text stringlengths 247 520k | nemo_id stringlengths 29 29 |
|---|---|
5 Steps to Help Students Connect with Real Audiences
1 comment(s) so far...
March 27, 2012 By: Lisa Nielsen
In my work to support innovative learning in schools, I often find young people, given the opportunity to use technology and the web, are doing great work and are excited about publishing their work for the world to see. Unfortunately, that’s where it falls short. Somehow, the important lesson of audience is absent from most classrooms. If we’re not supporting students in reaching real audiences, we as educators are missing an important piece of the puzzle when it comes to supporting learners. In fact, the reality is audience should be a forethought...not an afterthought.
Sometimes when I bring this up in school an educator will proudly explain how student work is published on YouTube or SchoolTube and posted on the classroom or school website. While that is indeed one audience, it is not the authentic audience I’m referring to or Angela Maiers means when we talk about doing work that is worthy of the world (see section B).
For example, at a recent school visit students were excited about creating PSAs about issues they were passionate about. They were especially excited because what they created could impact others to learn more about the issue. When I asked how “others” will find the video, they, and their teachers, are usually at a loss. While we’re doing innovative work, the traditional method of doing work for the teacher or class still prevails. There is little thought to reaching the those who share an interest in these topics. To change that simply follow these five steps.
5 steps to connecting with real audiences
- Start with a basic Google search to see who is writing about your topic. Do any organizations support the cause?
- Do a search on wikipedia and see who supports the cause in the footnotes.
- Search the topic on Technorati to see who is blogging about your topic.
- Write to each organization. Let them know what you are doing. Ask them for their feedback as far as what type of product might benefit their work. Include things such as content, length, suggested research, credits, etc.
- Reach out to those who are blogging about your topic. Let them know what you are up to and ask them if they may want to feature it.
- Once you create the outline or storyboard for your work, share it with the interested organizations. Get feedback for your final piece.
- As you move to the review, revise, and edit stage, send your work to the organization for feedback.
- Invite the organization to publish your work.
- Share the work on your local sites as well i.e. class, school, project website, with a link to the organization’s page.
- Share the message far and wide using social media like Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. When using Twitter do a search for the cause so you can include relevant hashtags.
This missing piece to learning can be addressed by taking these five steps. When educators do not support youth in finding their audience, they are robbing them of doing the meaningful work that is essential for success.
Lisa Nielsen writes for and speaks to audiences across the globe about learning innovatively and is frequently covered by local and national media for her views on “Passion (not data) Driven Learning,” "Thinking Outside the Ban" to harness the power of technology for learning, and using the power of social media to provide a voice to educators and students. Ms. Nielsen has worked for more than a decade in various capacities to support learning in real and innovative ways that will prepare students for success. In addition to her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator, Ms. Nielsen’s writing is featured in places such as Huffington Post, Tech & Learning, ISTE Connects, ASCD Wholechild, MindShift, Leading & Learning, The Unplugged Mom, and is the author the book Teaching Generation Text.
Disclaimer: The information shared here is strictly that of the author and does not reflect the opinions or endorsement of her employer. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37149000 |
U.S. security interests also dictate that the United States consider Chinese reactions to its missile defense plans. Although not a party to the ABM Treaty, China bases its nuclear planning in part on the treaty and has historically been concerned about U.S. and Soviet missile defense programs. China is believed to have several hundred nuclear weapons but perhaps only about two dozen are able to reach the United States. Even a limited national missile defense system, therefore, could undermine or negate the Chinese deterrent.
China has expressed concern about high-altitude theater defenses too. Sha Zukang, China’s ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament, noted in a statement to the U.N. General Assembly last October that such systems will “possess the capability to intercept strategic missiles” and that their development thus would dampen China’s “enthusiasm to participate in the global process of arms control and disarmament.” Moreover, U.S. deployment of high-altitude theater defenses would open the door for Russia to do the same. Such a move could threaten the bulk of China’s missile force, which have ranges of less than 3,500 kilometers and constitute the backbone of its deterrent against Russia.
China also worries about possible transfers of U.S. theater defenses to neighboring countries and U.S. deployment of sea-based systems in the region. The United States has tried to enlist Japan as a partner to help fund development of THAAD. China views Japan as a latent nuclear power, and given the historical enmity between the two countries, is uncomfortable with the prospect of a potential combination of Japanese nuclear weapons and missile defenses. Japan has recently all but opted out of the THAAD project, however, partly because the cost is too high and partly to minimize tensions with China.
China is also upset by U.S. plans to sell Patriot defenses to Taiwan in response to the intimidating missile tests China conducted off Taiwan’s coast prior to Taiwan’s elections last year. Because these are only low-altitude defenses, however, such a sale is unlikely to affect China’s nuclear or arms-control policies.
Given its concerns, China could react to U.S. missile defenses in a number of ways that could reduce U.S. security and hinder further efforts to control and eliminate the world’s nuclear arsenals. To preserve its nuclear deterrent, China, like Russia, could build up its nuclear forces or adopt a launch-on-warning posture. China could also decide to keep open the option of building up by refusing constraints on fissile material production. The United States is seeking an international treaty prohibiting further production of fissile material for nuclear weapons, partly as a way to place some controls on the nuclear-weapon programs of the undeclared nuclear states-India, Israel, and Pakistan. China’s agreement to this treaty is essential, both because of its own nuclear arsenal and because its participation will be needed to gain that of India and, in turn, Pakistan.
If and when the United States and Russia continue to cut their deployed nuclear weapons to roughly the numbers held by the smaller nuclear powers-China, Britain, and France-it will become necessary to include these countries in negotiating deeper cuts. But in response to U.S. defenses, China could hamstring this process by refusing to accept limits on its deployed arsenal.
Finally, because both Russia and China are potential suppliers of nuclear and missile technologies to other countries, their participation in international nonproliferation efforts is crucial. But the ill will that missile defense deployments could cause may make both Russia and China less willing to cooperate with the West on restricting transfers of sensitive technology to other countries, or to participate in other nonproliferation initiatives.
Thus the overall result of U.S. deployment of national missile defenses and high-altitude theater defenses could well be that nuclear reductions and other irreversibility measures grind to a halt and that the United States and Russia become locked in at high levels of deployed weapons, while retaining their ability to rapidly build more. The other nuclear weapon states would then refuse to become involved in nuclear arms reductions. Creating such barriers to deep nuclear reductions and disarmament, which the nuclear weapon states are obligated to pursue under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), would become increasingly unacceptable to the 180 non-nuclear-weapon state members of the NPT. Over time, this discontent could weaken the international nonproliferation regime.
These potential costs to U.S. security might be worth risking if the missile threat were greater and defenses were a more effective means of countering this threat. But this is not the case. There is no missile threat from developing countries that justifies national missile defenses, and there may never be. There are more effective means of addressing the problem of accidental and unauthorized launches from Russia and China. No long-range theater missiles justify deployment of high-altitude theater defenses; low-altitude defenses will provide most if not all of the realizable benefits of defenses against existing and likely future theater missiles, and without the attendant security costs.
The desire to defend the United States, its troops, and allies against all threats is understandable. But U.S. policymakers must weigh both the costs and benefits of deploying missile defenses. U.S. security-and indeed international security-will best be served if the United States forgoes national missile defenses and high-altitude theater defenses.n | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37152000 |
Basically, you can take the same approach as for teaching groups. You decide your objective for the lesson and plan how you will achieve it. Remember to have a variety of exercises. The same procedures apply of presenting language and practising it as well as error correction.The only difference will be the lack of group work; for any pairwok, you will need to participate. You’ll find yourself doing more of the work in a one-to-one lesson but as you get to know your student and build up rapport, this will balance out.
For the first lesson, you can get to know your student. Find out about his / her job and the reasons for learning English. Find out in what situations (s)he will use English (speaking, writing, reading). This will help you plan subsequent lessons. If the student has done a placement test to define his / her level, you can go over the test in the first lesson. If no test has been done, I suggest you do one to determine the level. Your school should have one available. However, do the test orally; it’s not a good idea to have the student writing away silently in the first lesson.
Finally, consider the seating from the beginning. Sit around a table with your student; sit close to him / her (not too close obviously!!). I say this because I once saw a one-to-one lesson with the teacher at the board and the student sitting at the back of the classroom.
Once you have met your student, you’ll have a better idea of needs and level. Feel free to write in at that point for more ideas. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37153000 |
elduce wrote:1. I don't understand 'futurum'. 'To be' can work actively but passively it doesn't make sense. What of the future active participle? is futururum correct?
is the future participle actually. In this textbook, if a verb is intransitive but still has a future participle, then the future participle is given instead of the perfect passive participle as with other verbs. There are a couple other verbs in Wheelock's that have the future participle listed as the 4th principal part, such as fugio, fugere, fugi, fugiturum
; you will know it is the future participle by the -ur- before the ending. The supine stem (4th principal part minus the -um/-us ending) always ends in T or S, so if it ends in R you should already know something is up.
multus, -a, -um
2. How does the comparative for more, many, most work? Always use the Genitive in these instances? Thanks.
plus, gen. pluris
plurimus, -a, -um
With the comparative, plus
, you use the partitive genitive to say "more (of) ____", or "very many (of) ____" if you prefer. This is because the form plus
is really more a neuter noun or substantive adjective, like satis
, etc. You will rarely see plus
in the singular in any cases other than the nominative and accusative (which are indentical), and the dative singular does not exist in classical Latin. The genitive and rarely ablative are mostly restricted to expressions of value (unfortunately not covered in Wheelock's), e.g. ager multo pluris est
"the farm is of much more (worth)".
In the plural, plures, plura
, you just use it like a regular adjective without the partitive genitive.
flebile nescio quid queritur lyra, flebile lingua murmurat exanimis, respondent flebile ripae | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37158000 |
Exploring the field of cancer genomics can give a researcher without a sturdy footing in bioinformatics a bad case of information overload. But the potential payoff is high. Cancer researchers have been amassing data on small mutations, copy number variations, epigenetic changes, expression level differences, and clinical features for a number of cancer types since long before the first whole cancer genome sequence (of an acute myeloid leukemia) was completed in 2008. That means researchers diving into the fray today will have more—and higher quality—information at their fingertips than ever before. Yet navigating it won’t be easy, says William Hahn, an associate professor of medicine who studies a number of cancers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. “It’s a huge challenge to know what’s out there and how to use it.”
Much of the available genomic data comes from a handful of large international collaborations. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), a project of the National Cancer Institute and the National Human Genome Research Institute, oversees the generation of genomic data from quality-controlled samples, most of which have been analyzed using multiple platforms. The UK Cancer Genome Project houses a data collection called COSMIC, the single most comprehensive catalog of somatic mutations in the world. Casting an even wider net, the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) is a one-stop-shopping portal through which you can access data from its 12 member countries, as well as from the TCGA and COSMIC databases.
Once you’ve got the data, the trick is to know what they can and cannot tell you, says Hahn. But whatever type of data you search for, he cautions, your in silico analyses should be considered hypothesis-generating. At the end of the day, you have to go back to the lab or into the clinic to validate them.
The Scientist surveyed freely available data, visualization, and analysis portals for cancer genome information to bring you a start-up guide for integrating the approach into your work.
Is my favorite gene mutated in cancer?
A good starting point is to check for known mutations and other aberrations in your gene of interest. The ICGC Data Portal offers several search routes. Enter a gene name, NCBI accession number, or Ensembl gene ID in the Gene Search field, click through to the Gene Report, and under Mutation Summary you’ll find the mutations and copy number changes detected and their frequency in the tumors analyzed to date. The COSMICsection just below lists somatic mutations, including point mutations, small deletions, and insertions, from the COSMIC database.
Another tack is to look for all the affected genes in a tumor type. In the ICGC Data Portal, you can accomplish this by clicking Genes under Database Search, and from there, selecting the type of cancer you’re interested in as well as optional sub-parameters such as the pathway you’d like to explore. Alternatively, in the TCGA’s Data Portal, you can select Bulk Download from the Download Data menu and retrieve information on somatic mutations, or other data types such as copy number, DNA methylation, and gene expression, for a number of tumor types.
Both ICGC and TCGA data are publicly available, but note that they have already been processed: sequences have been confirmed by various techniques, and patient-identifying information, such as the presence of germline SNPs, has been removed. “By and large, the processed data is our best attempt to provide information that is accurate and has few false positives,” says Lincoln Stein, director of informatics and biocomputing at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research in Toronto. Researchers can request access to raw data through ICGC’s Data Access Compliance Office if they would like to know the germline SNPs, which could be relevant in studies of cancer risk and cancer drug response.
Also, consider supplementing your ICGC search with an exploration of data sets from other centers, including TCGA’s Data Portal. ICGC only updates the database every few months, whereas TCGA updates as new data become available. What’s more, ICGC does not store TCGA’s raw data—to access it, submit a Data Access Request form to TCGA.
Are the mutations in my favorite gene “drivers” in this tumor type?
Finding a gene mutation in tumor samples is just the beginning. The next step is differentiating the drivers that actually contribute to the cancer phenotype from the passenger mutations that many cancers pick up pell-mell because of their genomic instability.
The frequency of the mutation can provide some clues. “If it’s mutated in 5 or 8 or 10 percent [or more] of cancers, then you say it’s probably important,” Hahn says. It’s harder to judge for less frequently mutated genes, which can still be important to the biology and progression of tumors, he explains, adding that data from rare mutations may not be reliable if your gene has only been sequenced in a few samples. ICGC’s Mutation Summary is one source of mutation frequency data. Another option is the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center’s (MSKCC) cBio Cancer Genomics Portal, a user-friendly site for working with data from TCGA and other data sets. You can query this portal by entering the name of one or more genes. The output is a list of cancer studies of different tumor types; click on a study, and then on View Cancer Study Details, to call up a graphic—referred to as an “oncoprint”—that represents the frequency of genomic alterations.
You can also predict the functional impact (high, medium, low, or neutral) of missense mutations using a tool within MSKCC’s portal called MutationAssessor. Like other methods, MutationAssessor looks at conservation across all the homologs of a protein, but, unlike others, it also takes into account the conservation within just the closest homologs, which is called “specificity.” This gives the tool an advantage in predicting mutations that have a functional impact, particularly those that lead to a change in function rather than a loss or gain of function, says Boris Reva, who developed the tool with colleagues at MSKCC.
If you are in View Cancer Study Details in the MSKCC portal, clicking the Mutations tab takes you to a table with a column labeled Predicted Impact. Clicking on items in this column opens an output table summarizing information about the gene mutation you’re looking at. To see how well conserved the mutated amino acid residue is, click on MSA (multiple sequence alignment) for a sequence alignment with the conservation and specificity score above each amino acid. Alternatively, because MutationAsssessor is also a stand-alone tool, you can enter your mutation of interest in the text box on its site to obtain a similar output table.
What are the genes and pathways that are associated with a tumor type?
Many cancer researchers are looking beyond individual genes to map gene networks. One way to do this is with Regulome Explorer, a set of tools developed by the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, Washington, and MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas in Houston that provides a wide-ranging view of connections between mutations, expression level changes, and clinical outcomes. The tool is currently loaded with three TCGA data sets, with plans to add more in the next 6 months. To explore networks in which a gene might be involved, select the first tool on the portal page, All Pairs Significance Tests, which looks for pairwise associations. The new window that opens shows a graphical representation of a breast cancer data set, but you can load one of the others by going to the Data menu and clicking Select. In the dialog box on the right, enter your gene of interest in the Label field under Feature 1. Under Feature 2, choose the type of genomic change and the gene for which you want to find associations, then click Filter. Or, you can leave both boxes in Feature 2blank, and view all the genomic associations; mousing over a line tells you the change associated with your gene of interest.
You can do the same analysis of data with a different list of cancer types in MSKCC’s cBio Portal. Just enter your gene—say, Trim2—in the gray field, as before, and click Submit. After you select the tumor type and click View Cancer Study Details, you can review the network of known gene interactions and pathways involving the gene under the Network tab. You can mouse over a gene, represented as a node, to see a color-coded wheel summarizing its mutation, expression, and copy number status. (The color for each alteration is under the Legend tab.)
Of course, many gene networks are unknown. A tool called Dendrix predicts whether genes share a pathway by using an algorithm that searches for genes mutated in a mutually exclusive pattern. To run Dendrix, upload two text files to a server at ccmbweb.ccv.brown.edu/dendrix—one listing all the genes mutated in samples of a particular tumor type (for example, a TCGA data set), and the other listing just the genes you want to analyze. Leave out genes mutated at very high frequency, which skew the results, says Fabio Vandin, a bioinformatician who developed Dendrix with colleagues at Brown University. The completed analysis will be e-mailed to you, usually within a day, as a text file readable via a platform called Cytoscape.
What are the clinical associations with genomic changes?
“When you submit to journals these days, there’s quite a good chance the referees will say, ‘What does this gene mutation do in the clinic to patients?’” says Markus Bredel of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who studies gene mutations that correlate with short survival times for patients with glioblastoma.
Several university-operated visualization tools can address this question. Oncoprints at MSKCC cBio Portal show survival curves associated with genomic alterations in the Survival tab. Alternatively, the University of California Santa Cruz Cancer Genomics Browser lets you probe associations between an array of clinical parameters and genomic data for many data sets. Click on Cancer Genomics Browser at the top of the menu on the left to be directed to the list of data sets. After choosing a data set, click on the Heatmap box in the tab that appears on the right to view genomic and clinical heat maps. You can explore associations between a clinical feature and genomic changes by clicking the Features button above the clinical heat map. This opens a window in which you can create two patient groups based on various differences, say, in age at diagnosis. Select Student’s T-test from the Statistic drop-down menu and hit Generate Statistics to view all the statistically significant genomic differences between the groups: red bars and green bars indicate that genomic variation is more likely in group 1 or group 2, respectively. You can zoom in to get genomic data from individual samples, which are arranged vertically above the corresponding chromosomal position, says Jing Zhu, who manages the UCSC Cancer Genomics Browser. She encourages researchers who want more information about these clinical parameters to contact her team at firstname.lastname@example.org. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37161000 |
Scotland and Wales are countries, and their parliament and assembly are acknowledgement of that fact. Northern Ireland is also recognised as a political and constitutional entity within the United Kingdom (UK) with its own assembly. For reasons not adequately explained, England is denied recognition as a country or as a political and constitutional entity and the people of England are denied the right to express their will through their own parliament.
The people of England have the same right to a parliament as do the people of Scotland, and they should be equally free to determine their own system of local and regional government. Devolution for England should start with an English Parliament.
The aim of the Campaign for an English Parliament (CEP) is to put the issue of a separately elected English Parliament, with its own Executive, on the political agenda.
The CEP’s strategy is to assemble the most powerful coalition of expert and public opinion possible with a view to securing an English referendum on the question of establishing a Parliament and Executive.
An English Parliament will represent all those for whom England is their chosen or inherited home and who are legally entitled to vote. Read the full policy statement
Ultimately, an English Parliament cannot come about without the co-operation and agreement of the House of Commons. The CEP’s role is working with academics, business groups, trades unions, think tanks and the media to create the conditions where MPs see that there is no alternative to holding a referendum.
We need an English Parliament
- so that England can be recognised politically and constitutionally
- to rebalance the Union!
- to ensure the future existence of England
- to ensure an equal voice in Westminster
- to ensure an equal voice internationally
- to ensure all citizens of the UK have equal representation and enfranchisement
- to represent us when laws are imposed upon us
- to ensure the accountability of MPs
- to assure equality of funding
- to assure equitable taxation
- to allow us to control our own assets
- to deliver government for England that is appropriate for England and of equal value to that of the rest of the UK
- to support and protect English culture
- to prevent the submersion of England into Britain and to separate an English identity from a British identity
- to prevent conflict and to discourage discrimination on the grounds of nationhood.
- because the people of England want it
- because other proposals for England’s future do not answer all the questions arising from the current imbalance. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37170000 |
Joplin, Mo., was prepared. The tornado warning system gave residents 24 minutes’ notice that a twister was bearing down on them. Doctors and nurses at St. John’s Regional Medical Center, who had practiced tornado drills for years, moved fast, getting patients away from windows, closing blinds, and activating emergency generators. And yet more than 130 people died in Joplin, including four people at St. John’s, where the tornado sucked up the roof and left the building in ruins, like much of the shattered city.
Even those who deny the existence of global climate change are having trouble dismissing the evidence of the last year. In the U.S. alone, nearly 1,000 tornadoes have ripped across the heartland, killing more than 500 people and inflicting $9 billion in damage. The Midwest suffered the wettest April in 116 years, forcing the Mississippi to flood thousands of square miles, even as drought-plagued Texas suffered the driest month in a century. Worldwide, the litany of weather’s extremes has reached biblical proportions. The 2010 heat wave in Russia killed an estimated 15,000 people. Floods in Australia and Pakistan killed 2,000 and left large swaths of each country under water. A months-long drought in China has devastated millions of acres of farmland. And the temperature keeps rising: 2010 was the hottest year on earth since weather records began.
From these and other extreme-weather events, one lesson is sinking in with terrifying certainty. The stable climate of the last 12,000 years is gone. Which means you haven’t seen anything yet. And we are not prepared.
Picture California a few decades from now, a place so hot and arid the state’s trademark orange and lemon trees have been replaced with olive trees that can handle the new climate. Alternating floods and droughts have made it impossible for the reservoirs to capture enough drinking water. The picturesque Highway 1, sections of which are already periodically being washed out by storm surges and mudslides, will have to be rerouted inland, possibly through a mountain. These aren’t scenes from another deadly-weather thriller like The Day After Tomorrow. They’re all changes that California officials believe they need to brace for within the next decade or two. And they aren’t alone. Across the U.S., it’s just beginning to dawn on civic leaders that they’ll need to help their communities brave coming dangers brought by climate change, from disappearing islands in Chesapeake Bay to dust bowls in the Plains and horrific hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. Yet only 14 states are even planning, let alone implementing, climate-change adaptation plans, says Terri Cruce, a climate consultant in California. The other 36 apparently are hoping for a miracle.
The game of catch-up will have to happen quickly because so much time was lost to inaction. “The Bush administration was a disaster, but the Obama administration has accomplished next to nothing either, in part because a significant part of the Democratic Party is inclined to balk on this issue as well,” says economist Jeffrey Sachs, head of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. “We [are] past the tipping point.” The idea of adapting to climate change was once a taboo subject. Scientists and activists feared that focusing on coping would diminish efforts to reduce carbon emissions. On the opposite side of the divide, climate-change deniers argued that since global warming is a “hoax,” there was no need to figure out how to adapt. “Climate-change adaptation was a nonstarter,” says Vicki Arroyo, executive director of the Georgetown Climate Center. “If you wanted to talk about that, you would have had to talk about climate change itself, which the Bush administration didn’t want to do.” In fact, President Bush killed what author Mark Hertsgaard in his 2011 book, Hot, calls “a key adaptation tool,” the National Climate Assessment, an analysis of the vulnerabilities in regions of the U.S. and ideas for coping with them. The legacy of that: state efforts are spotty and local action is practically nonexistent. “There are no true adaptation experts in the federal government, let alone states or cities,” says Arroyo. “They’ve just been commandeered from other departments.”
The rookies will struggle to comprehend the complex impacts of climate change. The burning of fossil fuels has raised atmospheric levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide by 40 percent above what they were before the Industrial Revolution. The added heat in the atmosphere retains more moisture, ratchets up the energy in the system, and incites more violent and extreme weather. Scientists disagree about whether climate change will bring more intense or frequent tornadoes, but there is wide consensus that the 2 degrees Fahrenheit of global warming of the last century is behind the rise in sea levels, more intense hurricanes, more heat waves, and more droughts and deluges. Even if the world went carbon-neutral tomorrow, we’d be in for more: because of the CO2 that has already been emitted, we’re on track for another 5 degrees of warming. Batten down the hatches. “You can no longer say that the climate of the future is going to be like the climate of today, let alone yesterday,” says Judi Greenwald, vice president of innovative solutions at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. “In all of the plausible climate scenarios, we are going to have to change the way we do things in ways we can’t even predict.”
Changing temperatures will have a profound effect on the plants and animals among us. Crops that flourished in the old climate regime will have to adapt to the new one, as some pests are already doing. Tropical diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, and yellow fever are reaching temperate regions, and ragweed and poison ivy thrive in the hothouse world. Yet most of us are naive about what climate-change adaptation will entail. At the benign extreme, “adapting” sounds as easy as home gardeners adjusting to their new climate zones—those colorful bands on the back of the package of zinnia seeds. It sounds as pleasant as cities planting more trees, as Chicago, New York, Boston, and scores of others are doing (with species native to the warmer climes: Chicago is subbing heat-loving sweet gum and swamp oak for the traditional white oak). And it sounds as architecturally interesting as changing roofs: New York, which is looking at an average temperature increase of up to 3 degrees Fahrenheit by 2020, is planning to paint 3 million square feet of roofs white, to reflect sunlight and thus reduce urban heat-island effects.
But those steps don’t even hint at how disruptive and expensive climate-change adaptation will be. “Ten years ago, when we thought climate change would be slow and linear, you could get away with thinking that ‘adaptation’ meant putting in permeable pavement” so that storm water would be absorbed rather than cause floods, says Bill McKibben, author of the 2010 book Eaarth. “Now it’s clear that’s not going to be at all sufficient, as we see already with disruptions in our ability to grow food, an increase in storms, and the accelerated melting of Greenland that could raise sea levels six feet. Adaptation is going to have to be a lot more than changing which trees cities plant.”
As tomorrow’s climate wreaks havoc on agriculture—this spring’s deluges have already kept farmers from getting tractors into fields to plant corn—McKibben foresees tens of thousands more Americans having to work on farms, since human hands can do what machines cannot, like planting seeds in flooded fields. Until now, maximizing yield has been the agricultural imperative, but in the future, stability and resilience will be more important. In much of the Northeast, farmers will be unable to grow popular varieties of apples, blueberries, and cranberries, for instance; in Vermont, maple sugaring will likely go the way of ox-drawn plows.
States and cities will have to make huge investments in infrastructure to handle the encroaching sea and raging rivers. Keene, N.H., for instance, has been a pioneer in climate-change adaptation, says Missy Stults, climate director of ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability USA. The city recently enlarged culverts along its highways so storm runoff would be less likely to wash out roads. In the San Francisco Bay area, planners are considering increasing the height of the seawall on the city’s waterfront and the levees at the San Francisco and Oakland airports. In Ventura, Calif., construction crews moved Surfer’s Point 65 feet inland, the state’s first experiment in “managed retreat.” Because warmer air provides less lift, airport runways the world over will have to be lengthened in order for planes to take off.
In Norfolk, Va., where the combination of global sea-level rise and local-land subsidence has brought water levels 13.5 inches higher since 1930, the city has fought a battle to stay ahead of the tide by elevating one often-flooded roadway by 18 inches. But the neighborhood may have to be abandoned—and residents may not be much happier in neighboring parts of Maryland. An expected sea-level rise there of twice the global average means that 371 miles of highway are at risk of looking more like canals, while 2,500 historic and archeological sites could become real-life versions of Atlantis. Thousands of septic systems—5,200 in a single county near Chesapeake Bay—are in flood zones, says Zoe Johnson, who directs the climate-change adaptation program at the Department of Natural Resources.
Already, 13 islands in the bay are submerged, 400,000 acres on the eastern shore are on the way to joining them, and 580 acres of shoreline are lost every year as intense storms erode beaches and wetlands. Homeowners can no longer automatically get a permit to “harden” their beaches by erecting bulkheads and sea walls; they must instead plant vegetation, which may not do the trick. “It’s inevitable that some of our low-lying communities will need to be relocated or abandoned,” says Johnson.
Maryland is not the only place that will have to decide which communities it can afford to protect and which will have to be sacrificed. Environmental scientist Thomas Wilbanks of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, who chaired a 2011 panel of the National Research Council on adapting to climate change, says: “We’ll identify places with iconic value and protect them whatever the cost, even if that means Miami and New Orleans become islands” as surrounding communities are sacrificed. Given that Manhattan is already an island, architects asked to imagine its future have gone a step further: designing Venice-like canals for the southern tip.
In Alaska, six indigenous villages on the coast, including Newtok and Shishmaref, are likely to get swamped as seas rise and storm surges intensify, says Gary Kofinas of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. They also sit on permafrost, which isn’t “perma” anymore. As the ground melts beneath the villages, the state is figuring out how and where to relocate them. Around the world, nearly 1 billion people live in low-lying river deltas, from Guangzhou to New Orleans, that will be reclaimed by the sea, forcing tens of millions of people to migrate. It threatens to be a trail of human misery that will make the exodus after Hurricane Katrina look like a weekend getaway.
The U.S. could take some advice from other countries like the Netherlands, which has more than a little experience keeping the ocean at bay. The Dutch seem to understand just how radically different life will be. As part of a 200-year plan, the country has launched a €1.5 billion project to broaden river channels so they aren’t overwhelmed as a result of the higher flows, says Pier Vellinga, professor of climate change at Wageningen University. Rotterdam raised by two feet a storm gate at the port that holds back the (rising) North Sea, and elevated the ground the new 1,700-acre port sits on by a foot and a half to keep it from being submerged, all at a cost of some €50 million. The country is also adding millions of cubic yards of sand to dunes that hold back the North Sea. All told, it will soon be spending some €4 billion a year to cope with what’s coming down the pike. Britain, too, is taking adaptation seriously, planning to raise the height of the floodgates protecting central London from the Thames by 12 inches.
So what lies behind America’s resistance to action? Economist Sachs points to the lobbying power of industries that resist acknowledgment of climate change’s impact. “The country is two decades behind in taking action because both parties are in thrall to Big Oil and Big Coal,” says Sachs. “The airwaves are filled with corporate-financed climate misinformation.” But the vanguard of action isn’t waiting any longer. This week, representatives from an estimated 100 cities are meeting in Bonn, Germany, for the 2nd World Congress on Cities and Adaptation to Climate Change. The theme is “Resilient Cities.” As Joplin, Mo., learned in the most tragic way possible, against some impacts of climate change, man’s puny efforts are futile. But time is getting short, and the stakes are high. Says Daniel Sarewitz, a professor of science and society at Arizona State University: “Not to adapt is to consign millions of people to death and disruption.” | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37173000 |
A New Arrival at Alladale
Alladale Wilderness Reserve's 4-year old European Elk cow, "Hulda", has given birth to her second calf and the pair are doing especially well in a spell of spectacular Highland weather! Unusually, Hulda has borne only 1 calf each year over 2 seasons – European Elk have a high incidence of twinning.
TENT Wildlife Manager, David ("Poppy") Clark said he is delighted with his estimated bodyweight of the new calf, but he hasn't had the opportunity as yet to determine the sex of the new arrival. Meanwhile, "Hercules", the father of the calf is wisely keeping his distance from a mother who is fiercely protective of her newborn. European Elk are very solitary and do not form herds, so this is natural behaviour. The calf will grow at a rate of approximately 1 kilogram each day until the autumn and "Hulda" will consume up to 50 kilograms each day of a high fibre diet to maintain a healthy milk supply. We will keep you posted! | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37175000 |
What is Dengue Fever?
- Dengue fever is a flu-like illness spread by the bite of an infected mosquito. It can present as a mild simple flu like illness or as a severe Dengue Shock Syndrome which could lead to death.
Who gets Dengue fever?
- Dengue fever may occur in people of all ages.
Signs and symptoms of dengue fever and dengue hemorrhagic fever
- Dengue fever usually starts suddenly with a high fever, rash, severe headache, pain behind the eyes, muscle and joint pains.
- Nausea , vomiting and loss of appetite are common.
- A rash usually appears 3 to 4 days after the start of the fever.
- The illness can last from 7 to 10 days, but complete recovery can take as long as a month. Older children and adults are usually sicker than young children.
Most dengue infections result in relatively mild illness, but some can progress to severe dengue hemorrhagic fever, where the blood vessels start to leak and cause bleeding and shock.
Bruising can be a sign of bleeding inside the body. Without prompt treatment, the blood vessels can collapse, causing shock (dengue shock syndrome). Dengue hemorrhagic fever is fatal in about 5 percent of cases, mostly among children and young adults.
How soon after exposure do symptoms appear?
The time between the bite of a mosquito carrying dengue virus and the start of symptoms averages 4 to 6 days, with a range of 3 to 14 days. An infected person cannot spread the infection to other persons but can be a source of dengue virus for mosquitoes for about 6 days.
Who is at risk for dengue?
Anyone who is bitten by an infected mosquito can get dengue fever. Risk factors for dengue hemorrhagic fever include a person’s age and immune status, as well as the strain of the virus.
Persons who were previously infected with one or more types of dengue virus are at greater risk for developing severe dengue hemorrhagic fever if infected again.
What is the treatment for dengue fever and dengue hemorrhagic fever?
There is no specific treatment for dengue fever. People with dengue fever should rest and drink plenty of fluids. They should be kept away from mosquitoes for the protection of others. Dengue fever is treated by replacing lost fluids, but some patients will need to be hospitalized for fluid replacement and monitoring.
How can dengue be prevented?
There is no vaccine to prevent damage. Eliminating mosquito breeding sites is a key prevention measure. It can be done by discarding items that can collect rain or run-off water, especially old tires. Regularly change water in outdoor bird baths and pet and animal water containers. Avoid mosquito bites by use of mosquito repellants on skin and clothing.
When outdoors, during times that mosquitoes are biting, wear long-sleeved shirts and long pants tucked into socks. Avoid heavily populated residential areas.
When indoors, stay in air-conditioned or screened areas. Use bed nets if sleeping areas are not screened or air-conditioned. If you have symptoms of dengue, report your travel history to your doctor.
If I had previous dengue infection can I get it again?
Infection with one virus does not protect a person against infection with another type of virus but it protects a person against infection with the same virus type.
How is dengue spread?
Dengue is spread by the bite of an Aedes mosquito (mosquito with white dots on the legs). The mosquito transmits the disease by biting an infected person and then biting someone else.
Where is dengue found?
Dengue is common in Asia especially in the Philippines. Dengue is most common in cities but can be found in rural areas.
The mosquitoes that transmit dengue live among humans and breed in discarded tires, flower pots, old oil drums and water storage containers lose to human dwellings. Unlike mosquitoes that cause malaria, dengue mosquitoes bite during the day. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37192000 |
Hydroinformatics is the rapidly developing field in which information technology is applied to address water-related issues such as flood estimation and rainfall-runoff modeling. This book is a thorough overview of all the latest developments in this increasingly vital discipline.
Hydroinformatics is an emerging subject that is expected to gather speed, momentum and critical mass throughout the forthcoming decades of the 21st century. This book provides a broad account of numerous advances in that field - a rapidly developing discipline covering the application of information and communication technologies, modelling and computational intelligence in aquatic environments. A systematic survey, classified according to the methods used (neural networks, fuzzy logic and evolutionary optimization, in particular) is offered, together with illustrated practical applications for solving various water-related issues. These include, but are not limited to, flood estimation, rainfall-runoff modelling, rehabilitation of urban water networks, estimation of ocean temperature profiles, etc. Particular attention is also given to certain aspects of the most recent technological progress in hydroinformatics including the development of protocols for model integration and of computer architectures for modern modelling systems.Invited contributions were obtained from leading international experts - including academics, hydrological practitioners and industrial professionals - such that this edited volume constitutes an authoritative source of reference material and is essential reading for active workers in this field. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37199000 |
One of the most common side effects of many medications is cotton mouth, an uncomfortable condition that occurs when the saliva levels in your mouth drop to near zero. Dozens of drug categories lead to dry mouth, from antihistamines to antihypertensives, but one of the most notorious causes of a cottony palate - and so, of bad breath - is antidepressants.
Why do these prescriptions dry out your mouth and encourage halitosis? For the answer to that, you have to look at how the saliva glands work.
Salivary glands: A vital trio
There are three different types of salivary glands in your mouth: the submandibular (located under the floor of your mouth), the sublingual (under the tongue) and the parotid, which is wrapped around your lower jaw, just beneath the hinge. If the latter sounds familiar, it may be because Beastie Boy and hip-hop legend Adam Yauch recently passed away from cancer of the parotid gland.
Your salivary glands emit a constant stream of moisture into your mouth, which keeps your palate wet and minimizes bacterial growth on your tongue. Fun fact: The relatively small submandibular gland is responsible for about 70 percent of your mouth's moisture. That means it pumps out a quart of saliva a day!
These glands get activated by acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter found in your nervous system. And, for good or ill, antidepressants inhibit the uptake of this molecule. Specifically, they prevent acetylcholine from reaching M3 muscarinic receptors, which can be found in your salivary glands.
The result: cotton mouth.
A study published in the journal Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica found that the antidepressants maprotiline, nortriptyline, clomipramine, imipramine and amitriptyline cause the worst cotton mouth.
What you can do for it
Since quitting antidepressants is not a very good idea, here are some tips for managing cotton mouth.
- Sip on water or suck on ice chips throughout the day.
- Regularly pop a specialty mouth-wetting lozenge in your mouth.
- Brush or rinse with specialty breath freshening, alcohol-free products, especially before bed and after waking. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37202000 |
Patanjali, author of the Yoga Sutra, presented in the second chapter of his book five ethical precepts called yamas. The yamas were designed as a basic guideline for living a life of personal fulfillment that also benefits society. The consequence of not following these teachings, according to Patanjali, is our continued suffering.
The first yama is known as ahimsa, which is typically translated as “nonviolence” or the avoidance of violence. Ahimsa refers to physical violence as well as the violence of thoughts and words. In this way, it is believed that our negative thoughts about ourselves and others can be as powerful and damaging as physical attempts to harm. Ahimsa, in its entirety, refers to the total rejection of inflicting pain or harm – whether it be by thought, word or deed – to any and all living creatures.
The practice of ahimsa includes constant vigilance and observation of ourselves when interacting with others, taking note of our thoughts and our intentions. Ahimsa prohibits the killing or injuring of living beings as it is believed that violence brings about negative karma. To practice non-injury, one must be harmless in mind, mouth and hand; one must replace hatred with love and cultivate forgiveness. Ahimsa is sacrifice but it is also power and strength.
Himsa is translated as violence or injury. There are many forms of himsa including contempt toward others, prejudice, unreasonable dislike, hatred, abuse, harsh or rude speech, discourtesy, and lies. These must all be discarded in order to practice ahimsa. One must not wound others or their feelings, whether it be by action, words or even the tone of voice. All forms of harshness should be avoided. In fact, even the approval of another’s harsh actions and the failure to relieve another’s pain or to help another in distress is seen as himsa. To practice ahimsa, you must accept the insults and criticisms, rebukes and assaults of others without acting in retaliation or causing offense. Even under the greatest of provocation, you still must refrain from thinking evil thoughts, harboring anger and even cursing. Practicing ahimsa requires bravery and fearlessness. It is not for the weak. Ahimsa is the perfection of forgiveness.
Understandably, beginning in the practice of ahimsa is not easy. Start by controlling the physical body first. When faced with your own thoughts of hatred or revenge, do not act on them. When faced with the harmful actions of others, do not cause injury in return. Practice forgiveness. When you feel that you can control you body, next control your speech. Do not speak evil or harsh words to anyone, do not harm others with your tongue. Constantly check the impulse of your speech. Again, practice forgiveness. If you fail, and you may, simply remind yourself and start again. Once you have good control over your body and your speech, next work on controlling your thoughts. Do not think of injuring anyone, keep these thoughts in check. Instead, reflect and meditate. Allow the mind to become calm. Practice this for several months and your negative thoughts will fade. Always remember that, by injuring another, you injure your own Self. Ahimsa and Divinity are one. By practicing ahimsa in its purest form you may become divine. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37208000 |
Over 8,000 websites created by students around the world who have participated in a ThinkQuest Competition.
Compete | FAQ | Contact Us
This concise introduction to the Internet covers the language of the online world : HTML, VRML Java, and CGI. Start with a history of the Internet and then learn about web style: what makes a web page readable, interactive, and worth looking at. The impressive selection of links take you to some of the leaders in web tool development.
RahulThomas Jefferson High School For Science and Technology, Alexandria, VA, United States
WrugRobinson Sec. School, Fairfax, VA, United States
19 & under
Basuki SinghAlcatel Data Network, Ashburn, VA, United States
Arun VedCentury Finance, Silver Spring, MD, United States
Computers & the Internet > Programming
Computers & the Internet > The Internet | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37215000 |
Explores the context for work on Muslim perspectives and priority issues for schools. Case study material illustrates the potential for classroom approaches, and web-site and resource references offer further support.
ISBN-10: 0 948838 88 4
Published in partnership with Islamic Relief
- Setting the scene and identifying the challenge
- Why is there a need for work in schools?
- Muslim communities in Britain ... and in the world
- Exploring Islam: the key beliefs and practices
- A role for teachers and schools?
- Citizenship - an opportunity?
- Getting started - Case studies:
- Muslim contributions to the modern world
- Muslim perspectives and the environment
- Investigating the role of the media
Useful articles relating to this resource
West Midlands Commission for global citizenship | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37224000 |
Ohio's dairy industry is about more than just cows and milk -- it is about contributions to the state's economy, the preservation of the environment, the well-being of animals and the health and safety of all Ohioans.
In Ohio, dairy is big business. Ohio ranks first in Swiss cheese production, fifth in the number of dairy manufacturing plants and 11th in milk production. In Ohio, 3,490 farms with 274,000 dairy cows produce almost 5 billion pounds of milk annually.
Dairy farms also are vital parts of the communities in which they operate. The dairy industry contributes $5.2 billion annually to the state economy and provides approximately 14,500 jobs. Most milk only travels about 100 miles to get from the dairy farm to the local grocery store, which means jobs typically remain in the surrounding area, specifically benefiting the local economy.
Because of their connection to the local community, dairy farmers across Ohio are committed to taking proactive measures to protect the environment, including the water supply and air and soil quality. Not only do dairy farmers rely on our limited natural resources for the success of their farm, but they also typically live on or near the farm, and therefore drink the water and breathe the air themselves.
A wide range of environmentally sound practices are used on Ohio's dairy farms, including manure-management plans, water-recycling systems, conservation tillage, grass, waterways and routine water testing. Farmers work with experts at both the state and federal levels to continually develop new ways to preserve the environment and enhance the quality of life of the farm family and surrounding neighbors.
Environmental stewardship is a key element of successful dairy farming, and so are healthy and happy cows. To ensure the health and welfare of their dairy cows -- and in turn, the success of their business -- Ohio's dairy farmers make significant investments in housing, feeding and veterinary care.
Cows are provided with a nutritious diet, quality medical care and healthy living conditions. Dairy cows receive regular medical check-ups and vaccinations, and any illness is quickly treated. Cows always have access to fresh, clean water and strictly-monitored feed.
Dairy farmers are committed to protect the environment and provide quality care to their animals, with the final outcome being wholesome, quality milk and dairy products for Ohio's consumers. Dairy products offer a powerful package of calcium and eight other essential nutrients for just pennies per ounce, making them a nutritious and economical choice for all families.
Clearly, dairy farmers are doing more than ever before to produce wholesome, quality milk, while utilizing new technology to both preserve the environment and care for animals. With so much controversy about preserving the environment, June is the perfect month to celebrate the dairy industry and the proactive steps its members are taking to be environmental stewards.
Visit www.dairyfarmingtoday.org to learn more about Ohio's dairy industry, or to learn more about dairy products, go to www.drink-milk.com.
n Paul Broering is chairman of American Dairy Association Mideast. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37231000 |
1. Reduce our personal carbon footprint by 20 percent in the next year.
2. Stop subsidizing fossil fuels.
3. Mitigate politics and polarization.+
4. Shift towards more vegetarian diets.
5. Scientists better communicate the scientific facts underlying climate change.+
6. Scientists and engineers develop cheap alternative energy sources to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.+
7. Reduce waste water treatment costs.*
8. Reduce costs to absorb CO2 from industrial activities.*
9. Manage the timing, magnitude, and speed of reservoir drawdowns in order to mitigate methane releases to the atmosphere.^
+ http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/591970/ ...
* http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/ ... | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37246000 |
Information on Genital Herpes
General Information and Terminology
The herpes virus which causes both genital herpes and
cold sores is the herpes simplex virus, abbreviated HSV.
There are two types of HSV: HSV-1 and HSV-2. Most oral (i.e,
cold sores) and ocular infections are caused by HSV-1; most
genital infections are caused by HSV-2. However, either can
cause infection anywhere on the body.
The other herpes viruses are the Epstein-Barr virus,
which causes mononucleosis, and the varicella-zoster virus
which causes chicken pox and shingles. Apparently shingles
is an adult recurrence of chicken pox!
In addition, there is something ominous (and often
fatal) called herpes encephalitis in which the herpes
simplex virus infects the brain and spinal cord. Genital and
presumably oral, ocular, and other variants of herpes does
NOT lead to herpes encephalitis.
The technical literature refers to infections as being
primary, initial, or recurrent. A primary infection is one
where blood tests don't show antibodies for HSV-1 or HSV-2
at the time that the infection is diagnosed; i.e., one has
not been previously exposed to the type of herpes for which
one will now be treated. An initial infection is one where
no symptoms of infection have previously been noticed, but
blood tests show antibodies for HSV-1 or HSV-2. A recurrent
infection is just that.
What it's doing when it's doing it
"During a ... primary infection of either type 1 or
type 2, herpes simplex will multiply at the original site of
skin exposure to cause the characteristic sores. Also, very
early in the course of the infection, some viruses will
leave the sores to migrate up the sensory nerve that serves
the site of the sores. These viruses become inactive, or
latent, when they reach the nerve cell center, or ganglion.
Even after the sores have healed, the virus remains in the
ganglia to form a permanent reservoir of infection." During
a recurrence, "the virus becomes reactivated, probably
returns down the same nerve, and multiplies on the skin at
or near the site of the original sore". (5)
Symptoms of a primary episode usually appear (if they
appear) 2 to 20 days after exposure, and last an average of
2 to 3 weeks. However, the first noticeable symptoms of
infection can also appear years after exposure.
"...Early symptoms can include a burning sensation,
pain in the legs, buttocks, or genital area, vaginal
discharge, or a feeling of pressure in the abdominal region.
Within a few days, sores (lesions) appear on the penis, on
the vulva or in the vagina, or around the anus. These small,
red bumps, later develop into blisters or painful open
sores. Over a period of days, the sores become crusted and
Symptoms that often accompany a person's first
infection with herpes can include fever, headache, muscle
aches, painful or difficult urination, and swollen glands."
Generally, the first outbreak is the most severe and
most prolonged. Later outbreaks tend to be less severe, and
the intervals between recurrences tend to lengthen over
time. Sometimes there is no recurrence, but usually there
Reading between the lines, it would seem that most HSV
infections are asymptomatic. In one study of over 2,000
individuals only one-fourth of those with antibodies to HSV-
2 had symptoms which by their own description seemed to the
researchers to be symptoms of herpes. In another group, 57%
had type 2 antibodies, but only 3% "gave histories of any
syndrome compatible with genital herpes". (4)
Transmission - symptomatic and asymptomatic
Herpes is definitely contagious from the time that the
first symptoms of an outbreak occur (i.e., before the
blisters appear) until the sores are completely healed. Once
again, the first outbreak is the most virulent; in
recurrences less virus is present in the sores.
"Herpes infections can be transmitted when any part of
person's body directly touches active herpes virus or sores
containing active herpes simplex virus. Mucous membranes,
such as those in the mouth or genital area, are very
susceptible to herpes invasion. Intact skin is usually
resistant, but skin that is broken or damaged - for example
by cuts, abrasions, burns, eczema, or infection - may easily
be infected by herpes simplex virus" (5)
Asymptomatic transmission is also possible, although
there doesn't seem to be any consensus about how common it
is. Various statements on the subject are:
"Anywhere from 1 to 10 percent, depending on the
population studied." (2)
"Three-fourths of source contacts known to patients
with documented primary infections gave no histories of
genital lesions at the time of contact." (4)
Autoinoculation (spreading the infection from one part
of ones own body to another part) is possible, though not
likely. Once again, it is most likely to occur during a
When there is ANY sign of an outbreak, abstain. Any
signs means a suspicion of discomfort, not the appearance of
sores. Abstain until the sores are healed and the scabs have
While the virus is too large to pass through a condom,
in "real-life" situations their protective value is
uncertain." Possibly spermicidal jellies containing
Nonoxynol 9 have some deterrent effect. Oral acyclovir
reduces virus shedding during an outbreak, and so may reduce
risk of transmission, but is not given as a prophylactic.
(It's expensive, it hasn't yet been determined that it
reduces shedding during asymptomatic phases, and the risks
of long term use are not known).
Vaccines have been under development since the early
80's (at least), but apparently it is extremely difficult to
develop a vaccine against herpes which isn't excessively
hard on whatever takes it. NO VACCINE IS CURRENTLY
The discomfort can be relieved to some extent by
keeping the infected area clean and dry, and by wearing
loose fitting clothing. This may also help the sores to heal
faster. Obviously, avoid touching the sores, since they
contain active virus. Aspirin may provide symptomatic
Oral acyclovir reduces the severity and duration of
primary outbreaks, if taken early enough in the course of
the infection. Maintenance dosages reduce the frequency and
duration of recurrences, but once treatment is stopped the
preventative effect stops also. In recurrences, oral
acyclovir reduces the duration of virus shedding, but has
little effect on the symptoms.
The major hazard is to infants at the time of birth.
Also there is a danger of spontaneous abortion associated
with primary infections during pregnancy. Children delivered
vaginally during the course of a herpes episode are at
considerable risk (estimated 40 to 60 percent) of being
infected. Of the infected infants, more than half develop
fatal diseases. In the presence of active infection, the
infant is generally delivered by C-section, which protects
the infant from infection. The infant cannot be infected
through the mothers bloodstream.
For adults herpes (after the first outbreak) is
generally more of a social catastrophe then a physical one,
although infrequently adults are incapacitated by severe
and/or frequent recurrences.
Herpes is EXTREMELY common. Various statistics are:
"Affects an estimated 30 million Americans. Each year
as many as 500,000 new cases are believed to occur." (1)
"The prevalence of HSV infections (Types 1 and 2) in
the general population is high. Estimates vary from 40 to
100 percent based on random sampling of sera for HSV
(1) The Search for Health. The National Institutes of
Health. Bethesda, Maryland. October, 1988
(2) Herpes: Facts and Fallacies. American Journal of
Nursing. June, 1982
(3) Oral Acyclovir for Treatment and Suppression of Genital
Herpes Simplex Virus. Journal of the American Medical
Association. April, 1986
(4) Epidemiology of Genital Herpes Infections in the United
States - The Current Situation. Journal of Reproductive
Medicine. May 1986.
(5) Genital Herpes. U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services. Sept. 1983.
Herpes Resource Foundation. Provides information, therapy,
etc. Contact them at HELP, P.O. Box 100, Palo Alto, CA 94302
or call (415) 328-7710 or (800) 227-8922.
Technical Information Services, Division of Sexually
Transmitted Diseases, Center for Disease Control, Atlanta,
GA, 30333. Written material available upon request. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37249000 |
Taj Mahal stands on the bank of River Yamuna, which otherwise serves as a wide trench shielding the Great Red Fort of Agra, the centre of the Mughal Empire, until they moved their capital to Delhi in 1637. The Taj Mahal is one of the most beautiful masterpieces of architecture in the world. Agra, situated about 200 km south of New Delhi.
Taj Mahal was under the Muslim Emperors who ruled Northern India between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Mughals were the descendents of two of the most skilled warriors in history, the Turks and the Mongols. The Mughal dynasty reached its highest strength and fame during the reign of their early Emperors, Akbar, Jehangir, and Shah Jehan.
Taj Mahal Agra was built by the fifth Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan in 1631 in the remembrance of his second wife, Mumtaz Mahal, a Muslim Persian princess.
She passed while accompanying her husband in Behrampur in a campaign to crush an uprising, after giving birth to their 14th child. Her death firmed the emperor.
When Mumtaz Mahal was alive, she requested the emperor, that he should build the Taj, should not marry again, be kind to their children and he should visit the tomb on her death anniversary. He kept the first and second promises.
Construction began in 1631 and was completed in 22 years. Twenty thousand people were positioned to work on it. It was designed by the Iranian architect Istad Usa and it is best appreciated when the architecture and its adornments are linked to the passion that inspired it.
Having buried her down at Behrampur, it was time to build a tomb there itself. It was virtually impossible to transfer all the marble there, as it would cost a fortune and a lifetime.
So, astoundingly her grave was uprooted and brought to Agra, be transferred to the monument, completed twenty two years later.
The architectural complex is comprised of five main elements: the Darwaza or main gateway, the Bageecha or garden, the Masjid or mosque, the Naqqar Khana or rest house, and the Rauza or the Taj Mahal mausoleum. The actual Tomb is situated inside the Taj.
The Taj rises on a high red sandstone base with a huge white marble terrace on which rests the dome flanked by four narrowing towers. Within the dome lies the jewel-inlaid cenotaph of the queen.
Most impressive are the black and white chessboard marble floor, the four tall minarets at the corners of the structure, and the majestic dome in the middle. The impressive pietra dura artwork includes geometric elements, plants and flowers, mostly common in Islamic architecture
The only uneven object in the Taj is the chest of the emperor, which was built beside the queens, as a late addition.
The dome is made of white marble, and has a background that works its magic of colours through their reflection and transforms the view of the Taj. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37250000 |
Effective therapy involves more than mere talk and venting. True healing is achieved by finding the roots of our deep-seated ailments. In psychotherapy counseling, the therapist
guides their client towards uninhibited emotional disclosure
. Numerous studies have shown that emotional disclosure strengthens the immune system by increasing the levels of CD4 cells and natural killer cells and improves the health of individuals afflicted with rheumatoid arthritis, asthma and other conditions.
In psychotherapy, also referred to as counseling, psychosocial therapy, therapy or talk therapy, a mental health professional assists a client with personal growth, behavioral issues, or mental health problems. Therapy involves treatment of emotional and mental disorders by talking about issues in an individual's life with a psychologist
, psychiatrist or other trained professional. Psychotherapists perform a holistic analysis of their clients' situation and implement coping strategies. The psychotherapist observes a client's behavior, emotions and thoughts until a pattern is identified. Upon recognition of their typical or repetitive behavioral responses, clients are then able to implement changes. Psychotherapy treatment may help patients with a number of issues.Common Issues Include:
Psychotherapy Enables Patients To:
- Relationship issues
- Addiction and noxious habits
- Emotional problems
- Sexual problems
- Substance abuse
- Family conflicts
- Uncover the reasons for their condition so that they can better address it
- Identify and modify thoughts or behaviors that negatively impact their life
- Sharpen communication skills
- Learn more effective coping and problem-resolution skills
- Practice setting reasonable goals
- Explore experiences and relationships
- Increase their self-love and love for others
- Improve their self-confidence and self-esteem
- Heal old wounds
- Remove psychological blocks
Psychotherapy may be short-term or consist of numerous sessions over the course of several years. Prospective clients may choose between individual, group, couples or family sessions. Research has shown that psychotherapy coupled with medication provides greater benefit to patients than medication alone. Benefits of Psychotherapy Include:
- A novel perspective on a complex problem
- Effectiveness in depression relapse prevention
- Greater affordability than anti-depressant medication in the short run
- Efficacy in treating mood disorders that is comparable to anti-depressant drug treatment
- Outperformance of mood stabilizers in the treatment of bipolar depression
- Longer-lasting results than medication
- Maintenance of a high level of psychosocial functioning
- Reduction of mental health symptoms, such as anger, depression, and desperation
- Long-range benefits for post-traumatic stress syndrome following trauma
- Alleviation of mental health symptoms
- Combating specific conditions such as depression
- Increased self-awareness and a better understanding of one's values and goals
- Honing skills for improving relationships
In this intensive, long-term therapy, counselors help clients examine feelings, events, and memories from the past in order to shed light on present behaviors and emotions. Patients usually attend several weekly psychoanalytical sessions for extended periods of time.
In this form of treatment, the psychotherapist helps clients become cognizant of any unconscious influence that past experiences may have on their present lives by way of thoughts, emotions or behaviors. Some techniques employed in this typically brief treatment include analyzing actions and thoughts, confronting behavior and beliefs, resolving conflicts, and re-visiting the past. Clients are asked to put the new skills to work between sessions or make entries in a diary and are assigned homework exercises.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
The emphasis CBT is on the modification of negative, unhealthy thought patterns and behaviors that affect physical and emotional well-being. This is often achieved through desensitization
, also known as exposure therapy. Desensitization is a process in which clients confront the situations that trigger traumatic reactions, discomfort, fear or anxiety and learn to overcome their responses.
In cognitive therapy, patients are taught to identify and modify cognitive distortions
. Cognitive distortions are considered habitual, faulty thinking patterns which give rise to behaviors and emotions that are unhelpful, unrealistic, self-destructive or self-defeating. To reduce the likelihood that symptoms will resurface, patients practice the skills learned in their everyday lives. This type of psychoanalytical treatment tends to focus more on the present and future than on past conflicts or issues.CBT Has Proven a Successful Treatment of Several Mental Health Issues Including:
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder
- Panic attacks
- Suicidal behavior
- Anger management
- Stress management
Marital and Family Therapy
Marital psychotherapists assist couples in resolving their difficulties jointly. In family therapy, the objective is family functioning, and the sessions are attended by more than one family member at the same time. Family Therapy is Useful in Several Situations Including:
- Problems with siblings or relatives
- Children acting out
- Parenting difficulties
- School problems
This short-term treatment method is effective in treating long-lasting anxiety and depression and is aimed at helping clients improve their communication and interpersonal skills, assertiveness, and emotional expressiveness. While it is usually administered one-on-one, it is also utilized in a group setting.
Psychotherapists often apply this treatment method when working with young children, in that it facilitates emotional expression on the part of the latter who are not cognitively-developed to express themselves verbally. Among the techniques deployed are painting and playing with toys or dolls.
This form of psychotherapy treatment is especially useful in treating individuals afflicted with a chronic and severe mental illness.
In creative art therapy, a psychotherapist helps clients communicate their thoughts and emotions through the vehicle of poetry, painting, drawing, drama, dance, music, and other creative arts. This type of psychotherapy enables patients to cope with trauma and symptoms, implement positive changes, and gain a better understanding of themselves. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37257000 |
May 19, 2013
A Declaration of Independence From Israel
Posted on Jul 2, 2007
By Chris Hedges
Israel, without the United States, would probably not exist. The country came perilously close to extinction during the October 1973 war when Egypt, trained and backed by the Soviet Union, crossed the Suez and the Syrians poured in over the Golan Heights. Huge American military transport planes came to the rescue. They began landing every half-hour to refit the battered Israeli army, which had lost most of its heavy armor. By the time the war was over, the United States had given Israel $2.2 billion in emergency military aid.
The intervention, which enraged the Arab world, triggered the OPEC oil embargo that for a time wreaked havoc on Western economies. This was perhaps the most dramatic example of the sustained life-support system the United States has provided to the Jewish state.
Israel was born at midnight May 14, 1948. The U.S. recognized the new state 11 minutes later. The two countries have been locked in a deadly embrace ever since.
Washington, at the beginning of the relationship, was able to be a moderating influence. An incensed President Eisenhower demanded and got Israel’s withdrawal after the Israelis occupied Gaza in 1956. During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israeli warplanes bombed the USS Liberty. The ship, flying the U.S. flag and stationed 15 miles off the Israeli coast, was intercepting tactical and strategic communications from both sides. The Israeli strikes killed 34 U.S. sailors and wounded 171. The deliberate attack froze, for a while, Washington’s enthusiasm for Israel. But ruptures like this one proved to be only bumps, soon smoothed out by an increasingly sophisticated and well-financed Israel lobby that set out to merge Israeli and American foreign policy in the Middle East.
Israel has reaped tremendous rewards from this alliance. It has been given more than $140 billion in U.S. direct economic and military assistance. It receives about $3 billion in direct assistance annually, roughly one-fifth of the U.S. foreign aid budget. Although most American foreign aid packages stipulate that related military purchases have to be made in the United States, Israel is allowed to use about 25 percent of the money to subsidize its own growing and profitable defense industry. It is exempt, unlike other nations, from accounting for how it spends the aid money. And funds are routinely siphoned off to build new Jewish settlements, bolster the Israeli occupation in the Palestinian territories and construct the security barrier, which costs an estimated $1 million a mile.
The U.S. has provided Israel with nearly $3 billion to develop weapons systems and given Israel access to some of the most sophisticated items in its own military arsenal, including Blackhawk attack helicopters and F-16 fighter jets. The United States also gives Israel access to intelligence it denies to its NATO allies. And when Israel refused to sign the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, the United States stood by without a word of protest as the Israelis built the region’s first nuclear weapons program.
U.S. foreign policy, especially under the current Bush administration, has become little more than an extension of Israeli foreign policy. The United States since 1982 has vetoed 32 Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, more than the total number of vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members. It refuses to enforce the Security Council resolutions it claims to support. These resolutions call on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories.
There is now volcanic anger and revulsion by Arabs at this blatant favoritism. Few in the Middle East see any distinction between Israeli and American policies, nor should they. And when the Islamic radicals speak of U.S. support of Israel as a prime reason for their hatred of the United States, we should listen. The consequences of this one-sided relationship are being played out in the disastrous war in Iraq, growing tension with Iran, and the humanitarian and political crisis in Gaza. It is being played out in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is gearing up for another war with Israel, one most Middle East analysts say is inevitable. The U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is unraveling. And it is doing so because of this special relationship. The eruption of a regional conflict would usher in a nightmare of catastrophic proportions.
There were many in the American foreign policy establishment and State Department who saw this situation coming. The decision to throw our lot in with Israel in the Middle East was not initially a popular one with an array of foreign policy experts, including President Harry Truman’s secretary of state, Gen. George Marshall. They warned there would be a backlash. They knew the cost the United States would pay in the oil-rich region for this decision, which they feared would be one of the greatest strategic blunders of the postwar era. And they were right. The decision has jeopardized American and Israeli security and created the kindling for a regional conflagration.
The alliance, which makes no sense in geopolitical terms, does makes sense when seen through the lens of domestic politics. The Israel lobby has become a potent force in the American political system. No major candidate, Democrat or Republican, dares to challenge it. The lobby successfully purged the State Department of Arab experts who challenged the notion that Israeli and American interests were identical. Backers of Israel have doled out hundreds of millions of dollars to support U.S. political candidates deemed favorable to Israel. They have brutally punished those who strayed, including the first President Bush, who they said was not vigorous enough in his defense of Israeli interests. This was a lesson the next Bush White House did not forget. George W. Bush did not want to be a one-term president like his father.
Israel advocated removing Saddam Hussein from power and currently advocates striking Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons. Direct Israeli involvement in American military operations in the Middle East is impossible. It would reignite a war between Arab states and Israel. The United States, which during the Cold War avoided direct military involvement in the region, now does the direct bidding of Israel while Israel watches from the sidelines. During the 1991 Gulf War, Israel was a spectator, just as it is in the war with Iraq.
President Bush, facing dwindling support for the war in Iraq, publicly holds Israel up as a model for what he would like Iraq to become. Imagine how this idea plays out on the Arab street, which views Israel as the Algerians viewed the French colonizers during the war of liberation.
“In Israel,” Bush said recently, “terrorists have taken innocent human life for years in suicide attacks. The difference is that Israel is a functioning democracy and it’s not prevented from carrying out its responsibilities. And that’s a good indicator of success that we’re looking for in Iraq.”
Americans are increasingly isolated and reviled in the world. They remain blissfully ignorant of their own culpability for this isolation. U.S. “spin” paints the rest of the world as unreasonable, but Israel, Americans are assured, will always be on our side.
Israel is reaping economic as well as political rewards from its lock-down apartheid state. In the “gated community” market it has begun to sell systems and techniques that allow the nation to cope with terrorism. Israel, in 2006, exported $3.4 billion in defense products—well over a billion dollars more than it received in American military aid. Israel has grown into the fourth largest arms dealer in the world. Most of this growth has come in the so-called homeland security sector.
1 2 NEXT PAGE >>>
Previous item: Truthdiggers of the Week: Barton Gellman and Jo Becker
Next item: Harnessing the Sun Leaves Vidal in the Dark
New and Improved Comments | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37266000 |
Biology is the study of life and living organisms. It has a variety of subdivisions including cell biology, molecular biology, ecology, physiology, and biochemistry, among others. Some common topics in biology include genetics, evolution, cells, body systems, ecological principles and relationships, and homeostasis.
Chemistry is the study of matter and the changes it undergoes. Disciplines in chemistry include organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, physical chemistry, analytical chemistry, and biochemistry. Chemistry
centers on understanding the atomic and subatomic makeup of the universe and how the interactions between such particles contribute to life as we know it.
Physics is the study of matter and its movement through time and space. Physics studies the natural forces that are applied to nature, how they work, and what their effects are. Physics is one of the oldest
sciences and it involves a general analysis of natural phenomena and how the universe behaves.
• Classical Mechanics
• Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics
• Quantum Mechanics | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37272000 |
When it Comes to Tobacco,Teens Do Weigh Pros and Cons
UC Merced Psychologist Finds Teen Smokers View Smoking as Less Dangerous and More Beneficial than Non-Smokers
MERCED, CA— Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable deaths in the U.S., causing close to a half-million deaths every year. It's common knowledge that the best way to stop smoking is to never start, yet 1 million people pick up the habit each year - and many of them are under 18.
Given the facts, preventing tobacco use among adolescents is a major focus in our country, but the statistics regarding teen smoking remain staggering.
UC Merced psychologist Anna V. Songspends her days figuring out why, if teens know smoking is unhealthy, they do it anyway.
Song found that when it comes to deciding whether to smoke that first cigarette, teens actually do weigh the pros and cons. Teens who believe smoking is very risky and holds little value are less likely to smoke, compared to teens who believe smoking is safer and socially valuable.
Song and her collaborator, Dr. Bonnie Halpern-Felsher at UC San Francisco, presented their findings in the March 2009 edition of the American Journal of Public Health,published today, Feb. 10.
"Contrary to the stereotype of the brash, non-thinking teen, young people do care about the risks and benefits associated to smoking," Song said. "The difference between those who light up and those who don't is how they weigh the risks versus benefits."
Though public health officials accept that perception is reality for teens, Song's study was the first of its kind. Using longitudinal data collected over two years, the study compared how adolescents view the short-term and long-term risks of smoking, along with perceived benefits.
Song believes that her findings can help improve the effectiveness of anti-smoking campaigns by focusing on both perceived risks and benefits that resonate most deeply with teens.
"In our study, no one really believed they were immune to the long-term risks of smoking," Song said. "But our findings do demonstrate that interventions focused only on long-term dangers such as cancer and heart disease are not addressing the whole picture. To be effective, they must also address other issues that are important to teens like feeling grown-up, smelling like an ashtray, or getting into trouble."
Song, who conducted this research project while at the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at UC San Francisco, joined the Psychological Sciencesfaculty at UC Merced in Fall 2008. She is one of many human health experts at UC Merced. Her area of expertise is risk behaviors in adolescents, which include sexual activity, and the use of tobacco, drugs and alcohol. To view other faculty experts, visit facultyexperts.ucmerced.edu. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37282000 |
One of the big questions—and there are many —that occupy Killam Scholar and kinesiology researcher Walter Herzog is why a muscle generates more force after it is stretched than a muscle that has not changed length. At the heart of this question is the understanding of how our muscles work. If Herzog and his lab are correct, a new model may be needed.
Researcher Tim Leonard is looking for answers. He’s been part of Herzog’s lab for most of his adult life. He started his undergraduate degree at the University of Calgary when he was 17. Since then, he’s enjoyed a successful, productive and well-decorated academic career.
Leonard is the only individual to win the Canadian Society of Biomechanics Award for his master’s degree and for his PhD. He also won the Western Area Association of Grad Studies Award (an association of American and Canadian Universities from the prairies) and the University of Calgary’s J.B. Hyne Research Innovation Award. These awards recognize innovative research as well as the innovative use of technology.
To study the question of stretched muscle force, Leonard had to devise a way to measure the contractile force of a single myofibril, the microscopic building blocks of our muscles. But how do you grab, stretch and measure the spring of something that is only a few microns long?
The challenge led Leonard to upstate New York and Cornell University, where he found the facilities necessary to construct his nanotechnology micro levers. “It’s kind of one of these things you’d see in a science fiction movie,” says Leonard. “You've got people working in these super-clean rooms, dressed up in these puffy suits with slippers on their feet, and masks so they don’t contaminate the air with their hair or skin cells.”
Leonard points out that he didn’t invent the process he used to create his silicon-nitride cantilevers. The real genius was adapting the existing technology to fit his needs. “I really just said, ‘these should be what I need them to be’ and for me it was really just a stepping stone to get to the actual science and so maybe that’s what the awards were for.”
The cantilevers are incredibly tiny and need to be stored and carried in a sealed case, since the force of wind created just by walking across the room would be enough to snap them instantly.
On the microscope slide, the levers become a powerful tool and helped to suggest that there is another actor at work in the stretched muscle contraction problem—titin, the largest known natural protein.
Despite its size, and the fact that we have a lot of it in our muscles, bio-mechanists aren't exactly sure what titin does. “People have looked at it as a spring, or like a big Slinky, that helps keep the proteins lined up,” say Leonard. “But over the last few years there’s been evidence that titin is not just a passive molecular spring, but that it may actually contribute to active sources.”
Leonard thinks that titin could partially contribute to the increase in force in a stretched muscle. “If titin is actually producing a little bit of what we could call active force, that’s quite novel.”
“Quite novel” is a polite way of saying that Leonard’s award-winning research—as part of Herzog’s team—will likely change or at least amend our understanding of how our muscles contract. “I think we could argue that instead of muscle being a two-filament structure, that maybe there’s a third filament, which is titin, and that titin plays a role that’s not purely passive.”
Understanding the role that titin plays in active force production may one day further our understanding of how diseases like cerebral palsy can be more effectively treated, or how we can more effectively train our athletes to go faster, higher and stronger. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37284000 |
Director-General highlights the role of education, culture and science in reducing poverty and promoting sustainable development in her meeting with the President of the World Bank
On 20 December, the Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, met with the President of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, to discuss UNESCO's cooperation with the World Bank. At the meeting, the Director-General highlighted UNESCO’s unique expertise in the field of education, recalling that UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, appointed her as Executive Secretary for the Steering Committee of Education First, his new global initiative.
his Initiative aims to spur a global movement to put quality, relevant and transformative education at the top of the social, political and development agenda. It is designed to accelerate the achievement of the Education for All and Millennium Development Goals, and to inform the Post-2015 UN Development Agenda. Quoting UNESCO’s 2012 EFA Global Monitoring Report, the Director-General underlined that 200 million young people still lack basic numeracy and literacy skills.
Mr Kim noted that sustainable economic growth is embedded in the quality of our education systems. He informed the Director-General that he would like to engage in discussions with UNESCO and other stakeholders on learning strategies in higher education and that more innovative approaches were needed in this area. He also highlighted the importance of organizing higher education systems for economic growth. They both agreed on the importance of higher education and the necessity for more investment in this area.
The Director-General also discussed the important role of culture and development in creating jobs and promoting social inclusion, peace and reconciliation. In 2011, UNESCO and the World Bank signed a Memorandum of Understanding to develop joint activities in this area. She further emphasized the importance of promoting culture as an enabler for development in the Post 2015 UN Development Agenda, noting, for instance, that cultural industries make up 8% of Brazil’s GDP. To showcase the real, socio-economic impact of culture, UNESCO will be organizing a Conference in Hangzhou in May 2013 on Culture and Development.
The Director-General went on to highlight the importance of science for sustainability and underlined the need to strengthen the science-policy interface. The UN Secretary-General has entrusted UNESCO with the establishment of a Scientific Advisory Council, in consultation with the wider UN system. The objective of this Board will be to advise the UN Secretary General on science-related issues, and enable him to provide advice to UN Member States in these areas.
It was agreed that UNESCO and the World Bank would work together on the Education First initiative, on strengthening the quality of education, and on the Post 2015 UN Development Agenda. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37286000 |
ILO 2012 Global Estimate of Forced Labour - Fact Sheet
Jun 04 2012
Download right click "save as"
Forced labour is the term used by the international community to denote situations in whichthe persons involved – women and men, girls and boys – are made to work against theirfree will, coerced by their recruiter or employer, for example through violence or threats ofviolence, or by more subtle means such as accumulated debt, retention of identity papersor threats of denunciation to immigration authorities.
- Caring for Trafficked Persons: Guidance for Health Providers Facilitator’s Guide
- Caring for Trafficked Persons/Cuidados Para la Salud y la Trata de Personas
- IOM 2011 Case Data on Human Trafficking
- IOM Understanding and Counteracting Trafficking
- IOM The Causes and Consequences of Evidence from the IOM Human Trafficking Database Re-trafficking
- IOM Manual Human Trafficking and Legalization of Criminal Profits. Russian.
- IOM Manual on THB crimes typologies. Russian.
- IOM Moscow CIS Executive Committee CT Seminar 2010 Russian
- IOM International Conference. “Improvement of International Cooperation in Counteracting Human Trafficking” Russian
- IOM Trafficking of men Belarus and Ukraine
- IOM UNGIFT Caring for Trafficked Persons
- IOM SACTAP 10 Questions about Human Trafficking | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37287000 |
Bielefeld University is one of Germany's strongest research universities within a focussed spectrum of transdisciplinary fields encompassing not only the humanities and social sciences but also the natural and technological sciences. One confirmation of this is given by the Excellence Initiative with which the German federal and state governments are promoting top-level research in Germany. Bielefeld University has been hosting a Centre of Excellence on Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC) and a Graduate School in History and Sociology (BGHS) since 2007. CITEC is receiving 6.5 million Euros a year; BGHS more than one million. Following the first two phases (2006 and 2007) of this the most renowned and strongly funded research programme, these two institutions contribute to making Bielefeld one of the successful universities. It ranks third place in North Rhine-Westphalia.CITEC - Cognitive Interaction Technology
Technology that understands
The vision guiding scientists working at CITEC is to build technology that understands. Future machines should adapt to human beings rather than - as before - human beings having to adapt to machines. And these range from everyday tools to robots. Machines have to meet the basic preconditions of interacting naturally with human beings and adapting their abilities flexibly to changing surroundings. These are the basic principles, and pioneering research on cognitive interaction technology is the necessary way to achieve this. One aspect is the search for the fundamental architectural principles of cognitive interaction between human beings and machines. This challenge can only by met through interdisciplinary cooperation between the greatest range of different disciplines. CITEC brings together scientists working in the Faculties of Biology, Linguistics and Literary Studies, Physics, Psychology and Sports Science, and Technology.
Individuality, creativity and personal initiative - at the Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology these attributes are strongly emphasized. 160 doctoral candidates of history and sociology study and research here together under one roof. They profit from the broad thematic variety BGHS has to offer. The staging of media potrayals, social changes, and historical and political processes of change are some of their main research fields. However, uncommon dissertation intentions are also welcome here at BGHS. For example, the relationship between the church and dancing or the functions and symbolism of tattoos.
The graduate school considers itself as a researching community of doctoral candidates and professors. That is also what the bottom-up principle stands for, which emphasizes personal initiative and codetermination of the doctoral candidates. They organize workshops and conferences of their own and have an influence on the content of teaching. This is how a culture of creativity and exchange is established, in which young scientists can lay solid groundstones for their future careers.
In the third phase of the Excellence Initiative in which the German federal and state governments are promoting science and research at German universities, Bielefeld University has won through to the second review stage with a proposed Cluster of Excellence drafted predominantly by sociologists and historians. A final decision was reached in June 2012. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37289000 |
Basically, the cookie helps a website's server recognize a user. The cookie acts as a computerized ticket stub or hand stamp. It's assigned to the User by a server on the first visit to a site, and then later recalled by that same server. This allows the server to better identify the user when they visit, aid their progress through a site, and provide customized information to that user.
A cookie can acquire only the information a User makes available to a website. A cookie cannot "read" a hard drive, or figure out a name or address.
When a user visits a site that asks for a name and address, if that site has configured a cookie to store that information, then that site's cookie will retain it.
We want you to know why we're sending a cookie, and why we hope you'll accept it.
Your browser can be configured to accept all cookies, or to alert you every time a cookie is offered - allowing you to decide whether to accept it or not. If the cookie has an expiration date, the alert message will indicate that, so you can see the lifespan of the cookie (many cookies are set to expire as soon as you quit the browser).
Note: Refusing cookies can be cumbersome, as some servers are set to keep offering the cookie as the User moves through new parts of the site, until it is accepted.
You can always view the cookies you've accepted, and delete them if you wish.
For Windows Systems:
If you are using Internet Explorer, from the Tool Bar:
For Mozilla Firefox: | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37296000 |
Lymphedema is the build-up of fluids in your body. It can cause an arm or leg to swell up and become painful. The disorder is lifelong.
What to Expect
Lymphedema may start 6 - 8 weeks after surgery or after radiation treatment for cancer.
It can also start very slowly after your cancer treatment is over. You may not notice symptoms until 18 - 24 months after treatment. Sometimes it can take years to develop.
Even a small infection or injury can cause lymphedema to start.
Ways to Help Relieve the Swelling
Use your arm with lymphedema for everyday activities, such as combing your hair, bathing, dressing, and eating. But, be careful not to overwork your arm or leg. Rest this arm above the level of your heart 2 or 3 times a day while you are lying down.
- Stay lying down for 45 minutes.
- Rest your arm on pillows to keep it raised.
- Open and close your hand 15 - 25 times while you are lying down.
Take Good Care of Your Skin
Clean the skin of your arm or leg every day. Use lotion to keep your skin moist. Check your skin every day for any changes.
Protect your skin from injuries, even small ones:
- Use only an electric razor for shaving underarms or legs.
- Wear gardening gloves and cooking gloves.
- Wear gloves when doing work around the house.
- Use a thimble when you sew.
- Be careful in the sun. Use sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or higher.
- Use insect repellent.
- Avoid very hot or cold things, such as ice packs or heating pads.
- Stay out of hot tubs or saunas.
- Have blood draws, intravenous therapy (IVs), and shots in the other arm or in another part of your body.
- Do not wear tight clothing or wrap anything tight on your arms or legs that have lymphedema.
Take care of your feet:
- Cut your toenails straight across. If needed, see a podiatrist to prevent ingrown nails and infections.
- Keep your feet covered when you are outdoors. Do not walk barefoot.
- Keep your feet clean and dry. Wear cotton socks.
Do not put too much pressure on your arm or leg.
- Do not cross your legs while you are sitting.
- Wear loose jewelry. Wear clothes that do not have tight waistbands or cuffs.
- Where a loose-fitting bra.
- If you carry a handbag, carry it with the unaffected arm.
- Do not use elastic support bandages or stockings with tight bands.
- Do not sit in the same position for more than 30 minutes.
Taking care of cuts and scratches:
- Wash the wound gently with soap and water.
- Apply an antibiotic cream or ointment to the area.
- Cover the wound with dry gauze or a bandage, but do not wrap tightly.
- Call your doctor right away if you have an infection. Signs of infection are a rash, red blotches, swelling, heat, pain, or fever.
Taking care of burns:
- Use a cold pack or cold water on a burn for 15 minutes, then wash gently with soap and water.
- Put a clean, dry bandage over the burn.
- Call your doctor right away if you have an infection.
Living with lymphedema can be very hard. Ask your doctor about a special physical therapist who can tell you about:
- Ways to prevent lymphedema
- How diet and exercise affect lymphedema
- How to use to massage to decrease lymphedema
Wear your compression sleeve during the day, but you may remove it at night. Always make sure you get the right size.
Wear a compression sleeve when traveling by air if you fly a lot, or for long flights. If possible, keep your arm above the level of your heart during long flights.
When to Call the Doctor
Call your health care provider if you have any of these symptoms:
- New rashes or skin breaks that do not heal
- Feelings of tightness in your arm or leg
- Rings or shoes that become tighter
- Weakness in your arm or leg.
- Pain, aching, or heaviness in the arm or leg
- Swelling that lasts longer than 1 - 2 weeks
- Redness, swelling, or other signs of infection
- Fever over 100.5 °F
Towers A. Lymphedema. In: Walsh D, Caraceni AT, Fainsinger R, et al, eds. Palliative Medicine. 1st ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders Elsevier; 2008:chap 87.
Gamble GL. Lymphedema: Nonoperative treatment. In: Cronenwett JL and Johnston W., eds. Rutherford's Vascular Surgery. 7th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders Elsevier; 2010:chap 66.
Davidson N. Breast cancer and benign breast disorders. In: Goldman L, Schafer AI, eds. Cecil Medicine. 24th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders Elsevier;2011:chap 204.
Linda J. Vorvick, MD, Medical Director and Director of Didactic Curriculum, MEDEX Northwest Division of Physician Assistant Studies, Department of Family Medicine, UW Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Washington; and Shabir Bhimji, MD, PhD, Specializing in General Surgery, Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery, Midland, TX. Review provided by VeriMed Healthcare Network. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, A.D.A.M. Health Solutions, Inc. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37298000 |
Acute Fatty Liver of Pregnancy
What is acute fatty liver of pregnancy (AFLP)?
Acute fatty liver of pregnancy is a rare, but serious, condition of pregnancy in which there is an excessive accumulation of fat in the liver or liver cells. Fat normally accumulates in the liver in the form of triglycerides and fatty acids, but excessive fat can cause liver damage. AFLP is quite rare, however, it is a serious condition that cannot be predicted or prevented.
What causes acute fatty liver of pregnancy?
The cause of AFLP is unknown. It is thought that hormones of pregnancy play a role in this condition, but there does not seem to be an increased risk for future pregnancies.
Why is acute fatty liver of pregnancy a concern?
Both mother and fetus are at extremely high risk if AFLP is not treated. Liver failure, hemorrhage, kidney failure, and severe infection can be life threatening for the mother and fetus. Fortunately, early diagnosis and treatment helps to improve outcomes.
What are the symptoms of acute fatty liver of pregnancy?
AFLP usually begins late in the third trimester of pregnancy. The following are the most common symptoms of AFLP. However, each woman may experience symptoms differently. Symptoms may include:
Nausea and vomiting
Abdominal pain, especially in the right upper side
Malaise (general discomfort)
Jaundice (yellow coloring of skin, eyes, and mucous membranes)
The symptoms of acute fatty liver of pregnancy may resemble other medical conditions. Always consult your doctor for a diagnosis.
How is acute fatty liver of pregnancy diagnosed?
In addition to a complete medical history and physical examination, diagnosis of AFLP is most accurate by liver biopsy (taking a sample of liver tissue for examination under a microscope), but this is not always possible in pregnancy. Usually, the symptoms of AFLP are often clear enough to diagnose the condition. Blood tests can rule out other conditions or diseases that have similar symptoms. Ultrasound (a diagnostic imaging technique which uses high-frequency sound waves and a computer to create images of blood vessels, tissues, and organs) or computed tomography (CT) scan (a diagnostic imaging procedure that uses a combination of X-rays and computer technology to produce horizontal, or axial, images, often called slices, of the body) may also be used for diagnosis.
Treatment for acute fatty liver of pregnancy
Once the condition is diagnosed, the baby is delivered as quickly as possible to minimize the risks to mother and baby. The mother may require intensive care for several days after delivery until her condition improves. In most cases, liver function returns to normal within a few weeks. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37302000 |
- Prayer and Worship
- Beliefs and Teachings
- Issues and Action
- Catholic Giving
- About USCCB
By Jem Sullivan, Ph.D.
What is your family’s favorite meal? Is it a holiday recipe, a simple weeknight dinner, or a gourmet dessert treat?
The Second Vatican Council teaches that “the treasures of the Bible are to be opened more lavishly, so that richer fare may be provided for the faithful at the table of God’s Word “(Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 51). Is the Bible a special table around which your family gathers, as if for a favorite meal?
As we consider ways to share the Old Testament in the family we discover that the Bible, whether prominently displayed or gathering dust on a shelf, offers rich spiritual nourishment for children, teenagers and adults in your home.
It is said that we live in the Age of Information. The information superhighway moves us through the high speed traffic of news conveyed through television, the Internet, blogs, and instant messaging. We may have instant and high speed access to information at our fingertips. But the search for human happiness and daily wisdom remains. What is the place of the Bible in this Information Age?
The Catechism tells us that, the books of the Old Testament “are a storehouse of sublime teaching on God and of sound wisdom on human life, as well as a wonderful treasury of prayers; in them, too, the mystery of our salvation is present in a hidden way.” (CCC 122, quoting Dei Verbum 15)
Much of the Old Testament takes the form of stories. The way God teaches resounds with human imagination. Through the rich tapestry of biblical narratives we learn about God’s love and fidelity in the face of human doubt, apathy and infidelity. In the drama of the biblical stories is reflected our own journeys of faith with our daily joys, struggles, and hopes.
Old Testament stories are especially compelling for young children who, with their natural capacity for awe and wonder, marvel at the unfolding of God’s saving action and living presence in the world. Biblical stories that reveal weakness and sin are opportunities to discuss, at age appropriate levels, our humanness in light of God’s love and mercy. Through the biblical range of human experiences we learn God’s ways and our response of faith.
To bring the Old Testament to life, assign family members to gather artistic images that depict biblical stories and themes. Let the painting, sculpture, stained glass, or piece of sacred music serve as a discussion starter for family reflection on God’s word expressed in artistic forms.
The Psalms are a rich storehouse of prayers. In spite of overloaded family schedules taking brief moments to pray together the Liturgy of the Hours, whether Morning or Evening Prayer, connects your home to the Church’s rhythm of praise, thanksgiving and intercession. Handy Catholic resources now available make daily praying of Morning and Evening Prayer simple and sustainable.
Finally, lectio divina is another practical way to feast on the Old Testament in your home. This ancient Christian practice is being recovered in our time and strongly encouraged during the 2008 Bishops Synod on the Word of God and in Pope Benedict’s Exhortation following the Synod. Through the steps of lectio divina - reading, meditation, prayer and contemplation - the wisdom of the Old Testament can bear rich fruit in your home and may even become your family’s favorite spiritual food.
- - -
Jem Sullivan, Ph.D., serves as staff to the USCCB Secretariat of Evangelization and Catechesis. She is the author of a Study Guide to the United States Adult Catholic Catechism and The Beauty of Faith: Christian Art and the Gospel published by Our Sunday Visitor, and writes on a variety of catechetical themes.
By accepting this message, you will be leaving the website of the
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. This link is provided
solely for the user's convenience. By providing this link, the United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops assumes no responsibility for,
nor does it necessarily endorse, the website, its content, or | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37308000 |
Even though lead usage has declined due to environmental awareness and regulation, several human sources of lead continue to affect birds. Hunting ammunition and fishing gear are ingested by the birds, with toxic effects.
Homepage for the research on occurrence, movement, flux, fate, and effects of agricultural chemicals, such as pesticides, in 25 states by the Midcontinent Agricultural Chemical Research Project (MACRP) with links to study results and publications.
Multiple studies addressing urban water-quality issues, to describe biological, chemical, and physical characteristics of urban water resources over time, and relate those characteristics to natural processes and human activities
Primary homepage for the National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program studying water quality in river, aquifer and coastal water basins throughout the nation. Links to reports, data, models, maps and national synthesis studies.
Trace elements are inorganic chemicals occurring in small amounts in nature. This web site of the National Water Quality Assessment links to U.S. data, publications, news, and other sites on trace metals, metalloids and radionuclides in water. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37309000 |
With a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday near the Liberty Bell Center on Independence Mall, Philadelphia debuts an extraordinary exhibit that should surprise and challenge the many visitors who come to the city to experience the story of our nation's founding.
At the "President's House: Freedom and Slavery in Making a New Nation," visitors will see the partial walls, window frame, fireplace, and other outlines of a colonial house that stood at Sixth and Market Streets. But it's the retelling of what happened within those walls that will make for an extraordinary visit.
The former Robert Morris mansion is where the slaveholding George Washington and the antislavery John Adams lived and conducted their presidencies in the 1790s. Washington quartered nine enslaved Africans who served his household — a small contingent from among 300 slaves owned by the man revered as the father of his country.
So, the story told by the President's House exhibit will be unlike any operated by the National Park Service — a narrative that delves into the bitter irony of slaveholding Founding Fathers, who crafted a Constitution that denied the promise of freedom to blacks. But it's also a story of hope. Martha Washington's personal servant, Oney Judge, escaped to freedom from this same mansion.
How fitting, then, that the first federal commemoration of slavery be set in Philadelphia, where the nation's fundamental freedoms were enshrined. Moreover, the President's House project offers a dramatic contemporary story line that hints at racial divisions yet to be healed.
The exhibit's original plans didn't include as much of an emphasis on slavery. It became a memorial to Washington's slaves only at the insistence of groups such as the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, led by local attorney Michael Coard, which deserve much of the credit for prompting a redesign of the President's House to assure that the slaves' story is told.
Playing an equally pivotal role, then-Mayor John F. Street prompted the first major public exposure of the interplay of slavery and the nation's founding with his order for a 2007 archaeological excavation, a dig that was viewed by an estimated 300,000 people.
It's inevitable there will be disputes as to whether the exhibit achieves the right balance. But there can be no doubt that the President's House opens a unique window on the quest for freedom. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37310000 |
- For Teachers
Meaning: Go somewhere different or do something different
Example: Work's getting on top of me; I need to GET AWAY FROM it.
Meaning: Start to talk about something that is not relevant to the discussion
Example: I think we're GETTING AWAY FROM the point here- we need to concentrate on the main ideas.
Other Phrasal Verbs
We have 66 phrasal verbs with 'GET' | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37312000 |
There's a new "crisis" brewing. Students are in debt up to their eyeballs. If they default en masse, the republic will quake. (Again.)
Or something like that. It's no secret that the recent recession and the current shortage of jobs has sent many people back to school, with a lot of them taking out loans to pay for it. A recent report by the Pew Research Center found that 19 percent of all U.S. households owe money for student debt, up from 15 percent in 2007. The average owed is $26,682, up from $23,349.
That's a lot of money, especially for students graduating into a job market where the only jobs are brewing coffee or explaining Twitter to your 50-year-old boss. But the hand-wringing over excessive student debt might be, well, excessive. It's worth recalling that student loans are generally considered "good" debt because they buy something that's a lot more valuable than a BMW Mini or a pair of pumps: education.
The Pew report goes into considerable detail documenting what we already more or less know: Households headed by people under the age of 35 have the heaviest debt load. Student debt is a much heavier burden on poor households than on rich ones. And the amount of student debt has risen by more than the rate of inflation over the last few years.
But there could be good news in all of that, as well, because more people are getting a college degree and fewer are relying on a high school education alone. Between 2008 and 2010 (the latest data available), the number of students enrolling in college rose by 5 percent per year, according to data from the Education Department. During the 10 years prior to that, college enrollment increased by only about 3 percent per year. There's been a similar rise in the proportion of master's and doctoral students.
Not all of those new college students will earn a degree, but many of them will, and the nation's experience with the G.I. Bill proves that a better-educated workforce is a more prosperous one. A college degree doesn't automatically assure a middle-class lifestyle these days, but it sure helps. College-educated workers vastly outearn those without a degree, and the unemployment rate for college grads is a mere 4.1 percent, compared with 8.1 percent overall.
The rising amount of student debt masks another positive trend: Overall, debt levels have been falling. The Pew report itself notes that the total amount of household debt, on average, has fallen by nearly $5,000 since 2007. Other data from the Federal Reserve shows that while Americans have taken out more student loans, they've cut back on auto, credit-card and mortgage debt. Some of that is due to defaults, but even after defaults, Americans have been paying down debt, on the whole, not racking up more.
[SEE ALSO: What keeps people out of the middle class?]
Most economists think that such "deleveraging" is necessary for American consumers to get financially healthy and start spending again in a way that's sustainable. Meanwhile, it's hard to argue that the shift in debt away from consumption, toward education, is a bad thing.
It matters what kind of education college students get, and there, too, there are hopeful signs. Many of the best jobs these days require a science or engineering background, in which college students had shown declining interest --until recently. Between 1996 and 2005, the percentage of freshmen starting out with a major in science or engineering dropped from 34.2 percent to 30.9 percent. But that has now spiked to 38.4 percent. Thank you, Mark Zuckerberg.
Consulting firm McKinsey predicts that by 2020, there will be a shortage of 1.5 million college grads in the U.S. economy. Anybody struggling with student loans today may wonder if they did the right thing by taking on debt to pay for education. But a few years from now, it might seem like a no-brainer. Of all the types of debt you could take on, student loans are the most likely to pay for themselves. Many times over, in fact.
Rick Newman is the author of Rebounders: How Winners Pivot From Setback To Success. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman.
- How to Prepare for the Fiscal Cliff
- Who's Better off Under President Obama?
- How Mitt Romney Insulted His Own Supporters
- Romney is Half Right About People Who Don't Pay Taxes | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37313000 |
ENG8101 Technological Impact and its Management
|Semester 1, 2012 External Toowoomba|
|Faculty or Section :||Faculty of Engineering & Surveying|
|School or Department :||Faculty of Engineering & Surveying|
|Version produced :||19 May 2013|
Examiner: Bob Fulcher
Moderator: Ron Ayers
The world of today is one in which there is dynamic change in the creation and development of technology. It is necessary for managers of technology to understand the impact of technological development and the ways in which it can affect the society in which we live and the controls necessary to achieve a positive impact on mankind.
This course seeks to review current technological development and to evaluate its impact on the world on we live in. The relationship between modern society and technological development is examined and the role of technological development on wealth creation and business is presented. The overall social need to manage such development is assessed as well as Technology creation, transfer and exploitation.
The course objectives define the student learning outcomes for a course. On completion of this course, students should be able to:
- understand the role of technology in modern society;
- understand the process of innovation and its social context;
- assess the impact of technological development on society and the physical environment;
- assess the relationship between wealth creation and technological development;
- explain the process by which society manages technological development and the role managers of technology play in this process.
|1.||Science, Technology and Progress||10.00|
|2.||Technology and Society||20.00|
|3.||Economic Development and Technology||10.00|
|4.||Technology and The Environment||15.00|
|5.||Management of Technology||10.00|
|7.||Technology and Business||20.00|
Text and materials required to be purchased or accessed
ALL textbooks and materials available to be purchased can be sourced from USQ's Online Bookshop (unless otherwise stated). (https://bookshop.usq.edu.au/bookweb/subject.cgi?year=2012&sem=01&subject1=ENG8101)
Please contact us for alternative purchase options from USQ Bookshop. (https://bookshop.usq.edu.au/contact/)
Khalil, T 2000, Management of technology: the key to competitiveness and wealth creation, McGraw-Hill, Boston, MA.
Students must have Internet access.
Beder, S 1996, The nature of sustainable development, 2nd edn, Scribe Publications, Newham, Victoria.
Beder, S 1998, The new engineer, MacMillan Education, Australia.
Dorf, RC 2001, Technology, humans and society: towards a sustainable world, Academic Press, San Diego.
Johnston, S, Gostelow, P & Jones, E 1999, Engineering and society: an Australian perspective, 2nd edn, Harper Educational, Pymble.
Various web sites will be cited in the more dynamic components of this course.
Student workload requirements
|Description||Marks out of||Wtg (%)||Due Date||Notes|
|ASSIGNMENT 1||500||50||23 Apr 2012|
|2 HOUR CLOSED EXAMINATION||500||50||End S1||(see note 1)|
- Student Administration will advise students of the dates of their examinations during the semester.
Important assessment information
There are no attendance requirements for this course. However, it is the students' responsibility to study all material provided to them or required to be accessed by them to maximise their chance of meeting the objectives of the course and to be informed of course-related activities and administration.
Requirements for students to complete each assessment item satisfactorily:
To satisfactorily complete an assessment item a student must achieve at least 50% of the marks or a grade of at least C-. Students do not have to satisfactorily complete each assessment item to be awarded a passing grade in this course. Refer to Statement 4 below for the requirements to receive a passing grade in this course.
Penalties for late submission of required work:
If students submit assignments after the due date without (prior) approval of the examiner then a penalty of 5% of the total marks gained by the student for the assignment may apply for each working day late up to ten working days at which time a mark of zero may be recorded. No assignments will be accepted after model answers have been posted.
Requirements for student to be awarded a passing grade in the course:
To be assured of receiving a passing grade in a course a student must obtain at least 50% of the total weighted marks for the course.
Method used to combine assessment results to attain final grade:
The final grades for students will be assigned on the basis of the weighted aggregate of the marks (or grades) obtained for each of the summative assessment items in the course.
In a Closed Examination, candidates are allowed to bring only writing and drawing instruments into the examination.
Examination period when Deferred/Supplementary examinations will be held:
Any Deferred or Supplementary examinations for this course will be held during the examination period at the end of the semester of the next offering of this course.
University Student Policies:
Students should read the USQ policies: Definitions, Assessment and Student Academic Misconduct to avoid actions which might contravene University policies and practices. These policies can be found at http://policy.usq.edu.au/portal/custom/search/category/usq_document_policy_type/Student.1.html.
The due date for an assignment is the date by which a student must despatch the assignment to the USQ. The onus is on the student to provide proof of the despatch date, if requested by the Examiner.
Students must retain a copy of each item submitted for assessment. This must be despatched to USQ within 24 hours if required by the Examiner.
In accordance with University Policy, the Examiner may grant an extension of the due date of an assignment in extenuating circumstances.
If electronic submission of assessments is specified for the course, students will be notified of this in the course Introductory Book and on the USQ Study Desk. All required electronic submission must be made through the Assignment Drop Box located on the USQ Study Desk for the course, unless directed otherwise by the examiner of the course. The due date for an electronically submitted assessment is the date by which a student must electronically submit the assignment. The assignment files must be submitted by 11.55pm on the due date using USQ time (as displayed on the clock on the course home page; that is, Australian Eastern Standard Time).
If the method of assessment submission is by written, typed or printed paper-based media students should (i) submit to the Faculty Office for students enrolled in the course in the on-campus mode, or (ii) mail to the USQ for students enrolled in the course in the external mode. The due date for the assessment is the date by which a student must (i) submit the assessment for students enrolled in the on-campus mode, or (ii) mail the assessment for students enrolled in the external mode.
The Faculty will NOT normally accept submission of assessments by facsimile or email.
Students who do not have regular access to postal services for the submission of paper-based assessments, or regular access to Internet services for electronic submission, or are otherwise disadvantaged by these regulations may be given special consideration. They should contact the examiner of the course to negotiate such special arrangements prior to the submission date.
Harvard (AGPS) is the referencing system required in this course. Students should use Harvard (AGPS) style in their assignments to format details of the information sources they have cited in their work. The Harvard (AGPS) style to be used is defined by the USQ Library's referencing guide. http://www.usq.edu.au/library/help/referencing/default.htm
Students will require access to e-mail and internet access to UConnect for this course. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37314000 |
Thatís what researcher Mary Pat Moyer, PhD, professor of surgery, envisions based on her studies of neural and other stem cells with colleagues at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and The University of Texas at Austin.
Cellular spare parts may lead to help for spinal cord injury, brain damage
Stem cells are the immature, or precursor, form of cells that will go on to differentiate into brain cells, nervous system cells, liver, bone marrow and other types of cells. "Stem cells are fascinating," Dr. Moyer said. "If you put them into one kind of cellular Ďsoilí they grow into one kind of cell, and if you put them into another soil, they grow into another kind. They can be bred for specific purposes."
Dr. Moyer and colleagues hope their studies of the cells will one day enable surgeons to "fill in the neural blanks," for example, of patients who have suffered spinal cord injury or brain damage, or who live with Parkinsonís disease or a host of other diseases and disorders.
"We want to categorize bunches of cells, test them for safety and preserve them," Dr. Moyer said. "It is a similar concept to blood banking. When a certain type of cell is needed, it will be available for use."
Current work on the project is funded by InCell Corp. of San Antonio and the Center for Human Cell Biotechnology at the Health Science Center.
Return to index | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37319000 |
Farmers in Wisconsin are constantly looking for ways to improve profitability and productivity of their farming systems while still protecting soil and water resources. Cover crops are one tool that can provide a wealth of benefits into our Wisconsin crop rotations. Cover crops can enhance soil quality by increasing soil organic matter, stimulating greater soil biological activity, reducing soil erosion and utilizing extra soil nutrients.
The University of Wisconsin - Discovery Farms Program has monitored on-farm water quality from crop fields since 2001. Data from several farms across the state show that a significant amount of annual nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment losses occur either before vegetative canopy in the spring or in the fall after crop harvest. Cover crops can provide protection for the soil during critical times when cropland is more vulnerable to nutrient and sediment losses.
Below are factsheets and helpful resources when trying to decide how and when cover crops may fit into your management system.
Video courtesy of Sand County Foundation's YouTube page.
Michigan State University's Cover Crops Education Page
Midwest Cover Crops Council
Frost Seeding Clover into Winter Wheat - Published by University of Wisconsin
Winter Rye after Corn Silage - Published by University of Wisconsin
Also find articles of interest on cover crops in the following newsletters: January and May 2010, June 2009 | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37326000 |
National Organization for Rare Disorders, Inc.
It is possible that the main title of the report Sly Syndrome is not the name you expected. Please check the synonyms listing to find the alternate name(s) and disorder subdivision(s) covered by this report.
Synonyms Back to top
- Beta-Glucuronidase Deficiency
- MPS Disorder, type VII
- MPS VII
- mucopolysaccharidosis type VII
- GUSB deficiency
Disorder Subdivisions Back to top
General Discussion Back to top
Mucopolysaccharidoses, which are also known as mucopolysaccharide storage (MPS) diseases, are a group of rare genetic disorders caused by the deficiency of one of ten specific lysosomal enzymes. The lysosomes are particles bound in membranes within cells that break down certain fats and carbohydrates (mucopolysaccharides) into simpler molecules. The accumulation of these large, undegraded mucopolysaccharides in the cells of the body causes a number of physical symptoms and abnormalities.
Sly syndrome (MPS-VII) is an MPS storage disease caused by a deficiency of the enzyme beta-glucuronidase that leads to an accumulation of dermatan sulfate (DS), heparan sulfate (HS) and chondroitin sulfate (CS) in many tissues and organs of the body including the central nervous system.
The clinical features of Sly syndrome vary from patient to patient, but all have short stature due to growth retardation, changes in bones visible on X-rays and some degree of mental retardation. Survival into adulthood is common with milder cases and osteoarthritis is a common complication.
The symptoms of Sly Syndrome are similar to those of Hurler Syndrome (MPS I) and the other Mucopolysaccharidoses. Symptoms may include mental retardation, short stature with an unusually short trunk, and/or abnormalities of the intestines, corneas of the eyes, and/or the skeletal system. Sly Syndrome is inherited as an autosomal recessive genetic trait.
Resources Back to top
Children Living with Inherited Metabolic Diseases (CLIMB)
176 Nantwich Road
Crewe, Intl CW2 6BG
Tel: 0845 241 2174
Tel: 800 652 3181
Vaincre Les Maladies Lysosomales
2 Ter Avenue
Tel: 01 69 75 40 30
Fax: 01 60 11 15 83
1660 L Street, NW, Suite 301
Washington, DC 20036
National MPS Society, Inc.
PO Box 14686
Durham, NC 27709
NIH/National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive & Kidney Diseases
Office of Communications & Public Liaison
Bldg 31, Rm 9A06
31 Center Drive, MSC 2560
Bethesda, MD 20892-2560
Society for Mucopolysaccharide Diseases
White Lion Road
Buckinghamshire, HP7 9LP.
Tel: 004401494 434156
Fax: 004401494 434252
Canadian Society for Mucopolysaccharide and Related Diseases, Inc.
PO Box 30034
British Columbia, Intl V7H 2Y8
Tel: (604) 924-5130
Fax: (604) 924-5131
Genetic and Rare Diseases (GARD) Information Center
PO Box 8126
Gaithersburg, MD 20898-8126
Hide & Seek Foundation for Lysosomal Disease Research
6475 East Pacific Coast Highway Suite 466
Long Beach, CA 90803
For a Complete Report Back to top
This is an abstract of a report from the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD). A copy of the complete report can be downloaded free from the NORD website for registered users. The complete report contains additional information including symptoms, causes, affected population, related disorders, standard and investigational therapies (if available), and references from medical literature. For a full-text version of this topic, go to www.rarediseases.org and click on Rare Disease Database under "Rare Disease Information".
The information provided in this report is not intended for diagnostic purposes. It is provided for informational purposes only. NORD recommends that affected individuals seek the advice or counsel of their own personal physicians.
It is possible that the title of this topic is not the name you selected. Please check the Synonyms listing to find the alternate name(s) and Disorder Subdivision(s) covered by this report
This disease entry is based upon medical information available through the date at the end of the topic. Since NORD's resources are limited, it is not possible to keep every entry in the Rare Disease Database completely current and accurate. Please check with the agencies listed in the Resources section for the most current information about this disorder.
For additional information and assistance about rare disorders, please contact the National Organization for Rare Disorders at P.O. Box 1968, Danbury, CT 06813-1968; phone (203) 744-0100; web site www.rarediseases.org or email firstname.lastname@example.org
Last Updated: 5/12/2008
Copyright 1986, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1994, 1995, 2003 National Organization for Rare Disorders, Inc.
Healthwise, Healthwise for every health decision, and the Healthwise logo are trademarks of Healthwise, Incorporated. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37327000 |
Mange - Sarcoptic in Dogs
What causes sarcoptic mange?
Sarcoptic mange is caused by a parasitic mite that burrows just beneath the surface of the skin, Sarcoptes scabiei.
"...is a zoonotic disease or a disease transmissible from pets to people."
The mite feeds on material in and on the skin. It is also known as scabies and is a zoonotic disease or a disease transmissible from pets to people.
What does it do to the dog?
The presence of the sarcoptic mite causes intense itching. The dog will chew and scratch its skin constantly. This leads to the loss of large amounts of hair, especially on the legs and belly. Eventually, the skin will become thickened and will darken.
Is it contagious?
Sarcoptic mange is highly contagious to other dogs and humans. The dog's bedding should be discarded or regularly washed in hot water diluted with bleach (one ounce per gallon). Although sarcoptic mites are not able to complete their life cycle on humans, they will cause severe itching until they die in two to five days.
How is sarcoptic mange diagnosed?
Diagnosis is made by a skin scraping examined under the microscope. It is common not to see sarcoptic mange mites when performing a skin scraping. This is due to the fact that the mites burrow deep into the skin and that it takes only a few mites to cause significant itching. A presumptive diagnosis may therefore be made, based on clinical signs. Sarcoptic mange may occur in any dog at any time.
How is it treated?
There are several medications that are effective against Sarcoptes. Your veterinarian will discuss the best treatment for your pet's condition. Treatment varies from medicated baths and dips to injections to oral medications. Many pets will require a combination of treatments to resolve this infection. Once treatment has started, if your dog is still scratching in four to five days, please contact your veterinarian.
To prevent re-infection, discard any bedding or wash it frequently in diluted bleach solution (one ounce bleach in one gallon of water).
"In people, the mite cannot complete its life cycle so it will die in a few days."
If any member of the family develops itching or a skin rash, contact your family doctor immediately. Tell your doctor that you may have been exposed to sarcoptic mange or scabies. In people, the mite cannot complete its life cycle so it will die in a few days. However, it may cause intense itching during that time and medical treatment is often recommended. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37334000 |
- Published on Friday, 22 June 2012 08:18
Maputo, 18 June 2012 (Via Campesina Africa News) – Food production and people's sovereignty in Africa could be seriously compromised by carbon capture projects and the so-called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Plus (REDD+) mechanism. They can exacerbate food insecurity on the continent and could result in the loss of control over land and forest resources for African farmers.
Farmers "taking care" of the forest in Nhambita
This scenario could become a reality in the near future in Mozambique, as the country has offered its land to serve as a “model” for carbon capture projects and REDD+.
As evening falls, Albertina Francisco*, a farmer from the Nhambita community in Sofala province, Mozambique, returns home. She is tired after another day of work at her machamba (a term used in Mozambique to refer to a patch of farmland). In addition to looking after the maize, mapira (a type of sorghum) and cassava which she grows, another task has been added to Albertina’s workload: looking after the trees she planted a few years ago to ensure she is not penalized by Envirotrade at the end of the year, the company with which she has a carbon supply contract. Albertina is required to ensure the survival and good growth of the plants and to ensure that at least 85% of the plants received survive.
“In addition to the maize and mapira I also have to look after the trees now, to make sure they don’t die. I planted a lot of trees and it’s not easy checking on them all”, said Albertina, who visits her land twice a day.
Just like Albertina, another 1400 farmers in Nhambita and other villages in the Púngue administrative region in Sofala have been contracted to plant and care for trees on their land.
“When they came they said that the project is good because by planting trees we’d receive money to fight poverty and we’d be in charge (of the trees) even after the conclusion of the project”, one Nhambita farmer tells us.
The project is called the “Nhambita Community Carbon Project”1. The aim of the company that runs it, Envirotrade, is to capture carbon through agro-forestry, and sell carbon credits on the voluntary markets, which at this stage comprise Europe and the United States. By buying carbon credits, companies in industrialised countries can “sell” a positive image to their clients, clean their conscience and allow pollution of the planet. With the implementation of REDD+ and the purchase of carbon credits, it is expected that rich countries will continue to emit greenhouse gases, as they will be financing carbon capture projects in other locations, generally in countries in the South.
Envirotrade also claims to be alleviating poverty through this project.
“REDD areas supervisor - Envirotrade - showing a block of a protected area”
In addition to using their land to plant trees (gliricidia, faidherbia, cashew trees, mango trees, and timber-yielding varieties), communities are also expected to protect and patrol a defined area of just over 10 000 hectares, from which Envirotrade also sells carbon credits through the REDD+ mechanism.
Planting, preserving and protecting the forests are all services regulated by a contract between Envirotrade and the farmers. The contract is for a fixed term of only seven years. Yet, as stipulated by the clauses in the contract, the producer (farmer) is under the obligation to plant and care for trees, and will receive an annual payment, which varies according to the system chosen and the size of the area of land used. After seven years payments cease, but farmers still have a duty of care.
“It is the farmer’s obligation to continue to care for the plants which they own, even after the seven year period covered by this contract”♦, one of the articles in the clause on obligations of producers stipulates.
According to Envirotrade trees capture carbon for a period of 50 to 100 years. The farmers’ duty to care for the plants and forests thus automatically spans several generations.
“If a farmer passes away during the contract period, the contract, all the rights contained therein but also all the obligations, are transferred to their legitimate/legal heirs (children)”, António Serra, National Director for Envirotrade clarifies.
It should be noted that the contracts regulating these activities do not include a section on farmers’ rights.
Nhambita is a community in Gorongosa district, in the administrative region of Púngue at the centre of Mozambique. It is extremely biologically diverse and boasts a wealth of vegetation and forests to be envied.
The European Commission contributed about 1.5 million Euros of financing to Envirotrade between the start of the project in 2003 and 2008, for research and testing in Nhambita. However the European Commission cut its funding, one of the reasons being irregularities observed in the proposed method for measuring carbon.
What’s in it for the farmers…
According to Envirotrade their projects aim to alleviate poverty (in communities), and contribute to sustainable development and biodiversity conservation. “It is a new way of doing business”, the company, which believes it is offering a new way of life for individuals and communities, states on its website (2)
The services set out in a farmer’s contract which we gained access to were to be provided through planting trees in an area totalling 0.22 hectares (22 by 22 metres) in the farmer’s yard; and the farmer will receive a total of 3,215 Meticais (128 USD) over the seven years of the contract period. In order to earn enough money to actually alleviate poverty, this farmer would need access to a much greater land area, diversified systems, and would have to plant many more trees – which proves virtually impossible.
The most highly paid system run by Envirotrade is termed “forest plantation” and can earn the producer about 17.500 Meticais (670 USD) over seven years.
These amounts refer to one hectare, which means the amount may be lower or higher depending on the area of land in question. Nhambita’s farmers have an average of one hectare of land per family.
António Serra, National Director for Envirotrade in Mozambique, explains: “A farmer who has one hectare can sign a seven year contract one year using the bordadura system (border strips), the following year sign a seven year contract for consociação (mixed crops) covering the same area, and the third year sign a seven year contract under the quintal (yard) system. In this way the producer is involved in the project over a long period of time.”
However, do not let anyone be under any illusion that they will become rich through REDD+ and planting trees: “Carbon trading is not there to make anyone rich (farmers). The market itself shows that there are many costs involved. This is not going to make communities wealthy. Individuals need to have other sources of income”, Envirotrade’s Carbon manager said in an interview.
Envirotrade stopped issuing new contracts three years ago, because of financial difficulties.
Food sovereignty in danger
It is important to stress that commitment to this type of service could aggravate food insecurity for the community or for families, if the timescales and size of land areas needed to plant enough trees to ensure higher earnings are taken into account. This will lead to farmers “growing carbon” instead of growing food crops.
On the other hand “the current focus on the economic value of the forest [as promoted by Envirotrade] should not make the biological, spiritual and cultural values less important, as they [the communities] have been providing effective
conservation for generations”, a study (3) by Jovanka Spiric, who has researched the socioeconomic impact of the REDD programme in Nhambita, states.
A considerable number of farmers have abandoned farming and dedicate all their time to maintaining firebreaks and patrolling forests in the REDD+ area.
Gabriel Langa*, a father of four with two wives, is the head of the group which manages firebreaks and patrols Bloc 2, one of the “protected” REDD+ areas in the Bué Maria area of Púngue. Before, he used to farm to feed his family.
“Now our main activity is firebreaks. I don’t have time to go to the machamba”, Langa says.
Langa will earn 8845 Meticais (340 USD) during the firebreak phase for the “conservation” area, which he will divide between the group of four that he manages.
Forests were never at risk of disappearing…
According to Envirotrade, the buffer zone of the Gorongosa national park (4), where Nhambita community is situated, was at risk of disappearing due to intensive logging (for coal) and unchecked land clearing by fire.
Community leaders together with the Committee for Natural Resources management for Púngue, operating out of Nhambita in Gorongosa and set up before the arrival of Envirotrade on the scene, dismiss this hypothesis and claim that the committee has always known how to care for and preserve the forests and land in the area.
“The community had no problem with this and always knew how to manage resources. With the creation of the Management committee in 2011 this capacity was strengthened because we were trained to do it”, said Francisco Samajo, president of the committee. “This is probably what brought Envirotrade here”, he added.
Reacting to this, Aristides Muhate, Carbon Manager for Envirotrade says: “Sometimes people want first and foremost to assert their merit. Everyone knows that this area would be a hotbed of illegal logging today. He (the head of the resource management committee) wouldn’t even have the resources (money) to carry out the patrolling that he does”.
Envirotrade finances the Natural resources management committee, which in turn pays inspectors to patrol the forests and “protect them” from members of the same community.
Although the farmers admit to having benefited in some ways from the Envirotrade project (in terms of fruit trees, some annual income, health centres, transport in case of illness) consensus does not seem to prevail regarding the assertion that the communities were very poor and that their forests and lands were poorly managed.
Another Nhambita farmer, Raimundo Eduardo, stated that he had never considered himself to be poor, as in his own words “I have a machamba and I always worked”.
Giving up tree planting: Not everyone is finding the activity fun
Juvenal Francisco, 31, a farmer from Nhambita, gave up tree planting in 2010 as he felt the services did not bring him income.
“It seemed as if I was only working for them and I wasn’t seeing any benefits for me”, Franciso tells us. He took the initiative of contacting Envirotrade himself to make clear his desire to give up the activities.
What motivated Francisco to terminate the contract was the fact that as of year four he had not been paid the annual amount set out in his contract, allegedly because he had been unable to care for the plants in the way required by Envirotrade. Juvenal Francisco is of the opinion that Envirotrade failed to comply with one of the conditions it committed itself to, namely that of paying him for a seven-year period.
“As of year four they stopped paying me and they never explained why”, he said.
Juvenal says he planted over 900 timber- and fruit-yielding plants starting in 2007. Now, he dedicates his time to growing maize, sweet potato, mapira and cassava.
This has been a great source of conflict between Envirotrade and many farmers. A high number of “contracted” farmers find their earnings reduced for not achieving the 85% survival rates set out in the contract. Our reporting team also learnt that over the past three years, there have been delays to payments for environmental services, due to financial difficulties.
“a familly that abandoned the tree plantation activity in Nhambita”
Farmers don’t know what they are involved with
The Nhambita communities are not familiar with the REDD+ concept; and despite the fact that some farmers know that they are planting trees and preserving forests “to sell carbon”, they show a lack of deeper understanding of the concept and its mechanisms.
Envirotrade's National Carbon Manager, forest engineer Aristides Muhate, justifies this fact. “Information exists on different levels. There’s no reason why we should waste time explaining complicated concepts to the farmers, ” he says, pointing to the low levels of schooling among most of the population of Nhambita and the surrounding areas. This could be considered in breach of the right to advance information and free consent before operations started on their lands.
“We know that our income from planting trees comes from carbon. I don’t know anything more about it”, Elias Manesa from the Mutabamba community confessed, showing that he didn’t understand what carbon is.
The lack of comprehensive information surrounding Envirotrade’s carbon business involving community resources calls into question the transparency of the process. The poor or complete lack of understanding among farmers of the concepts linked to REDD+ and the carbon markets means that they are managing their resources and getting involved in the business without awareness of its full implications: allowing Northern polluters to continue to release carbon into the atmosphere. This poses risks to these very farmers’ well-being if we take into account the fact that these emissions will have a negative impact on Mozambique, for instance through droughts and flooding.
Another woman, who does not have a personal contract with Envirotrade but who has planted and cares for trees because her partner decided for both of them to get involved, was also unaware of the ultimate objectives of this activity.
“All I know is that my husband receives money (annually) because of the trees we’ve planted. I don’t know any more details”, she said. In fact, over half of the farmers who have signed contracts with Envirotrade are male. Few women own land in Mozambique, even though they constitute the group which devotes the greatest effort to food production and other land-linked labour.
Emerging social conflict
Signs of social conflict linked to payments for environmental services (PES) between Nhambita community members are beginning to show. This situation could become more serious in the future.
Farmers who do not benefit from PES are displaying resentment for not receiving any money from Envirotrade.
In other REDD projects in countries like Indonesia, payments for environmental services are creating inequalities due to income disparities, and this tends to create divisions in the community and jeopardize organisational, social and cultural cohesion.
As an example, the French newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique (5) recently published a story on the case of farmers being displaced because of implementing the REDD programme in Mexico.
Jossias Jairosse* arrived in Nhambita recently and works in the community carpentry workshop in his village. Envirotrade had stopped issuing contracts when he settled in the community. He feels resentful and inferior to his neighbours, as they have annual income levels which he has no hope of reaching.
Mozambican land in demand with others for REDD+ projects
A company backed by British capital is eyeing up about 15 million hectares (19% of Mozambican territory) for REDD+ (6) activities. Cases of land grabbing linked to Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation could make this figure even higher, if agrofuel production and the growing of different monocultures are included here. These practices can also be included under REDD+ as the system includes carbon credits from cultivation and land use and not just from forestry. According to the 2008 national forest inventory, about 70% of the country (54.8 million hectares) is currently covered by forest and other wooded areas. These areas are at risk of being exploited for carbon capturing.
Areas targeted for “investment” in REDD+ projects in Mozambique by a British-backed company
Mozambique finds itself in a privileged position, among the most “coveted” countries in Africa when it comes to the implementation of so-called development projects benefitting from foreign investment. The World Bank for instance considers Mozambique an appropriate location for REDD projects, the Clean Development Mechanism (7) and industrial agriculture.
Companies in the North have been acquiring land in Mozambique for export-oriented production, agrofuels and now for REDD+. Currently even the so-called emerging economies, namely India and Brazil, are acquiring land for use in agro-business and for mining.
In most of these cases local communities, and particularly farmers and indigenous populations, are heavily affected and often their rights are violated. In the case of the REDD+ programmes there is a significant risk that farmers will find themselves serving as employees of companies who use forest resources and local land to take advantage of the carbon credits system internationally, thus maximising their profits but not necessarily contributing to eliminating poverty in the communities.
In Uganda 22 000 farmers were displaced from their lands by a forestry carbon offsetting project in 2011.
The Nhambita project as a model for Rio+20 and the Green Economy
The Nhambita carbon project will serve as a model at Rio+20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development and the Green Economy, and appears on the website of the Rio+20 Commission for Sustainable Development.
Civil society organisations criticise the Rio+20 summit harshly for trying to bring approval and legitimacy to the commercialisation of nature.
“We are awaiting the REDD National Strategy and outcomes of Rio+20 in order to broaden implementation of the REDD+ programme in other locations”, Aristides Muhate of Envirotrade confirmed when interviewed by us at one of the company’s camps on May 23rd, 2012.
In fact, Envirotrade has a further two projects in addition to the Nhambita one, which operate with the same objective of selling carbon: one in the Zambezi Delta region and one in the Maconia district of the Quirimbas archipelago in Cabo Delgado province in northern Mozambique. Envirotrade is actively developing plans for a further two large-scale REDD+ projects.
The Nhambita REDD+ project might be copied in other areas of Mozambique. Members of the Mozambican government as well as international representatives, including Zambian ex-president Kenneth Kaunda, have visited the project, which could also serve as a model to be copied outside Mozambique in other African countries.
What is REDD...
The idea behind Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation is that developed countries wishing to reduce their emissions should receive financial compensation for doing so. Thanks to photosynthesis, trees absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen, which means they serve as a sort of “sponge” absorbing pollution. The REDD concept is marketed as a way of preserving forests, stopping climate change, protecting biodiversity, eradicating poverty and financing communities.
However, according to the United Nations, REDD could lead to “locking up forests”, “loss of land”, “conflict over resources”, “the concentration of power in the hands of elites”, “new risks for the poor” and could “marginalise the landless”. (8)
Many sectors in civil society warn of the risk that REDD projects could result in massive takeovers of land and constitute a way of colonising forests.
The REDD+ Legal framework in Mozambique
Work on developing the REDD National Strategy started in 2009. With the technical support of the Amazonas Sustainable Foundation and Indufor (Brazil), The Ministry for Coordination of Environmental Action (MICOA) and the Ministry for Agriculture (MINAG) held provincial meetings in Maputo to present the REDD+ programme. However, during these meetings the information given basically centred on the benefits and opportunities for Mozambique in implementing REDD+, thus creating expectations concerning income among participants. The negative aspects of REDD+ were not mentioned.
“The process was not very transparent, there was no access to the process for representatives of civil society who wished to follow it. Access to information was also lacking”, said Anabela Lemos of Justiça Ambiental (“Environmental Justice”).
The REDD National Strategy is still being debated in Mozambique. Its drafting has been the target of criticism from civil society organisations, including the National Farmers’ Union (União Nacional de Camponeses, UNAC) and Justiça Ambiental (Friends of the Earth Mozambique), because of its focus on clean development mechanisms and carbon markets, because it has named agrofuel and monoculture projects as eligible for REDD+ and because it did not involve civil society from the outset.
For example, community consultations that have been carried out reveal themselves to be unrepresentative – community and farmers’ consultations involved only 889 people in a country with a population of over 20 million.
“The REDD National Strategy is still being discussed, but the (Sofala) provincial government authorised it because the idea was to see how it would turn out. All the experiences will be compiled here (in Nhambita), that’s why we are a sort of laboratory, a model project”, said Aristides Muhate, carbon “head” at Envirotrade.
Recently, Charles Hall of Envirotrade told British newspaper The Observer (9) that “the business model for Envirotrade frankly remains to be proven”. According to him, “The fact that this can be made into a sustainable business on the basis of selling carbon offsets remains to be seen”.
International peasant movement La Via Campesina (which includes UNAC in Mozambique), recently released a position paper ahead of the Rio+20 conference, condemning among others the REDD mechanisms, carbon markets and the green economy.
“We repudiate and denounce the green economy as a new mask to hide increasing levels of corporate greed and food imperialism in the world, and as a brutal “green washing” of capitalism that only implements false solutions, like carbon trading, REDD, […] and all of the market-based solutions to the environmental crisis”, part of the position paper reads.
Augusto Mafigo, president of the Mozambican National Farmers’ Union, is concerned by the involvement of Nhambita farmers in carbon and REDD+ projects. Mafigo is convinced that REDD+ can be detrimental to farmers.
“As farmers we reject REDD, as it is clear that this is not a sustainable programme, and we run the risk of losing our resources and aggravating the poverty which already plagues us”, he said.
Via Campesina Africa News
* Real names withheld to protect the sources.
Translator’s note: Translation of the contract terms originally in Portuguese.
8 UN-REDD Framework Document, http://www.undp.org/mdtf/UN-REDD/docs/Annex-A-Framework-Docoment.pdf , p. 4-5 A Poverty Environment Partnership (PEP) Policy Brief, Based on the report “Making REDD Work for the Poor”, (Peskett et al, 2008) http://www.povertyenvironment.net/pep/ PEP includes UNDP, UNEP, IUCN, OCI, SIDA, ADB, DFID, WCMC For footnotes and complete textual citations of UN documents: See Earth Peoples http://www.earthpeoples.org/blog REDD Brochure | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37337000 |
Ward's Book of Days.
Pages of interesting anniversaries.
What happened on this day in history.
On this day in history in 1689, died George Jeffreys.
Jeffreys, known as the ‘hanging judge’, was a lawyer notorious for his sycophancy, brutality and corruption.
Jeffreys was born in Wrexham, Clwyd, into the Welsh gentry. He was educated at Westminster School, and at Trinity College, Cambridge and was called to the bar in 1668. During the panic that ensued after the ‘Popish Plot’, an alleged conspiracy against the king, Jeffreys was leading prosecuting council in many of the trials of suspects. Despite flimsy evidence, Jeffreys often obtained convictions by ridiculing defendants and introducing suspect evidence. He drew the attention of James Duke of York, later James II, brother of Charles II, and declared to him that he would take any measures necessary to assist the king and his brother.
Jeffreys quickly rose through the ranks of the judiciary. He became first a knight and a judge of the King’s Bench, then a baron and later Lord Chief Justice and finally Lord Chancellor. He presided over the trial of Algernon Sydney in the case of the Rye House Plot, an alleged conspiracy to kidnap the king, and convicted him on insubstantial evidence. Jeffreys became known for taking bribes and would release any defendant who paid him enough. Those who had no money, he hanged. Jeffreys successfully opposed the Exclusion Bill, which would have barred James, a Catholic, from the throne.
When James II became king and the Duke of Monmouth led a rebellion against him, Jeffreys presided over the trial of those who fought in the insurrection. The ‘Bloody Assizes, as the court was known, tried 1300 men, all of whom were convicted by Jeffreys, whatever the evidence. He hanged 320 and sent the remainder for transportation to the colonies as slave labour. On this occasion, he did not allow himself to be seduced by bribery, but sentenced all the defendants after finding them guilty. He sentenced the leader, Monmouth, to death by beheading and ordered the executioner to blunt the axe so that his head would not be severed in one stroke.
When James was deposed in 1688, Jeffreys tried to escape the country, disguised as a sailor, but was captured and held in the Tower of London. He died before he could be indicted for his actions.
The original room where the ‘Bloody Assizes’ were held still remains unchanged. It can be found in the Oak room, Antelope Hotel, Dorchester, Dorset DT1 1BA.
Woolrych, Humphrey W. The Life of Judge Jeffreys, Chief Justice of the King's Bench Under Charles II and Lord High Chancellor of England During the Reign of James II.
Buy it here at Amazon
Previous day Next day
©2006 Ward’s Book of Days | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37354000 |
This summer at our annual biome camp for elementary students, I had a chance to get back into the classroom for a couple of weeks. I chose to focus on what happens when land and water meet. Our studies culminated with the island in a kiddie pool above. But first...
I wanted each child to experience subtracting the piece of clay from the middle of the land and placing it on a blank dish to make their own lake and island when they added the water.
Potter's clay was inexpensive and easy to manipulate. However, the clay dried and shrunk on the paper plates we put it on. I am sure that even the most nostalgic parent tossed the product that came home. Next time, I will use ceramic plates and let the children wash them as part of the process. It is all about the experience not the product.
Then, we took it to a more abstract representation by drawing our land and waterforms on watercolor paper and painting the water with blue watercolor. The land was made by painting with watered down glue and sprinkling sand on it. The result was lovely and worthy of a frame.
We repeated the two steps with the gulf/peninsula, cape/bay, and isthum/strait. As a final event, we created the island above. I did it with a small group of seven students. It would be difficult with a larger group unless you had a bigger pool and more clay. The first task was to flatten the big block of clay I put in the center. As I turned around looking for the right tool for the job, the children solved our problem with their feet. It was quite effective.
Then, we molded it and created the land and water forms we had learned about. I love it when the nomenclature is used in context of a project. "I'll make a peninsula over here." They wanted a volcano since we had read about how volcanoes can create islands in the ocean.
We sprinkled sand on the beach and brought in moss for the vegetation. The final step was to add blue food coloring to the water and stand back to admire it!
We followed up the lessons with the Landform Mat and The Imaginary Island Puzzle from Mandala. We also collaborated to make a big island with brown paper on a large blue sheet of paper. It became 3D with paper boats, bridges and docks. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37356000 |
- Americans (1)
- Devices (Heraldry) (1)
- Discovery and exploration (1)
- Ethnic groups (1)
- Perry, Matthew Calbraith, 1794-1858 (1)
- Priests (1)
- Saigyo (1)
- Ships (1)
- Ukiyo-e (1)
- United States Naval Expedition to Japan (1852-1854) (1)
- Voyages and travels (1)
Type of Item
An Actor in the Role of Sato Norikiyo who Becomes Saigyo: An Actor in the Role of Yoshinaka
The Japanese art of Ukiyo-e (“Pictures of the floating [or sorrowful] world”) developed in the city of Edo (now Tokyo) during the Tokugawa or Edo Period (1600-1868), a relatively peaceful era during which the Tokugawa shoguns ruled Japan and made Edo the seat of power. The Ukiyo-e tradition of woodblock printing and painting continued into the 20th century. This diptych print of between 1849 and 1852 shows Saigyō surrounded by men trying to prevent him from leaving his house to become a priest. The poet Saigyō (1118-90) was born into ...
People of Many Nations
During the nearly two centuries of restricted foreign contact during the Edo period (1600–1868), the Japanese people still maintained a curiosity about foreign cultures. This map, published in the early 19th century, depicts an enormous archipelago representing Japan at the center of the world. Inset images and descriptions of foreign people, the distance from Japan to their lands, and differences in climate are noted. The locations listed include the “Pygmy country, 14,000 ri” (1 ri = 2.4 miles), “Woman country, 14,000 ri,” and “Black people country, 75 ...
United States of North America: Perry Arrives in Uraga, Soshu Province
Commodore Matthew C. Perry (1794–1858) of the United States Navy entered the port of Yokohama in 1853 with an intimidating fleet of steam warships, in order to force Japan to open up after nearly two centuries of restricted foreign contact. The “black ships” that he came with became a common subject for popular prints. The Japanese people were increasingly exposed to Western culture as new trade agreements prompted cross-cultural interaction, and a mixture of curiosity, awe, and anxiety at the influx of unfamiliar technology and customs can be seen ... | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37376000 |
- Africa, West (1)
- America (1)
- Brazil, French colony, 1555-1567 (1)
- Discovery and exploration (1)
- Thevet, André, 1502-1590 (1)
Type of Item
Guinea Itself, as Well as the Greatest Portion of Nigritia or the Land of the Blacks, the One Called Ethiopia Inferior by Modern Geographers, the Other Southern Ethiopia
This 1743 map shows western Africa from the territory of present-day Gabon in the south to Niger, Mali, and Mauritania in the north. The map was published in Nuremberg, Germany, by the firm of Homännische Erben, meaning the successors of the Nuremberg engraver and publisher Johann Baptist Homann (1663-1724) and his son, Johann Christoph Homann (1703-30). It is based on an earlier work by the great French mapmaker Jean Baptiste d’Anville (1697-1782). The illustration at the lower left depicts an African village. Items such as dress, houses and other ...
The Special Features of French Antarctica, Otherwise Called America, and of Several Lands and Islands Discovered in Our Time
André Thevet (1516/17-92) was a Franciscan friar who traveled widely and, through his writings, helped to establish cosmographie--as geography was called at the time--as a science in 16th-century France. After making trips to Africa and the Middle East in the 1540s, he was appointed chaplain to the expedition of Nicolas Durand de Villegagnon, which set out from Le Havre in May 1555 to establish a colony in Brazil. The expedition landed near present-day Rio de Janeiro in November of the same year. In January 1556, Thevet fell ill ... | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37377000 |
Procession at Séville and Bullfighting Scenes
These short films by the Lumière brothers depict two traditional events in Seville, Spain, as they appeared in the last years of the 19th century: Holy Week (Semana Santa) and bullfighting (la corrida de toros). The Holy Week procession, held during the week before Easter, included a magnificent spectacle of ornate floats (pasos) carried around the streets of the city by teams of bearers (costaleros). The procession was followed by penitents (nazarenos), caped and hooded in theatrical garb. The film that follows shows matadors fighting the bulls in the arena ... | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37378000 |
|Home | Cars | Inventions | What & Where | Tourist Info | Business Info | Classifieds | About | Archive|
The Unhappiest Country In The World
Moldovans are the unhappiest people in the world. That's according to data from the World Values Survey, whose researchers interviewed tens of thousands of people in over 60 countries during the last decade. Only 44% of people in Moldova said they were happy, the lowest proportion of all the countries surveyed. Is Moldova really such an unhappy place, and why?
These statistics from the World Values Survey are often quoted in a growing body of academic research into what causes happiness, and what implications there are for public policy. Often the answers to the “are you happy?” question are averaged with those to another, slightly different question – “are you satisfied with your life?” – to produce a broader measure called subjective well-being. Moldova comes out bottom on this count, too.
Source: World Values Surveys,
So what does cause happiness? Your instinctive response might be “money, of course” – and you'd be right, but only up to a point. A glance at the table shows that the unhappy countries are much poorer than the happy ones. But when you plot subjective well-being against a country's average income on a graph, you find there's a strong relationship up to a certain point – around $10,000 per year – but after that the relationship breaks down. Even more income doesn't make you even happier.
Of course, Moldova isn't anywhere near that point yet. But poverty can't be the whole story. There are countries even poorer than Moldova which are nonetheless much happier: Nigeria and Bangladesh, for example, have a lower average income than Moldova but their happiness rates are 81% and 85% respectively. Brazilians are only slightly better off than Moldovans, but 83% of them are happy. A whopping 93% of people in the Philippines consider themselves happy, despite income levels on a par with Moldova.
Nigeria, Brazil, Bangladesh and the Philippines are warm and sunny places, so might harsh Moldovan winters be at fault? That hardly seems plausible when you consider that the happiest place in the world is Iceland.
Could it be that language problems are to blame? Perhaps the word “happiness” translates differently in Bangladesh and the Philippines than it does in Moldova, leading people to apply different standards. This is a possibility, but the evidence is against it: French-speaking Swiss people are happier than French people, Italian speakers in Switzerland are happier than Italians, and Swiss who speak German are happier than Germans. This suggests that it's not something about what language they speak that makes Swiss people happy, but something about living in Switzerland.
Perhaps Moldovans were asked at a bad time. The data collected from different countries was not all gathered simultaneously, and that for Moldova came from a survey in 1995, arguably at the height of the difficulties caused by the transition from the Soviet era. But another, more comprehensive survey carried out in 2001 by a different organization suggests little has changed: Moldovans were slightly happier, 51% compared to 44%, but still came out bottom of the eight former Soviet states surveyed (Ukraine and Belarus were next most unhappy, at 53% and 60% respectively; Moldova seems to be the worst-hit victim of some kind of regional malaise).
It must be in political history where much of the answer lies, as all the other countries towards the bottom of the happiness list had also lived under communism. While it's easy to find examples of happy and poor countries, it's hard to find former communist states among them, Azerbaijan (78%) being the best candidate. The happiest states with a communist history, such as Poland (86%), the former East Germany (79%) and Hungary (78%), tend also to be the ones which have made the most economic progress.
Even then, they are less happy than other countries with similar income levels but without a communist past. As Ronald Inglehart and Hans-Dieter Klingemann, two of the leading academic researchers into the data on happiness, note: “Virtually all societies that experienced communist rule show relatively low levels of subjective well-being, even when compared with societies at a much lower economic level.”
Were people happier under communism? That's a difficult question to answer because only one survey of happiness was conducted in the Soviet Union. But the data from this survey suggests so. The Tambov region of Russia, the only part surveyed in the Soviet era, recorded 64% happiness in 1981 and only 47% in 1995. (The answers to the “satisfaction” question are even starker, down from 76% to 25% in the same period.) The only other country surveyed while under a communist regime was Hungary, 78% happy in 1981, dipping to 68% as communism ended in 1990 and back up to 78% by 1998. (“Satisfaction”, though, continued to decline: from 71% to 56% to 52%).
While inhabitants of both Hungary and Tambov were significantly unhappier in 1981 than those of other states with similar income levels, the ending of communism made them even less happy. It seems reasonable to think the same historical pattern of happiness will be true for Moldova.
So what is it about life after communism that causes such misery? The increase in poverty is an obvious reason: according to the United Nations Development Program, the incidence of poverty in Moldova increased from 2.1% to 40.6% between 1991 and 1993. But there are other reasons. Unemployment and lack of job security are strongly correlated with unhappiness, and both increased markedly with the end of communism.
Health is another strong contributor to happiness. (Although, interestingly, “self-reported” health – how healthy you think you are – is much more closely related to happiness than “objective” health, or how healthy a doctor thinks you are. Having a positive outlook on your health seems to be the biggest factor). The ending of communism took a toll on Moldovans' health. Again according to the UNDP, the general mortality rate increased from 9.7 persons per 1000 in 1990 to 12.2 in 1995, and the infant mortality rate from 19.0 in 1990 to 22.6 four years later. In 1994, 26,300 people were treated at Moldovan medical institutions, down from 69,500 in 1980, presumably because the escalating costs of medical treatment led to more illnesses going untreated rather than because there were fewer illnesses needing treatment.
As noted in a strategy paper issued by the British government, inequality also makes people unhappy – in Europe, at least; Americans say they don't mind it so much. Assuming Moldovans share the European cultural preference for more equal societies, the rapid increases in inequality that accompanied the transition from communism must have increased levels of unhappiness.
The same paper notes that the quality of a country's governance also affects happiness; in particular, there is evidence that the more democracy and political freedoms people enjoy, the happier they are. In theory, the increase in political freedom and democracy after communism should have made Moldovans happier, but in practice it is arguable that the overall quality of governance may not have improved or may even have deteriorated. Corruption of public officials is also strongly correlated with unhappiness. And there are exceptions to the freedom rule: China, although a highly authoritarian society, has relatively high levels of subjective well-being.
Finally, there is a strong relationship between how happy people are and how much control they feel they have over their lives. As Inglehart, Klingemann and Chris Welzel point out: “ In each of 148 national representative surveys, conducted in diverse societies ranging from Uganda to China, Iran, Brazil, Sweden and Poland, there is a strong correlation between people's perception of how much choice they have in shaping their lives, and their level of life satisfaction.” The lack of choice under communism may well explain why communist societies were more unhappy than others with similar incomes, but the uncertainties that accompanied the transition from communism may actually have led people to feel even less in control of their destinies.
At an individual level, there are other factors to be considered. Marriage has a big effect on an individual's happiness – equivalent to an increase of over $100,000 in annual income, according to one estimate. Religious people are slightly happier, as are those who exercise or play sport. But differences in marital status, income, job satisfaction, health and so on explain surprisingly little of the variations in people's levels of subjective well-being. A large amount of our propensity to be happy seems to be beyond our personal control, coded in our genetic inheritance.
A study of over 3,000 twins (Lykken and Tellegen, 1996) showed that identical twins report similar levels of happiness regardless of their life experiences, whereas non-identical twins – who shared a womb, but have different genes – do not. These studies suggest that around 45-50% of happiness is genetic. How happy your identical twin is, or even how happy your identical twin was ten years ago, is a much better predictor of your happiness than your income, education or social status. If you're prone to unhappiness – or happiness – you may simply have been born that way.
Genetic differences can't explain national differences, though: happiness levels within nations are known to have changed far more quickly than could possibly be explained by genes. It's implausible that there could be a disproportionate tendency to misery in the Moldovan gene pool.
And this is encouraging, because it suggests that whatever the precise combination of causes behind Moldova's bottom ranking in the happiness table, they are susceptible to change. Exactly why Moldova is so unhappy may still be mysterious, but the broad outlines of what's required are clear. With more wealth, health, good governance, freedom, democracy and equality, Moldovans can be happy too.
By Andrew Wright | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37387000 |
8 April 2011--Assessments indicate that more than 70% of the affected population do not have access to health services. Access to health care for IDPs and refugees is one of the most urgent needs. Furthermore the melting down of the national health system and the increasing impoverishment of population lead to high morbidity due to diseases such as malaria, diarrhoeas, measles and acute respiratory infections, and increased maternal and newborn mortality and morbidity.
Compendium of Consolidated Appeal Process: Health 2008
On 19 August 2006, a ship unloaded around 500 tonnes of petrochemical waste which was subsequently dumped in 17 sites around Abidjan (population estimated at 5 million). This waste contained a mixture of petroleum distillates, hydrogen sulphide, mercaptans, phenolic compounds and sodium hydroxide. Within a few days, thousands of people started complaining of ill health and seeking medical help. Between 5 and 20 September, more than 62 000 people have sought medical care. The number continues to rise daily. Eight deaths have been reported. The international community responded by sending experts teams to support the Government. Clean-up of the waste has started; it is anticipated that this will take about six weeks. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37398000 |
ENG365 Genre Studies
An analysis of literature as represented in its four major genres: the novel, the short story, poetry, and drama. Students will read representative texts form each genre and investigate the technical, formal and rhetorical features characteristic to each. When applicable, students will study the cultural and/or historical impetus behind the creation of a particular genre.
Credit Hours: 3 | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37408000 |
Picture of red tide taken from the NOAA Research Vessel Ron Brown
Click on image for full size
Courtesy of NOAA
Robots Watch out for Poisonous Plankton!
News story originally written on January 30, 2003
Tiny plankton that live in the sea may look harmless but certain types are able to kill fish, poison seafood and even choke swimmers. Now robots have been developed to search the seas for the dangerous plankton!
Plankton spend most of their life floating in ocean water. They cannot swim like fish, but instead float wherever the currents take them. The harmful types of plankton are single-celled, microscopic creatures called algae that photosynthesize like plants.
Most types of algae are very important for life in the sea because they are food for animals like clams, fish and whales. However, a few types of algae have poisons within them that are harmful to other creatures. When the dangerous types of algae grow so fast that they darken the ocean water with a reddish cloud called a red tide, they are dangerous to animals that eat them. When people eat seafood that ate the poisonous algae, they get sick too.
Special underwater robots have been released into the Gulf of Mexico to look for dangerous algae. The robots are called autonomous underwater vehicles, or AUVs. They look like small airplanes that glide underwater. They carry sensors to detect algae and record salinity and temperature of the water so that scientists can study when the red tides form.
Researchers hope that with the information from their robots and satellite images, they will be able to warn people living near the coast if a giant cloud of algae is in the ocean near them.
Shop Windows to the Universe Science Store!
Our online store
on science education, classroom activities in The Earth Scientist
specimens, and educational games
You might also be interested in:
About 70% of the Earth is covered with water. Over 97% of that water is found in the oceans. Everyone who has taken in a mouthful of ocean water while swimming knows that the ocean is really salty! Dissolved...more
It was another exciting and frustrating year for the space science program. It seemed that every step forward led to one backwards. Either way, NASA led the way to a great century of discovery. Unfortunately,...more
The Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on October 29th at 2:19 p.m. EST. The weather was great as Discovery took 8 1/2 minutes to reach orbit. This was the United States' 123rd...more
A moon was discovered orbiting the asteroid, Eugenia. This is only the second time in history that a satellite has been seen circling an asteroid. A special mirror allowed scientists to find the moon...more
Will Russia ever put the service module for the International Space Station in space? NASA officials want an answer from the Russian government. The necessary service module is currently waiting to be...more
A coronal mass ejection (CME) happened on the Sun early last month. The material that was thrown out from this explosion passed the ACE spacecraft. The SWICS instrument on ACE has produced a new and very...more
J.S. Maini of the Canadian Forest Service called forests the "heart and lungs of the world." This is because forests filter air and water pollution, absorb carbon dioxide, release oxygen, and maintain...more | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37410000 |
The image above reproduces "The Coyolxauhqui Stone," a giant monolith found at
the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan.
Click on image for full size
Image courtesy of the Museo del Templo Mayor, Mexico.
Coyolxauhqui was the Moon
goddess according the Aztec mythology. Her name means "Golden Bells." She was the daughter of the Earth goddess, Coatlicue
and the sister of the Sun god, Huitzilopochtli.
Coyolxauhqui encouraged her four hundred sisters and brothers to kill their dishonored mother. Coatlicue gave birth to Huitzilopochtli after a ball of feathers fell into the temple where she was sweeping and touched her. Huitzilopochtli sprang out of his mother as an adult fully armed and saver her.
Coatlicue regretted such violence. Thus, Huitzilopochtli cut off Coyolxauhqui's head and threw it into the sky to form the Moon.
Shop Windows to the Universe Science Store!
Our online store
includes issues of NESTA's quarterly journal, The Earth Scientist
, full of classroom activities on different topics in Earth and space science, ranging from seismology
, rocks and minerals
, and Earth system science
You might also be interested in:
Ahsonnutli was the sky father and chief god for the Navajo. He created heaven, Earth, and the sky. Each of the four directions, or cardinal points, are supported by a giant. Each direction is symbolized...more
Amphitrite was one of the sea-nymphs called the Nereids. One day the sea god Poseidon saw her dancing and fell desperately in love with her. He promptly asked her to marry him but unfortunately she refused....more
Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of love and beauty. She was known to the Romans as Venus. To the perfection of her figure and the purity of her features she added an innocent grace. On her sweet face she...more
In Greek mythology, Apollo was the son of Jupiter(in Greek Zeus) and Leto (Letona). He was the god of the Sun, logic, and reason, and was also a fine musician and healer. Leto travelled all over Greece...more
According to an ancient Greek legend, the figure of a gigantic crab was placed in the nighttime sky by the goddess Hera to form the constellation Cancer. Hera swore to kill Heracles, the most famous Greek...more
In the Northern Hemisphere sky is the constellation Cepheus, king of Ethiopia, and that of his wife Cassiopeia. Cassiopeia claimed that she and her daughter Andromeda were more beautiful than the sea nymphs,...more
According to Navajo mythology, the Milky Way was created by the mischievous behavior of the god, Coyote. When the world was created, the Holy People gathered around Black God to place the stars in the...more | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37411000 |
The basic forces in nature
Contemporary Physics Education Project
The interactions in the Universe are governed by four forces (strong, weak, electromagnetic and gravitational).
Physicists are trying to find one theory that would describe all
the forces in nature as a single law.
So far they have succeeded in producing a single theory that describes
the weak and electromagnetic forces (called electroweak force). The strong and gravitational forces are not yet described by this theory.
Table courtesy of University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario (Cananda)
Shop Windows to the Universe Science Store!Cool It!
is the new card game from the Union of Concerned Scientists that teaches kids about the choices we have when it comes to climate change—and how policy and technology decisions made today will matter. Cool It! is available in our online store
You might also be interested in:
The neutrino is an extremely light particle. It has no electric charge. The neutrino interacts through the weak force. For this reason and because it is electrically neutral, neutrino interactions with...more
Some ideas are used throughout the sciences. They are "tools" that can help us solve puzzles in different fields of science. These "tools" include units of measurement, mathematical formulas, and graphs....more
Mechanics is the term used to refer to one of the main branches of the science of physics. Mechanics deals with the motion of and the forces that act upon physical objects. We need precise terminology...more
The interactions in the Universe are governed by four forces (strong, weak, electromagnetic and gravitational). Physicists are trying to find one theory that would describe all the forces in nature as...more
When the temperature in the core of a star reaches 100 million degrees Kelvin fusion of Helium into Carbon occurs. Oxygen is also formed from fusion of Carbon and Helium together when the temperature is...more
A plot of the binding energy per nucleon vs. atomic mass shows a peak atomic number 56 (Iron). Elements with atomic mass less then 56 release energy if formed as a result of a fusion reaction. Above this...more
There are several experiments where nuclear fusion reactions have been achieved in a controlled manner (that means no bombs are involved!!). The two main approaches that are being explored are magnetic...more | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37412000 |
SARASOTA, Fla. (AP) - A large red tide bloom that's about 12 miles long and six miles wide is lingering off the Charlotte-Sarasota County coastline and killing fish.
The Herald-Tribune (http://bit.ly/Pcv7WP) reports that September and October are the most common months for red tide blooms which are caused by toxic algae.
Area hotel owners and tourism officials are hopeful that the problem won't worsen or spread.
The red tide effects are limited to southern Sarasota and Charlotte counties. No dead fish or bad air quality were reported on beaches north of Venice.
Red tide naturally occurs in the Gulf of Mexico. The bloom is deadly for fish, marine mammals, sea turtles and other sea life.
The toxins also can become airborne and cause breathing problems for people with asthma or other respiratory diseases.
(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.) | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37414000 |
Bad news, guys. The chances of making it to 100 are much greater if you're a woman.
The 2010 Census found 80% of the 53,364 people age 100 and older are women, according to a report out today. For every 100 centenarians, only 20.7% were men. The overall number of centenarians has increased 5.8% since 2000.
What helps the women? The largest study of centenarians in this country, the New England Centenarian Study, suggests that women handle age-related diseases better than men. But among men who do survive to 100, they seem better able to function than the women. The Census report finds the men were more likely to be living with others in a household (43.5%) while women are more likely to be living in a nursing home (35.2%).
The Census report also finds:
The report also shows that centenarians were less diverse than the rest of the population. Nearly 83% of centenarians are white, compared to about 72% in the total population. Nearly 6% (5.8%) are Hispanic compared to the 16.3% of Hispanics who make up the total population.
Most centenarians lived in the South (17,444), followed by the Midwest (13,112), Northeast (12,244) and West (10,564). California has the highest number (5,921), followed by Florida, New York and Texas.
Copyright 2013 USATODAY.com
Read the original story: Living to 100: 80% are women, report shows | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37421000 |
First we have the monarch
butterflies. These incredible creatures spend their summer
days in the northern parts and then migrate (leaving for another
place) to the south for the winter. They travel thousands of
miles - some almost 2900 km from Canada to Mexico. Just
looking at a map, you can see how far Canada is from Mexico, but
these little butterflies fly all the way to protect themselves
from the cold winters. Traveling so much certainly does tire
them out, which is why some of them cannot make a return trip.
These butterflies have never been to these foreign places, but
they still make the trip successfully. How do they do it?
A map showing the
monarch butterfly migration.
They travel from Canada to Mexico.
Then there are the Green sea turtles
(or the scientific term is chelonia mydas) who swim for months and
months in the east direction to migrate from a sea in Brazil in South America
to an island called Ascension Island, which is about 3200 km away.
Apparently these turtles were hatched on this island, and after they
grow up in South America, they return to their birthplace, the
Ascension Island, to hatch their own eggs.
Another example is that of some crabs
that are willing to walk about 240 km from deep water to shallow
water, just to lay their eggs.
These creatures have some kind of inborn
compass or instinct that tells them where to go and at
what is the right time for migration. No one has taught them this, most
of them have never been to the new place, but they still manage to
migrate safely. Scientists till today, cannot give good, complete
explanations for these migrations. It probably is just one of
nature's powers and mysteries..... | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37423000 |
Learn something new every day More Info... by email
During the early part of the 20th century, instrument makers created the electric double bass, a stringed instrument that has a built-in sound amplifier with electronic controls. Musicians also call this instrument the electric upright bass to avoid confusing it with the bass guitar. Double bass is the musical octave played by this instrument, which is one octave below the cello, or single bass. Resembling a giant violin, the original double bass is an acoustic stringed instrument.
As early as the 1950s, different designs for the electric double bass appeared on the market. Two main styles have survived in to the 21st century. One design is a smaller version of the classic acoustic double bass. It keeps the basic shape of the original acoustic double bass, but it usually is no larger than 75 percent of the normal size of the acoustic instrument. The second design, known as a stick bass, retains only the post that hold the instrument’s strings and electronics.
In addition to the increased sound volume the amplifier provides, both of these designs offer musicians advantages over the traditional instrument. The electric versions have less weight and bulk, making them easier to transport. They also give musicians the option of positioning the instrument on a stand during practice and performances, which can reduce the physical stress experienced by bass players, who normally keep the instrument upright by leaning their bodies forward.
An electric double bass has four or five strings. They commonly are made of lightweight steel. Before play, each of these strings must be tightened properly using screws at the top of the handle to reduce any slack that would distort the instrument’s sound. One plays this instrument with a bow or a pick.
The tonal range, or voice, for the double bass and the electric double bass is the lowest of all stringed instruments. Musicians who play the electric double bass find all of their music on the bass clef of a music score. The actual notes bassists play are one octave below the lowest note on the bass clef.
In classical compositions, the musical part for an electric double bass is similar to that of the percussion instruments, such as drums. Accomplished bassists who play the amplified instrument are able to take advantage of its enhanced capabilities and contribute lower-range notes to a composition's harmony. In jazz performances, an electric double bass often plays solos that accentuate the composition’s melody. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37424000 |
Definition of Wrath. Meaning of Wrath. Synonyms of Wrath
Here you will find one or more explanations in English for the word Wrath. Also in the bottom left of the page several parts of wikipedia pages related to the word Wrath and, of course, Wrath synonyms and on the right images related to the word Wrath.
Definition of Wrath
WrathWrath Wrath (?; 277), n. [OE. wrathe, wra[thorn][thorn]e,
wrethe, wr[ae][eth][eth]e, AS. wr[=ae][eth][eth]o, fr.
wr[=a][eth] wroth; akin to Icel. rei[eth]i wrath. See
1. Violent anger; vehement exasperation; indignation; rage;
Wrath is a fire, and jealousy a weed. --Spenser.
When the wrath of king Ahasuerus was appeased.
Now smoking and frothing Its tumult and wrath in.
2. The effects of anger or indignation; the just punishment
of an offense or a crime. ``A revenger to execute wrath
upon him that doeth evil.' --Rom. xiii. 4.
Syn: Anger; fury; rage; ire; vengeance; indignation;
resentment; passion. See Anger. WrathWrath Wrath, a.
See Wroth. [Obs.]
Wrath Wrath, v. t.
To anger; to enrage; -- also used impersonally. [Obs.] ``I
will not wrathen him.' --Chaucer.
If him wratheth, be ywar and his way shun. --Piers
Meaning of Wrath from wikipedia
- in islam, god's mercy outweighs
or takes precedence
of it the characteristics
upon whom god's wrath
will fall is as
is the sixth studio album
by american groove metal
band lamb of god . it was released
23, 2009. it achieved number
- the wrath
is the name of two fictional comic
by dc comics
. the original wrath debuted
in batman special
- the currently recognized version
of the sins are usually given
, lust , envy , and gluttony
- he exclusively attacks wrath during
the movie, the battle leading
to alphonse elric sacrificing
the two upon wrath's demand, in order
- in 1997, clark rejoined
wcw as wrath, a helmeted martial artist
, battled glacier
and ernest miller
- wrath records
is a small independent record label founded
in 2002 based
, england unlike
some 'indie labels', wrath
- daryl sabara scorn
was created specifically
for the series
to provide wrath
with a sidekick counterpart
. andy mallory
is the third album
by electropop group
iris , released
in 2005. taking
the organic style
- wrath: moses praises
of god in exodus
of the golden
calf , moses describes | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37443000 |
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- Cardozo, Benjamin Nathan 1870-1938. American jurist and writer who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1932-1938).
“In late 2008, Peter Markowitz, professor of law at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York, explained:”
“Benjamin Cardozo, appointed by president Herbert Hoover in 1932, was the first.”
“That honor goes to Benjamin Cardozo, a descendant of Portuguese Jews who immigrated to America.”
“Justice Benjamin Cardozo was on the SC for 6 years.”
“I suggest you look up the word "Hispanic" before you blast democrats and jews - Jusice Benjamin Cardozo was Sephardi Jew and Portugese - he was NOT Hispanic in contemp. terms - as Portugese is not considered hispanic ...”
“Karl Rove said that Judge Sotomayor would not be the first Hispanic justice on the court; he says that honor fell to Benjamin Cardozo, whom Mr. Rove claims to have been "Sephardic.”
“Claudia Francis, Benjamin Cardozo (Oakland Gardens, N.Y.), 2: 05.47;”
“Benjamin Cardozo (Oakland Gardens, N.Y.), 3: 39.96;”
“Benjamin Cardozo, appointed by Herbert Hoover in 1938, was the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice.”
“One legal scholar has lamented that the correspondence of Benjamin Cardozo, a profoundly private man, was handled by the judge's executor "the way Warwick handled Jeanne d'Arc.”
Looking for tweets for Cardozo. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37444000 |
- Latin defensare, defensatum, to defend diligently, intensive of defendere. See defend. (Wiktionary)
“I would rather forgive pride in a poor body, than in a rich: for in the rich it is insult and arrogance, proceeding from their high condition; but in the poor it may be a defensative against dishonesty, and may shew a natural bravery of mind, perhaps, if properly directed, and manifested on right occasions, that the frowns of fortune cannot depress.”
“A short defensative about church government, toleration, and petitions about these things.”
“Christian magistrates, -- is so suited to our present frame and temper, but so unworthy of them, that I should wrong them by a defensative.”
“Charged they were that they worshipped an ass's head; which impious folly -- first fastened on the Jews by Tacitus, Hist., lib.v. cap. 1, in these words, "Effigiem animalis, quo monstrante errorem sitimque depulerant, penetrali sacravere" (having before set out a feigned direction received by a company of asses), which he had borrowed from Apion, a railing Egyptian of Alexandria -- was so ingrafted in their minds that no defensative could be allowed.”
“So whereas one of them says, "Fundus animae meae tangit fundum essentiae Dei," it had certainly been better for him to have kept his apprehensions or fancy to himself, than to express himself in words which in their own proper sense are blasphemous, and whose best defensative is that they are unintelligible.”
“It is not, then, a sure and infallible defensative.”
“I say, I would suppose that this might divert our doctor from casting his eye upon Vedelius, whose defensative would have informed him that these epistles had been opposed as false and counterfeit before ever Salmasius or”
“The dedication of books to the names of men worthy and of esteem in their generation takes sanctuary in so catholic and ancient prescription, that to use any defensative about my walking in the same path cannot but forfeit the loss of somewhat more than the pains that would he spent therein.”
“And, indeed, the foisted passages in many places are so evident, yea shameful, that no man who is not resolved to say any thing, without care of proof or truth, can once appear in any defensative about them.”
“Neither could we be justly blamed should we be more than ordinarily urgent herein, considering how prone the ears of men are to receive calumnious accusations concerning such as from whom they expect neither profit nor advantage, and how slow in giving admittance to an address of the most modest defensative.”
‘defensative’ hasn't been added to any lists yet.
Looking for tweets for defensative. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37446000 |
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The act or state of expecting; expectation: Tense with expectancy, I waited for my name to be called.
- n. The state of being expected.
- n. Something expected.
- n. An expected amount calculated on the basis of actuarial data: a life expectancy of 70 years.
- n. expectation or anticipation; the state of expecting something
- n. the state of being expected
- n. something expected or awaited
- n. an expectation
- n. something expected (as on the basis of a norm)
“University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, who has studied health inequalities and reproductive patterns, points out that healthy life expectancy is short for African Americans and women depend on extended family networks for support.”
“There's too much of … what I call an expectancy culture of things being provided.”
“Because of that, there's what we call the expectancy effect.”
“Life expectancy is only longer because fewer babies die; people who reach 65 live about the same number of years as they used to.”
“The increase in life expectancy is very small by comparison.”
“If he's extremely obese and a smoker, his life expectancy is 60, a difference of 21 years.”
“At the extremes, the gap in life expectancy is wide: There is a nearly 18-year difference in life expectancy between black men and Asian/Pacific Islander women (69.4 vs. 86.9 years).”
“Doing screening tests on patients whose life expectancy is extremely limited because of cancer is just not a cost-effective thing to do," said Dr. Allen Lichter, CEO of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, who wasn't involved in the research.”
“Calculating life expectancy is a tough task that requires analyzing extensive information about how people died and how old they were, as well as statistical modeling to predict how long people born today will live if current trends continue.”
“Hispanics, life expectancy is nearly two years lower in Puerto Rico, more than two years lower in Cuba, and more than four years lower in Mexico, according to World Health Organization figures.”
These user-created lists contain the word ‘expectancy’.
All words that could come in handy in stories.
favorites from crim, civpro, and contracts - a little entertainment to make finals a little more bearable
Looking for tweets for expectancy. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37447000 |
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The fruit of any of various related plants, such as the cantaloupe, watermelon, cucumber, squash, pumpkin, and melon, having a hard or leathery rind, fleshy pulp, and numerous flattened seeds.
- From Latin pepō, from Ancient Greek πέπων (pepōn, "large melon"), from πέπων (pepōn, "ripe"), from πέπτω (peptō, "ripen"). Compare pumpkin. (Wiktionary)
- Latin pepō, a kind of melon, from Greek pepōn, ripe; see pekw- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
“All members of the family bear a fruit called a pepo, which is the edible portion that we call the squash, melon, pumpkin or cucumber.”
“Most cucur-bits produce a particular form of berry called a pepo, with a protective rind and a mass of storage tissue containing many seeds.”
“They “believe in a benevolent deity or supernatural power which they identify with the forest”; it is “regarded as the source of pepo life force and of their whole existence.””
“While most are either maxima, moschata or pepo, the Cushaw is a strain of mixta.”
“= Cucurbita pepo = pumpkin (used for Halloween pumpkins)”
“Swahili - punga pepo, - toa pepo, - lema pepo; Zaramo kuhunga madogoli. back”
“= Cucurbita pepo = pumpkin used for Halloween pumpkins”
“The curcurbitaceae are divided into four subspecies, one of which, the Mexican native curcurbita pepo, includes pumpkins, ornamental squash, acorn squash and summer squash, also known as vegetable marrow.”
“Pumpkin Seeds Pumpkin seeds come from the fruits of the New World native Cucurbita pepo, are notable for being deep green with chlorophyll, and for containing no starch, as much as 50% oil, and 35% protein.”
“One of the simplest treatments to help maintain prostate health is to eat a few tablespoons of pumpkin seeds Cucurbita pepo each day.”
These user-created lists contain the word ‘pepo’.
A hodgepodge, jumble, jambalaya, *gallimaufry, circus and tent revival of plant anatomy and morphology terms and phrases - its a big tent, and no tickets are required.
Looking for tweets for pepo. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37449000 |
Anaphylaxis is an acute, life-threatening hypersensitivity reaction, involving the whole body, which is usually brought on by something eaten or injected.
The term anaphylaxis is often used only for a severe allergic reaction affecting the whole body. A second term, non-allergic anaphylaxis, may be used to describe identical reactions that are not caused by allergy, but involve other mechanisms in the body.
The clinical diagnosis and management are identical, whatever the cause of the anaphylaxis.
Anaphylaxis is a medical emergency that develops rapidly and can be fatal. A few or all of the following symptoms, often developing in this order, may be experienced:
- Itching of the lips, tongue and palate, swelling of the lips, tongue and throat
- Swelling of the eyelids, itchy, watery eyes
- Generalized itching, flushing, swelling of the skin, and hives (urticaria)
- Increased heart rate
- Abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea
- Difficulty in breathing due to throat swelling, wheezing and asthma
- A sense of impending doom
- Collapse, loss of consciousness, weakness and faintness caused by a drop in blood pressure.
Severe initial symptoms can develop within minutes following an encounter with an allergen, and usually reach peak severity within 3-30 minutes. Sometimes there can be a second phase reaction, 1–8 hours after the initial anaphylaxis.
1. Anaphylaxis Caused by an Allergen
After a first encounter with an allergen, for example a bee sting, the allergic person can develop a particular type of antibody known as immunoglobulin E (IgE). This antibody is unique in that it attaches to cells in the body called mast cells and cells in the bloodstream known as basophils. The next time the individual is stung by a bee, the allergy antibodies attached to the cells react to the bee venom. This binding of the antibodies to cells and basophils with the bee venom allergen causes the release of chemicals, including histamine, into the bloodstream. The systemic allergic reaction that follows is called anaphylaxis. The whole body is involved. The reactions can be mild, and only involve the skin (hives or welts, redness of the skin and generalized itching), to severe (severe shortness of breath and/or unconsciousness with loss of blood pressure).
In theory, any food protein is capable of causing anaphylaxis. Foods most frequently responsible for anaphylaxis are:
- Peanut (a legume)
- Tree nuts (walnut, hazel nut/filbert, cashew, pistachio nut, Brazil nut, pine nut, almond)
- Shellfish (shrimp, crab, lobster, oyster, scallops)
- Milk (cow, goat)
- Hen’s eggs
- Seeds (cotton seed, sesame, psyllium, mustard)
- Fruits, vegetables.
Rarely, food sensitivity can be so severe that anaphylaxis can occur after allergen inhalation, such as the odor of cooked fish or the opening of a package of peanuts.
A severe allergy to pollen, for example, ragweed, grass or tree pollen, can indicate that an individual may be susceptible to anaphylaxis or to the oral allergy syndrome (severe itching in the mouth and throat, with or without facial swelling) caused by eating certain plant-derived foods. This is due to the close relationship between proteins found in both the pollens and the foods.
Specific examples of these types of associations are:
- Birch pollen: apples, raw potatoes, carrots, celery and hazelnuts
- Mugwort pollen: celery, apple, peanut and kiwifruit
- Ragweed pollen: melons (watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, etc) and bananas
- Latex: bananas, avocado, kiwifruit, chestnut and papaya
Food-associated, exercise-induced anaphylaxis may occur when individuals exercise within 2-4 hours after ingesting a food they are allergic to. The combination of the exercise and the food can cause anaphylaxis, but the individual is able to exercise without symptoms or ingest the food without symptoms.
Antibiotics and Other Drugs
Penicillin, Cephalosporin and Muscle Relaxants Used in Anesthesia
Penicillin is the most common cause of anaphylaxis, for whatever reason, not just drug-induced cases.
Serious reactions to penicillin occur more frequently if the drug is injected or given intravenously, rather than taken by mouth.
Muscle relaxants, which are commonly used in anesthetic procedures, can cause an allergic reaction in some people.
The venom in the stings of bee, wasp, yellow-jacket, hornet and fire ant (Hymenoptera species) contain enzymes which are capable of causing anaphylaxis.
Latex is a milky sap produced by the rubber tree, Hevea brasiliensis. Anaphylaxis caused by latex can be a serious complication of medical procedures, such as internal examinations, dentistry or surgery. Medical and dental staff may develop occupational allergy through the use of especially powdered latex gloves. Latex has a wide variety of everyday uses, for example in balloons, rubber gloves, condoms, elastic, rubber bands, erasers and rubber toys.
Elective Medical Procedures
Allergen immunotherapy (hyposensitization) injections, which are given to treat allergies, can induce anaphylaxis, so the injections must be administered in a doctor’s office or a hospital where emergency equipment is available. The length of time a patient is asked to wait under medical supervision following an allergen immunotherapy injection varies among countries, but is usually from 20 minutes to an hour.
Anaphylaxis can occur in response to a number of proteins that are foreign to the body, such as insulin or seminal fluid.
2. Non-allergic Anaphylaxis
Aspirin, Ibuprofen, Indomethacin
Allergy antibodies against aspirin and similar non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs have not been identified. The reactions can be very severe. People who are affected by these drugs can usually take choline or sodium salicylates, drugs which are very similar to aspirin, but differ slightly in their chemical composition.
Sulfiting Agents: Sodium and Potassium Sulfites, Bisulfites, Metabisulfites, Gaseous Sulfur Dioxides
These chemicals are added to foods and drinks to prevent deterioration and are also used as preservatives in a variety of medications. Sulfites are converted to gas in the stomach and are then inhaled. Rarely, they can cause asthma and anaphylaxis in susceptible people.
Whole Blood, Serum, Plasma, Serum Products, Immunoglobulins
Anaphylactic reactions can occur after the administration of whole blood or its products. A mismatched blood transfusion can cause anaphylaxis.
Individuals who have a serum protein deficiency may become sensitized to the missing proteins when they are provided in blood products.
Radiocontrast Media, Low-molecular Weight Chemicals Used in <edical Procedures and Narcotic Drugs
When injected into the body, these chemicals can cause the release of histamine and other inflammatory chemicals from cells in the body and blood stream, resulting in anaphylaxis.
Women may rarely suffer anaphylaxis attacks as a result of hypersensitivity caused by the progesterone secreted during the menstrual cycle.
Where recurrent symptoms of flushing, increased heart-rate, skin rashes, skin swelling, and difficulty breathing occur, but no recognized cause can be found, these cases are sometimes referred to as idiopathic (unknown cause) anaphylaxis.
Emergency medical assistance should be sought at the first sign of anaphylaxis. The sooner the attack is treated, the less severe it will be.
If the patient carries an epinephrine injection kit, this should be administered into a muscle immediately while the ambulance is awaited. If there is no improvement after several minutes, a second injection should be given. Even if the attack responds to the epinephrine injection, the patient should be transferred to the hospital for further observation, because of the risk that a second phase anaphylaxis attack may develop.
Treatment in the hospital may involve the use of glucocorticosteroid and antihistamine drugs in addition to adrenalin.
Prevention of Anaphylaxis
An individual who has suffered anaphylaxis should seek immediate medical help in identifying the cause of the reaction.
The patient’s family doctor should be informed as soon as possible about the attack. The doctor should be asked to provide a prescription for at least two epinephrine (adrenalin) auto-injector syringes and to train the patient and his/her family how to use them. Patients should carry a syringe at all times and have a spare at home. As soon as a syringe is used it must be replaced immediately.
It is important to ensure that each epinephrine syringe is within its "use-by" date; the effectiveness of the injection rapidly decreases after this date.
A referral to an allergy specialist for appropriate blood tests should be arranged, to help identify the allergy antibodies present in the blood, and to determine the allergen likely to have caused anaphylaxis. An allergist will be able to explain how to recognize the symptoms that occur at the onset of anaphylaxis.
Patients judged by a doctor to be at risk, and those who have experienced an anaphylaxis episode, should consider wearing a medical alert bracelet or necklet detailing known allergies.
At home, work and school, others should be alerted to the patient’s problem, and what to do in an emergency.
Advice for Avoiding Food Allergens
- Ask your doctor for a referral to a dietician who can advise you about food labeling; there are many hidden ingredients in processed food. For example, peanuts in ice cream and cow’s milk protein in fast food – "Emulgator" is often the cow’s milk protein casein
- Read food labels carefully
- When eating at a restaurant or hotel, advise the chef and waiter of your allergy
- If you are traveling abroad, obtain a translation card in the language of the country you are visiting, explaining what you are allergic to, and what should be done in the event of an emergency (Translation cards can be obtained from the British Allergy Foundation)
- Contact your local allergy organization for support and advice about coping with anaphylaxis
- Make sure that school teachers and school meal supervisors are informed about a child’s food allergies.
Advice for Preventing Insect Stings
- Avoid potential contact with stinging insects: Stay clear of areas where stinging insects build or have nests, and be careful when picking ripe fruit or when such fruit is on the ground under a fruit tree
- Keep food covered at all times, particularly outdoors. Keep barbecues and waste disposal areas clean
- Don’t wear perfume, bright colors, and bold or flower-print clothing
- Keep an insecticide spray in the car
- Wear closed-toe shoes outdoors and don’t go barefoot
- Don’t wear loose-fitting garments that can trap insects.
Allergen immunotherapy (hyposensitization/desensitization injections) are very effective in preventing further reactions to insect stings. As the allergist administers doses of venom in increasingly higher concentrations over time, the patient’s immune system becomes resistant to the effects of the venom.
Advice for Preventing Drug Reactions
- Ensure that your doctor and dentist are informed immediately if a reaction occurs to a drug which has been prescribed
- Any new physician who is consulted should be notified of drug reactions
- Check the content of cold and flu treatments to make sure they do not contain a drug to which you react.
Advice for Avoiding Latex Reactions
- Avoid contact with natural latex products
- Inform physicians and other health care professionals, family, employers and school personnel about the allergy
- Use synthetic products instead of natural latex products
- Health care professionals should avoid the use of powdered latex gloves to prevent inhalation of latex proteins attached to the powder
- Some foods contain the same allergenic proteins as latex and may need to be avoided. These are avocados, bananas, kiwi fruit and European chestnuts, as well as others
Other Conditions Which have Similar Symptoms to Anaphylaxis
- anxiety attacks
- severe asthma
- swallowing or inhaling a foreign body
- blood clots in the lungs (pulmonary embolism)
- inflammation of the tissues at the top of the throat
- heart attack
- hormone-producing tumor in the small intestine (carcinoid syndrome)
- hereditary angioedema
- increased output of hormones from the adrenal gland (pheochromocytoma)
- low blood sugar
- overdoses of medications
- hives brought on by exposure to cold temperature (cold urticaria)
- hives brought on by emotion, temperature, etc (cholinergic urticaria)
- sulfite or monosodium glutamate ingestion
If anaphylaxis occurs during a medical procedure it is important to consider a possible reaction to latex or anesthetic drugs.
The prevalence of food-induced anaphylaxis varies with the dietary habits of a region. In the USA, studies indicate that approximately 29,000 food-anaphylactic episodes occur each year. Food allergy has been reported to account for over one-half of all severe anaphylactic episodes in Italian children treated in emergency departments, and for one-third to one-half of anaphylaxis cases treated in emergency departments in North America, Europe and Australia. Anaphylaxis is thought to be less common in non-Westernized countries.
Risk factors for food anaphylaxis include asthma, pollen allergy and previous allergic reactions to the causative food.
Anaphylaxis Caused by Radiocontrast Media
Mild adverse reactions are experienced by approximately 5% of patients receiving radiocontrast media in radiological procedures. Figures from the USA suggest that severe systemic reactions occur in 1:1000 exposures, with a risk of death in 1:10,000-40,000 exposures.
1% to 5% of courses of penicillin therapy are complicated by hypersensitivity reactions, and anaphylaxis accounts for 0.2% of treatments. Death occurs in 0.02% of treatments.
If an individual has a strong positive skin test, or IgE antibodies, to penicillin there is a 50-60% risk of anaphylaxis occurring if penicillin is given again. The risk of anaphylaxis caused by penicillin is low if tests are negative. Atopy - the ability of a person to develop IgE antibodies that cause allergy - is not a risk factor for the development of penicillin allergy and sensitivity to molds is not relevant. The risk of a person with a history suggestive of penicillin allergy reacting to cephalosporin antibiotics is less than 1%.
Insect Venom Anaphylaxis
Studies from France, Australia, the U.S.A. and Switzerland suggest incidences of anaphylaxis caused by Hymenoptera venom ranging from 0.4% to 4% of the population.
Food-associated, Exercise-induced Anaphylaxis
This is more common in females, and over 60% of cases occur in individuals less than 30 years of age.
Anaphylaxis is a severe hypersensitivity reaction that can be fatal.
It is essential to identify the cause of anaphylaxis in order to prevent further occurrence.
Individuals with a history of anaphylaxis should carry an epinephrine injector kit with them at all times.
If, while eating a particular food or after being stung by an insect, you start to notice symptoms that you suspect could develop into anaphylaxis, do not delay in seeking treatment; tell someone what is happening immediately, and get to the hospital as soon as possible. If an epinephrine injection is available, use it immediately.
Allergy Awareness Association New Zealand
Allergy Society of South Africa (ALLSA)
www.allergysa.org. Go to online literature, then to anaphylaxis.
American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI)
www.aaaai.org/public/publicedmat/tips/spanishtips/ que_es_la_anafilaxis.stm (in Spanish)
Anaphylaxis Campaign (UK): www.anaphylaxis.org.uk
Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy (ASCIA)
British Allergy Foundation
www.allergyfoundation.com. Click on translation cards.
Food Allergy Network (USA)
Food Anaphylactic Children Training Support (Australia)
Mayo Clinic (USA) | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37452000 |
SIMILAR BOOKS BY CATEGORY
LINK FROM YOUR SITE
Fast-paced and easy-to-read, these softcover 32-page graphic biographies teach students about historical figures: those who lead us into new territory, pursued scientific discoveries; battled injustice and prejudice; and broke down creative and artistic barriers. These biographies offer a variety of rich primary and secondary source material to support teaching to standards. Using the graphics, students can activate prior knowledge — bridge what they already know with what they have yet to learn. Graphically illustrated biographies also teach inference skills, character development, dialogue, transitions, and drawing conclusions. Graphic biographies in the classroom provide an intervention with proven success for the struggling reader. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37457000 |
Importing Files in Other Formats
Benefits of importing files in other formats into Microsoft Word 2010:
- If the object is too complicated to be created directly in Word, such as an equation for example, it can still be included in the document, even though it was created in a different program.
- Rather than referring a reader to an external source, file, or object, you can embed all or parts of that file directly into your document.
Embedding Images in Your Document
- Put your cursor at the desired location in your document where you would like to insert an image.
- From the Insert tab, select Picture.
- An Insert Picture window opens. Browse for the image on your PC.
- When you have finished browsing, select OK. The image should now appear at the desired location in your document.
Embedding Other Files Formats into Your Document
The instructions below are for non-media content-type files only. If you have media that you would like to embed into your document, such as a sound or video clip, contact firstname.lastname@example.org for assistance in streaming these files via the ATCís media server.
- Put your cursor at the desired location in your document where you would like to insert an object.
- From the Insert tab, select Object.
- Select the Create from File tab and Browse for your file on your local PC.
- Select the Link to file checkbox so that the file contents appear directly in your file.
- When you have finished, select OK. The file contents appears at the desired location in your document.
Examples of Supported File Formats
- Picture files including JPEG, GIF & BMP
- Microsoft Excel spreadsheets
- Microsoft PowerPoint slides
- Adobe PDF documents
Why canít I insert a sound or video clip into my document?
Typically, sound and video file sizes are too large for Microsoft Word to embed directly in the file. Instead, shortcuts are embedded, linking to the original file on the authorís PC. If you attempt to upload your document to myWPI, it will upload without the linked files and readers will not be able to play the sound or video clip. The ATC can assist you with embedding multimedia that is stored on a streaming media server. Instead of shortcuts to a directory, the shortcut will be to a web link, which any user can play with an Internet connection.Maintained by email@example.com
Last modified: Jun 24, 2011, 12:45 EDT | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37459000 |
This week on Kentucky’s Backroads we travel to a place where an autumn tradition intersects with the Civil War. A 135 acre farm in northern Garrard County has an eleven acre corn maze featuring three and a half miles of paths. What makes Matt Howland’s maze unique is its focus on the Civil War. The maze is laid out in the shape of 13 southeastern U-S states with paths to key battles in the War Between the States.
“We're trying to match the fun with getting a little bit of education out of it,” said Howland. "As you're going through you’re actually going to travel from state to state along the same pathways the troops would have traveled."
The maze matches a fifth grade curriculum which focuses on Kentucky’s role in the war and the Underground Railroad. But, the day we visited the maze, it was little kids who were romping in the maze.
"Those kids just want to see how fast they can run from one side to the other and they're having a good time and you know when they're ready to learn they'll come back."
To find out more about Howland’s farm, which also includes a bed and breakfast and an equestrian center, you can click on this link. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37471000 |
The "skinny kid with a funny name" -- as President Barack Obama referred to himself in his 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address -- made history in 2008 by becoming the first black man to be elected President of the United States.
Breaking racial barriers is nothing new for him, however. Obama has been trying to find his place in society as an African-American starting in elementary school and continuing through his college years.
Obama's diverse background and strong foundation of American principles matches the melting pot appearance of the country he hopes to lead.Barack Obama -- Barack means "blessed" in the Central African language of Luo -- was born Aug. 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Ann Dunham and Barack Obama Sr.Obama's father was born in the Nyanza Province, Kenya, and grew up herding goats with his own father. In 1959, at the age of 23, Barack Obama Sr. won a scholarship that allowed him to leave Kenya and study economics at the University of Hawaii. It was there that he met Ann Dunham.
Dunham grew up in Wichita, Kan., where her father worked on oil rigs during the Depression and marched across Europe in Patton's army. Her mother worked on a bomber assembly line during World War II. After the war, the family moved to Hawaii.
Obama's parents met at the University of Hawaii. They were both students when they married and Obama was born in 1961.
In 1963, when Obama was 2, the couple separated when his father moved from Hawaii to Boston with a scholarship to finish his Ph.D at Harvard. Barack Sr. returned to Kenya after his schooling with the goal of bettering his poverty-stricken country. Besides visiting his son once, Barack Sr. remained in Kenya until his death in a car accident in 1982.
Later, Dunham was remarried to Lolo Soetoro, a University of Hawaii student from Indonesia. In 1967, the whole family moved to Jakarta, Indonesia. Here, Obama's half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng was born in 1970.
While living in Indonesia, Obama found an American magazine article that showed blacks using skin-bleaching agents to make themselves lighter.
Obama told A&E, "I first realized that I was an African-American (at that moment), but also there were all sorts of implications to race and there were power relationships in race. ... I remember feeling shocked by that."
This event would trigger Obama's journey to find his identity in the black community. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37475000 |
Original works of art
- Year art work was produced (in round brackets)
- Title of art work bold, in italics or
- Material type in square brackets and followed by a full stop
(Common material types are: ceramic; drawing; etching; linocut;
lithograph; painting; photograph; sculpture and woodcut)
- The location of the gallery, museum, etc. followed by a full
- In text citation:
- In his study of a lily pond (1899), Monet shows his fascination
with the changing effects of light on landscapes and water.
- Full reference:
- Monet. C. (1899) The water lily pond [oil on
canvas]. National Gallery, London.
© Copyright 2013 Information Learning Services
Fountains Learning Centre, York St John University, Lord Mayor's Walk, York, YO31 7EX
T: 01904 876696 F: 01904 876324 E: firstname.lastname@example.org | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37485000 |
With the world undergoing a rapid technological revolution, cultures, political systems and ethical standards are changing just as quickly. With such an upheaval in how we live and relate to each other, there has never been a greater need for solid leaders in our society. Institutions of higher learning have responded by offering training and degree programs in leadership. Leadership school is designed to help you lead a team in transforming an organization, taking it to a higher level. In short, leadership school trains you to craft a vision, communicate your vision to others, and execute your vision in a way that makes your organization better positioned to thrive economically be seen as industry leaders.
Leadership School Success Factors
Successful professionals in leadership typically display superior communication skills, are excellent working with a variety of personality types, are able to inspire people to perform at their highest level, can craft a clear vision for accomplishment, have the patience and persistence to see projects through to completion, and are always eager to learn new information and be adaptable to changing circumstances.
Leadership School Specializations
Leadership schools offer specializations in many areas of leadership to match your career aspirations. Leadership school specializations include organizational leadership, organizational management, human resources, and project management, among many others.
Leadership School Curriculum
A leadership school curriculum is designed to prepare you for the many challenges of a career in leadership. A curriculum in leadership includes complex issues in leadership and the social dynamics of organizations. Courses focus on problem-solving, strategic planning, critical thinking, research methodology, policy formulation, ethics, motivation, creativity, vision, customer service, organizational development, psychology, sociology, theology, organization theory, cultural understanding, and business practices.
Leadership School Degrees
Possible leadership degrees include bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and doctoral or Ph.D. programs. Leadership certificates are designed to help you enhance your leadership practices within your organization. A Bachelor of Arts or Sciences specializing in leadership helps to cultivate your skills and learn more about the theory of effective leadership in a variety of contexts. A master's degree in leadership may qualify you for a leadership role at the management level. An MBA in leadership will help you develop skills in critical analysis, research methods, communication, and application of the theories covered. A doctoral degree in leadership will prepare you to lead, consult, or teach in the field of leadership.
Leadership graduates usually work in a corporation in a role where they can apply their entrepreneurial thinking, strong decision-making skills, and visionary approach to business solutions. Leadership graduates also work as an organization development consultant, or OD consultant. Companies hire OD consultants to examine the structure, personnel and procedural concerns of the client, work that involves proactive inquiry and assessment, interviewing, focus groups, process consultation and observation. Other careers in leadership include management consulting, financial analysis, and efficiency and quality control.
Featured Leadership Schools
Technology Changes Everything
Take your career to new heights | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37488000 |
The Sacred Name:
Whether to pronounce Yahweh’s Name with a “v” or “w” hinges on which letter accurately transliterates the sound of the Hebrew letter W or “waw” in the Tetragrammaton, YHWH.
We must take into consideration the ancient pronunciation of the waw and whether “v”, “w” or “u” as we know them accurately reflect that ancient pronunciation. The following information is derived from a number of sources, including G.B. Palatino’s Lettere Romane (1545). ‘U’ and ‘W’ are variants of ‘V’ which was being used for two different sounds in medieval England. ‘U’ was introduced to give a soft vowel sound as opposed to the harder consonant sound of ‘V’. ‘W’ began as a ligature. Two ‘V’ letterforms were joined into ‘VV’ to represent ‘double U’ in 12th-century England. Those who use the “v” form of Yahweh’s Name (Yahveh) should note that the Name is spelled “Yahweh” in almost all academic publications, many by people well-studied in the Hebrew language, including Hebrew speakers. Hebrew linguists believe the third letter waw was in ancient times pronounced as “w” (hence it is named “waw”).
In later Hebrew its pronunciation, influenced by European languages, was changed to “v” and the letter was later called “vav,” according to the Encyclopædia Judaica. The Judaica shows that the semitic languages nearest Israel use the “w” pronunciation as opposed to the “v” pronunciation found in those speakers of Hebrew living in or closer to Europe. Those using the “w” sound include Jews of Babylonia, Yemeni, Morocco, Samaria, the Sephardi (Temple Hebrew) and Portuguese. Those using the “v” sound of “waw” include Hebrew-speaking communities in Italy, Poland, Germany, and Lithuania. These Europeans picked up the Germanic “v” and transferred it to the waw.
The change from W to V is very well known, for example, in most of the continental languages like German (also the descendants of Latin). We know from historical comparisons that direction of change in Latin was from W to V. English has remained faithful to an old W sound for over six thousand years, while it changed to V in Late Latin almost two thousand years ago (but had not yet changed in Classical Latin). The “w” is formed by putting two “v” letters together, but it is called a double-u because it is made up of two letters originally pronounced as we do the “u.” One needs only to look at old government building architecture with inscriptions bearing a “v” but pronounced like a “u” to see that the “v” was originally a vowel sound like “u” (e.g. bvilding, Jvly).
It was not until the dictionary was published that a decided difference was made between the “v” and the “u.” It is more than coincidence that the U, V, and W occur together in our alphabet; it shows a common relationship that these letters had in derivation and similar pronunciation.
The v is a consonant that some have used for the sound of the Hebrew waw in Yahweh’s Name (Yahveh). The problem is, the waw in His Name was considered a vowel anciently. In fact, all the letters of the Tetragrammaton are called vowels by Josephus (Wars of the Jews, 5.5.556) as well as by Hebrew grammars. Bagster’s Helps to Bible Study also says these are vowel-letters in the sacred Name, “as having been originally used to represent vowels, and they still frequently serve as vowels in combination with the points.” Bagsters says the waw represents the letters o or u.
Another authority says, “The sound of waw a long time ago wasn’t ‘vav’ at all but ‘w’ and ‘w’ is weak. The Yemenite Jews of Arabia who retain an ancient, correct, and pure pronunciation of Hebrew still pronounce the waw as ‘w,’ as does Arabic, the close sister language of Hebrew,” How the Hebrew Language Grew, Edward Horowitz, pp. 29-30. As the online Wikipedia notes: “There was no ‘U’; instead, there was the semi-vowel ‘V’. There was no ‘W’, although ‘V’ was pronounced as the modern English ‘W’.” As for the “j” in “Jehovah,” the letter J is the last letter to be added to our alphabet. ‘J’ was an ‘outgrowth’ of ‘I’ and was used to give a sound of greater consonant force, particularly as the first letter of some words. It was used interchangeably with the letter “I” at first, showing that its original pronunciation stemmed from the vowel sound of “I” and only later got its “juh” sound through French influence.
The English name “Jehovah” was invented by Roman Catholics sometime in the Middle Ages, based on a misunderstanding of Masoretic Hebrew texts. It is a hybrid word consisting of the Tetragrammaton YHWH (“J” used to be pronounced as “Y”) and the vowels for the word “Adonai.” Though “Jehovah” is used a few times in the 1611 King James Version (e.g., Gen 22:14; Exod 6:3; Isa 12:2; Ps 83:18) and is found in many older Christian hymns, it is not the authentic biblical pronunciation of the sacred Name (For a discussion of the “Jehovah or Yahweh” question see “God, Names of” in Encyclopædia Judaica, vol. 7, col. 680, or George F. Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era: The Age of the Tannaim (3 vols., Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1927-30), vol. 1, p. 219 and note 1, p. 427. Most modern Bible translations have notes on this issue in their introductions, agreeing that the true Name of the Heavenly Father is Yahweh. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37492000 |
Service learning, a form of civic engagement, is defined as a credit-bearing educational experience that involves students participating in organized service activities that meet identified community needs, then reflecting on the service to gain further understanding of course content, a broader appreciation of the discipline, and an enhanced sense of civic responsibility.y.
It is experiential education.
Learning occurs through a cycle of action and reflection. Service Learning improves students' depth in a field of knowledge, and improves self-directed lifelong learning.
It is faith and mission in action.
Participants in service learning make connections to the Mission of the University as it seeks to promote justice in the world. They care for the Common Good, promote Spiritual Growth, find common humanity in diversity through personal connections, promote the preferential option for the poor, live Catholic Social Teaching, and develop values.
It is citizenship development.
● Requires reflection on issues that concern the community
● Promotes a commitment to improve conditions in the world
● Seeks to increase Community/Political engagement
● Desires Reciprocity
● Develops Leadership
It promotes ethical and moral development.
“Judging the quality of a college education by asking if students see the connection between what they learn and how they live, looking for the deeper significance, for the moral dilemmas of and the ethical responses. The college succeeds if it’s graduates are inspired by a larger vision, using the knowledge that have acquired to form values and advance the common good.” (Boyer, page 296) | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37506000 |
Emphasize that we are talking about the "Acquired Immune Response"
antigen -- any agent (molecule) that binds to components of
the immune response -- lymphocytes and their receptors -- antibodies and the
immunogen -- any agent capable of inducing an immune response.
This distinction is probably most clear when discussing the situation of a hapten and its carrier.
hapten -- is antigenic but not immunogenic unless it is attached to a carrier molecule of some sort which supplies the immunogenicity.
Requirements for Immunogenicity:
Foreignness -- note the example of the rabbit immunized with its
own serum albumin vs. the rabbit immunized with guinea pig serum albumin.
How do you prove that the rabbit unable to respond to its own albumin is still immunocompetent?
Note also that it is possible for self "antigens" to be immunogenic. Thus the foreignness requirement can be overcome. When this happens it results in autoimmunity.
High Molecular Weight -- note that these are general categories and that there are some exceptions. How could you make a small "non-immunogenic" molecule "immunogenic"?
Chemical Complexity -- What is meant by the term "homopolymer"? How can you make a non-complex molecule more complex?
Note the discussion about the immunogenicity of the different levels of protein complexity and its discussion in Fig. 3.1.
Degradability -- Most protein antigens need to be processed and presented by antigen presenting cells. The digested fragments become bonded to "MHC" proteins (or MHC antigens) on the surface of the APC and this whole complex then binds to T-cells.
Carbohydrate antigens are not processed or presented. They can bind to B-cells directly and activate them to produce antibody.
Other requirements for immunogenicity:
-- The number and quality of the genes for the MHC proteins vary in a population of animals and this
will affect the ability of the individual animal to develop an immune response.
Individual animals can also vary with regard to their repertoire of T and B cell antigen receptors.
Dose and Route of the antigen -- Too low or too high a dose of antigen can actually induce a state of Tolerance or non-responsiveness in the animal.
The route of immunization can cause very different responses -- for instance antigens that come in contact with mucous membranes generally induce IgA antibodies, whereas intramuscular and intravenous immunization often induces IgG and IgM responses.
Please study Fig. 4.12 on page 51 which describes the kinetics of an antibody response to an one antigen. Pay particular attention to the terms which are either in the figure, in the text or which are described in lecture:
This figure is intimately related to the clonal selection theory described in figure 1.1 on page 4.
Review the structure of the antibody molecule (Fig. 4.3, pg. 42).
Particularly note where variable
regions of both the light chain and
the heavy chains come together.
The antigen binding site is formed by the association of the VHeavy and the VLight domains. Since these are protein domains it would follow that the conformation of these domains determines this antigen binding function. Thus we should expect that particular amino acids in certain areas of the domain would play a large role in binding to antigen.
(See if you can figure out what they are trying to show you in Figures 4.4, 4.5 and 4.6. In these figures they are trying to diagram which amino positions actually bind to the antigen epitope in the binding site).
The section of the antigen which actually binds to the the antibody binding site is called the epitope of the antigen. This is also called the antigenic determinant of the antigen.
The antibody binding site is sometimes called the paratope or the idiotope or the idiotype.
T- cells and B-cells can recognize and react to different
epitopes even if they are on the same
Study table 3.1 on page 31.
Much of this table can be summarize by these simple statements:
B-cells recognize and bind to free antigen in solution.
B-cell epitopes are exposed and easily accessible.
T-cells recognize and bind to antigen that has been processed and presented in the context of MHC on antigen presenting cells.
Please read this over. Note that an immune
response can be mounted to just about any kind of molecule. This has important
implications for autoimmunity and tolerance.
Note also that the binding of epitopes to their paratopes is non-covalent.
This section starts off with a discussion about toxin
and toxoid. What is the difference?
Then they go on to describe what is meant by cross-reacting antigens. Essentially what they are saying here is that there are many examples of totally unrelated antigens that have small parts or epitopes (or antigenic determinants) in common. Thus an immune response to one such antigen can cause the production of antibodies that react with the second antigen.
Such antigens can be call heterophile antigens. Likewise, the antibodies made to such antigens are often called heterophile antibodies.
Please note the examples given with regard to:
human blood group A antigen and
pneumococcal capsule polysaccharide
human blood group B antigen and E. coli polysaccharide antigens
I'd also like to mention the relationship between Streptococcus pygenes M-protein and human heart muscle
Antigenic similarity between Horse-red-blood cell antigens and Epstein-Barr Virus
We'll have a short discussion about adjuvants. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37507000 |
March 1, 2010
The celebration of the Year of International Human Rights 2009-10: The Right to Food & Water Continues
Human Rights: Using New Tools to Grow Food and Protect Resources Panel Discussion Featuring Regional Experts
Webster University will host a panel discussion titled “Human Rights: Using New Tools to Grow Food and Protect Resources,” Tuesday, March 16, at 7 p.m. in the University Center Sunnen Lounge, 175 Edgar Road, Webster Groves, Missouri. The panel features regional experts who will discuss their work, research, and experience in areas that address the use of technology for food and water issues. The event is free and open to the public.
Participants and their topics include:
Dr. Peter Raven, President, Missouri Botanical Garden and a member of the College of Arts & Sciences Advisory Board, who will speak on “Biodiversity: How India and Underdeveloped Countries Need Technology to Protect Natural Resources.” Raven also will be the panel’s moderator.
Maureen Mazurek, Monsanto Human Rights Lead, “Monsanto’s Human Rights Program”
Dr. Mark Manary, Helene B. Roberson Professor of Pediatrics, Washington University School of Medicine, “Importance of Childhood Nutrition.” Manary’s research interests focus on different aspects of nutrition in populations of developing countries, especially Malawi, Africa.
Dr. Paul Anderson, Executive Director of International Programs, Danforth Plant Science Center, “Biofortified Cassava for Africa.” Dr. Anderson served for four years as principal investigator of a program funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop biofortified sorghum for arid and semi-arid areas of Africa.
For more information on Webster University's Year of International Human Rights, go to: http://www.webster.edu/depts/artsci/ihr/YOFW.htm. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37509000 |
Lent 3: 11 March John 2:13-22
According to the first three gospels this incident played a major role in the events leading up to Jesusí execution. In the fourth gospel it is portrayed as taking place three years earlier. Yet it is also seen as being a cause for Jesusí death. We see this in the citation of Psalm 69:10, ĎZeal for your house will consume me.í The choice of the future tense rather than the past of the original underlines this. Elsewhere John seems to have transferred traditions which pertained to Jesusí last days back into his ministry. The Jewish trial, for instance, takes place throughout the ministry! So the place of the temple clearing near the beginning of Jesusí ministry is probably a deliberate rearrangement.
Whichever gospel we follow, we find that this action is highly controversial. In the case of the fourth gospel we now have two parts to the account: the event itself (2:14-17) and the controversy about it (2:18-22). The latter section includes Jesusí prediction that the temple will be destroyed and be rebuilt in three days. It also begins with the Jews questioning Jesusí right to act the way he did. Both elements echo Markís story. In Mark the chief priests question Jesusí right to do such things and Jesus replies by linking his authority to John the Baptistís (11:27-33) and by telling the parable of the wicked tenants (12:1-12). In Mark words about destroying the temple and rebuilding it in three days appear in the trial before the high priest (14:58). There they are on the lips of false witnesses, although the main thing that is false is the claim that Jesus, himself, will destroy the temple. Everything else is true. Only John links the saying with the temple episode. Both the event and the saying have obviously been a rich source for reflection.
To imagine anything like the original event, we need to appreciate the scene. It takes place in the outer court of the temple, a huge area, big enough to house a few football fields. It does not take place in the sanctuary, itself. At Passover time there would have been crowds of people. People needed to change their money into the currency acceptable in the temple and needed to be able to buy birds or animals for sacrifices. The area was usually closely guarded by soldiers. A major commotion would immediately attract attention and arrests. Assuming the story has historical roots, Jesusí action must have been swift and limited, sufficient not to lead to his immediate arrest. It must have been a symbolic action. But what did it mean?
The account in Mark draws on Isaiah and Jeremiah to portray what Jesus might have said. ĎDen of thievesí has led people to believe that Jesus was objecting to unfair commercial practices, whereas it may well have intended something more like: den of brigands. Here in John the trading is objected to in itself. Yet everyone knew that the money exchange and the sale of sacrificial animals was essential. Is the problem the activity or the location? Did Jesus have such high respect for sacred space? John certainly has him speak of his fatherís house and uses the passage from the psalm to speak of Jesusí zeal for it. Is Jesus stepping up as a temple reformer, demanding greater respect for the sanctity of its precincts? Then he would be outdoing the Pharisees and many others in zeal for what for practical reasons had to be able to encompass the comings and goings of thousands of people at a time.
We may never know what the action was meant to signify. To state only the likely conclusions from the kind of complex detailed analysis which I cannot undertake here, it is likely that Jesus objected to what the temple had come to represent: power and exploitation. The otherwise innocent structures of exchange and sale were part of a system which he and many others of the day (such as those who wrote many of the Dead Sea Scrolls) saw as corrupt and fit only for destruction. He is no more to be seen as opposing the temple in itself than is Jeremiah. It is likely then that his action expressed both disapproval of what the temple had become and signified also what Godís response would be: judgement. I think it quite possible that in this context he spoke words about a new temple to replace the old, an act of God (in three days, a favourite Ďshort timeí in scripture), but they may have been spoken at another time.
The Bible based religious system of the day had lost its way. The parable of the Good Samaritan is a not so subtle commentary on why and how. Such traditions about Jesus and the temple have a boomerang quality: they have a habit of coming back and landing Ė on us! In a way Mark sets this up well. He has a new community become the new temple built on the new foundation stone which the builders rejected, a temple not built with hands. In John we find something which only indirectly leads in this direction.
John is quite Ďup frontí about acknowledging that it was only well after the event that people began to interpret what was going on. Twice (2:17 and 2:22) he mentions the delay. In between he employs typically Johannine playfulness in which Jesusí opponents remain dense and preoccupied with surface features (46 years of building). Instead, we are told, Jesus was speaking about his own body (2:21). This should not be confused with Paulís image of the church as the body of Christ. It means Jesus, himself, his embodied person which after three days will be raised from the dead after his zeal for Godís house destroys him.
John is really saying: Godís temple will be no more. Instead we will have Jesus as the one in whom we find God. 4:19-26 effectively says the same thing: only one sacred site: Jesus. The rest of John, and especially the farewell discourses, will explain that this Jesus is known through faith and especially through the community of faith and love. John never says, as does Mark, that the community is the temple. Nevertheless the boomerang still lands. For John the community is so centred on Jesus that it cannot help but invite comparison with the temple community. Is the community good news for the poor or is it chaplain to the rich who oppress? Mark with telling irony contrasts the widow and her poverty with the oppression of the temple authorities who exploit widows (12:38-44). Lent is also a time for the church to take a good look at itself.
Epistle: Lent 3: 11 March 1 Corinthians 1:18-25
Return to Home Page | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37512000 |
• Animal Health E-Mail List Sign up and MDARD will keep you informed of animal health issues that impact livestock owners.
• About Emerging Diseases Emerging Infectious diseases that may be transmitted between animals and humans are a concern for all people, no matter what their age, gender, lifestyle, ethnic background, or economic status.
• Why Emerging Diseases? Understanding how diseases spread between hosts is of major importance. Emerging diseases are often zoonotic, that is; diseases that may be transmitted between humans and animals.
• Partners in disease eradication and preparedness Michigan is fortunate to have agencies and organizations jointly participating in the surveillance, control,
and/or eradication of diseases concerning humans, wildlife and domestic | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37529000 |
Examining the Relationship between Cholesterol and Cancer
Does HDL-C Have A Protective Role?
By Genna Rollins
An inverse relationship between cholesterol levels and cancer mortality and incidence has been noted in many studies. However, there has been conflicting evidence and few large, long-term prospective trials to clarify whether the association is causal or due to reverse causality. Now, new research that addresses this question has been published and is described in this issue of Strategies.
A series of studies dating back to the 1980s found an association between low circulating levels of total cholesterol and increased cancer incidence and mortality. This inverse relationship largely had been attributed to reverse causality, meaning that undiagnosed cancer triggered lower serum cholesterol levels. However, there was conflicting evidence, so researchers had not been able to entirely exclude the possibility that low total cholesterol levels in some way led to cancer. For instance, one study found an association between low cholesterol levels and elevated cancer incidence even after excluding the first 6 years of follow-up, while another found a small but persistent association between low cholesterol levels and modestly increased cancer mortality after excluding the first 5 years of follow-up.
In addition to the questions about total cholesterol, little was known about any association between high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and cancer risk. However understanding these relationships is important in the context of current cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention strategies, according to Demetrius Albanes, MD, senior investigator at the National Cancer Institute. “These findings about total cholesterol from well-conducted studies were troubling in that public health recommendations related to cardiovascular disease have lowering serum cholesterol as a key component,” he explained. Albanes was the senior investigator of a recent study that prospectively examined the cholesterol-cancer association(Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2009;18:2814-21).
Albanes and his colleagues evaluated the relationship between serum total cholesterol and HDL-C and risk of overall and site-specific cancer among more than 29,000 participants in the Alpha-Tocopherol, Beta-Carotene Cancer Prevention (ATBC) study. ATBC tested whether α-tocopherol or β-carotene supplementation would reduce the incidence of lung or other cancers in a population of middle-aged male smokers in Finland. Baseline fasting serum cholesterol levels were available from virtually all participants (99.9%), and measurements taken at the time of third-year follow-up visits were available from more than three-quarters. Average total cholesterol at baseline was 241.2 mg/dL, while average HDL-C was 46.3 mg/dL. Participants were placed in quintiles based on total cholesterol and HDL-C levels, with lowest total cholesterol quintile <209.9 mg/dL and highest >276.7 mg/dL, and lowest HDL-C quintile <36.2 mg/dL and highest >55.3 mg/dL. Using data from the Finnish Cancer Registry, which documents approximately 100% of cancers nationwide, the researchers identified more than 7,500 cancers among ATBC participants over 18 years of follow-up.
In their initial analysis, Albanes and his colleagues found that higher serum total cholesterol was associated with decreased cancer incidence, with a relative risk of 0.85 comparing highest to lowest quintiles. However, when they conducted a lag analysis that excluded cancer cases diagnosed in the first 9 years of follow-up, this inverse association attenuated significantly and was no longer statistically significant. The inverse relationship between serum total cholesterol and cancer risk was particularly evident in lung and liver cancers, but these associations also became statistically insignificant after exclusion of cases diagnosed during the first 9 years of follow-up. In addition, the analysis revealed that there was a greater decline between baseline and third-year follow-up total cholesterol levels in cancer cases that were diagnosed within 9 years of follow-up.
Given ATBC’s large study population, prospective serum measurements, and long and complete follow-up for cancer incidence, “our finding supports the idea that the lower serum cholesterol levels we detected as a possible cancer risk factor may actually have been the result of undiagnosed cancer,” said Albanes. This finding is particularly significant in terms of prevention messages involving cholesterol levels and cancer, according to Eric Jacobs, PhD, strategic director of pharmacoepidemiology at the American Cancer Society, who was not involved in the study. “The results should help dispel any lingering concerns anyone might have had that having lower cholesterol levels could cause cancer,” he observed.
Albanes explained that there are numerous mechanisms by which cancer could impact total cholesterol levels. “Cholesterol is a key biochemical component essential to cell membrane structure, and it’s a very important precursor to steroid metabolism. So there are a large number of ways that a growing tumor could have metabolic effects that could alter cholesterol profile,” he said.
While the ATBC analysis appears to close the door on the issue of low total cholesterol levels playing a pathogenic role in cancer, the results suggest that there may be a protective role for HDL-C. The investigators found that higher serum HDL-C levels were modestly but significantly associated with decreased cancer incidence overall, and that this inverse association remained significant after they excluded cancer cases diagnosed during the first 12 years of follow-up. Most of this association was attributable to lung and liver cancer, with relative risk after 12 years of exclusion of 0.84 and 0.49, respectively. The results remained “essentially unchanged” when the researchers analyzed HDL-C levels measured at the time of third year follow-up visits, or when they used an average of baseline and third-year HDL-C levels. Additionally, “in contrast to the time trend for total cholesterol, in this case excluding the early years of follow-up made the HDL association stronger rather than weaker,” noted Albanes. As with total cholesterol, there are several plausible mechanisms for an HDL-C-cancer association, including HDL-C regulation of cell cycle entry and apoptosis, modulation of cytokine production, and anti-oxidative effects, according to the researchers.
Albanes emphasized that the results need further validation in other populations, especially women and non-smokers. He also cautioned against any implication that lipid-lowering medications might decrease cancer risk. “It may be premature to read from our findings in ATBC about efforts to actively lower cholesterol levels to achieve cancer benefits. Our data don’t speak to that and we would need more research looking at lipid lowering drugs and cancer outcomes,” he said.
Even with these caveats, the ATBC study “raises an interesting question about whether HDL cholesterol might lower the risk of some cancers. This is a very new, exciting question, but we need to do more research before we have any clear answers,” Jacobs observed. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37530000 |
Out of all the e-mails I get in regard to High Fructose Corn Syrup, the second most popular question asked is “why do these companies use HFCS?” The most popular question, for the record, is “Wouldn’t it be easier to create a list of products that don’t have HFCS?”, to which the answer would be no, but only because I am lazy.
But back to the question of why is HFCS used: As many have guessed, cost is the only reason that HFCS is used in place of cane sugar. As I clumsily pointed out in another post, a 1/10th of a cent increase in sweetener, per serving, would cost Coca-Cola roughly $122,423,790. And here you were thinking your car insurance costs were high.
The answer to the question of why HFCS is used is fairly clear and easy to figure out. The more interesting question is one that’s almost never asked -
Why is HFCS so much cheaper than cane sugar? The answer to that question may surprise you.
Because the government wants it that way.
The Federal Government accomplishes this in two major ways:
- Sugar Tariffs
- Corn and Sugar Subsidies
Add these two variables together, and the result is sweetener made from corn.
The difficulty in explaining how the above work is in understanding that none of the above would exist without at least tacit complicity between the Sugar Industry, the Corn Industry and the United States Department of Agriculture. Remove any one of those three players from the equation, and the tariffs and subsidies most likely go away.
Let’s start with subsidies. A subsidy was developed to help a farmer make up money lost between the cost to produce a product, and the higher market cost. For example, if it cost me 1 dollar to grow a bushel of corn, and the market demanded only 80 cents, the government would make up the difference and pay me 20 cents, plus a little more so that I can make a profit and give me a reason to keep growing corn. A nice idea in theory, but in practice it essentially ends up paying a farmer both when they produce too much and when their crop prices are too low. As anyone with a passing grade in Econ 101 can tell you, making too much of a product is one cause of lower prices, the government ends up giving out a lot of money. To the cost of $22.7 billion in 2005.
A free market economy is exactly what we don’t have in our agricultural industries.
Now let me introduce you to the Big Player in the Corn Industry – Archer Daniels Midland (ADM).
The libertarian Cato Institute writes of ADM:
The Archer Daniels Midland Corporation (ADM) has been the most prominent recipient of corporate welfare in recent U.S. history. ADM and its chairman Dwayne Andreas have lavishly fertilized both political parties with millions of dollars in handouts and in return have reaped billion-dollar windfalls from taxpayers and consumers. Thanks to federal protection of the domestic sugar industry, ethanol subsidies, subsidized grain exports, and various other programs, ADM has cost the American economy billions of dollars since 1980 and has indirectly cost Americans tens of billions of dollars in higher prices and higher taxes over that same period. At least 43 percent of ADM’s annual profits are from products heavily subsidized or protected by the American government. Moreover, every $1 of profits earned by ADM’s corn sweetener operation costs consumers $10, and every $1 of profits earned by its ethanol operation costs taxpayers $30
Do you want to know who makes HFCS? It’s Archer Daniels Midland. Do you want to know who pays for HFCS? That’d be you and I, in the form of the taxes we pay to the U.S. Government. The government spent $41.9 billion on corn subsidies from 1995 to 2004, a trough of money at which ADM gladly ate. ADM buys 12 percent of the nation’s corn at a heavily subsidized price from farmers, and turns it into high-fructose corn syrup and ethanol.
But there’s another side to this coin — The sugar tariffs. The sugar tariffs, put in place by law and enforced by the USDA, are so complicated that many people give up worrying about it. After all, paying $2.25 for a five pound bag of sugar is no big deal. Unless you consider that we could be paying as low as a dollar for that five pound bag, and wholesale purchases of sugar by companies like Coca-Cola, Heinz, and Kraft would pay even less.
So here’s the Sugar Tariff in action:
- First, USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation lends money each year to sugar cane processors at a specific rate per pound of sugar. The loans must be repaid, with interest, after nine months.
- The processors use the money to operate their factories and to pay sugar growers for the cane or beets that they deliver to the mills. Should the price of raw sugar fall below the amount set by the government at the time of the loan, the sugar processing companies are allowed to forfeit their sugar in lieu of repaying the loan.
- The law requires that this program operate at no net cost to the federal government. The government must then manipulate the market to keep sugar prices higher than the price at which the sugar companies would forfeit their product. Otherwise the government would be out of the money lent and still have the sugar to distribute, further adding to the governments net cost.
- To manipulate the market, each year the USDA estimates how much sugar Americans will consume in the following year and how much sugar U.S. growers will send to market to meet consumers demand.
- The USDA then establishes a quota for imports of sugar from foreign producers, such as the Dominican Republic, Brazil, the Philippines, and Australia. This quota allows just enough sugar in to meet demand, but not so much as to affect the already high prices.
And that, in the nutshell, is why we use HFCS in place of Cane Sugar. We inflate the cost of sugar, lower the cost of corn, and Archer Daniels Midlands buys an excessive amount of corn at excessively low costs in order to make HFCS.
If you want to get HFCS out of our foods, have the government take care of the Tariffs, the subsidies, or both. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37542000 |
For many people, the mere mention of the name “Tasmanian devil” conjures up the image of a certain growling, drooling, gurgling, Warner Brothers cartoon character. Real Tasmanian devils (Sarcophilus harrisii), however, do not whirl about carving their way through tree trunks; they are stocky carnivorous marsupials named for the Australian island-state of Tasmania—the animal’s only native habitat—and for the devilish screeches, howls, and expressions they make. These ill-tempered animals weigh up to 12 kg (26 pounds), and they are between 50 and 80 cm (20 and 31 inches) long. They resemble small black bears (Ursus americanus) and possess a bushy tail about half the length of the body. Ecologically, Tasmanian devils are top predators that have so far been successful in keeping the populations of many invasive predators (such as the European red fox [Vulpes vulpes]) low. Unfortunately, the species’ genetic diversity is also very low as a result of culling efforts by early European settlers.
This low genetic diversity is thought by many scientists to be one reason why a growing number of Tasmanian devils have become infected with a contagious cancer called Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD). According to Harper’s Magazine contributor David Quammen, the condition was first discovered by a nature photographer named Christo Baars in the spring of 1996. DFTD spurs the development of large tumors on the head and on or within the mouth; these tumors hinder the animal’s ability to eat, and because of this and the other effects of cancer, the infected devil slowly starves to death over several months. The disease is spread through the biting that accompanies the competition for mates, food, or other resources. It is thought the animal’s immune system fails to recognize cancer cells as foreign invaders, so these cells can easily gain footholds in individual animals through cuts and punctures. Nine strains of DFTD are currently known to exist.
The spread of DFTD has been rapid and worrisome. By 2007, many infected populations had declined by up to 90 percent, according to a BBC “The World Today” radio interview with Hamish McCallum, the senior scientist in charge of the DFTD program at the University of Tasmania. Furthermore, sightings of the animal have declined significantly, and the disease has been reported in an area covering 60 percent of the island, according to a recent Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries and Water (DPIW) report. Only the western third of the island has been spared. Many authorities fear that the disease will spread to the remaining healthy populations in the coming decades and the species will go extinct. It is estimated that overall numbers have declined by 50 percent since the discovery of the disease.
In 2008, the species was placed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of endangered species. To keep this animal from extinction, scientists continue to work to find a cure for DFTD while also separating healthy populations from those that are infected. To monitor the spread of the disease and coordinate the efforts of wildlife staff, veterinarians, and other researchers, an effort called the Save the Tasmanian Devil Program was created. This program is funded by the private donations and the Australian government and overseen by the Tasmanian DPIW, in concert with several Australian universities and the Australasian Regional Association of Zoological Parks and Aquaria (ARAZPA).
One ray of hope for the species came in 2007, when many news outlets reported that a cancer-resistant devil had been captured. Scientists exposed this animal, called Cedric, and his brother Clinky, to dead tumor cells and monitored their immune system responses. Cedric produced antibodies in response; Clinky, however, did not, and he contracted the disease. It was hoped that Cedric’s antibodies could be used to help immunize some of the animals. Unfortunately, unlike his invincible cartoon counterpart, Cedric developed DFTD many months after the trials began. His tumors were operable, however, and he appears to be recovering.
The best hope for the species appears to be in keeping them from contracting DFTD in the first place. As part of the Save the Tasmanian Devil Program, a number of so-called “insurance populations” of isolated and captive-bred animals have been established. Measures in place since 2005 have called for the transplanting of healthy animals to zoos and wildlife parks throughout Australia. So far, the Tasmanian DPIW reports that 142 animals are part of this effort, but the anticipated expansion of this program to nearly 1,500 animals (enough to ensure a breeding population of 500 individuals) may strain the resources of ARAZPA. Other solutions are being considered, such as turning large areas of the Tasman Peninsula into a breeding sanctuary, placing smaller populations on small offshore islands, and creating large fenced-in areas to keep healthy animals from mingling with infected ones.
Despite recent setbacks, a truly impressive effort has been mounted to save the species. In addition to the efforts of the Australian government, universities, and thousands of private individuals, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories in the United States is in the process of sequencing parts of the Tasmanian devil’s genome, and Warner Home Video is contributing a portion of its sales of new Looney Tunes DVDs to the devil conservation effort. It is clear that many actors are committed to helping this animal through the next few decades. Perhaps, as a result of their continued efforts and a little luck, this magnificent animal and Tasmanian icon can endure.
Images: Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii): Gerry Pearce, www.australian-wildlife.com; devil with facial tumor disease: Hannah Bender—University of Sydney/Landov; devil resting: Gerry Pearce Photography/www.australian-wildlife.com.
To Learn More
- San Diego Zoo
- Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service
- “What’s Killing the Tasmanian Devil?,” by David Quammen
- Harper’s Magazine article “Contagious cancer: The evolution of a killer,” by David Quammen
- Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries and Water
- BBC News
- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
- Article in The First Post on how Warner Bros. is pitching in to help the Tasmanian devils
How Can I Help?
- Save the Tasmanian Devil
- Donate through the University of Tasmania Foundation
- Become a “Friend of the Devil” through the Tasmanian Devil Conservation Park | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37545000 |
Digitalization of creative content and pervasiveness of internet as a medium for content distribution has an unwelcome spinoff in the form of online piracy where copyrighted content is indiscriminately distributed over the internet leading to immense loses to stakeholders (movies, brands, musics, publishing, etc.)
Online piracy in a nutshell means illegal uploading and/or downloading and misrepresentation of copyrighted material; movies, brands, music, etc. Any form of piracy (online or street piracy) of copyrighted material cheats the copyright holders of their rightful and fair compensation for their efforts.
Films are illegally recorded by camcorder in theaters. The recorded content is replicated and burned into CDs and distributed worldwide in a matter of days.Alternatively the illegally recorded movies are distributed via internet as downloadable files using streaming sites, P2P services, and cyberlockers or third party file-sharing services. These are offered to be downloaded free and result in immense losses to movie production fraternity.
The exclusive legal right to reproduce, publish, sell, or distribute the matter and form of something (as a literary, musical, or artistic work) is called copyright.Copyright, a form of intellectual property law, protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture.
The Effects of Counterfeiting and Piracy on India’s Entertainment Industry Published in March 2009 by United States-India Business Council (USIBC) and prepared by Ernst and Young India, claims that as much as Rs.16, 000 crores are lost due to piracy. Alongside, as many as 80,000 jobs are lost directly as a result of theft and piracy, afflicting India’s entertainment industry. The President of USIBC, Ron Summers used the opportunity to suggest stronger legal means to tackle piracy. He said, “We strongly support passage by India of optical disc legislation that will thwart piracy in this important industry. We are pleased to stand shoulder to shoulder with counterparts in India to help protect jobs and revenues that are now being needlessly lost to piracy.”
An effective strategy to combat online piracy should identify and target the following components of online piracy:
Enforcement efforts together with speedy resolution of copyright infringement cases in the court system to penalise and curtail online piracy.
Customer awareness programs - It requires a very delicate balance of education, coercion and awareness to bring down piracy. The more popular facilitators such as YouTube do cooperate with anti-piracy efforts by removing links to offending media upon request by the copyright owners. Stronger law enforcement for copyright violators and widespread understanding of the concept of law-abiding digital citizenship will definitely go a long way in curbing this menace.
Technical measures such as forensic watermarking that facilitate investigators and law enforcement agencies.
The Indian Copyright Act, 1957
The Information Technology Act, 2000
Section 64 of the Indian Copyright Act 1957 provides that "Any police officer, not below the rank of a sub-inspector, may, if he is satisfied that an offence under Section 63 in respect of the infringement of copyright in any work has been, is being, or is likely to be, committed, size without warrant, all copies of the work, wherever found, and all copies and plates used for the purpose of making infringing copies of the work, wherever found, and all copies and plates so seized shall, as soon as practicable, be produced before a magistrate.". | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37548000 |
From Ajax Patterns
|Revision as of 14:54, 17 September 2009
WikiMartha (Talk | contribs)
Foundational Technology Patterns
← Previous diff
|Revision as of 14:02, 25 October 2009
220.127.116.11 (Talk | contribs)
Next diff →
|Line 6:||Line 6:|
|* [[Ajax App]] Create a rich application in a modern web browser.||* [[Ajax App]] Create a rich application in a modern web browser.|
|== Display Manipulation ==||== Display Manipulation ==|
Revision as of 14:02, 25 October 2009
Foundational Technology Patterns
These patterns are the building blocks of Ajax applications. They are more "reference patterns" than true "design patterns", at least from the perspective of a modern Ajax developer, who will take these technologies as a given. The bestessays patterns are included to introduce the types of technologies that are used, provide a common vocabulary used throughout the language, and facilitate a discussion of pros and cons.
- Ajax App Create a rich application in a modern web browser.
- Display Morphing Alter styles and values in the DOM to change display information such as replacing text and altering background colour.
- Page Rearrangement Restructure the DOM to change the page's structure - moving, adding, and removing elements.
- Web Service Expose server-side functionality with an HTTP API.
- XMLHttpRequest Call Use XMLHttpRequest objects for browser-server communication.
- IFrame Call Use IFrames for browser-server communication.
- HTTP Streaming Stream server data in the response of a long-lived HTTP connection.
- Lazy Inheritance An approach intended to simplify writing OOP and provides support of prototype-based classes hierarchies, automatic resolving and optimizing classes dependencies.
- Richer Plugin Make your application "more Ajax than Ajax" with a Richer Plugin.
Programming Patterns (25)
- RESTful Service Expose web services according to RESTful principles.
- RPC Service Deepak Expose web services as Remote Procedural Calls (RPCs).
- Ajax Stub Use an "Ajax Stub" framework which allows browser scripts to directly invoke server-side operations, without having to worry about the details of XMLHttpRequest and HTTP transfer.
- HTML Message Have the server generate HTML snippets to be displayed in the browser.
- Plain-Text Message Pass simple messages between server and browser in plain-text format.
- XML Message Pass messages between server and browser in XML format.
- UED Format Send message from the browser to the server using the UED Data exchange format.
- Call Tracking Accommodate busy user behaviour by allocating a new XMLHttpRequest object for each request. See Richard Schwartz's blog entry.Note: Pending some rewrite to take into account request-locking etc.
- Periodic Refresh The browser refreshes volatile information by periodically polling the server.
- Distributed Events Keep objects synchronised with an event mechanism.
- Cross-Domain Proxy Allow the browser to communicate with other domains by server-based mediation.
- Flash-enabled XHR A client-side proxy pattern for cross-domain Ajax, using invisible flash to bridge the domain communication gap.
- XML Data Island Retain XML responses as "XML Data Islands", nodes within the HTML DOM.
- Browser-Side XSLT Apply XSLT to convert XML Messages into XHTML.
- Browser-Side Templating Produce browser-side templates and call on a suitable browser-side framework to render them as HTML.
- Fat Client Create a rich, browser-based, client by performing remote calls only when there is no way to achieve the same effect in the browser.
- Browser-Side Cache Maintain a local cache of information.
- Guesstimate Instead of grabbing real data from the server, make a guesstimate that's good enough for most user's needs. ITunes Download Counter, GMail Storage Counter.
- Multi-Stage Download Quickly download the page structure with a standard request, then populate it with further requests.
- Predictive Fetch Anticipate likely user actions and pre-load the required data.
- Pseudo-Threading Use a timer and a worker queue to process jobs without the blocking application flow.
- Code Compression Compress code on the server, preferably not on the fly.
Code Generation and Reuse
- Cross-Browser Component Create cross-browser components, allowing programmers to reuse them without regard for browser compatibility.
Functionality and Usability Patterns (28)
All of these widget patterns will be familiar to end-users, having been available in desktop GUIs and some in non-AJAX DHTML too. They are included here to catalogue the interaction styles that are becoming common in AJAX applications and can benefit from XMLHttpRequest-driven interaction.
- Drilldown To let the user locate an item within a hierarchy, provide a dynamic drilldown.
- Microcontent Compose the page of "Microcontent" blocks - small chunks of content that can be edited in-page.
- Microlink Provide Microlinks that open up new content on the existing page rather than loading a new page.
- Popup Support quick tasks and lookups with transient Popups, blocks of content that appear "in front of" the standard content.
- Portlet Introduce "Portlets" - isolated blocks of content with independent conversational state.
- Live Command-Line In command-line interfaces, monitor the command being composed and dynamically modifying the interface to support the interaction.
- Live Form Validate and modify a form throughout the entire interaction, instead of waiting for an explicit submission.
- Live Search As the user refines their search query, continuously show all valid results.
- Data Grid Report on some data in a rich table, and support common querying functions.
- Progress Indicator Hint that processing is occurring.
- Rich Text Editor e.g. http://dojotoolkit.org/docs/rich_text.html
- Slider Provide a Slider to let the user choose a value within a range.
- Suggestion Suggest words or phrases which are likely to complete what the user's typing.
- Drag-And-Drop Provide a drag-and-drop mechanism to let users directly rearrange elements around the page.
- Sprite Augment the display with "sprites": small, flexible, blocks of content.
- Status Area Include a read-only status area to report on current and past activity.
- Virtual Workspace Provide a browser-side view into a server-side workspace, allowing users to navigate the entire workspace as if it were held locally.
- One-Second Spotlight When a page element undergoes a value change or some other significant event, dynamically manipulate its brightness for a second or so.Responded
- One-Second Mutation When a page element undergoes a value change or some other significant event, dynamically mutate its shape for a second or so.
- One-Second Motion Incrementally move an element from point-to-point, or temporarily displace it, to communicate an event has occurred.
- Blinkieblinkpattern When an element is blinking
- Highlight Highlight elements by rendering them in a consistent, attention-grabbing, format.
- Lazy Registration Accumulate bits of information about the user as they interact, with formal registration occurring later on.
- Direct Login Authenticate the user with an XMLHttpRequest Call instead of form-based submission, hashing in the browser for improved security.
- Host-Proof Hosting Server-side data is stored in encrypted form for increased security, with the browser decrypting it on the fly.
- Timeout Implement a timeout mechanism to track which clients are currently active.
- Heartbeat Have the browser periodically upload heartbeat messages to indicate the application is still loaded in the browser and the user is still active.
- Autosave Autosave un-validated forms to a staging table on the server to avoid users losing their work when their session expires if they get called away from their desk while filling out a long form.
- Unique URLs Use a URL-based scheme or write distinct URLs whenever the input will cause a fresh new browser state, one that does not depend on previous interaction.
Development Practices (8)
- DOM Inspection Use a DOM Inspection Tool to explore the dynamic DOM state.
- Traffic Sniffing Diagnose problems by sniffing Web Remoting traffic.
- Data Dictionary Visualize DOM tags in a table format, with a row for each attribute. (Contributed pattern)
- Simulation Service Develop the browser application against "fake" web services that simulate the actual services used in production.
- Service Test Build up automated tests of web services, using HTTP clients to interact with the server as the browser normally would.
- System Test Build automated tests to simulate user behaviour and verify the results. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37549000 |
Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
Flag of the United States
The flag of the United States of America consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red (top and bottom) alternating with white; there is a blue rectangle in the upper hoist-side corner bearing 50 small, white, five-pointed stars arranged in nine offset horizontal rows of six stars (top and bottom) alternating with rows of five stars. The 50 stars on the flag represent the 50 states and the 13 stripes represent the 13 original colonies.
The United States flag is commonly called the Stars and Stripes and less commonly Old Glory. The name Old Glory was coined in the 1830s, and was of particularly common use during the era of 48-star version (1912 to 1959).
4.1 Standards of respect
While institutions often display the flag year-round, most homeowners reserve flag display for civic holidays like Memorial Day, Veteran's Day, Presidents' Day, Flag Day and the Fourth of July. On Memorial Day it is common to place small flags by war memorials and next to the graves of U.S. war dead.
To some U.S. citizens, their flag symbolizes many things. They have seen it as representing all of the freedoms and rights guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights. Perhaps most of all they see it as a symbol of individual and personal liberty like those put forth in the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
The approved method of destroying old and tattered flags consists of burning them in a simple ceremony. The flag is cut into three pieces: first a horizontal cut is made between the seventh and eighth stripes, then a vertical cut separating the star field from the seven shorter stripes. Then the three pieces are typically placed on a pyre as 'Taps' is played. Burning the flag has also been used as a deliberate act of disrespect, at times to protest actions by the United States government, or sometimes in displays of Anti-Americanism. Some groups concerned by these actions have proposed a Flag Burning Amendment that would outlaw burning the flag in disrespect or protest.
Flags with similar design
Flags from other countries share, at varying degrees, the design and/or color scheme of the United States flag. Several of the flags of the Confederate States of America also reflect the colors and design of the Stars and Stripes. Some examples of national flags sharing elements of the U.S. flag include:
There are certain guidelines for the use and display of the United States flag as outlined in the United States Flag Code of the federal government. It should be stressed that these are guidelines, not laws, which lack a penalty for those who fail to comply with them.
Standards of respect
- The flag should never be dipped to any person or thing.
- The flag is flown upside down only as a distress signal.
- The flag should not be used as a drapery, or for covering a speakers desk, draping a platform, or for any decoration in general. Bunting of blue, white and red stripes is available for these purposes. The blue stripe of the bunting should be on the top.
- The flag should never be drawn back or bunched up in any way.
- The flag should never be used as a covering for a ceiling.
- The flag should never be used for any advertising purpose. It should not be embroidered, printed or otherwise impressed on such articles as cushions, handkerchiefs, napkins, boxes or anything intended to be discarded after temporary use. Advertising signs should not be attached to the staff or halyard.
- The flag should not be used as part of a costume or athletic uniform, except that a flag patch may be used on the uniform of military personnel, fireman, policeman and members of patriotic organizations.
- The flag should never have placed on it, or attached to it, any mark, insignia, letter, word, number, figure, or drawing of any kind.
- The flag should never be used as a receptacle for receiving, holding, carrying, or delivering anything.
- The flag should not be draped over the hood, top, sides, or back of a vehicle, railroad train or boat.
- When the flag is lowered, no part of it should touch the ground or any other object; it should be received by waiting hands and arms. To store the flag it should be folded neatly and ceremoniously.
- The flag should be cleaned and mended when necessary.
- When a flag is so worn it is no longer fit to serve as a symbol of the United States, it should be destroyed in a dignified manner, preferably by burning. (Note: Most American Legion Posts regularly conduct a dignified flag burning ceremony, often on Flag Day, June 14.)
Contrary to a commonly believed urban legend, the flag code does not state that a flag which touches the ground should be burned. Instead, the flag should be moved so it is not touching the ground.
Displaying the flag outdoors
- When the flag is displayed from a staff projecting from a window, balcony, or a building, the union should be at the peak of the staff unless the flag is at half staff. When it is displayed from the same flagpole with another flag, the flag of the United States must always be at the top except that the church pennant may be flown above the flag during church services for Navy personnel when conducted by a Naval chaplain on a ship at sea.
- When the flag is displayed over a street, it should be hung vertically, with the union to the north or east. If the flag is suspended over a sidewalk, the flag's union should be farthest from the building.
- When flown with flags of states, communities or societies on separate flag poles which are of the same height and in a straight line, the flag of the United States is always placed in the position of honor—to its own right. The other flags may be smaller but none may be larger.
- No other flag ever should be placed above it. The flag of the United States is always the first flag raised and the last to be lowered.
- When flown with the national banner of other countries, each flag must be displayed from a separate pole of the same height. Each flag should be the same size. They should be raised and lowered simultaneously. The flag of one nation may not be displayed above that of another nation.
- The flag should be raised briskly and lowered slowly and ceremoniously.
- Ordinarily it should be displayed only between sunrise and sunset. (By Presidential proclamation and law, the flag is displayed continuously at certain honored locations like the United States Marine Corps Memorial in Arlington and Lexington Green.)
- It should be illuminated if displayed at night.
- The flag of the United States of America is saluted as it is hoisted and lowered. The salute is held until the flag is unsnapped from the halyard or through the last note of music, whichever is the longest.
Displaying the flag indoors
- When on display, the flag is accorded the place of honor, always positioned to its own right. Place it to the right of the speaker or staging area or sanctuary. Other flags should be to the left.
- The flag of the United States of America should be at the center and at the highest point of the group when a number of flags of states, localities, or societies are grouped for display.
- When one flag is used with the flag of the United States of America and the staffs are crossed, the flag of the United States is placed on its own right with its staff in front of the other flag.
- When displaying the flag against a wall, vertically or horizontally, the flag's union (stars) should be at the top, to the flag's own right, and to the observer's left.
Parading and saluting the flag
- When carried in a procession, the flag should be to the right of the marchers.
- When other flags are carried, the flag of the United States may be centered in front of the others or carried to their right. When the flag passes in a procession, or when it is hoisted or lowered, all should face the flag and salute.
- To salute, all persons come to attention.
- Those in uniform give the appropriate formal salute.
- Citizens not in uniform salute by placing their right hand over the heart and men with head cover should remove it and hold it to left shoulder, hand over the heart.
- Members of organizations in formation salute upon command of the person in charge.
Pledge of Allegiance and national anthem
- The Pledge of Allegiance should be rendered by standing at attention, facing the flag, and saluting.
- When the national anthem is played or sung, citizens should stand at attention and salute at the first note and hold the salute through the last note. The salute is directed to the flag, if displayed, otherwise to the music.
The flag, in mourning
- To place the flag at half-staff (or half-mast, on ships), hoist it to the peak for an instant and lower it to a position half way between the top and bottom of the staff.
- The flag is to be raised again to the peak for a moment before it is lowered.
- On Memorial Day, the flag is displayed at half-staff until noon and at full staff from noon to sunset.
- The flag is to be flown at half-staff in mourning for designated, principal government leaders and upon presidential or gubernatorial order.
- The U.S. flag is otherwise flown at half-staff (or half-mast, on ships) when directed by the President of the United States or a state governor.
- When used to cover a casket, the flag should be placed with the union at the head and over the left shoulder. It should not be lowered into the grave.
Folding the flag
Flags, when not in use, should be folded into a triangle shape. The final triangle shape result is said to invoke the image of the three-point hats popular during the American Revolutionary War. Former American territories, e.g. the Philippines, also use this method to fold their flags.
- To properly fold the flag, begin by holding it waist-high with another person so that its surface is parallel to the ground.
- Fold the lower half of the stripe section lengthwise over the field of stars, holding the bottom and top edges securely.
- Fold the flag again lengthwise with the blue field on the outside.
- Make a triangular fold by bringing the striped corner of the folded edge to meet the open top edge of the flag.
- Turn the outer end point inward, parallel to the open edge, to form a second triangle.
- The triangular folding is continued until the entire length of the flag is folded in this manner.
- When the flag is completely folded, only a triangular blue field of stars should be visible.
Places where the American flag is displayed continuously
According to Presidential proclamation and in some cases, U.S. law, the American flag is displayed continuously at the following locations:
- Mount Slover limestone quarry, in Colton, California (Act of Congress). First raised July 4, 1917.
- Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine, Baltimore, Maryland (Presidential Proclamation No. 2795, July 2, 1948).
- Flag House Square , Albemarle and Pratt Streets, Baltimore, Maryland (Public Law 83-319, approved March 26, 1954).
- United States Marine Corps Memorial (Iwo Jima), Arlington, Virginia (Presidential Proclamation No. 3418, June 12, 1961).
- Lexington, Massachusetts Town Green (Public Law 89-335, approved November 8, 1965).
- The White House, Washington, DC (Presidential Proclamation No.4000, September 4, 1970).
- Fifty U.S. Flags are displayed continuously at the Washington Monument, Washington, DC. (Presidential Proclamation No. 4064, July 6, 1971, effective July 4, 1971).
- United States Customs Service Ports of Entry that are continuously open (Presidential Proclamation No.4131, May 5, 1972).
- Grounds of the National Memorial Arch in Valley Forge State Park, Valley Forge, Pennsylvania (Public Law 94-53, approved July 4, 1975).
- In addition, the American flag is presumed to be in continual display on the surface of the Earth's Moon, having been placed there by the astronauts of Apollo 11. It is assumed however that the flag was knocked down by the force of Apollo 11's return to lunar orbit.
The flag has gone through 26 changes since the new union of 13 states first adopted it. The 48-star version holds the record, 47 years, for the longest time the flag has gone unchanged. The current 50-star version will tie the record if it is still in use on July 4, 2007.
At the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, July 4th, 1776, the most commonly flown flag was the Grand Union Flag. This flag was initially flown by George Washington and is recorded as being first raised by Washington's troops at Prospect Hill on New Year's Day in 1776. This flag formed the basis of the Stars and Stripes, consisting of 13 red and white stripes with the British Union Jack in the canton.
On June 14, 1777, the Second Continental Congress passed the Flag Resolution which stated: "Resolved, That the flag of the United States be made of thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation." Describing the new flag, the Congress wrote, "White signifies Purity and Innocence; Red, Hardiness and Valor; Blue signifies Vigilance, Perseverance and Justice." Flag Day is now observed on June 14 of each year.
The Flag Resolution did not specify any particular arrangement for the stars. Initially, a variety of designs were used, including a circular arrangement (above left), but gradually a design featuring horizontal rows of stars emerged as the standard. As further states entered the union, extra stars and stripes were added until this proved to cause too much clutter. It was ultimately decided that there would be a star for each state, but the number of stripes would remain at thirteen to honor the original colonies. It was the 15-star, 15-stripe flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner", now the national anthem.
When the flag design changes, the change always takes place on July 4 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as a consequence of the Flag Act of April 4, 1818. July 4, Independence Day in the United States, commemorates the founding of the nation. The most recent change, from forty-nine stars to fifty, occurred in 1960, after Hawaii gained statehood in August 1959. Before that, the admission of Alaska in January 1959 prompted the debut of a short-lived 49-star flag.
The origin of the U.S. flag design is uncertain. A popular story credits Betsy Ross for sewing the first flag from a pencil sketch of George Washington who personally commissioned her for the job. However, no evidence for this theory exists beyond Ross's own records. The British historian Sir Charles Fawcett has suggested that the design of the flag may have been derived from the flag and jack of the British East India Company. Comparisons between the 2 flags support Fawcett's suggestion. Another popular theory is that the flag was designed by Francis Hopkinson. He reportedly originally wanted the stars arranged in four bands, one vertical, one horizontal, and two diagonal. By the same reports, this arrangement was rejected due to similarity to the British flag.
Historical star patterns
On the current 50-star flag, the width (fly) of the blue rectangle is 76% of the height (hoist) of the whole flag, and its height is 7 of the 13 stripes.
Note that the following star patterns are merely the usual patterns, with the exception of the 48-, 49-, and 50-star flags, as there was no official arrangement of the stars until the proclamation of the 48-star flag by President William Howard Taft in 1912. For alternate versions, see this page at Flags of the World
13 (1776) Betsy Ross flag
50 (1960 - present) Modern Flag
Proposed 51-star flag in case of a future state
Patterns and Symmetry
- symmetry with respect to horizontal axis: 50, 49, 48, 46, 44, 38, 37, 36, 34, 33, 32, 30, 28, 26, 24, 20, 15, 13 (standard)
- symmetry with respect to vertical axis: 51, 50, 48, 46, 45, 44, 37, 36, 35, 34, 33, 32, 31, 30, 29, 28, 27, 26, 25, 24, 23, 21, 20, 15, 13 (standard and Betsy Ross)
- both, hence also point symmetry: 50, 48, 46, 44, 37, 36, 34, 33, 32, 30, 28, 26, 24, 20, 15, 13 (standard and Betsy Ross)
- no symmetry: 43
- chessboard pattern: 51, 50, 49, 45, 15, 13 (standard)
- rectangle of stars: 48, 35, 30, 28, 24, 20
There are ongoing statehood movements in Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, and New York City. Other insular areas such as the U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa may eventually become states as well.
- Flags of the U.S. states
- Flags of the United States armed forces
- Flags of the Confederate States of America
- Flag desecration in the United States
- United States Army Colors
- U.S. Flag Etiquette
- The United States Flag Page
- Encyclopedia Smithsonian: Facts About the United States Flag
- The Flag Code--U.S. Code Home: Title 4, Flag and Seal, Seat of Government, and the States--Chapter 1, The Flag
- Executive Order No. 10798, with specifications and regulations for the current flag
The contents of this article is licensed from www.wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. Click here to see the transparent copy and copyright details | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37554000 |
Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
A just war describes a war that satisfies a set of moral or legal rules. Though in origin a Catholic doctrine, Francisco de Vitoria based his arguments on reason and so put the tradition on a more universal basis. The rules applied may be ethical, religious, or formal (such as international law). The rules classically cover the justification for the war (Jus ad Bellum) and the conduct of the participants in the war (Jus in Bello).
Just war theory has ancient roots. Cicero discussed this idea and its applications. Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas later codified a set of rules for a just war, which today still encompass the points commonly debated, with some modifications.
In modern language, these rules hold that to be just, a war must meet the following criteria before the use of force:
(Jus ad Bellum)
- War can only be waged for a just cause, such as self-defense against an armed attack.
- War can only be waged under legitimate authority. Usually the constitution and the laws of a nation state specify the institutions and personnel authorized to make war decisions. The U.N Charter authorizes the Security Council to make the international community's war decisions. Citizens at their own will cannot attack another country without the permission of the legitimate authority. Conversely, in a democratic nation state, statesmen with legitimate authority will need to convince citizens that their course of action is legal and proper.
- War can only be waged with the right intention. Correcting a suffered wrong is considered a right intention, while material gain is not. Thus a war that would normally be just for all other reasons would be made unjust by a bad intention. Right intention requires that democratic statesmen accept the decision of their nations' courts and electorates on the legitimacy and the justice of their action.
- War can only be waged with a reasonable chance of success. It is considered unjust to meaninglessly waste human life and economic resources if defeat is unavoidable.
- War must be waged with proportionality in mind. The suffering which existed pre-war should not be overshadowed by the suffering the war may cause.
- War can only be waged as a last resort. War is not just until all realistic options which were likely to right the wrong have been pursued.
- Just war conduct should be governed by the principle of discrimination. The acts of war should be directed towards the inflictors of the wrong, and not towards civilians caught in circumstances they did not create. The prohibited acts include bombing civilian residential areas that include no military target and committing acts of terrorism or reprisal against ordinary civilians. Some theologians believe that this rule forbids weapons of mass destruction of any kind, for any reason (such as the use of an atomic bomb).
- Just war conduct should be governed by the principle of proportionality. The force used must be proportional to the wrong endured, and to the possible good that may come. The more disproportional the number of collateral civilian deaths, the more suspect will be the sincerity of a belligerent nation's claim to justness of a war it initiated.
- Torture, of combatants or of non-combatants, is forbidden.
- Prisoners of war must be treated respectfully.
- Many throughout history have considered conscription an unjust means, e.g.
The condition of proportionality is often misunderstood. A quote from Ambrosius may well clarify it. Taking an example of a traveler coming to the aid of a fellow traveler who has been attacked by a robber he says "At the same time, the Christian should use no more force than necessary to subdue the attacker, for that person too is someone for whom Christ died. Charity thus justifies the resort to force in defense, not in self but of the other; yet at the same time it limits the force that can be used against the evildoer to what is necessary to end the evil." Hence minimum force is used here in the ethical sense of minimum harm. It is not in conflict with the Powell doctrine of overwhelming force. If overwhelming force in the military sense produces less harm then it can be seen as minimum force in the ethical sense used by Just War theorists.
Just war theorists
- Cicero (106 BC–43 BC)
- Augustine of Hippo (354-430)
- St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
- Stanislaw of Skarbimierz (1360-1431)
- Francisco de Vitoria (1492-1546)
- Francisco Suarez (1548-1617)
- Hugo Grotius (1583-1645)
- Baron von Pufendorf (1632–1694)
- Emerich de Vattel (1714-1767)
- Paul Ramsey (1913-1988)
- Michael Walzer (1935- )
- Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)
- H. Richard Niebuhr (1894-1962)
- Paul Tillich (1886-1965)
- Geneva Conventions
- Jihad (the "armed struggle" variant of it, as compared to Just war)
- Passages On War
- School of Salamanca
- scorched earth
- Summa Theologica
- total war
- war crime
- Theories of A Just War
- Resources on Just War Theory
- "Whether it is always sinful to wage war?", from the Summa Theologica
- "JustWarTheory.com", a free and non-profit internet teaching and research guide to just war theory.
- The just war doctine and its application in current international law
- Humanitarian Intervention and Just War
The contents of this article is licensed from www.wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. Click here to see the transparent copy and copyright details | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37555000 |
Many people believe the medical doctors and the drug industry that high blood pressure is a death sentence. Fortunately, this is not the case. An ideal blood pressure reading of 140/80 or recently 115/75 is nothing more than the hype of drug companies and is not based on science. These numbers do nothing but turn healthy people into patients.
According to many natural health advocates, a little rise in blood pressure due to aging is normal and does not require drug medication even though it reaches 140/80. However, increased blood pressure due to kidney disease is the exception. A miner increase in blood pressure is an absolute normal part of the aging process. In fact, according to medical literature, blood pressure rises slightly as we get older to ensure that there is abundant oxygen as well as nutrients.
For example, people that smoke are most likely to walk around with a higher pressure reading. This is because they’re getting a lot less oxygen than a nonsmoker. One of the ways that the body deals with diminished oxygen intake is to increase blood pressure, which would ensure that oxygen gets delivered a lot faster. Therefore, the aging process can also trigger this response.
Because of many hormonal factors, we do not mete out oxygen as well as nutrients as effectively as when we are younger. Therefore, increasing blood pressure is the best way for the body to deal with this problem. Our cardiovascular needs are met by an intricate hormonal system that’s regulated by the kidneys. This system works just fine. In fact, a little increase in blood pressure that’s related to aging does not put you in any immediate danger; it can actually be beneficial to survival.
Think about it! If high blood pressure was so deadly, wouldn’t lowering it with drug medication increase lifespan? You will find it hard to locate proof of someone taking blood pressure lowering medication living longer than people that do not take any hypertension medication. Unfortunately, there is research that shows these drugs actually decrease lifespan. According to many natural health advocates, it is actually quite normal for the systolic, which is the first number to be one hundred plus our age.
Before taking risky blood pressure lowering medications that can come with some awful side effects, you should learn more about the many natural medicines that can control blood pressure, increase heart health and at the same time destroy blood clots. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37559000 |
Health & Medicine - Overview
The Museum's collections of medical science artifacts represent nearly all aspects of health and medical practice. Highlights include early X-ray apparatuses, such as one of Wilhelm Roentgen's tubes, penicillin mold from Alexander Fleming’s experiments, and Jonas Salk's original polio vaccine. More recent acquisitions include the first artificial heart implanted in a human, the earliest genetically engineered drugs, and materials related to David, the "Bubble Boy." Other artifacts range from artificial limbs and implant devices to bloodletting and dental instruments, beauty products, and veterinary equipment. The contents of a medieval apothecary shop and an 1890s drugstore form part of the collections, along with patent and alternative medicines. The collections also document the many differing perspectives on health and medical issues, from patients, family members, doctors, nurses, medical students, and out-of-the-mainstream health practitioners. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37563000 |
Coins, Currency, and Medals - Overview
The Museum possesses one of the largest numismatic collections in the world. The collections include over 1 million objects, comprising coins, medals, decorations, and pieces of paper money. Among the many great rarities here are some of the world’s oldest coins, created 2,700 years ago. But the collection also includes the latest innovations in electronic monetary exchange, as well as beads, wampum, and other commodities once used as money. A special strength lies in artifacts that illustrate the development of money and medals in the United States. The American section includes many rare and significant coins, such as two of three known examples of the world's most valuable coin, the 1933 double eagle $20 gold piece. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37564000 |
Overview of the International Cancer Screening Network
The International Cancer Screening Network (ICSN) is a voluntary consortium of countries that have active population-based cancer screening programs and active efforts to evaluate and improve the processes and outcomes from cancer screening in practice. The ICSN includes efforts to evaluate cancer screening for a number of cancers where screening has been demonstrated to be effective, including breast, colorectal, cervical, and lung. These programs can be national or subnational in scope, and established or pilot-based. Administered by the Applied Research Program of the US National Cancer Institute, the consortium was established in December 1988 as the International Breast Cancer Screening Database Project during an international workshop involving representatives from 11 countries. The consortium has since grown to encompass 33 countries, and holds biennial meetings. In the interim, the specific activities are moved forward through working groups.
The initial purpose of the ICSN was to generate a database for the evaluation of screening mammography programs. In 1997, the group decided to shift its focus from creating a common database to collaborative efforts aimed at understanding how to:
In keeping with this realignment of purpose, in 1997 the group changed its name to the International Breast Cancer Screening Network. As work of the group grew to encompass colorectal and cervical cancer screening, it was renamed the International Cancer Screening Network.
The ICSN is dedicated to collaborative research aimed at identifying and fostering efficient and effective approaches to cancer control world-wide through population-based screening. It does not address efficacy or use clinical trial data. Participation in the ICSN is open to any country that has initiated a population-based cancer screening program.
The current co-chairs of the ICSN include Dr. Rachel Ballard-Barbash, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA, Elsebeth Lynge, M.Sc., Institute of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and Prof. John Boyages, Macquarie University Cancer Institute.
Last modified: 11 Dec 2012
Maintained by the
Applied Research Program,
Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37577000 |
Plenty of Safe, Eco-Friendly Fish in the Sea
Other options besides mercury-tainted tuna sushi
Posted: 28-Jan-2008; Updated: 08-Aug-2011
As a marine scientist who has been researching seafood sustainability and health issues for a long time, I've known for a while that bluefin tuna not only has high mercury levels but is severely depleted, too.
These magnificent fish are highly prized for their rich, buttery flesh. The global sushi market can't get enough bluefin, and as a result, exorbitant prices and severe overfishing are driving bluefin tuna to the brink of extinction.
I love sushi as much as the next person, but given its dire population numbers and high mercury levels, maybe its time that we all lay off for a while.
Now making big headlines is a New York Times report that found that much of the bluefin sushi served in upscale New York City restaurants actually exceeds the Food and Drug Administration's "action level" for mercury. (The threshold is 1 part per million.)
To reiterate: It's no surprise that bluefin tuna has high levels of mercury — it's one of the largest and most predatory fish species in the ocean. What is surprising is just how many New York City restaurants are serving the really high-mercury tuna. (Learn about other kinds of tuna.)
And it's not just Big Apple sushi that may pose a danger to your health. Mercury levels in bluefin are likely to be very high regardless of location, as I explained to Times reporter Marian Burros in the article.
The big picture? There's good news and bad news. First, the FDA is failing the American people when it comes to seafood safety. The FDA inspects less than one percent of imported seafood annually, a fact made clear by recent news stories about illegal drug residues in seafood imported from China. Far less seafood is ever tested for environmental toxins such as mercury.
The concentrations of mercury found in New York City tuna sushi were above the "action level" — meaning FDA can actually take the fish off the market. But the FDA does so little mercury testing it can't even come close to enforcing its own safety standards. For U.S. consumers, the situation is 'buyer beware'.
The good news is that it's easier to make eco-friendly and healthy seafood choices than you think. Environmental Defense's Seafood Selector maintains a list of contaminated fish based on data from over 200 studies by academic and government scientists. We also recommend seafood choices that are healthy for you and the environment.
The bottom line is that you don't have to sacrifice the health benefits of fish because a few species are high in mercury. Adventurous sushi-lovers might try Atlantic mackerel or farmed oysters instead — they're not only low in contaminants and high in heart-healthy omega-3s, there are plenty of them (unlike bluefin). | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37578000 |
Stephen Selwyn Harding
President Abraham Lincoln appointed Stephen Selwyn Harding as the fourth
territorial governor of Utah. While governor he became critical of the
Mormon leaders and the practice of polygamy. The Mormons of Utah successfully
petitioned for his dismissal.
Powell, Allan Kent, ed. Utah History Encyclopedia. Territorial Governors, by Miriam B. Murphy. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37583000 |
Dr. Judy Theriot and the others at University of Louisville Pediatrics are busy.
"A lot of kids with the flu," she said. "A lot of kids with other respiratory viruses."
So with up and down, roller coaster weather - record warm weather early in the week and then a 40-degree drop in 24 hours - you'd think they'd be expecting business to pick up as more people come down with illness. Dr. Theriot said you'd think wrong.
"It has nothing to do with how cold or hot it is or the changes or fluctuation in temperature," she said.
Dr. Theriot said you get colds and the flu because of viruses and viruses have nothing to do with the weather. They're spread through people.
"They cough in your face," she said. "You're around them in closed spaces or you touch infected objects."
So why does the myth of winter colds persist? Dr. Theriot said it's all because of our environment. We're not outside as much, so we have more chances to spread our illnesses.
"They kind of cycle around the world and people catch rhinovirus more in the wintertime but again, it might be from our habits too," she said.
Mom and dad were right about a couple of things: wash your hands and get your flu shot. Dr. Theriot said that really will keep you from getting sick no matter the weather! | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37586000 |
Welcome to http:/www.handsonuniverse.org/activities/Explorations/tactile-moonphases/
Try this instead: Link to alternate page with thumbnails linked to larger images.
SEE Project. http://analyzer.depaul.edu/SEE_Project/ These images are set for high contrast that suits the needs of individuals who are blind and visually impaired. Print then copy the images onto swellform paper, then process through a Swellform Graphics Machine (http://analyzer.depaul.edu/SEE_Project/bm030507.htm). The result will be tactile images to sense by touch rather than through sight. SEE Project is funded by NASA IDEAS.
You may notice that some images appear larger or smaller than others. The moon's orbit brings it sometimes as close as 55 Earth radii, and other times as far as 65 Earth radii. What difference does distance make in the apparent size of our Moon? Take a look at two full moon pictures taken on different dates.
These pictures are mosaics constructed from images taken with Univ. of Chicago Yerkes Observatory Rooftop Telescope - South (Meade 8 inch, F/6.3, SBIG ST8 CCD). Number of moon refers to day in cycle. Moon images were taken during a variety of cycles.
Questions or Comments? mailto:email@example.com?subject=Project SEE: Moon Phases
Links to jpg files, png files,
Link to fts files for display/manipulation with Hands-On Universe image processing software.
Explorations * Hands-On Universe * SEE Project | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37607000 |
There are three main components which produce noise in your PC. So you need to understand which of these 3 responsible components to have a quiet PC. Lets check the three components responsible for a noisy PC and how to quieten them.
The three main components are fans, power supply and hard disk or optical drives. The fans are used by microprocessors and graphics card which is used to cool the chip-set, which gets heated up quickly because of the high amount of processes happening inside. The strategy is to find the component which is making noise, find out the reason, fix it if it can be done then and there or else replace it with a quieter version of the same component.
The more powerful a computer is, the more work a fan need to do in order to disperse all the heat generated inside the PC. One major reason for making so much noise is the presence of dust which may clog inside, thus interfering with the smooth rotation of fan leaves. Another reason is when the fans are mounted loose on its platform. If it is not mounted properly, this might cause the fan to vibrate which in turn can make the other connected parts to vibrate, creating unwanted noise. These issues can be fixed by cleaning the fan from dust, tighten the screw or pins that is used for mounting, use vibration reducing silicone mounts and dust filters.
In some PC’s there is more number of fans in order to keep it cooler. The combined effort can make the functioning noisier. You can replace these fans with a quieter version. You can also use fan speed controllers which allows to adjust the fan speed based on the temperature generated inside.
When the fans perform vigorously to dissipate the heat, it is natural to create noise. The best way to prevent this is to provide proper ventilation to PC. The computer should not be clogged with presence of stuffs piled around PC, which interfere with the free flow of air. Also it will be good, if you have a cool room preferably an air-conditioned room which helps in keeping the temperature low.
Hard drives/Optical drives
Hard drives over the years have gone through lot of changes and one of the main features is reduced noise generation. To make it quieter, you can mount it inside an anti-vibration drive enclosure. Also you can use an SSD instead of hard disk. SSD drives don’t have any moving parts as it use flash memory to store information. Though costlier than hard disks, they are very fast compared to hard disks.
Also if your hard disk is creating lot of noise, especially sort of click sound of metallic nature, then it might be an indication that it is going to fail very soon. Regular scan of hard disk using the inbuilt operating system tools can be helpful to fix these issues permanently, but mostly it is just temporary solution till the hard disk fails again. Be careful. Understand the symptoms, take backup and be ready to replace the hard disk.
Power Supply Unit (SMPS)
SMPS or the power supply unit is responsible for converting the AC to DC. This process generates heat. The fan attached to SMPS constantly works in order to dissipate heat, thus preventing the over heating of hardware involved in it. The main villain in make noise is the dust clogged in it. This can be prevented by cleaning the fan from dust. Also you can use noiseless sleeve bearing, rather than the traditional ball bearings. Also you can choose temperature regulated SMPS, which only kick start the fan when the heat is above limit.
The noise made by the PC sometimes gets amplified by the case. You can prevent it by providing sound proofed enclosures which are usually costlier than the normal ones. Sound dampening materials can also be applied to the inside of the case which also helps in a quiet PC. These materials are usually non flammable, so don’t worry about getting it burned.
Printers are also another component which is responsible for creating noise while functioning. Like hard disks, with improved technological advancements printers now a day’s don’t make that much noise as they used to before. Some of the latest printers have a quiet mode which reduced the fan speed and reduce the rate at which printouts are taken. You can find it under printer properties. Put a piece of carpet or towel under your printer to reduce the sound caused by the vibration on the desk. If you are using a wireless printer, keep it away from the desk within the wireless range to reduce noise.
Hope these instruction will help you in having a quiet PC. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37609000 |
Museum in a Box - Minibeast
Boxes are currently available each school term for set loan periods of three weeks. Museum in a Box can be sent to and collected from any educational institution within New South Wales.
The Minibeasts box is a resource designed specifically for Early Childhood. The topic was chosen to complement children's fascination with creatures that they find in their environment. It includes a great variety of 'treasures' - real insects and spiders embedded in resin, a large model ant, insect finger puppets, handmade silk butterfly wings, a specially created wooden ladybug puzzle, posters and books.
- 8 real insects and spiders embedded in clear plastic
- A large ant model, great for investigating body parts and as a drawing stimulus 'Magnetic minibeasts', 3 sets of magnetic minibeasts with a magnet board
- The 'Food Game'; designed as a simple introduction to food webs
- The 'What am I?' game; a simple classification activity
- 2 silk butterfly wing dress-ups, made especially for the box
- A handmade original wooden Ladybird puzzle, a sensory delight!
- A shiny green dung beetle hand puppet
- 12 finger puppets just for fun!
- Minibeast posters and reference books
- Teachers notes and a Box Journal
Karen Player , Manager Museum Outreach | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37613000 |
This advice changed my view of the world. Not only did I realize that being a teenager with a Y-chromosome can't be easy either, it also explained why my male classmates were suddenly developing interests in things like Special Relativity or Scanning Tunnel Microscopes (Nobel Prize '86). It made also sense they were usually very irritated if a girl attempted to join them: all that was just suppressed hormones, the poor guys*. It further revealed a deep connection between General Relativity and potatoes that hadn't previously occurred to me. Most disturbingly however, it labeled General Relativity as unsexy, a fact that has bothered me ever since.
Over the course of years I moreover had to notice that General Relativity is a subject of great mystery to many, it's a word that has entered the colloquial language as the incomprehensible and ununderstandably complicated result of a genius' brain. My physics teacher notably told me when getting tired of my questions that there are maybe three people in the world who understand General Relativity, thereby repeating (as I found out later) a rumor that was more than half a century old (see Wikipedia on the History of General Relativity).
Special and General Relativity is also the topic I receive the most questions about. The twin paradox for example still seems to confuse many people, and only a couple of days ago I was again confronted with a misunderstanding that I've encountered repeatedly, though its origin is unclear to me. The twin paradox is not a paradox, so the explanation seems to go, because it doesn't take into account General Relativity. That's plain wrong. The twin paradox is not a paradox because it doesn't take into account acceleration (unless your spacetime allows closed timelike loops you will have to accelerate one of the twins to get them to meet again which breaks the symmetry).
The problem is that for reasons I don't know many people seem to believe Special Relativity is about constant velocities only, possibly a consequence of bad introductionary textbook. That is not the case. Heck, you can describe acceleration even in Newtonian mechanics! To make that very clear:
- The difference between Special and General Relativity is that the former is in flat space, whereas the latter is in a 'general', curved space.
- Flat space does not mean the metric tensor is diagonal with the entries (-1,1,1,1), this is just the case in a very specific coordinate system. Flat space means the curvature tensor identically vanishes (which is independent of the coordinate system).
- Of course one can describe accelerated observers in Special Relativity.
That leads me now directly to the Equivalence Principle, the cornerstone of General Relativity. Googling 'Equivalence Principle' it is somehow depressing. Wikipedia isn't wrong, but too specific (the Equivalence Principle doesn't have anything to do with standing on the surface of the Earth). The second hit is a NASA website which I find mostly confusing (saying all objects react equally to gravity doesn't tell you anything about the relation of gravitational to inertial mass). The third and fourth hits get it right, the fifth is wrong (the locality is a crucial ingredient).
So here it is:
- The Equivalence Principle: Locally, the effects of gravitation (motion in a curved space) are the same as that of an accelerated observer in flat space.
That is what Einstein explains in his thought experiment with the elevator. If you are standing in the elevator (that is just a local patch, theoretically infinitesimally small) you can't tell whether you are pulled down because there is a planet underneath your feet, or because there is a flying pig pulling up the elevator. This website has two very nice mini-movies depicting the situation.
If you could make your elevator larger you could however eventually distinguish between flat and curved space because you could measure geodesic deviation, i.e. the curvature.
If you think of particles, the Equivalence Principle means that the inertial mass is equal to the gravitational mass, which has been measured with impressive precision. But the above formulation makes the mathematical consequences much clearer. To formulate your theory, you will have to introduce a tangential bundle on your curved manifold where you can deal with the 'local' quantities, and you will have to figure out how the cuts in this bundle (tensors) will transform under change of coordinates. If you want your theory to be independent of that choice of coordinates it will have to be formulated in tensor equations. Next thing to ask is then how to transport tensors from one point to the other, which leads you to a 'covariant' derivative.
The Equivalence Principle is thus a very central ingredient of General Relativity and despite its simplicity the base of a large mathematical apparatus, it's the kind of insight every theoretical physicist dreams of. It gives you a notion of a 'straightest line' in curved space (a geodesic) on which a testparticle moves. This curve most notably is independent of the mass of that particle: heavy and light things fall alike even in General Relativity (well, we already knew this to be the case in the Newtonian limit). For a very nice demonstration see the video on the NASA website. Please note that this holds for pointlike testparticles only, it is no loger true for extended or spinning objects, or for objects that significantly disturb the background.
The Equivalence Principle however is not sufficient to give you Einstein's field equations that describe how space is curved by its matter content. But that's a different story. It remains to be said all this is standard textbook knowledge and General Relativity is today not usually considered a large mystery. There are definitely more than 3 people who understand it. We have moved on quite a bit since 1905.
General Relativity is sexy.
Though I doubt there's more than three people in the world who really understand potatoes.
* In the more advanced stages of confusion they start referring to physical theories as women.
Josh, this one's for you. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37618000 |
SavingsEveryone's better off when savings are made simple
Search alphabetically for the term you are looking for.
- Account balance
- This is the amount of money in an account. This could be a credit balance (money you own) in a savings account or a debit balance (money you owe) in a current account.
- AER stands for the Annual Equivalent Rate and shows what the interest rate would be if interest was paid and added to the capital balance each year. The higher the AER, the better the return you will receive.
- Assets are things that a person or company owns, such as a house or money.
- ATM stands for Automated Teller Machine. They are known as cash machines and can be found in many public places. They allow you to check your balance and take out money from your current account by using your cash or debit card and entering your PIN (Personal Identification Number).
- This means Bankers’ Automated Clearing Services and it’s simply a way to electronically process financial transactions. It is a UK scheme and there are also BACS Direct Debits and BACS Direct Credits.
- This is the amount of money in an account. A positive balance refers to the amount you have in your savings account. A negative balance refers to the amount you owe, for example an overdraft on a current account.
- Bank of England Base Rate
- By Bank of England Base Rate we mean the Bank of England’s official dealing rate (the Official Bank Rate) as set by the Monetary Policy Committee.
- A beneficiary is an individual that has the right of enjoyment from the funds in the account and this remains with them throughout the period the money is deposited.
- A bond is a savings account which will earn interest over a specified period of time. Bonds have a defined term (usually between one to five years), after which the bond will mature and you can access your money. Learn about Fixed Term Bonds
- A budget is a financial plan drawn up for an individual or family to work out how much money is coming in and going out each month. A budget would usually cover a period of one month, although it can be longer. You can use our budget planner to work out what you can afford.
- This is the amount of money saved or invested in your savings account.
- Capital balance
- This is the amount of money saved or invested in your savings account.
- Cash ISA
- An Individual Savings Account (ISA) is a savings account where you don’t pay tax on the interest you earn. As your earnings are tax-free, this means you get to keep everything that you invest and earn. There are two different types of ISAs - Cash ISAs which are available to any one aged 16 or over and Stocks and Shares ISAs – which are available to anyone aged 18 and over. Virgin Money have a great range of Cash ISAs for you to choose from. Learn about Cash ISAs
- Cash ISA allowance
- Cash ISA top up
- Cash ISA transfer authority form
- You need to complete this form alongside your application if you wish to transfer your existing Cash ISA to a new one. transfer authority form
- Certificate of Deposit
- A Certificate of Deposit is something offered by banks and building societies where you agree to keep money in your account for a certain period of time in return for a specified interest rate.
- This stands for Clearing House Automated Payment System. Is an electronic payment system which provides for same-day transfers of funds between accounts.
- When we talk about charges, it means expenses which will be incurred if a transaction takes place. For example, if you withdraw money instantly from an account which requires you to give notice, then charges may apply.
- Citizens Advice Bureau
- A voluntary organisation offering help to resolve legal, money and other problems by providing free information and advice.
- Compound interest
- Interest that is calculated on the original amount saved, as well as any interest already earned.
- Cooling-off period
- This is the time you have to change your mind on any savings accounts you have opened excluding Fixed Rate Bonds.
- Credit check
- This is where a bank or other organisation carries out a credit check on a person before deciding whether to lend them money or to open a bank account.
- Customer identification
- We are required to confirm the identity of all customers who open an account. To prove your identity documents such as a passport or driving licence may be required. Suitable forms of identification
- Debit card
- A debit card is issued by a bank, at Virgin Money this may be with your current account. A debit card is used in a similar way to a credit card, but when an individual makes a purchase, the money is taken from the associated account straight away.
- This is money you owe to another individual or a business.
- This is someone who relies on another person for financial support. So if you have young children, they are your dependants.
- This is someone who puts money into a savings or bank account.
- Direct Debit
- This is an instruction that someone gives to their bank, allowing another company or organisation to take a specific amount from their account on a regular basis. Direct Debits are usually taken from an account on a monthly basis but can be annual or twice yearly.
- A dormant account is one which has had no money withdrawn from it, nor money added to it for a long period of time. Lost accounts
- Easy Access
- An Easy Access account is a savings account which offers you the flexibility of adding to your savings as often as you like with the benefit of being able to take money out as you need to. Some of these accounts are operated online for 24/7 access to your funds. Learn about Easy Access accounts
- Easy access accounts
- Operated either online or via one of our Stores, these accounts are great if you want the flexibility of being able to save as and when you want to.
- Your estate is everything you own when you die, less what you owe.
- This is the amount of money spent on goods or services, usually calculated over a month. You can use our budget planner to help you work out how much you can afford to save by adding up your monthly bills and looking at other financial commitments over the year.
- Financial advice
- Financial advice can help you decide what’s financially important to you right now, so you can make the best decisions. This is provided by an adviser who is regulated by the FSA. We offer our customers a thorough review with a fully qualified financial consultant who knows exactly what’s what. View our Financial Planning website
- Financial gifts
- This is money given to someone as a gift, for example, money added to a child’s account from a parent or relative.
- Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS)
- This is the official independent complaints service which works to resolve complaints between consumers and businesses that provide financial services. If we cannot resolve the complaint to your satisfaction you have the right to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.
- Financial Planning
- This is a free service which helps customers to work out the best accounts and financial arrangements to suit their specific needs. We offer our customers a thorough review with a fully qualified financial consultant who knows exactly what’s what. Financial Planning
- Financial Services Authority (FSA)
- This is the UK financial services regulator.
- Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS)
- The FSCS can pay compensation to depositors if a bank is unable to meet its financial obligations. Most depositors – including most individuals and small businesses – are covered by the scheme. We are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).
- Fixed rate
- An interest rate that stays the same i.e. doesn't move up or down for a set period of time.
- Fixed Rate Bond
- The type of fixed term accounts which Virgin Money currently offer. They offer a fixed rate of interest for a specified period of time. They can be fixed for a number of years, typically ranging from one to five, and will mature at the end of the fixed term.
- Fixed Term Bond
- A Fixed Term bond is a savings account which will earn interest over a specified period of time. Bonds have a defined term (usually between one to five years), after which the bond will mature and you can access your money. Learn about Fixed Term Bonds
- This is usually an estimate of future financial outcomes.
- This stands for Faster Payments Service and it enables customers to make electronic payments. Faster Payments are typically made via the internet or telephone and processed in hours rather than days.
- FTSE 100
- This stands for the Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 index, which is made up of the 100 largest firms quoted on the London Stock Exchange.
- The full amount of money earned or paid before any deductions such as tax.
- HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC)
- HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is a government organisation that ensures the correct tax is paid at the right time, whether this relates to payment of taxes received by the department or entitlement to benefits paid.
- Income tax
- This is tax which is payable on any income you earn.
- Independent Financial Advisor (IFA)
- A professional who is authorised and regulated by the FSA to advise on suitable financial products after researching the whole market and a customer’s needs and circumstances.
- Inheritance tax
- Inheritance tax may be payable in the event of death if the estate is over the threshold specified for that tax year
- This is the money that you earn in a savings account.
- Interest rate
- The percentage figure that shows how much interest you will earn with that savings account.
- Introductory bonus
- On certain accounts, an introductory bonus will be included within the interest rate. This is available for a fixed term, usually twelve months from you opening the savings account.
- An Individual Savings Account (ISA) is a savings account where you don’t pay tax on the interest you earn. As your earnings are tax-free, this means you get to keep everything that you invest and earn. There are two different types of ISAs - Cash ISAs which are available to anyone aged 16 or over and Stocks and Shares ISAs – which are available to anyone aged 18 and over. Virgin Money have a great range of Cash ISAs for you to choose from. Learn about Cash ISAs
- Limited Access
- A limited access account is a savings account which could earn you a higher rate of interest by giving us notice when you wish to withdraw. Usually with a variable interest rate, a limited access account gives you the flexibility of adding to your savings when you like. Learn about Limited Access accounts
- Limited issue
- Some products such as Bonds are limited issues and therefore, may only be available for a short period of time and may be withdrawn without notice.
- Once reaching the end of a fixed term, your money will mature and will be available to access. Alternatively it may become a matured account and receive a different rate of interest.
- Maximum additional deposits
- This is the most amount of money you can add to a savings account.
- Maximum investment
- This is the most amount of money you can invest into a savings account.
- Minimum additional deposits
- This is the least amount of money you can add into a savings account.
- Minimum investment
- This is the least amount of money you can invest to open a savings account.
- This is a free, impartial guide on bank accounts provided by the FSA (the UK financial services regulator) which you may find useful if you are opening an account or thinking about getting a new savings account.
- Net is the annual rate of interest payable after the deduction of basic rate tax (currently 20%).
- No-notice accounts
- With a no-notice account you have easy access to your money.
- Notice period
- This is the time you have to give to notify the bank or building society that you want to withdraw your money without paying a penalty. 60 , 90, 120, 180 days are common notice periods.
- Online account
- An account you can access and manage online.
- Overdraft / Overdrawn
- A facility allowing you to spend more money from your bank account than you have in it. The bank will usually charge you interest and sometimes other fees as well if you do this.
- An annual summary of all your payslips. Your employer gives you one at the end of every tax year, if you still work for the employer. Keep it safe.
- A payslip shows how much you’ve been paid by your employer and also how much tax you’ve paid. Your employer should give you one every time you get paid.
- This is an arrangement that provides people with an income when they are no longer earning money from employment.
- Power of Attorney
- A written legal document that gives an individual the authority to act for another.
- This is the company or organisation that provides the account.
- R85 form
- The HM Revenue & Customs R85 form is completed when you are entitled to receive interest without tax being taken off. By completing the R85 form you are telling your bank or building society that you do not have to pay tax on the interest that is paid to you.
- The figure that shows how much interest you earn.
- Sole account holder
- If the account is in one name, this is the person who holds the account.
- Standing Order
- A Standing Order is an instruction someone gives to their bank to pay a set amount at regular intervals to another account. This is also known as a Banker's Order.
- This includes details of all transactions carried out within your account.
- Summary box
- A summary box is the key product information about a savings account
- A charge you pay to the government – there are different types of tax but income and inheritance tax are the ones most people may be aware of.
- Tax free
- This simply means that you don’t pay tax. For example, with a tax-free Cash ISA, you don’t pay tax on any interest you earn.
- Tax year
- A tax year runs from 6th April one year until 5th April the following year.
- Tax year for Cash ISAs
- A tax year runs from 6th April one year until 5th April the following year. The current ISA subscription limit is £5,760 for the 2013/2014 tax year.
- The term is the period of time your investment runs for, for example, three years.
- Quite simply, a trustee is someone who is appointed to hold the funds in the account for the benefit of the beneficiary.
- Interest rates offered by banks and financial institutions on loans or deposits which are liable to change according to circumstances. For example, a movement in the Bank of England Base Rate which is set by the Monetary Policy Committee.
- Welcome Pack
- You will receive a welcome pack within five business days of opening your account. This will include everything you need to know about saving with Virgin Money and how to use your account.
- A withdrawal simply means to take money out of an account. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37620000 |
H.L. Mencken (18801956). The American Language. 1921.
2. Differences in Usage
The differences here listed, most of them between words in everyday employment, are but examples of a divergence in usage which extends to every department of daily life. In his business, in his journeys from his home to his office, in his dealings with his family and servants, in his sports and amusements, in his politics and even in his religion the American uses, not only words and phrases, but whole syntactical constructions, that are unintelligible to the Englishman, or intelligible only after laborious consideration. A familiar anecdote offers an example in miniature. It concerns a young American woman living in a region of prolific orchards who is asked by a visiting Englishman what the residents do with so much frut. Her reply is a pun: We eat all we can, and what we cant we can. This answer would mystify most Englishmen, for in the first place it involves the use of the flat American a in cant and in the second place it applies an unfamiliar name to the vessel that the Englishman knows as a tin, and then adds to the confusion by deriving a verb from the substantive. There are no such tings as canned-goods in England; over there they are tinned. The can that holds them is a tin; to can them is to tin them. And they are counted, not as groceries, but as stores, and advertised, not on bill-boards but on hoardings. And the cook who prepares them for the table is not Nora or Maggie, but Cook, and if she does other work in addition she is not a girl for general housework, but a cook-general, and not help, but a servant. And the boarder who eats them is often not a boarder at all, but a paying-guest. And the grave of the tin, once it is emptied, is not the ash-can, but the dust-bin, and the man who carries it away is not the garbage-man or the ash-man or the white-wings, but the dustman.
An Englishman, entering his home, does not walk in upon the first floor, but upon the ground floor. What he calls the first floor (or, more commonly, first storey, not forgetting the penultimate e!) is what we call the second floor, and so on up to the roofwhich is covered not with tin, but with slate, tiles or leads. He does not take a paper; he takes in a paper. He does not ask his servant, Is there any mail for me? but Are there any letters for me? for mail, in the American sense, is a word that he seldom uses, save in such compounds as mail-van, mail-train and mail-order. He alwaus speaks of it as the post. The man who brings it is not a letter-carrier but a postman. It is posted, not mailed, at a pillar-box, not at a mail-box. It never includes postal-orders but only post-cards, never money-orders, but only postal-orders or postoffice-orders.2 The Englishman dictates his answers, not to a typewriter, but to a typist; a typewriter is merely the machine. If he desires the recipient to call him by telephone he doesnt say, phone me at a quarter of eight, but ring me up at a quarter to eight. And when the call comes he says are you there? When he gets home, he doesnt find his wife waiting for him in the parlor or living-room,3 but in the drawing-room or in her sitting-room, and the tale of domestic disaster that she has to tell does not concern the hired-girl but the scullery-maid. He doesnt bring her a box of candy, but a box of sweets. He doesnt leave a derby hat in the hall, but a bowler. His wife doesnt wear shirtwaists, but blouses. When she buys one she doesnt say charge it, but put it down. When she orders a tailor-made suit, she calls it a costume or a coat-and-skirt. When she wants a spool of thread she asks for a reel of cotton.4 Such things are bought, not in the department-stores, but at the stores, which are substantially the same thing. In these stores calico means a plain cotton cloth; in the United States it means a printed cotton cloth. Things bought on the instalment plan in England are said to be bought on the hire-purchase plan or system; the instalment business itself is the credit-trade. Goods ordered by post (not mail) on which the dealer pays the cost of transportation are said to be sent, not postpaid or prepaid, but postfree or carriage-paid.
An Englishman does not wear suspenders, but braces. Suspenders are his wifes garters; his own are sock-suspenders. The family does not seek sustenance in a rare tenderloin but in an underdone undercut or fillet. It does not eat beets, but beet-roots. The wine on the table, if white and German, is not Rhine wine, but Hock. Yellow turnips, in England, are called Swedes, and are regarded as fit food for cattle only; when rations were short there, in 1916, the Saturday Review made a solemn effort to convince its readers that they were good enough to go upon the table. The English, of late, have learned to eat another vegetable formerly resigned to the lower fauna, to wit, American sweet corn. But they are still having some difficulty about its name, for plain corn in England, as we have seen, means all the grains used by man. Some time ago, in the Sketch, one C. J. Clive, a gentleman farmer of Worcestershire, was advertising sweet corn-cobs as the most delicious of all vegetables, and offering to sell them at 6s. 6d. a dozen, carriage-paid. Chicory is something else that the English are unfamiliar with; they always call it endive. By chicken they mean any fowl, however ancient. Broilers and friers are never heard of over there. Neither are crawfish, which are always crayfish.5 The classes which, in America, eat breakfast, dinner and supper, have breakfast, dinner and tea in England; supper always means a meal eaten late in the evening. No Englishman ever wears a frock-coat or Prince-Albert, or lives in a bungalow; he wears a morning-coat and lives in a villa or cottage. His wifes maid, if she has one, is not Ethel, or Maggie but Robinson, and the nurse-maid who looks after his children is not Lizzie but Nurse.6 So, by the way, is a trained nurse in a hospital, whose full style is not Miss Jones, but Nurse Jones or Sister. And the hospital itself, if private, is not a hospital at all, but a nursing-home, and its trained nurses are plain nurses, or hospital nurses, or maybe nursing sisters. And the white-clad young gentlemen who make love to them are not studying medicine but walking the hospitals. Similarly, an English law student does not study law, but reads the law.
If an English boy goes to a public school, it is not a sign that he is getting his education free, but that his father is paying a good round sum for it and is accepted as a gentleman. A public school over there corresponds to our prep school; it is a place maintained chiefly by endowments, wherein boys of the upper classes are prepared for the universities. What we know as a public school is called a board school or council school in England, not because the pupils are boarded but because it is managed by a school board or county council. The boys in a public (i. e., private) school are divided, not into classes, or grades, but into forms, which are numbered, the lowest being the first form. The benches they sit on are also called forms. An English boy whose father is unable to pay for his education goes first into a babies class (a kindergarten is always a private school) in a primary or infants school. He moves thence to class one, class two, class three and class four, and then into the junior school or public elementary school, where he enters the first standard. Until now boys and girls have sat together in class, but hereafter they are separated, the boy going to a boys school and the girl to a girls. He goes up a standard a year. At the third or fourth standard, for the first time, he is put under a male teacher. He reaches the seventh standard, if he is bright, at the age of 12, and then goes into what is known as the ex-seventh. If he stays at school after this he goes into the ex-ex-seventh. But many leave the public elementary school at the ex-seventh and go into the secondary school, which is what Americans call a high-school. The lowest class in a secondary school, says an English correspondent, is known as the third form. In this class the boy from the public elementary school meets boys from private preparatory schools, who usually have an advantage over him, being armed with the Greek alphabet, the first twenty pages of French Without Tears, the fact that Balbus built a wall, and the fact that lines equal to the same line are equal to one another. But usually the public elementary school boy conquers these disabilities by the end of his first high-school year, and so wins a place in the upper fourth form, while his wealthier competitors grovel in the lower fourth. In schools where the fagging system prevails the fourth is the lowest form that is fagged. The lower fifth is the retreat of the unscholarly. The sixth form is the highest. Those who fail in their matriculation for universities or who wish to study for the civil service or pupil teachers examinations go into a thing called the remove, which is less a class than a state of mind. Here are the Brahmins, the contemplative Olympians, the prefects, the lab. monitors. The term public elementary school is recent. It was invented when the old board school system was abolished about 1906. But the term standard is ancient. The principal of an English public (i. e., private) school is a head-master or head-mistress, but in a council school he or she may be a principal. The lower pedagogues used to be ushers, but are now assistant masters (or mistresses). The titular head of a university is a chancellor or rector.7 He is always some eminent public man, and a vice-chancellor or vice-rector performs his duties. The head of a mere college may be a president, principal, master, warden, rector, dean or provost.
At the universities the students are not divided into freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors, as with us, but are simply first-year-men, second-year-men, and so on, though a first-year-man is sometimes a fresher. Such distinctions, however, are not as important in England as in America; members of the university (they are called members, not students) do not flock together according to seniority, and there is no regulation forbidding an upper classman, or even a graduate, to be polite to a student just entered. An English university man does not study; he reads. He knows nothing of frats, class-days, senior-proms and such things; save at Cambridge and Dublin he does not even speak of a commencement. On the other hand his daily speech is full of terms unintelligible to an American student, for example, wrangler, tripos, head, pass-degree and don.
The upkeep of council-schools in England comes out of the rates, which are local taxes levied upon householders. For that reason an English municipal taxpayer is called a ratepayer. The functionaries who collect and spend money are not office-holders, but public-servants. The head of the local police is not a chief of police, but a chief constable. The fire department is the fire brigade. The street-cleaner is a crossing-sweeper.8 The parish poorhouse is a workhouse. If it is maintained by two or more parishes jointly it becomes a union. A pauper who accepts its hospitality is said to be on the rates. A policeman is a bobby familiarly and a constable officially. He is commonly mentioned in the newspapers, not by his name, but as P. C. 643 Ai. e., Police Constable No. 643 of the A Division. The fire-laddie, the ward executive, the wardman, the roundsman, the strong-arm squad, the third-degree, and other such objects of American devotion are unknown in England. An English saloon-keeper is officially a licensed victualler. His saloon is a public house, or, colloquially, a pub. He does not sell beer by the bucket or can or growler or schooner, but by the pint. He and his brethren, taken together, are the licensed trade. His back-room is a parlor. If he has a few upholstered benches in his place he usually calls it a lounge. He employs no bartenders. Barmaids do the work, with maybe a barman to help.
The American language, as we have seen, has begun to take in the English boot and shop, and it is showing hospitality to head-master, haberdasher and week-end, but subaltern, civil servant, porridge, moor, draper, treacle, tram and mufti are still rather strangers in the United States, as bleachers, picayune, air-line, campus, chore, stogic and hoodoo are in England. A subaltern is a commissioned officer in the army, under the rank of captain. A civil servant is a public servant in the national civil service; if he is of high rank, he is usually called a permanent official.Porridge, moor, scullery, draper, treacle and tram, though unfamiliar, still need no explanation. Mufti means ordinary male clothing; an army officer out of uniform (American: in cits, or in citizens clothes) is said to be in mufti. To this officer a sack-suit or business-suit is a lounge-suit. He carries his clothes in a box. He does not miss a train; he loses it. He does not ask for a round-trip ticket, but for a return ticket. If he proposes to go to the theatre he does not reserve or engage seats; he books them. If he sits down-stairs, it is not in the orchestra, but in the stalls. If he likes vaudeville, he goes to a music-hall, where the head-liners are top-liners. If he has to stand in line, he does it, not in a line, but in a queue. If he goes to see a new play, he says that it has just been put up, not put on.
In England a corporation is a public company or limited liability company. The term corporation, over there, is commonly applied only to the mayor, aldermen and sheriffs of a city, as in the London corporation. An Englishman writes Ltd. after the name of a limited liability (what we would call incorporated) bank or trading company, as we write Inc. He calls its president its chairman or managing director. Its stockholders are its shareholders, and hold shares instead of stock in it. The place wherein such companies are floated and lootedthe Wall Street of Londonis called the City, with a capital C. Bankers, stock-jobbers, promoters, directors and other such leaders of its business are called City men. The financial editor of a newspaper is its City editor. Government bonds are consols, or stocks, or the funds.9 To have money in the stocks is to own such bonds. As Englishman hasnt a bank-account, but a banking-account. He draws cheques (not checks), not on his bank but on the bankers.10 In England there is a rigid distinction between a broker and a stock-broker. A broker means, not a dealer in securities, as in our Wall Street broker, but a dealer in second-hand furniture. To have the brokers11 in the house means to be bankrupt, with ones very household goods in the hands of ones creditors. For a City man to swindle a competitor in England is not to do him up or to do him, but to do him in. When any English business man retires he does not actually retire; he declines business.12
Tariff reform, in England, does not mean a movement toward free trade, but one toward protection. The word Government, meaning what we call the administration, is always capitalized and plural, e. g., The Government are considering the advisability, etc. Vestry, committee, council, ministry and even company are also plural, though sometimes not capitalized. A member of Parliament does not run for re-election; he stands. He does not make a campaign, but a canvass.13 He does not represent a district, but a division or constituency. He never makes a stumping trip, but always a speaking tour. When he looks after his fences he calls it nursing the constituency. At a political meeting (they are often rough in England) the bouncers are called stewards; the suffragettes used to delight in stabbing them with hatpins. A member of Parliament is not afflicted by the numerous bugaboos that menace an American congressman. He knows nothing of lame ducks, pork barrels, gag-rule, junkets, pulls, gerrymanders, omnibus-bills, snakes, niggers in the woodpile, Salt river, crow, bosses, ward heelers, men higher up, silk-stockings, repeaters, steam-rollers, ballot-box stuffers and straight and split tickets (he always calls them ballots or voting papers). He has never heard, save as a report of far-off heresies, of direct primaries, the recall, or the initiative and referendum. A roll-call in Parliament is a division. A member speaking is said to be up or on his legs. When the house adjourns it is said to rise. A member referring to another in the course of a debate does not say the gentleman from Manchester, but the honorable gentleman (written hon. gentleman) or, if he happens to be a privy councillor, the right honorable gentleman, or, if he is a member of one of the universities, or a member of one of the learned professions, the honorable and learned gentleman. If the speaker refers to a member of his own party he may say my honorable friend.
In the United States a pressman is a man who runs a printing press; in England he is a newspaper reporter, or, as the English usually say, a journalist.14 This journalist works, not at space rates, but at lineage rates. A printing press is a machine. An editorial in a newspaper is a leading article or leader. An editorial paragraph is a leaderette, or par. A newspaper clipping is a cutting. A pass to the theatre is an order. The room-clerk of a hotel is the secretary. A real-estate agent or dealer is an estate-agent. The English keep up most of the old distinctions between physicians and surgeons, barristers and solicitors. A barrister is greatly superior to a solicitor. He alone can address the higher courts and the parliamentary committees; a solicitor must keep to office work and the inferior courts. A man with a grievance goes first to his solicitor, who then instructs or briefs a barrister for him. If that barrister, in the course of the trial, wants certain evidence removed from the record, he moves that it be struck out, not stricken out, as an American lawyer would say. Only barristers may become judges. An English barrister, like his American brother, takes a retainer when he is engaged. But the rest of his fee does not wait upon the termination of the case: he expects and receives a refresher from time to time. A barrister is never admitted to the bar, but is always called. If he becomes a Kings Counsel, or K. C. (a purely honorary appointment), he is said to have taken silk. In the United States a lawyer tries a case and the judge hears it; in England the judge tries it. In the United States the court hands down a decision; in England the court hands it out. In the United States a lawyer probates a will; in England he proves it, or has it admitted to probate.
The common objects and phenomena of nature are often differently named in England and America. As we saw in a previous chapter, such Americanisms as creek and run, for small streams, are practically unknown in England, and the English moor and downs early disappeared from American. The Englishman knows the meaning of sound (e. g., Long Island Sound), but he nearly always uses channel in place of it. In the same way the American knows the meaning of the English bog, but rejects the English distinction between it and swamp, and almost always uses swamp or marsh (often elided to mash). The Englishman seldom, if ever, describes a severe storm as a hurricane, a cyclone, a tornado, or a blizzard. He never uses cold-snap, cloudburst or under the weather. He does not say that the temperature is 29 degrees (Fahrenheit) or that the thermometer or the mercury is at 29 degrees, but that there are three degrees of frost. He calls ice water iced-water. He knows nothing of blue-grass country or of the pennyryal.15 What we call the mining regions he knows as the black country. He never, of course, uses down-East or up-State. Many of our names for common fauna and flora are unknown to him save as strange Americanisms, e. g., terrapin, moose, June-bug, persimmon, gumbo, egg-plant, alfalfa, catnip, sweet-potato and yam. Until lately he called the grapefruit a shaddock. He still calls the rutabaga a mangelwurzel. He is familiar with many fish that we seldom see, e. g., the turbot. He also knows the hare, which is seldom heard of in America. But he knows nothing of devilled-crabs, crab-cocktails, seafood-dinners, clam-chowder or oyster-stews, and he never goes to oyster-suppers, clam-bakes or burgoo-picnics. He doesnt buy peanuts when he goes to the circus. He calls them monkeynuts, and to eat them publicly is infra dig. The common American use of peanut as an adjective of disparagement, as in peanut politics, is incomprehensible to him.
In England a hack is not a public coach, but a horse let out at hire, or one of similar quality. A life insurance policy is usually not an insurance policy at all, but an assurance policy. What we call the normal income tax is the ordinary tax; what we call the surtax is the supertax.16 An Englishman never lives on a street, but always in it.17 He never lives in a block of houses, but in a row; it is never in a section of the city, but always in a district. The business-blocks that are so proudly exhibited in all small American towns are quite unknown to him. He often calls an office-building (his are always small) simply a house, e. g., Carmelite House. Going home by train he always takes the down-train, no matter whether he be proceeding southward to Wimbleton, westward to Shepherds Bush, northward to Tottenham or eastward to Noaks Hill. A train headed toward London is always an up-train, and the track it runs on is the up-line. Eastbound and westbound tracks and trains are unknown in England, and in general the Englishman has a much less keen sense of the points of the compass than the American. He knows the East End and the West End, but he never speaks of the north-east corner of two streets. When an Englishman boards a bus, in fact, it is not at a corner at all, but at a crossing, though he is familiar with such forms as Hyde Park Corner. The place he is bound for is not three squares or blocks away, but three turnings. Square, in England, always means a small park. A backyard is a garden. A subway is always a tube, or the underground. But an underground passage for pedestrians is a subway. English streets have no sidewalks; they always call them pavements or foot-paths or simply paths. An automobile is always a motor-car or motor.Auto is almost unknown, and with it to auto. So is machine.
An Englishman always calls russet, yellow or tan shoes brown shoes (or, if they cover the ankle, boots). He calls a pocketbook a purse, and gives the name of pocketbook to what we call a memorandum-book. His walking stick is always a stick, never a cane. By cord he means something strong, almost what we call twine; a thin cord he always calls a string; his twine is the lightest sort of string. When he applies the adjective homely to a woman he means that she is simple and home-loving, not necessarily that she is plain. He uses dessert, not to indicate the whole last course at dinner, but to designate the fruit only; the rest is ices or sweets. He uses vest, not in place of waistcoat, but in place of undershirt. Similarly, he applies pants, not to his trousers, but to his drawers. An Englishman who inhabits bachelor quarters is said to live in chambers; if he has a flat he calls it a flat, and not an apartment, which term he reserves for a single room.18Flat-houses are often mansions. The janitor or superintendent thereof is a care-taker or porter. The scoundrels who snoop around in search of divorce evidence are not private detectives, but private enquiry agents.
The Englishman is naturally unfamiliar with baseball, and in consequence his language is bare of the countless phrases and metaphors that it has supplied to American. Many of these phrases and metaphors are in daily use among us, for example, fan, rooter, bleachers, batting-average, double-header, grand-stand-play, Charley-horse, pennant-winner, gate-money, busher, minor-leaguer, glass-arm, to strike out, to foul, to be shut out, to play ball, on the bench, on to his curves and three strikes and out. The national game of draw-poker has also greatly enriched American with terms that are either quite unknown to the Englishman, or known to him only as somewhat dubious Americanisms, among them, cold-deck, kitty, full-house, jack-pot, four-flusher, ace-high, pot, penny-ante, divvy, a card up his sleeve, three-of-a-kind, to ante up, to stand pat, to call (a bluff), to pony up, to hold out, to cash in, to go it one better, to chip in and for keeps. But the Englishman uses many more racing terms and metaphors than we do and he has got a good many phrases from other games, particularly cricket. The word cricket itself has a definite figurative meaning. It indicates, in general, good sports-manship. To take unfair advantage of an opponent is not cricket. The sport of boating, so popular on the Thames, has also given colloquial English some familiar terms, almost unknown in the United States, e. g., punt and weir. Contrariwise, pungy, batteau and scow are unheard of in England, and canoe is not long emerged from the estate of an Americanism.19 The game known as ten-pins in America is called nine-pins in England, and once had that name over here. The Puritans forbade it, and its devotees changed its name in order to evade the prohibition.20 Finally, there is soccer, a form of football that is still relatively little known in the United States. What we call simply football is Rugby or Rugger to the Englishman. The word soccer is derived from association; the rules of the game were established by the London Football Association. Soccer is one of the relatively few English experiments in portmanteau words. Another is to be found in Bakerloo, the name of one of the London underground lines, from Baker-street and Waterloo, its termini.
But though the English talk of racing, football, cricket and golf a great deal, they have developed nothing comparable to the sporting argot used by all American sporting reporters. When, during the war, various American soldier nines played baseball in England, some of the English newspapers employed visiting American reporters to report the games, and the resultant emission of wild and woolly technicalities interested English readers much more than the games themselves. An English correspondent, greatly excited, sent me the following report from the Times of May 26, 1919:
The pastime was featured by the heavy stick work of Wallace, former Harvard University man, who slammed out a three-bagger and a clean home-run in three trys with the willow. The brand of twirling for both teams was exceptionally good, and the fielding not at all bad considering the chances the A. E. F. boys have had to practise since crossing the deep to join the bigger game over here. For the first three frames both teams hung tough and allowed no scoring, and both Shawenecy and Thomas appeared to have everything necessary, with Shawenecy holding the edge. Fourth innings netted a brace for the home lads. Ives clouted one to centre and Richards let the sphere slip; Eagle watched four bad ones go by, and, after Ives was tagged trying to steal home, was pushed over for the first tally when Williams leaned against one for two sacks. Shawenecy went bad here and gave Storey a free ticket, and Wallace came through with a three station bingle that shoved Williams and Storey across. Brown ended the agony by missing three.
In the sixth, Cambridge made an effort to close the gap when Shawenecy kissed the leather for a bingle. Richards picked a double, and Myers followed up with a safe swat which brought the count within one. Looked good for another after Myers swiped the second stop, but Thorngate and Hart both carved the breeze. Oxford wasnt going to let them feel too good about it though, so they slipped up a few more to convince the crowd it wasnt visitors day. Eagle went to first on Myers error. Gammell took a stroll, and both were forced at the third corner by Williams and Storey. Cobb Wallace stepped into a nice one for the washout drive and was well over the platter before the pill was relayed in. Shawenecy was here yanked to give Clarke a chance to use his slants, and after singling through second, Brown was nabbed off the first pillow.
Cambridge came back strong in the eighth when Shawenecy singled. Richards was given a lift by a muff on third, and both scored with the help of a two-timer from Myers and a nifty sacrifice by Thorngate, but the combined efforts of Hart and Beal could not push the anxious Myers over and scoring for the day was no more.
This jargon, as I say, flabbergasted England, but it would be hard to find an American who could not understand it. As a set-off to itand to nineteenth hole, the one American contribution to the argot of golf, if African golf for craps be omittedthe English have an ecclesiastical vocabulary with which we are almost unacquainted, and it is in daily use, for the church bulks large in public affairs over there. Such terms as vicar, canon, verger, prebendary, primate, curate, nonconformist, dissenter, convocation, minster, chapter, crypt, living, presentation, glebe, benefice, locum tenens, suffragan, almoner, dean and pluralist are to be met with in the English newspapers constantly, but on this side of the water they are seldom encountered. Nor do we hear much of matins, lauds, lay-readers, ritualism and the liturgy. The English use of holy orders is also strange to us. They do not say that a young man is studying for the ministry, but that he is reading for holy orders. They do not say that he is ordained, but that he takes orders. Save he be in the United Free Church of Scotland, he is never a minister, though the term appears in the Book of Common Prayer; save he be a nonconformist, he is never a pastor; a clergyman of the Establishment is always either a rector, a vicar or a curate, and colloquially a parson.21
In American chapel simply means a small church, usually the branch of some larger one; in English it has acquired the special sense of a place of worship unconnected with the Establishment. Though three-fourths of the people of Ireland are Catholics (in Munster and Connaught, more than nine-tenths), and the Protestant Church of Ireland has been disestablished since 1871, a Catholic place of worship in that country is still a chapel and not a church.22 So is a Methodist wailing-place in England, however large it may be, though now and then tabernacle is substituted. Chapel, of course, is also used to designate a small church of the Establishment, as St. Georges Chapel, Windsor. A Methodist, in Great Britain, is not ordinarily a Methodist, but a Wesleyan. Contrariwise, what the English call simply a churchman is an Episcopalian in the United States, what they call the Church (always capitalized!) is the Protestant Episcopal Church,23 what they call a Roman Catholic is simply a Catholic, and what they call a Jew is usually softened (if he happens to be an advertiser) to a Hebrew. The English Jews have no such idiotic fear of the plain name as that which afflicts the more pushing and obnoxious of the race in America.24 News of Jewry is a common headline in the London Daily Telegraph, which is owned by Lord Burnham, a Jew, and has had many Jews on its staff, including Judah P. Benjamin, the American. The American language, of course, knowns nothing of dissenters. Nor of such gladiators of dissent as the Plymouth Brethren, nor of the nonconformist conscience, though the United States suffers from it even more damnably than England. The English, to make it even, get on without circuit-riders, holy-rollers, Dunkards, hard-shell Baptists, United Brethren, Seventh Day Adventists and other such American fer natur and are born, live, die and go to heaven without the aid of either the uplift or the chautauqua.
In music the English cling to an archaic and unintelligible nomenclature, long since abandoned in America. Thus they call a double whole note a breve, a whole note a semibreve, a half note a minim, a quarter note a crotchet, an eighth note a quaver, a sixteenth note a semi-quaver, a thirty-second note a demisemiquaver, and a sixty-fourth note a hemidemisemiquaver, or semidemisemiquaver. If, by any chance, an English musician should write a one-hundred-and-twenty-eighth note he probably wouldnt know what to call it. This clumsy terminology goes back to the days of plain chant, with its longa, brevis, semi-brevis, minima and semiminima. The French and Italians cling to a system almost as confusing, but the Germans use ganze, halbe, viertel, achtel, etc. I have been unable to discover the beginning of the American system, but it would seem to be borrowed from the German. Since the earliest times a great many of the music teachers in the United States have been Germans, and some of the rest have had German training.
In the same way the English hold fast (though with a gradual slacking of the grip of late) to a clumsy and inaccurate method of designating the sizes of printers types. In America the simple point system makes the business easy; a line of 14-point type occupies exactly the vertical space of two lines of 7-point. But the English still indicate differences in size by such arbitrary and confusing names as brilliant, diamond, small pearl, pearl, ruby, ruby-nonpareil, nonpareil, minion-nonpareil, emerald, minion, brevier, bourgeois, long primer, small pica, pica, English, great primer and double pica. They also cling to a fossil system of numerals in stating ages. Thus, an Englishman will say that he is seven-and-forty, not that he is forty-seven. This is probably a direct survival, preserved by more than a thousand years of English conservatism, of the Anglo-Saxon seofan-and-feowertig. He will also say that he weighs eleven stone instead of 154 pounds. A stone is 14 pounds, and it is always used in stating the heft of a man. He employs such designations of time as fortnight and twelve-month a great deal more than we do, and has certain special terms of which we know nothing, for example, quarter-day, bank-holiday, long-vacation, Lady Day and Michaelmas. Per contra, he knows nothing whatever of our Thanksgiving, Arbor, Labor and Decoration Days or of legal holidays, or of Yom Kippur. Finally, he always says a quarter to nine, not a quarter of nine. If it is 8.35 he usually says that it is five-and-twenty minutes to nine. But he never inverts any other number; it is twenty-three minutes to and twenty-seven minutes past. He rarely says fifteen minutes to; nearly always he uses quarter to. He never says a quarter hour or a half hour; he says a quarter of an hour and half an hour.
In English usage, to proceed, the word directly is always used to signify immediately; in American a contingency gets into it, and it may mean no more than soon. In England quite means completely, wholly, entirely, altogether, to the utmost extent, nothing short of, in the fullest sense, positively, absolutely; in America it is conditional, and means only nearly, approximately, substantially, as in he sings quite well. An Englishman does not say I will pay you up for an injury, but I will pay you back. He doesnt look up a definition in a dictionary; he looks it out. He doesnt say, being ill, I am getting on well, but I am going on well. He doesnt use the American different from or different than; he uses different to. He never adds the pronoun in such locutions as it hurts me, but says simply, it hurts. He never catches up with you on the street; he catches you up. He never says are you through? but have you finished? He never uses to notify as a transitive verb; an official act may be notified, but not a person. He never uses gotten as the perfect participle of get; he always uses plain got.25 An English servant never washes the dishes; she always washes the dinner or tea things. She doesnt live out, but goes into service. Her beau is not her fellow, but her young man. She does not keep company with him but walks out with him. She is never hired, but always engaged; only inanimate things, such as a hall or cab, are hired. When her wages are increased she does not get a raise, but a rise. When her young man goes into the army he does not join it; he joins up.
That an Englishman always calls out I say! and not simply say! when he desires to attract a friends attention or register a protestation of incredulitythis perhaps is too familiar to need notice. His hear, hear! and oh, oh! are also well known. He is much less prodigal with good-bye than the American; he uses good-day and good-afternoon far more often. A shop-assistant would never say good-bye to a customer. To an Englishman it would have a subtly offensive smack; good-afternoon would be more respectful. Various very common American phrases are quite unknown to him, for example, over his signature, on time and planted to corn. The first-named he never uses, and he has no equivalent for it; an Englishman who issues a signed statement simply makes it in writing. He knows nothing of our common terms of disparagement, such as kike, wop, yap and rube. His pet-name for a tiller of the soil is not Rube or Cy, but Hodge. When he goes gunning he does not call it hunting, but shooting; hunting is reserved for the chase of the fox. When he goes to a dentist he does not have his teeth filled, but stopped. He knows nothing of European plan hotels, or of day-coaches, or of baggage-checks.
An intelligent Englishwoman, coming to America to live, told me that the two things which most impeded her first communications with untraveled Americans, even above the gross differences between English and American pronunciation and intonation, were the complete absence of the general utility adjective jolly from the American vocabulary, and the puzzling omnipresence and versatility of the verb to fix. In English colloquial usage jolly means almost anything; it intensifies all other adjectives, even including miserable and homesick. An Englishman is jolly bored, jolly hungry or jolly well tired; his wife is jolly sensible; his dog is jolly keen; the prices he pays for things are jolly dear (never steep or stiff or high: all Americanisms). But he has no noun to match the American proposition, meaning proposal, business, affair, case, consideration, plan, theory, solution and what not: only the German zug can be ranged beside it.26 And he has no verb in such wide practise as to fix. In his speech it means only to make fast or to determine. In American it may mean to repair, as in the plumber fixed the pipe; to dress, as in Mary fixed her hair; to prepare, as in the cook is fixing the gravy; to bribe, as in the judge was fixed; to settle, as in the quarrel was fixed up; to heal, as in the doctor fixed his boil; to finish, as in Murphy fixed Sweeney in the third round; to be well-to-do, as in John is well-fixed; to arrange, as in I fixed up the quarrel; to be drunk, as in the whiskey fixed him; to punish, as in Ill fix him; and to correct, as in he fixed my bad Latin. Moreover, it is used in all its English senses. An Englishman never goes to a dentist to have his teeth fixed. He does not fix the fire; he makes it up, or mends it. He is never well-fixed, either in money or by liquor.27 The American use of to run is also unfamiliar to Englishmen. They never run can hotel, or a railroad; they always keep it or manage it.
The English use quite a great deal more than we do, and, as we have seen, in a different sense. Quite rich, in American, means tolerably rich, richer than most; quite so, in English, is identical in meaning with exactly so. In American just is almost equivalent to the English quite, as in just lovely. Thornton shows that this use of just goes back to 1794. The word is also used in place of exactly in other ways, as in just in time, just how many and just what do you mean? Two other adverbs, right and good, are used in American in senses strange to an Englishman. Thornton shows that the excessive use of right, as in right away, right good and right now, was already widespread in the United States early in the last century; his first example is dated 1818. He believes that the locution was possibly imported from the southwest of Ireland. Whatever its origin, it quickly attracted the attention of English visitors. Dickens noted right away as an almost universal Americanism during his first American tour, in 1842, and poked fun at it in the second chapter of American Notes. Right is used as a synonym for directly, as in right away, right off, right now and right on time; for moderately, as in right well, right smart, right good and right often, and in place of precisely, as in right there. Some time ago, in an article on Americanisms, an English critic called it that most distinctively American word, and concocted the following dialogue to instruct the English in its use:
How do I get to ?
Go right along, and take the first turning (sic) on the right, and you are right there.
But this Englishman failed in his attempt to write correct American, despite his fine pedagogical passion. No American would ever say take the first turning; he would say turn at the first corner. As for right away, R. O. Williams argues that so far as analogy can make good English, it is as good as one could choose. Nevertheless, the Concise Oxford Dictionary admits it only as an Americanism, and avoids all mention of the other American uses of right. Good is almost as protean. It is not only used as a general synonym for all adjectives and adverbs connoting satisfaction, as in to feel good, to be treated good, to sleep good, but also as a reinforcement to other adjectives and adverbs as in I hit him good and hard and I am good and tired. Of late some has come into wide use as an adjective-adverb of all work, indicating special excellence or high degree, as in some girl, some sick, going some, etc. It is still below the salt, but threatens to reach a more respectable position. One encounters it in the newspapers constantly and in the Congressional Record, and not long ago a writer in the Atlantic Monthly29 hymned it ecstatically as some worda true super-word, in fact and argued that it could be used in a sense for which there is absolutely no synonym in the dictionary. It was used by the prim Emily Dickinson forty or more years ago.30 It will concern us again in Chapter IX.
It would be easy to pile up words and phrases that are used in both America and England, but with different meanings. I have already alluded to tariff-reform. Open-shop is another. It means, in England, what an American union man (English: trades-unionist) calls a closed-shop. And closed-shop, in England, means what an American calls an open-shop! Finally, there is the verb-phrase, to carry on. In the United States it means to make a great pother; in England it means to persevere. But the record must have an end.
Note 5. The verb to crawfish, of course, is also unknown in England. [back]
Note 6. The differences between the nursery vocabulary in English and American deserve investigation, but are beyond the jurisdiction of a celibate inquirer. I have been told by an Englishman that English babies do not say choo-choo to designate a railroad train, but puff-puff. [back]
Note 7. This title has been borrowed by some of the American universities, e. g., Chancellor Day of Syracuse. But the usual title remains president. On the Continent it is rector. [back]
Note 8. However, the street-cleaner is beginning to appear in some of the English cities. He is commonly employed by the Urban Sanitary Authority, and so the letters U.S.A. appear upon his carta shock to visiting Americans. The old-time crossing-sweeper was a free lance. He had his pitch at a crossing, and kept it clean; his income came from the free-will offerings of passers-by. As the English cities grow cleaner and official street-cleaning departments are set up he tends to disappear. [back]
Note 9. This form survives in the American term city-stock, meaning the bonds of a municipality. But state and federal securities are always called bonds. [back]
Note 10.Cf. A Glossary of Colloquial Slang and Technical Terms in Use in the Stock Exchange and in the Money Market, by A. J. Wilson; London, 1895. [back]
Note 12. This was formerly good American. Vide Rufus King: Life and Correspondence; New York, 1894-1900, vol. i, p. 132. [back]
Note 13. But he is run by his party organization. Cf. The Government of England, by A. Lawrence Lowell; New York, 1910, vol. ii, p. 29. Canvass was formerly good American. Cf. Autobiography of Martin Van Buren; Washington, 1920, p. 8. [back]
Note 14. Until a few years ago no self-respecting American newspaper reporter would call himself a journalist. He always used newspaper man, and referred to his vocation, not as a profession, but as the newspaper business. This old prejudice, however, now seems to be breaking down. Cf. Dont Shy at Journalist, The Editor and Publisher and Journalist, June 27, 1914. [back]
Note 15. The herb, of course, is used in England. It is popularly regarded as an effective abortifacient. [back]
Note 16.Cf. a speech of Senator La Follette, Congressional Record, Aug. 27, 1917, p. 6992. [back]
Note 17. Of late in has come into use in America, but only in relation to minor streets. Thus a man may be said to live in Sixty-first street, but his office is on Broadway. [back]
Note 18. According to the New International Encyclopedia, 2nd ed. (Art. Apartment House), the term flat is usually in the United States restricted to apartments in houses having no elevator or hall service. In New York such apartments are commonly called walk-up-apartments or walk-ups. Even with the qualification, apartment is felt to be better than flat. [back]
Note 19. Canoeing was introduced into England by John MacGregor in 1866, and there is now a Royal Canoe Club. In America the canoe has been familiar from the earliest times, and in Mme. Sarah Kemble Knights diary (1704) there is much mention of cannoos. The word itself is from an Indian dialect, probably the Haitian, and came into American through the Spanish, in which it survives as canoa. [back]
Note 20. An act was passed to prohibit playing nine-pins; as soon as the law was put in force, it was notified everywhere, Ten-pins played here.Capt. Marryat: Diary in America, vol. iii, p. 195. [back]
Note 21. I am informed by the Rev. W. G. Polack, of Evansville, Ind., that certain Lutherans in the United States, following German usage, employ vicar to designate a theological student, not yet ordained, who is doing temporary supply-work in a mission congregation. The verb, to vicar, means to occupy such a pulpit. Mr. Polack is occupied with an interesting inquiry into the American ecclesiastical vocabulary. He believes that mission-festival, common in the Middle West, comes from the German missionsfest. So with agenda, used by some of the Lutheran churches to designate their Book of Common Prayer. He says that it is not the English term, but the German agende. He notes the use of services to indicate a single service (this is common throughout the United States); the decay of reverend to revernor, reverner, revenor or revener; the use of confirmand to designate a candidate for confirmation; the use of to announce to indicate notifying a pastor of an intention to partake of communion (Ger. sich anmelden); and the use of confessional-address (beichtrede.) All these terms are used by English-speaking Lutherans. [back]
Note 22. The term chapel, says Joyce, in English as We Speak It in Ireland, has so ingrained itself in my mind that to this hour the word instinctively springs to my lips when I am about to mention a Catholic place of worship; and I always feel some sort of hesitation or reluctance in substituting the word church. I positively could not bring myself to say, Come, it is time now to set out for church. It must be either mass or chapel. [back]
Note 23. Certain dissenters, of late, show a disposition to borrow the American usage. Thus the Christian World, organ of the English Congregationalists, uses Episcopal to designate the Church of England. [back]
Note 24. So long ago as the 70s certain Jews petitioned the publishers of Websters and Worcesters dictionaries to omit their definitions of the verb to jew, and according to Richard Grant White, the publisher of Worcesters complied. Such a request, in England, would be greeted with derision. [back]
Note 25. But nevertheless he uses begotten, not begot. [back]
Note 26. This specimen is from the Congressional Record of Dec. 11, 1917: I do not like to be butting into this proposition, but I looked upon this post-office business as a purely business proposition. The speaker was Hon. Homer P. Snyder, of New York. In the Record of Jan. 12, 1918, p. 8294, proposition is used as a synonym for state of affairs. See also a speech by Senator Norris on Feb. 21, 1921, Congressional Record, p. 3741 et seq. He uses proposition in five or six different senses. See also a speech by Senator Borah, Congressional Record, May 13, 1921, p. 1395, col. 1. [back]
Note 27. Already in 1855 Bristed was protesting that to fix was having more than its legitimate share of work all over the Union. In English conversation, he said, the panegyrical adjective of all work is nice; in America it is fine. This was before the adoption of jolly and its analogues, ripping, stunning, rattling, etc. Perhaps to fix was helped into American by the German word. [back]
Note 28. I Speak United States, Saturday Review, Sept. 22, 1894. [back]
Note 29. Should Language Be Abolished? by Harold Goddard, July, 1918, p. 63. [back]
Note 30. Quoted by Gamaliel Bradford in the Atlantic Monthly, Aug., 1919, p. 219. [back] | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37622000 |
What is Linux anyway?
Everybody knows Windows, and not always for the right reasons. Linux on the other hand can seem like dark magic only known to geeks and computer nerds to those of us on the outside. While it is harder to master than Windows, it is much more rewarding in that you finally gain control of your own PC. No more nagging from the operating system telling you it didn’t like what you just did, or not allowing you to delete that file you wanted to get rid of. If Linux tells you not to do something you can be sure it’s for a good reason!
Linux is an operating system that has its roots in Unix. It can do (almost) everything Windows can, and most of the time it can do it better. The fundamental difference between Windows and Linux is the approach. Windows is a commercial product designed to appeal to the widest possible audience and their various computers. It makes things as easy as possible to use, and hides all the workings from the user. This entails compromise.
Any system that tries to covers as wide a field as Windows isn’t going to be able to do everything well. To make it appeal and work for the widest audience the users have to be ‘protected’ from damaging the system and cede most of the control to it. Linux on the other hand has a more sensible approach. It has a core system which you can then bolt extras onto if you need them. You can tailor it to an amazing degree to your specific needs. It (mostly) isn’t a commercial product, and is maintained and developed by enthusiasts throughout the world.
The differenced I think can be summed up in one sentence. Windows was designed to sell, Linux was created to work.
Most distributions or ‘distros’ are free. You can download them, use them, abuse them, and pretty much do what you like with them. Most of the utilities and applications are also free. This is the other main attraction to new Linux users. Freedom. Not only do you not have to pay for any of the software, although I would encourage donations where appropriate, you have the freedom to do what you like. There are no lengthy Terms and Conditions to read, or copy protection because the software is free to use and distribute.
Linux main downside is that it is harder to manage to begin with. It can seem daunting at first, but well worth it once you get the hang of things. A lot of work has been done, and is being done to make the system easier for the newbie. The documentation is pretty good, and because the following of Linux is pretty fanatical there are hundreds of online forums and resources to help you along the way.
Linux, like your PC itself is made up of several components which I shall briefly describe below.
Even though you can see it, your operating system is doing several things at once. Most of them will have to go through your processor. Linux has a scheduler which prioritizes all the different demands and gives them to the processor in order. It decides what is important and what isn’t and ensures the processor deals with the important ones first.
Linux tries to use your available memory as much as possible as it works much faster than your hard drive. The processes mentioned above are stored here while they are being worked on. If you memory gets full then it has an overflow called Swap Space which pretends to be memory so your processor can use it.
Your PC is made up of any number of combinations of hardware. Sound cards, video cards, network cards, hard drives, the list is endless. Somehow Linux manages to support the majority of them while remaining a decent size. It does this by using modules. These are like ‘bolt-ons’ that can be added if they are needed by the system. This allows the flexibility to add and remove hardware as you need to.
The kernel is the heart of Linux. It is the sun around which everything orbits and receives life. This is what makes Linux what it is. It is a core program that controls everything around it. It coordinates everything that goes on within the system.
Where you had FAT and NTFS in Windows, here we have ext2, ext3 and others. Think of them as a library. Your hard drive is the book shelf, and the file system is how the books are arranged. There has to be a system for you to quickly find your book and the same for computer files.
The Graphical User Interface (GUI) is the pretty desktop you see. Windows is purely GUI driven, in that everything you do is dragging and dropping from one window to another, which is where it got its name. Although Linux can do the same, it works differently. At its core Linux is controlled from the command line. You type in commands and the machine does its thing.
These are software addons you can install to achieve a certain goal. Things like music players, office tools, web browsers etc. Exactly the same as buying a firewall or office suite for Windows, except for the most part, applications for Linux are free. There are commercial applications out there which you have to pay for, but they are in the minority, and unless your needs are extremely specific, not really necessary.
These are similar to applications in that you can install them on your system for a specific purpose. However that purpose is very different. Applications are like productivity tools, they help you produce something. Utilities help you manage your system like managing hard drives, monitoring networks, firewalls and that kind of thing.
That is your Linux system in a nutshell. As with everything, there is as much technical detail as you could wish for if that’s your thing, but this was just an overview to familiarize you with Linux. Pretty straightforward once explained isn’t it? | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37625000 |
Join us at Warborne Farm in Lymington as we find out what exactly the organic food label really means.
You’ll discover what it means for the farm workers, how the farmers keep pests at bay, manage without chemicals and produce quirky but delicious lemon cucumbers
Although farmers markets are not uncommon in rural areas and have emerged in suburban areas, it is still rare for farmers to come and sell their products regularly in crowded Tokyo districts.
While it can appear like a new trend, organic food has actually been around for a lot longer than the foods that we’re accustomed to eating. This is food that are grown as well as nurtured in a natural manner, so as not to disturb the growing development or the individual who’s eating it. However with more and more labels claiming to be ‘natural’ and ‘organic,’ it may become perplexing when you’re in a grocery store aisle. And when you perceive that the charges are somewhat higher than ‘normal’ food, you may doubt if it’s even worth a second look.
What defines organic foods?
Natural food are defined as foods that do not endure any chemical processing, either in the growing process or in the harvesting procedure. These are foods that should not contain pesticides or insecticides, fertilizers as well as other toxins.
If you see organic foods that are pre-packaged, this means that each of the components is also processed using organic techniques. However, you need to look for packages that comprise the term ’100%’ or ‘certified’ organic in order to know that all of the ingredients are organic. When a package just contains the now generic phrase of organic, it can mean that only a percentage of the ingredients are processed in this method.
Why decide on organic foods?
Many people are turned off by the higher costs that natural food seems to have. And with the lessened processing, these prices don’t seem acceptable. However, the reason behind the somewhat higher costs is that these are farms that can not manufacture as much yield as those that make use of chemicals. A lot of fertilizers will allow farms to produce many more stalks of corn, for example.
However when you take away this fertilizer to cultivate organic corn, you may only get half as much – and thus in doing so, the farmer requires to charge more. There are also some restrictions as to how much money these smaller and sometimes family run farms get from government sources. Without the extra monetary help, these farms might not make any profits without increasing their overall prices.
In selecting organic foods, you are also sustaining local farmers (in the majority of cases) that are growing healthier foods. The food that you eat may not contain added toxins and chemicals. Some studies have exposed that consuming large quantities of these types of ingredients can lead to a large number of problems – some cancers, disorders, and other illnesses.
The toxins can build up within your system and start to damage healthy cells. And this is no wonder, considering nature in no way intended for us to eat chemical substances that have been added to our foods. In addition, a lot of people are sensitive to these kinds of chemical substances, so consuming organic foods enables them to keep away from any harmful reactions they may have otherwise.
What are the health advantages of eating organic foods?
But the truth is that organic food has many of the similar benefits of eating ‘normal’ food. When you choose an apple (organic or not) over a candy bar, you’re making a healthier choice for your body. However, organic and natural foods can have additional benefits:
1) Enhanced tasting foods
2) No preservatives
3) More seasonal choices
4) More vitamins and minerals
5) More water content
6) Brighter colors and appearance
7) Reduced allergic reactions possible
8) Cleaner, fresher foods
Organic and natural foods tastes better than the mass produced food too because it’s not forced to ripen in order to arrive at a store ready to sell. Organic foods are usually harvested when they are ripe, and then shipped to local stores for customers to purchase right away – preserving the freshness, taste, and maximum vitamin content.
There are Many More Items that are Organic these Days
Besides organic foods, you might also find a number of organic items that contain organic ingredients. You can find everything from shampoo to face cream, cleaning soap to laundry detergent in lots of local stores. This might allow you to decrease the overall toxins that you come into contact with, further increasing your health as well as your vitality.
And organic and natural food isn’t limited to the small little heath food stores anymore; many larger grocer chains are now carrying organic and natural foods – occasionally at better prices than at the smaller stores. Many retailers are seeing that people want to have the opportunity to eat healthier, more nutritious food, so they’re offering extra choices – at rates that you might be surprised to read. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37629000 |
|Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary|
19:3. Men run into troubles by their own folly, and then fret at the appointments of God. 4. Here we may see how strong is men's love of money. 5. Those that tell lies in discourse, are in a fair way to be guilty of bearing false-witness. 6. We are without excuse if we do not love God with all our hearts. His gifts to us are past number, and all the gifts of men to us are fruits of his bounty. 7. Christ was left by all his disciples; but the Father was with him. It encourages our faith that he had so large an experience of the sorrows of poverty. 8. Those only love their souls aright that get true wisdom. 9. Lying is a damning, destroying sin. 10. A man that has not wisdom and grace, has no right or title to true joy. It is very unseemly for one who is a servant to sin, to oppress God's free-men.
Verse 4. - Wealth maketh many friends (vers. 6, 7; Proverbs 14:20). A Greek gnome expresses the same truth -
Ἐὰν δ ἔχωμεν χρήμαθ ἕξομεν φίλους. The poor is separated from his neighbour. But it is better to make the act of separation emanate from the friend (as the Hebrew allows), and to render, with the Revised Version, The friend of the poor separateth himself from him. The word for "poor" is here dal, which means "feeble," "languid;" so ver. 17; and the came word (rea), "friend" or "neighbor," is used in both clauses. The idea of man's selfishness is carried on in vers. 6 and 7. The Law of Moses had tried to counteract it (Deuteronomy 15:7, etc.), but it was Christianity that introduced the practical realization of the law of love, and the honouring of the poor as members of Christ. Septuagint, "But the poor is deserted even by his whilom friend."
Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible
Wealth maketh many friends,.... Or "adds" (f); it increases the number of them: so the poet (g), "donec eris felix, multos numerabis amicos"; and to this agrees what the wise man says, Proverbs 14:20;
but the poor is separated from his neighbour; or "friend" (h); he will not visit him as he did in his prosperity, nor suffer him to come into his house or company, or come near him; he is separated from his affection, friendship, and presence: so another poet (i),
"if thou art rich, thou wilt have many friends; but, if poor, few.''
(f) "addit", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator. (g) Ovid. (h) "ab amico sua", Pagninus, Montanus, Baynus, Junius & Tremeliius, Piscator, Michaelis; "a sodali sua", Schultens. (i) Theognis.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
4. (Compare Pr 14:20). Such facts are often adduced with implied disapprobation.
Proverbs 19:4 Parallel Commentaries
Proverbs 19:4 NIV
Proverbs 19:4 NLT
Proverbs 19:4 ESV
Proverbs 19:4 NASB
Proverbs 19:4 KJV
Bible Hub: Online Parallel Bible | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37635000 |
Solar Delivers When Grid Needs It Most
With more and more solar being built in California, new records of peak solar generation are being set and re-set. On September 5, the California Independent System Operator issued a press release (pdf) to celebrate how solar is helping meet the state’s energy needs: “California surpassed a major milestone during a recent heat wave that hit the sun-soaked state. More than 1,000 megawatts of solar power generation—equal to the size of two large gas-fired power plants—set new U.S. records twice in recent weeks.” (Note that this data reflects only wholesale generation — when you add the 1.2 GW and counting of customer-owned solar generation that serves onsite load, the total more than doubles).
A key takeaway here is that solar generates when the grid needs it the most. August 14 was a flex-alert day, when a heatwave drove the grid to near breaking point. As the CAISO chart shows, solar was there when the grid needed it the most. Solar offsets the most expensive electricity, and reduces costs for all.
Vote Solar is a non-profit grassroots organization working to fight climate change and foster economic opportunity by bringing solar energy into the mainstream.
|Tags: CAISO California energy needs grid Solar solar generation||[ Permalink ]| | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37651000 |
Michael Cruz is a great example of someone that has fully embraced the benefits of putting technology to use in a classroom setting. For five years, he taught courses at San Jose State University’s College of Business ranging from web marketing to entrepreneurship. He now focuses on technology and productivity.
| Name: Michael Cruz
Evernote is a great application for educators. It’s usefulness can range from planning a course to delivering a lesson plan to capturing feedback after class. I experimented with using Evernote while I was teaching courses at San Jose State University. It proved to be an excellent classroom companion. Here are some ways to use Evernote to achieve your teaching goals.
As a teacher, my Evernote use falls into three categories:
- Prior to class
- During class
- After class
Prior to class
- Plan and organize your classes with tags: Using tags is a great way to organize your classes on a week-to-week basis or on a class-by-class basis. For example, if you know that there is certain content that has to be taught during the second week of the school year, then for all related content you can use the tag “week 2″. Once you’ve created this system you can keep adding additional items throughout the year.
- Standards database: Compile standards of achievements for your particular grade or subject. You can even share them with teachers, parents, administrators and students using Evernote’s sharing features.
- Professional development: If you use the summer break or vacations to improve your skills or continue your education, keep all your notes, resources, lessons and new ideas learned in Evernote. This also works well for teacher in-services, conferences, workshops and seminars that you attend.
- Classroom templates: Templates are a great way to save time when grading and assessing your students. If you use templates such as grade sheets or student assessment forms, keep them in Evernote so you have them at your fingertips throughout the year.
- Prepare for your absence: Use Evernote’s shared notebooks as a way to keep your class up and running even if you aren’t there. Evernote makes it easy to share a notebook with the substitute teacher. Consider sharing lesson plans, worksheets, answer keys and examples of completed work. This can ensure your class keeps moving even if you aren’t there.
- Share a notebook with your class: After you create a public notebook, share the URL with your class. This way anything you add can be viewed by your students (or their parents). Here’s an example of a public notebook that I created for an entrepreneurship class.
- Whiteboard photos: Taking snapshots of the whiteboard is a favorite use of mine. Take photographs of the whiteboard before the start of the class, and again at the end. This gives you an accurate time stamped snapshot of what you were working on, on any given date. You can title or tag each photo based on the lecture number to make searching for specific photos easier. Also, you can share the photos with students that miss a class, so that they have the day’s notes.
- Keep handouts handy: Keep all of the handouts, worksheets, templates, study guides and assignments that you frequently use in Evernote, where they are easily searchable and accessible.
- Simplify grading: Scan graded tests, including scantrons and add them to Evernote. You can then enter them into your preferred grade-book or spreadsheet when you have time. This is also great if you have a teacher’s assistant. You can share the notebook with them and have them help with the grading process.
- Keep your extracurriculars in order: If you participate in any committees or coach a team, you can use Evernote to keep track of all the different research, notes and information associated with it. Again, shared notebooks are a great way to keep your committee on the same page and makes for an easy way to share collective knowledge about a project.
To get more productivity tips for teachers you can visit my website http://www.michaelcruz.com and sign up for my e-mail list.
Evernote Education Series
- Evernote at School: The Montclair Kimberley Academy’s 1:1 Program, plus Q&A Webinar
- How Evernote helped me through college
- 10 Evernote Tips for School
- How my students started using Evernote
Join the discussion about Evernote for Schools on our forum. Learn from educators and share your own experiences, best practices and tips. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37652000 |
Dr. Craig Idso, is the founder and chairman of the Center for Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. He addresses concerns about global warming and marine life, including the death of the coral reefs and other underwater ecosystems. Neither increases in temperature nor increases in carbon or both of them together, have had any lasting ill effects on the calcifications and growth in marine organisms. The Center’s work on ocean acidification can be found here. His general advice for politicians: pay attention more to real world observations than theoretical hypotheses.
Cato scholar Pat Michaels gives the audience a great preview of his relatively new book, Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don’t Want You to Know. Michaels refutes the misstatements of Al Gore, the IPCC scientists, and other global warming alarmism through simple fact-checking. The book, a bit technical at times (as it should be) is one of the best pieces of literature out there refuting climate change extremism. You can get it here.
Bob Carter is next. Professor Carter is a geologist at James Cook University and is widely known for his global warming skepticism. In his 2006 article, “There IS a problem with global warming… it stopped in 1998,” He goes on to say,
The essence of the issue is this. Climate changes naturally all the time, partly in predictable cycles, and partly in unpredictable shorter rhythms and rapid episodic shifts, some of the causes of which remain unknown. We are fortunate that our modern societies have developed during the last 10,000 years of benignly warm, interglacial climate. But for more than 90 per cent of the last two million years, the climate has been colder, and generally much colder, than today. The reality of the climate record is that a sudden natural cooling is far more to be feared, and will do infinitely more social and economic damage, than the late 20th century phase of gentle warming.”
An Australian professor, Carter discusses the wildfires that took place in his homeland which resulted in over 200 deaths, displaced 10,000 people and devastated a great deal of land and wildlife in Australia. He then points to massive floods, hurricanes, tornadoes that have done the same around the world. Needless to say, the alleged culprit of these events is often global warming. Any plan stemming from natural disasters should be a plan not to change temperature but to accommodate those affected and adapt when and where we can. Countries have spent trillions of dollars on Kyoto Protocol treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions since 1997. Notice any change in the temperature?
Dr. John S. Theon follows Carter. Theon, a retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist was once James Hansen’s supervisor. Hansen, remember, is the climate scientists known for global warming fear mongering and is probably the most prominent name in the global warming movement other than Al Gore. Hansen believes CEOs of oil companies should be put on trial for committing high crimes on humanity and nature.
Theon is one of the 650 dissenting scientists named in a U.S. Senate Minority Report released in December 2008. He tells the story of Hansen’s close relationship with Gore and how Gore and Hansen worked together to politicize what should have been a scientific debate. Accused of muzzling Hansen, Dr. Theon confidently says he did so for a good reason. The climate change models used by NASA simply did not know enough to forecast credible predictions of climate change and anthropogenic effects on it.
At the time in 1988 to the early 1990s, the variation in modeling results, from a few degrees of warming to a few degrees of cooling, indicated to Dr. Theon that these models could not be trusted. Though the models have improved, the climate remains extremely complex, and that has led Dr. Theon to the same conclusion that many other climatologists and scientists have arrived at over the past few days: there is no scientific consensus on climate change and implementing an extremely costly policy that may have little or no effect on temperature would be ill-advised and dangerous. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37654000 |
I think a good way to start this blog post series will be to explain some appliance terminology and what it all means. A short encyclopedia, if you will. This is not necessarily all in alphabetical order.
I might get a little technical, but I’ll try to apply the K.I.S.S. rule (keep it simple, stupid) wherever I can.
Compressor-Based System: An appliance that uses a compressor, or pump, with a closed refrigeration system, and uses a refrigerant to cool a particular space. This could be a refrigerator, wine cooler (some), kegerator or deep freezer. Common refrigerants include R134A and R410A, among others.
Thermoelectric / TE: An appliance that uses electronics/electricity to cool a small space without the use of refrigerants. These typically consist of a cooling node (Peltier effect) and fans to distribute the air inside the cabinet and dissipate the heat to the outside. They are, for the most part, efficient, although there are a few drawbacks, especially if you are trying to build it into a cabinet. I’ll delve into that in a later post, along with what exactly a Peltier unit is in simple terms.
LED: Refers to a Light Emitting Diode, which is a commonly used electronic component. All diodes allow electricity to flow in one direction only. Think of it as a one way street, except this one glows when the electric flows. They are used for operation and mode indicators, and also for general lighting purposes. Sometimes they use different colors and are commonly used to highlight and display wines in wine coolers.
Cooling Fans: This will mostly apply to thermoelectric, or TE, wine coolers. They do different jobs: some distribute the cooled air inside the cabinet or at the evaporator coil on compressor-based units, and others get rid of the hot air at the back of the cabinet or from the condenser coils on compressor-based units. Most of them consist of the same small DC-powered fans you find in your desktop computer.
Portable Dishwasher: This isn’t the one your mom used to roll around the kitchen and store in a corner. These actually are small enough to sit on a countertop. These are really simple to install. Most come with two hoses, a drain and supply, and a quick connector to attach to a standard kitchen faucet, in place of the aerator. They are typically not meant for a permanent installation. They come in different sizes and capacities, also.
Portable Air Conditioner: An alternative to the typical, window-mounted A/C unit. These usually have one hose used to exhaust out the hot air produced during the cooling process, though some will also have an intake hose. They are mounted on casters, so they can be moved room to room. Most will evaporate the majority, if not all, of the water produced in the exhaust air, but if they don’t get rid of all of it, they will usually have a drain at the bottom of the unit to get rid of the collected water. Portable air conditioners usually will require a 15 amp circuit to run properly, although there are some that require 20 amps or more. Most will come with a window fitting kit that is easily assembled, as they have to be vented to the outside of the room being cooled in most cases.
Portable Ice Maker: An ice maker that is small enough to sit on a counter, produces 6-12 cubes at a time, uses a self-contained water supply and storage for the ice after the cycle is complete. These are not high volume units. Typically, they will not refrigerate the ice and it will melt back into the water tank to start the process over yet again. I recommend moving each batch of ice out of the ice maker and into your regular freezer.
Kegerator: A refrigerated appliance used to keep beer cold and dispense beer. Usually has a connected tower and faucet, with dispenser head to pour the beer and on board CO2 storage to pressurize the beer. They also usually have casters for portability and can be used with multiple beers of your choice, sometimes more than one keg can be used (called a dual tap kegerator). Some kegerators are much smaller and utilize a 5 liter mini keg. These are fairly new on the market. The larger kegerators fit a half shell sankey keg, or Cornelius keg. Some of the mini keg 5 liter units will run on 12V DC and are popular with tailgaters.
Portable Freezer / Refrigerator: These are unique, as they can be used in a vehicle, or boat, or while camping and for emergency uses. Some use compressor-based refrigeration, while others use TE technology. A TE unit typically will not be able to refrigerate to freezing or below, and they will usually be good for 40 degrees F below the ambient temperature around the unit. Think short term storage, like trips to the grocery store. The compressor-based units are infinitely more flexible, allowing for -0 degrees F operation, up through 50+ degrees F, in most cases. Both can be operated from 12V DC and 120V AC, depending on the model. Each type has their pluses and minuses and I will cover those later. Personally, I like them both!
Wine Cooler: These come in a wide variety of sizes and capacities. The same can be said for the refrigeration system used. While they have a large temperature range to work with, the TE models generally will hold wines from 45 degrees F-65 degrees F, depending on the ambient temperature of the room they are located in. A compressor-based unit will usually hold wines at 40 degrees F or less, and can be built into a cabinet, as the condenser coil and fan is at the bottom front of the unit. One thing to remember with wine coolers in general: They are designed for long term STORAGE, not drinkability, and that applies to TE units in particular. Again, that is a general guideline, so YMMV, or Your Mileage May Vary. (I love acronyms, don’t you?)
Til next time!
Previous Post: What is a small appliance, anyway? | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-37659000 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.