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Mainstreaming Climate Change Integrated Landscape Assessment, Decision-Support Process & Tool Kit: Lessons from Southeastern Ontario
This briefing document summarizes approaches used and lessons learned with a focus on identifying socioeconomic pathways for a region that formally considers the role and future of regional agriculture (including management plans and actions) by 2035.
It also considers regional adaptation and management options, including strategies to mainstream climate change planning into regional decision-making processes. The scenarios and the identified adaptation needs indicated that adapting to climate change is a multiscale and multisectoral challenge requiring coordination between agricultural policy and other sectoral approaches. These sectors include municipal, provincial and federal agencies that should be considering measures ranging from support to ecological goods and services, different types of insurance mechanisms, addressing infrastructure challenges and ensuring that agriculture also provides societal and natural benefits. This approach has implications for monitoring to ensure that mainstreaming efforts (as well as the actual change in agriculture at the landscape level) are tracked and recorded. | <urn:uuid:b1d6b7a6-baf3-4950-a2fa-edd254ab8c0b> | CC-MAIN-2018-43 | https://www.bsdglobal.com/library/mainstreaming-climate-change-integrated-landscape-assessment-decision-support-process-tool | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-43/segments/1539583511175.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20181017132258-20181017153758-00054.warc.gz | en | 0.922412 | 197 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Vail Daily column: Voles: Unsung heroes of the mountain ecosystem
November 24, 2012
Most people can recite at least a few facts about most of the exciting carnivores living in the mountains. Too often, the little guys who make it possible for those large carnivores to exist are forgotten, or worse, they are vilified for doing their ecosystem duty. The job of a vole is not glamorous, but somebody’s got to do it. Voles are often seen as garden pests, but they play an important role in the ecosystem. However, if you prefer they not be a part of your garden ecosystem, there are strategies for nonlethal vole exclusion.
Voles are common rodents throughout North America. Though they are often called meadow mice or field mice, voles can be distinguished from true mice by their short tail, stocky build and small eyes. Most voles are strictly herbivorous, while moles are insectivores. Voles are small pudgy, brown rodents that weigh between 0.8 and 3 ounces and measure between 4 and 8.5 inches in length. They have blunt faces with small eyes, small ears, short legs and usually a short, hairless tail.
Females are ready to breed when they are three weeks old and can have as many as 12 litters per year, with three to 10 babies per litter. Individual life expectancy is three to six months.
As generalists, voles are not picky eaters. They prefer young succulent plants but will change their diet based on what is available. Voles are active day and night, year-round, and can consume almost their entire weight in plant material daily. These voracious little eaters have a very important niche in the local ecosystem, turning plant material into meat and making that energy available for carnivores such as foxes, coyotes, bobcats, owls, hawks, weasels, skunks and badgers. Voles spend the winter in the subnivean zone, carrying on life under the snow.
Often at odds with their human counterparts, voles are nature’s little gardeners. As they gobble up plants, the waste they leave behind returns nutrients to the soil, increasing fertility. The telltale tunnels through which the voles travel serve to aerate the soil, mixing in air and water.
For the very same reasons voles are important to their ecosystem, they have become the bane of existence for many gardeners and turf managers. Although rodenticides do little to decrease vole populations in the long term due to their high fecundity and fumigants are rendered useless by the voles’ clever burrow system, there are successful nonlethal behavioral controls. In fact, the fall is the best time to act by cutting back vegetation and discouraging voles by removing their habitat. Another option is to encourage predators and participate in the food web. Perhaps one day we will all understand our niche in the ecosystem and be able to appreciate the small, unsung heroes that make it all possible.
Jessica Foulis is a natural science educator at Walking Mountains Science Center. She strives to awaken a sense of wonder in the children who participate in her field programs. In her free time, she enjoys playing outside with her dog and skiing and is an avid vole enthusiast. | <urn:uuid:ceda0cea-cb14-4e48-ae8d-d1ef19a46511> | CC-MAIN-2017-26 | http://www.vaildaily.com/news/vail-daily-column-voles-unsung-heroes-of-the-mountain-ecosystem/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-26/segments/1498128320057.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20170623114917-20170623134917-00252.warc.gz | en | 0.957447 | 690 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Electric utilities maximize utilization of their assets, while maintaining reliability. Power transformers are typically reliable, but have been known to fail suddenly and/or prematurely. Transformer failures are both costly and can leave customers dissatisfied, harming the reputation of a utility. Common events or conditions that can lead to a transformer failure include lightning or switching impulses, sustained overvoltage, short circuits on the electric system, overloading, overheating, dielectric breakdown of the insulating oil due to aging or impurities or mechanical defects. When these events occur, a field team can be called out to conduct an investigation into the transformer failure. The team would take pictures and investigate the scene for clues. From this information, they would commission a preliminary report and propose several initial hypotheses that could explain the failure. The goal of this investigation would be to answer the question of “what really happened”. Was the failure caused by a system issue, specification issue, manufacturing issue, design issue or maintenance issue?
Getting to “why”
It is important for a failure analysis team to be multidisciplinary – the transformer failure is typically the result of a combination of mechanical, electrical, chemical and/or material factors.
The most effective analysis team that a person could hope for would not only contain the necessary multidisciplinary expertise, but would also consist of members with an applied knowledge of transformer operation, design, and performance behavior. The team would also want to consider access to comprehensive testing capabilities.
Powertech advertisement in the issue:
“The Power Of Trust. The Future of Energy” | <urn:uuid:ab4ea3af-d38e-499d-81ca-136f0303ef30> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.electricity-today.com/power-transformers/power-transformer-failures | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030334987.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20220927033539-20220927063539-00052.warc.gz | en | 0.949345 | 322 | 2.671875 | 3 |
One of the many issues I explored in Johnny Appleseed and the American Orchard was the question of John Chapman’s alleged vegetarianism. While I discovered some evidence that Chapman was not a vegetarian in his earlier years, he probably adopted a vegetarian diet later in life. In my efforts to contextualize Chapman’s alleged abstention from animal flesh, and speculate on its origins, I found an intriguing connection between Chapman’s religious disposition towards Swedenborgianism and the origins of American vegetarianism. For more on Chapman’s Swedenborgian religious beliefs read chapter four of Johnny Appleseed, or this blog post.
While Emanuel Swedenborg did not call for believers to adopt a vegetarian diet, he did portray the move toward a meat-centered diet as a symbol of man’s fall from paradise. Genesis 1:29-30 appears to endorse the idea that plants, not animals were God’s chosen food for man. Swedenborg argued that with man’s expulsion from the Garden, “man became cruel, like wild beasts, yea more cruel, first they began to kill animals and eat their flesh.” But Swedenborg did not conclude that God intended for man to abandon meat-eating. As post-Edenic man had developed a cruel nature, meat-eating was part of their fallen state, and therefore permitted.
Swedenborg’s writings on meat-eating nonetheless inspired some of the early English Swedenborgians to embrace a vegetarian diet. This splinter group of Swedenborgians came to be known as the Bible Christians, and they migrated to Philadelphia, a city that already had an active group of meat-eating Swedenborgians, in 1817. Over time, the Bible Christians dispensed with their Swedenborgian identity, and abstinence from both animal flesh and alcohol became their defining creed.
I of course was eager to determine whether Chapman’s probable shift to vegetarianism late in life was inspired by his reading of Bible Christian literature. It was impossible for me to establish any direct connection, but we know that Chapman was a voracious reader, and especially attracted to books and pamphlets on religious subjects. Furthermore, the Swedenborgian literature he freely distributed on the Ohio frontier he acquired from Philadelphia Swedenborgians. Chapman may have independently settled on a vegetarian diet after reading Swedenborg’s explanation of man’s fall.
Johnny Appleseed and the American Orchard was late in the production stages when I learned that historian Adam Schprintzen was completing The Vegetarian Crusade: The Rise of an American Reform Movement, 1817-1921. In that book, Schprintzen identifies the Philadelphia Bible Christians as the progenitors of a proto-vegetarian movement in the United States. I reached out to Dr. Schprintzen and he eagerly answered my questions about the Bible Christians and their connection to the Swedenborgian movement. When the Vegetarian Crusade was published, I immediately ordered a copy and read it.
The Vegetarian Crusade is an important book, and does an excellent job explaining the origins of American vegetarianism and its evolution across its first century. It should be on the bookshelf of every scholar of antebellum American history. Schprintzen sets the early movement in the context of antebellum reform. Early advocates of abstinence from meat, like all reformers of the era, understood their actions as part of a greater movement to improve society, to cleanse it from its sins, and for some, to help usher in Christ’s millennium. They drew connections between their movement and other reforms–non-violence, anti-slavery, women’s equality, and health to name just a few. Schprintzen does an excellent job explaining these connections in the years before the Civil War and in helping us understand the beliefs of these proto-vegetarians.
But that is just the first part of the Vegetarian Crusade. Schprintzen offers his readers much more that that, mapping out a clear and persuasive narrative explaining how we get from this antebellum proto-vegetarians to modern vegetarianism. That narrative introduces us to nationally-famous health reformer Sylvester Graham, a campaigner against white bread and advocate of a high fiber but bland and meatless diet, the emergence of the American Vegetarian Society in 1850, and explains how the Civil War and the post-war commercialization of a vegetarian diet by John Harvey Kellogg and others in the late 19th and early 20th century. It has been my intention to write a thorough review of Vegetarian Crusade and post it on this blog. Perhaps I will eventually find the time to give this excellent book the thorough review it deserves, but in the meantime, I’d like to point you to a place where you can learn more.
This week podcaster Liz Covart released an episode of her Ben Franklin’s World podcast that is a conversation with Adam Schprintzen, author of The Vegetarian Crusade. If you are not familiar with the Ben Franklin’s World podcast, now is the time subscribe and start listening. Every week Covart interviews an author of a recent book on Early American History. These are extended and lively conversations about important books. I can’t think of a better way to quickly get yourself caught up with the most important new scholarship on Early American History than listening to Ben Franklin’s World. Covart’s conversation with Adam Schprintzen is the 44th interview to appear on Ben Franklin’s World in just the first year of the podcast. Ben Franklin’s World just surpassed a quarter million downloads, and has been picked up by Spotify as well. Start listening to it now so you can say, “I was listening to BFW back when only the coolest people knew about it.” | <urn:uuid:f9f46820-f6c2-4cd9-9b9b-bc066fd05268> | CC-MAIN-2019-47 | https://americanorchard.wordpress.com/category/apples/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-47/segments/1573496665726.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20191112175604-20191112203604-00411.warc.gz | en | 0.954508 | 1,195 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Over 50 species of mammals live in Shenandoah National Park. Virtually all park visitors see some mammals, such as white-tailed deer and gray squirrels. Others, like the big brown bat, striped and spotted skunks are more elusive, remaining largely out of sight until darkness falls. Black bears and bobcats, though active during the day, seem to remain hidden deep in the forest. The smallest mammals (moles, voles, and shrews) found in the park are rarely seen because they spend much of their lives underground or hidden under leaves and low growing plants. Careful observation should bring rewards in finding most of the wild inhabitants of the park.
Just as the number and distribution of mammals varies somewhat from year to year, the number of species present in the park changes over time. Coyotes, an adaptable predator not native to Virginia, are continuing to expand their range eastward and have been documented in the park. In addition, although not substantiated by park staff observations, reports of cougar sightings are received regularly from the public. Cougars, believed to have been eliminated from the park decades ago, may be recovering naturally or may have expanded into the park from re-introductions elsewhere. | <urn:uuid:d7a9d411-e37e-445c-ac72-fc011da4628e> | CC-MAIN-2019-39 | https://www.us-parks.com/shenandoah-national-park/mammals.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-39/segments/1568514572980.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20190917000820-20190917022820-00420.warc.gz | en | 0.964322 | 246 | 3.734375 | 4 |
By Loretta Jay, Foods Matter, September 2008 ~ Jack didn’t sleep more than ten minutes at a time during his first eight months of life. He cried constantly until he was two and his screams led his grandmother to refer to him as the ‘baby from hell’. Horrible eczema covered his arms, neck and face; his face oozed puss. Michele Friedman, Jack’s mother, was a practicing psychotherapist. A new mother, but seasoned in life, her gut told her that there was something terribly wrong – that his screams were provoked by pain. Jack’s doctors didn’t support this theory, maintaining that he was simply colicky. Even her suggestion that Jack’s diet could be the cause was rebuffed. It wasn’t until his second anaphylactic reaction, at two years of age, that Jack tested positive for the top eight food allergens, as well as apples and melons. Jack was hurting, and food allergies were responsible.
An increasing number of people are experiencing numerous food allergies: not just nuts and milk or eggs, but many other foods as well. Some of these people have something called eosinophilic gastrointestinal disorders (EGID). Most EGIDs are triggered by food and environmental allergens. When exposed to an
offending trigger, symptoms resemble gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Other symptoms include vomiting in children or food impaction in adults.
Pathologically, white blood cells called eosinophils develop in the gastrointestinal tract indicating a problem. If eosinophils are present in the esophagus the disease is called eosinophilic esophagitis (EE). Eosinophils in the stomach is called eosinophilic gastritis (EG), and if they permeated the large intestine, eosinophilic colitis (EC). Finally, if eosinophils affect the stomach and/or the small intestine it is called
eosinophilic gastroenteritis and eosinophilic enteritis.
EGIDs are a new disease, first identified in the 1970s, and formally recognised only 20 years ago. At that time they were thought to be extremely rare, only affecting one in 20,000-100,000. The diagnosis rate has steadily increased, with EE now affecting one in 2,500 children and adults. It remains unclear whether a growing awareness of the disease is affecting the rate of diagnosis, or if there is an actual increase in
the number of people with the disorder.
The varied presentation of symptoms can make it challenging to identify and categorise EGIDs. Symptoms affect different people in different ways. Jack has anaphylactic reactions to peanuts, eggs, shellfish and garlic. Other foods, including wheat, dairy, chicken and beef give him stomach aches, headaches, vomiting, sore throat, trouble swallowing and gagging. Like many other people with EGIDs, Jack also experiences asthma, eczema and rhinitis symptoms.
Most children experience heartburn and regurgitation and other reflux symptoms that may not resolve completely with acid blocking medications (ie Lansoprazole, Esomeprazole). Young children who are unable to express how they are feeling may resist eating or refuse food altogether. Nausea, vomiting and stomach aches are also common, as is difficulty swallowing or food getting stuck in the esophagus.
Dysphagia (difficulty swallowing) and food impaction are the most common symptoms for adults with EE.
The Center for Pediatric Eosinophilic Disorders at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) has the largest number of clinical patients with EE in the world. Dr Chris Liacouras, the co-Director at CHOP’s Eosinophilic clinic, said that physicians are beginning to see the same symptoms for children and adults. Varied symptoms are now being recognised in different age groups and therefore diagnosed more readily
across the spectrum.
A diagnosis of an eosinophilic disorder requires a physician’s confirmation of the symptoms, coupled with an analysis of biopsies taken during an endoscopy. Scoping, as the endoscopy is referred to informally, is performed when a gastroenterologist puts an endoscope (a thin tube with a video camera at the end), through the person’s mouth and into the targeted GI area; the patient is sedated during the procedure. Tissue samples, or biopsies, are taken ofthe different parts of the GI tract. Although a normal esophagus
has no eosinophils, the American Gastroenterological Association’s consensus recommendation concluded that 15 eosinophils per high powered field is the current criterion for an eosinophilic diagnosis. (Gastroenterology, 2007;133:1342-1363.) A few eosinophils may be present with untreated reflux, so patients are typically placed on a reflux medication prior to the scope, to avoid any confusion with GERD.
Eosinophilic food allergies may be IgE-mediated, causing an immediate and sometimes anaphylactic reaction. They may also be cell mediated, resulting in a delayed hypersensitivity. One study (Assa’ad et al, Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 2007; 119: 3,731-738) found a nearly three-year lag between the onset of symptoms and the first endoscopy. The researchers interpreted this to mean that it wasn’t the severity of the symptoms that led to the scoping, but their duration.
Some people are able to figure out what foods trigger a reaction for them, and modify their diet on their own – without securing a diagnosis. Dr Liacouras explained that if someone is experiencing EGID, it is important to obtain an accurate diagnosis, and not self-manage by restricting one’s diet. For example, he said that about 50% of those with EG have an autoimmune problem, which means that their antibodies are attacking their own body in an attempt to rid it of the toxin. Others may have internal tissue damage due to unknown allergens without any overt symptoms.
If the eosinophilic disorder is identified early, Dr Liacouras believes that the likelihood of long-term problems, such as strictures or morbidity is low. One quarter of those affected have intermittent symptoms,
another quarter have long-term or exasperated symptoms, and the rest fall somewhere in between.
EGIDs are chronic, although patients’ state may fluctuate: sometimes they are stable and other times not. A recurrence is defined as the reappearance of symptoms and eosinophils in a patient who was previously stable, with a restricted diet under control and no eosinophilic infiltration apparent in the affected
area of the gastrointestinal tract. When this occurs, the cause, or new allergens, must be identified and eliminated. In a patient who is unable to resolve the presentation of symptoms the disease is considered persistent.
Because EGIDs affect the gastrointestinal system, but are typically mediated by allergy, they are dually managed by an allergist and a gastroenterologist. The general treatment for EGIDs is removing the offending foods from one’s diet. Frequently the challenge is figuring out what the offending foods are.
Skin prick tests are a fairly common method used to identify allergens. Many people don’t have an immediate reaction to an allergen, and don’t test positive with skin prick testing (SPT). Some eosinophilic research centers in the US are now using atopy patch testing (APT). APT was initially used in Europe for patients with eczema. Spergel et al (Allergy Asthma Immunology 2005; 95:336-343) found that 77% of EE patients improved after six weeks on a restricted diet when patch testing was used in conjunction with SPT to determine what the allergens were. Despite this favourable response, Dr Liacouras explained that patch testing is not reliable, in part because it is not standardised, so the results differ from location to location. The testing is conducted by mixing commercially available food product (milk, dried whole egg powder, tomato, corn, etc) with saline to make a paste. After mixing, the food paste is applied to the skin of the upper back and removed and scored between 48 to 72 hours.
The children in Assa’ad et al’s 2007 study had as many as 62 food allergens and 11 indoor and outdoor environmental allergens, as identified by SPTs. With so many potential allergens, trial and error is not a realistic method to figure out the problematic foods. It is hoped that in three to five years APT will be commercially manufactured so that its results will be consistent and it can be widely used.
While some people with EGIDs have many allergens, others may have only one or two. If testing is not conclusive, other methods to identify the allergens are needed. One such method is an elimination diet, where the patient’s food intake is limited to five or six foods. Very gradually, one food at a time is introduced. After each food introduction the patient is scoped, to check for eosinophils.
Depending on the number of determined allergens, a patient’s diet may be severely restricted and he may have a difficult time getting a nutritionally balanced diet, or enough calories. Amino-acid based formulas like Neocate or Elecare may be taken to supplement the diet or be used as a sole source of nutrition. Since these formulas are not very palatable a feeding tube is sometimes surgically implanted into the stomach and the formula directly ingested.
While currently no medication completely resolves the symptoms of EGIDs, some drugs do help. Antacids and proton pump inhibitors that treat GERD alleviate some symptoms. Systemic (prednisone) and topical (inhaled through a metered dose) corticosteroids have resolved acute symptoms of EE, but when the medication is discontinued the disease’s signs return. (Gastroenterology, 2007)
Jack, now a charming 12 year old boy, is an articulate and animated speaker. During the interview for this article he conveyed a positive outlook toward the bi-monthly endoscopies. Jack is clearly a partner in the team made up of his family and physicians. He is currently on a trial of an intranasal corticosteroid; he’ll be scoped again to determine if the medication alleviated his symptoms presumably caused by environmental allergens. After the medication’s effectiveness is determined, a food challenge is planned: apples. Six to eight weeks eating apples and he’ll be scoped again.
The emotional toll of EGIDs on a patient and his or her family is great. It is tough for someone to manage one or two food allergies. Challenges increase with each additional forbidden food. Creativity in the kitchen is a must, as is support from friends and family. Fortunately, today there are support groups, chat rooms and a gradual increase in awareness.
Beth Mays knows how important support and awareness are. When her son, Charlie, was diagnosed with EG his doctor told her there was nothing credible to be gained from consulting the Internet. Beth took the challenge and in 2001 she founded the American Partnership for Eosinophilic Disorders (APFED).
Now with 875 members from more than 10 countries, the organisation provides accurate information to members, advocates for education and awareness of EGIDs, and raises money for research. APFED’s website receives 1,500 hits a day and its 400 pages translate into 14 languages.
APFED successfully sought legislation to declare the third week of May National Eosinophilic Awareness Week in the USA. The group was the driving force behind the currently pending proposal in the United States to develop unique ICD-9 codes for EGIDs. Dedicated ICD-9 codes allow physicians to standardise
patient diagnosis. This information greatly enhances re searchers ability to classify, track and report patients with EGIDs, and consequently to develop new treatments and improve awareness.
Disbelief that there was no cure for the disease that was affecting her daughter, Ellyn Kodroff was driven to establish the Campaign Urging Research for Eosinophilic Diseases (CURED) in 2004. CURED recently raised over $600,000 USD, all earmarked for research. Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, a recipient of some of these funds, will pursue the identification of eosinophilic markers in the digestive system; their goal is to support diagnosis via blood work instead of an endoscopy.
Dr Liacouras said that researchers continue to explore whether those with eosinophilic disorders are predisposed genetically, if there is a trigger that causes the disorder to kick into gear or if people are born with the disease. The disease’s progression is also being explored, including tissue changes such as fibrosis (scar tissue formation). Medications to treat the effects, such as anti-IL5, are also on the horizon. Researchers in Australia have been involved with clinical research for several years, and in Italy, Spain and England they are just starting to get interested. With growing interest in EGID, those on the forefront of the disease are optimistic that the research and increased awareness will yield positive results.
APFED – Support, awareness, education, research, chat room www.apfed.org
CURED – Research and awareness www.curedfoundation.org
FABED – Support, awareness, chat room for families in the UK www.fabed.co.uk
Loretta Jay is president of Parasol, a US consulting organisation that specialises in the management of food allergies. www.parasolservices.com | <urn:uuid:65c4751d-f496-4b04-8340-dd6505f00423> | CC-MAIN-2021-04 | https://www.godairyfree.org/news/nutrition-headlines/eosinophilic-gastrointestinal-disorders-2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-04/segments/1610703524858.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20210121132407-20210121162407-00393.warc.gz | en | 0.955478 | 2,908 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Source: Communist Review, June 1922, Vol. 3, No. 2.
Publisher: Communist Party Great Britain
Transcription/Markup: Brian Reid
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2007). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
The A.B.C. of Communism
By N. Buharin and E. Preobrazhensky.
Translated from the Russian by Eden and Cedar Paul.
422 pages. 3s. paper covers. 6s. cloth covers.
Communist Party, 16, King Street, London, W.C. 2.
THE publication of this book has been awaited with great interest. It is nothing more or less, as the title indicates, than a popular encyclopædia of Communism. The volume is divided into two parts; one deals with Communist theory and the other with the practical implications of the proletarian revolution. Beginning with an outline on the Communist Party programme, the book gives a brilliant outline of Marxian Economics which is dealt with in the most elementary language. The opening chapters would make an admirable reading lesson for groups entering upon a study of Economics.
Having analysed the essence of capitalism the authors pass on to a detailed examination regarding the upbuilding of Communism. This will be of the utmost importance to British readers. We cannot know too much of the experiences of the Russian revolution. We cannot spend too much time studying the trials and struggles of the Russian masses to build up the Soviet Republic. The Russian revolution has been one of the greatest happenings in history, and it behoves us to watch how the Soviets came into being and how they carried out their various functions during the intense moments of revolutionary crisis.
Before the revolutionary days of 1917 the Communist movement was based upon a series of theoretical assumptions which had never been tested by concrete experiences. The supreme value, therefore, of the A.B.C. is that the larger part of it deals with the practical problems which naturally arise in the destruction of the political power of the propertied class. Here we read of the actual and every day happenings of the revolution in its historic task of stamping out the old and creating the new. How far off seem the old days when the various aspects of the social revolution were set forth, theoretically, in a pamphlet or on a blackboard? We are now in a new world. Communism no longer means a series of conclusions based upon certain theoretical concepts; it has now become a definite policy in practice, it has descended from the sky of speculation and has become something of this earth earthy.
Step by step the authors show the need for the conquest of All Power by the masses. Never before has the reason for the dictatorship of the proletariat been so clearly and so convincingly stated. It is shown why a parliamentary government cannot emancipate the workers and why the Soviets not only embody the class-might of the masses but also supply the machinery for conducting the work of reconstructing the new social order. Problems of nationality, military organisation, education, religion, hygiene, etc., are faced and dealt with. The importance of industrial and agricultural organisation is examined in detail.
It is impossible to give any adequate idea of the scope of this great work. One might as well attempt to sum up the contents of the “Encyclopædia Britannica” in a short article as attempt to set forth the detailed contents of the A.B.C. in a brief review. We can only urge our readers to buy the book and read it for themselves. It should be made a standing rule in the Party for every member to read the A.B.C. and for every branch to discuss it. It is the largest and most important book yet published by the Communist Party. It is well printed in good large round type, and as it contains 427 pages it is the best 3s. book at present before the reading public. The translation has been splendidly done by Eden and Cedar Paul, who have also prepared a good index and a bibliography.
Send in your order now! | <urn:uuid:dd141e3f-3e34-40b6-be22-dca271d7264a> | CC-MAIN-2014-23 | http://www.marxists.org/archive/paul-william/reviews/1922/06/abc.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-23/segments/1405997860453.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20140722025740-00105-ip-10-33-131-23.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954255 | 855 | 2.546875 | 3 |
The flu (short for influenza) is an extremely contagious respiratory illness that typically hits during the winter season through early spring. It is caused by a group of influenza viruses and develops quickly, unlike colds, which progress more slowly, and tend to come on at any time of the year.
The flu virus attacks the body by spreading through the upper and/or lower respiratory tract. Most patients with the flu will recover on their own without medical care. But in some cases, the flu can be life-threatening, and so it’s important to know how to recognize signs of a flu emergency.
When to visit Clear Choice Emergency Room:
If you experience any one of the below symptoms, it is important to undergo an assessment by one of our critically-trained physicians at Clear Choice Emergency Room before your flu leads to a condition that can become deadly, such as pneumonia. Red flag symptoms include:
- Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
- Mental confusion or sudden dizziness
- Getting better, then spiking a fever and developing a worsening cough
- Chest or abdominal pain
- Purple or blue lips
- Persistent vomiting
In children, emergency symptoms include:
- Fast breathing or trouble breathing.
- Bluish skin color.
- Not drinking enough fluids.
- Not waking up or not interacting.
- Being so irritable that the child does not want to be held.
- Flu-like symptoms that improve, but then return with a fever and worse cough.
- Fever with a rash.
People who are at high risk for flu complications include young children, people ages 65 and over, pregnant women and people with chronic conditions. If people in this “high-risk” group develop flu-like symptoms, the CDC recommends they should receive treatment with antiviral medications early in the course of their illness.
Head to Clear Choice Emergency Room for high-quality medical care, without the long-wait times typical of most hospital emergency rooms. We’re open seven days a week, 365 days a year, and at any given time, you will be seen by a board certified, highly experienced emergency care physician. | <urn:uuid:9fb112ce-a62e-4fbb-bfa3-1b57e971af88> | CC-MAIN-2019-43 | https://www.clearchoiceer.com/services/flu-and-flu-like-symptoms/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-43/segments/1570986682037.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20191018104351-20191018131851-00026.warc.gz | en | 0.93733 | 441 | 3.46875 | 3 |
Mark Le Messurier, New Year 2019, educator workshop 7 of 12
The 'ART' of developing relational language patterns
The power of words; how they can help, hinder or hurt relationships and authority (3 hours)
This explicit and practical session pulls together all 4 'personal and social capabilities' from the Australian Curriculum, in a way that might surprise you. The 'ART' of using constructive language patterns, especially in stressful moments, is a significant challenge in schools, in our families and in the wider community. If we're truly committed to coaching students to become more self-aware, and to manage themselves better socially and emotionally, then placing an emphasis on how to perform healthy relational language patterns has got to be our starting point. What about you?
This workshop highlights, with exercises, our communication styles with each other. It examines the words and gestures we choose to use. Some that signal an intention to resolve differences with dignity. Others that signal an intention to seize power, win and promote shame in others.
I think the 'ART' of developing constructive language styles is both challenging and too easily overlooked. We can, and we need to, do so much better. It starts with us understanding what relational language patterns are, how to use them and how to maintain a relational approach in the face of a personal attack. It also demands that we teach the young people in our care to do this.
Educator workshops are intended for staff working in schools, for clinicians such as counsellors, psychologists, OT's, speech pathologists, social workers and youth workers working in private practice and for parents running home school. To arrange a workshop at a time that suits your staff, simply contact Mark:
Mark Le Messurier
Phone (08) 83320698, | <urn:uuid:6cce855d-b0ca-47d2-bcfe-16b69b00eb72> | CC-MAIN-2021-17 | https://marklemessurier.com.au/main/workshops/teacher/presentation7.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-17/segments/1618039491784.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20210420214346-20210421004346-00114.warc.gz | en | 0.937372 | 365 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Tobacco users had a 50% higher risk for Alzheimer's, Dutch study finds
TUESDAY, Sept. 4 (HealthDay News) -- Current smokers are 50 percent more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease or dementia than people who don't smoke or who gave up smoking, a Dutch report says.
Researchers announced these results after analyzing seven years of data from almost 7,000 people over age 55.
Over the course of the study, 706 people developed dementia. People who were smokers during the study were 50 percent more likely to develop dementia than people who had never smoked or were former smokers, according to the researchers, who published their findings in the Sept. 4 issue of Neurology.
"Smoking increases the risk of cerebrovascular disease, which is also tied to dementia," study author Dr. Monique Breteler, of Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, said in a prepared statement. "Another mechanism could be through oxidative stress, which can damage cells in the blood vessels and lead to hardening of the arteries. Smokers experience greater oxidative stress than nonsmokers, and increased oxidative stress is also seen in Alzheimer's disease."
Oxidative stress occurs when there are too many waste products from chemical reactions in the body. Dietary antioxidants can fight those waste products, known as free radicals, but Breteler said that smokers are also known to have fewer antioxidants in their diets than nonsmokers.
The researchers also studied the way that smoking affects the risk of Alzheimer's disease for people who carry the related gene. They found that smoking did not increase the risk for those with the gene for Alzheimer's disease, but it did increase the risk for people without the gene. Current smokers without the gene were 70 percent more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease than nonsmokers or former smokers without the gene.
To learn more about smoking cessation, visit the American Cancer Society Guide to Quitting Smoking.
-- Madeline Vann
SOURCE: American Academy of Neurology, news release, Sept. 3, 2007
All rights reserved | <urn:uuid:ea60f971-4b10-4d1e-ab2b-461f0a83ada7> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news-1/Smokers-More-Likely-to-Develop-Dementia-424-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719468.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00492-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970885 | 424 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Did you make a New Year's Resolution last month? How are you doing with it? If you are still working on it then you are doing better than 80% of America. According to U.S. News, approximately 80% of resolutions fail by the second week of February.
Why is it so hard to keep our motivation? How is it by February, less than 30 days from making a goal, we give up on ourselves.
The answer is simple. Achieving goals is completely doable. But there are some tricks and tools involved. The only difference between a goal achiever and nonachiever is that they have a better skill set on how to manage their brains.
When you introduce a new goal, your brain will resist. Your brain likes to rinse and repeat. It doesn't like to use the new energy it takes to complete a new goal.ocess.
When you introduce a new goal, your brain will resist. Your brain like to rinse and repeat. It doesn't like to use the new energy it takes to complete a new goal.
So to conserve energy your brain will send your new goals packing as soon as it can. It will continue to send you thoughts (red lights) why this new goal will not work. Your lower brain can be very convincing. The trick is to learn how to manage your lower brain.
Let me tell you how I learned to manage these 'red lights' and how I finally made exercise a permeant habit.
This is a skill that everybody can obtain with these 3 strategies:
#1 Live intentionally for 60 days
The first step is to write down the goal and put it somewhere you can see it daily. This starts a new neuron pathway in your brain.
Calendar the time for exercise every week. Treat your calendar like your boss. Honor your commitment to yourself, make it non-negotiable.
#2 Make a list of your obstacles and strategies.
The second step is to write down all the obstacles that you will have.
For example, mine was six kids, I hated running, the gym classes being full, etc. Spend some time on these, because your brain will come up with a lot of reasons why you can't do it.
From your obstacle list, make your strategies.
Your brain will try to tell you all the reasons why something won't work but give your brain a chance, it can be equally creative with how to get it done. Give it a chance and every time your brain says "I don't know", take a guess.
Remember your brain has all the answers, just give it a chance.
For example, because of the six kids, I needed to pick a gym with good daycare. I hated running, so I took classes and learned what exercise I liked. If the classes were full and I had to run, then I saved the book on tape for the treadmill, this way my brain had something to look forward to.
#3 The Daily Compound Effect
The third step is to continue to manage your brain. Just because you have figured out all your strategies doesn't mean your brain will stop sending you red lights. The daily work is key here.
In the first 60 days of my goal, my brain sent me a lot of red lights. Then one day I realized, I didn't have to force myself. It was starting to become a habit, and a habit I really enjoyed. I stopped even noticing the red lights.
The weekly compound effect of committing to this goal changed my thoughts about exercise.
Ten years later and I still exercise at least four times a week. Exercise has become an integral part of my life and how I feel. My brain has learned that it is a non-negotiable commitment to myself.
If you have a goal you want to accomplish, schedule an introductory coaching session with me. In one session I can give you the tools and framework to accomplish your goal.
Don't become another February statistic, learn how to be in control of your life vs. being at "the effect' of your life, you will be blown away with your own amazement! | <urn:uuid:f2fa6f3b-4e68-41c7-8e1a-c7a2dd05e9a2> | CC-MAIN-2020-40 | https://www.jeniehuntercoaching.com/post/how-to-turn-your-exercise-goal-into-a-permanent-habit | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-40/segments/1600400250241.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20200927023329-20200927053329-00061.warc.gz | en | 0.974308 | 850 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Frequently Asked Questions About Orthodontics
What is an orthodontist?
An orthodontist is a dental specialist who has received two to three years of additional training. Your orthodontist is able to straighten teeth, correct misaligned jaw structure and improve the function of your smile.
What age should an orthodontist see my child?
The American Associate of Orthodontists recommends that your child be evaluated by age 7. Early detection of some orthodontic problems is important in order to take early corrective action and avoid difficulties later on.
How do I know if my child is need of orthodontic treatment?
It is usually difficult to determine if treatment is necessary for your child. There are several problems that can occur even though your child’s teeth look straight. Additionally, there are some problems that look intimidating and complex which will resolve on their own. Asking your general dentist is a good place to start, but your orthodontist is your best resource.
What are braces?
Braces are used by your orthodontist to help improve the look and feel of your smile. There are many different types of braces to choose from including: clear braces, ceramic braces, traditional metal braces, invisible braces, self-litigating braces, and lingual braces.
Can you be too old for braces?
No, age is not a factor, only the health of your gums and bones that support your teeth.
How long do I need to wear braces, if I get them?
There is no definitive answer for the amount of time spent in braces; it varies on the individual client. Every smile responds differently to treatment. Standard treatment takes about 22 months and can vary between 6-30 months.
Do braces hurt?
Braces do not often hurt, though you may feel a small amount of discomfort for a couple of days as your teeth, gums, cheeks and mouth get used to your new braces.
Do I need to brush my teeth more often if I have braces?
Brushing regularly will help remove any food that may be caught between the braces. You should brush your teeth at least 3 times a day to keep your teeth, gums and mouth healthy and clean.
Can I still have braces if I have missing teeth?
Yes. When teeth are missing, adjacent teeth will drift into an empty space. This will cause a functional, esthetic or periodontal problem. Orthodontic treatment will correct and prevent these problems to provide proper alignment for your dentist to replace the missing tooth.
If I have braces, do I still need dental checkups every six months?
Yes, in fact it is even more important that patients receiving orthodontic treatment visit their dentist regularly. With braces, food may be caught in places that your toothbrush can’t reach. This will result in bacteria build up that can lead to cavities, gingivitis, and gum disease. Your dentist will work closely with your orthodontist to make sure that your teeth stay healthy while wearing braces.
Will my braces interfere with my school activities?
Playing an instrument or a contact sport may require some adjustment when you first get your braces. However, wearing braces will not stop you from participating in any type of school activity. If you play a contact sport, it is recommended that you wear a mouth guard to protect your braces.
How do I properly take care of my teeth while wearing braces or a retainer?
- Remember to ALWAYS brush your teeth after EVERY meal.
- Floss at least once a day.
- Make sure to use toothpaste that contains fluoride, and ask your orthodontist or general dentist if you need a fluoride rinse.
- If you take out your retainer to eat, make sure you brush your teeth, floss and remember to keep it in safe container.
- Keep your retainer clean by brushing it gently with a toothbrush or toothpaste. You may also soak it in denture cleaner. Do NOT ever put your retainer in boiling water or the dishwasher.
- Try to avoid foods with a lot of sugar, which increases the amount of bacteria that grows in your mouth, causing plaque and may lead to cavities.
- Avoid sticky and chewy foods such as caramel, gum and certain candies. Also, avoid hard foods such as hard candy, nuts and ice cubes. Foods that can stuck in your braces such as corn on the cob, soft bagels, ribs and taffy are good idea to pass on as well.
- Be sure to schedule your routine checkups with your family dentist every six months. | <urn:uuid:ecca730b-ee0f-45d6-8560-87eeb1ff8d30> | CC-MAIN-2017-34 | https://www.oakbrookortho.com/about-orthodontics/orthodontic-faqs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-34/segments/1502886124662.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20170823225412-20170824005412-00070.warc.gz | en | 0.945722 | 963 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Thursday, July 17, 2014
The exposure of evil
Why did the devil attack Jesus, knowing that Jesus was without sin? The devil could not possibly have been victorious. Why did the devil, through Judas, hand Jesus over to be crucified? The death of Christ on the cross could not possibly have served the devil’s purpose, except to give the devil pleasure in seeing Christ suffer. Nor could God have ordered the devil to attack and betray Jesus; the fulfillment of God’s plan cannot belong to the devil, but must belong to God alone. In truth the whole matter worked the other way round. By attacking and betraying a person so manifestly good and holy as Christ, the devil exposed himself; the devil revealed himself as evil. This may sound strange; surely we know evil for what it is, without such a terrible exposure. On the contrary, the problem of evil is that it is usually disguised as goodness. Think of Judas. Throughout the early ministry of Jesus, Judas was a most loyal and passionate disciple. And he willingly went out with the others to proclaim the Gospel and heal the sick. Yet all the while, evil thoughts were seething in his heart; the lust for power and wealth burned within him. So when the opportunity arose to destroy Jesus, he seized it. Judas shows us how evil operates in the world; that is why God allowed evil to be exposed—by allowing Jesus to die on the cross. | <urn:uuid:8706fa79-c432-4d16-807c-74267a5ec5f2> | CC-MAIN-2018-13 | http://otftd.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-exposure-of-evil.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-13/segments/1521257646602.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20180319062143-20180319082143-00661.warc.gz | en | 0.969504 | 299 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Goals: Learn to override the methods equals, hashCode, and toString.
The names of the projects and some of the project files must be exactly the same as specified in the assignment. Failure to do so makes it impossible for the graders to run your submission and results in immediate loss of at least 50% of the homework credit.
Make sure you follow the style guidelines for code indentation.
You will submit this assignment by the deadline using the Web-CAT submission system.
With each homework you will also submit your log file named pairxxx.txt where you replace xxx with your pair number.
On top of every file you submit you will have the names of both partners, and the pair number.
The .txt file will be the log of your work on this assignment. Each log entry will have data and time, who was present (one or both of the partners) and a short comment decribing what you were working on.
Due Date: Wednesday, November 28th, 11:59 pm.
Finish the problem from Lab 11.
Hand in the code from the lab that includes the implementation of the following methods (with the appropriate test, of course!):
The toString method for the classes City and State
The equals method for the class City
The hashCode method for the class City
The initMap method in the class Examples | <urn:uuid:f995a06b-717f-4868-875a-0289007d186c> | CC-MAIN-2016-30 | http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/vkp/2510-fl12/assignment11.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-30/segments/1469257826759.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20160723071026-00016-ip-10-185-27-174.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934798 | 283 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Your guide to writing a Discursive Essay
A discursive essay thoroughly investigates an argument by offering two opposing perspectives. It's a practical method of establishing the writer's opinion on a topic and persuading one's stance by exploring the reasons why each view may or may not be valid. The author usually maintains a calm and neutral stance throughout the text to establish an unbiased and informative argument.
1. Define your topic
Before you begin your essay you need to define what the topic is. Discursive essay topics can be about anything, but they are primarily used to argue ideas about controversial topics such as gun control or abortion. You should decide at this point which side you are supporting.
The foundation of any well structured essay is an outline. A discursive essay should have:
- Introduction: The Introduction clearly states the topic and explains why it is important.
- Body: The Body contains the arguments and logic for both sides.
- Conclusion: The Conclusion is where you establish your personal stance on the argument and explain why. Here you explain why it is difficult to establish a solid stance on the topic.
Image source: http://larrybuttrose.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/discursive.html
3. Write 4-6 different points to include in body
"Discursive writing does not argue for or against a point throughout the essay".
Knowing in advance which points you will discuss will help during the actual writing process. Make sure that each point has a counterargument. For example, if you have 3 points for one side, you should have 3 points against it to balance it out. This ensures your argument is unbiased as well as thorough.
Hint: Try to choose strong and valid points that would be difficult to argue against. This makes it more exciting and informative to the reader when you DO introduce its counter-argument.
The points should descend in order from strongest argument to least supportive argument. Alternate back and forth between each perspective to illustrate the argument. Think of it like a "ping-pong" match. The body of the outline should appear as follows:
Each individual argument is a paragraph. The amount of paragraphs is up to your discretion, but if this is for a class there should be at least 4.
4. Fill in the content
Now that you've fully outlined your essay, it's time to flesh it out. Establish credibility by citing valid sources. Don't believe everything you read. Look for scientific studies or valid statistics. Hard facts enrich any argument.
Your tone should be neutral throughout the body, giving each point its turn to truly speak. Try to be as thorough and unbiased as possible.
5. Write a conclusion
In the last paragraph you will wrap up the argument by stating your personal stance on the issue. Try to explain why you feel the way you do, and if you don't actually have an opinion, try to define as to why that is. Mention again why the issue is important and should be evaluated further.
- Stay in formal third person perspective throughout the body.
- Before you begin writing, you should create a "spider-diagram", or "mind-map" to help clearly relate your points.
- When writing the separate arguments, try to pretend as though a person from that specific viewpoint "has the floor". Pretend as though you are trying to convince another person of that viewpoint, even if you don't necessarily agree with it. Make sure to keep a third person writing style, though. | <urn:uuid:371d8105-a572-48b8-943e-392f096fbe5a> | CC-MAIN-2015-48 | http://www.essay.uk.com/guides/types-of-essay/discursive-essay.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-48/segments/1448398455246.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20151124205415-00167-ip-10-71-132-137.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921891 | 720 | 3.546875 | 4 |
THE VA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & VA WIC SHARE A FIESTA QUESADILLA RECIPE & ADVICE ON THE IMPORTANCE OF FOLATES
Looking for a scrumptious breakfast or lunch idea for a fun summer day? The Folate Fiesta Quesadilla brings together fresh vegetables, eggs and cheese, making it a kid-friendly and kid-favorite recipe. Kids will also gain necessary vitamins and minerals to carry them through the day! Pair it with a glass of orange juice or other citrus fruit to make it even more nutritious and folate-friendly. Fresh, frozen or canned vegetables can all work. If using fresh, make sure to rinse them thoroughly with water. If using frozen, make sure to thaw and drain extra water. And, if using canned, drain to remove the extra liquid.
The Virginia Department of Health and Virginia WIC support foods that provide good nutrition for our children, and this meal gives kids a boost of folate, helping them maintain a healthy lifestyle at a young age. What we eat matters, and eating healthy can be delicious, too, so read on to see tips on how to add folates to your family’s diet and the benefits.
Foods That Will Add Folates to Your Family’s Diet
Natural sources of folate can be found in many foods, so to help make shopping and food preparation easier, we’ve compiled a list with the Virginia Department of Health and Virginia WIC.
- Lima Beans
- Spinach/Leafy Greens
- Green Peas
- Brussels Sprouts
- Winter Squash
- Whole Grains
The Benefits of Folate Nutrition with Kids
Folate is an essential nutrient to the human body and is also known as vitamin B9, or folic acid. This vitamin is especially important for your body’s basic cell function, as it helps our body make new cells, encourages tissue growth and helps convert what we eat into energy. Each day our skin, hair and nails, as examples, make new cells.
Folic Acid, the man-made version of folate, is added to supplements like prenatals and foods that do not otherwise have natural folate. Regardless of how you consume it, a shortage of this vitamin can cause unhappy moments. Without it, children can have bellyaches, sores and burning eyes or eye fatigue. If your child shows any signs of a vitamin B shortage, you should make an appointment with your pediatrician.
Why Good Nutrition Is Beneficial & How Can WIC Help?
“Good nutrition is an important part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle,” says Megan Nason, MS, RD (Virginia WIC Program Manager). “Good nutrition not only plays a role in maintaining a healthy weight but also helps your mental health and helps protect against chronic diseases. Incorporating a variety of foods into the diet can help achieve optimal levels of nutrients, vitamins and minerals, which support the body’s heart health, immune system, bones and teeth, mood and energy levels. Recommendations for maintaining good nutrition include consuming a variety of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, low-fat or fat-free dairy products and lean proteins.”
The Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program provides nutrition education and supplemental nutritious foods to participants. These supplemental foods are rich in vitamins and minerals that are especially important for the WIC population. WIC foods include cereal, vitamin-C rich juice, eggs, milk, cheese, yogurt, peanut butter, beans, fruit and vegetables, whole grains, baby foods and canned fish (for some women participants). To learn more about the Virginia WIC Program go to www.vdh.virginia.gov/wic/. For other yummy recipes perfect for families and kids, check out the Food & Home section.
Folate Fiesta Breakfast Quesadilla
- 1 cup spinach
- 1/4 onion (your favorite kind, small, diced)
- 2 mushrooms (your favorite kind, sliced)
- 1 clove garlic (small, minced)
- 2 eggs (beaten)
- 2 tbsp cheese (your favorite kind, shredded)
- 4 tortillas (whole wheat or corn)
- 1/2 avocado (thinly sliced)
- cooking spray (enough to coat the pan)
- Coat the bottom of the pan with cooking spray or a thin layer of oil and add the diced onion, minced garlic, sliced mushrooms and spinach.
- Cook on medium-low heat until the spinach is wilted and the onions and mushrooms are softened, stirring occasionally.
- While the vegetables are cooking, shred the cheese and set aside. In a separate bowl, beat or whisk the eggs until mixed well.
- Add the eggs to the pan and begin pulling the cooked outer edges in towards the center of the eggs. Cook for about 3 minutes or until eggs are cooked through.
- On a separate plate, set out 2 tortillas. Sprinkle half the cheese on top of the tortillas. (Your child can help with this step to get them excited about cooking and trying new foods!)
- Divide the scrambled eggs/veggie mixture between the two tortillas, and top with the rest of the cheese and the sliced avocado. Close the quesadilla with the last 2 tortillas and put them in the pan to crisp each side, or enjoy them as-is!
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CharlottesvilleFamily.com, a collection of local resources including a popular calendar of events, family services guides and features on education, health and family day trips for parents and teachers in Charlottesville, as well as the CharlottesvilleWelcomeBook.com a guide to resources for Charlottesville tourists and newcomers. Ivy Life & Style Media also creates other projects including Wine & Country which celebrates elevated living in Virginia Wine Country. Wine & Country Life, a semi-annual life & style magazine, and Wine & Country Weddings, an annual art book celebrating elegant Virginia weddings, are complemented by the Wine & Country Shop in Ivy, VA—a beautiful lifestyle boutique that brings the pages of the magazines to life. The Shop features over 40 Virginia artisans with everything from tailgating essentials and Dubarry attire to locally made foods and award-winning Virginia wines and craft beverages for your next event. Wine & Country covers the grape-growing foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains from Lynchburg to Leesburg, including points in between like Charlottesville and Middleburg. | <urn:uuid:be728cbd-9e82-4845-adbe-85f7d433e089> | CC-MAIN-2023-06 | https://www.charlottesvillefamily.com/an-easy-nutritious-quesadilla-recipe/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764499646.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20230128153513-20230128183513-00667.warc.gz | en | 0.899068 | 1,373 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Democracy... has been defined by a simple morality: We ... care about our fellow citizens, we act on that care and build trust, and we do our best not just for ourselves, our families, and our friends and neighbors, but for our country, for each other, for people we have never seen and never will see.
[Global] Democracy has, over our history, called upon citizens to share an equal responsibility to work together to secure a safe and prosperous future for their families and nation. This is the central work of our democracy and it is a public enterprise. This, the [Global] Dream, is the dream of a functioning democracy.
Public refers to people, acting together to provide what we all depend on: roads and bridges, public buildings and parks, a system of education, a strong economic system, a system of law and order with a fair and effective judiciary, dams, sewers, and a power grid, agencies to monitor disease, weather, food safety, clean air and water, and on and on. That is what we, as a people who care about each other, have given to each other.
Only a free people can take up the necessary tasks, and only a people who trust and care for one another can get the job done. The [Global] Dream is built upon mutual care and trust.
Our tradition has not just been to share the tasks, but to share the tools as well. We come together to provide a quality education for our children. We come together to protect each other’s health and safety. We come together to build a strong, open and honest financial system. We come together to protect the institutions of democracy to guarantee that all who share in these responsibilities have an equal voice in deciding how they will be met.
What this means is that there is no such thing as a “self-made” man or woman or business. No one makes it on their own. No matter how much wealth you amass, you depend on all the things the public has provided — roads, water, law enforcement, fire and disease protection, food safety, government research, and all the rest. The only question is whether you have paid your fair share for we all have given you.
We are now faced with a nontraditional, radical view of “democracy” coming from the Republican party. It says that “democracy” means that nobody should care about anybody else, that “democracy” means only personal responsibility, not responsibility for anyone else, and it means no trust. If [the world] accepts this radical view of “democracy,” then all that we have given each other in the past under traditional democracy will be lost: all that we have called public. Public roads and bridges: gone. Public schools: gone. Publicly funded police and firemen: gone. Safe food, air, and water: gone. Public health: gone. Everything that made [the civilized world the civilized world], the crucial things that you and your family and your friends have taken for granted: gone.
The democracy of care, shared responsibility, and trust is the democracy of the [Global] Dream. The “democracy” of no care, no shared responsibility, and no trust has produced the [Global] Nightmare that so many of our citizens are living through.
Read the rest of Why Democracy is Public by Lakoff & Smith. | <urn:uuid:4726d13d-e229-4cb7-88d9-521b150ca840> | CC-MAIN-2017-26 | http://blog.attitutor.com/2011/07/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-26/segments/1498128320669.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20170626032235-20170626052235-00352.warc.gz | en | 0.964671 | 700 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Wales has fallen further behind in a worldwide assessment of pupils' maths, reading and science skills.
Welsh pupils are again behind their counterparts in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland in all three areas, and are below the global average in those areas.
Results from the so-called PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) tests, sat by 15-year-old pupils around the world last year, have been published today by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Wales is now ranked 43rd out of 68 countries for maths, 41st for reading, and 36th for science - all lower positions than when the tests were last held in 2009.
The Welsh Government has previously targeted the top 20 positions of the influential league tables when the next tests are sat in 2015.
Our weekly look at First Minister's Questions.
Visit the OECD's website to try some sample questions. | <urn:uuid:e1d441e5-2b1a-48f9-ab50-177bda33238f> | CC-MAIN-2017-26 | http://www.itv.com/news/wales/update/2013-12-03/wales-falls-further-in-global-pisa-education-rankings/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-26/segments/1498128320532.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20170625134002-20170625154002-00381.warc.gz | en | 0.960025 | 185 | 2.6875 | 3 |
The avocado is no longer the new kid on the block. This heart-healthy fruit has taken over the produce section. Popular for dieters, foodies, and kids, we can’t get enough of the green stuff. The only problem is, avocados can be expensive. Sometimes running prices at almost a dollar for just one. Wouldn’t it be nice to grow your own avocados, harvest your own guacamole and reap your own nutrient-rich foods? Good news. It’s easier than you think. Let’s get started!
Seed, Pits, or Trees?
Yes, you can grow an avocado plant from an avocado pit. Yes, you can grow an avocado plant in your home. No, neither of these options are likely to bring you fruit. Avocado plants started as seeds won’t be mature for at least 4 years. Some may take as long as 10 years to yield any fruit, and some may not yield fruit at all. Growing plants from the pit can be a neat experiment for kids, and can pay off for those with a couple decades of patience, but starting from a young tree is the best way to get fruit while you’re still around to actually eat it.
Starting with Soil
Avocado trees like the soil’s pH around 6 to 6.5. If you’re not sure what the pH of your soil is, you can usually find an inexpensive test kit. If you have a heavy clay soil, you will want to elevate your tree in a mound between 12-24 inches high and 3-5 feet around for better drainage. Keep the soil around the tree as pure as possible, don’t use gravel or other planting media. The sooner the roots get into the bulk soil, the better the tree will do.
Planting Your Tree
Keep in mind that mature avocado trees can be quite large, and they produce a dense shade, and shed leaves or flowers all year long. Choose a place where the tree can thrive, and have room to take root. The best area to plant your tree would be the southern side of your home in an area that has well-drained soil. Dig a hole that is two to three times wider and deeper than the container it was shipped in, so that those roots have enough room to get established.
You also can grow a tree in a container, which is wise if you live in an area that experiences cold winters. Choose a container that is at least twice as large as the existing root ball of a young tree. Make sure that you place it in front of a large window or in an area that gets a minimum of 6 hours of direct sun per day. Container trees likely won’t produce fruit, but still make a beautiful tree.
Avocado trees typically need to be watered two to three times a week when they are first planted. Seedling trees need smaller, but more frequent watering while larger trees can take bigger drinks less frequently. As the roots grow and reach down into the soil, you can apply a deeper watering just once a week or so. This should only be after the first year. You don’t want the soil to ever get too dry. Check the soil before watering each time to make sure it has dried somewhat. If the soil from around the roots can hold the impression of a hand when squeezed, it has enough water.
Fertilizer and Food
Avocado trees like plenty coarse yard mulch, but not too close to the trunk. Choose something bulky and woody around the tree base, and mulch the area with 6 inches of mulch, keeping the material about 6 to 8 inches away from the tree trunk. Young avocado trees also like a little basic home fertilizer to help them gain strength. You can spread out fertilizer applications over the course of the year to a total of one-half to one full pound of nitrogen.
Creating a Community
Avocado trees are social creatures. They like to be near other avocado trees. Trees grown in groups tend to yield more fruit that is larger than a tree grown on its own. Though the Hass, Cold Hardy, and Day varieties will product fruit on their own, if you have more than one plant, it’s always better. Having a community of trees helps with pollination, and fruit retention. If you’re planting multiple trees, leave about 5-8 feet of space between the trees and any structure.
Avocado trees don’t need a lot of maintenance or pruning. The only time you will need to prune your tree is in the late winter or early spring just to clean it up and get rid of dead wood. If you want to maintain a certain height, then you can trim the tree lightly by cutting the tallest branch off. If you would like to maintain width, then you can also trim the longest branch and work your way in each year branch by branch.
Finding the Fruit
Be patient with avocado trees. The fruit will come, but it may take a few years. With new trees, expect fruit within four year, but not before. Avocado trees may flower, and lots of flowers will fall without setting fruit, this is the normal process of the tree and nothing has gone wrong. Nurture the growth of the tree and your results will pay off soon enough.
Eventually, a mature avocado tree will produce 100-200 pieces of fruit per tree. Many times these fruits only grow to the size of a walnut before falling off. This is pretty typical, and nothing to be concerned about.
Once your tree is mature enough to produce full-size fruit, the full harvest depends on the variety of avocado. Hass Avocados are ready to harvest as early as February to as late as September. Cold Hardy avocados usually ripen between November and March, and Day avocados are harvested from July through September. Avocados are ready to harvest when they ripen within 7-21 days after picking. To test your avocado, pick one and let it sit. If it turns rubbery or shrivels up, they aren’t ready to harvest yet. If it gets soft and delicious in a week or so, it’s time to harvest. There’s no rush to harvesting avocados. The longer the fruit can stay on the tree, the richer the taste. However, avocados must be picked by hand. Otherwise, the fruit will stay on the tree and never ripen.
What about winter?
Avocado trees are native to warm areas like California, Florida, Mexico and Central and South American countries. They like the sun and don’t do well when it dips below 45 degrees. There are some varieties that can handle colder climates. For example, the Mexican avocado is the hardiest and can survive temperatures of 18 degrees Fahrenheit. The Guatemalan and West Indian varieties will often die at anything below 25 degrees Fahrenheit.
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Echolocating BatsNancy B. Simmons and Tenley Conway
This tree diagram shows the relationships between several groups of organisms.
The root of the current tree connects the organisms featured in this tree to their containing group and the rest of the Tree of Life. The basal branching point in the tree represents the ancestor of the other groups in the tree. This ancestor diversified over time into several descendent subgroups, which are represented as internal nodes and terminal taxa to the right.
You can click on the root to travel down the Tree of Life all the way to the root of all Life, and you can click on the names of descendent subgroups to travel up the Tree of Life all the way to individual species.close box
Microchiropteran bats are also known as "echolocating bats" because they have the ability to use echolocation in obstacle avoidance and hunting. These bats occur on every continent but Antartica. Every food preference that is found in bats is represented in Microchiroptera, although the majority are predominatly insectivorous. Several notable microchiropteran bats include Craseonycteris (Bumblebee Bat), which is one of the smallest mammals in the world, Thyroptera (Disc-winged Bats), which attach to leaves using suction cuplike discs on the foot and thumb, and Desmodontinae, which are the only blood-feeding bats.
Classification outlines the higher-level classifications within Microchiroptera.
Microchiropterans navigate with the aid of echolocation, also known as "biosonar." This is similar to the mechanical sonar systems used by humans. A signal is emitted and the returning sound is analyzed to learn about the surrounding environment. Microchiropteran bats are not the only animals that use echolocation. Toothed whales, some insectivores (eg., shrews), oilbirds, and some swiftlets also use echolocation.
Echolocating bats typically emit an ultrasonic (over 15 kilohertz) pulse, and analyze the returning echo to determine the distance to the object as well as what type of object it is (Fenton, 1992). Most bats alternate between emitting sound and listening for returning sound. The frequency, length of call, intensity, and degree of modulations of the emitted sound differs between species, and there may even be differences between individuals within a species.
Echolocation calls are vocalizations that are produced in the larynx (voice box). Calls are emitted through the mouth or the nostrils. Bats that emit calls through the nostrils, such as Phyllostomidae and Rhinolophidae, often have complex folds and/or flaps surrounding the nostrils, which may affect the signal.
A few megachiropterans also use echolocation (e.g., some species of Rousettus), but these bats produce sound by clicking their tongues rather than by vocalization. The different method of sound creation is one reason why echolocation is believed to have evolved independently in Microchiroptera and the few echolocating megachiropteran bats. Echolocation is not thought to have been present in the common ancestor of Megachiroptera and Microchiroptera (Simmons and Geisler, 1998).
The ability to echolocate has allowed many bats to exploit flying nocturnal insects as a food source, as well as to live in dark caves. In neither situation can one successfully rely on vision alone to locate objects due to the limited amount of light. Most likely as a result of increased reliance on echolocation, microchiropterans have reduced vision capabilities, having lost some of the complexity found in the eyes and brains of megachiropteran bats.
While echolocation has many benefits, it also has costs. The most pronounced is that other animals can often hear the signals emitted by bats. Those who are able to hear the sounds include other bats, potential predators, and prey. Some moths have evolved complex ears, apparently for listening to bats. When such a moth hears calls of an approaching bat, it begins evasive maneuvers. Some insects actually emit sounds in response to bat calls. This apparently confuses the bat although it does not directly jam the signal.
Microchiroptera is diagnosed by the following synapomorphies: a free premaxilla, only two lower premolars on each side of the jaw, and a xiphisternum with a medial keel (Simmons and Geisler, 1998). However, these features are troublesome as many lineages within Microchiroptera have apparently secondarily evolved different conditions.
Several other soft-tissue characteristics are found in Microchiroptera, but not Megachiroptera. These characteristics include the presence of a tragus, a small or absent aquaeductus cochleae, the presence of a sophisticated echolocation system, the m. styloglossus originating from the ventral surface of the midpoint of the stylohyal, the clavicle articulating with the coracoid process of the scapula, the m. spinotrapesius clearly differentiated from the trapezius complex, the m. acromiodeltoideus not originating from the thoracic vertebra, the angle of the spinal cord between the dorsal horns from 0 to 25°, and the inferior colliculus larger than the superior colliculus (Simmons and Geisler, 1998). As these features can not be examined in the fossil material collected to date, it is not known whether they also occured in fossils which are closely related to Microchiroptera. Thus, these characteristics can only indirectly support microchiropteran monophyly.
Monophyly of Microchiroptera is strongly supported. A variety of data have been analyzed to help resolve the relationships of families within this clade, including osteological characteristics (Smith, 1976; Van Valen, 1979), fetal membrane traits (Luckett, 1980), auditory region morphology (Novacek, 1980), hyoid region characteristics (Griffiths and Smith, 1991; Griffiths et al., 1992), transferrin immunological distance data (Pierson, 1986), rDNA restriction sites (Baker et al., 1991), and DNA hybridization data (Kirsch et al., In press). The most recent comprehensive analyses were those of Simmons (1998) and Simmons and Geisler (1998), who combined all of these data (with the exception of immunological and DNA-hybridization data). Analysis of this large data set produced a relatively well-resolved, well supported phylogeny of Microchiroptera. Interestingly, this tree is largely compatible with trees produced from distance data by Kirsch et al. (In press).
An early phylogentic hypothesis proposed by Smith (1976) indicated two clades within Microchiroptera: Yinochiroptera (Emballonuridae, Rhinolopoidea) and Yangochiroptera (Noctilionoidea and Vespertilionoidea). Other analyses, however, have not supported these clades. Van Valen’s (1979) tree suggests that neither Yinochiroptera nor Yangochiroptera are monophyletic due to a close relationship between Emballonuridae and Noctilionoidea. Pierson (1986) concluded that Yinochiroptera was monophyletic, but due to the close relationship between Vespertilioninae and Yinochiroptera, Yangochiroptera was not. Simmons (1998) and Simmons and Geisler’s (1998) analyses suggested the reverse, a monophyletic Yangochiroptera and a paraphyletic Yinochiroptera. The latter appears paraphyletic due to Emballonuridae placed as the basal branch in Microchiroptera.
| ==== Rhinoloppoidea
| === Noctilionoidea (Phyllostomoidea)
Van Valen (1979)
| ========= Rhinolophoidea
===| | === Emballonuridae
| ===| ===|
=====| ===| === Craseonycteridae
| ====== Noctilionoidea
| ============ Vespertilionoidea (including Mystacinidae)
============ Natalidae (including Thyropteridae and Natalidae)
| === Rhinolophidae
===| | === Hipposideridae
===| | | === Megadermatidae
===| | | ===|
===| | | | === Rhinopomatidae
=====| | | | |
| | | | ============ vespertilionids
| | | |
| | | =============== Molossidae
| | |
| | ================== Thyropteridae
| ===================== Noctilionoidea (including Mystacinidae)
The placement of Emballonuridae has been often debated. Smith placed Emballonuridae in a monophyletic group containing Craseonycteridae and Rhinopomatidae, while Van Valen’s analysis indicated that Emballonuridae and Craseonycteridae were more closely related to Noctilionoidea and Rhinolophoidea than to Rhinopomatidae. Pierson’s tree also indicated that Rhinopomatidae belongs in a clade with Rhinolophoidea, not grouped with Emballonuridae, and did not support a close relationship between Emballonuridae and Noctilionoidea.
The relationships of members of the Vespertilionoidea have long been unclear. Vespertilionidae has been treated as a clade by most authors (Smith, 1976; Van Valen, 1979; Novacek, 1991). However, the frequent appearance of this group in discussions of bats may be attributed to the common assumption of monophyly rather than strong phylogenetic support for this hypothesis. Pierson (1986), who did not assume Vespertilionidae monophyly, placed Tomopeatinae and Miniopterinae (usually found within Vespertilionidae) with Molossoidea and suggested the remaining vespertilionids form a clade with Yinochiroptera. Recent work (Simmons, 1998; Simmons and Geisler, 1998) has indicated that Vespertilionidae as traditionally recognized is paraphyletic. Instead, Antrozoinae (which Simmons raised from subfamily to family rank) appears closely related to Molossidae and should therefore be placed in Molossoidea; Myzopodidae, Thyropteridae, Fruipteridae and Natalidae represent a clade and are here represented in the superfamily Nataloidea. With the removal of the preceding families, Vespertilionidae, limited to Vespertilioninae, Miniopterinae, Myotinae, Murininae and Kerivoulinae, is now monophyletic." One group which is fairly well supported is the clade containing Phyllostomidae, Noctilionidae, and Mormoopidae (= Noctilionoidea). Mystacinidae, traditionally linked with vespertilionids and molossids, now appears to be closely related to this group (Pierson, 1986; Kirsch et al., In press) and is therfore here included in the Noctilionoidea.
Altringham, J. D. 1996. Bats: biology and behavior. New York: Oxford University Press.
Fenton, M. B. 1992. Bats. New York: Facts on File, Inc.
Fenton, M. B. 1995. Natural History and Biosonar Signals.In Hearing by Bats. A.N. Popper and R.R. Fay (eds.). New York: Springer-Verlag.
Griffiths, T. A., and A. L. Smith. 1991. Systematics of emballonuroid bats (Chiroptera: Emballonuridae and Rhinpomatidae), based on hyoid morphology. Bulletin American Museum of Natural History, 206:62-83.
Griffiths, T. A., A. Truckenbrod, and P. J. Sponholtz. 1992. Systematics of megadermatid bats (Chriroptera, Megadermatidae), based on hyoid morphology. American Museum Novitates, 3041:1-21.
Grinnell, A. D. 1995. Hearing in bats: an overview. In Hearing by Bats. A.N. Popper and R.R. Fay (eds.). New York: Springer-Verlag.
Henson, O. W., Jr. 1970. The central nervous system. In. Biology of Bats. W.A. Wimsatt (eds.). vol2. Pp 58-152.
Hill, J. E., and J. D. Smith. 1984. Bats: a natural history. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Kirsch, J. A., J. M. Hutcheon, D. G. Byrnes & B. D. Llyod. 1998. Affinites and historical zoogeography of the New Zealand Short0tailed bat, Mystacina tuberculata Gray 1843, inferred from DNA-hybridization comparisons. Journal of Mammalian Evolution 5(1): 33-64.
Luckett, W. P. 1980. The use of fetal membrane characters in assessing chiropteran phylogeny. Pp. 245-266 In Proceedings Fifth International Bat Research Conference. D.E. Wilson and A.L. Gardner (eds.). Lubbock, Texas: Texas Tech Press.
Novacek, M. J. 1980. Phylogenetic analysis of the chiropteran auditory region. Pp. 317-330 In Proceedings Fifth International Bat Research Conference. D.E. Wilson and A.L. Gardner (eds.). Lubbock, Texas: Texas Tech Press.
Novacek, M. J. 1991. Aspects of morphology of the cochlea in microchiropteran bats: an investigation of character transformation. Bulletin American Museum of Natural History, 206:84-100.
Pierson, E. D. 1986. Molecular systematics of the Microchiroptera: higher taxon relationships and biogeography. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, California.
Simmons, N. B. 1998. A reappraisal of interfamilial relationships of bats. In Bats: Phylogeny, Morphology, Echolocation and Conservation Biology. T.H. Kunz and P.A. Racey (eds.). Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Simmons, N. B. & J. H. Geisler. 1998. Phylogenetic relationships of Icaronycteris, Archeonycteris, Hassianycteris, and Palaeochiropteryx to extant bat lineages, with comments on the evolution of echolocation and foraging strategies in microchiroptera. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 235:1-82.
Smith, J. D. 1976. Chiropteran evolution. Pp. 49-69 In Biology of bat of the New World family Phyllostomatidae, Part I. R.J. Baker, J.K. Jones, and D.C. Carter (eds.). Special Publications of the Museum. No. 10. Lubbock, Texas: Texas Tech University.
Van Valen, T. A. 1979. The evolution of bats. Evolutionary Theory, 4:104-121.
Wilson, D. E. 1997. Bats in question. Washinton: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Nancy B. Simmons
American Musuem of Natural History, New York, New York, USA
University of Toronto at Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
Correspondence regarding this page should be directed to Nancy B. Simmons at
Page copyright © 1997 Nancy B. Simmons
Page: Tree of Life Microchiroptera. Echolocating Bats. Authored by Nancy B. Simmons and Tenley Conway. The TEXT of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License - Version 3.0. Note that images and other media featured on this page are each governed by their own license, and they may or may not be available for reuse. Click on an image or a media link to access the media data window, which provides the relevant licensing information. For the general terms and conditions of ToL material reuse and redistribution, please see the Tree of Life Copyright Policies.
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Simmons, Nancy B. and Tenley Conway. 1997. Microchiroptera. Echolocating Bats. Version 01 January 1997. http://tolweb.org/Microchiroptera/16085/1997.01.01 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/ | <urn:uuid:f8d4e574-c0a2-4d02-9ea5-261c7a676cb0> | CC-MAIN-2014-42 | http://tolweb.org/Microchiroptera/16085 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-42/segments/1413507444774.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20141017005724-00023-ip-10-16-133-185.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.852426 | 3,623 | 4.25 | 4 |
Think Math! Program Overview
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Think Math! was developed by the Education Development Center, Inc. through a grant from the National Science Foundation. | <urn:uuid:f9604de5-b421-4c85-9d6a-cd0292f6e782> | CC-MAIN-2014-23 | http://math.schoolspecialty.com/ProgramOverview.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-23/segments/1405997891176.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20140722025811-00034-ip-10-33-131-23.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926354 | 187 | 2.984375 | 3 |
Border collies are relatively easy to train to herd sheep because that is their natural inclination.
You can start the basic training of your border collie puppy at about 10 months old. But before you actually begin to introduce herding commands to him, you must first study the commands yourself and be able to distinguish between them. The word you use for each individual command can be invented by you, the trainer, but many novice trainers like a list of herding terms to use as a guide.
Flank: Commands the dog to get up behind the sheep and to gather them in bunches.
Outrun: The dog is at your side, and the sheep stand somewhere in front of you. The dog must get to the other side of the sheep without crossing between them or disturbing them in any way.
Fetch: The dog brings the sheep to you.
Driving: The sheep’s heads are in front of you, and the dog is driving the flock towards you.
Pen: The sheep are coming closer to you with each of the dog’s flanks.
Shed: The dog is going through the midst of the sheep, using the flanking technique, and holding the sheep you have asked him to bring to you. This should be the last, basic command taught to a young, sheep herding collie.
Go/Come Bye: The dog is moving in a clockwise direction around the sheep.
Away to Me: The dog is moving in a counter-clockwise direction around the sheep.
Steady On – Walk On: The dog continues on but at a slower pace.
Get Up: Stand up or get on with your herding.
There: Hold the line.
Take Time: Say this phrase sternly: Slow down.
Listen: You might include the dog’s name here; this word is best used when the dog is anxious.
Get Back: The dog is too close to the sheep.
What Are You Doing: The dog is behaving irrationally.
Basic Stages of Training
In the first stage, make the dog aware of you, the sheep, and his own proximity to the sheep. The collie will naturally want to work on his own, but he must accept you as a teammate.
Permit your pup to flank, but be ready to give a verbal or a physical correction. Your border collie doesn’t know right from wrong yet. Be prepared to resort to a physical correction if a verbal correction doesn’t work. Never hit the dog. Merely yank him by the collar; grab his ears and give them a gentle shake; stand in the correct spot and nudge him over there. A physical correction is often more memorable than a verbal one. Watch the dog’s attitude: it will tell you how much to discipline.
Allow the dog to flank instinctively; don’t give many directions at this time. Instead, ask yourself, is he hurting sheep, and is he thinking about them instead of running just as fast as he can?
The dog’s attitude is most important in this stage. Don’t rush through training. He must learn to think and to approximate proper distance around the sheep.
Come Bye and Away to Me are logically taught next. Use a physical correction to guide your dog into the right place: gently nudge him. This stage takes time. But it can be taught if each time he runs wild or just goes in the wrong direction, he is given a physical correction.
Teach him to pace in a sense. Back up and let him bring the sheep to you. He will learn how sheep behave and react.
Outruns comprise the next stage of learning in a border collie’s life. If your dog is now flanking well, an outrun is the one end result. This stage often teaches itself.
Shedding is the final step, but, if you have already drilled the dog on flanking and reading sheep, this last stage in beginning training should be simple. Take this stage slowly. The dog needs to learn your body language to know which sheep you want to be brought to you and how to keep the chosen sheep away from the others. Sorting, a more complicated procedure, will be taught on this foundation.
The ultimate goal of all this basic training does not result in a finished product. The basic training process is ongoing as you will continually teach your dog to take time, to slow down and to think of you, his handler. | <urn:uuid:20e79e9c-f6b3-4a0c-b662-d7d256be7b63> | CC-MAIN-2021-25 | https://www.gowandi.com/read-blog/880_how-to-train-your-border-collie-dog-to-herd-sheep.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-25/segments/1623487640324.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20210618165643-20210618195643-00038.warc.gz | en | 0.960516 | 949 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Oftentimes a drummer is expected to “keep the time.” I prefer to think of this as an opportunity rather than a burden. You can play the time anyway you want: badly, solid, funky, swung, etc. It is an honor to be given such a large responsibility when playing with other musicians.
Time is the pulse that flows through music. Time signatures are ways to denote the pulse. As with most musical notation, it usually results in a simplification of a more abstract concept. Time signatures can be very ambiguous. What is the difference between 3/2, 6/4, and 12/8? All three suggest that you play the same amount of time for each measure. Since, 3 half notes = 6 quarter notes = 12 eighth notes. A time signature, therefore, implies how the pulse should be accented in order to give a particular musical feeling. In fact, time is usually denoted using two markings: time signature and a tempo marking. A tempo marking is a term such as legato, swung, shuffle, or bossa nova that tells the musician the speed and/or style of the time. So, using a tempo marking and time signature it is possible to approximate the intended time(pulse) of the song. Personally, I only like to use time signatures as a last resort when trying to explain a piece of music, rhythm, or pattern. (When writing or transcribing music, especially for others, a time signature is almost always necessary).
Like time signatures, western musical notation is ambiguous to the drummer. Here is an example:
An unambiguous way to denote a pattern: x•x•
Both x’s and •’s represent an equal amount of time. An x indicates a strike and a • represents a space or rest.
In western musical notation this pattern can be denoted as:
These may have a different meaning to a musician that controls note length but, generally, a drummer is not concerned with note length, only when to strike his instrument. (It is possible play specific note lengths by muting a cymbal appropriately, for example.)
Also, to reiterate the ambiguity of time signatures, the above pattern can be written as:
So, in this blog, I will be using x’s and •’s to denote ostinatos and patterns. For those interested in musical notation (which is important to becoming a well-rounded musician), you can always transcribe a pattern and play around with the different ways you can transcribe a single pattern. Also, does the way you transcribe the pattern influence the way you play it? | <urn:uuid:67f90841-59c0-4d6a-83f7-2fcc37ea020e> | CC-MAIN-2015-35 | https://alternateview2amw.wordpress.com/2013/05/30/time-and-time-signatures-and-musical-notation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-35/segments/1440644064869.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20150827025424-00035-ip-10-171-96-226.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939759 | 542 | 2.703125 | 3 |
How to create typefaces
From sketch to screen
Cristóbal Henestrosa, Laura Meseguer, José Scaglione
How are typefaces designed? What is the process? Which characters are essential? What is the difference between roman, italic and cursive? What is OpenType? In How to create typefaces Cristóbal Henestrosa, Laura Meseguer and José Scaglione answer these and many other questions in a straightforward and direct way.
This publication, aimed at new and novice type designers as well as those trained in the field, unravels the fascinating task of creating a font, from sketch to screen.
Order it from Amazon
Foreword by Gerry Leonidas
The thinking that happens before even starting the process of creating a new typeface.
2 Writing, calligraphy, drawing and type designs
On the similarities and differences between methods of writing, calligraphy, drawing, and type design; shared characteristics, common elements and considerations when sketching typographical characters.
3 Processes and methods
On approaches to sketching, proportion and structure, consistency, optical correction, planning and workflow.
On digitising the sketches, principles of drawing with digital outlines, fundamental and complementary characters, sequences and derivations.
On basic methods to control and adjust spacing: sidebearings and kerning, the importance of counterform, numerals and vertical spaces.
6 Typographic programme
On series design and family variations – italics, weight and proportional variants, optical sizing, superfamilies and other ways of extending a typeface family.
7 Typography as software
On the role of digital technology in typeface design, from the basics of formatting to the possibilities of Open Type features and Unicode.
On legal issues and marketing, plagiarism and piracy, distribution models, custom typeface design and costings.
Reflections of each author on their personal experiences of the process of type design.
Glossary and BibliographyOrder it here
Title: How to create typefaces. From sketch to screen
Authors: Cristóbal Henestrosa, Laura Meseguer y José Scaglione
Translation: Christopher Burke and Patricia Córdoba
Publisher: Tipo e
Printed on Fedrigoni Sirio Arancio 210 gsm and Olin Regular Natural White 100 gsm.
Made and printed in Madrid, Spain by Brizzolis SA.
170 mm × 210 mm
Cristóbal Henestrosa (Ciudad de México, 1979) is a graduate in Graphic Communication from the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), possesses a master’s degree in Typographic design from the Centro de Estudios Gestalt and also a diploma in Type Design from The Cooper Union. His type families have been prizewinners of the Type Directors Club in New York and Tipos Latinos (Biennial of Latin American Typography). He is the author of Espinosa: Rescate de una tipografía novohispana (2005), as well as professor of typography and type design at the UNAM.
Laura Meseguer (Barcelona, 1968) is a freelance typographer and type designer based in Barcelona. She also teaches and eventually writes. She works in custom lettering and type design projects and through her own digital foundry, Type-Ø-Tones, she releases and promotes her typefaces. These days she is busy with some commercial and personal jobs, and the design of Qandus Latin for the Typographic Matchmaking in the Maghrib project.
José Scaglione (Rosario, 1974) is a graphic designer, typeface designer, and co-founder of the independent type foundry TypeTogether with Veronika Burian, where they have published numerous award-winning type families. He teaches typography at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and is frequently invited to lecture about typography and to lead workshops on typeface design at international conferences and academic institutions. José collaborated with Jorge de Buen Unna on his book Introducción al Estudio de la Tipografía. In 2012 José acted as chairman of the Letter.2 type design competition and conference. In 2013 he was appointed president of the Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI).
→ Eye magazine, the blog (June 2017) [in English]
→ Eye magazine (2012) [in English]
→ TGM [in German]
→ Don Serifa [in Spanish]
→ Unos Tipos Duros [in Spanish]
→ Graffica.info [in Spanish]
→ El blog de Manuel Rivas [in Spanish]
→ Criterion [in Spanish]
→ Neo2 [in Spanish]
The book Cómo crear tipografías was originally published in Spanish by Tipo e in 2012 and since then it has been published in different languages.
Cómo crear tipografías. Del boceto a la pantalla
Tipo e, March 2012, November 2012, March 2015.
Jak projektować kroje pisma. Od szkicu do ekranu
d2d, 2014. Technical review by Adam Twardoch.
Cómo criar tipos: do esboço à tela
Estereográfica, 2014. Translated by Priscila Farias.
How to create typefaces, from sketch to screen
Tipo e, May 2017. Translated by Christopher Burke and Patricia Córdoba.
Citiq Press, expected September 2017. Review by Liu Zhao. | <urn:uuid:ff0786af-11ff-4dc6-8c67-1d5d72496eb3> | CC-MAIN-2017-26 | http://tipo-e.com/publicaciones/how-to-create-typefaces.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-26/segments/1498128323680.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20170628120308-20170628140308-00460.warc.gz | en | 0.865377 | 1,209 | 3.25 | 3 |
So much of what goes on in our bodies is the result of what and how we eat. Many of the most common health problems we see at Sky Lakes Medical Center have a direct correlation to diet, exercise and other lifestyle choices.
Hence, one of the primary goals for our community is to encourage better proactive care. By taking better care of yourself through exercise and healthy eating habits, you can potentially avoid serious health issues down the road.
A critical component to our healthcare system is our Nutrition Services department. Our registered dietitians are qualified to provide nutrition counseling, an essential component of a healthy lifestyle and comprehensive healthcare. If you would like to improve their health and quality of life, or are trying to manage a health condition, you may benefit from learning more about nutrition.
A few examples of conditions that can be improved by nutrition education include:
- Heart Disease
- High Blood Pressure
- Weight Loss
- Kidney Failure
- Irritable Bowel Syndrome | <urn:uuid:deff1650-affd-4005-84f0-535eff234949> | CC-MAIN-2015-11 | http://www.skylakes.org/health-services/sky-lakes-nutrition-services/default.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-11/segments/1424936469305.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20150226074109-00108-ip-10-28-5-156.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955037 | 198 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Biology teacher resources
School teachers are invited to use the material on this website for their classroom teaching, with appropriate acknowledgement.
Teacher Professional Development Days
The Maurice Wilkins Centre has held a series of free teacher professional development days throughout New Zealand, beginning in Auckland in 2012 and then extending from Kaitaia to Invercargill since then with 28 workshops being run.
The one-day events, organised by Deputy Director Professor Peter Shepherd and Ms Rachel Heeney from Epsom Girls Grammar, are designed to help teachers with content for the new standards in the Level 3 NCEA curriculum. The Centre coordinates scientists with specialist knowledge in these areas to produce material directly relevant to the curriculum that could be taken straight into the classroom.
Scientists from institutions around the country have volunteered to take part. To date more than 600 teachers have attended and their feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. An important aim has been to reach provincial areas and teachers who cannot easily access traditional professional development opportunities.
Slides from the presentations can be downloaded from this site, and teachers are free to use these for teaching purposes with appropriate acknowledgement. PDF or PowerPoint versions are available but please note that any animations do not appear in the PDF versions.
Contact us if you would like to be informed of future Maurice Wilkins Centre teacher events.
Presentations from our teacher professional development days have been moved to the Sign-In section of the website. Please Contact us for details of how to access these presentations. | <urn:uuid:02e3a7e9-a87e-474c-bd22-795954bc9508> | CC-MAIN-2019-22 | http://www.mauricewilkinscentre.org/sub-pages/education-careers/science-for-schools/biology-teacher-resources.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-22/segments/1558232256314.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20190521102417-20190521124417-00053.warc.gz | en | 0.944278 | 301 | 2.53125 | 3 |
SHOKU BUNKA: WARNA BUDAYA DAN TRADISI DALAM MAKANAN JEPANG
License URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Article Metrics: (Click on the Metric tab below to see the detail)
Japan has natural resources that can provide sufficient food, both from the mountains, the sea, and rivers. The four seasons it has also contributed to the diversity of natural products, which provide a variety of colors in the food. The seriousness of producing quality food, the use of unique food processing techniques, to artistic presentation, makes Japanese food a strong identity among traditional foods from other countries in the world. In its development, Japanese food openly receives influence from abroad, but still maintains its traditions, to create the concept of assimilation in it. Japan is able to pour cultural colors on its food and make Japanese food as a soft diplomacy of the country that is easily accepted by the international world. There are many factors that can be explored by researching Japanese food, so research on Japanese food can touch some of the domains, such as geography, health, sociology, and culture. This study will explore Japanese food from the eyes of culture.
The Authors submitting a manuscript do so on the understanding that if accepted for publication, copyright of the article shall be assigned to IZUMI: Jurnal Bahasa, Sastra, dan Budaya Jepang and Faculty of Humanities, Diponegoro University as publisher of the journal. | <urn:uuid:c653184b-25b4-481b-ba5e-98630f3ac2ab> | CC-MAIN-2019-09 | https://ejournal.undip.ac.id/index.php/izumi/article/view/16425 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-09/segments/1550247481992.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20190217111746-20190217133746-00499.warc.gz | en | 0.938079 | 320 | 3.375 | 3 |
Narrated by Death, The Book Thief is the story of Liesel Meminger, a nine-year-old German girl who given up by her mother to live with Hans and Rosa Hubermann in the small town of Molching in 1939, shortly before World War II. On their way to Molching, Liesel's younger brother Werner dies, and she is traumatized, experiencing nightmares about him for months. Hans is a gentle man who brings her comfort and helps her learn to read, starting with a book Liesel took from the cemetery where her brother was buried. Liesel befriends a neighborhood boy, Rudy Steiner, who falls in love with her. At a book burning, Liesel realizes that her father was persecuted for being a Communist, and that her mother was likely killed by the Nazis for the same crime. She is seen stealing a book from the burning by the mayor's wife Ilsa Hermann, who later invites Liesel to read in her library.
Keeping a promise he made to the man who saved his life, Hans agrees to hide a Jew named Max Vandenberg in his basement. Liesel and Max become close friends, and Max writes Liesel two stories about their friendship, both of which are reproduced in the novel. When Hans publicly gives bread to an old Jew being sent to a concentration camp, Max must leave, and Hans is drafted into the military at a time when air raids over major German cities were escalating in terms of frequency and fatality. Liesel next sees Max being marched towards the concentration camp at Dachau. Liesel loses hope and begins to disdain the written word, having learnt that Hitler's propaganda is to blame for the war and the Holocaust and the death of her biological family, but Ilsa encourages her to write. Liesel writes the story of her life in the Hubermanns' basement, where she miraculously survives an air raid that kills Hans, Rosa, Rudy, and everyone else on her block. Liesel survives the war, as does Max. She goes on to live a long life and dies at an old age. | <urn:uuid:1316fdc2-d524-4e4f-80e1-6969d9494021> | CC-MAIN-2015-18 | http://www.gradesaver.com/the-book-thief/study-guide/summary | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-18/segments/1429246658061.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20150417045738-00279-ip-10-235-10-82.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977964 | 426 | 2.625 | 3 |
Born with the Dinosaurs.
Come walk with us where Dinosaurs roamed.
When you stand at the "look-out” on Spitskop & gaze around it is not difficult to imagine huge Dinosaurs feeding in the fertile valley below. Close your eyes & listen to the ghosts of the past, they were nearby, evidence proves that, so surely they were here too.
And, during your visit, why not spend some time, even take a picnic up on the mountain & dream awhile ---after all it is not often that your tablecloth can be 200 million years old !
We are often asked about the geological history of our little mountain & hopefully this will cast some light on the subject.----- for this information we are indebted to a dear friend Nico Scholtz
Do you recall the movie Jurassic Park? Well our Spitskop mountain was born in the period of late Triassic into Jurassic period some 200 million years ago when Dinosaurs ruled. For the next 100 million years these giants were much in evidence in this region favouring the fine grained sandstone dunes of what is known as the Clarens Formation.The cap on top of Spitskop was formed in that time whilst the lower portion began earlier in the Elliot Formation.
Sadly we have not found any Dinosaur fossils or footprints here but they can be seen across the border in Lesotho, you will need a passport to get there.
It seems that not only the giants shared this area but fossils have been found of a smaller 6 metre long herbivore named Massospondylus as well as some fish of the Semionotus species who were trapped in small lakes that dried out when the weather patterns changed & the landscape became a desert.
Our beautiful landmark red-gold Eastern Free State cliffs & rock faces were formed when the gigantic sandstone dunes migrated across the arid landscape of the Karoo Basin & so our mountain scenery is filled with fabulous examples of this spectacular array of colouring. | <urn:uuid:8d295d9d-fc5c-4564-93b7-023f5f32f8a3> | CC-MAIN-2019-26 | https://www.amohela-ho-spitskop.co.za/blog/post/when-dinosaurs-roamed/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-26/segments/1560628000367.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20190626154459-20190626180459-00135.warc.gz | en | 0.961488 | 410 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Using Biographies to practice Expository Writing
This resource is meant to be used for elementary classrooms grades 2-4. However, some of these graphic organizers and tips can very well be modified to fit a homeschooler or used as a template for higher grade levels.
This project packet is focused on the written part of the project. However, this project can easily be turned into a typed piece using your preferred form of document sharing. (For example, Google Docs).
A biography project lasts anywhere from 4-6 weeks depending on how often the students work on the project and how fast they work. Four-six weeks is just a suggested time frame but can be modified to fit your school's curriculum guide.
Included in this packet:
- Short step by step
- Graphic organizers: "Biography Notes", "Biography Notes Web"
- Biography timeline organizer
- Expository Essay Format Instructions
- Expository Essay Writing "How To"
- "Table of Contents"
- Glossary Page
- "About the Author" page
- Rubric - made with Rubistar.4teachers.org
NJ CCS Writing and Research Grades 2-4 CCSSELA-LITERACY.W2,3,4 | <urn:uuid:f09208d1-fdff-4ca2-83af-ccbcb1e8aabe> | CC-MAIN-2018-47 | https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Expository-Essay-Biography-Project-3638775 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-47/segments/1542039746171.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20181119233342-20181120015342-00279.warc.gz | en | 0.888014 | 265 | 3.734375 | 4 |
Recent media events have focused on debates about fire safety standards and flame retardants. The North American Flame Retardant Alliance (NAFRA)—a group strongly committed to improving fire safety—welcomes an open public discussion on the facts about these important compounds that help keep Americans out of harm’s way.
Unfortunately, the heightened interest in fire safety has been accompanied by misinformation about flame retardants from special interest groups. Many of the inaccuracies we’ve seen and corrected before. But, there is a danger that families across the country may still be confused—or worse, unnecessarily concerned—about an integral component of fire safety that has long protected them and their homes. Families could be misled into thinking that the fire safety standards and tools that have quietly and consistently protected them for decades are no longer needed.
Home fires are a real threat to public safety. The National Fire Protection Association reports that there was one home fire reported every 85 seconds in 2012. Home fires caused an estimated 2,570 civilian deaths, 13,210 civilian injuries, and $7.2 billion in direct property damage per year through 2007-2011. These numbers can seem shocking, but it is important to remember that they are a vast improvement over what was happening across the United States as little as 40 years ago.
A major contributor to the decline in fires and fire deaths since the 1970s is the development of a comprehensive set of fire-safety measures. Strong fire codes have helped protect families, and tools such as smoke alarms, fire extinguishers, and flame retardants have all helped in battling the dangers of fire. The fact is that research studies have shown that using flame retardants in upholstered furniture can delay a fire by several minutes.
Families should know that the extensive scientific studies by independent experts make clear that flame retardants add an important layer of fire protection and flame retardants have been subject to strong review by regulatory agencies. | <urn:uuid:3aa2aab8-5b8e-4003-9ffa-57ff2aa115df> | CC-MAIN-2016-22 | http://blog.americanchemistry.com/2014/03/misinformation-fuels-misplaced-concerns-over-flame-retardants/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-22/segments/1464049278244.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160524002118-00205-ip-10-185-217-139.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946528 | 393 | 3.546875 | 4 |
DAY 1 – Amos 5: 18-24
**The lessons for this week deal with God coming in judgment. In the case of the Old Testament lesson, God comes to the wandering nation of Israel, now divided into 2 kingdoms: the Northern and the Southern kingdoms. [View the Map] The North has strayed off, seeking protection and security in other countries and kings. In the case of the Gospel lesson, God comes as a groom and finds his guests unprepared and distracted.**
In our Old Testament reading today, God had invited His people, Israel, to trust Him, and He had shown countless times when He protected and served them in the past. But instead God found them chasing after idols and ignoring His promises. God compares His dilemma to someone who enters his own house only to be bitten by a venomous snake. Israel had turned their back on God and sought safety and support in other kingdoms. Now God sees through all their ceremonies and worship, because the people were going through the motions. They were not genuine in looking to God above all things.
In enters Amos, a herdsman (shepherd), who was called to prophetically speak on behalf of God. The Assyrian nation to the north is about to descend on the Northern Kingdom, capture their citizens, and deport them throughout the Assyrian empire. All this God sees coming, and allows to happen as a consequence of their seeking hope and peace in other things.
Read Amos 5: 18-24
How can this passage apply to people inside the church today?
Amos mentions being righteous. How are we righteous? (read 2 Corinthians 5:21 for additional insight). What does this mean for our worship and sacrifices?
With Amos being a herdsman (shepherd), who else in the bible was a Shepherd? How does shepherd make God’s story come together?
Read this information about shepherds in Biblical Times:
The idea of shepherding, and in specific the idea of God acting as the Shepherd of His people, is a theme found throughout the Bible, from beginning to end. In Genesis 48:24, as Jacob, on his deathbed summarized his life, he declared that God had been his “shepherd all of his life to this day.” In Revelation 7:17, when the saints who come out of the tribulation are brought before God, John brings together two of the most striking images of the scripture by stating, "for the Lamb in the center of the throne shall be their shepherd and shall guide them to springs of the water of life; and God shall wipe every tear from their eye.” Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Joseph were all shepherds, as was Moses and David. It is also used figuratively to represent rulers of kingdoms and of God to his people (Psalms 23:1; 80:1; Isaiah 40:11; 44:28; Jeremiah 25:34,35; Nahum 3:18; John 10:11,14; Hebrews 13:20; 1 Peter 2:25; 5:4).
The duties of a shepherd in a country like Palestine were very demanding. In early morning he would take the flock from the pen, marching at its head to the spot where they were to be pastured. Here he watched them all day, taking care that none of the sheep strayed, and if any for a time eluded his watch and wandered away from the rest, would seek till he found and brought it back. Sheep require to be supplied with water, and the shepherd has to guide them either to some running stream or to wells dug in the wilderness and furnished with troughs. At night he brought the flock home to the pen, counting them as they passed under the rod at the door to assure himself that none were missing. Often his labors would not end at sunset. Often he had to guard the pen through the night from the attack of wild beasts, or the wily attempts of the prowling thief (1 Samuel 17:34).
Looking at the theme of shepherd, who else is in your life to help shepherd you?
What makes some better shepherds than others?
Take time to pray about specific people in your life, thanking God that they shepherd you.
DAY 2 – Matthew 25: 1-13
In our gospel today Jesus has withdrawn to get some rest. The disciples take this opportunity to ask Jesus when the Last Day will come. Jesus responds with a parable about a wedding that provides a warning for all listening and us today: be prepared spiritually! In the story the guests are waiting for the groom to arrive. The wait extends longer than expected, and as night sets in, the guests have to light their lamps. Unfortunately, the wait continues even longer, and some lamps begin to run low on oil. Some guests had planned ahead and brought spare oil, but others had not. Those running low must quickly go to a store to get more oil, but when they arrive back at the banquet, the groom has already arrived and taken the other guests in to the banquet. In the end they miss out because they did not have enough oil to wait as long as needed.
Read Matthew 25: 1-13
What sticks out to you about this reading? How does this reading apply to today?
Since we are eagerly waiting for Jesus’ return, would you prefer Jesus to come sooner or later and why?
What does it look like to have the “oil needed” to be prepared for Christ’s return?
Is there anyway to share your oil with others?
As a family write a letter to a persecuted Christian, encourage these Christians to stand firm in their faith as they continue to wait for the groom. Voice of the Martyrs Letters will be available at worship, and can be returned there. | <urn:uuid:b28f2e7a-bdcb-4968-9abc-386b4b011e45> | CC-MAIN-2017-47 | https://www.communityoflife.us/homehuddle/2017/11/10/week-of-november-12th | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-47/segments/1510934805541.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20171119095916-20171119115916-00729.warc.gz | en | 0.976904 | 1,194 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Reshaping colonial cities, African architects reclaim history – and the future
South Africa's Umkhumbane Museum, located in the multiracial township of Cato Manor in Durban, took the grand prize in the Africa Architecture Awards, the first ever pan-African award for building design.
Johannesburg, South Africa —For decades, crammed neighborhoods of matchbox houses and tin shacks lined the edges of South Africa’s cities like grand human filing cabinets: places the white government could store the vast quantities of black labor it needed to keep the country going.
When these "townships" of workers – forbidden from living in the cities proper – got too crowded, too diverse, or too revolutionary, the government would often simply tear them down and start over.
Today, however, these architectural afterthoughts have become the sites of some of the country’s most creative and forward-thinking design projects – buildings that seem by their very existence to demand a new way of seeing places once confined to the margins of both South Africa’s cities and its history.
Among these projects is the airy and elegant community history museum that now soars above the township of Cato Manor in Durban, a coastal city here. And on Thursday night, the Umkhumbane Museum took the grand prize in the Africa Architecture Awards, the first ever pan-African award for building design.
“We come from a deep history of pain and suffering, but also a deep history of resilience,” says Rod Choromanski, the lead architect on the project. “And we want to show people how important their lives and histories are.”
In a wider sense, too, many of the award’s finalists embody a continent whose architects are simultaneously reclaiming a design history snuffed out – often violently – by colonialism while also creating spaces that are asserting Africa loudly in the global architecture world.
Finalists for the main award included a cultural center in rural Senegal whose thatched roof undulates like a sine wave and a Ghanaian office building whose design was inspired by the geometrical triangular patterns found in the bark of a palm tree. The finalists capture “an incredible moment in time for pan-African architecture,” wrote Evan Lockhart-Barker, managing director of a retail business development initiative for Saint-Gobain, the construction multi-national that sponsored the awards. “The values and aspirations displayed in the awards have led to incredible insights about the continent and its shape-shifting ways,” he wrote in a form response to journalists.
To many outsiders, architecture in Africa has long been synonymous with aging colonial cities, whose crumbling art deco and modernist facades at times felt like they were copy-pasted from European capitals. In many countries, indeed, colonial conquest had wiped out much of the existing architecture to make way for Western-style cities and towns. But even in those spaces, Africans have always innovated, often designing new spaces for themselves in the relics of old ones. In Johannesburg, for instance, one of the city’s main synagogues is now a popular Pentecostal church, where below the delicate Hebrew etchings on its stone gates hawkers now sell cell phones and sandwiches to congregants and passerby.
African architecture, meanwhile, has become increasingly prominent globally in recent decades. Like the continent they come from, Africa’s architects – and their projects – are staggeringly diverse, but many are united by a loudly announced sense of belonging to the places they come from.
One of the finalists for the architectural awards this year, for instance, was an “adventure playground” in Addis Ababa designed by two Ethiopian architects, which incorporates local materials like bamboo, recycled tires, jerry cans, and satellite dishes. Another, the Senegalese cultural center, was built only using entirely local construction techniques.
'A new vision of this country'
Though a number of the projects in this year’s awards were produced by architecture firms outside the continent, African architects say their voices – and their ideas – are shaping the continent’s design future.
“We do have an African architecture, but sometimes we feel we don’t have the vocabulary yet to describe what it is,” says Ogundare Olawale Israel, a graduate student at the University of Johannesburg’s school of architecture and the winner of this year’s “emerging voices” prize.
For many African architects, the language their work speaks is deeply personal. Mr. Choromanski, for instance, comes from a mixed-race family in Durban who were forcibly separated by apartheid’s racial laws. Some of the family were classified as white, while others, including him, were labeled “coloured,” a term for mixed-race people. That label allowed them to be denied access to the city’s nicest schools, hospitals, and neighborhoods.
Similarly, the vibrantly multiracial Durban neighborhood of Cato Manor – where the Umkhumbane Museum is located – was the site of an infamous forced removal of its residents in the 1950s and ‘60s in order to re-segregate the area. Much of the neighborhood’s architecture literally crumbled beneath the apartheid government’s bulldozers.
The new museum, which was finished last year but has not yet opened to the public, holds exhibits on the area’s history, as well the history of the Zulu people. The mother of the current Zulu king was recently reburied in the space, further adding to its significance for residents.
“Sometimes I think of the 1980s, when I was sitting in a classroom studying architecture while the country was burning, while Mandela was locked in prison,” Choromanski says. “People were fighting for a new vision of this country, and the architecture can be part of that.” | <urn:uuid:1593f289-038c-4b38-95c5-d211d3012ad2> | CC-MAIN-2018-17 | https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2017/0929/Reshaping-colonial-cities-African-architects-reclaim-history-and-the-future | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-17/segments/1524125947822.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20180425135246-20180425155246-00295.warc.gz | en | 0.967278 | 1,243 | 2.828125 | 3 |
CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS ON THE COLOUR OF THE CHINESE COFFEE POT
- PORCELAIN DURING EMPEROR YONGZHENG RULING
- FAMILLE ROSE
- BEAUTY THEORY
- COLOUR COMPARISON WITH OTHER PERIOD
- ANALYSIS ON THE COLOUR OF THE CHINESE COFFEE POT
The coffee pot was made during the reign of Qing Dynasty under Emperor Yongzheng (1723-1735). Under his ruling, the colour of Famille Rose of Chinese Porcelain was developed. It was a highly demanded colour that became more popular than the blue white ceramic.
PORCELAIN DURING EMPEROR YONGZHENG RULING
To begin with the analysis of the colour of the Chinese Coffee Pot, I will begin the analysis by assess the Chinese porcelain supplied during the period around 1735. As tastes and ethos of China has always adapted its ceramics industry to fit the needs of it clients who ever they may be, it was during this period that the Chinese became especially interested in Western technology and science. Famille Rose enamels were developed as a consequence of this interaction. The impetus for the development of this new palette was the direct involvement previous emperor Kangxi (1662-1722) who desired to improve expertise in the manufacture of all crafts, especially in relation to learning about technology from abroad. Therefore, his fourth son, Emperor YongZheng appointed Nian Xiyao as administrator of Jingdezhen, who also personally supervised the manufacture of the porcelain destined for the Imperial Court. Under the ruling, the production of blue and white wares decreased and a new style called famille Rose, described as ‘flowery’ emerged to be the dominant palette in overglaze decoration.
Described as ‘flowery’, it was a new colour palette of the era of Chinese porcelain. It takes the name from a rose-colored enamel (gold chloride) which makes up a characteristic colour in the palette. Other significant colours in the palette are opaque yellow and opaque white. The majority of the enamels is opaque or semi-opaque and does not flow when being fired, could be fired at a lower temperature and had a wider colour range. As a result, it appeared softer, gentler and more feminine. The pink enamel characteristic of this ware is a precipitate of gold that appeared in China about 1720, having been discovered by Andre Cassius of Leyden about 1670. This opaque pink, called “purple of Cassius” is found together with blue, pale green, yellow and mauve enamels.
They were created from white porcelain clay that was first covered with an opaque white glaze before being fired at a very high temperature. The decorative motifs were then applied to the glazed bodies using brightly colored, famille-rose enamel pigments that were fixed to the vases by a second firing at a much lower temperature. The rose colour that gives its name to this colour scheme is created from colloidal gold (a suspension or colloid of sub-micrometre-sized particles of gold in a fluid). This ruby red colour was augmented by two other newly introduced coloured enamels, an opaque white which was made from fine crystals of lead arsenate, the other new colouring agent was lead stannate used for the opaque yellow. These colours, while new to China, were certainly not new to Europe but the effect of them on porcelain certainly was new. It was also used for Chinese taste or domestic market porcelain, but was also used to decorate a vast array of Chinese export porcelain of all shapes and sizes. Typically the earlier enamels in this palette was applied with glue as its base which helped with building thick layers of enamels, while later versions are applied with the use of rue oil as a medium, which gives thinner layers.
During the Qing dynasty, Western art influenced China primarily through the Jesuit missionaries who served in the imperial court. Western missionaries had first arrived in China in the sixteenth century to teach Christianity, but after they were forbidden to proselytize their religion, they instead taught the Chinese about Western science, mathematics, art, and philosophy. The palette seems to have been developed with influence from European taste and demand and with technology imported via Jesuits working within the Imperial palace in Beijing. At the same time, In Europe and foremost France, the emerging rococo fashion, being an important export market also called for softer colours in the decorations.
Many Famille Rose patterns were exported to Europe, and the fanciers of China there often refined and redesigned these patterns and sent these designs back to China for production. Thus, while many of the Famille Rose patterns are wholly of Chinese origin, others have roots that intermingle with European designs and ideas.
They often have an elaborate arrangement of minutely delineated border patterns around the central subject (usually pretty women), demonstrating the new, and later widespread, idea that the beauty of an object is directly proportional to the amount of decoration on it. This theory was to be one of the causes of the degeneration of later Chinese and Japanese wares; it was, however, by no means confined to Asia and can be seen in most 19th-century European porcelain.
ANALYSIS ON THE COLOUR OF THE CHINESE COFFEE POT
Analysing the colour of the pot was quite interesting. It is true that the colour of the Chinese Coffee Pot is under the trend of the newly invented Famille Rose under the ruling of Emperor YongZheng. Simply put, I can say that the colour of the Chinese Coffee Pot is following the family colour of the supply in China at that moment. It might be caused of the lower production cost when colouring is done in mass and shared between a lot of porcelain (rather than customising it for every piece). Therefore, even though the palette is considered to be softer and more feminine, it does not necessarily means that the Chinese Coffee Pot was made targeted to women market based on its colour as everything else was made with Famille Rose as well.
At the same time, the choice to learn, develop and apply the new colour might be a step taken to level up the competition of porcelain market in the Europe. The demand for porcelain might have became saturated before (due to the long lasting demanded blue-white porcelain), therefore there was the need to make the newly innovative colour that give European more options and choice. Also, due to the unique colour of Famille Rose, the Chinese Coffee Pot might also be bringing the ‘new Chinese’ to the Europe.
[Additional Information on Porcelain Colour Palette]
When I first see the colour of the object, I didn’t know that the colour palette was popular as I was not really familiar with it before. Proceed to research more, I found out that there are different palette throughout different period of Chinese porcelain timeline. Another thing new was that to know that apparently those colour palette affect the value of porcelain artefact and especially the ruling period that can be seen from the imperial mark. To share more on this, interesting fact was that the Famille Rose was not the only porcelain colour made of the mix between ‘China’ and ‘Europe’, the previous ruling period had started to developed it and the palette was name Famille Verte, and the following ruling period developed it even further and came with another version of Famille Rose. I also find that this kind of ‘colour transfer’ is something that show the interconnected good relation between Chinese and European.
With the palette before
|Kangxi (1662-1722)||YongZheng (1723-1735)|
|Famille Verte||Famille Rose|
|Influenced by Chinese in style like Chinese prints and paintings of the Kangxi era||Influenced by flowery export style based on the emerging Rococo style in Europe|
|Clear (translucent) enamels were used||Thicker impasto opaque enamels due to the mixing with white opaque enamels were used|
|Trend setter for the European market||Influenced by the demand of European market|
Overall, the Famille Rose became more popular than Famille Verte in the European market, even more popular than the market for the plain blue and white wares. A possible reason is that as the decorative technique used many imported materials and colours that were more familiar and closely associated for the European market compared to the older Chinese palette.
with the palette after
|YongZheng (1723-1735)||QianLong (1735–1796)|
|Famille Rose with ruancai (soft colors)||Famille Rose with yangcai (foreign colors)|
|Also known as fencai (powder colours): famille rose against a white ground||Also known as falangcai: famille rose against a coloured ground|
|Painted only on a white transparent porcelain glaze||Painted on coloured backgrounds such as yellow, blue, pink, coral red, light green, ‘cafe au lait’, Batavia) brown, etc|
|Details of the decoration was boneless||Details of the decoration was filled in within outlines with increasingly more complex designs|
Next part: CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS ON THE VISUALS OF THE CHINESE COFFEE POT
Previous part: CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS ON THE FORM, STYLE AND SHAPE OF THE CHINESE COFFEE POT
SOURCES AND REFERENCES
- Asian Art Mall. Accessed November 06, 2018. http://www.asianartmall.com/porcelainfamille.htm.
- Irv. “Irv.” Buy Chinese Antiques. September 17, 2017. Accessed November 06, 2018. http://www.chineseantiques.co.uk/yongzheng-emperor/.
- Marks on Chinese Porcelain – Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) Reign Marks. Accessed November 06, 2018. http://gotheborg.com/qa/familles.shtml.
- Nilsson, Jan-Erik. Marks on Chinese Porcelain – Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) Reign Marks. Accessed November 06, 2018. http://gotheborg.com/glossary/famillerose.shtml.
- “Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) Porcelain.” Gotheborg.com – The Antique Chinese Porcelain Collectors Page. Accessed November 06, 2018. http://www.gotheborg.com/~gothebor/qa/qingblueandwhite.shtml.
- Savage, George. “Pottery.” Encyclopædia Britannica. June 08, 2018. Accessed November 06, 2018. https://www.britannica.com/art/pottery/East-Asian-and-Southeast-Asian-pottery.
- Silbergeld, Jerome, and Michael Sullivan. “Chinese Pottery.” Encyclopædia Britannica. February 06, 2014. Accessed November 06, 2018. https://www.britannica.com/art/Chinese-pottery/The-Qing-dynasty-1644-1911-12.
- “YONGZHENG 1723 – 1735 Chinese Taste Porcelain.” ROBERT McPHERSON ANTIQUES. Accessed November 06, 2018. https://orientalceramics.com/index.php/product/yongzheng-1723-1735-chinese-taste-porcelain-3/. | <urn:uuid:9aac769f-c82d-42f7-9d3a-19a32ed2616c> | CC-MAIN-2023-23 | https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/a160080/category/2017-dn1006-g4/project-2-zine-final-2017-dn1006-g4/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224653183.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20230606214755-20230607004755-00156.warc.gz | en | 0.942672 | 2,562 | 3.015625 | 3 |
In today’s highly mobile but highly regulated world, houses tend to not to be named or at least the names aren’t officially recognized. One of the more astonishing characteristics of early mail in the US is the remarkable idea that by simply writing the person’s name and city on the envelope it would get there… Apparently, at least some of the time, it did. House names were an equally acceptable form of address. Although the US adopted zip codes in the 1960’s, it was only recently (Relatively!!) that an address such as: ‘Esperanza Farm, R..F.D. 1, town X, State Y ceased to work. House numbers have been around longer than zip codes, with the first ones appearing in the 1500’s in Europe, but in more rural areas they too have only recently become formalized.
Named houses have a long tradition, and (as elsewhere) in New Hartford they can be split into two distinct groupings. In one, the majority, the house names are family names: Niles, Carpenter, Paine, Loomis; in the other, the names tend to be either descriptive or romantic: Stonehedges, Esperanza, Wyebrook, Rafters, Red Hill. Generally, though not always, the more romantic/descriptive names tend to arise in the 1800’s in New Hartford, usually with summer visitors whose backgrounds are generally professional in nature. This trend continues today, but the rise of regulated house numbers has tended to stifle the lasting quality of these names. The family names are not always associated with the original builder, but do seem to lag by about a generation or two, usually picking up on a family or individual who is well remembered. Not always, of course,but the long standing joke about how houses are referred to be family names several owners back, regardless of who lives there now, remains current.
Nonetheless, when examing a building or house, asking how, why, and when it got a name or didn’t can be a valuable starting point. | <urn:uuid:5f8416ef-3f37-463d-8566-379ca5b09ba5> | CC-MAIN-2017-39 | https://newhartfordcthistory.org/2012/12/12/all-the-houses-have-names/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-39/segments/1505818687606.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20170921025857-20170921045857-00334.warc.gz | en | 0.960934 | 431 | 2.59375 | 3 |
The traditional 3D printers used the regular horizontal surfaces to print objects on. But how cool would it be to have a 3D printer that can take away the surface dependency? Basically that means you can virtually print 3D objects anywhere in the air!
This is what the new 3D robotic printer called “Mataerial” can achieve. It’s unique characteristic is to allow users to print 3D objects in the air extending from any surface. It uses the principles of Anti-gravity object modeling and does not require any supporting structures to print objects in air.
This unique method enables users to print natural objects by using 3D curves in free motion.
The material that comes out of the nozzle is already solidified due to a chemical reaction between two source components.
Users can play around with different sizes and shapes giving them good flexibility to print such objects without using any particular surface.
This is a collaborative effort of Petr Novikov, Sasa Jokic and Joris Laarman studio.
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Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time. | <urn:uuid:9daea92f-aeec-4d50-9a4c-4a8c860420c6> | CC-MAIN-2015-32 | https://blog.adafruit.com/2013/05/23/create-3d-printed-objects-in-air-3dthursday/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-32/segments/1438042986625.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20150728002306-00306-ip-10-236-191-2.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.892925 | 302 | 3 | 3 |
It came, it seems, from outer space - and it did so quickly.
On the morning of October 22, 1993, local time, the visitor hit the top of the atmosphere over Ellsworth Land in Antarctica. It pierced the sky in a flash of light, moving a hundred times faster than a meteor, passing from the thinnest air and into the ice in a fraction of a second. It cut through the rock below with equal ease, flying through the solid earth in a northeasterly direction. In less than 20 seconds, it had crossed the South Atlantic, deep beneath the ocean floor. When it passed below the southern tip of Africa, it was more or less halfway between Cape Town and the center of Earth.
That was as deep as its straight path through the planet would take it; from then on it headed up. Fifteen seconds later, 6,000 kilometers across the Indian Ocean from Cape Town, it left Earth's crust somewhere between Sri Lanka and Thailand. It lanced up through the afternoon sky and headed back out to the stars. The whole visit lasted less than a minute, and nobody saw a thing.
It's remarkable that some strange guest should sweep through Earth like a hot wire through wax, and that no one would notice as it did so. But though the visitor was very fast and fairly heavy, it was also extremely small: a mass of as much as
10 tons squeezed into something about the size of a red blood cell. If a 10-ton asteroid fell to Earth at 400 kilometers per second, people would notice; something the size of a small car hitting the unyielding Earth at that speed would give up its kinetic energy in an explosion to rival that of a 200-kiloton nuclear weapon. But condensed to the size of a small amoeba, the same mass wouldn't cause anywhere near as much fuss. The fearsome momentum of the microscopic visitor would shatter the bonds between molecules directly in its path and push the bystanders aside. It would do this vigorously enough to melt a small tunnel as it passed, slicing through the rocky earth almost as easily as it passed through air and water.
If there had been a human at the point of entry, she might have seen a split-second burst of light, and the exit through the ocean must have made a fish-startling noise of some sort. But no one saw or heard a thing. No one, that is, for almost 10 years. It was only then that scientists noticed what might have been the visitor's faint signals in an obscure archive of seismological data. Such data piles up at ever-increasing rates as Earth gets more thoroughly wired; every passing planetary groan and tremor now gets recorded, preserved to be pondered by anyone who has the time, training, and curiosity to look. And in the past few years, a small team of physicists has developed the expertise to trawl that data for signs of intruders from outer space. These are researchers who, when the grandest physics project ever conceived was canned, set themselves a task far smaller in cost but arguably grander in ambition: surreptitiously turning a whole planet into a particle detector.
Vic Teplitz met Eugene Herrin in 1989. Both were on the faculty of the physics department at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. It was a heady time to be a particle physicist in Texas. Excavation was about to start on the 87 kilometers of underground tunnel, located an hour's drive from campus, that would house the Superconducting Super Collider, the Next Big Thing in science's endeavor to understand the makeup of the universe. The SSC, it was hoped, would produce all sorts of wonderful particles for the world's physicists to study, like the much sought-after Higgs boson. "For a few years," recalls Teplitz, "we were the capital of the planet." | <urn:uuid:8e7d3aa6-2f13-4c95-aa74-d122bf538255> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://www.wired.com/2003/02/matter/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320306346.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220128212503-20220129002503-00155.warc.gz | en | 0.973016 | 791 | 3.0625 | 3 |
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When you are quoting in MLA format, you are using outside sources, and they must be cited or else you are committing plagiarism. Many of your professors will expect you to write in MLA format, which means that you are citing sources that have a very specific way of looking on the page.
In order to write in MLA format, you must have two things: in-text citations and a Works Cited page. The in-text citations tell the reader who you are quoting and what page or paragraph you are quoting from. Then the Works Cited page tells your reader how to find that book or magazine or newspaper etc. that you are quoting. As you can see here, the sources/authors cited in the paper are the same sources that in the Works Cited page which is a requirement at the end of the paper. | <urn:uuid:cc83c199-256c-42b7-868a-264f57bb906a> | CC-MAIN-2019-30 | https://libguides.tncc.edu/MLA | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-30/segments/1563195526714.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20190720214645-20190721000645-00375.warc.gz | en | 0.938436 | 278 | 2.9375 | 3 |
A thigh bruise, medically known as a quadriceps contusion and commonly called a dead leg or charley horse, is an injury to the quadriceps muscles that causes damage to the muscle fibers and bleeding within the thigh.
The quadriceps muscle group consists of four large and powerful muscles that run down the front and sides of the thigh: the vastus medialis, vastus intermedius, vastus lateralis, and the rectus femoris. At each end of the muscles are tendons, strong cords of connective tissue. Tendon fibers begin within the muscle fibers and extend to the bones where they have their attachments. The quadriceps originate at the ilium (located at the upper edge of the pelvis) and the femur (thighbone). At their lower ends their respective tendons join together into one quadriceps tendon that surrounds the patella (kneecap). The tendon then becomes known as the patellar tendon, which inserts into the tibia (shinbone). The quadriceps are responsible for flexing (bending) the hip, straightening the leg at the knee, and are used in nearly every movement of the legs.
Damage to the quadriceps can cause bleeding, the severity of which depends on the force of the injury. Bleeding can be either intramuscular, which means that the bleeding is contained within the muscle compartment, or intermuscular, where the blood escapes from the fascia (sheath of tissue) that surrounds the muscle and flows downward within the leg, between the muscle compartments. Intermuscular bleeding is less severe. Intramuscular bleeding can be serious as the blood, trapped within the fascia, increases pressure within the muscle compartment. This can lead to the development of compartment syndrome, which causes muscle and nerve damage and impaired blood flow that can result in the death of leg tissue in the injured area.
An external blow to the front of the leg is the normal cause of a thigh bruise. The impact crushes the muscle against the femur. These injuries often occur during sporting activity, such as playing football, basketball, soccer or rugby, when a player receives a kick to the thigh, or is hit with a piece of sporting equipment, such as a bat.
The severity of the symptoms will depend on the force behind the blow, but will likely include the following:
- Sudden pain, which may be severe, at the moment of injury
- Bruising, which may travel down the leg
- Inability to fully bend or straighten the knee
- Inability to place full weight on the leg
- Stiffness, made worse if the athlete continues to play after injury
The doctor will ask about the circumstances of the injury, and physically examine the thigh. If it is an older injury and ossification is suspected, X-rays might be taken.
It is extremely important to treat a thigh bruise properly as, without such treatment, blood can form pools in the damaged muscle that calcifies, or hardens, with time, resulting in stiffness and lumps within the muscle. This condition, known as osteomyositis ossificans, sometimes needs remedial surgery.
Regardless of whether bleeding from a quadriceps contusion is intra- or intermuscular, initial treatment should be the same. An ice pack should be placed on the thigh immediately. If no ice pack is available, one can be made by placing ice in a bag and crushing it. The bag should be wrapped in a towel before placing it against the skin.
The knee should be fully flexed (bent) when the leg is iced. If the knee is straight when the leg is first iced, stiffness in the leg the following day will be markedly worse. If the knee is flexed, the quadriceps will remain much more flexible. Icing can be repeated for as long as is comfortable, every two hours for the first two days following injury. Between each icing the leg should be kept wrapped in a compression bandage.
Crutches can be used to aid mobility. To minimize swelling, the patient should keep the leg elevated above the level of the heart, as often as possible. This is best achieved by lying on the back with the leg resting on a pile of pillows.
NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) such as ibuprofen (Advil), naproxen (Aleve), or aspirin can be taken, according to direction, to reduce pain and alleviate inflammation.
Physical therapy might include instruction on proper rehabilitation techniques, ultrasound, and electrical stimulation to promote healing.
After the acute stage of the injury, which is the first two or three days, gentle rehabilitation of the quadriceps can begin. It is important not to cause any pain when exercising. If pain is felt, the patient is doing too much and recovery time will be lengthened. Damaged muscle fibers need to be allowed to heal properly.
Sitting on the floor with the injured leg straight out in front and the unaffected leg bent with the foot on the floor, contract the thigh muscles of the injured leg (the quadriceps) by pressing the knee towards the floor. Hold the position for 5-10 seconds then relax. Repeat 10 times, 3 times a day.
Lying on your back, bend the injured knee and keep the foot on the floor. Slide the heel towards the buttocks as far as you can without pain. Repeat 10-20 times.
Straight leg raise:
Lying with the back on the floor, bend the unaffected knee and rest the foot on the floor. Keeping the knee of the injured leg straight, contract the thigh muscles and lift the leg up until the heel is about 6 inches off the ground. Hold for 5-10 seconds then relax. Repeat 10 times, 3 times a day.
Quad stretch 1:
Lie on the floor on the stomach, with the injured leg on a pillow. Slowly bend the knee until a gentle stretch is felt. Hold the stretch 30-60 seconds. Repeat 10 times, 3 times a day.
Quad stretch 2:
Using a wall for support, hold the right foot with the right hand and gently pull the foot up and behind, towards the buttocks, stopping when you feel a gentle stretch. Keep the knees together and the pelvis neutral (neither tilted forwards nor backwards). Hold the stretch for 10 seconds then relax. Switch legs and repeat exercise.
As a thigh bruise is an accidental injury, there is little to be done to prevent it occurring. However, if the patient is returning to contact sports, padding can be worn over the thigh to protect the quadriceps muscles. | <urn:uuid:42b8f79c-c681-4185-bfdf-6be66e09bf82> | CC-MAIN-2017-47 | http://www.mmarmedical.com/category-s/771.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-47/segments/1510934806760.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20171123070158-20171123090158-00541.warc.gz | en | 0.930812 | 1,381 | 3.25 | 3 |
What is Ashtanga YogaIf you are new to Yoga this may be helpful
“Yoga” is a Sanskrit term derived from the root word yuj which means to harness or to yoke. In The Shambala Guide to Yoga, the Indologist, George Fuerstein, defines the term “yoga” as meaning both union and discipline. In India, yoga encompasses a range of spiritual practices which are intended to enable the practitioner to realise their inner spiritual nature. In so doing, the individual is believed to unite with the divine energy held to underlie the universe. These practices include both mental and physical exercises and are based on the widespread recognition in Indian philosophy of the close relationship between thought and behaviour, mind and body.
The Indian yogic tradition is several thousand years old and incorporates various schools of thought and practices. However, much of the yoga practised in Europe, the United States and Australia is derived from one particular tradition called Hatha Yoga. Specific physical exercises are performed to strengthen and cleanse the body in order to promote mental clarity and spiritual insights. A key Hatha Yoga teacher this century was Krishnamacharya (1891-1989); some of his most influential students (as far as western yoga is concerned) include his son Desikachar, who developed Viniyoga; B.K.S. Iyengar, whose Institute in Poona has trained many European and American teachers; and Sri K Pattabhi Jois, the living master of Astanga. Together with his grandson Sharath, Pattabhi Jois was teaching at his Institute in Mysore until his death on May 18th 2009. For more information please see http://www.kpjayi.org
In India, yoga is predominantly viewed as a spiritual discipline. Both Pattabhi Jois, in his book Yoga Mala, and Iyengar, in his book Light on Yoga, emphasise that observance of a moral code and mental discipline should precede the practice of yoga postures and breathing. Indeed, the word ‘Astanga’ literally translates as eight limbed and refers to the eight components of the yogic path laid out by Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras (200 A.D.). These include ethical disciplines, self-observation, posture, breath control, sense withdrawal, concentration, meditation and equanimity. However, in Europe and America, yoga is commonly adopted to facilitate health and fitness. Initially therefore emphasis is placed on postures and breath control as a means of enhancing strength and flexibility. It is only subsequently that regular practitioners discover the subtle effects that yoga has on all aspects of life. A greater awareness of the body also causes the practitioner to become increasingly sensitive to the impact of their actions and lifestyle on their encompassing social and natural environment
Ashtanga Yoga is a dynamic form of yoga in which asanas are linked in a flowing sequence through careful synchronisation of deep, regular breathing that uses the whole lung capacity. The standing asanas particularly focus the practitioner’s awareness on balancing weight equally on both legs, extending the spine and opening out the chest. This in turn encourages the practitioner to breathe more fully and to release tension in the neck. Emphasis is paid to the gaze, or dristi, and so in each posture the gaze rests softly on a particular point. This encourages focused attention and a quiet mind. Finally practitioners are encouraged to apply internal locks, or bandhas, the most important of which is the moola bandha. Here the muscles of the perineum are subtly drawn upwards, thus sealing the energy within the body and guarding against injury of the lower back and groin. The bandhas, ujjayi breath and flowing sequence of asanas combine to create considerable internal heat which increases physical flexibility and facilitates internal purification through the sweating out of toxins.
The physical benefits of regular Astanga practice include improved circulation, increased oxygenation of the blood, greater strength and flexibility in muscles (especially core muscles) as well as spinal flexibility and improved posture. In the USA scientific research projects are underway to investigate the effects of yoga on specific ailments. For example, the National Centre for Complementary medicine is funding research into whether yoga can alleviate symptoms of multiple sclerosis. Research conducted by the Northern Colorado Allergy and Asthma Clinic suggests that yoga not only increases oxygen levels in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease but also alleviates symptoms in asthma patients (reported in Yoga Journal, Winter 2000 issue). In the UK, similar research is carried out by the Yoga Biomedical trust, which was established by Cambridge biochemist Dr Robin Munro. Munro claims that yoga therapy can help with conditions ranging from low back pain to diabetes, migraine and high blood pressure. Linked to the Trust’s research are specialised therapeutic yoga courses for back pain, arthritis, asthma, multiple sclerosis and cancer. These are offered by the Yoga Therapy centre, established in 1993 and which used to be at the Royal Homeopathic Hospital in London.
The more subtle benefits on the psychological and spiritual levels are as important as the physical benfits. Astanga yoga can be described as a moving meditation. The focus on ujjayi breath, bandhas and drishti serve to still the mind, creating inner calm and a more spacious perspective which eventually permeates other aspects of the practitioner’s life. Particularly important in this respect is savasana, the corpse pose, performed at the end of a yoga session. Consisting of ten to fifteen minutes of total recumbent relaxation, this pose allows the breath and heartbeat to slow rigth down. It enables the practitioner to consciously focus on, and then let go of, areas of physical and mental tension held in the body. In the context of the rapid and pressurised pace of life in urban industrialised society, corpse pose can be one of the hardest postures for some to do. People are reluctant to give themselves permission to relax, and so there is a tendency to rush this posture or overlook it entirely. Done properly, this posture enables the practitioner to absorb the benefits of the yoga asanas and promotes a feeling of deep relaxation, peace and vitality. In this state, we are better able to combat both the effects of psychological and physical stress. | <urn:uuid:2ec64e40-a228-4211-854a-4ba3bce87aa7> | CC-MAIN-2021-21 | http://oxfordyoga.co.uk/what-is-ashtanga/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-21/segments/1620243989819.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20210518094809-20210518124809-00432.warc.gz | en | 0.953209 | 1,285 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Nocturnal animals face an obvious challenge: collecting enough light to see clearly in the dark. We know about many of their tricks. They have bigger eyes and wider pupils. They have a reflective layer behind their retina called the tapetum, which reflects any light that passes through back onto it. Their retinas are loaded with rod cells, which are more light-sensitive than the cone cells that allow for colour vision.
But they also have another, far less obvious adaptation - their rod cells pack their DNA in a special way that turns the nucleus of each cell into a light-collecting lens. Their unconventional distribution is shared by the rods of nocturnal mammals from mice to cats. But it's completely opposite to the usual genome packaging in the rods of day-living animals like primates, pigs and squirrels, and indeed, in almost all other eukaryotic cells.
In our cells, massive lengths of DNA are packaged into small spaces by wrapping them around proteins. These DNA-protein unions are known as chromatin, and they come in two different forms. Euchromatin is lightly packed and resembles a string of beads. Wrapping DNA in this way puts it within easy reach of other proteins and allows its genes to be actively transcribed. But imagine scrunching up that string of beads and you get heterochromatin - a tight, condensed ball of repressed genes that proteins cannot reach.
The two forms of chromatin are found in different areas, with euchromatin spread throughout the nucleus and heterochromatin concentrated at its edges. That pattern is nigh-universal and it applies from amoebae to plants to animals. There are only a few exceptions to this rule, including a minority of single-celled species and surprisingly, the rod cells in the eyes of nocturnal mammals. Now, Irina Solovei from the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich had found that this inverted distribution helps these species to see in the dark.
Solovei began by looking at the eyes of mice, which are almost entirely comprised of rod cells. She used fluorescent probes to reveal the location of the two forms of chromatin. In most eye cells, she saw the usual pattern in cross-section - a centre of euchromatin surrounded by a heterochromatin ring. The rod cells, however, had the opposite arrangement, with active euchromatin around a core of silent heterochromatin.
The mice aren't born with this topsy-turvy arrangement in their rods - rather, there's a switchover that starts on its sixth day of life and takes a couple of weeks to complete. During this relocation, the cell's nucleus changes shape from an ellipse to a sphere, and shrinks by about 40%.
The inverted pattern wasn't just a feature of mouse eyes - Solovei found the same thing in the rods of other animals with nocturnal habits. She looked at the eyes of 38 species hailing from 10 different orders, and found a clear link between the DNA in their rods and their daily lifestyles.
Species that are active at night, like cats, rats or opposums, have the inverted model. Day-lovers like horses and pigs have the conventional one. Deer, rabbits and "crepuscular" creatures that are active at dawn or dusk showed both patterns or, in the case of cows, an intermediate one. These relationships even held between members of the same group - among the primates, for example, nocturnal mouse lemurs have the inverted pattern, while diurnal macaques have the standard one.
To Solovei, this clear-cut connection was an obvious sign that the nocturnal arrangement of chromatin helps mammals to see in the dark. By running computer simulations and studying single rods under the microscope, she discovered that the rearranged DNA transform the nuclei into small lenses, collecting and funnelling light through the retina.
This light collection is massively important, when you consider that mammalian eyes have a back-to-front, incompetent design. The retina's light-sensitive rods and cones are right at the back, hidden behind a tangled weave of nerves and blood vessels. Even if light manages to get through, the rods themselves are arranged awkwardly, so that the segments that actually contain the light-sensitive pigments are blocked by columns of DNA-rich nuclei. The eyes of nocturnal mammals have so many rods that they present a thick wall of nuclei in front of the light-sensitive segments.
That would be a problem were it not for the rearranged chromatin. In its normal configuration, it would just scatter any light that found its way to the retina. But push the euchromatin to the edges, and suddenly the nuclei start passing light down from one to another. The structure ensures that as many photons as possible reach their final destination, allowing nocturnal mammals them to see at light levels a million times lower than those that are available to us during the day.
Based on the fossil record and molecular evidence, Solovei thinks that this inverted chromatin pattern evolved once in the early stages of mammal evolution, when our ancestors were still scurrying, creatures of the night. Species that once again ventured out in daylight reacquired the conventional pattern independently.
That may seem unlikely, but remember that this pattern is standard in virtually all eukaryotic cells. Such constancy implies that the normal arrangement has some important advantages to it. Presumably, it plays an important role in controlling which genes are switched on or off and indeed, we know that changing a gene's geography - where it's located in the nucleus - can be used to regulate it. Disrupting this system must have come at a price, and one that was only outweighed in nocturnal mammals by the vital need to see in the dark.
Reference: Solovei, I., Kreysing, M., Lanctôt, C., Kösem, S., Peichl, L., Cremer, T., Guck, J., & Joffe, B. (2009). Nuclear Architecture of Rod Photoreceptor Cells Adapts to Vision in Mammalian Evolution Cell, 137 (2), 356-368 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2009.01.052
Images: Cat by Vladimir Menko, others from Cell.
More on eye evolution:
- Spookfish eye uses mirrors instead of a lens
- Human cone cell lets mice see in new colours
- 'Missing link' flatfish has eye that's moved halfway across its head
- Jellyfish and human eyes assembled using similar genetic building blocks
- Mantis shrimps have a unique way of seeing
It would be interesting to know whether this correlation holds more broadly, e.g. in nocturnal vs. diurnal birds or reptiles. | <urn:uuid:08d3ef51-db51-4c13-9223-9e72fa3549c2> | CC-MAIN-2023-06 | https://www.scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/04/21/nocturnal-mammals-see-in-dark-by-turning-displaced-dna-into | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764499891.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20230131222253-20230201012253-00510.warc.gz | en | 0.952872 | 1,413 | 4 | 4 |
On May 30, the High Level Panel (HLP) on the Post-2015 Development Agenda presented its report entitled “A New Global Partnership: Eradicate Poverty and Transform Economies through Sustainable Development”. The report proposes the new outline for a universal agenda to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030. The report’s emphases on children, youth and women and on inequalities are positive and promising. The Panel was established by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and co-chaired by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron.
At the same time, Equity for Children proposes considering more innovative strategies and concrete targets to tackle the world’s growing inequalities. In the report, children, youth and women appear high on the agenda, a primary cause for celebrating the findings and recommendations. The five ‘transformative shifts’ that drive the ‘universal agenda’ as proposed by the HLP are relevant and promising. We particularly commend the Panel’s call to “leave no one behind” – a call that addresses for the first time the issue of inequalities and how people are marginalized on the basis of ethnicity, gender, geography, disability, age, race and/or other status.
The ‘transmormative shifts’ are a fundamental change from the current Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Inequality is mentioned explicitly in the HLP report section ‘Illustrative Goals’ as a cross cutting issue: “We believe that many targets should be monitored using data broken down by income quintiles and other groups. Targets will only be considered achieved if they are met for all relevant income and social groups” (HLP report pg.16). Congratulations to those who included this paragraph in the HLP’s report! Let us work to propel this idea forward by adding concrete targets and indicators.
The report’s ‘Illustrative Goals and Targets’ Goal #2 is an important one : ‘Empower girls and women and achieve gender quality’ when combined with the following targets: a) Prevent and eliminate all forms of violence against girls and women; and b) End child marriage. The explicit mention of girls will increase the visibility of adolescent girls and move the equality agenda forward (see Adolescent Girls: Cornerstone of Society, 2012).
Other positive aspects of the report include treating urban settings as a cross cutting issue, since most people living in poverty live in cities, and the call for a “data revolution for sustainable development’’, which will reinforce and improve evidence-based policies and programs.
But there are report shortfalls, too. Despite all its positive elements and the windows of opportunity that the report opens, a more concrete agenda is needed. Equity-oriented goals must be introduced, each with targets and indicators. Equity for Children first noted these needs in 2003 with “Mind the Gap”, a research article published in the Journal of Human Development.
Reaching consensus among all stakeholders can sometimes result in proposals that are homogenized, vague and weak. Agreement by all runs the risk of deemphasizing differences and losing a clear set of priorities. Equity for Children had hoped for an agenda that goes far beyond the present MDGs, an agenda that fosters thinking ‘out of the box’ instead of “more of the same”.
The report lacks a reference to equality and equity in the main corpus, particularly regarding opportunities and outputs. This is a major obstacle for organizations such as Equity for Children that are working for social justice and human rights realization for all children and adolescents. Equality in human rights, and social and economic equity, are indispensable components of any democratic and inclusive society’s policies. Sustainable growth requires it. Only by reducing social and economic inequities can we ensure that new generations have creative, productive lives that will break the vicious cycle of poverty. Including equity in the definition of goals, targets and indicators calls for action from all of us. Goal 8 of the report, “Create jobs, sustainable livelihoods, and equitable growth” also introduces the notion of equity as a goal. But it is equally important to add targets and monitoring indicators there and for all other goals as well.
The multidimensionality of poverty is another serious issue that affects children living in poverty and that is missing from the report. The report considers only eradicating extreme poverty as measured by income, which is based on a money-metric concept. To measure extreme poverty, the report uses the much criticized 1.25u$s a day measure, which understates the problem for children and women. Our research provides strong evidence that this measure underestimates multidimensional child poverty and biases. It misleads policies that are oriented toward reducing child poverty. We recommend using metrics beyond income such as the multiple deprivation methods and others that combine with income and consumption measures (ECLAC-UNICEF, Gordon et al., Minujin et al.)
The report’s main theme is ‘sustainable economic growth with eradication of extreme poverty’. But explicit, groundbreaking structural reforms to help ensure the reduction of growing inequalities around the world or the extreme concentration of wealth and power in a small group of individuals and corporations are missing. In this regard, Equity for Children advocates promoting strong institutional reforms that ensure equitable development. Targets and indicators help strengthen that process.
Equity for Children recognizes that the report opens key windows of opportunity and is very promising. Its call for collective action motivates all of us to work toward a world with social justice and equality. | <urn:uuid:42982ba7-6038-487c-b675-37cbc52257d3> | CC-MAIN-2023-23 | https://equityforchildren.org/2013/07/a-great-step-forward-but-lets-be-more-daring-equity-for-childrens-comments-on-the-high-level-panel-for-the-post-2015-development-agenda/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224652494.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20230606082037-20230606112037-00165.warc.gz | en | 0.928291 | 1,166 | 2.625 | 3 |
The implications of the revolutions that swept over Tunisia, Libya and Egypt in 2011 are of such magnitude that the Arab world will never be the same again. They caused the fall of the presidents of Tunisia in January 2011, of Egypt in February, of Libya in August and of Yemen in February, followed by a wave of popular uprisings covering Bahrain, Morocco, Syria, Jordan, Mauritania and other countries. The Tunisian revolution was the focal point that started the “Arab Spring”. The world “was inspired by Tunisia’s demands for democracy, freedom and dignity,” according to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
The revolts in the Middle East and North Africa reflected a yearning for democracy by Arabs seeking to regain their long-suppressed national pride and dignity. The struggles that gave birth to each demonstration, occupation or revolution were separate and yet connected ; part of a collective roar from young people who, for the first time in modern history, faced a future in which they would be worse off than their parents.
Let us look at the key players and at the role they may play in this post-revolutionary era :
The Tunisian General Labor Union (UGTT) : this is historically a major social force and a key interlocutor of the government in the organization and management of social affairs. It has traditionally mediated in social conflicts but has also played a rallying role at historic moments in the country’s history, such as during the independence period. Later it became the main countervailing force to the one-party system under both Bourguiba and Ben Ali.
In the revolt that started in December 2010, it was the union rank and file, as opposed to the leadership, who mobilized the different sections and structured the movement in its early days. It developed with leftist parties the slogans, orchestrated the strikes in different cities, managed the demonstrations and negotiated with the army. However, last October the UGTT called for a general strike in reaction to the series of violence targeting unionists and civil society activists and political players in the country. The strike was canceled at the last moment after guarantees given by the governing coalition led by the Ennahdha party. The UGTT called again for a general strike and a day of national mourning, following the assassination of activist and politician Chokri Belaid, Secretary-General of the Unified Democratic Patriotic Party on February 6, 2013.
Civil society : together with the labor union, Tunisia’s professional associations, students, university professors and human rights organizations all played an instrumental role in casting a civic face on the revolt. The Tunisian League for Human Rights, along with a whole host of human rights activists and opposition journalists, are now well-known among the public as a result of their dramatic protests, primarily hunger strikes. Women’s movements were particularly vocal and confident. Lawyers and judges’ unions, whose members felt that their profession had been stripped of its credibility under Ben Ali, were also prominent.
Civil society’s influence has continued post-revolt. Three national commissions were established in the week after the fall of Ben Ali. Beyond their specific missions, these commissions represented an interesting model of the new structures of governance that flank the traditional branches of power and seem designed to compensate for the weakness of the political parties in the first months after the revolution.
The particularity of Tunisia among Arab countries is the legal status of women, the protection of their personal rights, equality on the workplace and representation in public institutions. All enjoy a strong consensus among the political, economic and intellectual elites, as well as within significant portions of the middle class. Some analysts foresaw that the Ennahdha will evolve towards the model of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), by softening its discourse and positions to adapt to mainstream Tunisians, who have a fairly clear consensus on the social model and values they want. But after winning in the last elections as the first party (with 39.5%), the Ennahdha party is leading society to a polarized state between Islamism and secularism.
The military : in Egypt and Tunisia, the armies proved to be the supreme political forces, easing unpopular leaders Hosni Mubarak and Ben Ali from office in part due to their reluctance to fire on protesters. Libya was very different, however.
In Tunisia the army has been popular during the revolt and described as patriotic by the public. It came out in support of the demonstrators, refusing to shoot at the population and seeking to protect civilians from repression by the security forces. Having refused to comply with Ben Ali’s orders to suppress the protests, the army’s role in the revolt was therefore clearly political in that it made the decision not to protect Ben Ali’s regime any longer.
The main ideologies : at the beginning of the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and around the region, the calls for change were less and less linked to a particular ideology like Islamism. Instead, analysts and activists say the forces that brought people to the streets in Tunisia and excited passions across the Middle East were far more fundamental and unifying : concrete demands to end government corruption, institute the rule of law and ease economic suffering.
In 1979, the Iranian revolution introduced the Muslim world to the force of political Islam, which frightened entrenched leaders, as well as the West. That ideology still has a powerful hold on people’s imaginations across the region, which continues to feed fighters to jihadist movements. But like Arabism and socialism before it, the political Islam of Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran and the radicalized ideology of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden have failed to deliver in practical ways for the millions of people across the Middle East who lived in bastions of autocratic rule.
Now, ideology has receded in the background, giving room for the political class to address the thorny question of reform. Yet the leaders of the Ennahdha party has been focusing only about its survival, avoiding confrontation in the name of a reformed state.
But, after months of reassuring secularist critics, Islamist politicians in Tunisia have begun to lay down markers about how Muslim their state should be - and first signs show they want more religion than previously admitted. With political deadlines looming, the Tunisian coalition led by the Islamist Ennahdha party made statements revealing a stronger emphasis on Islam in government. Thedraft constitution defined Islam as “the principle source of legislation” - a phrase denoting laws based on Shari’a.
The Secularists : they warned voters against trusting the Islamists, and the subtle changes being introduced in the core principles of the Tunisian state could have come straight from a secularist playbook on how Islamists would gradually insert more religion into the political and legal systems. Ennahdha leader Rachid Ghannouchi once again attempted to reassure secularists by agreeing with them that the first article of Tunisia’s constitution should remain unchanged. The article, which states Tunisia’s language is Arabic and its religion is Islam, was “just a description of reality (...) without any legal implications”, he said last November. And “There will be no other references to religion in the constitution”.
However, in the draft constitution, it is stated that “Islam is Tunisia’s religion and the principal source of its legislation”. It is also stated that “Using Islamic Shari’a as a principle source of legislation will guarantee freedom, justice, social equality, consultation, human rights and the dignity of all its people, men and women”. Mentioning Shari’a means all laws must be consistent with Islam, a condition found in many constitutions in Muslim countries. This can be interpreted broadly, or strictly if those vetting the legislation impose a narrow reading.
The political parties : a major concern for Tunisians after the fall of Ben Ali was to ensure that not only he disappears but that his system is dismantled. The main cleavage has been between those who called for conciliation and those who advocated for the eradication of all remnants of Ben Ali’s regime and the dismantling of the ruling party. Before the revolt, the political system in Tunisia was entirely structured by the ruling party, the Constitutional Democratic Rally. Other small parties were brought in to present a semblance of pluralism, except the PDP (Parti democrate progressiste) who was under close surveillance and kept outside the parliament.
In conclusion, the 2011 revolutions are post-Islamist in the sense that they are driven not by young Muslims seeking to escape from perceived Western humiliation through political identification with Islam — as in Tehran in 1979 — but by young Muslims (not Islamists) demanding freedom, representation and the rule of law.
These are Western values. But the revolutions are also anti-Western, as they seek to escape from a Western “trap” – the trap of telling Arabs that the only option open to them if they were not to be controlled by radical Islamists was to be suppressed by Western-backed despots. This binary definition of the Arab world, more than 30 years after the eruption of Islamism, had become a shameful artifice.
At this point, no one knows how one of the most critical chapters in the history of the modern Arab world will end, as the region pivots from a movement against dictatorship toward a movement for something that is proving far more ambiguous, as Antony Chedid said before dying (*). Will the generation shaped by jail, exile and repression and bound by faith and alliances years in the making, have the greatest say in determining what emerges ? | <urn:uuid:3aa5c3e6-05be-4e57-b04d-b0e8966c38dc> | CC-MAIN-2021-25 | https://www.boulevard-exterieur.com/Tunisia-s-democratic-revolution-and-its-uncertain-future.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-25/segments/1623488289268.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20210621181810-20210621211810-00222.warc.gz | en | 0.966518 | 1,972 | 2.71875 | 3 |
SUMMARY: Major commercial and governmental standards organizations are now requiring use of newer, more secure versions of Transport Layer Security (TLS) to protect your information. We explain why this is a good move and what it means to you.
Earlier this year, the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Standards Security Council (SSC) deprecated TLS version 1.0 in their Data Security Standard (DSS) . As a result, starting the summer of 2018, all PCI-DSS-compliant e-commerce sites must no longer use this early, insecure version of TLS. This decision is similar to other moves to strengthen TLS – for instance, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) deprecated (since 2014) TLS 1.0 in their government guidelines , and together this has motivated several organizations to drop support for versions before 1.2 from their systems.
TLS is a highly technical subject. This article explains the reasons behind these decisions, and shows how deprecating older TLS versions is a step to a safer and better Internet.
Transport Layer Security (TLS)
TLS is a cryptographic protocol that protects data from being read or altered in transit, over a computer network. TLS is the successor to and builds on the foundation of the previous Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol. Since 1999 , when it was published, TLS has been adopted by a surprisingly diverse and widespread array of applications and can be used in almost any application looking to protect the communication between two ends. (In tech talk, these are often called client and server.)
The most well-known use for TLS is to protect connections between browsers and HTTPS web sites (such as this article you are reading on SSL.com’s servers). It is also used by point-of-sale (POS) terminals communicating with their back-end servers (to protect credit card information) and by instant messaging applications, e-mail clients, voice-over IP (VoIP) software and many more.
Currently, there are four versions of TLS available:
- TLS 1.0 (released in 1999) was the first version and is now being deprecated.
- TLS 1.1 (released in 2006) was never adopted by the industry. It was largely skipped in favor of its successor 1.2.
- TLS 1.2 (released in 2008) is the most commonly used TLS version. Almost all services support TLS 1.2 as a default.
- TLS 1.3 (released in 2018) is an experimental version of the TLS protocol that offers more performance and security than older versions. Though still under research and not yet officially standardized , it should be noted that the industry is starting to implement support for its draft versions.
Modern vs early TLS
Vulnerabilities in the earliest TLS 1.0 protocol have concerned the cyber security community in the past few years, and such exploits as POODLE, CRIME and BEAST have had enough impact to even reach the mainstream media. However, TLS is constantly evolving to meet new threats; efforts to improve on the first version of TLS, conducted by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Network Working Group (NWG) have resulted in the better and more secure current standard, TLS 1.2.
TLS 1.2 uses modern cryptography and offers better performance and security than its predecessors. At the same time, it is not susceptible to any of the vulnerabilities mentioned above, which makes it an ideal choice for any application in secure communications. Most companies and organizations have upgraded their servers to support TLS 1.2.
However, not all client software can be upgraded to newer versions of TLS. For example, a news web site must be accessible by both modern and older browsers, simply because there are still readers that use them. This includes Android devices before version 5.0, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer before 11, Java programs before Java version 1.7, and even some remote payment terminals or monitoring equipment that are costly to upgrade. Moreover, compatibility with older configurations requires that even modern client software must be able to communicate with outdated servers as well.
According to SSL Pulse , a service which reports statistics on Alexa’s Top 500 sites TLS support, as of January 2018, 90.6% of the servers hosting monitored web sites supported TLS 1.0, while 85% supported TLS 1.1. Furthermore, almost all browsers (and many non-browser clients) still support older TLS versions. Thus, while TLS 1.2 is preferred, most clients and servers still support early TLS.
TLS security considerations
Since the majority of modern browsers and clients implement TLS 1.2, a non-technical user could think that they should be safe (and that those systems that have not been upgraded must have been accepted as business risks). Unfortunately, this is not true – just having support for earlier versions of TLS poses a security threat to users of even modern clients and servers.
TLS provides network security, and its primary goal is to prevent an attacker from reading or modifying data exchanged between nodes of a network. Therefore, it mitigates network attacks, such as Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attacks . A MITM attack exploits the fact that a computer network can be manipulated so that all nodes of a network send their traffic to the attacker instead of the expected router or other nodes. The attacker can then read or modify the intercepted content before relaying it to its intended target. TLS protects against MITM attacks by encrypting the data with a secret key that is only known to the original client and server. A MITM attacker without knowledge of this secret key cannot read or tamper with the encrypted data.
However, TLS versions between clients and servers must match, and since they often support multiple TLS versions, they negotiate which version to use through a protocol called a handshake. In this handshake, the client sends an initial message, stating the highest TLS version it supports. The server then responds with the chosen TLS version, or an error if no common version is found. Keep in mind that the handshake messages are exchanged unencrypted, because this information is used to configure the secure data channel.
The attentive reader may already suspect that, since the handshake is not encrypted, an attacker performing a MITM attack could see and modify the requested TLS version to an earlier, vulnerable one like TLS 1.0. They could then proceed to utilize any of the aforementioned TLS 1.0 vulnerabilities (like POODLE or CRIME) to compromise the connection.
In software security, attacks that force victims to use older, more vulnerable versions of software are called downgrade attacks. Attackers exploiting any protocol vulnerability essentially have the same goal: compromise network security and gain access to exchanged data. The technical nuances of these vulnerabilities are not relevant to the deprecation of TLS 1.0 (and providing details on such attacks is beyond the scope of this article), but the author would like to emphasize that there are publicly available tools allowing even non-technical attackers to perform downgrade attacks. Imagine using your up-to-date mobile phone to read your mail before flying at the airport, or when checking your balance in an online banking application at a cafe. A prepared attacker with these tools can intercept or even tamper with your information, if your phone’s browser or your banking application allows connections using older versions of TLS.
In effect, as long as servers and clients in your network connection support older TLS versions they (and you) are vulnerable.
Am I affected?
To mitigate this risk, PCI SSC and NIST have deprecated TLS 1.0 in systems compliant with their standards. While TLS 1.1 is not vulnerable to all the discovered vulnerabilities, it was never really adopted in the market, and many companies and organizations have recently dropped support for TLS 1.1 as well. Again, looking at SSL Pulse data, as of July of 2018, following the deprecation of TLS 1.0, only 76.6% of the monitored web sites still support TLS 1.0 and only 80.6% support TLS 1.1. That means that the changes introduced in these standards have had an effect, and about 16,000 major sites have dropped all support for early TLS versions.
Downgrade attacks apply to both clients and servers. Concerned readers can use ssltest, a publicly-available toolkit that can check their software for these vulnerabilities, with a browser tool and Web Server tool , which can be used free of charge.
If your servers still support vulnerable TLS versions, please watch for SSL.com’s upcoming guide to configuring web servers for compliance with most secure standards.
Digital certificates issued by SSL.com work with all versions of TLS, so no action is required.
TLS offers security and privacy to Internet users. Over the years, researchers have discovered significant protocol vulnerabilities, which has motivated most companies to upgrade their systems to use more modern TLS versions. In spite of the demonstrated security concerns, however, support for older clients remains a business requirement. Hopefully, PCI SSC and NIST, along with other organizations that have chosen to deprecate early TLS, will inspire others to join them and SSL.com in promoting a safer, better and more secure internet. | <urn:uuid:f4b54e0d-aacc-4a63-9fce-7d97cacb22d7> | CC-MAIN-2019-18 | https://www.ssl.com/article/deprecating-early-tls/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578602767.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20190423114901-20190423135815-00045.warc.gz | en | 0.949334 | 1,889 | 2.953125 | 3 |
NSW DPI, $95,000
Associate Professor of Research Dr Lee Baumgartner, Joachim Bretzel (PhD student)
In the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB), many millions of fish are extracted from rivers annually through pumps and gravity fed diversion canals. This is a huge concern for fisheries managers because, if unaddressed, it will continue to hamper the recovery of native fish populations that is being targeted by other river heath initiatives such as instream habitat rehabilitation, fishway construction and environmental flow delivery. As well as fish, other aquatic biotas such as invertebrates, fresh water turtles and platypus are also highly impacted by diversions.
Fish-protection screens can stop fish and debris entering pumps and diversions, and they are widely used overseas, where they save millions of native fish annually and improve water delivery efficiency. Although manufacturers are ready to construct fish-screens for the local market, there are no national guidelines on their design and installation to protect Australian species.
Furthermore, broad-scale uptake of screening will be hampered by the fact that NRM bodies and water users currently have low awareness of the international state-of-the-art in screening technologies and are requesting further local evidence of their performance.
The aim of this project is to undertake novel research to help promote uptake of the nation first fish screening program. Industry supported PhD student Joachim Bretzel, who will be based at the NSW DPI's Port Stephens Fisheries Institute, is part of a multi-disciplinary team of CSU and NSW DPI ecologists, engineers, economists and science workers working to develop Australia’s first fish-screening program by evaluating pilot projects in NSW, developing Australian screen design guidelines, building awareness and ensuring screening programs are underpinned by rigorous science.
Joachim will specifically be looking to identify the role of diversion on fish conservation, and which of the fish screens currently available in Australia are the most effective, both in terms of cost and impacts on fishes. He will study the impact of unscreened and screened diversion on Australian fish species during their different life stages, as well as on the fish communities, populations, and the whole river ecosystem. The study, expected to be conducted mostly in NSW, will involve a lot of field work and look at both screens for small irrigation pumps and for large water diversion take-offs.
The findings from this study are expected to:
Dr Lee Baumgartner | <urn:uuid:00a2a7a4-13fd-459e-96d4-514e1f85d202> | CC-MAIN-2023-06 | https://www.csu.edu.au/research/ilws/research/summaries/2019/advancing-fish-protection | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764500303.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20230206015710-20230206045710-00727.warc.gz | en | 0.953089 | 531 | 2.75 | 3 |
Researchers say a pill could soon send radio signals from inside your stomach to help doctors recognize signs of disease.
Scientists have developed a small pill for patients to swallow. It mixes synthetic biology and electronics to find bleeding in the stomach and other parts of the digestive tract.
The system can be changed for many medical, environmental and other uses, the researchers said.
The biological part of the pill uses bacteria engineered to light up when it comes in contact with heme, the iron-containing molecule in blood.
The electronic side includes a small light detector, computer and computer chip. It also has a battery to provide power and a transmitter that sends information to a cellphone or computer.
"A major challenge for sensing in the GI (gastrointestinal) tract is, the space available for a device is very limited," said electrical engineer Phillip Nadeau. He is with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, Massachusetts.
Using very low-power electronics, Nadeau and other engineers put all the parts in a pill. It measures about 3 centimeters long by 1 centimeter wide.
The pill is still a little too big to swallow, but Nadeau says it likely can be engineered to a third that size.
The engineered bacteria are in areas covered by a membrane. This thin, soft material lets small molecules in, but does not let the organisms out.
The researchers say the bacteria can be engineered to die if they accidentally leak from the pill. Future models may just use the most important enzymes instead of whole bacteria.
In laboratory tests, the pill successfully identified pigs fed small amounts of blood from those not given blood. The pill has not been tested on human beings, but the team hopes to do so in the next year or two.
Since the parts cost little to manufacture, researchers believe that, once ready, the final product would sell for tens to hundreds of dollars. And they say the same method could be used to identify markers for disease or to find chemicals in the environment.
"It's really exciting, and I think it's got a lot of legs," said Rice University bioengineer Jeff Tabor. He was not part of the research team.
But Tabor notes that the sensors may need to be much more sensitive than what was used in the pig tests. He says there may be much less blood in the stomachs of real human patients than what the pigs were given. Other conditions may have the same limitations.
"For many actual diseases, you might have far less of the molecule you need to sense available to you," he added.
A report on the study was published in the journal Science.
I’m Susan Shand.
This story was reported by VOA’s Steve Baragona. It was adapted by Susan Shand and edited by George Grow.
Words in This Story
pill – n. a small, rounded object that you swallow and that contains medicine
stomach – n. the organ in your body where food goes and begins to break down after you swallow it
synthetic – adj. made by combining different substances; man-made, not natural
digestive tract – n. a series of organs in the body, including the stomach and the intestines
detector – n. a device for identifying or measuring the presence of something
challenge – n. a problem; an invitation to compete
transmitter – n. a device that sends out signals | <urn:uuid:737d3f7f-22d6-46ed-ad4a-a72c74489cc5> | CC-MAIN-2021-49 | https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/pill-combines-biology-electronics-to-recognize-diseases/4410010.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-49/segments/1637964358233.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20211127193525-20211127223525-00086.warc.gz | en | 0.945155 | 708 | 3.53125 | 4 |
Smart Moves 1 - CD
Tots thru Pre-K
Smart Moves 1
Produced by WIC, this family physical activity DVD and printed guide encourages families to choose a healthy, active lifestyle. Parents, grandparents and young children from a variety of cultures are depicted having fun and being physically active together in developmentally appropriate, affordable activities. coordinated with lively music to give families affordable and creative ways to be physically active inside and outside of the house.
26th Annual TELLY Awards Finalist
Directed by Patty Kimbrell, M. Ed.
Music contributions are by award-winning children's music producers.
Funding Provided By:
- First 5 Contra Costa Children and Families Commission
- California Dept. of Health Services, CA Nutrition Network/California 5 a Day
- Contra Costa County Health Services Community Wellness and Prevention Program
- University of California Cooperative Extension
Smart Moves make Smart Kids! These action-packed fine & gross motor songs for young children can be used with props such as cones, balls, hoops, and ropes, or to promote imaginative play. Using engaging lyrics and movement, children learn specific concepts as they step across the room on the colored stones, form letters with rope, find the shapes & complete a pattern of moves, keep something up in the air, play in an imaginary band, chug like a train down the track, and more.
This collection includes 17 English songs, with 5 Spanish versions, from the award winning producers of the popular “Smart Songs” music series. A quick-view teaching guide is printed on the inside cover and lyrics can be found on the abridgeclub.com web page.
Additionally, Patty Kimbrell has authored a helpful printed guide book using the tunes from “Smart Moves 2” - music CD. Motor development areas include: locomotor skills, non-locomotor skills, beanbags, rope play, and ball activities.
Age: Recommended for preschool thru early primary grades
Approx. Running Time: 56 min.
Format: CD - Music UPC: 6-98731-0026-2
These action-packed fine & gross motor songs for young children can be used with props or to promote imaginative play. Using movement & engaging lyrics, children learn specific concepts as they shake their boom booms, act like zoo animals, walk, follow the leader, move through the days of the week, toss and catch, rock and roll, play charades, and more.
This collection is the 3rd in the ‘Smart Moves” series. It includes 5 scarf activities and 9 instrumentals for more interaction, background music, looping and personal creativity. A 6-page teaching guide is printed on the inside cover, and complete lyrics can be found on the .abridgeclub.com web page.
Additionally, Patty Kimbrell has authored a guide book with quick and easy motor development activities using the active tunes from the “Smart Moves 3” music CD. Motor development areas include: locomotor skills, scarves, streamers, and partner/group play.
Ages: Recommended for preschool thru early primary grades
Approx. Running Time: 75 minutes
Format: CD - Music UPC: 6-98731-00037-8
Music - Books - Video
Titles for your physical activity program with a variety of benefits that focus on listening skills, physical coordination, motor development, team work, identifying body parts, and following instructions.
Smart Moves 2 - CD
Preschool thru 1st
Smart Moves 2
Smart Moves 3 - CD
Tots thru Pre-K
Smart Moves 3
Have Fun and Be Active
WIC - DVD
Encouraging Family Activity
Companion Guide Book
Wow! Whether independent, with a partner, or in a group, young children can’t get enough of these fine & gross motor songs that can be used with props such as cones, balls, and ropes, or to promote imaginative play. Children are kept moving while they play circle games, ride the rope, build a bridge, find the colors, discover body parts, stack, and more.
This collection includes 16 English songs, with 7 Spanish versions, from theaward winning producers of the popular “Smart Songs” music series. A quick-view teaching guide is printed on the inside cover, and complete lyrics can be found on the abridgeclub.com web page.
Additionally, the guidebook, written by Patty Kimbrell, leads you through quick and easy motor development activities using a selection of fun and catchy tunes from the award-winning “Smart Moves 1 Tots Thru Pre-K” music CD. Motor development areas include: rope play, scarves, ball activities, partner play, group play and stations.
Ages: Toddler - Kindergarten
Approx. Running Time: 53 min.
Format: CD - Music UPC Code: 698731-00025-5
Smart & Tasty 1 - CD
Good Food Moves
Smart & Tasty 1
These delicious tunes teach children how to have FUN with FOOD while they learn about HEALTHY EATING. This blend of gross motor and educational songs teaches the whole child. Kids learn good table manners, locomotor through the farmer’s market, pop like corn, shake & mix up a recipe, gather by food groups, move around the veggies, find the fruit, sing & dine in good company, dance a hula, and more.
The collection includes 7 Spanish versions, as well as, 7 instrumentals for more interaction, background music, looping and personal creativity. A quick-view guide is printed on the inside cover.
Approx. running time: 69 min.
Recommended for preschool thru early primary
Format CD Music UPC: 698731-00030-9
© 2005 Russ InVision, All rights reserved
Physical Activity Guide Books
Smart Moves Level 1
Smart Moves Level 2
This guidebook brings more motor development into the hands of early childhood providers and parents. Designed to provide teachers with simple and quick physical activity lessons on a few select units.: Getting Started, Bean Bags, Flat Ropes, Hoops, and Beach Balls.
Each lesson is written for maximum participation during movement time. No child is left out. Educators and caregivers of young children will understand how children learn through movement and song. Children are actively engaged and have opportunities to practice in a positive, non-threatening environment, resulting in personal enjoyment and growth in a most natural way.
Includes an overview for the instructor, a reference for unique songs that comliment each lesson, age-approprate activities, school readiness integration, suggested equipment, notes, and additional ideas.
The lessons hand-in-hand with award-winning music for young children. Age appropriate music is used to enhance every lesson with school readiness skills and healthy lifestyle tips. Simply plan some movement time, take the book out for easy reference, grab a handful of affordable equipment, and off you go. Lessons are short (15-20 minutes), active, and fun. Printed in full color.
A School Wellness Policy success story! The Family Fitness Night Toolkit is a step-by-step tool on how to design a Family Fitness Night for schools, districts, or organizations. with a focus on elementary school. This toolkit contains strategies and resources for any individual (PTA members, parent volunteers, staff leaders, etc.) who wants to connect the School Wellness Policy in an evening of family involvement filled with information on physical activity and loads of fun!
This Toolkit is a 1/2 inch binder designed with the following sections:
Section 1: Planning Tools
Section 2: Presentation Tools
Section 3: Station Activities
Section 4: Resources
Section 5: Appendix
Also included is a CD for each section with reproducible documents that will make your planning easy. This toolkit contains many tools, additional resources, and reference documents to assist anyone in orchestrating a fun and dynamic Family Fitness Night. Format: 1/2 inch Binder
The Family Fitness Night Toolkit is featured as a valuable resource by California After School Resource Center, www.californiaafterschool.org
Smart Moves 1 - Music CD $14.99
Smart Moves 1 - Quick Play Guide $7.99
Smart Moves 1 - QP Guide COMBO $20.98
Smart Moves 2 - Music CD $14.99
Smart Moves 2 - Quick Play Guide $7.99
Smart Moves 2 - QP Guide COMBO $20.98
Smart Moves 3 - Music CD $14.99
Smart Moves 3 - Quick Play Guide $7.99
Smart Moves 3 - QP Guide COMBO $20.98
Smart & Tasty 1 - Music CD $14.99
Smart & Tasty 1 - Resource Book COMBO $22.98
Smart Moves - Level 1 Curriculum $24.99
Smart Moves - Level 2 Curriculum $24.99
Family Fitness Night Took Kit $39.99
Have Fun and Be Active - DVD $5.50
Have Fun and Be Active - Guide Book $9.99
Math Music & Motion - CD
The simple way to educate! An early math experience enhanced by movement, activities and eclectic music styles that engage a young child’s brain and body. We're up and moving with counting, shapes, patterning, sequencing, comparing, spatial awareness, money and more. Musical elements such as a steady beat, rhythm, melody, and tempo possess inherent mathematical principles that are built upon to make math active and fun.
Approx. running time: 33 min.
Recommended for preschool through kindergarten
Format: CD - Music UPC: 698731-00056-9
© 2005 Russ InVision, All rights reserved
Math, Music & Motion - Music CD $14.99
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BULK discounts are available. | <urn:uuid:17c9fba8-d09f-4ffa-9f2e-92c0089c4d7e> | CC-MAIN-2020-24 | https://www.pkimbrell.com/musicandvideo | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-24/segments/1590347389355.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20200525192537-20200525222537-00332.warc.gz | en | 0.88328 | 2,086 | 2.546875 | 3 |
The production of play dolls over the past two-hundred and fifty years has been a highly competitive business. Manufacturers have constantly sought to bring different products to the marketplace in an effort to give them a competitive edge with the buying public. Many of these novelty items actually relied on previous products proving the idiom "everything old is new again."
The earliest known patent for a multi-face doll was granted to Dominico Checkeni and Georg Thompson on February 20, 1866. The patent lists Checkeni, who was from Marion, CT as the inventor. His doll design pertains to the doll's head rotating on an axis or pivot so that the four faces can be revolved vertically. The heads for these dolls were made from a form of rubber (which resembled gutta-percha) which was painted and given a wax outer-coating. In the 1880s dolls from this design were sold with a label stating that they were manufactured and sold by Ozias Morse of West Acton, MA.
In France the firm of Bru Jeune et Cie developed a design for a double-faced doll. They received patent 78844 for a pivoting, double-faced doll on May 19, 1867. Bru produced their 2-faced dolls in a range of sizes from a diminutive all-bisque version to bisque headed dolls as large as a 24" bébé.
France's prestigious Jumeau doll company had a series of character heads sculpted in the 1890s for use on special dolls and automatons. Laughing and crying faces from this 200 series were also used on a double-faced child doll. The faces revolved within the doll's bonnet by turning a knob on the top of their head.
The Dressel, Kister & Co. porcelain factory in Scheibe-Alsbach, Thüringia, Germany was rooted in businesses that began as early as 1835 but it was in 1844 that this company name was initiated when Mr. Dressel and Mr. Kister purchased the concern. It was at that time that doll heads were added to the product line offered by the firm. The factory made a wide range of porcelain products including dolls in both glazed (china) and unglazed finishes (bisque or parian). In 1863 Kister's son took over the operation and the company name changed to A.W. Kister & Co.
From 1880 to 1881 German doll factory owner Fritz Bartenstein of Huttensteinach, Thuringia took out 3 German patents and one US patent pertaining to methods for making double faced socket-head dolls. His design idea employed the use of pull-strings to turn the doll's head to expose each face. Bartenstein dolls have been found with heads of wax, wax-over, composition, or bisque. In 1882 Bartenstein successfully sued Peter Schelhorn for patent infringement over his version of a two-faced doll.
Carl Bergner of Sonneberg, Germany began his doll business in 1890. His factory used heads made for them by Gebrüder Heubach and Simon & Halbig. In 1883 Bergner was part of a committee that founded the Sonneberg Industrial School. In 1904 and '05 Bergner registered his design for doll bodies with changeable faces in Germany (DRGM 248715) and in Britain. His two and three-faced dolls can be found with faces showing three different expressions or in combinations of white, medium brown, and dark brown faces.
Other German companies that made multi-faced dolls include; Hertel Schwab & Co of Stutzhaus, Germany which made double-faced character baby heads (mold 567) for the firm of Kley and Hahn and Max Handwerck of Waltershausen, Thüringia which offered Googlie-eyed dolls depicting WWI soldiers from the Allied Countries.
Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st a number of US patents were received for variations on multi-faced dolls. Some of these are included here, although there were also others:
#1387224 granted on August 9, 1921 to E.A. Ahler
#1608415 granted on November 23, 1926 to Ellen M. Mytton
#1615401 granted on January 25, 1927 to Harold T Payne
#2584798 granted on February 5, 1952 to Hans Goerditz
#2662339 granted on December 15, 1953 to Wanda L. Paul
#4030239 granted on June 21, 1977 to Peter Charles White
#4136483 granted on January 30, 1979 to Judy Shackelford
#6443802 granted on September 3, 2002 to Mahvash Vakili
As previously stated, "everything old is new again," and it seems that the "novelty" of the multi-faced doll will not only continue to reflect the many moods of the consumers and doll makers of the past, but is likely destined to return in future iterations.
Author - Linda Edward
Jurgen and Marianne Cieslik German Doll Encyclopedia. Cumberland: Hobby House Press, 1985
Dorothy S., Elizabeth A., Evelyn J. Coleman The Collector's Encyclopedia of Dolls Vol. I & II. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1968 & 1986
Elizabeth A. Coleman, assisted by Kathy Turner Inside Porcelain Doll Shoulder Heads. Washington: Elizabeth Ann Coleman, 2018
Linda Edward Cloth Dolls From Ancient To Modern. Atglen: Schiffer Publishing, 1997
Judith Izen Collector’s Guide to Ideal Dolls. Paducah: Collector Books, 2005
Mary Gorham Krombholz Identifying German Chinas 1840s – 1930s. Grantsville: Hobby House Press, 2004
Ursula Mertz Collector's Encyclopedia of Composition Dolls. Paducah: Collector Books, 1999
Ursula Mertz Collector's Encyclopedia of Composition Dolls Vol. II. Paducah: Collector Books, 2004
Francois & Danielle Theimer The Encyclopedia of French Dolls. Annapolis: Gold Horse Publishing, 2003 | <urn:uuid:333d7703-db9e-4971-bf9f-13f80fdffd75> | CC-MAIN-2023-06 | http://toulastrailsidecafe.comwww.rubylane.com/blog/put-on-a-happy-face | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764500671.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20230208024856-20230208054856-00000.warc.gz | en | 0.951469 | 1,276 | 2.625 | 3 |
Forty million immigrants (foreign-born) reside in the United States, including more than 21 million from Latin America and 11 million from Asia.1 Hispanics represent 35 percent of U.S. Catholics and accounted for 40 percent of newly registered parishioners from 2005 to 2010.2 As these numbers indicate, the vitality and success of the nation and the Catholic Church increasingly will turn on the contributions of newcomers.
Catholic institutions provided earlier generations of immigrants with the support, skills and resources they needed to integrate into society in their new country. The Catholic Immigrant Integration Project, launched in January 2013, is studying whether the church has maintained its special connection to immigrant communities. It seeks to expand and enrich the church's collective work with immigrants, as reflected in new institutional commitments, partnerships and initiatives. The SC Ministry Foundation, a public grant-making organization that promotes the mission and ministry of the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati, Ohio, has provided initial funding.
Coordinated by the Center for Migration Studies of New York and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, the project brings together dioceses, parishes, hospitals, Catholic Charities, school systems, universities, refugee resettlement and legal programs, labor ministries, youth ministries, ethnic apostolates and community-organizing agencies. Over the last year, an advisory group of leaders from these diverse sectors has documented the church's work — past and present — with immigrants and has identified successful integration programs and practices.
The project also has worked to develop a distinctly Catholic definition of integration that can guide the church's work. Such a definition would incorporate the standard metrics of integration — socioeconomic attainment, political participation, access to quality health care, interaction with the host society and a sense of belonging — into a broader theological vision of communion.
The project's preliminary findings were scheduled for release on Feb. 24, 2014, at Holy Rosary Church in Washington, D.C., followed by a discussion about additional research, possible cross-sector, pilot integration programs and expansion of the Catholic Immigrant Integration Project to other stakeholders. An extensive, final project report is expected to be released later in 2014.
The Center for Migration Studies of New York is a think-tank/educational institute on international migration, established 50 years ago by the Congregation of the Missionaries of St. Charles, Scalabrinians. The Scalabrinians are an international community of Catholic priests, nuns and lay people, founded in the late 19th century by Blessed John Baptist Scalabrini to meet the spiritual, social and material needs of Italian immigrants in the United States. They administer a global network of shelters, welcoming centers and other ministries for migrants and refugees.3
The Catholic Legal Immigration Network is the U.S. bishops' legal agency for immigrants. It supports a network of 220 charitable agencies for low-wage and vulnerable immigrants in 47 states.4 EARLY FINDINGS
The project arose partly in response to concerns that immigrants could not rely on robust integrating or mediating institutions like faith communities, labor unions, civic organizations, the military and public school systems to help them succeed in their new communities. Several themes have surfaced during the first year of research and interviews: First, project participants from diverse institutions have recognized the extraordinary scope of Catholic social programs and ministries in the United States. If church institutions could — individually and collectively — increase their commitment to the well-being, success and integration of immigrants, it would have a profound impact on the lives of millions of individuals, their families and their communities.
Second, compared to U.S. citizens, immigrants need, yet underuse, many Catholic agencies. On average, immigrants are poorer, younger, less educated, employed in more dangerous occupations and uninsured at higher rates than people born in the U.S.5 Roughly 11.7 million immigrants lack legal status, and only 44 percent of immigrants have naturalized.6 Yet only 3 percent of Latino/Latina school-age children, for example, attend Catholic schools despite the manifest educational and life advantages afforded by these schools.
Third, the Catholic Church should revisit and reinvest in some of its formerly prominent institutions and ministries for immigrants. In the early to mid-20th century, dioceses, parishes, universities and religious communities sponsored more than 150 "labor schools" that taught parliamentary procedure, public speaking, basic economics, labor law, history, ethics and other issues. Just as importantly, these schools encouraged their largely immigrant students to approach their work as a religious vocation and as an opportunity to help reshape industrial society based on Catholic values.
Immigrants represent 1 in every 7 U.S. workers and 1 in every 5 low-wage workers. If the church hopes to reach people who work in two or three jobs to support themselves and their families, it needs to establish a more active presence in the workplace and, in particular, stronger ministries to low-income laborers.
Fourth, the growing number of second- and third-generation immigrants presents a particular challenge and opportunity for the church. Fifty-eight percent of U.S. Catholics between ages 18 and 34 — the demographic group called Millennials — are Hispanic.7 Yet many youth in immigrant families struggle to bridge multiple cultures, to serve as mediators between their families and the broader society and to resist assimilation into the negative features of host communities.
The project has identified successful pastoral models in which youth assume leadership roles in the church. At St. Pius X Catholic Church in El Paso, Texas, for example, 80 to 100 young people attend weekly gatherings of the Grupo de Jóvenes Nazaret devoted to workshop activities and structured dialogue on religious themes and on topics like addiction and personal relationships. The group also organizes a choir; provides social support to youth in families with undocumented members; sponsors an annual forum for youth who have been affected by violence in neighboring Ciudad Juárez; visits and sings to unaccompanied migrant children (of whom there are growing numbers); paints houses in colonias (unincorporated communities); works at the Catholic social teaching institute Instituto Tepeyac; and volunteers at the diocesan legal agency for immigrants.
Immigrants play a particularly vital role in the U.S. health care field. According to an analysis of U.S. Census data from 2005 to 2007, they work at high rates in health care occupations (for example, as nursing, psychiatric and home health aides) that lack sufficient U.S. workers.8 As the nation's millions of Baby Boomers retire, the high rate of labor force participation by foreign-born men and the higher fertility rates of foreign-born women make immigrants increasingly important to the U.S. labor market and to the viability of U.S. public benefits programs.
Fifth, Catholic teaching promotes authentic and integral development, defined as the development of each person and the whole person.9 Catholic institutions cannot address the full range of human needs in silos. As one member of the advisory group put it, "integrated services are crucial to integration services." Catholic resettlement programs, for example, rely on diverse Catholic and non-Catholic partners to help refugees achieve self-sufficiency through employment.
Multiservice centers for refugees and immigrants have proven to be an important integration model. Parishes, the Catholic Church's fundamental building block and "integrating" entity, offer diverse spiritual and material support to parishioners. According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, the Washington D.C.-based center for social science research on the Catholic Church, 86 percent of U.S. parishes provide ministries for the infirm and homebound; 76 percent provide youth ministry; 64 percent provide ministry to seniors; 59 percent offer social services; 54 percent provide ministry to the bereaved; 24 percent support parish schools; and 25 percent provide support to regional Catholic schools.10 Parishes also serve as a locus of community organizing and health care education and screening.
Catholic health care agencies — hospitals, clinics, outpatient facilities, urgent care centers, hospices and nursing homes — provide a continuum of integrated care and serve discrete populations. The advisory group includes the former administrator of a hospital near the U.S.-Mexico border that serves a substantial binational population and the founder of Mission Medical Center in Delray Beach, Fla., that provides basic medical and dental services to a largely uninsured, immigrant population.
Integration also occurs between health care and other types of agencies. In Portland, Ore., the community health division of Providence Health & Services works with Catholic Charities and the University of Portland to implement the Parish Health Promoters/Promotores de Salud ministry, which trains lay volunteers in 14 parishes to serve as liaisons between the Latino/Latina immigrant community, churches and health care providers.
In Anchorage, Alaska, Providence Alaska Medical Center partners with Catholic Social Services' refugee assistance and immigration services to teach refugees to work in the health care field and to place them in paid trainee positions. In Iowa, Mercy College of Health Services, the Iowa Bureau of Refugee Services and the Iowa Department of Workforce Development have collaborated to offer health sciences education, tutoring and job placement services for refugees. These programs also respond to the growing need of the health system to serve non-English-speaking populations.
Sr. Sally Duffy, SC, president and executive director of the SC Ministry Foundation, argues that the medical home model presents Catholic health care providers with "opportunities to work with Catholic Charities agencies, the St. Vincent de Paul Society, Catholic schools and parishes and other Catholic human services providers to address the needs of immigrant communities in a holistic way."
Several advisory group members have expressed their belief that the community benefit standard — the requirement that tax-exempt hospitals offer programs and activities that promote community health based on needs assessments — may be a source of even greater engagement by Catholic hospitals with immigrant communities.
A MORE JUST SOCIETY
Rev. J. Bryan Hehir, MDiv, ThD, has characterized the Catholic Church in the United States as a "center-edge" church, composed of mainstream Americans and newcomers who typically earn less than natives and, in many other ways, resemble earlier generations of immigrants. The church does not insist that immigrants assimilate into all characteristics of U.S. culture. Rather, it seeks to evangelize cultures, recognizing that neither native nor immigrant cultures are "permanent or perfect."11 At the same time, it calls upon natives and newcomers to work together to build communities based on the universal values found, in part and imperfectly, in their diverse cultures.
In his "Message on the World Day for Migrants and Refugees," Pope Francis said:
[M]igrants and refugees … are an occasion that Providence gives us to help build a more just society, a more perfect democracy, a more united country, a more fraternal world and a more open and evangelical Christian community. Migration can offer possibilities for a new evangelization, open vistas for the growth of a new humanity foreshadowed in the paschal mystery: a humanity for which every foreign country is a homeland and every homeland is a foreign country.12
In the words of Sr. Duffy, "the healing ministry of Jesus Christ will need to continue to play an important role in the integration of immigrants." Integration allows the church to "gather together God's scattered children" (John 11:52). It allows church institutions to touch and to heal people — physically, mentally and spiritually — at the deepest level of their existence.
Pope Francis referred to migrants as people who "share a legitimate desire for knowing and having, but above all for being more."13 Integration allows all Catholics — natives and newcomers — to know, to have and, above all, to be more.
DONALD M. KERWIN is executive director, Center for Migration Studies of New York.
- Elizabeth M. Grieco et al., The Foreign-Born Population in the United States: 2010 https://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/acs-19.pdf.
- Mark M. Gray, Mary L. Gautier and Melissa A. Cidade, The Changing Face of U.S. Catholic Parishes (Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, 2011), 4-5. http://cara.georgetown.edu/staff/webpages/Parishes%20Phase%20One.pdf.
- Center for Migration Studies, http://cmsny.org/.
- Catholic Legal Immigration Network, https://cliniclegal.org/.
- Seth Motel and Eileen Patten, Statistical Portrait of the Foreign-Born Population in the United States, 2011 (Washington, D.C.: Pew Hispanic Center, 2013) www.pewhispanic.org/2013/01/29/statistical-portrait-of-the-foreign-born-population-in-the-united-states-2011/.
- Robert Warren and John Robert Warren, "Unauthorized Immigration to the United States: Annual Estimates and Components of Change, by State, 1990 to 2010," International Migration Review 47, vol. 2 (2013): 296-329. Also see Elizabeth M. Grieco et al., The Foreign-Born Population in the United States: 2010.
- Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 299-300.
- Immigration Policy Center, Critical Care: The Role of Immigrant Workers in U.S. Health Care (Washington, D.C.: American Immigration Council, 2009), 2.
- John XXIII, Populorum Progressio, 14, www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_26031967_populorum_en.html.
- Gray et al., Changing Face, 2-3.
- NCCB/USCC, Welcoming the Stranger among Us: Unity in Diversity (Washington, D.C.: USCCB, 2000) www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/cultural-diversity/pastoral-care-of-migrants-refugees-and-travelers/resources/welcoming-the-stranger-among-us-unity-in-diversity.cfm.
- Pope Francis, Message for World Day of Migrants and Refugees, September 23, 2013, www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/messages/migration/documents/
- Francis, Message for World Day of Migrants and Refugees.
THE GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATION OF CATHOLICISM IN THE UNITED STATES
In 1789, George Washington was inaugurated the first president of the United States, Congress met for the first time, and the Judiciary Act created the U.S. court system. At the dawn of the new nation, Catholics represented less than
1 percent of the population. Fewer than 30 priests tended to their spiritual needs. In January 1789, the nation's first Catholic university, Georgetown University, was established. In November, Pope Pius VI created the Diocese of Baltimore and confirmed the election (by U.S. clergy) of John Carroll as the first Catholic bishop in the United States. The Catholic Church did not seem poised to play a leading role in the new nation.
Within 60 years, however, Catholicism had become the nation's largest single denomination. And within a century, the church had laid the foundation for its legendary cradle-to-grave network of social and pastoral institutions. The theologian Kenneth J. Himes, OFM, explains this remarkable transformation:
The sheer number of Irish and German immigrants, followed by Italians, Poles, French Canadians and Mexicans who entered this nation from 1820 to 1920 altered the face of American Catholicism. Once a small minority of Anglo-American landed gentry in the 18th century, the Catholic Church in the United States became a working class, urban Church during the 19th century. The entire pastoral agenda of the Church changed to accommodate the new immigrants and their descendants."1
Catholic institutions did not emerge from the reserves of a well-endowed, central church, but from the exertions and struggles of local, heavily immigrant communities.2 By 1920, 75 percent of U.S. Catholics comprised members of six, mostly immigrant, national groups.3 Parishes, hospitals, schools, universities, charities, mutual aid groups, labor ministries, the Catholic press and other institutions instilled in Catholic immigrants a sense of belonging and prepared them to succeed in their new nation.
Health care became a defining ministry of the U.S. church and a particular passion of vowed women religious. In 1846, the Sisters of Mercy settled in Chicago and founded a hospital, schools, orphan asylums and other social service programs. That same year, the first Daughters of Charity arrived in Milwaukee to serve indigent immigrants and established Milwaukee's parochial school system and its first hospital.4 The Daughters of Charity distinguished themselves during the cholera epidemics in 1832, 1849 and 1866 that devastated immigrant neighborhoods.5 The School Sisters of Notre Dame arrived in 1847 to work mainly in German parishes in the U.S.6 By 1900, there were 3.5 sisters for every priest.7 By 1910, sisters administered nearly all of the nation's 400 Catholic hospitals, which typically served communities with large immigrant populations.8 In 2012, there were 968 Catholic hospitals and health care centers assisting more than 93 million patients.9
- Kenneth Himes, "The Rights of People Regarding Migration: A Perspective from Catholic Social Teaching," in Who Are My Sisters and Brothers: Reflections on Understanding and Welcoming Immigrants and Refugees, ed. Suzanne Hall (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1996).
- Jay P. Dolan, The American Catholic Experience: A History from Colonial Times to the Present (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1992), 190.
- Dolan, 134-35.
- Maryann Bouche, "Daughters of Charity Leaving Archdiocese," Catholic Herald, Aug. 9, 2012, http://chnonline.org/news/local/11407-daughters-of-charity-leaving-archdiocese.html (accessed Dec. 10, 2013).
- Dolan, 324.
- Dolan, 277.
- Mary J. Oates, The Catholic Philanthropic Tradition in America (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1995), 20.
- John T. McGreevy, Catholicism and American Freedom (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2003), 129.
- The Official Catholic Directory 2012 (Berkeley Heights, N.J.: P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 2012), 2089.
FACTS OF CATHOLIC SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
- According to the Catholic Health Association, Catholic hospitals serve 1 in 6 patients in the United States, including a disproportionate share of Medicaid, Medicare and uninsured patients.
- Catholic Charities agencies assist 10 million persons each year, roughly 1 in every 10 persons in poverty.1
- In the 2012-2013 academic year, more than 1.4 million students attended Catholic elementary and middle schools, and an additional 586,000 attended Catholic high schools.2
- In 2011-2012, the 262 Catholic institutions of higher education in this country served 940,000 students.3
- Catholic refugee programs have helped to resettle more than 1 million refugees since 1975, a particular challenge since the United States admits refugees based on need or on priority set by the President and Congress and does not consider integration potential (language skills, education, training, etc.).
Catholic legal immigration programs represent hundreds of thousands of low-wage and vulnerable immigrants each year and provide extensive integration services in the form of assistance with citizenship applications, English as a Second Language classes and civics instruction. Nearly 60 percent of U.S. parishes provide social services.4
- Mary L. Gautier and Joseph O'Hara, Catholic Charities USA 2011 Annual Survey Final Report (Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, 2012).
- Dale McDonald and Margaret M. Schultz, United States Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools 2012-2013 (Arlington,Va.: National Catholic Educational Association, 2013).
- Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, "FAQs: Catholic Higher Education," www.accunet.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3797#Enrolled.
- Mark M. Gray, Mary L. Gautier and Melissa A. Cidade, The Changing Face of U.S. Catholic Parishes (Washington D.C.: Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, 2011), 48.
Copyright © 2014 by the Catholic Health Association of the United States
For reprint permission, contact Betty Crosby or call (314) 253-3477. | <urn:uuid:0db9b769-3ac7-4226-8212-82ab2478dc3c> | CC-MAIN-2015-22 | http://www.chausa.org/publications/health-progress/article/march-april-2014/u.s.-catholic-institutions-are-they-living-up-to-their-history-and-promise-as-immigrant-integration-agencies | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-22/segments/1432207928019.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20150521113208-00094-ip-10-180-206-219.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929704 | 4,353 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Cathedral of Murcia facts for kids
The Cathedral Church of Saint Mary in Murcia (Spanish: Iglesia Catedral de Santa María en Murcia), commonly called the Cathedral of Murcia, is a church in Murcia, Spain. It is the only cathedral in use in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cartagena in Spain.
The Cathedral Church of Saint Mary in Murcia was one of 100 finalists for the 12 Treasures of Spain in 2007.
Images for kids
Cathedral of Murcia Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia. | <urn:uuid:6c299a32-0125-4fed-845d-71ac160ede97> | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | https://kids.kiddle.co/Cathedral_of_Murcia | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662577259.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20220524203438-20220524233438-00169.warc.gz | en | 0.917354 | 115 | 2.671875 | 3 |
"Hugs can do great amounts of good - especially for children." - Princess Diana
Hugs are one way of giving a child proprioceptive input. Proprioception is our body’s ability to know where it is at any given time (also called body awareness).Anytime we squeeze into a tight space, hug, or jump up and down we are getting proprioceptive input. Proprioception is the sense that helps calm us when used the right way. Most people like proprioceptive input, and many seek it out. Think about how you use propriocpetive input to calm and relax yourself throughout the day...do you chew on pens, layer heavy blankets on your bed, take a bath, or cross your legs while sitting? All of these activities give you proprioceptive input. Proprioceptive activities added to your child's daily routines can be beneficial to help them calm down when they get upset or to relax before bedtime.
Activity: Cozy Cove
Try making a Cozy Cove for your child that is just big enough for them to fit, but tight enough that they can push their arms and legs against the sides. You can create this space out of a box, laundry basket, bath tub or plastic tote. Just make sure your child can breathe and get in and out safely.
Show us your Cozy Cove! Share photos of your child in their Cozy Cove in the comments. | <urn:uuid:6e1aef30-8bb8-4b78-b1c7-df067b43d269> | CC-MAIN-2023-06 | https://www.itsjc.org/post/let-s-play-cozy-cove | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764495001.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20230127164242-20230127194242-00128.warc.gz | en | 0.937643 | 295 | 3.234375 | 3 |
Implementations may realize the difficult-to-tamper property using one of the following arguments.
- Plausible argument suggests and assumes some computing security mechanism such as mail-box access control.
- Intractable argument depends on mathematically difficult propositions such as one-way functions, digital signature algorithms, or encryption algorithms. Such argument can rely on the existence of tamper-resistant hardware within the system for their implementation design.
- Infeasible argument depends on mathematically infeasible propositions such as solving a system of equations with more variables than equations. An example may be the use of mathematical objects such as Shamir's secret sharing schemes. Such argument can rely on the existence of tamper-resistant hardware within the systems for their implementation design -- such systems may require the use of more than one secret to construct or reconstruct a capability with an automatically implied designation that the system can understand.
Some examples of unforgeable capabilities:
- Designations of objects in the E language. Those who hold these capabilities have the permission to invoke any method supported by the designated object.
- Designations of functions and procedures in Emily. Those who hold these capabilities have the permission to call designated functions or procedures.
Some examples of capabilities that are infeasible to forge:
- Designations of remote objects in E, such as captp://*email@example.com:55189/oa6vn5whhapylswhzesdlqh5ppmjkcrq. Those who hold these capabilities have the permission to invoke any method supported by the designated object.
- Password capabilities These capabilities usually invoke some form of plausible argument.
- Private URLs where having the URL is necessary and sufficient to use the resource. Common examples are:
XXX What exactly do we mean by password capabilities here, such that a captp URL is not one?
XXX improve this section
See What is a Capability, Anyway? for a partisan explanation of what capabilities actually are.
See also Overview: Capability Computation | <urn:uuid:f4e95f32-7be1-4678-91a7-b61b5ca03bfe> | CC-MAIN-2017-17 | http://wiki.erights.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Capability&oldid=3485 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917121121.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031201-00170-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.859893 | 439 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Riverbank was opened in 1960 by the Australian Child Welfare Department (CWD). It was Australia’s first purpose-built maximum security reformatory for boys. Riverbank was to address the two tensions in youth offending: the welfare needs of young offenders, and their offending behaviours.
The CWD aimed to have a ‘reformatory’ effect on the boys committed to Riverbank and staff and programs were chosen with care. Unusually for Western Australia at that time, officers received training before being placed to work at Riverbank. There was a significant emphasis on work-skills training for boys at Riverbank and the CWD’s annual reports throughout the 1960s list the contributions made to other institutions in the State by the work of the boys at Riverbank. By the mid-1970s, Riverbank had an on-site factory and made a range of goods for various charities. School-age boys at Riverbank had lessons supervised by an Education Department teacher. Riverbank’s first computer-aided learning system was introduced in 1986.
The CWD reported in 1968 (Signposts, p.439) that programs at Riverbank also sought to ‘teach more socially acceptable behaviour’ and commented on the ‘paradoxical situation’ of trying to do this while the boys were living in an isolated institution. A series of events that brought community members in for dances, sports, and social evenings was arranged. Socially-acceptable recreation options (such as weightlifting, photography, stamp collecting and badminton) were also introduced.
Between 1975 and 1976, the number of Aboriginal boys admitted to Riverbank grew from 14.5% to over 50% and by 1977, authorities were reporting their concern that many of these young people were being re-admitted.
As in other youth detention facilities in WA, boys who were sent to Riverbank often had a range of complex issues to deal with. By 1975, reports show that boys with alcohol-related offending were routinely admitted and in the 1980s disruptive and violent behaviours were being reported. There were four suicide attempts by young people at Riverbank in the 1992-1993 year.
Riverbank was closed in 1996 and was re-commissioned as an adult prison in 1998.
In 2001, the Office of the Inspector of Custodial Services (OICS) inspected Riverbank, which was then an adult prison. The report gives some insight into the conditions that boys would have experienced at Riverbank, which had held young people only five years earlier. The OICS reported that there ‘unresolved issues relating to the presence of asbestos in the fabric of the main buildings’ at the time of de-commissioning but when it was re-commissioned, Riverbank only underwent limited upgrading and refurbishment.
Although the cells had been refurbished, the structure hadn’t changed much. The 2001 inspection found the cells were smaller than contemporary international standards specified, the windows did not open, were high and small and the opaque glass and security grills prevented anyone looking out. There was an air-conditioning system that had been installed in the 1980s, but it recycled air through corridors, cells and toilets, and did not freshen or cool the facility uniformly. The education centre, which the report said, was largely unchanged from when it was a youth detention facility was described as having a ‘depressing, bunker-like feel to it’.
After its re-commissioning as an adult prison in 1998, Riverbank was reported to house ‘a relatively high proportion of intellectually disabled prisoners’.
As of now, the prison is well-maintained and there are rumours it is being used for police training. There are some very cute llamas in the field next to it which make it even better! | <urn:uuid:0647490f-5bd6-4ce5-a1df-ae339074d721> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | https://abandonedworldphotography.com/2021/03/15/abandoned-riverbank-prison-wa/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320301309.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20220119094810-20220119124810-00117.warc.gz | en | 0.987265 | 788 | 2.703125 | 3 |
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A hug is duct tape for the soul.
Sunday, April 08, 2012
Antioxidants in saffron fight depression, dementia and PMS
From The Clinical Advisor:
Most of us know saffron as that wonderfully, intense (and expensive) spice used to make risotto, pilaf and paella. Saffron is extracted from the dried stigma of the crocus flower (Crocus sativus). The saffron crocus is a sterile plant, as it cannot independently pollinate and reproduce. The plant is extremely difficult to cultivate, which is part of what makes the spice so expensive. Each crocus stalk grows 8 to 10 inches in height and produces up to four individual purple flowers. The flower has only three stigmas that yield the crimson powder that we know as saffron.
Harvesting these stigmas is a very labor intensive effort, and it is estimated that 225,000 stigmas or 75,000 blossoms are needed to produce a single pound of saffron spice.
Saffron's use as a spice, dye and medicinal plant dates back to ancient Greece and southwestern Asia. Pictorial records produced 50,000 years ago, show colorful depictions of burnt-orange saffron strands being harvested from rich purple plants.
And a seventh-century Assyrian ruler compiled a botanical reference list for saffron in which he cited more than 90 illnesses that saffron was used to treat in classical times. Today, Iran produces over 90% of the world's supply of the spice.
As a spice, saffron is known not only for its intense, yellow-orange coloration, but hay-like, sweet taste. Saffron, unbeknown to most, contains more than 50% of the USDA's recommended daily allowance of vitamin C, iron, and magnesium, and more than 30 % of the recommended daily phosphorus and potassium.
Saffron's standardized strength-of-evidence ratings are strongest for depression, Alzheimer's disease and premenstrual syndrome (PMS). The active ingredient in saffron that is believed to be responsible for health benefits is crocetin, a potent antioxidant and carotenoid. This compound has chameleon-like properties in that it acts different ways to meet the needs of differing conditions.
In Alzheimer's disease, crocetin appears to inhibit beta-amyloid (Abeta) protein fibrillogenesis, a hallmark of Alzheimer's destructive pathology. In inflammatory conditions, crocetin down-regulates the production and modifies the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and inducible nitric oxide-synthase levels. Crocetin also demonstrates possible antinociceptive activity.
In a clinical trial comparing saffron to placebo in patients with mild-to-moderate depression, the saffron group out-performed the placebo group. The results, based on pre-and post-study scores on the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, yielded a statistically significant level (P<0.001). Another study examined 40 adults with DSM-IV criteria, suggesting a major depressive episode. Patients were randomly assigned to receive either saffron or fluoxetine (Prozac) for an eight-week treatment period. At the end of the trial, both groups exhibited similar results, with each group demonstrating a symptom remission rate of 25% for both treatments.
In Alzheimer's disease, researchers have shown that the continuous cognitive decline is due, at least in part, to the abnormal deposition of Abeta protein in the brain cells. Research suggests that saffron may inhibit Abeta deposition. In a study of 46 patients diagnosed with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's disease, randomized treatment with saffron or placebo was given for a 16-week period. At the end of the trial, participants receiving saffron treatment showed significant improvement over baseline testing on standardized cognitive tasks.
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Tower of Hanoi: Instructions for this popular puzzle can be viewed simply by clicking the Instructions button on that page.
May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 January 2009 March 2009 April 2009 December 2009 April 2010 May 2010 June 2010 July 2010 August 2010 September 2010 October 2010 November 2010 January 2011 February 2011 March 2011 April 2011 May 2011 June 2011 July 2011 August 2011 September 2011 October 2011 November 2011 December 2011 January 2012 February 2012 March 2012 April 2012 May 2012 June 2012 October 2012 November 2012 December 2012 January 2013 February 2013 March 2013 April 2013 May 2013 June 2013 October 2013 | <urn:uuid:2d2aa303-1471-4c65-96a7-07c6f1c96b1b> | CC-MAIN-2018-51 | http://tbiblog.sossisson.com/2012/04/antioxidants-in-saffron-fight.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-51/segments/1544376824601.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20181213080138-20181213101638-00173.warc.gz | en | 0.935096 | 1,051 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Orcus (minor planet 90482)
One of the largest known Kuiper Belt
objects (KBO). It was initially and provisionally known as 2004 DW.
The name Orcus, from a Roman god of the dead and another name for the Greek
deity Hades, was approved by the International Astronomical Union (IAU)
on Nov. 22, 2004. It was chosen because Orcus moves in an orbit similar
to that of Pluto
| Orbits of Orcus (red), Pluto (green),
and other planets compared
Orcus was discovered in images taken on Feb. 17, 2004 (nearly 74 years to
the day after Pluto was found) by Mike Brown
(CalTech), Chad Trujillo (Gemini Observatory), and David Rabinowitz (Yale)
– the same team that discovered the largest known KBO, Eris
(formerly called 2003 UB313). The diameter of Orcus has been put at about
1,600 km (compared with Pluto's 2,300 km) but this is only an estimate because
of uncertainty in the object's albedo (relectivity).
Orcus moves in an orbit similar to that of Pluto, i.e. it completes three
orbits of the Sun for every two of Neptune goes around the sun. It is therefore
classified as a plutino.
Under new guidelines being considered by astronomers for what constitutes
a planet, Orcus may be elevated to the status of a dwarf
planet if it turns out that its shape is approximately spherical.
| Discovery images of Orcus.
Credit: Vrown, Rabinowitz, and Trujillo
known Kuiper Belt objects
ASTEROIDS, CENTAURS, AND KUIPER BELT OBJECTS | <urn:uuid:669b07c3-893c-40a9-8122-eb6bcc2b72dd> | CC-MAIN-2014-52 | http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/O/Orcus.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-52/segments/1418802770686.106/warc/CC-MAIN-20141217075250-00088-ip-10-231-17-201.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.871614 | 379 | 3.4375 | 3 |
Why Southerners Have a Higher Risk of Kidney Stones
If you live in the South, you’re more likely to have a kidney stone than someone who lives in a milder climate.
Kidney stones, which affect nearly 10 percent of Americans, are deposits made of mineral or acid salts that form inside the kidneys or other parts of the urinary tract. The primary function of the kidneys is to remove waste from the body and balance the water and electrolyte content in the blood, but kidney stones stall this process.
Kidney stones can form for several reasons, including obesity, when there’s too much mineral or uric acid buildup in the urine or as a result of a urinary tract infection or a rare genetic disorder.
Why Southerners are More Susceptible to Kidney Stones
We often refer to the Southeastern part of the country as the “Stone Belt” because people who live in these areas have a greater likelihood of developing kidney stones. Southerners have a higher risk of this condition because the warm weather makes them more susceptible to dehydration, which causes fluid loss and low urine volume that facilitates the formation of stones. One study that tracked adults and children living in South Carolina over a 16-year period found that among an at-risk population of more than 4.6 million people, children had double the risk of developing kidney stones and women had a nearly 45 percent lifetime risk of developing the condition. Population studies also have shown that Southerners are 50 percent more likely than people in other parts of the country to develop kidney stones.
Other contributing factors may include poor diet, not drinking enough water and obesity. Research included in the National Institutes of Health review of the global prevalence of kidney stones suggests that dietary changes may be a key factor in why more people have kidney stones. Increased consumption of animal protein worldwide and increased intake of sodium have paralleled increased rates of stone disease in several countries, including the United States. High sugar consumption and not eating enough calcium-rich foods also may increase your risk. The Southern diet is filled with food and drinks like iced tea, okra, spinach and other high-oxalate foods that contribute to stone formation. This diet also contains many high-sodium foods, another risk factor for kidney stones.
How to Lower Your Risk of Kidney Stones
Symptoms of kidney stones include a sharp, stabbing pain in the mid-back that occurs every few minutes, nausea and vomiting, pain in the lower abdomen, blood in the urine or a burning sensation when you urinate, frequent trips to the bathroom, fever and pain in the lower abdomen. If you experience any of these symptoms or severe pain as a result of them, it’s best to see a doctor as soon as possible. He or she can perform a blood or urine test or an ultrasound or stone protocol CT to confirm the diagnosis and give you medication such as an alpha blocker to help you pass the stone more quickly. However, most kidney stones don’t require medical treatment to pass on their own. In some people, passing kidney stones can be incredibly painful, but others just may need to drink more water (as much as three quarts a day) or take a pain reliever to pass a small stone.
Unfortunately, once you form a kidney stone, you’re more likely to form stones again. That’s why prevention is critical. There’s very little Floridians can do to control the weather here, so it’s best to focus on dietary changes to lower your risk. Limit your consumption of animal protein. When the body breaks down protein, this increases uric acid levels, which in turn may increase your risk of forming stones. Also reduce your salt intake. Sodium increases calcium in your urine, another risk factor for stone disease. People who often form calcium-oxalate kidney stones (the most common type of stone) should limit their consumption of oxalate, a natural compound found in foods like tea, chocolate, nuts and tofu. Oxalate can bind to calcium and form crystals in the urine, especially if there’s fluid loss. However, eating enough calcium can offset oxalate levels in your urine and prevent the formation of stones. Maintaining a healthy weight also lowers your risk for stone disease, so stock up on high-fiber, nutrient rich fruit, vegetables, whole grains and lean protein. These foods tend to be lower in fat, sodium and artificial sugars that can lower your risk of this condition.
The bottom line is that kidney stones are preventable with lifestyle changes and increasing fluid intake. Yes, weather increases your risk of stone disease, but monitoring your diet is the most effective way to avoid this condition and limit its recurrence.
Quick Scheduling with a Urologist
We are committed to the diagnosis, treatment and management of patients with urological disorders. Our physicians offer diagnosis and therapy for the entire spectrum of urologic disease.Request an Appointment | <urn:uuid:f1040bc3-7fd2-4dd0-b075-edc80f2b7dd4> | CC-MAIN-2019-43 | https://www.orlandohealth.com/content-hub/why-southerners-have-a-higher-risk-of-kidney-stones | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-43/segments/1570986668569.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20191016113040-20191016140540-00374.warc.gz | en | 0.950055 | 1,019 | 3.4375 | 3 |
Violent television affects children’s behavior, study says
Experts have long known that children imitate many of the deeds — good and bad — that they see on television. But it has rarely been shown that changing a young child’s viewing habits at home can lead to improved behavior.
In a study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, researchers reported the results of a program designed to limit the exposure of preschool children to violence-laden videos and television shows and increase their time with educational programming that encourages empathy. They found that the experiment reduced the children’s aggression toward others, compared with a group of children who were allowed to watch whatever they wanted.
“Here we have an experiment that proposes a potential solution,” said Dr. Thomas N. Robinson, a professor of pediatrics at Stanford, who was not involved in the study. “Giving this intervention — exposing kids to less adult television, less aggression on television and more prosocial television — will have an effect on behavior.”
While the research showed “a small to moderate effect” on the preschoolers’ behavior, he added, the broader public health impact could be “very meaningful.”
The new study was a randomized trial, rare in research. The researchers, at Seattle Children’s Research Institute and the University of Washington, divided 565 parents of children ages 3 to 5 into two groups. Both were told to track their children’s media consumption in a diary that the researchers assessed for violent, didactic and prosocial content.
The control group was given advice only on better dietary habits for children. The second group of parents was sent program guides highlighting positive shows for young children and received newsletters encouraging them to watch television with their children and ask questions during the shows about the best ways to deal with conflict.
After six months, parents in the group receiving advice about television-watching said their children were somewhat less aggressive with others, compared with those in the control group. The children who watched less-violent shows also scored higher on measures of social competence, a difference that persisted after one year.
Low-income boys showed the most improvement, though the researchers could not say why. Total viewing time did not differ between the two groups.
“The take-home message for parents is, it’s not just about turning off the TV; it’s about changing the channel,” said Dr. Dimitri A. Christakis, the lead author of the study and a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington. | <urn:uuid:c3e14b83-3997-4547-bb0b-5d6594e5e858> | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | https://www.thetech.com/2013/02/19/long5-v133-n5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662540268.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20220521174536-20220521204536-00440.warc.gz | en | 0.967546 | 524 | 3.25 | 3 |
Now think about the amount of time you spend with an electronic device within the last hour before you start trying to fall asleep at night. Do you fall asleep with the TV on in the background? Are you checking your favorite forms of social media on your computer? Are you video calling a loved one on a tablet? Or are you trying to pass that last level of Candy Crush on your cell phone? If you guiltily laughed to any of these, chances are you wake up in the morning still tired and no where near refreshed from a full night's rest.
The Science Behind Why Your Electronics Are Affecting Your Sleep
Studies show that the blue light emitted from our electronic devices can harm our sleep patterns. When we are ready for bed, we turn off all the lights, close our eyes and our bodies start the production of melatonin. Light has a serious effect on our body’s naturally produced sleeping aid. This is a reason we tend to want to stay in bed on dark and raining days, our body’s response to the amount of light and may alter the body’s normal pattern of melatonin secretion. While any form of light can harm our beauty sleep, blue light can especially have some dark side effects. Experiments from Harvard Medical School have quantified the difference between exposure to green light and the exposure to blue light. These studies have shown that in comparison “blue light suppresses melatonin for about twice as long as the green light and shifted circadian rhythms by twice as much (3 hours vs. 1.5 hours)”. Using our electronic devices before bed has become a part of many people’s nightly routine. You put on your pajamas, brush your teeth, set your alarm, and check your mobile device one last time, just in case you missed a text or notification. While it’s all fun and games to play on our phones before bed the only ones we are really harming is tomorrow’s you.
How to Get a Better Night’s Sleep
It might seem obvious, but a solution to this sleeping issue is to stop using your electronic devices 2-3 hours before you plan to go to bed. Although the answer is simple, it might not be realistic to your lifestyle. There are not many people that are willing to sit in the dark hours before they are ready to go to bed Luckily, there are a few alternative actions you can take in order to get the most out of your sleep.
1) If you have an iPhone, go to settings->Display & Brightness-> and turn on Night Shift. This will allow you to set the hours in which your phone will automatically change the display of your phone. It will lower the brightness and adjust the colors to be less harmful late at night.
2) Blue-Blocking Glasses
3) Use Dim Red Lights in your bedroom (this type of light is the least harmful to your sleep)
4) Increase your exposure to light during the day
5) Stop using electronics for at least 30-60 minutes before bed
6) Try reading a physical book, rather than staring at an electronic device
7) Take a dose of Melatonin before bed
8) Avoid sleeping pills such as Tylenol PM and Advil PM. Although it will knock you out for the night, it is very common to form a sleep dependency on these over-the-counter drugs.
9) Create a bed time routine. Your body will get use to your repeated actions and will signal that it is time for bed. | <urn:uuid:c34e3816-e0f9-4943-9ed0-6ee437476eda> | CC-MAIN-2019-13 | https://www.cellularoutfitter.com/blogs/cellularoutfitter-phone-news-blog/blue-light-is-keeping-you-awake | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-13/segments/1552912203438.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20190324103739-20190324125739-00310.warc.gz | en | 0.935109 | 725 | 2.96875 | 3 |
The purpose of the lesson: Describe your bedroom.
Size of the class: 40 students.
Age: 14 years old / grade 8.
Level: Beginner / A1.
Length of the lesson: 40 minutes.
This is an easy lesson; a very similar lesson using preposition of position I did with my students last year when they were on grade 7. This year, instead of using in, on, under, above, and next to they have to use on the right, on the left, on the other side, beneath. Except the above words, all other vocabulary used in this lesson should be known already.
For this lesson I am going to use a picture downloaded from the internet. Having the picture projected on the board, students come to the board and tag the known items.
Once the items are all tagged, the teacher provides the example. Listening and watching the teacher gestures should unlock the vocabulary written at the bottom of the board.
In the right corner of the room there is a table and a chair. There is a computer (monitor) on the table. Next to the table there is a pink wardrobe. Beneath the table is a white box. There is a big pink bed and the bookshelf is opposite to the bed. Next to the bed is a small table. On the other side of the bed there is a big lamp. There are six hearts drawn above the bed. In the middle of the room there is a ball.
When the teacher presents the description verbally, the words that are at the bottom of the board should be emphasized for the students to get the meaning. Personally, I write the description on the board and I ask students to read it aloud (for pronunciation purpose).
If there is still confusion among the students, a graphic as the one presented below should make things clearer.
To make things even clearer I am going to describe my own bedroom and make a simple drawing on the board.
In the left side corner there is a TV and the fan is on the wall above the TV. In front of the TV there is a bed. Next to the bed is a lamp and on the other side there is a window. The ball is beneath the table.
The students draw their own bedrooms and write the description. Having the bedroom drawn makes correction easier for the teacher (seeing the drawing, the teacher knows what should be written in the description).
Different speaking activities can be done once the description is completed. I suggest to have students reading their description to each other. | <urn:uuid:23fb8de4-7d8e-4b6f-8640-f1245db61cd7> | CC-MAIN-2016-07 | http://eslvietnamzone.com/describe-bedroom-esl-lesson-plan/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-07/segments/1454701146600.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160205193906-00310-ip-10-236-182-209.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937051 | 519 | 3.875 | 4 |
Interactive Notebook Mini Book: Story Elements Analysis for Reading Literature (Any Story or Novel)
This IS included in my Interactive Reading Notebook Mega Bundle.
Download my standards-based mini-books that can be used with any piece of literature. Students can use these in their interactive notebooks, reading journals, or kept separate for review activities. Size of pages is approximately 6.2 inches x 5 inches (but teachers can resize when printing for larger/smaller dimensions).
Students will practice the following skills:
• Analyze the following story elements: plot, setting, characters, point-of-view.
• Analyze how the story elements interact and influence one another.
• Analyze the overall impact the story elements have on the tone and meaning of the story/novel.
The book has two options: One with standards-based questions and one that is blank that can be filled in with your own questions or used for note-taking.
The skills practiced are aligned to the Common Core State Standards (but can be used with any state/country standards). Specific alignment for each grade level is provided.
Use all five mini books in your interactive notebooks:
Interactive Notebook Mini Book: Plot Analysis
Interactive Notebook Mini Book: Theme Analysis
Interactive Notebook Mini Book: Story Elements Analysis
Interactive Notebook Mini Book: Vocabulary Analysis
Interactive Notebook Mini Book: Figurative Language Analysis
Save when purchasing a BUNDLE of all five:
Interactive Notebook Mini Books: Bundle of All 5 Literature & Nonfiction Vocabulary Analysis
Created and Copyrighted by Tracee Orman © 2014
Mrs. Orman's Classroom
The NGA Center/CCSSO are the sole owners and developers of the Common Core State Standards © Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:4fb5f038-dfc8-4c13-86a2-ce449337745a> | CC-MAIN-2019-09 | https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Interactive-Notebook-Mini-Book-Story-Elements-Analysis-1289390 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-09/segments/1550247480240.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20190216085312-20190216111312-00571.warc.gz | en | 0.852464 | 391 | 3.734375 | 4 |
Imagine a child's excitement the next time you read them a bedtime story and they see their name or face on the page of the book! You can create a special publication with colorful images, personalized with the child’s name and/or photo using existing stories or ones you make up yourself. You can even include scanned images of artwork they've created with their tiny hands. Instead of putting them on the refrigerator, make them part of your book.
By making your own personalized book you get to choose the subject, the characters, the layout, and the entire content. You can also communicate the story in a style that suits the individual child. Should the book be a learning tool or purely entertainment? You decide. Thrill a child by inserting them in their favorite story. Is she the perfect Goldilocks? Is he the bravest Jack facing the beanstalk? If you need story ideas, search the internet for Fables and Fairy Tales. Download pages or images, then bring them into Photoshop and substitute Goldilock's face with your child's. You can also scan actual books the child owns. Is there a little boy who has always wanted to be Superman? You can make it happen with a customized storybook.
Many companies publish personalized storybooks but they are usually limited to simply inserting the child's' name, not photos or custom images. The cost of these books is three times what you will pay if you create one yourself.
Working Through Life’s Problems
Besides cost savings, there are many reasons to build a personalized storybook. A great way to get kids to verbalize their feelings is to create a book that touches upon an issue or problem with which the child is dealing. It's sometimes easier for youngsters to discuss the subject when it's happening to a character in a book. Think of creating pages that will act as communication tools designed to help them see problems clearly. In your story, the character may even be offered different solutions from which the child must choose. Consider any of the following topics for the book:
Illness in the family
Loss of a relative
Loss of a pet
First Day of School
Bullies at School
Getting along with siblings
Welcoming home a new baby
You may also decide to create a special book to celebrate a milestone event, like a child’s birthday or athletic achievment. The beauty of it is you get to decide on the theme of your book. Once you have, follow these steps.
Things You'll Need
• Word processing program
• iPhoto '08 or later
• a story
Where To Start
1) In a word processing program, type out an original story or copy text from the child's favorite. If the child likes a certain poem, you could also use that for your story. Your book can contain as many pages as you like, but the minimum should ideally be 20 pages (10 double-sided) plus a front and back cover.
2) Look over your story and determine how much text you want on each page. Break the text into groups in your word processing program and arrange them in page order. Assign a page number to each group to help you keep the content organized.
3) Open your iPhoto program. Create and name an album in which you will later store your book pages. With the album selected, click the book icon at the bottom of the screen. A page will appear with your book size options and layout style.
4) Decide on the size of your finished book. It could be 11"X 8.5" or 8"X6" or smaller. Hard cover versions are only available in the 11"X8.5" size. Choose a layout style. Select the “Crayon" theme that allows you total layout freedom on all pages except the back cover.
5) Create book page number one in Photoshop. Make it the same size you’ve chosen for your book in iPhoto. Before placing anything on the page be sure to choose 300 dpi resolution for the page. This is important for good print quality, especially for any text you create. Place guides on all sides, 1/2" from the edge. Save the blank document and duplicate it for each book page you will eventually need. Do not create a page for the back cover.
6) Go back to the word processing program and copy the text for page number one.
Return to Photoshop and paste the text. Choose your text color and font. Don't worry about placement or size just yet. Copy text for the next page and paste it into another blank Photoshop page of the same size. Continue doing this until you have all your pages done. If you want to close the pages as you continue, be sure to save them as psd files.
7) Bring scanned or original images and photos onto each of the pages. Size and arrange the text and image on the page. Keep the image and text inside the guidelines unless you want the image to deliberately bleed off the page. If you are replacing an existing character's face with a photo of your child, do that now. Don't forget to create a page for the front cover.
Save each page as a jpeg and also as a psd document in case you later find errors and need to come back and make changes.
8) Bring the jpegs into the book album you created in iPhoto.
9) Click on your book icon in the lower left of the iPhoto screen. When your book opens, select layout #1 from the layout menu for each page. This will give you a blank gray slate. From the top menu, drag the thumbnail for each one of your jpegs, onto a gray book page.
The jpeg image will fill the page. Repeat with all the images.
Although you are allowed only one image and limited text on the back cover, you can still make it original. Choose an image or icon to use as your logo just as publishing houses do. Include the year. Consider using your actual signature on one of the pages. You can scan it and add it to a page layout while in Photoshop. These little touches will be very meaningful when the child is older and can look back on this thoughtful gift and the memories that accompany it. When your book is complete, click on "BUY" to order your book. | <urn:uuid:966da7ca-98c4-484f-a649-eb35d6c6d26a> | CC-MAIN-2017-43 | http://www.infobarrel.com/Make_Personalized_Storybooks_For_Kids_On_Your_Computer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-43/segments/1508187823282.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20171019103222-20171019123222-00747.warc.gz | en | 0.915207 | 1,310 | 2.515625 | 3 |
The Harlem Renaissance was the name given to the cultural, social, and artistic explosion that took place in Harlem between the end of World War I and the middle of the 1930s. During this period Harlem was a cultural center, drawing black writers, artists, musicians, photographers, poets, and scholars.
The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as Black Tuesday, the Great Crash, or the Stock Market Crash of 1929, began in late October 1929 and was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, when taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout. The crash signaled the beginning of the 10-year Great Depression that affected all Western industrialized countries.
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the gay community against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. They are widely considered to constitute the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights in the United States.
The 1992 Los Angeles riots, also known as the Rodney King riots, the South Central riots, the 1992 Los Angeles civil disturbance, 1992 Los Angeles civil unrest, and the Los Angeles uprising were a series of riots, lootings, arsons and civil disturbance that occurred in Los Angeles County, California in 1992, following the acquittal of police officers on trial regarding a videotaped and widely-covered police brutality incident.
These were working and middle class dances which included syncopated music by African American composers. Aspirations towards the European ballroom teams.
The Lindy hop is accredited to George "Shorty" Snowden and was seen at the Savoy Ballroom. It was largely popularized by African Americans although also integrated.
The Palladium is a Midtown Manhattan dance hall which became internationally known as New York's Most popular place for mambo music and dance.
The Madison and the Twist are associated with Rock n' Roll. The Madison is a form of a line dance whereas the Twist is a open partner dance.
Vogue began in the Ballroom Scene in the 1960s with primarily African American and Latino gay men and male to female transgender people. It is significant in forming community and was popularized by Madonna's Vogue song.
Disco was a space for Gay men, as well as people of color and women to dance and own a fuller embodiment of space. The goal was in part (through drugs) to lose individuality in the "collective bliss." It was about dancing with the entire group drawing from improvisation and polyrhythmic full body sensation. https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTHZvWeCzzV8_j2JPEYLVmbQ8MR7oSNmVtiNt0J1hxik0zjhlr8sw
Tommy the Clown (Thomas Johnson) begins Clowning in 1992 In South Central Los Angeles, California.
TV allowed music and dance to cross racial boundaries despite sup posited 'integration.' Blackboard Jungle and Rock around the Clock single the start of the Rock n' Roll era.
Syncopated and duple-metered rhythms
Roots in black R&B and White Country Music. Emblematic jukebox with dances inspired by Lindy Hop, and the Jitterbug, ending with the Madison and the Twist. | <urn:uuid:50132d83-0187-4a1d-b9ee-0387335debd7> | CC-MAIN-2018-22 | https://www.preceden.com/timelines/199371-dance-in-the-20th-century | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-22/segments/1526794867046.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20180525063346-20180525083346-00252.warc.gz | en | 0.960698 | 726 | 2.9375 | 3 |
The discussion is the hardest part of the paper to write and is certainly the most difficult to write well. I think one of the reasons that many people struggle when learning to write the discussion is that there isn’t a nice simple formula you can follow like in the results section. Most people learn by experience. The more you read and write papers, the better you’ll get at writing engaging and interesting discussions. However, there are some general guidelines you can use to help you on your way.
The Purpose of the Discussion
Before we get into the guidelines, I think it’s important to first examine the purpose of the section itself as this will drive, in part, your decision making process on how to approach writing it. The discussion is for interpreting your results, it is not a re-hash of your results section. I know this seems obvious, but you do sometimes find papers where the authors are wasting both their and the readers’ time essentially repeating what we’ve already seen in the results. This serves no purpose and does not illuminate the subject any further for the reader.
If you think about how the paper has been presented so far, the introduction has said “this is the field we’re studying and these are all the background details.” The aim then told the reader “given that prior knowledge, this is what we’re going to do.” The results followed up with “this is what we found when we did what we said we’d do.” After all that, the purpose of the discussion is to say “this is what it means.” So your job as the author is to do some meaningful interpretation and perhaps a bit of well-founded speculation with respect to your results.
Continuing with the story-telling theme and the three-act narrative structure, the discussion is very similar to second half of the second act (the results being the first half). In most three-act stories, the main character is by now armed with new skills and awareness, and uses them to overcome obstacles in the second act. In Star Wars, Luke uses his new appreciation for the evils of the empire as well as his knowledge of the force to strike a blow against the bad guys. You, as the author of the paper, will combine your previous knowledge of the material (your introduction and aims, as well as other papers on the subject) with the new knowledge gained (your results) and push forward into new areas in the discussion.
Guidelines on How to Discuss
Okay, so we know why we’re writing the discussion, but how do you do it? How do you pick what needs to be discussed - and what exactly do you do to “discuss” it?
What you pick is driven by the narrative of your paper. This is, again, why selecting a narrative before you begin writing is so important. It shapes the flow of the paper, from how you present your results to how you interpret them in the discussion. The scope of your paper, which you should have already been addressing in the results, will help you here. You should be focussing on discussing the most important and interesting results and trying to craft a story out of them. I find if I get a little stuck here, that it’s useful to go back to the results section and re-read the observations. You can then use these as a starting point for what you should be talking about.
Remember that it’s impossible (and unwise story-wise) to discuss every little thing in detail, so you should be picking out the most interesting and important things worthy of discussion. Also, try to keep it consistent between the results and discussion. If you’ve spent time pointing out results in your observations that do not appear in your discussion, or you discuss major points that are barely mentioned in the results, your paper won’t flow well and the reader will be taken out of the moment and lose interest.
On to the next part. How do you “discuss” the points now that you’ve selected them? Well, as the saying goes, one must begin at the beginning. And in the beginning, you laid out the theory as to why you were doing the experiments in the first place, so you should start by comparing your results with your hypothesis. Do they stack up to the theory and if not, why not?
Once you’ve addressed the internal consistency of your report, you can begin to look further afield and compare your results to those of other, similar studies in the field. This means reading as many similar papers as you can find. It’s a laborious task, but it’s vitally important because your results form a tiny piece in the collective puzzle that scientists from around the world are trying to solve. The reason for this is that science is not done in a vacuum. There will be other groups that are working on, or have worked on either the same thing as you, or something very similar. Do your results fit in with theirs? Do they make sense in the broader scientific context? If not, why not? Perhaps your methodology was different. Could your (or their) methods be at fault?
These are the sorts of questions you should be asking, as the answers will push scientific progress forwards. If the results of similar studies match up in a logical and coherent manner, then we ought to be on the right track. If not, then we need to figure out what’s going on and solve those issues.
Here is a good example of looking further afield and comparing your own results with those already published in the scientific literature. This is most of the second paragraph of the discussion in a paper on bacterial genetics. Dispensing with the yawn-inducing jargon highlighted in light blue, we have a very compact review of the current state of the literature (at the time) on this subject and exactly how this paper fits into the canon. What it says is: "The [thing we're working on] is one of many [similar systems]. Its functions are only just being uncovered, with recent [experiments] suggesting [it does genetics jargon things related to the findings in our paper]. [A different experiment by this other group] has also been linked to [the phenomenon under study], and recently a [further experiment by a different group] demonstrated [alteration of the phenomenon under study]. We have confirmed these findings but have also demonstrated increased [more jargon related to phenomenon under study]." You can see they begin by stating what the system under study actually is, and then cite a whole heap of other papers on the subject that explain what we currently know about how it all works. They then follow that up by saying that their paper basically fits in with what we already know, but also provides additional information we didn't have before. (Howden et al., 2008)
Digging into the scientific literature and comparing your results with those of other scientists puts your report into context with the rest of the field. This is an important part of the plot for the reader as it allows them to see the bigger picture. It also gives you scope for speculation and extrapolation. Normally, those are taboo words in science because they can lead you up a certain creek without any means of propulsion. However, this is the discussion section and as such you’re allowed to voice your opinion and speculate as to what a result means or why you think something does or does not work.
If you want to be taken seriously, though, you can’t just say whatever you like. You must back up your assertions with reason. You might, for example, say something like: “given that [results a, b and c] from [experiment x] were within [parameter y], it is likely that [the thing we’re studying] is doing [whatever it is you think it’s doing]. Indeed, Helder and Morello [paper citation] studied a similar system and it [worked in basically the same way].”
Constructing a coherent argument that makes sense - and drawing on the results of other papers to bolster your point - means that although you’re speculating, at least it’s well founded. By doing this, the other thing you will acheive is to push the boundaries of science outward. The speculative points you make are now the basis for new and testable hypotheses, providing new avenues for research.
Finally, discussions often include a bit of marketing - but not in the form you’re used to. Basically, since you’ve put all this hard work into doing these experiments and writing the report, it’s a good idea to sell their significance to the audience. As such, you may consider talking about potential commercial applications of the research. Perhaps your project could benefit medical science or industry. You can also talk about the future directions of the project and where it might lead.
These things are important because scientists must sell their work in the open marketplace of ideas. You want to be noticed and have your papers cited by peers in your field, as this is ultimately what builds your reputation and hence your career. Again, the structure of your narrative will help you to get these ideas across. You should be working toward a satisfying ending by tying up all the loose threads of the story into a neat package. | <urn:uuid:8cde2566-f43c-422d-8bd9-6c464ee9481b> | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | http://howtoscience.net/discussion/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-05/segments/1642320304287.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20220123141754-20220123171754-00385.warc.gz | en | 0.967144 | 1,941 | 2.546875 | 3 |
How well do children educated in today’s schools perform when they enter the nation’s most prestigious universities? How well do test scores and the state-mandated, standardized curriculum predict college success?
Merilee Jones, MIT’s director of admissions, says, “We’re raising a generation of kids trained to please adults…. That’s the big difference with this generation. They’re being judged and graded and analyzed and assessed at every turn. It’s too much pressure for them.”
The faculty tell Jones that many of their students today aren’t as much fun to teach. They no longer come to MIT with the wildly creative ideas and research projects that were formerly more common. The faculty report that the current generation of students “want to do everything right, they want to know exactly what’s on the test. They’re so afraid of failing or stepping out of line that they’re not really good students.”
The child who is taught that his self-worth is attached to an external test result or grade risks becoming emotionally dependent on outward affirmation, and over-focused on test results as a measure of his/her self-worth. That child risks becoming fixated on grades to the detriment of other important, well-rounded factors that contribute to success and happiness in school and life—including an enthusiasm for pursuing wildly creative ideas that may not fall strictly within the boundaries of the curriculum.
Because educators have begun to recognize this, a 4.4 GPA may no longer guarantee admission to a top-flight university. A source in the Stanford admissions office confided that the university now prefers to accept applicants with a 3.9 or 4.0 GPA who are well-rounded as people, having realized that the test-taking superstars too often are deficient in human qualities that more accurately foretell success in school and life.
From an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, “Perfect scores alone don’t make grade for admission to college of choice” (May 16, 2013):
“A Stanford admissions official said the university considers college board scores, grades, the difficulty of courses, extracurricular activities and achievement outside of school. But it’s the personal essay that differentiates one top student from the next, she said. Princeton asks applicants to ‘tell us your story. Show us what’s special about you.’….
“Stanford had a school record 38,828 applications this year and will admit 1,700 freshmen, including legacy applicants and scholarship athletes. Minneapolis attorney Fred Bruno, a Stanford alumnus and local recruiter for the school, said Stanford could completely fill its freshman class with valedictorians.
“‘When I meet with an applicant, I look for interaction, for presence,’ Bruno said. ‘We assume they have huge credentials. I don’t even ask them about grades. We’re looking at the human side of these kids.’”
Parental praise for grades and test scores may motivate the child, as is of course perfectly natural. But if it becomes an obsessive source of affirmation for the child, it risks sacrificing the development of self-confidence, independence, initiative, and a sure inner sense of his or her goals and purpose in life.
Schools today are training children to be afraid to make mistakes. And as Sir Ken Robinson pointed out in his TED Talk, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” far from enhancing their creative initiative, it may only guarantee that they will never come up with an original idea.
“Kids will take a chance. If they don’t know, they’ll have a go. Am I right? They’re not frightened of being wrong. I don’t mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. What we do know is, if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original…. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. And we run our companies like this. We stigmatize mistakes. And we’re now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. And the result is that we are educating people out of their creative capacities.”
Robinson’s ideas reflect the thinking of Seymour Papert, a South African-born American mathematician, computer scientist, and educator who spent most of his career teaching and researching at MIT. In his famous book, Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas, Papert proposed that a key benefit of teaching kids to program computers is that it teaches them a “bug-fixing approach to life”—they learn that mistakes are an unavoidable and perfectly natural part of the creative process, and should be welcomed gratefully and joyfully as milestones on the path to discovering solutions.
Robinson points out that colleges today are inundated with applications from kids with outstanding grades, and that businesses can now take their pick of applicants with high college GPAs and advanced degrees. Jobs that formerly required a bachelor’s now demand an MS/MA, and jobs that once demanded a master’s now require a Ph.D.
The key differentiators for admission to an elite university today, and for employment at a prestigious company have shifted; they now include such “soft” factors as proven communication skills, high energy, “presence,” and an ability to cooperate and work harmoniously with others.
What the teachers at Living Wisdom School do to motivate the children in their academic studies reaches deep into their hearts and encourages the development of these qualities. The Education for Life methods are highly effective at eliciting the child’s natural enthusiasm for learning. The results are evidenced by the children’s test scores, their grades in high school and college, their admission to elite schools, and their careers.
The LWS teachers are trained and strongly encouraged to take the time to become intimately familiar with each child, to gain a deep and full awareness of the child’s natural inclinations and enthusiasms, so that they can understand the internal motivations that the child brings to the classroom.
The teachers build upon these motivators to tailor the child’s education individually. If the child is artistic, the arts may provide a portal through which the teacher can introduce the standard curriculum in math, history, English, and science. If the child is good with his hands but relatively uninterested in academics, the teachers will use the child’s strengths to motivate him/her to learn—perhaps by showing them the indispensable applications of math, science, history, and English to the kind of work the child is inclined to pursue.
The same will be true for the child who is inspired by business, science, the arts, math, or a trade—the LWS teachers will help the child understand that all of these fields are intimately related; that a person cannot be a first-class mathematician without a strong ability to communicate his or her ideas, and without knowing something of the history of mathematics and its applications to other fields such as the sciences. The child may someday find fulfillment in using his or her math skills to help scientists find solutions to deeply meaningful problems.
Perhaps most important for children during the Feeling Years is to teach them that the highest success in every field, as a stunning new study of Google’s top employees revealed (see next chapter), comes to those who can cooperate, who can understand the needs of others and support them, and who relish the joy of working together to accomplish expansive goals.
The Feeling Years are the cradle of success in school and life. Without proper training at this age, the child may lack the refined heart qualities that provide the drive, enthusiasm, moral sense and wisdom to set goals and invest great energy and perseverance in achieving them.
Expansive feelings are the dynamo that drives all noble human achievement. A child who has not had his or her feelings properly encouraged and positively channeled and refined will be less well prepared for the stages of Will Power (age 12‑18) and the Intellect (18-24).
Once the Feeling Years have passed, it may be too late to remediate a deficiency of these valuable feeling-related qualities. At age 12, the child will begin to be more strongly motivated to develop his or her will power, in preparation for independent adult life.
Children who have a sure sense of themselves, with positive feelings about their strengths and clear, positive images of what they most deeply desire to accomplish, will be able to enter the Will years of middle school and high school more confidently equipped to succeed than children whose brains have been stuffed with quickly forgotten facts, to the detriment of the feelings of the heart that give life its motive power as well as its meaning and value.
For more than forty-five years, the Living Wisdom Schools have pioneered a radical new approach to educating young children—an approach that empowers them to be happy while excelling in school and life.
In education today, there’s a quiet but powerful groundswell—a grassroots rebellion against the government-mandated “No Child Left Behind” and Core Curriculum initiatives that have hamstrung teachers, alienated students, and distorted the true purpose of education by preventing children from receiving the best possible education and experience of school.
The Education for Life philosophy can be simply stated:
At school, the factor that most assuredly promotes deep, engaged, lasting learning is happiness.
Many parents who inquire about the Living Wisdom Schools are dumbfounded when they hear the teachers confidently proclaim that a happy, arts-enriched, highly individualized curriculum is more efficient than the STEM-loaded curricula offered by other schools.
They are nonplussed by the suggestion that the LWS curriculum gives children a deeper education, because the teachers are encouraged to teach principles and review the content until each student can grasp the concepts in depth before moving on, instead of skimming the surface of the subject matter in an ill-considered rush to demonstrate good test scores.
Many parents simply don’t believe that what’s offered at LWS can possibly be valid, since everybody else is doing it differently.
And yet, a deeper look at those schools with more “traditional” curricula reveals troubling flaws.
The shortcomings were eloquently outlined by Sir Ken Robinson, an award-winning international educational consultant whose TED Talk, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” is the most-watched in TED’s history, having been viewed more than 40 million times by 320 million people in 160 countries.
Robinson shares his thoughts on the needed changes in education today:
“In place of curiosity, what we have is a culture of compliance. Our children and teachers are encouraged to follow routine algorithms rather than to excite the power of imagination and curiosity…. Human life is inherently creative. It’s why we all have different résumés. We create our lives, and we can recreate them as we go through them. It’s the common currency of being a human being. It’s why human culture is so interesting and diverse and dynamic….
“We all create our own lives through this restless process of imagining alternatives and possibilities, and one of the roles of education is to awaken and develop these powers of creativity. Instead, what we have is a culture of standardization.
“Now, it doesn’t have to be that way…. Finland regularly comes out on top in math, science and reading. Now, we only know that’s what they do well at, because that’s all that’s being tested. That’s one of the problems of the test. They don’t look for other things that matter just as much. The thing about [the] work in Finland is this: they don’t obsess about those disciplines. They have a very broad approach to education, which includes humanities, physical education, the arts.
“Second, there is no standardized testing in Finland. I mean, there’s a bit, but it’s not what gets people up in the morning, what keeps them at their desks.
“The third thing—and I was at a meeting recently with some people from Finland, actual Finnish people, and somebody from the American system was saying to the people in Finland, ‘What do you do about the drop-out rate in Finland?’
“And they all looked a bit bemused, and said, ‘Well, we don’t have one. Why would you drop out? If people are in trouble, we get to them quite quickly and we help and support them.’
“Now people always say, ‘Well, you know, you can’t compare Finland to America.’ No. I think there’s a population of around five million in Finland. But you can compare it to a state in America. Many states in America have fewer people in them than that….
“But what all the high-performing systems in the world do is currently what is not evident, sadly, across the systems in America—I mean, as a whole. One is this: they individualize teaching and learning. They recognize that it’s students who are learning and the system has to engage them, their curiosity, their individuality, and their creativity. That’s how you get them to learn.
“The second is that they attribute a very high status to the teaching profession. They recognize that you can’t improve education if you don’t pick great people to teach and keep giving them constant support and professional development. Investing in professional development is not a cost. It’s an investment, and every other country that’s succeeding well knows that…. They know that to be the case.
“And the third is, they devolve responsibility to the school level for getting the job done. You see, there’s a big difference here between going into a mode of command and control in education—that’s what happens in some systems. Central or state governments decide they know best and they’re going to tell you what to do. The trouble is that education doesn’t go on in the committee rooms of our legislative buildings. It happens in classrooms and schools, and the people who do it are the teachers and the students, and if you remove their discretion, it stops working. You have to put it back to the people….
“Many of the current policies are based on mechanistic conceptions of education. It’s like education is an industrial process that can be improved just by having better data, and somewhere in the back of the minds of some policy makers is this idea that if we fine-tune it well enough, if we just get it right, it will all hum along perfectly into the future. It won’t, and it never did.
“The point is that education is not a mechanical system. It’s a human system….
“So I think we have to embrace a different metaphor. We have to recognize that it’s a human system, and there are conditions under which people thrive, and conditions under which they don’t. We are after all organic creatures, and the culture of the school is absolutely essential.”
From Sir Ken Robinson’s talk, “How to Escape Education’s Death Valley” (2013), used with permission from TED. To watch the full talk, visit www.ted.com. (Alternatively, you can watch three talks by Robinson, including this one, at: http://bit.ly/2KFExrR.)
Children who are subjected to a one-sided academically over-loaded curriculum during the extremely important Feeling Years from roughly age 6 to 12 are at risk not only of receiving a relatively superficial education; they end up less well prepared mentally and emotionally to succeed in high school and college. Perhaps most troubling, they are less likely to acquire important personal qualities that are common among successful people.
One prospective parent, during a visit to LWS, protested, “But these kids can’t be learning—they’re too happy!”
Yet groundbreaking research has confirmed beyond any possibility of doubt that happiness and school success are intimately connected.
What are some of the qualities that we, as parents and teachers, should encourage in young children to prepare them for success in high school, college, and life?
Aside from the knowledge and skills required to succeed in a given profession, surely it’s fair to suggest that there also needs to be a deep wanting to do good and wonderful things.
There has to be a confident self-knowledge, a positive expectation, and an ability to work well with others. And these qualities must be deliberately nurtured in the child. They cannot be imposed from without; nor will they magically appear as a side-effect of good grades and test scores.
The time in a child’s life when these qualities become the natural developmental focus, and when they most urgently need to be nurtured and refined, is during the “Feeling Years” from approximately age 6 to 12.
These personal qualities which are highly predictive of success cannot be nurtured by merely trying to motivate the children to get good grades. Any motivation that grades and test scores provide will be superficial, and will not touch their hearts. Worse, it may encourage a dependence on external recognition that can never be fully satisfied—after one test, there will always be another.
Success and happiness, as will become clear in the chapters that follow, come most reliably to those who are focused enthusiastically on the process: who are not postponing their happiness until some vaguely imagined future, but are able to rejoice in the expansion of their powers today.
We spoke with Ruth Rabin who teaches third grade at Living Wisdom School. All of the photos were taken during a two-hour period on a regular school day about two weeks before the end of the school year. The interviewer was our webmaster and photographer.
Q: Did you always know that you would be a teacher?
Ruth: I think I did. When I was in elementary school I would stay after school and help the teacher erase the blackboard and get the classroom in order. My friends and I would often play teacher, and I loved it.
After college, I worked in France, teaching in a public junior high for a year. Then I worked in Israel for a couple of years, and when I came back I taught for several years at schools in Foster City and Palo Alto.
I loved teaching, but then I got married and left to raise my kids. When my kids grew up, I thought about exploring a new field. I said to a friend, “I wish there were something I loved and that I was really good at.” He said, “There is – it’s teaching.” And I thought, “It’s true, I love teaching.”
I found a job at a school in San Jose where it was wonderful to work with the children, but the school was poorly run. It closed in mid-year, so the kids were left without a school, and the teachers found themselves suddenly without a job.
I had a friend who taught at Living Wisdom School. She said, “Send me your resume and I’ll give it to Helen.” Two weeks later, a position opened in second and third grade, and I was hired. It was a miracle how I landed at this glorious place, after a scary experience losing my job, and it touches me whenever I think about it.
I love this school. It’s a very joyful place. I wish my own children had come here, and that I’d been able to come to a school like this as a child.
I’ll wander into Erica’s second-grade classroom next door, and I’ll look around and think, “Oh my gosh.” And Erica will visit my classroom and say, “Oh my gosh.”
There’s a unique camaraderie and joy with the other teachers. If we have a question – like “How can I set up this lesson so that it will help the students in the best way?” – I can go to any of the teachers, and we’ll work on it with our combined experience and find a solution.
Many amazing things have come out of those conversations. It’s a wonderful aspect of our school culture that the teachers are free to learn from each other and that we can go into the other classrooms and observe.
For the students, there’s an incredible amount of learning that goes on here, with amazing creativity and joy along the way. I love coming to work every day, and I don’t think many people can say that.
Q: One of the things I’ve observed is how you interact with the children. On one occasion, a little girl in your class was afraid to go and get her costume adjusted by the seamstress before the dress rehearsal for the school play. You were counseling her, and you were very attuned to her need and able to help her with compassion and wisdom. I thought it exemplified something I regularly hear the teachers say, that it’s essential to create a relationship with each child, so that you can understand who they are and what their needs are.
Ruth: Yes, absolutely. It’s one of the things I love, the familiarity that you develop with each child here. It’s a relationship of respect and trust. We know each other, and if something’s going on, I’ll know about it, and I can help them.
I’ll say, “I’m noticing that your energy’s a little off. Tell me what’s happening.” Because we know them well enough to recognize when something’s out of their norm.
We’ll talk about whatever the challenge is, instead of ignoring it and assuming that it will just go away, or that their parents will deal with it, or much worse, that we might try to discipline them for their “off” behavior without understanding what’s really going on.
Yesterday, I was saying to the kids, “Some of you haven’t made art for our class poetry book. Come on, let’s get this done!” And one of these little eight-year-old girls said, “You’re really frantic today!” (laughs)
I took a deep breath and said, “Yes, I am, I’m feeling frantic.” And the little girl said, with so much confidence, “Well, don’t worry, we’ll get it done.” I said, “You’re right. I was feeling frenetic.” And it was funny, because they jumped in and said, “We know that word!” They recognized it from our vocabulary lessons.
But she said it so kindly – it wasn’t that she was scolding me, “What’s wrong with you?!” She noticed that I was feeling frantic, and she was free, in this environment, to try to help. It’s a natural part of the school culture to talk about issues that are getting in the way. And this ease of communication has a very positive effect on their development and their learning.
Q: In a traditional school where the children are focused almost entirely on academics, they can sometimes get so much in their heads that they miss the experience of having their hearts educated, which Education for Life says is extremely important at all ages, but especially from six to twelve. Is that something you emphasize? If you’re doing academics, do you find that those attitudes of kindness and cooperation are helping the children in their studies?
Ruth: Without question. I feel that where there’s laughter and joy, there are much greater possibilities for learning. If you walk into any classroom here, you’ll see that the students are working very hard, and the reason there’s so much learning, and the kids are so deeply engaged is because they feel the work is theirs.
We’re constantly adjusting the curriculum to meet each child’s individual needs, so that the learning is always on their level. And because it’s so individually focused, we’re able to raise the bar in a way that each child gets to experience the satisfaction of rising to it. As they discover that they can face a challenge and overcome it, their enthusiasm for learning grows exponentially, and it’s a huge step for their all-around development.
Soon after I came here, a little boy got up at the year-end ceremony and said, “At first it was hard, but now I know that I can always ask for help. And if I need to know how to spell ‘ampersand,’ I can ask.”
They aren’t afraid to ask, because the culture isn’t about who’s best or who’s ahead. “What page are you on? I’m ten pages farther.” That never gets talked about here, because they know that it simply doesn’t matter.
In math, the children are free to ask each other for help, even before they ask me. They’re constantly teaching each other, and they’re learning to solve problems by finding the resources they need.
A child will say, “Can somebody help me?” And you’ll always hear, “I will! I will!” They’re competing to go and help each other, and they discover that teaching is a wonderful way to review what they’ve learned. Imagine how great a child must feel when they can help another child with a math problem.
We’re doing Menu Math, which is very challenging. One of the problems is, “How much is the restaurant bill with an 18 percent tip?” It’s quite advanced for third grade math. We were getting close to the end of math class the other day, and I hadn’t covered the problem, so I said, “Let’s come back to it tomorrow – we don’t have to cover it today.” But one of the girls said, “I know how to do it – my mom showed me.” And she got up and taught the whole class how to calculate an 18-percent tip. It was marvelous, because the kids were going, “Oh, yeah! I get it.”
Then they said, “Ruth, can we go to the board and try to figure it out by ourselves?” And I just had to laugh. I said, “Well – yeah!!” Because I was delighted.
The learning is natural and joyful, because we always monitor their comfort level. I tell them, “Let me know if it’s too easy, because it’ll be boring, or if it’s too hard, because it’ll be frustrating.” And the kids will say, “Ruth, this is a really good comfort level for me. It’s really challenging, but I can do it.”
I had a child in my class who used to say, “This is hard!” And now he’s saying, “This is challenging.” Because he’s learned to work through the challenges and master them. I’ll say, “Is it a good comfort level for you?” And he’ll say, “Yeah, but it’s pretty challenging.”
Or they’ll say, “Ruth, this is too easy.” And I’ll go over and find out if they’ve truly mastered the lesson, and then I’ll move them along, because there’s no point in staying on something they’ve already mastered.
It’s very important that they’re comfortable saying, “This is too hard.” Because it means that they aren’t intimidated by the teacher, and they can ask for help when they’re stuck. In this culture, they don’t have to feel afraid that they’ll be teased if they admit that they’re having trouble.
How much are you going to learn if you’re stuck, and you’re afraid to say to the teacher, “I can’t do it”? It’s the natural thing to say. Why should you pretend to be farther along, when you haven’t built a solid foundation? And these kids completely understand that.
So they monitor their comfort level, and they’re happy to challenge themselves because they know they can get help when they need it. Not because they have to prove that they’re better, but because they’ve learned, over and over, how wonderful it feels to master a challenge.
In every classroom here, the teachers are helping the children understand that the greatest joys come from their own learning, and not from measuring themselves against an artificial standard. It’s why they love the challenge of learning new things, because they enjoy that inner feeling of accomplishment.
We do some very sophisticated language arts learning in our third-grade classroom, and the kids love it. They love the challenge of learning big words. They’ll say, “Ruth, I was reading a book, and it said the guy was ‘cantankerous.’” And I’ll say, “And you knew what it meant!” And they’ll say, “And I knew how to spell it!” (laughs)
There’s such pride in their learning. When I compare the years I taught in several very good, academically oriented schools, I think we have a very rigorous academic program here. Very, very rigorous. But it’s done with love, and with confidence. Because it’s done with very high goals, and realistic expectations.
Q: It sounds different from a typical public school classroom where the teacher has to hustle the students through a state-mandated curriculum on a rigid schedule.
Ruth: My son was bored in public school. He’s quite smart, and his high school teachers were telling me, “If you want to motivate your son, put him in Advanced Placement classes, because they’ll challenge him.”
I said, “But he won’t really learn anything. It will just be more homework, and what he wants is depth.”
He wanted to be able to explore his school subjects in depth, and it wasn’t happening in his school, because it was all about getting through the material on schedule and studying to the test.
I don’t blame the teachers, because they aren’t being given the freedom to truly teach a subject. “We have to get through the chapter. There’s no time for questions. Let’s keep moving. Let’s not go too deep, because you have to be ready for the test.”
It’s very liberating for the teachers and students when you don’t have to teach that way. In social studies the other day, we were talking about the Central Valley of California. The children were looking at a map, and someone said, “What’s the San Andreas Fault?” And all of a sudden the lesson changed to earthquakes and plate tectonics, and we watched some YouTube videos about the science of plate tectonics and earthquakes and the San Andreas Fault.
Then we talked about how we’re living just a few miles from the San Andreas Fault, and we went outside and looked for cracks in the sidewalk and tried to decide if they were created by trees or the earthquakes in this area.
So the lesson shifted from social studies to the geology of the California mountain ranges, and the fact that there are volcanoes in the mountains. And the idea that there are volcanoes in California got them very excited, and it shot off and became a lesson in the science of vulcanology.
As a teacher, having the freedom to take a lesson wherever the children’s natural enthusiasm leads them is marvelous. It makes the learning very real for the children, where it’s not just about looking at the pages of a book – “Oh, there are some mountains in California, and here’s a map and some dry facts.”
If you start with the strange and shocking and exciting fact that there are volcanoes in California, it unfolds naturally into the science of how mountain ranges are formed, and how the earth’s crust is shifting, and what it looks like in California, quite near to where we’re standing.
I feel very blessed to teach in a school where I have the freedom and autonomy to teach in a way that engages the children and gives them a genuine learning experience.
Q: A friend of mine teaches honors chemistry at a high school in Illinois. He’s also the freshman football coach, and his teams have won 39 games in a row. He’s completely at odds with the idea of a state-mandated curriculum. He wrote an article called 10 Ways to Improve Schools Using Coaching Principles, the point of which was that teachers must be free to help the individual child, in the same way that any competent sports coach would do.
Ruth: It’s the only way to bring out the very best in each child. And you need to know the child well enough to know what their best is.
In math class we have a Multiplication Sundae game. As the children gradually master the multiplication table, they earn part of an ice cream sundae. But the key point is that the whole class has to master the table. It’s fine if you know your sixes and sevens, but if the whole class hasn’t got them, they’ll have to help each other.
Q: Do they tutor each other? I read a quote the other day from David Epstein, author of The Sports Gene: “The kids that outdid their peers in the classroom and the kids that went on to become pros in a variety of sports had behavioral traits in common. The kids who went to the top in soccer, for example, they displayed what the scientists called ‘self-regulatory behavior.’ It’s a 12-year-old who’s going up to their trainer and saying, “I think this drill is a little too easy. What is this working on again? Why are we doing this? I think I’m having a problem with this other thing. Can I work on that instead?”
Ruth: Very definitely. They work together. There’s a tremendous amount of partner learning and peer teaching in the classroom. This year’s class learned their multiplication tables perfectly, so at the Multiplication Sundae party they’ll have ice cream with all the trimmings including sprinkles and chocolate chips. But it’s really about the learning experience, and the joy of learning together, and not setting yourself apart from others and competing with them in a shallow way.
Which is not to say that we don’t encourage the ones who can learn really fast. But it’s never a bragging thing, where they’re trying to make the others feel inferior. Never.
It’s taking pride in what you’ve done. It’s being able to say, “I’ve studied hard, and I know this.” Because why should they hide it, even if the others are still working on it?
When we do our multiplication drills, there are three students who can rattle them off without a hitch. They can just shoot them off, and we all know who they are, but there’s no comparing. There’s a feeling that it’s wonderful for them, and we’re proud of them.
Q: The kindergarten teacher, Mahita, talked about how it’s important to praise the children in the right way.
Ruth: Acknowledging them for who they are, and for their accomplishments and their mastery, and not just because they’ve jumped over a stick that you’re holding at some arbitrary height.
There’s a popular idea in education today that you shouldn’t take pride in something you’re good at, because someone else’s feelings might get hurt. But I don’t believe in that idea for a moment. I don’t believe in lowering yourself so that other people won’t feel inferior. I feel that everyone should be proud of their accomplishments, and proud of each other, and very proud of their friends.
When one of the children was assigned her lines for the school play, she received fewer lines than she’d hoped. Her mom told me that her daughter came home and said, “I’m a little disappointed, but my friend got lots of lines, and I’m so proud of her.”
Can you imagine? There was no envy or resentment. She thought, “This is what I have, and it’s really good, but my best friend got this, and I’m so happy for her.”
Q: It’s a principle of the world’s spiritual teachings that our happiness grows as we expand our awareness to include other people’s realities. I would imagine that it’s a hugely important lesson for young children, for their happiness now and in the future.
Ruth: Yes, and it happens a lot in our class, where the kids will go, “Yay! Good for you!”
Q: In the high school where my friend teaches, there’s a requirement that every student has to take chemistry and physics. And of course the result is that those classes get watered-down for the less-qualified students who don’t want to be there in the first place.
Ruth: Nobody expects that in life. If something’s wrong with my car, I’ll take it to a mechanic, instead of thinking I should know how to fix it myself. But in public high schools everyone’s expected to take Advanced Placement courses, and they might not be allowed to excel at what they’re really good at, if it happens to be music, painting, or auto repair, because those things are no longer honored in public school.
Here, it’s about everybody being where they need to be. We’re very careful to observe the children and keep the curriculum individualized and fluid, so that each child can go ahead at their own pace. It’s very clearly understood that the kids need to move at a pace where they’ll be challenged and able to grow and thrive. They might need to move forward or back, and it’s adjusted all the time. I have a second-grader who comes into my math class because he’s able to do third-grade math, and last year there were three second-graders who would come in and join us for math.
Q: I saw a little girl who’s in fourth grade sitting outside at a picnic table reading a book during recess. I asked if I could take her picture, and without turning her head she said very impatiently, “Yes!” It was clear that she did not want to be distracted. I was curious to know what she was reading that was so interesting to her, so I peeked at the book, and it was math.
Ruth: That’s very funny, but it’s not at all uncommon. On Fridays we have math games, and some of the kids will say, “Can we work on Menu Math?” which is a lot harder, just because they love the challenge.
I love it here. And it’s partly because we embrace every aspect of the individual child, including the spiritual.
I’ll occasionally bring in my Jewish culture. In our tradition we have something called a mezuzah. It’s a parchment scroll that’s inscribed with the most important prayer in Judaism, and it can be ornate and fancy, or very simple.
The prayer says, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to affix a mezuzah.” Jewish homes will have a mezuzah on their door, and the reason is so that when you go in and out you’re reminded of how to live your life as a good person. As you go out, it reminds you that this is how you live as a righteous person. And when you come in, you remember to do the right thing – to have integrity, and to think about what you’re doing, and always try to be in alignment with right action.
I explained that to the children, and they made mezuzahs and wrote poems about how they want to live their lives. And when I send them home they’ll roll them up and put them outside their bedroom door.
We also made something called a Chamsa. A Chamsa is a Middle Eastern symbol that’s shared by the Jewish and Islamic cultures. It’s the hand of God that’s offering blessing and protection. We made Chamsas out of heavy copper foil that the children tooled and decorated, and then they wrote poetry about the times when they feel the hand of God.
Q: Is it something you have to nag them to do?
Ruth: Not at all. We talk about what God is, and they write about it in their poetry. What is God to other people? What is God to me? When do they feel that energy? When do they feel that protection? When do they feel that love? Do they feel it when they’re in nature? Do they feel it when they’re with their family? When they’re playing? When they’re laughing? They understand that feeling, and they always know what I’m talking about, because it’s a universal experience, and children live more in their hearts and souls than most adults do.
Q: Do you have children in your class who are new to this school?
Ruth: Yes, we had three new kids who came into our classroom in the middle of the year.
Q: How long did it take them to settle into the culture?
Ruth: One of them has taken a bit longer. He talks about it in his Qualities speech. “I came in, and I had my methods, and I had to learn Ruth’s methods.” (laughs) We had a new boy and two girls this year.
I told the kids, “Remember the girls who came to visit?” And they were all excited, “Are they going to join our class?” I said, “And remember the boy who came? He’s going to be in our class, too.” “Yay!” So there was complete acceptance.
It’s been a really great year. This time of year is always bittersweet, because your connection with the children is so deep, and then they have to leave. I love every class that I’ve had, and every one is very special.
A Conversation with Kindergarten Teacher Mahita Matulich
Q: How did you become a teacher at Living Wisdom School?
Mahita: I first heard of the school about six years ago. I was living in San Ramon, in my spiritual teacher’s ashram, and my roommate invited me to the school’s annual theater production.
I was completely blown away – I could not believe the quality of the performances, and the energy and poise of the children.
Over the next several years I saw the plays on Krishna, Hafiz, and the Dalai Lama. I would watch the plays and leave feeling so moved afterward. I had been studying early childhood education, and then my roommate introduced me to Helen and Gary, and I came on as an intern.
Q: What has it been like to teach kindergarten here?
Mahita: I love teaching here – it’s been a great blessing. But I was surprised by how much energy it took. During my first year, my greatest challenge was to adjust my energy to the needs of the children. The energy that’s required of our teachers is tremendous, especially when you’re working with young children.
I have to be very mindful of my actions, my words, and my interactions with each child. With children of four, five, and six, even the smallest interaction can be very significant for them, especially when it’s coming from their teacher, and it requires that I be very aware.
Q: Have you always wanted to teach? Kabir MacDow, our first-grade teacher, knew practically from the day he was born that he would be a teacher.
Mahita: I’d never really thought about teaching, but I had some very strong ideas about education, based on my own early experiences. My mother is a professor and my grandmother was a teacher, so there was always lots of encouragement in our family to be lifelong learners. But I had no idea that teaching was what God had in store for me.
As a child, I had an incredible kindergarten teacher, and I have vivid memories of my experiences with her. In fact, my first three teachers touched my life profoundly, because they inspired our creativity and joy in learning. As a result I grew up knowing what a tremendous difference it makes for children to have strong teachers in their earliest years.
Q: You mentioned creativity and learning in the same breath. That’s a strong theme in this school, isn’t it, to tie those together?
Mahita: Oh, it’s huge. Last year, a woman said to me during an open house, “How do you get the children to do things?” And I just had to laugh aloud, because it’s so naturally a part of what we’re doing, and I’ve never had to consider how I could motivate the children.
The way the children’s classroom experience is set up, they’re given a tremendous number of opportunities to exercise their creativity, and it really engages them in what they’re doing.
With a math activity, I’ll say, “What kind of math story do you want to write?” Or, “What kind of math story do you want to tell? Do you want to tell it with stuffed animals, or do you want to tell it using math cubes? Or do you want to tell your math story by drawing a picture?”
The emphasis on creativity that is such a major part of our school culture inspires the children to want to participate. They aren’t as likely to resist learning when they’re in a space that welcomes their ideas and their creative energy.
Q: Is it bringing their hearts into the equation, instead of just drilling facts?
Mahita: Yes, it’s bringing the heart, the enthusiasm, and honoring each child by letting them know, “You’re important, and what you value, and your experiences, are important to me.” It’s telling the child that it matters a great deal to me as their teacher how they want to pour their creativity into a project, and how they want to approach their math and other subjects.
Q: Do you interact with the other teachers? Do you feel that you’re part of a team?
Mahita: I do. It’s a little different because I’m working with the youngest children – I have mostly five-year-olds in my classroom, with a few four-years-olds and six-year-olds.
But I’m very inspired by the other teachers. I look up to them, and I know that I can count on them when I need their help. The feeling isn’t so much of a team; it’s more that I know they’re solid, and that they’ll be there. They’re like old trees that I can go sit under and get shade or relief or wisdom, and we can talk about any kind of situation that might arise with a child. If I’m trying to figure out how to help a child have more energy, or if a child is feeling sad, I can ask the teachers what they’ve done in similar situations. It’s a very solid support system.
Q: Did your early education influence the kind of teacher you want to be?
Mahita: As I mentioned, I was lucky to have amazing teachers in kindergarten and first and second grade. And then, after second grade, I became bored and disinterested with public school. I was a very smart child, and I wanted to learn – I wanted to feel engaged, and it wasn’t happening. So when I was in fifth grade my dad took me out of public school and home-schooled me. We were living in Santa Cruz, where there are beautiful redwood forests and beaches, and I spent two years with my father, learning about nature and reading and doing math outdoors. And that early experience has profoundly influenced the way I teach.
After being home-schooled, I skipped sixth grade, then I skipped eighth grade and most of high school, and I finished high school when I was fifteen. I went to a community college, and after getting my degree I spent some time traveling with my spiritual teacher. Then I became very interested in finding a career that would be in alignment with my goal of helping create a more peaceful world.
The experience of being home-schooled by my father showed me how powerful it is when you challenge children in meaningful ways. I feel it’s very important that the children in my classroom are challenged, and that they don’t become disinterested. If I sense that the children are sleepy, or there’s some grumpiness in the room, I’ll change the curriculum and take them outdoors for a nature walk. Seeing the colors of the flowers, and being outside under the sun and sky transforms their day, and they come back indoors with their energy renewed.
I try to incorporate nature into their daily experience, and I try to make sure they have some outside time together, to be among the trees and plants.
Q: You said that you challenge them. Can you talk about that?
Mahita: A very unique feature of this school is that we have an individualized curriculum, so that each child will be learning at his or her own level. It makes a lot of sense, because whether we’re doing math, reading, or writing, every child will be learning somewhat differently.
I feel that my job as an educator is to challenge the children in many ways, and not just academically. I do challenge them academically, of course. And if I see a child who’s accomplishing their math tasks easily, I’ll make sure they’ve really mastered those math skills, and then I’ll need to quickly think of how I can keep challenging them.
In our school, we recognize the importance of creating a relationship of trust with each child, so that the children will feel safe when they’re being challenged to go to the next level with our help. If they think they can’t do it, you’re there to tell them, “I know you can.” And they’ll trust you enough to try, because they know you, and they know you aren’t going to judge them.
I also challenge the children to be their best selves. I have very high standards for them – I expect them to treat each other kindly, and to articulate their words with care, and to practice having consideration for others. I challenge them to learn how to self-regulate – how to choose an appropriate activity to calm their bodies, like deep breathing. Or maybe they need to sit and read a book for a while, until they can get calm and re-join the group.
Self-regulating is a skill that can be very challenging for four-, five-, and six-year-olds. The Education for Life philosophy has helped me understand how to help them manage their energy, and I’ve been inspired also by Bev Bos, a brilliant early childhood educator who believed in giving children a creative curriculum. My teaching has been very influenced by Bev, and by the Conscious Discipline methods we use here at Living Wisdom School.
Conscious Discipline is a set of tools that help children learn the basic things they need to say and do. For example, I will never tell a child, “Say it nicely.” Instead, I’ll give them the exact words: “Say to your friend, ‘Can you please hand me the pencil?’” I’m modeling the sentences the children need to know in order to express themselves effectively, which is a big part of what we’re doing at this age, teaching the children what they should say, and how they should say it.
I believe in Conscious Discipline very strongly, because it’s a beautiful set of tools, and it works. I think it’s wonderful that we’re encouraged here to help the children acquire these essential skills.
Q: It sounds like you’re helping them develop skills that may not be directly related to academics, but will help them be successful in academics – how to master a challenge, and how to succeed in small ways and enjoy their successes.
Mahita: And teaching them to love the challenges, and to feel confident within themselves that if something is challenging, they can do it. It’s about giving them a confidence from within, instead of trying to motivate them by external pressures and external rewards.
I think it’s very important that the children learn how to be intrinsically motivated – that they’re motivated from within themselves to do their best, and not that they’re motivated from outside. It’s why I don’t use sticker charts or reward systems. I’ve read lots of research on this, and I feel it’s best for the children if you can teach them, starting at a very early age, that the best rewards are when they’re able to look at their art or their math and feel very happy about it from inside.
Q: Is there an emphasis on language arts in kindergarten, on helping them learn to read and write?
Mahita: Yes, because developing literacy and language is extremely important for young children. There are many studies on the importance of exposing children to lots of new words, and to environments that are rich in a variety of print materials. They need to be exposed to a great many words for their optimal growth, and it’s why I read lots and lots of stories to them.
Storytelling and story reading play a huge role in the curriculum. I took a course on literacy and language development for young children, and I learned that the children need for you to read slowly, at a pace that’s significantly slower than you’d read to an adult. And it’s because they’re forming a tremendous number of new ideas in their heads at this age, and they’re learning to understand the context of each new word. So I’m very intentional in how I read to my class. I’ll make the voices of the characters in the stories, and in the second part of the year I’ll read lots of poetry to them, and I’ll get them started writing poetry, with some prompts, because it’s very helpful for developing their language and thinking skills.
As far as writing goes, at this age I’ll wait to see when each child is truly ready to start doing their own writing. Some of the children will be ready to start writing words and sentences halfway through the year, and they’ll be very excited. And some will still want you to write out the words for them, which is fine, because they don’t all develop the same skills at the same time. I teach writing on whiteboards instead of paper, because it’s easier to erase and edit when you’re very young and still developing your fine motor skills. And I teach phonics so they can start to recognize the sounds of the letters and work out the sounds of new words.
Language plays a huge role in how the classroom is structured. As I mentioned, I’m very careful about the language I use with the kids. I don’t tell them “Good job!” or “That’s perfect!” or “I really like it.” I stay away from those kinds of value judgments; instead, I’ll try to find out about them, and how they’re feeling and where their energy is. “Tell me about your art. Tell me what you did. Oh, wow, I can see that you put green and blue there. Tell me about that.”
Q: They’re rewarded because you’re interested, and because they can tell you what’s fulfilling them?
Mahita: That’s right. When the children first enter kindergarten, they’ll hold up their art and say, “Do you like it? Did I do it right?” And it might take a month or two, but then they’ll stop asking for approval, and they’ll start saying, “I did a masterpiece, Mahita!” Because they’re telling me how they feel about it rather than asking if it’s right.
Q: Does it affect the way they approach their academic learning?
Mahita: Very definitely, yes. They’re learning a process, and they’re learning to articulate, at a very young age, “This is what I feel, and this is what I need, and these are the tools I can use to calm myself and make myself feel better, and prepare myself to face this challenge.”
I don’t think that any human being can succeed academically, in the deepest, most lasting way and to their full potential, if they aren’t able to self-regulate. As the children navigate high school and college, they’ll face many stressful challenges. And having the tools to calm yourself and self-regulate and know what’s really alive within you will make a big difference.
I teach a high level of math in kindergarten. (laughs) Some people don’t believe me when I say this, but I teach algebraic thinking at this age, and I really try to develop a solid number sense in the children. When they have a solid number sense, what happens is that they’ll breeze through math when they reach fourth and fifth grade, because they’ll have the right understanding, from tangibly working on these things since they were four and five.
Q: You’re giving them content in kindergarten that they’ll be using in fourth and fifth grade?
Mahita: Exactly. For example, I might put on the board: “Ten is the same as five plus what number?” Or “Ten is the same as eight plus what number?”
Q: That’s amazing.
Mahita: And they’re doing it all the time, so it becomes very natural to them. I start teaching these concepts in the first or second week of school. And I do lots of things to make math fun. I have a Math Owl who tells math stories, and I do activities that bring out their natural joy at this age, through storytelling, role playing, improv, and so on.
Q: The Education for Life book suggests that young children are working very much with their feelings, and that they need appropriate learning tools.
Mahita: Yes, exactly. We’re using appropriate tools. We’re using the tools they naturally have. Children at this age play, and if we can incorporate play into what they’re learning, and make it playful for them, then the learning sinks in easily. And we can carefully observe what they’re learning, and what we can do to help them learn even better. I’m always watching them and thinking of what I can bring into the classroom that will help them in their play.
Q: I visited the fourth-grade classroom, and the focus of the children was amazing. I asked a little girl if I could take her picture, and without glancing up from her book she said, “All right.” She absolutely did not want to be distracted from her math book. It was inspiring to see them working in pairs and deeply concentrated on their math. It’s not at all as if they wanted to be someplace else.
Mahita: It’s pretty incredible. I think sometimes I might take it for granted because I’m in the middle of it all the time. But I have five- and six-year-olds who are so dedicated to what they’re doing that they’re completely absorbed, and they’re engaged and excited.
Q: Five-year-olds are notoriously distractable. It’s fascinating to hear that they can be focused.
Mahita: If you can frame an activity for children so that their enthusiasm is alive and they’re fully engaged, the learning happens naturally, and you’re there to support it.
I think it’s only when you don’t frame a lesson or an exploration of ideas properly, that the children are more easily distracted. I’m very, very carefully observing all the time what’s working and what isn’t, and what I need to fix. Maybe there’s a lot of joy around an activity, but maybe the energy is a bit too high. I have to be on my toes, and be ready to adjust to each moment, and stay flexible.
Q: It seems very different from the old-fashioned classroom with the kids sitting in rows, doing the same thing at the same time.
Mahita: I can’t imagine having kids sit at their desks all day, especially at this age. I can’t imagine how it would affect their learning and development. I’m continually problem-solving and adjusting my teaching. I always have a curriculum planned for the next week and month, but if an activity isn’t working, or if it’s taking too long, or if the children are taking it to another level, I will go with that. There’s no doubt that being flexible is a key requirement for being effective as a teacher.
Q: One of the most common complaints among teachers in public schools today is that they have to follow a state-mandated curriculum, and it takes away their flexibility to adjust the curriculum to the needs of the students.
Mahita: At this age, they’re naturally curious. They naturally want to learn, and I feel it’s tragic when a child’s curiosity is shut down in an attempt to deliver some sort of prescribed lesson plan. My hope is that when the children leave here, they’ll feel that they can ask questions and be curious, and cultivate their natural love of learning, and not feel that there’s only one right answer, or that they have to stay quiet instead of asking a question.
I joke that if you come into a kindergarten and it’s too quiet, there’s no way that learning is happening, because the kids are not naturally quiet while they’re learning. Sure, you want a reasonable level of quiet, but I feel that the best times of learning are when the children are excited and talking to each other about what’s going on, or they’re asking each other questions, or they’re asking me questions, so it’s very alive.
Q: Shawn Achor, the author of The Happiness Advantage, found that the most successful Harvard freshmen were not those who spent all their time trying to grind out good grades. The most successful Harvard students were engaged with each other, asking questions and forming study groups. They were social and knew how to get the help they needed. They were the kids who talked about everything, and knew how to enjoy what they were doing, and how to connect with it. And it sounds rather eerily similar to what you’re teaching your kindergarten students. (See the article “The Happiness Advantage in School,” on the LWS website here; included are two fascinating TED talk videos with Shawn Achor.)
Mahita: It’s so important for these kids to learn the skills of cooperating and problem-solving. I wish you could see how they grow throughout the year. At the start of the year there are always a few months where it’s just constant conflict resolution, and constant learning to use the right words, and constantly giving them the sentences and words that will help them be successful.
Then, after a few months, they’ve gained enough skills that I’ll be able to sit and observe them for extended periods during the day, and they’ll be completely, one-hundred percent able to navigate and cooperate. And it’s not because I’ve solved their problems for them, but because I’ve challenged them, “How can you solve that problem?” And they start to become thinkers. “Oh, we both want to play this game, but we want to play it differently, and how can we do that?” Or they start to figure out the right way to ask their friends for help when they need it, and how to make requests of each other, instead of grabbing.
It’s very rewarding to me as a teacher to see the transformation, and to think, “Wow, most adults can’t even do this.” Can you put twelve adults in a room all day, and they’ll get along? Most likely not, and these kids can do it beautifully.
Q: Do you talk to the other teachers about how your students are doing after they leave kindergarten?
Mahita: Definitely, yes. I wrote an email to a parent today, and I said, “As a teacher, you really love these children and care about them, and you can’t just switch it off.” It’s not like it switches off on the weekend, or when you go home. And for me it’s a big deal and very important to talk to the teachers that they’ll be going to, because I want the next teacher to have all of the information that helped me to help each child grow during their kindergarten year. I’ll talk about the reading level they’re on, and what I’ve found that can help the child in a variety of situations, and I’ll let the first-grade teacher know I’m always available if they have questions.
Teaching isn’t just about academics. It’s about having a sense of who each child is, and what’s important to them. And I’ll want to have a conversation with their next teacher about that, too.
With an individualized curriculum, you basically have twelve curriculums going on at the same time. And as teachers our job is to make sure that each child is getting his or her individual needs met every day.
The first public service that Paramhansa Yogananda undertook after he became a swami was to found a school for young boys. Starting in 1916 in the village of Dihika, Bengal with only seven students, he was “determined to found a school where young boys could develop to the full stature of manhood.” A year later he moved the school to Ranchi and founded the Yogoda Satsanga Brahmacharya Vidyalaya which is still in existence today. Almost sixty years later, in 1972, at Ananda Village, the first Ananda school was founded, based on the ideals and directions that Yogananda laid out about education. Starting also with only seven students, the original Ananda School now has a campus of seven classrooms with ninety students, plus branch schools in Palo Alto, Portland, and Seattle. The following article is from a talk that Swami Kriyananda gave in which he discusses the Education for Life systemused in the Ananda Schools.
What I’ve tried to do in my life is to take Yogananda’s central teachings and apply them to many fields of life – business, the arts, relationships, raising families, schools, communities, and so on. The education of children was very dear to Yogananda’s heart, but what he actually said about it was very little. Through the years, we have taken what he has given us, meditated on it, and applied our understanding in the Ananda School classrooms in order to deepen our insights and attunement to Yogananda’s vision for spiritual education.
At Ananda we are trying to develop a system called Education for Life, something which is very much needed in society today. The reason for so many of the problems in our world is that we’re giving children what Yogananda called an essentially atheistic view of life. When we rigorously exclude all spiritual teachings and higher values, our children end up getting the message that there aren’t any higher values, and that there isn’t even a God. Children have a natural longing for values and ideals, but our society gives them a universe and a life in which they have no faith. The cynical teachings of modern education are so ego-oriented, and so money and job-oriented that when children grow up cynical and angry at the universe, it’s hardly something to be surprised at. It’s the fault of our society that allows that kind of thing to happen.
The purpose of spiritual education is to fulfill the divine potential of children, and to prepare them for life by giving them the tools they need to keep on learning throughout the many experiences that will come to them.
When we speak of spiritual education, we don’t mean a church kind of education. What we mean is to help children understand that they’re going to be a lot happier if they are kind to others, and if they work for high ideals. The child who has a little bag of dates and eats them all himself isn’t nearly so happy as the child who shares those dates with others. In all cases, we can see that people who are selfish just aren’t happy, and people who are selfless are happy. They can apply this understanding not only at school, but also at home and everywhere in life. If we can bring this kind of teaching to children, this then is spiritual education.
Another purpose of spiritual education is to build the person on all levels. We are triune beings composed of body, mind, and soul, and if any part of us is starved at the expense of the others, then we aren’t complete. It’s an interesting fact that people who write, as an example of a mental activity, will very often also do something physical to keep themselves grounded. When Yogananda first had an experience of cosmic consciousness, his guru, Sri Yukteswar, handed him a broom, saying, “Let us sweep the porch.” We have to learn to keep these worlds in harmony with one another. If we let one go in favor of the other, in some way we become unbalanced.
In the education of our children, we need to help them develop their characters and their minds, but we must also help them prepare for living successfully in this world. We don’t want them to go out into society and find themselves incapable of relating to what’s going on. They have to have the facts that are a part of our modern upbringing. But they don’t need to have those facts taught to them in such a way as to leave them believing that there’s no value in anything. There is a great deal of emphasis on the wrong things today. The basis of spiritual education is to prepare them for society in a way that will help them to remain idealistic.
Suppose you have children who have learned how to love everyone, who have learned the goodness of life. When they go out into the world they may face hatred, criminal activity, and many other negative things. Will they be able to handle it? This is probably the primary concern that people have with spiritual education. The answer is to be seen in those who live with love. It isn’t as if they become stupid or lose the ability to relate to the world as it is. In fact, the broadest understanding comes from that which is centered in love; the narrowest understanding is that which is centered in hatred. If you’re on the lowest level, you can relate only to the lowest level; if you’re on the highest level, you can relate to all levels. To see that this is true, we can point to examples of people who live that way and who are able to handle life’s many challenges far, far better. I have observed that people who are complete as human beings are generally more successful. A spiritual education can actually guarantee greater success even in the way worldly people define it.
A good example is Yogananda’s most advanced disciple, Rajarsi Janakananda. He was the chairman of several large companies and owned several others. He had the clarity, calmness, and centeredness to be able to pull back from all the stress and excitement and see the way to resolve difficult issues. The secret of his success was the fact that his consciousness was rooted in God, and in the desire for right action.
Children are born with different inclinations, with different strengths, weaknesses, and educational needs. One of the unfortunate aspects of modern education is the assembly-line approach to teaching where the same information is more or less dumped out to everyone. There isn’t any philosophy; it is just information. Small classes, where the teacher can get to know each child personally, are essential for giving individual attention and for discovering what the natural level of understanding is for each child.
By teaching children kindness, concentration, will power, strength of character, truthfulness, and other higher qualities, life is made richer. These are deeply important to the development of the human being, but such things are not taught today in public education. The ultimate purpose of life is not simply to get a job. So many people live this way and then die, not of old age but of deep disappointment with the life they have led. If you don’t know how to be truly happy, money won’t buy it for you.
Spiritual education is training people for life. How many people get married, and then get divorced because they don’t know how to get along with their spouse? They’re not educated for that. nor for life.
Education, rightly understood, is expansion of awareness. It is preparation for that process of real learning which takes place after we leave school, when we are in the constant struggle, the battlefield of life. By giving children the tools and understanding to make the right choices in life, we can lead them to lasting happiness. Then they will be able to achieve the kind of spiritual victories that are the true meaning of success. | <urn:uuid:ccffb474-e4b6-4baf-aeb7-8cd2124251d2> | CC-MAIN-2022-27 | https://livingwisdomschool.org/category/spiritual-education/page/4/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-27/segments/1656103034877.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20220625065404-20220625095404-00112.warc.gz | en | 0.972841 | 16,090 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Gran Canaria is located in the Atlantic Ocean about 150 kilometres (93 mi) off the northwestern coast of Africa and about 1,350 km (840 mi) from Europe.With an area of 1,560 km2 and an altitude of 1,956 m at the Pico de las Nieves, Gran Canaria is the third largest island of the archipelago in both area and altitude. Gran Canaria is also the third most populated island in Spain after Tenerife and Mallorca.
Gran Canaria is located southeast of Tenerife and west of Fuerteventura. The island is of volcanic origin, mostly made of fissure vents. Gran Canaria's surface area is 1,560 km² and its maximum elevation is 1,949 metres (Pico de Las Nieves). It has a round shape, with a diameter of approximately 50 km. | <urn:uuid:7b99e97f-552c-47dc-8d6b-331dd5ba3c69> | CC-MAIN-2020-29 | https://www.marlinfishingcanaria.com/information/location | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-29/segments/1593657142589.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20200713033803-20200713063803-00475.warc.gz | en | 0.947418 | 181 | 2.921875 | 3 |
The debate continues as to why online education is so much easier on your wallet than traditional degree programs. The main concern for many people considering college classes is the cost. Whether online classes are cheaper than traditional classes depends on the cost of tuition and the cost of other materials needed to complete the course. Programs such as computer programming and culinary arts may be quite costly, but several online programs are cheaper due to less overhead.
Typically, the tuition cost for online courses is the same as for traditional classes. However, at times, if a college is testing out new classes online, they may charge students less to take the course in order to see if it is worth continuing to offer online.
Classes for data entry, medical transcription and other administrative professions usually cost less online. There is no need for a classroom and the instructors are paid less money because there is no need for prepared lectures and time for student questions. No additional equipment is needed for online classes, which decreases the cost even further.
The cost of online courses varies from one college to the next, but is usually similar to the tuition costs to obtain a traditional college education. Do not expect an online education to be dramatically cheaper than an education at a traditional institution. Remember you are still paying for a degree. You want a degree that is of the same quality that you would get from a conventional education. Extremely low cost classes may be an indication that the online classes you are considering are lacking accreditation. When you look at the overall picture, the cost of online classes is less simply because of the added expensive of going to college offline, making traditional courses more expensive.
One major money saver is not having to pay for the gas or other transportation costs of traveling to and from the classroom. You save wear and tear on your vehicle and save money on parking garages and parking meters.
More savings can be found in room and board. If you do not commute to and from the campus, you may find yourself paying thousands of dollars on renting a room and on the food that you eat.
Finally, online course do not typically tack on all of the additional fees as the traditional courses often do. You do not have to worry about, equipment fees, lab fees or TA fees if you choose to pursue your degree online.
There are a number of benefits to obtaining your degree online. Flexibility is in abundance because you are able to set your own schedule and learn at your own pace. However, the primary reason that most people have for choosing an education online is that it is so much easier on your wallet.
When you are making decisions about higher education, do not let money be the only deciding factor. However, do not be afraid to take advantage of the many monetary benefits that you will find when you decided to get a degree online.
Mary Ward writes about how to choose among online diagnostic medical sonography degrees. | <urn:uuid:5ff79384-b59d-4f75-b312-dee34cadf021> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://frenavit.com/2009/11/why-online-education-is-so-much-cheaper/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030334515.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20220925070216-20220925100216-00617.warc.gz | en | 0.966564 | 584 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Registered in The Chinese Armorial, October 25, 2011.
Arms: Gules a Chinese dragon Or reaching for a pearl Argent on a chief Or a Latin cross Gules between two pine trees Vert.
Crest: Above a helmet mantled Gules doubled Or on a wreath Or and Gules an Antique Crown Or garnished with jade proper issuant therefrom a demi lion Or holding between his forepaws a jade ball proper
Supporters: to be borne and used during his lifetime: On a rocky promontory proper charged with three Pacific Dogwood flowers Argent leaved Vert seeded Or two horses Argent langued Gules unguled Or gorged with
Antique crown Or garnished with jade proper each horse holding a gonfalon Argent the dexter one inscribed and the sinister one inscribed in letters Sable.
Motto: FUTURA ASPIRANS
Grant: Canadian Heraldic Authority, The Public Register of Arms, Flags and Badges of Canada, Volume I, page 26, August 28, 1989.
Background and History:
Dr. David See-Chai Lam, the first Chinese Canadian to be appointed Lieutenant Governor of a Canadian province and to hold a vice-regal position in Canada, was also the first Chinese Canadian to receive a grant of arms from the Canadian Heraldic Authority.
The shield's main charge is a Chinese dragon, the animal of Imperial China, to symbolize his being a Chinese Canadian representing the Queen of Canada. As in many illustrations of Chinese dragons, it is chasing a pearl or sun. The number of claws per paw on the dragon is not specified in the blazon, but the Letters Patent issued by the Canadian Heraldic Authority depicts a five-clawed dragon to show Lam represents the Queen.
The coat of arms has the following symbols of British Columbia: the Pacific Dogwood flowers (the provincial flower), the two pine trees, and the rocky mountain on which the two horses stand. The trees also symbolize Dr. Lam’s name, which means “forest” in Chinese.
The colours red and gold, the dragon, and the banners are from Chinese tradition. Red and gold also served as vice-regal colours in the Ming and Ching Dynasties.
The antique crown, seen around the horses’ necks and in the crest, is a Western heraldic symbol of service in the Near or Far East. The antique crown is sometimes called the eastern crown. It also appears in the chief of the coat of arms of British Columbia. In Dr. Lam’s arms, the antique crowns are garnished with jade, a stone greatly prized in China and found in rivers in central British Columbia.
The crest, a lion holding the jade ball, alludes to Dr. Lam’s birthplace, Hong Kong. The crest is based on the crest of the arms of the Colony of Hong Kong, a lion holding a pearl.
The supporters are horses, symbols of strength and power.
The cross is a symbol of Mr. Lam’s Christian faith. The Chinese messages on the two banners are “Forgetting the past” (sinister banner) and “Reaching forward to the future” (dexter banner). The message is from the Bible’s New Testament, the Book of Philippians, chapter 3, verse 13.
The motto “Futura Aspirans” is Latin for “future aspirations,” which is the closest Latin rendition of the Chinese message on the banners.
The shield is shown encircled by the motto ribbon of the Order of Canada and with the decoration of an Officer of the Order of Canada suspended from the shield, as David Lam was an Officer of the Order of Canada. The Maltese cross of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem is placed behind the shield because the Hon. David Lam was a Knight of the Order.
Dr. Lam, as a current and former Lieutenant Governor, was entitled to use the supporters and the motto ribbon of the Order of Canada on his coat of arms for life. The supporters and Order of Canada motto ribbon are not hereditary; however, his descendants can inherit the coat of arms and crest.
David Lam passed away on November 22, 2010. | <urn:uuid:a7ed83db-1961-4aa5-874a-adf74b0304a3> | CC-MAIN-2017-13 | http://chinese-armorial.com/Lam_David/Lam_David_See_Chai.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-13/segments/1490218187519.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20170322212947-00357-ip-10-233-31-227.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945201 | 888 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Pupil Voice is so important to us at Millfield. It helps us in a range of ways, including: tailoring our curriculum; it ensures that we are focusing on children's interests; it helps us to ensure our teaching and the children's learning is delivered effectively; it also aids children's understanding of our School Values, as well as British Values.
Pupil Voice is collected at varying points over the school year and for a range of reasons. These can include: an annual school survey, before and after topics, before and after school events, to seek focused information e.g. thoughts on online safety, as well as sharing information about lessons. Below is a taster of Pupil Voice responses.
Year 4 Trip to Edwinstree Middle School
KS2 Harry Potter Week
Safer Internet Day
PTA Movie Night
Reception Trip to Layston Grove
Year 1 Football Festival | <urn:uuid:836503a0-7ffb-4eba-a0a9-bbceae498f9e> | CC-MAIN-2020-24 | https://www.millfield.herts.sch.uk/pupil-voice/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-24/segments/1590347410284.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20200530165307-20200530195307-00134.warc.gz | en | 0.948237 | 186 | 2.875 | 3 |
The phrases which are used as conjunctions are called compound conjunctions. Examples are: so that, provided that, as well as, as soon as, as long as, such that, in order that etc.
A compound conjunction may have two or three parts and they always go together. They are different from correlatives which are conjunctions used only in pairs. Examples of correlatives are: either…or, neither…nor, not only…but also.
She has got a car as well as a bike. (She has got not only a bike but also a car.)
Note the information structure: as well as introduces information already known to the listener; the rest of the sentence gives new information.
Note that after as well as, we use a noun or an –ing form. To-infinitives are possible, if the main clause also has them.
As well as breaking his back, he hurt his neck.
As if and as though
As if and as though have similar meanings.
He talks as if he is mad. (Perhaps he is mad.)
He talks as if he were/was mad. (He isn’t mad.)
Note that a past tense after as if/though indicates that a comparison is unreal.
The cat jumped in as soon as he opened the window.
He will pass the test provided that he works hard.
We eat so that we may live.
She is working hard so that she will pass the test.
You can share my room as long as you pay for your expenses.
After as long as, we use a present tense to refer to the future.
They held the function on a Sunday in order that everybody would be able to attend.
So that and in order that have similar meanings. So that is more common in an informal style. | <urn:uuid:6fcf4995-fb0d-41ef-9946-792f678c96a7> | CC-MAIN-2022-49 | https://www.englishgrammar.org/compound-conjunctions/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446711121.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20221206225143-20221207015143-00507.warc.gz | en | 0.987781 | 378 | 3.4375 | 3 |
The internet's problem with misogynistic trolls is as out-of-control as ever — but one young woman has a genius weapon against all their awful sexism: science.
Emily Temple-Wood, a biology major at Loyola University, started WikiProject Women Scientists in 2012 in an attempt to combat the sweeping underrepresentation of women in the annals of scientific discovery.
It was only a matter of time before the sexist trolls descended on her project. "Throwaway email addresses frequently send her requests for dates, condescendingly discuss her body, insinuate that she got to where she is through sexual favors, ask her to reserve those favors for themselves, and when she doesn't reply, they spew profanities," Wikimedia Blog reports.
Instead of retaliating in kind, Temple-Wood and the followers she's acquired write a biography on a woman who's made a valuable contribution to science for every hateful message she receives.
The impetus for Temple-Wood's project came from her astounding discovery that very few women who were part of the Royal Society — the premier global science academy — had their own Wikipedia pages.
"I got pissed and wrote an article that night," Temple-Wood said, according to Wikimedia Blog. "I literally sat in the hallway in the dorm until 2 a.m. writing the first women in science (Wikipedia) article."
Noether's theorem that the continuity of natural symmetry is connected to conservation (i.e., a finite amount of energy in the universe) forms the basis for much of what we know of physics today.
Another such woman is Barbara McClintock, the 1983 Nobel laureate in the category of Physiology and Medicine. McClintock was a cytogeneticist who studied the transformation of chromosomes as genes are passed down from generation to generation.
After all, some of the most important milestones in science were achieved by badass women. You wouldn't troll Nobel laureate Marie Curie, would you?
Nor Ada Lovelace, the 19th-century mathematical savant and the world's first computer programmer?
Thankfully, the list of scientifically minded ladies is a seemingly endless one, meaning there is no shortage of material for Temple-Wood to combat her trolls — if there's one Ag-lining to be had out of all this. | <urn:uuid:023bd902-02c1-4bb7-bffd-756c1f791727> | CC-MAIN-2018-09 | https://mic.com/articles/137590/this-college-student-writes-a-wiki-page-on-a-female-scientist-for-every-one-of-her-trolls | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-09/segments/1518891814700.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20180223115053-20180223135053-00317.warc.gz | en | 0.964257 | 466 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Rich, natural compost is now available to the public free of charge.
In nature, microorganisms degrade organic matter in the soil. We use the same process and microorganisms to break down the biological solids that result from our wastewater treatment processes to produce a safe, clean useful soil amendment.
Wastewater collected in our sewer system flows to the treatment plant where it is treated. Microorganisms in our treatment processes consume the waste, producing new bacterial cells as a result. These microorganisms are squeezed out of the water and become biosolids.
These biosolids are mixed with livestock bedding material and composted at our treatment plant. Composting is a biological process that reduces the volume of material, eliminating pathogenic microorganisms, and producing a beneficial soil amendment.
Using composted biosolids as a soil amendment adds bulk to marginal soil, improves water retention, and reduces erosion. Compost also has nutritive value and will reduce the need for fertilizers.
Our composting operation is regulated by County, State and Federal agencies and it is inspected by Ventura County Environmental Health. Our compost is tested for pathogenic organisms and heavy metals and meets USEPA criteria for a Class A product for unrestricted use and poses no health hazards.
Composted biosolids are available to the public free of charge, giving local residents the opportunity to join recycling efforts and receive benefits in return for their service dollars.
Pick up a bag, or a truckload, of
this highly beneficial soil amendment.
Call (805) 646-5548 between the
hours of 8:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.
to ensure availability. | <urn:uuid:6d08e747-eca7-4695-a202-2433f6685b60> | CC-MAIN-2021-43 | http://www.ojaisan.org/general-info/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-43/segments/1634323587608.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20211024235512-20211025025512-00719.warc.gz | en | 0.913985 | 342 | 2.5625 | 3 |
A new drug delivery strategy able to block pain within the nerve cells has been developed by researchers from Monash University. The creation could be a major development of an immediate and long lasting treatment for pain.
More than 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain and this figure is expected to grow, driven by the increased life expectancy, increasing incidence of diabetes and cancer, combined with better survival rates, often leaving patients with severe and poorly treated pain. The global market for nerve pain treatments is over US$600 billion and yet current pain therapies are not completely effective and often suffer from unwanted side effects.
The study reveals how a target protein, long known to be associated with both chronic and acute pain, works within the nerve cell. This protein is the NK1 receptor, the receptor of the neuropeptide substance P, which mediates pain transmission.
Because of its association with pain and other diseases of the nervous system, many drug development attempts have focused on inhibiting this receptor, but the efficacy of these treatments has been very limited. This new work shows that such ineffectiveness could be in part because the treatments targeted the protein on the surface of the nerve cell.
Dr Michelle Halls and Dr Meritxell Canals from the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS) and the ARC Centre for Excellence in Bio-Nano Science (CBNS) at Monash University, have worked with Professor Nigel Bunnett, previously at Monash and now at Columbia University in the US, and Professor Chris Porter from MIPS and CBNS.
Together they have found that the NK-1 receptor controls pain once it is inside the cell - so drugs that merely block it when it is on the surface of the cell have little efficacy. Instead, this new research shows that, in animal models, if the NK-1 receptor is blocked once it enters the nerve cell, it is possible to suppress pain more effectively.
Dr Halls said that the new strategy of targeting receptors inside the cell represents a new frontier in drug delivery and a novel therapeutic strategy for dealing with pain.
Working with a multidisciplinary team of cell biologists, pharmacologists, physiologists and drug delivery experts, the researchers developed drugs that specifically target NK-1 receptors within the nerve cell. Animal studies showed that using the drugs - which have an engineered lipid attachment that targets the drug to the NK-1 receptor inside the cell, could block pain for extended periods in several animal models.
Dane D. Jensen, TinaMarie Lieu, Michelle L. Halls, Nicholas A. Veldhuis, Wendy L. Imlach, Quynh N. Mai, Daniel P. Poole, Tim Quach, Luigi Aurelio, Joshua Conner, Carmen Klein Herenbrink, Nicholas Barlow, Jamie S. Simpson, Martin J. Scanlon, Bimbil Graham, Adam McCluskey, Phillip J. Robinson, Virginie Escriou, Romina Nassini, Serena Materazzi, Pierangelo Geppetti, Gareth A. Hicks, Macdonald J. Christie, Christopher J. H. Porter, Meritxell Canals, Nigel W. Bunnett Neurokinin 1 receptor signaling in endosomes mediates sustained nociception and is a viable therapeutic target for prolonged pain relief Science Translational Medicine 31 May 2017: Vol. 9, Issue 392, eaal3447 DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aal3447
Image: D.D. Jensen et al., Science Translational Medicine (2017) | <urn:uuid:1ea6910a-e273-4cec-ac92-8d0427e40d56> | CC-MAIN-2021-04 | https://sciencebeta.com/neurokinin-1-receptor-pain/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-04/segments/1610704803737.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20210126202017-20210126232017-00159.warc.gz | en | 0.909662 | 729 | 2.890625 | 3 |
The apparent curvature of the moon's transit across the sun is primarily due to the change in perspective of the viewer as s/he is rotated to the east by the earth's normal daily-cycle rotation - approximately 15 degrees absolute per hour.
At the beginning of the eclipse, the viewer is standing "upright," and sees the moon touch the sun at approximately 1 O'clock. Over the next three hours, as the eclipse progresses, the viewer is "laid on her/his side" relative to his/her initial orientation due to the rotation of the earth; as if tilting his/her neck to the east. Since most of us were looking (essentially) towards the south for this eclipse, it was as if we had tilted our head to the left, so the exit of the moon - instead of appearing at approximately 7 O'clock as expected for a linear transit, the exit point appeared to be at 9 O'clock.
The magnitude of this effect is dependent upon several variables, including the viewer's latitude during observation.
The effect is also exaggerated by the fact that the sun transited through its peak azimuth between the beginning (rising towards its highest azimuth - approximately 63 degrees) and the end of the eclipse (setting away from its highest azimuth). While the earth itself only rotated approximately 45 degrees absolute during the 3 hour event, the apparent rotation of the moon's transit line across the sun was approximately 60 degrees (in the Kansas City simulation). | <urn:uuid:f2603ee5-212b-4f55-bdbe-d213b3ebb518> | CC-MAIN-2020-05 | https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/22169/why-does-the-path-of-the-moon-in-an-eclipse-curve-relative-to-the-sun | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-05/segments/1579251684146.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20200126013015-20200126043015-00060.warc.gz | en | 0.972759 | 305 | 3.875 | 4 |
Goliath (gōlĪˈəth) [key], in the Bible, a giant of Gath, a Philistine city, who challenged the Israelites. The young David, fortified by faith, accepted the challenge and killed him with a stone from a sling. In 2 Samuel it says that Elhanan killed Goliath, though 1 Chronicles says Elhanan killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath. The Authorized Version edits 2 Samuel to agree with 1 Chronicles.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:6a9a8ec3-1b17-4d7e-89b9-6f2ac9891f06> | CC-MAIN-2016-18 | http://www.factmonster.com/encyclopedia/people/goliath.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-18/segments/1461860122902.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20160428161522-00152-ip-10-239-7-51.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903632 | 122 | 2.984375 | 3 |
The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the land. It is a carefully thought out document. Inspired men, who were raised up for this very purpose, were able to come together at The Constitutional Convention and write the document. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd9kyr7Ngm4
Because it is such a well written document, many people consider the constitution to be sacred.If you need Maryland Chapter 13 Unlike many countries constitutions, the US Constitution cannot be changed easily. It requires a two thirds majority in the house and the senate or to be ratified by three fourths of the states through constitutional convention. The constitution can only be amended. The original document cannot be changed. The purpose of which is to preserve the document and the rights of the citizens http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Pakistan
The Purpose of the Constitution
The purpose of the constitution is to preserve liberty for the people. Cheap affordable bankruptcy lawyers in MD are able to help when resources are running low and you need a fresh start. Pakistani help can also be coming.Many governments, over the years, have severely abused their power. If you want to save time at the MVA, contact Towson Tag & Title for great expertise. The US Constitution gives a person the right to free speech, to bear arms, against unreasonable search and seizure, against unlawful detainer, the right to vote, and the right to representation by someone elected. Through the ten amendments people also have the right to privacy, the right to a speedy trial and a trial by jury. There are also other rights not mentioned here. Finding Cheap Maryland Bankruptcy Lawyers
Getting it Right
It took a while to get the constitution right. The first constitution was called The Articles of Confederation. It got some inspiration from a much older document called the Magna Carta. James Madison, the father of the constitution, wrote lengthy articles in favor of the constitution to encourage the states to ratify it. These documents are called The Federalist Papers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1Qkb6lZ6F8
They were also written by John Jay and Alexander Hamilton. how to save your home from Maryland Foreclosure.
Many of the founding fathers were attorneys. In fact, some had graduated from Yale and Harvard. Others were merchants and tradesmen and there was one farmer. Finding a cheap,inexpensive Maryland MD bankruptcy lawyer | <urn:uuid:b1a83459-1c7a-4732-b48e-9687b27b21fb> | CC-MAIN-2021-10 | http://pakistanconstitution-law.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-10/segments/1614178369420.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20210304143817-20210304173817-00411.warc.gz | en | 0.967017 | 505 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Let’s face it. When the world’s wealthy nations met in Copenhagen and pledged to give $30 billion over 2010-2012 to the poor nations to deal with climate change (called “Fast Start Finance”) and scale up that funding by 2020 to $100 billion, it was desperate rhetoric.
Like a spoonful of sugar designed to help bitter medicine go down, the pledges achieved the purpose of convincing nearly all of the world’s poor countries to sign on to an unjust and inadequate agreement they didn’t draft and didn’t want: the Copenhagen Accord.
Were those pledges completely cynical manipulation? Nearly all observers—and none more than the developing nations they are supposed to help—hope not. But the only way to know is by observing the action of the pledging nations: are they holding up their end of the deal? Unfortunately, by failing to define what would count as climate finance and who would count it, negotiators opened the door to numerous contrasting statements regarding the fulfillment of these promises.
In the absence of clear language in United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) decisions on key issues related to climate finance, contributor countries have been able to decide in a vacuum what they would count as part of their commitments. For example, developed countries’ financial pledges were stated without a baseline or reference year. This is like the European Union or the United States committing to reduce its emissions by 30 percent by 2020, without indicating if this percentage was below 1990 or 2005 levels. That is, a pledge is meaningless without such clarifications.
More fundamentally, the question of what counts as “climate finance” is itself still not internationally agreed-upon. The consequence of this is that contributing countries have adopted a variety of accounting and reporting practices, making it impossible to assess the achievement of their pledges.
Now, less than three months before world leaders gather in Paris to reach an international climate agreement, some developed countries have come forward with a statement that they need to provide “increased transparency” on their progress towards the $100 billion goal. In their joint statement issued on September 6, those countries admit that the current data is inadequate.
This is long overdue and certainly most welcome. However the statement is troubling in at least two respects.
First, these developed countries stated that they have reached “a common understanding of the scope of mobilized climate finance” and that they have elaborated a “common methodology for tracking and reporting” toward the $100 billion goal. Such a move is concerning because it excludes beneficiaries from having their say in what should count as climate finance, how it should be counted, and who counts it. This is a fairly stunning omission of meaningful participation by recipient countries.
No wonder issues related to whether climate finance is truly “new and additional” or merely “rebadged” (relabeled) aid activities are not even cited in the joint statement. What is desperately needed is a robust MRV (measurement, reporting, verification) system designed under the UNFCCC to say what counts for climate finance flows. While cumbersome, the UNFCCC process allows all parties to “buy in” to the processes, and building a robust “MRV of Finance” requires broad participation.
Second, the ministerial was silent on a clear plan on how the developed countries would meet the goals set out back in Copenhagen. There is no way to tell if the increase in climate finance that developed countries will celebrate in the coming weeks was mainly driven by methodological developments in accounting (for example the increased coverage of data about non-concessional flows targeting climate objectives) rather than real advances in financial effort. In this regard, accounting for the range of North-South private flows mobilized to fight climate change—the main focus of the joint statement—is a Pandora’s box that developed countries are just starting to open. If developed parties are not conservative in their methodological choices, they would undoubtedly be able to show that they have already met the $100 billion goal or that they are not far from it. What credibility will they then be able to maintain?
Needless to say, improvements in data collection and measurement methods are essential to deepen our understanding of international financial flows that are relevant for mitigation and adaptation. This statement endorses valuable work led by the multilateral development banks to improve project categorization. But those improvements themselves will not help much in reinforcing trust between parties to the climate negotiations if their only purpose is to show that developed countries have already done their part. They must be used to establish more transparent commitments in the future.
Accountability and transparency are the only way for the world to know that OECD countries are holding up their end of the deal, to know that the pledges made in Copenhagen were not simply cynical manipulation. On the road to Paris, OECD countries need to remember that they approved a set of recommendations on good pledging practice back in 2011. The OECD declared that they needed to specify all parameters, be comparable in their terms, dates and baselines, realistic in their periods and amounts, have monitoring and measurement responsibilities assigned, and donors should provide sufficient information “to allow beneficiaries and third parties to track performance.”
It would be very wise of them to follow with this approved set of recommendations in December this year when they advance a new financial package for the years to come.
Read more by J. Timmons Roberts in the new book “
Power in a Warming World: The New Global Politics of Climate Change and the Remaking of Environmental Inequality
,” published by MIT Press.
The findings, interpretations and conclusions posted on Brookings.edu are solely those of the authors and not of The Brookings Institution, its officers, staff, board, funders, or organizations with which they may have a relationship.
[On the EU's proposed tax on high carbon imports] There's some concern that U.S. industry could also get caught up ... because we don't have a carbon price on industry in the United States, and we're not likely to have one in the future ... When you start getting into the details, it's an absolute bear to implement. But nonetheless Europe seems quite serious about it. | <urn:uuid:b1979a4b-4816-46e1-8005-4cd89c50c28a> | CC-MAIN-2021-21 | https://www.brookings.edu/blog/planetpolicy/2015/09/14/just-cynical-manipulation-making-climate-finance-pledges-meaningful/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-21/segments/1620243989030.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20210510003422-20210510033422-00055.warc.gz | en | 0.959197 | 1,273 | 2.765625 | 3 |
An international research team led by the Universitat Jaume I (UJI) has shown that the cerebellum, contrary to what was thought, fulfils functions that go beyond the motor sphere and can be co-responsible for the brain alterations associated with addictive consumption of drugs. The findings, which are shown in two recent reviews published in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews and Journal of Neuroscience — with an image taken at the UJI laboratories — , would represent a step forward towards the design of new therapies for the future.
These studies are based on a series of works published over the last two years by the research group Addiction and Neuroplasticity at the Universitat Jaume I, directed by the lecturer of the Area of Psychobiology at the UJI, which has had the collaboration of researchers from European, Mexican and North American universities. The most relevant, according to Miquel, is that the studies show that changes in the cerebellum “only occur in those subjects who appear to be especially vulnerable to the effect of drugs.” For a long time, “we have verified that the cerebellum responds in a very potent way to the effect of cocaine, to the point of changing the mechanisms of plasticity,” states Miquel, who is also coordinator of the master’s degree in Research in Brain and Behaviour.
Consequently, the cerebellum is a region of the brain relevant to understanding and designing future treatments for drug addiction. “There is progress in describing the neuronal circuits affected by drug addiction, a chronic brain disorder that is difficult to treat because it affects the basic processes of acquiring and storing the information whose description is still incomplete,” explains the teacher, who acknowledges that, in this way, “the path to new therapies will be accelerated.”
Addiction involves alterations in the neuronal mechanisms of plasticity that allow the brain to store information, regenerate itself and recover from possible disorders or injuries. In an addicted person, the brain’s mechanisms of learning and memory that allow you to make decisions and carry out acts of will are sick. Addictive drugs force the brain to store harmful data about where, when and how to consume the substance. In fact, the drug is the predominant information in the brains of people affected by addiction.
The Effects of Cocaine
On this occasion, the reviewed investigations address the function of the cerebellum in these storage processes involved in the addictive disorder. Specifically, “experimental work shows that these effects of cocaine on cerebellar function only occur in those individuals dominated by stimuli that predict drug availability and suggest that the cerebellum may be crucial to understanding mechanisms of vulnerability to addiction,” explains Marta Miquel.
Science has corroborated that certain regions of the brain, such as the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, and basal ganglia, may be relevant for addiction. However, the cerebellum had traditionally been excluded from this circuit because it was considered a structure exclusively dedicated to motor control, especially motor coordination. “Today we know that this is a very partial view on the complexity of the cerebellum, and a growing volume of data suggests its involvement in many of the brain functions affected in addicted subjects,” refers Marta Miquel. “The cerebellum comprises 80% of all neurons in the brain; it contains 60 billion neurons packaged in only 10% of the brain mass and is a fundamental structure in the consolidation and automation of learned behavioural repertoires,” concludes the lecturer.
In addition to the UJI team, scientists from the University of Kentucky (USA), University of Turin (Italy), Universidad Veracruzana (Mexico), Washington State University (USA), University of Cambridge, University of Leeds (United Kingdom), McLean Hospital Translational Neuroscience Laboratory and Mailman Research Center (USA) also participate in the research works. After presenting the papers at the last congress of the International Society for Neuroscience (San Diego, USA), the work will be discussed soon at the Albert Einstein Institute in New York.
The priority line of the research group Addiction and Neuroplasticity from the Universitat Jaume I, directed by the lecturer Marta Miquel, is the brain’s function in drug addiction. | <urn:uuid:97b0f5e9-7091-4ae8-b3ae-f393a2f2db4e> | CC-MAIN-2018-17 | http://quenchthethirst.org/studies-show-that-the-cerebellum-is-crucial-to-understanding-vulnerability-to-drug-addiction/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-17/segments/1524125944682.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20180420194306-20180420214306-00454.warc.gz | en | 0.92897 | 887 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Many researchers have written about Roman penetration into what is now Azerbaijan and even possible direct contacts between Rome and the Chinese Imperial court. But an academic from Israel (professor Yulia Ustinova) recently has made a claim that Romans – it is argued legionaries – visited western Uzbekistan (the caves at Kara-Kamar) close to Afghanistan in the early centuries AD.
Indeed Yulia Ustinova, of the Ben Gurion university in Israel, wrote the book ‘New Latin and Greek Rock–Inscriptions from Uzbekistan’ about this astonishing possibility.
Obviously, it should be stated that this would be an extraordinary occurrence. But it is not an impossible suggestion. Armenia was briefly a Roman province in the second century AD and a Roman ‘protectorate’ for much, much longer. And a Roman military detachment went just a little further and left an inscription on the western banks of the Caspian Sea near Baku.
Roman legionaries did an inscription in eastern Azerbaijan (60 kms from Baku), which reads: "IMP DOMITIANO CAESARE AVG GERMANICO LVCIVS IVLIVS MAXIMVS LEGIONIS XII FVL, Under imperator Domitian, Caesar, Augustus Germanicus, Lucius Julius Maximus, Legio XII Fulminata", but these Kara-Kamar inscription are located nearly 1500 kms more to the east and so it is the furthest eastern place a Roman soldier went.
The Roman inscription in Baku:
In the late 1980s some "Mediterranean graffiti" were discovered in a complex of caves at Kara-Kamar in Uzbekistan near the border with Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, to the west of Termez. These kinds of graffiti were 3 inscriptions: 2 in Latin and one in Greek:
1) ROD/ PAN …/ I M
2) PAN/ G REX/ AP. LG
3) RIPOS ETHE(KE)
The three inscriptions studied in detail by Ustinova are extremely abbreviated, mainly the first two in Latin. This is natural in Roman inscriptions and even more so in graffiti. But it also means to some critics that a few scratches, possibly from another alphabet or epoch could easily be misread into Latin or Greek, especially given that there are other graffiti in Russian, Uzbek and Arabic that complicate the readings.
So the letters ‘I M‘ at the end of the first inscription are taken by the academic editor to be an abbreviation for ‘Invictus Mithras’, ‘Unconquered Mithras’. The editor goes on to suggest that the complex may have been used by Roman soldiers as a Mithraeum.
AP LG is meanwhile interpreted as ‘AP(ollinaris) L(e)G(io)’ ‘the Apollonian Legion XV’. The XV was based in Cappadocia in the east of the Empire, so this would make sense. But again the ‘abbreviation’ (if that is what it is) could be read in other ways and the missing number is a bit strange, according to critics.
The evidence that gives some context to these finds can be read in "The Historia Augusta" (written during the late centuries of the Roman empire), which claims that the Emperor Hadrian (117-138 AD) received ambassadors from the Bactarian kings, almost certainly the Kushan Emperor offering friendship, and that the Kushan Empire would have controlled Kara-Kamar. Military contact could have come on the back of such a visit or another now forgotten embassy. Alternatively the Roman soldiers could have been prisoners.
The authors of the Kara-Kamar Latin inscriptions -according to Ustinova- regarded the cave complex suitable for the Mithraic worship. These inscriptions were incised by soldiers of the "XIV Apollinaris Legio" in the second-third centuries AD, and the cave complex itself served perhaps as a "Mithraeum" (a temple to worship the Mithraic cult).
The inscriptions inside the Kara-Kamar cave are located not far away from Alexandria on Oxus, an important city of the pre-Roman Bactrian kingdom:
The publication of this fascinating possibility came from Yulia Ustinova: her authority means that these inscriptions must be taken seriously.
Yulia Ustinova wrote later, supporting her findings from critics: ‘In fact, I still think the inscriptions were left there by Roman soldiers, probably captives: there were no other inscriptions in Latin or Greek characters in the cave, and while those in Latin consist of abbreviations that – theoretically – can be interpreted otherwise, the Greek one is unequivocal. Now, who and when could leave a Greek inscription in Uzbekistan? I still consider the suggestion put forward in the Hephaistos article plausible.’
However I want to remember that emperor Trajan in 116 AD conquered all Mesopotamia and obtained the submission of the king of Persia, Parthamaspates, who so was the Roman client king of the Parthian Empire (he was the son of the Parthian emperor Osroes I).
Indeed Parthamaspates, after spending much of his life in Roman exile, accompanied the Roman Emperor Trajan on the campaign to conquer Parthia. Trajan originally planned to annex Parthia as part of the Roman Empire, but ultimately decided instead to place Parthamaspates on his father's throne as a Roman client, doing so in 116 AD after defeating the Parthians at a battle near Ctesiphon. But just one year later, following Roman withdrawal from the area, the Parthians easily defeated Parthamaspates and reclaimed the Parthian throne in 117 AD.
We know that Romans always helped the kings of their "puppet states" (historically called "Client-States"), sending some legionaries inside the territories of these Client States: obviously I wonder if someone of these legionaries went to the northern limits of the Parthian kingdom for some reasons we cannot know...may be these legionaries reached the Kara-Kamar caves located between the Parthian territories and the post-Bactrian kingdom! | <urn:uuid:07ebe062-16fd-49f7-8aa5-5b1544c87913> | CC-MAIN-2020-10 | http://researchomnia.blogspot.com/2015/12/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-10/segments/1581875146907.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20200227221724-20200228011724-00423.warc.gz | en | 0.956964 | 1,302 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Team building activities help team members to see each other in new perspectives, facilitate collaboration, connection and teamwork. One of the most powerful reasons for team building is to reach set results and goals. Through a series of planned team bonding activities, personally selected for each team, such skills as communication, planning, problem-solving, conflict resolution and much more – can be improved. Team building activities help to facilitate long-term improvements and set the higher rate of productivity, as well as success.
So what actually is a team building definition? It’s a set of specific type of activities that include collaborative tasks, and are used in matter to develop social relations and define roles within teams. The main aim of team building exercises is to spot and identify interpersonal and social problems inside each team in particular. Great teamwork is one of the core reasons of organisational development, and team building exercises – is the tool to make it work.
There are many variations on how to describe team building, however, talking about the formal definition, it includes 4 main points:
– aligning around goals;
– building effective working relationships;
– reducing team members’ role ambiguity;
– finding solutions to team problems.
Since group-development activities in organizations are being so widely used, many approaches were created and tested to reach the final goal. It has been proven, that organisational performance is raising faster under team-development, in comparison, for instance, with financial bonuses.
And here’s the important question, what are those approaches that make the team work so much better? Find here presented 4 main approaches, that help to reach set goals.
Clear objectives play a big role in any team, that wishes to reach particular goals and results. Ability to identify main approaches on each task define success, failure and helps to achieve goals more productively and with higher success rate. In other words, to involve team members in action planning – is a must. Moreover, due to the identification of specific outcomes and tests of incremental success, setting goals is intended to strengthen motivation, improve a sense of ownership and measure the progress within the team.
The understanding of each team member’s’ respective roles and duties is a big part of clarifying your own. Role clarification not only promotes members’ interdependence, but and motivates each to focus on their own role, and not be distracted by worrying about tasks of others. Team success comes from reducing ambiguity and understanding of importance of the structure; just follow a simple step – define and adjust roles.
After improving the ability of identifying problems within the team, team develops a skill of working together and finding solutions on ongoing problems. One more perk of owning mentioned abilities – it can enhance critical thinking. Have a look at our Problem Solving Workshop.
Communication, sharing, giving and receiving support within the team, or simply – teamwork, gives a huge advantage to the team members, that are not capable of keeping a harmony within it. Teams with fewer interpersonal conflicts, overall, are functioning more efficiently and stay productive over longer periods of time. Compared to the ones, that are having issues. The key to make a step towards great teamwork – is to communicate; developed mutual trust and open communication between members.
Team building is great, but planners and participants of team building activities within the organisation unfortunately often turn the whole action into just another team meeting, which doesn’t change a lot. However, there is an excellent opportunity to build the bond inside the team and foster company culture by removing the team itself from their daily pressures and distractions – away from the familiar office environment to an inspiring offsite destination. That’s what we call a team retreat.
Team retreats are a growing trend in the corporate and startup world. There are so many benefits of team retreats that even smaller companies think about how they can take the office out of the office for a week, or just for weekend. When used correctly, team retreats they can help accomplish a great deal, address problems in organisation, help boost productivity and motivation even long after return to a traditional office environment.
Putting time and investment into sending employees for an exciting team retreat, rather than organizing another vague team building activity inside the corporation, can really make a huge difference on the outcome of the day. A successful team retreat can have much wider impact on the organization, creating new ways to communicate and sustainably and positively changing team dynamics. At NextRetreat, we understand the importance of team dynamics and specialise on facilitating team retreats in unique and inspiring destinations that can also help your team. | <urn:uuid:3d5247eb-ea09-45d8-a263-ce76d8261778> | CC-MAIN-2020-29 | https://blog.nextretreat.com/four-approaches-team-building/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-29/segments/1593655894904.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20200707173839-20200707203839-00159.warc.gz | en | 0.952683 | 936 | 2.875 | 3 |
critical analysis of the last ride together
Browning's dramatic monologue 'The Last Ride Together' is an exploration of the end of a love affair. The affair has been ended by the woman, however Browning is suggesting, through his narrator, that rather than feeling sad about this he should feel happy and proud and 'bless/ Your name in pride and thankfulness' about the love that was.
Browning is suggesting that this last ride together is like a moment of perfection that can be remembered for all time with fondness and without regret. Love is difficult and Browning writes that 'all men strive and who suceeds?' but striving is important to Browning in this and other poems. Love is being regarded as man's supreme achievement even more important then deeds done during a war for which a soldier may only expect that 'They scratch his name on the Abbey-stones.' Love is also seen as more important than art and Browning is again looking at the relationhip between life and art as he does in Fra Lippo Lippi, for example. | <urn:uuid:6f64aa09-a04a-4e1c-a910-1aea8dfb4cf4> | CC-MAIN-2018-13 | https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/critical-analysis-last-ride-together-184647 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-13/segments/1521257644701.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20180317055142-20180317075142-00308.warc.gz | en | 0.973698 | 217 | 2.546875 | 3 |
In Defense of the Cow: How Eating Meat Could Help Slow Climate Change
Photo via stock.xchng by bouwm019
Should we be eating more beef in order to slow global warming? It sounds counterintuitive, but it may be so: Cattle could be part of the whole ecological equation to solving climate change and restoring healthy, bio-diverse ecosystems. I am a vegetarian, but I maintain there is a place for grass-fed beef on family menus--and pasture-raised cattle in global warming solutions. Cows can help more than harm if they are sustainably raised. What's the Beef About Beef?
When it comes to global warming, a growing number of people are pointing fingers at our meat consumption. This perspective is reflected by Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who reported in the Observer:
"Diet change [is] important because of the huge greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental problems - including habitat destruction - associated with rearing cattle and other animals." The article goes on to indicate that, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, "Meat production accounts for nearly a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. These are generated during the production of animal feeds, for example, while ruminants, particularly cows, emit methane, which is 23 times more effective as a global warming agent than carbon dioxide."
It's true: cattle, sheep, and goats can all decimate an environment if not properly managed. Furthermore, cattle emit huge amounts of methane, especially if corn-fed. Because methane is a denser greenhouse gas than CO2, it has a larger overall negative effect on the earth. But to eliminate ruminants entirely from our diets deeply disrupts our capacity to sequester CO2 and produce water in grassland watersheds.
Here is why:
Photo via stock.xchng by lcumings
Back to the Basics: Bison, Grass, and Healthy Soil
When the first plows turned the rich soils of the Midwest grasslands, some soils were 20% carbon. Now, after years of chemical farming and cultivation, many soils are 5% carbon or even less-some as low as 1%. As a result, that "lost" carbon now lives in our atmosphere as carbon dioxide (CO2). Furthermore, the loss of soil carbon can deplete the soil's ability to manage water.
Prior to our cultivation of the Midwest, ruminants played an important role in healthy soil ecology. These former grasslands were historically populated by the American bison, which numbered at about 60 million. In contrast, there are about 96 million beef and dairy cattle in the US alone. As a ruminant, the bison grazed the plains for thousands of years. Moving in expansive herds, the bison ate the grasses down as they traveled in search of greener pastures. While migrating to new grazing areas, each ruminant would leave natural fertilizer: animal waste and plant litter. This natural process helped to build the rich and fertile soils of the Midwest.
Grass Grazers: More Than Your Average Hamburger
Similarly, well-managed cattle can greatly enhance the growth and propagation of grasses. These grasses can sequester huge amounts of carbon annually, especially when grazing practices include high density, short-term exposure efforts with the cattle eating the grasses down and moving on to let the grasses grow back. This sustainable grazing technique causes some root shedding below the soil line, leaving lots of organic matter, and thus, carbon. On just one acre of biologically healthy grassland soil, there can be between 0.5 - 1.5 tons of carbon deposited in the soil annually. This is equivalent to taking up to 5.5 tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere and sinking it into an acre of soil.
While this impressive level of carbon sequestration is impossible in the high desert of New Mexico with little rainfall, it is absolutely viable in Florida, the East and Midwest, as well as the North West where there is rain or available water to grow pasture. With proper management, ruminants can once again contribute to the life and water cycle supporting ecology of our biological system, where cattle may be absolutely critical to the health of our soils. This amazing ecological interaction on 11 billion global acres of grazed land would equate to sequestering 60% of human-caused CO2.
Furthermore, let's not throw stones at cattle as methane culprits, when we have larger human-caused methane problems--namely from fossil fuel use and landfills. Our unrestrained use of coal, natural gas, oil, and petroleum products combined with our over-consumption of just-plain-stuff that ends up in landfills produces over three times the methane emissions as ruminants in this country. Cattle must be saying, "Stop pointing fingers! You single-stomached humans are contributing more methane emissions than our digestive systems could ever hope to!"
Well-managed beef and dairy cattle living on pasture are not only an asset to us all, but also to a bio-diverse earth.
More on Sustainable Grazing Techniques:
Ranching for Profit
Carbon Farmers of America
Holistic Management International
Rodale Institute Organic Transition Course-Livestock
More on Cattle and Global Warming:
Ranchers Could Earn Carbon Credits, Save the World Through Better Grazing Practices
All On the Table: Cows, Corn, Gasoline, Spinach, E. Coli, and Grass
Scientists Sniff Out Cure for Bovine Farting | <urn:uuid:98a87be6-0709-42ef-9907-12faa2fa1968> | CC-MAIN-2015-22 | http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/in-defense-of-the-cow-how-eating-meat-could-help-slow-climate-change.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-22/segments/1432207932596.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20150521113212-00215-ip-10-180-206-219.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925873 | 1,154 | 2.875 | 3 |
John 14 Commentary
Vs 2 – Jesus paints a picture of a groom going to prepare a place for his bride. The custom was for a Jewish man to go home and build an addition onto his Father’s house once he got engaged. It usually took about a year, but the groom could not go and get his bride, until his Father approved of the addition to the house and told him that it was time.
Vs 26 – It is significant that the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost. (Read Acts 2 also) This was the time that the Jews celebrated the giving of the Torah (Law) to Moses. Look at the parallels. I found on Followtherabbi.com:
Both events occurred on mountains known as "the mountain of God" (Ex. 24:13; Isa. 2:3).
Both involved similar sounds and symbols, such as wind, fire, and voices (Ex. 19:16-19; Acts 2:1-3). Note that the Hebrew for "thunder" (kolot) means "voices" (Acts 2:4). Jewish tradition said that the Israelites heard God speak in 70 languages.
Both events involved the presence of God (Ex. 19:18,20; Acts 2:4).
About 3,000 people died because of their sin when Moses received the Torah (Ex. 32:28). About 3,000 people believed (were born again into new life) when the Spirit came (Acts 2:41)
At Mount Sinai, God wrote his revelation on stone tablets (Ex. 31:18). On the fulfillment of Pentecost, God wrote his law on people’s hearts as he had promised He would (2 Cor. 3:3; Jer. 31:33).
Torah means "teaching." The Spirit, given on Shavuot, also became the "Teacher" of the new community of Jesus’ followers (John 14:26)
This festival celebrated the end of the wheat harvest. With the coming of the Holy Spirit, the harvest of people that Jesus had spoken of was fulfilled that day.
John 15 Commentary
Since this is Jesus’ last teaching time with His disciples, before the cross, these must be pretty important things. I wonder how the disciples felt – they were looking for this conquering king Messiah, but Jesus had arrived on a donkey, and just finished washing their feet. Now He’s talking about grapes. And this is the night before the Passover is about to start – More than one prophet had predicted that on a day like this, the Messiah would come. They knew Jesus was the Messiah, but a donkey? Washing their feet? And grapes? What does this have to do with the Messiah? Grapes?
It is also important to note that the main message of these verses (Abide in me) are given to the disciples come at a time right before the cross when they are going to be tested and tempted to "fall away" from Christ. (John 16:1)
Vs 1 – "vine" is used in the OT (Ps 80:8-19) as a picture of Israel as the channel of God’s grace and power to the world. The Psalmist also foresees the coming a Israel’s Messiah. When Jesus says that He is the "true vine" the Jewish listener would have remembered this verse and recognized that He was calling Himself the Messiah. By the way, the "vine" is the trunk of the plant that grows out of the ground – not the long sprawling limb along the trellis.
Vs 2 – "Branches" have a relationship with the "vine" and receive life from it. "Fruit" and "good works" are used almost interchangeably in the Bible. (Ex: Titus 3:14) God receives glory as we do good works. (vs 8) "Fruit" also refers to the inner "good works" or the "fruits of Holy Spirit" (Gal 5:22)
This verse has been interpreted quite a few different ways regarding the branch that is "cut off":
1 – We can lose our salvation.
2 – God disciplines the unfruitful branch
3 – These branches were never real Christians in the first place
I personally would have to go with interpretation number 2 – God disciplines the unfruitful branch. Bruce Wilkinson gives a great explanation of this view in his book, "Secrets of the Vine." The word translated "cuts off" or "takes away" can also mean "lifts up" which paints a picture of the vinedresser bending over to "lift up" this unfruitful branch. New branches have a tendency to trail down and grow along the ground, but because of dust (mud when it rains) and mildew, these branches become sick and useless. Once they are washed off and lifted up (maybe wrapped around a trellis) they become fruitful again. The dirt does the same thing to these vines as sin does to a Christian life.
"Pruning" is done so a branch can be more fruitful. As a vine gets older it’s ability to produce fruit increases, but without intensive pruning it weakens and it’s crop diminishes. The older the vine, the more pruning it requires.
The word "prune" in verse 2 also means "cleanse" and is a play on words with the word "clean" in verse 3.
Vs 6 – This could be interpreted as someone who is a "false believer." Judas is the prime example of this idea. The other option is that this verse refers to Paul’s concept of a believer’s judgment. (Check 1 Cor 3:10-15)
In the OT, (Ezekiel 15:1-8; 19:12) vine imagery involves judgment and rejection by God for disobedience.
This is not a threat of "hell" but simply a statement of our value/worth outside of Christ. The branch of a grapevine is not worth anything if it is not producing fruit. Unlike the wood of an olive tree which can be made into something else, a grapevine branch is brittle and small and can’t be used for anything but kindling to start a fire. Maybe this idea speaks to the fact that we are "humble creatures" and our only value is in producing fruit by allowing the vine (Jesus) to flow through us.
Vs 8 – The NET Bible footnotes say that "bearing fruit" and "being Jesus’ disciple" are not two different actions, but one single action.
Vs 11 – Complete joy is found in "abiding with Christ"
Vs 12 – I’ll remind you that the original 10 Commandments were given for 2 reasons: (1) To set Israel apart from all other nations, and (2) to represent their love relationship with Yahweh. Jesus gives us this commandment for the same reason: (1) it will make us different from the rest of the world, and (2) in loving others we represent how we feel about God Himself. Jesus also gave them this commandment a couple chapters back in John 13:34.
Vs 13 – Jesus is speaking of what He’s about to do.
Vs 14 – Jesus is gonna lay down his life for His friends (vs 13), but now He defines "Friends" as those who obey his commandments. (recalling vs 10 too) Does this mean that He doesn’t lay His life down for those who are disobedient? (Limited Atonement?)
Vs 15 – "servants" or "slaves" refer to the idea of a "bondservant" – one who chooses to serve his master. This understanding makes vs 16 more clear when Jesus says "You didn’t choose me, but I chose you."
Vs 18 – Jesus is not speaking of the "hate" that we receive when we have treated someone badly or done them wrong, but this "hate" is one that comes simply because we are friends with Christ. This is the price we pay for His friendship – a pretty small one considering the benefits.
Vs 19 – In John 8:23, Jesus had said that He isn’t of this world, but that the Pharisees were. Here, we see him saying that He has chosen the disciples to be out of the world too. Jesus prays for them later in John 17:15-16 and speaks of this again. Also check 1 John 4:5-6.
Vs 20 – Jesus implies that the disciples will carry on His ministry after He is gone.
Vs 22-24 – The sin of unbelief is inexcusable – not just because of His words (vs 22), but also because of His sign and wonders. (vs 24)
Vs 25 – refers to Ps 35:19; 69:4
John 16 Commentary
Vs 5 – If you look at 13:36 you see Peter asking where Jesus is going. Jesus’ point here is not that no one has asked, but that the disciple’s main concern/shock seems to be more about the coming persecution and being away from Him than it is about where He is going.
Vs 8 – "convict" means to present evidence so as to "convince"
Vs 9-11 – The Spirit will convict the world in regards to sin, righteousness, and judgment, but how will He do it? He will dwell in the believer and work through him.
Vs 9 – check 3:19; 12:37
Vs 13 – Compare with John 14:6 where Jesus says He is the truth. This verse really says, "The Spirit will guide you to Jesus."
Vs 16 – Jesus speaks of His death and resurrection here. It could also be about His leaving to "prepare a place for us" and His 2nd coming.
Vs 20 – "I tell you the truth" should be "Amen, Amen" which infers that Jesus is going to speak something which He heard from the Father – Something very important. "Weep and wail" were terms used of a public display of grief at the death of a loved one. Professional mourners were normally hired to loudly lament as the body was prepared. They also walked through the town with the body wailing loudly as it was taken to the burial site.
Notice also that the Jewish leaders who rejoiced over Jesus’ death are called "the world."
Vs 21-22 – compare with Isaiah 66:7 & 66:14 (These passages refer to the coming messianic kingdom which will be set up @ Jesus’ 2nd coming, but parts of it may have been fulfilled here.)
Vs 22 – Notice also that joy comes and goes until the resurrection and then no one can take it away. Our joy is complete in Jesus’ resurrection.
Vs 23-24 – The disciples had probably prayed directly to God up to this point, but now, with Jesus, they are actually given the ability to represent His wishes before God and are assured of God’s answers. The literary construction of "Ask" implies "keep on asking"
Vs 29 – It is hard to believe that the disciples really understood the implications of all that Jesus had told them until after the resurrection. Pretty cool that they are trying so hard though.
Vs 32 – Compare with Zech 13:7
Vs 33 – "I have overcome the world" = John 1:5 – "The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness, has not overcome it." | <urn:uuid:ad3242bb-cbef-4ea1-bdf3-8bddde58fef9> | CC-MAIN-2019-04 | https://stevecorn.com/2007/03/28/john-14-16-commentary/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-04/segments/1547583657510.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20190116134421-20190116160421-00124.warc.gz | en | 0.973765 | 2,407 | 2.984375 | 3 |
About the “Get Smart! The Science Behind Making Better Decisions and Building Stronger Relationships” Keynote
Over the past half million years, the human brain has evolved to become the most sophisticated and successful survival computer that the planet has ever seen.
Containing over 100 billion neurons, each capable of linking into an almost infinite number of synaptic pathways, it is fast, adaptable and efficient. These characteristics have allowed humans to rise to and remain at the top of the planetary food chain. Quite simply, we can out-think any other species known.
At the same time, our brains are far from perfect. Some of the same characteristics that make them so successful actually get in our way as often as they help us. That’s because efficiency and speed often come at the cost of accuracy. Without even realizing it, we take mental shortcuts that often lead us to make inaccurate assessments of the situations and people with whom we deal. Put us in stressful environments, and a whole different array of short cuts, compromises and trade-offs emerge. Welcome to the world of unconscious bias.
“Neuroscience has shown that people can identify another person’s apparent race, gender and age in a matter of milliseconds. In this blink of an eye, a complex network of stereotypes, emotional prejudices and behavioral impulses activates.”
Susan T. Fiske, Ph.D. (Professor of Psychology, Princeton University)
The first goal of this presentation will be to explore the nature and types of biases that affect behaviors and decision making at both individual and group levels. By understanding the biological limitations in our mental processing capabilities and how our brains attempt to compensate, we can better recognize the mechanics of faulty decisions and interaction styles. This then sets the stage for pursuing our second goal, which is to develop strategies to help minimize the potentially negative impact of bias on us both individually and as organizations.
- Explore bias as a core human thought tendency
- Identify the different types of cognitive bias that compromise decision making at individual and group levels
- Discuss the nature of and how the brain uses implicit bias (bias about personal characteristics) to protect itself
- Recognize how implicit bias leads to exclusion and disengagement
- Learn and practice techniques for recognizing and interrupting both implicit and cognitive bias patterns
- Develop a group plan of action for promoting inclusive policies and behaviors | <urn:uuid:206cd9ed-0d12-4f38-a13b-f8acc049ec6f> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://paulmeshanko.com/keynotes/get-smart-the-science-behind-making-better-decisions-and-building-stronger-relationships/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510529.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20230929222230-20230930012230-00143.warc.gz | en | 0.923389 | 489 | 3.921875 | 4 |
Regular use of talc-based baby powder in the genital area may increase a woman’s chance of developing ovarian cancer by as much as 30%, according to a research report in the Journal of Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.
Talc is one of the main ingredients in products such as Johnson & Johnson’s® Baby Powder and Shower to Shower® body powder for women. A naturally occurring mineral, talc shares chemical similarities with asbestos, another mineral widely known to cause deadly cancers.
When talcum powder is directly applied to the genital area, talc particles can travel up the vagina into the fallopian tubes, and then into the ovaries, where the talc molecules can lodge for decades. Talc can cause inflammation in otherwise healthy tissue. When chronic, this inflammation may contribute to the development of cancer.
RISKS KNOWN FOR DECADES AND DISMISSED BY MANUFACTURERS
In 1982, Harvard Medical School professor Dr. David Cramer published one of the first scientific studies associating talcum powder use on women’s genital area with an increased risk of ovarian cancer. Subsequent research published in scientific journals such as the American Journal of Epidemiology through the 1980s and 1990s supported Dr. Cramer’s findings. A study published in 1992 urged manufacturers to put warning labels on talcum powder because of the threat to women’s health.
Johnson & Johnson (J&J) lawyers admitted in federal court that the company had been aware of the research associating ovarian cancer with talc since the early 1980s, but J&J intentionally decided not to put warnings on their packaging or in their ads.
Do you have a talcum powder case? We can help.
Davis & Crump is now handling claims for women who have suffered ovarian cancer after use of talcum powder. Davis & Crump is experienced in defective products litigation and settlements. If you or a loved one has been diagnosed with ovarian cancer after using either Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder or Shower to Shower, call us at 1-800-277-0300 or email us at firstname.lastname@example.org.
Fill out a free claim evaluation or call us at 1-800-277-0300 to get started. | <urn:uuid:4d9859ac-e896-497a-acb3-1c2957df7e20> | CC-MAIN-2019-18 | http://www.daviscrump.com/cases-we-handle/toxic-substance-lawsuits/talcum-powder/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578727587.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20190425154024-20190425180024-00541.warc.gz | en | 0.923517 | 472 | 2.65625 | 3 |
The Interesting Info about drone survey company
Drones are so helpful to surveyors because they can provide a bird’s eye view of a site that would be difficult or impossible to get from the ground. This can be helpful for a variety of tasks, such as:
- Mapping and surveying large areas. A Drone survey can quickly and easily capture high-resolution images of a large extent, which can then be used to create maps or survey data. This can save time and money, especially for projects that involve surveying large land areas.
- Inspecting difficult-to-access areas. Drones can be used to check areas that are difficult or dangerous to access by humans, such as tall buildings or industrial sites. This can help surveyors identify potential problems or hazards and ensure that a place is safe for workers.
- Creating 3D models. Drones can be used to create 3D models of a site, which can be used for various purposes, such as planning renovations or developing new construction projects. This can help surveyors to visualize a place more realistically and to make more informed decisions about how to use the site.
Drones are helpful to surveyors for several reasons:
- Drones can access difficult-to-reach areas. This is especially useful for surveying large areas, such as forests or industrial sites.
- Drones can capture high-quality imagery. This imagery can be used to create detailed maps and models of the surveyed area.
- Drones can survey areas in a fraction of the time it would take with traditional methods. This can save surveyors a lot of time and money.
- Drones are relatively safe to use. This is especially important for surveying areas that are hazardous or difficult to access with traditional methods.
- Drones can be used to survey areas that are constantly changing. This is useful for monitoring construction sites or areas prone to natural disasters.
There are a few things that surveyors can do to find roof issues for their reports:
- Visual inspection. The surveyor can visually inspect the roof for any signs of damage, such as missing shingles, cracked tiles, or moss growth.
- Thermal imaging. The surveyor can use a thermal imaging camera to detect any areas of the roof that are not properly insulated. Sites that are not adequately protected will lose heat more quickly than properly insulated areas, and this will show up as areas of different temperatures on the thermal image.
- Leak detection. The surveyor can use a leak detection device to detect any leaks in the roof. These devices can emit a sound or a signal that will be louder or stronger if there is a leak.
- Roof inspection drone. The surveyor can use a roof inspection drone to examine the roof closely. The drone can take high-quality images and videos of the top, which the surveyor can use to identify any problems.
Once the surveyor has identified any problems with the roof, they can include them in their report. The report can also include recommendations for repairs or replacement of the roof.
Overall, any drone survey company London can be a valuable tool for surveyors because they can provide a bird’s eye view of a site that would be difficult or impossible to get from the ground. This can help surveyors to complete their work more quickly, more accurately, and more safely. | <urn:uuid:6ba59992-5c7c-4f5d-8f5d-bc44bba06568> | CC-MAIN-2024-10 | https://patitofeo.tv/the-interesting-info-about-drone-survey-company/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947474440.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20240223153350-20240223183350-00228.warc.gz | en | 0.935806 | 687 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Goddess Jyestha is the elder sister of Goddess Lakshmi. She is the goddess of misfortune. The characteristics of the Goddess are similar to Alakshmi. She symbolically represents poverty.
Goddess Jyeshta is usually depicted with a large belly and long nose.
The vehicle associated with Jyestha is ass. Her banner has the image of a crow. Sometimes she is also associated with owl.
Linga Purana indicates that she came out of Samudra Manthan (Churning of Ocean) and she finds her abode where people are unclean and inauspiciousness thrives. She avoids all those places that have divine presence. She looks for ego-inflated bodies.
In Hinduism, Goddess Jyestha symbolically reminds us that the blessings of Goddess Lakshmi should not give way to pride, indiscipline and arrogance. Unclean body, unclean surroundings, sloth and avarice are invitation to the goddess of misfortune and in auspiciousness. | <urn:uuid:0ca02717-d946-45ff-9ac9-070a96f0d401> | CC-MAIN-2014-23 | http://www.hindu-blog.com/2012/10/goddess-jyestha-hindu-goddess-of.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-23/segments/1406510268660.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20140728011748-00071-ip-10-146-231-18.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954685 | 214 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Six-year-old Emily Muth first fell ill with the flu on Jan. 16. Three days later, she had difficulty breathing, so her mother, Rhonda Muth, called for an ambulance.
Muth said a paramedic told her that labored breathing was a common symptom of the flu, so the ambulance was sent back. But Emily's breathing continued to slow, and when paramedics returned a second time, it was too late.
Emily's sudden death was heartbreaking and unsettling to her parents and her 8- and 10-year-old brothers, Muth said.
“How could that even happen? I mean one day she's fine, you know, and I mean she had the fever and she was a little achy,” Muth told ABC11 in Raleigh, N.C. “Other than that, I mean, she had had the runny nose and cough like typical, you know, and then she's gone. It's horrible. I don't wish this on anybody.”
Emily, of Cary, N.C., is among at least 30 children across the country who have died of the flu during a nasty season that's caused a rapid increase in the number of older people and children being hospitalized, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Though the flu season typically peaks in February, the outbreak is already one of the worst on record, as the flu has touched every U.S. state, with 32 of them reporting severe flu activity.
Physicians are insisting people get their flu shots, as 85 percent of the children who died were probably not vaccinated, CDC Director Brenda Fitzgerald told Reuters. While the flu vaccine does not guarantee no illness, experts say data suggests the vaccinations make the flu milder.
According to the CDC, “the time from when a person is exposed to flu virus and infected to when symptoms begin is about one to four days, with an average of about two days.”
The public health agency notes that “people who have the flu often feel some or all of these signs and symptoms that usually start suddenly, not gradually”:
- Fever or feeling feverish/chills
- Sore throat
- Runny or stuffy nose
- Muscle or body aches
- Fatigue (very tired)
- Some people may have vomiting and diarrhea, though this is more common in young children than in adults.
The CDC adds that “not everyone with flu will have a fever.”
Emily died Friday after she was rushed by an ambulance to WakeMed Hospital in Raleigh. She had tested positive for the flu three days before at an urgent care center in Cary, according to ABC11. He mother was handed a prescription for Tamiflu and told to keep her hydrated, ABC11 reported.
The fever appeared to normalize Thursday, but on Friday, Emily began having difficulty breathing. Her mother called an ambulance and said a paramedic told her the labored breathing was a common symptom of the flu. Emily's breathing worsened a few hours later, and when her mother called paramedics a second time, they couldn't save her daughter, she told ABC11.
WakeMed Hospital, Rhonda Muth and her husband, Nathan Muth, could not be immediately reached for comment.
While young, healthy people have died of the flu, those most at risk are the elderly and young children. A 10-year-old boy in New Canaan, Conn., whose mother said was healthy as 'an ox,' died after he was rushed to a New York hospital. The mother of a 12-year-old girl in Visalia, Calif., who died of a bacterial infection that entered her bloodstream claims that doctors, overwhelmed by the rise in flu cases, misdiagnosed her daughter with the flu.
As The Washington Post's Lena Sun reported, a particular concern for health experts is the sharp increase in people hospitalized with laboratory-confirmed cases. Nearly 6,500 people were hospitalized since the season began Oct. 1, and the overall hospitalization rate for the week ending Jan. 6 — 22.7 per 100,000 — was almost double that of the previous week. Seven children died in just the first week of January.
According to Sun:
The main culprit for this harsh flu season is the predominant strain, H3N2, which causes the worst outbreaks of the two influenza A viruses and two types of influenza B viruses circulating. Seasons where H3N2 dominates typically result in the most complications, especially for the very young, the elderly and people with certain chronic health conditions, experts say.
Even though flu activity has probably peaked, the forecast for next three months is grim.
What makes the threat of the flu worse is that most of the IV saline bags used in medical treatments are manufactured in Puerto Rico, which is still recovering from Hurricane Maria. Hospitals flooded with flu patients are quickly running low on saline, leading medical staff to rely on lengthy and potentially dangerous treatments of patients.
Emily was not vaccinated, although her parents told ABC11 that they plan to vaccinate their two sons. Muth hopes Emily's story will encourage parents to vaccinate their children.
“She was a good girl. Everybody loved her,” Rhonda Muth told ABC11.
“Just take it day by day,” she said. “She'll always be with us.”
This post has been updated. | <urn:uuid:40edf78b-a8bf-4dbf-aa80-54737e83ef8f> | CC-MAIN-2018-13 | https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/01/23/she-claims-paramedics-said-her-6-year-old-had-common-flu-symptoms-and-left-now-her-daughter-is-dead/?utm_term=.d75fbdc4a56a | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-13/segments/1521257647892.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20180322151300-20180322171300-00766.warc.gz | en | 0.984217 | 1,119 | 2.5625 | 3 |
The climate of U.S. Virgin Islands
The United States Virgin Islands are part of the Virgin Islands and
were a Danish colony for decades until Denmark sold the islands to the
United States of America. A long time ago the islands were a Dutch
colony. The United States Virgin Islands have a tropical savannah
climate type Aw according to the Köppen-Geiger climate classification.
The average maximum temperatures show little variation. During the
warmest time of the day temperatures are around 29-33 degrees Celsius
on average. An ever present trade wind combined with the warm sea
water (26-29 degrees Celsius on average) is responsible for moderated
temperatures. Temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius are uncommon.
Climate information on cities and regions on the
United States Virgin Islands
The climate information on this page is only brief. Specific
information about weather and climate can be found on the climate
pages per area or town. As for U.S. Virgin Islands the following climate
information is available:
The US Virgin Islands have a dry season that lasts from the end of
December till Early August. Within this season the month of May is a
little wetter. The months of February and March are the driest with
less than 40 millimeters of rain on average per month. In mid-August
the wet period starts. However, precipitation figures are still low so
‘wet season’ is not really the correct term. Multiple showers per day
are not uncommon, during the dry season this is mainly limited to one
shower per day. About 960 millimeters of rain falls on average on a
yearly basis. However, the wettest areas on the US Virgin Islands get
about 300-400 millimeters more rain. The driest periods can record
about 800 millimeters of rain. The US Virgin Islands are too warm for
During the day temperatures are between 30 and 33 degrees Celsius. A
peak in temperature of 34-35 degrees Celsius is not uncommon. Chances
of very warm weather are smallest in December, January and February.
Minimum temperatures are between 22 and 26 degrees Celsius with the
occasional low. The lowest temperature on record for the US Virgin
Islands is 11.1 degrees Celsius. The highest temperature for the US
Virgin Islands is 37.2 degrees Celsius.
The US Virgin Islands are mostly influenced by a north east trade
wind. During some of the years the trade wind comes from the east or
the south east. The trade wind is ever present on the eastern part of
the islands. The western parts are more on the lee-side. Sometimes a
tropical storm forms from a tropical depression with destructive wind
speeds. A hurricane in the vicinity may cause tidal waves that can
cause major destruction along the coastline. There is an ever present
chance that cruise ships have to change their schedule because of
hurricanes. The US Virgin Islands are visited a lot by cruise ships.
Because of bad weather they might be forced to sail to another port on
the US Virgin Islands. It can also happen that they are forced to be
anchored for a day longer. On the other hand it is also possible that
they avoid the US Virgin Islands altogether because of hurricanes.
Several climate figures and temperatures can be found for the US
Virgin Islands. The figures below are an average for the capital
Charlotte Amelie and cannot be seen as an average for the entire
archipelago. Climate information on specific places and regions is
shown on the pages per place.
More climate information
Climate tables are useful but they don’t give an overall picture of
the climate and possible weather conditions during a period of time.
How high the chances are of hot or cold weather or hurricanes can
often not be found in these tables. This is why we offer extra climate
information per month. The information below is an average for the
capital of Charlotte Amelie. Climate information on specific places
and regions is shown on the pages per place.
The information at this site was carefully composed from climate data collected by meteorological services, meteorological offices, climate experts and other sources. “More climate info” is based on statistics, climate data and personal experience. No rights can be derived from this site. Weather has no memory and gives no guaranties. Nothing is as changeable and unpredictable as the weather. The authors of this site feel in no way responsible for any damages caused by misinterpretation or other circumstances that may influence your holiday or trip to a certain destination. We provide information, it’s up to the reader to use it to it’s benefit. | <urn:uuid:d0ac7710-0644-4dd5-b8ac-40b6cc43312d> | CC-MAIN-2021-39 | http://whatstheweatherlike.org/usvirginislands/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-39/segments/1631780057580.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20210924201616-20210924231616-00653.warc.gz | en | 0.912079 | 971 | 3.359375 | 3 |
If you’re cooking and suddenly have a fire on your hands, do you know what to do? Putting out a fire in the kitchen depends first on knowing what kind of fire it is. Before you live on your own, know a few kitchen fire safety basics.
Teaching Kitchen Fire Safety
How To Put Out Grease Fires
A grease fire can’t be extinguished with water. Grease is lighter than water; it will float to the top and continue burning on the water’s surface. Instead, the way to handle a grease fire is to smother it with a pan lid and wait for it to die out. Or grab a box of baking soda and pour it over the fire to kill the flames. If the fire is too big for either of those options, then use a kitchen fire extinguisher. (You have one, right?)
How To Put Out Oven Fires
If a blaze suddenly sparks up inside your oven, shut the door tightly. Do not open the oven door. Turn the oven off and back away. If you open the door, you risk burning your face or setting your hair or clothing on fire. Fire needs oxygen to thrive, and you’ll only be fanning the flames—literally—by opening the door. Let the fire die down, stay in the room, and keep an eye on things through the oven window. Once the oven has cooled completely, then you can clean it up.
How To Put Out Microwave Fires
Turn off the microwave immediately, if it’s safe to do so. (If the fire has not affected the touchpad, it should be safe to touch.) This will stop the fan so it won’t feed oxygen to the flames. Then wait until the fire suffocates. Do NOT open the door while the fire is active. To minimize risk of fire, never attempt to heat articles that are not approved for use in microwaves. Do not use metal, metal-edged bowls, foil, or even twist ties. The metal can cause sparks or flashes, which can lead to a fire.
How To Put Out Electrical Fires
Like grease fires, electrical fires cannot be eliminated with water. Instead, use a kitchen fire extinguisher. After you’ve put out an electrical fire, follow up with the fire department to ensure your kitchen is safe. To prevent electrical fires in the first place, make sure your outlets are not overloaded with too many appliances. | <urn:uuid:16f63ccb-9860-4411-89b8-9c3241efe450> | CC-MAIN-2021-31 | https://yourteenmag.com/health/physical-health/fire-in-the-kitchen | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-31/segments/1627046151531.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20210724223025-20210725013025-00173.warc.gz | en | 0.904254 | 505 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Eugene Takle, Michael Taber, Iowa State University, Department of Geologic and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Northern Colorado, Department of Earth Sciences
This website offers a complete course on the topic of global change. The authors have compiled pertinent information in the form of summary information, images, and suggested readings. The topics are subdivided into three blocks. The first block, Climate and Agents of Global Change, sets the foundation for understanding global change through observations of global mean temperature and trends in carbon dioxide. The second block, Models and Measurements of Global Change, focuses on climate modeling, the limitations of models and what we can learn from them. Block three, The Biosphere and Human Component of Global Change, addresses the impact by humans through population, deforestation, and desertification.
This description of a site outside SERC has not been vetted by SERC staff and may be incomplete or incorrect. If you
have information we can use to flesh out or correct this record let us know. | <urn:uuid:6bcdeeec-5853-4f13-8ac1-768ddd0ebe84> | CC-MAIN-2014-23 | http://serc.carleton.edu/resources/23301.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-23/segments/1406510270877.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20140728011750-00081-ip-10-146-231-18.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.890316 | 202 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Researchers at the Australian National University have found a new way to fabricate high efficiency semi-transparent perovskite solar cells in a breakthrough that could lead to more efficient and cheaper solar electricity.
Dr Tom White from the ANU Research School of Engineering said the new fabrication method significantly improved the performance of perovskite solar cells, which can combine with conventional silicon solar cells to produce more efficient solar electricity.
He said perovskite solar cells were extremely good at making electricity from visible light - blue, green and red - while conventional silicon solar cells were more efficient at converting infrared light into electricity.
"The prospect of adding a few additional processing steps at the end of a silicon cell production line to make perovskite cells is very exciting and could boost solar efficiency from 25 per cent to 30 per cent," Dr White said.
"By combining these two cells, the perovskite cell and the silicon cell, we are able to make much better use of the solar energy and achieve higher efficiencies than either cell on its own."
While perovskite cells can improve efficiency, they are not yet stable enough to be used on rooftops. Dr White said the new fabrication technique could help develop more reliable perovskite cells.
The new fabrication method involves adding a small amount of the element indium into one of the cell layers during fabrication. That could increase the cell's power output by as much as 25 per cent.
"We have been able to achieve a record efficiency of 16.6 per cent for a semi-transparent perovskite cell, and 24.5 per cent for a perovskite-silicon tandem, which is one of the highest efficiencies reported for this type of cell," said Dr White.
Dr White said the research placed ANU in a small group of labs around the world with the capability to improve silicon solar cell efficiency using perovskites.
The development builds on the state-of-the-art silicon cell research at ANU and is part of a $12.2 million "High-efficiency silicon/perovskite solar cells" project led by University of New South Wales and supported by $3.6 million of funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.
Research partners include Monash University, Arizona State University, Suntech R&D Australia Pty Ltd and Trina Solar. | <urn:uuid:5c645334-d98b-4f71-b321-63cf6990d9d7> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.k-online.com/cgi-bin/md_k/lib/pub/tt.cgi/New_way_to_make_low-cost_solar_cell_technology.html?oid=99090&lang=2&ticket=g_u_e_s_t | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280850.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00133-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933945 | 489 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Despite what some people might think, stamp collecting is not just your Grandpa's hobby. Imagine being able to see the culture and heritage of another country from the comfort of your own home, or learning new and interesting facts about your own country's history simply by opening an envelope. For millions of people, that is the thrill of stamp collection!
Stamps have been used since the days of Queen Victoria as a way to prepay and show proof of payment for postage. Before the stamp was introduced, mail recipients had the choice to accept a letter and pay a fee upon delivery or refuse it. After a while, such a large portion of the mail was refused that another system had to be created. The very first stamp was issued in Great
Britain in 1840, and America followed suit in 1847. Surprisingly enough, they are not worth much today, because so many were issued on cheap, flimsy material.
Since those early days, the hobby of collecting stamps has changed quite a bit. However, it is still one of the few hobbies that a person can start with very little monetary investment. The value of a collection is mostly in the eye of the beholder as it is, and many people collect for the sheer pleasure of doing it rather than in the hopes of making any real money from it. Some stamps, such as the famous "upside down Jenny" issue do go up exponentially in value, but the world of stamps has very few of these kinds of mistakes.
There are so many varieties of stamps out there that it's easy to find a few different ones to start out with. Many people enjoy topical collecting of stamps, in other words, collecting only one particular design or type of stamp. It takes a little longer to make a good collection this way, because no matter how much you love stamps that feature trains, there are only a limited number available. Once you have all of them in your collection, it may be hard to wait for a new one to be released.
The most common type of collection is one that incorporates different stamps from around the world, with the majority of the stamps coming from their home country, because they are easily accessible and can be obtained just by going to the mailbox.
Beginner stamp collectors often start their new collection with the cancelled stamps they get on letters and bills, replacing a worn-out or poor quality stamp with one in better condition, as they continue to acquire new stamps. Later, when their 'base' collection is set up, they move on to finding rare stamps and ones in excellent or perfect condition.
The biggest decision when starting a new collection is how to store your stamps. In the past there were very few choices for the novice collector, but that has changed. Now a stamp collector has the option of storing stamps in a binder with stamp hinges or a stock book with thin plastic strips that serve as pockets. No matter what kind of budget you're on, albums are usually fairly affordable. However, they can range anywhere from $20 to over $1000 for a set of binders dating back to the first issued stamp!
Binder-type stamp folios usually come with the packet for a particular year, and each page has a description of the stamp along with a short paragraph about its meaning. Some even have tiny black and white reproductions of the stamp to act as placeholders, until you are able to find the original.
Stock books, on the other hand, have the advantage of allowing stamp collectors to move around their stamps according to how they feel at that moment. Stamps are not permanently attached to the page as they are in binders and although the gummed hinges used to place collections in binders are able to be torn or removed there is a greater risk of harming your collection by doing so.
Once you have chosen how you're going to store them, all you need to start your collection is a dish of lukewarm water, a heavy book and a pair of clean tweezers. Just soak the stamps in the dish and wait until they slide off the paper, which they should do all on their own. Once they are off the paper, take them out with the tweezers, rinse and wait for them to dry, then put them between the pages of the heavy book overnight to get them nice and flat. It's that easy!
For those who don't want to bother with sticky fingers and the eternal search for the "better quality" stamp for their collection, pages of unused stamps are available from the local Post Office or from countless stamp collector sites on the Internet. You can even find stamps on auction sites, but use caution to make sure that you're really getting what you pay for.
Some collections feature nothing but these stamped envelopes, also known as "first day covers", and there are even special albums made just for these covers. The list goes on and on, making collecting stamps one of the most varied and expandable hobbies in the world.
Finally, the most important thing to remember when starting or keeping a stamp collection is to have fun! Few people realize the amount of time and effort it takes to create the design on a stamp and reproduce it in 1/10 or even 1/100 its original size, but those who do can boast that they have what some can only dream about... a miniature art museum in their study or on their coffee table! | <urn:uuid:67e706da-ed59-4213-ad75-dd498cb4d1fd> | CC-MAIN-2017-43 | http://www.miniatures-and-collectibles.com/stamp-collecting.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-43/segments/1508187822145.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20171017163022-20171017183022-00400.warc.gz | en | 0.977517 | 1,092 | 2.53125 | 3 |
It is true that baby teeth will fall out, yet there are very good reasons to have them filled when caries (cavities) are present.
Any tooth which has a cavity that is not properly fixed can eventually cause a tooth ache. It can also cause infection in the surrounding gums or bone. The earlier that a cavity is detected and a restoration (filling) placed, the lower the likelihood that this will happen. Infection can be dangerous and can also, in certain circumstances, cause problems with the adult tooth that is developing in the jaw bone.
Also, having untreated cavities increases the amount of cavity forming bacteria in the mouth. This makes it more likely that the adult teeth coming into the mouth could develop cavities as well.
So why do we not just pull the tooth? Baby teeth fall out at different times – some of the back ones may not come out until 11 or 12 years of age. These teeth function in chewing but also keep space for the adult teeth to come into place in the proper position.
Your child should be evaluated by a dentist to assess his or her teeth, as well as risk factors for developing cavities or other problems. Your dentist can answer any further questions that you may have. | <urn:uuid:455705ee-5b90-428a-bb6e-5d528df74590> | CC-MAIN-2019-30 | https://www.vitadentalwellness.ca/2019/02/22/why-should-i-have-my-childs-baby-teeth-filled-when-they-will-fall-out-eventually/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-30/segments/1563195528013.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20190722113215-20190722135215-00266.warc.gz | en | 0.966997 | 253 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Your Smart Home is Vulnerable to Cyber Attacks
Here is how you can secure it against malicious hackers
Smart devices have started to find a place in our homes for quite some time now, and it’s safe to say they’ve already become mainstream technology. In fact, 14.2 billion connected devices will be used in 2019, and by 2021, the total number will reach 25 billion, according to Gartner. All of them are part of the huge network of the Internet of Things (IoT).
Everything from lightbulbs, thermostats, and doorbells, to dishwashers and even your front door locking system, can now be designed as a smart device connected to the Internet. As we gradually transition to a future where all devices can potentially be interconnected, we must be prepared to embrace their advantages but also to be able to face the risks.
Unlike “standard” computer hacking, overriding IoT devices could result in physical damage and threaten your life. Not only that, but IoT hacks can also expose your personal data.
I know that controlling the devices from your house using your smartphone can be extremely convenient. Yet, there have been many reported cases of hacked devices. Paradoxically, gadgets that are supposed to keep you safe and make your life easier could put you in danger.
A single lightbulb could give hackers full access to your Wi-Fi credentials
Here’s how a hacker, who goes under the name LimitedResults, managed to hack a lightbulb from LIFX, a company that produces Wi-Fi-connected smart lights. The hacker was able to extract the owner’s Wi-Fi login and password, among other data, in under an hour.
The light bulb can be controlled through a smartphone app and according to LimitedResults, the weak (or nonexistent) security measures on the lightbulb itself at that time made it possible for the device to be accessed.
The hacker bought one of these lightbulbs on Amazon and used a handsaw to open it and get access to its main chip. Then, the lightbulb’s chip was connected to another chip that allowed access to the bulb’s hardware using a USB port.
The Wi-Fi user and password were stored in plain text in the lightbulb’s memory, and the hacker was also able to extract the encryption key. It also seems the gadget did not have any security measures in place, meaning that anybody could control the device and write data to its memory.
LIFX was informed about these vulnerabilities and they claimed they had them fixed.
Things can get much worse
The case I’ve shown above is just a mere example of what an attacker could do, but things can get much more serious than that.
One of the worst IoT attacks in history was recorded back in October of 2016, when the company Dyn that controls much of the world’s DNS infrastructure, was hit by the Mirai botnet. Many websites, including Twitter, the Guardian, Netflix, Reddit, CNN, and many others were taken down.
Mirai is different from other botnets, which are normally comprised of computers. Mirai is mostly made up of IoT devices, such as digital cameras and DVR players.
How did this attack work? After a computer got infected with Mirai, it continuously searched the internet for vulnerable IoT devices and used default usernames and passwords to log in, infecting them with malware. In the October 2016 attack, it was estimated that 100,000 endpoints were affected.
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A disturbing incident happened in February 2017, when smart toys manufactured by Spiral Toys were hacked, leaving children’s voice recordings and personal information exposed. More than 800.000 users were compromised, and the details obtained included email addresses and passwords. The leaked information was stored in an online database that could easily be accessed by anyone without requiring a password. An additional 2.2 million voice recordings were stored online.
At the beginning of 2019, a homeowner reported that his smart cameras and thermostat had been hacked. When he approached his baby’s room, he heard someone talking in a deep voice to the child, and his wife also noticed that the thermostat had been turned up to 90°F (32.2°C). And just as she brought his son to the living room, a smart camera automatically turned on and someone began cursing at them. All of these devices were made by the Nest brand, which is now owned by Google. The company said its systems had not been breached and accused the customers of using “compromised passwords that were exposed to breaches on other websites”.
Do you feel like you’re in a Black Mirror episode yet?
IoT companies could do better when it comes to security
Many gadgets from well-known manufacturers already have security measures built-in, but you can never be certain they can offer you complete protection. Also, devices produced by less popular brands and start-ups may lack the know-how or have a limited budget allocated to security.
Prevention is essential. But unfortunately, many IoT devices are not produced with security protections in mind.
Manufacturers must address security issues right from the first stages of the product design, rather than starting to think about them when the product is fully completed and ready to launch on the market.
IoT companies need to incorporate secure coding standards and penetration testing practices into the development of these products, so they are built on solid security foundations. What’s more, software security patches constantly need to be ensured and applied by vendors.
Sadly, most IoT producers operate with a profit-first, security-last mindset, trying to reduce the costs and time to market as much as possible. This is why a certain level of skepticism and paranoia will actually be beneficial to you in the long run when it comes to choosing your smart home devices.
Regulations seem to be the only incentives for companies to better secure their IoT devices. For instance, members of the U.S. Congress introduced the IoT Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2019, “to leverage Federal Government procurement power to encourage increased cybersecurity for Internet of Things devices.”
Biometric authentication for smart home devices could be the answer
The reason is quite simple: it’s nearly impossible for two biometric pieces of data to be identical and this would increase the overall level of security. The idea is backed up by IoT experts who claim biometric authentication is vital when it comes to IoT.
How to protect your smart home
Statistics are showing that you can get hacked in less than five minutes after installing your brand new smart home device.
So here’s what you can do to stay as safe as possible.
1. Do your research before you purchase a smart home device.
I know it can be a true challenge to determine if the gadget you are planning to invest in is a good choice, especially security-wise. When you browse the internet for smart home devices the possibilities may seem endless and you won’t know where to begin.
But make sure you don’t purchase the first thing you come across. Look for reviews, try to find out if the company was involved in any security incidents, and see how they handled them.
Here are a few important things you should ask yourself:
- Does the manufacturer mention anything regarding security on their website?
- Have they actually implemented any security measures?
- Do they allow you to update your devices or provide automatic patches?
2. Change the default username and password of your IoT devices
It’s estimated that 15% of IoT device owners don’t change their default passwords.
This basically means that millions of devices remain exposed since they have the same password that’s listed in the documentation manual. Hackers who want to create botnets use brute-force attacks and employ default login credentials to override these devices and add them to IoT botnet. For instance, the Mirai IoT malware only used 62 username and password combinations to create its botnet.
So, prevent becoming part of an IoT botnet chain and make sure you change your credentials. Don’t use funny and insecure passwords! Instead, use our hacker-proof passwords guide to be certain your password is unbreakable.
3. Keep your smart hub secure (if you own one)
Some of you may use smart hubs, which are a central point for controlling all of your smart home equipment. And yes, if a smart hub is hacked, you guessed the answer – this means an attacker can gain access to all of the devices connected to it, and potentially steal your data and/or wreak havoc into your home.
4. Apply security updates to your smart home devices promptly.
Ideally, software patches should be applied automatically by IoT vendors. However, if you have to update the gadgets yourself, do not postpone the process. Here you can read more about why software updates are so important.
5. Use two-factor or biometric authentication when your devices allow these options.
Two-factor and biometric authentication methods are some reliable options that provide extra layers of security. Go through our guides for in-depth explanations:
- Why You Should Start Using Two-Factor Authentication Now
- Biometric Authentication Overview, Advantages & Disadvantages
6. Secure your Wi-Fi Network
Your wireless network could be the gateway to intruders in your smart home. We recommend you also read our guide to understand why this is important and learn how to increase your home network security:
A connected device represents a potential security gap in your system. Thus, wherever the opportunity arises, hackers will rarely miss the chance to interfere with your devices and data. This is why it is critical for both IoT manufacturers and consumers to do their best to stay on top of cybersecurity threats.
Do you own any smart home devices? How do you keep them safe? Let us know in the comments section below. | <urn:uuid:d17a0e09-cf9f-4718-8528-d580204c67d0> | CC-MAIN-2022-27 | https://heimdalsecurity.com/blog/smart-home-vulnerable-hacking/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-27/segments/1656103036077.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20220625160220-20220625190220-00664.warc.gz | en | 0.958623 | 2,088 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Without the dedicated and often dangerous lifestyle of the professional merchant seaman, the World economy as it is known today would not exist.
Merchant Navy Miniature Medal
Through time of war and in peace the cargoes so vital to many nations have criss crossed the vast oceans and coastal waterways that have now become household names. Ships once carried trade goods on voyages of unknown duration to destinations that could only be dreamt of, the experiences of their crews have long since been recorded in history.
Life in confined quarters far from home and family seems destined to be the lot of the merchant seaman, many thousands of whom have lost their lives in the wake of these ancient mariners. With the progress of time, vessels have become more and more sophisticated and the cargoes often more hazardous. The exploits of these ships and their crews are mostly taken for granted and seldom recorded, except in dire circumstances or time of war.
The ribbon features a solid, dark blue background with central stripes of green, white and red, representing the navigation lights of an approaching ship, resulting in a truly nautical ribbon.
This medal is supplied on a single pin ready to wear. | <urn:uuid:4200ef00-ae4a-40cc-907a-fe6bcbaed4f5> | CC-MAIN-2016-18 | http://www.awardmedals.com/merchant-navy-service-miniature-medal-p-413.html?cPath=282_21_34 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-18/segments/1461860116173.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20160428161516-00030-ip-10-239-7-51.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966137 | 238 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Screen Archive temperance film recalls forgotten chapter in British history.
An exhibition at the People's History Museum, Manchester examines the everyday experiences of working people and their families related to drink and abstinence. Demon Drink? Temperance and the Working Class brings together artefacts and archive film footage to explore this important social phenomenon. The exhibition closes 4 February 2013 and has attracted more than 10,000 visitors in its opening months. Screen Archive South East has contributed 'Brighton & Hove Band of Hope Demonstration' (circa 1913), a fascinating film about children in the temperance movement.
The British Association for the Promotion of Temperance was formed in 1835 to combat alcohol abuse, which was seen as the main cause of social and criminal behavior. In 1847 the Band of Hope (temperance organisations for children) was founded. Children as young as six could enrol. Bands would meet weekly to hear lectures, sing, play music and participate in other activities, such as the marches seen in this film. With the growth of the railways, local temperance societies would often organise excursions for the children to seaside resorts. Public demonstrations were staged in the hope of attracting new members to fight the cause against the evils of alcohol.
For more information about 'Brighton & Hove Band of Hope Demonstration', contact Screen Archive South East. | <urn:uuid:3ee4aeaa-2c6e-4149-b83c-2b62a939e5cf> | CC-MAIN-2018-30 | http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/research/pmis/news/evils-of-drink-explored-in-manchester-exhibition | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-30/segments/1531676591543.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20180720061052-20180720081052-00082.warc.gz | en | 0.952972 | 272 | 2.828125 | 3 |
The word "Hyborian" is derived from the legendary northern land of the ancient Greeks, Hyperborea, and is rendered as such in the earliest draft of Howard's essay "The Hyborian Age." Howard described the Hyborian Age taking place sometime after the sinking of Atlantis and before the beginning of recorded history. Most later editors and adaptors such as L. Sprague de Camp and Roy Thomas placed The Hyborian Age around 10,000 B.C. More recently, Dale Rippke proposed that the Hyborian Age should be placed further in the past, around 32,500 B.C., prior to the beginning of the last ice age. Rippke's date, however, has since been disputed by Jeffrey Shanks who argues for the more traditional placement at the end of the ice age.
The reasons behind the invention of the Hyborian Age were perhaps commercial: Howard had an intense love for history and historical dramas; however, at the same time, he recognized the difficulties and the time-consuming research needed in maintaining historical accuracy. By conceiving a timeless setting – a vanished age – and by carefully choosing names that resembled our history, Howard avoided the problem of historical anachronisms and the need for lengthy exposition.
Although it is not represented in Howard's library, nor alluded to in his papers and correspondence, Patrice Louinet has suggested that Howard's conception of the Hyborian Age may have been heavily influenced by Thomas Bulfinch's The Outline of Mythology (1913), which acted as a catalyst that enabled Howard to "coalesce into a coherent whole his literary aspirations and the strong physical, autobiographical elements underlying the creation of Conan."
Howard explained the origins and history of the Hyborian civilization in his essay "The Hyborian Age." The essay begins with the civilizations of the Thurian Age, Lemuria, and Atlantis, mentioned in his series about Kull, being destroyed by a cataclysm.
According to the essay, after this cataclysm, a group of primitive humans were at a technological level hardly above the Neanderthal. They fled to the northern areas of what was left of the Thurian continent to escape the destruction. They discovered the areas to be safe but covered with snow and already inhabited by a race of carnivorous apes. The apes were large with white fur and apparently native to their land. The Stone Age invaders engaged in a territorial war with them and eventually managed to drive them off, past the Arctic Circle. Believing their enemies fated to perish and no longer interested in them, the recently arrived group adapted to their new, harsh environment and its population started to increase.
One thousand five hundred years later, the descendants of this initial group were called "Hyborians". They were named after their highest ranking god deity, Bori. (Howard possibly based this god on Búri, first god in Norse mythology, father of Borr and through him grandfather of Odin, Vili, and Ve).[original research?] The essay mentions that Bori had actually been a great tribal chief of their past who had undergone deification. Their oral tradition remembered him as their leader during their initial migration to the north though the antiquity of this man had been exaggerated.
By this point, the various related but independent Hyborian tribes had spread throughout the northern regions of their area of the world. Some of them were already migrating south at a "leisurely" pace in search of new areas in which to settle. The Hyborians had yet to encounter other cultural groups, but engaged in wars against each other. Howard describes them as a powerful and warlike race with the average individual being tall, tawny-haired, and gray-eyed. Culturally, they were already accomplished artists and poets. Most of the tribes still relied on hunting for their nourishment. Their southern offshoots, however, had been practicing animal husbandry on cattle for a number of centuries.
The only exception to their long isolation from other cultural groups came due to the actions of a lone adventurer, unnamed in the essay. He had traveled past the Arctic Circle and returned with news that their old adversaries, the apes, were not in fact annihilated. They had instead evolved into apemen, and according to his description were by then numerous. He believed they were quickly evolving to human status and would pose a threat to the Hyborians in the future. He attempted to recruit a significant military force to campaign against them, but most Hyborians were not convinced by his tales and at last only a small group of foolhardy youths followed his campaign. None of them returned.
Beginnings of the Hyborian Age
With the population of the Hyborian tribes continuing to increase, the need for new lands also increased. The Hyborians started expanding outside their familiar territories, beginning a new age of wanderings and conquests. For five hundred years, the Hyborians spread towards the south and the west of their nameless continent.
They encountered other tribal groups for the first time in millennia. They conquered many smaller clans of various origins. The survivors of the defeated clans merged with their conquerors, passing on their racial traits to new generations of Hyborians. The mixed-blooded Hyborian tribes were in turn forced to defend their new territories from pure-blooded Hyborian tribes which followed the same paths of migration. Often, the new invaders would wipe away the defenders before absorbing them, resulting in a tangled web of Hyborian tribes and nations with varying ancestral elements within their bloodlines.
The first organized Hyborian kingdom to emerge was Hyperborea. The tribe that established it entered their Neolithic age by learning to erect buildings in stone, largely for fortification. These nomads lived in tents made out of the hides of horses, but soon abandoned them in favor of their first crude but durable stone houses. They permanently settled in fortified settlements and developed cyclopean masonry to further fortify their defensive walls.
The Hyperboreans were by then the most advanced of the Hyborian tribes and set out to expand their kingdom by attacking their backwards neighbors. Tribes who defended their territories lost them and were forced to migrate elsewhere. Others fled the path of Hyperborean expansion before ever engaging them in war. Meanwhile, the "apemen" of the Arctic Circle emerged as a new race of light-haired and tall humans. They started their own migration to the south, displacing the northernmost of the Hyborian tribes.
Rulers of the West
For the next thousand years, the warlike Hyborian nations advanced to become the rulers of the western areas of the nameless continent. They encountered the Picts and forced them to limit themselves to the western wastelands, which would come to be known as the "Pictish Wilderness". Following the example of their Hyperborean cousins, other Hyborians started to settle down and create their own kingdoms.
The southernmost of the early ones was Koth, which was established north of the lands of Shem and soon started extending its cultural influence over the southern shepherds. Just south of the Pictish Wilderness was the fertile valley known as "Zing". The wandering Hyborian tribe which conquered them found other people already settled there. They included a nameless farming nation related to the people of the Shem and a warlike Pictish tribe who had previously conquered them. They established the kingdom of Zingara and absorbed the defeated elements into their tribe. Hyborians, Picts, and the unnamed kin of the Shemites would merge into a nation calling themselves Zingarans.
On the other hand at the north of the continent, the fair-haired invaders from the Arctic Circle had grown in numbers and power. They continued their expansion south while in turn displacing defeated Hyborians to the south. Even Hyperborea was conquered by one of these barbarian tribes. But the conquerors here decided to maintain the kingdom with its old name, merged with the defeated Hyperboreans and adopted elements of Hyborian culture. The continuing wars and migrations would keep the state of the other areas of the continent for another five hundred years.
The Hyborian Age was devised by author Robert E. Howard as the post-Atlantean setting of his Conan the Cimmerian stories, designed to fit in with Howard's previous and lesser known tales of Kull, which were set in the Thurian Age at the time of Atlantis. The name "Hyborian" is a contraction of the Greek concept of the land of "Hyperborea", literally "Beyond the North Wind". This was a mythical place far to the north that was not cold and where things did not age.
Howard's Hyborian epoch, described in his essay The Hyborian Age, is a mythical time before any civilization known to anthropologists. Its setting is prehistoric Europe and North Africa (with occasional references to Asia and other continents).
On a map Howard drew conceptualizing the Hyborian Age, his vision of the Mediterranean Sea is also dry. The Nile, which he renamed the River Styx, takes a westward turn at right angles just beyond the Nile Delta, plowing through the mountains so as to be able to reach the Straits of Gibraltar. Although his Black Sea is also dry, his Caspian Sea, which he renames the Vilayet Sea, extends northward to reach the Arctic Ocean, so as to provide a barrier to encapsulate the settings of his stories. Not only are his Baltic Sea and English Channel dry, but most of the North Sea and a vast region to the west, easily including Ireland, are, too. Meanwhile, the west coast of Africa on his map lies beneath the sea.
In his fantasy setting of the Hyborian Age, Howard created imaginary kingdoms to which he gave names from a variety of mythological and historical sources. Khitai is his version of China, lying far to the east, Corinthia is his name for a Hellenistic civilization, a name derived from the city of Corinth and reminiscent of the imperial fiefdom of Carinthia in the Middle Ages. Howard imagines the Hyborian Picts to occupy a large area to the northwest. The probable intended analogues are listed below; notice that the analogues are sometimes very generalized, and are portrayed by ahistorical stereotypes. Most of these correspondences are drawn from "Hyborian Names", an appendix to Conan the Swordsman by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter.
|Kingdom, Region, or Ethnic Group||Possible Analogue(s)|
|Acheron||A fallen kingdom corresponding to the Roman Empire. Its territory covered Aquilonia, Nemedia, and Argos. In Greek mythology, Acheron was one of the four rivers of Hades (cf. "Stygia").|
|Afghulistan||Afghanistan. Afghulistan (sometimes "Ghulistan") is the common name of the habitat of different tribes in the Himelian Mountains. The name itself is a mixture of the historical names of Gulistan and Afghanistan.|
|Alkmeenon||Delphi. Its name derives from the Alcmaeonidae, who funded the construction the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, from which the oracle operated.|
|Amazon||Mentioned in Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age essay, the kingdom of the Amazons refers to various legends of Greek Amazons, or more specifically to the Dahomey Amazons. In classical legend, Amazonia was a nation of warrior women in Asia Minor and North Africa. The legend may be based upon the Sarmatians, a nomadic Iranian tribe of the Kuban, whose women were required to slay an enemy before they might marry.|
|Aquilonia||A cross between the Roman Empire and Carolingian Empire. The name is borrowed from Aquilonia, a city of Southern Italy, between modern Venosa and Benevento; it is also an ancient name of Quimper and resembles that of Aquitaine, a French region ruled by England for a long portion of the Middle Ages. The name is derived from Latin aquilo(n–), "north wind".|
|Argos||Various seafaring traders of the Mediterranean. The name comes from the Argo, ship of the Argonauts; or perhaps from the city of Argos, Peloponnesos, reputedly the oldest city in Greece, situated at the head of the Gulf of Argolis near modern Nafplion. Also, hints of Italy in regards to the indigenous population's appearance, names and culture. Howard labels the populace of his Argos as "Argosseans", whereas the folk of the historical Argos are known as "Argives". In Hyborian Age cartography, Argos takes on the shape of a "shoe" in its border boundaries as compared to Italy appearing as a "boot". The coastal city of Messantia/Massantia derives its name from Massalia, the name given to Marseilles by its Greek founders.|
|Asgard||Dark Age Scandinavia. Ásgard is the home of the Æsir in Norse mythology. Howard states that the Baltic Sea would, post cataclysm, divide his fictional Asgard into the modern Norway, Sweden and Denmark according to The Hyborian Age essay.|
|Barachan Islands||The Caribbean Islands. The pirate town of Tortage takes its name from Tortuga.|
|Border Kingdoms||Geographically located over the modern German Baltic Sea coast. A lawless place full of savages, Conan once traveled through the Border Kingdom on his way to Nemedia. He befriended Mar the Piper and the King of the Border Kingdoms. He helped save the kingdom before returning to his quest to reach Nemedia.|
|Bossonian Marches||Wales, with an overlay of colonial-era North America. Possibly from Bossiney, a former parliamentary borough in Cornwall, South West England, which included Tintagel Castle, connected with the Matter of Britain.|
|Brythunia||The continental homelands of the Angles and Saxons who invaded Great Britain, which is the origin of the name. Semantically, the name Brythunia is from the Welsh Brython, "Briton", derived from the same root as the Latin Brito, Britannia, although Howard stated that the name was kept by the Æsir and Nemedians that settled there. The land is depicted geographically over modern Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia.|
|Cimmeria||Howard states in The Hyborian Age that "the Gaels, ancestors of the Irish and Highland Scots, descended from pure-blooded Cimmerian clans." He correlates Cimmeria to the Cymric people, the Cimbri, the Gimirrai, the Cimmerians and the Crimea. Geographically located over the modern Ireland, Scotland and England, since during the cataclysm which would mark the end of the said Hyborian Age, Cimmeria is said (according to the essay "The Hyborian Age" by R.E.Howard) to partially sink, surrounded by what would be the North Sea, its mountains dislocating into the British Isles.|
|Conajohara (Aquilonia)||The name may have been based on Canajoharie.|
|Corinthia||Ancient Greece. From Corinth (Korinthos), a rich city in Classical Greece. Possibly suggested to Howard by the Epistles to the Corinthians, or by the region of Carinthia.|
|Darfar||Howard derived this name from the region of Darfur, Sudan, in north-central Africa. Darfur is an Arabic language name meaning "abode (dar) of the Fur", the dominant people of the area. In changing the name to Darfar, Howard unwittingly changed the Arabic meaning to "the abode of mice". The original Darfur is now the westernmost part of the Republic of the Sudan.|
|Gunderland||Possibly from Gunderland of Hesbaye, a count in the Merovingian court, or from Gelderland a province in The Netherlands or from Gunther (Gundicar), King of Burgundy or Gunderic, King of the Vandals.|
|Hyperborea||Finland, Russia and the Baltic countries (Hyperborea) was a land in "outermost north" according to Greek historian Herodotus. Howard's Hyperborea is described as the first Hyborian kingdom, "which had its beginning in a crude fortress of boulders heaped to repel tribal attack".|
|Hyrkania||Mongolia, Hyrcania. In classical geography, a region southeast of the Caspian Sea or Hyrcanian Sea corresponding to the Iranian provinces of Golestan, Mazandaran and Gilan. The name is Greek for the Old Persian Varkana, one of the Achaemenid Empire satrapies, and survives in the name of the river Gorgan. The original meaning may have been "wolf land". In Iranian legend, Hyrcania was remarkable for its wizards, demons, wolves, spirits, witches and vampires.|
|Iranistan||An eastern land corresponding to modern Iran. Historically, the name of the country is derived from the Iran + the Persian istan, estan, "country".|
|Kambuja/Kambulja||The original name of Cambodia, now Kampuchea.|
|Keshan||The name comes from the "Kesh", the Egyptian name for Nubia.|
|Khauran||The name perhaps derives from the Hauran region of Syria.|
|Khitai||China. The name is derived from the Russian name for China, "Kitai" (Китай), which is related to the English word "Cathay" and Marco Polo's Cathay (kăthā'). Khitai is an ancient empire which is always at war with Kambuja to the south. The people of Khitai are yellow-skinned and of medium height. Khitai is ruled by a God-Emperor who's decisions are greatly influenced by The Scarlet Circle, a clan of some of the most powerful mage lords in all of Hyboria. Khitan laws flow from the overlord of the city-state. The culture of Khitai is similar to that of ancient China. The most prominent feature of Khitai is its Great Wall (similar to Great Wall of China) which protects it from foreign invasions from the north. The cities of Khitai are Ruo-Chen, Shu-Chen, Shaulum and the capital Paikang which contains the Jade Citadel, from where the God-Emperor rules over all of Khitai.|
|Khoraja||Constantinople and the Etruscans. and possibly the associated Principality of Antioch, County of Edessa and County of Tripoli, collectively known as Outremer. The name itself was inspired by the references of Sax Rohmer to the fictional city of Khorassa in The Mask of Fu Manchu novel.|
|Kosala||From the ancient Indo-Aryan kingdom of Kosala, corresponding roughly in area with the region of Oudh.|
|Kozaki||Semi-barbaric steppe-dwelling raiders analogous to the Cossacks.|
|Koth||From the ancient Hittites (the name Koth may come from the fact that the Hittites are called in the Bible the children of Heth, and the Egyptians called their land Kheta); The Kothian capital of Khorshemish corresponds to the Hittite capital of Carchemish. Perhaps from The Sign of Koth in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft. There is a town of Koth in Gujarat, India, but the connection is doubtful. Howard also used the same name in his interplanetary novel Almuric.|
|Kusan||Probably from the Kushan Empire.|
|Kush||From the kingdom of Kush, Nubia, North Africa.|
|Meru||Tibet. In Hindu mythology, Meru is the sacred mountain upon which the gods dwell.|
|Nemedia||A cross between Rome and Byzantium. Nemedia was the rival of Aquilonia (which corresponds to The Carolingians), and depended on Aesir mercenaries for their defence (as the Byzantine Empire hired Vikings as the Varangian Guard). The name comes from Nemed, leader of colonists from Scythia to Ireland in Irish mythology; perhaps the name is also meant to allude to Nemea, home to the Nemean Lion of Greek mythology. The name may also be suggestive of various names for Germany in Slavic languages, e.g. Czech Německo.|
|Ophir||Ancient Ophir, a gold-mining region in the Old Testament, possibly on the shores of the Red Sea or Arabian Sea (e.g. western Arabia), though clearly Howard saw it as situated somewhere in Italy.|
|Pathenia||Greenland. The name comes from the Greek word Parthenia meaning "virgin" or "untouched" since Pathenia is a forbidden country and its landscape has largely remain untouched from any human activity. It contains the dreaded snow apes and Yahlgan, the sacred city of Erlik, the flame-god.
NOTE: Pathenia is not an original Hyborian Age country.
|Pelishtim||Philistines (P'lishtim in Hebrew). The Pelishti city of Asgalun derives its name from Ashkelon. The Pelisti god Pteor or Baal-Pteor derives its name from the Moabite Baal-Peor.|
|Picts||Pre-Columbian America, with an overlay of North America during the European colonization of the Americas, possibly even colonial-era New York. Howard bestows names from Iroquoian languages on many of his Hyborian-Age Picts (but not the quasi-historical Picts featuring Bran Mak Morn). Note that the name "Pict" comes from the Latin language term for "painted one", which could be applicable to a number of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. The historical termed Picts were a confederation of Celtic tribes in central and northern Scotland which bordered Roman Britain.|
|Poitain||A combination of Poitou and Aquitaine, two regions in southwestern France. From the 10th to the mid-12th century, the counts of Poitou were also the dukes of Aquitaine.|
|Punt||The Land of Punt on the Horn of Africa. A place with which the ancient Egyptians traded, probably Somaliland.|
|Shem||Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, and Arabia. In the Bible, Shem is Noah's eldest son, the ancestor of the Hebrews, Arabs and Assyrians; hence, the modern "Semite" and Semitic languages (via Greek Sem), used properly to designate the family of languages spoken by these peoples.|
|Stygia||Egypt. The name comes from Styx, a river of the Greek underworld in Greek mythology. In earlier times the territory of Stygia included Shem, Ophir, Corinthia, and part of Koth. Stygia is ruled by a theocracy of sorcerer-kings.The people are dark skinned. Most of the common people are descendants of the various races across the world.They worship the serpent god Set. Stygia's terrain is a mix of mountains, desert, plains, and marshes. The Styx river flows through Stygia into the sea.|
|Turan||Persian name for Turkestan. A Turkish land, possibly referring to the Gokturk Empire, the Timurid Empire, or the Seljuk Empire. The name derives from Turan, the areas of Eurasia occupied by speakers of Ural–Altaic languages. The names of the various Turanian cities (e.g. Aghrapur, Sultanapur, Shahpur) are often in Persian language. King Yezdigerd is named after Yazdegerd III, ruler of the Sassanid Empire. The name of King Yildiz means star in the Turkish language. The city of Khawarizm takes its name from Khwarezm, and Khorusun from Khorasan.|
|Uttara Kuru||From the medieval Uttara Kuru Kingdom at the north and central of Pakistan.
NOTE: Uttara Kuru is not an original Hyborian Age country.
|Vanaheim||Dark Age Scandinavia. Vanaheim is the home of the Vanir in Norse mythology|
|Vendhya||India (the Vindhya Range is a range of hills in central India). The name means "rent" or "ragged", i.e. having many passes.|
|Wadai (tribe)||The Wadai Empire in present-day Chad.|
|Wazuli (tribe)||The Waziri tribe in northwest Pakistan.|
|Zamora||The Romani people. The name comes from the city of Zamora, Zamora province, Castile-León, Spain, alluding to the Gitanos of Spain (see Zingara for discussion); or possibly it is based on the word "Roma". There may also be some reference to southern Italy, as Zamorans dance the tarantella in honor of their spider-god (variously known as Omm and Zath). Also hints of ancient Israel and Palestine.|
|Zembabwei||The Munhumutapa Empire. The name comes from Great Zimbabwe, a ruined fortified town in Rhodesia, first built around the 11th century and used as the capital of the Munhumutapa Empire. Oddly, this is the same root as the modern name for the Republic of Zimbabwe.|
|Zingara||Spain/Portugal. Iberian Peninsula as a whole. Zingara is also Italian for "Gipsy woman"; this may mean that Howard mixed up the source names of Zingara and Zamora, with Zingara originally meant to apply to the Roma kingdom, and Zamora to the Spanish kingdom.|
|Zuagir (tribe)||The name is perhaps derived from a combination of Tuareg and Uyghur.|
|Other Geographic Features|
|Amir Jehun Pass||Takes its name from a combination of the Amu Darya river and the Gihon river (Jayhoun in Arabic), which has been identified by some with the Amu Darya. Perhaps corresponds to the Broghol Pass, which is near the headwaters of the Amu Darya in Wakhan.|
|The Himelian Mountains||Take their name the Himalayas but correspond more closely to the Hindu Kush or Karakoram ranges.|
|The Karpash Mountains||The Carpathian Mountains.|
|The Poitanian Mountains||The Pyrenees, which are just south of the Aquitaine region of France.|
|The River Styx||The river Styx runs northward through Stygia, following the course of the historical Nile river. Then it turns and runs westward through Shem, following the historical Mediterranean Sea, finally emptying into the western ocean. Styx in classical mythology, is the River of the Dead, and this symbology is used in The Hour of the Dragon.|
|The River Alimane||Alamana river, (present Spercheios) in Greece. It may also be a reference to the Alemanni.|
|Vilayet Sea||Geographically, the Caspian Sea. The name comes from vilayet, the term for administrative regions in the Ottoman Empire.|
|Zhaibar Pass||The Khyber Pass which has been the traditional borderline between Afghanistan and Pakistan.|
|Zaporoska River||The Dnieper river and/or the Don and/or the Volga. The river's name was probably influenced by Zaporizhian Sich, a settlement of the Ukrainian Cossacks in Zaporizhzhia (region). It was situated on the Dnieper river, below the Dnieper rapids (porohy, poroz.a), hence the name, translated as "territory beyond the rapids".|
|Wikisource has original text related to this article:|
- de Camp, L. Sprague, Lin Carter, and Björn Nyberg (1978), "Hyborian Names", Conan the Swordsman, Bantam Books, ISBN 0-553-20582-X
- Howard, Robert, E. (2002a [1936, 1938]), "The Hyborian Age", The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, Del Rey Books, ISBN 0-345-46151-7
- Howard, Robert, E. (2002b ), "The Phoenix on the Sword", The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, Del Rey Books, ISBN 0-345-46151-7
- Louinet, Patrice (2002), "Hyborian Genesis Part I", The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, Del Rey Books, ISBN 0-345-46151-7
- Rippke, Dale (2004), The Hyborian Heresies, Wild Cat Books, ISBN 978-1-4116-1608-0
- Shanks, Jeffrey (2011), "Theosophy and the Thurian Age: Robert E. Howard and the Works of William Scott-Elliot", The Dark Man: The Journal of Robert E. Howard Studies 6 (1-2): 53–90
- Shanks, Jeffrey (2012), "Hyborian Age Archeology: Unearthing Historical and Anthropological Foundations", in Prida, Jonas, Conan Meets the Academy: Multidisciplinary Essays on the Enduring Barbarian, McFarland & Co, ISBN 978-0786461523 | <urn:uuid:02eab5e0-c93f-4113-a8cf-bfcc052b0dd6> | CC-MAIN-2014-35 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stygia_(Conan) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-35/segments/1408500826343.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20140820021346-00343-ip-10-180-136-8.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943588 | 6,338 | 3.421875 | 3 |
||Demolished / Renovated:
||Ashley, PA United States of America
The site on which the enormous breaker sits on in Ashley PA, was once the location of another gargantuan coal breaker called the "Maxwell #20." It was a wooden structure built by the Lehigh & Wilkes-Barre Coal Company, and was named after the company's president at the time, Roger Maxwell; the foundation was laid in 1892 and opened in 1895. The Lehigh & Wilkes-Barre Coal Company merged with and took the name of The Glen Alden Company sometime in 1920, forming one of the largest coal operations in the area.
In 1938, a new breaker was constructed to meet the demands of the bustling Anthracite coal industry in Northern Pennsylvania; it was named "Huber #20" after Glen Alden's chairman, Charles F. Huber. This 1938 photo
shows the Huber Breaker being built behind the old Maxwell breaker in the foreground. The breaker was built with some unique features, such as extensive window glass to utilize the most daylight possible, as well as tar coated sheet metal to reduce rust damage. It was able to prepare 7,000 tons of coal daily, and was one of the first plants to be able to separate different coal sizes using six Menzies Cone Separators. The company experimented with dyeing the coal a blue color - not for a scientific purpose but as an identifier, however it was marketed and advertised as a major selling point called "Blue Coal."
This entire location was a colliery; the anthracite coal was mined on-site, processed, then loaded onto trains for distribution. The process of "breaking" coal is actually like a giant sifter - the coal is brought to the top of the breaker and dropped through screens with holes of various sizes and other machinery, letting the smaller pieces fall to the bottom.
The facility was abandoned in 1976 as the demand for the mining industry in the region declined, and the area has been left exposed to scrappers and vandals since. The Huber Breaker Preservation Society was formed in 2001 and hopes to re-use the property as a historical site and park.
For more history and information, visit The Huber Breaker Preservation Society
, as well as the resources at the American Library of Congress | <urn:uuid:5a7a7f1d-4773-40c4-835b-6dd7e3dacd9b> | CC-MAIN-2013-48 | http://www.opacity.us/site193_ashley_huber_breaker_blue_coal.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-48/segments/1386163055217/warc/CC-MAIN-20131204131735-00043-ip-10-33-133-15.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960569 | 475 | 2.875 | 3 |
There is an annual tradition in ChangLe where thousands of devout spiritualists would parade through the town to celebrate the birthday of Guan Gong, ushering the Gods and Goddesses from one temple to another. The ceremony was followed by towering guard costumes, protecting the lords and subsequently, the fortune of our village.
In hindsight, this parade totally flies against our perception of a Maoist vision for China. A vision where the great “leap” requires letting go of the past we’ve relied on to carve out our identities. A deeper dive into Fujianese history would suggest that this freedom of cultural/religious expression is driven largely by the deep rooted migratory culture.
The Stomping Ground for International Trades
As early as the 15th century, Xiamen (major port city in Fujian) became a dominant hub for exchanges between China and Southeast Asian countries. For 400 years right through the Qing Dynasty, Fujianese merchants explored far into the Pacific Islands. This helped to establish Fujianese (Hokkienese) communities in neighboring countries such as Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines.The network was so extensive that I have even run across Mexicans who can trace their lineage back to Fujian.
A Lesson In Maoist Poverty
No other countries have stronger Fujianese ties than Taiwan. The rise of Maoism drove the Nationalist movement out of China and into the neighboring strait of Taiwan. This raised the political tension between the two states and left Fujian in the middle of the dispute. For the next few decades, fear of a Nationalist resurgence led the Communist government to minimize economic development in Fujian, forcing the once thriving exchange economy into agricultural labor. The irony is that this policy further strengthened the relationship among the Fujianese and Taiwanese. Over the course of 30 years, the Taiwanese government developed migration brokerage programs to aid Fujianese with immigration around the world, including South America, Eastern Europe, and the U.S.
A Generation Aspired
Communism ushered in a whole new period of economic uncertainty. Annual household income in the ‘70s for Fujianese were less than $300/year. Migrants in Europe and North America were making around $1,000/month! Stories of successful migrants quickly permeated and inspired a positive feedback loop that led to millions of Fujianese migrating abroad.
Remittance or the money sent back to their family compelled a whole new set of cultural values for migration and entrepreneurship. In 1995, officials had estimated that hundreds of millions of dollars were transferred back to Fujian from countries all over. On top of this sudden and ostentatious wealth, migrant funds were used to develop public projects such as schools, entertainment and cultural centers. Parades, such as the Guan Gong Ceremony, were suddenly tolerated by the once secular government. In fact, governments openly praised the migrants and went as far as sponsoring foreign employment. To the communities in these villages, migrants were considered heroes who collectively (through their sacrifice) brought them out of poverty.
Brazilian boys wanted to play like Pele. Kids from the south-side of Chicago want to be like Jordan. American millennials want to be the next Zuckerberg. In the ‘70s, Fujianese boys fresh from high school aspired to travel the world in search of a windfall. The stories fueled a whole new generation of young men looking to move abroad (by legal and illegal means). Some found successes while others discovered tragedy through these perilous journeys. What’s remarkable is that these young men would go on to create transnational communities with cross cultural identities that even the Gods and Goddesses themselves could not have foreseen. | <urn:uuid:c55ee283-be21-4e6e-810c-9f2a59134d27> | CC-MAIN-2018-34 | https://chooselyf.com/2017/01/25/3_reasons_why_fujianese_are_literally_everywhere/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-34/segments/1534221210463.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20180816054453-20180816074453-00080.warc.gz | en | 0.95574 | 751 | 2.984375 | 3 |
The next time you find yourself outside on a warm summer’s night, look up at the sky. If you are lucky you will be able to see it lit up with tiny dots called stars. Realize that these stars are probably million of light years away, and the light you are seeing is quite ancient. Some of the stars that you are seeing may be dead by now. Allow me to explain: we can see stars that are million of light years away, but we are seeing light that the star emitted the same amount of time ago as the distance from us. For example: if we are seeing light from a star 100,000,000 light years away, the light we are seeing is 100,000,000 light years old. This may be a difficult concept to grasp, but it is beautiful and amazing that the human mind can grasp such ideas. I find this to be far more beautiful than anything religion has given us (one man’s opinion). However, lets look at history. The old teachings of the Church, in relation to the universe, said that we were living in a geocentric (Earth is the center of the universe) universe, the earth was “created” in 6 days, and all objects in the heavens (universe that we could see from looking to the sky) were perfect objects (for example they said that the moon and the sun and all the stars are perfect spheres. So lets break these down one at a time:
1. The geocentric view of the universe.
– Aristarchus of Samos – 310 BCE – 230 BCE. This man figured out what causes lunar eclipses. He reasoned that the shadow of the earth caused the lunar eclipse. Why is this important? Because of his model of how it was actually the earth that moves around the sun, not the other way around. However, his works were ignored and never really came to light. However, as you cans see in the Stephen Hawking video, the inquisitive nature of human being prevailed when Galileo discovered that Venus had gibbous phases. He took from Aristarchus’ works and realized that if Venus traveled around the earth then it would not have phases. This is a very simplistic explanation, for a better one read this. Galileo, made another surprising discovery. He discovered that Jupiter has 4 moons that orbit it (for more information watch the Stephen Hawking video on my Fun Media page. This was such a revolutionary discovery that the Church ordered him to denounce his findings and they put him under house arrest. I am often quite skeptical when Church officials say that science and religion are compatible.
3. Ah yes, the age old story in Genesis, that God created the earth in six days and God rested on the seventh. This has been disproved time and time again. So in order that the bible doesn’t contradict itself the Vatican put a whole lot of spin on it. They said that the Genesis account of creation has to be interpreted allegorically. In other words, instead of saying that the story is wrong (which it is) they decided to put a whole lot of spin on the story, showing they are too proud to admit fault or that they were just plain wrong. Why are they wrong? Let’s take a look at it scientifically. We now know that the Universe was started with what we call the Big Bang. As it turn out the entire universe started out in a single point, smaller than an atom. It was made of pure energy that expanded into the universe (for a more in depth explanation click the “big bang” link for Stephen Hawking’s explanation). What evidence do we have of the Big Bang? As I said before, the Big Bang started as pure energy, that is reflected in the temperature of the universe. It is called the Black Body Radiation and it proves two things: 1.) the universe was once smaller and hotter, and 2.) the universe is around 14 (13.7) billion years old. What evidence corroborates this? In the 1920s and 30s a man named Edwin Hubble discovered that the Universe is still expanding. This is shown through Hubble’s Law. Hubble’s Law says that (1) all objects observed in deep space (intergalactic space) are found to have a Doppler shift observable relative velocity to Earth, and to each other; and (2) that this Dopplershiftmeasured velocity, of various galaxies receding from the Earth, is proportional to their distance from the Earth and all other interstellar bodies. To better understand this think of a cup filled with water that has been turned upside down on a table (so as the contents doesn’t leave the cup). Now imagine that cup tipping over and the water spilling out on the table and the water spill becomes much more wide spread than it was in the cup. I would suggest reading on Hubble’s theory of expansion. Stephen Hawking says that before the Big Bang time did not exist, nothing existed, therefore there was no room for a creator to exist. This certainly gave me something to think about.
4. The objects of the heavens (stars and planets) are perfect spheres.
– Galileo also made quite an exciting discovery (which probably contributed to him
becoming blind). The sun actually has sunspots. This proved that the sun was NOT a perfect object AND actually rotates once every 27 (to 31 days depending on where you are on the earth). We have discovered craters on the moon from millions of years of meteor impacts. All of this thoroughly debunks the claim that the early church made that all heavenly bodies are perfect spheres.
This post is actually in response to something that a teacher of mine said. He told the that Richard Dawkins said that he has faith in science that it will answer all of our questions about the natural world. My teacher said that this was the same as having faith in religion, but I disagreed without really having an answer as to why I disagree. I specialize in studying history (although much of the information above is from an astronomy class that I took, I highly recommend taking one yourself if you have the opportunity) so I looked through history. As you can see science has proved again and again that the biblical accounts and religious views of the universe are wrong, so the conclusion that the facts point to is that Dawkins is being rational by saying that he has faith that science will eventually explain the natural world. Although, if I could talk to Dawkins I would suggest that he say that he is not faithful (because faith is believing in something without evidence) because he has historic and scientific evidence that science will explain the many quirks of the natural world. Faith really has nothing to do with it.
The other purpose of this post is to restore wonder to the Universe. The Universe is a curious place filled with mysteries that human beings have only scratched the surface of. When I contemplate the many wonders of the natural world I am filled with awe and inspiration. It is truly a wonderful feeling that I wish I could share with everyone. I think that science discovering these many intricate laws and workings of the Universe further adds to the grandeur that is life. I will leave you with this quote
“It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependant on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us.” ~ Charles Darwin | <urn:uuid:04316b88-2066-4cca-8607-7378e0860fed> | CC-MAIN-2018-13 | https://theburdenofevidence.wordpress.com/2013/03/20/the-universe/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-13/segments/1521257647556.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20180321004405-20180321024405-00494.warc.gz | en | 0.975177 | 1,556 | 3.40625 | 3 |
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