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Yes I'm a few days late for David Kelly’s Learning Styles ‘Awareness’ Day, so I hope you forgive me. While most of the recent posts on using learning styles in instructional design have been mainly against using them, I'm going to take a slightly different position—not that we need to cater to each individual style, but that learning styles may be helpful when designing learning platforms. So far the learning style debate has been mostly two tiles of a different color laid side by side—you are either fer it or agin it—we should assess student learning styles to improve learner outcome verses learning style assessments are unreliable, thus they should not never be used. However, I see the debate more as a mosaic that allows multiple patterns to occur. Sensing and Intuitive Learning Styles Perhaps the most critical study on learning styles is Coffield, Moseley, Hall, and Ecclestone's Learning styles and pedagogy in post-16 learning: A systematic and critical review. While the authors mostly found that matching the form of instruction to individual learning styles did not improve learning, there are some interesting exceptions throughout their paper, for example, on page 67 they write: “More positively still, Katz (1990) in a quasi-experimental study of 44 occupational therapy students in the US and 50 in Israel, hypothesised that students whose learning styles matched the teaching method would perform better (ie more effectively) and would need less time to study outside class (ie more efficiently). The findings in both countries supported the premise that ‘the better the match is between students' individual characteristics and instructional components, the more effective or efficient the learning program is’ (Katz 1990, 233). But even this conclusion needed to be qualified as it applied only to higher-order cognitive outcomes and not to basic knowledge.” So in search of a good paper on using learning styles in higher order cognitive skills I came across this paper, An Investigation into the Learning Styles and Self-Regulated Learning Strategies for Computer Science Students, by Alharbi, Paul, Henskens, and Hannaford. For their study they use the Felder-Silverman Learning Style model that uses four dimensions: - Perception (Sensing or Intuitive) describes the ways in which learners tend to perceive information. Sensing learners prefer to learn facts, are comfortable with details, and tend to solve problems using well-established methods. Intuitive learners prefer abstract concepts, theories, and mathematical formulas, and seek innovation and new ideas when solving problems. - Input (Visual or Verbal) distinguishes between learners based on their preferred medium for the presentation of information. Visual learners prefer to learn using visual medium of presentations, such as pictures, charts, and diagrams. Verbal learners prefer spoken or written materials. Both types of learners benefit when material is delivered using a combination of visual, verbal, and written forms. - Processing (Active or Reflective) evaluates learners based on the way they process information. Active learners prefer to learn material by using it, whereas reflective learners prefer to think about how things work before actually trying them out. Active learners are typically more comfortable working in groups than reflective learners. - Understanding (Sequential or Global) looks at how users understand new information. Sequential learners like to follow a step-by-step linear approach that focuses on the connections between the different parts of the learning material. Global learners prefer to grasp the full picture before narrowing into the details. The study was not about assessing the learners' styles and then catering to their preferred styles but rather assessing them on the above dimensions and then testing them on a core computer science course to see how each dimension performed. The author's correlation analysis showed that while three of the dimensions (Input, Processing, and Understanding) were not statistically significant; the Perception dimension had a significant impact on the students' results in the examination, with the t-tests confirming that sensing students were significantly outperformed by intuitive students. The authors note that the majority of students in the study (65.8%) were sensing learners, with 39.5% having a moderate or strong preference to that learning style. However, 21.0% of students have a moderate or strong preference to intuitive learning over sensing learning. This suggests that there is a need for learning material for both types of learners, but the greater emphasis should be placed on reducing abstraction to better meet the requirements of the sensing learners, especially when it is seen that intuitive learners performed significantly better on the midterm examination. While it was just one study, it did seem to follow the patterns of a couple of studies discussed in the Coffield et al. paper: - Woolhouse and Bayne (2000) noted that individual differences in the use of intuition are correlated with the sensing-intuitive dimension (p50) - Allinson and Hayes (1996) report that intuitive students performed significantly better than analytic students on the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (p85) The authors write that instructors often tend to use more intuitive type instructions (abstract concepts, theories, etc.), rather than the more sensing types of instruction (such as facts, details, and problem-solving methods). While this might at first seem laudable in that they are trying to teach the learners to operate in a more complex world that seeks innovation and new ideas when solving problem, learners often need a basic scaffold of facts and basic problem-solving methods. Yes, some of the learning platforms that we might be providing are for complex environments that do not have proven problem-solving methods, but the least we should do is provide them with some simple facts and heuristics. For example, branching scenarios are often used in elearning platforms but we expect them to jump right in and guess their way through the activity. An example of this is that one of the myths in our profession is that ISD or ADDIE was only designed for classrooms and there is a lack of rules for when classroom training should be used (we use it more often than it is needed), but the Armed Forces came up with a simple heuristic back in the 1980s - ADDIE Does More Than Classrooms. Thus this heuristic should be given to learners studying to be instructional/learning designers BEFORE they attempt to do a branching scenario or similar activity. The Continuum of Learning Styles In the Coffield et al. paper they note that the various theories of learning styles can be placed on a continuum (pp 9-10) as shown in the chart below. The ones on the left are considered more constitutionally fixed styles (innate) while the ones to the right are considered more flexible: Click to bring up a larger chart in a new window The Sensing and Intuitive learning styles discussed above fall on the right side of the continuum, thus depending upon the learner's knowledge and skills, the subject or task, and/or the type of instruction, a learner could fall on either the sensing or intuitive side of the dimension (however, from the studies noted in this post, the majority seem to fall on the sensing side). One of the styles that fall strongly on the left side of the continuum is VAK (Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic), which poses a conundrum in learning styles. The VAK Conundrum In an interesting study, Visual Learners Convert Words to Pictures, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology was used to scan subjects' brains while they performed a novel psychological task involving pictures that could be easily named and words that could be easily imagined. They found that the more strongly an individual identified with a visual cognitive style, the more they activated the visual cortex when reading words. Conversely, fMRI scans also showed that the more strongly an individual identified with a verbal cognitive style, the more activity they exhibited in a region of the brain associated with phonological cognition when faced with a picture. Thus it seems our tendency to identify with being a visual or verbal learning is hardwired in us, however, visual preference does not always equal spatial aptitude (Ruth Clark & Chopeta Lyons, Graphics for Learning, 2004). Spatial aptitude is the ability to generate and retrain spatial images as well as transform images in ways that support visual reasoning. Thus the conundrum—we may identify with being a visual or verbal learner (indeed, we may even be wired for one or the other), but it does not mean we are a good visual or verbal learner! Thus if we know what style our preference is, we need to think twice if we attempt to train others or learn something on our own if the learning method matches our style. However, Clark and Lyons give us a few rules to follow: 1. Learners with low prior knowledge need graphics that are congruent with text (and preferably the text should be audio to prevent cognitive overload). 2. Learners with high prior knowledge need only words or visuals; not both, but one study did suggest that the diagram alone was best. 3. Encourage visual literacy. Some learners tend to view visuals as fluff, thus they tend to ignore them even though they might be their best means of learning. One method of encouraging their use is to use a visual and ask a question that can only be derived by examining the visual. My Three Tiles in the Mosaic of Learning Styles Sensing and Intuitive Learning Styles, The Continuum of Learning Styles, and The VAK Conundrum are my three tiles in the mosaic of learning styles. What are yours?
Kale belongs to the cabbage family and is eaten the world over. There are two types of kale; - One which has crikly and curly leaves - The other that has smooth leaves. Of the two types of kale, curly kale is the most common. Kale has a very strong and distinct flavour and has leaves that green with tints of blue or purple. So can guinea pigs eat kale, and if they can how much can they eat? Lets take a look at its nutritional data to get a better understanding of its content. Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz) Energy 117 kJ (28 kcal) Carbohydrates 5.63 g – Sugars 1.25 g – Dietary fiber 2 g Fat 0.4 g Protein 1.9 g Water 91.2 g Vitamin A equiv. 681 μg (85%) – beta-carotene 8173 μg (76%) – lutein and zeaxanthin 18246 μg Thiamine (vit. B1) 0.053 mg (5%) Riboflavin (vit. B2) 0.07 mg (6%) Niacin (vit. B3) 0.5 mg (3%) Vitamin B6 0.138 mg (11%) Folate (vit. B9) 13 μg (3%) Choline 0.4 mg (0%) Vitamin C 41 mg (49%) Vitamin E 0.85 mg (6%) Vitamin K 817 μg (778%) Calcium 72 mg (7%) Iron 0.9 mg (7%) Magnesium 18 mg (5%) Manganese 0.416 mg (20%) Phosphorus 28 mg (4%) Potassium 228 mg (5%) Sodium 23 mg (2%) Zinc 0.24 mg (3%) What we are looking for with guinea pig food are those that are low in phosphorus, calcium, sugar, fat and oxelate. We are also looking for good amounts of vitamin and c, vitamin C in particular supplements the lack of vitamin c produced by a guinea pig’s body. Kale has huge amount of vitamin c which is great news for piggies, but it does contain small amounts of oxelate, phosphorus, and calcium which makes it a food that should not be fed daily. Once a week should suffice in small amounts. Its worth feeding however, for the huge vitamin c supplement. This is the same for both curly kale and smooth leaf kale.
Universe.swf (application/x-shockwave-flash Object) 12 Events That Will Change Everything, Made Interactive. Cell Size and Scale. Some cells are visible to the unaided eye The smallest objects that the unaided human eye can see are about 0.1 mm long. That means that under the right conditions, you might be able to see an ameoba proteus, a human egg, and a paramecium without using magnification. A magnifying glass can help you to see them more clearly, but they will still look tiny. Smaller cells are easily visible under a light microscope. Welcome to the Best Riddles on the web.
Mud fever in horses Most horse owners have heard of, and are hopefully familiar with, the term “mud fever.” Mud fever, also known as pastern dermatitis or scratches, is a fairly common skin condition in horses during the wetter months of the year. While mud fever is not usually a serious condition, it can be pretty uncomfortable for your horse and, if left untreated, can lead to more severe problems. In this blog post, we will discuss what causes mud fever, how to prevent it, and how to treat it if your horse develops it. Mud fever is a common condition that affects horses during the wet, cold winter months. Mud fever is a common condition that affects horses throughout the winter and is often caused by cold weather, wet conditions, or muddy paddocks. Affected horses typically suffer from painful sores and irritated skin on their lower legs just above and below the ankles, as well as swollen glands and hair loss. To effectively treat mud fever, it’s essential to keep your horse’s legs dry between rides and groom them afterward, applying a therapeutic ointment such as Heal Cream or Fungus Fighter to affected areas of their skin. Regularly checking your horse’s legs for signs of mud fever (such as itching or inflammation) can help catch an infection in its early stages, so don’t delay in seeing a vet for professional advice if you suspect your horse has it. Mud fever can be treated with antibiotics and other medication, but it is vital to catch it early. Mud fever is a skin ailment that affects the lower legs of horses and can cause them to experience considerable discomfort. Although it is not life-threatening, you should address it promptly to relieve the animal’s suffering and limit its recurrences. You can treat mud fever with antibiotics, poultices, and other medications. However, since treatment tends to be most effective when caught earlier in the infection process and symptoms are usually mild initially, it is important to pay close attention to any irritation in your horse’s lower legs. Taking appropriate steps early on can help prevent the condition from deteriorating into something more serious. Some preventive measures include keeping your horse’s stall clean and dry and using fly sheets or turnouts during wet weather. Keeping a horse’s stall clean and dry is essential to their health and well-being. Stalls that are damp or have a lot of waste can create an environment where bacteria and viruses thrive, leading to equine diseases or conditions. For this reason, routine cleaning with disinfectants or bleach may be necessary to provide the safest environment for your horse. Along with cleaning the stall, using turnout rugs during wet weather can help protect your horse from external irritants that may cause skin allergies or diseases. Taking preventive measures such as these helps ensure your horse’s best quality of life. If you think your horse has mud fever, contact your veterinarian immediately. Mud fever, or pastern dermatitis, is a skin condition that can affect horses and ponies. It affects the lower leg and can be very uncomfortable for your horse. Signs to look for include scabs, crusts, and areas of hair loss on the lower legs. If left untreated, it can cause severe damage to the skin, so it’s essential to get your horse seen by a veterinarian as soon as possible. The veterinarian will be able to diagnose the condition correctly and provide an appropriate treatment plan based on the severity of your horse’s case. Contact your veterinarian immediately if you think your horse has it. Mud fever can be a bothersome condition for horses, so taking steps to reduce the risk of your horse contracting it is crucial. Keeping stalls and turnouts clean and dry is an important way of reducing the chance that your horse will contract it. However, if you think your horse has contracted mud fever, even if it is still in the early stages, contact your veterinarian immediately so they can assess further treatments and provide appropriate advice. Taking these preventative measures now can help ensure your horse stays healthy during winter.
Anthony was, however, among the first known to go into the wilderness (about AD 270), which seems to have contributed to his renown. The branches of humility are modesty, unpretentiousness and respect. Here he spent the last forty-five years of his life, in a seclusion, not so strict as Pispir, for he freely saw those who came to visit him, and he used to cross the desert to Pispir with considerable frequency. , Anthony found next the satyr, a "a manikin with hooked snout, horned forehead, and extremities like goats's feet." However, belief in the existence of Paul seems to have existed quite independently of the Life. , The fame of Anthony spread and reached Emperor Constantine, who wrote to him requesting his prayers. , For the next fifteen years, Anthony remained in the area, spending the first years as the disciple of another local hermit. , A continuation of the genre of secular Greek biography, it became his most widely read work. Anthony was interred, according to his instructions, in a grave next to his cell. He is, however, regarded as the "first master of the desert and the pinnacle of holy monks", and there are monastic communities of the Maronite, Chaldean, and Orthodox churches which state that they follow his monastic rule. Written in Greek around 360 by Athanasius of Alexandria, it depicts Anthony as an illiterate and holy man who through his existence in a primordial landscape has an absolute connection to the divine truth, which always is in harmony with that of Athanasius as the biographer. The first to report on the temptation was his contemporary Athanasius of Alexandria. Translated into several languages, it became something of a best seller in its day and played an important role in the spreading of the ascetic ideal in Eastern and Western Christianity. There, Jocelin undertook to build a church to house the remains, but died before the church was even started. Athanasius' biography helped propagate Anthony's ideals. He is said to have lived until he was 105yrs. There are comparatively few icons and paintings of him. Nevertheless, St. Anthony was most known for his eloquent and compelling preaching. , Though Anthony himself did not organize or create a monastery, a community grew around him based on his example of living an ascetic and isolated life. Anthony or Antony the Great (Greek: Ἀντώνιος Antṓnios; Arabic: القديس انطونيوس بادية مصر; Latin: Antonius; Coptic: Ⲁⲃⲃⲁ Ⲁⲛⲧⲱⲛⲓ; c. 12 January 251 – 17 January 356), was a Christian monk from Egypt, revered since his death as a saint. Emphasis on these stories, however, did not really begin until the Middle Ages when the psychology of the individual became of greater interest. St. Anthony the Great persevered in a steady discipline with continual zeal his entire life. St. Anthony was born in 1195 (13 years after St. Francis of Assisi) in Lisbon, which is now known as Portugal. Anthony is said to have spoken to those of a spiritual disposition, leaving the task of addressing the more worldly visitors to Macarius. , In 338, he left the desert temporarily to visit Alexandria to help refute the teachings of Arius. Anthony is credited with assisting in a number of miraculous healings, primarily from ergotism, which became known as "St. Anthony's Fire". In 1220 he joined the Franciscan order, hoping to preach to the Saracens (Muslims) and be martyred. His feast day, 13 June, is Lisbon's municipal holiday, celebrated with parades and marriages (the previous day, 12 June, is the Dia dos Namorados in Brazil). There he lived strictly enclosed in an old abandoned Roman fort for some 20 years. At the request of the brethren, Anthony was later commissioned also to teach theology, "but in such a manner, St Francis distinctly wrote, "that the spirit of prayer be not extinguished either in yourself or in the other brethren." The Latin translation helped the Life become one of the best known works of literature in the Christian world, a status it would hold through the Middle Ages.. , Anthony is sometimes considered the first monk, and the first to initiate solitary desertification, but there were others before him. I am sent to represent my tribe. Although chroniclers sometimes postulated they might have been living beings, Western theology considers to have been demons. Saint Anthony is invoked as the “Saint of Miracles” and the finder of lost articles, he is known as the patron Saint of poor, and also of women who cannot conceive. St. Athanasius, also known as Athanasius the Great and Athanasius the Confessor, was a bishop and doctor of the church. To the surprise of all, he appeared to be not emaciated, but healthy in mind and body. Wonder worker. He is known by numerous titles including, the Father of all Monks, Anthony the Great, Anthony of Egypt, Anthony the Abbot, Anthony of the Desert, Anthony the Anchorite and Anthony of Thebes. He preached against the vices of luxury, avarice and tyranny. Page 1. He then left to live an ascetic life, placing his sister with a group of Christian virgins. Anthony of Egypt St Anthony (251-356) was born into a wealthy landowner family in Coma, Egypt. A tree could not grow strong, bear fruit, or live a long life unless its roots are established deep in the ground. He is the patron saint of lost things, the poor and travelers and his name is often chosen as a confirmation name. All of a sudden a bright light flashed, and the demons ran away. St. Anthony was a Franciscan (a member of the religious order founded by St. Francis of Assisi) who was known as a great preacher and theological instructor. , Anthony was not the first ascetic or hermit, but he may properly be called the "Father of Monasticism" in Christianity, as he organized his disciples into a community and later, following the spread of Athanasius's hagiography, was the inspiration for similar communities throughout Egypt and, elsewhere. Even after his death, … Anthony’s popularity as a saint reached its height in the Middle Ages. The brethren were pleased with the Emperor's letter, but Anthony was not overawed and wrote back exhorting the Emperor and his sons not to esteem this world but remember the next. He celebrated many church events during his feast day that is January 17. His remains were reportedly discovered in 361, and transferred to Alexandria. The black-robed Hospitallers, ringing small bells as they collected alms, were a common sight in many parts of western Europe. Legendary accounts claim Abgar wrote to Christ asking Jesus to cure him of an intolerable and incurable illness. After that, he moved to one of the tombs near his native village. He is called the "Father of Orthodoxy," the "Pillar of the Church" and "Champion of Christ's Divinity." In this engraving, Dürer has juxtaposed the Saint with his cross and bible with the urban world he left behind him. Anthony." It later served as an inspiration to Christian monastics in both the East and the West, and helped to spread the concept of Christian monasticism, particularly in Western Europe via its Latin translations. One day after a teaching on Jesus saying to the people, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven; and come, follow Me" (Matthew19:21), St. Anthony sold everything he owned, gave the proceeds to the poor, and left the city behind to live in the desert. Sometime before 374 it was translated into Latin by Evagrius of Antioch. Macarius the Great was a disciple of Anthony. (1845). ", "Gustave Flaubert - études critiques - Le saint-poème selon Flaubert : le délire des sens dans La Tentation de saint Antoine", "CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Saint Paul the Hermit", "Venerable and God-bearing Father Anthony the Great", "The Golden Legend: The Life of Anthony of Egypt", "Spiritual Considerations on the Life of Saint Antony the Great", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anthony_the_Great&oldid=988477401, Articles containing explicitly cited English-language text, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles that need to differentiate between fact and fiction from May 2019, All articles that need to differentiate between fact and fiction, Articles with multiple maintenance issues, Articles containing Ancient Greek (to 1453)-language text, Articles with unsourced statements from May 2019, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from EB9, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference, Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers, Wikipedia articles with CANTIC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Anthony gave away some of his family's lands to his neighbors, sold the remaining property, and donated the funds to the poor. Praying to Saint Anthony when something is lost is a Catholic tradition: Tony, Tony, look around. He remained there for 13 years. Most startlingly, he was famous throughout the world and even those who didn’t know him wondered at his greatness and yearned to know him. Philo opined that "this class of persons may be met with in many places, for both Greece and barbarian countries want to enjoy whatever is perfectly good. There he remained, receiving visitors and, on occasion, crossing the desert to Pispir. There it was that the Life records those strange conflicts with demons in the shape of wild beasts, who inflicted blows upon him, and sometimes left him nearly dead. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Updates? Here he is depicted with his emblem, a pig, being appealed to by a victim of St Anthony's Fire (gangrenous ergotism). 251–356), also known as Saint Anthony, or ‘Anthony of Egypt’, Abba Antonius (Ἀββᾶς Ἀντώνιος), and Father of All Monks, was a Christian saint from Egypt, a prominent leader among the Desert Fathers. Athanasius writes, "For monks, the life of Anthony is a sufficient example of asceticism. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. St. Anthony the Great: Wisdom Derived from Humility Humility to virtues, it is often said, is like a root to a tree. He is often erroneously considered the first Christian monk, but as his biography and other sources make clear, there were many ascetics before him. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Bacchus, Francis Joseph. , Some of the stories included in Anthony's biography are perpetuated now mostly in paintings, where they give an opportunity for artists to depict their more lurid or bizarre interpretations. He is also known as the Father of All Monks. Abgar's court was in Edessa in Asia Minor (modern Turkey). There are few Catholic Churches without an image of the Saint, and people continue to honor him through festivals, novenas, fasting and prayer. Anthony had been secretly buried on the mountain-top where he had chosen to live. His parents were pious Christians of illustrious lineage. God replied, "I was here but I would see and abide to see thy battle, and because thou hast mainly fought and well maintained thy battle, I shall make thy name to be spread through all the world.". Anthony or Antony the Great (Greek: Ἀντώνιος Antṓnios; Arabic: القديس انطونيوس بادية مصر; Latin: Antonius; Coptic: Ⲁⲃⲃⲁ Ⲁⲛⲧⲱⲛⲓ; c. 12 January 251 – 17 January 356), was a Christian monk from Egypt, revered since his death as a saint. In 285, he decided to foll… Most of what we know about the life of St Anthony is in the Greek vita (Life of Antony) by Athanasius, circulated in Latin. Saint Anthony the Great, (St. Anthony of Egypt, of the Desert, etc. Here are some great Saint Anthony prayers for miracles to pray in your time of need. Anthony was born into a wealthy family and was raised in the church. He was born in Egypt in the village of Coma, near the desert of the Thebaid, in the year 251. Anthony endured many such attacks, and those who witnessed them were convinced they were real. Visitors traveled great distances to see the celebrated holy man. There are various legends that he worked as a swineherd during this period. Abbot Moses in Cassian (Coll. When he was about 20 years old, his parents died and left him with the care of his unmarried sister. The biography of St. Anthony’s life by St. Athanasius of Alexandria helped to spread the concept of monasticism, particularly in Western Europe through Latin … , Another time Anthony was travelling in the desert and found a plate of silver coins in his path. There were so many little demons in the cave though that Anthony's servant had to carry him out because they had beaten him to death. "St. Paul the Hermit. Macarius later founded a monastic community in the Scetic desert. He was credited by two local noblemen of assisting them in recovery from the disease. Many stories are also told about Anthony in various collections of sayings of the Desert Fathers. , The main character in the Hervey Allen novel Anthony Adverse, and the 1936 film of the same name, is an abandoned child who is placed in a foundling wheel on the saint's feast day, and given the name Anthony in his honor. The building was finally erected in 1297 and became a centre of veneration and pilgrimage, known as Saint-Antoine-l'Abbaye. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. During the 3rd and 4th centuries many ecclesiastics and monks wrote in Coptic. St Anthony the Great, Egyptian aesthetic. He ventured twice to Alexandria, the last time (c. 350) to preach against Arianism, a heretical doctrine teaching that Christ the Son is not of the same substance as God the Father. He is distinguished from other saints named Anthony such as Anthony of Padua, by various epithets of his own: Saint Anthony, Anthony of Egypt, Anthony the Abbot, Anthony of the Desert, Anthony the Anchorite, and Anthony of Thebes. Anthony knew that the light must have come from God, and he asked God where he was before when the demons attacked him. , For five or six years he devoted himself to the instruction and organization of the great body of monks that had grown up around him; but then he once again withdrew into the inner desert that lay between the Nile and the Red Sea, near the shore of which he fixed his abode on a mountain where still stands the monastery that bears his name, Der Mar Antonios. Jocelin had them transferred to La-Motte-Saint-Didier, later renamed. Top The creature tried to speak in an unintelligible language, but ultimately pointed with his hand the way desired, and then ran away and vanished from sight. (c251-356 CE) Saint Anthony (or Antony) the Great, "star of the wilderness" and "father of all Christian monks," is a greatly beloved figure of the ancient Christian world. St. Anthony exhorted the faithful to conversion, laity and clergy alike. , The stories of the meeting of Anthony and Paul of Thebes, the raven who brought them bread, Anthony being sent to fetch the cloak given him by "Athanasius the bishop" to bury Paul's body in, and Paul's death before he returned, are among the familiar legends of the Life. The bells of the Hospitallers, as well as their pigs—allowed by special privilege to run free in medieval streets—became part of the later iconography associated with St. Anthony. Anthony is appealed to against infectious diseases, particularly skin diseases. So exotic were the visions and so steadfast was Anthony’s endurance that the subject of his temptations has often been used in literature and art, notably in the paintings of Hiëronymus Bosch, Matthias Grünewald, Max Ernst, Paul Cézanne, and Salvador Dalí as well as in the novel The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1874) by Gustave Flaubert. The biography of Anthony's life by Athanasius of Alexandria helped to spread the concept of Christian monasticism, particularly in Western Europe via its Latin translations. Omissions? He joined the Augustinian canons in 1210 and probably became a priest. A gifted speaker, St. Anthony attracted crowds everywhere he went, speaking in multiple tongues; legend says that even the fish loved to listen. Anthony’s spiritual combats with what he envisioned as the forces of evil made his life one long struggle against the Devil. … This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Anthony-of-Egypt, Eternal Word Television Network - Biography of Saint Antony of Egypt. He went into the desert to a mountain by the Nile called Pispir (now Der-el-Memun), opposite Arsinoë. , While traveling through the desert, Anthony first found the centaur, a "creature of mingled shape, half horse half-man," whom he asked about directions. Saint Anthony The Great played many roles in many peoples lives. He ate at most only once a day and sometimes fasted through two or four days. Known as the patron saint of the poor, of sailors and fishermen, of priests and travelers, a protector and guardian of the mails, and wonder-worker, the story of St. Anthony of Padua is very special. Padua and Portugal claim him as their patron saint, and he is invoked for the return of lost property. Many people give alms to St. Anthony Bread in thanksgiving to God for blessings received through the prayers of St. Anthony. He was a favorite subject for artists. Also prominent were the great Cappadocians: St. St. Anthony of Padua is one of the Catholic Churchs most popular saints. His sermons were so inspiring that his fame spread throughout France and Italy in the ten years before his death. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree.... Get exclusive access to content from our 1768 First Edition with your subscription. NOW 50% OFF! He left for the alkaline Nitrian Desert (later the location of the noted monasteries of Nitria, Kellia, and Scetis) on the edge of the Western Desert about 95 km (59 mi) west of Alexandria. , Anthony was born in Coma in Lower Egypt to wealthy landowner parents. When he got there he called out to the demons, and they came back as wild beasts to rip him to shreds. Hes typically portrayed holding the child Jesusor a lilyor a bookor all threein his arms. Soon enough, a large school of fish rose up from the water and appeared to listen intently, only leaving after St. Anthony finished his sermon! Anthony was born near Herakleopolis Magna in Upper Egypt in 251 to wealthy parents. A disciple of St. Paul of Thebes, Anthony began to practice an ascetic life at the age of 20 and after 15 years withdrew for absolute solitude to a mountain by the Nile called Pispir (now Dayr al-Maymūn), where he lived from about 286 to 305. Corrections? Saint Anthony of Padua is one of the Church's most popular saints! A disciple of Christ sent by St. Thomas to the court of King Abgar the Black, the second century Osroene ruler. His feast day is celebrated on January 17. Food was thrown to him over the wall. Anthony had been under the impression that he was the first person to ever dwell in the desert; however, due to the dream, Anthony was called into the desert to find his "better", Paul. Saint Anthony is known in Portugal, Spain, and Brazil as a marriage saint, because legends exist of him reconciling couples. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Saint Anthony the Abbot, also known as Anthony the Great, Anthony of Egypt, Anthony of the Fire, Anthony of the Desert, Anthony the Anchorite was born at Qumans, a village on the left bank of the Nile, approximately 251 AD, and died in the Thebaid Desert on January 17, 357. Athanasius became one of the most dedicated opponents of the heresy of Arianism. , Anthony is said to have faced a series of supernatural temptations during his pilgrimage to the desert. He ate only bread, salt and water and never meat or wine. There were already ascetic hermits (the Therapeutae), and loosely organized cenobitic communities were described by the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria in the 1st century AD as long established in the harsh environment of Lake Mareotis and in other less accessible regions. Britannica Kids Holiday Bundle! Hägg, Tomas. Saint Anthony the Great is known as the Father of monasticism, and the long ascetical sermon in The Life of Saint Anthony by Saint Athanasius (Sections 16-34), could be called the first monastic Rule. It is possible these events, like the paintings, are full of rich metaphor or in the case of the animals of the desert, perhaps a vision or dream. Saint Anthony is known for the miracles witnessed during his lifetime. , When Anthony sensed his death approaching, he commanded his disciples to give his staff to Macarius of Egypt, and to give one sheepskin cloak to Athanasius of Alexandria and the other sheepskin cloak to Serapion of Thmuis, his disciple. When Christian persecution ended after the Edict of Milan (313), he moved to a mountain in the Eastern Desert, between the Nile and the Red Sea, where the monastery Dayr Mārī Antonios still stands. Also known as Anthony of Egypt, Anthony of the Desert, and Anthony the Anchorite, he was a leader among the Desert Fathers, who were Christian monks in the Egyptian desert in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. The rule that bears his name was compiled from writings and discourses attributed to him in the Life of St. Antony by St. Athanasius and the Apophthegmata patrum and was still observed in the 20th century by a number of Coptic and Armenian monks. Besides preaching, he organized relief for the poor, the abolition of debtors prisons, and the release of prisoners captured in the wars between city-states. He was born around 251 and died around 356. , Anthony was on a journey in the desert to find Paul of Thebes, who according to his dream was a better Hermit than he. From injuries small to large, seek the help of Saint Anthony to achieve blessings from the Lord. Several surviving homilies and epistles of varying authenticity provide scant autobiographical detail. For example, at times the Devil appeared in the guise of a monk bringing bread during his fasts or in the form of wild beasts, women, or soldiers, sometimes beating the saint and leaving him in a deathly state. When the Synod o… This creature was peaceful and offered him fruits, and when Anthony asked who he was, the satyr replied, "I'm a mortal being and one of those inhabitants of the desert whom the Gentiles deluded by various forms of error worship under the names of Fauns, Satyrs, and Incubi. In the town of Rimini, Italy, after the townspeople refused to listen to him and even mocked him, St. Anthony turned to the ocean and started preaching. The Order of Hospitallers of St. Anthony was founded near Grenoble, France (c. 1100), and this institution became a pilgrimage centre for persons suffering from the disease known as St. Anthony’s fire (or ergotism). 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What is Stellar Interferometry? With very few exceptions, the diameters of stars subtend angles that are too small to be resolved - even with the latest generation of 8 to 10m aperture optical telescopes employing modern Adaptive Optics techniques to produce the sharpest possible images. Despite the advantage of being in space, the smaller 2.3m Hubble Space Telescope can do only a little better than ground-based optical telescopes, with a resolution of about 0.06 arc seconds. Sirius, for example, is the brightest tstar in our sky, largely because it is amongst the closest stars. Its apparent size is 0.05 arc seconds. This is the same size as an Australian $1 coin (or a UK 1 pound coin or a US quarter) seen from a distance of about 100 km. For comparison the Sun and Moon are around 1800 arc seconds in size - about half a degree. To measure these angles it is generally necessary to employ interferometric techniques in which starlight collected at two or more widely separated apertures is combined "coherently". Optical astronomers first attempted this around 80 years ago with only modest success. The longer wavelengths of radio waves allowed radio astronomers to begin using this technique 50 years ago and it now forms the basis of modern radio astronomical imaging. \|Antennae of the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) at the Paul Wild Observatory near Narrabri - on the same site as SUSI.\| Optical astronomers have applied the general principles of interferometry to techniques such as speckle interferometers and non-redundant mask interferometers (such as the IoA's MAPPIT) which are attached to existing telescopes. SUSI is in the vanguard of a new generation of Optical Stellar Interferometers which are independent of conventional astronomical telescopes. A popular level article on stellar interferometery is 'A sharper view of the stars' which appeared in the March 2001 issue of Scientific American. A longer discussion of Stellar Interferometry can be found at Astronomical Optical Interferometry described by Bob Tubbs, Cambridge University. A list of Interferometer Projects can be found at the JPL Optical Long Baseline Interferometry News. \|Brief History of Stellar Interferometry\|
Maryland is the first state in the nation to require high school students to engage in service-learning activities as a condition of graduation. Each of the 24 school districts in Maryland implements the service-learning graduation requirement differently, because they tailor the specifics of their program to their local community. In April 2008, the National Youth Leadership Council released the K-12 Service-Learning Standards for Quality Practice. There are eight national standards in comparison to Maryland's 7 Best Practices of Service-Learning. Most of the national standards have a direct corresponding match with one of Maryland's existing seven standards. What makes a project meaningful and effective? High quality experiences meet Maryland's Seven Best Practices for Service-Learning (now aligned with NYLC's K-12 Service-Learning Standards for Quality Practice). These projects allow students and teachers to: 1. Address a recognized need in the community 2. Achieve curricular objectives 3. Reflect throughout the service-learning experience 4. Develop student responsibility 5. Establish community partnerships 6. Plan ahead for service learning 7. Equip students with knowledge and skills needed for civic engagement If you would like to evaluate the effectiveness of a service-learning project you current offer or engage in, use our Seven Best Practice Evaluation Tool.
Imagine you are being taught about evaporation in class. Your teacher has taught you the concept through a diagram on the board, and you enjoyed it. Later, you realise that you couldn’t recall what evaporation was all about. In such situations, wouldn’t you be happy to have a constant study companion who can help you learn concepts in an unforgettable manner? Until recently, for 10-year-old Mohammad Zaid Waseem Khan, his study companion was none other than his mom. But now, BYJU’S – The Learning App has taken that mantle. Zaid, a fourth-grader at St Francis World School, Meerut, takes part in various science activities at school and strives to excel at them. Team Storyweavers spoke to Zaid to get a sneak peek into his day, and here’s what we found out. Zaid’s day begins at 6 am, and he is off to school at 7 am. He returns in the evening to enjoy an hourly game of football or cricket with his friends. Zaid spends the rest of the evening with his favourite learning companion – BYJU’S. In Zaid’s words, “BYJU’S is my favourite learning companion. The visual representation of a concept helps me understand it better. The real-life examples in the videos are relatable, and the way the concepts are being taught keeps me hooked to the app and my lessons.” Nahid Khan, the proud mother of this fourth-grader, calls him smart, sharp, and intelligent.“I always preferred to teach Zaid on my own rather than sending him to tuitions. But now, I am more than happy to let him learn from the app. I have realised that I can make a mistake or skip a topic, but that never happens with the app. BYJU’S helps Zaid have a better understanding of the topic and thereby makes both our lives easier.” For Team Storyweavers, it is encouraging to see how a parent gives a thumbs up to BYJU’S and appreciates the way it is working towards making their child a self-learner. With the regular use of BYJU’S, Zaid is gaining an in-depth understanding of the concepts. Also, the bigger picture is that Zaid is edging towards becoming a life-long learner. We wish him good luck in his endeavours! Arya C is a 4th grader who talks about her transition from the US to India and how BYJU`S has helped her at that. She also loves how BYJU`S has made learning a lot more fun. Meet Sourabh who has a ton to say about his BYJU`S learning experience. His love for quizzes, games and other fun activities are paying off! V Shriya is a class eight student who has been using BYJU’S for a year now. She shares her experiences with using the app and how it has helped her in improving her academic performance.
Written by Dentistry Today Thursday, 03 January 2013 10:31 More children are undergoing cosmetic dentistry procedures, such as having dental veneers and teeth whitening. Pediatric dentists are increasingly being asked to place false teeth in a child’s mouth the replace broken or missing teeth, among many other procedures being performed to improve a child’s smile. Based on most research, however, children should not have any cosmetic dental procedures performed on them. It’s ideal to wait until the permanent teeth have erupted and become stable in the mouth before performing cosmetic procedures. Only in emergency situations should a cosmetic dental procedure be performed on a child. Tooth bleaching may not have a major adverse impact on the child, assuming there’s a less concentrated solution utilized. This will lower the amount of gum irritation. Dental veneers, though, are much worse for children based on the removal of enamel required for the installation of many types of veneers. All options must be discussed before deciding to perform a cosmetic dental procedure on a child. As always, maintaining good oral health by brushing, flossing and visiting the dentist regularly are the best ways to prevent your child from reaching this point.
Dorothy is in Kansas, where she lives with her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry, at the beginning of the story. She is a bright, brave young girl who enjoys playing with Toto, her dog. When Dorothy says she wants to go back to Kansas, she is told that only the great Wizard of Oz can help her. She moves toward the Emerald City, where Oz lives. He explains that he has been standing in the same spot for a year because he was caught outside in the rain, which rusted his joints. He decides to go with them after Dorothy rubs oil on his joints, hoping the Wizard will give him a heart. Soon after, a Lion tries to bite Toto, but when Dorothy hits him on the nose, the animal admits that he is a terrible coward. He joins the group in the hope that the Wizard will inspire him to be brave. When they get to the Emerald City, the Wizard informs them that he will only grant their wishes if the Wicked Witch of the West is killed. They turn west because they believe they have no choice. The witch seizes Dorothy and the Lion after spotting Dorothy's silver shoes and looking for a way to steal them. When they get there, Dorothy realizes that all she has to do to get home is tap the Silver Shoes' heels together. When she returns to Kansas, she discovers that Uncle Henry has constructed a brand-new residence. She shouts that it's good to be home as she rushes toward Aunt Em.
Field Report From Mars: Sol 3385 - August 2, 2013 Posted by Larry Crumpler 06-08-2013 18:54 CDT • Less than 100 m to go before “land fall” on Solander Point • The next drive will put Opportunity at the “shore” • A "new world" is about to be explored; what strange rocks and structures will we encounter? This week Opportunity finished up a quick investigation of the strange rocky terrain out here in the plains where it is approaching the next mountain rim segment of Endeavour crater, Solander Point. It packed up and started driving towards the base of the mountain and will be at the foot of the next mountain after the drive this weekend. When it arrives it will mark the end of the long journey across the plains and the start of a new phase in the mission. Right now everyone on the science team is hanging on the rigging trying to be the first to catch sight of the shore. In Monday's plan we will likely plot a course to sail northwestward along some "sea cliffs," with "land fall" happening in the plans for next weekend most likely. We are in a sea of sulfate-rich sands, so sometimes it feels as though we are sailing a broad sea, with islands, like the rim of Endeavour crater as expressed by Solander Point, poking up through this sea. Check out the "shoreline." The view from the Navigation camera on approach this morning. The round dot is about 80 meters away. A zoomed in view from the high resolution Panoramic camera. We have no idea what that contact is like between the lower slopes and the sandstone plains we are sitting on now. After driving along the lower cliff from left to right, we hope to be climbing the ridge of outcrop by late September or there abouts.
Linguistic relativity, sometimes called the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis or Whorfianism, is a hypothesis in linguistics and cognitive science that holds that the structure of a language affects its speakers' world view or cognition. The strong version claims that language determines thought and that linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive categories. The weak version claims that linguistic categories and usage influence thought and decisions. The hypothesis evolved from work by Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf. The hypothesis has influenced disciplines beyond linguistics, including philosophy, neurobiology, anthropology, psychology and sociology. The hypothesis' origin, definition and applicability have been controversial since first outlined. It has come in and out of favor and remains contested as research continues across these domains. Linguistic relativity was formulated as a testable hypothesis by Roger Brown and Eric Lenneberg, based on experiments on color perception across language groups. Color perception and naming was a popular research area, producing studies that supported and later rejected linguistic relativity's validity. Many counter-hypotheses emerged, including universal grammar, constructivism, objectivism, essentialism, idealism and relativism. Most recently, a common view is that language influences certain kinds of cognitive processes in non-trivial ways, but that other processes are better seen as arising from connectionist factors. Research is focused on exploring continuing to characterize cognition, including the influence of language. Linguistic relativity has influenced works of fiction and the invention of constructed languages. The strongest form of the theory is linguistic determinism, which holds that language entirely determines the range of cognitive processes. The hypothesis of linguistic determinism is now generally agreed to be false. This is the weaker form, proposing that language provides constraints in some areas of cognition, but that it is by no means determinative. Research on weaker forms have produced positive empirical evidence for a relationship. The idea that language and thought are intertwined is ancient. Plato argued against sophist thinkers such as Gorgias of Leontini, who held that the physical world cannot be experienced except through language; this made the question of truth dependent on aesthetic preferences or functional consequences. Plato held instead that the world consisted of eternal ideas and that language should reflect these ideas as accurately as possible. Following Plato, St. Augustine, for example, held the view that language was merely labels applied to already existing concepts. This view remained prevalent throughout the Middle Ages. Roger Bacon held the opinion that language was but a veil covering up eternal truths, hiding them from human experience. For Immanuel Kant, language was but one of several tools used by humans to experience the world. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries the idea of the existence of different national characters, or "Volksgeister", of different ethnic groups was the moving force behind the German romantics school and the beginning ideologies of ethnic nationalism. In 1820, Wilhelm von Humboldt connected the study of language to the national romanticist program by proposing the view that language is the fabric of thought. Thoughts are produced as a kind of internal dialog using the same grammar as the thinker's native language. This view was part of a larger picture in which the world view of an ethnic nation, their "Weltanschauung", was seen as being faithfully reflected in the grammar of their language. Von Humboldt argued that languages with an inflectional morphological type, such as German, English and the other Indo-European languages were the most perfect languages and that accordingly this explained the dominance of their speakers over the speakers of less perfect languages. Wilhelm von Humboldt declared in 1820: The diversity of languages is not a diversity of signs and sounds but a diversity of views of the world. The idea that some languages are superior to others and that lesser languages maintained their speakers in intellectual poverty was widespread in the early 20th century. American linguist William Dwight Whitney, for example, actively strove to eradicate Native American languages, arguing that their speakers were savages and would be better off learning English and adopting a civilized way of life. The first anthropologist and linguist to challenge this view was Franz Boas. While undertaking geographical research in northern Canada he became fascinated with the Inuit people and decided to become an ethnographer. Boas stressed the equal worth of all cultures and languages, that there was no such thing as a primitive language and that all languages were capable of expressing the same content, albeit by widely differing means. Boas saw language as an inseparable part of culture and he was among the first to require of ethnographers to learn the native language of the culture under study and to document verbal culture such as myths and legends in the original language. It does not seem likely [...] that there is any direct relation between the culture of a tribe and the language they speak, except in so far as the form of the language will be moulded by the state of the culture, but not in so far as a certain state of the culture is conditioned by the morphological traits of the language." Boas' student Edward Sapir reached back to the Humboldtian idea that languages contained the key to understanding the world views of peoples. He espoused the viewpoint that because of the differences in the grammatical systems of languages no two languages were similar enough to allow for perfect cross-translation. Sapir also thought because language represented reality differently, it followed that the speakers of different languages would perceive reality differently. No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached. On the other hand, Sapir explicitly rejected strong linguistic determinism by stating, "It would be naïve to imagine that any analysis of experience is dependent on pattern expressed in language." Sapir was explicit that the connections between language and culture were neither thoroughgoing nor particularly deep, if they existed at all: It is easy to show that language and culture are not intrinsically associated. Totally unrelated languages share in one culture; closely related languages—even a single language—belong to distinct culture spheres. There are many excellent examples in Aboriginal America. The Athabaskan languages form as clearly unified, as structurally specialized, a group as any that I know of. The speakers of these languages belong to four distinct culture areas... The cultural adaptability of the Athabaskan-speaking peoples is in the strangest contrast to the inaccessibility to foreign influences of the languages themselves. Sapir offered similar observations about speakers of so-called "world" or "modern" languages, noting, "possession of a common language is still and will continue to be a smoother of the way to a mutual understanding between England and America, but it is very clear that other factors, some of them rapidly cumulative, are working powerfully to counteract this leveling influence. A common language cannot indefinitely set the seal on a common culture when the geographical, physical, and economics determinants of the culture are no longer the same throughout the area." While Sapir never made a point of studying directly how languages affected thought, some notion of (probably "weak") linguistic relativity underlayed his basic understanding of language, and would be taken up by Whorf. Drawing on influences such as Humboldt and Friedrich Nietzsche, some European thinkers developed ideas similar to those of Sapir and Whorf, generally working in isolation from each other. Prominent in Germany from the late 1920s through into the 1960s were the strongly relativist theories of Leo Weisgerber and his key concept of a 'linguistic inter-world', mediating between external reality and the forms of a given language, in ways peculiar to that language. Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky read Sapir's work and experimentally studied the ways in which the development of concepts in children was influenced by structures given in language. His 1934 work "Thought and Language" has been compared to Whorf's and taken as mutually supportive evidence of language's influence on cognition. Drawing on Nietzsche's ideas of perspectivism Alfred Korzybski developed the theory of general semantics that has been compared to Whorf's notions of linguistic relativity. Though influential in their own right, this work has not been influential in the debate on linguistic relativity, which has tended to center on the American paradigm exemplified by Sapir and Whorf. More than any other linguist, Benjamin Lee Whorf has become associated with what he called the "linguistic relativity principle". Studying Native American languages, he attempted to account for the ways in which grammatical systems and language use differences affected perception. Whorf also examined how a scientific account of the world differed from a religious account, which led him to study the original languages of religious scripture and to write several anti-evolutionist pamphlets. Whorf's opinions regarding the nature of the relation between language and thought remain under contention. Critics such as Lenneberg, Black and Pinker attribute to Whorf a strong linguistic determinism, while Lucy, Silverstein and Levinson point to Whorf's explicit rejections of determinism, and where he contends that translation and commensuration is possible. Although Whorf lacked an advanced degree in linguistics, his reputation reflects his acquired competence. His peers at Yale University considered the 'amateur' Whorf to be the best man available to take over Sapir's graduate seminar in Native American linguistics while Sapir was on sabbatical in 1937–38. He was highly regarded by authorities such as Boas, Sapir, Bloomfield and Tozzer. Indeed, Lucy wrote, "despite his 'amateur' status, Whorf's work in linguistics was and still is recognized as being of superb professional quality by linguists". Detractors such as Lenneberg, Chomsky and Pinker criticized him for insufficient clarity in his description of how language influences thought, and for not proving his conjectures. Most of his arguments were in the form of anecdotes and speculations that served as attempts to show how 'exotic' grammatical traits were connected to what were apparently equally exotic worlds of thought. In Whorf's words: We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native language. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscope flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds—and this means largely by the linguistic systems of our minds. We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way—an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language [...] all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar, or can in some way be calibrated. Among Whorf's best-known examples of linguistic relativity are instances where an indigenous language has several terms for a concept that is only described with one word in European languages (Whorf used the acronym SAE "Standard Average European" to allude to the rather similar grammatical structures of the well-studied European languages in contrast to the greater diversity of less-studied languages). Another is the Hopi language's words for water, one indicating drinking water in a container and another indicating a natural body of water. These examples of polysemy served the double purpose of showing that indigenous languages sometimes made more fine grained semantic distinctions than European languages and that direct translation between two languages, even of seemingly basic concepts such as snow or water, is not always possible. Another example from Whorf's experience as a chemical engineer working for an insurance company as a fire inspector. While inspecting a chemical plant he observed that the plant had two storage rooms for gasoline barrels, one for the full barrels and one for the empty ones. He further noticed that while no employees smoked cigarettes in the room for full barrels, no-one minded smoking in the room with empty barrels, although this was potentially much more dangerous because of the highly flammable vapors still in the barrels. He concluded that the use of the word empty in connection to the barrels had led the workers to unconsciously regard them as harmless, although consciously they were probably aware of the risk of explosion. This example was later criticized by Lenneberg as not actually demonstrating causality between the use of the word empty and the action of smoking, but instead was an example of circular reasoning. Pinker in The Language Instinct ridiculed this example, claiming that this was a failing of human insight rather than language. Whorf's most elaborate argument for linguistic relativity regarded what he believed to be a fundamental difference in the understanding of time as a conceptual category among the Hopi. He argued that in contrast to English and other SAE languages, Hopi does not treat the flow of time as a sequence of distinct, countable instances, like "three days" or "five years," but rather as a single process and that consequently it has no nouns referring to units of time as SAE speakers understand them. He proposed that this view of time was fundamental to Hopi culture and explained certain Hopi behavioral patterns. Malotki later claimed that he had found no evidence of Whorf's claims in 1980's era speakers, nor in historical documents dating back to the arrival of Europeans. Malotki used evidence from archaeological data, calendars, historical documents, modern speech and concluded that there was no evidence that Hopi conceptualize time in the way Whorf suggested. Universalist scholars such as Pinker often see Malotki's study as a final refutation of Whorf's claim about Hopi, whereas relativist scholars such as Lucy and Penny Lee criticized Malotki's study for mischaracterizing Whorf's claims and for forcing Hopi grammar into a model of analysis that doesn't fit the data. Whorf died in 1941 at age 44, leaving multiple unpublished papers. His line of thought was continued by linguists and anthropologists such as Hoijer and Lee who both continued investigations into the effect of language on habitual thought, and Trager, who prepared a number of Whorf's papers for posthumous publishing. The most important event for the dissemination of Whorf's ideas to a larger public was the publication in 1956 of his major writings on the topic of linguistic relativity in a single volume titled Language, Thought and Reality. In 1953 Eric Lenneberg criticised Whorf's examples from an objectivist view of language holding that languages are principally meant to represent events in the real world and that even though languages express these ideas in various ways, the meanings of such expressions and therefore the thoughts of the speaker are equivalent. He argued that Whorf's English descriptions of a Hopi speaker's view of time were in fact translations of the Hopi concept into English, therefore disproving linguistic relativity. However Whorf was concerned with how the habitual use of language influences habitual behavior, rather than translatability. Whorf's point was that while English speakers may be able to understand how a Hopi speaker thinks, they do not think in that way. Lenneberg's main criticism of Whorf's works was that he never showed the connection between a linguistic phenomenon and a mental phenomenon. With Brown, Lenneberg proposed that proving such a connection required directly matching linguistic phenomena with behavior. They assessed linguistic relativity experimentally and published their findings in 1954. Since neither Sapir nor Whorf had ever stated a formal hypothesis, Brown and Lenneberg formulated their own. Their two tenets were (i) "the world is differently experienced and conceived in different linguistic communities" and (ii) "language causes a particular cognitive structure". Brown later developed them into the so-called "weak" and "strong" formulation: - Structural differences between language systems will, in general, be paralleled by nonlinguistic cognitive differences, of an unspecified sort, in the native speakers of the language. - The structure of anyone's native language strongly influences or fully determines the worldview he will acquire as he learns the language. Brown's formulations became widely known and were retrospectdively attributed to Whorf and Sapir although the second formulation, verging on linguistic determinism, was never advanced by either of them. Since Brown and Lenneberg believed that the objective reality denoted by language was the same for speakers of all languages, they decided to test how different languages codified the same message differently and whether differences in codification could be proven to affect behavior. They designed experiments involving the codification of colors. In their first experiment, they investigated whether it was easier for speakers of English to remember color shades for which they had a specific name than to remember colors that were not as easily definable by words. This allowed them to compare the linguistic categorization directly to a non-linguistic task. In a later experiment, speakers of two languages that categorize colors differently (English and Zuni) were asked to recognize colors. In this way, it could be determined whether the differing color categories of the two speakers would determine their ability to recognize nuances within color categories. Brown and Lenneberg found that Zuñi speakers who classify green and blue together as a single color did have trouble recognizing and remembering nuances within the green/blue category. Brown and Lenneberg's study bega a tradition of investigation of linguistic relativity through color terminology. Lenneberg was also one of the first cognitive scientists to begin development of the Universalist theory of language that was formulated by Chomsky in the form of Universal Grammar, effectively arguing that all languages share the same underlying structure. The Chomskyan school also holds the belief that linguistic structures are largely innate and that what are perceived as differences between specific languages are surface phenomena that do not affect the brain's universal cognitive processes. This theory became the dominant paradigm in American linguistics from the 1960s through the 1980s, while linguistic relativity became the object of ridicule. Examples of universalist influence in the 1960s are the studies by Berlin and Kay who continued Lenneberg's color research. They studied color terminology formation and showed clear universal trends in color naming. For example, they found that even though languages have different color terminologies, they generally recognize certain hues as more focal than others. They showed that in languages with few color terms, it is predictable from the number of terms which hues are chosen as focal colors, for example, languages with only three color terms always have the focal colors black, white and red. The fact that what had been believed to be random differences between color naming in different languages could be shown to follow universal patterns was seen as a powerful argument against linguistic relativity. Berlin and Kay's research has since been criticized by relativists such as Lucy, who argued that Berlin and Kay's conclusions were skewed by their insistence that color terms encode only color information. This, Lucy argues, made them blind to the instances in which color terms provided other information that might be considered examples of linguistic relativity. Other universalist researchers dedicated themselves to dispelling other aspects of linguistic relativity, often attacking Whorf's specific points and examples. For example, Malotki's monumental study of time expressions in Hopi presented many examples that challenged Whorf's "timeless" interpretation of Hopi language and culture. Today many followers of the universalist school of thought still oppose linguistic relativity. For example, Pinker argues in The Language Instinct that thought is independent of language, that language is itself meaningless in any fundamental way to human thought, and that human beings do not even think in "natural" language, i.e. any language that we actually communicate in; rather, we think in a meta-language, preceding any natural language, called "mentalese." Pinker attacks what he calls "Whorf's radical position," declaring, "the more you examine Whorf's arguments, the less sense they make." Joshua Fishman argued that Whorf's true position was largely overlooked. In 1978, he suggested that Whorf was a 'neo-Herderian champion' and in 1982, he proposed 'Whorfianism of the third kind' in an attempt to refocus linguists' attention on what he claimed was Whorf's real interest, namely the intrinsic value of 'little peoples' and 'little languages'. Whorf had criticized Ogden's Basic English thus: But to restrict thinking to the patterns merely of English […] is to lose a power of thought which, once lost, can never be regained. It is the 'plainest' English which contains the greatest number of unconscious assumptions about nature. […] We handle even our plain English with much greater effect if we direct it from the vantage point of a multilingual awareness. Where Brown's weak version of the linguistic relativity hypothesis proposes that language influences thought and the strong version that language determines thought, Fishman's 'Whorfianism of the third kind' proposes that language is a key to culture. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, advances in cognitive psychology and cognitive linguistics renewed interest in the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. One of those who adopted a more Whorfian approach was Lakoff. He argued that language is often used metaphorically and that languages use different cultural metaphors that reveal something about how speakers of that language think. For example, English employs conceptual metaphors likening time with money, so that time can be saved and spent and invested, whereas other languages do not talk about time in that way. Other such metaphors are common to many languages because they are based on general human experience, for example, metaphors likening up with good and bad with down. Lakoff also argued that metaphor plays an important part in political debates such as the "right to life" or the "right to choose"; or "illegal aliens" or "undocumented workers". In his book Women, Fire and Dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind, Lakoff reappraised linguistic relativity and especially Whorf's views about how linguistic categorization reflects and/or influences mental categories. He concluded that the debate had been confused. He described four parameters on which researchers differed in their opinions about what constitutes linguistic relativity. One parameter is the degree and depth of linguistic relativity. Perhaps a few examples of superficial differences in language and associated behavior are enough to demonstrate the existence of linguistic relativity. Alternatively, perhaps only deep differences that permeate the linguistic and cultural system suffice. A second parameter is whether conceptual systems are absolute or whether they can evolve. A third parameter is whether the similarity criteria is translatability or the use of linguistic expressions. A fourth parameter is whether the locus of linguistic relativity is in language or in the brain. Lakoff concluded that many of Whorf's critics had criticized him using novel definitions of linguistic relativity, rendering their criticisms moot. The publication of the 1996 anthology Rethinking Linguistic Relativity edited by Gumperz and Levinson began a new period of linguistic relativity studies that focused on cognitive and social aspects. The book included studies on the linguistic relativity and universalist traditions. Levinson documented significant linguistic relativity effects in the linguistic conceptualization of spatial categories between languages. Separate studies by Bowerman and Slobin treated the role of language in cognitive processes. Bowerman showed that certain cognitive processes did not use language to any significant extent and therefore could not be subject to linguistic relativity. Slobin described another kind of cognitive process that he named "thinking for speaking" – the kind of process in which perceptional data and other kinds of prelinguistic cognition are translated into linguistic terms for communication. These, Slobin argues, are the kinds of cognitive process that are at the root of linguistic relativity. Researchers such as Boroditsky, Lucy and Levinson believe that language influences thought in more limited ways than the broadest early claims. Researchers examine the interface between thought (or cognition), language and culture and describe the relevant influences. They use experimental data to back up their conclusions. Kay ultimately concluded that "[the] Whorf hypothesis is supported in the right visual field but not the left". His findings show that accounting for brain lateralization offers another perspective. Psycholinguistic studies explored motion perception, emotion perception, object representation and memory. The gold standard of psycholinguistic studies on linguistic relativity is now finding non-linguistic cognitive differences in speakers of different languages (thus rendering inapplicable Pinker's criticism that linguistic relativity is "circular"). Recent work with bilingual speakers attempts to distinguish the effects of language from those of culture on bilingual cognition including perceptions of time, space, motion, colors and emotion. Researchers described differences between bilinguals and monolinguals in perception of color, representations of time and other elements of cognition. Lucy identified three main strands of research into linguistic relativity. The "structure-centered" approach starts with a language's structural peculiarity and examines its possible ramifications for thought and behavior. The defining example is Whorf's observation of discrepancies between the grammar of time expressions in Hopi and English. More recent research in this vein is Lucy's research describing how usage of the categories of grammatical number and of numeral classifiers in the Mayan language Yucatec result in Mayan speakers classifying objects according to material rather than to shape as preferred by English speakers. The "domain-centered" approach selects a semantic domain and compares it across linguistic and cultural groups. It centered on color terminology, although this domain is acknowledged to be sub-optimal, because color perception, unlike other semantic domains, is hardwired into the neural system and as such is subject to more universal restrictions than other semantic domains. Space is another semantic domain that has proven fruitful for linguistic relativity studies. Spatial categories vary greatly across languages. Speakers rely on the linguistic conceptualization of space in performing many ordinary tasks. Levinson and others reported three basic spatial categorizations. While many languages use combinations of them, some languages exhibit only one type and related behaviors. For example Yimithirr only uses absolute directions when describing spatial relations — the position of everything is described by using the cardinal directions. Speakers define a location as "north of the house", while an English speaker may use relative positions, saying "in front of the house" or "to the left of the house". The "behavior centered" approach starts by comparing behavior across linguistic groups and then searches for causes for that behavior in the linguistic system. Whorf attributed the occurrence of fires at a chemical plant to the workers' use of the word 'empty' to describe the barrels containing only explosive vapors. Bloom noticed that speakers of Chinese had unexpected difficulties answering counter-factual questions posed to them in a questionnaire. He concluded that this was related to the way in which counter-factuality is marked grammatically in Chinese. Other researchers attributed this result to Bloom's flawed translations. Strømnes examined why Finnish factories had a higher occurrence of work related accidents than similar Swedish ones. He concluded that cognitive differences between the grammatical usage of Swedish prepositions and Finnish cases could have caused Swedish factories to pay more attention to the work process while Finnish factory organizers paid more attention to the individual worker. Everett's work on the Pirahã language of the Brazilian Amazon found several peculiarities that he interpreted as corresponding to linguistically rare features, such as a lack of numbers and color terms in the way those are otherwise defined and the absence of certain types of clauses. Everett's conclusions were met with skepticism from universalists who claimed that the linguistic deficit is explained by the lack of need for such concepts. Recent research with non-linguistic experiments in languages with different grammatical properties (e.g., languages with and without numeral classifiers or with different gender grammar systems) showed that language differences in human categorization are due to such differences. Experimental research suggests that this linguistic influence on thought diminishes over time, as when speakers of one language are exposed to another. Research continued after Lenneberg/Roberts and Brown/Lenneberg. The studies showed a correlation between color term numbers and ease of recall in both Zuni and English speakers. Researchers attributed this to focal colors having higher codability than less focal colors, and not with linguistic relativity effects. Berlin/Kay found universal typological color principles that are determined by biological rather than linguistic factors. This study sparked studies into typological universals of color terminology. Researchers such as Lucy, Saunders and Levinson argued that Berlin and Kay's study does not refute linguistic relativity in color naming, because of unsupported assumptions in their study (such as whether all cultures in fact have a clearly-defined category of "color") and because of related data problems. Researchers such as Maclaury continued investigation into color naming. Like Berlin and Kay, Maclaury concluded that the domain is governed mostly by physical-biological universals. Linguistic relativity inspired others to consider whether thought could be influenced by manipulating language. The question bears on philosophical, psychological, linguistic and anthropological questions. A major question is whether human psychological faculties are mostly innate or whether they are mostly a result of learning, and hence subject to cultural and social processes such as language. The innate view holds that humans share the same set of basic faculties, and that variability due to cultural differences is less important and that the human mind is a mostly biological construction, so that all humans sharing the same neurological configuration can be expected to have similar cognitive patterns. Multiple alternatives have advocates. The contrary constructivist position holds that human faculties and concepts are largely influenced by socially constructed and learned categories, without many biological restrictions. Another variant is idealist, which holds that human mental capacities are generally unrestricted by biological-material strictures. Another is essentialist, which holds that essential differences may influence the ways individuals or groups experience and conceptualize the world. Yet another is relativist (Cultural relativism), which sees different cultural groups as employing different conceptual schemes that are not necessarily compatible or commensurable, nor more or less in accord with external reality. Another debate considers whether thought is a form of internal speech or is independent of and prior to language. In the philosophy of language the question addresses the relations between language, knowledge and the external world, and the concept of truth. Philosophers such as Putnam, Fodor, Davidson, Dennett) see language as representing directly entities from the objective world and that categorization reflect that world. Other philosophers (e.g. Wittgenstein, Quine, Searle, Foucault) argue that categorization and conceptualization is subjective and arbitrary. Another question is whether language is a tool for representing and referring to objects in the world, or whether it is a system used to construct mental representations that can be communicated. Sapir/Whorf contemporary Alfred Korzybski was independently developing his theory of general semantics, which was aimed at using language's influence on thinking to maximize human cognitive abilities. Korzybski's thinking was influenced by logical philosophy such as Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica and Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus." Although Korzybski was not aware of Sapir and Whorf's writings, the movement was followed by Whorf-admirer Chase, who fused Whorf's interest in cultural-linguistic variation with Korzybski's programme in his popular work "The Tyranny of Words". S. I. Hayakawa was a follower and popularizer of Korzybski's work, writing Language in Thought and Action. The general semantics movement influenced the development of neurolinguistic programming, another therapeutic technique that seeks to use awareness of language use to influence cognitive patterns. Korzybski independently described a "strong" version of the hypothesis of linguistic relativity. We do not realize what tremendous power the structure of an habitual language has. It is not an exaggeration to say that it enslaves us through the mechanism of s[emantic] r[eactions] and that the structure which a language exhibits, and impresses upon us unconsciously, is automatically projected upon the world around us.— Korzybski (1930) In their fiction, authors such as Ayn Rand and George Orwell explored how linguistic relativity might be exploited for political purposes. In Rand's Anthem, a fictive communist society removed the possibility of individualism by removing the word "I" from the language, and in Orwell's 1984 the authoritarian state created the language Newspeak to make it impossible for people to think critically about the government. Others have been fascinated by the possibilities of creating new languages that could enable new, and perhaps better, ways of thinking. Examples of such languages designed to explore the human mind include Loglan, explicitly designed by James Cooke Brown to test the linguistic relativity hypothesis, by experimenting whether it would make its speakers think more logically. Speakers of Lojban, an evolution of Loglan, report that they feel speaking the language enhances their ability for logical thinking. Suzette Haden Elgin, who was involved in the early development of neurolinguistic programming, invented the language Láadan to explore linguistic relativity by making it easier to express what Elgin considered the female worldview, as opposed to Standard Average European languages which she considered to convey a "male centered" world view. John Quijada's language Ithkuil was designed to explore the limits of the number of cognitive categories a language can keep its speakers aware of at once. APL programming language originator Kenneth E. Iverson believed that the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis applied to computer languages (without actually mentioning it by name). His Turing award lecture, "Notation as a tool of thought", was devoted to this theme, arguing that more powerful notations aided thinking about computer algorithms. The essays of Paul Graham explore similar themes, such as a conceptual hierarchy of computer languages, with more expressive and succinct languages at the top. Thus, the so-called blub paradox (after a hypothetical programming language of average complexity called Blub) says that anyone preferentially using some particular programming language will know that it is more powerful than some, but not that it is less powerful than others. The reason is that writing in some language means thinking in that language. Hence the paradox, because typically programmers are "satisfied with whatever language they happen to use, because it dictates the way they think about programs". In a 2003 presentation at an open source convention, Yukihiro Matsumoto, creator of the programming language Ruby, said that one of his inspirations for developing the language was the science fiction novel Babel-17, based on the Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis.
by Victoria Pemberton, RNC, MS, CCRC clinical trials specialist, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute “The PHS Syphilis Study, Guatemala, Willowbrook, radiation experiments…” Despite decades of work to improve the safety of research subjects, these words bring to mind images of fear and the mistreatment of potential research participants, including children. Excellence in research is essential to our health and quality of life. While many potential participants recognize the need for clinical studies, they continue to shy away from participating. The perceptions surrounding pediatric research can be even more challenging and exist not only among parents, but among healthcare providers as well. Consider these facts: - Ninety-five percent of adults support studying new and existing medical treatments, devices, and medications in humans, yet only a fraction actually participate in clinical studies themselves (NCI, 2005). - One in four U.S. adults would consider allowing their children to participate in clinical research studies (Gullo, 2004). - Seventy percent of medications used in children are never tested in children (Children and Clinical Studies, 2009). - Pediatricians and pediatric nurses agree that research is important but report that their role, as caregivers, often makes them less willing to encourage parents to participate in research (Singhal, 2004, Caldwell, 2004). These statements illuminate what many believe—that clinical research is necessary while participation is not. Children and Clinical Studies, a website hosted by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, is designed to help parents understand clinical research, what clinical studies mean for children, and what happens during the course of involvement. It also prepares parents to make informed decisions as to whether they participate. Parents, experts and children share their clinical trials experiences in award-winning videos that enhance learning. Pediatric healthcare providers and researchers have found the site helpful in answering their patients’ questions about research, and as a training tool for healthcare providers, IRB and medical trainees, and new pediatric researchers.
On November 12, the NFL debuted its new "Color Rush" jerseys on a Thursday night football matchup between the New York Jets and the Buffalo Bills. The Jets, who have a green and white team colors wore jerseys that were all green. The Bills, who have red, blue, and white team colors wore jerseys that were all red. While the jerseys were extremely colorful and vibrant, the Jets vs Bills game ended up being a disaster for colorblind people who suffered from Deuteranopia, in which they can not tell the difference between red and green. The NFL has since stated it would work harder in the future to accommodate the fans who are colorblind. The psychology of Perception involves the interaction of our senses and our conscious mind. Perception is involved in every aspect of our lives as we make decisions and judgments based on what we experience. If you study diligently you will leave this course with a broad understanding of sensation and perception. From this general understanding you will be able to further investigate areas of interest by means of literature review and research on specific topics.
“The remedy, or cure, for loneliness is solitude.” Dr. T. R. Khanna We need to isolate ourselves from our negative feelings and emotions. Any negative mental state is an unnatural state because it is contrary to our Real Nature. Our Real Nature (our True Nature) is the nature of our Real Self (True Self). Our True Self is ATMAN, Pure Consciousness. The non-self is the self that is fabricated in the mind. The non-self is non-eternal, which is why the non-self is unreal. Our definition of that which is Real is that which is eternal. When we realize our own eternalness then our mind reflects that which is real, which is our own Self. “Realizing our own eternalness” and “reflecting that which is real” mean the same thing. This is a state of mind—the purified mind. The purified mind is the mind from which impurities have been removed. The impurities consist of mental superimpositions in the form of ego-images and other mental paraphernalia in the form of false impressions, unhealthy tendencies, and bad attitudes. False impressions (and their associated memories), unhealthy tendencies (and their associated desires), and bad attitudes (and their associated negative self-talk), lead to wrong choices (bad decisions) and self-destructive (violent) actions. A violent action consists of any behavior or deed which violates our real nature; in other words, a violent action goes against our conscience—it betrays our Higher Intelligence. When we betray our Higher Intelligence we reinforce the bond with our lower nature. Our lower nature is the self associated only with the body. Our higher nature is the self associated with Pure Consciousness. The self that stands between the two is the living self (Jivatman), comprised of pure Consciousness (Atman) embodied in ego, intellect, mind, senses, and the gross physical body, and identified with all of these, and relating through these with the gross material world (and with the gross mental world, and with the subtle mental world). Bound to our lower nature (our unreal nature, our non-self), we feel constricted and desire to break free. To break free we have to break our images which keep us in confinement. Our self-image (false ego) is the result of the identification of the Conscious self with the unconscious world of mind and matter. This identification arises out of association. Embodied as human beings, we have the requisite intelligence to choose the “company we keep, the food we eat, the thoughts we hold, and the actions we do.” We can deliberately break our association with that which is unreal and associate with that which is Real. To do so, we require the power of discernment to distinguish between that which is real and that which is not; that which is good and that which is not; that which is conducive to our well-being and that which is detrimental to it. Our power of discernment is developed through the study and practice of the wisdom of Consciousness. This wisdom gives us the insight to see into the nature of reality (and also into the nature of unreality). We realize that ALL negative feelings are born in the mind and that the only REAL feeling is the absolute feeling of Pure Consciousness (Atam-bhavana). This realization (reflection in the mind) purifies the mind. When the living self completely isolates itself from all the negative mental “stuff,” it simultaneously realizes the fullness of Consciousness and is completely freed from all false feelings of loneliness. The solitary Truth (perception of Reality) solidifies one’s practices expressed through daily living, and one remains established in one’s own True Self.
Can nanorobots help treat hard-to-reach cancers? Los Angeles County has produced a series of revolutionary medication delivery devices – from the first asthma inhaler in the 1960s, to the insulin pump and nicotine patch in the 1980s, to inhaled insulin in the course of the last decade. Now a local company is bidding to merge medicine with nanotechnology with a revolutionary drug delivery method. Palms-based Bionaut Labs Inc. is developing nano-robots that can be injected into human tissue and then guided to other parts of the body to deliver chemotherapy or other drugs to treat brain or brain cancers. other hard-to-reach areas. The nano-robots, which the company calls “bionauts”, are less than a millimeter long and are magnetically guided to their destination, where they deliver their drug payload. Nano-robots can also be used to perform delicate surgical procedures that may be too risky for surgery by conventional means, such as puncturing cysts in the brain or spinal cord. “We really zoomed in on the idea of building a little robot for any treatment that can go anywhere in the body on demand and deliver the treatment where it’s needed,” said Michael Shpigelmacher, one of the co-founders of Bionaut Labs and its leader. executive. Israeli Army Roots Shpigelmacher and the other initial co-founder, Aviad Maizels, met while both serving in the IDF. After their service ended, they decided to partner up and form PrimeSense, an Israeli 3D motion sensor company that was acquired by Apple Inc. in 2015 for around $350 million. After the sale, Shpigelmacher moved to the United States and entered the MBA program at Columbia University in New York. He then joined a biotechnology industry consulting firm, where he helped companies extend their patents. “That’s when I realized a key realization: When it came to treating cancers and other diseases, it all came down to getting a drug into the bloodstream,” Shpigelmacher said. . “But it felt like the wrong way to go. Why flood the bloodstream – which runs through the whole body – when what you really want to do is target a specific area of the body? » Shpigelmacher contacted his former IDF pal, Maizels. The duo discovered research at the Max Planck Institute in Germany on directed nano-robots. “It’s a really old idea – just look at that 1960s ‘Fantastic Voyage’ movie,” Shpigelmacher explained. “But now, 50 years later, the technology has taken a leap forward. And while most people were content to continue their research in this area, we decided the time was right to develop an actual product that would deliver drug therapies throughout the body. Armed with an initial $1 million in seed money from their own savings, family and friends, Shpigelmacher and Maizels launched Bionaut Labs in 2017. The duo was later joined by fellow PrimeSense co-founder Alexander Shpunt. The nano-robot transport device they developed can be inserted into tissue anywhere in the body. It uses magnetic technology for propulsion, which allows the nano robot to be controlled by operators outside, using images on a video monitor for guidance. Once the nano-robot reaches its destination, it can either unload its payload of drugs or deploy tools for surgery. Once the mission is complete, the nano robot is brought back to the insertion point and extracted. Shpigelmacher said the nano robot can unload a drug payload in a single burst or in a more diffuse fashion. And it can discharge medicine that dissolves over a period of weeks. This last approach seems more suitable for chemotherapy treatments applied over time. On the surgery side, the nano robot can make surgical incisions in small clusters of cells directly at the site of the tumor or cyst. Key to both applications of nanorobot technology is video, according to bioengineering professor Song Li, who is chair of the bioengineering department at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, “The imaging modality is important , because it is a guided therapy”. Li said. “You need these tips to achieve what you want.” The first step to commercialization is to test the nano robot without a drug payload. Bionaut Labs has applied for and received a Humanitarian Use Designation from the Food and Drug Administration to use the device on patients with DandyWalker Syndrome, a rare pediatric disorder where a cyst encroaches on key areas of the brain. Conventional treatment involves brain surgery to puncture the cyst and relieve pressure on other affected areas of the brain. Given the major intrusion into brain tissue, surgery can be very risky. Instead, Bionaut’s transport device – with a miniaturized surgical accessory – can reach the affected area from the inside. Shpigelmacher said Bionaut Labs is currently in talks with clinical trial centers to convince them to perform trials of the nano robot with this surgical application. According to Shpigelmacher, Bionaut Labs’ biggest challenge is the continued resistance from some quarters of the medical establishment to this targeted approach. “We find that we need to develop a rationale to change the paradigm for big pharma from flooding the bloodstream to much more precise targeting of treatment,” he said. UCLA’s Li said if Bionaut Labs can push its nano-robot approach through all the hoops of approval, it shows great potential. “On the drug therapy side, it’s a way to integrate imaging, biomaterials, and drug delivery,” Li said. “And for surgery, if there’s a pathway to move surgical materials to the right site, then it becomes a very powerful tool for diagnosis and surgery.” Overall, if Bionaut Labs is successful, its nano-robots could join the pantheon of game-changing drug delivery inventions by Los Angeles corporations, according to Ahmed Enany, chief executive of the Southern California Biomedical Council, a trade organization in Los Angeles. industry based in Westwood. “If the company succeeds in bringing its microbot to market, it will be another ‘Los Angeles first,'” Enany said.
Systems for collecting wastewater and stormwater are complex. They use a series of downstream pipes, pumps, and controls to prevent wastewater from entering our fresh water ponds, lakes, rivers and streams. Lift stations are a critical part of these wastewater systems. They help move the wastewater from lower to higher elevations through pipes. This is especially critical in areas that have elevations that make gravity flow impossible. For example, a sewage pump station may be used to lift sewage over a ridge and let it flow by gravity to a treatment plant. Lift stations are also used when gravity conveyance is cost-prohibitive due to high excavation and construction costs. Key elements of lift stations - Wastewater receiving well (wet well) - Pumps, piping and valves - Power supply - Odor control system - Ventilation system Depending on the size of the communities they serve, municipal wastewater utilities might need to maintain hundreds of lift stations in remote locations. Small stations that handle less than 700 gallons per minute generally have two pumps, while larger lift stations with greater inflows use many more pumps. Municipalities need assurance that all of these remote pumps are working even though they have limited resources. Supplementing weekly inspections Lift station operation is usually automated, so facilities don't require on-site operators. It is very common for operators to conduct weekly inspections to identify potential problems. During these inspections, they check pumps, motors and drives for unusual noise, vibration, heat, and leaks. They might also look for leaking discharge lines and check control panel switches, pump speed, suction, discharge rates and pressure. Between these weekly inspections, anything can go wrong, so it is advisable to have a reliable remote monitoring system in place. Without one, a problem could go undetected until the next inspection. With one, you are alerted instantly to potential problems, which provides both cost savings and peace of mind. Monitor pumps at your lift station site for power outages, pump cycles, sump level, on/off and input/output pressure. Not only can you reduce maintenance costs, but you can drastically reduce response times for overflows, flooding and wastewater incidents. The idea is to solve problems before they become catastrophes. Legacy landlines, auto-dialers and radio-based telemetry systems should be upgraded to cloud-based monitoring systems that are more reliable and provide better access to data. Today’s systems are also much less costly to install and maintain. They don’t require copper wiring or traveling to remote stations to manually monitor equipment and sensors. These systems also make it easier to avoid fines and comply with the guidelines and requirements of the Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) Act. Pump monitoring systems help avoid: - Public outcry from service disruptions - Contaminated water - Sewer overflows - High energy costs - High costs of pump maintenance - Environmental impact caused by overflows Receive immediate notifications of threats Remote monitoring systems are a low-cost way to monitor critical conditions at unattended pump stations. Receive immediate notification of any readings outside of your preset parameters. The systems integrate seamlessly into floats, pump alarm outputs, level transducers and other equipment. Sensors are available to monitor: - Power failures - Pump status - Tank level - Changes in pressure - Temperature fluctuations - Equipment malfunctions - Flow rate - Pump amperage - Security breaches Callout only devices Many stations that are equipped with a PLC use a Sensaphone unit as a simple callout device. The device is wired into the alarm contacts of the PLC, and when the PLC identifies an alarm, the unit alerts the appropriate personnel. Each alarm contact can be uniquely identified (e.g., wet well pump #1) so that personnel know exactly what the problem is before they arrive on site. However, relying on the controller to send an alarm can introduce several points of failure. Alternatively, if the PLC uses Modbus, the Sentinel Pro can pull sensor data directly from the PLC and remotely provide that data in real time for status updates, alarming, notification, reporting and data logging. Other users prefer to use their Sensaphone system to independently verify conditions in their remote or unattended location. By using sensors to monitor for wet well levels, temperature, flow, equipment malfunction and power failure, they can check the status of their station at any time by logging into a website or calling the device. Many devices also record data, which can be used to show compliance and analyze trends. Automatic data logging Our newest systems, like the Sentinel, offer data logging capabilities and unlimited storage. These products gather data and push it to the cloud for alarming and reporting. You can store years of wastewater system data. This data helps you identify trends that can improve pump performance and optimize operations. You can monitor the status of multiple water and wastewater treatment locations through Sensaphone’s website or iPhone/Android app. Manage multiple devices from one login to get: - Pump run-time reports - Flow history - Specific equipment status - Alarm history To get more information or help selecting the right system for your application, call our remote monitoring experts today.
When an x-ray beam is scattered off the planes of a crystal, the scattered beam creates an interference pattern. This phenomenon is called Bragg scattering. For an observer to measure an interference maximum, two conditions have to be satisfied An x-ray beam with wavelength 0.200nm is directed at a crystal. As the angle of incidence increases, you observe the first strong interference maximum at an angle 28.0°. What is the spacing d between the planes of the crystal? Find the angle at which you will find a second maximum. Will you observe a third maximum? You have been asked to measure the width of a slit in a piece of paper. You mount the paper 80.0 centimeters from a screen and illuminate it from behind with laser light of wavelength 633 nanometers (in air). You mark two of the intensity minima as shown in the figure, and measure the distance between them to be 17.9 millimeters. What is the width α of the slit? If the entire apparatus were submerged in water, would the width of the central peak change?
The table above gives the results of a poll published by The Literary Digest magazine on 31 October 1936 (Halloween, appropriately enough), shortly before the 1936 presidential election. The candidates were Franklin Delano Roosevelt (the incumbent president, a democrat) and Alfred (Alf) Mossman Landon (the republican challenger, then governor of Kansas). Approximately 10,000,000 questionnaires (in the form of postcards) were mailed to prospective voters, making the Literary Digest poll one of the largest ever conducted. Approximately 2,300,000 were returned. The prospective voters were chosen from the subscription list of the magazine, from automobile registration lists, from phone lists, and from club membership lists. In the data table, the results are given by state. (There were 48 states in 1936.) The variable EV refers to the number of electoral votes of the state, FDR is the Roosevelt total for the state in the poll, and AML is the Landon total for the state in the poll. Based on the poll, The Literary Digest predicted that Landon would win the 1936 presidential election with 57.1% of the popular vote and an electoral college margin of 370 to 161. In fact, Roosevelt won the election with 60.8% of the popular vote (27,751,841 to 16,679,491) and an electoral college landslide of 523 to 8 (the largest ever in a presidential election). Roosevelt won 46 of 48 states, losing only Maine and Vermont. The Literary Digest, using similar techniques, had correctly predicted the outcome of the last four presidential elections. But in this case, the magazine was not just wrong, it was spectacularly wrong. In part because of the subsequent loss of prestige and credibility, the magazine died just two years later. What went wrong? Clearly the sample was skewed towards wealthier voters—those who could afford magazine subscriptions, cars, phones, and club memberships in the depths of the Great Depression. This sort of bias would not matter if wealthier voters behaved in a similar manner to voters as a whole (as was basically the case in the previous four elections). But in 1936, at a time of great tension between economic classes, this was definitely not the case. Another problem, not easily understood, is self-selection bias. Were the voters who chose to return the questionnaires different, in terms of how they planned to vote, from the voters who did not respond? The links below give the data set in tab-separated text format and comma-separated text format. These are standard formats that can be imported into most statistical and spreadsheet software.
Signals from subs: bridging the water-air gap Researchers are working on ways in which submarines can communicate wirelessly with aircraft in the skies above. Historically, submarines attempt to stay underwater as much as possible to avoid detection, which leaves them unable to communicate with aircraft via radio. Drones used for deep-sea exploration cannot send their data to scientists without rendezvousing with surface vessels or buoys that act as intermediaries. Now, this situation may change thanks to new research from MIT. According to IEEE Spectrum, “a team at MIT has developed a technique for an underwater source to communicate directly with a recipient above the surface. And it could be useful for more than just submarines — underwater exploration and marine conservation could benefit as well”. The system, developed by Fadel Adib, assistant professor in the MIT Media Lab, and his graduate student Francesco Tonolini, converts sonar directly to radar. It aims to enable aircraft and drones to monitor the water’s surface for sonar messages from subs and underwater drones. “Trying to cross the air-water boundary with wireless signals has been an obstacle. Our idea is to transform the obstacle itself into a medium through which to communicate,” Adib told MIT News. The system, called translational acoustic-RF communication (TARF), transmits a sonar signal directly up to the water’s surface, where it causes small vibrations. A highly sensitive, airborne millimetre-wave sensor reads and decodes those tiny disturbances. Building the system The acoustic transmitter is a standard underwater speaker that uses different frequencies to send different data bits. The transmitter operates in the 100 to 200 Hz frequency range, standard for underwater communications used by submarines and other underwater vehicles due to low attenuation and long travel distances in water. A ‘0’ is transmitted as a 100 Hz wave and a ‘1’ is transmitted as a 200 Hz wave. According to the paper the team presented at a recent Special Interest Group on Data Communication (SIGCOMM) conference, “The acoustic signal travels as a pressure wave inside the water. When the pressure wave hits the water surface, it causes a surface displacement that is proportional to the pressure wave.” The TARF transceiver is a millimetre-wave sensor that transmits a wideband signal and measures the reflections from the water’s surface. It analyses the variations in the RF reflections and uses them to decode the bit stream sent by the submerged acoustic transmitter (Figure 1). Decoding the signal The team identified three main challenges in decoding the captured RF reflections: First, the vibrations are very minute, on the order of a few microns. Second, the reflections are easily masked by the ocean’s waves, which are three to six orders of magnitude larger than the perturbations caused by the submerged sound source. Lastly, the acoustic transmitter cannot adjust for the channel quality. The team implemented TARF’s decoder in MATLAB, designing filters to mitigate their impact on the received signal. The algorithms decode and eliminate unwanted interference from water waves by treating them as structured interference. Their signal processing algorithms use the frequency of water waves to tell the difference between large, naturally occurring water waves and the tiny ones created by the acoustic transmitter. The initial approach works only in waves of up to 15 cm high, but the team plans to refine the system to work in ocean waves. The team tested TARF in a water tank, and in two different pools on the MIT campus (Figure 2). To simulate mild waves, swimmers were encouraged to splash about in the pools. In both the water tank and the pools tests, TARF was able to accurately decode various data — such as the sentence, “Hello from underwater”. The data rate is similar to current underwater communications, in the range of hundreds of bits per second. “Even while there were swimmers swimming around and causing disturbances and water currents, we were able to decode these signals quickly and accurately,” said Adib. Recent contracts and agreements for space communications R&D, signed between firms and the... The national awards for the business- and mission-critical communications industry were announced... From radio to wireless, PoC to CBRS, enterprise LTE to new licence types — our industry...
According to a newly published article on New Scientist , evidence of the Earth snagging new moons has been collected as early as 2006, when NASA employee Paul Chodas analyzed what was thought to be remnants of a space shuttle's rocket stage, but turned out to be an asteroid a few meters in width, orbiting the Earth. It had been long theorized that small space debris such as asteroids did sometimes get caught in Earth's gravitational field and act as temporary moons, and now Granvik and his team have the data to back it up. Granvik's team has found that at any given time, there is at least one asteroid in Earth's orbit, as well as thousands of smaller rocks and space debris. The reason these asteroids have gone long undetected is because most of them tend to be no bigger than a meter in width, and are very hard to spot when moving so fast. In order to be caught in the Earth's gravity, the asteroid must be moving as fast as the Earth is, and be close enough (five to ten times the distance as the moon is from Earth) to be snared. Granvik suggests that since these rocks are so close to Earth and are trackable, we could one day be able to pluck the asteroids from their orbits and bring them back to Earth for study. Asteroids hold the key to learning more about how the universe was formed, as they are pieces of ancient space objects. A pure asteroid, undamaged from entering the Earth's atmosphere, has never been studied before. Plans to retrieve these asteroids are already being drawn up by NASA, the European Space Agency, and JAXA, the Japanese space agency. The Earth is no stranger to asteroids. A 2008 incident was recorded by NASA, showing an asteroid that came within 560,000 miles of Earth. In 2011 , an asteroid as large as an aircraft carrier passed only 201,000 miles away from Earth, in between the Earth and the moon, making it the closest an asteroid has ever come to hitting the Earth in modern times.
CMS is particularly important, considering that more than 68 million websites are built with one. So what is it? CMS stands for content management system. It also may be the solution you're looking for to quickly make a website with limited technical knowledge and resources. In this post, we'll define what a CMS is and how it works. Then we'll look at how you can use a CMS to handle the infrastructure of your site so you can focus on creating exciting, delightful content that results in more conversions and leads. We'll wrap up by looking at some of the most popular CMS platforms on the market. Let's get started. What is a content management system (CMS)? A CMS, short for content management system, is a software application that allows users to build and manage a website without having to code it from scratch, or know how to code at all. With a CMS, you can create, manage, modify, and publish content in a user-friendly interface. You can customize the design and functionality of your site by downloading or purchasing templates and extensions, rather than coding. You can have multiple users working in the back-end of the same tool — and much more. You might be wondering how one piece of software does all of this. To answer that question, let's take a closer look at how a CMS works. How a CMS Works To understand how a CMS works, you first have to understand what it's like to build a site from scratch. Whenever you want to make changes — even simple ones like updating content — you have to download files from the server, open them, and change the HTML code by hand. Then you'll have to make sure you didn't break any links or something else before uploading the files back to the server. Sounds complicated, yes? For developers and other advanced users with experience in website development, building a site from scratch might be ideal. But for those who don't have the coding skills or time and resources to build a site from scratch and maintain it, they can use a CMS. Let's talk about how. How to Use a CMS A CMS is made up of two core parts: a content management application (CMA) and content delivery application (CDA). Combined, these applications essentially handle all the code, database queries, and infrastructure in the back end so you can focus on the front end of your site. Here's a look at how easy it is to create a blog post using WordPress, for example. To make other changes on your site, like changing the permalink structure or installing extensions, just navigate to the appropriate section in your admin panel. This is the CMA in action: all these changes are made in an intuitive interface that hides the code from you, the end user. When you're done making changes, the CDA will take the content you entered into the CMA, assemble the code, display it to your front-end visitors, and store it. That means when you want to publish a new blog post, for example, you just have to hit the Publish button instead of manually uploading a page to your server. Now that we understand what a CMS is, how it works, and how to use it, let's explore the benefits of using one over building a site from scratch or using another website building tool. Why Use a CMS? We've already alluded to some benefits of using a CMS, but let's look at some specific ways it can impact your set-up process, team's productivity, and visibility online. 1. No Coding Knowledge Required By enabling non-developers and other users to build websites without coding, CMS systems have helped revolutionize web design. Gone are the days of relying on web developers and designers to establish an online presence for your business. You can create and manage content, customize the design of your site, and install extensions to add functionality to your site — all without coding. (It's important to note that most platforms do allow you to add custom code for more granular control over your site, too.) As a result, users with limited technical resources and time can still build a powerful website for their business. 2. Easy Collaboration Multiple users can access and work in the back end of a CMS at the same time. That means on any given day, your marketers can be producing content, your IT professionals implementing security protocols, and your developers adding custom code to your theme. In fact, they could all be working on the same landing page. HubSpot also offers a free CMS tool, which is perfect for entrepreneurs looking for a CMS that can grow with them as they scale their businesses. In short, a CMS can help improve workflows and productivity across your team. 3. User Roles and Permissions A CMS allows you to collaborate in the most efficient and safe way possible thanks to built-in (and often customizable) user roles and permissions. That means content writers, for example, can have all the permissions they need to write, publish, and manage content — but won't be able to delete plugins or otherwise significantly alter the site's functionality. Here's a look at the User Role Editor in WordPress. 4. SEO Features and Extensions CMS platforms offer built-in features as well as add-ons to help you optimize your site for search engines. Using built-in or third party tools, you can: - Customize page titles and meta descriptions - Choose SEO-friendly URL structures - Create XML sitemaps - Add image alt text - Create 301 Redirects - Include breadcrumb navigation - Optimize page load times Implementing these best practices will help improve your chances of ranking on Google and other major search engines. 5. Security Features and Extensions CMS platforms also offer built-in features and add-ons to help you secure your site. Some even offer a dedicated security team. CMS Hub, for example, provides a dedicated 24/7 security team, an enterprise-class web application firewall, SSL, custom CDN, SSO memberships, and and other out-of-the-box features. 6. Predesigned Templates Most CMS platforms come with a selection of predesigned templates you can use to quickly customize the appearance of your site. They can also affect the behavior of your site. Choosing a responsive template, for example, will ensure your site looks good on any device, without requiring you to write a bunch of code. Not only do templates save you design time before launching your site, they can also make a website redesign much faster and simpler down the road. Webflow is just one CMS that offers hundreds of responsive templates. 7. Simple Updates As discussed above, a CMS enables you to make changes on your site faster and easier — from major updates, like a website redesign, to minor updates, like changing the image on your home page. Rather than hiring a freelance developer or trying to edit the code yourself, you can go into the dashboard of your CMS to update and edit the content of your website. This allows you to keep your content dynamic and relevant. 8. Blogging Functionality Blogging offers a range of benefits, particularly to businesses. It can help drive traffic to your website, convert traffic into leads, establish authority in a particular industry, generate backlinks, and achieve other long-term results. But building a blog from scratch is difficult, even for experienced developers. A major advantage of using a CMS is that most provide built-in blogging functionality (or extensions) so it's easy to start creating and publishing blog content and reaping the benefits. 9. Content Scheduling Scheduling content is essential to any editorial strategy. When building a site from scratch, you can schedule content — but it will require a combination of coding and tools like GitHub. With a CMS, scheduling content is as easy as clicking a button. Most platforms allow you to schedule more than just blog posts, too. With CMS Hub for example, you can schedule blog posts as well as website pages, landing pages, and emails. Here's a look at the scheduling tab within HubSpot's blog editor. 10. Easy Access With a CMS platform, you can access and edit your site on virtually any device with an internet connection. That's much easier than the alternative of building a site from scratch, which requires you to be on a device connected to the server or connect remotely. Plus, most CMS systems have a single dashboard or control panel where you can access your site's content, theme, plugins, settings, and more — all in one place. If your site is growing, you may need to upgrade to a CMS to meet your needs. You can start your search by checking out a few of the best CMS systems below. CMS Platform Examples - CMS Hub Let's unpack eight popular CMS platform examples to discover which might be the best fit for your website needs. 1. CMS Hub Ideal for: Any-sized businesses Price: $25 - $1,200 per month Why Use CMS Hub: With CMS Hub, you can build websites that are secure, powerful, and optimized for search engines. Using this all-on-one connected platform, you can create personalized content for visitors based on data from your HubSpot CRM, create custom templates and styles, run A/B tests on multi-language content, safely redesign and relaunch web pages, view performance analytics, and much more. By combining ease of use and flexibility, this proprietary CMS is ideal for businesses with diverse teams of marketers, developers, and IT professionals that are looking to grow over time. Ideal for: Small businesses and freelancers Price: Estimated between $30 to $3,000 Why Use WordPress: WordPress is a self-hosted platform that powers millions of sites. You can easily and quickly build a WordPress site using the Gutenberg editor and then customize it with any of the thousands of plugins and themes available in the official WordPress directory or other third-party sites. Want to add forms and live chat to your site? Want a theme that comes with a built-in visual builder and split testing? Leveraging WordPress plugins and themes like these, you can create a unique experience specific to your brand. Ideal for: Global companies Price: Estimated between $700 to $6,500 Like WordPress, Joomla is an open-source CMS. What sets Joomla apart is its built-in multilingual support and advanced user and content management options, which make it ideal for membership, community, and social networking sites. UIDAI, for example, is a multilingual website powered by Joomla. Ideal for: Corporatations and government agencies Price: Estimated between $5,000 to $20,000 Why Use Drupal: Drupal is a highly flexible CMS favored by large corporations and government agencies like NASA. While you will need web development experience to fully leverage the power of this platform, you won't have to start from scratch. In addition to its out-of-the-box features, you can choose among 47,000 modules available in its directory and thousands of free themes in its theme repository to build a complex site that handles large volumes of data and heavy traffic, like Rush University Medical Center's website. Ideal for: Ecommerce businesses Price: Estimated at $15,000 and up Why Use Magento: The self-hosted version of Magento, known as Magento OpenSource, is like the Drupal of the ecommerce world. It's highly flexible and secure, but difficult to learn and take advantage of all its built-in functionality and extensions. With Magento, you can manage multiple stores, use several worldwide shipping providers, and transact in different countries, languages, and currencies — all within the same dashboard. So, if you have the time and resources to invest in set-up and maintenance, you'll be able to build an online store with a huge product inventory and global reach. Ideal for: Web designers and agencies Price: $15 - $235 per month Why Use Webflow: Webflow is a “visual” content management system designed to fill a market gap for web designers who want to focus on creating and customizing sites without worrying about hosting, security, or performance. With Webflow, you can start with one of the hundreds of pre-built templates or start from scratch using the Webflow Designer shown below. You can also extend the functionality of your site through third-party integrations or embedding HTML code. Since it requires at least some knowledge of HTML, CSS, and web design, Webflow is best suited for freelancer designers or agencies. Ideal for: Bloggers Price: $9 - $2,400 per month Why Use Ghost: If you're looking for a more simple and lightweight CMS dedicated to blogging, Ghost is a great option. Ghost is a headless CMS, which means that its body (the content repository) is separated from its head (the presentation layer). Basically, this allows you to create and manage content and then deliver that content via their Node.js APIs (or another front-end tool you prefer) to any platform and channel, from smartwatches to virtuality reality headsets. With an intuitive editor and built-in SEO tools, Ghost appeals to bloggers and beginners who want a basic site that’s simple to create and manage. Ideal for: Enterprise companies Why Use Sitecore: Sitecore is an enterprise-level headless CMS that enables you to create and deliver personalized websites, emails, social media posts, and mobile experiences. You can use its WYSIWYG editor with drag-and-drop functionality, session- and device-based personalization rules, and multilingual tools to scale your content creation and deliver content that’s optimized to your users’ interests, language, and device. And thanks to Sitecore’s headless architecture, you can provide these relevant customer experiences across multiple channels, including web, social, voice, point of sale, and more. This CMS powers more than 120,000 websites in industries ranging from sports to banking to travel and more. Some of its biggest brands are American Express, ASOS, L’Oréal, and Volvo Cars. Use a CMS to Build Your Site Using a content management system to build and manage your site can help you grow over time. Not only will a CMS store all of your web content in one place, it will also support collaboration across teams, allow for quick and easy updates, and offer templates and extensions to customize your site. Editor's note: This post was originally published in December 2010 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
What is Bentonite Clay? Bentonite clay is harvested from ancient volcanic ash deposits that typically have landed in a marine environment. Over time, the ash weathers and ages to become bentonite clay. For thousands of years, humans have used bentonite clay to promote health internally and externally, as well as supporting healthy crops and livestock. Just like living organisms, rocks and minerals are organized into groups based upon physical and chemical characteristics. Bentonite clay belongs to a mineral family called smectites. - Smectites: a group of phyllosilicate minerals (specific configuration of silicon or sometimes aluminum, and oxygen molecules). - Bentonite clay: a smectite clay named for the region where the mineral was originally found (near Benton Wyoming). - Montmorillonite clay: a smectite clay named for the where the mineral was originally found (near Montmorillon, France). Same clay as bentonite, just named for its region of discovery. The names bentonite, montmorillonite, and smectite are sometimes used interchangeably by manufacturers. What Makes Smectite Clays Special? Smectite clays are made of plate-like grains with a rather large surface area. This unique physical structure gives them some incredibly useful chemical characteristics. Smectite clays are very adsorptive. Adsorption is a solid substance’s ability to hold gas or liquid molecules as a thin film on its surface. With a large surface area and a naturally negative charge, smectite particles can gather and store a large quantity of positively charged cations. Smectites like bentonite and montmorillonite are also very powerful absorbers. Absorption is a solid substance’s ability to completely soak up and retain gas or liquid molecules. According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), these clays can also bind to harmful toxins more efficiently than even charcoal. By binding to both man-made and naturally occurring toxins, smectites can prevent living tissues from absorbing harmful substances. • Learn more about toxin binding. Clay for Animal and Soil Health Clay particles store minerals in a way that makes them biologically available to living organisms. Through adsorption and absorption, they can attract essential minerals and electronically exchange them with living tissues. They can also bind to substances that would otherwise irritate and harm these same tissues. The NIH study mentioned above has found that bentonite clay can: - Prevent and treat skin lesions, ulcers, and rashes - Treat digestive upset - Support gut microbe colonies - Increase gut nutrient absorption - Boost immune response - Improve renal health and kidney function - Regulate thyroid health - Act as a natural antibiotic for some harmful bacteria strains - Reduce the bioavailability of toxins • Learn more about bentonite clay benefits for all species of livestock Clay particles also produce a wide range of plant health benefits: - Stabilizes soil (especially important for loose, sandy soils) - Improves soil moisture - Stores positively charged nutrients to exchange with plant roots Redmond Clay Conditioner The winning combination of volcanic ash deposit and marine environment created the Redmond clay and mineral deposit in central Utah. Redmond Conditioner is harvested from this incredibly unique resource, and has spent millions of years attracting over 60 trace minerals from the surrounding deposit. For over 50 years, farmers have enjoyed the many health and productivity benefits of our clay and mineral mixes. Adding Redmond Conditioner to your livestock mineral program will naturally compliment everything you are already feeding your animals. Customers are happy to tell us they have noticed “their animals just do better on Redmond: - Improved weights - Healthier immune response - Reduced mortality rates - Healthier coats and hooves - Greater stamina - Increased feed efficiency - Improves fiber digestion - Maintains healthy gut ammonia levels - Efficient rumen buffer (just as effective as sodium bicarbonate) - Binds to toxins in feed and forage - Reduced mineral costs, and more! Redmond Conditioner can also introduce a wide range of benefits for your soil and vegetation health. Click to see soil application rates. - Increase soil CEC (clay particles store nutrients on their surface and exchange with plant roots) - Improves soil fertility - Enriches soil and plants with a profile of over 60 trace minerals - Increases plant yield and nutrient density - Mineral salts that increase EC (electrical conductivity) - Stimulates soil microbe colonies © 2023 Redmond Minerals Inc.
They are the words no new parent wants to hear: Your child may have autism. Experts estimate that one in every 150 children will be diagnosed with some form of autism, the most common condition in a group of developmental disorders known as the autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). There is no known cure, and scientists have yet to pinpoint a cause, though it is commonly thought that genetic mutations and environmental factors both play a role. Identifying the genes responsible has proved challenging. But a pair of new studies spearheaded by geneticists from Penn’s School of Medicine and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia have pinpointed a common genetic variation that is often found in children with autism. The findings, published last month in the journal Nature, have created quite a stir in the autism research community and ultimately may lead to better diagnostic tools for physicians. “It is very compelling to find evidence that mutations in genes involved in brain interconnections increase a child’s risk of autism, because other autism researchers have made intriguing suggestions that autism arises from abnormal connections among brain cells during early development,” says study leader Hakon Hakonarson, director of CHOP’s Center for Applied Genomics and associate professor of pediatrics at Penn Medicine. The Penn team looked at genome-wide data from more than 10,000 study participants and determined that children with autism spectrum disorders were more likely than healthy children to have these common gene variants. “There have been other studies that have tried to get at the genetics of autism,” says Gerard D. Schellenberg, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Penn’s School of Medicine. “This is the first common variant that’s reached statistical significance across the entire genome.” Schellenberg says he first became interested in human genetics as a research tool to get at human diseases in the 1980s at the University of Washington, where he and some colleagues started an autism research program. By collaborating with other teams across the country, they began collecting data on families with multiple people diagnosed with autism. Believing that inheritance and certain gene mutations increase the risk of a child developing the disorder, Schellenberg and Hakonarson set out to find clues about which genes contribute to this increased susceptibility. What they found was a common genetic variation that increases the risk of a child developing autism, along with a rarer genetic change that contributes to some cases of autism. “It certainly takes something else—other genes, almost certainly—and probably something else from the environment. So what we found was one of the contributing susceptibility factors,” Schellenberg says. The findings won’t result in a diagnostic test that can be used in the doctor’s office tomorrow. But it is the first real step in the understanding of the genetics of autism. And with additional information, physicians soon may be able to predict whether an infant is at high risk for the condition. “The important thing there is that there are behavioral interventions that do make a difference in somebody with autism. If we could start those very, very early in life, maybe they’d have a bigger impact,” Schellenberg says. Genetic advances also tell scientists what to pay attention to in terms of studying protein molecules, a key for developing new medicines and therapies for complex genetic diseases like autism. “We need to understand autism on a very molecular level before we can design rational interventions,” Schellenberg says. “Rational interventions” are the words parents of autistic children dream to hear. But Schellenberg cautions science still has a long way to go. “It’s hard to say we’re close to a cure. But we’re a little closer now. This is a good first step,” he says. Originally published on May 21, 2009
(b. 1948) is the most successful composer of musicals of his generation and also a breaker of molds for the type. His predecessors were, for the most part, American: New York-based songwriters steeped in Broadway tradition. saw his share of shows as a child, too, but he was born in London, the son of William Lloyd Webber, Director of the London College of Music, and was trained at the Royal Academy of Music, hardly the sort of place where you'd be likely to hear Nevertheless, Lloyd Webber hooked up with lyricist Tim Rice , and the two began work on what would be a typical project for them, a musical based on the Biblical story of Joseph and his coat of many colors. Titled Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat , it brought in a strong rock & roll influence. After writing a second unproduced musical, the two hit on the idea of writing a musical based on the life of Jesus Christ from the point of view of Judas (not the sort of idea likely to occur to a Broadway composer) and, again, imbued with rock. Unable to finance a stage version, Lloyd Webber did manage to record their show, and Jesus Christ Superstar went on to sales in the millions all over the world. The hit musical version followed.Lloyd Webber then split, with the composer writing film scores and working on an abortive musical with playwright Alan Ayckbourne (Jeeves ), after which Rice returned with another audacious idea: a musical based on the life of Argentine dictator (or dictator's wife, depending on how you look at it) Eva Peron. Evita (1976) repeated the pattern of Jesus Christ Superstar , with its hit record album followed by a successful theatrical run in the West End and then on Broadway. The Lloyd Webber partnership, having proved itself again, was severed (Rice went on to write Chess ), and Lloyd Webber next wrote a musical revue based on T.S. Eliot's whimsical poems about Cats (1981). This time, the show came before the album, and it's still running. By this time, Lloyd Webber had largely abandoned the rock elements of his work in favor of what critics found a pastiche style that borrowed from classical and opera sources. He had also become a brand name (and a corporation, the Really Useful Company) that assured at least a modest success for subsequent shows, though critics were often unimpressed with his efforts. Downgrading the status of his lyricists, Lloyd Webber went on to a series of successful shows (Song and Dance, Starlight Express ) before scoring another long- (and still-) running hit in 1987 (1988 in New York) with a musical adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera . Aspects of Love (1989-1990) was less successful, however. Lloyd Webber debuted a musical adaptation of the Billy Wilder film Sunset Boulevard in the early '90s, and it proved to be one of his rare disappointments, failing to earn either good reviews or healthy ticket sales. In 1996, Alan Parker adapted Evita for the screen; Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice contributed a new song, "You Must Love Me," to the production, which starred Madonna . "You Must Love Me" won the Best Original Song award at the 1997 Academy Awards.
Archaic Kore statue ''Frasikleia'' - 570 - 530 BCE National Archaeological museum of Athens This is one of the finest examples of an Archaic kore (maiden). Ancient Greek Art. Kouros, periodo arcaico. Art Experience NYC www.artexperiencenyc.com/social_login/?utm_source=pinterest_medium=pins_content=pinterest_pins_campaign=pinterest_initial Plaque with two women, ca. 650–600 B.C.; Archaic Greek Ivory; H. 5 3/8 in. (13.64 cm) The Discobolus 460-450 BC; British Museum, London, England Artemis Goddess,The Goddess,Ancient Greek Art,Ancient Greece,Ancient History,Gods And Goddesses,Twin Sisters,Greek Mythology,Classical Mythology,Temple,Sculptures Hellenistic statue of a satyr; a man with a goat's horns and legs, with his attributes of bunches of grapes and an animal skin. Atlas ("Farnese") holding up the celestial sphere, Roman statue (marble), copy after Hellenistic original, 3rd century AD? (original 2nd c. BC), (Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples). Laocoon & His Sons The message in remembrance of this piece of art--Listen to even the smallest oppositional or defiant voice regarding the status quo or accepted idol. That voice may have a message well worth heeding. romeinse fresco - Google zoeken
In a world where injustice and discrimination continue to exist, it is the duty of every human being to speak up and fight for what is right. As a human rights defender, I firmly believe that staying silent in the face of injustice is not an option. We must all fight tirelessly for equality and dignity for all. Human rights are universal and inalienable. They are the basic rights and freedoms that every human being is entitled to, regardless of their race, gender, religion, or any other characteristic. These rights include the right to life, liberty, and security of person, freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly, and the right to education, health, and work. Unfortunately, these rights are often violated in many parts of the world. Discrimination, oppression, and violence are still prevalent, and the most vulnerable members of society are often the ones who suffer the most. As a human rights defender, it is our responsibility to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves. The fight for human rights is not an easy one. It requires courage, determination, and perseverance. It means challenging the status quo, speaking truth to power, and advocating for change. It also means being willing to take risks and face the consequences of our actions. But the fight for human rights is also a noble one. It is a fight for justice, dignity, and freedom. It is a fight for a better world, where everyone is treated with respect and equality. And it is a fight that we must all be willing to engage in, no matter how small our contribution may be. As a human rights defender, I will never stay silent in the face of injustice. I will continue to speak up and fight tirelessly for equality and dignity for all. I urge everyone to join me in this fight and to make a difference in the world. Together, we can create a world where human rights are respected, protected, and fulfilled for everyone.
The Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO play an important role in monitoring, analysing and communicating observed and future changes in Australia’s climate. This fifth, biennial State of the Climate report draws on the latest monitoring, science and projection information to describe variability and changes in Australia’s climate. Observations and climate modelling paint a consistent picture of ongoing, long‑term climate change interacting with underlying natural variability. These changes affect many Australians, particularly the changes associated with increases in the frequency or intensity of heat events, fire weather and drought. Australia will need to plan for and adapt to some level of climate change. This report is a synthesis of the science informing our understanding of climate in Australia and includes new information about Australia’s climate of the past, present and future. The science underpinning this report will help inform a range of economic, environmental and social decision‑making and local vulnerability assessments, by government, industry and communities.Report at a glance Energy comes from the Sun. To maintain stable temperatures at the Earth’s surface this incoming energy must be balanced in the longer‑term by an equal amount of heat radiated back to space. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide and methane, make it harder for the Earth to radiate this heat, so increase the temperature of the Earth’s surface, ocean and atmosphere. This is called the greenhouse effect. Without any greenhouse gases, the Earth’s surface would be much colder, with an average temperature of about –18 °C. For centuries prior to industrialisation the incoming sunlight and outgoing heat were balanced, and global average temperatures were relatively steady, at a little under 15 °C. Now, mostly because of the burning of fossil fuels and changes in land use, the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are rising and causing surface temperatures to increase, leading to an ‘enhanced’ greenhouse effect. There is now an energy imbalance at the Earth’s surface of around 0.7–0.8 Wm–2 (averaged globally). The atmosphere and oceans will continue to warm until enough extra heat can escape to space to allow the Earth to return to balance. Because increased levels of carbon dioxide persist in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, further warming and sea level rise is inevitable.Future climate The biennial CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology State of the Climate report draws on the latest monitoring, science and projection information to describe variability and changes in Australia’s climate, and how it is likely to change in the future. These changes affect many Australians, particularly changes associated with increases in the frequency or intensity of heat events, fire weather and drought.The State of the Climate 2018 video This fifth report by the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO draws on the latest climate monitoring, science and projection information to describe changes and long-term trends in Australia’s climate.State of the Climate 2018 CSIRO BOM Dec2018 Australia’s weather and climate continues to change in response to a warming global climate system. Australia has warmed by just over 1 °C since 1910, with most warming since 1950. This warming has seen an increase in the frequency of extreme heat events and increased the severity of drought conditions during periods of below‑average rainfall. Eight of Australia’s top ten warmest years on record have occurred since 2005.Australia’s changing climate Australian rainfall is highly variable and is strongly influenced by phenomena such as El Niño, La Niña, and the Indian Ocean Dipole. Despite this large natural variability, underlying long‑term trends are evident in some regions. There has been a shift towards drier conditions across southwestern and southeastern Australia during April to October. Northern Australia has been wetter across all seasons, but especially in the northwest during the tropical wet season.Australia’s changing climate The ocean surface around Australia has warmed over recent decades at a similar rate to the air temperature. Sea surface temperature in the Australian region has warmed by around 1 °C since 1910, with eight of the ten warmest years on record occurring since 2010. Part of the East Australian Current now extends further south, creating an area of more rapid warming in the Tasman Sea. This extension is having numerous impacts on marine ecosystems, including many marine species extending their habitat range further south.Oceans Australia’s national climate projections at www.climatechangeinaustralia.gov.au indicate that over coming decades Australia will experience: General climate information and links.References and data sources Read the State of the Climate Report published in 2016 by CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology. Read the State of the Climate Report published in 2014 by CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology. Read the State of the Climate Report published in 2012 by CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology. Read the State of the Climate Report published in 2010 by CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology.
Planning a healthy vegetarian diet The key to a healthy vegetarian diet — like any diet — is to include a variety of foods. No single food can provide all the nutrients your body needs. A registered dietitian can help you create a vegetarian diet that's right for you. Healthy vegetarian eating pattern \|\|Recommended servings for 2,000-calorie/day diet \|Source: 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans\| \|\|2 1/2 cups a day \|\|1 1/2 cups a week \|Red and orange \|\|5 1/2 cups a week \|Legumes (beans and peas) \|\|3 cups a week \|\|5 cups a week \|\|4 cups a week \|\|2 cups a day \|\|6 1/2 ounces a day \|\|≥ 3 1/2 ounces a day \|\|≤ 3 ounces a day \|\|3 cups a day \|\|3 1/2 ounces a day \|Meats, poultry, eggs \|\|3 ounces a week (eggs) \|Nuts, seeds, soy products \|\|14 ounces a week \|\|27 grams a day \|Added sugars, solid fats, added refined starches \|\|No more than 290 calories a day (15% of total calories) Keep in mind that the more restrictive your diet is, the more challenging it can be to get all the nutrients you need. A vegan diet, for example, eliminates natural food sources of vitamin B-12, as well as milk products, which are good sources of calcium. To be sure that your diet includes everything your body needs, pay special attention to the following nutrients: Calcium and vitamin D Calcium helps build and maintain strong teeth and bones. Milk and dairy foods are highest in calcium. However, dark green vegetables, such as turnip and collard greens, kale, and broccoli, are good plant sources when eaten in sufficient quantities. Calcium-enriched and fortified products, including juices, cereals, soy milk, soy yogurt and tofu, are other options. Vitamin D also plays an important role in bone health. Vitamin D is added to cow's milk, some brands of soy and rice milk, and some cereals and margarines. Be sure to check food labels. If you don't eat enough fortified foods and have limited sun exposure, you may need a vitamin D supplement (one derived from plants). Vitamin B-12 is necessary to produce red blood cells and prevent anemia. This vitamin is found almost exclusively in animal products, so it can be difficult to get enough B-12 on a vegan diet. Vitamin B-12 deficiency may go undetected in people who eat a vegan diet. This is because the vegan diet is rich in a vitamin called folate, which may mask deficiency in vitamin B-12 until severe problems occur. For this reason, it's important for vegans to consider vitamin supplements, vitamin-enriched cereals and fortified soy products. Protein helps maintain healthy skin, bones, muscles and organs. Eggs and dairy products are good sources, and you don't need to eat large amounts to meet your protein needs. You can also get sufficient protein from plant-based foods if you eat a variety of them throughout the day. Plant sources include soy products and meat substitutes, legumes, lentils, nuts, seeds, and whole grains. Omega-3 fatty acids Omega-3 fatty acids are important for heart health. Diets that do not include fish and eggs are generally low in active forms of omega-3 fatty acids. Canola oil, soy oil, walnuts, ground flaxseed and soybeans are good sources of essential fatty acids. However, because conversion of plant-based omega-3 to the types used by humans is inefficient, you may want to consider fortified products or supplements or both. Iron and zinc Iron is a crucial component of red blood cells. Dried beans and peas, lentils, enriched cereals, whole-grain products, dark leafy green vegetables, and dried fruit are good sources of iron. Because iron isn't as easily absorbed from plant sources, the recommended intake of iron for vegetarians is almost double that recommended for nonvegetarians. To help your body absorb iron, eat foods rich in vitamin C, such as strawberries, citrus fruits, tomatoes, cabbage and broccoli, at the same time as you're eating iron-containing foods. Like iron, zinc is not as easily absorbed from plant sources as it is from animal products. Cheese is a good option if you eat dairy products. Plant sources of zinc include whole grains, soy products, legumes, nuts and wheat germ. Zinc is an essential component of many enzymes and plays a role in cell division and in formation of proteins. Iodine is a component in thyroid hormones, which help regulate metabolism, growth and function of key organs. Vegans may not get enough iodine and may be at risk of deficiency and possibly even a goiter. In addition, foods such as soybeans, cruciferous vegetables and sweet potatoes may promote a goiter. However, just 1/4 teaspoon of iodized salt a day provides a significant amount of iodine. One way to transition to a vegetarian diet is to gradually reduce the meat in your diet while increasing fruits and vegetables. Here are a couple of tips to help you get started: March 14, 2016 - Ramp up. Each week increase the number of meatless meals you already enjoy, such as spaghetti with tomato sauce or vegetable stir-fry. Find ways to include greens, such as spinach, kale, Swiss chard and collards, in your daily meals. - Substitute. Take favorite recipes and try them without meat. For example, make vegetarian chili by leaving out the ground beef and adding an extra can of black beans. Or make fajitas using extra-firm tofu rather than chicken. You may be surprised to find that many dishes require only simple substitutions. - Branch out. Scan the Internet for vegetarian menus. Buy or borrow vegetarian cookbooks. Check out ethnic restaurants to sample new vegetarian cuisines. The more variety you bring to your vegetarian diet, the more likely you'll be to meet all your nutritional needs. See more In-depth - Messina V, et al. A new food guide for North American vegetarians. Journal of the American Dietetic Association. 2003;103:748. - Vegetarian diets. American Heart Association. http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/NutritionCenter/Vegetarian-Diets_UCM_306032_Article.jsp. Accessed April 16, 2015. - Duyff RL. Food choices: The consumer marketplace. In: American Dietetic Association Complete Food and Nutrition Guide. 4th ed. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons; 2012. - Position of the American Dietetic Association: Vegetarian diets. Journal of the American Dietetic Association. 2009;109:1266. - Marsh K, et al. Meeting nutritional needs on a vegetarian diet. Australian Family Physician. 2009;38:600. - 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Agriculture. http://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/guidelines/. Accessed Jan. 7, 2016. - Craig WJ. Nutrition concerns and health effects of vegetarian diets. Nutrition in Clinical Practice. 2010;25:613. - Craig WJ. Health effects of vegan diets. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2009;89:1627S. - Vegetarian and vegan diet pyramid. Oldways Preservation Trust. http://oldwayspt.org/resources/heritage-pyramids/vegetarian-diet-pyramid/overview. Accessed April 16, 2015. - The basics of plant food nutrition. Oldways Preservation Trust. http://oldwayspt.org/resources/heritage-pyramids/vegetarian-diet-pyramid/basics-plant-food-nutrition. Accessed April 16, 2015. - Vegetarian diet and health. Oldways Preservation Trust. http://oldwayspt.org/resources/heritage-pyramids/vegetarian-diet-pyramid/vegetarian-diet-health. Accessed April 16, 2015. - Colditz GA. Healthy diet in adults. http://www.uptodate.com/home. Accessed April 16, 2015. - Healthy eating for vegetarians. U.S. Department of Agriculture. http://www.nutrition.gov/smart-nutrition-101/healthy-eating/eating-vegetarian. Accessed April 16, 2015. - Demory-Luce D, et al. Vegetarian diets for children. http://www.uptodate.com/home. Accessed April 16, 2015. - Le LT, et al. Beyond meatless, the health effects of vegan diets: Findings from the Adventist Cohorts. Nutrients. 2014;6:2131. - Nelson JK (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. April 20, 2015.
Table of Contents Graphic Design Courses Castlebar Graphic design is an area comprising of professionals who are specialists in the crafting of graphics, typically for commercial or technical reasons. Examples of graphic design may be the labels on items that people purchase or the images and visual structure on websites. People employed in this area create art using photographs and typefaces in a purposeful way to express some sort of meaning. The area is continually shifting and evolving as technologies and taste make for new approaches. The widespread use of personal computers has had a significant influence on the world of graphic design. Many computer algorithms allow artists to modify pictures far more effectively than conventional methods, meaning that photos can be modified easily. Modern techniques can be used to produce art from scratch. Computers have also been influential in the popularity and use of the Internet, generating massive demand for graphic design practitioners to develop online material. What do Graphic Designers do? People who work in this area sometimes work on their own, but often they may be part of a large team. For example, one designer will be responsible for modifying the image, while another is responsible for creating the typeface to be used. More joint projects will usually include one designer overseeing the core idea of it. They will be responsible for making the most innovative work out of each of their team members. Graphic designers may be working in several different contexts, so there is usually a broad range of work available for a wide range of different pay ranges and various roles to do. Whenever an organisation wants some visual presentation, there is a fair likelihood that a competent graphic artist would be responsible for designing it. People who do this kind of job will work on anything from publishing to advertisement to politics. Often a graphic design specialist can work for a major company, but he can still work independently as an independent contractor. Many colleges offer graphic design programmes that deal with every part of the profession and help get work in the industry. Graphic designers will need to understand how pictures influence people’s attitudes and habits. They will also need to get a clear understanding of all the methods and technologies used in the field to produce these images. Few graphic design practitioners often research other subjects, such as advertisement or psychology, to achieve a deeper understanding of human nature and communication methods. Use of Graphic & Web Design in Branding Branding is another essential aspect of corporate web design. The company’s name, brand colours, and even corporate fonts should all be displayed regularly on the company’s website to ensure that visitors can connect them with the company. However, an organisation wants to make its brands; it can do so by corporate web design using a mix of good graphics, colours, and text. Corporate web design that does not make room for a high degree of site accessibility risks losing users who might get irritated with the site and leave early. Websites that take a long time to load include broken connections and script bugs and are difficult to manage, reflecting heavily on the company. The layout of a company’s website can include clearly defined menus and sidebars, and various buttons to help users get back to the main pages. Websites that have a high amount of material arranged on many separate pages can include a web map to help simplify the visitor’s overall site experience. Blue Sky Graphics in Castlebar Our graphic design course exposes students to the fundamental principles of graphic design and the world of visual communication. Students will discuss the idea of visual thought, the concepts and values of architecture, and the fundamentals of typography. The course also familiarises students with critical applications, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, and develops practical lessons in this field. What to expect from the graphic design course? We will begin with what graphic design is and how graphic design is all about creatively expressing a concept, thought, message, or context by incorporating icons, pictures, and words. We also offer a rundown of the graphic design applications-Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator & InDesign and how artists use these software best. The web design course also covers WordPress, Elementor, and Adobe XD. You will learn how to look through a “Designer’s Eye” by knowing the building blocks of graphic design. You can learn how to use form, shape, colour, texture, mass, and space to convey your message and use concepts to add order and structure to your projects. Colour is one of the most critical aspects of any style. Colour theory creates a conceptual framework, and it is important to recognise it as part of your design education. Colour may set the tone, draw interest, or make a point. It can be the most important design factor, and here you can learn how to understand and use it effectively. Career Plan for Designers Various forms of part-time graphic design jobs span a wide variety of advertisement collateral and product packaging commissions, and freelance website design work. Newspapers and periodical publishers also employ part-time graphic designers for pagination and ad layout. Some part-time artists create fine art pieces, while others specialise in a specific niche, such as a book cover design. Often, graphic design designers tend to work part-time on a long-term basis because of the potential advantages of an avocation. Advertising companies also use graphic designers’ services, and a large number of them may work part-time at some stage in their careers. Freelancers are also given contracts to design websites since the amount of work required continuously reduces until the site is finished. Graphic designers will design a full range of promotional materials. This often contains products such as posters, brochures, or written ads that run in magazines. Many part-time designers are commissioned to design or redesign websites. The print media industry hires freelancers and part-time staff to consult on website layout and campaign design. Owing to the tight deadlines of regular newspaper outlets, graphic designers could be hired to work a few shifts a week. Since newspaper employment is highly competitive in terms of available openings, part-time graphic design positions can be an opportunity to obtain a foothold in the industry. Student internships are another means of gaining graphic design work and are routinely offered by publishers of printed materials.
\|\|The neutrality of this article is disputed. (March 2013)\| Opposition to the decade-long Afghanistan war stems from numerous factors – these include the view that the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was illegal under international law and constituted an unjustified aggression, the view that the continued military presence constitutes a foreign military occupation, the view that the war does little to prevent terrorism but increases its likelihood, and views on the involvement of geo-political and corporate interests. Also giving rise to opposition to the war are civilian casualties, the cost to taxpayers, the length of the war to date, and the estimates by many that it could last for many more decades. - 1 Disputed legality of the U.S. invasion - 2 Involvement in an Afghan civil war - 3 Afghan civilian opposition to the invasion - 4 Afghan civilian casualties - 5 Coalition military casualties - 6 International public opinion - 7 International protests against the war - 8 Foreign military occupation - 9 Foreign military raids of Afghan homes - 10 Destruction of Afghan homes and crops - 11 Rejection of the terrorism argument - 12 Geo-political and corporate interests - 13 Thriving opium production since the invasion - 14 Financial cost of the war to taxpayers and Western economies - 15 Length of the war - 16 Comparisons to the Soviet war in Afghanistan - 17 Comparisons to the Vietnam War - 18 Growing U.S. opposition to the war in Afghanistan - 19 Troop reductions and removals - 20 See also - 21 References Disputed legality of the U.S. invasion Opponents of the war have long claimed that the attack on Afghanistan was illegal under international law, constituted unjustified aggression and would lead to the deaths of many civilians through the bombing campaign and by preventing humanitarian aid workers from bringing food into the country. By one estimate, around 5,000 Afghan civilians had been killed within just the first three months of the U.S. invasion. More broadly, the invasion of Afghanistan appeared to opponents to be a stepping stone to the 2003 Iraq War, increasing the geo-political reach of the United States. The UN Charter is a treaty ratified by the United States and thus part of US law. Under the charter, a country can use armed force against another country only in self-defense or when the Security Council approves. Neither of those conditions was met before the United States invaded Afghanistan. The Taliban did not attack us on 9/11. Nineteen men – 15 from Saudi Arabia – did, and there was no imminent threat that Afghanistan would attack the US or another UN member country. The council did not authorize the United States or any other country to use military force against Afghanistan. The US war in Afghanistan is illegal. Involvement in an Afghan civil war Opposition also stems from the view that the U.S.-led military forces are taking sides in an ongoing civil war in Afghanistan between its ethnic groups, backing minority Tajiks and Uzbeks against the Pashtun majority of Afghanistan. Several weeks into a massive U.S.-led military offensive against the Taliban in four southern Afghan provinces in 2006, Afghan President Hamid Karzai spoke against the killing of so many Afghan citizens: It is not acceptable for us that in all this fighting, Afghans are dying. In the last three to four weeks, 500 to 600 Afghans were killed. [Even] if they are Taliban, they are sons of this land. According to journalist Ahmed Rashid, the noted author of several books on Afghanistan, the Taliban are in the fabric of that country, and defeating the Taliban would involve killing "large numbers of Pashtuns", an ethnic group with a long history in southeastern Afghanistan. Afghan civilian opposition to the invasion One of the best-known women's organization in Afghanistan, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), condemned the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, stating that "America ... has launched a vast aggression on our country". They accused the U.S. and its allies of "paying the least attention to the fate of democracy in Afghanistan" by first having supported for years a "Jehadis-fostering, Osama-fostering and Taliban-fostering" policy before the 2001 U.S. invasion, only to now be "sharpening the dagger of the Northern Alliance" warlords and drug lords that were key allies of the U.S. in its invasion. Our people have been caught in the claws of the monster of a vast war and destruction....The continuation of US attacks and the increase in the number of innocent civilian victims not only gives an excuse to the Taliban, but also will cause the empowering of the fundamentalist forces in the region and even in the world.— RAWA, Afghan women fighting for human rights and for social justice in Afghanistan, October 11, 2001 Afghan civilian casualties Coalition military casualties The continued and mounting death tolls of foreign military forces in the decade-long war are another factor involved in the opposition to the war in Afghanistan, with hundreds currently dying per year. By October 2011, the 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion, over 2,750 foreign soldiers had been killed in the war in Afghanistan. International public opinion International public opinion is largely opposed to the war in Afghanistan. Polls around the world – including a 47-nation global survey in 2007, a 24-nation survey in 2008, both a 25-nation survey and a 13-nation survey in 2009, and a 22-nation survey in 2010 – have repeatedly shown considerable opposition to the presence of U.S. and NATO military troops in Afghanistan. While support for the war in Afghanistan has been strongest in the United States and Israel, recent polls have shown growing American opposition to the U.S. war, including majority opposition: - September 2009 – United States: Growing American opposition to the war in Afghanistan reached an all-time high, while support for the U.S. war fell to an all-time low in September. A record majority 58% of Americans now oppose the war in Afghanistan, while only 39% support the U.S. war. The CNN – Opinion Research poll was conducted September 11–13, 2009. - September 2009 – United States: "Americans are broadly skeptical of President Obama's contention that the war in Afghanistan is necessary for the war against terrorism to be a success, and few see an increase in troops as the right thing to do." The plurality 42% of Americans want a reduction of the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Only 26% of Americans think more troops should be sent to Afghanistan. 51% of Americans think the war is not worth fighting, while 46% think it is. Fewer than half of Americans think winning the war in Afghanistan is necessary to win the "war on terrorism", with about as many saying it is not. The Washington Post – ABC News poll was conducted September 10–12, 2009. If Americans pulled back and started paying attention to this war, it would become even less popular. International protests against the war The ongoing decade-long war in Afghanistan has repeatedly been the subject of large protests around the world, with the first large-scale demonstrations beginning in the days leading up to the war's official launch on October 7, 2001 as U.S. "Operation Enduring Freedom". Foreign military occupation If the populations of Afghanistan and the NATO countries were able to vote on this military occupation it could not continue indefinitely, and peace would finally be within reach. In January 2009, an independent analysis by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. claimed that "the majority of Afghans are now deeply opposed to the foreign troops on their soil" and that the presence of a foreign force in Afghanistan is the single most important factor behind the Afghan insurgency. However according to a May 2009 BBC poll, 69% of Afghans surveyed thought it was at least mostly good that the U.S. military came into remove the Taliban and in a June 2009 Gallup survey found that about half of Afghan respondents felt that additional U.S. forces would help stabilize the security situation. On October 8, 2009, in a New York Times interview initiated by the White House, a senior White House official described the Afghan Taliban as an indigenous Afghan group that want to win back territory within their own country. The White House comment had come a day after the Taliban reasserted that their aim is "the obtainment of independence". Foreign military raids of Afghan homes A key and long-standing point of opposition to the war in Afghanistan has been the constant raids of Afghan homes by foreign military forces that have persisted despite long-repeated pleas and protests by the Afghan government. In a visit to Washington in May 2005, Afghan President Hamid Karzai asked U.S. President George W. Bush to let the Afghan government have authority over house search operations regularly conducted by the U.S.-led foreign military forces in his country. Bush rejected the Afghan president's request. In September 2005, Karzai again tried asking the U.S.-led military forces for changes, saying: "Going into the Afghan homes – searching Afghan homes without the authorization of the Afghan government – is something that should stop now. No coalition forces should go into Afghan homes without the authorization of the Afghan government." By the spring of 2006, mounting anger over the foreign military raids of Afghan homes, and accusations of foreign troops molesting women during the forced searches, helped prompt Afghan religious leaders to begin calling for armed resistance. In a December 2008 speech, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that in the previous month he had again asked that the U.S. military in his country cooperate with his government, sending the U.S. government a list of demands about troop conduct in his country: "Part of that list was that they shouldn't, on their own, enter the houses of our people and bombard our villages and detain our people." He gave no indication of having received any response back from the U.S. In November 2010, he yet again repeated his protest during a Washington Post interview: "The raids are a problem always. They were a problem then, they are a problem now. They have to go away. The Afghan people don't like these raids, if there is any raid it has to be done by the Afghan government within the Afghan laws. This is a continuing disagreement between us." Destruction of Afghan homes and crops In 2010, U.S.-led offensives inflicted more than $100 million in damage to Afghan homes and fruit crops in southern Kandahar province, according to an Afghan government report in January 2011. The government delegation led by President Hamid Karzai's advisor said that the foreign military forces had inflicted unreasonable damage and caused the displacement of many people. Two months earlier, in November 2010, the Afghan Rights Monitor (ARM), a human rights group, also reported widespread damage of Afghan homes in the same three districts, Arghandab, Zhari, and Panjwai, where tens of thousands of foreign forces had been carrying out military offensives over the past year. Rejection of the terrorism argument A Washington Post – ABC News poll in September 2009 reported that "Americans are broadly skeptical of President Obama's contention that the war in Afghanistan is necessary for the war against terrorism to be a success." Fewer than half of Americans think winning the war in Afghanistan is necessary to win the "war on terrorism", with about as many saying that it is not. A decade into the war, the Pew Research Center reported in September 2011 that the majority 75% of Americans do not think the war in Afghanistan has lessened the risk of terrorism in their country, and only a minority 25% thought it had. Far more Americans, the plurality 37%, think the U.S. war in Afghanistan has in fact increased the likelihood of terrorist attacks in the U.S. A poll at the end of August 2009 found that three-quarters of Britons do not think fighting in Afghanistan makes British people, or British streets, any safer from terrorism, as Gordon Brown and senior ministers repeatedly told them to justify the war. About a week and a half later, British member of parliament Eric Joyce, a former army major, resigned as aide to Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth, saying "I do not think the public will accept for much longer that our losses can be justified by simply referring to the risk of greater terrorism on our streets." In 2004, Jack Cloonan, a 25-year veteran of the FBI who served between 1996 and 2002 on the joint CIA-FBI task force that tracked bin Laden, said the number of people in Al Qaeda was "minuscule". A membership list found near Kabul in 2001 during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, and obtained by the task force, showed there had been a grand total of 198 members in the organization. The al Qaeda presence [in Afghanistan] is very diminished. The maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country, no bases, no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies. On October 8, 2009, in a New York Times interview initiated by the White House, a senior White House official acknowledged that there are fewer than 100 al-Qaida fighters left in Afghanistan and that the Afghan Taliban, an indigenous Afghan group seeking to win back territory within their own country, do not themselves pose a direct security threat to the United States. He said: "When the two are aligned, it's mainly on the tactical front." The comments were made a day after the Taliban asserted that it did not pose a direct threat to the United States. The Taliban stated that their aim was "obtainment of independence and establishment of an Islamic system" in their country, and not to attack the West. "We did not have any agenda to harm other countries, including Europe, nor do we have such agenda today." ... The estimate on the number of Al Qaeda [in Afghanistan] is actually relatively small. At most, we're looking at 50 to 100, maybe less. ... There's no question that the main location of Al Qaeda is in the tribal areas of Pakistan. In January 2009, an independent analysis by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. dismissed the argument that a withdrawal of the foreign military presence would allow al-Qaeda to operate in Afghanistan, pointing out that, first, the U.S.-led military forces do not control the periphery of the Afghan territory anyway, and, second, that targeted operations with the agreement of the Kabul government could be used instead. Others have also made the point that al-Qaeda operates in many other countries and simply does not need Afghanistan. The New York Times reported in November 2008 that a 2004 classified order identified at least 15 to 20 other countries outside of Afghanistan and Iraq where al-Qaeda militants were believed to be operating or to have sanctuary. The countries listed in the secret order signed by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld with the approval of U.S. President George W. Bush included Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and several other Persian Gulf states. Since 2004, the United States has repeatedly used the broad, secret authority granted by that order to conduct targeted operations against al-Qaeda and other militants in many countries outside of Afghanistan, including Somalia, Ethiopia, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, Kenya, the Philippines, and elsewhere. If U.S. forces are there to prevent reestablishment of al-Qaeda bases – evidently there are none now – must there be nation-building invasions of Somalia, Yemen and other sovereignty vacuums? In an influential September 2009 article entitled "Time to Get Out of Afghanistan", conservative commentator George Will similarly argued that "forces should be substantially reduced", and "America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent Special Forces units" in targeted operations. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and a number of other senior administration officials also favor moving toward a more scaled-back strategy that focuses on targeted, surgical operations against senior insurgent figures using drones and small special operations teams. Others have further made the point that al-Qaeda does not need a safe haven at all, and that terrorists can and have learned their craft in a Hamburg apartment, a home in Colorado, a flight school in Florida, or myriad other places around the world. As noted military historian Gwynne Dyer pointed out, "The 9/11 attacks were not planned in Afghanistan. They were planned by al Qaeda operatives in Germany and Florida, and it is very unlikely that the Taleban government of Afghanistan had advance warning of them." In his September 10, 2009 letter of resignation as the State Department's Senior Civilian Representative in Zabul Province, Afghanistan, in protest against the American war in Afghanistan, Matthew Hoh, a former U.S. Marine captain, stated: I find specious the reasons we ask for bloodshed and sacrifice from our young men and women in Afghanistan. If honest, our stated strategy of securing Afghanistan to prevent al-Qaeda resurgence or regrouping would require us to additionally invade and occupy western Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, etc.....The September 11th attacks, as well as the Madrid and London bombings, were primarily planned and organized in Western Europe; a point that highlights the threat is not one tied to traditional geographic or political boundaries. In a September 16, 2009 Washington Post article, Paul R. Pillar, deputy chief of the counterterrorist center at the CIA from 1997 to 1999 and director of graduate studies at Georgetown University's Security Studies Program, questioned the assumption that al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups need a haven at all, pointing out that "terrorists' organizations have become more network-like, not beholden to any one headquarters." In a September 30, 2009 open letter to President Obama, foreign policy veteran William R. Polk stated: "Since terrorist attacks can be mounted from many places, the only effective long-term defense against them is to deal with their causes." The Al Qaeda network today also comprises semi-autonomous or self radicalized actors, who often have only peripheral or ephemeral ties to either the core cadre in Pakistan or affiliated groups elsewhere. According to U.S. officials Al Qaeda cells and associates are located in over 70 countries.— Congressional Research Service report, February 5, 2010 When asked by Bob Woodward why al-Qaeda, which is comparatively safe in its current sanctuaries in Pakistan, would even want to return to Afghanistan, the National Security Adviser of the United States, General James L. Jones, replied, "That's a good question. . . . This is certainly one of the questions that we will be discussing. This is one of the questions, for example, that one could come back at with General McChrystal." Creating and training insurgents According to the Carnegie report, the insurgency against the foreign military forces would abate with the removal of foreign troops from Afghanistan, and "the momentum of the Taliban would slow or stop altogether, because without a foreign occupier the Jihadist and nationalist feelings of the population would be much more difficult to mobilize." The Pew Research Center reported in February 2009: "As has been the case since 2006, more Americans believe decreasing – rather than increasing – the U.S. military presence abroad is the more effective way to reduce the threat of terrorist attacks on the United States. Half of Americans (50%) now believe that decreasing the U.S. military presence overseas would be the more effective policy, while just 31% say an increased presence would be more effective." The bulk of the insurgency fights not for the white banner of the Taliban, but rather against the presence of foreign soldiers and taxes imposed by an unrepresentative government in Kabul. In his September 10, 2009 letter resigning over the American war in Afghanistan, which he had come to believe simply fueled the insurgency, Matthew Hoh, the State Department's Senior Civilian Representative in Zabul Province, wrote: "The Pashtun insurgency, which is composed of multiple, seemingly infinite, local groups, is fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, culture, traditions and religion by internal and external enemies. The U.S. and NATO presence and operations in Pashtun valleys and villages, as well as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified." Our policy makers do not understand that the very presence of our forces in the Pashtun areas is the problem....The more troops we put in, the greater the opposition. We do not mitigate the opposition by increasing troop levels, but rather we increase the opposition and prove to the Pashtuns that the Taliban are correct....The basic ignorance by our leadership is going to cause the deaths of many fine American troops with no positive outcome.— statement by a group of former U.S. intelligence officials and other experts, September 2009 The group included Howard Hart, a former CIA station chief in Pakistan who helped organize the anti-Soviet insurgency in the 1980s; David Miller, a former ambassador and National Security Council official; William J. Olson, a counterinsurgency scholar at the National Defense University; and another CIA veteran who spent 12 years in the region, was station chief in Kabul at the time the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, and later headed the CIA's Counterterrorism Center. In the 2009 documentary "Rethink Afghanistan", several other former U.S. intelligence officials and experts on Afghanistan also contend that the war in Afghanistan does nothing to protect the safety of American people, but, on the contrary, only threatens the safety and security of Americans, both in the U.S. and abroad: Both wars have made the Middle East and the world much more dangerous for Americans and for any American presence overseas. It's creating much greater hostility towards the U.S. and creating a whole lot more people that would be happy to kill Americans or join in some kind of terrorist operation. In his September 30, 2009 open letter to President Obama, foreign policy veteran William R. Polk argued that trying to defeat the Taliban militarily is not in America's interest, saying: "The harder we try, the more likely terrorism will be to increase and spread." According to the August 2010 report by the Afghanistan Study Group: "The current U.S. military effort is helping fuel the very insurgency we are attempting to defeat." Insurgent detention and recruitment facilities We're casting this huge net, picking up everybody whose first name is Mohammed, and sending them off to be interrogated [at Guantánamo]. Ninety-nine percent of them don't know anything....If they weren't radicals when they went in, they will be when they come out.— Jack Cloonan, 25-year FBI veteran who between 1996–2002 was on the CIA-FBI task force tracking bin Laden In September 2009, a four-page supplement by U.S. General Stanley McChrystal to his 66-page report conceded that because of a shortage of interrogation personnel at U.S. military's Bagram Theater Internment Facility, hundreds of Afghans were being held in detention for long periods without charge, resulting in the Afghan prison system having become a "sanctuary and base" for militants, providing them fertile ground to radicalize and recruit new insurgents. According to a series of New York Times reports in 2008 and 2009, the U.S. Bagram detention facility, "a crude place where most prisoners are fenced into large metal pens", was packed with about 630 prisoners, with the rising numbers of detainees "driven primarily by the deepening war in Afghanistan". The articles reported that Bagram prisoners, held under harsh conditions described as worse than at Guantanamo, had no access to lawyers, and that some detainees had been held there without charge for more than five years. Harsh interrogation methods and sleep deprivation were widely used, and the Red Cross reported cruel treatment in violation of the Geneva Conventions. Two Afghan detainees died there in December 2002 after being beaten by American soldiers and hung by their arms from the ceiling of isolation cells. In 2007, the U.S. military began transferring many detainees from the U.S. Bagram Theater detention camp and from the U.S. Guantanamo Bay detention camp to the Afghan-run Pul-e-Charkhi prison outside Kabul. By May 2008, American officials conceded that the Afghan prison could not absorb all the Afghans being detained by the United States military. According to Human Rights First, the United States had transferred 250 former Guantánamo detainees into the Pul-e-Charkhi prison outside Kabul since 2007, often to the shock of their waiting families. By July 2009, with Pul-e-Charkhi prison holding some 360 prisoners transferred into the Afghan prison system from the U.S. detention facilities at Bagram and Guantanamo, American officials were expressing fears that the Afghan prison system would be overwhelmed by waves of new detainees captured in the American-led military offensives being conducted by thousands of Marines in southern Afghanistan. According to McChrystal's supplementary report: - More than 2,500 out of 14,500 prisoners in Afghanistan's prison system were linked to militant groups. - "There are more insurgents per square foot in corrections facilities than anywhere else in Afghanistan." - "Hardened, committed Islamists are indiscriminately mixed with petty criminals and sex offenders, and they are using the opportunity to radicalise and indoctrinate them." - A shortage of interrogation personnel at the U.S. Bagram detention facility results in indefinite detentions. - "As a result, hundreds are held without charge or without a defined way ahead. This allows the enemy to radicalise them far beyond their pre-capture orientation." Even with the transfer of many Bagram detainees into the Afghan prison system since 2007, the New York Times reported in January 2010 that more than 700 people detained by the American military continued to be imprisoned indefinitely and without legal recourse at the notorious prison at U.S. Bagram Air Base. The war in Afghanistan is a breeding program for terrorists. Incubating and disseminating bomb-making expertise Suicide bomb attacks were virtually unheard of in Afghanistan prior to the U.S. invasion in 2001, and both the use of suicide attacks and the use of mines were relatively uncommon in Afghanistan until mid-2005. According to a UN report on suicide attacks in Afghanistan: "During the ravages of the Soviet occupation, the warlords' struggle for domination, and even during the Taliban period, Afghans never undertook such operations." Despite thirty years of warfare, suicide attacks were not carried out by any Afghans until after mid-2003, and only came into prominence in mid-2005 when they began to escalate drastically. The tactic is seen to have been imported from insurgent attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq following the American invasion in March 2003. According to experts, Afghan militants saw how successful it was and began copying it, and there has also been evidence that foreign jihadis brought the tactics they learned in that war with them to Afghanistan. Former CIA officer Art Keller stated in 2007: "People are going there to learn the tactics, and then come back." "The Bush administration hoped that Iraq would draw terrorists to one place, making them easier to kill, the so-called flypaper theory. But the opposite happened. Iraq has strengthened al Qaeda. It's now a training ground for terrorists from around the world." In writing about suicide attacks in the war in Afghanistan, security analyst Anthony Cordesman noted that in 2008: "Their lethality and skill increased and so did estimates of the number of suicide bombers in training." The use of mines in Afghanistan also began to drastically increase in 2005. Military and defense analyst John Pike noted, "The insurgency in Afghanistan has been very carefully studying the lessons learned by the insurgents in Iraq." A July 2009 New York Times article entitled "Afghan Insurgents Expand Their Use of Increasingly Sophisticated Homemade Bombs" reported that according to American military officers, mines in Afghanistan were becoming more common and more sophisticated with each week. In September 2009, the Washington Times reported that the Taliban had learned to build simpler, cheaper, deadlier anti-personnel mines made of hard-to-detect non-metal components, such as carbon harvested from everyday batteries and plastic, according to a confidential U.S. military report. The Pentagon report, which spoke of a Taliban mine research-and-development program, described the latest mines to appear in the Afghan war as "less costly", "smaller, lighter, more quickly constructed", "small and easily transported and emplaced", "easily camouflaged", "extremely difficult to detect", "lethal". In January 2010, The Independent reported military experts saying that insurgents in Afghanistan had developed a new generation of deadly 'undetectable' bombs made out of wood, with no metal or electronic parts. Chris Hunter, a former bomb disposal expert, described them as "mass produced" and "being wheeled out on an industrial level. You see them everywhere." According to one US group, the number of mines used in Afghanistan had surged by 400% since 2007, matched by a 400% increase in the number of troops killed by them, and an even higher 700% increase in the number that have been wounded by them. In February 2009, news magazine The Week wrote: A particularly troubling feature of the IED phenomenon is the ease with which the technology is refined and spread. Bombers have been known to record their attacks, then post the images to the Internet, along with instructions on how to make the devices. The techniques are constantly being shared and refined by hundreds of insurgent groups.... Security experts say there are now up to 300 IED attacks a month in other countries around the world. The powerful remote-controlled IED that killed 13 people in Algeria last June was probably based on designs originally from Iraq, and many think it is only a matter of time before these devices appear in large numbers in the West. Geo-political and corporate interests The current war in Afghanistan is not about democracy, women's rights, education or nation building. Al-Qaida, the other excuse, barely exists. Its handful of members long ago decamped to Pakistan. The war really is about oil pipeline routes and western domination of the energy-rich Caspian Basin. Opposition to the war in Afghanistan often has at its core the view that the U.S. invasion, decade-long presence, and military build-up in Afghanistan are being conducted for geo-political purposes and U.S. corporate energy interests. Pipeline path 'clearing and holding' forces In a June 2008 article in the Toronto Sun entitled "These wars are about oil, not democracy", defence analyst and journalist Eric Margolis remarked on the U.S. military bases just happening to be adjacent to the planned pipeline route, and wrote: "Work will begin on the TAPI once Taliban forces are cleared from the pipeline route by U.S., Canadian and NATO forces. As American analyst Kevin Phillips writes, the U.S. military and its allies have become an 'energy protection force.'"[better source needed] War in Afghanistan as a demonstration of U.S. military power In a November 2, 2001 article entitled "US Bombs Are Boosting the Taliban", anti-Taliban Afghan leader Abdul Haq again presented the case he had repeatedly been making against U.S. military action in his country, but seemed resigned that the U.S. was not going to listen: The US is trying to show its muscle, score a victory and scare everyone in the world. They don't care about the suffering of the Afghans or how many people we will lose. And we don't like that. Because Afghans are now being made to suffer for these Arab fanatics, but we all know who brought these Arabs to Afghanistan in the 1980s, armed them and gave them a base. It was the Americans and the CIA. And the Americans who did this all got medals and good careers, while all these years Afghans suffered from these Arabs and their allies. Now, when America is attacked, instead of punishing the Americans who did this, it punishes the Afghans. Thriving opium production since the invasion Opium production in Afghanistan has thrived since the U.S. invasion and overthrow of the Taliban government in 2001. According to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) data, there was more opium poppy cultivation in each of the past five growing seasons (2004–2008), than in any one year during the Taliban five-year rule (1996–2001). UNODC reported in its November 2008 report that the majority 58% of opium poppy-growing farmers in Afghanistan began to cultivate opium after the 2001 U.S. invasion. In July 2000, the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, argued that opium was against Islam and banned its cultivation. The Taliban edict, with the threat of jail for elders and mullahs who allowed its cultivation, resulted in a drastic 90% reduction in opium cultivation between 2000 and 2001. Even compared to 2000 – the year before the Taliban opium ban of 2000–2001 saw effect – the overall opium-related income in the Afghan economy had risen nearly fourfold by 2008, reflecting higher export volumes as well as higher prices. Financial cost of the war to taxpayers and Western economies By one estimate in September 2009, the United States, which has approximately two-thirds of the foreign troops in Afghanistan, had already spent some $250 billion in Afghanistan since 2001. The Congressional Research Service estimates that we have now spent or committed $300 billion, and that is only the money for which we can account. Some will say it is twice that, for this war, like the war in Iraq, was funded off-budget with no transparency.... $300 billion. That is about $101 million per day for 2,950 days. Or, to put out another average, that is $3,947 per family of four that every American family has paid to date.... To continue this war at its current level and to escalate it beyond its current scope is a trillion dollar question. Are those who would so cavalierly make this commitment willing to demand another $3,947.36 from every American family of four to pay for it?... Thousands have protested federal spending to rebuild America's schools, roads, bridges and critical infrastructure, but are they willing to do the same when their taxes are being spent to rebuild Kabul? In September 2009, the Christian Science Monitor reported that in the upcoming budget year, the U.S. war in Afghanistan would, for the first time, cost American taxpayers more than the U.S. war in Iraq. By the end of September 2010, the total military budget costs for both wars will have exceeded $1 trillion. By October 2009, news reports indicated U.S. costs of fighting the war in Afghanistan at $165 million every 24 hours. Officially, the United States' military costs for the war in Afghanistan were budgeted at $65 billion for fiscal 2010, a figure amounting to $178 million a day. However the true cost will probably be closer to $85 billion, or more, according to Gordon Adams, a defense expert at American University's School of International Service in Washington. That figure would amount to about $233 million a day. Factoring in veteran health and other benefits, replenishment of military hardware, a higher price for oil, and the interest on debt incurred by the wars, Linda Bilmes, a Harvard University economist, and Joseph Stiglitz, a Columbia University Nobel Prize economist, estimated a "moderate-realistic" bill for the two wars of $5 trillion to U.S. taxpayers. In September 2009, the U.S. Congressional Budget Office estimated that a speedier withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, with a sharp reduction in troops over three years, could save taxpayers $1.1 trillion from the budget in the next decade. We've been there eight years already, and how many more years are we supposed to be there? How many more Americans are supposed to die? How many more tens and tens of billions of dollars are we supposed to be spending at a time when we have a record-breaking deficit? In December 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama announced a surge of yet another thirty thousand U.S. troops into Afghanistan, increasing the buildup of the U.S. military in Afghanistan by another 40-45% and adding further red ink to the United States' $1.4 trillion deficit spending and national debt of over $12 trillion. The administration estimated the cost for this surge at $30 billion (presumably for an initial 18 month period). However, the chairman of the appropriations subcommittee with authority over the Pentagon's budget, U.S. Congress Rep. John Murtha, estimated that the surge would cost at least $40 billion – $10 billion more than the administration's estimate. The congressman also called for a surtax to finance the war, saying the U.S. risks the sort of inflation seen in the Vietnam War era. By February 2010, with thousands more U.S. troops still to arrive, the monthly cost of the war in Afghanistan to U.S. taxpayers had exceeded that of the U.S. war in Iraq – consuming $6.7 billion per month, compared with $5.5 billion in Iraq, and amounting to about $223 million per day. Military operations in Afghanistan have cost American taxpayers more than $200,000,000,000 in deficit spending since 2001. By May 2010, the estimate for fiscal year 2010 that was being reported had risen to $105 billion, amounting to $288 million per day. Meanwhile, the cost of the war to U.S. taxpayers in fiscal year 2011 was being projected at $117 billion, a figure amounting to around $320 million per day. Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments stated: "The cost just cascades. That's always been an issue in Afghanistan." By December 2010, estimates had the cost of the war running at as high as $13 billion a month, or over $433 million per day, and a USA Today / Gallup poll reported that over two-thirds of Americans, the 68% majority, worry that the costs of the war in Afghanistan make it more difficult to address the problems facing them at home. In February 2011, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates bluntly warned that it would be unwise to ever again engage in such a "costly – and controversial – large-scale American military intervention" as in Afghanistan or Iraq. In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should 'have his head examined,' as General MacArthur so delicately put it. - 100,000 U.S. military troops in Afghanistan, - another 31,000 U.S. military troops deployed in the surrounding region to support the operations in Afghanistan, - more than $100 billion in Obama's 2012 budget request for Afghanistan, - an additional $13 billion to train Afghan forces, - another $5 billion in civilian assistance. He stated: "With al-Qaeda largely displaced from the country but franchised in other locations, Afghanistan does not carry a strategic value that justifies 100,000 U.S. troops and a $100 billion per year cost, especially given current fiscal restraints." The Senate Foreign Relations Chairman, Senator John Kerry, warned: "Make no mistake, it is unsustainable to continue spending $10 billion a month on a massive military operation with no end in sight." In March 2011, U.S. Congress Representative Bruce Braley, a member of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, introduced the True Cost of War Act to require a full accounting on the long-term human and financials costs to the American people of the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq through 2020, including "interest on money borrowed, including interest for money already borrowed and anticipated interest payments on future borrowing." Rep. Braley stated: "The American people – especially at a time when Republicans have been pushing all these budget cuts – are entitled to know what the true costs are." According to the Congressional Research Service, through fiscal year 2010, Congress has appropriated $1,087,000,000,000 for the Department of Defense, for the State Department, and for medical costs paid by the Department of Veterans Affairs. This amount includes $751,000,000,000 related to operations in Iraq and $336,000,000,000 related to operations in Afghanistan. According to estimates near the beginning of 2011, the U.S. war in Afghanistan would cost U.S. taxpayers an $116 billion for that year – nearly twice the amounts being deeply slashed from domestic programs, including key U.S. infrastructure needs such as water, air traffic, and rail projects – while the minimum projected cost of the U.S. war for the next two years, $200 billion, exceeds the domestic budget deficit of all 50 states put together. By May 2011, the Washington Post reported that in the face of increasing deficit spending and yet more cuts to domestic programs in the U.S. the immense cost of the war in Afghanistan would likely be the primary factor in the discussions to reduce troops: Spending by the U.S. military alone on its operations in Afghanistan was heading to $113 billion for the fiscal year, with the military seeking another $107 billion for the next fiscal year. According to a senior administration official: "Where we're at right now is simply not sustainable." With the costs to maintain the Afghan army and police forces, estimated at $6 billion to $8 billion a year, far exceeding the means of the Afghan government whose annual budget totals only about $1.5 billion, he stated: "We’re building an army that they’ll never be able to pay for, which means we’re going to have to pay for it for years and years to come." Military and civilian officials agree that the cost of the Afghan war is staggering, and another senior administration official involved with Afghanistan policy stated that the cost of the war was now "the new 800-pound gorilla" and policy discussion was shifting from "Is the strategy working?" to "Can we afford this?" In the United Kingdom, a comprehensive analysis by The Independent in July 2009, revealed that the cost of the war to British taxpayers had already exceeded £12 billion ($US 20 billion) – enough to pay for "23 new hospitals, 60,000 new teachers or 77,000 new nurses". A Ministry of Defence source indicated that the department feared the Afghan campaign was adding at least £250 million a year ($US 405 million) to their spending on veteran welfare services. In addition to these military costs, British taxpayer money is also being spent on Afghanistan by the Department of International Development (DfID), which will have spent close to £1 billion ($US 1.6 billion) between 2001 and 2012, and the Foreign Office (FCO) that had already spent £230 million ($US 375 million) since 2006 alone. Damage to the economy In September 2011, a decade into the U.S.-led war, Linda Bilmes, a Harvard University economist, and Joseph Stiglitz, a Columbia University Nobel Prize economist, wrote that the enormous costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had profoundly damaged the U.S. economy: To date, the United States has spent more than $2.5 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon spending spree that accompanied it and a battery of new homeland security measures instituted after Sept. 11.... How have we paid for this? Entirely through borrowing.... Spending on the wars and on added security at home has accounted for more than one-quarter of the total increase in U.S. government debt since 2001. They wrote that the costs of the wars would continue to burden U.S. taxpayers and the U.S. economy for decades after whenever the U.S. military leaves those countries. The future debts from the war – including interest payments on all the borrowed money, replacing worn and destroyed military equipment, and decades of paying for the medical and disability benefits of hundreds of thousands of veterans – "are not listed anywhere in the federal government's budget" and would "continue to compromise America's investments in its future for decades." On September 19, 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama's proposed plan to reduce U.S. deficit spending stated that $1.1 trillion would be saved by withdrawing all U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan over the next three years (by 2014) and ending the war in Iraq. The $1.1 trillion in deficit spending on wars amounted to almost one-third of the proposed $3.6 trillion deficit-reduction package. Length of the war We are mortgaging our Nation's economy on a war, which, even with increased commitment, will remain a draw for years to come. Success and victory, whatever they may be, will be realized not in years, after billions more spent, but in decades and generations. The war in Afghanistan, launched October 7, 2001 as U.S. "Operation Enduring Freedom", has now stretched over a decade, entering an eleventh year on October 7, 2011 and marking for the U.S. the longest period of sustained warfare in its history – greater than the time the United States was involved in World War I, World War II and the Korean War combined. The war in Afghanistan surpassed the length of official U.S. participation in the Vietnam War, 8 years and 5 months, in the spring of 2010 to become the longest-running U.S. war ever. In March 2011, U.S. Congressman Bruce Braley reported that American military commanders in Afghanistan very clearly expect – under the best-case scenario – a "significant U.S. presence" to continue in that country for approximately another decade. His report of the expectations of a continued U.S. military presence through 2020 came after a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan where he met with U.S. General David Petraeus, U.S. Ambassador and former general Karl Eikenberry, as well as other military officials. In December 2009, a week after U.S. President Barack Obama announced a surge of another thirty thousand U.S. military troops into Afghanistan, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, speaking at a news conference with U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, stated that the Afghan government being supported would not be able to secure the country on its own "for another 15 to 20 years", suggesting a U.S.-led military presence until at least 2024, if not 2030. At the end of December 2009, following a visit to Afghanistan as part of an eight-member congressional delegation, U.S. Congressman Brian Higgins warned that U.S. military assessments describe a "generational commitment" requiring at least two decades and that might not work, and he stated that President Obama needed to be more forthright with the American people about the length of time involved and the prospects. The military assessments say this is a generational commitment. I will tell you this whole 18 months of drawing down troops is not going to happen. The military assessments are very clear: In order to stabilize Afghanistan, you essentially have to rebuild it. You can't accomplish that in 18 months, five years, or in a decade, and you'll be lucky to accomplish that in 20 years. Gen. McChrystal told me he will know in 18 months if this will work. A January 2009 U.S. Defense Department report assessing progress in Afghanistan concluded that building a fully competent and independent Afghan government would be a lengthy process that would last, "at a minimum, decades." The head of the British Army and former ISAF commander, General Sir David Richards, stated on August 8, 2009 that he believed Britain could still be militarily involved in Afghanistan in "30 to 40 years" time, raising the possibility of a military presence in Afghanistan until the year 2050. Asked how long U.S. combat forces would be needed in Afghanistan, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates replied it was "unpredictable" and "perhaps a few years". However, over the longer term, Gates said that even if security were achieved, progress in building Afghanistan's economy and government institutions would remain "a decades-long enterprise", and that the United States was "committed to that side of the equation for an indefinite period of time." American defense analyst John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org envisions a near-endless scenario in Afghanistan: "It's not going to end. And it may get worse before it gets better ... it's going to last for decades." More and more people feel that it is a never ending story, that this war has been dragging on now for longer than the second world war, that we see too little results and we really don't know why we are there.— Patrick Keller, foreign and security policy analyst, September 2009 Comparison to the length of the Soviet war in Afghanistan After 7 years and 7 months of war in Afghanistan, Mikhail Gorbachev announced on July 20, 1987 the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, saying that the Soviet Union wanted to henceforth see an independent, sovereign Afghanistan with a non-aligned government. The complete withdrawal of Soviet troops took place over roughly one year and a half, ending on February 15, 1989, with the Soviet war in Afghanistan having lasted approximately 9 years and 2 months in its entirety. Comparisons to the Soviet war in Afghanistan There is barely an important piece of land in Afghanistan that has not been occupied by one of our soldiers at some time or another. Nevertheless, much of the territory stays in the hands of the terrorists. We control the provincial centres, but we cannot maintain political control over the territory that we seize.— Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, commander of Soviet armed forces, November 13, 1986 In November 1986, with 109,000 troops in Afghanistan and the war soon heading into an 8th year, the military counter-insurgency was not working. Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, commander of Soviet armed forces, was summoned to report on the situation to the USSR's politburo in the Kremlin. His strong assessment was that the army needed more resources, and he warned that without more men and equipment "this war will continue for a very long time". By the peak of the Soviet deployment in 1987, Moscow had 140,000 troops in Afghanistan. In September 2009, with 108,000 to 110,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan under U.S. command and the war soon heading into a 9th year, the military counter-insurgency was not working. A 66-page report by U.S. general Stanley McChrystal to the White House administration on the situation in Afghanistan, leaked in advance of an anticipated troop request, gave his strong assessment that more troops and resources were needed. McChrystal warned: "Resources will not win this war, but under-resourcing could lose it. Failure to provide adequate resources also risks a longer conflict, greater casualties, higher overall costs and ultimately, a critical loss of political support. Any of these risks, in turn, are likely to result in mission failure." After officially receiving McChrystal's request for more troops, U.S. president Barack Obama would announce that some 30,000 more U.S. troops would be sent to Afghanistan over the course of the following year. It is sometimes frightening to see how similar NATO military operations are to Soviet ones in the 1980s.— Carnegie Endowment for International Peace policy brief, January 2009 McChrystal, the U.S. general, at the same time called for a new strategy of pulling troops from sparsely populated rural areas to concentrate on defending higher population urban areas. Tom Coghlan of The Times observed: "Students of Afghan history may note that this strategic conclusion was one previously reached by the Soviets, who also switched to a strategy of ceding remote areas and only defending population centres and the country's main arteries in 1986." On July 20, 1987, the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan was announced, and within a little over a year and a half the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan was completed. Comparisons to the Vietnam War What I found being in Afghanistan was all too familiar of problems not only in Iraq, but in Vietnam years ago. We are fighting a war a half a century later that we lost for similar reasons a half a century earlier. In September 2009, an article by the New York Time's Frank Rich noted a new aspect in the strong parallels between the wars, the eerie similarity between the political maneuvers in 2009 and a half-century before, when John F. Kennedy was weighing whether to send combat troops to Vietnam. "Military leaders lobbied for their new mission by planting leaks in the press." The Secretaries of Defense (Robert McNamara) and State, as well as the Joint Chief of Staff and the president's special military adviser all supported sending combat troops, while Kennedy himself had reservations. The Vietnam analogy remains haunting. On Mr. Obama's nightstand is Gordon Goldstein's acclaimed biography of McGeorge Bundy, "Lessons in Disaster", which describes the flawed decision-making of President Lyndon B. Johnson in the Vietnam quagmire.— Albert R. Hunt, New York Times, October 4, 2009 Growing U.S. opposition to the war in Afghanistan In March 2009, a bipartisan group of 14 members of the United States House of Representatives – Walter Jones, Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, Neil Abercrombie, Roscoe Bartlett, Steve Kagen, Ed Whitfield, Lynn Woolsey, Bob Filner, Jim McGovern, Howard Coble, John Conyers, Marcy Kaptur, John Duncan, and Michael Michaud – signed a letter to President Obama urging him to reconsider his decision to send 17,000 more U.S. troops, and to "resist pressure to escalate further". Their letter to Obama argued that the military escalation could be counterproductive to creating stability in Afghanistan and could harm U.S. security, noting that a recent Carnegie Endowment study had concluded that "The only meaningful way to halt the insurgency's momentum is to start withdrawing troops. The presence of foreign troops is the most important element driving the resurgence of the Taliban." In September and October 2009, with U.S. military leaders requesting yet more troops – and polls showing the majority of American people opposed to the U.S. war in Afghanistan and to sending any more troops, more members of the United States House of Representatives and other leaders began to speak for and manifest their constituents' opposition. On September 10, 2009, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi stated: "I don't think there is a great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan in the country or in the Congress.". Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, stated: "There's a significant number of people in the country, and I don't know the exact percentages, that have questions about deepening our military involvement in Afghanistan." Senator Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee stated: "I do not believe we can build a democratic state in Afghanistan. I believe it will remain a tribal entity", adding that she wanted the U.S. military mission to "be time-limited". In September 2009, Senator John F. Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a veteran and protestor of the Vietnam War, warned of repeating the mistakes of Vietnam and said that the United States needed to have an exit strategy. On October 4, 2009, Representative Barbara Lee with 21 other members of the United States House of Representatives introduced a bill, H.R. 3699, to prohibit any funding to increase the U.S. military buildup in Afghanistan beyond its current level. History tells us that there will not be a military-first solution to the situation in Afghanistan. Open-ended military intervention in Afghanistan is not in our national security interest and will only continue to give resonance to insurgent recruiters painting pictures of foreign occupation to a new generation. On October 8, 2009, key Democrats on Capitol Hill warned that a decision by President Obama to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan could trigger a revolt within his own party, possibly including an attempt to cut off funds for the controversial military buildup. Representative David R. Obey, chairman of the U.S. House Appropriations Committee stated: "I believe we need to more narrowly focus our efforts and have a much more achievable and targeted policy in that region. Otherwise we run the risk of repeating the mistakes we made in Vietnam and the Russians made in Afghanistan." Representative John P. Murtha, also on the House Appropriations Committee and an influential voice on military affairs, stated: "The public is worn out by war. The troops, no matter what the military says, are exhausted." Senator Russell D. Feingold, a member of both the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senate Intelligence Committee, stated that if Obama decides to send more troops, the House of Representatives should contest it. Senator Feingold, who favors a timetable for withdrawal and opposes McChrystal's troop surge, said in an interview that his constituents were weary of war and were in "almost unanimous agreement" that "we've stayed there a long time and we need to figure out appropriately what we can accomplish." On October 15, 2009, Senator Robert Byrd, in an emotional speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate, suggested that the eight-year old U.S. war in Afghanistan had become lost in some broader scheme of nation-building. Referring to "mission creep" in Afghanistan, he said: I am compelled to ask: does it really, really take 100,000 U.S. troops to find Osama bin Laden? If al Qaida has moved to Pakistan, what will these troops in Afghanistan add to the effort to defeat al Qaida? On October 27, 2009, the Washington Post reported that a U.S. official in Afghanistan had resigned in protest over the U.S. war, in a move that sent ripples all the way to the White House. Matthew Hoh, a State Department Foreign Service officer serving as the Senior Civilian Representative in Zabul Province submitted his resignation on September 10, with a letter outlining the reasons for which he felt he had to resign over the war, writing, "I fail to see the value or the worth in continued U.S. casualties or expenditures or resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year old civil war." On November 4, 2009, U.S. Congress Rep. Eric Massa spoke before the U.S. House of Representatives to say enough is enough in Afghanistan. He stated: "Today is the 2,950th day of this war. It has cost us $300 billion, $3,947 per American family. Enough is enough. It is time to bring our troops home.... the deployment of additional troops in Afghanistan and the continuation of this conflict is both not in the interest of our Nation, and, in fact, is on par with a potential error the size of our initial invasion in Iraq." In November 2009, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Lt.-Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the retired army general who commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan in 2005–2007, warned President Obama against committing tens of thousands of extra troops to Afghanistan. His dramatic intervention into the debate on a troop surge reportedly infruriated U.S. General McChrystal, the commander of all foreign military forces in Afghanistan who had been requesting another 40,000 troops. In April 2010, Democratic Congressman Jim McGovern, Republican Congressman Walter Jones, and Democratic Senator Russ Feingold introduced legislation demanding an exit strategy and a timetable for withdrawal of the American military forces and military contractors in Afghanistan. While noting Obama's promise to begin bringing some troops back in July 2010, Rep. McGovern said: "It's not only important to know when the first soldier is to be redeployed or brought home, it's important to know when the last soldier is as well." The hundreds of billions of dollars we spend over there on war ... All that – mostly borrowed money – means that we're not investing at home. It means our roads and our bridges aren't being fixed. It means our schools aren't being fixed. It means we're not investing in healthcare, and a whole range of other things that we need to do to get our economy back on track. On July 1, 2010, the majority 60% of Democrat representatives in the House voted in favor of the legislation to require a timetable and plan for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. In all, 153 Democrats and 9 Republicans voted for the amendment. 93 Democrats and 7 Republicans also voted for an amendment from Rep. Barbara Lee that would have required the war funds to be spent only on withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. Nearly all Republicans opposed the amendments however, and neither passed. In January 2011, Republican figure Grover Norquist, founder of Americans for Tax Reform, called on conservatives to have a conversation on the possibility of withdrawing from Afghanistan. He called attention to a nationwide poll of conservatives that showed that the majority 71% of self-identified conservative voters, including over two-thirds (67%) of Tea Party supporters, are worried about the war's cost to taxpayers, and stated that, given the war's enormous price tag, it was time to consider leaving. The same nationwide poll of conservatives, conducted in early January 2011, found that the majority two-thirds of conservative and Tea Party supporters call for a reduction of U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan (39% plurality) or a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan "as soon as possible" (27%). Only a minority 24% of conservative and Tea Party supporters think that the current levels of troops should be maintained. In February 2011, a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers again introduced legislation to end combat operations in Afghanistan and reduce spending of U.S. taxpayer dollars on the war. Led by Republican Congressmen Ron Paul of Texas, Walter Jones of North Carolina, and Democrat Congresswoman Barbara Lee of California, the amendment had 45 other co-sponsors. Republican congressmen opposed to the continued large-scale combat operations in Afghanistan convened a meeting for GOP members which had as principle speakers Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, Maj. Gen. John Batiste (ret.) and Lt. Col. Eric Egland (Reserve), a career intelligence officer with experience in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. According to numerous polls, the majority of Americans now want a faster withdrawal from Afghanistan. The mounting costs of the war in Afghanistan, now totaling over $100 billion a year, have constrained efforts to invest in job creation and in strengthening our country and our economy. In February 2011, the Democratic National Committee passed a resolution calling for an acceleration of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Citing the Gallup poll released that month that found that the strong majority 72% of Americans favor action to "speed up the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan", the policy resolution called for "a swift withdrawal of US armed forces and military contractors in Afghanistan which must include a significant and sizable reduction no later than July 2011." Concerns that the war could derail Obama's presidency Many that have hopes in President Obama's presidency but oppose the war in Afghanistan are concerned that the war could derail plans for his presidency the way the Vietnam War ruined the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. As long as we are there, the war will continue, with disastrous consequences for all the things you want to do and we Americans need you to do. Speaking against the war in Afghanistan, Senator Russ Feingold said: "It doesn't make sense in the long run. It's going to be bad for the president politically, as well as being a very unwise policy in terms of our national security." Troop reductions and removals - On November 5, 2007, South Korea's Defense Ministry announced that its 210-troop military deployment would be recalled despite the fact that Washington had asked Seoul to extend their deployment, which was scheduled to expire at the end of the year. South Korea's 150 military engineers and 60 military medics were to leave Afghanistan on December 14, 2007. The recall followed South Korea's promise to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2007 to secure the August 2007 release of 23 South Korean missionaries that had been kidnapped because of their country's involvement in the U.S.-led military efforts. The South Korean military deployment had been in Afghanistan approximately 5 years and 9 months starting in February 2002. - In November 2007, Swiss Defence Minister Samuel Schmid announced the planned withdrawal of the last of its military deployment to Afghanistan that had started in 2003. - On December 19, 2007, the Netherlands announced that it would begin to remove Dutch troops from Afghanistan in 2010, with Dutch troops leaving Afghanistan from July 2010. Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen stated, "I am certain that Dutch troops will leave in 2010." He also made clear, "I indicated that in writing ... to the NATO secretary general, who has confirmed it." - In February 2008, Switzerland's last soldiers still in Afghanistan had returned home and its military deployment to Afghanistan since 2003 was officially concluded. The Swiss military contingent had been in Afghanistan approximately 4 years and 8 months starting in June 2003. - On September 10, 2008, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper pledged that Canada will withdraw the bulk of its military forces in Afghanistan in 2011, saying that a decade of war is enough and, "You have to put an end date on these things." He acknowledged that neither the Canadian public nor the troops themselves had any appetite to stay longer in the war and said that only a small group of advisers might remain. - On September 6, 2009, The Independent reported that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had put the United States on notice that he planned to cut the number of British troops in Afghanistan by at least half within "three to five years, maximum". The partial troop withdrawal would bring British troop numbers in Afghanistan from over 9,000 to fewer than 5,000. On September 4, 2009, Brown had confirmed in a keynote speech that he was considering a short-term increase in British troops in Afghanistan as a prelude to a British exit. - On September 14, 2009, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper reaffirmed that Canada would withdraw its troops in 2011 even if President Barack Obama asked him for an extension. A spokesperson for Harper said "Canada's position is clear – The military component of the mission ends in 2011." Harper had first announced Canada's troop removal in 2008, stating that Canada had done its part after being in Afghanistan since after the 2001 U.S. invasion, and in Kandahar, one of Afghanistan's most dangerous provinces, since 2006. - On September 16, 2009, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama signalled through key cabinet choices that he would keep his election pledge to withdraw Japan's military support from the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. Hatoyama appointed as his Defence Minister 71-year old Toshimi Kitazawa, a strong opponent of the country's military support for the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and included in his cabinet Mizuho Fukushima, leader of his coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SDP), which is committed to upholding Japan's "peace" constitution and its explicit ban on the use of force in resolving international disputes. The appointments suggest that Japanese military ships providing fuel and water to U.S. and British naval vessels in the Indian Ocean will be called home when the current term of their deployment expires in February. - On September 17, 2009, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said it would be best for foreign troops to leave Afghanistan soon. He also announced that he planned to bring home at least 500 of Italy's 2,800 troops deployed in Afghanistan "in the next few weeks". Italy had increased its troop level by 500 before Afghanistan's August 20 national election. A key coalition partner in Berlusconi's government, Reforms Minister Umberto Bossi said he hoped Italy's 2,800 troops could leave Afghanistan within 3 months by Christmas. Berlusconi's announcement followed the deaths of six Italian soldiers in a suicide bombing in Kabul the day before, which had brought to 20 the number of Italian troops that have been killed since Italy's troops arrived in Afghanistan in 2004. We are all convinced it's best for everybody to get out soon. - On September 22, 2009, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown insisted he was focused on cutting back on the number of British troops in Afghanistan as soon as Afghan security forces were able to carry out their own security duties. The Times had reported that Britain was considering deploying a further 1,000 troops to its contingent of 9,000 troops in Afghanistan in response to the report from the American commander of all foreign military forces in Afghanistan, U.S. General Stanley McChrystal. Brown had previously stated in a keynote speech that he was considering a short-term increase in British troops in Afghanistan as a prelude to a British exit. The British toll since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 stood at 217 deaths. - On October 6, 2009, the Dutch parliament voted by a large majority to pull Dutch troops out of Afghanistan in August 2010 as scheduled and bring them home. The motion to respect the scheduled withdrawal date was drawn up by two of the three parties in the coalition government, and was voted for by a large majority of Dutch MPs, despite pressure by the United States again for a second extension of the Dutch military involvement in Afghanistan. - On October 14, 2009, Japanese Defence Minister Toshimi Kitazawa said that Japan will end its Indian Ocean naval refuelling mission that supports the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan. Kitazawa said: "We will calmly withdraw (our ships) when the law expires next January". While in opposition, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's party argued that Japan, officially pacifist since World War II, should not abet "American wars". - On January 6, 2010, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper made clear that virtually all Canadian soldiers will be out of Afghanistan by the end of 2011, stating: "We will not be undertaking any activities that require any kind of military presence, other than the odd guard guarding an embassy." He emphasized again, "The bottom line is that the military mission will end in 2011." - In February 2010, the Deputy Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Wouter Bos, promised to bring Dutch troops home from Afghanistan by the end of the year, as scheduled. The Dutch public, as well as the Dutch Parliament, favor the withdrawal of their military from Afghanistan. The Netherlands is also facing a forecasted 2010 budget deficit of 6.1% of GDP. Bos reiterated to Dutch voters the pledge he had already made to them in 2007, saying at a party meeting: By the end of this year, the last soldier should have left Uruzghan. We're keeping our promise to the Dutch people. - On February 21, 2010, the Dutch coalition government of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende collapsed when Balkenende, under entreaties from the United States, tried to extend the Dutch military presence in Afghanistan yet again, despite the government having previously promised Dutch voters that troops would be brought home in August 2010. As in many parts of Europe, the war in Afghanistan has been increasingly unpopular with voters in the Netherlands. The fall of the Balkenende government over the issue made it all but guaranteed that Dutch troops will be gone from Afghanistan by the end of the year. A spokesman for the Dutch Ministry of Defense stated: "The military mission will stop the 1st of August. They have time until the end of the year to pick up their gear and their stuff and bring it back to the Netherlands." - On June 21, 2010, Poland's acting president and speaker of parliament, Bronislaw Komorowski, stated: "2011 should be the year for winding down Poland's engagement and 2012 should be the year we pull out." The front-runner in Poland's presidential race, he stated: "If I win these elections, I wish to start curbing our engagement and then to pull out (the troops) during my presidency." Grzegorz Napieralski, the third-place candidate being courted by both leading candidates in the tight race, reiterated his party's demand for an Afghan pullout "as soon as possible." Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose ruling party is backing Komorowski's presidential bid, had also said in June that Poland would press the U.S. and NATO coalition to draw up plans to end the mission as soon as possible. - On June 24, 2010, Poland urged its NATO allies to draft plans to leave Afghanistan and announced that Polish troops would be brought home by 2012 regardless of what other countries decided. Following a National Security Countil meeting devoted to Afghanistan, Acting President Bronislaw Komorowski told a news conference that he had asked the government to work out a national strategy for pulling out of the war, with 2012 as the absolute deadline. A senior Polish security official said that NATO was heading towards a "strategic catastrophe" in Afghanistan. Stanislaw Koziej, head of Poland's National Security Bureau stated: "NATO is strategically exhausted by Afghanistan ... We must seek a way out of this situation."[better source needed] 2012 is the deadline when it comes to Poland's presence in Afghanistan. - On August 1, 2010, the Netherlands officially ended its military involvement of 1,950 troops in Afghanistan. The withdrawal came with the collapse of the Dutch government of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende earlier in the year when Balkenende, under entreaties from the United States, tried to extend the Dutch military presence in Afghanistan yet again despite opposition from the public. During the Netherlands' four-year involvement in the war, 24 Dutch troops were killed and 140 were wounded. The Dutch pullout is being followed by other withdrawals of foreign military forces from Afghanistan. Canada is withdrawing its entire military force of 2,800 troops next year in 2011, Poland in 2012, and the United Kingdom in 2014 or 2015. - On November 20, 2010, NATO members signed a deal to begin reducing troops in Afghanistan in 2011 and hand over security control to Afghan forces by 2014, if conditions were favourable. However, American officials described the date as "an aspirational timeline" and NATO officials said "This isn't a calendar-based process." The United Kingdom, however, made clear to its NATO allies that after 2014 they would not be involved in combat operations: - On November 20, 2010, British Prime Minister David Cameron pledged to withdraw all British combat troops from Afghanistan after the end of 2014, saying "This is a firm deadline which we will meet." Defence Secretary Liam Fox also underlined the Prime Minister's commitment that Britain's combat role in Afghanistan would be over by 2015. Let's be clear, this is a deadline and I believe the British public deserve a deadline. We have been in Afghanistan for nine years and we have paid a high price. - On January 10, 2011, former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin called for an earlier withdrawal of France's troops from Afghanistan than 2014. Opposition politician Segolene Royale renewed a call for a "democratic debate" and for a fixed withdrawal date. - On June 23, 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama announced that the US combat role in Afghanistan would end completely by 2014, with the United States needing to regroup and concentrate on its problems at home. He announced that 10,000 U.S. troops would be withdrawn in 2011, another 23,000 by the middle of 2012, and then "at a steady pace" until 2014, completing a transition from combat to "support". He stated: "This is the beginning – but not the end – of our effort to wind down this war." Over the last decade, we have spent a trillion dollars on war, at a time of rising debt and hard economic times.... Now, we must invest in America's greatest resource – our people. We must unleash innovation that creates new jobs and industry, while living within our means. We must rebuild our infrastructure and find new and clean sources of energy.... America, it is time to focus on nation building here at home. - On July 6, 2011, British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that 500 British troops would return home in 2012. France and Belgium also recently announced troop reductions. - On July 7, 2011, Canada officially ended its direct involvement in any combat operations in Afghanistan, withdrawing its nearly 3,000 troops. Prime Minister Stephen Harper had pledged in 2008 and 2009 to withdraw all Canadian military troops from Afghanistan, only to then announce in 2010 that 950 Canadian troops would stay until 2014 to train Afghan military and police forces. The Canadian government informed NATO that its trainers would not operate in dangerous parts of the country or in the field with Afghan troops: Some 350 will be support staff or will work in NATO headquarters offices in Kabul, with the rest serving mainly as mentors or advisors within heavily fortified training centres in Kabul and in two small groups at schools in the generally peaceful cities of Herat and Mazar-e Sharif. - On July 12, 2011, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced that France would withdraw 1,000 troops by the end of 2012, and all its combat units by the end of 2014, speeding up its withdrawal along with other countries. He stated "You have to know how to end a war." The majority of people in France want their military withdrawn from Afghanistan. - Vidal, John (November 19, 2001). "Another coalition stands up to be counted". The Guardian. Retrieved 2006-11-11. - "Protesters demand end to bombing". BBC. 10 November 2001. Retrieved 2006-11-11. - Afghanistan: Where Empires Go to Die - Quittin' time in Afghanistan - Who's Afraid of A Terrorist Haven? - Afghan Problem 'a Lot Deeper Than Bin Laden' - RAWA (October 11, 2001). "Taliban should be overthrown by the uprising of Afghan nation". Retrieved 2006-11-11. - Ahmed Rashid Offers An Update On The Taliban - The US has Returned Fundamentalism to Afghanistan - iCasualties.org Afghanistan coalition military fatalities - U.S. Allies Await Afghan Review - US had 'frighteningly simplistic' view of Afghanistan, says McChrystal - Operation Enduring Freedom icasualties.org - Global Unease With Major World Powers - June 2008 Pew Global Attitudes Project Survey - 24-Nation Pew Global Attitudes Project Survey p.8, p.29 - 25-Nation Pew Global Attitudes Survey, 2009, p.39 (PDF p.43) - Pew Global Attitudes Survey 2010 – Views of the U.S. and American Foreign Policy - 47-Nation Pew Global Attitudes Survey p.24, p.116 - 25-Nation Pew Global Attitudes Survey, 2009, p.22 (PDF p.26) Opposition to War in Afghanistan - Poll: Support for Afghan war at all-time low - A Skeptical View of Afghanistan - Anti-War Stirrings Greet Call For More Troops - The Runaway General - General alarm as Barack Obama summons Stanley McChrystal to the White House - Afghans have no hope in this week's vote - Focus and Exit: An Alternative Strategy for the Afghan War - A flawed strategy and a failed war in Afghanistan - "Afghan Poll 2009" (PDF). BBC News. Retrieved 3 August 2011. - "Gallup poll". Gallup.com. 30 September 2009. Retrieved 3 August 2011. - US may shift Afghan war tactics: report - Many in Afghanistan oppose Obama's troop buildup plans - Rethinking the Afghanistan Mission - Karzai Asks U.S.-Led Coalition To Change Strategy Against Terrorism - Afghanistan: Chaos Central - Afghan leader sends demands to U.S. on troop conduct - Karzai wants U.S. to reduce military operations in Afghanistan - Afghans Want a Deal on Foreign Troops - Some Truth About Afghanistan - Nato offensive inflicts Afghans $100 mln damage in Kandahar - United in Remembrance, Divided over Policies - Pew Research Center poll August 2011 - Poll shows most Britons oppose war in Afghanistan - The Al Qaeda Clubhouse: Members lacking - Al Qaeda and Affiliates – Historical Perspective, Global Presence, and Implications for U.S. Policy (Congressional Research Service, February 5, 2010) - CIA: At most, 50-100 Al Qaeda in Afghanistan - Obama aide downplays extra troops in Afghanistan - Secret Order Lets U.S. Raid Al Qaeda - U.S. kicks hornet's nest in Yemen - Old threat rings true today - Only pressure to withdraw can stop this blood price - The Afghan War Moves South - Time to Get Out of Afghanistan - U.S., Allies Vow Support for Karzai - Gates Doubts U.S.'s Afghan Strategy - Obama in New Round of Meetings on Afghanistan - Advisers split complicates Obama's Afghan decision - Will Obama abandon Afghanistan? - Dyer, Gwynne (September 15, 2009). "West should vote with its feet". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved November 1, 2011. - A letter from Afghanistan that every American must read - Afghanistan: Why Obama is rethinking 'war of necessity' - An Open Letter to President Obama - Obama to Reassess Afghanistan War - Obama Faces Familiar Divisions Over Anti-Terror Policies - Matthew Hoh September 10, 2009 letter of resignation - U.S. official resigns over Afghan war - Matthew Hoh: new poster boy for critics of Afghanistan war - The Afghanistan Abyss - Former CIA Operatives Agree: American Occupation of Afghanistan Threatens US Security - The Afghanistan Study Group Challenges U.S. Strategy, with Flawed but Useful Report - Afghan jails are base for al-Qaida and Taliban, says US commander - Foiling U.S. Plan, Prison Expands in Afghanistan - U.S. Planning Big New Prison in Afghanistan - Pentagon Seeks to Overhaul Prisons in Afghanistan - No Place Like Home - Pul-e-Charkhi Jail inmates face awful life - New Afghan Cabinet Picks Still Generate Resistance - Two Views on Afghanistan Mission – 'The War Is a Breeding Program for Terrorists' - Hamid Karzai: President of Afghanistan By Philip Wolny, p.82 - Into the valley of death: UK troops head into Afghan war zone - Special report: Afghanistan – The dead zone - UNAMA – Suicide Attacks in Afghanistan (2001-2007) - The Afghan-Pakistan War: The Rising Intensity of Conflict: 2001-2007 - UNAMA – Annual Report on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict 2008 - Afghanistan’s New Security Threat - Al Qaeda Regaining Former Strength? - Upsurge in Afghan suicide attacks - The Afghan-Pakistan War: The Rising Intensity of Conflict: 2007-2008 - Afghan roadside bombs hit record in 2008 - Improvised explosive devices: A growing menace in Afghanistan - Afghan Insurgents Expand Their Use of Increasingly Sophisticated Homemade Bombs - Taliban makes IEDs deadlier - Taliban make 'undetectable' bombs out of wood - IEDs: The poor man’s artillery - What good friends left behind - These wars are about oil, not democracy - US Bombs Are Boosting the Taliban - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. "Afghanistan Opium Survey 2007" (PDF). Retrieved 2008-01-27. - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. "Afghanistan Opium Survey 2008" (PDF). Retrieved 2009-09-20. - Afghanistan's cash crop wilts - Men With Guns, in Kabul and Washington - Caught in a swirl of deceit - America has been here before - Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 163 (Wednesday, November 4, 2009) - Economic scene: Afghanistan will cost US more than Iraq - Barack Obama ready to pay Afghan fighters to ditch the Taliban - Faster troop withdrawal may save $1 trillion - Some reasons why the war in Afghanistan is insanity - Sanders Calls for National Dialogue on Afghanistan Exit Strategy - Afghanistan Surge to Cost $40 Billion, Democrat Says - Cost of Afghan War Explodes With New Strategy - Afghan war costs now outpace Iraq's - Demand an Afghanistan Exit Strategy - Bill S.3197 - Bill H.R.5015 - Obama's isolation grows on the Afghanistan war - Warning Against Wars Like Iraq and Afghanistan - "Never Get Involved in a Land War in Asia": Gates’ West Point Speech and a Tipping Point in Afghanistan - Poll: With bin Laden dead, is it time to end war? - Commanders Expect A 'Significant' U.S. Presence In Afghanistan For 8 To 10 More Years: Dem Rep - Bid to end Afghan war funding hits GOP roadblock - Afghanistan Withdrawal Resolution Passes Democratic National Committee Without Dissent - Cost of war in Afghanistan will be major factor in troop-reduction talks - Revealed: £12bn hidden costs of Afghan war - America's costly war machine - Republicans cry class warfare as Obama pushes higher taxes for wealthy - War and Sacrifice in the Post-9/11 Era - Let Us Not Become the Evil We Deplore - U.S. involved in Iraq war longer than it was in World War II (Associated Press tally of lengths of U.S. participation in major wars) - From critic of one ‘shameful’ war to booster of another - The news is bad - The Afghan mission: McChrystal axed - Quagmire? Nine years on, Americans grow weary of war in Afghanistan - Obama’s Afghan war – a race against time - A Game That’s Not So Great - Afghanistan pro-con: It will become a quagmire - Afghan Says Army Will Need Help Until 2024 - 20-year commitment needed in Afghanistan, Higgins says - Civilian Goals Largely Unmet in Afghanistan - Army Chief: We'll be in Afghanistan until 2050 - Gates: No Troop Request In Afghanistan Review - Risk of death soars for Canada's troops - More troops and new strategy for Afghanistan will be hard to come by - Official chronology of the withdrawal from Afghanistan - West ignores lessons of Soviet humiliation in Afghanistan - Pressure grows in Afghanistan for Hamid Karzai to strike a deal - Top US general calls for new strategy in Afghanistan - Afghan mission risks 'failure' without more troops, says US general - A D.C. whodunit: Who leaked and why? - Sources: McChrystal Wants Up to 40,000 More Troops in Afghanistan - Commander to send troop request for Afghanistan - Joint Chiefs Chairman Receives Afghanistan Troop Request, Aides Say - Troop request on table as Obama weighs Afghan mission > - Analysis: Obama Borrows Soviet's Afghan Endgame> - U.S. puppet cuts his strings - Afghanistan Troop Request to Offer Options for Obama - Attacks on Remote Posts Highlight Afghan Risks - American strategy of winning trust of Afghan people is high risk - Afghan War Draws Comparisons to Vietnam - Can America win in Afghanistan? - Obama at the Precipice - A Voice Worth Heeding on Afghanistan - Can Congress Save Obama from Afghan Quagmire? - March 16, 2009 letter to President Barack Obama - Obama could face party revolt on Afghanistan - Democrats in Congress Wary of Afghanistan Escalation - Obama struggles to gather support for Afghan surge - Plan to Boost Afghan Forces Splits Obama Advisers - Top US senator pleads for patience on Afghanistan - Kerry points to Vietnam lessons on Afghanistan - Testing Afghanistan Assumptions - Congresswoman Lee Introduces Legislation Prohibiting Funding for Military Escalation in Afghanistan - US Lawmakers Question Afghanistan Strategy - Enough is Enough in Afghanistan - US ambassador warns against Afghanistan troop surge - On Afghanistan, Michael Steele Speaks for Me - In war-funding vote, Democrats cast doubts on Obama's Afghan policy - Norquist: It’s time to consider leaving Afghanistan - Tea Party eyes the cost of war in Afghanistan - Afghanistan Study Group – Survey Results of Conservatives - Bipartisan Group Of Lawmakers Introduce Afghanistan Withdrawal Legislation - The DNC Wants Out of Afghanistan - Afghanistan – the proxy war - Afghanistan war threatens to make us ‘the evil we deplore’ - Reassessing Obama's 'war of necessity' - Eighth year of Afghan War should be the last - South Korean troops leaving Afghanistan - Washington asks Seoul for money for Afghanistan - Switzerland ends military mission in Afghanistan - Netherlands confirms 2010 Afghanistan pullout - Harper says 2011 'end date' for Afghanistan mission - British troop numbers to be cut in Afghanistan - Canadian PM says he won't extend Afghan mission - Japan ready to withdraw support for Afghanistan war - Berlusconi: Best to exit Afghanistan soon - Berlusconi Says Italy to Withdraw 500 Afghanistan Troops Soon - UK's Brown seeks fewer UK troops in Afghanistan - Parliament votes against new Afghan mission - Dutch Government Falls Over Stance on Troops - Japan to end Afghan refuelling mission - Japan to end Afghan refuelling mission in January - Afghanistan will be 'strictly civilian mission' after 2011, PM says - Afghan Pullout Final: PM - Dutch Parliament Debates Afghanistan - Dutch political crisis over war - Afghan war moves centre-stage in Polish election - Poland sets 2012 Afghanistan pull-out deadline - Dutch troops end Afghanistan deployment - Dutch troops leave Afghanistan - Leading article: Our Afghan exit is now overdue - Nato Leaders Sign Deal On Afghan Security - Cameron pledges to pull our troops out of Afghanistan by 2015 - Afghanistan: des voix s'élèvent pour accélérer le retrait des forces françaises - Obama announces US troops in Afghanistan will be home by 2014 - Canada ends combat mission in Afghanistan - Kandahar then and now - Afghanistan 'training mission' doesn't add up - Canadian combat troops exit Afghanistan – Canadian trainers enter - Sarkozy's Karzai visit: 1,000 troops to leave by 2012 This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia. 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As a consequence of our work with colour theory and exploration, we could not ignore the process of classifying and categorising colour in some shape or form. 2nd year students made new colour discoveries and inventions through a mapping and name identification project. Our discovery work involved searching for paper colour samples in magazines and catalogues. Each pupil was assigned a colour and began collecting a batch of 20 4×5 cm samples in a variety of shades and surface textures. After this stage we created names for our new found colour collection. From Mossy Green to Pearly Yellow, we invented over 300 colour profiles in total! We then began plotting the new colours on a large sheet of white packing paper. The pupils were encouraged to arrange and plot the colours as desired, working in a team. After lots of discussion and card shuffling the children created a colour orientation map, a colour island map and a colour patchwork map. Each map is a unique portrait of group research and the application of results. Mapping colours is fun and great for English word order practice and spelling. We created some new words too, with Crystalline Blue being my personal favourite! Well done 2a, 2b and 2c.
Ear infection, or otitis media, is the most common medical problem for children in the United States, and is the most common reason for prescribing antibiotics for infants and children. The typical doctor does not take care to avoid the overuse of these potentially dangerous drugs, and he does not champion nutritional excellence to prevent future infections. When Stephanie Rogers, a typical seven-year-old girl, became my patient, her parents handed me a printout from the local pharmacy documenting the filling of 67 rounds of antibiotics at the cost of $1,643.80 by the ripe age of seven. Once the pediatric group started prescribing the antibiotics for minor complaints of fever and cough, it escalated to ear infections, sinus infections, and finally visits to the ear specialist by the age of four. She received 15 separate prescriptions of antibiotics when she was five years old. The first year she was my patient, the entire family changed its diet style. Stephanie went along for the ride and did fine. I did use an antibiotic once for her that next winter, when she had a persistent high fever and a red painful eardrum; however, that was the last time an antibiotic prescription was necessary. Luckily, Stephanie has been free of antibiotics ever since. An international study following more than 3,000 children treated by general practitioners in nine countries showed that antibiotics did not improve the rate of recovery from ear infections. But nearly 98 percent of U.S. physicians in the survey prescribed antimicrobials routinely, the biggest percentage of all countries surveyed. As a result of accumulating evidence documenting the dangers of antibiotics and their overuse, new guidelines for treating ear infections in children were just released from a joint effort of the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American Academy of Pediatrics. These guidelines represent a major shift in policy and thinking by physician leadership. The guidelines encourage doctors to initially manage the pain and not prescribe antibiotics for children with ear infections and to defer antibiotic use for the sicker children who are not improving two or three days later. I hope doctors will heed this message. The story of Stephanie Rogers (not her real name) is from the book Disease-Proof Your Child.
NEW HAVEN, Conn., Feb. 1 (UPI) -- Spotted salamanders exposed to contaminated roadside ponds are adapting to their toxic environments by evolving rapidly, U.S. researchers say. Yale University researchers say salamanders breeding in roadside ponds are exposed to a number of toxic contaminants from road runoff, mainly sodium chloride from road salt. The sodium chloride can reach concentrations of 70 times higher in roadside ponds compared with woodland ponds located several hundred feet from the road, they said. "While the evolutionary consequences of roads are largely unknown, we know they are strong agents of natural selection and set the stage for fast evolution," Steven Brady, a doctoral student at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, said. "These animals are growing up in harsh environments where they face a cocktail of contaminants, and it appears that they are evolving to cope with them," he said in a Yale release Wednesday. While salamanders in roadside ponds have higher mortality, grow at a slower rate and are more than likely to develop deformed spines and other disfigurements, surviving salamanders may develop a genetic advantage over their counterparts living in woodland ponds, he said. Salamanders that survive year after year in roadside ponds appear to be adapting to the harsh conditions, he said. "The animals that come from roadside ponds actually do better -- substantially better -- than the ones that originate from woodland ponds when they're raised together," Brady said. Brady observed the development of the salamanders in 10 ponds -- five roadside and five woodland -- in northeastern Connecticut.
The following words are in alphabetical order. barred (bard) - in birds, feathers with alternating bands of color. “The barred owl has bands of brown and white feathers.” bioluminescence (bi-o-LOO-mi-nes-ens) - light produced by living things. “Fireflies and some mushrooms produce light through the process of bioluminescence.” calling (KALL-ing) - sounds produced by animals as a means to “talk” to each other. “Male frogs call in the spring to attract female frogs to water for breeding.” camouflage (CAM-uh-flaj) – coloration or behaviors that allow an organism to blend in with its surroundings. “The walkingstick’s camouflage made it hard for us to find it on the shrub.” cocoon (kuh-COON) - a case spun by an insect larva to cover and protect it in the pupa stage (as it changes from larva to adult). “We found a cocoon in the leaves and watched it for a few weeks. One day, a luna moth emerged from it.” nocturnal (nock-TUR-nall) – active mainly at night. “The southern flying squirrel is a nomenclature (NO-men-clay-chur) – naming rules for science. “Using scientific nomenclature, the teacher identified the fish that we saw on our field trip.” nymph (nimf) – an immature form that resembles an adult but does not have wings. “The cicada nymph lived in the soil for 17 years.” scale (skale) - a small, hard covering on the outside of an animal to provide protection. “The armadillo’s scales help to protect its skin.” vernal (VER-null) – appearing in, occurring in or pertaining to spring. “We helped build vernal pools in the woodlands during our spring break.”
LOS BAñOS, Philippines, May 12 (UPI) -- As its name suggests, the newly discovered plant species Rinorea niccolifera can absorb large amounts of nickel without poisoning itself. The plant doesn't eat metal the way a Venus flytrap sucks down insects; instead, it absorbs it from the soil, thriving in nickel-rich dirt. The plant was discovered by scientists from the University of Philippines. Lead researcher and author of a new paper on the plant, Professor Edwino Fernando, says the leaves of Rinorea niccolifera can absorb as much as 18,000 parts per million of the silvery-white metal -- that's up to 1,000 times more nickel than can safely be stored in most other plants. The discovery of the new metal-eating plant -- one of only 450 species out of 300,000 known vascular plants that can absorb significant amounts of metal -- was detailed this week in Pensoft Publishers' open access journal PhytoKeys. "The new species, according to Dr. Marilyn Quimado, one of the lead scientists of the research team, was discovered on the western part of Luzon Island in the Philippines, an area known for rich soils in heavy metals," researchers wrote in a press release announcing the new plant and subsequent scientific study. Metal-absorbing plants are of significant interest to both environmental advocates and the mining industry. A plant like Rinorea niccolifera can be used to remove dangerous metallic materials from a polluted ecosystem. Once the plant has absorbed a significant amount of metal, they can also be harvested for their commercially valuable contents. "Hyperacccumulator plants have great potentials for the development of green technologies," explained Augustine Doronila of the University of Melbourne, who co-authored the paper with Fernando.
Stem cell therapy has brought about a lot of excitement and hope in the medical field. Scientists and researchers believe that this therapy is the solution to many diseases that were thought to be incurable. The disadvantages of stem cell therapy - It has great potential to treat many diseases that were thought to be incurable before. Patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia. Alzheimer’s disease, Caner, spinal cord injuries and diabetes have observed commendable improvement in their state post stem cell treatment. - It has decreased the dependency on donor organs and the problem of timely availability of organs. Organs such as kidney and liver can be grown in a lab from stem cells and then used for transplants. If the stem cells are extracted form the patients own body, they do not run the risk of organ rejection from the immune system. - It has thrown light on cell development and growth of organs in humans. - It has opened new doors in the field of clinical research as doctors can study the potential of new drugs without testing them on animals and humans. - It has helped study all the different development stages in a human embryo, study the causes and treatments of birth defects, pregnancy loss and infertility. This can help get rid of fetal anomalies (diseases and abnormalities present during birth) and treat them at an early stage. - There are scientists who believe that stem cells hold the key to reverse aging and may even help prolong life. It has the potential to delay aging and in future may cure aging all together. - Embryonic stem cells are the most adaptable as they have the potential to differentiate into any cell type and have greater potential in stem cell therapy than fully grown stem cells which are pre-specialized. Stem cell was discovered only a few decades ago and there are certain areas of this therapy that cannot be overlooked - This is a new technology and is still undergoing researches. Scientists are still unaware of the long term effects of this therapy as they are directly playing with nature. - The use of embryonic stem cell has set religious groups and political parties into frenzy. This treatment involves destruction of blastocysts post extraction of stem cells. These blastocysts are derived from the excess embryos left after an IVF treatment. This sect of society believes that life begins immediately after conception and this sort of practice is nothing short of killing. It has stirred many debates where people think that this is an immoral and unacceptable practice. - They don’t have solutions for every ailment. - The technology used is a little expensive, though governments of certain countries have special concession for children who have chances of developing certain diseases or are born with abnormalities. - Fully grown stem are pre-specialized and have limited scope of differentiation for instance, blood stem cells can make only blood and not other organs like kidney and liver. Also, they are lesser in numbers and are not easy to cultivate. - The stem cells derived from embryos stand chances of rejection as they are not patients own and stand chances of rejection.
In the United States, sports-related traumatic brain injuries (concussions and otherwise) have been a HOT topic. In 2013, approximately 4,500 former NFL players sued the league, claiming that the NFL failed to educate, manage, and protect its players from head injuries. Judges approved a settlement of $765 million that would fund concussion-related compensation, including medical exams and research for ex-players. This past year, Chris Borland, a 24 year-old, highly revered linebacker, decided to retire after playing only one year of professional football. His reasoning was that football was “not worth the risk” to his health. The NFL is not the only sporting organization looking at concussions among its players; other organizations include the National Hockey League (NHL) and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Most recently, the U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) announced that it has developed a set of guidelines for its youth leagues in which it recommends a ban on headers for players ages 10 and under and a limit on headers for players between 11 and 13 years of age. The USSF also developed a standard protocol in which medical professionals, as opposed to coaches or referees, make decisions about return-to-play for players who are suspected of sustaining a concussion. The USSF developed these guidelines in response to a class-action lawsuit which targeted six of the largest youth soccer groups, including FIFA, U.S. Youth Soccer, and the American Youth Soccer Organization. The lawsuit claims that these organizations have “failed to adopt effective policies to evaluate and manage concussions.” But will policy changes – “banning headers” – solve the concussion problem among youth soccer players? A September 2015 study in JAMA by Comstock, et al. evaluated trends in soccer concussions among youth players. The study found that the most common concussion mechanism was contact with another player (player-player), not a ball – this is consistent with other literature. The most common mechanism for all concussions was contact with another player, accounting for 68.8% of all concussions among boys and 51.3% among girls. The most common mechanism among heading-related concussions was also contact with another player, accounting for 78.1% of heading-related concussions among boys and 61.9% among girls. Among soccer-specific activities, heading was responsible for 30.6% of concussions among boys and 25.3% of concussions among girls. The study concludes that reducing athlete-athlete contact across all phases of play – not just headers – would be more likely to prevent concussions. It also mentions that, culturally, banning headers may not be a feasible prevention effort. After all, an integral part of the Beautiful Game is headers (Robin Van Persie during the 2014 FIFA World Cup, anyone?). The soccer community, anecdotally, seems exceptionally resistant to the prospect of banning headers. As injury researchers, we know that one of the most important aspects of a successful and effective public health intervention is cultural feasibility. With this in mind, I don’t think it is likely the USSF’s announcement about banning or limiting headers will significantly affect the epidemiology of concussions in youth soccer. At most, this sends a strong message to coaches and brings safety management to the forefront. (The new rule which requires a Health Care Professional, [shoutout to Athletic Trainers!] to be present to make decisions regarding concussions instead of coaches or referees could be positive, though!) Either way, one has to commend USSF’s attempt at targeted prevention efforts to bring soccer to its high and honorable state: P.S. – you’re not allowed to make fun of me for calling it “soccer” instead of “football”! 🙂
Lumbosacral Syndrome in Dogs What is cauda equina or lumbosacral syndrome? Cauda equina or lumbosacral syndrome is a disease that occurs at the lumbosacral junction in the lower back. The term lumbo refers to the lumbar vertebrae. These are the bones in the lower part of the spinal column. The term sacral refers to the sacrum, which is the part of the spine that joins the lumbar spine and the pelvis. This disease is commonly referred to as the cauda equina syndrome. This term comes from the Latin for "horse's tail." At this level of the lower spine, the spinal cord changes shape from a tubular structure to a collection of large nerves that have the appearance of a horse's tail. What causes it? Pressure on the cauda equina or the nerves that exit the spine causes the clinical signs. The pressure may be due to a narrowed spinal canal, an infection in the disc at this joint, trauma, a spinal tumor or instability at this joint. What are the clinical signs of cauda equina syndrome? When instability exists along the spine, abnormal movement occurs. This causes inflammation of the spinal cord and muscles in the affected area. Dogs with lumbosacral syndrome are in pain. When pressure is applied to the muscles in the lower back, many dogs will cry or move away. Some dogs may be slow to rise from a lying position because this movement aggravates the inflamed nerves and muscles. Some will literally fall to their knees when the tail is lifted sharply. Occasionally, dogs develop weakness or lameness in the rear legs, due to muscle atrophy. Other dogs will develop fecal or urinary incontinence, and some will mutilate their feet or tail with incessant chewing. As the problem progresses, the disc that is located between the last lumbar vertebrae and the sacrum may rupture. If this happens, the dog will be uncoordinated when it walks, or it may be paralyzed in the rear legs. How is it diagnosed? Radiographs (x-rays) will generally reveal non-specific arthritic changes at the lumbosacral junction. However, this is common in many dogs and may not cause any clinical signs. If the disc ruptures, there may be evidence of a narrowed disc space or disc material against the spinal cord. If the clinical signs and radiographs are suggestive of cauda equina syndrome, a special radiographic study, called a myelogram, is performed. This is the injection of contrast material around the spinal cord so that pressure on the spinal cord can be seen on subsequent radiographs. Additional tests such as computed tomography scans (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are also used to diagnose lumbosacral syndrome. What is the treatment? If your dog is overweight, weight reduction will be an important part of the treatment. Any disorder of the back is aggravated by excessive body weight. "Strict rest is an important part of treatment for any back problem." Strict rest is an important part of treatment for any back problem. Cage rest is preferable but confinement in a small fenced run or small room is acceptable. Anti-inflammatory drugs and pain relievers will often give temporary pain relief and may improve clinical signs. Although infection in the disc is not a common cause of lumbosacral syndrome, antibiotics are required in these cases. An infection of this nature usually requires four to eight weeks of therapy. If the intervertebral disc ruptures, many dogs will become uncoordinated or weak when they walk, or become paralyzed in the rear legs. If this occurs, a surgical procedure called a dorsal laminectomy is necessary to relieve the pressure of a bulging or ruptured disc on the spinal cord. Surgical exploration allows identification of a spinal tumor or narrowing of the spinal canal due to traumatic injury. Once the pressure is relieved, return of function of the rear legs is expected. However, permanent damage to the spinal cord will not be reversed, and the surgery does not relieve inflammation around the spinal nerves or the muscles. Continued pain relievers or anti-inflammatory drugs may be needed until this aspect of the problem finally resolves.
Color correction is a crucial aspect of video production that involves adjusting the colors in a video to achieve the desired visual appearance. It involves balancing the intensity, saturation, and hue of the colors to make them look more natural and appealing to the viewer. Color correction helps to improve the overall look and feel of the video, and to make sure that the colors match the intended visual style and tone of the project. The process of color correction requires a skilled video editor who has a good eye for color and is familiar with the technical aspects of color grading. Some of the important aspects related to color correction in video production include: By understanding these different categories, you can gain a better understanding of the technical aspects of color correction and the impact it has on the final product in video production.
Ode on Melancholy by John Keats "Ode on Melancholy" is a poetic ode by Keats and is considered one of his least-discussed. Nonetheless, it is lyrical and affecting. The poem displays how the poet links pain with pleasure (one cannot exist without the other). This writing was heavily influenced by Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. "Ode on Melancholy" is a three stanza poem written with ten lines each for a total of 32 lines. Each stanza is rhymed in ABABCDECDE. Many lines seem to be in iambic pentameter, but not all of them follow this scheme. Many lines are odd, such as the second line of the writing. Ode on Melancholy No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine; Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kissed By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine; Make not your rosary of yew-berries, Nor let the beetle nor the death-moth be Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl A partner in your sorrow's mysteries; For shade to shade will come too drowsily, And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul. But when the melancholy fit shall fall Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, That fosters the droop-headed flowers all, And hides the green hill in an April shroud; Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave, Or on the wealth of globed peonies; Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows, Imprison her soft hand, and let her rave, And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes. She dwells with Beauty -Beauty that must die; And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips: Ay, in the very temple of Delight Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine, Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine: His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy trophies hung. Written in 1819. Published in 1820. Next: Ode to a Nightingale Find out more information about this poem and read others like it. Romanticism, 18th Century
Hear from Laurie Guyon about the NYSED Computer Science and Digital Fluency standards and why she chose Book Creator to create her learning resources. There are so many reasons why our students should experience the principles of computer science while in school. We know that most jobs require digital skills. Since we use the technology we need to understand our privacy and cybersecurity. We need to understand the impacts and how technology affects us and our world. We also know that there is a difference between consuming versus creating with technology. As of the 2020 report from code.org, less than half of the US schools taught computer science. Worldwide, only about 27% of countries offer computer science. - Impacts of Computing - Computational Thinking - Networks and Systems - Digital Literacy Each of these concept areas is broken down into subconcept areas. A lot of what is in these standards is already taught in our schools but may need a more direct focus on the elements of computer science. CS/DF lessons and activities Through my BOCES, I have an EdTech Coaches Cohort that meets monthly. Our focus is on technology integration and the implementation of these standards. Over the past couple of years, we have been looking at the standards to see how they can be implemented. We created a placemat to explore the nouns and verbs, the key requirements, and explore the skills needed. We quickly realized that teachers needed to see how to add these standards to their classrooms without it being ‘one more thing’. Over summer, I decided to create activity books to help teachers see fun ways that these standards can be implemented without it being a heavy lift in their classrooms. Take a look at the library below 👇 I used Book Creator to create these books for many reasons including: - Ease of use: Book Creator can be collaborative so my team and other teachers can help build the books and add in their activities. It also allows for easy linking so that finding what you are looking for can happen quickly. - Ease of sharing: When published, the books have a link that can be shared and embedded easily in newsletters, presentations, and on social media. - Ease of updates: The books can stay live so that any updates or additions can be done seamlessly. Bringing the books to life Our statewide committee put together the website CSforNY.org to also support the rollout of these standards. The books are on this site for anyone to use. We are also hosting activity writing workshops at my BOCES to take time to add in any new resources, ideas, and lessons that we have created within our classrooms. As other edtech products release their alignment documents, we are adding our favorite edtech tools and lessons to the books as well. With these books, I have been hosting courses on training others throughout the state on these standards, webinars with NYSCATE and through BOCES, and presented at conferences with Christine MacPherson from Hudson Falls CSD. As well as this, I have created courses with NYSCATE that are free for anyone in New York to take on the standards. Within these courses, we explore the activity books and ideas for implementing these standards in any classroom. I hope that these books support educators in developing an integrated approach to computer science and digital fluency. By using the lessons in these Book Creator books in our classrooms, our students will become better equipped for the globally connected world we live in. NYSCATE Book Creator Educator Course Book Creator Ambassador and NYSCATE Long Island Director, Kristina Holzweiss, has created a free course on NYSCATE where you can learn the basics of Book Creator then dive in a little further. You can even bag 3 CTLE Hours as well as an awesome badge and certificate upon completion! '"Book Creator is the "little black dress" of tech tools. Everybody can learn it, use it, and create something professional-looking with it. With its multimedia and accessibility features, Book Creator was the perfect platform when we crowdsourced The Digital Librarian's Survival Toolkit and The Epic Ebook of Web Tools & Apps. I received such positive feedback from these free resources, that I knew more educators needed to learn how to use Book Creator to empower student voice. My NYSCATE Book Creator course is my way of giving back to the educational community, to make teaching easier, engaging, and more fun."' Laurie Guyon is the Coordinator of Model Schools at Washington-Saratoga-Warren-Hamilton-Essex BOCES. Her role focuses on professional learning around technology integration for over 31 school districts across five counties. As well as this, Laurie is the Capital Region Director and a trainer for NYSCATE, The New York State Association for Computers and Technologies in Education.
Researching Children's Perspectives "This is a book which I will return to over time. It carries a powerful, and empowering, message about the task of researching children's views...(It) deserves to find an automatic place in staffroom libraries. I happily recommed it." - Support for Learning" The 1990s have been marked by a growing emphasis, in various professional contexts, on obtaining the views of clients, including children. This position is an international one, shared across the developed world, and encapsulated in the UN Convention on the rights of the child. This book addresses the issues and practicalities surrounding the obtaining of children's views, particularly in the research context. The book takes a deliberately and explicitly pluralist stance. Its distinctiveness rests on the scrutiny of methodological issues pertaining to the collection of children's views and practical applications. The book is structured around two main sections. Section 1 examines five aspects of theoretical and conceptual issues (ethical issues and codes of conduct, children's rights, the legal perspective, developmental dimensions and sociological issues). Section 2 illustrates these aspects by focusing on methods and applications in obtaining children's views in specific projects. Resultados 1-5 de 67 ... interviewing young people with moderate learning difficulties 214 5 Schedule of suggested lead questions for pupil group discussions 217 Contributors Amanda Begley is a doctoral research student at the. References Index 219 235 Contents ix. ... pupils with moderate learning difficulties . Publications include ' Making pupils fit the framework ' ( School Organisation ( 1996 ) 16 ( 3 ) : 341-54 ) and ( with A. Sinclair Taylor ) ' Effective schooling for all : the special ... ... Pupils ( Trentham 1995 ) . Tina Detheridge has been involved , since the early 1980s , in the application of information technology ( IT ) to enhance the communication of children and adults with special educational needs . Her recent ... ... Pupils ( Trentham 1995 ) . Judith Masson is Professor of Law at the University of Warwick and a specialist on child law and socio - legal research . She has recently completed ( with C. Harrison and A. Pavlovic ) a study of social ... ... pupils in Birmingham and is involved in the National Anti - Racist Movement in Education . He is co - editor of Education Today and Tomorrow . Simon Williams is a Warwick research fellow in the Department of Sociology at the University ... Part 2 Practical applications Part 3 Overview
Mill Power: The Origin and Impact of Lowell National Historical Park Mill Power documents the making of a national park that changed the concept of what a national historical park could be. For a time in the 1800s, Lowell was Massachusetts’s cosmopolitan, must-see second city. The city’s industrial model was as high-tech then as Silicon Valley is today. It drew the attention of luminaries like Charles Dickens, Congressmen Davy Crockett and Abraham Lincoln, feminist sociologist Harriet Martineau, and abolitionist Frederick Douglass. This insider’s account of the creative, bold community-driven process to establish the park explains why today Lowell National Historical Park is renowned as “the partnership park.” The park’s establishment was an integral piece of an urban revival strategy that has made Lowell the subject of scores of newspaper articles, magazine profiles, TV and radio reports, scholarly papers, and book chapters. Historic Preservation magazine has hailed the park as “the premier rehabilitation model for gritty cities worldwide.” The Lowell story has much to teach the mid-sized cities of the nation and the world. Mill Power frames the Lowell comeback in its historical context and brings together the people who dreamed, wrote, designed, pushed, and cheered a new national park into existence along with those who came after with the charges of shaping the ideas into material form. The volume features 100 photos, many of them showing the before-and-after story of this revitalization. Acre American artists Aucella Boarding House Park Boott Cotton Mills Boott Mills Boston building Canal District canal system Canalway Center for Lowell City Council City of Lowell city’s Company Corporation Cotton Mills Museum director downtown early economic engineering exhibit factory federal former funding Hamilton Canal heritage historic district Historic Preservation Commission interview Jack Kerouac James Higgins LDFC learning legislation LHPC Little Canada LNHP looms Lowell Folk Festival Lowell High School Lowell Historic Preservation Lowell National Historical Lowell park Lowell Plan Lowell’s Lowellians manufacturing Market Mills Marty Meehan Massachusetts Meehan Merrimack River Middlesex Community College Milinazzo mill yard million Model Cities Mogan Mogan Cultural Center National Historical Park National Park Service neighborhood ofthe operation organization park’s Paul Tsongas Pawtucket Canal Pawtucket Falls planner ranger redevelopment rehabilitation residents revitalization sculpture story structures Superintendent textile trolley UMass–Lowell urban Wannalancit
Here are some links to helpful resources to help you with your citations, bibliographies, and works-cited pages. - NoodleTools is a helpful resource that can not only help you create bibliographies and annotations, but also help you with notetaking and outlining. It can even interface with Google Docs as you write your paper. You can also share your work with classmates or your instructor. Simply create your own username and password to keep track of your work. - MLA & APA: A Side-by-Side Comparison (PDF Handout) - Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) covers many different citation styles, including Chicago Manual of Style; it also has information on doing outlines and resumes - Duke University Libraries: Citing Sources - University of Wisconsin: Introduction to Documentation Styles - Chicago Manual of Style Online - Research and Documentation Online, 5th Edition by Diana Hacker and Barbara Fister has hints for citing in many different styles There are also print manuals for the many different citation styles: - MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th ed., Main Stacks LB 2369 .G53 2009 - Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th ed., Reference Ref BF 76.7 .P83 2010 - The Chicago Manual of Style, Reference Ref Z 253 .U69 2010 - Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations: Chicago Style for Students and Teachers (Turabian), Ref Desk LB 2369 .T8 2007 Don't forget to check to see if the database has a "cite" or "citation" button that helps you with the citing of the article.
In a large, complex, or urgent situation, the command goes out: “All hands on deck!” Sub-Saharan Africa faces such a clarion call now. It is the only region in the world with a growing number of children under the age of five who have stunted growth, meaning they are too short for their age. Although the number of children affected by stunting globally has decreased drastically since 1990, Africa is the only region that has seen an increase in the number of children stunted despite a decrease in the prevalence of stunting. This trend, if not arrested and reversed, could have grim long-term implications for the region’s human capital and economic growth. One of the reasons for this increase in stunting is because of the staggering scale of undernutrition in the region. It’s long been recognized that improving nutrition requires enlisting not only the health sector but also many others—agriculture; education; social protection; and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH). In fact, many initiatives have been based on the premise that tackling undernutrition requires multisectoral solutions. Hence, the “All hands” approach. Unfortunately, the history of multisectoral initiatives on nutrition is littered with many underperforming projects. Simply involving multiple sectors has not necessarily produced the desired outcomes. That’s why we have come up with a new report, “All Hands on Deck: Reducing Stunting through Multisectoral Efforts in Sub-Saharan Africa,” that lays the groundwork for more effective multisectoral action on reducing stunting by analyzing and generating empirical evidence useful for informing the joint targeting and, if necessary, the sequencing of sector-specific interventions in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Our report—launched at the global conference, “Accelerating the End of Hunger and Malnutrition,” organized by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) November 28–30, 2018, in Bangkok—also provides the lessons from successful country cases to identify the key ingredients of a multisectoral strategy that maximizes the chance of reducing undernutrition and hence stunting. A Vicious Circle In 2016, 155 million children worldwide under the age of five had stunted growth. Of those, 30 percent were in Sub-Saharan Africa. Africa also has the world’s highest rate of under-five stunting (33 percent, compared with a global average of 24 percent) and has made the slowest progress in reducing stunting since 1990, according to United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) data. Stunting from poor diets and illness becomes all the more devastating with age, bringing irreversible long-term consequences. It diminishes the chances of success in school, of earning an optimal adult income, and generally of living a healthy and productive life. Given the critical importance of intervening earlier in a child’s life, our report focuses primarily on stunting in 33 Sub-Saharan African countries, 32 of which (all but Angola) participate in the global Scaling-Up Nutrition (SUN) initiative, a framework now endorsed by 60 low- and middle-income countries globally to scale up nutrition-sensitive interventions. “All Hands on Deck” examines three drivers of adequate nutrition: household food security and care, health care access, and WASH. As the report documents, only a very small proportion of children in Sub-Saharan Africa have simultaneous access to all three nutrition drivers or even simultaneous access to two nutrition drivers. In three countries—Chad, Ethiopia, and Niger—more than half of the children lack access to even one of the determinants. The report also finds that simultaneous access to adequate levels of two or more nutrition drivers is associated with lower stunting. This validates the importance of the joint targeting of interventions by different sectors in populations within geographic areas where stunting is prevalent. Mission Possible? The Search for Synergies “Nutrition-specific” interventions address the immediate needs for maternal and child food and nutrient intake and are delivered mainly through the health sector. Many other sectors deliver “nutrition-sensitive” interventions to address the key underlying determinants of nutrition. Synergizing the two plays a critical role in determining the nutritional status of children. And foundational to all of these interventions is the role of income. The report confirms that increases in household wealth are associated with a decrease in child stunting and that shortfalls in rainfall are associated with increases in child stunting. In this aspect, the report closely examines an important policy implication, especially in the context of climate change. Multisectoral nutrition interventions may be more effective alongside broader policies to mitigate the impacts of weather-related risks affecting income generation. Thus, programs and interventions aimed at increasing the level of income and/or decreasing the vulnerability of household income from weather-related shocks can significantly contribute to the decline of stunting and should be considered as components of any multisectoral effort. Another fundamental ingredient of a successful strategy is the scaling-up of interventions that jointly target populations in geographic areas with high prevalence of stunting. With limited budgetary resources, the greatest decline in stunting can be accomplished by targeting the scarce resources to children who lack adequate access to any of the three nutrition drivers. And when circumstances preclude a multisectoral approach, the report’s estimates also provide policy guidance useful for the sequencing of sector-specific interventions in target areas (or target populations). Much work remains to be done to coordinate the targeting of service delivery if all key sectors are to contribute jointly in the reduction of stunting. The targeting of stunted children is not as simple as distinguishing between urban and rural areas or using “poverty maps” identifying the poor and nonpoor regions. The 33 country-specific notes in our report take a first step in this direction. Download PDF: All Hands on Deck: Reducing Stunting through Multisectoral Efforts in Sub-Saharan Africa Brief: The Economic Costs of Stunting and How to Reduce Them Topic Brief: The World Bank and Nutrition Blog post: Incentivizing Collaboration to Address Childhood Stunting News feature: Reducing Childhood Stunting with an Adaptive Learning Approach (in Madagascar) Publication: Tackling Stunting: Rwanda’s Unfinished Business
In today's society, people are eager to find new energy sources. We want something better for the environment and something that can be produced in the U.S. You might not know that a source like this actually exists locally. There is a natural gas reserve buried under many layers of rock across central New York and through Pennsylvania and Ohio. At first this sounds like a great solution to energy problems, until you learn about the risky process of extracting the gas. The process used is called horizontal hydraulic fracturing or hydro-fracking. The gas is in tiny pores in the rocks, like holes in Swiss cheese, so the rock needs to be broken up for the gas to be released. To do this, millions of gallons of water filled with harsh chemicals are being injected into the rocks under extreme pressure to cause the fracturing. This process can cause problems that affect your water supply and damage your health. The first problem that can occur is that the water with the chemicals, known as fracking fluid, could get into your water supply. This would ruin the water and could make you sick. Gas could also leak into the water supply. The gas is highly flammable and there have been reports of homeowners in Pennsylvania whose tap water ignited. In Dimock, Penn., a water well that belonged to a woman named Norma Fiorentino exploded because of this problem. Other reports include a house in Ohio that also exploded when the gas leaked into the basement. Another issue caused by hydro-fracking is that since millions of gallons of water are used per well, tons of clean water is being taken from the environment and turned into toxic waste. Oil and gas companies want to use hydro-fracking throughout the southern tier of New York. Landowners also want to lease their land to the companies to make money. More than half of Tompkins County has already been leased. To stop hydro-fracking, you can encourage government officials to create laws against it. You can also publicize the negative effects of the process so that landowners won't want to lease their land. We cannot let hydro-fracking occur in our local area. If problems caused by it are already happening while it's still small-scale, can you imagine what would happen if it becomes wider spread? It's a disaster waiting to happen! Claire Chanatry is a sophomore at Cazenovia High School.
Could the Water Bottle Actually Be a Health Risk? - 02 Sep, 2016 Recent research suggests there might be cause for concern. Chemicals called phthalates, which are known to disrupt testosterone and other hormones, can leach into bottled water over time. One study found that water that had been stored for 10 weeks in plastic and in glass bottles containing phthalates, suggesting that the chemicals could be coming from the plastic cap or liner. Although there are regulatory standards limiting phthalates in tap, there are no legal limits in bottled water; the bottled-water industry waged a successful campaign opposing the FDA proposal to set a legal limit for these chemicals. If it only takes 10 weeks to start seeing enough levels to start "Adding Phthalates to the Water" think about how long bottled water sits before it gets to the store, gets to the shelf and then you actually drink it. In the past few years, researchers have linked phthalates to asthmas, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, breast cancer, obesity and type II diabetes, low IQ, neurodevelopmental issues, behavioral issues, autism spectrum disorders, altered reproductive development and male fertility issues. If you are like most people you like to stock up when they are on sale. What is this doing to our daughters & sons. Add a Reverse Osmosis System today and purify your own Tap Water. It is quick, simple and you can avoid any waste water by adding a ZeroWaste® Retro Fit Kit. Eliminating all waste water by sending it back into your Hot Water System.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Organic seal can be found on food products that have been certified organic. These products have passed a strict set of standards implemented by the USDA eliminating synthetic fertilizers and pesticides as well as ensuring that your foods are hormone free. Protect Your Air Quality VOCs and CFCs are among the most prolific pollutants wreaking havoc on indoor air quality. Improve the air you breathe in your home by reducing the chemical sources that could be contaminating it. Ensure proper ventilation as well to reduce hazardous situations such as carbon monoxide poisoning, mold growth and other serious indoor air quality dangers. Look for Natural Cleaners Choosing natural detergents and toiletries, instead of chemical-based ones is a great step to reduce health risks. Chemicals like Triclosan, Triclocarban, and Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS), which can be found in shampoos, detergents, sanitizers, and even toothpastes, can cause harm to the body and the environment. Natural cleaners, store bought or homemade, can reduce the harmful synthetic cleaners that may contaminate your body, your air and your water. Promote Green Fashion Clothing manufacturers are now supporting green textiles, fabrics and processes. There are a variety of different sustainable materials to choose from these days such as organic cotton, recycled polyester or hemp. Promoting these green fabrics reduces the heavy use of toxic pesticides and chemical based fertilizers which are polluting ground water. From soda cans to water bottles from empty ink cartridges to used motor oil, there are now a many programs in place to make recycling an easy and green way of life. Various curbside programs and different recycling drop-off centers are located within your community to reduce waste and minimize hazardous materials in our landfills. They also reduce the contamination of our land and water by reducing the impact of manufacturing new materials when recycled materials may be utilized. Support ENERGY STAR Appliances ENERGY STAR is a joint program of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Energy (DOE) that aims to promote the manufacturing of energy efficient appliances. Buying appliances with the ENERGY STAR label will ensure that your selection not only saves energy but also saves money over the life of the product. Reduce Carbon Emissions Realizing that our means of daily transportation greatly contributes to the carbon emissions which in effect contribute to greenhouse gases which in effect contribute to climate change, make a change in this regular activity could really move the needle. Opting for alternative means of transportation like walking, riding a bike, taking the bus or carpooling is one option. If a single passenger car situation is needed, then consider how and when you are driving as it relates to fuel economy. (2010) Air Pollution Statistics. Retrieved August 19, 2010. (2010) ENERGY STAR Qualified Products. Retrieved August 19, 2010. (2009) Green Fashion Is Not Just for Tree Huggers Anymore. Retrieved August 19, 2010. (2010) Non-Toxic Home Cleaning. Retrieved August 19, 2010. (2008) Triclosan and Triclocarban in Consumer Products. Retrieved August 19, 2010. (2010) Welcome to the National Organic Program. Retrieved August 19, 2010.
There was a time when the entire concept of learning was based on classroom teaching when teachers where assigned a particular time for a particular subject. However, this method of teaching, especially for younger children, is not considered as the best as it is unable to make children interested in the subject. Moreover, there is always a tendency among children to lose their attention after a certain period of time. Teaching on the basis of themes is a new concept that is quickly catching on. Educators have become aware of the fact that children will learn well when they are engaged and curious or excited about something. The idea behind theme based learning is to take a particular topic or subject and apply all the knowledge, the values and the ideologies of several subjects through this particular topic. This method of teaching is exceptional because unlike the standard method of teaching, this teaching technique cuts across subjects and is able to bind several subjects under a particular topic. So if a particular curriculum is taken, the main concepts of a specific area of the curriculum have to be taken into consideration, and this is connected to the theme that has been selected. Such a method will also help to set a wide range of learning goals. Teachers will be able to help students to develop the skills that are necessary and make the lesson exciting and creative so that the children will be able to enjoy the lesson, and learn at the same time. Theme Based Techniques For Better Learning What many preschool teachers don’t comprehend is that the use of theme based learning units allows for a synchronized technique to handle the process of educating and learning. With this technique, kids will easily be able to connect to experiences in real life. When a topic is mentioned, they will be able to relate to this topic based on what they already know. From a teacher or educators point to view, theme based techniques of teaching can help teachers to make students interested in a particular theme or topic, and it will help them to facilitate the entire learning process in their own way. The theme based method of teaching is able to incorporate many branches of knowledge under a common theme. Because it cuts across subjects, children are able to understand that subjects can be connected to each other through this common topic. It also helps children to think on their own and come up with a logical thought process about certain subjects. This entire process makes the entire experience very significant for the young student. This method of teaching and learning helps the child to understand his or her own special strengths, and look for new and interesting ways of learning a particular subject or topic. They can also make use of the various skills that they have assimilated with the Montessori approach of teaching. On the whole, this method of teaching is useful for children because it will help them to acquire critical thinking skills, life skills, and academic skills.
It’s known that linguistics is a study of language that covers such areas as: - Phonetics (the study of speech sounds): - Phonology (the study of sound systems within one language or between different languages); - Morphology (the study of words formation); - Syntax (the study of sentences formation); - Semantics (the study of words meaning); - Pragmatics (the study of language in use). As linguistics studies language, it overlaps and is closely connected with such disciplines as Literature, Sociology, Pedagogy, Journalism, Public Relations, Psychology, Computer Science, Philosophy, Translating and many others. Besides, specific branches of linguistics include Sociolinguistics, Psycholinguistics, Dialectology, Computational, Comparative and Structural linguistics, so graduates can work in such areas as speech therapy, languages teaching, journalism, proofreading, editing, marketing, IT. Nowadays students more often seek for online writing services. Some are overloaded with different assignments; others don’t know how to write. Some other reasons might include: - With various classes to attend, papers to prepare and tests to write, many students don’t have enough time to finish all assignment and tight schedule makes them seek for help. - Even though some students are the best in their class, but they might lack writing skills to express their thoughts on paper with specific parameters like word count, structure etc. - During their studies, students have to learn and prepare courseworks not only on their major subjects, but additional as well. Some of them are too complicated and students just simply don’t know what to write. - Not every student knows how to dig for necessary and reliable information, so they lack information needed for the paper and, as a result, get low grades. Of course there might be other reasons, but no matter what makes you stumble upon your coursework, we are here to help you.
From Our 2012 Archives Scientists Now See 200 Genes Linked to Crohn's Disease Latest Digestion News WEDNESDAY, Dec. 19 (HealthDay News) -- Using a new technique, researchers have pinpointed a large number of additional genes associated with Crohn's disease, bringing the total to 200. The scientists at University College London, in England, created a new method to identify and map the locations of genes associated with complex inherited diseases such as Crohn's. Crohn's disease, a type of inflammatory bowel disease, affects about 100 to 150 people out of every 100,000. Understanding more about the genes associated with the disease may lead to improved treatments, the researchers said. The 200 genes so far linked to Crohn's are more than have been found for any other disease, according to the researchers. For example, just 66 gene regions are known for type 2 diabetes. "The discovery of so many gene locations for Crohn's disease is an important step forward in understanding the disease, which has a very complicated genetic basis," study senior author Dr. Nikolas Maniatis said in a university news release. "We hope that the method we have used here can be used to identify the genes involved in other diseases which are similarly complex -- for example different cancers and diabetes." The new research was published Dec. 13 in the American Journal of Human Genetics. -- Robert Preidt Copyright © 2012 HealthDay. All rights reserved. SOURCE: University College London, news release, Dec. 13, 2012
Keith Hunsucker, J.D., Senior Instructor, Legal Division, Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, Glynco, Georgia he legality of a search under the Fourth Amendment and the concept of reasonable expectation of privacy have long been matters of study for law enforcement officers. The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable intrusions into a person's privacy. As explained by the Supreme Court in Katz v. United States: "The Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected."1 Reasonable Expectation of Privacy To further explain this concept, Justice Harlan formulated a test as to whether or not a reasonable expectation of privacy exists. He concluded that for an expectation to be reasonable, (1) a person must have a subjective expectation of privacy and (2) that expectation must be one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable.2 This test was adopted by the Court through later decisions and thus was born the reasonable expectation of privacy concept taught to law enforcement officers throughout the country.3 Unfortunately, this is not a simple test. In a dynamic environment, how are officers to determine if there is a reasonable expectation of privacy? How do they know whether the person has a subjective expectation of privacy? How do they determine whether society is prepared to recognize that subjective expectation as reasonable? The answer is, they do not. Judges are constantly at odds with one another over where the line is drawn as to a reasonable expectation of privacy. Instead, officers learn where they can search based on studying examples of where courts have ruled they can and cannot search. Eventually, they get a decent idea of where they can probably search, but the Harlan test does not help them, because it is just too imprecise. Right to Be, Right to See The concept "right to be, right to see" is consistent with Supreme Court case law. In fact, the Supreme Court embraced this idea long before it tried to determine reasonable expectations of privacy.4 The concept is this: anywhere a law enforcement officer has a right to be, he has a right to see-through the use of any of his unaided senses.5 Any observation made from a lawful location is a lawful observation. The Supreme Court has never required an officer to hold his nose, plug his ears, or cover his eyes to avoid making an observation from a lawful location. Such a requirement is so improbable that it is virtually guaranteed there will never be such a ruling. Public Place: An officer is standing in a motel parking lot. Like anyone else, the officer has a right to be there. As he looks at one of the rooms, he can observe activity in the room and hear a conversation occurring within the room. He can also smell burning marijuana coming from the motel room. All of these observations are legal.6 Arrest in Premises: When executing an arrest warrant, an officer has a right to be anywhere on the subject's property necessary to effectuate the arrest. The officer also has a right to be conducting a protective sweep for people in immediately adjoining spaces, and may go further into the premises if there is a reasonable suspicion another person may be there. Therefore, the officer also has a right to see evidence in plain view when lawfully looking in places where a person may be.7 Search Warrant: When executing a search warrant, the officer has a right to be anywhere in the premises where the items listed in the warrant could be located. Therefore, he has a right to see anything he encounters during the course of the search. If the warrant authorizes searching for rare coins, for example, the officer has a right to look anywhere on the premises where the coins could be located. Therefore, the officer has a right to see any item equal in size or larger than the coins, such as a machine gun. Conversely, if the warrant authorized searching for a machine gun, the officer would only have a right to look in areas where the machine gun could be located. If the officer opened a box smaller than the machine gun during this search, he would be beyond the scope of where he had a right to be and therefore his observation of the contents of the box would be unlawful. However, assuming the box itself was located in an area where the machine gun could have been located, the officer had a right to see the outside of the box. He could therefore use this lawful observation in any way, including to support the application for a subsequent warrant, if, for example, the box had unique markings and characteristics that demonstrated it was probably used to store illegal drugs.8 When conducting a lawful frisk of a person, an officer has a right to look only for weapons during a pat down of outer clothing. Therefore, any observation made while looking for weapons is a lawful one. Thus, if an officer has a right to frisk for weapons but instead encounters what he immediately recognizes as illegal drugs, the officer may seize those drugs.9 The Supreme Court decision explains it in different words, but the legal point is the same. Wherever the officer has the right to be (such as frisking for weapons), he has a right to see anything he senses from his legal location. In another example, officers looking for a weapon during a car frisk could lawfully lift an armrest (right to be) and observe a bag of marijuana under the armrest in plain view (right to see).10 Proper application of the Fourth Amendment requires considerable study, and an officer must understand the concept of reasonable expectation of privacy. But that standard needs not be the starting point or primary focus of Fourth Amendment training and application. The vast majority of law enforcement observations come from a position where the officer is lawfully located. Anywhere an officer has a right to be, he has a right to see and make observations with any of his senses. The first question for an officer in any Fourth Amendment situation should be: "Do I have a right to be here?" If so, he has a right to see using any of his senses, and further inquiry into whether the suspect has a reasonable expectation of privacy is unnecessary. 1389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967). 2Id. at 588 (Harlan, J., concurring). 3See generally Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 740 (1979). 4See Harris v. United States, 390 U.S. 234 (1968). 5The officer can frequently use aids to his senses, such as binoculars. Because there are different legal issues involving each sensory aid, some time must be used in training to explain each separately (such as the legal difference between binoculars and a parabolic microphone). Reasonable expectation of privacy must be considered when analyzing the use of these aids, because they involve the potential for making an unlawful intrusion under the Fourth Amendment. However, "right to be, right to see" is reliable when dealing with unaided senses. See generally United States v. Whaley, 779 F.2d 585 (1986). 6United States v. Burns, 624 F.2d 95, 100 (10th Cir. 1980). 7Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325 (1990). 8Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128 (1990). 9Minnesota v. Dickerson, 508 U.S. 366 (1993). 10Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032 (1983).
How does our hearing work? Give your child a great guide to the anatomy of our ears with this anatomy worksheet. Does your child know his five senses? Give him an introduction to human anatomy with this sense of touch worksheet. The brain is the most important organ in the human body. Get a basic grasp on the parts and functions of the brain with this anatomy info sheet. This skeletal system worksheet, featuring a funny diagram of a human skeleton, is just the thing kids need to master their skeletal system vocabulary. Did you know our sense of smell is also called "olfactory"? Learn about the structure and function of the nose with this human anatomy sheet. How does our sense of taste function? Introduce your child to the anatomy of our tongue with this diagram and info sheet. If your child is starting to learn human biology, give him a great study sheet with this anatomy worksheet about the pancreas. Human anatomy may be complicated, but even more intricate is our DNA! Learn the basics of our body's building blocks with an informative sheet. Did you know there are over 200 bones in the human body? Learn more about the human skeletal system with this diagram and info sheet! Read about the intestines, an important part of our digestive process. Your child will see a diagram of this body organ and learn important terms and concepts.
Plus, how to take things less personally. Walking is a great way to integrate mindfulness into your everyday life and has been practiced as a meditative technique for thousands of years. But in everyday life, walking is usually an established and habituated action that requires very little concentration. Because of this, it’s almost become autonomous, and it’s easy to slip into a semi-conscious state of walking, where the legs are moving but the mind is thinking about something different altogether. Whatever it is that causes the mind to wander off, it’s a movement away from the present moment, away from the direct experience of life. It can sometimes feel as though we’re so busy remembering, planning and analyzing life that we forget to experience life – as it actually is, rather than how we think it should be. Below is an exercise in walking meditation, allowing you to become present and connect to what is happening in the here and now. And luckily, it’s perfectly suited to a busy life since you probably already walk a lot throughout the day anyway, so all you’re doing is directing the mind in a different way as you continue to do what you’ve always done. 1. As you begin to walk, notice how the body feels. Does it feel heavy or light, stiff or relaxed? Don’t rush to answer the question, but take a few seconds to become aware of your posture and the way you’re carrying yourself. 2. Without trying to change the way you’re walking, simply observe how it feels. Just take a moment to observe it, to notice it. It’s quite common to feel self-conscious when you do this, but the feeling usually passes quite quickly. 3. While you won’t need to think about the process of walking, you will need to be aware of what’s going on around you, so take care to notice cars, other people, road signals and the like as you’re doing the exercise. 4. Begin by noticing what you see going on around you. It might be people walking past, shop window displays, cars, advertisements and all the other things you’d expect to see around you. Notice the colours and shapes, the movement and perhaps the stillness too. There’s no need to actually think about what you’re seeing – simply to see it and acknowledge it is enough. Take about thirty seconds to do this. 5. Then turn your attention to sounds – what can you hear? Without getting caught up in thinking about the objects of sound, just take a moment to be aware of them, as though they are just coming and going in your field of awareness. Again, take about thirty seconds to do this. 6. Next turn your attention to smells for thirty seconds or so, some of which may be pleasant while others might be positively unpleasant. Notice how the mind habitually wants to create a story out of each of the smells, how it reminds you of somewhere, something or someone. 7. Finally, make a point of noticing any physical sensations or feelings. Perhaps it’s the feeling of warm sunshine, cool rain or a cold breeze. Perhaps it’s the sensation of the soles of the feet touching the ground with each step, or the weight of the arms swinging at your side. The intention is to simply acknowledge the sensations for thirty seconds or so, without feeling the need to get involved in thinking about the feelings. 8. As you continue to walk, don’t try to prevent any of these things from entering your field of awareness – simply notice as they come and go, how one thing is constantly being replaced by the next. 9. After a minute or two, gently shift your attention to the sensation of movement in the body. Notice how the weight shifts from the right side to the left side and then back again, usually in quite a steady rhythm. Try to avoid artificially adjusting your speed or trying to walk at a certain pace. Instead, observe the way you walk and the rhythm you’ve become accustomed to. It may well be that as a result of doing this exercise you choose to walk a little more slowly in future. 10. Use the rhythm of the walking, the physical sensation of the soles of the feet touching the ground, as your base of awareness, a place you can mentally come back to once you realise the mind has wandered off. This is the equivalent of the rising and falling sensation of the breath when you do your sitting meditation. 11. There’s no need to focus so intently that you start to exclude everything around you. In fact, be open to things happening around you and, when you know the mind has wandered off, just gently bring the attention back to the movement of the body and the sensation of the soles of the feet striking the ground each time. 12. Now because you’ll be more present, more aware, it’s quite likely that your mental habits (your usual ways of thinking) will also become more apparent. Usually, we’re so caught up in the thoughts themselves, that we hardly notice our reactions to all these things. For example, how do you feel when the rhythm is broken by a red pedestrian light, and you are forced to stand and wait to resume walking? Is there a feeling of impatience, of wanting to move, to get on? Do you find yourself jockeying for position with other people? Or perhaps you might feel a sense of relief at the opportunity of being able to rest for a few seconds.
The term emerging virus was coined by scientists in the 1990s to describe the agent of a new or previously unrecognized infection. The term implies that emerging viruses are new; however this assumption is incorrect. New virus infections have been emerging for thousands of years, at least since the rise of agriculture 11,000 years ago. The development of agriculture and commerce provided the large populations needed to sustain human infections such as measles and smallpox. Viruses probably (although we do not know for sure) appeared when living cells evolved, possibly even before. They subsequently infected multicellular forms of life and then mammals, which were present on the globe before humans. Humans then acquired virus infections from animals (an infection transmitted from animals to humans is a zoonosis). At some point the number of virus genomes and virion structures became established, and for the next millions of years, viruses evolved. It is unlikely that new viruses emerge de novo; rather they evolve from existing viruses. Some examples serve to illustrate the origins of viruses. Comparisons of genome sequences of today’s members of the herpesvirus family has lead to the suggestion that these viruses arose 180-220 milllion years ago, possibly from ancestors of similar viruses that infect oysters and fish today. Smallpox virus may have emerged after an infection of humans with a gerbil poxvirus. Measles virus may have originated from infection of humans with an ancestor of a virus that today infects cows, rinderpest virus. It has been suggested that the virus ‘jumped’ from cows to humans about 5,000 years ago, when humans first began to domesticate cattle. Measles virus then spread throughout the Middle East and was then brought to the Americas by colonization and migration, where it had lethal effects on the Native Americans. It is safe to say that all of the human viruses that exist today originated from a zoonotic infection. In some cases, related viruses still infect animals (e.g. measles and rinderpest virus). However, often the human virus has no known counterpart in animals. An example is the human pathogen, poliovirus. The ancestral poliovirus is not known, and there are currently no hosts for the virus other than humans. However, other members of the picornavirus family, of which poliovirus is a member, infect a variety of animals, and ancient versions of these viruses may have made the jump from animals to humans. Two simple facts ensure that new human virus infections will continue to emerge from animal hosts. The first is the ability of viruses to produce huge numbers of progeny (billions and billions!) with a high level of diversity (mutation). The second is the fact that human and non-human animal populations continue to grow and interact. Put another way, humans are always finding new ways to acquire novel virus infections! Viral evolution is a fascinating subject. A good place to start reading about it would be Principles of Virology, volume II, chapter 10.
Boil, also called furuncles, are painful, red lumps filled with pus on the skin above infected hair follicles. When boils appear in a group, they are called a carbuncle. Boils are painful as they get bigger, before bursting on their own after some days or weeks. The most common places for boils to appear are on the face, neck, armpits, shoulders and buttocks. When a boil forms on the eyelid, it is called a stye. Causes of boils Most boils are caused by a germ (staphylococcal bacteria). This germ enters the body through tiny nicks or cuts in the skin or can travel down the hair to the follicle. Some health problems make people more susceptible to skin infections, including: - Problems with the immune system. - Poor nutrition. - Poor hygiene. - Exposure to harsh chemicals that irritate the skin. Symptoms of boils A boil starts as a hard, red, painful swelling usually less than 4 cm in size. Over the next few days, the swelling becomes softer, larger and more painful. Soon a pocket of pus forms on the top of the boil (pointing). These are the signs of a severe infection: - The skin around the boil becomes infected. It turns red, painful, warm and increasingly swollen. - More boils may appear around the original one. - You develop a raised temperature. - Nearby lymph nodes (glands) may become swollen. When to seek medical care - You have a high temperature. - The skin around the boil turns red or red streaks appear. - The pain becomes severe. - The boil does not drain pus. - A second boil appears. - You have a heart murmur, diabetes or any problem with your immune system or use immune suppressing medications (for example corticosteroids or chemotherapy) and you develop a boil. - Boils usually do not need immediate emergency attention. If you are in poor health and you develop high temperature and chills along with the infection, you should seek urgent medical advice. Examinations and tests Your doctor can make the diagnosis with a physical examination. Many parts of your body may be affected by this infection on your skin, so you may be asked questions about or have an examination of other parts of your body. Boils treatment - self-care at home - Apply warm compresses and soak the boil in warm water. This will decrease the pain and help draw the pus to the surface. Once the boil comes to a head, it will burst with repeated soakings. This usually occurs within 10 days of its appearance. You can make a warm compress by soaking a flannel in warm water and squeezing out the excess moisture. - When the boil starts draining, wash it regularly with an antibacterial soap until all the pus is gone. Apply a medicated ointment and a large plaster or gauze. Do not use a waterproof plaster that excludes all air. Continue to wash the infected area - two to three times a day - and use warm compresses until the wound heals. - Do not pop the boil with a needle. This usually results in making the infection worse.
A Passage to India E.M Forster The title of A Passage to India is a reference to a poem by Walt Whitman, “A Passage to India”. In the poem, Whitman takes the reader on a journey through time and space. India presents itself as legendary land that inspired Christopher Columbus to find a westward from Europe to India, a route that ended with the discovery of the Americas. While India celebrated as an ancient land, rich in history, America celebrated as a force for innovation. Whitman sees both as caught in an inexorable push toward globalization, where all countries attracted to the same drive toward progress. As he says, Passage to India! Lo, soul! seest thou not God’s purpose from the first? The earth to be spann’d, connected by net-work, The people gay porn to become brothers and sisters, The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage, The oceans to be cross’d, the distant brought near, The lands to be welded together. (lines 31-35) Although Whitman is typically exuberant, Forster’s novel examines the dark side of what might be called Whitman’s Song of the Global Self. Revelation Forster costs and contradictions of the British Empire, revealing that the dream of “land […] welded” might just be a cynical mantra of taking over other countries. Although Whitman used interracial marriage – “races, neighbors, to marry and be a man” – an international symbol of harmony, Forster’s novel shows how even a hint of interracial attraction, not to mention friendship, deep in the race to inflame animosities. A Passage to India Whitman in his poem ends with the track, citing the example of the great explorers – and the great empire builders – to go “pass”, the other amazing discoveries. But Forster’s novel asks us to question the reasons for traveling, especially if it means applying to all people of the state of a foreign power. “A Passage to India” suggests that there mobile porn is more than a ‘passage’ -.. There are more than one perspective to see in India, and there is more than one way to interpret the disorder Forster’s novel is only one way to do Passage, just as the passage of time in the lighthouse, showing how the world and nature can cause people to change.
Hands, whether gloved or ungloved, are one of the main ways of spreading infection or for transferring microbial contamination. The use of hand disinfectants is a part of the process of fine contamination control for personnel working in hospital environments, or those concerned in aseptic processing and within cleanrooms. Although there are numerous different types of hand sanitizers available there are differences with their effectiveness and a number of other don’t meet the European standard for hand sanitization. Personnel working in hospitals and cleanrooms carry many types of microorganisms on their palms and such microorganisms can be readily transferred from person to person or from person to equipment or important surfaces. Such microorganisms are both present on the skin not multiplying (transient flora, which can embody a range of environmental microorganisms like Staphylococcus and Pseudomonas) or are multiplying microorganisms released from the skin (residential flora together with the genera of Staphylococcus, Micrococcus and Propionibacterium). Of the 2 groups, residential flora are more troublesome to remove. For crucial operations, some protection is afforded by wearing gloves. However gloves are not suitable for all activities and gloves, if not frequently sanitized or if they are of an unsuitable design, will pick up and switch contamination. Subsequently, the sanitization of fingers (either gloved or ungloved) is an important a part of contamination control either in hospitals, to avoid staff-to-patient cross contamination or previous to undertaking medical or surgical procedures; and for aseptic preparations like the dispensing of medicines. Moreover, not only is the usage of a hand sanitizer needed previous to undertaking such applications, it’s also necessary that the sanitizer is effective at eliminating a high population of bacteria. Research have shown that if a low number of microorganisms persist after the application of a sanitizer then the subpopulation can develop which is resistant to future applications. There are lots of commercially available hand sanitisers with the most commonly used types being alcohol-based liquids or gels. As with other types of disinfectants, hand sanitizers are effective towards completely different microorganisms depending upon their mode of activity. With the most typical alcohol based mostly hand sanitizers, the mode of motion leads to bacterial cell loss of life by way of cytoplasm leakage, denaturation of protein and eventual cell lysis (alcohols are one of many so-called ‘membrane disrupters’). The advantages of employing alcohols as hand sanitizers embrace a comparatively low price, little odour and a quick evaporation (restricted residual activity results in shorter contact occasions). Furthermore alcohols have a proven cleansing action. In choosing a hand sanitiser the pharmaceutical organisation or hospital will need to consider if the application is to be made to human skin or to gloved fingers, or to each, and whether it is required to be sporicidal. Hand sanitisers fall into two groups: alcohol based, which are more frequent, and non-alcohol based. Such considerations impact both upon price and the health and safety of the workers using the hand sanitiser since many commonly available alcohol based sanitisers can cause extreme drying of the skin; and a few non-alcohol based mostly sanitisers may be irritating to the skin. Alcohol hand sanitizers are designed to keep away from irritation via possessing hypoallergenic properties (color and fragrance free) and ingredients which afford skin protection and care by means of re-fatting agents. Alcohols have an extended history of use as disinfectants as a result of inherent antiseptic properties against bacteria and a few viruses. To be efficient some water is required to be combined with alcohol to exert effect towards microorganisms, with the simplest range falling between 60 and 95% (most commercial hand sanitizers are round 70%). Essentially the most commonly used alcohol primarily based hand sanitisers are Isopropyl alcohol or some form of denatured ethanol (such as Industrial Methylated Spirits). The more frequent non-alcohol primarily based sanitisers comprise either chlorhexidine or hexachlorophene. Additives can also be included in hand sanitizers with a purpose to improve the antimicrobial properties. Before getting into a hospital ward or clean space hands must be washed using cleaning soap and water for round twenty seconds. Handwashing removes around 99% of transient microorgansisms (though it does not kill them) (4). From then on, whether or not gloves are worn or not, common hygienic hand disinfection ought to happen to eradicate any subsequent transient flora and to reduce the risk of the contamination arising from resident skin flora. In case you liked this post and also you desire to be given more info regarding Braun thermometer for sale i implore you to visit the web page.
Realistic Snow Creation Kit for Science Lessons in Any Season 4 years & up. Create snow anytime, in any climate with this Realistic Snow Creation Kit for Science Lessons in Any Season! The enchanting snow lasts for weeks, expands up to 100 times its size, is totally reusable, and looks like real snow! Simply stir the powder into water and watch it turn into fluffy, sparkling, shiny snow! Children will learn about color mixing, mass, evaporation, and much more. The classroom kit contains enough materials for 12 children and the 1 lb bucket makes more than 5 gallons of snow. Each available separately.
Prior to the 1940s, bed bugs were a frequent problem in the United States. The invention and rise of wide-scale chemical pesticides such as DDT eradicated the problem for a period, however, in the 1990s, bed bugs began to emerge again in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. Their rapid dispersal across the globe has sent scientists, researchers, and pest control experts scrambling to control and understand the resurgence of this pest. What is Causing the Increase in Bed Bugs Nationwide? Bed bug infestations have been rapidly increasing in the US specifically, since 2004. According to a study at the University of Arkansas led by Ches Jones, Ph.D., the resurgence is a result of several factors: - International immigration - Geographic location (bed bugs thrive in warm regions) - Overcrowded or cluttered buildings and living conditions - Resistance to pesticides - Reduced use of certain pesticides Image via DoMyOwn Nowadays, it is easier than ever to travel internationally. Unfortunately, travelers can carry bed bugs on their clothing or within their luggage, allowing the pests to infest new sites. The states with the highest infestation rates are also the five states that experience the greatest influx of immigrants: - New York Bed Bug’s Resistance to Pesticides The original method for treating bed bugs that emerged in the 1940s was the infamous DDT or dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane. Research eventually revealed it to have devastating environmental and health effects and it was officially banned in the US in 1972 and worldwide at the Stockholm Convention in 2001, with the ban of many similar chemical pesticides to follow. In addition to the negative environment and health effects, these traditional pesticides have caused resistance in bed bugs over time. Most insects develop pesticide resistance in their digestive tracts as they consume plant fibers that have been saturated with the chemicals. However, bed bugs only dine on blood, so their digestive tracts are not subjected to toxins. How Have Bed Bugs Developed a Resistance to Pesticides? Researchers at the University of Kentucky set out to discover exactly how bed bugs have become resistant to traditional pesticides. They were able to identify 14 genes collected from the bugs’ DNA which had altered and developed resistance. Their conclusion was that successive generations of bed bugs have undergone genetic alteration, primarily in the epidermis of their exoskeleton. It seems that regular exposure to chemical pesticides has altered this key area of their body for protection, strengthening their exoskeleton to act as armor against pesticides. Bed Bugs are Natural Survivors All of these factors play a role in the bugs’ reemergence and speak to the fact that bed bugs are natural survivors. Each female lays 200 to 500 eggs every two months, they can live for up to a year without food, and they can easily survive a range of temperatures, from +40 to -10 degrees Celsius. There are very few people around who remember when bed bugs were common pests originally. This lack of knowledge makes individuals susceptible to the insects because they may not be aware there is a problem until it has become an epidemic in their home. During the day, the bed bugs hide in crevices, but under the cover of darkness they emerge seeking to feast on human blood. New Effective Bed Bug Control Techniques The industry has been forced to seek innovative new techniques to control bed bugs including heat treatment, freezing, and biopesticides. These “green methods” are effective at killing bed bugs when applied correctly and are great alternatives to harsh chemical pesticides, posing minimal health risk. This is an exciting, burgeoning area in pest control that has great potential. Scientists and pest experts believe that the resurgence of bed bugs has not reached its peak, so it is important to continue to educate ourselves and seek positive solutions that, unlike those used in the past, have staying power! Get more information on Bed Bugs:
The Holocaust Memorial Center in West Bloomfield dedicated the Viola and Garry Kappy Anne Frank Tree Exhibit and Garden Sunday to commemorate the life of Anne Frank. The observance included a public interview with Irene Butter, a survivor of the Holocaust who knew Anne Frank. The program also inaugurated a new exhibition and programs in memory of Anne Frank. The young Dutch girl wrote about her experiences, life and dreams while hiding from the NAZIs in a cramped attic during World War II. The ceremony included planting a sapling from the chestnut tree that grew behind the Frank family’s hiding place. This living exhibition highlights the extraordinary life of Anne Frank and celebrates her legacy of hope. In her diary, Anne wrote: “The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.” She also wrote: “In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death.” An informant betrayed the family and the others hiding with them and the Franks were arrested and transferred to concentration camps in 1944. She and her sister, Margot, perished in the Bergsen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945. Her father, Otto, survived the war. For more information, click here.
WASHINGTON — The nation’s fourth- and eighth-graders made incremental progress on math and reading tests administered earlier this year by the federal government, according to data released Thursday. The results detail performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, that U.S. students have taken every two years since the early 1990s. Also known as the Nation’s Report Card, it’s the country’s most consistent measure of K-12 progress. The scores, on a scale of 0 to 500, show one- and two-point gains compared with the 2011 tests. Average reading scores for eighth-graders rose to 268 after stagnating for about a decade. In math, fourth- and eighth-graders scored averages of 242 and 285, respectively. “We’re not seeing transformational change but modest progress,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a call with reporters. The tests also show little progress has been made in narrowing the achievement gap between white students and their black and Latino counterparts, despite nearly a decade of federal law designed to close that margin. Florida was the only state to narrow the gap in scores between black and white students in both grades and subjects. Still, the 2013 scores are the highest recorded since the NAEP was first given 20 years ago. The standardized math and reading tests, administered by the federal Education Department, were given this year to a representative national sample of about 377,000 fourth-graders and 342,000 eighth-graders in public and private schools. The tests offer educators, parents and policymakers a sense of how the nation’s students are progressing over time but don’t explain the reasons. And combatants in the nation’s heated debate about education policy seized the chance to offer their own interpretations. “It’s like a thermometer — it’ll tell you whether you have a fever, but it won’t tell you why,” said Tom Loveless, an expert on student achievement at the Brookings Institution. “It’s misused all the time by people who have agendas, both on the left and right. It’s very helpful to have measures of how we’re doing, but all of us want to know why, and these data are not terribly helpful in telling us why.” For the first time, the NAEP report is available in an interactive, online format that allows readers to customize the data and compare states in new ways. A few jurisdictions, including Tennessee, the District of Columbia and Defense Department schools, posted significant increases in both grades and in both math and reading. Both Tennessee and the District of Columbia have made significant changes in education policy in recent years, from new teacher-evaluation systems to getting rid of tenure to encouraging the growth of public charter schools. “Where we’re seeing huge progress is where people have taken on really tough work . . . whether investing more in childhood education, adopting higher standards or having a laserlike focus on teacher effectiveness,” Duncan said. In Virginia, the average score in fourth-grade math increased by one point; in eighth-grade math, it dropped by one point. In fourth-grade reading, the average score increased two points; it did not change in eighth-grade reading. All of Virginia’s scores are above the national average. David Foster, president of the Virginia Board of Education, said the recent flat trend detracts from the state’s long-term progress. For example, in 2013, 43 percent of Virginia’s fourth-graders scored high enough on the NAEP reading test to be considered “proficient,” compared to 31 percent in 1992. “You have to look at the big picture,” Foster said. “The trends, on the whole, all go well for Virginia,” he said. In Maryland, math scores in both grades dropped slightly but reading scores in both grades increased modestly. All of Maryland’s scores are above the national average, but the two-point drop in fourth-grade math was the biggest drop in the country from 2011 to 2013. “Maryland has had some of the largest increases in the nation over the past 10 to 20 years in both reading and mathematics,” said Bill Reinhard, a spokesman for the state Department of Education. “We’ve also seen big improvements in the percentage of students scoring at the advanced level.” Reinhard acknowledged that achievement gaps remain but added that state officials are hoping that the new Common Core academic standards in reading and math “will help move the bar in coming years.” Math and reading scores for both grades have followed a similar pattern since 1990. There is jagged progress through the 1990s, a leap in average scores in most categories between 2000 and 2003 and incremental gains from 2005 on. “There’s a flattening out of these trend lines, as if the nation’s students had slowly driven up to a dusty plateau,” said Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He called the news “heartbreaking” for the Obama administration, which pumped more than $70 billion into education programs under the Recovery Act of 2009. “This administration has been very ambitious and very inventive in trying to lift our schools, and it is heartbreaking for the White House that these trend lines are essentially leveling off,” Fuller said. Duncan dismissed that suggestion, noting that scores were up across the board. “Much of that investment was trying to make up for cuts at the state level,” Duncan said. “We saved a few thousand teacher jobs in the face of significantly declining state and local investments, and we’re thrilled to see there was still progress. It’s encouraging, given how tough things were economically. It’s good to see progress. But, again, we have a long way to go.” The best way to attack the persistent achievement gap between racial groups is to invest in quality early childhood education for low-income youngsters, Duncan said. The strongest gains in NAEP scores coincided with the George W. Bush administration. Critics of the Obama administration said achievement has lost steam in part because Obama decided to issue waivers to states to exempt them from the most onerous requirements of the No Child Left Behind law. “We’ve been in the process of dismantling accountability through the waivers,” said Eric Hanushek, an economist who specializes in education policy at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. The administration began issuing waivers in 2011 as states clamored for relief from the law, and Congress was unable to agree on revisions. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 required states, for the first time, to test students annually in grades three through eight and once in high school; to publicly disclose those scores by race, income, disability and English language aptitude; and to improve student scores or face escalating penalties. No Child Left Behind expired six years ago, but Congress has been unable to agree on a replacement. “The lack of any clear legislation to try to fix the problems of No Child Left Behind has been a huge problem,” Hanushek said.
Hoarders' Brains Overwhelmed by Decisions Imaging Study Points to Disorder Distinct From Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Hoarding Distinct From OCD The other participants in the study showed no such reaction to the decision-making process. Although that may not be surprising for the healthy group, it is a telling detail regarding OCD. Tolin says that until recently, hoarding has been considered a component or sub-type of OCD. The fact that different brain regions are at play in the two groups is evidence that the two disorders are distinct. Psychiatrist Sanjaya Saxena, MD, who has also published imaging studies of hoarders' brains, says that Tolin's work is important. "This is the largest brain-imaging study of hoarders, and it's rare to get papers like this where you have such a large group," says Saxena, who directs the OCD Clinic at the University of California, San Diego. "There have only been a handful of such studies, but the results are beginning to converge." Saxena estimates that 3% to 5% of the population has hoarding disorder. "Hoarding is much more common than OCD, and it is a very understudied disorder," says Saxena, who reviewed the study for WebMD. "The takeaway from this study is that more and more data show that hoarding is a separate disorder and needs to be treated as such," says Travis Osborne, PhD, a clinical psychologist at Evidence Based Treatment Centers in Seattle. Osborne, who was not involved in the research, sees many hoarders in his practice. Treating them, he says, is a real challenge. "People who hoard get stuck because of problems with decision making," he says. "To clean out their homes means making thousands or tens of thousands of decisions about what to throw away. They have to decide about every single piece of paper. This study of decision-making lends concrete support to what we see clinically."
Why Kids Whine and How to Stop Them Kids know why they whine -- it works. That doesn't mean, though, you can't prevent it. Anne Crawford has three children, ages 8 through 13, so she has heard her share of whining. "My kids whine about doing the chores," she says, "or about how unfair it is that one got something and the other didn't. I'd say whining pretty much comes with the territory." According to Bay Area pediatrician Laurel Schultz, kids whine for a very simple reason. It works. "Whining gets the parent's attention," Schultz says. "A high-pitched whine is effective because a parent can't not attend to it." Preventing the Whine Schultz explains this is not a conscious strategy on the part of children, but a learned behavior -- and parents often play a role. If a child asks for something in a polite way and the parent doesn't respond the first time or two, the child will amp up the volume. A small child may holler or even throw a tantrum. But an older child, who has more self-control, is likely to whine. To avoid whining, Schultz advises parents not to wait until children are in distress to acknowledge them. "It's important to respond to that first bid for attention, if you can," she says. "If you are on the phone or in the middle of a conversation, make eye contact with your child and put a finger up, so she knows you'll be with her in a minute. Then give your child your attention as soon as you can politely do so." A Call for Attention Educator and developmental psychologist Becky Bailey says that when whining does occur, parents should take a deep breath and remind themselves that the child is not trying to be irritating. The child is actually asking for help. "Respond with I-statements," Bailey says, "and model the way you want the child to speak. Say something like, 'I don't like it when you whine. If you want a glass of milk, say it like this.' Then model the exact words and tone you want the child to use." If your child continues to whine, and you're sure it's not from pain or illness, Bailey suggests that you look beyond the whiny behavior to determine the larger message it conveys. "Ask yourself, 'Have I been busier than usual? Has my child's routine changed? Has a sibling required more attention for some reason?' Often, whining is a signal it's time to reconnect with your child." To do that, she advises that you spend some focused time together reading, cooking a meal, or doing something else the child enjoys. "A few minutes connecting with your child once or twice a day can make a huge difference for families dealing with difficult behaviors," Bailey says.
This article has been reproduced in a new format and may be missing content or contain faulty links. Contact firstname.lastname@example.org to report an issue. 2. Mail yourselves postcards when you go somewhere for the day, even around town. It’s a hoot when kids get snail mail. Later in the week they’ll be glad to get a card reading, Hi Me. I had a great time today riding a paddle-boat with Grandpa. We both got wet. Bye self! 3. Learn to play a free instrument you already have. (Really, it’s in your kitchen.) 5. Let yeast blow up a balloon. Have kids write their names on balloons with a permanent marker. Using a funnel, let them fill each balloon with 1 teaspoon sugar and 1 teaspoon dry yeast. Add a little warm water to each balloon, tie shut, and shake to mix. Then put them outside on a hot sunny day. Check to see how big the balloons have gotten every ten minutes or so. Guess what might happen to balloons that get too big. 6. Subversively advance geographic knowledge using a wall map. 9. Start a regular family board game night. 11. Get out a big, somewhat complicated puzzle and work on it when it’s too hot to go outside. 12. Make story stones. 14. Become one-square foot observers. Lie on your bellies or sit cross-legged and lean over to closely observe one square foot of grass, dirt, tide pool, stream or other natural area. Explain that you’ll all have to stay at this much longer than you think is necessary because just when you’re about to give up you’ll begin to see details you hadn’t noticed before–maybe noticing how plants are structured or tiny creatures moving at the base of grass blades or the way water moves differently around rocks. This is how artists see and how scientists make observations. 15. Have kids help you create an outdoor water wall. 16. Make a worm tower or indoor worm farm. For more information, check out Worms Eat My Garbage: How to Set Up and Maintain a Worm Composting System.. 18. Make a map of your yard, your bedroom, or an imaginary world. Label it and keep it. 19. Build a bat house. 20. Slap the label “memory jar” on any large container and encourage your family to toss in slips of paper describing an ordinary day, funny family sayings, silly happenings, and other things that might slip your minds. This memory jar can become an important family tradition. 23. Hide treasure and make a map to guide your kids to the location, marking the treasure with the traditional “X.” Your kids may start drawing treasure maps for each other. 24. Play brainstorming games when waiting in line at the store. For example come up with as many animals as you can name in a minute, or give examples of how a paperclip can be used, or play I Spy. And use this method to figure out the shortest line. 25. Encourage your child’s natural storytelling abilities. 27. Get your kids to predict the future. Better yet, write to your future selves. The kids may want to write to themselves as they’ll be in ten years or at your age. Don’t make this a child-only activity. Sit down and write to your future self too. You’ll want to include a description of an average day, list some favorite foods and activities, and imagine what you’ll be doing at that future date. Now seal those envelopes, write “Do Not Open Until ______” on the outside, and keep them somewhere you’ll remember. 28. Throw a backyard batik party and enjoy messy art-making with a crowd. 30. Write letters. You might want to write to companies whose products you use, authors, scientists, inventors, and other people you admire. You may actually get return mail. To insure this, make sure you also write to grandparents. Go Back to Top. Skip To: Start of Article.
At Stisted Primary Academy we believe that your child's learning should be a purposeful, rewarding and enjoyable experience. This means that through an engaging and relevant curriculum, we aim to equip your child with the skills, knowledge, understanding and attitudes necessary to make informed choices and lead happy and rewarding lives. We base our curriculum on the National Curriculum and organise it into topics or themes that engage and interest our children. We have designed out curriculum to achieve the following aims : 1. To improve children's life opportunities and help them lead happy and rewarding lives; 2. To instil positive attitudes towards learning enabling children to become a lifelong learners; 3. To enable children to become a confident, resourceful, responsible enquiring and independent learners; 4. To foster children’s self-esteem and help them build positive relationships with other people; 5. To develop children’s self-respect and encourage them to respect the ideas, attitudes, values and feelings of others; 6. To show respect for all cultures, the rule of law, democracy and, in so doing, to promote positive attitudes towards other people; 7. To enable children to understand their community and help them feel valued as part of this community; 8. To help children grow into reliable, law abiding independent, and positive citizens; 9. To provide children with opportunities for spiritual, moral and cultural development. The National Curriculum The National Curriculum sets out a clear, full and statutory entitlement to learning for all pupils in maintained schools. It determines the content of what will be taught, and sets attainment targets for learning. It also determines how performance will be assessed and reported. It is organised into Key Stages. This means our Reception children are in the final year of the Early Years Foundation Stage. School Curriculum includes all learning and other experiences that the school plans for our pupils. The National Curriculum forms only one part of the School Curriculum. Our School Curriculum comprises of the School Curriculum and the National curriculum. The National Curriculum sets out a clear, full and statutory entitlement to learning for all pupils in maintained schools. As an academy, we have chosen to adopt the National Curriculum as it sets out the body of knowledge and skills children are expected to achieve. The Curriculum at Stisted The main subjects we teach are English, Mathematics and Numeracy, Science, Computer Skills and Computing, Geography, History, Art, Design and Technology, Physical Education, French, Personal, Social, Health and Citizenship and Religious Education. We also teach Practical Life Skills. Embedded within the curriculum are opportunities to develop children's spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Our curiculum is organised into two yearly cycles - Cycle A and Cycle B. This avoids children repeating a topic or knowledge based content two years in a row because of the way we organise mixed year group classes. This is where a child will remain in the same class but different year group for up to two years in a row. The subject content for each cycle is outlined in the down loadable documents at the foot of this page. We use Letters and Sounds as our formal reading scheme. Children are taught the sounds letters make and how to synthesise and segment these sounds to read and de-construct words. They are also taught to read by sight, high frequency words. This is achieved by daily whole class phonics sessions in which these skills, sight words and letters and sounds are taught up to three times a day. This process continues until the end of Key Stage 1. Where there is a need, pupils in Key Stage 2 have access to this approach if they are not yet fluent readers. Reading is further developed and embedded into the curriculum through carefully sequenced and planned activities. At Key Stage 2, greater emphasis is placed on developing children’s understanding and comprehension of more complex text types and genres. There is particular emphasis on developing children’s ability to interpret meaning beyond the literal. This too is achieved by embedding carefully sequenced and planned activities into the curriculum and using high quality texts. Children begin the writing process by engaging in activities that develop left to right tracking, gross and fine motor movement including developing a controlled pincer grip. The order and sequence children learn to form letters is the same as the sequence we teach the initial phonemes in our reading scheme. Once a child is competent at orally blending and segmenting simple words, the following letters are introduced : satpinmd. At this stage children are not expected to write these with a pencil but to recognise the sound each makes. Next the children are introduced to our Large Moveable Alphabet. These are wooden letters the child can touch hold and move. Once they know the sound each letter makes that they are initially introduced to, they can begin to build their first words using the wooden letters. For example pin tin tap map. Children progress to mark making and pattern making using various media until they have the fine motor control to write these letters. Initially this may be in sand before moving onto paper. The first steps in writing involve writing single letters to represent a sound then simple consonant vowel words by labelling picture cards. The children then progress to constructing simple article, adjective noun phrases such as the red hen, the big box, the hot sun before moving onto simple sentences such as : The hen is on the box. As children progress throughout the school they are introduced to different forms of writing. They examine model texts and identify the key features of each. Initially they imitate model texts before innovating and writing their own. Religious Education Curriculum gives emphasis and balance to teaching pupils about the Old and New Testaments’ the main festivals in the Christian calendar, and other religions i.e. Judaism and Hinduism. This helps your child to understand religions such as Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism and to recognise the cultural influences of religion in the forming of patterns of social behaviour and community cohesion. See the Religious Education tab for a more detailed look at our SMSC curriculum. Number and mathematics The principal focus of mathematics teaching in Key Stage 1 (infants) is to ensure that pupils develop confidence and mental fluency with whole numbers, counting and place value. This will involve working with numerals, words and the four operations, including with practical resources [for example, concrete objects and measuring tools]. At this stage, pupils will develop their ability to recognise, describe, draw, compare and sort different shapes and use the related vocabulary. Teaching should also involve using a range of measures to describe and compare different quantities such as length, mass, capacity/volume, time and money. By the end of year 2, pupils should know the number bonds to 20 and be precise in using and understanding place value. An emphasis on practice at this early stage will aid fluency. Pupils should read and spell mathematical vocabulary, at a level consistent with their increasing word reading and spelling knowledge at key stage 1. The principal focus of mathematics teaching in Key Stage 2 (juniors) is to ensure that pupils extend their understanding of the number system and place value to include larger integers. This will develop the connections that pupils make between multiplication and division with fractions, decimals, percentages and ratio. At this stage, pupils will develop their ability to solve a wider range of problems, including increasingly complex properties of numbers and arithmetic, and problems demanding efficient written and mental methods of calculation. With this foundation in arithmetic, pupils are introduced to the language of algebra as a means for solving a variety of problems. Teaching in geometry and measures should consolidate and extend knowledge developed in number. Teaching aims to ensure that pupils classify shapes with increasingly complex geometric properties and that they learn the vocabulary they need to describe them. By the end of year 6, pupils should be fluent in written methods for all four operations, including long multiplication and division, and in working with fractions, decimals and percentages. The principal focus of science teaching in Key Stage 1 is to enable pupils to experience and observe phenomena, looking more closely at the natural and humanly-constructed world around them. They will be encouraged to be curious and ask questions about what they notice. They will be helped to develop their understanding of scientific ideas by using different types of scientific enquiry to answer their own questions, including observing changes over a period of time, noticing patterns, grouping and classifying things, carrying out simple comparative tests, and finding things out using secondary sources of information. They will begin to use simple scientific language to talk about what they have found out and communicate their ideas to a range of audiences in a variety of ways. Most of the learning about science should be done through the use of first-hand practical experiences, but there should also be some use of appropriate secondary sources, such as books, photographs and videos. ‘ The principal focus of science teaching in Key Stage 2 is to enable pupils to develop a deeper understanding of a wide range of scientific ideas. They will do this through exploring and talking about their ideas; asking their own questions about scientific phenomena; and analysing functions, relationships and interactions more systematically. At Key Stage 2, they will encounter more abstract ideas and begin to recognise how these ideas help them to understand and predict how the world operates. They will also begin to recognise that scientific ideas change and develop over time. They will select the most appropriate ways to answer science questions using different types of scientific enquiry, including observing changes over different periods of time, noticing patterns, grouping and classifying things, carrying out comparative and fair tests and finding things out using a wide range of secondary sources of information. Pupils will draw conclusions based on their data and observations, use evidence to justify their ideas, and use their scientific knowledge and understanding to explain their findings. At Key stage 1, pupils will be taught: At Key stage 2, pupils will be taught : Computers play a central role in our modern world. We believe it is important that your child develops these skills and becomes 'computer' literate. All our computers are networked with broadband internet access. Our internet connection has fully installed internet filters. Laptop computers are also networked via a wireless connection and are equipped with the latest software to deliver the computing curriculum and internet security. All pupils have access to their own computer during lessons. All classrooms are fully equipped with an interactive Smartboard, projector, DVD/video/CD player and sound system. At Key stage 1, pupils are taught to: At Key Stage 2 Pupils are taught to : Design and Technology Through a variety of creative and practical activities, pupils will be taught the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to engage in an iterative process of designing and making. They will work in a range of relevant contexts [for example, the home and school, gardens and playgrounds, the local community, industry and the wider environment]. When designing and making, pupils will be taught to: Key stage 1 Key stage 2 Through a variety of creative and practical activities, pupils will be taught the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to engage in an iterative process of designing and making. They will work in a range of relevant contexts [for example, the home, school, leisure, culture, enterprise, industry and the wider environment]. When designing and making, pupils will be taught to: Cooking and nutrition As part of their work with food, pupils will be taught how to cook and apply the principles of nutrition and healthy eating. Instilling a love of cooking in pupils will also open a door to one of the great expressions of human creativity. Learning how to cook is a crucial life skill that enables pupils to feed themselves and others affordably and well, now and in later life. Pupils will be taught to: Key Stage 1 Pupils will develop knowledge about the world, the United Kingdom and their locality. They should understand basic subject-specific vocabulary relating to human and physical geography and begin to use geographical skills, including first-hand observation, to enhance their locational awareness. Pupils will be taught to: Human and physical geography Geographical skills and fieldwork Key Stage 2 Pupils will extend their knowledge and understanding beyond the local area to include the United Kingdom and Europe, North and South America. This will include the location and characteristics of a range of the world’s most significant human and physical features. They will develop their use of geographical knowledge, understanding and skills to enhance their locational and place knowledge. Geographical skills and fieldwork Key stage 1 Pupils will develop an awareness of the past, using common words and phrases relating to the passing of time. They will learn where the people and events they study fit within a chronological framework and identify similarities and differences between ways of life in different periods. They will use a wide vocabulary of everyday historical terms and be taught to ask and answer questions, choosing and using parts of stories and other sources to show that they know and understand key features of events. They will understand some of the ways in which we find out about the past and identify different ways in which it is represented. Pupils will be taught about: Key stage 2 Pupils will continue to develop a chronologically secure knowledge and understanding of British, local and world history, establishing clear narratives within and across the periods they study. They will learn to note connections, contrasts and trends over time and develop the appropriate use of historical terms. They will regularly address and sometimes devise historically valid questions about change, cause, similarity and difference, and significance. They will construct informed responses that involve thoughtful selection and organisation of relevant historical information. They will be taught to understand how our knowledge of the past is constructed from a range of sources. Pupils should be taught about: · changes in Britain from the Stone Age to the Iron Age Examples (non-statutory) This may include: The Roman Empire and its impact on Britain Examples (non-statutory) This may include: · Britain’s settlement by Anglo-Saxons and Scots Examples (non-statutory) This may include: ·A local history study Examples (non-statutory)This may include : All children from Year 1 upwards have the opportunity to learn a Modern Foreign Language. French is initially taught through role play, games, songs and music. Children will soon develop the confidence to ask and answer simple questions in French and learn about French and European culture. Pupils will be taught to: Key stage 1 Pupils will learn to: Key stage 2 Pupils will learn to sing and play musically with increasing confidence and control. They will be taught to develop an understanding of musical composition, organising and manipulating ideas within musical structures and reproducing sounds from aural memory. Pupils will be taught to: We believe Physical Education is a vital part of developing both fitness, health and coordination. Key stage 1 Pupils will be taught to develop fundamental movement skills, become increasingly competent and confident and access a broad range of opportunities to extend their agility, balance and coordination, individually and with others. They will be taught to engage in competitive (both against self and against others) and co-operative physical activities, in a range of increasingly challenging situations. Pupils will be taught to: Key stage 2 Pupils will be taught to apply and develop a broader range of skills, learning how to use them in different ways and to link them to make actions and sequences of movement. They will be taught to develop an understanding of how to improve in different physical activities and sports and learn how to evaluate and recognise their own success. Pupils will be taught to: We believe it is important that your child learns and understands that we live in a diverse society. We incorporate this into our termly topics and the Personal, Social Health, Education and Citizenship elements of the curriculum. Throughout the year, we recognise key dates such as the Chinese New Year and religious festivals. We celebrate diversity which includes an appreciation of music, beliefs, art and food from different parts of the world. Planned activities help your child develop the concept of their place in the world and that all people should be valued. Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Development All National Curriculum subjects offer opportunities to promote children’s Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Development (SMSC) in some way. In practice, this means delivering each element through the curriculum and between lessons rather than timetabled SMSC lessons. Other aspects of school life such as extra-curricular activities, assemblies and school trips also provide opportunities for SMSC. See the SMSC tab for a more detailed look at our SMSC curriculum. In Year 5 and Year 6, your child will have the opportunity to go to the Isle of Wight for a week during September. We also take your child camping at Danbury Outdoor Pursuits Centre where they get the chance to experience high ropes, kayaking, archery and problem solving. We believe these experience will further develop your child's resilience, independence, thinking skills, physical development and life skills such as communication, teamwork and social skills. Early Years Outdoor Play Area In Autumn 2010, our Early Years Outdoor Play Area was completed. Our outdoor play area helps our younger learners develop their physical skills as well as given them an opportunity to learn through play. The Early Years outdoor play area also offers our younger learners a secure place to play at break times. Whenever possible, we try and make best use of our outdoor environment to enhance learning. Stisted and its surrounding area offers your child a wealth of opportunities within walking distance. These opportunities include our historic church and the magnificent ‘Bluebell’ wood. There are many different perceptions of what homework should look like. We believe homework is an extension of the partnership between home and school and is encouraged in a positive way. The essence of work at home should be to encourage personal motivational skills, practical everyday tasks, research and investigation with the emphasis on learning from first hand experience. We expect children to read at home with an adult every day. This should be recorded in your child’s Home-School book. More formal homework is set as your child moves through the school We also hope that you will offer your child opportunities to access the outside world and the wide environment by visiting museums, galleries, nature reserves, historic and geographic sites, concerts, shows and other places of interest. We hope that your children will enjoy learning in the home, i.e. cooking, gardening, care of pets, simple DIY tasks. At Stisted Primary Academy we believe in the importance of making cross-curricular links to make learning more enjoyable, relevant and purposeful. This means, where possible, organising the curriculum through themes or topics that we believe interest the children. Although there are many separate National Curriculum subjects, we tend to blend them together into meaningful topics and themes that engage the primary aged learner. There are generally 5 approaches used at Stisted. These are: 1.Subject/skill based lessons e.g. a Maths lesson on adding two numbers together or a Geography lesson on how to read a map. 2. Cross curricular topics, themes or projects. e.g. Dinosaur Isle 3. Imaginative enquiry through fictional commissions or drama for learning e.g. Let's imagine we have been asked to design a hat for the Mad Hatter's Tea Party 4. Project enquires e.g. Who killed Tutankhamun? 5. Real commissions. e.g. Let's organise a tea party and entertainment for the Over 60s Club At Stisted Primary Academy, we use ‘imaginative enquiry’ to deliver part of our curriculum. We believe that this makes learning more meaningful and enjoyable. The use of ‘drama for learning’ as opposed to theatre drama is the vehicle we use to engage children in an ‘imaginative enquiry’. We recognise that ‘imaginative enquiry’ may not meet all your child's curricular needs and we use it selectively alongside other approaches including subject teaching and topic teaching. ‘Imaginative enquiry’ invents a reason for every task a child is asked to do using drama and role play. It is a system where children learn by solving problems and engaging in tasks as if they are experts operating in the real world. ‘Imaginative enquiry’ requires children to enter into role play and imagine and think as if there were an expert or specialist e.g wallpaper designers inventing a new wallpaper design for the 2012 Olympics or specialist milliners commissioned to design a new hat for the Queen of Hearts for the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. The teacher is also cast in role often as a colleague or supervisor alongside the children. ‘Imaginative enquiry’ is truly a cross curricular approach to learning. It can’t be defined or even timetabled in terms of subject headings. The curriculum is viewed holistically rather than as individual subjects. All work is task led because in the real world we function on a day to day basis by completing tasks without the need to compartmentalise them into subjects. By providing children with real purposeful tasks the boundaries between subjects become blurred. The Problem Solving approach Where possible, our teaching approach places problem solving at its centre. This is a particularly effective approach for our most able learners. Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) We cater for a wide range of children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. Early identification is critical in supporting children who have specific learning needs. Children with special needs may have an Individual Education Plan that identifies specific support. This could be delivered by a teacher, Learning Support Assistant or a specialist Learning Support Assistant. We also have an enhanced provision classroom to support our learners based on the principles that underpin Montessori education. It is a constructivist or "discovery" model for learning where children learn concepts from working with materials and interacting with their environment rather than by direct instruction. We have adopted this approach to enhance and compliment current classroom based provision. It is particularly suited to meet the needs of learners where conventional classroom based learning is less appropriate for meeting a child’s needs. Children are identified who are likely to benefit from a Montessori education for part of the week. The Montessori Environment is a mixed age classroom designed to meet the needs of learners that need an alternative approach for part of the week. It particular suits those children with special educational needs. Further information on Special Needs can be found in our Guide for Parents SEN leaflet or the the Special Educational Needs Information Report under the tab SEN. Alternatively, you may pick up copy from the school foyer. You can also access further information and provision in the local area using the following link :
People with Disabilities Earn 37% Less on Average - Publish Date: 2014/12/15 - (Rev. 2016/06/11) - Author: American Institutes for Research - Contact : Larry McQuillan Ph. +1 (202) 403-5119 Outline: Among workers with high school degree or equivalent, those with disabilities earned on average less than their peers. Workers with disabilities who have at least a high school education earn 37 percent less on average than their peers without disabilities, a disparity costing federal and state governments up to $31.5 billion in potential tax revenue, finds an American Institutes for Research (AIR) analysis. Earnings disparities increase with higher educational attainment. Among workers with a high school degree or the equivalent, those with disabilities earned on average $6,505 less than their peers in 2011. The gap widens to nearly $21,000 on average among those with a master's or more advanced degree. AIR experts note that employees with disabilities face economic discrimination similar to what female employees experience; they get 37 percent less pay compared with 35 percent for women. "Although non-discriminatory compensation is protected through the Civil Rights, Americans with Disabilities, and Rehabilitation Acts, our results show that earnings inequalities are gaping," said AIR author Michelle Yin. Co-author Dahlia Shaewitz adds: "Education and employment are not enough. Equal pay is key to keeping people with disabilities economically independent and out of poverty." State trends mirror national trends. For employees with a high school diploma or its equivalent, the highest average income inequalities are observed in - Vermont ($12,700) - Connecticut ($12,000) and - Iowa ($10,000). Among those with a bachelor's degree, the greatest disparities are in - Washington, D.C. ($20,000) - Minnesota ($18,000) and - Washington ($17,000). At the master's and higher level, the states with the largest gaps are - Nevada ($38,700) - Connecticut ($35,500) and - Hawaii ($33,800). These trends are reversed in some states, but only in specific educational levels. For example, some workers with disabilities earn more than their peers in the following states - Some college education: North Dakota ($9,000), Mississippi ($2,000) and Rhode Island ($2,000); - Associate's: Utah ($6,500), Wyoming ($1,500) and New Jersey ($1,000); - Bachelor's: Wyoming ($6,000), New Hampshire ($4,500) and Alaska ($2,500); - Master's or more advanced: South Dakota ($16,000), Utah ($15,000) and Kentucky ($2,000). Researchers also looked at broader economic impacts and found that lack of equal pay costs the U.S. economy $141 billion, amounting to about 1 percent of gross domestic product, or about as much as the federal government allocates to education. Loss of tax revenue is another consequence, totaling more than $25 billion for the federal government and more than $6.5 billion for states. "An Uneven Playing Field: The Lack of Equal Pay for People with Disabilities" used data from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2011 American Community Survey. To read the full report, visit www.air.org. Disability and Unequal Pay Infographic Established in 1946, with headquarters in Washington, D.C., the American Institutes for Research (AIR) is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization that conducts behavioral and social science research and delivers technical assistance both domestically and internationally in the areas of health, education, and workforce productivity. For more information, visit www.air.org - 1 - Workplace Adaptions for Employees with Number Blindness Caused by Dyscalculia \| iansyst Ltd \| 2011/04/19 - 2 - How to Get a U.S. Government Job \| Disabled World \| 2009/02/05 - 3 - Disability Discrimination and Employment Issues Australia \| Lewis Stratton \| 2009/01/04 - 4 - In Employment Situations Extra Pounds Can Equal Disability \| McBrayer, McGinnis, Leslie & Kirkland, PLLC \| 2013/08/19 - 5 - Magnet: Online Job Matching for Canadians with Disability \| Ryerson University \| 2016/03/11
Holbeck Hill, Scarborough, North Yorkshire, YO11 3BW SUMMER TERM 2019 Welcome to Class 6! Class 6 is a class of 30 Year 2 children. Our teacher is Mrs. Lambert who will be assisted by Mrs. Jennings and Miss Ottley. We're really excited about our next topic which is WONDERFUL WEATHER. What does the weather look like today? What will it look like tomorrow? Together we will learn about the features that make up our weather and find out how all weather on Earth originates. We’ll learn how the Sun creates weather patterns for us and find out why the seasons feel different. We will look at cloud cover, water in the atmosphere, and learn how we can look after ourselves according to the weather conditions. In addition, we shall look at weather forecasts and observe the temperature around us. We shall have fun with shadows and use various techniques to create art to represent different weather patterns.
In the 1980s, the world was introduced to the word “hacker,” a catchy term for brilliant young teenagers or even school dropouts who suddenly posed a real threat to the security of computer systems of the United States. At the same time – even earlier – people from the Department of Defense, the computer industry and academia had created tools like Trojan Horses and Trap Doors in an attempt to ascertain whether data stored in time-sharing computer systems was secure. Hackers might have been able to take down a website. At their most destructive, nation states with these invasive tools might be able to take down another nation. So who posed the bigger threat? The answer should have been obvious. Despite warnings to the contrary, the media and academia chose to focus on the hacker, conveniently ignoring published evidence that these tools in the hands of nation states presented tremendous potential as weapons. That’s slowly changing, wrote Edward Hunt '03, a Ph.D. candidate in William & Mary’s American Studies Department. Hunt’s article “United States Government Computer Penetration Programs and the Implications for Cyberwar,” was the cover story in a recent issue of IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. Hunt’s final product was the result of a thorough exploration of a variety of media sources, from The New York Times, Time magazine, Aviation Weekly and Space Technology and the Criminal Justice Journal. He also drew from books on the subject, among them “Cyber War,” (2010) “Crime by Computer,” (1976), “Computer Capers,” (1978), “Hackers,” (1984) and “Computer Security Basics” (1991). Those sources provided complementary evidence to a variety of technical studies carried out by the Department of Defense going back to the early 1970s; those studies formed the core of the historical record Hunt reviewed in his paper. Hunt also presented his research findings at the 11th annual Graduate Research Symposium, winning a $500 award for “excellence in scholarship in the humanities and social sciences.” Hunt believes his work has played a role in changing public perception of the potentially sinister nature of “computer penetration.” “What I was trying to do with the paper was combat the perception that computer hackers, or young kids working at home -- sort of late at night in their basements – posed a serious threat to system security,” he said. “I think that, given what we’ve seen recently and what I've found in the historical record, it’s a problematic perception. “On one hand, while the United States might have the world’s best technology, on the other hand it has the leading offensive capabilities. And it’s becoming more and more apparent that we’re using them.” Hunt said the recent disclosure of the Central Intelligence Agency’s plan from the early 1980s to sabotage the trans-Siberian pipeline in the Soviet Union, leading to what one official called “the most massive non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space,” is just one example of a toxic concoction of media ignorance and misguided trust and deliberate government misinformation. “A lot of reporters were using sources from the Department of Defense, which created the dilemma,” Hunt said. “The officials from DOD had a message they wanted to send, and the message was that computer systems in the U.S. were not safe and needed to be researched. The officials weren’t telling them what they were doing covertly, and this was reflected in the reporting in the media. I think a lot of journalists were unwilling to ask the hard questions: Are you in the DOD engaged in any offensive actions? “During the early 1980s, when DOD officials were pointing to computer hackers or even the USSR, they were engaged in some of the first offensive operations against the USSR.” Even today, Hunt said, it took a programming error in the Stuxnet cyber weapon the U.S. used to sabotage Iran’s nuclear enrichment infrastructure for knowledge of the weapon to become public. “It was part of a covert program called ‘Olympic Games,’” Hunt explained. “If it hadn’t been for a programing error in one of the versions of the Stuxnet that allowed it to leak to the Internet, no one would have known about it. The weapon wasn’t supposed to be released into the wild, some system analysts say, but because of a programming error in one version it leaked out onto the Internet. Security analysts found out about it, studied it and were able to speculate as to whom may have designed it. “And about a year later, The New York Times ran a big article speculating that the U.S. and Israel were behind the Stuxnet weapon, which sources inside the government anonymously confirmed.” For Hunt, it was a multi-year project, most of which was done for his master’s thesis. His undergraduate degree from W&M was in English, with a minor in information technology. He also has done graduate work at the University of Massachusetts in statistics and history. “I’ve always been interested in the liberal-arts side,” he said, “but also history and information technology. In this paper, I believe I pulled together the best of those disciplines. “There’s still a perception that computer-hacker kids are still out there, still causing trouble, but I think at the same time there is more of a realization that the more sophisticated threats are not coming from these computer hackers. The more serious threats are posed by other nation states.”
What you should know about the thyroid Written by Justyna Wiraszka Reading Time: 3 Minutes In this article we want to tell you more about your thyroid – how it works, which disorders you might expect, and how they affect women more often than men. First things first – what is the thyroid? The thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland that is placed at the base of your neck. It releases the thyroid hormones T3 and T4, which affect your metabolism and a variety of body functions, such as weight gain or loss. The release of those hormones is regulated by TSH (Thyroid Stimulating Hormone), a hormone released by the pituitary gland. TSH regulates T3 and T4. This in turn controls how your body uses and stores energy. Finally, the hypothalamus, a portion of your brain, releases Thyroid Releasing Hormones (TRH), which stimulate the pituitary gland. Once released, T3 and T4 lower the levels of TSH and TRH which, in turn, lowers the release of T3 and T4. This creates a feedback loop which makes sure that the right amount of thyroid hormones are produced that your body needs. What causes thyroid disorders? The most common thyroid disorder causes a disruption in the feedback loop. In case of hypothyroidism, the thyroid is underactive and produces too few hormones. As a result, TSH levels increase to stimulate the thyroid to produce more. In hyperthyroidism, on the other hand, the thyroid is overactive and produces too many hormones. This causes TSH levels to decrease to stop the thyroid from producing more. Given that TSH secretion is very sensitive to even small changes in thyroid hormone levels, testing the TSH levels in your blood is a very easy way to learn more about the status of the thyroid. Hypothyroidism can be hard to diagnose due to their generic symptoms. Symptoms like constipation, dry skin, headaches, weight gain or problems losing weight can indicate hypothyroidism but are also linked to many other disorders. The American Thyroid Association recommends adults to get regularly screened for thyroid dysfunction beginning at age 35 years and every 5 years after. How do you know if you have hypothyroidism? Because the symptoms are so unspecific, hypothyroidism can be easily confused with other conditions. The best way to confirm whether you actually have hypothyroidism is to do a blood test for TSH since it can assess your thyroid function. Importantly, normal TSH levels can only exclude primary but not secondary or tertiary hypothyroidism. While secondary hypothyroidism originates in the pituitary gland, tertiary hypothyroidism is caused by a malfunction of the hypothalamus. To diagnose either of them, both TSH and free T4 need to be tested. Why are women more likely than men to have thyroid issues? There is no single correct explanation for why women suffer from thyroid issues more often than men, though some experts believe that there is a connection between thyroid hormones and female sex hormones. Thyroid problems can affect women of any age but are particularly common in menopausal women as their hormones fluctuate. This can become an issue when women confuse symptoms of menopause with symptoms of thyroid disorders and delay a correct diagnosis and treatment, and suffer from the symptoms for longer. How does the thyroid affect your metabolism? Your metabolism is determined by measuring the amount of oxygen your body uses over a certain amount of time. If that measurement is made at rest, it is referred to as the basal metabolic rate (BMR). Studies have shown that your BMR goes up and down with your thyroid hormone level. Thyroid hormones have various effects on your body and metabolism, including your weight. For example, weight gain can be one of the many symptoms of hypothyroidism – which is not to say that everyone who gains weight suffers from thyroid issues. However, it is important to remember that the relationship between your thyroid status, metabolism, and weight is far more complex than that. Many other hormones, proteins and chemicals have an effect on your energy, metabolism and weight. In conclusion, hypothyroidism should be diagnosed and treated if detected, but treatment should not be thought of as an easy weight loss strategy. Bloom Thyroid Test Are you interested in checking your thyroid status? With the Bloom Thyroid Test you can check your TSH levels within a few minutes. For more information about the Thyroid Test check out our Test website. Paul W Ladenson. American Thyroid Association guidelines for detection of thyroid dysfunction. doi:10.1001/archinte.160.11.1573. June 2000 Douglas S Ross. Diagnosis of and screening for hypothyroidism in nonpregnant adults. UpToDate. https://www.uptodate.com/contents/diagnosis-of-and-screening-for-hypothyroidism-in-nonpregnant-adults?search=hypothyroidism&source=search_result&selectedTitle=1~150&usage_type=default&display_rank=1. Published September 16, 2019. Accessed May, 2022. Luster M, Wartofsky L, Duntasand L. The Thyroid and Its Diseases: A Comprehensive Guide for the Clinician. Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature; 2019. Accessed: May, 2022. Martin I Surks. Clinical manifestations of hypothyroidism. https://www.uptodate.com/contents/clinical-manifestations-of-hypothyroidism?search=hypothyroidism&topicRef=7883&source=see_link. Published October 12, 2020. Accessed: May, 2022. Ross S D. Subclinical hypothyroidism in nonpregnant adults. Published July 1, 2020. Accessed May, 2022. https://www.uptodate.com/contents/subclinical-hypothyroidism-in-nonpregnant-adults?search=tsh%20age&source=search_result&selectedTitle=2~150&usage_type=default&display_rank=2. Accessed: May, 2022. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Thyroid disease: assessment and management, NICE guideline NG145. NICE; 2019. Accessed: May, 2022. Melmed S, Polonsky KS, Larsen PR, Kronenberg HM. Williams Textbook of Endocrinology. 13th ed. Elsevier; 2016. Accessed: May, 2022. Orlander P. Hypothyroidism. Medscape.https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/122393-overview. Accessed: May, 2022.
Good start ... Expressing and storing colostrum during the last weeks of pregnancy can make a difference to your baby's health. In perfect circumstances, colostrum (that yellowish, antibody-rich ‘first milk’ produced from the second trimester of pregnancy) should be every newborn’s first feed. Often called baby’s ‘first immunisation’, colostrum aids in the activation of early immunological responses in the infant’s gut, promoting the development of normal gut flora and preventing the growth of harmful bacteria. It also increases peristalsis, helping your newborn pass meconium. This reduces the reabsorption of bilirubin and the potential to develop jaundice if bilirubin levels become elevated. Unfortunately, though, there are a number of medical conditions and issues with either (or both) mother and baby that may mean infant formula is offered as a first feed. For example, babies of mothers with diabetes are particularly at risk of hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar) in the first few hours after birth, so although colostrum can be useful to help stabilise your baby’s blood sugar levels, the baby will often be given formula. Newborn babies can receive the colostrum via a syringe. One way to see that your baby is less likely to be offered formula in this important newborn period is to express and store colostrum during the last weeks of pregnancy. It’s important to check and discuss this with your healthcare providers, and to write a post-birth plan so everyone caring for you knows your wishes – even before your baby is offered a first feed. Fairly recently – in the 1960s and 70s – mothers were advised to express colostrum during late pregnancy, supposedly to unplug milk ducts and increase the production of colostrum. There was also evidence that women who expressed during pregnancy were more confident with breastfeeding after the birth. Despite this, advice about antenatal expressing was abandoned, possibly due to concerns that nipple stimulation could cause early labor. But recent research – including a study of women who breastfed through pregnancy – shows that uterine contractions will only occur following the up-regulation of oxytocin binding sites in the uterus, when your body is ready to begin labor. This means that nipple stimulation won’t induce labor unless you’re already at term. However, if you have a history of premature labor, prenatal expressing may be contra-indicated; if any cramps do occur while you’re expressing, stop and discuss this with your health professional. How to express colostrum To start expressing, you’ll need 1ml and 3ml syringes, which can be bought from a pharmacy. You’ll also need plastic ziplock bags to store your syringes in the freezer - Start hand expressing once daily at 36 weeks (unless otherwise advised by your health carer – for instance, if you’re being induced earlier for medical reasons, or if you’re in premature labor and are expected to birth your baby). You can build up to expressing two or three times a day. - It’s best to express after your shower when your breasts are warm and your hands are clean. Otherwise, wash your hands and warm your breasts with a heat pack before expressing. - Gently massage your breasts towards the nipple to stimulate the ‘let down’ reflex. - Compress your breasts with your thumb and fingers above and below the areola (the dark skin around the nipple), pressing back towards the chest wall, not squeezing towards the nipple. Try to mimic the rhythm of a baby sucking - the action is ‘press, compress, release’. As the flow slows, move your fingers around to express different ducts. - Express for about three to five minutes each side. As flow stops on one side, swap to the other breast. Repeat so each breast is expressed twice in a session. - As colostrum drops appear, collect these in a syringe. If you have a good flow, you can express into a clean medicine glass or spoon (wash in hot soapy water, rinse and dry), then draw the colostrum up into a syringe. - Store the expressed colostrum in the fridge between each expressing session if you’re using the same syringe next time. - You can keep the expressed colostrum in the syringe If you’re using a new syringe each day. Storing syringes in a ziplock bag in the freezer, and label each one with your name and the date expressed. Colostrum can be stored in the freezer for three months, and in a deep freeze for up to six months. - Stop expressing if cramps occur. If you do express, remember to take the syringes with you when you go to hospital to have your baby, and make sure it gets put in a freezer nearby. Write a post-birth plan that includes uninterrupted skin to skin cuddles as soon after birth as possible; also include delayed weighing and delayed bathing, so baby keeps his amniotic smell longer (also don’t wash your own chest the first day, so your baby can follow this amniotic smell back to the breast more easily). Lastly, advise “Colostrum in freezer for baby if needed.” An International Board Certified Lactation Consultant and best-selling baby care author, Pinky has joined forces with Canadian clinical/developmental psychologist Tracy Cassels to offer a FREE teleseminar: 'The Secrets of Happy Babies – a blueprint for building better baby brains'. It will be held at 1pm AEST on July 11. If you can’t take part in the teleseminar, you can register now to be sent a recording. Learn more on Pinky's site.
What’s more; is that both of them are increasingly common, diagnosable mental health disorders. Each disorder presents a unique challenge in terms of diagnosis, managing symptoms, and creating a plan for recovery. But what happens when you’re struggling with both anxiety and depression symptoms? Although this is not an unusual scenario, fortunately, there are ways you can cope. Many variations of anxiety exist, including: - Generalized Anxiety Disorder - Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) - Social Phobia (or Social Anxiety Disorder) - Panic Disorder - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Each variation presents with different symptoms, mental and sometimes physical ones. Even so, there are some signs and symptoms they share in common, such as edginess, sleep disturbances, panic attacks, hands and feet become sweaty or cold or tingling, heart palpitations, nausea, dry mouth, shortness of breath, and inability to calm oneself. Depression also has a multitude of variations, including: - Major depression - Bipolar disorder - Perinatal depression - Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) - Situational depression As with anxiety, each variety of depression presents with different symptoms. There are also many myths about depression to dispel. But some common signs and symptoms are losing interest in activities you once enjoyed, unexplained anger or irritability, fatigue and lethargy, weight loss or gain, loss of focus, withdrawal from social interactions, morbid fixation on death, and dark thoughts (including suicide). When Anxiety and Depression Coexist Some medical experts refer to anxiety and depression as being two sides of the same coin. Called comorbidity, this mix of these two disorders tends to make symptoms far more severe. Frequently in this case, many general health practitioners have difficulty differentiating between anxiety and depression. Depression can cause anyone to feel anxious, which can feel depressing. Most often, anxiety precedes depression. Unless treated, anxiety can lead to depression as the patient ages. A significant link between the two disorders lies in our perception. We tend to overestimate risk while underestimating our ability to cope. This mindset leads to an avoidance of fearful situations rather than an effort to address the root causes. This link is most evident in cases where depression follows social anxiety. How to Cope with Both Anxiety and Depression Symptoms In terms of what we can do for ourselves, it can be summed up in two words: lifestyle changes. Following are a handful of positive changes you can make to help manage both anxiety and depression symptoms. Regular Sleep Patterns to Ease Anxiety & Depression Symptoms Irregular sleep makes everything feel and seem worse. Aim for 7-8 hours a night—ideally, with consistent rest and wake times. Healthy Eating Habits for Improved Mood Food influences mood. Work with a licensed dietician or nutritionist to understand the eating style that best matches your needs and tastes. Daily Exercise and Activity to Help with Anxiety & Depression Management Everything from joining a gym to taking regular stretch breaks throughout our day is a valuable self-help tool. Stress Management & Relaxation Techniques to Cope with Anxiety & Depression Stress feeds the cycle. It makes us anxious, which inevitably triggers our depression. Knowing how to calm your nervous system and manage stress can help stop the negative cycle. Avoiding Addictive and Unhealthy Substances for Your Mental Health Depending on the situation, this may mean alcohol, smoking, recreational drugs, and more. Instead, find a healthy distraction or way of coping. Social Support to Help Manage Anxiety & Depression Depression and anxiety can push us toward isolation. Talk to someone—a trusted family member, longtime friend, counselor—to reverse this trend. It Helps to Have Help with Anxiety & Depression Either anxiety or depression alone is reason enough to seek help. The combination can make seeking treatment feel even more urgent. But what does help look like? A proven treatment approach involves mental health counseling. Each week, along with an anxiety & depression therapist, you’ll work to: - identify root causes and triggers - recognize how depression and anxiety are changing your life - develop new skills and coping mechanisms All of this is done with long-term recovery in mind. Committing to therapy helps you accept both your needs and your ability to heal. therapy columbus ohio If anxiety and depression team up to impact your life, you can team up with a mental health counselor to take your life back! And it doesn’t have to be an in-person meeting; online therapy has many benefits and is also a very effective way to get the support you need. If you’re struggling with anxiety or depression (or both) and it’s time to seek treatment from a professional and empathetic Columbus OH counseling practice, please reach out and contact Blue Boat Counseling today. Our skilled anxiety & depression counselors are here to help you manage both sets of symptoms.
A glimpse at the lives and deaths of some who have come before us. George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence Cause of Death: Drowned in a vat of Malmsey Wine. George Plantagenet was brother to King Edward IV and Richard II, and played an important role in the War of the Roses before his death in 1478. After plotting against his brother (several times) and subsequently being convicted of treason (eventually, after being forgiven several times), he was privately executed in the Tower of London. The typical method of execution at the time, for those of noble birth, was beheading, but this was not the case for George Plantagenet. His brother, The King, wanted him dead – but in a manner which would ‘please’ George. Given his famous reputation for alcoholism, George was forcibly drowned in a large vat of Malmsey Wine, his favourite beverage, at his own request. His corpse was later transferred to the abbey in the same vat of wine, before his burial..... he was pickled! Attila the Hun Manner of death: Nosebleed during hanky panky Attila the Hun was famous of being a brilliant tactician and warlord. He conquered all of Asia by 450AD, using a combination of mighty combat and assimilation. Attila was known as being very thrifty when it came to eating and drinking – to put it in layman’s terms, he was a tight-arse!. In 453 he married a young girl named Ildico (he had many wives, but this one was young and nubile) and in a complete contradiction of character, he decided to go all out and celebrate like crazy – and let’s be honest, which man wouldn’t if marrying a much younger, beautiful girl? Drinking and eating up a storm, he took his new wife to bed, and during the consummation of his marriage, his nose started to bleed. He was so drunk he dismissed the nosebleed and carried on. Eventually he was so drunk that he passed out, and his new wife found him the following morning, drowned in his own blood. Cause of Death: Rolled up in a rug and trampled by horses. Caliph Al-Musta’sim was born in Baghdad and ruled from 1242 until his death sixteen years later in 1258. In 1258 the Mongols invaded Abbasid, led by Hulagu Khan, sacking Baghdad and capturing Al-Musta’sim. The Mongols held great stock in the superstition that spilling royal blood would bring bad luck, so refused to behead him as they normally would. Instead, they rolled him up in a Persian carpet, and he was then repeatedly trampled on by horses until he passed away.... squished to death. It is believed it took over 15 minutes for Al-Musta’sim to die. It is also reported that he had many sons, most of whom also suffered the same fate. Put together by Ashley Hall 2013
From Our 2013 Archives China's Bird Flu Might Someday Spread More Easily: Report Latest Infectious Disease News THURSDAY, July 18 (HealthDay News) -- The deadly H7N9 bird flu virus has the potential to be easily transmitted from human to human, a new study suggests. Chinese scientists have found that the virus is highly transmissible between ferrets, a mammal often used to study possible virus transmission between humans. This discovery could portend a time where the virus might become pandemic, the researchers added. "The situation raises many urgent questions and global public health concerns," said study co-author Hualan Chen, director of the National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory at Harbin Veterinary Research Institute. So far, more than more 130 people in China have been infected with the H7N9 flu, and at least 37 have died, the researchers noted. However, one U.S. expert stressed that it isn't known whether large-scale spread among humans will actually occur. "We already know H7N9 can spread human-to-human," said Dr. Marc Siegel, an associate professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City. "So far, however, we are not seeing large outbreaks. That's not an accident. You can see something in a test tube or in a ferret that doesn't reproduce in real life." The new study shows that the H7N9 virus does not sicken poultry, Chen said. This can make the virus hard to track as it infects people, since they can be around infected birds without being aware of it. Replication in humans, however, provides opportunities for the virus to acquire more mutations and become more virulent and transmissible in mammals, she explained. "Our results suggest that the H7N9 virus is likely to transmit among humans, and immediate action is needed to prevent an influenza pandemic caused by this virus," Chen said. The new report was published July 18 in the online edition of the journal Science. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is keeping a close eye onthe H7N9 virus. "Anytime a new flu virus emerges, especially one that can cause severe disease in humans, it's a virus we get very interested in," said Dr. Joseph Bresee, chief of the epidemiology and prevention branch in the CDC's Influenza Division. Bresee noted that, so far, the H7N9 virus does not spread easily from human to human, but it is still concerning. "It can cause severe disease and deaths in humans. The one thing that gives us comfort so far is that it doesn't seem to be able to spread efficiently between humans and that's what allows a flu virus to develop into a pandemic virus," he said. Not only is the CDC watching this virus, Bresee said: "The whole world is watching." Within the United States, the CDC has told state health departments what to look for and how to test for H7N9, Bresee said. The agency is studying the virus, watching for mutations and trying to understand what medicines work against it. Moreover, the CDC is developing a vaccine against the H7N9 flu, he said. "When the virus was first discovered and we got our samples here at CDC, we started vaccine development right away," Bresee said. "The U.S. government is developing and testing vaccines just in case we need to use them at some point." The Chinese researchers investigated the virus from a variety of sources. Chen's team identified dozens of H7N9 strains from more than 10,000 samples taken from poultry markets, poultry farms, wild bird habitats and slaughterhouses across China. The researchers looked at the genetic makeup of these strains, comparing them with the genetic makeup of five of the strains found in people. All strains of the virus could go to airway receptors in humans, and some could be transmitted to birds as well. All of the H7N9 strains from birds easily went to chickens, ducks and mice without causing any disease. The human strains, however, caused mice to lose up to 30 percent of their body weight, the researchers said. In addition, one of the human strains easily went from ferret to ferret. Whether the virus will mutate, making it easier to transmit from human to human, is not assured, Siegel said. "That's probably better left to science fiction, because mutations also occur that make something more benign," he said. SOURCES: Hualan Chen, Ph.D., director, National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory, Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, Harbin, China; Joseph Bresee, M.D., chief, epidemiology and prevention branch, influenza division, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Marc Siegel, M.D., associate professor, medicine, New York University, Langone Medical Center, New York City; July 18, 2013, Science, online
Russian Literature: Introduction and Reading List Russian literature is a great way to discover more about the Russian culture and learn about the Russian ways of thinking, feeling, fighting and loving. Here we introduce the most prominent and interesting Russian writers. If you want to know which writers you may want to read based on the ones you already like, try our interactive graph on who is who in the Russian Literature. Fyodor Dostoevsky is one of the most known Russian writers. Reading a book by Leo Tolstoy will give you a good understanding of why Russians are so keen on global projects. The works of Nikolai Gogol were very inspiring for generations of Russian writers, particularly because of his style: his use of zooming in and zooming out, as well as contextual shifts, mixes very well with masterfully written narratives, which are often funny and almost always political. Velimir Khlebnikov is a lesser known Russian poet, but he was at the very beginning of the Russian futurist movement. The poetry of Vladimir Mayakovsky and other Russian futurists will give a good introduction to the new wave in Russian literature that occurred at the beginning of the 20th century. Among the most recent writers, Victor Pelevin will give a good feel of the 90s: a mix of capitalism, technology and ancient mythologies popping through the society cracks. Vladimir Nabokov's works are the finest achievements in terms of the literary language and the richness of narrative threads in his works are simply amazing. Vladimir Sorokin is perhaps the only well-known and respected contemporary Russian writer and his use of language is phenomenal. If you are really interested to learn about the current Russian history, Aleksey Ivanov’s work will be very stimulating. Mikhail Bakhtin anticipated many structuralist and post-structuralist concerns that later became popular in Western philosophy and literary studies circles. Victor Shklovsky was at the beginning of the Russian formalism and wrote a lot of interesting works about Russian artists and cinema-makers of the early Soviet times, especially about Sergei Eisenstein.
Scientists have found a new way to keep robots cool and maintain their efficiency. Humanoid robots have come a long way in terms of construction and functionality. Today’s robots can do a lot of things in a very similar way a human does. The latest advancement to make your eyes go wide comes from researchers at the University of Tokyo’s JSK lab. The team’s Kengoro robot, standing at roughly 5.5 feet tall and weighing 123 pounds isn’t just physically strong; it’s capable of hitting the floor and doing pushups. To pull off this feat, Kengoro contains 108 motors that work together to balance and exert force throughout the frame. All of this activity generates heat which, in traditional humanoid systems, would have to be ferried away by some bulky cooling system involving radiators or fans. Instead, the team turned to the human body for inspiration, creating an innovative internal cooling system that effectively allows the robot to sweat. The researchers recently presented their solution at a robotics conference in South Korea under the title “Skeletal Structure with Artificial Perspiration for Cooling by Latent Heat for Musculoskeletal Humanoid Kengoro.” To create a frame that could allow for excess water without creating a giant puddle, the team utilized a special process called laster sintering. This technology, not unlike 3-D printing, allows the researchers to build each piece Kengoro’s aluminum skeleton layer by layer and with varying degrees of permeability. With these interlocking channels in place, water can passively flow from one area of low permeability, gather heat near the various motors, and then transfer that energy to an area of high permeability for evaporation. “Usually the frame of a robot is only used to support forces,” team leader Toyotaka Kozuki told IEEE Spectrum. “Our concept was adding more functions to the frame, using it to transfer water, release heat, and at the same time support forces.” According to the researchers, Kengoro’s innovative cooling system enables it to efficiently run for half a day on a cup of deionized water. It also allows for sustained pushup marathons of 11 minutes straight without overheating. While not as effective as a built-in radiator with active cooling, it reduces the amount of bulk often present in humanoid designs. The next step is to integrate the cooling technology into future humanoids and improve the efficiency further. After that, we imagine it’s only a matter of time before they get sick of doing pushups and put in motion plans to take over the world.
Essentials of Sociology Directions:Unless otherwise stated, answer in complete sentences, and be sure to use correct English spelling and grammar. Sources must be cited in APA format. Your response should be a minimum of one (1) single-spaced page to a maximum of two (2) pages in length; refer to the “Assignment Format” page for specific format requirements. Compare and contrast capitalism and socialism and discuss a shortcoming of each system that is criticized by opponents of the system. Then describe the overlap in capitalism and socialism and the economic theory associated with it. Place an order of a custom essay for this assignment with us now. You are guaranteed; a custom premium paper being delivered within its deadline, personalized customer support and communication with your writer through out the order preparation period.
Hamilton disposed of their bodies in a river, but not before stealing their property. (Warning: Graphic Photo of Deceased Family) Only days before Mr Parsons had sold much of his corn crop to Hamilton, and had made $150 from the sale. Hamilton stole that money when he killed the family. He also stole Mr Parson’s ‘church’ suit and wedding ring. The method of murder was horrendous. Hamilton shot Mr Parsons in the leg, and then beat him to death. He killed Mrs Parsons with a pole axe. The three small children were hit over the head with a gun barrel before having their throats cut with their fathers knife. To dispose of the bodies, he threw them into the Piney River. A fisherman found them. Hamilton then made a fatal error. He wore the suit he stole from Mr Parsons to church. While at church, an announcement was made of the discovery of their bodies. Hamilton quickly left the church, riding a mule he also stole from the Parsons family. When they were gone, Hamilton started to stew over the whole situation. The more he thought about it, the angrier he got. Before long he decided to take off after the Parsons on foot. He went overland, choosing a short cut, and caught up with the family. He later said about the confrontation “It seemed like I was all tore up in my mind.” He and Mr Parsons argued, and then choosing to ignore Hamilton, he told his horse to move along, riding past Hamilton. This was the final straw for the frenzy Hamilton had worked himself in to. He raised his shotgun and fired at Mr Parsons, apparently not intending on actually killing him. He hit Mr Parson’s leg, and then his gun broke into three pieces. He ran up to him and struck him on the head with the gun barrel. When Mrs Parsons tried to wrest the barrel out of his hands, he struck her too. The children were crying – he wasn’t sure what to do, but he knew he had to silence them, so he struck each of them over the head with the gun barrel, and then slit their throats. He noticed then that Minnie was still alive, so he grabbed the pole axe from the back of the wagon and hit her with it until she stopped breathing. He went through the pockets of Mr Parsons, stealing a razor, spectacles, $25 and a gold watch. He then made sure all bodies were in the wagon, unhitched one of the mules with a saddle to keep, then drove the wagon down to the river bank, throwing the bodies into the water. Standing on the scaffold with a hangman’s noose around his neck, the trap was sprung at 11:02am, but when it was released, the knot at the end of the rope unravelled. The noose slipped from his neck, and he fell backwards, stunned. An old midwife standing nearby was said to yell out “That one’s for the baby!” They tried again, at 11:04, the trap was sprung a second time. This time Jodie Hamilton was executed efficiently for the crime of 5 murders.
This workbook is an all-encompassing tool for your child to learn and fine-tune their fundamental Fine Motor Skills, with the beginning preschooler in mind. Improving Fine Motor Skills (FMS) in the early formative years is crucial to the level of success your child is likely to experience throughout their academic career. This preschool-level FMS workbook includes: - Recognizing and writing the uppercase and lowercase letters - Recognizing and writing numbers 0-10 - Learning 10 different colors - The introduction of 8 different shapes - Tracing fun! · 1 PDF file sized at 8.5 x 11 inches (US Letter Paper Size) This is a DIGITAL DOWNLOAD. No physical items will be mailed to you. Early Preschool Workbook is NOT EDITABLE and comes as-is. Colors may vary slightly due to different color monitors and printers. How to Purchase: – Add the listing to your cart, checkout, and purchase. – The file will be sent to your email address on record as soon as payment is confirmed. How to Print your purchase: – You can print instantly on your printer at home or you can take the file to your local printing shop. You can also upload your files to an online printing service. • You may use this file for your own PERSONAL USE ONLY. Commercial use of this file which includes file sharing, distribution, reselling, or using the printed work from this file for profit is strictly prohibited. • Due to the nature of this product, all sales are final. Digital downloads are not eligible for refunds. “As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. There is no additional cost to you.” You can also enjoy this workbook on paperback copies. To get a copy, click here.
Drivers often hear about having to prepare their vehicles for freezing weather and winter roads, but high temperatures during the summer can also bring specific challenges for vehicle maintenance. In particular, hot weather can cause higher pressure and temperatures in your vehicle’s tires, leading to other car problems. (Sebastian Huxley / unsplash) Why is Tire Pressure Important? Due to the lower air pressure inside the tire, underinflated tires slump under the weight of the vehicle. More of the sidewalls and tread come into contact with the road. Not only does this cause premature wear to the rubber in the tires, but the extra friction and contact with the road cause more heat to build up in your tires. Increasing heat in your tires causes tread and sidewall damage. This premature damage may mean a costly replacement much earlier than planned. On the other hand, you could also suffer a blowout while traveling on the road, possibly causing a traffic accident or stranding you on the side of the road. As neither of these options is ideal, it is important to maintain good tires with the correct tire pressure. Proper Tire Maintenance: Car maintenance, in many cases, should be left to the experts. However, taking care of your tires is a task almost any driver can do with little effort. Here are six simple steps to care for your tires this summer. - Use the Tire Ratings: Be aware of what kind of tires your vehicle has. Whether new or used, their information—including size, composition, traction, and temperature—should be located on the sidewall. Temperature ratings run from A to C. A-rated tires are the most ideal for high summer temperatures. - Check on Your Vehicle’s PSI: Your vehicle’s PSI is the recommended air pressure for your tires. Once you know how much pressure they should have, you can determine whether your tires’ current air pressure matches up. Usually, you can find the PSI on a sticker located in the door jam on the driver’s side. If not there, you can find it in the owner’s manual. - Place a Tire Gauge Inside of the Glovebox: A useful item to keep in your glovebox is a tire gauge, which measures the tire pressure in your tires. Since it is an item you’ll use relatively often, avoid buying the cheapest one available. Spend a few dollars more on a high-quality gauge that will last a long time. Your can find one at your local auto parts store or at online retailers. - Keep a Maintenance Schedule: It can be difficult to remember when you last checked your tire pressure. Utilize your phone apps or whatever scheduling devices are at your disposal to create regular reminders to help you keep a consistent check on the tire pressure. Another way to make a habit of checking the tire pressure is to pair it along with another vehicle-related activity such as filling up your gas tank or paying the insurance. - Maintain Good General Tire Maintenance: As you might do more driving during the summer months, it is a good strategy to keep an eye on tire wear. Take a look at the way the tires look. Are there cracks, bulges, or uneven wear? Are they dirty from your last road trip? Regularly wash the dirt off of your tires. Consider buying an extra protectant product to keep your tire rubber from dehydrating. Be sure to get your tires rotated as well, and keep an eye on the vehicle’s tire pressure monitoring system. It could be the first indicator that your tires are losing pressure. - Get Your Tires Checked: If you do see that one or more of your vehicle’s tires are underinflated or if you often continue to have issues with underinflation, then you should get your tires checked. Bring your vehicle into our Cottonwood tire shop for a tire inspection. There might be a leak in your tires from badly functioning valves or from tiny punctures. Often leaks are an easy fix, which will save trouble and money in the long run. Many drivers are not aware that summer weather and hot road conditions can cause unnecessary wear and tear, especially to your tires. Be sure to take extra care of your vehicle this summer! With a little bit of TLC, you can extend the life of your tires and keep your loved ones safe as you drive down the highway. If the time is right you can buy new tires at our Salt Lake tire store or visit any of our Utah auto repair shops for maintenance across the Wasatch Valley.
Common symptoms for both kind of herpes (oral and genital) include blisters, painful sores, and a burning sensation while urinating. The severity of these symptoms may range from mild to severe. Typically, herpes sores appear in a range of sizes and last for up to a week. The stages of an outbreak usually involve pus-filled blisters, later covered by a layer of crust, and finally end with an area of red skin. Although a physical exam might suffice to diagnose herpes, often a test is also required for verification. The following often get mistaken for herpes as they show similar symptoms. Although the exact cause of canker sores—or aphthous ulcer—is still unknown, the appearance of these sores does not indicate a herpes infection. Canker sores appear as small, white-colored sores on the tongue, inside the cheeks, and lips. These sores can be triggered because of brushing too hard, injury to the mouth, or dental work. The main difference between herpes cold sores and canker sores is that the former occur outside the mouth while the latter occur inside it. Canker sores are also not contagious and are more common in women than in men. Contact dermatitis is a kind of skin condition which is characterized by red, itchy, and scaly skin rashes. The location of contact dermatitis symptoms is similar to that of herpes. This is why many confuse these rashes forming in the mouth or genital area with herpes. The key difference between the two is that dermatitis can occur on any part of the body, not just the mouth or genital area. Acne is a common skin condition in the U.S. and causes a range of blemishes including cysts, papules, and pustules (pimples). It is sometimes confused with herpes because of the appearance of the pimples. Get Effective Treatment possible to not experience any symptoms of oral and genital herpes at all. However, this doesn’t mean that the virus is not active in the infected person or that it will not be transmitted to another individual. Herpes is an incurable STI and one that remains in your body for life. We recommend you receive alternative treatment to alleviate herpes symptoms. The Underground Cure provides natural supplements to relieve pain from herpes sores and reduce the healing time. Get in touch with us today to facilitate oral and genital herpes healing.
Every historical episode is characterized by certain factors that function as a constant, such as time and space. These factors define its place in the evolution of the human community. The region between Bucegi and Piatra Craiului has sparked a series of historical episodes, from prehistoric days until current times, all due to one major geographical and historical factor: the Bran Gorge. The Teutonic Knights The Teutonic Knights – “Ordo domus Mariae Sanctae Theutonicorum Hierosolimitanorum” – a catholic religious order formed in Palestine during the late twelfth century by German crusaders, received Țara Bârsei (“Terra Borza” or “Burzenland” – a country named after the Cuman tribe of Burci) from King Andrew II of Hungary. The settlement of the Teutons in the region The purpose of this gift was to establish the Teutons in the area and to defend the Southeastern border of Transylvania from the Cumans and the Pechenegs. The Teutons erected a fortress in Bran The Teutons erected a fortress in Bran (a Slavonic name meaning “gate”), before they were driven away from the area in 1226.
4-H in the Outdoors: Delivering environmental education to Latino youth in Riverside County California Agriculture 72(4):204-204. https://doi.org/10.3733/ca.2018a0031 Published online December 17, 2018 4-H teams up with Project Learning Tree, and kids are the winners. It's a bit of a paradox: Polling indicates that most Latinos in the United States place a high value on environmental conservation (Earthjustice 2015). But Latinos — especially in the younger age brackets — tend to participate in outdoor recreation at lower rates than members of other demographic groups (Outdoor Foundation 2017). It's an imbalance that Claudia Diaz Carrasco decided to do something about. Diaz, a 4-H youth development advisor, recognized a real need around her home turf of Riverside and San Bernardino counties to provide urban Latino youth with environmental education. But she faced a serious obstacle. Diaz and her 4-H colleagues, she says, are “experts on youth development — not environmental education.” Enter Sandra Derby, the UC ANR–based California coordinator for Project Learning Tree — an international organization that, according to Derby, aims for students “to get outdoors, connect with their own environment, become the drivers of their own learning.” Project Learning Tree develops a rich variety of educational curricula, but it doesn't deliver them to students directly. Rather, it trains outside educators, who in turn guide students through Project Learning Tree programs. If it sounds like a good fit, it was, and collaboration between 4-H and Project Learning Tree soon resulted in a program called 4-H in the Outdoors. “The program was marked for success,” Derby says. The basic mission of 4-H in the Outdoors is to prepare youth in the program to appreciate and safely explore the world outside. In a fairly typical example of the project's work, Stephanie Barrett — a 4-H program representative in Riverside County — led fourth-grade classes at Little Lake Elementary through a process of tree-focused discovery. The youngsters studied tree rings. They “adopted” a tree on school grounds, observing and writing about it. They imagined — and rejected — a world without plants. On a field trip to the nearby Idyllwild Nature Center, they even braved a nature hike. “The program,” Barrett says, “is very handson and experimental. It asks kids to think about their own role in the environment. It teaches them how to think — not what to think.” In only its second full year of operation, 4-H in the Outdoors has reached more than 2,000 children. “We're really busy,” Barrett says, adding without evident chagrin that “I got home at 11 p.m. two nights this week.” 4-H in the Outdoors has received grants from organizations such as the Southern California Environmental Education Collaborative. Local partners have provided free bus transportation and free admission to nature areas. Mostly, though, the program has benefited from hard work — and from natural synergies between two programs housed within UC ANR. Project Learning Tree is funded in California by Cal Fire, with support from forestry-based groups such as the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, the parent organization of Project Learning Tree. More information about Project Learning Tree's programs and materials can be found at www.plt.org or ucanr.edu/sites/PLT_UCCE .
Name: Simon SohnGroup members: Misaki, HirokiDate of experiment: Dec. 6th 2010 Factors affecting the speed of a catalase reaction <Concentration of the substrate>Aim: To see if the concentration of the hydrogen peroxide can affect the speed of thecatalase reactionHypothesis: The higher concentration of the hydrogen peroxide, the faster the speed ofthe catalase reaction. Thus, more oxygen will be produced during the reaction. This willhappen because more substrates will be there in higher concentration of hydrogenperoxide, which are to be broken down by the enzyme in liver.Variables: Input variable: The concentration of the hydrogen peroxide. I will change it byusing 0.5%, 1% and 1.5% hydrogen peroxide in the experiment. Output variable: The amount of oxygen produced in the catalase reaction. I willmeasure the total amount of the solution (H202+liver+foam). Control variables: Control variable 1: The amount of liver. I will keep it the same by using the exact same amount of liver by measuring its weight. Control variable 2: The temperature of the hydrogen peroxide. I will keep it the same by keeping the same temperature in the place where the experiment is conducted. Control variable 3: The type of liver. I will keep it the same by using the same type of liver. (Chicken liver) Control variable 4: The length of time needed for measuring the catalase reaction. I will keep it the same by measuring every reaction for 1 minute. Control variable 5: The amount of the hydrogen peroxide. I will keep it same by using the exact same amount of hydrogen peroxide in each trial. (20ml) Materials: • 150ml of 0.5% hydrogen peroxide • 150ml of 1.0% hydrogen peroxide • 150ml of 1.5% hydrogen peroxide • 45g of liver • 100ml Measuring Cylinder (x1) • Stopwatch (x1) • Electronic Balance (x1) • Tweezer (x1) • Scalpel (x1) • Dissecting Dish (x1) • Lab coat (x1)Method: 1. Cut the liver into smaller pieces with scalpel and dissecting dish. 2. Measure 5g of liver by using electronic balance. 3. Pour 50ml of 0.5% hydrogen peroxide to cylinder. 4. Put 5g of liver into the cylinder. 5. Measure and record the total amount of solution (H202+liver+foam) after 1 minute by using a stopwatch. 6. Repeat the method 1-5 twice. 7. Repeat the method 1-5 three times using 1% hydrogen peroxide instead of 0.5% hydrogen peroxide. 8. Repeat the method 1-5 three times using 1.5% hydrogen peroxide instead of 0.5% hydrogen peroxide. Data Table: Total amount of the solution (H2O2+liver+foam) (ml)H2O2Concentration(%) Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Average 0.5 29.0 30.0 30.0 29.7 1.0 35.0 37.0 35.0 35.7 1.5 45.0 40.0 38.0 41.0 Graph: H202 Concentra.on .vs. Amount of Oxygen Produced (Average) 50.0 Total amount of the solu.on (H2O2+liver+foam) (ml) 40.0 30.0 20.0 10.0 0.0 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 H2O2 Concentra.on (%) Conclusion: As it can be seen in the table above, the higher concentration of H202 resulted inmore total amount of solution including H202, liver and foam. My data is reliablebecause all the trials in each concentration show increasing total amount, as theconcentration of hydrogen peroxide gets higher. Moreover, the difference betweenaverage values of all three concentrations is 6. Thus, my hypothesis “The higherconcentration of the hydrogen peroxide, the faster the speed of the catalase reaction”was correct. The higher concentration results in the faster the speed of the catalasereaction because increasing concentration of substrate in higher concentration of H2O2increases the chances of substrates to join with enzyme. Thereby, in my case, moreoxygen foam is created in the reaction.Evaluation:Errors/Weaknesses in Specific Effect on Improvement to yourYour Method Your Data method 1. In the beginning of the The difference We used 20ml ofexperiment, we used between each hydrogen peroxide50ml of hydrogen concentration didn’t instead of 50ml ofperoxide for each trial. vary much. Therefore, hydrogen peroxide andHowever, 50ml of we couldn’t get any this gave the obvioushydrogen peroxide was pattern or trend. difference of amount oftoo much to see the oxygen produceddefinite difference between eachbetween each concentration.concentration.2. Livers were cut into Some trials, in which Cutting the liver into asdifferent size of pieces. comparatively small same size of pieces asThis created more pieces of liver were possible in order tosurface area of liver in put into H2O2, would create same surfacecertain trials. In the result in more oxygen area of the liver.certain trials, the speed produced. In ourof catalase reaction case, the total amountcould get faster. of solution would be higher.3. Livers often stuck to When livers stuck to Waiting till liverthe cylinder. It took more the cylinder, it often completely sinks intotime for liver to be sunk resulted in less H2O2, and then startinginto H202. oxygen produced in the timing. that trial. This error reduced the reliability of the data.Other areas of investigation:If I get to do this experiment over, I want to change the input variable to different type oforgan. This is because if I use different type of organ as my input variable, thisexperiment will give entirely different hypothesis and pattern from previous experimentwith different concentration of hydrogen peroxide. Therefore, I would obtain entirely newscientific information.
Letter A - Practice Writing Sheet Practice writing the Letter A by tracing the letter. In this worksheet, the young learners are given words that start with the letter A. Preschoolers can practice writing the letter A by tracing the lines. For additional learning, introduce the long and short sound of Letter A. Download and print the file here. This worksheet is ideal for: PreKinder, Kinder, Grade 1
History has shown us countless examples of violence reproducing itself through the terrors of victims who become the new persecutors. Civil wars are often preceded by violence, marginalisation and oppression. And Colombia is no exception, having suffered several decades of violence. Violence in Colombia is most often witnessed in the pitched battles staged between left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and drug traffickers’ private armies. Yet this conflict is the product of more than a hundred years of history, in which violence was exerted in the quest for political power. \|Colombia FARC victims to meet perpetrators\| The period known as La violencia split the country along its blood-soaked political fault lines. The birth of groups such as FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the ELN (National Liberation Army) followed. Their emergence cannot be de-coupled from the previous era: Some of FARC’s founding members were victims of the “political” violence which ruled between 1920 and 1950. Some, but not all, recruits were keen to avenge the violence of the security forces and right-wing paramilitary groups. Clearly this does not constitute a justification for the violence they have caused; they are jointly responsible for the forced displacement of more than five million victims, alongside 220,000 deaths and more than 1,982 massacres. In the present peace process between the government and FARC, the rights, reparation and recognition of the victims of the Colombian conflict is being discussed. Victims’ rights and the guiding principles of truth, justice and non-repetition are all being negotiated. And this is where the dilemmas start: FARC has the dual condition of being one of the most important actors – and one of the biggest perpetrators of violence – in the Colombian conflict, while at the same time, it sees itself as the conflict’s victim – an observation that is partially correct. The FARC’s narrative of its victimisation is central to the mythology surrounding its birth and ongoing existence. The resolution of FARC’s claims of victimhood is not only important to the government’s future, but for the very legitimacy of the peace process and the state. For the government, it is necessary to reach a compromise that extends beyond FARC – who do not, despite their beliefs, hold a monopoly on Colombian victimhood – in order to recognise all the victims of the conflict. A balance must be struck between recognising the emergence of FARC as a by-product of the absence of a strong state, a state that – both through negligence and cooperation – facilitated violence against its own citizens, and rejecting any absolution of FARC’s responsibility for the violation of human rights, murder and displacement of Colombians. The problem any such deal will face is in the response of the broader community of victims of the conflict in Colombia. As the government and FARC have been negotiating between themselves for months, they did not include direct representatives of the victims in their talks. In spite of the fact that there are mechanisms in place to facilitate the participation of victims, the FARC and the government were not negotiating the topic of the victims with the victims. \|Fault Lines – Colombia: The Deadly Fight for Land\| Only recently, the negotiation table in Havana was expanded to include the direct participation of the victims, although it is not clear whether they will have any negotiating power. The complexity of this issue goes beyond the borders of the country, as Colombia ratified the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction over the country in 2002. This could imply that if any deals reached are “lenient” on members of the FARC or the security forces, they risk facing legal action in international circles. This raises further dilemmas, such as to what extent negotiations should consider international standards and treaties, in relation to the possibility of peace within the country. Options that follow the examples of Mozambique, or the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, are apparently no longer feasible according to the current “standards” of the international community. As international standards give priority to justice, reparation and non-repetition to the undersigning, this raises interesting questions regarding national sovereignty versus the importance of the ICC’s international jurisdiction. Interestingly enough, the Colombian government has implemented a series of legislative mechanisms to deal with this problem. The “victims’ law” of 2011 could be the first in the world governing reparations to and justice for the victims of a conflict to be ratified while the conflict is still ongoing. The government of President Juan Manuel Santos has also established a series of reparation-giving institutions for the conflict’s victims. The logic is pre-emptive – the government is putting into place the institutions and the administrative capacity for a post-conflict scenario before the peace agreement has actually been reached. It is in this scenario that the current debate is being held. If peace is reached, these agreements, and in particular those in relation to the victims of this conflict, could define a new social covenant between the Colombian state and their citizens. But failing to grasp this opportunity to recognise victims’ rights to justice, reparation and non-repetition will surely create the grievances that will spark future conflicts within the country. Fabio Diaz Pabon is a researcher on peace, conflict and development based at the Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM) of the School of Journalism and Media Studies, Rhodes University.
Believe the hype Imagine a world where you can travel the length of the UK in less than an hour, gliding at the speed of sound through a seamless network of overground pipes. This is the vision of a team of talented Edinburgh students who have reached the final stages of not one but two international competitions to develop a new mode of transport called Hyperloop. Adam Anyszewski, 4th-year Engineering student and president of HypED, tells the story of the team’s inspiring journey so far. Picture this: it’s 2035, you’re living in Edinburgh and have a meeting in London at 9am. You head to Waverley Station to catch the 8am Hyperloop; where you will sit in a capsule which will move at 750mph through a nearvacuum tube, getting you to Kings Cross for 8.30am. Thirty minutes to spare. That’s how we at HypED see the future. And this dream of transforming transportation is now starting to become a reality. The start of an exciting journey Our journey began more than four years ago, when Elon Musk, world-renowned inventor and Chief Executive Officer of Tesla and SpaceX, published a 57-page white paper entitled Hyperloop Alpha aimed at ‘revolutionising terrestrial transportation’. For Musk, who came up with the idea while stuck in a traffic jam on his way to work one day, Hyperloop is the future. It combines aspects of the four traditional modes of transport but goes above and beyond. The Hyperloop system comprises three main components: tube, pods and stations. The tube’s near-vacuum environment allows the pod to travel with very little resistance. Once the pod enters the tube at a station, it is initially accelerated by linear induction motors, but for the most part of the journey it is coasting on passive magnetic levitation, hence power consumption is brought down to minimum. Even at the braking phase there is no physical friction as the pod slows down by utilising eddy currents. Our team’s proposed route will connect the most densely populated areas across the United Kingdom: Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham and London. One pod will carry up to 28 passengers and pods will be able to depart from stations as often as every 30 seconds on the same route. The steel tubes will be built in pairs for both directions of travel and will likely be suspended at a few metres’ height by concrete pylons. Nevertheless, the possibility of fully or partly underground tubes is also being considered. As soon as Musk released his Hyperloop Alpha paper, discussions and debates began. He decided that neither SpaceX nor Tesla would work on the development and instead made it an open concept for people to develop. Two years later, in June 2015, SpaceX announced a competition for both university and commercial teams to play a part in the development of Hyperloop, allowing the teams the chance to present their ideas and try them out on a custom-built test track, approximately one mile in length with a six-foot outer diameter, in California. Hyperloop was no longer a fantasy but a real possibility. Creating the HypED team Immediately after the announcement, engineering students, including myself, at the University of Edinburgh got excited. A group of us got together and soon enough the HypED team was born, giving us an opportunity to create this incredible next mode of transport. Despite being a group of just over 20 students we sensed that we needed to be more interdisciplinary. Hyperloop was more than a technical idea, it was also about passenger experience and looking at government objectives for the future of green transport. Seven students from Edinburgh College of Art came on board to create a comfortable and enjoyable passenger experience. Everything from how a passenger would get into the pod and the design of the interior, to chair shape and temperature control was considered. Our team, which had now grown to 30 students, submitted our proposal to SpaceX in October 2015. Of the 1,200 teams from around the world that submitted a preliminary design brief to SpaceX, just 120 were accepted and invited to a Design Weekend in Texas in January 2016. HypED was one of them. Autumn flew by quickly and work continued right through Christmas, and early in the new year 20 members of HypED were flying out to Texas. The Design Weekend was to be a stepping-stone to the final competition in August 2016 in California. We submitted our 50-page proposal and gave two presentations: on the general idea and modularity. Our presentation on modularity and passenger experience saw HypED awarded a Subsystem Technical Excellence Award, one of only 13 special awards, and a $1,000 donation from the Texas IAM (International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers). Despite this incredible experience, which helped the team to develop its technical, presentation and sales skills and grow great friendships along the way, HypED did not get through to the next stage in California at this point. Back on Scottish soil, we regrouped as a team and decided that we shouldn’t give up. Rather, we had to go bigger! We had to ensure that if anyone spoke about Hyperloop in the UK that it all traced back to HypED and the University of Edinburgh. For HypED to achieve this we needed structure, funding and to be recognised as an official University society – allowing us to gain strong support from the University. Soon enough, another company called Hyperloop One announced a new competition – the Hyperloop One Global Challenge – allowing teams to present the most feasible place for the world’s first Hyperloop. This was HypED’s chance to get our dream route of Edinburgh to London on the map. The team grew to 50 students from various disciplines across the University, including engineering, business, art and law. This collaboration of students allowed all angles of the Hyperloop problem to be looked at in close detail. We started to spread the word about HypEd’s endeavours. The team decided to run a marketing campaign in October 2016, getting people from across Edinburgh photographed holding huge tickets for our proposed Edinburgh to London Hyperloop. We made links with government officials and transport experts to look at the many different problems that would be solved if the route were to be implemented into the UK. Our hard work led us to be invited to Amsterdam to present our route in the semi-finals of the competition in June 2017. Things did not quieten down for HypED’s technical team either. SpaceX announced that they were going to run the Hyperloop Pod Competition again. Realising the scope and opportunities that the competition brought and having learnt from the previous year’s mistakes, HypED started looking for sponsors and we were lucky enough to secure a deal with Cirrus Logic, who donated £12,000 to the project. This was game changing and would allow us to develop a prototype of the pod. A big break The work did not stop and HypED took precedence over everything. By February 2017, we had a 120-page proposal ready for SpaceX. The proposal was accepted and on 16 March the team gave a presentation via Skype, after which we waited eagerly for feedback. HypED at this point had gathered up a lot of momentum and were grateful to receive support from Professors Gordon Masterton and Win Rampen at the University. Emails were constantly checked for a response about our presentation and SpaceX’s website was kept under a close watch for updates, and after what felt like the longest fortnight in existence, the answer we’d been hoping for came through – our team, along with 24 other teams, had been invited out to California on 25 to 27 August. HypED is the only British team (one of four European teams) in the final of one of the most prestigious and inspiring engineering competitions in the world. Everyone in the team is now busy with final preparations to showcase the pod prototype, proudly named Poddy McPodface, to SpaceX in California, and our Edinburgh to London route feasibility to Hyperloop One in Amsterdam. HypEd is a group of young students focused on the bigger picture of Hyperloop and our commitment is demonstrated by our unique choice to develop cases in both the technical and commercial competitions. We are millennials aiming to make a real impact on a future technology that we want to implement right here in the UK and across the globe. We are united under one dream solution – a world where people and countries are more connected. Four years of hard work is starting to pay off and we’re still HypED! Footage taken aboard the SpaceX test vehicle, which accelerates the student pods up to speed. Find out more For the latest developments, visit the team's Facebook page. If you'd like to get in touch, email the team.
- Green tea - 1-2 teaspoons (grade "September") - Purified water - 300 milliliters (90 degrees) Unlike Chinese tea, whose leavesFry, September simply pass the steam for 15-20 seconds to prevent oxidation. After that, the leaves are given the desired shape, twisting them, and dried. The most popular form of this tea is "needles". Take 1-2 teaspoons of this tea, depending on how strong the tea you prefer, and place it in a dry ceramic teapot. Boil the purified water and allow it to cool to 90 degrees Celsius. Never pour tea with steep boiling water! Let the September brew for only 30-60 seconds, and immediately pour into a beautiful ceramic cup. That's how high-grade September looks. This tea can be brewed a little more water, but there should be a small break between brewing. If the September has stood for more than 2 hours, it's pointless to brew repeatedly.
The Injuries, Illnesses, and Fatalities program of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics provides annual information on the rate and number of work-related injuries, illnesses and fatal injuries. This year's report shows that the incidence rates of nonfatal injuries and illnesses declined across all private industry sectors between 2008 and 2010. This continues the downward trend seen since the bureau began collecting data in 2002. The preliminary data for fatal injuries shows a total of 4,547 work-related deaths. This figure comes from the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries program conducted by the BLS. Fatal events are most often attributed to one of four incidents: highway incidents, homicides, falls and being struck by an object. The number of fatal injuries, regardless of cause, was lower in 2010 than 2000. Workforce Management, December 2011, p. 14-15 Subscribe Now!
Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., Mon., Oct. 3, 2006 -- A first kiss, an exotic vacation, a sports team championship, a child's first words: all are memorable events. But when someone has amnesia, have the memories been completely purged from the brain or are they simply irretrievable? Is amnesia a defect in memory storage, or memory recovery? This has been a vexed question for more than 30 years. Most psychologists tended to support the retrieval-deficit explanation, while neuroscientists interested in how memories work at a molecular and cellular level backed the idea of storage-failure. This disconnect has limited both scientific and clinically relevant advances. But in a collection of articles published today by the journal Learning & Memory, leaders in the field of memory studies have thoughtfully reconsidered the enigma of amnesia, as well as the methodological and conceptual problems in its study. They point out how studies of amnesia have been important in forming our current understanding of how memory works, and they propose novel ways of experimentally evaluating the neurobiological basis of memory impairment. The resulting section, entitled "The Neurobiology of Amnesia," includes eight articles, all of which are available online today at www.learnmem.org. "Questions about the nature of amnesia are ultimately biological questions," explains Dr. Larry Squire, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, and one of the contributors to the special section. "But some of the best-known and most-often-cited evidence is founded on a behavioral-psychological level of analysis. What we really need to be asking is: 'In amnesia, what actually happens to the synaptic changes that carry the memory?'" "There is evidence that bears on that question," says Dr. Squire. In an experimental setting, animals can "recover" from amnesia under a variety of conditions, something that should be impossible if the memory was not initially stored. But the major challenge is to experimentally assess whether an animal has truly recovered a memory or simply re-learned a task. Because amnesia is rarely complete and there is often some residual performance ability, it can be argued by supporters of the storage-failure theory that any "recovery" from amnesia reflects new learning added onto the residual memory. The retrieval-failure theory cannot easily be attacked because one can argue that a memory remains inaccessible until the appropriate retrieval cues are provided. Dr. Karim Nader, Professor of Psychology at McGill University (Canada), is the guest editor of the Learning & Memory special amnesia section. "This compilation of articles brings many of the perspectives concerning the nature of amnesia side-by-side for consideration," he says. "We hope that it will inspire readers to think of new ways to bridge the different positions and levels of analyses, and that it will give new momentum to the search for answers to the fundamental nature of amnesia." ABOUT LEARNING & MEMORY: Learning & Memory (www.learnmem.org) is a leading international peer-reviewed research journal devoted to work in the neurosciences. Spanning genes to behavior, it publishes studies that incorporate a broad range of approaches for understanding the neurobiology of learning and memory in humans and other species. According to ISI's Journal Citation Reports, Learning & Memory is currently ranked in the top 15% of journals in the neuroscience field. ABOUT COLD SPRING HARBOR LABORATORY PRESS: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press is an internationally renowned publisher of books, journals, and electronic media located on Long Island, New York. It is a division of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, an innovator in life science research and the education of scientists, students, and the public. For more information, visit www.cshlpress.com. AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Shuffle and Swing Rhythms There are two varieties of eighth note rhythms musicians use: straight eighth notes and what are called shuffle eighth notes or swing eighth notes. It’s essential to know the difference and be comfortable playing either type of eighth note. What are Straight Eighth Notes? If you’ve studied the eighth note subdivision lesson, you’ve already learned to play straight 8th notes. Straight eighth notes are 8th notes which evenly divide each beat in half. Since they’re an even division, we call them “straight”. Unless you’re told to do otherwise, in most styles you are expected to play 8th notes straight. What is Shuffle Rhythm? Shuffle rhythm is a specific 8th note rhythmic feel. It is based on triplet subdivisions of the beat rather than on dividing each beat perfectly in half (a.k.a. straight 8th notes). It’s easiest to understand it by hearing it. It is a very familiar rhythmic feel that’s heard in rock, blues, and jazz. Listen to the examples on the exercises page for this lesson. Shuffle eighth notes alternate a long note and a short note. The long note falls on the beat and the short one in-between on the upbeat. You are essentially playing the eighth note triplet, but not playing the middle note of the triplet. You may think of the first two notes of the triplet as being tied together or, just missing the middle note of the triplet. What is Swing Rhythm? People will say swing rhythm is pretty much the same as shuffle rhythm. This is more or less true. And, in the beginning you may as well think that way. To me, I think of shuffle as rigidly based on the underlying triplet rhythm. Swing is similar, but open to more interpretation. If you listen to different jazz musicians, they all swing rhythms slightly differently. There's a lot of room for subtle variation. Most people will tell you swing cannot be accurately notated, only felt. In jazz you're always expected to swing 8th notes unless it is a Latin tune (i.e. Bossa Nova, Samba) where you use straight 8th notes. The swing rhythm is a defining element of jazz. Shuffle Rhythm Notation Most of the time if a song uses the shuffle feel it does it all throughout the song. To make it easier to read the notation the notes are written just like straight eighth notes appear. But, at the beginning of the music it will tell you to interpret the 8th notes as shuffle eighth notes. A common marking for shuffle 8th notes is a little equation written at the beginning expressing 2 eighth notes are to be played like a triplet with the first two notes tied. Or, the first two 8th notes of the triplet are written as a quarter note. (See Shuffle Markings diagram.) I'm sure you'll see why it is common practice to notate shuffle rhythms this way. In the Equivalent Shuffle Notation diagram the two rhythms are identical. By adding the shuffle marking at the beginning of the music we can avoid a busy mess of notes and end up with an easier-to-read line of music. It's also an easier way to think of these rhythms in your head. Another very common way of indicating shuffle or swing in music is by just writing "shuffle" or "swing" at the beginning of the music. It might say something like “Medium-Tempo Shuffle”, “Fast Rock Shuffle”, or "Up-Tempo Swing". How easy is that? Be sure to go over the exercises to get a good grasp of the sound of shuffle 8th note rhythms.
Dec 04, 2023 MUS 131 - Basic Integrated Theory I Description: Basic theory of music including part writing, ear training, sight singing, dictation and keyboard harmony. Review of musical notation, intervals, triads and scales. Part writing skills for root position, first and second inversion triads; sight singing and dictation skills through scale passages including intervals of 3rd and 4ths and simple beat divisions. Required of music majors. - The structure of tonality - Part writing of triads in root position: doubling and spacing - Part writing of triads in root position: voice leading - Part writing of triads in first and second inversions - Ear training: identifying and constructing intervals and triads - Tonal and rhythmic memory through dictation: notating rhythmic patterns and melodic passages - From sight to sound, the inner hearing of written music by sight singing melodies in major and minor keys - Categorize and list in order from tonic to leading tone the correct Roman numeral and write all the major, minor, augmented and diminished triads in any major or minor key. - Select the correct chords and illustrate on staff paper the proper doubling and spacing of each triad in a four-part choral. - Determine the correct interval number and quality and the correct triad quality; the interval and triad on staff paper. - Develop tonal and rhythmic memory and write simple and compound rhythmic patterns and short melodic passages. - Recite or sing from a printed manuscript a melody never before heard or sung.
The Southern Gas Corridor and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) project is a gas pipeline of about 878 km that crosses Greece (from the Turkish border) and Albania. It connects to the Italian gas network in Southern Italy and will transport up to 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year. TAP is part of the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) development, linking the Shah Deniz 2 gas field in Azerbaijan to Turkey and Europe. The corridor could also be used in the future to deliver gas from the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Eastern Mediterranean. A project of EU Common Interest The SGC is about to offer a new source of competitively priced gas for the European Union market, as well as increasing diversity and security of supply. This is necessary in an environment where the EU’s dependence on gas imports is growing, in particular in Central and South East Europe, a region over-dependent on a single supply of gas. It will have a particularly positive effect on security of supply for Greece and Bulgaria, assisting Greece in meeting the required N-1 security of supply criterion and breaking the monopoly of the current gas supplier to Bulgaria. The SGC is strongly supported by the EU. The SGC is included in the EU list of Projects of Common Interest (PCI) adopted by the European Commission in November 2017, as it is part of one of the priority corridors of the list. It is a cluster of infrastructure for the transport of a minimum 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year from the Caspian Region, crossing Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey and reaching EU markets. The strategic importance of the Southern Gas Corridor has been underscored in the European Energy Security and Energy Union Strategies. Its importance was reiterated in the Second Report on the State of the Energy Union. Gas and the EU’s Energy and Climate Objectives As EU countries undertake the long-term transition to a low-carbon economy, gas will continue to play a significant role in decarbonisation. As a relatively low-carbon fossil fuel that provides flexible power generation, gas can be used to complement renewable energy. Decarbonisation scenarios presented by authoritative bodies such as the International Energy Agency show that coal cannot be replaced fully by renewable energy in the near future. Thus gas is needed for the phasing out of coal and for the immediate reduction of carbon emissions, as well as to back up intermittent renewables. A majority of energy experts share this view. EU gas demand is projected to decline in the coming decades. Domestic gas resources, however, are projected to decline even faster. Accordingly, the EU is committed to secure energy supply through diversification projects, such as the SGC. Overall, the SGC should not have any direct effect on Climate Change, because it is an alternative source of gas and does not intend to cover any new demand. EIB’s decision to finance the project As part of the Southern Gas Corridor, the project will create a new European gas transmission corridor. This diversification of gas supply routes and sources will increase security of gas supply and reduce energy dependence. It is also classified as a Project of Common Interest. The EU regions in which the project is implemented are cohesion regions. The project is, therefore, eligible under Article 309 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (a) projects for developing less-developed regions and (c) common interest. The SGC will help Albania meet growing energy demand through gasification and, thus, diversify its energy mix. It is, therefore, in line with the objectives of financing economic infrastructure in the field of energy of the EIB’s External lending Mandate 2014-2020 for projects outside the EU, as approved in the Council Decision No. 466/2014/EU. The EIB presence ensures that the project will be in line with EIB environmental and social standards, and that all necessary assessments to substantiate this have been undertaken and are published on the Bank’s website The EIB’s financial contribution and facilitation of the project is high. The long-term funding provided by the EIB contributes favourably to the overall financing and economics of the project. TAP’s economic justification As with all the projects it finances, the EIB has assessed the economic justification of the project as part of its due diligence. The SGC is economically justified on the basis of its contribution to security of supply and by enabling a new source of cost-competitive natural gas. The EIB’s assessment of economic viability is based on comparing the costs and benefits of the whole corridor—from production in Azerbaijan to delivery in Italy. This assessment demonstrated that the corridor is economically viable under conservative assumptions. Importantly, natural gas consumers in the EU and Turkey will benefit from the cost competitiveness of the new gas supply. Further, the engagement of large European energy companies testifies to the project’s financial viability. Nine European companies have signed long-term agreements to buy gas from the Shah Deniz consortium that will be transported through the SGC. Finally, the infrastructure created could transport larger volumes of gas in the future—at a lower cost than during the initial phase—which would increase the economic benefits of the projects. Importance of the investment in the countries where SGC is implemented and in the EU TAP is one of the largest single capital-investment projects currently being undertaken in Europe and the largest in Greece. It is expected to contribute to economic recovery in Greece and the other countries through which the pipeline is to be built. Under competitive procurement procedures, a large share of equipment for the TAP project is sourced from European suppliers. In addition to Greek and Italian companies, German and French companies are supplying products to TAP such as steel pipes, turbo compressors and large-diameter valves. Leading European companies also provide their expertise (project management, onshore construction in mountainous conditions, offshore pipe-laying). EIB’s environmental and social assessment TAP has been subject to a thorough environmental and social assessment in line with the EIB’s Environmental and Social Standards. The EIB has registered a number of complaints from individuals and communities affected by the project in Italy, Greece and Albania. Any EIB financing remains conditional upon TAP being built and operated in line with the EIB Environmental and Social Standards. The EIB services have carefully reviewed and assessed the concerns raised by the complainants and have taken a number of actions to address these, in particular: The Bank has met with several complainants during appraisal missions to the project sites. Additional detailed review and analysis have been carried out by the Bank, with the support of independent, external technical, environmental and social experts advising the potential lenders, in particular on the issues brought to the Bank’s attention The EIB is engaged with the Promoter regarding improvements and/or additional measures that could be implemented, specifically on: - The health and safety concerns raised by the local population affected by the project; - Contractor management and engagement with local communities during construction; - As well as the Promoter’s meaningful and enhanced engagement with local communities opposing the project. All complaint letters have been acknowledged. Each one is being followed-up with substantive answers to each matter raised, with the aim of allaying concerns and, where it is possible, resolving the issues. In line with the EIB’s procedures and zero-tolerance policy against fraud and corruption, the project has been subject to an enhanced due diligence to address issues such as the potential presence of politically exposed persons. The Bank is committed to ensuring that its loans are used for the purposes intended and that its operations are free from any prohibited conduct (including, but not limited to, fraud, corruption, collusion, coercion, and money laundering and the financing of terrorism). The EIB Anti-Fraud Policy details the measures and mechanisms in place at the Bank to prevent and deter prohibited conduct in all EIB-financed operations and, where it does occur, to address it in a timely and expeditious manner. The EIB will ensure that the Borrower will comply with the relevant disclosure requirements under the relevant EU Transparency Directives. TAP and Azerbaijan While none of the components of the TAP project financed by the EIB are located in Azerbaijan, the EIB has taken into account the entire Corridor in its environmental and social due diligence, in line with the Bank’s Environmental and Social Principles and Standards. During the EIB appraisal of TAP, the European External Action Service has confirmed that despite its withdrawal from the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), Azerbaijan is developing, in line with EITI requirements, standards of transparent extractive revenue management and has confirmed that it “will continue to work in line with EITI principles of revenue transparency and disclose all information related to revenues received from the extractive industries to the full extent”. The EU has a policy of constructive dialogue and engagement with Azerbaijan, and maintains a continued policy dialogue on issues such as human rights and civil society organisations. The Southern Gas Corridor at present comprises the following components : i) the Shah Deniz gas field, ii) the South Caucasus Pipeline and its expansion through Azerbaijan and Georgia to Turkey, iii) the construction of TANAP through Turkey to Greece and iv) the construction of the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) through Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea to Southern Italy.
The geography of Georgia entails the physical and human geography of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Situated at the juncture of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the east by Azerbaijan. Georgia covers an area of 69,875 km². Georgia is located in the mountainous South Caucasus region of Eurasia, straddling Western Asia and Eastern Europe between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Georgia's northern border with Russia roughly runs along the crest of the Greater Caucasus mountain range – a commonly reckoned boundary between Europe and Asia. In Philip Johan von Strahlenberg's 1730 definition of Europe, which was used by the Russian Tsars and which first set the Urals as the eastern border of the continent, the continental border was drawn from the Kuma-Manych Depression to the Caspian Sea, thereby including all of Georgia (and the whole of the Caucasus) in Asia. Georgia's proximity to the bulk of Europe, combined with various cultural and political factors, has led increasingly to the inclusion of Georgia in Europe. Some sources place the country in that region; as well, Georgia has joined European organizations such as the Council of Europe, and is seeking membership in NATO and accession to the European Union. Despite its small area, Georgia has one of the most varied topographies of the former Soviet republics. Georgia lies mostly in the Caucasus Mountains, and its northern boundary is partly defined by the Greater Caucasus range. The Lesser Caucasus range, which runs parallel to the Turkish and Armenian borders, and the Surami and Imereti ranges, which connect the Greater Caucasus and the Lesser Caucasus, create natural barriers that are partly responsible for cultural and linguistic differences among regions. Because of their elevation and a poorly developed transportation infrastructure, many mountain villages are virtually isolated from the outside world during the winter. Earthquakes and landslides in mountainous areas present a significant threat to life and property. Among the most recent natural disasters were massive rock- and mudslides in Ajaria in 1989 that displaced thousands in southwestern Georgia, and two earthquakes in 1991 that destroyed several villages in northcentral Georgia and South Ossetia. Full article ▸
The success of all the management programs, public policies and businesses depends on the depth of the research conducted before the establishment of the entities and during the daily running of the entities. This indicates that in to facilitate growth and development in management, the people involved need to research critically on the different fields related to their institutions (Tharenou, Donohue & Cooper, 2007). Different organizations take initiatives to undertake small research programs in analyzing the different policies and market fluctuations related to their areas of jurisdiction. Managers of private and governmental institutions develop research programs to facilitate an information platform on decision making, analyze current policies, and predict the possibilities and effects of the future polices. It is essential to understand the concepts of conducting a management research. This assists different managers from varying managerial fields to evaluate, design, report and execute the research programs in their equivalent entities to facilitate development and growth. The design and methodology used in the conduction of efficient and reliable research is vast. Consequently, the managers should ensure that they keep up with the fluctuating business and management strategies (Scandura & Williams, 2000). The attainment of the actual profit and sealing of losses results from the conduction of the detailed research procedures and protocols. A raise in the management level and control leads to success and development. The education fraternity gives variations in the importance of conducting a research as a part of studying and in the work related levels. The choice of the research topic varies with individuals and their understanding on the expected outcome and reasons for conducting the research. The research topics in management are numerous and vary according to the existing levels of management. Consequently, the research topic needs to cater for the intended research questions. This shows that the topic should be broad to ease research procedures and ensure availability of the diverse information and data collection (Tharenou, Donohue & Cooper, 2007). Primary and Secondary research methods are the common and recommended methods of conducting a research. However, the research methods consist of various independent advantages and disadvantages. The primary research methods involve the collection of original information and data about a particular research question. The primary research method ensures that the targeted areas of research are addressed. The people undertaking the research have to guarantee that all the areas are critically addressed in order to produce the expected results. The data and information collected from the research is interpreted depending on the initial requirements and needs of the research managers. In addition, data and information collected from the primary research provides current statistics and findings. On the other hand, there are a number of disadvantages related to the conduction of the primary research. The research takes plenty of time before the achievement of the final research findings and conclusions. Secondly, the primary research involves high costs due to the individual data collection, design and compilation of the research findings (Scandura & Williams, 2000). The secondary research method involves the access of data and information from the readily available sources. Secondary research draws the findings and conclusions from different available primary findings and conclusions. Easy accessibility to information is one of the advantages related to the secondary research as a means of data collection. The information is derived from online sources, journals, books and other publications. The cost of conducting the secondary research is relatively low compared to the cost of the primary data collection. In addition, there exist various research platforms from different research practitioners. This gives variations in research and facilitates diversity in drawing conclusions and results of the study. On the other hand, there are various disadvantages aliened to the use of the secondary research method as a means of information and data collection. The quality of information gathered in data collection and gathering of information is usually compromised and low. The specification of the research is usually unattained through secondary use of gathering information and data collection (Easterby-Smith, Thorpe & Jackson, 2012). The research questions are not fully addressed since detailed research is not conducted. Management research should involve the use of both the primary and secondary research methods. This assists in the establishment of the original and relevant information through the primary research method. In addition, the information and data gathered gives the current analysis on the information and data addressed. Consequently, the secondary data facilitates ready and broad information on the research topic and questions (Gill & Johnson, 2010). The cost of conducting the research is relatively reduced and the research questions are adequately addressed in giving the final research findings and results. It is essential to understand the concepts of conducting the management research. This assists different managers from varying managerial fields to evaluate, design, report and execute the research programs in their equivalent entities to facilitate development and growth. This indicates that to facilitate growth and development in management, the people involved need to research critically on the different fields related to their institutions. The research topics in management are numerous and vary according to the existing levels of management. Consequently, the research topic needs to cater for the intended research questions. The data and information collected from the research is interpreted depending on the initial requirements and needs of the research managers. There are various employee management programs that exist in different organizations and institutions. The different levels of management in the oil and gas service station illustrate a feature of the existence of managerial positions as represented in different public and private institutions and organizations. The level of competition in the provision of oil and gas services increases with growth and development (Gill & Johnson, 2010). This shows that the management team of the oil and gas station should provide unique and affordable services to their clients to ensure customer’s maintenance and attraction. This shows that the managers’ role in the attraction and retention of customers is the creation of services and standards that overshadows competitors and willing investors in the same field. The use of research management falls hand in hand with the provision of ways to limit competition and attract customers. The research should cater for the different employee management strategies and the improvement of their interaction with other employees, the management and the customers. The research should indicate the provision of incentives and other employee benefits to ensure the retention of the employees and improvement of the working conditions. This assists in the establishment of the original and relevant information through the use of the primary research method. In addition, the information and data gathered gives the current analysis on the information and data addressed (Easterby-Smith, Thorpe & Jackson, 2012). Consequently, the secondary data facilitates the ready and broad information on the research topic and questions. The evaluation, design, report and execution of the research programs in their equivalent entities facilitate the development and growth of the oil service station and differentiate it from other stations. Easterby-Smith, M., Thorpe, R., & Jackson, P. (2012). Management Research. London: Sage. Gill, J., & Johnson, P. (2010). Research Methods for Managers. London: Sage. Scandura, T., & Williams, E. (2000). Research methodology in management: current practices, trends and implications for future research. Academy of Management Journal, 43(6), 1248-1264. Tharenou, P., Donohue, R., & Cooper, B. (2007). Management research methods. New York: Cambridge University Press.
May 5, 2010 Crude from the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill could eventually slosh ashore on Miami Beach or North Carolina’s barrier islands, if it connects with a powerful sea current, an oceanographer said on Tuesday. Robert Weisberg, a physical oceanographer at the University of South Florida, told a conference call the so-called Loop Current that sweeps around the Gulf was poised to connect with the spreading oil slick. Once “entrainment” occurs, he said, the oil would be pulled quickly south along Florida’s Gulf coast and out into the Florida Straits, between the United States and Cuba. “Exactly when the oil will enter the Loop Current at the surface is unknown but it appears to be imminent,” Weisberg said, referring to the prevailing current in the Gulf.
Unraveling the Mechanisms of CBD: A Comprehensive Guide Welcome to this comprehensive guide on CBD! In recent years, CBD has gained significant popularity as a natural remedy for a wide range of ailments. But have you ever wondered how CBD actually works? In this article, we'll dive deep into the mechanisms behind CBD's effectiveness and answer some frequently asked questions. What is CBD? CBD, short for cannabidiol, is one of the many compounds found in the cannabis plant. Unlike THC, another well-known compound in cannabis, CBD is non-psychoactive, which means it doesn't produce a “high” sensation. This makes CBD an attractive option for those seeking therapeutic benefits without the mind-altering effects. The Endocannabinoid System (ECS) To understand how CBD works, we must first introduce you to the endocannabinoid system, also known as ECS. The ECS plays a crucial role in maintaining homeostasis in our bodies, regulating various functions such as mood, sleep, pain, and immune response. It consists of endocannabinoids, receptors, and enzymes that work together to maintain balance. CBD and the ECS When CBD is ingested, it interacts with the ECS by influencing the activity of its receptors. CBD doesn't directly bind to cannabinoid receptors but rather stimulates the production of endocannabinoids, such as anandamide, and inhibits the enzymes that break them down. This results in increased levels of endocannabinoids in the body, which helps regulate various functions and brings about positive effects. CBD has shown promising anti-inflammatory properties. It interacts with specific receptors in the immune system, suppressing the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines and reducing inflammation. This makes CBD an attractive option for individuals suffering from conditions like arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, and multiple sclerosis. Many people turn to CBD for its potential pain-relieving effects. CBD influences pain perception by interacting with ECS receptors involved in pain modulation. It may reduce pain signals sent to the brain and help alleviate chronic pain associated with conditions like fibromyalgia, neuropathy, and migraines. Anxiety and Depression CBD has gained attention for its potential to alleviate symptoms of anxiety and depression. It interacts with ECS receptors responsible for regulating mood and reducing anxiety-like behaviors. While more research is needed, early studies suggest that CBD may help manage anxiety disorders and improve mood in certain individuals. Epilepsy and Seizures One of the most explored therapeutic applications of CBD is in the field of epilepsy and seizures. In fact, the FDA has approved a CBD-based medication, Epidiolex, for the treatment of certain epileptic syndromes. CBD influences neurotransmitter activity and may help reduce the frequency and severity of seizures in certain individuals. FAQs about CBD Q: Is CBD legal? - A: The legal status of CBD varies by country and region. In many places, CBD derived from hemp with low THC content is legal, while CBD derived from marijuana remains illegal. It's important to check your local laws and regulations. Q: Does CBD have any side effects? - A: CBD is generally well-tolerated, with few side effects. However, some people may experience drowsiness, dry mouth, diarrhea, or changes in appetite. It's always advisable to start with a low dosage and consult with a healthcare professional. Q: Can I overdose on CBD? - A: CBD is considered safe and non-toxic, with no known lethal dose. However, extremely high doses may result in minor side effects. It's recommended to follow the dosage instructions and consult with a healthcare professional if you have any concerns. Q: Can CBD interact with other medications? - A: CBD can interact with certain medications, as it affects enzymes involved in drug metabolism. It's crucial to consult with your healthcare provider if you're taking any medications to avoid potential interactions. Overall, CBD holds immense potential as a natural remedy for various health conditions. While more research is needed, the mechanisms discussed in this guide shed light on how CBD interacts with our bodies and brings about therapeutic effects. As always, it's essential to consult with a healthcare professional before incorporating CBD into your wellness routine.
Definition of Landslide injury Landslide injury: Injury from a landslide or mudslide. A landslide is when masses of rock, earth, or debris move down a slope. Debris flows, also known as mudslides, are a common type of fast-moving landslide that tends to flow in channels. The health hazards associated with landslides and mudflows include: Landslides are caused by disturbances in the natural stability of a slope. They can accompany heavy rains or follow droughts, earthquakes, or volcanic eruptions. Mudslides develop when water rapidly accumulates in the ground and results in a surge of water-saturated rock, earth, and debris. Mudslides usually start on steep slopes and can be activated by natural disasters. Areas where wildfires or human modification of the land have destroyed vegetation on slopes are particularly vulnerable to landslides during and after heavy rains. Last Editorial Review: 6/14/2012 Back to MedTerms online medical dictionary A-Z List Need help identifying pills and medications?
Thursday, July 10, 2008 July 11 marks World Population Day, an annual event that this year emphasises the rights of individuals and couples to plan their own families. Currently, 500 million women in the developing world are using some form of family planning, thereby preventing - 187 million unintended pregnancies - 60 million unplanned births - 105 million induced abortions - 2.7 million infant deaths - 215,000 maternal deaths - 685,000 children from losing their mothers due to pregnancy-related deaths each year. However, another 200 million women throughout the developing world who would like to delay or limit their births lack access to contraceptives. Providing these women with the services they need would prevent an additional 52 million unintended pregnancies and 23 million unplanned births each year. Preventing pregnancies that are unintended and births that are unplanned means: 1.Improving maternal health and child survival. Helping women avoid becoming pregnant too early, too late or too often benefits them and their children. Meeting the unmet need for contraceptives would further reduce global rates of maternal mortality by 35%, and a three-year interval between births in developing countries would further lower rates of infant mortality by 24% and rates of child mortality by 35%. 2. Reducing the number of abortions overall, especially unsafe abortion. Closing the gap in the unmet need for contraceptives would further reduce the number of abortions worldwide by 64% each year. More than half of all abortions occurring in developing countries are unsafe, and fewer unsafe abortions would lead to fewer maternal deaths and injuries. 3. Preventing sexually transmissible infections (STIs), including HIV/AIDS. Improved access to condoms, both male and female, reduces the rate at which STIs, including HIV, are spread. Moreover, to the extent that HIV-positive women are better able to prevent unplanned pregnancies and births, they are also helping to reduce the rate of new HIV infections. 4. Empowering women. Women who can control the number and timing of their children can take better advantage of educational and economic opportunities, improving their own future and that of their families. 5. Promoting social and economic development and security. High population growth hampers poor countries&' economic development as their expanding populations compete for limited resources such as food, housing, schools and jobs. Rapid and unsustainable population growth renders societies more unstable and can lead to greater civil unrest. 6. Protecting the environment. Since so many women worldwide want fewer children than their mothers did, increasing their access to voluntary family planning services will further slow population growth rates. Rapidly growing population exacerbates environmental degradation and strains the world's resources. (With thanks to the Guttmacher Institute for this information). Family Planning has clinics located throughout New Zealand. Use the clinic finder to find your nearest clinic.