy Groups Recommend Further Changes for Facebook + (Jun. 16, 2010)
- Privacy Issue Attracts Fire in California Attorney General Race + (Jun. 7, 2010)
- Congress Pursues Investigation of Google and Facebook's Business Practices + (Jun. 1, 2010)
- Facebook Expected to Announce Privacy Changes + (May. 25, 2010)
- New Facebook Privacy Complaint Filed with Trade Commission + (May. 5, 2010)
- Senators Oppose Facebook Changes, Schumer Urges Trade Commission to Regulate Social Network Services + (Apr. 27, 2010)
- Facebook's Data Grab: New Policies Transfer Control of User Data to Facebook + (Apr. 22, 2010)
- EPIC Recommends Effective Consumer Privacy Standards, Calls Notice and Choice a "Failed Experiment" + (Mar. 17, 2010)
- Judge Waits to Decide on Proposed Settlement in Facebook Privacy Case + (Mar. 1, 2010)
- Study Ranks Top 20 Companies for Privacy in 2010, Facebook Drops Off List + (Feb. 26, 2010)
- Facebook Users Object to Beacon Settlement + (Feb. 2, 2010)
- EPIC Urges FTC to Protect Users' Privacy On Cloud Computing and Social Networking Services + (Jan. 28, 2010)
- EPIC, Privacy Groups Oppose Facebook Settlement + (Jan. 19, 2010)
- EPIC’s Facebook Complaint of "particular interest" to FTC + (Jan. 19, 2010)
- Canadian Privacy Commission to Investigate Facebook + (Jan. 19, 2010)
- Privacy Groups File Amended Complaint regarding Facebook + (Jan. 14, 2010)
- EPIC Defends Privacy of Facebook Users: Files Complaint with the Federal Trade Commission + (Dec. 17, 2009)
- Facebook Asks Users to Review Privacy Settings, Recommends Privacy Options, Questions Remain + (Dec. 9, 2009)
- Facebook to Drop Regional Networks, Change Privacy Settings + (Dec. 4, 2009)
- EPIC Urges Court to Enforce Video Privacy Law + (Nov. 4, 2009)
- Facebook to End Beacon, Establish Privacy Foundation + (Sep. 22, 2009)
- Following Canadian Investigation, Facebook Upgrades Privacy + (Aug. 28, 2009)
- Canadian Privacy Commissioner's Deadline for Facebook Arrives, Some Changes are Made at the Social Network Company + (Aug. 17, 2009)
- EPIC Forces Disclosure of Government Contracts with Social Media Companies, Privacy Terms Missing + (Aug. 12, 2009)
- Canadian Privacy Commissioner Holds that Facebook Must Strengthen Privacy Safeguards + (Jul. 16, 2009)
- Facebook to Change User Privacy Settings + (Jul. 1, 2009)
- EPIC Seeks Government Agreements with Social Networking Companies + (Apr. 30, 2009)
- Facebook Gets Ready to Adopt Terms of Service + (Apr. 24, 2009)
- Facebook Seeks Vote on Site Governance + (Apr. 20, 2009)
- Facebook Announces Governing Principles, Statement of Rights and Responsibilities + (Feb. 26, 2009)
- On Eve of EPIC Trade Commission Complaint, Facebook Backs Down on Revised Terms of Service + (Feb. 18, 2009)
More top news
Facebook has several features with a significant impact on privacy and security of personal information. These features raise issues of data collection, retention, distribution and control. The various privacy issues raised may in some cases have legal consequences.
Facebook does not permit the privacy enhancing techniques of pseudonymous logins or the creation of multiple profiles. Facebook's terms require users to provide "accurate, current and complete" information when registering for the site. This means that a user must provide accurate information for their name, date of birth, and school and work affiliation. Facebook's terms require users to agree not to "register for more than one User account, register for a User account on behalf of an individual other than yourself," or "falsely state or otherwise misrepresent yourself, your age or your affiliation with any person or entity." Users are thus forbidden from having several profiles for different social circles, such as for friends, professional colleagues, teachers and family. Users must have a single identity across all those social interactions. Since they must accurately give Facebook their name and date of birth, this single identity is required to be tied to their real life identity.
Facebook offers no way to conveniently delete one's account once one has created a profile. Facebook does offer that an account can be "deactivated." Once deactivated, Facebook says that a deactivated account cannot be seen or found by others:
Deactivation will completely remove your profile and all associated content on your account from Facebook. In addition, users will not be able to search for you or view any of your information. If you reactivate your account, your profile will be restored in its entirety (friends, photos, interests, etc.).
Reactivating an account is done by logging in again with the same username and password. This means that all of the information that the user has uploaded is retained by Facebook. Facebook does permit users to delete items such as wall posts, photos, friends and profile information. This has to be done via Facebook's interface, and must be done one item at a time.
Facebook reserves the right to delete your account. According to their terms, Facebook "may terminate your membership, delete your profile and any content or information that you have posted on the Site or through any Platform Application . . . for any reason, or no reason, at any time in its sole discretion, with or without notice . . . ."
Facebook users can add metadata tags to photographs. These tags can be identified to particular areas of the photograph. So a picture of a family in front of a landmark can have the individual faces of family members tagged with their names, and the landmark tagged with its name. When the image is displayed, the tags become hyperlinks to the profile of the subject of the tag. If the subject of the tag is not a Facebook member, then the tag remains in plain text, not linking to anything. When photos of a person are displayed, this display includes their own photographs and those published by others and tagged with that person's name. When a user views an image that has been tagged with that user's name by another, the user has the option of removing the tag. A user is given a brief notice when others tag images with that user's name.
Facebook users are invited by Facebook to "[f]ind out which of your email contacts are on Facebook." Facebook asks users for their email address and password for many of the major providers of webmail services (Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, etc...). Facebook then logs on to the account, and downloads all the contacts there. Facebook can also import email contacts from applications such as Outlook and Thunderbird. Users are then shown a list of which individuals are current Facebook members, and have the choice of sending friend requests to each of them. The screen comes with all the contacts pre-selected. The user is then given the option of inviting all of their other contacts to join Facebook. Again, all of the contacts are pre-selected. The default behavior is to send messages to all of one's contacts inviting them to become friends on Facebook.
Example of the contact importer.
Facebook promises not to retain the user's password and login. Facebook does not explain what happens to the emails collected, or to the association of those emails as "contacts" of a given user. The email addresses can be of significant value. As known contacts of a real person, a person knows that that email address is "live" and thus valuable to email harvesters.
Facebook users see a news feed when they log into their accounts. The news feed contains items about a Facebook user's friends as well as some advertisements. Some of a user's personal information is published to their friends' news feeds.
A newsfeed example, provided by Facebook.
The feed was introduced in September 2006. When first introduced users had no control over what information was published to the Feed. Facebook users protested the privacy invasion, demanding control over their data. Facebook users were responding to the broadcast of their data, to Facebook making it more easily available. Seven hundred thousand users joined a group protesting the feed. Facebook users also created a petition to Facebook Administrators:
Whereas Facebook.com is a social networking Web site and utility owned as a private company started in February 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg;
Whereas Facebook.com is a useful and entertaining tool for those on its networks;
Whereas the users on Facebook.com support the site's stated philosophy of helping people spread information through social networks;
Whereas the users on Facebook.com understand the privacy settings and their role in protecting personal, private information;
Whereas drastic changes were make to Facebook.com on September 5, 2006, including the introduction of the "News Feed" and "Mini Feed" that call into question the safety and privacy of its more than 9 million users;
Whereas there has been an unprecedented outpouring of opposition to the changes within the community;
Whereas many users feel uncomfortable participating on Facebook.com because of the changes to the point that some have deactivated their accounts;
We, the Facebook.com user community:
--Encourage Facebook.com administrators to actively communicate and consult with users in a democratic dialogue concerning any current and future changes.
--Demand the immediate removal of the "news feed" and "mini feed" feature from Facebook.com.
--Allow an individual to remove himself or herself from the "news feed" and "mini feed" feature on other users' page.
--Allow an individual to remove his or her own personal "news feed" and "mini feed" feature from his or her personal profile.
Facebook responded by creating some opt-outs for the feed, and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized on the Facebook blog. As Facebook's Feed privacy page explains: "Stories are published when you edit your profile information, join a new network, or update your Status." A user can opt out of other information being published to their feed, such as changes in relationship status or the addition of a friend.
Other Facebook features also publish information via the news feed. Consequently, not all privacy controls related to feeds is controlled by the Feed section of the privacy page. Applications, Social Ads, and Facebook Beacon all communicate via the News Feed. User control, if any, of those information flows is located in pages devoted to those features, not the feed.
Users can also influence what items of their friend's personal information are presented to them. They can select that stories about some friends get published more or less frequently. They can also select what types of stories they are interested in, such as relationship news, changes in profile data, or the addition of new friends. This will cause these events to show up on their feed more or less often.
Platform Application Programming Interface (API)
In May 2007, Facebook launched the Facebook Platform. The platform allows third parties to create applications which access Facebook's database. The applications are meant to function in much the same way that the Facebook created applications work. Applications can publish to a user's feed and can access that user's information. When a user adds an application, the information about other users that the given user can see is made available to these third party application providers. The third party application provider may retain some of this information forever, and some information may be retained for a limited time.
Since the applications are developed and hosted by third parties, their algorithms necessarily involve the flow of personal information from Facebook to the application host and developer. When installing an application users are asked briefly a few choices about the application, such as whether they want it to know who they are, take up space on their profile, or publish information to the user's feed. The choices are all pre-selected.
Example of the addition of the Blackjack application.
The information that the application accesses includes everything about a user and what they can see, except for their contact information such as email address, phone number and postal address. The terms the user is agreeing on by clicking "add" includes examples of this information:
Examples of Facebook Site Information. The Facebook Site Information may include, without limitation, the following information, to the extent visible on the Facebook Site: your name, your profile picture, your gender, your birthday, your hometown location (city/state/country), your current location (city/state/country), your political view, your activities, your interests, your musical preferences, television shows in which you are interested, movies in which you are interested, books in which you are interested, your favorite quotes, the text of your "About Me" section, your relationship status, your dating interests, your relationship interests, your summer plans, your Facebook user network affiliations, your education history, your work history, your course information, copies of photos in your Facebook Site photo albums, metadata associated with your Facebook Site photo albums (e.g., time of upload, album name, comments on your photos, etc.), the total number of messages sent and/or received by you, the total number of unread messages in your Facebook in-box, the total number of "pokes" you have sent and/or received, the total number of wall posts on your Wall(TM), a list of user IDs mapped to your Facebook friends, your social timeline, and events associated with your Facebook profile.
Significantly, applications do not only access the information about a given user that has added the application. Applications by default get much of the information about that user's friends and network members that the user can see. So without any action from a user, an individual that has never joined any applications will have their information sent to the third party application when their friends or associates in their networks join.
Default settings for what is shared to applications one has never added, including photos, relationships and other history.
Facebook disclaims all risk from how the application uses the data, and in its terms states that users release and hold harmless Facebook for any damages from installing or using applications. Facebook also says that it may change its policy at any time by changing the terms on its website. Users have no enforcement other than to remove the application.
Though Facebook disclaims its own risks, and states that users have no recourse, Facebook imposes some terms on how developers may use users' information:
- You must be honest and accurate about what your application does and how it uses information from Facebook users. Your application cannot falsely represent itself.
- You can only show information from Facebook Platform to a user if you retrieved it on behalf of that particular user.
- You can only cache user information for up to 24 hours to assist with performance. The only exceptions are those listed in the Facebook Platform Documentation.
Values that can be stored indefinitely include User ID; Primary network ID; Event ID; Group ID; Photo ID; Photo album ID; Total number of notes written by the user; and Time that the user's profile was last updated. Any information that the application develops or collects on its own can be forever kept and associated with the above information. For example, the blackjack application above may generate a win/loss record for a user. The application is permitted to indefinitely store the User ID and associate that with that user's performance in blackjack.
Public Search Listing
In September of 2007, Facebook introduced public search listings. Previously, only Facebook members could search Facebook for other users. Now, non-members will be able to search. Further, major search engines such as yahoo and Goggle will index the public search listings. The listing shows a limited amount of information such as name, profile picture, and Friends.
Example of a public search listing, provided by Facebook.
This change exposes Facebook members to the general Internet. The information was exposed without the explicit permission of Facebook users. The change was announced via the Facebook blog, and users were given about 30 days to opt-out before the information reached major search engines.
Social Ads and Pages
Facebook's Social Ads and pages launched in November of 2007. Pages permit advertisers and businesses to have a presence on Facebook similar to Facebook users. Advertisers can create fan clubs, videos, and other interactions with users. When users interact with an advertiser page, this generates a message to that user's feed, alerting that user's friends to this interaction. Facebook describes this as similar to "word of mouth" advertising, except that Facebook is creating the words and publishing the information based on a user's lone interaction with the page.
Facebook's social ads launch when users interact with a page. The social ad includes the interaction with the page, plus text provided by the advertiser, and the user's name and profile picture. This entire message is displayed in the feed of the user's friends. The ads can also demographically targeted, aiming at users of a certain location, age or sex, or many of the other demographic criteria that users have submitted in their profile.
Example of a Social ad. After the user rates a movie, that user's friends are shown the rating, the movie,
the user's name and picture, and are invited to join the advertiser's service. Image from Facebook
Social ads potentially violate the privacy tort of appropriation of name and likeness. Generally, the tort is described in the Restatement of Torts § 652C Appropriation of Name or Likeness:
One who appropriates to his own use or benefit the name or likeness of another is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy.
a. The interest protected by the rule stated in this Section is the interest of the individual in the exclusive use of his own identity, in so far as it is represented by his name or likeness, and in so far as the use may be of benefit to him or to others. Although the protection of his personal feelings against mental distress is an important factor leading to a recognition of the rule, the right created by it is in the nature of a property right, for the exercise of which an exclusive license may be given to a third person, which will entitle the licensee to maintain an action to protect it.
b. How invaded. The common form of invasion of privacy under the rule here stated is the appropriation and use of the plaintiff's name or likeness to advertise the defendant's business or product, or for some similar commercial purpose. Apart from statute, however, the rule stated is not limited to commercial appropriation. It applies also when the defendant makes use of the plaintiff's name or likeness for his own purposes and benefit, even though the use is not a commercial one, and even though the benefit sought to be obtained is not a pecuniary one. Statutes in some states have, however, limited the liability to commercial uses of the name or likeness.
Another applicable legal principle is the Right of Publicity, from the Third Restatement on Unfair Competition § 46:
One who appropriates the commercial value of a person's identity by using without consent the person's name, likeness, or other indicia of identity for purposes of trade is subject to liability. . . .
The actual application of the tort will vary from state to state, in some cases being a part of the common law, and in some cases part of statute. For example California Civil Code § 3344(a) states:
Any person who knowingly uses another's name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness, in any manner, on or in products, merchandise, or goods, or for purposes of advertising or selling, or soliciting purchases of, products, merchandise, goods or services, without such person's prior consent, or, in the case of a minor, the prior consent of his parent or legal guardian, shall be liable for any damages sustained by the person or persons injured as a result thereof. In addition, in any action brought under this section, the person who violated the section shall be liable to the injured party or parties in an amount equal to the greater of seven hundred fifty dollars ($750) or the actual damages suffered by him or her as a result of the unauthorized use, and any profits from the unauthorized use that are attributable to the use and are not taken into account in computing the actual damages. In establishing such profits, the injured party or parties are required to present proof only of the gross revenue attributable to such use, and the person who violated this section is required to prove his or her deductible expenses. Punitive damages may also be awarded to the injured party or parties. The prevailing party in any action under this section shall also be entitled to attorney's fees and costs
The law requires prior consent, has a minimum damage of $750, allows the injured person to capture the profits of the violation, and provides for attorney's fees to the winner.
Facebook's Beacon advertising system was also launched in November of 2007. Beacon is similar to social ads in that it broadcasts a user's interaction with an advertiser to the feeds of that user's friends. However, Beacon is broadcasting information from third party websites such as Overstock.com, or Ebay. Facebook promises advertisers that all they need to do is "[a]dd 3 lines of code and reach millions of users." The advertisers determine which user actions on their website -- such as adding a movie to queue, or purchasing an item, or signing up for the site -- will generate feed messages.
As originally designed, users were given a brief time-limited alert which gave them the ability to opt-out of each message. As launched, the application did not permit a global opt out and did not require an affirmative opt-in before each message was broadcast.
An example of the "toast" pop up that Facebook provides.
To opt out, a user must click on "No thanks" before the pop-up disappears. Image from RadiantCore.
Following protests, Facebook added two user controls to Beacon. First, users would be asked to affirmatively opt-in before a new site sent messages to their friends. Once they approved one message from that site, no further opt-ins were required. Secondly, CEO Mark Zuckerbereg announced that Facebook will allow users to globally opt-out of Beacon, preventing all message publication.
A security researcher published an examination of Beacon's data flow, "Facebook's Misrepresentation of Beacon's Threat to Privacy: Tracking users who opt out or are not logged in." The analysis shows that the Beacon system transmits information from all users of the third party site to Facebook, whether they are Facebook members, members who have opted out of Beacon ads, or never have been Facebook members. Facebook represents that it deletes the data if it cannot associate it with a Facebook member.
- EPIC Page on Social Networking Privacy.
- AllFacebook Blog.
- Inside Facebook. Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform.
- Facebook Blog. The official Facebook Blog.
- Privacy Protection for Social Networking APIs. Reviews 150 Facebook applications, and compares how much data they need vs. how much they have access to.
- Security Issues and Recommendations for Online Social Networks (pdf). A report from the the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA).
- Social Network Sites and Privacy (pdf). A presentation by Marc Rotenberg, EPIC executive director. Delivered at the University of Maryland, October 18, 2006.
- Wikipedia Page on Facebook.
- An EPIC Lawsuit, The Hill, April 24, 2018
- Digital counter surveillance for all audiences, La Vanguardia (Spain), April 24, 2018
- 'Facebook's privacy controls are sufficient, "said audit in 2017, Estadao Link, April 24, 2018
- Facebook’s hand-picked watchdogs gave it high marks for privacy even as the tech giant lost control of users’ data, Washington Post, April 24, 2018
- Senator Wants Fines, Tighter Leash On Facebook By FTC, Law360, April 23, 2018
- EPIC Sues FTC Over Facebook's Privacy Audits, POLITICO Morning Tech, April 23, 2018
- Facebook privacy audit by auditors finds everything is awesome!, The Register, April 21, 2018
- FTC-mandated audit cleared Facebook's privacy policies in 2017, Engadget, April 20, 2018
- Audit Cleared Facebook’s Privacy Practices Despite Cambridge Analytica Leak, Wall Street Journal, April 20, 2018
- https://www.wired.com/story/facebooks-2017-privacy-audit-didnt-catch-cambridge-analytica/, WIRED, April 19, 2018
- Audit Approved of Facebook Policies, Even After Cambridge Analytica Leak, New York Times, April 19, 2018
- Will the FTC come down hard on Facebook? It's only happened twice in 20 years, USA TODAY, April 18, 2018
- Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower Empowers Citizen Action, Government Accountability Project, April 18, 2018
- Facebook to face class action suit on facial recognition, NY Daily News, April 17, 2018
- Facebook gives more details on how it tracks non-users, USA TODAY, April 17, 2018
- Now Facebook confronted by overseas data-privacy fight, WND, April 14, 2018
- Here's what the Facebook crisis means for AT&T and Time Warner, Dallas News, April 13, 2018
- Facebook Isn't Out of the Woods Yet, The Street, April 13, 2018
- How Facebook can have your data even if you're not on Facebook, USA TODAY, April 13, 2018
- Why Facebook's 2011 Promises Haven't Protected Users, WIRED, April 12, 2018
- After Facebook hearings, users want to know: who's protecting my data?, USA TODAY, April 12, 2018
- Facebook in crisis: Mark Zuckerberg's testimony reveals massive problems remain, Fox News, April 12, 2018
- Transcript of Zuckerberg’s appearance before House committee, Washington Post, April 12, 2018
- Fact-checking Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's congressional testimony, Polifact, April 12, 2018
- Mark Zuckerberg's Privacy Shell Game, WIRED, April 11, 2018
- Facebook stock jumps higher as Mark Zuckerberg testifies, CBS, April 11, 2018
- It would have taken more than privacy laws to prevent the Cambridge Analytica scandal, The Hill, April 11, 2018
- Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, and Grindr: Frank Pasquale Talks About Big Data and HIV Disclosure, TheBody.com, April 11, 2018
- What You Don’t Know About How Facebook Uses Your Data, New York Times, April 11, 2018
- Facebook’s Days as an Unregulated Monopoly May Be Numbered, Wall Street Journal, April 11, 2018
- What we learned from Zuckerberg’s testimony, and what we still don’t know, PBS Newshour, April 11, 2018
- Facebook and Cambridge Analytica: Is the genie out of the bottle?, ZDNet, April 11, 2018
- 4 Things To Watch As Facebook CEO Heads To Congress, Law360, April 10, 2018
- What to do if Facebook says your info was used by Cambridge Analytica, USA TODAY, April 10, 2018
- 9 questions Congress should ask Mark Zuckerberg, Vox, April 10, 2018
- Facebook's Zuckerberg to testify over data breach, Al Jazeera, April 10, 2018
- Brenda Lee Zuckerberg Is Sorry, Chief Executive, April 10, 2018
- Today’s question for Facebook will be ‘what happens next?’: EPIC President, CNBC, April 10, 2018
- As Zuckerberg Prepares to Testify, Questions Grow Over How to Protect Data, Wall Street Journal, April 9, 2018
- 5 Facebook facepalms (just last week), Naked Security, April 9, 2018
- Facebook's facial recognition violates user privacy, watchdog groups plan to tell FTC, USA TODAY, April 6, 2018
- If Facebook gets regulated, thank vegans, Quartz, April 6, 2018
- And the Hits Keep Coming, POLITICO Pro, April 6, 2018
- Facebook’s Facial Recognition Feature Violates Users’ Privacy Rights, Groups Allege, Wall Street Journal, April 6, 2018
- Facebook faces fresh facial recognition complaint , Financial Times, April 6, 2018
- EPIC files complaint against Facebook’s ‘Tag Suggestion’ feature, Hotpress, April 6, 2018
- Facebook And Online Privacy , Diane Rehm Show, April 6, 2018
- Facebook broadens estimate of data misuse to 87 million people, including more than 600,000 Canadians, The Globe and Mail, April 5, 2018
- Is This European Law Behind Facebook's Privacy Shift, Newsweek, April 2, 2018
- Hey Alexa, can you keep a secret from snooping big tech? , Economic Times, April 2, 2018
- Facebook Faces Calls to Further Protect User Privacy, Voice of America, April 2, 2018
- Facing outcry over data breach, Facebook again overhauls privacy settings, Yahoo News, March 30, 2018
- Facebook limits ad targeting after Cambridge Analytica data leak, USA TODAY, March 30, 2018
- Facebook again overhauls privacy settings after outcry over data breach, RawStory, March 30, 2018
- Tim Cook Blasts Facebook & Google, Calls For Government Regulation, CleanTechnica, March 30, 2018
- Facebook Changing Privacy Controls As Criticism Escalates, Daily Democrat Press, March 30, 2018
- Facebook under fire, but it’s just part of ‘surveillance economy’, Christian Science Monitor, March 29, 2018
- Consumer, privacy groups urge Zuckerberg to hire Jimmy Carter as election monitor, The Hill, March 29, 2018
- Amidst data breach scandal, Facebook revamps privacy tools and settings to give users greater control, The Economic Times, March 29, 2018
- Privacy groups hit at Facebook, POLITICO, March 28, 2018
- Facebook Phone-Scraping Takes Users by Surprise, ECT News Network, March 27, 2018
- Facebook’s current woes exacerbated by six-year-old FTC settlement, MarketWatch, March 27, 2018
- Cambridge Analytica whistleblower testifies, CBS This Morning, March 27, 2018
- Special Report With Bret Baier, Fox News, March 27, 2018
- Behind Facebook's baby step fixes: Defending its ad business, Associated Press, March 26, 2018
- FTC opens probe into Facebook privacy practices , Financial Times, March 26, 2018
- Facebook Data Scandal Opens New Era in Global Privacy Enforcement, Politico, March 26, 2018
- The FTC Is Officially Investigating Facebook's Data Practices, Wired, March 26, 2018
- Attorneys General Demand Answers From Facebook, KPBS, March 26, 2018
- Federal Trade Commission Confirms Facebook Probe As Its Shares Plunge, Talking Points Memo, March 26, 2018
- FTC, States Increase Pressure on Facebook on Privacy, Phys.org, March 26, 2018
- Facebook Faces Growing Government Scrutiny in Privacy Scandal, San Francisco Chronicle, March 26, 2018
- Facebook had a closer relationship than it disclosed with the academic it called a liar, The Washington Post, March 23, 2018
- Behind Facebook's Baby Step Fixes: Defending Its Ad Business, US News & World Report, March 23, 2018
- Lawmakers Ask Zuckerberg To Testify About Data Misuse, Law360, March 23, 2018
- Facebook-Cambridge Analytica shows the need for a new privacy law, Business Insider, March 22, 2018
- Facebook feels the pressure over data leak, Irish Examiner, March 22, 2018
- Facebook’s latest data breach reveals Silicon Valley’s fortunes are built on pilfering privacy, Salon, March 22, 2018
- What you can do to protect your personal data on Facebook, PBS Newshour, March 22, 2018
- Facebook Swelters in Cambridge Analytica Heat, E-Commerce Times, March 22, 2018
- How the FTC Could Have Avoided the Facebook Mess, Techonomy, March 22, 2018
- Facebook Crisis Reignites Washington’s Scrutiny of Social Networks, Bloomberg BNA, March 21, 2018
- Facebook data scandal: the legal questions, Financial Times, March 21, 2018
- Privacy groups put pressure on FTC's Facebook probe, POLITICO Pro, March 21, 2018
- Three Questions: Prof. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld on the Crisis at Facebook, Yale Insights, March 21, 2018
- Facebook Owes You More Than This, WIRED, March 20, 2018
- Can Facebook be trusted with your personal info? Voter harvesting scheme shows perils for users, USA TODAY, March 20, 2018
- Facebook’s rules for accessing user data lured more than just Cambridge Analytica, Washington Post, March 20, 2018
- Facebook Leaves Its Users’ Privacy Vulnerable, New York Times (Editorial), March 20, 2018
- Facebook facing federal investigation over Cambridge Analytica data scandal, CBS News, March 20, 2018
- As data misuse scandal grows, Facebook investigated by FTC, meets with lawmakers, USA TODAY, March 20, 2018
- The Latest: Cambridge Analytica whistleblower regrets work, San Francisco Chronicle, March 20, 2018
- US, European officials question Facebook's protection of personal data, Washington Post, March 19, 2018
- Data leak puts Facebook under intensifying scrutiny on two continents, Seattle Times, March 19, 2018
- Cambridge Analytica Breach Reveals Facebook’s Weak User Data Defenses, eWeek, March 19, 2018
- Facebook says you 'own' all the data you post. Not even close, say privacy experts, Los Angeles Times, March 19, 2018
- Officials: Facebook may have violated FTC privacy deal, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, March 18, 2018
- Watchdog Asks Court To Vacate Facebook Settlement Over Message Scans, MediaPost, February 2, 2018
- Facebook's 'Fixes' Meaningful or Just Skin Deep?, US News and World Report, January 31, 2018
- Advocates Push Facebook To Nix Messenger Kids App, Law360, January 30, 2018
- Facebook to Launch Privacy Center Ahead of EU Regulations, USA Today, January 29, 2018
- Facebook’s Privacy Hokey-Pokey, Fortune, September 22, 2017
- Facebook case told of US obstacles to privacy redress for EU citizens, Irish Times, February 22, 2017
- Facebook Now Shares Exactly Which Brands Know Your Intimate Details, Vocativ, February 17, 2017
- Outside experts file briefs in EU Facebook privacy case, The Hill, December 24, 2016
- Germany orders Facebook to stop sharing and delete WhatsApp user data, Ars Technica, September 27, 2016
- Germany orders Facebook to stop collecting WhatsApp data, Engadget, September 27, 2016
- Nielsen will monitor Facebook to measure buzz about TV programs, LA Times, January 20, 2016
- Zuckerberg's Facebook page hacked, The Los Angeles Times, Jan. 30, 2011.
- Facebook Erodes Privacy and Tightens Security, PCWorld, Jan. 27, 2011.
- Facebook Puts HTTPS Security Guard on Full-Time Duty, TechNewsWorld, Jan. 27, 2011.
- Facebook reaches deal with Germany over 'Friend Finder' privacy concerns, The Los Angeles Times, Jan. 24, 2011.
- Facebook Does About-Face Following Privacy Backlash, TechNewsWorld, Jan. 18, 2011.
- Facebook halts phone number sharing feature, CNNMoney.com, Jan. 18, 2011.
- Goldman Sachs Deal Lets Facebook Indulge Its Privacy Fetish, Forbes Blog, Jan. 3, 2011.
- Facebook in Privacy Breach, The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 18, 2010.
- A Guide to Facebook’s New Privacy Settings, The New York Times, May 27, 2010.
- New Facebook privacy settings are 'a red herring', say activists, The Guardian, May 27, 2010.
- How Facebook Is Redefining Privacy, Time, May 20, 2010.
- Worried about your Facebook privacy? Six things you should know, NY Daily News, May 17, 2010.
- Facebook Privacy: Secrets Unveiled, PCWorld, May 16, 2010.
- Zuckerberg's Privacy Stance: Facebook CEO 'Doesn't Believe In Privacy' , The Huffington Post, April 29, 2010.
- When Everyone’s a Friend, Is Anything Private?, The New York Times, Mar. 7, 2009.
- Project ‘Gaydar’, Boston Globe, Sept. 20, 2009
- Online Friends at What Price?, Marc Rotenberg, Sacramento Bee, July 20, 2008.
- Online Games Can Lead to Identity Theft, ABC News, July 16, 2008.
- A Flashy Facebook Page, at a Cost to Privacy, Washington Post, June 12, 2008
- Blockbuster Sued For Participating In Facebook's Beacon Program, Online Media Daily, April 17, 2008.
- Report: Facebook Security Lapse Exposes Photos, ComputerWorld, March 25, 2008.
- Plea to Ban Employers Trawling Facebook, TimesOnline, March 25, 2008. |
- More Privacy Options, The Facebook Blog, March 19, 2008.
- Facebook Denies Role in Morocco Arrest, Wall Street Journal, February 29, 2008.
- Taxman Admits to Facebook 'Trawl', Independent.ie, February 25, 2008.
- What Facebook Knows That You Don't, Washington Post, February 23, 2008.
- Hackers Exploiting Facebook, MySpace Plug-ins, Washington Post, February 23, 2008.
- Quitting Facebook Gets Easier, New York Times, February 13, 2008.
- How Sticky Is Membership on Facebook? Just Try Breaking Free, New York Times, February 11, 2008. Discusses difficulties with account deletion on Facebook.
- Exclusive: The Next Facebook Privacy Scandal, C|Net, January, 23, 2008. Discusses privacy issues with Facebook's third party application providers.
- Facebook Questioned Over Data Protection, Telegraph, January 21, 2008. The UK information commissioner's office is questioning Facebook's practice of retaining data instead of deleting it.
- Facebook, Google And Plaxo Join The DataPortability Workgroup, TechCrunch, January 8, 2008. The DataPortability working group is at www.dataportability.org.
- Facebook Blocks Secret Crush Over Adware Row, The Register, January 8, 2008. "Facebook has blocked the "Secret Crush" widget for violation of its terms of service, following a row about the use of the application to dupe users into downloading adware onto their PCs."
- Facebook Locks Out Plaxo, ZDNet, January 4, 2008. "Social-networking site Facebook has fought off a major-league blogger's bid to extract his own contact list from the service, using a utility from rival site Plaxo, highlighting the unanswered question of who owns data associated with people's identities on social-networking sites."
- Delete My Bleeping Account, Facebook!, Daily Kos, December 25, 2007.
- Facebook ban for British MP: Liberal Democrat told he isn't 'real.' Tech.co.uk, December 21, 2007.
- Facebook Sues Porn Company Over Hacking. PCWorld, December 17, 2007. "The social network claims a bot from the Canadian porn site tried to gather its members' data."
- Can Blockbuster Be Sued Over Facebook Beacon? Slashdot, December 14, 2007.
- Facebook to Let Other Sites Access Platform Code. C|Net, December 12, 2007.
- Facebook, ID fraud, and the dark side of the Web. InfoWorld, December 11, 2007. "At the Le Web 3 conference, panelists discussed the securiy implications of Web 2.0, including identity management and privacy concerns."
- Facebook and the VPPA. The Laboratorium, December 10, 2007. A law professor discusses how Facebook Beacon may violate the Video Privacy Protection Act when it broadcasts a user's movie selections on the Blockbuster website.
- Thoughts on Beacon.The Facebook Blog, December 5, 2007.
- Safety on Facebook. The Facebook Blog, October 19, 2007.
- Attorney General Cuomo and Facebook Announce New Model to Protect Children Online. Office of the New York State Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, October 16, 2007
- Cuomo Subpoenas Facebook Over User Safety: Facebook Ignores Complaints About Sexual Predators. Office of the New York State Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, September 24, 2007.
- Facebook to Make Listings Public via Search Engines. PCWorld, September 5, 2007.
- Facebook Expands Into MySpace's Territory. The New York Times, May 25, 2007. Discusses the launch of the Facebook Platform.
- Facebook's feeds cause privacy concerns. The Amherst Student, October 3, 2006.
- MySpace and Facebook rivals are growing. The Wall Street Journal, October 2, 2006.
- $1 Billion for Facebook? LOL!. Slate, September 28, 2006.
- Open Facebook. Forbes. September 11, 2006.
- Facebook to Allow Open Registrations. TechCrunch, September 11, 2006.
- An Open Letter From Mark Zuckerberg. The Facebook Blog, September 8, 2006.
- Saying It 'Messed Up,' Facebook Modifies Controversial Feature. The Washington Post, September 7, 2006.
- Calm Down. Breathe. We Hear You. The Facebook Blog, September 6, 2006.
- Facebook Gets a Facelift. The Facebook Blog, September 5, 2006. Announces the News Feed and Mini-Feed features.
- Facebook asocia publicidad a las actividades de sus internautas, El Pais (Spain), 26 de Enero, 2011.
- ¡Ups!, mi madre está en Facebook, El Pais (Spain), 12 de Enero, 2011.
- Cómo mantener la privacidad en Facebook, La Nacion (Argentina), 22 de Dic., 2009.
- Canadian Law Students File Privacy Complaint Against Facebook. The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic today filed a 35-page complaint (pdf) under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act against Facebook, alleging 22 separate violations of Canadian privacy law. CIPPIC Press Release. (May 30, 2008)
- International Privacy Officials Recommend Social Networking Privacy Safeguards. The International Working Group On Data Protection in Telecommunications has released a report and guidance (pdf) on privacy in social networking services. The report identifies risks to privacy and security, and provides guidance to regulators, service operators and users to counter these risks. Risks include the large amount of data collection; the misuse of profile data by third parties; insecure infrastructure and application programming interfaces. Regulators should ensure openness, and oblige data breach notification. Providers must be transparent; live up to promises made to users; and use privacy friendly defaults. Privacy and consumer groups are also recommended to raise the awareness of regulators, providers and the general public. (Apr. 17, 2008)
- Facebook Eases Account Deletion, Default Third Party Information Sharing Remains.After recent criticisms concerning the practical impossibility of deleting account information, Facebook has changed its help page on deletion. Users may now contact Facebook to request permanent deletion of their information. However, Facebook's default sharing of excess personal information with thousands of third party application developers remains. User information travels to these third parties when they or their friends add an application to their profiles. Facebook disclaims all liability from what happens to that information. For more, see EPIC's page on Facebook. (Feb. 19. 2008)
- UK Commissioner to Investigate Facebook Data Retention. Social networking site Facebook is under investigation by the UK Information Commissioner for its data retention practices. Facebook users may "deactivate" their accounts, leaving their personal information on Facebook servers but inaccessible to the public. Users have to individually delete each profile element. The investigation follows a complaint from a user unable to fully delete his profile. The Information Commissioner is an independent authority that enforces and oversees the Data Protection Act. (Jan 22, 2008)
- Facebook Announces Beacon Opt-out, Promises Not to Retain Data. Social networking site Facebook announced that users would be able to globally opt-out of the "Beacon" advertising system. Beacon collects information on interactions with third party sites such as Fandango and Ebay. Beacon then broadcasts this information to a user's Facebook friends. Security researchers recently revealed that Beacon collects information on all users of those third party sites, not just Facebook members. Facebook's announcement promises that they will not keep or use this information on non-members and those who have opted out. (Dec 4, 2007)
- Facebook Caves to Privacy Demands, Adopts Limited Opt-In. Social networking site Facebook.com significantly modified the privacy features of its new "Beacon" advertising system. Facebook users found their purchases on third party sites were being broadcast to their Facebook friends. Users had only limited options for opting out of the broadcast. In response to complaints from EPIC, the Center for Digital Democracy, Moveon.org, and thousands of users, Facebook will now ask that users opt-in before broadcasting their details. Facebook will continue to collect information from third party sites and will continue to ask for opt-ins until the user consents. (Nov 30, 2007)
- Facebook to Collect, Distribute User Interactions With Third Party Sites. Social networking website Facebook.com introduced its "Beacon" feature to much controversy. Facebook users who shop at third party websites will have their purchases broadcast to their friends via Facebook. Facebook receives this third party information and shares it unless user opt-out during a brief pop-up window at the third party site. Interest group MoveOn.org has started a petition campaign and Facebook group against this feature. The MoveOn petition and Facebook group demand that Facebook share user information only with explicit opt-in permission. Facebook considered, but did not adopt, a blanket opt-out for the beacon feature. (Nov 28, 2007)
- Facebook Unveils New "Social Ads." Social networking site Facebook.com unveiled "social ads," a new advertising product. Marketers create Facebook profiles and purchase advertising targeting other users profile information. Further, a users name and picture will be shown to their friends in promotion of a product after that user interacts with the marketer in some way. A law professor has questioned whether this violates the privacy tort prohibiting commercial appropriation of name and likeness. Facebook's privacy settings do not currently allow one to opt out of receiving marketing or being used in it. (Nov. 14, 2007)
- Facebook Responds to Users' Demands. In response to the negative reactions of so many of its users, Facebook put new privacy controls on the News Feed feature into operation. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, published an open letter on the Web site on September 8th apologizing for not having consulted with users prior to introducing feature, which notified users of all their contacts' activities, such as profile changes from "in a relationship" to "single." However, the change is simply an opt-out and puts the burden on Facebook users to protect their privacy. Over 700,000 users signed an online petition demanding the company discontinue the feature, stating that this compromised their privacy. (Sept. 25, 2006).
- Outcry Over New Facebook Feature. When social networking Web site Facebook introduced their new News Feed feature on September 5, the company was accused of invading the privacy of its users and facilitating stalking. The goal of the new feature was to make it easier for users to keep up to date with the latest happenings in the lives of their online friends. However, user upset at its introduction sparked debate over how much control users expect to have over the information they place on these Web sites, and also whether the means of dissemination of this information matters. (Sept. 5, 2006).
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Red Fort at Delhi was the official Residence of the Mughal Emperors for nearly Two Centuries from mid 16th century to mid 18th century. 1857 Rebellion against the British saw the British winning the rebellion. The British had destroyed two-thirds of the inner structures of the Red fort. Later on, under Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, repairers to the fort walls, gardens and water channels were made. Heritage buildings, Gardens, Palaces, etc, in the red fort museum complex are now a UNESCO World Heritage site.
On the ramparts of Red Fort, the Prime Mister of India hoists national flag each year on Indian Independence day, i.e. on August 15th.
Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan constructed the Red fort as the Mughal capital in 1648 and shifted the capital from Red Fort Agra to Red Fort Delhi. It is made of Red sandstone and hence got its name. The Fort is adjacent to Salimgarh Fort, an older fort built by Islam Shah Suri in 1546. The Palace and other buildings inside the Red fort complex on 254.67 acres of land, are connected by a water channels (called Stream of Paradise), which used to be fed by waters from the the Yamuna river, which was flowing next to the Fort during those days. River Yumuna has changed its course slightly afterwards.
Red Fort was designed by the same designer who designed the Taj Mahal at Agra. The Red fort architecture is considered ultimate Mughal creativity under Shah Jahan. His son and successor, Emperor Aurangzeb, added the Pearl Mosque to the private quarters of the emperor. Persian emperor Nadir Shah has defeated the Mughals in 1739 and looted most of the valuables including the Peacock Throne (which cost twice as much as the cost of construction of Taj Mahal) and world’s most expensive diamond Kohinoor or Koh-i-Noor. Kohinoor Diamond is currently part of Queen Elizabeth II’s Royal Crown.
There is a sound & light show at the fort in the evenings, which describes the Mughal history to the tourists. Most the original structure are damaged now. The extensive water channels with its fragrant waters are dry. Most of its Marble inlaid flowers were looted by invaders. The tea house now houses a restaurant, even though not in original form. Pearl mosque and hamam ( Turkish Bath) are now closed for the public.
Red Fort is one of the must see places to visit in Delhi. Delhi sightseeing would not be complete, without a visit to Red Fort.
Structures Inside the Red Fort Museum or Complex
Major structures inside the UNESCO World Heritage site of Red Fort Museum Complex today are Chawari Bazar, Lahori Gate, Chhatta Chowk, Naubat Khana, Delhi Gate, Water Gate, Diwan-i-Aam,Mumtaz Mahal, Rang Mahal, Nahr-i-Behisht, Khas Mahal, Diwan-i-Khas, Hammam, Moti Masjid (Pearl Mosque), Hira Mahal, Hayat Bakhsh Bagh & Princes’ Quarters.
How Do I Go to Red Fort, Delhi?
Red Fort at Delhi is situated in the heart of the city and is accessible by road. Hazrat Nizamuddin railway station , a major terminal station in New Delhi, is close to red Fort. New Delhi Railway station is another Major railway station which connects the city with the rest of the country. There is an International airport at New Delhi.
What are The Entry Timings at Red Fort Delhi
The Red Fort is open from 9:30 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. on all days, except Mondays.
Sound and Light show timings are from 6 pm on-wards (in English and Hindi). It is charged separately. It costs Rs. 80 for adults and Rs. 30 for children for this show.
How much is the Entry Fees at Red Fort Delhi
There is an entry fee to enter this UNESCO Heriatge site. Red fort Delhi ticket rate is INR 35 for Indian citizens,
Red fort Delhi ticket charges for foreigners is INR 500. Please confirm the rates mentioned above at your end. | <urn:uuid:3348f2a3-a404-4a4a-8c12-914c3e3f11a5> | CC-MAIN-2019-26 | http://touristinindia.com/blog/tag/red-fort-architecture/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-26/segments/1560628000610.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20190627015143-20190627041143-00125.warc.gz | en | 0.947577 | 898 | 3.34375 | 3 |
September 25 -- Coal-fired power plants and wind farms can find happiness together in the West — that is the finding of a new National Renewable Energy Laboratory study. The impact that renewables have on coal and natural-gas base-load generation has been one of the concerns about adding more renewable generation to the power grid. Some studies have indicated that ramping up and down fossil-fuel plants to accommodate wind and solar ends up creating expense and pollution. The NREL study, however, concluded that with the offsets in operation and fuel savings from renewable energy, the benefits outweigh the costs. >>View Article
Wednesday, 25 September 2013 15:01
Coal, Renewables Mix Well In West, NREL Report Says FeaturedWritten by Bill Nelander
Published in Industry News
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Uncle Tom's Cabin Told to the Children
by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Chapter 7: Master George and Uncle Tom
- Year Published: 1852
- Language: English
- Country of Origin: United States of America
- Source: Stowe, H. B. (1852). Uncle Tom's Cabin (Told to the Children). H. E. Marshall, (Ed.).
- Flesch–Kincaid Level: 3.7
- Word Count: 1,169
- Genre: Historical Fiction
- Keywords: 19th century literature, american literature
- ✎ Cite This
Stowe, H. (1852). Chapter 7: Master George and Uncle Tom. Uncle Tom's Cabin Told to the Children (Lit2Go Edition). Retrieved March 30, 2023, from https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/88/uncle-toms-cabin-told-to-the-children/1496/chapter-7-master-george-and-uncle-tom/
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. "Chapter 7: Master George and Uncle Tom." Uncle Tom's Cabin Told to the Children. Lit2Go Edition. 1852. Web. <https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/88/uncle-toms-cabin-told-to-the-children/1496/chapter-7-master-george-and-uncle-tom/>. March 30, 2023.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, "Chapter 7: Master George and Uncle Tom," Uncle Tom's Cabin Told to the Children, Lit2Go Edition, (1852), accessed March 30, 2023, https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/88/uncle-toms-cabin-told-to-the-children/1496/chapter-7-master-george-and-uncle-tom/.
Haley and Tom had rattled along the dusty road for about a mile, when Haley pulled up at a blacksmith's shop. He got out to have something done to a pair of handcuffs, leaving Tom in the cart.
Tom was sitting there, very mournfully, when suddenly he heard the quick, short click of a horse's hoof behind him. Almost before he knew what was happening, George Shelby sprang into the cart. He threw his arms round Tom's neck, sobbing and scolding.
'I declare it's real mean. I don't care what they say, any of them. It's a nasty, mean shame. If I were a man, they shouldn't do it—they should not!'
'Oh, Mas'r George, this does me good,' said Tom.' I couldn't bear to go off without seein' ye. It does me real good, ye can't tell.'
Here Tom made a movement with his feet, and George's eyes fell on the chains.
'What a shame,' he cried. ' I'll knock that old fellow down, I will.'
'No, you won't, Mas'r George; and you must not talk so loud. It won't help me any, to anger him.'
'Well, I won't then, for your sake. But only to think of it—isn't it a shame? They never sent for me, nor sent me any word. If it hadn't been for Tom Lincoln, I shouldn't have heard of it. I tell you, I blew them up well, all of them, at home.'
'That wasn't right, I'm feared, Mas'r George.'
'Can't help it. I say it's a shame. Look here, Uncle Tom,' said he, turning his back to the shop, and speaking in a mysterious tone, 'I've brought you my dollar.'
'Oh, I couldn't think of takin' it, Mas'r George, noways in the world,' said Tom.
'But you shall take it,' said George. 'Look here, I told Aunt Chloe I'd do it. She advise, me just to make a hole in it, and put a string through. You can hang it round your neck, and keep it out of sight, else this mean scamp will take it away. I tell you, Tom, I want to blow him up. It would do me good.'
'No, don't, Mas'r George, for it won't do me any good.'
'Well, I won't for your sake,' said George, busily tying his dollar round Tom's neck. 'There, now button your coat tight over it, and keep it safe. Remember every time you see it, that I'm coming after you some day, to bring you back. Aunt Chloe and I have been talking about it: I told her not to fear. I'll see to it. I'll tease father's life out, if he doesn't see to it.'
'Oh, Mas'r George, ye mustn't talk so 'bout your father.'
'Dear me, Uncle Tom, I don't mean anything bad.'
'And now, Mas'r George,' said Tom, 'ye must be a good boy. 'Member how many hearts is set on ye. Always keep close to your mother. Don't be getting into any o' them foolish ways boys has of getting too big to mind their mothers. Tell ye what, Mas'r George, the Lord gives a good many things twice over, but he don't give ye a mother but once. Ye'll never see such another woman, Mas'r George—not if ye live to be a hundred years old. So, now, you hold on to her, and grow up, and be a comfort to her, there's my own good boy—you will now—won't ye?'
'Yes, I will, Uncle Tom,' said George seriously.
'And be careful of yer speaking, Mas'r George. Young boys, when they comes to your age, is wilful sometimes—it's natural they should be. But real gentlemen such as I hopes you'll be, never lets fall words that isn't 'spectful to their parents. Ye an't offended, Mas'r George?'
'No, indeed, Uncle Tom, you always give me good advice.'
'I'se older, you know,' said Tom, stroking George's curly head with his large strong hand, but speaking in a voice as tender as a mother's.
'Oh, Mas'r George, you has everything—learning, reading, writing—and you'll grow up to be a great, learned, good man. All the people on the place, and your father and mother, 'll be proud of ye. Be a good mas'r like your father, and be a Christian like your mother, Mas'r George.'
'I'll be real good, Uncle Tom, I tell you,' said George. 'And don't you be discouraged. I'll have you back yet. As I told Aunt Chloe this morning, I'll build your house over again. You shall have a room for a parlour, with a carpet on it, when I'm a man. Oh, you'll have good times yet.'
Haley now came to the shop door with the handcuffs in his hand.
'Look here, now, mister,' said George, looking at him very grandly, 'I shall let father and mother know how you treat Uncle Tom.'
'You're welcome,' replied he.
'I should think you'd be ashamed to spend all your life buying men and women, and chaining them like cattle! I should think you'd feel mean,' said George.
'So long as you grand folks wants to buy men and women, I'm as good as they,' said Haley. 'It isn't any meaner to sell them than to buy them.'
'I'll never do either, when I'm a man,' said George. 'I'm ashamed this day. Good-bye, Uncle Tom,' he added, 'don't get down-hearted.'
'Good-bye, Mas'r George,' said Tom. 'God Almighty bless you.'
Away George went, and Tom looked after him until the clatter of his horse's heels died away. It was the last sound or sight of his home. But over his heart there seemed to be a warm spot where George had placed that precious dollar. Tom put up his hand and held it close to his heart.
Haley came to the cart, threw the handcuffs in, and jumping up on to the seat, drove off again.
All day long, they drove over the rough country roads. Late in the evening they arrived at a town called Washington. Haley went to a comfortable inn for the night, but poor Tom was sent to prison with handcuffs on his wrists, and heavy chains on his ankles. This was not because he had done anything wicked, but only that he happened to be a black man and a slave. | <urn:uuid:3d6f22a3-6497-44b5-b9b5-3b0c33540bf6> | CC-MAIN-2023-14 | https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/88/uncle-toms-cabin-told-to-the-children/1496/chapter-7-master-george-and-uncle-tom/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296949107.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20230330070451-20230330100451-00355.warc.gz | en | 0.972442 | 1,914 | 3.140625 | 3 |
At the beginning of the month, the Pew Research Center published their most recent report on teens and technology entitled “Teens, Social Media & Technology Overview 2015”. The Pew Research Center always provides great insight into the use of technology by both adults and teenagers. This report, taken from data obtained in the fall of 2014, continues to provide helpful insight. Though others have published on this topic earlier in the month, I wanted to take the time to write about the report in the context of my work in prevention and parental education.
The results of the survey are interesting not just because they provide some idea of what teens are doing in the mobile world, but the study also highlights the differences in usage between genders, race and socioeconomic classes.
Most American teens have a mobile phone and almost 75% of all American teens have a smartphone. These numbers are higher for African American teenagers. 68% of all teens age 13-14 have access to or have their own smartphone. These teens are using the internet all the time, with 24% of teens saying that they are on the internet “almost constantly” and 56% saying they are on the internet several times a day. Minority teens are going online more frequently than white teens and teens from wealthy families are online less than those from lower income families.
We all know that teens text and they text a lot. However, what many parents don’t realize is that their teens are not necessarily just texting via their phone, they are also texting via messaging apps. The study found that 91% of teens text and 33% of teens surveyed text via apps such as Kik or What’s App. Minority teens and teens from lower income families are more likely to use messaging apps and girls are more likely to use messaging apps than boys. The important message for parents here is that you need to know what messaging apps are out there and what apps your kids are using.
Anonymous apps such as After School and Yik Yak have been in the news frequently, mostly dealing with problems of cyberbullying. The study found that 11% of teens reported using these apps. Hispanic teens were two times more likely to use these apps than white teens. These numbers are actually good news. Though the negative features of these apps often make sensational headlines, the number of teens using these apps is relatively small.
Many parents may not be aware that teens use video chat apps with some frequency. This could be the more widely known ones such as Skype and Facetime or lesser known avenues such as Oovoo or Omegle. Parents need to gain some knowledge in this area since almost half of teens are talking (47%) in this manner. Girls video chat more than boys.
We all know that teens are avid social media users. This again makes headlines. Particularly, there have been a lot of headlines about how teens are leaving Facebook for other social media outlets. This is not necessarily true. Apparently, teens are using multiple social media apps at the same time. The survey showed that 89% of teens use at least one social media outlet and nearly ¾ use two or more sites. Facebook is still the most popular social media site that is used with 71% of teens surveyed using the site.
What other social media sites are teens using? Over half of teens use the photo sharing site Instagram. 41% of teens are also using Snapchat. Girls and older teenagers are more likely to use Snapchat than boys or younger teens. Teens are also using Twitter with 33% of all teens on this social media site. Lesser used social media sites are Tumblr (14%) and Vine (24%).
I really appreciate the data we get from these types of surveys. As an adult and a digital immigrant, I am often not the first to know about what apps and technology teens are using. The data from Pew is generated directly from teens themselves and gives us a better picture of what they are doing in the digital world. It also gives parents an idea of what they need to be aware of regarding their children’s use of technology.
Though surveys are great, I will end this post with the writings of an actual teen. The post seen at https://medium.com/backchannel/a-teenagers-view-on-social-media-1df945c09ac6 does not have an author listed so I can only credit the 19 year old college student who wrote it anonymously. I love this post as it is written by an actual teen, not an adult talking about what teens do. You can read his post for full details but here is his breakdown of a party, which I love:
“ You post yourself getting ready for the party, going to the party, having fun at the party, leaving at the end of the party, and waking up the morning after the party on Snapchat.
On Facebook, you post the cute, posed picture you took with your friends at the party with a few candids (definitely no alcohol in these photos).
On Instagram, you pick the cutest one of the bunch to post to your network.”
In summary, as a parent, you have to be aware of everything that is out in the digital realm. It is likely we will always be a bit behind the eight ball unless we are hard core techies ourselves. Studies like this from Pew help us get a leg up on understanding what most teens are doing in this period of time, which is likely a better barometer than the sensationalized media.
For more information on Dr. Weeks Prevention Project: The New Age of Sex Education: How to talk to your teens about cybersex and pornography, please click here. | <urn:uuid:2ce20849-e660-4892-98ed-0a03982e8140> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://drjensrecoveryreadings.com/2015/04/30/what-were-teens-doing-online-last-year/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320302715.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20220121010736-20220121040736-00358.warc.gz | en | 0.96094 | 1,153 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Let’s move on to the excellent article It’s Not How Much; It’s How: Characteristics of Practice Behavior and Retention of Performance Skills, by Duke et al. (2009), which is another dive into analyzing what leads to good retention of learning in music education. Just to be different, I’ll start with the conclusion, and then circle around to the study construction.
“The results showed that the strategies employed during practice were more determinative of performance quality at retention than was how much or how long the pianists practiced”
17 students (advanced piano performance students) were given a 3-measure passage from a difficult Concerto to learn. The students each followed the following protocol for practice:
- 2-min warmup of their choice
- As much time as they need with the passage, a metronome, a pencil, and a piano, to lean the passage well and play it confidently at the target tempo.
- A 24-hour break away from the music, with a promise not to practice it at all
The next day, the students had the same 2-minute warmup period (asking that they do not warm up with the practiced passage). Then they were asked to play straight through the 3 measures at the target tempo 15 times without stopping (these are the retention trials).
After recording numerical data about the practice sessions and retention trials, the researchers watched the recorded practice sessions to make detailed observations about the techniques each participant used to practice. Then they ranked the retention trials of the 17 participants, examining tone, character, and expressiveness of musical performance.
Here are the practice variables that were NOT related significantly to the retention trial rankings:
- total time practiced
- total number of times through the passage during practice
- total number of correct and near-correct times through the passage
Here are the practice variables that were significantly related to the retention trial rankings:
- number of complete incorrect performance trials (positive correlation)
- percentage of all complete trials that were correct (negative correlation)
- percentage of complete trials that were correct and near-correct (negative correlation)
Three of the participants were ranked as clearly superior to the other 14 students. Examining the practice sessions from these three students yielded a set of 8 strategies (see p. 317 of the article for the full list), a few of which are summarized here :
- early in practicing, the playing was hands-together
- when errors appeared, they were addressed immediately
- the precise location and source of each error was identified accurately, rehearsed, and corrected
- the tempo was varied
- target passages were repeated until stabilized (no more errors)
While the other 14 players would employ some of the 8 strategies, it was only the top 3 that used all of them. In other words, the top-performing practicers had very good metacognition skills. They could accurately identify their mistakes, sometimes anticipating them in advance, and knew what kinds of actions to take to work in the direction of correcting the mistakes and avoiding them in the future.
One of my key takeaways from this article was a quote from the literature review, which I think is much more widely applicable to many subjects (not just music):
“making practice assignments in terms of time practiced instead of goals accomplished remains one of the most curious and stubbornly persistent traditions in music pedagogy”
In mathematics, we assign lists of problems, and students are to do all the problems regardless of their mastery over time. I’m wondering if we shouldn’t give the students a suggested list to practice from, with goals about what they should learn, and tell them to practice until they are reasonably sure they have accomplished the goals. I might go so far as to ask them to do the assignment in pen, crossing out and correcting mistakes as they go, so they can see the progress towards mastery of the topic.
I’m afraid that our relentless focus on time or quantity practiced might be handicapping students’ metacognitive abilities. Do our students actually know when they have mastered a topic? Do they transparently remember the mistakes they make after erasing them and overwriting them? I’m reminded of the Trevor Ragan video about Blocked and Random Practice that says that practice is going to be ugly. I think practice that produces learning IS going to be ugly, and somehow we need to help students be okay with this.
Challenge: Think about how to structure student out-of-class practice so that the focus is not on time or quantity, but on the error analysis and thoughtful correction. Try to make the whole purpose of the assignment around accurately identifying mistakes and working towards mastery of the material rather than “checking off” the to-do items on a list.
Note: A weekly bite of learning and challenge goes out every week. If you’d like to have it delivered to your inbox, sign up at Weekly Teaching Challenge.
Duke, R. A., Simmons, A. L., & Cash, C. D. (2009). It’s not how much; it’s how characteristics of practice behavior and retention of performance skills. Journal of Research in Music Education, 56(4), 310-321.
Possibly Related Posts:
- Group Exploration in Math
- Expectations About Studying and Syllabi
- Video of AMATYC Keynote
- Learning Math is Not a Spectator Sport
- Why high contextual interference? | <urn:uuid:a934c1bf-e682-4e10-ad54-8bd1bb98acea> | CC-MAIN-2019-09 | http://busynessgirl.com/learners-need-to-focus-on-errors/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-09/segments/1550247487595.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20190218155520-20190218181520-00018.warc.gz | en | 0.963819 | 1,139 | 3.75 | 4 |
Illustrations for Public Use
These illustrations are provided for general use in oral presentations and classes.
Please acknowledge me when you use the illustrations.
These illustrations are also available for publication in print or on the internet.
Please obtain permission directly from me at
firstname.lastname@example.org and include an acknowledgement such as: "Illustration by David S. Goodsell, the Scripps Research Institute."
All of the illustrations presented through the Molecule of the Month are also available for public use. High quality versions are available by clicking here.
Click on the small images to go to the high resolution images in tif format.
This illustration shows an entire mycoplasma cell. For more information, click on the image.
© David S. Goodsell 2011.
This illustration shows a cross-section of a small portion of an Escherichia coli cell.
The cell wall, with two concentric membranes studded with transmembrane proteins, is
shown in green. A large flagellar motor crosses the entire wall, turning the flagellum
that extends upwards from the surface. The cytoplasmic area is colored blue and purple.
The large purple molecules are ribosomes and the small, L-shaped maroon molecules are
tRNA, and the white strands are mRNA. Enzymes are shown in blue. The nucleoid region is
shown in yellow and orange, with the long DNA circle shown in yellow, wrapped around
HU protein (bacterial nucleosomes). In the center of the nucleoid region shown here,
you might find a replication fork, with DNA polymerase (in red-orange) replicating new DNA.
© David S. Goodsell 1999.
This illustration shows a cross-section through the blood, with blood serum in the upper
half and a red blood cell in the lower half. In the serum, look for Y-shaped antibodies,
long thin fibrinogen molecules (in light red) and many small albumin proteins. The large
UFO-shaped objects are low density lipoprotein and the six-armed protein is complement
C1. The red blood cell is filled with hemoglobin, in red. The cell wall, in purple, is
braced on the inner surface by long spectrin chains connected at one end to a small
segment of actin filament.
© David S. Goodsell 2000.
HIV in Blood Serum
This illustration shows HIV (the large spherical object in red) under attack by the
immune system. Small Y-shaped antibodies are binding to its surface.
High quality prints of this painting are available--please contact me if you are interested.
I have one copy left, marked "AP" (artist proof). The print is 12"X18".
© David S. Goodsell 1999.
This illustration shows a portion of basement membrane,
a structure that forms the support between tissues in your body.
It is composed of a network of collagen (yellow green),
laminin (blue-green cross-shaped molecules), and proteoglycans (deep green, with three arms).
Blood serum is shown in the picture, with many Y-shaped antibodies, large circular low density lipoproteins,
and lots of small albumin molecules. The large fibrous structure at lower left is von Willebrand factor and the long molecules in red are fibrinogen, both of which are involved in blood clotting. The
blue object is poliovirus.
A small portion of cytoplasm is shown, including three types of filaments that make up the
cytoskeleton: a microtubule (the largest), an intermediate filament (the knobby one) and two
actin filaments (the smallest ones). The large blue molecules are ribosomes, busy in their
task of synthesizing proteins. The large protein at bottom center is a proteosome.
Part of a muscle sarcomere is shown here, with actin filaments in blue and myosin filaments in red. The long yellow proteins are the huge protein titin.
This view shows DNA being replicated in the nucleus. DNA polymerase is shown at the center in purple, with a DNA strand entering from the bottom and exiting as two strands towards the top. The new strands
are shown in white. Chromatin fibers are shown at either site of the replication fork.
Red Blood Cell
A portion of a red blood cell is shown in this illustration, with the cell membrane at the top,
and lots of hemoglobin (red) at the bottom. | <urn:uuid:745ad7e5-501f-4b45-b59e-078ff5ce35e6> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://mgl.scripps.edu/people/goodsell/illustration/public | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999642517/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060722-00028-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.882371 | 965 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Fish in the Los Angeles River
October 28, 2008 § 37 Comments
If you spend time along the Los Angeles River, sometimes, usually at the periphery of your vision, you’ll notice seeming incongruous splashes in still waters. You may wonder – was that a fish that just jumped or am I imagining things? You’re not imagining things, there are actually lots of fish in the Los Angeles River. Not as many and not the same kinds as have been there historically, but still plenty, and seeming more lately than in the recent past. In this blog entry, Creek Freak will school you on a bit of the river’s fishy history, and cast our nets into its waters today.
Let’s start way back with the fossil record as uncovered by researchers at the La Brea Tar Pits. Three fish species have been documented there: Oncorhynchus mykiss (steelhead/rainbow trout), Gila orcutti (arroyo chub), and Gasterosteus aculeatus (three spined stickleback.) Fossil evidence and trapped samples also show many amphibians and freshwater invertebrates, including the extinct river shrimp mentioned in a previous post.
Archduke Ludwig Louis Salvator, in his 1877 Los Angeles in the Sunny Seventies, notes the following tantalizing fish: “the salmon, Quinnat salmon (Salmo quinnat), abundant between November and June; two kinds of trout, the brook trout (Salar iridea); and the salmon trout (Ptychocheilus grandis).” These names, based on an internet search, are today known as the king salmon, rainbow trout, and Sacramento pikeminnow. Neither the pikeminnow nor the king salmon have been verified by other sources. However, an errant chinook was observed several years ago making its way up Ballona Creek – historically a distributary of the Los Angeles River. Perhaps he wasn’t errant, but a homecoming descendant of Salvator’s Quinnat salmon?
According to Blake Gumprecht’s The Los Angeles River: Its Life, Death and Possible Re-Birth (p.26), historically at least seven species of native fish were common in the river: southern steelhead, Pacific lamprey, Pacific brook lamprey, arroyo chub, unarmored three-spine stickleback, Santa Ana sucker and Santa Ana speckled dace. All of these species are gone from the river today (though a couple persist in some tributaries.) The Pacific brook lamprey is extinct. The steelhead, stickleback and speckled dace are officially endangered species; the sucker and Pacific lamprey probably should be. Of the historic fish species, the Arroyo chub are perhaps doing best, though in a small portion of their historic range. Reintroduction of the arroyo chub was the focus of Pasadena’s recent habitat restoration efforts on a soft-bottom stretch of the Arroyo Seco – a tributary of the Los Angeles.
Now and then in early- to mid- 20th-century accounts, there are reports of fish in the river; here are a few examples from the Los Angeles Times. In an August 5th 1923 article Drain Pipe Ike Waltons, the Times reported a “Mexican youth” fishing with a screen having caught “a number of carp and one large flat mud fish” in the Los Angeles River bed. On November 14th 1937 an article Extra! Three-Pound Bass Caught in Los Angeles River tells the story of Justo Najjora who went to the Los Angeles River for sand, but brought along a net to catch some crayfish and ended up catching a 3-pound bass. A March 1st 1940 article Jail Trusty Catches Fish — Yes, in Los Angeles River told (in demeaning language) about an imprisoned Native American named William Greyfox who bare-handedly caught a 25-inch 6-pound steelhead. Pity Poor Fish in LA River (March 11 1941) questions whether Fish & Game trucks need to be brought in to save steelhead in the river. A March 31st 1941 article Cycling Couple Catch Fish in Hands in Los Angeles River tells of a couple (Mr. and Mrs. Ernest L. Shockley of Glendale) who were bicycling along the river and caught a 10-inch steelhead near Los Feliz Boulevard.
Unfortunately the general tone of these articles is one of great surprise to find that there are actually (gasp!) fish in the river. Given the long history of Los Angeles River fish, it seems a bit strange to us that reporters would expect not to find fish there – though, at the time, the river was very degraded and considered a dumping ground in many areas.
In 1993, the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum (NHM) produced a report on the biota of the Los Angeles River (not currently available on-line, but available at the downtown Los Angeles library.) The report includes a section entitled The Past and Present Freshwater Fish Fauna of the Los Angeles River: With Particular Reference to the Area of Griffith Park by Camm C. Swift and Jeffrey Seigel. This excellent report appears to be where Gumprecht got most of his information on fish history. The historic accounts include plenty of important details: migration throughout parts of the river by season and by age of the fish species, habitat requirements for spawning, and details of historic accounts where fish species were sighted and collected. The report included a series of four fish sampling events from May 1991 to January 1992 at various sites in the river stretch near Griffith Park. Fishes collected were: more than 1100 mosquitofish, about 70 fathead minnow, 19 tilapia, 10-12 carp, and 1 goldfish.
Anecdotally, since around 2004 or so, it seems that fish are easier to spot in the river. In the Glendale Narrows and the Sepulveda Basin, there are plenty of people fishing, and it’s not uncommon to see the dark silhouettes of fish moving through the waters. One of the most reliable spots for this is looking off the downstream end of the Burbank Boulevard Bridge. There are a few on-line videos showing this (relatively-polished and amateur.)
In September 2008, the Friends of the Los Angeles River (FoLAR) published their second State of the River Report entitled The Fish Study. FoLAR collected fish samples at four sites in the Glendale Narrows and found results similar to the 1993 NHM study. Sampling each site twice in August and September 2007, they caught 1214 individual fish. The take included 668 mosquitofish, 271 tilapia, 92 green sunfish, 83 fathead minnow, 58 carp, 24 black bullhead, 7 Amazon sailfin catfish and 1 largemouth bass.
Given that many of the fish caught are eaten, the FoLAR study also assayed fish samples to test for toxicity. The FoLAR report found relatively safe low levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and mercury. PCBs were highest in carp (9.4 to 16.3 parts per billion) though still below the California Office of Environmental Heath Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) advisory level (21 parts per billion) for folks eating fish three times a week. Mercury was highest in sunfish (20-50 parts per billion) though also below the OEHHA advisory level (70 parts per billion) for folks eating fish three times a week. Higher levels are likely to accumulate in older larger fish. The study states that its sample may not be sufficient to be conclusive (most of the carp analyzed weren’t mature enough or large enough to accumulate lots of toxins,) but overall it doesn’t look too bad. Cooking tips suggest that it’s safer to eat the fillet than to make stews or soups (as chemicals can concentrate in the head and guts.) Copies of the report are available from FoLAR.
There are quite a few places to fish along the river. The most popular fishing spots are the deeper ponding areas in Elysian Valley: immediately downstream from the 2 Freeway (around the end of Ripple Place) and around the ends of Shoredale Avenue and Harwood Street. Fishermen informally interviewed use tortillas or canned corn for bait.
It’s encouraging that there are lots of fish in the river. Why should we have have expected anything else? Even these non-native fish support other species, including osprey. But before you liberate your goldfish (or other aquatic pets) in the river, please consider that introducing non-natives can have a terrible effect on the native populations of fish and amphibians. They are especially notorious for eating the eggs and young of our native frogs!
Fish are a critically important indicator of stream health. Restoring steelhead runs can’t be done by restoring just the main channel though just one city, but will require a watershed approach, with continuous functional streambed habitat restoration from the mouth to mountainside tributaries. Parks along the top of the river (take your pick) are good. Side stream habitat restoration projects (including along the Lower Arroyo Seco in Pasadena and along the Tujunga Wash just north of Valley College) are even better… but we’re going to need to get into the channel bottom and remove some concrete for us to restore fish habitat.
Lewis MacAdams is fond of saying that we’ll know that our job is done when the steelhead return to the Los Angeles River. They’re endangered, but there are a few of them out in the ocean today, testing the Los Angeles’ waters now and then, waiting for us to do our part to heal our streams and welcome them back to waterways they’ve inhabited for millennia. | <urn:uuid:15edad18-e483-42d6-9d2f-4dfaa0846518> | CC-MAIN-2019-35 | https://lacreekfreak.wordpress.com/2008/10/28/fish-in-the-los-angeles-river/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-35/segments/1566027315544.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20190820133527-20190820155527-00026.warc.gz | en | 0.946687 | 2,072 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Backpack Video Production
An immersive class that teaches students professional video production skills
As technology has evolved, so has storytelling. Stories have become more visually compelling and far-reaching through a variety of formats and platforms.
Students in Loyola’s Backpack Video Production course learn to use their smartphones, cameras, and other digital devices to create visually rich multimedia content. Herbert Jay Dunmore, television studio manager, teaches the three-credit course. He introduces students to professional field production techniques, teaching them about aerial videography, photography, motion graphics, and cloud-based production workflows.
Dunmore was selected as a presenter for this year’s AdobeMAX global virtual conference, during which he was able to share the Backpack Video Production experience with instructors from around the globe. More than 2,500 people registered for the session.
“It was a great experience, with great feedback and results,” said Dunmore, who shared a recording of the live session.
Unlike any other video course
The Backpack Video Production course provides an overview of the video production process through a guided approach, which equips students with knowledge of digital media production for social media and online. Participants produce videos and graphics using their digital devices, and Adobe software.
The focus of this class is to show students how to produce content with the technology they already have—whether it’s a cell phone, digital camera, or video camera. In this class, we teach students how to get the most out of their media, through video, sound, and graphics.
Bringing the topic of video production to life
Light, sound, and picture are the core elements of any media production. These topics are brought to life through real-world scenarios, which are reflected in the projects. The hands-on approach to applying these skills make the experience worthwhile. Students are guided through the production process, and they can evaluate their progress at each stage of the course.
Unique projects that offer real-world experience
One of the topics covered in Backpack Video Production is photo composition, which teaches students how to enhance the images on a camera or device with filters and effects. These skills are ideal for stories and other social media posts.
Another project, Travel Story, is a vlog-style presentation that guides the viewer through the students’ favorite place or establishment. Students learn how to create graphics to enhance the story. The end result is a professional-quality video that can be used as a portfolio project and saved in the formats for social media and the web.
Learn more about Loyola’s communication program | <urn:uuid:1324b830-6d5f-4064-9d19-a1b091ebad88> | CC-MAIN-2021-25 | https://www.loyola.edu/explore/grove/backpack-video-production | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-25/segments/1623488551052.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20210624045834-20210624075834-00206.warc.gz | en | 0.928472 | 534 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Rag dolls have been popular toys for children for many years. Unlike porcelain, they do not shatter when dropped and they have been known to withstand rough settings.
Rag dolls were introduced during the American Colonial period--1630 to 1762. Before soft cloth fabric, dolls were made out of corn husks, wood and wax.
Old rag dolls were made with cloth fabric for the body, dress and apron. Lace, string and yarn were also used for the hair. The doll's face was usually painted on by the children or just left plain.
A rag doll played a major significance in a young child's life. Oftentimes, during World War I, the doll was held close for comfort and support. The doll was usually carried wherever the child went and made her feel safe and secure during a hardship. Dolls were also used as "friends" when there was no one else to play with.
Rag dolls were a great money saver for families in the 17th and 18th centuries. Instead of purchasing an expensive doll at a store, rag dolls were a creative craft to make at home. Oftentimes, mothers would save scrap material from other sewing projects to be used for rag dolls.
The size of every rag doll varies depending on how much material you have or how big you want the doll to be. Usually, hand-held dolls were made to allow the child to have a comfort item when traveling. | <urn:uuid:5b646a93-b85b-4f47-8066-7acfa4c05c04> | CC-MAIN-2017-26 | http://howtoadult.com/history-rag-dolls-5459355.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-26/segments/1498128320489.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20170625101427-20170625121427-00360.warc.gz | en | 0.988428 | 297 | 3.3125 | 3 |
Espousals of the Blessed Virgin Mary
(Pro aliquibus locis)
The first definite knowledge of a feast in honour of the espousals of Mary dates from 1517, when it was granted by Leo X to the Nuns of the Annunciation, founded by Sainte Jeanne de Valois. This feast was celebrated on 22 October. Its Mass honoured the Blessed Virgin exclusively; it hardly mentioned St. Joseph.
The first proper Office was composed by Pierre Doré, O.P. (died 1569), confessor of Duke Claude of Lorraine. This Office commemorated both Joseph and Mary. Pierre Doré in 1546 unsuccessfully petitioned Paul III to extend the feast of the Desponsatio B.M.V. to the Universal Church. But even without the recommendation of the Apostolic See, the feast was adopted by many Churches.
In our days it is kept in nearly the entire Latin Church on 23 January, in the Spanish-speaking countries on 26 Nov, but it has never been extended to the Universal Church. Since St. Pius V abolished the Office of Pierre Doré and introduced the modern Office, it is again a feast of Mary. The commemoration of St. Joseph in Mass, Vespers, and Lauds can only be made by a special privilege.
Salve, sancta Parens, eníxa puérpera Regem: qui coelum terrámque regit in saecula saeculórum. * Eructávit cor meum verbum bonum: dico ego ópera mea Regi.
Hail, holy Mother, thou who didst bring forth the King Who rules Heaven and earth for ever and ever. * My heart hath uttered a good word: I speak my works to the King.
(Psalm 44:2, from the Introit of Mass)
Fámulis tuis, quaesumus, Dómine, coeléstis grátiae munus impertíre: ut, quibus beátae Vírginis partus éxstitit salútis exórdium; Desponsatiónis ejus votiva sollémnitas pacis tríbuat increméntum.
Impart unto Thy servants, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the gift of Thy heavenly grace, that to us, for whom the childbearing of the Blessed Virgin was the beginning of our salvation, the votive solemnity of her nativity may give increase of peace.
Sanctíssimae Genetrícis tuae Sponsi, quaesumus, Dómine, méritis adjuvémur: ut, quod possibílitas nostra non óbtinet, ejus nobis intercessióne donétur.
We beseech Thee, O Lord, that we may be helped by the merits of the Spouse of Thy most holy Mother, so that we cannot obtain of ourselves, may be given to us through his intercession.
(Commemoration of St. Joseph)
From the Catholic Encyclopaedia: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05543a.htm | <urn:uuid:01b64528-3c2c-4951-bfcd-c2496d8259e8> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://liturgialatina.blogspot.com/2011/01/23rd-january-espousals-of-blessed.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282932.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00124-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.863679 | 695 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Leatherback turtles keep swimming south
Leatherback turtles can travel thousands of miles through the ocean each year. Yet when females are ready to nest, they somehow manage to return to the same beach again and again.
Some studies have indicated that their palm-size hatchlings orient themselves to Earth’s magnetic field. A study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B finds that the turtles may use the field to navigate in adulthood, too.
Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tracked 15 leatherback turtles with GPS tags from August 2007 to September 2009. The turtles swam from their feeding grounds off the coast of Massachusetts to the western Atlantic subtropical gyre, a great swirl of ocean currents circulating from the equator almost to Iceland and from the East Coast to Europe and Africa. The researchers found that despite being in the currents, the turtles were able to keep moving south.
“They were able to maintain their orientation during day and night,” said Kara Dodge, an NOAA marine biologist in Woods Hole, Mass., and an author of the new paper. “This suggests they are using the Earth’s magnetic field.”
Ancient arthropod feasted on plankton
A huge arthropod that lived 480 million years ago used spines on its head to filter seawater and to trap tiny particles of food. The lobsterlike animal, 6 feet long, is one of the earliest giant filter-feeders ever discovered, scientists reported in Nature.
“It implies there was a rich source of plankton at the time, upon which these things may have fed,” said Derek Briggs, a paleontologist at Yale University and one of the study’s authors.
Briggs and his colleagues discovered the fossil remains of the new species, named Aegirocassis benmoulae, in Morocco. It belongs to an extinct family of marine animals called anomalocaridids, which first appeared during the Cambrian period 520 million years ago.
Aegirocassis had double flaps along the side of its body, rather than the single flaps seen in previous anomalocaridid fossils. The bottom flaps may have helped Aegirocassis swim, while the top set of flaps may have been used for stabilization.
The fossil remains are three-dimensional and very well preserved. Almost all previous anomalocaridid fossils were flat.
“We think it is because these things were buried quite rapidly by a storm or other event on the sea floor,” Briggs said.
– New York Times | <urn:uuid:762f1c60-2d52-406b-8329-a9aa4a4acb1b> | CC-MAIN-2019-13 | https://buffalonews.com/2015/03/29/science-notes-leatherback-turtles-keep-swimming-south-ancient-arthropod-feasted-on-plankton/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-13/segments/1552912202723.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20190323040640-20190323062640-00459.warc.gz | en | 0.960604 | 532 | 3.546875 | 4 |
President Barack Obama, who has drawn criticism from liberals for paying too little attention to poverty in his public rhetoric, made more mention of the subject Monday in his second inaugural address.
"We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American, she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own," Obama declared Monday.
Obama also invoked the poor when he referred to specifically to several social programs, including Social Security. "We remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years were spent in poverty, and parents of a child with a disability had nowhere to turn," he said.
Monday's speech included three references to poverty, as compared with just one in 2009. The third mention, like the sole mention last time around, came during a discussion of America's relationship with the world.
"We must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice – not out of mere charity, but because peace in our time requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes: tolerance and opportunity; human dignity and justice," Obama said Monday.
In his 2009 inaugural speech, his discussion of poverty was exclusively in the context of foreign aid "To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds," Obama said then.
During his first term in office, Obama rarely used the terms "poor" or "poverty," preferring to talk about strengthening the middle class. However, he sometimes used more circuitous language, such as praising those "struggling" or "working hard" to get into the middle class. | <urn:uuid:90d2c82e-970f-44eb-b9db-75fedf81822a> | CC-MAIN-2015-40 | http://www.politico.com/blogs/politico44/2013/01/poverty-gets-more-attention-in-obamas-2nd-inaugural-address-154782 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-40/segments/1443737935954.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20151001221855-00147-ip-10-137-6-227.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981287 | 374 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Artificial Intelligence will only be a risk to our existence if we don't change how we approach it. As the computer and science industry exists at the moment the discussion surrounding AI is quite narrow. You have on one side the people who don't think it should be pursued, and the people on the other side who think that only good can come from it. I think the correct stance here is, like with most things, somewhere in the middle.
Moderation is the key to getting this right because if we get it wrong we might only be able to get it wrong once.
AI is, on our current course, an inevitability. It would take an event so large and devastating in scale to permanently stop this process because it would need to stop our ability to improve our machines not just for some decades or centuries, but forever. The end of our species is what it would take to stop us from developing AI.
We continue to improve our computers year after year and eventually we are going to create machines which are more intelligent than us. This has already happened in some respects. The best chess player in the world is now a computer, they are able to recognize faces and portraits at a faster and more accurate rate than humans even if they have only been programmed to recognize a small number of aspects of a person's face. Eventually these machines will become so intelligent that they will be able to make improvements to themselves and there will be what the mathematician I.J. Goode called an 'Intelligence explosion.'
This is where the failure of modern society to address the risk inherent in this is most evident. Movies, TV shows, books, all forms of popular media, caricature this event and tell us stories of malicious robots enslaving or exterminating the human race simply because they are better than us.
This isn't what concerns the vast majority of computer scientists though. The problem isn't that these machines will become malevolent it is that these machines will be much more competent and intelligent than we are that any divergence between our goals and theirs could destroy us.
The easiest way to analogize this is by thinking about how we relate to ants. You never step on an ant because you really hate them and want to cause as much pain and suffering as possible to this tiny creature. You usually step on an ant by accident, or because it's being a nuisance. Him and his friends decided to build their nest right on your front doorstep, for instance.
The eventual gap between the intelligence of an AI and us will be so large that this is how they will view us.
Just as a quick side point, this is one of the main worries about encountering alien life that prominent cosmologists like Neil DeGrasse Tyson have. If you think that the genetic difference between us and a Chimpanzee is around about 1% and that is the difference between digging around in the ground with a stick and building a global civilization and travelling to the moon imagine just how easy it would be for an alien civilization with that amount more intelligence than us to either wipe us out or simply overlook us.
Getting back to AI, this looks as though it is going to happen and it will happen as quickly as possible.
For example, almost every country with a sizable scientific budget is already racing towards the goal of building an AI and whichever country does manage to build it first will be in control of the most powerful object in the world. You connect this AI to the internet and it will be able to invade any country's secure government databases and expose whatever information the country controlling it would like. When this is close to being achieved it isn't hard to imagine the world going into a kind of cold war state where each country is cutting safety corners to achieve the goal of AI and when one country does eventually win how will other countries react? Are they going to simply roll over and accept Sweden or Russia as the new overlord of planet Earth?
There needs to be a slow and methodical way of achieving AI which involves the co-operation of every country which wants to achieve it. This is not going to happen in the current political climate and it isn't going to happen if the threat of AI isn't taken seriously.
Neuroscientist Sam Harris has said about the discussion of AI that you can describe something which is both terrible and likely to happen and that because it involves super-intelligent robots people will find it cool and this is a problem.
One of the main responses to AI doomsayers like myself is "Don't worry about it, this is 50-100 years away, it's not our problem."
50 years is not that much time when we are talking about meeting one of the greatest challenges that the human race will ever encounter.
The computer scientist Stuart Russell has a very good analogy to counter this response. He asks us to imagine that we receive a message from outer space, from an alien civilization, and it simply reads, "People of Earth, we will arrive on your planet in 50 years. Get ready."
The reaction to a message like this should be the exact same reaction we have to AI development. | <urn:uuid:d3c10269-defd-4ae9-a0de-468f192cde7c> | CC-MAIN-2018-43 | https://www.thetechgame.com/Forums/t=7731638/do-you-think-ai-could-wipe-out-civilization.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-43/segments/1539583513760.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20181021052235-20181021073735-00391.warc.gz | en | 0.969302 | 1,039 | 2.640625 | 3 |
COLUMBUS, Ohio--Researchers who are building the highest-resolution map of the Greenland Ice Sheet to date have made a surprising discovery: two lakes of meltwater that pooled beneath the ice and rapidly drained away.
One lake once held billions of gallons of water and emptied to form a mile-wide crater in just a few weeks. The other lake has filled and emptied twice in the last two years.
Researchers at The Ohio State University published findings on each lake separately: the first in the open-access journal The Cryosphere and the second in the journal Nature.
Ian Howat, associate professor of earth sciences at Ohio State, leads the team that discovered the cratered lake described in The Cryosphere . To him, the find adds to a growing body of evidence that meltwater has started overflowing the ice sheet's natural plumbing system and is causing "blowouts" that simply drain lakes away.
"The fact that our lake appears to have been stable for at least several decades, and then drained in a matter of weeks--or less--after a few very hot summers, may signal a fundamental change happening in the ice sheet," Howat said.
The two-mile-wide lake described in Nature was discovered by a team led by researcher Michael Willis of Cornell University. Michael Bevis, Ohio Eminent Scholar in Geodynamics and professor of earth sciences at Ohio State, is a co-author of the Nature paper, and he said that the repeated filling of that lake is worrisome.
Each time the lake fills, the meltwater carries stored heat, called latent heat, along with it, reducing the stiffness of the surrounding ice and making it more likely to flow out to sea, he said.
Bevis explained the long-term implications.
"If enough water is pouring down into the Greenland Ice Sheet for us to see the same sub-glacial lake empty and re-fill itself over and over, then there must be so much latent heat being released under the ice that we'd have to expect it to change the large-scale behavior of the ice sheet," he said.
Howat's team was first to detect the cratered lake described in The Cryosphere, on a spot about 50 kilometers (31 miles) inland from the southwest Greenland coast earlier in 2014. There, previous aerial and satellite imagery indicates that a sub-glacial lake pooled for more than 40 years. More recent images suggest that the lake likely emptied through a meltwater tunnel beneath the ice sheet some time in 2011.
The crater measures 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) across and around 70 meters (230 feet) deep. Researchers calculated that the lake that formed it likely contained some 6.7 billion gallons of water.
That's not a large lake by most reckoning, but it's roughly the same size as the combined reservoirs that supply water to the Columbus, Ohio metropolitan area's 1.9 million residents. And it disappeared in a single season--remarkably quickly by geologic standards. Howat characterized the sudden drainage as "catastrophic."
Researchers suspect that, as more meltwater reaches the base of the ice sheet, natural drainage tunnels along the Greenland coast are cutting further inland, Howat explained. The tunnels carry heat and water to areas that were once frozen to the bedrock, potentially causing the ice to melt faster.
"Some independent work says that the drainage system has recently expanded to about 50 kilometers inland of the ice edge, which is exactly where this lake is," he added.
It's possible that the lake was tapped by one of the invading tunnels. It's also possible that thousands of such lakes dot the Greenland coast. They are hard to detect with radar, and researchers don't know enough about why and how they form. In contrast to Antarctica, researchers know much less about what's happening under the ice in Greenland.
"Until we get a good map of the bed topography where this lake was, we have no idea whatsoever how many lakes could be out there," Howat said. "There may be something really weird in the bed in this particular spot that caused water to accumulate. But, if all you need is a bumpy surface a bit inland from the coast, then there could be thousands of little lakes."
Howat and his team flew over the site in southwest Greenland in April 2014, after they realized that detection of the crater, nestled in the midst of a flat ice expanse, was not just an error in the high-resolution surface data they've been collecting. Using European Space Imaging's Worldview satellites, they're assembling a Greenland ice map with 2-meter (approximately 6.5-feet) resolution.
Bevis and his colleagues discovered the lake described in Nature under similar circumstances in March 2013. They were gathering data to supplement their long-standing efforts to weigh the Greenland Ice Sheet with GPS and spotted the mitten-shaped lake by accident.
Using DigitalGlobe Inc.'s Worldview satellites and NASA's Operation IceBridge, the Cornell-led team calculated that the lake filled and emptied twice since 2012, at one point experiencing a sub-surface blowout that drove water from the lake at a volume of 215 cubic meters (nearly 57,000 gallons--close to the volume of a 30-foot-by-50-foot backyard swimming pool) every second.
Though researchers have long known of the existence of sub-glacial lakes, never before have they witnessed any draining away. The sudden discovery of two--one of which seems to be refilling and draining repeatedly--signals to Bevis that Greenland ice loss has likely reached a milestone.
"It's pretty telling that these two lakes were discovered back to back," he said. "We can actually see the meltwater pour down into these holes. We can actually watch these lakes drain out and fill up again in real time. With melting like that, even the deep interior of the ice sheet is going to change."
Coauthors on the paper in The Cryosphereinclude Myoung-Jong Noh, a postdoctoral researcher, and Seongsu Jeong, a doctoral student, both of earth sciences at Ohio State; Claire Porter of the Polar Geospatial Center at the University of Minnesota; and Ben Smith of the Polar Science Center of the University of Washington.
Coauthors on the paper in Nature include Bradley Herried of the University of Minnesota and Robin Bell of Columbia University. Willis holds a joint appointment at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
These projects were funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation.
Written by Pam Frost Gorder, (614) 292-9475;Gorder.firstname.lastname@example.org
Editor's note: Images to accompany the story are available via Pam Frost Gorder. | <urn:uuid:4954acf4-1195-4463-a96c-3a4dc047f882> | CC-MAIN-2016-30 | http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-01/osu-tlb011615.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-30/segments/1469257828314.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160723071028-00103-ip-10-185-27-174.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957835 | 1,377 | 3.859375 | 4 |
Packaging Tricks - Lesson
Parts of this lesson have been adapted with permission from the Media Literacy Guide, Saskatoon Board of Education, © 1994, and from A Practical Guide for Parents: Advertising, Nurtrition and Kids, a guide created by The Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) and the International Food Information Council (IFIC).
Duration: 40 minutes
This lesson introduces students to the ways in which packaging is designed to attract kids. The class begins with a discussion about packaging and how the design, promotions and product placement all contribute to make a product attractive to consumers. In a series of individual and group activities, students compare similar food products based on packaging and on taste; assess the nutritional value of the foods and beverages they enjoy; and participate in a field trip to a local grocery store to see how packaging and placement affect consumer choices.
- awareness of the techniques used by advertisers to sell food products.
- beginning awareness of how they are affected by these techniques.
- an understanding that products may be similar, despite differences in packaging.
- an understanding of nutritional labelling on packages.
This lesson and all associated documents (handouts, overheads, backgrounders) is available in an easy-print, pdf kit version. | <urn:uuid:df18ab60-ce97-440a-b047-728313ee6e0d> | CC-MAIN-2020-16 | https://mediasmarts.ca/lessonplan/packaging-tricks-lesson | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-16/segments/1585370524604.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20200404165658-20200404195658-00222.warc.gz | en | 0.911146 | 260 | 3.546875 | 4 |
Fsther Robert Barron
A spot of blood and grease on the pages of English history.
Charles Dickens, referring to King Henry VIII
For English speaking Catholics, June 22 is a bright day on the calendar of the Saints. On this day we remember the two saints who stood against King Henry VIII, for the great principal that the State must never be allowed to control the Church. Much that we Americans celebrate as freedom was born out of Church-State struggles down through the ages. Sometimes those who stood against the State fell in the struggle, but the concept that the State is not absolute, that there are limits to its authority, is one of the great gifts of the Catholic Middle Ages to all of mankind. It is only in modern times, since 1500, that the heresy that the State may exercise absolute authority has been a constant source of misery and strife in the history of the West.
When he ascended to the throne of England Henry VIII was popularly known as the Golden Hope of England. His father Henry VII had never been loved by the people of England: a miser and a distinctly unheroic figure no matter what Shakespeare would write in Richard III. He had brought the end of the War of the Roses and peace to England, but that was about as much credit as his subjects would give the grasping, unlovable Henry Tudor. His son by contrast looked like an Adonis when young, strong and athletic. He had a sharp mind and had been well-educated, intended, ironically, for a career in the Church before the death of his elder brother Arthur. He was reputed, correctly, to be pious. He had considerable charism in his youth and knew how to make himself loved with a well timed laugh or smile, and loved he was, by the nobles, commons, his wife Katherine, and the Church. Few reigns started more auspiciously than that of Henry, eighth of that name.
By the end of his reign he was widely despised by most his subjects. Called a crowned monster behind his back, his reign had brought religious turmoil to England and domestic strife. The best known symbols of his reign were the headman’s axe, the stake and the boiling pot in which he had some of the luckless individuals who roused his fury boiled to death.
It of course is small wonder for a Catholic to have little love for Henry VIII and his reign, but the distaste for Henry extends well beyond members of the Church. Winston Churchill, the great English statesman and historian, in his magisterial History of the English Speaking Peoples has this to say about the executions of Saint Thomas More and Saint John Fisher:
“The resistance of More and Fisher to the royal supremacy in Church government was a heroic stand. They realised the defects of the existing Catholic system, but they hated and feared the aggressive nationalism which was destroying the unity of Christendom. They saw that the break with Rome carried with it the risk of a despotism freed from every fetter. More stood forth as the defender of all that was finest in the medieval outlook. He represents to history its universality, its belief in spiritual values, and its instinctive sense of otherworldliness. Henry VIII with cruel axe decapitated not only a wise and gifted counselor, but a system which, though it had failed to live up to its ideals in practice, had for long furnished mankind with its brightest dreams.” Continue reading
Considering all the extravagant evil in the world, I have always found it remarkable that so many people do not believe in the existence of Satan and his fallen angels. Pope Leo XIII I believe foresaw this, which is why he gave us the prayer to Saint Michael. In 1942 CS Lewis in The Screwtape Letters wrote what may be an epitaph for the age in which we live:
When humans disbelieve in our existence we lose all the pleasing results of direct terrorism and we make no magicians. On the other hand, when they believe in us, we cannot make them materialists and skepics. At least, not yet. I have great hopes that we shall learn in due time how to emotionalize and mythologize their science to such an extent that what is, in effect, a belief in us (though not under that name) will creep in while the human mind remains closed to belief in the Enemy. The “Life Force,” the worship of sex, and other aspects of psychoanalysis, may here prove useful. If once we can produce our perfect work — the materialist magician, the man, not using, but veritably worshiping, what he vaguely calls “Forces” while denying the existence of “spirits” — the end of the war will be in sight. But in the meantime we must obey orders.
Man without God is nothing but prey for Satan. With God and Man united Satan is impotent. Alexander Solzhenitsyn when asked why Communism seized power in Russia, used to say the following:
More than half a century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.
Since then I have spent well-nigh fifty years working on the history of our Revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that swallowed up some sixty million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened. Continue reading | <urn:uuid:85a61e77-b8b3-4cce-aaf7-04599a8ab5c6> | CC-MAIN-2016-22 | http://the-american-catholic.com/tag/fsther-robert-barron/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-22/segments/1464049288709.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20160524002128-00189-ip-10-185-217-139.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977912 | 1,190 | 3.1875 | 3 |
By the end of this unit, you will be able to:
- Describe business, social, and legal arguments for web accessibility
- Recognize international legislation based on WCAG 2.0/2.1
- Describe how people with disabilities use the Web
- Demonstrate how a screen reader works
- Describe the history of AODA
- Experience barriers firsthand using a screen reader
Note: For those who have read our other books, you may notice some overlap in this unit with the content from those books. You may skim through the content in this chapter or take this as an opportunity to refresh your memory. | <urn:uuid:e2c4e764-a613-4581-a14c-6c05241ae00a> | CC-MAIN-2019-43 | https://pressbooks.library.ryerson.ca/iwacc/part/why-learn-about-accessibility/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-43/segments/1570986697439.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20191019164943-20191019192443-00152.warc.gz | en | 0.905195 | 130 | 3.3125 | 3 |
Fighting On and Off the Field
Lindsay Brown and her 2010 National Champion Soccer Teammates Help Educate and Inspire Girls in Nepal.
In Nepal, millions of girls suffer in extreme poverty, deprived of even the most basic human rights. Many are abandoned, abused, or forced into child labor. University of Notre Dame women’s soccer player Lindsay Brown and her 2010 national champion teammates are doing more than just hoping for a better life for Nepali girls; they’re helping them to achieve it.
Through a series of campus fundraisers, the women’s soccer team sponsored the education of several girls at the Nepal’s Kopila Valley School. Fighting to make an even bigger impact, Lindsay traveled to Surkhet over the summer to volunteer as a teacher, as well as to establish the school’s girls soccer team.
Their efforts truly demonstrate the power of athletics to educate, to inspire, and to build community.
What Would You Fight For?
The University of Notre Dame’s award-winning “What Would You Fight For?” series, now in its seventh season, showcases the work, scholarly achievements, and global impact of Notre Dame faculty, students, and alumni. These two-minute segments, each originally aired during a home football game broadcast on NBC, highlight the University’s proud moniker, the Fighting Irish, and tell the stories of the members of the Notre Dame family who fight to bring solutions to a world in need.Archive | <urn:uuid:c96f777e-97cf-410a-bc86-c0bf91e111b8> | CC-MAIN-2015-22 | http://www.nd.edu/fighting-for/2011/fighting-on-and-off-the-field/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-22/segments/1432207930443.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20150521113210-00237-ip-10-180-206-219.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942076 | 307 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Photo by Williams & Meyer-Abich (1955). Seen from the north. Fault in the foreground represents faults from the central graben of El Salvador and usually have an approximate E-W strike.
Thick, lobate andesite to dacite lava flows surround the volcano, however they are more prominent on the northern and eastern flanks. Large laharic fans also surround the volcano and form the gentle slope topography, characteristic of the lowlands (elevations <500 m).
Immediately east of San Vicente volcano a semicircular structure limits the extents of San Vicente lavas. This structure is believed to define an old caldera structure and encloses several basaltic cinder cones, such as Cerro El Cerrito and Cerro El Cimarrón.
Two high temperature fumarolic fields are found on the norhtern slopes of the volcano and are described by Meyer-Abich (1956). These are the fumaroles at San Francisco Agua Agria, which are characterized by emanations of steam and large areas of hydrothermal alteration; and Los Infiernillos, which are somewhat less active.
Landsat TM image (bands 2,3,4) of San Vicente volcano. Red represents thick, healthy vegetation. | <urn:uuid:de0cbd41-6cfe-46b3-8245-698258066cd2> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | http://www.geo.mtu.edu/volcanoes/central_america/el_salvador/san_vicente/edifice.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320300533.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20220117091246-20220117121246-00543.warc.gz | en | 0.894461 | 270 | 3.421875 | 3 |
Normally, the sounds of birds and frogs are about all anyone will hear in the peat bogs of Itasca County. But lately the Marcell Experimental Forest has buzzed with the hum of bobcats as workers build a large network of boardwalks into the bog.
Scientists in north central Minnesota are preparing for a massive federal research project to study the effects of climate change on peatland ecosystems. Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, the $50 million project in a remote bog north of Grand Rapids could help researchers over the next decade answer critical questions about global warming.
Work crews are laying the groundwork for this fall, when crews will begin constructing more than a dozen huge transparent chambers — 36 feet wide and 32 feet tall. Scientists will use the chambers to artificially raise the temperature in the bogs.
"This is going to be a unique experiment on the planet," said Randy Kolka, a research soil scientist for the U.S. Forest Service in Grand Rapids. "No infrastructure like this has ever been put in place into a similar ecosystem."
During the growing season, researchers will heat the air and soil inside the open-topped chambers. They'll also raise carbon dioxide levels, exposing plants and trees to the changes.
Following methods tested in a prototype of the octagon-shaped warming chamber at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, researchers will use electric heaters inserted into the soil to warm below ground. They'll raise air temperatures using four propane heaters per chamber.
Kolka said the experiment will measure how the ecosystem behaves under conditions up to 15 degrees warmer than normal.
"It's sort of the 'if you build it, they will come' sort of mentality, and if we build something really neat that's going to be a novel experiment, we anticipate a lot of interest from the scientific community," he said. "Down the road probably more than 100 scientists, I would guess, would be involved in this experiment, scientists from all over the globe."
There's good reason why the research is being done in a bog. Peatlands cover only 3 percent of the earth's land surface. But they contain about 30 percent of the total carbon stored in soil. Peatlands hold organic material that has accumulated for thousands of years.
If global temperatures warm as scientists project, peatlands could release large amounts of greenhouse gases that could accelerate global warming.
Stephen Sebestyen, a research hydrologist for the U.S. Forest Service, said the peatland experiment will help scientists more accurately predict future climate trends.
"It's a very small area, but it has a very disproportionate effect on a much larger area, the entire globe," he said. "If you take all these pockets of peat around the globe ... they could have a very profound effect on the entire globe, because of the way that the huge accumulations of carbon may be released."
Sebestyen said scientists ultimately want to manipulate temperatures in the controlled environments until they reach a tipping point. A key question they hope to answer is at what point the areas reach a critical change in temperatures and carbon dioxide levels in the future that would push the systems into a new state.
"Instead of the current plant communities, would they shift to a different type of plant community more typical of areas that may be further south?" he asked.
Federal researchers chose the Marcell Experimental Forest site for their experiment for another good reason. Scientists there have been measuring temperature and collecting data on the peatland for more than 50 years. They know, for example, that the average temperature in the bog has risen nearly 4 degrees since the early 1960s.
Kolka said he believes the project is the largest ecosystem manipulation experiment ever attempted. He's hopeful the effort will produce valuable data for global climate modelers.
"If there's a place on the planet where we might be able to push these ecosystems to their limit," he said, "it's here in northern Minnesota." | <urn:uuid:cb14bef4-51d9-4b28-accc-c22e4a79603f> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.mprnews.org/story/2012/06/07/environment/northern-minnesota-bog-massive-global-warming-study | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721142.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00137-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948078 | 819 | 3.71875 | 4 |
SMARTER BALANCED ASSESSMENTS
As a member of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, students in the State of Washington now take the Smarter Balanced Assessments in English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics. This includes all students in Grades 3-8 and 11. Click here to take a Smarter Balanced Practice Test, and here are other tools to accompany the SBA Practice Tests.
Measurements of Student Progress (MSP) in Science
Until 2014-15 the MSP was the primary state assessment for all students at Grades 3-8 in Reading, Writing, Mathematics and Science. From 2014-15 on, the MSP Science assessments will continue to be administered to all students in Grades 5 and 8.
English Language Proficiency Assessment for the 21st Century
Administered in February or March each year to students in kindergarten and Grade 1. The purpose of this assessment is to determine initial student eligibility for English Language Services. The WELPA is given to students whose families answer yes to: Is your child’s first language a language other than English? on the Home Language Survey.
OSPI-Developed Assessments in Social Studies, The Arts, Health and Fitness, and Educational Technology (a.k.a the CBAs)
CBAs administered in Social Studies and Health & Fitness. CBPA administered in Fine Arts. CBAs and CBPA are administered once each year to each student in grades 5, 8 & 11. Washington State supports the development of classroom-based assessments that are based on the state’s learning standards and help guide day-to-day instruction. State curriculum specialists create tasks and questions that model good assessments and provide them to local school districts. For more information on CBAs and CBPAs please go to: www.k12.wa.us/assessment/default.aspx and scroll to the bottom of the page.
DISTRICT LITERACY ASSESSMENTS
STAR Early Literacy
A benchmark screening and progress monitoring assessment system at the primary levels from kindergarten through Grade 1 and above.
A benchmark screening and progress monitring assessment system from Grades K through 12. Students receive this assessment in the fall, winter and spring.
DISTRICT MATH ASSESSMENTS
A benchmark screening and progress monitoring system for assessing growth in mathematics achievement. STAR Math is administered to all students in Kindergarten through Grade 12 in the fall, winter and spring. Students who score below grade level are assessed more frequently (progress monitored) in order to measure growth in response to interventions.
Advanced Placement (AP) Exams
The Advanced Placement program was designed for high school students and offers them the opportunity to take college-level courses at the high school. College and university professors and high school teachers develop the course materials. Students are able to demonstrate the concepts and skills mastered through academic specific tests. Students who receive a satisfactory score on any of the tests might receive college credit or be allowed to waive a specific introductory college class. Tests are given on various dates depending the the test subject area. For further details, contact your high school counselor.
The Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) is a program cosponsored by the College Board and National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC). It's a standardized test that provides firsthand practice for the SAT®. It also gives you a chance to enter NMSC scholarship programs and gain access to college and career planning tools. The PSAT/NMSQT measures: Critical reading skills, Math problem-solving skills and Writing skills. The most common reasons for taking the PSAT/NMSQT are to: Receive feedback on your strengths and weaknesses on skills necessary for college study, see how your performance on an admissions test might compare with that of others applying to college, enter the competition for scholarships from NMSC (grade 11) and help prepare for the SAT. The PSAT is administered in early Spring to all students in Grade 10 at no cost to families. For further details, contact your high school counselor.
SAT/ACT: Grades 11 & 12
The SAT and ACT Tests are designed to assess a student’s academic readiness for college. These exams provide a path to opportunities, financial support and scholarships. The SAT is the most widely used college admission test. The SAT test is administered in early Spring to students in Grade 11 at no cost to the families. The fee for students to take the ACT test is paid by parent/and or guardian. For further details, contact your high school counselor. | <urn:uuid:f4913f57-5d7b-4263-8d90-a20b787cb01e> | CC-MAIN-2019-04 | http://www.msd25.org/o/District/page/assessments--5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-04/segments/1547583671342.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20190119160425-20190119182425-00515.warc.gz | en | 0.929282 | 950 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Improved Quality of Life through supportive care and rehabilitation
Quality of life, when referring to health, means the extent to which a person’s usual or expected physical, emotional and social wellbeing is affected by a medical condition or its treatment. Evidence shows that when people experiencing cancer receive good social and psychological support, their quality of life improves. In order to achieve the best possible outcome for those with cancer, every aspect of their treatment and care must recognise their total needs. Their physical, social, psychological, nutritional, information and spiritual needs are all equally important.
In some cases, their quality of life is affected by physical impairments due to cancer; in such cases, assistance may be needed to enable them to perform everyday activities and live as independently as possible. The extent to which physical, psychological and social rehabilitation is required depends on the type and severity of the impairment and the type and magnitude of the treatment provided.
Palliative care is an important component of supportive care for cancer. See the section on the Palliative Care Council for more information. | <urn:uuid:10fd86df-a046-49e3-9916-4b16dd51f7e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cancercontrolnz.govt.nz/support-rehabilitation | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707436824/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123036-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956041 | 213 | 3.296875 | 3 |
Summary: ENERGY: ITS USE AND THE ENVIRONMENT, Fourth Edition is an introductory textbook that emphasizes the physical principles behind energy and its effects on our environment. The text explains the basic physical principles behind the use of energy, including the study of mechanics, electricity and magnetism, thermodynamics, and atomic and nuclear physics. It also covers crucial environmental questions that currently are receiving much public attention, such as global warm ...show moreing, radioactive waste, municipal solid waste and nuclear energy production materials.
The new fourth edition continues to emphasize the impact energy issues have on the individual and society. By placing energy issues within the context of everyday examples and asking students to define and support critical arguments, ENERGY utilizes relevant applications to capture student interest. A new ongoing email service provides subscribing instructors the opportunity to seamlessly incorporate current events into their course lectures.
The text can be used in physics, technology, physical science, and environmental science courses for non-science majors. Many of the standard topics found in introductory physics textbooks are included. As a result, this book can be used as the text in a conceptual physics course with energy as the central theme. No math or other science prerequisite is necessary.
New to the Edition | <urn:uuid:d1937a94-cd9b-4cbd-9b60-63b4521cfa53> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.textbooks.com/Energy-Its-Use-and-the-Environment-4th-Edition/9780495010852/Roger-A-Hinrichs.php?mpcond=Acceptable | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700380063/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103300-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.897301 | 249 | 3.125 | 3 |
Today, North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue signed the Racial Justice Act into law, making North Carolina only the second state in the country to allow death row prisoners to meaningfully challenge their death sentences if racial bias is evident. (Kentucky is the only other state that has adopted similar provisions.)
As discussed in my previous post, race (particularly race of the victim) has been a major factor in who does and does not get death sentences in North Carolina, and 35 inmates on North Carolina’s death row were put there by all-white juries.
It is good to see a southern state like North Carolina take such a leadership role in directly confronting its legacy of racism and going the extra mile to ensure that its justice system (or at least its capital punishment system) is no longer infected with racial bias. The 33 other death penalty states, both northern and southern, should follow North Carolina and Kentucky’s lead; racial bias in the death penalty is a national problem. | <urn:uuid:2904dc12-1a3d-49bb-a56e-f5e0cc76f103> | CC-MAIN-2017-17 | http://blog.amnestyusa.org/us/racial-justice-in-north-carolina-update/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917123549.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031203-00173-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962221 | 199 | 2.875 | 3 |
What protein molecules do drugs target?
- proteins. G protein-coupled receptors (target of 50% of drugs) enzymes (especially protein kinases, proteases, esterases, and phosphatases) ion channels. ligand-gated ion channels. voltage-gated ion channels. nuclear hormone receptors. structural proteins such as tubulin. membrane transport proteins.
- nucleic acids.
What is protein drug interaction?
The binding of drugs with proteins in the blood stream is an important process in determining the eventual activity and fate of such drugs once they have entered the circulation. These interactions, in turn, help control the distribution, rate of excretion, and toxicity of drugs in the body.
What do protein-protein interactions do?
Protein–protein interactions (PPIs) are physical contacts of high specificity establised between two or more protein molecules as a result of biochemical events steered by interactions that include electrostatic forces, hydrogen bonding and the hydrophobic effect.
How does a drug interact with its target?
By sharing a pair of electrons, a new molecule is formed via a covalent interaction. The interaction is very strong, leading to irreversible binding between a drug and its target. This usually results in a sustained biological effect that cannot be altered.
How many drugs target proteins?
Recent analysis reveals that over 95% of the currently known drug targets are proteins and that these proteins facilitate about 93% of known drug-target interactions (Santos et al., 2017).
What are the 4 main regulatory proteins that drugs are likely to interact with?
The drug-protein interactions were then categorized into four subgroups: carrier, enzyme, target and transporter.
What is a bound drug?
A drug that is 99% bound means that 99% of the drug molecules are bound to blood proteins not that 99% of the blood proteins are bound with drug.
How do you identify protein-protein interactions?
Characterizing protein–protein interactions through methods such as co-immunoprecipitation (co-IP), pull-down assays, crosslinking, label transfer, and far–western blot analysis is critical to understand protein function and the biology of the cell.
How do you determine protein-protein interactions?
Pull-down assay is an in vitro method used to determine a physical interaction between two or more proteins. It can be used for confirmation of existing protein-protein interactions discovered by other techniques or initial screening to identify novel protein-protein interactions.
What is drug target interaction?
Drug target interaction is a prominent research area in the field of drug discovery. It refers to the recognition of interactions between chemical compounds and the protein targets in the human body. Wet lab experiments to identify these interactions are expensive as well as time consuming.
How to detect interactions between a drug and a target protein?
As mentioned earlier, different feature extraction, feature selection, data balancing and classifiers have been used for detecting interactions between a drug and target protein. To compare the effectiveness of our method, we consider five drug–target methods under the AUC values for the same datasets.
Can wet-lab experiments predict drug–target (protein) interactions?
Discovering drug–target (protein) interactions (DTIs) is of great significance for researching and developing novel drugs, having a tremendous advantage to pharmaceutical industries and patients. However, the prediction of DTIs using wet-lab experimental methods is generally expensive and time-consuming.
What is in silico prediction of drug-target interaction networks?
In silico prediction of drug-target interaction networks based on drug chemical structure and protein sequences. Sci Rep 2017;7:1–13. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-10724-0 [PMC free article][PubMed] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar] 42.
What are the different types of target datasets for protein research?
Drug–target datasets In our research, we use four types of protein targets gold standard datasets also known as benchmark datasets, i.e. EN, IC, GPCR and nuclear receptor (NR) released by Yamanishi et al. . | <urn:uuid:c0ad7c33-e21a-45df-84ee-083838666152> | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | https://www.titcoins.biz/helpful-tips/what-protein-molecules-do-drugs-target/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662540268.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20220521174536-20220521204536-00207.warc.gz | en | 0.917393 | 860 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Body and Breath Meditation
Being mindful is simply about waking up to what is. It's being aware, being in the present moment, and being fully conscious - of your inner landscape and the landscape around you.. There are many ways i which to practice mindfulness from meditation to yoga, to some forms of exercise, gardening, knitting to focused attention on eating.
The reported benefits of mindfulness practice are now being scientifically proven from reduced stress levels, greater vitality, increased productivity, better decision making, increased happiness, ease of pain and better relationships. Taking 5 minutes out of your day is so necessary when our lives are incredibly busy. That 5 minutes will help replenish and recharge you and give you a bit of space to remember to just breathe!
Our bodies are wonderful at letting us know when something is wrong, yet how often do we really stop long enough in order to really digest what’s going on in our body? By the time our bodies are in severe pain or stress, we’ve often missed the warning signals. Mindfulness allows you to pay attention to these signals so that you can take the necessary action before something
The following is a short exercise in bringing focused attention to your body and your breath. I suggest that you try it for five minutes and see how you go.
Find somewhere quiet where you won’t be disturbed. You may want to set a timer on your mobile phone so you know when your time is up…
- Sit comfortably on a chair with your feet uncrossed resting on the floor and your hands uncrossed resting on your lap.
- Close your eyes and take three deep breaths. On each out breath, imagine that you’re letting everything go – any worries or stresses you have – just choose to let them all go as you breathe out.
- Now pay attention to your body being held by the chair. Bring your attention to your back being supported, to your legs being supported, and perhaps your arms being supported. Now bring your focus to your feet being supported by the floor. As you do this, imagine your body and feet really relaxing or easing back into your chair and the floor.
- Starting at the bottom of your feet, bring awareness to any sensations present here. As you move slowly from your feet, to your ankles, to your knees and further up your body, pause on any area of your body that you are drawn to. Go slowly as you place your awareness on different parts of the body. Notice is any area feels tense, tight or stiff. If so, without judgement, just observe what’s going on in your body, what is obvious,, before moving to the next part of your body. End at the top of your head.
- Now bring your attention to your breath. Stay with your breath as you breath in and as you breath out. If your mind wanders, which it will do, that’s ok. Just observe the thought, then come back to your breath. Stay with your breath until your time is up. Given we all have thoughts, you will find your mind wandering. The important part here is not to chastise yourself but to recognise when you have a thought, so that you can come back to your breath.
I’d love to hear about your experience after having done the exercise. What did you personally notice about your practice? | <urn:uuid:eee57e3b-6af3-4663-bfc4-3da3e88ea214> | CC-MAIN-2018-26 | https://www.anneloyd.com/articles/body-and-breath-meditation | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-26/segments/1529267859817.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20180617213237-20180617233237-00601.warc.gz | en | 0.963543 | 686 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Sometime in the next few months, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System will flip the switch on the largest solar plant of its kind in the world: A 377 megawatt, 3,500 acre solar thermal energy system. It's located in California's Mojave Desert near the Nevada border and it's ridiculously big. I would suggest going to check it out in person during your next Vegas binge weekend, but from the 15 freeway it's little more than a silvery blur, a rippling, mirage like, silvery blur that feels like it might sear your retinas if you look at it too long. So it's a good thing they've just posted this incredible virtual tour.
A boiler atop one of three towers where the mirrors focus the sun's light. It really does glow white hot like this.
Unlike traditional photovoltaic cells, where semiconductors create an electronic circuit to convert solar radiation into energy, Ivanpah uses "heliostats," or giant computer controlled mirrors, that focus the sun's energy onto boilers located atop 459 foot towers, creating steam that powers turbines, thus creating energy. The water is then air cooled and recycled in a closed loop system.
Heliostats are mechanically moved as needed to maximize the sun's reflection.
Since photovoltaics are static and have to be positioned very precisely, the heliostats are more low impact, requiring minimal land grading. The plant estimates it will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by over 400,000 tons per year, the equivalent of taking 2.1 million cars off the road during its 30 year lifecycle.
It's like a funhouse! Heliostats waiting to be put into place.
When finished the plant will have over 300,000 heliostats, or enough mirrors to replace all the windows of the Empire State Building 54 times.
The heliostats are assembled in here, using metal poles which are drilled into the ground.
Ivanpah will power over 140,000 California homes during peak hours. The plant also features investors like Google and a £1.03 billion loan guarantee from the US Department of Energy.
Here's where 'pad bonding' happens, attaching the mirrors to their steel frames.
But it hasn't been all sunshine and Google investments for Ivanpah. After determining that the habitat was threatening 200 desert tortoises, the tortoises were relocated to other parts of the Mojave Desert at a scandalous cost of £32,000 per tortoise.
Here's a video of construction, where you can watch the mirrors spin into place like a giant disco ball.
Last month, Barack Obama's climate action plan set a goal to permit enough wind and solar projects on public lands to power six million homes by 2020, and from the number of new projects underway, it looks like it might happen. About an hour northeast, construction has started on Copper Mountain 3, a 250 megawatt, 1,400 acre photovoltaic plant outside Boulder City, Nevada. This is the third phase of a massive development will also be one of the largest solar plants in the world. SOLAR POWER SMACKDOWN.
But they both better watch their backs: The Blythe Solar Power Project, a 485 megawatt, 7,000 acre photovoltaic project is expected to start construction in 2014. In the meantime, Ivanpah reigns supreme, check it out in all its glory on the virtual tour. | <urn:uuid:919fc9aa-1825-42d3-8f6d-b1a14a7f487e> | CC-MAIN-2019-13 | http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2013/08/take-a-tour-of-this-insane-solar-thermal-energy-plant-in-the-california-desert/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-13/segments/1552912205597.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20190326160044-20190326182044-00523.warc.gz | en | 0.93572 | 719 | 2.859375 | 3 |
If you have several hours to spend it is an easy 10 km (one way) hike on a trail out to the actual northern-most point.
HistoryApproximately 10,000 years ago the first humans, ancestors of the Sami, settled in the region, living in sod huts and surviving by hunting and fishing. In the Viking age the region of Finnmark was officially (via taxation) part of one of the kingdoms that eventually united to form Norway. In the middle ages, fishing villages were established and trade occurred with Germanic Hanseatic cities to the south and with Russian tribes to the east.
Beginning in the middle ages Nordkapp became a tourist destination for wealthy adventurers. Royal visitors, Prince Lois Philippe of Orleans, Oscar II of Sweden and Norway, Keiser Wilhelm II of Germany and King Chulalonkorn of Thailand all made the expensive journey and difficult climb to the top of the cliffs.
In 1941 the Nazis occupied all of Norway, primarily for three reasons: to control the port (Narvik) that exported northern Swedish iron ore, to gain access to Norway’s heavy water production facility, and to prevent the British from using it as a base to invade Germany. During the war, allied ships dodged German patrol boats and submarines to carry supplies to Russia via the route around Nordkapp. Upon leaving in the mid 1944 the Nazi’s scorched earth policy resulted in complete destruction of virtually every building in northern Norway. It wasn’t until 1969 that reconstruction was finished. In 1999 the longest undersea tunnel (almost 7 km) in the world was completed, connecting Magerøya to the mainland.
Getting thereGetting there has always been a big part of the adventure of Nordkapp. For the authentic adventure you could duplicate the original route by taking a boat to the base of the cliffs and then scaling the (class 3/4) cliffs to the plateau. However, most people just drive or take the bus from Honningsvåg, which has an airport and is a stop on the Hurtigruten coastal ferry. Although you can drive the entire route from southern Norway, the unbelievably scenic Hurtigruten ferry is highly recommended: “The Norwegian Coastal Express better known as the "world ’s most beautiful sea voyage" calls at 34 ports, from Bergen all the way to Kirkenes on the Russian border. The ships deliver freight, post and passengers to remote communities, some of which are home to just a few hundred people. Traveling along this beautiful coastline, through magical fjords to enchanted islands, we enjoyed a genuine, friendly and unpretentious voyage which is truly Norwegian.”
Just a few hundreds meters before the visitors center there is a tollbooth where they ask you to pay a lot of money. The best thing to do is leave your car in a parking area a few hundred meters earlier and outflank the tollbooth by hiking across the meadow.
Knivskjellodden, the actual northernmost point, means knife-boundary-point.
Magerøya means meager island.
Hvorfor er alt så dyrt i Norge? means: Why is everything so expensive in Norway? | <urn:uuid:88d5b0f4-733f-4bf8-8883-fbc347a7ad04> | CC-MAIN-2015-14 | http://www.summitpost.org/nordkapp-north-cape/244855 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-14/segments/1427131299236.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20150323172139-00174-ip-10-168-14-71.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953776 | 660 | 2.640625 | 3 |
At Little Hat Creek Farm, we use ecological farming practices to strike a balance between our needs today and the needs of future generations. Today, in this country, most food is plentiful and cheap because “big agriculture” uses industrial practices like chemical pesticides, artificial fertilizers and herbicides to produce it. Such practices deplete the soil, pollute freshwater, and exacerbate climate change. They also are often removed from the view of the community, and they create an underclass of migrant labor.
Our goal is to build soil, not deplete it, by using cover crops and hay mulch to cultivate our soil microbiota. When fertilizer is needed, we use only organic-approved fertilizers and mineral supplements. We manage pests by rotating crops, and by encouraging bird and predatory insect diversity in wild and weedy areas close to the fields. On rare occasions, we have to use an organic-approved insecticide in our greenhouses, but we avoid the use in our fields to protect our insect diversity. Instead, we do things like disrupt the life cycle of the pest by removing its egg-laying sites or use pheromones to disrupt mating. We are doing our best to leave our land and our community better than we found it. | <urn:uuid:bdb3d71c-1fc6-49a9-be4e-9d015e427e0c> | CC-MAIN-2023-06 | https://littlehatcreek.com/pages/vegetables | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764494976.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20230127101040-20230127131040-00610.warc.gz | en | 0.933323 | 252 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Safe, Inclusive Schools
There are many ways to help make your school feel safer, more respectful and more inclusive for LGBTQ students.
You can do many things to increase awareness of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) students and issues at your school.
A quick list of recommended (and not recommended) ways to proactively create a safer school.
Web sites may be blocked on your school computers for certain reasons. But these shouldn’t include sites that provide valuable information and support to LGBTQ youth. | <urn:uuid:ff1486f4-3fd2-4329-ba40-b482fbd1c94e> | CC-MAIN-2015-48 | http://www.lambdalegal.org/know-your-rights/safe-inclusive-schools/youth/parents-family | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-48/segments/1448398464253.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20151124205424-00096-ip-10-71-132-137.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946046 | 109 | 2.6875 | 3 |
An early superfood
Diane Rezendes, food writer
An early superfood
Some people are always on the watch for the next superfood. The food we’re featuring here at Sigona’s this week isn’t the next new thing; it goes back centuries. It’s just as versatile now as it was then. The Aztecs revered it so much they called it the fruit of the earth. They used it for food, for medicine to bring down fevers, as lip balm, combat infections, aid digestion, and even curb rage. It’s so important in its native Mexico that it is depicted on the national flag. And it was a favorite of the artist Frida Kahlo.
Our feature this week is nopales, that wide flat cactus pad you often enjoy with Mexican or southwest cuisine. And with everyone thinking of lighter, healthier, more flavorful foods, nopales are gaining attention once again. They’re terrific sautéed and used in tacos, scrambled eggs, in soup, or on the side. They can be eaten raw, or juiced for health. If you’re watching your carbs, you can use them instead of tortillas to hold the goodies inside – and they can also be grilled and sliced as a meat replacement for tacos. Plus with Cinco de Mayo coming up this weekend, they are great to include in your party recipes.
The flavor is mild, but intensity can vary from plant to plant as well as from palate to palate. For some people, they are sweet; others find them sour. Many people say its taste is closest to watermelon. Probably the best thing to do is try some and see for yourself!
Some people also call it prickly pear cactus, which can be confusing: the prickly pear is the rosy or purple-colored fruit on the green cactus. The nopales are the cactus pads.
Native to Mexico, nopales are known for Vitamins A and C, as well as potassium, magnesium, and manganese. Like many vegetables, they are great for fiber. According to the Mayo Clinic, there’s preliminary evidence that this food can decrease blood sugar levels for people with Type 2 diabetes. (It’s early research and more is needed, but we thought you should know what we have learned so far.)
Look for bright green coloring and firm skin (no wrinkling).
Thinner pads are younger and milder.
Well-wrapped, they will keep 10-14 days in the refrigerator.
Try this Salsa Mexicana:
Dice and boil nopales with garlic and onion about 10 minutes till tender. Strain and set aside. Meanwhile, dice cilantro, tomatoes and fresh jalapeños. When the nopales have cooled, toss everything. Finish with fresh lime juice and salt to taste. It’s great over tacos, steak, or even just with chips.
Not just for people…
Nopales are used not only for people, but also for forage, dyes, and even construction.
- Ranchers like the older cactus pads as forage for their animals; some people believe the nopales makes their butter more flavorful.
- Some builders add the old juice to plaster to make walls more water-resistant.
- Looking ahead to new uses, the International Society for Optical Engineering is researching using prickly pear dye for holographic recording. Early days, but pretty exciting! | <urn:uuid:c7bb33ec-24a7-45c8-8679-a95fc1601ec4> | CC-MAIN-2018-30 | http://blog.sigonas.com/2018/05/01/in-the-store-with-sigonas-featuring-nopales/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-30/segments/1531676590314.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20180718174111-20180718194111-00412.warc.gz | en | 0.945083 | 733 | 2.578125 | 3 |
English translation of परत बिछाना
परत बिछानाPowered by COBUILD /parata bichana/
Definitions and Translations
/parata bichana, parata bichAnA, parata bichaanaa, parat bichānā, parata bichhana, parata bichhAnA, parata bichhaanaa, parat bichhānā/
line transitive verb
If you line something such as a container, you put a layer of something on the inside surface of it.
⇒ Bears line their dens with leaves or grass.
Copyright © 2014 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
Translation of परत बिछाना from the Collins Hindi to English Dictionary | <urn:uuid:092bb069-2030-4e9d-b9a7-9cc4a7182f0b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/hindi-english/%E0%A4%AA%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%A4-%E0%A4%AC%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%9B%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%BE | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282937.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00039-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.734618 | 198 | 2.84375 | 3 |
From the September 1951 issue ofAmerican Rifleman, an excerpt from an article by Robert Hutton on rifling twist and bullet flight.
Three years ago, with the help of some thirty shooters who were participating in the development of a modern cartridge, the writer began a series of tests to see what wildcat cartridges would do as regards to accuracy and trajectory. Theses tests, now complete and reported upon in the American Rifleman in .25-caliber (November 1949) and in .30-caliber (March 1951), show that all of the wildcats selected for the tests delivered faster velocities and better accuracy than any standard cases.
All of the shooting was in the form of drop shooting after each load had been zeroed at 100 yards. When possible, velocities were choreographed. We do not know pressures.
What we did not know when tests were started was that barrel twist made any great difference. It was presumed that the chap who designed a cartridge knew also what twist barrel his cartridge would require, and if he stayed strictly with the Greenhill formula* that is where it seems he may have been sadly mistaken.
Sir Alfred George Greenhill (1847-1927), English mathematician, who worked out the accepted formula for determining twist of rifling, was a lecturer in mathematics at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 1873-76, and a professor of mathematics to the advanced class of Artillery Officers, Woolwich, from 1876-1906.
The Greenhill formula, which states categorically the twist a rifle barrel should have, has been accepted as the standard authority by factories, individual designers, and careful bandleaders since the middle of the 19th century. Translated by Al Barr the application of the Greenhill formula to modern bullets is as follows:
What we learned through these tests was that the formula for determining twist is not always reliable. To know a rifle and cartridge, it is necessary to study the bullet in flight with specific reference to how and when and even why it hits the way it does! | <urn:uuid:72dc1445-4d39-4c19-9a6c-73a2257fd34a> | CC-MAIN-2020-34 | https://www.ssusa.org/articles/2017/1/12/a-page-from-history-rifling-twist-and-bullet-flight/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-34/segments/1596439735836.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20200803224907-20200804014907-00156.warc.gz | en | 0.975328 | 414 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Walden House is a 365-day-a-year comprehensive program for Deaf Children. More than 50% of the staff is Deaf; ASL is considered the dominant language, and a central goal for all students is the establishment of a strong cultural and personal identity as a Deaf person. This paper will explore how providing this culturally affirmative Deaf environment impacts upon all aspects of programming.
Burnes, S., Seabolt, D., & Vreeland, J. (2019). Deaf Culturally Affirmative Programming for Children with Emotional and Behavioral Problems. JADARA, 26(2). Retrieved from https://nsuworks.nova.edu/jadara/vol26/iss2/8 | <urn:uuid:9d7fade7-358f-4069-9aa8-e29f190458d1> | CC-MAIN-2021-43 | https://nsuworks.nova.edu/jadara/vol26/iss2/8/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-43/segments/1634323584886.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20211016135542-20211016165542-00200.warc.gz | en | 0.85063 | 150 | 3 | 3 |
What is Stickler Syndrome?
Stickler Syndrome is genetic condition that affects proteins involved in the production of collagen. The three most common collagen genes known to cause Stickler Syndrome are COL2A1, COL11A1 and COL11A2, and the clinical condition differs depending on the gene involved.
Due to the large size of the Stickler genes and the different way in which each gene can be affected, the clinical signs can vary considerably between patients and families and even between affected individuals within the same family.
Clinical features include:
- Cleft Palate
- Hearing problems
- High myopia (short-sightedness)
- Retinal detachment
How is Stickler Syndrome treated?
- Cleft palates, if necessary, are surgically repaired at an early age.
- Hearing problems in association with cleft palate require close monitoring and sometimes insertion of grommets. Any additional associated sensorineural hearing loss as a result of Stickler syndrome is usually mild in most patients, but occasionally might be severe enough to require hearing aids.
- Regular eye examinations are required by an experienced vitreoretinal specialist to ensure there are no retinal holes, breaks or detachments which require treatment. It is also important to monitor the development of the vision to ensure that there is binocular vision and regular refraction for glasses.
- Hypermobility is often more pronounced in childhood. Assessment and advice from a rheumatologist is valuable in order to allow the child to lead a normal active childhood. Exercises may be given to strengthen the soft tissues supporting the joints in order to minimise the effects of hypermobility.
- Arthropathy is treated as or when (or even, if) it develops. It is sensible to minimise weight gain and to remain supple with exercise and good diet.
- Congenital cataracts may not affect the vision as they are often ‘off centre’ and can be left alone. Premature cataracts that diminish the visual acuity can be treated surgically.
- Retinal detachments can be repaired and sight restored but it is an emergency situation and should not be left. Patients with Type 1 Stickler Syndrome at risk of a Giant Retinal Tear are offered prophylactic (preventative) surgery to reduce their risk. | <urn:uuid:77dd45fb-3000-49bf-9916-ccc3c76186a3> | CC-MAIN-2021-04 | https://www.alexandereyecare.co.uk/stickler-syndrome/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-04/segments/1610703506832.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20210116165621-20210116195621-00668.warc.gz | en | 0.934612 | 481 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Today, Manhattan streets will receive the rare, cosmic blessing that is Manhattanhenge: the biannual, half-hour event in which the setting sun lines up directly with the street grid.
Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and current director of the Hayden Planetarium, claims to have coined the term in 2002. He explains that Manhattanhenge occurs on days other than the equinoxes because the city’s grid is skewed 30 degrees east of geographic north. That means that this year, the sunset will harmonize with the streets on May 29 and July 12. One can also catch the full, aligned disc of the sun before it fully sets on May 30 and July 11. To view the bisected or whole sun touching down on the concrete horizon, Tyson advises the following:
For best effect, position yourself as far east in Manhattan as possible. But ensure that when you look west across the avenues you can still see New Jersey. Clear cross streets include 14th, 23rd, 34th. 42nd, 57th, and several streets adjacent to them. The Empire State building and the Chrysler building render 34th street and 42nd streets especially striking vistas.
Unfortunately, to our knowledge, the sun does not bestow Brooklyn with a henge, aside from the one this 2009 New Yorker piece describes as “an unusual bar of light” next to a Brooklyn-based character’s shower curtain.
Tyson predicts tonight’s Manhattanhenge to occur at 8:17 p.m.
[via the New York Observer] | <urn:uuid:96e1ab79-3b4a-4b38-96e9-a07a43f3b8f2> | CC-MAIN-2015-22 | http://www.thelmagazine.com/2012/05/set-your-sights-on-manhattanhenge-tonight/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-22/segments/1432207932182.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20150521113212-00233-ip-10-180-206-219.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923453 | 323 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Word Problems Solved by S.M.S. (Solutions Made Simple)
Library Home || Full Table of Contents || Suggest a Link || Library Help
|Raymond Davie and Helaine Rabney; Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute|
|A curriculum unit that stresses organized thinking for solving word problems: Knowing the Problem; Making a Plan; Solving Your Problem; Testing Your Solution, with bibliographies for students and teachers. Recommended for 9th through 12th grade Consumer Math, Applied Math and all Algebras.|
|Levels:||High School (9-12)|
|Resource Types:||Lesson Plans and Activities, Problems/Puzzles, Word Problems|
|Math Topics:||Basic Algebra|
The Math Forum is a research and educational enterprise of the Drexel University School of Education. | <urn:uuid:bfdbcba4-e20b-4580-8eef-863287914043> | CC-MAIN-2015-48 | http://mathforum.org/library/view/11832.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-48/segments/1448398447769.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20151124205407-00286-ip-10-71-132-137.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.759748 | 176 | 3.46875 | 3 |
Introduction to Nonviolence
|Publication Date||March 2014|
|Formats||Hardcover Ebook (PDF) Paperback|
Non-violent movements, under figures like Gandhi and the Dalai Lama, led to some of the great social changes of the 20th century, and some argue it offers solutions for this century's problems. This book explores non-violence from its roots in diverse religious and philosophical traditions to its role in bringing social and political change today. | <urn:uuid:11953551-ed61-4088-84a2-5be380ce7691> | CC-MAIN-2015-35 | http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/introduction-to-nonviolence-ramin-jahanbegloo/?K=9780230361294 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-35/segments/1440644064160.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20150827025424-00183-ip-10-171-96-226.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.844556 | 95 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Whether an individual is physically active or leads a sedentary lifestyle, he/she is at high risk to overly tight quadriceps that produces imbalanced muscular tension at the hips. If not properly dealt with, excessively tight quadriceps can affect the posture and body mechanics, thus resulting to back pain as well as increasing the risk of the individual to hip and knee injuries.
Close look on the quadriceps muscles
The quadriceps is comprised of four muscles that are situated at the anterior aspect of the thigh. The four muscles influence the movement at the knee. The rectus femoris is the biggest of the four muscles that crosses over the hip and works together with the iliopsoas muscles to generate hip flexion.
Once the quadriceps muscles are excessively worked out during athletic movements such as running, jumping or weight training, they end up tight and rigid and produce imbalanced tension at the joints.
Standing and sitting with the knees hyperextended can also generate tight quadriceps. When the tight quadriceps is accompanied by weakened hamstrings, the individual is at high risk for an ACL injury.
Tightness of the hip flexor
It is important to note that the skeleton is considered as a kinetic chain. It simply means that the position of one joint can affect the position of its neighbor. Once a single joint is out of alignment, it can produce a domino effect on other joints.
Once the hip flexor muscles are too tight, they exert force on the pelvis which causes it to tilt forward, thus throwing the hip out of its alignment. An anterior pelvic tilt augments the lordotic curve of the lower back which causes the vertebrae to become compacted, thus the knees are hyperextended. The tight hip flexors can cause back and knee pain as well as lead to inefficient movement while playing sports, thus increasing the risk for injuries.
Quadriceps that is tight can also cause the patella to misalign, resulting to a sore condition called as patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS). Aside from overuse during sports, factors that can aggravate the condition include squatting, prolonged sitting, running and stair climbing.
PFPS is often triggered by imbalanced muscle tension at the knee joint that causes the patella to be pulled out of track. In most cases, the rectus femoris and vastus lateralis create lateral forces on the patella that should be offset by strengthening the vastus medialis as well as stretching the tight muscles.
Restoration of balance
Daily stretching of the quadriceps is vital in order to improve muscular balance at the knee and hip. A classic quadriceps stretch is performed by standing erect close to a chair or wall. Use one arm for balance and then hold the ankle of the outside leg and pull the heel towards to buttocks. The knee should be pointed straight down to the floor and fully extend the hip. Hold the stretch for 30-60 seconds.
Always bear in mind that it is vital to strengthen the opposing muscles, particularly the hamstrings and gluteal muscles. Lack of proper warm up before engaging in any sport can make the tight quadriceps prone to injury. | <urn:uuid:b6791625-34bd-4aac-86bd-889bf31cc048> | CC-MAIN-2017-17 | https://vancouverfirstaid.ca/detrimental-effects-of-tight-quadriceps/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917121893.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031201-00484-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93525 | 659 | 3.046875 | 3 |
If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.
Anger could cause big problems. A problem that is small in the beginning could become bad if we handle it with anger. Not only will the situation itself get worse, our relationships with others could also deteriorate. In short, handling something with anger won’t make things better.
That’s why it’s essential to control anger. By controlling anger we will be able to handle problems with calm. We can then exercise our wisdom and judgment to the problem at hand to achieve the best possible solution. Being someone who sometimes gets angry, there are some tips I find useful on dealing with anger. Here they are – choose the ones that work for you:
1. Take a deep breath
Taking a deep breath is an easy way to calm your nerves. It will be easier for you to do the other tips when your anger has subsided.
2. Drink a glass of water
It’s also an easy way to calm your nerves.
3. Take a bath
I know it is not possible in many circumstances, but if you can do it the effect is immediate.
4. Don’t speak while you are angry
If you did so you may speak harshly to others and that could be something you regret. There is a nice quote about it:
When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, a hundred.
5. Listen to what people say
Continuing the previous tip, not only should we not speak while we are angry, we should also learn to listen. Pay attention and try to understand the point the other person makes.
6. Take a walk
Changing your situation is a good way to overcome anger. One way to do so is by taking a walk outside.
7. Pray or meditate
Praying or meditating is an effective way to calm your nerve. It could help you regain your inner peace.
8. Listen to calming music
My favorite is instrumental music since it seems to have better calming effect but you can use whatever music that works for you.
9. Have realistic expectations
Sometimes we are angry simply because we have unrealistic expectations toward others. Make sure that your expectations are realistic. You can’t expect other people to be like you.
10. Realize that nobody is perfect
Everybody can make mistake including you. Realizing this will make it easier for you to understand when someone makes mistakes.
11. See from the other person’s perspective
One way to do that is by asking yourself: “How do I feel if I’m in his or her position?”
12. Tell a wise friend
Sometimes you just need to talk about it with a wise friend. He or she can help you see the problem in the right perspective. Just be careful to choose the right person.
13. Look at the positive side
This is a habit you should build. The habit of looking at the positive side will help you look at many situations in constructive ways.
You can control anger by directing your energy to a different direction so that it’s no longer available for anger. A good candidate is exercising.
15. Learn to forgive
If you release forgiveness you will no longer have reasons to angry to someone else. You can then focus on positive ways to solve the problem.
16. Think in long term
Often we are angry because we see too near to the future and do not think about the implications in the long term. By seeing in the long term we will be able to see the consequences of anger. There’s a quote I love about it:
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
How do you control anger? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
Photo by Alejandra Mavroski | <urn:uuid:09d3a580-ea99-4796-9e7c-3f167504ec60> | CC-MAIN-2015-18 | http://www.lifeoptimizer.org/2008/05/02/how-to-control-anger-tips-on-dealing-with-anger/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-18/segments/1430458969644.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20150501054249-00024-ip-10-235-10-82.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933884 | 802 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Open Interest is the total number of options or futures contracts that are “open”, meaning currently owned by an investor and not yet expired.
Think first in terms of options contracts: by owning an option, it signifies that there is interest in actually trading that stock, although at a different price. Since this represents your “interest” in owning it, the “open interest” is how many shares people may be interested in trading, even if they do not actually trade.
Open interest is not to be confused with volume; it is just the total number of options or futures that are owned and not yet expired. A second definition of Open interest is the amount of open interest before the market opens, i.e. the number of open buy orders before the market officially opens, since it shares the same idea (how many shares people are thinking about trading, even though those trades have not yet happened).
|1||Trader A buys 1 option and Trader B sells 1 option (for options and futures if there is a buyer there must always be a seller)||1||There is one option bought currently. The seller does not count in this case.|
|2||C buys 3, and D sells 3||4||A and C now own 4 options between them.|
|3||A sells 2, C sells 3, and D buys 5||2||A still has 1 sold (written), B has 1 sold, C owns 0, D has 2, if we look at the bought the open interest is 2 despite the volume being 5|
|4||C buys 5 and D sells 5||2||Since the options have just changed hands the open interest remains the same. The volume is 5 once again.|
|5||A sells 3, B buys 3, C buys 2, D sells 2||9||A now has 4 sold, B has 2, C owns 7 and D has 5 sold|
As you can see these transactions can get very complicated very quickly. The usefulness is undeniable, however, as it shows just how many people “interested” in the option.
Since open interest indicates the number of “open” bought options this can give an indication of market sentiment and therefore the strength of the current trend. If there is very little open interest but a lot of volume it may be a good time to check why so many people are selling off their options.
On the other hand, a sudden jump in open interest can indicate that a rise in volatility is likely but gives little information on the direction of trend. | <urn:uuid:5ad81068-443d-4abf-8deb-dccdc8bf581e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://education.howthemarketworks.com/open-interest/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570730.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20220807211157-20220808001157-00143.warc.gz | en | 0.944792 | 552 | 2.65625 | 3 |
U.S. Government Reports: ‘It Is Raining Plastic’
Above Photo: From Nationofchange.org
Those microscopic plastic fibers contaminating our air, soil, and, and water are now even part of our rainfall.
After analyzing rainwater samples collected from the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, the U.S. Interior Department recently released a study concluding that microscopic plastic fibers have contaminated the air, soil, water, and even rainfall. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, plastic was found in over 90 percent of samples taken.
In a recent report titled “It Is Raining Plastic,” the U.S. Geological Survey reported, “Atmospheric wet deposition samples were collected using the National Atmospheric Deposition Program/National Trends Network (NADP/NTN) at eight sites in the Colorado Front Range. Plastics were identified in more than 90 percent of the samples.”
The study continued, “Plastic particles such as beads and shards were also observed with magnification. More plastic fibers were observed in samples from urban sites than from remote, mountainous sites. However, frequent observation of plastic fibers in washout samples from the remote site CO98 at Loch Vale in Rocky Mountain National Park (elevation 3,159 meters) suggests that wet deposition of plastic is ubiquitous and not just an urban condition.”
“I think the most important result that we can share with the American public is that there’s more plastic out there than meets the eye,” U.S. Geological Survey researcher Gregory Wetherbee told The Guardian. “It’s in the rain, it’s in the snow. It’s a part of our environment now.”
Last year, Scientific Reports published their results which concluded that ocean plastic pollution within the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP), located between California and Hawaii, is increasing exponentially and at a faster rate than in surrounding waters. Considered at least twice the size of Texas, the GPGP is also more than three times the size of continental France.
“Even if we waved a magic wand and stopped using plastic, it’s unclear how long plastic would continue to circulate through our rivers waters systems,” Stefan Krause at the University of Birmingham recently told The Guardian. “Based on what we do know about plastic found in deep sources of groundwater, and accumulated in rivers, I would guess centuries.”
The U.S. Geological Survey’s report concluded, “It is raining plastic. Better methods for sampling, identification, and quantification of plastic deposition along with assessment of potential ecological effects are needed.”
In other words, the U.S. Interior Department has discovered that we are rapidly polluting our environment and own bodies with microplastics at a hazardous rate with no end in sight. | <urn:uuid:12944178-4fef-492b-ab76-5a0fee228d60> | CC-MAIN-2023-06 | https://taftchemtrails.com/2019/08/22/raining-plastic/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764499826.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20230130165437-20230130195437-00408.warc.gz | en | 0.953938 | 595 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Physical medicine encompasses any therapy that addresses disease by treating the structure of the body. When it comes to the physical body, there are many things that need to work together. Sufficient movement of the bones in every joint needs to be able to happen, so that the brain knows where the body is in space. Ligament and tendon strength and integrity are necessary for holding bones together, for holding muscles to bones, and for holding internal organs in place. Then there is the cranio-sacral system which pumps cerebrospinal fluid up and down the spine. Scars and injuries can profoundly change the way that the physical body moves, and can affect the flow of energy through acupuncture meridians.
Movement is important to the body in a lot of different ways. Firstly, it enhances the function of the lymphatic system, which moves metabolic wastes and fats through the body. It also gives more frequent feedback to the brain about where the body is in space, a process called proprioception. If a couple of bones are stuck together, or fixated, this can cause bunching up of the fascia (causing pain), neurologic inhibition of muscles (loss of strength or tone), and can even affect internal organ function.
Naturopathic Physicians are trained to diagnose and treat structural issues and we do adjust fixations to improve joint mobility and proprioception.
Have you ever seen somebody pull their thumb back to their forearm or contort themselves in some other way? These people have some degree of ligament laxity, and it can happen for a number of different reasons. For some, it is genetic. Ehlers Danlos Syndrome is one such example, and it can affect the connective tissue in the blood vessels, skin, and the joints, causing different symptoms. For some, the issue is because of an injury. The ligament or tendon was overstretched and torn and it hasn’t regained its normal structure and function. And for others, the problem can be caused by chronic stress. The breakdown products of stress hormones can physically damage ligaments. No matter how it happens, this change in ligament integrity is not always for the better. Hypermobility caused by ligament laxity of the joints can set people up for dislocations, osteoarthritis (wear and tear), and strain/sprain types of injuries.
By physically fixing the injured structure manually or using regenerative injection therapy, we can ensure that the ligaments are holding the joints in the right place.
The Craniosacral System
The cranial and sacral bones move with breath. And this movement generates flow of the cerebrospinal fluid up (CSF) and down the spine. This is significant because just as blood supplies nutrients to other tissues and carries away wastes, CSF does the same for the brain and spinal cord. So if the cranium or sacrum is injured in an accident, or stops moving normally for some other reason. This causes a change in the flow of CSF, and it can also cause torque in the covering around the spinal cord, the dura mater. Just like twisting a towel, this dural torque pulls vertebrae in the spine out of place, causing issues like those mentioned above.
By re-establishing the normal motion of the skull bones and the sacrum, we can take the torque out of the dura, ensure proper CSF flow, and change the way the nervous system interacts with the other systems of the body. It is also a great way to re-establish normal autonomic nervous system function, the part responsible for the fight/flight and rest/digest modes of function in the body. | <urn:uuid:353525bc-15da-4979-a87d-4462e9ac2dfb> | CC-MAIN-2021-17 | https://www.trueresilienceims.com/physical-medicine/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-17/segments/1618039398307.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20210420122023-20210420152023-00498.warc.gz | en | 0.927527 | 750 | 2.984375 | 3 |
Most scholars believe that near the end of his life, Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) became a brooding, bitter, disillusioned, and cynical man who doubted humans’ ability to right themselves and whose humor became increasingly dark and hopeless. His “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” written in 1898 but first published in an 1899 edition of Harper’s Weekly, represents just such dark humor. Not a single character in this convoluted story offers a redemption theme; rather, every individual seems corrupt and infected with moral depravity in just the way Twain came to think all of America was. Some critics, in fact, perceive Hadleyburg as a synecdoche for the United States of America: a place with the illusion of moral superiority that has failed to live up to that characteristic and promise. Other critics, however, deem the story a condemnation of more than the United States; they view it as a rebuke of humankind’s belief that anyone can actually learn morality. Still others envision it in a completely opposite way, for they imagine it as a “Fortunate Fall myth”: a story that shows a community’s rise through and recognition of its moral failure and then a willingness to resist such temptation again—in other words, an awakening to corruption that teaches one improved morality.
Whatever a reader believes about “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg,” no one would argue about its focus on morality and virtue. Twain immediately offers a setting of a tiny town that has kept its reputation for honesty “unsmirched during three generations, and was prouder of it than of any other of its possessions” (20). Instantly, Twain offers an irony, for he knows that two of the greatest sins against virtuous morality are the sin of pride and the sin of covetousness. In addition, he calls attention to the fact that “a young man hailed from Hadleyburg was all the recommendation he needed when he went forth from his native town to seek responsible employment” (20). In other words, the very virtue of the town becomes the tool for financial gain. Twain also follows this introduction to the scene with a description that reveals that “also, throughout the formative years temptations were kept out of the way of the young people” (20). In essence, they have never allowed their virtue to be tested.
This very facet of the town sets up Twain’s plot, for along comes a stranger, Pinkerton, who feels himself slighted by the town, so he devises a way to test every one of its members by enacting a plan that “will corrupt the town” (21) by focusing upon the very source of its vanity: its claim to honesty. The plan, quite complicated and multilayered, involves the leaving of a supposed fortune—a bag of gilded coins that weighs 160 pounds—along with a note that is published in the local newspaper and a set of identical letters sent to 19 members of the town. The focal characters in this drama become the elderly couple, Edward and Mary Richards (at whose home Pinkerton initially leaves the money), along with the Reverend Burgess—a kind of foil against the others, for he is accused of another crime he has actually not committed—and the ever observant town bum, Jack Halliday. Halliday embraces a kind of soothsayer trope, for he alone recognizes the sudden changes in the town and its citizens.
And change they do, for everyone wants some of that money, so each of the 19 recipients concocts a story to explain why he deserves the fortune. Ironically, everyone believes only a dead citizen of the town could deserve the money, for they all willingly admit that only he could ever have been so kind—so virtuous—as to give a needy stranger $20 and the advice “ ‘You are far from being a bad man. Go, and reform’ ” (31). Yet each citizen rationalizes whatever lie he invents to explain that he deserves the money because he has done a good turn for the deceased.
When at last the day of public announcements during a town meeting arrives, the lies are revealed. Instantly, the citizens of Hadleyburg react—and ultimately, they fear most that their social capital, their reputation, might be destroyed. Simply, they fear exposure. Pinkerton, however, is so disappointed in this reaction, for he had “wanted to damage every man in the place, and every woman—and not in their bodies or their estate, but in their vanity” (46), that he offers them three final jabs: the completion of the advice, “or mark my words—some day, for your sins, you will die and go to hell—or Hadleyburg—Try and Make it the Former”; the revelation that the gilded disks are but lead and worthless; and a reward for Edward Richards. Edward does not deserve the reward, either, of course, and ultimately burns the bank notes because “they came from Satan” (54). He becomes insane but finally confesses on his deathbed so that he “may die a man and not a dog” (54).
Yet perhaps the town remains a dog, for in the end, it only changes its name and alters its seal to read, “Lead Us into Temptation” (55). Does the change in name represent contrition, morality learned, or only an erasure of the past, a denial of its dishonesty? Does the motto metamorphosis symbolize true repentance, or only yet another infantile level of morality? Is Satan the Pinkerton character who sets the plan in motion, or have all of the townspeople displayed the demons within them because Pinkerton altered their insulated little world and their responses demonstrated the dark truth of their souls?
Briden, Earl F. “Twainian Pedagogy and the No-Account Lessons of ‘Hadleyburg.’ ” Studies in Short Fiction 28 (Spring 1991): 125–134.
Brooks, V. W. The Ordeal of Mark Twain. New York: E. P. Dutton/Penguin Group, 2000.
Budd, Louis J., ed. Critical Essays on Mark Twain, 1867– 1910. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982.
Burhans, Clinton S., Jr. “The Sober Affirmation of Mark Twain’s Hadleyburg.” American Literature 34, no. 3 (1962): 375–384.
Camfield, Gregg. Sentimental Twain: Samuel Clemens in the Maze of Moral Philosophy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994.
McMahan, Elizabeth. Critical Approaches to Mark Twain’s Short Stories. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1981.
Rule, Henry. “The Role of Satan in ‘The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg.’ ” Studies in Short Fiction 6 (1969): 619–629.
Smith, Henry Nash. Mark Twain: A Collection of Critical Essays. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1963.
Twain, Mark. “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg.” In The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Essays. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1900.
———. The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1996.
Wilson, James D. A Reader’s Guide to the Short Stories of Mark Twain. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1987. | <urn:uuid:16cc1c41-5482-404b-89f6-3726e23d218c> | CC-MAIN-2021-25 | https://literariness.org/2021/05/29/analysis-of-mark-twains-the-man-that-corrupted-hadleyburg/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-25/segments/1623488544264.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20210623225535-20210624015535-00366.warc.gz | en | 0.948236 | 1,591 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Ninety-nine percent of the Earth’s atmosphere is made up of two gases: (78%) nitrogen (N2) and (21%) oxygen (O2). Neither is considered an IR-absorbing/re-emitting greenhouse gas (GHG) like (0.041%) carbon dioxide (CO2) or (0.00018%) methane (CH4).
Utilizing real-world Raman spectrometer data, an independent researcher from Sweden has found both N2 and O2 do indeed absorb radiation, or function as GHGs. If true, the CO2-is-a-special-heat-trapping-gas conceptualization effectively collapses.
Image Source: ResearchGate
A new paper entitled “Quantum Mechanics and Raman Spectroscopy Refute Greenhouse Theory” has recently been made available online.
Written by Blair D Macdonald, an independent researcher specializing in fractral geometry and quantum mechanics, the analysis utilizes real-world IR spectral measurements from a Raman spectrometer (laser).
Concisely, Macdonald has determined that CO2 is no more “special” a gas absorber and re-emmitter of radiation than nitrogen or oxygen, even though the latter are not considered greenhouse gases.
What follows is but a tiny snapshot of some key points from this comprehensively-sourced paper.
Note: It would be advisable that interested readers – especially those who are rightly skeptical of iconoclastic analyses like these – should read the text in some detail before commenting. Turning the spotlight on papers that question conventional wisdom is primarily intended to elicit open-minded discussion. It is not intended to convey we have arrived at a definitive conclusion about the authenticities of the CO2 greenhouse effect.
Quantum Mechanics and Raman Spectroscopy
Refute Greenhouse Theory
Abstract: “Greenhouse theory’s premise, nitrogen and oxygen are not greenhouse gases as they do not emit and absorb infrared radiation, presents a paradox; it contradicts both quantum mechanics and thermodynamics – where all matter above absolute 0° Kelvin radiates IR photons. It was hypothesized these gases do radiate at quantum mechanics predicted spectra, and these spectra are observed by IR spectroscopy’s complement instrument, Raman spectroscopy; and N2 spectra can be demonstrated to absorb IR radiation by experiment, and application o the N2-CO2 laser. It was found the gases do possess quantum predicted emission spectra at 2338 cm−¹ and 1156 cm−¹ respectively, both well within the IR range of the EMS, and are only observed – and their temperatures accurately measured – by Raman spectrometers. Raman spectrometers measure, more accurately, the Keeling curve, and have application with meteorological Lidars and planetary atmospheric analysis. The N2-CO2 Laser showed – contrary to current greenhouse theory – N2 absorbs electrons or (IR) photons at its – metastable ‘long-lasting’ – spectra mode. It was argued atmospheric CO2, as a law, is heated by the same mechanism as the N2-CO2 laser: nitrogen (first) and the entire atmosphere absorbs IR radiation directly from the Sun, just as it heats water on the ocean surface. With these findings, greenhouse theory is wrong – all gases are GHGs [greenhouse gases] – and needs review.” | <urn:uuid:18a7e974-76bb-4d0f-b282-88234a847a53> | CC-MAIN-2018-51 | http://notrickszone.com/2018/11/12/real-world-spectral-measurements-show-the-greenhouse-theory-is-wrong-all-gases-are-ghgs/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-51/segments/1544376826306.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20181214184754-20181214210754-00322.warc.gz | en | 0.913744 | 702 | 3.46875 | 3 |
Picture a1 - A site temporary lighting with mobile generator
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Arguably more important than the light levels, the temporary lighting installation should be sufficiently safe for use and provided with adequate protection to prevent electrical shocks.
A. SITE TEMPORARY LIGHTING
Picture 1 – Indoor temporary lighting and wiring
Picture 1a – Temporary lighting – Bad cabling installation
Picture 2 – Another temporary lighting and wiring indoor
Picture 3 – External site floodlight
1) Mechanical protection
In general, equipment for use at construction sites should be tough enough to withstand the abuses of work area where they are installed. Damaged light
fittings not only result in the repair cost, but they also present risks of electrical shocks to workers using them or those who are nearby.
For temporary lighting, they can be installed out of reach of human hands or any construction materials that are handled in the area. Also from equipment and
machines being operated there.
Another easy measure is to use wire cages type of lighting fixtures.
Precautions should also be taken against the danger of electrical fires that may result because of damaged lighting fixtures or the temporary supply wiring.
2) Supply from a separate section of the distribution panel
The temporary wiring supplying the lighting circuits should be connected to the special lighting section on the temporary switchboard. These circuits should
be protected by 100 mA RCD (residual current circuit breakers).
3) Mechanical support of the wiring
The installation of wiring for the temporary lighting should be carried out with proper supports and fittings to allow for wiring cables to be routed in ways
that minimize obstructions, which can results in damage to the luminaries and wiring.
These damages can present shock risks to the works and possibilities of electrical fires.
4) Normal duty lighting
Normal duty lighting circuits are installed to provide general illumination for work and allow safe movement inside and around the construction site.
5) Lighting levels
An illumination level of 10 lux is adequate for general movement within a building under construction.
As a simple example, one length of 100 meter festoon light string fitted with 20 nos 100 watt lamps at 5 meter intervals will give a 10 lux over a
rectangular area of 25 meter x 30 meter.
6) Use of festoon lighting
Festoon lighting should only be used strictly in underground shafts, wells and tunnels.
When this type of lighting is used, the lamp holders should only be the moulded, non-removable type (the lamp holders are bonded or moulded to the wiring
cables) and the lighting supply voltage is 32 Volts or below.
7) Supply to lift shaft temporary lighting
Either a temporary wiring or the newly installed permanent electrical wiring may be used to supply a lift shaft temporary lighting.
However, the light fittings used should be properly guarded against accidental mechanical damage and they should only be connected to the wiring using a
lighting plug and socket.
These lights should be installed at intervals of less than nine meters along the vertical length of the lift shaft.
The control of the lift shaft lighting should be by means of two-way switches located near the shaft access points.
8) Use of SELV voltage
The use of lighting circuits supplied at safe extra low voltage levels (SELV - voltages less than 50 volts ac or 120 volts dc) is highly recommended for
working in confined spaces where workers faces high possibilities of frequent contacts with temporary electrical equipment and wiring.
B. TEMPORARY SITE FLOOD LIGHTING
Large construction sites usually need temporary floodlight towers (in addition to the temporary lighting inside the new buildings) to provide lighting
efficiently for the general movement, safety and security on the external areas of buildings under construction.
The lighting towers will usually takes the form of fixed tower or mobile tower units. Which one to use usually depends on the siting positions available for
the lighting tower units and the duration of the contract.
For contracts with construction periods of relatively short durations, it may be much more economical to use mobile tower units.
However, if contract period is long, then it may be worth some considerations to use fixed height tower units. In any case, the fixed height towers can still
be reused on future projects. Careful dismantle the fixed height static towers at the end of the contract. Then the only extra material that is required in
at the next construction site is the foundation.
Static floodlighting tower units are normally available up to 18 meter high. They can be powered from the mains supply and they can be provided with their
own electric generator.
The external areas of a construction site usually need a lighting level of around 20 lux average. This is the level sufficient of for the handling of
construction materials and site clearing works.
A rectangular area of 60 meter by 60 meter can be lighted up to this light level by a typical 18 m tower carrying four units of 400 watt high pressure sodium
A main contractor with larger contracts and relatively longer contract period may want to consider a more elaborate study on their site lighting
requirements. If there is enough space to mount these floodlighting tower units, a proper lighting engineering study can be carried out together with the
overall temporary electrical installation.
The exercise would employ the floodlight lamp data, the aiming angles of the light fittings, and the mounting heights of the individual fittings to arrive at
the required overall illuminance.
These static towers would normally employ high intensity luminaries and with the type of equipment available today, the contractor can now light areas to
sufficient level so the works can continue in evenings of the darker months. This is significant because it can considerably reduce the contract time.
Light fittings used in this application would necessarily be high intensity discharge type and the high pressure sodium lantern have become the more dominant
type due to its high lighting output per kW of power usage (approximately 125 lumens per watt).
A tungsten filament lamp would give only 22 lumens per watt.
The capital cost of choosing the high-pressure sodium equipment is considerably higher than the tungsten halogen, but the main contractor may do well to
consider other factors also such as the running cost, installation cost and the lamp life.
At the end of the construction work, all these equipment except the tower foundation can be dismantled and transported to other project sites for reuse.
You can see below a few pictures of a small mobile floodlight unit and other types of temporary site floodlights:
Picture 4 - Mobile site floodlight unit
Picture 5 – Luminaries of mobile flood lights
Picture 6 – This is a permanent floodlight, not a temporary one
Picture 7 – A closer view of the 400 watt temporary floodlight in Picture 3
C. SITE TEMPORARY ELECTRIC SUPPLY
A site temporary lighting is actually part of its temporary electric supply installation.
The term ‘temporary’ brings up a vision of a length of twin and earth cable, or a four-core twisted cable and an undersized green earth wire, that is connected into a 30A single or 4-phase and neutral switch-fuse, trailing across the rough ground of the construction site to terminate into a seasoned self-fabricated distributed (with or without metal-clad enclosure).
On the so-called ‘distribution board’, a length of three flexible extension cord is connected to a clumsily assembled socket outlet with or without the use of a three-pin plug.
How would you connect a three-core extension cord to a three-pin 13 A socket outlet?
Somewhere on this blog, you can see clearly how it is done. It even has had various ways of doing it.
The extension cord run at high level near the soffit of floor slab, or some just run on the scattered floor to a temporary metal-clad 13A switched socket outlet some 30 meters away.
The construction contract cost hundreds of millions, but the temporary electric supply system has been ‘engineered’ to fulfill all the site electrical requirements for the minimum price possible.
The main contractor has the responsibility to ensure the temporary electricity supply system installed is not only functional and meets all his electrical needs, but also safe for all involved in the construction work.
The supply system need to be good enough to provide reliable power distribution, whether that period of the construction contract is three months or three years.
Or whether the site supply requirement is 4 kVA or 3-megawatt supply.
What specifications to use for the temporary electric supply equipment?
Generally, what applied to low voltage installation is in the IEE Wiring regulations also apply to the temporary supply system.
However, two more British standards should be used to cover the gaps not covered there: BS 4363 (Specification for distribution units and electric supplies for construction sites and building sites) and BS 7375 (Code of practice for distribution of electricity in construction and building sites).
Source of the temporary supply
The temporary electric supply can be obtained from either the distribution network of the local electric supply authority or an independent electric generator installed at the site. Which one to use is usually just a matter of judgment on the cost involved.
However a few other factors may also need to be carefully considered which include practical problems that are usually associated with the distribution of the electric power safely and effectively throughout the site.
If the supply is taken from the local electric supply authority, a lead-time is usually required, as the authority would need time to arrange for the connection.
The main contractor also need to submit sufficient details on the peak demand that will be required during the course of the contract, the positions of the point of supply intake and also the estimated contract period.
The authority usually requires enough details on the types and size of electrical load, e.g. lighting, heating, motors, etc. Motor loads usually need more details such as types of motors and the method of starting (direct-online, auto-transformer starting, etc).
Update (March 15, 2014): I have a collection of pictures on temporary lighting that I have not yet uploaded anywhere. I plan to just progressively attach the pictures below in this post with a brief comment for each picture.
This way I do not need to write a post just for the purpose of sharing the pictures.
xxx MORE TEMPORARY LIGHTING INSTALLATION PICTURES xxx
Picture 08 - Temporary flood light installed at high level of a rail workshop under construction
This picture show flood lights installed at the high level of a rail workshop under construction.
Actually this temporary lighting has only recently been installed. Electrical supply wires were still dangling around and not properly fixed.
However, the main contractor were pressing for progress and I did not wish to look like a bad guy there. So I just let them use them first to help them gain some additional progress before I apply more pressure for the temporary cable to be properly fixed.
In any case, the dangling cabling were mostly at the higher level of the work area.
This is not to say that the risk of accident was minimal. As you can see in the background of the picture, there was a mobile sky-lift being used to install the fighting pipes just below the roofing of the workshop.
In some days, there were quite a number of the sky-lifts throughout the workshop floors.
Copyright http://electricalinstallationwiringpicture.blogspot.com Temporary lighting installation pictures | <urn:uuid:0b723b96-4fde-42e3-bfdf-0a0b40e11962> | CC-MAIN-2017-17 | http://electricalinstallationwiringpicture.blogspot.com/2010/02/temporary-light-install-picture.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917120844.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031200-00297-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915003 | 2,494 | 2.78125 | 3 |
The word disruptive typically calls to mind scenarios such as an impulsive child acting out in a classroom or a roadblock forcing a detour, yet in the world of technology the word has a wholly positive connotation. In the fast-paced and competitive tech environment each company is in a constant battle with one another attempting to out-new and out-cool the competition. So at what point can we apply the word disruptive? Disruption doesn’t necessarily signify a new and crazy invention. A disruptive person would be a thought leader whose innovative thinking or revelations renders past schools of thought or debates obsolete. A disruptive company jumps a step ahead of the rest, displacing past technologies or processes and forcing other companies to adapt to the change. The point is that for something to be disruptive, it must touch everyone in some way and necessitate change that evolves an industry, even in a small way.
A recent survey revealed that people predict that data analytics, the Internet of Things, and dynamic visualizations will be the most disruptive sectors in the next three years. (http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/big-data-analytics-and-internet-of-things-voted-most-disruptive-future-tech-1249855). The same survey reported that respondents currently consider mobile technology, social media and cloud computing to be the most disruptive sectors today.
So what does this mean for the near future? Clearly these three sectors have recently attracted a spotlight, and with their importance acknowledged it’s sure that more financial strength and brainpower will be dedicated to them and breakthroughs will certainly result.
Data analytics "Big data” and analytics have garnered a lot of attention lately as the new bread-and-butter for companies who have a digital presence. What the public doesn’t realize is that big data analytics will inevitably be implemented in companies even without a digital presence. Those in the manufacturing industry still produce data regardless of the fact that their main activities are rooted in the physical. For this they’ll need to leverage big data analytics in order to keep up on an increasingly leveled playing field.
The Internet of Things We can do a little word breakdown to understand this concept better. Inter-net means the net between, namely the net that connects smart objects together in an increasingly connected world. New objects and new ways to connect already existing “smart” objects create disruptive waves in our everyday lives. Smart homes, smart watches, and smart glasses used to be a thing of science fiction. But now that Google Glass is on its way to becoming mainstream in tandem with the rise of the quantified self movement (collecting personal lifestyle data) it’s clear that smart objects will become more central to our everyday lives.
Dynamic Visualizations It’s been known for quite a while that there are massive cognitive benefits to viewing information in the form of a visualization. The mind can grasp visual information quickly and more thoroughly when it’s presented in the form of an image versus text or numbers.
Access to advanced visualizations to represent company data unequivocally gives companies an advantage over those who simply use spreadsheet or textual reports. Visualizations can exhibit information and highlight patterns in a data set in a way that intuitively makes sense for users; numbers and test simply cannot.
As companies are realizing the vast benefits of visualization-driven strategizing, there has become a greater market for companies who specialize in providing these sorts of solutions. As these companies become more competitive with one another, they’ll be competing to create more and more advanced visualizations. Dynamic visualizations with manipulable features will soon become the norm.
In conclusion, we must keep our eyes on the horizon. The only constant is change as they say, and with so many recent breakthroughs and advancements evolving exponentially, it will certainly be interesting to see what developments these top 3 sectors will churn out in the coming years. | <urn:uuid:a28db4ac-6602-4371-9153-2ae681a858a8> | CC-MAIN-2017-30 | http://www.captaindash.com/captain-dash-blog/blog/2014/05/27/data-analytics-the-internet-of-things-and-dynamic-visualizations-the-most-disruptive-sectors | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-30/segments/1500549424239.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20170723022719-20170723042719-00041.warc.gz | en | 0.936931 | 808 | 2.78125 | 3 |
The waters are rising around Venice. Each year the floods worsen and last longer. Carpets of slime coat St Mark's Square. Statues and church walls are coated with filth. The city is drowning. But there is a solution: run the place like Disneyland, says leading UK economist John Kay.
According to Kay, author of The Truth About Markets and other key works on economics, there should be a major restructuring of the city's operations.
Venice can no longer be run like a normal European city, he argues. Turning it into a theme park offers its only hope of salvation. Thus the gondolas of the Grand Canal could one day rival Space Mountain in providing free rides - and hour-long queues - to visitors from across the world.
'If the Disney Corporation was in charge of Venice it would not be in peril as it is today,' said Kay. 'I am not saying Disney should be given the job, however. My point is that an enterprise that is used to providing entertainment for the masses is best placed to save the city. At present, no one is running Venice. That is why it is dying.'
Under Kay's scheme, tourists would be charged an entrance fee of between €20 and €30 - roughly the fee to Disneyland Paris. Once inside, they would be able to visit Venice's glorious churches, restaurants and hotels, which would be run as franchises dispensed by the corporation in charge of the city.
The idea will form the core of proposals to be outlined at an international symposium at the Royal Geographical Society in London on 12 June. It will debate the proposition 'Enough money has been spent saving Venice'.
Kay will speak for the motion. The novelist and journalist AN Wilson and architectural historian Joseph Rykwert will oppose it. The most controversial line will be taken by Sir David King, chief scientific adviser to the British government, who said: 'I love Venice and certainly do not want to see it lost.
'However, if we do not curb the rise in carbon dioxide emissions then there is no point in trying to save Venice. We should be worrying if we can save London or Paris.'
Recent archaeological digs have shown that Venice has been sinking by about 10cm a century for the past few hundred years. But in the 20th century it sank 20cm because water was pumped from natural underground reservoirs, causing the subsoil to compact. In addition, the water level in the Venice lagoon has risen by about 5cm. In 1900, St Mark's Square flooded 10 times a year; now the figure is around 60.
The Italian government recently backed a £3bn plan that would involve building barriers between the lagoon around Venice and the sea. The barriers would be raised when abnormally high tides were due.
But this plan is based on predictions that there will be a sea rise of 15-26cm this century. And that poses serious worries for climate experts. Most sea-level forecasts now envisage rises that will reach up to a metre by 2100. If such rises occur, Venice will receive precious little protection from the proposed barriers, thus wasting £3bn.
There is no point in spending money, says King, if carbon emissions are not limited. Indeed, if these continue unabated for much longer, sea levels will rise even more next century. The only hope is for the world to agree on strict, binding emission controls. 'If we do not do something about them now, then attempts to save Venice will simply be in vain,' King added.
In short, unless global climate controls are agreed in the next few years, no one will be able to save one of the world's most glorious cities. Not even the Disney Corporation. | <urn:uuid:89c3ddbc-b26e-4e72-a6a8-f7a3ea0adfca> | CC-MAIN-2021-10 | https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jun/04/italy.robinmckie | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-10/segments/1614178350706.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20210225012257-20210225042257-00292.warc.gz | en | 0.957573 | 758 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Don’t be an oxymoron. Know your literary terms.
Over 200 literary terms, Shmooped to perfection.
Deus Ex Machina
Deus ex machina is a Latin phrase that, translated literally, means "god out of the machine." Um, does that sound terrifying to you?
Before we give you the nitty gritty on how this Latin phrase got its modern meaning, we'll tell you that deus ex machina refers to an outside force swooping into a play, movie, or novel to neatly tie up the plot, resolve conflict, and generally save the day. A deus ex machina is usually viewed as an artificial or contrived way to end things.
Now, the nitty gritty: in ancient Greek plays, an actor playing a god would literally come down onto the stage via a crane-like machine called a mechane and clean up the plot's sticky mess. Hence the phrase "god out of the machine," right? Famous Greek guy Euripides loved using this device, like in the ending of his play Medea, in which the title character escapes punishment (for killing her own children!) thanks to the intervention of Helios, the god of the sun.
Deus ex machina is a popular device in modern works, too, though usually we don't see actual gods fixing the plot. Check out Shmoop's analysis of the endings of Moliere's Tartuffe, Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, or Theodore Taylor's The Cay for some example. Or you can head on over to the character analysis for the Lord of the Eagles from The Hobbit. | <urn:uuid:f7ec7ee4-3a5c-4576-bb37-c6a2c33871ac> | CC-MAIN-2015-22 | http://www.shmoop.com/literature-glossary/deus-ex-machina.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-22/segments/1432207929956.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20150521113209-00201-ip-10-180-206-219.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936863 | 333 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Leicestershire, 25 November 2019 – Treeconomics, a specialist in the use of trees to improve urban spaces, is taking advantage of a nationwide digital record of over 300 million trees created by aerial mapping company Bluesky. In a landmark project for the London Borough of Islington, Treeconomics completed a study to measure and assess tree canopy cover and understand its impact on the urban environment.
The Bluesky National Tree Map was used in conjunction with a variety of open datasets including health and socio-economic data from organisations such as the Office of National Statistics and Public Health England. Following advanced geospatial analysis, Treeconomics were able to identify a link between higher canopy cover and increased life expectancy, lower crime rates and higher house prices.
Treeconomics also produced a tree plant strategy for Islington Council and concluded the inner London Borough could reasonably aspire to increase canopy cover in alignment with London’s target to achieve 30% tree cover by 2050.
“Trees are arguably the most important component of Green Infrastructure, yet are often overlooked and undervalued,” commented Kenton Rogers, co-founder of Treeconomics. “In particular, trees are important because they enhance and improve the urban environment by providing a wide range of benefits at relatively little cost. For example, there is a growing body of research which demonstrates that trees improve our health and well-being, provide a ‘sense of place’, moderate extremes of temperature in urban areas, improve air quality and act as a carbon sink.
“Using the Bluesky National Tree Map data, in conjunction with relevant statistics and software for forestry analysis and benefit assessment, we can help organisations such as the London Borough of Islington understand their current green asset and plan for the future,” he concluded.
The Bluesky National Tree Map is the most detailed dataset of its kind ever produced. With coverage across the whole of England and Wales, the National Tree Map provides a unique, comprehensive database of location, height and canopy/crown extents for trees 3m and above in height.
Using the Bluesky National Tree Map data, Treeconomics concluded the overall canopy cover for the borough of Islington was estimated at 25%. This favourably compares to a national average estimated in 320 towns and cities of 17% and a London-wide estimate of 21%. Treeconomics also suggested that Islington could aspire to a canopy cover of 30%, identified areas of low canopy cover and potential ‘plantable’ spaces.
Laura Eddy – Marketing Co-ordinator, Bluesky, Tel: +44 (0) 1530 518518, email@example.com
Robert Peel – Editorial Contact, Spatially Aware, Tel: +44 (0) 1666 823306, firstname.lastname@example.org
Share this Story | <urn:uuid:cef9e628-33c6-40e6-9338-662c0617f681> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://spatiallyaware.co.uk/news/bluesky-national-tree-map-reveals-islingtons-tree-cover/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571086.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809185452-20220809215452-00736.warc.gz | en | 0.929088 | 605 | 2.65625 | 3 |
We should appreciate nature for its own sake. After all, we’re part of it. We must also recognize that nature gives us what we need to stay healthy and survive. What we do to nature, we do to ourselves.
Healthy oceans and the plankton they support give us most of the oxygen we breathe and provide food for much of humanity. Trees sequester carbon, produce oxygen, filter contaminants in air and water and prevent erosion and flooding. Polar ice caps regulate global temperatures and ocean currents. From the smallest microbes to the largest mammals, biodiverse animal life keeps natural systems in balance, ensuring that everything in the food web — including us — can find sustenance.
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Nature’s interconnections are so wonderfully complex that we’re still a long way from fully understanding them, from knowing what the consequences of a seemingly small impact on one part of an ecosystem will have on the entire system.
We can be certain, though, that we’re putting all the systems that make human societies possible in great peril. We also know that the main barriers to implementing the many available and emerging solutions are lack of political will and imagination and the refusal of so many people to even acknowledge the problems we’ve created.
We’ve known for decades about climate change’s devastating effects, but the fossil fuel industry has convinced politicians and media that its enormous profits are more important than life itself. Now, the world’s leading scientists are warning that human behaviour is destroying the biodiversity on which human and other life depends at a terrifyingly rapid rate.
From the smallest microbes to the largest mammals, biodiverse animal life keeps natural systems in balance, ensuring that everything in the food web — including us — can find sustenance.
“We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide,” said Robert Watson, chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.
The warning comes in “the most thorough planetary health check ever undertaken,” an 1,800-page assessment involving three years of research by 455 scientists and diplomats from 50 countries, who looked at more than 15,000 academic studies, along with reports from Indigenous communities dealing daily with the crises.
The IPBES Global Assessment found, among other things, that one million of Earth’s estimated eight million plant and animal species (including 5.5 million insect species) are at risk of extinction, three-quarters of terrestrial and two-thirds of marine environments have been “severely altered” and, since 1700, more than 85 per cent of wetlands have been lost — all because of human activity. The major causes include changes in land and sea use, direct exploitation of organisms, climate change, pollution and invasive alien species, driven by increasing human populations, consumption and technological change.
Loss of forest cover, wetlands, insect populations, biodiversity and more is having devastating impacts on food security, climate change adaptation and global economies. More than US$577 billion in global crops are at risk from pollinator loss alone!
The scientists offer a range of solutions and argue it’s not too late to save ourselves from catastrophe with “transformative changes across economic, social, political and technological factors.” But, as with climate disruption, we’ve already wasted a lot of time through political intransigence, denial, fear of change and lack of foresight.
The world’s leading scientists are warning that human behaviour is destroying the biodiversity on which human and other life depends at a terrifyingly rapid rate.
Now, people — especially young people, who are inheriting this mess — are demanding action. From student climate strikes to Extinction Rebellion to calls for a “green new deal,” people are letting those in the corridors of power know that time is running out and the status quo is unsustainable.
Is anyone listening? Some signs are promising. Biodiversity loss is on the G8 agenda for the first time, and countries from China to the U.K. have started looking into solutions. But in Canada, we can’t even get politicians to agree on a climate solution as basic as putting a price on greenhouse gas emissions, and the current U.S. administration appears to reject any environmental protections. Now, younger, more caring voices are starting to drown out the bleating of those who stand in the way of change.
Many people are doing their part — driving and flying less, eating less meat, reducing and recycling, paying attention to the impacts of their consumer choices and more. Most importantly, they’re taking to the streets and polling booths to demand progress.
Solutions are available. We must put all our efforts into reversing course now! | <urn:uuid:2797ac72-b864-417e-8699-97b881f70d7c> | CC-MAIN-2021-10 | https://davidsuzuki.org/story/we-must-reverse-biodiversity-loss-to-save-ourselves/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-10/segments/1614178358976.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20210227144626-20210227174626-00489.warc.gz | en | 0.942012 | 994 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Graves from the Third Millennium BC uncovered in the Northern Black Sea region provide numerous examples of wagons with massive disc wheels. While corresponding finds in the complexes of the Yamnaja Culture (first half of the Third Millennium BC) have been interpreted primarily as four-wheel heavy vehicles, in recent decades there has been an attempt to reconstruct the two-wheel vehicle finds of the later Catacomb Grave Culture (second half of Third Millennium BC) as prototypes of chariots. Several arguments are provided against the idea that these vehicles were the forerunners of the two-wheel lightweight chariots in the Southern Urals foreland, which are evidenced in the graves of the prevalent Sintashta Culture beginning in 2040 BC. One main argument is the fact that no finds have been discovered between the two territories, areas, which lie 1,500 kilometres apart, that might have lent plausibility to the idea of mutual contact, which could in turn have led to the development of chariots to the east of the Urals based on the older ‚prototypes” in the Northern Black Sea region as well as in the Caucasus foreland. In addition, there is considerable doubt that the two-wheel vehicles of the Catacomb Grave Culture can indeed be considered as a kind of prototype of the chariot. The harness parts necessary for their meaningful use with horses, for example, is first evidenced in the wagons of the Sintashta Culture. In addition to these, bony discoid cheek-pieces were deposited in the graves, which spread from the settlement area of this culture into the steppe region to the west of the Urals during the first half of the Second Millennium BC. | <urn:uuid:51452db0-8121-4630-bcf9-289f2b6e51fc> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | http://varus.topoi.org/publication/17515/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337529.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20221004215917-20221005005917-00739.warc.gz | en | 0.968335 | 343 | 2.703125 | 3 |
PLAN A VISIT
The International Civil Rights Center & Museum is an archival center, collecting museum and teaching facility devoted to the international struggle for civil and human rights. The Museum celebrates the nonviolent protests of the 1960 Greensboro sit-ins that served as a catalyst in the civil rights movement.
The Museum complex features educational exhibits, a gallery, auditorium, archival center and a proposed Joint Center for the Study of Human Rights. The Museum includes 30,000 square feet of exhibit space and is located in the historic 1929 F.W. Woolworth building in Greensboro, N.C.
The Museum features:
- Original lunch counter and stools where the Greensboro Four (Ezell Blair, Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil and David Richmond) began their protest on Feb. 1, 1960.
- Educational exhibits, including 14 signature exhibits devoted to the struggle of human and civil rights in the "Battlegrounds" area of the Museum.
- State-of-art auditorium (seats 172)
- Archival center
- Gallery featuring traveling exhibits and community meeting space
- SIMI's Room, a children's education and activity center for K-12 students and educators
- A proposed Joint Center for the Study of Human Rights
- Administrative offices for Museum staff | <urn:uuid:d2b8a847-e456-406d-85df-74787730ef2a> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.sitinmovement.org/visit/plan-a-visit.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284376.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00068-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914129 | 266 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Left undisturbed, viridans streptococci can cause infections of the mouth and other parts of the body. Viridans streptococci, including streptococcus gordonii, are gram positive bacteria and can be penetrated by detergents and antibiotics. Conversely, in plaque, these bacteria are hardy and prevalent in the oral environment, feeding off carbohydrates that are introduced into the mouth on a daily and frequent basis.
Streptococcus gordonii are considered normal flora in the mouth, and therefore are most commonly blamed for mouth problems like cavities, gingivitis and gum disease. A study published by the Public Library of Science Pathogens identifies oral streptococci as active components of the plaque film that possess specialized survival traits in the mouth. They are able to form a long-lasting bond with the tooth surface by ingesting the carbohydrates that are present in your diet. These multifaceted bacteria proliferate by thriving on the ideal components of the oral environment: temperature, pH and saliva. They use sugars, namely sucrose, lactose and glucose, to form the sticky plaque film, according to a study in the Journal of Oral Microbiology. Sugars also produce acids that contribute to the decay process.
The most serious viridans streptococci infections occur when these bacteria enter other parts of the body. For example, if the bacteria enter the bloodstream, it can cause a serious infection in the lining of the heart, called endocarditis. This heart infection can be fatal and often requires hospitalization and intravenous antibiotics treatment. Patients with compromised immune systems or who already suffer from heart valve problems are especially vulnerable.
According to the Mayo Clinic, poor oral health can contribute to systemic health disorders, from cardiovascular disease to preterm or low-weight births. Additionally, certain chronic health conditions compromise oral health by affecting salivary flow and suppressing the body's ability to fight infection. | <urn:uuid:2277a17c-fa40-4166-8894-4977f1624a42> | CC-MAIN-2020-50 | https://www.colgate.com/en-us/oral-health/plaque-and-tartar/streptococcus-gordonii-bacteria | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-50/segments/1606141727627.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20201203094119-20201203124119-00428.warc.gz | en | 0.905456 | 393 | 3.96875 | 4 |
Geneology is, in its broadest form, the study of stages of evolution leading to the animals and plants of present day. In a much more limited sense, geneology is the study of the direct descendants of a person or group of people, which can be mapped in a tree diagram known as a family tree or genealogical tree.
Hobbyist genealogists typically go after their own ancestry and that of their spouses. Professional genealogists may also conduct research for others, publish books on genealogical methods, teach, or work for companies that provide software or online databases.
Historically, the focus of genealogy was on the descents of rulers and nobles of the Western hemisphere.The term often related with the field of study called heraldry, in which the ancestry of royalty is represented in their coats of arms.
The United States practitioners of Genealogy were the first to give Genealogy its modern system.John Farmer was an American enterpreneur who first capitalized on the idea of "atinquarianism" which was popular in America after the Revolution War.He became a coordinator, booster, and contributor to the burgeoning movement. His efforts led to the creation of the New England Historic Genealogical So ciety, which publishes the New England Historical and Genealogical Register.
Genealogists start their research by collecting family documents and related stories. This creates a foundation for documentary research, which involves examining and evaluating historical records for evidence about ancestors and other relatives, their kinship ties, and the events that occurred in their lives. As a rule, genealogists begin with the present and work backward in time.
Genealogical research is a complex process. It uses an array of available historical records and some genealogists even go as far as obtaining genetic analysis for proving kisnhip.As in any kind of research reliable and original records are a must. In many cases genealogists need to gather skillfully anecdotal and circumstantial evidence in order to build an identification of kinship.
Historical, social, and family context is essential to achieving correct identification of individuals and relationships. Source citation is also important when conducting genealogical research.
Below is a small list of the evidence and data a genealogist should gather to in the process of his or her genealogical research:
Marriage and divorce records
Biographies and biographical profiles (e.g. Who's Who)
Baptism or christening
Bar or bat mitzvah
Funeral or death
City directories and telephone directories
Diaries, personal letters and family Bibles
Emigration, immigration and naturalization records
Hereditary & lineage organization records, e.g. Daughters of the American Revolution records
Land and property records, deeds
Military and conscription records
Poorhouse, workhouse, almshouse, and asylum records
School and alumni association records
Ship passenger lists
Social Security (within the USA) and pension records
Tombstones, cemetery records, and funeral home records
Voter registration records
Genealogy on Wikipedia.
Cyndi's Genealogy List
Family History Research | <urn:uuid:80a3d1bb-365a-48d5-a085-f5d341b28f86> | CC-MAIN-2014-42 | http://open-site.org/Society/Genealogy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-42/segments/1414119660038.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20141024030100-00209-ip-10-16-133-185.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933742 | 646 | 3.4375 | 3 |
Dazu Rock Carvings
The Dazu Rock Carvings are a magnificent set of Buddhist sculptures carved in stone cliffs in Dazu, Szechuan province, China. They were designated a World Heritage Site in 1999.
What makes the Dazu carvings so special is not their scale — they cover small areas compared to those at Datong, Luoyang and Dunhuang — but their quality, state of preservation and variety of subjects and styles. Some sculptures are small, some are huge; many are brightly painted and tell religious, moral and historical stories.
UNESCO says of the Dazu carvings:
There are over 50,000 sculptures at Dazu, accompanied by over 100,000 Chinese characters of inscriptions and epigraphs. All the rock carvings can be viewed in natural light and are connected by walkways and paths. The two main sites are Bei Shan, just outside the town of Dazu, and Baoding Shan, 16km to the northeast.
Bei Shan Carvings
The carvings are Bei Shan are the oldest works at Dazu, begun in 892 AD. They were started by the military governor Wei Junjing, who was posted here while campaigning against Sichuanese insurgents. The sculptures here are somewhat worn and formal in execution, making an interesting comparison with the more lively sculptures of Baoding Shan. They fill 264 numbered recesses in two groups and are protected by an awning.
The first group is the oldest and features several military pieces, including a life-sized Wei Junjing dressed in armor. Tucked away in the first niche beside the entrance, this was sculpted by a defeated Shu warlord.
The second group dates from the 12th century and is spread over a 500-meter-long overhang. The sculptures here mostly feature Kwanyin, the Goddess of Mercy, accompanied by monks, nuns and the donors who funded the project. In niche 130, Kwanyin appears unusually like a fearsome Tantric goddess, holding weapons and a severed head in her many hands. Next door, in niche 131, she is in her more typical peaceful form, gazing at the moon's reflection. In niche 136 is a 4.5-meter-high prayer wheel surrounded by Kwanyin images. The most impressive work is in niche 245, which depicts the Kingdom of the Buddha. The Buddhist trinity is surrounded by clouds of Bodhisattvas, with heavenly palaces above and earthly toil below.
Baoding Shan Carvings
Variously exciting, comic and realistic, the carvings at Baoding Shan are unmissable. They are the life work of the monk Zhao Zheifeng, who raised the money and designed the carving work from 1179 to 1245. This accounts for the unusually harmonious nature of the 10,000 sculptures here.
Dafowan is the most impressive group of carvings on Baoding Shan, with 31 niches incorporated into the inner side of a broad, horseshoe-shaped gully. The sculptures depict scenes from the Buddhist scriptures intercut with images of daily life. They are all in amazing condition given their exposure to the weather. The Cave of Full Enlightenment is a lion-guarded deep grotto with 12 life-sized lohans surrounding the Buddhist trinity and a roof carved with clouds. An overhang beyond is decorated with demonic guardian figures painted in blue, red and green; this is followed by Anicca holding the wheel of predestination.
Midway around the site, visitors come upon a 20-meter-long Reclining Buddha inset into the cliff face, fronted by realistic portraits of important donors. The following two panels, Parental Kindness and Sakyamuni's Filial Piety, interestingly use Buddhist themes to illustrate Confucian morals. Next is the Eighteen Layers of Hell, a horrific scene interspersed with amusing images like the Hen Wife and the Drunkard and His Mother. The final panel illustrates the life of Liu Benzun, a Tang-dynasty ascetic from Leshan showing strong Tantric influence.
Quick Facts on Dazu Rock Carvings
|Names:||Dazu Rock Carvings|
|Visitor and Contact Information|
|Coordinates:||29.743886° N, 105.722294° E (view on Google Maps)|
|Opening Hours:||Bei Shan: daily 8:30-5 |
Baoding Shan: daily 8:30-6
|Cost:||Bei Shan: ¥60; students ¥25; joint ticket with Baoding Shan ¥120|
Baoding Shan: ¥80; students ¥45; joint ticket with Bei Shan ¥120
|Transport:||Bei Shan: Take the road uphill for 150m from the northwest corner of Dazu town, then follow the stone steps and paths ascending Bei Shan for 1 km to the site entrance.|
Baoding Shan: Buses from Dazu's station leave 2x/hr until around 4pm and
|Lodging:||View hotels near this location|
Map of Dazu Rock Carvings
Below is a location map and aerial view of Dazu Rock Carvings. Using the buttons on the left (or the wheel on your mouse), you can zoom in for a closer look, or zoom out to get your bearings. To move around, click and drag the map with your mouse.
|Title:||Dazu Rock Carvings|
|Link code:||<a href="http://www.sacred-destinations.com/china/dazu-rock-carvings">Dazu Rock Carvings</a>| | <urn:uuid:9758e776-d9db-45a1-aa68-096aabaf3555> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sacred-destinations.com/china/dazu-rock-carvings | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706961352/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122241-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90948 | 1,200 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Confiscation of Land
Confiscation of Land
the compulsory and uncompensated seizure of land from its owners by the state. Land has been confiscated on a large scale at times when the class struggle has intensified and sometimes during struggles between various strata of the same class. However, in most cases this policy has been invoked at the time of social revolutions in order to transfer land from one class (social group) to another. The secularization of church lands, which was carried out in Europe in the early Middle Ages (beginning of the eighth century) and was widely practiced from the emergence of capitalism in the 16th century, was a type of land confiscation. During the bourgeois revolutions in Western Europe (18th-19th centuries) a number of decrees ordered feudal lands confiscated and transferred, primarily to the bourgeoisie. (Among the best known of these decrees were those of June 18 and Aug. 25–28, 1792, which were proclaimed during the Great French Revolution.)
Under capitalism a monopoly of private landed property is the basis for agrarian relations. The development of capitalism in agriculture led to the concentration of land in the hands of the urban and rural bourgeoisie and monopolies. The confiscation of the large landed estates in the developed capitalist countries is the most important demand made by the Communist and workers’ parties and all progressive democratic forces. Inasmuch as the land and other means of agricultural production fall increasingly into the hands of the monopolies in developed capitalist countries, the demand for the confiscation of land acquires an antimonopolistic character. Experience shows that under certain socioeconomic and historical conditions, the confiscation of land may be implemented under a bourgeois regime. This was the case in Japan. Because of high inflation, the redemption of land under the agrarian reform of 1946 had symbolic meaning.
The confiscation of land in Russia during the socialist revolution in 1917 and in countries that embarked on the path of socialism during and after World War II had a different character. Under the Land Decree (Oct. 26 [Nov. 8], 1917) and the Fundamental Law on the Socialization of Land (Jan. 27 [Feb. 9], 1918) the ownership of land by the pomeshchiki (fief holders) was immediately abolished in Russia without any compensation, the right of private landownership was forever abolished, and all land was proclaimed national property and given free to the toiling peasantry. In essence, this signified the socialist nationalization of the land. The confiscation of the landed property of the pomeshchiki was the first agrarian reform under Soviet power between 1917 and 1918. In foreign socialist countries confiscation of land was based on the principle that the land belongs to those who cultivate it. Land reform in these countries varied, depending on socioeconomic and political conditions. Large landed estates and land that had belonged to persons who collaborated with the fascists were, as a rule, confiscated without compensation or with nominal redemption. In addition to the confiscation of large landed estates, a number of limitations on landownership were introduced in the socialist countries, so that the monopoly on private landownership was virtually eliminated. This was a very important precondition for subsequent social reform in agriculture in these countries.
The issue of land confiscation is particularly important for the developing countries that became independent after World War II, as well as for countries that are still dependent. The variety of agrarian relations, the character of economic and political development, and the degree of intensification of the class struggle and the organizational ability of the working class and peasantry all determine the distinctive features of land confiscation from large landowners and foreign monopolies. Confiscation is usually carried out on the basis of redemption, with the subsequent transfer of part of the land to the state and part to the peasants as private property.
REFERENCESMarx, K. Kapital, vol. 3.
Marx, K., and F. Engels. Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 25, chapter 1.
Lenin, V. I. “Doklad o zemle 26 oktiabria (8 noiabria) “[Vtoroi Vserossiiskii s”ezd Sovetov Rabochikh i Soldatskikh deputatov 25–26 oktiabria (7–8 noiabria) 1917 g.]. Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 35.
Lutskii, E. A. “K istorii konfiskatsii pomeshchich’ikh imenii v 1917–1918 gg.” Izvestia AN SSSR, seria istorii ifilosofii, 1948, vol. 6, no. 6.
Pershin, P. N. Agrarnaia revolutsiia v Rossii, book 2. Moscow, 1966.
B. P. KUZNETSOV | <urn:uuid:42642388-28b0-42d9-9e09-3f1238359239> | CC-MAIN-2018-51 | http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Confiscation+of+Land | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-51/segments/1544376823382.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20181210170024-20181210191524-00074.warc.gz | en | 0.945375 | 1,028 | 3.75 | 4 |
A bully in the workplace… has no place!
A jerk, a bully and an asshole… Don’t they all mean the same? By now you have most likely read the most recent post by Ms. Lisa Pinion, “asshole is not a protected class.” If not, it’s a must read. Before I write my follow up article, I will start with just a moment to recap hers.
Ms. Lisa Pinion, President and founder of Pinion Solutions Group, HR consulting firm wrote an article about not having a protected class for being an asshole in the workplace. Asshole is not a protected class.
Ever have one of those days where the asshole in the office just seems to find you at “THAT” particular moment? After a few of those moments, Ms. Pinion wrote about something we all think about, why does that one person who makes the entire culture toxic, get away with acting like an asshole?
While meeting with Ms. Pinion, over a cup of coffee, we had a great conversation about her article. And she allowed me to interview her and write a follow up to her article. We discussed the “real issue”… Being that, too many companies continue to tolerate this “asshole like” behavior. The key word being…“tolerate”. What neither of us understands is “why.” Why do companies tolerate this type of behavior, when they clearly don’t have to? Let’s first get the clear definition of some key words, from the Marriam-Webster’s dictionary:
- Tolerate toler·ate- allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of (something that one does not necessarily like or agree with) without interference.
- Jerk – definition a stupid person or a person who is not well-liked or who treats other people badly.
- Asshole definition – Asshole is a vulgar (dirty) slang word. Besides the literal meaning, it’s a common word for a jerk or idiot. If you call someone an asshole, they’re probably doing something not just stupid and annoying, but mean.
- bully1 – Bully use superior strength or intimidation or to force (someone), typically to force him or her to do what one wants.
No matter what word you chose to define an asshole, the meaning behind the word is someone’s actions are meant to be hurtful. The tendencies in both definitions, each have the potential to create bullying behavior and as a result, creates a hostile environment.
A bully in the workplace has no place.
Typically when we think of bullying, we think of kids on a playground at recess. Not today, bullying is much worse in schools. Statics of bullying in schools is astronomical. Those being bullied are forced to accept the bully’s behavior. Instead of having difficult conversations with our children and addressing bullying, the result, in the USA, 20% of high school students say they have seriously considered suicide within the last 12 months. 7% have actually committed suicide because of traditional bullying situations and 6% of suicide from cyber bullying situations. 160,000 students throughout the USA stay home every day because they are being bullied. 28% of children between 12-18 years old reported being bullied. In the workplace, according to the National Institute of Occupational Safety Health (NIOSH) (Sauter, et al.,1990), there is a loss of employment amounting to $19 billion and a drop in productivity of $3 billion due to workplace bullying.
Per Ms. Pinion,
“Most people focus on the profit and revenue that an asshole individual can bring to the bottom line while at the same time, ignoring and compromising the rest of the people.”
Is this a culture you want to be part of? If you said no, ask yourself why as a manager and/or an employee will you tolerate this behavior from anyone? It comes down to a few reasons why managers and/or employees tolerate this behavior in the workplace:
- Management doesn’t know about the situation. What if it is management that is doing the bullying? (August issue, When management is the bully)
- Management knows about it, yet they choose to ignore it. Hoping it will go away on it’s own or it will work itself out.
- Management really just doesn’t know what to do about it, they don’t know how to address it, they don’t know how to stop it. So the behavior goes unaddressed.
Not taking the initiative to learn about what to do about bullying becomes a culture of ignorance and tolerance. As a result, the culture becomes toxic, unproductive, increase in turnover, unsatisfied customers, and loss of revenue.
As we continued to discuss the real issue of people in the workplace really being more about not knowing what to do about the bullying behavior. We discussed that we may not be able to stop the bully from bullying, but we can take initiative in how we respond to their behavior. The way we do this is by learning some key things about the bully. Such as:
- The reason why a bully bullies is because they can. This behavior was learned as a young child. Most bullies were bullied themselves. For example, think of it as a child having a tantrum to get his/her way. What does a parent do to make this stop? They give into the child. The child learns this behavior is acceptable. The bully does the same thing; they use intimidation to get what they want because they want their way.
- Understand that the bully has some very deep-rooted self-esteem issues that were never addressed. Again because they themselves were bullied. The bully becomes manipulative, to make others feel useless, unwanted, embarrassed and even threatened. The bully feels better by hurting someone else.
- Understand that the bully, whether in grade school or at work, they learn to manage others by intimidation. Typically this behavior makes them feel empowered.
Ms. Pinion stated,
“that we have to understand that the bully has not evolved. The bully was bullied him/herself. The way they get their way is by using force. They unfortunately did not have a role model to teach them otherwise; such as using motivation, rather than attacking someone is more effective. Further, there is always that one person who makes a pivotal moment in your life where bullies didn’t have that. You have to kind-of feel sorry for them.”
How to be aware of this behavior can start with education through effective training. The training should include how to:
- Identify appropriate behavior
- Correct poor behavior in a positive manner
- Tools on how to address the situation productively
- Know when this behavior is egregious enough to terminate
- Define your company’s culture; if you have the core values posted on the wall, do you walk the talk?
- Take an assessment of your employees
Don’t procrastinate, start by having a conversation with us: 847-401-0014
A bully in the workplace has no place.
Watch for our next article on how to identify the bully in the interviewing process
August issue – When Management is the Bully | <urn:uuid:d284f94f-9fc0-4b22-8979-c44a05b776f9> | CC-MAIN-2020-29 | https://vrc-hr.com/a-bully-in-the-workplace-has-no-place/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-29/segments/1593655893487.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20200707142557-20200707172557-00173.warc.gz | en | 0.964117 | 1,521 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Efficacy Endpoints: Proven bacterial infection plus positive microbiological cultures
Harm Endpoints: Not reported
Narrative: Mammals are known to harbor a variety of bacterial species in their oral cavities, and infections in mammalian bite wounds are both potentially aggressive and common. This raises an important question: can antibiotics, when given following a bite but before signs of infection, prevent skin and soft tissue infections?
This systematic review included eight randomized trials (total n = 522) six of which (n = 463) enrolled only subjects with dog bites. In the eight trials overall there appears to be no clear benefit to antibiotic use. Among the six trials examining only dog bites there was also no reduction in rates of infection (antibiotics - 4% [10/225] versus no antibiotics - 5.5% [13/238]).
Notably, the site of the bite was the most powerful predictor of infection: bites to the hand (3 studies) had a high rate of infection in the control group (28%), and in this small subgroup a beneficial effect of antibiotics was statistically significant [2% [1/61] vs 12/43], NNT = 4).
In addition, since the Cochrane review there has been a further reasonable quality trial addressing the question1. This study also found a low rate of infection (2%) and no significant benefit of prophylaxis.
Caveats: Overall, the event rate across studies was low (6.5%) and the number of subjects (522) is inadequate to determine whether antibiotic treatment significantly lowers infection rates. In addition, the enrolled sample is somewhat selected: superficial grazes and tendon and joint capsule injuries were excluded, and presumably all patients were treated with copious irrigation and wound cleansing. These factors may raise or lower infection rates when compared to wounds seen in community practice. In addition, multiple agents were used and it is not possible to draw conclusions about specific antibiotics.
The included studies of hand bites are of moderate to poor quality. While it is reasonable in practice to consider this the best available evidence (i.e. to treat with antibiotics prophylactically for hand wounds), this remains a ‘best guess’ with inadequate data.
These data do suggest the possibility of an as yet unproved preventive effect with prophylactic antibiotics for bite wounds in general. The enrollment numbers are too small to rule out a potentially important effect. Thus large, high quality, placebo-controlled randomized trials remain important and necessary to determine whether or not prophylactic antibiotics are appropriate. These studies are all the more important when considered in the context of the considerable side effect profile of antibiotics, which includes diarrhea, allergic reactions, and increasingly incident clostridium difficile infections. Therefore clinical equipoise between antibiotics and no treatment exists, and further studies are both ethical and necessary. This includes the subgroup of bite wounds that occur on the hand, where numbers are small and from studies of poor quality.
Author: Andy Neil, MD
Published/Updated: September 5, 2011
The title bar is color-coded with our overall recommendation.
If you have suggestions, requests, or questions about a particular NNT review, please send us a message and we’ll try to address it as soon as possible. | <urn:uuid:ccb0ec28-50d8-43c0-b7af-8ad782f78582> | CC-MAIN-2017-09 | http://www.thennt.com/nnt/antibiotics-for-animal-bites/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-09/segments/1487501170380.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20170219104610-00243-ip-10-171-10-108.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950091 | 676 | 2.96875 | 3 |
For this project, my team and I wanted to focus on how to encourage energy savings. Our user group was young people who are living together in a home. The users were trying to conserve energy, save money, and be eco-friendly. They were also trying to accomplish these tasks while cooperating with other household members. A system was needed to address the numerous challenges users faced in trying to accomplish these goals.
Test performance plays a major role in a student’s academic success and future opportunities. The framing and description of an exam can affect student performance. Understanding these effects could improve test taking situations in the future.
A previous study showed that a strong positive correlation exists between test anxiety and worry, and a strong negative correlation exists between worry and performance (Hong, 2002).
Subjects will achieve higher scores when we disclose higher test averages and will achieve lower test scores when we disclose lower test averages.
The test administered without a prime will yield average scores higher than the tests with a negative prime and lower than the tests with a positive prime.
Tests were administered to participants in a survey format using an online survey platform called Qualtrics.
Participants were undergraduate students at Georgia Tech.
n=38 participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: one group that was told before taking the test that it had a high average score, one group that was told the test had a low average score, and a control group that did not receive a prime.
Participants then answered 15 multiple choice SAT practice questions that tested reading, writing, and analytical mathematics skills.
We conducted a one-way between-subjects ANOVA; the main effect of our testing condition was not statistically significant, F(2, 35) = .75, p = .481
The low significance of these results may be attributed to the low statistical power of our tests; that is, priming effects are often subtle.
However, the group primed with a high score scored highest, while the group primed with a low score scored lowest; while these observations are not statistically significant, they are in line with the results predicted by our hypotheses.
Statement of Findings
Our team observed that there was no significant relationship between perceived difficulty of examinations and one’s performance based upon that perceived difficulty.
However, the means did skew in the directions predicted.
The setting in which we held our assessment was not a formalized classroom setting which may have taken away a level of tension from taking the exam.
There was no value offered to the exam itself to give it the same emotional or situational weight that academic examinations possess.
In the future, we would benefit from working in a quieter and more realistic exam space under the pretense that the exam would impact some aspect of the participant’s academic career.
We would also benefit from strengthening the potency of the prime that is shown to participants: for example, showing the average test score in a graphic format, or having it announced by a researcher to the participants instead of being presented to participants only as text.
Hong, E. (2002). Test anxiety, perceived test difficulty, and test performance: temporal patterns of their effects. Learning and Individual Differences, 11(4), 431-447. | <urn:uuid:eb9abcbf-db8a-4009-817e-a55269fad1c5> | CC-MAIN-2020-40 | https://www.taylorstillman.net/perceived-difficulty | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-40/segments/1600400213454.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20200924034208-20200924064208-00353.warc.gz | en | 0.965224 | 659 | 2.8125 | 3 |
by Christopher James
Here are some excerpts:
Cyanotype is an ultraviolet (UV) sensitive contact printing process that uses transparent, translucent, or opaque objects to make cyanotype photos on cloth or paper. The blue color of the cyanotype print is the result of the reaction of ferrous ions to the photo reduction of ferric ammonium citrate in combination with potassium ferricyanide. The cyanotype image is highly stable but can be degraded by something alkaline, such as sodium carbonate or perspiration. It will also fade, like most things, if exposed to strong direct sunlight over a period of time. Should you experience this fading, your image can generally be restored to its original blue intensity by storing it in a dark environment for a short time. Contrary to popular lore, the cyanotype print can be controlled in process to yield wonderful and technically exquisite images. The prints can also be toned in a wide variety of ways to provide alternatives to the color blue.
The Chemistry: There are two principal chemicals employed in the traditional cyanotype formula, and these are mixed together in equal parts to create a working sensitizing solution that will be applied to paper with a brush. They are: Part A, ferric ammonium citrate and Part B, potassium ferricyanide. Neither of these chemicals poses a serious health risk unless you are one of the very few people who may have an allergic reaction to the chemistry. Ferric ammonium citrate is often found in iron and vitamin supplements and Potassium ferricyanide is a stable compound that only becomes a risk if it is heated beyond 300°F
The cyanotype is a contact printing process like a photogram. As is the case with other non-silver processes, a cyanotype sensitized paper or cloth is exposed with sunlight or an ultraviolet (UV) light source and will require a negative(s) that is the same size as your intended print. I have had success with a wide assortment of negative types and can usually get a good-looking print by adjusting the way I work to fit the negative’s potential. This is one of the primary reasons that the process is such a great one to begin learning alternative techniques with, because success comes quickly to the rookie. I really do not have a specific general recommendation for a cyanotype negative. I’ve heard a lot of advice that recommends using a negative that would print well on a paper grade of 0 to 1 (indicating a fairly high-contrast negative density of about 1.5 to 1.7) and that this particular type will do well with using a standard A + B sensitizing formula. This is true, but the same success can come from negatives that do not specifically meet this recommendation. My best advice is to make a nice negative and learn the process with it. Paper and Fabric Surfaces Almost any type of paper or fabric can be used in the cyanotype process. Generally speaking, the best paper to use for a single image will be a quality hot or cold press paper like Arches Platine, Fabriano Artistico, Lana, Arches Acquarelle, Saunder’s Waterford, Somerset Book, and Crane’s Platinotype. These papers are neutral pH (in the middle of being acidic or alkaline) and already have a good sizing built into them during manufacturing. They are also specifically made to withstand the rigors of extended immersion times in liquids. Other paper options, some of them esoteric, that withstand the rigors of wet processing are those such as the 22˝230˝ Gampi Torinoko and Hahnemuhl etching paper that you can purchase by the roll. There are a wide variety of rice papers available at well-stocked art supply stores, and I recommend buying small pieces to test before committing to large amounts. One recommendation that I read about was a roll paper, 18˝250’, that was simply labeled Oriental Rice Paper for Sumi. The paper was tenaciously strong in water.
A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE SUN Before we begin exploring all of the alternative processes that follow in the book I want to mention the sun as the best light source you can use for contact printing. Unless you are working in a cold and dark climate most of the year, in which case you might think about becoming a poet, the sun provides the most efficient and least expensive means of exposing your contact negatives in printing frames. However, serious or cold climate based alternative process printers swear by a UV exposure unit because they feel it provides a consistent and controllable light source year round. Why is sun best? It’s free, really bright, and nothing can come close to the good feeling you’ll have sitting around outdoors printing with your friends and family. Secondly, in the summer your exposure times are short and pleasant, and it is easy for you to monitor your progress. Outside, the light is bright enough to read the exposure of your edges and their density. Simply observing the changes will give you a lot of information because alternative process exposures are easily determined by this evaluation method. When you think that you are close to being done, it is a simple matter of picking up the frame and moving into a shaded area to check on the details of shadows and highlights. Of course there are variables with the sun that you will not find with a UV printer unit. The time of year, time of day, humidity level outside, and overall atmospheric conditions will all have something to do with your exposure. A misty and foggy day that makes you squint your eyes will often be an ideal one to print. Use the winter to enrich your life with other interests or make (see Appendices) or buy a UV exposure unit equipped with daylight tubes. Do not waste your time with filtered “black-light” tubes like the ones that make Jimi Hendrix posters come to life because they are very inefficient exposure sources. You may, however, successfully use an unfiltered UV tube.
Exposing the Cyanotype When your coated and sensitized paper or fabric is completely dry, place your negative in contact with the coated emulsion and double check to see that it will read correctly when it is completed. The negative that you use will work very well if it has an average negative density in the range of 1.4 to 1.6. Be aware that you will be losing a considerable amount of density in the wash and development stages, so it is important that your highlights are able to print. Next, load the negative and coated paper into your contact frame so that the negative is next to the glass of the contact printer and the coated paper is behind the negative. Be sure that the hinge part of the frame back straddles the negative/coated area so that you can undo one side of the frame during exposure if you wish to check on your progress without losing registration. The most common problem in cyanotype printing is underexposure, where the highlights and middle values wash out in the water development. It is not a question of whether they will wash out, but to what degree. Depending on your negative, you will have a short or a long exposure, with darker negatives obviously taking more time than lighter ones. In summer sunlight, a short exposure might last 1 to 3 minutes, and a long one up to a half an hour. It is generally a good idea to make a test print. There are several ways to test exposure time during the exposure. When I am teaching a workshop class how to make cyanotype murals in the sun, I often use the students as photogram objects on a sensitized bedsheet. During the exposure I periodically lift their fingers to check on the comparative densities. This allows me to see what the base emulsion is doing in adjacent comparison to the open exposure next to the student’s finger. Unless they are sweating a lot, this is a good method of calibration. In a contact printing frame, I often place a small opaque object on the glass so that it covers a separate swatch of emulsion that I had added to the bottom of the paper during coating. By quickly lifting the opaque object I can determine where the exposure is and how long I have before the processing begins. As you will discover, overexposing a cyanotype is a difficult thing to do. A test strip can be easily made by coating a piece of paper with the sensitizer, drying it completely, and placing a negative in contact with the emulsion. Put the sensitized paper and negative in your contact frame and lay a series of opaque strips over the coated test piece. These strips will be removed, one at a time, at predetermined intervals and then processed for the information. You can also use a transparent step wedge for this task, but I feel the negative’s information from the test is often more important than how many gradations you might achieve with it. When the test exposure is done, process it in tap water until the whites have cleared and there is no evidence of yellow in the wash water. Then quickly blow-dry the strip, and you’ll get a rough idea of approximately what the best exposure will be. Be aware that cyanotype print values will darken over a period of days as the print oxidizes. You can accelerate this oxidization by immersing the washed print in a weak solution of hydrogen peroxide. Cyanotype is a printing-out process, so you can examine your exposure as you go, providing you are using a hinged contact printing frame. I generally like to see, in a predevelopment examination of the exposure, highlight detail that is a great deal denser than I would be happy with in a finished print. Occasionally, I want my deepest shadow details to have a nearly solarized look (the density has begun to reverse itself and is transforming to a lighter, almost metallic-negative-gray). I also watch the outside-coated borders that have no negative covering them. Often the best cyanotypes will be realized when the outside borders have reversed themselves to a near silvergray. Another general piece of information is that thicker papers often take a bit longer to expose than do thinner papers. Always write down your exposure time on the paper so that you can evaluate your progress over the course of a printing sessionJudy Seigel has suggested a technique where the exposure is stopped halfway through the exposure and then resumed to completion after a wait of several minutes. She reports that this interrupted printing results in noticeably better shadow details and separation without losing highlight or D-max integrity. I haven’t tried this technique in a formal experiment yet, but Judy’s suggestions are always worthwhile, and this may be another good control option to use.
Development: Water or Acid
Traditionally, the cyanotype is developed out in a water bath. This is the least complicated step possible and is the preferred development by most everyone who works with the process. The one shortcoming of water development may be a moderately limited tonal scale. An alternative development process, one that often produces a longer tonal scale, is the use of diluted acidic solutions such as distilled white vinegar or acetic acid. The nice part of this alternative is that the tonal range of values will be extended without having to lengthen the exposure. The downside is that by trading for a longer tonal scale you will often lose on the comparative highlight to shadow contrast in the print. You might think of an acid or vinegar development bath as one that turns the cyanotype into a soft graded paper. The simplest solution to begin experimenting with would be household white vinegar, which is generally the equivalent of a 5% concentration of acetic acid. White vinegar can be used straight from the bottle or diluted with water to give you more flexibility. In its pure state, it is worth about 2 to 4 levels on a step table. Here are a few signs to look for if you decide to use vinegar as a development option. ◆ White vinegar out of the bottle: A significant increase in the range of values (2 to 4 steps) but a relative decrease in the contrast. This might be a good formula for negatives that are hopelessly too high-key. A hydrogen peroxide “oxidation-hit” will have little effect on this straight vinegar developed print. ◆ Vinegar and water 1:1: Some of the image’s highlight crispness begins to return without a loss in the step table. Hydrogen peroxide has a negligible effect in deepening the blue in the print. ◆ Vinegar and water 1:3: A 2 to 3 step increase in midtone values, better highlight detail, and the hydrogen peroxide adds a little “intensification” to the blue. ◆ Vinegar and water 1:5: Still a pretty decent range in the additional steps and the highlights are better. Decent D-max (maximum density) equal to the other prints in the test sequence, and the hydrogen peroxide has a modest effect. Using Mike Ware’s New Cyanotype Process, explained later, the effects of vinegar development are less distinct. That fact is somewhat irrelevant if you are using Ware’s formula, which has a longer and similar tonal scale and a softer look to the overall image. Ware’s process does employ an acid development that has a softening impact on the contrast. Acid Post development Bath Another alternative in developing cyanotypes for additional tonal range is a technique of rinsing your water developed print in a mild acid bath following the development. Adding this acid bath step will often result in an intensification of the darker values while reducing the lighter ones. Traditional manuals, such as the Kodak Encyclopedia of Practical Photography, suggest a postdevelopment bath of 4 to 5 drops of hydrochloric acid per 1,000 ml of water for a few minutes. I have also heard of cyanotype artists who use weak solutions of citric acid, both chemical and natural, in this step. For fun, try squeezing a few lemons intoWashing and Oxidization After exposure and development, wash your developed cyanotype print in running water for 5 to 15 minutes or until the highlights have cleared to white. You should no longer see any yellow-green coloration in the water. Shorter washing times may leave ferric salts in the paper. Too long a washing time will cause both fading, through a pigmentation loss, and a decrease of highlight details in the print. If you need instant gratification, try this: After the first wash, remove the print from the water and add a splash of drugstore grade hydrogen peroxide to the water bath. Re-immerse the print and watch the blues go to an immediate and intense deep blue. This action causes the highlights to appear super white because of their relationship to the dark blues. This intensification “trick” is everyone’s favorite. Really, though, all that is happening is that you are accelerating the oxidization of the iron in the print that would happen naturally in a few days without this step. Don’t forget the wash stage after being thrilled a water bath and note the effect. You will likely see a bit of clearing and a marginal intensification of darker valueA 1% to 5% solution of oxalic acid can be used (1 to 5 grams of oxalic acid to 100 ml of water). This solution is particularly successful for spotting blue stains out of highlight areas. Take all necessary precautions when using oxalic acid because it is toxic. If your print is overexposed (which is pretty hard to do), mix up a solution of sodium carbonate, approximately a pinch to 1,000 ml of water, and immerse your image in it until it begins to fade. Watch for the first signs of yellow. Too strong a concentration or too long in the sodium carbonate solution will have a serious bleaching effect. If you feel you went too far with this, you can consult the toning section for techniques on where to go next. Tannic acid would be a likely option. If you opt to do nothing at all, save your overexposed cyanotype for a Blue-Van-Dyke print or a gum or simply throw it out and do a new one.
Toning the Cyanotype: There will be times when you simply do not want a blue image but still want to use the cyanotype technique due to its flexibility and simplicity. The following are some formulas for changing the color of cyanotypes once they have completed the final wash. In general, it is a good idea to overexpose your prints if you intend to tone them. Many of the following formulas utilize sodium carbonate or ammonia, which tend to radically reduce print density if the solutions are too strong.
A word of encouragement—many times the formulas will not work as you want them to due to water types, contamination, time of year, etc. Take these formulas with a grain of salt (sorry, bad pun) and adapt them to your own aesthetic. Very often, during workshops, I will simply pour and sprinkle formulas together to reinforce the idea that the results from these toning suggestions are not set in stone, either alone or in combination with other toners. Besides, what have you got to lose? The process is simple, inexpensive, and accidents often become individual and unique techniques. There is the issue of permanence to consider. The cyanotype, in a pure Prussian-blue state and handled correctly, is permanent and one of the most stable alternative processes. The toning steps change the chemical composition of the cyanotype image, and it is occasionally questionable if all of these formulas can be described as “permanent” after the fact. I have found virtually no deterioration in the images I toned with tannic acid over 20 years ago. This is not the case with images done during group toning demonstrations, where inadequate washing times between steps are often the rule. It is a good idea to dry your cyanotype prints before to The Big Thrill Hydrogen peroxide (3% drugstore grade) added to water will seem to super “intensify” the blue in your cyanotypes. The actual effect is simply an accelerated oxidation of the iron. This intense blue will occur eventually, given time, in any well-processed cyanotype. Hydrogen peroxide can be used immediately after the yellow has been washed out of your print. Mix it casually and without fear, because this chemical is used to clean wounds and as a mouthwash. Removing Blue: Yellow Toning There are several chemicals that will alter the intensity of the blue in your cyanotypes. As mentioned, hydrogen peroxide, oxalic acid, and sodium carbonate will all cause the blue to change, as well as solutions of chlorine bleach, sodium sulfate, sodium silicate, trisodium phosphate, and commercial laundry soaps. You may mix solutions of these chemicals and apply them selectively to remove areas of blue, and in some cases you can alter the entire color of the print or fabric in complete baths. For example, to make a yellow and white print, make a solution of trisodium phosphate in a ratio of 1 tablespoon to every quart of water. Dissolve the trisodium phosphate in hot water in a plastic tub or tray, and immerse the cyanotype in the solution until it fades to yellow. Rinse the print with running water for 30 minutes, or run the fabric through a cold wash cycle without soap. The resulting image will be permanent. Hang them and to let them oxidize for a day or so. This
The Basic Tea Toner Buy some basic and inexpensive household tea (tannic acid) and make a very strong solution in hot water. Immerse your print in it until you have the desired tonality. Using a solution of tea as a toner is a nice way to create a duotone image. The print’s highlights exhibit a pleasant tan color while the blue takes on a slightly warmer hue. If you don’t want any blue, just go through the yellow toning stage with trisodium phosphate and then move on to the tea toning. Using green and herbal teas without tannic acid in them does not work as well. Brown Toning #1 PART A 28 ml nondetergent, household strength ammonia added to 240 ml of water PART B 14 g tannic acid added and mixed well and added to 750 ml of water Tannic acid mixing takes a little patience because it does not dissolve readily in water. Break up the clumps and keep stirring until the chemical is in solution. Immerse the washed and wet print in Part A for a few minutes or until it becomes pale. Then rinse the print for several minutes and transfer it to Part B for the conversion to brown. In all of the toning formulas, too short a rinsing time between stages is the primary culprit in the discoloration of highlights and paper base white. Black Toning #1 Immerse the print in a solution of Dektol. The stronger the Dektol solution the more intense the goldenrod color that will present itself to you. When the blue is almost entirely bleached out and converted, rinse the print for several minutes in water and then immerse it in a solution of tannic acid mixed to 30 to 50 g per 1,000 ml of water. You should see a smokey black color within 5 minutes. Wash the toned print for 15 minutes. Eggplant/Red/Black Tones Use the black toning #1 procedure and after the final wash immerse the print in the strong Dektol solution again or in an ammonia bath solution consisting of 250 ml ammonia to 1,000 ml water. Black Toning #2 PART A 3 drops nitric acid* added to 1 liter water PART B 14 g sodium carbonate added to 160 ml water (5.3 oz) PART C 14 g gallic acid added to 160 ml water Begin by immersing your washed and wet print into Part A (nitric acid) for 2 minutes. Then rinse the print for several minutes, transfer it to Part B, and leave it in the solution until the image disappears and then reappears as a very light orange image. Then rinse the print for several minutes and transfer it into Part C, where the black tones should become evident. Finally, wash the print for at least 15 minutes. Blue/Gray Split Toning Allow the cyanotype to age for a day or two and then rewet the print. Mix a solution of 3 drops of nitric acid in 1,000 ml water and immerse your print in it for 2 minutes. Then wash the print for several minutes. Next, immerse the print in a weak (a pinch to 1,000 ml of water) sodium carbonate solution until a yellow split occurs, and then wash the print for several minutes. Mix up a solution of tannic acid of 25 g to 1,000 ml water and place your print in it until a blue/gray split appears. Finally, wash the print well for 15 to 20 minutes. Red Toning Follow the directions for the blue/gray toning. Immerse the print in a light sodium carbonate solution (a pinch to 1,000 ml of water) until red and then wash the print for
Eggplant Black #1 This is a very casual kitchen formula when you don’t have a gram scale. PART A 1 to 2 tsp sodium carbonate (very flexible) stirred into solution in 1 quart water Be aware of how much sodium carbonate you use in Part A. You may find that 1 to 2 tsp is far too strong a mix for your prints. If this is the case, then either make a new Part A with a pinch of sodium carbonate or add more water to the solution. PART B 4 to 10 Tbs tannic acid added and mixed really well into 1 quart water This tannic mix is much stronger than you may need to get the job done but I have found it works for me, so include it in this formula. If you find it is too strong for your prints then simply reduce the amount of tannic acid in the Part B formula. | <urn:uuid:5674b8a7-d739-4c91-b5d0-30becf3cbfde> | CC-MAIN-2020-40 | https://sylvia-pippen.com/cyanotype-uv-printing-on-cloth.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-40/segments/1600402127075.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20200930141310-20200930171310-00631.warc.gz | en | 0.93632 | 4,967 | 3.140625 | 3 |
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
- BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to methods for making semiconductor devices, in particular, semiconductor devices that include high-k gate dielectric layers.
MOS field-effect transistors with very thin gate dielectrics made from silicon dioxide may experience unacceptable gate leakage currents. Forming the gate dielectric from certain high-k dielectric materials, in place of silicon dioxide, can reduce gate leakage. Such a dielectric may not, however, be compatible with polysilicon—the preferred material for making the device's gate electrode. Placing a thin layer of titanium nitride, which is compatible with many high-k gate dielectrics, between a high-k gate dielectric and a polysilicon-based gate electrode may enable such a dielectric to be used with such a gate electrode. Unfortunately, the presence of such a layer may increase the transistor's threshold voltage, which is undesirable.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved process for making a semiconductor device that includes a high-k gate dielectric. There is a need for such a process in which a polysilicon-based gate electrode is formed on such a gate dielectric to create a functional device—without causing undesirable work function shifts. The method of the present invention provides such a process.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PRESENT INVENTION
FIGS. 1a-1 d represent cross-sections of structures that may be formed when carrying out an embodiment of the method of the present invention.
A method for making a semiconductor device is described. That method comprises forming on a substrate a dielectric layer that has a dielectric constant that is greater than the dielectric constant of silicon dioxide. That dielectric layer is modified so that it will be compatible with a gate electrode to be formed on it. A gate electrode is then formed on the dielectric layer. In the following description, a number of details are set forth to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art, however, that the invention may be practiced in many ways other than those expressly described here. The invention is thus not limited by the specific details disclosed below.
In an embodiment of the method of the present invention, as illustrated by FIGS. 1a-1 d, dielectric layer 101 is formed on substrate 100. Substrate 100 may include isolation regions, p-type wells and n-type wells that have been formed in a bulk silicon or silicon-on-insulator substructure. Substrate 100 may comprise other materials—which may or may not be combined with silicon—such as: germanium, indium antimonide, lead telluride, indium arsenide, indium phosphide, gallium arsenide, or gallium antimonide. Although several examples of materials from which substrate 100 may be formed are described here, any material that may serve as a foundation upon which a semiconductor device may be built falls within the spirit and scope of the present invention.
Dielectric layer 101 comprises a material that has a dielectric constant that is greater than the dielectric constant of silicon dioxide. Dielectric layer 101 preferably has a dielectric constant that is at least about twice that of silicon dioxide, i.e., a dielectric constant that is greater than about 8. When serving as the gate dielectric for the semiconductor device, dielectric layer 101 is a “high-k gate dielectric.” Some of the materials that may be used to make high-k gate dielectrics include: hafnium oxide, lanthanum oxide, zirconium oxide, zirconium silicon oxide, titanium oxide, tantalum oxide, barium strontium titanium oxide, barium titanium oxide, strontium titanium oxide, yttrium oxide, aluminum oxide, lead scandium tantalum oxide, and lead zinc niobate. Particularly preferred are hafnium oxide, zirconium oxide, titanium oxide, and aluminum oxide. Although a few examples of materials that may be used to form dielectric layer 101 are described here, that layer may be made from other materials that serve to reduce gate leakage from the level present in devices that include silicon dioxide gate dielectrics.
Dielectric layer 101 may be formed on substrate 100 using a conventional deposition method, e.g., a conventional chemical vapor deposition (“CVD”), low pressure CVD, or physical vapor deposition (“PVD”) process. Preferably, a conventional atomic layer CVD process is used. In such a process, a metal oxide precursor (e.g., a metal chloride) and steam may be fed at selected flow rates into a CVD reactor, which is then operated at a selected temperature and pressure to generate an atomically smooth interface between substrate 100 and dielectric layer 101. The CVD reactor should be operated long enough to form a layer with the desired thickness. In most applications, dielectric layer 101 should be less than about 100 angstroms thick, and more preferably between about 20 angstroms and about 60 angstroms thick.
As deposited, dielectric layer 101 will include undesirable impurities, e.g., hydrogen and/or unreacted metal (represented by dots in FIG. 1a), which render that layer incompatible with polysilicon. In the method of the present invention, dielectric layer 101 is modified so that it will be compatible with a gate electrode to be formed on it. FIGS. 1a-1 c illustrate steps that may be applied to modify dielectric layer 101. First, sacrificial layer 102 is formed on dielectric layer 101 to generate the structure represented by FIG. 1a. Sacrificial layer 102 preferably is made from a material that may getter impurities from dielectric layer 101. An example of a suitable material is titanium nitride. Such a titanium nitride layer may be formed on dielectric layer 101 using a conventional CVD or PVD process. In a preferred embodiment, such a process is used to form a titanium nitride layer that is between about 10 angstroms and about 50 angstroms thick.
After sacrificial layer 102 is formed on dielectric layer 101, undesirable impurities are transported from dielectric layer 101 to sacrificial layer 102. When sacrificial layer 102 is made from titanium nitride and dielectric layer 101 comprises a high-k gate dielectric layer, impurities may be transported from high-k gate dielectric layer 101 to titanium nitride layer 102 by annealing titanium nitride layer 102. Titanium nitride layer 102 may be annealed using a rapid thermal anneal process or by heating that layer in a furnace at between about 500° C. and about 1,000° C. for between about 5 minutes and about 20 minutes.
FIG. 1b represents a structure in which undesirable impurities, e.g., hydrogen and unreacted metal (represented by dots in FIG. 1b), have been transferred from high-k dielectric layer 101 into titanium nitride layer 102. FIG. 1b is not meant to suggest that annealing titanium nitride layer 102 will cause all undesirable impurities, initially present in high-k dielectric layer 101, to be moved into layer 102. Rather, the annealing step is performed to cause a sufficient number of those impurities to move from high-k dielectric layer 101 into titanium nitride layer 102 to modify high-k dielectric layer 101 such that it will be compatible with a gate electrode to be formed on that layer. Thus, a method that applies an annealing step, which does not remove all—or even substantially all—of the undesirable impurities from high-k dielectric layer 101, may still fall within the spirit and scope of the present invention.
After the undesirable impurities have been transported from dielectric layer 101 to sacrificial layer 102, e.g., by annealing the sacrificial layer, sacrificial layer 102 is removed. When sacrificial layer 102 is made from titanium nitride and dielectric layer 101 comprises a high-k gate dielectric layer, titanium nitride layer 102 may be removed from high-k gate dielectric layer 101 using a conventional wet etch process, which uses a chemistry that is selective for titanium nitride over the material used to form the high-k gate dielectric layer.
Following the removal of sacrificial layer 102, a gate electrode may be formed on dielectric layer 101. In a preferred embodiment, the gate electrode may be formed by initially depositing polysilicon layer 103 on high-k gate dielectric layer 101—generating the FIG. 1c structure. Polysilicon layer 103 may be deposited using conventional methods and preferably is between about 2,000 angstroms and about 4,000 angstroms thick. After etching both layers 103 and 101 to form the FIG. 1d structure, using conventional techniques, additional steps that are generally used to complete the gate electrode (e.g., forming a silicide (not shown) on the upper part of etched polysilicon structure 104) may be applied. As such steps are well known to those skilled in the art, they will not be described in more detail here.
As described above, a sacrificial titanium nitride layer may enable a high-k gate dielectric to be used with a polysilicon-based gate electrode. By forming a titanium nitride layer on a high-k gate dielectric layer, annealing and then removing that layer to remove undesirable impurities from the high-k gate dielectric, the embodiment described above enables the resulting device to benefit from the temporary presence of the titanium nitride layer without experiencing the work function shifts that permanent placement of that layer between the high-k gate dielectric and the gate electrode may cause. Although the embodiment described above is an example of a process for modifying a dielectric layer to enable it to be compatible with a gate electrode, the present invention is not limited to this particular embodiment, but instead contemplates other processes for modifying dielectric layers to ensure compatibility with gate electrodes.
Although the foregoing description has specified certain steps and materials that may be used in the method of the present invention, those skilled in the art will appreciate that many modifications and substitutions may be made. Accordingly, it is intended that all such modifications, alterations, substitutions and additions be considered to fall within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims. | <urn:uuid:71cd1d71-c328-4fdb-bff9-14f155ed84e8> | CC-MAIN-2017-51 | http://www.google.com/patents/US20040106287?dq=5,815,794 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-51/segments/1512948588420.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20171216181940-20171216203940-00399.warc.gz | en | 0.880814 | 2,228 | 2.640625 | 3 |
A newfound asteroid has been discovered to be trailing Earth on an oddball course: an orbit that looks a lot like a horseshoe.
The space rock, called asteroid 2010 SO16, has been following Earth as our planet orbits the sun for at least 250,000 years and is up to 1,312 feet (400 meters) wide, scientists said. It was initially spotted by NASA's WISE infrared space observatory. [Photos of asteroid 2010 SO16 and its orbit]
"Its average distance from the sun is identical to that of the Earth, but what really impressed me at the time was how Earth-like its orbit was," said Apostolos Christou, an astronomer at the Armagh Observatory in the United Kingdom, who led the study that pinned down the asteroid's orbit.
A horseshoe orbit
Christou and study co-author David Asher found that asteroid 2010 SO16 takes about 175 years to travel from one end of its orbit to another before doubling back. In diagrams, the asteroid's orbit resembles a giant letter "C" with the Earth ticked between the endpoints. [Photos: Asteroids in Deep Space]
Currently, the asteroid is at a point in its orbit that brings it near the horseshoe's tip that trails the Earth. But despite its apparent attachment to Earth's orbit, the asteroid poses no risk of smacking our planet.
"This asteroid is terraphobic," Christou said. "It keeps well away from the Earth. So well, in fact, that it has likely been in this orbit for several hundred thousand years, never coming closer to our planet than 50 times the distance to the moon."
The average distance between the Earth and the moon is about 238,000 miles (382,900 kilometers).
The researchers used WISE observatory's data as a starting point to determine the asteroid's orbital path, and used computer simulations to sift through every possible orbit it could have. All of the simulations predicted the odd horseshoe-shaped path.
The research is detailed in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Earth's weird asteroid neighbors
Asteroid 2010 SO16 is not the only space rock known to circle the sun in a horseshoe pattern that brings it near Earth. At least three other asteroids are known to have similar orbits, though not as stable as that of 2010 SO16, researchers said. Those other asteroids will linger in Earth's neighborhood for a few thousand years before moving on, they added. [5 Reasons to Care About Asteroids]
One such space rock is the asteroid Cruithne, a 3-mile-wide (5 km) object that takes about 770 years to complete its horseshoe orbit. Cruithne was discovered by astronomers in 1986, but it wasn't until 1997 that scientists pinned down its weird orbit, which should keep the asteroid in a holding pattern near Earth for at least 5,000 years.
Christou and Asher said their next step is to identify where asteroid 2010 SO16 came from. And their choices are many.
The space rock could have been ejected from the solar system's main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, or may be a wayward member of a group of asteroids that may lurk at stable gravitational spots ahead of and behind the Earth, the researchers said. It could also be a chunk of Earth's moon kicked up during an ancient impact, a leftover remnant from the formation of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago, they added.
Christou and Asher are conducting follow-up observations with the Las Cumbres Observatory's Faulkes Telescope to learn more about its characteristics.
"It is not that difficult to spot with a medium-sized professional telescope," Asher explained. "It will remain as an evening object in Earth's skies for many years to come." | <urn:uuid:c683b36d-2289-4919-ade3-ebbaecc68346> | CC-MAIN-2018-34 | https://www.space.com/11316-asteroid-earth-horseshoe-orbit.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-34/segments/1534221218357.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20180821151743-20180821171743-00695.warc.gz | en | 0.96246 | 790 | 3.828125 | 4 |
The UK faces an electricity supply gap of up to 55% by 2025 because of the closure of coal and nuclear plants, the government is being warned.
Plans to plug the gap by building combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plants are “unrealistic”, according to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
A report detailed the impact of closing all coal-fired power stations by 2025, ageing nuclear stations stopping generating power, and growing demand for power.
The institution said the UK does not have the resources or the skilled workers to build the number of power stations needed.
The report’s author, Dr Jenifer Baxter, said: “The UK is facing an electricity supply crisis. As the UK population rises and with the greater use of electricity use in transport and heating it looks almost certain that electricity demand is going to rise.
“However, with little or no focus on reducing electricity demand, the retirement of the majority of the country’s ageing nuclear fleet, recent proposals to phase out coal-fired power by 2025 and the cut in renewable energy subsidies, the UK is on course to produce even less electricity than it does at the moment.
“We cannot rely on CCGTs alone to plug this gap, as we have neither the time, resources nor enough people with the right skills to build sufficient power plants. Electricity imports will put the UK’s electricity supply at the mercy of the markets, weather and politics of other countries, making electricity less secure and less affordable.
“Currently there are insufficient incentives for companies to invest in any sort of electricity infrastructure or innovation and worryingly even the Government’s own energy calculator does not allow for the scenarios that new energy policy points towards. Under current policy, it is almost impossible for UK electricity demand to be met by 2025.”
A Department of Energy and Climate Change spokesman said: “We are the first country to propose an end date to using unabated coal and we will do so in a way that maintains energy security, which comes first.
“New gas power stations are being built and we are investing in cleaner energy, such as nuclear and shale gas, to ensure hardworking families and businesses have secure, affordable energy supplies they can rely on now and in the future.” | <urn:uuid:bb0303f2-ca72-4c50-83e7-7e273bc80a96> | CC-MAIN-2020-50 | https://www.energyvoice.com/other-news/99785/power-plant-closures-could-lead-to-55-gap-in-electricity-supply-by-2025/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-50/segments/1606141171126.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20201124053841-20201124083841-00655.warc.gz | en | 0.947451 | 470 | 3.125 | 3 |
This is the second post in our series of Interesting Science Objects videos. These videos will be collected and made available for viewing at a single location when our Science 7–8 website, different from this blog, is up and running.
A glass eyedropper and an empty and clean two-liter soda bottle filled with water is all it takes to make a Cartesian Diver. When the capped bottle is squeezed, the eyedropper sinks to the bottom. When the pressure on the bottle is relaxed, the eyedropper pops up.
The Cartesian Diver is well known to middle school science teachers, but the nine variations on the classic Cartesian Diver we show in the video may well be new to many teachers.
The Cartesian Diver is much more than a fun-to-play-with science toy; these important science principles are all used to explain the action of the divers shown in the video.
• Pascal’s principle
• Boyle’s law
• Buoyant force (Archimedes’ principle)
• Pressure in a fluid
• Newton’s first law of motion (balanced and unbalanced forces)
Click on the video to join Mike and Jim in the AIMS science lab.
Be sure to click here to download a free PDF of the document shown at the end of the video. | <urn:uuid:2b755f02-7726-4483-affc-63acf73cdcd5> | CC-MAIN-2014-42 | http://blog.aimsedu.org/2013/05/01/interesting-science-objects-the-cartesian-diver/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-42/segments/1414637901687.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20141030025821-00060-ip-10-16-133-185.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.896155 | 275 | 3.703125 | 4 |
The last line in an article from The Washington Post was a quote from a Chinese official: “The habit Chinese students have formed is that they only memorize things but not absorb them. They forget about everything once the test is over.”
Most people think tests are there to measure students’ progress. That is not the only reason for tests, but some think it is.
The measurement of progress is reported to many people:
1. The student. This is often skipped in standardized tests designed to measure the teachers or the schools more than individual students, but the tests that are most important to the student should be reported to him.
2. The student’s parents. Obviously, this step should be done only if the student is a minor.
3. The teacher. Usually, the teacher grades the test, but with electronic and standardized testing something else grades the test. As a teacher, I’ve often used test and quiz results to modify reviews for the final exam and to change the emphasis the next time I teach a course.
4. Where the student goes next. This could be a job or simply the next semester’s course. Usually, the report is only a single grade.
5. Society. This helps judge the quality of the teacher of the school. It rarely names individual teachers or students.
A second goal of tests is to help student learning. Students often think they know a subject until they are tested on it. If the student doesn’t get feedback, ideally quickly, that student will have difficulty learning. How the students use the results of the test often determines how well he does in school. Graded homework, quizzes, and tests give the students an idea of how much they know. If they only study to do well on tests and forget about it afterward, they are not studying properly. Their actual learning will be incidental, not the goal of the work they are doing.
Unfortunately, American students have formed the same habits as Chinese students. If we want any real progress in education, students need to know things after they take their tests. | <urn:uuid:e92b7fff-03fc-4658-a508-fb8ad97f3d21> | CC-MAIN-2016-18 | https://teresamccullough.wordpress.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-18/segments/1461860125524.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20160428161525-00094-ip-10-239-7-51.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973196 | 432 | 2.921875 | 3 |
This finding means that it may one day be possible to grow new cells to replace ones damaged by disease or spinal cord injury, such as the one that paralyzed the late actor Christopher Reeve.
"Knowing that neurons are able to grow in the adult brain gives us a chance to enhance the process and explore under what conditions -- genetic, sensory or other -- we can make that happen," said study co-author Elly Nedivi, the Fred and Carole Middleton Assistant Professor of Neurobiology.
While scientists have focused mostly on trying to regenerate the long axons damaged in spinal cord injuries, the new finding suggests targeting a different part of the cell: the dendrite. A dendrite, from the Greek word for tree, is a branched projection of a nerve cell that conducts electrical stimulation to the cell body.
"We do see relatively large-scale growth" in the dendrites, Nedivi said. "Maybe we would get some level of improvement (in spinal cord patients) by embracing dendritic growth." The growth is affected by use, meaning the more the neurons are used, the more likely they are to grow, she said.
The study's co-authors -- Nedivi; Peter T. So, an MIT professor of mechanical and biological engineering; Wei-Chung Allen Lee, an MIT brain and cognitive sciences graduate student; and Hayden Huang, a mechanical engineering research affiliate -- used a method called two-photon imaging to track specific neurons over several weeks in the surface layers of the visual cortex in living mice. While many studies have focused on the pyramidal neurons that promote firing, this work looked at all types of neurons, including interneurons, which inhibit the activity of cortical neurons.
With the help of technology similar to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), but at a much finer, cellular resolution, the researchers were able to stitch together two-dimensional slices to create the first 3-D reconstruction of entire neurons in the adult cortex. Dendritic branch tips were measured over weeks to evaluate physical changes.
What the researchers saw amazed them.
In 3-D time-lapse images, the brain cells look like plants sprouting together. Some push out tentative tendrils that grow around or retract from contact with neighboring cells. Dendrite tips that look like the thinnest twigs grow longer. Of several dozen branch tips, sometimes only a handful changed; in all, 14 percent showed structural modifications. Sometimes no change for weeks was followed by a growth spurt. There were incremental changes, some as small as seven microns, the largest a dramatic 90 microns.
"The scale of change is much smaller than what goes on during the critical period of development, but the fact that it goes on at all is earth-shattering," Nedivi said. She believes the results will force a change in the way researchers think about how the adult brain is hard-wired.
Nedivi had previously identified 360 genes regulated by activity in the adult brain that she termed candidate plasticity genes or CPGs. Her group found that a surprisingly large number of CPGs encode proteins in charge of structural change. Why are so many of these genes "turned on" in the adult well after the early developmental period of dramatic structural change?
The neuroscience community has long thought that whatever limited plasticity existed in the adult brain did not involve any structural remodeling, mostly because no such remodeling was ever detected in excitatory cells. Yet evidence points to the fact that adult brains can be functionally plastic. In response to the CPG data, Nedivi and Lee revisited this question with the help of So and Huang.
By applying an innovative new imaging technology that allows monitoring of neuronal structural dynamics in the living brain, they found evidence for adult neuronal restructuring in the less-known, less-accessible inhibitory interneurons.
"Maybe the inhibitory network is where the capacity is for large-scale changes," Nedivi said. "What's more, this growth is tied to use, so even as adults, the more we use our minds, the more robust they can be."
This work is supported by the National Eye Institute. | <urn:uuid:e79506fb-48f3-4eae-afa9-5694c3b50266> | CC-MAIN-2019-09 | https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-12/miot-mrf122205.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-09/segments/1550247491141.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20190219183054-20190219205054-00300.warc.gz | en | 0.94651 | 862 | 3.5625 | 4 |
Oct. 12 (UPI) -- New mothers infected with COVID-19 during pregnancy didn't pass the virus to their babies, even if they breastfed and shared the same hospital room, according to a study published Monday by JAMA Pediatrics.
Mothers with severe COVID-19, however, delivered their babies, on average, one week earlier than healthy mothers, and their babies were four times as likely to need phototherapy to treat jaundice, the data showed.
"Between our findings and other studies, it is now known that there is a relatively low likelihood of vertical transmission from [COVID-19]-positive mothers to their newborns," study co-author and pediatrician Melissa Stockwell told UPI.
"We also show that the risk remains low even with newborns rooming-in and direct breastfeeding practices, both of which had been concerns early in the pandemic," said Stockwell, division chief of child and adolescent health at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
Pregnant women may be at increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19, and reports have appeared that the risk for preterm delivery is higher among women infected with the virus, according to data released in June by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"There remains a concern for the effect of this virus on pregnant women," study co-author Dr. Cynthia Gyamfi-Bannerman, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at NewYork Presbyterian, told UPI.
However, no indication exists -- at least to date -- that their newborns are at any risk from the virus.
To explore the issue further, the Columbia University researchers tested 101 babies born to infected mothers in New York City between March 13 and April 24 -- the height of the COVID-19 outbreak in the region.
Two of the babes had low levels of the virus in their nasal and throat samples initially, but neither developed symptoms, and they later tested negative, the researchers said.
The remainder all tested negative at birth and, and the 31 infants who were retested several days later remained negative. All 101 babies "roomed in" -- or shared the same hospital rooms as their mothers -- and bathing was delayed, the researchers said.
Some studies have recommended early bathing of babies born to mothers with COVID-19 as a way to reduce risk for virus spread, but early bathing has other health risks, including hypothermia, they said.
Three of the 10 babies born to mothers with severe COVID-19, however, required phototherapy, while six of 91 born to mothers with mild to moderate disease required the treatment, the data showed.
"Treating babies as babies seems safe during the COVID-19 pandemic," study co-author Dr. Dani Dumitriu told UPI.
"This is particularly important given the continued spread of COVID-19 throughout the country and around the world," said Dumitriu, a neonatologist at New York-Presbyterian. | <urn:uuid:8fd7ceec-08a8-49d3-bfc8-d696499edc21> | CC-MAIN-2021-43 | https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2020/10/12/Pregnant-women-with-COVID-19-dont-pass-the-virus-to-their-newborns-study-finds/9271602508749/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-43/segments/1634323585181.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20211017175237-20211017205237-00096.warc.gz | en | 0.978905 | 625 | 2.515625 | 3 |
This chart shows the Child Development Index (CDI) around the world.
World Performance CDI Score: 17.5
Time period: 2000-2006
What is the Child Development Index?
The Child Development Index (CDI) is an index combining performance measures specific to children - education, health and nutrition - to produce a score on a scale of 0 to 100. A zero score would be the best. The higher the score, the worse children are faring.
The CDI was developed by Save the Children UK in 2008 through the contributions of Terry McKinley, Director of the Centre for Development Policy and Research at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, with support from Katerina Kyrili.
How is the Child Development Index calculated?
Save the Children UK has introduced the first ever globally representative,multi-dimensional tool to monitor and compare the wellbeing of children. They have used it in more than 140 developed and developing countries across the world.
The Child Development Index is made up of three indicators of three areas of child wellbeing. The indicators were chosen because they are easily available, commonly understood, and clearly indicative of child wellbeing.The three indicators are:
Health: the under-five mortality rate (the probability of dying between birth and five years of age, expressed as a percentage on a scale of 0 to 340 deaths per 1,000 live births)
Nutrition: the percentage of under fives who are moderately or severely underweight
Education: the percentage of primary school-age children who are not enrolled in school.
These three indicators are aggregated by simply calculating the average score between them for each period under review, meaning that they each have equal weighting in the index scores.
For more information, please follow the reference link below. | <urn:uuid:b247c31e-4859-409f-96be-a6f1e7d9dc90> | CC-MAIN-2015-40 | http://chartsbin.com/view/gqm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-40/segments/1443738087479.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20151001222127-00114-ip-10-137-6-227.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942594 | 368 | 3.1875 | 3 |
February is a month of celebration in the United States, as we take the time to honor the contributions and history of Black Americans. Black History Month is an opportunity for us to reflect on the achievements of Black Americans throughout our nation's history and to acknowledge the ongoing struggle for equality and justice.
As Americans, we hold dear the ideals of freedom, equality, and opportunity for all. Black History Month is a time for us to come together as a nation and remember that these ideals have not always been a reality for Black Americans. From the atrocities of slavery to the ongoing fight for civil rights, Black Americans have had to fight for their place in this country and to be treated with the same dignity and respect as every other citizen.
But through it all, Black Americans have persevered and made countless contributions to our nation. From the arts and literature, to science and technology, to politics and civil rights, Black Americans have shaped the course of our history and left an indelible mark on the fabric of our nation.
During Black History Month, we honor the sacrifices and accomplishments of figures like Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, Tuskegee Airmen, Maya Angelou, etc. We remember their work to end slavery and segregation and to bring about civil rights for Black Americans.
It is also important to celebrate the accomplishments of the everyday Black Americans who have made a difference in our communities. By remembering the past and recognizing the contributions of Black Americans, we can work to build a more just and equal society for all.
As we celebrate Black History Month, let us also remember that the fight for equality and justice is not over. We must continue to work towards eradicating racism and ensuring that every American is treated with the respect and dignity they deserve.
Let us celebrate the rich history of Black Americans and recommit ourselves to building a more perfect union. Happy Black History Month! | <urn:uuid:b4923d7f-e2e0-4a2a-a9a9-a58fb5aee348> | CC-MAIN-2024-10 | https://officialflagpole.com/blogs/ofp-blogposts-3/equality-and-justice-for-all-reflecting-on-black-history-month-in-february | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947475806.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20240302084508-20240302114508-00760.warc.gz | en | 0.932446 | 390 | 4.0625 | 4 |
That’s because, depending on how it’s manufactured, dried pasta will have a slick, slippery exterior or a craggy, grippier one.
Dried pasta is extruded into different shapes and strands by forcing dough through metal plates called dies, the construction of which helps determine the texture of the pasta’s surface.
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What Is Bronze-Cut Pasta?
Traditional dies are made of uncoated bronze. When pasta is extruded through a die, friction and heat are created. Bronze is the classic metal for a die, in part for its ability to dissipate heat. When dough is pressed through the bare metal, it winds up with a coarser exterior and better grip.
That’s why fancier pastas often tout their use of uncoated bronze dies.
Teflon-Die Pasta = Shiny and Slick
However, many modern pastas use dies whose metal is coated with Teflon. These produce more slippery pasta. The nonstick plastic coating makes the process faster and cheaper, since they reduce friction and heat, significantly extending the life of the machinery.
When dough is passed through the slick material, it ends up with a smooth texture.
Fresh Pasta at HomeSick of the store bought stuff? Turn homemade pasta into your new favorite kitchen hobby with foolproof methods and 100+ approachable, achievable recipes.
An Observable Difference in Surface Texture
Discerning between a smooth or a more porous exterior can be challenging just by peering at the pasta in its packaging, but bronze-cut brands will often say that or “bronze-die” on the label.
But, it's not hard to tell under a microscope. I took a look at two brands of fettuccine—Ronzoni and De Cecco—to compare their textures. Sure enough, the bronze-cut De Cecco had a distinctly scaly texture when magnified and Ronzoni, which is made with Teflon dies, a smooth sheen.
De Cecco versus Ronzoni, under a microscope
Can Sandpaper Rough Up Smooth Pasta and Improve It?
So I wondered. Could I just take my rotary sander to some smooth pasta and turn it into the rough stuff? I made sure I had a nontoxic type of sandpaper (garnet, not aluminum), laid out a row of fettuccine (the least challenging pasta shape to sand), and fired up the tool.
Here’s what the Ronzoni looked like after just 10 seconds on the sander’s medium setting.
But would that texturizing change the way the surface absorbs and holds liquid?
In a pot of blue-dyed water (the test kitchen goes through gallons of this stuff each week), I boiled several marked strands of each of my fettuccines: bronze-extruded De Cecco, Teflon-extruded Ronzoni, and my artisanally hand-sanded Ronzoni sample. After 9 minutes, I removed them with tongs, spread them to cool, and then examined them.
The De Cecco’s rough surface turned a rich, appetizing blue.
The less absorbent Ronzoni shed dye like a sleek duck sheds water:
But the sandpaper-roughened Ronzoni looked much bluer, although still not quite as blue as the bronze-die stuff.
The results indicate that, yes, prepping dry pasta with sandpaper makes the surface texture more ready to absorb and hold whatever it’s doused in.
Now, are we going to start sanding our pasta for that reason? I suspect not. | <urn:uuid:4a9ed5a1-0d74-4fc0-b5da-e976e2808bd1> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://www.americastestkitchen.com/cooksillustrated/articles/6898-what-is-bronze-cut-pasta | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233506539.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20230923231031-20230924021031-00830.warc.gz | en | 0.928722 | 807 | 2.625 | 3 |
Excel's lookup functions allow you to look up values from foreign tables and lists. Take a look at our in-depth tutorials:
- How To Do A VLOOKUP: The Ultimate Guide. VLOOKUP, one of Excel's most powerful functions, is used to look up data from a foreign table. Learn how to do a VLOOKUP in this handy tutorial!
- HLOOKUP tutorial. Ever wondered whether it's possible to do a VLOOKUP horizontally rather than vertically? It's easy with the HLOOKUP function!
- Using INDEX MATCH. Learn how to use INDEX MATCH, one of Excel's most useful lookup functions.
- Using INDEX MATCH MATCH. INDEX MATCH MATCH is an extension of the popular INDEX MATCH formula, allowing lookups across both rows and columns simultaneously.
- Using VLOOKUP with multiple values. Is it possible to use the VLOOKUP function to look up a result based on multiple input values? No, but we can achieve a similar result using INDEX MATCH.
- INDEX MATCH with multiple criteria. INDEX MATCH is more powerful than you think! Use it with multiple criteria to look up a result value based on multiple columns. | <urn:uuid:1cc1a897-d2e7-4713-ad80-5b1ba4ea4f82> | CC-MAIN-2018-47 | https://www.deskbright.com/excel/lookup-functions/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-47/segments/1542039741764.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20181114082713-20181114104713-00317.warc.gz | en | 0.787319 | 264 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Wiring (ohmic) losses:
Remember that the ohmic loss goes with the square of the current, therefore of the Power !
The basic loss parameter is the resistance of the wiring: Pwirloss = Rw * I² [W or kW]
However in PVsyst the loss parameter may also be expressed as a loss percentage when running at STC.
Therefore: as an example, if we admit a system of 10 kW with a loss of 2% at STC (i.e. under 1000 W/m²):
- Under 1000 W/m2, the loss will be R * Istc² = 20 W (2 % of 10'000 W)
- Under 500 W/m2, the current will be half, the loss will be R * (Istc / 2)² = R * Istc/4 = 5 W, i.e. 1% of 5000 W
In other words, with 2% loss at STC, when running at half the power (under 500 W/m²), the relative loss will be 1% and under 250 W/m2 it will be 0.5%.
The loss has to be evaluated at each simulation time step according to the actual power, and the cumulated loss over the year will be of the order of 60% of the specified value in % of STC (depending on climate).
Transfo iron loss:
The Iron loss is a permanent loss (as soon as the transformer is connected to the grid). It is a 24/24H loss (or eventually about half of this time if you switch OFF the line connexion by night). The iron loss only depends on the grid voltage, therefore it is constant.
Only the Ohmic part of the transfo loss is related to the yield, and obeys the rule described above.
During the sizing time, the overload estimation results of a very quick and coarse calculation, using the histogram representation of the output of the array along the year.
This histogram involves global parameters like an average array temperatures for each power class, and doesn't take into account the inverter's Pnom dependency on the temperature, as well as all array losses. Moreover, it is based on the monthly irradiation values of the project's site, which may not be the same as the Meteo file's values.
Therefore, the loss estimation of this sizing tool is not quite accurate, and is often overestimated.
The referennce ("exact") value can only be obtained with the detailed hourly simulation. This gives usually lower overload losses, as all the the losses of the array are correctly taken into account.
The parameters define an unavailability duration. The unavailabîlity periods (up to 5) may be specified explicitly, or you can ask for a random distribution.
Now a failure in winter or in summer, or by clear/covered day, of by night/day, will not have the same consequences on the production of course. Therefore the energy loss is not equal to specified duration.
In the present time, it is not possible in PVsyst to specify an unavailability loss with a pre-defined annual value. | <urn:uuid:cb076daa-d23f-4373-bf80-2a5e729be6ba> | CC-MAIN-2020-29 | https://forum.pvsyst.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=253 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-29/segments/1593655880665.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20200714114524-20200714144524-00266.warc.gz | en | 0.89877 | 662 | 2.5625 | 3 |
|Henry Schwarz||Aesthetic Imperialism: Literature and the Conquest of India|
|Steven Monte||Ancients and Moderns in Mrs. Dalloway |
This article explores some ways in which Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, responds to modern and ancient works and in doing so outlines perspectives on literary history. Since its publication in 1925, critics have often compared Mrs. Dalloway to Joyce's Ulysses. There have also been many isolated comparisons between Woolf and almost any nineteenth- or twentieth-century writer one can think of: Mansfield, Pater, Eliot (George and T.S.), Proust, Austen, Tennyson. A few studies take a broader subject of comparison--the Romantics, the Renaissance, the Russians--but there has been little synthesis of this material, and rarely more than passing references to the Greeks. Bringing a wider perspective to bear on Woolf's relations with other writers can help one avoid seeing these relations solely in the light of continuity and revision. Such a perspective moreover has particular relevance for Mrs. Dalloway, whose compositional history shows that Woolf worked out her vision of the modern novel by working through her relations with contemporaries and other writers to whom she viewed herself an heir. Woolf's readings of writers ancient and modern reflect her own concerns, but her aesthetic aims and her manner of pursuing these aims change as a result of her engagement with them.
|Stephen Lewis||Love and Politics in Wyndham Lewis's Snooty Baronet |
Wyndham Lewis exhibits special concern with nonviolence and love around the time he wrote the novel Snooty Baronet (1932)--a period in which he supported first Italian fascism and Bolshevism, and then Hitlerism. How could these political commitments coincide with such a concern? Lewis struggled to respond artistically to a supposedly behaviorist sociopolitical world with a deep conviction that natural rather than aesthetic stimuli govern human behavior. This he believed had spawned an abiding passion for violence. In Snooty Baronet Lewis rearticulates social relations, especially love, in aesthetic rather than behaviorist terms. He satirizes supposed failures in contemporary efforts by Hemingway, Roy Campbell, and Henry de Montherlant to imagine alternatives to sociopolitical decadence. However, in claiming that such authors celebrate behaviorist violence, Lewis condemns reference to interiority in descriptions of human behavior, thereby signaling a proximity between behaviorist use of language and his own attention to the "surface" of things, advocated in The Art of Being Ruled (1926) as the sole means to neutralize love of violence. Snooty Baronet fights such proximity through radical use of a surface aesthetic to express "indifferent" love, but the counterintuitiveness of such love seriously undermines the effectiveness of the surface aesthetic as a mode of political engagement.
|Anita Patterson||Jazz, Realism, and the Modernist Lyric: The Poetry of Langston Hughes |
This essay examines Langston Hughes's jazz poetics within the arc of his entire career, and argues two main points. First, I suggest that Hughes's modernist predilection for experimental forms is evident even in his earliest, most documentary, realist poems, and in this respect, he challenges the critical distinction between "realism" and the "avant-garde." Second, I suggest that there are striking, and previously overlooked similarities between Hughes's techniques and those of transatlantic modernists such as Eliot and Pound. Hughes's interest in the analogy between musical and poetic forms; his fascination with cross-cultural identification and exchange; and his experiments with the improvisatory formal freedoms of jazz all show his engagement with questions shared by his high modernist contemporaries.
|Ros Ballaster||Licensing Entertainment: The Elevation of Novel Reading in Britain, 1684-1750 by William B. Warner|
|Emily Miller Budick||Color and Culture: Black Writers and the Making of the Modern Intellectual by Ross Posnock|
|Neil Lazarus||Claiming History: Colonialism, Ethnography, and the Novel by Eleni Coundouriotis|
|Ranjana Khanna||Continental Drift: From National Characters to Virtual Objects by Emily Apter|
Modern Language Quarterly | Department of English, Box 354330 |
University of Washington | Seattle, WA 98195-4430 | <urn:uuid:d10d8164-7748-4af1-9864-c5d0b4fb7fd7> | CC-MAIN-2015-40 | http://depts.washington.edu/mlq/contents/contents.php?id=61.4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-40/segments/1443737833893.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20151001221713-00058-ip-10-137-6-227.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936965 | 899 | 2.546875 | 3 |
On July 10/11, 2017, the Juno spacecraft will once again dip down over Jupiter’s cloud tops, screaming past the planet at over 200,000 kilometers per hour. It’s done this before, six times in fact, but this one will be different: It’ll pass directly over the Great Red Spot.
That’s a big deal. Literally! The iconic Great Red Spot is a vast storm in Jupiter’s southern hemisphere. Besides the wide belts and zones (darker and lighter stripes parallel to the planet’s equator), the Red Spot is the most obvious feature in Jupiter’s clouds. That’s because of its color (which varies from salmon pink to deep red over time), but also because of its ridiculously huge size: It spans 16,000 kilometers east to west. That’s wider than our entire planet Earth!
It was first discovered at least as far back as the late 1600s, and could be far older. The reason it’s persistent is that it’s an anti-cyclone, a high-pressure system. A vortex (a rotating fluid like air or water) tends to dissipate due to turbulence and friction with air around it, but it turns out* that a vortex in a fluid can be stable if the fluid it’s in is rotating as well. In other words, a spinning storm can persist because the planet it’s on is spinning too.
[Jupiter in five infrared colors shows high altitude haze over the Red Spot and poles, and several other storms dotting the clouds. Credit: Gemini Observatory/AURA/NSF/JPL-Caltech/NASA]
On Earth, hurricanes and such are powered by warm water, which causes moist air to rise. It picks up spin due to the Coriolis effect, which is because the Earth spins. They eventually die out when they pass over land and the supply of warm water disappears. But the Great Red Spot is powered by heat coming up from Jupiter’s interior, and there’s no land to pass over. It’s basically hydrogen, helium and other gases all the way down, so there’s nothing to keep the Red Spot from disappearing. Due to our Earthly prejudices that may seem odd and to violate the rules, but nevertheless, it persists.
Even though we’ve been watching it for centuries, there’s much we still don’t understand about the Great Red Spot. Why does it change color? That’s probably due to a change in atmospheric chemistry inside the storm, but why? What’s going on in detail? It also has been shrinking over the past few decades. It used to be over 40,000 km across, but in the 1970s it had shrunk to about half that size. Since Hubble’s been viewing it in the 1990s, it’s gone from 20,000 km down to about 16,000 km across. Earth is about 13,000 km across, for comparion.
So, what’s causing this shrinkage? No one knows. Perhaps the data returned from Juno this week will help us figure it out. And Juno is getting some help from Earth, too: Astronomers using the massive Gemini North telescope in Hawaii have been observing Jupiter and the spot specifically to get ready for the Juno encounter.
[Near infrared views of Jupiter's Great Red Spot (top and middle) show high altitude haze, and far infrared (bottom) shows warm lower armospheric material. Credit: Gemini Observatory/AURA/NSF/JPL-Caltech/NASA/UC Berkeley]
Gemini is tuned to observe in the infrared, colors outside the range of what the human eye can see. This is very useful! For example, clouds and high-altitude haze in Jupiter’s atmosphere are very reflective in near-infrared (colors just outside what we can see), so they appear bright, allowing astronomers to trace winds. Gemini observations of the spot in May 2017 show many intriguing features. There’s a hook-like structure off the west side of the spot that appears to be feeding a long streamer that goes north and around the spot. There are also wave patterns, ripples that weaken with distance, downstream (east, to the right) from the spot as well.
These same clouds and haze are very good at blocking longer-wavelength infrared light, the kind emitted by warm objects. Heat leaking up from the interior of Jupiter warms the air, but the IR light that gas emits is absorbed by the haze, so in those longer wavelengths the haze and clouds appear dark, and the deeper material bright. The Great Red Spot had lots of haze over it when the Gemini observations were made, so it appears dark in these far infrared images.
All of this will make for juicy targets for Juno’s cameras. The spacecraft will pass just 9,000 km above the spot’s cloud tops, and should provide a stunning view of them. I can’t wait to see them!
[A thermal infrared view of Jupiter shows clear spots allowing us to see the warmer depths glowing, while higher clouds block that warmth, appearing black. Credit: Gemini Observatory/AURA/NSF/UC Berkeley]
And today, as I post this, it’s July 4, 2017. This marks the one-year anniversary of Juno achieving orbit around the mighty planet. It was supposed to orbit the planet on a long, elliptical path twice, then fire its engines to drop it into a more circular, lower orbit. However, a problem with some helium valves on the spacecraft prevented that, and the engineers decided to keep it on its looping 54-day orbit around the planet rather than try to fire the engines and risk it getting into a less useful trajectory.
And here we are, with Juno about to plummet down again. Jupiter has intense radiation around it due to its tremendously strong magnetic field, and this will eventually destroy Juno's camera (other instruments are deeper inside the spacecraft and better protected). That will be a sad day, and it may happen as soon as the next pass over Jupiter (what scientists call perijove). But, for now, the camera appears to be working well.
So, stay tuned. In a week or so, we’ll get the best view of this gigantic storm we’ve ever had in human history.
* “Turns” out! Hahahaha! I kill me. | <urn:uuid:7d45f8fe-8387-46df-b948-de4df9bc4e02> | CC-MAIN-2020-40 | https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/get-ready-to-see-jupiters-great-red-spot-up-close-and-personal | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-40/segments/1600400189928.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20200919013135-20200919043135-00431.warc.gz | en | 0.939372 | 1,353 | 3.65625 | 4 |
Neo-Zionism is a right-wing, nationalistic and religious ideology that appeared in Israel following the Six-Day War in 1967 and the capture of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Neo-Zionists consider these lands part of Israel and advocate their settlement by Israeli Jews. Some advocate the transfer of Arabs not only from these areas but also from within the Green Line.
The term "Post-Zionism" entered Israeli discourse following the publishing of a book by Uri Ram in 1993. In the same volume, Gershom Shafir contrasted Post-Zionism with what he termed Neo-Zionism. In a widely cited 1996 essay, sociologist Uri Ram used the term Neo-Zionism to describe a political and religious ideology that developed in Israel following the 1967 Six-Day War.: 18: 67: 218 He considers it as an "exclusionary, nationalist, even racist, and antidemocratic political-cultural trend" in Israel that evolved in parallel with, and in opposition to, the left-wing politics of Post-Zionism and Labor Zionism.
Uri Ram contends that Neo-Zionism is not a new phenomenon, instead arguing that it emerged from the Six-Day War in 1967 and the conquest of Jerusalem.:121 Ram contends that Jerusalem is the symbolic capital of Neo-Zionism, while Post-Zionism is orientated around Tel Aviv.:187 It rose with the anxiety following the near loss of the 1973 war.:51
Neo-Zionists consider "secular Zionism", particularly the labor version, as too weak on nationalism and that it never understood the impossibility of Arabs and Jews living together in peace. Neo-Zionists claim that the Arab attitude to Israel is inherently rooted in anti-Semitism and that it is a Zionist illusion to think living in peace and together with them is possible. They consider Arabs in Israel to be a fifth column and to pose a demographic threat to the Jewish majority in Israel. From their point of view, the only solution for achieving peace is through "deterrence and retaliation" or preferably "transfer by agreement" of the Israeli Arabs and the Palestinian population of the occupied Palestinian Territories to neighboring Arab states.
Uri Ram characterizes both Neo-Zionism and Post-Zionism as reactions to the post-nationalist environment. For Neo-Zionism, "the weakness of Israeli Nationalism derives from his alienation of Jewish sources and culture (...). Only a new national-religious and orthodox coalition [could] cure Zionism of this moral bankruptcy". Neo-Zionists consider all areas under Israeli military control to be part of "the biblical Land of Israel".:57 Neo-Zionists assert that the goal of Jewish statehood is not only about creating a safe refuge for Jews but also about the national-historic destiny of the people of Israel in the land of Israel.
For Uri Ram, Neo-Zionism is a reinterpretation of Zionism that is religious rather than secular. Judaism, instead of being a peripheral cultural tradition, is a core element in his definition.:121 In Ram's formulation, Post-Zionism is globalist and liberal, while Neo-Zionism is local and ethno-religious. Asima Ghazi-Bouillon challenges Ram's classification of Neo-Zionism as anti-globalist. He instead sees some strains of Neo-Zionism as globalist, similar to Neo-Conservatism and Neo-Nationalism.:8 Whereas Post-Zionism was a largely unsuccessful direct challenge to Zionism, Neo-Zionism is instead a challenge to Labour Zionism.:8 Asima Ghazi-Bouillon argues that Neo-Zionism is not entirely an ethno-religious movement but also incorporates a national security discourse.:8–9
Ilan Pappé sees four currents which have contributed to Neo-Zionism’s rise: The conversion of the Haredim to Zionism; the settler movement combined with the state funding of Yeshivas; the culturally insular and economically deprived Mizrahi community; and finally the integration of Israel into the global capitalist system.
Uri Ram uses the Movement for Greater Israel:51–52 and the Gush Emunim settler movement founded in 1974 as examples of Neo-Zionism and its precursors, Gush Emunim being a hybrid of religion and nationalism.:121:51 Ram also labels parts of Likud and the National Religious Party, as well as other, smaller, splinter parties including Yisrael BaAliyah, Moledet, Tehiya and Tzomet as Neo-Zionist.:57
In the media Neo-Zionism is associated with Arutz Sheva. According to Yishai Fleisher, Arutz Sheva director of programming and founder of the Kumah neo-Zionist lobby, "Zionism is the yearning of the Jewish people to come back to the land of Israel with the creation of the Jewish commonwealth and the era of the third Temple. It's a renewal of lost values, and an answer to post-Zionism. If post-Zionism is the theory that Israel was created and the project is now finished, then neo-Zionism states that we are far from done with the project. The Jewish people are not yet back home, and we have yet to educate Jews to the concept of living a Torah life in the land of Israel."
Some associations in Israel, such as Im Tirtzu, defend Neo-Zionist ideology. Ronen Shoval, founder of the association states that "We need every Jewish heart and Zionist soul. Coordinators and activists of Im Tirtzu are hereby called to the flag. (...) [W]e will turn the Hebrew University into a Zionist society, and continue the second Zionist revolution!" His aims are "to restore Zionism to the center - for poets to poetize Zionism, for the writers to write Zionism, for academia to support Zionism and for the Ari Folmans (...) to make films about our ethos. Just as there are movies about gladiators, we will have movies about Judah Maccabee. What's wrong with that?"
According to Uri Ram, "Neo-Zionism (...) is an exclusionary, nationalist, even racist, and antidemocratic political-cultural trend, striving to heighten the fence encasing Israeli identity"; a point of view also reported by Gilbert Achcar.
According to Dana Eyal, "[her] country is hijacked by a group of racist religious Jews, who are much more of a threat to Israel than any Arab or Muslim country, including Iran". She gives the example of children of illegal immigrants born and living in Israel for years and that neo-Zionist groups want to see expelled because their presence is un-Zionistic. She thinks that "[t]his very narrow definition of Zionism dictates that Israel is and will remain a racist Jewish state" but also "that in Israel itself there is a (lazy) majority that is far from this. Zionism for us equals patriotism much like it does to Americans; wanting the best for your country, believing in its principals and defending it when necessary. Only we don't believe in many of the neo-orthodox principals popping out like mushrooms in the rain. For that matter, we no longer feel very Zionistic in an environment that embraces totality and purity of race (a calamitous similarity to things that should not be named)".
Post-Zionists have argued that Israel must choose between a Post-Zionist future and a Neo-Zionist future. Today, Israeli opinion has come to view both "Post-Zionism" and "Neo-Zionism" as pejorative slogans.:55
- Uri Ram (2010). Israeli Nationalism: Social Conflicts and the Politics of Knowledge. Routledge. p. 112.
- Ella Shohat (2006). Taboo Memories, Diasporic Voices. Duke University Press. p. 382.
- Motti Regev; Edwin Seroussi (2004). Popular Music and National Culture in Israel. University of California Press.
- Dan Leon (2004). Who's Left in Israel?: Radical Political Alternatives for the Future of Israel. Sussex Academic Press.
- Ronit Lenṭin (2000). Israel and the Daughters of the Shoah: Reoccupying the Territories of Silence. Berghahn Books.
- Uri Ram "Historiosphical Foundations of the Historical Strife in Israel" in Israeli Historical Revisionism: from left to right, Anita Shapira, Derek Jonathan Penslar, Routledge, 2002, pp.57-58.
- Ghazi-Bouillon, Asima (2009). Understanding the Middle East Peace Process: Israeli Academia and the Struggle for Identity. Routledge.
- Eran Kaplan (2015). Beyond Post-Zionism. SUNY Press.
- Uri Ram (2003). "Historiosophical Foundations of the Historical Strife in Israel". In Anita Shapira; Derek Jonathan Penslar. Israeli Historical Revisionism: From Left to Right. Psychology Press.
- Uri Ram, "The Future of the Past in Israel - A Sociology of Knowledge Approach", in Benny Morris, Making Israel, pp. 210-211.
- Uri Ram (2013). The Globalization of Israel: McWorld in Tel Aviv, Jihad in Jerusalem. Routledge. p. 234.
- Virginia Tilley (2004). The One-state Solution: A Breakthrough for Peace in the Israeli-Palestinian Deadlock. Manchester University Press. p. 155.
- "GAA player apologises over 'punch a Jew' tweet". TheJournal.ie. August 19, 2014.
- Sara Lehmann (February 10, 2010). "We Need To Put The Spirit Back Into The People: An Interview with Arutz Sheva's Yishai Fleisher". The Jewish Press.
- Cobi Ben-Simhon (June 5, 2009). "Neo-Zionism 101". Haaretz.
- Gilbert Achcar (2010). The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives. Macmillan. p. 185.
- Dana Agmon, Neo-Zionism -- Israel's True Threat, The Huffington Post, October 12, 2010.
- Ephraim Nimni (2003). "The Challenge of Post-Zionism". borderlands e-journal: Volume 2 Number 3. Retrieved July 19, 2016.
Journalistic views about Neo-Zionism
- Gershon Baskin, "Neo-Zionism, Religion, and Citizenship" Foreign Policy in Focus, September 26, 2007.
- Cobi Ben-Simhon (June 5, 2009). "Neo-Zionism 101". Haaretz.
- David Breakstone, "Zionism isn't what it used to be" The Jerusalem Post, June 21, 2009
- Dana Agmon, "Neo-Zionism -- Israel's True Threat" The Huffington Post, October 12, 2010.
- (in English) Eliezer Don-Yehiya: "Memory and Political Culture: Israeli Society and the Holocaust". ;;Studies in Contemporary Jewry 9, 1993.
- (in Hebrew) Eitan Dor-Shav: Israel Museum and the Loss of National Memory, Tkhelet, 1998.
- (in Hebrew) Avraham Levit: Israeli Art on the Way to Somewhere Else. Tkhelet 3, 1998.
- (in Hebrew) Hillel Weiss: Defamation: Israeli Literature of Elimination. Beit El, 1992. | <urn:uuid:45f517aa-7f1b-40c6-82f7-5f36b90b0a79> | CC-MAIN-2018-39 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Zionism | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-39/segments/1537267156252.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20180919141825-20180919161825-00104.warc.gz | en | 0.895863 | 2,427 | 2.59375 | 3 |
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